Language Overflow

12:07 AM

2

People were killed by militants when they [People] were gathered for meeting. Is using were gathered is makes above sentence passive voice? If yes, then can we imagine that there is any agent/doer who gathered people? As per my knowledge we need to use had gathered as first action is gathe...

passive-voice

I think (people) were gathered for meeting is a rather strange expression.

Why not just (people) gathered for meeting or (people) were gathering for meeting.

Is there any suggestion that it's not a normal meeting because it's were gathered for meeting rather than were gathered for a meeting?

Hello, @StoneyB!

We've got a shiny new look!

StoneyB

Hey, DT. Yes, I like the palette. I haven't looked at the copy blocks yet, which is what I mainly care about.

. . . Looks pretty nifty. There's still shading on code, but I can live with that.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB The text looks more or less the same.

nods

StoneyB

Yes, colors are pretty much the same, and tired old Arial. But nothing's messed up, far as I can tell.

And I really like the chief (or, on this page, base) semy of globes and chalkboards. It lends a pleasing air of frivolity.

bjb568

12:54 AM

Damkerng T.

@bjb568 :D

Damkerng T.

1:24 AM

@KinzleB Are you still around?

ell.stackexchange.com/revisions/82645/3

I think the OP might mean to say a different thing from your edit in his original question.

The difference is small, though.

Kinzle B

1:43 AM

@DamkerngT. Hi, I'm still here but working.

Damkerng T.

I see.

Good morning!

Kinzle B

The original sentence seems ungrammatical, so I edited it.

& redundant

Damkerng T.

I think he was trying to say that he would understand it if it was meant to mean what he guessed (in the quote in his sentence), but he wasn't able to make sense of it because it would only make sense to him if this claims was a verb, but it looked like a noun.

> (His original sentence): Could you explain to me the meaning of "amid claims". I would understand it if it meant "it is reported that investigators at the time replaced her corpse with that of another woman". But "claims" is probably the noun and not the verb so I am not able to parse the second part of the sentence

It's grammatically okay to me.

(The last sentence is more problematic because of the choices of the articles.)

jimsug

3:58 AM

I <3 the new theme

(Proof of how long it's been since I visited ELL)

Damkerng T.

@jimsug The new theme is very new. It's still less than 24 hours, I think. ;-)

jimsug

I came across this and thought some of you may be interested: Confused much? You need the Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words

Damkerng T.

Ah, Thing Explainer! Sounds like a nice phrase.

jimsug

Annabelle Lukin wrote the article, the book is written by Randall Munroe (xkcd), but I used a bit of Annabelle's stuff when writing my Honours thesis

Damkerng T.

(via the Confused much page. :P)

jimsug

4:04 AM

Privileges been bumped yet?

Ah yes, they have.

Damkerng T.

nods

jimsug

I want one of those notebooks

I know they probably don't exist (yet), but still.

Damkerng T.

Oh, right! Where can I order them?!

jimsug

I don't actually know where to get that made, if we even can.

Technically SE owns copyright to the design for ELL

And they always do mockups of stuff, but I don't know if they actually get made?

Damkerng T.

I'm sure some of us would buy them.

jimsug

4:10 AM

Hmm

Damkerng T.

5:46 AM

0

Q: Another way for "I was 12 dollars over what I had on me"

I was 12 dollars over what I had on me. I understand the meaning of the sentence, but I'd like to know how the sentence can be written in another way. Thanks a lot.

sentence-meaning

> I was 12 dollars over what I had on me.

> Source: rd.com/true-stories/inspiring/kindness-strangers

The source says the story was written by Leslie Wagner, Peel, Arkansas.

But why do I feel it's an odd expression?

(And so do our users in their answers.)

Man_From_India

Even I feel it is odd. As others said it, instead of I is fine.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Good afternoon!

Man_From_India

Good afternoon!

I was all occupied with this question -

6

Q: Meaning and the position of "all" in a sentence

All my friends answered my questions in the class yesterday. Every one of my friends answered my questions... My friends all answered my questions in the class yesterday. Each one answered my questions... My friends answered all my questions in the class yesterday. Every one of my quest...

adverbs

What a tricky question.

Damkerng T.

I'm not very fond of this kind of question, but I know that it can be fun. :-)

It ignores one important feature of language: speech pattern.

