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9:00 PM
Yeah, it's a party mix.
Hmpf.
@Fx Was he lurking in this room or what?
Strange coincidence.
 
F'x
@nohat well, being pedantic, the giant quotation mark is always wrong because it is not closed (unbalanced)
 
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Here.
Enough for ya?
 
@Fx heh well there are some styles that for consecutive paragraphs of quoted material, the paragraphs begin but don't end with quotation marks
until the last one
 
F'x
@RegDwight: many thanks, O Shiny Knight In Armour; thanks to you, the balance of the Universe was restored
 
@Fx Yes, I am sure that I have posted the exact number of quotes missing.
 
F'x
9:04 PM
well, to me it's all just style, and it looks nice
 
@nohat I do that all the time after seeing it on lots of British sites.
 
F'x
I do, however, agree with you that it does not make the "possible duplicate" notices very noticeable, which is an issue (a more specific one, to which I agree; I upvoted your meta questions)
@RegDwight come on, why is this still not closed? two mods on duty, and noöne for a quick "general reference" ruling?
 
Frankly, I think we have worse issues, such as tags only being lowercase, which leads to Google results from our sites being prefixed with "american english".
@Fx Oh, you mean "general reference" even?
Me, I'm no fan of that one, so if I close, it will be for a different reason.
 
F'x
@RegDwight “This question is too basic; it can be definitively and permanently answered by a single link to a standard internet reference source designed specifically to find that type of information.” — Fully fits the bill
 
Yeah, but pretty much every question on the entire network fits that bill.
 
F'x
9:07 PM
cheating a bit, of course, because Wikipedia is "designed specifically" to find all types of information
@RegDwight no
 
Every question is easy if you know the answer to it, or where to look.
 
F'x
@RegDwight that's why it's not "closed as too easy"
 
I don't see how that Wikipedia link answers OP's question.
"i'm looking for the 10 most common words used in the enlish language of either the Greek or Latin origin."
 
F'x
the only questions which I think are commonly borderline are etymology questions; but because nothing is ever really "definite" in etymology, they fit in the definition
anyway, it's a stupid homework question
 
That is a much more valid reason.
There you go. Closed.
 
F'x
9:12 PM
plus, it's argumentative: would you list "and" or "in"?
anyway, I should be off
 
@Fx Yes, etymology -> Etymonline, OED, Wiktionary. Single word requests -> reverse dictionaries. Word usage -> COCA, BNC, COHA. Proofreading and critique -> Writers.SE. Everything else -> Wikipedia. Where would that leave us?
@Fx CU!
 
F'x
a Chinese guy recently read my gravatar and said I was going to get rich, so I have to go out there and look for some money
 
Yeah, I have commented on that comment.)))
 
F'x
@RegDwight not to forget: in the end, everyone dies; this further reduces the long-term interest of this site anyway
on this lovely note, ciao!
 
Bye!
 
9:16 PM
0
Q: List of concepts that a language _needs_ to work for a large group of people?

user7834This isn't specifically related to English but to language. Does anyone know of some list of concepts that a language needs to be really functional for a large group of people (today)?

 
@Fx BTW, that "Chinese guy" is right here in chat right now.
@Vitaly Yes. Off-topic. Gah! Someone will be getting a -1 from the system...
I'm no big fan of this change. It encourages pity upvotes.
 
I really like that question, generally speaking.
In the sense that I'd like to know the answer.
Too bad Linguistics.SE isn't open yet.
 
Yes, the worst part is that all these questions we keep closing can't be just migrated to Linguistics once it does go live.
They'll be way too old by then.
0
Q: How many non-English speakers have trouble learning to deal with voiced consonants?

user7834Are there many people who speak languages that don't distinguish consonants based on voicing who have or would have trouble learning to voice consonants and distinguish the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants when listening to someone else talk? (^ long sentence)

Same OP.
 
Badger badgers badger Badger badgers.
:D Sorry.
 
Not enough buffaloes. Also, not enough cowbell.
 
9:32 PM
what's up with the ?
 
What's up with the second question, no close votes so far? I can't be running around the site closing stuff unilaterally.
 
@RegDwight gimme the rep to cast close votes ;)
 
2 days ago, by RegDwight
@Vitaly You should be answering more.
 
