English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:01 AM

@Piomicron I'm not sure. In a literary novel, it could work, I'd say. Maybe it's not the standard way of expressing this, though.

Mitch

2:17 AM

@MetaEd The data for that map must have come directly from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend#Around_the_world, the pattern matches.

Bangladesh has two because it specifies banks start on a different day
Iran - public office schools have fewer hours on Thursday, everybody else full day
Malaysia - no explanation just 4 islands different from the rest
So maybe only in Malaysia is it a religious difference?

SmokeDetector

4:38 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, +2 more: youtubetomp3converter.world/lonzo-lil-bibby-mp3-song-download/ by wonmunat on english.SE

Feeds

6:40 AM

0

Q: Jargon related to making rope?

Is there a more specific verb that describes creating rope than "make"? E.g. braid or weave or is the verb choice specific to the type of rope that is being made? Is there a word for a person that makes rope other than "rope maker", e.g. as a cooper is to barrel making?

single-word-requests

SmokeDetector

7:23 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad NS for domain in body, bad NS for domain in title, bad keyword in body, blacklisted website in body, +3 more: fitnesstalkzone.com/skinny-fit-keto/ by Yagaraljffd on english.SE

Araucaria

9:53 AM

@MattE.Эллен Pity. It's a really nice blog post, but the vowel description's all stuffed up :(

terdon

@Araucaria There's a contact link. You could always send them an email.

Araucaria

10:26 AM

@terdon Thanks. Yes, I think I'll try that.

Feeds

1:16 PM

0

Q: Singular and Plural Confusion While Listing Things In A Sentence

Ex. The Gift basket carries mangoes, bananas, pineapples, and a watermelon. Or, it should be Ex.The Gift basket carries mangoes, bananas, pineapples, and watermelons Can I use both singular and plural nouns when adding things to a list?

single-word-requests grammatical-number

Færd

2:11 PM

@Mitch Friday is the Islamic Sabbath.

@FaheemMitha I guess they've got their own way of calculating how happy you are.

rahuldottech

Hey, sorry for randomly dropping in, but I have a weird question and hopefully one of you guys can ~~answer it~~ explain it to me

Færd

@Cerberus Quite possibly!

rahuldottech

If you go to today's English Wikipedia homepage, the first sentence under the the "From today's featured article" says this:

> "No Rest for the Wicked" is the third-season finale of The CW television series

Except, "The CW" is the name of the TV network, so although this seems absolutely all right to me, shouldn't it technically be "the The CW television series"?

This makes no sense, that would just be weird. I'm confused now.

MetaEd

@Mitch 7.36 hours per day.

I bet that's 8 hours minus four 6-minute breaks for prayer. Or six 4-minute breaks.

But I haven't had coffee so I'm sure my arithmetic is wrong.

Færd

@rahuldottech Always leave the article out of the name: the CW. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, there are instances where this obvious rule is violated.

rahuldottech

2:21 PM

@Færd The simple? Heh, thanks!

MetaEd

Yeah, 7.36 hours makes no sense at all.

rahuldottech

@MetaEd .36 of an hour is 21.6 minutes... That's weird. They possibly meant 7 hours and 36 minutes?

MetaEd

Wikipedia says the workweek is 44 hours.

Under the Iranian Labor Law article.

7.36 × 5 + 6 is 42.8. Short of 44 by 1.2 hours. Which is 0.2 hours per day (6 day week).

rahuldottech

> Typically, employees work from Saturday to Wednesday (8 hours per day) and half a day on Thursday (4 hours).

Yep, 44 checks out

I can't find the 7.36 figure anywhere else on the web though

Færd

@rahuldottech Not really. Those "violations" are sometimes treated as exceptions. So beware.

For example, some write The New York Times (uppercase initials throughout) even in the middle of a sentence. That's inadvisable, in my opinion, but not everyone's opinion, apparently.

You mustn't use two successive definite articles at any rate. That's for sure. :)

MetaEd

2:40 PM

@rahuldottech Here's the revision: en.wikipedia.org/w/…

Somebody knew to reduce the workweek from 46 to 44 but had no concept of arithmetic.

@rahuldottech Clearly you are right the editor came up with 36 minutes and then put it in wrong as hundredths.

rahuldottech

@Færd Wait... that's wrong?

