English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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00:52

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Q: English Word Request for a Certain Type Of House

I am looking for an English word to describe a house that is square or rectangular but has a hollow center similar to a courtyard. Looking online I can only find links for houses in my area and other such search results. It is very difficult to find pictures for the type of house so below is a fl...

single-word-requests

Helka Homba

01:32

Hello

Is asking for English language resources ok on this SE? Like "Is there an English dictionary website that lets you link the definition number of a word, e.g. 4b for merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simple "

Tonepoet

@Ahmed Here's what the[ Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia](finedictionary.com/able.html) states about the subject of when to use each termination:

"As to when -able and when -ible is to be used, Mr. Fitzedward Hall remarks: 'Generally, the termination is -ible, if the base is the essentially uncorrupted stem of a Latin infinitive or supine of any conjugation but the first. … To the rule given above, however, there are many exceptions. … To all verbs, then, from the Anglo-Saxon, to all based on the uncorrupted infinitival stems of Latin verbs of the first conjugation, and to all substantives, whencesoever sprung, we annex -able only.' See his work “On English Adjectives in -Able, with Special Reference to Reliable,” pp. 45–47."

@HelkaHomba Unfortunately no, we do not accept those types of questions. We do have a list of resources on on meta you might want to consult though:

49

A: What good reference works on English are available?

Dictionaries Useful for finding definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and examples of usage. General-purpose dictionaries The online dictionaries listed here are broadly suitable for native speakers, providing major definitions and examples, pronunciations (including audio), basic etymolog...

@HelkaHomba Additionally, if you do want to ask this sort of question regardless, the Language Learning beta currently accepts resource requests. It is the only linguistics S.E. which does to my knowledge.

Helka Homba

01:48

Alrighty. Thanks

Tonepoet

@HelkaHomba 'Tis not a problem. I wish you good luck in your endeavor.

Feeds

02:20

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Q: How to describe someone who is responsible for their mistakes?

I've been trying to come up with a word that would describe someone who takes control of mistakes they have made. I've thought of using the word "responsible", but that doesn't seem fit. Are there any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

single-word-requests

Feeds

03:43

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Q: Word for package of developed pictures

Ever gone to Walmart or Walgreens and developed a set of pictures? I'm looking for a word the package of pictures that is produced as a bundle, with the pictures and negatives. Words like set or bundle come to mind but don't seem to fit exactly and gallery doesn't seem to either.

single-word-requests

NVZ

04:52

Any ELU input is welcome here: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/2802/345

Feeds

05:48

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Q: Reach for the stars

What do you call a person, or people, who constantly "reach for the stars" figuratively speaking?

single-word-requests expressions phrase-requests

Feeds

06:51

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Q: What's the meaning of "you need to grn"?

Recently I received this email from a client with reference to a purchase order. I can't figure out what the meaning could be.

single-word-requests meaning

NVZ

07:50

Is this sort of question better asked on ELU? Should we ask OP to ask it here instead of IPS? interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/2337/345

-6

Q: Are 'negatives' (e.g. wrong) really less diplomatic than 'negated positives' (e.g. not correct)?

Avoid negative words - instead use positive words in a negative form. People react to positive sounding words, even if they are used with a negative auxiliary verb. Don’t say: I think that’s a bad idea. Say: I don’t think that’s such a good idea. This website looks to agree with the...

language

Mitch

12:03

@NVZ did you see the multiple ELU questions about it?

NVZ

@Mitch Yes. It's great.

Mitch

english.stackexchange.com/search?q=Guys&tab=votes

NVZ

I found them. I found them all. I forget I am an ELUer myself.. LOL

Mitch

That is, in those existing ELU q's, there's a lot that would add to the IP question

NVZ

So, I think I'll just add a link to ELU search with those results. For further reading, that is.

Mitch

12:10

@NVZ I didn't understand the question well, but if it was -5 and closed there, surely it would be much more quickly closed on ELU.

That said I'm surprised it was so highly DV'd and closed

NVZ

@Mitch Yeah, it was for the first revision. I think it is about to be reopened. It's also got some upvotes in the meantime. I still am not sure what it is asking.

