English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:07

@RobustosupportsUkraine We had that pretty dawn here, too.

Robusto supports Ukraine

00:39

It's one of the nice features about mountainous country, I thiink.

Or at least mountains in the West.

Cerberus

We had Saharan desert sand here today.

The sky was reddish grey all day.

Any raindrop left its sandy mark.

Robusto supports Ukraine

Desert sand? Kind of a long way from home, ne?

New Mexico has all the sand we need. We don't need to import any.

In fact, we have some spectacular sand.

White Sands, New Mexico

White Sands is a census-designated place (CDP) in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, United States. It consists of the main residential area on the White Sands Missile Range. As of the 2010 census the population of the CDP was 1,651. It is part of the Las Cruces Metropolitan Statistical Area. == Geography == The White Sands CDP is located in eastern Doña Ana County at 32°23′3″N 106°29′52″W (32.384064, -106.497698), at the southern end of the White Sands Missile Range. It is 4 miles (6 km) south of U.S. Route 70 and 27 miles (43 km) east of Las Cruces, the county seat. The entrance to White Sands National...

So of course they built a missile range there.

Cerberus

@RobustosupportsUkraine Very long. But this happens sometimes.

Robusto supports Ukraine

I suppose so.

I suppose stranger things happen, meteorologically.

Apparently California gets some of Beijing's air pollution.

That is some of the white sand at White Sands.

It's like flour.

Cerberus

01:01

Yup that's a desert.

Probably whiter than your regular Saharan dune?

Robusto supports Ukraine

I don't know. I've never been to the Sahara.

Cerberus

Pictures look decidedly more orangish or pinkish.

Robusto supports Ukraine

Yes. That was my impression from movies like Lawrence of Arabia.

But you can't trust the movies. They color-correct all the film.

Cerberus

I'll believe it.

tchrist

Most Respected Messrs, Mmes, 🙵 Mxyzptlx: Is there any chance any of you worthies might be interested in self-nominating your own candidacy in the up-and-coming ELU Moderator Election? If so, I most heartily encourage you to do so! @Anton @ColinFine @choster @DJClayworth @DanBron @DjinTonic @FumbleFingers @Glorfindel @Greybeard @herisson @JJJ @KateBunting @Lawrence @PLL @SvenYargs @TaliesinMerlin @TinfoilHat

calls spirits from the vasty deep

Oh drat, I forgot all the Ds.

Cerberus

01:13

What Ds?

By the way, did you use the special ping that reaches even users who haven't been in chat for a long time?

tchrist

DJClayworth DanBron DjinTonic

Oh aye. Hence the calling spirits from the vasty deep. Look at the edit history or something.

Most Respected Messrs, Mmes, 🙵  Mxyzptlx: Is there any chance any of you worthies might be interested in [self-nominating your own candidacy](english.stackexchange.com/election?cb=2) in the up-and-coming ELU Moderator Election? If so, I most heartily encourage you to do so! @Anton @ColinFine @choster @DJClayworth @DanBron @DjinTonic @FumbleFingers @Glorfindel @Greybeard @herisson @JJJ @KateBunting @Lawrence @PLL @SvenYargs @TaliesinMerlin @TinfoilHat

Cerberus

I figured you must have.

tchrist

Dang it still expands it. But those are superpings.

Cerberus

And I remembered it was to do with double @s.

tchrist

Yes.

Cerberus

01:15

I already looked back in history.

tchrist

It's like when you need to summon @RegDwigнt hither.

Cerberus

So you need to manually use their numbers rather than their names?

tchrist

No, you do not. It completes. You can use the chat user number if you know it, but you get a menu. Try it.

"completes" means there's a popup of selections.

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

@tchrist

I see.

tchrist

Yeah.

Cerberus

01:17

The pop-up doesn't go away until I press enter, though, obscuring the text box.

But that could be just my browser.

tchrist

Probably.

For Anton I had to look up his chat user id because it's too common a name.

Cerberus

Makes sense.

tchrist

The thing about a superping is that it AUTOVIVIFIES A BRAND NEW chat user at need.

