English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

00:29

Word of the day: menckenian

Mencken +‎ -ian Menckenian (comparative more Menckenian, superlative most Menckenian) Of or pertaining to Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (1880–1956), influential American writer and critic.

Robusto

00:53

@alphabet But "He looks a fool" is fine.

This is a puzzle. See if you can guess the answer.

Alexander

01:05

@Robusto I have no good idea... Three cardinal virtues? Sorry. English is not my native, and my sight (vision) is quite poor.

Criggie

02:01

@Robusto One-on-three of the birb population is infected with ticks ?

alphabet

02:26

Resumptive pronoun of the day, from a YouTube video: "This next story is one of those that you're really not gonna know where it's going at first."

@Robusto Yeah, you do occasionally see look with NPs, though it can sound somewhat awkward or old-fashioned.

Alexander

02:57

@alphabet can we somehow have a private room? I'm tired with disturbing other people by my presence in this chat.

Conrado

@CowperKettle Yes, this is one of the truest underpinning facts of engineering. Perhaps of science, too.

alphabet

03:24

@Alexander What's your reason for thinking you're disturbing other people?

Alexander

03:36

@alphabet Perhaps I'm paranoic. I need to fight my obsessions. If nobody bothers, then OK, we can continue talking in this chat. Believe me, this chat IS useful.)

alphabet

@Alexander Yes. You have a self-destructive fear of other people disliking you that leads you to constantly seek reassurance, as has been noted before in this chat.

Alexander

@alphabet thanks, very scientific (scientifical??) style. I like it. Can I also ask what city are you from?

alphabet

@Alexander Boston. But you'd better learn to deal with these feelings in a more productive way, or at least to stop constantly expressing them in chat, since the constant entreaties are a bit much.

Alexander

So you are from Boston just like Mitch, am I right?

alphabet

@Alexander Yes. We've met each other in person, in fact.

Alexander

03:45

Great. Thus, you are friends. (I suppose you aren't relatives?)

alphabet

@Alexander No, we are not. We met in this chatroom, not beforehand.

Alexander

And what's Boston's population nowadays, how many people are there?

alphabet

@Alexander 654,776, according to Wikipedia.

Not particularly large, so it was an unlikely coincidence that there'd be two people from there in this chatroom.

Alexander

So you are not unlike us! According to the results of the 2014 census, the city proper had a population of 532,513, while the population of the Municipality of Chișinău (which includes the city itself and other nearby communities) was 700,000.

I wonder what public transport is there in Boston... Buses? Trams?

alphabet

@Alexander Both. Boston has a surprisingly good public transit system for a city of its size--one of the best in the country, actually.

Alexander

03:55

I used to love rules of traffic circulation until recent times... Then I stopped liking them (did I use gerund correctly rather than infinitive? they stopped reading the announcement vs they stopped to read...). Still, I know Russia's traffic rules very well, quite well.

Do your vehicles (in the USA) have to keep right rather than left?

Vikas

@Alexander Yes

Alexander

@Vikas but YOU are from India.))))))) I know your vehicles keep left.

Vikas

@Alexander No one else can know India's traffic rules.

@Alexander Yeah.

Alexander

Oh, I've understood. I did not ping @alphabet.

alphabet

@Alexander Yes, that gerund is correct.

Alexander

04:00

@alphabet Can I ask a more specific question. In the United States (or, if rules differ from state to state, then in BOSTON), can you overtake at a intersection?

alphabet

@Alexander What do you mean by "overtake"?

Alexander

bypassing a slower car

alphabet

I'm not quite sure what you mean. I also don't have a car so I can't say I'm up to date on the details of local traffic laws.

Alexander

E.g. he is moving at 10mph, you are moving at 50mph. You horn but he keeps moving slowly. However, you are currently at an intersection. Would the rules allow you overtaking him? Oh, you don't have a car. You are a saint!!!! Such a good person.

I wish to share a video so badly.

ДТП ПОВОРОТ НАЛЕВО VS ОБГОН

►

Разбор полетов «Обгон на перекрестке» — ЯндексВидео

►

The red car's driver is NOT guilty.

The blue car's driver is NOT guilty either.

The traffic rules ARE guilty however!

