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16:00
@Mitch Flying, singing ...
I will never be able to hear that song aain without thinking of eating oysters.
@Robusto Vo rah ray, oh oh oh, oh oh! Goo stah ray, oh oh oh, oh oh!
@Mitch Volare, cantare!
@Robusto Oh.
Oh oh, oh oh.
@jlliagre Yes, I would say so.
@Robusto A metaphor.
16:07
@Robusto I'd totally sell my lyrics to Weird Al.
@Cerberus But you never hear people being a "greedy" reader (though you could).
Comme d'habitude but about having the same meal for dinner every day.
And if it's in the dictionary, it's not a metaphor (though it could have come from one). It's just an alternate meaning.
@Robusto I didn't know the Italian original, just that the Dean Martin version was probably a borrowing.
@Mitch Dino Martini Paul Crocetti was Italian.
16:14
Anyway, I did read a couple sentences of Finnegans Wake - took an hour.
@Mitch I think it would take you your whole life to read the whole thing.
@Robusto Yes.
My wife is reading Ulysses right now. I read it in college, and she's having the same trouble with it that I did, except she didn't have the advantage (?) of having been raised Catholic.
But here's the thing: Do you remember that part in 2001: A Space Odyssey where the narrative form goes away and everything just kind of explodes? Yeah, that's like Ulysses.
Heh, I almost wrote "raped" instead of "raised" ...
@Robusto ah the benefits of being raised nothing Protestant.
16:23
@jlliagre What does the * operator mean on the NGrams?
@Robusto multiply (so here, divide by 10)
Is that just to say that what's shown is one tenth of the actual result?
Ah, jinx.
So that's just to keep everything else from flatlining.
That's it.
@Robusto Some metaphors are more common that others.
Avid reader wins.
16:27
@Cerberus This one is not really a metaphor. As I said, it may have come from one, but now it's in the dictionary, and very nearly a fixed phrase.
What is "is"?
It may be a dead metaphor to you.
@jlliagre Looks like "dear" reader wins. All you're doing is pointing up the holes in NGrams.
@Cerberus Copula. Next question?
@Robusto Look, either you want a serious discussion about this or not.
I don't necessarily want one.
Then why are you pursuing it?
16:29
Nor will I shirk my duties are a debater.
Now there's a metaphor: "shirt my duties" ...
@Robusto You pursued it be disagreeing with what I said.
Which is fine.
@jlliagre what are the preferred pairs in French? Voracious and avid readers are in English.
Greedy reader is not idiomatic (as @Robusto noted).
@Cerberus More differing than disagreement, but let it go.
Is 'lecteur gourmand' idiomatic (kind of silly sounding but maybe a common joke?)?
16:34
@Robusto Yes.
I find the intro piano chords very ... banal... like the composer was told to come up with an intro and they did the job without really trying.
For the record, the lyrics sound like it's just a memory of a child, having been told to eat their broccoli, flies into a tantrum and runs outside, locking the door behind themselves. And it's snowing outside and they have no shoes on.
And it's just a song about being mad at their parents. For trying to get them to eat broccoli.
@Mitch You're not all that in tune with show tunes then, I guess. At some level, they all sound the same because they use same cliches.
What's next? You got to know when to walk away, and know when to run...
:^)
@Mitch The only well known collocation I think of is lecteur assidu.
That's kind of a negative way to put it, so let's call it the "language" of show tunes.
16:41
@Robusto Dear reader is more like a greeting, not the same category as voracious, insatiable and greedy.
@jlliagre I understand that. It's part of my point about the failings of NGrams.
Did you @jlliagre ask your math teacher friend yet about the Bourbaki?
"The Gambler" is a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by several artists, most famously by American country singer Kenny Rogers. == Inspiration and early versions == Schlitz wrote the song in August 1976 when he was 23 years old. On the American Top 40 radio program of February 3, 1979, Casey Kasem reported that Schlitz said of "The Gambler": "Something more than me wrote that song. I'm convinced of that. I really had no idea where the song was coming from. There was something going through my head, which was my father. It was just a song, and it somehow filtered through me. Six weeks later...
