English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwighт

2:00 PM

Trying to catch up and failing.

Mitch

@tchrist but that would be more fun.

@RegDwighт is that for testing hunting weapons used on humans?

@RegDwighт some humans are getting away?

@RegDwighт Oh and ping-ty-ping-ping...why did you change your name. It's so annoying, being able to so easily ping you. even though it was easy to do before.

tchrist

@RegDwighт The similar X to Y for Y’s thing. Notice in em1’s posting, he does it with different now.

RegDwighт

2:25 PM

Stupid internet stupid died. Again. Stupid.

@tchrist OIC.

@Mitch I will change it again soon. Panta lons. I mean, rhei.

@Mitch sort of. The tests are testing software that tests software that runs in things that are used on humans. Like planes or what have you.

tchrist

@RegDwighт I just copyedited it into oblivion, and clarity. I hope he isn’t upset with me. I smoothened quite a few other infelicities, too. He doesn’t seem to have a handle on how to use punctuation in standard written English.

I know German sometimes uses commas differently than English does. Perhaps that’s all it is, but it wasn’t the normal thing, that you find with German. [sic]

RegDwighт

I know.

Don't forget that I have a diamond over at GLU, too.

I am used to seeing this stuff, and stuffier stuff.

tchrist

@RegDwighт Don’t forget I don’t forget these things. :)

Gigili

@RegDwighт Did you also see the stuff there which was pretty umm something? I mean, those stuffier stuff that umm... never mind.

RegDwighт

@Gigili I saw some of your stuff there just a couple hours ago.

tchrist

2:33 PM

oh mys

Cerberus

►

This is a cool video about a Belgian "seer".

Not quite what you would expect.

I think it is real.

RegDwighт

I thought that was Adrien Brody.

Cerberus

I mean, those participants are real people.

Who?

Hmm does Andrien speak Dutch and French?

Gigili

@Mitch +1, then -1, then again another +1 and -1, 0, +1, -1, -1. Go figure your total rep score.

Umm, what the hell is this The last message was posted 11 hours ago. message trying to say?

Cerberus

By the way, @Gigi, are the rumours true that your country may disconnect from the internet at some point in the future?

RegDwighт

2:38 PM

Wees waakzaam.

Cerberus

It is on the news all the time here.

Yes, wees waakzaam.

RegDwighт

Is that Arabic?

Cerberus

Lest you use too less vowels.

Or what is the uncomparative of "less"?

Gigili

@Cerberus Oh, umm, I won't know until it happens.

RegDwighт

I believe it's "seven".

Cerberus

2:39 PM

@Gigili Oh...so you know no more about this than we do?

Gigili

I don't follow news.

Mitch

@Cerberus there's no way that that can actually be implemented. Iran is not North Korea. people will find a way.

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, if you simply cut all outside lines and scramble + prosecute everyone who opens a satellite connection...? They are already scrambling certain satellite connections.

Mitch

@Gigili WTF? 0 is not allowed. That throws off the limit entirely. ...but

Gigili

@Cerberus Even less than you. I know (the uncomparative form of "less", namely "seven").

Cerberus

2:41 PM

Check.

Mitch

but..I think we should be able to vote with 0 points awarded. I.e. a 'meh' vote.

Cerberus

@Gigili It would be sad if we lost you.

Gigili

@Mitch I see you use Cerb's signature.

Cerberus

Because VPNs won't help there.

Mitch

he has an elliptical but?

tchrist

2:42 PM

@Mitch When did meh become the new blah?

Gigili

@Mitch Ask @Reg.

Or @ask Reg.

Mitch

@Cerberus they;re already pretty open right now. to cut all ties, to plug all holes will be a gargantuan task. Also, How will they now about earthquakes around th world except for access to an -internet- earthquake server?

Gigili

@Cerberus Oh? I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. I'll be in Germany by that time.

Mitch

@tchrist since I just discovered the word.

Cerberus

@Mitch Of course the government will have its own special line! Yes, it is open now; but, if you just cut the few international cables (how many would there be? 10?), you have your own closed intranet.

