English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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00:17

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Q: Word for something being male-dominated, i.e, a group of friends?

I'm looking for a word that can sum up something that is largely defined by and composed of - but not restricted to - men. For example: "My first month at university has been ________; I haven't made any female friends." Another idea that comes to mind is the movie industry, but that's male-f...

single-word-requests

Zenon

00:45

@Mitch That's what I'd assume in general, but given how picky they are with other matters of gender treatment, I'd assume they rather be more restrictive in language regarding gender than allow for the possibility of being viewed as sexist. I see what you mean with regard to consistency. I ended up

Is there a single word for a verbal quirk or tendency? E.g. someone I know tends to say "this, that and the other" at the end of every few sentences.

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01:48

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Q: What is a adjective to describe someone stereotyping on a specific person?

I've been wondering about this for a while, and the question didn't really come out right. The word, "stereotypical", i have been wanting to use for someone who often stereotypes someone. Let me give you an example. If someone was to say, "All boys are uneducated"(which they aren't, by the way), ...

single-word-requests

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Q: Word for Copyright holder

I'm writing an essay on Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Age, and I have the following sentence: DRM is an instrument to protect Copyright, and therefore it should be implemented in such way that it respects the rights of users and [X] alike. Here, [X] should be a word for the co...

single-word-requests legalese

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02:06

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Q: Is there a word for encasing and warming up simultaneously?

Does any verb exist that describes how someone can be warmed up by eating/drinking something warm and being bundled up in something such as a blanket that's just out of the dryer? I thought of how it would relate to hot compresses, but all I can find is that they're "wrapped" or "applied." I'm re...

single-word-requests verbs

Feeds

06:21

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Q: Word meaning 'to fill with water'

Is there a single word meaning to fill with water or fluid, in the way that "inflate" means to fill with air or gas?

single-word-requests

Feeds

08:31

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Q: Verb for unintentionally lying

Is there a verb to describe the act of telling a lie unintentionally? Lying is not telling the truth intentionally as far as I know, but what if someone makes a mistake when telling a testimony in court or forgets a certain detail when describing something unintentionally?

single-word-requests verbs vocabulary

Tonepoet

09:51

I suspect that vocally discussing wh-questions must be rather tedious with a pronunciation like that!

Feeds

14:59

-1

Q: What are two single words for referring to a teacher or student in second person?

The context is that two close friends end up in a teacher-student relationship (as one is a piano prodigy and the other wants to get extra help). The piano prodigy does not want their friendship to detract from the sanctity of lesson time, so she insists on her friend calling her exactly what she...

single-word-requests

NVZ

18:09

I might have an idea for a second meta Q which might be about users. "Do you answer questions from your own experience? Or do you google it up?" Shall I ask, or is it offtopic?

@AndrewLeach

and others here...

Or I'll drop it. It's not fleshed out.

Andrew Leach

Please don't ask that. Answers need to be corroborated, although "good subjective" allows a certain amount of leeway. The (SE-provided, network-consistent) help on How to Answer is quite comprehensive: such a question is very likely to subvert that.

If you want to ask "How do you write a good answer?" then that's more likely to be on-topic, if it's not already answered in the Help or by another question on Meta (or MSE).

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Q: Collective noun for a group of anchors

I am looking for the correct collective noun for a group of anchors (the type which ships use). Can anyone help? Genuine question.

single-word-requests nouns collective-nouns

Cerberus

18:24

@NVZ That sounds like a good question.

It's quite an important aspect to answering questions, actually.

Tonepoet

19:24

@NVZ Drop it please. The relationship to policy is minor at best, but more importantly, I fear that it would be counterproductive: This extra-essential information may incite changes in votes on the basis of the person for people who write answers, rather than the actual quality of their answer

We also recently had a question that was quite similar enough in nature anyway.

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Q: Word meaning 'focused on one thing' or something like that

I'm trying to phrase this right. Google made the Google Store exclusive to Google's in-house products. This means that it's Google what? Something to describe that they're only putting Google products on there, to point it out a niche. Say you were trying to come up with a name for the store; you...

single-word-requests adjectives synonyms title

Tonepoet

I am most especially concerned for votes against what may otherwise be considered good answers, either because you lacked prior experience, or because your research is considered inadequate. This isn't to say these are entirely invalid reasons to vote against an answer, but I don't want to even ponder if consideration of answers made on meta biased judgement cast upon answers made for questions on the main website.

