English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:08 AM

posted on March 09, 2015 by sgdi

Ok, so it’s now been two years Of limericks normal and weird It’s not gonna stop But I’ll only drop Rhymes when they get past my beard

crl

12:56 AM

I like to nest brackets
I should do some Lisp
Or get some packets
Of unhealthy crisp

Oh it should be 5 lines... with rhymes a/a/b/b/a

tchrist

I like to nest brackets
        (as if this were Lisp),
Now get me fresh packets
        (all crunchy and crisp).

Don’t try to imagine
          those limrix to scan,
They’re made by computers
         and not by some man.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist They're made by Matt.

Whether or not he's a computer is, I suppose, debatable.

crl

1:11 AM

TIL Limerick are generated :))

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Did I ever say otherwise? :)

Dactyls always send me for a reel. :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

my favourite dactyl is ptero-

tchrist

Especially the ones in ⁶⁄₈ time like those I just reeled off.

crl

@MattE.Эллен Please tell me the secret of the Limerick Machine

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@crl Every day he writes a limerick and posts it on that blog.

tchrist

1:15 AM

I’m afraid you’ll have to phrase your request as a limerick for any hope of an answer. :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That is all.

crl

@Matt + weird cyrillic
Please don't let me be cryptic
And tell me how you generate
Or smartly create
Those funny lyrics

tchrist

His answer is waiting
    until your request
be made to rhyme nicely—
    if not do your best.

He guards close his treasures
    and measures his hoard,
Dispensing them daily
    lest one become bored.

crl

1:53 AM

                             Sorry I'm an addict of Ruzzle
      That with my slowness explains why I'm late
Looks like you took some liberty in your rhymes? *chuckle*
               Also I'm thinking your penultimate
            line isn't well indented, *frustrate*

Well now I understand why it's hard to indent well

tchrist

Well, you can do it with regular text without resorting to a special font, but it requires a rather special and somewhat stealthy trick.

infinitesimal

@crl did you get my message?

tchrist

> His answer is waiting
‭     until your request
be made to rhyme nicely—
‭     if not do your best.

He guards close his treasures
‭     and measures his hoard,
Dispensing them daily
‭     lest one become bored.

crl

@infinitesimal yes

tchrist

The thing is that SE chat will eat indented lines’ leading whitespace, even nonbreaking white space. So you have to start each line with non-whitespace, and then use nonbreaking spaces so that they are not squished. Those lines above have an LRO character and 5 nonbreaking spaces. LRO is U+202D LEFT-TO-RIGHT OVERRIDE.

crl

2:05 AM

@tchrist request/best, hoard/bored but the other lines? maybe nicely/daily was intended?

But that leave us with waiting/treasures which doesn't rhyme

tchrist

@crl Oh, I see your confusion. Each four-line stanza is really just a rhyming couplet with four iambic feet in each line, offset a bit.

The indentation is meant to mislead you. :)

And treasures/measures is internal rhyme to enrichen the experience. :)

crl

Ah ok

@tchrist nice

tchrist

> His answer is waiting until your request
be made to rhyme nicely—if not do your best.

He guards close his treasures and measures his hoard,
Dispensing them daily lest one become bored.

I also strove to use present subjunctive in both couplets to give it an old-time feel.

Robusto

@tchrist Otherwise known as Seuss couplets.

tchrist

Sosumi.

The Geisel effect probably triggered treasures/measures. :)

Robusto

2:11 AM

When the Star Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts
Or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts,
They never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches
They left them out cold, in the dark of the beaches.
They kept them away. Never let them come near.
And that’s how they treated them year after year.

tchrist

Gets you on a roll, doesn’t it?

