English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2018-12-19 (page 1 of 2)

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12:28 AM

@ThomasWong "The goal of this site is to answer people's question". Not quite. The actual goal of this site is to answer questions once and for all. We want anybody who does a Google search for the answer to this question to find a useful answer already posted here. Yes, you are right that answers should be clear and to the point. The ideal length is probably not a ten page essay, and probably not a one liner. It is somewhere in between. A useful answer includes explanation, context, and supporting facts, so that it answers the question once and for all. — MetaEd ♦ 5 mins ago

4 hours later…

4:25 AM

@MetaEd It seems that people's and peoples' both work there. =)

5:15 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected (79): PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper by Josh DeLapp on english.SE

5:31 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, messaging number in answer, pattern-matching email in answer (434): Roman numerals used for ordinals by navian on english.SE

2 hours later…

7:54 AM

Phrase of the day: and death ere long closes the scene (Alfred Hitchcock, 1842)

user image

3 hours later…

10:40 AM

user image

Гой, питалася княжа корона — Маленький хор. "Fabbrica", І-Франківськ

2 hours later…

12:17 PM

Yo

1 hour later…

1:39 PM

Whoa. The shit has really just hit the fan at Der Spiegel.

I don't have enough popcorn buckets.

This will be big, and stay big, for decades to come. Holy fuck.

spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/…

2:29 PM

@RegDwigнt Please.

That's no match for the Crossword Plagiarism Scandal.

Especially since USA Today has the most respected crossword in the world.

3 hours later…

5:07 PM

Where is the difference between cover the news and report the news?

6:04 PM

Ok done, I had misunderstood the meaning of "conver"

So does covering a conference mean attending a conference?

And does covering the news mean knowing/following the news?

6:56 PM

hello every one

Do you know a good resource to learn English writing?

2 hours later…

9:15 PM

@Curio Covering is way broader than simply reporting.

"There was a conference in London". There, I just reported the news for you.

But if I wanted to cover the news, I would need to do way more than that. Do it more than once, do it more in-depth, do it on more than one topic, do it constantly. Possibly provide analysis, commentary, op-ed pieces, too.

@Ahmad Alice in Wonderland. Start by reading that book. Then possibly Ursula LeGuin, Wizard of Earthsea.

If you manage to read either, or both, then you are set to read whatever else you please.

Hey water-owl.

@Mitch reminds me of that one guy who'd just take the best piano recordings from all over the world and pretend they were made by his late wife in their garden shed before she passed away. He released like ten albums and made like three billion trillions before someone got suspicious. And when he did get found out, he never had to pay anything. He's still giving interviews today, denying all charges.

And then you put a single MP3 of Madonna on the Internet, and they sue you for $10 billion.

@Færd hello skyline pigeon.

How do you see the skyline from under water?

Elton John - Skyline Pigeon (Empty Sky 8 of 13)

It's a reference. It's a song someone wrote whose legal name is Reg Dwight.

Will give it a listen.

Nice one.

The nicest Elton John song I've listened to, actually. Couldn't really relate before.

9:30 PM

His early work was good. Then there were 40 years of like it or leave it. Then he was good again but not many people were interested anymore.

Not that I'd tried real hard. Just gave it a try.

Hmm. Yeah probably.

Well yeah. That's the point really. Some music you don't need to connect to. It connects with you.

And that he used to have, and might have again, but yeah the 80s were kinda crazy for everyone.

His voice was welcoming in this song.

There's was another one about how he didn't want to live to be 70 or something.

60 years on?

That one was on the Elton John.

Sounded too forbidding and gloomy to me back then.

Yup.

And I gave him up automatically.

9:32 PM

Elton John - Sixty Years On - 1970

Well yes it's a dark one.

He's changed his mind apparently.

He's on his last tour right now. This whole year. And it will continue through the entirety of the next year.

And yeah I've no idea how old he is, but 60 it is not.

Oh not yet? Okay.

