English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

02:18

Title of post on Reddit: Fucked around and found out this old lady turned 19 a few months ago, wish her happy birthday!

alphabet

03:47

0

Q: How to identify as being Native American while not being of aboriginal descent?

I write for government entities in the supply chain and manufacturing fields. These days it is a big deal to identify what nationality you are. The government wants to discontinue buying from adversarial countries and prefer American Made in order to control Intellectual Property (IP), counterfei...

One commenter suspects this might be some sort of experiment, which would be very much in line with the asker's interests:

I suspect that this is not a legitimate question but rather some form of research. Simply view the website in the OP's profile. Nobody who's a "professional speaker" with that level of writing skill is going to make such a basic English mistake. Further, the website advertises OP's book about "social implications of the changing of definitions". This question should be closed as an unethical, undisclosed experiment on the site's participants. — user71659 38 mins ago

Dunno about that, but it does seem like this could be some sort of weird guerilla marketing for the asker's book, which (from her website) seems to be about the supposed evils of liberals changing what words mean

Which would make sense, because few would (lemme be honest) be so obtuse as to think that anyone born in the US can properly be called a "Native American," unless they were insisting on some sort of weird right wing hot take

And as commenters have pointed out the question is truly a weird one

Apparently OP may be insisting on some outdated usage of that term, presumably to prove her point about evil liberals changing what words mean

Cerberus

Hah.

Language politics.

Such a useful pastime.

The language police hardly seem liberal, by the way.

alphabet

Anyway I don't think we really have evidence that this isn't a good-faith question; I won't flag it. But it does seem odd.

If it's a marketing stunt, it almost worked; part of me wants to buy her book to figure out what level of crazy we're dealing with

Cerberus

04:31

Haha.

That's how negative clickbait works...

CowperKettle

07:11

Contraceptive pills are associated with reduced volumes of the ventromedical prefrontal cortex in women medicalxpress.com/news/…

CowperKettle

08:36

> In 1601, Henry Clifton, a nobleman from Norfolk, sued the Blackfriars company for their abduction of his son Thomas, on 13 December 1600. The basis for the case was not that Thomas was forcibly impressed into the choir school (which was entirely legal) but that he was made to act in the plays of Children of the Chapel.

TIL that it was entirely legal to kidnap children for forced enrollment into church choirs in Britain in 1601.

Clifton Star Chamber Case

The Clifton Star Chamber Case or Clifton vs. Robinson was a court case of early modern England, in 1601, before the Star Chamber, concerning the abduction of children by choir schools. == The case == In 1601, Henry Clifton, a nobleman from Norfolk, sued the Blackfriars company (headed by Gyles, Robinson, and Evans) for their abduction of his son Thomas, on 13 December 1600. Clifton obtained a warrant from Sir John Fortescue, who granted it using his authority as a member of the Privy Council due to his connections and high social status. The basis for the case was not that Thomas was forc...

Old English-derived obsolete word of the day: rail - garment; night-rail meant nightgown.

Xanne

09:50

rail is probably related to the more common raiment, which I think I encountered in romantic poetry.

CowperKettle

11:26

@Xanne I once translated a Russian short verse, and used "raiment" to maintain the rhyme

> A Perspective in Nature Reviews Neuroscience presents the shallow brain hypothesis: hierarchical cortical processing is integrated with a massively parallel process to which subcortical areas substantially contribute nature.com/articles/s41583-023-00756-z

Snow is falling on the pavement:
What a glee to passers-by!
Suddenly a tipsy guy,
Tripping in his battered rayment,
Also tumbles on the pavement:
What a glee to passers-by!

The Russian original verse is:

> Снег идёт и падает
И прохожих радует!
Вдруг какой то человек
Стал вести себя как снег:
Он идет и падает
И прохожих радует!

Wow, Google Translate has improved a lot:

> The snow comes and falls and makes passers-by happy! Suddenly some person began to behave like snow: He walks and falls and makes passers-by happy!

Several years ago its version of translation was worse.

Mitch

13:47

@alphabet If the OP were selling something (other than her self published book) she would have linked directly in the question. As it is, it seems perfectly fine to link in one's bio.

As to experiment, the question seems on-message, looking at how words meanings change, but not intentional subterfuge. She seems only interested in how 'native american' only refers to aboriginals.

She may have an agenda (it isn't overtly politically conservative) but it is linguistically naive. It's not clear if she wants 'native american' to refer to people who were born in the US, whether their parents/ancestors were or not.

Robusto

14:07

Wordle 871 4/6

⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

M.A.R.

17:43

@CowperKettle N.B.: A physiologic finding is not a clinical outcome. "AF associated with a 45% increase in mild cognitive impairment." That's a clinical outcome, and the sort of thing that directly guides therapy.

CowperKettle

18:03

@M.A.R. Yes

alphabet

19:14

Famous raccoon celebrity photoshoot

Mitch

@M.A.R. ok with your fancy talk. What does that -mean-?

MetaEd

19:58

Wordle 871 3/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

@Mitch I made the mistake of going to the website and reading the back cover of the self-published book.

