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tchrist
tchrist
12:00 AM
@Mitch Yes, it's in the OED2 CD.
They haven't updated the online versions for OED3 yet.
> There was no answer but a soft hiss, as of intaken breath.
> But I do not think you are holden to go to Cirith Ungol, of which he has told you less than he knows. That much I perceived clearly in his mind. Do not go to Cirith Ungol!
> We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.
> Eärendil found not Tuor nor Idril, nor came he ever on that journey to the shores of Valinor, defeated by shadows and enchantment, driven by repelling winds, until in longing for Elwing he turned homeward towards the coast of Beleriand. And his heart bade him haste, for a sudden fear had fallen on him out of dreams; and the winds that before he had striven with might not now bear him back as swift as his desire.
> Nine ships there were: four for Elendil, and for Isildur three, and for Anárion two; and they fled before the black gale out of the twilight of doom into the darkness of the world. And the deeps rose beneath them in towering anger, and waves like unto mountains moving with great caps of writhen snow bore them up amid the wreckage of the clouds, and after many days cast them away upon the shores of Middle-earth.
> They lit a fire in a hollow, down among the roots of a spreading hawthorn, tall as a tree, writhen with age; but hale in every limb. Buds were swelling at each twig's tip.
He doesn't really use any old-style forms The Lord of the Rings, and very few in his older works posthumously empublished.
Except for those very, very old bits of his writing that were written in what CRRT calls "the archaic mode".
Such as his earliest drafts of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin, or of that city's fall.
Like this:
> Morn was it when they reached the hither bank and high noon saw them
yet passing in long-strung lines and wading slowly the shallow places of
the swift-running stream. Here doth it widen out and fare down narrow
channels filled with boulders atween long spits of shingle and stones less
great. Now did Naugladur slip from his burdened horse and prepare to
get him over, for the armed host of the vanguard had climbed already the
further bank, and it was great and sheer and thick with trees, and the
That's old-style.
"Here doth it widen out and fare down narrow channels"
> Then did he unloose the necklace, and he gazed in wonder at it -and
beheld the Silmaril, even the jewel he won from Angband and gained
undying glory by his deed; and he said: “Never have mine eyes beheld
thee O Lamp of Faery burn one half so fair as now thou dost, set in gold
and gems and the magic of the Dwarves”; and that necklace he caused to
be washed of its stains, and he cast it not away, knowing nought of its
power, but bore it with him back into the woods of Hithlum.
 
tchrist
tchrist
12:34 AM
> After seven journeys lo! sleep took them
on a night of stars when they nigh had stridden
to those lands beloved that long had known
Funding aforetime. At first morning
the white arrows of the wheeling sun
gazed down gladly on green hollows
and smiling slopes that swept before them.
> Only Gandalf had shaken his head and said nothing. Dwarves had not passed that way for many years, but Gandalf had, and he knew how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret after the battle of the Mines of Moria.
Just a few of the older past participles.
In olden days when danger had thriven and dragons had driven.
> Some I am told listen to the complaints of those that are punished or chidden, and hear their tales and feign to take their part, and this seems to me a quaint and merry service.
Fie on those punished or chidden.
> In a cup outcarven on the cold hillside,
whose broken brink was bleakly fringed
with bended bushes bowed in anguish
from the North-wind's knife, beneath them far
the feasting camp of their foes was laid;
the fiery flare of fuming torches,
and black bodies in the blaze they saw
crossing countlessly, and cries they heard
and the hollow howling of hungry wolves.
"outcarven"
> All about them as they lay hung the darkness, hollow and immense, and they were oppressed by the loneliness and vastness of the dolven halls and endlessly branching stairs and passages. The wildest imaginings that dark rumour had ever suggested to the hobbits fell altogether short of the actual dread and wonder of Moria.
"dolven"
> No blade would bite on the bonds he wore,
though Funding felt for the forged knife
of dwarfen steel, his dagger prized,
that at waist he wore awake or sleeping,
whose edge would eat through iron noiseless
as a clod of clay is cleft by the share.
"dwarfen" is not a past participle. :)
Here's proof that he used "elven-" not as an adjective but as a genitive plural noun: 
Elven-birds      elven-glass      elven-lore       elven-sight
elven-blade      elven-grace      Elven-lore       Elven-sight
elven-blood      elven-grey       elven-maid       elven-smiths
Elven-blood      Elven-halls      Elven-maid       Elven-smiths
elven-boat       elven-harpers    elven-maids      elven-song
Elven-boat       elven-hoods      Elven-maids      elven-speech
elven-bow        elven-horns      elven-mail       Elven-speech
elven-bows       Elven-host       elven-men        Elven-stars
 
Mitch
Mitch
12:49 AM
I feel like maybe he missed some
 
tchrist
tchrist
So those are all "The X of the Elves" except maybe for elven-fair and elven-wise.
 
Mitch
Mitch
so:
hobbits = shropshire
dwarves = jews
 
tchrist
tchrist
Tsk, but yes, I see you listened.
Here are the singulars: 
elf-armour    elf-fountains Elf-lady      Elf-matd      Elf-spett
Elf-armour    elf-friend    Elf-lands     elf-men       elf-stone
elf-banes     Elf-friend    elf-languages elf-name      Elf-stone
elf-cake      elf-friends   Elf-languages Elf-name      Elf-strain
elf-caves     Elf-friends   elf-latin     elf-prince    elf-sword
elf-child     elf-guards    Elf-latin     Elf-prince    elf-tongue
Elf-child     Elf-haven     Elf-Latin     elf-princes   Elf-tongue
elf-children  Elf-havens    elf-letters   elf-queen     Elf-tower
Elf-way, Elven-way.
@Mitch Remember what he said to the Nazi!!
> In the unsent letter, Tolkien made the point that "Aryan" was a linguistic term, denoting speakers of Indo-Iranian languages, and stated that "if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people."
 
Mitch
Mitch
@tchrist I thought that was Charlie Chaplin who said that
bad old edit
hobbits = shropshire
dwarves = jews
men = ??
elves = finns?
orcs = saxons
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Mitch Harry Chapin or Woody Guthrie?
@Mitch No, the Rohirrim were the Saxon calques.
 
Mitch
Mitch
12:55 AM
good saxons?
 
tchrist
tchrist
But had they lived on a fertile savannah.
 
Mitch
Mitch
anglo saxons
 
tchrist
tchrist
No such thing.
 
Mitch
Mitch
sure
 
tchrist
tchrist
There were Anglish and there were Saxons, there were Yutes and there were Fritzes.
Or whatever they called the lowland invaders.
 
Mitch
Mitch
12:57 AM
Yutes? Yutes? Oh... Youths!
 
tchrist
tchrist
Frieslanders?
 
Mitch
Mitch
I can't keep them all straight
 
tchrist
tchrist
The Yutes were the Éotas, the Jootes.
Jutes
The Jutes (), Iuti, or Iutæ (Danish: Jyde, Old English: Ēotas) were one of the Anglo-Saxon tribes who settled in England after the departure of the Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic nations. The Jutes are believed to have originated from what is now the Jutland Peninsula (called Iutum in Latin) and part of the North Frisian coast, consisting of the mainland of Denmark, Southern Schleswig (Germany) and North Frisia (Germany). The Jutes invaded and settled in southern Britain in the late fourth century during the Migration period, as part of a larger wave...
Oh they were the Fritzen then.
Iuti.
From the Jutting Land.
Where the wild strawberries bloom.
 
Mitch
Mitch
so they were from the area of Denmark but not North German Danes?
 
tchrist
tchrist
I thought Frisian was Dutch?
So confuse.
 
Mitch
Mitch
1:01 AM
no I'm pretty sure that though the Frisians and Dutch are pretty close... Frisians were...
 
tchrist
tchrist
 
Mitch
Mitch
Dutch were old low franconian
 
tchrist
tchrist
old?
Frenkies?
 
Mitch
Mitch
I think yes.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Frenkles.
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:01 AM
Frisian is supposedly the closest language to English.
 
tchrist
tchrist
I've never come to peace with the whole Frankish bit.
 
Mitch
Mitch
and plattdeutsch was neither frisian nor dutch (though all obviously west Germanic with German and Hoch Deutsch
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Actually, we're where Frisians, Saxons, and Franks mingled.
 
tchrist
tchrist
> One rhyme demonstrates the palpable similarity between Frisian and English: "Butter, bread and green cheese is good English and good Frisian," which is pronounced more or less the same in both languages (West Frisian: "Bûter, brea en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk.")
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Or not mingled.
 
tchrist
tchrist
1:03 AM
Frysk!
 
Robusto
Robusto
Decide for yourself.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto I love that series
 
tchrist
tchrist
Franks are most apt to mingle at the hot-dog stand.
 
Robusto
Robusto
It sounds no farther off than Scots.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Lalland not High.
 
Mitch
Mitch
1:04 AM
scots is pretty...distinct
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I didn't know Frisian was still spoken in Denmark.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Lalland Scots is a Germanic tongue, Highlander a Keltic one.
Pardon me, low-land escotch.
 
Mitch
Mitch
I'm surprised French is so Romance, given Charlemagne (or his court) spoke precursor to Dutch.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Escotch, escutcheon?
 
Robusto
Robusto
@tchrist I was thinking of the Border country, including both Scots & English.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:05 AM
France is not the successor to Charlemagne's empire!!
 
tchrist
tchrist
Frisian languages
The Frisian (, ) languages are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closest living language group to the Anglic languages; the two groups make up the Anglo-Frisian languages group and together with the Low German dialects these form the North Sea Germanic languages. However, modern English and Frisian are not mutually intelligible, nor are Frisian languages intelligible among themselves, due to independent linguistic innovations and...
@Cerberus Don't tell them that. :)
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Don't believe that drivel.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Then let us pity poor Orlando at Roncesvalles.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus well...
not all of it
 
tchrist
tchrist
Or whatever that is in Frankish.
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:07 AM
@Cerberus Then shouldn't you be calling him Carolus Magnus, not Charlemagne?
 
tchrist
tchrist
Chanson de Roland
La Chanson de Roland est un poème épique et une chanson de geste du XIe siècle attribuée parfois, sans certitude, à Turold (la dernière ligne du manuscrit dit : Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet). Neuf manuscrits nous sont parvenus, dont un, le manuscrit d'Oxford du début du XIIe siècle, le plus ancien et le plus complet, est en anglo-normand. Ce dernier, identifié en 1835, est considéré par les historiens comme le manuscrit d'autorité. C'est donc lui que l'on désigne quand on parle sans autre précision de la Chanson de Roland. La Chanson de Roland comporte 4 002 vers (dans sa version la…
"Roland" just isn't half so cool as "Orlando".
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto Oops!
Stupid English.
In Dutch, we call him Karel de Grote.
 
Robusto
Robusto
That's why we go over this stuff.
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Cerberus Big Chuck?
 
Robusto
Robusto
Indeed.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:22 AM
I suppose so.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Repeating characters in title (65): Grammar items helpppppppppppppppppppppppppp by Ture Ture on english.SE
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:43 AM
> Gregorian Champ the title bestowed upon the monk who can hold a note the longest.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@tchrist Different, though not so very different.
Tolkien slurs his speech a bit.
Interesting interview.
As things problematic to historical continuity, he mentions tobacco and...bellows.
 
tchrist
tchrist
1:57 AM
@Cerberus Hemumbleseven.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@tchrist Indeed.
And he speaks fast.
There are a few words here and there which I must let pass.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Heh.
Yeah, it ran blurry now and then.
Sometimes I despair of non-Germanic ESL students ever learning real English. Their source materials are so fictitious in presentation of actual English.
0
A: "You'll be hoping for a bit more from the new player, I suppose." Why the future continuous?

tchristThis is not the future tense Given your: You will be hoping for a bit more from the new player, I suppose. It is critical that one understand that there is nothing whatsoever in that sentence that is in any way “in the future”. It’s all right now, and indeed is all in the present tense where an...

 
Cerberus
Cerberus
They manage eventually.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Should I just give up?
It is not saying that "I predict that in future times, you are going to hope a bit more from the new player then."
I wonder whether he's Russian. Russian uses several curious ways to express the future.
I should mutter placid placations of future placebos. :)
I know they all get taught in their ESL books that "will be VERBing" is the "future continuous". It often does no harm. But it seems especially problematic here.
I know you'll be disagreeing with my tone. I'm sorry, and welcome your improvements.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Now, be fair.
 
tchrist
tchrist
2:05 AM
jinx
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Hah.
Will is generally associated with the future, but it has other uses.
Is how I would put it to that asker.
 
tchrist
tchrist
It does. And ESL students never get taught those.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Are you sure?
I think we did in high school.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Not at all.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I think we learned will could be used for habits and volitions as well.
 
tchrist
tchrist
2:07 AM
Yes, but you're a native Dutch speaker. No future tense there either,.
Right, like "Will you please help?"
I have to go on long errands, picking up curbside stuff.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Yes.
Adios!
@tchrist Oh, I see now the video has subtitles.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Word of the day: sucking chest wound
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
But I'm already halfway through; I will do without them.
(Will can also express a promise.)
(Which is not too different from describing the future.)
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:28 AM
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle What's funny is that the graphic is in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry (c. 1100, well before Middle English) and the language itself is more like Early Modern English.
 
Mitch
Mitch
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
 
Mitch
Mitch
all the differences of the post proto/pre-modern germanic dialects
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Nice table.
 
Mitch
Mitch
2:49 AM
one easy table you can convert from one language to another
sort of
not really
 
tchrist
tchrist
3:05 AM
@CowperKettle The frauds always give themselves away with their bad language. :) We don't inflect speak following dost thou any more than we do so following do you.
@Mitch What's OF vs OLF?
 
Mitch
Mitch
OF is Old Frisian
 
tchrist
tchrist
But Middle English didn't use do that way. Shakespeare himself barely did in Early Modern English.
 
Mitch
Mitch
OLF is Old Low Franconian the precursor to Dutch
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Mitch Yeah I couldn't resolve the F to just one thing that worked both ways.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Other languages still use it not so.
 
tchrist
tchrist
3:09 AM
@Cerberus Still use not what thing?
What thing still use not other languages?
 
Mitch
Mitch
It's just comedy
 
tchrist
tchrist
Comity is good.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
3:31 AM
@tchrist Do.
 
tchrist
tchrist
> Some form of auxiliary "do" occurs in all West Germanic languages except Afrikaans.[9]:12 It is generally accepted that the past tense of Germanic weak verbs (in English, -ed) was formed from a combination of the infinitive with a past tense form of "do", as exemplified in Gothic.[9]:12
> The origins of the construction in English are debated: some scholars argue it was already present in Old English, but not written due to stigmatization.[9]:13 Scholars disagree whether the construction arose from the use of "do" as a lexical verb in its own right, or whether periphrastic "do" arose from a causative meaning of the verb or vice versa.[9]:23
> Examples of auxiliary "do" in Old English writing appear to be limited to its use in a causative sense, which is parallel to the earliest uses in other West Germanic languages.[9]:24 Others argue that the construction arose either via the influence of Celtic speakers[10] or that the construction arose as a form of creolization when native speakers addressed foreigners and children.[9]:13
> Linguistic Purism in Action: How Auxiliary Tun was Stigmatized in Early New High German
> The auxiliary do (tun) is one of the most-discussed constructions in West Germanic. In German, there is a striking opposition between modern standard German, where the construction is virtually ungrammatical and considered to be "sub-standard" by most speakers, whilst, as this book shows, the construction is attested in all modern dialects as well as historic stages since 1350.

In answering why auxiliary tun is ungrammatical in modern standard German, it is shown that the stigmatization of tun was caused by prescriptive grammarians in the 16th-18th century. Furthermore it is shown that t…
I'm too weak in Germanic languages to say much, but I'm sure I was never taught to use it that way in German.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
3:56 AM
@tchrist They'd have to show examples.
But, yes, in Dutch it sounds childish.
I think it is only found in imperatives, with the adverb maar "but, just".
> Doe maar lopen.
"Do just walk."
Perhaps it is used by some dialects or very low sociolects in some other situations as well.
It is very, very bad Dutch.
We use it jocularly, as one casually imitates groups to mock them.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus but it is used
I had thought that English was the only one that did it
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Well, it is not used in the way English does.
But yes.
 
 
1 hour later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
5:20 AM
 
Xanne
Xanne
6:13 AM
I didn’t realize Africa was so big,
 
 
1 hour later…
Mr_Green
Mr_Green
7:14 AM
Hello everyone!
I want to know what is the word for a person who thinks others can change them?
 
Mr_Green
Mr_Green
7:38 AM
I asked here
0
Q: What is the word for a person who thinks/afraid others can change them?

Mr_GreenTo give some context, A person believes somethings (for example religious practices) but if someone tries to prove that those beliefs are wrong, the person gets into defensive mode - and can even burst with anger or get ready to fight. So, this is a person who wants to protect his/her beliefs and...

single-word-requests word-choice
 
 
1 hour later…
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
8:40 AM
@Xanne and,
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> The car-sized Perseverance rover has roughly the same dimensions as Curiosity: it's about 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall (about 3 meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and 2.2 meters tall).
It will land very soon.
It weighs 100 kg more though
Probably the largest Mars rover ever.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
9:14 AM
I've never heard of this gentleman before, but he sounds like he was quite a guy.
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (Spanish pronunciation: [feðeˈɾiko ðel saˈɣɾaðo koɾaˈθon de xeˈsuz ɣaɾˈθi.a ˈloɾka]; 5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca (English: gar-SEE-ə LOR-kə), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a group consisting of mostly poets who introduced the tenets of European movements (such as symbolism, futurism, and surrealism) into Spanish literature. He is believed to have been killed by Nationalist forces at the beginning...
Someone just quoted him on a TV show I was watching.
 
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
11:28 AM
@FaheemMitha I heard of him since childhood
Today it's minus 18 C
 
 
1 hour later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
12:40 PM
Oh, I never knew Lorca was homosexual. That was not mentioned when I heard about him.
He was killed by Spanish Nazis
There was a block of buildings in Yekaterinburg where "Spanish children" were settled, who were sent to the USSR to save them from the civil war.
 
Johan Larsson
Johan Larsson
1:30 PM
user image
4
 
Færd
Færd
1:45 PM
It's kinda ugly and potentially dangerous to see people are so gleeful over Twitter banning Trump. Silicon Valley megalocompanies arbitrating the circulation of speech to the triumphant cheers of the "liberals"? Gimme a break.
Liberalism emptied of its meaning.
Was Trump less dangerous when he was boasting about bombing 52 Iranian cultural sites on Twitter than he is now? Gimme a break.
Didn't mean to sound so angry. :)
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
2:26 PM
@Færd Have a break, have a Kit-Kat
But yeah, the last year has made everything else but religious alignment (and an absurdly analog version of that), approval of Trump, and denial of science lose nuance.
It doesn't matter what liberal or conservative meant, in 2020 it was whether you're on the religious or atheist side, the anti-vax or pro-vax side, and whether you yell at others because of their hate or love of Trump.
The best change 2021 can bring is to give back the labels some meaning.
 
Robusto
Robusto
3:26 PM
@Færd Yeah, but the Parler users are trying to cancel the United States, violently.
 
tchrist
tchrist
3:36 PM
in This Is Fine, 1 hour ago, by Wipqozn
"We need to ensure Nazis have a place to plan violent riots! It's the most important thing /"
 
Robusto
Robusto
Haha.
@tchrist This woman who is in my online gaming posse says her father actually believes antifa were responsible for the sacking of Congress Wednesday.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@CowperKettle Is he very famous, then?
 
Robusto
Robusto
@FaheemMitha Pretty famous if you're aware of Spanish literature.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@Færd Well, public discourse shouldn't regulated by private power in the first place.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Although it's hard to separate that from his historical/political footprint.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
3:42 PM
Or owned. Which comes first, really. Because regulation follows from ownership, in this case.
@Robusto I don't. I've heard of Cervantes. But I think that was some time ago.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@FaheemMitha So what to do about Rupert Murdoch and his privately owned Empire of Lies?
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
In many places, even the broadcast spectrum is effectively owned and controlled by private interests.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Hence my comment about Rupert Murdoch.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@Robusto At least one can choose not to read a specific newspaper.
But it's hard to avoid a platform which everyone else uses. Network effects.
I think Nader talks (or talked) quite a lot about the broadcast issue. Though I'm not aware he was able to do anything about it.
And if you are a community type radio or TV operation, I think you have lots of problems.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@FaheemMitha Those people are free to create their own platform. What's stopping them?
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
3:45 PM
Especially if the powers that be don't approve of the content.
@Robusto Which people?
 
Robusto
Robusto
The people who want to spread outrageous lies and whip up violence on Twitter and other platforms.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@Robusto I guess they go where the people already are.
I think alternative platforms might exist. They just don't have the numbers.
A lot of people use Facebook and Twitter. For some reason.
@CowperKettle The Wikipedia page said he disappeared during the Spanish Civil War.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@FaheemMitha I don't have any use for them.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
So he was a prodigy like Keats or Schubert?
@JohanLarsson No, it's Vi.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@FaheemMitha Sadly, I don't know Spanish, so I cannot adequately assess his talent
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
3:54 PM
Though even in a community owned forum, someone would have to make the decision to toss a disruptive user. Happens all the time.
Usually it's a mod or something similar.
But really one would expect a govt official to use a govt forum.
At least, that would be the normal thing to do.
Though I suppose in the US they use the corporate news media, so why not a corporate service like Twitter?
Corporations are so ubiquitous nobody notices any more.
But even on SE removing a user for violations can be controversial.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Just like a huge corporation that has installed water pipes to each house is a monopoly, because competitors cannot install many parallel lines of pipes, so Twitter is an information monopoly because competitors cannot all have the same degree of audience coverage. Hence, Twitter must be bridled in its censorship efforts, for the sake of the general community.
It's quite simple. And has nothing to do with Trump, Putin or Al Qaeda.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@CowperKettle I don't know Spanish either.
But even community operations are not so transparent in practice either. At least, they not are not exempt from criticism. E.g. The Debian Project.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
4:10 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, potentially bad keyword in body (96): Looking for an analogy please by Orit Tsaban on english.SE
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Employer: Your biggest weakness?
Me: I never know when to quit.
Employer: That’s ok, you’re hired.
Me: I quit.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle The difference is that people need water. They don't need Twitter.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
People don't need water. They can go and buy it somewhere, and haul to their apartments, or install a communal water pump in the yard.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle The analogy holds true for Twitter. They can go somewhere else.
@Cerberus: The Tolkien recording is difficult to parse, but not impossible. You have to get a sense of his rhythms. When he knows what he's going to say, he rushes through the inconsequential words at great speed, and then slows for important things he wants to stress. And when he is thinking of something to say he punctuates his discourse with a variety of drawn-out umms and emms and errrs, followed by a very quick sequence of actual words.
I find it amusing that the interviewer keeps pressing Tolkien to apply a Christian tradition to TLotR, which doesn't exist and which would have to be read into it.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:41 PM
@Robusto But in reality both are monopolies, and must be regulated
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle Microsoft was a genuine monopoly at one time, and it was never regulated.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
They tried to move to "Parler", but both Apple and Android banned Parler. It's censorship
@Robusto Which is bad. Monopolies must be broken up and regulated
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle If the Supreme Court has determined that a baker can refuse wedding cakes to gay couples, I don't see where they can force Twitter to service Trump's hatred and lies and incitements to violence against the government.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Cistercian numerals
The medieval Cistercian numerals, or "ciphers" in nineteenth-century parlance, were developed by the Cistercian monastic order in the early thirteenth century at about the time that Arabic numerals were introduced to northwestern Europe. They are more compact than Arabic or Roman numerals, with a single character able to indicate any integer from 1 to 9999. Digits are based on a horizontal or vertical stave, with the position of the digit on the stave indicating its place value (units, tens, hundreds or thousands). These digits are compounded on a single stave to indicate more complex numbers....
> They are more compact than Arabic or Roman numerals, with a single character able to indicate any integer from 1 to 9999.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle Depends on what you mean by "single character" ... looks like they're just sequences of two-digit numbers connected by ligatures.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:50 PM
They look complicated
I downloaded a book by Lenin, but turns out it was recorded by an amateur for the amateur audiobook project.
There is such a drastic difference.
It's very hard to listen. The pronunciation is so anemic.
Professional book enunciators make listening a pleasure.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle Prefer narrators to book enunciators. ^_^
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Ah! I was too lazy to look up in the dictionary
 
tchrist
tchrist
5:17 PM
5
A: Why is "I can't get any satisfaction" a double-negative too, according to Steven Pinker?

John LawlerThe problem is that "Double Negative" doesn't have any specific meaning. Like "Split Infinitive", it's a product of popular grammatical mythology, not logic. First, there is a lot more negation around than one might have suspected. As it says here, ... examples include syntactic constructions (T...

 
user 85795
user 85795
–(–a) = a
 
Robusto
Robusto
Wow, NBC News is letting the interns write the news stories now. Check it out.
3
> Around 10 minutes later, Brown said the suspect killed a security guard in a nearby apartment apartment building, before shooting a 77-year-old woman who was retrieving her mail in the head. Brown said the senior was in "critical condition."
Maybe she should have gone to the mailbox instead?
> After stealing a red Toyota from a man at gunpoint, Nightengale shot a 20-year-old man as he robbed a convenience story in the city's south side at 3 p.m., Brown said.
Who was robbing the convenience store?
> The University of Chicago later confirmed the victim was "a current student" on Twitter.
Wait, he was a student on Twitter?
I guess writing isn't as important as it used to be for aspiring journalists.
 
Johan Larsson
Johan Larsson
5:38 PM
Is bisonman in jail?
 
Robusto
Robusto
I think so.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Neural network generates images based on textual description
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle OK, but I only see arms on one of those chairs, the one that looks like a baby carrier. Back to the drawing board, AI.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
 
Mitch
Mitch
6:30 PM
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto It's a bout a story, not a store.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@tchrist @Cerberus @Robusto side by side comparison of those 'north sea' languages
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto Yes, 95% is not that hard to understand, maybe 1% is very hard.
All in all, it's easy enough to follow whatever he's saying, a few exceptions excepted.
@Mitch Cool, I'll listen to it when I get back.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@CowperKettle The comparison between the effort and complexity of laying down pipes on one hand and share of attention to internet 'text' sources just doesn't hold at all. Yes, it's almost impossible to have more than one energy source through pipes (but there's elecricity through wires, oil or coal that is delivered, solar direct from the roof, etc).
For news sources, there's reading books, or newspapers or listening to TV or (online twitter or instagram or facebook or discord or reddit... and others... all competing for time. None of those is a monopoly and there's lots of room for competition
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
If the 117 variant is really 60% more infective, then the usual measures will not work against it, and strict shutdowns will have to be performed.
 
Xanne
Xanne
6:49 PM
@CowperKettle Yes, a sole supplier with a government-sanctioned monopoly is a common carrier who cannot refuse service to any customer.
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Mitch We call those ones the Norsy langs.
Because North Sea is too hard for to have the mouth say, or to have the mousy even.
 
tchrist
tchrist
7:10 PM
@Mitch Okay this is weird, the Fryskers definitely raise the first vowel in their ‹ei› digraph or graphemic sequence as heard in their seis word’s pronunciation from its standard written-in-the-Roman-script interpretation of some kind of "e" to some kind of "a", perhaps [sɐɪ̯s].
This is exactly the same tendency seen in native speakers from the capital city of Lisbon, who pronounce a written ‹ei› as though it had been written ‹ai›, making leite (milk) sound like the English word light when leite is spoken by Lisboetas.
Brazilians pronounce it [ˈl̪eɪ̯tʃɪ], which is more like Spanish does where it is leche.
The mapping of orthography to pronunciation in the Dutchy languages takes some time to get used to.
Many digraphs you aren't used to.
 
tchrist
tchrist
7:31 PM
That's pretty interesting in that each of the three is speaking nothing but their own language. It's a curious conversation.
And yes, you can read it because it's subtitled.
They can understand each other. We simply cannot do that with anybody else speaking English, let alone with two other languages to make a trio that is mostly mutually intelligible with patience and experience.
It doesn't work out so well when then add a fourth person speaking French. :)
 
Mitch
Mitch
@tchrist French and Romanian are too 'far'.
@tchrist what was the answer at the end?
 
tchrist
tchrist
We used to do this in grad school. We'd get together at the lunch table and the only rule was you had to speak only Romance.
@Mitch Laquelle?
 
Mitch
Mitch
I bet the Scandinavians can do the same
 
tchrist
tchrist
The end of the French one or the Spinach one?
 
Mitch
Mitch
7:46 PM
@tchrist can the italian/spanish/or portuguese understand spoken french
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Mitch They're trying. :)
 
Mitch
Mitch
Also Europe is weird - even if you don't have explicit training in a foreign language, there is some exposure to them, so it's hard to tell if you get some intelligibility from familiarity or if the foreign language is just not different enough.
 
tchrist
tchrist
It's very often 3 to 1.
 
 
1 hour later…
Færd
Færd
9:00 PM
@tchrist From the comments:
> As a spanish native I Understand:
100% - Spanish
95% - Portuguese
75% Italian
-99% French
Pretty funny.
Nice game. And the Spanish guy sounds so sexy.
 
Robusto
Robusto
9:40 PM
@Cerberus Ha, I didn't even notice that one. And the hits just keep on coming.
 
Færd
Færd
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Interesting. Now I wonder if anyone actually learns Flemish as a second language.
@Færd So inciting a riot with lies is free speech? Let's get Chomsky on the phone and see what he thinks.
 
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