English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2012-10-23 (page 3 of 4)

« first day (712 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (4226 days later) »

2:00 PM

0

Q: Converge and "Verb Confusion"

MS Word has been complaining of a grammatical Word Confusion error when I use converge. Here's my sentence: "Managers had converged the thousands of ideas into a handful of big ideas." If I drop the from the sentence Word does not find any error. Also, if I exchange converged for combined Word ...

grammaticality verbs

Hint: if your question contains the words "Microsoft" and "why", you should be posting a bug report at microsoft.com, not a question on ELU.

2

@JSBձոգչ Yay! high fives

Pro tip: Using MS Word's grammar checker is a rookie move. — Robusto 23 secs ago

Not sure if that is a jinx or not.

user image

Not sure if this is a coke or not.

It is in the South.

@Robusto It is in the South.

2:03 PM

user image

This is a coke in the South too.

Mar 4 '11 at 17:14, by RegDwight

@Kosmonaut Excellent. And thus, another amazingly awesome question was asked and answered behind the scenes.

Matt Эллен

In an alternate universe there is a drink called Proctor Dapper

@MattЭллен American English: the only thing missing is U!

@MattЭллен DC or Marvel?

Matt Эллен

:D

@RegDwighт Image

although not really

2:05 PM

I tried to get myself used to Dr Pepper, with moderate success.

Matt Эллен

what's it like?

I don't remember if I've tried it

It actually is peppery.

i dislike it. that and Mountain Dew. can't understand why anyone drinks either of them

I can drink one now and then. I have to be in the mood.

Not Mountain Dew, though. I'd rather drink mountain dew.

Matt Эллен

What's the worst that could happen?

2:08 PM

A Tyrannosaurus Rex kicks you off your rocker?

Matt Эллен

I can't understand why people drink Pocari Sweat. It's not nice.

First time I hear that name.

Matt Эллен

I guess my taste buds are just too stuck in their ways

is a popular Japanese soft drink and sports drink, manufactured by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. It was launched in 1980 and is now also available in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Pocari Sweat is a mild-tasting, relatively light, non-carbonated sweet beverage and is advertised as an "ion supply drink". It has a mild grapefruit flavor with little aftertaste. Ingredients listed are water, sugar, citric acid, , sodium chloride, potassium chloride, calcium lactate, magnesium carbonate, and flavoring. It is sold in aluminium cans, PET bottles, and as a powder for mixing w...

@RegDwighт popular in Taiwan and Japan

so, not something you'll find in Europe

Sounds like every sugared water everywhere ever.

Matt Эллен

it doesn't taste right.

like there's too much something

metal

it has a metallic taste, I think

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:11 PM

oh, it's an electrolyte drink, like gatorade

Matt Эллен

yeah, like all those things

Sep 3 at 0:03, by Robusto

And who could resist the crisp, refreshing taste of Pocari Sweat?

Way ahead of ya.

Matt Эллен

Me. I can.

@Robusto One day I'll catch up, and you'll be so surprised.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен Just whack him from behind, right after he laps you.

No lapping Matt's Pocari Sweat in this chat.

2

Matt Эллен

2:22 PM

lol

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I can't read that name without thinking "porcine sweat"

Sep 3 at 0:04, by Robusto

user image

Perhaps you'd prefer Hot Calpis?

Lukewarm is where it's at.

Yeah, as in "Gawd, check out that lukewarm chick! She is, like, so tepid, dude!"

I love the word tepid.

2:27 PM

@KitFox I get royalties if you use it, don't forget.

It is so contemptuous.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I love the word "expunge" because it has "sponge" in it.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So that's what happens when Spongebob's show comes to an end? He gets expunged?

Matt Эллен

I enjoy making things disappear into my blind spot

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto what? I haven't seen it yet! spoiler alert, geez

2:29 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You gotta keep up.

2

A: OED Appeals: Antedatings of "headhunter"

1950 From an article called "The Secret Mines of Russia's Germany" in Life Magazine of September 25, 1950: The recruiting agents had nothing to complain about; their dirty trade was paid well. In the first place, they got the average wage of their last their last three months' work in the mi...

