Alice through the Effin looking glass
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Teetotallers refused lemonade in Effin pub
A COUNTY Limerick publican accepted a staff member discriminated against a man and his two elderly parents who don’t drink. Cornelius Hegarty Snr, Cornelius Hegarty Jnr and Bridget Hegarty took ...
Threesome awarded €300 each for not being served lemonade and original plaintiff awarded €250 travelling costs to attend action he brought.
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Not sure what to make of this -- there's too little information in the article imho.
I have to ask the native english speakers here, though. Does this sentence make sense to you?
A COUNTY Limerick publican accepted a staff member discriminated against a man and his two elderly parents who don’t drink.
May I humbly ask for help to break it down, please?
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@Mikael_Svahnberg "don't drink" == don't drink alcohol, is possibly the ambiguous to ESL readers.
Basically bloke asks for non alcoholic drinks for his teetotal, non-pub-visiting parents, staff takes order and simply doesnt serve it. Staff perceived to be discriminating because of that. Owner accepts the perception.
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@Mikael_Svahnberg asked for a breakdown in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
A COUNTY Limerick publican
Someone who runs a pub. In a part of Ireland called County Limerick (county capital: Limerick; Irish county names are mostly predictable).
accepted
Agreed to not contest a lawsuit in relation to…
a staff member
An employee, probably a barman or barmaid.
discriminated against
a man and his two elderly parents who don’t drink.
People trying to be customers but who insisted on not purchasing alcohol. (Probably obnoxiously, but that's out of scope.)
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
A COUNTY Limerick publican accepted as true the claim that a staff member discriminated against a man and his two elderly parents who don’t drink.
That should help, yes?
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@dkf said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
People trying to be customers but who insisted on not purchasing alcohol.
Thing is, I'm sure that soft drinks are at least, if not more, profitable than alcoholic ones.
This would tend to support it..
Why do soft drinks cost more than beer in Irish pubs?
The average mark up for publicans is 98 per cent on a pint of lager but it’s 407 per cent on a 200ml bottle of soft drinks.
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@dkf @HardwareGeek thanks. The missing bit that you added, @HardwareGeek, made all the difference in that sentence.
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@dkf said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@Mikael_Svahnberg asked for a breakdown in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
A COUNTY Limerick publican
Someone who runs a pub. In a part of Ireland called County Limerick (county capital: Limerick; Irish county names are mostly predictable).
Ah, that makes a lot more sense. My parser was stuck somewhere along the lines of:
A COUNTY Limerick publician
"a person who officially publishes limericks in the county"
accepted
"will be/has been accepted (for the position)"
a staff member discriminated against a man
E_PARSE_ERROR: new sentence without "."
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Came here expecting WTDWTF slashfic about @aliceif fucking a furry rabbit. Disappointed. 1/5 stars.
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That's effin terrible.
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@Maciejasjmj said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
A COUNTY Limerick publician
"a person who officially publishes limericks in the county"
Nope, a Cunty Re-Publican
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Earlier today I read an article about someone in France getting a 3 months suspended sentence for "supporting terrorism" because his Wi-Fi network had the public SSID set to "Daesh 21"... and yet this is still the stupidest fucking thing I've heard all day.
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@El_Heffe said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
That's effin terrible.
It's an effin terrible limerick, I know that much.
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So basically what I gather from the article, three wankers walked into a pub and asked for two lemonades; the barmaid returns ten minutes later and tells them the pub's been reserved for a private function and isn't serving walkins; this was actually true, but since "the sign was not on the front door" and the place didn't look like there was any private function going on, they left in a huff, determined that she was giving them the piss for not ordering alcohol. Then, they sued the pub, under the Equal Status Act, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of:
- Age
- Civil Status
- Disability
- Family Status
- Gender
- Membership of the Traveller community
- Race
- Religion
- Sexual Orientation
Nevermind that I'm mystified as to which of those categories they believed they'd been discriminated on (religion, I suppose? but there are plenty of reasons why they might've wanted lemonade instead of alcohol, and at no point did they say they were avoiding the devil's brew for religious reasons), "Their feelings have been hurt and they are entitled to some redress", which apparently means €300 apiece to repay the little trolls for their hurt feelings, plus €250 travel costs.
