English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

00:05

@DannyuNDos I prefer Japanese 拉麺.

3 hours ago, by Lambie

a casserole is a pot or pan or saucepan.

So which is it? A utensil or a meal?

Mitch

00:49

@alphabet looks nervous

If there weren't so many peas it'd be awesome

I mean peas aren't bad... just... well... shepherd's pie'd be better without them.

CowperKettle

01:05

CowperKettle

01:23

French of the day: volonté générale (general will) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_will

Laurel

@CowperKettle Considering in the US, Hispanic isn't technically considered a race (so there are white hispanics, for example), I'm not sure how this is supposed to be read

Robusto

@CowperKettle Moreover, it feels odd to have 2022 first and then 2021 second. That jars the senses a bit, especially since the direction ought to move toward the change column.

@Laurel Except whenever there is a question on a form about race, there's always a checkbox for the respondent to declare "non-Hispanic" for some arcane reason.

That's over and above whether or not you declare yourself "White" or another race.

Curiouser and curiouser.

CowperKettle

01:39

Yes, ethnic distinctions are notoriously resistant to universalizability

Laurel

@Robusto That's exactly what I mean

Something mildly interesting, I was working with demographic data the other day and there was a column for "ethnicity" which could either be "Y" or blank. I later learned it was for Hispanic lol

But it wasn't a race there, that was its own columns

Mitch

01:54

@Robusto I had the same reaction

alphabet

@Laurel Created by one of those people who describes other people as "ethnic."

Mitch

@Laurel 'yes I have ethnicity's = 'hispanic'?

Laurel

But it's a product from a huge company that has this XD I wonder why they let it get this far

@Mitch Indeed

Just imagine being the schmucks that have no ethnicity tho

Mitch

@Laurel very American

@Laurel what do they do all day?

Just boring average stuff

Laurel

@Mitch It is a very sad life, I hear…

Laurel

02:35

Huh, I guess ice harvesting is still a thing somewhere in the world:

Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival

The Harbin International Ice and Snow festival (Chinese: 哈尔滨国际冰雪节; pinyin: Hā'ěrbīn Guójì Bīngxuě Jié) is an annual winter festival that takes place with a theme in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, and now is the largest ice and snow festival in the world. At first participants in the festival were mainly Chinese, however it has since become an international festival and competition, with the festival attracting 18 million visitors and generating 28.7 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) of revenue. The festival includes the world's biggest ice sculptures.The festival exhibits open from late December to late...

tchrist

03:05

History, geography, language, culture, and self-identity all interact to complicate this. Hispanic originally simply meant what Iberian means today—and sometimes even still does, such as in official US documents from the 80s. Ibero-American is probably better for what most people mean, but leaves unanswered whether to include Iberia itself or the Spanish-speaking parts of the US like Puerto Rico and Miami. — tchrist 10 hours ago

For more background about all this in greater depth, please see the longer articles from Pew Research and National Geographic, as well as these two ELU questions: 1, 2. — tchrist 10 hours ago

CowperKettle

Word of the morn: band camp

Why are Asians better at everything?
Cuz they got their genes from Genghis Khan, not from Genghis Khan't

tchrist

03:20

@alphabet I have a hunch that you may well find @Lambie to be a fellow northeasterner of yours. Is it possible you somehow had an unusual childhood that would explain all these peculiar lacunae? For example, did your mother lovingly craft your family meals from basic ingredients daily, or did you mostly consume pre-packaged supermarket or restaurant food instead?

alphabet

@CowperKettle After a moment of confusion: I think that joke only works in British English.

tchrist

@alphabet Apparently they call those bottles not cans over there.

alphabet

@tchrist Indeed, which is why I assumed he would agree with me.

tchrist

Who?

alphabet

@tchrist Lambie.

tchrist

03:22

She's a lady.

Not a gent.

alphabet

@tchrist Ah. My apologies.

I just assume people who get into long arguments in comments sections with me are male. It's usually accurate.

tchrist

I'm sure she gets manned often enough on the internet. I myself once accidentally did so.

@CowperKettle Ghengis Crayon.

