English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

user19161

13:01

@Cerberus Not much resemblance.

user19161

I got a star, miracle!

Cerberus

Congrats.

Jez

13:30

14

Q: developer specific app.config/web.config files in Visual Studio

we have several .net projects where we store certain settings in config files. Now each developer will have their own config files that differ a little (different connection strings to connect to local db, different wcf endpoints etc.) At the moment we tend to check out app/web.config files and ...

the fact that this was closed is bloody ludicrous

they're really ruining stack exchange; there are some very useful answers to that question

Kit

The question closing process is drastically changing in the next 6 to 8 weeks.

Jez

?

Robusto

Doushite?

►

@RegDwighт: Here's a LEGO car you can drive to work. ^

Cerberus

13:56

@Kit ?

Robusto

Hiya @Cerb.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yo.

Why is Reg not here 24/7?

And why did Mahnax say he was going to be absent?

Robusto

I haven't noticed him much lately. Of course, I haven't been around much lately either.

Cerberus

Are y'all abandoning us?

sad

Robusto

I can only speak for myself, not the others.

Matt Эллен

14:09

Maybe if we made it illegal to smoke in here, people would start coming back.

Cerberus

Good idea.

Robusto

Unclear.

No talking about that now, as I'm at work.

Cerberus

When will you know?

Ah OK.

Robusto

Shhh.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Interesting.

Robusto

14:12

►

Cerberus

Whither?

Robusto

Just a feeling.

Mitch

@Kit what? In what way (if that is something you can divulge)?

Matt Эллен

questions will only be closed by a fight to the death Star Trek TOS style.

TRiG

14:28

@tchrist I don't have nudie pics of Harry Potter. I do have nudie pics of Daniel Radcliffe, but he was playing someone else at the time, and I try to distinguish between character and actor. (This is easy for me in the case of DR, as I've never actually seen him act (except in trailers): I've seen only a few interviews and his surprisingly good stint on QI.)

MετάEd

15:22

@MattЭллен I hear the music …

Matt Эллен

I've got a net and a pitch fork...

MετάEd

I found some sulfur.

Matt Эллен

who's gonna wear the pointy ears?

MετάEd

Sheldon.

Matt Эллен

of course!

1

Q: Quantify product-appropriateness score

I'm looking for a way to quantify and explain the scenario below to my managers. I'm really good at understanding issues, but unfortunately no so good at communicating them to others. I have written some code that works out scores or should I save appropriateness of a product for a customer. I n...

word-choice sentence

Off Topic?

@MετάEd It is off topic at writers too

in The Overlook Hotel, 8 mins ago, by Neil Fein

@MattЭллен Questions asking what to write are off-topic on Writers. There's a thread in meta somewhere.

tchrist

15:43

@TRiG I know all that. I was completely jesting, I promise!

@Cerberus He never was. He used to be here on workdays, and not weekends, although usually longer than the workday. Not that that tables the question, of course.

@Cerberus Pretty sure it isn’t cause he misses Jasper.

But yes, there are several rather queasy things hereabouts of late, making things just generally uncomfortable. Probably best to lie low as they work themselves out rather than picking too much at any of the scabs or shaking out skeletons from their closets.

bib

Possibility of using either verb tense and convey the same meaning

The OP is lookig for a British point of view. Does anyone want to weigh in?

TRiG

16:00

@bib Which question?

@tchrist Still, naked Daniel Radcliffe is always welcome.

tchrist

@TRiG There’s probably a waiting list. :)

Matt Эллен

0

Q: Possibility of using either verb tense and convey the same meaning

I have two questions: Q1: Which one(s) of the sentences below, can be grammatically correct and why? And if there are more than one correct sentence, does the meaning change when the verb tense is changed or are they synonymous and can be used interchangeably? 1- Yes, I was. I've never know...

tenses

Hello @Kit, how are you?

That's an interesting new avatar you have

tchrist

🙈 🙉 🙊

Robusto

@MattЭллен You are a retiarius?

tchrist

@Robusto Nice red.

Matt Эллен

16:08

The emperor pays us well

Robusto

But you could die at any minute.

Matt Эллен

more fun than not dying at any minute

Robusto

Actually, the possibility of death at any given minute is always present.

It's just greater in the arena.

Matt Эллен

Everything is greater in the arena!

Robusto

Maximus! Maximus!

MετάEd

16:28

@MattЭллен Easy to believe. That is why I have gotten in the habit of referring people to the site FAQ whenever I send them to a different site.

Matt Эллен

16:42

runs away

Monica

16:59

Hello

Could anyone help me with a small pasage?

It seems like some words are misssing

passage*

no one?

Cerberus

Hi!

How small is it? Why don't you just post it here and see who responds?

Monica

It seemed like no one was there

i want to each of you have found happiness, what has done this i.
i perish without you, shall be with you, as with sky moon, not care billeting i shall be your always.
on move you there is that without which can not, when you far i shall itself not its.

aedia λ

17:14

Hiya!

