English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

15:01

Now simonyze I had never heard of.

Another American brand.

Why do you have so many words based on brands?

Capitalists.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus you should google that

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus it's simonize. And "What a simonizing job" is a quote from "Death of a Salesman".

@Cerberus What else should they be named after?

Cerberus

@MattЭллен What?

tchrist

hoovers up Cerberusizing’s sillinessi

Cerberus

dictionary.reference.com/browse/simonise

Matt Эллен

15:05

@Cerberus you should google why, because google is a brand that people use as a synonym for web search. you see, it's a joke...

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Ahh you evil genius, I didn't even notice.

Matt Эллен

lol

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

List of generic and genericized trademarks

The following two lists of generic and genericized trademarks are: * marks which were originally legally protected trademarks, but which have subsequently lost legal protection, and * marks which are still legally protected as trademarks, at least in some jurisdictions List of former trademarks that have become generic terms The following list contains marks which were originally legally protected trademarks, but which have subsequently lost legal protection as trademarks by becoming the common name of the relevant product or service, as used both by the consuming public and commercial com...

Cerberus

But I would never use "Google" for anything other than, well, using the website google.*.

We already have aspirin, which is bad enough.

RegDwighт

Thomapyrin.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:07

@Cerberus you wouldn't. And I wouldn't use the word "simonize" to mean anything than ... whatever it means with whatever product it uses.

Matt Эллен

it's so much easier to say than acetylsalicylic acid

tchrist

I used to think a formica-covered kitchen cabinet was one that drew too many ants.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Would you? "Let's google that phrase in the BNC"?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> Heroin - Trademarked by Friedrich Bayer & Co in 1898

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I must admit I use several of those.

Matt Эллен

15:09

no, but a person might say "lets google that at Bing"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No, I don't think I would.

Cerberus

Heroin I use, of course.

tchrist

@MattЭллен sixth sick sheikh

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 There you go.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus But lots of people do.

Cerberus

15:09

@MattЭллен Then that person is funny, but a nut.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus the BNC isn't a web sreach, it's a search of the BNC, they're not the same thing

RegDwighт

@MattЭллен you'll laugh but most Russians I know are good friends with ацетилсалициловая кислота and use it on a regular basis. The name, that is.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I have vaguely heard of this phenomenon but never observed it first-hand.

@MattЭллен Bleh you nitpicker!

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus well, probably

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, it has happened lots of times with other trademarks

Cerberus

15:10

Yes.

But our generation can make a stand!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And in fact if I tell someone to "google" it I am not usually telling them to "use google"

Cerberus

No?

RegDwighт

Here's the thing.

Aug 26 '11 at 2:25, by Cerberus

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Google "Wikipedia".

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then what are you telling him?

RegDwighт

You can say "Google Wikipedia" and everyone understands you. Now try "Bing Cuil".

Matt Эллен

15:11

@Cerberus most people already mistake the web for the internet

tchrist

@RegDwighт . . . to catch the conscience of the king

Matt Эллен

although, that's not a brand thing, per se

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Do they really?

I don't really use the web anyway.

RegDwighт

@tchrist a cat may catch the conscience of the king.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yeah. find me someone who doesn't surf the internet from firefox

Cerberus

15:12

Umm.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus you're using the web right now!

Cerberus

I'm afraid I don't get it.

@MattЭллен I removed the quotation marks to improve the ambiguity, yes.

Robusto

Hey, @Reg, how common is it for Germans to forget the gender of nouns? I do remember a lot of articles getting slurred, swallowed, or otherwise obfuscated.

tchrist

@Robusto “forget”?

Cerberus

(It was less funny with the quotation marks.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:13

@Cerberus I'm telling him to search for the information on the web.

Matt Эллен

oh, sorry, I didn't realise it is a joke :D

Cerberus

@Robusto In Dutch, people forget gender all the time.

Robusto

Forget, as in being unable to remember or at least unsure.

tchrist

@RegDwighт Hamlet was no pussy.

Robusto

Meeting time. AFK for a mo.

Cerberus

15:14

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't get what your other line meant.

tchrist

has been meeting for 75 minutes aleffingready

Cerberus

Haha no way!

RegDwighт

@Robusto happens in speech from time to time. Usually you catch the mistake yourself and correct it immediately. Mostly, but not always, these are simple conflation errors, when you start saying one thing and then change your mind midway through the sentence, and it happens to be in front of a noun. The other scenario is words that nobody is sure the gender of, like Ketchup or Reisig (brushwood).

