English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

01:22

@TRiG Yes, well, enjoy smugly saying the five syllables of "dual carriageway" every time you mean "highway" and reassure yourself that speech and spelling that aren't awkward and syllabically and orthographically challenged don't really build character and empires, and that what you really came here to do was to take it up the poop chute and build empires, except that, sadly, you're all out of empires.

P.S. Can you tell I've been watching one too many Zero Punctuation video-game reviews? I think I should go to bed.

BTW, I agree about "could care less" — I mean, what the fuck? I used to forgive people who said that on the remote chance they were being ironic, except that the people who said it were usually mouth-breathers who never moved the nuance meter higher than David Mitchell's ~~ass~~ arse on the floor of that caring graph and wouldn't recognize irony if it came up and bit them on the aforementioned body part.

tchrist

I didn't watch it. Too much spamvertising at the front.

Robusto

Well, once you mute that for the required 30 seconds it's not bad.

tchrist

But if he is bitching that we kept the original pronunciation of herb, and he has evolved, well he can keep it.

Actually, dual carriageway = divided highway.

Robusto

He mocks his own language by giving at least a head-fake at the Cockney dropping of initial H.

tchrist

Ah, so it is a clahss issyue then.

Robusto

01:29

@tchrist We would just call that the highway or freeway here. Either way, it's two — count 'em, two — syllables. Three if you simply must call it the interstate, but that's still way less than five.

tchrist

road

There are highways that aren’t fourlanes.

I just call it the fourlane.

The one without any stop-and-go lights.

Robusto

►

tchrist

I mean, if we want to revel in our own words, we might as well use them.

Robusto

This is my idea of a high way.

tchrist

Saw.

I wrote revel before I saw that that was Ravel.

Weird.

Robusto

01:36

@tchrist Overlapping puns then. I was going for forlane.

tchrist

I saw the forlane later, yes.

There’s another forlane ref that keeps eluding me.

Stopandgoes (meaning traffic lights) and fourlanes are from where I was a kid.

Robusto

There's got to be a way to work the House of Fourdor in here somehow. You know — Tudor times two? Henry XVI and all that?

Cerberus

Hello.

Robusto

Hullo.

tchrist

Got it.

I was thinking of the Ford Fairlane.

Cerberus

01:38

Did you know there was a whole Youtube genre about trolling moms through Xbox Live something?

tchrist

But apparently there is a Fourlane Ford in Alberta.

Cerberus

They get this kid to put his mother on the line, and they tell her little Andrew was watching pornography and such.

tchrist

Ick.

Robusto

Wasn't there a fake detective named Ford Fairlane?

Cerberus

And playing games rated 17+ while Andrew is only 13.

tchrist

01:39

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is a 1990 action/comedy film directed by Renny Harlin. It stars comedian Andrew Dice Clay as the title character, Ford Fairlane, a "Rock n' Roll Detective," whose beat is the music industry in Los Angeles. Plot Ford Fairlane is seen sitting on a beach smoking as the film opens. A flashback initiates, showing a roaring crowd at a concert given by fictional popular heavy metal band The Black Plague. Lead singer Bobby Black (Vince Neil) makes an eccentric entrance down a zip-line onto the stage and begins performing. Shortly into one of the band's songs, Bo...

Robusto

@Cerberus You come in here and interrupt a perfectly good rant with that bollocks?

Cerberus

Then it ends with a joke or an indecent proposition to the mother, and she hangs up.

Robusto

@tchrist Yes.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, absolutely.

They make her write down the address of their "company", with is in Get-Trolled, Minnesota.

Robusto

So admit it. You are totally into trolling moms.

Cerberus

01:40

I must say it is hilarious, and fairly civil.

Robusto

►

Cerberus

I couldn't do it, but it may not be unethical.

Robusto

Just substitute Get-trolled for every mention of "ghetto" ...

Cerberus

Almost the same thing.

Now I suddenly find myself listening to Elvis Presley.

Robusto

Excuse me — "get-TOE" ...

Cerberus

01:43

What was up with Kit, why did her rants get pricked onto the wall?

Robusto

What was up Kit? My, what an indelicate way to put that.

Ah, you edited it. Well, I'll leave my reaction for ~~posterior~~ posterity.

tchrist

Pricked?

Cerberus

Heh.

Robusto

I read "rants" as "pants" first.

tchrist

She was behaving immoderately.

To have so lost her pants.

Cerberus

01:47

Like this.

tchrist

Cool! Which one are you? Bets anyone?

Robusto

@Cerberus No kiddie porn in chat, not even for trolling purposes.

tchrist

I see the pants problem now.

