English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:04 AM

Why do respirable and admirable get stressed on the first syllable, but desirable, inspirable, perspirable, transpirable, and acquirable all do not?

And notice that when the stress moves, it eats the "i" leaving a weird consonant MR cluster that seldom occurs tautosyllabically.

/ˈæd.mɹə.bl̩/

/ˈɻɛs.pɹə.bl̩/

Mridangam

The mridangam is a percussion instrument originating from the Indian subcontinent. It is the primary rhythmic accompaniment in a Carnatic music ensemble. In Dhrupad, a modified version, the pakhawaj, is the primary percussion instrument. A related instrument is the Kendang, played in Maritime Southeast Asia. Its a complex instrument to tune and involves a lot of mathematics to construct korvais. During a percussion ensemble, the mridangam is often accompanied by the ghatam, the kanjira, and the morsing. == Etymology == The word "Mridangam" is formulated by the union (sandhi) of the two Sanskrit...

A navy captain is only admirable with the Senate's consent.

Robusto

12:38 AM

@tchrist I have an acquaintance who was a Navy Captain. He said only 4% of those in that rank get groomed for admirability.

@Robusto Groomers.

@alphabet ^^^

Bita Moghaddam is a famours researcher of NMDAR-mediated neural mechanisms, one of the authors of the so-called glutamate hypothesis of schizophrenia progress.im/en/content/glutamate-model-psychosis

CowperKettle

1:05 AM

When I feel tired, I start feeling despondent and a lot of random things around start to trigger past negative experiences in the mind, and I want to shut down. I know these are disconnected from reality, but the feel is overwhelming

CowperKettle

2:30 AM

Word of the day: bluing of steel (воронение стали) - creation of a conversion coating of black rust upon the surface of a steel item, in order to protect it from corrosion

CowperKettle

2:42 AM

A localizable AI engine that's powerful enough to 'beat' a server-oriented AI engine of yesteryear

Today is the last full-blown summer day this April.

tchrist

@CowperKettle I honestly think that's perfectly normal for many people.

CowperKettle

Forecasts of three and more days ahead are hazy, though, and we may see some true summer days this April yet

tchrist

@CowperKettle Hah, I was reading the dates as degrees Celsius!

CowperKettle

@tchrist Yes, probably. I'm just trying to keep a psycho diary, but in patches; I don't have the stamina to keep it day-in, day-out; for that, one probably needs to gamify the process, or attach a paper table on the wall to motivate oneself to produce at least a couple thousand characters of daily psych diarization

tchrist

So long as you can wear short trousers and a short-sleeved t-shirt outside comfortably without needing a jacket, that's summer enough for me.

CowperKettle

2:53 AM

Yesterday was true summer, but it turned chilly after about 21:00

tchrist

When you're so tired the world seems hopeless, you need to sleep.

All my snow melted today.

CowperKettle

Methylfolate helped vastly. Sadly, the most recent study of 29 depressed patients failed to replicate previous findings of reduced methylfolate in the CSF in treatment-resistant depression. So my response to methylfolate might be a placebo reaction.

tchrist

Or simply an anomalous one.

CowperKettle

I wish I had a lot of extra-sensitive probes embedded everywhere, to check the levels of multiple markers and metabolites and be able to fine-tune my condition to "less depressed/anxious"

tchrist

Low folate is pretty hard on a person.

CowperKettle

2:57 AM

I'm taking 1600 mcg/day

When I started on 15 000 mcg/day in 2019, it was something. It plunged me into a state that I can only describe as "sunny" and "energetic".

tchrist

> A severe deficiency may result in a red and sore tongue, diarrhea, a reduced sense of taste, depression, confusion, and dementia. If a pregnant woman has folate deficiency, the risk of having an infant with a birth defect of the spinal cord or brain is increased.

Avoid becoming pregnant. :)

CowperKettle

If only the skin on my hands did not start to crack and ooze blood when I take methylfolate at 15 000 mcg/day

tchrist

ew

CowperKettle

I've asked multiple people - nobody has this reaction.

tchrist

I know you have no access to physicians skilled at diagnosing and treating you. It's tragic.

CowperKettle

2:59 AM

There's one pharmacy in the town that sells leucovorine - I want to try injecting that.

@tchrist Not very tragic. There are much worse cases.

I visited the local psych hospital, and there are tragic cases.

tchrist

A friend of mine finally after like thirty years of suffering and wrong diagnoses got a diagnosis of glycogen storage disease type III(a), and is responding better to treatment than he's ever responded to all their previous attempts like for a tentative McArdle disease diagnosis. These rare diseases are hard to figure out.

It also took them a stupidly long time to correctly diagnosis his wife's lupus.

But that is "easy" in comparison, despite House M.D. :)

CowperKettle

@tchrist Wow

@tchrist I read a story about a woman who spent 20 years in psychiatric care, until her friends bunched up together, composed her full medical history and after a bit of sleuthing found out that she had a form of lupus

It seems to me that a key broken thing in healthcare, especially affecting the plight of psychiatric patients, is a lack of any kind of coherent medical history recording.

