English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2020-02-22

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1:00 AM

Feb 5 '14 at 20:00, by Robusto

Yeah. And bulimics make me want to puke.

1:21 AM

Here's something I didn't know about the term *bridge* as it applies to music: "The term comes from a German word for bridge, *Steg*, used by the Meistersingers of the 15th to the 18th century to describe a transitional section in medieval bar form. The German term became widely known in 1920s Germany through musicologist Alfred Lorenz and his exhaustive studies of Richard Wagner's adaptations of bar form in his popular 19th-century neo-medieval operas.
The term entered the English lexicon in the 1930s—translated as bridge—via composers fleeing Nazi Germany who, working in Hollywood and on …

I thought the term had been used, like, forever. But I guess everything must have an origin.

1:46 AM

@RegDwigнt: you should watch this. Paul Simon has some very interesting things to say about his relationship with the external manifestation and acceptance of his music. A very intelligent, nuanced interview on his part.

Paul Simon on Letterman, May 20, 1982

1 hour later…

2:46 AM

@Mitch english.stackexchange.com/questions/525761/…

Did you perhaps mean bovine coproloquence? It has that lovely eau de vache aroma to it, as the French might say. :) — tchrist ♦ 6 mins ago

7 hours later…

9:55 AM

@Robusto wonderful. Hits close to home.

(And as you said, or rather implied, I never realized Letterman was such a tosser. How is he famous for anything.)

4 hours later…

2:13 PM

@RegDwigнt Well, he's a comedian, not a musician. He doesn't have any real sensitivity for that kind of art. And to be fair, he did get in one good comment, when Simon asks if they should maybe sing the second song together. He hemmed and hawed, and finally said, "Not if it would bring about world peace." I would be similarly reluctant about singing with Paul Simon on national television, especially on a new song he was just "working out" at the time.

2 hours later…

4:14 PM

Small question, does August-September mean 1st August to 30th September or 1st August to 1st September?

4:31 PM

@Justin It depends. But generally it would be used in the inclusive sense of "all of August through all of September."

5:12 PM

Yeah. Without any context, two months means two months.

"August 1st to September 1st" is just "August".

And given context, August-September could even mean the last half of August and the first half of September.

If it's of critical importance, ask the person who wrote it. Because then it does not matter what we say they must have meant. It only matters what they say they actually meant.

Conversely, if you are the person writing it, and you think it's not precise enough, then be more precise.

Toots Thielemans and Stevie Wonder, Polar Music Award

@Robusto did I mention I bought a harmonica a couple weeks ago?

(Not that golden one for $4000 off Amazon. Just a regular one in G.)

@MattE.Эллен interestingly enough, "I" is the opposite of "nothing".

Is that also from Latin?

English really can't think of any new feature of itself to add. It can only think of constantly removing old features. That it previously nicked from other languages.

English is a cunt!

@Robusto that is also very interesting.

I have literally never heard "Steg" in that meaning.

I would blame the Renaissance which I know nothing about, but it does say all the way up to the 18th century. That's, like, not even really baroque anymore. That's like Gluck already.

Who incidentally wrote lots of arias. Some of which I know quite well. Not a Steg in sight anywhere.

@user8718165 Yeah I will second your hunch. It doesn't sound right for that very reason.

5:41 PM

@RegDwigнt Am I confused, or is ELU.meta a suboptimal site for asking programming questions on?

2 hours later…

7:38 PM

@tchrist false dichotomy. Can't I have both?

Please?

Meanwhile elsewhere,

user image

Something tells me that the neverending choir does end, after exactly 27:11.

Also HOLY SHIT six voices and ELEVEN pianos.

!!!!111!!!!one

Also a harpsichord and an organ.

Because you will totally hear the harpsichord.

@tchrist also, I don't actually know if it's a programming question. When I read it, to me it read like someone with no knowledge of computers just looking for a tool to accomplish a job.

Like, is there a programming language that can modify a string using regular expressions.

Which I'm not sure there is, but maybe you've heard of one.

Anyway, that's why I didn't migrate anywhere. For all the information available to me at the time, it might as well belong on Super User. Or Cooking.

7:59 PM

@Robusto wonderful quote in one of Agadmator's videos right now:

> Chess doesn't drive people mad. It keeps mad people sane.

By one Bill Hartston.

8:10 PM

Anderson Cooper says Rod Blagojevich is on Bullshit

'on Bullshit'? What the hell is that? Frankfurter's monograph? A NNSism?

'Hey man You're on bullshit, man'

@RegDwigнt I bet you're right.

@RegDwigнt What is this, imaginary music nobody can ever hear?

