English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

02:00

But similar old inscriptions.

tchrist

I wholly sympathize with this fellow’s peeve, but I cannot see how this can be constructive:

0

Q: Is the phrase "it's just a matter of semantics" meaningless?

I hear this phrase from time to time, and I really don't know what it means. Two people are debating, and one says "the difference between your position and mine is just a matter of semantics." This would seem to me to be quite an important difference. That is, if one person means one thing, ...

semantics

KitFox

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 If you go to an orgy to take incriminating photos, you are there for the wrong reason.

5

tchrist

There are no spectators, only participants.

KitFox

@tchrist That's rather meta.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox I'm not trying to pass judgement on orgiers, or orgy photographers. (orgiographers, as they like to be called).

KitFox

02:01

Well, I am.

tchrist

passes on historiographership

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

of course you are. you're power-mad and judgemental :)

tchrist

I’ve never seen a photographer at an orgy.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Orgiers, or orgiastes?

tchrist

Also, the preferred term is sex party, not orgy.

KitFox

02:02

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Give it to me.

Well, sex parties are a little different than orgies.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oops, I apologize for offending your sensibilities.

tchrist

@KitFox Well, there are the funny hats, I suppose.

@Cerberus That would be my delicate sensibilities.

KitFox

Has anybody seen my staple gun?

Cerberus

Because you only have such sensibilities when wearing your delicates?

KitFox

@tchrist Never mind. I found it.

tchrist

02:03

@KitFox If it’s gone, you’ve left the barndoor open.

Forward refs, whoot whoot.

KitFox

Whoever repaired this chair last apparently sold beans for 50 cents a bag.

tchrist

Is that a drug reference?

KitFox

I don't think so.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

is it an idiom?

tchrist

Who sells beans by the bag?

What kind of beans?

I cannot think of any snack-beans.

Peanuts arguably excepted.

KitFox

02:13

I dunno. Farmers?

JSBձոգչ

soy beans. roasted soy beans are yummy.

tchrist

But but but.

JSBձոգչ

also edamame

wasabi peas

tchrist

You can’t get bags of beans for gardening that cheaply.

The Spanish do this weird thing with giant dried, split, and salted fava beans as a snack-bean.

Maybe not dried. Maybe fried.

Not sure.

JSBձոգչ

i had fava beans once. they were nasty.

but maybe i made them wrong

tchrist

02:15

They can give lima beans a good name.

JSBձոգչ

i can imagine snacky lima beans, though i've never seen them

KitFox

@tchrist Maybe it wasn't cheap 50 years ago.

Cerberus

@tchrist Lightly fried, I think.

I don't get them.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

All this talk of beans makes me want to plug my book

Cerberus

Fairly bland and unremarkable.

KitFox

02:16

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Do it.

tchrist

They are not called fava beans in Spain, of course.

KitFox

Oh. I didn't see the link from this angle.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yay!

What's your profit margin anyway?

tchrist

They are called habas in Castilian (=Spanish), and fabes in Asturian and most of the others.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus very slim. So far the net profits are negative.

Cerberus

02:17

Because you have to a lump sum up front to Lulu?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I have spent hardly any time at all promoting the book.

tchrist

I know people who quite dislike lima beans.

Cerberus

What is your marginal profit margin, if you know what I mean?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No, because it costs more money to operate the website.

tchrist

And so refuse to get in the same room with fava beans.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:18

@Cerberus About $1.50 /copy

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh...I see.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ah OK. That is about what I expected.

tchrist

Wikipedia has no Dutch page for succotash, only English, French, German, and Polish. Perhaps the Dutch have forbidden it. If so, I know people who would like to move to your country.

Cerberus

What is it?

Something juicy?

tchrist

It’s lima beans and sweet corn and milk/cream and salt&pepper.

JSBձոգչ

i've never had succotash

i don't even know what it is, aside from something that an animated character says

Cerberus

02:22

I don't know lima beans either.

tchrist

Er.

Succotash

Succotash (from Narragansett msíckquatash, "boiled corn kernels") is a food dish consisting primarily of corn and lima beans or other shell beans. and green or sweet red peppers. Because of the relatively inexpensive and more readily available ingredients, the dish was popular during the Great Depression in the United States. It was sometimes cooked in a casserole form, often with a light pie crust on top as in a traditional pot pie. Succotash is a traditional dish of many Thanksgiving celebrations in New England as well as in Pennsylvania and other states. In some parts of the American S...

