English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2020-05-29 (page 1 of 3)

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1:52 AM

2

Q: What does "draw in crude oil inventories" mean?

Oil Plunges After API Reports Large Unexpected Crude Inventory Build | OilPrice.com The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated on Tuesday a large crude oil inventory build, of 8.731 million barrels for the week ending May 22. Analysts had predicted an inventory draw of 2.50 million...

meaning-in-context

Why can’t people figure out a word like this without a dictionary?

Don’t we learn most of our vocabulary from context?

2:10 AM

@Xanne I have no idea what it means.

It sounds like investment or industry slang?

@Xanne Maybe a non-native speaker? When I'm reading a foreign language, words have only one meaning and they're not metaphorical at all.

So 'draw' might have way too much literal meaning for them and so any meaning offered by context is totally overshadowed by the literal meaning.

As a native speaker, on reflection I don't really know what 'draw' means there, but it sounds like it is journalism/economics-speak for something vague like 'get' (but it probably has some very specific definite meaning).

2:49 AM

The draw (from draw-down, perhaps) is the decrease in the inventories of crude oil. Apparently the opposite of a build of inventory. To draw is to remove liquid from a container, e.g., draw water, draw blood, draw a gun (also) from a holster. I guess I should answer it then, it not being so obvious as I thought,.

How were we supposed to know it meant that, and not various other possible meanings, without any knowledge of the jargon? I mean, it isn't exactly obvious.

It could be oil drawn from the earth.

It is, though, AmE, as this is the U.S. inventory, not European or Middle East or wherever outside the States.

It could be a draw as a metaphor from games.

The journalist could be English.

And how are we supposed to know it is a regionalism?

My first thought was investment lingo, and my brains sort of stopped working when no obvious meaning surfaced.

If you are familiar with that term in the given context, then I'm sure it's obvious.

If not, it will be hard to look up if you have no idea.

@Cerberus One of many uses—draw a card, like drawing a gun. But drawing a liquid from a container is closer.

Yeah.

But what is the container and what is the destination of the oil?

From source to pipe?

From pipe to container?

From container to pipe?

From pipe to petrol station / ship?

From petrol station to cars?

minds dazzling

3:01 AM

US oil is all stored in Cushing, Oklahoma (perhaps except for government stocks; from there it goes to refineries in, e.g., Houston, Texas, by pipeline, primarily. Measured in barrels, which are not involved at any stage. Tanker trucks, pipelines, from western Texas (hence WTI, or West Texas Intermediate cruse) versus Brent, the other benchmark price. Europeans would be fan

...xxx familiar with Brent, North Sea oil.

This is specialized terminology, but after all, it’s language about the most traded commodity in the world, with prices having major effects on international relations.

I might know more about Brent oil, which I believe to be the international standard—but not much!

I'm glad to know it is specialised terminology, as you say.

Refineries get the crude, produce gasoline, diesel fuel, and probably other stuff used to make plastics of all sorts.

All I know is that the current crisis is great for the environment and bad for Russia and Arabia.

3:18 AM

Brent and WTI are the two international standards. Yes, drops in the price of oil reduce hard-currency income for producing countries, but of course home heating oil is also cheaper.

Do many people still heat their houses using oil?

Regardless, I believe demand, and usage, has dropped.

@Cerberus the dictionary paradox

Yes, I think it has dropped; electric heating is more common now, I suppose. Burning coal would be worse.

@Cerberus Yes, lots in the US but I think the trend is downwards for oil. The trend for the past few years for installing in new homes is natural gas, but I think it is entirely to do with the price difference between oil and gas. I think recently (last two years) gas became a tiny bit more than oil?

@Mitch dictionary paradox?

3:23 AM

Yeah.

I just made that up of course.

But I stake my claim.

> IEA chief Birol says oil usage will be below pre-virus levels for at least a year

@Mitch Wow, that doesn't exist here any more.

I don't know if it was ever common.

@Xanne "If I don't know how to spell a word, what good is it to look up in a dictionary how to spell it?"

