English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

15:04

Rick Wakeman On Prog Rock, Keyboards and His Legendary Career With Yes

►

@tchrist ^

Really a good interview.

GratefulDisciple

@MichaelRybkin As a target audience for that book, it doesn't bother me because "options" are often specified and talked about as a set. But if it's singular it doesn't bother me either. Better ask @tchrist who is both Subject Matter Expert as well as capable being an English Grammar lawyer.

@alphabet Aaah, very relevant point. Thanks. It reminds me that even when hosting a VM in a public cloud I'm not that free either to send emails since I will have to ask for a special treatment for my IP which most likely not exclusively my own in the first place (now that SNI is widespread).

Robusto

15:20

#travle #699 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

MetaEd

I see the Bat Book made an appearance.

@GratefulDisciple I run my own mail server, yes it's still possible.

However I'm not currently using sendmail. My server runs postfix for outbound, dovecot for inbound.

Michael Rybkin

@GratefulDisciple Thank you very much.

MetaEd

15:36

@MichaelRybkin I agree -- "options declarations", and related constructions like "options processing", are not wrong, but "option declarations" and "option processing" are fine also.

tchrist

@Robusto thanks

Robusto

#WhenTaken #259 (12.11.2024)

I scored 726/1000🎗️

1️⃣📍0.0K km - 🗓️7 yrs - 🥇191/200
2️⃣📍8.5K km - 🗓️5 yrs - 🥉101/200
3️⃣📍2.3K km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥈144/200
4️⃣📍1.1K km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥈155/200
5️⃣📍1.2K km - 🗓️15 yrs - 🥈135/200

https://whentaken.com

@tchrist It's long, but he never stops talking and it goes by in a flash.

Wordle 1,242 4/6

🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

MetaEd

@tchrist did you see the new equality operators somebody is proposing for Perl. I really believe they think it's Python ...

tchrist

@MetaEd lord no

MetaEd

@tchrist lord yes. nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2024/11/msg269079.html

tchrist

15:49

@MetaEd fmh

just stop fucking with the fucking language's basic syntax for fuck's sake

jlliagre

16:01

#travle #699 +1
🟧✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

tchrist

> I don't know which programming language that the scientists of the year 2100 will be using, but I guarantee you that they'll be calling it FORTRAN.

MetaEd

16:14

@tchrist do I remember right that classic FORTRAN is hard to write a parser for?

tchrist

16:34

@MetaEd Yes because it doesn't use whitespace for tokenization.

Mitch

Jun 26, 2017 at 17:56, by Mitch

@KitZ.Fox Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers, pickpockets, peddlers, even panhandlers

tchrist

@Mitch I didn't want the commentariat to be at loss for words in describing the hoodlums of the once and future giftocracy, I mean griftocracy.

Michael Rybkin

@MetaEd Thank you.

GratefulDisciple

16:55

@tchrist Would you be interested in shepherding the Perl development community the way Linus does for Linux kernel? Wow, his rants have their own sub-reddit now. I agree with you; basic syntax shouldn't be tampered with, just like IIRC there was something about Unix filesystem semantics that made Linus super upset when people try to mess around with it.

tchrist

@GratefulDisciple I'd just get in their way. :/

Just as I'd be a speed bump to the reactionary kleptoanarchists' pending iconocataclasms.

Except syntactic fiddling is more like a cancer than a nuclear holocaust.

I tried to talk them out of all the nasty things they put in v5.10, like my $_ and so-called "smart matching". They didn't listen. So for four years I didn't even update the Camel book because what they did made such a mess out of everything. It took almost ten years for that nasty, nasty crap to be excised from the language.

"For the Devil so loved his children that he plucked their eyes out."

GratefulDisciple

@tchrist I'm really sorry to hear it. Unfortunately until I use Perl deep enough, I wouldn't appreciate how nasty those things are. I guess the moral lesson is that there has to be ONE person who really knows the deep principles and coherence of the whole thing so "the center can hold".

tchrist

@GratefulDisciple That's historically been Larry Wall.

I believe they may have recently migrated that role to some sort of council.

GratefulDisciple

True Bach lovers would over decades sense the absolute Bach-ness of his music so when there is an imitation, the fake would be identified right away.

@tchrist Still, for architectural and major syntax, they should seek Larry's or your blessing, if either of you still attend the Perl Conference (they should make you both guests of honor with all expense paid :-) ).

jlliagre

17:28

@tchrist Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos.

tchrist

17:43

@jlliagre A reasonable refrain. What I was thinking of falls more in line with "Play with it too much and you'll break it."

tchrist

18:02

We're still having womxn problems:

9

Q: Why is 'women' sometimes pronounced as 'woman'?

Some American speakers pronounce both 'woman' and 'women' as 'woman' (ˈwʊm.ən). Is this a recent pronunciation change? Where, why, and when did it originate? I specified the American accent because other accents, such as New Zealand and South African accents, naturally have similar sounding vowel...

I don't know why all the flaggers don't at least downvote, let alone recommend deletion of non-answers when they can. But they do not.

Low-quality review queue.

