English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

02:03

Everybody wants us to stop changing the clocks. Since twice as many people prefer permanent summer time over permanent standard time, all we have to do to make everybody happy is set our clocks back by 20 minutes next fall and never touch them again.

Cerberus

Well, people in different places will want to set their clocks to different permanent times.

So each city should just set its clock to e.g. 7 PM exactly when the sun sets.

That would accommodate everyone.

Back to the 18th century!

tchrist

Well, then 7pm changes every day.

Mitch

@Cerberus so close to the truly best solution... 7am set to sunrise. Easier wake up to an event, the sunrise, than to mark the end by sunset.

tchrist

Sounds like the Romans dividing every day into exactly 12 hours and every night into exactly 12 hours. The hours just change length from day to day.

Cerberus

@tchrist You could do that, or just set the time once, and then stick with that all year.

@Mitch That would be fine as well.

@tchrist Yes, or we could go back to that system.

If it worked for them, who are we to say ours is better?

tchrist

02:16

Hours are always better.

Cerberus

We haven't produced an Aeneid.

tchrist

Virgil was just writing Homeric fan fiction to please Octavius.

The Simpsons - Homer's Odyssey (Tales From The Public Domain)

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Cerberus

Yes, but he did it very well, didn't he?

tchrist

Aye.

Cerberus

@tchrist Also very authentic.

tchrist

02:28

I'm still waiting for them to do the Punic Wars.

They'd have to raze the Ella Fence.

Cerberus

Will those be as boring as Livy's?

tchrist

You just wanted him to play up Skippy's afro more.

Antanaclasis is when you mix things in a way that the common part doesn't get used the same way both times it gets applied.

The clinically- and policy-relevant evidence has them all in stitches on the main site.

That it's relevant clinically but not relevant policy is amusing.

Or is this antimeria?

Cerberus

Eh I'm not good with terminology.

There is also zeugma.

tchrist

There's some weird mixing where the adverb clinically is applying to the adjective relevant as a modifier but the noun policy as its adjectival complement intead. Which feel almost too different from each other to be yoked together.

> Syllepsis. A word modifying others in appropriate, though often incongruous ways. This is a similar concept to zeugma.

Zeugma and syllepsis

In rhetoric, zeugma ( (listen); from the Ancient Greek ζεῦγμα, zeûgma, lit. "a yoking together") and syllepsis (; from the Ancient Greek σύλληψις, sullēpsis, lit. "a taking together") are figures of speech in which a single phrase or word joins different parts of a sentence. == Definition == In current usage, there are multiple and sometimes conflicting definitions for zeugma and syllepsis. This article categorizes these two figures of speech into four types, based on four definitions: === Type 1 === Grammatical syllepsis (sometimes also called zeugma): where a single word is used in relation to...

That's funny. I said yoked before I looked it up.

> Grammatical syllepsis (sometimes also called zeugma): where a single word is used in relation to two other parts of a sentence although the word grammatically or logically applies to only one.[2][5]

By definition, grammatical syllepsis will often be grammatically "incorrect" according to traditional grammatical rules. However, such solecisms are sometimes not errors but intentional constructions in which the rules of grammar are bent by necessity or for stylistic effect.

"He works his work, I mine" (Tennyson, "Ulysses").[5]

> Zeugma (often also called syllepsis, or semantic syllepsis): a single word is used with two other parts of a sentence but must be understood differently in relation to each.[6][7][8][9] Example: "He took his hat and his leave." The type of figure is grammatically correct but creates its effect by seeming, at first hearing, to be incorrect by its exploiting multiple shades of meaning in a single word or phrase.

Ok yeah, zeugma.

You were right.

> The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms offers a much broader definition for zeugma by defining it as any case of parallelism and ellipsis working together so that a single word governs two or more other parts of a sentence.[17]

Vicit pudorem libido timorem audacia rationem amentia. (Cicero, Pro Cluentio, VI.15)
"Lust conquered shame; audacity, fear; madness, reason."

Cerberus

02:47

@tchrist Yes, they ought not to be yoked together, and certainly not with a hyphen on clinically.

tchrist

> If there’s a need both for clinically relevant evidence and for policy-relevant evidence, why shouldn’t we need evidence (that’s) both clinically and policy relevant?

