English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

SmokeDetector

02:33

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive title detected, potentially bad keyword in title (54): How to stop elitist assholes from barring knowledge? Definitely a duplicate ✏️ by sixie6e on english.SE

SmokeDetector

05:08

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad pattern in url body, pattern-matching website in body, repeated url at end of long post (290): What Is Gastric Band Hypnosis? by Shanu Sweet on english.SE

M.A.R.

07:53

-11

Q: Cormorant vs Eel?

I recently saw a cormorant at our local park. It dove pretty quickly, soon after it came up struggling with a large green eel. The thick 2' eel seemed quite determined to escape by thrashing and even wrapping around the birds neck! Still, after about 2 minutes the bird somehow opened it’s throat ...

discussion

I screenshot it, if anyone's wondering

Jasper van Looij

08:07

Why does a question get -11 votes?

M.A.R.

@JaspervanLooij Because it's about cormorants and eels in a site about the software that powers SE.

choster

13:58

english.stackexchange.com/a/509208/16052 seems to be spam

Money Oriented Programmer

14:56

@JaspervanLooij: Can you correct my english below?

You will not build your critical thinking, creative ideas, and problem solving agility if you just do rote memorization formulae without deep understanding their underlying concepts.

Is it grammatically correct?

I am not a native english speaker.

The sentence that I want you to correct is:

You will not build your critical thinking, creative ideas, and problem solving agility if you just do rote memorization formulae without deep understanding their underlying concepts.

RegDwigнt

1

Q: Is the title of Randy Newman's "You've got a friend in me" Grammatically correct?

I'm a native english speaker and "you've got a friend in me" sounds correct to me but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what kind of construction it is. Can anyone shed light on this?

grammar

Fails to capitalize "English". Does capitalize "grammatically" for absolutely no reason.

Yeah that's a native speaker alright.

Money Oriented Programmer

@RegDwigнt: Hi, could you check whether my sentence above correct? :-)

You will not build your critical thinking, creative ideas, and problem solving agility if you just do rote memorization formulae without deep understanding their underlying concepts.

Jasper van Looij

@MoneyOrientedProgrammer "You will not build your creativity, critical thinking skills, and problem solving skills if you just memorize formulae without understanding the underlying concepts" is enough.

Money Oriented Programmer

I want to put this message in my problem sheet so the students can read.

RegDwigнt

It is ungrammatical and also impenetrable.

Money Oriented Programmer

15:02

@JaspervanLooij Thank you Jasper Loy.

RegDwigнt

@JaspervanLooij yeah that's better.

John Clifford

Simply memorising formulae without understanding their underlying concepts will not help build your creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Money Oriented Programmer

@JohnClifford Thank you John!

Mitch

17:06

Memorizing is stupid

@RegDwigнt aw jeez man it's spelled "all right"

RegDwigнt

@Mitch I always forget that.

So here's a question for y'all that I'm pondering.

Someone asks on the main site, "Is it okay to do X in dialogue".

I comment, "Yes, it is okay to do X in dialogue, because Y."

Someone else comments at me "Your point is good, but the OP does not mention dialogue".

My question is as follows:

How the fuck is this even possible?

M.A.R.

17:49

@RegDwigнt Said 'native english SPEAKER'. Duh.

@RegDwigнt close the comment as Unclear What You're Observing.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt What's worse is that that kind of idiocy is really obvious (they're obviously not reading), but there are so many more idiocies that are just under the threshold of obvious that we give benefit of the doubt to, but we should be just as or more mad at.

Wait, is that what you're talking about or are you talking about MuseScore?

M.A.R.

Unclear What You're Smoking?

Waiting eight minutes and i will accept this thanks! — DaImTo 46 mins ago

RegDwigнt

Wow, a countdown. Who do they think they are, Jerry Bruckheimer?

@M.A.R. that's a good point, but then again they did manage to represent all those complicated words in letters. At which point you might as well manage to remember which of the letters are big and which small.

I mean, if you learn that "grammaticality" does not begin with a "b" or an "f" or a "ш" or an "ä", then it's no big overhead to also learn that it does not begin with a "G".

M.A.R.

18:04

mAybe theY decidEd that if you do it randoMly, eventUally iT'll be right

RegDwigнt

@Mitch that can totally be a thing. Piccolo refers to size. Bass to pitch. You can totally construct an instrument that's small in size but low in pitch.

M.A.R.

Truck horn

On an old Fiat

RegDwigнt

An old Fiat is not that small. You can fit up to 15 clowns inside.

@M.A.R. so the countdown expired an hour ago, but it's still unaccepted.

Who would've expected that.

M.A.R.

The bomb went off earlier

They're working on emergency electricity

RegDwigнt

RIP

What do they need electricity for, the Internet is a series of tubes.

Use water.

Or oil.

Or lube.

Or toothpaste.

M.A.R.

