English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Hamlet: Come on, sir.
Laertes: Come, my lord.
[They play and Hamlet scores a hit]
Hamlet: One.
Laertes: No.
Hamlet: Judgment.
Osric: A hit, a very palpable hit .
Laertes: Well, again.
King: Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine,
Here's to thy health! Give him the cup.

...

Screw this on-again, off-again text styling with asterisks bullshit.

RegDwight

So, um, was he talking about Kelly Clarkson or what?

MrHen

@Robusto Oh god! A trailing space!

RegDwight

@Robusto Just give up. Listen to Martha.

yesterday, by Martha

@RegDwight It's the line break in that post: putting in a line break turns a post into preformatted text, essentially.

Robusto

@RegDwight — No, he had no interest in cheesy Danish.

RegDwight

Aha! Non-native speaker!

Robusto

6:21 PM

Yes, Hamlet was a Dane masquerading as an Elizabethan actor.

RegDwight

Me was talking about your grammer.

MrHen

I think I stepped into the wrong pool.

RegDwight

@MrHen You don't step, you fall.

Robusto

Ah. Stupid fingers.

MrHen

@RegDwight Oh. Well, there's my problem...

RegDwight

6:22 PM

@Robusto Yeah, yeah, like that's not what every Soviet spy would say.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Well, since you know them all I guess I have to take your word for it.

RegDwight

@MrHen You have a bunch of problems, now that you're here. But we'll work on them one at a time.

@Robusto Thank you. Finally some appreciation.

Robusto

And by the way ... @MrHen ... is there a @MrsHen? And a lot of little @Chicks running around pecking the shag carpet in your roost?

MrHen

@Robusto I actually use MrsHen for test accounts.

RegDwight

Um, @Robusto, your sock-puppet just entered the chat.

Robusto

6:24 PM

@MrHen — Really? Wow, that's mean. How does she feel about that?

RegDwight

@Robusto Stop asking for chicks already. That's @Cerberus' job.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Mitten puppet.

MrHen

@Robusto She doesn't get out often and no one really knows what to think about her.

Robusto

@RegDwight — @Cerberus doesn't swing that way.

RegDwight

Mar 12 at 3:02, by Cerberus

Girls? Where?

Mar 7 at 21:40, by Cerberus

We probably need a native speaker for the correct term, preferably a 16-y-o girl from the Mid West.

Mar 12 at 3:13, by Cerberus

I do have another girl on offer: do you know Dalida?

Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women, man.

Robusto

6:28 PM

Mar 19 at 13:22, by Cerberus

Hey I like girls as a meme and as friends!

Mar 19 at 13:22, by Cerberus

You can have them for other stuff.

Mar 19 at 13:22, by Robusto

@Cerberus — And, really? I can have the girls? Do they know you just gave them away?

RegDwight

Siehste?

Robusto

@Cerberus gave me all the girls. They're mine now. You're not getting them back.

RegDwight

How can I get them back if I never had them?

Robusto

Well, just in case you did have any you were hiding.

RegDwight

Hm. My wife is leaving the house "for a concert".

Robusto

6:31 PM

Did she get a call from @Cerberus a few moments ago?

RegDwight

No but from some Rob. Can't remember the surname, Schneider, I think?

Robusto

Don't worry, you'll still be able to see her if you visit my back yard.

RegDwight

Now everything makes sense.

That's how you got to meet Mr. Ebert,

Robusto

Or into place.

You non-native speaker.

RegDwight

you were discussing how much your movies suck...

Robusto

6:32 PM

Nah, he was easy. Just bought him a beer.

MrHen

@Robusto I prefer, "in two places."

Robusto

@MrHen — I prefer commas not to separate verbs from direct objects.

RegDwight

12 mins ago, by RegDwight

@Robusto Yeah, yeah, like that's not what every Soviet spy would say.

Well, there him are, ze Dutch spy!

Robusto

@Cerberus: Clear something up for us. Did you or did you not give me all the girls?

Cerberus

Hey, stalkers! I was formulating some brilliant answer but your incessant beeps keep disturbing me.

