English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

00:04

@skull Oh. Excellent. I guess. (I've blocked all the Feeds messages because they annoy the crap out of me, so I didn't see it)

I will wield my power benevolently.

Until I can figure out how to monetize it.

@tchrist What are my new super powers?

Time travel?

Invisibility?

The ability to read upside down? (when the words are upside down, not me).

The ability to summon dessert? Now preferably?

back in a moment... enacting that power.

tchrist

80

A: A guide to moderating chat

What tools are available to room owners? Room owners are users that have some elevated permissions in a chatroom. Typically, they will be the first line of defense when it comes to inappropriate content or behavior in a room. Users will look to the room owners to guide the room. The room owners...

skull

00:31

What's your take on this post? @tchrist

Cerberus

00:59

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 We read about it and were wondering about you the other day. Quite horrible. But at least you're alive.

tchrist

01:19

@skull My "take" is that it's important, serious, and complex, and that I'm not up to having any take at all just right now. I'd like to think about a lot of things here.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah I've been watching the news compulsively to see the list of victims as they identified them, dreading that I might know someone. If this attack had happened on a Thursday I would have been right there at that time. My daughter's friend was there an hour before.

tchrist

I wish no one knew what that felt like.

This year I've had family members on lock-down during a fatal active-shooter incident. It's incredibly nerve-wracking. You're helpless and terror-stricken.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Sorry meant to reply to cerb but I'm on mobile

Yeah

I'm not used to that

skull

life is fragile, handle with care

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@skull That it is. But sometimes an entitle asshole takes the choice away from you.

Cerberus

01:29

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I can image it's terrible when it gets that close.

I would be in favour of a car-free inner city (except with a special permit).

And of requiring lots of checks before renting out a car to someone.

A car is like a bomb.

A lorry is like a big bomb.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, that's just it, we're not in the inner city.

Cerberus

Then expand the zone to include wherever there are many people afoot.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Our society only works because most people aren't psychopaths

Cerberus

Very true.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Honestly, I'm in favour of lots of restrictions on cars, but I don't think that'd work here.

Cerberus

01:32

But inner cities will probably become car-free anyway because of the pollution and traffic.

Maybe more time is needed.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

North American cities are totally different from European cities, traffic-wise.

Cerberus

I imagine.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I think the root of the problem is psychological fragility, especially male fragility. We need to address how we raise boys so that they don't grow up to be delicate little man-children who throw temper tantrums by crashing cars into people.

Cerberus

That is also a good approach.

But why not both?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

honestly I'm trying to imagine which will be harder, that, or banning cars :p

Cerberus

01:36

Heh.

I also feel that perhaps we shouldn't have such a winners-losers society.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I mean I'm operating on the assumption that the attacker's "incel" facebook post is genuine. I may be wrong.

Cerberus

Oh, I'm not up to date.

What is incel?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

oy.

it stands for "Involuntarily Celibate"

Cerberus

Oh.

How odd.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's an internet subculture of men whining about how they can't get laid

Cerberus

01:37

Just rent a hooker.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's rife with misogyny

Cerberus

That's why we should have legal prostitution.

I imagine.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

no, see, paying for it doesn't count

Cerberus

Then they should get over themselves!

tchrist

If they can get a machine gun, they'll use a machine gun. If they can get bags of fertilizer, they'll use that. If they can get C-4, they'll use C-4. If they can get a truck, they'll use a truck. If they get a car, they'll use a car. If they can get none of those, they'll eventually think of something else. Gasoline, maybe. I don't know.

Cerberus

01:38

Ah, the NRA argument.

Guns don't kill people, it's not the guns.

tchrist

The gunpowder, treason, and plot.

Cerberus

But that never happened.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

A facebook post attributed to this attacker said something about the "incel" revolution, killing all the "chads and staceys", praising the asshole from a couple years ago who for similar reasons shot up some people in California (I think), and included a serial number which was this guy's number when he served in the Canadian Forces for a couple weeks. That number is private, secret almost, so it's unlikely that the post is a fraud.

tchrist

I despise the NRA beyond words.

I just don't know that banning cars will help here.

Maybe it will.

Cerberus

Banning guns helps.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:40

Cars are useful tools. Guns less so.

tchrist

Whenever many are gathered...

