English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

GnomeSlice

7:00 PM

I could just grind my face into my keyboard for the next 40 or so minutes.

RegDwight

If you're typing that with your face, respect!

Martha

If y'all will write my introductory blurb for me, I might consider running for moderator.

RegDwight

Sorry, writing requests should be posted over at Writing.

Kosmonaut

Can it be in the form of a limerick?

GnomeSlice

@RegDwight i type with my nose often. capitalization is a pain in the ass, though.

Martha

7:01 PM

@Kosmonaut, yes.

RegDwight

Now I'm intrigued.

Martha

(I was gonna say "just no puns, please", but then I realized that would be an open invitation to you guys.)

Ooops.

Kosmonaut

Hmm.. what rhymes with "Martha"?

GnomeSlice

Haggis.

No, wait a minute.

Kosmonaut

So much for limericks. I don't think anything does.

GnomeSlice

7:04 PM

Me neither.

Might as well use 'silver' or 'purple'.

RegDwight

This reminds me of a Home Improvement episode where one of the brothers says to the other, "Can you help me with my Civil War essay?" - "Sure, what you've got so far?" - "The Civil war was." He then adds, "And even that I've copied from an encyclopaedia."

Kosmonaut

HaHA!

Martha

If you want some random biographical bits, I'm the twin who minored in history; my sister is the one who minored in linguistics, and very little of said linguistics has rubbed off on me. (We both majored in math.) But I do have some copy-editing experience under my belt.

RegDwight

You also have an evil twin.

Martha, New Jersey

254 3

Kosmonaut

Why does the linguistics one have to be the evil one?

Ohhhh

Martha

7:07 PM

I haven't yet gotten my sister hooked on EL&U; she's kinda got her hands full of niece (pictured above).

Kosmonaut

I see

Martha

Yes, there is actually another Martha on SE. (She's also on Cooking and Science Fiction and a few other sites I frequent.)

RegDwight

I know.

I'm on all sites 24/7.

Martha

On Cooking, I changed my handle to "Marti" to avoid conflict.

RegDwight

I've upvoted some of your stuff there.

Martha

7:08 PM

And I think she has changed hers to "Martha F." on a few sites.

RegDwight

Mysterious!

Martha

It's very strange to have another Martha around. I went through all 20-something years of school without ever having another Martha in any of my classes.

Kosmonaut

I bet Martha-prime feels the same way.

RegDwight

I think this enough, can you just copy this thread over to the nomination page? That should do it.

Martha

Can't imagine how all the Jennifers of the world manage.

@RegDwight: don't tempt me.

RegDwight

7:11 PM

(@_@)

Martha

[pardon me, just reading some of the older stuff today... thank you for the substitute thwacking...]

RegDwight

4 hours ago, by RegDwight

I'm here to help.

Martha

Getting self-referential, are we?

RegDwight

You still haven't thwacked me for my yesterday's valediction! I demand justice!

Kosmonaut

I think RegDwight might be able to speak entirely in self-references soon.

That and Wikipedia links

But he will be able to reference other times he already posted the Wikipedia link.

Martha

7:18 PM

Hmm? I must have missed something (re: yesterday's valediction). (Where's a self-referential quote when you need it?)

RegDwight

@Kosmonaut I will pretty much have to, as

Feb 10 at 16:01, by RegDwight

Even @RegDwight doesn't read all of @RegDwight's crap!

@Martha here

yesterday, by Martha

Ok, gotta go pretend to work.

Kosmonaut

And then if you continue to reference your own references, you'll eventually open up one of these:

33 mins ago, by Robusto

Wormhole

In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional (2D) surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it allows one to picture a wormhole "bridge". (Please note, though, that this is merely a visualization displayed to convey an essentially unvisualisable structure existing in 4 or more dimensions. The parts of the wormhole could be higher-dimensional analogues for the parts of the curved 2D sur...

RegDwight

Actually, @kosmonaut:

yesterday, by RegDwight

Feb 7 at 15:38, by RegDwight

Russell's paradox

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...

Martha

OWWWW! That's terrible! THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK!

Kosmonaut

Did you hear that rip sound? That was the very fabric of spacetime.

RegDwight

7:21 PM

Thank you! @Martha.

