Language Overflow

12:51 AM

> Good evening, and welcome to the British Council. My name is John Parker and I’ve been asked to talk to you briefly about certain aspects of life in the UK before you actually go there.

^I just found an example of "My name is"! (as opposed to "I'm ...")

StoneyB

2:02 AM

@DamkerngT. A clear indication that he is in fact not John Parker or he would have said so :)

Damkerng T.

Ah, I think you're right!

Damkerng T.

3:09 AM

Interesting exercise of the day.

"There is a plaza where cars cannot go" is incorrect. :P

StoneyB

Who writes this rubbish?!

Damkerng T.

It's an exercise linked to in A Beginner's Guide to Writing in English for University Study. :-)

They seem to want only "There is a plaza area where cars cannot go." :-)

So I think, their "In each sentence, either is or are will not be needed" actually means "In each sentence, either is or are and either is or are alone will not be needed." :P

StoneyB

3:30 AM

Failure of imagination.

Damkerng T.

3:45 AM

Another exercise was the write a sentence or two with There is/are about our cities.

I'm pretty sure that I would fail the test if I typed this as an answer:

> There are many interesting things in my city, it's true that. Still, there is that which I would like to see that there is more of there in my city.

Damkerng T.

4:03 AM

3

Q: "We have known each other for some years now" - so is it a long time or short time?

The definition of 'some' reads as on OALD page (#3) a large number or amount of something But then the next entry says... (#4) a small amount or number of something I wonder if someone says ... We have known each other for some years now Or I met him some years back What ...

I think the OP is asking the wrong question.

It's similar to asking a question about the definite article and then ask "Unique or not unique?"

Which number is bigger?

a) an indefinitely large number

b) a definitely large number

:P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

11:48 AM

-2

A: Is This Tag Useful? Episode 1 - The Big Boss (grammar)

The tag is indeed useful. There are many questions that ask for 'grammar' and not anything else. It's true that we have many sub-tags that further classify 'grammar' but that is fine. That is fine probably for those who know which specific problem it is called in their questions. It is something...

Gee, it's disappointing how a mod clearly has no idea what tags are for.

Fantasier

12:01 PM

Honestly, I can't see any other points you make. Fantasier himself did say that "learners can't know how to choose tags". I also did point it out in my question. But, it never justifies letting "grammar" be because tags aren't meant to mean "default". — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 13 mins ago

Just to be clear: I don't mean it should be a default tag either.

(I've been saying that. But I dunno if you got the message.)

There are currently many grammar questions that I think shouldn't have grammar.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I got the message.

I love @Stoney's proposed solution.

Fantasier

Me too.

Damkerng T.

1:43 PM

1

A: Do native speakers distinguish **well** the pronunciations of "l" and "r"?

English speakers distinguish these sounds almost perfectly. Certainly with well over 99% accuracy. As pointed out in another post here, any phonemes that create a difference in meaning in a language (in a substantial number of environemnts) will be clearly and reliably distinguished by native sp...

Good point!

> Many very good Japanese speakers of English find it difficult to hear the difference. However, all good speakers of English can produce the sounds correctly.

Man_From_India

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Hindi is not my native language. But I can speak and write. And I don't know anything about Hindi grammar :( Sorry

Maulik might help. I think his native language is Hindi

Damkerng T.

Hi! @Man_From_India

Man_From_India

Good evening @DamkerngT.

Thanks @snailboat for adding bounty to my question :-)

Damkerng T.

I think Hindi isn't really relevant to iamRR's question.

It seems to me that he(?) is trying to understand English via Hindi, which is not very productive, imho.

Man_From_India

Oh I missed that post as I was absent for quite a long time

@DamkerngT. Exactly

Damkerng T.

1:51 PM

I ran into his question earlier today (or yesterday :-), and his assumptions look confusing to me. (ell.stackexchange.com/q/70568/3281).

Man_From_India

reading

Ah he is a new member I see.

Damkerng T.

So I'm not sure how I should or can help.

@Man_From_India Yes! :D

Man_From_India

I think I got what the confusion is.

Damkerng T.

Ah, yay! Please help him if you know how.

Man_From_India

He question is very unclear. But it's understandable that he is a learner and trying to convey his confusion.

I suppose he is from India.

Damkerng T.

1:55 PM

@Man_From_India He was asking for someone who speaks Hindi, I think that's a very fine guess!