MrHen

6:35 PM

@Robusto How does that work with stuff like "I said, 'Hello.'"?

Robusto

@Cerberus — Oh, if only we could believe that.

Cerberus

@Rob: I did give them to you, but only for specific purposes, which shall not be explicitly mentioned.

Robusto

@MrHen — Sorry, you'll have to ask that in Writers.SE. Please read the FAQ.

RegDwight

@Cerberus Meh, I will mention everything and anything explicitly, given enough time.

Robusto

@Cerberus — If it's mentioned, it's explicit.

MrHen

6:37 PM

@Robusto So now the girls are explicit?

Cerberus

@Reg: Jeesh, whatever happened to my authority in this sordid room...

RegDwight

@Cerberus I dunno, I never noticed it around.

Cerberus

@Rob: Right: you may consider my pleonasm an element of style, or a rhetorical figure of speech, as you like.

Robusto

@Cerberus — You had authority? When?

RegDwight

Jinx!

Cerberus

6:38 PM

Dammit!

Robusto

@Cerberus — I shall do no such thing.

RegDwight

@Cerberus Womit?

Cerberus

Ima gonna change all your answers everywhere into st00pid stuff!

Womit... is that a Muppet?

Oh, it is German.

RegDwight

Oh man, he didn't even notice.

Cerberus

Das werd' ich machen mit... unaussprechlichen Dingen.

MrHen

6:40 PM

copyywriter? really?

Cerberus

(Hmm that -n looks a bit odd... aber es ist richtig, oder?)

Robusto

@Cerberus — Womit is German for vomit.

RegDwight

I see five n's, all of them richtig.

Cerberus

Falsch!

RegDwight

@Robusto Das war so naheliegend...

Cerberus

6:42 PM

"mit unaussprechlichen Dingen"... proofread, bitte?

RegDwight

Alles richtig.

Cerberus

Weird... I read "none of them richtig" in your first reply. How low my self-confidence must be.

RegDwight

Reading comprehension. Class. You.

Cerberus

I read "Hey Cerberus you have authority here": did I comprehend richtig?

RegDwight

You seem to read that everywhere. I would go see a doctor about that.

Cerberus

6:46 PM

Do you say the same to Christians?

I mean, if it makes people happy...

RegDwight

I say different things to different people. And I always make everybody happy, just by opening my mouth.

Cerberus

Please. Spare me your obscenities.

RegDwight

Well, I have to jump in for Robusto. He seems to be off, struggling with the Kaffeemaschine or something.

Cerberus

(Oh, wait, you wouldn't obey me any way...)

Technical stuff can be complicated.

If there are more than two buttons...

RegDwight

@Cerberus I would obey you, if only you had any authority here.

Cerberus

6:49 PM

Bah... how can I have any authority if you will not obey me? That is circular reasoning, my friend!

RegDwight

And it works!

Mar 7 at 20:59, by RegDwight

That's Kosmonaut with his circular-reasoning avatar in Dutch.

Cerberus

What the... did Kosmonaut's avatar rub off on you?

Haha I see a circle and I see Holland... but reasoning? Reason != girl.

RegDwight

No, Girl == Kosmonaut.

And Reason != Kosmonaut, that part is right.

Where's him @Kosmonaut anyhow?

Cerberus

@RegDwight +1 For that.

Except that I dare not star it.

I am still pondering the "She walked through the forest, and who should she see, but the Big Bad Wolf!" question.

0

Q: More on 'who should she see'

Prompted by what-does-should-mean-in-this-sentence , instead of asking what it means, I'm interested in what part of speech it is. The sentence is She walked through the forest, and who should she see, but the Big Bad Wolf 'Should' is being used to means 'did' in this sentence, which is ...

part-of-speech

RegDwight

@Cerberus I can pin it. For two weeks.

Cerberus

6:53 PM

(Heh well take responsibility for your own statements, then!)

(Updated wrongish link: the quote is in the old question, but I am pondering the new one.)

RegDwight

Well, it is a verb. What's to ponder?

Subjunctive is not a PoS.

