This one looked like the creepy psycho killer picture.

I mean, the sexy pout picture.

I don't remember how recent that one was though.

You got a new hairstyle at some point a few months ago, as I recollect.

@z7sgѪ Right, well, social register and "incorrect" are not at synonymous, I didn't mean that. But there is significant overlap in many contexts, that is, the way the word "incorrect" is often used. It is a word with little specific meaning outside a certain context, i.e. if you don't have a very clear body of uncontested rules in a certain situation.

@KitFox Oh hehe, that one. You're not the first to call it that.

@KitFox Oh, I had it cut shorter, but it hasn't been cut since, so my hair is too long again now.

Let me see if I can find another picture.

I have seen all sorts of pictures of you. The wedding picture was really sweet.

And sexy, of course.

All sorts? I thought only a few.

Many in which you weren't very recognizable, like those art pictures?

@Cerberus Oh, yes. And the boobs, of course.

I have my eyes closed and my mouth in a weird grimace in most pictures, so this is a relatively good picture, hehe.

@KitFox Absolutely, many times!

It's not bad. How recent?

Hmm I don't know, maybe two years ago? I don't have many pictures of myself.

I don't have many recent pictures of anything on my PC.

And your hair is usually shorter?

It varies.

You have such a youthful look.

Usually just depends on how long it has been since I went to the barber.

Haha. Me too.

Some people think long hair looks younger, others shorter.

I don't understand where people find the willpower to have their hair cut every six weeks!

I don't know where people find the time.

Personal grooming is not high on my list of priorities. I keep myself clean, that's about it.

Random picture taken in Istanbul.

@KitFox Same.

And barely that, hehe.

That's a lot of cats.

Yup.

@KitFox Here's one sitting on my lap. My hair was very short there. Bad haircut anyway.

It's hard to tell. It looks kind of mulletish.

And that's my mother.

@KitFox Yeah, alas.

The one with the gray hair?

I have a talent for developing mullets.

Yes.

@Cerberus That is a rather unfortunate talent.

I know.

She seems too small and furry to be your mom.

I always tell them to cut it short, short in my neck, but they always whine and refuse.

Hehe.

Well, dig dogs come out of small cats.

I started reading some Lovecraft.

Is it good?

@Cerberus Why do you keep trying to undefine terms? It's no way to conduct an argument.

@z7sgѪ Because this is all about which label to apply to certain constructions.

@Cerberus I recognized the style immediately. It's pretty good, but I don't understand the cult.

And I think certain distinctions that some people make are not real.

I mean, why some people are crazy fans of his writing.

For me it is about a concrete and specific thing.

@KitFox Hmm...is it perhaps rather the concept of something like his Necronomicon that is interesting, rather than the actual stories? I have never read anything by him.

@Cerberus I guess. I have read three things of his now, and they are solidly written, in exactly the same style.

@z7sgѪ I think I probably don't disagree with any of the things you say on a fundamental level.

We both know how language works.

I am onto a fourth now, and still exactly the same presentation.

Hmm Trollope-like?

And Asimov?

There is all sorts of handwaving going on, just as it is with the rules about the subject always being in the nominative case.

But the writing is good, and the stories keep my interest.

Trollope I don't know.

Ok, that's good.

Asimov has a more conversational style, but yes, similar to that.

Actually quite similar if you consider the difference in time.

@z7sgѪ As I see it, some people read too much in "wrong". It doesn't have to mean that there is some objective standard, or that nobody with a sane mind ever uses it, and certainly not that it is immoral to use it or anything.

It also seems like Jules Verne, although it's been ages since I read his stuff, so I may be misremembering.

To me, "wrong" just means "not a good choice in the given context", often mainly because there is a clearly superior choice.

@KitFox Hmm Verne is a bit slower than Asimov as far as I remember.

Yeah, and it is in this sense that the answer is wrong.

And less imaginative—more about people who encounter difficulties during one expedition or another.

Lovecraft is more like dreadful, slowly unfolding horror mystery, but every story is just somebody recounting something.

Hmm.

I'm generally not into horror.

I shouldn't say it that way.

I've only read a very small portion.

Maybe other stuff is different.

I don't actually find it horrific.

But of course, they are morbid, etc.

Is his language enjoyable?

I love irony.

Lack of irony is dull.

