English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

SmokeDetector

03:22

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad ns for domain in body, potentially bad keyword in body, blacklisted user (73): Why is it called pre roll？‭ by Captain2022‭ on english.SE

CowperKettle

03:52

Word of the day: a stipe - the stem of a mushroom

CowperKettle

06:19

French word of the day: baby foot (table football)

haha

Xanne

07:10

Wordle 485 4/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, link at beginning of answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer (124): What do we call a company that provides the services that were outsourced?‭ by kauckpatel‭ on english.SE

Vikas

09:37

#Worldle #269 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Easy

Wordle 485 6/6

🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

jlliagre

11:06

@CowperKettle Yes, Football(soccer) is often just called le foot in French so a baby foot is a "mini-football". Its pronunciation is mixed, baby is pronounced the French way /babi/ (unlike babysitter and babyboomer but like babylone) while foot is pronounced the English way /fut/.

Wordle 485 3/6

🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

An English word? I'd rather say German...

jlliagre

11:20

#Worldle #269 2/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Vikas

12:30

Yeah Google translate was kind of reluctant to say it is English word.

CowperKettle

12:46

Today the Duma discussed a new anti-LGBT law.

Haha, the speech by the Duma Speaker is hilarious.

"In the UK, children are forbidden to offend pedophiles".

Banning any mention of LGBT is "equal to a major military victory". LOL.

Robusto

13:36

OthisisaPain00#

#Worldle #269 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

#Worldle #269 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Somehow I forgot to copy the first two results.

🌎 Oct 17, 2022 🌍
🔥 47 | Avg. Guesses: 5.8
🟧🟧🟩 = 3

#globle

jlliagre

🌎 Oct 17, 2022 🌍
🔥 3 | Avg. Guesses: 7.12
🟧🟧🟧🟥🟥🟥🟩 = 7

#globle

Robusto

13:51

Wordle 485 3/6

⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

tchrist

14:06

@jlliagre I think that English foot is always /fʊt/ not /fut/, but that might be the closest it can get to a French phoneme.

@CowperKettle Never cross a pedestrian.

Robusto

@jlliagre Not used in Germany as much as I had imagined it would be. I would hear Humpen and Krug more than that one.

Vikas

14:27

I saw it today.

Would USA find it offensive?

It's cotton bundle cover.

CowperKettle

Elon Musk has really dug into Russia's history

He's right in this one point. If Ukraine invades Crimea, there will be more support in Russia for the Special Operation.

Robusto

@CowperKettle To the extent of men enlisting in the army?

jlliagre

@tchrist Very true, there is no /ʊ/ phoneme in French so we hardly differentiate between /u/ and /ʊ/. That's part of the French accent just like English or Spanish native speakers typically don't realize their U's (y) properly. When a Frenchperson pronounces baby an English like way, it also often sounds like /beˈbi/ or at best /bejˈbi/ instead of the expected /ˈbeɪbi/.

jlliagre

14:50

@Robusto I would say the word is very common in Germany, definitely much more than in the English speaking areas, but it has a different meaning there, the rolling kind one :-)

CowperKettle

@Robusto Maybe yes.

I downloaded this movie, Whistle Down the Wind

@Robusto We've been all taught about the heroic defence of Sevastopol in the 19th and in 1942. It's really very much a part of Russian culture.

Robusto

@jlliagre Well, yes. I guess I'm guilty of letting the English usage bleed into the German one there. When I think of that word in an English context, I think of things that can be obtained in a bar. ^_^

@CowperKettle OK, point taken, and people are going to think what they are going to think. That's just a fact.

On the other hand, let me offer a comparison: The US "won" the Philippines from Spain in the Spanish-American War, and defended it from the Japanese at great cost in WWII. We used Subik Bay as an important naval base for a long time thereafter, until we were kicked out a few decades ago. That doesn't mean we would feel we "owned" the Philippines.

Mitch

15:08

@Vikas So those are just cotton fluffs inside?

