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I was sure he was going to light his beard on fire.
@tchrist Yeah...Etymology is very complicated and uncertain!
Also very interesting.
Collecting and analysing the information for that word slone probably took hours and hours.
00:29
I don't disagree with your general point, but you have to admit that if you did show faulty data (and before I called you out on it, you did), even if the error is not deliberate, your methods may be viewed with suspicion. What else isn't being shown? See my discussion of this whole NGram issue on meta. I have quite a burr under my saddle about this at the moment. — Robusto Feb 27 at 20:53
@Cerberus There’s a burr for ya.
Right.
I pity the horse. :)
00:58
> La consultora Varianza otorga una victoria al líder opositor [Capriles] por un 51,3% frente al 48,06 de Chávez. El cierre de los colegios se produjo una hora después de la estipulada
Well!
Very interesting.
I do not expect Capriles to be much less corrupt than Chávez, but at least he is less of a brute.
otorgar is what you do with a prize, like to award.
Ah.
Latin/French equivalent?
I don't know the etymology.
01:00
Hmm.
Checking RAE.
Authorise, perhaps?
Auctoritas is all I can think of.
Yes.
(Del lat. *auctoricāre, de auctorāre).
1. tr. Consentir, condescender o conceder algo que se pide o se pregunta.
Phew.
That isn't the right def.
01:01
I usually guess right when it comes to the etymology of longer words, but it's always hard, and there are so many invisible traps.
@tchrist That is rather "to admit", right?
The spelling changes can be tricky if you do not know them.
2. tr. Hacer merced y gracia de algo.
3. tr. Der. Disponer, establecer, ofrecer, estipular o prometer algo. U. por lo común cuando interviene solemnemente la fe notarial.
Where "Der." means Law.
@tchrist Many changes are irregular or have multiple options.
"U." is used.
The au > o I should have thought of.
I always try that as a desperate attempt.
I never know when it is a valid option.
Not even in French—I find French etymology very hard, little better than guessing in the dark.
The unstressed vowel goes away, in authoricare, and things get voiced.
01:05
Yeah.
Look at me put an h in there. Dumb fingers.
auctorial is a rare word in English.
My subconscious knows that g < c is an option.
It just doesn't know when it should happen and when it shouldn't—al I can do is try it every time. But then I have to think of it.
Spanish, and sometime Italian, tend to "soften up" Latin stops.
By which I mean voice.
Auctorial is not that rare?
Well, not OED-rare, no.
But most people have no idea what it means.
01:06
Does Italian also do g < c?
Sometimes.
Remember the cratch thing above.
Auctorial, I would say pertaining to authorship?
Yes, exactly.
Well.
An auctorial change is one made by the author.
01:07
If I know it, it can't be that rare.
Yeah right.
You know crepuscular too.
And peregrination.
Words like those.
Doesn't make 'em common.
The thing is, if the meaning follows naturally from Latin, I will understand it immediately if it fits the context, and I only need to see it once to sort of save it to memory.
Or known by the not-highly-educated.
Antediluvian.
But an auctorial change is not so rare?
Antebellum.
01:09
Now that I would call a rare word.
Ask Mr N. Gram.
Antediluvian, not so much.
The antebellum period is before the American Civil War, in the South.
It is more common than auctorial, maybe.
I don't remember ever reading that.
More common in your country, no doubt.
I would read it as before WWI.
The Great War.
BRB laundry beeping.
I should say that auctorial is rare.
"auctorial change" flatlines compared with "authorial change".
Surprising.
Kinda.
01:12
I can't get the British corpus to work.
Too many errors in Ngrams.
I get only American hits.
Scan errors?
No.
Just wrong entries.
Do you have a ready example?
Well, it could be someone scanned the place of publication separately.
Click "1908 - 1929" for antebellum.
Only 7 hits for auctorial change.
01:14
Well, people are stupid, what do you want me to do about it?
I told you it was virtually unknown in English. I am just um, differently educated.
It is unquestionably correct, of course.
It can't be virtually unknown.
I'm sure I have read that before.
02:00
Oh no! A bear just turned over my garbage pails, some time in the last couple of hours.
I hate it when that happens.
Of course tomorrow was to be trash day.
Well, still is I guess. What a mess.
02:13
Wow.
That sounds adventurous and annoying.
It's a mother bear with two cubs.
I just saw my black fox, which I had to peer at carefully to make sure wasn't a cub, and a big racoon, too. Very busy out there tonight.
I've sealed up the cat door. No reason for him to be gallivanting outside tonight.
It is annoying. Mess to clean up.
Don't know where the bears are right now.
Should we bother protecting this:
7
Q: What does "There but for the grace of God — goes God." mean?

