English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2018-11-17

« first day (2928 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2289 days later) »

Tonepoet

00:55

10

A: What, if anything should one do if a user's "about me" profile section contains extremely inflammatory terms (racist, etc.)

Oh, this user, whose name rhymes with "bosshog", definitely knows better. Our general approach has been to take a hands-off approach to the user page -- it's for you to place whatever you want there, within reason. Obviously racism, hate speech, any sort of overt evil will not be tolerated. But ...

What offensive word rhymes with bosshog?

The closest sounding word I can think of is a-hole, in uncensored form, but the first syllable of that compound does not rhyme with bog.

1 hour later…

Robusto

02:12

@RegDwigнt Hmm, feels like it's missing the funky modulation section, but that's only off the top of my head.

1 hour later…

Robusto

03:35

6 Lies My English Teacher Told Me. We've covered much of this ground here, but it's nice to see other counties heard from.

KannE

03:57

@Robusto Thanks for sharing the article; I bookmarked it, but I will never use literally to mean figuratively. And someone here hates that useage of hopefully; I can't remember who.

Cerberus

@Robusto I disagree with most of that, but w'evs!

@Gigili OK, what about?

I'd rather not talk about the past.

KannE

@Cerberus I held out for a long time on the singular they, but I caved; I don't care about it sometimes.

Cerberus

@KannE Hold on just a little bit longer!

Just until it disappears.

KannE

04:33

@Cerberus Generally, I cave on FB and the like, where people don't know or care that the -body and -one pronouns are singular. I use them a lot.

2 hours later…

SmokeDetector

06:35

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Url in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title (490): amazonhealthstore.com/healthy-life-garcinia-fr/ by charlerfield on english.SE

1 hour later…

Will Hunting

07:58

@Tonepoet He might be thinking of "fuck off". That kind of rhymes with "boss hog" for some accents.

Will Hunting

08:19

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I just sent you an email. =)

6 hours later…

Cerberus

14:40

@KannE Understandable...

Mitch

15:08

@Robusto That article is misleading. All it's section headers are the rules themselves, which is what anyone reading that will remember, rather than that some of those aren't actual rules anymore.

@KannE you don't have to hold out because singular they has always been used.

@KannE re 'literally': that is one item in that list that is sorely mistaken

just because it is in the dictionary doesn't mean it is accepted practice. The dictionary is recording what people sometimes do, not whether it makes sense. If you use 'literally' when there's a possibility that the utterance could be literal but you intend it only as an intensifier, then you're being ambiguous which is poor style.

in all fairness, there was one passage in that article which was hilarious:

> like the family of a spiteful, yet wealthy patriarch on his death bed, we'll all be better off once it finally slips off into oblivion.

Ender Look

15:24

Can I ask a question? Is it "he had already left", "he already had left" or "he had left already"?

A friend of mine asked me for that. Thinking better, should it be "he had already left", or even more "he have already left"

Cerberus

@Mitch But it has always been a minor thing, possibly a soloecism.

@EnderLook He had already left is fine.

He had left already is possible.

Ender Look

Thanks

Cerberus

~~He already had left~~ is probably not possible, except in special situations.

~~He have~~ is not possible.

Ender Look

@Cerberus Oh, I thought it was possible

@Cerberus special situtations?

Cerberus

It's complicated. In situations where you need special emphasis on a single word.

Ender Look

15:36

Ah, ok

Thanks

Cerberus

But at your current level, I wouldn't worry about that. I would just not use ~~He already has left~~.

@EnderLook Why did you think that?

You know the paradigm of the verb to have?

> I have
you have
he has
we have
you have
they have

Ender Look

@Cerberus ohh, silly of me!

Cerberus

If you don't know this yet, you might consider getting a beginner's book on English grammar and going through all the theory and exercises about the parts that you don't fully understand yet.

Ender Look

@Cerberus Oh, I'm just got distracted. I was doing something when a friend asked me though discord this so I didn't think much about it. But you have right, 2nd grammar person use has not have, I learn that on primary school!

Cerberus

Exactly!

Mitch

16:29

@Cerberus How is it a solecism?