CowperKettle

05:03

Evan Gershkovich

Evan Gershkovich (born October 26, 1991) is an American journalist and reporter at The Wall Street Journal covering Russia. He was detained by Russia's Federal Security Service on charges of espionage in March 2023, marking the first time a journalist working for an American outlet had been arrested on charges of spying in Russia since the Cold War. The White House and media advocacy groups have condemned the arrest. On July 19, 2024, Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being convicted in an espionage trial. Experts have speculated that the motivation behind the order for...

He was sentenced to 16 years of jail yesterday in Yekaterinburg.

CowperKettle

05:32

Large language models outperform mental and medical health care professionals in identifying obsessive-compulsive disorder

Xanne

07:06

Wordle 1,127 4/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

@CowperKettle And a sample of 16–actually 16 so-called vignettes.

Xanne

07:53

#WhenTaken #144 (20.07.2024)

I scored 846/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 45 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 189 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 805 km - 🗓️ 4 yrs - ⚡ 172 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 100 km - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 194 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 6 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 200 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 12389 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 91 / 200

Better than I usually do.

CowperKettle

08:42

@Xanne Yes, there must be someone to compose the vignettes first

Michael Rybkin

11:44

Hi, guys. Does this sentence sound fine to you?

I am not bloodguilty. I didn't kill anyone.

Robusto

12:51

@MichaelRybkin It's understandable, though novel. A neologism, but I kinda like it.

Alexander

13:21

Gray highlight in Wordle: what does it actually mean?

Doesn't it mean that the highlighted letter does not exist in our word at all?

imgur.com/a/nMIz9Ua

My fourth attempt was "staff". The first F is in green while the second, in gray. Kind of absurd: if we have the letter F and it once appeared in green, than you cannot say our word doesn't contain it!

The Empty String Photographer

13:51

@Alexander That means you have one F in the correct location and that there are no other F letters.

Robusto

Wordle 1,127 4/6

⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟨🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Vikas

Who is more likely to win? Biden or any other Democratic candidate?

Robusto

@Vikas A player to be named later.

Vikas

Player?

Robusto

Daily Octordle #908
3️⃣🕛
🔟4️⃣
5️⃣9️⃣
🕚6️⃣
Score: 60

@Vikas Candidate. "A player to be named later" is a common expression in trades between sports teams, so I was riffing on that.

jlliagre

14:04

Wordle 1,127 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

@jlliagre Pulled that one out of thin air. ;-)

jlliagre

@Robusto I have to admit I took advantage of a spoiler.

Vikas

@Robusto 👍

Michael Rybkin

@Robusto Thank you very much.

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #908
🕚4️⃣
🕛🕐
🔟9️⃣
6️⃣🟥
Score: 79

Robusto

14:12

@jlliagre Sequence is hard today. Good luck.

Daily Sequence Octordle #908
5️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
🔟🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 72

jlliagre

@Robusto Struggling with it...

Daily Sequence Octordle #908
6️⃣7️⃣
8️⃣9️⃣
🔟🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 76

I did better with WhenTaken:

#WhenTaken #144 (20.07.2024)

I scored 976/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 4 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 191 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 212.0 metres - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 199 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 19.4 metres - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 199 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 241 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 192 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 35.0 metres - 🗓️ 5 yrs - ⚡ 195 / 200

https://whentaken.com

Lambie

@tchrist I would like to ask you to hop over to the Meta Lusophone site (haha) and take at look at how one user insulted the mods. Also, me, many times. He called me a language vandal. I have some spelling issues (a kind of dyslexia) which I have explained, yet he goes on and on. Thanks.

correction: He. No caps.

Robusto

14:32

@jlliagre I'm not sure how I could beat that. Maybe I shouldn't play today ... ^_^

user 85795

Don't chicken out on me now, pal. Where is your Olympic competitive spirit?!

:P

Lambie

@MichaelRybkin Guilty of bloodshed, I'd say.

Michael Rybkin

16:08

@Lambie Thank you.

user 85795

I'd say it the same way as Lambie.

Cerberus

@Lambie Corrected he and the capitals.

That sounds like an unfortunate situation.

user 85795

yup :(

Vikas

16:33

Wordle 1,127 4/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

CowperKettle

Word of the day: a broad waist sash, usually pleated, which is often worn with single-breasted dinner jackets (or tuxedos); adopted by British military officers in colonial India, where they saw it worn by sepoys (Indian soldiers) of the British Indian Army.

Lambie

@Cerberus I don't know what you are talking about...