Cerberus

You ain't seen nothing yet!

Robusto

No, and we don't want to see nothing. Keep them pants on.

tchrist

01:49

Stick, not prick.

Those are stick-pins.

Cerberus

You want to see naught? Or naughty pictures?

tchrist

I’d’ve said pinned more than stuck though.

nought

Cerberus

@tchrist I couldn't find a good example. I just wanted to use the word prick.

tchrist

@Cerberus This is understandable.

Cerberus

Good.

tchrist

01:51

I see that one of Kit’s comments continues to apply.

I’m trying to figure out the tizzy Martha got into with ER.

Cerberus

ER?

tchrist

Elizabeth Regina.

Robusto

@tchrist Speaking of which, name three streets in Chicago that rhyme with vagina.

tchrist

Hatch Street.

Robusto

Regina, Paulina ... and Lunt.

tchrist

01:55

I knew the punchline, obviously.

Robusto

Except there's no Hatch Street in Chicago that I'm aware of.

tchrist

It’s in Downers Grove.

Cerberus

@tchrist QE2?

tchrist

@Cerberus That’s whom I meant, yes; whether it’s whom Martha meant, I do not know.

Nile

Would you guys consider "The Tell-Tale Heart" a 'monster story'?

tchrist

02:02

No.

It belongs to the horror genre, perhaps.

Not all horror stories have monsters.

Nile

Maybe an under the cover monster... But I supposed "monster story" suggests a very recognizable monster in the story.

How about the urban legend "The Killer in the Backseat"?

The latter was recommended but I supposed that's also very horror genre based

tchrist

Don’t know it, but if it is not a critter, then it is horror.

Or something.

I don’t remember the name for slasher movies.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh, OK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus where does one usually get a cheap sim card in europe? Like, if I wanted to get enough minutes/data for 10 days usage

Cerberus

02:23

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I would order it online. If you can pay online, you could have it shipped to your hotel?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus interesting idea

Cerberus

Otherwise, you could just walk into a phone shop (I don't know what kind of shops they have there). Your hotel may have pre-paid cards too.

Supermarkets have them too here.

But you'll probably get much better deals online.

You are limited to prepaid, I expect, so it is going to be comparatively expensive anyway (like 20–30 cents/minute).

Then again, I don't know how things are in Austria.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I am more interested in data, I don't expect to make many calls

Cerberus

Right, then you need to make sure the pre-paid card allows data.

Not all do.

prepaidgsm.net/en/austria.html

> Klax Internet / SurfKlax It's a data-only prepaid sim-card by T-Mobile Austria. The starting kit costs € 9.99 including 512MB of data; after that you pay the standard rate of € 0.02/MB. There's a new starting kit called SURFKLAX Paket which costs € 9.99 and includes 1GB of data valid 1 month. You then pay € 5.00/month for 1GB. In order to upgrade from Klax Internet to SurfKlax send an SMS writing "SURF" to 0676/2222

I would expect this to be sold in supermarkets, and perhaps even at your hotel.

You could just go to your hotel and ask them.

€ 10 for 500 MB is not too shabby.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus interesting. data-only.

Cerberus

02:34

Yeah.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

what does it mean for the voice cards "activation fee/credit: 14.90/9.00"

Cerberus

You pay € 14,90, and you get € 9 "credit" on your card that you can use immediately.

Or so I assume.

I've never bought a pre-paid card in my life.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

ooooh..... so the card has € on it, not minutes or GB

Cerberus

So any calls and data you use are subtracted from the credit.

Yes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

interesting

Cerberus

02:40

And the cost per minute or SMS or MB is in the table somewhere when you click on the "offer" link.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But the thing is, expressing this credit in Euros is meaningless if you don't get the exact same amount as what you paid for. They do that to make it more confusing or more attractive or something.

Don't pre-paid cards have some kind of credit on them in Canada?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No, I think the extra € 5 is the activation fee

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, probably.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I honestly don't know how they work. I don't know anyone who's ever used one.

Cerberus

Here, it's mainly teenagers.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus You can reload for € 20/20 or € 40/40

Cerberus

02:42

Right.

Here you will often see "pay only € 10 for € 20 credit".

On billboards.

Makes it seem cheaper, although what matters in the end is what you pay per minute, SMS, and MB in cold, hard euros.

So if they simply subtract double the amount per MB...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yeah, exactly

Well, I'm not looking for the best possible rate or anything. I just want to be able to get maps and use Google Translate.

Cerberus

Yes, of course.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I would install off-line applications that can do that anyway.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

data-only would be useful. But I would also like to be able to make the occasional call if needed.