Robusto

Dactyls have that tendency, yes.

tchrist

  basal    basil    bezel    bezzle   bozal    buzzle   casal   causal
  chisel   clausal  cresol   cresyll  crizzle  crozzle  dazzle  deasil
  diesel   drazel   drizzle  easel    eusol    fizzle   foozle  frazzle
  frizzle  fusil    ghazul   gozill   Grizel   grizzle  guzzle  haysel
  hazel    hazzle   housal   housel   Kyzyl    lazul    measle  mesal
  mesel    mizzle   Mosul    mousle   musal    muzzle   mysell  nasal
  nozzle   nuzzle   pausal   phrasal  pizzle   puzzle   quisle  reesle
  rosal    rosel    sisel    Sissal   sizzle   snoozle  snozzle snuzzle

2

There should of course be a caesura between the fourth and fifth columns in each row. :)

Or a comma, if you prefer.

It’s a fun one to recite: takes your mouth for a nice ride.

And is more than a bit rough if you don’t know some of the rarer terms pronunciations. :)

crl

bretzel

Robusto

You may try as if you were an Everest climber
You´ll never defeat the most champion rhymer
Let us shout it from mountains and planets and stars
From the cockpits of airplanes, the back seats of cars,
From a train's diesel engine to its furthest caboose
That the champion rhymer remains Dr. Seuss!

tchrist

2:19 AM

@crl But the -t- in pretzel (or bretzel) breaks the "rule" I was playing by. :(

champ loin?

Robusto

Perfectionist.

tchrist

Sylvia Plath effect

The Sylvia Plath effect is the phenomenon that poets are more susceptible to mental illness than other creative writers. The term was coined in 2001 by psychologist James C. Kaufman. Although many studies (e.g., Andreasen, 1987; Jamison, 1989; Ludwig, 1995) have demonstrated that creative writers are prone to suffer from mental illness, this relationship has not been examined in depth. This early finding has been dubbed "the Sylvia Plath effect", and implications and possibilities for future research are discussed. Kaufman's work further demonstrated that female poets were more likely to suffer...

Robusto

Or maybe creative writing is a manifestation of mental illness? We can't have pearls without grit, I suppose.

tchrist

I champ bits.

I’ve seen mental health numbers for various sorts of creativists, and though I can’t pull them out of my butt just right now, I recall that being a poet was the most perilous path of all.

Oh, I think it was Study Two in the Plath article.

Robusto

All that time spent dwelling on the pain of life, no wonder.

crl

2:31 AM

Mental illness
Without aggressiveness
Shouldn't be curated
Or wrongly medicated
But just with a placebo, cultivated

tchrist

@Robusto I’m not certain that that is it. It may be that poetry requires a fluidity of mind that risks not being quite so tightly bolted together. You’re always chasing after tenuous connections, metaphors, rhymes, alternate meanings and turns of phrase.

Perhaps you start seeing too much of those in everything.

Shit, I’m starting to see blue flashes up in the upper right corner of my vision. Am I at the optometrists again?

crl

:)), Anyway I agreed with you the other time, I sent a mail to Jasper trying to express him my view too, in a different way, I hope he will have the will to change

tchrist

Good.

infinitesimal

i have my doubts that he will change

tchrist

I have a very dear, and now very "old" friend as these things are measured although she is younger than me, whom I still exchange poetry books with nearly every Christmas. Or if not poetry, some other lovely artistic thing. But usually poetry.

@infinitesimal I wish I did not agree with you, but I feel likewise.

infinitesimal

2:41 AM

perhaps medication coupled with therapy will help

tchrist

It takes finding somebody who really "gets" what's going on.

And that is only the first of steps.

infinitesimal

indeed

tchrist

But without that, that person cannot help him—or at least, not enough.

crl

If his medication are anti-psychotics, I'm afraid they are just meant to shrink/disconnect the brain

tchrist

True.

I have seen no signs of actual psychosis, but I would probably not recognize them in certain guises.

That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t pump anti-psychotics into him, though.

People become random chemistry tests for doctors, and this can tear you apart worse than you started. It can even be fatal, as I have alas witnessed indirectly.

infinitesimal

2:46 AM

Finding the right therapist is crucial.

tchrist

What hope is there of that, though?

infinitesimal

he claims that once on medication he will try

tchrist

I believe that just this once, having nothing to say, I shall do so.

