English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:00

Indeed.

Robusto

If it had gone to a different editor it might have failed miserably.

Cerberus

It might.

Or it might have been better.

Robusto

So how long did it take you to get a perfect score this time?

@Cerberus ^

Cerberus

00:35

I see I posted it 14 minutes after I began, but I was also chatting with several people at the same time.

Robusto

So not too hard.

Cerberus

So a few minutes, why?

No, I found it fairly easy.

Robusto

See? Sometimes that happens.

Cerberus

And it will be easier yet for you.

But it is mostly a fun puzzle.

Robusto

We'll see.

Cerberus

00:37

Some American stuff I wasn't sure about but I got it right, in the purple one.

The green one I would not have got had it not been last, too many things I didn't know. Terminology from a particular field I don't care for.

Robusto

@Cerberus In working on the archives, I lose about 2-3 games per month.

Cerberus

Yeah this one will be super easy for you.

CowperKettle

01:00

Cerberus

That will work, telling everyone publicly not to.

Criggie

Yes Barbara, how right you are Barbara

<Barbara> Don't look at my house!!!!

Don't stickl googly eyes on my house !!!

alphabet

01:37

The only reasonable solution to all those Confederate monuments.

Cerberus

@Criggie You are not stupid, Barbara! You knew that would happen.

@alphabet That will solve their problem.

Criggie

s/,//g

CowperKettle

> Collectively, the results indicate that acute hypernatremia is a potent inhibitor of the HPA, cardiovascular, and behavioral limbs of the stress response. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3086063

Dehydration decreases social stress?

tchrist

01:55

@iopq That makes no sense to me: you can’t say ‘how people a lot of people pronounce “ᴏᴏ” ’ because those are letters not sounds. The same letters show up as different sounds in different words by different speakers. Generally in American: tᴏᴏ, stᴏᴏl, gᴏᴏse, mᴏᴏn, nᴏᴏn, tᴏᴏth have [u] or [uw] or [ʊuʌ̈̆]; wᴏᴏl, fᴏᴏt, gᴏᴏd have [ʊ]; blᴏᴏd has [ʌ̟]; Oᴏrt Cloud has [o]; and ᴏᴏgenesis has [owo⁽ʷ⁾] or [owə]. — tchrist ♦ 2 mins ago

Cerberus

And noone has ~/owʌ/.

tchrist

02:35

@Cerberus It does indeed. Forgot that one.

Cerberus

I don't know whether we have any more sounds...

You could probably search the OED?

tchrist

See what a kind person I am? I didn't even mention that a lot of Americans have [ʊ] in roof, roofs, hoof, hooved, hoofs, hooves, soot, root. :)

@Cerberus Not the online version, you cannot. I can, though, because I have the SGML dump from the OED2E+, which is also what they used for that CD you have.

But hoot just has [u] or maybe [uw].

Blood and flood rhyme with wood and hood up in (a lot of) the north of England.

But not in the United States. I am no expert in the weird Newfoundland dialects though.

Cerberus

Ah, I don't have the CD, just an imagine.

But, yes, it worked.

I don't have it installed any more, though, because I have the OED in Golden Dictionary.

I suppose I miss out on those special functions.

Only now does it occur to me what an original name Newfoundland has, despite its pronunciation.

Xanne

03:06

Finland = Foundland, originally?

Apparently not. More likely Fennland, or marshland, as in “a fen of stagnant waters.”

Cerberus

Germanic?

alphabet

"F'in land"

CowperKettle

03:38

> In 1959, 9 yo Ronald McNair was told he couldn't check out his books from Lake City's segregated library. He went on to become Karate champion, earned an MIT PhD in physics, and became a NASA astronaut.

Word of the morn: osteopetrosis

Cerberus

That doesn't seem very smart.

CowperKettle

Midnight in Chernobyl

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster (2019) by Adam Higginbotham is a history of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occurred in Soviet Ukraine in 1986. It won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction in 2020. Higginbotham spent more than a decade interviewing eyewitnesses and reviewing documents from the disaster, including some that were recently declassified. Higginbotham considers it the first English-language account that is close to the truth. == Reception == According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on 10...

A good book, I've listened to the audioversion

CowperKettle

04:37

Chesterton of the day: The Ladies and Gentlemen of the Smart Set are quite free for the higher culture, which consists chiefly of motoring and Bridge.

M.A.R.