@Cerberus do you have a suggestion for a good offline replacement for those?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ehm I have heard Waze mentioned for navigation.

Never used it myself.

Better Google "android offline navigation".

I saw some pages about this a while ago.

By the way, it is a good idea to store the areas around Vienna and Salzburg in memory through Google Maps (though it still won't allow you to navigate or search, you can at least look at the map).

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well, for maps, I can probably use Google Maps in saved-map mode. I only really need two cities.

Cerberus

02:47

Jinx.

But you can't search, and you can't navigate.

Which is stupid.

But you know Google, they want to force you to be online.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, I never use navigation

I can read a map just fine, I don't need the computer to tell me how to get there

I've never had a good result from navigation. The other day it tried to make me walk 14km to get to my house which was 1.4km away.

well, I am downloading dict.cc's EN/DE dictionaries

we'll see if they can be useful

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How about directions, as in a route on the map?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus what do you mean?

Cerberus

Suppose you ask the hotel for a good restaurant, and they tell you it is at the Stefansplatz.

How will you find the Stefansplatz on the map?

You have no idea where it is.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I suppose

In the old days I'd look at the index of the map

now, I guess I'd just show the map to the hotel clerk and ask them where it is

Cerberus

03:04

Why not just type "Stefansplatz" on your phone?

And you may want to know how to get somewhere when you're walking around town.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Assuming I can figure out how to type it

Cerberus

Sure you can.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

but still. Searching for something is one thing. Google maps doesn't have an index because it has search, so offline would be a weakness. But route-finding? I am fairly confident that I can handle that.

Cerberus

Sure.

As long as you have a map on your phone that shows your position with an arrow pointing in the right direction.

The direction you're facing, that is.

Hey, I'm getting a "couldn't sign in: there was a problem communicating with Google servers" on my phone.

But Google Maps works.

And Gmail too.

David Wallace

Hmm, google must have more than one server.

Cerberus

03:14

Play Store application works too.

Hi!

David Wallace

Greetings, canine guardian of the Netherworld.

Or the Netherlands, one or the other.

Cerberus

woof

David Wallace

I find streetview useful in conversations with my wife.

I can say "turn left when you come to the shops that look like this". Or whatever.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm getting that too

But I can still use some of the google things

I think it might be my work email acct that isn't working

Cerberus

Oh!

I have never had this happen.

Surely it is no coincidence?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:17

maybe google is having a problem

Cerberus

If we both have this all of a sudden.

@DavidWallace Haha, nice.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Probably.

I love Streetview.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 By the way, I'm hearing good stories about Nav Free.

David Wallace

But sometimes I find later that something has been demolished, and the particular street corner looks completely different.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Hmm yes, that may happen in newer neighbourhoods I guess, or out of town.

David Wallace

@Cerberus Or places that aren't in Western Europe or North America.

Cerberus

> (About Google Maps offline cache:) Maps are automatically deleted after 30 days. There’s no warning and no way to change this behavior. If you depend on your map, you might find it has disappeared when you need it most.

I didn't know this.

David Wallace

03:20

Streetview in my area has photos taken in 2009.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace I suppose...but they wouldn't demolish monuments in Turkey or the eastern part of the EU, mostly.

Or tourist areas around the world.

David Wallace

Yes. Most of the regions in which Jasmina looks for directions do not have Turkish monuments and are not tourist areas.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace you should start a petition to rectify that.

David Wallace

You mean, petition her to ask for directions to different places?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

no, petition to get more turkish monuments installed, so that she can use them as waypoints

David Wallace

03:24

I'm not sure whether that's more likely to be successful or less.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace And you let her visit such ugly places on her own?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So by the way, I would probably download Nav Free.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus setting it up now

Cerberus

In fact, I probably will, because I will be out in the country next weekend, with weak coverage.

Yay!

Oh, and it says you need Nav Free USA for USA maps. I don't know how or why.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm not sure how much of it works offline. At least the maps are stored permanently offline

Cerberus

These pages I read say everything works offline.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:26

I'm sure I won't need those in Austria :)

Cerberus

Probably not!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus The app description I read said it integrates with Google and Bing

Cerberus

Yes.

David Wallace

Why is english.stackexchange.com/questions/83143/… still open? Have we become a proofreading site?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

play.google.com/store/apps/…

Cerberus

03:27

It has some Google Search function that doesn't work offline, obviously.

The rest works.

David Wallace

@Cerberus Who said ugly?

I said devoid of Turkish monuments.

We don't have ugly places in the Hutt Valley.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace It's not exactly proofreading.

