English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Johan Larsson

14:02

Afternoon.

Robusto

Gluten Morgen.

ColorfulTrauma

Bon soir.

Robusto

Don't be soirry.

Cerberus

Hello.

Bonne soirée à l'Asie.

Why do people in France now say bonne soirée more often than bon soir? It sounds a bit silly.

Johan Larsson

is there a difference between soir and soirée? bon and bonne could be due to masculinum/femininum

Robusto

14:17

@Cerberus I think they're making a joke.

Cerberus

@Robusto Nah, they just say it in shops and resturants.

Robusto

People can't make jokes in shops and restaurants?

Cerberus

@JohanLarsson Yes, soir is masculine and soirée feminine.

@Robusto The French take their language very seriously...

Robusto

I see. So the bon mot is now forbidden?

Cerberus

I think it's just a random trend.

It just struck me how often they say soirée.

Robusto

14:21

I can't think of one now, but I know in American English there is often another sound-alike word jammed into a familiar phrase for comic effect. The comedy is minimal, but that doesn't prevent people from trying.

The closest I can think of off the top of my head works from word order, but the effect is the same: "What can I do you for?" instead of "What can I do for you?"

Something like addressing a crowd as "Ladies and jellybeans" instead of "Ladies and gentlemen" ... that's not a great example, but you get the idea.

In the French case I'm suggesting that substituting bon soirée for bon soir may be substituting the notion of an evening party for evening in the familiar greeting.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah, I am familiar with the phenomenon.

@Robusto I don't know...they also use année for an very frequently.

Robusto

Well, you could have said so sooner. Would have saved me all those keystrokes.

Cerberus

That is probably much older, and année is even the only option in certain cases, I believe.

ColorfulTrauma

Is anyone here from Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

Cerberus

@Robusto To the benefit of our children and our children's children, no doubt.

Robusto

14:28

Années de pèlerinage by Franz Liszt comes to mind.

Cerberus

Right.

Robusto

@ColorfulTrauma Trying pinging @PeterShor. english.stackexchange.com/users/5754/peter-shor

Cerberus

I think you normally say j'ai treize ans, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear j'ai treize années creeping in.

ColorfulTrauma

Hypothetical question: "people's" vs "peoples'"

Robusto

@Cerberus Admit it. You're trying to turn me into tchrist.

@ColorfulTrauma That is not a question.

Johan Larsson

14:31

According to Wictionary soir has one meaning, evening while soirée has two {evening, evening activity}

Can that explain the restaurant observation?

Cerberus

@Robusto Am I? By just letting you talk?

@JohanLarsson Yes, they can both be used to mean evening, but the traditional word is soir for the time of day, I believe.

@ColorfulTrauma Context?

Robusto

14:43

Who knows why the French say anything? Why do they say jambon when they mean "ham," for example? I put it down to pure contrariness.

Johan Larsson

Is contrariness bad?

Cerberus

Them again, why don't you say jam for ham, and they hambon?

Robusto

@JohanLarsson It is beyond good and evil.

@Cerberus Qu'est ce que tu veux?

Cerberus

The French are a proud lot, I'll give you that.

@Robusto Seulement que tu utilises le mot completement normal "hambon".

Robusto

@Cerberus Indeed, they gave the world chauvinism.

Cerberus

14:52

You're lucky that your ancestors stole half their words.

Robusto

@Cerberus Would you take hambone?

Johan Larsson

To me it is good, a sign of that it might be possible to squeeze out a controversial opinion from the person. But that does not hold when it comes to a language.

Cerberus

You know I can't resist meat...

Robusto

@Cerberus They weren't stolen; rather, they were forced down the ancestors' throats.

Cerberus

I suppose.

Robusto

14:53

So I object to your characterization and will sue you for defamation. My attorneys will be in touch.

Cerberus

But what would you have done, landed on a barbarian island?

@Robusto I'll preload the cannon, then, to "salute" their ships.

Robusto

@Cerberus The ones who landed were the barbarians. They were Normans, not proper French anyway.

Cerberus

They had already been Gallicised...

Robusto

Well, for what that was worth.

Cerberus

They didn't speak any northern Germanic any more.

So if you look at the state of the Romance languages now, perhaps that's what will happen to English in a couple of millennia.

Robusto

14:55

Are you saying William the Bastard was more civilized than Harold Godwinesson?

Cerberus

You're so cruel.

You can't always have 16 quarters.

Or however many were required in Paris.

Quadrants?

What's the word in English?

Robusto

@Cerberus I believe they are called arondissements.

@Cerberus "Quarters" will do.

For instance, New Orleans has a French Quarter.

But the word has lost its meaning of "one fourth" along the way.

Cerberus

Haha.

No, I mean genealogical quarters.

We were talking bastards.

Robusto

Quatre-bleu!

Now we are talking cheese.

Cerberus

What is it called, when you need to have noble ancestors in 4 or 16 x's?

Robusto

15:02

@Cerberus X-otic?

K-otic?

Semiotic?

...

0

Q: Is there a word or short phrase to indicate the opposite extreme of "racism"?