I've seen how psychiatrists take medical history and how they record it, and it's laughable.

It's a recipe for misdiagnosis.

A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry. - Washington Post

tchrist

Another friend they decided must have Munchausen syndrome by proxy because of how hard she sought a solution to her young son's agonies. It took them three years to find a doctor to make the call of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. The kid is doing much much better now on Humira. But she is still angry forever at the medical establishment who had written her off as a quack just inventing her son's agony.

@CowperKettle I did read that.

All these crazy cocktails they pump into psych patients, and others.

No wonder they're catatonic.

CowperKettle

4:01 AM

Word of the morn: eructation

@tchrist It's horrible

I read a case report in which three generations of a family were suspected of Munchausen syndrome and anorexia nevrosa, only to discover that it was a mitochondrial disease

Because all these etiologies intermingle. Mitochondrial defects can make you depressed through lack of energy, inability to exercise etc.

alphabet

0

Q: Are names of chemicals not proper nouns?

I noticed that people often use "gold" and "diamond" in lower case. Yet as far as I see it these are all "proper names" of an abstract idea and really ought to be capitalized. Am I in the wrong here? This answer addresses it by stating "chemical element names are common nouns". But why are we so ...

I'm really not sure why someone voted to move this to ELL, given that the asker describes themself as "also a by product of the American education system." Do people just read someone's name and assume they're an NNS?

Indeed, I suspect this is the sort of question that a native speaker would be more likely to ask; it's not a question asking whether to capitalize these words--something a non-native speaker might want to know--it's asking why we don't.

alphabet

4:26 AM

> Also for whoever voted to close giving reason “this belongs in English language learners for non native speakers”. I don’t consider myself an English language learner. I have grown up speaking it in a country where it is the only official language and done all my education in it, but I will concede that was a slick jab.

Exactly.

CowperKettle

5:15 AM

Aspect ratio: 51.33

Eta (glider)

The Eta is a German-Italian Open Class two-seater flapped self-launching glider manufactured by ETA Aircraft. On introduction it was the highest performing glider. == Early flights == The Eta made its first flight on July 31, 2000 in Cochstedt, Germany, reaching a height of 2 m (7 ft). The second flight was the first aerotow launch, reaching 1,500 m (4,920 ft). The third flight was self powered and had no problems. The official presentation was on 1 August. == Production == Three Etas have been manufactured. The second prototype was extensively damaged in 2003 during the spin tests required for...

Boeing Truss-Braced Wing

Boeing Truss-Braced Wing are airliner designs studied by Boeing with braced, high aspect ratio wings. == SUGAR Volt == SUGAR Volt is the hybrid aircraft concept proposed by a team led by Boeing's Research & Technology division. It is one of a series of concepts put forward in response to a request for proposals for future aircraft issued by NASA. It is proposed that SUGAR Volt would use two hybrid turbofans that burn conventional jet fuel when taking off, then use electric motors to power the engines while flying. SUGAR stands for Subsonic Ultragreen Aircraft Research; "Volt" suggests that it...

Boeing expects to see savings of some 8% of fuel with high-aspect ratio wings

jlliagre

8:03 AM

#WhenTaken #55 (22.04.2024)

I scored 898/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 286 km - 🗓️ 8 yrs - ⚡ 179 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 262 km - 🗓️ 3 yrs - ⚡ 188 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 276 km - 🗓️ 4 yrs - ⚡ 187 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 189 km - 🗓️ 5 yrs - ⚡ 188 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 1054 km - 🗓️ 9 yrs - ⚡ 156 / 200

whentaken.com

Xanne

10:04 AM

“Fellow Travelers” (8 episodes, “Showtime” is amazing.

CowperKettle

10:54 AM

Curate's egg

A "curate's egg" is something described as partly bad and partly good. In its original usage, it referred to something that is obviously and entirely bad, but is described out of politeness as nonetheless having good features that redeem it. This meaning has been largely supplanted by its less ironic modern usage, which refers to something that is in fact an indeterminate mix of good and bad, possibly with a preponderance of bad qualities. == History == The expression is pre-dated by an anecdote in Our Bishops and Deans by the Reverend F. Arnold, referenced in an issue of The Academy: A Weekly...

Dannyu NDos

> There were 2 students. One studied liberal arts, and the other studied science.
> The liberal arts student said the other, "Hey, why you dunno the Korean history when you're Korean? Get out of Korea!"
> Then the science student replied, "Well, you dunno earth science when you're Terran. Get out of the earth!"