This is a duplicate, but I’ll be garthed if I can find it:

0

Q: Writing a Thank You from 2 people

When writing a thank you note from a husband and wife, is it correct to write the note as... "Thank you for inviting Steve and me to your home for the birthday celebration." Or is it, "Thank you for inviting Steve and I"? This seems so simple but yet I get stumped every time :/ Kate

word-choice

crl

I feel too quite brain-raped by the 425mg of anti-psychotics I took several months ago, I wish I could know the actual damages done, brain scan?(a bit afraid of their radioactivity)

I will ask an actual doctor, that's not the place here :)

tchrist

A brain scan won't help, because you don’t have one from beforehand to compare it with.

crl

3:01 AM

unfortunately :(

infinitesimal

3:13 AM

Therapy is a much safer option.

The brain has the ability to heal itself.

Unfortunately scientists don't know enough to help.

tchrist

At least you don’t have age-related cerebral atrophy to worry about yet.

infinitesimal

How well one ages has a lot to do with one's genetics.

They say it is 60% determined by that.

Cerberus

3:36 AM

@Mitch 1. Regrettingly in this case modifies the subject and his actions only. Regrettably modifies the whole sentence and functions as a disjunct: it says something about the attitude of the speakers towards the whole sentence.

The reason is that regrettably has acquired a special meaning.

I'm not saying it would be wrong.

It would be just a little bit different.

Regrettably is more general: if something is regrettable, then everyone thinks it's bad and shouldn't happen.

However, if you do something with regret(s), you hate doing it but you feel that you must do it (otherwise you wouldn't do it). But that doesn't mean you're saying that everyone thinks it's bad.

So regrettably is objective, regrettingly, which is indeed not a word, is subjective.

tchrist

4:00 AM

0

Q: Siamese for two, which word for four?

We use Siamese for two, such as Siamese twins. Which word should be used when the number is four in such situation?

synonyms

Unclear on the concept.

infinitesimal

4:15 AM

Quadruple?

tchrist

Well, I’m not sure what they want to know.

infinitesimal

Your answer is definitely a +1

tchrist

Heh, thanks.

infinitesimal

:-)

tchrist

Perhaps they mean multiple monozygotic births.

Certainly conjoined twins are mono- not dizygotic.

But in other instances of multiple births, it need not be that way.

tchrist

5:12 AM

@infinitesimal I've made it better.

0

Q: How is "erogenous" incorrectly formed?

When I check the etymology of erogenous in OED, it is mentioned that it is incorrectly formed (along with erogenic). Etymology of erogenous from OED: formed as erogenic adj. + -ous suffix. Both words are incorrectly formed. Etymology of erogenic from OED: < Greek ἔρως sexual love + ...

etymology usage suffixes malformation

@Cerberus Would you know the answer to ^^^^^^^^^^^?

Cerberus

5:33 AM

@tchrist Well, the stem is normally erôt-, not er-.

tchrist

That makes sense.

Cerberus

5:47 AM

0

A: How is "erogenous" incorrectly formed?

The stem of the Greek noun erôs "love, desire" is normally erôt-, not er-. So it should be erotogenic or erotogenous in English. Cf. phôs, phôt- "light", as in photograph, not *phograph; erotic, not *eric. That said, there are forms in Greek that use erô- and era- as stems, like the verb eraô/er...

Do you know how I could solve the backticks that I had to resort to for the asterisks?

Ever since they changed the way markup works, I have to use code formatting for asterisks, which results in a grey background.

infinitesimal

Perhaps try making it an exponent?

Cerberus

Mm but then it would be too small and too high...

infinitesimal

b^{*}

Just an idea :-)

Cerberus

But what I can do is use an alternative Unicode point.

٭

﹡

Can you see those?

infinitesimal

Yes.

