English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Laurel

00:03

@tchrist This sounds like the title of an isekai

@alphabet I heard about that too, or at least that Meyers made them save themselves for marriage because she's that conservative of a Christian (forget what denomination)

@Robusto Just make sure that nobody else flies her SSN to the moon, otherwise the aliens would have everything they need to steal her identity

jlliagre

00:21

@Laurel I hope there won't be too many people registering so their names will fly up to the Moon. Otherwise, all these extra bytes will increase the payload of the rocket which may have difficulty reaching its target.

Robusto

@Laurel It's no ID, just a random string of numbers.

Only her name. I masked out that and the string of numbers at the top, which don't necessarily have anything to do with anything, but what the hell, I 86ed them anyway.

alphabet

01:29

@Laurel Get one of those credit-monitoring services; put your SSN on the moon; if someone uses it to apply for a mortgage on another planet, we can figure out where the aliens are.

Laurel

@alphabet I wonder how quickly one's credit could recover from that. That's why you should always collect the SSNs of your enemies, just in case aliens

M.A.R.

02:46

@tchrist something epic, like The Old Gods. The ancient forebears

They're blocking the road to protest InsulateBritain

tchrist

@M.A.R. That forerunner foray failed long, long ago, extinguished by the barbarian invaders. Ever since the sundering of Doggerland Britain has been utterly insular.

Far too insular to require more insulation.

Robusto

14:50

@M.A.R. Those are our forebears?

If you ask "why?" the answer can only be "because." In this case, because English. — Robusto 26 secs ago

#Worldle #717 2/6 (100%)
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https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Wordle 933 4/6

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Robusto

15:30

A Vision of Russia as a Country That Runs on Violence

> Chevengur shows how an embrace of violence destroys the soul of a nation, and lays bare humanity’s inexhaustible capacity for carnage in the search for a better future. Terror isn’t a side effect of the Revolution, the novel suggests, but rather something endemic to Russian society. In Chevengur’s Russia, centuries-old injustices translate into merciless anger, human life has no value, and absurd ideas are worth dying for.
The ease with which Putin’s Russia accepts and perpetuates brutality ceases to confound once one has witnessed Platonov’s rendering of a country that seems to run on vi…

Robusto

15:47

> Part coming-of-age novel, part odyssey, part dystopian chronicle, Chevengur has no epic battle scenes, no love triangles, and no glory. It shows the Revolution and the country that engendered it as they were—strewn with dead bodies, broken promises, and dreams turned into nightmares.

Robusto

16:07

Daily Octordle #714
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Score: 73
What a waste.

Daily Sequence Octordle #714
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Score: 65

I'm experiencing a sequence score inversion lately.

jlliagre

17:00

Wordle 933 5/6

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alphabet

17:11

0

Q: Connecting a Participle Clause with a Verb

I'm trying to vary my sentences in a cover letter to not sound repetitive with "I ___ " I often use a comma followed by a noun or pronoun after using a present participle clause as I understood that's how it's generally constructed. Is there a better way to "me" with a participle? What are some i...

grammar

What do we think about this question? Opinion-based? Too vague? Acceptable since it's similar to a single word request?

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #714
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Score: 60

Laurel

@alphabet I feel like it's a duplicate of something, perhaps specifically something on Writing where it would be a better fit

jlliagre

Daily Sequence Octordle #714
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Score: 67

tchrist

@Robusto Engendering seems like a faux pas these days.

Robusto

@tchrist And yet it remains in my vocabulary.

tchrist

17:21

Orwell just hasn't gotten to you yet.

Robusto

Eric Blair had his pluses, but Ian Fleming was more fun.

Laurel

Hm the answers on this aren't great because they're mostly frame challenges when there's other good solutions: writing.stackexchange.com/q/7074/34330

Robusto

17:48

@Laurel He could start by simply leaving "I" out of it. If you're discussing software, talk about the code and what it does rather than your impressions of it.

Laurel

I would assume the context is something like a resume which isn't really about the code itself

M.A.R.

@Robusto isn't it making it a bit too much about Russia? The real article is behind a paywall for me, as usual

@Robusto I hope not. Their foreheads are too wide

alphabet

Rediscovered Book by Cardinal Fernández Features Graphic Erotic Passages on ‘Spirituality and Sensuality’

This whole story is hilariously bizarre

Robusto

@Laurel I used "I" in my resumes less and less as time went by. Leading sentences with verbs instead of pronouns helped a lot: "Created a ...", "Organized a ...", Developed an application which ...", and so on. It started as an effort to fit my burgeoning credentials onto a single sheet of paper, but then I realized it was stylistically better and communicated more directly as well.

@M.A.R. The article is about Russia, so ...

@M.A.R. You, sir, are prejudiced against bears.

alphabet

> In the chapter “The Road to Orgasm,” Cardinal Fernandez seems to suggest that the saints experienced sexual pleasure in their mystical unions with God.

> For instance, in a chapter titled “Male and Female Orgasm,” Cardinal Fernández provides an extensive, detailed description of sexual intercourse, offering his assessment of differences in male and female preferences and experiences of orgasm.

> In one particularly graphic passage, Fernández draws from the 15th-century Muslim theologian Al Sounouti, who offered praise to God for making men’s reproductive organs “as hard and straight as spears” so that they can “wage war” on the corresponding body parts of women.

