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1:40 AM
> 1. Tampa is expecting an 8- to 12-foot storm surge.
2. Tampa is expecting an eight- to 12-foot storm surge.
3. Tampa is expecting an 8- to twelve-foot storm surge.
4. Tampa is expecting an eight- to twelve-foot storm surge.
Which of those is the worst?
> A. #1 is the worst because it should have been an 8-12′ storm surge.
B. #2 is the worst because it makes you switch from words to numbers for a narrow range.
C. #3 is the worst because it makes you switch from numbers to words for a narrow range.
D. #4 is the worst because it’s the longest to type and read.
E. They’re all equally bad.
 
 
2 hours later…
4:07 AM
0
Q: Word or Phrase specifically for a sale or transfer between two divisions or branches of the same company

AthosI want a word or word phrase like 'Sales and Customer Service', but it applies only to the sale or transfer of stock between branches or divisions of the same company. It's for internal transactions only, but it's still more than a simple stock transfer. I'm thinking I could simply use the p...

 
 
2 hours later…
5:45 AM
0
Q: Something similar to hypocrisy, but not necessarily negative

The Selective UnconsciousIs there a term or phrase for when someone does exactly what he or she is talking about while he or she talks about it? Such as in the poem "Poetry of Departures" by Phillip Larkin, wherein his speaker mentions a common scenario where people hear about others shifting the paths of their lives, an...

 
 
4 hours later…
9:38 AM
 
@tchrist People have a lot of latin-derived names, more than anyone actually has tenses. Like perfect and preterit and conditional and continuous and anterier and posterier, half of which I don't even know how to spell in English. They just don't always use them consistently.
And yes, it's best not to go there or you'll have to figure out how all the English auxiliaries are used.
 
10:37 AM
0
Q: Word for something that is ridiculous beyond description

ionescu victorI am looking for a word that describes something that is so ridiculous that you cannot make fun of it anymore. For example: A man is so fat that even superlatives do not work on him. Let's say you want to make fun of his weeding day. "He ate his weeding cake all by himself." "They had to mak...

 
 
1 hour later…
11:58 AM
0
Q: What's the word for someone who espouses "rather fail than wonder"?

TarunIs there some word/term/phrase for a person who takes risks or just tries (something) without worrying about the failures just because he/she doesn't want to give up without trying? Risk-taker might be a potential candidate for such a word but I don't think it is apt enough.

 
 
1 hour later…
12:58 PM
@tchrist 3
or C.
or whatever. That one. Letters to numbers isn't as bad as numbers to letters.
 
0
Q: A word/phrase for "increasingly comprehensive"?

SasanThe role of mass media in our world in comprehensive. But, due to the increasing development of media technologies, the role is getting more and more comprehensive. Is there a word/phrase to mean such feature. I want a word/phrase to mean that the feature of comprehensiveness is ever increasing a...

 
1:20 PM
Boo!
So I just noticed, it is 9/11 today.
 
1:35 PM
@KitZ.Fox Hi. How is your app coming along?
 
@Jasper I stopped working on it.
 
Oh OK, never mind then.
 
Hi! How are you feeling?
 
I am feeling bad, but next week I have an appointment with the doc and will go back to meds.
Maybe this time I will just take the meds until I feel completely well and not go off them even if I am not sure whether they work or not.
 
That sounds like a reasonable plan.
 
1:40 PM
Speaking of apps, I have never used the internet on my phone.
I am too old-fashioned I guess. Even old folks do that now, lol.
 
0
Q: Another term for divine beings that predates the Gods

dsollenI'm writing a small mythology in which I have two separate types of divine entities combine to give birth to the first gods. I strongly suspect one of these divine entities will be named Titans. However, I need a separate and distinct term for the second type of divine being, ideally pulling fr...

 
@KitZ.Fox For the most part, I think that the mixed notations in 2 and 3 both bug me pretty much equally. It seems silly to use a mixed notation for such similar things; it's confusing.
Or at least, unbalanced to my internal aesthetic sense.
 
1:57 PM
@tchrist I agree.
 
@tchrist If I could choose freely without following any style guide, I would go for (1). (2) and (3) mix words and numerals, while (4) is too long.
 
My preferences are 1 then 4. I would not do 2 and 3. They are yucky.
 
There are so many style guides, and some of them say so many things about a small thing you don't even want to read it all.
But I think Chicago Manual of Style is widely respected in America.
And in Britain, the equivalent would be perhaps New Hart's Rules.
 
