English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

In expressions such as "ham 'n eggs" the conjunction 'n appears to replace and, yet there is only one apostrophe to indicate the missing a and none for the missing d (e.g., "ham 'n' eggs"). Is there a punctuation rule that governs this or is it just an idiosyncratic case?

Cerberus

@MattЭллен I have friends.

Matt Эллен

Sep 23 '11 at 13:42, by Matt Эллен

I think the answer is "your face"

@Cerberus that oracle at Delphi?

Cerberus

The Fates.

And the Furies.

Matt Эллен

10:06 PM

oh

Cerberus

Delphi was closed by those damn Christian infidels.

user19161

@MattЭллен Yes what about it?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus wait, I understand the fates - but aren't the furies about revenge?

Cerberus

Yeah.

Matt Эллен

2 mins ago, by Matt Эллен

Sep 23 '11 at 13:42, by Matt Эллен

I think the answer is "your face"

Cerberus

10:07 PM

I was just name-dropping.

Matt Эллен

oh! phew

user19161

@MattЭллен Cheese and rice!

Cerberus

Yeah noöne's mad at you.

Matt Эллен

Oh good :D And I know you have a good source for that proclamation!

Cerberus

silence

Matt Эллен

10:10 PM

anyway, I should get some sleep, so I can ride my bike to work tomorrow.

good night!

Night!

what's the foto for?

Hey, Americans, do you have roofs like this? If not, then what do they look like?

Matt Эллен

10:11 PM

dark with ...

oh

bye!

Cerberus

@MattЭллен I heard some American guy say he found it remarkable that we have roofs like this in Europe.

aedia λ

@MattЭллен Night!

@Cerberus What part of it is supposed to be unfamiliar to me?

Cerberus

@aediaλ I think the tiles?

Or possibly the shape too?

aedia λ

I'm no roof connoisseur, but I've seen ones like that. I do think they're somewhat uncommon, though, in my experience.

The tiled pattern, that is.

There was a light colored one I saw when taking a walk in my area and it looked rather Spanish or tropical or something.

I remember it because it stood out to me as having a wavy pattern of tiles that I associated with warmer climates.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Then what would a typical American roof look like?

This is typical for Ducth roofs: red tiles (they were blown off when a storage building full of fireworks exploded in the centre of Enschede).

aedia λ

10:21 PM

Try google satellite view or street view for somewhere in Upstate NY, say, Rochester: maps.google.com/maps?q=rochester,+ny

I think a lot of the roofs up north are more highly sloped than down here in the DC region, so similar to the dark roof you showed. Because of the snow, of course. But boring flat tiles, or grit sandpapery things.

@Cerberus Image not found :(

Cerberus

@aediaλ Hmm I see mostly flat roofs.

And high buildings.

@aediaλ Flat tiles?

So perhaps that's it.

I don't even know what flat tiles would look like.

aedia λ

@Cerberus Whoa! I see what you were saying about the fireworks.

Cerberus

Oh, like this.

I don't think we have that.

Perhaps a few very new houses. Perhaps it is a new trend: the only house I can think of that has flat tiles was built by some media tycoon.

aedia λ

I didn't say it was pretty.

Here's another set of photos showing roofing materials, but I would say the shingle varieties are the ones I would think of as "normal" or wouldn't even notice

Pretty much anything slated or tiled would be wasted on me because I'd notice it no more than any other flat shinglelike thing

Cerberus

Ah yes, some nice houses there.

So it's probably the curved tiles that looked unfamiliar.

aedia λ

10:36 PM

I've realized I don't know what a lot of the roofs are here in DC or Baltimore because you can't see the roof from the street

Cerberus

Yeah same here.

Only outside the city do I usually notice them, where buildings are lower and there's more space.

aedia λ

Those ones up there in the animated gif, with the houses with excess gabley bits sticking out all over, are quite representative of homes in newer suburban American developments I'd say, especially ones that were being built in my childhood and into the housing, uhh, flubble

Cerberus

Haha.

I like excess gables, though less so if they're new...

