Language Overflow

@snailboat Interesting! I thought the alternate reading was quite weird.

Anonymous

It's likely to be the case, but people don't have to keep things they purchase.

12:14 AM

@snailboat Yay!

Anonymous

> I have purchased that CD recently.

Anonymous

This does sound off, as TRomano says, but in the right context it should be okay.

Anonymous

It's just that the right context is probably unusual.

@snailboat for the OP's question, I preferred "whoever"

Anonymous

> I used to purchase that CD over and over. I just couldn't get enough copies! After a while, I started running low on cash, so for a while, I wasn't able to keep purchasing it. But I have purchased it recently. Whenever I've got enough cash scraped together, I buy another copy!

12:18 AM

@snailboat ROFL at the addiction!

@snailboat That's a rather contrived context, I guess!

Hehe!

Anonymous

It is. TRomano's answer to that question seems pretty good.

Anonymous

I think the other answer is incorrect.

Anonymous

Oh wait, there's a bunch of answers.

Anonymous

What I mean is, I think the answer you quoted earlier ("For example, I have purchased that CD recently indicates that I own or have that CD now.") is incorrect.

12:20 AM

A new answer was just deleted some hours ago.

nods

12:38 AM

@snailboat I'd say that "I have purchased that CD recently" implicates but does not entail that I own the CD now.

6:06 AM

?We would have more to gain by stopping approaching people like that.

Usernew

6:17 AM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. OK, but any reason to do so? like, improper tagging or some other reason? I can't bear with the schedule thing, and that's why I've been re-tagging everyday almost 10-30 questions :(

7:21 AM

@snailboat @sto "You haven't purchased that CD recently. He hasn't purchased that CD recently. She hasn't purchased that CD recently. They haven't purchased that CD recently. But I have purchased that CD recently. So I can tell you exactly what purchasing that CD recently was like."

Anonymous

7:47 AM

@CopperKettle I no longer remember why I deleted that answer, but I see it's been undeleted, so hopefully it doesn't contain any major nonsense :-)

Anonymous

Hello! Hi @JimReynolds!

Anonymous

@StoneyB Thank you, that's a more precise way of describing it :-)

8:22 AM

I'm thinking stopping saying -ing + -ing is ok, is a good idea.

@Usernew No no, it's not about you. We're telling everyone to stop retagging so we'd make sure we have the right set of tags to replace [grammar] with. It's not the only crappy on ELL.

"Everyone" wouldn't include me, would it? I'm quite special.

@JimReynolds No of course not.

is happy!

Anonymous

8:40 AM

@JimReynolds The double -ing constraint.

Anonymous

I retagged a question today.

Stopping doing things is hard.

Melting icing slid down the cake and covered the table.

Anonymous

@JimReynolds Just memorize this set of rules, then think about them every time you speak English: lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/gerund-participles.pdf

But Gollum is terrible at grammar!

Oh ... Pullum. Ok. I'll look.

" . . . [L]ong distance grammatical dependencies . . . ." !

Anonymous

Spooky grammar at a distance.

8:55 AM

Snailboat, what sign are you, and do you believe in astrology?

Anonymous

I am a Leo, and I prefer to believe in astronomy.

Anonymous

♌!

I see. Being a typical Taurus, I'm skeptical of it.

What did you just do there?

That's Leo's symbol?

:D

Anonymous

Yes! :-)

Anonymous

Plus an exclamation point.

Anonymous

8:58 AM

You can add exclamation points to anything if you try :D!

I thought you dropped some spaghetti.

Anonymous

I think it looks like a yo-yo.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ." sign is "out to lunch".

@Dam's sign is, of course, "Keep hands away from the hopper."

@JimReynolds breakfast

O.O

8:59 AM

@snailboat !

Anonymous

"Out to breakfast" sounds so extravagant!

As often happened back in those days, my father died during childbirth.

@JimReynolds What's the hopper?

Anonymous

Grace Hopper is the Hopper.

I know only mini-segway. Are they the same?

9:01 AM

ecvv.com/product/4072273.html

@snailboat Hopper the Scientist!

@JimR's sign is "crossroad ahead". O.o

The funnel input portal on some machines.

Hahah.

