English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

JSBձոգչ

12:04 AM

John Lawler is awesome.

MετάEd

Yeah, that was pretty good.

Mahnax

12:25 AM

@JSBձոգչ Haha, nice.

MετάEd

And out in 3 ... 2 ... 1.

tchrist

1:24 AM

> A Georgia congressman who attacked the theory of evolution found himself with an unlikely opponent in Tuesday's U.S. election, when 4,000 voters in one county cast write-in ballots for the 19th century father of evolution, British naturalist Charles Darwin.

Demons are created, not evoluted. (Erpeton tentaculatus)

tchrist

2:52 AM

I just learned that in Boulder County by the time the polls closed on Tuesday, 93% of eligible voters voted (counting mail-in and early-voting). That’s really quite good. I’m impressed.

The county just north of me had 90%, and Grand Junction’s county on the Western Slope had 96%. Wow. Even the #1 state, Minnesota, only had 75%.

A lot of people voted for pot. :)

Cerberus

3:08 AM

Hi.

Congrats on your pot.

Carlo_R.

3:41 AM

0

Q: Do Facebook and email have "wide ranging biological effects" and potentially cause cancer?

From the Daily Mirror: Social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact, a doctor claims. Emailing people rather than meeting up with them may have wide-ranging biological effects, said psychologist Dr A...

Cerberus

1:13 PM

Hello.

Carlo_R.

1:47 PM

Hello.

Cerberus

2:15 PM

Hi.

JSBձոգչ

2:34 PM

g'morning

i see only cerb remains active

the hellhound never sleeps

MετάEd

Dawg.

MετάEd

2:50 PM

@tchrist This is a clever design.

2

Q: Should the comma be in italics?

Consider the following two sentences: Statement 1: The parameters were calculated a priori, and the other variables were calculated iteratively. Statement 2: The parameters were calculated a priori, and the other variables were calculated iteratively. This may seem trivial, but t...

punctuation typography

Robusto

3:09 PM

@MετάEd Looks like a question for The Character (secret identity: @tchrist).

MετάEd

@Robusto Yes, it was a blatant @tchrist troll.

Carlo_R.

@Robusto thank you for having clarified to me the meaning of "lethe".

MετάEd

4

Q: Is it correct? I "am trying fixing this"?

Actually, I'd like to know if is correct to say: "I am trying fixing this", or should use the more obvious "I am trying to fix this"? If the first one is correct, is there a name for this kind of syntax/conjugation?

grammaticality syntax

We have a million infinitive vs. gerund questions.

"Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?"

Matt Эллен

3:25 PM

then people will start trading futures on the fuckex

Alenanno

Hello everyone.

Noah

3:40 PM

Hi

@tchrist What the heck is this?

Has anybody read the Outlander series?

Cerberus

@JSBձոգչ It's in my contract.

tchrist

@Noah Erpeton tentaculatus

I imagine Cerb can decode it just be reading its name. Maybe you can, too.

@MετάEd It doesn’t matter. You’re completely fucked on the web anyway.

Noah

@tchrist Is it real?

tchrist

@Noah From here.

Of course it’s real.

Cerberus

Erpeton?

From herpo?

Serpent.

tchrist

3:54 PM

Yes.

Noah

@tchrist Seems very creepy

tchrist

Really? Next you’ll be telling me you’ve no love for the axolotl, either.

There are remarkably many photos and drawings of it, aren’t there?

Noah

@tchrist What the heck. Gotta run

tchrist

That’s what happens to be people who axolotl ittle questions on ELU.

Noah

@tchrist Hahah

Carlo_R.

4:05 PM

@tchrist HAHAHAHA

Noah

Do you like snakes and the sort of things? @tchrist

tchrist

Those are salamanders.

Cerberus

Are they truly?

tchrist

It’s like seeing a hummingbird and asking whether I like puppydog tails.

Aye.

Cerberus

I thought they were hard to classify?

Noah

4:06 PM

Hehehe

tchrist

Well.

@Cerberus Pretty sure we know the difference between a reptile and an amphibian.

Noah

But the guys in the second picture seem like snakes

Cerberus

Why would it be a reptile?