Martha

@Kosmonaut, Here, let me patch that for you. //hunts around for matching thread

RegDwight

Nah, hunting around for that Futurama video with Steven Hawking and Al Gore.

Kosmonaut

That's something we can add to your mod nomination

RegDwight

Where the very fabric of spacetime disappears and they all just play D&D.

@Kosmonaut I was thinking of something different.

yesterday, by RegDwight

I actually thought about including that info in my nomination, but I was afraid it could be misunderstood. (^_^)

Kosmonaut

Attention to detail: would take the time and effort to find matching thread to repair the fabric of spacetime

Martha

7:24 PM

I'm a defective nerd: I've never played D&D.

Robusto

See what happens? I leave for a few minutes and the place goes to hell.

Martha

You mean we're not there already?

Kosmonaut

* Puts his backpack over the wormhole *

RegDwight

Feb 14 at 10:33, by Robusto

Kind of like The Decameron only without the plague.

Kosmonaut

I never played D&D either. I did play this X-Men RPG thing though. But not very well.

Robusto

7:25 PM

D&D is waaaaay too slow for today's fast-paced lifestyles.

RegDwight

...

waiting...

Thank you.

Robusto

Nah, beat you to the 2nd waiting

RegDwight

Not here.

Martha

Nor here.

Robusto

I don't care how they do things in your benighted time zone.

Or zones.

RegDwight

7:26 PM

Feb 14 at 16:18, by RegDwight

@Cerberus: that's not what I saw, so this might be indeed a caching issue.

Martha

Hey, was that just proof that @Robusto is human after all?

RegDwight

He's a shovel. I've seen a picture.

Martha

Talented, for a shovel.

Kosmonaut

I've always pictured him as a type of fancy baked good.

Robusto

My humanity was never in doubt. It's @RegDwight who shies away from Turing tests.

RegDwight

7:27 PM

Feb 8 at 10:29, by Robusto

@Robusto See starred post to the right. Thanks.

Kosmonaut

What is Toronto????????

RegDwight

It's a kind of a spider.

Martha

Besides a city in Canada, you mean?

Robusto

Why do you choose shovel, when you might have chosen ladder?

Feb 8 at 10:37, by Robusto

See, I'm actually quite protean.

RegDwight

I will evade that question.

Kosmonaut

7:28 PM

techland.time.com/2011/02/16/…

Martha

Oh. I still haven't managed to watch any of that. Will have to wait until the weekend when I'm at my sister's (bro-in-law has it on the DVR).

RegDwight

5 hours ago, by RegDwight

Still haven't watched a single Watson video.

Robusto

Yeah, I thought that was very funny. Alex Trebek is so into promoting Canada (though he lives in California), and here his big honking publicity wet kiss to IBM gets him a total diss of Canada!

See, @RegDwight can be self-referential and self-deferential at the same time. Amazing.

RegDwight

I never grokked pointers. I'm a CSS guy.

Robusto

waiting ...

still waiting ...

still waiting waiting ...

Ich warte noch ...

Martha

7:33 PM

I'm even worse: I'm a VBScript gal. And classic asp.

RegDwight

Better?

Robusto

Eeeuuwwww, Martha, let's not say things we can't take back.

FX_

oh, so it's “confession Thursday”?

RegDwight

It's Thursday? OMG.

Martha

It's what this job uses. It pays the bills, who am I to complain.

RegDwight

7:34 PM

I never know what time of the year it is.

Robusto

I didn't know ASP had risen to "classic" status.

Kosmonaut

I heard Microsoft tests VBScript on animals.

Martha

(Although of course I do complain.)

"Classic asp" as opposed to "asp.net" (ack, ptui).

Robusto

But I guess it's a branding back-formation, now that Jon Skeet is using ASP.Net ...

RegDwight

Don't mention Jon Skeet

Black hole!

Robusto

7:35 PM

Do you think Jon Skeet could beat Chuck Norris?

RegDwight

ShreevatsaR has beaten Chuck Norris quite severely.

Martha

What with all the mentions of Voldemo[ahem, sorry] He-who-must-not-be-named?

RegDwight

All the mentions? There is but one.

Martha

I see three.

[cleaning glasses] Yup, still three.

Robusto

RegDwight

7:38 PM

Searching for "named" returns 4 results in total.

Voldemort for Republicans would be funnier.

Robusto

The love that dare not speak its name?

Martha

Dumbledore for President! ... oh, wait. He died. Oops.

(And there's that pesky birthplace requirement.)

RegDwight

Oh man, and Pete Postlethwaite, OBE, too.

Now I'm all sad.

Martha

Didn't Postlethwaite die a while ago?... Yup, January 2nd.

Ok, so it's not years ago, but it's not recent news.

RegDwight

I still miss him.

But anyhow.

Martha

7:43 PM

Gotta go finish something at work. See y'all later. Your homework is polishing my moderator-nomination blurb.

RegDwight

CU.

BTW, the link to moderator nominations has reappeared on the main site @Robusto.

Robusto

Yep, saw that. Thanks and CYA.

RegDwight

2

Q: Should we do anything about the huge language mess on Area51?

There's a long list of languages proposal on Area51, varying from an all encompassing language site to a focus one language site like the successful English Language & Usage. When I say they vary, I do mean that. As I just said, there's a site to contain all the languages question, whether...

discussion area51 stackexchange-2.0 languages

Kosmonaut

Interesting

Well clearly an all-language supersite would be a complete mess

RegDwight

I was going to post a lengthy essay to that extent on one of the many related question over at the Area51 discuss zone, but meh.

But I like the comments by Pollyanna and Popular Demand.

Kosmonaut

7:55 PM

Yes

Then everyone is happy.

Robusto

Wait, did @Martha just say she was running for mod? Way to light up a room and leave, @Martha.

Kosmonaut

She said she would if we write her blurb.

I hope that means she really will run.

RegDwight

You have to copy this thread over to the nominations page first.

That was my understanding.

Robusto

Here's her blurb: "Vote for me and I'll THWACK every damn one of ya!"

Followed by "I'm @Martha and I approved this message."

Kosmonaut

We can't copy this thread over for her nomination

SHE has to do it.

RegDwight

7:57 PM

Yes we can!

Kosmonaut

Change you can believe in?

Robusto

That's right. American ends in "I can"!

RegDwight

Yeah, mostly quarters.

I dunno why but I'm still laughing at @Martha's blurb.

Kosmonaut

But, confusingly, it starts with "amer".

Robusto

Communist.

RegDwight

7:59 PM

I am, er, I can?

Kosmonaut

Now that's a slogan I can get behind.

Robusto

Well, there's a sofa in The United States of America, if you could but find it.

We should be careful. As a meme, this whole THWACK! thing could be contagious. What if it spreads to other boards?

Kosmonaut

There's also Erica... I wonder who she is?

RegDwight

Rumors have it, there's every word in the universe in Союз Советских Социалистических Республик.

Kosmonaut

It looks to me like there are no words in there at all.

RegDwight

8:02 PM

Well, Martha is spreading to Cooking and SciFi already.

Stop dissing me, @Kosmonaut!

yesterday, by Kosmonaut

@RegDwight: You appear to have spilled some IPA symbols all over the ground. Shall I help you pick them up?

I am still waiting for your help with that matter!

Kosmonaut

Well, I haven't been convinced that Russian is really a language. I think people are just making things up.

RegDwight

Well, if you like to call that things... That's a big word...

Robusto

@RegDwight — See? I knew you were just pining away for the old Stalinist regime.

RegDwight

In your backyard, yes.

Robusto

My backyard is commie-proof. I have a shovel and a ladder now. And if that isn't enough, I'll run you down with my snow thrower.

RegDwight

8:05 PM

But seriously, Russian ain't a language, that's why I'm hanging out here and Putin sings in English.

@Robusto: so there's the root of all your problems right there! Just switch your damn snow thrower off, and you'll be fine!

Robusto

You'd like that, wouldn't you?

RegDwight

You are the one who doesn't want no snow.

Robusto

You want to creep in here and steal my precious bodily fluids ...

►

RegDwight

Alternatively, just point the thrower in my general direction. We discussed that earlier.

Kosmonaut

@Robusto: that's why you need snow

No fluoridation in there.

Melt that down and protect your POE.

RegDwight

8:11 PM

Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore'.

Kosmonaut

You down wit' POE?

RegDwight

Now just sneak in Martha in there, and bam! there's your limerick.

Robusto

Does Martha smoke cigars?

RegDwight

That's a bit of knowledge that's escaped me thus far.

Robusto

"That's how your hard-core Commie works."

Kosmonaut

8:17 PM

0

Q: When shall I use passive voice?

When shall I use passive and when active voice? Thank you.

passive-voice

Too broad, just wanted to make sure before closing

Ha

Looks like it has been tackled already!

Robusto

Flush it.

Kosmonaut

I think the original should have been closed.

RegDwight

Yeah, @FX_ beats me to it.

Kosmonaut

The answer is practically useless because it is such a broad topic.

RegDwight

Closing might be a good idea. The answers aren't shiny.

Kosmonaut

8:20 PM

Somebody visiting our office just said "I'll see youse latah!" as she walked out the door.

RegDwight

You live in a funny environment.

Robusto

Did she THWACK you with a ruler as she left?

Kosmonaut

Now that you mention it, she did!

RegDwight

Ha! You've actually previously commented on that question @Kosmonaut. Dec 19 '10 at 16:37

Robusto

Well, there you go. It was @Martha.

Kosmonaut

8:22 PM

Yeah, but it was a long time ago. I might not even have been a mod yet.

RegDwight

December? I would say you were.

Robusto

For sure @Kosmonaut was a mod in December.

RegDwight

He was just leaving us time for trying to tackle it, and we failed.

Robusto

He's been giving me shit ever since I joined E&U.SE, and I joined late November.

RegDwight

Hahahaha.

Foshizzle.

Robusto

8:25 PM

Word.

RegDwight

Excel.

Kosmonaut

Pages?

Robusto

Outlook.

RegDwight

It's funny how people can call their software word and get away with it.

Robusto

Word.

Kosmonaut

8:27 PM

Well, in any case, my moderating style has evolved since December

RegDwight

And now that poor, um, word has all kinds of connotations.

Robusto

Word.

I have a macro now. You're all fucked.

RegDwight

Lustig.

Kosmonaut

So, now if you go to that "When to use passive voice", it says Exact Duplicate. Then you click on the original question, and it says "closed. too broad."

Kind of mean

Robusto

Is there any way you could have them point to each other as exact duplicates? Now that would be funny. And in keeping with your gravatar motto, @Kosmonaut.

Kosmonaut

8:31 PM

Good point.

I imagine it is possible.

Robusto

Mind = blown.

Kosmonaut

Stack = overflowed

Robusto

If it's possible, then you have to do it. To have that much power and not use it? What kind of moderator would you be if you resisted that urge?

google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=recursion

RegDwight

I have found myself a new hobby. Whenever I hit the rep cap, I go through the list of the most godawful worthless posts and see if I've forgotten to downvote some.

I miss so many questions these days.

I'm kinda afraid what might be waiting for us ahead.

Kosmonaut

Yes

RegDwight

8:35 PM

We certainly might need more thwacking.

And cowbell!

Chris Dwyer

hey, that was my active voice/passive voice question! :)

RegDwight

How happy were you with the answers?

Kosmonaut

Sorry — not that it's a bad question... it just requires a chapter in a book :)

RegDwight

Yup. Closed doesn't mean it doesn't belong. Closed means not accepting further answers.

Chris Dwyer

I liked the one I excepted

right

Kosmonaut

8:37 PM

I found this question so odd:

0

Q: Are there any practical uses of onomatopoeia in contemporary English?

Do we have any practical uses of onomatopoeia in contemporary English? I can not claim to have read many materials, but I have to confess I have rarely seen it used a lot.

vocabulary

RegDwight

3

A: Should we have a policy for when a question is answerable, yet has an unreasonably large scope?

Sure, anything CAN be answered, but the distinction here is can the question be reasonably answered in its current form. An overly-broad question is an earmark of vagueness and lack of focus. If I were to ask, for example, "what makes a good game?", it's completely answerable. There's volumes of ...

Robusto

@Kosmonaut — Yeah. Sometimes, not often, I find myself at a loss for words. That question occasioned one of them.

