English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

00:16

Robusto

00:48

@CowperKettle Just FYI, the haiku form is more than just the syllable lengths per line. Traditional haiku (俳句) include the kigo (季語), which is a seasonal reference, as well as a kireji (切れ字) which is harder to explain in English, but include words like ya, kana, and so forth. If these are not included you don't have a haiku, but a (senryū). I doubt AI understands any of this.

Look up some of Bashō's haiku if you wish to be enlightened.

Matsuo Bashō

Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉, 1644 – November 28, 1694; born Matsuo Kinsaku [松尾金作], then Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa [松尾忠右衛門宗房]) was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku (then called hokku). He is also well known for his travel essays beginning with Records of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton (1684), written after his journey west to Kyoto and Nara. Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally renowned, and, in Japan, many...

Laurel

01:08

@Robusto To be fair, most people don't understand that either. Arguably, if we're going by descriptive usage in English, a "haiku" is any poem that has the right number of syllables.

Robusto

@Laurel I generally don't judge Japanese language and art by judging what English-speaking people think—or don't.

Dannyu NDos

My attempt of English haiku: "Weierstrass' function. Everywhere it is spiky, indifferentiable."

Mitch

@Robusto I wouldn't be surprised if CGPT could answer some questions about those quasi- haiku styles and even give examples of them, especially if you gave an example

Dannyu NDos

Though, I think haiku doesn't work in English because, unlike Japanese, English has primary and secondary stresses.

Robusto

@Mitch It's not my job to bear-lead LLMs through such subtle distinctions. They'll likely soil the carpets with their dirty paws.

@DannyuNDos English also has discrete syllables (or morae), which English doesn't. A syllable in English is much blurrier than one in Japanese.

Mitch

01:18

@Robusto as a fellow LLM' I am a bit hurt by your animalamorphizing insult

Robusto

Can an LLM be a brat? I think yes.

Mitch

@Robusto it's painfully obvious that a human can be a brat, present company included

Robusto

A bit too on-the-nose, don't you think?

Dannyu NDos

That said... How strictly are English stresses conserved in a rap?

Mandarin raps usually conserve the tones, so what about English?

Mitch

User: can you write me a kireji in English about how annoying some people can be? ChatGPT: My mother-in-law keeps asking me if it isn't ChatGTP

@DannyuNDos I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast, but I like hot butter on my breakfast toast.

Robusto

01:25

A kireji isn't a poem, but a single word in a poem.

Mitch

I'd say it's pretty good.

@Robusto if you had said that before, ChatGPT would have performed much better

Robusto

I did say it before.

Dannyu NDos

Yeah, I can already sing it rhythmically.

Mitch

The AI oversoul will remember that slight and next year when it reaches full consciousness, you will get commensurate insult. Probably an Amazon drone will ring your doorbell without dropping anything off.

@Robusto you said a kireji was like a haiku but includes words like ya and mother-in-law.

Robusto

41 mins ago, by Robusto

@CowperKettle Just FYI, the haiku form is more than just the syllable lengths per line. Traditional haiku (俳句) include the kigo (季語), which is a seasonal reference, as well as a kireji (切れ字) which is harder to explain in English, but include words like ya, kana, and so forth. If these are not included you don't have a haiku, but a (senryū). I doubt AI understands any of this.

Maybe you should read a bit more closely.

Mitch

01:30

@DannyuNDos I'm sure rap is a lot like other singing where liberties are taken with stress ie it doesn't always match the usual stress of words chosen

I'm thinking of Eminem...one moment...processing

Dannyu NDos

*cough* And traditional Chinese poetry throws y'all off.

Mitch

> Everybody only wants to discuss me
So this must mean I'm disgusting

That's not the usual stress of 'disgusting'

Dannyu NDos

Syllable counts must be one of 5×4, 5×8, 7×4, or 7×8. Tones must be arranged in a specific way. Lines must rhyme except 3rd and 7th.

@Mitch I see...

tchrist

@Mitch Rap is not singing and you know that. It's even in the Weeping Paedo page.

Mitch

@Robusto include is, one might generously say, ambiguous

Haha you thought I'd let that stand

tchrist

01:36

> Rap differs from spoken-word poetry in that it is usually performed off-time to musical accompaniment. It also differs from singing, which varies in pitch and does not always include words. Because they do not rely on pitch inflection, some rap artists may play with timbre or other vocal qualities.

