English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

ChrisM

17:00

I posted the issues with it here:

0

Q: Are 'What is a better way to write this?' questions allowed?

Do we allow 'What is a better way to write this?' questions on this site? If not, I feel this question is one of those. The issue with those types of questions is that there is no definite answer and there can be many equally good responses. Also, it is unlikely that it will be useful for futur...

discussion

Mahnax

@JasperLoy You're definitely human.

And congrats on almost 10k.

user19161

@ChrisM I'm glad you noticed the capitalisation.

Mahnax

I'm at ~1.5k

user19161

@Mahnax Physically, but not otherwise.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy How do you figure

?

ChrisM

17:01

@JasperLoy Isn't it frustrating? haha I couldn't edit it either as it wasn't "6 characters"

user19161

@ChrisM That's to prevent a whole bunch of edits from bumping posts off the front page too often.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Fair enough, I commented asking the poster to fix it

user19161

@Mahnax If you read the entire transcript you will learn more about me but I won't mention those things again ever.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy I learned a few things. I have to go, second block. See y'all later.

user19161

@ChrisM Er you can just get me to fix it you know.

ChrisM

17:03

@JasperLoy Please do! You're allowed to fix only one character?

user19161

@ChrisM Anyone with 2k can edit anything.

ChrisM

* covets 2K *

user19161

@ChrisM @Reg did it already. Owl always moving quietly.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Oh good. I was twitching.

@JasperLoy Is that type of question allowed though?

@JasperLoy The OP was wanting us to correct her work more or less.

user19161

@ChrisM It's up to the community to decide. That's why it takes 5 votes to close. I think this is the most accurate answer I can give.

user19161

17:07

So you see, a lot of things in this world are not about right or wrong but about rules and consequences, and imperfect men make imperfect rules.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Hmm... fair enough. What's your personal opinion on the question?

@JasperLoy Wow that is an epic quote. Who said it?

user19161

@ChrisM It's like proofreading so off-topic.

user19161

@ChrisM It came directly from my mind.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Thank you. I don't feel bad downvoting it then.

@JasperLoy Wow, then you have an epic mind haha

@JasperLoy Not to be meta, but what grammar do you think should be used around the word 'haha'?

user19161

@ChrisM What do you mean?

user19161

17:11

And I consider myself NOT an expert in English.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Well, saying "Wow, .... mind haha." looks odd.

user19161

@ChrisM I think it is fine. It is informal speech after all. One would never use it in formal writing.

user19161

@ChrisM "Haha" would be classified as an exclamation if you are asking about part of speech.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy It would, but if I was to add en exclamation mark after it it would be too loud of a laugh. Informal grammar has always confused the hell out of me haha

@JasperLoy This is perhaps my biggest and most frustrating question which has no answer regarding informal grammar.

Can I post a question about it on this site?

Or would that be taken down because it's 'informal grammar'?

user19161

@ChrisM I have a grammar book which I have not even started reading. Carter and McCarthy Cambridge Grammar of English. If you are looking for a big book that is not terribly expensive this is it.

ChrisM

17:17

@JasperLoy Ah but does it cover informal grammar? All formal grammar I can Google.

user19161

@ChrisM You can try, at most closed or downvoted.

user19161

@ChrisM No idea.

ChrisM

True, can you create an 'informal grammar' tag for me?

user19161

@ChrisM Hmm I don't know how to do that, but you can just use the existing tags, say grammar or sth like that. It's also not good to add too many tags and make things messy.

ChrisM

Ah, alright!

user19161

17:20

@ChrisM Don't worry too much about posting. It's not life and death you know!

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Sweet! Someone has asked already!

@JasperLoy that is true haha

user19161

@ChrisM Huh? Where? What?

ChrisM

29

Q: If an insertion in parentheses ends with a smiley, how do I distinguish between the two?

I know smileys are not part of written language (yet), and any questions about them are irrelevant to linguistics and are kind of not serious. So take my question with a smiley then. It bugs me every time I'm facing this situation: if an insertion in parentheses ends with a smiley, what should ...

punctuation writing parentheses

They even posted that xkcd comic hahaha

user19161

@ChrisM I see you are on a number of sites!

user19161

@JSBᾶngs Also only I am allowed to sip tea in this room. The rest must have coffee instead.

user19161

17:34

@ChrisM I saw your question on the main site haha!!!!!

ChrisM

@JasperLoy haha I am on a lot of sites, as soon as I found StackExchange I went crazy!

user19161

@ChrisM I join one only when I want to post a question or answer. Otherwise it would get very messy.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy But I have so many questions in so many areas of life haha

user19161

@ChrisM Good for you!

