English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

M.A.R.

00:12

@Mitch not me, don't look at me

Robusto

00:34

Putin Misses Former Employee.

@M.A.R. You don't know what you can do until you try.

Robusto

00:59

電池は
誰が
発明しましたか？

That was its own little poem. I was reading something and it struck me how like a child's rhyme that sentence was.

Denchi wa
Dare ga
Hatsumei shimashita ka?

Obviously it was all in one line, I just broke it up to seem more little-poem-ish.

Dum-da-dum
Dum-da-dum
Dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-dum.

And yeah, I'm easily amused.

Oh, and it means "Who invented the battery?" (Meaning the Li-ion battery.)

Some say John Goodenough, others say Akira Yoshino (Yoshino Akira). One was good enough, the other was better.

CowperKettle

03:41

Patriotic soup

Patriotic soup (simplified Chinese: 护国菜; traditional Chinese: 護國菜; pinyin: hùguó cài; lit. 'protect the country dish', Teochew :hu gog chai) is a vegetable soup originated by Teochew people. It was developed during the final year of China's Song dynasty as an improvisational dish. == History == According to the locals at the Guangdong Province, prior to the Battle of Yamen, Song's last emperor Zhao Bing and his regime's remnants sought shelter in a monastery at Chaozhou. The monastery's monks served an impromptu vegetarian soup made of leaf vegetable, edible mushrooms, and vegetable broth. The...

deostroll

04:23

Does vis-a-vis have a definition to mean by way of...?...For e.g. the inputs to the rule engine come vis-a-vis the payload we pass to the programming interface...

RegDwigнt

05:03

A question by a user with a Pro account.

Cerberus

@deostroll Greetings.

No, that sounds wrong to me.

RegDwigнt

Posted to the "Anime Piano Group".

> What are the bunch of sharp symbols between the clef symbol and notes called? I want to learn more about them

Cerberus

...

RegDwigнt

Oh no, I got tweened by a dog. Ma vie est ruiné !

Cerberus

I learned the most basic music-reading (see, I don't even know the proper term) in primary school.

But even I know what those symbols should be, I believe.

RegDwigнt

05:04

There's a proper term for reading music?

Cerberus

No idea.

Reading bars?

RegDwigнt

Prachtige muziek lees.

Cerberus

So if you see a sharp symbol on the line corresponding to c, that means all c's should be played as cis, I think?

Which is the black key to the right of c?

RegDwigнt

You are now qualified to teach Pros on MuseScore.

Cerberus

I think and talk like a young child, in fact.

I learned this 25-30 years ago.

RegDwigнt

05:07

Nobody on MuseScore was even born then.

Cerberus

I see.

Except you.

RegDwigнt

You could teach people how to cross the street and how to drink cocoa.

And you don't even need a Pro account for that, yourself.

Cerberus

Mm cocoa.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus as a MuseScore user, I was only born in 2019.

Cerberus

The English spelling is weird, but I like it.

Oh, that is late.

RegDwigнt

05:09

Those people may be only nine years old, but they've been using the site for four years.

Cerberus

Are there any serious (amateur) musicians on there?

RegDwigнt

A ton. But they keep to themselves. Impossible to bump into one even by complete accident. You need to be very, very patient.

Cerberus

Hmm.

No way to find them?

And in the darkness bind them?

RegDwigнt

How do you search for someone you don't know exists.

Cerberus

Maybe search for some tag or keyword related to a composer those kids wouldn't know?

RegDwigнt

05:11

Hahahahah. Search for tags. Hahahahah.

You, ~~sir~~ dog, are very funny.

Cerberus

Look at the review queues to see who is a serious reviewer?

Vote to close all the things?

RegDwigнt

No, what you have to do is start posting quality content yourself, and never stop. And then hope that at least some of them eventually find you.

Cerberus

Have they?

RegDwigнt

I wouldn't recommend doing things that don't work.

If only because I'm lazy.

I have found me a small community of knowledgeable people, yes.

Cerberus

In the way above?

RegDwigнt

05:14

Yes.

Cerberus

Party.

RegDwigнt

Nah, work. Now I have to post content of ever-higher quality. Because those people actually know things.