Surely it couldn't that.

tchrist

The tentaculated serpent is a reptile.

Cerberus

Oh...is it just a regular snake?

But you were talking about the axolotl.

tchrist

4:08 PM

The axxy is an amphibian.

The snaky is a monophibian.

Cerberus

Not in between amphibian and fish?

tchrist

Axolotl

The axolotl (; etymol. Nāhuatl āxōlōtl (singular) or āxōlōmeh (plural) "water monster", also known in Japan as "Oopaloopa" or "Ooparoopa"), Ambystoma mexicanum, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the Tiger Salamander. Larvae of this species fail to undergo metamorphosis, so the adults remain aquatic and gilled. It is also called ajolote (which is also a common name for different types of salamander). The species originates from numerous lakes, such as Lake Xochimilco underlying Mexico City. Axolotls are used extensively in scientific research due to their ability to regene...

No.

Cerberus

Hmm OK then.

> Axolotls are prone to cannibalism.

tchrist

Even fully aquatic amphibians or reptiles are still amphibians or reptiles, not fish.

Cerberus

> ... they must never be kept on gravel or stones that are smaller than the axolotls' head.

tchrist

4:13 PM

They aren’t the brightest bulbs in the sea.

Cerberus

Too bad they're endangered.

tchrist

Right. We need them to figure out how to grow extra arms and legs. And heads.

Cerberus

Yeah.

tchrist

I rather hate the word pedomorphosis. It should be turning something or somebody into ground or dirt.

What would a pedologist say?

Cerberus

Huh?

tchrist

4:19 PM

Instead, it is one of those dumb paedophilic things.

Cerberus

One should not mix Latin and Greek in a single word.

So...what is wrong with pedomorphosis?

tchrist

paedo- kids ≠ pedo- dirt

> pedo- /ˈpɛdəʊ/, /pɛˈdɒ/, /pɪˈdɒ/, or before a vowel ped-, repr. Gr. πέδον ground, earth, is used in the sense ‘soil’ in pedology and other technical terms.

Cerberus

Oh...

Surely that is rare.

tchrist

Is.

suppressed pedontic comment

Cerberus

But I agree that one should always spell ae where applicable, in scientific terms at least.

So paedomorphosis.

tchrist

4:22 PM

Pedestrians are not paedestrians.

Yes, exactly.

Cerberus

"Where applicable".

tchrist

I’m out of sync.

Cerberus

Find the nearest MS Exchange server.

tchrist

Huh?

I have no need to convert greenbacks into funnymoney.

Pedophiles worship the ground you stand on.

Pedometers are not for counting offspring with.

Carlo_R.

We have "pedone".

tchrist

4:26 PM

peón

Cerberus

Pedometer is a hybrid, an abomination.

Carlo_R.

But we have also "pedofilo"

tchrist

You say abomination, I say portmanteaux.

Carlo_R.

The two words are completely different in meanings.

tchrist

EN pedant < FR pédant < IT pedante ??<?? LA pædagōgāre; says “evidence is lacking”.

Carlo_R.

4:29 PM

Yes, "pedante" is correct.

tchrist

But then where?

Is it really related to paedogogy?

Cerberus

@tchrist Why the plural?

tchrist

Just to get you to ex me that question.

Carlo_R.

"Pedagogia" is the science that studies children.

tchrist

Or soles.

Carlo_R.

4:31 PM

It is unclear to me why there is this confusion in "ped-" affix.

Cerberus

> Mogelijk (o.a. BvW en SEO) is pedante gevormd op basis van vulgair Latijn *paedere ‘onderwijzen, opvoeden’, ontleend aan Grieks paideúein ‘id.’

tchrist

Well, they certainly seem to think so.

@Carlo_R. American spelling uses pedo- for both. UK spelling distinguishes paedo- from pedo-.

Carlo_R.

Thank you @tchrist. Surely "pedagogia" and "pedofilia" are word strictly related in the "ped-", but "pedone" is completely different in its "ped-".

The "ped-" of "pedone" has the same meaning of the "ped-" of pedante.

tchrist

Peduncular is a misleading word; it is unlikely to mean what most expect it to mean.

Especially if they think it a paed- word.

