English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:04

Absolutely.

Just make sure you don't get caught in a Blizzard blizzard.

Robusto

Too late.

Cerberus

Whoopsie.

user19161

-3

Q: Origin of pronunciation of "I"

When I began to study English in my high school (Moscow Institute of Applied Physics) I could not believe our teacher (or tutor?) that the English pronounce it as "AI". I was all of shocked. In school I studied French and I always thought that all normal nations (at least European) pronounce it a...

pronunciation

simchona

@JasperLoy Was just about to talk about that

user19161

This got so many downvotes so quickly!

Robusto

00:06

simchona

It's a horrible question

user19161

@simchona Well, he is a new user. I gave him an upvote to get started.

simchona

Also, someone un-upvoted it. I checked the vote count at one point at it was +2/-3, now its +1/-4

@JasperLoy Don't do that.

user19161

You are a good troller, but stopping now! – Régis Roux 28 mins ago

user19161

I don't understand Roux's comment.

simchona

00:08

@JasperLoy Me neither. He also made weird comments on the less/fewer question

I suspect he's not fluent enough in English to speak quite as colloquially

Cerberus

@Rob: Haha, you did it.

Vitaly

1

Q: Drug names in colloquial Russian

What are the Russian colloquial names for the most common drugs, such as marijuana, LSD, amphetamines? What do they mean?

words colloquial

WTF?

user19161

@Vitaly If I recall correctly, Feynman took LSD and Erdos took amphetamines.

simchona

@simchona, try to think logically: the answer is the answer/reason is unknown — trg787 1 min ago

Really now?

Mitch

00:43

@simchona yeah, weird, but obviously a NNS so.. the imperative is probably the only way he knew how to say it, but that's what sounds bad.

@JasperLoy so who is trg##?

@simchona oh...you already made the same observation.

simchona

01:16

@Mitch No, that was about Regis

Mahnax

03:18

-1

Q: How to improve American English Listening

Can you suggest some approaches on "How to improve American English Listening" ?

american-english listening

What…?

Cerberus

03:35

Hi.

> We know where Pluto is, and where it's going; we know Pluto's shape, and Pluto's mass—but is it a planet? And yes, there were people who said this was a fight over definitions—but even that is a Network 2 sort of perspective, because you're arguing about how the central unit ought to be wired up. If you were a mind constructed along the lines of Network 1, you wouldn't say "It depends on how you define 'planet'," you would just say, "Given that we know Pluto's orbit and shape and mass, there is no question left to ask." Or, rather, that's how it would feel—it would feel like there was …

@Vitaly: Do you feel that "that depends on your definition" and "that is not really an interesting question" are incompatible?

Mahnax

Hi!

Cerberus

Hello!

I am about to go to bed.

Good luck on improving American English Listening.

Mahnax

Haha, thaaaanks.

Cerberus

Is that part of Duolingo too?

Vitaly

@Cerberus I sure do feel like a Network-1-type agent and "that depends on your definition" is nearly meaningless to me in the first place.

Mahnax

03:42

Sleep well.

@Cerberus No, thank heavens.

Vitaly

American® English Listening™

Cerberus

@Vitaly I'm not sure I understand the connection between the two clauses. As to the second one: why is the statement "that depends on your definition" meaningless?

Vitaly

> "Given that we know Pluto's orbit and shape and mass, there is no question left to ask." Or, rather, that's how it would feel—it would feel like there was no question left

How do you do a double quote?

Cerberus

I have read the article.

Mahnax

@Vitaly American® English© Listening™.

Cerberus

03:45

I was wondering about your opinion rather than a quotation of what I have just read.

If you will forgive me my sarcasm.

Vitaly

@Cerberus I will assume you skipped the “to me” part for the sake of convenience. In that case, the quote fully answers your question. In the opposite case, I'd advise you to re-read my statement.

Cerberus

I was hoping for some more explanation.

