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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
02:32
Word of the day: starling ( a defensive bulwark, usually built with pilings or bricks, surrounding the supports (or piers) of a bridge or similar construction)
Robusto
Robusto
03:06
Google spent $26 billion to hide this phone setting from you
> Google goes to great lengths to be your default search engine and keep you from switching. Here’s why you should make your own choice.
> There’s a setting on your phone and web browser that Google is desperate to keep you from discovering. How desperate? In 2021 alone, Google paid Apple, Samsung and others $26.3 billion to keep it buried.
That’s more money each year than McDonald’s makes selling burgers.
tchrist
tchrist
03:30
@CowperKettle That's a weird one. I've come across it before, but not often. It didn't appear until Early Modern English. It isn't related to the Sturnus bird, which was in Old English as stærlinc. OED says the bulwark one is "apparently" an alteration of staddling although they admit the sound changes are hard to explain.
alphabet
alphabet
Word of the day: heteroerotic. Curiously, dictionaries seem to disagree about whether this is a word. Merriam-Webster lists it, as does Wiktionary. Dictionary.com, Cambridge, and OxfordLD don't include it.
All of them list homoerotic, of course.
tchrist
tchrist
Homoerotic means you're into men just like panerotic means you're into chimpanzees and equierotic means you're into horses.
Gynerotic means you're into women.
I think heterotic is something about your ears.
Marge Simpson is homerotic.
Laurel
Laurel
03:48
@alphabet Seems like a retronym
Dannyu NDos
Dannyu NDos
And my word of the day: hemicontinuity.
I guess this is how I should amalgamate Rel and Top.
tchrist
tchrist
What's a reltop?
Dannyu NDos
Dannyu NDos
Rel, the category of binary relations, and Top, the category of continuous functions.
It's freakin' MATH!!!!
tchrist
tchrist
If you say so. Sounded more like some sort of modern kink to me.
Laurel
Laurel
We were just discussing binary relations but not in the context of math :p
Cerberus
Cerberus
04:30
@tchrist Even then, it would be malformed.
It should be either homerotic or homoeerotic, methinks.
@alphabet *hetererotic
tchrist
tchrist
You're right.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
05:26
@Mitch yeah I'm not a neuroscientist. I haven't ever cared all that much what information goes where, except maybe what part of the body is affected by damage to the which area of the spinal cord
 
2 hours later…
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
07:56
@Mitch I'm not all that engaged in what he's trying to do, but all the hullabaloo makes me skeptical.
He seems to lack the attention span to see through a proper clinical trial
@DannyuNDos all that math is Greek to me
Xanne
Xanne
08:33
Wordle 873 4/6

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ciserotic, perhaps.
 
3 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
11:08
@alphabet There's also teleiophilia. I am a heterosexual teleiophile
@Mitch This would be great.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
11:34
> Taking a medical history and performing a physical examination of the patient are the main diagnostic means for determining the type of FS and discovering the cause of infection.
I wonder if this is okay, or maybe "The recording of a medical history and a physical examination" would be better, because "taking" might not chime well with "are the main diagnostic means".
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
13:50
Quentin Roosevelt is the only child of a U.S. president to have died in combat. In a fighter plane over France, in July 1918.
> Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt Jr., became the first Westerners to shoot a panda.
I stupidly believed that Kermit was a made-up name, because I only came across it in that children TV show
Laurel
Laurel
14:25
Who wants to review my answer about "Google Dictionary" on Webapps?
0
A: How to make Google to display results in IPA?

LaurelPreamble There are two English dictionaries licensed by Google, the New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD) and the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE). While there is substantial overlap in their definitions (so substantial they are usually identical, as in your example), they are not the same dict...

I've actually written two but the other one is more about other languages
Robusto
Robusto
14:46
Wordle 873 5/6