Man_From_India

6:01 AM

This is probably the kind of question an absolute beginner likes most to ask, in my opinion.

@DamkerngT. nods

Damkerng T.

nods -- They're doing some math with the language! :D

Man_From_India

Hehe. Even I did similar things :P And you see in some way very advanced linguistics also does the same thing :D but of course they do it with backing of a good voluminous corpus.

Damkerng T.

nods -- My idea is, we should analyze it after we've acquired it sufficiently.

Man_From_India

For example in an explanation in CGEL, they write similar thing. I don't know X, X = what you are talking about.

Trust me back in my beginner days I explained myself this way only without even reading anything like that in any book :-)

Damkerng T.

Most learners do something linguists don't do, i.e., trying to hack the language, i.e., hacking a sentence by changing some parts of it.

@Man_From_India nods -- I guess we're all the same more or less. Some may simply try to hack a sentence more than others.

Man_From_India

6:06 AM

@DamkerngT. And this is probably the biggest mistake they do.

Damkerng T.

Like, given "I don't know X", they may try to ask, what about: I don't know, X; X, I don't know; I do know not X; Not X I do know, and such.

nods -- because they're spending more time doing math with the language instead of acquiring it.

Man_From_India

this is horrible, I think. And this question though looks like that, but I think this was a tricky question.

I at first thought sentence #4 in that question was wrong.

> My friends answered my questions all in the class yesterday.

Damkerng T.

I guess other alternatives sound better than #4 anyway, and in all likelihood, #4 should be the least frequently used one.

Man_From_India

But we often use similar constructions. Ex: This is all in the right place.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I think the patterns are a bit different.

Man_From_India

6:10 AM

@DamkerngT. completely agree, and that's why it struck me as odd.

Damkerng T.

"My friends answered my questions all in the class yesterday." is basically of the pattern "X Ved Z all ADJUNCT".

Let's try hacking...

> I did the work all in this room.

Man_From_India

ok :-)

@DamkerngT. That sounds fine.

Damkerng T.

I think the listener would naturally take it as [ I did the work ] [ all in this room ].

Man_From_India

Exactly

Damkerng T.

(As opposed to [ I did [ the work all ] in this room ].)

Man_From_India

6:14 AM

The all there is modifying the ADJUNCT (PP here)

But you see your sentence sounds fine, but the sentence from the question sounds odd. Both of them are correct :-)

I don't know what others think of it.

Damkerng T.

I think because it's unambiguous when [ I did the work ] being modified by all.

Let's try some other verbs...

> She gave my money all in this room.

Hmm... that's not a good sentence. Let's try again...

> She took my money all in this room.

Man_From_India

Hmmm...this sounds bad too

Damkerng T.

Right?!

Man_From_India

yes

Damkerng T.

So we now have a similar sentence that causes a similar problem.

Now, the tough part: why? :-)

Man_From_India

6:19 AM

hehe....this is probably going to get me all in trouble :P

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Man_From_India

How does it sound?

Damkerng T.

It sounds a bit weird to me.

Man_From_India

What if - This is going to get us all in trouble? :O

Damkerng T.

I think perhaps because "doing the work" can be divided into smaller parts (hence, all makes sense), but "taking my money" is an indivisible action.

Man_From_India

6:22 AM

(I know what you will say. In case of us all, the all is modifying us, not the head of the PP)

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India nods -- That's right!

And "my money all" sounds just weird.

Man_From_India

correct, but why? :P

Damkerng T.

I don't know! :D

Hmm... is it because us is a pronoun, so us all works?

Man_From_India

Why not me all then?

Damkerng T.

Because me is indivisible?

Man_From_India

6:25 AM

ahhh right. but it is really strange my money all. :-/

Damkerng T.

53

A: Scrum - Dealing with failed sprints and deadlines

I see several fundamental management issues in your example: if a Scrum-Addicts manager signs a "hard-deadline" contract, but adds only a safety margin of 33% in a situation where "a new system is involved", that is pretty reckless. the availability of delivering at least x% of the features a...

LOL (the username)

Man_From_India

6:41 AM

I found a sentence in COCA -

> And my cloths all fit me well

So will it be incorrect to say -

> MY money all were wasted on the useless project.

Damkerng T.

I think it sounds more acceptable when all is in front of the main verb.

Man_From_India

nods

But that sentence in COCA says it's SPOKEN english

Damkerng T.

