English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwigнt

12:10 AM

"Begin the process of removing your diamond".

Easily the most Kafkaesque phrase I have read in quite some time.

And I spend like two hours every day reading German, mind.

Captain Bohemian

12:27 AM

I would prefer that science gets harder than that living gets harder.

Robusto

12:49 AM

@RegDwigнt You should tell them you're under 18, and that you started moderating when you were seven.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected (157): Is there a term for using a word twice in a row, but in a grammatically-appropriate way? by Niqqa on english.SE

Captain Bohemian

1:17 AM

I should print the book to read. This is one of the purposes of traveling to here. I have not enjoyed the luxury of reading on paper for long.

CowperKettle

Real disposable income and unemployment in Russia.

After the invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Crimea, it has declined and is not projected to return to the 2013 level anytime soon.

It's a poor payment for the 13000 people that lie in their graves due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because it will not bring them back from the dead, but at least provides a degree of moral satisfaction.

> I can tell if someone is judgmental just by looking at them

Robusto

2:25 AM

@CowperKettle Whenever someone accuses me of being judgmental I ask them, "Do you think there's something wrong with being judgmental?"

CowperKettle

4:32 AM

No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air

CowperKettle

5:06 AM

M.A.R.

6:41 AM

@CowperKettle SAD!

CowperKettle

7:06 AM

Seasonal Affective Disorder

> SAD in the United States affects from 1.4% in Florida to 9.9% in Alaska.

M.A.R.

The POTUS's case seems self-afflicted and not seasonal

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Why did Russia invade the Ukraine and occupy the Crimea? The simple version, please.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Because Ukraine moved closer to a union with Europe, and Putin's regime wanted to retain Ukraine as part of its "sphere of influence". It's very simple.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Oh. And is that still the status quo today?

CowperKettle

Putin is afraid of so-called "color revolutions" that toppled authoritarian regimes in other countries. He is afraid that his authoritarian regime might also be peacefully toppled, and that Russians will restore constitutional freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom of political protest, freedom to choose politicians.

@FaheemMitha No, his plan backfired and Ukraine is now outside of Russia's sphere of influence.

Faheem Mitha

7:16 AM

@CowperKettle I'd never heard that term before. Knowingly, anyway.

@CowperKettle I see. I suppose that is good news?

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Not very good, because he decided to turn part of Ukraine into Palestine by funding paramilitary groups there and keeping the occupied part of Ukraine very poor and very angry.

Faheem Mitha

Though the Crimea remains with the Russian Federation?

@CowperKettle Oh.

CowperKettle

Crimea will likely remain in Russia due to the prevailing mood inside Crimea. Crimea has been predominantly Russian in composition.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Is the occupied part of Ukraine the Crimea?

Or is the occupied part of Ukraine something else?

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Crimea has been officially annexed by Russia. Yes it is occupied, but the actual war is ongoing in the two puppet republics in Eastern Ukraine, controlled from the Kremlin

Donetsk People's Republic

The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR or DNR; Russian: Донецкая Народная Республика, tr. Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika, IPA: [dɐˈnʲɛtskəjə nɐˈrodnəjə rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə], Ukrainian: Донецька Народна Республіка, romanized: Donets'ka Narodna Respublika) is a self-proclaimed state in the eastern Ukrainian Oblast of Donetsk. The proto-state is recognised only by the partially recognised South Ossetia and Russian-backed proto-state Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). The capital city and largest city within the DPR is Donetsk. The current head of state is Denis Pushilin.The DPR declared its independence after...

Luhansk People's Republic

The Luhansk People's Republic, alternatively spelled as Lugansk People's Republic (Russian: Луга́нская Наро́дная Респу́блика, tr. Luganskaya Narodnaya Respublika, IPA: [lʊˈɡanskəjə nɐˈrodnəjə rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə], usually abbreviated as LPR or LNR, is a landlocked proto-state. It is located in Luhansk Oblast in the Donbass region, a territory internationally recognized to be a part of Ukraine. Luhansk is its capital and biggest city. The population of the republic is approximately 1.5 million people. In its constitution, LPR is proclaimed to be a democratic constitutional state. The current head of state...

Faheem Mitha

7:19 AM

@CowperKettle Oh. Doesn't sound that simple. Messy. And nasty.

CowperKettle

Basically it's the part of Ukraine that has been Palestine-ized by Putin. We send weapons and paramilitaries there, to prolong the war.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle That all sounds pretty weird.

CowperKettle

The same as Arabic countries are artificially keeping Palestine poor and filled with terrorists, instead of helping Palestinians to improve their lives. They are so full of hate towards Israel that they consider it is better to maintain a pauperized, angry population there, instead of maintaining peace.

Faheem Mitha

By Palestine you mean that the people living there were driven out and pushed into designated camp areas, like in Israel?

CowperKettle

Thus, Putin is maintaining a terrorist-filled enclave in Ukraine, in order to bleed Ukraine and make Ukraine weaker.

Faheem Mitha

7:22 AM

@CowperKettle I see. What does he have against Ukraine?

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha I mean that the countries that neighbor Israel are choosing to support war instead of choosing to make peace with Israel and go on with their lives, peacefully, and make Palestinians a flowering nation instead of pauperized and full of terrorists.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle this is pretty utopian, innit?

There is always an unjust cause for why there is such a small selection of people available as future elected officials

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Why? Georgia underwent a color revolution and my friends are amazed then they visit Georgia.

There was rampant corruption and it was conquered.

There was no election, and now there are free elections in Georgia. That's what Putin hates.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle I thought we were talking about Russia and the Ukraine, not Israel.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha He has nothing against Ukraine, he only wants to retain Russia's influence there.

Faheem Mitha

7:25 AM

@CowperKettle It does not sound like it's working out for him.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha It's a good model to explain what Russia does in Ukraine: supports tensions, supports war and terrorism to make Ukraine weaker.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Ok. Though I don't think the situations are exactly comparable.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha It might work out in the end. Ukraine is very corrupt and divided ethnically, and very poor.

Okay, I've got to work.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle I see.

Thank you for the explanation.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Hasn't Israel vetoed every peaceful resolution to the conflict?

Faheem Mitha

7:26 AM

@M.A.R. I think @CowperKettle needs to work. :-)

M.A.R.

I think they're enjoying it

I wanna procrastinate! :(

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. The Israel situation has been the stuff of nightmare for over 70 years. Personally, if I think about it I just get angry.

M.A.R.

Apparently there's a spy thriller airing on Israeli TV called "Tehran"

Propaganda at its most blatant

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Do you do translation full time?

@M.A.R. I have a question for you, and anyone else who speaks more than one language fluently.

When you verbalise, do you always verbalise in a particular language, and is that the same language you would consider your native language? And what language is that?

M.A.R.

When I'm talking to my little brother, it's always a mix of Persian, English and Turkish. Can't help it

When I'm talking to myself, it's often in English

Faheem Mitha

7:39 AM

@M.A.R. Sorry, I meant to say, when you are thinking to yourself.

M.A.R.

I wouldn't consider myself a native speaker of English

Faheem Mitha

Typically silently.

I expressed myself uncommonly poorly there.

M.A.R.

It's like a drive to speak the language I'm the least fluent in but can still convey ideas fluently

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. So you think in English?

That was basically what I meant to say.

M.A.R.

And I've noticed that, even though I probably know more vocab in Persian, relative to a native speaker of Persian, which I do consider myself to be, I express myself better in English when trying to talk to someone else

@FaheemMitha Yep, most often

Faheem Mitha

7:41 AM

@M.A.R. Interesting. Me too. Though I don't really know any other language, so I don't have a choice.

M.A.R.

It might be because I've spent the better part of a decade arguing with people online in English, but not in Persian

Faheem Mitha

So you don't consider yourself a native English speaker, but do consider yourself a native Persian speaker?

M.A.R.

Most often, different aspects of my personality and my life are segregated neatly into one language or the other

It would have been more difficult if my native languages were European

For example, religious talk has almost exclusively been in Persian and Arabic all my life

Ranting about politicians has mostly been in English :)

Science-related aspects were forcefully Persian till high school, but now fully in English

Since all the global labels for things, including things in science, are either in English or Greek, trying to do it all over in a third language is often just extra work.

Faheem Mitha

English has a lot of stuff (vocab, syntax, idiomatic expressions) in it, because it's been used extensively for science and commerce and law and stuff for a long time, and by multiple nations (though I don't know if that aspect is so important).

How does Persian compare?

@M.A.R. You know Arabic too?

M.A.R.

Persian, like most Asian languages, considers itself as a victim of the invasion of English

@FaheemMitha A little, I can understand a lot of texts, but can't speak or listen to Arabic well

It's apparently a common side effect of a dysfunctional teaching, regardless of the target language. I've seen people online complain about the same thing where their first languages are European and the target language is another European language.

Say, when a French person takes German at school, and the education is pretty crappy so they're only spoonfed some grammar rules and some vaguely general vocab (never enough)

Faheem Mitha

8:59 AM

@M.A.R. What's a common side effect of dysfunctional teaching?

Note: I don't think the "a" is necessary there. Possibly even incorrect.

SmokeDetector

9:31 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Repeating words in answer (86): What are some words role in this sentence? by miner on english.SE

M.A.R.

9:44 AM

@FaheemMitha Nah it's not incorrect

@FaheemMitha That after years of 'learning' the target language, the learner can often read and interpret text in the language but can't speak or write well

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Yes, I thought you meant something like that. I know what you mean. All teaching in India is dysfunctional.

@M.A.R. "a dysfunctional teaching" just feels off to me.

I had years of Hindi in school, but my Hindi would probably make an educated native Hindi speaker cry.

This is hypothetical, since I'm not sure I know any educated native Hindi speakers.

The closest would probably be my yoga instructor, but he's not really interested in talking with me.

CowperKettle

St. Petersburg covid cases went flat on November 26 and have been the same since

The magic of Russian statistics

Faheem Mitha

10:01 AM

@CowperKettle Do you think in English or Russian?

Or something else?

CowperKettle

10:18 AM

@FaheemMitha In English and in Russian, depending on situation

M.A.R.

11:17 AM

@CowperKettle what's the green number?

Teal? I dunno

How do women tell apart different shades of the same color?

It feels more unnecessary than a geography exam.

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. yandex.ru/covid19/stat?utm_source=main_title&geoId=225

It's recoveries

My nephew-twice-removed is having a covid now.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle You think in both of them? Hmm.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha yep

@CowperKettle Well the two charts together look as fake as Trump's education

tchrist

12:12 PM

@M.A.R. Tetrachromacy.

tchrist

12:22 PM

@CowperKettle You mean your great-great-nephew (sometimes called your great grandnephew)? That's one of your sibling's children's children's son! How old are you that this can have happened? :)

CowperKettle

1:18 PM

@tchrist No, he is the son of my mother's brother's son.

Or something like that.

CowperKettle

1:49 PM

RegDwigнt

2:03 PM

British sense of humour.

All those other countries at the bottom whose daily deaths have gone up tenfold since April are not pushing the toll higher at all.

It's clearly Europe, whose deaths now are lower than in April.

Vote Farage!

Matt E. Эллен

I'll tell you this: If I wasn't alive to day, I wouldn't be at risk of catching CoViD 19

M.A.R.

2:19 PM

@CowperKettle not gonna lie, reminds me of the endometrial cycle

Doesn't help that I'm studying hormones now

CowperKettle

> Ahmadreza Djalali, a scholar in disaster medicine who has dual Iranian–Swedish nationality, is nearing the end of a week of solitary confinement at Evin prison in Tehran, where he has been held since 2016. He is expected to be transferred to Rajai Shahr prison, west of Tehran, on 1 December, where the execution could be carried out. This information is contained in a letter dated 24 November that carries the name of Mohammad Barae, understood to be a judge in Iran’s legal system.

Same as Russia - spymania, only in Russia we only jail scientists for many years. We do not kill them yet.

CowperKettle

2:35 PM

@M.A.R. I started a number of Wikipedia articles about hormones in Russian, but of course I've forgotten all about them, they are too complex.

I was reading up on different steroid hormones, and creating articles as I read.

I recall there was some interesting predisposition of some women in the Caucasus to have facial hair because of a high distribution of a genetic variation that made a particular enzyme less active.

tchrist

@CowperKettle Oh I see. I have those, too. Your mother's brother is your uncle, and your uncle's son is your (first) cousin, and your cousin's son is your first cousin once removed. They call me "uncle" though because of the once-removed bit makes us of different generations removed from our common ancestors who are my grandparents and their great-grandparents.

CowperKettle

> Machine-learning algorithms are capable of differentiating schizophrenia spectrum disorders and mood disorders using Facebook activity alone over a year in advance of hospitalization. nature.com/articles/s41537-020-00125-0

> SSD were more likely to express negative emotions compared to HV (P < 0.01). MD used more words related to biological processes (blood/pain) compared to HV (P < 0.01). The height and width of photos posted by SSD and MD were smaller (P < 0.01) than HV.

> MD photos contained more blues and less yellows (P < 0.01). Closer to hospitalization, use of punctuation increased (SSD vs HV), use of negative emotion words increased (MD vs. HV), and use of swear words increased (P < 0.01) for SSD and MD compared to HV.

tchrist

@CowperKettle That looks like some toppled chess piece that''s lying on its side. Perhaps a bishop.

Or did I just just now fail your crazy-person Rorschach test? :)

tchrist

2:53 PM

A man is more statistically likely to be related to his sister's sons than to his own.

Even if he is not a Targaryen or a Lannister. :)

Matt E. Эллен

3:04 PM

@tchrist I don't have sisters or sons. I must be related to noöne

tchrist

@RegDwigнt Pitching for the Ferengi again, eh?

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle What was he imprisoned for?

@RegDwigнt A Vote for Farage is a Vote for British Facism.

Faheem Mitha

3:33 PM

theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/03/…

tchrist

3:48 PM

Mid-Atlantic English is all wet.

tchrist

4:02 PM

If grover is a big heraldic patch of particolored squirrel fur, and Cleveland a countryside riven by clefts and cliffs, then why did Grover Cleveland wear a coonskin cap on that fateful foxhunt that plunged him into the interregnal abyss?

Not to be confused with a coon skincap.

Nor with the caps of the kin of the coons.

Robusto

4:43 PM

What physical principles really enable airplanes to fly? The Bernoulli Effect? Newton's 2nd Lat of Motion? Newton's 3rd Law of Motion? It's complicated. And nobody really knows for sure.

Matt E. Эллен

It's the law of unintended consequences paired with the laws of attraction

Robusto

Software follows the law of unintended consequences. Now more than ever, what with everyone rushing to turn all decision-making over to neural networks.

Mitch

10:49 PM

@tchrist That's silly. Mid-Atlantic English is the English spoken in the Azores.

Cerberus

11:13 PM

@Mitch That's not quite the middle, is it?

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…