(where 'solecism' is euphemism for 'error'

like the lack of a closing paren)

Whereas 'literally' used as an intensifier is surely a solecism.

Cerberus

@Mitch What an odd question.

"Paren" is at best informal, at worst a soloecism.

1 hour later…

Mitch

17:54

@Cerberus How is "How is "singular they" a solecism?" an odd question?

(seriously)

Because universal 'he' is a constructed rule in English

Will Hunting

Seems that everyone is talking about singular they in every chat room.

Mitch

> the first to suggest the pronoun he could be used for both sexes,

@WillHunting who else is talking about it?

Will Hunting

@Mitch Did you go take a look in person at the new Macbook Air?

Mitch

Math?

@WillHunting No. Mine is fine for now.

Will Hunting

@Mitch Just a bit in the ELL room and in the IPS room. I like to overexaggerate.

@Mitch Does yours have a 720p camera?

I guess they all do, except the 12 inch Macbook which only has a 480p camera.

Maybe that has got to do with the size. Maybe they can't squeeze a better camera into such a small laptop.

480p videos are OK, but they look quite blur on youtube. I think 720p should be the minimum that is good.

Mitch

18:07

@WillHunting over-exaggerating is over-exaggerating exaggerating

@WillHunting I don't know. I covered it up.

Will Hunting

@Mitch You must be scared to face cameras, lol.

Mitch

because I was told to

Will Hunting

Why cover the camera? You can just not use it.

Maybe it is for aesthetics. Maybe you want to make the laptop look better.

Mitch

because supposedly people can take control of your camera without the light going on and record you making funny faces when you type stuff

like I'm doin now.

the face I'm making is kinda weird

Will Hunting

Oh, some settings should do the job. Otherwise, I think it's just paranoia.

Mitch

18:11

like someone stepped on my toe with fuzzy slippers

because it might have hurt bad but it only felt nice sort of.

Will Hunting

Yes, the big toe is very vulnerable.

Mitch

so my face is half in horrible pain and half in ohh that's nice

Will Hunting

There is this new laptop called the Dell Inspiron 5480. I think it is pretty good.

搶先開箱！『 Dell Inspiron 5480 』擁有輕巧時尚外型還能給你不卡頓的影音體驗

Mitch

@WillHunting yeah paranoia that someone will take your dancing like nobody is watching and then have absolutely everybody on youtube be watching

Will Hunting

I just watched this video about it. It is in Chinese though.

Mitch

18:14

and make money off your excellence

Will Hunting

I clicked on it mostly because I thought the girl looked sweet, lol.

Cerberus

@Mitch It is the standard in all Indo-European languages I know, with exceptions of course (just as singular they used to be the exception).

Mitch

@WillHunting I used a half-ripped post-it note to cover it so no it doesn't look better

Cerberus

And the reason is obvious: it violates basic rules of grammar shared by all those languages.

Will Hunting

@Mitch That is terrible!

Mitch

18:15

@WillHunting that's the cause of all evil in the world: "But I thought that cute girl would be impressed"

Cerberus

But, frankly, I don't think this debate would be very fruitful.

So I'll stop.

Will Hunting

Hi @Cerberus I was talking to Mr Shiny and New just now and he said you are very taaaaaaall, lol.

Cerberus

Not really!

A few cm above average.

Will Hunting

Well, maybe all Dutch guys are tall. I wish I were tall too. I am only 1.67 metres.

That's a nice number though because 1.67 is like 5/3.

Mitch

@Cerberus How does it violate the rules of any language? 1) it just is and 2) it actually uses existing rules. Just like German uses 3rd person singular for 2nd person singular formal and Spanish 3rd person for formal

Will Hunting

18:19

@Mitch Interesting, Germ and Span are both mathematical terms.

Cerberus

I don't think anyone would benefit from repeating this discussion.

Will Hunting

@Cerberus You said you read Fowler before right? What do you think of the book?

Mitch

@WillHunting 'Germ'?