Man_From_India

During my school days I consulted few grammar text books and in the chapter of Reported speech it mentioned a rule.

Damkerng T.

nods

Man_From_India

It said something like that. When the event is universally true, you always use present tense.

Example -

My teacher said Earth is round.

Damkerng T.

That's perfectly okay.

Man_From_India

Here was is not correct.

I think his confusion might come from that.

Damkerng T.

1:57 PM

I'm not sure if I will say that the was alternative is incorrect, but I think it's less likely, and less natural.

nods

Anyway, She is/was busy isn't the same as the Earth is/was round.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. True. Telling it incorrect is a bit bold step :P

@DamkerngT. "She is busy". She informed it in the past. So the event of business also ocurred in the past. Not in the present. So we need a past tense.

Damkerng T.

That's right! But he insisted that he's heard this (indirect speech with she is busy) so often. That's why I was confused!

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Most probably what he heard was a mistake. In India almost 99% is non-native speakers. And believe me during speech they are very careless.

They(we) often make mistakes

But they are overlooked.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Was and is are both grammatical.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I wondered that too, but I can't be sure.

I mean, maybe he's heard it in a movie or on YouTube or something.

Man_From_India

2:02 PM

@snailboat In "Earth is/was round"?

Anonymous

Yup! By the way, I tend to say the earth is round with an article.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. :D then I am not very sure.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India You have Quirk et al 1985, right?

Man_From_India

Yes

Anonymous

See page 1027

Anonymous

2:03 PM

At the bottom

Man_From_India

One sec

@snailboat Yes opened it :-)

Ah I got it.

Anonymous

> Their teacher had told them that the earth moves around the sun.

Man_From_India

In all these sentences past forms may also be used

Anonymous

Yes! :-)

Anonymous

It was true then, and it's true now.

Man_From_India

2:06 PM

by optional application of the backshift rule

yes

> But when I asked her name she said that she 'is' busy

But what about this -

Anonymous

I would probably expect was.

Anonymous

If it was in the recent past and you expect it's still true right now, the unbackshifted version is possible.

Man_From_India

But the question is using is is really incorrect? Does it sound odd to native ears.

Anonymous

But in that particular example I think that's less likely.

Man_From_India

@snailboat Exactly

Anonymous

2:08 PM

@Man_From_India Seeing that sentence without any surrounding context, it does sound odd to me.

Anonymous

In general, I usually prefer backshifted versions when they're possible, personally.

Anonymous

But there are a number of examples where both versions are possible.

Man_From_India

nods

Anonymous

And there are certain contextual factors that are necessary to use the present version. If you discuss an example out of context, it might make it sound stranger than it would if it had the proper context.

Man_From_India

yes

Damkerng T.

2:13 PM

Tenses are hard enough already by themselves. They're even harder out of context.

Anonymous

@StoneyB We don't mean anything by grammar. I mean something by grammar, but I can't write a post about what I mean by grammar. (Well, I could, but it wouldn't be what you asked for! :-)

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I may need to go through all 800 books and then some before I can be sure what grammar really is. :P

Man_From_India

This reminds me of a person who sweeps the floor of our office. I somehow manage to insist him to try learn some English.

Damkerng T.

curious

Man_From_India

2:15 PM

:-)

And he said "Should I start English grammar with Tense"?

Damkerng T.

Ahh... that makes sense! Verbs and tenses are very important!

Anonymous

> A grammar itself is divisible into two components, syntax and morphology. Syntax is concerned with the way words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences, while morphology deals with the formation of words. This division gives special prominence to the word, a unit which is also of major importance in the lexicon, the phonology and the graphology. (CGEL p.4)

2

Man_From_India

True. But I asked him to first learn the basics of Parts of Speech

Anonymous

I'm bad at typing asterisks.

Damkerng T.

Ah, CGEL has a definition for 'grammar' too!

Anonymous

2:17 PM

Actually, the definition starts on page 3.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, I should try to remember that my own stars will turn black if the starred message is edited!

Anonymous

That's more typin'.

tchrist

2 days ago, by tchrist

Grammar is morphology and syntax.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist Exactly the same definition!

Anonymous

> A grammar of a language describes the principles or rules governing the form and meaning of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. As such, it interacts with other components of a complete description: the phonology (covering the sound system), the graphology (the writing system: spelling and punctuation), the dictionary or lexicon, and the semantics. (p.3)

tchrist

2:18 PM

Fancy that.