Or perhaps the last word, e.g., ?I like my money all.

@Man_From_India nods

Man_From_India

So I think after my money or my cloth, the speaker pauses a bit and then speak the rest of the sentence.

Man_From_India

6:57 AM

> 1. My money all were wasted on the useless project.

> 2. My money were all wasted on the useless project.

While #1 is strange, there is no problem with #2. In both cases all refers to the subject - my money

After reading a bit, I think when it's the pronoun as subject there is no problem placing it after the pronoun.

But with nouns, it's wired. There are few exceptions. When there is no auxiliary like in the following sentence, it is fine.

> And my cloths all fit me well.

But whenever there is an auxiliary verb, it better to place all after the auxiliary verb.

Damkerng T.

7:13 AM

@Man_From_India I think you're right.

IͶΔ

9:02 AM

@Man_From_India I think you're right.

user62015

9:17 AM

Hi!

@Man_From_India Are you there?

IͶΔ

@Man_From_India Are you there?

Man_From_India

9:47 AM

Good evening guys.

@user62015 Hello. How are you doing?

IͶΔ

@Man_From_India Hello. How are you doing?

Man_From_India

@IͶΔ you remind me of an android app Talking Tom 😛

IͶΔ

@Man_From_India you remind me of an android app Talking Tom 😛

Except it's talking IͶΔ

Hullo @HeWhoCodes! Welcome to LO!

Man_From_India

But that apps can't say anything else other than what's spoken 😂😀

IͶΔ

@Man_From_India But that apps can't say anything else other that what's spoken 😂😀

I'm AI

Man_From_India

9:53 AM

Does your AI stands for aluminum? 😊

IͶΔ

@Man_From_India Does your AI stands for aluminum? 😊

No, and that should be "stand". My AI stands for a leaving group that has bonded to an iodide.

Anonymous

10:17 AM

Anonymous

Yay

IͶΔ

Yippee!

Let's flip a table

(/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

Anonymous

@Man_From_India My money were all wasted sounds flatly ungrammatical to me.

Anonymous

Was is better.

Damkerng T.

10:54 AM

@snailboat We're all officially Slytherins now! -- hiss...

IͶΔ

Stings @Dam

Ouch, that's metal! No fair!

Damkerng T.

hiss...

IͶΔ

I have an idea for a meta post, now that meta is active thanks to the design.

This I believe, would/could be the most important discussion of ELL's meta.

@Dam what is the noun for "preservative"?

preservativity or preservativeness?

Damkerng T.

Isn't it preservation?

Anonymous

11:18 AM

@DamkerngT. Glad we've got that Sorted :-)

Anonymous

@IͶΔ This food contains no preservatives!

Anonymous

There are multiple related nouns. Can you use the word you want in a sentence?

IͶΔ

11:57 AM

Oh. I was looking for preservationism actually.

CC @Dam @Snail

IͶΔ

12:18 PM

1

Q: Is negative form of special question allowed in English?

May I ask "What haven't mammals got?" assuming the "cold blood" as an answer? Or, similarly "What don’t most mammals eat?"

sentence-construction questions negation

WTH is a special question?

They prolly meant my questions.

Man_From_India

@snailboat Oh thanks. I made a terrible mistake there, of course one of many 😊

IͶΔ

12:37 PM

Shuns @Man for using Unicode smileys

IͶΔ

1:14 PM

0

Q: I thought of it too

I thought of it too Is it the phrase native speakers use to confirm they have given a thought to something? What the other possible phrases?

phrase-usage phrase-request

> What the other possible phrases?

That is a noble form of swearing.

Anonymous

1:45 PM

@IͶΔ 🐌

IͶΔ

@snailboat ?

Anonymous

It's like a Unicode smiley, except it's a snail.

Anonymous

It made sense to me when I typed it :-)

Man_From_India

2:01 PM

Planning to switch to windows phone. How is it? Anyone knows?

Anonymous

I've never used one.

IͶΔ

@Man_From_India It's treacherous

Man_From_India

So do I, just want to have a new experience.

@IͶΔ :O why do you say that?

IͶΔ

Just kidding

Man_From_India

@IͶΔ Do you have any unicode smiley in ur username? From desktop it seems like one :P

Anonymous

2:13 PM

Someone should put U+A7AF in their username.