The USA is a big place and there's lots of room for different opinions.
1) My personal opinion would be that it would be crazy to be offended by it.
2) I think (colored by that opinion) that most Americans would not think anything of it.
3) But I am aware that some (I expect very few) Americans get really upset when a flag is used improperly, but that comes from two different places:
---a) military and things like Boy Scouts teach 'flag respect' were you can only use the flag for ...'flag' purposes, and you have to present it in a respectful manner. So using it for clothes, or letting it dr…

All kinds of Americans do things with the US flag - pants, jackets, streamers as ads at car dealerships, etc, etc. Some people think that is offensive, but most other people don't even notice.

When I see an American flag burning, I think:
1) what a waste of perfectly good cloth
2) that might be a fire hazard, I hope they have a fire extinguisher nearby
3) I wonder how childish the flag burner must be to think that others would be similarly childish to take such an act so seriously.

@CowperKettle Was Crimea historically ethnically Ukrainian?

I've heard that the population is ~50/50 Ukrainian/Russian. (is that roughly the case?)

Was that always the situation, even in tsarist times, or only really in Soviet times?

Vikas

15:29

@Mitch Yeah I've seen it.

I also personally don't think it's disrespectful.

@Mitch Yes.

"Cotton of USA" in India.

Mitch

What is the situation there with your flag?

Vikas

Flag 'laws' are different here. It wouldn't be accepted here I think.

I sometimes feel scared about it. I want to own a flag but then I worry what if I broke any law unknowingly?

Mitch

In the US I think there is currently (or maybe it has been there for the past 60 yrs, I can't tell) a pull in two different directions by lawmakers
1) freedom of speech (allowing people to burn the flag with no repercussions)
2) respect laws (forbidding people to burn the flag)

But that's lawmakers making stuff up that doesn't affect any practical thing.

just appealing to extremes on both sides. (but I feel like '2' is much more extreme)

Vikas

I found a quick Google relevant search:

> In 2005, the Lok Sabha passed a bill that allowed Indian citizens to wear the tricolour as part of their attire, if worn respectably. As per the law, it is illegal to wear the tricolour anywhere below the waist and it cannot be used in items of daily use such as cushions, handkerchiefs and undergarments.

if worn respectably

Mitch

@Vikas Yeah. Most people aren't acting on these things with deep philosophical beliefs. It's just "Oh shit what are people going to think"

@Vikas That's up to a lot of judgment from police personnel who are trying to act like your judgmental uncle who doesn't like your style.

Vikas

15:38

I just checked it's precisely called 'Flag Code of India'.

Robusto

@Vikas "Respectably"? Meaning no bikinis or thongs with those colors in public? Or do they perhaps mean "respectfully" toward the country so indicated?

Vikas

@Robusto Yes I think you're thinking right way. (I forgot I have already shared it above)

CowperKettle

Military plane fell in Yeisk, nearly hit a building.

Vikas

@Robusto bikinis and thongs would seriously create debates overnight in news channels I think.

Oh let alone flag for bikini. Even bikini can cause issues in special circumstances. Some people might get offended.

CowperKettle

It carried a lot of munitions, and these cooked off one by one, igniting the building.

The pilot ejected.

Vikas

15:52

Haven't the planes falling too often?

SmokeDetector

16:51

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword in link text in answer, pattern-matching website in answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (248): "Assist someone do" vs. "assist someone to do (or "in/with" doing)"‭ by Mayor Kabiruci‭ on english.SE

jlliagre

The use of a French tricolor for whatever purpose, provided it is without any disrespectful intention or "peace disturbance" (trouble à l'ordre public) is accepted in France. Otherwise, e.g. if burning the flag, the law stipulates that it is a fifth class contravention: up to 1500 euros, as if you were caught for the first time speeding at 180 km/h instead of 130. I doubt it is often enforced, if ever (the flag thing, not speeding).

Mitch

@jlliagre To wildly diverge from the source of all these questions... are you saying that flag burning laws are enforced much less than speed laws in France?

CowperKettle

One can't track all flag burning incidents

Mitch

That is an unfair question anywhere, given that I don't expect there's that much flag burning anywhere, and even if speeding laws aren't enforced 'much' it'll still be way above any kind of stat on flag burning.

@CowperKettle In the interests of data quality, we should endeavor to collect -all- data, whether it exists or not

Robusto

The funny thing about flag burning in the US is that the prescribed legal method for disposing of the American flag is ... to burn it.