Mitch

2:44 PM

and also I can't spell 'ainh'. or whatever I actually use for 'I don't care, but I care enough to want you to know that I don't care.'

Cerberus

@Gigili It says on the news they are experimenting it. It is suggested that they may try it in one or two years.

Mitch

@Cerberus well, not knowing anything about reality, I can expound at length about what could be.

tchrist

@Mitch It’s from yufe culcha. It seems to mean nothing that blah, or perhaps even whatever in some but not all contexts, does not already say.

Mitch

physical cables? 10 humongous ones for a developing country I can imagine. But it is satellite dish city over there (right Gigili?). And everyone has them.

tchrist

NLP NER task:

0

Q: concept/name extraction

I need your help to set all rules for extracting names/concepts from a phrase. for example, in the phrase "in toshka, it's always sunny" the name/concept here is toshka, which is a place in Egypt. i found it because it's a Preposition followed by a Noun What are other rules for finding entities...

grammar

Mitch

2:47 PM

and it's not some internal polie state where everybody is turning everybody in like East Germany. Even conservative people want to watch 'housewives of new skankville'.

tchrist

This is not the place for that.

Cerberus

@Mitch Heh. But I think perhaps you underestimate how easy it is to cut all cords. You just need your own DNS servers and some fairly simple infrastructure, right? The main thing holding them back is people's reliance on foreign websites/servers/services, including the government itself. But they already have this government/military intranet operational where they supposedly don't need the Internet for basic communication etc. We cannot be sure that it actually works well, though.

Mitch

@tchrist I'm failry certain it began in popularity when used on the simpsons (vaguely remembering some wikipedia mentino)

Gigili

@Cerberus The only thing I've heard is we will have our own Google, which I considered to be a joke.

@Mitch Left.

Cerberus

@Gigili Yes, and your own e-mail service.

Mitch

2:49 PM

@Gigili which 'last message posted 11 hours ago'? Link?

Cerberus

It said on the news that they already officially started blocking Gmail and secure Google as a prelude.

Is that correct, or can you still access your Gmail without a VPN?

Gigili

@Cerberus Oh, I don't think that's related to what you are saying. It's because Youtube refused to block that video/movie.

Cerberus

@Gigili No, that is different.

Can you access Gmail?

Without a VPN?

There is no obvious connection between Gmail and Youtube. Except that they may have used it as an excuse, of course.

But it is read here as an attempt to force people to use Iran.ir for e-mail.

Which will obviously fail.

Gigili

@Cerberus Umm, no.

Cerberus

See?

And you can't access google.com either.

Because they blocked all secure connections to Google.

You can still search unsecured.

So they monitor what you are searching for.

Gigili

2:53 PM

speechless

RegDwighт

0

Q: You Know or I Mean

Often while speaking in english we use these two words very frequently. Which should be the right one to use during a formal chat ?

sentence usage sentence-structure

Wai?

Is this for real?

Haha.

I don't think that's the case. I've heard it'll return to normal after 6-7 days.

It'll take 6 to 8 weeks.

Cerberus

2:56 PM

But...

Gigili

@RegDwighт None of the above.

tchrist

@RegDwighт formal chat?

Cerberus

Wasn't Youtube blocked already?

I thought it was?

Gigili

It was?

And?

Cerberus

Don't you remember? Or do you always use a VPN?

RegDwighт

2:57 PM

And now it has an upvote.

What is going on?

Cerberus

goes on

I am!!

tchrist

@RegDwighт There’s been plenty of odd voting this week.

Mitch

@RegDwighт look at the OP's other questions. ALl his life he's been burning to ask these very important questions.

Gigili

@Cerberus I always use VPN. I think it depends on the video you wanted to watch but I am not sure.

tchrist

And plenty of lame or OT or NC or weirdass questions, too.