Feeds

13:58

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Q: Alternative for the word "please" or the right usage

Let's assume I'm texting or mailing a total stranger professionally or casually. If I would like to ask a query/question and need a definite response, I would write "Please do respond some-text-here". Consider the following examples/scenarios (communicated through a social media platform or email...

single-word-requests phrase-requests synonyms

Feeds

14:13

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Q: How to express happiness on someone's fail?

Documentation of StackOverflow is finally gone. And I am happy for it. StackOverflow was meant for Q/A site, and it is in-fact top site in its category. But Docs is not something it should be doing. Every project has their own documentations which is good in itself. I want to express the feelin...

single-word-requests synonyms

Robusto

14:25

@tchrist: See if you agree.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:36

ok I will complete the question with details. but I would like you to know programmers are not that tough to share their knowledge and thanks to their attitude you have the chance to improve yourselves through such a platforms. — Sam 2 hours ago

I wonder what programmers would think if someone asked "What's better, if or for? I need to write an app to let iphone apps work in android"

MetaEd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 "Try jQuery."

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

heh. Maybe we should post that as an answer here.

Leaky Nun

Is there a name for the sentence pattern "XXX they did, so XXX we must"?

MetaEd

@LeakyNun I'm not familiar with that construction.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

like, eat they did, so eat we must?

Leaky Nun

14:44

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 something like that

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

reticulate splines they did, so reticulate splines we must?

Leaky Nun

the two XXX might not be the same

MetaEd

set an unreasonable deadline they did, so prove P = NP we must

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

honestly it sounds like something Yoda might say?

Leaky Nun

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 heh

Robusto

14:45

@LeakyNun Looks like anaphora to me.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

because object subject verb ordering you are using

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇: That kind of ordering is called hyperbaton.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

psh. Everyone knows it's hyperlightsaber.

Robusto

In Leaky's example, the clauses employ hyperbaton, while the entire sentence exhibits anaphora through the repetition of "XXX" ...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto yeah, unless the XXXs are not both the same

Robusto

14:50

Jan 30 '13 at 11:07, by Robusto

Everybody shut up or I will hit you with my hyperbaton.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why would you use the same variable name if they were not the same?

Leaky Nun

ugh

XXX they did, so YYY we must.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Come on, it should be "... or hit you with my hyperbaton I will"

Leaky Nun

Everyone happy?

Robusto

Meh, now you're changing the rules.

Leaky Nun

well, be a pickle about my choice of variable names you did, so change the name I must

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:52

@LeakyNun To answer your question, I'm not sure that pattern has a name. Maybe it does... I've never heard of it and I don't think it's that common a structure. Also I probably would avoid using it.

@LeakyNun yeah. see? totes Yoda.

Leaky Nun

I swear I heard this from somewhere in CGP Grey

Robusto

You can also look up anastrophe, which inversion of word order for emphasis is.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@LeakyNun oh, maybe you did... lots of people say things I wouldn't recommend using. :p

it's grammatical. It just sounds stilted.

Leaky Nun

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 heh

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Imagine if someone said "Took my parking space he did, so wrap his office chair in toilet paper I must"

Robusto

14:54

But you can also look up "rhetorical figures of repetition" or "rhetorical figures of order" to see if you can find something closer to what you're looking for.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Eloquence itself sounds stilted in the Trump era.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

or "raised the price of avocados they did, so cut back on guacamole we must"

@Robusto Now now. I'm not advocating for all word salad, all the time.

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Have an orange.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto no thanks. I'm allergic to oranges ever since you elected one.

5

gotta run, meeting time

MetaEd

15:11

There's another term I can't bring to mind. When you take a formulaic phrase and modify it.

@LeakyNun Operating on 2 hours of sleep so probably won't remember it.

Snowclone.

Snowclone

Snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants". The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, described as "some-assembly-required adaptable cliché frames for lazy journalists." It was derived from journalistic clichés which referred to the number of Eskimo words for snow. == History == In October 2003, linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum described the phenomenon in a post on Language Log, a collaborative blog by several...

@LeakyNun This would work especially if there is an original "X you did, so Y I must" that people are riffing off of.

Mitch

@MetaEd Eggcorns are the new snowclones

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Wow, how did I get to be the setup man for that one?