Unless they're really well built.

aedia λ

More examples from a roofing company in MA - these also look unremarkable to me (the houses also look more "normal" to me; they're older)

Cerberus

In any case they look much better than what people build here these days.

Again I notice the flags.

aedia λ

10:45 PM

@Cerberus I didn't notice - I don't even see them if I'm not looking... Oh goodness. I could have told you that one house was #79 in that photo, and it has a flag practically blocking its number. Sheesh.

@Cerberus Wow those are uniform! Where is that?

Cerberus

@aediaλ Haha.

@aediaλ It is in Could Be Anywhere, i.e. some suburb.

But keep in mind that there is a cultural difference.

People don't like living in suburbs here: city centres and old neighbourhoods are the expensive parts of town.

Cheaper, new houses are built in suburbs.

Perhaps that explains why your suburbs look so much better.

Oh, and another think: suburbs are usually planned and built by some semi-government institution, so modernist architecture reigns supreme. They don't build what the inhabitants would like.

aedia λ

That's what you call a suburb?

Here the ideal suburb has only single-family homes, larger than practical, each with a garage; a proliferation of cul-de-sacs and speed bumps; and a circuitous route that takes at least ten minutes to drive around off the main road. It should not be within walking distance of anything useful. Or at least, that seems to me how it was at the peak of the explosion of cheap gigantic homes.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

0

A: Word for something sad and funny at the same time

funny and sad at the same time? A clown?

Hehehe.

I like Shakespeare, he is such a clown.

I have read some of his sonets, they are so clown.

Yep, works.

aedia λ

I would barely call a condo or apartment or townhome complex part of the suburbs in my normal speech, I think, unless it was really pretty far from the cities. I guess I do say, for example, that I lived out in the suburbs when I first moved south, because my apartment complex wasn't walking distance to anything useful and was in what would have been a new suburban neighborhood maybe in the 1950s-ish.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

11:00 PM

Yay I betweened aedia. Again. My job here is done.

aedia λ

Yo, why you not down with adjectivin the nouns?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

No u.

Cerberus

@aediaλ Yeah, well, the bad aspects of those befit our suburbs too, but they've taken out the good parts, like the spaciousness and homely gables.

aedia λ

@RegDwightѬſ道 Me? I so dope I even verb adjectives whenever I rainbow! What u talkin bout?

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 Hi!

By the way, you should know that I'm baking a bacon-cheese pancake.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

11:04 PM

@aediaλ Look. Which part of "no u" u no understand? Is it the "no"? Or perchance the "u"?

aedia λ

No... ewe?

tilts head to side, tries to sneak cheese when Cerb isn't looking

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus And now I do!

@aediaλ No tilting heads in this chat.

Cerberus

@aediaλ You accidentally grabbed the whole pancake! The cheese is attached to it.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Congrats.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Why thank you kind dog.

Cerberus

You may have a piece of my pancake when it's done.

aedia λ

11:07 PM

untilts, tries to put back pancake surreptitiously

verbs

doesn't look

@Cerberus Yay!

Huhuh, aedia said "tit", huhuh.

Cerberus

Ewww perv!

@MetaEd You just go take that synaesthesia test.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

11:07 PM

Erm. Y u call tit perv?

Cerberus

No u.

aedia λ

coughlaughcough It was a couple of tomatoes, I swear!

Cerberus

Haha.

I see.

Hmm this pancake was lacking something. I determined it was calories, so I added some syrup.

Better.

MetaEd

11:32 PM

@Cerberus I see what you did there. Also, I taste it.

Tom Medley

Word for tragic/funny: lolocaust?

waiwai933

Anyone have any opinion on whether or not this should be reopened? In its current form, it's not that bad of a question. (cc @RegDwight)

-2

Q: Origin of "a slow day"

What is the origin of the phrase a slow day? The 24-hour span of a day does not naturally class as either slow or fast, nor does one 24-hour span wheel by at a rate any greater than another. The construction therefore, though in perfectly common use, is fundamentally an artful one and, as such, ...

etymology

Cerberus

@MetaEd Haha, good.

By the way, don't yo think everyone has the sound->image synesthesia?

@waiwai933 Agreed, voted.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…