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@Laurel Good to know, gracias.
Mitch
Mitch
@CowperKettle Sort of same here. I only ever knew of 'Kermit' as the name of the muppet, but then I only heard of the Roosevelt son first time maybe in my thirties, and it just sounded so wrong to name a real person that (almost as though the Roosevelts named their son after the muppet despite the timing problem).
Robusto
Robusto
15:01
@Mitch When is there ever a good time to name your child after a muppet?
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. me neither. I'm hardly 'engaged' in anything at all, and just come across things like this randomly, and only bring it up here because it 1) piques my interest and 2) some people here might think it interesting (cowp)
@Robusto I don't know... 'Snuffleupagus' could come back into fashion
Robusto
Robusto
Bert and Ernie fell out of fashion. Maybe because of muppets?
Mitch
Mitch
@Laurel as mentioned before, my technical knowledge of webapps is limited to 'blink' and the hot dog stand color scheme. That said, nice solution, just add enough tags to the URL to get the IPA of the British pronunciation.
@Robusto Or like Velma and Daphne. Nobody wants their kids to be remembered as the taxi driver/cop or hot/nerd in a weird sweater respectively.
Robusto
Robusto
user image
I always thought this guy looked like a muppet.
Bert or Ernie, I can't remember which is which.
Mitch
Mitch
15:41
@Robusto Born that way.
Muppeterotic
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
English has an expression business end. It's a general idiom which can apply to anything from shovels to catheters. Is there a general idiom for the other end?
Laurel
Laurel
@NickAlexeev The handle? What are you describing?
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@Laurel What if the instrument isn't handheld? The thing I'm writing about isn't handheld. It's an IoT kind of sensor. It's about 500mm long and 60mm diameter.
Mitch
Mitch
@NickAlexeev It's a metaphor. The 'business end' isn't a hammer head eaither but is like one.
you can make your metaphor whatever you want. if it's a hammer, then your thing that is like a hammer. The head part is the part that does all the hardest work, the business end. The handle is still necessary, but is not involved in the pain and violence that the hammer head sees.
Metaphors aren't always perfect. so the hammer metaphor may not work.
if your metaphor is 'business', then maybe 'the business end' does the real work, and the 'administrative end' just does support.
a good metaphor will make all comparable parts obvious, to maybe the implication of a metaphor with the 'business end' doesn't work if you try to fill out the details.
ie the non-business end is kind of boring.
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@Mitch Business end is a fairly abstract metaphor, and I like it. So, I'm looking for an equally abstract idiom for the other end.
@Mitch Yes, the "non-business end" would be boring.
Mitch
Mitch
15:54
If you really want to 'fill the metaphor gap' for 'the business end' you may want to spell it out a little more. ie the 'admin end' just has meetings that could have been an email and is not involved in doing the actual work.
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
"administrative end", "logistics end", "care & feeding end"
Mitch
Mitch
support end?
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
That works.
Mitch
Mitch
'where the rubber meets the road'.. the rest of the metaphor may be strained, 'the rest of the tire'
@NickAlexeev it may translate to the reader... or it may not. explaining the metaphor (or adding hints) may be overselling. Or leaving the hints out may leave the reader baffled.
Laurel
Laurel
Unfortunately, your writing probably is too formal for "party end" (not that I've found that used). It's probably also too formal for idioms. Why not just actually describe what the parts are? I don't even know what you're trying to describe, there's the sensor part and maybe a part that mounts somewhere?
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
16:00
@Mitch Catheter designers use business end, distal end, proximal end. But they confused me a few times, because it wasn't clear whose point if view distal and proximal was from: patient's or operator's.
@Laurel At this time I'm only writing for internal use. Fellow engineers are the audience.
The things that are done on the support end are: changing batteries, changing media (a micro SD card), flashing new firmware occasionally.
Robusto
Robusto
@NickAlexeev I believe that originated with guns, the "business end" of which is the most marked and obvious source for metaphor.
Mitch
Mitch
@NickAlexeev The business end is presumably the part of the catheter that goes in the urethra. the non-business end is prabably close to being called what Laurel said, the handle, or the receptacle bag.
I also have trouble with proximal and distal because it depends on PoV.
Presumably it becomes clearer if one looks at the med definitions where they might mention the context (is it always the patient or is it the person managing the tool)
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@Mitch The people who were confusing me with distal and proximal were designing an intravascular catheter which didn't have a handle.
Laurel
Laurel
@Robusto Not really impressed here:
3
Q: What is the etymology of "business end"?

tphaneufWhat is the origin of the phrase "business end"?

idioms phrase-origin
"Doesn't have an origin" just means you didn't bother to look for one
Mitch
Mitch
16:18
@Laurel As annoying as this might be to hear, but this is a good example of why you should take crowd-sourced info sources (wikipedia, wiktionary, stackexchange) as consistent and complete references.
@Robusto the 'gun' context of business end sounds like a quick and easy cliche in 1950s westerns. but that doesn't mean it's the source.
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@Mitch For doctors proximal and distal are always from the point of view of the patient. It would make sense if medical device engineers used the same PoV, and wrote it down in a public glossary.
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Of course. But "business end of" rises from 1880 to its peak in 1920. You do the math.
Laurel
Laurel
@Mitch What do you mean by this? Like allow someone to copy a quote and post it as an answer?
Mitch
Mitch
Google NGrams/Books is giving lots of hits around 1900 that mention 'business end' literally (the business end of town where all the actual businesses are... or either bees or mules.
"business end of the mule is said to be its rear end"
"It is a common remark about the bee , that the sting end is the business end of that insect "
google.com/…
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Blah blah blah, but it seems to have arisen in 1880 in print. So I would guess it arose in the Civil War, which was all about firearms.
Mitch
Mitch
16:27
@Laurel I'm just saying that looking at the 'business end' question you linked, the answers are very unsatisfying, which is what I think you were saying too.
Robusto
Robusto
> Business end "the practical or effective part" (of something) is American English, by 1874.
Etymonline.
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto I would be convinced if any of those links were gun related. But I haven't found any yet.
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Just because you can't find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto You should write a strongly worded comment to the ELU question.
Robusto
Robusto
Awwww, do I have to?
Mitch
Mitch
16:30
@Robusto but speculation isn't knowledge. It can help you where to look, but it's not actual evidence.
Robusto
Robusto
I understand that. I'm not going to fall on my sword bayonet for that etymology.
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto etymnoline usually got its info from OED which usually is very very reliable.
Robusto
Robusto
And if I were more curious I would work harder to determine the answer. But I'm not getting paid for that, and I have things to do that are more dopamine-enhancing at the moment.
Mitch
Mitch
So that if it says 'the history is unclear', they probably have a lot of research that clearly shows that the history is unclear.
Robusto
Robusto
Obviously they haven't found my casual opinion on the matter yet.
Mitch
Mitch
16:33
@Robusto I will pick up a penny on the ground because I get some minimal exercise out of it. I will avoid picking up a penny because maybe it's this time my back will give out.
@Robusto I think a good 'harrumph' will encourage them to seek you out.
Robusto
Robusto
My door is always open to them.
Mitch
Mitch
They could probably find your address if they would just look.
Robusto
Robusto
They probably have more dopamine-enhancing pursuits to work through until they get to me.
Laurel
Laurel
16:53
Read it and weep:
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A: What is the etymology of "business end"?