04:51

@CowperKettle well I'm not sure it was about the library thing

@DannyuNDos They say the department of philosophy teaches sophistry

@Cerberus FWIW I don't think pharma companies claiming that these rights help them make up for the research costs are lying. The research required to produce a novel drug typically takes several billion dollars in costs, and most generic drugs can't cover those losses. The market for conventional drugs usually deals with much smaller numbers.

Not every drug can be Keytruda and net 5 billion dollars in sales every year.

CowperKettle

05:09

@M.A.R. Yes, I forgot to copypaste that "Today that library is named after him."

alphabet

@M.A.R. At least in the US, the issue is that taxpayer money funds quite a lot of the research needed to create new drugs; it seems unfair that the pharma companies should be treated as their sole inventors in terms of patent law.

...particularly given that those companies charge several times more for their products in the US than elsewhere, partly because they get to scam Medicare and partly because the inability to import drugs across borders gives those companies an unusual level of control over the market.

think_meaning_buildß

05:25

Haven't you heard monopolization is the new world order.

M.A.R.

@alphabet what's unfair is a drug being worth 12k in Germany and 100k in the US. As for the whole logistics of research, well, I think compared to other problems American healthcare suffers from, it's quite tame

If you can't make insurance companies support 100 million Americans better, expecting equity from pharma companies is putting the cart before the horse

think_meaning_buildß

Monopoly is the highest selling board game of all time, with an estimated 275 million units of Monopoly sold …25 Apr 2023

M.A.R.

I'm sure it's bound to get better since Mr. Trump will apply trickle-down healthcare policies.

Healthcare for the richest and hope for the best for everyone else

alphabet

@M.A.R. Yeah, it makes no sense to me that suppliers in one country can't import chemically identical drugs from other countries.

CowperKettle

Очень бюджетный салют)

►

Two villagers demonstrate low-cost New Year fireworks

alphabet

05:40

My insurer's just great. Gathering documents and filling out forms is always a fun-filled adventure. I love surprises, like their seemingly random decisions about how much they'll cover. Such an excellent game trying to figure out where those numbers come from.

@CowperKettle Call it an "eco-friendly firework show alternative" and charge $100 for admission. Big hit with the influencers.

GratefulDisciple

07:53

@Cerberus The Green I got earlier by pure luck since I was thinking of an entirely different category, but only on hindsight the right category makes more sense, and yes, these are terminologies I don't care for also.

Connections
Puzzle #561
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

CowperKettle

11:03

> Ashtabula derives from the Lenape language phrase ashte-pihële, which translates to 'always enough (fish) to go around, to be given away'[5] and is a contraction of apchi ('always')[6] + tepi ('enough') + hële (verb of motion).

I heard this word from Bob Dylan, but never looked up what it meant.

Belts Are Now BETTER Than Chains On Bicycles!

►

tchrist

11:43

@tchrist I am an American and I pronounce too as [tʰʊw]. [tu] is Russian-accented English. Also I say [fɤt] for foot, [fləd] for flood — iopq 3 hours ago

What's with these kids who can't round their lips? Didn't they get pacifiers as infants? Lack of straws for their daily half-pint cartons of milk in kindergarten? I wonder whether W-dropping will become as stigmatized as H-dropping is. Let's just make all the vowels /ə/ and call it done.

A woman becomes ə əmən.

Yə thənk sə? Cəld bə trəbəl.

Dəfənətlə ənləfəl.

MetaEd

12:35

Wordle 1,283 3/6

🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Vikas

12:53

It rained here today. So . . . Good bye to sun for some days.

MetaEd

Strands #295
“Pass the eggnog”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵

jlliagre

13:36

Wordle 1,283 5/6

⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

jlliagre

13:51

Connections
Puzzle #561
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟩🟪🟦
🟪🟩🟪🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟩🟦🟦
🟦🟩🟩🟦

GratefulDisciple

14:07

@tchrist Even now after several years in Canada, I'm still getting used to how they say "about" and "out" that I found, from my little googling, is the result of Canadian raising, a linguistic habit that native Canadian English speakers picked up naturally, as explained in this video.

CowperKettle

GratefulDisciple

@M.A.R. Isn't sophistry what the law department teaches instead? I would say that the philosophy department teaches skepticism until they are so incapacitated that they cannot even define what philosophy IS. (As opposed to law teaches justice and philosophy teaches wisdom.)

@think_meaning_buildß That's (un)surprising, maybe that reveals a feature of our disordered human nature that buyers of the game unconsciously find affinity to.

Cerberus

@jlliagre You got pretty far!