When my parents bought their house 40 years ago, there was still an old oil tank in the ground, polluting everything nearby. It had praesumably been used for heating.

I can't image what that must have smelled like.

I'm claiming without any justification whatsoever that meaning works the same way.

@Cerberus we have an oil furnace. it burns very clean and there's no smell at all.

Previous, pre-virus. Not ot long before someone asks about that on ELU.

3:26 AM

Where does all the smoke go, then?

I remember (a very long time ago) in my grandparents house, we used to play in their furnace room and there was only the slightest of whifffs of it.

Three fff's. We really tried to draw in a breath.

Burning any kind of fossil fuel within the bounds of the capital will be forbidden by 2030.

Or so the city council plans.

I've never heard of coal in a house though except in pre WWII European apartments.

@Mitch But the smoke has to go somewhere?

@Cerberus A duct went to the chimney.

3:28 AM

@Mitch I think my grandparents still used coal, shortly after WWII.

China burns coal in factories.

@Mitch So the smoke went outside.

@Xanne Most countries do, don't they?

And in power plants.

@Xanne I think that happens in the US but much rarer

So @Mitch I meant the neighbourhood, not inside the house.

When someone is burning wood in a fireplace, it stinks several streets away.

@Cerberus We were happy to get coal in our stockings for xmas. it meant we could be warm til mid January.

@Cerberus Yes.

3:30 AM

I meant wood.

So doesn't oil stink as well?

When I was a kid we had a furnace using home heating oil. The furnace heats hot water or air, then forced through pipes; the “smoke” is vented to the outside.

But oil furnances and oil quantity for house heating fuel in the US are pretty good qulality. I have never smelled anything.

@Cerberus I know when they've delivered it, by the smell, but when the heat is on (the furnace is burning some) there's no smell.

No smell, either inside or outside.

Then where do all the fine particles go, the soot, and the poisonous gases?

Of course one might reasonably think that I'm habituated to it.

3:32 AM

That must be terrible for public health.

Wood is terrible too, of course. Nothing romantic about a fireplace.

We still burn wood at the cottage, but that's only because there are no other options.

Yes, wood burning is very noticeable.

Any ordinary house uses either gas or electricity.

but the others are not at all.

Perhaps it's less noticeable because chimneys are high up.

But the pollution must come down, too.

I have to go, adios!

@Cerberus a coal burning power plant that produces electricity does affect the area around it with it's pollution. That's a big problem in China and I've heard India too.

3:35 AM

Yes.

I've heard that Germany's claim to reduce nuclear power has resulted in them using more coal burning power plants.

And burning oil in a residential neighbourhood, I can only image what that does for public health.

@Mitch It has.

They're crazy.

Until next time!

Ahh, options. Natural gas . . . The unfinished pipeline from Russia, Nord-something, to bypass Ukraine.

@Cerberus with oil and gas there's no soot (which coal produces). But exhaust and gasses... ueah, maybe they go high up the chimney?

@Cerberus ab2

(à bé deux = à bientôt)

I also need to go, bis später @Cerberus @Xanne

Maybe we could get cages to run in, store the energy in batteries, get exercise and energy at the same time.

I should do some real work too. Bye.

1 hour later…

4:54 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer (60): How is malice different from aggression? ✏️ by Bissells on english.SE

2 hours later…

6:53 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer (60): Synonym for word "Administration" by Fusto1n on english.SE

Captain Bohemian

7:25 AM

are "security" and "safety" different? Why do I sometimes see people write them together, e.g. "Once an individual’s physiological needs are satisfied, the needs for security and safety become salient."?

1 hour later…

Matt E. Эллен

8:30 AM

mind == blown

"your answer is wrong, so I have upvoted it"

upvotes really mean nothing

In this case, probably a sign of "oh man, we're totally cool, just because I criticized your answer doesn't mean I criticize your answer"

For fear of repercussions, and that they're not at all ready to invest emotionally in an argument that might follow

Thank you. I was appointed chat sociologist yesterday.

