English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2013-06-26 (page 4 of 5)

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5:00 PM

20somethings.

Working at Domino’s.

You move somewhere to get a job at Domino’s?!

Well, not my cousin.

@Rob @Cerb Lotta big hunkin’ Greek words here for ya:

0

Q: Repeated word use - Termininology

Can anyone tell me what this type of repetitive use of two words together in a phrase is actually called? For example: "What it is, is..."

As I mentioned. Fire fighter. Forests.

@KitFox We need that.

Nearly 500 homes burnt up down in the Springs a coupla weeks back.

I always knew building homes out of Lincoln Logs would come to no good end.

Yes, but that's not the case here (and this is certainly not polysyndeton). And antanaclasis is when a word is used sequentially in different senses. Perhaps there isn't a dedicated term for accidental juxtaposition. — Edwin Ashworth 21 mins ago

Me, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of an epizeusix before.

Obviously.

My aunt was telling me. She couldn't remember which town he was moving to, but it was somewhere up around the Wyoming side, because he'll be close to his girlfriend who works in Yellowstone.

5:09 PM

@tchrist I'm not good at single words for anything.

anything is a single word

Couldn't we create a new SE site, "SWR"?

@JSBձոգչ Is it? Even a phrase of two words?

anything is clearly not a phrase of two words. it has a single word-level stress, and is distinct from any thing

It depends on the nature of your italicisation, I suppose.

i use only the finest milanese italics, hand-crafted by heirloom typesmiths

3

5:15 PM

I don't often italicize, but when I do...

@Kit do you have a PS3?

and can i borrow it to play The Last Of Us?

I see. Why Milanese, and not, say, Florentine?

milan has better bulk rates

and i use a lot of italics

@JSBձոգչ Yes.

@JSBձոգչ Um, yes, I guess. Once we're done with Lego Batman 2.

Oh yeah, that game.

It looks really interesting.

I see.

5:20 PM

every now and then i see a game that makes me wish i owned an hdtv and a gaming system

The Last of Us is one of them

You should. You just should anyway. Have one. Of those.

So what's so good about this game?

I dunno. Looks neat.

Okay.

supposedly has a great emotional arc.

5:27 PM

| genre = Action-adventure, survival horror | modes = Single-player, multiplayer | media = Blu-ray Disc, download }} The Last of Us is a survival horror action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. It was officially revealed on December 10, 2011 during the Spike TV Video Game Awards and released worldwide on June 14, 2013. It was released in Japan on June 20, 2013. The player takes control of Joel (voiced and motion captured by Troy Baker), who is trekking across a post-apocalyptic United States in 2033, in...

impacting

And a kid. That's unusual in this genre.

i <3 the post-apocalypse

did anybody else here read The Road?

A great emotional arc?

As in, the characters?

yes

user image

penny-arcade.com/2013/06/24

5:30 PM

Awww.

I do that all the time with my kids.

> Children carve something out of you, a place for themselves; people can twist the knife in that spot, and it just bleeds and bleeds.

@JSBձոգչ Not the actual game mechanics, like combat and tactical choices?

@Cerberus those can be good, too

but that's not what got people talking about this game

It's the story that's important.

Okay.

And of course, the format forces you to engage in and be absorbed by the storyline.

So it evokes emotions in ways that books and movies can't.

Like Silent Hill 2, as that article mentions.

5:34 PM

i couldn't finish SH2

too scary

Ohmygod it was good.

i got close to the end and then just turned it off

Also very scary.

So you missed the final resolution?

The catharsis?

yep

You're still carrying around all that stuff?

5:35 PM

i stopped playing right after you row across the lake and come to the hotel

with all the rape monsters

Oh shit, dude.

heh, well, i have a vague idea of what happened

i suppose i could watch a walkthrough

but i've forgotten a lot of it so i'd probably need to start from the top

A good story can enhance a game.

Just the end scene was so moving, particularly after the intensity of the game.

It was so well done.

@KitFox You get more emotionally affected by a good game story than by a good book?

5:37 PM

you're making me want to play it again

or watch youtubes

of people playing it

@Cerberus Yes.

it's different. a game makes you complicit in a way a book doesn't.

@JSBձոգչ I would play it if my husband weren't freaked out by horror games.

Okay.

but a book can be a lot more complex than a game. they're different things.

5:38 PM

Well, that's true.

A commercial can make my eyes water when I'm in a very sensitive mood, sleep deprivation and such.

I started watching a walkthrough. This guy is talking over it, annoyingly, but I heard the static come up and the angry bees sound and I got chills all over.

oh, god, the sound. that game had some of the best sound.