ChrisM

I find English is the most fun,

but I have legit questions for work and other projects I'm part of which I need legit answers for as well as a few cooking questions.

user19161

17:40

Well, we use language all the time.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy That is true, I'm a secret English junkie haha

user19161

@ChrisM You keep laughing here haha

ChrisM

@JasperLoy I love learning new words and find creative ways of saying things.

@JasperLoy Is that a problem? =P

@JasperLoy I actually do chuckle each time I type it, it's not just a filler word!

user19161

@ChrisM Then you must be a good chuckler.

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Hahaha I never really thought about it that way. It's more of me just being a happy person.

user19161

17:48

@ChrisM I see. Good for you! Are you a guy or girl by the way? The latter tend to use more smileys and exclamations.

user19161

Whoa your question has two answers already and two votes, that's pretty fast!

ChrisM

@JasperLoy I'm a guy haha, and you? It usually is true that girls use more smileys and exclamations, but I think it makes no sense not too. So much of communication is in facial expressions and body language and it can be hard to communicate with only text. I feel that exclamations and emoticons allow me to communicate more effectively.

user19161

@ChrisM Same, everything you said.

user19161

3

Q: Is domain-specific terminology off-topic?

Being intrigued by this question (What is the name of this rat) I took the trouble to google it and post the answer as a comment. But it got me to thinking. It seems to me... “Supreme court” vs. “highest court” is legal terminolgy. Relationship between professor and student is academia. ...

discussion

user19161

Interesting observation.

ChrisM

17:55

@JasperLoy It is fast! I think it's a good question.

user19161

@ChrisM Of course, it's your own after all!

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Jasper Loy isn't your real name then, I imagine.

@JasperLoy Hahaha * bows *

user19161

@ChrisM It is. It is usally a guy's name, while Chris on the other hand could stand for Christopher or Christina.

user19161

Later!

ChrisM

@JasperLoy Oh really? I've never met a male Jasper? What country is that from?

Au reviour!

JSBᾶngs

18:57

there exists a Journal of Onomastic Sciences. sounds dirty

oh, wait, i was thinking of onanistic sciences

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JSBᾶngs sounds like a good idea. Maybe we should propose it in area 51.

JSBᾶngs

@MrShinyandNew安宇 i'll let you take the lead on that one

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JSBᾶngs Gee, I'm really busy... maybe we need to get another expert on board.

JSBᾶngs

@MrShinyandNew安宇 this sounds like the sort of thing that @Kit would be into

user19161

19:13

@mrs I deleted my bacteria free answer, though I think you probably misunderstood me there.

user19161

@JSBᾶngs What is onanistic? I don't want to look it up.

JSBᾶngs

Onan

Onan () is a minor biblical person in the Book of Genesis , who was the second son of Judah. Just like his older brother, Er, Onan died prematurely by Yhwh's will for being wicked. After Onan's brother Er died, his father Judah told him to fulfill his duty as a brother-in-law to Tamar, by giving her offspring. Centuries later, in the days of Moses, this practice was formulated into a law of a Levirate marriage, where the brother of the deceased would provide offspring to the childless widow to preserve the family line. However, when Onan had sex with Tamar, he disregarded this princip...

user19161

@JSBᾶngs If you are talking about m, maybe I am the expert.

user19161

@mrs Hope you liked the present I gave you, though you don't need it. :-) Now you are on the front page.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasperLoy btw @mrs doesn't ping me on the main site

user19161

19:20

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Oh because of the period.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasperLoy I love presents! But please only vote for things that are worthy.

user19161

I am now on Mageia 1 KDE.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Ok that Onan article is a time-sink of links to other articles that I should not be reading. Every time I read about the Old Testament I feel compelled to read more, it's like watching a train crash, or a white Ford Bronco low-speed chase in California.

user19161

By the way, Mageia is very blue too, so I will like it too.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasperLoy I thought it was Debian forever!?

user19161

19:26

Guess what, the Fedora 16 CD I just burned cannot boot.

user19161

@MrShinyandNew安宇 What to say...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasperLoy You change Linux distros almost as often as I change my underwear, or my son's diaper

JSBᾶngs

19:45

Меч Тела и Духа

i like the way that sounds

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:12

Now if only it would make sense.

Wife konförmz, "впервые слышу".

In other news, browsing Wikipedia is such fun these days.

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 it's supposed to translate "the sword of body and mind"

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I know.

JSBᾶngs

of course the only words that i actually understand there are "и Духа", so i have no idea if the rest of it is reasonable

и Духа seems basically correct

RegDwight Ѭſ道

It translates just fine, it just doesn't make sense.

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 magiccards.info/query?q=!Sword+of+Body+and+Mind

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:21

Just why did I suspect it would be a CCG.

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 you've been looking at my activity on boardgames.se?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Nope.

