English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Kosmonaut

3:00 PM

Yeah, now I am looking at it.

RegDwight

Thanks. Brb.

Kosmonaut

That one is tougher. I have not been deleting those.

Robusto

Well, that one referenced by RD01 was a freakin' train wreck.

Kosmonaut

But only because I wasn't sure if I should.

Haha, I actually find that thread hilarious.

Robusto

@Kosmonaut — No, a meta-Jinx is called a Minx. Its rules are open to interpretation by women, but clear and inflexible for men.

Kinda like marriage, actually.

Kosmonaut

3:05 PM

"Am I right, fellas?"

Robusto

[The guys all nod.]

@Kosmonaut: I just bumped you over the 15K mark.

5

Q: Rules for forming adjectives from Latin nouns

I read a paper today that kept using "multistrata" to describe an object with multiple layers. For example: I love multistrata cakes. This sounds wrong to my ear, I think "multistratum" sounds better, even though the plural of stratum is strata. Certainly "multilayer cakes" sounds better...

But I must say, I searched for hours for an answer of yours that I wouldn't feel guilty about up-voting.

RegDwight

The reign of the upside-down Beast was short.

Robusto

Kidding!

Kosmonaut

I don't want your pity votes! I will downvote people and get myself back to 14999!

Robusto

@Kosmonaut — You're going to make me spend more hours searching? Sheesh.

RegDwight

3:11 PM

yesterday, by Cerberus

Oh dear, what happens at 10k? You see all the deleted stuff? One reason to start attracting down-votes...

Kosmonaut

Haha

RegDwight

And now @Martha's gotten her Favorite Question.

4th down, 4 to go.

Robusto

OK, hypothetical time: What happens if you're over 20K rep and you get bitten by a radioactive spider?

I have to be ready for all emergencies.

RegDwight

You get to throw your rep at Alfred Molina.

Robusto

I do that anyway.

RegDwight

3:18 PM

Well, then you are prepared.

Robusto

So what time is the new data dump? And what trends are you trying to spot?

RegDwight

I dunno. Laß' Dich überraschen!

Martha

The bad part about my "eeek" question is that I posted it very early in the (UTC) day, so I've long since hit the rep cap, and by the time the next day rolls around, it'll have (hopefully) lost most of its momentum. Although I don't see my envelope back yet, and Jeff Atwood is being an ass...

Robusto

@RegDwight — But I hate surprises! Tell me now!

@Martha — Watch, you'll get screwed out of the steak knives too.

He said, bitterly.

Kosmonaut

What is the "eeek" question?

RegDwight

3:22 PM

159

Q: Eeeek! What happened to my envelope?

The envelope is gone from next to my name! How am I supposed to check where those recent points came from? I don't remember the link to that page! Edit: just to summarize the ways that the reputation graph does not make a suitable replacement for the /recent page: The recent page has just th...

discussion recent-envelope

Jeez, Kosmonaut, pay some attention, please!

Martha

(@RegDwight: how do you post links so quickly?)

Robusto

Thanks for the link. It let me add my meaningless vote to her massive pile.

Kosmonaut

Oh yeah, I agree with that one!

Robusto

I mean, you can see that vote count from SPACE, @Martha.

RegDwight

@Martha Fingers. Keyboard.

Robusto

3:23 PM

He likes to brag about his huge hands. Thinks it impresses the girls.

RegDwight

Don't need to impress noöne, buddy, I'm married.

Robusto

Peter Noöne is really disappointed, btw.

RegDwight

He usually is.

Robusto

Well, that's just like a Russian, isn't it. No love for the one-hit wonders of the '60s.

By the way, is unit the opposite of it? And is it time to ask that on the main site yet? I'm ready to go, just give the word.

RegDwight

In Soviet Russia, there were only one-hit wonders, as far as Western music from the '60s was concerned.

@Martha Haha, I like Jeff's reaction to this:

2

Q: Why can't you roll out new features the way everybody else does?

So the new combined user/rep display got everybody confused, with the question asking to get back the old envelope amassing >100rep just in the first eight hours. This is but one side of a problem that has many facets. There's been numerous questions by confused users asking about new features wh...

discussion new-features deployment feature-list

Robusto

3:27 PM

@Martha — This is further proof that @RegDwight is, in fact, a computer programmed by a team from IBM. Don't believe his lies.