Cerberus

We have none of that stuff.

tchrist

Phaseolus lunatus

Phaseolus lunatus is a legume. It is grown for its seed, which is eaten as a vegetable. It is commonly known as the lima bean or butter bean. Origin and uses Phaseolus lunatus is of Andean and Mesoamerican origin. Two separate domestication events are believed to have occurred. The first, taking place in the Andes around 2000 BC, produced a large-seeded variety (Lima type), while the second, taking place in Mesoamerica around AD 800, produced a small-seeded variety (Sieva type). By around 1300, cultivation had spread north of the Rio Grande, and in the 1500s, the plant began to be cul...

Butter bean, maybe you call it.

Cerberus

Looks rather bland and unappealing, sorry.

Boring, even.

Yet exotic.

JSBձոգչ

@tchrist i see nothing about milk in that article.

anyway, i see nothing wrong with that. i have independently invented that dish before when i was low on ingredients

tchrist

02:24

@JSBձոգչ It’s kinda like creamed corn with lima beans.

@Cerberus That is exactly it, and the precise reason why people dislike them. Boring, bland. Even mealy.

JSBձոգչ

@tchrist the pic sure looks like whole kernel corn, not creamed corn

tchrist

Well, right.

JSBձոգչ

anyway, creamed corn also is yummy

tchrist

It is the white sauce prep I am thinking of.

Butter and milk and salt and pepper. Ask @Cerb the fancy name for such a sauce.

JSBձոգչ

huh

Cerberus

02:26

@tchrist Ugh yes, mealiness if the problem with many bean-based dishes.

JSBձոգչ

all i know is, i took a can of red beans and a bag of frozen corn, heated them together, then ate them with butter and salt

it was yummy

Cerberus

@tchrist I don't know...does that even have a name?

tchrist

Yes it does. Moment.

Cerberus

It looks like bechamel-minus.

tchrist

There is a rue, but that has flour, too.

Or a roux.

Cerberus

02:28

Yes, a roux is just butter and flour, I think.

Possibly with water.

tchrist

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
 salt
 white or black pepper

I have never used the flour in succotash.

You have to be careful with flour in sauces.

But using cream is nicer than milk. Decadent.

I do not know how that is different from a Béchamel.

Cerberus

@tchrist That's béchamel.

tchrist

You just use whatever white sauce or cream sauce you are used to making like with pasta and such.

Just not so rich, maybe.

Cerberus

Who ever makes béchamel?

It's so extremely boring.

tchrist

I like the white sauce with minced shallots thing.

Cerberus

02:32

At least add cheese and turn it into a Morney (I have just read that).

My mother always made that.

tchrist

Maybe a tablespoon or two of white wine.

Cerberus

Minced shallots?

There are so many good sauces.

Ravigote...Hollandaise...

tchrist

What do you think of white pepper instead of black in a cream sauce? My mom says it is silly to worry about the appearance, but I think it is nice.

I have to make supper. It is dominating my thinking. :)

Cerberus

I prefer black pepper in most sauces.

White pepper has a different taste.

It can be good.

I never use it.

What are you making?

tchrist

Yes, she says she likes the flavor of black pepper more.

I don’t know, but these have made me terribly hungry.

Cerberus

02:35

Now I'm hungry too.

And I'm not supposed to eat any more today.

tchrist

@Cerberus You know what shallots are, right?

Cerberus

Sjalotten.

Oblong, small onions.

With a stronger taste.

tchrist

Right, reddish.

Cerberus

They are not reddish here.

Well, maybe we have different kinds.

At least nothing like red onions.

tchrist

Shallot

The shallot (Allium cepa var. aggregatum, or the Aggregatum group A. cepa) is a botanical variety of the species Allium cepa, to which the multiplier onion also belongs. The shallot was formerly classified as a separate species, A. ascalonicum, a name now considered a synonym of the currently accepted name. The genus Allium, which includes onions and garlic as well as shallots, is now classified in the plant family Amaryllidaceae, but was formerly considered to belong to the separate family Alliaceae. Names Shallots probably originated in Central or Southeast Asia, travelling from there...

Wrong picky.

Cerberus

02:36

Hmm yes.

I think ours are normally more like orange.

But wha'evs.

tchrist

Hm, I think we call yellow the ones you call orange.

Cerberus

Probably.

We call yellow/orange onions white.

And purple ones red.

tchrist

Because you can buy green, yellow, white, and red onions, but “orange” isn’t a normal color-name for onions.

Yes, the red-vs-purple thing.

They look purple, usually.

KitFox

tchrist

A white onion is truly white.

