English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2011-04-17 (page 5 of 5)

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8:15 PM

Hi, I have a problem formulating this for English.SE, so I'll just ask here.
I want to write a sentence that starts with "Imperialist expansion caused..."
Is there a reason to prefer "imperialist" over "imperialistic" here?
After working on the question for a while I concluded that "imperial" is not an option here, as it refers to empires in general and not (19th century) imperialism. Is that correct?

@fgm2r Yes, "imperial expansion" makes me think of "one empire getting bigger", as opposed to "expansion with the aim of creating/developing an empire", which I assume is the meaning you want

I would prefer "imperialist" because (a) it's shorter, (b) the first dictionary I checked doesn't even have imperialistic, and (c) a dictionary that does have imperialistic doesn't specify any difference of meaning between the two.

(BTW I think your question would be fine for this site more or less just as you've worded it above :) )

@fgm2r You seem to have disappeared from chat. Do drop back in if you want any more information :-)

I'm here, thanks for the help.

The reason why I didn't ask on the site is that my question kept changing.

And I felt asking such a specific question like "Is there a difference between 'imperialist' and 'imperialistic'? would not fit.

8:33 PM

I think the question would be fine. There is a bias against questions that can be answered simply by looking at a dictionary, but since in this case the dictionaries aren't especially helpful, I think that would be fine (especially if you mentioned that in the question)

@Fgm2r: Such specific questions are entirely on topic for this site! Do not hesitate to post another one if you have any.

What Psmears says.

Ok, thanks I'll do that in the future.

If anything, we have a problem with questions that are not specific enough, @fgm2r. (^_^)

But asking here in chat is fine too.

@Reg: What is the meaning of "microscopic"? Is it related to "microscope"?

(Yep, I didn't mean to suggest it's not OK to ask stuff in chat, just to confirm that the question would be fine as a question on the site itself!)

8:35 PM

(So did I.)

2 days ago, by RegDwight

Hey, I'm only in for the gin. I'm only here for the beer.

Was my question perhaps not specific enough? Okay, then: @Reg: could you look up the definition of "microscopic" for me in a random dictionary?

You mean Random House, certainly.

I just saw an advertisement for the gerund vs infinitive question, @psmears.

Fine.

Advertisement?

Yeah, to the right of the question list.

8:38 PM

How is ‘triage’ pronounced?
1. [ˈtriːɑːʒ]
2. [triˈɑːʒ]
3. [ˈtraɪɑːʒ]
4. [ˈtriːɪdʒ]
5. Something else.

Oh I have an empty square there.

ˈtraɪɪdʒ or something, is that also an option?

I don't think that's a genuine question, or is it?

@RegDwight Oooh, where?!

To the right of the question list.

According to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, it apparently is. @Cerberus

8:40 PM

Apr 13 at 13:19, by RegDwight

Lots of echo in here.

I don't know whether it is, nor would I have the answer.

Those 4 choices are actually given by the LPD.

@Vitaly: Howjsay has your option 1.

I could teach you the French pronunciation, that would keep you busy.

@RegDwight Damn my slow connection...

8:41 PM

@psmears I will gladly damn anything you want. Just let me know.

Yeah, the French is clear and unambiguous. Stuped English.

The 2nd option is marked as NAmE.

I'm here to help.

2

Q: How do you pronounce "but"?

In which context do you use the stressed bʌt and when do you use the unstressed bət? How often is that? If you know about the website www.forvo.com, I think it's a shortcoming that speakers use only one of the two versions.

That question is interesting, but I was surprised that the more general question “weak forms vs strong forms” doesn't appear in search results on the main site

It really should be there, but it might be somewhat difficult to answer well

Well, we kind of have that one.

4

Q: How to pronounce "Coke" so it is not mistaken for another word?

I always fear my conversation sounds like this: — What would you like to drink, sir? — I will take some cock, thanks. — ROFL. Any tips on how to pronounce Coke so it is not mistaken for anything? :)

8:44 PM

Really?

)))))

...

Ach, ich bin so lustig!

Anyway, that question would be difficult, since the two textbooks on English phonology I happen to have are just hand-waving it off when it comes to the actual use of weak forms and strong forms

The but question reminded me of that one, for obvious reasons.

@Vitaly Well, go ahead and ask. You know how it works now, dontcha?

8:47 PM

My memory doesn't serve me as well as it used to. You might need to enlighten me again. @RegDwight

Main site you go, clickity-click you make, then some typing and voila!

You download virus.exe and shout the question at your speakers (better than microphone).

Also, I doubt it would get a decent answer (one that would cite academic papers and such, instead of hand-waving off it like the textbook authors do)

@Vitaly: You might be surprised!

@Vitaly Well then prefix it with "This is a question for linguists", and suffix it with "Linguists only plz".