Kosmonaut

@RegDwight Is that a custom close message? I don't look at meta.SO enough to know

"Noise or pointless" seems like a really rude close option.

RegDwight

That would be a custom close message.

@Kosmonaut "Noise or pointless" is a rather popular close reason on MSO.

Robusto

Now I would pay to see that one as a close message.

Kosmonaut

@RegDwight You know the Simpsons people had been thinking about making that episode be the Simpsons movie, but instead decided to make it a regular episode.

It would have been such an amazing movie.

Martha

My question has gotten 163 upvotes and 1 downvote. Draw your own conclusions.

RegDwight

3:31 PM

@Robusto BTW, IBM is a horrible misspelling of Alexey Pajitnov.

Robusto

@RegDwight — All right, if you have humanoid form you are probably tattooing these things on your body.

RegDwight

@Martha Last I checked (at 158), there was not a single downvote.

Robusto

Like Guy Pearce in Memento.

RegDwight

Thanks for the explanation, at first I totally mistook it for Carrie-Anne Moss.

Martha

@RegDwight There is one now.

RegDwight

3:33 PM

@Martha That's what I'm saying, it's very recent.

Robusto

@RegDwight — In that case, I hope your software has an API that implements Tetris.

RegDwight

@Kosmonaut Actually, no, I didn't know that!

This chat is just upside-down Tetris, really.

Kosmonaut

It was on one of the Simpsons DVD commentary tracks I think.

Robusto

The IDE I use has a plugin that implements the game because, as it says, "This is a Komodo port of Xultris by 'mackers'*, a Firefox extension of the infamous Russian block-puzzle game Tetris. Added here to satisfy David Sklar's assertion that any sufficiently advanced editor will implement tetris."

Off to stand-up. BBL.

Martha

Ok, I should do some actual work. TTYL.

RegDwight

3:38 PM

Via the Tavern.

Im in ur internets stealin ur stuff, @drachenstern.

drachenstern

haha, that's cool

I'm curious how many people in here get the pun. Only about half seemed to get it in the tav

RegDwight

I would love to link to that thread, but I don't know where to start. So much cool stuff in there.

drachenstern

ahem > longest running community wiki thread ever ahem

Robusto

@drachenstern Which pun?

drachenstern

@Robusto What is Jeff standing on?

Robusto

3:47 PM

@drachenstern — Uh, his fortune in dimes? I don't know.

drachenstern

a pile of gravel

Robusto

Oh, you mean Gravell.

drachenstern

And the name of the dev I put in the quote is @MarcGravell ...

Robusto

Wow, that is a stretch.

drachenstern

it was a pun, all good puns need a slight stretch

Robusto

3:48 PM

By the way, from the look of it it's actually "pea gravel" then.

RegDwight

@drachenstern Yeah, thwack on behalf of @Martha.

drachenstern

and Marc is from the UK, which brings to mind Pea Soup

Robusto

/Whoosh!

drachenstern

anyways, it was cute by itself, the meta humor made it more meta

RegDwight

Harrr, someone's dissing ShreevatsaR quite severely.

"Thanks for the stellar, totally original critique. Perhaps you could spend some time doing something other than trolling people's posts with the sole intention of replying with unnecessary commentary, which only mirrors statements of others. I, for one, am glad people like you are here. :-)"

3

Q: Biweekly, bimonthly, semi-confused.

There seems to be a fair amount of confusion surrounding the meaning of the prefix bi when used with units of time measurement. Biweekly, according to dictionary.com, can mean either "occurring twice weekly," or "occurring once every two weeks." Falling within the same realm of confusion are bimo...

usage confusables prefixes

drachenstern

4:00 PM

0

A: Eeeek! What happened to my envelope?

Wow, I'm so glad I use facebook Stack Exchange. Every time any website with a non-trivial number of users rolls out a UI change, everyone has to get all up in arms about it. (And yes, I used to be guilty of this, too.) Why is that? Two factors are at play. First, humans are wired to dislike cha...

upvote

RD01

I see the envelope question still has legs. Excellent.

drachenstern

That thing will have legs for days

(until Monday at the very least)

lurks

RegDwight

Feb 11 at 15:10, by Robusto

@Martha: Look what you've done!