So even if the user didn't have a chat account before the superping, lo and behold now they do.

Cerberus

Handy.

tchrist

It's because moderators may have to summon someone into chat who has never been there before.

Cerberus

01:21

Yeah.

tchrist

Not just never been in some particular chat room, but never been in SE chat at all. The autoviv takes care of that.

Cerberus

Do you also superping when you want to simply discuss a problematic comment chain with someone? Just to make sure the user receives it, in case he hasn't been in chat for a very long timr.

I understand.

tchrist

Yes, because the private chat room you just created to talk to them in won't know them yet.

If it's in a public chat room, it still works if they haven't been there forever.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm won't they get the invitation to the room anyway?

@tchrist It = superping?

tchrist

Oh probably, now that you mention it.

@Cerberus yes

Cerberus

01:23

OK.

Merci.

tchrist

There's some MSE post about this.

De rien.

Cerberus

We very, very rarely need to do these things.

tchrist

One imagines, and aspires to.

Cerberus

Indeed.

It's funny that our biggest problem user is now trying to troll ELU's nominations.

In comments.

Dan Bron

Hhi

k

Ok, as you can see from the precious

previous two

attempts, cha f

chat on.

Movle sucks.

GODDAMN IT. CHAR

tchrist

01:28

Moving always sucks.

Dan Bron

ON MOBILE AUCKS

Cerberus

Hello.

tchrist

Oh yes, it does.

Dan Bron

arrrgggh. Chat. On. Mov

tchrist

I can't type on phrikking foon.

Dan Bron

01:29

i give up.

Cerberus

Is your phone black and white from the early 2000s?

tchrist

They are ALL impossible.

Cerberus

Next time!

tchrist

I'm a double pentadactyl.

Cerberus

Of course a real keyboard is infinitely better.

Dan Bron

01:30

No, it has the amazing enhancement of “autcorrupt”.

tchrist

@Cerberus Not half so obvious to find info about this as I had hoped.

Dan Bron

anyway, lest I embarrass myself further, thanks for the ping. I bow out

Cerberus

What do you mean by that? You type with ten fingers? Isn't that normal? Although I guess I usually type with my pinky finger less.

tchrist

@DanBron Otto Korrect will get you every time. He's a spelling Nazi doncha know.

@Cerberus Yes.

Cerberus

@DanBron Aww out of chat now, or out of nomination?

Dan Bron

01:31

Both

tchrist

Now he's using a bow.

Cerberus

Aww OK.

Thank you for visiting us anyway!

tchrist

Somebody must have gotten strung up on a fiddle.

Cerberus

I'm actually not entirely sure how I type. I think I mostly use a certain subset of fingers, but will use the outliers when I really need to reach out to some faraway key?

tchrist

Poor kitty.

Dan Bron

01:32

It was the cat

Someone convince Sven to nomintate

nominate himself

tchrist

@Cerberus I can never see the keyboard when I type.

Cerberus

Can't, or won't?

tchrist

It's under the drawer thing.

Cerberus

I look at the screen, too, at least most of the time.

Ah.

tchrist

Exactly.

In case you hadn't noticed, nightfall has long ago come and gone.

I haven't turned on the overhead light.

Cerberus

01:34

Well.

To each her own.

> Toch bijten de Oekraïners naar verwachting van zich af. Zo heeft het land kruisraketten tegen scheepsdoelen, en minder precieze, maar wel effectieve, ongeleide raketten.

I didn't know Ukraine had cruise missiles.

Praesumably only ones meant to hit ships?

> De Russische landingsvloot is bovendien niet erg groot en kan in totaal maximaal 1.500 militairen en vijftig tanks of pantservoertuigen aan land zetten.

The Russians fleet can only drop off 1500 soldiers if they want to try to capture Odessa from the sea?

tchrist

@Cerberus Our biggest problem users are either suspended or have recently been so.

@Cerberus I'm not sure how that works out to be "only" for ships.

@Cerberus And that makes even less sense to me.

I suppose I have to go look at the news now.

Cerberus

@tchrist Perhaps they have poor vertical manoeuvrability? Can only fly over a fairly flat surface? I have no idea.

@tchrist Nor to me.

But this is from an article specifically about the Russian fleet that may intend to attack Odessa.

> een Russische krijgsgevangene vertelde aan Oekraïne dat er op enkele schepen een opstand is geweest. Zeshonderd ‘morpech’ (mariniers) zouden in Sebastopol geweigerd hebben van boord te gaan.

tchrist

Somewhere I just read that Russia has outed itself as having a terrible out-of-date military force.

Like how they have just one smart missile per nine dumb ones.

Here.

Cerberus

He will not like the title of that article...

tchrist

> Russia’s terror bombing of Ukrainian cities may look like strength. Millions of people are refugees, and buildings have been reduced to rubble. But three weeks into Vladimir Putin’s disastrous error, the real story is Russia’s weakness.

....

Russia’s nuclear arsenal will protect it against direct military aggression. (Not that anyone is threatening to attack.) But the debacle in Ukraine is the end of Russia’s superpower status. In his obsession, Putin has revealed, unprovoked, the extent of his nation’s decline.

Neither shall he enjoy reading "That’s all a third-rate economy can afford."

Putin has made so many strategic and tactical mistakes here. His need to try to cover all that up must be driving him crazy.

This kind of charade can be maintained only under complete lockdown of all legitimate reporting in his own country.

One wonders how many heads have rolled for this debacle.

Cerberus

01:57

@tchrist I think the Soviet Union and Russia have always been a second-rate economic power?

tchrist

The second world has always been third world. :)

Cerberus

@tchrist These are good rationes, but Russia has 15,000ish tanks?

JJJ

@tchrist Thanks for suggesting me but I'm not that active on ELU anymore and I think more suitable candidates have already nominated for my nomination to be obsolete. ;)

Cerberus

And what are those statistics based on?

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes, that's what the article concludes.

JJJ

01:59

Also interesting that all the good politics discussion seems to be here :O

tchrist

@JJJ ok thanks for looking

Cerberus

@JJJ Aww, but understandable.

Oops, we're officially about English. Or something.

JJJ

I think I saw some Dutch in there as well :P

tchrist

> If Russia triumphs, it is likely to be through sheer mass. According to the pre-war count by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank in London, Russia had 15,857 armoured combat vehicles; Ukraine had just 3,309. The proven losses so far account for about 6% of Ukraine’s armoured equipment but only 4% of Russia’s. That is why the Ukrainian government is desperate to keep supplies flowing into the country. ■

Cerberus

@JJJ Might have been a mirage amidst the dunes.

tchrist

02:00

@JJJ Yes, Cerb just prattles on in Dutch sometimes. He's gotten all his Low Germans intersmashed together.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm armoured combat vehicles are not tanks, apparently?

tchrist

@Cerberus Neither are think-tanks, I think. :)

Cerberus

Another thing one wonders about is what percentage of Russian tanks are even in a state to be actively used, soon.

Oh, and a last question: a while ago, we were told that Russia had amassed about half of its army near Ukraine, counted in soldiers.

tchrist

Seems like most of their stuff is "mothballed" as the idiom goes. Put into long-term storage and unmaintained.

Cerberus

But I believe the active army of Russia has about 850,000 soldiers?

@tchrist That would make sense.

@tchrist One also wonders what percentage of those captured vehicles are now operable, ready to be used by Ukraine.

tchrist

02:05

@Cerberus I'm not sure where all those figures are coming from. But it's useless to just call them soldiers without indicating how green-to-élite a given unit is.

Cerberus

No doubt, but I cannot see any way in which those numbers could be mutually consistent.

Or how do you say that in a more felicitous manner?

tchrist

Think about Roman tactics, how they always kept their most capable veterans in the back of the legion so they could be mobile for wherever the line broke.

Cerberus

Does that work in the invasion of a large country?

tchrist

@Cerberus Felicity doesn't work here any longer. Sorry.

Cerberus

I still wonder what Kadyrov is doing, by the way.

