Hello.

I'm not a thing.

That's your side of the story. How can we be sure? And thanks for tweening me before I could get the film out there.

Now I changed my mind. The doggy spoiled the most awesome thing ever recorded on film. I hope you can sleep tonight.

I can, thank you very much.

And you're welcome. It was nothing. No, really.

DAMN IT!

By the way, you two seem to be gaining ground...

Are you otherwise OK?

Huh? Is Rob running?

No.

The other one.

I so confuse

You are running for consuls (there are always two), while Reg will remain dictator or something.

Oh. Matt and sim are tied right now. I'm a distant third.

Hardly distant.

What? Consul? I thought this was for sycophantic lackey!

No, you will have serious power.

You will be allowed to lead a triumphal procession.

@Cerberus I am, and will always remain, a mere tribune.

Speaking of power, my son watched Return of the Jedi tonight.

You are a populist, that is true.

I'd be happy with Kit as mod.

Was it fun?

I am not happy with CR deciding to defame me, again.

Ignore him!

@KitFox I hate the ending of that movie. It sucks harder than Paris Hilton at a frat party.

@Cerberus I noticed that many things are "complete" in this movie.

Hey, as long as Evan Caroll doesn't win...

Complete in which way?

@simchona Well, it looks like you're a lock for mod. So just bide your time.

(I haven't seen it.)

@Cerberus It's a word that is pronounced in a distinctive way.

"your skills are complete"

@Robusto I want to flag his comment for a mod without bringing a blue wave in here, but it's too far back

"your failure is complete"

Ah, I see.

etc.

Perhaps those parts of the script were written during the same week.

@simchona If you don't mind being nonymous, you could just ask to speak to Reg privately. Or waiwai.

@KitFox Just ping them you think?

@simchona Which comment?

Just remember Inigo Montoya.

How is that flaggable?

Relax.

This in conjunction with "she's a terrorist"

@simchona Yeah.

or rather "he's a terrorist because a woman would never do such a thing"

> Vengeance. You do not get much of it in real life, and the little you do get is cold, late, and adds up otherwise as having been a really bad idea. So you look for it in fiction. Where you find out that, seven times in ten, revenge was a really bad idea for your surrogate, too. The other three times ... well, hey, somebody had to get some, sooner or later. That, and the girl. And a pony. With a jetpack.

You can ask for a private chat or just put it out right here.

Ok, good point.

I haven't seen that comment, but this line seems OK on itself.

Freedom of speech is important, especially during elections.

@Waiwai or @Reg: While I understand that Carlo may be offended by some of my past actions, I find his words such as chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/5583453#5583453 and chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/95?m=5571858#5571858 offensive. Freedom of speech is one thing, but I feel that he is on a public smear campaign that is being taken too far.

@KitFox Sounds nice and dramatic.

You will be excited to know that I have some new Beyblades.

Ack, the second link is broken. Can Reg still see it because this is his room?

I mean, for the boys of course.

@simchona What is the smear?

@simchona Seriously, don't let him get to you. He's not worth one second of stress. Have a glass of wine. Reflect on all the gifts you've been given. Life is good.

He is not spreading lies.

Just giving his opinion.

@Cerberus "Serious danger" plus

> If simchona was elected moderator, I leave ELU. She has often given great example of intolerance. I have seen this directly (I've been subjected to acts of terrorism and a lot of harassment from this one). His strange behavior and crazy, his obsession, is demonstrated by his flag 976. With this ELU will die. I'm making a last ditch attempt to understand these things from the co-founders, so they sent away this person totally insane mind.

yeah, that's a bit strong. no obscenities, but going in that direction.

That sounds a little crazy, but it is not defamation. He is clearly giving his own opinion, not spreading untrue information.

@KitFox That is not a Crowning Moment of Awesome. It is the opposite of CMoA.

@Cerberus So I'm "crazy", "obsessed", and a "terrorist"?

Those are not facts.

also it is a bit of a whiplash given that only the other day he was singing your praises to you in some comment to a question.

So he is not lying.

He is just crazy and obsessed.

@Robusto I was demonstrating the "complete" thingy.

