English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

12:55 AM

I became a grandparent today. This is amazing, putting a newly minted child into circulation.

9

Xanne

@Mitch population etc. follows trade routes, for which water is critical in early development.

CowperKettle

4:15 AM

> In Batesville, Arkansas, just 25 km west of the state’s largest coal-fired power plant, a 1400 panel solar array at the local high school turned a $250,000 budget deficit into a $1.8 million surplus & teachers’ salaries rose by $2,000-$3,000 per educator

Færd

4:50 AM

> Smith realized that if there were going to be a viable colony, it was the colonists who would have to work. He therefore pleaded with the directors to send the right sort of people: “When you send againe I entreat you rather to send some thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees, roots, well provided, then a thousand of such as we have.”

I assume "such as we have" means goldsmiths and such. But what does that then mean? "Send these types of craftsmen and then send a thousand goldsmiths"? Sounds illogical, since there were already more than enough such people in their failed colony. That was the point of the letter.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Nice burn. Though apparently Lenin was unfazed. A nasty piece of work, but all accounts.

@Robusto Congratulations.

@Mitch Russia wasn't doing well before the Revolution, otherwise there wouldn't have been a revolution. Though I wonder how many people wished for things to go back to how they were before the Revolution happened.

Which is not to say that things weren't bad during the Imperial period. I'm sure they were. Monarchies are terrible. I even dislike the nominal ones that exist today.

E.g. Those UK idiots.

@CowperKettle Interesting. Where did you get this from?

@CowperKettle I found energynews.us/2020/10/16/southeast/…

Færd

@Robusto Congratulations!

Saddens me a bit that in all likelihood I'm going to deny my parents that joy.

Maybe I'll adopt a child sometime.

CowperKettle

6:00 AM

M.A.R.

6:59 AM

@Robusto congrats!

CowperKettle

A criminal case opened in the Krasnodar region of Russia against a retired man who a year ago made a repost of a news report about a human-monkey hybrid embryo produced by Chinese scientists. The retired man's flat was raided by the Russian police. golos-kubani.ru/…

Putin's stability is getting stablier and stablier

The man, Alexander Korovainy, was recently part of the election team of Yana Antonova, an oppositional canditate to the local parliament.

Yana lost by getting 30 votes short, in a blatantly rigged election the results of which are currently being disputed.

Putin's accomplices are thus punishing the man for daring to stand up against Putin.

He had the misfortune to repost a news report printed in a media labeled as an "unwanted organization" under Putin's recently-introduced laws that seek to suppress the freedom of opinion in Russia.

During the police search of Mr. Korovainy's flat, a fellow deputy of the Yeisk City Council arrived at his flat, wishing to provide help, but was detained by the police and his mobile phone was seized.

CowperKettle

7:28 AM

The tail-end of a Typhoon submarine

Columbus's carrack would sit on it comfortably

Xanne

8:39 AM

Here’s another one, not so big, but it’s for sale!

maritimesales.com/SSH10.htm. $1.1 million FIRM. Further information to prequalified buyers only.

CowperKettle

Good price. You could easily recoup it after a couple trips to Central America and back to USA

Xanne

Nothing like repurposing.

Faheem Mitha

8:57 AM

@Xanne That price seems on the low side.

Oh, it's not fully operational. I wonder what that means.

Xanne

9:18 AM

The price probably doesn’t include delivery. But for the serious collector . . .

Faheem Mitha

I wonder how much a delivery service would charge for a 300 ft long military submarine.

Xanne

And then, where would you put it?

Faheem Mitha

It probably wouldn't fit in the bathtub.

Also, a lot of people don't have bathtubs, anyway.

They're a sort of British relic, and not terribly hygenic.

Xanne

The Field Museum in Chicago has a German U2 submarine. Going through a sub is very interesting.

Faheem Mitha

@Xanne Are you American too?

Xanne

9:24 AM

@FaheemMitha Yes, but what does “too” mean here?

Faheem Mitha

@Xanne Just that there are other Americans here in this chat. I count at least two.

No, make that three.

Xanne

Three? Mitch, Robusto, and . . ?

Faheem Mitha

@Xanne tchrist.

Xanne

Oh, yes, of course. Two Iranians; one Russian and one Russian/German; one Indian, I think; one Dutchman.

Of frequent recent contributors, that is.

Matt Ellen is also American.

Faheem Mitha

9:42 AM

@Xanne If by the Indian you mean me, then yes, I'm Indian.

@Xanne I thought Matt was British. Or maybe another Matt?

This room isn't as Eurocentric as some rooms. Notably TeX SE.

Xanne

You’re right, Matt is British.

Faheem Mitha

I just purchased a copy of Griftopia, though I don't know when I'm going to read it. Has anyone?

CowperKettle

This is how the Third World War may break out

I think that we, together with Europe, will kick their butts.

Captain Bohemian

9:59 AM

mainland China is so isolated

Xanne

12:17 PM

Mongolia is more isolated.

CowperKettle

1:27 PM

Yes, Mongols are the only boob-lovers across the whole east of the continent

tchrist

@CowperKettle No women in Mongolia?

Robusto

2:34 PM

@FaheemMitha Thanks.

@M.A.R. Thanks.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Hmm? Mongolia is that red smearing above China

They're butt people

Robusto

@FaheemMitha That means it goes down but doesn't come up.

@Færd Thank you.

Mitch

3:06 PM

@Robusto You get to enjoy the best parts of babies. You can spoil them and dress them up and make fart noises with them and then when they start crying you pass them off to the sleep derived parents.

Yay me! I pulled a Sven Yargs!

I researched the shit out of one single word.

4

Q: What does the word 'epithelium' have in common with the word 'nipple'?

I use etymology to understand concepts better. For example, cervix comes from Latin word meaning neck. I was checking epithelium and to my surprise it comes from Greek θηλή which means nipple. I don't understand the reason behind this naming. Can someone please explain it to me?

etymology

I had to read Latin and Dutch (= used google translate a lot). Look at really gross anatomy drawings from 300 years ago.

And in the end I got a derivation that any first year med student probably knows.

M.A.R.

Stuff of the day:

Propaganda of the Spanish–American War

The Spanish–American War (April–August 1898) is considered to be both a turning point in the history of propaganda and the beginning of the practice of yellow journalism. It was the first conflict in which military action was precipitated by media involvement. The war grew out of U.S. interest in a fight for revolution between the Spanish military and citizens of their Cuban colony. American newspapers fanned the flames of interest in the war by fabricating atrocities which justified intervention in a number of Spanish colonies worldwide. Several forces within the United States were pushing for...

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch That must have been a fair amount of work. Have an upvote.

M.A.R.

@Mitch Knows what? That whenever I say epithelia I mean nipples? That never occurred to me

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I think you greatly overestimate first year med students.

I roomed with some once. It was awful.

M.A.R.

Haha

One of those derisive hahas in confirmation. Med students can be pretty darn arrogant.

1st year med students think themselves neurosurgeons already.

(So are ours, but to a much lesser extent)

They do know what epithelia are though, pretty sure of that.

CowperKettle

3:18 PM

A bill has just been introduced in the Russian state Duma that prohibits giving lectures without prior consent by authorities, lest a lecture contains a subversive statement.

M.A.R.

One of the first ever terms in histology 101

Mitch

@M.A.R. It will now

@FaheemMitha haha...they think they're smart

I mean they have to have a very good memory, list of words.

and a good memory is a large part of being smart.

ok usually they're smart

CowperKettle

Another bill introduced today makes it an offence if a school teacher says anything bad "about Constitution". A smart move, providing that the Constitution now includes a waiver for the President to commit any crime. Now teachers will not be able to make pro-democracy statements for fear of a pupil squeaking on them.

Mitch

@M.A.R. I think that's 1st year 2nd semester here of med school

but more dumping on doctors...

I've heard that, for all airplane accidents (small single engine), the one profession sticks out as causing the most accidents is doctors.

they think they can do anything.

M.A.R.

I mean it's a cadaver, not gonna complain.

Mitch

3:24 PM

but among doctors, they complain about the surgeons having the ego problems.

Robusto

@Mitch Exactly.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch They weren't smart.

Just regular people. And horrible roommates.

Mitch

some people go into medicine purely for money. those guys are dicks.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Not really, no. That's a weird thing to say.

To borrow a word you seem to like.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha no it's a very smart thing to say

Faheem Mitha

3:26 PM

@Mitch That's most people, I think. In India it's probably close to 100%.

@Mitch Not so, but far otherwise. As it, it's false.

Mitch

if you don't have good recall of mental events. it's difficult to make successful decisions

(of one limits 'smart' to 'making successful decisions')

Faheem Mitha

I remember sitting next to a person called Kim Peek on a plane bound for Salt Lake City.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Oh. That's cool, because you're wrong.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch No, you are.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha NOU!

Faheem Mitha

3:28 PM

Anyway, so Peek had the left and right hemispheres of his brain fused together, and could memorize phone directories. He was a medical curiosity.

Robusto

@Mitch Intelligence and memory are linked, if I remember correctly.

Faheem Mitha

I mentioned that I came from Chapel Hill, and the Triangle, and he started throwing statistics at me, poor fellow. He was travelling with his father, who was very proud of him.

I didn't get the impression he could really hold a conversation, so I didn't try. But I talked to his father quite a bit.

His father gave me a copy of a book he wrote about his son, which I still have on my bookshelf. It's quite sad.

He autographed it for someone else, but I was reading it on the plane, and asked him so many questions about it that he finally said "you can have the book if you want". Or words to that effect.

(Here concludes this pointless anecdote.)

Mitch

Most importantly I learned from Google translate that 'bekleetsel' is 'sleazy assed' or 'crotch donkey'.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch That's indeed important.

Mitch

Hey @Cerberus, what does 'bekleetzel' mean? I have a feeling that it is pretty obscure or technical in Dutch. 'Tepelbekleeztel' was Ruysch's Dutch term for 'epithelial'.

@Robusto Tell that to @FaheemMitha. I don't think he believes it. Or maybe he believes the very opposite.

Robusto

3:33 PM

@Mitch What were we talking about?

CowperKettle

> Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun; but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric; undefiled
Proceeds pure Science, and has her say; but still
Upon this world from the collective womb
Is spewed all day the red triumphant child.

Mitch

unless of course that is a joke, and it is very funny.

bloop bleep

haha

Robusto

Also, "crotch donkey"? I don't even know what that means in English.

Mitch

@Robusto It's pretty obvious

fun sensor activated

Robusto

@Mitch Of course it's a joke. Dramatic irony, making fun of myself.

Mitch

3:36 PM

fun sensor activated

@FaheemMitha It makes every thing fit together. the real aha moment.

Cerberus

@Mitch Be-kleed-sel ~= becladding.

So it is something that is clad upon another thing, something that covers another thing.

Your spelling is archaic.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I have no idea what you're talking about.

Cerberus

I suppose the word is archaic or technical(?) anyway.

@Mitch And tepel means nipple...

Perhaps there is an additional, archaic sense that I'm unaware of.

Faheem Mitha

(Had to switch internet connections. My usual connection suddenly decided it couldn't connect to chat.stackexchange.com.)

Which is why I have two connections.

Cerberus

@Mitch I found that, in older use, bekleedsel was used to describe skin, fur or other coverings of animals.

So I think a proper translation of your word would be nipple skin.

Robusto

3:43 PM

@Cerberus Would that also cover gold or silver plating?

Cerberus

@Robusto Probably not: kleed is like cloth, so one would expect something soft or flexible.

But maybe.

In English, clad can be used of metal, too, after all.

Even though I'm sure it has the same origin.

In modern Dutch, bekleding is more like upholstery.

Hmm, actually, modern dictionaries give metal examples for bekleding as well.

So why not precious metals?

Robusto

@Cerberus Yes. That's why it occurred to me.

Cerberus

There is no iron-clad conexion with clothing any more, apparently.

Robusto

Well, if it's any kind of plating I suppose it ought to include precious metals.

@Cerberus /rimshot

Cerberus

What's the difference between gilding and plating?

Robusto

3:50 PM

@Cerberus I believe gilding uses hammered sheets of gold leaf.

Cerberus

In Dutch, we say vergulden (gold) and verzilveren.

@Robusto And plating does not?

Robusto

Plating uses electricity.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Odd, what with the word plate.

Robusto

Well, plate comes from silver itself, so ...

oro y plata

Cerberus

Huh.

Robusto

3:53 PM

plate mid-13c., "flat sheet of gold or silver"

> from Medieval Latin plata "plate, piece of metal"

Cerberus

Right.

Robusto

> The cognate in Spanish (plata) and Portuguese (prata) has become the usual word for "silver," superseding argento via a shortening of *plata d'argento "plate of silver, coin."

Cerberus

I actually searched for the Dutch etymology of plate, and I was led to this dictionary: Woordenlijst Overbodig Engels.

"Wordlist of Redundant English."

Robusto

Hah.

Cerberus

I've never heard anyone use that word in Dutch.

Robusto

3:55 PM

Overbodig?

Cerberus

That's redundant.

Over = over.

Bodig is probably related to bieden, "bid, offer".

I don't know.

Robusto

@Cerberus No, what I meant was that the word you haven't heard used in Dutch?

Cerberus

Ah, no: plate.

Robusto

Ah.

Cerberus

We use bord.

For plate and sign.

Robusto

3:57 PM

Cognate with board?

Cerberus

But on a ship, we have a boord.

Yes, no doubt.

A collar is also a boord.

Witteboordencriminaliteit.

That is probably a loan translation from English, though.

@Robusto Would you ever think of something as small and round as a coin when you hear "plate"?

Robusto

@Cerberus No.

Cerberus

Funny Spaniards.

Robusto

But coins are stamped out of sheets of metal.

I don't know if they were then.

Cerberus

Or perhaps theirs is closer to the original semantic cloud of Latin plata than ours.

@Robusto Hmm that could be it.

Robusto

4:00 PM

But this is what's great about language. All the ways words change and intermingle and so on.

Cerberus

Indeed.

I can't find Latin plata.

> [Wiktionary on Spanish plata:] From Vulgar Latin *platta, *plattus, borrowed from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “wide”), because silver was often made into sheets.

Robusto

I was wondering where Spanish got plata meaning silver and it turns out it was from "plate of silver" ...

Kinda like French pas from "step" to indicate negation from ne pas ("not step") ...

This is all very curious.

Cerberus

Did the sense of 'silver' stick to plata because silver was often fashioned into sheets before being processed into objects, or because silver coins we often made out of plates?

Or both?

Robusto

Good question.

Cerberus

@Robusto Like homoeopathy.

Conrado

4:07 PM

hello

etimologias.dechile.net/?plata

Cerberus

> Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product.[6] Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent remember the original substance after its removal.

Conrado

@Robusto This says it was from a variety of Latin only spoken on the Iberian P.

Robusto

Interesting.

Conrado

Are you saying that the "Platta" comes from English?

Cerberus

@Conrado Ah, so Vulgar Latin platta was only used in Iberia, interesting.

@Conrado Nope.

Conrado

4:09 PM

Oh,

Robusto

And the name for the country Argentina (land of silver) was taken from Italian, of all things.

Cerberus

Makes sense.

Conrado

But then I wonder why the Vulgar Iberian had "platta"?

Cerberus

Many Italian immigrants in Argentina.

They say Argentinian is so very melodious because of the Italian immigrants.

Robusto

> In English, the name "Argentina" comes from the Spanish language; however, the naming itself is not Spanish, but Italian. Argentina (masculine argentino) means in Italian "(made) of silver, silver coloured", probably borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine "(made) of silver" > "silver coloured" already mentioned in the 12th century.[35]

Cerberus

4:11 PM

@Conrado What kind of "why" are you wondering about?

Conrado

I mean, if it was actually exclusively Iberian,

Robusto

@Cerberus That's funny, because of all the Latin American countries Argentina's version of Spanish is the hardest for me to comprehend quickly.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Conrado

Then the English etimology could have been through Hispaña

Cerberus

Perhaps it is the most different from the other variants, then?

Robusto

4:12 PM

Perhaps.

It's still the same language, but the pronunciation is what throws me off.

Conrado

Maybe "platta" comes from some Moorish word.

etimologias.dechile.net/?Plato.n

Must not be moorish, it was Greek.

Mitch

@Cerberus Excellent...thanks!

Robusto

@Conrado I hate sites that trap your mouse events so that you can't C&P anything.

Conrado

dechile says that Plato got his nickname because his back was wide and "flat"--the same root that gives us "plane", etc.

Cerberus

@Conrado Yes, it is Greek.

Robusto

4:18 PM

Yes. He had been a wrestler in his youth, IIRC.

Conrado

@Robusto Yes, it somehow doesn't seem in keeping with the otherwise delightful content there...

Mitch

@Cerberus Tepelbekleedsel' ws the Dutch word given as corresponding to Ruysch's modern Latin neologism (from greek roots) of 'epithelia' or extremely literally 'on the nipples' but really 'on the papillomatous tissue' (tissue which is nipple like in appearance) out of analogy with 'epidermis' which is 'on the skin'.

'epithelium is the flat ('squamous') cells that cover the inside of the cheek and lip (and elsewhere). the tissue underneath is 'papillomatous' (nipple like) sort of like the surface of the tongue, but the tongue doesn't have the layer of epithelium covering it.

science lesson for the day

Cerberus

@Robusto Apparently, they do it using CSS here. Any idea how?

@Mitch Ah, I see!

Does that mean nipple and inside cheeks are covering in the same tissue?

Or is it just a metaphorical reference to the nipples?

Mitch

@Cerberus metaphor

Cerberus

OK!

> body { -webkit-touch-callout: none; -webkit-user-select: none; -khtml-user-select: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; user-select: none;}

@Robusto This is the CSS that disables interacting with the text.

Mitch

4:26 PM

a nipple/papilla (like on a breast) is fairly large anatomically. 'papillary tissue' is smaller, only pathologists/histologists can tell.

Cerberus

I shall make my own userstyle to counter thi sobnoxious behaviour.

Mitch

@Cerberus there's no necessary connection. This tissue underneath the epithelium has ridges and nipple-like extensions, so it is called papillamatous.

Cerberus

> body {
-webkit-touch-callout: unset;
-webkit-user-select: unset;
-khtml-user-select: unset;
-moz-user-select: unset;
-ms-user-select: unset;
user-select: unset;
}

This undoes it.

Mitch

the most visible like this is the tongue. and all those taste buds are called papilla because they look like little tiny nipples.

at least to doctors. I think it just looks bumpy.

Cerberus

Right, I understand now.

Still, the tissues of tongue and inner cheek seem different.

Mitch

4:30 PM

@Robusto wow. they must be very concerned about web scraping and copying their site

Cerberus

Oh, that is because the tongue only has the underlying layer, not the upper covering that the inner cheek has.

Mitch

@Cerberus at some point things are what they are called and not what they might look like.

semantic drift

Cerberus

By reading all your texts thrice, I think I understand now.

Mitch

or maybe instead stipulated definition.

@Cerberus yes, same here. and I wrote it.

@Cerberus I'm not a medical ... um .... person, but I think that is a not wrong way to look at it. I do think (based on the picture at my answer), that if you were able to remove the epithelium, you'd see papilla..

@Cerberus oh yeah, they are different.

Cerberus

@Mitch No, thanks.

Conrado

4:37 PM

Tootle-oo! Thanks for the good cheer.

Cerberus

Ta-ta!

What do you think this map depicts?

The Canaries and the Dutch Antilles are also yellow (but too small to make out).

Nothing is green.

One wonders about that red line in Australia.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yeah, I never used that myself. Because it's fascist.

CowperKettle

"Information security policy and organization" (heading) - what is the sense of organization used here? A company or the process of organization of information security?

The document I'm translating should be very strict but the wording is lax in places.

Robusto

@Cerberus What does the -cles in Greek names signify?

@CowperKettle I would think it refers to how the information is organized.

But maybe how the security is organized. That's probably more likely.

CowperKettle

4:52 PM

Thank you! So I thought.

Otherwise they should have included the to make it clearer

Robusto

Let's put it this way: if it doesn't mean that, then their English is poor. Which is always a possibility

@CowperKettle That would be one way to clarify, yes, but they still might mean that because of inattention or misuse or ghost edits.

@Cerberus I give up. What does it depict. I can't come up with a reasonable communion for the red areas.

CowperKettle

sigh

Robusto

@CowperKettle But you can assume that what you originally thought is the most probable case.

More to the point, you should assume that, because otherwise you are guessing at what mistakes the document is making. Occam's Razor applies here: the simplest explanation is probably the truth.

Mitch

5:56 PM

Does Facebook present ads in your timeline and then allow you to say 'I don't like this' or 'I'd prefer not to see this anymore?

Twitter does that. They actually allow any ol' person to 'promote' a tweet, but it's usually an ad.

I'm concerned that if I click on 'I don't want to see this anymore' then their algorithm will then post to me even worse advertisements.

Captain Bohemian

6:29 PM

why cannot I be connected to my Instgram account?

some small window asking birthday keeps flashing

then "status": "fail" shows

CowperKettle

@Robusto It was clearly not proofread by a native speaker. Another section is titled Security waste and surplus of security product destruction

The meaning is "Destruction of ... "

Russian novice translators tend to create similar English sentences.

SmokeDetector

7:17 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (batch report: post 1 out of 4) (94): What does it mean when Anne Frank was described as "a symbol for the lost promise of the children who died in the Holocaust"? by user405866 on english.SE

Færd

7:47 PM

@Cerberus Parts where there are active conflicts going on?

Or parts where there is the risk of military confrontation.

Or parts where it's deemed unsafe to travel to.

Robusto

@CowperKettle Oh, those are Russian translations into English? Yeah, all bets are off. I thought you were trying to translate directly from legit English.

Færd

Whichever it is, the regions reddened in Iran are bonkers. It's singled out one of the most touristic provinces as... a warzone?

"most touristic" before the sanctions and COVID, of course.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…