English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2015-08-27

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1:59 AM

> The great nations have always behaved like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes. —Stanley Kubrick

2:41 AM

What does that say about the world?

user116848

2:53 AM

Yeah interesting saying.

It basically says there are two types of people in the world: bullies and the bullied.

I'm not too sure if I agree.

Sure, in the extreme case it's true.

3:15 AM

@tchrist What is this about?

@Robusto Times are changing.

We're not quite there yet, but there is some improvement.

3:31 AM

> From the terms of service of Windows 10: "We may automatically check your version of the software and download software updates or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the Services, playing counterfeit games, or using unauthorized hardware peripheral devices. You may also be required to update the software to continue using the Services."

@skillpatrol Looks like Windows 10 can also disable games on your computer, and even disable hardware that Microsoft hasn't "authorised".

techdirt.com/articles/20150820/06171332012/…

3

4:04 AM

:-O

and who said "times are changing" :P

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

2 hours later…

6:11 AM

user image

4 hours later…

10:29 AM

@Cerberus that's prostitute talk.

No gangster ever would talk like that.

10:40 AM

real gangsters don't talk the talk

they know what that will get them

user image

and what seems strange is they don't want anybody to know

11:18 AM

Guys! Robert Bringhurst says that we should not break rules of English capitalisation when faced with brand names. So I write Ipod instead of iPod. If you agree, then what should I do with MotoGP? Motogp feels a little weird. Will Moto GP do? Or any other suggestions?

Seeing how GP is an acronym, it must be capitalized.

The P in iPod is not an acronym.

So, Ipod but MotoGP.

Nothing really unusual here.

You pronounce "iPod" as "ipod", "RaDAR" as "radar", SCUBA as "scuba", and "AIDS" as "aids". And so you can write "Ipod", "Radar", "Scuba" and "Aids".
But you do not pronounce "MotoGP" as "motogp". And so you cannot write "Motogp".

That's where your "feels a little weird" comes from. Because it in point of fact would be totally weird.

11:34 AM

Thanks A LOT for that explanation, @RegDwigнt

But as an acronym, shouldn't there be a space before GP?

Well I guess it works either way, but without a whitespace it's actually more logical. The "moto" is not a word in its own right, it is part of the acronym, except that it happens not to be one letter. Again, look at RaDAR. It would be weird to write it "ra dar".

Thanks again, dude. That saves me! :)

No probs.

@Cerberus Spoken like a true meliorist.

1 hour ago, by RegDwigнt

@Cerberus that's prostitute talk.

That was my take on it.

11:50 AM

Also, Dylan release "The Times They Are A-Changing" over 50 years ago, and so far there seems to be no progress made on that front.

Hi

hi

How are you guys doing

Funny enter doesnt work on mobile

@Robusto you must have missed all the progress he's made in trying real hard to pretend he can sing.

tape.tv/bob-dylan/videos/full-moon-and-empty-arms-pseudo-video

have to click the send button everytime i want to post

11:52 AM

Well. My mobile does not have an enter button.

@RegDwigнt Give him time. In another 50 years he could show signs of improvement.

Are you using the Nokia Communicator?

user image

No, I am using the Communist iPhone.

Is that the new Microsoft phone?

It would actually be totally awesome if Microsoft made that their next phone.

I would totally come out and say, holy shit, MS are frigging cool bastards.

Thing is, they are not into that whole "frigging cool bastard" thing. Alas.

11:54 AM

Yeah, MS is known for crappy products anyway. They should probably buy Thuraya and turn it into a smartphone.

Never heard of Thuraya.

Free solid advice of the day: do not buy shit people have never heard of.

Especially if you have to turn it into something useful first.

user image

Holy shit, those phones are really hughes.

The cool thing about these phones is that they work everywhere.

I am seeing exactly zero of those phones work in my office. Slackers.

11:56 AM

But you have to be a millionaire to pay the bills.

did you always have a black avatar @Noah?