@z7sgѪ If you feel like posting a more balanced answer of your own, cool, then we can drill that, hehe.

> What he did do was to become an almost fanatical devotee of subterranean magical lore, for which Miskatonic’s library was and is famous. Always a dweller on the surface of phantasy and strangeness, he now delved deep into the actual runes and riddles left by a fabulous past for the guidance or puzzlement of posterity. He read things like the frightful Book of Eibon, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, and the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred...

It's almost journalistic.

Recognizably early 20th century.

Hmm...

I see some old spellings.

But ehm I need to go to bed.

He used "shewed" a lot in one story.

I've been up since 6 am.

Oh. Good night!

@Cerberus If I quote the bard at least I can be certain nobody will downvote me.

Ah, that is old fashioned.

Much like Poe, now that I think about it.

@z7sgѪ Don't be so sure, I shirk at nothing!

Shirk?

Why did I say shirk?

head falls on desk, snoring

Good day to you all.

@KitFox Have fun!

Look who's here! You're just missing me.

For I am walking towards the exit of this room.

@Cerberus Who, me? Or Jasper?

Auf wiedersehen!

Oh, you. Jasper did speak.

Bye you and Jasper!

poof

Oh, OK. Bye!

Wow, I actually really like my new Russian e-mail.

It stores things on the Internet for me, up to 10 MB.

One of my FB friends had that running through her back yard.

@ClarkKent It's with a Russian e-mail provider.

The address ends in .ru.

The interface was in Russian until I changed it to English by accident.

@ClarkKent Nope.

Руц йьд щыч!

Йяга.

It doesn't actually mean anything.

@KitFox Definitely sounds like Lovecraft.

I think I could write in that style.

I am curious to try emulating it.

I'm reading The Case of Charles Dexter Ward right now.

When are you going out? Tomorrow?

No. Tuesday.

How long will you be gone, do you think?

Prolly be in the hospital 5 days. Then home. Won't be too mobile for a while.

I bought a Kindle Fire to use in the hospital. Reading plus Netflix, etc. Because hospital TV sucks ass.

Wow. That's a long recovery.

A Kindle is a great idea.

I'll miss having you here.

I have a Kindle already. But the Fire gives an added dimension.

So how long is your reading list?

@KitFox Annie and Brita from Community: Awwww!

@KitFox Pretty long. I doubt I'll finish everything.

Almost makes me want a knee replacement.

You'll be able to smuggle stuff now.

First on the list is Guns, Germs and Steel, then the Vinge, then Caesar's Gallic commentaries.

envy

Nah. I'll just get extra attention at the airport.

Good thing you are keeping the reading light.

That will help your recovery.

grins wolfishly

Yeah. I might be too out of it to do much, though.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: I've read that. It's very interesting but bring a glass of water cuz it's DRY

Speaking of dry, why am I not drinking right now?

because you can't reach the beer from your keyboard?

I don't know.

Hey! Sent from the Kindle Fire!

You mean, you'll be able to talk to us after all?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Well, I might just read the latest Stephen King book then: 11/22/63

@KitFox Could be. If the hospital has decent wi-fi.

Yay! I'm good at making semi-delirious people feel euphoric!

I can be helpful!

Jared Diamond has another book called "Collapse", which is far easier to read than GG&S. Not as interesting a premise but overall worth reading as well.

By the way, announcement to everyone. You must begin watching Community from the beginning and get up to speed before the season ends. It is the funniest show ever.

And it's in danger of being canceled because of low ratings.

Because it's so smart and funny and stupid people don't respond to that.

er, All the TV I watch is downloaded ducks

But you are all smart, so ...

Is it like Arrested Development?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Porn? Really, Mrs. Hiny?

@KitFox In a way. But smarter and funnier.

@Robusto haha no

It is a complete subversion of the Friends-style ensemble sitcom.

unless you count "Game of Boobs Thrones" or "True Boobs Blood"

It is a complete subversion of TV in general, and society in even more general.

Someone say boobs?

Anyway, I must go.

My buddies at work were leery of my boosterism of this show, so I said I was making them the Breaking Bad guarantee.

Later!

yeah me too. later!

Wait! You must commit to watching Community!

Ah, fine.