Cerberus

PoS?

Oh, Part of Speech.

I was pondering which development of shall should have led to this use of should.

That is what the OP wants to know, I think.

RegDwight

Is this not a dupe?

Robusto

PoS is a contraction of Piece of Shit.

RegDwight

0

Q: Meaning of 'till death do us part'

It's a English name of a forthcoming Chinese film. Chinese name is 'Best love'

meaning words

2

Q: Till death do us part?

Every time I see this expression, I can't help thinking it's grammatically wrong. Is it grammatically acceptable? Why is it used extensively in this form?

grammaticality

MrHen

7:00 PM

@RegDwight Close. One is about meaning, the other is about grammar.

Cerberus

Yes, voted to close.

Oh.

MrHen

If the older one actually listed the meaning in the answers I would say dupe.

Cerberus

Close enough to be closed imo...

RegDwight

@MrHen It does not?

MrHen

@RegDwight Not that I can tell

Am I missing it?

RegDwight

7:01 PM

@MrHen Rats, it appears you're right.

MrHen

I really wish people would let me know why they downvote things.

RegDwight

@MrHen I usually do.

MrHen

@RegDwight I don't actually recall you downvoting something of mine, but thanks for the explanation if you did. :)

RegDwight

I don't recall it, either. Just saying.

Cerberus

Meh I have to agree that the answers do not include an explanation of what the expression means. I suppose I just considered that to be trivial... what if the questions were merged?

MrHen

7:06 PM

@Cerberus What's the harm in letting it be? Now that it has been asked we can close all future one as dupes.

RegDwight

@Cerberus I dunno. For starters, I took the liberty of editing your (auto-inserted) comment, so you don't get flak.

Cerberus

@MrHen: Personally I don't mind clutter too much, but I think the website usually doesn't want too much overlap between questions if it doesn't add a great deal. But let's keep it up then.

RegDwight

We have several rather huge clusters of rather closely related questions. One day they will have to be trimmed.

MrHen

Arg. I hate the "need to edit 6 characters" limit

Cerberus

@Reg: Thanks! That is better.

@Reg: Yeah... what I fear most is that these clusters will grow and grow indefinitely.

RegDwight

7:09 PM

@MrHen You can always add a few empty lines. Don't tell anybody you got it from me.

Cerberus

Whaat!

Evil, thy name is Moderator.

MrHen

"Edits must be at least 6 non-space characters;"

RegDwight

@Cerberus Hopefully not on my watch. I try to keep track of them, and post cross references whenever possible. When those lists of cross references grow beyond a certain limit, people tend to start voting to close all by themselves.

@MrHen Hm. Did they fix that? Worked for me just the other day.

Cerberus

Ugh, why is there an evil monster behind this chat that makes me typo several times in a row in a single, five-word line? Frequently I have to edit a line several times. Boo.

MrHen

@RegDwight I just got that message.

Cerberus

7:11 PM

@Reg: Good work! It can be exhausting, I can imagine.

I am too hungry to think. Should I go for a run or buy groceries?

RegDwight

@MrHen What are you trying to edit, anyhow?

MrHen

0

Q: In 'the' or 'a' Nick of Time?

They both sound right and I've found examples of both??

usage grammar

RegDwight

@Cerberus How's that even a choice?

MrHen

Punctuation is gross and the title capitalized Nick and Time

So, four characters.

Holy hell, I just got Basshunter in my head

Cerberus

@Reg: Waaah don't play mind games with me!

MrHen

7:14 PM

That was random

Cerberus

@MRH: Thanks for sharing!

RegDwight

@MrHen Ugh. If you don't care about the two points, I suppose I can just edit it myself. If you do want those 2 precioussss, add an HTML comment and I will remove it when approving.

MrHen

@RegDwight I don't care about the points

Martha

Almost-jinx: I was just gonna suggest an html comment to MrHen.

MrHen

Sheesh, all sorts of tricks

Why is there a character limit, anyway?

Most the edits I make are to fix typos, grammar or punctuation

Martha

7:17 PM

A more, uh, legitimate use for html comments is to separate two blockquotes with an empty line.

