Language Overflow

12:32 AM

0

A: Usage of the term "White Elephant" to mean something useless

It's entirely possible that the ownership were unaware of the connotations of the term "white elephant" in English—in other words, they may have been oblivious to the fact that they were, if not exactly shooting themselves in the foot, providing their would-be clientele with a reason to avoid the...

Hmm... not sure since when the sense of white elephant in English jumped from "troublesome" to "useless".

tchrist

That isn't my shock-source.

Damkerng T.

It's a Japanese chess piece, I think.

tchrist

I know those aren't the same, but I always think of Shogi's promoted bishop, the dragon king.

Hm, maybe the promoted rook is the dragon. I forget now.

Oh, Wikipedia has funny names.

Damkerng T.

I can't remember much of the Japanese chess. I think most pieces have only short moves.

Oh, and the horses can't jump over other pieces, even!

> oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/white-elephant

> From the story that the kings of Siam gave such animals as a gift to courtiers they disliked, in order to ruin the recipient by the great expense incurred in maintaining the animal.

tchrist

Well, yes and no. You have but a single rook and single bishop to start with. But if you your opponents' you can have two each. Being able to drop a captured piece anywhere is awesome teleportation.

Damkerng T.

12:38 AM

I can't recall such a story!

tchrist

Perhaps you don’t spend much time listening to the Kings of Siam? :)

Damkerng T.

@tchrist The captured pieces make things complicated.

@tchrist I doubt the story very much. :-)

tchrist

@DamkerngT. Yes: it has incalculably more game-states than western chess.

Damkerng T.

Probably another myth.

I can relate to the sense of "troublesome", though. But "useless", hmm... a bit hard to chew for me.

Oh, this is interesting!

civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/…

tchrist

Ok, not incalculably many. Chess has 10**123 possible game-trees compared to to Shogi's 10**226. But let’s not call that twice as many. :)

Damkerng T.

12:43 AM

I guess it's 10^123 vs. 10^226. Ahh

Unfathomably many, perhaps. :-)

tchrist

Aye.

Damkerng T.

Anything above 10^9 is really hard to grasp mentally.

tchrist

You know, Hannibal tried the elephant-thing.

Damkerng T.

Hannibal who?

tchrist

Barca.

Hannibal

Hannibal (247 – between 183 and 181 BC), fully Hannibal Barca, was a Punic military commander from Carthage, generally considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. His father Hamilcar Barca was the leading Carthaginian commander during the First Punic War. His younger brothers were Mago and Hasdrubal, and he was brother-in-law to Hasdrubal the Fair. Hannibal lived during a period of great tension in the Mediterranean, when the Roman Republic established its supremacy over other great powers such as Carthage and the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedon, Syracuse, and the Seleucid Empire...

Damkerng T.

12:46 AM

Had they found India already back then?

tchrist

African elephants.

Damkerng T.

A-ha! Right!

tchrist

But this was during the Republic, a couple centuries after Alexander went to India and never returned.

Damkerng T.

I wonder how they used elephants in their battles. Probably different from the way we used them in battles over here.

tchrist

Almost none survived the Alps.

Damkerng T.

12:49 AM

The Alps must have been too cold for them.

tchrist

I imagine.

Should have brought mammoths.

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

tchrist

> Although the aging Hannibal was suffering from mental exhaustion and deteriorating health after years of campaigning in Italy, the Carthaginians still had the advantage in numbers and were boosted by the presence of 80 war elephants.

Anonymous

@tchrist Ooh, I haven't played Shōgi, but I love calligraphy :-)

Damkerng T.

In the battles over here, there must be a soldier assigned to guard each leg of an elephant. One leg, one soldier. Their legs are their weak spots.

@snailboat I was wondering about those two letters!

Anonymous

12:53 AM

@DamkerngT. 龍馬

tchrist

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, thanks! So it's a horse!

tchrist

Sorry, I should have posted the kanji.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist It's all right. Wait? Does it mean elephant?

Anonymous

龍 = 竜, by the way.

Damkerng T.

12:54 AM

A-ha!

tchrist

龍馬 is the promoted bishop, whereas the promoted is a 龍王.

A knight is 桂馬.

My but this font is teeny-tiny.

Damkerng T.

Now it makes sense. I was wondering why you mentioned the promoted dragon, but it sounded like you were enjoying talking about it. :-)

tchrist

Because the bishop promotes to a dragon horse, the rook to a dragon king. I had those swapped.

It’s a fun game.

Damkerng T.

I played it, just experimentally, with a friend a couple times.

But neither of us really knew the game.

Chinese chess is easier to understand.

tchrist

Knights do jump over pieces.

Damkerng T.

