Heihej

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends

\begin{chat}

Heihej

May 5, 2017 12:04

Hi. Could anyone help with spacing of listings in latex? There is space below each listing even after I set belowskip=0pt and belowcaptionskip=0. I'm using pdflatex to compile the code.

Heihej

Mar 29, 2017 18:20

@DavidCarlisle Thanks! I found this question discussing using the \author{} value tex.stackexchange.com/questions/15804/…, but it seems somewhat useless since I need more data anyway (a subtitle, for example). I think I'll just give them my own names.

Heihej

Mar 29, 2017 18:11

@DavidCarlisle I was mostly thinking if there is some common way of storing data like this, like the \title{} and \author{} commands. But you're saying I can just as well invent my own names?

Heihej

Mar 29, 2017 17:59

Hi everyone. Does anybody have any pointers on how to use variables in title page creation? I have a manually written a title page, but it has sections like
\begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth}
\textsc{Author 1}\\
\textsc{Author 2} \\
\textsc{Author 3}
\end{minipage}`
Now is the third time I'm using this title page, so I would like to move the 'data' into some sort of variables for easier editing for different groups (and for reuse in, for example, pdf metadata). Are there any best practices on how to do that? Is it useful in the first place?

Language Overflow

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Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 21:14

My mind can only come up with "the votes required" putting more emphasis on the actual votes "the votes required to pass this legislation are hard to collect" vs "we have the required votes to pass this legislation" putting more emphasis on the requirement. I'm not at all sure though (I'm not sure how useful my musing based on my intuition is. I figure you'll just ignore me if you want to.)

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:33

Yeah I think I didn't read the second meaning closely enough. It sounds like it's describing a legal concept now that I read it more closely.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:27

We shouldn't take dictionary.com as gospel though. I don't even know who wrote it.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:25

To me that sounds like the meaning that is invoked when there's no article. It's talking about 'a part of the year' as opposed to a 'suspension of work'.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:24

I think I can see this distinction between those two definitions (both from dictionary.com)

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:24

Did you see this?:
"a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday:"
and
"a part of the year, regularly set aside, when normal activities of law courts, legislatures, etc., are suspended. "

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:23

That's interesting. I'm just going off my intuition as well. I have no idea what variant that should be placed in though. I'm not a native speaker, but learned English in Beijing at a British school, after only a year of actual teaching in Finland (so in BrE), but then immersed myself in mostly american media. So I can never tell which english I'm using.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:21

I'm not sure how useful coming up with explanations for all of these is. It might be that the meanings don't have any general rule and are just defined in usage. And english seems to be pretty flexible with leaving out articles.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:20

@snailplane I think so!

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:18

Yeah I think "vacation" without an article is talking about some span of time and with an article it's talking about a specific trip, at least in most cases.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:14

@snailplane do you think that "taking a vacation" is referring to a general vacation or a specific one?

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:12

@userr2684291 the sense where "taking a vacation" doesn't refer to a specific vacation didn't occur to me at first though. It seems to be how it's used in the time article though, so I think you're correct.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:11

@userr2684291 maybe. The previous sentence did have 'taking a vacation' though, so it might be a typo. I'm not saying it's impossible though. It just sounds weird to my ear. If you're a native speaker you know better pretty much by definition though :).

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:07

Maybe an article invokes the first one, and the second one is used when there's no article.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:06

According to dictionary.com there are two definitions:
"a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday:"
and
"a part of the year, regularly set aside, when normal activities of law courts, legislatures, etc., are suspended. "

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:05

'Taking vacation' is weird. But maybe user2684291 was just trying to explain the meaning without the article?

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:04

@userr2684291 in some sense yes. But what do you think the difference between "on a vacation" and "taking a vacation" is?

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:01

Like it seems to be analogous to "I always listen to music" which clearly shouldn't have a 'the'.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 20:00

Although it's a bit weird since it seems to be indicating a specific radio (machine) even when we're just talking about radio programs in general. Maybe it's an artifact from back when the radio was just a single channel or something?

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:59

"the radio" seems more natural to me.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:57

Well at least they say "most natural-sounding". They could just leave it at correct and it would be worse.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:53

@DamkerngT. Yeah. Would you think that 'taking a vacation' is more common than 'on a vacation'? They might just have different meanings though.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:40

I would say that there's no article. You could say he's 'taking a' vacation or even 'the' vacation in some weird special case though.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:23

Yeah "in the mountains" makes more sense than "in mountains". I was too harsh on "in" at first.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:19

I would say "at the". Definitely not "in" unless they're going into caves or something. (I'm not a native speaker though).

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 18:28

But thanks for the input :)

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 18:26

That might work, but the problem is that it's not really an update. The email is to ask them whether we should publicly acknowledge them for their help on a project. It's not really an update on the topic of the email.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 18:20

Hi. I hope it's fine to ask english usage questions here. I'm not sure if my question is a good fit for the site proper. I'm writing an email to a person who dropped out of an email chain (no longer a Cc) a while ago. Would it be fine to title the email "Follow up [on topic]", or does "follow up" have specific meanings in this context (e.g. is it just used when someone doesn't respond)?

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

Not for the faint of heart or those easily triggered by Englis...

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:53

Night

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:49

A friend is saying that "nicked to" and generally "to X something to" (with some verbs) means nicking (Xing) towards yourself. So the protagonist closed the catch by pulling it towards her. That makes sense to me

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:49

Yeah. I guess the best way (this is more important with e.g. mathematics books) would be read extensively first and intensively later on. That takes ~ double the time though.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:43

I think you get more out of books going through them that way. I'm used to just reading through kind of understanding most things. I think that's due to the way I learned english though.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:36

"riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: " is how Finnegans Wake starts. That sentence doesn't end in a while.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:33

@Færd Recommend? Oh Joyce. Yeah his stuff is good. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners I can personally recommend. Especially the final short story in Dubliners called "The Dead". They're not as hard as his magnum opus of Ulysses. And I don't think many people have actually read Finnegans Wake. I think there's like 5 languages mixed there. I wouldn't start there.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:24

Sorry I think I misunderstood you. When you said that you're "willing to forgo the sound here" I thought you meant it wouldn't make a sound.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:22

Well if we're going with the theory that the circle is made by the progression of the sound. Also that's what the OED definition says.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:19

(kinda)

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:19

But then the rest of the sentence falls apart.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:17

But what about the "to"? Does that feature in the other examples as well? I had a feeling it's related to the verb, but I'm not sure if that's actually how the language works. (I'm not a native speaker)

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:09

Well have you ever read Finnegans Wake by James Joyce? They were writing at about the same time in the same artistic movement, and ata least the sentence makes some sense.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:06

@Færd none of the dictionaries I looked at had any suitable meanings for 'nick' though. Maybe it's some weird 1920s English slang. Or then she just invented a new word. That's not impossible at all given the genre.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 19:02

Well I'm trying to invent a way of understanding "nick [...] to", and after that I think the sound making a circle makes sense.

Heihej

Mar 28, 2017 18:59

@Færd but how does a 'nick' surround anything in a circle either? Also where is that text from? (sorry for butting in to the conversation but the text maddeningly almost makes sense)