English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Færd

19:00

Ah.

What would the proper way be?

Cerberus

So we were corrected for pronouncing bijl "axe" like bel "bell".

Færd

Aha

Cerberus

The problem is that the "proper" way is like German/French.

Færd

The old-fashion way.

Cerberus

Which sounds over-emphasised, longer, to us.

Yes.

Or at least, it is perceived as old fashioned: I suspect it was always an import from French/German.

Færd

19:01

So there was at least one time when you did rebel against some tradition.

Cerberus

Always!

Færd

Yeah you're quite conservative when it comes to linguistics, I'd say.

Cerberus

Although in this case I did not so much rebel as care little.

Sure, like many people.

The problem is that the German/French L sounds really long and exaggerated in Dutch, as in English.

So maybe that's what we're hearing when we feel that Frenchmen are saying peepollll.

Færd

So the French way is a more watered down consonant, moved toward becoming a vowel?

Cerberus

Or it is both.

Færd

19:03

No that's not it.

Feeds

-2

Q: What's the word you call people who always talk about other people

What's the word you call people who always talk about other people on what they do / and their personality? They point out their opinion about them and their flaws and what not.

Cerberus

@Færd You could say that: it requires enunciation such that it influences the preceding vowel.

Færd

It has mroe to do with the state of the tongue or something.

Cerberus

Yes.

Færd

You'd no better.

Fuck. I meant know better.

Hahaha

Cerberus

19:06

Happens to us all.

I can hear a Frenchman saying /pɪ.pɜll/ in my mind as well.

I think different vowels are possible?

But the L remains highly distinctive.

Færd

I heard it all day today from this French lady.

Cerberus

Oh?

Færd

We went hiking together.

And there was a German man too, with a noticeable German accent.

But his Ls didn't strike me as unusual.

Mitch

Or you could all just be wrong

Færd

That's almost always a possibility.

Mitch

19:09

It could be a very likely possibility

tchrist

1

A: (Noun) being (noun) verb ... AND With (noun) being (noun), ...?

a) English not being my first language does negatively affect my productivity. b) With my first language not being English, my productivity is negatively affected. (I've taken the liberty of changing achievement in work to productivity in the above sentences) These are both grammat...

Cerberus

That sounds like fun.

Mitch

so were these French and German people speaking English?

Cerberus

If he had a noticeable accent, then he probably also had the L?

Færd

@Cerberus I didn't notice it in the German guy's speech.

@Mitch Yeah

Mitch

19:10

And were they tourists?

Færd

Yeap

Mitch

Sometimes non-native speakers will mispronounce the native language even though their own language has he sound.

Færd

I did occasionally pretend to switch to German or French tho.

@Mitch Oh yeah

Mitch

Did they ever switch to something else?

Færd

They twist their tongues randomly to appear genuine.

@Mitch Their own native languages, a few times.

Mitch

19:13

language learners aren't consistent in their adoption of non-native sounds. Some get it. some don't. Germans can pronounce /v/ and /f/ but sometimes they get the spelling mixed up, sometimes, they get it just fine (and same for English speakers)

Færd

But I thing the French girl mispronounced people for another reason.

Mitch

Were you leading the hike?

Færd

Not for the reason you're explaining now

Yeah

Mitch

@Færd Maybe she is right and English pepole are wrong.

Færd

She also did all the ð sounds more like z

Mitch

19:15

th is hard. but some people get it some don't.

Færd

@Mitch So generous of you

Cerberus

Speaking with a GERMAN ACCENT | Funny!

►

Mitch

I guess 'l's aren't so easy in the sense that al europeans have it but just have their own special way

Cerberus

This is a bad example, but listen to the word bicycles. The link is set to the right time frame.

Færd

Cool. I'll watch it later.

Mitch

19:16

@Færd I am generous!

Cerberus

@Færd Oh, and 15 seconds later she says peepoll and coupell.

