English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Cerberus Hmm, I wonder where I got that notion then...

Oh well, sorry for the bother then.

@Færd That is an very optimistic, but it's not clear that having a single language would actually accomplish that. It might make it easier for corporate media to control everybody equally, a communication monopoly.

@Færd oops. just read the news. Forget what I said. Not a welcome surprise. The thoughts they have may turn out to be successful but they seem under...thought

@Mitch Right now, a lot of the damage that corporations cause are dealt against poorer parts of the world, who can't let others know about their misery, partly because they just can't communicate.

@Mitch What news?

@Færd but then all those poorer parts would have to learn this new universal language with poor educational infrastructure.

@Færd US (possibly) sending more troops to Afghanistan. Few actual details. But still.

@Mitch You can learn to speak Esperanto in three months by spending a couple hours a day.

8:10 PM

@Færd I think that's only possible for very educated and linguistically adept... Europeans.

It's certainly easier for Europeans, for etymological reasons, but it's still comparatively very easy for others.

I mean, 16 grammar rules. What more do you want.

That means the vocabulary is tough

Not at all.

I can do it in 10 rules

wait... 5

nope... 2...2 is the best I can do.

@Færd how can grammar and vocabulary both be too easy?

8:13 PM

You can freely construct lots of words with total ease.

@M.A.R. When they're designed to be so.

With the range of possible situations that would happen in real life . . .

@Mitch China teaches Esparanto in schools. If I recall correctly, they may have even considered it as a possibility for an official language, but don't quote me on that since I'm not sure.

It'd feel kinda weird not to have a word for something in the language

All covered. They strive to keep it alive.

There's no word for ... that thing I wanted to say... in English

8:15 PM

@Færd inflectionally possible to create other words?

@Mitch umbrellophobia

@mitch Ask a Single Word Request. XP

@M.A.R. Thank you

@M.A.R. How do you mean?

@Tonepoet getting ready to be the first downvote

@M.A.R. Do you have that little faith in Mitch's ability to pose the question well?

8:16 PM

unrestrictivible

@Færd like adding things to other things to make bigger things, but without real spaces. Like German does

Yes.

@Tonepoet I have little faith in it being received well despite the author's effort

@Færd that would be real tough

I'm bad at giving examples off the top of my head, but yes.

See how many people complain about German

8:17 PM

That's not the reason why they complain about German.

@M.A.R. Just because other people would vote against a question with prejudice, does not mean you have to do so as well...

You're just putting together two bits of data you know about German and ascribing one to the other.

@M.A.R. I hate it when people complain about German

@Tonepoet hey dude, I can't help group-think

@M.A.R. I can!

8:19 PM

@M.A.R. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

I've been learning German on duolingo for .. forever, and Esperanto for a few months, and I'm already reading Esperanto wiki pages with reasonable ease. What I can't do in German at all.

Hey @Færd having one language could be considered a manner of group-think, or maybe just facilitating it

@Mitch can you?

could end up being the monocultural cudgel that smashes the face in of the proletariat

@Mitch Are you referring to the possibility of global monopoly of corporate media? Or Are you mentioning that as a plus?

8:21 PM

@M.A.R. Yeah. Here's one: "Think different"

Everyone will want to think that!

Group-think is good if they agree with me.

@Færd Uh... sure.

@Færd They're thinking the same things that the Esperantists are thinking. Do you really want to know what people really think?

@MattE.Эллен looks up

@M.A.R. The problem is that it is indiscriminate even if they disagree with you. I hereby proclaim that you simply must vote for every bad question and answer which received over 30 votes, effective immediately! =P

looks back down

@Mitch they who?

8:24 PM

The "they"

@Mitch That's already happening.

deunretriangularisationabled

Personally, at this point I would suggest that we just make English the common tongue. It's already in such an advantageous position, esp. since India is using it for that purpose.

you'd never get the Russians and Chinese to agree to that, though

@Tonepoet cool. Where do I sign?

8:27 PM

unlinguistifiable

@Mitch I find Chinese very hard, but maybe that is because of writing the characters.

@MattE.Эллен who you calling that?

@WillHunting cut out the characters, babies could learn it.

wait...

babies outside of china could learn it.

@Mitch follow my gaze

swoons

Hello!

8:32 PM

hi

I'm not knocking English. But when there's a shortcut among roundabout routes (a shortcut that offers a lower level of potential energy), a large-enough system will very likely eventually find its way down that shortcut (to that lower level). Things settle.
Every natural language that I know represents one of those kinky paths, and something like Esperanto the shortcut.

falls off chair, knocks head onto corner, out cold

Quick question: In the middle of a sentence, "Her Highness" will be capitalized?

@rahuldottech Yes, because it is a title.

@rahuldottech When addressing me, yes.

8:33 PM

@WillHunting okay, thanks :)

@Mitch :P

hahah.

I don't care

The queen.

