English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:00 AM

@CowperKettle I understand Créole better when I hear it than when I read it but sometimes it's not much more intelligible than Scouse.

Robusto

12:42 AM

OK, this I did not know: Schrödinger was a pedophile?

No jokes about Schrödinger's catamite, please.

alphabet

Not a catamite if it's a girl, technically.

Robusto

@alphabet Yes, but there isn't any cat reference that wou8ld apply felicitously there.

Obviously I have no restraint.

alphabet

1:03 AM

@Robusto You know, the cat was still a kitten when they started experimenting.

Robusto

It sounds creepy when you say it like that.

tchrist

1:41 AM

@Robusto Your article was lettered by the un-: mere children themselves.

Notice the German version is mum on the topic.

I'm being serenaded by two lovers in the ponderosas, the Virginian bubos.

M.A.R.

> The physics department of Trinity College Dublin announced in January 2022 that they would recommend a lecture theatre that had been named for Schrödinger since the 1990s be renamed in light of his history of sexual abuse, while a picture of the scientist would be removed, and the renaming of an eponymous lecture series would be considered.

Okay, I didn't know he was a pedo, but can't help roll my eyes at this

This century's westerners can be as afraid of moralizers as we are of tyrannical regimes

tchrist

> The book also described an episode of Schrödinger being "infatuated" with a twelve-year-old girl, Barbara MacEntee, while in Ireland. He desisted from attentions after a "serious word" from someone, and later "listed her among the unrequited loves of his life."

The man should be jail.

user 85795

pedos are neither alive nor dead

M.A.R.

Sure, but he wasn't venerated in the Dublin college for not being a pedophile, but for his contribution to modern-day physics

tchrist

We can still send him to jail.

What do you mean that westerners are afraid of "moralizers"?

M.A.R.

1:53 AM

@tchrist then it'd get all quantum-y and confusing

tchrist

@M.A.R. Then use a Faraday cage. If that doesn't work, let's find an event horizon.

Scusi I have to go look up what a moralizer is.

user 85795

hang him in a blackhole

tchrist

> A person who moralizes; (now) esp. a person given to making moral judgements.

I don't understand how westerners are afraid of people making moral judgements.

Mitch

I liked it better when we were talking about cats

M.A.R.

@tchrist being ostracized due to someone rightly or wrongly making a fuss is a huge phobia in the west, same as waking up to a 1984-esque treatment because one entered some government blacklist is our biggest fear

tchrist

1:56 AM

@M.A.R. Oh, I see what you mean now.

M.A.R.

Numerous examples of both exist, so it's not totally irrational. But it is sort of a phobia. It causes so much unnecessary self-correction

tchrist

Like the university leaders driven out in shame last year.

Over moral outrage.

M.A.R.

@user85795 that's racist

tchrist

Calcutta is now Golgotha.

misk94555

@tchrist moral overmortgage

M.A.R.

1:59 AM

@tchrist wait which one was that?

The one where some black students were angry about some statue or something?

Wait which year are we in

I'm too young to be forgetting the year

user 85795

@M.A.R. that's racist

misk94555

@M.A.R. When a star above certain mass collapses under gravity it forms an African American hole.

tchrist

@M.A.R. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill.

M.A.R.

@user85795 not at all, some of my best friends are statues

user 85795

@misk94555 of color

M.A.R.

2:01 AM

African American hole of color?

tchrist

@M.A.R. MMDCCLXXVII ab urbe condita.

user 85795

yes

Mitch

The DEI, woke, PC, canceling culture sounds like it could be Stalinist but it's pretty weak. There's no gulag. The only people canceled are ... well, pedis

tchrist

@M.A.R. Dark have been my dreams of late.

@Mitch Please stop concealing them.

It's 2777.

Mitch

I forgot about the university president thing

M.A.R.

2:03 AM

@Mitch sure, in the overall picture, they have affected little

misk94555

Folks, what's the spelling when a is added to them: "business is abooming ", "we'll go ahunting" ?

M.A.R.

You just spelled them?

tchrist

@Mitch They let the mitchick stay but ditched the gay one. Mitch.

misk94555

@M.A.R. But I don't know if that's right. Maybe there should be an apostrophe, of a hyphen, or ?..

Mitch

@misk94555 there's (probably) an ELU question about that

tchrist

2:06 AM

Seems a little late in the season to go a-wassailing but you wouldn't know it from looking out my window.

alphabet

@misk94555 It's called a-prefixing

M.A.R.

@misk94555 for most contexts people would be fine with either. If it's an especially uncommon verb to attach an a- to, using a hyphen would make more sense

misk94555

@alphabet Cheers! That's what I was missing.

alphabet

Raccoons - Late Night Caller

►

tchrist

> II. With a verbal noun or gerund, forming part of a verbal expression. (Now usually written with a hyphen or as one word with the verbal noun.)