It's challenging to do suspension hyphens sans hyphens.

Cerberus

You could use the hyphen after policy but not after clinically. It would be better than the way it was, though indeed still ugly.

Zeugma/syllepsis ought only to be used when its effect is somehow interesting; otherwise it isn't a figure of speech, but rather a mistake.

tchrist

Right. I don't mean to accuse the asker of being an orator.

Cerberus

I'm sure he will feel relieved.

M.A.R.

I give O ratings to many things

tchrist

02:51

Donated blood, eh?

M.A.R.

Nah my blood is A and it's not fun praising people

I give O's to people that say "H20 is water"

tchrist

They need to spend more time at the South Pole.

Rather than pursuing the structure you currently have in place and making unrealistic demands on simple punctuation as a way to avoid lengthening it, consider reworking it to say express the underlying idea more naturally. For example: "We need evidence relevant to both policy and clinical practice." As a bonus, even though my proposed revision adds the clarifying noun "practice" to the sentence, it is no longer than the shortest of your three original formulations (10 words, 62 characters, including letter spaces). — Sven Yargs 2 hours ago

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Q: Information on the Word "Peevance"

I was looking to write, "peevance" when my computer spat it back at me and said it wasn't a word. A quick scower of the internet returns little to prove its existence, nor deny it. I understand it to mean, "annoyance". Thoughts?

I hope we aren't due for a "heenius" moment.

I wonder whether scower rhymes with blower.

Peevish from perverse gave us peeving and peeved, and then peeves who peeve peeves.

Peevence. Peevance. Peevince. Peevience.

Grieviance.

Can Russia really be kidnapping people from Mariupol and sending them to labor camps in Russia?

Kinda Nazi behavior.

Stay away from the showers.

Putin's "vermin" imagery about Russians sympathizing with Ukraine was also right out of that same playbook.

> The Lithuanian capital of Vilnius has given the Russian embassy there a new address by changing the name of the thoroughfare on which it is sited to Ukrainos Didvyi Gatv, or Ukrainian Heroes' Street.

Commenting on this flank attack of verbal warfare, the mayor of Vilnius said, 'The business card of every employee of the Russian embassy will be decorated with a note honouring Ukraine's fighting, and everyone will have to think about the atrocities of the Russian regime against the peaceful Ukrain ..

Cerberus

03:21

@tchrist Nazi, Lenin, Stalin, Mao...

tchrist

To say nothing of the Uighurs.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah this may be a bit childish, but there is something to be said in its favour.

@tchrist Yes, unfortunately a great many régimes around the world do or would do this.

And certainly did.

tchrist

With great power comes great evil.

Cerberus

Yes, there is that.

tchrist

It's hard to imagine the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg sending an entire people off to the work camps.

Black Lives Matter Plaza

Black Lives Matter Plaza (officially Black Lives Matter Plaza Northwest) is a two-block-long pedestrian section of 16th Street NW in Downtown Washington, D.C. The plaza was renamed by Mayor Muriel Bowser on June 5, 2020, after the Department of Public Works painted the words "Black Lives Matter" in 35-foot (11 m) yellow capital letters, along with the flag of Washington, D.C., during the series of George Floyd protests taking place in the city. == History == On June 5, 2020, during the series of George Floyd protests, the DC Public Works Department painted the words "Black Lives Matter" in 35-foot...

Reminded me of that.

Cerberus

03:30

@tchrist I'm sure they tried it with some village if you go back in history enough!

But, yes, less powerful countries are less likely to start wars and similar things.

tchrist

@Cerberus And more likely to fall prey to those who do.

Cerberus

That, too.

Robusto supports Ukraine

12:44

15

A: Of the difference between zeugma and syllepsis

I have always understood the difference between zeugma and syllepsis to be that syllepsis is used to create a semantic dissonance with intentionally humorous effect. For example, here is Ambrose Bierce's definition of the word piano from his The Devil's Dictionary piano n. A parlor utensil fo...

Again, haha.

Robusto supports Ukraine

13:52

@CowperKettle Does the yellow part say "War is death"?

Or something like that.

Ah. So I still remember a little bit of Russian. ^_^

'Only defeat': Leaked Russian FSB report identifies Ukraine invasion as a 'total failure'

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tchrist

14:27

> “What a fine-looking thing is war! Yet, dress it as we may, dress and feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it — what it is, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform? Cain, taking the sergeant’s shilling?” —Douglas William Jerrold in The Folly of the Sword (1843).

