English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:04

1

A: Why were full stops used in old texts after singular words or incomplete sentences?

There are (at least) two logically consistent ways to interpret a period (full stop) that appears at the end of a string of words in a list entry: (1) as signifying the end of a complete sentence; (2) as signifying the end of a free-standing entry in the list, whether the entry consists of a comp...

Love that man. Please.

Cerberus

Looks thorough.

Haven't read it all.

I often use full stops there.

Mitch

I like the period. Full stop.

Cerberus

What period do you like best?

Mitch

The jot.

Or is it a tittle?

Italic or bold, no matter to me.

tchrist

@Cerberus As do I. I hate having to decide on an element by element basis where and whether to signal

that I'm done.

Mitch

00:18

I wonder what the period in the Wingdings font looks like.

tchrist

This is not fine.

Cerberus

I had to read that thrice.

> element-by-element basis

Mitch

@tchrist fixed

tchrist

I was illustrating the woes of marks

of punctuation omitted.

Mitch

@tchrist You. Could. Use. It. Everywhere.

@tchrist oh. How about my suggestion?

Cerberus

00:22

Then•you•should•omit•spaces•too—

tchrist

Surely you are aware that amongst some writers, the use of a period can seem like a moral failure; after all, we have other ways of bracketing and punctuating our thoughts: but consult King James and all shall be made clear to you.

> For certainly as such customs that have their first
institution either from a godly, necessary, or
honorable ground and are first brought in by means
of some worthy, virtuous, and great personage are
ever and most justly held in great and reverent
estimation and account by all wise, virtuous,
and temperate spirits, so too should it to the
contrary justly bring a great disgrace into that
sort of customs which having their origin in base
corruption and barbarity do in like sort make their
first entry into a country by an inconsiderate and

A man who used a period as lesser men use a pilcrow.

> For even as a strong enemy who invades a town or
fortress, although in its siege he should belay and
encompass it all round, yet he makes his breach and
entry at one or another particular part of it which he
hath tested and found to be weakest and least able to
resist, so sickness doth make her particular assault
upon such part or parts of our body as are weakest
and easiest overcome by that sort of disease which
then doth assail us, although all the rest of the
body should by sympathy feel as if it were belayed

> The public use of which, at all times and in all
places, hath now so far prevailed as diverse men
very sound both in judgement and complexion have
been at last forced to take it also without desire,
partly because they were ashamed to seem singular
(like the two philosophers who were forced to dunk
themselves in that rainwater and so become fools like
the rest of the people), and partly to be as one who
who did not love garlic was content to eat it anyway
so that he might not be troubled with its smell on

But of all of those, this is surely the most regal of the King's great sentences:

> Whereas tobacco, being a drug of late years found out
and by merchants as well denizens as strangers brought
from foreign parts in small quantity into this realm
of England and other our dominions, was used and taken
by the better sort both then and now only as physick
to preserve health, and is now at this day through
evil custom and the toleration thereof excessively
taken by a number of riotous and disordered persons
of mean and base condition, who, contrary to the
use which persons of good calling and quality make

Feed that one to your NLP parser and behold in wonder the tree it produces!

Cerberus

Can it?

tchrist

Heh, no, it falls down gibbering.

Consumes all the memory on the machine until the kernel's out-of-memory hunter SIGKILLs it into oblivion.

Cerberus

As expected.

alphabet

0

A: What explains English's lack of a distinct and unique passive inflectional marker distinct from other uses since ‘‑ed’ means so many things?

One might think that the difference between a preterite verb form (like wrote) and a past participial one (like written) is essentially that the former is "active" and the latter is "passive." If that were the case, English would have the exact problem you mention: for regular verbs, the active v...

I did get around to answering it after all.

tchrist

00:41

New Ukrainian news. Probably better to look not.

Cerberus

00:55

What is it?

I can't find it.

tchrist

> Biden has authorized the provision of antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine...

That isn't even counting Putin being all nuke rattling yet again today.

Cerberus

Putin has been doing that since the beginning of the war.

tchrist

He certainly has.

He keeps signing things about it.

I get the idea that he's trying to say that Russia is not allowed to lose in Ukraine, or else he's going to nuke everybody.

But this is not new. He's pretty much always said that.

think_meaning_buildß

01:12

He certainly must be popular among the Populus, no?

Cerberus

@tchrist He isn't saying that, exactly.

He is just trying to make the West think he might use atomics if they help Ukraine too much.

It costs him nothing to threaten.

think_meaning_buildß

Sure, talk is cheap.

tchrist

@Cerberus No, not exactly. Not this time, at least. "The new doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power."

"_supported_ by a nuclear power"

Huh, isn't Russian being supported by a nuclear power? She's been sending North Koreans into the war.

> Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that the Ukrainian strike in Bryansk marked an escalation and urged the U.S. and other Western allies to study the modernized nuclear doctrine.

