English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:00

You can say "een paar schoenen" or "een paar sokken".

tchrist

This is the problem.

Now do it with two pair.

Cerberus

So, yes, we do in fact pluralise those.

But "a pair of trousers" is just "een broek".

A pair of spectacles is een bril.

tchrist

A pair of spectacles?

Just some glasses, eh?

Cerberus

Binoculars, een verrekijker (far-seer).

tchrist

Never heard pair there.

Cerberus

00:01

@tchrist A bril, as in shiny glass, probably, etymologically.

Brilliant.

tchrist

> Pair is now followed by of, as in ‘a pair of gloves’; but of was formerly omitted, as ‘a pair gloves’: cf. Ger. ein paar handschuhe. After a numeral pair was formerly used in the sing. form; ‘three pair (of) shoes’ = Ger. drei paar schuhe; this is still retained colloquially, and in certain connexions; but the tendency is now to say ‘three pairs’.

Cerberus

I'm just making that up, but it seems to make sense.

tchrist

In the tiny fishing village where I come from, using pair after a numeral is still normal.

Cerberus

@tchrist Og, that. No, we never say een paar van. Doesn't exist.

Oh, yes, the plural of paar is paar.

tchrist

We had many German settlers, and one theory for the persistence of the form in English is German influence in that region.

Cerberus

00:03

It is possible.

Twee paar sokken.

Never twee paren.

tchrist

That is what I wondered.

Cerberus

You would say paren when you mean a married couple, I think.

As in two married couples.

But that will be rare.

tchrist

Does two pair in a poker hand beat 3 of a kind? - Yahoo! Answers
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid... - Cached - Similar
No, the hands from smallest to absolute best are.. high card, 1 pair, 2 pair, 3 of a kind, straight, flush, full house, 4 of a kind, straight flush, royal flush.

It is not as uncommon as the OED would represent.

> Which wins in poker three of a kind or two pair

Cerberus

That's poker lingo.

That's special.

tchrist

Maybe cards keeps it, too.

Johan Larsson

00:05

We use 'par' the same way in Sweden, meaning pair or couple/few/several depending on context

Cerberus

@tchrist We say "two pair" there too.

I think.

@JohanLarsson Yay!

tchrist

@JohanLarsson But if you have two different pairs in cards, do you have two pair or two pairs?

Johan Larsson

tvåpar, one word, plural of par is par

Cerberus

We use the English words, because it is an American game, so two pair.

tchrist

Yes.

When I put an adjective intervening, I have to make it pairs.

Only when it is a number immediately before, does it not change.

Cerberus

00:06

If I had to say it in Dutch...I might say twee paren. I don't know, it should just be English.

tchrist

The French would have your head for that.

Johan Larsson

två par strumpor (two pairs of socks) two words this time

Cerberus

We don't bother with télécharger or ordinateurs or voitures.

Downloaden, computers, auto's.

Auto's is short for automobielen.

Which sounds 1900ish.

tchrist

@Cerberus Not dà fe? :)

Cerberus

What?

Is That Spanish?

tchrist

00:08

auto-dà-fe.

Cerberus

What is that?

tchrist

Apparently.

Cerberus

This is a random sound to me.

tchrist

The spelling is Portuguese.

Spanish has no contraction with the feminine. Now.

Auto-da-fé

[[Saint Dominic presiding over an auto-da-fé, an unhistorical depiction (St. Dominic never presided over an auto-da-fe) by Pedro Berruguete (around 1495).]] An auto-da-fé (also auto da fé and auto de fe) was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed. Both auto de fe in medieval Spanish and auto da fé in Portuguese mean "act of faith". The most extreme punishment imposed on those convict...

Cerberus

Ah.

First time I hear this.

tchrist

00:10

You are kidding, really?

Cerberus

No.

tchrist

> The most extreme punishment imposed on those convicted was execution by burning. As the execution was more memorable than the penance which preceded it, in popular use the term auto-da-fé came to mean the punishment rather than the penance.

It is an English term. Now.

Cerberus

Thankfully we shook off the Spanish yoke just in time.

shivers

tchrist

> Mexico witnessed its last auto-da-fé as late as 1850.

Didn’t do them much good, eh?

Cerberus

Wow.

That's...late.

Weren't they already independent by then?

tchrist

00:13

Quite so.

Oh yes. Certainly.

Cerberus

Early 19th century?

Ah, 1810–1821.

tchrist

1810–1821

cornbread ninja

evening, gents

tchrist

Interestingly, it is not the Mexican Revolution. That is something else.

Cerberus

I'm glad we beat them by 250 years.

@cornbreadninja Holla!

By the way, if we had been able to keep the English crown, we would have treated you better, and you wouldn't have needed to rebel.

