English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:40 AM

The connotation is just all over our poor cousins.

tchrist

12:50 AM

Reposting just because the side-by-side translation is just so excellent.

Mitch

3:36 AM

@Cerberus Well, I don't think you would really wear a navy top with a black bottom, that would be crazy.

@Cerberus Cargo Cult Humanities

Cerberus

4:44 AM

@Mitch Haha, that is a nice metaphor.

Indeed, the action of debunking a myth can become a myth unto itself.

SmokeDetector

9:05 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Which of “I’d rather it be/were you” is/are correct? by Gtdsghgfg on english.SE

englishstudent

11:12 AM

@tonepoet In this sentence:

> That's not a person who's coldly pursuing his own goals, which is what you seem to imply. That's a character that's driven to extreme lengths by trying to do the best by others.

Shouldn't it be "for others"?

I read it here.

"by" here doesn't make sense to me. hm.

SmokeDetector

11:53 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive title detected: CUNT U CUNT U CUNT CUNT by CUNT on english.SE

Færd

12:27 PM

> And even though many believe that flowers should be kept
in expert hands
only, or left to specialists in the field such as florists,
the law of the land
dictates that God, guts and gardening made the country
what it is today
and for as long as the flower industry can see to it
things are staying that way.
What they reckon is this: deny a person the right to carry
flowers of his own
and he's liable to wind up on the business end of a flower
someone else has grown.

From Killing Time by Simon Armitage.

Read an excerpt here (the third poem).

Tonepoet

1:02 PM

@englishstudent I have rarely seen the phrase "Do good by others others" and "do your best by others" which I would suppose are used for connotations of fairness, rather than direct benefice. I do not recollect seeing "do the best by others" before now though. The earliest online usage for either phrase I can find online off hand seems to be from 1997, so it's probably a relatively recent construction, albeit probably originating independent of those sources since they are independent usages.

Come to think of it they're probably variations of "do right by others" which is the phrase I would actually recommend using, if any.

Well, Oxford's more restricted and direct definition is actually probably better than Farlex's.

I suppose the reason the preposition By is being used in the do right by phraseology is because it's a less direct preposition than For.

englishstudent

1:38 PM

@Tonepoet Thanks for the explanation and the alternative phrase. Much appreciated.

Mitch

@Cerberus That was not what I was going for at all, but it reminds me of debunking 'debunking myths'. There are lots of myths out there that need to be debunked, but a portion of those debunkings are mythical themselves, and probabilistically it keeps going but rarer and rarer.

Tonepoet

@englishstudent You're welcome to it.

Mitch

538 has a recent article. It's more about sciency things (except diet things have a tendency to be mythical (mega vitamins are a load of crap) once past basic science (minute values of vitamins prevent scurvy, kwashiorkor, pellegra, rickets, etc))

What I was getting at with cargo cult humanities was more as an analogy to Feynman's cargo cult science, bad science done in imitation of other science expecting to get actual knowledge out of it.

but really, pretty much everything we do is cargo cultish. I don't think it's all bad. and in fact mostly a reasonable learning method, to learn by imitating.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:20 PM

The cargo cults were able to build working airports

Tonepoet

3:42 PM

@Mitch Dr. Mario is not amused and he should know; he's a certified plumber!

Well, I mean, he's certified by the Nintendo Seal of Quality anyway. >_>

@Mitch Otherwise I have heard of the Popeye myth before, but Popeye doesn't eat Spinach for its iron content. He eats spinach for Vitamin A.

Færd

Do food products become expired? I mean, after their expiration date, can you call them expired?

MetaEd

@Færd Sure.

Tonepoet

People do call such foods expired. Expired milk is a very common phrase, or co-locate if you'd rather.

Færd

Ah, thanks. Dictionaries don't list that meaning for expire(d). Made me wonder.

Tonepoet

MetaEd

3:56 PM

@Færd oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/…

Færd

> (of a document, an agreement, etc.) ...

Tonepoet

@MetaEd That definition specifies documents.

MetaEd

etc.

Færd

@Tonepoet Cool.

MetaEd

Basically of anything that can expire.

If both a contract and a milk can have a date on which they expire, then both can be expired.

Færd

3:58 PM

Sure.

But under expire you have that of documents etc thing. It's misleading, to say the least.

If it's supposed to include food products too.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But by putting an expiry date on it, you are classifying the thing as something which can be expired... even if it's not one of the original things that first had expiry dates.

Tonepoet

@Færd Whether it's supposed to or not is a slightly different matter. Expired is being used in the sense that an estimated period of usefulness has come to an end, but that is not the milk itself, and the milk has not ceased to be. I wonder if it's ellipsis of some other phrase. Spoilt is a more applicable word in my opinion.

