English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

15:05

E2MANY.

►

The end is great.

Cerberus

15:38

@tchrist Bis means twice, yes.

tchrist

Thanks.

Cerberus

Its meaning "encore" is perhaps more modern. I don't know where that came from.

Greek has dis.

Colloquial Dutch has tweedst.

tchrist

I feel like somewhere uses "bis" for a street address. Like 221B Baker Street, which of course would nowadays would normally just have 221½, would be 221 bis there. Hm, Germany? Netherlands?

Cerberus

But tweedst rather means second.

Yes, we use bis for addresses.

tchrist

Interesting on tweedst to go along with whatever you use for first/erste.

Cerberus

15:43

That's the idea (eerst(e)).

tchrist

What’s wrong with your standard word for second?

Cerberus

Nothing.

tchrist

I mean, what motivates this neologism?

I didn’t mean to say wrong.

Sorry.

Cerberus

It is a matter of folk etymology, like something children would say.

tchrist

Ah ok.

Cerberus

15:44

"Ik ben eerst! — Nou, ik ben tweedst!" (Instead of tweede.)

tchrist

Goes with last, too.

Cerberus

@tchrist You don't need to apologise.

tchrist

Like English, I see that Icelandic also stops at thrice.

Cerberus

Yes, laatst too.

tchrist

“Wrong” is not a good word when talking about various speakers’ divergent usages.

Cerberus

15:46

Oh, come on.

tchrist

I was trying not to give offence.

Cerberus

That's very American PC!

tchrist

I am hardly that.

Cerberus

I see...

tchrist

Here’s the cool Icelandic demo.

Cerberus

15:47

I am not ashamed to say that some languages do certain things wrong, including my own.

tchrist

You can vary the output language easily to see whether they have them.

You have both strong and weak verbs, right?

Cerberus

Yes.

Don't all IE languages have both?

tchrist

And children often miscategorize these, right?

I don’t know.

The norm is for verbs to move from strong to weak over time.

The interesting cases are those that go the other way.

Cerberus

Well, often...it happens. And certain of the rarer words could be made weak by adults.

And some verbs are in some sort of transitional phase.

The other way is usually jocular.

tchrist

The two that have moved from weak to strong in the last century are sneaked > snuck and dived > dove.

Cerberus

15:50

Right.

tchrist

You will still get those corrected on you by copyeditors.

Cerberus

But snuck and dove did exist before that, didn't they? I mean, just less prominently?

tchrist

They actually are starting to sound “wrong” in the weak forms.

No, I think they are brand new.

Check OED.

Cerberus

In Dutch, a new strong past participle was created not long ago of the verb neuken.

Genoken.

tchrist

Nuked? :)

Cerberus

15:52

The meaning is too vulgar to mention.

tchrist

sneak /sniːk/, v. Also 6 sneke, 7 sneek, sneake. Pa. t. and pple. also (orig. and chiefly U.S.) snuck.
Etymology: Of doubtful origin: the form does not agree with that of early ME. snīken, OE. snícan to creep, crawl (cf. ONor. sníkja, Norw. snikja, Da. snige, in senses similar to ‘sneak’), and the historical gap is very great. The stem sneak- appears a little earlier in sneakish(ly a. and adv.

Yeah ok.

No snuck. Nobody knows what it is.

Cerberus

Are there any analogous forms?

tchrist

thinks

Cerberus

Leak, luck? Speak, spuck?

And who ever added that c?

tchrist

No, there are not.

The closest is speak > spake/spoke.

Cerberus

15:54

It really sounds like some older for that lingered in the margin somewhere.

Neither spoke nor spake sounds similar.

tchrist

It does, but they can’t even trace it to ME. snīken, OE. snícan.

I am reminded of Smaug.

Dove appears to have appeared in the 19th century.

That one at least there are models for.

Cerberus

Drive.

tchrist

Thrive.

Which is losing its strongness.

Should be, and once always was, the same as drive/drove/driven, but now seems a bit precious rendered thus.

