English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Færd

16:00

Haha, It ranks 70th in COCA!

It must be a technical use or something, totally alien to common parlance (at least in the US).

Cerberus

Entity classification election

For United States income tax purposes, a business entity may elect to be treated either as a corporation or as other than a corporation. This entity classification election is made by filing Internal Revenue Service Form 8832. Absent filing the form, a default classification applies. U.S. corporations of the type that can be publicly traded must be treated as corporations. There is a list of specific foreign entities that must be treated as corporations. The election is effective for Federal and most state income tax purposes. If an entity is not classified as a corporation, it is treated as a...

It looks like bureaucrat lingo.

> This entity classification election is made by filing Internal Revenue Service Form 8832.

A newspeak word for choice.

Færd

Thanks.

But why make?

Cerberus

Because one makes a choice.

Færd

Ah. Damn.

Now it clicked.

Cerberus

If you replace choice with the newspeak word, of course you, as an ugly newspeaker, will keep the rest of the syntax as it was.

Færd

16:15

Haha. Cheep shot at my looks, but thanks.

Cerberus

I meant "you" in the general sense, "one".

It usually helps to look at the context when you find an odd phrase somewhere.

Mitch

You ugly news peaker

What a mess

@Færd re a recent Eli question, it is not idiomatic English

@Cerberus or 'chooses'

The verb was bounded and then reverbed

The government chooses to make an election to choicen a candidate

Cerberus

Waaah.

Færd

17:00

@Cerberus It was a joke.

Cerberus

Yeah it looked like a joke all right. I wished to explain it anyway, for posterity.

Færd

Okay.

user2236

Færd

@Cerberus I'd also use would instead of will there.

Cerberus

17:26

@Færd Why?

Replace is present tense.

Færd

@Cerberus Yes. I meant when one includes an unreal contingency in a conditional sentence, that sentence is more probably formed in a "if .. did .. then .. would" pattern, than in a "if .. do .. then .. will".

Cerberus

@Færd But was it meant to be presented as unreal?

Færd

Ah I see you've added another message there.

Never mind.

@Cerberus No.

Cerberus

@Færd What message?

Færd

1 hour ago, by Cerberus

I meant "you" in the general sense, "one".

Curse me if I really did overlook it.

Cerberus

17:34

curses

Did that help at all?

Færd

So it was there.

curses self

Well, it explains that the ugly part was a real contingency.

Cerberus

I thought you were saying it was a joke because you had read those two messages of mine explaining it.

@Færd Yes.

Færd

It's funny how we need to clarify our clarifications.

Cerberus

Quite.

You know what sucks? That s and d should be next to each other.

Færd

@Cerberus I really meant it as a joke.

Cerberus

17:37

I always type one where I intended the other; the result is often a valid word, but it makes my syntax look like an illiterate foreigner.

@Færd I know.

Færd

Rearrange your keyboard.

Cerberus

Too many disadvantages.

Have you?

Færd

Of course not.

I think s is among the most frequent characters.

It would make a mess wherever it went.

en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/which-letters-are-used-most

Cerberus

Heh.

Even so, if I were to type wsrds like thsse, it wsuld lssk msre like typss than illiteracy.

Færd

@Cerberus But yes, mistakenly swapped with d it'd produce those kinds of errors.

Cerberus

17:40

S next to o.

@Færd That always happens to me.

Has for had, escapes for escaped, etc.

Færd

HsHs

Cerberus

See, it's better next to a vowel.

Færd

Yeah!

Cerberus

I hate those Qwerty people.

And their stupid type-writers.

Færd

I know nothing about the history behind this arrangement.

How odd.

> The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in 1873. It became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878, and remains in widespread use.

I think a better arrangement could be formulated as a mathematical problem.

Cerberus

17:46

Oh?

I believe they ordered the letters (other than qwerty) thus by placing letters apart that are often next to each other in a word, because typing two letters close to each other in quick succession could jam type-writers.

Færd

Yeah. One of the inputs would be the most common typos people make because of the aarrangements of the keys.

Cerberus

The hammers collide, or something.

@Færd You probably mean sarrangements.

Færd

Exactly.

Cerberus

How sss.

tchrist

18:14

0

A: How to pronounce -on endings?

To reduce or not to reduce? You’ve asked whether there’s any rhyme or reason to how we pronounce a word ending in -on. First let’s look at a bunch of such words to see what patterns pop out. I’ve sorted these words back to front to help make any patterns more apparent. ribbon, ebon, carbon, ...

Mitch

18:59

I hadn't something to say and I forgot it.

tchrist

19:10

If you had nothing to say, then why didn't you do so?

tchrist

20:00

@Robusto Does Japanese have, for want of a better term, any “negative” honorifics?

Apparently Korean does.

Apparently this is other than clear, and perhaps disputed: pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c728/…

> Mixing positive and negative politeness strategies is normal in Japanese. This
fact raises a serious question regarding the fundamental conceptualization of
B&L’s positive and negative politeness strategies. Dichotomizing positive and
negative politeness as mutually exclusive concepts is unjustifiable because there
is no intrinsic reason for the speaker to appeal to only one facet of the addressee’s
face-maintenance wants.

