English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Speaking of english.stackexchange.com/questions/31354/…, I once lost an entire afternoon laughing about the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the hole in the dike.

Robusto

@Kit — Huh-huh. Dike. Huh-huh.

Kit

Jun 8 at 23:08, by Cerberus

Modern Dutch dykes have been built specifically to counter the kind of tidal waves that caused much damage in 1953.

Jun 8 at 23:10, by Cerberus

You just need bigger dykes, and dykes aren't that expensive, especially not if you have enough time.

aedia

@Kit Ridiculous barf day continues: I almost had to put a sentence on my form saying that the form populates records and assigns and tracks things. The emails rewriting this sentence flew like mad until finally, some voice of reason chimed in and pointed out that forms don't do things, people do. I feel bad for the form. It was granted agency for a brief moment.

Hullo all, by the way :)

Kit

@aedia Oh, my dear. I feel for you. I sincerely do.

aedia

@Cerberus woef!

Kit

3:38 PM

Robusto

Ah, here comes @Kosmonaut. He'll confirm that Dutch is a made-up language, a canard foisted upon us by the metric and Celsius cartels.

Kosmonaut

@Robusto Dutch isn't even a convincing forgery.

Robusto

See, @Cerberus?

Kosmonaut

Reserved = Gereserveerd? Seriously? Like I'm going to believe that.

Robusto

hahaha.

Kit

3:40 PM

@Kosmonaut Have you been drinking again?

You know how that makes you start speaking backwards.

aedia

@Kit It's not even rainbows. That's how sad it is.

Robusto

He has been drinking deep from the Pierian Spring.

Kosmonaut

@Kit Again? I never stopped.

Robusto

Pierian Spring

In Greek mythology, the Pierian Spring of Macedonia was sacred to the Muses. As the metaphorical source of knowledge of art and science, it was popularized by a line in Alexander Pope's poem "An Essay on Criticism" (1709). Pieria, where the sacred spring was situated, was a region of ancient Macedonia, also the location of Mount Olympus, and believed to be the home and the seat of worship of Orpheus and the Muses, the deities of the arts and sciences. The spring is believed to be a fountain of knowledge that inspires whoever drinks from it. Literature An early reference to the Pierian sp...

Kit

@aedia oh. That is sad. I am crying just a little bit thinking about it.

Kosmonaut

3:41 PM

Yes, I did the thing Robusto said.

Kit

You drank from the fountain?

Eeeeewww.

Robusto

I mean, like, to be in grad school you have to be a Pierian Spring binge drinker.

Kit

I'm not licking you now.

Kosmonaut

I used a water filtration system.

Kit

How can "drink from the fountain" not be in Urban Dictionary?

Is this yet another one of my "quaint regionalisms"?

Kosmonaut

3:44 PM

You're a quaint regionalism.

Kit

@Kosmonaut You — I — splutter.

Is your real name Tim?

So was the gross innuendo about drinking from the fountain lost on you? Or did you get that one?

Robusto

I've been searching Google for an image, but no one so far appears to have mocked up a "Pierian Spring Soda" can. The time is ripe for someone with no life and a copy of Photoshop.

Kosmonaut

@Kit In all seriousness, that is not a phrase I have ever heard.

Kit

@Kosmonaut Oh. In that case, it means to drink your own urine.

Now you know why I wouldn't lick you.

Monkeys do it when they're water deprived.

Robusto

@Kit — How would you even know that?

Kit

3:49 PM

@Robusto I have drunk life to the lees.

But seriously, because I used to take care of monkeys.

Kosmonaut

memegenerator.net/Better-Drink-My-Own-Piss ?

Robusto

The less I know about all this the better I feel.

Kit

@Kosmonaut Hmm. Very funny.

@Robusto What? What's weird about monkeys or drinking your own piss?

As a topic of conversation I mean, of course.

Robusto

Kit

sigh OK, fine. You pick a topic then.