Oh I see. Dive is a conflation.

dive /daɪv/, v. Forms: ɑ. 1 dúfan, 2 duven; β. 1 dýfan, 2-3 duve(n /y/, 3 diven, 3-6 (9 dial.) deve, deeve (6 deave), 4-6 dy(e)ve, 7-9 dieve, 6- dive. Pa. t. ɑ. 1 déaf, 2-3 deæf, 3 def, 9 N.Amer. and Eng. dial. dove; β. 1 dýfde, 3 defde, 7- div’d, 6- dived.
Etymology: OE. had two verbs: (1) the primary strong vb. dúfan, pa. t. déaf, pl. dufon, pa. pple. dofen, intr. to duck, dive, sink; (2) the derivative causal weak vb. dýfan, dýfde, ʒedýfd to dip, submerge. Already in 12th c. these had begun to be confounded, the primary dūven (pa. t. deæf, dêf, pa. pple. doven) being used also trans., a…

I'm trying to figure out how to search the OED for past participles with a u in them. Just a second.

models: drink fling shrink sink slink stick sting strike string swim swing wring

None of those looks like sneak.

Weird.

Cerberus

Where does sneak come from anyway?

tchrist

Nobody knows. See above.

Cerberus

16:02

We don't have it.

Right.

tchrist

It says “of doubtful origin”.

I don’t know all these -eak verbs: beak break creak feak freak leak screak sleak sneak speak squeak streak tweak wheak wreak

Cerberus

Feak?

Sleak?

Wheak?

tchrist

Right.

I don’t know those either.

Cerberus

Must be old.

tchrist

Well, I’ll be darned.

feak /fiːk/, v.2 Falconry. Cf. feat v. 2.
Etymology: ad. Ger. fegen to cleanse, sweep.
a. intr. Of a hawk: To wipe the beak after feeding. b. trans. To wipe (the beak); also, to wipe the beak of.

So yes, it’s old.

It’s also a dialect word. Etymology: Cf. fike v. and ONor. fjúka to drift, fly away, and its causative feyka to blow, drive away, to rush. 1. trans. To twitch, jerk, pull smartly.

There are all these words from falconry we never use any more. If you read The Once and Future King, you come across a bunch of them.

Like mews. Do you know mews? Few now there are who do.

Cerberus

16:09

@tchrist How can you not know such an important word?

tchrist

Stable is to horses as mews is to hawks.

He forgot to feak after eating.

mews. tiercel. cadge. imping. jesses. to bate. creance. to feak. yarak.

bechin. aba. bewit. cere. crines. eyass. knurl. malar. pannel. patagial. rectrices. rufter. sarcel. hobby. TO SNITE! yagi.

All from The Modern Apprentice.

All our words are gone.

Oh.

To snite is connected to snot and snout, maybe.

Cerberus

Snuit.

Snoet.

tchrist

> OE. snýtan, = ONor. and Icel. snýta (Norw. and Sw. snyta, Da. snyde), OHG. snûzan (MHG. snûtzen, sniuzen, G. schneuzen, schnäuzen), MLG. snûten (LG. snüten), Dutch snuiten (WFris. snute): the stem snūt- is prob. the same as that of snout sb. Cf. also snot sb.

You seem to have snuit.

Cerberus

We do indeed.

tchrist

And do you use it?

Cerberus

16:17

Yes.

tchrist

What would we use in English for it?

> To clean or wipe the nose; to cast away mucus.

I don’t think we have a single word for that any more.

Cerberus

A snuit is...I would say the nose or face of an animal, but it is a bit informal.

tchrist

Oh my, it is a strong verb.

Cerberus

@tchrist The verb snuiten means that, yes.

tchrist

The past participle is snit.

user19161

16:18

I read shit at first.

tchrist

bite, bit. snite, snit.

Cerberus

A snoet is also the nose or face of an animal, but more likely to be used for children too. Informal.

tchrist

Right, snout is for critters.

Cerberus

Yeah, like snout.

tchrist

The new snit is unrelated to the old one. They think.

But they don’t know where it comes from.

Cerberus

16:19

We also have snit, which is completely unrelated.

tchrist

> A state of agitation; a fit of rage or bad temper; a tantrum, sulk. Freq. in phr. in a snit.

That snit?

Cerberus

Nope.

tchrist

Which one?

Cerberus

Ours is probably from German Schnitt. It means a "cut", as in clothing.

tchrist

Hm. snick.

Cerberus

16:21

Snick?

tchrist

OFFS there are ten separate snick entries.

Lemme find which I meant.