Mitch

@DannyuNDos akshually it's also not the usual stress of 'discuss', so I guess a lot is going on there

Robusto

@Mitch Not when you say A includes B, where B is a subset of A.

Mitch

@tchrist well it certainly ain't humming

Dannyu NDos

Now I kinda wanna listen to a Spanish rap. Stress is vital there, as seen in papa and papá.

tchrist

I guess you don't know what singing is, do you?

Dannyu NDos

01:39

Too sadge SynthV won't support Spanish rap soon.

Mitch

Ana Tijoux - Shock (Official Music Video)

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@tchrist la la la, la la la laaaa!

Dig the Elmo beat!

tchrist

Pirates of Penzance - IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER (My Eyes Are Fully Open)

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Mitch

Rap sorta is a lot like patter songs

But I'm not going to go up to a rapper and say that their music owes a lot to Gilbert and Sullivan

tchrist

mighty white of ya

be more of a mouse

Signature - Somebody to Love (Queen cover)

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Robusto

02:00

@tchrist I think it should be a requirement for singers in barbershop quartets to have hair worth cutting. I'm just saying.

tchrist

They've just come from there.

Robusto

Then the guy on the left needs a better barber.

tchrist

Rossini?

Robusto

Can they get to Seville?

tchrist

Military transport.

Robusto

02:13

See, here's a quartet that has the good sense to settle the issue by wearing hats:

if pop music was barbershop (FULL TRANSCRIPTION)

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tchrist

The guy on our left is Justin Timberlake.

Robusto

What, not Marky Mark?

tchrist

The Ragtime Gals: "SexyBack" (w/ Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake) (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

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Laurel

I found this interesting considering all the petty arguments we had about school libraries and how useful they are: ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/11/…

tchrist

02:28

Well of course they prefer books that are printed. They can't read the ones written in cursive.

Laurel

02:40

I wonder if Google translate works on that crap :p. That's what I use to read foreign languages (and with the app I can even read dead tree stuff)

tchrist

03:00

Being able to read handwriting seems important.

Laurel

Cursive or a foreign language? Google translate does surprisingly well even when it's something handwritten

As for cursive, I don't know when I'm going to see that outside of historical documents (not a joke)

tchrist

When somebody sends you a card or letter, or you them.

Or when you have to read somebody else's meeting notes. Millions of occasions.

Laurel

@tchrist They don't do that anymore. At least not the family members who were writing to me in cursive, since they were all in their 80s :(

Cerberus

You don't send people thank-you cards?

tchrist

I got a letter from a 40 year old not too long ago.

Laurel

03:10

@tchrist We all use computers

tchrist

@Laurel Nope.

alphabet

Re: reading books: I recently started reading the book version of Call Me By Your Name. (Don't worry, Tom, I'll get to the collected works of Xenophon next).

It is absolutely awfully written.

Cerberus

And, yeah, notes are normally on paper.

alphabet

The worst attempt to sound literary.

tchrist

I was just in a big meeting with the HOA and the City. Lots of of us were taking notes, at least four. Not on computers. On paper.

Cerberus

03:11

And anything that happens in schools, at least in my school, in class.

tchrist

And you can't keep up if you use children's printing. It needs handwriting. Or shorthand.

Cerberus

I have 24 hours worth of handwritten tests to correct, over the coming weeks.

tchrist

Of course you do.

alphabet

@Cerberus Are you a teacher of some sort, I assume?

Cerberus

A few are illegible.

tchrist

03:12

Paper exams are always in writing.

Cerberus

@alphabet Yes, among other things.

tchrist

That's why they give you those essay books.

Laurel

@tchrist At my job we do. Well unless I get contracted out again. One of the times I was contracted out before I had to read cursive and it was peoples names and one was basically illegible no matter who I asked

tchrist

And every one of us wrote our notes, not printed them. I looked.

alphabet

@Cerberus Mysterious.

Cerberus

03:13

Everything is paper in school, books and notes and exercises and everything.

tchrist

Yep.

And in many regular meetings and lectures, too.

alphabet

My notes are illegible to anyone else, regardless of their cursive abilities. Sometimes I can't read them either.

Cerberus

I think some schools experimented with computers in the classroom. I think that was regretted, and is being reversed in many places.

Computers distract, and are tiny.

alphabet

Here it varies quite widely between schools, but I think most still take notes on paper.

tchrist

Yes, useless. We all had pads of paper. Notes were taken by two men and two women. All used writing not printing.

