English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Færd

5:16 AM

twitter.com/MaryRobinette/status/1135684848465657857

Nice thread.

CowperKettle

7:34 AM

Word of the day: to chunder

skullpatrol

~~Word~~ Slang of the day^

Gigili

8:28 AM

Tonepoet

9:19 AM

@Gigili You'd think "We eat for you all" would be at the top, since unlike most of the other tiers, they don't support anything.

Cerberus

11:49 AM

@Færd I bet most poor countries have better healthcare.

Even in Kampala, if you're rich, I'm sure you can get decent healthcare, so even poor Africa is no comparison.

Mitch

1:35 PM

Færd

5:34 PM

@Cerberus A friend of mine who stays in the US says if he could fly to Iran once a year to have a general check-up and go to the dentist and all that jazz, he would get quicker, cheaper, and better care in the end.

(the absurdly low value of rial is a big part of the "cheaper" part, but still)

@Mitch I wonder why it took so long for universal healthcare to become a main plank in your election campaigns. I hope you get it this time.

Færd

5:48 PM

Usage of no sooner:

> In standard English the phrase no sooner is followed by than, as in we had no sooner arrived than we had to leave. This is because sooner is a comparative, and comparatives are followed by than (earlier than; better than, and so on). It is incorrect to follow no sooner with when rather than than, as in we had no sooner arrived ~~when~~ we had to leave.

(Re the question I asked here before: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/50494762#50494762)

Mitch

6:38 PM

@Færd Oh.

Could be it sounds right to me (to use when) because they are so far apart it doesn't sound like a comparative but instead something else, where 'when' would be OK.

@Færd It's only a main plank for some candidates only on one very far left leaning side.

It is taking so long because even a partial step in that direction (Obamacare) was so detested by so many ~~idiots~~ people.

I think the change in health care money is difficult because there is a huge profitable industry that even without trying makes it hard to change (health insurance).

The insurance companies in the US think of single payer systems like Russia thought of the Nazis in WWII (@Cerberus).

Færd

The majority of Americans prefer universal healthcare. Whatever the reason is, it's not the people.

I could look for the polls, which indicate that "healthcare is the government's responsibility" (or something along those lines) is what most Americans believe.

Mitch

Many ~~idiots~~ in the general populace are convinced somehow that UHC would be bad.Or maybe it is just politicians.

Færd

I think they are being informed about this by what you call the very far left leaning side.

They're not that far left.

Mitch

In the US they are.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Related, if not a duplicate:

216

Q: Why are so many Americans against Obamacare?

What is it about Obamacare that so many Americans are against such that it became an election pledge to repeal it? I could understand a candidate promising tax cuts and then after being elected scrapping Obamacare to pay for them. But this was not the case. It was a specific election promise ...

Færd

6:50 PM

@Mitch In the US tradition of government, yes. But not when you ask people.

At least that's my impression.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Færd To be fair it sounds more like something someone would use in storytelling, not causal informal conversation

@Færd Something something selection bias

Færd

I'm going to read that thread later.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

I mean, "no sooner" is what I learned to use as an ELL as well, but has almost never ever considered using

Færd

I'm overdue for dinner.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Færd Enjoy! I keep eating yogurt and bread for dinner.

Færd

6:52 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ It's a nice phrase.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ No sooner had you said that when you came up with a good excuse to do so.

Færd

:)))

Mitch

It sounds fine to me even if it's 'wrong'.

@Færd Oh sure, I don't disagree. I remember there was some study that explained the situation in a survey but half called it Obamacare and the other called it the ACA, and of course people hated Obamacare and loved ACA (I think this was in Kentucky, a conservative state).

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ which means that I personally think republicans hate the idea simply because Obama was black.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch At least we're more uniform in that regard. We rant about everything the government does.

Mitch

(yes Obamacare was nowhere near UHC, but the idea was to at least go in that direction, whatever the pitfalls turned out to be)

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

7:00 PM

Rant first, ask later

@Mitch I'm not acquainted enough to have any strong opinions on this, but of course, especially recently, seems like the person whose ideologies differ is to be disagreed with out of spite, regardless of the ideas they have

And indeed I've heard and seen a few remarks like that. 'UHC sucks because everyone gets to have a healthcare plan'.

Often much more racist.

Mitch

search overflow for 'people are idiots'

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Like when republicans were all mouth in disagreeing with it, but had to actually use whatever is placed in their skulls when Trump took office.

I think all politicians have one of those Bayesian program thingies instead of a brain.

Mitch

I kinda understand party loyalty (in the sense that I kinda understand mass murderers like to talk about their crimes).

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ If they were Bayesian, they would actually learn from their environment, rather than follow leadership that does not have a grasp of reality.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch It's kinda disturbing that we have more movies on Dahmer than, like, people that did things that matter.

Like Nirenberg. Or Pauling. Or the other Pauling. Or hell, Newton.

Mitch

I don't know what news you see there, but the US news about politics is really schizophrenic: most reporting about politicians (always has been the case but T really pushes it far) is about inconsequentials, even for consequential stuff.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Isaac Newton was no mass murderer.

You heard it here first.

But he was kind of a jerk.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

7:10 PM

I remember that George Bernard Shaw thing about Newton. It was a fun read.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ What was that?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

This one probably

In Good King Charles's Golden Days

In Good King Charles's Golden Days is a play by George Bernard Shaw, subtitled A True History that Never Happened. It was written in 1938-39 as an "educational history film" for film director Gabriel Pascal in the aftermath of Pygmalion's cinema triumph. The cast of the proposed film were to be sumptuously clothed in 17th century costumes, far beyond the resources of most theatre managements. However, by the time of its completion in May 1939, it had turned into a Shavian Restoration comedy.The title of the play is taken from the first line of the traditional song "The Vicar of Bray". == Plot... ==

But I read it, didn't watch anything based on it

It was imaginary but a fun read nonetheless.

@Mitch So, why WAS he a jerk?

Did he electrocute animals to show AC current is dangerous?

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ No nothing like that. Wait.. maybe something like that.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Oh. *AC. Without current.

That's like saying PIN number. Or WHO organization.

Mitch

Or Lake Nyasa.

Or The La Brea Tar Pits

I'm going to start saying 'personal PIN number'

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

7:15 PM

@Mitch Tar Tar Binks

Anyway, back to the point. Why was he an asshole?

I mean, I don't recall any Tesla's he had to desperately put down at the time.

And he made up that apple thing, but he admitted to it.

Later. When he was dying.

Mitch

I think Newton was not a generous academic. He tried to cover up a lot of Robert Hooke's discoveries (to make himself seem more important), And there was the bitter rivalry between him and Leibniz over the discovery of calculus (Narrator: In the end it was both of them, independently)

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Considering the times, I don't think anyone was being generous about anything.

Mitch

That's my vague memory of it.

Well, he kinda didn't need to be a jerk about it.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

But yeah, IIRC he did have some bickering with Leibniz

5

Q: Search appears to be broken

Something appears to be wrong with search in chat and on main. There's roughly 2 million posts containing "thanks" on Stack Overflow. Search claims there's none. The same on MSE - search yields no results regardless of what the search term is. Chat is not doing specifically better - any searc...

bug search

Mitch

People did all sorts of hiding of their own work because they didn't want it stolen. But I think Newton went out of his way to make others look bad.

Hooke in particular.

I could be wrong about all this, spreading gossip that I barely overheard someone mumbling in a crowded room.

Also, Newton supposedly actually believed in alchemy as magic. Not as a scientific precursor to modern chemistry. as magic

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

7:23 PM

@Mitch Found this. io9.gizmodo.com/… I guess everyone was an asshole then? Or maybe just too much of social justice warrioring and demanding rights and credit

BRB I'm topping Fard as being late for dinner

Mitch

academic credit was a big deal

and is

but certainly was.

in a more petty way.

not that it is not petty now.

just moreso. then.

at least the stories.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Oh yeah, eide mobarak.

depends on the moon thing I suppose. wasn't there a problem that someone saw it a day early and everyone had to rush to complete preparations for eid el fitr a day earlier than expected?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch Wha, no

Rush to complete preparations? It's not like we were gonna summon a being from another dimension or something

It just has a prayer. And that people don't fast anymore.

Preparing to fast is way more complicated

@Mitch That -e thing is an interesting morphere. You almost always use it to add adjectives, and in this case you didn't, so it should either be "eid mobarak" or "eid-e shoma mobarak"

"eide mobarak" is of course correct, but it's just a phrase. "Eid mobarak" is a sentence fragment

Mitch

7:56 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ You've successfully led me to not want to say anything at all ever again.

