English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2012-08-03 (page 4 of 7)

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RegDwight АΑA

5:03 PM

@MetaEd well, with the caveat that this question is not about affect at all, no, this is not the first one.

31

Q: "Effect" vs. "Affect"

I've noticed that some people use effect and affect interchangeably. What are the differences between these two and when are the proper situations to use each of them?

word-choice paronyms look-alikes

4

Q: What's an easy way to remember when to use "affect" or "effect"?

Is there an easy way to remember when to use the word affect or effect in a sentence? It is very confusing, and I still get them mixed up.

word-usage mnemonic

1

Q: How to Remember the Difference Between Effective and Affective?

Possible Duplicates: What's an easy way to remember when to use “affect” or “effect”? Effect vs. Affect I always confuse the two and I have no way of telling them apart! Help!

I like to make my little joke.

RegDwight АΑA

Can't stop me now.

12

Q: How common is the confusion between "affect" and "effect"?

I stumbled onto a US Congress representative’s website with what I think is a blatant and very visible mistake: Namely, the sentence in yellow, “How does the population change effect our district”. I am surprised to see this error in such a high-profile and (probably) thoroughly checked webpag...

language-evolution

2

Q: Can one "affect" change?

In an article today in the Christian Science Monitor, they give a Fox transcript of Palin's recent speech as follows: “Somebody like me – is a title and is a campaign too shackling?” said Palin. “Does that prohibit me from being out there, out of a box, not allowing handlers to shape me and to f...

verbs confusables

Now you can stop me.

See now we should list all those as dupes.

@MattЭллен NC not constructive. 'Why? Because that's the way it is.' all else is either speculation or a full diachronic corpus analysis, tracing every utterance of every individual.

Are those mergeable?

5:04 PM

Of the one that came up earlier.

@RegDwightАΑA "Stop."

RegDwight АΑA

Stopping...

4

Q: Elusive meaning of "affects"

Pandit affects a down-to-earth demeanor. What does affect mean in this sentence?

Grinding halt is about to be reached.

@tchrist uh. You mean I now must read them?

@RegDwightАΑA That is quite precisely why I asked the question, that I might be spared the task of reading them.

RegDwight АΑA

That's a good bandwagon, I'll join you atop of it.

@RegDwightАΑA Oh stop it, already.

RegDwight АΑA

I only just be gone.

5:08 PM

No letters which are not letters in this chat. —E ͫd ͤ ͭ ͣ

RegDwight АΑA

What about letters to not editors?

No editors which are not editors in this chat. —Emacs

RegDwight АΑA

Fine, is not Emacs.

@RegDwightАΑA You must use bait more sly than those to hope to reel in †☧ᶥﬅ.

RegDwight АΑA

It's not your bait. It's Martha's. Quit touching her stuff.

5:11 PM

If it ain’t broke, I ain’t buyin.

RegDwight АΑA

I do wonder how many thwacks were earned but not received in this room in the last treven months, say.

@MetaEd No letters which are not letters in this chat. \N{EM DASH}E \N{COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER M}d \N{COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER E}\N{EN SPACE} \N{COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER T}\N{EN SPACE} \N{COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER A}

RegDwight АΑA

What is this grammar?

It's an explosion of unicode flavor.

Taste the unicode.

RegDwight АΑA

The unicode is in the garden, eating roses.

5:13 PM

𝀫ed is waning querulous regarding available code points in display names.

RegDwight АΑA

Feb 17 '11 at 21:22, by RegDwight

"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily."

s/unicorn/Unicode/gi

No 𝀫 in this chat, apparently.

As I'm only getting a box.

No \N{BYZANTINE MUSICAL SYMBOL SYNAGMA META STAVROU} in this chat, apparently.

3

No \x{1D02B} in this chat, apparently.

Well, sure. If you're going to fall off the plane.

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plane.

Hie thee to George Douros’s fabsite, the font of all nifty historicals like these.

Liar! It falls in the sierra. The meseta is dry.

RegDwight АΑA

5:16 PM

♪ I'm falling off the jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again, oh baby, I hate to go.

@tchrist That's all very well to say. But then make chat.ELU use it.

Teddy me bear, chat.ELU does use it! It’s your own conputa whose fonts are defishy.

Do I have to take a screenshot to convince you?

chat.ELU uses whatever code points it is given. It is up to your local system to render those numbers into visible glyphs.

Mine does what thine does not. It is a simple matter of font installation.

Trust me.

Fetchez les fonts, and you too shall see what I see.

@RegDwightАΑA Thurber quote.

All you people. Stop trying to distract me from my work.

I have installed Gentium and LastResort, for gods' sakes. I shouldn't be getting boxes.

Michael’s LastResort isn’t as lastest as one might wish.

RegDwight АΑA

5:25 PM

Feb 17 '11 at 21:23, by RegDwight

Stopping...

@RegDwightАΑA Halt. Boot.

You need a font that supports the Byzantine Musical Symbols block.

RegDwight АΑA

Is wurks yet?

@RegDwightАΑA Not ... working ... must try ... harder ...

RegDwight АΑA

Jan 13 at 15:57, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Kitḫ I am trying as hard as I can!

5:27 PM

LastResort only shows the block glyph, of course. But it does do that much.

Ah found one that has it: Symbola.

So does Alexander.

And Aroania.

And Avdira.

RegDwight АΑA

Symbola. A name so crappy, it deserves a car attached to it.

And Musica.

You would prefer harp, dulcimer, and lute?

RegDwight АΑA

@tchrist Careful with that one, it's got the Devil in it.

LastResort doesn't do it for me ... neither does Musica.

los diablos in musica?

Maybe I need to install Ebola.

In summary, fonts install on my Mac that support U+1D02B are: Alexander, Aroania, Avdira, Symbola, and Musica.

I’m fond of Alfios as a text font though.

RegDwight АΑA

5:31 PM

@MetaEd ¿Mi Musica no es tu Musica? How can that be?

@MetaEd LastResort isn’t supposed to. Perhaps you misunderstand its purpose.

LastResort should show me the hex, I believe.

scavages up his font-dumping perl script

Yes, that is correct. It should. It does for me, if I ask it to.

So that I know that the browser is finding the glyph at all.

I see what I'm going to have to do.

Yay, I found out why my server wasn't working!

You have to start it up first. Imagine that. That has to be a flaw in server technology.

5:33 PM

@MetaEd To wit?

RegDwight АΑA

May 6 at 21:38, by RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

What will they invent next?

@MetaEd I’m running Musica v3.06; check your verno.

3.06.

Switching browsers I'm getting a hexblock, still not Musica.

Browser bug.

WAit.

Can you do any non-BMP code points?

𝐶𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑛-𝐵𝑀𝑃 𝑐𝑜𝑑𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠?

I'm getting ℴ,

whoa, did you edit that?

5:38 PM

𝕮𝖆𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖉𝖔 𝖆𝖓𝖞 𝖓𝖔𝖓-𝕭𝕸𝕻 𝖈𝖔𝖉𝖊 𝖕𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖘?

Ok, you just have crappy fonts.

Ok, after edit I am getting boxen for all but space and hyphen and query.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist 0_0 pretty

Do you have Symbola installed? Maybe you have to reboot your browser.

In Firefox I do not get boxen. I get italics and blackletter. But I still don't get the "meta".

ℐ 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝒫𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟 ℐ𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑠.

cornbread ninja

5:40 PM

I just wrote some Gothic whilst awaiting my Planet Sub.

Quote of the Day: "Of course we're all into gay marriage. When was the last time you went to a wedding that wasn't totally gay?"

Man, doesn’t anybody use swash caps for Italic anymore?

A wedding should be a merry affair, or one shouldn’t bother.

cornbread ninja

This conversation has become too relevant to my interests.

RegDwight АΑA

@Robusto my wedding actually wasn't. There were only the two of us and two friends. And we weren't even dressed up or anything.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist are you into ball terminals? salivates

Matt Эллен

5:42 PM

@tchrist it's even better than that! Noöne even knows what those are.

cornbread ninja

@MattЭллен speak fer yerself! :P

oh, I started drawing your orc head on a lino block last night.

Matt Эллен

@cornbreadninja I don't trust that guy. I'll speak for myself though, he seems alright.

