English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2011-03-11 (page 3 of 6)

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12:01 PM

Is there a different way to reach "users/recent/<user-id>"?

@kiamlaluno — I fail to see why you are always defending chickens. What have they ever done for you?

@Billare — I rejected that edit. There was nothing wrong with it grammatically or any other way, but the question was written by a school kid who basically wanted people to do his homework, and I didn't think it would be right for someone else to make it sound like it was written by a grad student in English.

You do not allow children to cheat their teachers?

@Artic — I don't get involved either way.

I just don't think they should be assisted in cheating.

@Robusto Are you against cheating at all?

I believe it cheats both the student and his or her classmates.

@Billare — If you really feel strongly about the edit, you can enter it again and I'll leave it to the others who have edit privileges to decide if it should proceed or not. But, really, you took a lazy, illiterate piece of writing and turned it into something that was finely rendered in a way that actually misrepresented the OP.

12:24 PM

@Robusto I agree with you.

@Robusto Because a recent theory says we descend from chickens, not from monkeys. Plus, I think chickens are cute.

Last but not least, they have two legs like we do.

@kiamlaluno — I descended from bears, not chickens.

But you have been able to climb, then.

Speaking of birds:

And one for @RegDwight, if he ever gets out of bed:

@Robusto That video is not available in my country.

Stop it already.

12:32 PM

What a crap country, really.

That's not funny anymore.

No, it's the crap laws of your country.

Nothing on the video says it's not available in @RegDwight's country.

How am I supposed to know?

Because your country has crap laws, that's how.

In Soviet Russia, everything was available to everyone.

In the US, everything belongs to Robusto only.

You mean everything you had was available to the people who were well connected or stood in line for long hours.

12:34 PM

How about this one?

@Robusto And how's that not the definition of everyone?

@Robusto Much better. But I have no sound. Will watch at home.

It's by a band called State Radio.

Bunch of Commies, but I like their music.

No way! Why does it say "State Radio" in the title, then?

That's just to throw you off.

I see. Everyone is messing with me. It's a conspiracy.

12:36 PM

See, you were thinking it was by State Radio. They suckered you good.

Here's another good one from them:

Content from Nettwerk Records is not available in my country.

At least it's not Sony this time.

Well, get on iTunes and download "Us Against The Crown" and "Year of the Crow" by State Radio. Totally worth it.

Very politically conscious.

I am not touching that bloatware with a hundred-mile pole any time soon.

Fine, get it from Amazon or buy the CD. Worth it.

stateradio.com

12:41 PM

Thanks. Anyhow, I have some work to do, and it's Xblast time, too.

134

Q: Eeeek! What happened to my envelope?

The envelope is gone from next to my name! How am I supposed to check where those recent points came from? I don't remember the link to that page! Edit: just to summarize the ways that the reputation graph does not make a suitable replacement for the /recent page: The recent page has just th...

discussion recent-envelope

10 hours ago, by RegDwight

By the looks of it, you will be getting a Good, Great, Popular, Notable, Famous, Favourite, and Stellar Question in no time.

I didn't mean right now. But you can buy directly from the band in any format you like.

She's got three of those badges already.

Way to go, @Martha!

Word.

Oh, and the new data dump should be arriving today.

Then you won't see me at all.

Fetishist.

12:44 PM

Everyone is a fetishist.

Yeah, but that's about good wholesome fetishes involving sex. Not unnatural acts performed with data "dumps" ...eeeuuuwwww!

Not everyone is into your fetishes, either, my friend.

Well, I suppose what you do is all right if done behind closed doors with consenting adult.

Since you are the only adult present we presume you are consenting.

Actually, people keep asking me about the results of my fetishist interactions.

Although I'm not sure if this qualifies as an "adult" activity ...

12:47 PM

Who said I'm an adult? I'm just lying on my user profile.

4

Q: Must be above 13 to use Stack Exchange sites?

I was just reading the Terms of Service, and noticed something: Subscriber certifies to Stack Overflow that if Subscriber is an individual (i.e., not a corporate entity), Subscriber is at least 13 years of age. No one under the age of 13 may provide any personal information to or on...

discussion legal terms-of-service age

Well, get up so we can see your profile. I was wondering why there was a lazy slacker draped over it. Now I know what the problem is.

BTW, you can listen to any of State Radio's albums in full, lossless audio right on their web site. Not just clips, but whole songs, whole albums.

1:09 PM

@RegDwight: I thought you would enter the bawdy limerick contest.

Huh?

BTW, here's a question that should be asked on English.SE: "Is it the opposite of unit?"

No, it should not be asked, but it will.

@RegDwight —Here. chat.stackexchange.com:80/transcript/message/648567#648567

9 hours ago, by Robusto

I've decided to spice things up in here. What we need is a bawdy limerick contest.

@RegDwight — I meant should in the sense of would.

I suck at limericks big time. Like, even more than I suck at everything else combined.

1:12 PM

Wow, that's a lot of suckage.

My point precisely.

I mean, not even light can escape, right?

If you can't handle it, don't ask for it.

Hahaha.

All native speakers excel at limericks, by the way. I'm just saying...

But yeah, I am pretty sure that some bozo will post "why is cle not the opposite of uncle" some time.

1:15 PM

I wonder if it's possible to preemptively delete those questions.

Put them in a hash table, and if they ever come up they are rejected out of hand.

It's only possible to preemptively ask them, then immediately close them, and then close bozo questions as dupes thereof.

But hashing won't work, it will always have to be a manual process.

"As I’ve mentioned probably ad nauseam at this point, people have the uncanniest knack of asking multiple, nearly identical questions with almost zero words in common."

Stack Overflow Blog: New Linked Posts

Posted by Jeff Atwood on April 25th, 2010

We just added a Linked sidebar to the question page.

Here’s an example from the current Super User question Now that MS Money is going away, what are the best competitive options?

The Linked sidebar is very straightforward: it gathers up any links to this question provided by the community via comments, answers, or questions, and presents them in simple list format on the right-hand side of the question. It’s important to note that these links are bi-directional — that is, if another question links to this one, the link will be listed on both questions. …

Is "users/199/kiamlaluno?tab=reputation" the page that shows the recent reputation changes?

@Robusto That is the biggest lie I have ever read. That would mean that every person on this planet excels at limericks, which is simply not true.

@kiamlaluno /users/199/ would be Jason.

Yours is at /users/recent.

(I am surprised SOMEBODY didn't ask which word to use instead of "aunt", because he thinks "aunt" has the same origin of "hunt".)

That would not be the worst-case scenario. I mean, hunt is not the only four-letter word ending in -unt.

1:24 PM

@RegDwight In some Q&A site the user #199 is kiamlaluno.

We are not just "some Q&A site", @kiamlaluno.

@RegDwight — I meant native speakers of English, dummy.

@RegDwight: I am sure you didn't agree about not using "analyst" because it derives from "anal". ;-)

And that, my friend, is an incontrovertible fact.

Talk to the wall, the hand ain't listening.

1:27 PM

@RegDwight In fact, I am user #252, on EL&U; in some other Q&A site, I am user #199.

@kiamlaluno CONGRATULATIONS!

Well, gotta do the whole commuting thing, so I ain't talkin' to nobody not nohow, not for a while, anyway.

Laterz.

CU.

@RegDwight I am still not approaching 400; you should wait to congratulate.

I wasn't congratulating you on that.

I was merely stating a fact.

1:30 PM

Uh? For what were you congratulating?

Huh? If you mean just three minutes ago, that was in direct reply to your having different user IDs on different sites.

I would have preferred to be the user #183, but they told me it was already taken.

Anyway, what I meant to ask was if on "users/252/kiamlaluno?tab=reputation" I can see the recent reputation change I was used to see on "users/recent/252".

No. Hence the public outcry on MSO.

1:46 PM

(I didn't know Hence was a public outcry.)

hi all

(I see flying gravatars.)

Hello @Fx.

@RegDwight: am I the only one who sees an increase in pure spam posts?

I mean, I didn't use to see any, and for a few days there have been some now and then

is it just that I reload the site too often, or is a real increase?

By definition, spam cannot be pure.

1:48 PM

Yeah, there have been a couple in the last three days or so, but I don't see a general trend.

what I mean is, spam by opposition to off-topic or plain silly

pure advertising

things like:

-1

A: How do I say, "I am willing to relocate", in my CV?

"willing to relocate" - you can add this to your personal profile

(Who knows what they use to prepare spam, apart ham.)

Wait a second, how's that advertising?

Ah! You mean the user.

Interesting, I didn't even notice.

Well, um, everyone is free to advertise any and all sites in his profile.

