English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Robusto

00:41

I give up on today's Redactle Unlimited. My first 25 words yielded only three hits.

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

02:22

Word of the day: cabotage (transport of goods / passengers between two points in the same country)

3 hours later…

Vikas

04:55

Trains are the safest medium for land based cabotages.

CowperKettle

Cabbage is the safest cargo for cabotage

Cabbage cabotage

Vikas

Except the giant cabbage.

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

07:15

German word of the day: Annektionswahn

Xanne

Cabotage is better than portage, which is what I used to do when canoeing on Wisconsin rivers.

Wordle 410 3/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩i

That was easy today.

CowperKettle

07:56

Yakov Sverdlov, one of the top leaders of the USSR, in his office in January 1918.

He would die of Spanish Flu in 1919.

Yekaterinburg was named Sverdlovsk until 1990, in his honor

Vikas

08:11

@CowperKettle "would die of"?

Andrew Leach

@Vikas "Future in the past" The are some questions available about that.

Vikas

@AndrewLeach OK. I am trying to imagine how to say it in Hindi.

CowperKettle

What is the meaning of "Man the bowline!", a command? It's from "Dunkirk", the movie.

> Man the bow line! Ready on the stern!

Vikas

I will watch it again. Didn't understand in first go.

CowperKettle

> 'Cast off and stow the fore and aft springs - then man the bow line.' (Google Books)

Vikas

08:18

The Hindi translation simply says "He died of Spanish Flu in 1919".

CowperKettle

> At just eight bells we were between the breakwaters at the Old Harbor, Hank clearing the stern anchor, and Al going forward to man the bow line. (Google Books, 1936)

What is "to man the line"? To work with the line, either by connecting or disconnecting it from the pier?

Andrew Leach

08:53

@CowperKettle To "man something" means to put a man to work on it. If something is manned, it has people there and available. See Lexico, verb (not the archaic use; although that has echoes lingering in "Man up!")

Quite what the guys have to do with a bowline, I have no idea.

CowperKettle

09:33

@AndrewLeach Thank you!

jlliagre

09:49

Unrelated to cabotage words of the day: canotage and cabotinage.

CowperKettle

I wonder how long it took for a ship to traverse the distance from Dunkirk to Britain in 1940. In the movie, the ship departs in the daylight, and is torpedoed in the dark.

Duma deputy Butina (left) said on a TV show that if a child is speaking out against the Special Operation, their parents should go to jail. Because parents are responsible for the patriotic education of their child.

1 hour later…

Robusto

11:31

#Worldle #194 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

🌎 Aug 3, 2022 🌍
🔥 4 | Avg. Guesses: 5.75
⬜🟨⬜🟧🟥🟩 = 6

#globle

Wordle 410 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

CowperKettle

11:50

Dunkirk is a nice movie.

The Martian, too formulaic and Hollywoodish. Worth only watching casually once with friends.

Robusto

@CowperKettle Dunkirk is about 72 km (45 miles) from the closest point in England, but that hugged the French coast and was subject to artillery fire.

Dunkirk evacuation

The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week Battle of France. In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called this "a colossal military disaster", saying "the whole root and core and brain...

Another route was mined.

@CowperKettle I wouldn't call it a "nice" movie. That sounds like an odd term for a film so broad and penetrating and stark.

CowperKettle

nods

Cerberus

12:19

> #Worldle #194 2/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

I should have recognised the shape better.

Robusto

12:31

@Cerberus It happens. Took me three tries to get Germany yesterday. Germany!

jlliagre

#Worldle #194 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

1 hour later…

Cerberus

13:44

@Robusto Heh that is surprising.

Hmm the main site seems to be down?

tchrist

@Cerberus In a yoyo sort of way.

Cerberus

Oh.

Now it seems to be loading infinitely.

@Robusto By the way, my first guess had the same word in it as the correct guess.

Just in a slightly different language.

CowperKettle

> I've left my heart in the Alps three years ago

Can we use Present Perfect thus?

Cerberus

I would say no.

CowperKettle

I think that the phrase "three years ago" prohibits the use of the PP

Cerberus

13:47

Indeed.

CowperKettle

Thanks!

Cerberus

In Dutch, you could.

And probably in French as well.

CowperKettle

In Russian, you couldn't

Or you could.

I don't know.

There's no distinction between Simple Past and Past Perfect in Russian.

Mitch

@jlliagre badinage, bavardage, dévergondage

@Cerberus Interesting architecture, how chat is hosted in place distinct enough from Q&A. Or the load balancer is on a separate machine.

cripes, all I want to do is make a comment and walk away, but the up and down nature of the site is increasing my anxiety considerably over such a relatively minor thing.

Also, nothing matters.

Except words.

And maybe some snacks.

jlliagre