English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2015-01-22 (page 1 of 3)

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7:41 AM

Hi

does anybody know what's the meaning of "proficiency cap"?

@Meysam Any context?

@AndrewLeach Although STAAR Alternate 2 is intended for a small number of students, the proficiency cap does not limit the number of students receiving special education services who may take the alternate assessment.

Hmm. A cap is usually an upper limit. I have no idea why there should be an upper limit on ability (unless the thing is intended for students of lower proficiency).

7:59 AM

@AndrewLeach Yes that's intended for those students

8:12 AM

Thank you

Matt Эллен

@Robusto 10:30

Because it's a shortening of "half-past ten". We don't say "half-to" anything.

Matt Эллен

8:37 AM

exactly

2 hours later…

Matt Эллен

10:11 AM

-1

Q: Is "everyone is selfish" correct or "everyone are selfish"?

Everyone is selfish seems to sound right for me although it seems to look wrong.I wanted to know what is the right usage.

grammar grammaticality grammatical-number

I cannot find a dupe. I felt sure there was one

Found.

17

Q: Is "everyone" singular or plural?

Which is correct? Everyone were convinced that he would go to the game. Everyone was convinced that he would go to the game. I think it's "was", because "everyone" is singular, but I just wanted to check.

grammatical-number pronouns verb-agreement

Matt Эллен

brilliant!

10:30 AM

everyone should be plural

Matt Эллен

I'm happy being singular

hehe, well everyone = each person so singular makes sense too

@MattЭллен No, I'm Spartacus!

Matt Эллен

sorry... I don't get it

I know who Spartacus was...

10:51 AM

Spartacus (film)

Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay by Dalton Trumbo was based on the novel Spartacus by Howard Fast. It was inspired by the life story of the leader of a slave revolt in antiquity, Spartacus, and the events of the Third Servile War. The film starred Kirk Douglas as Spartacus, Laurence Olivier as the Roman general and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus, Peter Ustinov, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, as slave trader Lentulus Batiatus, John Gavin as Julius Caesar, Jean Simmons as Varinia, Charles Laughton as Sempronius...

The link is to the relevant part of that page.

> While reading this, the bolded suspended and confused me.

Sometimes it feels like I'm getting cancer from reading this site.

Matt Эллен

The Bolded And Suspended. That famous American soap opera

The question is: why did the bolded have to read this in the first place? Surely it could have just suspended him right away.

Matt Эллен

oh. it's LePres.

@AndrewLeach wrong, wrong, wrong. We do say "40 rods and a half to the hogshead".

Matt Эллен

11:03 AM

Furby it from me

Apr 8 '11 at 18:07, by psmears

@Kosmonaut It was a source of much hilarity to us as children (growing up in the south of England) when my sister asked my father how to spell "furry", and he (from Liverpool) responded by asking, "Do you mean furry like a teddy bear, or a furry that grants wishes?"

So you're saying, fair be it?

Matt Эллен

I'm verbalising Furbies

English weirds language.

Matt Эллен

English doesn't weird language, people do :D

although fur could be a pronunciation of far in the west of England

I don't think English is a language at all. It looks like more of a car battery to me. Discuss.

Matt Эллен

11:07 AM

Discusses aren't very good car batteries

Anything ending in asses deserves a little bit of battery now and then.

Matt Эллен

don't assess me too harshly. my manager will be doing that in 20 minuets

sees typo, leaves it

Sees no typo, leaves it.

Matt Эллен

typos sees and leaves

no matter in which way
no matter which way
no which way
no way
way

Ay

I've read the Spiegel Online review of The Imitation Game and they had very little good to say.

Matt Эллен

11:14 AM

I liked it.

It was titled, "hasn't the man suffered enough already".

Matt Эллен

A friend of mine pointed out that they holywoodised it a fair amount, romanticising some bits and fictionalising how much involvement the group had in decision making

@MattЭллен and in a nutshell, that is pretty much the problem. Everyone will like it and it will get twenty Oscars, even though it does the poor man no justice and in fact invents certain things out of thin air.

@MattЭллен yes yes yes, and much more.

Oscar bait. Mainstream.

Matt Эллен

yeah

Spiegel also criticizes how apparently being gay means never sleeping with a man.