Cerberus

5:53 AM

OK cool.

But can everyone on the Internet see them?

infinitesimal

dunno

Cerberus

I'd rather be sure before inserting rare code points that some people can't render...

OK.

infinitesimal

The first one is bigger

Cerberus

For me, they're both pretty small.

The first one is an Arabic asterisk, the second one a "small asterisk".

infinitesimal

I would go with the second one then.

Cerberus

6:00 AM

Mm I will stick with the ugly formatting for now.

I can't edit older posts, or I'll mess up the asterisks.

In the old system, they worked as intended.

infinitesimal

Sure, sounds reasonable.

curiousdannii

6:45 AM

Any reason this question on word stress wouldn't be ontopic if it was migrated to ELU? christianity.stackexchange.com/q/38924/6071

infinitesimal

looks like a question for linguistics.se

curiousdannii

@infinitesimal I think it would be ontopic in both. I don't know which site would be more likely to get better answers. (But I know it's not Christianity!)

infinitesimal

my advice would be to try linguistics.se first :-)

TRiG

10:16 AM

@Cerberus I can.

Cerberus

12:25 PM

@TRiG You're all to me.

Robusto

> You can now read 78.5% of all real Spanish text

Robusto

12:44 PM

@tchrist: Regarding a construction like Yo pensaba en ti, is there any way to tell whether it would be translated as "I was thinking about you" versus "I used to think about you"? Context only, perhaps? Or does that distinction not exist?

tchrist

Yes, context only.

But not much distinction, no.

I would think about you every time you drove away.

It means that, too.

@Cerberus Just escape them.

Robusto

I suppose I just have to get used to thinking those thoughts en español.

tchrist

It’s a narrative past.

I used to think about you could be Solía pensar en ti.

Soler is to be used to doing something.

It’s an o->ue stem changer in the present.

Mi esposa suele llamarme después.

My wife usually calls me afterwards.

Robusto

Next question: I'm still having trouble determining when se should be used as the dative pronoun. Any reliable indicators?

tchrist

Yes, guaranteed indicator.

Cerberus

12:54 PM

@tchrist Ah, with a backslash, I didn't know you could do that.

Since the day I arrived here, I have wondered why SE doesn't add legenda for their markup next to the editing box.

tchrist

Le/les is the normal dative clitic, but se is used when there is also an accusative clitic AND that accusative clitic starts with L-.

Think of it as a sandhi rule.

Otherwise se is used for reflexives and impersonals.

Robusto

@tchrist Can you give me a couple of examples?

tchrist

I told her it: le se lo dije.

You throw out the le for her because of the lo coming right away.

Robusto

Why wouldn't it have been la for her in that case?

tchrist

La is accusative.

Robusto

12:58 PM

Ah.

tchrist

Datives don’t show gender, just number, and then only when they are le/les, not when they get reduced to se.

Robusto

I think I need to make a wall chart.

tchrist

You can only distinguish dative-vs-accusative in the 3rd person.

me, te, nos, os are the same for both.

Because of this, dative-doubling is common in the 3rd person for clarification.

¿Le gusta la paella a su hermana?

You actually cannot omit le there.

I need coffee.

Robusto

@tchrist Interesting.

tchrist

Remember datives are often translated as to + pronoun.

Not always, though.

You just have to learn which verbs take datives and which take accusatives.

Like interesar for "to be interested in" takes a dative.

No me interesa el pollo, pues prefiero la carne.

I’m not interested in chicken, as I prefer beef.

Since me is never ambiguous as to person, you would not double it with a mí except to provide emphasis.

Have you learned yet that emphasis is énfasis spelled with an N but said with an M?

Robusto

1:13 PM

@tchrist No, but I ain't surprised.

Meh, already hit that milestone.

tchrist

The nasal always assimilates.

Dijo Tomás muy enfáticamente.

Robusto

Only three more sections to go before I graduate.

tchrist

So you’ve finished the imperfect indicative?

