English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:53 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of body (43): Do finite verb and 'main verb' refer to the same thing? by Lee Zhiyuan on english.SE

Robusto

1:37 AM

@MattE.Эллен: So has "the telly" aged out of the BE vernacular? My wife and I have been watching a show in which people simply refer to watching things on TV. People also used that on Broadchurch, IIRC.

tchrist

3:43 AM

Cerberus

Hey, how are the fires?

@tchrist You will see very different results in Europe, by the way.

A first step would be to make an attempt to filter out other factors.

Although, even then, you will be left with huge incidental factors.

tchrist

@Cerberus Burning, they yet burn.

Cerberus

E.g. the reason the southern provinces were affected so badly here was twofold: 1. their spring holiday was one week later, so they imported many more cases from Austria. 2. They celebrated carnival just that week.

tchrist

@Cerberus I know you want to believe they do no good.

Cerberus

Be careful, I won't tolerate strawmen.

tchrist

3:56 AM

How about confirmation bias?

Never go inside. Stay more than ten feet away from people outside. These things are of course more useful than masks.

Cerberus

Thanks for the map. I'm not sure, but does that mean the fires have not advanced in your direction much?

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes, they nailed down the southern containment line of the fire that was threatening me. They're letting residents sleep in their homes tonight.

Cerberus

I'm glad.

tchrist

The bigger fire up by Rocky Mountain National Park grew only 18,000 acres today.

But tomorrow it will be hot and windy before winter hits us hard on Sunday. So they are all very worried.

"Hot" is perhaps pushing it. But 60 degrees with winds between 25 and who knows what is not good.

And the air has gone bad again tonight.

Cerberus

I hope you will hold out until Sunday at least.

tchrist

4:04 AM

Many people had to release their horses and burros to find some safety on their own.

They couldn't transport them, and had to flee themselves immediately.

So many people spray-painted contact info on the sides of the animals, and wrote it upon their hooves. Somehow.

I think the two fires in Boulder County are unlikely to flare tomorrow. But more than that I cannot dare hope nor say.

You can see by the black lines how much they've done now. I live only a few blocks northwest of that green circle in the southeast corner.

Cerberus

@tchrist Aww.

tchrist

That's from this map.

One guy just found his burro, and is very happy.

Gee that looks like a propane tank over his left shoulder.

Cerberus

@tchrist At least they have a dumpster near the great Calwood fire.

(A funny combination of data on the same map.)

Is this the same map you posted from yesterday?

Where many more areas were red?

tchrist

They now have two different Level 1 Incident Response Teams handling the fires up here, one on either side of the Divide. It's too impossible to go back and forth.

@Cerberus Yes.

Cerberus

I'm glad containment seems to be working.

tchrist

4:14 AM

Everything between our two fires was part of the runaway zone. Now there are dumpsters there.

Cerberus

The dumpsters were not displayed while those zones were red?

tchrist

There were not. It doesn't do any good to have dumpsters in areas forbidden to civilians.

Cerberus

No, indeed.

tchrist

Well, no good for the civs at least.

The one that's above me following north on US-36 is at the Greenbriar Inn, which is a rather well-regarded property that many feared would be lost.

That's what we're all holding our breaths about right now here.

> Firefighters are now in a race with nature, trying to limit the fire’s spread and its toll as a wintry system is expected to move into Colorado’s high country Saturday night with rain changing to heavy snow by Sunday. Sunday night’s temperatures in the Grand Lake area are forecast to plunge to 7 below, and forecasters expect up to a foot of snow.

> Evan Direnzo, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Boulder, where firefighters have now largely contained two fires that erupted this past weekend, said even a thick quilt of snow might not be enough to quench the fires.

“They can just simmer under there for a long time,” he said, recalling how the Cameron Peak Fire burning north of Rocky Mountain National Park had survived an early-September blizzard. “People were going out and digging under the snow and there was fire under it. It was just chilling, waiting to come back.”

> “I don’t think we have ever talked about, ‘What is the amount of snow that we need to put out the fire season, to quelch the fire season,’” said Ms. Balch, director of the Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We essentially have summer running into winter and we’ve skipped the fall.”

