English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

1:36 AM

Suppose someone just answered my question, can I say "that's neat" as a way to express my gratitude?

Cerberus

2:14 AM

Yes, and it means something like, that's an interesting/clever answer.

So you're not exactly saying "thank you" but rather "that answer is good".

But, depending on context, it may amount to the same thing.

is it common to say that?

Q: Is there a word for someone that lets others get the credit for something instead of themselves

2:32 AM

Is there a word for someone who lets others take the credit for something instead of themselves

Cerberus

2:44 AM

@Trey It's common enough when you're commenting on a solution or a device. Neat is similar to ingenious in this context, I would say.

4 hours later…

Q: Help me in describing this in a word or phrase

6:36 AM

Terminology to be used for a person having shortsighted thoughts. That is... Who gives out words without realising the implications that it might arise later,and later those actions of his end up against him. It may not be in direct sense.also what do you call a person who does this repeatedly an...

single-word-requests terminology

6 hours later…

SmokeDetector

12:42 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Why is the BrE “petrol” called "gas" in AmE? by William Smallwood on english.SE

1:08 PM

Q: Looking for a word

Looking for a word that means "doing something only because someone else wants it." For example, i am getting a chocolate birthday cake only because everyone else likes chocolate even though I wanted vanilla.

Q: Ranting against a poorly understood concept

What verbs (or phrases) describe the behavior of expressing negative opinions on a topic the speaker is seriously misinformed about? What can be such a person called? "Droning"; "incompetent", "demagogue" or "ignorant" aren't quite the terms I'm looking for. Perhaps a combination of "judgmental" ...

single-word-requests expressions phrase-requests

1 hour later…

Q: Word for 'Unafraid to Question Authority' with Positive Connotations

2:10 PM

How do you describe a person that is unafraid to question authority with a positive connotation? I feel that 'rebel' has too much of a negative connotation for the context that I'm using it in, and iconoclast doesn't fit too well.

Q: The thing a person with a one-track mind is stuck on

2:24 PM

T. has a one-track mind. He is a school psychologist who thinks that the solution to all teenage special learners' problems is for the teen to attend all his planning meetings with school personnel. He is so stuck on this idea that he can't even recognize when the parents are already allowing a...

single-word-requests phrase-requests

Q: How is "caballito blanco" expressed in English?

Imagine the situation in which a small child participates in a game with teens or adults. Perhaps the child doesn't know or can't follow all the rules strictly. Or in sports, this child has physical limitations compared to the older, bigger, more coordinated participants. The child ends up pla...

single-word-requests phrase-requests expression-requests derivation

2 hours later…

Q: Better alternative for Mythology

4:36 PM

On Hinduism Stackexchange, we have mythology a most popular tag. Since the word can have two different meanings i.e somewhat ambiguous nature, users often raise discussion on meta to rename or remove the tag. You can see the first question that discuss the issue with the tag at here. Quoting the...

single-word-requests word-choice word-usage

tchrist

5:07 PM

> Alliteration is a stylistic language device, a figure of speech and uses words and the sounds that the letters in them produce, to create an effect in the language of a sentence.

Letters produce sounds?

I suppose maybe if you pinch them, they might.

Q: Yes/No question for “Her eyes hurt.”

5:24 PM

I’m not sure if I’m making a mistake: Her eyes hurt->”Does her eyes hurt?” or “Do her eyes hurt?” Which one’s correct? I think the second one is right, coz “eyes” is third person plural. Am I right?!

6:05 PM

@tchrist But then won't you be guilty of alphabetual harassment?

6:39 PM

Hey Dan.

Dan Bron

Hey @MetaEd

Thanks for the invite.

Surely!

So to answer your question, first I tried just putting https in the broken link, but there wasn't enough room in the comment.

So I changed the links to be protocol-relative (starting with slash-slash).

Dan Bron

Wait, the protocol determines whether the link will work or not?