So, in "an article in The New York Times" vs "an article in the New York Times", the latter is correct?

Lawrence

@rahuldottech It depends on whether The is part of its name. Its URL (nytimes.com) suggests it isn't, but its logo indicates otherwise, as does the copyright notice in the footer of its web page.

rahuldottech

@Lawrence They do also own thenewyorktimes.com though

I think the short URL is just for convenience.

Cerberus

New Rembrandt discovered!

And hello.

Færd

3:05 PM

Rembrandt Cerberus van Hel?

Hi!

.

Can this sentence be complete on its own? Without werden, I mean.

> Er wird bestimmt ein guter Tennisspieler (...).

Faheem Mitha

@rahuldottech Repeated articles of this kind are rarely used in any language, I think. It's just too inelegant.

In cases where literal transcription is required for accuracy, a token is substituted. Lawyers do this, for example.

Ie, "The CW Television Network" ("Network").

Henceforth one refers to "Network".

This is analogous to the mathematical concept of an assigned variable.

And actually the programming concept too, come to think of it.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

The Community Wiki Television Network

Full of dumb boring FAQ stuff

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ That would actually be several steps up, intellectually, from the reality.

The CW is sort-of the inheritor of the old, defunct WB.

Robusto

3:22 PM

Here's a case study in why SWRs suck:

0

Q: What to call a run-from-a-problem person

What do you call someone who runs away from a problem? Like let's say that there is this big conflict for this person and they are running away from it instead of solving it. What do you call that person?

adjectives

Both question and answers suck egregiously.

Faheem Mitha

The WB used to be the home of shows starring Pretty Teenagers With Problems.

Now they go to the CW, I think. Though I don't think I've ever watched the CW, or very little, so I'm not sure.

Once upon a time there was a show called "Dawson's Creek", for example.

Robusto

@Cerberus Do you dress like that often?

Also, looks like Rembrandt's subjects knew about extra-body shampoo.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto That's not him. He has three heads. The gentleman in the picture only has one.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Robusto only when chatting

Robusto

@FaheemMitha That you can see. His other heads could be hidden beneath the voluminous drapery.

Faheem Mitha

3:26 PM

@Robusto Fair point.

Though I think they would produce noticeable bulges.

Plus Cerb doesn't seem like the kind of dog to hide his heads under drapery.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@FaheemMitha Photoshop

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Although they could be just waiting to pounce.

Faheem Mitha

True.

MetaEd

3:46 PM

@Mitch @rahuldottech I corrected the Wikipedia workweek article.

Mitch

@Robusto Don't tell your grandmother how to suck egregiously

Why do I feel there's a deep connection between 'egregious' and goats?

Robusto

@Mitch My grandmother is dead. Feel better now?

Mitch

Is it because they're outstanding in their field?

Robusto

My field is dead too.

Mitch

@Robusto Very relieved. Also, no connection between her and goats I expect

Robusto

3:56 PM

I wish SWRs were dead, too.

Mitch

@MetaEd Wikipedia needs something like git

@Robusto You want your grandmother and SWRs to go the same place? You're heartless.

Wait...off to actually read that question...

Robusto

As the Sesame Street song clearly says, "Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end." I feel like we're well into the SWR endgame now.

Mitch

What about the SWR after-party?

SWR... It's too close to SWF and SJW.

Robusto

SWR stands for "So what, really?"

Mitch

There needs to be a database technology whose acronym is SWRL

or SQWRL

And SQWRLite is called Chipmunk

Robusto

4:03 PM

My son just finished a course in grad school where he had to learn the "R" language. He called it a language created by non-programmers for non-programmers.

Mitch

@MetaEd It's entirely empty at the moment for Iran

Robusto

And the thing of it is, he can use it with Python plugins for his work, so why not just let him do the whole thing in Python?

Mitch

Anyway, the math is simple: if you have 6 work days per week 44 hrs per week, and one day is shorter (Thu) with only 6, then 44-6 = 38, and 38/5 = ...

7.6 hrs = 7 hrs and 36 minutes.

Cerberus

@Robusto We used to, in 1634.

Mitch

That's Math!

Robusto

4:09 PM

It's math-hysteria.

@Cerberus It will come back in style.

Cerberus

That specific lace ruff was worn for a very short period, in 1634.

Which is why they were able to date it so precisely.