Cerberus

By the way, we had national elections yesterday, and I voted in the Concertgebouw. It has been closed since forever, so it was nice to be there again.

Curse them!

RegDwigнt

Yeah I saw Rutte riding his bike all over the news.

Meh.

Cerberus

The Lesser Hall, or what do you call it.

RegDwigнt

05:16

Why are the candles made of glass. What is this heresy.

Cerberus

Fire hazard?

RegDwigнt

Oh right. Because electricity never causes fires.

Anyway. I hope you had brought your electric violin.

Cerberus

You are like the Countess Dowager.

RegDwigнt

Impossible except by sheer accident. I have no idea who that is.

Cerberus

She couldn't stand this modernity, too bright.

RegDwigнt

05:19

Well yeah, that, too.

Cerberus

A character from Downton Abbey.

RegDwigнt

I figured.

Cerberus

They installed electric lights in the Abbey.

RegDwigнt

I am not a character from Downton Abbey, I would like to stress.

Cerberus

She is also the person who asked, when someone mentioned the weekend at dinner, "week-end, week-end? What is a week-end?". Because she was unfamiliar with people who work on weekdays.

RegDwigнt

05:20

Well in English the week-end is technically the week-begin.

Anyways. I watched the ruptured ulcer scene, and then I said nah thanks not for me.

I'd rather watch Pros on MuseScore.

Cerberus

Ruptured ulcer?

RegDwigнt

I thought you watched the show?

It was the biggest scandal in all of Britain since Thatcher had taken the milk away from the children.

Are you still awake or already?

I only got three hours in. I'm thinking of getting three more.

CowperKettle

07:14

Færd

07:40

Religion, Violence, Tolerance & Progress: Nothing to do with Theology

> 1) Religions map to highly differentiated belief clusters and mentalities that have little to do with their theologies,
2) Heresies are separatist movements, often ethnic, and have little to do with religious doctrine.

> So my point here is that the Weberian narrative built on the notion that religious transformations (say, as with the reformation) determine attitude and culture fails historical logic. And trying to change the theologies and doctrines makes absolutely no sense. You need to change the mentalities, and cultural norms — if you can.

> ce n’est pas en fouillant dans les textes sacrés qu’on pourra identifier le problème, et ce n’est pas non plus dans ces textes qu’on pourra trouver la solution

CowperKettle

08:19

Today a whole slew of raids by Putin's goons.

> "My flat was raided today at 6:50 am. They scared my neighbors, took some stuff from my room."

Maria is a human rights activist. The raid is reportedly related to a trumped up case dating back to 2003, when she was 5 years old.

SmokeDetector

08:42

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of answer (34): Word that means not being upfront about your intentions in the beginning of your stated goals ✏️ by stackexchange_account1111 on english.SE

Færd

09:49

In views of diversity, many Europeans are less positive than Americans

Even the conservatives in the US were ahead of most European leftists in this matter.

Conrado

At least they said they were.

Færd

@Conrado What do you mean?

These polls are taken anonymously, I believe, so what you say can't be traced back to you later.

Conrado

I mean it's easy for them to say that they believe in diversity for the polls.

But in real life, some of them still act out: "be smart, stay apart"

Færd

Ah, I see.

Well, that easiness goes for Europeans and Americans alike, so it doesn't break any symmetries, and the comparison holds.

Conrado

Yes, that's true.

Færd

10:01

:)

Where are you from, if I may ask?

Conrado

I was born of Anglo-German/Swiss parents in mid-Eastern USA, but live in Southern Chile since I was ten years old. Except for two years in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Færd

Nice! So you grew up multilingual?

Conrado

Yes, but mostly just English and Spanish.

Færd

Two major languages.

Such a treasure.

Going for my midday walk. Talk to you later, hopefully!

Conrado

Happy walking!

Bohemian relativist

11:32

isn't it very absurd that a sick person needs to pay on their own to see a doctor?

how can a sick person ?

CowperKettle

> In 2020, China broke the world record for most wind energy capacity installed in a single year with 52 GW of new capacity

I wonder how that translates into "nuclear" GW, considering the inconsistency of winds.

@Bohemianrelativist It's very sad, yes. People should always keep a sum of money stashed away in case they have a health emergency.

Amande Adorable

Hey hi! In the movie The Hunt for the Red October you have this line of dialog "Just give him a rundown on the sub and a précis of the stuff in your hand". So the précis is a brief summary of key points. Any specific reason you would use that here? Is that more used by people in the military? I ask because it's the character of Admiral Greer who says that...

2

CowperKettle

Word of the day: precis

I have never ever come across this word in my life before

Bohemian relativist

In Island China, they practiced that kind of pseudo-national health insurance and pretended everyone can see a doctor free of charge besides the registration fee.

Amande Adorable

So I gather it's not very casual...

Bohemian relativist

11:43

but their so-called "national" actually only applies to people who are affiliated with an organization who pays them monthly salary because in that case a part of one's salary can be automatically debited to pay the premium before the salary is issued to them.

Amande Adorable

Maybe they just wanted to make Greer sound more sophisticated by using that as usually French sounding stuff feels elevated I would think. Most likely nobody noticed. I picked it up only because of subtitles.

Bohemian relativist

for those people who are unaffiliated with any paid organization, they can really choose not to pay the premium.

these people who choose not to pay the premium aren't insured.

so the health insurance is only superficially national/compulsory.

the doctors there are not so reluctant to take patients without health insurance. I wonder why. Maybe doctors can get more money from the insurance bureau for treating an insured patient than from an uninsured patient who pays on their own for the treatment.

Amande Adorable

12:08

Cheers all!

Mitch

@M.A.R. Your application is already being processed.

Robusto

13:17

Interesting: sarcasm comes ultimately from Greek 'from sarkazein "to speak bitterly, sneer," literally "to strip off the flesh' (Etymonline) while Japanese uses the same notion: 皮肉 (hiniku) using the kanji for skin and meat.

So often you find relationships in unrelated languages that make you wonder how much of concept formation is universal.

Mark Giraffe

Hello.

How are you?

I'm under the water.

Please help me. :(

Færd

Are you drowning?

Mitch

15:14

@Færd glub glub

Mitch

15:31

also

Best Volleyball Blocks Ever with Scott Sterling

►

I'm still crying

He's also a soccer player:

Top Soccer Shootout Ever With Scott Sterling (Original)

►

CowperKettle

> The researchers found that the measures of physical health have worsened from the baby boomer generation through Gen X (born 1965-80) and Gen Y (born 1981-99). For whites, increases in metabolic syndrome were the main culprit, while increases in chronic inflammation were seen most in Black Americans, particularly men.

medicalxpress.com/news/…

@Bohemianrelativist What is "Island China"? All islands controlled by China taken together?

CowperKettle

16:09

My computer froze and went bluescreen. It restarted, but now the copy and paste keyboard shortcuts are not working. Strangely, the cut shortcut (CTRL+X) works well, as well as CTRL+Z

M.A.R.

16:23

Getting my (first?) shot on Wednesday

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Congratulations! This is fast!

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle they probably meant 'inland China'

CowperKettle

Ah!

0

Q: Copy, Paste, Find keyboard shortcuts not working in Windows 10 after a bluescreen and restart. What do I do?

Today I had the first ever bluescreen on my laptop since I bought it 2 years ago. The system warned me of some unexpected error and then restarted. Upon restart, I found everything to be okay, except that the CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+F shortcuts were no longer working. Strangely, the CTRL+Z and CTRL+...

@M.A.R. Will it be Sputnik V?

I think I'll just use a week-old backup and restore the system from it.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle think so

Cerberus

17:01

@Mitch Yeah I think this can be grossly misleading, in that the title suggests what isn't there.

For example, it does not account for the stuff you get for free.

Most prominent example: if you get free healthcare and housing, 30 dollars a day makes you very much non-poor.

However, if you have to pay both out of those 30 dollars, you may be very poor.

And that graph does not take such things into account at all.

M.A.R.

And 30 dollars a day is a crazy amount of money for Iranians

Cerberus

So "Global poverty" does not cover what the graph is really about.

@M.A.R. They have corrected for purchasing power, I believe?

M.A.R.

I mean, that our money has lost all its value is in part due to how bad the economical situation is

Conrado

We want to see the correction algorithm!

