English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Færd

8:00 PM

@RegDwigнt That can be several words.

کتب
کاتب
کتابة
کتبة
...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Wheesh, the romanized version looks Japanese actually

I slashed that man's throat with my kataba.

Paper cuts can kill.

Færd

Is it a sword's name too?

Long since I watched anime.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Katana is, dunno about kataba

Færd

Ah right.

RegDwigнt

@Færd well yes. KTB, then you fill the rest in.

@Færd but that is the point. It is easy because it is commonly used.

Færd

8:02 PM

Even with your fillings, it could be several words.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

It's about how we pronounce stuff in English and the Japanese language's tendency to have these . . . dunno, repetitive monolength vowels?

RegDwigнt

Some time ago I talked with Cerberus about how even the native speakers of German, or indeed especially the native speakers of German, don't know the past-tense form of the German verb for "to bake".

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt What ways?

RegDwigнt

It's a common verb, you should think! And it is. But not in the simple past. People always just use Present Perfect.

@Cerberus like printing out 10 pages of rules in fine print.

Cerberus

Backen, bäckte, gebacken? Bieck, gebacken? I have no idea.

RegDwigнt

8:04 PM

Buk.

Try that one on for size.

Færd

I think the present tense is both schwach and stark.

Cerberus

How odd.

RegDwigнt

I know right. Nobody knows.

Cerberus

In Dutch, it's bakken, bakte, gebakken.

RegDwigнt

Same with genders.

Nobody knows the gender of Reisig because who the fuck has to deal with Reisig anymore.

Cerberus

8:05 PM

@RegDwigнt I never said that was effective!

RegDwigнt

What's the English word anyway, let me check.

Cerberus

But what other way is there?

Yeast?

RegDwigнt

Oh yeah. Brushwood.

Sticks and spray you gather in the woods to make fire.

Nobody does that anymore. Not in Germany they don't.

Færd

That's a nice word.

Or a nice idea to have a word for.

Many people still do that around the world.

RegDwigнt

Used to be that every peasant woman would carry a bunch of brushwood on her back.

You see that a lot in old paintings.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

8:07 PM

Hmm, TIL

RegDwigнt

Хворост in Russian. Guess the gender!

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Hmm sprokkelhout.

@RegDwigнt Obviously neuter, d'oh.

RegDwigнt

Obviously masculine, duh. Ends in a T. In an OST, even.

Færd

All Russian looks masculine to me.

RegDwigнt

Would need to end in -e or -o to be neuter.

Cerberus

8:08 PM

Oh, bollocks.

You and your rules!

Always rules, rules, rules.

You sound like a <spits> moderator.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Færd IKR, to me Cyrillic looks like carvings of an angry man on stone

RegDwigнt

These are not rules. This is just a bunch of crap I make up as I go. As I said, I don't know the rules. Nobody does.

Cerberus

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Because that's what it usually is.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Most of the time anyway

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Glasnost is masculine?

RegDwigнt

8:10 PM

Feminine.

Færd

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Any genders in Turkish?

RegDwigнt

Ends in a soft sign. Your fault for not transcribing it correctly. :-P

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Færd No, we like tenses and aspects more

Cerberus

Grrr.

Færd

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Wise.

Cerberus

8:11 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Oh, "we"?

RegDwigнt

If you take Angela Merkel and transcribe her as Angelost Merkost, that will make her masculine alright, but that's your fault right there.

Cerberus

Are you from the Turkish region?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

The international committee of self-proclaimed native Azeri Turkish speakers. ICSNAT

Cerberus

Ah-hah.

RegDwigнt

İyi akşamlar.

Cerberus

8:12 PM

Born in Azerbaijan or Iran?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Iran

Cerberus

OK.

RegDwigнt

My family name is Azeri. Nobody knows why.

Cerberus

Really.

Is this a take-over?

RegDwigнt

Last summer in Armenia I asked my dad and he said nobody knows why.

Cerberus

8:13 PM

Hmm.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Cerberus Oh I think we were done with that shit 200 years ago

RegDwigнt

Then ten minutes later my brother walked up and said, hey dad, here's what I always wanted you to ask. About my last name.

Cerberus

My great-great-grandmother came from Russia.

RegDwigнt

And we broke out in laughter.

Cerberus

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ You and Reg did an Azeri take-over of this room 200 years ago?