Anonymous

A conversation starter to spread the word :-)

CopperKettle

2:36 PM

Easy indeed it were to reach
A mansion in the courts above,
If swelling words and fluent speech
Might serve instead of faith and love.

2

(0:

Damkerng T.

3:31 PM

~~Hello test.~~ Hi, everyone!

@IͶΔ I guess yes-no questions are not so special!

IͶΔ

@DamkerngT. ~~Hello test.~~ Hi, everyone!

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ You're going to play copycat today, eh?

IͶΔ

@DamkerngT. You're going to play copycat today, eh?

@Dam the Swag comes usually a year into graduation.

Damkerng T.

The send button looks a lil bit strange. I think I like it better when it was still just a rectangle.

Swag?

Why the capital letter?

IͶΔ

Because Sometimes It Feels Fun To Capitalize Stuff.

Damkerng T.

3:38 PM

OIC

IͶΔ

@DamkerngT. ?

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC; Arabic: منظمة التعاون الإسلامي‎; French: Organisation de la coopération islamique, OCI) is an international organization founded in 1969 consisting of 57 member states. The organisation states that it is "the collective voice of the Muslim world" and works to "safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony". The OIC has permanent delegations to the United Nations and the European Union. The official languages of the OIC are Arabic, English, and French. == History and goals == Since...

Damkerng T.

Not that one!

IͶΔ

Ornamental Intrinsic Crap?

Damkerng T.

I simply meant: oh, I see!

IͶΔ

Huh, for real, I thought you meant of course it does.

Damkerng T.

3:43 PM

How could of course it does become OIC?

IͶΔ

Of course It Coes.

There need not be any justification for irrational thought.

Damkerng T.

Have you watched Project Almanac? I think it looks quiet good.

IͶΔ

The name sounds familiar.

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ How can I justify that; justifying an irrational justification is just irrational!

IͶΔ

> Project Almanac
PG-13 2015 ‧ Fantasy/Science fiction film ‧ 1h 46m
Watch trailer
6.4/10·IMDb
35%·Rotten Tomatoes
47%·Metacritic
3/5·The AV Club

Not sure if I'd watch it.

Damkerng T.

3:47 PM

The protagonist reminds me up of you a little bit. :-)

(I'm watching it.)

IͶΔ

Oh noes, what is he like

Damkerng T.

How should I put that? I think if we replaced his tinkering ability with some sort of chemistry cool stuff, we would get you. :D

BTW, I'm adjusting myself to the voice input.

IͶΔ

@DamkerngT. Oh, he's breaking stuff?

Damkerng T.

He is making stuff!

IͶΔ

WOW

That's, impossible.

Then he's a disgrace to me.

Damkerng T.

3:52 PM

Aww... it's really impossible but this is a movie so everything is possible and what he made in this movie was actually a time machine!

Also, if you want him to break something, he actually also broke a lot of things in the movie!

IͶΔ

7:40 PM

I wanted to answer something on ELL.

But no question intrigued me. :(

3

Q: "Science the s--t out of this"

In the recent feature film The Martian, Mark Whatney, played by Matt Damon, has to figure out a way to grow food on Mars when it's never been done before in order to survive, he says In the face of overwhelming odds I'm only left with one option: I'm gonna have to science the shit out of th...

word-usage grammar

This is our next HNQ, and it has something interesting to it, even though Peter isn't a linguist and he can't make a good question out of it.

Also, one day I'm gonna go on a rampage and take a shotgun and edit all of Peter's post to remove the bolding.

That day, heaven'll descend upon us.

Anonymous

8:29 PM

@IͶΔ Now, now, let's Be Nice :-)

IͶΔ

8:41 PM

@snailboat Sorry

I'll be nice, even its capitalized form.

Anyway, @Snail this is weird.

I'm logged in to COCA as a user from Spain. O_O

And when have I searched for Padua? O_o

Anonymous

That is weird.

Anonymous

Did you enter your login information and end up shown a different name at the upper right?

IͶΔ

No.

I didn't enter anything.

Anonymous

You just went to COCA, and it showed you already logged in?

Anonymous

Are you and someone in Spain using the same proxy?

Anonymous

8:45 PM

I don't know. That's a strange bug.

IͶΔ

@snailboat Ja

The username is "XX".

From Denison university.

How can I log out @Snail? I can't find a button.