> II.11. Expressing action, with a verbal noun or gerund taken actively. Now archaic and regional.

> 1960 That's the only way you knowed where you was a-goin'. —in Dictionary Amer. Regional English (1985) vol. I. 2/1
2003 The invitation has been such a long time a-coming. —Daily Telegraph 18 November 23/1

But to go a begging or a courting is slightly different.

That one sometimes doesn't take the hyphen.

Tex Ritter "Froggy Went A-Courtin'"

►

Froggy Went a Courtin’

►

Not so thick a Texas accent on the second one.

Here We Come A Carolling with Lyrics | Christmas Carol & Song

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Here We Come A-Wassailing: Christmas Carol with Lyrics | Hymn with Lyrics | Dementia friendly

►

Alf Edwards--"I'll Go No More A Rovin" from Moby Dick

►

CowperKettle

2:39 AM

Is a 39 yo man falling in love with a 14 yo girl really a 'pedophile'? She only became pregnant at age 19.

> You loved the child of fifteen years.
I knew not this vast thing.
Your great heart shrank beneath your fears;
You left me wondering.

Now fourteen years have passed us by;
Our souls meet once again;
And, meeting, I have asked you why
Our ways apart have lain?

And now your answer comes at last:—
"I loved you in that day."
Oh, strange reply! Oh, tender past!
Oh, long love locked away!

And now, yes, I have climbed Love's hill;
My heart is bound, yet free.
And is there not some young child still

(Monica Saleeby, to a man who loved her when she was 15)

gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17735/pg17735-images.html

Francis Thompson

Francis Joseph Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and Catholic mystic. At the behest of his father, a doctor, he entered medical school at the age of 18, but at 26 left home to pursue his talent as a writer and poet. He spent three years on the streets of London, supporting himself with menial labour, becoming addicted to opium which he took to relieve a nervous problem. In 1888 Wilfrid and Alice Meynell read his poetry and took the opium-addicted and homeless writer into their home for a time, later publishing his first volume, Poems, in 1893. In 1897, he began...

Found it. I read about this in a book about Francis Thompson

He preserved a poppy flower she gifted him at age 15 for his whole life, carrying it with him in a book.

google.ru/books/edition/Poems_of_Francis_Thompson/…

alphabet

2:56 AM

@CowperKettle I don't think it's particularly relevant whether he technically meets the definition of pedophilia or not.

A relationship between a 39-year-old and a 14-year-old is, for obvious reasons, far more likely to harm than benefit the latter.

tchrist

@CowperKettle I don't know, but it's troubling.

SmokeDetector

4:17 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, potentially bad keyword in answer (79): Is that a curse word?‭ by Lexi Sux‭ on english.SE

alphabet

4:30 AM

@SmokeDetector Voting to close that question, incidentally, since it belongs on ELL but is too old to migrate.

CowperKettle

5:08 AM

CowperKettle

5:20 AM

SmokeDetector

6:47 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Username similar to website in answer (72): What did Lady Gaga mean when she sang that she's heard a "sine" from above?‭ by punsweb‭ on english.SE

CowperKettle

8:08 AM

@tchrist Yes, it might be bad. I don't trust my moral compass in such situation

CowperKettle

8:39 AM

Cerberus

12:18 PM

Mitch

12:31 PM

@Cerberus That's a map.

Cerberus

Ding.

Vikas

"Oh, we should get one of those smokers. We could just barbecue for days."

Could anyone let me know what it means?

jlliagre

12:48 PM

@Cerberus Got milk?

Cerberus

> an enclosed metal box or similar device for smoking meats, poultry, or fish.

Something like this?

@jlliagre Yeah I drink a lot in my tea.

Dannyu NDos

1:02 PM

I cannot even guess what that map is for.

Cerberus

Lactose tolerance.

Being able to drink milk.

Dannyu NDos

For unknown reasons, despite being a South Korean, I'm lactose tolerant.

Mitch

I'm lactose-concerned.

Cerberus

Happy?

Mitch

You can't just let milk do anything at all

Cerberus

1:17 PM

> With the Zeppelin sometimes within, sometimes above the clouds and unable to see the ground, Gemmingen in the hanging basket would relay orders on navigation and when and which bombs to drop. The Calais defenders could hear the engines but their searchlights and artillery fire did not reach the airship.

> The spire of the Empire State Building was originally designed to serve as a mooring mast for Zeppelins and other airships, although it was found that high winds made that impossible and the plan was abandoned.

tchrist

2:01 PM

Word of the day: solastalgia

@DannyuNDos Milk it for all it's worth.

tchrist

2:44 PM

> As a sign of progress, in 2014, a bill in Tennessee required that cursive be a mandatory subject in grades two through four. Then, in 2019, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina followed suit and required similar measures. Most recently, California and New Hampshire have reintroduced the mandatory teaching of cursive.

