English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:00 AM

@ArtificialStupidity Or you could go with an of instead: ability/abilities of students.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body (97): To capitalize, or not to capitalize inside the quote ✏️ by YBG on english.SE

SmokeDetector

1:36 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected (44): "Don't mess it up" meaning? ✏️ by Ehsan Jahrooti on english.SE

Mitch

2:20 AM

@Cerberus For the most part. It's a nice 'thinking at the next level'.

But the first sentence was marred for me by 'a slur upon the generality'. It was like reading a foreign language where you not sure if its a false friend or not, metaphorical or not, intentionally strange for effect.

And the last paragraph, starting 'Carelessness', the list of lists. Does it make sense? Maybe?

tchrist

3:52 AM

@Cerberus You’d use palustrine over helobious, right?

Or maybe palustral or palustrian. My problem with helobious is that its first morpheme just wasn’t available to me.

Which is what happens when you're only half-educated.

Robusto

1

Q: Can EL&U please get its logo banner centered (again)?

The logo banner for English Language & Usage used to be centered. It was designed to be centered, way back when these things were created. How can I tell? Because it exhibits bilateral symmetry in a big way. The bar has matching bookend ornaments and a line motif extending from the ornaments to e...

@tchrist: ^^^

tchrist

They won't do it.

We've begged.

Centering is so very last biennium, didn't you know?

Robusto

Then they should get a new logo!

That logo clearly wasn't designed to be flush left.

That is an abomination.

tchrist

They've stricken all the centering from our site wherever they could find it. The new post-modern post-literate post-designers hate centering. Something about fukcing phunes.

Cerberus

@tchrist I don't have a problem with any of those!

tchrist

3:58 AM

@Cerberus That's because you're not half-educated.

Cerberus

I must admit helos did not come to mind readily for me either.

tchrist

That was my problem.

I do like the -bious part.

Robusto

Here's what it looks like. ^ The Beatles did that cover because they were pissed that songs were being removed from their albums and then "compiled" into a "new" album that didn't make sense.

tchrist

No centering allowed.

Nor design aesthetics.

That last sentence is one word too long, twice.

Cerberus

Certainly, -bios is in common use as a suffix!

Robusto

4:01 AM

@tchrist It should be two sentences: No design. No aesthetics.

tchrist

It's all an abomination now, and nobody cares. There's some reason that they won't tell us that they need it all fkced up like this.

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, it's probably just old fashioned. He may have written that 80 years ago.

@Mitch It is a list of articles in his book possibly related to the subject.

tchrist

I'm tired of trying to teach basic typography to web "designers" who've never had to do actual layout for real copy.

I shouldn't have to.

Cerberus

Ugh, the site had an accident.

tchrist

They're supposed to hire people who know how to do that shit.

Mari-Lou is right.....

Usually she's a bit fiery and over-reactive, but not now.

I am not a fan at all of the process for site redesign as it's unfurled. I'm particularly peeved that the most recent response was "You guys wrote a lot of stuff, but it was in answers to a question I asked, and that's now how I want it; let's ditch all that material, and you guys do it again, organized otherwise". That plus, "Some things are negotiable and others aren't, but instead of posting a canonical list of those things, you should ask about each one individually". And finally "We tried to redesign, but you didn't like it, so now you redesign and we'll see if we like it". It's nuts — Dan Bron 9 hours ago

Hers:

> Is Stack Exchange asking EL&U users to improvise as web designers? I'd like to point out that the many of its users are not computer scientists, engineers, designers or website

And you ought to see what the Graphic Design people think of how they've been treated.

Robusto

4:05 AM

Well, I showed them the problem and I offered a one-line-of-code solution. I feel better now. Fuck 'em if they're too blind or stupid to see I'm right.

tchrist

in The Ink Spot, 2 days ago, by WELZ

We literally gave all this feedback (led by @tchrist) and they listened to zilch

in The Ink Spot, 2 days ago, by WELZ

> Give us feedback because we want you to feel like we care... (we don't)

Sign, somehow I pinned those from the bad phone UI, wasn't my intent.

Robusto

I mean, I bet you could pick ten children out of a kindergarten class and ask them to choose the better look and ALL OF THEM would choose the centered banner.

tchrist

They ignored virtually all our feedback.

2

Q: How do you turn off the new skin?

How do i turn off the new skin? Its horrible, you cant even read the headings anymore, body text is sort of passable. Who has time to make a user script that will actually, you know fix the design?

discussion site-redesign

So long as they keep pretending fixed-size fonts and fixed-width containers that max out without updating their font size, measure, leading, and letterfit depending on whether we're talking display/titling fonts versus text/body fonts versus caption/tiny fonts as being "responsive", they still don't understand what responsiveness is supposed to be based on how real people really use the web on high-resolution screens these days. Until and unless they hire someone who truly understands how these affect typography, they're just wasting time and money cranking out ever-more-unhelpful mis-designs. — tchrist 2 days ago

They've specifically said that the new responsive design doesn't work for mobile yet. And it certainly doesn't work for wide screens either.

My <insert rude body part> is more responsive that their design

Robusto

I think they must have fired all the designers. Who needs 'em, right? This shit is easy: just put the meat scraps in the hopper, turn the crank, and out comes site design!

tchrist

Trying to mod now all in Arial makes me cry.

All the mod pages are 100% Arial.

Robusto

4:10 AM

There, there.

tchrist

And all the rest.

It's rude and crude and insensitive.

Robusto

Perhaps they're trying to banish taste.

tchrist

I'd send them all copies of Bringhurst but they'd probably have to check them for anthrax.

Problem with the webpage is that its hardly responsive at all. It dont work on the phone well and it kinda works on a desktop. But the old one did both better, on phone and desktop. — joojaa 2 days ago

Robusto

Wait! Maybe they've just decided this is the season to be the Grinch.

You know this is the brainchild of some VP on SE, some Trumpian character who convinced his underlings that this was the way to streamline the operation! Just plane off the unnecessary appurtenances, dump everything into a blender, and push the puree button.

tchrist

And when I observe that forcing us to use Arial is a way of telling us that they don't care about design, I get chastised CHASTISED! by a Community Manager for putatively "insulting" their "designers".

Robusto

4:13 AM

WHAT designers???

tchrist

It took a real GD mod to squash that nonsense:

Woah guys settle down. I don't want to have to flag comments on here. @JonEricson your comment towards tchrist is out of line. He never once insulted the designers. Tchrist stated "that [the use of Arial] says you don't care about design." That is not an insult, it is a critique of the use of Arial; and one that many designers agree with. — Ryan ♦ Oct 30 at 18:12

Robusto

Aye.

tchrist

A couple people on GD are asking what happens to their content if they delete their accounts. They just don't want to be associated with an organization that would do all this. Pretend to ask for feedback, ignore it, force really really bad design on us, and then tell us it's good when nor just the pros alone are saying it's bad. And the pros sure are.

Robusto

Let's take bets on how long it takes for my MSE question to get closed as status-by-design or whatever they need to do to say piss off.

Cerberus

God, those poor people.

Robusto

4:18 AM

Fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling.

I'm outta here. Laterz.

Cerberus

Breathe.

It's not the first time SE have treated us badly, alas.

I've been away for a few days, and this is pretty bad to come back to!

tchrist

I have more important things to think about that SE of late.

Cerberus

Does anyone here happen to be on Windows 10, by the way?

tchrist

I saved a life today.

Cerberus

I know.

Really! Whose?

tchrist

4:20 AM

My friend Flicka.

Cerberus

Which friend is that?

tchrist

Ok, it's not what it sounds like, but it's sweet.

Cerberus

Okay.

tchrist

A big flicker came in through the cat door on his own this afternoon.

Lorin was two floors up in the my bed sleeping and Randy out on the other size of the field, hunting.

First I heard of it was Zach panicking on the phone to someone about an "emergency" because there was "A BIG LIVE BIRD right there in the same room with him!" [sic]

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

Zach is your downstairs guy?

tchrist

4:26 AM

I went down and banished Zach from the room, who'd thrown a towel over his head to protect his head for fear the woodpecker would peck him in his broken nose from his grand mal seizure a few days ago. He gets hysterical about wild animals.

Then I sealed off the room and darkened it, and gently talked to the flicker for a fairly long time, moving closer and closer, calming talking to him explaining what I needed to do.

@Cerberus yes, 36 going on 7

Cerberus

What chaos!

His age or how long he has lived there?

How is he otherwise?