This answer was so long and annotated I thought it must be @tchrist. But it was some guy named Hugo. What a poser.

Matt Эллен

lol

@Robusto all in answer to his own posts. poseur^2

@Mitch I didn't notice that. I wonder why he felt the need to get that into the record.

@Robusto and the other 'OED appeal' is the same deal.

What, the OED are trying to crowd-source their research work now? What is the world coming to? — Robusto 9 secs ago

If this is true, the OED just demoted itself from "reliable source" to "Urban Dictionary" status. Someone inform Barrie England.

2:36 PM

@Robusto this is a great question. i wish we had more of this

Matt Эллен

I'm fairly sure the OED has always accepted sources from outside

it has editors

and researchers

they do the hard work of verification

Yes, that's what makes a dictionary run. Or so I understand.

Matt Эллен

so this is no different

@Robusto hasn't it always been 'crowd sourced'? What was that book about the madman and the whatsit by the guy who wrote 'the map that changed the world'?

2:41 PM

@Robusto life would be easier if they just published their rules.

0

Q: Using "in" and "with"

Although I know the clear meaning of commonly used prepositions in English, sometimes, I'm a little confused with them and can not understand the difference between them. A week or so ago, I asked a question on StackOverflow which was titled by me as follows. Varargs in method overloading in Ja...

grammar sentence

Now, this is more like it.

@Robusto he changed it when he fell to the earth?

Also.

@Robusto The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary...

-- and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

Interesting.

2:52 PM

Just like the submitters to Urban Dictionary!!

Those are neither criminal nor insane. Those are just uneducated morons. Or people for short.

the submitters to the OED? See what I did there...see, I turned around what you were saying as though you were talking about Urban Dictionary but I made it look like you were really talking about the OED. I do this a s a service for Jasper.

Matt Эллен

short people aren't necessarily uneducated morons

They have little cars that go beep beep beep.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwighт So do Europeans.

2:55 PM

@MattЭллен You insult morons by that statement. Ha ha..se what I did there? I did it again.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't see how that is relevant to the point. Europeans are short people, too.

Matt Эллен

@Mitch give your obvious wit. can you explain inklose?

@JasperLoy: this is really going to be helpful. You should pay attention instead of 'sleeping'.

@MattЭллен No, I can't do that. hat would ruin the joke. ALso that would ruin the joke. Also, fixing typos would ruin the lack of unreadability.

No! Don't pay attention! Pay me!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

William Chester Minor

William Chester Minor, also known as W. C. Minor (June 1834 – March 26, 1920) was an American army surgeon who, later, was one of the largest contributors of quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary. He was held in a lunatic asylum at the time. Biography Early life Minor was born on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the son of Congregationalist Church missionaries from New England. He had numerous half-siblings, among them Thomas T. Minor, mayor of Seattle, Washington, in the late 1880s. At 14 he was sent to the United States, and finished his medical education in 1863 at Y...

> Haunted by his paranoia, he fatally shot a man named George Merrett, who Minor believed had broken into his room

> Minor's condition deteriorated and in 1902 he cut off his own penis

2:57 PM

C Minor. What did he call his son, C# Major?

Matt Эллен

It's surpising that the tea miner didn't spend more time in Sri Lanka

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Even more shocking: "In 1871 he went to the UK, settling in the slum of Lambeth, in London" They mean "settling in London".

Matt Эллен

London is big, you need to know which slum you're in

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 "subsequently diagnosed with dementia praecox"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch yeah, or as we now call it, schizophrenia

3:01 PM

@JasperLoy aren't you following this? Just chock full of zingers.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

oh wait, you were making a pun

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 "the lowest form of wit", but yes.

where the explanation makes the 'pain' that much worse. er... pun that much worse.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch worse than living 18 years praecox? I dunno

Geez Mitch, today you're really a pun in the ass

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, the nihilists were the ones who cut off his chohnson.

@Robusto there's nothing in that.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 a flash in the pun

3:04 PM

@MattЭллен Which reminds me: What's the deal with 99-year leases for real estate in London? Doesn't anyone ever sell property there?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto Maybe nobody can afford to buy it

@Robusto maybe like Hong Kong?

