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12:02 AM
What is the Latin name for Gaul?
I thought it was Gaul or Gallia or something
Gallia , pars Europae occidentalis, in territoria Gallorum, Aquitanorum, et Belgarum divisa. Sic initium De Bello Gallico libri a Gaio Iulio Caesare est: "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur." Historia Galli, qui Germaniam superiorem incolerunt, circa 50 a.C.n. in Galliam inveniebant. Incoli e quoque Galli sunt; ex hoc facto nomen huius partis Italiae est Gallia cisalpina. Iulius Caesar Bellum Gallicum anno 50 a.C.n. gessit. Anno 453 potestas Romanorum in Gallia finivit, et...
This is a funny question:
Q: I have not gone. But I *have* gone!

ClosureCowboyLet's pretend that you recently started working for a company. This company has a yearly Christmas party, and you are wondering whether you're expected to go. You: Are we expected to attend these Christmas parties every year? Coworker: I have not gone before, and my boss still loves m...

"I want to say X. But when I say Y instead, that's not quite what I wanted to say. How do I say X?")))
Oh, it's like in Italian: Gallia.
Sounds like my officemate from Serbia
12:08 AM
The one who informs you about her lavatory adventures?
That Gallia link reminds me of a question I wanted to ask: is there an English Wikipedia article for this fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_(langue)? (there should be a closing bracket at the end)
She also always asks me how to phrase emails in English, and it is almost always like this question.
Her: "How do I tell my professor that I can't meet with him today because I need to go to an important meeting?" Me: "I can't meet with you today because I need to go to an important meeting."
Oh wait, an incoming edit!
@Vitaly Is that different from this?
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy () is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own. According to Ethnologue, seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their own. The largest of these are Vlax Romani (about 900,000 speakers), Balkan Romani (700,000), Carpathian Romani (500,000) and Sinti Romani (300,000). Classification and status Analysis of the Romani language has shown that it is closely related to those spoken in cent...
12:10 AM
Yes, it is.
in Hub of Reason, Jan 15 at 4:55, by Borror0
It was written in Roman language! It was what French was before becoming Old French.
Looks like we've collectively misread the question.
Oh well.
It was fun while it lasted.
The talk that follows that one message makes it more clear
@Kosmonaut See his edit.
Sounds like he's looking for "I haven't always gone" or something.
Manchmal hatte ich verschlafen.
Or what you say in your answer.
Also I am wondering if those two articles should have interwiki links between them:
12:17 AM
Now I'm definitely going to bed.
(I don't speak any French, I can understand it as much as my English lets me)
You should be asking @Cerberus.
Happy bedtime!
I have read the French article and the first ten words of the English one, doesn't look like the same thing to me.
But what do I know.
Night all!
Am I being summoned?
12:20 AM
Q: What is "backshifting", as applied to English grammar?

BillareI saw this term, backshifting, in an answer to another question, that was not endorsed by the community: [T]he process called backshifting...[it] signal[s] that the speech is not direct/quoted but rather it is indirect/reported. That sounds very interesting, but unfortunately, I can't be ...