CowperKettle

17:10

> - "Why do we need walkie-talkies? Our relationship is over."
- "Our relationship is what? Over."

jlliagre

@Mitch Yes. I suspect flag burning trials are less than once a year events and when that happens, the judges either cancel the case because of some procedural defect or reduce the punishment to something very negligible, symbolic. On the other hand, 40 km/h+ speeding count was 1.7 million in 2020. Very different figures.

Faheem Mitha

17:28

@Mitch Also, pollution.

Cerberus

17:45

This was in central Kiev:

> A certain sense of fatalism took over as the drone hovered directly above, turning this way and that. A surreal yet bewitching calm. Then grim-faced soldiers and armed police broke the spell as they vainly fired their AK-47s in its direction, rat-a-tat-tat, as did the slightly heavier sounding air defence systems. To some the heavy burst of fire was what first made them aware of the mortal danger.

The question on everyone’s mind was which way would it turn now, where was it heading? Then the drone fixed on its target. Where was it pointing? It turned in the air, a wing tilted to the righ…

Sounds almost like Tolkien's description of a Nazgûl attack.

Robusto

17:58

Why There's No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire

►

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Releasing all the CO^2 from that flag's cotton. Or worse if the material is polyester, some strange chemicals that @M.A.R. could tell us will build up in our systems over multiple flag burnings until that one flag burning ceremony where we try to light up the flag but instead we light up.

@Cerberus It makes me think of the many scenes in 'Elysium' where drones were attacking people.

Cerberus

What?

Mitch

Also the beginning set piece of 'Bourne Legacy' where the protagonist outfoxes both the drones -and- the wolves who are trying to kill him.

@Jasper would know.

@Cerberus What 'what'?

Cerberus

I do not know Elysium except that ancient place outside the real of mortal men.

Where surely no drones abide.

Robusto

@Mitch All at the same time that he is suffering from severe adult-diaper rash, if I remember correctly.

Mitch

18:09

@Cerberus It's the title of a movie with Matt Damon. It's ~2150 and Earth is overpopulated with regular people with few services but there's a cylindrical space platform where rich people live. And Matt Damon has to get there to save his girlfriend's kid (just hop on a special medically enhanced table that can cure you... they don't have anything like that on Earth)

Cerberus

OK.

Mitch

@Robusto He's pretty courageous to be so open about it.

@Cerberus As with all scifi, some really greaat images and ideas but sometimes a bit tin-eared, and also you have to have fight scenes which are dumb.

@Cerberus hm...on recollection there may not have been any drones on the spaceship. All the disturbing intrusion of drones (eerily similar to the one @CowperKettle described) occurred on Earth.

Maybe security was good enough on the spaceship (called Elysium) that no drones were needed).

Also, because this is what scifi is all about, maybe because the way the spaceship spun to create gravity, that didn't work well for aerial drones?

Elysium (film)

Elysium is a 2013 American dystopian science fiction action film written, produced and directed by Neill Blomkamp. It stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga, and Sharlto Copley. The film takes place on both a ravaged Earth and a luxurious artificial world (Stanford torus design, one of the proposed NASA designs) called Elysium. The film itself offers deliberate social commentary that explores political and sociological themes such as immigration, overpopulation, transhumanism, health care, worker exploitation, the justice system, and social class issues.The film was released on August 9, 2013...

Robusto

18:27

Putin’s Ukraine conscription has gone badly. How badly? He says it’s ending.

Cerberus

@Mitch Hmm tin eared how?

@Mitch Do you dislike all fight scenes?

The only fight scenes I find dumb are hand-to-hand and shooting fights. Those are for the dull witted.

The Real Masochist

18:47

Folks, is B a correct grammar?

A: I don't know what subjects I have to learn this week.
B: I don't know what subjects to learn this week.

Cerberus

@TheRealMasochist Yes.

The Real Masochist

I see. Thank you.

Cerberus

Side note: grammar is usually a mass noun, it is not countable. That means you normally do not use a before it, and you don't pluralise it.

The Real Masochist

OK. Good point. Thank you.

Cerberus

Note that B is a somewhat advanced construction.

The basic pattern:

> something to do = something that one can or should do.

We have a war to win.

They did not know the right path to take.

There is no money here to give away.

The Real Masochist

18:52

What grammar is "Noun+to infinitive" called?