Oooh! Lunchtime! Taco salad day, hooray!

AFK.

Robusto

3:59 PM

New topic:

Harthacnut

Harthacnut ("tough-knot"; ) (c.1018 to 8 June 1042) was King of Denmark from 1035 to 1042 and King of England from 1040 to 1042. He was the son of King Cnut the Great, who ruled Denmark, Norway, and England, and Emma of Normandy. When Cnut died in 1035, Harthacnut struggled to retain his father's possessions. Magnus I took of control of Norway, but Harthacnut succeeded as King of Denmark, and became King of England in 1040 after the death of his half-brother Harold Harefoot. Harthacnut died suddenly in 1042, and was succeeded by Magnus in Denmark and Edward the Confessor in England. ...

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Kosmonaut

4:15 PM

He died drinking to the health of a bride.

What did he drink?

Robusto

Poison.

He was a crazy bad king.

Cerberus

Hai again.

Kosmonaut

King Tough-knot

Cerberus

In what language are we to discuss amongst ourselves?

Robusto

@Cerberus — A real language. Like English.

Cerberus

4:19 PM

Ow.

That is, like, hard.

What about your regional dialect? I bet you have one.

@Martha: The giant hammer that goes with your new status will be delivered shortly. Better practice your thwacking a bit more.

Robusto

My regional dialect is U.S. English.

Kosmonaut

Lojban

Lojban (pronounced ) is a constructed, syntactically unambiguous human language based on predicate logic, succeeding the project of Loglan. The name "Lojban" is a combination of loj and ban, which are short forms of logji (logic) and bangu (language), respectively. Development of the language began in 1987 by The Logical Language Group (LLG), who intended to realize Loglan's purposes as well as further complement the language by making it more usable, and freely available (as indicated by its official full English name "Lojban: a realization of Loglan"). After a long initial period of de...

RegDwight

@Cerberus:

Cerberus

Ah.

RegDwight

I have full 100 stamina. I can give it a try.

Cerberus

4:26 PM

Do you have the healing building? And the Vamps?

You need more Siege, I think.

My Bolides aren't particularly good (moderately useful here), so you could replace those with some other siege units.

The Queen is good, but she doesn't like the Commie centers.

@RegDwight Yay, you're winning!

I think that guy's done for.

We have won. Kongrats.

RegDwight

Yup. Came here to say that.

And it didn't even count my last victory.

Cerberus

Well done!

What deck did you use?

RegDwight

Cerberus

Ah yes, nice.

RegDwight

That's all I could come up with in the haste. But hey, it worked.

Cerberus

4:40 PM

I have only one Hatchet or I might have used more.

Excellent.

RegDwight

I have two EMPs but I figured they would be worthless.

Cerberus

The Siege action card was enough?

RegDwight

I barely ever needed it.

Cerberus

Yeah, I bought an EMP as well, but no use.

Oh? Hmm...

Perhaps your deck is better at rushing.

RegDwight

Sec, door bell.

Cerberus

4:41 PM

OK.

RegDwight

Anyhow, now I am left wondering whether this deck is actually of any use whatsoever outside of that war. Somehow I doubt it.

Cerberus

Same.

It worked OKish in a few missions.

It's the Evade that changes everything and requires the leech; with different opponents, strike rush decks still work better, probably.

RegDwight

Ah yes, how are them new missions? I haven't tried a single one.

Cerberus

Although Colossus is a fine unit in any case.

RegDwight

I spend all my mana on raids.

Cerberus

4:44 PM

Well, I don't know, just as interesting as any other missions... not much difference.

RegDwight

And it's kinda more fun, too.

Cerberus

Hmm...

RegDwight

I'm not looking forward to going back to spending 25 mana per battle.

Cerberus

But I think Missions give more gold and more cards.

RegDwight

Absolutely.

I am poor now.

Cerberus

4:45 PM

Hehe.

Have you finished the main missions?