Cerberus

14:26

> Researchers from the UK and Belgium used publicly available data to estimate how much, on average, drug companies spend on research and development to bring a new medicine to market.

Most prior analyses have been based on confidential data voluntarily supplied by drug companies to researchers with financial ties to the industry. Independent teams have not been able to verify these findings.

The researchers behind this new study estimated that the median cost of bringing a new drug to market was $985 million, and the average cost was $1.3 billion. This is in stark contrast to previous st…

nieuws.kuleuven.be/en/content/2020/…

jlliagre

@Cerberus Yes, I was close to get both of them but missed that thou meaning.

Cerberus

> Doctors have for the first time released details of their spending on a major clinical trial, demonstrating that the true cost of developing a medicine may be far less than the billions of dollars claimed by the pharmaceutical industry.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is challenging drug companies to be transparent about the cost of trials, which has always been shrouded in secrecy. Its own bill for landmark trials of a four-drug combination treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis came to €34m (£29m)

theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/25/…

Robusto

#travle #740 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

Cerberus

@M.A.R. I think the total of their revenue that big pharma spend on research and development is something like 15%.

It is very low, they absolutely do not need nearly so much income from patents as they get.

The current system is broken; instead, new medicines should be funded the way research at universities is funded, not like the way research of toys and entertainment works (as now).

That would be like 500% more efficient.

And far more people would get cheap medicine.

Robusto

@Cerberus Not that I disagree with you (we see far too many prescription drugs advertised to consumers here), but some of those companies also have consumer products that skew the conclusion. For example, Johnson & Johnson manufactures lots of shampoos &c., which may we why they are first in that chart).

alphabet

14:36

Have we tried seizing the means of production? I hear it can help with things like that.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple Well done! I would have known all of the green ones myself, it was my leftover.

alphabet

You can read about it in my forthcoming treatise about the relationship between capitalism and systemic antiraccoonism.

Cerberus

@Robusto I suspect that graph will be based on their pharmaceutical companies only.

Robusto

@Cerberus I believe that would be the intent of the authors, but absent any accompanying statement I would not draw such a conclusion.

Cerberus

I do not base my statements just on this illustration.

I have seen various other sources over the years.

GratefulDisciple

14:56

@Cerberus In my case, several of the Green words' meanings are new to me, which is part of the fun I'm having with Connections.

@jlliagre Yes, that meaning is unfair for non-Americans, as some Green meanings are biased to women.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple I would prefer if the quiz were about more erudite subjects, though.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus to be fair, this one sounds like just a (couple of) large clinical trial(s) in countries whose currencies are far inferior to the dollar, so (1) the cost would seem artificially low when reported in dollars, and (2) it is not comparable to phase III of drug development let alone the whole thing.

But sure, if they're making a lot of money from the loopholes in the system and overreporting costs, let's eat the rich and so on and so forth

I suspect the analysts at pharma companies use some economics thingamajig to convert everything they can in terms of costs into dollars and bloat the number. Damned lies and statistics and all that.

CowperKettle

Word of the eve: cacolet - An open chair mounted to one side of a pack animal, balanced by another on the other side.

M.A.R.

15:12

So it could be that drug development costs both one billion dollars and five, except five does not use a conventional meaning of the term, so it's misleading.

@CowperKettle that is not as comfortable as it looks

CowperKettle

Poor camel.

M.A.R.

Economists misleading people? Never!

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Of course - there are even no USB charging ports there

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle no wifi either

But I imagine it'd be like sitting in car that's going over speedbumps every second

Cerberus

@M.A.R. It has been abundantly shown that that is what they do. Have you ever wondered why they make such insane profits? And why they have such insame amounts of leftover money to spend on marketing?

@M.A.R. Yes, of course.

@M.A.R. Yes.

GratefulDisciple

15:21

@Cerberus For sure. One for computer geeks (where "Sun" would be a computer and "Java" would be a programming language, or as @jlliagre suggested, "Blade" is a type of server), one for classical-music enthusiasts, another for classics, and of course, one for ELU audience.

Robusto

Connections
Puzzle #561
🟪🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

@Cerb Haha, you beat me.

Cerberus

@Robusto That's shocking!

Get it away from me, it hurts my eyes!

@GratefulDisciple Yes, one could specialise them for different audiences.

Or just make one with stuff that any educated person would know.

Or even stuff that every normal person would no but minus the references to commercial culture.