Cerberus

I'm not sure it has a name.

In somewhat more formal English, you can also use it after be:

The Real Masochist

OK. So can we say "I am a technician to repair your computer."?

Cerberus

Hmm.

Usually not.

The Real Masochist

Or "It is a screwdriver to open your watch." ?

Cerberus

> The technician repairs computers => this is the computer to repair

@TheRealMasochist That sounds normal.

Although you'd normally say to open your watch with.

The Real Masochist

18:56

"I will send a technician to repair your computer." ?

Cerberus

> I open the watch with a screwdriver => this is the watch to open OR this is the screwdriver to open something with

@TheRealMasochist Good.

Infinitives can be very complex in English.

The Real Masochist

OK. Thank you very much.

Cerberus

The theory is that, when an infinitive modifies a noun, it can be either passive or active. But both are not always possible.

The Real Masochist

A: It is the watch to open.
B: It is the watch to be opened.

Are they equivalent?

Cerberus

> I will send a technician to repair your computer. — The agent of repair is the technician. To repair modifies a technician. The infinitive is therefore active. In this case, the active infinitive is possible. But not in all cases.

@TheRealMasochist Yes.

Strange, huh?

The Real Masochist

18:59

Yes. Confusing.

Cerberus

To be opened is a passive infinitive.

To open can be active or passive, depending on circumstances.

That is the strange thing that makes it confusing.

Hard to analyse as well.

I think, usually, when the noun is a thing, the normal infinitive (not with be ...ed) will work when passive as well as active.

When the noun is a person, perhaps the infinitive usually only works when it is active?

Not sure.

> Send me whichever technician did this, so that I may punish her!
I will send the technician to punish right away.

Here the passive infinitive still works with a person, because the context forces the correct interpretation.

Who is it that punishes? Not the technician, so the technician is not the agent of to punish, so the infinitive is passive here.

The Real Masochist

Can we use it referring to persons as in "Who is it that punishes?"?

Thank you.

M.A.R.

19:31

@Mitch MECHANISTIC ASSISTANT ROBOT V2.4729 ONLINE ... HOW MAY WE ASSIST YOU IN YOUR CHEMICAL INQUIRIES, CAT?

Mitch

@M.A.R. My name is not 'CAT'

Robusto

@Mitch How about LOST CAT? Like in your gravatar.

M.A.R.

@Mitch WE ARE SORRY FOR MIS-IDENTIFICATION OF USER query initiated HOW MAY WE ASSIST IN YOUR CHEMICAL INQUIRIES, [USER]?

Mitch

@Cerberus maybe I'm just painting with a broad mixed metaphor. Tin-eared by association with other sci-fi whose language is clunky (and hard to tell with a spoken screenplay except by memory of what is said out loud and I can't remember).

M.A.R.

@Mitch generally, something that shouldn't be burned releases compounds that can very capably form radicals

Say, you use a lot of chlorine in plastics, like in PVC. Burning that releases volatile compounds that have chlorine, which either act on the CNS (often depressing it, not unlike anesthetic compounds) or releasing radicals. Some can directly form bonds with DNA, or break DNA strands

Making those compounds direct carcinogens

Mitch

19:39

No. Some fight scenes are OK 1)
a) Jackie Chan fight scenes can be removed entirely from any semblance of their movies' plot and still show amazing meaningful choreography but
b) It's easy to be impressed with the integration of JC fight scenes into the plots because OMG those plots are idiotic and clunky and tin-eared and make no sense and etc etc

M.A.R.

@Cerberus scifi fight scenes involve a bit too much fantasy to stand out from normal fights. (The guy has a robotic arm, he surely must be able to fling the protagonist around)

Mitch

@Cerberus It's all exciting. But afterwards, on reflection, they seem idiotic as far as plot devices go. Like mentioned before, it's like sports, there's just an up and down 'it's going good/it's going bad' arc all about who wins in the end. ie the plot of a fight is encapsulated in the score. and that's it.

@Robusto That cat's name is 'Dog'.

Confused?

Exactly.

Robusto

@Mitch No, not confused. That was the standard Norma Tanega reference.

Aug 22, 2015 at 12:51, by Robusto

Norma Tanega "Walkin' My Cat Named Dog"

►

Mitch

@M.A.R. My name is "Bobby Watson\"; DELETE * from NAMES"

@M.A.R. LIke chloroform or ether?

M.A.R.

@Mitch Processing ...

@Mitch essentially yeah, but often a bit more complex, like 3 to 11 carbon compounds

Mitch

19:49

@Robusto Obviously pretty high when she wrote that.

M.A.R.

If you check the structures of inhaled anesthetics, like enflurane, sevoflurane etc. they're all halogenated at several positions

And some are ethers

Robusto

@Mitch "Walkin' high against the fog"

Mitch

@M.A.R. But yeah that's sort of how the 'Elysium' move starts with Matt Damon showing up at the local medical clinic and gets prescribed pain killers by the autoreceptionist (@Cerberus)

M.A.R.

Well, healthcare folks always get dunked on but I think people are just jealous.

Mitch

@Robusto But good for her, just before Lucy in the Sky.

M.A.R.

19:52

I'm a professional and I can tell you being in the sky is an acutely dangerous healthcare problem

Robusto

@Mitch The weirdest thing in that video is her strumming a Gibson SG-Standard electric guitar with her thumb the way she would an acoustic guitar.

Mitch

@M.A.R. How do health care people get dunked on? They're pretty high up on the 'respectable professions' ladder.

M.A.R.

And simultaneously the butt of most jokes that involve snobs

Mitch

BUt sure I've heard about a lot of abuse docs and nurses get from patients and that it's increasing. But still that's an increase in the small number of problem patients.

@Robusto It adds to the absurdity? But also the 60's allowed a lot of stuff?

Robusto

The '60s were all about undisciplined exploration.

Mitch

19:56

I feel like there was this flip in the world in the 60's. music was jazz and big band classical before that and afterwards just pop/rock.

Or maybe it was our dreams, they went from BW to color

@M.A.R. Too drafty?

M.A.R.

My cultural understanding of the 60s boils down to "Hello silence my old friend"

@Mitch all sorts of different fungi could live up there

Anyway, I liked Elysium because my mood was right that day. Besides, you can't hate Matt Damon. Any other actor shaving their head and acting all cyberpunk would have been much less likeable

Well, not live, more like curdled up and swearing revenge

Wait. Hello darkness my old friend

I knew that didn't sound right

Mitch

@M.A.R. It's from the missing song 'The Sounds of Darkness'

'The Shadow of the Wind'

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Unfortunately Damon did an ad for some cryptocurrency that he doesn't even own himself.

Mitch

'The Taste of Water'

@FaheemMitha Also, watches? both seemed very out of character

@M.A.R. but anyway, underrated film (in the sense that people may very well have liked it but I never hear people mentioning it)

Robusto

@Mitch There were more genres before that. Folk, for instance, had been popular for at least a decade before that.

Faheem Mitha

20:05

Fortune Favours the Brave | Crypto.com

►

Advertising something that has no intrinsic value without actually saying anything about it. Well done.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha on the spectrum of evilness of things Hollywood celebrities do, that's pretty tame. I can dislike that and like his facial features. shrug

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. That might be true. I'm not sure what US show-business people do.

When they're not being show-businessey, that is.

M.A.R.

I mean, I like Al Pacino's acting but I wouldn't vote for him

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Why would you vote for Pacino? Is he trying to get elected for something?

Also, ads are stupid. But apparently effective.

M.A.R.

Just a hypothetical example

Faheem Mitha

20:08

@M.A.R. Ah.

Also, investing in crypto is general is a terrible idea. It was probably a good idea to buy bitcoin when it was basically worth nothing, but no longer.

Anyone suggesting anything else is being extremely irresponsible. Then again, what's new?

Equity is risky enough, for heavens sake. No reason to go looking for something even riskier.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Yeah, my son bought it at $10 ten years or so ago, but buying it now is just foolish.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Bought what at $10?

Robusto

Bitcoin.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Oh. I expect he did well out of it, then.

Robusto

Yeah, but he sold a lot on the way up.

Faheem Mitha

20:15

@Robusto Right. That's the problem with something that has no intrinsic value. How do you value it?

Robusto

Well, you can't.

tchrist

20:34

Pentatonix - The Sound of Silence (Official Video)

►

Mitch

@Robusto Sure. All the (major) genres existed before and after but the top ones flipped.

I wonder nowadays what that means.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Damon doesn't even actually say anything about cryptocurrency. He just babbles on a bit. And then the viewer sees crypto.com prominently displayed.

I wouldn't have thought this kind of nonsense would be effective, but if it wasn't, they wouldn't have bothered to make it.

Mitch

classical music for music is like tap dance for dance. You might be forced to do it as a kid (for cultural reasons?) but you can't make money off it (except to be a teacher of it).

maybe it's the US?

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist I wonder what Simon and Garfunkel think of the Internet.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha well, you remember it. That means it's at least half effective

Mitch

20:43

I feel like if I ever visit a foreign country, I hear music of all kinds on the street being practiced or played (not on the street, behind the scenes)

but that could be because as a tourist you're in extremely densely populated areas and it's just that you can't get that density in the US.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. I'd not seen it until just now. I just heard that Damon made a crypto commercial, and was mildly shocked. Because I had somehow picked up the notion that he was a reasonable sort of person for someone of his background, class and profession.

M.A.R.

@tchrist Because a vision softly sleeping, planted itself while I was creeping

Mitch

@M.A.R. I remember jingles and catch phrases all the time but have no conception for what they are selling.

@M.A.R. You're going to have to wash all that off afterwards.

M.A.R.

@Mitch It can't be worse than these pills I'm taking

Mitch

@M.A.R. what if you're planting poison ivy and stinging nettles?

also depends on how big the pills are.

why why why do they make the pills so big and chalky and hard to swallow?

make them small and/or gummy bears.

that would solve 90% of non-adherence

Robusto

20:47

@Mitch A few people do all right. But money was definitely the reason I got out of trying to make a living at it.

Mitch

maybe also put dates on them.

Robusto

It's like poetry. Thousands of people write poetry, and hundreds of people read it.

Mitch

and have the pills beep when they're supposed to be taken

bluetooth enabled pills

M.A.R.

@Mitch sometimes the API (active pharmaceutical ingredient; the drug) is a lot. Sometimes the API requires excipients in large volumes

The pill I'm thinking of is very small actually. Size 2.

Mitch

send me your investment checks when ever you feel like it.

but preferably before 6pm

M.A.R.

20:48

But it's poorly made and it's bitter as hell

Robusto

@M.A.R. To me an API is an Application Programming Interface.

M.A.R.

Prednisone. If you ever wanted an analogy for the extremities of bitterness, use prednisolone, clarithromycin, and chloramphenicol

Not poetic but nothing explains it better

Mitch

@Robusto That could probably be said about all of music altogether. But I'm saying that the funnel for learning into a career is much worse for classical than it is for ... 'popular' music?

I guess I'm dealing in generalities that have vague impressions as data.

@M.A.R. How about peanut butter flavored?

Hide it in a ball of meat like one does to fool a cat or dog?

Robusto

@Mitch No. More people try to do pop music than try to do classical, and the proportions are probably roughly the same for failure/success outcomes.

M.A.R.

@Mitch well, I don't think consuming several hundred calories every time I take a pill is a good strategy

Mitch

20:53

@Robusto yeah I wasn't sure

M.A.R.

But isn't pop music more of a popularity contest than classical?

Mitch

I'm just working off the vague impression that -every body- studies classical music, but only pop/rock is making money.

M.A.R.

You're singing generic songs with generic melodies and it really just depends on whether people like your voice or the hairstyle you wore to the Grammys

Mitch

@M.A.R. at one point I presume classical music was the most popular? That could easily be wrong.

@M.A.R. Or how well your manager got you the gig

M.A.R.

This is why I'm in STEM. (Wait, pharmacy counts as STEM, right?)

Robusto

20:57

@M.A.R. All professions are popularity contests.

M.A.R.

Or maybe it's a UK-only thing?

I just know people over there say things like "Very super brilliant people go to STEM."

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Pop music is more a show business thing, IMO.

Traditional Western classical music is not so much focused on the performers.

Robusto

The difference is, in serious professions the skills are what makes their owners popular.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha well I assume, because I can't picture any artist being passionate about "love you baby oh oh oooh" type lyrics

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…