1:00 AM

Hey, Chinese chess has elephants, too, IIRC.

tchrist

There were immense Chinese chess games, once upon a time.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist Oh, they can? I think the rule we read said they can't, but then again, we didn't really know.

tchrist

Yes, they can. But they cannot move backwards.

> Elephants are labeled 象 xiàng ("elephant") for Black and 相 xiàng ("minister") for Red. They are located next to the advisors. These pieces move and capture exactly two points diagonally and may not jump over intervening pieces; the move is described as being like the character 田 Tián ("field"). If an elephant cannot move due to a diagonally adjacent piece, it is known as "blocking the elephant's eye" (塞象眼).[dubious – discuss]

That's the Chinese game.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist A-ha! I can remember that now! I think that's exactly why I felt uncomfortable with Japanese chess.

tchrist

Xiangqi

Xiangqi (Chinese: 象棋, p Xiàngqí, j zeong6 kei2), also called Chinese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in China, and is in the same family as Western (or international) chess, chaturanga, shogi, Indian chess and janggi. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities. Xiangqi (cờ tướng) is also a popular pastime in Vietnam. The game represents a battle between two armies, with the object of capturing the enemy's general (king). Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon (pao), which must jump to capture; a rule...

I’ve not played it.

Kurzd

1:02 AM

@IͶΔ Someone else knows about Clayden's o_o

tchrist

And it's Chinese chess where the knight has movement restrictions.

Damkerng T.

I might've mixed them up. It was a very long time ago.

I'm rusty even in Thai chess now.

Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ

2:18 AM

So this is what it was like to take a course with Gauss

Jim Reynolds

2:33 AM

whatwouldjackdo.net/2014/10/…

^Ancient grammar police

Kurzd

It reminds me to that Roman vandalism clip in Life of Brian. Is there any special meaning in "finish a sentence with a bird"?

Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ

Perhaps, it's like a "preposition."

CowperKettle

4:22 AM

I wonder if this is an okay sentence

> By the same token, we must be careful not to employ too many maintenance workers, seeing that the machinery may never break down, and we would only incur higher labor costs in the interim.

Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ

4:43 AM

Sounds okay to me.

CowperKettle

6:01 AM

@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ Thank you! This use of "seeing" seemed strange to me.

Student

@CowperKettle considering would be more appropriate?

Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ

6:18 AM

I believe they used the word "seeing" because of the context of trying to "see into the future" how the machinery may never break down,... @CowperKettle

IͶΔ

7:31 AM

@Kurzd Are you kidding me? That book's like, world-famous.

IͶΔ

8:06 AM

Damkerng T.

8:23 AM

0

A: Looking for English proverb equal to "Chalti ka naam gaadi hai" = "a thing which runs is called a vehicle"

Nothing succeeds like success.

That's why I think it's hard to translate idioms and proverbs!

(I could be wrong, but I think the OP just posted an answer to their own question.)

IͶΔ

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Does this sound wrong?

> "How can I help you?"
"I'd like drinking tea."

IͶΔ

Yes.

Damkerng T.

How about, "I'd like having some tea."?

IͶΔ

Still wrong-ish

Damkerng T.

8:34 AM

Isn't it strange that like licenses VERB-ing, but it sounds really wrong when used that way?

IͶΔ

Not really. The "'d" makes me say this.

Modality is complicated

Or maybe it is strange.

Gosh

How do we measure strangicity again?

Damkerng T.

nods -- The thought just hit me when I read a page saying that like accepts both to-infinitives and verb-ing without any change in meaning.

IͶΔ

I usually don't know how to respond to "isn't it strange/surprising?"

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ I think you answered it just fine. :D

V.V.

9:20 AM

Damkerng, MAR, good afternoon!

IͶΔ

\o

IͶΔ

10:02 AM

Notable:

in The Periodic Table, 43 secs ago, by IͶΔ

Always go by MAR's razor.

in The Periodic Table, 32 secs ago, by IͶΔ

> Every stupid thing MAR does and says is either a subtle joke or something smarter than you think.

IͶΔ

10:13 AM

These yo dawg memes are at times funny.

Also, responsible for the deterioration of English since 1888

Damkerng T.

10:59 AM

Relating to...

1

Q: Should an infinitive be treated as a subject or object?

Should an infinitive be treated as a subject or object? For example, in 'I want to know it', is the 'to know' subjective or objective?

I found this page: learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verbs/…

It's nice that the page explains infinitives substantially and at the same time avoids mentioning any grammatical terms entirely!

IͶΔ

11:28 AM

Recursion is hard and fun to understand. I like it.

Also worth grammatical analysis. Maybe

(ﾉ＾◡＾)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

Damkerng T.