Will Hunting

Germ (mathematics)

In mathematics, the notion of a germ of an object in/on a topological space is an equivalence class of that object and others of the same kind which captures their shared local properties. In particular, the objects in question are mostly functions (or maps) and subsets. In specific implementations of this idea, the sets or maps in question will have some property, such as being analytic or smooth, but in general this is not needed (the maps or functions in question need not even be continuous); it is however necessary that the space on/in which the object is defined is a topological space, in...

Cerberus

@WillHunting The second edition is great, though in some regards out of date.

Mitch

18:21

@WillHunting oh

Cerberus

The third edition is somewhat less helpful but still good.

Will Hunting

@Cerberus I see. Do you have a favourite usage guide you would recommend unreservedly?

Cerberus

One should always reserve one's own judgement and not follow any guide blindly.

Will Hunting

Wise.

Cerberus

But I think Fowler is good.

Mitch

18:23

@WillHunting I mentioned before that I just don't get topology. It feels like a bunch of random disjointed facts

Will Hunting

I would like to talk about the countable noun youth.

Will you use it to describe a female, or will you reserve it only for a male?

In all small dictionaries, the countable noun is defined as a young man and cannot be a woman.

But in big dictionaries, they define it as a young person, especially male.

A small distinction there.

Mitch

I don't think of it as gendered. Youth just means young to me.

Will Hunting

Note we are referring specifically to the countable noun. For example, that youth.

Mitch

yes

Cerberus

I would use it for a young man only. In plural, though, it can perhaps also include women?

> 6. a. A young person; esp. a young man between boyhood and mature age; sometimes, esp. in earlier use, more widely (see quots.).
Formerly sometimes (and still in dialect or vulgar speech) pleonastically qualified by young.
c1250 Gen. & Ex. 2665 Bi ðat time ðat he was Šuð, Wið faiŠered and strengthe kuð. a1400 Pistill of Susan 230 He lift vp þe lach and leop ouer þe lake, Þat Šouthe. ?1580 W. Hergest (title) The Right Rule of Christian Chastitie; profitable to bee read of all godly and vertuous Youthes of both sexe. 1583 T. Stocker Civ. Warres Lowe C. i. 32b, Accompanied with a multitud…

Will Hunting

18:29

I would say my conclusion after checking many dictionaries and usage guides and even posting an answer on ELU long ago about it is that it usually refers to a young man but can also refer to a young woman as well, though this is not common nowadays.

Mitch

all the other uses tend to be gender neutral, so that that falls over for me to 'the youth'

Cerberus

Yes, it is apparently old fashioned to use it for girls as well.

Mitch

so it is newer to use it only for boys?

Will Hunting

@Cerberus Yes, that last quotation there I did note. It's a woman.

"Before she was twenty she wrote verses like other youths."

Cerberus

@Mitch I believe so. See also the OED definition and quotations above.

Will Hunting

18:33

These days, it is usually used in the newspapers to refer to young men doing bad things.

Mitch

I like 'hooligans' for that

Will Hunting

"He was attacked by a gang of youths."

Mitch

sounds like a suburban family restaurant and bar

Cerberus

That's not exactly my impression.

Will Hunting

I wonder why people don't use it for a female these days. What reason could it be?

Mitch

18:36

Because you know how women are

What was the thing Sarkozy said that people got so upset at?

Will Hunting

I don't know.

Mitch

When talking about 'manifestations' in the 'banlieues'?

checking spelling

Will Hunting

I read theguardian.com, and almost every day they talk about Trump and Brexit, LOL.

Mitch

'racailles' is what he used

translated as 'rabble'

Gigili

@Mitch It's on the tip of my tongue

Will Hunting

18:38

I find manoeuvre very hard to spell.

Mitch

I have no idea of the connotations of 'racailles'

@WillHunting how about 'hors d'ouevres'?

Will Hunting

@Gigili The only thing on my tongue now is my saliva, lol.

Mitch

or 'maintainance'

haha. I have trouble.

Will Hunting

@Mitch Oh I don't even want to use that word.

@Mitch I have no trouble with that because I always say maintenance like an Englishman.

Mitch

@WillHunting you can just use 'canapé'

@WillHunting Rule Britannia!

Something something the Duke of York

Jolly holiday!

Will Hunting

18:41

What happened to Britannica?

Mitch

guvnah!

Will Hunting

It stopped printing encyclopedias.

Mitch

@WillHunting because wikipedia

Will Hunting

And yet it acquired Merriam-Webster, weird.

Mitch

@Gigili 'racailles'

Will Hunting

18:42

Notice that MW also doesn't publish much these days, only oooooold editions.

Mitch

People thought it was anti-something

anti-islamic or anti-arabe or something

Will Hunting

I hope someone takes over MW or Britannica and start publishing more things again.

Mitch

I don't think you need that to be insulted. I think it was just denigrating.

Like calling poor people 'lazy'

@WillHunting paper is so last century

Will Hunting

@Mitch I am old-fashioned.

But other publishers do publish encyclopedias still, just less volumes, but just big enough.

Mitch

@WillHunting I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but can't take the trouble to search for it, but Britannica sells a three-volume 'first' edition, a 'reprint' os the 1777 very first edition.

Will Hunting

18:44

@Mitch Yes, and it's like a very expensive photocopy.

Mitch

It has all sorts of stuff in it like how to do ventilation and elevators for mineshafts

very practical things in addition to science and history and stuff

I think it is around $150 dollars (or maybe a bit more)

Will Hunting

Hello @Gigili are you still translating things these days for work?

KannE

Yeah, I read that somewhere, on several sites probably. Did Shakespeare say it? I can't remember...if he used *they* at all.
But I imagine...400 years from now, maybe 5, they will say...
The plural useage of the pronoun "Fred" dates back to the time before the Great Almost Apocalypse when the great shit poet Un'Kani (*Unkanne*) said, to a group of people (at least three persons), "Shit the bed, Fred." According to Legend, the pronoun was derived from the poet's father-name (*Fredric*), but a Coloring Book recovered from a shiny metal subterfuge has revealed that "Fred" actually dates back t…

Mitch

@KannE You need more returns in your messages so I can respond to the correct part. Otherwise it is hard to makes sense of a conversation

But, to your first point, yes, Shakespeare used the singular they (but then Shakespeare is not necessarily a standard of English, spoken now certainly not, but even then he took liberties).

@KannE haha about Fred and shit

KannE

@Mitch There are no correct parts.

Mitch

18:49

What does your avatar say... 'Live life' backwards? in a mirror?

Gigili

19:05

@WillHunting Hi. Not quite as much, I'm more into baking these days.

Why?

KannE

@Mitch Yes, "live live..." (you know how I love ellipsis). It's a selfie. Aren't they always flipped? I dunno. I'm not a big fan of selfies, but I took this one in my Fight Durty hoodie.

MetaEd

@KannE I thought the Bedrock Era began in 2011.

https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Bedrock_Edition

KannE

@MetaEd Hmm...2011? According to Wiki, the Flintstones ran from Sep 1960 to Apr 1966.

Mitch

19:27

@KannE A selfie taken from a mirror is flipped. a selfie taken by holding your hand out as far as you can is not flipped.

Will Hunting

@Gigili No reason why. Just making small talk.

Mitch

@KannE Ohh... that's your neck at the top? Avatars are so small, you can't ever tell what's going on

@Gigili mmm... baking. What kinds of things? Bread or cake?

KannE

@MetaEd Oh, Minecraft...my friend's grandson could've told me that. I've been saying "Mindcraft" all this time, and he didn't corrected me once, ha-ha. Which reminds me, his birthday party is today. I gotta go...buy him a present...not Minecraft again. Well, I'm going shopping and then roller skating. Have a fun-filled day. Don't break a hip though.

Mitch

Baking is great, but I'm more into eating.

Will Hunting

My favourite cake is tiramisu.

Mitch

19:30

that's a good one.

but it's pretty rich

there's also...

is it Boston Cream pie?

that is really rich too. can barely eat a slice

they call it pie but it's more of a short cake.

KannE

@Mitch Yes, I had to practically look at the ceiling to make my neck look that smooth. I almost look young in that selfie, ha-ha.

