English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

alphabet

00:01

@Cerberus Go get rabies.

Criggie

is...that a compliment in Raccoonese ?

alphabet

No.

99% mortality rate.

Robusto

00:20

@alphabet If not caught in time.

misk94555

00:56

"If you are going, we could meet there. Else if you aren't going, what can I bring for you [from the trip]?"
Is this an appropriate use of "else" ? Do civilian [non-technical , non-programmers] use "else" like that?
Let's say that medium is e-mail, as opposed to speech.

GratefulDisciple

01:07

@misk94555 I'm a programmer but using "else" still sounds too formal. Why not use "but" or "otherwise," ?

@misk94555 That's from Prov 11:5, see various translations here, NLT being the most modern colloquial. This usage for "smart" (v), see definition, is that only British English? It is still current, yes? @Robusto

Robusto

"Oh, that smarts." (Demoman Voice Lines)

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alphabet

01:23

@misk94555 No. "Else" is essentially never used that way in speech or writing, even by programmers.

Dictionaries do mention that it's sometimes used as a shortened form of "or else" with the meaning "otherwise," but to my knowledge that use of the word "else" (without a preceding "or") is vanishingly rare.

@GratefulDisciple That sense of "smart" is certainly found in American English, but it's not a particularly common word.

Robusto

@alphabet It's rare if you don't read a lot.

alphabet

@Robusto I read, and have read, quite a lot.

So no.

It's not rare if you only read things written a century ago, I suppose.

Robusto

01:40

@alphabet I'm not talking about Blue Boy or programming tomes.

alphabet

@Robusto I read, and have read, a whole lot more than those things. Don't try to tell me how much I read; frankly, if you think this is common, I think you read less than I do.

Robusto

@alphabet I'm just reacting to your smug putdown of classic literature.

alphabet

@Robusto I'm not saying classic literature is bad. But the original question was about contemporary usage; if you read more things written recently you'll find that this use of "else" has essentially died out.

Criggie

else what ?

Robusto

@alphabet It's used when a writer or speaker wants to inject a bit of a riff into a statement. Make it stand out, that sort of thing.

alphabet

01:48

@Robusto Quite rare in my experience, though I can't say I have data on it. I don't think I ever use it; "otherwise" and "if not" are the usual ways of expressing that idea.

Criggie

else 80 aircrafts, what else?

alphabet

Sorry for being a bit too combative, but saying I "don't read a lot" is a fairly extreme and false insult.

Robusto

@alphabet Well, from what I've seen you're not a colorful writer. That's not a bad thing; the world needs straightforward prose. But that's not the whole shebang, but some part of it.

alphabet

@Robusto If you're trying to sound either flowery or old-fashioned or literary for rhetorical effect, you can of course use "else," along with a large number of words and constructions you don't see much elsewhere.

Robusto

@alphabet Nah, that ain't the whole of it, and if you're smart as I think you may be you don't really think that.

alphabet

01:59

@Robusto Not to sound a bit too much like Strunk & White, but as a matter of style I'd say that, if you're not writing in a straightforward way, you'd better have a reason for it.

Robusto

@alphabet Perhaps I chose the wrong word. Maybe "pedestrian" is a better word for what I mean.

alphabet

@Robusto That may largely be an effect of the fact that I'm writing in a chatroom, not drafting an essay; I'd use less "gonna"s and "dunno"s elsewhere.

Robusto

Your style is your style. It's like a fingerprint.

alphabet

That said, in more formal writing I do try fairly hard to avoid the sort of stylistic embellishment that distracts people from the substance of whatever I'm trying to say.

Robusto

You still don't get it.

alphabet

02:14

I don't get what?

Robusto

I'm not talking about "stylistic embellishment."

alphabet

So you're talking about what?

Robusto

I'm talking about making prose interesting, readable, enjoyable.

You can't bore people into understanding what you want to express.

Mitch

@alphabet so you're saying there's a chance of surviving.

jlliagre

@misk94555 Sounds fine to me. Just don't forget the ending fi to avoid a syntax error. ;-)

alphabet

02:22

@Robusto I do admit I'd be bad at writing novels. My style isn't very aesthetically impressive. I blame too much time reading and writing analytic philosophy.

Mitch

@alphabet Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?

Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?

@Robusto you can totally beat it into them though.

Robusto

@Mitch That's the mistake a lot of people make.

When you were in school, did you get the most out of the boring classes or the engaging ones?

Mitch

I know, they should just stop struggling and accept what I say, or else the beating will continue

@Robusto I was too school for cool man

I dropped out of school after failing kimdergarten

Those teachers man with their rules and politeness and shit.

Straitjackets and naptime.

People aren't crazy, it's sane people trying to act rationally in a crazy system.

Fingerpainting is for people with no talent.

alphabet

@Robusto I'm not sure how obvious this is in chat, but usually I aim more for precision and completeness than providing a fun-filled edutainment experience.

Mitch

Does it not contain any of those things, number quantity, experimental reasoning and shit, then it's probably entertaining.

Every equation you add to a text halves the audience.

Except for log tables...those get thumbed through constantly.

Well...

Not anymore now that we got those fancy slide rules.

The Curta mechanical calculator was for wusses.

Slide some levers for digits, crank as many times as needed, read off the answer.

That's not calculating, that's complicated pencil pushing.

So now I'm wondering...

Was David Bowie...

A poet...

Or...

Over medicated?

alphabet

02:47

On a purely stylistic level, the best book I've read in quite a long time was William Langewiesche's American Ground. (He's the guy who wrote that MH370 article for the Atlantic.) Maybe I'm the only person who likes his writing that much.

Anyway, I have no idea how he does it.

If I could write like that, I'd...OK, there's no way I'd have the patience to write something that long.

My arguments for raccoon liberation would be even more overwhelmingly persuasive.

Robusto

@alphabet You really can't respond without a putdown of some sort, can you?

alphabet

@Robusto Who was I putting down? I was defending the way I write, not saying anything negative about anyone.

This entire conversation started with you criticizing how much I read. After I rejected that, you switched to attacking my writing style.

I'm sorry if I did something to anger you, but I don't see a reason for this.

Robusto

You know exactly what you were doing.

Mitch

Let's hold hands at the dinner table, close our eyes, and pray to the Lord that we too will also look as good as Oprah Winfrey does at 70.

alphabet

@Robusto No I do not. If I did, I wouldn't have done it; I have no desire to make you feel bad.

Robusto

03:03

I wasn't attacking you, I was putting out another explanation for your assertion.

alphabet

@Robusto I'm sorry if you didn't mean it that way, but I'd consider "you don't read a lot" a pretty brutal personal insult that seemed entirely unprovoked.

@Mitch Let's try sheetcaking.

Mitch

Best laugh of the DNC convention: John Legend and Sheila E playing Prince's Let's Go Crazy with it's super strong beat and the camera zooming in on a white delegate smiling and bopping and clapping in the most out of rhythm possible.

@alphabet I don't care for sheet cake anymore. When I was a kid it was awesome, cake, icing, saving the flowers to eat later.

Now it's just a big block of processed sugar

alphabet

@Mitch We all know that a better way of dealing with your feelings is to eat an entire bag of Milano cookies.

Usually I end up just throwing the bag of Milano cookies at the TV instead. I have a closet full of cheap TVs so I can replace them every time I shatter one.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet I'm in the same boat; reading too much analytical prose (computer science, theology, and secondary Biblical studies) while discovering how in recent decades the rave has been that certain Biblical books turned out to have a lot more literary qualities with styles still needing to be discovered with more research into contemporaneous ancient writings.

alphabet

03:18

@GratefulDisciple Once you read enough works in metaphysics about whether objects are bundles of instantiations of properties or bare particulars to which those instantiations belong through a sui generis "nexus" relationship, you end up losing your mind. Part of it, anyway.

Metaethics is fun because it starts with "What does it mean for something to be good or bad?" and ends up with "Is nonanalytic reductionism incompatible with supervenience?" or "Is there a difference between saying 'X' and saying 'it is true that X'?"

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto One time I encountered a Great Course on writing news article where she actually encourage the would-be-journalists to make it a novel style to increase the reader's acceptance and retention because then it becomes more entertaining to read ! And I said to myself, wow if this become prevalent, I better be careful when reading newspapers so I don't be emotionally manipulated into accepting the between-the-line framing of the journalist's surreptitious bias!

alphabet

It will not surprise you that there are like five different schools of thought related to that second question and all of them have people who write 200-page books defending them.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Yes, metaethics is a lot of fun from lightly skimming through sample works, but I have yet to explore 20th century theorists in more depth. I've been too comfortable in the medieval way of doing ethics that ties human nature, theology, and psychology heavily into ethics following Aristotle.

Mitch

@alphabet I like their cousins better...Brussels? Florentines? But yeah have you ever considered -mossing- the TV? Saves cash in the long run.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet It has been years since I eat a whole bag of this in one sitting and I do approve that it's a great way to deal with one's emotions if you have some BMI number to spare :-).

Mitch

03:26

@alphabet and then you think. Hm why not shoplift this Playboy magazine.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple What does irk me is the (increasing?) tendency of journalists to abuse the historical present in order to sound more "engaging."

@GratefulDisciple I more or less ended up with that view also (as have many people in the analytic tradition, e.g. Alasdair MacIntyre).