Does anybody know if this is an invalid pathname for a URL: /content/components/foo.id=1.html? I don't exactly like the = in there. (Ignore the question mark. That's punctuation for the question.)

and the sense of dread.

b/c you were never really in much danger, since most of the baddies were easy to kill

but it was all just so creepy

5:43 PM

@Robusto It looks wrong to me.

I know, right?

They went to this new scheme and suddenly stuff doesn't work.

There should be a ? or something for a parameter assignment.

Why can't they put that shit on the querystring where it belongs?

They're trying to "prettify" the URL. As if that matters.

5:44 PM

Why can't people not talk constantly?

@KitFox That looks like the main room for the old 7th Guest game.

Oh, hahaha. It does.

this is basically where i left off:

right at the end of this section

If only they would stop talking.

I don't really give a shit about this guy's personal life.

I seem to recall you hadn't played Thief, right?

5:53 PM

@KitFox I know! They just keep saying stuff!

At least this guy shuts up during the cutscenes.

GTTFP

except twitter is dumb and in 140 chars no one ever has a point

Great, JSB sends me down a rabbit hole.

Matt Эллен

6:13 PM

a fox being led down a rabbit hole. interesting

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@KitFox oh, are you in my office? goes to look for Kit

Holy crap. How is it 2:30 already?

@KitFox:Hi

Hi.

6:29 PM

It is good at maths or good in maths?

I got confused.

what happened?

at usually, I'd say.

@KitFox: See my dog worshiping to god.

user image

How's it?

@KitFox: Every day and every night bring its own pleasure for every one.

6:44 PM

*bring their own pleasure(s)

Or each day and each night brings its own pleasure.

And I think you mean everyone, not every one.

Ok

yes

@Cerberus: I'm highly confused over the usage of none.

Would you please clarify it?

He was quite sure that none of them were/was aware of the truth.

I searched in OED it says both are right.

Were.

Sure?

Maybe was is not incorrect, but I'd pick were for sure.

Were is certainly correct.

See books.google.com/ngrams/…

6:51 PM

I suppose you can use singular none in some situations, when no plural noun is involved anywhere: the field was searched for a sign that a UFO had landed, but none was found. Here I use none...was because it refers to a sign: you were looking for a single thing, not a group of things.

Ok. I was also thinking the same.

It's complicated. But 95 % of the time, I would use plural with none.

One more doubt I have.

Each girl was given a bunch of flowers which pleased her/them very much.

According to my understanding it'd be them.

Her. I think perhaps some people would use them, but I think almost anyone would use her, because the sex of the person(s) is known.

When the sex is known, and it is either male or female, use he/him/his or she/her/her, respectively.

If it were not known then ?

6:57 PM

When the sex can be either, use he/him/his (conventional pronoun for unknown sex), or they/them/their (somewhat more recent and less formal), or she/her/her (slightly funny, potentially feminist, but people do it).

I believe most people use they/them/their nowadays, but it is not appreciated by pedants.

I personally find it ugly, also partially because it oozes political-correctness.

So I and many with me use conventional he/him/his.

Occasionally he or she / him or her / his or her when necessary.

If the sentence were like that

he/him/his as "gender-neutral" is antiquated.

Between him and them, which is more formal?

If you know all these people are women, then use her. If men, him. If unknown, him or them.

@KitFox Maybe where you are and/or in informal situations...

Aren't you a Dutch speaker?

7:01 PM

@Sudhir Him.

@KitFox Yes?

But one can say, if females are also included so you might be wrong.

I read and listen and speak to English speakers, you know.

I know. And you are full of ideas about things.

@Sudhir See, that's not true: if this person can be male or female, you can still refer to him by him, because it can be used for the common gender / unknown sex.

Matt Эллен

plus I thought Shakespeare used they/them/their for gender neutral stuff

7:03 PM

@KitFox And you can only speak for the kind of people you hang out with, right?

Oh! That's a rule.

Traditionally, it should be "was" that goes with "none". But now, "were" is common.

@MattЭллен He used it sometimes, I believe, but it was much more fluid.

You can find grammar "authorities" in favour of either "was" or "were". So just do whatever it is your teacher has told you to do, and don't worry about it too much.

You can use him. It's fine, common, and supposedly formal. It's also patronizing and old-fashioned sounding unless you know you are speaking about a group of only males.

7:04 PM

@DavidWallace I'm not sure I agree with that...I don't believe Fowler would agree.

What David says: don't worry about it too much.

As I said, you can find authorities both ways.

@KitFox To your ears, maybe. Not everyone.

@DavidWallace Right.

My ears are the only ones that matter.

If I had to guess what your teacher wanted, I'd say it's more likely to be "was". Because "none" was originally a contraction of "not one", and therefore required a singular.

But Cerberus has 3x as many ears as the rest of us.