Well, the quality of the post is strictly nihil, so I went to check the user page :)

I've seen worse. This one actually answers the question.

1:51 PM

I've seen worse too

I wouldn't say it answers the question, though

If that doesn't answer the question, then not even the answer given from @Robusto answers it.

@Fx I think it does. "How do I say that I am willing to relocate"? — "Willing to relocate!" Not the best answer ever, but still.

well, think your position leads to easy potential abuse, but I'm not going to argue until there is actual abuse being done…

What I don't get is the "your personal profile" part. That might be interpreted as him plugging his site. But he doesn't mention the URL in the answer, so that's okay.

It reminds me of my office mate

She always asks me how to say this and that when she is writing an email

And I always end up telling her the exact words she asked me.

1:55 PM

Yes. It's like answering to "what should I use instead of analyst, as I think the word derives from anal?"

I believe the phrase was "without anal inclusions"

yesterday, by Robusto

Hmm ... I thought that was Society of Sore Anal Cysts

wtf

I don't even want to click on the permalink to find out the context.

lol

Some things are better left unlearned.

1:56 PM

Howdy.

Cut him some slack, he's @Robusto.

That's true.

He was probably just as surprised to see that message as you were.

@Cerberus Hello

("Anal cyst" > "anal yst" > "analyst".)

Does anyone know off the top of his head where "howdy" comes from? If not, I'll look it up.

"How do you do"

1:57 PM

I am thinking... Latin hodie, southern Dutch houdoe.

Ahhh...

"How-dy"

ORIGIN early 19th cent.: alteration of how d'ye.

I knew it was something obvious, thank you @Kos.

Haha, Cerberus with his Latin.

"How d'ye".

1:58 PM

@Cerberus It's obvious and yet it's not.

Yeah, most of folk etymology is obvious, too.

You never know.

Yeah well the similarity is striking! Ho-die = today (it isn't actually used for "have a good day" afaik, but it might have been).

That's very true.

True.

True?

1:59 PM

(That is different from "etymology folk", isn't it?)

Yes, true?

No, kiamlaluno. That is exactly the same thing.

To the T.

I think it's interesting how the words for "today" in European languages went one of two ways

Either something derived from "hodie" or else "to/in day"

I sometimes wonder what percentage of entries in etymological dictionaries are folk etymology; I think there must be a few entries...

@Kosmonaut What about French? "On the day of today."

2:00 PM

With French as the bridge between them: "au-jour d'hui"

French is both

Hmm so what is the essential difference between hodie and to/in day?

My point exactly. They are way overdoing it.

Spanish hoy, German heute

(I wonder about "tout-jour", then.)

Swedish I think is like idag

2:01 PM

Italian oggi.

Dutch vandaag.

In Russian it's "on this day".

oggi... does that come from hodie?

I am not sure....

Possibly so.

The more frequent, more more change.

@Kosmonaut Yes, it does.

2:03 PM

Good

Then it fits.

So @Kos what did you mean about the difference between hodie and today? That today has an explicit preposition?

I would surprised if it would be differently; Italian is the language which retains more Latin words than other languages.

Yeah that's what I like about it.

I just think it is interesting that either you have this arbitrary name for "today", or else you basically call it "at/to/in/of day", but then French gloms them both together

In Italian, the word for "of today" is odierno.

2:05 PM

You mean that in the Germanic languages speakers would recognize the preposition, while in the Romance languages the ablative in their words for today, derived from hodie, is not recognized by most people? Then I agree.

"Today's newspaper" => "il giornale odierno".

The Germanic ones are all transparent in the language they occur in

Right, that was what I was trying to say.

In Dutch it is weird then, I guess.

Vandaag

The van isn't logical at all.

daag isn't "day"?

It is.

But van is weird.

2:08 PM

Does anybody remember the name associated with Cinque, as in "Bonny and Clyde"?

"of (the) day"

(Actually dag = day; "daag" is an allophone in some expressions or very sloppy pronunciation.)

Okay, but then the word would come from attributive use, as in "the news of today"?

Maybe it did.

@Kosmonaut I have to disagree, I don't think "heute" is transparent to any native German speaker.

I guess the main thing is that it at least has some preposition + day, whereas the word for "day" in the romance languages is different (as far as I know).

"heute" is not Germanic.

It is borrowed from Latin.

2:11 PM

It is not borrowed, it's a calque.

hiu tagu.

Day comes from Old English daege, if I recall (ae = ash), and of course the g in that position would have been pronounced like a y.

@RegDwight Really????

Dutch has heute too, very formal: heden.

Well, that's my understanding.

de.wiktionary.org/wiki/heute

Wow, I had always assumed it was from "hodie/hoy/hui"!

2:12 PM

The largest dictionary in the world (...) suggests that Dutch "heden" came from Germanic roots.

My point exactly. It sounds like the Spanish hoy.

They just share the same PIE root.

That is interesting!

I'm not quoting valya again.)))

But what the heck is hiu in Old High German?

2:14 PM

hier? hiesig? I dunno, would have to speculate.

books.google.com/…

0

Q: Validity of alteratations: Un/De/Register - Un/De/Subscribe

Although rules are rules, in English it seems there is a high degree of elasticity with regard to such; this is ultimately a bigger subject for me which I won't head-up on here, but it is an opening for my actual question... In computing we tend to take things one step further and make up comple...

Peeving?

A lot of it is peeving

The question about the logic of the prefixes, and how they get used, can be interesting

But the rest is just peeving.

"Why do we let people get away with it" and so on.

My question is, Has the peeving metastasized?

Nah. Recency illusion.

2:18 PM

It appears there are HEDEN and HUIDEN, which are synonyms but not cognates in Dutch. Very, very strange. The etymology of HEDEN has so far not been solved.

Yes, it says Dutch huiden and German heute are 100% Germanic (pronominal stem related to English "he").

@Robusto I would actually say that it's the "un-" myth that is metastasizing. See uninstall, unpublish, and whatnot. We've been there in the past.

I'm still wondering where Dutch got narcissict blerg from. Is it even Indo-European?

I believe it originated in the Underworld, about 2011 AD.

It was taken up by a famous three-headed dog, they say.

@RegDwight — Let's get our quoting straight: My answer was two words: "Will relocate." That is perfectly fine on a CV or resume.

@Cerberus — That dog is responsible for a lot of grief in the language, I must say.

@Robusto We were not talking about your answer.

Seriously, back to reading comprehension class.

2:24 PM

The way I look at de- and un- is that there could have been a really great logical place for each one, with no overlap.

And you look at a few words and think, "yes it all makes sense!"

@RegDwight — Well, I've been offline over an hour. How do you expect me to keep up with all these new developments.

But then when you look at all the words, you realize it isn't actually a nice split.

Well, "de-" carries the sense of "out of" and "un-" carries the sense of "not", right?

@Robusto Yeah, upon rereading it, @kiamlaluno is to blame. He interfered with his comment.

@Robusto There is certainly a logic to some stems they are applied to.

2:26 PM

What did "me innocent" do?

It is just that there might be more exceptions than "correct" uses.

I think Latin is the culprit: the prepositions started shifting in Antiquity, causing part of the current mess.

Wow, I just witnessed mod superpowers in action. I was looking at @RegDwight's older post and it was edited right before my eyes. I'm scared.

I'd look like an idiot if I talked about "detying" my shoes.

@kiamlaluno You made it look as if I was somehow objecting to Robusto's answer, which at no point in time I was.

2:27 PM

Yeah, I blame @kiamlaluno too.

@Robusto [ Considers editing Robusto's chat comment so as not to arouse suspicion among the others ]

@Robusto Yeah well, I had to get it straight. If you misunderstood it, others might, too. Don't want that to happen.

@RegDwight: Where? When? Why?

In case anyone missed it, hiu etc. in German heute / Dutch huiden is similar and cognate to English pronoun "he".

@kiamlaluno Never mind, it's okay now.

2:29 PM

@Robusto: You always blame me; that is not news. "Man bits dog" would be news.

Nonono, this time it's me who's blaiming you.

You what would be fun? If anyone could edit anyone's chat lines.

Robusto, please leave the reading comprehension class, make room for kiamlaluno.

@Cerberus Ah, that is interesting — now we know where that hiu ended up

"Yeah, I blame @kiamlaluno too."

2:31 PM

It's okay, he's just sucking up to the wonderful being that I am.

(I guess nobody remembers of Cinque.)

@Kos: Yes, though I wonder whether there shouldn't be more traces of this h- morpheme in the Germanic languages. Will think about it.

(Just to answer to myself, now that I discovered the answer, it's "Cinque and Patty".)

@kiamlaluno I assume you don't mean Guglielmo Cinque, the syntactician.