Færd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 True. That's what made me wonder.

BTW, you call it expiry date in Canada, right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Færd well, we use that phrase, but most products have a "best before" date, because that's more correct.

expired milk isn't necessarily spoiled milk.

Some foods have a "sell by" date, which is different.

Færd

They're self-explanatory, I guess.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:06 PM

Sure. But what's not clear is how much you can trust the expiry dates.

Færd

@Tonepoet If you mean to say spoilt, then yes.

Because spoilt ≠ expired.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet The period of usefulness applies to the milk. The milk itself is deemed to (probably) be no longer useful.

Tonepoet

That's true in a strict sense, although the expiry date is an estimate of when the milk will be spoilt.

Færd

True.

Or is it?

It says when it's safe to drink it, rather.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Some expiry dates, like "best before" dates, only tell you that the product is at peak usefulness before that date and make no claims about what happens after. Maybe it won't taste as good, maybe it will spoil, maybe it will become unsafe.

Tonepoet

4:12 PM

Not necessarily. The F.D.A. doesn't really determine the definition of the dates. It's ultimately up to the manufacturer what they mean. I would presume even spoilt milk might be safe to drink...

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 just wait a little longer and it becomes yogurt

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But, for example, children's car seats have expiry dates. You're not supposed to use them after they expire, because the mfr fears that the plastic will have degraded and the car seat will no longer perform adequately in a crash.

@Mitch I'm sure that's all there is to it.

Mitch

Cheese: Milk's Leap toward immortality

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 waits

squirms in seat

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch waits too

Mitch

taps fingers

Færd

4:14 PM

@Tonepoet Hmm. Tell me if you tried it!

Mitch

wiggles legs

chews inside of cheek

Is it ready yet?

rocks back and forth

Tonepoet

@Færd Only in sips before I realized that the milk was bad and stopped drinking it.

Mitch

How about now?

Færd

What are we waiting for? Yogurt?

Mitch

Yes

Tonepoet

4:15 PM

@Færd Cheese!

Mitch

Or whatever

I'll settle for sour cream

taps toes

taps fingers and toes

Færd

Ah, tell me about sour cream. I'm not sure I've ever drunk/eaten it.

Is it like yogurt?

Mitch

composes percussion opera

@Færd well, it's like yogurt in the sense that it comes from milk, is very white, and is a little sour, but...

Færd

Do you get sour cream by letting cream become sour?

Mitch

there;s a taxonomy to milk products...I don't think yogurt and sour cream are ... I guess they're more alike than different but...

You don't eat sour cream straight, how's that? It's more of a condiment, that you put on tacos or on a baked potato.

Færd

4:19 PM

I know two milk products that can be sour: yogurt and what we call kashk.

fumbles for a translation

Mitch

it's about the same consistency as yogurt, you can serve it with a spoon

kashk is closer to yogurt than either are to sour cream

sour cream is not fermented I don't think.

i thought kashk was just yogurt that has been dried thoroughly

Færd

@Mitch What do you call kashk? Whey?

@Mitch Really? I should check.

Mitch

It's not a thing in English/American food production/cuisine. It doesn't have it's own name in English

Færd

Maybe the same is true for sour cream in Farsi then.

Mitch

Whey is the liquidy part left over after ...shoot I don't really know.

@Færd possibly.

there are just so many ways to prepare/age milk.

Færd

4:22 PM

> Sour cream is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria.

Mitch

hm..that sounds like the definition of yogurt

Tonepoet

@Mitch Cheese production, usually. It's opposed to the curds which are the more solid part.

Færd

Kashk

Kashk (Persian: کشک‎‎, Kurdish: keşk‎, Turkish: keş peyniri), qurt, qurut (Kazakh: құрт, Turkmen: gurt, Uzbek: qurt, Azerbaijani: qurut, Bashkir: ҡорот, Kyrgyz: курут, Turkish: kurut, sürk, taş yoğurt, kurutulmuş yoğurt, Shor: қурут), jamid (Arabic: جميد، اقط‎‎), chortan (Armenian: չորթան, [chor, meaning "dried", plus tan]), aaruul (Mongolian: ааруул) is a range of dairy products used in cuisines of Iranian, Turkish, Mongolian, Central Asian, Transcaucasian, and the Levantine peoples. Kashk is made from drained yogurt (in particular, drained qatiq) or drained sour milk by forming it and letting...

> Kashk is made from drained yogurt (in particular, drained qatiq) or drained sour milk by forming it and letting it dry.

Mitch

hm..I was close

Færd

So you were right about kashk and I was right about sour cream!

