« first day (3774 days earlier)      last day (1139 days later) » 
02:00 - 22:0022:00 - 00:00

2:09 AM
Spanish phrase of the day: "Cerrado de mollera", adjective, literally closed [in the] soft spot, as an infant's fontanel. Used to describe a stubborn or closed-minded person. Fairly despective.
 
2:20 AM
@Conrado Interesting.
 
3:17 AM
@Robusto this is an extremely silly question, because it is a name, but how would you write Hidehiko Hagihara in kanji?
I tried hiragana, but got exactly zero hits. Or maybe I'm shit at hiragana. ひでひこはきがら.
It's a Japanese composer that I am trying to research and can find absolutely no information about. Like, literally. There's only an entry on Wikidata with his birth and death years, and that's it. No Wikipedia article, no pictures, nothing on IMSLP or Amazon.
Oh, wait, I actually did misspell the hiragana.
萩原 英彦(はぎはら ひでひこ、1933年3月30日 - 2001年10月16日)は日本の作曲家。東京都生まれ。元武蔵野音楽大学作曲科教授。 1947年より、團伊玖磨の下で和声法、作曲法を学ぶ。その後、東京芸術大学音楽学部作曲科に入学し、1956年卒業。作曲を池内友次郎に、ピアノを永井進に師事。 「光る砂漠」「白い木馬」「抒情三章」など合唱の分野で盛んに活動する。破綻のない演奏しやすい音楽が特徴で、調性感のあるいわゆる保守的作風を示す。フォーレの「レクイエム」をはじめとして、フランスのピアノ曲、歌曲、合唱曲の校訂にもたずさわった。 == 主要作品 == ()内の人物は作詩者。 === ピアノ === 組曲「風の旅」(ピアノ連弾) 都会のうた(ピアノ連弾) エテュード・アルモニーク(ピアノ) ピアノのための五つの小品 === 歌曲 === やがて秋(立原道造) 或る風に寄せて(立原道造) === 合唱 === 混声(女声)合唱組曲「光る砂漠」(1971/矢沢宰) 混声(女声)合唱組曲「白い木馬」(1974/ブッシュ孝子) 混声合唱組曲「深き淵より」(1979/ゆきやなぎれい) 混声合唱組曲「動物たちのコラール第1集」(1980/カルメン・ベルノス・デ・ガストルド詩、宮沢邦子訳。以下第4集まで同じ) 混声合唱組曲「動物たちのコラール第2集」(1982/C.B.ガス...
Well, that's not much but at least it's something.
> フォーレの「レクイエム」をはじめとして、フランスのピアノ曲、歌曲、合唱曲の校訂にもたずさわった。
That's actually interesting.
And Gounod as well, hah.
I transcribed some Gounod just a couple months ago.
Well anyway, apologies, disregard, never mind!
I did finish that Bach documentary, BTW. Quite fine all in all. Learned a couple new things not just about Bach but Mendelssohn and Schumann. And hearing all those people speak English not just with a German accent but specifically with the Saxon and Thuringian ones was very amusing.
 
4:32 AM
@RegDwigнt Yes, you did.
It's often really hard to derive names in kanji from English transliterations. There are so many readings for the kanji, and that goes double for names.
 
@Robusto yeah, my excuse is I can't even remember the name in Latin. Like, I literally misspelled it just then when I first pinged you.
 
For example, 萩原 is straightforward (it means something like "field of reeds" or Mr. Reedfield.)
 
It's a catch-22, like. To properly remember the name, you first need to know what the kanjis are. But to look those up, you need to properly remember the name.
If you can't do that, it's anyone's guess.
Could be yume could be yama could be maya.
 
But Hidehiko uses the characters 英 (England, English, hero, etc.) and 彦 (boy, lad). So his name is "English boy"? Your guess is as good as mine.
Incidentally, 英語 means "English language" or just "English" ... same ei sound.
 
Inorite. Like, now that I know what the kanji are, I still don't know what the kanji are.
Not that it's specific to Japanese, mind. Try to remember Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow or Famantanantsoa Randimbivololona. Or my own fucking name, for that matter.
 
