firespeaker.org

(04:01:06) Aladnsane: *shrug* Go to a college bar. Throw a rock. Whoever shouts 'ouch' is 10:1 to have an IQ between... 10 and 1.

(15:32:55) Aladnsane: Is it spelled with an H in yiddish? I always just guess with German orthography. Hell, it's written in Hebrew half the time *shrug*

(15:33:06) [me]: it's not written in hebrew

(15:33:09) [me]: just hebrew script

(15:33:13) Aladnsane: point

(15:33:33) Aladnsane: At least I didn't say it was written in Jewish :P I get asked if I speak Jewish way more often than is cool.

(11:48:40) kesuari: they mean you'll live with god (or notwith god) forever

(11:49:00) kesuari: heh, without means notwith. i didn't need to make the word up

(12:16:42) kesuari: literal definition often means "in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical"

(12:17:01) [me]: fair enough

(12:17:07) [me]: people certainly use it that way

(12:17:49) kesuari: that's the first definition on dictionary.com ;)

(12:18:25) [me]: yeah, I guessed you'd pulled it from a dictionary

(12:18:44) kesuari: well, i was pointing out it's the *first* definition

(12:18:52) kesuari: i.e. the primary one

(12:20:08) [me]: dictionaries don't always know which to put first

(12:20:37) kesuari: in the case of "literal" i think they got it right

(12:20:49) kesuari: people don't use it to mean its literal definition i.e. "of letters" very often

(12:21:03) kesuari: (oh noes! i've used "literal" with a different definition!)

(12:22:46) [me]: you're just trying to be meta and ironic to get on my quotes page

(12:23:01) [me]: *to get more on my quotes page

(12:23:06) [me]: you dominate it anyway these days

(12:23:27) kesuari: lol no, i was just trying to be ironic because irony is funny

(12:23:40) kesuari: if that gets me on your quotes page, well then, i can use that in my plot to take over the world

(12:23:49) kesuari: and if it doesn't, well, it's not a vital step anyway

...

(12:25:40) kesuari: actually, that could be more a difference of the implications of "primary" anyway. so maybe i was using "literal" with its literal meaning, but "literal" and "primary" are both thankfully ambiguous in the same way?

(12:25:43) kesuari: i am confused.

(19:34:54) ***kesuari bags jon all the time, but jon doesn't always notice it

(19:35:12) [me]: no, I just can't tell

(19:35:15) [me]: I notice that something's up

(19:35:19) [me]: and consider that as a possibility

(19:35:25) [me]: but can't always tell if it's the right one

(19:35:37) kesuari: it's like shakespearean comedy, except with insults, not sex

(19:23:46) [me]: stressed and unstressed clitics are used that way

(19:23:53) [me]: at least in AmE

(19:24:11) kesuari: well yeah, they're used like that here too --- but they shouldn't be

...

(19:24:29) [me]: now you're just being a perscriptivist

(19:24:50) kesuari: of course i am: i'm advocating spelling reform

(19:13:07) kesuari: French Guiana ... is an overseas department ... of France

(19:13:18) kesuari: It is an integral part of France, and its currency is the Euro.

(19:13:34) kesuari: france did colonisation really weird

(19:13:46) kesuari: france does everything really weird

(19:13:50) kesuari: france is really weird

(19:13:51) kesuari: damn frogs

(16:29:31) kesuari: i learnt the names "asterix" and "obelix" long before i learnt what asterisks and obelisks were, and the common nouns are just weirdarse variants of the characters

(17:34:35) [me]: yeah, if the number on the two sides of a copula are different, lots of languages have issues with determining which form is right :-P

(17:23:23) [me]: "More data would have to be gathered to determine what the underlying cause of these dichotomies is"

(17:23:37) [me]: (is there anything you'd change with that?)

(17:24:31) kesuari: (yes, of course i would; i find academic written language and the spoken language that is essentially its read version incredibly hard to understand)

(17:24:49) kesuari: (but unfortunately making it just normal english wouldn't be thesis-like enough)

(17:24:50) syljwesandhr: (so what would you change?)

(17:25:11) kesuari: "if we want to work out what actually causing these differences, we'll have to get more data"