Mitch

@Færd But that doesn't matter at all the math that we do. What is it that actually happens in Iran? For, say, bank employees and office workers, what is the usual workday? What about Thursday? That's what the wiki page should say, not some math BS.

@Robusto pulls ruffs out of attic closet

@Cerberus puts ruffs back into closet

Robusto

@Cerberus So it was a 17th-century hipster thing?

@Mitch tries to put @Cerberus back into closet, fails.

Mitch

@Robusto R is the worst (as a programming language)

Well, I'm sure there are worse.

But still

Robusto

@Mitch It's a fairly okay letter of the alphabet, though.

In fact, it's the finest letter of the alphabet that also begins my name!

Feeds

4:13 PM

0

Q: A tertiary meaning of the word oyster

Why is the tertiary definition of oyster...a taciturn person Not obsolete...how many people actually know the word oyster can be usrd in this way

single-word-requests

Mitch

@Robusto To each their own. People don't give G enough credit

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, absolutely, it was en vogue in France for a short while.

So also here.

Robusto

@Mitch Pfft! G ... such a common letter. People are always using it as an expression of mild surprise.

Cerberus

@Mitch But it's so lovely!

Mitch

Goddamit. My scheduled time for being spontaneous is up. I'm going to add it it to my backlog

@Cerberus I'm considering toe rings and ankle bells.

Robusto

4:16 PM

Also, there's G's association with urination. "G whiz!"

Mitch

Here you go...

Sep 8 '15 at 15:19, by Robusto

Apr 22 at 12:50, by Robusto

@Mitch Q. Why do Morris dancers wear bells? A. So they can annoy the blind as well.

@Robusto I feel like that exact question or some innocuous variant of it has been asked every day for the past like forever.

Robusto

QED

Mitch

Is ELU supposed to be college application/valentine card/job resignation writing advice service?

Cerberus

Mitch

(in that order, because that's the order of life)

Cerberus

4:18 PM

At the Rijksmuseum a couple of weeks ago.

Robusto

@Mitch Apparently.

Mitch

@Robusto writes ELU SWR question

Robusto

@Cerberus That looks like something Elton John would wear. Or @RegDwigнt, maybe.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Yes, terrible language. But better than PHP.

Cerberus

@Robusto What's the difference, eh?

Faheem Mitha

4:20 PM

The stats folks love it, though. Can't get enough of it.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha What's so terrible about it?

Robusto

@FaheemMitha PHP is just fine if you don't expect too much sanity from your programming.

Faheem Mitha

Actually, one of the co-founders publicly admitted they didn't know what they were doing when they designed it.

Cerberus

I have to run, see you in an hour!

Robusto

$comment = 'Fuck ' .= 'that';

@Cerberus Laterz, @Cerb.

Faheem Mitha

4:22 PM

@Cerberus I'm glad you asked. For your amusement and edification, I give you... aRrgh.

@Robusto Yes, sanity is overrated.

Mitch

Dear Abby, I have a neighbor who insists on running their lawn mower and leaf blower and other lawn care devices at early hours on the weekend when I (and frankly all the other neighbors) would prefer to sleep in. We have been to the city ombudsman to have a problem resolution meeting but the neighbor hasn't shown up. What word should I use to describe it when I knock my head against the toilet seat after vomiting up last nights vodka when I mentioned this all to the bartender?

Thanks for any help. And can you put it in a sentence?

Robusto

@Mitch Dear SWR: The mower the merrier? I don't know, go way and don't bother me!

Well, I must go now. Have a day. -_-

Mitch

John Prine - Dear Abby

►

MetaEd

@Mitch What would change?

@Mitch Yes -- see my paragraph on the talk page

SmokeDetector

4:42 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in link text in answer: "Reply to this mail is _not_ necessary" - Can this be considered negative in any way? by eric666 on english.SE

Educ

COCONUT SHAKE MASTER | Amazing Milk Pouring Skills | Indian Street Food

►

Can you eat that ?

Mitch

4:58 PM

@MetaEd nice. but I highly suspect that no one will notice your words. They'll just see the blank and edit wrong stuff back in.

@MetaEd Though git is a difficult thing to manage, you could ostensibly have the ability to follow the changes easier. the current, built in, file compare thing needs a lot of clicking to find a change and meaning for the change over many edits.

hm...maybe you have a point. it's still a pain in git. and git really doesn't supply anything better.