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@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
the little trolls
"little"
57, 78, 79
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@HardwareGeek English is like Python, you just jam the words anywhere with minimal syntax and their function will adapt as best as it can.
Romance languages are like Java, they have a lot of redundant syntax and everything has to go in its designated place.
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@anotherusername Yeah, it's pretty stupid.
When I read the headline I assumed there was some law about pubs having to serve non-alcoholic drinks or something, but no.
The next witness was 78-year-old Bridget Hegarty. She said she “nearly got a heart attack” after her son told her what happened.
I'm guessing she must have 2-3 "near heart attacks" per week, then.
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@aliceif said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
the little trolls
"little"
57, 78, 79
Physical age had nothing to do with it.
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@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Physical age
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Age:_Train_Your_Brain_in_Minutes_a_Day!
One of the most iconic DS games.
Also, one of the most broken oneboxes.
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@aliceif said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
!Physical age
One of the most iconic DS games.
Also, one of the most broken oneboxes.
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@anonymous234 said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@HardwareGeek English is like Python, you just jam the words anywhere with minimal syntax and their function will adapt as best as it can.
Romance languages are like Java, they have a lot of redundant syntax and everything has to go in its designated place.
<
>
English has almost completely fixed word order while romance languages are much freer in this respect. It would make more sense to call that "less syntax" because they replace syntax by morphology. E.g. a one-word sentence in Spanish is completely acceptable: Damelo!. "Give it to me!" is four words in strict order.
If cou compare parallel texts such as in manuals it turns out Spanish and Portuguese are quite compact, too; not quite as short as English but generally shorter than German or Dutch. Only French is rather chatty.
</>
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@LaoC said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
English has almost completely fixed word order
No, but altering the word order typically changes the meaning.
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@dkf said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
No, but altering the
word ordermeaning typically changes themeaningword order.Maybe?
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@aliceif We could also go with…
altering the word
ordertypically changes the meaning order
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@aliceif said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
the little trolls
"little"
57, 78, 79
Fucking Millenials are ruining everything.
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@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Physical age had nothing to do with it.
Exactly. What if one of them LOOKED 17? Then the pub would be charged with serving alcohol to a minor. That's jail time.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Physical age had nothing to do with it.
Exactly. What if one of them LOOKED 17? Then the pub would be charged with serving alcohol to a minor. That's jail time.
But they didn't serve anything, did they?
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@aliceif said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@Lorne-Kates said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Physical age had nothing to do with it.
Exactly. What if one of them LOOKED 17? Then the pub would be charged with serving alcohol to a minor. That's jail time.
But they didn't serve anything, did they?
Exactly! What if they had? Think about it.
And for that matter, the plaintiff claims there was no SIGN for the private party. What the fuck? Do they think the pub is licensed to handle something as dangerous and destructive as a SIGN?!?! ON THEIR FRONT DOOR? Why not just strap a Chinese nuclear reactor on the front door too and call it a day!
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@Lorne-Kates said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Chinese nuclear reactor
You fucking racist!
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@dkf @HardwareGeek thanks. The missing bit that you added, @HardwareGeek, made all the difference in that sentence.
Yeah, it took me a double-take to parse it too (and I'm a native English speaker!) The wording was...... less than ideal.
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@dkf said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@LaoC said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
English has almost completely fixed word order
No, but altering the word order typically changes the meaning.
Indeed. A simple, declarative sentence generally follows the order subject verb indirect object direct object (S V IO DO) — for actions that take objects, of course; not all do — or S V DO preposition IO.
Examples:
John gives Jane the ball.
John gives the ball to Jane.Changing the word order makes sentences that are grammatically correct but either change the meaning of the sentence:
Jane gave John the ball.
Or are nonsense:
The ball John gave Jane.*
Gave John the ball Jane.