Laurel

Big Chinggis :p

alphabet

@tchrist While we're on the topic of assuming genders: most of my childhood meals were home-cooked by my dad.

tchrist

I work with a lad like that. His mom's a programmer, his dad an occasional art critic. So his dad was the at-home parent who did all the cooking and cleaning and babysitting and such.

alphabet

03:28

My parents split things about equally.

tchrist

I nonetheless have often noticed that familial heritage recipes are passed only through the maternal line.

CowperKettle

alphabet

I assure you I have inherited zero recipes from my mom.

tchrist

I'm sorry.

alphabet

Why?

tchrist

03:31

Obvious.

Because I am human.

alphabet

Surely inherited recipes are good regardless of which parent they came from.

tchrist

Any man's tragedy diminishes me. Meditation 17, John Dunne.

alphabet

My recipes involve finding new and creative ways to consume milk.

tchrist

Spake the babe ripped early from his mother's bosom.

alphabet

Sep 23 at 0:02, by alphabet

Unlike cow's milk, oat milk will not help me deal with my mommy issues.

tchrist

03:36

makes a noat

Young Sheldon: Meemaw's Brisket Recipe (Season 1 Episode 7 Clip) | TBS

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CowperKettle

I learned the word brisket only recently, it's grudinka in Russian. I never had any idea about these meat cuts and their names.

From this song I learned it youtu.be/YeemJlrNx2Q?si=SUbFeNZ6JrObZNVX

tchrist

@CowperKettle It originally was, and perhaps mostly still is, one of those regional dishes.

CowperKettle

tchrist

One hears tell of multigenerational inter-family feuds fought over the propriety of one method over that of another. Passion drips from the bones.

CowperKettle

Passion drips like this: youtube.com/shorts/RzbBtFM5sbU

tchrist

03:47

That's just like you see with the high priests of jamón serrano in Spain.

CowperKettle

Italian Nonno RAGING at Grandson Compilation 😂😂😂

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tchrist

@CowperKettle youtube.com/shorts/f5g58c8Y67k

And yes, jamón is about ham not jam. :)

@CowperKettle What city-name do Russians use for a stand-in place that means somewhere really far away or in the middle of nowhere, the way English uses Timbuktu or Peoria?

CowperKettle

04:26

@tchrist I'll try to recall. For a small dilapidated provincial town, the pejorative term is mukhosransk (mukha = a fly; srat' = to take a shit; hence "some place dirty and untended, like some premises where nobody goes and only flies buzz around and do their business) en.wiktionary.org/wiki/…

Synonyms: Гадюкино, глухомань, глушь, захолустье, Скотопригоньевск, Быдлоград, Сколеновстанск, Темнилово, Чалкина, Шатилова; частичн.: Тьмутаракань, Урюпинск, Крыжополь, Хацапетовка

tchrist

Ahah yes, Podunk and Bumfuck had slipped my mind.

CowperKettle

From these synonyms, Тьмутаракань squarely hits the spot you mentioned

tchrist

Timbuktu is for a place that's impossibly far away.

CowperKettle

Тьмутаракань was the city that was part of the Ancient Rus kingdom, but was located in an exclave, and was used since ancient times to denote "somewhere far away and hard-to-travel to"

Here it is on the historical map, just right of Crimea

You had to travel through steppe and fight some Cumans on the way to get there

Or travel by boat.

tchrist

Tmutarakan, Timbuktu

Thank you.

CowperKettle

04:31

The fact that it includes the word tarakan (cockroach) helps to establish a funny feeling of something far away and exotic. But it's unrelated to the Russian word for a cockroach, it's just a haphazard ancient transliteration of a Turkic city name = Taman-Tarkan

The Bysantian Empire listed it as Ταμάταρχα

Taman, Russia

Taman (Russian: Тамань) is a rural locality (a stanitsa) in Temryuksky District of Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located on the coast of the Taman Bay. It is the administrative center of the Taman rural settlement. Its population was recorded at 9,417 people (2020), 10,027 (2010 Census) and 9,297 (2002 Census). == History == Taman occupies the site of the ancient cities of Hermonassa and Tmutarakan. From the end of the 15th century until 1783, this was a site of a Turkish fortress. Before the annexation it was a sanjak subordinate to the eyalet of Kaffa.The modern stanitsa was founded by the Zaporozhian...

