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SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
6:39 AM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: Could things go in vain? Or they just were in vain? by anna on ell.SE
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
6:57 AM
@DamkerngT. I was reading Iris Murdoch's Sandcastle and came across this phrase
It might be dated a bit
The book was published in the 1950s
 
V.V.
V.V.
@userr2684291 Funny!
 
 
4 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
10:32 AM
The city of Rzhev
The photo was made in 1910
107 years ago
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Looks peaceful.
(I must've followed IT news too much lately. I read Rzhev as Ryzen at first glance!)
 
user62015
user62015
The teacher said to him, “Do not go out." (SSC CGL TIER - II, 2015)
A. The teacher commanded him that he should not go out. B. The teacher told him do not go out.
C. The teacher advised him not to go out.
D. The teacher ordered him to not go out.
Answer says C
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
It's not an ideal test, IMO, but not to do something is more idiomatic, I think.
And commanded/ordered is perhaps too strong in meaning.
 
user62015
user62015
Okay.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
B could be okay with proper punctuation, but there's no commas or quotes or anything.
 
user62015
user62015
10:43 AM
I agree.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> The Battles of Rzhev, also known as the "Rzhev meat-grinder" due to horrific losses, took place between January 8, 1942 and March 31, 1943. (Total losses: 700 000 men)
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Oh!
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
about 4000 men died each day there for more than a year
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
That's sad.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
nods
 
skill patrol
skill patrol
11:07 AM
!!wiki/Rzhev
 
Ellbot
Ellbot
Rzhev
Rzhev (Russian: Ржев; IPA: [ˈrʐɛf]) is a town in Tver Oblast, Russia, located 49 kilometers (30 mi) southwest of Staritsa and 126 kilometers (78 mi) from Tver, on the highway and railway connecting Moscow and Riga. It is the uppermost town situated on the Volga River. Population: 61,982 (2010 Census); 63,729 (2002 Census); 69,808 (1989 Census). == History == Rzhev was founded in the Middle Ages and rivals Toropets as the oldest town in the region. Rzhevians usually point out that their town is mentioned in the Novgorod laws as early as 1019. Their neighbors from Toropets, on the other hand, give...
 
user62015
user62015
11:50 AM
“They are late, “she had already told us. (CGL - 2015)
A. She had already been telling us that they are late. B. She told us that they are already late.
C. She has already told us (that) they are late. D. She told us that they are late already. @snailplane @M.A.R. @Man_From_India @DamkerngT.
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
12:16 PM
It shows why English from administrators of India are generally bad.
 
user62015
user62015
hahahahaaha
What should we do?
We have no option.............
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
Elect me as the most powerful person of India. I will do instead of you :P
By the way have u typed the question correctly?
 
user62015
user62015
Yes. I did
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
Because no options seem correct.
 
user62015
user62015
I was thinking same
that tenses are wrong but students also had same options
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
12:19 PM
Or it may happen that the book from where u copied the question had a typo there.
B might be the closest.
I think here a backshifting is preferred.
 
user62015
user62015
I agree.
But it is on all websites and in books
SSC asks these types of questions as well.
Those do not make sense.
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
> She (had) told us that they were are already late.
I think were is better, than are.
 
user62015
user62015
I agree.
I was thinking the same thing.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
1:01 PM
I'm too dense.. I've just re-read the whose chapter several times. When I come to the sentence "By contrast, the null hypothesis for the one-tailed test is π ≤ 0.5.", it all breaks down. I cannot understand what it means. — CopperKettle 2 hours ago
For some reason, it was double-upvoted.
I hope I'll have some time to revisit that chapter.
 
EngFan
EngFan
1:40 PM
Hello!!
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Хаюшки!
Всем приветик в этом чяте!
I mean, good evening.
 
EngFan
EngFan
:-
:-)
 
V.V.
V.V.
@CowperKettle приветик.
 
EngFan
EngFan
could you please send me an email at your earliest convenience
or
would you please send me an email at your earliest convenience
?
 
V.V.
V.V.
1:57 PM
@EngFan as you like.
 
EngFan
EngFan
which would be polite
 
V.V.
V.V.
Both
 
Anonymous
I think could is slightly more polite.
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
@snailplane I deleted the comment there, for it might create confusion :-)
But do you think that the sentence is correct?
 
Anonymous
@Man_From_India It's wh-in-situ.
 
Anonymous
2:01 PM
Yes.
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
I mean the last parT?
 
Anonymous
It's the sort of question you might find on a game show.
 
