English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

GratefulDisciple

00:26

@Cerberus For my personal use, I take a language's richness pragmatically: the # of words that the whole educated class of the society would recognize TODAY, thus including the semi-archaic words represented in all literature since 1400-1500. But not all words ever used, because words that were only used prior to that century seems to be the province of a minority of specialists.

That's why representation in the Internet, which includes archives of books and journal articles, seems quite a good-enough pragmatic criteria of the vocab-richness of a language; alternately all words having citations post 1500 such as the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal.

Cerberus

Hmm so you would discount many of the words in the OED?

By the way, if you want to give your opinion on the Connections game I made yesterday, feel free, of course.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus If it's no longer represented in Elizabethan era or later, then no.

@Cerberus I got the yellow one, ALPHA was a big clue. The green one was also easy. But the Blue one was very hard for me (though after the explanation, of course it makes sense), and the purple was even harder (though again, it made sense). So: good puzzle!

Dannyu NDos

01:02

Help. I'm having a hard time counting in Spanish because of the similarity to French.

jlliagre

@DannyuNDos Try Italian.

Dannyu NDos

That's beyond my plan.

Maybe after Russian, German, Arabic, and Vietnamese.

After those, maybe Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and the Scandinavian languages. No particular order tho.

Robusto

@DannyuNDos Forget French. Spanish is much easier. (Hint: the spelling of words is simple and if you can say a word you can spell it.)

jlliagre

@DannyuNDos Okay. 16 is different, not to mention anything between 69 and 100.

Robusto

@jlliagre Oh yeah, no quatre-vingt dix huit either.

jlliagre

01:10

@Robusto Isn't 98 between 69 and 100?

Robusto

@jlliagre Yes, you just reminded me and I wanted to make it graphic for Danny. ;-)

See, the "Oh yeah" is an idiom meaning "you just reminded me of ..." etc.

Dannyu NDos

@Robusto But I want to remember them all. 😢

jlliagre

@Robusto Okay, you need more hyphens: quatre-vingt-dix-huit.

Robusto

And when you write it as 98 it doesn't give the full awkward clumsiness of the matter.

@jlliagre Hey, I didn't want to scare him to death so quickly. Also, it's very tiring typing all those hyphens.

Dannyu NDos

If octilinguality isn't enough, vigintilinguality will do. (semi-jk)

@Robusto I mean... I can count in French.

Not that I must count in Danish now.

jlliagre

01:14

@DannyuNDos Congrats. Up to what number?

Dannyu NDos

@jlliagre IIRC, till $10^{129} - 1$.

jlliagre

Not bad.

Dannyu NDos

Neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf vigintilliarde and so on.

Cerberus

01:36

@GratefulDisciple Ow, thanks! So you must have played the first version, I made it a little bit easier and tighter in the second version.

jlliagre

Cerberus

Alpha was removed, because it was not quite right. But replaced with something else which may make it easier.

Lens was also replaced to make it a little bit easier.

jlliagre

@DannyuNDos How do you write in French the amount of Zimbabwean dollars on the banknote up there?

Robusto

@jlliagre Easier to write the actual value: 0

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple By the way, I have a new puzzle if you're in the mood, but it still needs some testing.

jlliagre

01:52

@Robusto True. That's their current value but at the time they were printed, that was around US$30, for a few seconds probably.

Arfrever

@Robusto Regarding "Spanish is much easier. (Hint: the spelling of words is simple and if you can say a word you can spell it.)": If I hear [roˈβ̞us.t̪o], I could spell it robusto or rovusto.

jlliagre

@Arfrever In French, that might be Raubusteault though.

Arfrever

In other words, letters B and V have the same pronunciation in Spanish.

Spanish ave = [ˈa.β̞e] (from Latin avis)

Robusto

@Arfrever There is no difference between Robusto and Rovusto in Spanish. Not that I can hear, anyway.

Arfrever

Spanish cabo = [ˈka.β̞o] (from Late Latin capus from caput)

Spanish villa = [ˈbi.ʝa] (from Latin villa)

Spanish bueno = [ˈbwe.no] (from Latin bonus)

jlliagre

02:01

@Arfrever ll has several variants.

Arfrever

Yes, that word has several pronunciations in different regions, but all of them start with the same consonant anyway.

jlliagre

@Arfrever Or not. En general, en español la b y v se pronuncian igual: con [b] bilabial. La articulación labiodental de v solo es espontánea en hablantes valencianos o mallorquines y de zonas de Cataluña por influencia del catalán, y en puntos de América por influjo de las lenguas amerindias.

rae.es/duda-linguistica/…

Arfrever

I used proper IPA. Both [b] and [β̞] are bilabial.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_phonology#Fricatives describes situation in Catalan language: "The labiodental fricative (/v/) occurs in Balearic, as well as in Alguerese, Standard Valencian and some areas in southern Catalonia. Everywhere else (including parts of Valencian, like its central dialect), it has merged with historic /β/ so that [b] and [β] occur in complementary distribution."

jlliagre

02:20

@Arfrever That's what I pointed out.