When I say "that depends on your definition", to me that means something like this: "the way you phrase it now, your statement or question seems a bit meaningless; if you clarify certain parts of it, I may understand the purpose of your statement better, and thereby understand whether it means x or y [or n]".

Vitaly

So essentially you mean something like this: “I lack some data necessary to comprehend your statement, please try and walk me across the inferential gap”?

Cerberus

Yes.

Inferential gap?

Vitaly

> Inferential distance is a gap between the background knowledge and epistemology of a person trying to explain an idea, and the background knowledge and epistemology of the person trying to understand it.

Cerberus

03:51

The "yes" was before your edit.

@Vitaly Then still yes.

Vitaly

In that case, using Pluto as our example, what use is the definition of planet if you simply lack the data about its velocity, mass, etc?

Just acquire that new data and be done with it.

Cerberus

So when someone asks, "is Pluto a planet?", I immediately wonder why he asks this. If his goal is to determine whether it is roughly shaped like an orb, then I might know what to answer. If instead he wants to know whether most astronomers call it a planet, then, again, I can at least look it up, probably. Then the question has meaning.

Vitaly

The article is about the goal of whether to slap the planet label onto Pluto.

Cerberus

In the case of the falling tree, I can't really think of any sensible interpretation. So I would suspect that the question was just silly. However, just to be sure, I would want to give the asker a chance to prove that it does indeed make sense, so I might ask, "what is your definition of sound in this question?", and hope that he come up with something that makes the question meaningful.

If he cannot do that, then he probably has some false premises or extreme simplifications.

Vitaly

Good night.

Cerberus

03:57

@Vitaly In a catalogue maintained by astronomers, it might serve some purpose. I don't know. Even if it does, however, it is certainly of very minor importance.

So of course I agree with E's main point. I just wondered why he would interpret "that depends on your definition" the way he appeared to do.

Jez

07:12

ah bloody hell

Slashdot chose some tedious "Linux laptops for elementary schools" story over my HTTPS one

skullpatrol

07:33

@Gigili I found a way to end my existence on stack exchange...

Jez

bullet to the head?

skullpatrol

Sort of ;-)

More like I've lit an 8 day fuse on my reputation points.

Meysam

what's the meaning of "for one" in: "I for one, cannot understand why a government cannot come up with a list of redundant expenses which is being funded now and just stop these programs?"

Gigili

@Meysam It's like saying "man yeki ke fekr mikonam ...", "man yeki ke nemifahmam ..."

skullpatrol

The speaker is enumerating a list in which he is including himself as "one," he could also say, "I am one of many who cannot understand why ..."

Meysam

07:46

@Gigili @skullpatrol thanks

skullpatrol

np

Jez

skullpatrol

@DavidWallace Hi

David Wallace

@Cerberus "Mann und Weib und Weib und Mann reichen an die Gottheit an" - Mozart (die Zauberflöte)

2

@skullpatrol Hi

Meysam

@DavidWallace Hi

David Wallace

07:58

@Meysam Hi

skullpatrol

@DavidWallace Are you interested in a 400 point bounty?

David Wallace

@skullpatrol For what?

I'm not really driven by reputation. But if I can provide a good answer to a good question, I shall do so.

Argh. I said a "good question".

The answer to the question is "no". There's nothing to add.

skullpatrol

@DavidWallace Did you get a chance to take a look at Einstein's little book?

David Wallace

No, I have not.

If Einstein could teach GR to high school students, then he was either dealing with high school students unlike any I've ever encountered, or he was smarter than I. I suspect the latter.

Anyone know what this means? - english.stackexchange.com/questions/70828/…

skullpatrol

08:18

"Simple Math"?

David Wallace

The whole remark. Is he/she expecting me to exhibit every possible grammatical sentence, before I'm allowed to use the word "ungrammatical"?

Meysam

@DavidWallace means that he has had a bad day

skullpatrol

Or hasn't read the OED definition just below it :D

David Wallace

Yeah, I might just ignore him/her.

user19161

@skullpatrol Why?

user19161

08:23

@skullpatrol What is the question?

skullpatrol

@JasperLoy Why not?

David, are you telling me that there is no such relation between water, folk and equipment as I have seen it ? Besides I don't like that you have used the word ungrammatical, because you haven't told us what is grammatical for you. When you are trying to prove the opposite of one statement you have to define your statement. Simple Math. — speedyGonzales 57 mins ago

user19161

@skullpatrol So what is the question?

David Wallace

@JasperLoy math.stackexchange.com/questions/157127/negative-versus-minus/…, you shameless rep whore.

user19161

@DavidWallace Oh there are so many answers already.

David Wallace

@JasperLoy More than the question deserves.

skullpatrol

08:27

@DavidWallace Aren't "whores" suppose to lack "reputation"?

user19161

@skull My own take on the matter is that yes, we can use minus eight to pronounce negative eight.

David Wallace

There are two possible answers - "yes" and "no". There is no need to be so verbose.

@skullpatrol You can have a reputation for being a whore.

skullpatrol

@DavidWallace Would that be a negative reputation or minus reputation?

Gigili

You're not allowed to change your question. That's annoying.

skullpatrol

:D

user19161

08:30

@Gigili Good observation.

user19161

@skullpatrol Good smile.

Gigili

I'd suspend your account for a year if I were Zev.

skullpatrol

that^ would be a good thing

user19161

@skull If you really want to quit, just delete your account.

skullpatrol

@JasperLoy I tried that already :(

user19161

08:32

@skullpatrol But you have not deleted your account!

user19161

I will be quitting soon, but I will keep my accounts.

user19161

It will happen when I reach 20k on ELU.

skullpatrol

Good luck :D

user19161

That is to say, I won't log in anymore.

skullpatrol

@JasperLoy Ahh... so you'll still be "lurking" around, hey? ;-)

user19161

08:36

@skullpatrol Not really. But I may log in a few years later if I am still alive.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВB For once, you are slower. Haha.

skullpatrol

There is always Omegle ;-)

user19161

@Mitch Just a guy I chatted with who has more than his fair share of problems it seems and who vanished from the site for a while and who pissed off some people.

Meysam

@JasperLoy I am going to downvote all your answers from now on, because I don't want you to leave.

user19161

@skullpatrol Actually I don't think I'll quit. I'll just work on another account and make it to 20k as well!

user19161

08:41

@Meysam Haha. Good luck for the penthouse search.

skullpatrol

@JasperLoy Well, once this bounty expires I'm history...

user19161

@skullpatrol Haha, good luck!

skullpatrol

Thank you.

David Wallace

@JasperLoy 20 years from now, half the users on SE will be incarnations of Jasper Loy.

skullpatrol

@DavidWallace Is that exponential growth?

Meysam

08:45

I believe in reincarnation

user19161

@Meysam I sort of do as well.

user19161

Scientists are only beginning to discover that what the Buddha said is true.

Meysam

@JasperLoy And I hope it's the last time I live on this planet.

user19161

@Meysam This planet has too much evil and suffering.

skullpatrol

@Gigili How does putting in the "textbook answer" change the question?

Gigili

09:01

@skullpatrol I'll respond later. I'm so distracted by something now.

skullpatrol

@Gigili np

Gigili

10:12

@skullpatrol Simply because you asked the answerers to add that part to their answers.

skullpatrol

@Gigili How did I do that?

Gigili

You commented on their answers.

skullpatrol

The comment read the same as the so called "textbook answer" regarding this question.

I asked a question, got answers, and then showed the "textbook answer."
I don't see how that changes the question?

Gigili

Then it serves no useful purpose.

skullpatrol

@Gigili Are you saying that peoples' opinion don't serve any useful purpose?