Yes, and he agrees that it sounds silly to use her in the same context, and yet thinks him should sound fine to everyone.

7:07 PM

I have an odd feeling that Indian English hasn't caught up with the gender neutral "they"; but don't quote me on that.

Because I should feel included when you speak of "man," duh, but using "woman" excludes men.

@DavidWallace: I don't have any teacher. I've a professional exam.

I would be inclined to simply rewrite the sentence to avoid the issue in any case.

I need to pass it anyhow.

Then go with whichever your examiner wants. Sorry, but I've left my crystal ball behind today.

7:08 PM

@KitFox You certainly win when it comes to pointiness.

@DavidWallace: I also don't have that. I'm in search of authentic information.

Sudhir, as I said, there are authorities BOTH WAYS. None of us can tell you which of the two camps your examiner lies in. Only your examiner can tell you that.

@KitFox Well, I'm not entirely opposed to her myself. I would prefer it over they. It's just that it sounds a little feminist and it's very uncommon.

I sort of chuckle every time I read it (one never hears it), but in a pleasant way.

It's a lot feminist and for good reason.

@DavidWallace Right, right, that rule.

7:10 PM

@Cerberus You are well known for your pleasant chuckle.

Every student was selected for their/his placement training in the college.

Why would you even use a possessive there?

@KitFox Only because one happens to be the default. The political thing is recent and limited to English, I believe: in German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Italian, Spanish, etc., male is the neutral gender.

@KitFox Because it's a multichoice question, and you don't have the option not to.

There is no they except in cases like they say NZ is a nice place.

@DavidWallace Yay!

7:12 PM

@DavidWallace: Which will come?

Both are acceptable.

These exams annoy me. It's not about learning to communicate in English. It's about having some kind of telepathic connection to whoever set the question.

Well, when you read and are amused by the feminine pronoun, think about how you would feel if you were always referred to that way.

Every three-headed dog is famous for her pleasant chuckle.

@DavidWallace The problem is, how else to test it in a quick and simple way? It is the lesser evil.

7:13 PM

@DavidWallace Exactly.

By having sensible questions. Not ones where both options are correct in some idiolect or other.

@KitFox I would stop being amused as soon as it became normal.

Even the most famous Dutch paleolinguist must occasionally floss her teeth.

Do you really think every Dutch, German, French, etc. woman in the world is "amused" by neutral he?

No woman is an island.

@Cerberus Quite the opposite.

7:15 PM

Indeed.

It is irritating to be referred to as though I am a man. It is also exclusionary.

4

Q: "Neither", "none", "no one" + [of them] + verb-s

In a comment on English Language & Usage I read the following answer responding to a(n) asker's question: "Neither sound natural." I have always had more than one doubt on the "neither" usage and I would like understand(ing) the "secrets" to use this word better or, at the best, correctly. So,...

word-choice grammaticality

Sudhir - data.grammarbook.com/blog/singular-vs-plural/… may be useful.

@KitFox Why do some English-speaking woman feel this way, but no French, German, etc. women?

Don't they?

I don't know.

7:18 PM

@DavidWallace:you're wonderful.

And does it matter?

Ten seconds of googling, which you could have done yourself.

Don't you care about how I feel about it?

@DavidWallace:It'd be too late?

@KitFox They don't.

I mean, he don't.

Err...

7:20 PM

Good morning to you David.

@KitFox I...suppose I do, but...I just really hate they. I will try to use she in your presence, and not in a mocking way or anything.

Its 7:20am.

Is it?

I thought it was 9:21?

No

I suck at time zones.

7:22 PM

@Cerberus: Can you tell my time?

Ehh...I would guess about...6 hours later than here, so about 3 am?

I don't know.

No

What are you talking about? It's 3:22pm.

Its 00:53am

Huh?

India is only three time zones from Western Europe?

7:23 PM

He's in one of them half-zones.

Yeah OK, 3.5 zones.

Its my bed time.

When you wake up in morning @Cerberus?

I'm eating Indian food right now btw.

Oh, I rarely wake up in the morning.

Time?

1 PM?

It varies a lot.

Today, 12 AM.

Or maybe 11:30.

7:25 PM

12 Noon?

Yes.

When you go to bed?

You mean 12PM then?

Bleh I can never remember that either.

Nor can I remember whether midnight is 24:00 or 0:00. Most clocks say 0:00.

Well, it's not really either, but 12:00:00.001 is PM.

7:26 PM

I think you'd be going to bed at 2am

Sometimes he doesn't.

I was trying to go along with Sudhir's morning thing.

2 AM is early for me.

then 4am?

I really suck at turning in early. I usually wake up again after a few hours when I try it.

4 AM, yes, that happens.

4AM means 9Am at our time.

7:28 PM

Is it normal in India to sleep for 8 hours?

Yes, but it is treated as ill behavior to wake at 1PM.

its disgusting.

Here too, unless you are a college student or work in the service industry.

Its 1Am in my clock, I'd wake at 9am. though its also treated as bad.

OK.

How bourgeois.

Here it depends on what kind of job you have.

what it mean?

7:31 PM

Look it up, hehe.

Hey, do you guys have Marks and Spencer?

They sell clothes and food.

@Cerberus:You don't turn off your machine even you go for a sleep?

As I told you, I usually don't.

ok

@Cerberus: catch you tommorrow.

Bye

Good night to all guys.

Bye.

Good night.

7:47 PM

@Cerberus Huh? There is nothing PC about singular they. It’s simply how people talk.

There is.

8:16 PM

> Since giving birth to my first child six months ago, I've become very uncomfortable with my sexuality. I have a wonderful partner and there is no tension in the relationship, but I now have an aversion to the idea of having sex.

> Besides being afraid of the physical act after the usual childbirth injuries, I keep thinking about all the sexual violence I've read or heard about in the news. If I think about sex, I want to put it out of my mind and gather up my baby and protect her. What should I do to get back to normal?

This is why fear-mongering is bad.

slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2013/06/…

@Robusto Is that a trailer for the latest Star Trek film?

hahyaha

It should be.

I see.

Someone breaks into my house, he gets what he deserves: a gigantic fridge.

8:22 PM

Someone did?

No.

I'm just saying, if he did there would be a gigantic fridge waiting. And it might crush him. Or freeze him. I dunno.

Stainless-steel-lookin' motherfuckin' French door Samsung refrigerator. Rock on!

It would pelt him with ice cubes at near-light speed?

8:40 PM

@Cerberus If it were a super-cool fridge it could, right?

0

A: Repeated word use - Terminology

It's called Epizeuxis. In rhetoric, an epizeuxis is the repetition of words in immediate succession, for vehemence or emphasis.

Ugh.

Four upvotes on the "no, that's not it" comment, but only two downvotes on the answer itself.

@Robusto hey cool, I could use a gigantic fridge. Please stand by as I find my way from your backyard to your house.

@RegDwighт My fridge will crush you the way it crushes ice.

Softly with this song?

More like with the GWAR song previously posted.

I am afraid to check, it won't be available in my country.

Luls, and sure enough it is not.

What does GWAR stand for? George W. Ass Rodeo?

8:45 PM

Too radical? Too DRM-ish?

@RegDwighт "Despite various explanations that Gwar is an acronym for something, band members have insisted from its inception that the letters do not stand for anything. Indeed, the official website of Slave Pit Inc. indicates that Gwar is a shortened version of "Gwaaarrrgghhlllgh", the name the band used originally when opening up for Death Piggy. Another incorrect view is that the name stands for "God what an awful racket."

Gwar is a satirical heavy metal band formed in Richmond, Virginia in 1984. The band is well known for its elaborate science fiction/horror film inspired costumes, obscene lyrics and graphic stage performances, which feature humorous enactments of politically and morally taboo themes. History Formation and debut (1984–1989) Gwar is the end result of two separate projects merged into one. Dave Brockie was the vocalist and bassist for a punk band named Death Piggy that staged mini-plays and used crude props to punctuate their often ridiculous music. Bands would occasionally practice in ...

@MετάEd I don't know, could it?

Do things go faster when they're cold?

Matt Эллен

when they're super cooled, yes

> ... the goal is that the average user won’t be able to by mistake print a gun. If you have children in your home, say your kid—who wants to print a water gun—doesn’t end up printing a real gun. It’s the same thing if you download a movie, you don’t know what you get. A child could download a porn movie just because it’s called Bambi. I think it’s the same with a water gun.”

This is bullshit.

You need gunpowder, or printing a real gun is no use.

You can't accidentally print a harmful gun.

yeah bs

Hej.

8:56 PM

@Cerberus nonsense. Current 3D-printed guns use a simple pin.

?

The powder is in the bullet.

You don't print bullets. You use them.

Yes, so you need a bullet.

So your child can't accidentally create a murder weapon.

Matt Эллен

and all Emerican homes come with bulllets in compartments in the walls to protect the 2nd ammendment

@Cerberus Well yes, so? You still printed an actual gun, and still by mistake.

8:58 PM

But it's not dangerous.

No gun is dangerous.

Exactly.

Then say just that.

I did.

I was under the impression you took issue with this particular quote.

8:59 PM

I did.

Well, and I'm saying you should not take issue with this particular quote, but with the general notice that guns are somehow dangerous.

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