@JimReynolds Ahh... my remote cousin. :P

My sign is "accident coming!"

9:02 AM

@JimReynolds sneezing?

More like a disaster

Romantic!

Does it involve ship wrecks?

Aww... my hats!

@snailboat Hmm... It's keeping raining quite hard here is ungrammatical?!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I think so.

Interesting!

9:06 AM

@DamkerngT. Yes.

Anonymous

I had to read it twice.

Anonymous

At first I thought it was a typo :-)

BTW we have a python on ELL. O_O

Anonymous

Zap!

> 3a. Terry was enjoying reading aloud.
3b. *Terry was starting reading aloud.

Anonymous

9:08 AM

Terry was starting to read aloud.

Wow, this is tough!

@DamkerngT. Wowing! Interestinging!

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Ring-a-ling ding!

My ears hurt now.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Ah, it's been migrated to somewhere else.

9:09 AM

@DamkerngT. And it annoyingly shows up in tags list.

Anonymous

Oh, it should disappear from ELL eventually.

@snailboat I don't think it'll find anything to eat here.

Anonymous

My snails are asleep, but earlier they ate some cabbage.

Anonymous

I wonder if I can get them to go on ELL if we put some cabbage on the site.

Stopping eating before you're full is good advice, but good grammar?

9:12 AM

@snailboat How far away!

Anonymous

I was always kind of iffy on the whole double -ing thing.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Is that an exclamative?

Is Snailish complex?

Yes

Anonymous

I wonder how often exclamatives end in exclamation points.

9:13 AM

Maybe it's a rather uncommon exclamation!

Anonymous

I just didn't understand it contextually.

Oh, I thought it is always!

Having interesting friends is good.

Anonymous

> What a cute snail!
> What a cute snail.

@snailboat I thought of the distance between your place and ELL for your snails.

Anonymous

9:14 AM

(In speech, they don't end with either one!)

Anonymous

As an echo question: What a cute snail?

Anonymous

Still an exclamative clause in form.

I'm overdoing using my exclamation marks anyway! (and -ing too)

Anonymous

That's my fault! I'm a bad influence :-)

Anonymous

The -ing thing we can blame on @JimReynolds, though.

9:16 AM

I doubt if it is. :D -- LOL

@JimReynolds It's your fault. :P

@JimReynolds Global warming is your fault.

@snailboat How is the intonation here?

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Question intonation, typically a strong rise during snail, which is likely to cause a fall beforehand.

Anonymous

But it depends.

@snailboat And the meaning is the same as the version with exclamation marks?

Anonymous

You could stress cute for example, to express your incredulity.

Anonymous

9:21 AM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. No, it's an echo question.

Anonymous

You could use it to make sure you heard right or to express incredulity.

@snailboat Oh OK.

Anonymous

"What a cute amastrid!" "What a cute what?"

Anonymous

"What a cute snail!" "What a cute snail?" "Yeah, that's what I said." "Okay, but, seriously? Snails aren't cute." "Oh, can you hold on a moment? I need to go write you out of my will."

Snails aren't cute.

9:24 AM

Wait, what?

Anonymous

eyebrow twitch

It doesn't work.

When MAR gets mean, it's best to talk to him soothingly. Do not take your eyes off him, and slowly back away.

Q: Hot to describe changing rates of change (acceleration)

0

Are the following sentences grammatically correct? I want to describe speeds (fast/medium/slow) of change. increase at a faster/slower/very slow pace The increment is significant/slowing down/stagnant Are there better sentences than these?

9:26 AM

@JimReynolds ಠ_ಠ

@JimReynolds Hot to describe ... o_O

WTH "t" isn't beside "w" in my keyboard.

Anonymous

Ooh, a relative adverb tag.

Haha. Hot means eager in this case!

Are you planning to get it to the Hot Network Queue! :P

9:27 AM

I did that. Is it right?

It looked cute!

Anonymous

I don't know. Which word is supposed to be the relative adverb?

@JimReynolds Note the past tense.

Please fix for me? Be a sweet robot / snail / uh, whatever MAR is.

I have to run to dinner.

Hotly

Okey-dokey!

@JimReynolds Pagodane.

Anonymous

9:29 AM

For that matter, which word is supposed to be an adverb?

