English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2018-11-14

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12:00 AM

A future hypothetical using present tense.
It's a weird question, I know...

It says "simple present": that is the name of the tense.

(Depending on one's definition of tense.)

12:27 AM

@Cerberus "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me."

a bit old fashioned to have present subjunctive.

but thoroughly modern in the 'mandative': "I recommend that I be removed from the jury pool"

(I made that up!)

I'm trying to understand the difference between these two situations:
"The painting that hangs in the gallery..."
Reduced to this: "The painting hanging in the gallery..."
Versus this:
"The girl who wins the tournament..."
"The girl winning the tournament..."
There is a problem here.
I'm thinking it's because "wins" is not simple present tense in the way that "hangs" is.
It's a "future hypothetical" situation which uses simple present tense, but you can't just drop the S and add "ing" and get the same thing as if it really were.

1 hour later…

1:36 AM

@KannE No, it's kind of a faux future tense.

Or maybe faux subjunctive?

Philosophers have pondered this situation for years.

Centuries, even.

1:59 AM

@Robusto fauxqueparfait

A sundae made with tofu

@KannE yeah, hang and win are different temporally.

'win' describes an event that happens t a point.

'hang' just occurs over time

oh yeah and 'winning' is a process leading to the event

and 'hanging' is the same as just 'hang', it just is.

but that's just lexical semantics, and not really about the conjugation or syntax of hang and win

These are things they just don't teach explicitly ever in EFL class (much less in native English grammar class).

2 hours later…

4:27 AM

@Mitch Well, I just figured out that I know more about it than a professional--ESL teacher paid to write an article for Thought Co.--not much of a professional, but he got paid. Where is that emeritus dude when you need him? He was like--What? Reducing clauses? Hell-nah, that's natural; you can't teach that...in a hundred years.

1 hour later…

5:56 AM

@Mitch Hence my "(and even that statement I should have qualified)".

@Mitch Yes, and that has nothing to do with conditionals.

@KannE Mitch is right here that the problem has to do with the meanings of the verbs and the situation they're supposed to describe, not the tenses (which are identical).

The present tense in conditional clauses is I think unrelated.

1 hour later…

7:11 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, potentially bad keyword in answer, toxic answer detected (162): What do you call the person whom you ship your product to? by dickhead on english.SE

3 hours later…

9:59 AM

@Cerberus well. But that's exactly what you're saying in that comment. I don't know what you're on about.

It says "we don't just use any subjunctive", and then explains the difference between past and present. So where's the typo in that. I'm not seeing it.

5 hours later…

3:13 PM

Blorp blorp

3:23 PM

-1

A: Is "Happy Birthday!" a complete sentence?

happy birthday to you make it taq plz & explain

Well thank you. That clears it up.

3:45 PM

@SmokeDetector I urge everyone to block that user unless he changes his/her username! It is nauseous and irksome.

3 hours later…

6:29 PM

Quick question, which is better (or more formal)?
"By spending X, you are able to..." or "Spending X, you are able to..."

2 hours later…

8:30 PM

Yeah, I was grasping at straws. It's hard to explain things that seem to come naturally.
Every set of 'rules' I've found online suck for one reason or another.
So, one British site had a rule regarding "V-ing (simultaneous)." I guess that means that rule only applies if the actions in both sentence and clause go on at the same time. If not, I don't know what it means.
But, some of their rules make for strange sentences here. It's always something.

9:24 PM

@EnderLook neither strikes me as better or worse per se, and there's easily a dozen other possibilities (like "having spent X", or simply "for X", to name but two), so more context is in order. Failing that, the first once is the more common and thus safer choice.

@WillHunting well I have to rehearse shit, and in order to do that I first need to write the shit. That takes time, yes. Also, Christmas is approaching so I have people to meet like every other day and basically can't get anything else done.

@RegDwigнt Slacker.

Also, I do have a couple recordings lying around, but I just can't come up with any visuals to accompany them.

More slacking.

@Robusto yeah. Earlier today my violin teacher saw the score for my latest waltz that I still can't fucking play. And she sight-read it right there in front of me. On the violin. FFFFFFUUUUU.

@RegDwigнt Ok, I was thinking in "By spending a Hit Dice, you are able to cast on yourself Haste." (Both Hit Dice and Haste are terms from a game)

9:27 PM

@RegDwigнt I told you about the tuba player who could transpose flute parts on sight and play them flawlessly, didn't I?