RegDwight

Yup.

Cerberus

OK.

Then it doesn't matter a great deal.

The problem is just that most of those raid cards don't look that appealing—or do they?

RegDwight

I also spent 25 bonds on Invasion Coordinator, and then bought a card pack that had one in it. Grrrrrrr.

Cerberus

Ouch.

RegDwight

Sucks.

And it wasn't even a blight or nexus pack.

Cerberus

4:47 PM

Hmm but is he that good anyway?

RegDwight

Just a gold one for 10k gold.

@Cerberus Well, I can't remember what I needed him for at that time...

Cerberus

Heh.

RegDwight

Okay, I guess it's supper time or something.

Cerberus

Let me give you a list of must-buy cards that people in chat said I should buy from the elite store:

RegDwight

You have any stamina? Or should I wait with the next war?

Bring it on.

Cerberus

4:48 PM

Aftermath123: Wait for Yurich, Colossus, Dracorex, Vapourwing, Wolrd
Quaker, Earhquake Generator

decyfeR111: yurich dracorex most important

decyfeR111: then colossus

I am all out of stamina.

Well, I have 13.

RegDwight

I have 29 left.

Cerberus

I 25.

RegDwight

Then I'll wait for another hour or more. Makes no sense now.

Cerberus

I skipped EQ Gen, doesn't seem that good to me.

Yeah, good idea.

RegDwight

@Cerberus I don't think I have a single one of those.

Cerberus

4:50 PM

I didn't until I bought Yurich.

Those are supposed to be cards you can only buy there.

Mr. Disappointment

'Ssssup?

Cerberus

Otherwise, just grind gold and keep buying those gold/nexus packs.

Greetings!

RegDwight

Yeah, I am perfectly aware that I can get most of those card basically for free.

Anyhow, supper!

And hi @MrD.

Cerberus

Yeah... even so, I bought EMP.

RegDwight

And bye @MrD.

Cerberus

4:51 PM

OK bye!

Mr. Disappointment

See ya! @Reg

@Cerberus We talking about precious metals?

Cerberus

Incidentally, is everyone aware of the fact that control+up selects one of your message for editing? Control-up-up is two message up, etc.

@MrDisappointment About this flash game we're playing. Do join us!

kongregate.com/games/synapticon/tyrant

It is a card-battle game, supposedly similar to Magic.

Mr. Disappointment

Oooh, might have to dabble once I get myself settled!

Re the shortcut thingy: I wasn't aware, but a browser is one of the few applications where I don't much use shortcuts. I supposed I can trust SE, though.

Cerberus

Hmm...

I use the mouse more as well, especially mouse gestures...

But on pages where I am already typing on the keyboard, such as in this chat, hotkeys do come in handy.

Mr. Disappointment

Definitely, and particularly in a place like this, where considerable time is spent processing similar actions - finding out about them and using them seems worth it. I just don't bother, in general, for web sites.

SO and EL&U seem to have been pretty darn quiet today, unless it's my own irrational perception?

Cerberus

5:01 PM

SO?

Oh.

Sorry, I'm notoriously slow.

Actually I'm not so sure; I have seen some new questions pop up (though hardly any interesting ones), and that has been decent chatting.

Mr. Disappointment

Can't believe my blackboard answer only has 68 votes, what a rip!

Ah, the boss was sitting behind me most of the day, so I have been deprived of participation in such chats. Boooo!

Kit

0

A: Is it "close-minded" or "closed-minded"?

probably a little late on this, didn't pay attention to dates and all, but I will say in my opinion and again just my opinion I think it is closed-minded, when you think of how you use close as in close the door, close the box, I closed my mind I mean it wouldn't make sense to me to say you are ...

Jeeeesus. Can we just nuke this?

MrHen

5:27 PM

@Kit Well, I flagged it as low-quality. If my flag-weight gets hurt because of helping you... ;)

Kit

I couldn't get all the way through it. Did she ever use a period?

