English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

02:58

@RegDwigнt: Surely you must have seen this already:

Music Software & Interface Design: MuseScore

►

SmokeDetector

05:15

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected (44): Make this sentence to be more fun.(related to League Of Legends) by Ace Ace on english.SE

Matt E. Эллен

09:40

Who cares? The question will recur and will get the same kinds of idiotic answers because there are more idiotic answers available than sane ones. The idea that someone is wrong on the internet shouldn't upset anybody any more. And the idea that anybody would rely on ELU.SE for important linguistic information is touching, but not very likely. — John Lawler 14 hours ago

It hurts because it's true

RegDwigнt

09:54

@Robusto yeah he kinda dropped the ball on that one. A bummer.

Matt E. Эллен

11:22

> If trilogy is three movies this blood is for maintenance?

what?

Matt E. Эллен

12:00

I wonder if someone has written a bot for producing EL&U questions. Or maybe that was an autocomplete or voice-to-text error.

Cerberus

13:10

@MattE.Эллен What, indeed!

Could be any of those three...or a troll.

If that is the proper designation.

Matt E. Эллен

@Cerberus could be. I still can't fathom it

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен All true except the very last thing. It's very likely that many people rely on ELU for important linguistic information.

Matt E. Эллен

Yay!

Mitch

not linguists though

Matt E. Эллен

Oh. Right.

Mitch

13:25

I'm sure they take one look and move to the next tab

also a movement is accomplished in six stages

Matt E. Эллен

If movement is six stages this blood is for maintenance?

Mitch

exactly.

I always sing in my head 'resplendent in divergence' to that tune, but looking it up I see that I've never in my life hear d the song that resplendent in divergence comes from.

@MattE.Эллен Also, did you really need to delete the highly upvoted subjunctive answer?

why was it flagged?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch well, I don't know. people were complaining and Lawler says it's wrong. it seems if it is wrong and highly upvoted then the SNR is out of whack

Mitch

There's nothing deleteable about it (it's totally wrong of course)

@MattE.Эллен But that's not a deletable offense

Is it?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch isn't it? it seems like I'm stopping people from getting the wrong message

Mitch

13:30

Also, what is 'SNR'?

Matt E. Эллен

If I see a +93 answer I'm going to think there's some merit to it

@Mitch signal to noise ratio

I can only downvote it once

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I think that's crazy too.

Matt E. Эллен

if it were highly downvoted, it probably wouldn't be flagged

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен really?

I'd go the whole other way

I'd expect it to be flagged then

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch yeah, in the short term, but then it would have been deleted long long ago

I mean, if it had escaped detection for so long

Mitch

13:33

and JLaw didn't say "This is crap, get rid of it", not that he's an authority on moderation anyway

Matt E. Эллен

he didn't

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен It hd to have been very visible because so any people voted up on it.

Matt E. Эллен

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/72677/2018/2/4

it's discussed there, I'm reading up on it

Mitch

There's all sorts of wrong answers out there that are well-written and insightful and only mildly upvoted, that because of this precedent, should totally be deleted.

@MattE.Эллен seems pretty inconclusive.

that is there's no swing one way or the other, some seem pro, some not.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch I only see what gets flagged, alos I'm no linguistic scholar

Mitch

13:40

Black and White says they repeatedly flagged it, but if you read the answer, and all the comment threads related, there's nothing flaggable or deleteable about it.

What's to stop someone flagging other answers that they don't agree with.

Voting is for disagreeing.

Matt E. Эллен

I'm going to look at meta meta to see if there is anything about deleting highly upvoted but demonstrably wrong answer

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен OK, but there's no recourse, I can't vote to reopen.

Matt E. Эллен

and if not, ask about it

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен It's not demonstrably wrong

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch can't you vote to undelete (10k privilege?)

Mitch

13:41

(I strongly disagree with it)

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch it says "always go with subjunctive" which is demonstrated as wrong in tchrist's answer

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен FIrst thing I tried. "This question was closed by a mod and so is not undeleteable"

Matt E. Эллен

or always go with "were"

@Mitch hmmm

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен TChrist is no linguistic scholar

well, OK maybe he is. Also I agree with his answer.

But that's not a reason to delete a competing answer that a lot of (totally idiotic) people upvoted.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch but I don't see linguistic scholars disagreeing with his answer

they clearly do with Edward's

16

A: Should horribly wrong answers be deleted?

Yes, absolutely. That's why high rep users can vote to delete. That is also why there is a peer pressure badge, to encourage users to delete their own downvoted content. We want to identify harmful answers, but we do not necessarily want them to stick around. Even though their scores are negativ...

admittedly their example answer is downvoted

Mitch

13:47

The answer was given in 2010.

Matt E. Эллен

so?

Mitch

Fine

I don't think it is obviously wrong.

Matt E. Эллен

Feel free to bring it up in our English Language & Usage Meta. just because meta meta says something, doesn't mean we have to go with the flow

@Mitch but you do think it's wrong

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен starting a qn on meta, there seems to be a lot of other similar questions.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch cool :) it'd be good to get community input on this

Mitch

13:56

I wanted my question to be general, and not specifically about the subjunctive

but now I feel like it's ben done before.

maybe I should make it about this qn specifically.

@MattE.Эллен fine.

@MattE.Эллен I disagree with it. I definitely think it should stay (be visible) with the commentary (so people can judge).