8:48 PM

I might not. I haven't yet got a single answer that would completely satisfy me concerning references &c (except for psmears' answer, maybe, but then it doesn't cite a lot of academic papers ;)). @Cerberus

Hear that @psmears?

@Reg: That might deter other answers, which can be interesting as well.

It's getting hot in here.

@Cerberus If history is any lesson, it won't deter anyone.

@Vit: Right, I'm not sure a Q&A site is the right place for extensive scientific documentation...

@Reg: True.

I mean, I for one would be too lazy to consult scientific papers unless it were something that interested me a great deal.

The best answer to any question is a bunch of LaTeXed PDFs.

8:53 PM

Wrong site.

TeX, LaTeX and friends – tex.stackexchange.com

Launched Q&A site for expert users of TeX, LaTeX and other related typesetting systems.

@RegDwight In that answer I only gave the references because I was spoon-fed them by the questioner in chat... that is the secret, @Vitaly

@psmears You're too late to the party, the original wording didn't include the parenthetical. But then Vitaly chickened out.

@RegDwight After your note on the advert, I went hunting around the SE sites looking for the advert. Came across a C question on SE.com, with one, very wrong answer. In the time it took me to write the first two lines of my own answer, five new answers appeared, none of them worthy of an upvote IMO...

15 mins ago, by psmears

@RegDwight Damn my slow connection...

@psmears So did you submit your answer, then?

@RegDwight Which? I'm losing track now (too many things going on at once...)

8:58 PM

@psmears The answer to the C question.

Or B.

@RegDwight Yes... I'm not especially proud of it, but at least it doesn't use a reserved word as a variable name...

@Cerberus There's even M.

Really?

M from Mini-Me?

@psmears Well then, that's all that counts. You've made yourself heard. 9000 kudos to you, sir.

8:59 PM

I thought that was M&M.

M (programming language)

M is a programming language developed by Microsoft. The language is designed specifically for building textual domain-specific languages and software models with XAML. See also *Oslo References External links *[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd129519(VS.85).aspx Microsoft MSDN Library – "M"] – Microsoft "M" programming guide, technical reference, tools etc. *[http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Codename-M;jsessionid=C9F8F48D897CD71847E19263BB53C234 Codename "M": Language, Data, and Modeling, Oh My!] Presented by Don Box and Amanda Laucher on Mar 10, 2010 *[http://blogs.msdn.c...

@RegDwight I suppose there just aren't enough internets left these days...

Ah.

I am seriously wondering what kind of questions people will be asking on this site a year from now.

Once you've filled the space of a couple of style books, what more is there to say?

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

No, not Internets. There is but one left. Robusto has won the rest.

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

2 days ago, by Robusto

Hey, them 18,000+ internetz make me a freakin' chick magnet ...

@RegDwight So I'd heard

9:02 PM

@Cerberus As for “interested a great deal”, JSBangs' mention of topic-comment structure here earlier led me to perusing a number of freely available lengthy papers about topicalisation and left dislocation, searching inside a 6-volume set on the history of the English language for those terms, reading the relevant sections of a 1800-page tome on English grammar, and finally ordering a 200-buck grammar monography just to see what it has to say about left dislocation.

@psmears Ah. Sorry. I never know who's keeping up with the latest developments and who isn't.

Or I could be just obsessive. XD

@Vitaly: Hah that is pretty awesome! When it grips you, it grips you. I have that too sometimes. But not with every question on EL&U...

@Vitaly You will be our topic-comment expert slash hero!

NOOO.

JSBangs is the man.

9:04 PM

YEAHHHH.

No longer.

Yeah I always judge topic-focus ad hoc, to be honest; I don't have many ideas about the larger patterns specific to English.

Let alone Dutch.

And I forgot most of the patterns for Latin.

The other languages are even more gaping hiatus (pl.).

I think it is a rather important subject, because it can explain a lot of things you do not expect it can explain, owing to its being absent from traditional grammars.

Blah blah.

@Cerberus You are fortunate... only those with a solid education in the Classics are permitted to pluralise "hiatus" in a Latin way... and that only if they use the right one :)

@PSM: We never miss a chance to display our geekiness! Then again, anyone with a high school diploma in Latin should be able to produce the right plural of hiatus...

@Cerberus Yes, but could they employ it with authority?

I can employ anything with authority. And then you have to respect it!

9:13 PM

@PSM: If any anonymous three-headed dog staring at you from the depths of the internet can take possession of this authority, then anyone can!

Hm. I wonder if that is a jinx of sorts.

Haha.

An opposite jinx.

OMG I miss Martha. And it's only been a few hours.

As in, "should I go right or left?", and two people answering "right" and "left", respectively.

I know, I miss her too!

I wonder if she's flying way over my head right now.

9:15 PM

Oh where was she flying off to again?

Hungry.

Ah of course.

2 days ago, by Martha

Hungary. Gotta show off the niece.

I should assume that she'd be there by now?

2 days ago, by Martha

@RegDwight Sunday afternoonish, I think. I suppose I ought to look that up, because we need to log onto British Airways as close as possible to 24 hours beforehand, so we can reserve seats.

That's when she left.

9:16 PM

Ah.

How do you remember these things? It is astounding.

I call friends on the other side of the globe to hang out quite regularly, because I can never remember who's where.

I read the transcript, but I only remember things that happen on my watch.

@Cerberus As long as you still remember that they are friends and not Commie Mutant Traitors...

Huh!?

I see a weird blue thing!! Get it off me!! Waaaahh!

Just clicked on "not sure".

G'night all!

Night!

9:19 PM

Night!

Night!

Pseudo-jinx!

Is that related to crossing the 10k barrier in chat or something?

Or should I say Russian jinx? When you go back and edit stuff...

Haha.

9:21 PM

@Cerberus We never quite figured it out. There's certainly help somehere, but nobody can be bothered to look it up.

I think I shall have to begin deleting my best answers. The blue thing doesn't bode well for what happens when one reached 10k on the real site...

@Reg: I like the spirit of not being able to be bothered...

I'm still staring at that message...

Or room, actually.

I have absolutely no clue how that all works, with them rooms and all.

chat.stackexchange.com

/me tries to figure out what those two are talking about

9:24 PM

Yeah I know that page, but... creating a new room? Why would people want to do that? The rooms are empty enough as they are?

Reformulation instead of Renormalizat…

Meant to freely discuss my reformulation approach to construct...

@Vit: I reached some reputation barrier and now I get a weird blue bubble that tells me someone flagged a line in chat.

@Cerberus Well what if you want to discuss Latin with Robusto, but nobody else cares? You get a room.

Oh. lol.

@Vitaly In another chat room, mind you.

9:26 PM

@Reg: No need; we'd just sequester this one.

Okay, but what if you're Nyuszika and just want to star stuff?

Mar 3 at 15:11, by RegDwight

Actually, I think we should set up a "Flag Room". Where anyone who comes in should flag everybody else.

If necessary I'd be prepared to link to a huge site full of stats by means of caltrops.

Mmmmmmmh... stats!

Even the chink of caltrops works.

Life can be so easy sometimes.

Do you like browsing a random atlas?

I do.

Maps are the best kind of stat containers, in my opinion.

I was rather obsessed with maps as a child.

I drew maps.

9:30 PM

No way!

You must be the only kid to do that!

With a level of precision I couldn't be bothered replicating now.

Sorry.

Grown-up boys just generate random maps in a programming language of their choice.

I once drew a huge world map which was supposed to serve as a playing field for a board game. I never quite finished that one. The Americas alone took me three months or something.

@Vitaly We didn't have programming languages back then. We had to draw our maps by hand, uphill, both ways, barefoot in the snow.

9 hours ago, by Robusto

user image

9:35 PM

Yes. Red snow. With sickles. Forgot to mention that.

@Cerberus re: chat, you do realize you're one of the most active users evarr?

chat.stackexchange.com/users?tab=all&sort=activity

Currently 23rd.

I got only 5.2k :(

3.6k

The top number is your rep.

Look in the lower right corner, that's the number of messages by which the list is sorted.

Even worse.

Or better. You might have a life, you know.

BTW, I don't think you have explained your gravatar just yet, have you?

user image

It's the map of Italy seen by a satellite using infrared vision, and changed to use blue colors.

9:43 PM

in Hub of Reason, Jan 14 at 21:37, by Vitaly

Here is my interpretation:
1. It has a lambda, which points to maths and lambda-calculus/mathematical logic in particular.
2. It has the atheist logo, which says that I identify with atheism.
3. The lambda in almost inscribed in a circle, which says I like the Half-Life series.
4. The colour of the lambda/atheist logo is electric cyan (00ffff), which is also known as aqua. This refers simultaneously to physics (electric), chemistry (cyanide), and biology (water).
5. The area around it is black, which symbolises ignorance etc.

Whoa. They killed the site but not the room. Nice.

Which room?

Hub of Reason

general chat for Atheism.SE

No need to "(test)", kiamlaluno.

Hey! I wanted to see if it was still active.

The chat is a separate place.

9:46 PM

Isn't it the room for atheism?

That's what the description says.

"Last message posted 52 days ago." Before your test, that is.

Then, I don't believe it until I cannot check it personally.

Then you might be interested in this:

Hub of Reason

General discussion about skeptics.stackexchange.com

The so-called skeptics just borrowed our chatroom name.

@RegDwight And?

9:49 PM

@Vitaly Haha I saw that question earlier today. Funny.

Also, they are promoting undiscriminating skepticism. For that reason, I wouldn't be very sad if that particular SE fails.

You always post stuff that I have to think about really hard to get it.

10:16 PM

And now I gotta go. Night all!

Later.

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