English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

7:09 AM

How could I be so thick?

Xanne

7:50 AM

@Gigili What are you thick about?

2 hours later…

9:50 AM

@Xanne Oh well, nothing serious. Just annoying.

In other news, I spotted a semi-insect on my bread looking exactly like a sesame seed.

semi-insect semi-seed

Good thing I didn't eat it, I'd have been semi-sick by now

sesamesect

3 hours later…

1:13 PM

@MattE.Эллен: Do you ever find it difficult to understand working-class London accents?

My wife and I are watching a show that features those, and we've had to turn on the closed-captioning.

1:46 PM

@Robusto possibly. I don't think there is a TV show where I've had problems, but I expect there are people with thick accents I'd have trouble with

Usually I don't have problems unless people are using idioms I don't understand, or there are peculiar backwater accents spoken by old people. But I found this one very difficult.

Which is weird, because I've spent a good deal of time in London and never had a problem anywhere in the city.

what show is it?

London Kills

@MattE.Эллен: My main difficulty is with the character played by Hugo Speer, who speaks with a rather guttural accent.

London Kills

London Kills is a British police procedural television series, written and created by Paul Marquess, that premiered on Acorn TV on 26 February 2019 in the United States. One of Acorn TV's first original commissions, London Kills centres around an elite murder investigation squad in London, headed up by DI David Bradford (Hugo Speer), an experienced detective whose judgement is called into question following the unexpected disappearance of his wife.The series follows on from Marquess' former London-based police procedural series Suspects, and aside from the cast, features a number of strikin...

the-postillon.com/2020/05/update-covid20.html

@JohanLarsson haha ... "embrace and extend" is his mantra, after all.

1:57 PM

@Robusto I can understand him in the trailer. I don't think he has a London accent.

@MattE.Эллен What would you call that?

Ah, his wiki page says he's from Yorkshire

@Robusto :)

@MattE.Эллен Interesting.

It's not all the time I can't understand him, just in quick exchanges.

Yeah, I can imagine the whispery growly voice gets a bit lost at speed

2:02 PM

Yeah, it's the growly thing. Is that a feature of Yorkshire accents?

not really. seems to be a fashion of certain leading men.

Ah. An affectation then.

@MattE.Эллен He only says two very short sentences in the trailer.

Acorn TV Original | London Kills Series 1 | Premieres February 25

@Gigili says a fair bit in this:

►

enough to hear the Sean Bean in his voice :D

And by very short, I mean 4-word-long.

2:09 PM

@MattE.Эллен Yeah, definitely Sean Bean. That trailer was perfectly comprehensible to me. But those are all "elevated" moments (chosen for the trailer, of course) and it's in the quick office exchanges that I lose it.

I got stressed out just by watching the trailer.

Anyway, it's an interesting show. Not as good as a few others we've watched, e.g., Line of Duty, but fun nevertheless. One thing I like about the British police and mystery shows is that not everyone in them has fashion-model looks, like they do in most American shows. Another is the faint air of exoticism which puts things at a remove. If I understood everything the way I do in American shows it would be much more commonplace and, therefore, less appealing.

I know what you mean. I can't stand the (British) Office because it reminds me of real life too much (so much cringe), but the (American) Office is enjoyable, because I don't seem myself in the characters

Good point.

I felt the same way about The Office. There was more pain and less humor in the British version.

But it must be said that England schools its actors well, and it shows. Whenever I'm in London I make it a point to go to the theater every night. You really can't go wrong, just pick a show and go. And the larger point is that you can go to just about any show. Not like Broadway, which are sold out for six months unless you pay $600 for scalped tickets.

I really don't go to the theatre enough. my own fault, I'm just a homebody :D

2:40 PM

^_^

3:35 PM

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected (43): What is similar word to "Albatraoz" for man? by AskQ on english.SE

Captain Bohemian

3:53 PM

4:22 PM

@Gigili No shit.

@JohanLarsson: Best line in that Covid-20 thing: "Then the there is the death rate, which may be substantial but is not in the same league as historical epidemics such as the plague, cholera or Wham!"

and it comes bundled with office365!

inorite

Captain Bohemian

5:13 PM

so hot even at night

I had sauna twice today, aircondition overdoing things :D

1 hour later…

Captain Bohemian

6:39 PM

"He felt an animal compulsion to flee the hotel and the city" (Paul Theroux).

"The abolitionists were the prototype of modern citizen activism" (Adam Hochschild).

2 hours later…

8:47 PM

Donald Trump has said he hopes George Floyd is "looking down right now" and saying the decline in US unemployment announced on Friday is a "great thing that's happening for our country".

@skillpatrol Seriously?

Yes.

Jasper

Hello @skillpatrol = skullpatrol = skillpetrol = skullpetrol

Yeah, I read cnn.com every day. The best source of American news and international news.

> Last week my doctor told me I was going deaf. I haven’t heard from him since.

Jasper

The launch of Pixel 4a will probably be delayed till July @Cerberus but of course the Pixel 3a is selling at a discount in many places now.

8:55 PM

On a positive note, part of Martin Luther King's dream came true:
The section of 16th street in front of the White House is now officially “Black Lives Matter Plaza”.

@Jasper The launch of SpaceX Crew Dragon was important, not because of the horseshit blah blah American soil blah blha kiss the flag blah blah , because it showed how successful integration between independent private contractors and NASA (and the international space community) can be.

SOAPBOX DISENGAGE!

@skillpatrol You mean Lafayette Square which has been walled off for security reasons?

Yes.

Cerberus

9:16 PM

@Jasper I don't know, the 3a is still €350 here.

Skillpetrol does not exist, yet pal :-)

@skillpatrol skill__petrel__

hmm

9:44 PM

@Mitch Can you imagine how little I care that we got another few white Americans into space? The streets are on fire down here, the country is on fire along with the US Constitution, and the whole planet is burning up.

@Robusto Well, yeah, there's that.

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You left out skillblooper.