Except for New Hampshire alone, those are all hot states. Why?

tchrist

3:22 PM

Vicarel Studios, a local graphic design firm here, was so delighted with the handwriting of one student's notebook they found on a visit to Portugal that they created a typeface based on it:

That's the notebook, of course, not the typeface.

Mitch

@Mitch Google confirms my suspicion that 'tween' and 'preteen' are identical.

Well...

it does more than that...

Sure the suspicion is confirmed but the fact of the matter is corroborated.

Wokeness gone amok.

Araucaria - Him

Shameless post-promotion:

7

Q: Why can you omit "is" at the end of "no matter how foul their mood"?

In a recent episode of Frieren, one character said: But people have to work to make a living no matter how foul their mood. On one hand, it seems like this sentence is missing the word "is" at the end, but on the other hand, the sentence makes sense to me, and I don't feel that it is incorrect....

ellipses

Mitch

A perfectly fine word replaced by its identical where none was needed, out of an imagined slight against an under-powered sub culture.

tchrist

@Araucaria-Him I never know whether these countless questions asking why people use syntax more elaborate than "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water" are from non-native learners or just from young non-readers with insufficient experience in real English.

Mitch

@Araucaria-Him Exhaustive conditionals are so tiring.

2

Robusto

3:33 PM

@Araucaria-Him Feel no shame. +1

@Mitch No matter how tiring, they must be reckoned with.

tchrist

They all seem like the questions from some ten-year old whose mom didn't read to him much.

But it might just be the Chinese. I never know.

Araucaria - Him

@Mitch I know! Aren't they! (They play a huge part in my PhD thesis ...)

tchrist

> “What great big eyes you have, Grandma.” said Little Red Riding Hood. “All the better to see you with,” the Wolf replied. He sat there watching her and smiled.

Robusto

Wordle 1,002 4/6

🟨🟩🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

tchrist

@Araucaria-Him Why does this remind me of the let alone construction?

no matter BLAH, let alone BLAH

Robusto

3:40 PM

No Matter What (Remastered 2010)

►

tchrist

I mistrust how often people reach for the "oh this is ellipsis because they deleted BLAH" explanation of things.

You don't need to posit a little man who wasn't there to explain many of these.

@Araucaria-Him It must be raining where you are: you wrote coplula.

Araucaria - Him

@tchrist Can't put my finger on it. But they're both used to outright cancel certain pre-suppositions that a listener might have.

@tchrist Well, that's because it is. This is England, after all.

@tchrist Cheers

tchrist

@Araucaria-Him Yet April with his showres soote hath not yet perced to the roote the droughte of March? Or has climate change bumped everything up a month now?

I'm no judge of these things, as my pretty early-spring bulbs were starting to look truly lovely and inspiring when they all just got buried under a sesquifoot of fresh-fallen snow.

Which is the new metric form of a cubit.

Araucaria - Him

4:00 PM

Well according to the weather forecast of Channell 4, global warming causing wetter weather, so I suppose it's the latter. Newcastle is traditionally cold, grey and dry, but it feels like it's rained every day since January here.

tchrist

The internet tells me that Newcastle should average ten days of rain across March, with an average low of 39 and an average high of 49. That's pretty chilly, really, at least absent the sun, but hardly unexpected.

Grey days make everything gloomier and glummer.

No gleam in the gloaming.

Robusto

Daily Octordle #783
7️⃣3️⃣
🕛4️⃣
🕐🕚
6️⃣9️⃣
Score: 65

@Araucaria-Him So do you have a Geordie accent?

Araucaria - Him

4:17 PM

@Robusto No, but I've adopted a few Geordie words while I've been here ...

Robusto

@Araucaria-Him When I was there in the '80s, there was a tunnel under the Tyne (on A18?) where tolls were collected at the north end only. Which meant that those northbound had to suffocate in the tunnel until they could pay their duty. Is that still a thing?

Araucaria - Him

@Robusto It's both ways now, but I never use it. What were you doing here in the 80's?

Robusto

4:37 PM

@Araucaria-Him Just seeing the country with my wife. Drove from London to East Anglia, then up the coast, stopping along the way. Into Scotland and around, then down through the Lake District, Wales, and then along through Wessex and the whole coastline to Canterbury, then Dover, and off to France. We were in the UK about 10 days.

I've been back several times, but nothing so ambitious. A few times for work, and once where our team was invited to somebody's club for dinner somewhere in the neighborhood of Salisbury Plain. I don't recall exactly, since we were chauffeured from Heathrow.

tchrist

@Araucaria-Him The markdown syntax for headers is to start the line with one, two, or three # signs followed by a space. That simplifies and saves you all that emboldening and line-breaking markdown you just put in, etc.

jlliagre

Wordle 1 002 3/6

⬛🟨⬛🟨🟩
🟨🟩🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Octordle #783
🔟🕚
7️⃣6️⃣
🟥🕐
9️⃣5️⃣
Score: 75

Robusto

4:58 PM

Daily Sequence Octordle #783
3️⃣5️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕐
Score: 66

@Araucaria-Him Ah, I do recall. The office and club were in Tewkesbury.