You are =P
it doesn't explicitly state that Old Gallo-Romance is a transitional language between Vulgar Latin and French in the English Wikipedia, right
but I do get that impression from the following paragraphs in the English article
Night @RegDwight
@Cerberus Yes, take a look at this and the following talk, please.
The French wiki is a bit messy with terms.
@Cerberus — I just uttered the incantations and look who shows up ...
@Rob: That is not a dog!
@RegDwight — The Süddeutscher I knew used to say Ich bin verschloffen (sp?).
12:28 AM
@Vitaly: French Wikipedia equates roman and gallo-roman: I think this is wrong, and that they are two different stages. But I do not feel very confident altering French wiki.
@Cerberus — Sorry. Was just trying to get your goat.
@Rob: I am the goat's pagan precursor.
@Cerberus — A three-headed goat?
@Cerberus What about the English Old Gallo-Romance article and the French Proto-Roman one?
Well alas they chopped off a few heads of my dear successor.
12:29 AM
One head is better than none.
This one's for you, Kerberos:
In grammar, the sequence of tenses (known in Latin as consecutio temporum, and also known as agreement of tenses, succession of tenses, tense harmony, and backshifting) is a rule of a particular language governing the relationship between the grammatical tenses of verbs in related clauses or sentences to show the temporal relationship of the events to which they refer. Latin In Latin a primary tense (simple present tense, present perfect, simple future tense, or future perfect) in the superordinate clause is followed by primary tense in the subordinate clauses, and a historic "tense" in ...
You know, I think I need to make a graph of tenses for the site.
@Vitaly I did see that...but I like things explained by the commenters here, I'm lazy...Wikipedia also a horrible shade of off-white that makes it hard to concentrate on technical things on my computer
I see.
@Vitaly: I think "roman" should be the collection of dialects that was spoken in France, Italy, Spain, etc. between Late Latin and the emergence of the regional precursors of French, Italian, Spanish; we should begin calling these split-offs "languages" at the same date as when we stop calling the collection "roman"; and the names of these languages would be gallo-roman, italo-roman, hiberno-roman, or something like that.
As an alternative, we could start naming them thus at an earlier date and consider "roman" not the name of a language, but of the group of these closely related languages.
In that case, there is nothing between late Latin and gallo-roman in France.
I am using the words as I would use them in French, by the way.
12:36 AM
Someone should edit the French article. It has only one reference, which is a book published in 1923.
Yeah the French article kinda sucks.
An English article would be nice, too. XP
(There isn't any in the interwiki)
Night all.
12:52 AM
@Cerberus — Wait, did the Romans actually hibernate? I thought that was the Irish.
Night @Vit!
@Rob: Oops! I meant (h)ibero-roman.
Why aren't you a moderator? Then I could employ you as a slave to correct my old chat lines.
@Cerberus: Think this kind of thing would be at all helpful to the NNS crowd?
1:08 AM
@Rob: That is pretty neat! What does NNS mean again?
No-night's sleep?
Non-native speaker.
It should be in the FAQ!
(The concept is so remote, at least to me, that I fail to remember its acronym.)
I thought of asking a question and answering it with this, for the record. If people suggest changes, I'll incorporate them.
Did you make it yourself?
Yeah, just now. I guess it's kind of rough.
1:10 AM
I always find it extremely hard to pinpoint tenses in time. I just use them. And there is of course more to tenses than time as related to the present... so damn complicated.
@Cerberus: This any better?
@Rob: Yes, even prettier!
A little lighter on the background, I think.
Damn I now feel I need to write an essay on "supposed to" owing to FumbleFinger's question:
Think I should post it?
1:18 AM
Q: Why do we say "supposed to" for "should have"

FumbleFingers"I was supposed to do my homework, but I went out clubbing instead." On a literal interpretation, supposed to suggests that other people (or indeed, myself) might have supposed (thought, imagined, assumed) that I would do my homework. I could continue the synonyms (expected, demanded, required,....