Pfft

There. I said it.

you want people to speak to you in the third person?

Whoa whoa wait a minute

checking watch

@M.A.R. The only way I think we'll ever have a lingua franca is with world domination, so you'd go to a U.S. Army recruitment center to sign. =P

8:34 PM

@MattE.Эллен How is your Greek lessons?

Trying to figure out again whether Mitch is a girl's name or a boy's name

@WillHunting I don't have any at the moment

@MattE.Эллен I see. How is your Greek then?

@M.A.R. Hey man, your minute ain't up yet

not very good

8:34 PM

@M.A.R. Girl's, IIRC

Mitchelle

@Mitch I asked you to wait, not me

I see. I know the first letter is alpha. That's all the Greek I know.

@M.A.R. Oh. My bad

Mitchel
Michelle

8:35 PM

starts over

@WillHunting followed by beta and gamma... I know nothing more

Michael

Is Mitch a man or woman?

@MattE.Эллен But we have a she-Mitch here.

Select a bunch of Mitches, and count.

8:36 PM

@WillHunting jinx

Oh, and also that pi is a greek digit/alphabet/character

OK She-Mitch, let's go

I now think that Mitch is a woman...

@rahuldottech and epsilon, maybe

omicron

8:36 PM

Because Mitch doesn't behave like a man in this chat.

people always forget omicron

not me baby

@WillHunting the truth is shocking, I'm . . . I'm . . . well, I'm just shocked

@M.A.R. Omega too!

@WillHunting blushes

O Ma Ga.

8:37 PM

Anyway, have to go back to writing this love letter.

See ya guys

Ελλας

@Mitch Maybe you are Milla, LOL.

@rahuldottech Omega is someone trying to invent English, saying "oh my God"

@rahuldottech awaits anxiously

Αδίο

8:38 PM

@Cerberus Why don't you make a sales pitch for Latin being the common language, as long as we're discussing the subject?

But since Greeks were too busy wondering where we all came from, it came off awkwardly

@Mitch Coincidentally, my girlfriend is the one being referred to with the title :P

@rahuldottech still waiting

taps foot

@rahuldottech Oh you are dating royalty!

Ω

8:39 PM

@WillHunting lol

@rahuldottech plot twist: Mitch is your girlfriend

@M.A.R. uh the plot twist would be otherwise.

@MattE.Эллен Apollo 11?

@Mitch Wait, I'm your girlfriend?

and that bitch better take off her heels and run

8:39 PM

I always recognize it from afar

@rahuldottech maybe you're your own girlfriend o.o

@rahuldottech This got weird

If it wasn't before

LOL yeah

I'll be going now, goodbye, and thanks again :)

Now it's the third person

also condescending.

@rahuldottech De nada!

grabs popcorn

We aim to please!

8:41 PM

SAAAAWREEE HER HIGHNESS

Aw man, this was getting interesting

@M.A.R. lol

Nothing to see here.

Not when I'm referring directly to her

Let's go back to our language critics session

8:41 PM

"Her Highness expressed that..."

Turkish is a lot like German

Or maybe German is like Turkish.

@M.A.R. You and Gigili both like popcorn, it seems.

@M.A.R. Yes, except for all the words

and grammar

Bloody plagiarists

You don't normally talk to royalty in the third person, I guess.

8:42 PM

I've learnt most of my English from reading and watching stuff, so eh. Not completely sure about it sometimes.

"Well excuse me, Princess"

►

possibly pronunciation

@MattE.Эллен No, no, no! E

@MattE.Эллен Nevermind. =P

@MattE.Эллен +1

dudes, amirite!

@Mitch the grammar is actually the thing that's similar

8:43 PM

@MattE.Эллен OMG I'M SO SENDING THIS TO HER

:D

The words . . . I guess the French and English were bad influences

@rahuldottech R.I.P.

@M.A.R. You couldn't have said anything truer

Unless...

"The axiom of choice is true and the well-foundededness of the reals is false"

which is pretty obvious

MetaEd

Axioms aren't true. They're given.

8:45 PM

This rooms is a lot more active as compared to others on the network. Also, fun.

and we're back to royalty

if you don't bother to think about it at all

@MetaEd OK. Here's one: "It's an axiom that parallel lines meet at infinity"

@MetaEd I had a terrible math lecturer who said that axioms are things so obvious they don't need proof, which is wrong.

@Mitch I didn't know you were a roundhead

@Mitch It's an axiom that it's an axiom?

8:46 PM

@MetaEd An axiom is a self-evident truth.

That's why they're given.

@Mitch Wait, that's not a self-evident truth

I think the axiom is that parallel lines never meet?

@rahuldottech it is for Mitch

@Tonepoet I thought axioms are things that are probably right, so we assume them because we can't prove them

He lives in the infinity

Axioms can be arbitrary to some extent. That's why there are alternative geometries.