CowperKettle

> Stephen Booth notes "Sonnets 135 and 136 are festivals of verbal ingenuity in which much of the fun derives from the grotesque lengths the speaker goes to for a maximum number and concentration of puns on will."[3] He notes the following meanings used in these two sonnets:[4]

(a) what one wishes to have or do
(b) the auxiliary verb indicating futurity and/or purpose
(c) lust, carnal desire
(d) the male sex organ
(e) the female sex organ
(f) an abbreviation of "William" (Shakespeare's first name, conceivably also the name of the Dark Lady's husband)

Xander Henderson

#WhenTaken #55 (22.04.2024)

I scored 892/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 620 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 172 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 3 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 200 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 240 km - 🗓️ 11 yrs - ⚡ 174 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 201 km - 🗓️ 10 yrs - ⚡ 178 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 836 km - 🗓️ 6 yrs - ⚡ 168 / 200
https://whentaken.com/

CowperKettle

@DannyuNDos LOL.

Xander Henderson

I did bad with the years, today.

CowperKettle

10:59 AM

O.Henry wrote a story about that, @DannyuNDos

The Handbook of Hymen, by O.Henry, 1906

I loved this story, but I've forgotten how it ended.

tchrist

11:25 AM

> After two years in which production companies have sprung up across the country to take advantage of an emerging trend — sometimes relying on ChatGPT to churn out scripts .... viewers are fed unrealistic plots that “vilify people and amplify conflicts” within families.

> Young people, who spend more time with their screens than real people, are becoming “emotionally deficient” and “unwilling to get married or have children,” he added.

That all seems a bit "facile" to me.

But saying that young people aren't real people is definitely over the top. :)

jlliagre

11:51 AM

@tchrist They ain't no human beings ;-)

tchrist

Often a young boy spending more time with his screen turns into Pinocchio dancing on Papa Geppetto’s invisible strings.

GOUNOD "FUNERAL MARCH OF A MARIONETTE" WITH ANIMATION BY TOM SCOTT

►

Ici plusieurs des principaux personnages de la troupe s'arrêtent pour se rafraîchir.

Marche funèbre d'une marionnette

La Marche funèbre d'une marionnette est une œuvre pour piano de Charles Gounod composée en 1872 et arrangée pour orchestre symphonique par l'auteur en 1879. Elle est dédiée à Madame Viguier, pianiste et femme d'Alfred Viguier, premier alto dans l'orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire. == Description == Écrite à la manière d'une marche funèbre de l'opéra italien pleine d'humour contenu, l'œuvre est une parodie légère reposant sur un jeu de décalage entre le sérieux des funérailles d'un être cher et le burlesque des personnages d'une troupe de marionnettes. La partition pour piano...

tchrist

12:51 PM

> Silver, shelver, salver, solve.
Calver, culver, delver, dolve.
Helver, halver, wolver, valve.
Dilver, elver, pulver, twelve.

We’ll’ve, he’ll’ve.
They’ll’ve, I’ll’ve.

Who’ll’ve?
You’ll’ve!

Notice the phonological gaps: all uncontracted forms above are what we would call "short" or "lax" vowels, not "long" or "tense" vowels.

user 85795

1:07 PM

Ok, now what?

tchrist

I think it's the L.

user 85795

That's influencing the vowel's sound.

Watch out there's a nasty silent e lurking around.

tchrist

It's even hard to find any example of a tense/long/diphthong followed by an L and then a consonant at the end of the word/syllable. Colt is one such.

But felt, cult, milt, shalt are all short.

The tense-shit question has been returned to us.

So I reopened it, since the return left it closed but unlocked.

-3

Q: Do some Brits pronounce ‘−−it’ with a tense vowel?

For example, in the second occurrence of shit in this Twitter video.

pronunciation phonology transatlantic-differences allophones

If we posit that L is patterning as though it were W, this begins to make sense.

It becomes a semivowel glide, so we can't have another falling diphthong before it.You cannot fall twice.

But mild has two syllables, unlike colt.

coolth

That one already had a W.

user 85795

Does cult work?

tchrist

Short vowel.

Not a long/tense/diphthong.

user 85795

1:21 PM

right

cilt

tchrist

You mean silt?

user 85795

ok

tchrist

Short/lax vowel.

This is the tense-shit problem. :)

sailed

howled

user 85795

kilts

tchrist

short

There's no hailp for it.

Mitch

1:48 PM

@jlliagre we mean it man!

jlliagre

@Mitch :-)

Araucaria - Him

2:17 PM

Hello folks,

Are there any logician's here? Or maybe mathematicians?

I have a dumb question, namely: Can a function have a set as its value?

tchrist

@Araucaria-Him Functions can be said to operate on formal sets specified by their range and domain.

Mitch

@Araucaria-Him Yes

tchrist

Can you give an example of what you mean? Do you mean something like a function that given some input produces the set of all even integers as its result?

Especially in formal works, you'll sometimes see certain symbols used for particular sets. Some of the more common ones related to number theory include:

ℤ = the set of integers
ℚ = the set of rational numbers
ℝ = the set of real numbers
ℂ = the set of complex numbers

So one might for example say that some function 𝑦 = 𝑓(𝑥) maps a value 𝑥 from ℤ into a value 𝑦 from ℚ. I’ll spare you the formal notation for that.