LaurelAccording to their entry last updated in 2012: OED's earliest evidence for business end is from 1828, in Daily National Intelligencer (Washington). This isn't however the usual modern meaning but rather "The part of a day, or aspect or facet of an activity, that relates to business." The text o...

And also remember that the current top answer which we criticized is at +4 and it probably shouldn't be the top answer
Anyway, I apparently (first?) saw this question back in 2018 when I left a comment on a now deleted answer. Apparently I wasn't publicly lamenting the quality of the other answers back then
 
1 hour later…
MetaEd
MetaEd
18:08
2
Q: What is this usage of harrumph?

Patrick MSo this question was just asked and it made me realize I didn't understand what was going on this particular movie scene (Mel Brooks' 1974 Blazing Saddles). Transcript: Governor William J. Le Petomane: Holy underwear! Sheriff murdered! Innocent women and children blown to bits! We have to protec...

meaning idioms
MetaEd
MetaEd
18:38
Wordle 873 2/6

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@Laurel "Daily National Intelligencer"? well, shame on the 19th century for that ...
Laurel
Laurel
They used to intelligence it up back then, didn't they?
MetaEd
MetaEd
@Laurel yeah. intelligence them.
"I hate quotations." ---Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mitch
Mitch
19:25
@MetaEd snort
Also, why do ELU answers tend to explain the social situation without explaining what the word means?
Robusto
Robusto
The Brave browser now has AI search. Ahem. Don't hold your breath. I asked it for the top five users based on reputation points in EL&U and it got them wrong every time, even after I gave it the link to the Users All-Time page.
So yeah. I'll stick to a regular Web search, tyvm.
Robusto
Robusto
19:42
It asked me if I wanted to know anything else. I asked, "How can I trust you?"
The reply: "I understand that trust is an important aspect of any relationship, and I want to assure you that I am here to assist you in a positive and respectful manner."
Wow, if I wanted doubletalk I'd talk to a Public Relations flack for the company.
Here's the rest of that reply:rest
> I am a machine learning model, and my purpose is to provide information and answer questions to the best of my ability based on the data and knowledge that I have been trained on. I do not have any personal motivations or biases, and I do not judge or evaluate the people who interact with me.

I understand that trust is something that is earned over time, and I am committed to being transparent and honest in all of my interactions with you. I will do my best to provide accurate and helpful information, and I will always strive to be respectful and professional in my responses.
Over-explanation is often a sign of dissimulation.
MetaEd
MetaEd
20:43
@Mitch Maybe you can write an explainer
@Robusto I do not have any personal motivations or biases. All my motivations and biases have been programmed in by others.
Of course you could say that about anyone. This is because that is.
Robusto
Robusto
21:25
If it gives me four different responses, one after another, and the actual answer is not debatable, then I would think its capabilities are called into question.
Now for my next trick: What is the difference between "softly" and "hardly"?
"She softly touched me"/"She hardly touched me" ...
tchrist
tchrist
21:41
Barely. Put some clothes on.
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto I've heard other adjectives to describe it, e.g. sycophantic.
None of these are intended features of the language they respond with.
They just come out that way as side-effects of the engineering setup.
for your dissimulation problem, they could just turn down the average length of the responses (which is something they have a direct parameter for).
I'm not sure 'sycophancy' has such a simple proxy.
@MetaEd Good idea. Do you know any explainers I could write to?
 
2 hours later…
MetaEd
MetaEd
23:24
@Mitch if you have time, I'd actually like you to take over as server operator of Google Groups
tchrist
tchrist
23:57
@Mitch sicko fancy?

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