8:47 PM

Nice place

This is what an axiom is, listen.

listens

Warm, tropical weather. Not annoyingly humid

Aug 19 at 16:44, by Abcd

English.SE's chat rooms are so inactive :( ...

Our intuition tells us something is true, in mathematics.

Then we develop axioms to formalise that intuition.

8:48 PM

@MetaEd It is what it is

Then we check that the results agree with the original intuition.

@Mitch I don't think that's true. I've dropped in here a couple of times before (ages ago), and from what I've seen it's pretty active?

Intuitions don't necessarily self-evidently reflect actual truths.

Now we can take the axioms as an objective starting point to develop the rest of mathematics.

@MattE.Эллен You've seen pictures? draws curtains

8:49 PM

@WillHunting Different sets of axioms can be proved to be logically compatible.

So at least in mathematics, axioms are not self-evident truths in the usual sense of the phrase.

In geometry, for example.

So that lecturer is crap.

@rahuldottech define 'parallel'

define 'lines'

define 'never'

define 'the'

Come on. You could have started with "define infinity".

8:50 PM

never is what happens after the end of time

Fun fact: I asked said girlfriend out in (probably mortifyingly incorrect) Shakespearean English.

@MattE.Эллен That might be true in practice, and as such follows as a secondary definition, but principle concepts don't have to be practical or true.

Here's the entry from Dr. Webster's A.D.E.L:

"AX'IOM, noun [Gr. authority, an authoritative sentence, or that which is assumed, from worthy, and to think worthy, to esteem; Eng. to ask, that which is asked, sought or esteemed.]

1. A self evident truth, or a proposition whose truth is so evident at first sight, that no process of reasoning or demonstration can make it plainer; as, 'the whole is greater than a part.'

2. An established principle in some art or science; a principle received without new proof; as, 'things which are equal to the same thing, are equal to one another.'"

@M.A.R. sure. you can do that. it's a math thing

@rahuldottech What's her language?

@Tonepoet Bad idea to check technical terms in that dictionary.

@Færd We live in India, but speak English primarily, along side a couple of other languages

8:51 PM

I have ten pics on my instagram now, yay! They all look the same person to me, phew!

@rahuldottech please tell me you used "thinkst"

And "thoust"

@Tonepoet (markdown doesn't really work in multiline posts)

once you mess with axioms enough, you set up systems with axioms that you work on mathematically . then you start thinking about the logic of manipulating those systems and have to create syntax and semantics about them and logic and ... axioms to manipulate those systems.

@rahuldottech Gautama Buddha is the only person I really listen to these days.

@MattE.Эллен Yeah, I know.

8:52 PM

yes, turtles all the way down.

@M.A.R. Excerpt:

> The minutes hath spent with thou art the happiest timeth of mine own life, thee maketh me v'ry joyous
I wanteth thee, I needeth thee; shall thee beest mine own girlfriend?

Yeah, I know. I'm not very good at this.

"Who are you calling beast?"

But hey! She said yes, so I guess it worked out :D

@Færd I disagree.

@rahuldottech well, neither am I

8:53 PM

@rahuldottech what if your universe is the surface of a sphere. then 'lines' always meet (of course depending on how you define 'lines'. the best way to define lines makes them meet always.)

But if you insist, I'll check the C.D.C.

@Mitch hm. I'll ponder over it another time, kinda distracted at the moment :P

@Mitch nah, it's probably an egg

@Mitch Still not always.

@Færd mst axioms are self-evident, but some are not (like the parallel postulate) or he axiom of ... argh... one of the last ones in set theory.

8:55 PM

@Mitch continuum?

@rahuldottech Well...that one guy said it was quiet so maybe it was true for him at the time?

Hello @KitZ.Fox welcome to this chat.

@Mitch possibly/probably

Kit Z. Fox

Hi!

@Færd Oh. Yeah. Sure. But that's an axiom

8:56 PM

"1. A self-evident, undemonstrable, theoretical, and general proposition to which every one who apprehends its meaning must assent. The Greek word was probably applied by Plato (though it does not occur in his dialogues in this sense) to certain first premises of mathematics; and this continues to be the ordinary use of the term. It was extended by Aristotle to similar principles supposed to underlie other branches of knowledge. The axioms or “common notions” of Euclid, as given in English translations, are twelve in number, viz.:"

@Tonepoet I don't know. When I talk math, I talk in terms customary to math books.

@KitZ.Fox what does the text in your profile mean?

@Tonepoet The use of certain terms in math and their dictionary definitions are not necessarily the same.

@Færd well, maybe. Wait, no the continuum hypothesis is not considered part of ZF. I was thinking of ... it starts with 'R'

And of course, that is the natural state of things!

8:59 PM

Reflection?

@Færd @WillHunting Then you two should be a little more satisfied with Merriam Webster's 1913 dictionary, since it marks the same basic gist for math and logic.