RegDwight

@Kosmonaut There used to be a comment by kiamlaluno there, which got me thinking whether the OP might be asking about the use of the word onomatopoeia itself.

Kosmonaut

OMG, that would be even weirder

I don't think it could possibly mean that... but you're right; now kiamlaluno's answer makes some sense.

RegDwight

@Kosmonaut Yes. Which accidentally also means that it's quite likely.

Kosmonaut

8:40 PM

If that is the question, then it should be closed for sure!

Robusto

Am I the only one who is thoroughly sick of the NOAD references? Enough!

RegDwight

I'm just afraid we'll never know!

Robusto

...

waiting ...

Ich warte ...

RegDwight

Danke, lieber Robusto.

Ich hätte es nicht gemerkt.

Robusto

Bitte.

RegDwight

8:42 PM

Interestinglz enough, mz wife seems to have fixed the m key somehow.

OH F***.

Feb 11 at 18:40, by Kosmonaut

[kezboard error]

Kosmonaut

The y-z switch sometimes just makes the person sound drunk.

RegDwight

I'm not talking like that!

Well, kind of.

Kosmonaut

How should I know?

RegDwight

I'm tellin ya!

Chris Dwyer

@Kosmonaut How come your name is in blue in the chat?

Kosmonaut

8:45 PM

Because of awesome!

RegDwight

Feb 9 at 14:53, by RegDwight

Hm. Kosmonaut is so blue now.

Robusto

He's very vain about his blue blood.

Kosmonaut

It's because I have mod powers.

RegDwight

Where's your diamond?

Kosmonaut

It's right here —

Oh, I must have dropped it...

Robusto

8:47 PM

@Kosmonaut — Ease up, Skeletor. We non-mods have not yet begun to fight.

RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

But OMFG, you're now ahead of nohat. So tell me, my dear friend, should we just fight it out like real men or what?

Kosmonaut

►

You have to watch the whole thing... it really pays off at the end.

Robusto

@RegDwight — ...

RegDwight

The title of that video is teh awesome.

Robusto

yesterday, by Robusto

You're a man? Shit, I've been wasting all this time chatting you up ...

RegDwight

8:48 PM

Déjà vu all over again.

Robusto

I'm too lazy to put in diacritical marks when I'm on the PC. The Mac makes it so easy, I've been spoiled.

Kosmonaut

ɗɛ́ʝɒ̹ ʋʉ

RegDwight

Same here. I can type them at work but this Russian keyboard here is unusable.

Robusto

32 mins ago, by Robusto

"That's how your hard-core Commie works."

RegDwight

Nothing to add. Sadly.

Kosmonaut

8:51 PM

Everything is getting too self-referential around here. (I just know I'm asking to have this comment re-used, but still...)

Robusto

1 hour ago, by Robusto

See, @RegDwight can be self-referential and self-deferential at the same time. Amazing.

RegDwight

Well, we could talk about literature or something.

Or monster trucks.

Robusto

Word.

RegDwight

That macro is way too slow.

Kosmonaut

I went to a monster truck rally once. In Wisconsin.

They had truck-o-saurus there.

He ate a car and it bled oil.

Robusto

8:53 PM

@RegDwight — Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have used VBScript.

Chris Dwyer

Did you enjoy the show?

Kosmonaut

It was the loudest thing I ever experienced in my entire life.

@Chris: I do believe I said "they had truck-o-saurus there".

So obviously: YES

Robusto

simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Truckasaurus

Chris Dwyer

well... obviously

RegDwight

@Kosmonaut That reminds me of an excellent book.

kk.org/outofcontrol

It's like Umberto Eco on drugs.

Kosmonaut

8:56 PM

@Robusto: It was basically just like that

Robusto

@RegDwight — Wait, you mean Umberto Eco isn't on drugs?

Kosmonaut

Drugs on drugs

(Yo dawg...)

Robusto

Word.

RegDwight

I mean that there are those books after reading which you can't help but think, OMFG now I know everything about everything ever. Foucault's Pendulum is like that. The Discovery of Heaven is like that. And Out of Control is like that, too.

@Robusto You talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded.

Robusto

Don't make me bring up the Elton John thing again.

Kosmonaut

8:59 PM

Wait... when did Iraq also start protesting???

RegDwight

Q? Not N?

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…