@Rob: Post it to which question?
Make up a question to which this is the answer.
For no other reason than that I think it may be useful to people. When someone asks a tense question, a NNS that is, we could link that question.
Yes you could do that, an ESL kind of question: "how do the different tenses refer to different points in time, from the perspective of the time of speaking?".
Hmm ... maybe I'll wait and see what the mods think. @RegDwight, @Kosmonaut, @nohat: What do you think about putting up the graphic above as a response to a question about time for non-native speakers?
@Cerberus: Can you give that last one a temporary star so it's easy to reference? We can remove it later.
Dank you.
1:24 AM
@Rob: You may have it for eternity!
Well, neither I nor the site will last that long, unfortunately.
*Dank je. But you knew that.
@Rob: Nonsense.
It's for those "I have not gone" kind of questions.
A copy of the site will be shot into space eventually, and become lost among the stars.
@Rob: Oh, but isn't the not-gone question also about the scope of negation? I.e. does "not" negate the whole sentence "I have gone", or just "gone".
I think we are already lost among the stars. Look at all those posts on the right.
@Cerberus — Well, you know what I mean. A lot of the NNS seem confused by how we do carry on.
1:27 AM
Yeah some of those stars do not shine so bright. Why on earth did three people star my link to theme vowels? What's so interesting about that?
@Rob: Yeah it would be fine in an answer. But wouldn't it be more visible in a more general question about times and tenses?
Who can tell. @RegDwight got a star for "And."
Yeah but that is probably just sucking up.
People fear the mods.
To me they're like the bots on MST3K.
Bunch of crazy knuckleheads who are sometimes fun to joke with.
1:30 AM
Oh. Then, agreed!
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (often abbreviated as MST3K) is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999. The series features a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a space station by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of bad movies, often (but not limited to) science fiction B-movies. To keep sane, the man and his robots provide a running commentary on each film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking (or "riffing") their way through each reel in the style of a movie-theater p...
Ah that may sound like fun.
See how weirdly I added "may" before "sound", and yet it makes sense?
I see why that can be fun. It is a bit hard to follow those short cuts without more context, though, and I feel like I am missing a ton of cultural references...
Yeah. I just wanted to give you a taste.
1:35 AM
Satire is a great genre.
I have a question about certain women.
I can't tell whether they are hot or not.
You can't?
My personal opinion is that they are too thin, but they are in a music video.
BTW, here's one of me and the mods, er, bots ...
@Cerberus — OK, bring it. I'll let you know if they're hot.
I think their faces and boobs are fine, but their hips are way too skinny. Don't bother if you don't like Latino/rock-ish music:
They are dancing in a weird way anyway, but that's not the point.
No, I see what you mean. They're way too thin to be feminine. I thought they were drag queens at the beginning ...
1:44 AM
Ah I am glad to hear that.
Then I wonder why he put them in the video. What is the point of women in pop-music video clips if they aren't appealing?
They should have used real women.
Apr 13 at 9:53, by Robusto
user image
That's better. Even I can tell.
And here's what to do on a date:
2:01 AM
38 mins ago, by Robusto
It's useful, but is slightly misleading in a couple spots.
Or I should say, telling an incomplete story.
I'm open to suggestions.
"I am eating" can often refer to future events.
"I am eating at that restaurant tomorrow" or what have you
Ah, good point.
I think an important thing about "will have eaten" is that it happened earlier in the future than other future events you are discussing
I think there should be an "I am eating" 1 and an "I am eating" 2.
2:06 AM
@Robusto Yes
I will go to a fancy restaurant tomorrow. When I leave, I will have eaten a gourmet meal.
Everything is in the future, but "will have eaten" is slightly less in the future
Than "when I leave"
Ah, good point. I think that one will need a footnote, though.
It's hard to capture this relative difference.
Visually, that is.
I might put "will have eaten" on the "point in the future" but not "further in the future"
It's crazy how natural all of these tenses are for a native speaker.
I keep hearing my NNS coworkers getting all these wrong.
2:12 AM
@Kos: I am now writing an answer about why "supposed to" has acquired a sense of obligation... any suggestions? I am describing how words expressing modality tend to shift as to what kind of modality they express.
So far, without footnotes.
@Robusto I think "I ate" should have further distance from "right now"
Maybe a little. It can be any time before now, even a few minutes.
Maybe just to the left of the text.
Yes, but it looks like it could be up to right now, I think
I was thinking "I will eat" might need a little distance too, but it does mean you could start in the very next second.
2:16 AM
@Cerberus I'd probably glance at the OED.
@Kos: Right, that is a good idea!
@Robusto Yeah, there is some weird special stuff that goes along with that as well.
Like, if you are talking about a party...
If you say "I'm going", it implies you had already decided to go, and if you say "I'll go", it implies that you are deciding it now.
Although "I'm going" could be used also for the latter
But I don't know how "I'll go" in that usage fits in with everything else.
@Kos: It merely says "The passive of this, which is very frequent, expresses the fact of the subject being credited with some action or quality: now esp. = to be expected, intended, or meant; to have as a duty, to be obliged."... but OK I have consulted it so one less danger of being entirely wrong.
Yeah, it's kind of squishy.
@Cerberus Heh, at the very least there's that!
2:20 AM
(P.S. My last sentence sucked but I was too lazy to come up with a grammatical one.)
@Robusto I mean, I wouldn't attempt to incorporate that at all in the diagram; it's just... interesting.
@Cerberus It wasn't so bad
When I'm talking to my wife, I break all kinds of grammatical rules out of laziness
I think the diagram could be a living document, modified and updated as needed. Also annotated and — dare I say it — discussed.
Aww poor Kosmonautin...
@Robusto Well, it's a great idea to have this sort of official diagram out there
I think it already can be very helpful
@Cerberus I imagine I can't be the only one who does it...
@Rob: Yes I encourage it! It's just that I am immediately assailed by semantic satiation as I even begin contemplating the temporal references of the tenses...
2:23 AM
So ... you think I should pose a question and supply the diagram as an answer?
@Kos: True that.
@Robusto A question like "how do the English tenses correspond temporally to one another?"
@Kosmonaut — That's what I was thinking.
I may just steal that as a title. :)
@Robusto You may have it.
@Robusto You should do it...
2:34 AM
Yes, doing it now.
@Cerberus Congrats on 10K ;)
@Cerberus Now you can delete bad answers =P
@Billare: Hey! I hadn't noticed yet. Thanks!
You can still vote me down to below 10k if you want...
OK, it's up.
@Cerberus: Grats! Too bad they discontinued the fruit baskets ...
@Kosmonaut — Thanks for the help.
@Rob: WHAT I was just getting hungry! Thanks!
@Cerberus: Yeah, I made a pig out of myself and they said I spoiled it for everyone else. Sorry!
2:40 AM
Should the answer be converted to community wiki and all that?
The whole thing should probably be CW
I don't know how to do that.
When you answered there was a little checkmark under the box for CW, @Robusto.
Ah, figured out how to do the answer part.
@Rob: Ah I knew it! You shall have to cook my your fabulous fondue some time, then.
Well, if you come to the U.S. look me up. I will make it. (Just not in the summertime.)
2:44 AM
Look me up ... is that slangish for "visit me"?
More or less.
I'm thinking it should be like this:
Tense: Brief description
Composed of: Auxiliary + Conjugated form of verb
Example sentences: some negated, some gnarly
@Billare: If you want to put that as an answer, that can be the start of the user input.
2:47 AM
Yeah, I am working on it now.
I have to go to bed now, though. Thanks and TTYL.
Good night
3:04 AM
Night @Rob.
Greetings @Melanie!
9 hours later…
12:20 PM
i appear to be all alone
the black wind blows....
You are not alone.
I am here with you.
aw, man
Though you're far away
I am here to stay.
Stupid chat reverses stuff!
I am too fast for the Internet.
woe is you, indeed
Damn, what happened to my plan to play that game again.
I spend way too much time on ELU and way too no time at all on VGs.
12:26 PM
i really don't play enough to while away all my time on VGs
right now i'm avoiding it for the purpose of avoiding Portal 2 and DA2 spoilers
I think SE has a dedicated chat room just for those.
plus, atm my pc is packed away in boxes, until i move into my new house at the end of the month
I hate relocating.
there were like no good questions yesterday to answer
Lots of stuff to close, too.
12:35 PM
billare really deserves more upvotes for this
A: Is the adjective "abject" ever found with any word other than "poverty"? Does it mean something other than "very" or "utterly"?