For example, a person fights (or claims to fight) against racism in the manner of believing a group/ethnicity/etc. (in a culture where this group is often disliked) to be morally superior, and if a member of this group commits something bad, this person refuses to believe it, and calls everyone a...

word-choice

Eeeuwww. Someone is fishing for words to slam liberals, I think.

Cerberus

If you have noble ancestors in 4 "quarters", that means all your grandparents were nobles.

I'm trying to find the English terminology, but genealogy is so boring.

Robusto

@Cerberus Sorry, the topic was so boring I had a petit-mal seizure. What were you saying?

Cerberus

I understand.

Robusto

I threw you a bone for your PC answer, doggy. Chew on that for a while.

Cerberus

Gracias.

Robusto

15:12

@Robusto I mean arrondissements. Stupid French spelling.

Haha, self-ping.

Cerberus

Hilarious!!

-issement is always double s if you prnounce it /s/ not /z/.

Robusto

But I'm amazed you could stick with vsz's question long enough to sort it out. I kept getting bogged down in the poor explanation of his problem.

Cerberus

I must admit I only skimmed it.

Robusto

@Cerberus I got the s right, but forgot to double the r.

Cerberus

Ah.

I think it's usually either à- or a[geminated consonant]-?

And certain consonants can't be geminated in French, like v...

But it is agressif...

Robusto

15:16

That would be a very singular doublet, Sir Knight.

Cerberus

So thanks for destroying my hypothesis without even saying anything.

Robusto

15:48

@Cerberus Talk, don't talk—you're never satisfied.

Cerberus

Is anyone ever?

Robusto

The journey is the reward.

Cerberus

Pah.

We have not attained the brave new world yet.

Robusto

That's not something you attain. It has to come to you, like shipwrecked sailors to Prospero's isle.

Cerberus

Heh.

Robusto

15:54

Anyway, out for errands. Bye.

Cerberus

Bai.

RegDwighт

16:10

@Cerberus Now? They've been saying this forever.

@Robusto nah, it just means "rest of the evening, from now on" as opposed to just "evening".

Same as with annee, journee. Not sure about matinee, somehow it's never morning in France when I'm there.

BBL

Cerberus

17:00

@RegDwighт Well, forever? Decades, probably?

MετάEd

17:12

0

A: Is there a word or short phrase to indicate the opposite extreme of "racism"?

You are describing supremacism, the view that a particular group is and ought to be treated as superior. Its proponents often describe it as anti-racism, but it is actually a form of racism which often arises in the context of racial conflict. For example, in the United States (with which I am f...

Can't believe supremacism hasn't come up yet.

Gigili

When is cross-posting allowed?

Oh really? You're one of the most helpful people I know.

MετάEd

43

Q: Is cross-posting a question on multiple Stack Exchange sites permitted if the question is on-topic for each site?

It is possible to migrate a question from one Stack Exchange site to another by closing, but if I have a question that I think is on-topic for multiple Stack Exchange sites, is it OK to post it on both? For example, I have a question that's earned me the tumbleweed badge on SO and I'm not sure ...

discussion faq questions etiquette cross-posting

So there are some votes for "not allowed".

Mitch

18:24

@MετάEd that's a word?

I can't accent it right.

@Cerberus That's unfair. I didn't say anything and I didn't get any credit.

Cerberus

@Mitch Haha. You temporarily destroyed my hope of looking at a certain composition of green, terracotta, turquoise, blue, purple, and a dash of yellow. Happy?

1

A: Is there a word or short phrase to indicate the opposite extreme of "racism"?

On a philosophical level, you could call this a "moral absolutist" mentality. Immanuel Kant argued that an action is right or wrong based on its outcome; aka, the ends justify the means. Thus, if a person takes a hardline stance on Racial Issue because he/she believes it to be morally right, an...

This is very strange.

He ascribes the opposite of Kant's position to Kant.

MετάEd

@Mitch It is: onelook.com/?w=supremacism&ls=a

MετάEd

20:03

Fixed:

-1

A: Does 'virtual' mean real or fake?

virtual Virtual means “apparent, but not in fact”. Sometimes it means “not in fact but nearly so”. Examples: virtual memory – apparently (to the program) but not in fact the physical memory of the machine virtual reality – apparently (to the observer) but not in fact physical reality; simulate...

MετάEd

20:21

english.stackexchange.com/questions/91554/…

Good catch, @simchona.

However I am not having any luck identifying the other source.

simchona

21:04

@MετάEd Responded to a flag.

www.english-for-students.com/Difference-between-preserve-and-conserve.html

MετάEd

ding

Gigili

21:34

Umm, is there anything wrong with this text?

> Thank you very much. I hope to return the favor in near future, if you ever passed through Biok alley I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at our two estates as well. Thank you for your kindness!

I don't like the if-would-if structure though.

nonbody there? nonbody?

Mitch

It's grammatical and also sounds OK to me (at least the if-would-if part). The missing article "the near future" is NNS-talk and 'kindness' is over the top.

Gigili

over the top?

Thank you, Mitch.

MετάEd

23:04

@Gigili If it were me, I would write "if you ever pass" because passed is in the past. I would also change the comma to a period (full stop).

Mahnax

@MετάEd I agree.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…