Man_From_India

To a non-native speaker, it's a collection of strange rules :P

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

The part on page 4 is the most important part, anyway.

Anonymous

I'm too lazy to type up the rest.

tchrist

How you spell and punctuate a language and how you pronounce it are not part of grammar.

@Man_From_India I've heard tell it's anything you get marked wrong for on exams.

Man_From_India

2:20 PM

@tchrist I think I kind of got rid of my "..." problems :P

Anonymous

@Man_From_India To many native speakers, it's a stranger collection of rules, but probably a smaller one.

Anonymous

People think that whatever prohibitions they picked up during their school years are 'grammar'.

Damkerng T.

The smaller set, the more efficient.

Anonymous

Native speakers who haven't studied language also often confuse formality with grammaticality.

Man_From_India

@tchrist I forgot when I was marked wrong in exam :-) The last time I appeared English language exam is probably 9 years back.

tchrist

2:25 PM

Many folks think all "is this right?" questions are grammar questions by definition.

Anything an English teacher would mark them down for.

Like "Should I write 4 things in digits or four things in words?"

Or commas.

We get questions about whether contractions are grammatically correct.

Damkerng T.

In exam English, there is usually only one way to say or write one thing.

tchrist

But in English, that is almost never true.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The idea that there's only one way to say or write something is bizarre.

Damkerng T.

Some of our users seem to refer to this only one way as the "true" way.

Indeed!

Man_From_India

@snailboat But that is actually true. What he said. Only in Exam English.

tchrist

2:29 PM

Lawler has written about this more than once, but I don't have those citations at hand.

Damkerng T.

ell.stackexchange.com/search?tab=newest&q=true

> Which is true and please explain why?

> I think both can be true.

> ... listened / will understand E) listen / will understand I'm confused which option is true.

Anonymous

That's a common error. English true and correct translate to the same word in many languages.

tchrist

True?

Damkerng T.

Yes, true! (read "correct" :-)

tchrist

Might as well call it honest.

Or non-left.

Anonymous

2:31 PM

Sinister!

Anonymous

Dexter.

tchrist

@snailboat Not in Romance or Germanic, though.

Anonymous

Most snails are dextral, but a precious few are sinistral.

tchrist

Why thank you.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Maybe a few of them are ministerial too. :P

I kinda miss Tom.

tchrist

2:34 PM

Funny, normally I'm mistered.

Damkerng T.

(Tom was a stray snail in my garden.)

tchrist

> Cette réponse est vrai.
Cette réponse est correcte.
Cette réponse est juste.
Cette réponse a raison.

> Diese Antwort ist wahr.
Diese Antwort ist richtig.

> Questa risposta è vero.
Questa risposta è corretta.
Questa risposta è giusta.

StoneyB

Wahrhaftig, richtig, rechtlich, vernünftlich

tchrist

Yeah, I was thinking there should be more of them.

Alrighty then.

Damkerng T.

The sounds of "vrai" and "raison" are cognate, perhaps?

tchrist

2:39 PM

Raison means reason: the latter is derived from an elder version of the former.

StoneyB

Nope. From verus, -a, -um and ratio, -nis respectively.

tchrist

Vrai is a smushed down version of what you might more readily recognize as vérité, which was re-incorporated IIRC.

StoneyB

A verray parfit gentil knight.

English very

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

tchrist

Vrai is the adjective for true: c’est vrai means "this is true" or "right-e-o".

Spanish uses "..., ¿(es) verdad?” for tag questions.

That's a noun, corresponding to truth or perhaps vérité.

Damkerng T.

2:42 PM

nods -- "verdad" reminds me of veritas.

StoneyB

English true, truth, however, are etymologically "loyal, faithful"

tchrist

Did you just oxymoron? :)

StoneyB

And loyal is etymologically legal

tchrist

@DamkerngT. It should: Spanish is just worn-down Latin. :)

But please don't say that Portuguese is just worn-down Spanish. It annoys the natives. :)

StoneyB

Or worn up. Unmummified.

Damkerng T.

2:44 PM

This sounds like learning Latin could be very useful if I wanted to learn Spanish or Portuguese.

tchrist

Advanced, progressed.

StoneyB

Evolved.

tchrist

@DamkerngT. Yes, although it's easier to come at it from modern to ancient.