Which is weird, since there's a Tewkesbury in Massachusetts, where I lived most of my life.

Probably that blocked my memory.

jlliagre

Daily Sequence Octordle #783
4️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 67

Robusto

5:18 PM

Question for the room regarding texting and social-media intercourse: Are exclamation points mandatory when you wish to show approval, or is simple English sans steroids sufficient?

Robusto

5:29 PM

Exclamation marks seem to come in bunches nowadays.

tchrist

6:33 PM

@Robusto That's just the loud gushing of overly effusive children. They think everything is so important it needs to be yelled out in all-capital letters rendered at 96 points like some dumb billboard and punctuated as though it were screaming. Blame mass media. They need to learn to read books, not spamvertising copy designed to jerk your attention.

The American Society of Magical Negroes

The American Society of Magical Negroes is a 2024 American comedy film written, directed, and produced by Kobi Libii in his directorial debut. It stars Justice Smith, David Alan Grier, An-Li Bogan, Drew Tarver, Michaela Watkins, Aisha Hinds, Tim Baltz, Rupert Friend and Nicole Byer. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2024, and was followed by a theatrical release by Focus Features in the United States on March 15, 2024. == Plot == A young African-American man, Aren, exhibits his yarn sculpture at an art gallery, without success: nobody wants to buy. The white gallery...

Robusto

6:54 PM

@tchrist I hate them so much.

Mitch

@Robusto I love exclamation points

They're like pre-civilization emojis.

Sometimes words are not enough.

Robusto

@Mitch That's so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mitch

@Robusto I sense a modicum of hyperbole.

You really only needed three to get the point across.

I am starting to think you were kidding.

Robusto

So you don't really love them?

Mitch

@Robusto I am ambivalent

The culture is moving towards where in some instances they are necessary so that people don't think they're about to get shot

In the face!

Robusto

7:04 PM

?????????????????????????????????????????

tchrist

Dec 3, 2023 at 5:52, by tchrist

Jul 7 at 4:53, by tchrist

Apr 8, 2022 at 0:15, by tchrist

Dec 25, 2012 at 15:32, by tchrist

@RegDwighт “Non est enim consilium in volgo, non ratio, non discrimen, non diligentia, semperque sapientes ea quae populus fecisset ferenda, non semper laudanda dixerunt.” —Gaius Tullius Cicero, Pro Plancio IV.

Mitch

It can be over done, sure.

tchrist

They're just vulgarian slack-jawed yokels, full of giggles and spit and vinegar, signifying nothing.

Mitch

Shakespeare used exclamation points.

Checkmate atheists!

tchrist

They do not contribute to our culture. How could they? They've never encountered it. So as Kicky Tully instructs, we but report on their hotblooded idiocies without singing paeans of praise in so doing.

Mitch

7:10 PM

😬

tchrist

Nothing ever changes. Round and round and round spins the wheel of fortune, and where it lands is where it began.

It was not until after we had given everyone the ability to hear everyone else's most fleeting and intimate thoughts in real time the world around did we realize how awful a thing that truly is.

CowperKettle

tchrist

Warm kitty, happy kitty, purr purr purr.

CowperKettle

Scottish Folds love lying on their back

> Because heterozygous Folds can also develop progressive arthritis of varying severity, some researchers recommend abandoning the breeding of Fold cats entirely.[7][36] (Wikipedia)

tchrist

A young new neighborhood kitty has just discovered my cat-door, and he comes a calling several times a day now, announcing his presence at the threshold upon entering, asking for playmates to come join him for playtime. Brazen and adventurous.

Yesterday he even came in and took a nap on the midlevel couch by the piano. Apparently he's unfond of cohabitating with two dogs now, so he escapes their surveillance whenever he can. He's from a few houses down the street.

CowperKettle

7:23 PM

A neighbor's cat visits your house? This is cool. I sometimes think of giving my cat to a family with kids for several hours a week, so that kids could play with him, and he would get some physical exercise from that. Running after some paper on a string and stuff.

tchrist

Yes, he not only visits my house, he lets himself in.

CowperKettle

I think I'll drop asleep now. I've covered about 18 km around the city

tchrist

He used to come to the front door and cry for entrance. But he's figured out where the cat-door is as of two days ago, so he doesn't even ask to come in anymore.

CowperKettle

On foot.

@tchrist Ah! Cat flaps are great

tchrist

You should sleep. Ten miles a day is a long trek, at least if you do it daily.

CowperKettle

7:25 PM

> A pet door or pet flap (also referred to in more specific terms, such as cat flap, cat door, kitty door, dog flap, dog door, or doggy/doggie door) is a small opening to allow pets to enter and exit a building on their own without needing a human to open the door.

@tchrist It's a yomp

Yomp

Yomp is Royal Marines slang describing a long-distance loaded march carrying full kit. It was popularised by journalistic coverage in 1982 during the Falklands War. The origin of the word is unclear, and there is no evidence to suggest that it derives originally from an acronym. Various backronymic definitions have however been proposed, including "young officers marching pace", "your own marching pace" and a connection with the term yump used in rally-driving in the sense of "to leave the ground when taking a crest at speed", apparently a Scandinavian pronunciation of jump. == Falklands War... ==

tchrist

My doctor wants me to fill my backpack with four and twenty pounds of meaningless weight for strength training when I go on my daily walks. I think I'll wait till the snow melts.

But easier, I think, having three gallons full in the backpack than carrying five pounds in either hand for a couple of miles.

Cerberus

Hmm.

For how long do you walk in a day?

tchrist

A couple miles, usually.

I'd like it to be five, but it's more like two.

And I refuse to walk up the 500 vertical feet on the back hillside/foothill/mountain when it's covered in snow and ice like it is right now.

Cerberus

That is still quite some distance.

tchrist

So it's not so much work on the flat. He wants me to carry weight with me if I'm not doing extreme vertical.

It's because I sit around at a computer all day.

Cerberus

7:50 PM

It sounds like a wholesome idea?

tchrist

It is.

alphabet

@Robusto Exclamation marks are optional, but (for some reason) ending a text with a period makes it sound abrupt and disapproving

Mitch

@robusto ^^^

My expectations about crap not likely to be published may have been wrong.

Cerberus

8:07 PM

Maybe it's only in the abstract?

Mitch

I've seen many more examples like this (being posted on Twitter, not actually by reading papers by flipping through arciv)

Mitch

8:19 PM

@Cerberus the author may have used ChatGPT to create the abstract from the wholly human written paper, true, and thats a not unreasonable draft of the abstract.

The worries about AI are not about the AI doing something itself intentionally and successfully, but rather people using a poor version without checking, people actually relying on it blindly.

Robusto

@Mitch Lotta skeevy stuff going on down in the subcontinent?

@alphabet I suppose those folks aren't used to seeing sentences strung together.

Mitch

@Robusto those author names don't feel very Indian to me... Maybe North African or Turkish mostly? But the Twitter examples have been mostly with Chinese authors and some Indian. (So that's a couple of selection biased already)

Robusto

@tchrist Yes, it's more than a good idea. It's great for your body, without which the brain withers. Before I had my knee replacement I was forced to be sedentary for about seven years, because I couldn't walk on that knee much at all. I wound up putting my energy into my work, sometimes 12- and 16-hour days. Then I had a mild stroke, and I realized I couldn't live without exercise.

@Mitch Not Turkish I think. Still could be Indian, some Iranian, etc.

Mitch

@Robusto dropping the full stop is very common in chat/messaging context, and having a stop is considered by most (younger) readers as @alphabet said

Robusto

@Mitch I understand that. Short Attention Span Theater.

Mitch

8:31 PM

@Robusto Google says Israeli

@Robusto I'm pretty sure in passages longer than a single sentence, most people use periods.

Conrado

@Mitch Haha, yes; I was arguing in the youtube comments section once, and the person I was engaged with discredited me because I punctuated multi-sentence responses. That was how I knew I am an adult.

Mitch

Even in chat or messages.

Conrado

Well, maybe I was engaged with an extremist.

I don't know

.

Mitch

@Conrado 😂

Ok old man with your punctuation and capitalization

Robusto

Look, I don't mind that people do that, but if they expect me to understand their idiosyncrasies they ought to at least try to understand mine, which happen to be how I was raised. You know, with periods at the ends of sentences, like they would see in books or other conventional manifestations of prose.

Mitch

8:35 PM

You mean those old things on paper? What did they call them? Comic books or something?

@Robusto but yeah I feel like I've read opinion articles about how it is becoming difficult for young people to see other people's point of view.

Robusto

Yeah. Don't get all offended by things they don't understand.

Mitch

Black holes? How dare you!

Are question marks OK? Do they show inordinate emotion?

Doubt is...

Robusto

Question? marks? are? fine????

Mitch

Subtle?

And ,'s? Ellipses as breathing markers?

sigh

Robusto

//// .. ,,,,,, what

Mitch

8:40 PM

Is there an emoticon for angry?

Robusto

wait????? what?????

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mitch

>(

I made that up.

I'm proud of my artistic ability in composing letters to imitate facial emotions.

My phone's lookahead is suggesting all sorts of emojis.

Conrado

The Smiley Dictionary (2001) contained hundreds of yellow-faced emoticons, including a laughing emoticon. It is the oldest known laughing emoticon. Nokia, one of the largest telecoms companies globally at the time, were still referring to today's emoji sets as smileys in 2001.