0

Q: concept/name extraction

I need your help to set all rules for extracting names/concepts from a phrase. for example, in the phrase "in toshka, it's always sunny" the name/concept here is toshka, which is a place in Egypt. i found it because it's a Preposition followed by a Noun What are other rules for finding entities...

grammar

Gigili

2:58 PM

@Mitch There was that error or whatever it's called right after every message posted here which wasn't posted 11 hours ago, clearly. I think it was a bug, one of those cute insects.

tchrist

That person is not going to find satisfaction here.

Cerberus

@Gigili They said here that Youtube had been blocked in its entirety for some time.

Gigili

@Cerberus Umm, they know better!

tchrist

I don’t think they know how hard what they are actually asking for is.

Gigili

Chat is not particularly formal. So it's hard to say what is right. All sorts of crap is allowable in chat. Frankly, 'You know' or 'I mean' is too many letters to type in chat to bother. — Mitch 3 mins ago

Cerberus

3:00 PM

@Gigili Heh OK, I suppose you never notice if you're always on a VPN. Just as I never see any advertisements and I forget that Youtube has them.

Gigili

rili?

Cerberus

So does everyone you know use a VPN? How common is it?

RegDwighт

sentence usage sentence-structure I think I'm going to kill myself.

Cerberus

word.

Gigili

It's fairly common, either that or a kind of software to go through blocked contents.

tchrist

3:03 PM

@RegDwighт Tags are muy sucky, nearly always.

Cerberus

@Gigili Right, OK. And does the government ever fine or arrest people for that?

tchrist

0

Q: differences within brE and amE

I was wondering about something.. if we consider the pronunciation of the following words in British and American, what is the typical differences? Lily Better Would be greatful to get some help with this one :)

adjectives pronunciation american-english british-english common-pronunciation

Lily is an adjective?

RegDwighт

Who is Lily Better?

Mitch

@Gigili I no, amirit? :)

@tchrist tags are dumb. what do they do for anything?

tchrist

@RegDwighт Think of yourself not so much as a janitor but as a gardner.

RegDwighт

3:07 PM

Feb 17 '11 at 21:22, by RegDwight

"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily."

Gigili

@Cerberus Ono, I don't think so.

And no political discourse in this chat.

Mitch

@RegDwighт 'better' has differences, but 'lily'? some weird welsh accent that says 'wiwy'?

Cerberus

OK.

Mitch

@RegDwighт is that HP and the MoR?

RegDwighт

Pffft.

Feb 17 '11 at 21:22, by RegDwight

http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/unicorn1.html

I mean, gotta run, you know.

Gigili

3:13 PM

Ich komme mit.

Mitch

@RegDwighт I missed a question. The man was in the breakfast nook when he saw the unicorn. Really, that's not a particularly salient detail of the story.

tchrist

you are absolutely correct tchrist, this IS an NLP research, the problem with NER is that it cannot recognize outside what it's taught, the example above failed with every NER engine i tried. i'm not looking for a complete solution, just a bunch of rules like the one i mentioned, preposition after a noun, Verb, 3rd ps. sing. present followed by noun, etc... — Omar Gamil 57 secs ago

I was right: he is doing NER. Good luck with that.

@Roaring: I wrote that one for you, Roaring Fish. Colin's post snuck in somehow. If you learn to read well, you will see that I don't make any claim that merely starting with a "U" requires or implies the definite article, only that "some countries [-- all of which start with the word United, by the way --] that begin with the letter "U" are generally referred to [i.e., it's an old habit] using the definite article." That's true. But that "Uruguay and Uganda" (they also begin with a "U") aren't. That's also true. Where's this alleged argument? Do you know what an argument is? — Bill Franke 1 hour ago

That one’s flag-bait, @simchona.

tchrist

3:41 PM

Blech:

0

A: Origin of the meaning of "à la mode"

From what I'm reading here, it's somewhat similar to the reason y we call all gelatin JELLO; all cotton swabs QTIPS; all bandages BANDAIDS. Some1 felt the pie w/ ice cream was fashionably delicious and gave it the name pie à la mode. It sounded cool n it stuck. I think it wasn't meant to mea...

WTF z al dis txtspek?