@cornbreadninja cool!

😱, just fucking 😱.

Matt Эллен

lol

cornbread ninja

I really wish I could see those. ._.

5:44 PM

Install Symbola like I keep tellin yuz.

splutzes

cornbread ninja

schvitzes

I thought the meta symbol was in Musica.

Why install Symbola too?

@tchrist Isn't that meta symbol a musical symbol?

cornbread ninja

It's... it's beautiful sniff

@ΜετάEd Symbola was for the many Math letters I keep using.

cornbread ninja

I can't install it on my workputer, however.

5:51 PM

😱 is another one I don't see.

Even in FF. Even with all these effing fonts installed.

sux to be you. is from symbola.

It's not in Gentium?

\N{FACE SCREAMING IN FEAR}, just fucking \N{FACE SCREAMING IN FEAR}.

\x{1F631}, just fucking \x{1F631}.

cornbread ninja

iemoji.com/view/emoji/28/smileys/face-screaming-in-fear

munch.

oh hai Luke

@tchrist Not even with Symbola installed and using FF.

FF 14.0.1 which is the latest FF in general release.

5:56 PM

U+1F631 ‹😱› \N{FACE SCREAMING IN FEAR} \pS \p{So} All Any Assigned Block=InEmoticons Common Zyyy Emoticons So S Gr_Base Grapheme_Base Graph GrBase General_Category=Other_Symbol Print Symbol X_POSIX_Graph X_POSIX_Print Age=6.0

All I can think is that it’s the Age=6.0 thing that’s pissing at you.

Can you see any other Unicode v6.0 code points?

Codepoints which are new in 6.0?

0

Q: What is the proper use of “The” in front of certain nouns?

I was reading a novel (The Stranger) that included the usage, “...speaking the French.”; another (Radio Free Albemuth) included, “We were listening to an LP of the Jefferson Airplane at that moment.” I would have omitted “the” in both cases, or extended them to their full expression: “the French...

usage rules thehague thefrench

wth is with those tags

thehague? thefrench?!

RegDwight АΑA

LULZ

thethe is missing.

₹ INDIAN RUPEE SIGN
⏰ ALARM CLOCK

⛢ ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOL FOR URANUS

Let's see. ࡀ is new.

6:00 PM

ₘ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER M

Leave my anus out of this.

ₚ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER P

Rupee sign, yes. All others no.

✅ WHITE HEAVY CHECK MARK

◌ྏ TIBETAN SUBJOINED SIGN INVERTED MCHU CAN

🚡 AERIAL TRAMWAY

👾 ALIEN MONSTER

It's all boxes except Rupee sign. In Chrome, empty boxes. In FF, boxes with the hex in the box.

6:01 PM

🜖 ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR VITRIOL

That smells bad.

😠 ANGRY FACE

Oil of vitriol? Yes.

cornbread ninja

It's essential.

We use 75% and 85%.

But not nearly as bad as HCl.

🔁 CLOCKWISE RIGHTWARDS AND LEFTWARDS OPEN CIRCLE ARROWS

😿 CRYING CAT FACE

cornbread ninja

=^_^=

Matt Эллен

6:03 PM

the saddest character of all

cornbread ninja

happy cat face

@tchrist I insist that you shall post the required fonts with it.

👽 EXTRATERRESTRIAL ALIEN

🏰 EUROPEAN CASTLE

^ TERRESTRIAL ALIEN

Matt Эллен

unless you have a"kittens drowning in a bag tossed into a river" character

6:04 PM

That is sad.

👻 GHOST

@RegDwightАΑA Same with mine. We just had family for the wedding, friends for the reception.

cornbread ninja

@MattЭллен ._.

Matt Эллен

unicode thinks of everything!

cornbread ninja

I want the smallest wedding possible.

Matt Эллен

6:04 PM

as a character?

cornbread ninja

Like, on the head of a pin.

👺 JAPANESE GOBLIN

@tchrist So presumably this proves it's not a version issue.

₹ INDIAN RUPEE SIGN

Matt Эллен

@Robusto sounds tasty

You can see that?

6:05 PM

Yes.

Only that one.

Can you see any of the post BMP code points?

In both browsers.

Yes, I can see the italics and blackletters (FF only).

But none of the emoticons. And that is with Symbola installed.

That's just bizarre. You'd think it were a font issue. Well, duh it is. But not a version or code unit issue.

What are you running?

What does uname -a say?

snort There is a smart-ass answer to that question, do you want it?

I want your uname -a output.

6:07 PM

You asked for it.

Twice.

CYGWIN_NT-6.1-WOW64 Edward-HP 1.7.10(0.259/5/3) 2012-02-05 12:36 i686 Cygwin

Now … are you sure that’s what you wanted?

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’entrate.

@tchrist I can't see most of those characters either, and I have Symbola installed too.

@MattЭллен Also cake. We did have cake.

6:09 PM

Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

@tchrist Yes, very much.

Matt Эллен

mmmmmmm. cake

full of twisty-turny passages, all dead-ends.

Matt Эллен

No, no, NO. That's: "Twisty maze of little passages, all different".

6:10 PM

Sing O Goddess of the RAGE

Not for Prisoners of $Bill, where they’re all deadends.

Oh! PLUGH

No, that didn't help either.

Have you moved your mouse?

Oh, look! All those codepoints were under my mouse!

Now that you’ve moved your mouse, you should probably reboot you know.

It needs to recalibrate to Didot points.

RegDwight АΑA

2

Q: What is the password for ``ssh root@localhost``?

I need to ssh to localhost using root account, by ssh root@localhost. When it prompts for passwords, I can not login with all possible passwords. On setting of localhost machine, regular user xxx and root user share the same password (the password that works for sudo -s), but it does not works fo...

Yeah I want to know that, too.

6:19 PM

@tchrist Those are probably a royal pain in the ass.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightАΑA lol. hunter2

@RegDwightАΑA Hi, this is Ken. What's the root password?

Hi Ken, this is Dennis Ritchie. No effing way.

user19161

@tchrist My password is ************, shh...

requiescat in pacem

gets all accusative

RegDwight АΑA

6:24 PM

4

Q: Word (or shorter phrase for) "evaluate the relationship between"?

I am creating a poster to describe some research I have done. Listing the objectives I have something like (edit: using more sensible comparisons): Evaluate the relationship between height and weight Evaluate the relationship between height and width Evaluate the relationship between height and...

word-choice single-word-requests phrases synonyms

I'm not quite sure what he's after.

As per the top answer right now, no matter what you replace the phrase with, the redundancy will still be there, and space will still be wasted. The solution is all about typography, not vocabulary. — RegDwight АΑA 24 secs ago

Typography 101, in fact.

001

epsilon

user19161

@reg Maybe you should change the owl into the viscacha to welcome the arrival of the new mods...

RegDwight АΑA

Last time around that only got rid of a mod.

Hello again.

I have ordered Indian food, and it's great.

has learned that archaic now means anything the speaker doesn’t themself routinely use

6:37 PM

Ordered what may be enough for 4 days and it cost € 14 including delivery.

user19161

@Cerberus Are you going to finish it all at one go?

@tchrist Sort of...but it is not entirely a subjective word.

@JasperLoy Nope, trying to smear it out over several days. Not literally.

user19161

@Cerberus What did you get? Can it be kept for so long?

Vegetarian roti, and this aubergine dish.

Do you regularly eat Indian in Singapore?

RegDwight АΑA

imagines Cerberus smearing his apartment with ~~dog food~~ ~~Indian food~~ Indian dog food

user19161

6:39 PM

@Cerberus Ah, it's called brinjal in India, not aubergine.

user19161

@Cerberus Not me.

@RegDwightАΑA If you give me Indian dog food, I'll smear it out a little bit.

@JasperLoy No doubt. The dish has some other name.

@JasperLoy Why not?

user19161

@Cerberus Well, not my type.

It's good.

Try it sometime.

The dhole (Cuon alpinus), also called the Asiatic wild dog or Indian wild dog, is a species of canid native to South and Southeast Asia. It is the only extant member of the genus Cuon, which differs from Canis by the reduced number of molars and greater number of teats. The dholes are classed as endangered by the IUCN, due to ongoing habitat loss, depletion of its prey base, competition from other predators, persecution and possibly diseases from domestic and feral dogs. The dhole is a highly social animal, living in large clans which occasionally split up into small packs to hunt. It p...

RegDwight АΑA

6:41 PM

@Cerberus petclubindia.com/royalcanin

0

Q: "Especially" and commas

I'm curious about the correct usage of commas in the following sentence: "Secondary electron emission from metallic and especially dielectric surfaces is a fundamental process of great technological significance." I heard that one should put a comma before but not after especially. However, in ...

This is what we get for teaching people hard-and-fast rules in school.

You tell them, "always put a comma before especially", and they will try to put a comma in-between "and especially".

Same thing happens with but.

RegDwight АΑA

33

A: Usage of "And" in the beginning of a sentence

Small children have a particular writing style that teachers often mark as wrong. We had a field trip. And we went to the zoo. And we saw monkeys. And they were funny. And then we went home. And the bus was noisy. Nobody thinks that's a well-written story. So the teacher circles all the "An...

This is very apropos.

They’ve been conditioned to believe that rules trump reason, because what they are texted on is rote rule-execution alone, as though it were arithmetic.

@RegDwightАΑA Sing and be glad, all ye children of the West, for your King shall come again, and he shall dwell among you all the days of your life. And the Tree that was withered shall be renewed, and he shall plant it in the high places, and the City shall be blessed.

RegDwight АΑA

@tchrist Same for maths. I read a story on Spiegel Online a couple months ago about a Europe-wide study that showed that school children will literally try to add up sheep and hours, because they think that's what's asked of them: blindly apply a rule. They don't stop for a second to think if it actually makes sense.

So you end up with a gobload of people who suck at maths, and it even becomes socially acceptable to be proud of that.

Read a very very disturbing article in the NYTimes advocating ditching algebra instruction.

That was here, a week ago. There’s been a lot of blowback from it.

RegDwight АΑA

6:52 PM

All school subjects should be dropped in favor of one: critical thinking.

How do you test for that in a standardized way?

RegDwight АΑA

@tchrist ah yes. Saw it on Reddit. Never managed to actually read it.

@tchrist by applying critical thinking yourself.

Blowback here, here, and here, amongst others.

RegDwight АΑA

Also, don't tell me that anyone, anywhere is testing anything in a standardized way. Smoke and mirrors.

@RegDwightАΑA Based on this comment, this user is NS again

Then, the original example was not well written? — rednow 56 mins ago

RegDwight АΑA

6:54 PM

@simchona how do I read that into that comment?

@RegDwightАΑA how exactly is critical thinking going to help you know where to put commas?

@RegDwightАΑA It sounds like every other NS comment. Plus, it's in much better English than the original source of the question, suggesting he's getting smart.

the rules of punctuation are arbitrary and have to be memorized, one way or another.

it's just a matter of teaching people the actual rules, not silly half-wrong mnemonics

RegDwight АΑA

@JSBձոգչ my point is that it won't help you less than not thinking at all. Case in point, see above.

So, the comment was poorly written and not well edited? — Nortonn S Jul 3 at 18:48

RegDwight АΑA

6:56 PM

@JSBձոգչ well yes, and then there's that.

Matt Эллен

@JSBձոգչ yes, the way I remember it is "never use commas: always use colons"

@RegDwightАΑA There you go, pissing off Texas Republicans.

@simchona Heavy NLP/CompLing work would pick up that structural similarity. You could write a machine-learning tool that noticed it, given the right vectors.

RegDwight АΑA

@simchona I'll take that into consideration.

@RegDwightАΑA Ok, thank you.

6:58 PM

@RegDwightАΑA i suppose that's true. and i largely agree about education, but we can't lose sight of the fact that being literate and functional does require memorizing a large amount of trivia about how to spell words and where to put punctuation marks.

RegDwight АΑA

Yeah. Fair to say.

@RegDwightАΑA Well, when you have a nation-wide test that involves no written answers, just choices, then you can have something of a standardized test. But it cannot show actual thinking, which is why those are of limited use. For example, the AP English test requires critical analysis.

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Aug '123

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

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