English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

« first day (3595 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (1321 days later) »

tchrist

12:00 AM

Round and round and round we go, and where we stop nobody knows.

It was supposed to be about thunder, not turning. Who knew?

Cerberus

Interesting.

One wonders about the r in tronar.

Robusto

@tchrist That's why I save confusion and just call it a twister.

Mitch

1:00 AM

@RegDwigнt I was wait for it to get funny and it never happened.

@Cerberus Latin is weird. There's like ten ways to say 'and'. Ten ways to say 'not'. Ten ways to say 'even', 'just', or 'so'. And lots of vocab that's not in French or Spanish. But it has lots of words that are transparent/compositional. Only thing missing (which is on purpose I know) is just a few short definitions of words in English or -some- other language.

Did I say that I want this for all languages? Also maybe a picture story book too.

Robusto

1:25 AM

@Mitch Next you'll want hot chocolate with that.

tchrist

1:54 AM

The Financial Times has announced that children are more likely to transmit coronavirus than thought. What, are they testing telepaths?

@Mitch For a fact. Just so. For sure. No ifs ands or buts. Exactly. Smack on the money old boy. Quite. Sure thing. Indeed. That's the ticket. Precisely. Nailed it. Rem acu tetigisti.

@Cerberus rrrrrrrrrrrr is onomatopoetic. :)

CowperKettle

2:18 AM

Word of the morning: proleptic calendar

Cerberus

2:31 AM

@Mitch Sounds just like English!

@tchrist Hmmm...

@tchrist Hmm but how much, one wonders.

1 hour later…

Robusto

4:01 AM

A: Is there an English word whose definition is the ability to tell truth from a lie?

I Mimose Francois have a question, “what do you call a person who could only tell the truth and her thoughts/mind have no filter?”

Sorry, Mimose, but that is a comment, and not a particularly lucid one.

3 hours later…

CowperKettle

6:56 AM

Word of the midday: rode (a line from the boat to the anchor)

CowperKettle

7:09 AM

> "I got an F grade for drawing my cat'

4 hours later…

SmokeDetector

10:49 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected (78): What is a phrase or a word for someone who says "I knew that would happen" after the fact? ✏️ by user66482 on english.SE

terdon

> Many of us who deal with words for a living will get smiles from this clever list of grammar-
and-style quips modelled on an old joke format. Jim Cook, former editor of The Parsons Sun
in Kansas, posted it on Facebook. Retired Associated Press photographer Cliff Schiappa sent
it to Connecting, a daily email newsletter for AP retirees and friends, saying of Cook, "I have
no idea if he created it, or just forwarded it, but it sure is fun!" Yes, and it would be a good
handout for journalism classes.

I just received that in an email. Tis brilliant!

Gigili

11:07 AM

> A question mark walks into a bar?

Aug 17 at 20:22, by Mitch

that deserves a crying laughing emoji.

CowperKettle

11:25 AM

Word of the hour: Doodh Soda

SmokeDetector

11:43 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (87): Term for locally installed and fully owned software by Muzammil K on english.SE

terdon

12:30 PM

> A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun
declines.

Faheem Mitha

1:27 PM

I don't get:

> • A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

terdon

1:38 PM

@FaheemMitha The irony is that the non-hyphenated word is not hyphenated, but non-hyphenated is in fact hyphenated.

Faheem Mitha

1:56 PM

@terdon Oh, I see. Clever.

Gigili

@terdon I nearly died laughing

terdon

Some of them are really good. Language nerd jokes :)

CowperKettle

2:26 PM

> Trading House Khimmed, hereinafter referred to as the “Supplier”, represented by Anton S. Ivanov,

I believe that there should be no article before "Supplier".

It just feels like there should not be.

I cannot explain the reasoning

Judging by Google Books, I'm wrong. "The" is used in that position

Matt E. Эллен

seems odd to exclude the from the quotes if it will be referenced as the supplier.

or will it be referred to as the "Supplier" all the way through?

with scare quotes, making it seem like they're not actually a supplier

terdon

@CowperKettle it isn't a name, it's a description. Think of an example sentence; you would say The supplier told me there was no more stock, and not Supplier told me there was no more stock. Hence, you need the article.

CowperKettle

nods

terdon

If it were a name, something like Sir George McKinnsley-Poppity Long-Triple-Barreled, hereinafter referred to as George, then you wouldn't need the article.

CowperKettle

> The parties have concluded the Contract on the following:

I feel that this phrase might be unnatural

I found that Russian translators use it when translating into English. They also use "The parties have concluded the Contract as follows:"

(Belows goes the Scope of Contract section and so on and so forth)

Some use the phrase "signed the following contract:"

I don't know what the typical English legalese in this case is.

CowperKettle

3:07 PM

> Phosphine gas found in Venus’ atmosphere may be ‘a possible sign of life’

Cerberus

@CowperKettle This sounds odd. Perhaps they might have intended "on the following terms" or something?

@CowperKettle This is fine.

@CowperKettle Also fine.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Thank you!

@Cerberus No, it's a calque of Russian "контракт о нижеследующем:"

Cerberus

Hmm.

The following can be used as an expression (without a specific noun).

But then it means "the following words/text".

And that doesn't really make sense in your example.

CowperKettle

The Russian "o" is probably better translated here as "concerning". The parties have signed a contract concerning the following"

Cerberus

That would be much better.

CowperKettle

3:21 PM

"О" is like "about". Ya dumal o tebe - I was thinking about you.

In some cases, we use obo - Ya zabyl obo vsyom - I forgot about everything.

In some cases, we use ob - Ya udarilsya ob yel' - I hit a spruce. (when the next word begins with the y- sound

Cerberus

3:50 PM

Makes sense.

CowperKettle

4:01 PM

CowperKettle

4:58 PM

Word of the evening: coin of account (The mill (or sometimes, mil) is a coin of account in the United States. It is equal to one-tenth of a penny, and so to one-thousandth of a dollar (= $0.001), whence the name, which means "thousandth.")

Cerberus

Is that like the ECU?

That's how I would understand the term if I saw it in a text.

Ero Sɘnnin

5:26 PM

Hello?

I was just wondering how to explain to someone else the proper usage of a relative pronoun.

He keeps saying "Aren't you the kid which doesn't talk because you're scared?"

And when I try to correct him, he tells the Oxford definition: "asking for information specifying ONE or more people or things from a definite set."

1 hour later…

CowperKettle

6:40 PM

Mitch

6:57 PM

@Robusto I wouldn't say no to that.

@Cerberus @tchrist yes, but for beginners?

M.A.R.

7:21 PM

@Mitch German is weird. They have a dozen words for "a few" and half a dozen for "just"

M.A.R.

7:32 PM

Huh, the whole Venus phosphine thing blew up

Eh, a lot of the enthusiasm is probably unwarranted, but it's so relieving to see people fuss over something scientific and uncontroversial if unproven

Robusto

7:45 PM

@M.A.R. Yet only one for Gemütlichkeit. And all the languages have to share it.