18:18

Oil is overrated

RegDwigнt

It was rated 4 out of 10 last I checked.

M.A.R.

Only on YouMDB.

RegDwigнt

Of course.

What, you think I check Rotten Tomatoes? PFFFFFFT

Rotten Tomatoes are totally overrated. Like, they have "rotten" in their very title.

Then again as we learned today, people on the Internet don't read titles.

M.A.R.

Rotten Tomatoes is good for dark stuff and bad for iconic stuff.

RegDwigнt

I just never use either RT or IMDb. If I want to know whether a movie is any good, I just ask myself. I have never once been wrong.

M.A.R.

18:25

Is this a good movie?

RegDwigнt

The first two seasons were alright.

M.A.R.

I get what you're saying, but you need a reference point

I hate critic worshippers as much as the idiots who go and make Michael Bay rich

RegDwigнt

@M.A.R. imdb.com/user/ur5110263/…

Well here's 836 reference points for you.

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt Jeez, you keep tenning everything

RegDwigнt

@M.A.R. you can filter by 1 star.

M.A.R.

18:31

Fooking China. They're really why Michael Bay is rich.

Then again, they're also the reason The Dark Knight was a success.

So I dunno, they just watch everything.

RegDwigнt

86 of the 836 are rated 10.
88 of the 836 are rated 1.

54 of the 836 are rated 4.

98 of the 836 are rated 8.

59 of the 836 are rated 2.

I would say that is surprisingly well-balanced actually.

M.A.R.

Lol, I should definitely watch Being John Malkovich

RegDwigнt

Yes you should.

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt OK, that's crazy from the other end of the spectrum

RegDwigнt

104 are rated 7 and 151 are rated 9, so if anything that's where I err.

M.A.R.

18:35

Fight Club, Memento, The Big Lebowski. We can be friends.

RegDwigнt

Nah those are easy. Everyone likes those.

You need to check the other ones that you don't know. That's when you'll know.

M.A.R.

All of them seem to be Russian, so.

RegDwigнt

It can be difficult cuz I have a ton of Russian and French and Spanish and Korean and Japanese movies and so on.

M.A.R.

Lilya-4ever is in Russian, right?

RegDwigнt

@M.A.R. well. Your friend tells you that they are all good.

@M.A.R. that's a Swedish film.

M.A.R.

18:36

I postponed watching that one 'cause watching with subtitles sucks.

RegDwigнt

It is the best film ever but it will make you kill yourself.

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt What.

RegDwigнt

It is very, very, very sad.

M.A.R.

I know, that's how I know it

Where did I get the idea that it's Russian?

RegDwigнt

I would be very interested in your opinion as an outsider. Obviously I connect to a whole lot of things in that movie because I know the setting first-hand.

@M.A.R. It is set in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is very grim, but it is the kind of grim that I personally saw with my own eyes. So I relate on a different level than someone who didn't live there at the time.

M.A.R.

18:38

Have you seen Grave of the Fireflies?

RegDwigнt

I don't think you'll need subtitles. There are good versions in English and German.

@M.A.R. of course. Is it not on the list?

Well, it is now.

M.A.R.

The sad parts would be there, and you'd cry at them anyway, but if you're an outsider, it'd resonate less and the emotional high will be over earlier. That's my experience.

RegDwigнt

Lilya-4-ever is not unsimilar, in more respects than one. Except it's real people and not a cartoon.

> Lilja 4-ever is a 2002 Swedish-Danish drama film, which was released to cinemas in Sweden on 23 August 2002,[3] directed by Lukas Moodysson. Lilja 4-ever is a story of the downward spiral of Lilja Michailova, played by Oksana Akinshina, a girl in the former Soviet Union whose mother abandons her to move to the United States. The story is loosely based on the true case of Danguolė Rasalaitė,[4] and examines the issue of human trafficking and sexual slavery.

M.A.R.

I never really got Spirited Away. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention.

RegDwigнt

I liked Spirited Away a lot, but not anywhere as much as Totoro, say.

I've watched everything of Miyazaki's.

M.A.R.

18:43

I got some of the things. I usually felt like there's extreme detail that I keep missing. There's some higher meaning to, like, every other rock she sees but I couldn't up thinking about it

RegDwigнt

The only one that I really didn't like was Porco Rosso. Took me three tries. The first two I literally fell asleep.

M.A.R.

So I don't get why it's rated higher than Mononoke.

RegDwigнt

I expected more of Howl, but it was still good. Not as good as expected, but very good.

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt Only have vague memories of that one

RegDwigнt

Mononoke I last watched like 20 years ago. I need to rewatch it. It's rated 7 on my list. I believe I left that rating like ten years ago not really remembering if it deserved a higher rating.

Obviously everyone says that it does, but I'm not everyone.

M.A.R.

18:45

So OK, here's something we can disagree about: Starship Troopers was mediocre IMO

RegDwigнt

That's one of very, very few movies that I have watched more than ten times.