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad phone number in body, bad phone number in title, potentially bad keyword in body, potentially bad keyword in title (296): +27732660312 ABORTION PILLS FOR SALE IN DUBAI ABORTION PILLS FOR SALE IN ABU DHABI‭ by Abortion Cytoteckit8‭ on english.SE

tchrist

I in part asked because I was trying to imagine what would be very far away in a country with so many time zones. But of course the expressions will date from before then.

CowperKettle

The Australian term:

back o' Bourke

Adverb: back o' Bourke (not comparable)

(Australia, informal) At or to an extremely remote place.

> "The crops are done; ye'll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke
They're singin' out for rain.

>
"If rain don't come this month," said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak -
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If rain don't come this week."

A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.

tchrist

I've also heard them use the Back of Beyond.

jlliagre

04:55

@Robusto A casserole is strictly a ustensil. I don't think you can say either 'Yesterday, I ate a saucepan'. A casserole is neither a pan (une poêle) nor a pot (un faitout, une marmite...). A casserole has straight sides, a poêle has rounded sides and is shallow. Both of them have a single long straight handle. The other ones (faitout, marmite...), have two rounded handles. A sauteuse is between a casserole and a faitout, it can have a single handle or two of them.

What is called 'casserole' in the US is made in plats à four that can be pottery, in glass or metal. Plat is also the generic name of any dish, and the name of a large plate that can be used to present it.

alphabet

@tchrist I've heard people use "Siberia" in the same way, as an example of somewhere incredibly remote.

jlliagre

@alphabet We sometimes use "Tataouine" in the same way. This town gave its name to Star Wars Tatooine.

Dannyu NDos

05:36

Mmmm

CowperKettle

Steamed Hams but it's Song 2 by Blur

►

@DannyuNDos Mmmm... Steamed clams!

> After their original name Seymour was rejected by Food, the band chose Blur from a list of alternatives the label drew up.

Cerberus

05:54

@CowperKettle Was used, or has been used?

CowperKettle

@Cerberus It's still widely used in literature and in the press, and maybe by some people, the more read-up ones

Cerberus

Also by the press in, say, Sochi?

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Yes

It's not derogatory, the way the word is structured makes it exotic, as out of an old Russian fairy tale

Cerberus

Even though it isn't very far from Sochi?

CowperKettle

Especially the starting root tmu, which meant "a lot" in Old Russian.

Cerberus

06:02

Multus!

Probably not related.

CowperKettle

Not, I think that "tmu" is Turkic

See the town of Tyumen where I lived, which meant "ten thousand" before Russians captured it from the locals

> In Turkic and Mongolic languages, "Tümen/Түмэн" means a myriad, or ten thousand. Etymologically connected to the Tuman River that delineates sections of the borders between North Korea, Russia, and China.

Above 10 thousand, there was the phrase "40 thousand", which meant "very, very much". There's a Ukrainian song where some Cossacks capture a Turkic ship and bring out 40 000 slaves to freedom. I thought, that's some imagination, a ship with 40 000 slaves in the 17 century.

Turned out, "forty thousand" meant something like "close to infinity"

Гей, по синьому морю - cossack song

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All the churches and cathedrals of Moscow were called collectively the Forty of Forties, meaning there was an infinity times infinity of church buildings there.

Сорок сороков

Со́рок сороко́в — фразеологизм, обозначающий всю совокупность московских храмов, многочисленность церквей в старой Москве, а также большое количество чего-либо. == Толкования == Согласно Стоглавому собору, каждая московская церковь входила в ту или иную церковно-административную единицу под названием соро́к (иначе староство). Таких сороко́в в Москве первоначально было 7, с конца XVII века по начало XX века — 6. (Конкретное число церквей в составе каждого из сороков превышало 40 — по крайней мере в конце XVII века.) Выражение «сорок сороков» использовали, в числе прочего, для описания общ...

сорок сороков

= Русский = === Тип и синтаксические свойства сочетания === со́-рок со-ро-ков Устойчивое сочетание (фразеологизм). Используется в качестве самостоятельной фразы. === Произношение === МФА: [ˈsorək sərɐˈkof] === Семантические свойства === ==== Значение ==== устар. большое количество чего-либо ◆ ― А в Москве дома большие, каменные, ― говорила она, ― церквей много-много, сорок сороков, касатка, а в домах всё господа, да такие красивые, да такие приличные! А. П. Чехов, «Мужики», 1897 г. [НКРЯ] ◆ Все то количество, которое превышало некое множество (например, «сорок»), превосходящее вс...