@think_meaning_buildß I didn't had a chance yet. The weather is Decemberish here so I'm not often in my backyard.
ok, np
let me know if you do please
@Robusto Yes, I know musicians are mostly poor. Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant that nowadays anyone can enjoy even the best performances of classical music from YouTube and that classical music orientation information is freely available on the Internet or through a library (you used to have to take a college music appreciation course, etc.)
But in the original social setting, mostly only the upper class got to enjoy them. Of course if you want to visit good live performances, it can still be quite expensive today.
Shameless plug: I highly recommend Robert Greenberg courses from the Teaching Company, which I could borrow from local libraries. That's a substitute for attending undergraduate college music courses.
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16:55
@GratefulDisciple That hasn't been true in living memory, I'm pretty sure.
@Robusto I'm talking about the time of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or even Chopin. Weren't the performances restricted to courts or salons? Unless it's church music, of course.
@GratefulDisciple Yes, I know.
@GratefulDisciple Bach was so involved with the church that it's hard to say what did or didn't get to the masses.
@Robusto I'm still very thin on my knowledge of the social aspects of classical music. My organ teacher recommended me to read the Bach Reader, which I yet still to read. In the meantime, looks like there's a new edition.
@think_meaning_buildß Remind me.
17:08
The only annoying fact with oysters is that when there are some to open, it's my job to do it.
@jlliagre Is extracting snail from its shell harder than opening oyster?
@Cerberus alcohol (well, ethanol) is not as bad smoking when it comes to cancer. My impression is for the cancer types that they cause, smoking usually increases the risk several dozen-fold, alcohol increases the risk two- to threefold, and the worst ways of cooking meat (grilling it to half-charcoal then guzzling down said charcoal alongside the meat) are probably similar to alcohol or a bit less malign
@M.A.R. Good to hear that BBQ is not as bad as smoking.
And as for other risks, well, heavy smoking increases the risk of rheumatoid arthritis 21-fold, COPD around 40-fold IIRC, and there are some diseases and syndromes unique to smokers. Like Buerger's disease
@GratefulDisciple to BBQ and beyond! As long as we're not smoking we should be fine
@Robusto I wonder whether the Coffee cantata (performed at Café Zimmermann) was digestible by the general public, since the complexity would be similar to a church cantata. I wonder what sort of people would go there; was it like people visiting Starbucks today?
17:14
@M.A.R. Yes, I meant grilled meat compared with alcohol, not with smoking.
@GratefulDisciple I have never eaten raw snails, and never will. When cooked, snails are very easy to extract, much more than what that pretty woman experienced which was of course a joke. It's a little more complicated with bulots, as their body might break in the middle.
@GratefulDisciple Also, don't forget that there are all types of classical music and some of it had to be accessible to common folks. Not everything was an opera.
I read that 15% of all cancer in England is to be attributed to smoking, 5% to alcohol.
@GratefulDisciple probably like people watching The Godfather part one. "Yeah I guess it was nice, but I dunno what the fuss is about"
As you confirmed, I suspect that grilled meat would be bad, but less bad than alcohol.
17:16
@Cerberus and 80% to non smoking nor drinking behavior ;-)
@Robusto So are you saying that my impression is not common, that most people find the intro ... compelling and/or memorable?
@jlliagre an important footnote!
@jlliagre imperialism
@Robusto That's not a failing of NGrams. You could specify that the preceding word to 'reader' is an adjective, something like '*_ADJ reader'
@Mitch People who like show tunes like hearing what they expect to hear.
@Mitch It's a failing of how NGrams are used.
17:22
What is "average reader" supposed to mean anyway?
It's like saying "average pasta eater". Everyone has had pasta as some point or other
Or is that spaghetti? Or macaroni?
Strands #292
“Morning morsel”
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Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing to beginners. To use phonics is to teach the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters (graphemes) or groups of letters or syllables of the written language. Phonics is also known as the alphabetic principle or the alphabetic code. It can be used with any writing system that is alphabetic, such as that of English, Russian, and most other languages. Phonics is also sometimes used as part of the process of teaching Chinese people (and foreign students) to read and write Chinese characters, which are not...
@M.A.R. Maybe that's true of most concert goers today too, upper class or not (I have no way of knowing). Maybe only other musicians (or those who play for a few years) can truly enjoy the craft performed on stage. My point is that no-one has any excuse today (2020s) for not getting the education needed to fully appreciate a classical concert.
@M.A.R. Roughly, it means someone who has graduated from high school only.
17:25
@GratefulDisciple Excuses: no time, no interest.
@Mitch Yup, so I'm with @tchrist to agree with Huxley over Orwell.
The Reading Wars – phonics vs. whole language
My excuses are both
@think_meaning_buildß I see you
BTW, I learned a new word today "noughties" that I was actually wondering what to call the decade from 2000 to 2009. Like nineties for 1990-1999. I wonder what's the word for the decade from 2010-2019 and for the current decade?
@GratefulDisciple Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing there. Think of all the performances that have been ruined for you because you were too critical of some inadequacies of the performer(s) that only someone with your experience would be able to detect.
@GratefulDisciple I nominate "shitties" and "crappies"
17:29
Or maybe the reverse. This decade has been too much
I'd expect that almost all current musicians creating popular music were trained for some part of their childhood classically. I expect that there are very few totally 'self-taught' musicians except for maybe singing and lyrics.
@Robusto I don't think so. Being charitable for a performer's execution is a different dimension than understanding the composition, and the main ideas powering the composition's era, which is what Prof. Greenberg focuses on. I'm actually now more charitable to other performers since I'm more charitable to myself. And it's different from whether the performer did try his/her best. I'm not charitable when he/she is careless.
@GratefulDisciple That's you, then. I've known many musicians who criticized performances as a matter of course.
Of course, they've also waxed rhapsodic over other performances. So ... six of one, half a dozen of the other.
@GratefulDisciple usually people say 'two thousands' or 'two thousand tens'. "the aughts" or "the noughties" sound weird in the US (maybe they're OK in the UK?)
@Robusto Yes, sadly, I have seen that happening too.
@Mitch Thanks. Yes, it was a UK article.
17:32
@Mitch Also "twenty-tens"
the double zeroes
^from roulette
Do we have to say "twenty twenties" still, not just "twenties" when the context is obvious?
@Robusto Yes, that's better.
89
A: Two thousand seventeen VS twenty seventeen: What is the rule for year pronunciation?

RobustoI am a native speaker with a careful ear. From my experience, I can tell you that when the millennium turned from 19xx to 20xx, we said "two thousand" plus the remainder throughout the aughts (01, 02, ..., 09). To use the "twenty" construction would have required acknowledging the zero digit: "tw...

@GratefulDisciple 'twenties' is obvious
for previous ones you give the century now.
17:34
@Robusto Thanks. Just the answer I need. I should have searched ELL/ELU first.
it's like guitar, if you want the unelectrified version you say what kind, eg acoustic guitar.
Makes sense.
@Mitch A cyclist I know refers to his bike as an "acoustic motorcycle." ^_^
@jlliagre Not really! I think behaviour is certainly less than 50%.
@Cerberus do you side with phonics or whole word reading?
17:45
Daily Octordle #1061
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@think_meaning_buildß Umm this was about cancer!
If you mean how I read, I suppose it is a mixture, like for most people? But mainly word shapes, probably.
22 mins ago, by think_meaning_buildß
Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing to beginners. To use phonics is to teach the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters (graphemes) or groups of letters or syllables of the written language. Phonics is also known as the alphabetic principle or the alphabetic code. It can be used with any writing system that is alphabetic, such as that of English, Russian, and most other languages. Phonics is also sometimes used as part of the process of teaching Chinese people (and foreign students) to read and write Chinese characters, which are not...