Robusto

15:48

May 15, 2023 at 17:32, by Robusto

@jlliagre "The sun don't shine on the same dog's ass every day."

#WhenTaken #300 (23.12.2024)

I scored 829/1000🏅

1️⃣📍423 m - 🗓️21 yrs - 🥈151/200
2️⃣📍114 km - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇193/200
3️⃣📍57.5 m - 🗓️46 yrs - 🥉100/200
4️⃣📍305 m - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200
5️⃣📍361 km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥇185/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,283 4/6

⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

16:29

Strands #295
“Pass the eggnog”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵

→ 2 messages moved to Trash

Daily Octordle #1064
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9️⃣🕛
5️⃣8️⃣
7️⃣4️⃣
Score: 66

Daily Sequence Octordle #1064
4️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🕚
🕛⓮
Score: 71

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Dec. 23, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2140

think_meaning_buildß

17:01

@GratefulDisciple sure, everybody loves to be in economic control.

Robusto

think_meaning_buildß

niiice

MetaEd

18:44

Connections
Puzzle #561
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩

MetaEd

19:00

for me, the easiest group was the hardest. rot13(V unq arire urneq bs n obng arpxyvar.)

Robusto

@MetaEd That's how I missed the first try.

alphabet

Question: if you verb UberEats, what's the correct preterite form? "I UberEatsed us some pizza" sounds terrible.

"I UberAte us some pizza" is obviously much better /s

M.A.R.

@alphabet real Ubermensch UberEat.

alphabet

Also: why does "I will UberEat(s) us some pizza" seem much better than "I will UberEat(s) some pizza to/for us"?

@M.A.R. Does Iran have an UberEats equivalent yet?

M.A.R.

19:18

@alphabet the main app for affordable taxi in Iran is Snapp. Sure enough they've expanded to include delivery services, including for food. Helpfully called SnappFood

think_meaning_buildß

I will Eat(s) me some pizza, sounds redneck.

MetaEd

@alphabet Ubered.

M.A.R.

Of course not as overarching as the successes of American companies, the way they monopolize the whole thing, reshape people's way of life, but still impressive

alphabet

Does turning brand names into verbs happen across languages? It does seem like the sort of trend that would start in the US.

@think_meaning_buildß By contrast, I think "We need a verb for 'UberEats'" is the most bourgeois urbanite problem in existence.

Robusto

I will pin the first message that makes a sentence composed only of brand names. There has to be at least five words.

3

M.A.R.

19:20

@alphabet here, only when weakly imitating English speakers.

alphabet

@Robusto Google 'Facebook.'

Robusto

@alphabet We need at least five words, which rule I added after your fine effort.

Mitch

@think_meaning_buildß hey uncool man some of my closest relatives eat them some pizza.

think_meaning_buildß

:D

Mitch

@Robusto are there any corporate prepositions or articles we can use?

Robusto

19:26

@Mitch So you think prepositions are an imposition?

alphabet

@Robusto Google "Facebook Apple Microsoft Amazon."

3

Mitch

@Robusto I'm positive.

Robusto

@alphabet Nice try, but I'm looking for something a bit more creative.

@alphabet However, I will pin your answer for a period of time not to exceed one hour.

Mitch

If you xerox your kleenex, you should google how to hoover it up.

alphabet

Ok, not the most bourgeois urbanite problem. That would be the endless issue of how to walk around sipping Starbucks in the rain without raindrops getting into your drink.

think_meaning_buildß

19:32

lol

alphabet

Seriously I have never figured it out. Of course you can put one of those stoppers in the lid but then you can't drink it until you arrive at your destination.

And the whole point of stopping at Starbucks is, of course, to have something to do on your way to somewhere else.

think_meaning_buildß

Google: "Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc."

Robusto

@alphabet The whole point of Starbucks is to caffeinate people who can't find a real coffee anywhere else.

think_meaning_buildß

etc = infinitely many words

CowperKettle

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these urbanites from the swift consumption of their procured victuals"

think_meaning_buildß

19:37

also etc could be a brand name

Robusto

etsy

alphabet

@CowperKettle Aw hell no, I'm not going to Starbucks in this weather. Imma make an UberEats driver get food for me.

MetaEd

@Robusto Challenge accepted, ok. Like this? Obey love -- fuck him all night. (Sorry!)

Xanne

@alphabet Great Britain turned aHoover vacuum into a verb. Brits hoover stuff up. We rarely do that in the States.

alphabet

Semi-related fact of the day: Dyson's latest vacuum cleaner costs $1,050.