But those are values IN each of those sets. They are not the sets themselves.

Araucaria - Him

2:33 PM

@tchrist So, in relation to his possible worlds analysis of natural language conditionals (e.g. 1975 Indicative Conditionals) Robert Stalnaker posited a function which takes an antecedent proposition and a conversational background as inputs and yields a possible world as its value.

The conditional is true if the consequent proposition is true at that world. I wish to discuss an alternative conditional where the value is a set of worlds at each of which the consequent proposition must be true. Does that sound feasible (in terms of the logic)? Or does the 'set as value' kibosh it?

tchrist

No, it sounds feasible. He's simply describing the domain.

The world is the range.

> The domain of a function is the set of values that we are allowed to plug into our function. This set is the x values in a function such as f(x). The range of a function is the set of values that the function assumes. This set is the values that the function shoots out after we plug an x value in.

Araucaria - Him

@tchrist Sorry, in that last sentence what does 'This set' refer to?

Is it the range?

tchrist

Any y = f(x) function can be said to "operate" on a set of inputs to produce a set of outputs. Both x and y are actually sets, in some sense. But for doing concrete/discrete operations you need actual scalar values to plug in. The formal language describes sets for the range and domain, and these are not scalar values; they may be finite in cardinality or they may be infinite, and if infinite they may not all be of the same cardinality.

They may not be defined on all possible inputs, either. So for example the integer division y = div(x1, x2) operates on two integers and produces a rational. But the second integer is not all of ℤ; it has the value 0 removed from its set.

Because dividing by 0 is not a defined operation.

I'm talking of course of "normal" arithmetic using the sets commonly understood by people who haven't taken theoretical maths at the university level.

Araucaria - Him

@tchrist OK. Think I've kind of got a grasp of most of that. I might come back to you ...

Thanks :)

tchrist

@Araucaria-Him If that's not confusing enough for you, I'm sure our resident math prof (@XanderHenderson) can make it tougher. :)

I think your quote is using "world" as the domain of possible results.

Araucaria - Him

2:51 PM

@tchrist Ah, this is [Possible Worlds theory](chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/…).

@tchrist Not sure what happened there. Try this: Stalnaker Possible Worlds

Xander Henderson

@Araucaria-Him In modern mathematics, everything is a set. So, in some sense, all functions have sets as their outputs (and inputs). Indeed, a function, itself, is "just" a set.

Araucaria - Him

@XanderHenderson Ok. Good. That sounds reassuring Thanks!

Xander Henderson

In the area I work in (fractal geometry), one of the tools used to describe certain kinds of fractal objects is an "iterated function system" (IFS). In order to prove that an IFS produces a unique fractal, one usually uses the Banach fixed point theorem, which says, essentially, if a function moves things closer together, then that function has a fixed point.

An IFS is then regarded as a function acting on the collection of compact subsets of some space, and which brings things "closer together" in the Hausdorff metric.

So there is a relatively concrete example of a function taking sets as both input and output.

alphabet

3:16 PM

@Araucaria-Him So: I double majored in philosophy and did a reasonable amount of work on formal modal logic. I highly recommend Ted Sider's Logic for Philosophy if you haven't read it already.

There's also been a lot of work in analytic philosophy around trying to create formal accounts of counterfactual conditionals. This is an extremely hard and largely unsolved problem.

Essentially, the issue is that you don't just need a set of possible worlds; you need a notion of nearness between them. For instance: "If the glass had broken, the sky would be green" is false. Why? Certainly there's a set of possible worlds where the glass broke and that includes (on most accounts of modal logic) one where the sky is green.

The answer is that the "nearer" possible world to our own is one where the glass broke but the sky is still blue, and we only consider "nearer" possible worlds when evaluating counterfactuals.

But this leads to a number of odd cases where the truth values of propositions aren't so clear. For instance, suppose Bob and Steve are identical twins with brown eyes. Now consider these two statements:

1. If Bob had green eyes, Steve would have green eyes.
2. If Bob had green eyes, Bob and Steve wouldn't be identical twins.

Are (1) and (2) both true? Neither? Why?

Anyway, I'm sorry if this is an area you're already really familiar with and I'm just reexplaining what you already know.

But modern analytic philosophy has thus far largely failed to come up with a plausible, widely accepted account of natural language counterfactual conditional statements. Things are a bit better with non-counterfactuals (e.g. now that relevance logic has been formalized) but the "paradoxes of material implication" have now become the "paradoxes of relevant implication."

Araucaria - Him

@alphabet Yes, but the Uniqueness Assumption, the Limit Assumption and the idea that a subjunctive conditional 'If p, q' is true at world w iff either p is not entertainable at w or there is some world where p & q is true which is more similar to w than any world where p & -q is true are demonstrably wrong. Or rather, the first two are irrelevant to counterfactuals and the last is just wrong

@alphabet Want an example? (It's a good'un)

alphabet

@Araucaria-Him Exactly! And nobody's figured out how to fix those problems. Even if you solve the "nearness" issue you're still left with a bunch of other problems.

