English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:02

@Mitch POLYORCHS!

Or, at least, murine polyorchidism. Not for chids.

> The most common form is triorchidism, or tritestes, where three testicles are present. The condition is usually asymptomatic. A man who has polyorchidism is known as a polyorchid.

@Mitch Frontiersin? To what class of sin are frontier denizens prone? :)

alphabet

@Mitch FWIW, authors often suggest potential reviewers to the editors, and reviewers (who aren't paid) have zero incentive to scrutinize things in detail or look for evidence of fraud.

Robusto

@Mitch I wish I could unsee that.

Mitch

@Cerberus It's the citric accid cyclmnnn

alphabet

Peer review is OK at catching articles that are just low-quality, but terrible at identifying deliberate fraud.

Mitch

00:20

@alphabet The images have all sorts of the usual AI 'misspellings', very easy to spot. Which means to me that the reviewers did not even bother reading the images (the first thing to look at to get an idea of the paper)

@Robusto It reminds me of one of those pre-teen prank calls to a bowling alley.

Robusto

@Mitch "Do you have a Hugh on one of the lanes there? Last name Jass?"

Mitch

@tchrist I like the label 'rat'. Like 'oh I'm glad he said it because I didn't want to ask'.

@Robusto Nice. Spilt Orange Fanta and cold pizza.

And that one weird kid who could never get the ball to even snag one pin, always in the gutter.

Yes, that weird kid was me.

You know in the movies with the professional bowlers?

OK fine, just remember any bowling you've seen in media.

tchrist

Lebowski!

Mitch

But anyway they always have this nice back swing and the ball comes off their hand in a beautiful arc, twisted by their wrist, zooming down the lane like it's going to miss them all, but then you notice the spin on the ball is somehow curving the path right back into the exact spot to knock all of them down?

It just seems like showing off.

You don't -really- need to do that to at least get most of them, do you?

Cerberus

00:59

@Mitch I love novel spelling.

CowperKettle

01:16

> Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.

Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions.

@Cerberus You married that person on the condition that if they mention that island even a single time, you would divorce them?

> Nvidia’s Chat with RTX is a promising AI chatbot that runs locally on your PC.[1]

I wonder - how soon before a translator can run an AI system locally which would constantly provide alternative formulations for each sentence.

I would love to have DeepLWrite locally deepl.com/write

I've used it a couple of times already, it provided brilliant reformulations in good English.

Starting with Monday, we'll have mild warm weather. wunderground.com/forecast/ru/yekaterinburg

But even today it will reach minus 15C, which is great

Rubbing testosterone gel on men’s upper arms eliminates the audience effect, study finds - testosterone makes you less pro-social when you're being watched by others, at least in a very simplified psychologist-staged task.

Usually people become pro-social when they know they are being watched by another people.

But any such results are shaky. Lots of parameters to take into account.

M.A.R.

01:37

@tchrist that's how I always read the website's name

@Robusto I realized halfway that aiming for the 'star' letter is way less effective than word length, yeah

Robusto

@M.A.R. Yes. For example, my first pick on that one was underground, 11 letters and 41 points.

To reach 300 you have to average at least 25 points per turn. So you never want to use a word under 7 letters. A target is anything over 25 points. Also: don't take your first choice. Remember, you get +5 for each letter you're currently on. Does the word you're considering have multiple letters for a different outlined letter? Then think of something else. A great chess genius once said: "If you find a good move, look for a better one." Same idea applies here.

jlliagre

> However, it can be observed that the player consistently executes a graceful backswing, releasing the ball with a skilled twist of their wrist. The ball travels down the lane in a beautiful arc, appearing as though it may miss the pins entirely. Yet, upon closer inspection, the spin on the ball curves its path, guiding it precisely towards the pins and resulting in a strike.

DeepL "business diplomatic" style.

Mitch

01:57

@jlliagre thanks deepl

Cerberus

02:14

@CowperKettle Heh you can just use the neutral masculine.

Do you hate the name that much?

We had only one date.

CowperKettle

Which name?