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Bought the Whole Foods Amazon did, so for millenials the cheap avocado toast there is

MetaEd

@Robusto Oranges are the new pineapples.

Robusto

@Mitch Cease you must, desist you shall.

MetaEd

15:24

Desist are the new cease.

Robusto

@MetaEd This country thought they were buying an orange, but it turned out to be a lemon.

MetaEd

@Robusto Orangemen are the new ... nah, safer not to make Nazi jokes about the Troubles.

Robusto

Oranges and Lemons

►

Funny, but didn't Orwell use that nursery rhyme in 1984?

It all comes full circle, I suppose.

16

Q: What's the significance of "Oranges and Lemons" in 1984?

The popular London nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons is quoted and partially recited several times throughout 1984. Winston learns about it from Mr Charrington in Part 1, Chapter 8, then talks about it with Julia in Part 2, Chapter 4 and with O'Brien in Part 2, Chapter 8. Most hauntingly, in Part ...

symbolism george-orwell nineteen-eighty-four

'"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head"!'

MetaEd

@Robusto A bit gruesome, isn't it?

jinx

Robusto

@MetaEd There's your 1984 coke.

I joined Lit StackExchange just so I could upvote Fareed Mitha's answer there, btw. Greater love than this ...

Will Hunting

15:45

The man in the picture on the coke can looks very much like @MetaEd.

@Robusto I thought he changed his name. It's Faheem, lol.

Robusto

Wevs.

MetaEd

@Robusto wevs back

@NVZ journal.bookfinder.com/2010/02/…

and maybe whatsthatbook.com

loc.gov/rr/program/bib/lost/novels.html

Mitch

16:08

@WillHunting @MetaEd has a 70's 'stache?

MetaEd

@Mitch Not so much.

terdon

That's not MetaEd, it's MetaEddie Mercury!

MetaEd

16:30

@terdon You doesn't has to call me Johnson.

Will Hunting

@MetaEd You look like Jesus now, lol.

MetaEd

@WillHunting Blessed are the cheesemakers.

4

Mitch

17:32

2

It's funny because mice can't talk.

MetaEd

Ahmed

@Tonepoet You forgot to put a space after "the" for the link to get a special look. Thanks though.

Tonepoet

@Ahmed Yeah, I noticed. It was too late to edit.

Ahmed

17:53

@Tonepoet I never hear whencesoever. Do you?

It's archaic and quite formal.

MetaEd

19:52

That just means you won't run into it whithersoever y̶o̶u̶ ̶g̶o̶ thou goest.

Ahmed

20:37

@Mitch I hear mice and rats are good at communicating things. Proof? Dunno, just hearsay and too lazy to Google it.

And these days I have a T-Rex rat trap set outside my room's window because sometimes those buggers bother me.

Mitch

21:08

@Ahmed mice aren't that clever. Rats though, their accent is horrible.

@Ahmed wait...what size tats do you have?

tchrist

Do you know why that's so hard to read? BecauseTheyDidn'tPutSpacesBetweenTheirWords.

RunningEverythingTogetherIsAlwaysHarderToReadBecauseOfHowWeCognitivelyApprehend‌IndividualWords

MetaEd

21:40

@tchrist EVERYONESHAVINGBABIES.

Mitch

@tchrist I wonder when they started adding spaces? in Latin? in Hebrew? in Devanagari. what about sentence stops?

@MetaEd You do that to make their hair grow back in faster.

@Ahmed By 'tat's I mean tatoos.

Ahmed

@Mitch Eh? I don't have tatoos, where did you get that impression? I know you are adept at playing with words so I am thinking... well... yeah, I don't have them. I find them disgusting, no offense if you have them. What size are your tats?

@Mitch Yep, I hate rats.

The rats here are like small cats (in size), and very slick.

Feel yucky talking about 'em.

Mitch

@Ahmed I made a typo and instead of asking about what size rats you have I asked what size tats you have, which if you had tats I would not think is a too personal question given that otherwise what's the point?

so I ran with the 'tats' thing to see where it would go.

And now I know. You're not a tat man.

or is it 'tattoos'?