Matt Эллен

11:17 AM

eh... I think not adding pointless sex scenes that don't advance the story isn't a bad thing

Right on, adding pointless non-sex scenes that never happened is much better.

The thing is, according to Spiegel it would advance the story if his loneliness wouldn't be stylized so much. You have to ask yourself if he ever had a boyfriend at all.

Matt Эллен

true

It's like he never could dream of coming close to another gay, they say.

Of course I'll still watch it, like I did with King's Speech and Titanic and Sex & the City 2, but I'm no longer expecting much.

But I'd rather see Grand Budapest Hotel win, though I think it's not even running for Best Picture.

Why ever that would be.

Matt Эллен

it is in the running for best picture

Oh hell yeah, then I'd rather see it win all the more.

Hm, something about the images on the Oscars site is quite striking.

user image

Just look at this. Everything about it is awfully stylized to the max.

That coat hasn't been worn for even just a day.

11:31 AM

:)

Now compare that to, I dunno:

user image

Or even just:

user image

:D

Of course I realize the latter is also stylized. But it's nowhere as in-your-face.

hi

hi

Matt Эллен

11:54 AM

@RegDwigнt yeah, Kiera Knightly could have popped right out of Dad's Army

the costumes on the whole could have

would pejoration mean "use of insulting language"?

A Beautiful Mind

12:14 PM

@RegDwigнt Is that Kit?

@MattЭллен Hello, I don't feel good today. I feel very confused.

12:32 PM

Interesting how the New Yorker hyphenates teen-ager but doesn't hyphenate nonprofit.

@MattЭллен Yeah, I wondered because in German halb zehn means 9:30.

@RegDwigнt They have their own [peculiar] style guide.

Yeah. And Rule 1 through 100 is "God forbid if one of your cartoons is funny or even just comprehensible".

I'm reading *The Whole Haystack: How to Catch a Terrorist", and it's interspersed with shit like this:

user image

> And that's why you go on safari

user image

> Time’s up. Crayons down.

Like, what the actual frigg.

The confusingship of this is otherworldly.

A Beautiful Mind

@RegDwigнt No shit in this chat.

You don't say.

Dec 16 '14 at 21:45, by Jasper Loy

I am back from the shit, but I decided not to shower.

Oct 24 '14 at 14:22, by Jasper Loy

It's about an hour left till the last bus or train leaves. I should get going soon. Need to shit and shower and then go to town, lol.

Dec 16 '14 at 21:23, by Jasper Loy

I am going to have a shit and a shower now.

Dec 15 '14 at 18:56, by Jasper Loy

@MattЭллен What did you eat? I just had a great shit.

A Beautiful Mind

Who is Jasper? I am A Beautiful Mind.

12:44 PM

Aug 16 '14 at 21:15, by Jasper Loy

I got suspended in the Math room for saying "I had a great shit".

A Beautiful Mind

It seems that Kit only returned to this room for the hats. Now she is gone again.

To her defense, nobody wants to stay in a room full of shit.

A Beautiful Mind

@RegDwigнt It's painful that my condition worsened in December somehow. I am still trying to understand what happened.

Matt Эллен

@ABeautifulMind what's confusing you?

Yuck.

Good morning, I guess.

A Beautiful Mind

12:48 PM

@MattЭллен Well, sometimes I try to do something to resolve an OCD theme, but after that it seems to have gotten worse, so now I blame myself for doing it in the first place. I feel very guilty for having made it worse when it does get worse.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus hello

@ABeautifulMind don't feel guilty for trying.

bows

Do or do not, there is no try. Guilty will trying make you.

Matt Эллен

No do or try, do there is not.

A Beautiful Mind

I am going to make some coffee. I don't think it makes me more anxious, so it is alright to have it.

12:54 PM

Doo-bee-doo-bee-do.

Matt Эллен

You're blue dabadedabodow

Dee, Tom, and Jerry Doo.

Holy something.

Now that's some camo.

A Beautiful Mind

Wow, I think living there might be worse than North Korea.

They have didgeridoos. That is clearly OVER 9000 better than what they have in North Korea.

A Beautiful Mind

I have bad news. The mosquito bit me again. I need to find it and kill it.

1:00 PM

You might want to read up on news values.