Louis RhysIt is a supposedly witty paraprosdokian said by Churchill. But I (and possibly some other people whose first language is not English) don't get it. Can someone explain what it means? Do English native speakers get this without much thinking?

Notice the bottom answers.
They are not deletable, but they are not very good.
03:06
@tchrist Would your cat be at risk, if he came close to the bear?
Meanwhile, I am trying to get something out of an sqlite database on my phone, and I have no idea what I'm doing...
Just copy-pasted a command.
Meanwhile...
> National Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena said on Sunday that with most votes counted, Chavez had about 54 per cent of the vote, while his rival Henrique Capriles garnered 44.99% of votes.
@Cerberus I'm disappointed, Chavez usually rigs a much higher result, doesn't he?
Hi!
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Actually, not always.
He got a similar result the election before last.
Arg, my phone says "bash: sqlite3: command not found".
my favourite Chavez video
Lovely.
@Cerberus My cat knows better than to bother bears, or anything really. He has survived more than 20 years now. But I am paranoid.
It was a shock to walk out to overturned garbage pails this evening. I checked with the neighborhood, and there are indeed bears here right now. Somewhere. I did not see them.
03:19
@tchrist That's an old cat
Don't tell him that.
@tchrist I won't.
It does sound scary.
He has always been an indoor-outdoor cat.
I really should go out to bring my pails in the garage, but I am . . . timorous.
My brother once had to babysit a 21-yo cat that was blind. He was worried because he thought the cat was in danger of dropping dead at any moment. Luckily that didn't happen while he was taking care of it.
03:20
My cat is anywhere between 18-21. I am hoping for 18. The neighbors say 21.
He is still quite spry.
@tchrist Even 18 is a lot for a cat, innit?
@tchrist Well, that's good. My brother's boss's cat was not that spry.
@Cerberus I thought you reported that the opposition had won?
@tchrist That was just a Spanish exit poll.
Is it a lot? Perhaps.
Oh.
He is all over me, now that I have pulled a You Shall Not Pass on him.
The average cat life expectancy is 12-16 years.
according to wikipedia.
03:23
Aww.
Less for outdoor cats.
He is in no danger of dropping dead. He still is a great leaper. But he cannot hear as well as he can, I can sneak up on him much better than I used to. I still cannot surprise him, but I can get much closer.
So I guess your cat is more awesome than average.
He is an outdoor cat.
I worry that a coon or lion might sneak up on him. Well, coons are clumsy, but lions are not.
I should imagine he would notice the bears.
He's just a bit hard of hearing, though.
I guess coons are not actually clumsy. But they lumber.
Is that a word? I am super tired.
Ok, I am pulling in my garbage now. If I do not come back, it was nice knowing you.
My son has been growling at imaginary bears all evening. He kept saying "There's a bear at the door!" I had no idea he was actually talking about your house.
03:27
No critters.
I was careful to make a great deal of noise.
You have lions??
That is what you are supposed to do. You never want to surprise a bear.
Pumas. We call them lions, yes.
stupéfait
Oh.
Oh, like mountain lions?
Puma concolor, or some such.
Yes.
Same size as a leopard.
Haven't I told you of my encounter with them?
Well, one.
Just a block away from my house.
At night.
Well within springing distance.
It growled at me.
You cannot believe the chemicals that shoot through your body at that instant.
It would not have growled a warning if it had wanted to eat me, but I was extremely um moved by the experience.
I don't walk around the lakeside park in the dark alone anymore.
Everybody but me keeps seeing our bears.
They can leap 5 yards vertically and 10 horizontally.
The lions, not the bears.
I was about 4 yards away when I was growled at. I knew I could have been catfood in the wink of an eye had he been so inclined.
Because I have seen my cat pluck birds out of the air.
Faster than my eye could follow.
And this was a cat of my own weight.
Or thereabouts. Maybe less.
But at least 100 pounds.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I have had bears come to my door. Filthy beggars.
Nasty trick-or-treat non-joke, too.