Robusto

@Mitch No, it's James Thurber.

simchona

@tchrist Notice that it's gone now

tchrist

@simchona I thank ’e.

He tends to rant. Not always, though, and sometimes makes good contributions.

@MετάEd I confess I can’t be bothered to edit a lame answer that just meanders through the user’s pull-from-their-butt opinions. Contrast this with this.

MετάEd

4:02 PM

@RegDwighт It's a lovely story.

@tchrist I don't mean to imply that this particular answer should be copy edited. The reservations I commented on take precedence, of course.

tchrist

4:33 PM

Hyperbolizing has been supercollidered.

Robusto

4:51 PM

I rest my case.

Ah, he must have edited his question after I commented.

Cerberus

Haha.

cornbread ninja

maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/gallery.html#!/ocean

Cerberus

Nice.

I can haz see trtle?

Robusto

But you still can't do the partial italics in chat or comments.

Cerberus

Yeah.

cornbread ninja

4:57 PM

tosses @Cerb a sea turtle

Cerberus

Yay!

eats turtle whole

cornbread ninja

sea turtle squeaks

Cerberus

Let it squeak.

MετάEd

@tchrist english.stackexchange.com/questions/83896/…

Cerberus

Its position squeaks for itself.

MετάEd

4:58 PM

What exactly is that supposed to be?

cornbread ninja

Squeak now, or forever hold your peace.

tchrist

@MετάEd Hold on.

Cerberus

He's probably just using some other font.

Are you surprised?

Robusto

Yah.

I mean no.

Cerberus

You shouldn't be.

Robusto

4:59 PM

You tweened your own question.

Cerberus

Good.

I noez.

Robusto

Meh, meetin' time. Laters.

Cerberus

Why have someone else tween you when you can tween yourself?

Bai.

MετάEd

5:13 PM

As in man’s in humanity to man? — MετάEd 37 secs ago

tchrist

@MετάEd Back. What?

WTH?

0

Q: Can we really GET IN or GET ON a thing?

Can we really "get in a bus" or "get on a bus" in Standard English useage?

prepositions

0

A: Can we really GET IN or GET ON a thing?

The many postulations and subtexts were surprising within a previous such question, as was the fact that no one addressed the flaw within the question. Instead, would we not "get INTO a bus" or "get ONTO a bus," given that we are referring not to the act of BEING on the bus ALREADY but to the ...

All I see are PUSTULATIONS.

user19161

@tchrist postulations

tchrist

@JasperLoy No.

user19161

OK, I don't know the word.

tchrist

pustule /ˈpʌstjuːl/.
Also 6 puscull, -cle; 6-8 pustle, 7 pustel.
Etymology: ad. L. pustula blister, pimple, pustule. Cf. Fr. pustule (13-14th c.).
1. A small conical or rounded elevation of the cuticle, with erosion of the cutis, inflammatory at the base and containing pus; a pimple; formerly, sometimes, a blister.

Mitch

5:25 PM

@JasperLoy neologistic portmanteau

tchrist

pustulation /pʌstjʊˈleɪʃən/.

Etymology: ad. late L. pustulātiōn-em, n. of action from pustulāre: see prec.

The action of pustulating; formation of pustules; sometimes, also, blistering.

1875 H. C. Wood Therap. (1879) 155 ― Peculiar burning or tingling pain, which is very shortly followed by pustulation.
1876 Bartholow Mat. Med. (1879) 540 ― The pustulation of the chest with croton-oil or tartar-emetic ointment is rarely if ever justifiable.
1899 Allbutt’s Syst. Med. VIII. 610 ― It is often necessary to await the healing of the pustulation.

MετάEd

@tchrist That.

tchrist

@Mitch No, just a new use.

@MετάEd @Robusto \N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL J}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL U}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL S}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL T} \N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL T}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL R}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL Y} \N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL H}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL A}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL R}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL D}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL E}\N{MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL R}. \N{SMILING FACE WITH HORNS} \N{EN DASH} tchrist 1 hour ago

Cerberus

@MετάEd Cheater!

You can't use hairspaces.