Anonymous
The tag was a hint :-)
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
Oh I overlooked that.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@V.V. (0:
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
2:03 PM
I thought that sentence in question was similar to the following -
> In one scene the choir (a nightly-changing cast drawn from local community choirs wherever the play is performed) become the audience of a what seems to be a perverse reality television show.
 
Anonymous
Most wh-questions in English have the wh-phrase fronted (moved to the front of the sentence), but some questions leave the wh-phrase in situ (in its original place).
 
Anonymous
The example you just gave seems quite different.
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
@snailplane nods
But what does the original sentence in that question mean?
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@Man_From_India It asks what the cover had a photo of.
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
sorry didn't get it :(
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
2:08 PM
What was on the cover of the magazine? What was it a photo of?
"Published in 1936, the first issue of Life magazine had a Margaret Bourke-White photo of a what on its cover?" -> "What did the first issue of Life magazine, published in 1936, had a Margaret Bourke-White photo of on its cover?" I'm not sure how to transform it better.
 
Anonymous
> What did the first issue of Life magazine, published in 1936, have a Margaret Bourke-White photo of ＿＿ on its cover?
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
Ah, "did had", ugh.
 
Anonymous
In this version, I fronted what, and this triggered subject–auxiliary inversion, so I added the dummy auxiliary do to make the inversion possible. I also moved the adjunct published in 1936.
 
Anonymous
I wrote down a ＿＿ to indicate the gap left behind by fronting what, although the gap would not normally be written down.
 
Anonymous
Typically the wh-phrase (in this example consisting of the single word what) would be fronted in this manner, but the in-situ version is also possible in certain contexts. For example, you might find this sort of question on a game show.
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
2:22 PM
Thanks now it's clear.
 
Anonymous
One tricky thing here is a Margaret Bourke-White photo, which means a photograph taken by Margaret Bourke-White. In this sort of game show–type question, you sometimes find additional information crammed in like this, because they have to fit all the relevant information into one sentence.
 
Anonymous
Hey, the original question says a what, not what.
 
Anonymous
Well, that's okay too, but I didn't notice that.
 
Anonymous
That's going to complicate the answer, though :-)
 
Man_From_India
Man_From_India
Margaret Bourke-White photo, which means a photograph taken by Margaret Bourke-White. It is very tricky.
Unless one knows it, it is almost impossible to understand the sentence. This is the key.
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
2:30 PM
Yeah, I guess they threw you a slight curve ball, but it's not an especially clever ruse.
@snailplane I think it just reveals that what's on the photo is a countable noun, right?
Something I'm not sure I'd be able to incorporate into the transformation.
 
Anonymous
@userr2684291 There are certain kinds of wh-in-situ you can't front.
 
Anonymous
Usually in echo questions:
 
Anonymous
> Yeah, I was just rotating my house.
 
Anonymous
> You were what-ing your house?
 
Anonymous
There is no way to move that what to the front of the sentence, although you could rephrase it as a regular question if you wanted.
 
Anonymous
2:42 PM
If it was just what, we could do it as I showed above. But with a what, you can't do it.
 
Anonymous
I have to go for now. I'll be back in chat on my phone :-)
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
See ya.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:59 PM
I wonder which 2 Tb HDD is the most durable now
I want to buy a 120 Gb SDD + 2 Tb HDD.. because my HDD sometimes make odd noises upon starting
They give a 3-year warranty on Western Digital Red, so it must be good.
 
Pandya
Pandya
"Surpassing to" or "Surpassing than"?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Pandya neither
"surpassing something"
 
Pandya
Pandya
@CowperKettle I want to frame/make a sentence like "Quality of A is superior than others (say B,C,D)" ; with using "surpassing" . or is it not good idea or suitable to use surpass here?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Pandya "A surpasses its competitors in terms of quality"
"Quality of A is superior relative to its competitors: B, C, and D".
superior than is an error, do not write like this
 
Pandya
Pandya
oh! yes, it would be "superior to".
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3:10 PM
yes
"relative to"
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
You don't need "relative", it's superfluous.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3
Q: Is it "superior of" or "superior to"?

KabahangoIs it "superior of" or "superior to"? In a sentence: We conclude that our proposed model is superior to the base case. or We conclude that our proposed model is superior of the base case.

to-of
Yes, turns out you don't need "relative"
I was multitasking
 
Pandya
Pandya
@CowperKettle ok. Btw, can you provide an example sentence for "surpassing"?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
hmm.. no
They write that Hitachi disks are super-reliable but noisy. That leaves WD.
 
