English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

12:27 AM

@RegDwigнt Neither will the yellow ribbon or Jesus fish decals.

Mitch

12:46 AM

@RegDwigнt ?? what did Gervais say that made Hanks do that?

RegDwigнt

1:06 AM

@Mitch oh just his usual. He was there for what, the fifth time now? Just his usual.

Which only made it worse that Tom Hanks made that face. He should have been prepared. And he was. And he's an actor. He could've made any other face instead.

@Robusto well to be completely fair, the only things that will get you into heaven are planes and rockets.

You could try getting fired out of a cannon, but I'm not sure that'll fly.

Everything else will just get you down not up. And we have all even agreed upon by how many feet exactly.

RegDwigнt

2:53 AM

> I really like music that conveys imagery.

Well. Someone's gonna be really excited when they find out that paintings exist.

skullpatrol

and sculpture

RegDwigнt

I especially like sculptures that convey a melody.

skullpatrol

That would be literature.

RegDwigнt

I really like literature that conveys the smell of your hand.

I mean, the touch of your nose.

Apologies. A common typo.

skullpatrol

np, pal

RegDwigнt

3:01 AM

Why is the verb smell so strange. Why does it represent two completely opposite things. Emitting, and perceiving.

I smell.

Also, I smell.

It's interesting that it's the same in German even the verb is not a cognate.

Ich rieche.

And in Russian while they do use a different verb for perceiving as opposed to emitting, it is not a dedicated verb for smell specifically.

In Russian, you can either feel a smell, or you can hear a smell.

It's so weird. What's so special about smell as opposed to the other senses.

I smell flowers. The flowers smell.
Ich rieche die Blumen. Die Blumen riechen.

A! In Russian in that context you actually would use a dedicated verb.

Я нюхаю цветы. Цветы пахнут.

Smell/smell. Riechen/riechen. Пахнуть/нюхать.

Чуять запах, слышать запах.

Yo @Cerberus, what's the situation in Dutch.

Probably the same as in German but I never wondered.

I'm off to bed for today.

skullpatrol

cya

CowperKettle

10:17 AM

> Ref: Follow Up on Guidance for AstraZeneca sponsored Clinical Trials in relation to the ongoing and emerging novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

What is the meaning of this Ref: in the title of a document?

Cerberus

12:18 PM

@RegDwigнt Similar to German, though the intransitive use is a bit limited.

You can say de rozen ruiken lekker.

As well as ik ruik de rozen.

You normally wouldn't say de rozen ruiken without saying how they smell.

Mitch

12:54 PM

Mar 14 at 1:10, by Mitch

like dancing about architecture

Robusto

1:19 PM

Lynyrd Skynyrd - That Smell

►

Curiously, that was the last song that group made before the plane crash that killed half the band.

BTW, itch is a verb and a noun that is used to mean both the place that itches and the act of scratching it. "I had to itch my leg," is not "proper" English, but you hear it all the time.

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt look is similar, but not quite as weird

Robusto

@MattE.Эллен Do you Brits ever use itch meaning scratch?

Matt E. Эллен

@Robusto yeah. it annoys me a bit, but I do it too

Robusto

Heh.

Sounds like it's all the way into the lexicon then.

Matt E. Эллен

aye

Sound is another one

Robusto

1:25 PM

True, but that one just works.

Matt E. Эллен

oh, yeah. I mean it's like look

I sound the alarm

Robusto

You have a look that's looking good, friend orc.

Matt E. Эллен

I sound alarming

thanks :D

Robusto

The cry of the wolf sounded throughout the valley.

"And deeper than did ever plummet sound / I'll drown my book."

BTW, I answered a question about transitive itching nine years ago:

2

A: Can “itch” be a transitive verb, i.e., can an itch be itched?

You'll have to explain what you mean by "proper standard" — but, no, what the "bigger hitters" (again, what are these?) are doing is waiting until a usage is far-reaching enough for them to bother to document it. I guess that's what you'd call playing it conservative. That said, what one does to...

Robusto

1:43 PM

So now there's a new question about this. Where did it come from?

0

Q: How did "itch" come to be used to mean "scratch" as in "I had to itch my leg"?

None of the regular sources list itch as a transitive verb meaning to scratch. Yet I hear it used that way in American English all the time. One of the British mods of this site says the usage occurs in British English as well. The verb itself in its main meaning has been in use for at least a t...

tchrist

@Robusto Et vos in terras meridionali?

Considering how often here the ululant coyote chorus rings out at dusk all the way to the hills and back again, I initially thought it was them doing it.

But no.

Robusto

@tchrist Coyotes get a bad rap.

We hear coyotes sometimes down here. I don't think those cries are wolves.

tchrist

@Robusto Is transitive itching when you itch your wife's nose and she your cat's, thereby spreading the itch transitively from you to your cat?

@Robusto Mas también son lobos los de la pradera. :)

We have all three wolves here now: timber wolves, prairie wolves, and bee wolves.

Where "here" doesn't technically mean Boulder County. The timbering ones run lean and few, perhaps as many as you can count on one hand, in the far northwest of the state.

Robusto

@tchrist Es posible.

@tchrist What are "bee wolves"?

tchrist

There was a time when a pack of seven to nine coyotes would gather just behind my house in the common field to my north and howl menacingly in the first two hours after sunset. Very close, very weird, very unnerving.

@Robusto Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!

Robusto

1:59 PM

Beewolf

Beewolves (genus Philanthus), also known as bee-hunters or bee-killer wasps, are solitary, predatory wasps, most of which prey on bees, hence their common name. The adult females dig tunnels in the ground for nesting, while the territorial males mark twigs and other objects with pheromones to claim the territory from competing males. As with all other sphecoid wasps the larvae are carnivorous, forcing the inseminated females to hunt for other invertebrates (in this case bees), on which she lays her eggs, supplying the larvae with prey when they emerge. The adults consume nectar from flowers. The...

tchrist

All monsters great and small.

Robusto

@tchrist Are they related to Scyld Scefing then?

tchrist

All wolves lupine, planular, and apian haunt hill and dale alike, and sometimes even village alleyways when the squirrels grow too bold or the garbage men too tardy.

We used to use planured but alas no more.

@Robusto Is that on Youtube?

Robusto

@tchrist Dunno.

Coyotes are notorious cat killers down here. I read recently that 20% of their diet comes from felis catus.

tchrist

And everywhere.

Unclear on dietary regimen.

M.A.R.

2:13 PM

The Unfriendly Robot: Automatically flagging unwelcoming comments

Jason Punyon on April 09, 2020

Unfriendly comments are an issue in our system because of the effect that their tone has on their recipient’s and future readers’ willingness to contribute to Stack Overflow. The solution to these issues isn’t to argue about circumstance or intent. The only remaining option is to work on the comments themselves.

Robusto

I ride by coyotes quite often on my bike. They look like big dogs until they open their mouths and you see the kind of weapons they have.

tchrist

@Robusto theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/12/…

@M.A.R. Wutcha think there?

Robusto

@tchrist That might have been where I read that. Or maybe it was digested in some other publication.

tchrist

Like cats.

Robusto

Exactly.

We have a landscaped backyard with fences that keep the cats from getting out. Coyotes similarly can't get in.

tchrist

2:19 PM

What fence stops a cat?

> Stack Overflow employees classified comments from random Stack Overflow posts into three categories: Fine, Unfriendly, and Abusive.

Robusto

@M.A.R. I think computerized flagging will be fraught with error.

tchrist

Should have been: Stack Overflow employees classified comments from random Stack Overflow posts into three categories: Friend, Foe, and Foul.

Robusto

@tchrist All you need are walls and chicken wire placed about 6' up on perpendicular posts. Our very large cats have not been able to crack it for four years now.

tchrist

The unfriendliest comment is the one that says trisyllabic superlatives can never inflect via -est.