I think any successful account of counterfactuals will probably need some notion of similarity (perhaps I could be persuaded otherwise) but even that wouldn't solve the issue.

And again, I'm probably explaining stuff you already know.

Araucaria - Him

@alphabet Yes, there are five or six good theories of subjunctives, all of which are ingenious in their own way, and none of which nail it. And, in fact, for each of those theories you'll get people saying that it's the leading or most widely accepted theory. Which shows how bad things are. And the same's true for 'indicatives'

alphabet

3:31 PM

@Araucaria-Him Exactly. I think the situation for indicatives is better because there are at least non-insane formal approaches for capturing most of the major issues; much of the debate is just around which best conforms to natural language. With subjunctives, even the supposed "good" accounts are batshit crazy as far as formal logic is concerned.

Araucaria - Him

@alphabet Well, you need at least a notion of similarity because the worlds in which q is meant to hold should not be more different from the actual world than justified by the conversational background and the antecedent (and other pragmatic factors allow)

@alphabet The situation for indicatives is just as bad! Which theory of indicatives do you find least embarrassing, out of interest?

Should have said "Just as bad, imo"

alphabet

@Araucaria-Him There are so-called "dependence analyses"--see the SEP that try to avoid having a notion of similarity.

Here's a fun problem: do we use counterfactuals to explain causation, or do we use causation to explain counterfactuals?

Araucaria - Him

3:46 PM

@alphabet You fancy proofreading (not for typos etc, for intelligibility, consistency and errors of fact, and possibly for fun) a paper that I have to submit soon and haven't finished writing yet? It's about the fact that subjunctive/remote conditionals don't convey improbability or counterfactuality or negative espistemic stance? It's a chapter for a book. Got a very small amount of philosophy in it.

@alphabet It's pretty difficult not to get ordering semantics entwined with similarity one way or another.

alphabet

@Araucaria-Him I think that various modal and relevance-based accounts of material implication have managed to capture most of the unusual features of indicative conditionals. I wouldn't say it's a solved problem by any means, but there are multiple eminently plausible proposals.

Xander Henderson

@alphabet History, as we understand it, is "just" a particular path through the state-space of the universe. There are "obvious" metrics on that space for measuring "closeness". I don't see what the big deal is. :P

alphabet

For subjunctive conditionals, I'm not even sure that the ordinary possible-worlds approach to modal logic is capable of giving a decent account. Or at least I haven't seen one.

Robusto

@alphabet People with deuteranopia generally see the sky as green.

alphabet

@XanderHenderson Care to define those metrics in terms of formal logic?

Xander Henderson

3:58 PM

@alphabet Hell, no. That's why I ended with an emoticon. :P

alphabet

@Araucaria-Him I can look it over! But I can't say I'm really an expert on this specific topic.

Araucaria - Him

4:08 PM

@alphabet I'm surprised you think so. From my point of view it looks like this: If you have material implication you have to explain why nobody believes a conditional like "If I'm over eight feet tall, I'm under six feet tall" and so forth (lots of people explaining why people don't say that type of thing, but that's irrelevant), and if If P, Q can be false when P is false then you can't infer If P, Q from Not P or Q or make lots of other simple inferencs we know to be reliable.

Where the latter would be what you got on Stalnaker or a relevance conditional or whatever.

Which leave you with no truth value, when all around us the evidence is that natural language conditionals have truth values for humans.

@alphabet Thanks Mr Raccoon, re reading it over. I'll definitely get back to you (but if you change your mind, no worries!)

Robusto

Daily Octordle #819
4️⃣🕚
🕛5️⃣
6️⃣3️⃣
9️⃣🔟
Score: 60

alphabet

@Araucaria-Him I think that the answer is something like: When evaluating the truth value of a conditional, people take into account the existence or nonexistence of a causal connection, and whether the claim is true in nearby possible worlds. The exact sort of connection required will depend on various contextual or pragmatic factors.

In other words: you need to build on the notion of truth-functional material implication in various complicated ways to capture the semantics of natural language conditionals, but it seems at least possible to do so in a reasonably sane manner.

It's worth noting that e.g. there are similar problems with e.g. and, or, but; those clearly bear a relationship to purely truth-functional operators but aren't identical to them.

Mitch

4:37 PM

@Robusto I'm feeling some Pink Floyd on the way.

Araucaria - Him

@alphabet Hmm. I have multitudinous bits of evidence that that's not the case (there's no nearby worlds involved for indicatives). But I'll wait till after my viva before wheeling those out! Actually, you'll read about one of those if you read that paper. There's no doubt that you're no alone/you're in good company with that kind of interpretation (but you do lose all those inferences!)

alphabet

For instance: is the statement "I went home and took a nap" true if you took the nap before going home? It seems like there's a very general problem with translating between natural language and truth-functional operators.