With no hint of yellow.

KitFox

02:38

A bit blurry. One down, five to go.

tchrist

What's the Difference? Yellow, White, and Red Onions

Those ones are white onions.

Cerberus

@KitFox Very nice!

tchrist

“Green onions” are actually scallions. Like super-chives, with mini-bulbs. Kinda.

Cerberus

Is that what you're doing?

KitFox

@Cerberus danku

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:43

> a northern Minnesota artist admitted in court Wednesday that he fatally crushed his wife with a five-metre-tall totem pole they were carving.

from here

not your typical murder weapon

KitFox

Although I'm not sure what possessed me to buy stripes.

Cerberus

@KitFox I like the chairs too, very elegant.

The stripes look nice.

tchrist

@JSBձոգչ This P.Dutch succotash recipe is more the kind I grew up with.

KitFox

They are pretty worn, but I plan to wipe them down with fresh stain to hide the blemishes.

Cerberus

I want nice chairs.

KitFox

02:44

The stripes are nice, but I'm pretty neurotic about symmetry. Stripes make that difficult.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox go crazy! make each chair totally different!

KitFox

And now I'm wondering if the pattern should have been pointed in the opposite direction.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 hyperventilates

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You can tell that is not a real account, because they don’t have those in Minnesota.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox 6 chairs, six angles of rotation!

Cerberus

@KitFox They look absolutely fine.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:46

@tchrist what, metres?

tchrist

Right.

> Prosecutors said Linda Muggli died after a 17-foot-tall, 700-pound totem pole they were carving fell onto her from its cradle.

Much more impressive that way.

KitFox

Two of them are already different, and I think there's one that was never re-covered. So three different seats for six chairs.

tchrist

Like a gorilla troope on stilts.

Cerberus

Not exceptionally funny.

@tchrist Another reason not to carve totem poles.

tchrist

@Kit What’s the difference between a sex party and an orgy? Are there other related terms with slightly different nuances? Bacchanal? Symposium? Fuckfest? I looked, but this does not seem to be GR after all, so I thought I’d try KR instead.

Scared her off.

Now I’ll never know.

And no, I am not going to ask on Main.

KitFox

02:52

At a sex party, the expectation is usually that couples or perhaps threesomes will have sex. Usually in open bedrooms or such.

At an orgy, the expectation is that most everyone will have sex with most everyone else.

tchrist

Oh.

KitFox

The others I can't say for sure. I don't think I've been to any.

tchrist

I seem to have mislabelled them.

KitFox

So sex parties are great for voyeurs and exhibitionists.

I guess I have been to a symposium.

It didn't involve sex though.

tchrist

Symposium is a Greek drinking thing.

Well, was.

Now it is just a conference.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:55

@Cerberus yes, only mildly amusing. But I do read smbc every day, in my rss reader.

tchrist

With or without the potables.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, great. What do you use on Mobile?

I use gReader.

Excusez le pied de chameau.

KitFox

Did I mention I put the locksets on the new doors today? I have a lock on my bedroom door now. Hell, I have a bedroom door now.

Whee!

Cerberus

@tchrist I'm not going without.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Google Reader

Cerberus

02:57

@KitFox Your children will be disappointed...

tchrist

@Cerberus Chameau

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh...I heard gReader was better?

KitFox

@Cerberus My children will need less therapy.

Hopefully.

Cerberus

@tchrist Right, I knew it was something different.

@KitFox ...but other forms of entertainment.

KitFox

Damn it. I was going to drink tonight and I forgot.

Too late now.

tchrist

03:00

@KitFox Geek conferences have a surprising amount of sex, actually.

KitFox

@tchrist The symposium I went to had no sex. The conferences I've been to... stares off into space

tchrist

It is a documented phenomenon, in fact. It’s the conference thing.

KitFox

Wow that's a painful place to go.

tchrist

Now you make me try and count.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus It may be better. the official google reader app is not bad. Not perfect, but it works well.

KitFox

03:01

@tchrist What?

Just thinking about conferences reminds me about this intense affair I had.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 This is the only one I have ever used on A., so I couldn't say. I just read somewhere that it was the best.

KitFox

Mmm. Delicious.

tchrist

Heh. All the conference hookups. One of them turned into a “thing”, because the other person was from Boulder, although we’d never met. But we met and hooked up at the conference, and then carried on for five months back home.

Long ago. She was a double-major in Classics and CompSci. I couldn’t resist. :)

Cerberus

Why did it end?

Classics is excellent.