MετάEd

@tchrist Ah. Might I suggest italics markup will be much more widely useful at least for now, and that reusing mathematical symbols for plain characters is not such a good idea anyway?

@Cerberus Apparently I can. :-)

Cerberus

5:29 PM

!

tchrist

@MετάEd You are not supposed to, actually.

But I could not get U+200B to work.

MετάEd

@tchrist As long as you're breaking a word anyway to apply markup, might as well use the thinspace.

tchrist

Because the SE coders are dummies.

I wanted the inviso-one.

Oh wait.

It does not have the whitespace property!

MετάEd

@tchrist Unless you are saying that the hairspace is actually deprecated.

tchrist

I thought U+200B had the Whitespace property.

It doesn't.

Evil.

MετάEd

5:32 PM

@tchrist Of course it doesn't. No space is not space.

tchrist

It is named ZERO WIDTH SPACE, but is not such.

MετάEd

@tchrist Sure it is. It is zero width space, which is to say, not space.

tchrist

macbook# uniprops 200b feff
U+200B ‹U+200B› \N{ZERO WIDTH SPACE}
    \pC \p{Cf}
    All Any Assigned InGeneralPunctuation C Other Case_Ignorable CI Cf Format Changes_When_NFKC_Casefolded CWKCF Common Zyyy
       Default_Ignorable_Code_Point DI General_Punctuation Graph Print X_POSIX_Graph X_POSIX_Print
U+FEFF ‹U+FEFF› \N{ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE}
    \pC \p{Cf}
    All Any Arabic_Presentation_Forms_B Assigned InArabicPresentationFormsB C Other Case_Ignorable CI Cf Format
       Changes_When_NFKC_Casefolded CWKCF Common Zyyy Default_Ignorable_Code_Point DI Graph Print X_POSIX_Graph X_POSIX_…

Darn things are not spaces.

They have other properties. Hm.

First has Line_Break=ZWSpace, second has Line_Break=Word_Joiner.

First has Word_Break=Other, second has Word_Break=Format.

That does not help.

Mitch

@tchrist pustulicious

tchrist

macbook# oed pust | fmt -200
pustulant pustular pustulate pustulated pustulation pustulatous pustule pustulent pustuliform pustulocrustaceous pustulose pustulous

RegDwighт

5:42 PM

0

Q: Can we really GET IN or GET ON a thing?

Can we really "get in a bus" or "get on a bus" in Standard English useage?

prepositions

A popular question as of late.

0

Q: what is the difference between " get in the bus" and " get on the bus"

Possible Duplicate: Origin/reason for the expression “on the bus” instead of “in the bus” I want to know when to use " get in the bus." and " get on the bus." I will thank you If you give me the right answer.

grammar prepositions

This got asked only a couple days ago.

Mahnax

Good morning.

tchrist

Some EFL class, maybe.

user19161

@Mahnax How is school?

Mahnax

@JasperLoy Fine, thanks.

I'm just waiting for someone to show up for a meeting.

user19161

@Mahnax I will show up instead!

RegDwighт

5:45 PM

Wait. He actually answered it himself?

0

A: Can we really "get in" or "get on" a thing?

The many postulations and subtexts were surprising within a previous such question, as was the fact that no one addressed the flaw within the question. Instead, would we not "get INTO a bus" or "get ONTO a bus," given that we are referring not to the act of BEING on the bus ALREADY but to the ...

Mahnax

@JasperLoy Don't, please.

@RegDwighт Oui.

RegDwighт

His other question gotta be a dupe, too...

0

Q: Which is best to say? "I like it more." or "I like it better."

Are both expressions equally proper grammatically? Or, is one preferable? "I like it more." I like it better." One would suggest that I have more liking for the thing than for the other. The second would suggest that my liking of it is perhaps of a better quality?

prepositions

12

Q: "Like something more" or "like something better"

When people like something more than something else, it's common for me to hear them say they like it better than something else. Is this proper English? I've always thought the word more fits better, but I'm not sure whether or not use of the word better is wrong.

word-choice grammaticality adverbs comparative

tchrist

He is sure annoying.