Mitch

@Araucaria-Him a direct link to the Stalnaker paper

alphabet

Likewise, what about the statements "Either 5 + 7 = 12 or birds exist" and "Either 5 + 7 = 12 or birds don't exist"? Are those true, false, neither? If you interpret the word "or" as a purely truth-functional operator you'd have to say "true" but I think most people find that, at the very least, counterintuitive.

Robusto

@Mitch Acid flashback, perhaps?

Mitch

4:44 PM

Nah the usual 'wish you were here' reference

Robusto

The Pink Floyd generation has gone from acid flashbacks to acid reflux.

Mitch

impertinence to incontinence

Robusto

@Mitch I'm still impertinent as hell.

alphabet

The same goes with "if." Of course, you still have those inferences in formal logic, but there's never any straightforward mapping between formal logic and natural language.

Counterfactuals are trickier because there's no truth-functional operator in propositional logic you could even base it on.

Robusto

@Mitch Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?

Mitch

4:47 PM

Blue skies from pain?

Robusto

Cold comfort for change.

Mitch

Do you think you can tell?

Robusto

Did you exchange a walk-on part in a war for a lead role in a cage?

Mitch

What? Are you some kind of bird?

I think that cage is too small for you.

Robusto

P.O.W, right in the kisser.

Mitch

4:52 PM

I'm not saying your butt is too big.

@alphabet Can't if-then manage that?

p is the case, but let's assume ~p and see what we get.

Robusto

Daily Sequence Octordle #819
6️⃣7️⃣
8️⃣9️⃣
🔟🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 76

@Mitch You'd better mind your P's and Q's.

Mitch

@Robusto I don't mind.

XYZ PDQ

Robusto

Now you know your ABCs.

Mitch

It's all about the benjamins.

alphabet

@Mitch The problem is that it's hard to formalize the notion of "assume ~p," because you have to adjust other facts to make that logically consistent.

For instance, these statements are all true: "I am right-handed; I am not left-handed; I am either left-handed or right-handed."

Robusto

5:00 PM

You may be ambidextrous.

alphabet

But in a conditional of the form "If I weren't right-handed..." you can't just assume "I am not right-handed," since then "I am not right-handed; I am not left-handed; I am either left-handed or right-handed" would be true--but that's logically inconsistent.

Mitch

@alphabet Well, you have to be very restrictive on what 'p' can refer to. It can't be modal or interrogative or subjunctive, it has to be a statement that can be true or false.

alphabet

@Robusto That's why I included "I am either left-handed or right-handed" in my list :)

Note that the "p" in my example is "I am right-handed," which isn't modal or interrogative or subjunctive.

Robusto

@alphabet Except ambidextrous means both hands are "right" ...

Mitch

@alphabet It's not logically inconsistent. It is inconsistent if you add in a lot of other statements about biology.

@Robusto I have two left feet.

and a green thumb.

Robusto

5:02 PM

And a black heart.

Mitch

I'd totally be in a band led by Joan Jett.

But not a blackguard.

alphabet

@Mitch Well, no; those three statements have the form "~p and ~q and (p or q)" which in classical formal logic is false.

In this case the fix is fairly obvious: when you assume "I am not right-handed," you also have to jettison at least one of the other two claims. But it's not always that simple.

Mitch

@alphabet OK. I'm getting mixed up on what statements we're talking about.

alphabet

@Mitch I mean the statements "I am not right-handed; I am not left-handed; I am either left-handed or right-handed."

Which you get if you start with "I am right-handed; I am not left-handed; I am either left-handed or right-handed" and then try to "assume" that "I'm not right-handed" in a counterfactual scenario.

Mitch

get rid if the handed ness stuff. "-R and -L and (R or L)" is one world. the other world is "R and -L and (R or L)" (identical to the first one except the first conjunct is positive.

tchrist

5:16 PM

> Who would know aught of art must learn, act, then take his ease.

It's really sad that people have confused phonemics with phonetics.

If you change the phoneme, you change the word. If you merely change the phonetics without changing the word, it is but an allophone of the same phoneme.

I refuse to waste my days disabusing the self-deceived on the main site right now.

Notice no length marker in that phonemic chart. Also notice the /slanties/.

People are being too abusive. That has to stop.

That's nobody in this chat. I'm just griping.

There's too much jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. Somebody is going to break a leg, or worse.

It's weird reading that sentence right to left, starting with who in the northeast corner of the charge and proceeding clockwise all the way around until you come back up to ease in the northwest corner.

Please don't mention the third formant. The gaskets are too loosely held already.

Robusto

@tchrist I've been pianoing so much lately that I'm stretching my fingers into many 10ths I couldn't reach before. This pleases me greatly.

tchrist

@Robusto You've got like 7 inches on me: I hate you. I have to grow new joints for tenths.