Cerberus

How about relative clauses?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus If someone says "I don't know what all this frobnozzle is about", and I say "just google it", I am not saying "literally search for frobnozzle on Google.com". I am telling him to search for "frobnozzle" on the web using whatever high-quality search engine he prefers.

Jez

15:17

@RegDwighт bit like english ppl saying "a software", forgetting or not knowing that it's a mass noun

RegDwighт

@tchrist no-pussies don't ask themselves pointless questions while holding skulls. QED.

tchrist

@Jez Sounds like ESLlers to me.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Ich sah ein Mädchen, dort im neuen Laden—du weißt doch, oben am Berg—, die ich nog nie in der Schule gesehen hatte.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus that is a completely separate issue particular to that noun alone.

And you know that, of course.

Cerberus

?

I don't know.

tchrist

15:19

Maidens are so 19th-century, anyway.

RegDwighт

Everyone says "Mädchen" on their first try.

Give me another example, then we can talk. Otherwise, meh.

Cerberus

Just any relative clause far removed from its antecedent.

It happens a lot in Dutch, especially with abstracta.

RegDwighт

Can happen, I guess.

Cerberus

The m/f pronoun is used instead of the n one.

tchrist

The same can happen in English with number, although it is not “correct”. But it happens.

Cerberus

15:21

Yeah.

And English has this other mistake that is sadly all too frequent.

With numbers.

tchrist

You can’t actually call them mistakes. Or it.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Give me a neuter abstract noun.

tchrist

It’s more complicated than that.

Cerberus

@tchrist But we can.

tchrist

No, I can’t.

Cerberus

15:22

It's stupid.

tchrist

Give me a real example.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus good luck with that. They'll be feminine.

Cerberus

Worst of all, I accidentally catch myself making it. Only very rarely, of course.

RegDwighт

Well, okay: Wissen.

tchrist

And I’ll give ’em hell.

Cerberus

15:23

Gebirge?

RegDwighт

How is that abstract? It's real and tangible.

Cerberus

Isn't it das Gebirge? But it's not abstract enough.

Well, it is a collection of things.

RegDwighт

I gave you Wissen already.

Cerberus

Right, right.

But infinitives...

RegDwighт

That's one that has long parted ways with the infinitive.

Cerberus

15:24

Don't you have something else?

RegDwighт

It's a completely different word. Nobody draws the connection anymore.

Cerberus

Umm.

RegDwighт

Unlike with, oh say, Gehen or Springen.

tchrist

Pretty sure that no linguist can call a majority usage a mistake. Nor even a common one.

Cerberus

Weten is also somewhat special in Dutch.

RegDwighт

15:25

It really is knowledge. It is not "the knowing".

Cerberus

@tchrist Few linguists are concerned with style, and not in a prescriptive manner. It is outside their scope. So what they think is not very relevant.

tchrist

Sprong seems to be missing.

RegDwighт

BRB

tchrist

I think it’s dialectal, though.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Yeah OK...but it's not exactly easy to compare.

What about sprong?

A sprong is a jump.

And the past tense of springen.

Which means to jump.

tchrist

15:28

Oh, I see. Chaucer had sprong.

Matt Эллен

I hope he saw a doctor for it

MετάEd

@Cerberus They can be cunning.

Cerberus

Who doesn't?

Mahnax

Hello.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Yes, they try. It is like the surgeon writing a book about how the soul can be seen in brain scans.

Yo.

Matt Эллен

15:30

Hello.

MετάEd

@Mahnax ¡Hola!

tchrist

Oh, so did Spenser, and much later. “With that sprong forth a naked swayne.”

Matt Эллен

so, like sprang?

tchrist

Very.

Mahnax

How's things?

Matt Эллен

15:30

I see

MετάEd

@Cerberus No, it is like cunning linguists. But I know what you mean. Dualism. snort

@tchrist That's what a naked swayne should do. Sprong forth.

Matt Эллен

@Mahnax I'm 12K into nanowrimo. how are you?

tchrist

I’d thought sprong were missing from spring, sprang, sprung, save for ysprongen.

@MετάEd You meant froth.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Ohh that. Can't believe I missed that. snortle

Mahnax

@MattЭллен I'm 11k in, but I've got a week off school soon, so I'll be catching up shortly.

Cerberus

15:32

@MattЭллен You're going to win!!

MετάEd

@tchrist I'll leave that to Presidential candidates.

tchrist

Can’t trust people who keep brains in cans.

Cerberus

I'm 100k+ lines into chat.

That's lines for you, not words.

Matt Эллен

@Mahnax wow! good going.

@Cerberus well

@Cerberus I

@Cerberus can

tchrist

What’s this about lions?

Matt Эллен

15:33

@Cerberus just

@Cerberus make

Mahnax

@MattЭллен Thanks! You too.

Cerberus

3...2...1...

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus it

tchrist

Somebody seems to be lyin’.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus mean

Cerberus

15:34

Aaaand chat lag should set in right now.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus the

@Cerberus same

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Cerb, you should collect all your chat messages ever into a bound volume

tchrist

Bound whither?

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Now do you understand what it is like to be I, Cerberus? That lag sucks, huh?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

bound in a hardcover book

Cerberus

15:35

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yay!

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yeah, but I only got it a little bit.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I bet it would make an awesome table stand.

@MattЭллен Then you're not trying hard enough.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

You could have it published on lulu.com

tchrist

In a volume bound for external dissemination?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I've got a book to write :Þ

tchrist

15:35

Not the same thing.

Cerberus

Heh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

so people have trouble with lay laid lain lie loo la la whatever... do they also have trouble with bind bound bounded?

Cerberus

And find found founded.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I have seen people confuse that one

Cerberus

I remember not understanding bounded and founded when I was young.

tchrist

15:40

What I hate is the ESLlers who keep adding spurious -ed endings to verbs that are invariant in the past, like “casted” for cast.

Sitted down.

Has been casted.

Cerberus

I sitted down.

What's wrong with that?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I remember one of my elementary school teachers questioning my use of the word "don" in a short story: "I donned my belt". She asked me "what is that supposed to mean?"

Cerberus

She sat me down.

She satted me down.

tchrist

@Cerberus glares

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha, should have fired her.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:41

@tchrist my 2yo son says "sitted". And "runned".

tchrist

Runt!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus To this day I am not sure if she was testing me or she didn't know the word

Cerberus

Funny.

It could be that she didn't think you were capable of that.

So she either wanted to make sure you understood what you had written, or that it wasn't your father's work.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So belts count as gay apparel?

Cerberus

You count as gay apparel.

RegDwighт

15:43

As an American I can say that 'cash me a check' and 'cash a check for me' actually sound like 2 completely different phrases with entirely different meanings. In fact they sound so different its hard to even except that your comparing them. 'Cash a check for me' wouldn't be used without another subject in the sentance, such as "Molly is going to cash a check for me", or "Will you cash a check for me?". Where as 'cash me a check' has one subject, yourself. On top of having only one subject its also colloquial, and not acceptable for standard use. — ryan 19 hours ago

tchrist

Perilous.

RegDwighт

Okay, is this on purpose?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I guess so? But this wasn't a gay belt. It was just a regular one.

RegDwighт

I was about to correct it, but then I thought I got whooshed.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Deck the halls . . . don we now our gay apparel.

Cerberus

15:44

@RegDwighт Haha, OMG.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Yes, I'm familiar with it.

Cerberus

That is so deep.

So many layers.

RegDwighт

Well I dunno. User has no other posts.

Cerberus

Weird.

MετάEd

2

Q: How is 'via' pronounced and where did these variations come from?

Over the years, I've heard people say 'v-ē-ə', 'v-ī-ə', and sometimes the 'uh' is an 'ah' sound. (edit- It has come to my attention that 'via' was once a 'wee-ah' from Latin, but I don't feel like this helps my question. If anything, that just makes me wonder why there is that variation in the be...

pronunciation

tchrist

15:45

I don’t believe he is right.

MετάEd

It's all about the editor wars.

tchrist

Cash me a check = Cash a check for me ≠ Cash myself a check

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Careful punctuation with impossibly bad spelling?

Highly suspect.

tchrist

Attribute not to malice or conspiracy that which may be more readily accounted to ignorance, sloth, stupidity, clumsiness, or other provincialisms.

Cerberus

Look.

He must be serious.

tchrist

15:48

Delusional then.

Cerberus

We have a believer here.

tchrist

The deluded are frequently serious.