Pandya
Pandya
@CowperKettle not necessarily for that any sentence that using "surpassing".
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
3:14 PM
@Pandya "The quality of A far surpasses that of B."
@Pandya This is a good dictionary: ldoceonline.com
 
EngFan
EngFan
I haven't received the user ID and password . could you please send it ?
I want to make a request , but not sure whether to use a question mark or a fullstop
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@EngFan If you don't want it to be a question, rephrase it.
 
EngFan
EngFan
@userr2684291 I haven't received the user ID and password . could you please send it .
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
@CowperKettle Argh! I've got a few Seagate HDDs!
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@EngFan Sure. Your ID is pinksock, and your password is *******.
@EngFan Putting a period at the end isn't what I had in mind. "I'd be grateful if..." is what I mean.
 
EngFan
EngFan
3:25 PM
@userr2684291 : haha, I mean to ask if my rephrasing is correct
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
That's not rephrasing.
However, "Could you send it to me?" is a question.
Or at least an interrogative form of a sentence; implicitly it's a request – it doesn't require an actual answer.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@DamkerngT. All my HDDs are Seagates, and I've never had a single one breaking. I even have a 210 Mb Seagate HDD in a cardboard box somewhere, bought in 1993, and it is operational.
Several hospitals may be closed in Yekaterinburg for lack of funding
In Hospital 20, doctors received $20 each on February 27 - as "advance payment" for February. And nothing more after that.
 
Anonymous
3:43 PM
Frown
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
$20 is enough to go shopping for a family once
It's enough to survive a week if you are careful.
It starts getting hot.
If oil prices do not increase, I would not be amazed at a revolution in 2018
 
Anonymous
The OP even asks about a before what explicitly – how did I not notice!? :-)
 
Anonymous
I'm back, in phone form!
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
(0:
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
@CowperKettle That's very strange!
I'm back, in PC form! :P
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3:55 PM
@DamkerngT. Word of the day: go pear-shaped
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Nice!
I wonder how it's arrived at its meaning.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Nothing strange. It used to be somewhat like that before the year 2000. But now it's dangerous to go to public meetings, rallies etc. The authorities have already stated that "someone is interested in promoting rioting and inciting doctors to protest"
Meaning, the USA is doing its devious work etc.
"To provoke a color revolution"
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
I'm not sure why "color" gets involved over there.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
One woman I'm working for is all pro-Putin, and "we should have invaded the whole of Ukraine, because the USA is investing money in color revolutions"
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
It doesn't make sense to me, but I don't know much about things over there.
Oh!
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3:58 PM
Colour revolution
Colour revolution (sometimes called the coloured revolution) or color revolution is a term that was widely used by worldwide media to describe various related movements that developed in several societies in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans during the early 2000s. The term has also been applied to a number of revolutions elsewhere, including in the Middle East. Some observers (such as Justin Raimondo and Michael Lind) have called the events a revolutionary wave, the origins of which can be traced back to the 1986 People Power Revolution (also known as the "Yellow Revolution") in the ...
"Color revolutions" are pro-democracy revolutions of the 2000s
Like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in early 2000s
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
And Yellow in the Philippines.
 
Anonymous
Oh wow, I didn't even know that term.
 
Anonymous
Hello, PC Damkerng!
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Hello, Phone snailplane! :D
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
It's quite a famous term here, tsvetnaya revolutsiya
tsvet is "color" in Russian
> Government figures in Russia, such as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, have stated that colour revolutions are a new form of warfare.
Russia's National Defense Doctrine says that the West is trying to destroy us through a color revolution, thus we should protect ourselves
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
4:07 PM
Sounds more like just a claim.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:50 PM
0
Q: Amazingly small comment size in a Word 2007 document

CopperKettleI was given a document to translate. I want to add some comments in order to ascertain the meaning of some words. When I add a comment, it has an amazingly tiny size: I opened the Styles settings and set all comments-related font sizes to 20, to no avail: the words stay tiny and unreadable...

microsoft-word-2007
O_O
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
5:42 PM
\o all
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
5:52 PM
Evening!
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:04 PM
0
A: Does "a coward" have the same meaning as "not brave"?

M.A.R.Notice the indefinite article before "coward". Indefinite articles can't appear right before adjective phrases. The dog is a coward. "a coward" is called a noun phrase, functioning as the predicative complement. The dog is brave. "brave" is an adjective phrase, consisting of only one ...

Contains nice pictures!
 