News values, sometimes called news criteria, determine how much prominence a news story is given by a media outlet, and the attention it is given by the audience. A. Boyd states that: "News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as 'newsworthiness'..." News values are not universal and can vary widely between different cultures. In Western practice, decisions on the selection and prioritization of news are made by editors on the basis of their experience and intuition, although analysis by J. Galtung and M. Ruge showed that several factors are consistently applied across...

A Beautiful Mind

I do not wish to read news. It makes me upset.

I wouldn't worry as long as it doesn't make you upmatch.

Matt Эллен

but do you have updog?

Who let the dogs up?

A Beautiful Mind

I think it helps me to come to this chat and talk to people.

Matt Эллен

1:05 PM

good :)

A Beautiful Mind

I no longer feel part of Antarctica.

Too many people in Antarctica have hurt me.

Matt Эллен

but penguins are so cute!

> This term is idependent of your sexual orientaion.

I spot a typo. Should be iDependent.

Matt Эллен

iDempotent, even!

iDem everyone, not just potent.

Matt Эллен

1:09 PM

iBid

iBM.

iNtel inside.

2

Q: Using "a tiny" in the same way as "a little"

Saying That made me a little happier is clearly perfectly fine, yet no one would really ever say That made me a tiny happier, even though both "little/tiny bit happier" are fine. Is there some logic to this? It's perfectly clear what the second sentence means, even though it sounds "...

Matt Эллен

> Is there some logic to this?

Some answers, crazy town.

Matt Эллен

no. never

1:11 PM

> The problem is this. Although I can say 'a little dog' and 'a tiny dog', I can say 'a little sad' but not 'a tiny sad'.

How is that an answer? That is the question, silly.

Matt Эллен

and the answerer has answered twice!

@MattЭллен oh but there is! The logic goes: they are two different words. And different words behave differently. That's why they are different words and not the same word.

@ABeautifulMind I keep saying that the weather in Antarctica is a primary consideration. It's not like anywhere else.

Why the hell do people expect completely different words to behave the same?

Also the roads are kept clean.

Matt Эллен

1:13 PM

beause overgeneralisation

Uncountable -adjectives-?

Do people just make stuff up?

See, why can I say overgeneralization but not betweengeneralization or downgeneralization? Is there some logic to this?

Matt Эллен

0

A: Using "a tiny" in the same way as "a little"

Quite simply "a little" can be used as both an adjective and adverb, but "a tiny" can only be used as an adjective.

Why aren't people undergeneralizing more often?

Matt Эллен

I took up the challenge

1:15 PM

Nice!

Matt Эллен

@Mitch I saw one person do that so it must never happen

@MattЭллен hold me tiny, closer dancer.

Matt Эллен

is that undergeneralisation?

But you actually thought about the answer. Which is not fair to the others.

And dude. Since when is "a" part of an adjective.

Sorry, I mean chap.

1:16 PM

"A very"

Check and mate.

Your mama so a fat.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwigнt I know. I was figuring the paralellism would help, but now I think about it, it makes things worse

She a gina lowla bridgeda

LOAL.

Laughing out a loud.

FOF Friend Of Friend

Because it is unspecified if you have more than one or not

1:18 PM

What a would Jesus do?

It sounds so fauxtalian

Matt Эллен

@RegDwigнt see a little bread v little bread

that's when

A Beautiful Mind

@Mitch Well, I don't care for the nice weather and clean roads. These are nonissues to me.

I look and look but I see no a bread.

I don't think you're familiar with my an office. Like, at all.

Matt Эллен

compound adjective

A Beautiful Mind

1:20 PM

I remember many people laughed when I called a toilet stall a cubicle.

That is some mad editing right there.

@ABeautifulMind then I suggest Iceland

Matt Эллен

yes. I am a mad editreuse

When you reuse, that's not edit, that's copypaste.

A Beautiful Mind

@Mitch You must be on your phone right now.

1:21 PM

I think the streets are clean anyway whether you want it or not I'd hate to force clean streets on you.

Yes I am. How can you tell? My spelling is impeccabl.

A Beautiful Mind

Because you don't use the arrows to reply.

@MattЭллен shrug. Still a not part a of an anything.

Clever! Yes that's exactly right and quite an annoyance

Matt Эллен

@RegDwigнt why not?