Mitch

@Cerberus I used to watch her but personality is a bit too enthusiastic for me

Cerberus

Oh, you knew her?

I did not.

Færd

@Mitch Selfishly so

Mitch

@Cerberus Oh. haha. I think you're right. that it's the 'l'

Cerberus

19:17

Indeed.

Mitch

@Færd I could have not given anything at all

@Cerberus knew of her

Cerberus

I know.

Færd

She's a famous YTer among Germans who post in English about their native language.

Cerberus

Really, you knew her too?

Færd

Yeah

Cerberus

19:19

Why am I the only one who didn't.

Mitch

the syllabic end of word 'l' in standard English, at the end of 'bottle' and 'apple' is the light l.

Færd

I rummaged thru YT to find all the best ones.

Mitch

which is halfway towards the Polish 'l' which is more like a 'w'

@Cerberus you do now

Cerberus

22 mins ago, by Cerberus

Interestingly, the fat Slavic L sounds lower class to us.

Mitch

I think that accounts for 'people' sounding like /'pi: pel/

dang it, IPA doesn't have the English 'l'

@Cerberus oh. I didn't think of Polish as slavic

in that way

not that there's anything wrong with 'that way'

Cerberus

19:22

I think the Dutch L is even flatter than the English one.

Now I'm thinking about the English voiceless stops, which are so different from Dutch.

Mitch

The British sometimes pronounce their word final 'l's closer to a 'w' (to American ears), and it sounds like a speech impediment

Cerberus

Could they be Scandinavian?

Mitch

@Cerberus p,t,k?

Cerberus

@Mitch Isn't that lower class Englisj?

@Mitch Yes.

Mitch

@Cerberus Brits sound more upper class to Americans

Cerberus

19:24

I cawwed him.

That sounds like lower-class British to me.

Mitch

@Cerberus different in what way?

Cerberus

@Mitch Aspirated in English.

Like German.

I suppose.

Unlike French.

Mitch

@Cerberus To Americans, any (native) accent sounds British and therefore upper class, even Cockney

Cerberus

So maybe Dutch has the French voiceless stops.

@Mitch Then they need more education.

Mitch

@Cerberus right

Cerberus

19:25

Besides, I think lower-class or Southern US accents also have a fatter L.

Mitch

@Cerberus more exposure

Færd

@Mitch You knwo what's hard? The four different tongue clicks that they have in South Africa.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm trying to imagine that

Færd

I learned about them yesterday.

Cerberus

@Mitch British comedy is education!

Mitch

19:26

@Færd Not to them!

Cerberus

@Mitch Imagine a New York gangster of Italian descent over-emphasing the L in I was laughing.

Mitch

@Cerberus Only boring nerds watch PBS which is the only place you'll hear such things

Or in Fast and Furious 7 with Jason Statham.

Cerberus

At least they're not stupid or weltfremd...

Mitch

@Cerberus hm... Thatt doesn't sound different to me.

uh oh

That means I'm an Italian gangster

At least they dress well

Cerberus

Actually, the word welt is nice. Look it up on Forvo in English and German, and compare the pronunciation.

Færd

19:29

Pretty much the only British comedy show I liked was The IT Crowd.

Cerberus

No Yes, Minister?

Mitch

@Cerberus why would they have English pronunciations?

Færd

@Cerberus I tried to watch it, but failed!

Mitch

The Great British Baking show is good, they get people from everywhere

Cerberus

@Mitch Because...it is also an English word.

Mitch

19:30

and you learn how to bake.

Cerberus

@Færd Failed?

Mitch

@Cerberus it is?

Cerberus

I need to buy food now.

@Mitch So you've never had one.

Færd

@Cerberus It didn't absorb me much.

Mitch

@Cerberus A welt? No.

Færd

19:31

I could see the appeal it could have to others tho.

Mitch

I live in the real world, not some falsches welt

@Cerberus you should run. They're about to close, 30 min.