That's racist.

No, I used to have a chocolate avatar.

ok ok nonwhite :P

Nonwhite chocolate is racist. Only white chocolate is nonracist.

11:58 AM

everybody likes white chocolate

That's what makes him nonracist.

How could you be racist if everyone loved you?

racists love racists, don't they?

Raisins love racines, that's about all I can tell with any level of confidence.

well, my avatar is dark chocolate.

you have to be a super mist to love a racist.

is there a desktop app for this chat?

not that I know of

12:04 PM

Yes. It's called "a browser".

^

You can even check recipes and watch videos in it!

Have you decided to tackle that sealing job yet?

@RegDwigнt Which browser?

"A browser" is a category

By the way I recently installed El Capitan

Seems nice, but not revolutionary.

Has anyone else tried it

Or are ppl in this room not men enough to try new things?

@Noah a browser.

@Noah "Noah" is a category, too. And yet I have no problem finding a Noah to talk to.

12:16 PM

Umm. @RegDwigнt

Yeah, but a browser is too general

you could have said Safari, FireFox, Edge;)

@Noah El Capitán Obvio?

@Noah but that would have been wrong.

Why do you tell me to say wrong things?

I said exactly what I wanted to say. Y U NO understand exactly what I said.

It would be right and more specific.

lol

No, it would be wrong because of being more specific.

This enter thing is killing me.

Safari is not the app for browsing this chat. It is only one out of a million possible apps. All covered by the words "a browser".

12:20 PM

Dude, you gotta be specific otherwise you could never find the thing you want. you cannot live in generality forever.

I have no idea what Noah is smoking today.

But that stuff is way too strong for him.

He should switch to smoking Teletubbies.

Cuban cigars.

Which Cuban cigars? "Cuban cigars" is a category.

You must be right and more specific. You cannot live in generality forever.

Not it's not.

Okay, it is.

I accept defeat.

What kind of defeat do you accept? Be specific. Is it crushing? Horrible? Painful?

12:22 PM

Barely noticeable.

lol

See. Now I don't have to live in fear of lack of knowledge. Thank you. Was that so hard?

No. It was not. But accepting it was.

That's what she said about VISA.

what's visa

12:24 PM

I honestly do not know.

I've been trying to find that out for decades.

Nobody could tell.

is it a visa or VISA?

I think it's visa-vis.

Or Windows Vista for short.

I think it is vs.

it's a credit card, the commercial says "it is accepted everywhere "

@Noah TL;DR.

Write "v.", then I might read it.

12:26 PM

Not for long. Apple Pay is taking over.

@skillpatrol yeah lol roflmao etc

How the hell do people get away with that kind of egregious lies?

It's not even false advertising. It's just false.

according to Facebook lol is obsolete.

According to Myspace Facebook is obsolete.

Does MySpace still exist?

According to my late grandmother neither lol nor Facebook ever existed.

12:28 PM

hahaha

According to Facebook Myspace is obsolete

But why would you believe Facebook?

Myspace, on the other hand, is an institution that's been around for so long, it's basically Encyclopaedia Britannica.

gotta run

See above.

cya

12:29 PM

later pal

1:27 PM

@Robusto If that's the case then which countries are the shoemakers?

"Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers
Pickpocket peddlers, even panhandlers"

@Mitch Ask Stanley. Or go barefoot. I don't care which.

scramblers?

@skillpatrol I agree with everything in that statement except 'everybody', where the nuance I would add is to change that to 'Only crazy people or people with burned off taste buds'

White chocolate is not chocolate, and the people who like it are not people.

@Robusto Kubrick? Pfft. What's he done? Made a couple of movies?

1:31 PM

@Robusto what are we?

@skillpatrol it fits the meter and internal assonant rhyme scheme.

good choice

@skillpatrol Aliens in human form. Experiments have been done that show they are anatomically and physiologically identical to earth born humans. But they are not of this wold.