By 2010, when the Unicode Consortium was compiling a unified collection of characters from the Japanese cellular emoji sets, which would be included with the October 2010 release of Unicode 6.0,[14] a face with tears of joy was included in the au by KDDI and SoftBank Mobile emoji sets.

(from wikipedia)

Mitch

What was their entry for 'anger'?

Conrado

U+1F62x 😠

Mitch

8:47 PM

No I mean emoticon not an emoji. A thing made of just regular characters (letters or punctuation).

Robusto

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Cerberus

@Mitch I am actually not too worried about that.

If anything, it exposes the flaws of the current quantitative-competitive Anglo-Saxon practice of science.

Mitch

@Cerberus Oh? Are not in general worried, or are you worried about something else?

@Cerberus Is the Anglo-Saxon necessary?

Conrado

The wikipedia emoticon article starts out with "not to be confused with emoji ", but goes on to include that symbol in the unicode "emoticon block". I'm confused.

Cerberus

@Mitch Contrary to you, about its taking over power eventually.

@Mitch How do you mean?

It was not necessary, but it was implemented here in Neo-Liberal times.

When Anglo-Saxon influence was strongest.

Mitch

8:54 PM

@Conrado I think conflating emoticon and emoji is more recent (since the wide adoption of Unicode (which google tells me is ~ 20 years?))

@Cerberus ?? Which way do you think that I think it will go? I don't think I've ever given an opinion outright. Also I don't know what your opinion is.

I think that there are some people think that AI will 'take over' very soon, and I disagree. I think that in the short term more problems will come from people misuing AI than any kind of weird singularity that kills us all.

Cerberus

@Mitch I thought we had had discussions where you thought AI was far off and/or not an existential threat, while I tended more towards the opposite?

@Mitch Perhaps so.

Mitch

In the long run I'm not sure. Scientifically it would be wrong to say 'never', but also it just doesn't feel right that there will be some 'sentient' AI that will intentionally choose to make things bad for people.

Cerberus

But the minor threat I do not care about.

@Mitch Does it make sense for a biological or computer virus to intentionally make things bad for people?

Mitch

@Cerberus I'd have to qualify that. In the -short- term, ~5-10 years I don't think it is an existential threat. Longer, (as I just tried to explain) I don't feel confident either way.

@Cerberus I am concerned about many many minor threats that just happen.

@Cerberus In a scifi sense sure (but scifi is fantastical). ie it makes emotional sense, but also, (given some fantastical assumptions) some reasonable sense on top.

If by 'sense' you intend 'is good for the entity' then of course if you think through it, an AI entity would have to ensure energy production in order to be able to rationally make humans redundant.

Cerberus

A virus may do things that are ultimately not good for itself.

It may not be intelligent in the human sense but still find extremely complex ways to harm us all.

Araucaria - Him

9:07 PM

@tchrist Ye, that was me being indecisive. Thanks for the mark up tutorial - especially the non-breaking hyphen. That's been bugging me for years.

@Robusto Salisburys's quite a cool place to visit (usually). Didn't you once say you had family in Newcastle?

Robusto

@Araucaria-Him I faux-corrected someone in the following:

Nov 27, 2012 at 18:44, by Robusto

@KitFox "I am in Newcastle born being." Get it right.

But I don't have relations there.

Araucaria - Him

9:29 PM

@Robusto Ah, I think it must be RegD/Elton, then.

Robusto

@Araucaria-Him Yeah, he doesn't come here anymore. I think he ghosted ELU completely.

Araucaria - Him

@Robusto If you ever come back again to do a long trip, outside of the Smoke, the West Coast is the coast to travel along Scotland-wise. Re Regn,do we think he's ok?

Mitch

@Cerberus Agreed.

Robusto

@Araucaria-Him Probably. I just think he needed to change his life.

Cerberus

9:46 PM

@Mitch Yay.

tchrist

10:14 PM

@Araucaria-Him Yes, it's really infuriating until you learn the rules of how line-breaking works based on the Unicode linebreaking property values. It took the Unicode Consortium years and years to finally work all these out. There are like 28 different code points with the Dash=YES property, and they differ substantially in their Line_Break=??? property even when they look just exactly the same.