@CowperKettle cummerbund

CowperKettle

I first came across this word while browsing Ozon.Ru yesterday

> Borrowed from Hindustani کمر بند / कमरबंद (kamarband), from Classical Persian کمربند (kamarband), from کمر (kamar, “waist”) + بند (band, “band”).

Lambie

@user85795 Who said they can't? I said I didn't know what he was talking about.

user 85795

nvm

Lambie

16:43

@user85795 I don't know what nvm means either.

user 85795

never mind

Cerberus

@Lambie Did you see your message to which I replied?

@CowperKettle I have a cummerbund.

Lambie

I repeat: I saw what you said about he and capitals and do not understand how that applies to me. Could I be clearer in my expressing my not understanding?

Cerberus

It hides the less stylish areas where the shirt enters the trousers.

@Lambie Have you read your own messages? How can my reply not be clear?

2 hours ago, by Lambie

@tchrist I would like to ask you to hop over to the Meta Lusophone site (haha) and take at look at how one user insulted the mods. Also, me, many times. He called me a language vandal. I have some spelling issues (a kind of dyslexia) which I have explained, yet he goes on and on. Thanks.

2 hours ago, by Lambie

correction: He. No caps.

I made the correction and told you about it. That was all.

Lambie

@Cerberus I still do not understand. I wrote correction: He. I don't remember writing no caps.

Cerberus

16:52

@Lambie Look at your own message. You wrote that.

I can't help you remember things other than by pointing out your own writing.

Lambie

You wrote: @Lambie Corrected he and the capitals. ////I corrected he to He. And there was nothing wrong with any capital letters.

Cerberus

@Lambie That is not the same thing as "I don't know what you're talking about".

You knew very well.

You just forgot and didn't look up what exact details I corrected.

I corrected HE to He, and THanks to Thanks, and I corrected a few other small things while I was at it.

Look how much you are making me type, just because you refuse to read your own messages.

Alexander

17:39

Thanks. Thus, each letters counts separately. One F (first) was in the correct place and the second F is a different story, it doesn't exist. Makes more sense now! This site is helpful, and Wordle is such a great and pleasant game you cannot imagine! It was like a great discovery for me so thanks for all the community.
I still wonder about their vocabulary though: which words they have and which they don't. I entered "Putin" and they accepted it although it all was in gray letters (yesterday's word was "refer"; I think it wouldn't be a spoiler anymore). However, "aeiou" is NOT accepted.(((

Also, I am curious about hyphens, apostrophes and plurals. And part of speech. I think the first two aren't allowed at all, so those symbols can't be present in the guessed word. But what about plural? E.g. taxes. Or can the word be an interjection like 'hello'?

alphabet

Resumptive pronoun of the day, from a podcast on missing persons cases: "By 'Bigfoot' I do not mean the Gimlin Tape Bigfoot, I mean a more nebulous thing that I haven't decided what it is yet."

Cerberus

Hmm yeah, there is no good solution there.

The only way is to let go of the subordinate (relative) clause.

alphabet

That's one of the more boring, well-documented kinds of resumptive pronouns; because of the wh-island rule, *"a more nebulous thing that I haven't decided what is yet" is wrong.

Cerberus

Yeah.

Alexander

@alphabet glad to see you. Can we continue our morning conversation? You told me you don't have a car. Neither do I (that was a very recent grammar rule for me; we weren't taught it in the university). Chisinau has trolley buses instead of trams.

alphabet

17:53

@Alexander Most native speakers have no idea that that rule exists unless they take some sort of linguistics class.

Alexander

@alphabet thanks. It means my English level is upper-intermediate.

Can I ask if collecting awards is legal in the United States? I'm not sure if I had to use "awards" or "rewards" but I suppose the former is correct. Medals, orders, badges etc.

Robusto

18:38

@user85795 I'm retired. Haven't I made that clear yet?

Robusto

18:50

Ah, what the hell ...

#WhenTaken #144 (20.07.2024)

I scored 935/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 925 km - 🗓️ 9 yrs - ⚡ 159 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 221 km - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 191 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 2 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 200 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 14 km - 🗓️ 3 yrs - ⚡ 196 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 31.8 metres - 🗓️ 8 yrs - ⚡ 189 / 200

https://whentaken.com

Still ~40 points behind @jlliagre, who must have ESP.

user 85795

19:03

Thanks for trying pal 😉

In other news, I just downloaded the official Olympics app, and now I'm uninstalling it because it doesn't have the one sport I'm interested in.

