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3:00 PM
I should say language. :-)
It's a shame Wiki doesn't have any example sentences in Gallo-Sicilian.
The Gallo-Sicilian or Gallo-Italic of Sicily () dialects represent a group of dialects found in central-eastern Sicily that date back to migrations from Northern Italy during the time of Roger I of Sicily and which continued after his death under his successor Roger II (from around 1080 to 1120). The towns that were populated by the new immigrants were to become known as the "Lombard communities" (or cumuna lummardi in the Sicilian language). In truth, the colonisers were not all from Lombardy, but from all parts of Northern Italy, including Piedmont. Apart from their geographic origin, the...
The Russian Wikipedia goes with наречие, which is something in between. Basically, a dialect group.
Восточноломбардское наречие (оробийское) — группа диалектов ломбардского языка, употребляемых в восточной части Ломбардии, в основном в провинциях Бергамо, Брешиа, Мантуя и в западной части Тренто. В италоязычном контексте, восточноломбардское наречие ошибочно называют диалектом итальянского языка, однако оно входит в состав ломбардского языка. Восточноломбардский и итальянский языки различны и взаимонепонятны из-за лексических, фонетических и грамматических различий. На данный момент восточноломбардское наречие не имеет официального статуса в Ломбардии или где-либо ещё. Единственный офи...
I must say, you people have a lot of Gaul, posting such things here.
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (, or ; 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969. A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he reached the temporary rank of Brigadier General, leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks d...
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I vote this chatroom closed as Off Topic :)
I wonder if брешийский is pronounced as I would pronounce bresciano.
3:05 PM
The smart money is on no, @kiam.
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@RegDwight: so they named a president of the Republic after their airport? so weird!
Better yet, Gaul is German for this:
Das Hauspferd (Equus ferus caballus) ist ein weit verbreitetes Haustier, das in zahlreichen Rassen auf der ganzen Welt existiert. In Deutschland werden ca. eine Million Pferde gehalten (Stand 2006). Das Hauspferd ist die domestizierte Form des Wildpferdes (Equus ferus), welches mit den Eseln und Zebras die Familie der Pferde (Einhufer, Equidae) innerhalb der Ordnung der Unpaarhufer (Perissodactyla) bildet. Merkmale Äußeres Das Aussehen des Hauspferdes variiert in seinem Körperbau, der Körpergröße, Fell und Farbe. Je nachdem, zu welchem Zweck Pferde gezüchtet werden, unterteilt ma...
Um, that's supposed to be a stallion in the picture? Looks like a grizzly.
I was wondering which animal could be. :-)
I would say so.
Or that, or an ape.
Obviously not a Nat. Geo. photographer on that shoot.
@kiamlaluno брешийский is pronounced as [brʲiˈʃɨjskʲij].
@FX_ They did that in the US, too.
3:11 PM
@RegDwight: You appear to have spilled some IPA symbols all over the ground. Shall I help you pick them up?
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. After military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 and Motor Torpedo Boat PT-59 during World War II in the South Pacific, Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat. Thereafter, he served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated then Vice President and Republican c...
@Kosmonaut: Don't you both try bending over to pick them up at the same time. Could result in a symbol clash.
Ba-dum clash
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@RegDwight: how then will they name presidents when they've used all the airport names?
@RegDwight: Then it's different. Scia in bresciano sounds more the sha in shame.
3:13 PM
@FX_: there's always room for more airports.
Especially in the US.
In other news, Watson is crushing the humans on Jeopardy.
Yes, I was discussing this with my wife last night.
Now, him actually beating these individuals is really, as I said, not the real point of it all
It's mainly that he can play Jeopardy well.
But it is frustrating that he can out button-press them.
Because that is what it comes down to. These guys knew many of these answers.
Yes.
He presses buttons at the speed of light.
And Ken Jennings at the very least knows when to press the button and not to wait until he is sure of the answer.
@kiamlaluno: I would say that the sc in bresciano is more of a ɕ than a ʃ.
3:15 PM
Or of electrons in copper wire, or something like that.
Well, @Robusto, he does physically have to press the button
But the urge to press and the action are instantaneous.
Our neurons only send impulses at around a measly 200 mph.
Not 22,000 mps.
So you're telling me that they are not accounting for that?
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@Robusto: electrons go slow in copper wire, but the current goes fast
Well, the way Jeopardy works is that after the question is read, the ability to press the button is enabled, and if you press it early at all, you are penalized for like 2 seconds
The computer can time it perfectly
3:17 PM
@RegDwight: Do you have an example of word containing that pronunciation?
I mean, phoneme.
Lots of Russian ones @kiamlaluno.))
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@Robusto: electrons go about about 8 cm/h
The problem is... why should you build in some sort of mechanism to make the computer do it worse?
@FX_: OK, electrical current.
3:18 PM
щи, борщ
And FYVM.
Хрущов.
@RegDwight: I meant in English. :-)
I don't know Russian to make a comparison.
What's Khruschchev got to do with this?
See, I knew you were a Commie.
Shtchi, borshtch, Khrushtchov.
3:19 PM
Ah, o and not e-kratkoye
There is no e-kratkoye to begin with. There's an i-kratkoye.
What you're talking about is ё.
That's a yo.
Yes. Which I'm too lazy to look up how to type.
A palatalizing o.
But actually, you're right, he's spelled with a ё.
When I'm posting in three languages simultaneously, I start writing rubbish.
Then again, I always write rubbish to begin with.
Also, to my defense, he is spelled with an о in Ukrainian.
...
Martha enters the building, everyone disappears.
3:27 PM
I swear I took a shower this morning...
Everyone's just afraid of your ruler.
I only thwack puns. So it's very easy to avoid the ruler: don't make puns.
"Ruler" is much more intimidating than "Lineal", I must say.
I wonder if it is universal in any language that a certain segment of people is angered by puns.
See, the problem is that Martha reacts punitively to puns.
I see a definite gender divide on the question: all the menfolk in my family love to inflict puns on the womenfolk.
@Robusto, consider yourself thwacked.
3:35 PM
Well, I'm afraid I can't offer a counterexample in my family.
Men love to play with language. Women love to play with rulers.
And everyone loves to make generalizations.
I don't see anything wrong with that. :D
Noone sees anything wrong with anything!
(that = what RegDwight said, not generalizations)
3:40 PM
We figured as much.
Is also that a generalization?
Usually it is.
Everything is a generalization. Always.
I mean, is also that a generalization?
That is a pronoun.
3:45 PM
You mean the word "that"?
But pronouns are generalizations. In a way. Always!
(The usual word order would be "Is that also a generalization?")
@RegDwight appears to be following the corollary to "never say never" which is "always say always"
Yes, but I can refer to a generic that.
I thought the corollary to that was From Russia with Love or something.
3:47 PM
Hmm, that might be.
(that might be)
I was waiting for just that to happen.
Thank you for not disappointing me, Kosmonaut.
And that is the corollary to "Tomorrow never lies", isn't it?
1
Q: Is "I personally" incorrect?

Every time I hear someone trot out the phrase "I personally" it grates against my ears. I wouldn't mind so much, but it very commonly used by a wide variety of people. I grates most because I'm not sure anymore whether this is correct grammatically. Is it legal in American but not British English...

Hahahaha. Tomorrow never *L*ies.
These kinds of questions really bug me.
3:49 PM
It was migrated from Writers, wasn't it?
Please provide a reason why you think something might be ungrammatical other than it "grates" you
Yes
So the person may never respond.
So, writers.SE can migrate questions here. Why cannot we do the vice versa?
It's a grammar gripe masquerading as a question.
Let's wait and see. At least we haven't got a bunch of godawful answers migrated here as well.
@kiamlaluno: that's an interesting question!
Of course, I've been guilty of such things in the past. english.stackexchange.com/questions/3703/option-vs-optional
3:51 PM
I demand my rights!
@RegDwight, you mean like the answers to this question?
1
Q: Writing about contributions

If we were asked to write about the contributions a person made to the study of computer science for example, is that different from if we were asked to write about the contributions a person made to computer science?

Hear, hear!
I've asked Jeff here, but he never replied:
4
A: Closing questions about how to improve writing

Jeff AtwoodPlease refer such questions to http://writers.stackexchange.com -- which, quite frankly, desperately needs our help to survive.

@Martha I've been guilty of worse things in the past. They are so much worse, you can't even see them any more.
@Kosmonaut OMG, looks like I should be checking /recently-imported more often these days.
Since these are the first questions I've seen migrated from Writers, could one of you with Powers (TM) check if maybe something has changed and migration to Writers is now possible?
@Martha: them both were migrated by Robert Cartaino, who's got God-like powers.
3:55 PM
There is a "Migrate to any site" mod option, which says "Bypasses the allowed sites in "close as off-topic", allowing this question to be closed and moved to any site in the Stack Exchange network. Please avoid migrating questions to beta sites unless the circumstances are exceptional."
But I haven't been able to test it.
Because the only option is to "submit" — I can't see if I am able to then decide where to move it
Or if my clicking of "submit" puts it into migration limbo
Or if I can cancel halfway through, since I just want to test it.
I don't understand why migrating to beta sites should be avoided.
@Martha: Good question, I have no idea.
Presumably it means the question is off-topic, so it doesn't belong on the current site.
Hopefully there aren't two possible sites to send it to.
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A: Migrate questions from meta stackexchange sites to meta.stackoverflow.com

ChrisFThis is now sorted in that moderators can migrate to any site in the network - even the Meta Stack Overflow from any site (that they're a moderator of). So if you're a mod - migrate away. If you're not a mod, flag the question and see it migrate (hopefully).

Mods can migrate to (graduated) sites.
But Writers is in Beta.
Still makes no sense. @Martha is right.
2
A: Extend the list of SE sites presented when a question is being closed as off-topic.

RegDwightWriters is still in beta. Migration paths are only added to graduated sites. For example, there was no migration path from StackOverflow to Programmers until the latter went out of beta, even though many, many people wanted to have one right away. See e.g. here and check the top answer by Shog9: ...

3:59 PM
The one thing I don't like about the StackExchange engine is its fragmented nature. I dislike having to log in to multiple sites to check if there are any questions I can answer.
I'm just always logged in on all sites, period.
So am I, but I still need to check each of them separately.
Well, why don't you create a tag set?
Because the questions I can answer don't sort nicely into tags.
Then you can just add all questions from any given site.
Or use wildcards.
4:03 PM
Eh. I suppose I should try that.
Not saying that that's the best solution, but they are working on making it better.
Ok, gotta go pretend to work.
Have pun fretending!
@Kosmonaut As I keep saying, ALL GENERALIZATIONS ARE FALSE!
Head assplode.
In philosophy and logic, the liar paradox or liar's paradox (pseudomenon in Ancient Greek), is the statement "This sentence is false." Trying to assign to this statement a classical binary truth value leads to a contradiction (see Paradox). If "This sentence is false" is true, then it is false, which would in turn mean that it is actually true, but this would mean that it is false, and so on ad infinitum. Similarly, if "This sentence is false" is false, then it is true, which would in turn mean that it is actually false, but this would mean that it is true, and so on ad infinitum. His...
4:05 PM
Better than having your ass headplode.
Never tried that, so I will have to trust your experience.
Interestingly, the only way to solve this paradox is suggested by Bertrand Russell's "shave the barber" paradox.
But I'll leave you to Google that.
Been there, done that.
I actually linked to that barber just a month ago or so. I think it was on Programmers.
Set theory makes my head hurt. Always has, always will.
And I'm all set with that.
Feb 7 at 15:38, by RegDwight
In the foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy), discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory created by Georg Cantor leads to a contradiction. The same paradox had been discovered a year before by Ernst Zermelo but he did not publish the idea, which remained known only to Hilbert, Husserl and other members of the University of Göttingen. Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R qualifies as a member of itself, it would contradict its own definition as a set containing sets that are not member...
Actually, it wasn't on Programmers, and it wasn't a month ago or so. All Russians are liars.
I'm disappointed that Martha hasn't thwacked me for my valediction.
4:15 PM
You drove her away.
And didn't even notice!
That barber thing is a rather intriguing Freudian slip. My brain seems to equate talking to you to posting on Programmers.
I don't see the Freudian slip.
Sorry, a Fraudian slip.
Ah, the Madoff Paradox.
Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff (; born April 29, 1938) is a former American stock broker, investment advisor, non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of what has been described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history. In March 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. Madoff said he began the Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s. However, federal investigators believe the fraud began as early as the 197...
Capitalism, baby. See why I'm going to establish communism in your backyard?
4:21 PM
The squirrels are ripe for revolution. You should fit right in.
4:58 PM
@Kosmonaut For the record, it sends you to a page with a dropdown list showing all SE sites (including meta sites and those in private beta).
5:27 PM
@RegDwight: Stop blaming things on your brain. Other organs may be responsible for all your slips: Freudian, Fraudian, and any lingerie you have lying around.
5:40 PM
@MichaelMyers: Good to know... now I can explore it without fear :)
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