Cerberus

@tchrist This sounds too good to be true...

@CowperKettle Of the island.

CowperKettle

No, I like it. I just never knew (or forgot) that were was such an island

Quite cool, to have 320 thousand of people so far. Yet in the same country

Cerberus

Yeah I wouldn't have either.

What do you like about that number, specifically?

tchrist

@Cerberus For what antecedent to this?

CowperKettle

02:16

A lot of people.

In a review of addon drugs for schizophrenia, this one showed the largest effect size en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropisetron

Cerberus

@tchrist The example of blatant racism leading to hopeless architecture like a boomerang.

CowperKettle

I visited a new district on the outskirts yesterday, and there are so many tall apartment buildings, it grew several sizes since I last was there in 2019

It's like a whole town now.

tchrist

@Cerberus I guess I don't understand what you mean about something being too good to be true. You mean so obviously mean?

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes.

CowperKettle

Here's an example of the view I saw yesterday (sans snow) maps.app.goo.gl/Ga6QB87ZdC8NZgpf8

Cerberus

02:21

Good vindication of criticism.

tchrist

I don't understand the racial aspect.

Cerberus

Blacks were poor.

CowperKettle

The view on Google Maps is of the Villem de Gennin street, in memory of one of the founders of Yekaterinburg

Cerberus

They didn't want blacks, so they excluded the poor by forbidding apartments, which are cheaper than free-standing houses for single families.

tchrist

And so can't buy single-family dwellings, and so have to live in apartment complexes, and so you make a lot of rules for those apartment complexes that you couldn't make if it were simply because of race?

CowperKettle

02:22

Georg Wilhelm de Gennin

Georg Wilhelm de Gennin (Russisch: Георг Вильгельм де Геннин; Georg Vilgelm de Gennin) of Villim Ivanovitsj de Gennin (Russisch: Виллим Иванович де Геннин) (hertogdom Nassau, 10 oktober 1665 of 11 oktober 1676 - Rusland, 12 april 1750) was een Nederlandse militair, architect en mijnbouwingenieur van Duitse afkomst, in dienst van de Russische tsaar Peter de Grote. Hij stichtte samen met mijnbouwingenieur en historicus Vasili Tatisjtsjev de steden Jekaterinenburg en Perm. Hij wordt vaak verward met een andere Gennin die geboren werd in Antwerpen. == Geboorte en vertrek naar Rusland == Hij werd als...

Cerberus

@tchrist Exactement.

CowperKettle

We have a long street now named after him :)

tchrist

But those still get and got built.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle O, grappig!

@tchrist But segrate from the white families.

tchrist

I can't off the top of my head remember what they're called, or supposed to be called, or supposed not to be called.

Cerberus

02:24

What are they?

tchrist

Slums. Ghetto housing.

Robusto

@Cerberus I just learned that the Dutch police are doing random spot checks of e-bikes to make sure they're within the 25 km/hr limit in speed. Supposedly in infraction will be fined €270.

tchrist

There are terms we're supposed to use. I forget them. And it's differently named in the US vs UK.

Cerberus

@tchrist Concrete Barad-Dûrs?

tchrist

Yes, colonias we called them in Madrid.

Cerberus

02:25

I know you don't like city buildings.

Robusto

@tchrist Are you talking about the "projects"?

tchrist

Yes.

Dec 14, 2023 at 16:04, by tchrist

@Robusto There's a British term the mansions meaning the projects / las colonias. It's very weird because they've appropriated a high-prestige term for a low-prestige thing.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah, they put you on a...I don't know what it's called.

CowperKettle

probation?

Cerberus

@tchrist We call those the suburbs.

Robusto

02:26

Shit list?

Cerberus

Though there are suburbs which are not so poor.

@CowperKettle It is called something like a roller bank in Dutch.

I don't know.

tchrist

@Cerberus No, suburbs are just leafy parasite communities to big cities, which are still only single-family dwellings with pretty yards and white picket fences. :)

Cerberus

A kind of treadmill used to measure the speed of the vehicle.

CowperKettle

Ah!