But before i stop I have a few things I want to clear up...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch Ow, don't stop! I love it when you expend some Persian

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ as with every I report here, vaguely remembered from some overheard mumbling from across the room while not paying attention.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ something something father somethety something dog something

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch Well, there's some money we give to charity on Fitr. Maybe that was what they meant by preparations. People didn't have to 'prepare' for anything though, other than waking up at 5:30 to attend the prayer

google.com/…

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ all I've heard is Eide nowruz mobarak, or eide mobarak, and actually have no idea what to say for ramadan. Frankly, most muslim holidays are commemorating something sad so saying mobarak seems kinda out of place.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Haha well, you're not wrong.

Lots of people died one time or another.

Mitch

8:01 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ The overheard thing that I overheard over hearing everything else was the word 'preparations'. So WTF NPR.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ pretty much everybody.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch We call it "Fetr", and it's one of the few religious celebrations we've actually got

I think it's Romanized as Fitr, since Arabs like weird pronunciations.

Mitch

I never understood why it's called Good Friday. Kind of a downer of a day.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Wait, I need to decide which one is weird.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Oh Arabs.

Like 'Misr' for Egypt. I can't pronounce that!

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch Our Friday is your Saturday. We get to pretend we're doing something ceremonious and having fun.

@Mitch Yeah, and it used to mean 'city'.

Mitch

8:04 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Then tomorrow is your today?

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ MADNESS!

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

And they have these irregular plurals that leaves English in the dust

Which is kind of cool. But still weird.

Amsar is Misr's plural.

Mitch

STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!

Go on.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Misr's mistresses mastered Missouri traditions.

I kinda lost track of where we headed.

Mitch

I had a teacher once who insisted that we should pronounce it 'Missouruh' like the native Missouruhns do.

He's probably dead now.

I'm just sayin

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch Come to think of it, we have so few celebrations compared to, hmm, anti-celebrations? I forgot the word. We have so few celebrations that people usually don't have the slightest idea how to celebrate.

@Mitch Death by nuclear mental meltdown?

Mitch

8:08 PM

I think the Indians have state sanctioned holidays like every three days.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ No. I think just old age.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

We've got Fitr, Ghadir (which I think is only a shia thing), and Ghorban. People only know how to celebrate Ghorban.

I dunno, maybe they used to know how to celebrate

@Mitch Not mutually exclusive

Did he have a beautiful mind?

Mitch

There's supposedly a docudrama called Chernobyl out on one of those TV things. I don't get why people want to see it. It's like Titanic, you pretty much know how it's going to end.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch I think it's state sanctioned non-holidays every 3 days but YMMV.

33% holidays sounds so few for India.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Not particularly one way or the other. Except for the insanity about pronunciation.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ OK. What is Ghorban?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch well, I'm probably gonna watch it too because these people in another chat who are so tasteless in movies that get distracted with a fly in the middle of the effing Godfather said it got them hooked.

That either means it's really good or really bad.

Mitch

8:13 PM

Eid el-Adha?

(I'm just googling randomly for stuff)

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch It means roughly 'sacrifice'.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ I think it is supposed to be really good.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

I think Jews and Christians have it too. It's celebrating the day Abraham almost murdered his son but a sheep fell down from the sky and stuff.

(That's how we have it. The Bible and Torah might have different explanations?)

@Mitch That adha literally means 'sacrifice', yeah

Mitch

Burning bush. Isaac was the supposed sacrifice. lamb caught in the bush. or maybe another bush. Either way, the lamb gets it.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

So we buy sheep and have sheep kabab for the day. Everyone having a good time

Mitch

8:16 PM

What is Ghorban though? The location of the bush? The name of the lamb?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Except the sheep.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Try not to think about it.

Because

they

taste really good

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Fair enough. I'm not complaining

@Mitch No, it just roughly means 'sacrifice'.

It's really badass to be willing to sacrifice your son.

I'm gonna name my son 'Abraham'.

@Mitch Wait, Isaac? It's Isma'il in our version of the story

Also, it's said that the devil tried to persuade Abraham and remind him of his love for his son, but Abraham threw stones at him. It.