Lawrence

@Xanne @Cerberus @tchrist Thanks for the vote of confidence, much appreciated! Unfortunately, SE seems to have swallowed my nomination form. I spent quite a bit of time putting it together last night, and don't really have the time to go through again before the end of the nomination period. If it helps, the blurb started with "I enjoy building community."

Cerberus

14:40

Oh, dear!

@Lawrence Why don't you quickly put up a nomination saying, "my text was swallowed, will add my answers later separately", or something?

Unless you don't feel like it any more, of course.

Lawrence

@tchrist In this global village, we might as well all just use GMT.

tchrist

@Lawrence Me, I reckon everything in number of seconds since 1970. :)

Lawrence

@Cerberus Hmm, would it be rude to just post the "my text was swallowed" part without the "add my answers [again]" part?

@tchrist You, you, you ... nix. :D

Robusto supports Ukraine

@tchrist That is totally epoch, dude.

tchrist

@RobustosupportsUkraine Makes us prehistoric.

Robusto supports Ukraine

14:55

There is a bird singing outside this morning. It sounds like the same one that introduces a song on the Pink Floyd Umma Gumma. I don't know what it is, but it sure sounds the same. I'm off on a ride now, but I plan to look it up later. Very chattery, very voluble.

Ciao for now.

Lawrence

Ciao from me, too.

Lawrence

15:10

@Cerberus The system has accepted my stub of a nomination form. I think I'll just leave it as is for this election. (If anyone objects, they can let me know and I'll withdraw the form if the system will let me.)

M.A.R.

16:09

Happy Nowruz!

tchrist

17:47

> Russia’s deputy Black Sea fleet commander, Andrey Paly, has been killed in Ukraine, Russia has confirmed. He is said to have died during the fighting in the Mariupol region. Paly was about to be promoted to rear admiral.

Vikas

18:00

lol did you know bear cries like humans 🤣 I read about it in childhood but I had forgot about that.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle now it's pieceful. He just really likes homonyms, is all

@Vikas what does that mean, "like humans"?

picturing a bear with a human face crying

Vikas

@M.A.R. There was a question in hindi in my textbook which was like "Which animal cries like a human?"

@M.A.R. I think it is related to voice.

M.A.R.

Ô.o

@Vikas hm, so how do other animals cry?

Vikas

@M.A.R. You may want to see this: youtube.com/watch?v=Msbmi5EwGkA

It looks like a baby crying

tchrist

Mammals cry in a mammalian fashion.

Vikas

18:07

Diesel prices have been hiked in India for bulk users. And a significant hike!

Oops

tchrist

@CowperKettle It's not readily apparent to laypeople why prices on commodities one doesn't import from Russia or Ukrania nonetheless increase as though one did.

M.A.R.

@tchrist it's all part of the NWO

New Wheat Order

tchrist

Economic high priests would be glad to explain it, but by the time they do, the laity have fallen asleep.

Certain foodstuffs have jumped 70%, ones that never leave this continent.

M.A.R.

Isn't economics all make-believe?

Vikas

Why do I feel like rising prices in everything is new normal?

Everything is becoming so expensive.

M.A.R.

18:16

Stereotypical fat merchants with red jackets share the same consciousness, they look at a banana, and think, "there's a war going on. This has got to be more expensive"

Vikas

Last time I bought something that wasn't expensive and it's price surprised me was table salt. I really didn't know why salt is cheap. It was my first experience 😅

tchrist

Try pricing tomatoes from one year to the next.

> In the 20th century salt has become a cheap everyday product, because new deposits have been opened up and production has been thoroughly economized. The techniques though are basically still the same as in centuries before.

M.A.R.

To-mah-toes?

tchrist

No come what toe may toes.

Vikas

I will wake up early tomottow

tomorrow*

If you want to say a Hindi sentence without speaking Hindi, you can simply say "There was a cold day". It sounds like Open the door in Hindi.

Vikas

18:48

@CowperKettle Can you give me Russian sentence for the same? I'll verify.

M.A.R.

It'd probably get flagged.

Vikas

@CowperKettle I kind of understood it in English 🤣 But Hindi translation probably filtered the obscene word and it translated it as less bad word.