RD01

Hah, and a duplicate question WAS posted and deleted.

RegDwight

Deleted? How would you know without having 10k on MSO?

RD01

4:04 PM

Well closed. Don't throw your super-high-reputation-user-thingamabobber-dohickey jargon at me.

RegDwight

Nah, genuine interest.

RD01

I'm a working class SO user.

Kosmonaut

@RegDwight That kind of comment deserved deletion.

Which I did.

RD01

Thank the gods I can't see deleted stuff.

RegDwight

Feb 24 at 21:40, by Robusto

Hey, do you guys have to wear blue-collar shirts with your first name over the pocket?

RD01

4:05 PM

Some of the non-deleted stuff is bad enough.

Wooooo. I want a service station SO shirt.

Ahahahahaha. moor communts en mi favrite spulln thrad

RegDwight

Yes. That's Blue-Collar Membership for you!

RD01

I want a "Semi-Literate" badge for declaring my location in my EL&U profile to be the United States.

RegDwight

Shouldn't it be "Bi-Literate"?

Kosmonaut

Wait... you don't say "spelled", do you?

RD01

Yes, and proudly so.

I lived in Canada for years and I don't remember them being offended by my backwater ways too much.

RegDwight

4:35 PM

Popular Question now. 5th down, 3 to go.

RD01

@RegDwight the envelope question?

RegDwight

Yup. It's the 12th most upvoted question ever.

And it will be the 9th in no time.

It's about to beat the unicorn question. Now that is something.

RD01

That's impressive territory. Jon Skeet facts and FGIW.

RegDwight

If it beats the official FAQ, I will retire. I will have seen everything.

BTW, it doesn't have a single downvote, @Martha. You must have been imagining it.

Robusto

They could make a movie out of this. Oh wait, they did ...

Secretariat (film)

Secretariat is a 2010 biographical film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Mayhem Pictures. The film was directed by Randall Wallace. The film chronicles the life of Secretariat, the 1973 race horse winner of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. Diane Lane portrays Secretariat's owner, Penny Chenery, and John Malkovich plays the part of Secretariat's trainer, Lucien Laurin. Filming took place on location in Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky and around Lafayette, Louisiana and Carencro, Louisiana. The film was released on October 8, 2010. It has since received generally positive r...

RD01

4:40 PM

Heh, do we really need a 'jeopardy' tag?

RegDwight

For a second I misread that as "autobiographical" and was immensely confused.

Robusto

Where do you even go to see what the all-time upvoted questions lurk? Is that over all sites?

Kosmonaut

►

RegDwight

@Robusto No, MSO only.

Robusto

Oh. Then I know how to do that.

RegDwight

4:47 PM

At 20k, you should.

Robusto

@RegDwight — I'll handle the snide remarks around here, tyvm.

RegDwight

At 20k, you should.

Robusto

BTW, the Winners and automatic appointee starred posts could get the bum's rush at this point, don't you think? I mean, are we going to keep those around forever?

At this point it just looks like gloating.

RegDwight

Get out of my head! I was thinking just that.

Michael Myers

At 20k, you should gloat.

RegDwight

4:50 PM

They get auto-dumped after 2 weeks.

Robusto

I was told that at 20K I would be bitten by a radioactive spider and I would suddenly be able to do amazing things. So far? Meh.

Also the suspension one seems mean-spirited.

For a day? Sure. Forever? Meh.

Michael Myers

The 20k powers are more useful on bigger sites.

RegDwight

@Robusto 14 days at most.

Unless someone else pins them yet again.

Robusto

Well, I really think it's not in good taste. Sorry. And that's coming from someone with no taste at all.

Michael Myers

0

Q: “Relation” versus “relationship” in RDBMS/SQL?

Coming from question “Relation” versus “relationship” What are definitions of "relation" vs. "relationship" in RDBMS (or database theory)? Update: I was somewhat perplexed by comment to my question: "relation is a synonym for table, and thus has a very precise meaning in terms of ...

sql sql-server database rdbms database-schema

Martha

4:54 PM

@RegDwight Given that my rep on MSO is 332, not 333, there must've been a downvote somewhere. And yep, /recent says -1 "1h" ago.

Robusto

@Martha is 2 away from tying the unicorns, 3 from beating them outright.

RegDwight

Check out /reputation.

Michael Myers

@Martha -1 means you downvoted somebody. You meanie, you.

RD01

I'm betting on Jeff's answer to her question.

Robusto

Martha vs. The Unicorns: This Time It's Personal!

Martha

4:57 PM

@MichaelMyers Oh yeah! So I did. Jeff's "answer". Sorry. Got confused.

RegDwight

@Robusto That never was about taste, but there you go.

Martha's question now has as many stars as Robusto has Nice Answers here.

Robusto

@Martha You Thwack! so many people you're forgetting who you hit now? What's your memory horizon on that?

@RegDwight — Is that supposed to make me feel small?

RegDwight

Nope, you should be feeling small by now anyhow.

Robusto

I feel small next to your ego, true.

That's another thing we can see from space.

RegDwight

Space has no room next to my ego.

in Teachers' Lounge, 41 mins ago, by Mark Rogers

I like the idea behind the new arrow user feature, but for some reason I find it more frustrating than the old system.

Someone likes frustration.

Michael Myers

5:02 PM

> I like the idea

Robusto

@Martha has tied the unicorns! She is moving ahead! Unicorns! Eeeek! Unicorns! Eeek! And .... it's Eeek! by a nose!

Martha

@RegDwight Eh? He likes the idea but he finds it more frustrating? Then what does he like?

Robusto

It's an example of bloatware now.

More clicks to get less information.

Microsoft should be stealing it soon.

RegDwight

Your rep will be turned into shares.

Martha

You should've posted those in one post so I could star it. This way, each part is kind of pointless on its own.

Cerberus

5:04 PM

Hi.

Do I see that vgv has made a new friend?

Robusto

@RegDwight — I'm just saying, when a user gets banned it is unseemly to visibly rejoice, at least for very long.

RegDwight

@Robusto That wasn't about rejoicing. Those five stars probably were, true. But not the pin.

CNSivakumar

hi guys,i am new one for this room

Martha

@Cerberus ?

Robusto

@Martha — It's an example of bloatware now. More clicks to get less information. Microsoft should be stealing it soon.

RegDwight

5:05 PM

@CNSivakumar Hello.

RD01

Hello CNS

Cerberus

Hi @CNS!

@Martha:

CNSivakumar

hello..

Robusto

Problem solved.

Cerberus

0

Q: “Relation” versus “relationship” in RDBMS/SQL?

Coming from question “Relation” versus “relationship” What are definitions of "relation" vs. "relationship" in RDBMS (or database theory)? Update: I was somewhat perplexed by comment to my question: "relation is a synonym for table, and thus has a very precise meaning in terms of ...

sql sql-server database rdbms database-schema

RegDwight

5:06 PM

That's the slowest jinx in history.

13 mins ago, by Michael Myers

0

Q: “Relation” versus “relationship” in RDBMS/SQL?

Coming from question “Relation” versus “relationship” What are definitions of "relation" vs. "relationship" in RDBMS (or database theory)? Update: I was somewhat perplexed by comment to my question: "relation is a synonym for table, and thus has a very precise meaning in terms of ...

sql sql-server database rdbms database-schema

Feb 23 at 11:06, by RegDwight

Lots of echo in here.

Cerberus

Wasn't a jinx: I just clicked that link, that's how I got there.

Robusto

@RegDwight — It's a Slinx.

CNSivakumar

what is goal of this room...guys..

RegDwight

Now it's getting complicated.

Robusto

Goals? You are looking for goals?

Cerberus

5:07 PM

I assumed everybody had noticed the new friend; but apparently not, so I reposted.

Robusto

Join a hockey team.

RegDwight

@CNSivakumar General discussion about English Language and Usage, plus some fooling around.

CNSivakumar

no..

Cerberus

@CNS: Just talk about whatever you like here!

RD01

Heavy on the fooling around.

Cerberus

5:08 PM

Or that.

Michael Myers

@CNSivakumar Mostly complaining about stuff on english.stackexchange.com, interspersed with insulting each other.

CNSivakumar

@cer

sry..

RegDwight

It's a fourth place for this particular community.

Cerberus

Yes, @CNS?

CNSivakumar

@Cerberus k..

Cerberus

5:08 PM

Cool.

CNSivakumar

@Cerberus thank u..

Cerberus

So it seems this new friend of vgv's is rather a reputable one. Interesting.

CNSivakumar

i develop communiction skill and grammers...

Cerberus

Nice. For what or whom?

CNSivakumar

general...

RegDwight

5:10 PM

@Martha: someone's too late to your party:

0

Q: The envelope icon next to my name is gone.

Possible Duplicate: Eeeek! What happened to my envelope? I see that an upgrade has been made. But I really liked the envelope icon next to my name where I could view responses/upvotes/etc for today, this week, last week, etc. Is there a replacement. and If not do you think we could ...

discussion feature-request new-features

Robusto

@Cerberus — You're talking about me? Let's not say things we can't take back.

Cerberus

@Rob: I'd hardly call you rep... okay, never mind.

RegDwight

Harharhar. Well, @Robusto, you did ask for it.

Robusto

I invited it.

That was the joke, dummy.

Cerberus

Incidentally, is there a term for Rob's "we" in this sense? We call it "nurse's we" in Dutch, as in, "now we are going to pee".

Robusto

5:13 PM

Geez, you so totally misunderestimate me all the time.

Cerberus

Well my response could have gone two ways: it was either the rep thing or the friend thing; yeah I could have worked with that.

RegDwight

Cerberus

Cute, huh.

RegDwight

You know, with the red kanji instead of the red cross.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Stop putting me in your fantasies.

Cerberus

5:14 PM

Haha right.

RegDwight

@Robusto I only just begun.

Cerberus

Hot.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Eeeuuwww, now I feel all sticky and, like defiled and all.

Martha

Two people downvoted Eeeek. Hmph.

RegDwight

@Robusto Yeah, baby, yeah, that's what I want to hear.

Cerberus

5:15 PM

Besides, did you picture Rob as a female nurse?

RegDwight

@Martha I see four.

Cerberus

I did, with his feminine name and all.

I mean "Robusto".

Robusto

Umm, the -o ending makes it masculine.

Martha

@RegDwight Yeah, that was in the last 45 seconds.

Robusto

I'm overcompensating, though.

Cerberus

5:16 PM

Nah there are plenty of words ending in -o that are feminine.

Martha

Quadruple "hmph".

RegDwight

It's the People's Front of Judea, Jon Skeet, and Unicorns.

Them not liking your reaching their heights.

Robusto

Wait a sec! Eeek! has 201 votes and Unicorn has only 199 but Unicorn is leading! I think someone put the fix in.

RegDwight

It's called "heavy caching". Elton John wrote a song about it.

RD01

Unicorns rarely fight fair.

Robusto

5:18 PM

@RegDwight — I hate those wankers! The Judean People's Front has the only correct line!

@RD01 Well, now they're winning by a horn only.

RegDwight

Narwhals, narwhals, swimming in the ocean...

Cerberus

I believe those horns can get up to 5 feet long?

Perhaps longer.

RegDwight

►

Cerberus

(No it's actually 7-10 ft.)

Man couldn't you have warned us for that song...

Robusto

Dammit, this chat is interfering with my work. I mean this work is interfering with my chat. I just wrote !isNaN instead of isNaN in a conditional.

RegDwight

5:22 PM

At least the video is not an endless loop. The original is.

@Robusto They are equivalent, for all intents and purposes.

@Cerberus weebls-stuff.com/songs/Narwhals

Robusto

What, chat and work? Or !isNaN and isNaN?

RegDwight

Both. And both.

Robusto

I think @RegDwight has a shrine to me in his house. Filled with pictures of me in nurse's drag. (Note to self: find out how he knew.)

Cerberus

Fair enough, they are cute.

Robusto

Eeek! is 9th now, and the Unicorns are fading in the stretch.

RD01

5:28 PM

If the comment upvotes to the envelope question generated reputation, the majority of MSO would have hit their cap today.

RegDwight

Yup, never had so many upvotes on a comment of mine.

Cerberus

Which question is this?

RD01

well, now your comment in the thread has 25 votes.

Robusto

Oops, Eeek! got a downvote. Was 203, now 202.