Colin is right: we don't distinguish length without a change of quality.

Robusto

@tchrist You can get to 9ths, can't you?

tchrist

And he's an Englishman, no less.

@Robusto Sure.

Robusto

That's mostly enough.

RegDwight said he could reach 12ths. We can both hate him for that.

tchrist

5:28 PM

Changing the length without changing the quality of the vowel does not change the phoneme. That's why length is not phonemic.

@Robusto He makes things up.

Robusto

Those would have to be huge hands.

Laurel

I feel like we really need to have a meta discussion about what "opinion based" means, tho I don't have time to write such a post. Cf english.stackexchange.com/q/621730/191178

Robusto

@tchrist The flip side of that benefit is that now 9ths are starting to feel like octaves, especially after a very stretchy passage. Which is a disaster. But I can get used to it.

Robusto

6:16 PM

MetaEd

6:36 PM

Wordle 1,038 2/6

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Mitch

6:53 PM

@Laurel 1) yes, a meta discussion might be nice

2) just starting it should be easy... "What does opinion-based mean here?" with a couple recent links to closed and reopened by opinion-based.

3) the problem is not a lack of definition in general, it is -those three guys- (and a few extras) who love to close as opinion-based when they as individuals don't know the answer.

Only if those three guys are actively involved in the meta question -and- convinced that they should stop over-closing stuff will there be any change.

2

@tchrist wants to mention the third formant so badly now

@tchrist awesome sentence...is there one for GenAmE? (I think the only real difference is 'aught' is weird for Americans, and 'art' is rhotic so should be 'cot' or 'father')

@Laurel but I just reopened it.

tchrist

7:15 PM

@Mitch That one IS for American English!! The writer needed to choose words in a particular sequence. The low back vowels of ART and FATHER are identical. Just because you pronounce the R does not mean that the vowel before it is rhotacized. It is not — at least not phonemically. It can be pronounced as two phonemes in sequence, unlike the NURSE vowel which is itself r-colored and inseparable. So irk, erg, urn have 2 phonemes each but art, orc, hours, eared have 3.

As for aught, I have nought new to say to you that I have never said before: read a book or two antedating your birth would you come to understand written, literary English — and tarry at a preschool playground would you not.

CowperKettle

7:41 PM

Laurel

@Mitch I mean, I don't have a question (unless "wtf" counts :p), it's more like a "don't do this" discussion

Mitch

8:17 PM

@Laurel If I catch it in time, I comment to the effect "Why is this considered opinion based? If this is opinion based then -all- questions on SE are opinion based. Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean there isn't an objective to be had." I'm sure there are nicer ways to say it than that.

alphabet

IMO, a question should be closed as "opinion-based" only if it's effectively unanswerable because it would be impossible to find sources or other evidence to support an answer, or if there's no way to judge if an answer is correct.

Mitch

@tchrist You keep saying it, grampa!

alphabet

Ultimately, the real issue is that such answering such questions provides little actual benefit to the asker, except as a sort of badly conducted opinion poll.

Mitch

That's 1) not what opinion-based means,
2) and maybe it would be a new close reason 'unknowable/in principle unsupportable', but that would be a bad close reason... many of the 'closed as opinion based' -are- answerable by someone who a) is knowledgable or b) has the right data tools.

@alphabet that may be the case sometimes, but the usual 'closed as opinion-based but are not opinion based' are often of the style 'here is a phenomenon that I just noticed I am wondering about' which seem unanswerable if you haven't done the research, but if you have it's answerable.

alphabet

@Mitch Ultimately, I think all our close reasons basically boil down to "Our community can't provide you with an answer that will be particularly helpful to you or others." The different close reasons are just different reasons why we might not be able to do so.

@Mitch I mean that actually opinion-based ones are like that. But there are plenty of purportedly opinion-based ones that are.

Here's one that, as I recall, was the subject of a heated debate as to whether or not it was opinion-based, and went through a couple close-reopen cycles:

6

Q: Euphemistic pee-pee/wee-wee: which refers to the organ and which refers to urinating?

Does one pee-pee with his wee-wee, or does he wee-wee with his pee-pee? Is one phrasing more typical than the other? That is to say: How is pee-pee used more commonly- as "to urinate" or as "penis"? And vice-versa for wee-wee. I'm curious if there are widespread or regional customs. Both are info...

american-english phrase-usage euphemisms

Mitch

8:32 PM

@alphabet That's an interesting philosophical point of view.

alphabet

Ultimately my answer proved the question was to some degree answerable in an objective way. But even if I hadn't found a study, it still wouldn't've been opinion based IMO.

Mitch

@alphabet There are a lot of issues with that one.

There may be numerous answers (like on the NYT dialect quiz type variation) but that is not an opinion, it is linguistic data.

alphabet

Incidentally: I tried conducting a follow up study by confronting kindergartners and asking them what they call their genitals. Apparently now I'm "banned from the public playground." (Just kidding. I was, of course, already banned.)