You have activity on boardgames.se?

I didn't know you had activity on boardgames.se.

JSBᾶngs

JSBᾶngs, United States

774 1 11

magic-the-gathering strategy rules deck-building mtg-drafting puerto-rico dominion

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Nice tags.

Except for the Magic nonsense, of course.

JSBᾶngs

what, should i be spending my time on LEGO?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:26

Never claimed anything to that extent.

JSBᾶngs

i've been playing mtg for over 10 years now

RegDwight Ѭſ道

A couple friends of mine have been playing for twice as long.

I tried the latest Xbox 360 release.

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 duels of the planeswalkers? i've actually never tried that

i do mtg online

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Um. Not sure if it was called that.

But I gave it a fair try, investing several hours, then uninstalled it.

JSBᾶngs

marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Magic-2012/…

it's not for everybody, i'll admit that

meeting. l8r

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:30

CU

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwight, seen the 2012 lego kits? They have a "Jurrasic Park" theme (not called that, of course)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Huh. Must check.

I was just thinking the other day, "damn, nothing left in the current catalogue for me to buy".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm not too impressed with the sets. Everything is yellow and pre-fab.

And the dinosaurs aren't lego-y enough

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:46

Not seeing any dinos yet, but the Creator sets look as nice as ever...

A nice assortment of orange pieces.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

shop.lego.com/en-US/…

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Gah.

Not that again.

They used to have such prefab dinos like fifteen years ago.

They almost went bankrupt.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I like the ideas behind the sets, but I find the execution lacking.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

That huge windscreen is nice though.

A 12x2? Or a 14x3, even?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I am thinking of building something that follows the same pattern of the dino sets but instead uses a medieval setting and dragons.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:49

12x2.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I am still looking forward to building the windmill set.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I like this set: the 8-year-old me would have killed for it shop.lego.com/en-US/Earth-Defense-HQ-7066

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I have it :P

At a 40% discount, methinks.

Oooooh pink pieces!!!!

Where can I sell those hideous figs though?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

not the first time I've seen pink lego. But I hate those minifigs. Can't girls use normal figs?

I'm going to teach my daughter to use normal figs.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I have lots of pink LEGO.

Dark pink, light pink, lilac, transparent with glitter, you name it.

But this set has a few pieces I don't have.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The other day I let her play with the El Dorado fortress (yellow/white pirate castle I built for TLAPD), her favourite thing was to put the minifigs in the jail. "Daddy, can I have another little man? The rest were all bad, really bad, so I put them in prison"

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:56

Awwwww

Dangit, that Friends theme has a lot of strange-colored stuff...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I like that, my biggest complaint about Lego is that they over-use the primary colours. The real world is not made up of #FF0000, #00FF00, #0000FF.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Haha, and they stole a lawnmower from their Creator colleagues...

It was in the Appletree House, I think.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

that's a nice looking set

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Apple Tree House is one of very few Creator sets I actually don't have.

I'm missing like two or three bricks from that set. And those I do have I have literally tons of. Not worth it.

This year's Creator houses looked way better anyway.

And they had minifigs, at last.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah it's a bit annoying that the creator sets aren't minifig scale

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:00

They are now.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

that's a nice set but I have not much use for white and red.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah that's a good one too

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MrShinyandNew安宇 The lighthouse is awesome. It has a lightbrick that rotates.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwightѬſ道 neat

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:02

Anyway. Creator houses have been minifig scale for quite some time. It's just that they never included any minifigs.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwightѬſ道 well, that lawnmower looks pretty large for a minifig

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Ah, that.

Well it's probably the best thing you can come up with short of premolding it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Basically what I like in "Creator" is the "pure" building techniques that rely on clever use of versatile parts; what I wish is that all sets could do that. Instead, the City sets are nearly useless to me, since they are 90% glass walls and airplane body-parts.

@RegDwightѬſ道 I'm sure there's a good minifig-scale lawnmower out there.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Well, I must build it and check. I think it works.

It's probably 10% too big, if at all.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I don't buy many City sets for much the same reason.

Certainly nothing with airports, or even trains.

I do have the most recent fire dept.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

looking at it more closely, it's pretty good, I guess. a bit on the wide-side.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:12

Yeah. As I was saying, it's just a notch too big.

But hey, I'll just let Woody handle it.

Or that Harry Potter giant, what's his name again.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Hagrid

RegDwight Ѭſ道

If you say so.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the most disappointing fig in the entire HP line, I think

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Yeah, he is kind of not gianty enough. And the arms...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

and he's not poseable

and he has a regular head with a giant beard

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:15

Yeah.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

he's the HP world's equivalent of the old sebulba fig from the pod-race kit

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Hm. Which pod race kit?