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Yeah, I guess that makes sense

I have down voted the answer, because I thrive on conflict

> After contemplating for some time I can't say "radio is speaking" because when I need an object after speaking the sentence will become "the radio is speaking OBJECT" and it sounds incorrect. anyways I upvoted your answer, thank you.

meant to edit, not delete /facepalm

1 hour later…

Captain Bohemian

9:50 AM

a tired and hungry student will find it difficult to focus on learning. Students need to feel emotionally and physically safe and accepted within the classroom to progress and reach their full potential.

10:22 AM

@Robusto Yeah, she's precisely on point of course. Not that I always think about it that way, in fact I usually don't, but I have it easy because it comes for free with the style.

Every line that I write is basically all suspensions all the time. But that's romances and waltzes and preludes. You always miss the note. Sometimes it resolves immediately, sometimes only in the next bar, and sometimes never, as indeed per your instructions in that one bar in that one romance, what was it, Droplets I think.

And sometimes by the time the resolution comes, other lines have moved on, so you either resolve to a completely different chord, or more likely go from sus to sus to sus, as she says.

Like, the waltz I showed Cerberus just the other day is all suspiratios all the time, in all the voices.

But obviously it's different in pop or, say, gangsta rap.

Can't say it's a male vs female thing overall. She will know her own domain much better. But overall, you look at anything from blues to baroque, and whoever it is she's quoting that told her not to move from sus to sus, it's like they've never even heard music before.

10:33 AM

Right now I'm actually working on turning a Bach prelude into a waltz. Just taking his chord progressions and putting a Straußesque melody on top. And lemme tellya, he goes like sus to sus to sus with every single note. It's just a one-minute piece, but it's a whirlwind of suspensions. Quite often it's like you're on three different chords at the same time.

Bach “6 Short Preludes BWV 933 938” (complete) P. Barton FEURICH piano

Link to time stamp.

Captain Bohemian

has the rain stopped?

Matt E. Эллен

it's been sunny all day

Captain Bohemian

10:50 AM

I checked the rain has stopped though the ground is still wet.

@MattE.Эллен wouldn't that be too hot?

I found there are various animals visiting my room, leaving their feces, from time to time.

is this because I am on a hill?

ants crawl on my desk to disturb me often.

a wall tiger crawls on the wall sometimes.

Matt E. Эллен

@CaptainBohemian between 20 and 25 degrees C

Captain Bohemian

@MattE.Эллен the indoor temperature is 29 degrees C here.

@MattE.Эллен then you are still in winter or spring.

Matt E. Эллен

@CaptainBohemian I guess it's late spring.

Captain Bohemian

11:07 AM

@MattE.Эллен it has been so hot that I need to reduce my body temperature in sunny days here.

and when I eat hot food on sunny days, my face sweats so much that the sweat drops on the table.

Matt E. Эллен

I remember being like that in Greece last year.

Captain Bohemian

I feel dizzy in a grocery store without air conditioner turned on when on sunny days.

Matt E. Эллен

I bloat out like a water melon

I feel like I'm an extra percent water

like some kind of malformed camel hump

Captain Bohemian

I eat a bowl of ice after eating hot food sometimes to reduce my body temperature.

otherwise I feel dizzy.

Matt E. Эллен

being 10 degrees further north makes all the difference :D

Captain Bohemian

11:17 AM

may not be so in May

I have been a place more than 10 degrees further north in May and felt so hot, too.

hunger is really a trouble

the meal eaten round 11 to 12 hours ago has lost its hunger-resolving effect.

biscuits can't stave off hunger, so buying biscuits is like wasting money.

1 hour later…

Decapitated Soul

12:28 PM

-1

A: What is the P in 'nope' called

The Word Detective has the following explanation which suggests an assertive usage of the consonant “p”: Our “nope” meaning “no” is, technically, an adverb, often used as an interjection, and is an American invention. Your hunch is, of course, absolutely right. This “nope” is simply “...

Copy-pasting

And when I gave original answer, he downvoted my answer.

@Robusto, I did what you'd done to Kris

1:19 PM

@Mitch Are you sure there is no soot? I thought cars where part of the oil burned smelled much worse.