> —Con todo eso —dijo don Quijote—, mira, Sancho, lo que hablas, porque tantas veces va el cantarillo a la fuente..., y no te digo más.

alphabet

19:12

@Laurel There have historically been similar cases with intersex cis women like Caster Semenya that, while somewhat difficult to handle in a consistent way, haven't stirred up much controversy.

jlliagre

20:59

#WhenTaken #259 (12.11.2024)

I scored 803/1000🏅

1️⃣📍0.0K km - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200
2️⃣📍8.5K km - 🗓️7 yrs - 🥉97/200
3️⃣📍0.1K km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥇190/200
4️⃣📍646 m - 🗓️18 yrs - 🥈161/200
5️⃣📍1.4K km - 🗓️6 yrs - 🥈156/200

https://whentaken.com

Robusto

21:23

Daily Octordle #1023
🔟4️⃣
6️⃣🕛
9️⃣7️⃣
🕚🕐
Score: 72

Sheesh.

Daily Sequence Octordle #1023
4️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 67

Another inversion.

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Nov. 12, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2210

alphabet

21:44

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Nov. 12, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2100

0

Q: Which dash to use to display the text Arist - Album in a music player?

I'm coding a music player and I want to show the current song information in a status bar, like ArtistName - AlbumName. I'm unsure which dash to use. I was thinking of using an em dash, since a page on the Miriam Webster website (https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/em-dash-en-dash-how-to-us...

dashes

Opinion-based? There are generally accepted rules on the meanings of different dash types, though it's mostly typographers who care about them. I think this should be reopened.

MetaEd

22:03

@alphabet I get that ... on the other hand, this is controversial even among typographers

and is typography (which dash to use) actually a part of the language English? or is it orthogonal to language?

alphabet

@MetaEd Punctuation in general certainly counts.

I may still have a copy of Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style somewhere, which could be useful for this sort of thing.

Cerberus

Do American's ever pronounce can and can't identically?

Or will there be always some difference in vowel quality or intonation?

alphabet

@Cerberus Phonetics grampa covers this:

CAN and CAN'T: the importance of Weak Forms

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Cerberus

That was quick!

@alphabet Voted.

alphabet

The main difference between them is that can is usually reduced to a weak form /kn/, whereas can't always has an ordinary vowel /kæn(t)/; the /t/ in can't isn't pronounced in a number of contexts.

Robusto

22:11

@Cerberus And mine makes three.

Cerberus

@alphabet So would you say they are always distinguishable?

Obama's at the beginning seems hard to indeitify?

@Robusto Fun!

We cam form out own little cabal.

The Countercabal.

Robusto

@Cerberus The Unkillers.

alphabet

@Cerberus There are such cases, but they're rare. Usually you distinguish them by listening for the vowel--except at the end of a phrase/sentence where can isn't reduced so the consonant difference does matter.

Cerberus

@Robusto Gppd.

@alphabet Only at the end of a phrase?

alphabet

@Cerberus Also when the word has contrastive stress.

Cerberus

22:18

Right.

That is what I encountered in a video.

Beating every possible game of Pokemon Platinum at the same time

►

alphabet

And when the complement is elided and in a few other cases.

Cerberus

Elided?

alphabet

Sorry, ellipted.

Cerberus

Or ellipsed?

alphabet

As in: "They can do it, and we can too"--the first can is weakened but the second isn't.

Cerberus

22:21

That is what I thought.

3 mins ago, by Cerberus

Beating every possible game of Pokemon Platinum at the same time

►

In this video, I can understand it only from context.

I also notice how Americans may even write can where they mean can't.

jlliagre

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Nov. 12, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ 💔 💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 1700

Cerberus

Congrats, mister blue city jumble.

jlliagre

@Cerberus That's supposed to be bottles.

Cerberus

I know.

What does my icon look like zoomed out?

@alphabet He sounds so pedantic and drawn out, though. Always harping on others' misbeliefs.

jlliagre

@Cerberus Κέρϐερος

Cerberus

22:27

That's different.

What an odd b.

jlliagre

What an odd dog.

Cerberus

Thank you.

jlliagre

De rien.

Beta

Beta (UK: , US: ; uppercase Β, lowercase β, or cursive ϐ; Ancient Greek: βῆτα, romanized: bē̂ta or Greek: βήτα, romanized: víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive IPA: [b]. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative IPA: [v] while IPA: [b] in borrowed words is instead commonly transcribed as μπ. Letters that arose from beta include the Roman letter ⟨B⟩ and the Cyrillic letters ⟨Б⟩ and ⟨В⟩. == Name == Like the names of most other Greek letters, the name...

Mitch

22:44

@Cerberus they are not always distinguishable. Often they are, and alphabet gave the also common times they are distinguishable.

Cerberus

@Mitch Did you see my example?

Mitch

I am often annoyed that I can't tell which one and have to ask "can or can't"

I don't think they're rare

@Cerberus a video?

Cerberus

It is two seconds of the video.

@Mitch Makes sense.

alphabet

22:59

Can we all agree that JD Vance is right about something, namely that Diet Mountain Dew is delicious?

jlliagre

Wordle 1,242 4/6

⬛🟨⬛🟨⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Octordle #1023
3️⃣5️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
8️⃣6️⃣
Score: 64

Daily Sequence Octordle #1023
3️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
🔟🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 70

@MetaEd Yes.

Cerberus

23:15

@alphabet No idea what that is but yes.

CowperKettle

> I’ve decided to apply my years of IT experience to fixing my marriage
I’ve successfully turned my wife off. Anyone know what I have to do to turn her back on again?

CowperKettle

23:45

Word of the day: bag fumble

CowperKettle

23:56

> The Top 3 states for highest child literacy rates were Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Hampshire, in that order (highest to lowest).

The Bottom 3 states for child literacy rates were Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, (highest to lowest).

thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/…

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…