English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

1:43 AM

ABSTRACT

> The rapid adoption of generative language models has brought about
substantial advancements in digital communication, while simultaneously
raising concerns regarding the potential misuse of AI-generated
content. Although numerous detection methods have been proposed to
differentiate between AI and human-generated content, the fairness
and robustness of these detectors remain underexplored. In this study,
we evaluate the performance of several widely-used GPT detectors using
writing samples from native and non-native English writers. Our findings

alphabet

From the full text:

> they misclassified over half of the TOEFL essays as "AI-generated" (average false positive rate: 61.22%). All seven detectors unanimously identified 18 of the 91 TOEFL essays (19.78%) as AI-authored, while 89 of the 91 TOEFL essays (97.80%) are flagged as AI-generated by at least one detector

> The detectors demonstrated near-perfect accuracy for US 8-th grade essays.

That is...actually quite bad.

tchrist

When your training set for ChatGPT comprises billions of Asians typing L2 English, this seems inevitable.

For more of them there are than US 8th-grade essays.

alphabet

Granted, if these GPT detectors are just "bad writing detectors," that might still be useful for mods.

tchrist

I guarantee you that I need no external detector of bad writing. :)

What this shows is that L2 learners are being taught a style of English coïncident with the output of current LLM generators rather with that of native speakers. I could have told you this: L2 learners write in a strangely formulaic and bland style that offends no one and appeals to equally many.

alphabet

Incidentally: I wonder what percentage of native speakers would even pass the TOEFL.

tchrist

1:51 AM

Then you haven't checked the functional illiteracy rates lately, or else you'd have nothing left to wonder about.

CowperKettle

alphabet

I suspect that, when writing TOEFL essays, non-native speakers will try to avoid overly complex constructions to reduce the risk of making a mistake. Presumably they care about mistakes more than about overall writing quality.

tchrist

@CowperKettle Thus proving that Asians naturally write English that way.

CowperKettle

> We use an AI to find the AI,
An Errand so divine,
The Messenger enamored too,
Forgetting to return,
We make the wise distinction still,
Soever made in vain,
The sagest time to dam the sea is when the sea is gone.

alphabet

I suspect that this a problem with all L2 learners, of course. I doubt that, if I learned (say) Russian, I would sound particularly idiomatic or eloquent.

Cerberus

1:57 AM

> From: Weixin Liang

alphabet

@Cerberus That does not seem relevant here.

(Except insofar as non-native speakers might be more aware of how systems like this could be biased against them.)

Incidentally: the vast majority of English speakers are L2 speakers; it's really the native speakers who are the unusual ones.

tchrist

We do not be needing to start considering countrys of originals in whether a posts is reddible or AI-generated. In fact, the NNS tells are more often blunders.

Cerberus

@tchrist Good point.

@alphabet It seemed pretty funny to me.

alphabet

@Cerberus Ah. I thought you were saying that it called the research into question somehow.

Anyway, read my forthcoming paper: "The Syntax and Prosody of Hollywood Undead Lyrics"

tchrist

Because the lyric poets are all dead now.

CowperKettle

2:06 AM

24

I wonder how many words in Ukrainian are considered similar (having the same roots and/or understandable) to Russian? For example here is a lexical similarity index for English. How is Ukrainian similar in lexicon to Russian? Is there any research regarding this?

alphabet

@CowperKettle I was prepared for a flame war, not an actually useful answer.

tchrist

@CowperKettle The statement about English and Dutch intrigues me, but it's talking about the lexicon not the phonological changes.

The Germanic vowelspace is enough to bring any stolid Neoroman to lachrymose ejaculations.

alphabet

I wonder where Scots would be on that chart. Fairly close to English, but how close?

Cerberus

@alphabet The author is no doubt biased!

alphabet

@Cerberus Your evidence for this being....?

I don't see how this research would benefit the authors themselves.

Cerberus

2:16 AM

He doesn't want his texts to be flagged as AI generated?

Big conflict of interest!

