English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

So what about seeing language partly as an aesthetic project, just as clothing and architecture, which are always striving after a balance between utility and beauty? I know this sounds a bit sentimental, but still...

Nov 17 '12 at 1:16, by Cerberus

Then you don't see that style is always a compromise between aesthetic purity and common sense.

Dec 27 '12 at 17:33, by Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, okay, in that way. Then it also needs to communicate subconscious stimuli to effect an aesthetic experience in the listener, and so style becomes important. Usually subordinate to the simple conveying of information—in so far as the two can be separated—, but still. Oh, and in certain genres I think style even trumps simple information, like poetry.

Jan 11 '13 at 6:11, by Cerberus

There is also the aesthetic quality of language to consider. Everyone benefits from using beautiful language instead of ugly language. As to stopping the tide, significant and fairly-long-lasting results can be achieved. Consider for example how some of Cicero's prescriptive rules were respected during most of the Empire, and picked up again in the Renaissance! Consider also that interest in prescriptive rules in other languages has become stronger and stronger since ca. 1800, and we still stick to certain rules first propagated a century or two ago. All is not hopeless. — Cerberus 2 mins ago

I believe this question of yours deserves to be reopened!:

Thanks for the link. I've come to the same conclusion, pretty much, but one tends to hold out hope that the battle is not yet lost. I am probably deluding myself that anything can really be done to win it. — Robusto Nov 24 '10 at 14:21

SmokeDetector

4:55 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with a link in answer (80): Is "What's your Islam question?" grammatically correct? by Farhan Raza on english.SE

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

6:35 AM

@Robusto @Cerb this. Pronounced sho-ma, and it's pretty commonly used.

We have تو, which is singular. It seems to be like "du" in German for all purposes AFAIK. Shoma is like "Sie".

Færd

/to/: informal/intimate, singular
/shoˈma/: plural, and polite singular
No genders.

How come?

Those are the subject pronouns BTW.

Correction: /ʃoˈma/

RegDwigнt

8:50 AM

@Robusto to be fair, you are only happy that you never wore them dresses because you view attire the same way Cerberus views language. Enjoying certain parts and ignoring others.

Which I very much applaud, mind. The Internet makes it rather hard to ignore things. Not to mention enjoying anything at all.

I personally prefer kimonos, but I'm constantly bombarded with tutu ads.

Robusto

11:53 AM

I always thought Neil Armstrong blew his famous line when he stepped on the moon. Now it appears his drawl got in the way:

Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon

►

Did he say "That's one small step for man" or "That's one small step for a man"? You be the judge.

skillpatrol

I vote for "That's one small step for man."

2

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

12:10 PM

@Færd Yeah. If IPA doesn't look weird it's not IPA.

y = x^3

Mitch

1:26 PM

@Cerberus Huh. I noticed that too. Comes across a little too strong.

2

skillpatrol

I'll agree with that^

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

I agree with this >

skillpatrol

<<

v

CowperKettle

According to a large study conducted in 2018, 57% of Russians did not believe that the US really sent men to the Moon.

I posted a poll on my Russian social network page, and thus far it's 2 for YES, 4 for NO.

And one for "probably NO".

One of the YES votes is by me, so the situation is quite ugly.

skillpatrol

1:43 PM

how many followers do you have?

CowperKettle

I have 443 so-called "friends", but I'm not sure how many of them actually follow me

Some people who voted were not actually my friends, the VK website probably made the post visible to them because they were friends of the friends who voted earlier.

skillpatrol

VK?

CowperKettle

vk.com

Vkontakte, meaning "In contact" (when people keep contact with each other, a Russian phrase)

skillpatrol

interesting

CowperKettle

Many people in Russia believe that vaccines are the product of "big corporations" and really can cause disease and are only there for the money

And that Russian athletes were punished for the crimes they never commited. The olympic athletes. Because it's all "the doings of the evil USA"

I wonder if the people in the USA are also brainwashed, only with some other ideas.

The Universe and the human idiocy have no bounds.

skillpatrol

2:35 PM

@Robusto in other news: the raiders have increased their budget for the new las vegas stadium to $1.9 billion for a 65, 000 seats that comes to about $29,000/seat. Only the rich and famous can afford that...

RegDwigнt

4:26 PM

@Robusto well we even had a question on that. Several questions, indeed.

10

Q: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

With Neil Armstrong's death today, many news sites are posting articles that quote Neil Armstrong as "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.". My question is, does the quote make sense without the 'a'? and what is the history of the 'a' or not 'a'?

Yes he blew the line. They should have sent an actor. Like, I dunno. Ronald Reagan. Or Al Pacino.

BTW, that right there is proof that we did go to the moon. Stanley Kubrick would have never allowed such negligence on his set.

skullpetrol

5:20 PM

Yay, I was right :-)

CowperKettle

5:50 PM

"Did Americans really visit the Moon in 1969?" YES:2 PROBABLY NO:2 NO:5

I asked one friend: "Are you kidding", she replied: "C'mon, everybody knows that the Americans never visited the Moon!"

tchrist

7:15 PM

@Cerberus Tu sputa, colaphos, vincula & dira passus verbera: þu spatlu swurplættas bendas & reþe þu þrowodest swingla.