Matt Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 but that's normal in childhood language development — over generalisation of rules.

Cerberus

@tchrist Is it really accounted?

Who said that again?

tchrist

@Cerberus I’d liefer be free from such believers.

Cerberus

15:50

Ah, your sentence is a variation.

tchrist

@Cerberus I didn’t want to repeat attribute. Explained by.

Cerberus

@tchrist Tell me about it.

RegDwighт

Hanlon's razor

Hanlon's Razor is an eponymous adage that reads: ' This particular form is attributed to Robert J. Hanlon. However, earlier utterances that convey the same basic idea are known. Origins and similar quotations The quotation first came from Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to his friend Joseph Bigler, as a submission for a book compilation of various jokes related to Murphy's law published in 1980 titled Murphy's Law Book Two, More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong. The name was inspired by Occam's razor. A similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story ...

Robusto

@RegDwighт Thanks. I sort of thought it was something like that.

Cerberus

Is liefer Old/Middle English?

tchrist

15:51

It’s just the comparative of lief, used adverbially.

@Cerberus No, it is Modern English.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен It's normal ESL language development too for the same reason

RegDwighт

Jeff Liefer

Jeffrey David Liefer (born August 17, 1974 in Fontana, California) is a former Major League Baseball first baseman and outfielder. He was drafted in the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Chicago White Sox. Liefer has played for the White Sox, Montreal Expos, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Milwaukee Brewers, and the Cleveland Indians. He played for the Seibu Lions of the Japanese Pacific League during the - seasons. Liefer signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox on January 12, , but retired in June. What's he known for? Liefer is probably most known for bein...

Nice picture of Jeff. He let himself go a little.

Matt Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 not if they're paying bloody attention (j/k)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен I tried to correct my son: "I runned over here so fast!" No, you ran over here. "No! When I go to the playground I run and run. I runned so fast!"

tchrist

1876 Tennyson Q. Mary iii. i, ― Far liefer had I in my country hall Been reading some old book.
1898 Pall Mall Mag. June 220 ― To strip was to confess her sex, than which she would liefer have died.
1800 Coleridge Piccolom. iv. v, ― Far liever would I face about, and step Back to my Emperor.
1814 Jefferson Writ. (1830) IV. 223 ― He might spare such a force··as I would as lieve not have to encounter.
1837 Howitt Rur. Life iii. iii. (1862) 242 ― She would as lieve part with the skin off her back as with her money.

Cerberus

15:54

@tchrist I only know it in as lief in that function.

RegDwighт

-2

Q: Why do people ask so many programming specific questions on Stack Overflow instead of Programmers, where they belong?

I've recently discovered the whole Stack Exchange ecosystem (been living under a rock), and I really like the concept! What I dislike is that Stack Overflow's main section is used for many programming specific questions, while they probably should be registered in the Programmers subsection. I...

discussion stackoverflow programmers-se

What a crapload of crap.

tchrist

Pretty sure the the 19th century does not count as Old English, nor even Middle.

Cerberus

Neither does Shakespeare.

RegDwighт

Not just the delicious irony on OP's part; look at the crap answers, too.

Cerberus

In Dutch, of course we use liever en net zo lief.

RegDwighт

15:55

That really illustrates rather nicely what kind of answers you can expect on SO.

tchrist

Jefferson, Coleridge, and Tennyson — not to mention D.H. Lawrence — are hardly Old or Middle English, nor are they Shakespeareans.

1921 D. H. Lawrence Sea & Sardinia 121 ― They would fetch you a bang over the head as leave as look at you.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт I agree that it is organised in a weird way, but to tell people what to do in such a silly way, and as a total newcomer...

tchrist

1935 G. Ingram ‘Stir’ Train i. 16 ― ‘I’ve got a little instrument here,’ Margot showed him a thin scalpel··, ‘and··I would as leave stick it into anyone’s belly as any surgeon.’

The spelling varies a bit, but lief is hardly restricted to Shakespeare, let alone to Chaucer or to Beowulf.

Cerberus

@tchrist Sounds like people who didn't understand lief?

tchrist

> liever, var. liefer, compar. of lief.

For what value of "understand", I daren’t say.

Cerberus

15:59

Just use lief and liever like a good Dutchman and you're good to go.

tchrist

I know none. All those of my acquaintance are wicked.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…