English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

01:37

@tchrist: In the second Vicente y Maria video, at one point she is talking about the differences and makes an assertion, but then says: Pero no meto las manos al fuego. I presume this is an idiom meaning something like the English "I don't put my foot in my mouth."

tchrist

@Robusto No no no.

Robusto

So why won't she put her hands in the fire?

tchrist

> poner las manos en el fuego

1. loc. verb. U. para asegurar la verdad y certeza de algo.

So she won't swear to it, so to speak.

Won't vouchsafe its truth.

Robusto

Oh, OK. That makes sense.

Kinda like "I believe this to be true, but I don't want to fall on my sword for it."

They're discussing what is considered afternoon and what evening in the different countries/hemispheres.

tchrist

Remember the origin of testify.

Yeah, I reacted like he did to her idea of getting up early, etc.

And it was wild that there would have been plenty of people out and about at 7am.

That....does not happen in Spain. :)

Except in Sevilla on Holy Friday, because they've all stayed up all night.

Robusto

01:46

BTW, I try to listen without the Spanish subtitles, but sometimes he speaks so fast I have to flick them on for a few frames. Like when he says, "Ehh, Maria, te voy a hacer otra pregunta, por curiosidad," It sounds like "Ehh, Maria, teyutha pregunta," and I understand he wants to ask her another question, but if I really want to get all the words I have to read them.

47. Estas son las DIFERENCIAS entre ESPAÑA y COLOMBIA 👵🏽🥐🌞 (Español con María)

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Right there.

tchrist

@Robusto Wait, there are SUBTITLES!? I had no idea!

Robusto

Yeah, in Spanish.

tchrist

Oh yeah, he runs that together something crazy.

Notice how varied all the allophones are for the elle or y griega sound that occur in that video, and from both speakers no less.

Robusto

Yeah.

tchrist

It's really no weirder than how sometimes we say didja and sometimes not.

You learn to hear those as all the same, and don't even notice it happening. Eventually you start to do it yourself.

Robusto

01:52

Exactly. If we hear an American say "I neetasha question," we know they mean "I need to ask you a question."

Because we post-process once we get the key phonemes in our ears.

tchrist

There's so much that's all in our heads.

Cerberus

Indeed.

Robusto

But when we hear that in a foreign language, we don't have enough to go on..

Cerberus

Left head is always preoccupied, it seems.

tchrist

Until it stops being a foreign language. I was worried that you might not be able to lex out some of the words, tell which word they said even if you didn't know what it meant. I'm glad to learn there are subtitles.

lex as in tokenize

Running the lexer before even getting to the parser.

Robusto

01:55

Yeah. The thing is, for the most part I get what is being said even when I don't hear all the words.

But sometimes I really want the words.

tchrist

That's also part of how we understand spoken language. The thing is, a lot of what our mind hears is predictive, so you have to build up the little Markovian expectations through enough exposure.

That way you fill in the missing bits if they get squishticated.

Robusto

Yeah, but you have to have enough filler to be predictive at all.

tchrist

Notice how casually he drops joder all over the place. It really isn't as strong as in English.

Then again, intonation might affect that too.

It's one of the weirdass words that didn't go all the way from Latin f- > h- > ∅.

Robusto

Yeah, had to look up that one, and was surprised it means "Fuck."

tchrist

I somewhere have a question asking why not.

It's a really common word.

REALLY common.

Robusto

02:00

Joder joder joder joder. Reminds me of The Song of Ice and Fire.

tchrist

9

Q: ¿Por qué no existe una palabra escrita «hoder» (en vez de la versión con «j-»)?

Se me ocurre que el verbo e interjección malsonante joder parece ser una excepción a la regla (o más bien, a la ley) que nos dice que cada palabra (que no sea cultismo) que en latín comienza una f‑ + VOCAL se ha convertido en h‑ en castellano moderno. Por ejemplo: fūmus > humo, furnus > horno, fi...

Robusto

02:45

Texas freeze shows how the rich use climate change to divide us

tchrist

@Robusto People who want to divide others will use anything they can grab at any given moment.

Mitch

03:11

Words that shouldn't exist- fingerling

Cerberus

03:27

Sounds...German.

tchrist

03:45

@Mitch What would you have in its stead? A thumbling? A chitling? A codling? A wormling? A mewling? A wrigger? A snakelet? A polliwog? A gosling? A tickling? An elver?

SmokeDetector

03:57

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, no whitespace in answer (184): What's the word for something that has a mind of its own? by Miriam on english.SE

tchrist

@Cerberus Here's a stirring immigration speech for all times, one which I should imagine you will not have heard nor read, as declaimed by a man for all seasons.

Sir Ian McKellen | Full Address and Q&A | Oxford Union

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NotThatGuy

08:54

Do all these "is there a saying in English that expresses this very specific idea" or "what's the English equivalent of this [other language] saying" questions even make sense? It seems like it would be very hit or miss, mostly miss. There are essentially infinitely many ideas that can be expressed, and just not as many sayings in English, and every language has its own sayings. It seems more reasonable to assume there doesn't exist a saying that expresses some idea.

Gigili

13:33

That's not what an ordinary stickman would say.

tchrist

13:49

Happy Geoegemagne Day!

Robusto

@NotThatGuy No, they don't make sense. Nor do the ones that assume there must be an antonym for any noun.

@tchrist Never heard of it.

tchrist

@Robusto It's Old George's birthday.

Robusto

George who?

tchrist

The cherry tree guy.

Robusto

Oh, that guy. The richest man in the colonies, by marriage.

Mitch

14:22

@Cerberus yes all the pieces are Germanic

@tchrist I had no idea about the small fish meaning. I only know it from the recent culinary trend of calling smallish longish potatoes as fingerling potatoes like it is some fancy new gastronomic delight, when in the end it's... a potato.

I realize now that my distaste for the term is purely sonic. It sounds too much like 'fingering'. So maybe yes those little mini potatoes look like fingers.

I mean 'chicken fingers' I've gotten over (they surely sounded weird when I first got over them. But they taste great.

A fingerling potato tastes like ... a potato.

Don't get me wrong, potatoes are great.

Fingerling is like an attempt at making it fancy?

like 'julienne'

@Gigili Ergo, by all the logic that there is, he's no ordinary stick man.

tchrist

@Mitch Oh, I was only thinking of fishlings not taterkin.

Robusto

@Mitch I always understood it as describing small fish.

I suppose growing up in Lake County put me more in touch with piscine nomenclature.

tchrist

My dad's and stepdad's families have always been avid fishermen, and of all sorts.

And neither Wisconsin nor Minnesota has ever lacked in lakes or creeks to fish them from.

Kids these days.

Robusto

Nor has northern Illinois.

tchrist

14:38

We could ask the kipper-chipper kids what they think of all this fingerling business. @MattE.Эллен

Robusto

There were three lakes in the town I grew up in.

tchrist

Big town or small lakes? :)

Robusto

Smallish lakes.

Bigger than ponds, though.

tchrist

Madison is a small city or big town, and it has Mendota, Monona, and Wingra.

Conrado

Hello again, friendly folks!

tchrist

14:41

@Conrado I've noticed how you always disappear whenever Rob has Spanish questions. :)

Robusto

@tchrist The largest of the three was about a mile long and 1/4 mile wide, the others were roughly a half-mile round.

Conrado

sorry.

tchrist

@Conrado Ah yes. Notorious.

Conrado

> As this extraordinary sentence is executed with a serenity of temper peculiar to the Dutch, the culprit is allowed sufficient intervals to recover the sense of pain, of which indeed he is frequently deprived during the operation

tchrist

I suppose if Lake Geneva kept growing and growing it could encompass Lake Como and Delavan Lake and Pell Lake.

@Conrado "a serenity of temper peculiar to the Dutch" @Cerberus

> Lake Wingra is a small lake located inside the city limits of the U.S. city of Madison, Wisconsin.

Matt E. Эллен

14:43

@tchrist is a fingerling a child of fingers?

Conrado

@tchrist Yes, exactly why I shared this page.

We can all, however, learn to bear adversity--another man's, I mean.

Robusto

@tchrist That one is 7.5 miles long, but narrow. Definitely a lake.

tchrist

@MattE.Эллен Were't an eel 'twould be an elver.

Robusto

A fish of finger length is a fingerling.

tchrist

Bear adversity seems like an ursine problem. :)

Robusto

14:47

Of course, if Lake Superior and Lake Michigan are lakes, all the inland lakes seem unworthy of the name.

tchrist

Town = inside city limits
Country = outside city limits

I don't know why this confuses people.

Matt E. Эллен

@Robusto How many fingerlings to the football field?

tchrist

Maybe other places don't have city limits.

Robusto

The Edmund Fitzgerald would never have sunk in any of my lakes.

tchrist

Most lakes lack shipping ports.

Conrado

14:48

About the Spanish, I think that my proficiency is somewhere between Rob's and yours.

I am only a "third culture kid".

tchrist

heh

Conrado

Born in Central PA,

but lived twenty years in South America between Chile and Bolivia

I'm only thirty-one now,

tchrist

Do you have a rioplatense accent in Spanish?

Robusto

@MattE.Эллен It's hard to calculate. Some say there are 9-1/2 fingerlings to the smoot, but that varies by district. I don't think there is yet a metric equivalent.

tchrist

I knew people from Chile and Bolivia at university

Matt E. Эллен

14:50

If we find fish the length of elephant trunks, we can call them trunklings!

tchrist

The Chileno didn't sound Argentine. The Bolivian kinda sorta did sometimes.

Cerberus

@Conrado You were lucky if your shipmates liked you. If they didn't pull fast enough, you never made it alive to the other side and out of the water.

Robusto

I wonder if squids and octopi have inklings.

Cerberus

P.S. Don't forget what the hull of a ship looks like on the outside:

Robusto

Full of barnacles, I should think.

tchrist

14:51

Quoth Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

Robusto

jinx.

Conrado

The biggest grater ever.

How serene!

Cerberus

Indeed.

I think it was often a death sentence.

Conrado

@tchrist I didn't learn how to do voseo in Chile, although I did hear it a few times.

tchrist

That's a gouda grater than I have.

@Conrado heh

Conrado

14:53

I would have immediately tagged someone as an Argentine if they used it.

Cerberus

Oh, noes!!

tag You're it.

tchrist

Me too. I had an Argentine professor in college who did that.

It's good exposure though so you don't get surprised.

Mitch

@tchrist Fish or potatoes. Still the word should be banned.

Conrado

Where I lived in Bolivia, however, I had to learn at least to understand it quickly.

tchrist

Ya don't use fingerlings in fish fries.

Mitch

14:54

I mean 'new potatoes' sounds weird, like all the other potatoes are rotten?

tchrist

younglings

Mitch

@tchrist smelt, alewife (alewives?), what are baby eels called?

aglets?

tchrist

@Mitch elves

Mitch

might as well with their tiny beady eyes

tchrist

elvers

Mitch

14:55

elvers

jinx!

Robusto

People I knew used to go smelting every year in Lake Michigan.

Mitch

elvers... that's a keeper of a name.

smelt... is not.

tchrist

elvis are the bigst ones

Fishing for Bait (Netting Wisconsin Suckers)

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NB: There's no limit on suckers in Wisconsin.

Robusto

Vosotros sois los mejores.

tchrist

Catostomidae

The Catostomidae are the suckers of the order Cypriniformes, with about 78 species in this family of freshwater fishes. The Catostomidae are almost exclusively native to North America. The only exceptions are Catostomus catostomus, found in both North America and Russia, and Myxocyprinus asiaticus found only in China. In the Ozarks they are a common food fish and a festival is held each year to celebrate them. Ictiobus cyprinellus can reach an age up to 112 years, making it the oldest known freshwater teleost. == Description and biology == The mouth of this fish is located on the underside of...

Conrado

14:59

I do have yeísmo, and seseo, and the aspirated /s/.

tchrist

It's just like a Wisconsin roundup!

Conrado

And the frequent elided /s/ at the end of the word.

Robusto

@Conrado That is rampant in Argentina, from what I´ve heard.

tchrist

@Conrado Nearly everybody has yeísmo, even me. The big confusion for learners is that the word yoyo even in Spanish does not quite exactly sound like it does in English.

Conrado

@Robusto Yes. And in Chile.

tchrist

15:02

It's a thicker, more "consonantal" sound in Spanish than in English. And it can affricate.

Aspirated /s/ in the syllable coda is characteristic of most of Andalucía and the Islas Canarias, which accounts for how common it is in América. But you can also hear a bit of it now and then even in Colombian or Castilian Spanish, where it sounds rustic/lazy/fast-spoken. But in loh cubanoh is it customary. You learn the "hear" a mental /s/ phoneme because it causes the previous vowel to change from a close vowel to an open one.

Rather, when Cubans speak, not that phrase in particular.

Conrado

@tchrist Yes, but excessive friction in the /y/ is also seen as part of the stereotypical Argentine by my coterráneos. Along with calling everybody "Che".

tchrist

@Conrado I call that zheísmo. :)

Conrado

*coterráneos (in Chile, that is--where I have been for the last four years.)

tchrist

Don't Chile and Bolivia also have che?

I mean, calling people that.

Conrado

@tchrist Yes, but in Southern Chile it is not used as much.

tchrist

15:07

Ah.

Conrado

In the north, and in Bolivia, it is perhaps as much as in Argentina.

The Che himself was killed in Bolivia, finally, so is as much at home there as anywhere.

Cerberus

Where did you grow up?

tchrist

It's a hail-name like "dude" or "guy" or "man", so like "tío" or "macho" or "hombre". Very distinctive because of how very common it is in conversation.

It's used in direct address vocatively, so second-person.

Not in third-person reference to someone.

Conrado

@Cerberus To the extent that I have, in Chile. :)

Cerberus

Hehe.

Conrado

15:09

@tchrist But I never have been able to find where it came from, if not from Guevara.

Was it used before him?

tchrist

> che2
De la interj. che, con que se llama a personas y animales.

1. interj. Val., Arg., Bol., Par. y Ur. U. para llamar, detener o pedir atención a alguien, o para denotar asombro o sorpresa.

Not helpful.

> Etymology 2
Interjection
che

(Argentine, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Valencia) hey
Descendants
Portuguese: tchê
Noun
che m or f (plural che)

(colloquial, Chile) Argentinian perso

Conrado

But those localities are Guevara's original stomping grounds. :)

tchrist

Even less.

@Conrado true

Conrado

His own native shores, and all that.

tchrist

Che

Che es una interjección que tiene diferentes alcances, y aparece en el idioma español, en el valenciano y el portugués brasileño. Esta interjección se usa para llamar a una persona, atraer su atención, o incluso detenerla; y también en caso de sorpresa o asombro. Por consiguiente, en todo esos sentidos, equivale a la interjección «¡hombre!» que es común en la generalidad de las regiones de España. Por ejemplo, en Argentina, «¡che, no te enojés!», equivale en España a «¡hombre, no te enfades!». == Etimología == Algunos autores sostienen que deriva de la palabra guaraní «che», que puede ser pronombre…

Conrado

15:12

Inconclusive, to say the least.

tchrist

> Algunos autores sostienen que deriva de la palabra guaraní «che», que puede ser pronombre personal (‘yo’) o posesivo (‘mi’) de primera persona singular. En el guaraní hablado en el Noreste argentino, «che» se pronuncia /tʃe/ [che] y en el guaraní paraguayo se pronuncia /ʃe/ [she].

Conrado

¡Y si no es verdad, está bien cantado!

tchrist

Heh, how Italian!

Conrado

I live at the southern end of the Mapuche countries.

But I don't have any next-door neighbors who talk Mapu dungung.

tchrist

> Algunos filólogos italianos (como Grassi)2 afirman que el «che» rioplatense es de origen veneciano. El habla de los italianos de Buenos Aires (que eran en muchos casos originarios de la región de Venecia) era el cocoliche,3 casi extinto después de la segunda guerra mundial (1939-1945).

Muchas de sus palabras hoy en día se encuentran formando parte de otro dialecto ítaloargentino: el lunfardo. Como «volés» (quieres) y como «ció», posiblemente origen del «che» rioplatense: «¿Qué volés, che?» se dice en veneciano «Che vol, ció?» (pronunciado en español como [¿ké vól, chó?]).

The Venetian/Italian connection for che is new to me, but not the Italian connection to Argentina.

Conrado

15:16

I will ask some Mapuches, when I visit them in Temuco, if they use it as a vocative address.

I rather think not.

And now, back I go to selling nails for a while. It gives time for rumination on these things.

tchrist

That es.wikipedia article on che is far longer than one might have imagined.

@Conrado I never took you for a manicurist! :)

Conrado

@tchrist "Clavos" :) Tootle-oo!

tchrist

@Cerberus The joke is because of the English-only punning over nails=uñas and nails=clavos. It is not a possible joke in Spanish or Portuguese.

Cerberus

Aren't those different kinds of nails?

tchrist

Well, yes.

Uñas are on your fingers.

Cerberus

15:25

Yes.

tchrist

Clavos are in the wall.

Cerberus

Unguis and clavis.

tchrist

Pero si tú te clavas las uñas, I promise you won't be happy.

Written unhas in Portuguese, pero da igual.

Cerberus

Cleave?

tchrist

15:44

English cognate via French? Sure. But this one still means nail.

Cerberus

16:07

Nail your nails?

tchrist

Sure.

And that's what I said. :)

Gigili

@Mitch One can never be one hundred percent sure

This is fun: drawastickman.com

tchrist

16:31

@Cerberus I see that you too have had an airplane shower this weekend.

Cerberus

16:42

Oh, I saw a news item.

Didn't really read it.

Apparently, these things happen?

Robusto

19:43

Lots of cranes on my ride this morning.

This is their life: poking the ground for food with their sharp bills.

user 85795

20:12

Daft Punk announce split after 28 years

2

Robusto

No me flipar.

Johan Larsson

to quote trump: sad

great band

user 85795

Yup, 27 tweets per second is amazing

#DaftPunk

Gigili

21:16

@Robusto How interesting... I dislike animals bigger than a specific size!

Robusto

@Gigili What size? Be specific!

Johan Larsson

cranes form lifelong relationships iirc

grus grus, gravel gravel

Robusto

Cranes are also considered lucky in Japan.

Johan Larsson

I knew how to fold paper into a crane as a kid

Robusto

So you're less educated as an adult? How does that work?

Johan Larsson

21:22

unlearning and dumber overall

I had no problem solving rubix cube at age six, tried solving it a couple of years ago but did not see it

nothing comes easy these days :D

Robusto

Tell me about it.

I only ever "solved" Rubik's cube one time, to settle a bet. This consisted of me closing the door to my office, peeling off the one tile that had a screw under it, which enabled me to disable the entire thing, rearrange the tiles, and then glue the screw tile's cover back on. I declined to accept payment on the bet. ^_^

Johan Larsson

:)

Gigili

@Robusto Not bigger than palm of my hand!

Johan Larsson

there are probably youtube tutorials on doing it but meh

Robusto

@Gigili Sorry, only have large birds today. Check back tomorrow!

Gigili

21:32

There's this bird here that sits on your food while eating out, I hate it.

Robusto

@JohanLarsson Yeah. I remember when I was in a lather to spend lots of energy on pointless things just to prove a point (gaining massive rep on certain SE sites comes to mind). Those days are gone, however, and I do not miss them.

Johan Larsson

did you stop posting?

Robusto

@Gigili Was für ein Vogel ist das?

Johan Larsson

pilfink

Robusto

@JohanLarsson Pretty much. Have answered maybe three questions in the last couple of years, I think. There´s no money it it, and it's boring and never much fun, so why do it?

Johan Larsson

21:37

I quit long ago or never started maybe

Gigili

@Robusto NO! Tomorrow is too late

@Robusto ich weiß es leider nicht

Robusto

@JohanLarsson Plus you have little Boy Scouts like EA who search for things to downvote.

@Gigili Sorry. I would have to get a special dispensation from my supervisor, and she's out at the moment.

Johan Larsson

I remember I found SO depressing, typically someone asked a question and then someone with a manager mindset who did not understand what was being asked showed up to make things miserable for everyone involved

Robusto

@JohanLarsson Yeah. I've dealt with enough assholes during my working life. I don't need to deal with those types now that I'm retired.

Johan Larsson

prefer cranes

Robusto

21:42

Indeed.

Johan Larsson

Do you ever listen to bluegrass?

Robusto

Now and then.

It doesn't kill me so I guess it makes me stronger, right?

Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Official audio)

►

Johan Larsson

I like the energy but don't know any artists

Robusto

Do you have Spotify? Just choose bluegrass as a genre and start listening.

You oughta have Spotify, right? It's from Sweden.

Johan Larsson

I only listen to music on youtube

Had it ten years ago but it was annoying back then as more than half the time I wanted to listen to things it was missing

Also youtube has more rare stuff

Robusto

21:56

True. Spotify has gotten better. I got back on it so my son could share playlists with me, and while it's not perfect it does go deeper than it used to.

The problem I have with bluegrass is the problem I have with any genre. Namely, the people who listen to that genre exclusively, and deny the existence of other music. My musical taste can't be fenced in like that.

Don't Fence Me In

►

Johan Larsson

@Robusto it is a suboptimal strategy

do you ever listen to national anthem of ussr?

Robusto

@JohanLarsson If I have I certainly don't remember. Does it sound like "Don't Fence Me In"?

Johan Larsson

Don't think so but it is a great song, was re: fencing

Robusto

@JohanLarsson I see now from all the YouTube comments about the USSR theme song that it's become a meme. That's too bad.

Johan Larsson

I did not mean it as a meme, I think it is great

Robusto

22:07

Hitler: Tell me a joke
Stalin: Moscow
Hitler: I don't get it
Stalin: Exactly

That's an example of the memery.

Johan Larsson

:)

Robusto

I blasted this in my private school

It's now a public school

Another one.

Johan Larsson

not bad

RegDwigнt

23:10

Hey @Rob, I may need your advice on poetry again.

I recently translated a song, and it's been received quite well so far, but there's an instance of code switching in it that didn't sit well with at least one person. Possibly with more (or possibly with everyone), but only one person did complain, and not publicly. I know them enough to generally value their feedback, but not enough to accurately assess how much of an issue this actually is.

So I would like to ask your opinion on how jarring it is to you.

It is deliberate (and I can elaborate), but it must not be a dead fly sending forth a stink from the ointment.

I won't brief you on where exactly it is to not meddle with your own perception, but it's a two-minute lullaby of only two stanzas.

Thank you.

musescore.com/user/27897310/scores/6623195

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…