Cerberus

@Færd The language joke and the bureaucracy are what makes it fun. If you don't like either of those two, you might not like it.

@Mitch 28!

Mitch

Oh, also, they redo eery good British thing entierly with American script and actors.

so there's no reason to ever hear anything a little out of the ordinary.

@Cerberus Tick tock.

I also feel like I have a deadline looming but if it is toast about to burn, the smoke alarm will remind me.

Matt E. Эллен

@Cerberus I hadn't heard of her either

@Mitch Especially Jonathon Ross.

The other option is to drop the /l/ all together as people from Plymouth do in places, e.g. gold sounds like goad, old sound like ode

oh, no, Jonathan Ross has the r->w speech impediment

but Londoners often pronouns final /l/ as w

Mitch

19:48

@MattE.Эллен Exactly. If heard out of context, it sounds like he had trouble with it as a child, but sometimes I hear slighter ones in other British speakers... Steve Coogan?

@MattE.Эллен oh

so I'm mixing it up with the thing that the Romans did in "Life of Bwyan"

"Wife of Bwyan"?

@MattE.Эллен maybe that's it

Cerberus

@Mitch That is absurd.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен That sounds a little southern US to me, maybe AAE

@Cerberus The Office is famous for it.

But I think I heard 'Friends' had a British precursor

Oh 'House of Cards'

Cerberus

@Mitch Oh, I've only seen the original.

Which was fun.

Mitch

The American one is with Kevin Spacey

@Cerberus Entirely irrelevantly, David Mamet had a movie called House of Cards which was about a psychiatrist doing research into gambling addiction but it turns out she's getting conned...or is she?

That was an excellent, underrated movie

Cerberus

Ah.

@Mitch Not the original.

Mitch

19:57

@Cerberus right

Mad Max (the one from the late 70's) dubbed Mel Gibson's Australian accent with ... Mel Gibson's American accent (he lived a few years as a teenager in Australia and used it for the filming.

Gigili

People, flag something.

I need excitement in my life.

Mitch

@Gigili Finger, electrical socket, pizzazz!

@Cerberus So? Did you get your groceries?

Jasper Loy

Have you heard any rumours that Apple will release a new Macbook this year?

Mitch

@JasperLoy I heard a rumor, well actually an announcement, that Apple was going to do something big...this week? Next?

Jasper Loy

@Mitch I don't know how to speak with an Australian accent, maybe because I haven't heard much Australian.

Mitch

20:06

The next OS is planned to come out end of this month/maybe October?

I can't remember facts anymore. They're all gonna change soon anyway.

Cerberus

@Mitch I did.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Well, they will release 10.14 Mojave this month or next, but that is expected.

Cerberus

@Mitch Horrible!

Mitch

@JasperLoy 'ever' is pronounced 'eevah'

That's all I know

Or 'South Eefrica'

Or is that a South African accent?

again, facts. can't remember. will change

Cerberus

@Mitch A German television series was recently dubbed for Dutch television, some voices by the original actors (at least one is Dutch, I think). It was a scandal of front-page proportions, it was in all the papers.

Jasper Loy

20:07

I find the Macbook Air not worth the money, and the Macbook too expensive for its size, and the Macbook Pro just too expensive. So basically I won't buy any Apple laptops!

Mitch

For example, how many gigs in a thumbdrive?

I thought it was 16. Now it's like 256 for a cheap one

@Cerberus So?

Anything good?

Jasper Loy

I have more or less decided to get the Acer Swift 3 later this week.

Gigili

@Mitch Well, that'd be exciting for the observers.

Mitch

Did you get your recommended daily allotment of chocolate?

Cerberus

@Mitch Mineola's and bitterballen.

Mitch

20:09

I never have chocolate listed on my grocery list because it would be insane to leave the store without some.

Cerberus

And chocolate cake, yes, which unfortunately was on discount so I couldn't resist...

