English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

I really think that a lot of the Left's economic policies are great ideas (universal health care, standardized across the country; a livable minimum wage, so single people don't have to work three jobs just to get by; investments in clean and renewable energy for Humanity's future [plus jobs. Lots of jobs.]) those kinds of things.

But when you get into social issues: anti-bigotry, feminism, LGB rights. Those can be tough for a lot of Boomers and far left folks to settle their disputes on.

Robusto

1:51 AM

@NewSaxony What the hell is wrong with being against bigotry, for feminism, and for LGBT rights? In the first place, anybody who is for bigotry is dangerously anti-social. In the second, why shouldn't women be afforded the same rights and opportunities men enjoy? Who can be against that who is not a bigot? And in the third, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that LGBT people are actually people entitled to the same marriage rights as the rest of the country.

You seem to be saying we should abandon important freedoms just because bigots don't like them. I say fuck that.

New Saxony

4:20 AM

Oh definitely.

I am a progressive in all aspects.

Not a Democrat, though. I disagree with the Party on some issues, like the draft & polygamy. But other than that, totally. Fuck racists & other bigots.

and fuck Pong Krell while we're at it. Racist pig

Robusto

4:46 AM

@NewSaxony The draft and polygamy? I didn't know those were planks of any party's platform.

New Saxony

5:13 AM

@Robusto Exactly. Most of my disagreements are on things like that that no one talks about. Polygamy legalization is required for total marriage equality. Love is love is love. I support the establishment of a new and improved draft, one that's way harder to dodge, and also has numerous nonviolent options. These would include numerous governmental agency staffs, a WPA-like organization, and/or the Army Corps of Engineers.

CowperKettle

7:04 AM

M.A.R.

8:57 AM

@NewSaxony Reddit can be very vitriolic though. As far as I've seen, it's for the most part an echo chamber of atheistic democratic younguns who are so convinced they're right all they ever do is pat each other on the backs and find rage baits, often from Twitter. I'm a lurker in several dozen subreddits but this is very jarring in the most popular ones.

That crowd does need their platform though, be it Reddit or anywhere else. There are invisible walls on the internet protecting entire platforms fairly well from outsiders.

CowperKettle

> The U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally authorized the use of the Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine Saturday

It's like the Russian Sputnik vaccine, but only with a single dose, thus a bit less efficient.

William James Sidis, entered Harvard at age 11

His father fled from the Jewish persecutions (the laws of 1882) and pogroms from the Russian Empire to the USA, and founded a psychiatric institute and a journal that is published to this day.

May Laws

Temporary regulations regarding the Jews (also known as May Laws) were proposed by the minister of internal affairs Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev and enacted on 15 May (3 May O.S.), 1882, by Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Originally, regulations of May 1882 were intended only as temporary measures until a future revision of the laws concerning the Jews but remained in effect for more than thirty years. == Regulations == They read as follows: "As a temporary measure, and until a general revision is made of their legal status, it is decreed that the Jews be forbidden to settle anew outside of towns and...

> Many towns in the Pale with a significant Jewish population resulted in half-empty schools and many potential students forbidden to enroll. Many Jewish students were unable to complete their education on the soil of their birth.

M.A.R.

9:31 AM

@CowperKettle It's crazy the leap from "Jews are controlling the world!" to "I need to stop the Jewish neighbor next door from sending their son to school". Like, is your neighbor part of the conspiracy, and if so why are they in heavy debt?

CowperKettle

1:52 PM

The cold weather has passed, now we are having a snowy weather

Robusto

@CowperKettle Weather is a mass noun, so no indefinite article.

CowperKettle

Oh!

CowperKettle

2:37 PM

2

Local art, on Vainera St.

Robusto

@CowperKettle Monday is the first day of the work week in the US.

@CowperKettle Nice. It's great to have eye candy on a run.

KannE

2:53 PM

So lately, my comments regarding word use or meaning are basically this: Look it up in the dictionary. When did this happen? They don't even bother to look it up first. Very strange...

Robusto

The Surprising Reason We Don't Hitchhike Anymore - Cheddar Explains

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When I was young I hitchhiked all over the US, Canada, and even parts of Mexico. Now that era is over.

It was very educational while it lasted.

Conrado

I still hitchhike sometimes, but here it is changing too.

"Hitchhike" has two h's right beside each other!

Robusto

It does indeed.

Hitchhike has two h's together, but threshold does not, even though the hater articulates the second h and the first one is part of a digraph where the h is at least recognized.

KannE

@Robusto A: Jeffrey Dahmer--Steven Hicks, etc.

Robusto

@KannE Yeah.

@KannE What is wrong with your gravatar? It shows the "broken image" substitute.

Conrado

3:00 PM

I can see it. It looks like Gigili's, but with color.

Cerberus

Kann's icon has always been broken to me.

KannE

@Robusto Sorry, I don't know what that means; I'll have to look it up first.

Robusto

Cerberus

Yeah, for me it just doesn't show anything.

> graph.facebook.com/10214255728940236/picture?type=large

And I think this is the reason.

Robusto

This has been happening lately on this site and a few others. I wonder if it's me.

Cerberus

3:01 PM

That's the link to the image.

My browser blocks lots of stuff from Facebook.

Robusto

@Cerberus Oh, that must be it.

Cerberus

So I will unfortunately never be able to behold the beauteous Kann.

Conrado

@Cerberus To mitigate cross-site tracking, perhaps?

Robusto

@Cerberus That is positively unKannE.

Cerberus

@Conrado Yes, and Facebook in general.

@Robusto Alas.

Robusto

3:03 PM

Or, put another way, we are in the unKannE vallE.

Cerberus

I caen it.

Conrado

That is a Good Thing for a browser to be able to do.

Robusto

Indeed.

I put my shields down for this site and KannE's gravatar appears.

KannE

I've always logged in with FB. I don't know why. It seemed easier at the time.

Cerberus

Umatrix the the add-on showing that menu.

Robusto

3:05 PM

@KannE FB is evil.

Cerberus

It tells you about all the stuff that SE chat loads.

And which parts I allow, which I block.

KannE

I'm deactivating my FB, so I'll have to do whatever I should've done in the first place now.

5

Cerberus

Yay.

Robusto

@KannE crowd cheers

First girls become Eagle Scouts. Yay!

KannE

I love people, in general, but everybody is stupid on FB. Not just the people from HS who were always stupid. It's also the smart people from HS. They feel compelled to be stupid on FB. For example, gas prices...poor ole OPEC, they're just slaves to supply and demand...if only they had some supply or something. I dunno, but it's complicated.

Robusto

3:14 PM

@KannE HS? High school?

KannE

@Robusto Yes, that's probably the FB abbreviation for HS. I've lost some brain cells...

Robusto

Why A North Korean Veteran was Shocked at her First Time in America

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It's really interesting hearing someone speaking Korean. They have such similar vocal cadence and pitch variation as Japanese that whenever I hear it at first I always wonder why I can't understand a single word, until I realize, "Oh, they're not speaking Japanese."

KannE

3:30 PM

See, I can't even spell out high school now without a lot of effort. FB's legacy will be people who wanted to vent a lot with as few characters as possible. That's it, and pics. There will be a word for people who are normally dressed in public but nearly naked on FB. What is the term for that?

Robusto

3:55 PM

@KannE If there is such a word, I don't know it. I do think there is a breakdown in civility on social media, though. Things people would never say or do in person are routinely paraded in these online public spheres.

Mitch

@CowperKettle This is silly. No one in the Western Hemisphere starts a business week on Sunday.

Sure, the calendars as printed are weird, with Sunday being the left most entry. But that doesn't mean office workers come in to start their work week on Sunday.

@Robusto oh. jinx

KannE

@Cerberus My upper back is sorta humped, so my clavicles are pretty beauteous, I must say...pretty striking when I stand almost straight. And my arm span is over 6', so I help people who can't reach things in Walmart; that's my main purpose, basically. I should've climbed trees or wrestled, competitively, but I'm happy just knowing I would've won.

Mitch

@KannE changing light bulbs

KannE

4:11 PM

@Robusto Yes! They forget they have an audience. They think they're making diary entries... Oh, the Cecil Hotel on Netflix. Yep, the one time an online diary could've saved somebody, maybe, and nothing.

@Mitch Yes, but they insist on dragging the step stool out for me, so let them do it. I'm like Clark Kent; they have no idea.

Mitch

If you wear glasses no one will notice you. then you can take them off dramatically and everyone will ooh and ahh at the transformation.

So what I'm saying is that if you don't already wear glasses you should start. just for those moments when you take them off.

CowperKettle

5:42 PM

@Robusto We hitchhiked to home in Siberia when we went mushroom picking with my dad. We usually strayed too far from the bus on which we were brought there, deep in the woods. So we went to the nearest road and caught a ride to Noyabrsk.

The ride I remember to this day was in this vehicle

An all-terrain amphibious vehicle.

We sat in the back and held on to the rails. There was a tarpaulin cover all over the back.

It was very loud and dusty, and it shaked terribly, because the road was unpaved. A forest road.

When we arrived and dismounted from this vehicle, I could not hear anything.

We used signs to communicate.

In about 30 minutes my hearing returned.

That was the only time I lost hearing because of loud noise.

По бездорожью на газ-71!

►

To a boy, this vehicle looked ultra cool, especially the amazing small doors and the hatches.

But the most amazing all terrain vehicle that I saw in Siberia was this. I would have loved to get inside it.

The civilian version of a rocket-carrying vehicle. Used in hard-terrain territories to haul heavy equipment. For instance, to haul oil and gas equipment in taiga or tundra.

It has a split cabin, and a whole four doors, it was just wow.

Conrado

6:20 PM

@CowperKettle I have to admit, Land Rover and even Unimog have nothing on this. It Is all terrain done right.

I wonder how many liters of fuel it consumes in a km.

CowperKettle

6:37 PM

@M.A.R. Theoretically, if Jews have a set of genetic variations that makes them more "crafty", these variations must provide genetic advantage. Hence, these variations must spread fast throughout the world, and Jews must soon be just as crafty as the next guy.

So either there is nothing special about Jews, or this set of genetic variations has just appeared all of a sudden and has not managed to spread through the world.

@Conrado I guess that in the West, there are also machines of similar might designed for carrying missiles

Faheem Mitha

Is this sentence grammatically correct?

> I am at high risk for the coronavirus.

M.A.R.

7:25 PM

@Cerberus Haha funnily enough, it's working for me now

It used to be broken before

@CowperKettle What? Is that an argument? Do people hate Jews because they're genetically crafty? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. People get really creative with excuses to hate Jews.

@FaheemMitha a high risk

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. I thought that people consider Jews to be "crafty, scheming" etc.

And were that so, these genes would spread.

Because being crafty must have advantages, so the genetic variation would copy itself faster.

M.A.R.

Well I thought they turned the moon into a death star

@CowperKettle I know what you're saying

It's just this genetic difference accusation was weird to me

CowperKettle

I recently read the unique diary of the famous Russian writer Prishvin. Turns out he was an antisemite. And he wrote that Jews find ways to get to the top in hierarchies.

Mikhail Prishvin

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin (Russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович При́швин) (January 23 (N.S. February 4), 1873 - January 16, 1954) was a Russian and Soviet novelist, prose writer and publicist. == Biography == Mikhail Prishvin was born in the family mansion of Krutschevo in Oryol Governorate (now in Stanovlyansky District, Lipetsk Oblast) into the family of a merchant. In 1893-1897, he studied at a polytechnic school in Riga and was once arrested for his involvement with Marxist circles. In 1902, Prishvin graduated from the University of Leipzig with a degree in agronomics. During World War I, he...

He kept a diary from 1905 to 1954

He was not the Hitlerite kind of antisemite, but a highly intellectual one.

But still one can feel that there is some prejudice.

New Saxony

@M.A.R. indeed

CowperKettle

For instance, he writes badly of Marshak, who was a Jew. Marshak's translation of Shakespeare's sonnets is superb.

But to read Prishvin, you would imagine that Marshak somehow insinuated himself into the top tier of writers.

Which is bullshit, because Marshak was a genius.

Robusto

8:18 PM

@CowperKettle I guess that was built for combat, not comfort.

I try to protect my ears as much as possible, which is why I use earplugs whenever exposed to loud noises. On an airliner, somewhere where there's loud music, etc.

The best earplugs I've found. Up to -40 dB noise reduction. I don't know if they're available in your country.

Færd

8:34 PM

Hi!

Is there, in addition to certainty, an element of surprise or something in positively?

As in It's not just bad; it's positively malicious.

Kind of like downright. But positively (as opposed to downright?) could be used with positive adjectives too: It's not just good; it's positively awesome.

Another synonym would be flat-out, I think.

Conrado

Or something: emphasis, perhaps?

Færd

Yeah but for emphasis you could use certainly/absolutely/completely, which don't convey the same meaning as downright/positively, I guess.

Conrado

True. Absolutely and completely indicate a degree of some quality or state of being.

Positively just provides a boolean indicator of sorts, like a pilot light (on/off). In the example you gave, it feels to me like not just any pilot light, but a big red pilot light.

Færd

Huh. How about outright/downright/flat-out?

I think positively can go in the same category as those.

Conrado

8:53 PM

I do too. I speak subjectively, I should tell you. I'm sure someone who knows more will think differently about this.

Færd

Thanks for sharing your opinion!

Conrado

I think that they are all used to add length to the time the hearer has to "intermalize" the adjective that is being modified.

"The abomination was positively, hair-raisingly, horribly big!

Færd

... jaw-droppingly, eye-wideningly, petrifyingly ... :)

Conrado

Yes.

Færd

Yeah that could be one function. But you can't differentiate between those adjectives with only that.

Conrado

9:00 PM

@Færd But this is as far as my wordhoard has brought me on this subject. It is my two cents, taking into account inflation. Cheers!

Færd

That's alright! Cheers.

Robusto

9:59 PM

The Terrifying History of Nuclear Submarine Graveyard

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@CowperKettle ^

KannE

10:13 PM

@Mitch I get reading glasses from Marshalls, 3 for $10. They're pretty fancy, and the box. I'm waiting for my vision to become one thing before I commit further.

Cerberus

> Dicer

Dicer is a adventure game... with Dies. Explore the world and collect Dies to become the best Dicer in the world
by Semir Hadzibulic

€1 pledged
0% funded

sad

New Saxony

11:13 PM

latered vs later'd

Tell me.

as in, "I Watch Later'd/Latered that video on YouTube."

Cerberus

Why the apostrophe?

New Saxony

11:29 PM

my desktop doesn't give a red squiggly underline for that option

Cerberus