I'll give it a shot

bye

CU

Anyway, I told them, "Remember how when you thought I was over-selling Breaking Bad, and now it looks like underselling to you?" And they nodded sheepishly. So I added, "If you give Community a chance you will love it like that. Seriously."

Anyway, nobody will read this, so wevs.

Out.

@Robusto raises hand sheepishly I… I read it.

@Mitch: Thank you, you're the only one whose answers makes sense.

@Robusto they started showing the first season here a couple weeks ago. My wife and I watched 1½ episodes, got bored to death, and saw no point in tuning in ever again. I might give it a second chance now that you're selling it, but even so you might wish to omit "from the beginning" from your pitch.

gootun mergun

Currying favour, huh. Nice one.

I'm thinking about lunch :D

phrases.org.uk/meanings/curry-favour.html

Fascinating.

Both words are mishearings.

very interesting!

I'd never thought bout the phrase before. I'd always assumed curry meant gather in some form that is not used in other contexts anymore

now I know it's about spicing up a donkey

I am trying to make sense of a sentence on Wikipedia.

> QWOP was originally created in November 2008 by Bennett Foddy for his site Foddy.net, whom Foddy was a Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow of the Programme on the Ethics of the New Biosciences, The Oxford Martin School, part of the University of Oxford,

What is the "whom" doing there?

I mean, it's clear it doesn't belong there, but what does?

BTW that's the entire sentence. Ending in a comma, yes.

"While"?

"When"?

Or just delete it and add a full stop.

Whats happening?

Definitely supposed to be “when”.

Hola.

Just read an interesting review of Henry Hitchings' book The Language Wars: A History of Proper English. I may have to put that on my hospital reading list, if I can get it on the Kindle.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I was speaking to Americans. I'm not sure non-native speakers would get the humor. There are so many allusions, subversions of tropes, jokes that turn on nuances of meaning, that I think most of the rest of the world would find it incomprehensible. And if it were dubbed in translation, that would be sad, because this is a uniquely American satire, one which at once mocks and celebrates American institutions and persuasions.

@Robusto I knew you would play that card.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Why don't you change your name to RegDwightTheAll-Knowing?

In any case, thanks for characterizing my sincere explanation to the base and possibly disingenuous level of "playing a card."

Nah, don't get grumpy just yet.

In any case, thanks for characterizing my sincere response to the base and dismissive level of "getting grumpy."

There are lots and lots of uniquely American stuffs out there. Everything about Seinfeld is uniquely American, and yet I can connect. Even when it's dubbed.

For all of Seinfeld's manifest excellence, its humor is more basic and obvious.

Of course.

But there are lots of plays on words, allusions, subversions of tropes as well.

Anyway. I was actually going to comment on that book.

Let me know if it's any good before I spend actual sponduli. Because so far I'm not quite convinced.

> I'm afraid I can't give you much of a review, as this book is a gift for my brother, who requested it. Although, from just glancing at it, I was not impressed.

See?

There are more reviews like that.

Read this review of a recent episode of Community.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 The New Yorker gives it a lukewarm review, but their review argues from an essentially prescriptivist position, and Hitchings' book is unabashedly descriptivist.

Well, perhaps "unabashedly" overstates the case. Here's an excerpt:

> But the most curious flaw in the descriptivists' reasoning is their failure to notice that it is now they who are doing the prescribing. By the eighties, the goal of objectivity had been replaced, at least in the universities, by the postmodern view that there is no such thing as objectivity: every statement is subjective, partial, full of biases and secret messages.

> And so the descriptivists, with what they regarded as their trump card — that they were being accurate — came to look naïve, and the prescriptivists, with their admission that they held a specific point of view, became the realists, the wised-up.

It's alive!

No surgery today?

@Robusto I am not unsympathetic to this analysis.

@Cerberus A careful reading of the transcript would reveal that my surgery is scheduled for Tuesday next.

Oh!

So alive enough.

We'll have you jump through a few hoops then, while you still can.

Or is it the other way around?

can-can

Hello.

Hello.

I bet he can-can.

Unless his knee hurts too much.

@Robusto Wishful thinking. The author doesn't hang out on Reddit. Or the Internet. Then he'd know that for every wised-up realist, there are tens of thousands kids who will prescribe you things just because. When pressed, they won't be able to tell a preposition from a litotes, and yet they will insist that you must use "fewer" because, you know, it's passive tense.