Good to know.

@RegDwigнt How very Azeri.

RegDwigнt

8:14 PM

@Cerberus Adriano Celentano tried to do it in Italy.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Cerberus No, I was referring to Russia invading Iran 200 years ago.

Cerberus

Don't tell me he's also Azeri??

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

And 150. And 100.

Cerberus

I like him.

RegDwigнt

adriano celentano AZZURRO

►

Cerberus

8:15 PM

Uhh not quite the same, but OK.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Oh that's Italian for Azeri

Cerberus

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Ah, that.

RegDwigнt

Well actually the song is by Paolo Conte, but nobody knows that.

Cerberus

Celentano really looked like my father at the same age.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@RegDwigнt Then the only way you'd know it is if you're Conte

RegDwigнt

8:16 PM

To be fair, Russia invaded Iran to push back after Iran invaded everyone else.

Cerberus

Everyone invaded everyone.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus No, Russia had to be asked.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Which invasion are we talking about?

RegDwigнt

Exactly.

Cerberus

Asked by whom?

RegDwigнt

8:16 PM

Iran invaded everyone so many times.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Not under the rule of a family of f*ck-ups it didn't

RegDwigнt

Well yeah.

Look at Trump.

He can't even build a wall around his own country.

To prevent others from invading.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Too busy building a golf course on Golan heights?

Cerberus

Surely not??

I know he wants Israel to keep the heights.

But a private project there...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Cerberus I was kidding. I'm usually a clown, just less witty

Understandably so, I don't prepare my jokes

Unlike @Mitch.

Cerberus

8:21 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Fair enough.

Mitch

@Færd You can: work it, make it, do it

Daft Hands - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

►

RegDwigнt

The real problem with all invasions is that nobody ever knows when to stop. So even if you're the good guy pushing back against Hitler himself, you look around and say oh well, now that I'm here, I might as well take that place, too.

Cerberus

Uhuh.

RegDwigнt

And so you become the bad guy. Then someone else has to come and push you back and be the good guy. And then they turn into the bad guy.

People never know when to stop.

So greedy.

Cerberus

Although the allied occupation of Germany ended fairly well, didn't it?

Mitch

8:23 PM

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ No. I've never heard that before. I don't play the piano.

Cerberus

Little push-back.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@RegDwigнt Obesity is an epidemic

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus I dunno. Look at all those US air bases still there. Bombing Iraq from within Germany. In an illegal war with no war declaration.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Does it have awesome track lighting in it?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

And them sending korns

RegDwigнt

8:24 PM

@Mitch in Soviet Russia, piano plays you.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mitch It would have taken you 27 % of the effort to just Google it

Mitch

@RegDwigнt and Stadt

or is it Staat?

Or Land?

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Well, most Germans are OK with that, no push-back...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@RegDwigнt This guy? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Piano

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus most actually are not. Indeed it is against the Constitution. Which in a great karmic joke the US gave to Germany. Modeled after the US Constitution.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

8:26 PM

Sounds like a divide-by-zero case

RegDwigнt

Again, ties in into my point from earlier. "Germany must never wage a war ever again. Except when we are in Germany. We can wage war wherever. We are the good guys."

Mitch

@Cerberus I think @Færd is being diplomatic here. At least the third person singular in Farsi is gender neutral.

RegDwigнt

> Matteo Piano has a standing reach of 278 cm.

That is one tall piano.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt OK as in, not being too stressed about it. No push-back.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Slow down man. I'm going through the transcript and will reply to_every single thing_.

RegDwigнt

8:28 PM

@Cerberus there was a ton of push back. As there was in London, mind. The biggest demonstrations in UK history. Tony Blair didn't give a fuck.

It's not that long ago, certainly you can't be that oblivious.

Cerberus

@Mitch What you mean is that they don't have gendered pronouns of the 3rd person singular?

@RegDwigнt That is not pushback as in the present context, Germany invading America.

I really don't think there is a cycle of rancour in this case.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Cerberus او is genderless.

So is it...

And Arial sucks.

Yes.

8:30 PM

Is this the International No News There Day?

Cerberus

Comic Sans is elegant.

And original.

RegDwigнt

Well yes. Again our point from before. People just never know when to stop.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Cerberus او is 'he', 'she' and 'it'

Cerberus

OK.

And there are no other pronouns of the 3rd sg.?

RegDwigнt

They will put chocolate cake and cheese on absolutely everything and then complain how absolutely everything sucks.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

8:31 PM

First point of confusion in the path of learning English: "Why the hell do they have three words for one?"

Cerberus

But I like my chocolate cheese.

RegDwigнt

Russia actually has chocolate butter. It is salty.

Cerberus

How Mayan of her.

Surely -ia is feminine?

RegDwigнt

Robusto

@RegDwigнt I"ll still piss about Russian, tyvm.

Cerberus

8:33 PM

That could be good?

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus of course. Rossija.

Cerberus

Yes.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus it is awesome.

Cerberus

I also like the sweet chicken pastries from Morocco.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto try our salty chocolate butter first.

Robusto

8:34 PM

Sounds like a plan.

RegDwigнt

Plan nine from outer space.

Cerberus

Chocolate with salt has been popular here for quite a while.

Do they sell Chocolonely where you live?

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus Yeah. For that, you forgot all about how tomatoes grow.

Robusto

There was a recent craze in the use for "salty caramel" ... which I never cared for.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ I work hard at being spontaneous.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

8:35 PM

@Cerberus ش َ is a suffix that denotes 3rd person singularness, but it's similar to او. Genderless and humble

RegDwigнt

I hate caramel. It always sticks to the inside of your teeth.

Robusto

But chocolate ... well, there is no ice cream for me without it.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt I know. Wasserbombe grow year-round in greenhouses.

Mitch

There. Got to the end of the tra... holy shit you guys kept talking since then.

Cerberus

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Hmmm...

RegDwigнt

8:35 PM

@Cerberus yet each bomb only grows once.

Cerberus

Even in greenhouses?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

We don't have hmmm in Persian but it would have been genderless as well.

RegDwigнt

Psst, nobody tell @Mitch about getting to the beginning of the transcript.

Cerberus

Everyone wants to be genderless in Persian.

RegDwigнt

Or actually, do. That'll keep him silent for a while.

Robusto

8:36 PM

But the thing I like best about French and German and Russian ... is the bread.

Cerberus

Yay.

Mitch

@Cerberus I thought I sai... by using 'the' I thought I was implying that there was only one 3rd person pronoun.

Cerberus

I don't fancy German bread very much, alas.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Uh... that's easy.

Cerberus

@Mitch Noted.

Robusto

8:36 PM

@Cerberus Don't like rye or pumpernickel?

Mitch

Well. Not easy. But doable

RegDwigнt

@Robusto Russia traditionally only has two varieties. But yeah each of them is still better than whatever surrogate I hear you get treated to by Walmart.

France and Germany on the other hand, these have more breads than they have beers and cheeses.

Robusto

I don't buy Walmart bread.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt There is never not any news

Cerberus

@Robusto Mm I suppose I do, but not as my daily bread.

RegDwigнt

8:37 PM

@Robusto pars pro toto.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt It's better than English cuisine.

Robusto

On the other hand, I do occasionally visit Walmart just so I can feel prettier than I am. In real life I'm a 5 or a 6, but in Walmart I am a 10.

Mitch

Which is hardly saying anything at all.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch that, too, is a lie. Like British teeth.

Mitch

Like saying English cuisine is better than Irish cuisine.

RegDwigнt

8:38 PM

You should watch some Jamie Oliver for starters.

Cerberus

gasp

RegDwigнt

@Mitch Irish cuisine almost made the Irish go extinct.

Cerberus

England has a cuisine?

Mitch

@RegDwigнt I've caught up with the past. Now working on the future...

RegDwigнt

@Robusto nobody in Walmart is a 10. Physically impossible.

Robusto

8:39 PM

I enjoyed English breakfasts and meat pies and the like. And if I wanted a good dinner, I went to a foreign restaurant: Italian, French, Chinese, etc.

@RegDwigнt I'm saying by comparison. Relatively, for the venue.

RegDwigнt

I get your point. But I can't yank your chain by saying that I get your point.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt For example, I can't believe you said something so, well not exactly outrageous...

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Put that in your pants and yank it.

RegDwigнt

Oh now there's an idea.

Thank you. I learn so much from the Internet.

Robusto

Hold on hold on hold on!!!! We have too many conversations going on in here. This is the Incomprehensible Room, not the multi-layered discourse room.

RegDwigнt

8:41 PM

Who?

Robusto

Did you come here looking for an argument?

RegDwigнt

Yes twenty yesterday.

Only got seven.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Walking through the door drops you down by three.

Some of the cashiers are in negative territory

@RegDwigнt You're making my point for me.

RegDwigнt

I never.

Mitch

Irish cuisine outshines Scandinavian. Particularly Icelandic.

And Icelandic is a notch above Greenlandian.

RegDwigнt

8:43 PM

Let's see. One side eats rotten shark, and is still alive. The other eats potatoes and almost died to that.

Mitch

The Hard Rock Cafe in Thule is not the worst though.

Færd

@Mitch No gendered pronouns at all.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know...

Mitch

@RegDwigнt One is cold all year round. The other is damp and dirty and lives in a bog, but at least they are marginally warmer.

@RegDwigнt Hey..what is that guy doing that for?

RegDwigнt

I did not know of your preferences for warm bogs.

Robusto

8:45 PM

room topic changed to Multi-Layered Discourse Room: Where English is occasionally spoken if you are patient. [phrase-requests] [pronunciation] [single-word-requests] [synonyms]

RegDwigнt

@Mitch see you don't pass the test. Only Robusto will pass the test. If he is ever to return.

Mitch

I mean, if I had a choice..

Færd

@Cerberus He doesn't want Israel to do anything. It's the other way around.

RegDwigнt

Oh there he is. He was busy yanking the room's pants.

Robusto

Indeed.

Mitch

8:46 PM

@Færd It's like walking into an episode of Mission Impossible any time after the first 5 minutes.

but there's no first five minutes

Cerberus

@Færd Well, he said he was fine with their keeping them, I believe?

RegDwigнt

I don't understand the new room description.

I didn't know that this was the dentist's waiting room.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Time flies are annoying.

Færd

@Cerberus That doesn't mean it's he who wants them to keep the heights. He can't point to the heights on the map.

RegDwigнt

Comparing applies to flies who like a banana.

Færd

8:48 PM

@Mitch Haven't played that, but I guess I know what you mean.

RegDwigнt

Last night I spent on Wikipedia reading up about unit 731. Has anybody ever heard of that shit? I never did in forty years.

Mitch

@Færd All movies are like that.

Or should be.

Færd

Is that a movie or a video game?

Speaking of which, gimme video game suggestions.

RegDwigнt

It's like some next-level Mengele shit. Horrible to the extreme.

Unit 731

Unit 731 (Japanese: 731部隊, Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai) was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) of World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Imperial Japan. Unit 731 was based at the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China). It was officially known as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung...

Mitch

@Færd It's a drama from the early 1970's. So your parents loved it as kids.

RegDwigнt

8:50 PM

> Thousands of men, women, children, and infants interned at prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection, often without anesthesia and usually ending with the death of the victim.

Cerberus

@Færd By "wants" I meant he expressed his opinion that Israel should keep them.

RegDwigнt

> Instead of being tried for war crimes after the war, the researchers involved in Unit 731 were secretly given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for the data they gathered through human experimentation.

> Researchers that the Soviet forces managed to arrest first were tried at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials in 1949.

Mitch

@Mitch Also a boatload of movies with Tom Cruise

Cerberus

Typical.

Puritans are always hypocrites...

Whereas brutes can only turn out better than expected.

Færd

@RegDwigнt Hadn't heard of it. Gruesome.

@Cerberus He has no opinion on the matter. He's just agreeing.

Cerberus

8:52 PM

That is an opinion.

Færd

I think not.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'd rather have puritans who, killing people in secret, preach about how killing is terrible, rather than mongols openly preaching that killing everybody is good.

@Cerberus No. That is an opinion.

Cerberus

@Færd Perhaps there is some finer point you're making that I am missing.

RegDwigнt

Apparently in addition to not a single victim surviving the camp, they used their "research" to attack mainland China with plague bombs and other things. More than half a million people died. Many to bubonic plague.

This is the XX century, remember.

Cerberus

@Mitch How about brutes who act tough but turn out better than the hypocrites?

Robusto

8:54 PM

@RegDwigнt That is horrifying, but the aftermath is even worse. "Hey, no prosecution if you share the fruits of that work with us!"

Cerberus

@Mitch NOU

Færd

@Cerberus You're giving him too much agency. If I parrot what others tell or expect me to, I'm not expressing my opinion.

Cerberus

Expressing someone else's opinion, then?

Færd

Yeap.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto and it's really only recently that even the Japanese themselves start to come to terms with it. Releasing information. I read the entire article last night, the dates at the end are all like 2013 and 2017. This is a very current thing.

Again, I only overheard it recently.

Mitch

8:56 PM

Nov 10 '10 at 15:27, by Feeds

Welcome to chat for: English Language and Usage

It gets more interesting after that

@Cerberus Those guys are OK

RegDwigнt

Imagine people finding out about Mengele and then keeping quiet about all of it for 80 years.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt I get so depressed about humanity. Seriously.

Mitch

@Cerberus More opinions.

Cerberus

@Mitch Yay!

@Mitch NO LESS

Mitch

@Cerberus wait, do they tell everyone to kill everybody but don't do it themselves?

Hypocrites.

Cerberus

8:58 PM

I don't think the Soviets did that.

RegDwigнt

> In April 2018, the National Archives of Japan released the names of 3,607 members of Unit 731, in response to a request by Professor Katsuo Nishiyama of the Shiga University of Medical Science.

That's literally just one year ago.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Pretty much only the (West) Germans have a policy of contrition.

RegDwigнt

The law that allowed them to do that was only passed in 2003.

Mitch

Everybody else is sort of, hey, those Germans were dicks.

But did all sorts of dick moves themselves.

Not that the English are any great thing, but I think they were one of the few countries to not set up camps of 'people we don't like'.

waiting for someone to give me an example

The Morris dancers made camps for themselves.

May 15 '18 at 16:16, by Mitch

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

Well, the Japanese somehow get way let off the hook for their crimes in WWII. Read about the Rape of Nanking sometime. How they would rape eight-year-old girls, "enlarging" them with bayonets if they were too small to penetrate easily. Geezis keerist, but I despair about so-called "humanity" ...

RegDwigнt

9:04 PM

> Female prisoners were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments. The hypothetical possibility of vertical transmission (from mother to child) of diseases, particularly syphilis, was the stated reason for the torture. Fetal survival and damage to mother's reproductive organs were objects of interest.

> Though "a large number of babies were born in captivity", there have been no accounts of any survivors of Unit 731, children included. It is suspected that the children of female prisoners were killed after birth or aborted.

Robusto

> Perhaps the most notorious atrocity was a killing contest between two Japanese officers as reported in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and the English language Japan Advertiser. The contest – a race between the two officers to see which could kill 100 people first using only a sword – was covered much like a sporting event with regular updates on the score over a series of days.

RegDwigнt

Remember kids, jaywalking is a crime. But if you rape hundreds of people, give them plague, and then cut them open with no anesthetics at various stages of their pregnancy to see how the disease progresses, that is a-okay with every single legal system currently installed on this planet.

Robusto

> The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women, including some children and the elderly, were raped during the occupation.[53] A large number of rapes were done systematically by the Japanese soldiers as they went from door to door, searching for girls, with many women being captured and gang raped.[54] The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation[55] or by penetrating vaginas with bayonets, long sticks of bamboo, or other objects.

I mean, who could do shit like that?

Mitch

If jaywalking is a crime, then English cuisine is an atrocity killing millions.

@Robusto The English to their cuisine.

I mean French food is OK, but it's not that great.

Some things are pretty good.

Like a croissant.

kids barely out of strollers can make croissants better than I can burn toast.

And I can burn toast pretty good

RegDwigнt

The Antique Toaster that's Better than Yours

►

That is one amazing feat of tech.

Mitch

9:11 PM

Wait... are all you guys not talking because you're looking for more examples of atrocities on wikipedia?

RegDwigнt

You'd wonder WTF not all toasters work like that these days.

@Mitch it's sad, isn't it. If you rape a thousand infants, you get a Wiki article. If you just sit at home painting paintings or writing nocturnes, nobody gives a fuck.

Unless you're Irish, of course. Then you just write Lady in Red, of course.

Robusto

Sorry, too depressed now to make merry.

RegDwigнt

Yeah I can see that. But then again there's no point in being depressed now and not being depressed forever.

These things are not going away.

So might as well not be depressed instead.

0

Q: The difference between 2 sentences

What is the difference between these two sentences: You should learn English words as many as you can You should learn as many English words as you can