Tonepoet

4:25 PM

We'd probably categorize it as a type of cheese and use the Persian name as a loanword for the kind.

Mitch

you use kashk more as an ingredient in cooking right? or more as a ... well one often puts a dollop of sour cream in the middle of a hot soup, or traditionally on borscht (usually a cold soup)

Færd

Maybe. Kashk is defined by its uses here. If you use it like cheese it won't be truly kashk anymore.

I'm kidding, but only a bit.

Mitch

Kashk is not at all cheese like

more like yogurt

cheese is aged

Færd

Oh, and yet another sour milk product:

Black kashk

Black Kashk or Qarehqurut (Persian: قره‌قوروت یا سیاه‌کشک), is a milky product which is produced in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and some of the central asian countries. == Preparation == Black kashk is fabricated from the liquid yoghurt. After removing the fat of the yoghurt, the remaining liquid is boiled to be concentrated. In the next step, the produced liquid will elutriate. The concentrated solid material is called Kashk, which can be used in several Iranian dishes such as āsh. The liquid left from the concentrating process will be boiled and dried to produce black Kashk. == References... ==

Mitch

yogurt is (slow) cooked

elutriate? I've never seen that sequence of letters before in my life.

Færd

4:29 PM

A technical term, apparently.

Mitch

apparently

Tonepoet

@Mitch Cheese isn't necessarily aged or necessarily even hard. Cottage cheese is described as a fresh cheese.

Færd

@Mitch We put kash in āsh, the same way you put sour cream in soup.

@Tonepoet You can have instant cheese.

MetaEd

@Tonepoet An expired contract has not ceased to be, either. In fact many contracts contain clauses that take effect or remain in effect when the contract expires, or when the contract is terminated, depending on the language. The expiration date doesn't make the contract disappear. It is just like a milk expiration date: it sets an end date on something about the contract.

Mitch

@Færd I've had that

Tonepoet

4:35 PM

@MetaEd That's a fair point, although the agreement has ceased to be if a contract is truly expired. I wouldn't consider perpetual terms to be part of a wholly expired contract.

Færd

@Mitch Where?

MetaEd

The expiration date of milk or other food products is tricky. Generally it's the manufacturer's "use by" date, meaning they in some sense guarantee the product will still measure up to their standard until that date. Some stores will pull product off the shelves that is past its "use by" date, others won't.

@Tonepoet Sure, but a lawyer would. There's the difference.

Mitch

@MetaEd when documents expire, they should delete themselves and initiate a disk wipe.

tchrist

@MetaEd The law says milk must be good 10 days after that date.

Unopened.

Mitch

Similarly I wish that expired meat would do the same and then wipe the refrigerator. Yuck.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:36 PM

@MetaEd some stores will re-shelve a jar of salsa whose lid has partly come off and salsa has exited the jar and dried on the outside, even after it being brought to their attention.

Mitch

Salsa is forever

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

no. it really isn't.

MetaEd

@tchrist I assume that's USDA?

Mitch

If your salsa is effervescent, maybe you want to try some new salsa

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I once asked a bagel shop if they used old stale bagels that weren't sold to make their bagel chips. They gave me a look.

I thought it was a reasonable question.

Tonepoet

@MetaEd The colloquial language is so different from the legalese that comparing the two isn't very useful. We just barely escaped socks being deemed drug paraphernalia simply because they came into contact with drugs at some point in time due to a wholly statutory definition of Drug Paraphernalia.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:39 PM

@Mitch I once asked a donut shop what they do with the old donuts at the end of the day, hoping I could get a freebie. They told me they sell them to pig farmers who grind them up for pig food.

Mitch

Pigs have it nice

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Incidentally, in Canada there are rules on when you can use "best before" and when you must use "Expires": inspection.gc.ca/food/information-for-consumers/…

tchrist

@MetaEd No, some milk regulation board.

site.foodshare.org/site/DocServer/…

confusing

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 working in food shops is kinda gross often, but the least gross is donut shops. Working at a deli or butcher, you come out of there smelling of old meat and ... ugh. At a donut shop you come out smelling like confectioners sugar and wonderfulness.

List of dairy products

This is a list of dairy products. A dairy product is food produced from the milk of mammals. A production plant for the processing of milk is called a dairy or a dairy factory. Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats, sheep and camels, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale. == A == === B === === C === === D === === E === Eggnog, a drink commonly drank during the holidays === F === === G ===...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist In Canada I don't think there are any guarantees about "10 days after" the date or anything like that.

Mitch

4:43 PM

so many I've never heard of. most of them are probably elutriated

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The BB date must indicate some date that the food is still of top nutritional value; after that date, zero promises are made.