Gigili

10:24

People's opinion? I'm talking about what you have done.

skullpatrol

Which was get peoples' opinion first and then post the "textbook answer."

@Gigili BTW Thank you for the helpful edits :-)

Anyway, I'm finished with this web site once I award this bounty.

Gigili

No problem.

skullpatrol

10:42

@Gigili Do you still believe putting in the "textbook answer" changed the question?

It's sort of like if you get the answer (x+2)(x+1) to a question, and then look in the back and see the "textbook answer" is (x+1)(x+2); does that mean you must change your answer to match the textbook?

Gigili

11:18

@skullpatrol It isn't like that. Your question was a soft question as you said. So there's no right answer. I don't see the point of commenting on their answers about your textbook answer thingy.

skullpatrol

@Gigili To get their opinions.

Robusto

11:58

> @Carlo_R.: what is 'Pagina'? I'm guessing it is 'page' in Italian. So you're using some kind of Italian search engine? That might trip you up in your quotes...you might be cut and pasting things that won't be understood by many users here. Also, If you're cut and pasting, you probably want to give the link to the original, too.

Gee, I sure hope pagina is a word.

David Wallace

I'm pretty sure it is "page" in Italian.

Robusto

That is comforting. I love it when new rhymes sail into view.

BTW, @DavidWallace, I found out that the match I watched a few weeks ago was, in fact, Rugby Sevens. There is regular coverage here on cable. Looks like an interesting game.

David Wallace

12:18

Yes, it's very fast and exciting.

It's usually played in a two-day tournament with 24 teams. Each team ends up playing 6 games over the two days, so you end up seeing a whole lot of different abilities and different playing styles, if you go to see the tournament.

Sorry, 16 teams, not 24.

There are 9 tournaments each year - Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Dubai, London, Glasgow, Tokyo, Gold Coast (Australia), Port Elizabeth (South Africa) and Wellington.

Robusto

This is one sport I wouldn't mind seeing pick up a following in the U.S.

Also, I see you quoting from die Zauberflöte. My favorite aria from that opera is "Ach, ich fühl's," esp. the version recorded by Anna Moffo.

But, truly, the opera is stuffed with outstanding arias, as is any Mozart opera.

Cerberus

12:59

Agreed.

Jez

13:25

Jesus Christ a lot of people need to learn the usage of your

im SO fucking sick of seeing that in the wrong place

morons. morons everywhere.

Mitch

your right.

Jez

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

my right is to slap you over the head :-)

Mitch

@Robusto what pathway brought you to -that-? Is Carlo being ... interesting again?

@Jez I make fun ... because I can't stand it either...also

also.. I've noticed when typing fast... I'll look back and notice their and they';re swapped, too for two, the whole lot. very embaradding.

Jez

13:41

I don't do that, for some reason.

it's just obvious to my brain when you're saying something which is a contraction and when your words are intended to indicate possession

in fact it feels totally wrong to do it the other way

Cerberus

14:07

@Mitch Which evil gnomes are responsible for that?

aedia λ

I used to care, but then I mostly got over it, except that I think in really formal contexts it's useful to recognize that you want some proofreading by someone who's good at that.

I guess sometimes that's me so if you knew me at w*#k you would probably think I was a lot more anal about teh typos (except in internal email, IM, etc.)

MetaEd

Anal retentive or anal expulsive?

aedia λ

giggles Hmm. They do sometimes fly out with abandon

cornbread ninja

14:25

(0_0)

howdy all

aedia λ

@KitFox My former colleague graphic designer and I were always trying to frantically get comps printed. I have no idea why everyone was so hot to see them, or anything, in print when they were designs for the screen, but there you go.