Cerberus

@CowperKettle So probably hundreds.

CowperKettle

Yes

Cerberus

40 seems an oddly arbitrary number...

CowperKettle

Maybe something like that was used in the Old Testament?

> Kyrgyzstan is a country in Central Asia and is derived from the Kyrgyz word meaning "Land of forty tribes". The number 40 is significant in Kyrgyz traditions and appears in many areas of Kyrgyz culture.

Ancient Stars were Capable of Producing Elements with Atomic Masses Greater than 260, Scientists Say

Cerberus

06:20

Hmm I have not heard of it.

A large galleon could have a crew of 600 men.

CowperKettle

06:41

Due to all the incessant Soviet patriotic war movies, there were some cynical funny jokes

"Подводная лодка в степях Украины погибла в неравном воздушном бою"

> Oh, the sub, it went down in Ukrainian steppes,
In a dogfight unequal’d, against frightful odds.

A submarine died in the Ukrainian steppe, in an unequalled dogfight, in the original sentence

A kind of Soviet meme

Cerberus

Most odd!

CowperKettle

Because in war movies, heroes tend to kill numberless enemies, and sometimes heroically die against frightful odds.

Miyazaki should make an animated feature based on this meme.

M.A.R.

08:40

@CowperKettle Today Toman is 10 rials and must have been 10000 of a now deprecated unit

CowperKettle

08:57

@M.A.R. Yes, dinars

> Rural bus driver with his passengers, Iran, 1960

Vikas

@CowperKettle subgreen

M.A.R.

11:21

@CowperKettle In Iran? I know we used to have "Gheran" but I dunno about dinars. Maybe you're referring to Saudi Arabian rial

CowperKettle

11:40

> People spend a remarkable 30-50% of awake life thinking about something other than what they are currently doing. These experiences of being "off-task" can be described as spontaneous thought when mental dynamics are relatively flexible.

@M.A.R. I just googled up Iranian toman :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_toman

CowperKettle

12:01

Interesting:

> In animals, agents that decrease glutamate release attenuate the effects of corticosteroids on the hippocampus. We previously reported improvement in memory in corticosteroid-treated patients given lamotrigine. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947572

They investigated people receiving corticoids for renal transplant rejection, and lamotrigine dampened down activity in the hippocampus, which is probably good for memory, because corticoids in excess may cause "steroid dementia" by affecting the hippocampus.

@M.A.R. - I've stumbled across a curious study while reading up on lamortrigine ↑↑↑

A follow up study in 2019

> lamotrigine was associated with less decline in declarative memory performance than placebo in corticosteroid-treated patients. Findings suggest that, in humans as well as in animal models, glutamate release inhibitors may attenuate some of the effects on the human memory associated with corticosteroids. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30612854

I never knew there was a way to protect the brain from an excess of corticoids.

This is cool that this is being researched, because in diabetes, an enzyme localized in the brain revs up, producing more corticoids locally and impairing cognition.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted user (71): what is the "Nurse for the elderly in an hourly home." "‭ by fateme‭ on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-latin answer, non-latin link in answer, pattern-matching website in answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer, +1 more (276): what is the "Nurse for the elderly in an hourly home." "‭ by fateme‭ on english.SE

M.A.R.

13:05

@CowperKettle I don't get it

@CowperKettle interesting. Now that I think about it, really old texts did mention dinar

@CowperKettle Very interesting!

CowperKettle

14:36

Геморрой. Лечение живым огурцом

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Alternative treatment for hemorrhoids by insertion of a live cucumber, without tearing the cucumber from its stem. A famous video published 13 years ago. It's an old, old meme.

The guy is still posting videos with his natural ways of treating different illnessess and issues.

Robusto

14:58

@jlliagre Yes. The term "casserole" here is a metonym or a synecdoche, I'm not sure which. I guess it could go either way.

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[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Linked punctuation in body (23): How does 'unless' mean 'or'?‭ by a deleted user on english.SE

Robusto

15:19

#Worldle #696 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐🏙️🪙📐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Easy-peasy.