StoneyB

I count myself very lucky that my first L2 was Latin: I got the whole inflection thing in one massive lump.

tchrist

@StoneyB Normal sound change in Modern French from léal.

StoneyB

2:45 PM

But loi.

tchrist

@StoneyB Indeed. All the modern Germanic or Romance tongues are easier in their inflective patterns.

StoneyB

Which is Gmc recht > right

tchrist

The é > oi thing happened in modern French, and I think reasonably recently, like in the last five or seven hundred years. Thing réal > royal.

StoneyB

They all progress in a stately circle.

CopperKettle

Good evening all.

Damkerng T.

2:47 PM

Evening!

tchrist

I could probably place it by thinking of when we grabbed the French.

StoneyB

Evenin

CopperKettle

Has anyone seen the Pooping Unicorn video yet? O_o

StoneyB

Chaucer has <oy>

CopperKettle

Good evening, Muhammad!

tchrist

2:47 PM

Where are all these people coming from? The terminator’s advance?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I was never gone . . .

I'm always watching.

StoneyB

I think MAR has an ELL chip implanted in his reptile brain.

tchrist

@StoneyB I was just thinking about that, which puts it earlier than I was thinking. But we have in English both leal (maybe only in Law French?) and loyal, and real and royal.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

. . . for when you fail to capitalize "i" or format ellipsis correctly.

tchrist

I get pung on that.

StoneyB

2:49 PM

Hmm ... Law French is I think mostly Norman French, so it may be a dialect thing.

CopperKettle

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I see. You only go into occultation once in a while. (0:

tchrist

I was born in the city of Beloit, which in modern spelling would be "Bel Lieu".

Damkerng T.

Deictic time strikes again: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/70692/….

tchrist

Interesting: coy is from Latin quietus via French.

And joy is from gaudium.

I wonder how it became a jewel in many other languages.

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. Well, OP didn't get my explanation, so it's somebody else's problem now.

It's a jewel, or at least a trinket, in English, too.

Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, ***gauds***, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats—messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth.

tchrist

2:57 PM

Oh really?

> † 6. a. A jewel. (F. joie, Godef.) Obs.

1599 Breton Miseries Manillia ii, ― Here my sweete Mistresse, take this Pearle-ioye Set it in the ring that hangeth at mine eare.
1611 Florio, ― Gioia, a ioy, a gemme, a iewell.
† b. In E. Indian use from Pg. joia. Obs.

1800 Asiat. Ann. Reg., Chron. 17/1 ― Shaik Ishmail was convicted of breaking into the house of Pittamber Narrain, and stealing from thence a variety of gold and silver joys.
1809 Maria Graham Jrnl. Resid. India (1812) 3 ― To murder these helpless creatures for the sake of their ornaments or joys.

Apparently so. Never knew that.

Oh you mean a gaud not a joy; yes.

That I knew.

Gaudy Night

Gaudy Night (1935) is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane. The dons of Harriet Vane's alma mater, the all-female Shrewsbury College, Oxford (a thinly veiled take on Sayers' own Somerville College), have invited her back to attend the much anticipated annual 'Gaudy' celebrations. However, the mood turns sour when someone begins a series of malicious pranks including poison-pen messages, obscene graffiti, the destruction of a set of proofs and crafting vile effigies...

StoneyB

Night of joy.

[Terrific book, but not quite in the same class as The Nine Tailors]

tchrist

> Late Old French changes: /ei/ > /oi/

Note that there were a lot of things that led to /oi/ though, like a yod applied to a stressed /o/.

StoneyB

How have I never heard of Nicholas Breton's The Miseries of Mauillia,The most unfortunate Ladie, that euer liued?

tchrist

You aren't in the habit of reading Elizabethan novels?

StoneyB

I was at one time. My master's thesis was on Shakespeare's use of "narrative" technique in Cymbeline, and I went through a whole bunch of novels.

tchrist

3:10 PM

I see.

I did two master's projects instead, one of which was using natural-language processing algorithms to parse simple Russian folk tales and then generate an alternate version with the same plot but different phrasing and low-level structure.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hullo @Glen! Please visit ELL's Cabin for general conversation.

tchrist

Don't remember a damn thing about it. It was thirty years ago.

CopperKettle

@tchrist Cool.

