English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwigнt

00:04

@Xanne yes I recognized him, it's only adding to my suspicion that the OP are German and must have the false friend from there.

Robusto

00:45

@RegDwigнt So what was the outcome on the waving question?

Xanne

01:19

@RegDwigнt I’m not sure what you mean by “false friend” here. But the image seems to come from a program (an app) called gyfcat—an app used by many people capturing a few seconds of an image. I’ve found the image but can’t capture a url that leads to it. There’s even a gyfcat subcategory for gestures.

Xanne

01:38

There he is, gesturing.

Xanne

02:11

Sorry, gfycat, they’re called. Short-form videos, so as not to stress your attention span.

Captain Bohemian

05:00

@TerranSwett It turns out "twin" just means either of two children or animals brought forth at a birth; I considered it means the two persons at the birth. Thank you very much.

Terran Swett

05:27

Yep, that's right.

Jasper

I see you changed your name @TerranSwett lol

Gigili

09:58

> Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Matt E. Эллен

> Well, your scientists were so preoccupied with what my scientists were doing that they didn't stop my scientist from doing it

A smart evil villain always blames the good guy

Gigili

11:00

> They're all fired, yours and mine altogether

Robusto

12:36

Antidepressant or Tolkien character? You be the judge.

4

@tchrist: I think you'll ace it, but there are some surprises.

RegDwigнt

False friend

In linguistics, false friends are words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. An example is the English embarrassed and the Spanish embarazada (which means pregnant), the word parents and the Portuguese parentes and Italian parenti (which mean relatives), or the word sensible, which means reasonable in English, but sensitive in French, German, Italian and Spanish. The term originates from a book by French linguists describing the phenomenon, which was translated in 1928 and entitled, "false friend of a translator". As well as producing completely...

@Robusto no idea. I think it was like a year old anyway. I only bumped into it by accident. There probably aren't any current developments to take note of.

Robusto

13:26

@RegDwigнt I always find embarazada to be worthy of a smile whenever I encounter it.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Url in title, potentially bad ns for domain in body, potentially bad ns for domain in title (98): Do you write "AT 123.com", or "ON 123.com"? US English by Misc Stuff on english.SE

M.A.R.

14:44

@Robusto Trademark names aren't fair

I was expecting to rate high there

Cerberus

14:58

@Robusto Nice.

What's your score?

Some were easy, others were hard.

Mitch

@M.A.R. I got 14, pretty near to random. I thought I knew both.

@Cerberus They added some accents to the medications. NOT FAIR!

But totally fair.

Cerberus

@Mitch I agree!

I assumed one with a diacritic had to be Tolkien, although I did not know.

Conversely, I assumed one ending on -th couldn't be a medicine (wouldn't be approved by authorities, I assumed). It also had a k, so I assume it was some barbarian city of Tolkien's.

Mitch

What this means to me is that the pharmaceutical manufacturers, if not already, should be mining the Silmarillion for new names

Cerberus

Who says they haven't?

There is also this American billionaire who owns various military companies, all named after things from Tolkien.

Like Palantir.

Mitch

Right...the 'barbarian' words in Tolkien all have gutturals

Cerberus

15:01

Which does mass surveillance on citizens, too, I believe.

Mitch

@Cerberus It says what it is.

M.A.R.

@Mitch 15

Mitch

@M.A.R. Nice!

M.A.R.

I recognized Cymbalta, and Amantadine wasn't a trademark name

Mitch

@Cerberus OMG

@M.A.R. What's interesting is that it's omni-linguistic (?)

That the pharma words have similar patterns in European languages.

M.A.R.

15:04

They're not pharma words to be fair

Sure, Aza- is chemical

And so is -fen

(I got that one wrong, BTW)

Mitch

@M.A.R. Sure they are. Commercial or generic, someone made them up. The generic terms tend to be more recognizably biochemical substances though.

Cerberus

@Mitch I think they are established internationally.

M.A.R.

Companies here are much less creative with their names. Like, Sina Darou adds some sort of "sin-" or whatever to the drug's name and be done with it.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm always surprised when the European names are different (because I'm from the biggest provincial country ever.)

M.A.R.

Granted, they're also essentially toe nails compared to big Pharma

Mitch

15:06

Like 'paracetamol'. When I first heard that I thought I had landed on Mars.

M.A.R.

I never it was an American/European distinction

Mitch

@M.A.R. Protip: don't clip your toenails in an open office.

M.A.R.

It's just two different names for the same thing.

Cerberus

@Mitch Maybe some older medicines have different names, but recent ones don't?

Mitch

@M.A.R. I think we should have an argument about how two different names for the same thing are different.

Cerberus

15:08

There is also a different between a medicine that is generic and one that is a brand name, I think?

M.A.R.

para-aminobenzoic acid = para-carboxyaniline. In one you're saying it's a PhCOOH with an NH2 across and the other is a PhNH2 with a COOH across

Mitch

@Cerberus Marketing-wise the associations of a name are very important for saleability, so I'd figure that any numances are very language specific.

@M.A.R. but....

they're the same -thing- right?

M.A.R.

Yeah, exactly the same thing

Mitch

But if you are a chemical receptor, if the molecule backs up to you the wrong way....'whoa dude turn around man!'

So embarrassing

M.A.R.

Bigger chemicals can have a jillion names, one of them is PIN (Preferred IUPAC Name), some can be retained names (used so commonly that IUPAC yielded and accepted it), preselected names (kinda weird, like retained + IUPAC), and of course, a lot of wrong names in that they're ambiguous

@Mitch Haha

But that's different

p-aminobenzoic acid isn't chiral because it's planar

Mitch

15:11

@M.A.R. gloves off

FIGHT ME!

M.A.R.

En garde

Mitch

Touché

If this were epee, you'd have won already.

M.A.R.

━━o(･ω･｀)

Mitch

I hope that's not a rude gesture

M.A.R.

Why, you're shorter than me?

@Mitch Nobody's fingers are that long

Unless you're referring to the receptor

Mitch

15:13

I don't see the finger in that emoticon. I don't see anything at all.

M.A.R.

That's the point

Why would I show weakness

Mitch

Kids these days with their secret handshakes and secret doo knocks and secret coughs.

wait...

get that guy tested.

M.A.R.

My coughs aren't secret

Matt E. Эллен

17/24 very tricky

M.A.R.

OBJECTION! The test was biased towards Brits

Matt E. Эллен

15:14

:D

M.A.R.

And I actually also misclicked 'Celebrian' facepalm

Mitch

That's one that took me a while to get.

Matt E. Эллен

Celebrian: a nickname of Brian when people found out he was a virgin. Brian was the eleventyeth king Grombor

Mitch

And by the time I got it, the authorities had already been dispatched and were rapeling down from the roof to smash in through my windows

Matt E. Эллен

all British people know that

@Mitch Tinyman Square

Mitch

15:17

@MattE.Эллен Oh, I thought it was his parents being happy that he kept his virginity pledge.

A TRIPLE SCORE PUN!

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch I mean, that's what he said, but we all know

@Mitch I stole it from Stephen Colbert

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I had to follow the thread to the end before I got it.

@MattE.Эллен I got it from Agnes.

Tom Lehrer - I got it from Agnes | SUB ITA

►

Lucky Pierre.

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Cerberus

16:55

@Mitch But medicines are sold internationally?

It would be an issue if different medicines with very similar names were sold in different countries: if one were imported into the other's country, that could be deadly.

So I'm sure there are international agreements, at the very least.

About naming.

Captain Bohemian

17:26

so hungry now

Champion Pumpkin Seed Cookies can't stave off hunger

Lonely God is too salty

Captain Bohemian

19:00

sleepy

the late meal store opens until 3 am

and it's 3 am now

so I got food when going there

Robusto

@Cerberus I only got 18/24.

You beat me by a point.

Statistically insignificant, I should think.

Cerberus

@Robusto Probably, but I'm happy regardless.

Robusto

About 50% of my answers were guesses.

So 75% is right on the money.

Cerberus

Hmm.

I knew probably more than half of the Tolkien names.

Like Haldir, Fingarfin, Narmacil, Círdan, etc.

Captain Bohemian

19:15

when I went to the store, the moon was so bright and quite circular with bright cloud in an expensive region around it and when I was back, the moon was covered partly by cloud.

Cerberus

Some of the others I could guess, because their morphemes seemed Tolkien.

Conversely, some of the medicines sounded rather un-Tolkienesque.

That left a group where I didn't know the Tolkien character, or the name of the medicine was close enough that it might have been one.

Robusto

But it seems the drug companies were channeling Tolkien in more than a few cases.

Cerberus

Like Narvi: such a short name, and I just didn't remember it.

Robusto

That one feels more like Old Norse than a few of the others.

skillpatrol

It appears Facebook has been banning people for calling out white supremacists?
Zuckerberg is such a slimeball

Guardian of the emperor's supporters

Robusto

19:36

@skillpatrol Yup.

skillpatrol

With Floyd testing positive for coV, they need a mask on the Statue of Liberty.

Captain Bohemian

a lunar eclipse is going to take place.

Robusto

@skillpatrol Who?

Captain Bohemian

but it's difficult to perceive.

because it's penumbral lunar eclipse.

Robusto

George Floyd?

Marine Corps General and former Defense Secretary Mattis denounces Trump in no uncertain terms.

Cerberus

20:02

Admired and respected abroad?

Perhaps that was the case 70 years ago.

skillpatrol

the generation that were in their teens 70 years ago are the most at risk for coV

old attitudes can't stop this downward spiral

2

Robusto

@Cerberus Don't go there.

skillpatrol

Anderson Cooper is calling out The Emperor now?

:-/

Cerberus

@skillpatrol Haha.

skillpatrol

:-)

M.A.R.

20:17

@skillpatrol Getting trashed on CNN is probably high on Trump's everyday to-do list

I don't think he minds

Robusto

Faux "News" will kiss his ass until he feels better.

Mitch

@Cerberus Sure, but the names in stores can still be different from country to country.

skillpatrol

Let's not forget the thug is guarded by convicted felons @M.A.R.

Cerberus

@Mitch Also for newer medicines?

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…