English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwight

19:00

Nobody could care less about La Rochelle or Carcassonne or what province have you.

Cerberus

Suppose France were ten times as large geographically, and the German army hadn't been so greatly superior. What then?

And suppose Paris had been near the Spanish border.

RegDwight

Anyhow, the thing with Napoleon was, and I have no idea if this is a misattribution or if he actually said that, "if you conquer St. Petersburg, you'll get Russia's head; if you conquer Moscow, you'll get its heart".

MrHen

1

Q: Question marks at the end of declarative sentences

I often see declarative sentences ending with question marks, like these: I tried your solution but it didn't work? or This seems to be easy but I'm out of ideas? , assuming a request like "could you help me please?" or "what to do with it?" but not expressing it explicitly. Is it st...

question-mark

Yes for close?

RegDwight

I would say so. But you decide.

Cerberus

@Reg: Then it depends on one's philosophical position whether one or the other would break Russia.

I will say this: not knowing anything else about either side, the fact that one side is able to take the other side's capital is a fairly good indicator that it is superior in strength; however, because each side usually comprises several countries with several capitals, it doesn't always predict the outcome of a war.

MrHen

19:05

@RegDwight Yes for close!

Cerberus

And knowing military and geographical factors will be a better indicator, I think.

RegDwight

I have no idea what to do with the suggested edits on the loan-words tag wiki.

english.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits

I don't think that the proposed description is... accurate.

On the other hand, nobody else could be bothered to write a better one...

MrHen

english.stackexchange.com/suggested-edits/460

That?

It took me awhile to find the 5k link trail :P

@RegDwight Ugh. Fine. One second...

RegDwight

My link didn't work for you?

MrHen

No; it went to "suggested-edits"

Cerberus

19:07

I have approved it so you wouldn't have to bother.

MrHen

Loanword

A loanword (or loan word) is a word borrowed from one language and incorporated into another. General By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept, whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort, while calque is a loanword from French. Classes Certain classes of words are more commonly borrowed than others, usually words for exotic concepts or ideas. What is "exotic" varies from language to language. Thus, English names for creatures not native to Great Britain are alm...

How about their first sentence?

Cerberus

In the spirit of "something's better than nothing".

@MrHen Excellent.

MrHen

@Cerberus Something wrong is much worse than nothing.

RegDwight

@Cerberus Fair enough, I have rejected his other one.

How's that for a salmonic decision.

Cerberus

@MrHen: Well I wouldn't call it wrong exactly: just a bit amateurish.

MrHen

19:09

@Cerberus Fair enough

Cerberus

@Reg: I like your sword.

MrHen

I added an exceprt

RegDwight

Oh.

Cerberus

Cool.

RegDwight

I think mine will have overwritten yours then...

Lemme see.

Vitaly

19:13

I have just finished reading this. I wish it were a longer thread.

RegDwight

I think it's rather long as it is.

I have only skimmed it, especially where people kept talking about me.

Vitaly

Not nearly enough.

RegDwight

It kind of didn't feel right to participate in that analysis.

Vitaly

Especially the parts where people kept talking about you.

RegDwight

Meh.

Honestly, meh.

Plus, see your top starred comment right now.

Vitaly

19:16

Right, I have an ax to grind. I can expect to make similar mistakes, being a native Russian speaker.

RegDwight

Those people weren't correcting me, they were correcting other native speakers via a proxy.

Vitaly

Mistakes in the sense of something odd.

But I get your point.

Cerberus

@Reg: It was only wai who held that position.

RegDwight

Possibly.

The thing is, he did have a point.

Cerberus

Did he?

RegDwight

19:19

Yes, some of the staff he pointed out I knew sounded wrong the very moment I posted it.

"So much for" was a Freudian slip, I was obviously thinking in German at that moment.

Soviel zu

Cerberus

Hmm let me see that so much for again...

RegDwight

But hey, I never pretended to be a native speaker, so there is just stuff I don't care about.

I would be way more careful if I were pretending to be the actual Reg Dwight, say.

So in a way, he was 50% right, 50% wrong, but then everybody jumped on him and... well, as I said, I didn't feel like participating.

And this discussion here is way too long, too.

I'll go fetch myself some soup.

Cerberus

I am all semanticaly satiated now.

Good idea.

Borscht?

Or however that is spelled...

RegDwight

Sadly, no.

I wish.

But no.

Brb.

Cerberus

Sad indeed.

Vitaly

19:24

At least they cared enough to use your writing as an example, @Reg. Noone cares enough to sift through my chat history. /sniff

RegDwight

I sift through everybody's chat histories. No Russian child left behind.