@tchrist Oh, was my English that bad?

tchrist

02:08

@Cerberus Putin threw a bunch of kids at the north.

@Cerberus No, I meant mine.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes, I also wonder about that.

So many questions.

tchrist

He doesn't have to cut Ukraine off from resupply from the north.

Cerberus

@tchrist Ah, your internal call centre is closing for the day so she is already at her second job.

@tchrist I'm not sure I understand.

tchrist

But he sure has trouble supplying his own troops there. He has neither rail (which is what he needs) nor air supply.

JJJ

@Cerberus Or it's just a threat to keep Ukrainian forces in the south occupied. Amphibious landings are very risks I'm told.

tchrist

02:10

So his supply lines are on roads, and that's much less massive for major resupply.

Cerberus

@JJJ Yes! That is exactly what the article ended with.

@tchrist Yes, you'll need to have a number of lorries driving back and forth to Belarus continuously.

And Ukraine takes those away.

tchrist

Here's a bit about the rail problems but not the article I was thinking of.

@Cerberus Nothing good, I'm sure.

Cerberus

None.

This could be the world's chance to eliminate him, now that he is in Ukraine.

@tchrist Hmm I wonder how hard it is for Ukraine to destroy any railways and junctions they need to give up.

tchrist

Unfortunately, the World isn't allowed to do that in Ukraine. Only Ukraine is.

Cerberus

Railways were a prime target for the Dutch resistance.

Which was infinitely weaker than the Ukrainian army, and didn't control its own cities at all.

@tchrist Anyone could send assassins to Ukraine.

tchrist

02:22

It's not like the Americans can just reach over the horizon and take him out like Qassim Suleimani.

Cerberus

See how far they get.

No, it will not be easy, because Kadyrov is not stupid in that way, he will protect himself.

Perhaps in a better way than all those high Russian generals that have been killed.

But who knows? It might be possible.

tchrist

Yep.

Cerberus

Oh, I had another thought, a few days ago.

tchrist

Putin's only hope was a Blitzkrieg victory. Now he's gotten himself a Sumpfkrieg defeat instead.

Cerberus

What if those generals are deliberately sent there by Putin or the FSB to be killed, in order to prevent a rebellion/conspiracy against Putin or his clique of ex-KGB agents?

@tchrist Hah.

tchrist

02:26

While I wouldn't put it past him, I also imagine it was their own stupidity that put those generals up on the front lines where they could be blown away.

Cerberus

I think I heard that generals would not normally move that close to the front?

tchrist

And there's no excuse for him not being prepared for guerilla tactics. Look at what happened in Afghanistan.

Cerberus

What guerrilla tactics?

tchrist

Hit and run, civilians fighting for their country not just soldiers, compromising supply lines, etc. If somebody is going to beat you if you fight them on an open battle plain, they you don't do that. He was stupid.

Cerberus

You mean the overall tactics the Ukrainians have employed in this war, or something specific regarding these generals?

tchrist

02:30

The former.

Cerberus

OK yes.

There is no excuse, and yet he does not seem to have been prepared.

tchrist

Hybrid warfare, or whatever General Mattis called it.

I don't know whether this is true, but I've read that he had his troops bring their formal dress uniforms along for the victory parade in Kiev, which was supposed to happen like a week after the start of the war.

Probably they should have brought food instead.

Cerberus

Hah.

tchrist

Putin's Army Didn't Pack Enough Food | Ukraine Puts "Russian Warship Go F*** Yourself" On A Stamp

►

Was there.

JJJ

@tchrist Oh yes, Russia might win the war but they'll probably lose the peace. I think that's how someone put it in a podcast I listen to. And like you said, that's also what's to be expected. They actually said that early on expecting them to have won the war by now. So that they haven't yet is kind of telling (about Russia's capabilities).

tchrist

02:38

@JJJ They cannot afford to occupy in terms of the costs involved and the personnel, and they cannot hold the country without that.