@snailboat The parenthesis?

Anonymous

Those are adjectives.

What?

Anonymous

Assuming you mean fast, medium, and slow.

I wondered if I should remove grammaticality too, but I decided to leave it alone.

9:30 AM

Oh, I didn't mean what was inside the parenthesis. :)

@DamkerngT. I'm a bit dubious on this one.

On one hand . . . Wait I just decided it's a bad tag and should be removed.

Since questions about grammaticality can be about relative clauses, pronouns, adjectives, adverbial phrases, tenses, aspects, moods and even language. O_O

Anonymous

I guess you could get rid of those tags and tag it adjectives if you really wanted to add a part of speech tag.

Anonymous

But it seems like word-choice or whatever our tag is for that would be more appropriate.

So is there any use in bringing those questions under the same hood? Nope.

Anonymous

Hmm, I dunno.

Anonymous

I can't really come up with any good tags for that question.

Anonymous

9:32 AM

But I think we can get rid of all the tags it has right now.

Anonymous

The relative-adverb tag is used properly on 3 questions and improperly on the other 3.

Anonymous

It can stay on LeP's two questions and on April's.

Anonymous

That said, I don't think we necessarily need a separate tag for relative adverbs.

Anonymous

I'm not necessarily against it either, but a general tag for relative words seems like it would suffice.

Anonymous

Well, I suppose people might want to keep their relative-pronouns tag.

9:40 AM

Strange, we don't have comparative-adverbs.

Anonymous

Our new tag wiki for adjectives declares that adjectives do not inflect.

Anonymous

Maybe this anti-comparative sentiment has made its way to the land of adverbs as well.

Oh! How should we explain words like faster, quicker, then?

Anonymous

Just ban them. No one needs to compare stuff anyway.

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/tags/adjectives/info

Anonymous

9:43 AM

This user has been creating tag wikis lately.

Anonymous

I don't know if anyone wants to work on our tag wikis.

We have some good ones. Maybe just a few. (wiki pages)

Anonymous

I would rather have no information in the tag wikis than misleading information.

I agree.

Anonymous

I personally haven't added much of value to the tag wikis. I'm usually too lazy, and I assume most people don't look at them very often.

Anonymous

9:58 AM

I kind of wish there were a way to comment on tag wikis.

10:23 AM

@snailboat We can do it old-school like in the mother wiki (which is basically like talk pages at Wikipedia).

(E.g., c2.com/cgi/wiki?PhpDiscussion)

Q: What's the role and meaning of 'pin' in this context?

12:30 PM

1

In yesterday’s central committee meeting of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), party members approved an initiative for nomination reforms, which embattled Chairman Moon Jae-in pinned his position on. With the committee decision, Moon passed a first confidence v...

grammar meaning meaning-in-context

O, Parsing! How can we teach parsing?!

Let's try to turn that part into Dream English:

> English: ..., which embattled Chairman moon Jae-in pinned his position on.

> D. English: ..., which chromasettled Patient Sun Sing-in spanningshired his position on.

(D. English is English with non-function words obfuscated.)

How can we know if chromasettled is a verb or an adjective (or a past participle working as an adjective), if spanningshired is a verb or an adjective, which word on is attached to, and so on?

A funny reading (of ..., which embattled Chairman Moon Jae-in pinned his position on.): ..., that embattled the chairman who Jae-in pinned his position on. :P

12:51 PM

room topic changed to Language Overflow: Random thoughts about language, language learning, learners, and their language. (no tags)

1:07 PM

@Dam I know that embattled functions adjectivally because experience has bound up embattled + someone as collocates, as a someone in my mind.

@JimReynolds That's a big advantage of native speakers (and proficient learners).

It can reduce the number of choices dramatically.

Common news story: Embattled governor Dick Gozzinia faced an onslaught of reporters asking him about his alleged affair with a goat, as he left his office today.

If it were In yesterday’s central committee meeting of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), party members approved an initiative for nomination reforms, which chromasettled Patient Sun Sing-in spanningshired his position on, I think you'd have to scratch your head, too. :P

Yes, indeed.

It's a turbid sentence. Tortured writing. Circumlocutory prolix. Impenetrable. Labyrinthine, and unwieldy.

nods -- Still, I think even with unknown words, native speakers seem to have a better chance at understanding a complicated sentence.

1:17 PM

Members of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy party approved an initiative for nomination reforms in its central committee meeting yesterday. The party's embattled chairman, Moon Jae-in has pinned his position on the initiative.

Yes. But in some cases, we can't decide without meaning.

Smarmishes which splurked police, also fleebled others.

But in this case, we'd contrast to:
Smarmishes, which splurked police, also fleebled others.

And depend on the comma to signify a .. what is it, defining relative clause?

Nondefining. Nonrestrictive

I think people use both.

restrictive v. non-restrictive; defining v. non-defining

Anonymous

1:33 PM

@JimReynolds It's funny. I get a mental image reading that sentence.

Did you say "metal image"? I have an ear infection.

You saw Dam?

Do you see an impaled Chairman Moon?

Nailed to his desk through an initiative?

Oh . .. Smarmishes?

1:52 PM

@snailboat It does not! I upvoted it. (0:

4:44 PM

Of course, snailboat's right. I plussed one, and I'm contacting relatives that I haven't seen in years to urge them to register for SE accounts and upvote this answer. Our progress as a human family may depend on it.

@JimReynolds You get me to upvote it and that's enough.

With your reputation, your upvotes should be +10k.

All across the SE network?

I think they are.

Well, in chemistry, I think +10k to the 10th power.

You can't do that. That's cheating.

4:54 PM

See, it's that honesty that makes me want to cheat for you.

Just tell me who you want to ruin on SE, and I'll make destroying them my life's work.

No one with initials J.R., of course.

@JimReynolds Hmm, is this the red button that I shouldn't push?

O.O

You think I'm stupid?

Do you really want me to answer that?

No, I already know the answer.

So @JimR what are you doing for a living these days?

Hunting neptunians or frightening small children?

4:58 PM

Hmm... Selling wisdom?

Yeah right.

</sarcasm>

I provide consulting services to aspiring consultants who want to train other consultants to consult.

Oh, a meta lawyer? Boring.

Ha.

I am teaching English. But I stopped working for schools, and only work for myself now.

Cool.

5:01 PM

So, things have slowed down lately. That's why I'm around more. I am trying to think about some new projects, like non-traditional ways to help people maintain and develop their English skills.

Within a few minutes, our roads will be full of uncontrollably-swerving cars and our skies full of Amazon delivery dogs.

lol

I'll try that!

Oops. I mean "haha". I didn't really lol. I decided to be honest about that from now on.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. ROFLMFAO

Q: "Hi there!" -- What does this 'there' mean?

6:21 PM

3

There's this particular interjection-like usage of there that I think belongs to the spoken register and maybe doesn't refer to anything; as in: Hi there! You alright there? I want to know why it is used, and what meaning (if any) does it serve to convey.

word-meaning

Sometimes people over-analyze things, I think.

But they sure can have fun analyzing it. :-)

@DamkerngT. A smart question with ~~stupid~~ answers, just like always.

@DamkerngT. I'm not sure what that there is grammatically. An adverbial?

Oh, I'm sure it's debatable!

Like "He's home".

I think there are a few possibilities: an adverb, a preposition, a noun (or pronoun, in the case of there).

@DamkerngT. Not an adverb certainly.

JL has a post on this.

6:36 PM

I think there are several grammar camps.

(Also, "He walks there", "He walks home".)

@DamkerngT. Yes.

WTH is a potential tag?

Oh. It's no more.

Good/

No question tagged with it. -- Yes. Yeah!

you've just destroyed such a potential.

:-)

(0:

6:45 PM

@CopperKettle You could call it a "deictic pro-PP" or a "deictic locative".

Thank you, @StoneyB! "Pro-prepositional phrase".

@Cop I order you to write a tag wiki for hendiadys.

Please. :)

Wait, how's that spelled again?

Oh.

Okay, I'll look into this. I vaguely remember something about it.

I'd recommend not using that book, if it really asks you to transform He walks slowly on the road into its passive voice. Consider, He walks or I'm hungry. Now, try to write them in the passive voice. It's nonsense, isn't it? — Damkerng T. 16 secs ago

O, Passive Voice!