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That sounds rather awful. And the publicity, too...

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Cars cause lots of cancer and traffic jams...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus This guy just makes me so mad.

Cerberus

But, yes, at least cars have a legitimate use.

skull

I'm amazed at how fast the Las Vegas massacre got forgotten :(

tchrist

01:41

People need to get over themselves.

That's the whole problem.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Cars could be made that don't cause cancer and aren't so bad for the environment. They're incredibly useful, but also, our cities (here) are built to require them.

Cerberus

@skull Did it? I remember watching a new video reconstruction of the event a few weeks ago.

tchrist

Think about other people instead. Involve yourself with other human beings.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@skull I'll be honest. Gun violence in the USA is so common that it's hard for the rest of the world to keep track of it all.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 True about cancer. Less so about CO2 and traffic jams / uglifying cities.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:43

In Canada, mass murders are very rare.

tchrist

The sexual predations by those in power are the same thing.

Cerberus

Still, the attack in Vegas was so big.

tchrist

Treating other people like garbage at the dump.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, electric cars can mitigate the CO2 thing.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Only if we have enough clean energy, which will be a very long while...

And clean battery production...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:44

@Cerberus Sure. But there's a straightforward path from here to there.

It doesn't require a paradigm shift in how we structure our society.

Cerberus

It will probably be possible in an unknown number of decades. Could be ten.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm optimistic that, barring catastrophes, our vehicles will shift to electric fairly rapidly, assuming we can find enough rare earth elements to build batteries.

I'm also hoping that self-driving cars will remove the need for human drivers - maybe certain areas will be self-driving-only.

But that will probably take decades.

Cerberus

@tchrist It may console people to know that the Ancient Greeks already observed how society and morals were going down the drain and society must soon collapse.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus And yet, there were lots of societal collapses between then and now

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, both of those things will happen, but it will indeed take many decades.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:47

humans muddled through eventually but it wasn't always smooth sailing

tchrist

@Cerberus It is the nature of the old to see decay everywhere.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yeah and those Greeks were Ancient

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Athens never collapsed entirely. Certainly not in Plato's millennium. And, when it did collapse partially, it wasn't due to the things they observed at Plato's time.

@tchrist Quite so. We must try to resist the temptation!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Whenever I hear people complaining about young people these days, I quote to them some ancient Greek texts, where some guy was complaining about young people those days, then I point out that the complaints haven't changed in thousands of years.

tchrist

The young have no position to see a difference between a long-ago then and now. They have only now, so there can be no difference and no change, and thus no corruption, and so no decay.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:50

Strangely, pointing out how people are wrong doesn't always change their behaviour.

tchrist

Quoth Father.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Who knew that you should be quoting the Greeks to hoi polloi!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus the hoi polloi

tchrist

Hardly.

He'll get you.

Don't do that.

Cerberus

@tchrist But the old have a romantic tendency to see the past as a better place than it was, and to fear change no matter what.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 !!

Let's not make jokes about such a serious matter!!

How dare you.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:52

come on, you knew I'd say that

you pushed the button on purpose!

Cerberus

D'oh.

Of course.

tchrist

@Cerberus Nostalgias, saudades, e morriñas

Cerberus

I knew providing you with an opportunity to vex me should cheer you up a bit.

@tchrist Morriñas I didn't know.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

heh, thanks

Cerberus

Mourning.

I didn't know saudade was also Spanish, though.

tchrist

01:54

@Cerberus The Galicians, whose words those both are, say that a morriña is a saudade that can kill you.

Cerberus

Ah, I see.

tchrist

Yes, the Castilian-speakers have imported saudade but that was Galician.

Cerberus

You're so Gallic, these days.

tchrist

19

A: What is the meaning of "saudade" and what good translations into other languages exist?

Nostalgias e morriñas It is an oft-repeated myth that the Portuguese and Galician word saudade “cannot be translated” into other languages. It certainly can! It just may take more than one word to do so adequately. The basic sentiment is one that mixes together aspects of melancholy, lonelines...

Cerberus

I remember reading a good translation of Plato where they translation many important words in twain.

It worked rather well.

Because one word could not catch the meaning adequately.

It was like a hendiadys.

tchrist

01:57

I see.