@skillpatrol Not my job to figure that out.

@skillpatrol I know. I'm no scrambler.

By wold I mean Totleigh-in-the-Wold

1:36 PM

gangsta talk?

or

Cali rap

> You'll admire all the number-book takers
Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money-makers

3 hours ago, by skill patrol

user image

No one thinks of the thugs.

But scramblers... I'll have onions, roast peppers, and feta with mine.

yummy

:D

2:09 PM

Are people trying too hard to find a translation of Geländekante?

3

Q: Expression for an abrupt change in height

Is there an expression for an abrupt change in height? I’m looking for a word for the edge of the change, like in the German word Geländekante.

meaning-in-context vocabulary geography

2:53 PM

@tchrist The OP was misdirecting. They seem to be asking for the translation (and I can't find one for that full word)

3:38 PM

Yo Yo

4:07 PM

@Mitch Just ask @RegDwigнt. I’m certain he’d have the answer on the tip of his tongue. Maybe @Robusto too.

@tchrist you seem to churning out words like a thesaurus :)

I like to hope not.

2 hours later…

6:19 PM

@RegDwigнt Are you accusing a prostitute of being me?? How rude for her.

6:31 PM

/giphy rude

funny that giphy doesn't work on this site

I thought it was a universal standard:)

user image

The new Greek PM.

I like her already. Too bad she is only temporary.

@Cerberus Seems to be the way of the world. When the men fuck something up beyond repair, send in a woman.

6:50 PM

@Robusto I suppose! But, since your next leader will probably be female, do you think that will help?

We have never been led by a woman truly, except by queens.

@Cerberus Like her as?

@Cerberus I don't know. It's not necessarily the case that our next leader will be femaie, btw. Hilary is by no means a sure thing.

@Noah ?

@Robusto But she is the most likely candidate, isn't she?

You said you like her already. You like her in what sense?

Oh.

I like her picture.

6:54 PM

I don't have any problems with women being in charge, so long as they are the right women. I really can't stand Hillary, but I would go out and campaign for Elizabeth Warren.

But do you like Hillary less than Obama, the Shrubbery, or Trump?

What about Trump. Trump is a real character

He is the worst thing that could happen to the Republican party, isn't he?

@Cerberus Less than Obama. She is my least favorite Dem candidate. I would prefer Biden, even.

Hmm why do you dislike her so?

6:55 PM

Right now, of the candidates fielded, I like Bernie Sanders best. He's the only one who's really liberal enough for me.

No, George Bush was the worst thing that happened to GOP

Trump is just funny. I don't think he stands the chance to make it to the primary

@Cerberus Because she is so ungenuine. Everything she does is focus-grouped and scripted. Oscar Wilde said the secret of life is to "never have an emotion that is unbecoming." I think she lives by that, in a way.

@Noah That's what people said about Hitler.

Well, I think she is a bit crazy.

@Noah Depends on how you look at it: the Shrubbery won the elections. With Trump, they probably can't win.

@Robusto Hmm more so than Obama?

@Cerberus Definitely.

7:01 PM

That's bad.

I hear Hillary is just as big a fan of TTIP as Obama is.

Trump

Haha.

Too bad that wasn't an interview.

oh yes

7:33 PM

If Trump finds out about this room, he will join and start talking about immigrants. On top of that, he will also trump everyone here who talked about him negatively

@Cerberus GOP is dead in general. I believe the whole system in the US is dead. There's no real elections. Its more or less one group lobbying against another.

7:48 PM

Does Britain have anyone like Trump?

We discussed this the other day, but nobody knew. Some mentioned Tony Blair, but I think that guy is crazy in a different way.

8:15 PM

@Noah Depends on what you mean by "dead".

@Noah Not really. Rich businessmen aren't as popular. And they have no presidential elections: a single person is never so very important there. Lastly, their districts are much smallers, which results in more parties and less of a deadlock, as in a system with two parties.

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