O, Christmas Tree!

6:51 PM

@CopperKettle I want one, for the coming Christmas this year!

@DamkerngT. Are they sold at all in Thailand?

Hehe! I'll admit that I bought a small fake one once. :-)

I have a plastic one. (0:

That's ecologically-minded. (0:

Yes! Mine is plastic, too!

@DamkerngT. The road is being slowly walked by him. O_o

6:56 PM

LOL

I thought some books might've come up with that! :D

(0:

Ah, we need to passivize him?

"He was said to walk slowly on the road"? :P

I'm sure it's in the passive voice!

"He was said to be walking the road slowly" (0:

Hehe!

We can walk something directly. "I walk the floor and watch the door"

7:01 PM

Oh, yes! I just watched Hook yesterday. I didn't really pay my attention to the movie, but I remember I heard Fly me! Fly me!

nods

Hook (film)

Hook is a 1991 American fantasy adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by James V. Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo. It stars Robin Williams as Peter Pan/Peter Banning, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell, Bob Hoskins as Smee, Maggie Smith as Granny Wendy, Caroline Goodall as Moira Banning, and Charlie Korsmo as Jack Banning. The film acts as a sequel to J. M. Barrie's 1911 novel Peter and Wendy and poses the question "What if Peter Pan grew up?", focusing on an adult Peter Pan who has forgotten his childhood. In his new life, Peter Pan is known as Peter Banning...

This? A nice movie!

Quite a movie!

@DamkerngT. Road is being walked slowly upon between on in at? O_O

Robin Williams as Peter Pan, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell. :D

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I think you've got a preposition problem!

I watched it, a long time ago. (0: On a video-cassete, or in a TV airing!

7:04 PM

Peter Pan's daughter asked him to "Fly me!" :-)

Ah, nice! (0:

Wondering what the level of oddness of 'I was flown by my dad' would be...

Oh, wait...

That's more like it!

(0:

Goodnight, Damkerng!

Goodnight!

Sleep tight!

@DamkerngT. What would @Snail call this? Transitivativitivation?

7:11 PM

LOL

I'd better let her choose the term for it. :-)

@DamkerngT. Fly is employed as a transitive verb in the theatre: we "fly" sets and scenic elements--that is, these elements are suspended on cables from the grid and "flown" on and off the stage. And in Peter Pan we "fly" actors the same way, albeit with more complex arrangements to enable movement in three dimensions.

@StoneyB Judging by the year Hook was made, the technique they used to fly everyone in the movie is very impressive! I guess there was no CG in the movie.

I think it could be a bit dangerous on stage.

You should see Jackie Chan's films' behind the scenes.

Ah, he's amazing! Quite a unique guy.

He's the only star in Hollywood I say deserves the money he gets.

7:21 PM

@DamkerngT. It takes a lot of rehearsal. Each actor has to be controlled from two or three different cables; in the theatre of my day each line had to have its own operator, but modern synchronous-winch systems are run by programmable motorized systems. But the action still has to be carefully thought through so the lines never cross.

nods -- It could be very dangerous before computerized control systems. I suppose.

Here's some video from a theatrical flying company.

Note that all the fly crew can do is put the actor in the right place -- the really dramatic stuff is accomplished by the actor's own athleticism.

@StoneyB There is a clip of Peter Pan there, too!

It's probably the most famous flying show in the repertory.

I like the way they call it, "it's controlled chaos".

7:41 PM

Why is the past tense of "eat" "ate"?

@Nihilist_Frost It's a traditional typo. :P

Maybe we can try looking before the Great Vowel Shift

Hullo @B.Freitas! Welcome to LO!

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. turns out that other Germanic languages have the same oddity!

Told you.

7:50 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. not typo maybe

I know. I'm just kidding. :)

Uh, @Maulik? @J.R.? Any mods around?

I'd like some help.

@Dam I'm going to sleep; could you please close some questions about the pronunciation of "th" as dupes of each other?

Not sure which one you want to close as a duplicate of which one.

One seems to aim at young native speakers. The other seems to aim at learners.

Anonymous

9:24 PM

@Nihilist_Frost For some speakers, it's et! :-)