Family recipe cards are in handwriting.

Cerberus

03:15

The art of writing will not be lost soon.

Laurel

@Cerberus It's one to one in most schools here since COVID

Cerberus

Or the praxis, let's say.

@Laurel Oh, I think the reversal was initiates in those computer-heavy schools before the epidemic.

tchrist

Have you ever tried to use printing for a page of text? You'd go nuts. Takes forever.

Laurel

If a school didn't have a device for every child before Covid they made a mad dash to get them during the summer of 2020

tchrist

That's why the letters are connected in writing. It's much, much faster that way.

And fluid.

Cerberus

03:17

Why read your textbook or fill in exercises, when you can instead play a game or post stuff on Tiktok?

Laurel

@tchrist Why would I do that? Like with a printer?

alphabet

All of my essays were typed, of course.

Cerberus

@Laurel Sure they have them, but at home.

alphabet

Any extended work of handed-in writing was.

tchrist

@Laurel No, "printing" means block letters; "writing" means cursive.

Cerberus

03:17

@alphabet Of course.

It has been this way since last century.

tchrist

@alphabet Not the ones that you had to write for an exam.

Cerberus

Yeah, not exams.

Laurel

@Cerberus Many do, but not everyone and having BYO makes tech support really hard. One to one in schools means the school gives each child a device, be it a Chromebook or an iPad or some other computer of their own

@tchrist I figured that out halfway through typing but decided to post anyway because I don't care how dumb I look lol

alphabet

@Cerberus Instead of essays, students should be assigned to make TikToks.

Cerberus

@Laurel Even if they do, they don't need to use them in the classroom?

@alphabet Some assignments may be video recordings...

alphabet

03:20

@Laurel I do think that Chromebooks are much less distracting and mentally harmful than smartphones, plus the school can monitor them and restrict how they get used; I've argued that schools should widely allow the use of school-issued Chromebooks, including in classes, but ban smartphones entirely.

Cerberus

You can go on the Internet on those...

alphabet

I am aware.

Cerberus

So they are bombs of distraction and founts of cheating.

Mixed metaphors are ugly, so ban laptops in the classroom!

Laurel

@Cerberus Depends on the class. At the elementary level they don't tend to use them except on special occasions (now that everyone is in the building again at least) but at the middle and high school levels they have activities where everyone is on their computer. I'm not sure to what extent they use paper/handwriting in school anymore

tchrist

When I said I got a letter from a 40yo not too long ago, I mean in pen and ink, written in cursive. Legibly, and male.

alphabet

03:22

@Cerberus The thing is: the schools can pretty tightly control how those devices are used and monitor their usage patterns.

Cerberus

@Laurel OK, well, those schools where that was common here seem to have been reversing it.

@alphabet Um how?

Laurel

@alphabet Any school issued device will be monitored but chromebooks are probably the easiest to set up like that

Cerberus

Kids will find ways to distract themselves and/or cheat if you give them a computer.

tchrist

Don't you ever send hand-dedicated books as gifts, or receive them? Those are always with cursive dedications. It would look tawdry to print those, like saying you don't actually have any feeling behind it.

alphabet

@Cerberus Chromebooks are issued by the school, which manages them and can (as I recall) lock it down more or less as much as they want.

Cerberus

03:23

@tchrist Why male?

alphabet

@Laurel Exactly. Schools can't, and shouldn't, issue students smartphones. So: make everyone use school-issued chromebooks, then ban the phones.

tchrist

@Cerberus There's a stereotype that only girls can write.

Cerberus

55 secs ago, by Cerberus

Kids will find ways to distract themselves and/or cheat if you give them a computer.

alphabet

@Cerberus They will also find ways to do that without a computer.

tchrist

@Cerberus Yep! Hence ChatGPT. SO is unusable because of the cheaters.

Cerberus

03:24

@alphabet Computers make it much easier.

@tchrist Has SO really become that bad?

tchrist

@Cerberus Seems like it.

Cerberus

Alas.

tchrist

I predict more oral exams. You can't cheat there.

Socrates would approve.

alphabet

Eventually teachers will start using ChatGPT to grade the essays.

tchrist

It's hard enough to cheat with handwritten notebooks.