Carlo_R.

Peduncular sounds to me as dialectal Italian word.

But we have also "gara podistica" or "apparato podalico".

Cerberus

4:54 PM

Peduncular? Sounds like "related to feet"?

The Latin suffix makes it extremely unlikely that this should be a Greek ped- of any kind.

tchrist

5:07 PM

@Cerberus peduncle /pɪˈdʌŋk(ə)l/. Nat. Hist. Etymology: ad. mod. Bot. L. peduncul-us footstalk (Linnæus Philos. Bot. §82 D, Pedunculus, truncus partialis elevans Fructificationem nec folia), dim. of ped-em foot. In L. only as a late variant of pedīculus, pedūculus louse. In Fr. peduncule (1765 Encycl.), pédoncule (Dict. Acad. 1835).

Carlo_R.

@tchrist "pedestrian area" means "area pedonale". I'm wondering how English speakers say "pedone". Maybe "pedon", or "foot-body"?

tchrist

Pedestrian.

There are no Fußgänger zones.

Just places for peones.

Carlo_R.

Thank you, however we use "peones" too. In Italy "peones" are those who work.

But this word (peones) has a negative connotation

Bbecause in Italy people that work are considered stupid person.

We have a cultural problem in this sense.

This is the reason for which we will end like Greece, or Argentina.

tchrist

5:24 PM

@Carlo_R. If people who work are considered stupid, no wonder your government has a problem with people on the dole!

Carlo_R.

Italian people do not want to do anything. They only expect the help of the State.

tchrist

wonders whether a runcible spoon resembles a spork

@Carlo_R. Have them watch Soylent Green for the kind of government help such parasites deserve.

Carlo_R.

this is a seriuos problem, tchrist. Italy is risking to go out of Euro for this fact.

Cerberus

Ah, only the public folder works.

Carlo_R.

Fortunately we have Marchionne who purchased the Chrisler.

@Cer please give the link.

tchrist

5:30 PM

Let them in their own silage stew and rot, fester and plot.

Cerberus

Link to what?

This is a picture of the library of the Portuguese synagogue I visited last week.

Carlo_R.

@Cerb the link to that image.

Cerberus

Uhh it is right there.

Carlo_R.

I do not see it.

Cerberus

The picture is the link.

You click on the picture, you go to the link. I don't know what else you want...

tchrist

5:32 PM

How many Yemens are there?

Cerberus

One?

There used to be north and south.

But north annexed south, I think.

tchrist

Oh, that must be it then. I didn’t know that.

Carlo_R.

@Cerb ah, now I see. There was an upload problem on my phone.

Cerberus

The latter of which is always in some sort of rebellious state.

tchrist

I was trying to count the geopolitical errors/updates, and wondered whether “both Yemens” counted as such.

►

Carlo_R.

5:35 PM

Where I am, my connection is becoming to be slow. Hello to everyone. Poof.

tchrist

> 1668 Wilkins Real Char. ii. i. 33 ― Crassitude, gross, deep, incrassate, rouncival.

And thence, runcible.

> Gigantic, huge; robustious.

“Robustious”? Hm.

Wouldn’t robust suffice?

> rouncival Etymology: Perhaps from the place-name Roncesvalles (Roncevaux), as stated by Blount (see quot. 1674 in sense 1), but there appears to be no outside confirmation of this, and the development of the later senses is obscure. In sense 4 there is prob. association with rounce (see prec.) and fall sb.

I rather like this one:

> † 3. A woman of large build and boisterous or loose manners. Obs.

Cerberus

Haha.

That could be a nice SWR.

tchrist

Which aspect?

I just have to figure out how to make it the answer to “What did Oscar Wilde call the fag-hags of his acquaintance?”

And I don’t mean the cigarette vendors.

Would you believe that the Youghiogheny River is pronounced /jɒkəˈɡeɪni/?

And we thought England was bad!

Fruit flies.

Oh gosh, they have dikey-likeys for Dutch boys.

Mahnax

5:57 PM

wild Mahnax appears

tchrist

Wild?

Mahnax

Well, not really.