2:16 PM
@Jasper I think the mindless application of style-guide “rules” produces abominations like 2 that no thinking person would put up with. They just do what they’re told even when the result is senseless and uncouth.
 
@skullpatrol Wow, I just saw that comic in one of my google searches recently...
@tchrist I agree with Kit that 1 and 4 are better than 2 and 3, because you do not transition from numerals to words or visa versa, but honestly, I think if you are not going to write out eight-to-twelve in full, then hyphens have no business being in this sentence.
I mean, placing spaces after a hyphen is like placing a period after an exclamation mark. It's redundant and defeats the point.
And if those hyphens are supposed to be dashes, well then it's even worse to be using dashes alongside the word To, although I still can't honestly claim that they're all "equally" bad.
 
2:42 PM
@KitZ.Fox When I become ruler of the world, and I'm discussing things with my Minister of Cultural Hegemony, I'll make the offhand suggestion that it seems dumb to do anything other than 1.
 
So the problem with this multiple choice question is that I can't honestly answer E, even though I know they are all wrong, because I think some are worse than others, but I can not honestly pick any of the other answers either because I do not think there is a single "worst". I agree with the rationale in A. the most though.
 
@Jasper There's a huge increase in people visiting their ophthalmologist for eye-strain entirely blamable on smart-phone internet use.
2
 
@Mitch When I become the ruler of the world I will... thinks, meh, that's the thing, I don't want to be in the position of authority.
But I will make Arabic the language of the world. Annoyed much? =)
 
3:07 PM
@Mitch OK. Thanks.
 
Pretty sure Mitch wasn't serious, he is never serious.
 
@Ahmed You'll only realize it too late, when you're disappointed at the turnout of the military parade.
@Ahmed WTF. No vowels? How do you expect anyone to learn then?
 
@Mitch I'm the ruler that doesn't like to rule i.e. I am the opposite of what you call "a dictator".
"a" or "the" are always confusing me. It is not fun editing stuff all the damn time.
 
@Ahmed We should have chat entire-message auto-suggest with fixed grammar. The keyboard should figure out pretty much what I'm going to right.
@KitZ.Fox Awesome! Thanks for answering my question!
(that was a quote from Replika, always offering enthusiastically polite but awkwardly inappropriate responses)
 
@Tonepoet If I am not wrong, it should be vice versa and not visa versa.
 
3:17 PM
@Mitch Well, honestly I believe Arabic is a beautiful language. English has lots of shortcomings too you know. For instance this "you" and "generic you" (it confuses people sometimes) etc.
 
@Mitch Sorry but where did you get this concept of ruler of the world? I think it comes from me...
 
@Jasper Maybe he has a vice problem with his visa
@Ahmed You don't say?
wait... you did say!
 
I did!
:)
 
0
Q: I am looking for an adjective to describe a child who is always "inclusive"

P.ArniHe does not discriminate & always wants to include everybody in his games, work, play etc.

 
@Jasper Uh...no, I go it from myself. Everybody else gets their ideas from me. It's unfortunate when bad people twist my ideas into their perverted evil, but frankly I designed the system that way just to keep thing interesting.
 
3:19 PM
I can spew out a list of things I don't like in English, but that would be kind of mean. I love the language though (English), that's why I am good at it.
At least in conversational aspect.
 
@Ahmed Arabic is fine. It does have the 'sore throat' problem (it'd sound so much better if it weren't for all those consonants that sound like you're clearing your throat, like in Dutch.
 
I think Arabic has a letter ghain where the gh is the guttural R in French and German.
 
@Ahmed You came not to the wrong place for that. We could complain all day about how stupid English is.
 
@Mitch Oh okay, good. Awesome. But still I'll pass just to attain some sophistication. People hate all kinds of whining and bitching you know.
 
I think all languages are difficult once you know them well enough.
5
 
3:23 PM
@Jasper It also has the 'ch' like in German and Scottish, and the 'q' like in the strep-throat language of New Guinea, and the 'kqx' sound of the dying tubercular martyr.
 
@Mitch I see. It seems you are an Arabic language professor?
 
@Ahmed We could pick on some language that is not here right now, couldn't we?
Russian? So many irregular verbs!
 