2 days ago, by Vitaly
There are not many questions that can be answered with a quotation from the OED that haven't been answered yet.
 
Well then, don't you dare whine about your tiny reps.
 
9:38 PM
No close votes for you then!
 
9:52 PM
Wow @Robusto, guess what happened to the How Stuff Works site...
How Things Workhtw.stackexchange.com

Q&A site for people who want to know the principles of how things work

Closed after 7 days in beta.

Killed before reaching public beta.
@Cerberus, too.
 
Wow.
 
That's a first.
1
A: Is it unusual for a proposal to be closed during the private beta?

DoriThe short version: there were several discussions along these lines at meta.htw during the private beta. My own take on the situation was that no one was able to come up with a reason for the site to exist other than to point to Wikipedia and HowStuffWorks.com—which makes for a lousy Q&A site...

 
10:07 PM
Was trying to link to a specific article in the Russian Wikipedia, but it invariably ended up being the Заглавная страница. :-/
 
Tell me the name.
 
[СЯУ / TIL](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Клетневание)
My point being, is that a well-known bug of these chatrooms? (I don't want it inlined)
 
Клетневание — особый вид такелажной работы, заключающийся в следующем: на тренцованный и насмоленный трос кладут клетневину (старую парусину, нарезанную длинными узкими полосками) по спуску троса так, чтобы каждый её шаг перекрывал следующий. Покрыв таким образом весь трос клетневиной и укрепив её концы, приступают к наложению клетня (шкимушгар, тонкий линь или проволока) вокруг троса, против его спуска, с помощью полумушкеля. Данный вид работ применяется для придания тросу прочности, предохранению его от перетирания и вредного воздействия влаги. Ссылки * [http://www.stugna.kiev.ua/inde...
That's a well-known bug with URLs in general, I would say.
 
Oh. I see.
 
When in doubt, encode.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0%D­0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5
 
10:09 PM
It somehow links to the correct page for a few seconds.
So the bug could be fixed.
 
I think it might be just your browser.
 
lemme see…
yeah, that's odd
 
Your browser might be able to handle Russian letters in URLs. So everything appears fine until you actually post it, at which point whatever system you post it in decides that it must strip all the weird stuff.
I mean, I just pasted your http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Клетневание in my Opera, which was able to a) understand and b) automatically encode it.
But not every system is necessarily that smart / configured that way.
 
encod in opera:config doesn't show anything useful
my Opera doesn't automatically encode URLs
ЧЯДНТ?
 
No idea.
I don't think I ever configured Opera to do that.
In fact, my default language is not Russian.
Lemme try in Chrome.
 
10:16 PM
my default language is not Russian either
 
Works, but doesn't convert.
 
the OS, Opera, everything is in English
 
Neither Russian nor English here.
And I'm using like five browsers simultaneously.
Waiting for Firefox to start up...
3
Still waiting...
Hahaha. Yes, star it all you will, that won't make it faster.
 
a few years ago Opera was the only browser of the most popular ones that was able to keep the original URL on my machine
 
Aha!
 
10:20 PM
and I kinda liked that
 
Now waiting for FF to accept the copypasta...
There you go.
Works but doesn't encode.
 
funny, the exact opposite of what I had a few years ago
 
Now my hard drive is going like GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR due to Firefox trying to die. That will take like another hour or so. That's why I never use that stoopid thing.
Thank God I can still post here, sometimes everything just grinds to a halt.
BTW, I have read that article like five times now, but I still have no idea what the hell they are talking about.
I mean, шкимушгар? Полумушкель?
 
:)
 
I can't even tell вира from майна!
The English article has a picture, but somehow it's not quite what I thought was being described in the Russian article.
A whipping knot or whipping is a binding of twine around the end of a rope to prevent the fibres of the rope from unravelling. When a rope is cut, there is a natural tendency for the cut end to fray. A whipping is one way to try to prevent this, by applying multiple turns of twine (sometimes called small stuff) tightly around the rope very near the cut end. The whipping can be made neat and permanent by tying it off or sewing the ends of the twine through the rope. When doing this to thick sailing-ship-type rope, the "small stuff" used was sometimes whipcord, hence the word usage. W...
 
Mkay, but the text is talking about twining the entire rope rather than just its ends?
"Покрыв таким образом весь трос..."
 
I dunno man.
 
Yeah, sorry for trying to understand stuff you post.)))
 
TIL = Today I learned, СЯУ = Сегодня я узнал
I hoped you would explain it all to me.
Alas.
 
Apr 17 at 21:53, by RegDwight
You always post stuff that I have to think about really hard to get it.
@Vitaly That was the only part I did get.
Even ЧЯДНТ was rather obvious, although I don't think I had seen it before.
 
10:31 PM
> Dieser Benutzer spricht Deutsch als Muttersprache
I think you should query that user instead. :P
 
> Для этого участника русский язык является родным
:P
Find me a German who would understand ЧЯДНТ. Just one.
 
{| class="ddl_box" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background-color: transparent;" valign="top"| |- | colspan="5" style="background: transparent;"| |- valign="top" | width="93%" style="background-color: #; padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #;"| {| class="simple" border=0 | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- |{{Userbox |id = |id-c = white |id-fc = |id-s = |info = Мой бот: {} |info-c = #E0E8FF |info-s = 0.9em |border-c = gray }} | | |- |} Форма обращения Предпочитаю обращение ко мне на «ты» и в обсуждениях та...
 
Anyhow, I still haven't built, like anything today.
@Vitaly Ha, yes. Him and S1.
Them's teh awesum.
 
is there a chat room for StackOverflow too?
 
Best of: *fett = selber verzapft* und Hauptautor** *normal = nicht verzapft, jedoch Hauptautor *kursiv = selber verzapft, jedoch nicht (mehr) Hauptautor * Neu angelegt oder eine Weiterleitung überschrieben ** Ich halte mich für den Hauptautor eines Artikels, wenn mindestens ca. ein Drittel des Fließtextes dieses Artikels aus meiner Urheberschaft stammt und nicht ein anderer Benutzer alleine einen gleich hohen oder noch höheren Anteil beigesteuert hat. Reine Übersetzungen fremder Texte zählen für mich nicht zur Urheberschaft. ------------------ #36,6 #Abdulino #Abi...
@動靜能量 Yes, in fact StackOverflow is so huge that they have a dedicated chat server, that's why you don't see their rooms in the list.
 
F'x
10:38 PM
@RegDwight ouch, that hurts!
 
I was just going to whine how deserted this place is. And the main site. And other sites of the network, too.
Is there like a public holiday in the US or something?
 
F'x
now, you can't
 
Even the SO chat is basically dead. I mean, 5 rooms active? Usually it's more like 50.
 
F'x
except that I'm going to bed, so you can
see you
 
> Whipping takes time and some skill to apply, and may need specialist equipment
 
10:40 PM
@Fx Yeah, and I will finally go build something. Night.
 
I have just noticed that in the article.
Night @RegDwight
 
Not logging of just yet, but I'll try really hard to deliver on my afk promise.
 
10:52 PM
@Reg: Aww poor HSW...
 
Yeah, I know.
 
Can't say that I am sick with disappointment, but hey.
Hey we have a Chinese user with a name in weird characters? Welcome!
 
Yeah, he's at 12k on SO, too. @動靜能量
Ruby and kittehz. What else do you want?
Much like @Robusto, who is a nurse and a dream.
 
Sounds like a good combo.
Robusto is a dream? Whose?
 
That's what his gravatar means.
 
10:59 PM
Ahh.
Yes he a complex little thing.
 
Feb 19 at 16:52, by Robusto
It means "dream"
Just in case you're not quite following.
 
I was kinda following it when you literally said that that was what his gravatar meant...
 
Well, you never know with these dutchmen vrowen Antje.
Feb 25 at 2:11, by Robusto
@ina — Neither. I'm American. The character 夢 「ゆめ」(yume) that makes up my Gravatar means "dream" in Japanese.
Just in case you still don't get it.
 
11:14 PM
Okay, that should be enough for today. Night all, I'm out!
 
@RegDwight Good night!
I know, I am always late, but hey! It's better late than never.
 
Stop waking me up)))
 
:-)
 
11:49 PM
@RegDwight — Could be a Japanese name dou + shizu + nou + ryou (movement + quiet + amount + skill. The nou is the character for Noh theater.
And stop invading my dreams.
@RegDwight — Hey, wake the eff up.
And who let all these Rooskies in?
 

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