26 mins ago, by kiamlaluno

Does anybody remember the name associated with Cinque, as in "Bonny and Clyde"?

2:34 PM

In archaic Greek, h(vowel)- and t(vowel)- were interchangeable as pronominal morphemes.

@Kosmonaut: Agree with your comment to my response about wrong/wrongly. I started to make a comment about "She done him wrong," but that seems an entirely different kettle of fish. Or at least squirmy and resistant to easy comment-making.

I like "squirmy".

That's really what it feels like.

@Robusto It might even be better to have it tacked on as a comment rather than distract from the answer.

Now I'm not sure what you mean. I said I considered putting that in a comment.

Uh, @F'x, did you really mean to post that museum note as an answer?

2:37 PM

@Robusto I had been thinking if you should put it in the answer, but then your comment here made me think, yeah, maybe in the comments is the right place anyway.

Ah, okay. Klar.

Alles klar, Herr Kommissar.

yesterday, by RegDwight

There goes that negative look-behind thing again. I think @RegDwight has a macro for that.

Word.

2:41 PM

You know, nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Especially in chat.

And don't go blaming @Kosmonaut for triggering the association in your mind.

See, I'm on to your game. You post these videos and then when someone replies with one that trumps yours, you just say, "Not available in my country."

@Robusto Well, I had to perform a check first, whether he was around at that time.

Haha.

0

Q: Could anyone point me in the direction of some resources on conversational writing

Im looking to improve my writing , i would love to know if anyone has any tips on developing an engaging conversational writing style.

writing-style conversation

Oh, I just noticed. I'm officially over 20K now. Don't I get a set of steak knives or something with that?

Okay it seems there were two pronominal stems in PIE: to- and so-. Demonstrative pronouns and articles were one; the relative pronoun is just a variant of it that split off gradually as subordination developed.

2:45 PM

I would ask in the Teachers' Lounge, but I am still waiting for a reply to my previous request.

@RegDwight no, moved to comment

@Robusto You do. You can now protect questions.

@Fx Thanks a bunch. Much appreciated.

Hmm ... but with steak knives I can, you know, cut steak.

In most IE languages, so- became at some time or another h(vowel)-. In English, so- was used in many more forms than today, but it was ousted by to- in pronouns and articles, except in he, her, him, etc.

@Robusto Well, your newly gained superpower is not entirely useless, either. It's only entirely useless most of the time.

Congrats, BTW.

2:47 PM

Wait, I could protect questions at 15K.

@RegDwight — Danke.

Ah. Okay, me talking rubbish again.

You're a trusted user, then.

english.stackexchange.com/privileges/trusted-user

Jinx!

Which means I can vote with all the other 20K users to delete things.

Not gonna hold my breath.

@RegDwight Linx!

I have 14999 rep right now.

2:49 PM

@Robusto You owe me a coke.

Too bad I am a mod... it would be exciting.

That's when two links are the same. Not the same as Jinx. Different game, different rules.

What happens at 15000?

The rules of Linx are unclear and flexible. Sorry.

@Robusto Okay, then you owe me two cokes.

2:49 PM

@Kosmonaut — I feel your pain.

@Cerberus You can protect questions.

@Cerberus english.stackexchange.com/privileges/protect-questions

Linx!

Linx!

Jinx!

Hahahahaha.

AAAAAAAAAAH.

2:50 PM

That was a meta-jinx?

Okay, here's your both cokes back, Robusto.

@Kos and @Reg Thanks.

I'm going to burn some more fat, sun is shining. Later!

CU.

So, @Kosmonaut, I see you haven't migrated that question to Writers.

Ah... do you think it would fit there?

Yeah, I guess it might.

Yes, and I'm not the only one.

2:53 PM

Yeah, I'll do that.

Mr. Disappointment closed his question.

I guess he didn't want to ask it if he had to take out the complaints.

I dunno. I hope not. It wasn't a bad question at its core.

I should have said "deleted" not closed.

He said he was "open to making improvements".

Yeah, that's why I don't understand why he deleted it.

BTW, @Kosmonaut, what is our policy on train wrecks, should/may/must they be deleted at a certain point?

2 days ago, by RD01

This answer and its comments are like a train wreck. I can't help but stop and look every time I go by:

Yes, assuming we agree on the definition of "train wreck" threads.

If they are off-topic.

Well, that one is not. It's just heavily downvoted and commented on.

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