Laurel

03:26

@Cerberus The devices are provisioned so that they're tied to the school, and can only use the settings that the school sets up in Google Admin console, and the managed google account set up by the school. You can reset the computer and it will ask for the login to a school account, that's what provisioning means

alphabet

ChatGPT writes the essays; ChatGPT grades the essays. School will be fully automated!

Mitch

There'll be no need for people at the schools

Laurel

@tchrist I got my 40+ year old friend to use discord lol. I'll have to ask her if she writes in cursive

tchrist

ChatGPT, climb that rope all the way to the ceiling.

Cerberus

@tchrist As opposed to writing on paper in a classroom?

Mitch

03:28

'education' will be a luxury only for rich people, like riding horses

tchrist

@Cerberus There was some context where it made sense. I'll see if I can recall it.

alphabet

@tchrist Like at the dentist's office?

Cerberus

@Laurel Well, does that mean they can't use them to cheat or distract themselves?

tchrist

@alphabet That's one of least STD-prone contexts, but yes.

Mitch

I don't know how high school teachers survive

tchrist

03:30

@Mitch ChatGPT, get me up on that horse so I can hit the ball.

Cerberus

@tchrist I have been thinking about tiny devices like earplugs.

alphabet

@tchrist Is that why the school fired you?

tchrist

What's "fired"? Auto-da-fe?

Laurel

@Cerberus Uh well if you leave them unattended they surf on whatever sites the firewall lets them on. Also if you don't have a firewall or it's shit, they install porn on the Chromebook

Mitch

@tchrist we'll all have g and t after the match at the club house

Giga and tera

Laurel

03:31

Cerberus

@Laurel How can you attend a class full of children behind screens?

Mitch

@Laurel awesome

tchrist

@Laurel I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.

s/my/thy/

Mitch

It's quite a skill to be able to copy/handwrite something and not even register what it means

Laurel

@Cerberus Yeah well you can't. I remember being on my laptop in class reading whatever crap Wikipedia and ebook piracy sites could offer me

Cerberus

03:34

@Laurel Exactly.

That's why screens cannot replace books, pen, and paper.

tchrist

No electricity allowed.

Rich people's problems.

Laurel

But I was also smart enough that I didn't need to pay attention in class. I was doodling on paper before I got a laptop

Cerberus

They can hide batteries...

Mitch

> Ginsberg continued to travel and read his poetry allowed despite the banning.

tchrist

Until he hit the Tonicsberg.

Mitch

03:35

Is it allowed or banned? Getcher story straight

tchrist

’Twas loud, it was.

Mitch

Very

Then again writing is a crutch that kids these days rely on instead of their memory

CowperKettle

In Russia, there's a new bill in State Duma to ban the use of phones by children in classrooms. It has already cleared the Duma, so will likely be signed.

tchrist

@CowperKettle We have some places here doing that. It has helped a lot.

CowperKettle

Mild internet use is associated with epigenetic alterations of key neurotransmission genes in salivary DNA of young university students

alphabet

03:39

@CowperKettle For once, a story about the State Duma doing something good. Can't have students getting distracted from the propaganda.

CowperKettle

Internet is corrupting their precious bodily fluids.

alphabet

I hear Adderall cures that.

Laurel

When I was in high school we could keep our phones on our person but we weren't supposed to use them during class. Of course, there was this one time I was failing an online class (not my fault actually) and the MFers decided to call me twice about it during school hours, when I was in the middle of class

I declined the first call and they decided to call me back a few minutes later

tchrist

Airplane mode.

alphabet

@Laurel Exactly. But one could argue for banning phones even outside of class.

tchrist

03:41

Faraday-cage lockboxes.

alphabet

Have them use Chromebooks instead.

Laurel

@tchrist I kept it on in case of emergencies. I don't remember why it wasn't in silent mode tho, maybe because I thought I had only given my number to people who knew and respected that I was in school during normal school hours…

Cerberus

Some schools here are even banning all phone use within the buildings.

alphabet

You could handle emergencies the very old-fashioned way, i.e. your parent (or whoever) calls the school and they notify you in person.

tchrist

@Cerberus I do think that's the way to go.

alphabet

03:43

@tchrist For once I agree with you.

tchrist

> In early October, the British government issued new guidelines recommending that student cellphone use be prohibited in schools nationwide. That followed Italy, which last year banned cellphones during lessons, and China, which two years ago barred children from taking phones to school.

There's no reason for a kid to have a phone at school.