Cerberus

Hmm to cut off, I see.

Dictionary.com gives me that one.

tchrist

A snick is a small cut or notch.

You seem to use snit not snick for that.

Cerberus

Do we?

tchrist

Isn’t that what you said about a cut of clothing?

Wait. A cut of or in clothing?

Cerberus

16:23

Of.

tchrist

Carroll’s snicker-snack is a different snick. That one is a sharp noise or click.

Cerberus

As in "this jacket has a nice cut".

tchrist

snick. Etymology: prob. suggested by snick and snee, etc. Connexion with sneck v.2, or with Norw. and Icel. snikka, Sw. dial. snicka, to carve, whittle, is very doubtful.
1. trans. To cut, snip, clip, nick. Also with off, out.

Mitch

@Robusto hunh..I never had heard of petit pain before, but it seems common enough.

tchrist

They don’t know where that comes from either. What good are these people?

Cerberus

16:25

Snee = a cut (general sense).

tchrist

Not snow?

Mitch

"snick. Etymology: prob. suggested by snick" I think there are a number of words like that.

Cerberus

That's sneeuw.

German snow = Schnee.

Snee comes from snede (syncope).

tchrist

syncope = faint?

Cerberus

And I think snede is the regulal Dutch equivalent to German Schnitt.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

16:26

Hey, what does it say about English and or Tolkien that my 2yo speaks like gollum? He doubles all his plural Ses: "truckses and diggerses", etc

Cerberus

@tchrist What do you mean? Syncope is when you leave out a sound in the middle of a word.

Mitch

it's the kidses these days.

tchrist

Ok, that one.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, nothing. Just that your family is doomed.

tchrist

Musical syncopation, not medical.

Syncope is the medical term for fainting.

Cerberus

16:27

Kopto = to hit.

Sun = together.

Mitch

because you're missing a few moments.

tchrist

syntax.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I find it adorable but then I call him my Precioussssss! And he says "Daddy! Don' say that!"

tchrist

Brits will say things like The Farmerses for the Farmers family.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha then I would say it again!

tchrist

16:30

> snee, snick and snee, snick-a-snee, snickersnee, snick or snee, snye, steek

Cerberus

@tchrist And you don't say the Joneses?

tchrist

That’s different.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well that one makes some sense. But he doesn't treat "trucks" like a singular... he knows it's "truck"

tchrist

It started with one syllable.

Cerberus

The Michaelses?

tchrist

16:31

I doubt you would hear Farmerses in North America, but I do not know.

No, that all sounds wrong.

Cerberus

Weird.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Hm, I will pay attention to see if he doubles s more on single syllable words...

tchrist

Or Gollumic.

Robusto

+1 for the shotgun approach. You hit it with shill. As a side note, in grifter cant, the term for someone who brings in a mark to be cheated in a con game is called a roper. — Robusto 52 secs ago

Mitch

@tchrist That's how it all starts.Then there'll be smoking, and motorcycles.

tchrist

16:32

Then they’re off to marry Jane.

Mitch

she seems like a nice girl.

Robusto

Massachusetts apparently is off to marry Jane. Medical marijuana is on the ballot next week, and the polls are showing it to be a 7-3 favorite.

tchrist

@Robusto Quick short answers to GR questions always incur more reps than thoughtful researched ones to real questions.

Mitch

they all have medical cocaine.

tchrist

@Robusto What’s the third state?

@Mitch Nobody knows about that.

Robusto

16:33

@tchrist Seriously, you're going to teach me about how to get reps?

tchrist

@Robusto I am not teaching. I am lamenting.

Robusto

@tchrist 7-3 meaning it has ~70% support.

Mitch

anesthesiologists have the highest rate of drug abuse..they have all the access.

tchrist

@Robusto No no, I know that. I meant MA, CO, + ??.

Robusto

California. Duh.

Where it all began.

tchrist

16:35

I thought it was WA.

Or OR.

It pesks me that my shill answer is already reppier than this one:

4

A: Why do we use the object instead of the subject pronoun in constructions like "stupid me"?

What is going on here is somewhat complex, but there are two main, interacting factors: The default case in English is the objective case. That explains why it is stupid me, silly me, lucky us. The adjectival use is “recent”. When something like stupid me is used as a subject, it requires thir...