8:40 PM

@RegDwigнt Nice.

@RegDwigнt By "just a regular one" what do you mean? If you're looking to play blues/rock (and what else does one use a harmonica for?) note that the standard diatonic harmonica will play the mixolydian mode a fifth above the nominal key. So your "G" harmonica will render that mode in D. You probably knew that, but I thought it worth mentioning.

@RegDwigнt But there's an element of madness to it as well. The game is in some other dimension than the one where we usually encounter reality.

And then that world starts to invade reality and you're really in trouble.

Mar 26 '14 at 2:41, by Robusto

Like when I was a kid learning chess, I'd be eating my dinner and thinking that a piece of potato was en pris because it was a knight's move away from a floret of broccoli.

9:17 PM

Don't forget Nabokov's The Defense (probably known to you as The Luzhin Defense or Защита Лужина).

That way lies madness.

9:32 PM

@Robusto "regular" as in diatonic ten-hole, yes.

Blowing, just the same three notes repeated. Sucking in, a handful of nonsense if you come to the instrument unprepared. (In which case you probably don't even know that sucking in is an option.)

I can play a bunch of very basic tunes, like Ode to Joy or the Italian Anthem or some of my own pieces. But I don't think I will ever figure out how to bend a note by half step. Everyone is suspiciously silent on that.

So I can't play Once Upon a Time in the West, for example. I would need a chromatic harmonica for that. Which I'll be getting anyway.

I'll also be getting the diatonic ten-hole in D and C. They're like 10 bucks off Amazon, it's laughable.

I only started with the G because it's the one that best fits with the violin that's also in G.

The piano and bayan don't care. The guitar is also kind of in G because it's sort of in E minor. And my flute is in D cause that's the only scale I can actually play. So D was a close second, since it also fits the violin well.

But yeah next up I'm shopping for a chromatic one. While desperately trying to figure out how to play chromatically on the diatonic one that I have.

Which is how I happened across that video of Toots Thielemans.

9:50 PM

@RegDwigнt You can't play chromatically on a diatonic harmonica.

Basically my YouTube suggestions are now all harmonicas all the time.

Stevie Wonder could play the chromatic harmonica. But then, he could play anything, anytime, anywhere.

And why am I talking about him in past tense? Hmm ...

@Robusto well people bend the notes by half a tone, two half tones, and even three half tones. And, like, half the tabs that I've seen go "oh yeah and here you just bend half a step down". There's special signs for that.

The chromatic harmonica involves pushing a slide at one end of the harmonica, which shuts some holes and opens others.

@RegDwigнt Oh, well, yeah. There's that. But you have to be even better at precise pitch bending than you would have to be doing the chromatic slide thingy.

My point yes.

But also my goal yes. To be better.

Because being worse I've already tried.

9:54 PM

Being better is such a grind, because it's never ending. Wherever you start, you always move the point of reference up to something aspirational.

Hm. Good point. So maybe I should start by being best, then?

Couldn't hurt.

I don't know how hard it is. Never tried.

I remember being so happy to finally be able to play the flute in three octaves. All the notes! And then I found out there was another fifth above that. And that people actually expected you to play up there from time to time.

Well. You call them "people".

If they want to hear really high notes, they can always buy The Mosquito.

I'm quite happy with my one octave of D major. I can play Beethoven with that. Can you play Beethoven with The Mosquito? Thought so.

10:00 PM

Only one octave? Pro tip: Just overblow a bit and you have two.

BTW, for some reason I just made myself a White Russian. Just like The Dude. Only I made it with 2% milk. I shoulda used cream.

Rookie movie.

inorite

@Robusto Oh I can do that just not whenever the score says I should.

Also ... breath control. I bet you don't get how important that is yet.

Well it won't ever become anywhere as important to me as to you. Not the same ballpark, not the same sport.

Also I now get some free breath control lessons through the work in the choir. Also not the same sport, but still.

10:05 PM

Breath control in voice is no less important, though somewhat less demanding.

Well it's a different beast in many respects and to many extents. And also it's a choir. I'm not singing arias.

But still. If you only ever play the piano, you don't even realize that you can breathe. Let alone in many different ways.

I think I would give up all my other skills if I could just ... sing.

@RegDwigнt Interesting thing about that ... you can't really play the piano well unless you understand breathing.

That kind of breathing comes naturally to me. Or maybe not naturally, but I've been doing it for so long and learned it so long ago that I wouldn't know what else to call it.

@Robusto singing sounds like a really really lonely affair if you put it like that.

And I don't know why.

Yeah, but it's ... singing.

I mean, I do sing, but not where anyone can hear me.