Laurel

18:01

@Robusto I mean, that's something of an answer in itself. It would be helpful to have the context of the question explicitly mentioned tho

alphabet

This guy isn't just a Cardinal; he's the head of the "Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith."

Mitch

@M.A.R. Have you tried prepending the Atlantic URL with 'https://12ft.io/'? That usually works for me for the Atlantic, New Yorker, ... some other third set of journals that I can't remember.

Robusto

@Laurel It's not entirely clear from the article that he is talking about a resume. In his "London" sentence he's just hopelessly chatty. What's wrong with the simple "I hope to give you an answer by Friday or Monday."

M.A.R.

We must do what we can to protect engendered species and dyslexic patients.

Laurel

@Robusto Oh I was talking about the ELU question. That actually does say it's about a cover letter so it's good I guess

Robusto

18:08

Some people write as if they expect readers to hang on their every word. The "empty your purse and let people find what they want from the mess" school.

alphabet

@M.A.R. We progressives must work to eliminate child engenderment.

Mitch

@M.A.R. argh... autorewriting undid what I was trying to tell you. Use https://12ft.io/ in front of the URL whose paywall you want to 'bypass'

M.A.R.

@alphabet Wow. I mean, this is probably what happens when you cross a pervert, religion, and LSD.

Or whatever their drug of choice is over there.

@Mitch I think they say it doesn't work anymore?

Mitch

It's not really bypassing, it's using the text that is available to indexers.

@M.A.R. who is 'they'?

I mean 12ft may be blocked where you are

why can't it just be easy

M.A.R.

@Mitch That would assume the censors are literate.

Mitch

18:11

@Robusto You don't want to see what I have at the bottom of my purse

M.A.R.

Woo it worked!

Probably only fails for NY Times

Mitch

You've already seen what's at the top and that's no picnic

Robusto

@Mitch I've seen cruddy stale candy before.

Mitch

or rather it -is- a picnic, left out for days and half scavenged by ants and possums

M.A.R.

Oh this brings me back

I used to haul around these huge backpacks for elementary school and junior high

Mitch

18:12

@M.A.R. probably many things it fails on, but at least it opens -some- things so it is worth a try.

Often it's not worth the try - sometimes the title says enough and the rest is not worth the trouble.

M.A.R.

It sometimes turned, uh, green in the plastic bag.

Sometimes I forgot to eat whatever homemade stuff I've packed

Mitch

@M.A.R. Depending on the shade of green, you may want to trade those for Lunchables

They say raccoons are so fastidious, washing their food and faces, but have you seen a trash bin after they've had their way? not very systematic. It's like they don't have any idea about how to open a drawstring plastic trashbag or how to lay out and separate first edible by inedible, then meat vs veg, etc etc.

What I'm saying is is raccoons could learn a lot from me about eating garbage.

I don't mean to humansplain but they're doing it wrong.

I'm going to start a podcast meant for the general audience of animals and I'll explain 'how to do it right'.

Like bears when they want to scratch their back against a tree, don't use a small one that they'll ruin by bending it over. Use a sturdy pine.

Or for cats when they're kacking up a hairball, go to the corner. I mean it's the polite thing to do.

alphabet

@Mitch When you get a casserole, do you start by cutting it open and separating all the ingredients into little piles?

tchrist

@Mitch Yes, until it becomes 13ft at which point the NAT layer will rewrite it to 4m and it will pierce the great wall.

Mitch

Or dogs, when they roll in something awful, like a long dead squirrel or ... human waste... come on dude, just... no. Uncool man. You may thing it's great but no one else does. No not even other dogs. They think you're weird, too.

@alphabet I think the appropriate metaphor is a buffet. And no I don't slop everything in a buffet into a blender.

But to be truthful, re casserole,... it depends on the casserole.

Also, on principle I don't care for casserole.

What is the cook trying to cover up?

Probably a lot

alphabet

18:27

(Of course not. You immediately put the casserole in the trash, where it belongs, since only a desperate raccoon would enjoy it.)

Mitch

19:27

I mean a little mayonnaise is just the right thing. But an entire dish whose existence is dependent on copious amounts, whose structure is tantamount to a parenchyma of mayonnaise, that is a wrong the universe cannot endure.

Unless you like mayonnaise a lot. Then I suppose it's great.

Robusto

19:42

Blossom Puzzle, January 8
Letters: A E I R K S T
My score: 306 points
My longest word: 9 letters
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@Mitch Whoa, are we seeing this week's winner of the "Labored Metaphor" award? Could be!

Aww, he left the chat some while ago.

He should come back and claim his award.

Mitch

20:05

@Robusto It's early in the race. The battle is not to the strong or the recipe to the hungry. But the money does seem to go to the rich am I right?!

Robusto

@Mitch Rich deserts? Rich desserts? You decide.

Robusto

21:17

Rootl game #221

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Pretty average.

Robusto

22:09

#deluxewaffle85 0/5

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wafflegame.net

No stars.

Mitch

23:14

@Robusto Just deserts? Nobody owes you nothing

jlliagre

Rootl game #221

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#deluxewaffle85 X/5 (26)

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wafflegame.net

tchrist

23:49

@Mitch merriam-webster.com/grammar/just-deserts-or-just-desserts

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…