(Kidding, of course.)

Mitch

A legitimate answer to that question would say there might be variation, and say it is currently not known for sure (data needs to be gathered). Or maybe some one -does- know the variation? But anyway, it shouldn't closed for that reason.

@alphabet That's one of the issues.

alphabet

@Mitch Look at my answer. There is data, though it isn't exactly high-quality or extensive.

Mitch

8:37 PM

Scientifically a thing to know but maybe science doesn't -have- to go there?

I bet those slang dictionary guys have thought about it (not UD! Greene's dictionary?)

I've seen linguistic maps of Italy with the local terms for genitalia, so I guess some people do it.

Xander Henderson

@alphabet Do you shank a fool with a shiv, or shiv a fool with a shank?

Mitch

@alphabet Oh... yeah... good answer.

Also, 'no one knows' is also a legitimate answer.

A legitimate answer tells what the bounds of knowledge are.

Some people just like to 'press the button' instead of letting others answer (or not).

@XanderHenderson Do you use shampoo on your real friends or real poo on your sham friends?

I think there's room for both.

Xander Henderson

@Mitch Neither. Have no hair. Nor any friends. :(

Robusto

alphabet

9:42 PM

@Mitch I'd argue it's better to leave a question unanswered than to say "nobody knows." If the "nobody knows" answer gets accepted, then someone who does know might come along later and be unable to get the accepted answer changed.

Xander Henderson

10:15 PM

@alphabet "nobody knows" is a very different answer from "nobody knows, and here are the citations which justify this".

The latter IS a good answer, and can be deleted if, for example, subsequent work finds an answer.

jlliagre

@Robusto High turnover.

alphabet

@XanderHenderson Agreed; "nobody knows, and here are the citations which justify this" is fine. But it's usually hard to find good citations for a claim like "nobody knows."

The issue is that, once an answer is accepted, it can't be deleted, even by the person who wrote the answer. You need the asker to un-mark it first.

I've run into this before, where I wrote an answer that got accepted, then later realized it contained a rather embarrassing factual error.

See also this demonstrably wrong accepted answer, which is at -30 points but still up: english.stackexchange.com/questions/70685/…

Xander Henderson

10:32 PM

@alphabet That's not true. Accepted answers can be deleted.

alphabet

@XanderHenderson Huh. I remember not being able to delete mine. And that awful one is still up.

Xander Henderson

The answerer cannot unilaterally delete it, but it can be deleted be a vote of enough users with over 20k XP

alphabet

Ah. I didn't know that. Regardless it would make it hard to get rid of an inaccurate "nobody knows" answer.

Incidentally, might want to get rid of the awful answer on that question I linked; the comments on it explain why it's embarrassingly wrong and the answer right below it is correct.

Xander Henderson

It is hard to get rid of an answer, yes. But not really any harder than getting rid of any other answer.

alphabet

Then please vote to get rid of the one on that question, because it has -30 points and is incredibly dumb (my apologies to its author).

The asker is, incidentally, a notorious troll--apparently his deleted posts, which I can't get a list of directly, are even "better"--which may be why he decided to accept that particular answer.

Xander Henderson

10:45 PM

@alphabet I don't have 20k XP on that site.

But you, as someone with 10k+ XP, can flag it as "Not an answer", which will bump it into the review queue for 20k'ers to look at.

alphabet

@XanderHenderson I already did. No dice.

@XanderHenderson I forgot--the diamond means you're a mod, but not that you're a mod on ELU.

Xander Henderson

Yup. If I were a mod on ELU, I could just delete it. Maybe ask @Laurel to have a look.

Araucaria - Him

11:13 PM

@Mitch Cheers, Mitch.

tchrist

@XanderHenderson By score descending:

Don't talk about the asker by name; he kibos and will come here and rag on you.

Araucaria - Him

@XanderHenderson I was about to say thanks. I understood the last line :)

tchrist

Anyone can red-flag.

Just remember what happens when you wave one at a charging bull.

Tends to piss them off. Hence he'll come a ragging he will he will.

Mitch

@alphabet that's not how SE works. Of course you can get a new answer become the accepted answer. It's not as easy as it should be (because people aren't continuously monitoring their questions), but it -is- possible. The SE designers made sure that things could be changed (but not on a whim)

Robusto

11:35 PM

@alphabet It lacks but a single delete vote now.

BTW, that is a valid interpretation. Cf. the group Limp Bizkit.

Araucaria - Him

@Robusto Not any more.

Robusto

@Araucaria-Him Fuckin' A.

Araucaria - Him

I remember that answer annoying the hell out of me when it was posted. Just after I first joined, I think.

alphabet

@Robusto Yeah, but that saying is only attested decades after the phrase "take the biscuit" became common and the other answers provide actual evidence.

And it has been vanquished.

Xander Henderson

11:56 PM

@tchrist I might enjoy that.

But I didn't know what kibos means.

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