@tchrist Yeah I expected Russian and Ukrainian to be closer.

tchrist

Exactly.

And I still can't judge because I know neither, let alone both.

Cerberus

More like Dutch and, say, Limburgs or Gronings, which we cannot understand at all, but which are still much closer to us than Hochdeutsch.

CowperKettle

Gronings dialect

Gronings (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɣroːnɪŋs]; Gronings: Grunnegs or Grönnegs), is a collective name for some Friso-Saxon dialects spoken in the province of Groningen and around the Groningen border in Drenthe and Friesland. Gronings and the strongly related varieties in East Frisia have a strong East Frisian influence and take a remarkable position within West Low German. The dialect is characterized by a typical accent and vocabulary, which differ strongly from the other Low Saxon dialects. == Area == The name Gronings can almost be defined geographically, as can be seen on the map below. This is...

alphabet

@Cerberus But that's only a risk if his thesis is true; it wouldn't bias him in arriving at that conclusion.

Cerberus

Dec 1, 2018 at 2:11, by Cerberus

@alphabet I'm trolling.

CowperKettle

2:20 AM

> Scots: The anerly thing we dinnae dae is gie oot snashters.
English: The only thing we don't do is hand out sweets.

alphabet

@Cerberus OK. Sorry, my brain isn't wired right, I can't tell.

CowperKettle

Snashters

tchrist

Reminds me of how a(n untrained) Madrid native will far better understand a native of Rome than of Lisbon, even though Spanish and Portuguese are much, much closer together in their grammar and lexis than Spanish and Italian are. Yet the phonological and isochronic changes in Portuguese in the direction of French and away from Italian and Spanish make it seem farther away by far, at least at first.

Cerberus

It wouldn't be reasonable to disqualify all non-native speakers from researching any phaenomenon which might affect non-native speakers in general negatively.

@alphabet No need to apologize at all.

alphabet

@Cerberus Agreed.

tchrist

2:22 AM

@Cerberus Or blue people researching blue people phenomena.

alphabet

Also: if you want to write a paper about AI without involving any native Chinese speakers...that might prove difficult.

Cerberus

@tchrist Blue people must all be sent to the gas chambers right away, that's different.

@alphabet I assume he meant the Dutch speakers from my map above.

alphabet

@Cerberus Prussian blue?

@Cerberus Sorry, that might have been a rather obscure reference.

tchrist

Never argue with Death Smurf.

CowperKettle

William Shatner has opened a candy shop in Scotland called Shatner's Snashters

tchrist

2:26 AM

Easy for him to say.

CowperKettle

He wanted to open a lingerie shop too, but Shatner Pants did not sound good.

tchrist

Not in Scotland, it wouldn't.

Cerberus

@alphabet Oh, interesting, I took it as a mere reference to Germany in general.

CowperKettle

Breeks

Breeks is the Scots term for trousers or breeches. It is also used in Northumbrian English. From this it might be inferred that breeches and breeks relate to the Latin references to the braccae that were worn by the ancient Celts, but the Oxford English Dictionary (also online) gives the etymology as "Common Germanic", compare modern Dutch broek, meaning trouser. Outside Scotland the term breeks is often used to refer to breeches, a trouser similar to plus fours, especially when worn in Scotland and engaging in field sports such as deer stalking, and the activities of taking pheasant, duck, partridge...

A whole Wikipedia article for the Scots term for trousers.

Cerberus

And/or to the militaristic society of Prussia, the precursor of Germany, and successor state to the Teutonic Knights, crusaders forced to leave the Holy Land.

CowperKettle

2:31 AM

A Russian republic fought a battle against the Teutonic Knights once

Battle on the Ice

The Battle on the Ice (German: Schlacht auf dem Eise; Russian: Ледовое побоище, Ledovoye poboishche; Estonian: Jäälahing), alternatively known as the Battle of Lake Peipus (German: Schlacht auf dem Peipussee), took place on 5 April 1242. It was fought largely on the frozen Lake Peipus between the united forces of the Republic of Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal, led by Prince Alexander Nevsky, and the forces of the Livonian Order and Bishopric of Dorpat, led by Bishop Hermann of Dorpat. The battle was significant because its outcome determined whether Western Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox Christianity...