Cerberus

@tchrist Not here!

tchrist

02:27

Have you ever seen The Wire?

Cerberus

Tall buildings only exist in the suburbs.

tchrist

Oh how weird.

No, you can't have tall buildings in suburbs.

Cerberus

They are not allowed near the inner city.

CowperKettle

Word of the morn: pingos - intrapermafrost ice-cored hills, 3–70 m (10–230 ft) high and 30–1,000 m (98–3,281 ft) in diameter.[1] They are typically conical in shape and grow and persist only in permafrost environments, such as the Arctic and subarctic.[2]

Cerberus

Because of ugliness.

tchrist

02:28

Spain has the habit of of dense super tall apartment buildings for those. America does not.

Cerberus

So the heart of the city is the most desirable, and it tapers off as you go farther out.

tchrist

They surround the city. They are not like the high-priced flats in the city.

Cerberus

And few people want to live in very tall buildings.

@tchrist Yes, surround.

tchrist

In The Wire the poor people running drugs lived in broken-down apartment complexes in bad parts of Baltimore.

CowperKettle

Word of the minute: chuckmuck -- a belt-hung leather and metal decorated tinder pouch with an attached thin long striking plate, found across North Asia and China to Japan from at least the 17th century.

tchrist

02:30

The thing is our giant cities are full of skyscrapers downtown.

CowperKettle

I wonder about the possible etymology of to turf someone (medical slang)

Robusto

@CowperKettle Meaning to cast them outside.

On the turf, so to speak.

It can be used to suggest someone was fired from their job, etc.

In medicine it would mean to cause them to leave the hospital for one reason or another.

tchrist

But this is different in somewhere like Pittsburgh from somewhere like Washington DC.

Robusto

@tchrist And certainly different from Chicago or NY.

tchrist

You don't have those giant skyscrapers on Capitol Hill. The pantheon would not permit it.

CowperKettle

02:33

@Robusto In Russian we say to football a patient (to send them over to some other doctor, in the hope that the patient will get tired of going to doctors)

tchrist

@Robusto Well the big-buildings portion of those places, though much larger than those of Pittsburgh or Denver, seem similar in spirit. Go down to the Loop etc.

And NYC would be Manhattan etc.

alphabet

I took my rant in chat and turned it into an answer on meta: english.meta.stackexchange.com/a/15773/470858

tchrist

The Empire State Building and the Sears Tower are certainly taller than "the projects".

Robusto

@tchrist Except I've seen Pittsburgh up close. Chicago is a marvel by comparison. My kinda town has the best modern architecture I've seen anywhere.

@tchrist Manhattan is a sausage factory for skyscrapers. Most of them are simply ugly.

tchrist

I know the downtown of Pittsburgh far too well. I hope to survive it again in a couple weeks. But that might be the last time. For the summer meeting this year finally everybody is coming here instead. For here=Denver. And everybody like whichever of our ~500 employees don't actually live in driving distance of there.

It's easier for the West Coast people to come to Denver than for them and us to go to Pittsburgh anyway.

I feel creeped out walking around Pittsburgh's big-building parts at night. It's dangerous there now.

And it's not just me. People...have gotten hurt. Recently. Multiple people. Less said the better.

Robusto

02:39

I've stayed in downtown Denver. We had a suite at the Brown Palace Hotel once. I really don't recall the rest of the architecture around there, but I did like the hotel.

tchrist

Yeah, I've eaten there a few times.

Our meeting's at the Convention Center. I don't know if I'll commute. It's 45m without traffic and as bad as double that with, but usually about an hour.

I know the Capitol Hill area in Denver pretty well.

Not that there aren't sketchy places in Denver you might not want to be all hours of the night. There are. But you don't have to be those places to deal with the convention center or capitol etc.

About the only time I ever go there now is for meeting up with family or going to the science and nature museum now and then.

Robusto

Back in my ad days we did a Bud "western" spot there featuring steam engines and cowboys. We got the trains from the Rocky Mountain National Arsenal for some reason that escapes me.