RegDwight

@MrHen [status-declined] over and over and over again.

MrHen

@RegDwight Eh? What does that mean?

While we are talking about typos

1

A: Is there anything wrong in this?

Phrasing a question in the negative in this way is merely a rhetorical device. There should be no reason, the copyywriter supposes, for anyone not to want to work for the "best design agency," so the question merely is inviting you to consider your options for not wanting to work there, which ar...

copyywriter

Cerberus

Probably means that our Overlords (the owners of the SE websites) decided that it should not be changed, and that they move in mysterious ways.

MrHen

@Cerberus Ah, I see

@Martha Hey, thanks, I was wondering how to do that.

Martha

I believe the edit minimum exists because too many edits can put a post into community-wiki mode, which in turn happens because edits bump questions to the top of the list, which could conceivably be used to game the system.

Or something.

RegDwight

7:19 PM

@Martha Except that people are now gaming the system in other ways.

MrHen

Interesting. I suppose I can think of all sorts of ways to game the edit system as it is now. Lower thresholds wouldn't help much.

Cerberus

Huh, many edits push a post into community mode? I didn't know that.

RegDwight

2

A: Change this behavior to allow for spelling corrections and the like: "Edits must be at least 6 characters"

Now, it is easy to workaround this: add 10 characters, plus your one-character change, then remove these 10 characters in the next edit for the same post. This is 100% true. But hopefully, the fact that you're having to use such an awkward workaround should set off a lightbulb somewhere in y...

@Cerberus Ten edits by the OP himself, or edits by five other people.

Cerberus

@Reg: OK interesting.

RegDwight

Or twelve and six, respectively. I keep forgetting.

F'x

7:21 PM

@RegDwight please tell us of those other ways, so we can be Enlightened (and probably richer!)

RegDwight

1 min ago, by RegDwight

2

A: Change this behavior to allow for spelling corrections and the like: "Edits must be at least 6 characters"

Now, it is easy to workaround this: add 10 characters, plus your one-character change, then remove these 10 characters in the next edit for the same post. This is 100% true. But hopefully, the fact that you're having to use such an awkward workaround should set off a lightbulb somewhere in y...

F'x

please, RegDwight entered an infinite loop; can someone reboot him?

RegDwight

Mar 2 at 13:43, by Robusto

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

Feb 18 at 10:59, by Robusto

13 hours ago, by Robusto

27 secs ago, by RegDwight

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

Feb 7 at 15:38, by RegDwight

Russell's paradox

In the foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy), discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory created by Georg Cantor leads to a contradiction. The same paradox had been discovered a year before by Ernst Zermelo but he did not publish the idea, which remained known only to Hilbert, Husserl and other members of the University of Göttingen. Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R qualifies as a member of itself, it would contradict its own definition as a set containing sets that are not member...

F'x

@RegDwight I thought you meant “more interesting way” to game the system :)

RegDwight

@Fx > Except that people are now gaming the system in other ways.

Show me a "more" and an "interesting" in there.

MrHen

7:24 PM

@RegDwight Dur: "other"

F'x

I never said you said that, I said I thought you meant that

apologies sent your way (and a ton of bricks, too)

RegDwight

Okay, so please kindly reboot yourself, then)))

MrHen

I was about to make a Settlers of Catan joke and then remembered I am in the wrong channel

RegDwight

@Cerberus Anyhow, it's ten and five.

104

A: What are "Community Wiki" posts?

Why have Community Wiki posts? One of the goals of the website is to be a continually evolving source of good information. Community Wiki posts help enhance the wiki aspect of the site. How do Community Wiki posts work? Community Wiki posts work by transferring ownership of the post from the ...

Martha

@MrHen Go ahead, you never know. :)

F'x

7:25 PM

MrHen: there is at least one active practitioner of that game here

RegDwight

Two.

Martha

@Fx Uh, Jinx, I think.

MrHen

@Martha I chanced that the meta-joke would be more worth it. Also it was a clever way to ping for boardgamers

RegDwight

And 1060+ over there.