It's about a bunch of possible common errors.

David Wallace

Isn't that what proofreading is?

Here are five sentences. Please proofread. That's what the question essentially says.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Sorry, I only like Turkish monuments.

@DavidWallace Yeah it is proofreading.

David Wallace

Mind you, I suppose that's why we have a voting system, rather than a Davidocracy.

Cerberus

03:32

He should post those sentences separately.

David Wallace

So that I have to issue five separate close votes?

Cerberus

Very short "texts" where the OP is looking to identify a specific error rather than correct all errors is fine to me.

We have always made an exception for short sentences with some background research.

David Wallace

No, I think the poster needs to know what the potential error is. So, a question about lie vs lay is OK. A question that says "what's the error in 'if you don't feel well, go and lay down' " is not.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace It's not proofreading. He didn't write a sentence and say "Is this sentence okay?" He was given a sentence that is known to have a common grammatical error, and he can't find the error. The sentence is already "proofread".

David Wallace

And what if the correct answer were "that one's a trick question; the sentence is fine"?

Cerberus

03:35

@DavidWallace I feel that it is OK.

@DavidWallace Then what?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

What if? Actually it would be instructive to the OP if someone said, eg, number 1 is just peeving by pedants. The grammar is actually fine.

David Wallace

Well, then there's no difference between such an exercise, and a "proofread this sentence" question.

Do we really want someone who has a long paragraph of text to proofread to split it down into individual sentences, and post over 9000 questions?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's one thing if the text is not supposed to have any errors in it and we are given the task of finding the errors to help someone with their English homework. It's different if a sentence is highlighted as having a specific problem and we are asked to explain it.

David Wallace

Yes. A specific problem. Not an unknown problem.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, proofreading questions don't bother me too much, except that they are too-localized and boring. But then again, just about everything in ELL is that way too.

David Wallace

03:39

7 mins ago, by David Wallace

Mind you, I suppose that's why we have a voting system, rather than a Davidocracy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace Specifically, a grammar problem. Not any of the other possible problems that might arise in proofreading, such as odd use of vocabulary or unidiomatic phrases or spelling mistakes or whatever.

David Wallace

I see them as a precedent. You let one in, and suddenly we become weproofreadyourstuffforfree.com

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's the difference between a puzzle, and a homework assignment.

David Wallace

But lie/lay is a vocabulary problem, not a grammar problem.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, I get grumpy on math.stackexchange.com when people provide detailed answers to obvious homework problems.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace well, whatever.

Cerberus

03:45

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I feel the same way.

David Wallace

Hah! I should answer more questions and complain about fewer.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, I'm sure the question will accumulate enough close votes by tomorrow to be closed as OT or TL. Also FF noted in the comments that 4 of the 5 sentences are actually dupes anyway :p

Cerberus

@DavidWallace We can deal with that when the time comes.

As long as it isn't a problem, I say we should be allowed to answer such questions, because many of us find them entertaining.

David Wallace

Actually, I suspect that the entertainment value is what keeps this site functioning.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> That is saying that the firm is now out of business, or at least is no longer serving customers.

Cerberus

03:47

@DavidWallace D'oh!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

that is what @tchrist says about the first sentence in that question.

Cerberus

I didn't get that either.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> The firm is proud to have served our clients for fifty years.

David Wallace

Yes, I strongly disagreed with tchrist about that one.

Cerberus

The problem is it => our.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:48

@Cerberus rubbish

Cerberus

As one of the other answers clearly says.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It is not a serious problem, but something that could be improved.

David Wallace

I suppose it behooves me to point out my disagreement on the answer itself.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus That has to be the most nit-picky correction I've ever seen.

And frankly, I don't even consider it an error. I think it's perfectly fine for a member of the firm to refer to "we" as "The firm".

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So be it. I find it a bit imprecise and suboptimal.

David Wallace

Maybe it's a different firm.

Cerberus

03:50

Could be.

David Wallace

Customers come to us, and we fail to serve them adequately, so the firm serves them instead.

So the firm has been serving our customers for 50 years. Even though we are not the firm.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Are you still getting the Google error too?

David Wallace

And they're proud of it.

Cerberus

Yes, could be.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus it went away, and now it came back

Cerberus

03:54

Same here.

David Wallace

Cerb's phone couldn't run Google Maps
And had problems with some other apps
So he traded it in
for a pad and a pen
which give service without any gaps.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

hahaha as if anyone would trade in a Galaxy Nexus! well, except the guy who gave me his.

so this navfree app. 1. It downloads a LOT of data. but okay. 2. It's really, really slow to download.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…