(Soup's too cold, waiting...)

((There you have your zero article.))

But anyway, I keep telling you to post more on the main site.

yesterday, by RegDwight

You could be at 5k by now.

So no whining. Your own fault, comrade!

Brb, checking soup.

Vitaly

What's the difference between soup and borscht anyway? I'm always getting them confused.

RegDwight

One is delicious, the other one extremely delicious.

Plus, cold borshch is an option.

Cold soup ain't.

So, ~~breaking~~ applying all rules of logic at the same time, if it's cold and you can eat it, then it's borshch.

Martha

@RegDwight Not necessarily: meggyleves

RegDwight

Yeah, gazpacho.

But I'm talking Russian cuisine.

Vitaly

19:33

Okroshka.

RegDwight

Oh yeah.

How could I forget that one.

Though I'm not a big fan.

Or probably I am, but I find myself eating borshch much more often.

rberaldo

Is there any kind of ritual I have to perform in order to the “add comment” button to show up?

Vitaly

Кушай тюрю, Яша.

@rberaldo: english.stackexchange.com/privileges/comment

RegDwight

@Vitaly А Яша кушает да ест.

psmears

@rberaldo You need at least 50 reputation on the site concerned...

rberaldo

19:40

@Vitaly, @psmears wow, I didn't know that. I'm sorry.

Mea culpa.

psmears

@rberaldo Hey, no need to be sorry :)

Vitaly

What @psmears said.

RegDwight

Only 24 points to go. Just post something about bricks and mortar.

rberaldo

@psmears, I'm used to tex.stackexchangr.com, I didn't even notice I had to have 50 points to be able to post comments.

RegDwight

@rberaldo Hold on a sec.

Just associate your accounts.

You'll get an instant 100-rep boost.

No wait, disregard that.

You only get the boost once you're at 200 rep on any site of the network.

But then you get it automatically on every site.

F'x

19:42

@RegDwight don't be sour, you too can think of such a stellar answer next time

rberaldo

@RegDwight oh, thank you. Soon enough I will have 200 points on tex.sc, I think.

F'x

0

Q: Who invented the chicken sandwich?

There's a US restaurant chain called Chick-Fil-A and their motto is "We didn't invent the chicken, just the chicken sandwich" If you did deeper you find that they claim that what they really mean is that the founder, Truett Cathy, was the first person to sell a chicken sandwich in 1940s at a pre...

nutrition history

that one is fun

RegDwight

@Fx Nah, before there's any misunderstanding, I'm not jealous or something. We've all been there. Robusto, ShreevatsaR, JSBangs, myself...

Ghoppe, too.

F'x

maybe next time: “my mother-in-law said I'm a jackass; can anyone help me with evidence refuting this theory?”

rberaldo

Ask a guy who's attending to a Methods of Sociolinguistics Analysis anything.

F'x

19:44

and it's tagged nutrition

z7sg

Hi! Questions like this are off-topic, right? english.stackexchange.com/questions/23991/freezed-vs-frozen

Cerberus

Boo, it won't be long before we have three lines of chatters!

psmears

@RegDwight It does pain me slightly that, after all the hours I've spent carefully writing up answers for this site, the question that netted me by far the most rep was one that took barely 30 seconds to write, including looking up and pasting on the reference link...

RegDwight

@z7sg Not off-topic. But could be considered too basic by the community.

F'x

well, inactive chatters decay as slowly as 137Cs

so it's not a very accurate representation of activity

RegDwight

19:45

@psmears Yeah well, this discussion comes up every week or so, and not just here but in every chat room and on every site.

z7sg

@RegDwight Well, there is a question on meta about it. It could be closed as general reference.

RegDwight

In the end, it evens out.

Cerberus

@Psm: I know the feeling! My Wikipedia copy-pastes are my "best" answers, I think.

RegDwight

@z7sg That's what I'm referring to.

psmears

@RegDwight Sure. But the pain lingers on nonetheless :)

z7sg

19:46

I'm not sure if I'm flagging over-zealously already...

Cerberus

Come to think of it, my faaaaar too long answer on the modality of "supposed to" actually made it to 10 in a few weeks. That was remarkable.

RegDwight

Feb 16 at 13:30, by RegDwight

But I think that Ex-user is spot on anyhow: it all evens out in the end. You take your time to compose a thorough answer, you get 2 upvotes. You post a half-assed joke, you get 20. In the end, you still have 22 upvotes, whether you would prefer them to be the other way round or not.

F'x

except that you never get them the other way around

RegDwight

LOL.

That's the bikeshed problem.