Wordle 912 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

15:42

> The best thing about this program of reverse taxation, as far as the 9.9 percent are concerned, is that the bottom 90 percent haven’t got a clue. The working classes get riled up when they see someone at the grocery store flipping out their food stamps to buy a T-bone. They have no idea that a nice family on the other side of town is walking away with $100,000 for flipping their house.

Lambie

@jlliagre a casserole in French is not a kitchen utensile in English. Kitchen utensile in English are tools, like ladles and handheld egg beaters. A poêle is a frying pan, and a marmite is a just a deep pot for cooking things like soup.

Robusto

The New American Aristocracy

Well worth reading, if you subscribe to The Atlantic.

> From 1980 to 2016, home values in Boston multiplied 7.6 times. When you take account of inflation, they generated a return of 157 percent to their owners. San Francisco returned 162 percent in real terms over the same period; New York, 115 percent; and Los Angeles, 114 percent.

Lambie

@alphabet What about questions? Like the one I asked yesterday. I don't always get into long arguments; sometimes, they are very short. I live in the Boston area, like you do. Isn't that right that that is where you live? Yes, woman, not a man.

@alphabet You must not be working class. Beacon Hill and Cambridge are not exactly the prime spots for it, I would imagine.

alphabet

16:09

@Lambie My apologies for not acknowledging the fact that, in addition to getting into long arguments in comments sections, you also get into short ones.

@Lambie Dunno if there's a difference in casserole consumption by income level. I'm not sure anyone's done a survey on the matter.

@Lambie And yes, regarding your rather pointed accusation, I live in Boston under a crawl space next to a dumpster with my fellow raccoons.

Lambie

Yep, sarcasm is your forté. (accent added by me).

alphabet

@Lambie Mitch, of course, is in the area also. A strange coincidence, given how geographically dispersed the rest of the chat is. Did you grow up in the area?

Lambie

16:27

Not at all. I was born and raised in Brazil with American parents (one from Boston) and then spent many moons in France before going to live in NY for many other moons (what a horror that city is) and then here. When I came here after 9/11, I felt like I had come home. And today, the wind is sure blowing on the south shore. Hah, Mitchie is also from around here? Who'd a thunk that? Haha

Lambie

16:50

@alphabet Sorry, I am responding to my own typo: utensil is the English spelling, No e. I couldn't continue without choosing someone to answer to.

Mitch

17:34

@alphabet I don't want to out anybody against their desires but there is at least one other chat-frequenter who has lived in the Boston area for a nontrivial amount of time.

Also, I think I knew at one point @Cerberus's address in the Netherlands based on a picture of a pigeon and the name of the brand of cigarettes he once smoked.

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, I never smoked and I hate pigeons.

Mitch

There's surely an XKCD about how nerds can figure things out dangerous things, but they don't really care enough to do anything about it.

Cerberus

So unlikely.

Mitch

@Cerberus Aha! That's exactly the kind of information to pin you down to the street corner!

Cerberus

But I have posted maps of my neighbourhood.

Mitch

17:39

Oh

Cerberus

@Mitch Oh, no!

What if I don't live on he corner?

Mitch

Once it's narrowed down to the nonsmoking pigeon haters, it's just a matter of going through that list.

@Cerberus Oh. uh...

I deduce that you live right above the waffle/crepe store and tourist office given your extreme disdain for both.

Cerberus

Well...

If only there were "the" waffle shop.

Robusto

@Mitch I think it's no secret that I lived in the Boston area for nigh on three decades.

Cerberus

But there are hundreds, probably.

And hundreds of grill 'restaurants'.

And hundreds of ticket shops.

And a thousand souvenir shops.

Mitch

17:43

I, on the other hand, as a Large Language Model, only reside on servers that are currently residing in a data center in the basement of the Cambridge Galleria Mall (near the Museum of Science and dam over the Charles River.

Cerberus

Don't tell the terrorists!

Mitch

And that's only temporary. Soon I'll be a distributed LM running on -all- the data servers in a holographic decentralized multicore intercooled quantum disentangled satisficed process.

@Cerberus So... calculating ... that's a short list of ... calculating more ... roughly one billion doors to knock on.