155

Board and Card Games – boardgames.stackexchange.com

Beta Q&A site for people who like playing board games, designing board games or modifying the rules of existing board games. Card games, too, because some games really can be classified as both.

Currently in public beta.

Cerberus

@Reg: OK thanks, noted numbers.

I like Settlers! Used to play it online. And a few times with friends.

F'x

7:27 PM

I don't go to B&CG much anymore, it seemed rather dead

MrHen

@RegDwight Yeah, that's actually how I found english.

Robusto

Wait, isn't that a DC Comics character? Nick of Time? Not complicated enough to be a Marvel character, but still ...

MrHen

@Fx Sadly, yes. It seems that we have too many experts and not enough students

RegDwight

@Robusto To me, Nick of Time sounds like a French insult.

MrHen

@RegDwight Is that a culinary joke?

RegDwight

7:28 PM

@MrHen No. The French literally go nick this and nick that.

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/niquer

F'x

@RegDwight ‽

MrHen

@RegDwight Oooh...

Cerberus

Then how come the relative population France has declined so much since 1800?

RegDwight

@Fx Yeah, yeah, not you. You are nice.

F'x

@RegDwight either you're rather close to some Frenchies, or you've been in the wrong place, because it's actually not so common :)

Cerberus

7:30 PM

The rest of Europe overtook her in giant leaps. She used to be fives times as populous as England; look at her now.

RegDwight

@Fx Let's just say both.

You should visit Nancy more often.

Cerberus

Well it may not have been five times, but it was at least twice as populous.

F'x

@Cerberus 1800 = 29M people in France, 2011 = 63M

Cerberus

Yes, and England?

F'x

@Cerberus yes, but the weather severly limits your options as a couple in England, so that's an unfair comparison

RegDwight

7:32 PM

At least the French call their towns Nancy and not Bangkok.

Cerberus

@F'x: Haha, touché.

(I like "(removed)" better.)

MrHen

:P

The other part of my brain caught up to me

F'x

well, we always have Bourg-la-Reine

RegDwight

What do you call a removed jinx? @Robusto

Cerberus

It looks neat and clean.

F'x

7:33 PM

Bourg-la-Reine

Bourg-la-Reine is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The inhabitants are called Réginaburgiens. History In 1792, during the French Revolution, Bourg-la-Reine (meaning "Town of the Queen") was renamed Bourg-l'Égalité (meaning "Equality borough"). The name Bourg-la-Reine was restored in 1812. Transport Bourg-la-Reine is served by Bourg-la-Reine station on Paris RER line B. Personalities Bourg-la-Reine was the birthplace of: * Évariste Galois, mathematician * Louis Joxe (1901–1991), statesman * Madeleine LaBeau, actress * Modibo D...

RegDwight

It is located from the center of Paris! Oh là là!

F'x

"Town of the Queen" is the standard meaning, but in modern French, it can also be "shag the Queen"

Cerberus

Bourg = shag?

Then you frogs will have plenty to laugh about all over our lovely continent...

F'x

bourrer = to shag, at least in some circles

Cerberus

Oh, really! Funny.

F'x

7:36 PM

it works because the final g in Bourg is silent

Cerberus

Yeah I know. A felicitous slang verb!

RegDwight

So that leaves me wondering whatever they meant by "shag the equality"...

Cerberus

Interesting that it should have been changed to "F*ck Equality" by the revolutionaries.

Noo... beat me again...

RegDwight

Not jinx again.

Cerberus

Well at least my meta-jinx jinxed you.

RegDwight

7:37 PM

Yours is funnier.

Cerberus

Well the Frenchies deserve the praise.

JSBangs

"Fuck Equality" definitely deserves a star

Cerberus

Hehe thanks.

Newspeak is even funnier when used avant la lettre.

MrHen

0

A: Situated vs Located?

Situated can refer to an object's orientation in addition to its location: His hat is situated at a 45 degree angle. This is mostly useful in sentences such as: The car is precariously situated on the cliff. This means that the car's orientation is precarious in addition to its locati...