Was that just one sentence?

MrHen

Yes: "usually always been closed***.*** wow, I just realized"

So... 90% one sentence

Kit

Ho. Lee. Crap.

I just can't in good conscience allow my son to text when he gets older. I think texting melts people's brains.

I would beat him severely if he produced gibberish like this.

Well. Not really. I couldn't blame him; it would be my failure at teaching.

Then I'd have to self-flagellate. Again.

MrHen

Honestly, it isn't like texting caused this.

People already wrote/thought this way and now we see it in texts

aedia

@Kit Ow. My eyes.

MrHen

5:35 PM

Much of what we think of as txting has roots in IRC and punny song names

Kit

@MrHen I blame Canada.

RegDwight

@Cerberus: that BT deck actually works quite fine against our current opponents. The only modification is that I kicked out all sieges.

Kit

@MrHen International Rescue Committee?

MrHen

What is all this?

RegDwight

Jun 1 at 15:51, by Vasiliy Sharapov

What is this place, why am I so confused, and why was I mentioned?

Kit

5:37 PM

@RegDwight That's one of the best ever.

aedia

@Kit What? Wait. I love texting.

Kit

Accidental summoning.

MrHen

Here is an easy one depending on your daily internet habits:

1

Q: What is the origin of "daemon" with regards to computing?

Daemon has an interesting usage in computing. From my local dictionary: a background process that handles requests for services such as print spooling and file transfers, and is dormant when not required Does anyone know where this came from? I assume its relation to the word demon is notab...

RegDwight

@Kit The first rule of Vasily Sharapov is...

MrHen

@RegDwight Spell the name wrong?

RegDwight

5:38 PM

Ha!

Kit

@RegDwight Don't talk about Vasily Sharapov!

RegDwight

Don't tell a Russian without a degree in translation how to transcribe Russian names!

aedia

@Kit Texting is different from writing down your mental puke verbatim!

Kit

@MrHen No, he was summoned accidentally with a chat tag.

Oh, wait, no. Never mind.

I got confused there.

@aedia It encourages people to blurt things out.

RegDwight

@Kit See, this room ain't called The Comprehensible Room!

Pay some attention, please.

aedia

5:41 PM

@Kit See, I think it encourages word economy. 'Specially Twitter. That's fun.

Kit

@RegDwight I was confused, not incomprehensed.

@aedia K.

RegDwight

Fennecs eat Twitters for breakfast.

Kit

@aedia R U 4 rl?

Oh, dear. I think my blood-pressure just went up.

RegDwight

CU4XS

Kit

I took ten points of one of my student's lab assignments because her comments were in txtspk.

aedia

5:42 PM

@Kit LOL

Martha

point of one of my student's?

MrHen

@Kit That's fair. Lab assignments shouldn't be in txtese

RegDwight

@Martha That's why it was only ten.

If Kit knew how to take points off properly, it would of been more.

Martha

C'mon, @Kit, you're running out of editing window.

RegDwight

Let's wait another twenty seconds and then ping her.

MrHen

5:45 PM

Anyone want some free rep for the Daemon answer?

RegDwight

No wait, she has been pinged by aedia and MrHen. And now you.

Kit

@MrHen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28computing%29

MrHen

@Kit ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Daemon.html

Kit

You want me to post that?

MrHen

Much better explanation of what happened

Someone did just post the wiki bit

Kit

5:46 PM

You're right, that is better. I had the thought to ask the people who came up with it myself.

Cerberus

@Reg: Right, that looks fine. I struggled a bit with keeping my Bolides in (fun but foolish). I have also added more action cards and a healing building:

MrHen

@RegDwight Who did I ping? I didn't ping anyone not in this chat.

Kit

@MrHen Do want me to jump in with this?

RegDwight

@Cerberus Hey I have that healing building, too. Pay attention!

MrHen

@Kit If you want

RegDwight

5:48 PM

But yeah, there is some room for improvement in my deck. I just lost a battle.