     1	U+0002D ‭ -  HYPHEN-MINUS
     2	U+0058A ‭ ֊  ARMENIAN HYPHEN
     3	U+005BE ‭ ־  HEBREW PUNCTUATION MAQAF
     4	U+01400 ‭ ᐀  CANADIAN SYLLABICS HYPHEN
     5	U+01806 ‭ ᠆  MONGOLIAN TODO SOFT HYPHEN
     6	U+02010 ‭ ‐  HYPHEN
     7	U+02011 ‭ ‑  NON-BREAKING HYPHEN
     8	U+02012 ‭ ‒  FIGURE DASH
     9	U+02013 ‭ –  EN DASH
    10	U+02014 ‭ —  EM DASH
    11	U+02015 ‭ ―  HORIZONTAL BAR
    12	U+02053 ‭ ⁓  SWUNG DASH
    13	U+0207B ‭ ⁻  SUPERSCRIPT MINUS
    14	U+0208B ‭ ₋  SUBSCRIPT MINUS

But this is all you need to know:

  Code  Chr  Name                     Line_Break=?
====================================================
U+002D  ‹-›  HYPHEN-MINUS             Hyphen
U+2010  ‹‐›  HYPHEN                   Break_After
U+2011  ‹‑›  NON-BREAKING HYPHEN      Glue
U+2012  ‹‒›  FIGURE DASH              Break_After
U+2013  ‹–›  EN DASH                  Break_After
U+2014  ‹—›  EM DASH                  Break_Both
U+2015  ‹―›  HORIZONTAL BAR           Ambiguous
U+2053  ‹⁓›  SWUNG DASH               Alphabetic
U+2212  ‹−›  MINUS SIGN               Prefix_Numeric

The HORIZONTAL BAR character looks like an EM DASH but it doesn't break on both sides. It's also synonyms to be the QUOTATION DASH. It's the long dash that introduces quoted text. So it won't double break.

I used it for attributions, like ―John Paul Jones or some such.

I never want a break after the dash and before the John. But an EM DASH will allow that.

 ―  2015        HORIZONTAL BAR
        = quotation dash
        * long dash introducing quoted text

The only typewriter-based HYPHEN-MINUS that's easy to type is always better replaced by a more specific character.

 -  002D        HYPHEN-MINUS
        = hyphen, dash
        = minus sign
        * used generically for hyphen, minus sign or en dash, all of which have dedicated alternatives
        x (soft hyphen - 00AD)
        x (modifier letter minus sign - 02D7)
        x (hyphen - 2010)
        x (non-breaking hyphen - 2011)
        x (figure dash - 2012)
        x (en dash - 2013)
        x (hyphenation point - 2027)
        x (hyphen bullet - 2043)
        x (minus sign - 2212)
        x (roman uncia sign - 10191)

Not all of which are "punctuation" properly speaking. Some are Symbols, like the MINUS SIGN for example.

And I have no idea what the ROMAN UNCIA SIGN is about. :)

It's some sort of Symbol.

Cerberus

Oh, typography time!

tchrist

Kinda.

He was being frustrated when he wrote *-ever* in markdown and it could linebreak between the hyphen and ever, depending on viewport/screen width.

The fix is to use a different character, one that never line-breaks. That's the NON-BREAKING HYPHEN character.

And the ROMAN UNCIA SIGN symbol has the property Line_Break=Alphabetic just like the SWUNG DASH symbol does.

Were Roman unciae for inches or for ounces? Those are a double of the same.

I guess it's just the twelfth part of something?

Wait, or currency??

> ū̆ncia f (genitive ū̆nciae); first declension

(historical) uncia, a coin of the Roman Republic equal to 1/12 as
(historical) uncia, a unit of length equal to 1/12 of the Roman foot
inch, similar units in other measurement systems
(figurative) inch, an insignificantly small length
(historical) uncia, a unit of mass equal to 1/12 of the Roman pound
ounce, similar units in other measurement systems
(figurative) ounce, bit, trifle, an insignificantly small amount
(historical) uncia, a unit of area equal to 1/12 of the jugerum

So, like, for everything. :)

Professional typesetting software often knows how to convert the stupid HYPHEN-MINUS things you type into the contextually correct code point with the right breaking properties. But markdown is crap for that, so you have to enter them yourself.

I actually enter the literal code point as a UTF-8 character when I'm using it in my postings. I never type ‑ or whatnot, but I wanted to do it this one time so that @Araucaria-Him could tell what I was doing in my revision.

7

A: Why can you omit "is" at the end of "no matter how foul their mood"?

Short answer (tl;dr) This is a verbless Predicate-Subject construction (yes, Predicate first and Subject last). It is allowed here because it is functioning as the subordinate clause in an exhaustive conditional. It's not really a case of the be being deleted. It's more a case of there being no t...

Otherwise you'll never figure it out, because it looks like a normal one. It just doesn't ever trigger a break.

Cerberus

10:32 PM

@tchrist Oh, I have heard of this.

There is also non-breaking space?

tchrist

Here're more where that ROMAN UNCIA SIGN came from. They're all that are in the Ancient Symbols block. They are all considered "Other Symbol" and are in the "Common" script except for the last one which is in the Greek script.