Robusto

@Mitch Then there will no way to avoid you.

Mitch

1

Cerberus

@Mitch Yes, please.

Robusto

17:48

You will be ubiquitous.

Mitch

@Robusto I'll be everywhere and nowhere.

Cerberus

@Mitch In other words, a botnet running on all computers in the world?

Mitch

@Robusto and iniquitous

Robusto

What happens when the botnet gets a bottleneck?

Mitch

and insidious

Robusto

17:50

Don't forget invidious.

Mitch

There should be some Star Wars canon side plots with Darth Compehensible and Darth Congruous

@Robusto It's hard to keep those two apart.

Cerberus

Is it also robust?

Mitch

I think of invidious as insidious but in your face

Robusto

@Cerberus Like an oak.

Mitch

@Robusto It drinks it in more that one swig?

2

@Cerberus Yes

Robusto

17:51

@Mitch Chug-a-lug.

Cerberus

@Robusto Quite!

Mitch

@Lambie Not 'from' the Boston area but yeah currently living here (for the past ~15 years?)

Robusto

@Cerberus Could you possibly use your magic mod powers to change night to nigh in my comment about how long I lived in Boston?

Mitch

I grew up in Virginia, and everybody is insistent that I don't 'have an accent' from there. Which I ascribe to watching too much TV as a child and/or the fact that nobody has an accent there anymore.

@Robusto We will all remember

Robusto

@Mitch You should go to a diner in Lynchburg sometime.

Cerberus

17:56

@Robusto Done.

Mitch

People may look through the transcript and be amazed at how good your spelling is. But we will know.

Robusto

@Cerberus Muchas gracias mi buen perro.

@Mitch Ssssh. The less said about that the better.

Mitch

@Robusto Or talk to some of my relatives. But I blame it on drinking water served through lead pipes.

Fun personal fact: I didn't drink water as a child

It was all vodka and gin

Robusto

That explains everything.

Mitch

@Robusto I've spent some time in Lynchburg. But no diners.

I've spent some time in diners here in Boston and ... hm yeah they have an accent.

Hey you got me!

That was trick question!

Robusto

18:01

@Mitch I've only been through there. But I was impressed at the quantity of chewing gum stuck under the tables in that diner.

Mitch

There -are- no diners south of Fredricksburg

wait...

are you counting Denny's or IHOP?

Robusto

Too long ago. I think it was called the Lynchburg Diner, or words to that effect. Possibly no longer in existence.

Mitch

@Robusto Hm... yeah... that does seem to be the place that people put their gum to save it for later.

Robusto

Do people still chew gum?

Mitch

@Robusto On TV sure

Robusto

18:03

I don't mean that metaphorically, by the way. I mean actually smacking-popping-chewing gum.

Mitch

Do people still buy gum and candy at the checkout line? I've never seen it, but there's gotta be -somebody- doing it

Robusto

I hear that if you lift up those notions racks by checkout counters you can get to Narnia. Or Hogwarts. I disremember which.

Mitch

@Robusto I get you. Though I don't know what metaphorical gum chewing is supposed to be.

3

I had to wait a while before somebody came to the door.

Robusto

@Mitch "Television is chewing gum for the mind." (I forget who said that. McCluhan?(

Mitch

@Robusto Some TV is OK.

Like Hubba Bubba

That was the best chewing gum -ever-

the taste lasts 10 seconds

I'm watching Six Feet Under now

It really has the look of ... a long time ago.

alphabet

18:07

@Mitch I chew gum.

Robusto

@Mitch That's because of the aspect ratio.

Mitch

Yes, twenty years is a long time (when it was filmed)

alphabet

Mmm flavored plastic.

Mitch

But

Robusto

@alphabet A genuine raccoon would eat the gum, not merely chew it.

Mitch

18:07

4

But I don't feel like it should feel -that- long ago.

Time should really stop going so fast

5

(4 was a electrical service door so I skipped it)

@alphabet Supposedly Amazonians just chewed the unflavored chicle, and adding flavor is a more recent industrialized invention.

@Robusto Oh? It does feel like it has something to do with the ... coloring? The cars and clothing and such are unremarkable. I think the difference I see is in the grain of the images and the color?

Robusto

@Mitch Those are different aspects of the same thing.