I'm sorry I haven't had the time to respond to your e-mail yet.

tchrist

Finally the flicker was soothed enough and trusted me enough to let me pick him up very very carefully, take him upstairs and out the back door, and release him. He immediately flew away and quite strongly. It's not like a cat had brought him in.

A live mountain lion or a bear in your basement probably counts as an emergency. A flicker does not. And there's no reason to be afraid of the poor lost thing.

This is the difference in having been brought up by a good, smart mother versus an evil, stupid one.

age is 36. broken home. I first started taking care of him when his family wouldn't when he had 20% 3rd degree burns wrapped all around his body that he couldn't remember getting. We now know it was a grand mal seizure, which explains the memory loss in a way that mere alcohol never could.

Cerberus

Oh, that friend!

tchrist

But he comes from a really messed up home, including alcoholism and sexual abuse, and he simply never developed emotionally like a normal person would or should.

Cerberus

The one who fell on his heater?

tchrist

4:33 AM

Yes.

No emotional control. At all.

Cerberus

I didn't know you had taken him in.

tchrist

So everything panics him.

I did this spring again because I had to travel so much for work and family this summer, and it was easier than getting a cat sitter, which wouldn't have kept my garden and potted plants alive.

Cerberus

I think you told me he had a kind of seizure recently? How is he doing otherwise?

If he's nice to live with, then why not?

tchrist

Seeing real doctors, on real medications. It's still early in all this, and he's depressed.

Cerberus

Poor guy.

tchrist

4:35 AM

High mortality rate on untreated epilepsy.

Cerberus

A friend of mine had a clogged artery in his brain last week.

tchrist

He's able to Google but not judge what's likely or how to prevent it, so is scared to death.

Did they fix your friend?

Cerberus

Understandable.

He was teaching class, when suddenly he mouth drooped on one side and he began uttering gibberish, so they called 112.

It is still uncertain to what extent he will recover.

He's 35ish as well.

tchrist

I'm also on tenterhooks about another close family member in the hospital, one who'd been here for the one who just passed, and he came down with really bad stuff that the same hospital who missed her cancer originally also missed that he'd burst his gallbladder.

Cerberus

He can talk now, but, when the neurologist asked him to name five professions (a test), he could only name one: doctor.

tchrist

4:38 AM

@Cerberus I've seen a couple of those lately myself. Three, I guess.

Cerberus

God, what misfortune.

Three is a lot! Also at a young age? I'd never heard of that.

tchrist

One in a younger man (my boss) who got hit in the head playing volleyball, two in two of my uncles, so older. All three recovered completely, with the third of those being a miracle that happened only because it happened right close to the top multistate regional neuroblahblah center for these things and they recognized it right away.

He drives, talks, fishes, plays cards. In fact, I had dinner with him this past Saturday.

Cerberus

Completely, even!

tchrist

People under 40 have remarkable abilities to come back from really bad stuff, especially those under 30. But what most counts is getting the very best treatment in as little time as possible.

Cerberus

That is good.

I'm sure my friend gets the best treatment, and he was carried away to hospital immediately.

tchrist

4:43 AM

His brain was squished into a pancake from all the blood. We never though he'd live the night. He claims he isn't the same person from the inside looking out, but even his first-degree relatives all think he's all him.

Cerberus

My aunt had a brain bleed, and she lived alone, so she may have lain there for three days. They had all but given up on her. But she recovered miraculously. Her recovery wasn't complete, but she was about to take driving lessons again.

I hear the brain has the ability to reroute conexions.

So it can get around many problems.

tchrist

Being taken to A hospital isn't the same as a being taken to one with the needed specialized expertise right on hand who are used to handling these cases. My aunt and uncle who had bad results here went to only a little tiny country hospital with a radiology department that's provably less than stellar.

Cerberus

Ah.

I don't think we have many small hospitals here.

And I think they take complicated patients like those to specialised hospitals immediately.

But that's probably not always possible.

I think I need to go to bed.

tchrist

@Cerberus I have an old, old friend whom that very thing happened to. All from living alone. She lay there all day. She never managed to recover the ability to walk unaided or talk coherently, but it was only her motor centers that were shot not her actual mind or language centers. So she could process everything said to her just as quickly as ever, but couldn't form good responses more than nodding yes or no without a lot of work.

Cerberus

Yeah, that sucks.

Aphasia.

I think some degree of aphasia is common in those cases.

tchrist

4:48 AM

I need to go to bed now, too. And don't worry about my mail. It's not as though anything is changing any longer.

Cerberus

Right.

So do I.

Take care.

tchrist

night

Cerberus

By the way, you don't happen to be on Windows 10, are you?

tchrist

No, just upgraded to Mac Mojave.

Cerberus

Or I'll ask some other time (I think I need a driver file).

Ah, right.

Well, goodnight.

tchrist

4:49 AM

I dream a lot now. So far, not the worst they could be.

Cerberus

Hmm.

I hate waking up realising that, no, X did not rise from the dead after all, as it happened in my dream.

tchrist

That's a recurring one for me.

Especially right now.

Cerberus

I can imagine.

Færd

7:27 AM

So out of der Teil and das Teil, only the latter is a slang term for penis, and the former is used for more abstract concepts. Beautiful logic behind grammatical gender.

Gigili

8:30 AM

> Our IT term is currently developing a new Mobile Apps directed toward a more comprehensive user experience

A new mobile apps? What is that?

Robusto

2:08 PM

Elton John - Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Captain Fantastic 5 of 13)

►

@Cerberus That's an old pop-culture reference.

My Friend Flicka

My Friend Flicka is a 1941 novel by Mary O'Hara, about Ken McLaughlin, the son of a Wyoming rancher, and his horse Flicka. It was the first in a trilogy, followed by Thunderhead (1943) and Green Grass of Wyoming (1946). The popular 1943 film version featured young Roddy McDowall and was followed by two other film adaptations, Thunderhead, Son of Flicka (1945), and Green Grass of Wyoming (1948), both based on O'Hara's novels. A television series followed during 1956-1957, that first aired on CBS, then on NBC, with reruns on ABC and on CBS between 1959 and 1966. The Disney Channel re-ran the program...

Also a Saturday-morning TV series when I was a kid.

My Friend Flicka (TV series)

My Friend Flicka is a 39-episode western television series set at the fictitious Goose Bar Ranch in Wyoming at the turn of the 20th century. The program was filmed in color but initially aired in black and white on CBS at 7:30 p.m. Fridays from February 10, 1956, to February 1, 1957. It was a mid-season replacement for Gene Autry's The Adventures of Champion. Both series failed in the ratings against ABC's The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. == Synopsis == After the initial Friday airing, viewers could still find the series on CBS Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern during March 1957, on Sundays at 6 p.m. from...

ahorn

2:39 PM

What's a saying for how something becomes better or more desirable after waiting for it for a long time?

Mitch

3:21 PM

@ahorn "absence makes the heart grow fonder"

Mitch

4:10 PM

5

Q: Company I work at has this "thing" we have to say. What is this "thing" called?

The company I work at has a thing we have to say every morning. We stand up and each take turns reading a line from the poster on the wall. It goes like this: We meet challenges with courage and creativity to realize our dreams. Once a decision is made we move quickly to carry out the plan ...

single-word-requests

WTS

Does the CEO think the employees are children?

terdon

4:38 PM

> Japanese company, but this occurs at a US office.

Chalk it down to cultural differences.

Mitch

6:10 PM

@terdon That's what my comments at that question acknowledge.

But in US culture... wow. It doesn't help that those 'core values' are mostly empty, don't really tel you how to act in any particular situation.

Cerberus

6:21 PM

@Mitch That's just insane!

Under no circumstances could I work there.

terdon

@Mitch Wow isn't the half of it. No argument there.

Although this is a fair point:

@Mitch don't US school children recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning? This doesn't seem that different. — dkwarr87 3 hours ago

Not to mention other rote recitals like various prayers. I guess it's just not something you expect in a professional setting.

ahorn

@Mitch I was thinking about getting hungry, waiting for food.

Mitch

6:40 PM

@Cerberus I know. You interview, people seem so nice, you accept their offer, show up the first day, and at your first daily company wide meeting, everybody slowly pulls off their prosthetic facial coverings, showing their burned oozing and pustulating skin, exposed bone, missing tissue. And then a fascist salute.

@terdon I don't know if you grew up in the US, but that sticks in my craw. Makes me shudder.

@ahorn Oh

“hunger is the best sauce”

terdon

@Mitch I didn't, but it sticks in mine as well. But then, so does the pledge of allegiance. And for pretty much the same reasons so. . .

But yes, that is absolutely insane in the workplace. No question about that.

Mitch

A google search shows that the 'Pledge of Allegiance' is not done in the military (but they do have a pledge of ... I guess some kind of allegiance to ... well, military people seem to find the Pledge of Allegiance troublesome, but their own military pledge perfectly fine.

@terdon Lots of companies have a list of core values, and some of them push them more than others (I've heard of one company that posts them in the bathroom stalls, you know, for extra reading)

But a group affirmation? ugh. also makes my skin crawl.

@ahorn 'hunger is the best sauce' might work for you but is more about the lack of food making what would normally be poor food seem so much better. (or at least that's the way I always understood that).

terdon

@Mitch yeah, a scene more evocative of dull eyed corporate drones, I cannot imagine.

ahorn

@Mitch That's exactly what I was looking for.

Mitch

@terdon yeah. like ''Brazil' or 1984

I wonder if it works

I keep repeating to myself "Every day, and in every way, I'm getting better and better"

terdon

6:53 PM

@Mitch Depends on your objective, I guess. It would certainly work to drive your significant other up the wall, for instance.

Mitch

"Evry day n evry way, mgettin bettrnbettr"

terdon

You need to do it in the morning, after you've sobered up!

Mitch

"The sun at noon is the sun declining, the creature born is the creature dying"

@terdon That's me at midday

terdon

@Mitch Hmm, pretty loose definition of better then.

Mitch

"Beware of looking into the abyss, or your aunt may look into you"

@terdon It takes me that long to really wake up

terdon

6:56 PM

@Mitch I only wake up before that during the working week anyway.

Mitch

They should make caffeine patches.

Over the counter

terdon

caffeineinformer.com/spot-on-energy-the-caffeine-addicts-patch

Of course they already do.

Mitch

> So what does 20mg of caffeine get you? Turns out quite a bit. As recommended by the manufacturer, I wore two at a time and was ecstatic at the results.

I'm not sure 'ecstatic' is the right word

@terdon Of course. Let me see if I can do it again. They should make...

health insurance for pets?

googles

terdon

That's a no-brainer, I'm sure it exists.

I think you found Rule 35.

Mitch

Of course it does

Cerberus

7:01 PM

@Mitch I have no problem with physical handicaps.

terdon

Yeah, @Mitch, that really was a bit faceist.

Mitch

They want you to also share their facial characteristics.

Cerberus

But the mental handicap symptomised by fascist salutes or similar (the maxim-chanting does sound related) I cannot bear to be around.

Mitch

Look, if it heals so that the oozing stops, sure, maybe.

Cerberus

The scenario seemed Orwellian.

Mitch

7:04 PM

Hasn't anybody ever pointed out that all those zombie faces are really prone to infection?

@terdon fascism = faceism?

Maybe

arches eyebrow

terdon

7:23 PM

@Mitch I writes 'em as I says 'em.

Um. I rites ''em as I ses 'em, then.

Færd

8:10 PM

What's going on in France.

Maybe I should ask Putin, according to some conspiracy theorists.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected (79): Origin and status of "hosed", meaning "broken" by virginia knox collazo on english.SE

Robusto

8:25 PM

@terdon We generally chalk things up to something, not down.

terdon

9:46 PM

@Robusto ha! Yes, of course. I wonder where that came from. Jotting down, perhaps? Odd.

Hmm, there seems to be a BrE idiom: chalk something down. I just moved to the UK last year, maybe that's what threw me.

Different meaning though.

Cerberus

I'd put it down to a different idiom.

RegDwigнt

11:55 PM

@Robusto sorry Rob, I can't change it to 2019 anymore. But I can change it back to 2018 if you wish!

Speaking of time, I actually submitted my rubbish entry to the rubbish contest because I'm bored.

If you want me to win a stupid watch I don't even need, go upvote this.

0

A: Time for some more swag!

A song, you say. I don't do lyrics. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So I wrote a piano quintet instead. Whodathunk that would so much time, I'd be way too late to the party.But now that it's done I might as well post it anyway. MIDI synthesized with MuseScore. Sorry guys, but I definitely don't have anywhere enou...

(Downvoting doesn't do anything apparently.)

Kthxbai.

Mitch

@Cerberus I wouldn't put up with that

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…