Mitch

@JasperLoy Apple is all secrets

Jasper Loy

I like bittersweet chocolate but not chocolate cake.

Mitch

@Cerberus His Australian accent was really hard to understand.

Jasper Loy

I like mild cheddar cheese but not cheese cake.

Mitch

20:10

Crocodile Dundee had an accent but he was supposed to.

Jasper Loy

I like tiramisu but not alcohol.

Cerberus

@Mitch That's what subtitles are for. You don't lose the original sound and character of the work. Unless it isn't considered proper art, in which case it doesn't matter.

@JasperLoy It greatly depends on the cake.

Mitch

@JasperLoy I am typing this on a MacBook Air and I've never h

Cerberus

Try a good cake from a good baker.

Jasper Loy

@Cerberus Yes, I really think we need to preserve the original sound and just use subtitles.

Cerberus

20:11

Yes.

Jasper Loy

I think the cheese or chocolate should not overwhelm the cake.

Most of the cheese cakes and chocolate cakes I tried are too strong.

Cake should still taste like cake.

Cerberus

@Gigili I apologize for putting you on ignore for a very long time. It was disproportionate. I can understand if now you don't want to talk to me any more.

Jasper Loy

I hope you didn't put me on ignore!

Cerberus

I'm stubborn and stubbornness can grow into a habit.

Jasper Loy

But I don't talk that much anyway.

Cerberus

20:14

I see.

Mitch

@Cerberus Are those... good?

Jasper Loy

@Cerberus I starred it because this advice just sounds so delicious.

Mitch

@Cerberus OMG the best of both worlds

Cerberus

@Mitch Yes.

@JasperLoy Good.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Do you enjoy using your Macbook Air?

Mitch

20:17

@Cerberus Subtitles in movies are like looking at your feet while you walk. You may avoid tripping but you haven't seen anything.

@Cerberus at least you're consistent

Cerberus

@Mitch Don't be silly.

Mitch

@JasperLoy I write like no one is reading!

Wait...

That could explain a lot of not responding.

@Cerberus what ... are they? can you eat them for a meal? together? Do you have to cook them for hours or are they ready-to-eat?

Jasper Loy

I actually did suspect on a few occasions that @Mitch is actually the same person as @Gigili.

Cerberus

@Mitch Mineolas are a cross between oranges and mandarins, sour citrus.

Bitterballen are a snack, ragoût in a crumbly crust shaped like balls.

They aren't bitter at all. The name is a mystery.

@JasperLoy I'm sure that's true.

Mitch

@JasperLoy Some people go wild over Macs. I think they're good but I'm no fanatic. I really am annoyed when I have to use a MS Windows interface. What I say about the two is that you can get everything you want done just as easily either on the Mac or Windows (with some minor differences)

... but that for most of the design decisions made by the two companies where they differ, MS just had some some summer intern make a bad snap decision and just slide test code into production release, where Apple spent a year and 20 people an choosing the right color for the 1-pixel margin on an unreachable system dialog box.

@Cerberus At least one unbiased intelligent person in this chat finds what I say important and memorable.

@JasperLoy direct bank transfer done

Cerberus

20:26

@Mitch Such as where?

@Mitch Most of it is.

Mitch

@JasperLoy hahhaha so Cerb has heard everything that 'Gigli' was going to say anyway.

Irony is sweet

Cerberus

But your and Reg's attacks on subtitles are silly.

Mitch

unless it is rusty

then it tastes... rusty

@Cerberus hm... probably the manufacturer's family name

sweet or savory?

Cerberus

This is not America.

Mitch

the snack that is

Cerberus

20:28

Most of our products aren't named after companies.

Mitch

@Cerberus oh...and starrable.

especially when I am right

@Cerberus Well, your face is silly

@Cerberus Then Bitterballen is a poor choice for food.

Cerberus

It is a great snack.

Mitch

I would totally consider buying Susballen

Or Salzballen

Cerberus

And one all foreigners like, unlike another of our famous snacks, raw herring.

Mitch

or Schocoladenballen

@Cerberus Even that I would consider, of only for maybe breakfast. Matjesballen

@Cerberus Sorry, a poor choice for the name of the food.

Cerberus

20:31

Matjesballen?

Mitch

@Cerberus Not yet!

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, I don't think anyone ever consciously chose it.

Mitch

@Cerberus Herringballen?

Gigili

@Mitch It's sad that you cannot even spell your own name. Unless that's just another way that you're exceptional.

Mitch

Rolled herring filets?

Cerberus

20:32

@Mitch Oh, you mean a maatje? That is like the unit name for raw herring.

Mitch

@Cerberus Well, that's why America is great. That's all they think about.

Cerberus

A matje is a little mat.

Mitch

You know those big trucks made in America? They thought real hard about what should be printed on the front. They thought real hard and they came up with 'Dodge'

Public. Service. Announcement.

@Gigili I think I'll choose ... #2.

@Cerberus That's what they look like after you step on them.

also taste

@Cerberus Just one little fish? and 'herring' is for the whole school?

@Gigili I know this is a feeble comeback but, same to you?

Cerberus

@Mitch Doesn't anything?

@Mitch No, a haring is one fish. A prepared haring, all cleaned and filleted, and served with condiments, is a maatje haring (I think).

Mitch

Full disclosure, I find dubbing very annoying because the lips don't move with the sound. It's very disconcerting. Also makes you feel like you're in kindergarten, like you won't notice that.

Cerberus

20:37

Like a slice of cheese, a pitcher of wine.

@Mitch Thank you!

Maatje = little maat, where maat = measure.

Mitch

@Cerberus You said 'unit fish'. Which I took to mean... well.. a unit fish.

a singleton.

one fish

just one.

not more

not a bunch

Cerberus

A unit of herring ready for consumption.

So, yes, it will be the fillet of a single herring, all prepared and stuff.

Mitch

but a single herring is still a herring?

and just one?

Cerberus

Sure.

Mitch

Just not yet ready to eat?

Cerberus

20:39

Although I think in English herring can be countable noun and mass noun?

Mitch

or just not ready to eat in that one very specific way?

@Cerberus so what is it in Dutch?

Cerberus

Haring, like English herring, is just the general name of the fish. Could be a maatje haring, could be a living fish.

Mitch

all fish in English are both mass and count

Let's have fish for dinner

Cerberus

@Mitch One haring is swimming away from your, two haringen are swimming towards you.

Mitch

I caught a fish so we could have fish for dinner

Cerberus

20:41

@Mitch The word fish, to be sure.

But all species of fish, really?

Mitch

@Cerberus I caught a huge tuna today with a harpoon, so we could have tuna for dinner.

Tunafish if you're southern

Or if you get it out of a can

Cerberus

Fair enough, because it can be eaten.

I think I actually meant plural, as in, I saw lots of tuna swimming in the sea.

Mitch

BUT!!!

Cerberus

No, not real plural.

Mitch

But there are porbalems with subtitles.

Cerberus

20:42

I don't know any more!

Mitch

I spend all my time reading them that I miss facial expressions, important things like the bloody knife in the top right corner of the screen (not as uncommon as you might think)

and other stuff

What other stuff you might ask?

I DON"T KNOW BECAUSE I AM TOO BUSY TRYING TO READ THE SUBTITLES

Cerberus

Then how come nobody who is used to subtitles misses those things?

Reading is much faster than listening.

Mitch

Uh no

Cerberus

So you have plenty of time to see everything.

Mitch

Someone talks, you listen you're done.

Someone puts text on a screen, you read, you read again, have they spoken that already, no, they're subtitling the next cut, or was the next subtitle for this cut, and oh damn I missed the naked lady.

Whereas with dubbing... who cares what they're talking about!

Cerberus

20:48

Nah.

Jasper Loy

@cerberus Do you know the singer Martin Hurkens?