StoneyB

@tchrist Clearly a child of the Structuralist generation.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

3:57 PM

Hey, so it's settled. Since new questions do need some attention, we'll do the event once a day @Stoney, for one hour.

tchrist

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M What’s that?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@tchrist A chat message.

tchrist

Brill.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

More precisely, we're gonna do one of these here as well:

14

Q: The Great Retagging Event - Episode 1: The one-taggers

The next TRE will be held at 16:30 UTC on October 16th. What good is in working so much on cleaning tags if they're not applied to questions? I thought, we should do something extraordinary. Oh no The Retagging Event (TRE) Rationale Editing questions bumps them up; and somehow surprisingl...

discussion featured tags retagging chat-event

21 hours ago, by inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

We're going to hold up a chat event to retag at least ~1.7k questions. What should its frequency be? e.g. once a week

Hullo @RUser4512! Welcome!

tchrist

I'm not sure how that's connected to "since new questions do need some attention".

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

4:04 PM

Well, the event shouldn't be too frequent, since editors need to pay attention to incoming posts.

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I'll keep plugging away at my 11% of the historical problem; but if I'm free during the event I'll jump in on current pieces.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Honestly ELL would be a big loss without you.

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Naw, I'm just fading out of the Answering racket. I've said everything I know three or four times, so I need to go learn some new stuff.

tchrist

4:24 PM

@StoneyB I understand what you mean about the weariness that comes of answering the same question repeatedly.

Not exactly sure what the resident troll is referencing in its meta post, but it could be that it considers closing or downvoting to be “disciplinary actions”. But maybe it is suspension; can’t tell.

But I have a bad feeling about this.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah, something like that is growing on me too.

tchrist

4:39 PM

It’s probably things like close-voting or delete-voting or down-voting. Only the last is anonymous. If it’s what I think it is, anyone whose name is associated with actions the troll doesn’t like will soon become the named target of troll aggression.

Which is very ugly.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I for one am not eager to debate such things with that particular troll.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

> So, are you saying that "downvotes" is borderline standard?

tchrist

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Don't understand.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It's the troll's template comment.

0

Q: What is meant by "grammar"?

Some people equalize grammar with any rules governing the language. Some people believe grammar is language itself minus whatever is being discussed in the shade of "meaning" and "comprehension". Some people think "grammar" is anything that prohibits them from uttering some words, morphemes or ph...

grammar

tchrist

Ah that.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Stoney there you go.

I wonder if @Dam and @Snail are interested in the fate of such question.

Damkerng T.

4:44 PM

I wonder if someone will vote it as "opinion-based" soon. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Then I'll happily flip tables.

tchrist

I understand grammar to be matters of syntax or morphology, both of which themselves cover quite broad expanses of territory.

It does not mean "how to get the language right".

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@tchrist I know, those were just examples.

0

Q: A proposed solution to the "grammar" dilemma -- Please contribute your answers to the "what is grammar" post

This is the follow-up of Is This Tag Useful? Episode 1 - The Big Boss (grammar). (i.e. intended to be the community decision on the matter, if people agree with the sentiments of this meta post) TL;DR I believe the opposite side has a point, while reaching the wrong conclusion. So I take all of...

discussion tags tag-cleaning

This is finally getting done guys! @Dam pls-proofread ^

tchrist

Wow, no meta love.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

0

A: What is meant by "grammar"?

In my understanding, grammar rules explain how to correctly spell words, build sentences, phrases. It's just a set of rules on how to use the language correctly.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

I'll leave the comment to you guys.

tchrist

4:51 PM

Wah.

That's wrong.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Somewhat related:

3

Q: Schools of thought in English Grammar and Usage?

Having read many posts here (ELL), and some at EL&U, it appears to me that many cases of English grammar (and usage) are debatable. It is likely that there are multiple authoritative sources on English grammar. These sources seem not to absolutely agree with one another on every matter. Otherwise...

grammar

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It is, I have typed so much meta my head hurts now.

@DamkerngT. (/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻ My question isn't related to anything because its origin rises from a revolutionary cough meta post.

Damkerng T.

Heh!

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M retagging... political-matter

:P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oh yeah I didn't find any other tags.

Fantasier

5:03 PM

> The disadvantage, however, would be that we'd still have a "default" tag for many of the askers.

While I don't believe this disadvantage is real (as I said, I believe grammar has been victimized; even if it's gone, there will be the tag that took its place as ell-question), I guess I'll not argue against it, so that we can really move on :-)

I'll try my best to spend my free time re-tagging, so that I won't be killed for All-Talk-No-Action.