Educ

@Mitch Hi

How are ya ?

Mitch

@Educ hey!

I'm not sure if I asked this before but...

Educ

what ?

Mitch

Can you understand somebody speaking everyday Arabic from Egypt?

Educ

me I can because I used to see the egyptian movies but most of morocco no

Mitch

5:02 PM

not university/business Arabic, but everyday Arabic

Is the vocabulary really different or is it mostly just pronunciation?

Educ

both

because some turkish words enter into their language

like خش

Means Come in

but in arabic modern we say : تفضل

not خش

تفضل or تفضل بالدخول

It's really hard even for arabic people to understand everyday Arabic

Adel Imam Mout dial dahk

►

rahuldottech

@MetaEd Cool, I was going to do so myself

Cerberus

@Robusto Hmm that doesn't look like a comment!

Mitch

5:18 PM

@Educ How about Libya? Tunisia? Algeria? Is there an obvious geographic cutoff?

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha OK that does sound rather bad.

> Because even R’s name is stupid, it’s really hard to google R things in a useful way. Sorry. Welcome to R!

I like this.

Educ

@Mitch In fact, since our Slang is close to Arabic then, most arabic people can understand us for example algeria, tunsia and Middle-East but for us we can't understand most of them, Although, algeria is near to us we can understand only people who lives near to us but for whos lives in east of algerie they have different slang. and you can see the problem why is due to their slang is far from real Arabic

The real Arabic is the language of Quran is the language of Quraysh

Quraysh

The Quraysh (Arabic: قريش‎) were a mercantile Arab tribe that historically inhabited and controlled Mecca and its Ka'aba. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born into the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe. The Quraysh staunchly opposed Muhammad until converting to Islam en masse in 630 CE. Afterward, leadership of the Muslim community traditionally passed to a member of the Quraysh as was the case with the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphs. == Name == Sources differ as to the etymology of Quraysh, with one theory holding that it was the diminutive form of qirsh (shark). The 9th-cen...

يمكنني أن أتكلم بها بسهولة تامة

@Mitch Tell me please, Is it good to rewrite my handout of Grammar II since it's not clear and the solutions aren't organized That's why i'm trying to rewrite the whole course and I noticed that she (our professor) most of exercise form famous Grammar books I have most of them

what do you think should I start to wrok on them since I already have them or should rewrite in Latex and orgnazid his course

Mitch

5:41 PM

@Educ nice outline

I can't really judge well because I have never taught or studied English as a foreign language.

as to whether you should redo in LaTeX, Id only recommend that if you plan on using mathematical symbols. Otherwise I'm sure MS Word or whatever you're already using is just fine.

Cerberus

6:09 PM

@Mitch Why don't you start now! It'll be fun to study English as a foreign language.

Pretend you don't understand.

Make monkey sounds.

Mitch

@Cerberus sigh ... I already thought I was doing that.

starts over

Cerberus

6:27 PM

@Mitch Oh, is that what you were doing!

Now it all makes sense.

You see, I've been wondering all this time, why is Mitch making lemur sounds?

Lemurs being distinct from apes.

But now I understand.

Feeds

0

Q: Other terms/ phrases for "hit two birds with one stone"

I'm trying to find a more pleasant way to express this phrase. Hitting two birds with one stone is a disturbing way to express what I'm trying to say, in my opinion.

single-word-requests phrase-requests idiom-requests

Feeds

7:10 PM

0

Q: Exercise Agency Over Their Learning - Use Of Agency

I was just watching this TED talk featuring Sal Kan Let's teach for mastery -- not test scores and in it Sal uses the word Agency in a very unfamiliar way to me. He uses it almost a dozen times in the same manner one of which can be viewed and heard at the 10:20 mark here. He says, "Exercise agen...

single-word-requests meaning

Mitch

@Cerberus Your understanding is also patronizing, so I'm a little hurt.

I did once get an EFL book out of curiosity, but it was super boring or wrong

For example "I have returned the library's books" is not a sentence ever uttered by anyone.

Similarly, no one in practice ever says "Good morning". It's most likely pronounced 'gmnflbpt' if at all.

Cerberus

7:32 PM

@Mitch I'm sorry you feel that way.

@Mitch Never say never.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I say "Good morning" on occasion. Also "Good afternoon", "Good evening", and "Good night".