Cerberus

I also read an article this week about how prevalent pessimism was in Europe in the early 20th century.

But the bad things that happened were not the things people were afraid of.

People were afraid that society was about to collapse etc.

Technology was about to destroy society.

And the disappearance of religion.

Fascism could thrive in that Zeitgeist.

So it was perhaps pessimism itself that could be said to have caused all the destruction of the early 20th century (both Wars).

tchrist

"Technology was about to destroy society"?

Cerberus

That's how those pessimists felt.

Human labour was being replaced by machines.

Homo was no longer mensura.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:15

@Cerberus It sounds like you're describing today, not 100 years ago

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Exactly.

This was from a dissertation that's just been published.

Færd

@tchrist I guess it was black activists who coined or adopted the term "the black community".

At the dawn of the Black Power era, or earlier.

To infuse themselves with a sense of unity against a common enemy.

But the term may have outlived its usefulness.

Or maybe not.

Black Power movement

The Black Power movement was a political movement that intended to achieve Black Power. During the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s, black activists experimented with various forms of self-advocacy, ranging from political lobbying to armed struggle. The movement was originally inspired by the philosophies of pan-Africanism, black nationalism, and socialism, as well as by contemporary events like the Cuban Revolution and the decolonization of Africa. The movement grew out of the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Many black people became frustrated with the Civil Rights Movement...

Guess my guess wasn't far off. The origin of the term merits a main-site inquiry.

Mitch

03:04

@Cerberus your Zeitgeist is messing up my Weltanschauung and now I have a Weltschmerz.

L'Chaim!

Cerberus

Schade.

Feeds

1

Q: Looking for a word which describes something that doesn't inspire confidence

I am looking for a word which describes results or conclusions which don't inspire confidence because they were reached using poor quality data or a faulty procedure. The feeling I am trying to convey is something that can't be trusted or relied on to be correct. If the data is of poor quality...

SmokeDetector

04:40

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad NS for domain in body, bad NS for domain in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, +4 more: greentoneproblog.net/keto-ultra-diet/ by hamejone on english.SE

skull

07:13

News update:

232

Q: Does Stack Exchange really want to conflate newbies with women/people of color?

The Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming blog post says: Too many people experience Stack Overflow as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups. There have been accusations of elitism against SO since time immemorial. Basic...

discussion etiquette blog behavior welcoming

@tchrist^

Feeds

10:05

0

Q: Best verb opposite of verify

According to verified and unverified adjectives I am looking for the best verb to use as opposite of verify verb. anybody has a verb in mind?

single-word-requests verbs

Xanne

@skull Unfortunate to conflate two very different issues in one blog post, or to try to solve these problems as though they were one.

Feeds

10:24

0

Q: Word meaning: "containing no electronic components"

I want to find a single academic-sounding word that means: "containing no electric parts" or "containing no electronic components" I originally thought "analog" would work here, but after double checking the definition, I have reconsidered. I can easily think of a few examples, but the naming c...

single-word-requests

skull

I agree @Xanne but, is an underlying "unwelcoming behaviour" issue growing across the network, in my opinion.

Feeds

10:40

0

Q: Single word request for both the pupil and iris of the eye?

Say you scooped out both the iris and pupil, for a transplant or what have you, what would you call them togheter?

single-word-requests

Feeds

13:59

0

Q: Word for the moving part of a slider?

An example for a slider is the scroll bar that lets us move down a long web page. A slider consists of a line and a thing that you can move along that line. What do you call the moving component of a slider? Example sentence: "For most sliders, if you click somewhere along the slider line, the _...

single-word-requests

Feeds

14:16

0

Q: Words for deep thought, concern... (Sentence example inside)

I am writing about a character who is currently pacing around his home in deep thought and concern. There is trouble approaching him shortly, and he is trying to find a solution. He is not afraid or nervous per-say - but he is in deep thought and concentration. A sudden block of sorts has me se...

single-word-requests

Feeds

16:16

1

Q: word for more frequent than "frequent"

I wanted to say that "I'm a frequent restaurant visitor" in order to express my authority on the restaurant subject. But "frequent" doesn't quite catch it: I visit a restaurant almost every other day. The first word that comes to mind after "frequent" is "often", but you can't say "I'm an oft...

single-word-requests

KannE

17:24

I just realized what this site is really for--to learn how to curb all your defensive tendencies--for example, learning how to say "no biggie" while you're lying in the crosswalk (while the pedestrian light is still green) instead of "[bih] hit me with a [effing] car"...now that's a skill. You can just google grammar. Duh, what was I thinking...