🤬😡😢

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle given that these models still train on diagnostic data provided by healthcare professionals, such a result could only mean any of three things: Many medical professionals that should, don't know about OCD, or that doctors are very inconsistent about diagnosing OCD, or that the gold standard used differs greatly from how most doctors (based on sound science or not) diagnose OCD.

It doesn't mean we should ditch doctors and let AI diagnose OCD, with or without human supervision. Not yet.

user 85795

Not. Ever.

Cerberus

19:26

#WhenTaken #144 (20.07.2024)

I scored 947/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 3 km - 🗓️ 15 yrs - ⚡ 170 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 27.7 metres - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 199 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 2 km - 🗓️ 5 yrs - ⚡ 195 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 24 km - 🗓️ 8 yrs - ⚡ 188 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 33.8 metres - 🗓️ 5 yrs - ⚡ 195 / 200

https://whentaken.com

Lambie

Oh yes, I am a consummate liar and cheater and everything in between. This was my original post: // I would like to ask you to hop over to the Meta Lusophone site (haha) and take at look at how one user insulted the mods. Also, me, many times. He called me a language vandal. I have some spelling issues (a kind of dyslexia) which I have explained, yet he goes on and on. Thanks.//
correction: He. No caps. //Like I said, I DO NOT REMEMBER writing no caps. But maybe I did. In the future, please try to abstain from correcting my posts.

Cerberus

@Lambie You posted what you wanted corrected. It seemed reasonable to assume that that was what you wanted.

If not, you could have just said so.

Instead of making me spend a lot of time talking about this.

@Lambie You do not remember, but you can read that you wrote exactly that. So read before messaging me twice, "I have no idea what you are talking about".

@Lambie That is not what you wrote, just look at the message history:

This is what you wrote.

@Robusto Googling makes it a lot more fun.

Robusto

@Cerberus Good job!

Cerberus

Merci.

@Robusto Did you know what the occasion was for the first one?

What type of gathering?

Lambie

Oh yeah, make sure you all come down on me like a ton of bricks. I did not post what I wanted corrected. I wrote the correction. Why are you so bent on this?

Robusto

19:36

@Cerberus SPOILER

Cerberus

@Lambie You posted a message with errors, and immediately after you posted a message saying what the corrections would be about.

Robusto

@Cerberus Oh! Let me review that one.

Cerberus

@Robusto I agree on this one, btw. And did you also guess the country based on the flags?

Robusto

Yeah, no. I just guessed on that one, based on flags.

Cerberus

@Robusto OK I see. I think that is why I got closer, then. I figured that kind of occasion might be more likely to take place in a different city.

Robusto

19:40

@Cerberus I didn't see flags in that one, and in fact I was in a different country entirely.

Cerberus

Spoiler.

Robusto

Your crying test worked.

Cerberus

@Robusto Ah I see it now.

Lambie

@Cerberus It is customary to write /correction: [put it here]. That does NOT mean I'm asking for anybody to do it. I'm putting that in for readers. There were two minor caps issues. No big deal. Like I have said TWICE, I do not remember writing: No caps, but maybe I did. So what? Does everybody have to be perfect all the time?

Cerberus

I replied to the message where you mentioned correction, and then you said you had "no idea" what I replied to, twice. You didn't need to remember, it was right there in the message I linked to and referred to again.

What I would have done, in your place, had someone applied a correction I posted against my wishes: "Oh, thanks, but I actually didn't mean for that correction to be applied, sorry".

2

Lambie

20:09

@Cerberus I didn't understand to what it referred. Just stop please. Apparently, everyone has to be an angel or something. I have explained myself enough.

Cerberus

Indeed.

jlliagre

20:20

@Robusto I wish I had, or maybe not. Anyway, my so-called ESP is not perfect. The closer the worst. Both of you did better than me regarding the location of #4, which was unguessable. My choice was spoiler.

Robusto

@jlliagre SPOILER

Cerberus

@jlliagre Ah, that's funny.

I just picked the most well-known place in that country.

I had no idea beyond that.

jlliagre

@Robusto Yes, a wise choice. I didn't pick it because I know no such event in that city which I didn't recognized in the picture anyway and also because WhenTaken tend to select notable locations and events, while that precise one is obscure.