Daily Sequence Octordle #1061
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Score: 85
Not my day.
@Cerberus there's no mention of Denmark
@think_meaning_buildß Sorry, I don't follow.
17:50
@Cerberus in the linked wikipedia article above
@Robusto Quite a fun to see performance of the Coffee Cantata (they try to re-create a coffee place like a choreography for an opera). Quite fun to see the soprano acting like a caffeine-deprived daughter who around minute 9:00 stirred her cup unnecessary long and hard.
Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Dec. 20, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
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My Score: 2120
@think_meaning_buildß I haven't read it but I just don't know what you are getting at.
@GratefulDisciple When I was fluting back in the day I performed part of that with a soprano.
@Cerberus I'm just wondering if you have heard about the "reading wars"
17:53
I haven't.
ok
@Cerberus how about this
The linguistics wars were extended disputes among American theoretical linguists that occurred mostly during the 1960s and 1970s, stemming from a disagreement between Noam Chomsky and several of his associates and students. The debates started in 1967 when linguists Paul Postal, John R. Ross, George Lakoff, and James D. McCawley —self-dubbed the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"(p70)—proposed an alternative approach in which the relation between semantics and syntax is viewed differently, which treated deep structures as meaning rather than syntactic objects. While Chomsky and other generative...
@think_meaning_buildß I don't really know much about American linguistics, do you?
> While Chomsky and other generative grammarians argued that meaning is driven by an underlying syntax, generative semanticists posited that syntax is shaped by an underlying meaning. This intellectual divergence led to two competing frameworks in generative semantics and interpretive semantics.
I find this a bit hard to follow; do you understand it?
The terms "driven by" and "shaped by" are not very clear to me.
as an uninterested observer, yes
Linguistics and I parted ways when people started talking about "deep structure" and so forth. There are other things more profitable to deal with.
Mathematical linguistics is a swampland full of quicksand.
18:16
@Robusto That must have been fun. Did you have the opportunity to play the Rachmaninoff Piano concerto No. 2? The flutist shines in the 2nd movement.
18:28
#WhenTaken #297 (20.12.2024)

I scored 759/1000🏅

1️⃣📍708 km - 🗓️5 yrs - 🥈174/200
2️⃣📍283 km - 🗓️17 yrs - 🥈154/200
3️⃣📍5.3 km - 🗓️8 yrs - 🥇189/200
4️⃣📍4.9K km - 🗓️10 yrs - 🥉106/200
5️⃣📍2.0K km - 🗓️10 yrs - 🥈136/200

https://whentaken.com
@GratefulDisciple Didn't get the chance for that one, sadly.
@jlliagre Never thought I'd top you on today's puzzle. That one was hard.
@Mitch The three preferred pairs in French are lecteur assidu, lecteur insatiable and lecteur invétéré.
Strands #292
“Morning morsel”
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@Robusto Yes, and I'm sure that woman in the middle didn't imagine that a handful of decades later, we will be commenting across the planet about her situation awareness.
18:49
@jlliagre All those seem to have one-to-one correspondences with English versions (barring false friends) assiduous, insatiable, inveterate, but none are 'what people say'... oh maybe people say insatiable.
“No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it.” —Frank Lloyd Wright
@think_meaning_buildß This particular idea of 'Linguistics wars' seems to be manufactured to give a catchy title to a book to sell it better. Not that there weren't -lots- of controversies with Chomsky and interpretation of different ways of doing things. ie there was no concept of 'linguistic wars' between Chomsky and Postal, Lakoff, McCawley etc over the specifics of generative semantics - surely they had intellectual disagreements, but public discord about it... no.
@think_meaning_buildß yes, these are tantamount to wars, but I've never heard it referred to as 'reading wars'. Anyway, any academic psychologist will tell you that there is no war at all now, phonics is the way to go. 'Whole word' teaching was discredited in the 80's
Though there are always people trying to sell a lot of 'whole word' teaching materials.