Cerberus

@Mitch Can I have some medical e?

I need it for my psychological well-being.

tchrist

heh

I wonder whether there have been comparative efficacy studies of that with sillyrooms.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm sure there's some out there. the psychiatrists probably use it. no that I think of it, why isn't it the pharmacists with addiction problems?

tchrist

Plus you never know what the chem mix is in e.

Cerberus

@Mitch Who says they aren't addicted too?

> Unfortunately, the feature as it stands today has too many caveats. The performance hit will be untenable for users who spend their time making edits to large files, especially in parity mode, and the inability to dynamically rebalance data stored on disks makes it more difficult than it needs to be to add new drives. Things are a bit better if you want to stick to the mirroring modes and don't think you'll need to expand your storage much, but it's not the simple and flexible solution that it was promised to be.

arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/…

Mitch

16:42

@Cerberus they're too busy dispensing to have time for 'relaxation'

Cerberus

Haha, what?

Ah.

Yes.

No doubt.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ^ About the new Win-8 disk-pooling thingy.

Mitch

Not to be too tendentious or nothing but..

does anybody actually -care- about Windows 8?

Cerberus

No.

Not in the least.

I hear the new tablet is all right.

Mitch

too bad for poor microsoft.

Cerberus

But for desktops?

MS will be fine.

It is their custom to alternate between good and bad versions.

Mitch

16:45

yeah. millions of people still have to go to work and use it.

Cerberus

Windows 98 - ME - XP - Vista - 7 - 8.

@Mitch They don't. Nobody forces them to switch to 8.

Mitch

like star trek?

tchrist

Not Constructive

Cerberus

Hehe.

That depends.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That is disappointing news about storage spaces. I was looking forward to that. It's the only feature in 8 that I cared about

Cerberus

16:46

If I had to work in Win 8, I would just run XP or 7 in a VM.

Mitch

@Cerberus stil use microsoft in general, whatever the version. lots of companies were still trying to transition away from XP to w7

Cerberus

What do you mean?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Myeah...too bad.

Mitch

I was only noticing recently that not absolutely everryone still has XP, and that a sizeable number have moved up to W7 (skipping vista).

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I think the metro interface will be a disaster for desktop though.

Got to run

Cerberus

Bai.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, it will be!

It will be like Vista, i.e. skipped.

@Mitch Yeah, some people are indeed making the switch now.

Is Win 7 now larger than XP?

I forgot.

Ranger

16:49

larger on what scale?

Mitch

number of installations?

Ranger

it seems like , but in offices most of the softwares are more smooth on XP than 7.

Cerberus

I'm not switching yet.

Ranger

i did but it didn't work well for me.

Cerberus

No?

What software did you have problems with?

tchrist

16:53

Just one more closevote needed for Norty:

1

Q: Collapse On Itself

I saw this and don't understand: web A majority on the city council agreed with him, and the rickety financing scheme collapsed on itself a month ago, leading to resignations and giving some opponents the satisfaction of declaring the whole monorail adventure over. Assuming itself ref...

grammar

Ranger

hmm like eclipse

which is heavily used

and whenever i have to make network calls , specially when network is internet , it makes my system slow

i will switch to 8 and see if it makes me happy if and when they purchase 8.

for outside the office hours , still XP is considered best for gaming.

tchrist

> To say that one has been the recipient of a backhanded compliment is a good-humored way of saying (not taking umbrage at) that another person with whom said recipent is on good or neutral terms, has made an observation, usually but not necessarily one that"smacks" of flattery or compliment, but which also seems, perhaps perceptively, perhaps not, to be other than, or not totally, a compliment--or lessened to some degree from having such qualities in inarguable measure.

Too long, didn’t breathe.

I sentence the author to two weeks of solitary confinement with Hemmingway.

0

A: Is “left-handed compliment” considered offensive?

"Add comments" not working right now so... Left-handed compliment is a mistaken replacement of backhanded compliment: it has no valid likeness of meaning, or identity, in and of itself. Backhanded compliments never carry the sense of being, and are never correctly or properly interpreted as, ...

“Add comments not working right now”?

Mitch

@tchrist replace commas with periods.

tchrist

tl;db

Cerberus

@Ranger Huh, that's weird.

@Ranger Ah! Good to know.