It's a reference.

tchrist

@Mahnax Hey, this is a newer version of unilook (née oedlook) that works better with wildcards. I already mailed it to @Hugo.

$ oedlook -v '^\w+[ao]ught$'

That verbosely (read: with parts of speech) shows you words ending in aught or ought.

If you wanted only verbs, you would use:

$ oedlook -pv '^\w+[ao]ught$'

The -pv is a shortcut for --part-of-speech=verb.

Or for --pos=v.

Mahnax

> # word - improved version of look(1) program for Unciode

tchrist

Nouns ending in ght would be unilook -pn 'ght$'

Yes, right.

Used to call it word just to bug the microweenies.

Mahnax

6:07 PM

Unciode?

tchrist

Unicode.

I didn’t write that description.

Mahnax

Ah, OK.

I might install it in a bit, but I am frightened by the notion of wildcards. They remind me of regular expressions.

tchrist

That’s what they are, for a very loose definition of all that.

Here’s all the funny characters listed:

Mahnax

I thought so.

tchrist

$ oedlook -v '[\N{thorn}\N{eth}\N{ae}\N{AE}\N{oe}\N{OE}]'

Here’s all the things with diacritics:

$ oedlook -v '\pM'

Here are diacritics that are not on vowels:

$ oedlook -v '[^AEIOUaeiou]\pM'

Those will work with the version you already have.

Mahnax

6:11 PM

Bah.

tchrist

Black sheep?

Mahnax

-bash: oedlook: command not found

Close.

tchrist

Well, you have to name it that, silly.

You know how to rename files, right?

Mahnax

Oh, that's right. It's called unilook on mine.

tchrist

The "mv" command.

Mahnax

6:12 PM

Hehe.

tchrist

Or the rename command, actually. Maybe. At least, if you got such from my scripts. But that uses regexes.

Mahnax

Should things be in /usr/bin/, or /usr/local/bin?

tchrist

beau garçon [n.]
box-cañon ← box
háček [n.]
mañana [adv.]
Mimbreño [n. and adj.]
Mohorovičić discontinuity [n.]
vicuña [n.]
vicuña-cloth ← vicuña
vicuñas [n. pl.] ← vicuña [n.]
vicuña-wool ← vicuña
Vinča [n.2]
vṛddhi [n.]
Zuñi [n.]
Zuñian [adj.] ← Zuñi
þǽr rihtes ← thereright

@Mahnax Well. . . I would put them in /usr/local/bin myself, to distinguish from system thingies.

Mahnax

@tchrist OK.

tchrist

You may have to use "sudo mv" due to perms.

You can actually just name it "oed" for even less typing, but that is slightly misleading, since it is just the word list, not the defs.

Mahnax

6:15 PM

sudo mv /usr/local/bin/unilook oedlook

Like that?

sudo mv /usr/local/bin/unilook /usr/local/bin/oedlook

I'm not sure if I should put the path there or not.

tchrist

Need full path.

Mahnax

OK.

tchrist

Otherwise it will move it to your current working directory, wherever that is.

You can type pwd to know where you are.

Mahnax

Hey, that worked. Good.

tchrist

If you do not need to change the name, you can use "mv /path/to/filename /path/to/directory" instead of "mv /path/to/onedir/filename /path/to/anotherdir/filename".

In other words, the target can be a directory name instead of a filename if you do not wish to change the "basename" of the file, just which directory it is in.

Mahnax

6:19 PM

OK, that makes sense.

tchrist

You can also make aliases using "ln" for link, instead of "mv".

$ sudo ln /usr/local/bin/unilook /usr/local/bin/oedlook
$ sudo ln /usr/local/bin/unilook /usr/local/bin/oed

That isn’t the normal way to make aliases, but it is more robust in some ways.

You can always get directions on a Unix command by using the "man" command, so "man mv", "man ln", etc.

Mahnax

Right.

tchrist

It used to be pretty stupid, until I wrote a paper called "The Answer to All man(1)’s Problems".

Long long ago, in a galaxy far away.

Now everybody copied my solutions. Which is good.

And now we know how come he’s called Bilbo Baggins:

Mahnax

Hah.

tchrist

I think the trolls exceeded their daily bag-limit on dwarves there.