11:56 AM

@IͶΔ You must like Lisp. :-)

Shadow Wizard

12:07 PM

@IͶΔ yo dawg overflow!

IͶΔ

1:31 PM

@ShadowWizard So I could overflow while I overflow? You're a legend man

Shadow Wizard

1:56 PM

@IͶΔ oh, thanks! blushing

Anonymous

2:16 PM

@DamkerngT. Treating infinitival clauses as objects is a traditional approach.

Damkerng T.

2:29 PM

nods -- It's easy to think of to know in He wants to know as a noun-like object.

But To know is what he wants probably sounds foreign.

IͶΔ

German?

Damkerng T.

I don't know. I'm not really sure.

Araucaria

2:44 PM

@snailboat I've been thinking about your comments about attributive nouns in EL&U ...

Anonymous

Did I manage to say anything useful? :-)

Araucaria

@snailboat Yes, of course! It was fun to watch :-) but I was wondering if accounts and events were really plural in those examples?

Anonymous

Can you remind me what the examples were?

Araucaria

@snailboat just hunting, give me a sec :)

Anonymous

I'm typing this from my phone, so it's a bit of a challenge for me to go back and look.

Araucaria

2:57 PM

@snailboat Can't find it! Never mind. If I track it down, I'll come back and ping you! :)

I may have attributed part of another discussion I was having in 3D life on to your EL&U chat!

Damkerng T.

3:44 PM

1

Q: Starting a sentence with "as" intended as a synonym for "Because", "Due to..."

I've noticed that my group-members (Dutch) start a lot of their written sentences with "As" when they are giving an explanation or a reason. Example: As the library exists for several years now, it should be obvious that a lot has changed. Is this usage of "As" here correct? To me it seems...

sentence-construction as

Ah, that reminds me of a chart I recently ran into!

Let's see...

> books.google.com/books?id=45rwMCG1an0C&pg=PA749

CowperKettle

4:16 PM

I liked that Taipei photo too, @JimReynolds (0:

Good evening, y'all.

Good evening Dam, @snailboat!

Anonymous

Good morning! :-)

CowperKettle

Nice morning! Damp, but at least the temp is above zero!

IͶΔ

Morning @Cowp @Snail @Dam (UGT)

Bug of the day:

-15

Q: META logo's last letter got its right leg blunted

The most bottom-right part of "A" in the META logo became blunted. While the left leg has a sharp end.

bug design meta logo

CowperKettle

Today's Yekaterinburg, a collection of photos. A mud bath, in one word

Damkerng T.

Morning! (UGT)

IͶΔ

4:21 PM

Another bug of the day:

14

Q: Meta Stack Exchange's logo shows up as "3D"

This just started happening on non-meta sites: Meta Stack Exchange's logo in the "Featured on Meta" section seems to have been replaced with some site's logo. Mousing over the icon does produce "Meta Stack Exchange" as normal, and the link works. It even happens in the reputation and inbox dr...

bug design logo

Damkerng T.

Aww... That's how the snow looks like on the road when/after melting!

CowperKettle

> Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me follow, down to the hollow
And there let me wallow in glorious mud

IͶΔ

3D eruption on meta.SE

Damkerng T.

Argh! It's happening on my computer, too!

IͶΔ

It's happening everyday. SE's cloning all of us.

It's time to

Jul 31 '15 at 4:20, by snailboat

panic, panic, panics, panicking, panicked, panicked?

Damkerng T.

4:39 PM

Ugh! Now the main site is down!

Anonymous

Ah, it's oopsing at me too :-(

Anonymous

Well, Japanese.SE is.

IͶΔ

Funny how everything's up for me.

Jim Reynolds

4:58 PM

@IͶΔ Just don't be recursing on recusion recursively

dawg

IͶΔ

nooooooooooooooo.com

heh

@JimReynolds Yo dawg, I heard yo like recursing on my recursing. So I put a recursion on yo recursion so yo recursion while yo recursion.

Jim Reynolds

@Dam is getting in on the act, too:

6 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

It's nice that the page explains infinitives substantially and at the same time avoids mentioning any grammatical terms entirely!

I believe what he's discussing is a discussion about grammar that doesn't discuss any extra discussions about grammar.

Damkerng T.

Oh, dawg!

Jim Reynolds

@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ I think seeing simply means given that we know or understand

Damkerng T.

Cats like dawgs like cats like ... dawgs like cats like dawgs.

Jim Reynolds

5:08 PM

Not implying anything about the future.

O.O

The robot is on tilt.

Damkerng T.

Because dawgs!

Jim Reynolds

lol

seeing
conjunction
1.
because; since.
"seeing that I'm awake, I might as well come with you"

Damkerng T.

Ah, the problem on the site was fixed!

Jim Reynolds

@CowperKettle What Taipei photo, Cowp?