Cuz I just don't have a voice.

And all the vocal training in the world can't help if you don't have that instrument.

Probably the reason I'm as good as I am at all those other things is that it's me compensating for not being able to sing.

I've sung for people. I dunno. You have to pick your repertoire. If you can sing Orfeo ed Euridice, or in a Bulgarian choir, more power to you. But if "all" you can do is American country or Russian brutal romance, what's wrong with that. That's music alright. Go and sing.

10:14 PM

Er ... "Russian brutal romance" ... doesn't sound like anything I could remotely sing.

More to the point, if you can sing Orfeo ed Euridice, you cannot sing Russian brutal romance.

Jinx, I guess.

I can't find a "sort of" Coke, so you'll just have to imagine it.

It won't sound right. You can't be the master of all trades. Even within just one single trade.

@Robusto I've imagined all sorts of Coke before. Sadly I went to find out that none of them existed.

That's loser talk.

Last night listening to Paul Simon I was really enthralled with how he sang that one word. Which word was it, again.

He sang it so Paul Simon like nobody else ever could.

Reliably, too. Three or four times in a row.

Where's he from? He has quite a peculiar idiolect when singing.

10:17 PM

He's from Queens, NY, by way of New Jersey, IIRC.

I can't remember anyone ever talking like him, or that he has an identifiable accent.

His accent is kind of like jazz ... he bends it and shapes it for the effect he wants at a particular moment.

Oh yeah, "Stones".

The "o" in "Stones".

I don't recall how he pronounced that.

Paul Simon on Letterman, May 20, 1982

Link to one time stamp. 17:46.

That [o] is so Paul Simon it hurts. You could play just that one sound and there's no chance I'd mistake him for anyone else.

Yeah, well, he's doing a blue-note gliss in the middle of the /o/ there.

Yeah but I'm not talking pitch. I'm talking like I don't even know what it is. The acoustics of his mouth.

10:22 PM

Well, he really rounds his o's more than most people.

Yeah that's more like what I'm trying to say.

You can see the tip of his nose bend when he does that.

Though the gliss does help to kind of drive the point home, mind.

I'm trying to think of other songs where he does that.

Funny you should ask:

Crazy Love, Vol. II

Or listen to "Mexico-o-o" in the first verse of this one:

Simon & Garfunkel - The Only Living Boy in New York (Audio)

Yeah that might be it. That's one of the songs I listened the most to as a kid.

With very little to distract from his voice.

10:26 PM

Well, his voice somehow never seems to be at odds with the accompaniment.

He writes at the instrument.

Of course.

Most people these days can't even play an instrument.

So yeah, like, that "o" in the "do-n-do-d-do-n-do" is obviously the one I'm talking about.

Yeah.

But that's just the most pronounced. If you listen closely, it's actually the same color right at the start in the "right on time".

10:29 PM

It's rounding, like the two-syllable /o/ sound in Japanese: おう

And then later in the "on the weather report"

@Robusto yeah it's interesting that all the examples I've listed so far have the O followed by an N.

Stones. Do-n. On time. On the weather.

Well, you do that you look like a rabbit nibbling lettuce.

So maybe articulating the N makes him close his mouth in just the right way for it to become the most pronounced.

And that would explain why the bluenote gliss makes it more clear.

Well, except that there's no /n/ at the end of Mexico-o-o.

It's more like Mexico-wo-wo.

Right on, and that's where you hear it the least.

But right before that in "down" you hear it more clearly again.

Because after the W comes an N.

It's interesting, the things I sometimes find myself talking about on the Internet.

Who would've thunk.

10:34 PM

So I agree that nothing sounds like his /o/ followed by /n/. I don't know where that leaves us.

But I think his /o/ sounds are definitely rounded more than most people do.

Listen to "bone-digger, bone-digger" in this one:

Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al (Official Video)

Wut?

Haha, that Fender Jazz Bass is almost as big as he is.

Every time I watch that video I remind myself I should watch that video more often.

The song's in heavy rotation on my Spotify, but not on YouTube.

> When I was a little kindergartner back in 2006, my parents made my older sister and I recreate this music video live for a talent contest at school

My parents made I.

English is dead.

Feb 9 at 0:14, by RegDwigнt

Shut down the site.

English still lives in my mind.

> Kindergartner in 2006? Dammit, I feel old.

No, dude, you're not old. He is still a toddler.

There was another weird accent that I came across maybe six months ago.

I was watching a GDC video (Game Developers Conference), and that one lady talked about her game for an hour. And she had the weirdest accent I couldn't place.

Speaking in English?