MetaEd

19:44

@alphabet Hope it doesn't suck.

Robusto

Target just sent me an email announcing, "Your new Weekly Ad is here!" So just to be clear, this is maybe the most egregious helping of chutzpah I have ever seen. Should I get down on my knees and praise the lord that my "new Weekly Ad" has finally arrived? Is this going to be bigger than the Second Coming?

Seriously, I'm not making this up.

See if you can guess how long it took me to click "Unsubscribe" ...

The fact is, I didn't even know I was "subscribed" ...

@MetaEd I don't get it.

think_meaning_buildß

mark it as spam

MetaEd

@Robusto Nothing surprises me. I remember when Yahoo! Weather offered a six-month weather outlook, so you could plan your wedding or other outdoor event for a good-weather day.

@Robusto It's four sentences all composed only of brand names.

Robusto

@MetaEd So "fuck" and "him" are brand names?

MetaEd

@Robusto "Fuck Him All Night" is a brand of perfume.

Robusto

19:50

Bullshit.

OK, I stand corrected.

> Back in July, Azealia Banks dropped the single 'Fuck Him All Night', a raunchy and weird track that perfectly captured 2021's failed summer of love in all its horny, messy glory. Now, Banks is back with her very own "Fuck Him All Night" perfume

I am literally getting too old for this.

We have a winner, folks.

alphabet

Goop uncensored.

That is just the dumbest product name I've heard in recent memory.

think_meaning_buildß

"sex sells"

always has, always will

alphabet

20:10

Sure but when I try to sell sex I'm "breaking the law." Unfair.

think_meaning_buildß

20:30

because it's a buyer's market

think_meaning_buildß

20:50

@Robusto Is there a grammatical reason for the switch from single quotation marks to double?

We were always drilled with "keep it consistent."

Robusto

@think_meaning_buildß I was taught to use double quotes except single for quotes within quoted matter. *Sam said, "That bastard told me, 'Get fucked and die mad about it!'"

British English is the opposite. Single outside of double.

think_meaning_buildß

right

it has a t-shirt

web.archive.org/web/20220524083717/https://www.cheapyxo.com/…

jlliagre

21:32

#WhenTaken #300 (23.12.2024)

I scored 820/1000🏅

1️⃣📍1.6 km - 🗓️12 yrs - 🥇179/200
2️⃣📍68.6 km - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇195/200
3️⃣📍2.6 m - 🗓️24 yrs - 🥈139/200
4️⃣📍15.5 m - 🗓️29 yrs - 🥉119/200
5️⃣📍102 km - 🗓️6 yrs - 🥇188/200

https://whentaken.com

MetaEd

22:00

"Life is a series of rude awakenings." ---R.V. Winkle

tchrist

@Robusto Note that headlines tend to use only single quotes even in America.

Robusto

@MetaEd "Nature always sides with the hidden flaw."

tchrist

The New York Times having notably superior typography to the Washington Post notwithstanding.

Robusto

22:16

@tchrist Headlines are exceptions for a lot of things. Periods at the ends of sentences, for example. Also that they don't have to be sentences at all, etc.

Xanne

It’s a matter of typography. Infinite Jest has long conversations in single quotes.

Robusto

9

A: Use quotation marks or italics for written quotes?

Normal style in narrative writing is to use quotes, not italics. Some authors of fiction, notably James Joyce and William Gaddis, used an em dash at the beginning of a paragraph that started with a quote: — Do you have the money? he asked. But that was an idiosyncratic usage. Since this is...

jlliagre

22:33

@Robusto So now what are the odds for us to have two exact ties in a row?

Xanne

And normal is the thing to be.

Robusto

@jlliagre At some level, 100%.

jlliagre

@Robusto Probably, if we keep on playing daily for a half-century or so.

Robusto

@jlliagre We should be so lucky.

Now that I've written that sentence, I begin to wonder if the actual meaning of the sentence is clear to you, @jlliagre. It's actually a way of saying "that ain't never gonna happen."

A. When I become a billionaire, I'm going to buy an island.
B. You should be so lucky.

What would make the chances 100% for sure would be that the puzzles started to be ridiculously easy. Or maybe completely impossible.

jlliagre

Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky - Official Video

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@Robusto Thanks, I didn't know the idiom.

CowperKettle

23:52

> Black cottonwood polar trees have a complex gene acquired partly from ants and fungi, which dramatically improves the efficiency of photosynthesis in variable light, boosting biomass productivity by up to 200%.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…