KitFox

@tchrist I don't see why you'd even try to resist that.

tchrist

03:04

Hm, she had a depressive streak. And said I was treating her like “one of the guys”. And because she traded me in for my younger cousin.

Cerberus

Ugh.

KitFox

Sounds like my dream girl.

tchrist

You have a cousin?

Cerberus

Then she was annoying and you should be glad she isn't nagging your head off every day.

KitFox

@tchrist Of course I do.

tchrist

03:05

I meant one to whom you lost a girlfriend. :)

KitFox

Hmm. I guess not.

I remember one conference where we met a lab we were partnering with for the first time. We got hammered, went swimming in the ocean at midnight, and I ended up having sex with one of them on the beach, and then a different one back at my hotel room.

Good times, man, good times.

tchrist

The stamina of youth. The chafing of sand.

Scary combo.

KitFox

It was against the wall under the pier. No chafing.

tchrist

There’s a lot of that at beach towns. Walking home by the beach after bartime at Sitges, there’s almost a lineup along the wall down at the beach.

But this is a place whose clubs have foam parties on the beach, so you gotta expect it.

Cerberus

Why don't we have that?

People are so tame.

tchrist

03:10

Probably because it is too cold?

Cerberus

In winter, yes.

But...people still have sex outside.

Just not near beaches, that I know of.

In bushes.

KitFox

It's easier to have sex outside when it is cold.

tchrist

This is Sitges in Catalunya. South of Barcelona a little ways, like two euros by regional train. Super gay.

Cerberus

@KitFox Really? I thought it was the opposite.

KitFox

You can hide it better. Long coats and whatnot.

tchrist

03:11

Some of the clubs have outside foam parties on the beach in July and August.

Cerberus

Oh, easy in that way.

tchrist

And you have to walk back into town from them along the beachfront where all the little shacks have closed up for the night. There must be 100 guys lined up there along about a mile and a half. Well, on popular nights.

KitFox

sighs I miss wanting sex.

tchrist

Not constructive:

4

Q: Is the phrase "it's just a matter of semantics" meaningless?

I hear this phrase from time to time, and I really don't know what it means. Two people are debating, and one says "the difference between your position and mine is just a matter of semantics." This would seem to me to be quite an important difference. That is, if one person means one thing, ...

semantics

Really not constructive:

"Meaning is without question the single most important thing in any communication" is strictly personal opinion & untenable, not a true fact. Such assertions are typical of blindered vision, absolutism, & black-&-white images of the world. Were meaning so important, there'd be no room for style, which'ld be a mere frill for all but the effete, no such things as spin-doctors, & no poets, only socialist-realist writers à les Bolsheviki & Mao, & no lame exhortations about ripping out fingernails. "'T'ain't whatcha say but how thatcha say it." — Bill Franke 9 mins ago

So, I have just been accused of blindered vision and absolutism.

Is this really necessary?

I hate his rants.

I have better things to do.

Byez.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist How dare he accuse you of absolutism! ;)

> A programmer had a problem. He thought to himself, "I know, I'll solve it with threads!". has Now problems. two he

10

btw @cerb did you see this: code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=38538

KitFox

03:25

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox from here

KitFox

That's really funny.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The google TTS bug is really funny too

> Google Now if asked "What is a Giraffe?" finishes the description with "he now praises the iPad"

MετάEd

that's Okay, good.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

aw, they fixed it. rats

Cerberus

03:28

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It just stops at "with" for me?

Oh, fixed.

Too bad.

Threads are when you let two commands be executed at the same time, such that one does not wait for the other (unless so instructed), right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yeah when I first heard about it, I tried it and it was reproducible.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus sorta

Cerberus

Okay.

I use threads sometimes when I encounter unexpected behaviour.

They seem to work well enough.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

brb

gotta run

tchrist

05:56

@Cerberus Have I been too subtle? :)

@BarrieEngland Other languages of course have their own parts of speech and properties thereof, and so need their own taggers and tagsets, which necessarily differ from those of English. However, in the domain of language instruction, the area where most people encounter such things, the teaching of compound tenses is in my experience universal, whether it be for Latin, French, ... — tchrist 11 mins ago

... Spanish, or even English! Those are the standard approaches to teaching conjugation, which as you see includes both simple and compound tenses in all languages from Latin to English and beyond. No Frenchman will accept the idea that j’ai parlé is a present-tense conjugation merely because ai is in the present tense. It is in the passé composé, not the present. This is how people talk about these things, so it interferes with discussion to use “tense” to mean something else. — tchrist 6 mins ago

Any subtlety is lost once the links are followed. :)

Cerberus

06:21

Hehe.