Yes, it's 'tattoos'

but not 'tatt'

that would be weird

Ahmed

@Mitch Yeah, I know, also, I am totally cool with any question. I knew you were joking. Still I wanted to be sure, hah.

Mitch

@Ahmed I feel yucky hearing you talk about them.

some people have them as pets.

I don't get it.

Ahmed

21:53

Me neither

Mitch

@Ahmed Any question?

Ahmed

I don't get how people like them as frigging pets.

Mitch

mind races with the possibilities

OK, here's a question, and I expect you to be honest. This'll be like 'truth or dare' where there's no dare, you have to answer, and there's only one turn, yours.

what is the cube root of 1278?

No white lies or deflecting.

Wait, also, no calculators.

all in your head.

it's not 1

Ahmed

I am doing it in my head.

Mitch

that's the only hint I'll give, but it's a good one.

Ahmed

21:56

My head it hurting, but I am like a super computer. So... here you go: 10.852. You want more than three decimal places Freud? I could do that too.

:)

Mitch

you can use quiz-logic to speed things up. meaning I asked one with an integer answer

MetaEd

Oh look how late it is. Almost 11.

Mitch

@Ahmed oops...typo... I meant 1728

cripes.

but pretty durn good on 10.852. Really? did you do that in your head?

MetaEd

@Mitch Now I'm hungry.

I did it with Wolfram Alpha.

Mitch

@MetaEd cheese and rice is one of the best meals ever

MetaEd

21:58

Because I'm a cheat and a swindle.

Mitch

@MetaEd haha. Wolfram. takes the fun out of everything.

MetaEd

@Mitch Cheese pretty much anything. Blessed are the cheesemakers.

Mitch

but also... if you just have an integral you need calculated quick it's nice

@MetaEd Cheese and chocolate. together, not good

in the same meal is OK.

MetaEd

@Mitch You are out of your mind. Dark chocolate is great with strong cheese.

Mitch

cheese and orange juice, also not good.

not in the same meal either

@MetaEd Have you stopped taking your meds? That sounds disgusting. Why not brush your teeth with an old toilet brush?

MetaEd

22:01

Oh god.

Mitch

anybody can take a photograph with two weird foods. OMG. Bleurgh. blue cheese and chocolate even worse.

MetaEd

I think I need to stop. And. Eat. Right. Now.

Mitch

You're not confusing your palate, you're putting a bag over it's head, spinning it around, going through an underground maze, waterboarding it, defibrillating it, then making it swallow baking soda and vinegar.

@MetaEd do people do that? Outside of mental institutions or France?

Ahmed

@Mitch That's quite graphic.

Will Hunting

Hi.

Ahmed

22:06

Hello

Will Hunting

Where are you from @Ahmed?

Ahmed

@Mitch I have been in a mental institution in the past for a few days. It was an experience of a lifetime.

Mitch

Probably put there for eating blue cheese and chocolate together.

Ahmed

@WillHunting J am originally from Noyabrsk, Russia. You?

But my username or my profile doesn't match me I know. I converted to Islam a few years ago.

Will Hunting

@Ahmed Ah, I am from a secret place, lol.

Ahmed

22:09

hehe

Okay

Mitch

@MetaEd How dare you

Will Hunting

@Ahmed Is that you in the picture?

Ahmed

@WillHunting No, my ex wife. Why?

Mitch

what kind of universe did you just inform me of? Now I understand why the world is falling apart. If people will eat those two things together, they will do anything.

Will Hunting

@Ahmed LOL.

Mitch

22:11

@Ahmed For real? is that out east (which is a big place)?

MetaEd

@Ahmed You seem to be causing less trouble.

Ahmed

Thanks.

Mitch

22:25

@MetaEd How was dinner?

MetaEd

@Mitch Sadly I haven't been able to get away.

Mitch

I hate that

MetaEd

How nice of you to say.

Nothing I love more than a good hate.

"Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you."

Feeds

23:21

0

Q: Distinguishing between fictional and nonfictional video

Books are frequently divided into fiction, and nonfiction sections, and in a library's nonfiction section you might find everything from technical manuals to histories. I don't feel like video recordings are normally referred to as being fiction or nonfiction works (though I don't think there's ...

single-word-requests

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…