@Cerberus In fairness to R, lots of people find it very useful.

But in my opinion, it's never going to win any beauty prizes as a language.

It makes C++ look well designed. And that's saying something.

My personal experience of trying to use it is an exercise in hairpulling. Really terrible syntax infelicities. And it's dog slow too. And has weird memory management.

As I recall, it just dumps everything into memory. Though that might have changed.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha Perhaps because it's the only language that works with a certain application?

Faheem Mitha

It sort of distantly resembles a Lisp is some way. But a Lisp that has been through serious trauma and multiple nervous breakdowns.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha Do you remember what stung you most about the syntax?

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus No, because it basically implements a data analysis environment.

Cerberus

7:40 PM

I only know Autohotkey, Javascript (to some extent), Python (a little bit), PHP (an even littler bit).

Faheem Mitha

And people have written a ton of stuff for it. Libraries/packages, whatever you want to call it.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha Then why did you ever use it?

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus It's been a while since i use it. But that site I linked to have a fairly good coverage. There is more stuff in the issues. The author seems to have stopped maintaining it.

The Github issues are things that haven't been added to the site.

@Cerberus Like everyone else, because it's very useful.

If you want free and powerful statistical software, your options are extremely limited, unless you want to implement a lot of stuff from scratch. Basically, it's R. Having said that, you can do a lot with Python, if you glue it with something like C++. That's a combination I used for awhile.

Though it's really hideously ugly. Have you heard of Boost Python?

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha That's what I meant by "it's the only language that works with a certain application".

@FaheemMitha I have not.

And I know too little about Python to possibly have an opinion.

Except the white spaces, I really didn't like that.

Faheem Mitha

Boost Python is a C++ library that provides glue between Python and C++. Very flexible and powerful.

If you stick them together, you've really got something. But it's not pretty.

One of the creators of R said publicly that he thought people should be using Lisp. Possibly Common Lisp.

It's not hard to find the link either.

See stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Compstat-2008.pdf

Cerberus

8:02 PM

I don't know Lisp.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Common Lisp is one of the best languages. But not much used.

Cerberus

OK.

Educ

8:44 PM

can I say :" I'm wondering why The Legend Gonzalo went inactive "

I would like to ask about this person in Tex's Chat about his missing

Gonzalo Medina, Colombia

377k 34 1233 1520

tikz-pgf beamer table-of-contents sectioning tables formatting floats

How can I say that in ENGLISH

"Im wondering about the missing of Gonzalo Medina " ?

Feeds

8:59 PM

0

Q: Is there a word/phrase for something that was difficult at first, but someone has worked hard and now finds it easy?

I am a mathematics graduate student and am currently writing a cover letter. The main reason I decided to study mathematics (bachelor back then), was because I found mathematics really difficult. If I was going to spend three years in college, I wanted to challenge and improve myself. Is there a...

single-word-requests phrase-requests

Feeds

9:16 PM

0

Q: Can the word “go” be used as a helping verb?

For instance, “Go eat your dinner.” It appears that the word “go” is being used as a helping verb. Is it being used a helping verb? If so, can “go” only be used as a helping verb in imperative sentences?

single-word-requests

Educ

9:34 PM

would you please correct me : "I would like to create box close to box in horizontal way, each box contains text such that box colorframe=black and colorbackground: white."

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, messaging number in answer: English proverb for when a solution comes too late by Zachary on english.SE

Cerberus

10:09 PM

> I would like to create two boxes next to each other horizontally, each containing text. I'd like the border to be black and the background white.

Thank you so much

Good luck!

:)

@Cerberus I never said never.

I only ever said ever

Cerberus

@Mitch But you've just said it twice.

Mitch

10:22 PM

@FaheemMitha you must come from that strange alien place where you're cognition is in control of your physiology. For about two hours after I wake up I can't articulate consonants. Or vowels.

And after that I need a nap

@Cerberus are you challenging me to edit the transcript?

I think the gauntlet has been thrown

Out the window

Just a moment...I'll run downstairs to go pick it up

Cerberus

@Mitch I think you took too long!

Mitch

I'M NOT DONE YET. ITS BEHIND THE BUSH EITH THE .... OUCH .... THORNS

Mitch

10:46 PM

Do you have any band aids?