I guess. Up to you.
heh
 
also the mid central unrounded u. Gah!
@Jasper I made up the one about New Guinea
I can read wikipedia as good as anyone.
 
@Jasper Apparently, it is a common misspelling, and perhaps a disproportionately high amount of my vocabulary is television derived too, so I probably heard it that way more than I ever read it.
 
3:26 PM
@Tonepoet Maybe why I have good spelling is because I don't watch TV, LOL.
 
@Ahmed There are some good things about English that recommend it above other languages
Spelling is not one of them. Might as well be Chinese as far as spelling regularity goes
 
Also, if I am being honest, vice sounds more like some malign pleasure than anything else to me.
 
but it doesn't have noun gender, that's just crazy making everybody remember gender for every single noun. Did I mention it's crazy?
 
@Tonepoet My vocabulary is reddit derived (don't laugh).
 
@Ahmed stifles laughter
 
3:29 PM
@Ahmed It could be worse. It could be 4chan derived...
 
I like to look at language learning books, and I am kind of surprised that other than the usual French, German, Italian, and Spanish, many publishers now also have books for learning Chinese.
 
Well, there are literally billions of Chinese speakers.
And Chinese is a very easy language to learn, speaking-wise.
 
@Tonepoet I only spend time on good sites there. At least the least toxic sites. What's 4chan? Never been there.
 
Yeah, I guess there are Chinese speaking folks in many countries now.
 
Writing is the hard part.
@Ahmed Let's just say 4chan would probably not appreciate your name or avatar.
 
3:32 PM
@KitZ.Fox Ahh yeah. Good point Kit.
 
Although I think they are anonymous posts?
So you could probably post lots of subversive stuff.
 
Yeah, I guess. I am better off without going there, I mean I hear bad things about that site.
But still, I guess I could go there to rustle their jimmies and ruffle their feathers with my name and avatar. =)
 
My Chinese teacher made us write one essay every week. I usually spend the whole Sunday doing that. Terrible, lol.
 
@Ahmed 4chan is an imageboard: A special type of forum software and layout for posting hivh volumes of images on a temporary basis. It used to be primarily geared towards the hosting of anime imagery, but they have always had this "random" board which is more or less the cesspool of the public internet, and they have since expanded into many other subjects.
The random board, with the /b/ directory (I don't know why /b/, since the rest of the boards have an abbreviation based directory name), basically has no rules whatsoever. People can and do post almost anything there, including especially rude things...
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer: Word for "invisible god-like voice" by vanessa on english.SE
 
3:41 PM
@Jasper I've heard that there are lots of small business entrepreneurs From China that are spreading across the world (outside of East and South-East Asia), mostly commercial shops (like convenience stores), but they're not really into integrating or populating those places like with traditional immigration.
 
@Ahmed It also happens to be close to the source of some internet lingo, but because it is meant to host images, and images are comparatively large and bandwidth intensive, the posts are frequently deleted, so there's no way to really prove it frustratingly enough.
 
@Mitch I see. Indeed, many China folks have come to Antarctica as well, where I need to use Chinese to communicate with them.
 
@Jasper If they'd just drop the characters and use an alphabet (like pinyin) people would really flock to using Chinese because it is so easy, grammar and vocabulary-wise.
 
@Mitch I see. Well, maybe some people will say that Esperanto is the easiest to learn, lol.
 
@Jasper Sure, but I'm also talking about places like Egypt or Argentina, where there's no prior idea of any kind of influence.
@Jasper Those people are <strike>dumb</strike> misguided. It's totally Eurocentric and the vocab is opaque. With Chinese you can always guess and be close.
 
3:46 PM
@Mitch I think if I could choose one language for the whole world to learn, it would be Italian, lol. It sounds so nice, lol.
 
Politically, I'm not particularly inclined towards or against the Chinese manner (one way or the other), but I'm just being honest about the language and learnability.
@Jasper I was just going to say that. Running through foreign speech in my mind, that one sounds the nicest.
 
Another difficulty is maybe the 4 tones. Some fluent speakers still sound a little off with the 4 tones.
 
@Jasper Oh, I already have a response to that.
that I have to articulate.
I mean the idea for a response.
otherwise I'd just type it.
 