Metaphorical hoops I can handle. Alas, my real hoops days are pretty much over. And by "hoops" I mean basketball.

and by basketball I mean bucketball

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I think you mean "present case."

It's only a week ago that I read somewhere that you should not split infinitives in English because English comes from Latin. With dozens of comments thanking the author.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Well, you can find that on ELU, no doubt.

We try to make it not so.

If you're Picard, does that make Robusto Riker?

The point is, there is a rational middle course. If not we face a dilemma: chaos or paralysis.

Agreed.

But the goodie-goodie "anything goes" stuff makes me puke.

Sorry.

@MattЭллен RegDwight is a sly subversion of the Picardy Third. He goes merrily along in a major key but reveals a minor tonic chord at the end.

How would I ever have learned English if every style book had told me "write whatever you like"?

@Cerberus I happen to agree.

The middle course only exists in New Yorker's reality. On the Internet, you can only be wrong. Prescriptivist, descriptivist, doesn't matter.

I have question about English language.

You should have done this. Does this sentence sound like I am angry?

@Cerberus see, you make an important distinction there. Style book.

@Cerberus any thin goose

People, in general, are not aware of the difference between style and grammar.

Not just in English. Everywhere.

"You could have done this" and "You should have done this". For me "should" in this sentence sound like I am anger.

On E. B. White: "White, addressing the question of "I" versus "me," in The Elements of Style, asks, "Would you write, 'The worst tennis player around here is I' or 'The worst tennis player around here is me'? The first is good grammar, the second is good judgment."

This is a middle course. Those who have lambasted Strunk & White have done so from a polemical, polarized stance that fails to take into account the real purpose of the book. It is not so prescriptivist as people like @nohat imagine, and certainly not worth gnashing one's teeth over.

@Anonymous anger is a noun. angry is the adjective

@Robusto most people wouldn't so much as understand what he's saying. They will only get the bit about "good grammar".

@Anonymous saying should could convey anger, but it could also be said in a "matter of fact way"

@Anonymous so it would be a suggestion for improvement

Christ, even the arch-prescriptivist Fowler derides those who rail against split infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions.

"I can see you're estimating pi with string, you should try using polygons of ever more sides" <- not angry, but matter of fact.

@Robusto BTW, before I forget. I have read that review now. I'd have to see the episode. The review did nothing for me.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 So because "most people" would not understand something does that mean smart people should go along?

So, should can be angry or a matter of fact. Right?

@Anonymous yes

@Robusto you know very well that that's not a point I could possibly be making.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 OK. Well, there is a great chance that you simply would not like Community. As a reasonable person, I have to allow that it may not be to everyone's taste. But I do think it is a gem, and I am still young enough to be proselytizing about my enthusiasms.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I think we have come to many balanced answers on this here site.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I have only your words to consider. What did you mean then?

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Then what else are we talking about? We are in part a style guide.

@Cerberus you were talking about learning English.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I contend that there is no principal difference.

People don't start by learning style.

oh, you can't learn style. you're born with it

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I think style is indistinguishable from the rest of speech. So people do start by learning style, with their mother's milk and her English too.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Who cares about those people?

@Robusto we are talking about pineapples here. Specifically, Cerberus was talking about himself.

@Robusto This.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 We all learn the same Englishes.

@Cerberus How is it "this"? You learned English with your mother's milk?

@Cerberus Pineapples do not

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 It is the same thing we learn.

I learned an English in which "I will" and "you shall" was ungrammatical. I would get an F for using either.

BTW, I learned that a 1699 slang dictionary reveals "Hogen-Mogen" as a term meaning "Dutchman"; any idea where that might have come from?

Anyone's speech partakes of style. So the first style a baby learns is that of its mother.

All I can think of is Hoogmogende, which is an archaic title of address.

But it is a rather high form of address, not something one would have said to the average Dutch merchant.

A prince, rather.

I have another question.

@Cerberus Well, but a term like "hocus pocus" is abstracted away from the liturgical Latin. People hear things without understanding them.

Do gold, cold, old have schwa sound?

No.

@Robusto Hmm true. It could be that English workers heard this term used without understanding what it was and it struck them as typical for the Dutch g sound (/x/)?

My teacher taught me gold pronounce like go-əld.

Is your teacher from the north of England?