Wiki sez born 1947.

Aren't tours boring? Playing the same tunes over and over again?

9:34 PM

@Færd more like not anymore.

There should be an element of improvisation to it to keep you going.

@Færd yeah I wondered that. Especially about Elton John, or other people of his caliber. Who wrote literally thousands of songs, no exaggeration, but have to play the same twelve over and over again. Most of which they don't even prefer themselves.

And talk about those who have one or two famous songs. People will crawl up their asses to play only those.

Yeah

That is the danger of starting off with a hit. Tom Scott did a good one on that recently.

Why You Don't Want To Go Viral

Really hits the nail on its head.

I'm far behind in the music news world.

9:37 PM

Executive summary: one-hit wonders only have one hit because it came early in their career. And then they had to live up. And nobody can.

Good thing is it doesn't get old with age.

If anything you get the wheat sorted from the chaff for you.

@RegDwigнt Yeah. Happens to actors too.

Wait another 200 years, you'll know who today's Bach is.

But trying to figure it out right now, good luck.

He wouldn't have an idea himself.

9:38 PM

Well he was in the lofty position not to care. He got paid good money.

Which is sort of part of the reason it was easy for him to stay on people's radar.

Is it possible that there were other Bachs who were forgotten?

Because of poverty and all. Artists of that caliber.

Many people wrote fine music back then, but only very few got paid for it, which gave them a head-start both in popularity and in actually preserving the sheet music for the future.

Bach was actually kinda old-fashioned in his day.

Most people had moved on. He wrote old stuff really.

So favored by the church and conservative audiences maybe

Or only old-fashioned audiences

I dunno. I know I enjoy listening to his work.

Well, maybe even more to the point, think of how few people even got to hear Bach at all back then.

It was all very local.

This town had this composer, this other town had another one.

Weren't his sheets distributed across Europe?

9:43 PM

Well yes rich people would travel, including composers themselves. Like, Clementi had a competition with Mozart. Liszt went one further and would just invite everyone. Basically inventing jam sessions.

But a couple people traveling back and forth, that's like nobody. Most people were stuck to their birthplace for the entirety of their lives.

Also traveling would take forever.

So by the time you heard of Mozart, chances were he was dead.

Some Iranian poets from a thousand or less years ago boast about how their poetry sweeps the region from Baghdad to Samarghand.

(Iraq to Afghanistan)

Wonder how music made the rounds compared to literature.

And, like, just recently on my Soundslice channel I posted a story about a composer, that was rather late, I think the very end of the 19th century. He was famous and his sheets sold out like sliced bread. And yet a decade later or so he was all but forgotten.

He published that song that I posted, can't even remember which, and the 300 copies sold out in like a day. But then it took 100 years to find a single one of them again.

All lost to the ages.

Oh yeah here it is:

soundslice.com/slices/8lRcc

That's, like, the most popular Russian romance now. But for like a hundred years people would attribute it to anonymous.

Well congratulations to that composer.

Still nobody knows his name though.

He's rolling around in happiness and pride in his grave, I bet.

9:48 PM

Like, I had to go to my own SoundSlice to read it up again.

Bach must have had like what, ten thousand contemporary composers? Name just twenty.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in answer (80): The whys and the hows by Kmelkon on english.SE

@RegDwigнt Sounds familiar

@Færd my father visits Samarkand like once a year. I've never been myself. Yet.

For what occasion?

Mostly just vacation time.

He keeps going to all those places. Uzbekistan. Kabardino-Balkaria. Armenia in the last two years.

9:52 PM

Samarkand must not be in the hands of Taliban then.

Well I don't know exactly when was the last time he visited.

@RegDwigнt I would love to do the same when I feel it's time.

I know about that entire region about as little as he knows much.

Life has been feeling like a bunch of work to do.

You know what they say. Work to live. Don't live to work.

9:54 PM

I see.

If you liked Armenia you'll prolly connect to the other parts too.

I am open to everything.