They colonized their own land, and then will have to give it back up to themselves?

Matt Эллен

@Robusto I don't know. My brother owns a flat there, but he lives in it.

which slum?

@Mitch Mayfair.

3:07 PM

Aren't the rents/prices terible in london no matter where?

Matt Эллен

Aye, London is ridiculously expensive to rent or own, even for London.

@Robusto lately he's been overheard there

HI

@RegDwighт Any idea why this one was down voted? english.stackexchange.com/a/87791/17953

No.

In fact, I gotta commute.

omm, okay.

3:14 PM

@Noah It was just one down vote. One person who didn't care for it. Who knows?

@Mitch Prices are pretty good in Nebraska.

@Noah The wide open spaces...

wait, that's Oklahoma.

Nebraska is all claustrophobic and confining.

@Mitch Aside from its people, the place is in the middle of nowhere.

@Mitch you didnt mention corn?

I think you're mistaken. Nebraska is the geographic -and- population midpoint of the contiguous 48 states.

@Noah or soybean.

or the wavin wheat

@Mitch Come on. If you go to, say Lincoln, you will have a hard time finding a flight back home. So, it is in the middle of nowhere.

Lincoln Airport is the size of a big kitchen :)

I should have said chicken. LOL

What's up @MattЭллен. You seem to be a bit quite these days.

Is adding this in an answer offensive or not appropriate for English.SE(the guy is Mr.Romney)

Matt Эллен

3:30 PM

I'm as quiet as normal, I think...

> I wouldn't expect a guy running for presidency to have such a grammar. But I don't blame that poor fella— he slips up all the time.

Matt Эллен

it's kinda off topic

what's the question?

@MattЭллен english.stackexchange.com/posts/87791/revisions

@MattЭллен this is the question english.stackexchange.com/questions/87784/…

Matt Эллен

Well, I don't understand what is meant by "such a grammar"

@MattЭллен did you the see the question?

Matt Эллен

3:33 PM

yeah :)

@MattЭллен You're such a grammar.

Matt Эллен

grammar is uncountable

@Robusto you're old enough to be my grammar

@MattЭллен I don't think that's true.

@M

@MattЭллен Not true. Russian grammar, French grammar, English grammar—all are grammars, and countable.

@MattЭллен Google Book turns up many hits for the same usage.

Matt Эллен

3:35 PM

fair enough

@MattЭллен >But meanings are only partly determined by grammatical rules; accordingly, such a grammar is a contradiction. Moreover, it is 'not at all clear' that the contribution of rules can be separated from that of other factors. If it cannot, there is no other

The thing you can't do is buy grammar by the pint.

Matt Эллен

@Noah I still don't understand what you mean by Romney having such a grammar.

@MattЭллен Well it is a reference to his speech.

Matt Эллен

@Noah it doesn't make sense to me to say someone "has a grammar"

3:38 PM

@MattЭллен OP is asking if Romney's usage of with regards to is okay.

Matt Эллен

@Noah I read the question

Good day.

@MattЭллен > No, it is our good fortune to have such a grammar with notes now in the press, and to be published next term. " I hear it is a chargeable work, and wish the pub- liflier to have customers of all that have need of such a book

Matt Эллен

Good day @Mahnax! Happy birthday.

@Noah that's referring to a written our set of grammar rules.

@MattЭллен Hi, and thank you.

3:41 PM

@MattЭллен So how would you rephrase it?

Matt Эллен

@Noah maybe "to speak in such a way", or "to know better". If you want to use grammar you could say "to have such bad grammar", or "to use such bad grammar".

@MattЭллен what about to have such grammar

without a

Matt Эллен

yes, that would work

@MattЭллен Thank you. So what's the difference between a grammar and grammar? Just in a few words.

Matt Эллен

well, grammar (uncountable) is the rules you have in your head that tells you how to form sentences. grammar (countable) is a type of grammar, or the rules written down.

that's how I see it

grammar in the dictionary

3:51 PM

@MattЭллен omm, thanks.

Matt Эллен

no touble :)

toodle pip!