F'x

so, if I have skill but no wit, I get f*cked by the system, over and over again

come to think of it as highschool :)

RegDwight

19:47

Everyone feels entitled to vote on one-liners everybody understands.

Cerberus

At least you are getting some.

RegDwight

In order to vote on complicated stuff, you have to switch on your brain and read it.

F'x

@Cerberus still talking about votes, right?

Vitaly

Can you star answers instead of upvoting them?

Cerberus

@RegDwight Exactly, that is the problem: people vote on what they find true or false.

@F'x: Eh right!

F'x

19:49

OK, I've checked and I definitely got no highly upvoted witty answer; kind of sad

RegDwight

@Vitaly Yes, I like to refer to it as "the pageman approach". You post a comment saying "+1 excellent would vote again A++++", but don't actually upvote.

F'x

but every time, I was just lucky to be the first one to answer a question that would turn out to be popular

RegDwight

@Fx I think I have figured that out somehow.

Out of my 20 most recent answers some 15 got multicollidered.

rberaldo

But hey, there are a lot of great questions out there. I upvote five times a day.

Vitaly

Speaking of popular questions, I have a gut feeling that Elven, elvish, and elfic is sort of promising in that respect.

F'x

19:52

@RegDwight when you multicollide, you get 300 rep; when physicists multicollide, the uncover a Higgs boson; not fair!

RegDwight

@Vitaly Nope, sorry.

Too old, and there are at least two questions ahead of it.

F'x

@Vitaly be right back, gotta get that lottery ticket :)

RegDwight

I'm not holding breath.

Vitaly

What, LOTR is not all the rage nowadays?

Sigh. I am getting old.

RegDwight

Mar 7 at 18:08, by Robusto

@RegDwight — Here's my all-time shill question suggestion: "Which Ubuntu distro allows the fastest downloads of porn and more cowbell?"

Vitaly

19:53

Someone ask a Twilight question then.

F'x

@Vitaly I'd have to read the book, or the movie, or the Wikipedia entry, and I'm not that desperate for rep

Vitaly

@Fx: it's okay, I didn't actually mean it literally. I was referring to the what-do-you-call-it pop literature?

RegDwight

@Fx Too complicated. Just ask "What is Twilight?" or "OMG isn't Twilight teh awesum?"

F'x

@RegDwight actually, a few years back, I would have loved to ask "OMG what arez the Deadly Hollowz?"

RegDwight

Mar 7 at 17:48, by RegDwight

Or post a question about whether Vista is better than Ubuntu. In the three seconds it will take me to close it, it will get more views, answers, and comments, than all of our sex questions combined.

F'x

19:57

@RegDwight: you may want to close this:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/23996/monosyllabic-and-polysyllabic

RegDwight

After you answered?

F'x

@RegDwight well, my nerves got the worst of me

RegDwight

Seriously though, it's dupish.

F'x

I have a small kid crying in my ears while I try to spend a nice evening chat here

RegDwight

3

Q: What is a word called that has more than one syllable?

You can say e.g.: The word "on" is a monosyllable. but it seems that the word "multisyllable" has been outdated since 1913. What is the correct term for a word that has two or more syllables, e.g. "The word "beautiful" is a _________.

vocabulary nomenclature

F'x

19:58

I'm getting cranky

RegDwight

Well, not that dupish, it turns out.

@Fx Let the kid post. It could learn some English or something.

F'x

not dupe, but dupish: the answer is contained in it

RegDwight

Remember that French ain't even a language.

F'x

you want me to upload a wav file? you'll regret it instantly

3 month olds have a very specific way to tell you that they're not happy, even without language

RegDwight

Well, we'll just force @Martha to listen to it on our behalf.

Kosmonaut

20:00

1

A: Monosyllabic and polysyllabic...

Monosyllabic is polysyllabic. Polysyllabic is polysyllabic. Is is monosyllabic.

RegDwight

OLD.

Kosmonaut

You want me to consult the Oxford Latin Dictionary?

RegDwight

Of course.

Is there any reason you shouldn't?

Name one.

Kosmonaut

I'm not Catholic?

RegDwight

I'm told they even have an entry for bagels.

Martha

20:03

Will y'all quit waking me up already?

RegDwight

@Martha Sorry, @Martha. Sorry. I'm really sorry, @Martha. I really am. @Martha.

Martha

No you're not. Hmph.

RegDwight

@Kosmonaut Is that a question? In that case

Apr 29 at 23:00, by RegDwight

This is clearly the wrong site. You must ask over -----> there

F'x

0

Q: What's the longest monosyllabic word? And Dissyllabic?

Another question on the site made me take notice that through is monosyllabic, but quite long. Are there longuer monosyllabic words? What's the longest dissyllabic word in English?

syllables

let's get those brainz cracking!

RegDwight

@Fx Oh, longuer. La-di-da!

Martha

20:06

Edited already. :)

F'x

@RegDwight Martha got there before me

French influence

like I often write langage

RegDwight

Not Slovak? Oh...

Martha

Also fixed disyllabic while I was at it.

RegDwight

Right. Dissing is off-topic.

F'x

@Martha rolled-back, then, and re-edited

disyllabic |ˈˌdaɪsəˈlæbɪk| |ˈˌdɪsəˈlæbɪk| (also dissyllabic)

Martha

20:08

But you missed disyllabic.

F'x

I always check for uncommon words with double consonants in a dictionary, because otherwise I never get them right

Martha

There's one in the title, too, that even I missed.

...consonants...

F'x

@Martha told you :(

someone know if there's, like, a rule, a mnemonic, for that?

Martha

Well, yeah. So, are you going to fix the double-esses, or do you want me to?

F'x

3 mins ago, by F'x

disyllabic |ˈˌdaɪsəˈlæbɪk| |ˈˌdɪsəˈlæbɪk| (also dissyllabic)

^^^^^^^^^

Martha

20:11

@Fx I just have this built-in spelling dictionary in my brain.

RegDwight

Just be careful about not bulding in anything from Microsoft.

Vitaly

> Dissyllable was universal in 17–18th c., and (app. either under the erroneous impression that it contains, not the Greek prefix δι-, but the word δίς, or from association with words in the Latin prefix dis-, as disseminate, dissimulate, dissonant, etc.), is still the spelling of the majority. But classical scholars now prefer the etymological form, which has also been approved by the Philological Society.]

RegDwight

Haha. Zis side ruels.

Martha

@Fx I don't care what the dictionary says, "dissyllabic" sounds like it means "wrong syllable" or something.

Vitaly

“is still the spelling of the majority” ← that entry from the OED is dated early 20th century.

Robusto

20:13

@RegDwight — Yeah. Which means you won't get high rep on SO. And Jon Skeet and Tony the Pony will hunt you down.

RegDwight

@Robusto I like ponies!

Robusto

You like unicorns.

RegDwight

We're dangerously close to getting a third row of gravatars.

Robusto

Unicorns != Ponies.

Martha

Ponies, unicorns, aren't they the same thing?

Jinx!

Robusto

20:14

No, that was the opposite of what I said.

Vitaly

Night all.

Martha

I'm already seeing a third row of gravatars.

RegDwight

In fact, if I resize the window, we already have five.

Robusto

Or yours was a Jeopardy response to my statement.

Martha

No, wait, somebody just left, we're down to two rows again.

RegDwight

20:14

@Vitaly Wow that was unexpected. Night. Or more like hello, when you see this tomorrow.

Robusto

@Dori never leaves. She is the Kibo of EL&U chat.

RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

/kick lurkers

yesterday, by RegDwight

/start with=@Dori

It neva workz.

Dori

Oh, now you're just doing it to torment me ;-)

RegDwight

There never was any other reason.

Martha

Well, yesterday it got us @kiamlaluno.

RegDwight

20:16

Right!

Martha

I'm kinda surprised we actually got the @Dori herself to respond this time.

F'x

1

Q: Correct pronunciation of the letter "v"

Going off of the "haitch" vs "aitch" debate, what is the correct pronunciation of v? is it "vee" with a f-type mouth placement or a "wee" or "wi" like the game console?

pronunciation

Martha

In other news, my stupid online radio stream keeps freezing up. Or something. Anyway, it stops playing music.

RegDwight

We're the third-most active and third-most, um, peopled room right now.

F'x

what happens when we have gone over the entire alphabet? where will the quality questions come from next?

Robusto

20:18

@Fx — That one is easy. "V" is pronounced just like "v". Or vice versa.

RegDwight

@Fx Letter combinations, d'oh!

Dori

@Martha If I'm around (about 12 hours a day) and you mention my name, I show up.

Robusto

@Dori — Hey! Give credit where it's due. I'm the one who @-mentioned you.

F'x

@RegDwight OK, I'll start with “How should I pronounce ‘aa’?”

Martha

@Dori Well, except yesterday the same magic incantation that summoned you, summoned @kiamlaluno instead.

Dori

20:19

@Robusto Credit or blame? ;-)

RegDwight

@Fx We've had that one on the list of shortest palindromes.

rberaldo

I thought Pikachu asked the question about the pronunciation of “v”.

Martha

@Fx Didn't we close that one already?

RegDwight

@rberaldo Gottacatchemall!

Robusto

@Dori Well, when you rub the lamp and the genie appears, what do you call that? Credit-worthy or blame-worthy. I guess it depends on the genie, yeah?

RegDwight

20:20

People rub stuff too often in this room.

psmears

@Fx I am crafting a script that automatically posts questions from the dictionary. Starting with "What is the meaning of 'at'?". And for extra credit it also posts an answer with a definition pasted from a random online dictionary...

RegDwight

Apr 29 at 21:14, by Robusto

@RegDwight — No. You have to rub a charm. You don't have to rub the settings at all.

F'x

Then, we'll have "How long is the /i/ in 'eek'? How much longer are that of 'eeek' and 'eeeek'?"

Mr. Disappointment

Nobody look at Priapus.

psmears

On the negative side, the quality of questions will go down. On the plus side, once it's done we will be able to close all "What does X mean?" questions as dupes.

RegDwight

20:21

@psmears a is covered already, in a number of questions. And I am happy to report that I have answered them all.

psmears

/modifies script

rberaldo

@RegDwight, funny, yesterday the 1st episode was going on TV.

RegDwight

@rberaldo You live in a time machine?

rberaldo

@RegDwight, unfortunately not, it's just Brazilian TV.

RegDwight

So it is a time machine.

F'x

20:23

@MrDisappointment /me actually wonders how, if I were actually willing to look at Priapus, I could actually locate the god of fertility

RegDwight

Not that strap-on again.

F'x

@RegDwight and I was about to say "queue the jokes", but it's a mixed English-French pun

Mr. Disappointment

@F'x chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/926555#926555

RegDwight

pun is the antonym of bun.

rberaldo

@RegDwight, damn it, I always hoped that times machines were assembled in DeLorians.

RegDwight

20:25

You can't assemble a DeLorian while dancing samba 24/7.

It just doesn't work.

rberaldo

There's actually a samba routine. It's called “DeLoriando na avenida”. True story.

RegDwight

Feb 23 at 15:52, by Kosmonaut

rberaldo

You'd be surprised by how many people work whilst dancing samba.

RegDwight

Well, samba dancers...

F'x

@RegDwight very bad (or confused) cha-cha dancers…

RegDwight

20:31

Ivan Rebroff...

rberaldo

@RegDwight they're everywhere!

RegDwight

The goggles do nothing!

Kosmonaut

►

RegDwight

UMG content.

Kosmonaut

Gah

RegDwight

20:33

eben

Kosmonaut

I guess Germany strictly monitors its Schlager hits.

rberaldo

Oh I can't watch it now. I'll bookmark it and watch later, seems like gold.

RegDwight

Haha @Martha, that answer got trimmed in a very interesting place when converted to a comment:

0

A: “It's no use of doing something”

The Ugandan is me, and I did not insist. I said he was right. Sorry I couldn't read it all apart from the examples you've given like... "pop" which I never use at all. I can't be sure of anything, I hear it that way and I can't insist that it was right or wrong. I am so surprised that someone too...

It used to end in "I admire your spirit of descriptivism. Keep it up."

Look where it got cut off. "I admire you"

Martha

Snicker.

@Kosmonaut For a video titled "Dance the Samba with me", there is very little samba-dancing to be found in it.

F'x

Regarding monosyllabic words, I should have thought of thwacked

RegDwight

20:41

@Martha Oh you mean it's this song?

►

Kosmonaut

@RegDwight Jopp

RegDwight

That one I know.

It's awesome, as a matter of fact.

Spare Oom

Those two videos are equally painful.

Martha

Your version contains even less samba-dancing. I didn't think that was possible.

RegDwight

I had to make that comment a part of the original answer.

It was fun while it lasted.

Spare Oom

20:46

@Martha, do you have a real example of a samba?

Martha

Not really, no, though I'm sure a little searching on YouTube would find you more than you ever wanted. (Can't do it now, I'm at work.)

Spare Oom

I found one entitled samba, but the comments mentioned it wasn't really a samba.

►

rberaldo

Apart from Google's ngrams, what else is out there? The tool from Google has some OCR issues: goo.gl/bJQYT

Martha

@SpareOom Yeah, that's some weird fusion of belly dancing and various types of Latin dance. Try this:

►

RegDwight

@rberaldo COCA + BNC + COHA + Google Spreadsheets.

That's the old-school approach.

rberaldo

20:54

@RegDwight, apart from Google Spreadsheets, yeah!

Gotta go. See you guys!

RegDwight

CU.

Spare Oom

bye

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…