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Yes. It's a postmodern era of literary criticism anyway, and we do need to be more aware of those stylistic cues to drive the reader's mind in a certain direction.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple Something I've noticed: when I started reading more works of ancient biography, the structure of the Gospels started making a lot more sense.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Is there a book you recommend to introduce one to those 5 schools of thought? Or a list of authors?

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple As usual, the best place to start is the SEP article: plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth

This comes up in metaethics because Simon Blackburn's "quasi-realist" version of noncognitivism ends up requiring that you adopt a deflationary account of truth.

Mitch

03:33

etymology of smug

I did not expect a lot of that.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Yes, ancient biography has become standard lens to read the gospels; something that any Introduction to the New Testament texts will say, along with epistolary form for the letters. Although now scholars are detecting more and more of theological agenda of the authors, and other post-modern reading techniques to shed light into more meaning.

@alphabet Thanks, SEP and IEP references are very prevalent in Philosophy.SE, being quoted like Bible books :-). I do find them very helpful.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple Interesting! I've noticed a number of commonalities; I assume that the experts have found a lot more and explained them a lot better than I can.

I'd be kind of interested to know what those authors have to say, but I'm not interested enough in Biblical exegesis to get too deep into them.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Yes, I'm truly at a disadvantage, since I cannot read Greek and haven't spent the time to read ancient Roman/Greek authors of that period (which are regularly cited as the basis for word meanings in Biblical scholarship), so I have to trust the scholars that I'm reading. The other dimension that is increasingly detected is Hebraic thought pattern from Jewish writings of that period (called Second Temple literature).

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple It also interests me how long it took for Christianity to consolidate into something that even vaguely resembles the religion that exists today. (I knew someone in college who was a fairly devout Christian; she was rather surprised when I pointed out that a whole lot of people in the early Church wouldn't have held beliefs that resembled her own particularly well.)

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet I don't blame you. But it's increasingly easy to find writings accessible to intelligent laymen if you know where to look, if you're interested in a particular angle. Exegesis is no longer just mechanical parsing and doing word studies using theological dictionaries, but primarily worldview & thought history of the authors.

@alphabet Yes, the development of the various Christianities is very, very interesting to me. I wish more devout Christians would incorporate the historical angle to help them more tolerant of other denominations.

alphabet

03:44

@GratefulDisciple What made me realize those structural similarities was a project that involved reading quite a lot of Diogenes Laertius's Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Though it irks me to no end that a lot of the stories he recounts obviously originated as jokes but get taken as established facts by secondary sources.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Thanks. I should add it to my "to read" book list.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple It's mostly interesting because it's one of the few sources that gives any real information about Hellenistic philosophers whose works have been lost. Though I'm of the opinion that secondary sources massively overstate its reliability.

Everyone recognizes (I hope?) that the "Pyrrho kept trying to walk off cliffs" thing was a joke--or at least started as one--but you sometimes hear people taking the other stories more seriously than is perhaps warranted.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Yes, older secondary sources seem to be less careful. Don't know whether you discern improvement in the area you read, but in Biblical scholarship and in academic theology literature, I sense increasing carefulness in quoting primary sources. Less so in sermons, unfortunately, especially when the preachers quote them for illustrations, which sometimes makes me cringe as well.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple It's particularly interesting that the Augustinian beliefs that we now see as fairly central to Christianity were, at one point, not accepted very widely (and that the main competitor, which got branded as "Pelagianism," was quite popular, probably in part because it appealed more to intellectual types who liked Hellenistic philosophy, but I digress).

@GratefulDisciple One example--here's a story from the life of Zeno of Citium, talking about his views on free will:

> We are told that he was once chastising a slave for stealing, and when the latter pleaded that it was his fate to steal, "Yes, and to be beaten too," said Zeno.

Some people have taken this as an accurate summary of his views on free will. To me it sounds more like a parody.

And by "some" I mean "seemingly everyone who has written about this topic."

Of course the later parts of the biography, which actually try to summarize his views, aren't jokes. But I'm a bit less willing to trust them given all the BS you get at the start of the text.

GratefulDisciple

04:06

@alphabet Augustine definitely lived in very interesting time and managed to incorporate only "safe" elements of Neoplatonism into his Christian theology. Not sure whether he was the main theologian responsible for teaching that man has a damaged free will (warped by concupiscence) that evolved into the current Catholic "semi-Plegianism" that Calvinists take into more extreme form of "total depravity", but yes, reading Patristics, especially desert fathers, ...

.. you immediately see a much higher reliance on one's free will to make yourself into better lovers of God and neighbor.