Mitch

20:17

@MetaEd Look man you don't want some stranger writing your testimonials or blurbs.

MetaEd

@Mitch I should self-publish a bad book on how to self-publish a bad book.

Or I should badly self-publish a book on how to badly self-publish a book.

Maybe that's volume I and volume B.

Mitch

20:56

@MetaEd So is a sign of success doing that badly? But then you would have done well.

MetaEd

@Mitch this would be a cult book. in the same way as a really shitty movie can become a cult movie. So success as a cult classic would prove how shitty the book is

Mitch

Here are some blurbs for the back dust cover:
"It was OK." - the author's mom.

"The layout really made the plot come to life. And the choice of font was genius - it was integral to being able to read the intricate descriptions of the backs of people's heads" - kindergarten classmate on deathbed

"Read a book? I thought you said ride a bike. I can't do either!" - cop wearing bike helmet

MetaEd

@Mitch these look like parody, which is fine. I think a truly bad cult book would have blurbs that look like sad attempts to really blurb the book

Mitch

"This book fills a well-needed gap in the literature" - book publisher

@MetaEd You write the best cult book ever, I'll write the best awful blurbs for it.

@MetaEd "[the author] is primarily concerned with developing nuanced, relatable characters throughout the story, using their behaviors under stress and uncertainty to make more general statements about the human condition in the face of depravity."

I couldn't have done it better.

In fact I didn't.

MetaEd

21:20

"Two Adams and one Eve in a new garden of Eden"

Mitch

I stole that from some medium post about The Brothers Karamatsov

MetaEd

@Mitch we are on our way to writing a cult classic

Mitch

@MetaEd I'm already spending our money from the sales!

MetaEd

<span class="facade-of-protection-zoom"></span>

The little jokes people put in production code

"The British think all other Europeans are strange. But they weren’t prepared for this Eastern European nobleman and his ways with women." ---Dracula blurb

"The dark lord cometh. Will the tiny men with foot problems save us this time?" ---Lord Of The Rings blurb

"The lengths some students will go to just to get that perfect grade on their final research project." ---Frankenstein blurb

Mitch

"The whole boat sinks and most people die by the end" - movie goer leaving 'Titanic' to those coming in.

MetaEd

21:27

"No. Next question?" ---Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep blurb

"The war’s over and the wife’s waiting at home. Why not take the scenic route back?" ---The Odyssey

Mitch

@MetaEd spurts out tea

MetaEd

"The ballsiest book of the year." ---Castration: The Advantages and Disadvantages

Mitch

@MetaEd I had to google for that but I still don't get it.

Robusto

21:42

@Mitch I'm guessing it's one of those invisible elements that prevent non-payers to access a page's content.

Little do they realize such front-end tricks are easily defeated.

And deleted.

Occasionally you run into pages that trap all mouse interactions, but those are self-defeating.

I mean, how can I interact with your page if I can't, uhhh, interact with your page?

alphabet

22:17

@MetaEd I must admit I was very surprised that that's a real CS Lewis book. It looks like some sci-fi pulp fiction.

MetaEd

@alphabet he was fond of writing christian allegory. the space trilogy is SF christian allegory and the narnia series is F christian allegory

@Mitch there's a photo site that puts a transparent layer over an image to keep you from right clicking and downloading it. That transparent layer is the "facade of protection"

which, of course, is merely a facade

Robusto

22:32

50 mins ago, by Robusto

@Mitch I'm guessing it's one of those invisible elements that prevent non-payers to access a page's content.

It's for anything they don't want people to get their hands on.

But easily defeated.

Mitch

@MetaEd got it @Robusto

MetaEd

@Robusto Yes. It's only a facade. Which is nicely admitted by the person who named the class

Mitch

The extent of my html knowledge is 'blinking'

and the color scheme 'hot dog stand'

MetaEd

@Mitch More than most people

Mitch

and to choose those as defaults

Robusto

22:39

@Mitch It's the same principle. You block something so the inexpert user can't access it.

Mitch

also every embedded video plays by default

SOUND UP!

@Robusto OK... so then... how -do- you bypass it? I mean I guess I suppose it has to be done every time for every page you want to get rid of that tag?

Robusto

@Mitch You go into the page and fuck with the CSS. If you're the "inexpert" user, that doesn't mean you.

Usually you just set the overlay element to CSS "display:none" and that does it.

Occasionally you have to wade through layers of shit, but the end result is the same.

Mitch

@Robusto OK. That's a pain. I don't want no pictures anyhow.

actually

a ot of times it is pinterest pictures that I want to 'borrow' but they don't let you.

later doodz

Robusto

@Mitch Try it yourself: Go to NYT Spelling Bee page and right-click on that huge obnoxious ad container at the top. If you have the dev tools working in your browser, those will open up when you select "Inspect" and then you will see the element you clicked on. If you then enter "display:none" in the element's CSS (first at the top) it will magically disappear.

I mean, unless you're chicken or something.

Cerberus

23:42

@Mitch You can use Ublock Origin to easily click elements that will never be displayed again (unless you disable the 'cosmetic filter' function on that page, or you remove the filter you have just added from your list of filters in the settings.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…