I only have the current one, with transparent technic liftarms.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

See this post for a breakdown of the improvements they made

fbtb.net/2011/07/24/review-7962-anakins-and-sebulbas-podracers

yes, that thing on the left is considered a "fig'

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Haha.

Yeah, I just arrived at that image.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm not into the pod-race nor the kits, but I must say they certainly improved the minifigs a lot

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:22

Yeah, Watto looks way better, too.

Oh, and I only got the set for the transparent liftarms.

And lots of orange pieces was a nice extra.

user19161

BOO

user19161

0

Q: Two kinds of bathrooms in Russia: how to translate to English?

I work in real estate, and sometimes I have to translate respective inscriptions from my native Russian into English. I get stuck in some cases where not only linguistic, but cultural differences have an impact. I’d appreciate it if you would help me to sort out one of these issues. When describ...

translation

user19161

@reg this question is for you.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

translation is OT, right?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Yeah.

You can turn it into a single-word request, though.

Throw out everything about Russian, and just ask how you'd call a bathroom with a toilet vs. one without.

user19161

21:27

But this guy spent so long typing it that I feel bad closing.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah I just read it, it's a somewhat reasonable question I suppose.

user19161

He even knows how to type in Russian which I don't.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Translation questions often are. It's just that they must not be about translation. )))

Gah I make so many typos, what's going on.

user19161

Before now, I only thought there is one kind of bathroom. I learnt something again.

user19161

Maybe one kind is for pee and the other is for poo.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:30

@JasperLoy I have spent half my life in apartments with a separate bathroom and a toilet.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasperLoy There's all different kinds depending on what you mean by "kind'

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 apartments

RegDwight Ѭſ道

But now I gotta go AFK for a while. Will check back in commercial breaks. :P

user19161

@MrShinyandNew安宇 "kind", there're

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JasperLoy Muh.

1 min ago, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

Gah I make so many typos, what's going on.

Anyhow. Laters.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

21:31

@JasperLoy no, I intentionally say "There's all different kinds", it's not an error, it's an affectation.

Or else you can interpret "all different kinds" as one "all"

In fact, it seems that "there's all" is more popular than "there're all" books.google.com/ngrams/…

user19161

I never knew about ngrams until I came here.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 Must be comedy central again.

user19161

Linux Mint 12 will have its own shell on top of gnome, so it would be a good alternative to unity shell and gnome shell. It is supposed to look like the old gnome panel.

user19161

21:47

Perhaps I should start trying the BSDs and Solaris instead of Linux.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasperLoy why bother. They have no killer apps in user-space and their kernels support way less hardware than Linux does. Unless you have some specific need, you're going to end up spending time making it work like Linux.

So this new Benetton ad campaign is making me laugh. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062423/…

I am especially amused at how upset people are getting and how uncomfortable it makes them feel.

Kitḫ

@JSBᾶngs Although I can understand why you might think I would have some expertise in that area, I never spill my seed upon the ground. Only other people's.

user19161

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I thought they were real.

user19161

@Kitḫ person_in_room=myself

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

time to go! bye folks

user19161

23:27

@shog Do I look even more creepy now?

Shog9

@JasperLoy hard to beat mariah.

user19161

@Shog9 I thought the purple would make things worse!

user19161

I will now try opensuse 12.1 gnome.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy I'm pretty sure that Jbeebs tops Mariah for creepiness

.

user19161

@Mahnax Hi! I was about to ask you too!

Mahnax

23:32

@JasperLoy Hello! I only have a few minutes here, then I have to leave for work. Apparently I have good timing!

user19161

@Mahnax KFC?

Mahnax

@JasperLoy It's also a Taco Bell, I can't remember which side I'm on tonight though.

user19161

@Mahnax Ah OK. Enjoy yourself! Maybe you will meet your Mariah tonight!

Mahnax

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean... Haha.

user19161

@Mahnax Well I mean some nice girl, hehe.

Mahnax

23:36

@JasperLoy That would have been my first guess.

I also didn't realize that once I hit 2k I don't need permission for edits; do you still get +2 rep each for them?

user19161

@Mahnax I can't think of the second though. I'm going soon too.

user19161

@Mahnax NO

Mahnax

@JasperLoy :(

@JasperLoy But it's pretty obvious that it should be that way.

user19161

@Mahnax It's OK. Real life's more important than SE rep.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy My "real-life rep" is the amount of brownie points I can accumulate with my manager.

user19161

23:38

@Mahnax Er brownie points meaning?

Mahnax

Teehee.

@JasperLoy Basically, a measure of how much one can suck up to a person in a position of power...

user19161

@Mahnax I thought you get a brownie after every 100 points. OK bye!

Mahnax

@JasperLoy I wish... Bye. I must go now as well.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…