V.V.
V.V.
6:30 PM
Who can tell me if the sentence is valid? "I 'll go wash up."
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@V.V. it seems fine to me
 
EngFan
EngFan
Is there any difference between hello and hello there?
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@V.V. Yeah, it looks good, apart from that jarring space before the apostrophe.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@EngFan No.
@Snail what should we do about the [syntax] [sentence-structure] pair? Should [sentence-structure] go? If so, should I write a meta post about synonymizing it to [syntax]?
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@EngFan There is little difference between the two.
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
7:24 PM
@M.A.R. Isn't the latter better known?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 If we synonymize it, when people type "sentence-structure", "syntax" will come up
That's the best thing about the synonyms
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@M.A.R. I think you should've said "about synonyms".
Anyway, I'll try it out now.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 Hmph. I wanted to say "the synonymization" but I felt tired of typing it in the middle
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@M.A.R. I wouldn't use "the" there either.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I would
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
7:36 PM
Because you're moving to the general thing...
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Well, not usually, but it doesn't make it wrong
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
7:49 PM
@M.A.R. So when you say the tag should go, you mean "the preferred tag will be shown underneath". What if instead of "adjectives" I type in "adjective" and press space – will the question be posted with this tag? (adjective is a synonym of lower preference for adjectives.)
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 The question will automatically be tagged with adjectives.
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@M.A.R. You mean upon its submission?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 I'm not really sure, lemme try it
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@M.A.R. I'll quickly answer it so you can't delete it.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
!!flip/@Userr
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
7:52 PM
refreshes furiously.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Now I have to think of a question
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
Nah, I'm j/k, go ahead.
 
V.V.
V.V.
Came to say "thank-you " to you both.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Thank you for saying thank you
Hmm, I can write a post about where adjectives can appear.
 
V.V.
V.V.
My magic bands.
Good night!
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
7:55 PM
@V.V. Note that "wash up" can mean different things in different dialects.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
PSA: Next canonicallish post is about lexical versus syntactic categories
 
V.V.
V.V.
Yeah, I checked that.
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@V.V. Alrighty. Sleep tight.
@M.A.R. PSA? Google says "Prostate Specific Antigen".
 
V.V.
V.V.
What's the time at your place?
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@V.V. It's 20:59 here.
 
V.V.
V.V.
8:00 PM
Ah, 23.05.
Gone.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
23:32
@userr2684291 Public Service Announcement
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
Same difference.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 Wat
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Oh nice. I didn't know it was actually something fixed
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
8:10 PM
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@M.A.R. "NOT STANDARD", haha.
Oh, for the same definition in AmE they just say "informal".
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 If you say "same diff", it'll prolly shout "F YOU"
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
Wait a minute...
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
WHY DOES EVERY FRIGGING THING I ANSWER MAKE IT TO HNQ I'M SO SICK OF IT
@userr2684291 Waits a minute
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
8:16 PM
Those two definitions are different.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 Hmm? Which two definitions?
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@M.A.R. The dictionary you linked me to.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@userr2684291 Eh, I just grabbed a link I found in Google and wasn't the ones you linked to to be witty. I didn't check what was in it
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
It expounds on nuanced connotation in BrE – not so much in its sister dialect.
@M.A.R. I got it.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Sahuagin that's context-dependent. Sometimes context rules out the middle ground. But without any context, we can't rule it out. And I don't think it's restricted to English. — M.A.R. 4 mins ago
@Userr can you think of an example? My mind locked up for some reason
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
8:25 PM
@M.A.R. Just don't think in terms of emotions.
Or human characteristics...
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
That feels hard now
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
The only thing that comes to mind are "broken" and "not broken", haha, when they refers to some physical object.
"Complete" and "incomplete".
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Sahuagin That might be because you only either have binary states or the two extremes in mind. If the door isn't open, it must be closed. But if a surface isn't smooth, it could be rough, or it could be something between smooth and rough, in a way that qualifies neither adjective in your mind. — M.A.R. 10 secs ago
@userr2684291 Thinking of binary states was easy. I was thinking of something I could say for non-binary
 
userr2684291
userr2684291
@M.A.R. Well, any human emotion is like that. "Not angry" might imply "happy", but it might as well be "impassive".
@M.A.R. I learned a new word from that discussion: hiding. (:
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
8:57 PM
@userr2684291 Huh, is it a new word?
WOTD: hiding
 
 
1 hour later…
Anonymous
10:25 PM
Intact?
 
Anonymous
Unharmed. Whole. In one piece. Unbroken.
 

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