Cerberus

Not if a guerrilla and/or sufficiently armed resistance continue.

tchrist

Just digging the Ukrainian combatants out of their cities is really, really difficult. The NATO rule-of-thumb is that it takes a 10-to-1 force to do that.

JJJ

Yea, I think their plan was to install a puppet government with relative ease. Maybe even expecting a surrender of (parts of) the army.

tchrist

So if it comes to that, he won't dig them out with infantry. He'll do something abominable. Like he's doing now, and more.

JJJ

Yea, he's just using siege tactics now as I understand it.

tchrist

02:42

A tank is not going to help him in urban warfare.

Not unless it sits outside the city and blasts. But going down narrow streets? They'll drop things on his tanks.

JJJ

I mean more like medieval siege tactics. Surround the city, throw some stuff on it and hope as many people as possible flee. But then yea, there's not a lot to be gained by capturing the city.

tchrist

@JJJ Notice he keeps kidnapping mayors.

@JJJ Right, cutting off food and water, and waiting for them to starve.

Cerberus

@tchrist One wonders about Cherson and Melitopol, though.

@tchrist Not even that will do much good, will it? Using tanks to systematically level buildings would seem to be terribly inefficient?

@JJJ I was wondering why he shouldn't simply starve the city.

Take his time.

tchrist

They keep talking about Kyiv being the heart of Slavic "identity". I don't know how that works, but to destroy what he claims to hold so dear is inconceivable to me.

Cerberus

Yeah, so he will probably not do that.

I also STILL have no idea how many buildings he has destroyed even in Mariupol.

tchrist

02:46

Do the Romance tribes or Germanic tribes have a corresponding city? Maybe Rome for the former, but what about the rest of us?

Cerberus

And I mean no idea at all.

@tchrist Aachen.

tchrist

A city I actually know.

Cerberus

But it's small.

Germany has Berlin and Austria Vienna.

tchrist

I liked it.

Cerberus

But no real shared cradle, I should think.

I liked it, too.

tchrist

02:48

But the point is that the speakers of the Germanic languages have no single city to rally around and treasure in this way.

Cerberus

I once went there around Christmas, when I had a free travel pass for students, up to the border.

tchrist

If, in fact, that even makes any sense for the Slavs.

Cerberus

Not Slavs but Russians.

Kievan Rus as Ur-Russia.

It still doesn't make that much sense, but, hey.

tchrist

Bit of fairytale founding myth?

Cerberus

Not exactly fairytale, but it was so long ago.

Moscovy conquered Kievan Rus at some point, I believe.

tchrist

02:50

The Blitz in London struck at the hearts of all English speakers everywhere.

Cerberus

Then the centre of power shifted eastward, probably.

@tchrist I suppose it could be similar to that, except much, much longer ago.

And I've not heard many Americans claim England.

Only vice versa.

tchrist

"Claim" is the wrong word.

Cerberus

Claim in the way that Putin claims Kiev.

tchrist

Here you do study English literature, study English history at least a bit, in high school.

Cerberus

I'm sure Russians study Kievan Rus in school.

> At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the headwaters of the Vistula in the west to the Taman Peninsula in the east,[7][8] uniting the majority of East Slavic tribes.

> The state finally disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of Rus', fragmenting it into successor principalities who paid tribute to the Golden Horde (the so-called Tatar Yoke). In the late 15th century, the Muscovite Grand Dukes began taking over former Kievan territories and proclaimed themselves the sole legal successors of the Kievan principality according to the protocols of the medieval theory of translatio imperii.

tchrist

02:58

"Restoring" something from a millennium ago is a crazy, crazy idea.

Imagine trying to restore the Byzantine Empire from a thousand years ago.

Cerberus

Why not!

Could be fun.

tchrist

Crimea River.

Hey look, that would take back Crimea!

Cerberus

Although I think this is not so much about restoring the territory of Kievan Rus as about reconquering its former capital and the origin of its 'civilisation'.

tchrist

Odd how Kiev doesn't seem to feel like they need to take back Moscow.

Cerberus

They probably look down on that upstart?

tchrist

03:07

heh

Cerberus

03:25

Perhaps it might be as if Holland really wanted to reconquer Brussels now.