4:42 AM
I never would have guessed 英彦 when the principal readings for the first one are はなぶさ and えい. No ひで at all.
 
Yes, which is why I made sure to note I was very much aware it was a stupid question to ask.
 
No, not stupid. Just not easy.
 
But I was clutching at straws.
Like, literally. Dig this. You've now read all the things this guy did. And you still can find exactly nothing about him if you search in English.
 
You'd have to be familiar with the name. Like having lived in Japan most of your life and known some Hidehikos at various points.
 
Yeah.
On that note, I was contemplating something similar just earlier today while watching that Bach documentary.
 
4:46 AM
BTW, made a mistake and typed the On reading in hiragana. Should have been in katakana: エイ, not えい.
It's late. I should go to sleep.
 
How there's all those documentaries about Bach and everything, a new one every month, but try and find one on Tchaikovsky, say. Or even Ravel.
 
Well, yeah. Bach gets a lot of press.
 
Exactly.
But Mendelssohn does not.
Even though without Mendelssohn Bach would be just another guy like Scriabin or Scarlatti. You'd maybe hear the name once or twice. Maybe play a piece as a kid and then forget about it forever.
 
Nobody gets as much press as Bach. Well, Mozart and Beethoven probably do.
 
Yeah, I was trying to compare in my head how they compare.
 
4:49 AM
Didn't Mendelssohn find one of his students wrapping his lunch in Bach scores?
 
Just recently on German television there was a new Beethoven documentary, and a new made-for-TV movie. It was the Beethoven year, of course, but that's the thing. Beethoven and Mozart, like Bach, do get their year every five years.
Rimsky-Korsakov does not.
And who the fuck even remembers when Stravinsky was born.
 
1882.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I remember because he was born a year after Picasso.
 
@Robusto yeah, probably apocryphal, but a very popular story. Last time I heard it was literally three weeks ago. Our choirmaster mentioned it in one of his lectures.
 
Why do I remember Picasso? Beats me.
 
4:51 AM
Picawho?
Picachu?
 
@CowperKettle Hendrix?
Anyway, I gotta rise early tomorrow. Gotta go on a friend's birthday ride. 64 miles, one for each year. So peace out, playah.
 
Anyway. I was being generous by picking Stravinsky. Could've picked Scriabin or Scarlatti. Or Hindemith.
Yes, good thinking. It's six in the morning here.
Nighty-night and thanks for the help.
 
 
2 hours later…
6:50 AM
> I'm calling Julia to tell her as soon as we arrive at the hotel.
Detect anything unusual?
> I'm going to call Julia to tell her as soon as we arrive at the hotel.
> I'll call Julia to tell her as soon as we arrive at the hotel.
I think for each of these sentences there could be perfectly normal contexts in which it could work. This Cambridge official test doesn't agree.
Says only one of them is correct.
 
7:34 AM
It likes the third?
What is Julia to be told? Of an event that has occured, or that they have arrived at the hotel?
 
 
1 hour later…
8:49 AM
@Xanne No context! You're just supposed to choose one of the three. The other two are considered incorrect.
And yes, it says only the third one is correct.
I think the first one could work if I'm on my way to the hotel and about to get there. The second one works if I'm talking about a procedure that's going to happen next week. The third one if I'm reporting a decision I just made.
I don't know how not to overthink the possibilities and just pick the 'right' one.
A problem I often have with these questions.
 
> What sort of things do you do if you are feeling sad, angry, or hurt?
I wonder: does it mean "insulted" or just "hurt" due to any possible cause, including non-human?
Mount Erebus is the second-highest volcano in Antarctica and the southernmost active volcano on Earth.
 
9:11 AM
@CowperKettle I mean, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but that's a pretty short mountain
Reg probably has lego sets bigger than that
I know mountains might be a little insecure about hearing about this sort of stuff
 
LOL
Large numbers of British civilians engaged in trekking during the Blitz. This involved leaving cities at night to sleep in nearby towns and rural areas. The practice was most prevalent in provincial cities during early 1941. While the British Government was concerned that trekking indicated that civilian morale was under strain, the practice was generally motivated by a desire to avoid the risk of death or injury and to be able to sleep. == Incidence == Trekking involved civilians in cities which were threatened with air attack during The Blitz leaving their homes at night to sleep in nearby...
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer, blacklisted user (72): Distinguishing between the camera lens and the lenses inside the camera lens ✏️ by Max Henkart on english.SE
 
Mountaneering during the First Punic War
Bobsleighing during the Battle of Vienna
 
10:26 AM
@M.A.R. It’s 12,448 feet, but that would be from sea level. I’ve seen it. It’s near the US station at McMurdo.
 
@Xanne Aha, so it's like a big pepper and that's just the butt?
Wait no there's already a pepper mountain
Which does not at all look like a pepper
Damn colonialists and their patents
 
It erupts almost continually but not dramatically; what looks like a pepper may be just its current emissions.
 
@CowperKettle I always interpreted that "hurt" to mean "hurt because of what someone said", so accidents don't count
 
:57315987
Erebus
Who’s BillJ? He seems to know a lot of the technical lingo.
Not about mountains, but about language, with no apparent interest in collecting rep.
 
11:30 AM
The tritone paradox is an auditory illusion in which a sequentially played pair of Shepard tones separated by an interval of a tritone, or half octave, is heard as ascending by some people and as descending by others. Different populations tend to favor one of a limited set of different spots around the chromatic circle as central to the set of "higher" tones. Roger Shepard in 1963 had argued that such tone pairs would be heard ambiguously as either ascending or descending. However, psychology of music researcher Diana Deutsch in 1986 discovered that when the judgments of individual listeners...
 
11:43 AM
@M.A.R. thank you! So I thought
 
 
3 hours later…
2:36 PM
1
A: Does "feeling hurt" always imply "hurt by someone"?

Lin ShaoNot necessarily. For instance, person X could be hurt by the injustice they are facing in this world; they could be hurt by the fact that world's doom is inescapably imminent due to climate change, causing agony. I would play it safe and not generalize.

 
@CowperKettle Injustice in the world? Seriously? Whatever. I think you should look at how psychiatrists define it, or how it's defined in the study
I mean, apparently there is "emotional pain" in psychiatry, but is it synonymous with "hurt"? And if it's not, "pain in the soul" might not be how you want to interpret "hurt"
 
@M.A.R. 'feeling hurt' is not a technical medical sign.
 
@Mitch I mean, it kinda is
 
@M.A.R. Sure 'pain in the soul' is a bit dramatic
 
But I'm familiar with the medical definitions, not psychiatric
Not a 'sign', but in medicine you have concrete proposed definitions of seemingly layman terms, like "illness", "disease", "pain" etc.
It's all pretty weird and pedantic. I don't give them much though
 
2:43 PM
@M.A.R. The technical extreme term for it is 'dysphoria'
'emotional pain' is not a technical term either but a tiny bit more formal. I
 
> What sort of things do you do if you are feeling sad, angry, or dysphoric?
@Mitch you
 
Right, that's awful
 
I don't think "are you feeling hurt?" is the wording we use when we see someone with a bloody face
So if someone is upset about "the injustice in the world", it's become someone else was being mean to them
 
@M.A.R. Yeah because it's obvious it hurts
but 'hurt' is the appropriate word.
@M.A.R. That's just an example.
 
So I still think "are you feeling angry or hurt?" uses the sense of 'hurt' that you can get by someone yelling angry words in your general direction
 
2:47 PM
the pattern is 'sad', 'angry', and...
 
We're not talking about physical harm
 
@M.A.R. oops, yes "emotional pain" is better
 
anything that makes you feel bad
which is a very inarticulate way of expressing ...
emotional pain?
 
@Mitch It's a calque from Russian, in a fashion.
 
@Mitch "are you hurt?" vs. "are you feeling hurt?" I think you put the word "feeling" there because there are no obvious physical cues
 
2:48 PM
@CowperKettle There could very easily be better ways of saying it. But I think it captures the pattern set by 'sad' and 'angry'
@M.A.R. Yes
 
Well that's what I'm saying
"Feeling hurt" is in the mind
 
@Færd That's nonsense. The Cambridge test is being very prescriptive. I personally have used all three constructions. There are slight nuances that would make me use one over the other, though.
 
I came here to say that all the birds are singing and I think they are stupid and should shut up because winter is not over yet it will get cold again before it gets warm and they will probably die so singing is stupid.
 
I want birds to make noises here :/
They haven't arrived yet
 
@Robusto Yeah, they must have some very specific context in mind even if they claim otherwise. all three are perfectly natural.
 
2:51 PM
The only really fun part of studying in an isolated room was opening the windows to a bird UN council meeting
 
@M.A.R. Your birds are smart.
 
@Mitch The birds are right to sing. Leave them alone, it makes them happy.
 
@Mitch or lazy
 
@Robusto They're gonna die
 
Not if they keep singing.
 
2:52 PM
@Mitch They're gonna die happy
 
@Robusto They should save their energy
 
What if it keeps them warm?
 
@M.A.R. They're gonna die choking on the frozen air coming tomorrow
 
Wow is it that polluted?
 
@M.A.R. as a strategy, that can work
 
2:54 PM
Tabriz used to get so polluted at winter because of all the air inversion you felt like you could chew the air
 
You have pet birds?
 
@CowperKettle Nope. Talking about outside birds
How did they make it this far through the cold?
 
@CowperKettle Oxpeckers are scarce this time of the year
 
By not singing
obviously
 
Birdsong is one of the best things about nature.
 
2:56 PM
The Tabriz Metro is a rapid transit system serving the city of Tabriz, Iran. The first phase opened on 28 August 2015 with 7 km length and 6 stations. There is also one regional commuter line planned to Sahand. == Lines == === Line 1 === Its first phase opened on 27 August 2015. The 7 km route runs northwest from El Goli to Ostad Shahryar with four intermediate stations, including three in a tunnel excavated using TBMs. Services are operated with coupled pairs of five-car trainsets. There was free-of-charge services from 11:00 to 13:00 for 3 months starting from Saturday 29 August 2015...
Great. You even have a subway.
And it's building rapidly.
 
I love it when I go camping and wake up to a chorus of birdsong. It just feels like joy.
2
 
@CowperKettle It was being built up rapidly since before I was born
 
@Robusto It's pretty cool being woken up by a tropical rainforest's worth of commotion.
 
@Mitch except all the darn insects
 
@M.A.R. granted.
but cicada song is pretty impressive too
 
2:58 PM
I have an entomology course this term and my goodness, I'm considering getting a license for a flamethrower to use on the next insect I can find
Session after session of stomach-churning parasites
Anyway back to birdsongs
We mostly only get sparrows here
I mean, in some cities they're even considered invasive species and I doubt bird population control is high on the list of the municipality here
They're only forgiven because they're cute
Maybe that's what the native species they invaded also thought
@Mitch It has pretty weird ratings. 4.4 on IMDB but 85 % on Rotten Tomatoes
What, critics loved it but audiences didn't?
 
3:56 PM
 
 
1 hour later…
5:09 PM
@Robusto Thank you, I'm relieved.
@Mitch Yay!
 
Looks great.
 
ME: Can I ask you about the menu please?
WAITRESS: The men I please are none of your business.
 
Here, only about 4% of region's citizens have been vaccinated. Maybe 4.5%
LOL
 
6:01 PM
Word of the day: catachresis (Dead people in a graveyard being referred to as inhabitants is an example of catachresis.)
 
6:38 PM
0
Q: What are "baseline chronic risk factors" in a table describing levels of suicidality risk in a scientific paper?

CopperKettleFrom Table 5 in Psychiatric Emergencies: Assessing and Managing Suicidal Ideation Baseline chronic risk factors. Minimal mood symptoms. Maintained self-control. Rare acute risk factors. What are "baseline chronic risk factors"? I'm confused, especially because this phrase is located in the colu...

 
6:52 PM
@CowperKettle Universal risk factors, ones that most chronically suicidal patients demonstrate
 
@M.A.R. Thank you!
 
Bitte
@CowperKettle doctors develop some expectations while dealing with patients, so if a certain patient shows up without these "baseline" factors, they'd be surprising or interesting. Say, diabetic patients (type 2) are often 40 or older. This doesn't mean you'd never find a younger type-2 diabetic patient, but it's sorta surprising to see a 20-year-old with diabetes
 
I'll translate that as typical (tipichnyie)
 
 
1 hour later…
8:13 PM
@CowperKettle That's not catachresis at all. It is metaphorical.
Catachresis is better explained as an outright mistake. Malapropisms are a form of catachresis.
 
It can be a mistake or wordplay, depending on context.
 
OK...looking at the wikipedia page, it seems that some people use catachresis for metaphors of a certain kind, but it is unclear what the separation is.
 
Basically when it's bad.
 
@Cerberus 'mistake' and 'wordplay' seem very different to me. So 'catachresis' is polysemic for me.
(and I am not used to the 'metaphor' version.
 
When it's a mistake, it's catachresis. When it's not, it's wordplay.
The same sentence.
 
8:18 PM
Even a strained metaphor I wouldn't call catachresis.
Well
learn a new meaning every day
it's hard enough learning the first meaning of a word, and now you want me to get another one?
and understand the contexts?
Using catachresis for a catachresis is a catachresis
is catachresis a solecism?
not capitalizing and not using periods certainly is (also failing to close off a parenthesis
or is it parentheses? ...ellipsis or ellipses?
hyperbowl or hy perbuhlee
 
8:41 PM
@Mitch hi Pablo
@Mitch so why did they have to come up with a fancy word for that. Just call it a 'mistake'
 
8:55 PM
@Mitch Waaah I'm going crazy.
 
9:11 PM
Hyper bowl, or no bowl at awl. Wimps and posers, leave the hawl.
@M.A.R. sadly they couldn't use English because English did not exist.
 
@RegDwigнt So a better question is why are we still using it
 
And even once they did invent English, they forgot to introduce the word "exist". Or "introduce". Or "invent".
Very sloppy work, overall. I give it a D-.
@M.A.R. because we are fancy. And flamboyant. But mostly fancy.
 
Well I'm not flammableboy
 
It's okay. You can be inflammable. Means the same thing anyway.
 
Which brings us to
38
Q: Who is the true villain of Peter Pan: Peter, or Hook?

RedFlame0627Growing up, I loved watching Peter Pan. From the 1953 film, to Robin Williams' performance in Hook, I've loved them all. Recently I've re-watched the original Peter Pan, from 1953, and now that I'm older, I can see something that I definitely did not pick up on when I was younger. I've come to re...

 
9:15 PM
See. Why use a fancy word such as "villain". Or "Peter". Why not use English words.
> Who is the baddie of Stone Shepherdgod: Stone, or Hook?
@Robusto oh, you don't have birds in your garden? That's a pity.
We have like tons here. Magpies and wood pigeons and robins and tits. Sometimes you can hear ducks fly by, or cranes. The herons and the hawks and the Egyptian geese usually keep silent.
But the rest are always very loud. Because in a city they have to be.
 
@RegDwigнt I never said I didn't. But when I go camping it's just ... more.
 
There's also some proper singbirds in the trees, but I can never see them, and I'm too stupid to tell them by their song alone.
In German it's hard enough to tell a lark from a larch.
@Robusto I see. I hope it's somewhere dark where you can see the actual night sky as well.
 
@RegDwigнt Oh yeah. The night sky in the high desert is amazing.
 
9:33 PM
Yeah it's quite breathtaking to find yourself somewhere where for twenty miles in every which direction there simply is no electricity, period. Impossible in Europe, of course. You have to go US or Canada or Russia or Africa or Australia. Or the high seas.
 
From the mountain fastnesses you can see the actual Milky Way. Quite cool.
 
And all the giant constellations. With so much free canvas around them. Like the swan. From the garden I can only see bits of it. Not the same thing at all. And even Orion or Cassiopeia are much more impressive when you don't crop the sky to just themselves.
 
@M.A.R. Thank you. That's what I'm sayin. Why hasn't my strongly worded letter about it to the New York Times been publlshed.
 
I blame Cuomo.
 
@M.A.R. Peter Pan is a psychopath. But he's not the villain. That's just absurd.
 
9:42 PM
@Mitch You'd be psychopathic too if you lost your shadow.
 
@RegDwigнt That guy? sigh
@Robusto mmm... I don't know.
 
Can you guys explain "psychopath" in English for me? I'm struggling to follow with the converstaion.
 
@Mitch Trust me. You don't want to know.
@RegDwigнt Look in the mirror.
 
Hm. Mirror, mirror... Doesn't look like an English word.
 
Or maybe yeah that's a sign that he's not totally a psychopath, caring about your shadow. The Donald Trump version would think it's a superpower rather than a sign that you're either a vampire or just don't actually exist.
 
9:43 PM
@RegDwigнt Spiegel.
 
@RegDwigнt It's a catachresm
 
What kind of cat? I know pumas and lions.
 
pumesses
 
0
Q: Why do lion, tiger, panther, and leopard have female forms (lioness, tigress, pantheress, leopardess), but jaguar, puma, cheetah, and cougar don't?

SegNerdJagress? Pumess? Cheetess? Cougress? Those aren't words. Edited question to correct error regarding panther.

I learned it all on this site.
 
jinx
 
9:44 PM
You can have a coke from Rob once I've repaid him his billion trillion.
 
2 days ago, by Robusto
English is mostly epicene, then, and becoming more so, with the waning of distinctions like actor/actress.
And cougar is always female in American English.
 
@Robusto surely not in this world here, where everyone can now pick their personal pronouns?
@Robusto yeah I found that funny.
But that's what they're doing now. They just assume that when in doubt, every word must be male and that's sexist.
 
@RegDwigнt Don't confuse me. I'm struggling with "singular they" as it is.
 
35
Q: Gender-neutral alternative to "craftsmanship"?

CaiIt's straightforward to refer to a "craftsperson" instead of a "craftsman" if one doesn't want to imply a gender. But "craftspersonship", "sportspersonship", and the like seem pretty cumbersome. Is there a more elegant alternative?

 
@RegDwigнt waits
 
9:48 PM
@RegDwigнt Incompetence?
Also, Craftsman is a tool brand.
 
He has a wife you know. Called Incompetentia.
 
Incompetentia Buttocks.
 
The who the what?
Sorry, I'm only just waking up.
I'm finding it very funny that all those people are trying to make the language less sexist by specifically making it more sexist. Every gender has its own profession.
For decades in Germany, women could become pilots and presidents. Now they can only become pilotesses and presidentesses. Whatever the fuck that is. But a proper pilot? Nah, sweetie, that's reserved for manly men alone.
It's like coming up with a specific term for a pizza delivery guy if he is black. In order to fight racism.
 
You know what TL refers to, right? You've been there.
 
The opposite movement also exists.
Where everyone is an actor, rather than an actress.
One could say that it is making women less visible.
 
9:58 PM
Isn't actress the superlative form of actor? I'm confused.
 
So one could argue in opposite ways.
 
@Robusto oh shit, yeah now I understand. Haven't been there for years.
 
So I think that proves that it's all nonsense. Superstition.
 
@RegDwigнt Oh. I thought the incident involved you. Never mind.
 
@Cerberus I think language should be just left alone. Because not leaving it alone is futile. It always does its own thing anyway.
 
02:00 - 22:0022:00 - 00:00

« first day (3774 days earlier)      last day (1139 days later) »