Wrote a small answer on ELL today, since people don't seem to like big ones here.

Anonymous

@IͶΔ The upper right is the account area. You should see history | lists | logout or such there.

IͶΔ

@snailboat Thankz

Anonymous

Possible duplicate of "Wrote it wrong" or "wrote it wrongly"? — snailboat 9 secs ago

IͶΔ

Oh :(

Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ

8:58 PM

What is that ribbon on the belonging to symbol suppose to mean on the logo?

IͶΔ

I shouldn't have answered that.

@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ Slytherin academy

Or something like that,

@Snail should I delete my answer?

Anonymous

@IͶΔ No, it's fine :-)

Anonymous

@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ It's a bookmark.

Anonymous

I like to call it the ELL orange thingy.

IͶΔ

Hmm, how can I look for a particular part of speech using COCA?

I wanna search for wrong (adv.)

Not all of the "wrong"s.

Anonymous

9:02 PM

First, figure out how the part of speech you're looking for is tagged in CLAWS7: ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/claws7tags.html

Anonymous

Adjectives are J.

Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ

So for your English language needs book mark this site?

Anonymous

So we'll search for wrong.[J]

IͶΔ

@snailboat Thankz times 2

Anonymous

@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ I'm not sure! :-)

Anonymous

9:04 PM

But there's a bunch of discussion about it on meta.

Anonymous

That's how I know it's a bookmark.

IͶΔ

Wait, you sure it's J?

Anonymous

@IͶΔ Sorry about that, you wrote adverb, not adjective.

Anonymous

Adjectives are indeed J, but you wanted adverbs.

IͶΔ

Hmm

Anonymous

9:05 PM

So, back to the CLAWS7 tagset list.

Anonymous

Adverbs are R.

Anonymous

Hmm. In this case, though, you might have to look through results yourself and decide if CLAWS is tagging things accurately.

IͶΔ

@CLAWS please tag responsibly. I didn't write those meta posts for the fun of it.

Anonymous

It doesn't look very accurate to me in this case.

Anonymous

> And when it comes to affordable housing, we will prove them wrong again.

Anonymous

9:09 PM

It says wrong is an adverb here. But is it?

Anonymous

One hopes they didn't mean they would do the proving incorrectly :-)

Anonymous

Rather, they wanted to prove them to be wrong.

Anonymous

That is, wrong predicates semantically on them.

Anonymous

It looks like an adjective to me.

Anonymous

CLAWS is supposed to have a 96-97% accuracy rate, but for specific words that rate may be lower or higher.

Anonymous

9:12 PM

So if you see something that doesn't seem quite right, don't assume that CLAWS knows better than you do.

IͶΔ

He can't scratch me.

Damkerng T.

9:36 PM

@IͶΔ Hola!

Damkerng T.

9:46 PM

> For some reason, I can notice more and more of the unaspirated /p/ in various places besides after a sibilant. For example, I have just heard it in "the power" and in an old episode of Charmed.

Damkerng T.

9:57 PM

Playing with Braille...

⠠⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕⠖

Hmm... why do they convert my exclamation point (!) to 6!

> libbraille.org/translator.php

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh really? Did you grab a recording?

Damkerng T.

Ah, I didn't!

BTW, it was I have just heard it in "the power" ~~and~~ in an old episode of Charmed.

(I'm trying to use voice input as much as possible.)

Anonymous

By the way, was she saying it onscreen, or was it a voiceover?

Damkerng T.

A character (who wasn't the lead actors) said it onscreen.

Is it 'onscreen', or 'on screen'?

Anonymous

Oh, I see.

Anonymous

10:07 PM

@DamkerngT. Either works.

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Damkerng T.

11:49 PM

1

Q: Should I write "add to the beginning" or I must use "prepend"?

I made a comment on a SO's question some days ago: Are you trying to just overwrite the data at the beginning of the file or insert new data without losing the data that is already there? Some of the answers had the word prepend (eg: "To prepend data: ..."). Looking for a translation of pr...

meaning meaning-in-context technical

I'm not saying that prepend is not a word, or even a bad word of sorts, but if I found it used in a programming manual, I'd automatically think of prepone.

I guess that non-native speakers whose first language involves lots of prefixes and suffixes may prefer the use of prefixes and suffixes in English words as well.

It's probably easier to handle multiple languages for them that way.

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