@Robusto Domestic cats can normally jump about 4 or 5 feet vertically, but I have certainly seen them scramble up 6 or 7 foot stone walls by some manner of clawed assistance.

Robusto

@tchrist Same here. And yet my solution has worked so far. I'll link a picture in a minute.

tchrist

2:24 PM

Pumas can leap 20 feet vertically.

If the post is a slick metal one, it will work better than a wooden post at resisting their purchase.

I have the chicken-wire fence enclosure for the part facing the commons. Deer when hungry have been known to clear it with ease. Bears pretend it isn't there and walk right through it, ripping and bending and tearing everything. The coyotes haven't penetrated it. My cats sneak right under because they know the tricks. Unfortunately the puppy has learned it by watching them, so this is no longer safe.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto well you gotta itch that scratch.

Also, you gotta have more cowbell. But that's not fully related.

Robusto

That absolutely works.

tchrist

OH! That's nothing like what I was imagining you had meant.

Robusto

And my cats are large, robust creatures that can get up just about anywhere in the house.

tchrist

So ok.

RegDwigнt

2:28 PM

You should try using the stone that keeps away bears. Maybe it works on pumas, too.

Robusto

See, cats don't clear fences the way deer do. They have to jump up the walls.

Gravity Defying Cat - The Slow Mo Guys

►

tchrist

@Robusto The big ones do.

As in really big ones.

Robusto

@tchrist Meaning cougars, not house cats.

tchrist

Pumas not lynxes and such.

Robusto

yes.

tchrist

2:30 PM

It bothers me to make lynx a plural. I don't know why.

Robusto

French?

tchrist

I think it's some sort of dysgraphic interference pattern with larynx and pharynx, which work differntly.

Robusto

Anyway, one time a stranger cat got into our backyard, and Shadow (18 pounds of no-fat fighting cat) had a death match with it. The interloper tried to get away but couldn't because of the fences. I tried to separate them, but only succeeded in distracting Shadow for a couple seconds. The other cat ran across the backyard to an 8-foot wall with no interfering fence ... and went straight up and out. Adrenaline can be amazing.

Our cats still don't have the motivation or the adrenaline to do that.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto it's quite interesting how while the cat is suspended in the air it seems completely weightless, but the moment it grabs the ledge and pulls itself up, it seems to gain ten times its weight back. From a butterfly to a sack of potatoes in a blink of an eye.

tchrist

> < Latin lynx, lync-em (Spanish lince, Portuguese lince, Italian lince), < Greek λύγξ (genitive λυγκός), cognate with Lithuanian luszi-s, Old High German luhs (modern German luchs), Old English lox, Dutch los, Swedish lo. Probably related to Greek λεύσσειν to see, the animal being named from its quickness of sight.

Robusto

2:36 PM

@RegDwigнt Cats are amazing creatures. We have 10' (3m) ceilings in our house, but I had to put a cat-blocker above the stove because otherwise they could climb up on the range hood and get on the top of the cabinets.

tchrist

φᾰ́ρῠγξ, φᾰ́ρῠγος and λύγξ, λυγκός act the same in Greek, stemwise.

@Robusto Savanna cats, they say, do that in spades.

M.A.R.

2:59 PM

@tchrist That it's very prone to lead to where any criticism will be unfriendly, and that the company is not very well-equipped to stop that from happening when they fired a certain Shog9

RegDwigнt

5:58 PM

If people can't be friendly, who says that robots can?

Especially robots developed by people, mind.

SmokeDetector

6:51 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad ns for domain in answer, username similar to website in answer (62): Correct usage of FAQ by My CV Designer on english.SE

RegDwigнt

8:23 PM

0

Q: How to describe an innocent girl in a group of friends?

I'm writing a story and I'm trying to find words/phrases to describe the more innocent girl. These girls are all sophomores in high school, and this girl is kinda like the baby of the group that they are all protective of. She isn't a goody goody, or at least she doesn't try to be, but she's just...