@Robusto I mean that the book is most obviously about style — it carries the word in the title, FFS — but the said "most people" are morons and don't notice that. So what they take from it is that "passive voice is bad grammar". You know I'm not making that up, they will literally say just that. If a style books fails to convey that it's a book about style, then it's not a good book.

@Anonymous that's not standard anywhere i've ever been

@Anonymous Your teacher pronounces it with a diphthong, which would be dialectical.

She comes from the United States.

I wrote feedback about gold has schwa sound.

oh, are we bagging on The Elements of Style? i can totally get on that train

And she wrote this in her feedback to me "Also, if you write that there is a schwa vowel in "gold," almost everybody will say you're wrong. Only a phonetician would know about the schwa + "l" and the schwa + "r" combinations where the schwa helps you to pronounce the following "l" and "r." In phonetics, it's written as a superscript before the "l" and "r.""

Gold /gəʊld/.

gold   /goʊld/

@Cerberus but i don't say that

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 It should not be read by people who can't understand it.

@JSBᾶngs Bri'ish, man!

@Cerberus weirdly OED agrees with you

@JSBᾶngs actually we are not. My point is that any book about style is as good as any other, as style is in the eye of the beholder, by definition, but once millions of people start to mistake it for a book about grammar it becomes dangerous.

I am trying to pronounce it like that

I can't

@Anonymous in my middle american dialect, in fact, it goes the other way. i pronounce goad as [gəʊd], but the /l/ triggers monophthongization [gold]

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Yes, I agree. And the point you are making is that most people can't think for themselves, but want to be told what to think and do. I hope you're not putting that forth as an argument against presenting nuanced material in a book.

@MattЭллен Why is that weird?

RP.

My teacher always tells me to ask how other people think about what she taught me.

@Cerberus thank you. That's the point I'm making. Nobody reads the Chicago Manual of Style, after all. But S&W is populist enough to cater to the hoi polloi.

@Cerberus I'm probably pronouncing the schwa wrong. I forget how to prounounce all those symbols

plugs ears

@MattЭллен I must admit I can't pronounce the ʊ.

I just studied how to pronounce upside down e sound today. I can pronounce it but I am not sure I understand her correctly or not. :)

@Cerberus I pronounce it (if I really slow down) go-uld

I only know that I do hear a schwa in RP "gold".

@Robusto I don't think I'm really arguing against any book. But you can see what happens when tens of millions start taking stuff down the wrong throat. Case in point: The Bible.

Well, maybe a weakish schwa.

@MattЭллен She taught that to. She said some people might pronounce go-uld

and OED tells me go is /gəʊ/

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Yes, and the Nazis read Nietzsche without understanding his writing. Nietzsche's "will to power" was not a "will to dominate" but that is what they took it to mean.

@MattЭллен That probably sounds like /goʊld/ then...

Oh dear, who who's here!

Who who?

who who?

jinx

That's owl talk.

Mrs Hiny.

@Cerberus I was copy/pasting the dictionary.com IPA

The phrase the hoi polloi has already been spotted!

Ah jinx!

jinx

See?

I know what you like.

@MattЭллен Yeah I can never understand that.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 that's a late reaction. But better late than never.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Wow, you sensed a redundancy and rappelled in here like an action hero to deal with it? I'm impressed.

I was baiting Cerberus. But he's not awake yet.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Well, I only just got here

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 What? How? When?

@Robusto Actually I sensed Cerberus-bait

Hey you're not supposed to eat my bait!

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 In some dialects, beating is pronounced like baiting — Irish, for example. Some versions of it, anyway.

@Cerberus QED

Your bait tastes weird.

@Robusto my version of Irish is 1.3.14.

lol

It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

you misspelled "baiter"

That's master baiter to you, pal.

I'm not sure how far this joke should be pushed.

Over the 9000 edge.

Haha.

Baiter's buttock.

How many in a baiter's dozen?

Seven.

Seven Costanza.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 That's the one that only runs on Windows XP, right?

@Robusto I'm on your buntu right now.

Eww.

Get a room.

You go chew some more bait.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 That's Debiant sexuality for you.

Oh, you picked this room.

@Robusto I am getting SuSEd to your lame jokes.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I thought you were into BSD. My bad.

Would he be the dominixatrix?

Well, you people have made me late for work again. Gotta commute. See you on the flip side.

adios!