@tchrist And here we were wondering if most bears were polite enough to wait at the door.
03:37
Scary.
One came to the door once when it wasn't even latched. Damned scary.
But big cats are not as fast as small cats.
Are the bears dangerous?
@Cerberus Don't bet your life on it. They are way way way faster than you are.
Yeah.
@Cerberus Yes and no.
03:38
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 play.google.com/store/apps/…
Would you install this?
If I were to threaten them, and they were not intimidated, and chose to do something about it, yes they could easily kill me.
But they are not going to go out of their way to do so.
These are black bears, not grizzlies, so they are not quite so aggressive.
Good.
But this is a mother with two cubs, so it is back to the dangerous situation again.
Don't get between them.
03:40
Glad we only have...humans.
When I have encountered them on hikes, they have always run away from me.
So far.
I am afraid of humans.
I know how to deal with animals.
I am always afraid in cities at night.
And sometimes by day.
Really?
Yes. I am not a city person.
And people get killed.
Are you afraid of being mugged?
Yes.
03:41
Right.
Then only go to safe cities at night.
They recognize that I am not a local, because I have the wrong signals.
Just as with the critters, I know the right signals.
As long as you don't go to unsafe neighbourhoods and don't display your wealth, you should be safe.
Boulder has no such places, thank God. It is just a little college town of 100,000.
Nestled up against the mountains.
Good.
But Denver, well. That is different.
03:43
I don't think we have any truly unsafe neighbourhoods.
I have lived in Madrid and London when I was young, and was too young to be afraid.
There are maybe two that I wouldn't want to go to at night—but then I have absolutely no reason to be there anyway.
But other than that I have never lived in a place with unsafe places.
Neither have I.
Sort of.
I have traversed neighborhoods in London trying to meet someone that I didn't know I shouldn't've gone through. No harm done, but the person I was meeting told me not to do that again.
03:45
That's bad.
Hm.
That was a tough parse. Sorry.
No chance of that happening here.
No, it was easy enough to parse.
I got it on the first read.
Amsterdam has Great Blue Herons in its canals. I found that very pleasant.
@Cerberus Not likely. I would just copy it from the emulator.
anyway I have to run. ttyl
Well, yes, you can find them around town, on boats in the canals. Not in the water.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Wait, what? How does that work?
03:47
They always delight me. I don't know why.
They are great.
I think I saw a brown heron once or twice.
Those are rare.
Yes, I don't see them much at all.
Blue herons are not very shy here.
I sometimes see the little night herons.
Never heard of those...
Night herons, you say?
03:48
They are somewhat skittish here. They don't let you get too close to them.
Yes.
The night herons are medium-sized herons in the genera Nycticorax, Nyctanassa and Gorsachius. The genus name Nycticorax derives from the Greek for “night raven” and refers to the largely nocturnal feeding habits of this group of birds, and the croaking crow-like call of the best known species, the Black-crowned Night Heron. In Europe, Night Heron is often used to refer to the Black-crowned Night Heron, since it is the only member of the genus in that continent. Adults are short-necked, short-legged and stout herons with a primarily brown or grey plumage, and, in most, a black crown. Y...
That is the wrong picture.
Look at the first picture in the article.
We have the same one, I believe, the Black-crowned Night Heron.
I have seen them here, and I think you have the same kind.
Nice.
They are smaller, less majestic.
If we have them, they are not spoken of.
They are not active by day.
Not much at least. You usually see them towards dusk, if at all.
We do have lots of bats at night.
03:51
That is the familiar one.
I have seen them here in Boulder, and as far away as the Virgin Islands.
We have egrets, too.
Which are like white herons.
In English, we call herons egrets if they are white. Mostly.
They are in the same genus as the Great Blue Heron: Ardea.
My kitty has gone up to bed, after calling to me to join him. I need to do that. I have a business meeting at 7:30am.
So good night!
 