Cerberus

@Monica This is OK, except for no-one with hyphen. As a more formal alternative, you might consider it seemed as though.

Monica

Hello

Cerberus

@aediaλ Hi!

@Monica This is ehhmm incomprehensible.

aedia λ

Are the words supposed to be... like that?

It's like someone tried to write about Ruth and Naomi but they only had magnetic poetry words

Monica

words are missing, I think

Does it make sense?

Cerberus

17:16

It is worse than that.

aedia λ

you again say that can

Cerberus

No, it makes very little sense, I am afraid. It is mostly incomprehensible.

@aediaλ it says again

Monica

'no one' is given in the Oxford dictionary without a hyphen

Cerberus

I don't know, I was taught to write it with a hyphen. I believe that is also what most style guides recommend.

aedia λ

@Monica I am a native speaker of American English, and I truthfully can't understand it.

Cerberus

17:18

I am a native dog, and woof I can't either.

Monica

I used to write it with a hyphen too

I see. A friend of mine asked me to translate it, but I managed to translate only a few phrases from this passage

does 'billeting' mean anything in it?

Cerberus

> n. act of providing housing for a soldier

aedia λ

@Cerberus If I used no-one here, people would laugh, and think I was affecting an outdated style; it would certainly not be right for my daily work. (Yet we haven't gotten rid of the hyphen in e-mail in our style guide. Grr.)

Cerberus

@aediaλ Grrr.

Hmm it seems Burchfield changed his mind and now recommends "no one" too.

I don't like it one bit...but fine!!

Monica

I have to go. Thanks for your help

Bye everyone

Cerberus

17:24

Good luck.

aedia λ

@Monica I hope we helped! Good luck.

Cerberus

Do you find this slightly hard to read?

aedia λ

Ow my eyes!

Cerberus

I'll take that as a yes.

Robusto

17:48

@Cerberus Why the beveled edges on the type?

Cerberus

@Robusto That's just the standard way.

szoter.com/launch/…

Robusto

Gah, Flex.

Cerberus

Flex?

Robusto

Flash, but that app was built in Flex.

Apache Flex

Apache Flex, formerly Adobe Flex, is a software development kit (SDK) for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform. Initially developed by Macromedia and then acquired by Adobe Systems, Flex was donated by Adobe to the Apache Software Foundation in 2011 and graduated to become a top-level project in December 2012. The Flex 3 SDK was released under the open source Mozilla Public License in 2008. Consequently, Flex applications can be developed using standard IDEs, for example Eclipse, as well as the proprietary Adobe Fla...

Sudhir

18:26

@Robusto: Fortunately I'm working on Flex

:)

Are you working on it?

Robusto

I used to.

Sudhir

Oh! great

Now you're working on?

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash (also Adobe Flash Platform, formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia and software platform used for authoring of vector graphics, animation, games and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) which can be viewed, played and executed in Adobe Flash Player. Flash is frequently used to add streamed video or audio players, advertisement and interactive multimedia content to web pages. Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to provide animation of text, drawings, and still images. It supports bidirectional streaming of audio and video, and it can capture user input via mouse, k...

Hi @MattЭллен

Robusto

Flex is dead except for webapp dev.

Cerberus

18:59

How do you recognise Flex?

I had never heard of it.

JSBձոգչ

you've used flash? then you have seen flex

Cerberus

Oh?

JSBձոգչ

everything in flash is developed in flex

flex is the only way to develop flash apps

at least the only straightforward way

Cerberus

Oh...

Then what did Rob mean?

JSBձոգչ

i don't know

presumably adobe is rolling out a new dev platform

or has already done so

i don't pay much attention to that

Cerberus

19:07

Oh...

(It's all I can say.)

Matt Эллен

19:41

(I thought that was ananas)

Matt Эллен

19:59

why the fuck do we have a word-meaning?

Robusto

20:14

What does word-meaning even mean?

Matt Эллен

I don't even

MετάEd

20:51

@Robusto Try posting a new question ...

Robusto

Huh?

MετάEd

"What does word-meaning mean"

Never mind me. Sleep deprived.

Robusto

sleep-deprived

Can we have a new tag: belongs-on-ell?

Cerberus

Heh.

So can we migrate questions to ELL yet?

Robusto

Apparently TPTB are being pissy about that.

Cerberus

20:58

Really?

Why?

Robusto

They gave us ELL but forbade us to migrate questions to it.

I dunno.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Grace Note

Moderator migration is possible at the moment.

Cerberus

Oh!

Grace Note

That said, probably don't want to just dump X% of your site on there right so soon.

Cerberus

20:59

So perhaps we should flag all such questions for our moderators to migrate them?

All new questions, I was thinking.

Could save everyone a lot of drama.

tchrist

I did not think we yet really had a complete description for on-vs-off topic over there.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus except for you mr. melodramatic!

Grace Note

New questions should be fine for the most part, I would think.

Robusto

Thinkst thou that?

Grace Note

So long as it's pretty clear acknowledged why it belongs there and not here.

