English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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KannE

00:31

Re: the yes/no questions in diamonds on a flowchart. I asked my husband what he calls them, and he works alone, so he doesn't call them anything ("Deciding questions," I guess.), and I may be filling in the gaps with dichotomous. What do you really call those type of questions nowadays?

7 hours later…

SmokeDetector

07:03

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in body, potentially bad asn for hostname in body, blacklisted user (168): how can I make for providing wedding toastmasters? by master of ceremonies on english.SE

Færd

07:30

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ The communities that people imagined themselves as members of (nations in particular) have gone through substantial changes and, in some aspects, transformations during the past centuries. The relations between the subjects/citizens and the rulers/governments and among each of those camps have also significantly altered. I'll comment on Anderson's explanation later. For the Iranian transformation, you may be interested to read Frontier Fictions (افسانه‌های مرزی) by Firoozeh Kashani.

It's kinda funny how you always reference online forums in these discussions. Thanks for the link tho; it does have good suggestions.

1 hour later…

SmokeDetector

08:53

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer (161): What does "Passed out of record" mean? by bimebarrel on english.SE

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Færd well no, I actually just literally Googled "criticisms of Andreson's imaged communities" and grabbed the first link. My point is the next step should be reading criticisms of his work, not going on Reddit and using "fuck".

IIRC the fourth or fifth result of that search string was badass .edu sites that only aim to confuse, but I didn't want to have to parse what they're saying before linking them here.

RegDwigнt

09:28

@Robusto on a deep level yes. On a surface level, I'm only here because it's been twenty years and Microsoft still can't manufacture a console that won't randomly shut down every two minutes.

@Cerberus I'm not much interested in theatre in general. Too much wiggle room. Whether direction, costumes, makeup, or stage design, whatever you do everything's fine. And that sucks major dick in my humble opinion. So I'm only concerned with the music, which is the only constant. You can't fuck it up too much, and few people ever try.

So with that in mind, yes I am interested in musicals a great deal and listen to them a lot.

And with that in mind, there are three good musicals. Avenue Q, The Rocky Horror Show, and West Side Story.

Honorary mention for the Scrubs episode "My Musical", which was written by the same folks who wrote Avenue Q.

Færd

10:20

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Well, Google certainly knows how much time you spend on online forums, and almost certainly tailors the search results to your taste.

I'm saying that partly because my first links for the same search are a bunch of suggestions from scholar.google.com and then other academic articles and then the reddit page.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Færd Meh, I usually ignore that. Google scholar UI is sometimes a mess.

Færd

Messier than reddit? :)

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

. . . How much time do you think I really spend anywhere other than SE?

Færd

I think Google understands that SE and reddit are basically the same concept.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

I think my most visited site after the *.stackexchange.com sites would be The Guardian. And reading satire on Trump

I also sometimes read Lifehacker and Harvard Business Review. Sometimes they make a lot of sense.

Færd

10:22

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Ah. Do share the funny ones then.

@Cerberus Oh wow. I know a friend of a friend of an online friend who sings in musicals. What are the odds. Such a small world.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Well don't have any on my mind right now

Færd

No hurries. I can laugh later too.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Q: Is Trump personally blocking people on Twitter?

To quote John Gruber's commentary, related to the recent appeals court ruling whereby Trump cannot block people on Twitter: With the absurd number of replies he gets with each tweet — thousands, if not tens of thousands — I can’t see why he even bothers blocking people. But I like to think he...

Recent on Trump Times.

This guy is truly a wonder. Anything inspirational about rich hence successful people you read is obliterated by the mere presence of Donald.

And not the duck.

Færd

That's a niche interest.

SmokeDetector

10:40

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted user (70): What is the word to describe a feeling felt in the past, but forgotten? by Juls on english.SE

2 hours later…

Robusto

12:20

@RegDwigнt While I applaud your taste in musicals, I have to point out that there are more than three good ones. I think you would enjoy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog by Joss Whedon very much. And if you don't, I don't know you.

You might also like Rent. Dunno.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a 2008 musical comedy-drama miniseries in three acts, produced exclusively for Internet distribution. Filmed and set in Los Angeles, the show tells the story of Dr. Horrible (played by Neil Patrick Harris), an aspiring supervillain; Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), his nemesis; and Penny (Felicia Day), a charity worker and their shared love interest. The series was written by writer/director Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack Whedon (a television writer) and Jed Whedon (a composer), and writer/actress Maurissa Tancharoen. The team wrote the musical during the 2007...

5 hours later…

RegDwigнt

17:14

@Robusto you pitched that one before, and I watched it right away, and then we discussed.

So you do know me. You just don't remember that you do.

Rent is a shitty musical in every particular, though not primarily so because of the music, that's for sure.

Meanwhile elsewhere,

> Does anyone know a good chord progression which works both forwards and backwards?

Um, yeah. Like, all of them?

> I know this would probably be quite an odd progression, so it doesn't need to fit into a key. Also, the chords don't have to be proper triads.

Well. Literally all of them, then.

Ah, but before I go:

RENT - Look Pretty and Do As Little as Possible: A Video Essay

►

If you have 46 minutes to spare.

It's good.

West Side Story: An Unappreciated Masterpiece

►

Also, this. That's only 20 minutes. Also good.

3 hours later…

Robusto

20:19

@RegDwigнt Yeah, I wondered about that. I searched chat for "Horrible's" but got nothing but a couple of Wikipedia links, one by you to Neal Patrick Harris. So if the chat database can't remember this shit, how am I supposed to?

And I've long been a fan of West Side Story, of course, and even have some inside info, which I may or may not have related to you.

Nov 11 '14 at 13:25, by Robusto

@tchrist There is a diminished fifth in all the songs from West Side Story. And I got that from Stephen Sondheim himself, believe it or not.

3 hours later…

Robusto

23:31

Q: What word fits the sentence: 'it was proven with great _______'?

The word I'm looking for would suggest that the thing in question was shown to be true even to the point of excess, and its veracity tested on multiple occasions or very publicly, so that there can be no residual doubt. e.g. 'it was proven with great _______ that her methods were ineffecti...