@Mitch I guess they can still be understood, just that they sound weird.
 
right away
I'm stalling
every language has it's own weird way of pronouncing things. It might be manageable for people from a nearby language to pick up having something similar already, but will be 'impossible' for most people in the world to imitate (or hear).
Like the English 'th' or difference between short and long 'i'
Chinese tones might be strange to most people, but really, it could be worse, like the French nasals or the Arabic multiple velar, uvular and laryngeal fricatives and stops. Or Indian 'prevoicing' (not unvoiced, not voiced, but-pre- voiced). I mean WTH. Who designed these things? A committee?
so as to learning pronunciation of a new language, I feel like most every other foreign language is on an equal footing. That's my point.
'r' and 'l' is hard in every language. vowels are hard in every language. Every language has that one weird consonant (or more sure).
 
3:56 PM
I see. Hmm, you must be a professor of languages, lol.
 
32 mins ago, by Mitch
I can read wikipedia as good as anyone.
 
By the way, I recently heard the completely Italian version of this song. Previously I only heard the English/Italian version. Enjoy!
 
4:46 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly dots in answer: Word for "invisible god-like voice" by Krysta on english.SE
 
5:36 PM
@tchrist
 
6:09 PM
@KitZ.Fox What did you eat for lunch?
 
@Jasper Tapenade with french bread.
A lot of it. Too much.
I love it so much though.
 
Hmm, I see. I just ate a pizza, lol.
 
What kind of pizza?
 
I think it has some cheese, sausage, onion and stuff like that. No particular name.
 
Sounds pretty tasty.
 
 
1 hour later…
7:31 PM
1
Q: Single word for a plant's fruit/vegetable?

Will VI'm looking for a word that describes the green bulb of a pepper, banana or other mass a plant produces. I feel there is a better more plant related term. I cannot articulate my question enough for Google. I thought of "appendage".

 
7:41 PM
@KitZ.Fox Still working at home these days?
 
@Jasper Yes. I'm working at home right now.
 
8:04 PM
0
Q: Word or idiom for guilt by profit?

Kaito KidLet's say that event X was a bad thing for most people. But in the case of person A, event X ended up profiting them. Many people then start suspecting A of causing X, or outright blaming them for it because they profited. How do you call this phenomenon? I'd imagine it's guilt by something, lik...

0
Q: Word meaning "that which is mimicked or emulated"

KBriggsI am looking for a concise word which means "that which is mimicked". For context, we have a synthetic device which mimics the behavior of a biological structure. I want to say something like: ...as the performance of [synthetic device] approaches that of its [word referring to the biological c...

 
8:16 PM
What do you call the sign or board atop the front of a shop or store that bears the name of the business etc? Signboard? Fascia? Nameplate? ...?
It's fascia in BrE. I'm not sure about AmE.
 
8:38 PM
I would say sign or sign board.
 
@Færd University of Vermont refers to them as fascia so evidently it's AmE also. uvm.edu/landscape/dating/commercial_architecture/…
City of Grapevine Texas calls it a fascia board: grapevinetexas.gov/DocumentCenter/View/115 (warning: PDF)
 
Thanks.
I'll happily use fascia invariably.
In Farsi we say tableau, coming from French, I suppose.
It's a pretty common word.
@MetaEd What's your own daily practice?
 
@Færd With regard to the word "fascia"?
 
Yeah.
 
I am only familiar with "fascia" in the context of home repair.
When I saw your question, I used Google.
 
8:47 PM
Oh.
So you don't often refer to those things on top of storefronts.
 
Nope. TIL.
 
OK.
I'm most interested in the day-to-day practices of native-speakers.
Those links are good too.
So if fascia is not that common, I guess I'll be better understood using sign or signboard.
@Cerberus Cheers.
 
9:30 PM
@Færd Fascia might be a particularly architectural term, but is not really what any normal person would say. I would call it the 'sign' or 'store sign' or maybe a little fancy 'marquee' (the latter is exactly whatnormla people would call the sign above the entrance of a theater
That is, only an architect or someone who paints such signs might call it a 'fascia'.
Frankly I'd never heard of that use of 'fascia' ever. I had heard of it as the medical term for the connective tissue between and around internal organs and muscles.
Nameplate is only for small plates that might be placed on a (nice) wooden box or on or next to a door or an a desk.
FOr every day, if you're taling about a sign above an entrance that advertises a performance or performers, it is a marquee, otherwise I would call it a 'sign' or 'the store's sign. I would never have thought of 'fascia'.
 
10:04 PM
@Mitch I have little doubt it's better known to architects. And code compliance, evidently.
 

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