@CowperKettle Yeah it sounds like this

Your bunny v-rote

Michael Rybkin

20:19

youtube.com/watch?v=XVu5Kodf5gA#t=3m25s their WONTED tank army stalled (is that the word he's saying?)

Cerberus

@MichaelRybkin vaunted

The two words are often not really distinguishable in careless speech.

Michael Rybkin

20:56

@Cerberus Thank you very much.

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:12

@Cerberus: Have you thought about becoming a mod on EL&U? I think you'd be excellent.

tchrist

@Cerberus If you find vaunted /ˈvɔntəd/ indistinguishable from wonted /ˈwontəd/ — let alone from wanted /ˈwɑntəd/ or maybe /ˈwɒntəd/, then how indistinguishable is the Disney vault from Walt Disney, or war from far, or wart (but not wort) from fart? :)

Cerberus

@tchrist They are distinguishable in general, but they can be hard to distinguish in careless speech.

Especially if you have never heard of the other word.

@RobustosupportsUkraine Ah, thanks, but I think I would disagree too much with general policy.

Robusto supports Ukraine

I agree. If you're a non-native speaker, there can be a certain lack of certainty.

tchrist

There isn't very much rounding in the vowel in want, but there's a lot in the one in vaunt. But they start with different consonants, which means /v/ and /w/ are being confusing.

Cerberus

Especially if you're German or playing a part in 'Allo, 'Allo.

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:17

But certain native speakers do round the vowel in want.

tchrist

As much as in vaunt?

Maybe if you can only hear one possible rounded vowel, those are the same vowel in your mind.

Robusto supports Ukraine

@tchrist People from Pittsburgh are notorious for that.

tchrist

They are.

They have /ɔ/ in both cot and caught alike.

Robusto supports Ukraine

I had a roommate in college from Pittsburgh, who always called me Rawb.

Drawing it out into a diphthong almost.

tchrist

It's funny. I know I have a different physical vowel in cloth from the one in call, but to me they're both rounded so I don't think of it. I have no minimal pair between those two vowels that I can think of.

Unlike the one in Khan, which isn't rounded at all.

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:22

Same.

Hey, do you recognize the bird at the beginning of this song?

Grantchester Meadows (2011 Remastered Version)

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That sounds a lot like the bird I heard in my locust tree this morning.

6 hours ago, by Robusto supports Ukraine

There is a bird singing outside this morning. It sounds like the same one that introduces a song on the Pink Floyd Umma Gumma. I don't know what it is, but it sure sounds the same. I'm off on a ride now, but I plan to look it up later. Very chattery, very voluble.

tchrist

@RobustosupportsUkraine Well, that's a skylark, which we don't have.

Robusto supports Ukraine

Then I must have heard something else.

I wonder what it could be. It made me happy, and I'd like to know its name.

tchrist

There are aspects of it that remind me of a meadowlark or a redwing blackbird or a song sparrow.

Robusto supports Ukraine

We have meadowlarks.

tchrist

But you also have canyon wrens, so who can say? :)

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:25

Western meadowlarks, but I know their song. It's not as incessant as this one was.

tchrist

They aren't back yet here.

Robusto supports Ukraine

I can actually do a pretty good imitation of a western meadowlark by whistling.

Its main feature is a kind of downward gliss.

tchrist

A cluster of juncos or house finches can make a collective noise patch.

Robusto supports Ukraine

Could be.

tchrist

Try the complex songs from allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/sounds

I have five or six races of the same species of junco. They all have different songs.

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:28

I will try that.

tchrist

Here's a house finch: allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Finch/sounds

Song sparrows really are the ones whose songs go all over the place: allaboutbirds.org/guide/Song_Sparrow/sounds A white-crowned sparrow also has a distinctive song, but you might be too low for that except during migration.

Robusto supports Ukraine

@tchrist Definitely could be one or more of those.

tchrist

House finches are definitely chatty.

Robusto supports Ukraine

@tchrist That one is not free-flowing enough.

tchrist

You mean carrying on for a long time?

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:32

Yes.

But in a babbly kind of way.

Not a lot of apparent repetition, or at least not short-phrase repetition.

Cerberus

@Lawrence Well done!