Robusto

Apparently.

I don't think they called it that, though.

tchrist

The only words in Spanish with two stresses are adverbs ending in -mente, which takes its own.

Because it began as a separate word.

What did they call it if not the imperfect?

It looks like you have imperfect subjunctive next.

Robusto

1:18 PM

Maybe they haven't covered it. The abbreviations can be misleading.

Give me an example of imperfect indicative in Spanish.

tchrist

Pensaba mucho en ti.

Comía mucho cada Navidad.

Robusto

That's what they call past imperfect.

tchrist

Vivíamos en Nueva York durante aquella época.

Hm.

Robusto

36 mins ago, by Robusto

@tchrist: Regarding a construction like Yo pensaba en ti, is there any way to tell whether it would be translated as "I was thinking about you" versus "I used to think about you"? Context only, perhaps? Or does that distinction not exist?

I was studying their past imperfect when I asked that question.

tchrist

What do you they call the hablé, comí, viví tense then?

Robusto

1:21 PM

Just past tense.

tchrist

Well, that's a bit misleading, but ok.

Robusto

Yeah, I make no warranty about their terminology.

tchrist

It’s a past that is no longer with us.

They should have told you it was the preterite.

I guess that's too fancy a word for English speakers.

Robusto

Wait, it's not past tense. I'm not sure they've covered that.

tchrist

There are two pasts: the one for comí which is done with now and the one for comía which may not be.

Robusto

1:24 PM

It's kind of hard to parse things like that, because there's almost no discussion at all about grammar. This is a "monkey see, monkey say" approach to language learning.

tchrist

Dije is I did say, decía is I was saying. Kinda.

I’m leaving out compound tenses deliberately to keep things simple.

Robusto

Well, decía is covered under Past Imperfect.

tchrist

They can call it that if they please, I suppose.

But the postfix adjective is alien to English.

You’d have to oppose it with Past Completed or something.

The Spanish in regular speech refer to it as el imperfecto.

Robusto

@EdwinAshworth: "The blues" originally referred to the painful feelings one associated with misery, and then to "the blue notes" (flatted fifths, etc.) that expressed that misery in music. To "play the blues" was shorthand for "play the blue notes" that expressed "the blue feelings." — Robusto 16 mins ago

tchrist

There are also 1st-person plural imperatives, like "Let’s eat now" => "Comamos ahora." You use the subjunctive, so basically swap stem vowels.

Hablemos más tarde => Let’s talk later.

Interesting that no languages seem to have a 1st person singular imperative. :)

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche => Que coman pastel => Let them eat cake. :)

Or "May they eat cake", I suppose.

I suppose the "May I never see such a thing" case is something of 1s imperative.

Mi madre espera que yo no vea tal cosa nunca => My mother hopes that I may never see such a thing.

As discussed before, you can move adverbs around a lot.

¡Que nunca veas tal cosa, mi hijo! => May you never see such a thing, my son!

Did they do subjunctives?

Robusto

1:40 PM

@tchrist Not even English? "Go now!"

[You] go now!

Or German: Gehen *Sie jetzt!* or Gehst du jetzt!

tchrist

Véte ahora

Or Váyase ahora formally.

Using reflexive irse for leave.

@Robusto That’s second person.

Mitch

@Robusto Does that mean you'll know 100% of Spanish words?

Robusto

@tchrist Oh, duh.

@Mitch Are you familiar with limits in math, as I suspect you are? If so, you will understand that this progress cannot continue in a linear fashion.

Mitch

I'll take that as a yes. I have money riding on this.

If there are any problems, I gave them your address

tchrist

^^^^^^^ dative

Robusto

1:46 PM

@tchrist: So what would you call this: A ti te gustaría que yo tuviera un coche? They call it subjunctive past.

tchrist

Si hay algún problema, ya les dí tu dirección.

Mitch

Claro

tchrist

@Robusto Tuviera is being used as a past subjunctive there, yes.