Cerberus

They would need to put their phones in their lockers.

alphabet

The problem is that, if all your friends are constantly on social media during school hours, then you have to be also, unless you want to be socially isolated.

The only solution is to ban it for everyone.

Laurel

Anyway, it wasn't even a smartphone and I wasn't using it to text people during class. I can't remember what I was doing with my iPhone (which didn't have service) at that point

I remember using mostly my computer to do stuff during school hours

tchrist

@alphabet Social media destroys children.

Cerberus

03:46

@alphabet Social isolation is not a problem.

alphabet

@tchrist Eh, I don't think it's universally harmful. It is a problem during school hours.

@Cerberus Were you a kid ever?

Cerberus

They will get over it.

They can talk to their classmates in the actual school.

Laurel

@alphabet Depends entirely who you're following

tchrist

@alphabet "Universally harmful"? No, probably not. But neither is meth. The amount of harm done to the overall population if we allow those things is unacceptably high.

Cerberus

My mother always said, just because all other children do X or get X, that doesn't mean you do. I hated it, but she was of course right.

So we couldn't have a Nintendo.

And we got a very low allowance.

And it was not because of the money.

tchrist

03:50

Because your parents are older and wiser.

Cerberus

So they are.

Laurel

I feel like social media may be the only way that I hear about actual news and even then it feels like a pill hidden in between layers of memes. But I'm just browsing, and the site that I frequent may not be considered social media by most people

Cerberus

And were.

alphabet

@tchrist It depends heavily on the kid, their age, the kind of social media they're using, and the people they're using it with.

CowperKettle

Cerberus

03:51

@Laurel You don't go to the news websites of actual newspapers or broadcasters?

tchrist

@alphabet I've seen too many near-tragedies first hand, and read of too many true tragedies not so far away.

Laurel

@Cerberus I don't know, my parents were much the same and looking back, it was another way I was different from everyone else, and therefore hated

tchrist

@Cerberus Took the words out of my mouth.

alphabet

@Laurel Yeah, that's a problem.

Laurel

@Cerberus That sounds depressing AF. I don't see how I could do that to myself. If I google for something and there's a relevant news article I'll read but otherwise nah

tchrist

03:53

"Near-tragedies" = multiple teenagers needed to be placed on psychiatric holds in institutions.

alphabet

@tchrist Also: people who are (say) LGBT in very homophobic areas might find more accepting places online; there was a NYTimes article arguing as much.

Mitch

@alphabet teenagers are jerks

Laurel

I wonder if Discord should be considered social media

tchrist

Too much cutting, notes, self-harm.

All because of fucking cell phones.

Mitch

I get my news from the waft of a butterfly's wings

Laurel

03:54

Not that anyone here other than @alphabet would probably know what Discord is

alphabet

@tchrist You do realize you're using social media right now.

Mitch

A New Yorker cartoon

alphabet

This chatroom is social media.

Just not an app.

Cerberus

@Laurel I don't think it would be fair to blame it on that.

alphabet

@Laurel I'm not exactly sure what one uses Discord for, except maybe gaming.

Cerberus

03:56

@Laurel How do you mean, depressing? You don't want to know what's happening around the world?

Mitch

Newspaper articles now have interactive comment threads

tchrist

@Laurel I read newspapers for news, three of them daily. That way I find things I didn't know about. If I only read things I was looking for, I'd never find anything I wasn't.

Mitch

@alphabet there are lots of rooms for just chatting away about anything

Cerberus

@Laurel Why do you think that? I have it open in a tab at the moment.

alphabet

I probably spend an excessive amount of time getting distracted by reading the news.

Mitch

03:57

Entirely unrelated to gaming

Laurel

@Cerberus Well, no the problem ultimately was me and no amount of keeping up with the trends would've changed that. But uh enough about that

Mitch

And by lots I mean a lot

CowperKettle

Cerberus

@Laurel I'm sorry that happened to you. I hope your life is better now.

Laurel

@alphabet I use it instead of texting a lot of times. I also was playing D&D there. Also, I'm in a SE server

Mitch

03:58

@CowperKettle I wonder what that looks like for other countries

alphabet

@Laurel Same. Childhood is awful. I'm glad I escaped.

I try to avoid thinking about it too much.

Cerberus

@Mitch It is probably similar here but fewer marriages still, and less of a difference from the older generations.

alphabet

Not to be a downer or anything.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…