I'm sticking with XP for the time being.

Mitch

17:08

I think we should build our future OSes on Flight Simulator. It would bring us that much closer to the world of Tron.

Cerberus

17:25

Yay!

user19161

18:11

@Mitch You are still here? I see you in the other room!

tchrist

It seems that Ass Goblin and Jingle Bowels are both trending on Urban Dictionary this morning. But have been an exciting Saturday night.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy No stalking!

user19161

@cana I see you are in this room now!

user19161

@Cerberus I thought I am the famous SE stalker eh? =)

Canageek

@JasperLoy Hello there.

I thought I was the only one to do both gaming and TeX

user19161

18:21

@Canageek Er this is not the gaming room...

Cerberus

But who do you want to be?

I have to go, later!

tchrist

I’m about as pleased with what you muddles have done with gaming as what you’ve done with hacking. Sheesh.

Canageek

@JasperLoy Opps, got mixed up, sorry. You use the same colour scheme as RPG.SX >.>

Argon

@JasperLoy Hi Jasper.

user19161

@Canageek OMG, this is the biggest blunder of the year.

Argon

18:22

I've come to haunt you here

user19161

@Argon Haha,

Argon

@JasperLoy $e^x$? :(

ChatJax works :)

user19161

@Argon Let me try if chatjax works here.

Argon

Haha sweet

user19161

It does work!

Argon

18:24

$$\Gamma(z) := \int_0^\infty e^{-x}x^{z-1}\,\text dx$$

user19161

@Argon ANyway let's go back there.

Argon

@JasperLoy :

$$\frac{426880 \sqrt{10005}}{\pi} = \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{(6k)! (13591409 + 545140134k)}{(3k)!(k!)^3 (-640320)^{3k}}$$

FYI

Canageek

Wait, why is the English language chatroom filled with TeX code?

@Argon You shouldn't use $$...$$ anymore, unless you are writing in pure TeX. \[ \] is much improved.

Argon

18:41

@Canageek ChatJax

user19161

@Canageek Hehe, I know why, but it's a secret between me and argon.

Argon

@JasperLoy Hahaha!

user19161

@Canageek Yes, I think $$ won't be supported anymore in LaTeX3.

Argon

@JasperLoy Does MathJax support that?

user19161

@Argon LaTeX3 is just the next version of LaTeX which has not even come out!

Canageek

18:44

@JasperLoy Parts of it have; @JosephWright has several preview packages out, which things such as siunitx take advantage of.

Argon

@JasperLoy Will it support it?

user19161

@Argon Essentially mathjax is just latex rendered, so you know the answer.

Argon

@JasperLoy Bien oui.

$$\left(\cos x + i \sin x\right)^n = \cos(nx)+i\sin (nx)$$

user19161

@Canageek Now that you pinged him you will get the entire room to come here as well. Is the whole world coming here today?

Argon

Yay, English!

user19161

18:48

See @reg I have brought you new visitors from other planets!

user19161

Over and out!

Cerberus

21:40

Hi.

I got Thief II in the mail!

Today.

Oh dear, 48 MB RAM required!!

What now?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

22:09

Time for a boot disk to free up some conventional memory!

Cerberus

Haha conventional memory! I remember that!

I think I had 640K RAM, while others had only 500something.

And I remember making a boot disk, not knowing what it was, of course.

You did what you had to do.

Meanwhile, it's not working.

The menus start up instantly, but the mission doesn't work.

I get a black screen when I start the first mission.

Cut scenes work fine.

What to do?

Hmm on Win NT compatibility mode, the mission starts, and I see something, but then it freezes.

Cerberus

22:48

Hmm this time it lasted a little longer, but it still crashed after a few minutes.

@Reg Hahaha brilliant! @Aedia will love this.

11 hours ago, by RegDwighт

@KitFox you will be happy to learn (and @Cerberus, too) that The IgNobel 2012 literature prize went to the U.S. Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.

@tchrist Of course, power and gas can be out, that's normal enough.

Not same thing as "chocolate's out".

I don't read "the power is out" as "our supply has been used up", which is what "de chocola is op" means.

tchrist

23:39

@Cerberus You really need to hear this version of “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. It is just so cool.

Robusto

23:58

@tchrist Garrison Keillor? Really? shakes head

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…