It is spectacularly well crafted in every particular. My favorite Verhoeven movie.

Some people prefer Robocop but I actually do not.

M.A.R.

Robocop is better but not really high on my list either. Maybe I don't get that part of cinema before I was born.

RegDwigнt

My experience so far has been that when people found either Robocop or Starship Troopers meh, then with no exception they had missed some, or all, of the satire.

M.A.R.

I bookmarked it, @friend. imdb.com/title/tt0070861/?ref_=rt_li_tt sounds interesting

RegDwigнt

Oh that's a very old one.

One really great song in it though.

M.A.R.

18:48

@RegDwigнt Possible. I'm not always at my prime when watching a movie. But I guess most other satire though. Even Tarantino's "sadistic" satire, as you put it

RegDwigнt

В бой идут одни «старики» - Смуглянка

►

M.A.R.

I'll check that out when I have a VPN handy.

Ice Age 3 has been disappointing, but I've had a unique experience with it.

RegDwigнt

That's the scene with the song. I don't know that anyone can find it interesting at all if they were not born in the Soviet Union.

And it's, like, the most interesting part in the entire movie.

So yeah. Caveat emptor.

On the plus side, all the Soviet movies are available completely for free on YouTube in their entirety.

M.A.R.

I first watched it when I wasn't that fluent in English. A Persian dub by this awesome legendary dubbing group that was absolutely captivating, and had all of Manfred's personality and none of the cliched humor.

RegDwigнt

Not bootlegs, either. Official channels, fully remastered videos and all.

M.A.R.

18:52

I didn't get why people didn't like it that much until I got to see the English version.

RegDwigнt

@M.A.R. I stopped caring about Ice Age after the 4. I should have stopped earlier.

The first one was really good.

M.A.R.

Ditto

RegDwigнt

Then they just kept adding characters. And adding characters. And adding characters.

M.A.R.

I only ever watched that one in English.

RegDwigнt

By the 3 it was a mess already. And it only got worse and worse after that.

But yeah 3 was watchable. I actually watched it in a theatre. In 3D.

M.A.R.

18:53

@RegDwigнt tired and tried cliches are the only thing non-Disney animations are good at anymore since, what, 2005.

Mitch

goddamit I clicked that link and it brought me here.

RegDwigнt

I liked all three Shreks.

Mitch

ugh

RegDwigнt

@Mitch haha. Didn't you check the status bar? Noob.

I thought you cared about not getting rickrolled?

M.A.R.

Yeah, me too. The low humor was sporadic enough to be tolerable

Mitch

18:54

it was so confusing, with words and stuff I didn't recognize

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt Anyway, isn't nine a bit too high for Ice Age 3, then, by your description?

RegDwigнt

@Mitch it said "chat" and "english" and "sex change". What more did you need to know.

M.A.R.

I mean, for me the Persian dub was 10 but the English version is 5 at best

Mitch

and I get here and people are talking about shit movies

not movies that are shit. movies about shit.

RegDwigнt

@M.A.R. I would say so today. I left that rating immediately after watching it. As I did for most of the movies. Ten years later, opinions change.

Mitch

18:56

die schreckliste movies

RegDwigнt

Sometimes I revise upon rewatching. But I certainly don't have time to rewatch them all.

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt Well, my more reasoned evaluation after the movie hype is over is more valuable to me

Mitch

Period movies on the other hand...

M.A.R.

Sometimes, it takes you a week to understand why a movie is disappointing. Like Shazam.

RegDwigнt

@M.A.R. twenty years ago, I'd go to the cinema like twice a week. Every week. These days, I've watched maybe three movies in the cinema in the last three years.

Mitch

18:57

Steel Magnolias, Magnolia, Magnolia Magnolia, Clueless, Much Ado About Aunt Flo

M.A.R.

The heck is the big hype about? That DC came up with something that didn't outright suck and was, hmm, 7 out of 10?

Mitch

@M.A.R. sigh

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt MuseScore duties

RegDwigнt

So nowadays, everything I watch I watch pretty much by definition long after the hype's died down.

@M.A.R. no, not MuseScore duties. Movies just suck, is all.

M.A.R.

Self-hype, I mean

Mitch

18:58

@RegDwigнt Titanic. You won't expect the ending.

RegDwigнt

@M.A.R. I do not have that.

M.A.R.

@Mitch The ship turns out to be Davy Jones's and DiCaprio is revealed to be Johnny Depp?

RegDwigнt

The last two things I were hype for were Breath of the Wild and NieR: Automata. In both cases the self-hype was more than justified in hindsight.

M.A.R.

@RegDwigнt I can't get myself to watch something without that.

RegDwigнt

With movies, I've not been hype for anything for literally twelve years.

Mitch

18:59

I didn't know that about Johnny Depp.

That's how good an actor he is.

M.A.R.

Alright, your 10s are pretty agreeable, gonna check out your 1s.

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