I dunno the Devil's preferred pronoun

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ haha. that's religion!

Also it kinda means 'the people of the book' are all just worshipping the same thing, but with minor variations.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Yeah

It's often way more consistent than three random people (One from M . . . M . . . Misr!) coming up with books and stuff.

Mitch

8:23 PM

So the Jews (who really started it all) and the weird sects of Christianity, Islam and Mormonism (they're their own thing) should gang up on the ...

Mongols.

with their wolf-gods

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch Wait. Mormons?

Mitch

Yes, Mormons.

I think the Mormons would be fully with us in our war against the Mongols.

Theological war of course.

Bible-Quran-Book of Moroni thumping

against the pagan wolf worshippers.

I'm having a hard time with that though. Wolves are just dogs.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Oh. Well.

Mitch

How can you be against dogs?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

We antagonized Baha'is so much they hate our guts. Probably

Mitch

8:27 PM

Oh haha I left them out.

Sorry Bahai guys.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Although I do still believe they initially started as political propaganda to weaken religion back then

Mitch

Sure, they can come along as long as they're cool about it.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

They might have changed. I didn't check their Twitter

@Mitch And the spaghetti guys. In case some of us take them seriously enough

Mitch

Oh those guys are flaky. I don't think they really believe that stuff anyways.

Spaghetti

what nonsense

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

They're like Dawkins but without the stubbornness

Just the attitude.

Mitch

8:30 PM

no mention of sauce

that's just not right

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Dawkins seems like a jerk

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Well, the spaghetti I had for dinner was so lovable it could be someone's god.

Mitch

maybe not as bad as Newton

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ hmm...that would be a good religion to start if the pastafarians hadn't already stolen that idol

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch I read a bit on the dispute. It's of course true that Hooke didn't get the love he deserves for picking a fight with Newt.

Mitch

Oh nice. Facts. Great.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

But there's probably some appeal to poverty

Mitch

8:33 PM

??

Which one?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Well, metaphorical poverty

Mitch

poverty of the stimulus?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Newton used to get all the credit, and this Hooke guy wasn't just a goon, but he probably didn't do too much either

Mitch

or pusillanimity?

I think Hooke was the guy doing surgery on live dogs.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Yeah I dunno what that pusi thing means. It's probably obscene

Mitch

8:35 PM

just means 'small' from some version of Latin.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Too much regarding gravitation, I mean

He probably asked for too much credit but Newton did most of the gluing

Mitch

It's one of those words they teach you in eighth-grade English to build your vocabulary but no one ever uses it in real life except to make fun of the word.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

And it was indeed about the gluing. It wasn't so radical to come up with something like that since people already suspected it

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Oh.

There's some law...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Unlike that poor Galileo guy.

Or Kepler.

@Mitch F = Gm1m2/r^2?

Mitch

8:37 PM

Stigler's law: no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. (the law was discovered by Merton)

un momentito por favor

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

So anyway, that's B.S.

Or BS

I don't think Boyle or Lavisier had any help

Lavosier.

Lavoisier. Goddammit French.

But it's true about Democritus. He was just echoing his mentor.

Who probably also echoed his mentor.

Mitch

They were all plagiarising

sometimes themselves

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch P.S. if they called your mentor a wacko and you echoed his idea and they called you a wacko too but you ended up getting them to accept it's a good idea I don't think the mentor deserves much credit.

OK, I need to head to sleep

G'night

Mitch

8:54 PM

later

Cerberus

10:57 PM

@Færd Mm, from what I've heard, American healthcare is in line with that of other rich countries (and a few poorer): no better, no worse. I believe that was from the big WHO comparison. And healthcare in Iran was somewhat worse, though perhaps not that much worse.

But the general argument stands.

(American healthcare is about 60% more expensive than healthcare of the same quality in other rich countries, though. So they get low value for their money. No doubt because tremendous amounts are leaking away into the pockets of their multinationals and oligarchs.)

user402022

11:50 PM

@tchrist Hi. Years ago I remember you posting in a comment some link to an interactive map with historical pronunciations I would think which included a list of words to the right hand side and a choice of many languages and many other features I can't recall. I never came across that tool ever again. Does that ring any bell? Thanks.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…