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch with 93 upvotes, don't you think it's misleading?

upvotes are our main signal that something is correct

Mitch

maybe I'm wrong about the subjunctive

People used to use the subjunctive all the time, as it were.

Nobody bats an eye nowadays if you don't... except a number of people.

The best answer would show the difference. (I think tchrist does it)

Matt E. Эллен

if you was wrong wouldn't Lawler or Kosmo or JSBangs or Peter Shor have said "good show, Edward, this makes perfect sense"?

Mitch

bats an eyelash

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Mitch

14:02

@MattE.Эллен it's a matter of principle, rule of law.

I guess there's a place for judges overriding a jury.

but this was overwhelming popularity.

Matt E. Эллен

that's true. a lot of people did agree

the tyranny of the masses

Mitch

If it were under 5, it'd be very unnoticeable, delete away!

um... maybe not.

but anyway

Matt E. Эллен

lol

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен but presumably this is all not about opinion and reference, but about evidence.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch how do you mean?

Mitch

14:07

my snap answer to the q would have been the exact opposite of Edward's "No one uses the subjunctive anymore"

(and it would have been popular too)

and also, well, not totally wrong..

some people still use the subjunctive

and also we've shown here a few instances where we'd use it.

Matt E. Эллен

so you're saying I should delete your hypothetical answer, too?

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен the whole analogy with democratic principles, voting, majority over minority is about poliitcal items that people -want-, not about what is 'true' (or statistics about which phenomenon occurs more often)

@MattE.Эллен If you're going to delete this extremely highly voted one...

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch but is Edward's answer even trying to be correct? it reads quite tongue in cheek

"Use were and you'll sound smarter"

Mitch

(that was JLaw's point re Machiavelli)

and ML's point about how that's not acceptable nowadays.

(which bothers me)

Matt E. Эллен

true. I don't want people to go back through old answer and ask for references

tbh I don't want people to do it for many new answers either

why does everyone keep overgeneralising?

Mitch

14:18

@MattE.Эллен Also complaining about people's activity on the site (eg "That guy doesn't care enough to update" as if anybody does (except for sumelic (one of the few actual linguists)))

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch (certainly noöne whose first answer is a single liner on a SWR)

Mitch

14:39

still writing a meta question

Matt E. Эллен

taps finger on watch

j/k I don't wear a watch

Mitch

oh

now that I'm done, do you still want a watch?

Matt E. Эллен

what flavour is it?

Mitch

I knew soeone who had a new fancy watch every 6 months or so, not rolex but... decorative, like sometimes with a big face and huge roman numerals, that math watch, or one time with all the numbers had fallen off. to the bottom.

And I never said anything but wondered 'WTH'.

why bother.

and then I got it. It's just decoration. well, maybe rough time, like 'it's the afternoon' but I'm pretty sure that's obvious

it's just jewelery

so if you like that, why not a watch.

any way, all the planes are gonna crash on 03:14:07 UTC 2038-01-19

what good is watch going to be then?

Matt E. Эллен

14:57

@Mitch it'll still be a watch if you're not on a plane

@Mitch good question

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Any flavor you want. This is all imaginary anyway. Make it rainbow unicorn blood sherbet.

So I was watching Star Trek TOS last night. Episode 'Whom Gods Destroy'

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch the more taboo the better. rainbow unicorn foal blood cocaine sherbert

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен You nasty

Matt E. Эллен

hypothetically

Mitch

I mean, the cocaine is gilding the rainbow unicorn foal blood.

Matt E. Эллен

15:02

you're right! Gilded rainbow unicorn foal blood cocaine sherbet

Mitch

So the episode was about Kirk and Spock visiting the insane asylum planet with the worst insane criminals of the galaxy

(our part of the galaxy to be precise)

@MattE.Эллен gold sprinkles

he new ice cream add-on

Matt E. Эллен

:-o

Mitch

and it turns out (of course) that one of the prisoners is a shape shifter, impersonated the warden, and took over the prison (a really nice Star Trekky set prison, like Sweden, clean but in space)

but (some pot details left out) this madman, in trying to get off the planet by now shapeshifting to Capt Kirk, couldn't figure out the pass code to tell Scotty to beam him up.

(none of this is my point. at all)

The point is, is that this madman, who had killed thousands, enslaved millions and eaten rainbow unicorn foal blood gelato with gold sprinkles, was written in a certain way by the ST screenwriters

He was full of himself, brooked no imagined slight, had to be the center of attention, acted like a petulant spoiled 12 year old when things didn't go well.

So the writers were writing this guy to be this grandiose, deluded... fuck it, he didn't sound half as bad as Trump.

Matt E. Эллен

Trump is worse than scifi could imagine!

The new bench mark for arch-villains

Mitch

1) I don't think the writers were trying very hard

2) I'm sure lots of people say (and think) worse things in private.

But this guy!

Educ

16:57

Hi

@Mitch How are you ?

Mitch

19:33

@Educ hey!

Robusto

20:56

Consider cliché. Practically every "champion" movie you ever see has that exact storyline. — Robusto 1 min ago

And the question was:

2

Q: What is a perfect adjective to describe a champion who eventually wins after many setbacks?

friends, I am very glad to be on this forum! Here I am sending you greetings! :) Would you please share with me what adjective would you suggest describing a winner, a champion, who will win the final battle but will encounter many obstacles, hardships, oppositions, and mockeries? I was thinkin...

The spring equinox arrives this evening. Here's everything you need to know. I think that just said everything that needed to be said.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…