I sat there and wrote all them words down, one by one. Lemme see...

@Robusto Yes, native speaker of American English.

Ah yes, here it is. My list.

10:46 PM

If I could hear it I could tell you where it's from—probably.

Jokes -> jerks
Tone -> tern
TV shows -> TV shers
So -> sor, sir
No -> ner
Knows -> kners
Talk -> torque

Columbo -> Columburr
Don't -> dern't
Most -> merst
Ghost -> gherst
Moe -> mer
Totally -> turtly

@Robusto let me see if I can find it. Could be difficult. They upload like two videos a day, every day.

Can't tell ya for sure, but it sounds kinda like Brooklynese.

I wouldn't know. Which is why I wrote it down.

I mean it looks like that. I'd have to hear it, really.

Oh here it is.

Building Games Around Humor: Lessons from The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game

"Ser. A little background. Not a lot of people kner."

10:53 PM

Sounds kinda like South African English. Are you sure she's American?

The South African is more like messing with their Es, not Os.

No?

I do hear a bit of American in it, but that '-er' thing is not American. Brooklynese switches /oi/ and /er/, but not /o/ and /er/.

Twitter says she's currently in Melboure, Australia.

Hear how she says "mahketing" and "latah" (later).

Ah, yes.

But those guys mess with their As.

10:55 PM

Then it's an Aussie dialect.

She doesn't say "fleg" instead of "flag".

No, now that you say that I hear it.

Righty right then. Mystery solved.

She just said "Let's have a looker-ooo" ... pure Aussie.

Aussie and South African share some similarities.

Well they all must share some similarities otherwise I wouldn't have such trouble placing y'all.

I can only identify Geordie reliably. Everything else is anyone's guess but mine.

10:57 PM

Srsly?

You weren't around when I complained just recently?

I can tell when someone's speaking Hochdeutsch vs a dialect, but I can't reliably tell you the dialect.

And I can tell kantouben from kansaiben if I listen long enough. But the line can blur.

Basically my brain has two buckets for English. All accents that I understand, and all accents that I don't. Anything at all within the same bucket is just all the same to me.

Yeah, makes sense.

I only learned to recognize NZ like two years ago. And it's been grating on my nerves ever since. I want to undo it.

And I can't.

I am not a happy panda.

10:59 PM

But are you a happy camper?

Not in World of Tanks I wasn't.

Always pushing the envelope. Or the tank. Uphill. Barefoot in the snow.

That's how we won them wars.

Do you recognize German dialects better than Russian ones these days?

I do not recognize Russian dialects at all.

That story I also relayed just recently.

I'll go hunt for the links in a sec.

The German ones I can place very reliably within like 20 miles.

They are all very different.

Every Russian in all of Russia speaks exactly the same to me.

Oh yeah, here, I talked to Cerberus.

Sep 21 '19 at 14:19, by RegDwigнt

I do believe Russians have much greater difficulties telling dialects from one another than, say, the Germans or the English.

I'm starting to distinguish different countries in Spanish. Gonna be a long process, though.

Starts there. Click through to there. I can't quote it all, but it's quite concise actually.

11:02 PM

@RegDwigнt Yeah, why would anything in Russian be easy?

And here's the other bit, about the Englishes. There I was talking to tchrist.

Feb 14 at 23:37, by RegDwigнt

The rather interesting flip side of that coin is that all the dialects you do understand all sound the same to you.

Feb 14 at 23:38, by RegDwigнt

I can't tell someone from the Bronx from someone from New Jersey, from someone from SoCal, from someone from Wales.

Feb 14 at 23:38, by RegDwigнt

My brain just files it all under "English".

Feb 14 at 23:39, by RegDwigнt

Even when I hear Geordie, while I do realize they're talking with an accent, I just ignore it altogether.

Feb 14 at 23:39, by RegDwigнt

The only thing that always sticks out to me is Aussie and NZ.

Feb 14 at 23:40, by RegDwigнt

But even that didn't used to be the case just a couple years ago.

Geezis, I didn't know there'd be homework. What kinda class is this, anyway?

But I will file these for later because I have to go start putting on my chef's hat. My turn to cook today. Feels like a frozen pizza night ...

cya later

Right on. I must get some sleep, myself. Thanks for the company, do do your homework.

Also, one additional thing I've only just thought of just now: I have no such problem with foreign accents in English.

The moment I hear a Russian, French, Italian, Indian accent, I immediately file it away in a correctly labeled bucket all of its own.

And the second someone starts talking with a German accent, I want to kill myself.

I am actually thinking about creating a dedicated bucket to put Aussie, NZ, German and French in. Then set it on fire.

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