19:17
@tchrist I tried to reply with a pun but couldn't find one no matter how I racked my brain, deer
Wordle 1,280 5/6

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19:37
Connections
Puzzle #558
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@jlliagre Aye.
I thought the way she smiled for the camera was quite endearing.
Whelp, the weigh-in results are in and Usyk comes in at 226 lbs, while Fury registered 281 lbs.
That's 19 lbs heavier for Fury and 3 lbs heavier for Usyk, compared to their first bout.
> Fury weighed in at just over 20 stone - albeit while donning several layers of clothing
Including a leather jacket.
20:12
Yesterday they met face-to-face and had a 7 minute staredown with no words spoken.
20:49
@think_meaning_buildß This is a thing? Why is this even a thing?
@GratefulDisciple Shameless plug? Are you the teacher?
They want publicity.
@think_meaning_buildß I want to live another hundred years.
You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime...
@think_meaning_buildß Ah, well, I don't mind my fair share of abuse.
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21:18
Personally, I hope Usyk finishes Fury's boxing career, just because we need an undisputed heavyweight champion.
I don't want to wait for a trilogy tie breaker.
21:44
@MetaEd Of course that's not me. So "plug" implies you're the person being featured? What do you say when you're promoting a person that you're a fan of?
@GratefulDisciple It means that you stand to gain from whatever you're promoting. So it doesn't mean you're necessarily the person being featured, which is why I asked. You could be a Teaching Company employee for example.
@MetaEd Oh, got it. In this case, I used a wrong word. I don't stand to gain at all; just a happy Teaching Company user, though I did purchase a couple courses from them.
22:10
yeah, great courses lives up to their name imho
22:22
Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Dec. 20, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
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My Score: 1680
@jlliagre You did well on Connections, though. Félicitations !
@Robusto Merci. Pour une fois, j'ai deviné le président "eagle scout" :-)
Heh, it was kinda obvious ... ^_^
Granted.
Connections
Puzzle #558
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22:32
@alphabet I found it. This was the "accident of history" answer I was trying to remember.
19
A: Why is “wavelength” one word when “wave height” isn't?

MetaEdThe reason that wavelength is only one word is that humans commonly form new words by combining existing words together. This is called compounding, and is observed over and over by linguists studying the evolution of languages. The reason that the other terms you mention, “wave height” and “wav...

Daily Octordle #1061
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@alphabet And Colin Fine's answer was even more direct about it than mine: "The only full answer is 'because it is'. There are rarely complete answers to 'why' questions in linguistics."
@MetaEd Why?
@jlliagre Because.
@MetaEd Ah, I was hoping for such an answer. Thanks!
Daily Sequence Octordle #1061
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22:44
@jlliagre Don't mention it.
I won't.
Good.
Now I think we're supposed to just glare at each other for more than seven minutes.
2
We did it! New world record!
2
Pretty intense, and no words.
23:28
@Robusto From the Censorship section of the novel's Wikipedia article: "Throughout the 1920s, the United States Post Office Department burned copies of the novel." Wow, this is only 100 years ago but there was still book burning? in America? Not cheap work but literary work? Cannot blame the church on this one, or was a church involved?
The church is always involved.
@think_meaning_buildß You made me curious and want to investigate who exactly was behind the book burning.
questioning is good
@think_meaning_buildß At least the Catholic Church seems clear, the book is not in the Index which was discontinued in 1966. From the Wikipedia article:
> Not on the Index were Aristophanes, Juvenal, John Cleland, James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence. According to Wallace et al., this was because the primary criterion for banning the work was anticlericalism, blasphemy and heresy. Some authors whose views are generally unacceptable to the Church (e.g. Karl Marx) were never put on the Index; nor was Charles Darwin (see Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church).
23:37
@MetaEd This isn't a question about linguistics. That academic discipline is indeed able to explain things.
I don't think that that's the sort of question you'd find a linguistics professor studying, I mean.
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