@Mitch Fans can be so fickle.

@simchona What do you think people will think who read that?

They will think C is crazy.

And his English doesn't speak for him either.

Just let it go and ignore him.

As a moderator, you will be the target of lots of unfair criticism.

Yet offensive statements don't belong on SE. If this were directed at someone else, I would still think it didn't belong here.

"Doesn't belong here", what does that entail?

Would you want to censor him?

"Be nice", for one thing

I would still want to hear out why he feels this way

However, expressing that someone is a crazy terrorist is wildly offensive

@simchona That may be a reason to delete some comments outside the election, yes.

@simchona It is obvious from his English that he is using the word incorrectly.

It has a somewhat different meaning in Italian, apparently.

@Cerberus sure, that's a motivation...but...he's not -speaking- Italian.

No, but it is clear that he doesn't mean she is planning to bomb innocent people.

Which it should mean.

Whatever it was ostensibly meant as, it is inflammatory.

If that comment were part of a regular thread in a question, then you might want to delete that to calm things down.

In an election, however, silencing criticism is not good.

Inflammatory criticism is allowed.

As long as it doesn't become a personal insult that is unrelated to the election, or a threat.

inflammatory -ad hominem-?

This is an election. Of course it will be ad hominem.

It all is.

How about calling someone a Nazi...in an election?

I would let it pass, unless it is not used as a metaphor.

argh...ok not re ad hominem sed irrelevancies about the person.

@Robusto I only remember Íñigo Montoya.

If it is irrelevant, then it may deserve deletion; but being a "Nazi" would seem a relevant metaphor. It is a poor choice of word, of course, but it should be allowed in an election.

It means the candidate is a bit of a tyrant, repressive, something like that.

Again, it is a bad idea to use that word, but it should be allowed.

OK then. I see your perspective.

OK.

@Cerberus Credo che terrorista non vuol dire una cosa distincta in italiano che in inglese.

I agre in principle, but inflammatory words...they really do inflame.

not nice and all that.

@tchrist Ma il terrorismo, non è lo stesso.

@Mitch A candidate is no ordinary person...

que es 'stesso'?

Same.

@Cerberus Il terrorismo è quello che fanno i terroristi. Non?

Credo che non è si semplice.

what is 'terrorismo' in Italian mean?

i spelled it as terrierismo. Those dogs can be mean.

It is probably closer to the older meaning in English, which I believe is just terrorizing people, being a terror.

@Mitch Such terrors, those terriers.

@Cerberus I get the election stuff, but this is not a modern democratic state where peoples lives and livelihoods are at stake.

Then why is this different?

um...ELU has no effect on anybody's lives or livelihoods?

It does have some effect.

But why does that matter?

well, we're just talking. I don't think it would be bad for Simchona to flag the 'terrorism' comment, and then let the elected leaders judge.

@Mitch Terrorism comment was since deleted.

oh. there you go.

I didn't want to flag the other one because, on its own, it looks fine

However, in conjunction with that one, I feel that it was not as innocuous

yes, that is not inflammatory. just tasteless.

like EC putting his nomination in all caps.

@Mitch You misspelled "craps" ...

Terror is blind panic, something the Dionysians were wont to spread. Pan, too.

@Robusto Bold craps

@tchrist It was a Pan-demic.

@simchona I would use the word "impudent"; bold has too many positive connotations.

Well, if the demoi were all into it and all, that makes it ok.

Sim is free to flag what she wants to flag, of course.

flagged

And I still didn't flag it, I just want to discuss it with our mods. I'm not bringing a blue tidal wave in here for no good reason.

@tchrist just the polloi

yeah, the wavve is weird. unexpected. interesting to see new faces though/

Some of them are still here.

Just lurking

waves

That is not dead which can eternal lie...

well...or left their browser open.

Maybe. Or is that just what they want you to think?

thinking 'exactly'

Strange Jeeves & Wooster question.

Great, we have a vandal with Tourette’s.

@tchrist Where?

Found it.

I’d normally just give it a quick delete vote, but I am underpowered in these parts.

@cornbread Congratulations on your 10K.