Mahnax

Good evening.

Cerberus

Hi!

@tchrist You're not going to convince him by arguments outside his subfield.

God, I have spent so many hours on this caput answer, rereading and churning on the various etymological dictionaries...

I think I have most of the relevant info there now.

2

A: What rule governs the vowel alternations in Latin caput/capit-/cept-/cipit-/ciput?

None of these can be explained by synchronic rules in Latin grammar, at least not in the classical age. Nor does this seem to be regular Proto-Indo-European ablaut, where one would expect something like *cp-/cep-/cop-. Somehow many different allomorphs of caput existed; but allomorphs of other st...

Mahnax

So, uh, has everything from earlier today blown over?

Cerberus

What, exactly?

MετάEd

@Mahnax Every what thing?

Cerberus

06:25

That thing between Kit and Mr Shiny and Mitch was a joke, if you mean that.

Mahnax

Was it really?

Cerberus

Yes.

Mahnax

Huh.

If you say so, then.

Cerberus

It is 100 % certain.

Ask them if you like.

They're silliebillies.

Mahnax

Interesting. It did seem rather odd for them all to be going at each other like that, I guess.

I feel quite silly now.

Cerberus

06:29

Aww.

Mahnax

Hehe. Well! I'll just be… over here.

Hi @David.

David Wallace

Hi @Mah. Hi @Cerb

Mahnax

@DavidWallace How's it going?

David Wallace

Hi @MetaEd, didn't see you at first.

@Mah, it's mostly OK.

Except for my annoying neighbours.

Mahnax

@DavidWallace Has the job gotten more exciting?

Cerberus

06:34

Hi!

MετάEd

@DavidWallace waves hand There's nothing to see here. These are not the droids you're looking for.

David Wallace

@Mahnax Not greatly.

I think it might in the next few weeks though. I can be patient.

Mahnax

Ah, there is hope yet, then?

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Ugh, not those proboscidea again?

David Wallace

Peeps, I actually came to this room by accident. Fact is that I have to disappear for about half an hour. I'll be back!

Cerberus

06:37

Hehe.

Bye!

Mahnax

See you, David!

David Wallace

07:09

Hey guys, it's not forbidden to talk when I'm not here, you realise?

tchrist

07:36

> A dog shaved to look like a lion prompted someone to call police in Norfolk, Va., earlier this week. On Tuesday morning, a 911 caller reported seeing a baby lion "walking down Colley Avenue, possibly looking for food," according to the Virginian-Pilot. Police then called the Virginia Zoo, which reported both of its lions (Mramba and Zola) were accounted for. [reference]

iHungry

09:01

hey guys

RegDwighт

10:03

@Cerberus why is that a community wiki?

Noah

Hi

I thought you said Kiwi.

But in any case, both seem to be interchangeable

@RegDwighт

I remember a post where the guy was asking for a name for people who are verbose and wordy. Do you by any chance have the link to that?

RegDwighт

You mean yesterday? Hold on.

4

Q: One's brilliant vocabulary and a tendency to show it off

Possible Duplicate: What’s a big-vocabulary word for someone with a big vocabulary? There are people who are blessed with a remarkable knowledge of vocabulary and diction – people who can come up with beautifully crafted sentences and expressions on most subjects at the drop of a hat. ...

single-word-requests phrases

What's a big-vocabulary word for someone with a big vocabulary? What's the word for “overly proud of your education”? Is there an English word meaning “the use of uncommon words”? — RegDwighт 18 hours ago

Alenanno

@RegDwighт 11 Revisions. As far as I remember, a post turns CW even when edited by a single user if there are many revisions.

I reverted it. Thanks for flagging it.

RegDwighт

Ah, thanks.

I was wondering about that. But I thought the number was round, like 12 or 16.

Alenanno

I... honestly don't know.

But it's around that number.

Matt Эллен

10:18

community wiki

more than 10

Alenanno

Ah thanks, @MattЭллен.

Matt Эллен

no trouble :)

Noah

hi

Thanks @RegDwighт

Much appreciated. I was looking for a link in that post. I think it was posted by Rob.

It took me to a long post by @tchrist.

I was curious to see if the recently posted question by @tchrist was the same as the one linked in the comment of this question.

Noah

10:51

@DavidWallace You are probably right, but remember that some talk is indeed forbidden.

Dave, in some cultures it's even frowned upon for children to speak in front of their elders.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…