And it's all chromatic and shit. That is like, trivial on the piano, but impossible on the violin.

I hate people like that.

Actually, I can link to the midi right now, hah.

musescore.com/user/27897310/scores/5311316

Not of her playing, sadly.

That one is like Shostakovitchy. Dances of the Dolls, if you're familiar with those. Would fit right in.

I remember a youtube video of a soprano giving a master class where an 11-year-old girl raised her hand shyly after an aria and asked, "Did you sing a B-natural instead of a B-flat when you modulated just now?" And the diva just smiled and said, "Why you little shit."

Teehee.

@EnderLook yeah I would keep the "by" definitely.

9:32 PM

First part of your piece sounds comical, like clowns on ice or something.

@RegDwigнt Ok, thanks

@Robusto Well that's what one of those Shostakovich waltzes is actually called. "Waltz-joke".

I think it's number seven.

Hold on a sec I'll dig it out for you.

That's what scherzo means, IIRC. Joke.

Dmitri Shostakovich - Dances of the Dolls (UNIVERSAL CHILDREN'S DAY TRIBUTE)

Number five. Direct link to 7:19.

That said, the midi always sounds like a fucking merry-go-round. You could plug Chopin into it, and it will sound like the Entrance of the Gladiators.

@Robusto well yes, hence the German Scherz. Also for joke.

@RegDwigнt At least the piano patch sounds better than that string patch you used before.

9:36 PM

Yeah piano is easy, innit.

Now how's your flute synth doing.

It depends.

@RegDwigнt Flute patches are mainly shit.

At least the ones in General MIDI are.

You could spend a thousand dollars on the latest and greatest Sibelius and it would still sound like shit.

And even if it didn't solo, it would never blend properly with a second instrument.

You can do convincing woodwinds if you gang a number of tracks together with overtones and breath and all that shit.

Or you could just go bowling.

And you have aftertouch on your keyboard.

@RegDwigнt Speaking of the Coen bros., there's a new series on Netflix called Buster Scruggs.

It'll be out Friday in the states.

9:38 PM

First time I hear the name.

Does sound like a Coen title.

Miller's Crossing. Hudsucker Proxy. Fargo. Buster Scruggs.

BTW, you might make the second beat staccato in the left hand, make it more waltzy.

Well the staccato markings are all for the MIDI.

Then it gets more of a 3-1-2 feel.

But I couldn't be bothered doctoring with every single note to make it sound right.

Easier to just play it.

Or I could just be full of shit.

9:41 PM

No I know exactly what you mean because that's how I play it.

Oh, you can't just highlight a chord and click a button.

I don't have a recording that I can share because I miss half the notes in every single one I've made so far.

@RegDwigнt Then you must quantize it or something, because I did notice some staccatos in there and missed them when they were gone.

I did say I gave up after a while.

16 mins ago, by Robusto

More slacking.

9:42 PM

Also, parts of it are more staccato than others. And there's no approximating that.

So when there's no staccato at all, it sort of does bring across that you ease up on the staccato in that bit.

Again, approximation. The score is like two days old.

Of course.

The dynamics are for the computer as well. A human would know how to play this naturally.

> What's "snail-walk" means?

Well just what do you think it does means.

How many options are there.

Ask @snailboat.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer (86): How sentence start out with the word Am by kf nadjkf af isdjfo jsuodn g9 on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer (86): How sentence start out with the word Am by kf nadjkf af isdjfo jsuodn g9 on english.SE

Reminds me of that other question earlier today, or maybe yesterday. "I am a deep thinker. I like thinking a lot. What is a good word for a person like me?"

I really had to resist commenting something along the lines of "the word is really-not-that-deep-of-a-thinker-after-all".

9:46 PM

You sanitized it. It should read: "I deep thinker. I thinking a lot."

Any word you could possibly suggest, could not possibly apply to a person who can't think of said word.

@Robusto which would be grammatical Russian, mind.

Russians are such deep thinkers, they can't be bothered thinking about copulas. They cut straight to the war and peace shit.

Какого черта!

Actually, I can't bothered to be thinking about them either. They come unbidden and go whither I know not.

If you had vodka to think about, you wouldn't even think of thinking of articles.