@alphabet I guess many people are lazy or too busy to investigate the original context in the primary sources.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple I get the sense that the end of that dispute pretty much killed of the idea that typical people adopting Christianity would need to make drastic lifestyle changes in the process--which was probably necessary for turning it into a mass religion but made it less likely to effect large changes in society.

Incidentally, another (probably made up) story from that biography relevant to our conversation on writing styles:

> He used to say that the very exact expressions used by those who avoided solecisms were like the coins struck by Alexander: they were beautiful in appearance and well-rounded like the coins, but none the better on that account. Words of the opposite kind he would compare to the Attic tetradrachms, which, though struck carelessly and inartistically, nevertheless outweighed the ornate phrases.

Of course, the story immediately preceding this is:

> To a lover of boys he remarked, "Just as schoolmasters lose their common-sense by spending all their time with boys, so it is with people like you."

I refuse to believe that either of these are actual true stories that survived for the 500 years between Zeno's life and Diogenes Laertius's. It seems more like how everyone attributes random quotes to Mark Twain.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet I agree that various forms of Christianities have produced different level of lifestyle changes at a personal level (I actually admire LDS / Mormons, though I don't trust their theology), but I think for impact at the societal level, how a Christian group chooses to engage culture is more determinative. Richard Niebuhr's "Christ and Culture" taxonomy remains relevant today.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple I should say: it made Christianity less likely to have those societal effects around the time of that dispute--obviously that changed in later centuries.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Yes. Augustine receives his share of several quotes attributed to him too. About writing styles, what's important in the end is maybe the advice itself (along with the standard of what is considered good style), as articulated by able modern teachers, regardless of who originated it.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple The trick is to learn how to turn it off.

GratefulDisciple

04:26

@alphabet Haven't seen that musical yet, but thanks. That number is quite fun and the music is good, though I'm not sure how a Mormon would take it.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple I've heard that the LDS church actually didn't criticize it much, since they saw it as more of a joke than a serious critique.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Well, good for them! It's a sign of maturity to be able to take a joke.

@alphabet Thanks for clarifying. Yes, Augustine DID have a hard time exhorting his rowdy congregation, mostly new to Christianity. And winning the hearts of the intellectuals of his time takes quite some time (still ongoing since the time of Constantine). He himself wasn't that impressed until he met Ambrosius of Milan.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple As I recall, the musical actually got a lot more heat for its portrayal of Ugandans. (I must admit that I don't really agree with this criticism, since it clearly wasn't meant to say anything about actual Ugandans, only about how missionaries see them.)

GratefulDisciple

A great course for how the intellectuals were won over by Christianity (and implicitly, what it takes for the church fathers to do this) is Prof. Harl's Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity.

@alphabet Okay. At any rate, thanks for alerting me to this musical. One musical production I watched soon after I moved to Canada is Anne of Green Gables: The Musical which is still being regularly performed after almost 60 years, not only in Prince Edward Island but across Canada.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple Maybe I'm imagining this, but from Pelagius's Letter to Demetrias, it seems like he was pretty strongly influenced by Stoicism in a way that you don't see in other Christian authors from around that time.

Robusto

04:39

@alphabet No, that's not what I said. I used the pronoun "you" of course, but in the general sense of "one"—not you personally.

alphabet

@Robusto I said that that usage was very rare, and you responded that "It's rare if you don't read a lot." Maybe it wasn't intentional, but I don't see how anyone could read that comment as anything other than an insult directed at me.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet TBH, I haven't read much about competing models of human free will around the time of Augustine, the level of appeal of Stoicism in the general public, as well as how Augustinian model of free will actually turned people off rather than other factors such as prestige, superstition of having to stop worshiping their old god, the increasing moral demands, etc.

Robusto

@alphabet That's just your ego talking to your paranoia. It's all about you, isn't it?

In any case, I'm done with this. Good night.

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet Anyway, it's getting late here in my time zone. Gotta get some sleep. Nice chatting with you.

alphabet

@Robusto I suppose you'll tell me that that wasn't an insult either?

But yes, good night.

Vikas

04:59

Young Sheldon: The Cooper Family Sits Down For Family Dinner (Season 1 Episode 1 Clip) | TBS

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Don't forget mittens.

SmokeDetector

07:09

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted user (72): "Seller" - is it an active adjective (someone who sells) or a passive adjective (item that is being sold)?‭ by darrin5698‭ on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted user (72): "Seller" - is it an active adjective (someone who sells) or a passive adjective (item that is being sold)? ✏️‭ by darrin5698‭ on english.SE

GratefulDisciple

13:30

@alphabet Pursuing the Pelagian controversy, I found this paper arguing how Augustine may not be that justified to come up with his Original Sin doctrine and sided with Pelagius. I have a sense that today Christians are less committed to Augustine than directly appealing to Scripture, freshly interpreted as with New Perspective on Paul.