Was it fixed remotely, or was the problem with the site fixed on site?

On-site? Onsite? Hmm..

I sleep. Nite-nite!

IͶΔ

Night dawg

Damkerng T.

5:11 PM

Nighty night!

IͶΔ

I put a bed in yo bed so you sleep while you sleep.

CowperKettle

5:47 PM

@JimReynolds On Facebook. The sun peeking from between two rows of tall city buildings.

I sent you a friends request, so Facebook sneaks your faves in my newsfeed.

CowperKettle

7:06 PM

> In the tests, native English speakers made the "not face" at a frequency of 4.33 Hz, Spanish at 5.23 Hz, and Mandarin speakers at 7.49 Hz. Speakers of ASL made the face at a frequency of 5.48 Hz. All frequencies were within the 3-8 Hz range of spoken communication, which strongly suggests that the facial expression is an actual grammatical marker, Martinez said.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160328084915.htm

Damkerng T.

Huh? 4.33 Hz!

That's more than four times a second!

IͶΔ

!

CowperKettle

"Huh?" I can imagine you making a not face now.

Damkerng T.

Yes, but mine was definitely lower than 1 Hz!

I was frowning, not blinking!

CowperKettle

(0:

IͶΔ

7:09 PM

I'm in the middle of an IR now, and I'm not facing 1400 times a second.

CowperKettle

Internal Reassessment?

Intimate Relationship?

Intubation Rampage?

Iranian Revolution?

I'll just drop asleep now.

Bye, all.

IͶΔ

Intermolecular Respect

Incumbent Relations

Impossible Rationality

Damkerng T.

Nighty night!

IͶΔ

Impersonation Realization

Night @Cowp

Damkerng T.

Irrealistic Realis?

IͶΔ

7:14 PM

Iffy Rifles

Inter-continental Revenge

Incremental Ruffles

Damkerng T.

Argh! Scarry!

Damkerng T.

8:15 PM

Not directly related to natural language, but I think it's somewhat related to languages in general in that what's more familiar seems to become more idiomatic by default.

I can't say for sure, but it seems like the current generation of programmers (let's consider only those who are better than average) is quite familiar with nested blocks more than my generation.

So, they favor(?) something like this:

var http = require('http');

http.get('http://www.stroustrup.com/C++.html', function (res) {
    var data = '';
    res.on('data', function (d) {
        data += d;
    }).on('end', function () {
        console.log(data.match(/"https?:\/\/.*?"/g));
    }).setEncoding('utf8');
});

Now compare that to this traditional style (this Tcl code is modified a little from the code I posted at Code Golf.SE):

package require http
set token [http::geturl stroustrup.com/C++.html]
set html [http::data $token]
puts [join [regexp -inline -all {(?:http://)?www(?:[./#\+-]\w*)+} $html] \n]

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, we repeat things we hear other people say. That's how we learn.

Damkerng T.

It's obvious that the two styles are very different.

@snailboat I wonder which code (let's focus only on the style, not syntax) is considered easier to read by the current generation.

Anonymous

Of course, we put together sentences every day that no one has ever said before, but we do so by analogy to things we've heard.

Anonymous

Well, I'm a JS programmer, so I'll leave it to other folks to answer that :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, that means the Node.JS one is easier to understand for you!

Anonymous

8:23 PM

Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be ignoring the differences in what exactly the code does.

Anonymous

I think the RE in the last line takes the most time to read out of all the things you just pasted.

Damkerng T.

I think the code posted in that question (codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/44278/…) can be divided into three groups: the nested style (like Node.JS one), the linear style (like my Tcl code), and others (let's call them "surprising" style :-).

@snailboat A-ha!

I revisited the question (because the system notified me about the election), and it struck me: is a nested construction inherently more difficult, or is it just familiarity?

BTW, it reminded me of a question posted by Araucaria. I can't remember the question, but I can remember that it asks what makes a sentence considered easy (and what makes it hard) for learners.

I speculated that nested constructions could make things more difficult in any languages. Now I'm not very sure.

Even the Clojure one follows the traditional style:

->> (slurp "http://www.stroustrup.com")
     (re-seq #"(?:http://)?www(?:[./#\+-]\w*)+"))

Anonymous

10:49 PM

Testing

Anonymous

Ah, after I updated iOS, the new chat UI started working.

Anonymous

Kind of hard to see white on teal, though.

Anonymous

Well, at least it's usable. The new onscreen keyboard on my phone is taking some getting used to…

Anonymous

I think I'll stick with the old interface for now – it's easier to read, and you can't really type Japanese with the new interface.

Anonymous

But at least I can switch to the new one if I really need to use the chat features that are missing on the old interface.

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