Do Russians actually think about vodka? Or do they just drink it? I think the latter.

You'd probably think of three genders and nine cases for everything instead.

@Robusto that's the Finnish. Hence their 15 cases.

You get a case! You get a case! Everyone gets a case!

9:53 PM

Is there a name for this case?

I'm thinking nominative.

Nominative is reserved for Americans.

Which is quite accusative, mind.

Last week I rummaged through the pile of stuff on my desk at work and dug up a book of McCarthy's that I've not read yet.

@RegDwigнt Watch it, you're going to dative yourself.

I bought them all at once back in the day, but apparently this one got lost in the rubble before I could take it home.

And stop playing with your genitives.

Everything is illative.

9:58 PM

If you say it out loud it's vocative.

And if you can't quite place it, try locative.

Better ablative than never.

I knew you were going to say that.

This is not going to get better, you realize.

Only worsative.

But we did get down to cases, at least.

I think covfefe is always in worsative.

9:59 PM

Trump is always worsative.

And wurstative as well.

At least the Mexicans are paying for that.

Wait no. You are.

Hm.

We might need sedative.

Which brings us back to vodka.

Hey, you can't keep blaming us. Putin runs the U.S. now, through a proxy. So it's all your fault.

Hudsucks to be you.

I'm not blaming anyone, FYI.

I'm not even laughing at anything.

I barely take note.

Slacker, remember.

If it weren't for this room, I would know nothing of the world outside it.

How can you tell?

Easily, that's how.

I can tell most things very easily and with a straight face.

Gay face is for special occasions only.

10:07 PM

Private parties and such?

Private for now. I will do the gay face reveal at 1 million subscribers.

I won't hold my breath.

Yeah that's the point.

The problem with low bars is that they are low. And then everyone can see you're gay.

I'm not having none of that, thanks very much.

Not having none of that is gay.

Just let me wake up in the morning, to the smell of new-mawn gay.

To laugh and cry, to live and die, in the brightness of my day.

10:12 PM

Phrasemaker.

Sometimes I think Bernie Taupin used the Postmodernist Essay Generator before the Postmodernist Essay Generator was a thing.

He certainly did with "Levon" ...

WTF does that even mean?

I think that's Lt Sapir-Whorf's legal name.

I thought it was Alvin Tostiger.

Or Ivan Tostiger, if you're Russian.

Mmmmmh toast tiger.

Ivan and the chipmunks?

10:16 PM

Lt. Kije and the chipmunks?

What's the name of that Finnish polka.

That's what Russians have in lieu of the chipmunks you have in the west.

Ah yes, yak tsup tsop.

Як цуп цоп - финская полька (караоке + скачать)

Borscht-pop.

Last night Adam Neely uploaded some spectacular jazz performance in memoriam of that jazz guy that passed away, saying that that's what he points people to who aren't into jazz but need a gateway drug.

And I listened to it and it bored me to tears.

I turned it off after four minutes.

And commented as much at Adam.

This stupid polka, I could listen to for ten hours.

Do you ever listen to Allan Holdsworth?

If I do, I do so without realizing that that's his name.

I have a whole load of music on my phone, all genres and eras, and it's always on shuffle. I listen to it every day on the commute. There's jazz on there too.

10:22 PM

Allan Holdsworth - Devil Take the Hindmost [STUDIO VERSION]

@Robusto ten seconds in, it's already groovier than what Adam posted yesterday, saying it was the grooviest thing ever.

Let me dig it up for the sake of completeness.

roy hargrove quintet - strasbourg saint denis

@Robusto is that even jazz tho, sounds like halfway to Jean-Michel Jarre land.

Just started it.

> What many musicologists and guitar fans overlook is that [Holdsworth] is not just the greatest guitarist of modern times but that he wrote his own language in which harmonic and melodic textures could be expressed. Its not just his solos that challenge us...in a modern sense they don't harmonically make sense. He first created a harmonic universe in which his soloing would articulate his thoughts. Beyond genius. A once in a lifetime prodigy.

Now that actually sounds interesting.

It is.

And yet it's an order of magnitude easier on my ears so far than like 99% of jazz I've listened to.

10:28 PM

A really fine jazz bassist I know got me interested in Holdsworth by saying "Whatever he's selling, I'm buying."

@RegDwigнt Yeah, this is OK, but it doesn't make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I just thought it was way too long for its own good.

As jazz so, so often is.

I'm certain it's great fun for them jamming. But I'm in the audience.

I got tired of Adam Neely trying to explain everything. He acts like he just discovered the wheel much of the time.

Well he's a teacher. On YouTube.

So he has to act in certain ways I can look past.

"What's the fastest music possible?" I don't care. I really don't.

Well yes. That is how you get 1 million subscribers.

10:33 PM

"What is a negative time signature?" I don't care. I really don't.

You can't title your video "what's some music that's just like most other music".

You might as well try to explain what makes women interesting by dissecting a mammary gland.

There's quite some competition going on between all those channels to try and think of stuff other people have not covered before, or cover it from a new angle.

Like, remember that opposite-of-leitmotif video we watched recently.

We don't play our instruments for 4 minutes and 33 seconds

Yeah. This.

Yeah. Didn't watch that one.

10:35 PM

I mean, I have always understood what Cage was getting at. But I don't want to listen to 4"33' in the car.

Is it music? Sure. Shitty music.

To me, Cage is to Glass what Lynch is to Kubrick.

Meaning to say, I'd go with the latter.

"You may not know this, but you can eat an apple."

@RegDwigнt I'd go along with that.

We don't eat our apple for 4'33''.

Satisfying.

Oh and BTW, you don't want to see that other video of Neely's, then. That one I actually did start watching. Because I was young and stupid.

I play the lick for 5 hours straight

That's like the latest fad for some reason.

The other day I saw someone recite prime numbers for three hours.

And by saw I mean I saw the thumbnail. Thanks, that'll suffice.

But yeah. People doing nothing for X hours gets millions of views right now.

10:40 PM

@RegDwigнt I saw this. And I didn't bite.

I bit because at the time I didn't even know wtf the lick was.

You can see the lick.

But now I know, so no seconds for me.

I played it in my head, it wasn't interesting, and I inferred that it wouldn't become interesting through repetition.

The original the lick video is actually quite interesting. Though that one for some reason has relatively few views.

Even though it's a whole 5 hours shorter. Harr.

10:42 PM

That is interesting.

Ikr

But people seem to enjoy references to things more than the things proper.

That's why people suck. One of the reasons.

Big Bang Theory built a show out of that.

And a dozen careers.

Feb 21 '11 at 14:12, by Robusto

When he heard about this piece, Igor Stravinsky said he hoped Mr. Cage would marshall his energies and produce a work of "major length" in the same style.

Yeah. Later that sentence, Stravinsky also said "never listen to Stravinsky, he sucks".

He was quite a joker, that Igor.

Anyway I just listened to a bunch of other pieces by Holdsworth in the mean time. Some of them with vocals even.

I don't think I've heard any of that before.

10:50 PM

@RegDwigнt It's still early for Christmas, but yeah Christmas is the best time of the year for me, because I get to see all the decorations in the shopping malls.

I'll put it on my Spotify and see just what it thinks is possibly related.

@WillHunting Christmas is yesterday's news for me, I've written all the Christmas songs and moved on.

Last night I had a brilliant idea for an April 1st video, but now I can't remember what it was.

@RegDwigнt The April Fool's video should be that you are going to delete your channel.

If anything, it should be a video of me deleting my channel for 5 hours.

Although I will delete my SE accounts, I will never delete my channel again.

Also, I can't delete my Microsoft account, because I need it to reinstall Office if I reset my PC.

I think the Acer Swift 5 is the world's lightest laptop and the Acer Swift 7 is the world's thinnest laptop.

However, I have the Acer Swift 3 which is neither the lightest nor the thinnest, but it is much cheaper with the same functionality so that's good.

WTF, do you have the Acer factory in your basement or what.

10:57 PM

No, I only have one Acer Swift 3, not even two.

But do visit acer.com when you are buying your next computer. I think it is a good brand, much better than Lenovo or Asus.

Sep 4 at 10:38, by RegDwigнt

Lenovo is the worst-sounding company name in history. Gives me the fucking shivers every time.

I think for the same specs, Acer is much cheaper than Lenovo or Asus.

Dell and HP are reasonably priced too.

However, the Dell website is in a mess, just like the Oxford University Press website.

I am too lazy to tell you everything wrong with these websites now, but it is a mess.

The Cambridge University Press website is very well organised.

kthxbai

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