It's how things will look when you're ... six feet under.

Mitch

@Robusto A change in aspect ratio is correlated with a change in ... coloring?

Laurel

@alphabet Wait, do you buy it at checkout??? That's literally the worst place to buy anything because if you walked into the store you'd find better prices. Like actually, in the store the price might be cheaper for a larger amount of product

Mitch

Bulk gum is the way to go.

alphabet

@Robusto The gum industry has provided us with much-needed employment: laweekly.com/…

Robusto

18:14

@Mitch I won't buy any gun unless it's the size and shape of a king-size-bed pillow.

alphabet

@Laurel Usually I buy it in the store, but sometimes they have better/different kinds at the checkout.

Mitch

6

@alphabet "..for a very special treat they get a Cheeto..."?

What kind of cheap-ass desesrt is that?

If I were a raccoon, and I have to emphasize I am not one, I would stage a strike for better desserts.

Laurel

Gum often gives me a headache so I don't chew it that often

It used to be a treat that we got to chew gum during standardized tests in school

Mitch

@Laurel Wow

You were lucky

When I was growing up, as a reward for doing well on standardized tests they'd allow us to think about chewing gum.

But not the expensive stuff... that would be too extravagant

Robusto

I stopped chewing gum years ago, when Wrigley pulled out one of my fillings.

Mitch

18:31

@Robusto clutches jaw in empathy

7

Robusto

18:58

Blossom Puzzle, December 17
Letters: A E K S R T Y
My score: 303 points
My longest word: 10 letters
💐 🌻 🌺 🌸 🌹 💮 🌷 🏵 🌼 💐

Blossom Puzzle, December 18
Letters: A C L E N R U
My score: 250 points
My longest word: 10 letters
🌻 🌷 🌺 💐 🌼 🏵 🌹 💮 🌸 🌻

jlliagre

19:31

@Robusto I would tend to say it's a métonyme, like tagine.

CowperKettle

20:00

Lab Grown Brain Connected to a Microchip Recognized Human Voices

►

tchrist

2

Q: Is the word shocking in this sentence being used as a gerund or present participle? And why?

Is the word shocking in this sentence being used as a gerund or present participle? And why? We heard shocking news. My daughter had recently taken an English test at a Korean middle school. The test was designed by a Korean teacher teaching the class. There was a question that I can't seem to ...

Quiz Question: In English, a gerund is:

A. a morphological inflection.
B. a part of speech.
C. a grammatical role.
D: None of the above.
E: Both A and B.
F: Both A and C.
G: Both B and C.
H: All three of A, B, and C.
I: Nobody knows!

Cerberus

A, B (C is not a clear term to me).

tchrist

Grammatical roles are things like modifier, subject, object, complement, and predicate,

And I fear you may be conflating the "is a" relationship with the "has a" relationship. :)

Cerberus

Ah.

Then certainly not C.

@tchrist This bit I couldn't follow.

"C has not a clear term to me" doesn't make sense?

tchrist

20:18

It's interesting that Donatus considered participles to be actual parts of speech but not gerunds or gerundives or supines. Nor adjectives, for that matter. :)

It might be possible to consider gerunds a part of speech in English, but it would be hard.

I would say instead that they HAVE a part of speech, and that they HAVE a morphological inflection.

Not that they ARE such.

Cerberus

I have no idea how thorough Donatus was.

tchrist

Because otherwise it becomes impossible in Modern English to distinguish the overloaded morphology that got fused together in the evolution from Old English.

Cerberus

I would need concrete examples.

But I'm going to get groceries now.

tchrist

I appreciate that.

Me too. See ya.

MetaEd

21:09

Wordle 912 5/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

Wordle 912 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Dannyu NDos

21:39

This question is a semi-joke but: If English is actually American, is Spanish Mexican, and is Portuguese Brazilian?

MetaEd

21:58

@DannyuNDos really they're all just Indo-Euro dialect

jlliagre

22:17

@DannyuNDos and French is on the verge of becoming Congolese :-)

Mitch

8

Dannyu NDos

23:40

@jlliagre It already seems to be. DR Congolese, to be specific.

jlliagre

23:58

@DannyuNDos That depends on whether we compare the number of inhabitants or the number of French speakers among them.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…