Articling thes language.

Matt Эллен

1:24 PM

a little is a different thing to little

user116848

Hi

Matt Эллен

lot is not an adjective by itself

@MattЭллен nothing to do with the adjective and everything to do with countability, i.e. the noun. Which is its whole damn job, after all.

A Beautiful Mind

The mosquito bit me ten times, then after ten days it bit me one time. I wonder when it will bite again.

@MattЭллен yes, and an apple is a different thing to an orange.

@MattЭллен a lot is not an adjective, either.

Matt Эллен

1:26 PM

@RegDwigнt then what is it?

@MattЭллен gen ref, that's what.

Noun: a lot

A large amount.
I have a lot of things to say.
Many things, much.

Adverb: a lot (not comparable)

(idiomatic) very much; a great deal; to a large extent.
(idiomatic) often; frequently

Holy moly, watch this thing inline.

Matt Эллен

hmmm

ok. I guess I understand

Not that I agree with their classification of "a lot of things" as a noun.

Matt Эллен

would it be fair to call "a little" a determiner? since you can replace it with some?

"A lot of" = "many". That's no noun.

It would make "a lot of things" a compound noun, too.

Bollocks.

So yeah disregard everything in that shitty wiki entry, except for the fact that no adjective.

@MattЭллен yes, precisely what I'm saying.

Matt Эллен

1:31 PM

@RegDwigнt oh good. I do understand then :D

If I ask, how much do you like this or that, you can answer "a lot" or "a little", but you can't answer "a car" or "a cheese".

"How much" is no noun.

A Beautiful Mind

Yes, you can answer a car. How much you like this is how much you like a car.

I often wish I can talk to @MattЭллен in person, or Kit. =)

@ABeautifulMind I shall gladly henceforth answer every "how" question of yours with "a car".

Sep 26 '14 at 16:02, by Will Hunting

@mahnax How is school?

A car.

Matt Эллен

I'm not much good in person. no edit feature.

Oct 16 '14 at 0:00, by Jasper Loy

Anyway, how are you and Mario?

A car.

Aug 15 '14 at 9:57, by Jasper Loy

How many Marias did you have in the past?

A car.

Matt Эллен

1:35 PM

it's starting to make sense

Jan 8 at 1:22, by Jasper Loy

So how did the big thing at work go?

A car.

@ABeautifulMind that is funny. because a cubicle is what most office people work in. like working in a toilet

A Beautiful Mind

Who is Will? I am A Beautiful Mind.

Nov 28 '14 at 14:17, by Jasper Loy

How many years can a laptop last if you take care of it?

A car.

A quarter of a century

Matt Эллен

1:37 PM

How do you treat fish with long fingernails?

A Beautiful Mind

@Mitch Here in Antarctica, we call both office and toilet cubicle.

A semi.

@MattЭллен I can backspace on things I say outloud.

It's a talent I have.

user image

Matt Эллен

@Mitch sounds very useful

A Beautiful Mind

1:38 PM

@Mitch You must be on your computer now.

Pictured from left to right: treating fish with long fingernails. Not pictured: fish, fingernails.

Matt Эллен

well. now I know

@ABeautifulMind Antarctica has all the modern conveniences. You never have to leave your office cubicle/isolation chamber/space probe. I hear they have a bar.

I hear they have a car.

@ABeautifulMind Or I figured out how to reply directly to questions on my my phone.

Or now I'm Carlos.

A Beautiful Mind

1:40 PM

@Mitch You mean Carlo?

How do I reply on my my phone? A car.

oops. Is he Italian?

A Beautiful Mind

@Mitch Si.

or is there more than one of him?

As I just stated, yes there is.

Ask how many of him there is and I will tell you.

A Beautiful Mind

1:40 PM

@Mitch I only know one copy of him. I am not sure if he is still alive.

How many of them are there? (I'm guessing a car)

A lorry.

Good thing you asked, your guess was way off.

Oh! eyebrows raised

So now we have a question asking for what single word encompasses a lesbian trapped in a man's body?

A Beautiful Mind

In America, I believe there are no lorries.

1:41 PM

@tchrist yes.

That was easy. Next question.

@ABeautifulMind They were all run over by our kick-ass trucks.

A Beautiful Mind

@tchrist I would close it as too localised.