BillareIt just occurred to me that I know how to find this out for myself; it took a little learning of syntax, but I borrowed from nohat's bag of tricks and searched the COCA for [abject].[j*] [n*], and these are the top 10 results it gave: ABJECT POVERTY 107 ABJECT FAILURE 53 ABJECT TERR...

Though I have no idea why he keeps writing ELU handles in bold.)))
The question is on the MultiCollider. The answer has a fair chance to get to 15+.
Though the time of the day is not optimal.
i admit that i don't understand the MultiCollider's algorithm
is it based on votes or views?
17 hours ago, by RegDwight
Anyhow, it relies on a number of factors. But I don't want to be boring.
aw, you're never boring
But now I do!
17 hours ago, by RegDwight
More than usual, that is.
So, without further ado.
Views, votes on the question, votes on the answers, plus some voodoo involving how many questions from the same site are already there.
12:49 PM
perhaps that's why relatively low-voted questions appear from writers.se and other sites
i suspect that w/o the voodoo SO would just own the whole list
The penalty is an accumulating one, IIRC. One question -- easy. Two -- hard. Three -- even harder. Four -- harder still.
ye gods, this is awful. my laptop's video card is borked, so anything that uses DirectDraw to accelerate its video drawing just turns into a nightmare
1:07 PM
Q: Are there reptilian creatures hosting the news?

logicbirdI've been seeing several youtube videos that show the news hosts eyes doing crazy things. Sometimes their eyes change dramatically after what looks like a strange inner eyelid blinks, eyes change color, or pupils look vertically elongated. The most common explanation seems to be that they are rep...

this is so absurd. but the skeptics are asking for it
The skeptics are asking for anything and everything.
2 days ago, by Vitaly
Also, they are promoting undiscriminating skepticism. For that reason, I wouldn't be very sad if that particular SE fails.
Q: Rihanna is the "Princess of the Illuminati"?

skizeeyThere has been a lot of buzz around the web lately about Rihanna being a part of the Illuminati. Then, I was like, "bah, this can't be real." Until someone pointed out small portions of her S&M video, where it says "Princess of the Illuminati." Now, I'm skeptical she is actually a part of th...

