English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

3:26 AM

@CowperKettle Some more so than others...

Russia's famous YouTube blogger fled abroad, stating that he is afraid of living in Russia due to increased arrests and repression. znak.com/2021-06-22/…

And the result.

@Cerberus Maybe the statistics is skewed by the fact that in the USA the statisticans work more thoroughly and in Russia, for instance, they may just pull figures out of thin air.

@CowperKettle Maybe.

But America is suffering from a huge (legal) drug-abuse epidemic.

I think even opioids.

Their doctors prescribe far more drugs than elsewhere.

The video blogger said "I have to constantly keep my floors in the flat extra clean, because I'm afraid that the police will raid my flat and put my face on the floor. So it should be kept clean".

3:29 AM

Also antibiotics.

Russian doctors prescribe antibiotics like candy.

@CowperKettle It all sounds heartbreaking. At least he was able to move in time.

The famous Lancet article about Alexey Navalny said that he caught some ultra-hard antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria while in the Omsk hospital. European docs spend as much effort fighting these as they spent on fighting the results of poisoning by Putin's thugs.

@CowperKettle That's not great. Even so, I expect alcohol abuse to be the main reason behind Russia's dark colour on the map?

@Cerberus Maybe so ))

Red and White stores are on every corner

"Красное и Белое" (Red and White) meaning red wine and white wine

3:34 AM

An odd name.

tchrist

4:04 AM

@Mitch Read the figures used for the hours.

@Mitch No. Liberal arts is not just humanities. It comprises both the trivium and the quadrivium alike.

That's the whole point.

Liberal arts education

Liberal arts education (from Latin liberalis "free" and ars "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic program in Western higher education. Liberal arts takes the term art in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. Liberal arts education can refer to studies in a liberal arts degree program or to a university education more generally. Such a course of study contrasts with those that are principally vocational, professional, or technical. == History == Before they became known by their Latin variations (artes liberales, septem artes liberales, studia...

> Rooted in the basic curriculum – the enkuklios paideia or "well-rounded education" – of late Classical and Hellenistic Greece, the "liberal arts" or "liberal pursuits" (Latin liberalia studia) were already so called in formal education during the Roman Empire.

> The first recorded use of the term "liberal arts" (artes liberales) occurs in De Inventione by Marcus Tullius Cicero, but it is unclear if he created the term. Seneca the Younger discusses liberal arts in education from a critical Stoic point of view in Moral Epistles.

> Curricula differ from school to school, but generally include language, chemistry, biology, geography, art, music, history, philosophy, civics, social sciences, and foreign languages.

> In the United States, liberal arts colleges are schools emphasizing undergraduate study in the liberal arts. The teaching at liberal arts colleges is often Socratic, typically with small classes; professors are often allowed to concentrate more on their teaching responsibilities than are professors at research universities.

> In 1937 St. John's College changed its curriculum to focus on the Great Books of Western Civilization to provide a new sort of education that separated itself from the increasingly specialized nature of higher schooling. This was one of the first instances of a revival for the more classical approach to the liberal arts as expounded by Plato and Cicero.

5:20 AM

M.A.R.

5:36 AM

@CowperKettle people really do have a lot of time on their hands

Q: Recurrent message on Xiaomi phone: "EXCLUSIVE background task UPDATE_HOTWORD_MODELS crashed"

0

My mom's Xiaomi phone started displaying the error message: The Google application has suffered an error again. Please send a report to Xiaomi. The code under the "see more" button is extensive, but the gist of it is that the "EXCLUSIVE background task UPDATE_HOTWORD_MODELS crashed". The error ...

android

I'm not very savvy with Android settings.

7:08 AM

10:24 AM

10:37 AM

lol

12:52 PM

Names are changed to protect the innocent, except for Tom McEldroon, that homewrecker!

Q: Is there a specific English term for this vessel for microbial sampling?

1:42 PM

0

In Russian, such a container for microbial sampling is called бакпечатка (bakpechatka), as I learned just now. I've no idea about the etimology of the Russian term. Probably "bak" stands for "bacterial" and "pechat" is for "print" (to press). The container is used for taking bacterial samples by ...

bacteriology terminology

2:32 PM

Word of the day: cortical recycing

> Results showed that VTC regions corresponding to face and word recognition increased with age. Compared to the five- to nine-year-olds, teenagers had twice the volume of the word-selective region in VTC. Notably, as word-selective VTC volume doubled, limb-selective volume in the same region halved.

> According to the investigators, the decrease in limb-selectivity is directly linked to the increase in word- and face-selectivity, providing the first evidence for cortical recycling during childhood development.

Recycling brain regions: How developing brains prime themselves for learning to read

limb-selectivity? limb as in legs and arms?

that's wild

RegDwigнt

2:59 PM

Achtzig Jahre Unternehmen Barbarossa.

musescore.com/user/27897310/scores/6834088

3:15 PM

Cannabis use may be associated with suicidality in young adults

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle how is this thing different from a normal petri dish?

Parachuting beavers. Video courtesy of Idaho Department of Fish and Game

@M.A.R. It has a different form.

It's deeper and has a cap with a specific shape

►

Plural beaver?

I didn't know a parachute drop was so easy on a beaver.

2

Or perhaps it wasn't...

3:41 PM

Now that I have you all assembled here, I'd like to start by asking a question.

Is there a term for adjectives that are metaphorical or similes?

ie instead of using 'red', using the representative that is red 'blood-like'.

Are these called 'similiacal'? you know, like like a simile.

instead of 'pointy' saying 'needle-like'.

isn't that just a simile?

Yes, but the adjective version of simile

it's... like a simile.

or a simile in an adjective.

looking for a noun for such words.

of course I will eventually make an adjective out of that noun.

isn't a simile an adjective phrase? so these are just smaller similes?

but let's just start with the category.

@MattE.Эллен sure I guess. maybe actually a prepositional phrase, which is sort of similar to an adjective phrase

simile-lite

3:46 PM

but what i

chokes a little

clears throat

'simile-like'?

I like it but it's an adjective.

And don't reply "OK then 'simile-like-ity'"

because that is an abstract noun for the condition of being simile-like, which is not the same as being in the category of things that are simile-like

hmmmmmmmmmm-like

@Mitch Those are often epitheta.

But not by definition.

4:08 PM

> My father is a quiet man
With sober, steady ways;
For simile, a folded fan;
His nights are like his days.

Dr. John: Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child (featuring Anthony Hamilton)

►

@MattE.Эллен Taking the first i out of simile makes one smile.

@RegDwigнt So you're celebrating that?

@Cerberus 'are' is not a definition? or do you mean 'are' = 'is a subset of'

@Mitch Yes, the latter.

When adjectives are used to compare something with something else, especially physically, you're often dealing with epitheta.

So it was kind of a latter ladder?

But not necessarily so.

It Ain't Necessarily So from Porgy and Bess

4:22 PM

►

There's a song for everything.

@Robusto :)

@MattE.Эллен It works!

@Cerberus wiki is not helping well with epitheta, epitheton, or epithet. those definitions are awful.

@Cerberus 'beavers' is fine when you want to make it sound OK in a headline like that. But 'fishes' and 'deers' and 'shrimps' makes me squinch my nose.

@Mitch Try epitheton.

and by 'squinch', I mean 'refliskally'

@Robusto I didn't like that one either. First, wiktiopeesoshitary says it's German, then says some more stuff.

4:30 PM

> When James Joyce uses the phrase "the snot-green sea" he is playing on Homer's familiar epithet "the wine-dark sea".

Oh. oops. That site is OK.

This is common usage.

@Cerberus From Ulysses, of course.

No doubt!

@Mitch Agreed. I just didn't even know you could use beaver as plural.

Although it did not sound unnatural to mine ears.

> An epithet can even be meant for collective use, e.g. in Latin pilleati 'the felt hat-wearers' for the brothers Castor and Pollux. Some epithets resist explanation.[13]

The kingdom animalia is replete with instances of singular-as-plural usages.

Deer, bison, wildebeest, elk, moose, and so on.

4:32 PM

Right, those sound normal enough to me.

Perhaps also because they live in herds?

But chipmunks, squirrels, mice, etc., all favor pluralization.

Would plural squirrel be possible?

@Cerberus Perhaps, but perhaps because they are considered game animals, and different rules apply?

Right, game might suggest mass noun → plural.

@Cerberus Maybe if you were hunting them? "I'm off to hunt squirrel."

4:33 PM

Oh, that actually does sound natural.

I think you're right about the game aspect, then.

Perhaps. It would be good to have a confirmation from some higher source than my sense of it, though.

Then they are treated as a kind of collective, where individuals are not considered distinctive.

Perhaps.

Mice already is a peculiar plural, so it was spared this treatment.

One can eat mouse, but not hunt mouse, I should say.

Mice are a bit like pease.

@Cerberus I concur.

4:36 PM

I'm off to hunt rat.

Somehow, I wouldn't say that, though.

Bonne chance.

Would you?

No, I wouldn't say I was off to hunt rat. Neither would the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Perhaps a creature has to be big enough to be deemed a mass noun.

elephant?

whale?

Hmm, whales is problematic.

4:38 PM

That, or it was to be of a certain length or sound?

just one whale is big enough

I would hunt whale, but not elephant, I think?

I think it's probably more due to custom than logic.

It's certainly custom.

But custom may have been partially inspired by certain factors.

Yeah. But teasing out what factors are responsible is a difficult task.

4:40 PM

It is our task to find what factors there are.

Hah we both used the word task at the same time.

Word jinx?

Yes.

We're just very officious.

Indeed.

The responsibility of this room bears down on us heavily.

'epithet' is a little too general for 'simile-like' or 'adjective made from a simile'

4:43 PM

Yeah.

You could call your article a simulant or similant.

hmm...that sounds less crazy than 'simile-like'

but still a little vague

Words acquire meaning through context and usage.

replicant?

nope that's been taken

@Cerberus If you repeat it enough and can get other people to repeat it enough...

embiggen and cromulent are still a bit... not totally words.

Indeed.

St. Petersburg citizens on a suburban train.

Nobody's wearing a mask

The same I saw today at the local store.

At the queue to the checkout point, the two guys just before me were both maskless. Middle-aged men, about 45 years of age, one quite fat.

4:53 PM

Too bad for them (if unvaccinated)

I wonder if somebody has ever used the expression unso, like "This is not so" - "This is unso"

Or "This is so unso!"

@CowperKettle Not I.

@CowperKettle Not I.

@Cerberus?

Somehow in the process of looking for something I invariably find things I couldn't find before but not the thing I'm looking for now. There must be a postulate in here somewhere.

@Mitch Unso I.

2

4:58 PM

@Cerberus sigh

Gigili

6:21 PM

Took me so long but I got @Reg's point on "black lives matter".

7:04 PM

Reg...had a point??

Gigili

7:18 PM

Odd, but true.

Q: Is there an antonym for "paucity" that means not scarce and not necessarily but possibly enough?

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I am trying to fill in the blank in this sentence: "There is a(n) ___ of research on this topic." Using the word paucity would imply, to me, that I feel there is definitely not enough research and more needs to be done. However, what I am trying to say is that I know some amount of research has b...

single-word-requests antonyms formality

yawn

if-i-could-just-find-the-right-words-i-would-be-a-writer

Ivan Allbright's painting entitled "Heavy the oar to him who is tired, heavy the coat, heavy the sea." (1929)

Surely no mere fisherman ever worked as hard as we do in this chat.

2

7:55 PM

No, indeed.

SmokeDetector

8:13 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected (158): Has "mother" become politically incorrect? by Daniel Schur on english.SE

@Robusto my typing fingers groan under the burden of 'that's not even wrong'

SmokeDetector

9:27 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, repeating characters in answer (168): Difference between "abate" and "bate" by Joseph Erwin on english.SE

9:50 PM

"Get vaccinated or I'll lock you up in a cell!"

2

Duterte's cure is maybe worse than the disease prevention?

> “If you don’t get vaccinated, leave the Philippines. Go to India if you want, or somewhere, America,” he added.

C'mon, don't sugarcoat it. Tell us how you really feel.