@MattЭллен Is "dictionary" grammatical? Thought for the day.

4:08 PM

@Noah 'a grammar' is a set of rules. To complain about the speaker's misuse of 'regards' is to complain about one rule not the entire grammar. Saying 'such a grammar' is metonymy to such a hyperbolic extreme (saying his whole grammar is wrong for one misuse) that it sounds ... ungrammatical.

@Robusto Your "dictionary" is. is this a "friend's" dictionary?

Hello.

I just got a text message from a friend I saw two weeks ago saying just "how are you?".

What am I supposed to answer to that?

@Cerberus Tell him you've become bicurious.

cornbread ninja

dang.

@Noah They are lucky to have an airport. What about the poor people miles from the middle of nowhere? They have to drive for hours to get to the airport. And the car? The driveway is halfway through to the next county. That leaves getting out of bed in the morning.

cornbread ninja

@Mahnax, please visit the snack exchange.

4:18 PM

@Robusto Um that seems ever weirder. Why don't I stick with my filler phrases and you with yours, huh?

@Cerberus I don't have filler phrases, that's just it.

He should tell his text friends that you're bicurious?

@Robusto Then use your empty phrases.

Or should I say hollow?

@Cerberus Here's my only empty phrase: "".

@Mitch Robusto seems to have a acquired a new interest in this matter, or should I say curiosity?

4:20 PM

@Cerberus Zoidberg holds head and groans in shame

@Robusto A bunch of punctuation marks? Why not?

@Cerberus I am π-curious.

mmm....π

Which reminds me, I have to snap a picture of some Greek motto that starts off the book I'm currently reading, see if you can translate it for me.

It's something racy I bet.

4:23 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 "Pooves" is not the irregular plural of "poof", and Google isn't actually saying it is. "Pooves" is the plural of "poove". Google says the word has alternate spellings: "poof", "poove", and "pouf", each with their corresponding (regular) plural form.

Nah. The Greeks weren't much into racing. That was the Romans.

Puff => puvves.

@Mitch Hmm a cartoon character, I'm afraid I don't know him.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MετάEd I don't think it's saying that. Where does it have "poove"? link

i.e. poove it.

[ define pooves ]

@Cerberus Fair enough, he doesn't know you. And he's not real. He's an annoyingly depressed character, and anything that can be interpreted as a shaming or psychologically disastrous event is taken that way by him. even if irrelevant.

4:35 PM

Haha.

pooves

We should start using that tag.

user image

What is this kind of head wrap called? You see it on Marat and others.

A hat wrap.

I have no idea.

It was not uncommon in the 17th century, I believe.

user image

It looks like a towel wrapped around the head.

@Cerberus 18th.

I think it's just a scarf or piece of cloth wrapped around the head.

@Robusto It was apparently also used in the 18th century, but I know it mainly from 17th-century paintings.

Was it an attempt to affect a turban? So-called "Turkish" music was becoming popular in Europe in the 18th century. Perhaps other fashions were as well.

4:43 PM

I don't believe so.

I think it wasn't fashionable, more like a sort of convenient head cover for when you're doing house work or somesuch.

It must have a name.

@Cerberus It doesn't look altogether convenient. It looks dynamically unstable, actually.

@Robusto That's just the painter's showing off his skill.

The wrapped scarf may have had some significance or meaning in a painting.

It is a "house cap".

I'm not sure it is a cap.

A cap is usually not wrapped?

cornbread ninja

scoff

Folks, please defer your up votes till Oct 24. Thanks a ton. :) — Kris 2 hours ago

4:56 PM

> Those who take prerelease products off campus are heavily restricted when using them with other people (even other Apple employees) in the vicinity. Internal security teams covertly monitor which IRC channels employees like to hang out in.

So Apple is now the Stasi too.

@Cerberus You are right. I was misreading search results.

Ah OK.

Google Books link

See page 114.

Ah, nice.

Wigs are the strangest thing ever to have befallen on Europe.

« first day (712 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (4226 days later) »

Transcript for

Oct '1223

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

Not for the faint of heart or those easily triggered by Englis...

phrase-requests pronunciation single-word-requests synonyms

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile