English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

David M

12:59 AM

What a long fucking day at work.

Mitch

1:57 AM

Days are overrated

David M

2:11 AM

@Mitch True enough

@Mitch The pineapple uprising is coming . . . ally with them while you still can.

David M

2:26 AM

-1

A: Where does the expression 'Babbies first ...' come from?

It's a reference to a meme popular amongst Reddit users and other online forum users. From Knowyourmeme.com How Is Babby Formed refers to a popular question posed to the Yahoo! Answers forum about how humans reproduce. The question is known for its awkward phrasing and misspelling of the wor...

My good deed of the day. I turned a shit answer into a good answer for a new poster.

Chappo

@DavidM Nice work. I just love the infamous answer cited, including "i am truley sorry for your lots". That itself has potential as a future meme.

David M

@Chappo Right?!?

@Chappo I gave it an upvote after I edited it. IDK if it's teaching a new user or making it worse?

Chappo

2:55 AM

@DavidM I reckon the OP was unlikely to return, so editing it is better than leaving it as rubbish. And upvotes (I just added my own) indicate it's now a useful addition to our library.

David M

@Chappo Agreed

Robusto

1:01 PM

Looks like someone might be creating troll accounts:

-1

A: Can 'easierly' or 'easiestly' be held grammatically consistent?

This has to be the most ignorant thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Trust me I've seen a few unnatural things back in my day and this, this is something else.

-2

A: Can 'easierly' or 'easiestly' be held grammatically consistent?

no that is so far from being anywhere close to a mildly intelligent though you absolute degenerate.

But I guess it could just be a coincidence that these happened within three minutes of each other ...

Mitch

@Robusto Coincidence or not, voted to delete both answers immediately.

More importantly His raison d'etre allows little quid pro quo with the hoi polloi.

Everywhere I go I find Silva Rhetoricae has been there before me.

You sir are no Sigmund Freud.

Mitch

1:35 PM

@Robusto Ben Dover seems to be writing crap answers only. Should be banned very soon.

I mean that in both meanings of 'should' as in my expectation of probability and in I think it is better that it happen.

Cerberus

How modal of you.

skullpetrol

he's a model of modality :P

Cerberus

Hah!

skullpetrol

how are you pal?

Cerberus

1:52 PM

Neutral, and you?

skullpetrol

fine thanks

Mitch

2:46 PM

@Cerberus Fair to middlin'

This too shall pass

Cerberus

Not bad!

Mitch

Neither hot nor cold

David M

I always reply: I'm well, to the disappointment of many.

Mitch

@skullpetrol and if you were really good at its possibilities you might get a metal meta matter meter mettle meddle modal medal.

@DavidM many menial enemies

and if they sent you some flowers they'd be:

many menial enemies' anemones.

But their secretaries really sent it so:

many menial enemies' amanuenses' anemones.

David M

@Mitch I didn't quite understand your comment on my meta post.

Mitch

2:54 PM

and the enemies of their enemies

many menial enemies' nemeses' amanuenses' anemones.

If the flowers were from where Jesus was arrested...

many menial enemies' nemeses' amanuenses' anemones of Gethsemane

David M

Meanwhile, I think I have my most controversial answer. +6/-4 votes.

Mitch

@DavidM Let's see if I can recreate thoughts about it...

1) We're looking for questions with definitive answers.

2) so the question should be answerable definitively (that's somewhat redundant with point 1) but I'll let it stand.

3) so we're not supposed to give opinions as answers (whether the question is looking for that or not)

4) but the system allows multiple answers

5) a different answer can be an opinion, or it can be a different attempt at a definitive answer.

6) all answers are in a sense meta-opinionated "I think this is the best answer"

7) SWRs -tend- to be awful because they elicit many answers that are indistinguishable from opinions (because there are in fact many possible answers to underspecified questions ... or there may in fact be legitimately many different good answers).

I haven't even gotten to what I was trying to say!

David M

Hahahahahaha

Mitch

8)-12) I forgot where I was going with this.

David M

Kind of my point ....

POB is just not quite right.

I think we're really trying to say this can't be answered here appropriately

Mitch

3:03 PM

13) Some answers are that there is actually -no- answer, or the answer is vague (not opinionated but the range of the answer is broad). Two close and overlapping but distinct things.

David M

If someone asks, which word is better here? That's obviously an opinion question. If they ask, what word can I use to succinctly describe X, it's not.

Mitch

So often POB is used for a poorly thought out question, but there may well be a well-defined answer which is that 'there is no answer' or 'there is no good single correct answer' or 'The answer is vaguely this or this or this'.

@DavidM If they're asking about writing poetry, definitely.

David M

I do agree that No, is an answer.