Good luck at figuring out her verb quelch there. :)

I imagine she meant one of either squelch with an S or else quench. It might be a NY Times transcription or print error though.

Huh, I don't know that I realized it was ever used in its own right.

Cerberus

Honestly, I wouldn't blink at that.

tchrist

4:26 AM

The public lands are all still closed but for small city parks deep inside the city, nothing in the mountains.

Cerberus

But to me the distinction between those three words is rather blurred.

tchrist

Yeah, I don't have any distinction there. Quash is good.

Cerberus

I suppose I would associate quench with extinguishing fire, more strongly than the others.

tchrist

Yes, perhaps.

One quenches one's thirst, or kitchen fire.

Cerberus

But the other two I could not distinguish between, I think.

@tchrist Oh, yes a strong connotation with thirst.

But I suppose my subconscious sees that as a separate bit of idiom.

In Dutch, we have a special word, lessen.

I have never seen it used with anything but dorst.

tchrist

4:29 AM

Cognate with...?

The verb, not the noun.

Cerberus

No idea, probably English less.

I can't think of any Dutch cognate.

tchrist

No surprise that she says we've had no fall this year, nor shall. When winter comes a calling yet during summer, I rather imagine that autumn is quite put off by the whole affair.

Sep 28 '12 at 12:00, by tchrist

I often think we in Colorado have only two seasons, with the things that people call spring and fall just being tug-of-war games between winter and summer until one or another gives up.

Cerberus

> < pgm. *leskan-

Further etymology uncertain.

So perhaps not related to English less.

The original meaning was about extinguishing fires.

Funny how quenching thirst and quenching fire were also done using the same verb in older Dutch, though a different one from English.

tchrist

> (i) Old English lǣssa (adjective), cognate with Old Frisian lessa < a suffixed form (comparative: see -er suffix3 1) of the Germanic base seen also in Old English lǣs , adverb (see below), and least adj., least adv.;

(ii) Old English lǣs (adverb), cognate with Old Frisian lēs , Old Saxon lēs < a suffixed form (comparative: see -er suffix3 2) of the same Germanic base (compare bet adv.1 and leng adv.); further etymology unknown.

But that's the common one.

Cerberus

Is that modern English less, as in less than?

tchrist

4:36 AM

Yes.

> Both the adjective (Old English lǣssa ) and the adverb (Old English lǣs ) show i-mutation of the stem vowel caused by the i of the comparative suffix (see -er suffix3). The stem vowel was originally long, but had been shortened before the following geminate in the adjective by the end of the early Middle English period.

In the adverb, the comparative suffix was phonologically lost, as is regular in monosyllabic adverbial comparatives with a long stem; compare leng adv. and discussion at bet adv.1 In the adjective, the comparative suffix was obscured by sound change in both Old English an…

> In the adjective, the comparative suffix was obscured by sound change in both Old English and Old Frisian.

Cerberus

Surprising that such a common word should have an unknown origin.

tchrist

> With the suppletive use of derivatives of this base in English and Frisian as comparative and superlative forms of little adj., pron., n., and adv. compare similar suppletive use of derivatives of min adj.1 in other Germanic languages. Compare also suppletive use of the semantically opposite more adj. and mo adv.1, pron.1, n.1, and adj.1

Cerberus

Hmm little is not related to less?

Dutch luttel.

tchrist

> Cognate with Old Dutch luttil (Middle Dutch luttel ), Old Saxon luttil (Middle Low German luttel ), Old High German luzzil (Middle High German lützel , German regional lützel ) < a suffixed form (compare -le suffix 1 and perhaps also mickle adj.) of the Germanic base of lite adj.1

Compare < the same base with a different suffix Old Dutch luttik (Middle Dutch luttic, Dutch luttik), Old Saxon luttik (Middle Low German luttik), Old High German luzzīg little.
Germanic cognates and parallels.

The Old English word apparently originally showed a long stem vowel and single stem-final consonant,…

> Although regularly-formed comparative and superlative forms of the adjective are occasionally attested (compare littler in e.g. quots. 1849 at sense A. 1c, 1951 at sense A. 2, and littlest in e.g. quots. 1829 at sense A. 7, 1865 at sense A. 6a), these are now typically restricted to regional varieties and to imitations of children's speech.

One now normally says the least among us, not the littlest, no?

Except for very small people. :)

Cerberus

We have places with luttik- as well.

Luttikgeest, I think.

Hmm, no, that's Luttelgeest.

But the surname Luttikhuis exists.

They must have once lived in a luttel huis.

By the way, the adjective luttel is still in use, though mostly in expressions.

It is used like English mere, as in, it happened in mere seconds: in luttele seconden.

tchrist

4:51 AM

mere is a weird word. Did you know that mo is a word? We used to say the mo the better.

> Cognate with Old Frisian mā , mē , Middle Dutch mee , Middle Low German mē , Middle High German mē (early modern German meh ), Old Icelandic meir , Old Swedish mer (Swedish mer ), Danish mer , Gothic mais (the West Germanic forms show loss of final *-z ) < a suffixed (comparative) form of the Indo-European base of mere adj.1; compare (with a different ablaut grade) Oscan mais, Early Irish, Irish mó, Albanian më.
For adverbial forms in -r in English and other West Germanic languages influenced by or developed from adjectival forms, see more adv.; some of the forms without -r in continental…

That's referencing a very different mere than the one from Latin.

ES/PT/IT all have mero as a common adjective.

Which is probably why Dutch does not have it? Not as much Romance?

This is the Latin one you were thinking of:

> Origin: Probably partly a borrowing from Latin. Probably partly a borrowing from French. Etymons: Latin merus; French mer.
Etymology: Probably partly (especially in early use) < a post-classical Latin form (with characteristic vulgar Latin lengthening of vowels in open syllables) of classical Latin merus undiluted, unmixed, pure < the same Indo-European base as mere v.1,

and partly (in Middle English) a reborrowing of its reflex Anglo-Norman mer, meer, mier, Middle French mer (c1100 in Old French as mier ). Compare Spanish mero (probably 13th cent.), Italian mero (early 14th cent.), Port…

The one that I said was very different, mentioned in mo, was this one:

> Origin: A word inherited from Germanic.
Etymology: Cognate with Old Saxon māri (Middle Low German (rare) mēre ), Old High German māri (Middle High German mære : compare Märchen n.), early Scandinavian (runic) -mariR (in the compound wajemariR ill-famed), Old Icelandic mærr , Gothic -mereis (in the compound waílamereis praiseworthy, glossing ancient Greek εὔϕημος ), ultimately < an extended form of an Indo-European base meaning ‘big, large, considerable’; compare (with a different ablaut grade) ancient Greek -μωρος (in the compound ἐγχεσίμωρος mighty with the spear), Early Irish mór , már …

Cerberus

I'll look at it tomorrow, bye!

tchrist

Bye.

tchrist

5:42 AM

> Herpestidae is interesting, because if you study herpestids, you’re a mammalogist, and if you’re a herpetologist, you study reptiles and amphibians. Both “herpestidae” and “herpetology” derive from the Greek “herpein” (“to creep”). Herpetology went the “herpein” to “herpeton” (”reptile”) route, while Herpestidae came from “herpein” to “herpestes” (”creeping”) to “herpestes” (”animal that walks on four legs”).

Jeepers creepers, mongeese aren't snakes!

Mongoose

A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family is currently split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to southern Europe, Africa and Asia, whereas the Mungotinae comprises 11 species native to Africa. The Herpestidae originated about 21.8 ± 3.6 million years ago in the Early Miocene and genetically diverged into two main genetic lineages between 19.1 and 18.5 ± 3.5 million years ago. == Etymology == The English word "mongoose" used to be spelled "mungoose" in...

> Mongooses are one of at least four known mammalian taxa with mutations in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor that protect against snake venom.[15] Their modified receptors prevent the snake venom α-neurotoxin from binding. These represent four separate, independent mutations. In the mongoose, this change is effected, uniquely, by glycosylation.

Faheem Mitha

7:03 AM

@tchrist I'm surprised that fire can survive without oxygen in the circumstances described.

CowperKettle

7:17 AM

In peat bogs, fire can simmer very long.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer (84): How to find words which are related morphologically? by captain snow on english.SE

CowperKettle

> "The key finding is that seven years in advance of clinical diagnosis, we can say with 70% accuracy that people will go on to develop Alzheimer's," explained Ajay Royyuru, IBM's vice-president of Healthcare Research.

bbc.com/news/technology-54538228

Word of the day: Cookie Theft Test of cognitive function

New covid cases per day:

23.02.2020: 966
23.03.2020: 40.743
23.04.2020: 72.628
23.05.2020: 105.841
23.06.2020: 132.398
23.07.2020: 248.430
23.08.2020: 255.857
23.09.2020: 257.759
23.10.2020: 445.419

CowperKettle

7:54 AM

Word of the day: cadge

CowperKettle

10:24 AM

Another Russian military convoy captured on images entering Ukraine. The largest war of occupation in Europe since 1945 goes on.

CowperKettle

12:50 PM

CowperKettle

1:32 PM

Current weather

Robusto

1:45 PM

@CowperKettle I saw people in Ireland using peat bricks in little space heaters for that reason.

tchrist

2:00 PM

The fire is right now making a highly active run through Rocky Mountain National Park aimed right at Estes Park, and close. There are lots more evacuation zones this morning south on Peak to Peak Highway and into Boulder County from there.

@CowperKettle You're in my future, aren't you? Sure wish it were already 24 hours from now.

tchrist

2:21 PM

The rushing fire-river is now just one mile west of Estes Park. The incident commander expects structures in the town to be lost today. You just can't stop something with this much furious wind driving it.

I can see a new black column of smoke rising in the north right now.

CowperKettle

Cerberus

@tchrist Probably. And we already have meer "more", and meer "lake". So one more meer would be rather inconvenient, too.

CowperKettle

The pond will get covered with ice only in December

Maybe in November with some thin ice.

tchrist

@Cerberus meerkitties

CowperKettle

In December it will be possible to cross it on foot or on bicycle

tchrist

2:31 PM

@CowperKettle Safely and reliably?

Cerberus

I wonder why it says your (archaic?) mere (what does it mean? big?) is related to Dutch mee, which I would say is an allomorph of met, "with"?

CowperKettle

@tchrist Yes

Cerberus

Or is that another mee, one I do not know?

@tchrist I think we have meerkatten and zeekatten!

Meerkatten

De meerkatten (Cercopithecini) vormen een geslachtengroep van de familie apen van de Oude Wereld (Cercopithecidae), die voorkomt in Afrika. Er zijn 36 verschillende soorten die worden verdeeld in vijf geslachten: de moerasmeerkat (Allenopithecus), de echte meerkatten (Cercopithecus), de groene meerkatten (Chlorocebus), de huzaarapen (Erythrocebus) en de dwergmeerkatten (Miopithecus). Ze verschillen onderling sterk in kleur, maar komen overeen in lichaamsbouw. Meerkatten zijn tussen de 70 en 175 cm lang en hebben een staart die een derde tot de helft van hun totale lichaamslengte inneemt. Ze hebben...

Zeekatten (inktvissen)

De zeekatten of sepia's (Sepiida) zijn een orde van weekdieren die behoort tot de inktvissen. Een bekende soort is de gewone zeekat (Sepia officinalis). Sepia is ook de naam van een kleurstof die gewonnen wordt uit dit dier. == Kenmerken == Zeekatten hebben een platte inwendige schelp en een kort, breed lichaam met acht korte armen en twee veel langere tentakels. Mannetjes worden niet ouder dan 2 tot 3 jaar. Het vrouwtje leeft zelfs maar één jaar. Tussen hun acht gewone armen zitten twee langere vangtentakels, die alleen te zien zijn als de zeekat een prooi grijpt. De prooi wordt doorgebeten door...

tchrist

Seapussies.

@Cerberus No, that's mo.

Cerberus

Oh.

CowperKettle

2:33 PM

@tchrist Sings warning of the danger of crossin the pond usually appear in mid-March

Cerberus

We do have Mo in Dutch, a common word. What do you think it means?

It's not Maurice.

tchrist

@Cerberus kinesongs

Cerberus

That I do not know.

But, no, it's short for Mohammed.

tchrist

I was rather hoping for cowsounds.

Cerberus

I think our cows say boe.

2

tchrist

2:35 PM

Cow gows mooow mooow.

Cerberus

/buː/

Robusto

The Brutally Honest National Park Welcome Video

►

tchrist

@Cerberus Only on Halloween?

Cerberus

Always!

But one also says boe to scare someone, yes.

JTP - Apologise to Monica

@skullpatrol youtube.com/watch?v=xhszOM0Rth8

tchrist

2:49 PM

@Cerberus Only Moes I know are Maureens, except for the Curly and Larry ones.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus Hmm, Anki decks tell me das Meer is the sea and der See is the lake in German.

Wait, there's also die See.

Weird

CowperKettle

> Affirming the importance of traditions like Columbus Day to other Americans, the nation’s 573 federally recognized Indian nations released a joint statement Monday confirming they don’t need a special holiday and would be perfectly fine with just having large swaths of land returned to them immediately.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Yeah, German is mostly the converse of Dutch.

Robusto

@Cerberus Except I can't converse in Dutch.

> Oed' und leer das Meer

Cerberus

3:05 PM

@Robusto Time to start learning!

tchrist

3:17 PM

@M.A.R. Spanish does that. Masculine el mar is the normal ocean/sea, but feminine la mar is the more abstract or poetic one, like you'd use in "went to sea".

It's because Latin had neuter magnum mare, and with a few tiny exceptions, modern Romance lacks a neuter gender in its nouns, so people flipflopped for centuries. El/la color can have the same issue, but here the feminine is considered rustic and nonstandard, unlike with mar where it is simply dreamier.

Star Trek languages follow the Prime Directive?

@M.A.R. That's like how the Rhinish Lake Constance in English becomes der Bodensee along its borders in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

@Robusto Ich frage mich, warum man auf Deutsch ᴅɪᴇ Substantiv Artikel nicht groß schreiben? :)

You'd think that The Comic Book Kids would have had their majusculating ways with even The German's articles. :)

Cerberus

3:35 PM

@tchrist Small addition: I believe neuter nouns normally became masculine in (most?) Romance languages.

tchrist

@Cerberus That is correct.

But you really have to look at each noun's history.

Cerberus

Yeah, but wouldn't you say what happened to mar is somewhat exceptional?

El/la color is even more unusual, as the Latin word is masculine, like almost all -or words except trees.

M.A.R.

I can confirm that I'm special

@Robusto Don't drag OED into this

Cerberus

Hah.

tchrist

@Cerberus On dit la mer, par exemple.

Cerberus

3:39 PM

Oui.

Mais pourquoi?

Robusto

@tchrist Pero es el mar en español.

tchrist

@Cerberus To show how mare vacillates in Latin's daughters.

@Robusto Pues en eso depende del intento, ¿no lo sabías?

@Robusto wikilengua.org/index.php/G%C3%A9nero_y_significado

> Normalmente se utiliza en masculino; el femenino se suele enmarcar en el lenguaje poético.

Cerberus

@tchrist What I meant was, why did this happen to the word mare in the daughters?

Robusto

@tchrist Yes, but that usage is a personification, no_

Cerberus

The plural maria is not exactly common.

Robusto

3:44 PM

@Cerberus Wait, that´s what they call the wind.

tchrist

> ¿Es «el mar» o «la mar»? Lo normal hoy es usar mar como masculino (el mar), pero también es normal y válido su uso como femenino en algunos contextos y expresiones: alta mar, hacerse a la mar, etc.

@Robusto No, it is not.

Robusto

Harve Presnell They call the Wind Maria remastered

►

tchrist

"National law does not apply on the high seas" would take the feminine.

Robusto

Too tricksy.

tchrist

@Cerberus The neuters of the second declension were far more apt to become consistently masculine than those of other declensions.

@Robusto Véase todo esto

> mar
Del lat. mare.

1. m. o f. Masa de agua salada que cubre la mayor parte de la superficie terrestre.

2. m. o f. Cada una de las partes en que se considera dividido el mar. Mar Mediterráneo, Cantábrico.

3. m. o f. Lago de cierta extensión. Mar Caspio, Muerto.

4. m. o f. Agitación misma del mar o conjunto de sus olas, y aun el tamaño de estas.

5. m. o f. Abundancia extraordinaria de ciertas cosas. Lloró un mar de lágrimas.

alta mar

Tb. altamar.

1. f. Parte del mar que está a bastante distancia de la costa.

Cerberus

3:49 PM

@tchrist That makes sense.

tchrist

Notice how many of those expressions take the feminine, even though normally it is simply masculine.

Robusto

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I prefer cis-gendered nouns.

tchrist

@Robusto These are not true heteroclits.

Robusto

This is how a heterodox becomes a paradox.

GOP Candidate Exposes Himself As Hitler Youth

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tchrist

Consider el arte. What is its gender? Does one speak of el arte poético in the masculine or of el arte poética in the feminine?

Where its provenance is Latin’s third-declension feminine ars, artis.

Robusto

3:58 PM

You're 2/3 of the way to MGM's tag line: ars gratia artis.

tchrist

The poetic art is feminine: el arte poética, as are las bellas artes. But most of the time it is masculine. Mostly.

Robusto

@tchrist Can you make it until the snowfall? Looks like things are just getting worse and worse.

Two Colorado Wildfires Turn Deadly As Thousands Evacuate | TODAY

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tchrist

@Robusto Me personally, or Colorado? I think I'll be able to, but I suspect that much of Rocky Mountain National Park and some of Estes Park shall be lost to us ere snowfall.

I say this because I am constantly observing the intensity of the rising smoke even now coming from there in my northern sky.

Robusto

Looks like it's going to be s significant snowstorm. We might even get a bit down here.

Cerberus

@tchrist That is also weird.

I think usually even nouns of the third declension kept their gender.

tchrist

4:05 PM

@Cerberus Well, there’s some confusion with things like el agua pura from the first declension which are always feminine.

Cerberus

Oh, they use el because of the vowel?

tchrist

Just like how el águila blanca is always feminine, as in la blanca áquila.

@Cerberus Yes, because of the stressed vowel in particular. Because it derives from illa.

Cerberus

What's the rule? Use el when the noun begins with a stressed vowel?

tchrist

illa aquila > el águila

@Cerberus No. When they start with stressed a.

Cerberus

I see.

tchrist

4:09 PM

el ave, las aves. el alma, las almas.

But you revert if there is an intervening adjective. el ave blanca but la blanca ave. el alma pura but la pura alma.

So they never change genders at all.

It's just that Spanish has a masculine article el deriving from ille and also a feminine article el deriving from illa.

However, this sometimes leads to confusion by the unlettered or underlettered. I think that may be what happened to poor arte.

@Robusto There are new pre-evacuation warnings in Boulder County coming south out of Larimer County from Estes Park along CO-119 the so-called Peak to Peak Highway connecting south towards Ward and Nederland and such. This is the higher of the two routes, with the lower being US-36 connecting to Lyons through to Boulder.

@Robusto Last I checked they were saying 8 to 12 in town here and 5 to 15 in the foothills.

Robusto

@tchrist Higher in altitude or latitude?

tchrist

@Robusto higher always means altitude here :)

Robusto

But interpositing two letters gets you the other. ^_^

tchrist

At least your air is still breathable.

Robusto

True. It was smoky here yesterday, haven't been out yet today.

airnow says it's good today.

Only moderate for Boulder, I see. That's good news.

skullpatrol

4:38 PM

@JTP-ApologisetoMonica coolio, thnx for sharing

Cerberus

5:32 PM

@tchrist Could be.

Cf. French cet.

skullpatrol

Did you hear about the chem mod @Cerberus?

Cerberus

@skullpatrol Hey, no, I haven't heard anything?

skullpatrol

here

5

Cc^ @tchrist

Cerberus

@skullpatrol Ouch.

Poor Giant.

> Some other moderators have told me that they don’t know why SE wants a new so-called agreement and that they haven’t read it. They have just clicked it since one is not offered a choice, and such things are not legally binding anyway.

This is what I did.

skullpatrol

He took a stand on principle.

Cerberus

5:47 PM

I am sad for him.

skullpatrol

Me writing my answer:

Cerberus

Heh.

skullpatrol

Will they let him run for mod again?

Cerberus

6:02 PM

Yes, I think so.

But then he'd have to click the agreement anyway.

skullpatrol

Yeah, perhaps they'll reword it.

There's got to be some room for a compromise.

Cerberus

I doubt it.

CowperKettle

6:20 PM

A distant relative of mine, an old woman from the mother's side of the family, spent a week in intensive care with covid and has been moved to the general ward. She is 91 years old.

Namaste, Faheem ji!

SmokeDetector

6:47 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer, link at end of answer (154): "Student has course" vs "Student takes course" by rbtmi306 on english.SE

M.A.R.

@skullpatrol Shame

CowperKettle

7:04 PM

Kriss Kross - It's A Shame

►

I used to listen to this song on a cassette player, but the only word I could recognize was "shame".

I've now read the lyrics and hm.. I can't undestand a lot either.

Faheem Mitha

8:03 PM

@CowperKettle Hello?

Also, I don't really do the "ji" thing. It's supposed to be a honorific, possibly a sign of respect, but I think it's slightly daft.

Also, it's applied totally randomly in practice. E.g. people refer to the Prime Minister as "Modiji" all the time. <Insert gagging sounds here.>

(Actually, ignore this. I think I'm just being cranky. Sorry.)

Robusto

8:41 PM

Fucking Amazon. Whenever I try to click "buy again" for an item they jack up the price by 15%, so I have to go looking all over again to find a vendor with the original price, or close to it. So much for encouraging customer loyalty.

skillpatrol

Why would they want loyalty now that everyone in the world is on line.

Just like Stackoverflow.

Robusto

@skillpatrol Because I am a repeat buyer of bicycle tires. I commonly spend $500-800 on them every year.

M.A.R.

Apparently Bezos is finally too rich to care

Robusto

Give me a fair price and don't try to screw me and I'm going to come back to you. Don't, and I'll go somewhere else.

@M.A.R. What, it took him till $200 billion before he stopped caring? I think it happened long before that.

skillpatrol

Covid has brought a lot more buyers on the market

M.A.R.

8:51 PM

@Robusto Or maybe the realization that money is truly forever?

Robusto

@M.A.R. It is in the US.

skillpatrol

I'm actually getting spam for the first time ever.

M.A.R.

@skillpatrol Pfft, noob

Actually, I wanna go check my spam folder again

Lotsa "Payout verification" spam

RegDwigнt

0

Q: How do novelists use syntax creatively, without dumbfounding reader?

I write fiction. In a recent workshop I was told my writing had "weird syntax" and being that my character 1st point of view is a street urchin perhaps it was unconsciously deliberate on my part, in regards to syntax. But, my question is, how do novelists use syntax creatively, without dumbfoundi...

syntax

So I wanted to migrate this to Writing and it says "unknown destination site".

I thought maybe they shut that SE down, but no it still exists.

skillpatrol

9:07 PM

It must be like a ghost town then

RegDwigнt

No something's broken with that close reason altogether.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Prolly means it's unknown as an appropriate destination site.

RegDwigнt

It says "type to search for site", as it always did, but you start typing and nothing happens.

So I just tried entering the name or the domain, but neither of that worked, either.

Robusto

So type in "to search for site" because that's what it says it wants

RegDwigнt

Since when are you the court jester? I thought you were a dream.

Robusto

9:10 PM

I'm taking the day off.

RegDwigнt

Oh that's an idea.

skillpatrol

Take a day off this week and gain an hour the next.

Robusto

A day for an hour? That's no kind of trade.

skillpatrol

nobody said it was a fair trade

I found a tv channel that runs "deal, no deal" 24/7

The future is going to full of wheeler dealers, just like trump

RegDwigнt

9:30 PM

I'm sorry, what year is this?

Deal no deal?

TV?

skillpatrol

I call them the way I see them.

RegDwigнt

Yes, these are their names. In the 2000s. I'm not objecting to that. I just want your time machine.

I am prepared to pay seven roubles.

skillpatrol

No deal.

RegDwigнt

That's a shame, the other case only holds one kopek.

skillpatrol

:(

RegDwigнt

9:41 PM

The numbers were all on the board, you could've looked at them. Only seven roubles and one kopek were left. Just sayin'.

skillpatrol

Ya, ya. The fix is in.

RegDwigнt

Sorry, busy buying Wheel of Fortune now.

If I act fast and call now, I get The Price Is Right for free.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Ugh...

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus can you migrate it?

My shit's all borked.

Or is that because I signed the new ToS.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Nope, I can only pick between ELL and EL&U Meta.

RegDwigнt

9:50 PM

Same here.

Which is why I thought maybe Writers died.

Cerberus

Perhaps Writing changed something.

RegDwigнt

I don't think they are in a position to change anything.

Like, I can't migrate it to Cooking, either.

Cerberus

But that was never possible, was it?

RegDwigнt

Well not for 10k users. But I'm a super-duper-mod.

I've migrated stuff to Cooking before.

Cerberus

Oh, I see I can migrate to Writers from Latin.

RegDwigнt

9:53 PM

And probably to Cooking, too.

Cerberus

Probably.

RegDwigнt

Actually, let's just forget about Writing. Cooking is much more interesting.

Cerberus

Unless sites can choose from which other sites they wish to receive migrations, this looks like a bug?

RegDwigнt

I am probably not allowed to post bugs, either.

I'm trying not to break things by trying things.

@skillpatrol transported me to the year 2000, so I'm quite happy I can still chat at all.

That'll suffice.

Robusto

Like, whatever happened to the Austrian yodelers? Now they're getting them imported from Eastern Europe.

That's real YODEL - Ukrainian Yodeler Sofia Shkidchenko, 14

►

You just can't trust a dirndl anymore.

RegDwigнt

10:00 PM

Haven't you heard, all women are currently imported from the Ukraine.

I know an Austrian girl, even her mother-in-law is Ukrainian.

Robusto

See? It's all about money. Used to be you could get a really good yodeler for, what, 25 marks? Now it's all roubles.

RegDwigнt

Grivnas.

Robusto

Wevs.

RegDwigнt

My point.

I still have hundreds of deutschmarks. They are still legal tender. And not just in Germany. Like, all of Croatia is running on them.

Oh, cool, a new Tim Traveler video is out.

How France Accidentally Destroyed Their Own Palace

►

Cerberus

10:53 PM

Interestingly, they seem to call it SARS in Lagos.

> Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)

Oops, never mind.

tchrist

@Robusto The yodel fest was a superspreader event, that's what happened.

Cerberus

That was the Swiss event, wasn't it?

tchrist

Fellow Boulder County resident, Colorado Governor Jared Polis: "The state, along with fire departments and law enforcement from Larimer, Grand, and Boulder Counties have 73 aircraft, 253 fire engines, 3,617 firefighters and dozens of hand crews and the Colorado National Guard fighting the spread of these devastating wildfires."

aye

yaiyaiyaiyaiyolohuliwahuawallwallayahoohoo.

A layer of blue smoke has built up around me. AQI around 140. The storm has not quite yet arrived.

Cerberus

11:09 PM

That sounds high.

When will it arrive?

tchrist

@Cerberus In an hour or four, depending on where you mean and at what intensity. I think they expect the bulk of it tomorrow by daylight though.

@Cerberus Higher than you'd like, yes.

Visibility has dropped.

Cerberus

@tchrist OK that is soon.