Cerberus

Yeah, second-guessing the website's motivations is I guess part of the game...

jlliagre

@Cerberus Indeed, I'm generally doing much better these days than when I started playing.

Robusto

20:31

@Cerberus Second-guessing has its own set of problems. On a number of occasions I've talked myself out of the correct location or date because of a few minor details, which made me feel smart right up until they were proved drastically wrong.

Cerberus

@jlliagre Same, but mainly because now I'm allowed to Google.

@Robusto Haha, yes, that can absolutely happen just as well.

So second-guessing may not be wise.

jlliagre

Third-guessing maybe.

Cerberus

More is better.

jlliagre

The issue is when you have all these guesses, you still have to pick one.

Cerberus

Exactly.

You go back and forth.

jlliagre

20:46

When I first see a picture, I immediately have a country or region in mind, then I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself I was wrong or not. Sometimes, a detail helps, window shutters or not, right or wrong-hand drive. About the year, outside the few cases where it is obvious (written somewhere or a well know event), I look at the cars, how the people are dressed, if they carry smartphones or old style cameras, bell bottoms jeans, face masks, how do they compare to my family photos, etc.

Robusto

20:56

@jlliagre And then there's the Gestalt of the pictures.

Like yesterday I pegged one picture based on pictures I had seen from my grandmother. Turned out I was fairly close in location, and also in time.

It wasn't anything identifiable except for a feeling.

Mitch

@M.A.R. there's a difficulty with unsupervised automated AI predictors... Sure for some prediction doctors might be at 80% and a stats model at 90%, and a doctor supervising an AI at 95%,-in a stidy-, but if implemented in day to day practice, the doc will just quickly assume the AI is right (ie no actual supervision or checking the AIs work), so the accuracy goes back down.

@jlliagre that's my problem with the dates...could be anywhere within a 30 year period...and I get anxious trying to settle on just one

@Cerberus that made geoguessr a lot of fun for me, sometimes being able to get within meters of the correct spot.

Robusto

Fucking NYT SB won't accept trochaic ... seriously, folks, you'd think terms from literature and poetry shouldn't be off limits.

Mitch

You had me at 'fucking'

Robusto

21:15

But they do accept haricot, which term like 16 people in the US know.

jlliagre

@Robusto Half of whom are in that chat.

No results were found for haricot. Showing results for haircut. Etymonline, no being part of the group, does its best.

Robusto

21:30

@jlliagre The Free Dictionary—or group of dictionaries—has the broadest vocabulary, I find

Mitch

@Robusto because they'll let any word in

Robusto

@Mitch That's in the spirit of this site, let's not forget. There are no wrong words or ungrammatical constructions, that's just how people talk.

buffs fingernails and grins

Mitch

21:46

@Robusto Some words... just shouldn't be.

Or, on the other side, just aren't there yet.

Relevantly, what's the adjectival form of 'spondee'?

Robusto

22:39

@Mitch Spondaic, of course.

halt9k

23:02

Can someone please hint, why question here was disliked a bit too much https://english.stackexchange.com/q/624484/377727?
Option 1) I suspect is that whole LLM mentioning is a bad tone here: I do know a lot of contributors put soul into answers and mentions may be unpleasant to them. And it was hinted in the comments, but not confirmed.
Option 2) I suspect is just too bad phrasing - since it was necessary to update question for the comments, it's a bit hard to update it fast correctly for me.
Option 3) may be just too easy mood, asking a questions requires more awareness

If that's LLM related, hard for me to settle on "minimal use and mentioning on SO English" because tools like that weighted words graph ranking and easy frequency count can be useful if they work correctly

M.A.R.

@halt9k it's two downvotes only, hard to read much into it. But if I had to hazard a guess, downvoters probably agreed with Weatherwave in that it's sort of a dictionary question (whether lr not that assessment is correct).

A post with two upvotes and two downvotes isn't unusual. If your post had been exceptionally controversial, there might have been deeper reasons for it.

halt9k

@M.A.R. thank you, just incorrect question guess reason is fair

jlliagre

23:49

@Robusto Indeed but Etymonline is more creative. From now, I suspect I'll always think about haricot when haircut is mentioned and reciprocally :-)

French idiom of the day: C'est la fin des haricots ! - There's nothing left/to hope. It's the end of the world, game over, etc. Lit. "It's the end of the beans".

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…