Cerberus

P.S. Does anyone pronounce brooch like /brutʃ/ or similar?

CowperKettle

Hence the famous 1930s movie Alexander Nevsky, a nice movie I loved to watch as a kid.

alphabet

@Cerberus I did, until I learned that that was wrong.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle I really wish Novgorod had continued to lead Russia, rather than Muscovy and similar.

tchrist

@Cerberus It's /o/ not /u/.

CowperKettle

2:32 AM

@Cerberus #MeToo

Cerberus

@alphabet Oh, really, I didn't expect native speakers to make that mistake.

@CowperKettle It could have been more like Poland.

tchrist

When you hear words before you read them, you get them right even when it looks strange. This is something like the opposite of what happens when you read the book before you see the movie. :)

What Happened to Prussia? (Short Animated Documentary)

►

Cerberus

(I still the potential is there. I think it will come to fruition one day.)

alphabet

@Cerberus Yeah, I learned how to pronounce it when somebody corrected me.

Cerberus

@tchrist I know that, why else do you think I asked?

Not quite /o/ btw.

@alphabet At what age, do you reckon?

tchrist

2:34 AM

I'm not sure I've got something shy of that there. But I don't have cause to say it often, either.

alphabet

@Cerberus No clue. Possibly as late as high school. That word is much rarer in American English than in British English.

Cerberus

@tchrist Surely you pronounce brooch like broach?

alphabet

Presumably British people would learn this earlier. Now I pronounce it like "broach."

Cerberus

@alphabet Ah, OK, that's not so late.

tchrist

@Cerberus I do indeed. They're homophones.

Cerberus

2:36 AM

Children learn such things all the time.

@tchrist Yes, and that isn't quite /o/, is it?

alphabet

American English usually uses pin.

Cerberus

Ah, I see.

tchrist

@Cerberus It is quite an /o/.

Cerberus

@alphabet Even for an ornate piece?

@tchrist No diphthong even in America?

CowperKettle

> They sleep so sound that you must kick 'em,
Or take a corking pin to prick 'em.

tchrist

2:37 AM

Somewhere there's a video on youtube of a British guy living in Chicago marvelling at how Wisconsin speakers have no "u" in go.

Cerberus

> broach1
/brəʊtʃ/

tchrist

@Cerberus It's more often in words ending in /o/.

alphabet

@Cerberus I think more ornate pieces would tend to be called brooches. But they aren't very common to begin with.

Cerberus

@alphabet They seem to have been revived a bit, also for men!

alphabet

@Cerberus Yuck.

Cerberus

2:39 AM

Why yuck?

I have one I inherited from my aunt. It wouldn't occur to me to wear a brooch, normally.

alphabet

@Cerberus I am irked by fashion trends.

Cerberus

Not sure I'd call it fashion.

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes, that's just nasal nonsense to us. Monophthongal mid vowels in most syllables is a hallmark of the upper midwest. I don't know that I believe theories that it's due to Scandinavian settlers though. The diphthongization happened first in dense population centers. Things are slower there in farm and timber country. I think it just never got there.

alphabet

What would you wear it with? Pinned onto a dress, I assume?

tchrist

@alphabet Yes, if a nice one, presumably.

Cerberus

2:41 AM

Rather like a reappreciation of a less starkly masculine appearance, bucking the trend initiated in the late 19th century, which continues to this day, in more formal dress.

alphabet

@tchrist OK. Next time I wear a dress I'll consider it!

tchrist

But I wouldn't wear a dress, so I wouldn't wear a broach. Madeleine Albright famously had a stunning and varied broach collection.

alphabet

I don't think I could pull off a dress.

Cerberus

@tchrist I'm having trouble hear this. I will consult Forvo.

@alphabet Onto a jacket, mainly.

