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4:51 AM
> I saw a woman lose a 100-dollar bill in the street. I picked it up and thought to myself: "What would Jesus do?". And then I turned it into wine.
 
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Q: Difference between grammar and grammaticality

RickI am about to ask a grammar question and as always I read the tag info again. I noticed that there's a warning in the grammar tag info as I was ready to choose it. DO NOT USE THIS TAG IF YOUR QUESTION IS ABOUT WHETHER SOMETHING SPECIFIC IS GRAMMATICAL. And for grammaticality The quest...

We dunno, mate
 
 
9 hours later…
1:58 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-latin title, potentially bad asn for hostname in body, potentially bad keyword in body (86): Removalexperts__________ by Gaia1956 on english.SE
 
 
1 hour later…
3:20 PM
@MattE.Эллен Today I thought of an equation: Matt Ellen = Matt Damon = Will Hunting = Jasper van Looij. QED.
 
that is an interesting hypothesis
 
 
2 hours later…
4:55 PM
@JennaSloan We are the only ones in the room now, LOL.
 
 
4 hours later…
8:40 PM
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A: The etymology of the phrase "it's raining cats and dogs"

neilI believe the phrase "raining cats and dogs" has a simple origin. It is either a description of the shapes of the splashes (which is what I was raised to believe) or a description of a noisy rain which was likened to cats and dogs carrying on.

I believe it has an even simpler origin. It is either a description of how the rain is so strong that the cats and dogs can't simply ignore it and storm human habitats to seek shelter (which is what I was raised to believe) or a mistranslation of the Japanese このドキドキはなぜ止まらない. — RegDwigнt ♦ 28 secs ago
Discuss.
Show me one rain splash that is shaped like a dog.
In the mean time I'll go read some books or something.
I suffer from a rather severe case of 積ん読.
I also suffer from English's rather severe case of lacking a word for that.
@Robusto any ideas?
 
9:04 PM
@RegDwigнt drops on your head
 
9:50 PM
Brainstorming request.
@Cerberus @Robusto
There's that duet by Tchaikovsky, in Pique Dame. It's a pastiche out of nowhere that has nothing to do with the rest of the drama. Like a dream scene in a Coens movie.
The dramatis personæ are Prilepa (a shepherdess, soprano) and Milovzor (a shepherd, usually sang by a mezzosoprano dressed-up as a man).
The music is an obvious stab at Mozart. Pretty much lifted straight off die Zauberflöte. Tongue-in-cheek to say the least.
Now, here's the thing. The names of those two people are tongue-in-cheek as well. You probably didn't even bat an eye at them. And probably neither do most Russian speakers.
But they are completely made-up. And they are aptronyms. It took me like twenty years to see it.
So I'm looking for a good way to translate them into English.
Prilepa goes back to the verb prilipat', to stick to, to suck up to, to glue onto.
Milovzor is from mil-, nice, pleasing, and vzor, looks, appearance.
So in short, an obvious attempt would be something like Miss Clingy and Mister Handsome (or Goodlooking).
But I want to get closer to the original and have them each be just a single noun that actually looks like a proper name at the first glance.
Just like the Russian original.
So for Prilepa, I might go with something like Remora.
But I have no idea what to do with Milovzor.
What is the noun for handsome? That sounds like a male first name to boot?
Help needed.
Thank you.
(BTW, those are Catalunyans singing. Their Russian is impeccable. I didn't even catch it at first that they are singing phonetically and probably don't even speak a word IRL.)
 
10:27 PM
@RegDwigнt Wouldn't we generally say beauty?
Hardly a name.
But you could pick another animal or plant name.
Paris is a famously beautiful shepherd.
 
Thank you. Yes, but that's not an aptronym is it now.
It's an actual name that exists.
 
I don't know what that word means...
 
Sprechender Name.
 
A telling name.
 
Like a psychiatrist named Angst.
An aptronym, aptonym or euonym is a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner. == History == The Encyclopædia Britannica attributes the term to Franklin P. Adams, a writer who coined it as an anagram of patronym, to emphasize "apt".According to Frank Nuessel, in The Study of Names (1992), an aptonym is the term used for "people whose names and occupations or situations (e.g., workplace) have a close correspondence." In the book What's in a Name? (1996), author Paul Dickson cites a long list of aptronyms originally compiled by Professor Lewis P. Lipsitt, of Brown University. P...
 
10:35 PM
Ugh.
So this would exclude Paris?
 
So yeah I'm looking for something that is as unremarkable as Paris, or indeed John, until you stop and think about it and say hold on a second, that's a play on words. A pun. And I didn't even notice!
 
It can't be an existing name?
 
Prilepa is definitely completely made up.
Milovzor I am not sure. It's crafted so finely it might as well be an actual name.
Like all those Miloslavs and Vladimirs and whatnot.
 
So it has to be a pun?
Is remora a pun?
 
The remoras , sometimes called suckerfish, are a family (Echeneidae) of ray-finned fish in the order Perciformes. Depending on species, they grow to 30–110 cm (1.0–3.6 ft) long. Their distinctive first dorsal fins take the form of a modified oval, sucker-like organ with slat-like structures that open and close to create suction and take a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals. The disk is made up of stout, flexible membranes that can be raised and lowered to generate suction. By sliding backward, the remora can increase the suction, or it can release itself by swimming forward. Remoras...
 
10:37 PM
I know what it is, but is it a pun?
 
Well it totally looks like a female name until you stop and think.
I am looking for something similar for the male.
 
I'm not entirely sure I understand.
 
Well if you have a better name for the lady, I'm ready to take it.
Just don't call her Helena.
 
A remora is a fish, but animal names can be used for people. So the idea is that remora is normally never used for a person, and that's why you picked it here?
And it ends on -a so it isn't entirely unlike a normal female name.
 
Yes I picked it because it looks and sounds like an obscure but legit female name that you've never heard before. And that it's a fish, and what kind of fish, isn't obvious to the average listener, either.
 
10:41 PM
Okay.
How about Pavo?
 
I dunno how else to explain it. Unless you're fluent in Russian, Prilepa to you is maybe like Penelope. A weird name for sure but not impossible, and fitting for the setting of an old opera. So you'll just shrug it off and not even think about it.
 
Or Gallus if he's cocky.
 
@Cerberus you'll need to explain that one to me. Which is a very good sign. What's the connection.
 
Pavo is peacock.
 
Oh that. Good, good. Very good.
 
10:43 PM
Gallus is rooster/cockerel.
 
Yeah I know that one. What with the Gauloises.
For the longest time I thought Bellum Gallicum was about a nice rooster.
I shit you not.
 
Heh.
It might be in Vulgar Latin.
(The adjective pavonine exists in English.)
 
The ending is probably all wrong, isn't it. Looks like Dative to me.
 
Accusative.
 
Same difference.
Certainly in English it is.
 
10:45 PM
The accusative singular almost always ends on -m in Latin, on -n or -a in Greek.
It's all the same sound.
Like German -n for the masculine accusative singular.
 
Do they also say a B like a V?
 
Noöne does.
 
The Spanish do.
 
That's the other way around.
 
Same difference.
 
10:46 PM
What you said is what the Russians and the new Greeks do.
 
Oh I didn't even think about Russian at all. I was thinking German.
Dem.
 
As always, I am teaching you Russian here.
 
But yeah you're right. Komu, chemu. Dative.
 
Wha?
 
@Cerberus as always, I am learning.
 
10:47 PM
Good.
Now store the transcript link in a tab.
 
@Cerberus Кому, чему. The questions you ask to determine if it's Dative.
 
Okay.
Looks like a German trying to say Commie in Russian.
 
Kto, shto (Nominative)
Kovo, chevo (Genitive and Partitive)
Komu, chemu (Dative)
Kovo, shto (Accusative)
Kem, chem (Instrumentalis)
O kom, o chom (Prepositive)
Na kom, na chom (Locative)
O kto, o shto (Vocative)
Who/what in all the different cases. You learn that in school as a kid.
Well, they don't teach Vocative, Locative, or Partitive. They usually pretend there's only six cases rather than nine.
 
I see.
Is the instrumental still in normal use?
 
Yes, that one's very common. It goes together with the preposition "with", for example, which as you can imagine is a very common one.
 
10:52 PM
Cool.
 
So in German you go to the cinema with the Dative, but in Russian you go there with the Instrumentalis.
 
I know what it is.
It's just this very ancient thing that disappeared long ago in Greek, Latin, Germanic.
Except in a few archaic words.
So "goes together": do you mean that it is used after a Russian preposition, or do you mean it goes without a preposition but it translated as "with x"?
 
It is used after the Russian preposition. The preposition is c
 
Gosh.
That is completely different from other Indo-European languages.
 
All cases have certain prepositions associated with them, except for the nominative obviously.
 
10:55 PM
And they are not used without those prepositions?
 
For the Dative, there's only two. К (to, indicating direction) and по (on, indicating a surface).
@Cerberus I was just about to explain just that before you interrupted me with all this preposition business. I was going to say how the Instrumentalis is actually still very used for its actual purpose. As the name says. To indicate an instrument.
So if you hit the nail with the hammer, in Russian you'd hit nail hammer-om. No preposition.
If you stab someone with a knife, you stab them knife-om.
 
Ah, OK.
That makes more sense.
Just like in the other Indo-European languages.
 
Likewise for the other cases. Only the Prepositional case always takes a preposition. (Duh.) All others can be either just a noun on its own, or dictated by a preposition that happens to be in that sentence.
Like the German mit dictates that you use Dativ, once again.
 
Yes.
 
Or the ohne dictates that you take the Accusative. Etc.
 
10:59 PM
It is odd that you also need a special prepositive case, then.
 
But you don't have to use ohne or mit or any preposition at all to just use the Dat or Acc for any number of other reasons.
@Cerberus yeah inorite.
 
Perhaps that is the old ablative?
 
Especially seeing how there's also the locative that always takes a preposition.
But the locative only survives for one-syllable male nouns.
All other nouns just take the prepositive.
As you can see from the questions, indeed. It's the same question for both, just the prototypical preposition is different.
> O kom, o chom (Prepositive)
Na kom, na chom (Locative)
@Cerberus I would not know. I don't know much about Russian.
Which is why I come here for you to teach me it.
Or maybe I knew but forgot.
Anyway it's 1 am so I'm out for tonight.
I'm taking your Pavo. Thanks again.
 
@RegDwigнt Good luck with him.
 
11:40 PM
@RegDwigнt Stockpiling books that you don't read?
@RegDwigнt Limpet?
Limpet is more traditionally English for "something that clinbs."
For the first, just "stockpiling" suggests a thing that is amassed but not used.
For "handsome" maybe borrow from the Greek, i.e., "Adonis"?
That is frequently what people do in English, enlist help from mythology.
 
Adonis is the name of some beauty parlour, LOL.
 
BTW, @Reg, I have a typo above. I meant "something that clings," obviously.
 
I was under the impression that room owners could edit old messages @Robusto.
 
A false impression, apparently.
 
I see. I guess only moderators can do that.
So, the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary with the 2020 copyright now has the word bestie in it. Interesting.
It also dates the existence of bestie back to 1991.
@RegDwigнt Interestingly, I understand three words there: horror, fear, terror.
 

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