As for the definition question, I'll most likely write an answer to that, but lemme collect my data after finishing my Indonesian exam tomorrow and my Thai Civilization report :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Kills @Fanta for all-talk-no-action

@Fantasier However, the next victim will be easier to deal with. And note that I've just begun.

meaning is next. Or maybe grammaticality. (Frankly, I'm not sure how people differentiate the latter and grammar)

StoneyB

5:52 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M, There you go.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

StoneyB

1

A: What is meant by "grammar"?

You could do a lot worse than go back to 1640 for the first grammar of English written in English—to the best of my knowledge the only grammar by an English author of the first rank, Ben Jonson. Here is the entire first chapter. Jonson's terminology is very strange to a modern reader; but once...

@tchrist Note that Jonson is very much of your opinion respecting the written dialect.

Damkerng T.

6:34 PM

Phew! -- What a long post!

0

A: Help understanding an explanation of deictic and non-deictic

Ideally, you should read The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) and understand the non-deictic past and the non-deictic present. Seeing that you've posted essentially the same question several times, I will risk explaining the terms deictic time and non-deictic time myself in this ...

Now, no one can say that I didn't try. :-)

StoneyB

6:46 PM

@DamkerngT. Very nice indeed

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

I hope that Mindy won't mind. :-)

StoneyB

6:58 PM

She may object to your publishing her private correspondence. But if she's gonna leave it lying around ...

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:12 PM

Now it's time for @Dam to add an answer to "what is grammar?"

Damkerng T.

LOL -- I ran out of my quota today. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

5

Q: A proposed solution to the "grammar" dilemma -- Please contribute your answers to the "what is grammar" post

This is the follow-up of Is This Tag Useful? Episode 1 - The Big Boss (grammar). (i.e. intended to be the community decision on the matter, if people agree with the sentiments of this meta post) TL;DR I believe the opposite side has a point, while reaching the wrong conclusion. So I take all of...

discussion tags tag-cleaning

Hey when this gets to 8 votes I'll start writing the TRE post.

Damkerng T.

Will I be guilty voting a post reading only its TL;DR part?

I love Ben Jonson's first chapter!

If only all the chapters in all textbooks were as short as this...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Exceptionally, not this time.

I, however, recommend @Fanta to read esp. the reasoning part > solutions > clarify grammar

I could put my thoughts in a more organized way, so that he can see why it's not going to work.

Heck, it wouldn't have worked even if grammar was a legit tag..

BTW @Dam TIL: How to emdash and what to emdash!

Damkerng T.

7:30 PM

On ELL?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It's such a relief that — even works in tag wikis.

Damkerng T.

In my editor -- will become an en-dash, and --- will become an em-dash.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. On SE.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Sometimes I copy the dash in comments. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

But — looks nerdier. ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

@DamkerngT. Hehe maybe I should add mdash and ndash to porkchat.

Damkerng T.

7:32 PM

Oh, I think you can use that too!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

IF I SEE THIS POST IN THE CLOSE VOTE REVIEW AGAIN, I'M GOING TO KILL SOMEONE. — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 39 mins ago

Heh, I thought people would flag that. Guess I'm a king on chem.

FWIW, I'm the second Marshal. ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

Damkerng T.

That's pretty cool!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hmm, who's ELL's Marshal?

tchrist

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Just use — you know, real ones.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

ELL doesn't have a Marshal! :o

How could that be for a site that could eat chem in a single bite?

@tchrist I'm not sure I fully understand every aspect of that sense of "real".

Damkerng T.

7:35 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Because we're friendly? :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah, if you can call messy roommates friendly. :P

tchrist

Real as in literal code point, not HTML.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@tchrist What would that be?

O.o

0

Q: Get me out of this site!

I have an account that I created for stack overflow. Then I noticed that There were options to join other sites (e.g. Stack Exchange Meta). I was curious as to if there was a way to leave a site, so that on your network profile is does not say that site and you are totally removed from that site ...

discussion

tchrist

– versus —

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

What a title.