At parties.

tchrist

@alphabet Use velcro.

alphabet

2:44 AM

@Cerberus I hate whoever decided we should celebrate special occasions by wearing expensive and uncomfortable clothing.

tchrist

@Cerberus You're perceiving /o/ as a combo of uh plus oo.

We don't.

alphabet

@tchrist Idea: a dress that's just a solid sheet of velcro, so you can attach it anywhere

Just cut it to fit!

tchrist

FOUND IT!

The 5 Greatest American Accents

►

At 134 on.

Talking about the Wisconsin woman. We don't have u.

In our o.

HIS /o/ has a u in it. Ours don't.

That's what he's talking about.

Cerberus

Example.

tchrist

Not much of a brooch.

Cerberus

2:48 AM

@alphabet It doesn't have to be expensive or uncomfortable, though.

@tchrist It seems to have glass or gems?

tchrist

Seriously, please listen to the 75 seconds of the guy talking about how we say /o/ so different from him.

CowperKettle

alphabet

@Cerberus It's not the brooch, it's the suit that's the problem.

Cerberus

@tchrist That's confusing: when he imitates the women, what I hear is /u/?

tchrist

@CowperKettle SWEENEY TODD!

Cerberus

2:51 AM

@alphabet Well, those can be cheap second hand, and comfortable enough if you get the right size?

But I can hardly remember the last time I wore a tie.

At weddings, I now normally just wear a nice jacket.

And you can very much wear a brooch with that.

tchrist

@Cerberus He's not good at the reproduction, but he's correct about that we have monophthongs whereas neither he (northern English) nor people out east (Indiana) do. Just listen to how he himself can't manage to talk about the letter O without drawing it out and putting a W at the end of it, even though he's not trying to do that. That sounds weird to us.

Cerberus

Yes, I do the w.

tchrist

We don't, at least not even half so much as he does.

When it is a checked syllable, like poke or pope or pore, there's virtually no W there at all. For me. Us. Probably Rob. But not you.

alphabet

@Cerberus I have never found a suit that feels comfortable. (Granted, part of the problem is that wool irritates my skin too much.)

tchrist

Oh, and pore and poor have the /o/ not the "aw" from THOUGHT.

Cerberus

2:56 AM

@alphabet Hmm why not?

The wool shouldn't touch your skin?

alphabet

@Cerberus Usually at least some part of it does

@tchrist It irks me that this guy aspirates the /k/ sound in "Wisconsin." It's like he thinks the "wis-" is a separate morpheme.

tchrist

@alphabet So. This is an issue with other foreigners too, like Texans. They say WESconsin like it's the opposite of EASTconsin.

alphabet

@tchrist Of course there's no /k/ in Wisconsin, just a /g/ that we pretend is a /k/ when transcribing it

tchrist

One way to tell that someone is really from Minnesota is how they say the name of that state. It never ends like soda. They make a real T there.

@alphabet This is true.

alphabet

Unless you're that youtuber, and you aspirate the /k/, like the /sk/ in "miscalculate"

tchrist

3:01 AM

I'm really talking about northern Minnesota, so Twin Cities and up. I grew up with second cousins in St Paul and Duluth whom we'd visit.

@alphabet That's across a morphemic boundary. Different rules.

alphabet

@tchrist Exactly; that youtuber seems to think "Wis-" is a prefix. Irksome!

Now you're going to tell me that they pronounce the /t/ in metal.

tchrist

It's just Sconsin, like the sconce in the next room.

@alphabet No. It's just Minnesota.

alphabet

Every time I deliberately say the word "metal" with a [t] in it, it sounds...very strange.

tchrist

Mwawkee. Shkawgo.

We shall not meddle with the mettle of your metal medal.

Cerberus

@alphabet Hmm not really? What parts?

alphabet

3:05 AM

Saying the [d] in medal (like in medallion) is less bad. Still weird though.

@Cerberus Around the collar/sleeves. Or just your hands, if you ever rest them on some part of your jacket.

tchrist

@alphabet Because you're stopping the glottis.