Færd

18:06

keeper
loaner
looker
thinker
...

Færd

18:21

Another of the vocab counting tests online: vocabulary.ugent.be .

This one controls for false claims by including a lot of fake words. And it doesn't give an exact number, but rather the percentage of the English vocab that you know.

Tell me if you found anything interseting on the FAQ page or wherever they introduce their method of assessment, but I don't thing I can trust it.

Still, looks better-thought-out than the ones I took before.

Færd

18:59

@KannE I guess you could google everything these days.

Why not just engage in discussions you enjoy?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@KannE you were here for another reason? Haha, sharing knowledge?! Silly.

Grrr, the M&TV chat is full of Infinity War spoilers

Congrats @Mitch for getting your name squashed in chat

@Xanne I can't speak for women, but evidentially, the race gender issue is almost non-existent

Which is more than I can say for real life, or that hell called "The Rest of Internet"

I don't think there's anything to change on that part, and if we try to, we'd end up with lazy people pulling a gender or race card to whine about downvotes on their lazy question

The harshness against newbies, well, let me repeat myself

in The Screening Room, 10 hours ago, by M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

The SO comment culture resonates too closely to the Edge of Darkness. Some comments always appear whose tone is uncalled for

Edge of Darkness is a good movie, but could be better

So there's room to improve obviously, but the solution is certainly not to call downvoting offensive

Mitch

19:30

super
duper
pooper
scooper

KannE

@Færd You really can. I('ve) just googled "I just" (like in my comment that I would've edited if I knew how, assuming it's possible at all). If you just scroll past the first few comments (two out of three are english.stackexchange.com--Oh! A possible duplicate! I'll get right on it!), you'll easily find it's a choice between two evils: Being "correct" in an outdated way (in the minority) vs. Being "incorrect" in a modern way (in the majority since 2000 in America).

Mitch

room topic changed to Nutella Spoken Here: ðiː ˌɪŋkɒmpɹɨˈhɛnsɨbəɫ ˈɻʷuːm (EL&U main chatroom) meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/chat-faq [phrase-requests] [pronunciation] [single-word-requests] [synonyms]

You're all very welcome

KannE

@Færd I'm sort of a hip granny, so it's a hard choice...I could just fly to England...but I think I'll just go with "I'('ve)"...until I have at least 40k points...then I'll just state anything I want to as fact in the comment section, exlusively and repeatedly, until I die.

Mitch

20:17

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ I fear I'm going to regret this question, but... what is 'The Edge of Darkness'? Is that a soap opera about a group of men and women who live and love on a dilithium mining colony on Mercury right at the sun-facing threshold (night-day)? And the complications that arise in their living circumstances when they realize that Mercuruy is not tidally locked and in fact has a 3:2 rotation-revolution ratio (or is it the other way around?).

Sort of a bedroom farce.

I'd watch it.

@Færd checking for false positives is good. But percentage? What is the number of words? Are they counting all possible word formations?

@Færd wait...is that what you're referring to here?

@Xanne That question and all the answers and comments are just a lot of thoughtless complaining. The blogpost was about being jerks to anybody, and people responded by just being jerks to the blogposter.

Færd

@Mitch My question, exactly.

@Mitch That one's actually about this odd meaning of -er, which makes an object kind of noun out of the verb.

You keep a keeper, look at a looker, loan a loaner, and think about a thinker.

So, two unrelated topics.

@KannE Are you referring to a specific thread? I don't follow.

As for correctness, I guess if you've got your people who speak in your language/dialect then that could be your standard language, and you wouldn't have to be worrying about conforming to majority rules.

Mitch

20:33

@Færd a thinker thinks ('-er' is 'agentive' here). You don't think about a thinker. But yes to the other three. Well, sometimes not 'keeper'. Sometimes a 'keeper' is the one that keeps.

Færd

@Mitch Hmm. That's a thinker.