Matt Эллен

How do we have a question about a single word for a lesbian trapped in a man's body?

A Beautiful Mind

@Mitch In Antarctica, we have lorries.

Trapped... in the GI tract?

Uncomfortable to say the least.

1:42 PM

@MattЭллен A carriage.

Matt Эллен

in the blood stream

Then the answer is a LTIAMB.

OK then, how a bout a two-word request?

A diligence.

Or a stage-coach.

I already closed ten questions today. I cannot close a car more.

Actually, they might be a word for someone with an irrational fear or dislike for one's own selfsame gender. But it's fLaggable.

A Beautiful Mind

1:44 PM

@MattЭллен Sometimes, I feel that the exact time I will be well again, if it happens, is predestined.

A cheese perhaps. But not a car.

@ABeautifulMind what a predestrian thought.

autophobe

Cheese? hm... reminds me of something I left out over night.

Eww.

Too much information.

A Beautiful Mind

Men secrete cheese all the time.

1:46 PM

A whole car of information.

How much?

@ABeautifulMind what did you just say about not shitting in this room?

TFMFI

A Beautiful Mind

@RegDwigнt Shit is not cheese.

Matt Эллен

@ABeautifulMind possibly so

1:47 PM

@RegDwigнt What? stops

After a point has been driven home, Jasper takes a semi and drives right through it, just to make sure no listener survives.

Every single time.

We are all zombies here because of that.

@Mitch Hammertime!

I miss KitSox.

if (errno == ENOSMEGMA) panic("ewwwwwwwwww");

@Mitch I miss all her oxen.

Roxie

1:50 PM

And after a point has been run over by Jasper in his semi, tchrist writes some Perl poetry about it.

Every single time.

We are all poets here because of that.

A Beautiful Mind

I no longer talk about shitting or the deadness of this chat as requested. I am considerate of others.

And yet, you used the word "shit" five times in the last two hours alone.

Whenever you don't talk about shit, it's only to talk about not talking about shit.

How about we discuss dandelions instead.

Or dandegazelles.

Matt Эллен

that's a dandy idea

O dandy, you came and you stopped me from shaking. But I sent you away, o dandy.

A Beautiful Mind

@MattЭллен I feel so tired of struggling with my mental illness. I don't have much strength left.

@RegDwigнt Hmm, I think I was inspired by you.

1:53 PM

People inspired by me start playing with LEGO or speaking Russian. That sort of thing.

Given his bicycling proclivities, I wonder whether @Cerberus isn't an autophobe. But maybe they have apartheid lanes for his transpo-type in the Sunkenlands and so he knows No Fear.

Matt Эллен

@ABeautifulMind this is why it's good to have a councelor or therapist to talk to. Talking to us is great, but we're no substitute for a professional when you feel at the end of your wits.

A Beautiful Mind

@RegDwigнt I currently have no licence to drive. I don't think I will ever get a car, even if I do make it to the Arctic from Antarctica.

@tchrist He did watch Sex and the City 2, in strong support of your theory.

@RegDwigнt you mixed up daniel and the lions

1:55 PM

@MattЭллен hey I am a substitute for a professional alright. Just not a particularly good one. But that's what "substitute" means.

Jasper, your autophobia is showing.

A Beautiful Mind

@tchrist Sorry, I was not following. What is autophobia? Fear of yourself?

subastute

Eat fresh.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwigнt substitute doesn't mean similar but worse. a substitute player should be in better condition

1:56 PM

subasstude

@MattЭллен Then he wouldn't be a substitute in the first place.

Clearly he sucks. QED.

Jasper that is a whoosh.

A Beautiful Mind

Oh OK.

carphobia

Carachnophobia.

A Beautiful Mind

1:57 PM

Maybe I should change my name. But I think I need to pay a fee for that to make it official.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwigнt this is why you aren't a multimillionaire football team manager

@MattЭллен no, this is why you are so terribly misinformed as to think I am not a multimillionaire football team manager.

I am QEDing left and right, what a streak.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwigнt misinformed am I? oh we'll see about that.

Watch me quod you of your erat.

See, there's Kit's oxen alright.

Matt Эллен

the first page of google hits for multi millionaire football team manager does not have your name on it. QED

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Jan '1522

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