I know, I know.

It's just what they do.

think_meaning_buildß

Perhaps he's trying to give North Korea the rights to bring in nukes against the Ukraine.

tchrist

I worry that the world is tiring of the ploy.

"The boy who cried nuke."

3

think_meaning_buildß

01:24

The paper tiger with nuclear teeth roars again.

tchrist

Propaganda and other forms of infowars have always, always been Russia's favorite long-game strategy. It costs them so much less than anything else would.

It's all about Russia's "sovereignty and territorial integrity", a smoke screen which he pretends allows him to do anything here in this war. THAT is why he's redefined Ukraine to be part of Russia when he annexed Crimea and the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. He's done that in order to allow him to do anything one would expect if western Russia itself were attacked and invaded, threatening his regime as though it were actually the country itself.

Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine

The Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are areas of southern and eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the ongoing invasion. In Ukrainian law, they are defined as the "temporarily occupied territories". As of 2024, Russia occupies almost 20% of Ukraine and about 3 to 3.5 million Ukrainians are estimated to be living under occupation; since the invasion, the occupied territories lost roughly half of their population. The United Nations Human Rights Office reports that Russia is committing severe human rights violations in occupied Ukraine,...

Those places.

This war has been going on for more than a decade now.

Cerberus

01:57

@tchrist Yes.

@tchrist Indeed.

Cerberus

02:15

@tchrist Yes, good for threatening and policy freedom.

alphabet

02:28

If Russia nuked Kyiv next February, would Trump even care?

Quite possibly not.

Robusto

@alphabet That would involve some form of empathy, so no.

alphabet

@Robusto He could care about it for purely self-interested reasons. I think it'll depend on whether he thinks Ukraine is "woke."

Cerberus

@alphabet First, lots of people would care around the world.

Secondly, it wouldn't help Putin much militarily.

Robusto

@alphabet I have no idea what those reasons might be. Does it make him money? Flatter his pride?

alphabet

For the record, I also doubt Putin would use nukes.

Dannyu NDos

02:36

Using a nuke is a betrayal against humanity itself.

alphabet

@Robusto Fair enough. Certainly he doesn't have much interest in defending Ukraine now, and Russia using nuclear weapons likely wouldn't change that.

In retrospect, of course, Ukraine's decision to give up its own nuclear arsenal was a horrible mistake. If they'd kept it, this war would simply never have happened.

That decision in 1991, made in the name of "nonproliferation," cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Giving up nuclear weapons can be far worse than keeping them.

Robusto

02:53

@alphabet So much for Doing The Right Thing.

alphabet

@Robusto Of course, the right thing would've been for both countries to give up their nuclear weapons. But nuclear weapons are here to stay on this planet; I don't think we'll ever be able to denuclearize the world.

Cerberus

@alphabet Yes.

@alphabet The opposite is happening.

When will the first terrorist group gain access to a nuke?

CowperKettle

03:14

Behemoth likes licking plastic bags sometimes, and I try to discourage him from that.

I wonder why he does that.

I have been riding for over 8 hours a day, and developed something like boils on my behind. I've just ordered a specialized pair of shorts with inserts for cyclists, and will probably order a seatpost with suspension - but I'm not sure if that will help.

I wonder what could be used in lieu of padded shorts in the period before they arrive.

I decided to stay home today, lest I be forced to go to a surgeon for removing those boils.

Because removing boils is such a pain-in-the-ass procedure, especially when they are in the ass.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Have you ever had that done?

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Yes, back in the 2000's

Twice even.

Once by an elderly woman surgeon, who scoffed at my attempts to cover up my most precious parts from view.

Cerberus

How long did the wound take to heal?

CowperKettle

Once by a young male surgeon, who put me in a doggie-style position and developed a suspiciously heavy breathing pattern while he performed the surgery. I think I would prefer an elderly woman next time.

Cerberus

Haha.

CowperKettle

03:23

@Cerberus Several days at least.

Cerberus

Hmm that is not super long!

CowperKettle

Sometimes you need to clean the wond every day using hydrogen peroxide, and place some tissue soaked with the levomekol ointment inside the wound to prevent infection. ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

alphabet

@CowperKettle Saddle sores, as they're called?

CowperKettle

@alphabet Probably yes.

I found a suspended seatpost on Ozon, but it comes in two diamaters, 27.2 and 30 something millimeters, and I've just measured mine, and it looks like it's smaller than 27.2

Cerberus

At least it is good to know that the ultimate remedy is available.

CowperKettle

03:27

I'm not sure how to exactly measure a seatpost's diameter.

@Cerberus Yes, it's great.

Cerberus

I meant the surgery.

CowperKettle

I found that for me, strong antihistamines also work by making a boil go away sometime

Cerberus

You mean "sometimes"?

And how strong / what kind?

CowperKettle