Cerberus

@aediaλ You would write "your mad" in e-mails on a regular basis? incredulous look

aedia λ

@KitFox Now that my team has shrunk a ton, when I wear my graphic designer hat in a fraction of my time, I am: a) Fighting with InDesign because I forgot how to use it b) thinking about a new logo I should be designing but haven't had time for c) working on a pile of approximately 5000 routine images I have to check and output d) being interrupted by emergency images to fix e) drinking coffee and thinking about how I want to fix all the buttons and colors ever

Robusto

3

A: Can "of" be followed by "between"?

"... vocabulary of between ..." has 3,850 hits on Google Books. So, we can say that the phrase is correct. Furthermore, analogous 'structures' (of followed by between) have many hits on Google Books: "... time of between ..."; 55,700 hits (These periodicities ranged between .022 and .10 Hz, wh...

aedia λ

@Cerberus I wouldn't, but I accept the they're/their and your/you're things from other people just fine in email now without cringing.

Cerberus

14:35

@aediaλ How about if this were a potential date who ought to be trying to impress you?

aedia λ

@Cerberus Well, I don't have many of those now ;) I might still judge if I didn't really know the person. I probably couldn't help it. I just try not to. I'm sure it wouldn't help if it was a first impression. I just have plenty of friends, family, and colleagues who range from occasional typo to completely terrible spellers and after knowing them I know what they are brilliant at. It seems a silly thing to place too much value on in most contexts.

Cerberus

@David: Hey I didn't see your reply for some reason! I like that aria very much.

MetaEd

@Robusto Yes, you have to be careful what you conclude from the result of a Google Books or Ngram search. Coïncidentally I was just looking again at: english.stackexchange.com/questions/70624/… -- where we are apparently very impressed by a typo that happens to be a word having an obsolete meaning that almost fits the sentence, and we discover with a Google search that the typo has occurred more than once.

Cerberus

@aediaλ Doesn't it mean that bad spellers care less about language, for good or for ill? So if you don't care either, it can be a good thing; otherwise, you might want to consider whether your love for language is relevant in your relationship with this person. I mean, many people care enough to check their e-mails for spelling errors.

MetaEd

And yes, please pronounce that "co-oyn-si-dense".

Cerberus

14:44

I like your trema.

MetaEd

@Cerberus Nicest thing anybody has said to me today.

aedia λ

@Cerberus I pretty much agree with you there, except that I don't totally think it means they don't love language if they can't spell. Maybe if that's the first impression you get from someone even in e-mail, sure.

Cerberus

@MetaEd I'm nice like that. I give compliments where they are due.

@aediaλ It may not mean that, but it does increase the chance that they feel word choice, style, etc., are also nitpicking.

aedia λ

@Cerberus But I'll give you an example that'll probably make you cringe: my brother, the history student, makes tons more typos than me and isn't assiduous about fixing them. It's true that he can churn out pages and pages when I struggle to write a paragraph of interface text, but still. He like, just doesn't care about proofreading at all compared to content.

Cerberus

That is so odd!

My brother is also sloppier than I am.

aedia λ

14:48

All in all, though, I think he's at least as smart as me, at this point more educated, and all he would need is an editor.

Cerberus

But he does sort of accept it if I correct him. And he's not extremely sloppy.

aedia λ

Whereas I could never even produce the amount of text he does. I don't know if I could even train myself to do it.

Cerberus

There may be tons of very smart people who do not care about style etc.!

MetaEd

3

Q: How to assess "an access of butchness"

I read this phrase in Alan Bennett’s Diary years ago and found it so unusual I’ve never forgotten it. Italics mine: 8 December. Trying to find someone a Meccano set for Christmas, I’m reminded of a couple, friends of Russell H., who had a son of twelve or so who they were worried might be...

meaning word-choice nouns

aedia λ

@Cerberus So I don't know. I feel like people who can at least get the writing done have an advantage in being able to work with proofreaders, whereas nobody cares that I can produce a tweet or a Facebook status sans typos... and so it's maybe not so much of a natural advantage to be super picky about style.

Cupertino effect

The Cupertino effect is the tendency of a spell checker to suggest or autocorrect inappropriate words to replace misspelled words and words not in its dictionary. This term refers to the fact that the unhyphenated English word "cooperation" was often changed to "Cupertino" by older spellcheckers with dictionaries containing only the hyphenated variant, "co-operation". Cupertino is the home of Apple Inc., and thus would be in most computer spelling dictionaries. Cupertino has been present in Microsoft's custom dictionaries since at least 1989 (when Word 4 for Mac was released). Lack of v...

@Mitch Sadly, I think this term is doomed to be overridden by damn you autocorrect

Cerberus

14:58

@aediaλ I don't know...I much prefer reading a carefully written text. And in my experience people who pay attention to detail are on average both better at careful writing and better at writing carefully thought-out arguments.

That is, people are are nit-pickers by nature have an advantage in general if careful thinking needs to be done.

And mistakes ≠ sloppiness.

And of course a certain degree of sloppiness in certain contexts is perfectly normal.

@aediaλ Haha, Cupertino...

But my autocorrector does indeed sometimes make my mistakes worse.

Because "I live you" is worse than "I lve you".

aedia λ

I say the former a lot to my husband

We've both agreed it's ok

Cerberus

I live you?

aedia λ

Yeah, in text form

Cerberus

In bed or in text messages?

Ah.

MetaEd

@aediaλ The Cupertino Effect. I like that.

aedia λ

15:04

@Cerberus I think my "youuuu" is more like that too, because I say something once and stupid dictionary picks it up... I'm hoping nexus's dictionary will be easier to edit. Evo's took a near-impossible level of patience. I'll have to look.

Brb phone!

Cerberus

@aediaλ Oh, do let me know whether it is easy!

MetaEd

@aediaλ I see where one person suggests they be called "autonyms".

Cerberus

"Zelf-names"?

Cerberus

15:24

*Self-

cornbread ninja

0

Q: “all things are become new” any grammatical problem?

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” II Corinthians 5:17 I'm stuck on the use of "are become" here. Is it grammatical or is it just old English?

grammaticality

0

Q: Is the meme, "all your base are belong to us" correct for any time period?

Surely many people have heard, "all your base are belong to us." It is a popular internet meme from 2000. The wikipedia page calls it "broken English", but it seems as if God speaks the same language, as evident in this question: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old ...

grammaticality

happy Corinthians II day, y'all

@aediaλ that's beautiful! :D

@Mitch yessir.

MetaEd

rollseyes

MetaEd

15:41

If any man be in Christ, then it's more like Happy Leviticus 20:13 day.

Robusto

16:16

@aediaλ I hate when my phone changes fuck to duck.

3

@cornbreadninja I am become Deaf, destroyer of Words.

cornbread ninja

@Robusto :D

Mitch

16:36

@cornbreadninja AYBABTU is from Corinthians II? And when will it come out on XBox?

MetaEd

If the result of autocorrect failure is an autonym, perhaps the fact of autocorrect failure is an autoduck.

cornbread ninja

@Mitch lol.

MetaEd

Is it a noun? "Sorry, that's an autoduck". Or is it a verb? "Sorry, I was autoducked".

Or perhaps it's an e-duck.

"My phone ?e-ducked 'pork' to 'pussy'."

But: "'Pussy' is an ?autonym of 'pork'."

What about a shortening of autocorrect? ?a-core

cornbread ninja

@MetaEd a-ok

a-orl kerrect

Mitch

@Cerberus evil gnomes? They just stand and stare at you, or worse look over your shoulder as though you weren't there. They don't care if you type well or not.

MetaEd

16:44

Do we need a separate word for each kind of autocorrect? What about OCR errors?

cornbread ninja

I wish I could change my chat font to OCR-A

Mitch

Looking up the 'history' of "y'all" yesterday, which means clicking on links from NGrams, I found out that in print they used to (in the 1700's) abbreviate 'the' 'that', etc. with 'y^e' or 'y^t' (that is, a 'y' with a superscript 'e' or 't'). Which I never knew.It accounted for almost all the "y'all" hits from before 1890.

cornbread ninja

@Mitch interesting!

Mitch

exactly

MetaEd

⑉ why?

Mitch

16:49

It was almost like if someone had told me that Pluto is not a planet anymore.

MetaEd

Pluto has been upgraded from planet to plane.

cornbread ninja

@Mitch I have bad news for you...

Mitch

I get the 'y' part (looks like a 'thorn'), but why would they bother to abbreviate such short words?

Matt Эллен

@MetaEd when did it get downgraded from dog?

Mitch

(somehow the superscripted item got converted to a "'" (a single quote) and then a following 'all' topped it off)

MetaEd

16:56

@Mitch cost of paper. Not only did they abbreviate heavily but they would actually scrape old text off and reuse paper.

Mitch

what did they abbreviate heavily to?

MetaEd

Palimpsest

A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin ' from Ancient Greek ' (palímpsestos, “scratched or scraped again”) originally compounded from ' (palin, “again”) and ' (psao, “I scrape”) literally meaning “scraped clean and used again”. Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice. The term has come to be used in similar context in a variety of disciplines, not...

Matt Эллен

@Mitch h'v'ly

Mitch

Really..I read that as "abbreviate 'heavily'". Really. I'm still trying to figure out why that word was used so much.

Matt Эллен

sometimes they'd abbreviate a mistaken heavy to bro'

Mitch

16:59

what are the dudes that like 'My little pony' called? Something with 'bro'?

MetaEd

bronies

Cerberus

@Mitch: That is a thorn, I believe.

Thorn (letter)

Thorn or þorn (Þ, þ), is a letter in the Old English, Gothic, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th, except in Iceland where it survives. The letter originated from the rune in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the Anglo-Saxon and thorn or thurs ("giant") in the Scandinavian rune poems, its reconstructed Proto-Germanic name being Thurisaz. It has the sound of either a voiceless dental fricative [θ], like th as in the English word thick, or a voiced dental fric...

MetaEd

17:27

I hate when my phone changes fuþark to duþark.

skullpatrol

I hate when my phone rings :D

that's because as they say, today's iphone has more computing power than the appollo moon mission.

Mitch

17:53

@Cerberus well, it's definitely printed as a 'y' but presumably to replace the 'thorn'.

books.google.com/…

@cornbreadninja shows lots of examples.

user19161

@Robusto That is why I always use the manual mode to key in messages on the phone.

Mitch

There's another mode?

user19161

Well, you may have to hunt to change the setting.

user19161

But I think most phones would have both modes.

Mitch

which other mode? do you mean to -stop- auto-correction? That's not a mode, that's a..

user19161

17:57

@Mitch Well, whatever you call it.

Mitch

feature? attribute? I bet you use (prepares to spit) VI (spits)

user19161

The terminology can vary from phone to phone.

user19161

I use a very old Motorola phone, old and stable, like Debian.

user19161

Last time Robusto said any more stable and we will have to use two tins connected by a string.

skullpatrol

@Mitch There is nothing wrong with using roman numerals, we still do use it to denote Super Bowls :D

Hey, that would make the old AFL championships "negative" Super Bowls ;-)

cornbread ninja

18:49

@Mitch I hope that on Windows phones that a lightning bolt with drop-down appears and that the user can choose 'stop automatically correcting words'.

MetaEd

@Mitch Are you implying Ꝥ there's anything wrong with vi?

cornbread ninja

@Mitch neat! I wish 'between' were still 'betweene'.

VI/VIM

aedia λ

@Cerberus It seems better. Mine has only learned four words so far; I'll let you know how it is after I text a bunch on Nexus (haven't ported my number to it yet, so right now I'm only emailing and not calling/texting with it). It was the texting that really did in Evo's dictionary. It learned a couple hundred words and then I couldn't deal with getting around it to edit it anymore.