Personally I see Augustine's explanation of the origin of concupiscence (which BTW should NOT be limited to sex, but all kinds of disordered desires such as wanting to eat the whole bag of the aforementioned Milano cookies) is outdated and the doctrine of Original Sin should go down. There are better explanations out there which can then support another atonement theory such as Irenaeus's Recapitulation theory (that is currently gaining ground).

At the same time, the criticality of God's grace to heal this concupiscence should not be underestimated, and it seems Pelagius has been unjustly vilified if he also see God's grace as central to this healing (I have yet to read his Letter to Demetrius). My point is that don't discard Christianity if you cannot stomach Augustinian Original Sin / Predestination doctrines, because they are not central.

MetaEd

13:46

modem, adj: poorly kerned.

Robusto

Voting to reopen this question:

7

Q: Do linguists have a noun for referring to pieces of commendatory language, as a sort of antonym of 'pejoratives'?

As I understand it, linguists (and the rest of us) call pieces of derogatory or negatively-valenced language ‘pejoratives’. But is there a similar term for pieces of commendatory or positively-valenced language? The best I can come up with is ‘euphemisms’, which unfortunately carries a sense of p...

The linked "dupe" does not include this question's answer, which is apparently the best received of all answers in the two questions.

@jlliagre Is there an alphabetic order in French that defines which diacritical marks precede which others? Accent grave before accent ague? That sort of thing.

jlliagre

Apr 26 at 13:55, by tchrist

Apr 26 at 14:00, by tchrist

> Some languages have additional oddities in the way they sort. Normally, all differences in sorting are assessed from the start to the end of the string. If all of the base letters are the same, the first accent difference determines the final order. In row 1 of Table 5, the first accent difference is on the o, so that is what determines the order. In some French dictionary ordering traditions, however, it is the last accent difference that determines the order, as shown in row 2.

Robusto

@jlliagre Thanks. I should have known @tchrist would have the info on this.

jlliagre

@Robusto Also:

> L’ordre de classement des homographes est déterminé selon les règles suivantes : le caractère non accentué précède le caractère marqué d’un accent aigu, qui vient, dans l’ordre, avant l’accent grave, l’accent circonflexe et le tréma.

Il faut noter que c’est la dernière différence dans le mot (quand il y en a plus d’une) qui a préséance.

Les minuscules ont priorité sur les majuscules.

The second line is the "Backward Accent Ordering" referred to in tchrist's table.

See also: lirmm.fr/~lafourcade/Souk/trif/…

Robusto

14:06

In case you're interested, here's a sorting question I asked on the main site some years ago regarding the sorting of Asian languages. I hope you'll forgive my obtuse use of "double-byte characters" (Tom hated that, of course). Obligatory clickbait: "The answer may surprise you!"

34

Q: What does sorting mean in non-alphabetic (i.e, Asian) languages?

I have some code that sorts table columns by object properties. It occurred to me that in Japanese or Chinese (non-alphabetical languages), the strings that are sent to the sort function would be compared the way an alphabetical language would. Take for example a list of Japanese surnames: 寿拘 ...

javascript arrays sorting unicode

tchrist

@jlliagre On matters minusculated, it's a shame they've closed our new question about making things littler. We could have railed against the Orwellian spread of inkhorn terms and Latinate affixes in whose stead we could have made our bid for shrink or even dwarf, or derivationally shorten, lessen, ensmall — but probably not ensize or belittle for things whose circumstantial verbs might involve shrivel, wane, dwindle, drop, thin.

jordanmposs.com/blog/2021/4/12/…

Mitch

@Vikas There were ten ways that clip was relevant to just yesterday's chat topics.

tchrist

I still think the verb should be dwarve. :)

Mitch

"Language" was the first one.

Robusto

@tchrist It follows that the verb for scarf ("He scarfed down the eclairs as quickly as he could") should be scarve.

tchrist

14:14

We used to use wharve not wharf for the verb.

Mitch

+1 I find this to be very interesting — Josh Stodola Sep 21, 2010 at 21:01

I plus-oned that comment.

@Robusto It's not?

Also what's wrong with 'double-byte'?

Robusto

@Mitch You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

tchrist

@Mitch goodreads.com/quotes/…

Mitch

@Robusto You're going to have to try harder than that if you want to flatter me.

Robusto

@Mitch OK, how's this: You're a rakehell and a debauchee.

Mitch

14:17

@Robusto huh.

THat certainly papers over my lack of pirate heritage.

I'll take it.

Though to be honest I don't think I've ever had a bauche to take away.

Robusto

@Mitch Good, because I've plumbed the depths of my laudatives.

Mitch

I think your laudatives are purloined from the basket of dysphemisms.