I was roaming the Grand Bazaar of Tehran with this Lebanese girl the other day.

She said she felt as tho she was in Damascus or Beirut.

Bazaars are awesome everywhere.

They always tell you to buy everything. And I always do.

So many connections. It was like she was my sister.

@RegDwigнt Haha rich people

No, cheap places.

I could buy the whole bazaar for half the price of my LEGO collection.

Wouldn't even need to sell the piano.

9:57 PM

Well if you're paid in Euros, no matter how much, you can afford pretty much anything over here.

When I'm on vacation I don't look at the money anyway. I take a pile of cash with me, and by the end I spend it all. That is sort of the whole point.

You don't save up to sit on it. You save up to spend it big.

True.

Maybe upgrade your computer too, at some point.

There was a period in my life, and it might be coming back, when every year at the end of the year, if you looked at my banking account, you would say I was broke.

I'm only saying cause you mention it often. Not cause I think you really need to.

I agree that I don't need to. Which is why I'd rather spend the money on flying some place and visiting a bazaar I've not seen before.

10:02 PM

@RegDwigнt Maybe that's a kind of lifestyle you can afford if you don't support a family?

I actually like not caring about my balance.

@Færd I was supporting a family through much of it.

Ah.

Also I'm supporting my mom now so that's family, too, right.

I see your point of course, but really I think the issue is not that but that I live in a country where everything is taken care of for me.

I could break a leg tomorrow, no worries. I won't pay a single cent for anything.

@RegDwigнt Well, that I've yet to deal with.

@RegDwigнt Huge burden offa your shoulder.

So basically all I need money for is food and rent. And the rest I just do nothing with because I need nothing, until I know exactly what to do with it, then I do that.

So I can go and buy three different gaming consoles in a single month just because I want to play one special game on each. And then I never really touch them again.

10:06 PM

At this rate you'd have to rent a storage room.

And if people don't know me that comes off like I'm Rockefeller to them.

Or give your stuff away when you've had enough of them.

@Færd I've been needing a storehouse just for the LEGO for many years now.

Luckily, I have enough LEGO to just go and build the storehouse out of.

But then I'd have very little left to actually put in there.

My life is hard.

Haha

@Færd I'm constantly giving away LEGO and lending out consoles and games and books and I don't even remember where any of it is anymore.

10:08 PM

Keeping account wastes your time.

Sometimes people give me something and say, hey you gave me this 20 years ago I just found it again. And I'm like oh I forgot.

Same with me with clothes. I receive what my parents buy me by this hand and give it away from the other.

I can't even remember the music I wrote yesterday. Which is why I started writing it down. Used to be just lost forever.

@Færd yeah I bought some fresh clothes for Armenia, and that's 8 months ago already, and I don't remember the last time I bought clothes before that.

Again, all I need is some spaghetti and some money for the rent.

The rest is wevs.

@RegDwigнt Good call.

You can't take anything with you.

It all stays here.

10:11 PM

@RegDwigнt That sounds like encouragement to go into the suing business

You can only worry about so many things.

@Mitch thank you. As someone in the encouragement business, your words warm my heart.

@Færd There's infinite resources to worry.

You don't want to clutter your head with what you gave to who.

Like right now we're worrying about too much worrying

10:12 PM

Music notes sound nicer in your head.

@Mitch no worries

and it is a big concern. Psychiatrists make millions prescribing anti-worrying drugs

@Mitch There's infinite people that can worry on my behalf. So I outsourced it to them. To give them something to do. I'm an altruist.

Pharmaceuticals make bajillions producing anti-worrying drugs.

Those are the guys we should worry about

@Færd yeah which is why I never write in my head. I take an actual instrument and start playing. I can't think up music.

That instrument may well be MuseScore on a 12-year-old PC, mind.

@RegDwigнt The business model for encouragement has negative returns.

10:13 PM

@Mitch But they've drugged us not to?

That's biz speak for "It sucks"

@Mitch Luckily I'm not in the returns business. And if I were, this is just another thing for people to worry about, so I'd give it to them.

@Færd Oh that's totally me. Those pieces play so perfectly in my head, but in real life it is 'plonk plonk plink plonk'

@RegDwigнt you're a philanthropist and no gentleman at all.

My job is basically saying "you can do anything", and then looking away. Whatever people do with that awesome advice is really their business.

Except on ELU of course. On ELU my job is saying "you can't do anything for shit not even spell eglkish".

But then looking away anyway.

I say my bit and move on.

Time is of the essence.

@Færd That is an excellent Stanislaw Lem story. It will surely come off terribly if I reread it so I won't.

10:16 PM

The best Stanislaw Lem story is about hunting kourdles.

I think it's a chapter in a larger book but I forgot which.

Bascially, in the future, we're all drugged up so badly that we huff and puff taking the elevator.

@Mitch I think the war on drugs like cocaine and heroin is going to end in a couple generations. People coming to their senses. Then the war of pharma drugs will come to the fore.

Because we're really hallucinating that we're taking the elevator but in reality we're running up stairs.

and then the rest of the story is like that

great retelling of the story huh?

better than the original

@RegDwigнt I used wrote some silly tunes using mathematical formulas on Mathematica.

It could produced sounds.

Basically a kourdle is a huge huge huge creature that you can't hunt at all. So what you need is pesto, laxatives, and dynamite. You smear the laxatives all over yourself, then the pesto. Then wait for the kourdle to swallow you whole. Then you place the dynamite in its belly. Then the laxatives begin to work and you leave their body from the other end.

Then you just wait for the dynamite to explode.

I'm not making this up.

But Lem did.

10:18 PM

or rather, why waste the time having your eyes scan over regurgitated flattened extruded tree cellulose imaging high contrast ink squiggles, when you can just ask me.

For example, why read War and Peace? Too long. All those characters with multiple names. Why bother?

Here goes:

A bunch of people die.

I've not read War and Peace.

You're welcome

Can you sum up Moby Dick for me as well? I've been stuck in chapter 7 for forty years.

@RegDwigнt Makes two of us.

But I'm not Russian.

Go read Lem, then.

He wasn't Russian, either.

10:20 PM

@Færd That's optimistic.

@Mitch I'm feeling good tonight.

@RegDwigнt Yeah, sure, let me skim the wikipedia 1st paragraph first.

...

OK

There's a whale

Курдль (польск. kurdel) — вымышленное животное гигантских размеров, встречающееся в ряде произведений знаменитого польского писателя Станислава Лема. Впервые курдль фигурирует в «Звёздных дневниках Ийона Тихого», в «Путешествии четырнадцатом» (1956 год). Курдли водятся на планете Интеропия в созвездии Тельца. Внешний покров тела курдлей отличается исключительной прочностью и выработался в процессе эволюции как защита от периодического метеоритного дождя — т.н. хмепа (или, в другом переводе, смега). По-видимому, панцирь курдлей значительно прочнее, чем здания жителей планеты, которые не выдерживают...

Next book?

Holy Fuck, Russian wiki actually has an article on kourdle.

No other wiki has.

So yeah it appears in the Star Diaries, there in the 14th Travel.

10:22 PM

@Færd It hasn't changed much (in your part of the world) for 2 generations. Do you think two more is all it'll take?

Portugal legalized and regulated hard drug use (like heroin), and they're doing well.

@Mitch Don't bring me down now. I have dreams for my grandchildren.

It's not like nobody dies from ODs, but significantly fewer than before do.

@Mitch Yeah and that was like 12 years ago and nobody gives a fuck still.

People don't learn from history.

They only learn from Twitter.

@Færd For the problem to be solved in your country, Afghanistan needs to be solved first, don't you think?

@RegDwigнt thanks

10:24 PM

You're welcome.

@RegDwigнt They learn the wrong thing from twitter.

@Mitch You mean if Afghanistan continues export, we cannot fully legalize?

@Mitch Don't matter, the next day twitter teaches them something else entirely.

Like why Ariana Grande split up with Pete Davidson.

I don't know any of these people.

If these are people?

10:25 PM

I can't give the true reason because 1) it's really tragic, and 2) I don't know anything about it.

The reason is always the same anyway.

@RegDwigнt Hm... yes, that is a good way to think of it

@Færd Oh... in those words it sounds possible.

well, you'd need to have Afghanistan on board and that doesn't seem likely.

@RegDwigнt I'll introduce them to you.

I think we'd be better off legalizing anyways.

Legalize alcohol first

Carrying weed is not a huge offense here and I'm happy about it.

10:27 PM

Zing!

@Mitch thank you. Then I will know two more people to offload worries to.

@Mitch That must happen for sure.

@RegDwigнt I'm sure they'd like that.

@Færd why would you carry weed? You have to smoke it, dude.

You're doing it wrong.

@RegDwigнt takes notes

10:29 PM

@Færd The legalization of marijuana in the US seems to be going along OK. It really should be just like alcohol, stiff penalties for driving while using, for underage, etc.

Wait, you're talking about heroin?

Legalized heroin prescribed and dispensed by doctors and drugstores is much less harmful than you'd think.

I heard Hermione Granger was a heroin, and decided it's not for me.

@Mitch No, I was talking about marijuana.

@RegDwigнt you're into heroes I can tell

@Færd not to be too parochial or nothing but, in the US there's lots of problems with 'pill mills', legal doctors legally prescribing (on legal but flimsy reasons) lots of drugs. and pain killlers (fentanyl and oxycontin) are killing people.

I'm only exaggerating a little.

@Færd Reg Dwight wrote a song called "Hercules". It's on the Honky Chateau.

10:32 PM

Time to sign off for me

That one's not very good. The song, that is. The entire album is rather stellar actually. That's where Rocket Man is from.

@RegDwigнt You two should get together sometime. You could complain to her, and then she would ignore you.

@Færd Have fun. Don't visit too many bazaars. Not without me anyway.

@Færd I'll continue our discussion on my own for awhile.

@RegDwigнt Build a bazaar with your LEGO

10:33 PM

@Mitch she can ignore me right now. Then I can save me the work complaining.

Excellent!

@Færd good call.

Win for all!

@Mitch Let me know how it ends

I shall build me my own bazaar. With blackjack and hookers.

10:34 PM

give me one of those short wrap-ups

bazaars are bizarre

@RegDwigнt and heroin

@Færd we solved the problem.

OMC - How Bizarre

@RegDwigнt You must come see a real one first

That's a good song.

it's not exactly simple, but it does take into account the depth of the problem.

10:35 PM

@Færd is what I'm saying yes.

@Mitch Okay, now I can go to sleep

Bye

CU

@Færd also I think someone's pet raccoon eats some of our dinner from under the table.

I know a girl in the US who has a squirrel that eats everything from on her table. And everywhere else.

The problem hasn't been solved yet. I still have to have the argument with myself first.

10:36 PM

She put up a pumpkin this Thanksgiving, got eaten the very night.

@RegDwigнt Well yeah duh. Girl from the US? Pretty obvious

No, she's actually from Sarajevo like.

@RegDwigнt OMG squirrels are the worst

Only lives in the states since 1998.

they don't know how to chew pumpkins to follow the carving pattern correctly.

Idiots

10:38 PM

It's ironic because last time we met in person, she was all into Smashing Pumpkins.

@RegDwigнt OK

So she's in the US but from Sarajevo.

It's also ironic because that was at the exact time when Alanis Morissette made Jagged Little Pill.

What is she of?

@RegDwigнt calculates

calculates some more

Sugar and spice and all things nice, that's what girls are made of.

changes batteries in calculator

starts calculating again

10:39 PM

Yeah it was a long time ago.

ugh... reverses polarity

We didn't know no calculators back then.

ding.... That was a while ago.