Just add little bits whenever you can: the more the better.

tchrist

I had a downy woodpecker and some red-breasted nuthatches with some mountain chickadees yesterday; they're a bit different from the black-capped chickadees.

Songwise.

Robusto supports Ukraine

Nice.

tchrist

Note the calls on the Mountain one: allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mountain_Chickadee/sounds

They're a bit weird.

You hear it and you go, hm, that's not quite right.

Robusto supports Ukraine

@tchrist Yeah, not really close to the cadenza I heard this morning.

tchrist

21:43

Russia claims to have set a 5am local time (3am UTC) "deadline for Mariupol to surrender". Or what, they'll destroy the city even more?

Robusto supports Ukraine

What, or they'll turn this war around?

tchrist

> Greece’s consul general in Mariupol, the last EU diplomat to evacuate the besieged Ukrainian port, said on Sunday the city was joining the ranks of places known for having been destroyed in wars of the past. “Mariupol will become part of a list of cities that were completely destroyed by war; I don’t need to name them — they are Guernica, Coventry, Aleppo, Grozny, Leningrad,” Androulakis said.

Cerberus

Could be just an attempt to intimidate the government?

Hmm.

At least the historical centre of Leningrad is still there?

I do not believe it's all reconstructed buildings.

Robusto supports Ukraine

@tchrist Also Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

Cerberus

And the centre of Leningrad is not small.

tchrist

21:47

Leningrad was never a real city. It's really just Saint Petersburg.

Cerberus

We know this.

Robusto supports Ukraine

Where war goes, there goes destruction.

tchrist

If you really want to leave your mark on history, you need a month named after you, not a city.

At least, that's what Aunt May always said. :)

Robusto supports Ukraine

Also April.

Not a lot of people are named after October, I find.

But there is a January ~~Johnson~~ Jones.

tchrist

It's the other way around.

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:50

January Jones

January Kristen Jones (born January 5, 1978) is an American actress and model. She is best known for her role as Betty Draper in Mad Men (2007–2015), for which she was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She also portrayed Melissa Chartres in The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018) and has starred in films such as American Wedding (2003), We Are Marshall (2006), The Boat That Rocked (2009), Unknown (2011), Seeking Justice (2011), and X-Men: First Class (2011). == Early life == January...

tchrist

Two faced.

Robusto supports Ukraine

tries to make Janus joke, fails

tchrist

The two-month C-section in the middle of the kalendar really threw off the numbering system.

Where do you think Putingrad will be?

Robusto supports Ukraine

In a cemetery.

tchrist

Putinbad.

Robusto supports Ukraine

21:54

Putineville.

tchrist

Puttaneska for girls.

Cerberus

I'm trying to find a map for Leningrad.

I don't know what the Russian means.

@CowperKettle Do you happen to know which parts of Leningrad were bombed to the ground by Germany?

Xanne

22:55

Siege of Leningrad

The siege of Leningrad (Russian: блокада Ленинграда; German: Leningrader Blockade) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken from the south by the Army Group North of Nazi Germany against the Soviet city of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) on the Eastern Front in World War II. The Finnish army invaded from the north, co-operating with the Germans, and completed the ring around the city. The siege began on 8 September 1941, when the Wehrmacht severed the last road to the city. Although Soviet forces managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the Red Army did not lift...

Cerberus

Yeah I was going to read the whole article, but the extent of the damage wasn't immediately findable.

I read that there was some damage to the Winter Palace.

But it wasn't destroyed, or we'd have know about that!

Xanne

There’s a list of palaces that were destroyed. The siege lasted 842 days; 1.5 million were evacuated; 1.5 million died; the NKVD arrested over 2,000 people for cannibalism. Worst siege in history.

Cerberus

Most people died from starvation, I believe?

Xanne

23:11

Yes.

So the article says.

Cerberus

23:27

@Xanne Right, but those palaces are outside the city.

I've been to the Peterhof, it's quite some distance away.

It's hard to find the extent of damage in the inner city.

tchrist

23:41

It truly seems as though there can never be justice for the multitudes murdered and maimed by these deliberate mass-casualty atrocities, nor any way to stop them from continuing. Please tell me I’m wrong.

Cerberus

23:53

It's horrible.

At least this time the war seems to be limited.

tchrist

So far.

We've already lost an infinity.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…