Just a thought.

tchrist

00:16

The Inquisition was supposed to have been finally suppressed in Mexico on May 31st, 1820.

So I wonder about the 1850 figure.

The last one in Spain was in 1826.

In Valencia.

In Portugal, the last one was on October 27, 1765.

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

> To which may be properly added that, during nearly all the long period of Spanish rule in Mexico, the Inquisition, or "Holy Office," wielded a power as baleful and as despotic as it ever did in Old Spain, and held its last auto-da-fe and burned its last conspicuous victim—General José Morelos—in the Plaza of the city of Mexico, as late as November, 1815!

From here.

But that is only the last “conspicuous” victim.

At least he had a name.

I cannot believe there are 15 million hits for the last auto-da-fe in Mexico in 1850, but I cannot track down anything more specific.

Sounds like something that was repeated many times without verification. Maybe.

Johan Larsson

You seem to trust Wikipedia as a source, is that just for casual things? I trust Wikipedia for most things but have seen examples of where Wikipedia is ridiculed as source.

tchrist

No, that was from Britannica.

Johan Larsson

did not mean that particular instance. I have not seen Wikipedia being frowned upon here, hence my question. (Is comma correct?)

tchrist

00:31

Well, really should be a semicolon, but people sometimes use a comma there.

Wikipedia autoboxes here.

So we cite it that way.

Nothing else does.

Like this won’t:

amazon.com/INQUISITION-Spain-Middle-SUPERB-Antique/dp/…

Well look at that.

Ok, what all will autobox???

Johan Larsson

looks good?

tchrist

Youtube does, too.

Sheesh, some people:

english.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/14847

cornbread ninja

02:13

@Cerberus hollas

@tchrist I didn't expect that.

tchrist

That Amazon now autoboxes, you mean?

I can’t believe how horrible Walmart is! Have you read the New York Times article about Walmart’s Mexican super-scandal yet? I haven’t finished reading, and I have never ever seen anything this bad before. I do not know how people will not go to jail. Or worse.

And I always thought they were scum. This is even worse.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist yes. Well, that and some sort of Spanish inquisition.

@tchrist reads

Hmm.

Part of the problem is that the Mexican government is so willing to accept bribes.

But yes, that's really damn horrible.

tchrist

02:55

We’ve gone from bad:

-1

Q: can I write "go out in my house"?

Is "go out in the kitchen" meaning "go out and went into kitchen"? So if I want to express that "go out and go home" than can I write go out in my house(place)? And does it only can be use in writing.

grammaticality

To worth:

1

Q: Why can we say “worth more than” but not “expensive more than”?

Why can we say: It is worth more than. . . . but not: It is expensive more than. . . . It’s the position of more which I find so confusing. Also, is worth an adjective in both these cases?

adjectives comparison worth

Hey, go check out the flag queue. Wowza!

Insane spammer:

Ella

1

lyrics meaning

While the clowder’s away, the murine defecation becomes unnaturally noisome.

Ramesh

05:24

Hi

Does any body is there

Henning Klevjer

08:38

Arghh. What's that nice latin expression for "widely accepted as standard, but not officially"..

David Wallace

Do you mean a "de facto standard"?

Henning Klevjer

AAAAAaaaaa!

yesss

@DavidWallace Does my answer cover it correctly?

(question :P)

David Wallace

Does what answer cover what correctly?

Henning Klevjer

@DavidWallace Sorry. Question. Does "widely accepted as standard, but not officially" cover the term "de facto"?

(de facto standard)

David Wallace

Umm, it covers the term "de facto standard", yes. There are, of course, other meanings of "de facto".

Henning Klevjer

08:41

@DavidWallace Right. Too early still.. Thank you very much!

David Wallace

No worries.

RegDwighт

09:40

0

Q: Be-gruntled is this a word?

Someone in work asked about the welfare of my girlfriend, to which I replied "She's fine, a little be-gruntled but fine." People knew what I meant, although on reflection perhaps I should have said disgruntled? I'm just wondering why I said it this way, was I improperly abbreviating *to be disg...

british-english

Funny.

David Wallace

Seems a little GR to me.

RegDwighт

Normally people ask, "What did my colleague mean by X? I didn't want to ask him; instead, I'm asking a bunch of random people off the Internet."

But this one asks, "What did I mean by X? I don't want to ask myself; instead, I'm asking a bunch of random people off the Internet."

David Wallace

Did you notice that this one is tagged British-English?

RegDwighт

You mean that's some kind of hint?

David Wallace

Like, I'm American, but I thought I must be speaking British English, so I figured I'd find out on SE what I meant?

RegDwighт

09:44

Ah.

Except the OP is from Liverpool.

David Wallace

He's a triathlete. Respect, dude!

RegDwighт