@Mitch Rob, see where you would use a dative there that didn’t reduce to se?

I wonder if they still write dí with a written accent mark. They’ve been getting rid of some of those.

Mitch

@Cerberus Since it is not a (well accepted) word (i.e. a neologism), then it's semantics is not well-formed and really just what you just made it out to be. Which is not fair. I call shenanigans. You're playing Monopoly and hiding money under the board so we can't see how much you have. Also, you're the banker and you've been slipping extra 500'a to yourself. I'm going to sneeze and accidentally flip over the board.

tchrist

Mi madre me dijo que comiera más. => Mom told me to eat more.

You can't use an infinitive clause in Spanish if the subject changes.

Mitch

1:50 PM

Tu mama e verdad

... tambien?

tchrist

Don’t use e in front of v.

Or are you Cuban?

Anyway, she has reason, not is true.

Mitch

@tchrist spelling reform. on the other hand, my phone conveniently has these accents but my laptop does not.

tchrist

Ella tiene la verdad en ello.

She’s got the truth of it.

Mitch

@tchrist oh, duh. those Latins don't be right.

tchrist

But you wouldn’t normally say that.

Mitch

1:51 PM

what would be idiomatic?

tchrist

Ella tiene razón.

Mitch

right.

I mean, verdad.

tchrist

Vale.

Mitch

I mean "quiero decir, verdad"

tchrist

No, just digo.

One corrects oneself with digo.

Verdad, digo.

Mitch

1:54 PM

@Robusto no really, what does the app say? You're talking about reality. I'm trying to figure out what bizarre calculation they're using.

tchrist

She means is "ella quiere decir" but one corrects oneself with ..., digo.

Vale means ok, not see ya.

As a one-word response.

Mitch

It does sound a bit like 'later dude'

so to speak.

tchrist

Whereas "Sí, vale* means "Yeah, it’s worth it."

Mitch

as in price? or as in effort?

tchrist

Ambos.

O vale el precio o vale la pena, todavía vale.

See, Spanish is simple.

Huh, that one always needs inversion. I never noticed that.

You can tell I’m working off patterns long burned into my wetware, not from rules. I didn’t even notice I was doing something in a "funny" order compared with English.

Robusto

1:57 PM

@Mitch The app only tells me after I finish a lesson on the computer (as opposed to the tablet app). I started off after a few lessons at around 50%, and I'm nearly finished now, so I doubt I'll get past 80%.

tchrist

French lost ambos/ambas. It is annoying in this way.

While Catalan uses amb for con.

Um, that’s ES/IT/PT con, not FR. :)

I confess to finding your lack of acknowledgment of the great amount of time and effort that @tchrist has most certainly expended on rendering this lengthy text more readable for a modern audience — and for you in particular — disappointingly ungracious. I would have thought that some explicit token of gratitude is the very least you could offer him: not because you must, but because you feel he deserves it. (Oh well!) — Erik Kowal 5 hours ago

That was kind of him to say. The user hasn’t visited for a few days, but still, he has certainly been here since I posted that.

Robusto

2:16 PM

@TimothyJohn: punctuation has always belonged outside quotes in British English (or nigh every language, for that matter), and American English has long begun to follow suit. Get with the programme. Check out the Chicago Manual of Style, or Wikipedia, or, you know, the dedicated questions on this very site. — RegDwigнt ♦ 21 hours ago

@RegDwigнt: I would disagree with your assessment of commas outside quotes in American English. We will start putting them outside quotes once we get on the metric system. That was the deal we made.

tchrist

@Robusto Well, some publishers’ standards are different from other publishers.’

Mitch

2:28 PM

@Robusto OK. My guess: of all the possible calcs (some small dictionary has X words and duolingo has Y and you learned Y of them; duolingo has X words and you have learned Y of them to beyond Z percent accuracy, etc, etc), they just picked an arbitrary #X for the lesson so that everybody who finishes the course gets let's say 80%, and progress along the way is with respect to that. Though it is tangentially related to reality, easy to calculate, and you are making progress, so it's all good.