That's why we were at the Brown Palace.

I guess it was the most expensive hotel in town at that time, or else the producer wouldn't have picked it.

tchrist

It is.

I find that the prices aren't worth the service calibre. When the G7 was in Denver, they came here instead. The prices aren't quite as high, the service is infinitely better, and they don't make you wear a dinner jacket.

Robusto

Yeah. I don't stay in such places now.

But we certainly did spend the clients' money on making ourselves comfortable.

tchrist

Flagstaff House is only a restaurant, though, not a hotel you can stay at.

It's the best place to go when somebody else is paying. :)

But a fine place to go for a celebration, too.

The Emperor of Japan also dined there when he was visiting Colorado. It's got the best wine cellars west of Chicago and east of California, if you're into that sort of thing.

Robusto

02:50

I have had expensive wines, outrageously expensive meals, luxury hotels, first-class air travel, and I don't miss any of that. I was so glad to be away from the soul-killing hell of advertising.

I don't miss it one single little bit.

tchrist

I have eaten at places as nice as Flagstaff House in London of all places. Cost 4-5x as much, but it was really well done.

Some very fine places in Iberia as well.

Lisbon or Coimbra for one, name escapes me now.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah but not here.

Cities would also be full of trash if that weren't outlawed...

tchrist

@Cerberus I have never noticed that to stop that from happening.

Cerberus

Hah.

I mean literally full.

tchrist

The City of London has very tall buildings.

Cerberus

02:57

Remember the Neapolitan strikes?

tchrist

No.

City of London

The City of London, widely referred to simply as the City, is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the ancient centre, and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London and one of the leading financial centres of the world. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the modern area referred to as London has since grown far beyond the City of London boundary. The City is now only a small part of the metropolis of Greater London, though it remains a notable...

I mean there. Those are tall.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah, some. Probably because of the bombardments and laxer laws (Britain became very Neoliberal after/during Thatcher).

We also have some tall buildings in some inner cities.

Though only Rotterdam has many in the inner city.

Because it was destroyed.

alphabet

04:07

So here's a question: what's the vowel at the end of the word antennae? CGEL says it's /iː/, and some dictionaries list that as the only pronunciation. Looking through YouGlish, though, it seems /aɪ/ and /eɪ/ are also common; I pronounce it with an /aɪ/.

Cerberus

04:42

I would say /i:/ is the conventional pronunciation.

That is also why the gin algae is soft.

I don't think anyone pronounces it algai with a hard g.

alphabet

Indeed, algae always has an /i:/.

Today's helpful note from CGEL:

> Menservants should be contrasted with man-eaters, where the relationship is not ascriptive: menservants are men, but man-eaters are (generally) not.

Cerberus

05:16

I thought man-eaters were cannibals.

CowperKettle

Vikas

> Long COVID can destroy your ability to exercise. Now we know why.
As a new study shows, the answer lies in some long COVID sufferers’ muscle damage and their bodies’ ability to make energy.

nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/….

Araucaria - Him

09:28

@Robusto Yes, you're right. But glad to know it's not just me!

Vikas

I recently noticed there are many chipmunks near my home. Today I was sitting on terrace and one of them was about two meters away from me and staring at me. When I noticed it, I gently said "oh wow" and it ran away LOL

Araucaria - Him

@Mitch The lists is pre-existing, but the point of having it is that one can just say "Too many good questions are getting closed and having to then be reopened, which wastes everyone's time, puts off new users and prevents good answers being given" <-- And then you know that the people involved are getting too many questions closures reversed. But you wouldn't bother to say that so much if the people wanting a new close reason never had their closures reversed. That's all.

Great post by Alphabet:

1

A: Does the community think that we need a 'grammar, but too basic for ELU: almost any book on grammar will answer this clearly' close-vote reason?

As I understand it, the mods intentionally switched to the new "answered by a dictionary" close reason to prevent "easy" questions about grammar from getting closed. See the thread announcing that change. Who, exactly, is hurt by easy questions being asked and answered? Are we worried that we mig...

CowperKettle