Mitch

but not shortcake, which is more like biscotti

wait...I'm confusing that with shortbread which is like halfway between biscotti and cookie. a stale cookie

@KannE haha. necks. the last frontier. There's hair dye, and makeup,...

oh, how about turtle neck? or a scarf?

scarves are pretty trendy these days

even looking close I can't tell anything about age from that picture.

Your subtle hints about breaking hips... are an exaggeration.

RegDwigнt

20:19

@Robusto well yes, that's what the text says. Not just on the side, but in the video proper. Nobody reads my shit!

Maybe that's a good idea for a song.

A dark and dreary Russian romance about the hopelessness, pointlessness, and general futility of the Russian alphabet.

I will give it to Taylor Swift and make billions.

Billions!

Will Hunting

20:35

@RegDwigнt I do read your shit, but because I cannot focus these days, I may misread it.

@RegDwigнt Tell Taylor about me too so I can make some money too.

Mitch

@WillHunting I've been trying to avoid Taylor. She's kind of a handful if you know what I mean.

What I mean is, it's all gotta be about her.

"Where do you wanna go eat?" "I heard about this place..." "We're going to Mickey D's!"

Did I mention she has the taste of a ten year old?

I mean MD has it's place n all

@RegDwigнt oh! An alphabet romance? Like Mamma Mia 2 but with more fonts?

I love it!!

KannE

21:08

@Mitch I don't really do makeup. Tinted moisturizer is nice, makes it seem like you go outside sometimes. And clear mascara tinted with bareMinerals doesn't make my eyes swell shut, so that's good. And if women could put on lipstick while the Titanic was sinking, I can surely travel with a Burt's Bees lip balm, but that's about it.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Haha, I truly didn't read that at all. I just listened to the music.

KannE

@Mitch Yeah, hair dye was overdue. But it's Christmassy--like brass candlesticks.

1 hour later…

KannE

22:14

I already have a 'turtle neck'... You wouldn't believe how many adults told me, when I was a child, that I would make a great ballerina because I had such a long neck and limbs (like a Degas, but lankier with a bobble head).
So, I decided to check it out--The World Book Encyclopedia (lots of nice pictures; I miss them)--and mastered all the positions in the first day, expect the last one where your feet are placed completely backwards; that one took longer, a week or two.
The doctor told my parents not to worry, so it became boring and I quit after a month...still longer than my career at B…

*except the last one

@Mitch The skating party was postponed due to a flat tire. :-( I'll have to wait till tomorrow to break my hip (or crack my tailbone) now. Wait...what emoji goes here?

RegDwigнt

22:35

@Robusto Instagram has a hard limit of 60 seconds per post. Which is sort of stupid for a variety of reasons, but sort of really good for a variety of others.

Limitations foster creativity, but ideally you should impose those limitations on yourself rather than have them dictated by others.

Will Hunting

@RegDwigнt I think a minute a post is reasonable though and doesn't really limit anyone.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (347): Hex, curse, spell, jinx, charm by Valeria Benson on english.SE

RegDwigнt

@WillHunting Yeah if Beethoven wants to post his Sonata no. 8, he can post a whole five bars of the opening. That's not limiting at all.

Will Hunting

@RegDwigнt Are you planning to post lots of videos next month?

RegDwigнt

Don't know about the exact timeline. Working on literally two dozen different things right now.

Will Hunting

22:45

Oh OK, take your time.

RegDwigнt

I like Bill Wurtz's approach. He just posts whatever he wants whenever he wants. Gets 300 million views on a video, then doesn't post anything for a year. Then posts five things in a week. Gets another 300 million views, disappears again for fuck knows how long.

Will Hunting

What does Bill Wurtz do?

RegDwigнt

history of the entire world, i guess

Will Hunting

Oh that kind of thing.

RegDwigнt

When I Get Older

No more like this kind of thing.

Or really any kind of thing he feels like doing. That's very much my point.

the Moon is made of Cheese (but i can't taste it)

Will Hunting

22:50

Well, 300 million views is nothing, unless it translates into money for him. =)

RegDwigнt

300 million views translates into a whole load of money.