Also, I apologize for using "It's all good". Because it is usually used for when it, in fact, ain't.

Robusto

2:45 PM

@Mitch I suspect it doesn't mean that. What I expect it means is that, since the commonest words get used more, learning a lot of common words will enable you to read a higher percentage of the language faster than learning a lot of recondite words would.

Mitch

@Robusto Yeah... I'm being nerdy here. I just want to know exactly how they're calculating it. For readability or mastery of words, to have an accurate number, they need to take into account frequency, which they may have implicitly involved because they only teach common words.

But I want Facts! and Numbers! I want to know exactly how high that tree near to my house is before I cut it down. I want to know the probability of getting on the right train with the AI ignition device handcuffed to the beautiful woman's lapdog after the fight in the on top in the tunnel with the helicopter chasing you (yes, in the tunnel) and then you duck before the overhead sign takes out the bad guy. Claro? Your plane tickets are in your jacket pocket. Send a postcard!

SmokeDetector

3:08 PM

[ SmokeDetector ] All-caps title: PROVIDE THE ANSWER FOR THE FOLLOWING QUESTION by user113099 on english.stackexchange.com

Jeanne Pindar

3:25 PM

I like Lynn Crumbling's comment on that one.

Mitch

3:44 PM

@ABeautifulMind Did you see the latest crime rankings of big cities?

A Beautiful Mind

@Mitch No.

Mitch

argh! I can't find it! I'm looking. Short answer: Your town... er... Antarctica is #2 in safest big cities.

A Beautiful Mind

Who cares?

Mitch

No one.

sad panda

sad panda kicks Hello! Kitty in the shins

sad panda smiles a dark bitter smile inside

Hello! Kitty says "Are you OK Sad Panda?" and gives Sad Panda a hug

user116848

Hi @Mitch!

Mitch

3:58 PM

Sad Panda feels guilty now

@arrowfar Hey!

user116848

You are talking to yourself :-)

user116848

I do that too sometimes. I mean sometimes I come here and start writing.

Mitch

I'm talking to whoever will listen. Which may very well be nobody. Or the internet record.

Or the NSA. They'll read anything

user116848

Hehe!

RegDwigнt

@Robusto you must have misunderstood my assessment, then. I didn't say the logical punctuation has become standard, I merely said it has long begun to permeate AmE. And so it has.

Also, I specifically pointed out that it was not my assessment, but that of at least three different resources. Take it up with them.

And yes, I am aware you only ever read The New Yorker and nothing else.

Mitch

4:05 PM

Engineers in the US tend to use the Br punct/quoting scheme because it is ... logical. also they didn't do so well in English composition.

@RegDwigнt Pfft the New Yorker. I bet they even use the diaresis even when unnecessary.

RegDwigнt

To Rob's defense, engineers in the US sometimes tend to use metric. The horror.

Mitch

Gah!!!

RegDwigнt

The funny thing is, Rob is from precisely the one single generation that was almost forced to switch to metric, by the Commander'n Chief Himself, but then it wasn't. I wonder if he remembers. Twas in the seventies.

They actually passed a ton of laws, and started to repaint all things on highways.

And then just as hastily and unexplicably as they swang the one way, they swang back the other.

I blame Woodstock.

amazon.de/Whatever-Happened-Metric-System-America/dp/1608194752

An excellent and in-depth read.

Metric Conversion Act

The Metric Conversion Act is an Act of Congress that U.S. President Gerald Ford signed into law on December 23, 1975. It declared the Metric system "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce", but permitted the use of United States customary units in non-business activities. The Act also established the United States Metric Board with representatives from scientific, technical, and educational institutions, as well as state and local governments to plan, coordinate, and educate the American people for the Metrication of the United States. Executive Order...

These things were all the rage back then. Go find one today.

This was in every school.

And the 1976 Chevette was marketed as "America's first all-metric car".

Mitch

4:25 PM

The car fell apart because of metric.

That's not totally far from the truth.

All the mechanics had to invest in metric measured tools.

Robusto

4:48 PM

Jul 18 '14 at 19:35, by Robusto

We actually started to switch to the metric system under Jimmy Carter. Then Reagan got in and killed that whole thing.

Mitch

Killing is more fun

Johan Larsson

5:03 PM

The text does not add much, nice pic. /cc @tchrist

Vlad

5:14 PM

hello.

How do we call a function that multiplies n * n in english? was there are specific word or?

Johan Larsson

5:31 PM

I would name it Square(int x) if I made a function for it

crl

5:56 PM

in JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 43 mins ago, by Vlad

How do we call a function that multiplies n * n in english? was there are specific word or?

That's a troll..

tchrist

7:13 PM

@RegDwigнt I remember being taught this in school, but then it died.

crl

Reagan really screwed it

tchrist

The UK still uses miles and feet.

And stone, alas. :)

Mitch

7:43 PM

The US still uses 'a stone's throw' and 'fill it up'.

Mateon1

8:16 PM

Oh god, I was just browsing some Stack Exchange hot questions and I saw a quote:
> “And that,” said Dumbledore, “will, I think, have made all the difference.”
I'm confused about the "And that, will, I think, have made" part. What sort of language construct is that? Also, the sentence starts with "And" for some reason.

I'm confused because from reading just that quote I'd believe it was referring to the future because of the "will have", however the context refers to an action that just happened.

context

Also, is it valid to separate a "will have" with a "I think" using comma separation?

tchrist

There is nothing wrong with any of that line.

Mateon1

Can I have an explaination on the "will have"? What tense is that?

tchrist

It isn’t a tense.

At all.

It is a modal auxiliary used with an infinitive.

Mateon1

Well... I don't think I know what a modal auxiliary nor an infinitive is.

tchrist

One can specify the future without using modals, and one can use modals without specifying the future.

Oh well.

Mateon1

8:28 PM

Actually, this sentence has to have a tense. Is it Past Perfect or something? I'm not completely sure about the Perfect tenses.

tchrist

No, it does not have to have a tense.

Mateon1

I'm confused now...

tchrist

I see that.

This is the will that indicates inevitability, not futurity.

Mateon1

Okay. Let me try to break the sentence up a little to help a bit with understanding

I believe the "I think" is completely optional, so I'm going to leave it out

tchrist

And I don’t understand why you think there is a problem using and to start a sentence with.

You're right that the I think part can be omitted.

I think the problem is somebody taught you that will is a guaranteed marker of the future in English. That is wrong.

Mateon1

8:32 PM

We have "And that, will have made all the difference.":
"that", referring to Harry's sacrifice; has made all the difference?

So, is the sentence "Harry's sacrifice has made all the difference." equivalent here?

tchrist

No, it is not.

A closer reworking would be: That must surely have made all the difference.

Mateon1

Actually, since will refers to inevitability, how can there be inevitability when not referring to the future, or referring to it in the past?

tchrist

It means he’s sure of it.

Or that he expects that that is the reason.

Mateon1

I'm looking through dictionaries right now and I'm even more confused... I'll take a break for a few minutes.

tchrist

> 5. Desire to, wish to, have a mind to (do something); often also implying intention (cf. 7, 11, 13).
6. In relation to another’s desire or requirement, or to an obligation of some kind: Am (is, are) disposed or willing to, consent to; †in early use sometimes = deign or condescend to.
b. In 2nd person, interrog., or in a dependent clause after beg or the like, expressing a request (usually courteous; with emphasis, impatient).
7. Expressing voluntary action, or conscious intention directed to the doing of what is expressed by the principal verb (without temporal reference as in 11, and wit…

There, that’s all you need to know.

Cerberus

9:56 PM

@Mitch I have to disagree. The meaning of an adverbed participle is quite clear and predictable.

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