The ball gave Jane to John.Eliminating the subject (or moving it into a prepositional phrase), putting the direct object first, and adding an auxiliary verb (AV) forms the passive voice — DO AV V IO [by S]:
The ball was given to Jane [by John].A declarative sentence can be made a question without changing the word order, but it requires punctuation and/or voice inflection to indicate that it's intended to be a question. However, it is far more common to indicate a question by changing the word order (and adding an auxiliary verb) — AV S V IO DO:
Did John give Jane the ball?Imperative mood (command) always uses "you" (singular or plural) as the subject, usually implied — [S] V IO DO — and the verb is always in the present tense or, for emphasis, in the future:
Give Jane the ball.
You will give Jane the ball.
John, give Jane the ball.Note that "John" is not the subject of the last sentence, rather "John" is a vocative. It identifies to whom the speaker is speaking, but the subject is still the implied "you."
Contrast this with languages that decline nouns according to case. In those languages, the forms of "John," "Jane," and "ball" would change according to the role — subject, DO, IO, vocative— they take in the sentence. Although a language often prefers a particular word order, the meaning of the sentence would be unambiguous even if the words are shuffled.
* This makes sense as a part of a larger sentence (Fred took the ball [that] John gave Jane.), but not as a sentence by itself.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@anotherusername said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Physical age had nothing to do with it.
Exactly. What if one of them LOOKED 17? Then the pub would be charged with serving alcohol to a minor. That's jail time.
Actually, it's trying to attract pedophiles, men that are attracted to women that look like under-aged girls, by attracting women that look 17, but aren't... and actually don't look 17 anyway.
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@HardwareGeek said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
John gives Jane the ball.
John gives the ball to Jane.John balled Jane.
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@Lorne-Kates Cis-hetero-normalist. Maybe it was the other way 'round.
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@anonymous234 said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
@HardwareGeek English is like Python, you just jam the words anywhere with minimal syntax and their function will adapt as best as it can.
Romance languages are like Java, they have a lot of redundant syntax and everything has to go in its designated place.
By this analogy, isn't German like brainfuck - syntax and grammar designed solely to screw with you?
Filed under: Separable verbs
@HardwareGeek said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Or are nonsense:
The ball John gave Jane.*@HardwareGeek said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
* This makes sense as a part of a larger sentence (Fred took the ball [that] John gave Jane.), but not as a sentence by itself.
Also works as a sentence in response to a question such as "which ball?".
@HardwareGeek said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
The ball gave Jane to John.
This works perfectly fine as a sentence.
@HardwareGeek said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Gave John the ball Jane.
Also works as an answer (with some punctuation). "He did what?" "Gave John the ball "Jane"". The punctuation isn't even needed if "the ball Jane" is understood as a name.
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@Dreikin said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
By this analogy, isn't German like brainfuck - syntax and grammar designed solely to screw with you?
Yes. It's designed that way so we can easily identify foreigners and idiots (there may be an overlap).
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@Dreikin I believe it was Mark Twain who said, "I would sooner decline two beers than one German adjective."
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@Dreikin said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Also works as a sentence in response to a question such as "which ball?".
Neither of those is a sentence; they are both sentence fragments. The context implies the missing parts of the sentences ("Which ball [do you want]?" "[I want] the ball John gave Jane."), but neither is a grammatically complete sentence as written.
@Dreikin said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
This works perfectly fine as a sentence.
Grammatically, yes, but semantically it's nonsense; the subject cannot perform the stated action.
@Dreikin said in Alice through the Effin looking glass:
Also works as an answer (with some punctuation). "He did what?" "Gave John the ball "Jane"".
Again, it is not a complete sentence as written. It requires the context to imply the subject he. It also requires context to supply the information that Jane is the name of the ball; without that, a reasonable reader would assume Jane is a person who is somehow involved with the action of the sentence, but it is very unclear what her involvement is. Also, the punctuation really isn't optional. "This is my wife, Jane." "[He] gave the ball, Jane [, to implied indirect object — give is generally used transitively unless the indirect object is pretty clearly implied by the context]."
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! - Wikipedia