@tchrist I think — produces the second one. Take a look at my meta's title.

tchrist

7:37 PM

% unichars '\p{dash}'
U+002D ‭ -  HYPHEN-MINUS
U+058A ‭ ֊  ARMENIAN HYPHEN
U+05BE ‭ ־  HEBREW PUNCTUATION MAQAF
U+1400 ‭ ᐀  CANADIAN SYLLABICS HYPHEN
U+1806 ‭ ᠆  MONGOLIAN TODO SOFT HYPHEN
U+2010 ‭ ‐  HYPHEN
U+2011 ‭ ‑  NON-BREAKING HYPHEN
U+2012 ‭ ‒  FIGURE DASH
U+2013 ‭ –  EN DASH
U+2014 ‭ —  EM DASH
U+2015 ‭ ―  HORIZONTAL BAR
U+2053 ‭ ⁓  SWUNG DASH
U+207B ‭ ⁻  SUPERSCRIPT MINUS
U+208B ‭ ₋  SUBSCRIPT MINUS
U+2212 ‭ −  MINUS SIGN
U+2E17 ‭ ⸗  DOUBLE OBLIQUE HYPHEN
U+2E1A ‭ ⸚  HYPHEN WITH DIAERESIS

2

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh wait, I mean the body.

I never understood Unicode people.

Damkerng T.

Thanks! @tchrist -- The list could be very handy!

tchrist

hands out commas

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hey I only see 5 cute question marks! Yay!

Windows must have improved from last time.

tchrist

Some question marks are cuter than others?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:40 PM

Zooms in Hey horizontal bar == mdash

tchrist

Nope.

Totally different.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

2 mins ago, by inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I never understood Unicode people.

I could use double oblique hyphen when writing my physics homework. :P

tchrist

They have different breaking properties, for one thing.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

They do?

I'd use SMALL HYPHEN MINUS when I want to irritate you guys.

. . . instead of mdash.

tchrist

Certainly. EM DASH has Sentence_Break=SContinue and Line_Break=Break_Both whereas HORIZONTAL BAR has Sentence_Break=Other and Line_Break=Ambiguous.

It’s like saying that EN DASH and a MINUS SIGN are the same. They aren’t.

You cannot break after a MINUS SIGN, or you’ll ruin the number. With EN DASH, you can.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:45 PM

Got it.

tchrist

ꜱᴍᴀʟʟ ʜʏᴘʜᴇɴ ᴍɪɴᴜꜱ

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

MALL HYPHEN MINU

tchrist

% uniprops -a \U+A731
U+A731 ‹ꜱ› \N{LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL S}
    \w \pL \p{LC} \p{L_} \p{L&} \p{Ll}
    All Any Alnum Alpha Alphabetic Assigned InLatinExtendedD Cased Cased_Letter LC
       Ll L Gr_Base Grapheme_Base Graph GrBase ID_Continue IDC ID_Start IDS Letter
       L_ Latin Latn Latin_Extended_D Lowercase_Letter Lower Lowercase Print Word
       XID_Continue XIDC XID_Start XIDS X_POSIX_Alnum X_POSIX_Alpha X_POSIX_Graph
       X_POSIX_Lower X_POSIX_Print X_POSIX_Word
    Age=5.1 Bidi_Class=L Bidi_Class=Left_To_Right BC=L Block=Latin_Extended_D

So it was in Unicode 5.1, which was released in April 2008.

Not quite antemillennial but halfway there.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm so Febuary 2008.

tchrist

And all our Februaries like snowflakes melting on steaming humus.

StoneyB

8:14 PM

But all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hmm, how can the magnetic ability of cyclopropane be described without involving the concepts of sigma-aromaticity?

@Dam ^ This is on-topic, since it's about language.

StoneyB

I was just wondering that

Damkerng T.

I suppose it's a language of chemistry!

Is Cyclopropane Really the σ-Aromatic Paradigm? @inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I don't have access to that.

Already tried. Sorry. :/

Damkerng T.

That's unfortunate!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:25 PM

5

Q: What do we do when we don't understand the comments?

Well, this has happened to me a lot of times owing to my shallow knowledge of English. When I post questions, I get some great answers however, some of them contain a lot of jargon/terms/expression which I don't understand(even after a googling a lot of them) and obviously I would not able to mak...

discussion comments comment-replies

Damkerng T.

It sounds like he could find ELL very useful.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh, I was indicating that it's a useful meta post to link to for ELLers.

Damkerng T.

9:46 PM

0

Q: the meaning of the phrase 'the point of his lance scooped the eye of the circle'

Rafe says, the contests had not begun, he was running at the ring, the point of his lance scooped the eye of the circle. Then the horse stumbled under him, man and rider down, horse rolling with a scream and Henry beneath it. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel What is the meaning...