Arfrever

@jlliagre But Catalan is a separate language from Spanish.

jlliagre

@Arfrever The RAE is referring to Catalan people natively speaking Spanish, not speaking Catalan.

Dannyu NDos

02:59

@jlliagre Cent billion.

Or cent billions? Idk

jlliagre

@DannyuNDos Right, plural. You didn't fall in the trap :-)

Dannyu NDos

Meanwhile, I'm so glad that Duolingo launched a Spanish-for-Koreans course.

M.A.R.

@jlliagre are those charming little rocks supposed to be Zimbabwean economy's tombstone?

Dannyu NDos

Estudiar español es muy difícil, ¿verdad?

M.A.R.

It would have been nice if depictions on bills were more honest. For example, an Iranian bill could have had a poop emoji

jlliagre

03:03

Balancing rocks of Zimbabwe

Balancing rocks are found in many parts of Zimbabwe. These geomorphological features are formed of igneous rocks. Particularly noteworthy balancing rocks are located in Matobo National Park and near the township of Epworth, to the southeast of Harare. == Notable rocks == The Domboremari, also known as the Money Rock, is a formation of three boulders that form part of the Chiremba Balancing Rocks on the northwestern outskirts of Epworth (at coordinates 17.8856°S 31.1256°E / -17.8856; 31.1256 (Domboremari (Money Rock))). This rock formation is notable because it appears in all Zimbabwe...

@DannyuNDos Depende del profesor.

Dannyu NDos

Es Duolingo.

HippoSawrUs

06:27

@Xanne Thanks, that could be it.

HippoSawrUs

06:46

Watching 'Secrets of the Neanderthals' on Netflix, and here's a secret: Remember that weird shaped slight hump of flattened clods, but with a bit of texture to them, like dried "mud hamburgers"…that you took turns kicking, into dust, until you tasted them in the dirty orange air? I do.

Well, that could be what they call a "complete skeleton."

Maybe 75,000 years old

Who knows

They have to collect each piece like a burger, wrap it in tinfoil

Hey, who needs identifiable pieces when you have computers and junk?

We had no idea…

That's what you get for playing with boys

OMG

Ew

Or poop?

Really old poop

Would that be better or worse?

IDK

What is the word for archaeological poop?

coprolites

Never would've guessed that

But I think they were once bodies

Maybe forest animals

Barely more than dirt clods

Huh

HippoSawrUs

07:24

@tchrist I looked it up years ago. I can't remember the author, but there was a copy for sale then. It could've been a comment on a deleted post; I can't recall now. Thanks anyhow.

HippoSawrUs

07:39

@tchrist Yeah, they lost me at "complement" frankly. Why not just Thing 1 and Thing 2, and T3, T4, T5…however many that all is.

I'm probably too old or something for it all now.

But I'd like to try something new, more natural and not convoluted.

I think a lot of people very interested in English…are not great communicators. LOL. Like me.

I just can't understand them really.

I need a text, with no readability issues whatsoever.

Communication always comes first.

Xanne

08:18

Connections
Puzzle #574
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟩🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟦🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟨🟨🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦

Strands #308
“Cold snap”
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡🔵🔵

Cerberus

08:44

Oh, you just got it! Was it difficult?

Connections
Puzzle #574
🟦🟩🟨🟨
🟦🟩🟨🟨
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪

Okay, I would never have got purple.

Don't know what most of those are.

The rest was admittedly doable, but I let myself be misled by her false clue and lack of knowledge of certain American things.

SmokeDetector

09:07

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer (1): Tense to use with "has always been something that..." ✏️‭ by RustyGrammarian53098‭ on english.SE

Xanne

09:55

I don’t think this purple has anything specifically American. i got misled, as the puzzle intended, on the others though. I should have taken more time.

jlliagre

13:41

@GratefulDisciple I had snails for lunch. All went well :-)

Robusto

#travle #753 +0
🟩✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

Robusto

14:04

#WhenTaken #313 (05.01.2025)

I scored 783/1000🏅

1️⃣📍1.7K km - 🗓️10 yrs - 🥈142/200
2️⃣📍6.7K km - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥉112/200
3️⃣📍104 m - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200
4️⃣📍589 km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥇179/200
5️⃣📍2.1 km - 🗓️21 yrs - 🥈151/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,296 4/6

⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Connections
Puzzle #574
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨

Strands #308
“Cold snap”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵

jlliagre

14:20

#WhenTaken #313 (05.01.2025)

I scored 774/1000🏅

1️⃣📍1.3K km - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥈164/200
2️⃣📍4.5K km - 🗓️10 yrs - 🥉110/200
3️⃣📍255 m - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200
4️⃣📍3.5K km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥈131/200
5️⃣📍862 km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥈170/200

https://whentaken.com

Robusto

Daily Octordle #1077
🕚4️⃣
5️⃣🔟
9️⃣8️⃣
6️⃣7️⃣
Score: 60

@jlliagre A statistical tie. ;-)

Daily Sequence Octordle #1077
5️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣9️⃣
🔟🕚
🕐⓮
Score: 75

jlliagre

Wordle 1,296 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Jan. 5, 2025

T I G H T R O P E
✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 1630

Yeesh.

jlliagre

14:40

Daily Octordle #1077
9️⃣🔟
🕐7️⃣
3️⃣5️⃣
🟥🟥
Score: 75

Daily Sequence Octordle #1077
6️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
🕐⓮
Score: 83

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Jan. 5, 2025

T I G H T R O P E
✅ 💔 ✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ 💔 ⎵ 🤕

My Score: 1010

Robusto

15:15

@jlliagre Tough one today.

jlliagre

Connections
Puzzle #574
🟦🟩🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟨🟨🟨
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟪

@Cerberus I don't know what any of these are...

Cerberus

19:13

@jlliagre You mean any thing in any colour? Or any thing in purple?

jlliagre

20:24

@Cerberus Any of the purple set.

tchrist

Never trust a color whose name requires more than a single syllable. :)

mac(tchrist)% colorgrep 'purpl|violet' | perl -ne 'print if s/:.*//' | perl -pe 's/$/,/' | sort | fmt -999
amarant, amethyst, aubergine, claret, crimson, damson, gridelin, hyacinth, ianthine, indigo, jacinthine, lilac, manganese, mauve, modena, orchid, pansy, pelagian, perse, petunia, pink, plum, prune, puce, puniceous, purple, purpureous, purpurine, purpureal, raisins, ruby, sloe, violaceous, violascent, violescent, violet,

It didn't notice magenta because the OED didn't mention violet or purple in the definition, but rather just crimson.

> mac(tchrist)% colorgrep magenta
magenta: The name of a town in Northern Italy where, in 1859, the
Austrians were defeated by the French and Sardinians. Used for the name
of a brilliant crimson aniline dye, discovered shortly after the date
of the battle.

pink has one syllable

Robusto

@tchrist What about amarillo?

@tchrist Mauve has but a single syllable, and it's what @jlliagre would use for purple.

tchrist

@Robusto Somehow red, blue, green, black, white, grey all seem realer colors than yellow, orange, purple.

Xanne

What happened to lavendar?

Robusto

20:40

Bueno, pero rojo, verde, azul, negro y blanco? Todos me parecen reales.

Can you spell calender?

tchrist

> mac(tchrist)% colorgrep lavend
lavender: The color of lavender-flowers, a very pale blue with a trace
of red.

Xanne

Lavender, yes.

tchrist

Those mentioning red are...

> apple, bay, blood, brick, brick-red, brown, burgundy,
camellia, carmine, carnadine, carroty, chaudron,
Chelidonian, chestnut, cinnabar, claret, coquelicot,
coral, coralline, cornelian, crimson, cyclamen, fallow,
ferruginous, flame, flammulated, fuchsia, fulvous,
gray, grenat, grey, gridelin, gules, guly, haematic,
hazel, hematic, hepaticous, hyacinth, incarnadine,
jacinth, Jacqueminot, lac, lake, lateritious, lavender,
mahogany, miniaceous, miniate, miniatous, minious,
moorit, mordore, mulberry, nacarat, œil-de-perdrix,

Those mentioning blue are:

> aqua, aquamarine, azure, bice, blae, bloness, blue,
canard, celeste, cerulean, chalybeous, chinoline,
clair-de-lune, cobalt, cornflower, cyan(-blue),
cyanescent, electric, fesse, gentian, glaucous, green,
gun-metal, gunpowder, hazel, hyacinth, inde, indigo,
jacinth, kingfisher, lapis-lazuli, larkspur, lavender,
livid, marine, mazarine, molybdenum, navy, Oxford,
pansy, pearl, pearly, periwinkle, perse, pervenche,
pewter, puke, purple, sapphire, schistaceous, Silurian,
sky, slate, smalt, smoke, smokey, teal, turquoise,

Robusto

Somehow it feels like "smalt" should be preceded by an apostrophe: "What is this beer ingredient? 'Smalt."

tchrist

Tis.

Those mentioning green are:

> absinthe, aqua, aquamarine, avocado, beryl, blake,
bottle-green, chartreuse, chlorine, chrysoprase,
cinople, citrine, citron, corbeau, cyan(-blue),
eau-de-Nil, emerald, emeraldine, euchlore, feuille,
glaucous, glaucy, green, hazel, herbaceous, jade,
jungle, Kelly, Kendal, laurel, lizard, Lovat,
malachite, mignonette, moss, olivaceous, olive,
pistachio, popinjay, porraceous, reseda, sage, sinople,
spinach, subcitrine, sulphur, tea, teal, tilleul, verd,
verdant, verd-azure, verdigris, verditer, verdure,

mac(tchrist)% colorgrep laurel
laurel: As the name of a color = laurel-green

Robusto

21:22

Archive July 30, 2024
Connections Puzzle #415
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨

Archive inversion

Hmm, not quite. It should be purple->blue->green->yellow.

jlliagre

21:48

@Robusto Mauve, lavande, pourpre, magenta, fuschia and other colors names exists in French in that group but I'd likely call that color 🟪 violet which is the "unfancy" one.

Robusto

@jlliagre takes notes

GratefulDisciple

22:34

@jlliagre Glad to know. I'll let you know how it goes when I have them. With certain slippery dim sum items, using chopsticks was a little tricky before I finally got used to them.

@Robusto I can see how you got the purple first, a familiar category for both of us. With this one, I also got the purple earlier:

Connections
Puzzle #574
🟦🟩🟨🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟨🟦
🟦🟨🟦🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨

@Cerberus I'll try it when you release it for the others.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple Ah you found it difficult as well.

@GratefulDisciple OK! It is a bit experimental, maybe some things are not quite right...

By the way, I had two Englishmen do the one you did together, the one with iota and bone and stuff, and they didn't get it.

They are normally quite good at the NYT ones.

So you and Mitch must be strong players!

The Englishmen said that two of the ones in the bone category didn't work for them (I have asked which ones, but not reply yet).

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus I'm sure Mitch is a lot better; maybe I was just lucky.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple You usually do well on the NYT times, too.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus For the category with bone, that word was the last one I picked after seeing the connection for the first 3. The word iota was obvious enough for that category. So I got yellow -> green -> blue -> purple.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple But did bone make sense in its category? And did the others in that category make sense?

This is what they got:

Cerberus 1
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟪🟦🟦
🟦🟪🟦🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟩
🟦🟦🟩🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦

GratefulDisciple

22:49

@Cerberus It makes sense, but usually "bone" is paired with a synonym.

Cerberus

I don't know why green was so difficult for them. I did replace alpha with muscle in that version, because Mitch brought to my attention that alpha was not 100% right. Spoiler.

@GratefulDisciple Hmm what do you mean by that?

[Visible link text.](https://q.q "Text for hover tooltip goes here.")

This is how you make the spoiler links.

By the way, the order you got them in was what I would have expected.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus Actually muscle would have confused me more. In seeing the common element, although Mitch's colocation is more correct, I readily pairs it with Spoiler

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple OK that is interesting, because alpha confused Mitch.

So maybe muscle did make it harder, then.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus I see spoiler.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple Ahh OK, I see.

So bone is not ideal, then.

How about the others from that category? Spoiler.

GratefulDisciple

23:03

@Cerberus Maybe because spoiler

@Cerberus The others are fine: spoiler

Cerberus

Spoiler.

@GratefulDisciple OK, thanks! So maybe bone was just not right. I could replace it with e.g. piercing?

And maybe Spoiler. is easier to get for Americans, then? But I should think it was common enough in England, too?

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus Yes, with unchanged category explanation, piercing would be better.

Cerberus

Ok, thanks!

It should work without the explanation anyway.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus Cannot speak for the British, the American specific colocation jumps first for me because I like to try spoiler.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple OK, that is interesting.

GratefulDisciple

23:14

@Cerberus I would use that google tool (forgot the name) to find occurrences in America vs. Britain.

Cerberus

Right.

It seems to be common enough in both. Spoiler.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus I think the main problem is spoiler.

Gotta go. Looking forward to try your next puzzle. Good luck.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple That makes it a bit more difficult, but why do you consider that a problem? As long as the collocation works, I would say it is good? She from the NYT does that as well?

Merci.

@jlliagre Right. Spoiler.

Yes, that is right. But I would never have guessed, just didn't know those three.

Connections #415
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟪🟪🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨

I felt that five terms fit purple.

But I should have thought harder first, and I would have seen that blue required one of those five so the remaining four would be the purples.

Quite easy!

Connections
Puzzle #575
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦

Monday's.

Purple was actually doable. Blue I also suspected earlier, but it is a bit colloquial American.

MetaEd

23:49

Wordle 1,296 4/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩
⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Strands #308
“Cold snap”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵

Connections
Puzzle #574
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…