@DecapitatedSoul Who is he?

Speaking of nope, when I lived in Massachusetts there was a car wash in Concord that had a huge sign consisting of four individual letters: O P E N. On days it was closed they moved the N from back to front: N O P E. I always thought that quite efficient.

@RegDwigнt Bach was the master of everything, of course.

And for him suspensions were almost always in service to counterpoint. They drive the melodic lines forward.

Like all dissonance in his works.

Decapitated Soul

1:37 PM

@Robusto, Hi. It's Hachi. I noticed them a few times. It's the second time, they delete their answers and I get a DV on my answer out of nowhere.

@Cerberus 1) Diesel smells bad, but home heating oil is not diesel. There's a range of petroleum products for fuel - each have slightly different properties (and also the engines or burning elements they are used in). I'm pretty sure that home heating oil is not the stinky diesel because... well the home heating oil I have doesn't stink when the furnace is on?

Maybe it smell less than diesel, but, if your chimney is high, and you're used to it, it won't be as noticeable?

Decapitated Soul

Their rep points also decreased by 1...

@DecapitatedSoul I don't recall seeing him until recently. Did Hachi used to have another name here?

I mean, it won't necessarily smell worse around your house.

But it's also the non-smellable pollutants.

I can't imagine this being good for public health.

Decapitated Soul

1:40 PM

Maybe...

2) Actually... a couple years ago we had this problem with the furnace where a particular element in the furnace burnt out too quickly and I noticed because there was this dark dust outside near the chimney (yes, it was soot)... but the problem had been that way for a couple weeks. Also there was this very slight odor (of burnt oil we realized later) that we only noticed when coming home after a few hours.

Element replaced... no more soot or smell.

Decapitated Soul

I got 2 downvotes though (got 2 downvotes last time too). That's odd.

When methane burns up, you get water and CO2. It's clean.

@DecapitatedSoul Two downvotes are no big deal, but if ever you felt you were targeted (targeted means quite a lot of downvotes from a certain user over a larger period of time that wasn't caught by the serial voting script) you can mod-flag the answer

But it's a very simple molecule.

1:41 PM

@Cerberus But it's never just methane

I can't imagine burning oil would not give off noxious fumes and particles.

Methane is odorless

@M.A.R. It will have some other molecules, but not many.

@Cerberus Carbon Monoxide is probably the largest in volume, but others too.

Decapitated Soul

@M.A.R., english.stackexchange.com/questions/535421/…. Got a downvote on my question too (inactive for 4 days)

1:42 PM

@M.A.R. Yes.

@Cerberus I think that is not a new thing (the concern).

@Mitch If there is enough oxygen available, you shouldn't have too much CO?

Same with car exhaust

It depends as much on the 'conditions' as the starting material

Decapitated Soul

All the downvotes were performed about an hour ago

1:43 PM

Well, hachi (八) is Japanese for eight. I guess we can call him "The Hateful Eight" then.

@Cerberus Where is MAR when you need him

@Mitch Yes, I would expect it to be worse than car exhaust.

The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight (sometimes marketed as The H8ful Eight) is a 2015 American western thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern as eight strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover some time after the American Civil War. Tarantino announced The Hateful Eight in November 2013. He conceived it as a novel and sequel to his previous film Django Unchained (2012) before deciding to make it a standalone film. After the script leaked...

Leaves and runs away

@Robusto Haha

@Cerberus again depends on the fuel and the engine.

Decapitated Soul

1:44 PM

:P

He's targeted me now :D

@Mitch All car exhaust is highly toxic. Except if you're burning hydrogen.

of which I barely know badly the little I have overheard others mumble about.

Cars are complicated, if we're talking about inside an engine, it's very much possible that it doesn't get enough O2, no?

And mixing some oil with the petrol makes it much worse, at least what we are used to here.

@Cerberus over the years better standards and engineering to reduce car emissions.

1:45 PM

@Cerberus True. Water vapor is the only byproduct of hydrogen combustion. But I suppose you could drown from it.