MetaEd

I'm a long time vi user. But these days it's generally vim, not vi, which is fine with me because I love the Unicode support.

I even have a vi extension for Google Chrome which lets me do vi style searches and navigation.

Mitch

@MetaEd There's nothing wrong with using vi..that isn't made better by switching to notepad. Hah...there...and I meant it to sting.

MetaEd

19:04

@Mitch You're going to have to try harder than Ꝥ.

Hey! Who said they could do this: ℃

I don't remember being consulted.

Cerberus

@Mitch I don't know, this looks like a reprint.

@MetaEd You mean Ꝥt with a superscript t...

@Mitch Look at the s's.

MetaEd

@Cerberus Look closer. That's not thorn; that's thorn with stroke.

Or drop it into the Wikipedia search box.

I'm not allowed to look at s's. I'm at work.

2

Cerberus

@MetaEd Oh, I didn't see the stroke. So you refuse to accept such inventions from Middle English as the superscript t, and you stick with good old Old English conventions? Why not! Tradition is cool.

MetaEd

@Cerberus I love anachronism.

Besides, the superscript t was merely a printer's substitution when it became uncommon to have thorn with stroke in the case.

Might as well ask me to write "yt".

cornbread ninja

19:23

@MetaEd have you done any typesetting?

Mitch

19:38

Through my agile mental powers, I have deduced that 'Ꝥ ' means 'that', but I see a unicode box with 8 7 6 4 inside. What have I done wrong in my life to deserve this? (realy, why can't I see that character right? I'm on in 7 with FF)

MetaEd

@cornbreadninja Never. My first experience with anything more sophisticated than a typewriter was PageMaker. I'm a child of desktop publishing.

Mahnax

Hello!

Mitch

@Cerberus the s's look fine to me (as in modern, not the 'f' looking things)

MetaEd

But I do remember using typewriters. The lack of a "1" key always annoyed me, and ASCII keyboards were a revelation. In their time.

Howdy Mahnax.

Mahnax

Hello MetaEd. How are you this afternoon?

Mitch

19:41

@MetaEd and I don't see a thorn with a stroke at all, just a natural (modern) 'y'. what line are you looking at?

He's discussing with us how terrible his life has been since he's been using vim.

MetaEd

@Mitch I used thorn with stroke at "You're going to have to try harder than Ꝥ" and Cerb used it at "You mean Ꝥt with a superscript t".

Mitch

Oh.

I couldn't tell because I couldn't see it.

MetaEd

Are we now going to ſtart using long S?

Because I love that too.

@Mitch You need a better class of font.

cornbread ninja

@Mitch I can't see it, either.

@MetaEd okay, cool.

waves @Mahnax

How goes it, Mahnax?

MetaEd

In fact I recently used long S in two published works: metaed.blogspot.com/2012/02/to-my-beloved.html and metaed.blogspot.com/2011/12/as-slow-as-possible.html

A hit! A hit! I confess it!

cornbread ninja

19:48

:D

@MetaEd with beacons, no less. Mmmm, beacon.

MetaEd

I did indulge myself there.

aedia λ

Aww, I miss PageMaker.

Matt Эллен

ſ u

aedia λ

I am unreasonably amused by something I just discovered in digging through old documentation: apparently some piece of software we had at work would prompt you multiple times about whether you performed a backup, like:

Did you back up: Y/N

Are you sure? Y/N

Did you know your islets of langerhans may shrivel up if you lie? Y/N

2

simchona

Are you sure you're sure?

Cerberus

19:56

@MetaEd I don't think so: the t was actually written whole above the thorn before printing.

@Mitch Well, I would expect elongated s's in the 18th century.

The switch was around 1800.

Have you ever seen the modern s and the y/thorn in "the/that" in the same print?

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