Mine spells BOOBS.

I'm not sure what year that is in Gregorian.

@RegDwigнt You're so lucky. To have an upside down calculator.

@RegDwigнt Old Style?

10:40 PM

No I'm in Australia and frankly I can't call that luck.

@Mitch all of Russia is in Old Style. Which is why our Christmas is still January 6th. As it should be.

@RegDwigнt Because they call everything different in Australia. It's like another world.

Yeah they call everything cunt.

It's kinda confusing.

Hard to tell one cunt from another.

@RegDwigнt It takes the wise men 12 days to get to Bethlehem.

@RegDwigнt There was an article in al the big British newspapers the other day about how 'cunt' is totally OK for even the Queen to say

...when kicking the shit out of her meth head clients.

I read a headline in a big British newspaper the other day that said "Lady Di was still alive hours before her death".

That upset me.

user image

@RegDwigнt I'm still alive.

gets nervous

10:48 PM

@Mitch Bee Gees are dead, mate.

Here's another hint for you BTW: Alanis Morissette made Jagged Little Pill hours before Lady Di died.

@RegDwigнt True story: Emergency ... um ... people say that the best way to do CPR is to count to the beat of 'Staying Alive'.

That is a true story.

Another true story: docs say that CPR only works 20% of the time it's used.

In that it is a story that people genuinely tell.

I've hear d that too.

10:50 PM

@Mitch another true story: Billie Jean is the name of the dummy docs practice CPR on.

Not in a story

more in a pamphlet

maybe an infographic?

@RegDwigнt I need to point out that she's is not my lover.

Full disclosure and all

I can't find it, I actually posted it to this chat.

I think Mrs Hiny was there.

chat search sucks at finding images

Jul 9 '13 at 15:12, by RegDwighт

@Robusto so that's why Steve Jobs killed Michael Jackson: to get the rights for The Beatles.

Found this though.

It wasn't an image. It was a link to an in-depth article. Then some discussion with quotes from said article.

Maybe it was a different song altogether? I think Michael wrote another one.

Oh right! It was Annie from Smooth Criminal. My bad.

Jul 23 '14 at 10:03, by RegDwigнt

Just two days ago I watched a documentary about all the people involved in producing MJ and his videos, and among other things it explained who the heck Annie was.

There we go.

@RegDwigнt OMG she must be a zombie or something.

10:54 PM

Jul 23 '14 at 10:06, by RegDwigнt

Resusci® Anne Basic and SkillGuide™

Incredible.

Guys did you experience log in problems just now?

I know.

I did say it upset me.

Stop tweening Jasper. This was at Cerberus.

Now start tweening.

I could not log in to SE for hours, because clicking on google icon doesn't work.

Thank you.

10:55 PM

That still doesn't explain anything. Who's Annie?

It just worked again.

Who could have changed the code?

Who is google icon and why you no follow the first commandment to not make any icons?

@Mitch it's Schwarzenegger, but he can't spell his name.

See, when you click log in, you get redirected to a page with google, facebook, or email login.

Why would you ever log out, Jasper.

Quit quitting.

We told you before.

@RegDwigнt nobody can

10:57 PM

Haha, this is just logging out, not deleting anything, lol.

I've not had to log in to SE since, well, they called it SE.

@RegDwigнt I have

@JasperLoy is my point. Gateway drug.

Now, even new users could not sign up just now!

@Mitch that's because communists hacked your account and logged you out.

10:57 PM

They try to sign up, click on the google icon, then fail.

But I'm a communist myself so bad things don't happen to me.

At first I thought they blocked me or something because I was naughty.

@RegDwigнt that seems unfair

@JasperLoy What say you? New users can't log in? Can we keep that part of the new design?

@JasperLoy They can't entirely read our thoughts yet

thinks real hard about...

10:59 PM

@Mitch communism is unfair. To all. Equally. It's in the definition.

@RegDwigнt Commies

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