CowperKettle

Mom's friend's granddaughter, age 15 yo, has been found to have 11 ng/ml of vitamin D, against the normal lower limit of 30 ng/ml. Looks like low vitamin D is quite widespread here. There is some controversy about the actual normal lower limit, 20 vs 30 ng/mL, but 11 is quite low on both counts.

Cerberus

@alphabet Collar and cuffs should normally protect you from that?

tchrist

English naturally voices and devoices allophonically based on surrounding context. Less so now that 'twas of old, but it still happens.

alphabet

@Cerberus Not enough IME

Cerberus

3:07 AM

Not abbreviations again...

alphabet

@tchrist Isn't this sort of flapping mostly an AmE phenomenon?

tchrist

@CowperKettle My goodness, where does the poor girl live, Siberia?

@alphabet No.

Cerberus

Siberia is a big place.

CowperKettle

@tchrist The Urals

Cerberus

36 million people live in Siberia.

alphabet

3:08 AM

@tchrist Huh. For me metal and medal are just homophones; I'm not sure how widespread that is across dialects, but I don't think it's universal.

tchrist

It happens a lot in Ireland and Britain as well, but isn't so noted there. Elizabeth did it rarely but Charles does it pretty often, and his sons do it constantly.

CowperKettle

In the Urals, the prevalence of abnormal thyroid function is also high, because of low amounts of iodine in food (hilly area)

tchrist

@CowperKettle Is the salt in their food not normally iodized to compensate?

alphabet

@tchrist Indeed. I think that BrE speakers also tend to glottalize /t/ more often, instead of flapping it.

tchrist

@alphabet It's funny how easy it is to do that in button and kitten but not in metal unless you're trying to sound like Michael Caine.

alphabet

3:11 AM

@tchrist Yeah, I think AmE tends to glottalize more before syllabic /n/.

CowperKettle

@tchrist Yes, and in the Soviet times, kids were given iodine tablets in schools here.

tchrist

@Cerberus I hate it, too. I never know what the kids mean. That's why they do this. It's in-group signalling.

Iodised salt

Iodised salt (also spelled iodized salt) is table salt mixed with a minute amount of various salts of the element iodine. The ingestion of iodine prevents iodine deficiency. Worldwide, iodine deficiency affects about two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of intellectual and developmental disabilities. Deficiency also causes thyroid gland problems, including endemic goitre. In many countries, iodine deficiency is a major public health problem that can be cheaply addressed by purposely adding small amounts of iodine to the sodium chloride salt. Iodine is a micronutrient and dietary...

alphabet

I only recently realized that for me debtor and deader are homophones also. Likewise heated and heeded.

tchrist

Oh, I think I have the rider/writer distinction in those. I still flap but it's not EXACTLY the same vowel. I remember the /t/ and shorten/raise it.

Or maybe there's more "i" after it. Not sure.

alphabet

@tchrist I have the writer/rider distinction (due to Canadian raising)

tchrist

3:21 AM

@alphabet Nearly all North Americans do, except for the Mexicans.

alphabet

I have "lexicalized Canadian raising": I have the raised writer vowel in a few words without a /t/ phoneme, like spider, cider, idle

tchrist

I tried figuring that out once but got phonetic satiety trying.

alphabet

This came up on ELU, but basically: Canadian raising is becoming phonemic in AmE, with minimal pairs like cider vs sider and high schools (the compound noun) vs high schools (schools that are high)

So it's probably best to see them, not as allophones, but as separate phonemes undergoing a split

tchrist

Trying to convince myself I did or not merge idle and idol drove me crazy. I think I do.

But maybe not.

alphabet

I found a paper about this, but basically: there's a lot of variation between speakers, but spider and cider are pretty consistently raised

At least, by a sizable percentage of speakers

tchrist

3:24 AM

And I rhyme idyll with riddle just so I don't have so many things to worry about.

Vikas

@Cerberus I would probably know by now. I think (and hope) no. Those states are very far and my friends or relatives are less likely to be there.

alphabet

See the question I posted about this, which ended up being more an explanation than a question

CowperKettle

> The literacy rate for adults across the U.S. averages 88%. thinkimpact.com/literacy-statistics/….

tchrist

@alphabet I know an old lady who swallowed a spider that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.

And tiggled.

alphabet

This paper gives a good analysis

tchrist

3:27 AM

@CowperKettle Seems shocking.

Vikas

Did I accidentally star a message one minute ago?

alphabet

Curiously, the relevant expert on pronouncing spider appears to have the unraised version

tchrist

> Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2022. 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022. 54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level.

CowperKettle

@tchrist Maybe it's because of immigrants

And there are brain conditions in which it's hard to read

alphabet

Actually, not quite sure about that. Might need to analyze the formant frequencies.

tchrist

3:30 AM

There, more than half are below the sixth-grade level, which is very close to functional illiteracy. And more than one in five aren't literate at all.

alphabet

@CowperKettle Also incompetent teaching methods

tchrist

If more than half of your populace cannot read well enough to analyse technical issues, you cannot have a working democracy as we once knew it.

alphabet

@tchrist Were rates higher in the past? I thought they were lower.

tchrist

@alphabet 90% during Lincoln's time. You think people could listen to the Lincoln–Douglas debates now? I don't.

alphabet

@tchrist I'm a bit skeptical; the methodologies in those studies are questionable. That number also excludes all the enslaved people, so...there's that.

tchrist

3:36 AM

@alphabet 90% of Union soldiers. Few of them were slaves.

alphabet

@tchrist Certainly in the recent past the trend is upwards

tchrist

@alphabet Why would sex matter? We aren't still keeping 'em barefoot and pregnant, are we?

Literacy in the United States

Literacy in the United States was categorized by the National Center for Education Statistics into different literacy levels, with 92% of American adults having at least "Level 1" literacy in 2019. According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level.In many nations, the ability to read a simple sentence suffices as literacy, and was the previous standard for the U.S. The definition of literacy has changed greatly; the term is presently defined as the ability to use printed and written information to function...

alphabet

@tchrist Exactly; the 90% literacy rate excludes the much less literate population of women and slaves, so the true literacy rate was much lower.

tchrist

120 years of American education.

Weird metrics.

Reading at a 2nd-grade level hardly counts as a literate populace.

> illiterate (unable to read or write in any language)

alphabet

Still, there is a downward trend over time. That said:

> The data in this table for the years 1870 to 1930 come from direct questions from the decennial censuses of 1870 to 1930, and are therefore self-reported results.

tchrist

3:41 AM

> During the 1960s, there was a rise in the educational attainment of young adults, particularly for blacks. Between 1960 and 1970, the median years of school completed by black males, 25- to 29-years-old, rose from 10.5 to 12.2. From the middle 1970s to 1991, the educational attainment for all young adults remained very stable, with virtually no change among whites, blacks, males or females.

> The educational attainment average for the entire population continued to rise as the more highly educated younger cohorts replaced older Americans who had fewer educational opportunities.

alphabet

I'm actually not sure if that page really provides evidence for either side. The methodology has changed so much over time that I don't think the results are easily commensurable.

tchrist

It seems weird.

> Illiteracy statistics give an important indication of the education level of the adult population. Today, illiteracy is a different issue than in earlier years. The more recent focus on illiteracy has centered on functional literacy, which addresses the issue of whether a person's educational level is sufficient to function in a modern society.

The earlier surveys of illiteracy examined a very fundamental level of reading and writing. The percent of illiteracy, according to earlier measurement methods, was less than 1 percent of persons 14 years old and over in 1979.

So it's measuring something else. Or was.

alphabet

@tchrist Yeah. I think "illiterate" in those older surveys literally meant "unable to read or write a single word."

tchrist

That's it.

alphabet

In that respect, illiteracy seems to have been in more-or-less continuous decline.