6 hours later…
09:37
Whoa, looks like someone requested account deletion after asking one question and getting two downvotes. Talk about overreacting.
hello
what is the meaning of "far from being" ?
It's literal.
Every word means exactly what it means. Not an idiom.
Here, iam giving sentence.
Many artists believe that successful imitation, far from being symptomatic of a lack of sympathy is the first step in learning to be creative.
09:48
Many artists believe that imitating other artists 1. is the first step in learning, and 2. does not mean they don't have sympathy.
Far from being means "from a long time"
No. That doesn't make sense.
Far means "far". Do you have a bilingual dictionary? Look up the word.
far:- To a considerable degree; very much .............
> Distant in space, time or degree.
Not close. Not near. At a long distance.
[Successful imitation] is at a long distance from [lack of sympathy].
@RegDwighт :thank you.
09:57
You're welcome.
 
3 hours later…
12:32
@cornbreadninja interesting. I like the idea, but he's fluffed the second verse.
12:53
Yo
And a barrel of vodka.
15 Russians on a dead man's chest
Any of you reads King here?
Stephen? Or James?
12:59
what is King?
Therefore I guess not! :D
The guy the Cross belongs to lol.
:D
I watched King Kong once. The one with Jack Black
@RegDwighт Stephen. :)
Of course. :P
I see! no, I've not read any of his books. I think I started reading a blog post, but I don't know if I finished it.
I've watched a couple of the films based on his books
And I used to watch the deadzone TV show
I only read a bunch of short stories.
13:03
Langoliers?
A friend of mine has all his books. Literally everything.
So he gave me some short stories to read.
That was 15 years ago, though. I don't remember a thing.
I read the book "Four after midnight".
It's a collection of 4 stories, the first being The Langoliers.
I vaguely remember something about a college campus and perhaps birds. Or not.
I've seen quite a few movies, though. Many. Lots.
In the Langoliers? Nope. I won't say anything, I don't want to spoil it for you. :)
:D
I saw The Langoliers, too. Don't remember a thing, either.
Never read the book.
13:06
It's the one I liked the most there.
Now I'd like to read Christine and It.
It is too long for my tastes.
It's true, he writes a lot, but he's not boring.
I have a book that is really thin and it's one of the most boring books I've ever started.
lol
I didn't finish it.
13:27
Hi
What is the dependent clause and independent clause in the below sentence.
Here i am giving sentence : Before you get a job, you usually have to go for an interview, when you will be asked a lot of questions about your suitability for the job.
> In linguistics, a dependent clause (sometimes called a subordinate clause) is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence.
> Dependent clauses modify the independent clause of a sentence or serve as a component of it.
So, @Pratik, which part of your sentence fulfils those criteria?
dependent clause is:you will be asked a lot of questions about your suitability for the job.
is it correct ?
I think so, yes
You forgot "Before you get a job".
is it also dependent clause ?
13:38
"You have to go for an interview" + before X + when Y.
One main clause, two dependent clauses.
And the when should be a where, if you ask me.
I agree, where is better
Also, please do not put whitespaces before question marks. That is French spacing. It is not done in English.
@RegDwighт ok
14:32
In engineering, if you have a piece that connects two other pieces at an angle, what is the correct term to describe said piece? Like the green piece shown in the following diagram:
The documentation I'm working on translates it as "angle" but that just seems wrong.
"elbow" also came up during reasearch
Hm.
I wouldn't know what to call that thing in any language.
@RegDwighт Hehehe
This questions mentions "elbow" there might be something to it
I crossposted in DIY chat.
Cool, thanks

 Home Improvement

General discussion for diy.stackexchange.com
They say "elbow".
14:38
Awesome :)
Yeah, that's rather unanimous.
15:08
every time someone asks about a vs an, God kills a kitten
it's surprising that any cats survive to adulthood
> This is not a particularly common metaphor, and may even just simply be hyperbole.
shakes fist it's not a metaphor!
I think "God kills a kitten" is way more common than the words "metaphor" and "hyperbole" combined.
It's the truth! God actually exists mostly to kill kittens.
God already killed all kittens but two once.
Looks like He liked it.
15:19
Well, the way he describes it, it could be a metaphor.
@RegDwighт then He should put a ring on it
15:38
@OliverSalzburg i think "elbow joint" is the proper term, at least in plumbing
@JSBձոգչ It's not plumbing though. It's actually sort of a suspension system
i see from our stars that i missed a tedious and obnoxious argument about women and the Bible. boy am i glad that i wasn't here for that
@OliverSalzburg "elbow" might still be the right word.
You see that it was tedious and obnoxious from the one starred message? Or you actually read it all (in which case, your own fault).
i read the starred message and about ten lines of context
that was enough
@JSBձոգչ Yeah, I have done a few google searches with my corrected (elbow-based) translations and found all the competitors stuff :D
15:41
Ah, but perhaps that could be your unique selling proposition, not calling it that, calling it something fancy. Like, not elbow, but embow. The next generation!
Everybody loves an embow
Embow: When an elbow just isn't good enough
Embow: not your grandmother's elbow
toodles!
15:59
Me's out as well.
16:12
Hello
Whats embow?
@RegDwighт you can't be out

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