Cerberus

21:01

@MattЭллен If all new ELL questions shall be moved thither, everyone will be happy.

tchrist

Impossible.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus hmmm. I could have sworn I heard you say all new questions...

tchrist

You can please some of the people some of the time. . . . :)

Cerberus

No ESL users will be offended, at any rate.

@MattЭллен If anyone isn't xenophobic with regard to questions, it is I!

tchrist

@Cerberus That’s because it is the name of their site. The S is silent.

Robusto

21:02

@Cerberus You are a xenomorph anyway.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hehe. Yes.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus hence why I thought you were being melodramatic :D

tchrist

xeriscapes his environs

Cerberus

@Robusto And you are a characteromorph.

@MattЭллен Why?

Robusto

I am an ideomorph. I exist only in my own mind.

Cerberus

21:04

I am never melodramatic. I'm either full-on dramatic, or a blithe puppy.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus because you think we are too harsh on new users and all of their questions. So we should just move all the questions to ELL and be done with it

Grace Note

Actually, for the next week, don't flag "new ELL questions" to migrate. Instead, just collect the lot of them and compile a list for me.

6

Cerberus

@Robusto Hmm that just means you are your own form.

@MattЭллен Exactly.

tchrist

@Cerberus goes off for his favorite D.Q. dessert

Matt Эллен

which is melodramatic :D

tchrist

21:05

@GraceNote Good. I think that is a better idea.

Cerberus

@tchrist Quoi?

tchrist

Dairy Queen, not Drama.

Grace Note

We generally avoid migrations to new beta sites, especially when they're young, so that we can focus on building that community naturally. I'd like to get a nice grasp of this period to observe the magnitude and frequency of the issue here in ELU now that ELL is public.

Cerberus

You forget that we do not have your brands.

tchrist

Ok, Drama Queen for you then!

Cerberus

21:06

Better.

Robusto

@Cerberus That's what "exist only in my own mind" means.

Cerberus

I see no mindness.

tchrist

No matter.

Robusto

Never mind.

Cerberus

Neither mind nor matter.

Just fluff.

Robusto

21:09

This is the sort of thing that used to piss off Bertrand Russell no end.

tchrist

Did.

Cerberus

Oh?

What sort is that?

Robusto

His parents played that semantic game with him about matter and mind.

Cerberus

Not the best of dichotomies.

Robusto

It is for philosophers.

Dualism (philosophy of mind)

In philosophy of mind, dualism is the assumption that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical, or that the mind and body are not identical. Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism, in the mind–body problem. Aristotle shared Plato's view of multiple souls, (ψυχή psychē) and further elaborated a hierarchical arrangement, corresponding to the distinctive functions of plants, animals and people: a nutritive soul of growth and metabolism, that all three share, a perceptive soul...

In fact, if dualism isn't a dichotomy, I don't know what is.

tchrist

21:11

Sipholophers, ptui!

Matt Эллен

►

tchrist

egad.

Robusto

No more pimping Daniel Radcliffe in ELU chat.

Cerberus

@Robusto It is a dichotomy all right, but not a good one.

Robusto

@Cerberus What are you, the connoisseur of dichotomies?

tchrist

21:12

@Robusto Why, has he gone independent?

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, because I can look at a dichotomy from two sides at once. Nay, from three sides!

Robusto

@Cerberus You and Joni Mitchell. And Pablo Picasso.

sings I look at dualism from both sides now, from matter and mind, and still somehow it's mind illusions I recall. I really don't know matter ... at all.

tchrist

Too much Thomas Crowne.

Robusto

Too much monkey business.

I endorse Jon's comment. "Operational" can mean "able to function" while "operative" has its own applications in reference to a secret agent or a private detective. And you might be intesested in our new site for English language learners. — Carlo_R. 1 min ago

Wow. He endorses Jon's comment.

Don't you have to be some kind of authority before you can endorse something?

tchrist

5 hours ago, by tchrist

🙈 🙉 🙊

Carlo is always quick to endorse things.

He heard there was a need for celerity endorsements, so he stepped right up.

Robusto

21:17

►

Cerberus

"Able to function"...that's not what it means here. It means "in function, active, functioning".

Robusto

able-to-function

endorsed-by-icarlo

MετάEd

@Robusto All you have to do is write your name acrost it.

Cerberus

And "operative" can mean other things than covert ops.

*acrostichon it

tchrist

aedia λ

21:22

@Cerberus The operative word is covert. You're not supposed to know about those other things.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Haha okay, he is sort of funny.

@aediaλ Hmm is this a pun? It looks like a decorated doughnut with nothing in the middle, so I think I'm missing something...

@tchrist That is you.

aedia λ

@Cerberus eats sprinkles off donut

Cerberus

pours chocolate ganache over doughnut

puts tiny lemon tart inside the hole

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yay!

aedia λ

Cerberus

21:32

Oops!!

You gluttonous uni!

Matt Эллен

that's a great photo!

Cerberus

Your corn looks weird btw.

Matt Эллен

►

sausage and doughnut party!

Matt Эллен