I mean, I guess it's somewhat of a security risk for people to click on plain HTTP links today, without knowing it?

But that seems silly. Also I don' tthink I've anywhere see that documented about Markdown or SE's implementation of it.

I'm also surprised that if that is the issue, that protocol-relative is acceptable.

I think the original link was incomplete, just began with the domain name: rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/A/alliteration.htm

I wanted to add https:// but due to space constraints ended up just adding //.

Protocol-relative links are not the best choice especially when linking to other pages on the site. Because the site actually tries to recognize such links and add them to the sidebar, and protocol-relative links sidestep the link recognition.

If I could have, I would actually have split the comment into two parts. But there's no mod mechanism for that, and the second half would have been in my name. That's a bit misleading so I worked within the space constraints.

@DanBron That's curious. I don't see anything in the markdown docs either about exactly what it recognizes as a link and what it doesn't. But there are examples that say you can use relative URLs, and surely the original link should be interpreted as a relative URL.

7:16 PM

@MetaEd Dude

@Mitch Probably it's more of a greengrocer type issue. We could put up a sign, please don't pinch the esses.

Wikipedia says greengrocers are fruiterers. Why wouldn't they be just fruiters?

Dan Bron

@MetaEd Thanks, that's helpful. It seems to me, with the (blah blah)[link goes here] markup, the part in square brackets is known to be a link; it shouldn't need a protocol to be recognized. And Markdown doesn't even need to guess what the protocol should be; it can pass that responsibility to the browser (that is, just make it <a href="whatever the user typed in square brackets">whatever the user typed in parentheses</a>.

It seems broken to refuse to link if a protocol isn't supplied, and if that's the rule, it should be documented somewhere (in the Markdown docs if it's an intentional markdown feature, and on Meta.se if it's an intentional SE extension to MD).

7:34 PM

@DanBron Yeah, can't really argue with anything you've said.

Melissa Lozada-Oliva - "Like Totally Whatever" (NPS 2015)

►

Interesting poetry.

8:01 PM

@MetaEd Dude

@MetaEd That's idiotic

They do things with fruiters.

Maybe fruiters are the ones who pick the fruit?

@Færd I enjoyed that.

@Færd uptalk and like and whatevs

meeting cancelled

sigh of relief all around

Tug' Tegin

8:19 PM

Hello everyone! Is saying "What do perfect squares is 11 between?" Its construction is different to me to judge whether it is correct. I heard the phrase while watching a video and it sounded to me as mentioned above. Thanks in advance!

8:54 PM

@Tug'Tegin Is there a link available to the video, and maybe a time marker?

@Tug'Tegin That sentence doesn't make any sense. Maybe the speaker's fault.

@MetaEd :)

@Mitch Defense mechanism?

She weaves together so many hot issues (white supremacy, feminism, ageism, pedantism, etc) into one work. One might say it's a medley of tenuously related subjects at best, and hadn't it been for her forceful recital, the divergence would be even more obvious. I partly agree with that. But mashing up these issues together could have some point.

is this phrase correct " I went there looking for help" ?

In itself, yes.

@Trey It's grammatical in English. Hard to say if it is correct in meaning, without knowing what it is intended to mean.

You could also write "I went there to look for help", if that's what you are wondering about.

I was thinking about saying something like, "I went to the chat looking for help"

9:04 PM

That's alright.

1 hour later…

10:05 PM

@Tug'Tegin You misheard or miswrote. It makes sense if it is changed to "What two perfect squares is 11 between?" with the answer being 9 and 16. The phrasing is totally correct and natural. It's usually covered in lessons about turning questions about objects of prepositions.

@Færd I'd call it pretty natural speaking pattern for informal speech.

@Færd I think the common theme, which binds it pretty well together, is other people's petty, micro-aggressive speech about her personal qualities.

Pardon me for being on-topic, but older people have forever been complaining to young people to their face how they don't speak right. She's also adding in the unwanted honesty of these older people trying to correct her feminine manners of speaking.