U+10190 ‭ 𐆐  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN SEXTANS SIGN
U+10191 ‭ 𐆑  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN UNCIA SIGN
U+10192 ‭ 𐆒  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN SEMUNCIA SIGN
U+10193 ‭ 𐆓  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN SEXTULA SIGN
U+10194 ‭ 𐆔  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN DIMIDIA SEXTULA SIGN
U+10195 ‭ 𐆕  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN SILIQUA SIGN
U+10196 ‭ 𐆖  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN DENARIUS SIGN
U+10197 ‭ 𐆗  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN QUINARIUS SIGN
U+10198 ‭ 𐆘  GC=So SC=Common       ROMAN SESTERTIUS SIGN

‭ 𐆠  101A0      GREEK SYMBOL TAU RHO
        = rho-cross, staurogram
        x (chi rho - 2627)
        x (coptic symbol tau ro - 2CE8)

@Cerberus Oh yes.

More than one!!

Cerberus

Naturally!

tchrist

U+00A0 ‹ › \N{NO-BREAK SPACE}
U+202F ‹ › \N{NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE}

Oh, there's another space character with the line_break=glue property!

mac(tchrist)% unichars '/(?[ \p{Line_Break=Glue} & \p{Space} ])/'
U+00A0 ‭    NO-BREAK SPACE
U+2007 ‭    FIGURE SPACE
U+202F ‭    NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE

That one will always be the size of a figure in the typeface in use, just like a FIGURE DASH will be.

For the titling figures (=fixed width, columnar), not the lining figures (variable width ones, line in-line numbers).

A "figure" means a decimal digit here.

Hm, I bet I used Bringhurst's names for those. I think the OpenType names for those properties may differ a little.

Facts about figures: numeric styles with OpenType features

And NOW we're doing typography, yes.

Text figures

Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the name. They are contrasted with lining figures (also called titling or modern figures), which are the same height as upper-case letters. Georgia is an example of a popular typeface that employs text figures by default. == Design == In text figures, the shape and positioning of the numerals vary as those of lowercase letters do. In the most common scheme,...

But that isn't the thing that says whether they're all the same width.

> Numbers
Lining figures (lnum)
Oldstyle figures (onum)
Proportional figures (pnum)
Tabular figures (tnum)

There it is.

The first pair, lnum vs onum, are for whether they all sit on the same line. The second pair, pnum vs tnum, are for whether they're for lining up in tables.

Stupid opentype feature names.

All from here.

It's hard to find typefaces that support all of those. Usually you need a "Pro" variant.

Those are my own demos of this issue.

Robusto

11:01 PM

@tchrist Wasn't uncia the Roman ounce?

tchrist

@Robusto And inch. Et cetera.

    .proportional-text   { font-variant-numeric:  oldstyle-nums proportional-nums  ; }
    .tabular-text        { font-variant-numeric:  oldstyle-nums tabular-nums       ; }
    .proportional-lining { font-variant-numeric:  lining-nums   proportional-nums  ; }
    .tabular-lining      { font-variant-numeric:  lining-nums   tabular-nums       ; }

I can never fricking remember who calls each of those what, so I invent my own CSS class names that I Can remember.

Which produces HTML like this:

  <tr>
      <td align=left><i>proportional</i></td>
      <td align=left>text:</td>
      <td class="proportional-text">01234567890</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
      <td align=left><i>proportional</i></td>
      <td align=left>lining:</td>
      <td class="proportional-lining">01234567890</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
      <td style="font-variant:small-caps" align=right>Tabular</td>
      <td style="font-variant:small-caps" align=left>Text:</td>
      <td class="tabular-text">01234567890</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
      <td style="font-variant:small-caps" align=right>Tabular</td>

So tabular vs proportional and text vs lining: two orthogonal axes to choose from.

And I used the smallcaps variant for the tabular labels because I know that smallcaps are always letterfit (equidistantly spaced out).

Do you have any idea how DIFFICULT it is to find sans faces with all these features? Shessh!

Calibri and Seravek do, though.

It's really hard to find a sans that does text figures.

The text figures that use something that looks like a smallcap o for 0 and a smallcap I for 1 are super oldfashioned. Caslons and Garamonds tend to do this.

This is why the earliest typewriters didn't have/need a 0 or 1 key. :)

Of course, typewriters are always tabular (=fixed-width) never proportionally widthed.

"Monospace" I guess we call that now.

uncia

Noun: uncia (plural uncias or unciae)

(historical) The Roman ounce, 1/12 of a Roman pound. [1685]
(historical) The Roman inch, 1/12 of a Roman foot.
(historical) A bronze coin minted by the Roman Republic, 1/12 of an as.
(historical) A Roman unit of land area, 1/12 of a jugerum.
(pharmacy) Synonym of ounce, the English and American avoirdupois unit of mass.

(2 more not shown…)

Lining figures are like uppercase letters all uniform in height with no descenders; text figures are like lowercase letters with both ascenders and descenders.

@Robusto Holy cow, I just now read this.

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