The perennial centre of government of the Low Countries before the protestant rebellion (together with Mechelen, perhaps?).

We lost it to the Spaniards, gave up on it, then regained it briefly in the 19th century (just as Russia regained Kiev under the Soviet Union, or did that happen earlier?), then lost it. And now we want it back! Our old capital!

Actually, Kiev became part of Russia (again) in the late 17th century, so Kiev was governed by Russia from ca. 1667 until ca. 1991.

And it became more and more Russified during that time.

tchrist

2

A: Can you use words like "free" and "brave" as nouns?

So the question seems to have become, more generally, "What's a noun?" That's a good question, and worth answering. Let me start by mentioning the fact that most English speakers' idea of what noun means comes from grade school (i.e, what we used to call "grammar school", which is a very ironic ...

Cerberus

Initially, Ukraine/Kiev had great autonomy within the Russian empire, but it was greatly reduced over the centuries.

tchrist

@Cerberus That's an interesting way of looking at it.

Britain taking back Ireland. Or America.

At least Putin isn't trying to take back Alaska. :)

Why people can't just leave people alone, I'll never understand.

M__

Perhaps the native Americans could take back American, its kinda theirs in the first place

tchrist

Naw, those are all Russians at heart.

Or blood. Something like that.

Oldest cousin of Native Americans found in Russia

M__

03:41

Okay, but the Bolivians did democratically go back to the Inca Indian descendants as their government

@tchrist Eskimos (Inuits)

tchrist

@M__ I was thinking about that just a little while ago.

M__

Bolivians or the Inuits ... never met an eskimo

Cerberus

@tchrist It is such a pity.

Misplaced arrogance often makes his posts unreadable.

tchrist

@Cerberus Which part?

Cerberus

In a different tone, the answer would be fine.

I wonder what made him so aggressive and disparaging.

tchrist

03:44

The meek shall inherit the earth.

Cerberus

Let's hope so.

tchrist

But you'll never find a meek.

@Cerberus Frustration over seeing the same disasters for fifty years.

Or more, probably.

Cerberus

Age.

You cannot teach nor discuss in this mood.

@M__ Though with Bowler hats, right?

tchrist

I wonder whether BillJ would call these some sort of fused-head modifiers.

Cerberus

I think he also has an issue with fixed terminology.

tchrist

03:49

Oh good, the Russian flag went away. It takes so long for them to get out of bed. :)

Cerberus

Oh, well.

M__

@JJJ "I mean more like medieval siege tactics." ... so like catapults and battering rams?

Cerberus

Your cats are the Russian flag?

@M__ Modern versions of those, and...starvation.

tchrist

No, that funny blue 1 to the left of where you type. Flag on something all in Russian. Couldn't judge it.

Cerberus

Ohh that.

tchrist

03:50

My cats are telling me about the weather.

M__

@Cerberus apologies flippancy ...

Cerberus

I "not sured" that ages ago.

@M__ I meant to direct that at Tchrist's mention of a Russian flag, not you.

M__

Okay ... now got it

tchrist

I know, I know: they should color flags based on what language they're written in!

@Xanne Would you care to run for ELU moderatrix?

🇪🇸 for Spanish flags.

🇷🇺 for Russian flags.

🇵🇹 for Portuguese flags.

Cerberus

Ohh it took me forever to get it.

The notification bubble is a 'flagged' chat line, of course.

I just read the words flag and flag as two completely different words.

I never connected the two, can you believe it?

tchrist

03:58

We'd have to use that for English flags.

Cerberus

It two to five.

tchrist

Bed!!!!

Cerberus

More so for you!

tchrist

Aye.

This rain will turn to a blanket of snow in my sleep.

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

03:58

And my cats will be even less amused.

M__

Finally I get it too ... it is a hassle when languages have singularly words with such diverse meanings

Cerberus

We have the Saharan sands raining down on us.

tchrist

At least they aren't blowing over here and making hurricanes.

M__

Learning a language is a nightmare, because you never know what the other meanings are about

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…