Mitch

'Looker' always sounded weird to me. 'That's a real looker' for something that's good to look at? Sounds almost uneducated, like you can't think of a more articulate word for the thing.

Færd

@Mitch Yeah. I didn't mean that the object-like meaning is the only sense they have.

Mitch

@Færd haha. have you heard the latest? You know how a real easy thing to do, something that shouldn't take any thought at all to decide to do is called a 'no-brainer'?

Færd

Yeap!

Mitch

20:36

Like "I just got free tickets to see Madonna and Sting" "well, that's a no brainer"

Færd

So a no-brainer is the opposite of a thinker.

Mitch

(sorry, that's the only example I could think of. vary according to tastes. I don't think I'd go see that even if paid)

@Færd Well, yeah, but the point is that people are starting to say "That question is really hard, do you have the self driving car save the passenger or the pedestrian?" "I don't know. That's a real _brainer."

Færd

@Mitch (anyone could fill in, according to the artists of their generation.)

Oh. I didn't know brainer was a word.

But that sounds understandable.

(My point was that thinker is not always the one who thinks, but I guess we moved past thta topic)

Mitch

@Færd I worry for the great majority of people who are not conforming to my rules. hey must be finding it hard to fall asleep with their concerns.

@Færd It's not.

Færd

@Mitch You could be a real nightmare.

Mitch

20:41

But if someone says it, you (meaning me) will probably be taken aback wondering what they're saying. Is it easy or hard? It's a real brainer trying to decide if 'brainer' is easy or hard to understand.

Færd

Hmm. Depends on your facial expression.

Mitch

@Færd Probably.

Færd

Context could clarify the most outlandish of non-words.

Mitch

That's totally argblargable.

Færd

I agree.

Mitch

20:43

Well-played

Or is it well played?

Færd

You've been to Italy lately?

Mitch

Lately?

Færd

You're leaning like that pizza tower.

Mitch

haha!

Færd

You're name's in italics.

Mitch

20:44

wait. I don't get it.

Oh... Pisa

Færd

Yeah, didn't feel like looking up the correct spelling. Sorry.

Mitch

Why hasn't that thing fallen over yet

Færd

You're Mitch now, not Mitch anymore.

Mitch

I'm sure there are lots of pizza places nearby that tower

@Færd Oh. Right. I've been abusing my powers.

Giving myself timeouts.

Making announcements for things I'll never keep to.

Færd

@Mitch You're earned it after putting so much time in this chat, I suppose.

Feeds

20:49

Mitch has added an event to this room's schedule.

Færd

@Feeds No Nutella rocks for me. I'd like Nutella jimmies.

Feeds

Mitch has added an event to this room's schedule.

quartata

just an fyi: adding an event to the schedule of a room pings basically everyone that has ever been in the room

Mitch

@Færd Hmm.. that is a good idea. Chocolate jimmies are pretty good. Nutella would be even better.

@quartata OH YEAH

@quartata Glad I didn't say what I was going to say though.

There's only so much personal information that others want to know.

There's a threshold

Færd

@quartata He's got the newbie's enthusiasm. It'll burn itself out.

quartata

20:53

no it's fine I don't care that much

Mitch

@Færd And pretty quickly.

quartata

I mean, it's Nutella

Mitch

It's not fun anymore

quartata

the message needs to be heard

Mitch

Time travel is really old news

quartata

20:53

just be aware

Mitch

@quartata Wait wait wait... I don't think you should take that tone.

Færd

@Mitch Come on. Rock on now.

Or jimmis on.

You're in the prime.

Mitch

I'm really getting into the groove

Like a smoove move

Færd

So is there rocky road Nutella?

(Is it what it's called? Rocky road?)

I think Nutella is just a spread?

Mitch

Rockin to the groove in the early morn
rockin to the beat to the break of dawn

Færd

20:56

I guess that rhymes for some people.

Mitch

Oh, it does.

if you're non-rhotic

or singing a song

KarlG just said the other day that few american singers sing rhotically except for country-western.

Færd

The vowels are different though?

Mitch

They're close enough without the r's.

actually...

Færd

OK. We're in the age of hip hop after all.

Mitch

I'm having a hard time distinguishing them (when non-rhotic)

when rhotic they're pretty different

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…