RegDwight

203

Q: Eeeek! What happened to my envelope?

The envelope is gone from next to my name! How am I supposed to check where those recent points came from? I don't remember the link to that page! Edit: just to summarize the ways that the reputation graph does not make a suitable replacement for the /recent page: The recent page has just th...

discussion recent-envelope

Robusto

5:30 PM

The unicorns are fighting back! And playing dirty!

Cerberus

Thanks.

RegDwight

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

Jeez, Kosmonaut, pay some attention, please!

Robusto

Back to 203 now.

RegDwight

Replace "Kosmonaut" with "Cerberus", pls.

Martha

204

RD01

5:31 PM

Provide a regex for it, and I will pretend.

RegDwight

Let's just cut to the chase: OMG it's over 9000 now!

RD01

I still think the bug tag is appropriate, but I knew Jeff was going to go ballistic over it.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Wait, I get it now! The constant back-referencing is just your idea of recycling. You're going green to save the planet. Bless you, @RegDwight! Bless you!

Cerberus

Hehe.

RegDwight

2 days ago, by RegDwight

Hm. Come to think of it, "damn you" makes an interesting response to "bless you".

Cerberus

5:32 PM

When oh when will people learn not fix what ain't broken? WHEN?

Robusto

@Cerberus — How about never? Is never good for you?

RD01

Lol, I was just going to say WTF?

RegDwight

Okay, party people, you gotta party on without me. TTYL.

Cerberus

I think Photoshop is one of the few that abides by this maxim.

Bye Reg!

Robusto

@RegDwight — Now the real party can begin. The Communist Party has left the building!

Cerberus

5:33 PM

The result is that Photoshop's interface and menus are a bit of a mess, but it works fine.

Oh that party.

RegDwight

@Cerberus Photoshop competitions are being held elsewhere.

in The Tavern (General) on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, Mar 8 at 0:53, by badp's sockpuppet

I'm out!

Robusto

@RegDwight — You always say you're leaving just so we'll bring out the party food.

RD01

I would have preferred "status-by-design"

Cerberus

@RD01: Yes!!

Robusto

@RD01 — Or how about "status-by-whim"?

Cerberus

5:35 PM

Or that!

RD01

"status-by-fiat" would be best.

Cerberus

I can accept weird design; I just find it hard to have to learn new interfaces and buttons time and again, especially when they are weird and seem unnecessary.

Robusto

I'd rather have "status-by-Mercedes" ... much higher status than Fiat.

Cerberus

Luckily I never bothered to learn this website very well, so I don't mind too much.

But I can understand your pain, guys.

RD01

Meh, I don't really care too much about user interface changes.

Or reputation, but that's another story.

Cerberus

5:37 PM

Same.

I mean, it can be fun, but rep can't motivate me that much, or I'd be creating questions all the time when there were no good answers to write.

Robusto

@Cerberus — Don't start pulling at that thread or our whole way of life will unravel.

Cerberus

@Rob: I know. I will follow RD01 in silence.

Hey has there been a tsunami in Japan?

Let me check the news.

RD01

There has indeed.

Cerberus

Wow, 8.9.

Thankfully Japan is probably the country best prepared for earthquakes in the world, as it should be.

RD01

Indeed, some of the strictest building codes around. For good reason.

Cerberus

5:44 PM

I didn't read anything about buildings collapsing in Tokyo, so I suspect that the damage and deaths will not be too huge.

Yes, for very good reason. But 8.9, and so close...

I wonder at what magnitude Amsterdam would collapse 100%: 3?

Robusto

@Cerberus — Why do you think the common word for "seismic sea wave" is Japanese?

Cerberus

@Rob: Right!

What about typhoon?

Or isn't that Japanese.

Oh, it is half Chinese, half Urdu-ish.

I gather no big waves hit California?

Or even Hawaii.

Robusto

Tsunami.

津波 ... pronounced つなみ.

The first kanji means "harbor" and the second means "wave".

RD01

The current warning specifically leaves out North America in the areas affected.

Well, Canada and the contiguous US, at least.

Fracking bureaucrats. There's a whole separate governmental entity, with its own website that handles the tsunami warning for Alaska and Canada. And their website is overloaded.

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