I wonder whether he is intentionally duping.

RegDwighт

Not enough sample sizes.

tchrist

Give him one more. :)

Mahnax

5:48 PM

Stand back, I'm extrapolating.

RegDwighт

In other news, someone's been upvoting the hell out of me on SO today.

And I wasn't even there.

Hm.

Perhaps that was the reason?

user19161

@RegDwighт Secret admirer, good for you...

tchrist

Not me.

RegDwighт

"You haven't closed anything of mine today, have a 10 reps, good boy."

tchrist

Serial upvoters get reversed.

user19161

5:49 PM

Also @reg I see you did some edits on math today.

RegDwighт

@tchrist Yeah I'll be on the lookout.

user19161

@tchrist Not me because I know how to do it.

RegDwighт

@JasperLoy I wanted to do more, but HRT kept interrupting.

tchrist

@JasperLoy Oh you do, do you?

user19161

@tchrist Well, not the optimum solution but a good solution nonetheless.

tchrist

5:50 PM

They don’t do cross-site serial-upvoting checks.

Nor down-.

user19161

Doing about 4 at a time on a day and no more, with no other restrictions, is safe.

RegDwighт

Jasper would make for a crappy secret agent.

2

tchrist

I try never to do more than 2 at a time, at least, if on purpose.

user19161

3 is def safe, I tried 4 which is also safe. But I won't try 5.

RegDwighт

"Not more than X at least" sure is a cute construction.

tchrist

5:52 PM

You know what else they never catch?

RegDwighт

Sparrows.

tchrist

Serial close-voting and serial delete-voting.

RegDwighт

Is there a use case?

user19161

@tchrist Well, these are usually because the user asks shitty stuff anyway.

tchrist

You mean an abuse case?

No.

If you mean, does it happen, yes.

RegDwighт

5:53 PM

I mean that a downvote has an immediate effect. Serial close-voting just runs you out of votes that will eventually expire.

tchrist

I’m not worried about it. I only did it to NS’s low-voted closed questions.

Plus the delete votes don’t ever expire.

RegDwighт

Oh I see where the wind's coming from now.

tchrist

excuses himself

RegDwighт

@tchrist right...

user19161

@tchrist Even if you get reversed so what. It's not like you killed someone.

tchrist

5:54 PM

That’s why I ran out of close-votes early today.

RegDwighт

But you need 10k to delete-vote. You're expected to know better. Unless we're talking SO where everyone will have 10k eventually.

tchrist

I feel like NS gets what he’s after despite all efforts, and this annoys me. But that presupposes I know what he’s after, which is anything but proven.

SO inflation is nutty.

RegDwighт

Scrap my previous thjng. I don't mean that everyone will have 10k, what I really mean is that having 10k on SO doesn't mean you understand the first thing about how the site's supposed to work.

MετάEd

@tchrist What do you think he's after?

I am wondering if it is to drain closevotes.

tchrist

I found a 14k user with a deleted post that had a porn gif in it.

I edited it away.

RegDwighт

5:56 PM

To some extent, that's true on all sites, but on SO it's the most obvious.

@tchrist flag. I'm sure mods would like to know.

tchrist

He created the post and self-deleted.

Oh, I suppose.

But that shows that rep is no guarantor of proper behavior.

user19161

(I do revenge downvotes all the time, shh...)

RegDwighт

@tchrist well to make sure not to be a jerk about it, how many reps did he post the gif at?

tchrist

Good question.

MετάEd

@tchrist Right. Rep helps guide people who are basically wanting to contribute. To protect a community from a destructive person takes different tools.

RegDwighт

5:59 PM

Jul 21 '11 at 15:45, by RegDwight

3k does not mean "expert on the subject matter". 3k only means "expert on how to get to 3k".

tchrist

Now you’ve made me curious. Drat you!

God, that’s like five times today.

I need to go practice my scales.

It always improves my typing.

RegDwighт

Curious = 5×today?

tchrist

Except that I think this is a brainbug.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…