NVZ

Actually I wasn't gonna ask.. But here's a fun read though:

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Q: Do you reply to questions on SO from your own experience?

I see a lot of questions on SO, which could easily be answered by OP - if some lookup is done. I am not saying that I answer everything from my own experience. But, if I don't answer from my experience, what I am use of other than someone who knows how to find things on search engine? Having sa...

discussion stackoverflow answers

it's ancient.

This. What is the opinion?

Don't cite Wikipedia... they themselves say so: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use. The "academic" aspect may or may not apply to SE, but the "changes too often" aspect sure does. — NH. 3 hours ago

@NH. Thanks. We're aware. We use better and more reliable resources when the stakes are high. In this answer, I think Wiki is just fine. :) — NVZ 3 hours ago

I had been meaning to ask.. there's actually no guidance about how to ask a meta.

Tonepoet

19:44

@NVZ If I may pose a slight objection, sure, Wikipedia changes the main page of any given article quite often, but they also keep a revision history with permanent archives of all article revisions.

NVZ

Side question.. was my use of when the stakes are high fitting?

Tonepoet

Following the recommended practices for link rot by Journalist's Resource suggest using permanent links wherever they are available.

MetaEd

Tonepoet

@NVZ As a phrase, yes.

NVZ

@MetaEd lol

@Tonepoet I think I had once went down a rabbit hole on MSE/MSO and read about permalinks on SE's posts.

And about using archive sites or way back machine sites to link stuff.

But IIRC, some CMs or mods added that it's fine to use that, but we will not make it a thing here.

Tonepoet

19:53

@NVZ Archival websites ultimately just offset the problem. I think it is wise if you are going to cite an internet only resource to include an archival link to make your verification more reliable, but it is not a substitute for quotation.

@NVZ By thing, do you mean requirement?

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Q: A verb for having "ability" after not having it.Do we get ability, gain ability, ...?

After a while I .... the ability of understanding their costumes. I want a verb for the above blank. Acquire, gain, obtain, and a lot of more verbs are used in such cases, but I would like to know the most idiomatic verb.

single-word-requests

NVZ

@Tonepoet i think so. It's not the word they used. I'm filling up the gaps in my story with things and thingamajiggies..

MetaEd

Yes, I think of links as purely an aid to future verifiers. And it's great to provide a more reliable link using wayback, imgur, etc., if you want to go to the trouble. Seems like I've used an alternative to wayback also, that lets you snapshot a web page at the moment you cite it, so that version is always available.

NVZ

@MetaEd and who knows how long those waybacking machines wayback?

Tonepoet

@MetaEd I like archive.is for archiving ngrams most particularly.

NVZ

20:02

Their links are just as likely to be broken, am i rite?

MetaEd

I believe it was WebCite (webcitation.org)

Mitch

@NVZ Apropos quip: The arguments in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so low

haha...academia

MetaEd

I don't know how WebCite compares to archive.is

@NVZ Right. That's why the primary requirement is not a link but a citation. What's the idea you're using, whose is it, where did you find it.

NVZ

@Mitch i dunno what "apropos" is. Google says it's adverb means irrelevantly and adjective means appropriate. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong senses

Mitch

@AndrewLeach I'm not trying to be contrary today but... Ill go ahead anyway. I actually think that would be a useful meta-question. When is self reporting OK? Should it be a comment or a full answer? what if there is no online reference for it but you know yourself through book scholarship? etc

MetaEd

20:05

@NVZ That adverb sense isn't for "apropos" but for the phrase "apropos of nothing".

Mitch

@NVZ apropos of apropos, it's a funny way to say 'here is something not entirely directly on -topic but only partially relevant to say, so now I'm going to say it anyway, because I just thought of it and have to get it out of my head'.

It's a short way of saying that

Andrew Leach

@Mitch You are being contrary. How individuals choose to answer is irrelevant to whether their methodology is any good. So the right question is "What makes a good answer?" not "How do you formulate an answer?"

Mitch

@AndrewLeach No I'm not.

Sorry I didn't mean that but it's late in the day.

I was really saying 'what makes a good answer'.

Andrew Leach

Aren't you 5-8 hours behind the UK?

Mitch

'how do you...' is always silly. who cares how one particular person thinks they do it.

@AndrewLeach um..yes.

Andrew Leach

20:09

@Mitch Ah. That's what was originally suggested. However, even "What makes a good answer?" is in the Help, so any question will need to refer to that and its deficiencies.

MetaEd

@Mitch @AndrewLeach We don't want to discourage authoritative answers from experts in the field. Far from it. Those might be the best answers. If someone says they are a linguist and based on their own experience the answer is "quux", great. Probably that expert will also explain why the answer is "quux". If somebody writes that they've read "linguist's" book and here's the answer that "linguist" gave, okay, that's helpful too. Then you want to see a citation that identifies the book.

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Andrew Leach

@MetaEd Exactly. All of that can go into a "What makes a good answer?" question.

MetaEd

To me that means you might actually see fewer citations in truly expert answers.

2

Tonepoet

@Mitch I think we actually have help center guidelines for when you can promote your own product...

Mitch

@AndrewLeach oh. Well, it's not a bad idea to remind us all with a repeat qn. also there are some nuances I think that aren't addressed. There's always been the implicit contradiction that 'everything should be supported by external evidence', and 'google is not gen ref'. Value added here is required and that value added is almost by definition not somewhere else.

Tonepoet

20:12

@Mitch This is it.

Andrew Leach

@Mitch Yes, fine. I would suggest having an answer ready to post as well, when you post your question.

Mitch

@MetaEd sure and that's consistent with the disparagement of copypaste answers

NVZ

15

A: Do you reply to questions on SO from your own experience?

One day I answered two questions. The first was about something I had recently done at work, and I was able to cut and paste a very small snippet of code that did what the OP was asking. The second was a stupid question that could have been answered in 3 seconds of searching, so I cut and paste...

Mitch

@AndrewLeach wait, I'm just philosophizing here. You don't expect me to take action on someone else's whim in a chat comment?

"I think pandas are a waste of space"

"carnage ensues"

Andrew Leach

@NVZ There is the possibility of "good subjective" answers. But that is SO, and a code snippet is arguably an objective answer.

Mitch

20:15

(even though that code is almost surely ... from personal experience)

NVZ

I feel the same way.. When I cut and paste, say, definitions from other sites, I get a gold badge. And see this example.

What do you call someone who has fought his way from a lower social class to a higher social class with his/her own efforts?

Mitch

Sure, an answer like "I pronounce 'about' like 'aboot'" is a crap answer.

NVZ

But when I write in my own words explaining stuff, trying hard. Nothing happens. I tumbleweed myself away...

Mitch

@NVZ single word requests are click bait. If you get in early and provide the obvious one (when there's one that is obvious), rep just pours in.

NVZ

@Mitch yep.. ELU forced me to stick to SWRs.

Writing my own answers seems a very uphill task for no real benefits or at least fake internet points.

Tonepoet

20:22

@Mitch There doesn't have to be one that's obvious. Just suggest something that's close enough, even though the request is much more specifying, and people will vote for it regardless.

NVZ

Which is what led to me joining meta.. a place where I can actually write something and not just cite links..

Andrew Leach

@NVZ But you don't "join" Meta. Meta is for asking questions about the site and how it works. You get access by "joining" ELU (if "joining" is the right word at all).

NVZ

i have noticed a thing.. sometimes i bump into old questions and i see some non-answers. also, most likely these non-answers have highly upvoted comments suggesting that they don't address the question. I might have flagged a few of those as NAA and it's highly likely that my flags are declined for those... is it that I should leave old posts alone?

@AndrewLeach ah, come on, you know what i was pointing to... so there's no need to go that route. :)

Tonepoet

@AndrewLeach You can join Meta S.E., and if we turn off the webjargon blinders for a moment, joining is a perfectly idiomatic word for indicating that you have begun participation, e.g. join in on the discussion.

Andrew Leach

Fine. Whatever.

Tonepoet

20:28

There's probably a more appropriate meaning I could have exemplified but that was just the first thing that comes to mind...

Mitch

What I really wonder is if the new Blade Runner movie is going to be any good.

NVZ

it's that i'm a non-native speaker who shows off his English too much, and there's high chance that sometimes i overuse expressions and underperform when it comes to actually conveying something correctly. lol

Mitch

you used lol very idiomatically there. except for all the fancy talk beforehand

Andrew Leach

@NVZ NAA is quite specific. Answering an entirely different question from the one asked; saying "Me too"; typing gibberish which can't be edited into shape. It's not for a poor-quality post which does actually address the question asked. If you flagged one of those as NAA, you might get it declined. Downvote instead. Vote to delete, since you have 20k rep.

Mitch

But back to Blade Runner

Ryan Gosling, really?

NVZ

20:30

i showed that i was drowning.. i still am.. \o\.../o/.....

@AndrewLeach now i can do that. i'm 20k .haha

Mitch

I mean, how can the new one add anything interesting to the concepts?

Is Decker a replicant? I cared 30 years ago. I don't care now.

NVZ

@Mitch Be careful not to bump into other people when you're running with blades.

Mitch

And who is directing the score? Not Vangelis. What are they gonna do to be far seeking? Baby Metal?

BABYMETAL - ギミチョコ！！- Gimme chocolate!! (OFFICIAL)

►

NVZ

@AndrewLeach this for example. is it an NAA or an answer?

Etymology of “horny”

Mitch

voted to delete because it is dumb

Andrew Leach

20:37

That's an answer. It addresses the question.

It was ~~It's~~ a very poor answer.

MetaEd

I seem to be stuck behind a major Charter/Spectrum cable outage. Can't bring up meta.

Mitch

@MetaEd You're not missing anything. It's all talk about dupehammering, and other stuff

NVZ

@AndrewLeach huh, that's an answer? that's merely a comment from a passerby disguised as an answer cuz they can't comment.

anyways, it's removed now. thanks. my flags were declined though. :)

Mitch

But here is where the action is. Blade Runner sequels. Babymetal. Do you get beluga caviar from beluga whales?

@NVZ haha you were right for the wrong reason

MetaEd

I've had to go mobile.

Mitch

20:40

@MetaEd No problem. We'll save some caviar for you

Do you ever look in a mirror and there's someone there, but it's not you? Asking for a friend.

Tonepoet

@Mitch I'm not so sure. Wrong and bad answers have a place on Stack Exchange. Jeff wrote an article about how you only get half of the data if you don't allow answers to be scored in the negatives.

Mitch

Not the one they see in the mirror

Andrew Leach

Hmph. Why does WhatsApp make transferring chats from old phones so difficult? Hmph.

MetaEd

@Mitch The other day I ... no, that wasn't me.

Tonepoet

@AndrewLeach Old chats aren't trendy enough to turn a profit. =P

Andrew Leach

20:45

Possibly. I've managed to get what I think is the right file in the right place, and now it's taken so many goes of swapping the registration between phones that I'm locked out for an hour.

NVZ

@AndrewLeach because there's no stored msgs on their servers... ?

Andrew Leach

@NVZ You do it by exporting the messages from one phone and then expecting the app to find the backup file when you install it (the app) on the new phone.

To go from Windows to Android is extremely difficult.

Mitch

Windows. Lol

Windows isn't terrible

It's just second place in everything

In quality

1st place in quantity

Andrew Leach

21:01

Windows Phone isn't first place in quantity either.

Mitch

Touché

But desktop proliferation is (indirectly) allowing the eradication of malaria

So it's a tradeoff

You can get rid of malaria but you have to use windows

You're using Linux? Oh... imagines a pool of dirty stagnant water in Uganda

Apple? coughs

coughs again

Jasper

Hiii

Mitch

There's no malaria in Antarctica

Jasper

Talking about citations, I find the excessive use of citations on SE pretentious. Sometimes the citations don't even answer the question, but because there is a citation, the answer is upvoted.

Mitch

I wanted to get a website whose domain name is in Antarctica... '.aq'

But they don't allow that unless you're associated with a ... with something having to do with Antarctica

Jasper

21:11

I am the Emperor of Antarctica. I grant you the domain name you desire.

Mitch

I mean. It makes sense. But still

@Jasper totally agree

It 'looks' right because hey they quoted an idiot

(By idiot I mean wiktionary)

@Jasper nice. Thanks!

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22:11

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Q: equivalent of brute-forcing outside computer domain

So when someone tries a crazy number of options to find the one that works for them, without consciously looking for the option (or few options) that is/are fit to them. Probably in real life this kind of brute-forcing would actually work unlike in computers. If there's not such a word and more ...

single-word-requests

Natalie Lauren

23:29

Hi, I need advice on a thesis essay i'm writing.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…