English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

00:10

@Gigili If you expect consistency from me I'm going to have to ask for a raise.

tchrist

00:34

@Cerberus Haha, because they'd trust him? Really?

We came within a fifth of degree of not being negative, but so much for that idea.

All downhill from here.

CowperKettle

00:53

Security dilemma

The security dilemma, also referred to as the spiral model, is a term used in international relations and refers to a situation in which, under anarchy, actions by a state intended to heighten its security, such as increasing its military strength, committing to use weapons or making alliances, can lead other states to respond with similar measures, producing increased tensions that create conflict, even when no side really desires it.The term was first coined by the German scholar John H. Herz in his 1951 book Political Realism and Political Idealism. At the same time British historian Herbert...

The security dilemma is a key concept in international relations theory, in particular among realist scholars to explain how security-seeking states can end up in conflict.

Just like the ant mill.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle "In partnership": I believe it was really developed by Biontech.

But that is good.

@tchrist Perhaps enough to put the programme on hold for a while.

It can always be resumed later.

tchrist

@Cerberus Notably.

Cerberus

It is imminence that will make Israel act.

As long as Israel thinks it will still have time to intervene later, it will not intervene now.

Robusto

01:31

@Cerberus Israel always has time to intervene later. They have submarines with nuclear missiles aboard.

The thing they can't handle is a nuclear first strike, because it doesn't take a whole lot of nukes to reduce them to a cityless fleet of subs. That's why the idea of a nuclear capable enemy bent on their destruction is anathema to them.

Cerberus

@Robusto Well, that is exactly what I meant.

But it does not "always" have time to intervene: once Iran has the bomb, that time is past.

Robusto

@Cerberus I guess we're both agreeing.

Cerberus

I think that is correct.

So the Israeli and Iranian governments have each their own logic.

Robusto

01:48

And it's all madness.

This is apropos, even today:

TRAILER - The Bedford Incident (1965)

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RegDwigнt

02:06

Home Made Electric Clavichord Part II!

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Robusto

02:22

@RegDwigнt So you do exist. But I blinked, and I missed you.

Cool instrument, though. Sounds kinda like a koto when he's not using effects.

Cerberus

Funny machine.

Make funny sound.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, mostly non-latin answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (139): Word meaning doing something just cause you can or have the abilitity to do it by funny peepee person on english.SE

Robusto

@tchrist: You might want to take Smokey up on his latest.

funny peepee person not so funny

Cerberus

02:58

I'm sure it will disappear very soon.

Robusto

When it does I hope fpp will go with it.

tchrist

Mirabile visu.

Or unseen.

I backtranslated the Andersaxon into Romish English again. and put it in a separate section at the bottom. It's easier to write but harder to read; the Sachsen version is harder to write but easier to read. Funny that.

1

A: What is the difference between the "history" and "historical-change" tags?

On tallying the toll of years We don’t know; there likely is no unsameness for you to tease out between them. Did you see how some seven-and-fifty of those askings come clad with not one but indeed both your two tags? As with all ELU’s tags, our folk have always put these to a bubbling hotchpot...

It's probably just that I reach too quickly for Rome is all.

Plus the Romulan English is easier to write because there aren't things you can't say.

Tell, tale, told, toll, tally.

Cerberus

03:33

Hah.

You did allow yourself some Germanic words...

Are they truly unavoidable?

tchrist

@Cerberus I doubt that they are.

Was in a hurry.

11

Q: Is there a distinction between “victuals” and “vittles” that exists in writing but not in speech?

As I set out on this project I noticed that there are already several questions at EL&U referring to the words here in question. But what can I do? In Merriam-Webster’s entry for victuals, it is remarked that the word vittles “sounds like it might be an alteration of the plural victuals but… actu...

Cerberus

@tchrist It will be rather difficult, though.

tchrist

@Cerberus You can never extirpate the grammatical words, only the lexical ones.

Cerberus

Avoiding articles especially proves difficult.

tchrist

For only lexical items have synonyms, not functional ones.

Cerberus

03:35

Additionally conjunctions.

tchrist

Many of those are functional.

Only the fancier ones have synonyms.

Cerberus

Terms exist avoiding copulae.

tchrist

Feels funny.

Cerberus

Positive!

Avoiding praepositions fails super poorly.

tchrist

Things like articles and particles, pronouns and copulae, and many adpositions pre and post, are words purely grammatical, and brook no swaps, nor abide bywords.

Cerberus

03:39

Infinitives abhor strict Latinism.

tchrist

Well.

Often.

Cerberus

Infinitival particles exist exclusively Germanically.

tchrist

For you to lose your particle would leave phonus bolonus in the main slot.

Cerberus

Who?

tchrist

I guess we can -ende it.

Cerberus

03:41

It is very difficult.

And extremely unnatural.

But it is possible.

tchrist

The subect "For you to lose" has two particles and no prepositions.

Because prepositional phrases cannot be subjects. :)

Cerberus

It is the particle that I meant.

tchrist

I can't say you in Latin. I for tu reach and there art thou lying to snatch victory from the jaws of woe.

"Zu" seems even sillier in German, but don't not use it.

But for many of the Germanic lexical items I could probably find less illatinate alternatives for if I mentalized upon the subject a rate.

Cerberus

I'm sure.

tchrist

It's ten below zero and not stopping till the old thermometer explodes sending its shards twinkling to the frozen tundra below.

Cerberus

03:46

So it is articles and the particle to which seem the most difficult to work around.

More difficult even than pronouns, praepositions, conjunctions, and the verb to be.

tchrist

You cannot. You cannot try to change the grammatical terms, for they no synonyms tolerate.

Cerberus

They can be avoided in some sentences.

Using other or no determiners.

tchrist

Here, there, where; this, that, these, those: no samenames.

Cerberus

The present location could replace here.

But it is very difficult without the.

tchrist

I can't quite find doubles for the two words like both and either.

quantifiers

Cerberus

03:49

But those can be avoided.

tchrist

all, some, most, many, no

Cerberus

The total of participants = all participants.

The majority of.

tchrist

I am not compuncted to locate exchanges for the linguistic ligations and ligaments assembling sensibility from chaos.

Cerberus

A multitude of.

tchrist

Modulo the uncommon exception.

Rare, even.

Cerberus

03:51

I really think articles are the hardest.

tchrist

I still find it weird when people use contra as a preposition in English.

Cerberus

When is it ever necessary?

tchrist

No idea. I read it somewhere yesterday.

Cerberus

I would expect it to be part of a Latin phrase.

Or on its own as a noun.

tchrist

Plentiful plurals require articles?

user 85795

03:53

@Cerberus Articles of impeachment are the hardest of them all!

Cerberus

Hah!

tchrist

It was likely The Economist.

Cerberus

They did come up with one very quickly.

@tchrist Plurals encompass the totality of diction in casu.

OK some praepositions are also very difficult to avoid.

tchrist

@user85795 Which version raises fewer hackles? :)

Hm, are hackles actually countable?

Heckles aren't.

Nor jollies.

user 85795

@Cerberus Yup, "of" is unavoidable at times, imo.

tchrist

03:56

@user85795 Sachsengenitif!

user 85795

:-)

tchrist

The toll of the tally of the years is the years’ toll tally or tally told or something like that.

Whatever the subpontal troll says it is.

The trolls' bridges' tolls are tough.

America's United States.

Columbus's Washington District.

Something something Colon Washing.

Cattle are plural and partitively countable; clothes are plural and none of the rest.

Three of my cattle are missing, but not three of my clothes are missing.

Cerberus

@user85795 Indeed!

tchrist

We intuitively know that cattle are countable; they are not a mass noun. But clothes are only a mass noun and so resist being counted.

Yet both are plural.

Cerberus

Plurals encompass the diction in casu's totality.

I suppose that works...

tchrist

04:05

I'm having a realifically difficult experience mixing inflections from alternate families in the same word.

I know I know you've cliticked your phrase so it needs no genitive battles with ablatives.

It just torques my noggin for a spell is all.

A bar walks into a man.

Cerberus

Yes, nobody said anything about ugly...

user 85795

🙊🙉🙈

Writing is the painting of the voice...

tchrist

How come you can still skate in Amsterdam when it never gets very cold there?

Don't people fall through the thin ice?

You need more than a foot of ice to drive on, preferably twenty inches or more.

I can't see how it ever gets cold enough for long enough there even to go ice skating.

Plus don't your canals count as river-ice?

> Exercise extreme caution when using vehicles on ice and go with someone who’s familiar with the area. As the chart above shows, ice needs to be at least 8 inches thick to hold a small pickup ruck.

Also, don’t drive in a group. Park cars at least 50 feet apart or more and move every couple hours. Drive at a very slow speed with seatbelt off and door unlocked.

> How do you check the ice? Experts comparing it to checking the oil in your car. With a drill, make a hole. Hook the end of a tape measure on the edge and take the measurement. It’s worth bringing an ice auger to test the ice as you walk and move.

Whoa, there are ice augurs!?

Well, I guess it's less messy than hiring a haruspex.

> For new, clear ice only

UNDER 4" - STAY OFF
4" - Ice fishing or other activities on foot
5" - 7" - Snowmobile or ATV
8" - 12" - Car or small pickup
12" - 15" - Medium truck

Double the above thickness guidelines when traveling on white ice

White ice or "snow ice" is only about half as strong as new clear ice. Double the above thickness guidelines when traveling on white ice. Many factors other than thickness can cause ice to be unsafe.

That "doubling" requirement is the safe one.

How can you tell what color the ice is if your augur is auguring by night?

> Cars, pickups or SUVs should be parked at least 50 feet apart and moved every two hours to prevent sinking.

Tip: Make a hole next to the car. If water starts to overflow the top of the hole - the ice is sinking and it’s time to move the vehicle.

Try telling that to some dumb city slicker who thinks he doesn't have to move the car until the meter runs out.

> Checking ice thickness
Before heading out on ice:

Temperature, snow cover, currents, springs and rough fish all affect the relative safety of ice. Ice is seldom the same thickness over a single body of water; it can be two feet thick in one place and one inch thick a few yards away. Check the ice at least every 150 feet.

user 85795

04:27

\o @Robusto

tchrist

I love Minnesota's illustration of can ice skater at the left!

Robusto

@user85795 Hello skullpatrol

user 85795

Has Brady apologized yet?

tchrist

> What if your vehicle breaks through?

If your car or truck plunges through the ice, the best time to escape is before it sinks, not after. It will stay afloat a few seconds to several minutes depending on the airtightness of the vehicle.

Hole from vehicle going through the ice

While the car is still afloat, the best escape hatches are the side windows since the doors may be held shut by the water pressure. If the windows are blocked, use an emergency safety tool, like a spring loaded emergency hammer or an object from inside the vehicle to break the glass.

user 85795

For throwing around the trophy like he pwns it.

tchrist

04:29

> Step-by-step instructions for self-rescue
Created by the Minnesota DNR and KARE11
What should you do if you fall through the ice? First, try not to panic. This may be easier said than done, unless you have worked out a survival plan in advance. Read through these steps so that you can be prepared.

Don't remove your winter clothing. Heavy clothes won't drag you down, but instead can trap air to provide warmth and flotation. This is especially true with a snowmobile suit.
Turn toward the direction you came. That’s probably the strongest ice.

Robusto

@user85795 Yeah, that was pretty crass.

tchrist

I think I'll take my chance with the mountain lion, thank you very much.

user 85795

Humble he is not.

tchrist

Drunk.

Robusto

Well, he was a Trump supporter. What did you expect?

tchrist

04:32

@Robusto To hang from a gibbet at his window for the sport of his own crows.

user 85795

The HOF should ban him.

Robusto

@tchrist This is why I don't walk on ice, much less drive on it.

tchrist

@Robusto Nine inches is safe, if you can find it, for walking.

Robusto

@tchrist May they all face such a prospect.

@tchrist Well, what is nine inches in one area is something else farther along.

tchrist

You don't negotiate with murderous anarchists.

Robusto

04:34

Plus you never want to fall through ice on a river. The current pushes you away from the hole.

tchrist

@Robusto This is the problem. If you are not a local, and a fisherfolk, you will not know where the springs surge up.

Robusto

I've skated on lakes, but not recently. For one thing, they're too far away here. For another, they don't really freeze.

user 85795

@Robusto The HOF should build a second hall, and call it the "hall of shame" with Brady as the first inductee.

Robusto

@tchrist Did you see our patch of blue today?

tchrist

@Robusto Yes.

Robusto

04:36

@user85795 Well, it's football. There's plenty of shame to go around.

tchrist

@Robusto Not there, I shouldn't imagine.

Robusto

@tchrist I couldn't believe it. A wall of cloud and one tiny little area around the sun.

tchrist

I promise you that the lakes surrounding Lake Superior do freeze.

Robusto

I know they do.

Minnesota has two seasons. Pond hockey and mosquitoes.

tchrist

Even Texas is hitting single digits every night now. I bet they hate themselves for building houses out of papier mâché, and setting their pipes in their cardboard walls instead of coming up through the foundation like God intended.

Ft Worth had a heckuva a hundred-car pileup.

They're giving up on buses even. People are incapable of driving here except in stifling heat.

They have no plows or sanders. At all.

> “Every part of the state of Texas will face freezing conditions. That includes all the way down to Brownsville, Texas, over the coming days,” Abbott said in a press conference. “In many of those locations across the state of Texas, the high temperature for the day will be in the single digits.”

Peeps gonna be dyin of the ice monster panic.

> TOMORROW
MON 02/15
HIGH 20 F5% Precip. / 0 in
Bitterly cold. Partly cloudy. High around 20F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.

No, sweety, 20 is not "bitterly cold".

You have no idea, honest.

That's real temps right now here. In negatives. In Fahrenheit.

user 85795

04:49

More fuel for their anti-global warming campaign.

tchrist

Texans are bitter about a little chill at 20.

Colorado: I'll see yer bitter bet of 20 above and bid 20 below instead. Before wind.
Texas: 𝑭𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒔

It's already 10 below. I expect 15 or 16 below by dawn.

user 85795

We're all-in at -40.

tchrist

Las Vegas has -6. Well, the NM one.

Or maybe that's their low tonight. Hope so. Wouldn't want them already at -6.

Robusto

I just elbowed a bottle of wine off the counter while prepping tomorrow's breakfast. Geezis, what a mess. This is what happens when someone has a nightcap and doesn't put the bottle back, naming no names.

tchrist

Crash.

I hate pretty frost fractaling my windows this morning.

Robusto

04:54

It's 10° here right now.

Sposeta go down to 6.

tchrist

Robusto

And of course, the bottle crash got the cats up.

My sister lives in Minneapolis. I don't know how she stands it.

tchrist

See how balmy it is in Wisconsin's banana belt down there in the southeasternmost corner.

Robusto

@user85795 BTW, your Raiders ain't exactly Little Bo Peep.

Jack Tatum

John David Tatum (November 18, 1948 – July 27, 2010) was an American football safety who played 10 seasons from 1971 through 1980 for the Oakland Raiders and Houston Oilers in the National Football League (NFL). He was popularly known as "The Assassin" because of his playing style. Tatum was voted to three consecutive Pro Bowls (1973–1975) and was a member of one Super Bowl-winning team in his nine seasons with the Raiders. He is also known for a hit he made against New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley in a 1978 preseason game that paralyzed Stingley from the chest down. A member...

tchrist

Trust me, we never visited the branches of the family in St Paul or Duluth during winter.

So about September 1st through June 1st. :)

Robusto

04:59

Yeah. June 1st is often too early as well.

user 85795

@Robusto one of many bad boyz

The years in LA when kids were banned from wearing raiders gear at school were the worst.

CowperKettle

05:41

Navdeep Singh

06:23

A quick query:-

"When the weather is pleasant, it is nice to go on/for a picnic"

In my book for a picnic is incorrect, why?

Xanne

06:46

@NavdeepSingh They both seem a little unidiomatic to me; neither one is quite right, but not wrong either. You go to a picnic if someone else is having it.

Navdeep Singh

06:57

@Xanne Yeah, I agree. Go to a picnic also sounds correct. This question was asked in an exam and on is given as the correct answer.

Maybe on is more appropriate.. your thoughts?

CowperKettle

07:40

Got my second shot of the Sputnik V vaccine

2

Matt E. Эллен

09:12

@tchrist bal as in balance, rog as in prog rock

CowperKettle

Like social constructionism, social constructivism states that people work together to construct artifacts.

M.A.R.

10:27

@Cerberus I never said we don't want nukes, it's pretty obvious we do. But I also want a billion dollars in a big suitcase but I'm not going to get it.

And Israel should know that, with all the intelligence agents in Iran

So what if it's just a convenient excuse, which I think it is.

> The uranium used in nuclear reactors is enriched to about 4% U-235. But for nuclear bombs it must be enriched to about 90%. Under the nuclear deal, Iran is permitted to enrich uranium to 3.67% but now intends to exceed that limit.

Oh noes, we're definitely gonna get to 90% in a few weeks now!

> There is no technical barrier facing the Iranians. It is the early stages of enrichment that consume the most energy and the process becomes easier down the line. Industry data shows that more than half of the effort needed to enrich uranium to 90% is spent getting from 0.7% to 4%. When enrichment reaches 20%, the threshold for what counts as “highly enriched uranium”, and a level Iran has produced at Natanz in the past, about 90% of the work towards weapons-grade uranium is done.

That's a far cry from a bomb though. We're not gonna be hurling uranium enriched stones at the enemy.

I think there's very little chance that Iran would be able to get to 20% enrichment and the world not noticing it.

It's not like making firecrackers in a basement.

But I guess, overall, I just detest all the rhetoric in this. No authority in the world should have nukes, but now the ones that do and aren't to be trusted with it are mad that someone else might make progress.

And not just towards the bomb, I mean. They'd make trouble at every turn to ensure Iran remains an oil-selling primitive economy.

IIRC 10 and 20 percent enrichments have many uses themselves. Going above four, the only milestone is not 90.

CowperKettle

10:52

Death From Space — Gamma-Ray Bursts Explained

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I wonder if special factories could be created to quickly produce a lot of ozone and restore the ozone layer quickly in an emergency like this.

The seesaw pattern usually starts at mid-February, with the sun strong enough to warm up the Urals by noon.

It does exist at all times, but a strong pattern really starts in February.

M.A.R.

13:08

@CowperKettle Not sure, ozone is always a pollutant in the lower layers

tchrist

13:26

@MattE.Эллен Oh I never thought to use bal as in balance, only as in ball! We used to make "balrog / ball-hog" jokes as a kid.

@M.A.R. I think you have to be Iraqi to get that. Comes on a big plane.

Matt E. Эллен

@tchrist :D it's unfair to use wings of shadow to keep the ball for yourself

CowperKettle

14:16

@M.A.R. We could use Mask's rockets to deliver it to upper levels

Robusto

14:30

@CowperKettle There is. It's called The Sun. What our factories are doing is creating chemicals that deplete the ozone that it creates.

CowperKettle

15:14

archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1981-04/page/n5/mode/1up

BYTE magazine, 1981

tchrist

> Officials with the FDA have issued an EUA to Eli Lilly for the combination treatment of bamlanivimabandetesevimab for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adult and pediatric patients at high risk for severe infection.

The only hangup is that you have to be able to ask for your dose of bamlanivimabandetesevimab by singing a skat song.

Scatman (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-bop) Official Video HD -Scatman John

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@CowperKettle Dick Tracy never had it so good!

Mitch

15:36

@Robusto The first one is natural green, the second one is dyed shocking kelly green

Robusto

@Mitch The top one looks more accurate. The bottom one looks shopped.

Mitch

hm...

Robusto

Except where they dump the dye, I mean.

Mitch

cripes now I'll have to look it up

Robusto

Where they dump it is kelly green for about a block in each direction.

Mitch

15:38

Robusto

Yeah, that has been color "corrected."

Mitch

all the google images have the same fluorescent shade

it could be all of them are enhanced

Robusto

I think they are.

The dyeing of the river is actually rather underwhelming.

Mitch

so the dye in the air doesn't have the same brightness as the water

Robusto

You just can't trust images these days.

Mitch

15:40

or memory

Robusto

I trust my memory of my 20s and 30s.

Mitch

my memory says that when I first visited chicago probably early summer (?) I wondered how long lasting the dye was supposed to be the river looked so green.

Robusto

Not so the latter decade or so.

Mitch

but that was the first picture I remember

and then seeing it around Mar 17 wow eye-poppingly green like these photos

Robusto

How many of those have you seen?

Mitch

15:43

I kinda trust these pictures... why would they all bother to choose that very particular shooting in your eyes green?

@Robusto this many?

google for 'chicago river green'

the pictures match the unreality of my memory

Robusto

That one is closer to the mark.

And that is right near the dumping site. Elsewhere, not so much.

Mitch

I suppose that would be shocking to me being more used to the regular green it is.

Robusto

Now, I'm not saying there couldn't have been stunning spots where the sun hit it just right, but that would not be the norm. And it would dissipate rather quickly.

Mitch

(I've been at the Hyatt Regency a number of times, the building right at the top left.

@Robusto March in Chicago is not well known for its bright sunny days

Hairi

Hello Guys,

I received the following message from a client complaning about discrapancies in the view on a web page. Here is the sentence :

"2. when I tested the blue search box and put in Nike, I went to an anonymous co page all out of sorts, screen capture. "

What does she mean ?

Robusto

15:47

@Mitch And that's where you viewed the St. Patrick's Day celebrations from?

Also: I know where the Hyatt Regency is.

You don't have to tell me.

Mitch

@Robusto I don't think I've ever been in that area of the city during the parade

Robusto

I worked for several years in the Wrigley Building. And at 333 N. Michigan, where my office looked directly down onto the Chicago River.

Mitch

@Robusto I wasn't trying to insult your intelligence. I'm not psychic. I don't know what you know. I was just trying to give you some indication of how I have a good idea of what the color of the river usually is.

@Robusto Excellent. We may well have walked past each other if that was the late 80's early 90's.

Robusto

Wrigley on the left, 333 on the right, facing north from just below the river.

@Mitch I left Chicago for good in '85.

Now, here's another possibility. What you and those pictures saw may be newer, more spectacular dyeing events than the ones they had when I lived there. We could both be right.

Mitch

@Robusto I visited recently...the loop is really exciting now after work hours. back then it was exciting 8am-6pm and then dead

Robusto

15:54

I haven't even been in Chicago since we went to visit my mother-in-law in the hospital a couple years ago. I go back off and on, probably every couple of years, to see friends and just enjoy the city. It's a great city.

@Mitch What takes you to Chicago?

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