I would have thought that “negative politeness” could have been expressed as impoliteness. Or simply rudeness.

> On the other hand, if one wishes to be impolite, positive politeness will be
determined minimum, although negative politeness might vary, attributable
mainly to the speaker’s self image.

I suppose that in the peerage, deliberately using a lower title than the actual one would be a sort of negative honorific, like addressing a putative King Foobar as Lord Foobar or some such.

But it's hard to find a corresponding version for the normal honorifics of us commoners, some step down from Mister and such.

In Spanish, addressing some Señor Quijote as Señorito Quijote would be belittling. And “Pues si el señorito quiere alguna cosucha, que él nos mande una carta por paloma mensajera” would get the point across, too.

Colombofilia

La colombofilia[nota 1] o colombicultura[nota 2] (del latín columba, paloma y del griego φιλία, filia) consiste en la cría y adiestramiento de palomas para convertirlas en palomas mensajeras, capaces de volver a su palomar desda no tiene como finalidad llevar mensajes y sí recorrer un trayecto a la mayor velocidad posible medido mediante relojes especiales. == Historia == En algunas zonas se llegaron a emitir incluso sellos postales para este uso particular. El primer concurso colombófilo que se conoce data del 15 de junio de 1820. En esa época es también cuando los diferentes ejércitos establecen…

Feeds

20:26

1

Q: How does one qualitatively describe the cubic increase of experimental data

I have generated some data Y and would like to describe its variation as a function of some variable X. Using MS Excel, I obtained the trendline shown in the figure below which suggests that Y varies approximately cubically with X. However, I would like to omit the trendline itself (leaving only ...

RegDwigнt

@Færd there's lots of quite persistent urban legends around it. Watch out. Here's everything you need to know:

artlebedev.com/mandership/105

And don't smoke too much Dvorak. It's not good for your health.

Johan Larsson

20:50

@Robusto :)

tchrist

21:04

@Robusto It's more than closed; it's locked.

Robusto

21:39

Off the top of my head I can't think of any single-particle honorifics that are always negative by themselves, but inappropriate familiarity could certainly do the job.
If you address an elder as *-kun* — which is a familiar honorific for a child or younger friend — it would be impolite to the point of disparagement. Addressing an older woman as *-chan* — which is a form of address that an older man might realistically use with a child or young woman — would be perceived as rude as well.
Don't forget that rudeness in Japan is roughly the equivalent of foul-mouthed swearing in English, and t…

Meh, why can't the markdown work in long messages?

Well, you know what asterisks mean.

tchrist

Yeah, thanks.

I imagine that addressing the family patriarch as Missie Hatfield is likely to get a McCoy shot up even here.

Robusto

Well, yeah.

Also, simply using informal speech when addressing a "superior" can be insulting, if it's understood.

tchrist

If it's understood?

Robusto

Well, informal/formal can be used in the same sentence to refer to oneself and one's interlocutor.

tchrist

Oh weird.

Robusto

21:44

If I use "humble" forms and pronouns I can be construed as speaking about myself or my "side" (family, etc.), while formal or polite ones would be understood as referring to the person being addressed, if they were sufficiently exalted in station (which doesn't have to be very exalted, necessarily).

For example, if I use the term kanai for wife, it will be understood that I'm talking about my wife; if I use oku-san (honorable interior) I'm talking about yours.

This is really what makes Japanese so hard. The language itself, apart from the writing system, is not really very hard at all, once you get the hang of it.

tchrist

I bet the internet messes them up.

Robusto

Well, they do adapt easily.

They have banana boats of gairaigo (foreign loan words) they have to chop up and learn seemingly every month or so. So far they don't seem to be flagging in the task.

tchrist

I meant the anonymity of it all. You don't know relative position.

Robusto

@tchrist Well, sometimes you do. For example, if you go into a bar you are the elevated one and the wait staff are the inferiors.

But you would still be ordinarily polite to them, but not deferential.

tchrist

I notice that the Asian questioners are constantly asking for the “formal” way to say things.

Robusto

21:52

No surprise there.

tchrist

"Oh, you want the unfriendly way then, right?"

Robusto

Here's a fun fact: When the Emperor announced at the end of World War II that Japan would have to "bear the unbearable" and surrender to the Allies, he spoke a language that few people actually understood fully, because he referred to himself, etc., in a highly exalted language (since he was the Emperor) and most people had never even heard that spoken.

tchrist

Ah, the old first person supreme.

I'm sure he did it correctly.

Robusto

Jack Seward sometimes used to troll the Japanese by presenting a business card to new acquaintances that gave no hint of his status. It caused a great deal of consternation, to his amusement.

BTW, the Emperor's address was broadcast over the radio (sorry, I see I left that important tidbit out).

tchrist

We have cow tipping, them towing.

Which is an interesting illustration that the objective case is the default one in English.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…