Cerberus

It's all natural.

Jasper Loy

Martin Hurkens - You Raise me Up (L1 TV, www.L1.nl)

►

Cerberus

@JasperLoy Nope.

Jasper Loy

I love his singing. Here he sings on the streets in Maastricht.

This version of the song is very special to me, for some reasons I will keep a secret. Every time I hear it I will cry now.

Cerberus

20:50

Ah, I was just wondering, could it be Maastricht?

Crying can be good.

Mitch

Maastrict might as well be part of Germany or Belgium or Luxembourg

Unnatural borders

like someone gerrymandered the country

OK

Cerberus

The result of many battles.

For some period, it was even cut off from the rest of the country, I believe.

Mitch

Dubbing is doubly worse than subtitles. You're not starting at your feet while walking, but you're walking through a forest of palm trees wondering why it is snowing.

Jasper Loy

I think he won Holland's Got Talent years ago @Cerberus.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy That's nice.

@Mitch Very true. And you're wondering why the snow is made of plastic.

Mitch

20:56

@Cerberus And why does the air smell like bubblebath and ... is that boiling potatoes?

@Cerberus I don't see the Grand Duchy of Fenwick

Cerberus

@Mitch Whose?

I didn't know old Fenwick got himself a Grand Duchy.

Sounds like Blackadder.

Look, this Roman bowl was dug up in Holland.

There are only similar bowls known in Europe, and only one with an eagle's head.

Jasper Loy

I am going to sleep.

Cerberus

Goo dluck.

Mitch

21:16

@Cerberus Oops. the duchy of Grand Fenwick

Grand Fenwick

The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is a tiny fictional country created by Leonard Wibberley in a series of comedic novels beginning with The Mouse That Roared (1955), which was later made into a film. In the novels, Wibberley goes beyond the merely comic, placing the tiny nation (15 square miles/39 square kilometres) in absurd situations so as to comment satirically on contemporary politics and events. == History and topography == The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is described as no more than five miles (8 km) long and three miles (5 km) wide and lies in a fold in the Northern Alps. The imaginary country features...

@Cerberus so hard to clean

@Cerberus we wish you dluck that is better than goo

Cerberus

Dluck?

Mitch

Do I need to spell it out for you?

Cerberus

Preferably.

Are you somehow comparing luck to goo? Are you comparing duck with eagle?

Mitch

20 mins ago, by Cerberus

Goo dluck.

Cerberus

Ohhh.

Hah.

Mitch

21:29

haha

Cerberus

Somehow, I didn't notice my own typo, not even when I looked at it earlier.

I had hovered over your reply.

Mitch

There is no humor lower than a pun

unless it is making fun of someone else's typos

Cerberus

Homour is like humus.

Mitch

that's not what I think of when I think of humus

Cerberus

Then what do you think of?

RegDwigнt

22:39

Lupo lupini humus.

BTW @Cerberus last night I actually solved the Megaminx thingie. I still couldn't recall the two special algorithms for solving the last layer, but I just used the same algorithm I used for solving all the other ones and it worked.

So it's possible to solve the entire thing using just one single set of moves. And a very simple one at that.

You just grab two adjacent faces, and turn each of them back and forth three times, alternating. Kind of like a pair of cog wheels. Very simple.

And all that does is swap two pairs of opposing corners, without changing anything else at all. And that is all you need to solve the whole puzzle.

Told you it was one of the simplest of them all.

Cerberus

22:58

@RegDwigнt Hmm that sounds like something even I could do.

Congratulations.

Any new recordings coming along?

Mitch

23:32

@Cerberus I think of deep dark rich soil.

Rich like chocolate

Rich enough to grow thousand's of sq miles of corn and soybean

mmm

Cerberus

Indeed.

Mitch

hummus makes me think of chick pea goop

tchrist

github.com/georgd/EB-Garamond/blob/master/specimen/…

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…