But the percentage of people who can read or write at above a (modern) sixth-grade level? No way we can measure what that rate was in 1860

Supposedly, the Cherokee had, for a time, higher literacy rates in their own language than local white citizens did in English

In terms of having a working democracy, I think polarization and tribalism are much bigger threats than mere stupidity

Also capitalism. I blame capitalism.

Anyway that position is definitely not polarizing at all.

Cerberus

4:02 AM

Hegra (Mada'in Salih)

Hegra (Ancient Greek: Ἕγρα), known to Muslims as Al-Hijr (Arabic: ٱلْحِجْر), also known as Mada’in Salih (Arabic: مَدَائِن صَالِح, romanized: madāʼin Ṣāliḥ, lit. 'Cities of Salih'), is an archaeological site located in the area of Al-'Ula within Medina Province in the Hejaz region, Saudi Arabia. A majority of the remains date from the Nabataean Kingdom (1st century AD). The site constitutes the kingdom's southernmost and second largest city after Petra (now in Jordan), its capital city. Traces of Lihyanite and Roman occupation before and after the Nabatean rule, respectively, can also be found...

Nabataeans in Saudi Arabia.

Once their second largest city, after Petra.

CowperKettle

4:24 AM

> Aerial Relay Transport System (1979)- Interlocking airplanes with massive wingspans would serve train-like straight routes across the United States, with smaller aircraft from local airports docking to them and transferring passengers

tchrist

@alphabet Appealing to a man's self-interest is a surer bet than appealing to his altruism. Try it, you'll see.

@CowperKettle I definitely remember no such notion.

alphabet

5:14 AM

@tchrist I suppose this is why we need to put the women in charge.

CowperKettle

5:47 AM

In the last several years, Holi festivals have become the staple of fun across Russia

This is in a town called Bogdanovich

A small industrial town in the Urals

CowperKettle

8:00 AM

Cost of an apartment in Belgorod, close to Ukraine

For some reason, apartments have been decreasing in price ever since the start of the Special Operation.

CowperKettle

8:47 AM

The design of voting buttons has changed, for the worse, I think.

M.A.R.

9:16 AM

@CowperKettle aye

CowperKettle

9:58 AM

A termite walks into a bar, and says "is the bar tender here?"

M.A.R.

10:11 AM

5

Q: In July 2022, did China have more nuclear weapons than Domino's Pizza locations?

China, Russia, and Pakistan are the only countries in the world that have more nuclear weapons than they do Domino's Pizza locations. 8 Solid Minutes of Useless Geographical Facts!, YouTube (6m45s), 27 July 2022 (1.4M views at the time of writing) I live in China, so I don't think the claim a...

china nuclear-weapons

Iran has as many nukes as Domino's

@CowperKettle which Bogdan was it named after?

CowperKettle

11:37 AM

@M.A.R. Hm.. I dunno

Today is the hottest 3rd June on record.

The previous all-time record was in 1936 with 32 C.

Open Letter to Stack Overflow openletter.mousetail.nl

10

user4539917

12:10 PM

23 hours ago, by user4539917

Whelp, this turned ugly fast.

Laurel

@CowperKettle You and about 450 other people.

I personally don't care about the buttons that much — it's the part at the end where they vow to "roll out more ideas that we have to iterate on voting" that is really bad news

user223626865

Perhaps even explaining down votes may become a thing.

M.A.R.

12:26 PM

12

Q: Is Spider-Man the only Marvel character that has been represented as multiple non-human characters?

Spider-Man has been represented as multiple non-human creatures: Pter Ptarker - A Pteranodon in a Tyrannosaurus rex body. Peter Porker (Spider-Ham) - A Spider, that was bitten by an irradiated Anthropomorphic pig. Has any other Marvel character in any continuity been represented as a non-human ...

marvel character-identification

> Among many other Marvel characters (full list here), Doctor Strange has been portrayed as Croctor Strange / Steamin Strange, Mister Fantastic as Mooster Fantastic, Namor / Sub-Mariner as Sub-Marsupial, Iron Man as Iron Mouse, Black Bolt as Black Colt, Frank Castle / Punisher as Frank Carple / Punfisher, and Doctor Doom as Ducktor Doom in Larval Earth (Earth-8311, the home universe of Peter Porker / Spider-Ham).

user223626865

It's stuff like this that makes Discord worth checking out.

M.A.R.

Extremely high density of groan-worthy material

"Frank Carple" headdesk

user223626865

(⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠）⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

4

M.A.R.

@user223626865 how on Earth would Discord be able to replace a Q/A forum?

Not-forum, whatever. You know what I mean.

user223626865

Monika is trying.

Their app is very slick too.

The name says it all, they grow off the discord created on other sites.

M.A.R.

12:35 PM

@alphabet FWIW, some of the TOEFL writing practice I've seen essentially tells ESL to conjure up essentially what amounts to markov chains. In people preparing for TOEFL, I see strings of phrases used without much comprehension. In that sense, they have accidentally become like robots

@user223626865 well, haven't gotten around to trying it

Laurel

@user223626865 grow off Discord or grow off the discord?

Robusto

12:54 PM

@user223626865 Millennia from now anthropologists will try to decipher those hieroglyphs.

I'm trying out the vertical tabs in Brave browser. So far it feels awkward.

CowperKettle

Robusto

@Laurel Just a note about the transgender vs. language disagreement we had. I believe this is a site about language, and you're talking about etiquette. Those are different things.

user 85795

1:11 PM

Is it not proper etiquette to use polite language in certain situations.

user 85795

1:23 PM

I guess that would fall under the "Usage" umbrella ☔

Robusto

2:17 PM

#Worldle #498 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

🌎 Jun 3, 2023 🌍
🔥 22 | Avg. Guesses: 4.52
🟨🟥🟩 = 3

globle-game.com
#globle

@user85795 In all situations? YMMV.

Wordle 714 4/6

🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Cerberus

@Vikas OK that is something.

@tchrist I think there could be several reasons why people use abbreviations so much.

One could be excluding others, as you say, which makes people feel special.

Another could be just imitation of others, habit. I think it was popularised by advertising and company's presentations, to seem more impressive and 'professional'. And also the America army.

Yet another could be laziness, not having to hit a couple of extra keys.

What abbreviations do is place the burden of interpretation on the audience, removing the burden of typing more letters from the author. So the author chooses his own interest over that of all his readers.

tchrist

2:37 PM

@Cerberus I have no flitting idea why they think everybody else already knows all their own personal little typographical shortcuts. It's a form of solipsistic rudeness.

Cerberus

I kind of agree.

user 858770

Some people are rude.

Or they start out terse, until you get to know them.

tchrist

NFI Y thy tnk TLM alrdy knz althr psnl ltl kbd cts. Sa frm v slpstc rdns.

user 858770

YMMV

Laurel

@Robusto I think that OP didn't realize that "a transgender" (noun) is usually seen as offensive, or at the very least out of touch. For me, it has a comparable feel to "the Twitter" (or any number of similar words where the definite article is added when it shouldn't be) which is definitely about grammar and idiomatic phrasing.

user 858770

2:43 PM

Twitter has its own language :)

tchrist

@Laurel "Have you seen the SO that Mrs Butterworth has just posted?"

@user858770 Flogged for exclusionary language shutting out all those who naturally think of things in fathoms.

user 858770

Old School.

Laurel

@tchrist ... the Stack Overflow? :p

tchrist

@user858770 For forty fathoms deep they lie, ever swarming.

user 858770

Like sharks who smell blood.

tchrist

2:49 PM

@Laurel But of course! Her SO is always so full of insightful coding credenzas.

user 858770

Show no weakness and you will attract no sharks.

Laurel

I find that even if I've never seen a txt abbreviation before, I can often figure out what it means simply because it's usually a really common expression that's obvious from context

user 858770

Thus putting context back on the throne.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…