I've answered it before.

30

A: Aren’t there English equivalents to Japanese word, Senpai (先輩) meaning a senior in school, career, or age?

Generally, English does not have an equivalent term to Senpai, although since the Michael Crichton book Rising Sun, and its film adaptation, it is an increasingly understood term. We do not formally acknowledge the same sort of relationship. (As your dictionary suggests, we would just highlig...

Example

Mitch

Yes, translation is full of 'there's no answer of a single word'.

David M

But that's not the same as "There's no clear answer."

No is a clear answer

Why do Americans like to use the word ain't? That's not gonna get a clear answer.

What's the origin of the contraction ain't? Will

Is the word ain't proper English? Not going to get a clear answer.

Why do people consider the word ain't improper English? Might. (People will say because of prescriptivism vs descriptivism)

Mitch

3:10 PM

@DavidM That's a clear thing to say. The one asking may think things are cloudy and may think their eyes are blurry, but the expert can say no your eyes are fine the thing actually has blurry edges.

That's from the Bible. Book of Epistemologes 3:16

@DavidM That has a good definitive answer to it.

@DavidM That is more opinionated, or rather, any reasonable answer will be a lengthy article.

Opinionated is difficult.

Grammar Girl type answers should be OK here.

But she gets to choose the questions she gets, rewrite them so that they're answerable.

I'm sure she gets lots of "What's the deal with 'ain't'?"

David M

@Mitch And the Lord sayeth unto @RegDwigнt ...

@Mitch it does, until someone comes along and says "It depends upon style ... And someone else says I prescribe and proscribe that ... And someone else says you're all a bunch of weenies, and then we flag that guy .... And so forth.

David M

3:34 PM

0

A: Which one is right "Comment" or "Comments"

I think it depends on the context of the action.

THIS is very meta .... Read my comment.

Cerberus

3:56 PM

Hah.

True.

David M

4:13 PM

Is it ok to cite yourself as a source when you feel it's appropriate?

0

A: Is there a term for the combination of a finger bone (phalanx) plus all the soft tissue around that bone?

In medicine we call this the phalanx. Even though technically the term refers to the bone itself, it still describes the sections of the finger. Phalanges is the plural of phalanx. The patient has an injury to the soft tissue of the distal phalanx of his 3rd finger. In layman's terms we...

M.A.R.

@DavidM sure, why not

Cerberus

@DavidM I'll accept that.

On Sceptics, though, they might not.

Færd

4:33 PM

the first leading cause of death

Isn't that tautological?

If there are a number of leading causes of death, then the first one is the first leading cause of death. But it's still awkward.

M.A.R.

@Færd Unless "first" refers to something else, like this is the first cause discovered, or is associated with the first omelet a scientist ate

That was one heck of an omelet.

@Færd I think I've also seen "the primary leading cause" or maybe other combinations too

But, FWIW, "the third leading cause" makes sense to me.

In that they're all leading causes, and "leading" refers to their whole batch.

Færd

Okay then. It may be acceptable in medical/scholarly parlance.

M.A.R.

For example, if four causes each accounted for twenty percent of the whole thing, and starting from the fifth cause, it was less than 5 percent

Færd

Yes. That was my theory. But it sounded tautological still.

M.A.R.

I turn off my brain to all other information when I'm reading an article

Blah blah blah blood concentrations arise by 30 percent blah blah blah mice dead blah blah blah

Færd

4:40 PM

What if you are tasked with editing the article?

'Cause that's what I'm doing.

M.A.R.

Cool!

Færd

Boring, rather.

M.A.R.

Is it something in the abstract?

Færd

No it's in the body. It has a reference to another article, so I'll go check that one too.

M.A.R.

If I faced it I'd leave it be, or edit out "first", depending on whichever flows well, but typically just leave it be

Often the authors are busy giving this inspirational speech about why obesity sucks

Færd

4:44 PM

This is no oratorical piece. It's in sorry shape. Full of mistakes.

But maybe I'll leave this one be.

M.A.R.

@Færd Does the original use the same phrasing?

Færd

That's what I'm gonna go check.

Thanks.

M.A.R.

@Færd speaking of crappy English, it's one downside of the university

I need to be really careful of my spelling and especially pronunciation :/

Færd

@M.A.R. Haha true. But if you pronounce "correct"ly everyone will give you a weird look.

> Heart disease was the first leading cause of death for the non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and non-Hispanic AIAN populations, but it was the second leading cause for the non-Hispanic API and Hispanic populations.

Cerberus

@Færd It sounds pleonastic to me.

SmokeDetector

8:33 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected (158): What should we use instead of "it" when to emphasize more? by ur sus on english.SE

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…