MrHen

I honestly saw that page and felt like it was an awesome history

Cerberus

@Reg: Oops, I eh mislooked.

MrHen

So I asked a question as an excuse to get the history on EL&U

Cerberus

@RegDwight Mine are still on the fence as well.

Kit

@MrHen Ok, I'll see what I can do. But only because I thought it was a good page too.

MrHen

5:48 PM

I mean, I don't care that much

Cerberus

@RegDwight But the more action cards seems to work well.

MrHen

I just think it is an awesome word/history

RegDwight

@Cerberus That's why I always play surge in these cases.

Cerberus

@RegDwight You mean Fight?

RegDwight

50% chance to win 40 vs. 50% chance to lose 10 ain't that bad of a deal.

Cerberus

5:49 PM

Oh.

RegDwight

@Cerberus No, surge.

Yeah.

aedia

@Kit I think it depends on one's texting dialect how bad it is, too. I have great difficulty reading "r u 4 rl" but I mostly text with people who have smartphones, so my conversations tend to be full of autocompleted, sometimes misspelled words and missing all those in-between bits like "the" and "my."

RegDwight

And in this case it's more like 60:40 in my favor.

So definitely surge-worthy.

Cerberus

Right. I play Surge as well, for the reason you mentioned and because of pride.

And because we were ahead.

RegDwight

It just sucks that you have to surrender that early.

You can't surrender at the very end, when you're actually losing.

You have to make predictions.

So I still end up losing 25 points every now and then.

MrHen

5:51 PM

@RegDwight Is this game PvP?

aedia

@Kit "Have good day" "Bus just sitting here. Georgia is foobar." "On way home eta 19:45" It's sort of English.

MrHen

Ah hell, I'll just go look it up

Cerberus

Kind of... though I'm usually 99% confident that I can't win any more after a few turns if so.

And then there is speed 2 and refreshing in time...

RegDwight

@MrHen single-player campaign, then groups vs. groups, and MMP raids vs. PC.

Cerberus

@Reg: So no Havoc? I can't make up my mind.

MrHen

5:52 PM

@RegDwight Hmm... cool.

Cerberus

Join the game! It is pretty fun, even after several weeks.

RegDwight

@MrHen kongregate.com/games/synapticon/tyrant

Doesn't cost a thing. You don't like it, you just drop it.

MrHen

Ack. I know better than to go there when I have things that need getting done

RegDwight

Well, you have lots of things to get done in that game, too!

Priorities first!

MrHen

:(

files away for later

@RegDwight Normally I would agree with you, but right now the competing priority is prepping for a job interview :)

RegDwight

5:54 PM

Jobs are overrated. This is the Internet!

3

Cerberus

@RegDwight Ack lost again. That damn Dozer Tank keeps regenerating.

RegDwight

@Cerberus Yes, yes. That's the only thing holding me back, actually. The rest is pretty straightforward.

See, this is one of those things you can't predict.

Cerberus

@RegDwight Perhaps I should copy your deck as far as I can, because mine still isn't great.

RegDwight

So I go ahead because I'm winning, and five turns down the line I am suddenly left with one action card.

All because of that tank.

Cerberus

Exactly.

Just like Popo in Kongai.

RegDwight

5:56 PM

I had a battle where it regenerated four, count them, four times.

Cerberus

I have counted four as well! Absurd.

MrHen

@Cerberus shudder Popo...

Cerberus

@MrHen: Ah! You know it?

MrHen

@Cerberus I played until I got the rank badge and... then lost interest

It was fun though

Cerberus

It is one of the best flash games I know!

MrHen

5:58 PM

Haven't really been in a while

Cerberus

If you only got to SR 20 you would still have much to explore there, and much depth to appreciate...

MrHen

kongregate.com/accounts/MrHen

Cerberus

And Pope can be countered by the new Girdle, thank God.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…