@tchrist I read that as "underpowered in these pants."

rofl

@KitFox I’m not wearing pants: I’m wearing shorts.

Pantsless and underpowered.

points

laughs

consults his dialect coach

voiceless glottal fricative

Anyway, it's me for bed.

Have fun storming the castle!

Don't burn the place down while I am gone.

See you tomorrow!

G'bye!

'Night.

Mi piace che possiamo parlare Italiano aqui.

È vero che io non parlo Italiano exactamente, pero è buono.

Senza utilizare un dizionario.

Or is it non utilizando?

Just un.

Oh...

When is it un again?

No, you can't have a gerund as an object of a preposition in Italian. Only the Brazilians do that, perhaps from English contamination.

Huh?

Non is not a preposition...?

Senza utilizando

Oh the non, right. Sorry.

I didn't know that was possible in Portuguese.

It isn't supposed to be.

The Brazilians are friquis.

But it is possible in Latin—except that you would mostly use a participle rather than a gerund in such cases.

Friquis, I see.

With ad, gerundives are common.

Why is it un? Because you shorten uno up when it isn't stand alone in Italian or Spanish. Italian might use it in front of the words you use lo or gli for, too; I don't remember.

But not with sine.

@tchrist You mean "might use uno in front of..."?

Yes,

OK.

My guess is no, but I would look it up.

Your guess is no what?

Even though I like this question (and will be commenting soon to @tchrist about it, this really should be closed as NC:

I have never learned Italian grammar.

I sort of make it up along the way.

I am guessing it doesn't have to be uno for those lo cases, but I would check it. An old friend of mine recently read through the Divina Commedia, with a dictionary at hand but still. It is not hard to read. I should do the same to get this stuff back in my head again.

That would be a good project.

@Mitch Yes, Mitch?

I'm undereducated. Mom's read the whole Aeneid.

Oh I was right the first time: it’s uno stadio but un treno, so it follows the lo/gli thing.

The whole Aeneid? That is good.

When did she read it?

The Italians aren’t quite as comfy with liquid *s*’s as they might have you believe.

All right.

She read it after she graduated high school but before college.

How long did it take her?

You do mean she read it in Latin, don't you?

It was her light summer reading. Yes, of course.

I never read more than a few books.

Book 4, and probably book 1, and lots of bits and pieces.

Have you read Ursula K Leguin’s Lavinia?

No?

Might should look into it. It’s ... nice.

Won the Locus Award that year. here

“She also explains that her work is a translation into prose of the last six books of the Aeneid, with extra details and changes where these felt right.”

Does this thing print our reputations every time they change, or what?

@Mitch Romance is more conservative closer to home than farther afield, so Italian is more than Spanish, and Spanish is more than French or Portuguese, or of course Romanian.

@Mitch It lacks but a single close vote.

@tchrist Ursula K Leguin is awesome.

Bedtime. Night all.

@Robusto Nytol will help you get your zees.

@KitFox thank you, darling! smooch

@Mitch Iberia was the first colony granted citizenship. There was an important period of Roman history when a "Spanish accent" (well, from Hispania) was considered the trendy accent. Seneca was from present-day Córdoba in Hispania Ulterior. "Spain" (well, the Catalans) has/have often dominated much of the Italian peninsula.

So there's been a lot of back and forth there.

@tchrist That's nice.

The Crown of Aragon once held Sicily, Naples, Majorca, Sardinia, Corsica, Provence, and Athens, for goodness’ sake.

@tchrist What do you mean? Iberia was a "colony"?

The first place outside of what we now call Italy.

@tchrist I believe the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies only held Athens through the possessions of its Italian principalities?

@tchrist Place?

Not through the Duchy of Neopatria?

I don't know: who controlled Neopatria?

This says “In 1318-1319 the Almogavars of the Catalan Company, after having conquered most of the Duchy of Athens, expanded into the territories of the Despotate of Epirus in southern Thessaly, under Alfonso Frederick, the infante of the Kingdom of Sicily.”

I am just saying I don't think Aragon itself was directly involved in Greece (though I am not 100 % sure).

I wonder why they didn’t call it Novopatria? Well, or Novapatria.