Do you have a lot of hunters by you?

Mahnax

6:24 PM

Hunters? Like, those who hunt?

tchrist

It’s very very popular up 'round Lake Superior.

Yes, them.

Hunting season is coming up.

Well, gun season on deer, I mean.

Bow season is earlier.

Mahnax

Yeah, there's a fair few of them. I'm related to a bunch, and some of them want me to come hunting sometime.

tchrist

Did you know that they have a bow season on bears?

Mahnax

I did not know that.

tchrist

I always figured that was the way to cut down the hunter population.

Mahnax

6:25 PM

I will also never go hunting.

tchrist

I used to hunt butterflies. I now feel bad about that.

But nothing greater.

Mahnax

I've only fished.

tchrist

Well, that.

The cleaning part is horrible.

Did that as a kid, like 9–11 or such.

Mahnax

Eh, it's bearable, but I'd rather not do it.

tchrist

Had a cabin up near Lake Superior.

Mahnax

6:27 PM

We fish when we are in Finland.

tchrist

Bear is such an overloaded term.

I hope this weekend's snow puts ours to sleep. I don’t want to report him.

Mahnax

You have a bear near you?

tchrist

I found a fresh new pyramid of bear scat just a couple yards past my back porch yesterday.

So, yes.

Mahnax

That would do it.

tchrist

He ate my birdfeeders the other day.

Nobody told him they weren’t bearfeeders.

Mahnax

6:29 PM

Well, how was he supposed to know?

tchrist

The chickadee should have told him.

Mahnax

Do they even speak the same language?

tchrist

And the jay, why didn’t he scold him?

Well, the chickadee doesn’t speak bear, but I wonder whether the bear doesn’t grok chickadee.

Did you know that chickadees have a very elaborate code for saying just what the danger is?

Mahnax

I did not know that.

How very interesting.

tchrist

It’s nothing like prairie dogs, mind you, who actually speak in a way that we thought only humans did. But it is still super impressive.

JSBձոգչ

6:32 PM

what is this about prairie dogs?

Mahnax

Prairie dogs speak? That is cool.

JSBձոգչ

i don't believe it

tchrist

Chickadee communications.

@JSBձոգչ You shall. Moment.

JSBձոգչ

my skepticism shields for animal-communication stories are extremely strong

Carlo_R.

@jsb I agree.

tchrist

6:34 PM

@JSBձոգչ And well they should be!

But read this.

JSBձոգչ

reading

their graphic does not inspire confidence

tchrist

Books. Covers.

Mahnax

I'm going to go eat. Later.

tchrist

Bye bye.

Note there is an audio/podcast version you can listen to of the story.

The radio lab story.

JSBձոգչ

interesting. so if it's true, the dogs have predator-specific calls (which is very common), but also a set of "adjectives"

which, if true, is remarkable

tchrist

6:41 PM

Prairie dogs are not rodent-like. Being sciurids, they are certainly rodents. They are just untreed squirrels you know.

@JSBձոգչ That is just what I thought.

The radio lab podcast is cool.

JSBձոգչ

i was subscribed to it for a while, but i found it very annoying

tchrist

The adjective aspect means it is a higher sort of communication, because of the combinatorics.

You mean this one was annoying, or the show in general?

You can and probably should listen to this particular episode.

No, they aren’t Ira Glass, but so it goes.

JSBձոգչ

i found that the way the show was edited (in general) to be annoying

too much cutting into quotes, not letting their interviewees actually finish a sentence

too many cutesy sound effects, etc.

tchrist

Yes. Very much. It’s like the visual things that cause epilepsy, but audio.

Too choppy.

Very very ADHD.

Still, you might try to get through it for the prairie dog show. But yes, it has those annoyances.

JSBձոգչ

yes, exactly. which is too bad, because i liked it in principle

tchrist

6:47 PM

But you see what I mean about prairie dog communication appearing to be on a complexity level beyond that of chickadees’? Well, at least as far as know.

We didn’t used to know that mice sang, either. We know so little.

Mouse songs.

Such lovely murmured carmina murium, aren’t they?

Or whatever the mousey genitive plural is for mus/muris.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…