Færd

@Mitch I worked at a place that made those and little cakes and stuff. I totally ceased to find those smells pleasurable.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Dairy is different in most states; baby food, in all.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 sniff it first. if it passes that test, then pour a little. if it comes out in clumps then it's ready for yogurt.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist yeah you guys have 50 tiny countries instead of one big one.

Mitch

4:45 PM

@Færd The cobbler's kids have no shoes...they're sick and tired of it

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Don't call California a tiny country. Nor Alaska.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist CA's population is close to CA's, and both are smaller in area than Canada :p

Færd

Do Alaskans feel they belong to the US?

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 wait...

Couth Africa?

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Best not to compare GDPs then.

Mitch

4:47 PM

@Færd totally...maybe even the indigenous people.

Færd

Oh.

I thought they wanted to become independent more than any other state.

Mitch

The only geographical entity that has any minutest serious ideas of independence is Texas.

Not even the (rest of the) South

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Sure, California's is higher than Canada's, but not THAT much higher.

Færd

@Mitch Good to know. I'd heard otherwise.

Mitch

Puerto Rico is controversial: not a state, but lots want it to be a state, and lots equally strongly want it not to be a state.

California will secede when it subducts

Færd

4:50 PM

Alaskan Independence Party

The Alaskan Independence Party (AIP) is a political party and independence movement in the U.S. state of Alaska that advocates an in-state referendum which includes the option of Alaska becoming an independent country. The party also advocates positions similar to those of the Constitution Party, Republican Party and Libertarian Party, supporting gun rights, privatization, home schooling, and limited government. The National Constitution Party has listed the AIP as an Alaska affiliate in the past, but no longer does so. == History == The Alaskan Independence Party was founded with the goa...

Mitch

@Færd Oh. hm.

Færd

They even won an election sometime, or so I'm told.

> As of May 2009 the party had 13,119 registered members, making it the state's third largest; the Republicans had 124,892 members and the Democrats had 75,047.

MAybe trade Canada Alaska for one of her nearer states.

Mitch

I cn't think of a good one that's comparable. Alaska has so few people.

ah New Brunswick or Nova Scotia

Your move @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Of all the Canadian provinces, I think only Alberta or Saskatchewan might want to join the US. And the rest of Canada wouldn't want to let them go. Remember: Canada was formed as a reaction to the US. We didn't want to join.

Mitch

5:08 PM

OK. Saskatchewan. It's a deal. I'll send the papers over.

If you throw in PEI, we'll give you Guam.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Also, I'm pretty sure nobody in Alaska would want to join Canada. Plus, unless you keep Palin, there's no deal.

Mitch

Dangit

I've noticed people using 'verbage' nonironically lately. It's like stabbing a basilisk tooth into my highschool diary. Just so embarrassing.

Færd

Don't worry. Maybe Trump will give it up to Russia.

It's closer to them, after all.

Mitch

All this talk of cheese and donuts...

@Færd It's funny until you think 'Holy crap, he's such an idiot, he may very well consider that'

Færd

Hehe. We've had stupid rulers who did the exact same thing. A couple centuries ago.

So, not impossible.

Mitch

5:16 PM

You know what's a really confusing feeling? When someone who is your sworn enemy in life turns out to have very similar political views as you. I mean, how do you deal with that?

Færd

By redefining us and them? Or revising your views?

It's hard. You'd have to give up something.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch Murder them, hide the body, blame their disappearance on Trump

Færd

Or have a stronger individual identity. Don't let outside fluctuations confuse you.

Mitch

5:43 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ooh...or feed them to the pigs and keep the donuts for yourself.

MetaEd

6:33 PM

@Mitch Maybe you can get your sworn enemy to do something very illegal that furthers your political views.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:03 PM

@Mitch makes notes

Tonepoet

9:22 PM

@Mitch What does verbage mean? Does it mean verbiage?

choster

9:43 PM

Verbage is garbiage, plain and simple

Mitch

10:37 PM

@Tonepoet It's a malapropism for verbiage. That is, 'verbiage' (= 'lots of words that I disparagingly don't think make much sense') occurs in dictionaries. During the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin the republican VP candidate was famous for (among many other things) using the non-occurring-in-dictionaries utterance 'verbage'.

Because it does not correspond exactly to any dictionary word, it doesn't mean anything objectively, but we all presume that she meant what is usually meant by 'verbiage' and just made a ... mistake.

@MetaEd that sounds like suborning proselytization. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

It's hard to know what someone else really meant because we only hear what they say, not what they think, and they may use words wrong...ly. Socially we try to hold people to what they say so that if they get it wrong they'll learn what everybody else means.

tchrist

John Skelton's "Speke Parott"

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