@Mitch Yes, but still terrible.

which, not to pick on China (but I will anyway), their cities should do.

@Robusto Too much will kill you

What and where's the pollution we're discussing?

It will burn you before drowning you

@Cerberus Over all their major cities there's this bubble of heat and gas and car emissions, huge asthma problems, stay at home days, you can't see the sky.

I've recently had a course on it, so the world needs to accept back my pollutant knowledge

1:46 PM

@DecapitatedSoul You can complain about it somewhere. Not sure where. I never thought it useful or seemly to pursue the matter, other than to call out that one person when he posted on Meta.

Decapitated Soul

user image

Problems which US cities used to have but car emissions standards helped ameliorate.

Decapitated Soul

See the last downvote, this question was inactive fro 4 days

@M.A.R. I'd be concerned about burning water

@DecapitatedSoul 3? Come on, I'm thinking more like at least a dozen would be targeting

Decapitated Soul

1:47 PM

Lol

@Mitch It won't mind

Decapitated Soul

I'll just ignore it

@DecapitatedSoul No seriously

@M.A.R. I'm not asking it. I'm running away from it.

Wise

1:49 PM

@Robusto Yeah I got that feeling too, a not-recent user with reasonable rep but new name to me.

7

A: "In some cities, it's more dangerous to breathe than to smoke cigarettes."

I was considering the same question when I lived in Shanghai (a very polluted city indeed) and was told that many industrial cities in the north east of China was many times worse. While smokers may decide how many cigarettes they may smoke within the limits imposed by their addiction, people h...

@DecapitatedSoul In any case, you've made a tidy profit on that answer. Keep your eye on the doughnot, not the hole.

@M.A.R. I mean... how do you put it out? More water would not seem called for.

@Mitch Blankets

@Robusto Mmmm... donut holes.

@M.A.R. How do they work?

1:51 PM

Step 1. You make an umbrella

Magical Mysteries(SNL ICP Spoof)

@Mitch I know, it's horrible.

Decapitated Soul

Yep Thank you Robusto :)

@M.A.R. Pollution in residential neighborhoods when most houses burn oil for heating.

I'm a bit surprised by this map.

@Cerberus Well, Houston is having similar problems. And LA every so often.

1:53 PM

Why aren't all those countries with lots of smokers and high degrees or air pollution much darker?

And forest fires.

@Cerberus people tend to die from other things first in less developed countries.

I assure you that air quality in e.g. India and Indonesia isn't yellow (as on the map).

@Mitch I suppose so. But they'd still also have cancer.

smokers in China

Meh, doughnut, not doughnot. A doughnot should describe the hole, not the dough part.

Maybe they just aren't diagnosed as often?

1:55 PM

@Cerberus Hmm, yeah, it doesn't seem right

Or maybe most people are only diagnosed at an old age?

But Chinese healthcare is no so bad.

They should know how much cancer they have, more or less.

And their life expectancy is not so bad.

When I'm typing fast I often make mistakes like that, anticipations of a word to follow when a portion of a word I'm currently typing is identical.

It seems to correlate well with countries with better healthcare

user image

@M.A.R. ...but not really with life expectancy.

Looks like correlated with 'developed' status

1:56 PM

@Cerberus Chile? O.o

Chile doesn't surprise me.

I would rather be surprised at e.g. Algeria or some of those tiny countries in Central America.

I can't pinpoint what's really going on, but I guess this would even be more stark a contrast if you compare, say, people on the Autism spectrum

Matt E. Эллен

man western Europe has too high life expectancy. not enough pollution? diets too good?

Developing nations don't really care all that much

Sure.

1:57 PM

@MattE.Эллен Germanness

Matt E. Эллен

Like Loch Ness?

There is lots of German influence in Chile.

A lot of those low-cancer countries probably have lower life expectancies. The older you are, the greater your likelihood to get cancer.

That also included in the package

It feels more "German" than most of South America, except perhaps certain places in Argentina. Or so I am told.

1:59 PM

@Cerberus You mean because they had an authoritarian ruler until a few decades ago?

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