Robusto

Debauchee is a good word if you need to rhyme "Anthony Fauci"

Mitch

Sure but if you pronounce it in the orignial Chinese... oh... it rhymes there too.

tchrist

@Robusto Most Spanish diminutive suffixes like -ito are in effect also affective appreciatives, but a few are instead despective appreciatives instead like -uelo which renders them pejoratives.

Robusto

14:21

@Mitch Dysphemy is in the eye of of the beholder.

Mitch

@tchrist double-un-minussed has a certain je-ne-sais-at-all to it.

tchrist

I liked says it all avec liaison.

Mitch

@tchrist and are the streams crossed when ou use -uelito ?

tchrist

Manuel > Manolo > Manolito

Robusto

@tchrist So does -ón partake of both?

tchrist

14:22

@Robusto That's an augmentative, which are often pejorative.

mujerona

Robusto

But you hear people calling each other huevón as rough endearments.

tchrist

And gordita may be "nicer" than gorda, softening up the fatso into a pudge.

Robusto

@tchrist Manolo is what form of Manuel? A pre-diminutive?

Mitch

In quasi-reality news, I'm getting non-stop ads for Harris-Walz on Youtube. If it were the alternative I would swear off youtube in disgust. But as it is, I'm just annoyed as usual by the extra seconds and clicks it takes to get to "'Worlds top 10 bass lines' rated and my alternatives"

MetaEd

tchrist

14:31

@Robusto It's a hypocorism, a nickname.

Robusto

Ah.

tchrist

Like Paco is for Francisco.

Robusto

I was unaware of that particular hypocorism.

Mitch

I had some reality comments to make, but I think it was about how reasonable the weather is right now, which is just not that noteworthy when others are happy to see it cool down to 40C at night.

Robusto

@Mitch The answer may surprise you!

Mitch

14:34

@MetaEd Is that... bromine scooched in there between earth and air?

tchrist

> Variantes del nombre Manuel: Masculino: Manu, Mane, Emanuel, Manolo, Manolito, Manolín, Nusa, Lele, Lolo. Femenino: Manuela, Manola, Lola, Loli, Lele, Emma.

Manuel (nombre)

Manuel es un nombre propio masculino. Es la variante en español del nombre hebreo Emanuel (עִמָּנוּאֵל, ʻImmānûʼēl), que significa "Dios está con nosotros". == Santoral == 1 de enero. Corpus Christi: Debido al origen del nombre se acostumbra celebrar san Manuel el día de Corpus Christi. 17 de junio. == Variantes del nombre Manuel == Masculino: Manu, Mane, Emanuel, Manolo, Manolito, Manolín, Nusa, Lele, Lolo. Femenino: Manuela, Manola, Lola, Loli, Lele, Emma. === Variantes en otros idiomas === == Personajes célebres == === Santos === San Manuel, obispo de Adrianópolis, martirizado...

Mitch

@Robusto You'd be shocked at what #7 is.

tchrist

@Mitch What's a bromen?

Robusto

@Mitch You left off the exclamation point. Also, where's the block capital: You'd be SHOCKED at #7!

Mitch

@tchrist Oh about 2 to 3 pounds.

@Robusto I was feigning professionalism.

Robusto

14:36

Noob.

tchrist

@Mitch Troy, sterling, or avoirdupois?

Mitch

@tchrist Yes.

How do you pronounce... oh nevermind.

Robusto

Troy Sterling sounds like a British spy from the '60s.

tchrist

Liberate the pound!

Libra wants to be free!

Robusto

Working title: Troy Sterling fights the evil Dr. Avoirdupois!

Mitch

14:38

@Robusto With his French mistress Mme Avoirdupois.

hijinx!

tchrist

makes vague signs in the air

Robusto

gestures with his hands

tchrist

These are weighty matters indeed.

Mitch

@Robusto points menacingly at the witness stand

Robusto

gestures as if to bat away a swarm of bees

Mitch

14:40

jazz hands

tchrist

Pesanteurs!

Robusto

Anita O'Day - Honeysuckle Rose

►

Real jazz hands.

tchrist

mene mene tekel upharsin

Robusto

@tchrist Useful if you're ever caught in a lion's den.

MetaEd

Wordle 1,161 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Mitch

14:44

@tchrist That's funny, you don't look Jewish.

MetaEd

@Mitch no, no, not bromine, you're thinking of that stuff they give you for airsickness

@Mitch see that's why I always dress as a software pirate for Halloween. we look like everybody else

Mitch

John Legend full performance at 2024 DNC (Aug. 21, 2024)

►

@alphabet ^^^ that's what I was talking about... at ~0:26 the lady trying to clap.