But he'd been doing this for like 10 years before it took off.

Will Hunting

Yeah, if he monetizes the ads. I was more of thinking of getting 300 upvotes on SE, which translates into no money. But maybe you get some swag. =)

RegDwigнt

So that's my plan now. Do whatever shit I want to do for 10 years, then suddenly win an Oscar for sucking. Or something.

Will Hunting

I think you can try to get in touch with some music company and sign a deal or something.

Maybe you can get 100,000 dollars for your first contract.

RegDwigнt

Fuck that.

Will Hunting

22:55

After you sign the contract, maybe you can tell them about me and maybe they will consider giving me a deal too. =)

RegDwigнt

How about you sign a contract and then tell me how that turns out for you.

You can't live off music. And if you are living off music, then two hundred other people are living off your music much better than yourself.

@Cerberus but that in itself is a guide. And my own judgement says not to follow it.

La de da de da de da de day oh

This is probably the most digestible of all of Bill's songs.

The rest are really quite special. Acid trips really.

Will Hunting

So I don't know much about Russia.

I want to ask if the Russia on the left of the Ural Mountains is very different from that on the right.

In terms of the people and culture, not the land.

RegDwigнt

Russia is the same everywhere except for Moscow.

There's Moscow, and then there's the savage lands around it.

And yes they have all kinds of different cultures those savages.

Will Hunting

I see. So Russia = Moscow + savage lands. QED.

RegDwigнt

But it's precisely because of that wide gamut of cultures that you can't possibly segregate it into something as arbitrary as "to the left of Ural, to the right of Ural".

Will Hunting

23:01

Wise.

RegDwigнt

To the right of Ural, that alone is like 1/10 of the Earth's entire landmass.

Just how homogenous do you think people can be on such a vast stretch of land.

Will Hunting

I am now wondering whether there are Russians living inside the Ural mountains.

RegDwigнt

Well there's military bases and factories and diamond mines there and everything.

So there's probably more people literally living inside the mountains than in all of @Cerberus' make-belief lala-holland.

Will Hunting

Well, I might try to learn some Russian, but so far I keep hearing something like priviet, lol.

So I figure that priviet must be a word, lol.

RegDwigнt

Well I'm not a dictionary :-P

That said, if you really kept hearing it, you'd know there's no I in there.

Privet.

Привет.

Will Hunting

23:09

LOL

RegDwigнt

I mean, no second I. Fuck.

There is an I.

Will Hunting

No need to be so precise, lol.

RegDwigнt

Well no, but being less precise is even harder for me.

Will Hunting

I try not to be too precise outside math, so that it doesn't interfere with my OCD.

But if one is naturally so precise then that is OK.

RegDwigнt

1 + 1 = 3 for sufficiently large values of 1. Or a sufficiently low value of 3.

Will Hunting

23:11

I know about that joke, but it is not funny to me. Maybe I don't get it.

How can anyone even think of that?

RegDwigнt

Like, that's the actual language of maths. They really do say stupid things like "sufficiently large". And call it an exact science. Hilarious.

Will Hunting

Because 1 is 1 and 3 is 3.

RegDwigнt

Not in Unicode it is not.

Oct 27 at 23:49, by RegDwigнt

2 is 2 and 3 is 3 but 9 is 1 and 1 is i.

Oct 27 at 23:49, by RegDwigнt

user image

Will Hunting

Oh yeah, sufficiently large is used, but I don't see why it is used in this joke which is why I don't get the joke.

Of course, in those cases where it is used seriously it does indeed make sense.

RegDwigнt

Well it's not a joke. It's the truth. Mathematically and otherwise.

Will Hunting

23:13

Oh OK I see what you mean now.

Still, it is just a very stupid joke.

However, stupid jokes actually are funny if they don't try to incorporate some smart thing.

But in this case, it tries to be a stupid joke which incorporates some smart thing, which is what makes it really stupid and not funny for me.

« first day (2928 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2289 days later) »

Transcript for

Nov '1817

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

Not for the faint of heart or those easily triggered by Englis...

phrase-requests pronunciation single-word-requests synonyms

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2025 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile