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19:24
@Cerberus No, I don't stare at walls, just like I don't go to faith healers, precisely because I don't believe in that crap.
@RegDwightѬſ道 And what if a certain person believed in faith healers but not in walls?
But if you do believe in faith healers, you might as well believe in wall paint.
@Cerberus He should try harder.
Besides it was supposed to be a joke, you know.
But surely you will agree that there are in fact not many people who believe in wall paints, while there are many who believe in faith "healers".
@RegDwightѬſ道 Ah, not again!
Jul 25 '11 at 18:31, by RegDwight
@Cerberus Stop ruining jokes, Gosh.
yesterday, by RegDwight Ѭſ道
Cerberus, you suck at jokes.
Jul 12 '11 at 14:43, by RegDwight
You are only allowed to get jokes elsewhere.
> Stop making non-obvious jokes, jeesh!
19:26
Etc. You get the idea.
10 secs ago, by Cerberus
> Stop making non-obvious jokes, jeesh!
See I can do that too.
I never started.
All my jokes are painfully obvious.
Uh yes you did!
And no they aren't!
Well, not to you. But you are the only one here.
You and Jasper.
Is he here?
I don't sense him.
He doesn't get my jokes.
You really can't read except Latin, can you?
I do my best.
19:28
No podes leer accepto Latino, cannaes?
Look, I don't mean to put you down, but you have your head buried in sand and water. Am I supposed to treat you as an example?
No. You are supposed to get my jokes, though. I stick my head into the sand precisely so my jokes can reach you faster.
2
Ahah! So that's what your new picture is about.
I appreciate the gesture.
Odd though it may look.
Hmm someone appears to be reading the transcript live, as you non-suggested.
I didn't star you.
Or it could be someone who's in the room but greyed out, like Vitaly.
Normally that would be Vit. But I doubt it's him in this particular case.
Aaand now we have two phantoms.
19:34
Okay now I am officially scared. Two invisible people who found that crap star-worthy.
Kevin Bacon? Is it you?
Hello?
Hi, nice to meet you.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
Well, I might have starred it myself, had the thought occurred to me (I am an inconsistent starrer, I must confess).
Ahh I knew it!
I was thinking Vit and/or Gigi.
Gigili is Kevin Bacon! I knew it! I knew it! The zeroth degree has arrived! The Maya was right!
@RegDwightѬſ道 Oh so you're that Carlos thingy? Very nice.
19:35
Then possibly Borror (unlikely) or the two grey spectres I knew less well.
The others are too fond of talking.
Borror, huh. Didn't even notice him. What's he doing here anyway.
Tis a private partay.
Hey! Be nice.
I like B.
He's a mod. He's used to being not being nice to.
Still.
Yes. Very still he is.
19:37
He has no heads, and only, what, 16 surfaces?
Or what do you call those?
Yeah. There's sixteen sides to every borror.
Seventeen, seventeen.
@Cerberus Drop the "sur".
Faces, it's faces.
Jinx.
Se he has more faces than I.
It's face. Not sir face. We are loose like that.
19:39
If you will excuse me, my right face prefers Sir.
Or Cer.
Does that hurt?
Some serious thwacking is in order.
Well, what's baby gonna do? Cry? Cause his momma's not here.
Jun 16 '11 at 13:45, by RegDwight
It has to hurt to be thwackable.
19:43
I was thinking... Well, maybe I wasn't. Forget it.
Careful.
You might hurt your...eye, or what have you.
0
Q: Expressing rumour whit the conditional

Carlo_R.Does it grammatically correct to report rumour using the conditional ('would be', 'would have') to express a simple present ('is', 'has')? Supposing that the story is not a confirmed fact regarding a royal family's new carriage: According to press report, the royal family has a new carriage....

Hiya Carlo's back.
Meh.
He's asking a question a German might ask.
His previous questions didn't point in that direction.
That construction is used in Dutch too.
19:49
What wonder!
I know!
I don't know what to think of it.
Think "chocolate pie" of it.
In certain circumstances, I think it's OK. It expresses even more uncertainty than simply "according to the press, she is in Paris".
But it is overused in horrible ways.
Where now — in Dutch?
Yes.
19:55
That's funny!
Because in German it's the exact opposite.
Most Germans have trouble with conditionals.
They can't get them right.
So they just chicken out on them altogether.
Most people don't even know the correct form for many verbs.
Ah, yes.
Understandable.
In Dutch, we just use zou.
Pronounced like Sau.
So yeah. When the Germans use it, it's not so much that they overuse it as it is that they just come up with ungrammatical gibberish they themselves cannot disentangle.
Hmm.
Like how?
@Cerberus like mixing up conditional I and conditional II.
Or just going the poor man's road by using "würde".
Which is just terrible.
Oh, yes.
I was thinking of mixing up I and II.
How about mixing up the simple past and conditional II?
Mainly using the former for the latter.
Happen at all?
20:00
Sure. The forms are very similar, after all.
Ging/ginge. Etc.
Right.
I would do that.
War gemacht/wäre gemacht. Etc.
I can never remember where the umlauts go in the simple past, second conditional, and past participle of wissen.
Wußte, wüßte. gewußt.
Conditional I would be wisse.
Thanks.
Conditional I is usually easy enough.
Just stem + e, isn't it?
20:04
Well not for strong verbs.
See above.
Except sei and probably a few more.
Oh...
Gehen-ginge.
No wait.
Isn't that C II?
Now I am confusing things. Haha.
Yeah. CI would be gehe.
Silly elephant with all your sticking your head in the mud.
20:05
Ow my brains.
How about werden? C I = werde?
Der Konjunktiv (aus spätlateinisch modus coniunctivus, eigentlich "der Satzverbindung dienende Aussageweise" zu lat. coniungere "verbinden, zusammenbinden") ist im Deutschen neben dem Indikativ und dem Imperativ einer der drei Modi eines Verbs. Der Konjunktiv wird für die Darstellung einer Möglichkeit benutzt und daher auch als Möglichkeitsform bezeichnet. Im Deutschen gibt es zwei Arten des Konjunktivs: den Konjunktiv I und den Konjunktiv II, die jeweils in die Zeitstufen der Gegenwart, der Vergangenheit und der Zukunft untergliedert sind. Der Konjunktiv I findet seine Hauptverwendung in...
Ohh and it is probably irregular with können?
Dass ich könne...?
Er kann gehen, er könne gehen.
Ah OK.
Hmm so no other verbs with irregular CI than sein?
20:08
Uh. I'm afraid I can't parse that question.
I'm confused enough as it is.
Arg I couldn't parse it either, and I knew what it was supposed to say.
Well sein is not so much irregular as it is suppletive.
So if I can think of another verb like that...
Tue?
Du tust, du tätest.
No suppletion, just umlauting.
I was asking whether tue was CI.
20:11
@Vit @Rob the Immortals are catching up.
Und habe?
In French, most modals have irregular CIs.
Ich habe/habe, Du hast/habest, er hat/habe...
OK.
Then I can help you no further.
I don't think anyone would use habest. Everyone would opt for hättest. Which is CII.
French j'ai / que j'aie; je vais / que j'aille (I think); je veux / que je veuille etc.
@RegDwightѬſ道 Er sagt, du hättest zwei Kinder?
Not er sagt, du habest zwei Kinder?
20:14
Exactly.
OK.
I am about to finish Der Process.
Then you are progressing faster than Kafka.
Reading really helps.
@RegDwightѬſ道 Yeah I figured my German was up to it now.
Ich dachte, mein Deutsch sei gut genug.
No, I mean he is not about to finish it, and probably never will.
I know.
I meant my German was good enough to write the missing second half / two thirds / what have you.
So you see it too! Gee, thanks!
That is all the confirmation I need.
Is that correct?
That wasn't my star, BTW.
Gigili again.
20:17
No, wasn't me.
Star?
ts.
I missed it.
Curioser and curioser.
What is correct?
20:17
It was on your Deutsch sentence.
2 mins ago, by Cerberus
Ich dachte, mein Deutsch sei gut genug.
Eek.
@Gigili It is.
Really? Hmm.
How about ich dachte mir? Is that possible?
Ich habe gedacht, dass mein Deutsch gut genug war.
No?
20:18
@Cerberus Colloquially, yes.
OK.
Dativus ethicus.
We don't have that.
@Gigili I see no problem with the sentence, and yet it feels like something a person learning German would say.
Why the present perfect "ich habe gedacht"?
That's what everybody uses.
Imperfekt is dead.
Really?
20:21
Yeah.
Seriously?
Wow.
Only in written language, and even there not in every register.
How odd.
Nothing like that is happening in Dutch.
Some people Anglicise the tenses a bit.
11
A: When Will "Present Perfect vs Past Tense" Cases Be Affected By Culture?

KosmonautI think, in formal usage, you will find that American and British are basically identical. We each use both of those constructions in the appropriate situation. Obviously, there is a semantic difference between these two constructions and neither dialect exclusively uses one or the other. I am...

Which is ugly.
20:22
> This could be the very beginning of a semantic shift in the present perfect construction in English. Perhaps (2) will be preferred in several hundred years. (Such things are not unheard of; German now uses the present perfect form to indicate simple past in speech.)
Right.
Kosmo went with the times.
Nobody uses the simple past anymore, and the few folks who try have to make a conscious effort.
How about U-German?
I would expect severe resistance to such a change.
Nah?
I certainly resist any tense changes in Dutch, and I am far from alone.
20:25
The severe resistance would be a century too late. It's completed. Done. Game over.
Here there is a tendency to use the past perfect for the present perfect shudders.
@RegDwightѬſ道 People always say that, and it is rarely true.
Hi!
20:26
'Ello.
@Cerberus I don't know about people, but I am saying this on this one precise occasion.
Usually a change in language follows a certain curve. It goes slowly at first, then very fast once 50 % of the people have switched, then it slows down to a crawl at the end.
@RegDwightѬſ道 How do you know there isn't a minority who resist the change? It's hard to know that something is not the case.
Again, when native speakers don't so much as know the forms of many verbs.
Ask a German about the simple past form for backen.
Which is an everyday word.
I use several past simple forms of verbs that the average Dutchman wouldn't know.
Jez
Jez
backte
?
20:28
Buk.
Like joeg and possibly beval.
And woei.
Woei is you.
Jez
Jez
gebacken
You? Who?
I don't speak any Dutch, ha!
20:29
@Jez That one everybody will know.
And that's the thing.
Reminder: I believe you if you say that most people never ever use the simple past any more.
But that nobody uses it?
I never said that. I said nobody used it in speech. And the few who did had to make a conscious effort.
I also said that it's still alive in written German, but even there not in every register.
Literature, yes. Frakfurter Allgemeine, likely. Bild? Never.
Jez
Jez
Die Bart Die
@RegDwightѬſ道 All right then.
Now I am going to read Bild.
Look what you (have?) made me do.
Now let me spend a bar. BRB.
20:34
@RegDwightѬſ道 The first summary of the first article I click on:
> Doppelte Spannung bei DSDS: In der fünften Mottoshow sangen die Kandidaten nicht nur einzeln, sondern traten in Duetten gemeinsam auf. Am härtesten traf es Joey Heindle (18). Der Krächzer musste mit Supersänger Luca Hänni (17) in den direkten Stimmvergleich.
Haha. Der Vorführeffekt.
Was?
You can't say I picked an atypical article!
Als Vorführeffekt wird das Misslingen einer Vorführung oder eines bestimmten Kunststücks aufgrund der Vorführsituation bezeichnet. Typisch ist zum Beispiel ein Trick, der oftmals erfolgreich geprobt wurde und vor Publikum plötzlich schiefläuft. Der Misserfolg wird meist durch die Nervosität, die durch die Anwesenheit des Publikums hervorgerufen wird, erklärt. Oft wird auch das unerklärbare, u. U. auch nur scheinbare Lösen eines Problems während der Vorführung (zum Beispiel Ping funktioniert fünf mal nicht, man zeigt es einem Experten und es funktioniert auf einmal) als Vorführeffek...
In fact it was the biggest, first article on the front page.
Oh, hehe.
Like Murphey's Law?
Yeah.
English needs to borrow it.
20:36
Poor you.
No equivalent, not even in LEO.org. No Wiktionary entry, nothing.
I am speechless with sympathy.
@Cerberus Serves me right for never visiting bild.de
And now excuse me while I'm battling.
Rob
Rob
I just found a new punctuation "mark" for a sarcastic remark.
@RegDwightѬſ道 I clicked on Unterhaltung, and, what do you know—I get the exact same articles as on the front page. How surprising.
Hi Rob2.
Rob
Rob
20:38
hi
@Rob oh, thanks, that one's mine.
Rob
Rob
which one?
@RegDwightѬſ道 Alas, "Lifestyle" is only about the now.
@Cerberus Surprising!
Nothing about anything that happened.
20:39
They should run a series on Hellenic lifestyle five thousand years ago.
Rob
Rob
In writing and often subtitles, especially in British English, a (!) symbol (an exclamation point within parentheses) implies that a character has made an obviously sarcastic comment e.g.: "Ooh, a sarcasm detector. That's a really useful invention(!)"
@Rob The one you found.
Rob
Rob
this one?
Yeah. I lost it earlier today.
Rob
Rob
(!)
20:40
Thank you.
Rob
Rob
The British tend to use sarcasm more than others ...
(!)
ಠ̲ಠ
@RegDwightѬſ道 I tried Sports and Reise, but those don't have any past events, apparently. But Politik gives present simples.
Like gab and bot.
The look of disapproval looks so much better with a fancy line under it.
You spoiled brat...
20:44
Why?
Rob
Rob
@Mahnax Do you disapprove of that statement?
Because you need a line, and because your disapproval looks like you always get your way.
@Rob No, I had just discovered something neat.
@Cerberus Haha, fair enough. I don't always get my way, and I would say that I'm a good ways from spoiled.
Rob
Rob
@Mahnax What did you discover?
@Rob That I could put a line under it.
20:48
@Mahnax And immodest too, tsk.
Normal look: ಠ_ಠ.
I found a unicode character that goes under other characters:
̲
COMBINING LOW LINE
Unicode: U+0332, UTF-8: CC B2
@Cerberus Pfft, whatevers bro.
Hey @Cer, have you been notified of underwater dogs yet?
Rob
Rob
@Mahnax Cool ಠ_ಠ
@Rob Yup.
@RegDwightѬſ道 Well, uh, those are some nice, flattering pictures…
@RegDwightѬſ道 I see a blue page with a white reactangle?
20:53
You have Flash installed?
Yes.
Tried it in FF and IE.
Try littlefriendsphoto.com/index2.php and navigate to Gallery → Underwater dogs.
Ah, haha.
Nice.
Aww the kittens are good too.
Unfunner, but cuter.
That's how cats are defined, yes.
Oh, but they can be fun!
Lolcats!
20:58
Laser pointers.
Strangest cat I've ever seen.
Hah yes.
Liked that one.
Hm, I've been playing Minecraft a bit and I think I like it.
Play Spiral Knights instead.
21:14
What is it?
A candy can.
@Mahnax Ahchoo!
@Gigili What?
@DavidWallace Same here! (bless you)
@Mahnax It's a game, of course. What else should it be?
@Gigili Yes, but what kind?
21:17
Spiral Knights is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Three Rings Design and published by Sega. The free-to-play, Java-based game was released to advance testers on November 12, 2009 and to the general public on April 4, 2011. The game was released through the Steam software distribution system on June 14 of that year, and through Kongregate on September 22. In the game, the player controls a knight of the Spiral Knights order, which has crash-landed on the mysterious planet Cradle. Knights collectively explore the Clockworks, the mechanized, constantly reorgan...
Looks silleh.
Thank you.
Heh, I don't know.
I don't play many games.
Jez
Jez
Ugh. A Labour 'chat with the voters' on TV and I heard "different" substituted for "differently" several times.
@DavidWallace poo back atcha
21:25
Are you a three headed monkey today?
No, a littering cat.
Aka an IMBY, for you.
Or possibly an IMFY.
Or perhaps you live in the middle of nowhere on a huge swathe of uncultured land.
full of sheep
That's like saying "and there is air".
because here in NZ, sheep just wander through the city streets, as if they own the place.
You mean the sheeple.
That's why I said there are as ubiquitous as air.
21:29
Right, we even have an athletics event called a sheeplechase.
They go without mention or oversight.
Really?
I don't trust people from your time zone.
Not today.
21:45
0
Q: Plural of abbreviations with -s or -'s?

Michel KeijzersShould the plural of abbreviations be with a -s at the end or with -'s? E.g.: in my work MC is a typical abbreviation (which is Machine Constant). I never saw dots between such abbreviations and abbreviations can be between 2 and 5 or 6 symbols. However, is the plural of MC: MC's or MCs?

That is a dupe.

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