@MetaEd No no not an airsickness bag, you're thinking of that weird pink stuff they spread on you for poison ivy.

MetaEd

ha.

no, no, not calamine, you're thinking of that sharpshooter.

Mitch

The Coasters - Poison Ivy (Original)

►

@MetaEd OMG that's hard. Lee Harvey Oswald? The guy that Daniel Bruehl played in Inglorious Basterds? Some other guy he played in some other WWII movie... you know.. about ... was it Stalingrad?

Carmine? Carbide? Was it that Yankee soldier from the civil war, Union Carbide?

I just learned that fudge the name of the chocolate thing came from fudge the verb to mess up and not the other way round

jlliagre

15:24

@Robusto Avoirdupois in current French means something like "to have some peas", modern spelling would be Avoirdupoids despite that extra D being a mistake (etymology confusion).

Robusto

@jlliagre Troy Sterling would fight him however he spelled his name.

#WhenTaken #177 (22.08.2024)

I scored 924/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 38 km - 🗓️ 6 yrs - ⚡ 191 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 1151 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 167 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 172 km - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 192 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 74 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 187 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 1 km - 🗓️ 9 yrs - ⚡ 187 / 200

https://whentaken.com

jlliagre

15:45

#WhenTaken #177 (22.08.2024)

I scored 903/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 3 km - 🗓️ 4 yrs - ⚡ 196 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 2108 km - 🗓️ 8 yrs - ⚡ 138 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 173 km - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 192 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 106 km - 🗓️ 8 yrs - ⚡ 184 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 673.5 metres - 🗓️ 6 yrs - ⚡ 193 / 200

https://whentaken.com

SmokeDetector

16:38

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer (89): What is the origin of being "in the pudding club"?‭ by Beau_Nash‭ on english.SE

Vikas

16:51

@Mitch Well I shared it only for the one obvious reason. Anyway in that video that girl said, "I wish I was". Don't we use "were" in such sentences instead of was?

alphabet

17:05

@Vikas You can use either; generally the irrealis "were" is strongly preferred in formal contexts but both are common elsewhere.

You'll also hear a lot of speakers using "If he was..." instead of "If he were..." in informal contexts.

Vikas

@alphabet If I were you, I would use "were" like in this sentence. But can I use "was" also? Never thought it could be okay.

If I was you sound odd?

alphabet

@Vikas "If I were you" is more or less a fixed phrase; "If I was you" would be incorrect.

Vikas

👍🏾

user 20458579510081670432

It's used in informal speaking a lot

alphabet

But you will hear people saying things like: "If I was in charge, I'd make some big changes."

This is less common in writing and would usually be considered incorrect in formal writing; you won't see it often in (say) books or news articles.

user 20458579510081670432

17:11

Like that^

Vikas

Confusing.

user 20458579510081670432

Don't over think it.

alphabet

The reason for this is fairly simple: in remote conditionals we normally use a simple past verb form (e.g. "If I sold it, I'd get a lot of money") so people sometimes use the ordinary simple past "If I was..." instead of the special irrealis "If I were..."

Some people claim that the irrealis is rare in informal contexts, but that isn't really true. Just ask Beyonce.

user 20458579510081670432

If I were a millionaire!

alphabet

A while back I noticed that the lyrics to "Boomerang" by The Summer Set use both "If I was" and "If I were" interchangeably.

user 20458579510081670432

17:17

It only sounds odd to you @Vikas because you haven't heard them interchanged often.

Vikas

Most of my learning came from school teachers who would say: YOU MUST USE THIS WHEN YOU SEE THAT!

user 20458579510081670432

Ok, np. Let's move into the real world now.

alphabet

It does make pedagogical sense. It would be better to always use "were" (which is fine in all contexts) than to always use "was" (which is more restricted).

user 20458579510081670432

We don't "SEE" spoken words.

We don't need no education.

Robusto

@jlliagre I guess I got lucky.

Vikas

17:34

@user20458579510081670432 Better.

Robusto

Wordle 1,160 3/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
⬛🟨⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

19:01

Daily Sequence Octordle #941
4️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 67

Criggie

19:17

Robusto

Daily Octordle #941
🔟7️⃣
🕚8️⃣
3️⃣4️⃣
9️⃣5️⃣
Score: 57

alphabet

19:48

Apr 29 at 23:27, by alphabet

I'm going to repeatedly commit petty acts of theft and vandalism on your property UwU

Michael Rybkin

20:12

What do they mean by "sling" here?

Paul Wolfe has done everything from drive M1A1 tanks in Desert Storm to sling computer chips for Motorola.

Robusto

20:30

@MichaelRybkin I think it means to sell computer chips.

I would prefer the gerund form there: "Paul Wolfe has done everything from driving M1A1 tanks in Desert Storm to slinging computer chips for Motorola."

MetaEd

@Mitch Calamity.

Robusto

> Harris also noted that the historical accuracy of the Showtime limited series “Fellow Travelers,” about closeted gay men in the McCarthy era, dissipates when the actors “take off their clothes for the sex scenes and display muscle groups that hadn’t yet been invented in the 1950s.”

—Frank Bruni writing in For the Love of Sentences (scroll down if you don't want to read also about Kamala Harris's smiles.

> No passage tickled as many of you as Maureen Dowd’s take in The Times on our 45th president’s news conference at Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago: “Trump was like a blender going at full speed with the top off, goop splattering everywhere.”

> In Barron’s, Jack Hough questioned the jump in Starbucks stock following the appointment of Brian Niccol as the new chief executive officer: “Wall Street is roughly pricing in a latte messiah who walks on oat milk. Early operational results can’t possibly live up to the foam.”

And one that hits close to home for me:

> In The Toronto Star, Matt Elliott questioned the lightness of a possible $200 fine for a company whose blocking of a bicycle lane has been spotlighted in connection with a cyclist’s death: “You can’t even call it a slap on the wrist. It’s more akin to a subtle frown directed at someone from a great distance.” (Pamela Moura, Toronto)

Donald Trump, Prince of Self-Pity, also by Frank Bruni

Michael Rybkin

20:53

@Robusto Thank you very much.

@Robusto But what exactly makes you think that it means "sell"? I looked it up in several dictionaries online and could not find anything that would suggest that the word "sling" could be used in the sense of selling things.

Robusto

@MichaelRybkin I believe it to be an extension of the figurative use of sling as in: "He got a job slinging hash," meaning he was a short-order cook at a diner. This metaphorical use of sling has been used for many occupations that stress volume and speed.

It's also a slang term for selling illegal drugs.

Michael Rybkin

@Robusto Oh, thank you very much.

Mitch

21:32

@MetaEd oh.

Dang.

@Robusto what was the common thread here? I don't see 'sling'.

Robusto

21:43

@Mitch Como?

That was a departure from the "sling" question.

jlliagre

21:55

Wordle 1,160 3/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Octordle #941
🕚8️⃣
🔟3️⃣
6️⃣7️⃣
🕛5️⃣
Score: 62

Daily Sequence Octordle #941
4️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 67

jlliagre

22:18

I did a straw poll today among family, friends and colleagues around me, all native French speakers and with various levels of English, some of whom using it everyday at work and other working in an international context related to Air control. The result is clear-cut: 100 % of them say the plural of aircraft must be aircrafts. One answerer, guessing there was some kind of a trap, suggested an additional aircraftses :-)

some of which ➔ some of them

Mitch

@jlliagre and...?

I mean you did follow up with the correct way, non?

jlliagre

@Mitch Yes, of course.

alphabet

@GratefulDisciple Interesting article. It is actually Demetrias--the rare ancient epistle with a female addressee. Here's his most polemical response to the Augustinian view:

> But most of those who, from lack of faith as much as of knowledge, deplore the status of man, are - I am ashamed to admit it - criticising the Lord's work [...] And these most shameless of men, while hiding the fact that they are managing quite well with what they have been made, would prefer to have been made otherwise

CowperKettle

22:33

A jocular doormat I saw yesterday at work. "Welcome from here". A combo of "Welcome" and "Get out of here"

alphabet

> and so those who are unwilling to correct their own way of life appear to want to correct nature itself instead, the good of which has been so universally established in all that it sometimes reveals itself and brings itself to notice even in pagans who do not worship God.

Sometimes he seems to get quite close to the view that salvation doesn't even require becoming a Christian.

CowperKettle

Prendre le mal à la racine.

GratefulDisciple

22:53

@alphabet Sorry, I misspelled it. Should have realized as I typed it, since when yesterday I began to read it (found a translation here), I realized the addressee was a lady.

CowperKettle

Word of the day: numtogenesis (amazing to say the least)

> "During evolution fragments of mitochondrial genome have been inserted into the nuclear genome - like viral pieces of DNA. We now find that mito-nuclear DNA transfer happens in the human brain along the lifespan and every few days in cultured cells." x.com/MitoPsychoBio/status/1826702622423756968

GratefulDisciple

@alphabet I'll have to read it for myself, maybe coupled with trusted scholarly review of the letter. I'll read it with trying to see traces of Stoicism as you suggested.

Criggie

23:19

@CowperKettle I read that as numptygenesis

alphabet

Raccoon-hostile architecture leaves innocent civilian trapped on exterior wall for hours

Raccoons murdered for being "too friendly" to humans

Floor of raccoon family's residence collapses due to property owner's neglect

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