BTW, @JSBangs, you don't happen to know any linguists, do you?
Q: How do we do what we committed to do?

LarsHProposal: Linguistics When I committed to this proposal, I agreed to ask or answer 10 questions during the next 3 months or something. But right now I can't see a way to ask or answer linguistics questions. Except this "start a new discussion" thing, which seems to be more about the proposal. S...

@RegDwight i'm good friends with a guy who just got his doctorate from oxford. other than that i'd have to limit myself to people i'm acquainted with online
Too bad. Then we'll just end up with ELU 2: Reloaded.
i'm hoping there are linguists in the audience (of area51/SE) who are interested who have never come to el&u
there are lots of people committed to the ling proposal that i've never seen here at english
plus, the people i'm acquainted with online are not part of this forum, but will very likely be interested in linguistics.se
1:17 PM
Well then, spread the word.
We sure need fresh blood.
@JSBangs Currently only 8 out of the top 30.
I tried to ask a question at Linguistics.SE but it was immediately closed. I agree, there is something about the process that is arcane or occulted.
Well, you asked in on Area51, not on Linguistics.SE.
Which is not to say that the process is perfectly transparent.
@RegDwight — I thought I was asking on Linguistics.SE. Maybe I'm dumb.
That's what I'm saying. (Not that you're dumb, but that the process is confusing.)
Basically, there is a phase where you ask questions, then a phase where you don't, and then a phase where you do, again.
Definition, Commitment, Beta.
In the first phase you suggest on-topic and off-topic questions, to define the site. These are voted on but not yet answered.
Once there are 5 on-topic and 5 off-topic questions with at least 20 votes each, you move on to the next phase.
This is the phase Linguistics is currently in.
In this phase, people don't ask questions, but rather look at the top 5 list and either say, "ZOMG, this site is, like, so for me", or move on.
When enough people have said ZOMG, the site gets created.
Private beta first. Only people who said ZOMG are invited.
1:29 PM
What about people who say "Whoa, this site is not for me"?
They move on.
You can't say "this site will suck, I vote down" if that's what you mean.
See, if you say "Whoa!" that means you disagree. If you say "Dude!" you agree. Except when you don't.
What about "whoa, dude!"?
That is a way of telling someone that they really screwed up, or did something outstandingly awesome. Or you just crapped your pants. Or just spotted a hot chick. Or pwned in WoW. Or any of a number of things.
There. Now it's an OMG.
Just as ambiguous, if you ask me.
1:32 PM
Well, I think you should have said ZOMG. You want to distance yourself from people who, without irony, say OMG.
but now my image doesn't make any sense
@Robusto Yeah, but you should know that I have no idea what ZOMG means, see my top question.
JSBangs is so silly.
All because of his video card.
There, now it's a ZOMG. Perhaps I should just make my chat messages CW?
isn't there a strict time limit on how long you can edit chat messages for? i didn't think you could edit something that's more than a few seconds old
1:36 PM
Well, you know, I am cool, unlike you.
@RegDwight — Yeah, but JSBangs is awesome. That's better than cool.
Still, it's two minutes for him but not for me. I win!
the real question is, is that cat going ZOMG because he is interested in linguistics, or because he isn't?
i think that he is
look at the eyes
You should post that as a question in the Area51 discussion zone.
Then I will gladly answer it.
Here? No.
Whaddayathink, me works for free?
Cats have done important work in fluid dynamics, assisting a research project at MIT no less. I don't see why they wouldn't be able to handle linguistics.
1:39 PM
They even wear hats. That means they are qualified.


I am not a choir singer, but I am offended.
In fact, it's choir singers who know more about Latin and Greek than the average Joe.
Lay or not.
and latin
and russian, depending on what sort of choir it is
kbye, hafta restart now
Russians prefer men's choirs, for some reason.
At least that's most of the Russian choral work I hear.
Depends on the music.
You're probably thinking of all those Soviet military choirs.
But if you think folk music, it's mostly women.
I like mixed choirs. There is something special about the balance. For example, the great bombast of the Tuba mirum in the Berlioz Requiem followed by the soft balm of the women's voices in the Judicanti responsura ...
1:46 PM
Ha. Berlioz. Haven't listened to him in a long time.
But Chrono Trigger first.