Cerberus

Although I'm really not sure how correct or misleading 'purchasing power' calculations really are.

Conrado

17:04

I never heard of "international dollar" before.

Cerberus

It's the same as dollars corrected for purchasing power, right?

Conrado

@Cerberus Probably more misleading than correct :)

M.A.R.

@Cerberus Well, it's true that as far as purchasing power goes, we're having outages

Conrado

I heard of the "black" dollar vs. the "blue" dollar, in Argentina a few years ago.

Cerberus

@Conrado I would not dare to comment!

@M.A.R. Power outages?

M.A.R.

17:06

Yeah I'm making a pun

Conrado

If you had dollars to sell, the bank would give you the blue dollar price, but on the street you could get the black dollar price, which was about 15% higher, if IIRC.

But the bills had to be very clean and not bent at the corners.

One wrinkle, and you're stuck with the blue dollar at the bank!

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Oh, haha I get it now.

@Conrado Why clean?

@Robusto Nice. In Dutch, one can 'fillet' a topic or argumentation (fileren).

Conrado

@Cerberus I don't know. I think that some people were hoarding the dollar bills. Some sort of shady business was going on, I don't know what. I was just passing through, and the only money I had was a $100 bill. And the bus company wouldn't change it for me either. So I had to go to the changers on the street, and that's what they told me.

And the reason that I think it was true, is that the official numbers that I had found online were right with their "blue dollar" price. They were quite apologetic about it. I would have never known that I was losing $15 if they hadn't told me.

Cerberus

@Conrado I can't really think of a reason!

Perhaps because they can somehow exchange clean bills at a bank or government agency (probably illegally), which only deals with clean bills somehow?

CowperKettle

17:21

Several Yekaterinburg citizens have been living in tents in the street for 4 days to prevent a 5G tower from being installed. znak.com/2021-03-19/…

In Russia the military have not allowed the long-distance range frequencies to be handed over for 5G, and thus the coverage will be very meagre anyway.

Basically there will be 5G only in some spots in cities.

@M.A.R. In Yekaterinburg, 30 dollars a day is a good amount to earn, but not crazy. It's about 2200 rubles/day, or 45 000 rubles/month, if you have Saturdays and Sundays to rest. Not a huge salary.

Oh.

I used the calculator button on the keyboard, and noticed that it got stuck.

I un-stuck it now, and the CTRL+V and CTRL+C started working.

Now there's no need for using a backup

Interestingly, the beeper was not beeping to inform me that the calculator button was constantly pressed.

It's an add-on button only present on the Microsoft Natural keyboard.

I have no idea, but could it have something to do with stuck keys? If a key is physically stuck (maybe shift or alt), or if there is a software error that causes the system to think you're pressing some other key, shortcuts might not function. — Cerberus 7 mins ago

I was not thinking of this option because all my old computers used to beep to inform of a stuck button.

Curious.

I was sitting and preparing files for restoration of my backup. I have several USB sticks and I was sticking them in to look where the VEEAM Backup software was.

I checked on a store webiste and boy the USB sticks have gotten cheaper. For $5 you can get a 32GB one.

“What Every Kid Should Be Able to Do by Age Sixteen”

> Know the local drug scene for yourself

What on earth does that mean?

A 16 yo kid should know where to buy illegal drugs?

Cerberus

17:41

@CowperKettle Yay.

By the way, we must look like a sockpuppet voting ring on Superuser...

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Seriously?!

> As a single mother of 4 she took up solo paddling in her 60s and paddled over 8,000 miles of the Alaskan and British Columbian wilds, crossing gentle paths with bears and wolves and foraging her food as she went. I could write many things about Audrey, but I would love to share a list she wrote for her children that offers an insight into her extraordinary leadership as a mother.

Solo paddling is a demonstration of your motherhood skills?!

CowperKettle

She took up paddling when her kids were already grown up, I think

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle the point stands. What a self-congratulatory article. I hate hate hate this sort of "pulp advice" nonsense.

I can write what a 16-year-old should be able to do, it'd have 40 extra bullet points, and these people think it'd be a blast.

It's so frigging to say you should be good at everything.

Life doesn't allow for such leisures though, so you should pick what you're good at to stand some chance of success.

CowperKettle

I agree, because all children develop differently. Some have chronic conditions even at 16 years of age.

M.A.R.

Lemme give you an example so you see why I hate this feel-good nonsense. Here you have lots of charlatans charging unwitting students high fees to consult them on strategies on how to succeed at the notoriously arduous entrance exam for universities (Konkur).

Cerberus

17:49

Sounds extremely...American?

CowperKettle

In Russia, there are numerous "business schools" that take big fees to make one "successfull" by following the advices of some business guru. It's laughable.

Cerberus

Ugh, business schools...

M.A.R.

So, here's how they often go: They design a so-called schedule for the student, something like "Get up -- 8:45, breakfast -- 9:00 to 9:15 -- study biology: 9:15 to 9:45 etc. etc. study math: 10:45 to 11:15 p.m. Then sleep"

CowperKettle

I have a friend who was a welder and went on to have a business selling things on his own, he now owns three small shops. He never went to any course and listened to no gurus.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus Yep, that is the direction we're headed: Emulating all the inefficiences of the developed economies without any of the good parts

See the problem with the schedule? It's idiotic, it's impossible.

They expect the student to study like 12 hours a day, 8 hours of which would be solving difficult tests.

Well, they don't expect that. They expect the student to fail, and then the student takes all the blame because they say I designed the schedule, you didn't follow it.

CowperKettle

17:53

M.A.R.

That's what that extraordinary peddler mother expects of a 16 year-old.

It's so easy to expect near perfection from others and blame them when they fail.

CowperKettle

0

Q: Meaning of "Know the local drug scene for yourself" in “What Every Kid Should Be Able to Do by Age Sixteen”

From “What Every Kid Should Be Able to Do by Age Sixteen” by Audrey Sutherland: Read a topographic map and a chart Know the local drug scene for yourself Handle a boat safely and competently (canoe, kayak, skiff, sailboat) The bolded phrase seems out of sorts with the rest of the list. Does i...

phrase-meaning

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Yeah, (realistic) schedules can be an easy, basic way to help some people who have issues with that. But it is no more than that.

@M.A.R. Tell everyone it is of the Big Satan!

M.A.R.

Now, if she instead tried to use a little bit of her brain to figure out which skills you really don't need for success or for life, and said "you don't need to be good at these:" that would have been different. I might have even scrolled the bottom without rage-chatting and rage-tab-closing.

@Cerberus You'd be surprised at what percent of our population, especially young people, essentially want to be colonized

Cerberus

Her children have probably grown up to be horrible monsters anyway.

@M.A.R. We still have some of that as well (people wanting to be influences by America). But it was a lot worse some decades ago.

The problem is that lots of things stick and accumulate.

M.A.R.

17:58

Well, Europe has something to linger on and be proud of. We don't for the most part, I mean, we have geniuses and stuff to be proud of, but people forget to be proud of anything out of spite for the regime

Cerberus

@AmandeAdorable I would say more context is needed.

@M.A.R. That is a pity. But I think they will learn to appreciate their own culture eventually.

M.A.R.

AIWS, the same goes for the consultant. You're not there to tell me what works, you're there to tell me what's efficient. I know that if I gouge my eyes out and drive myself to suicide studying BS that I hate and won't need after the entrance exam, I'd probably do well enough

Cerberus

What consultant?

M.A.R.

(BTW the whole suicide thing is not an exaggeration in some cases unfortunately)

@Cerberus The entrance exam consultant in the example I gave

Cerberus

I'm not sure I understand.

You gave an exam?

M.A.R.

18:02

Whoops

Cerberus

And you consulted someone?

M.A.R.

14 mins ago, by M.A.R.

Lemme give you an example so you see why I hate this feel-good nonsense. Here you have lots of charlatans charging unwitting students high fees to consult them on strategies on how to succeed at the notoriously arduous entrance exam for universities (Konkur).

11 mins ago, by M.A.R.

They expect the student to study like 12 hours a day, 8 hours of which would be solving difficult tests.

Cerberus

OK that one.

Still confused.

The consultant = "you"?

M.A.R.

No, the charlatans

Cerberus

Then who is the "you"?

M.A.R.

18:04

I was a high school student

Cerberus

4 mins ago, by M.A.R.

AIWS, the same goes for the consultant. You're not there to tell me what works, you're there to tell me what's efficient. I know that if I gouge my eyes out and drive myself to suicide studying BS that I hate and won't need after the entrance exam, I'd probably do well enough

M.A.R.

@Cerberus That "you" refers to the consultants, yeah

Cerberus

I specifically didn't understand the situation here, nor the different between "what works" and "what's efficient".

M.A.R.

Well, let's start over

Cerberus

<presses reset>

M.A.R.

18:06

There are people here charging high school students that are going to take the national-scale university exam high fees for designing study schedules for them and giving general advice and stuff

Cerberus

I see.

M.A.R.

I've had only few inevitable encounters with them myself, but I've seen them consult others

Cerberus

12 mins ago, by Cerberus

@M.A.R. Yeah, (realistic) schedules can be an easy, basic way to help some people who have issues with that. But it is no more than that.

M.A.R.

There are a few that are good at their jobs and realistic in their expectations

Most, they expect the impossible from the student, and then when the student fails to deliver, everything is blamed on the student

They blame the student, the parents blame their students, even the students blame themselves.

Cerberus

Yeah, that's bad.

M.A.R.

18:10

That's incidentally also what's wrong with this extraordinary mother's advice: She expects the average 16 year-old to be as eloquent as a businessman, as nifty with tools as a mechanic, as moral as a saint, and as obedient as a slave.

Cerberus

I normally make the schedule together with the child.

I ask him what he thinks he can do and when he wants to do it.

M.A.R.

> Listen to an adult talk with interest and empathy

Cerberus

@M.A.R. In my experience, businessmen are the opposite of eloquent. They ruin the language.

M.A.R.

Translation: Put up with whatever shit is thrown at them by the older generations.

Cerberus

Heh.

Why are you even reading that.

M.A.R.

18:12

I dunno, this whole convo started with it, so I scrolled up and clicked on it again

Cerberus

Poor you.

M.A.R.

Yeah, I don't make 30 dollars a day

Cerberus

On the internet, I try not to click on headlines that I know will make me mad.

2

Sometimes, I fail.

When I succeed, it brings me peace.

M.A.R.

Yeah it's why I don't check the news often anymore

Cerberus

You are highly educated: don't you think you will be able to find an OK job?

And you write very good English to boot.

I would say in the highest permille of your country.

M.A.R.

18:15

@Cerberus Oh, hopefully I can land something good when I graduate

@Cerberus I've sometimes just idly mused about monetizing my English skills

Cerberus

I'm sure you could.

M.A.R.

I'll definitely need plenty of it during my future academic career

Cerberus

At least here, there are many who speak it well enough; but proper writing skills are rare.

M.A.R.

Here, people are really bad at speaking it compared to, say, India

Writing it . . . well

Cerberus

Voilà.

M.A.R.

18:18

I think it should be comparable to the less international parts of China

Cerberus

I'm not sure.

Outside the cities, I believe people in China speak zero English.

M.A.R.

Here I constantly find errors in what English teachers teach online

Cerberus

It's also what I heard from people travelling there.

@M.A.R. I think that is common around the world...

M.A.R.

@Cerberus And here, the older generation would know mostly only "hello" and "how are you"

And "Tank you"

Cerberus

Yeah.

So why don't you tutor some Ayatollah's kids?

M.A.R.

18:20

@Cerberus well, typos, egregious grammatical mistakes, atrocious pronunciation, we're talking barely fluent English here

Cerberus

Also quite common!

M.A.R.

@Cerberus I don't know, honestly. Here, whoever enters "the three majors" (medicine, dentistry and pharmacy) is sort of a success story and can simply use that to leech money from unwitting Konkur students (which is the lot of them).

I don't wanna be part of a system that traumatizes teenagers though

Cerberus

You could be a nice tutor.

CowperKettle

18:49

Amande Adorable

20:25

@Cerberus The context is the Tom Clancy novel. In the scene Greer and Ryan are heading to a meeting in D.C. where the Secretary of Defense will attend. Ryan (A. Baldwin) is a CIA analyst working for Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones). Ryan is reading a report Greer handed him about the USS Dallas saying they lost contact with the Red October when they deployed their caterpilar drive and also about Russian fleet deployment. So Ryan asks who's doing the presentation and Greer tells him he is...

So Ryan stops in his tracks and Greer tries to reassure him, no one knows this material better than you do etc.. And that's when the Greers tells him to give the attendees a rundown on the sub and a précis of what he has in his hands literally.

So maybe that word is stuff you would hear in DC from these sort of people?

when Greer tells him*

I don't know, Merriam is giving two examples, one with a book (a précis of the book's plot), one with the draft of a statute (a précis of the bill that the legislature is currently considering).

Robusto

@AmandeAdorable That word would be perceived as pretentious outside of academic discussion. Most people would use summary, synopsis, outline, etc. And in the military, I would expect the word most used would be the verb brief: "Please brief him on those documents."

Amande Adorable

20:41

@Robusto Thank you for the insight. How can I tell whether using a word like that would sound pretentious or rather elevated like bon appétit or something?

Maybe it's just food related French loanwords which are elevated.

Robusto

Being able to discriminate among different vocabulary choices requires a level of fluency most native speakers don't even have. The point is, different classes of people gravitate to certain vocabularies, and don't even question what kind of vocabulary they are using. They just use it.

Amande Adorable

I understand. I would need to be in DC and listen. Just like at the McD or gas station. I hear you.

M.A.R.

Well, frequency has a lot to do with it, but it's not the only factor obviously

Robusto

@AmandeAdorable The fact is, Tom Clancy was not discriminating about language. He could tell you about every rivet on a submarine, but not a great deal about how people actually talk. I found his dialogue wooden and a bit childish.

M.A.R.

If people can say "summary" instead of the French word for "summary", then saying the French "summary" would come off as a little bit pretentious

Amande Adorable

20:47

It's possible the dialog in the movie benefits from the scriptwriter etc.

M.A.R.

Of course, people are forgiving of the proverbial Shakespeares that don't even seem aware how florid their language really sounds

But in the age of internet, people will assume you used a thesaurus to write the comment

Amande Adorable

@M.A.R. Please note though this word is no longer in use in French with that meaning.

RexYuan

Is the "Tom Clancy style" a product of the sociolect of the context? I've found some military themed writings rather cold and off as well

M.A.R.

Yeah I'd expect as much, but still

Not feeling very verbose tonight

Robusto

Writers of military fiction care about getting the details of weaponry and battle right. They don't care about language, and if they did it would likely be taken as a weakness by their target audience.

That's also why their characters seem so wooden. So two-dimensional.

M.A.R.

20:51

"Aaaaaaye will save you, m'lady!"

Amande Adorable

I admit I never read Clancy or similar authors, my connection is really with the movie and associted computer games. I just really like submarine movies, like Das Boot.

Robusto

That's not to say they can't tell an engrossing story. It just means it fulfills the genre requirements first.

@AmandeAdorable One of the guys I cycle with was a submarine captain, and he thinks those films are kind of hilarious.

M.A.R.

@Conrado On the whole misleading thing, XKCD coincidentally has a comic today:

For sentimental reasons, every active Mars rover is counted as one person, although that's not enough to make Mars more than a dot.

2

Amande Adorable

@Robusto I understand. I play Sub Command by Sonalyst.

Cerberus

@AmandeAdorable Have you played any submarine games?

Robusto

20:55

@M.A.R. Perfect!

Conrado

@M.A.R. Ha.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. I didn't know there lived this many people on Neptune.

Amande Adorable

Sub Command, yes. @Cerberus

Robusto

People denigrate the "obligatory XKCD reference" but those have become a cliché simply because they're so damn good.

Cerberus

@AmandeAdorable Cool, do you recommend it?

Robusto

20:57

@Cerberus You have to get out to the remote planets more often.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus It's mostly just Neptune and his family; them Gods used to have pretty extended families

Cerberus

Do I really?

Robusto

Yes. You really do.

M.A.R.

Were dogs the first or the second species sent to space?

Cerberus

I don't know, they didn't send me.

Robusto

20:59

@Cerberus That could be a contributing factor to your ignorance about populations on remote planets. Just saying.

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