> In Old English the compound verb ēarplættan (also in prefixed form ge-ēarplættan), ēarplættian to box the ears, is also attested.

> This expression is very close to the French words "rivière plate" ("flat river"), the probable origin of the name Platte River.

tchrist

8:54 PM

@Cerberus Can Dutch skip the preposition the way English can with What color eyes do you have? and What size shoes do you wear?

@RegDwigнt Same question as ^^^^^ but about German.

Robusto

9:35 PM

@RegDwigнt I'm persuaded now that he didn't blow the line. He kinda swallowed it in his Southern Ohio drawl, as the video I linked seems to indicate. Listen to the slowed-down version and you should be able tos ee.

@skillpatrol Not gonna get that kinda money out of Oakland, is he?

RegDwigнt

9:51 PM

@tchrist uh. It's hard to think of examples, or examples to the contrary, because German would just say eye color and shoe size instead. So it would "swallow the preposition" by default, as it were. By using a compound instead. I can think of specific nouns that do not do that and behave like in your example. Or rather, one specific noun right now, Art. But yeah there's probably more.

Welche Art Bücher liest Du gern? Welche Art Musik bevorzugst Du? Etc.

Likewise possible, and just as natural, the "extended" form, for lack of a better word.

Welche Art von Büchern liest Du gern? Welche Art von Musik bevorzugst Du?

What kind books do you like reading? What kind music do you prefer?

@Robusto well in that case, I shall present the world with a different argument in favor of the landing not being fake. Goes as follows. Nobody in all of the USSR ever considered that it may have been fake. Much as it would have been in our best interest. But it was canon. We saw it happen, we knew it had happened. It was canon. It was taught in schools. The US went to the Moon and back. Not the press, not the party, not even the worst commie I've personally known, would ever doubt it.

So any American that shouts "fake" is quite literally worse than the worst commie.

I humbly propose that they all be shipped off to Guantanamo and tortured to death.

And I would tweet it at Trump directly, if only I didn't despise him. And Twitter.

Cerberus

10:33 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Thanks! That sounds quite Indo-European.

@Færd Thanks, I was just curious.

I was listening to some Persian song and I heard a word that I suspected was "you".

@CowperKettle That is quite weird indeed.

So Russians believe in American conspiracy theories now?

@tchrist Oh, funny.

Does does have verpletteren "to crush"; might be related to plat as wel.

@tchrist I presume you mean a preposition of as in color of eyes?

It is exactly the same in Dutch.

> Welke kleur ogen heb jij?
Welke maat schoenen have jij?

Although welke schoenmaat heb jij? is also possible.

Why?

tchrist

10:59 PM

@Cerberus Yes.

@Cerberus Because we've a question about it.

What shoesize do you have doesn't even summon any squiggles here.

Cerberus

@tchrist What's your shoesize?

(I do get the squiggly line, by the way.)

tchrist

Oh interesting.

Cerberus

@tchrist Would that work for you?

tchrist

@Cerberus Certainly.

Cerberus

I must admit I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

OK.

tchrist

11:05 PM

I was being supercilious about the squigglies.

Cerberus

I see.

tchrist

By which I mean only that I raised an eyebrow, of course.

Cerberus

So perhaps the issue is using have with properties like eye colour or shoesize.

@tchrist Which question?

Not the one about the company name?

tchrist

0

Q: Why is "What color eyes does she have?" correct? Shouldn't it be "What eye color does she have?"?

I stumbled upon this expression in a video and thought it was wrong, but googling it I found that it is actually correct. It feels wrong to my non-native ears to hear "color eyes" instead of "eye color", and I wonder if you guys think this is natural. Thanks.

grammar

Cerberus

11:18 PM

The same construction is used in Dutch, e.g. welke kleur ogen heb jij?. It may indeed be a very old case of ellipsis of the 'possessive' praeposition. — Cerberus 10 secs ago

Does what age children do you have? sound OK to you?

I don't like it.

I think I would limit this construction to certain known sets of combinations, at least in (semi-)formal language.

tchrist

@Cerberus Not too much.

Cerberus

Right.

tchrist

I'm about to ask a question on the main site whose answer I know because I want to drag the diachronic linguists out of their cubby holes.

Cerberus

Oh?

It seems there are very few of those on SE.

Let alone comparative linguists.

tchrist

11:49 PM

0

Q: How did “to wish that” come to hate the present tense?

Inspired by this earlier question, I've realized that we have no canonical question addressing the uniquity of the special grammatical rules demanded by the verb wish. This question seeks to remedy that situation. How did the verb to wish that come to require unique grammatical rules unlike an...

grammaticality tenses subjunctive-mood historical-change subordinate-clauses

I'm pretty sure no other verb in common use today forbids the present tense in its subordinate clause.

I stayed clear of providing any modal examples, but for those with backshifting, the non-backshifted versions are also illegal.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…