@tchrist Alright, so through Sicily. But I'll give you the Catalans.

wonders what to do with his new present

@tchrist Yes, Greek would be Neopatris or something...

What is your new present?

Is it big?

You gave me the Catalans.

I'm wondering what to do with them. They're pesky.

@Cerberus here “The Romanized Iberian populations and the Iberian-born descendants of Roman soldiers and colonists had all achieved the status of full Roman citizenship by the end of the 1st century. The emperors Trajan (r. 98–117), Hadrian (r. 117–138), and Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) were of Hispanic origin. The Iberian denarii ... circulated until the 1st century BC, after which it was replaced by Roman coins.”

Okay, so what were you going to say about that?

The Senecas was during the Augustan period.

I have nothing against Spain.

Except that they are the enemy and they should be humiliated.

It was about Mitch's thing about conservatism. What we now call Italian and what we now call Spanish are fairly conservative vis-à-vis Latin, and in that order. But there have been millennia of close exchange between the two peninsulas, moreso than with oh the Gauls.

It's that damned banking problem, eh.

I don't know...there was the dynastic link between Aragon and Sicily; but how much contact between the middle and lower classes was there?

There was lots of contact between France and Spain, and between France and Italy.

Middle class? The only middle class were the merchants of Barcelona.

But Catalan is less conservative than Castilian, so perhaps the theory doesn't hold.

Depends on your definition, but there were small traders, manufacturers, etc. etc.

The regions of Navarre and Savoie have belonged to France and Spain/Italy at various times, and were split at other times.

Yes, the Navarre thing is quite interesting. Mitch was trying to figure out why American preserved things apparently lost in standard British English, and asked about the relative conservativism of Romance.

And you will no doubt see strong links between Catalan, Navarrese, and the dialects/languages of Toulouse and the modern Languedoc.

Just as people in modern-day Savoia have the French r, I believe.

@tchrist As to American v. British, I don't think you will find a grand overarching model there.

Name a country that numbers any current langue d’oc amongst its co-official languages. You have several possible choices, and up to two correct answers.

As to relative conservatism, I believe the langues d'ouil suffered strong influence from Frankish.

"Frankism"?

?

I mean the Germanic language of the Franks. I thought it was called Frankish.

Oh. Frankism is some Jewish thing, I thought.

Switzerland is a wrong answer.

So is Luxembourg.

And Belgium.

And, alas, France itself.

@tchrist Ehh I have no idea about official languages. Nor do I know the exact definition of langue d'oc, except that they used a form of oui that included the palatal occlusive at some point, and that there were and are spoken to various extents in the south of France.

Which is the crying shame.

Spain?

Italy?

Spain. Aranese.

Or Catalan, really.

But Aranese is what I was thinking of, small though it is.

Yeah.

Andorra is triligual: French, Spanish (=Castilian), Catalan.

Spain is centuries ahead of France in its treatment of non-"standard" languages.

It is difficult to countenance or condone.

It's a nasty kind of nationalism.

But you can walk the streets in the south of France and hear languages you can't put your finger on. Like in Nice.

In the end, it may be better to learn the standard language as your main language at school.

You will profit from it later in life.

When it is expected of you that you speak proper Spanish/French/English/etc.

Compare these versus these.

What about them?

It says the French government is compelled by law to communicate primarily in French.

I hadn't realized that France finally recognized any of its regional languages! This only happened in 2008.

The only legally bilingual state is New Mexico. But there the joke is that being bilingual is to speak both languages poorly.

Puerto Rico would have to become such if it attained Statehood.

Yeah.

But many other states, not just those from old New Spain, publish election materials and notices in Spanish. If they didn't, they'd miss people.

@Cerberus I think that was my eventual goal, that bringing in conservatism arguments for colonies vs homeland, rural vs urban, upper vs lower class, etc etc explains little about AmE vs BrE.

OK, then we are somewhat agreed.

I think there are some links, but it is very complex.

One of my main contacts at $job is a guy from Mississippi with a very noticeable non-rhotic accent. It looks me the longest time to figure out what he was talking about when he kept mentioning eras.