English Language Learners

12:01 AM

@snailboat The treason trial of Lord Lovat. Lovat of course was a Scotsman, but the Attorney General and other Lords use you was as well.

Anonymous

> 1658 Osborn Adv. Son (1673) 237 Religion grows flatulent and Hypocritical. 1697 Dryden Æneis Ded. e 4 How many of those flatulent Writers have I known. 1742 Young Nt. Th. vi. 239 Flatulent with fumes of self-applause. 1863 N. & Q. 3rd Ser. IV. 284 Much of the poetry is little more than very flatulent declamation. 1870 Swinburne Ess. & Stud. (1875) 261 A score or two of poems, each more feeble and more flatulent than the last.

Damkerng T.

Wow, lots of flatulent in there!

Anonymous

Those are the OED's cites for that sense of flatulent

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's why!

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. But if you ever really need to, you're prepared!

Damkerng T.

12:08 AM

@StoneyB You can say so. Fortunately, I think I don't really have to. I'm free from my duty next year!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Thirty years is a long time.

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

StoneyB

And when you are discharged, the Government will of course take back all the knowledge it has beneficently provided you.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB LOL

So to be on the safe side, I hope that there will be no war at least this, and next year. :-)

Anonymous

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

12:11 AM

My guess was that "If it would only" would be more common than "If only it would"

Anonymous

I was wrong!

Damkerng T.

I guess If only gains its popularity in part because of if and only if.

It probably nudges only to get closer to if.

StoneyB

@snailboat Well, you waited too long. If you had guessed that before WWI you would have been right. As is, you were right for about 90 years and wrong only for about 60 - a moral victory.

Damkerng T.

It would be nice if we could save a Google Ngram chart as an image with just one click.

StoneyB

And if you extend that Ngram another 8 years you will see that the tide is turning strongly in your favour.

Damkerng T.

12:17 AM

@StoneyB Oh, you weren't kidding!

Anonymous

Ooh, conceipts: books.google.com/…

StoneyB

I never kid about diachronics ;}

Damkerng T.

@snailboat An outdated spelling?

Anonymous

@StoneyB sciencemag.org/content/early/2010/12/15/science.1199644/suppl/…

StoneyB

@snailboat And heroick

Anonymous

12:20 AM

> 2) Composition of the corpus. The full dataset contains about 4% of all books ever published, which limits the extent to which it may be biased relative to the ensemble of all surviving books. The corpus contains mostly books borrowed from participating libraries, and thus its composition reflects library acquisition practices. Still, marked shifts in composition from one year to another are a potential source of error.

Anonymous

> For instance, book sampling patterns differ markedly for the period before the creation of Google Books (2004) as compared to the period afterward. As a result, we caution users that results from after 2000 are not generally comparable with results from before 2000 and often reflect changes in corpus composition. (emphasis added) This was an important reason for our choice of the period between 1800 and 2000 as the target period.

StoneyB

The question then is Which sampling pattern is superior?

Anonymous

They call 1800-2000 the most carefully curated of the datasets

Anonymous

But that's a very good question.

Anonymous

I just mention this because we should remember to be suspect of sharp turns in Google Ngrams Viewer data around the year 2000

Damkerng T.

12:24 AM

I do think that living languages would change a lot within just a decade. Hopefully not much in grammar, though.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Grammatical changes can happen suddenly.

Anonymous

Because language.

StoneyB

I had not realized that particular - feature. They claim then to be even sloppier with contemporary publications than with older ones?

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB One of my ex-teacher discussed with me about two approaches for dealing with large amount of data, before the day of Big Data. One is sort things out carefully, manually, and the other is put everything in a pot (his expression) and figure out a way to extract some patterns from it. I think the latter approach emerged as the winner in the last decade.

Anonymous

Some of the discussion of the corpus errors in the paper are interesting

Anonymous

12:27 AM

They found that 5% of publications had publications dates that were more than 5 years off

Damkerng T.

In that discussion, I insisted on human supervisor. I think the world doesn't agree with me. :-)

Anonymous

Some of them clustered around specific years because metadata providers provided default years like 1899 when publication dates were unknown

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, like 01/01/01!

StoneyB

@snailboat Yes there are a lot of huge errors in the stuff I look at because a) A lot of journals are classified under their first year of publication and b) Most reprints and scholarly editions are classified under the edition's year of publication rather than the original production date.

Anonymous

I noticed that sometimes you can find different editions of the same book online with different selections of text available

Anonymous

12:34 AM

Google Books is the world's most frustrating library.

Anonymous

"You can read almost any book, but we tore out pages at random from all of them!"

Damkerng T.

@snailboat So true!

Anonymous

Before I bought Iwasaki 2013, I found two editions online on Google Books with different sections unredacted

Anonymous

I think I remember seeing three editions of Martin 1975

Anonymous

I don't think I have much to contribute to ELL today

Anonymous

12:42 AM

The batch of answers today seems better than yesterday's

Anonymous

Yesterday I was downvoting, but today I'm not

Damkerng T.

1

A: Which is the correct gerund clause? 'People's killing animals', or 'People killing animals ... '?

John being late is a bit inconvenient. John's being late is a bit inconvenient. Both of these sentences are correct. It's a bit easier to show what happens in sentences like this if we use pronouns: Him being late really annoys me His being late really annoys me. Gerund-participle ...

I thought you wrote the answer, but nope. :-)

What a long run of comments!

Anonymous

I edited that answer.

Anonymous

Where did that Willy Wonka question go?

Damkerng T.

Willy Wonka?

StoneyB

12:47 AM

with the "question for" ... I saw that early this morning

Anonymous

Oh, I found it!

Damkerng T.

Have we ever had a Chocolate Factory question?

Anonymous

0

Q: Gerund or participle

In my opinion, gerund are verbs in noun form and they can be the subject, object or complement of a sentence. If i have understood correctly, could you please let me know whether the following sentence contains gerund or not. If so, how we can signifies it as a gerund It was not a question fo...

Anonymous

'It was not a question for them being able to get a car' in this statement did we use gerund — pramod 11 hours ago

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see.

Anonymous

12:48 AM

pramod moved their question into the comments on Araucaria's answer

Anonymous

Oh, no, from the comments on Araucaria's answer

Anonymous

Now I see.

Anonymous

Although it doesn't make the source of the quote any clearer, unfortunately

Damkerng T.

I think one thing learners usually do to harm themselves is to confuse themselves with too complicated sentence.

Anonymous

To be fair, an awful lot of real sentences are complicated.

Damkerng T.

12:51 AM

@snailboat That's true. Then again, their complicated sentences usually aren't real.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The one in that question certainly doesn't appear to be . . . or it has some transcription errors of some sort

StoneyB

But it is a nifty question. Is it still a gerund if it heads a full non-finite clause? --when the nouniness is a property of the clause, not the -ing form?

Anonymous

Or, just possibly, they wrote down the wrong source

StoneyB

But there is a very similar (but grammatical) sentence in WW.

Anonymous

What is the very similar but grammatical sentence?

StoneyB

12:55 AM

"There wasn't any question of them being able to buy a better house"

Anonymous

Maybe they typed it in from memory and got a word or two wrong.

Anonymous

Oh, I see! That's in your comment.

StoneyB

That's my guess .. I hoped OP would say 'doh! and correct it.

Hard to know when to drop hand-holding for collar-and-yank.

Anonymous

Araucaria started writing an answer to the question I bountied, but deleted it―hopefully because it's still a work-in-progress that they're planning to undelete later :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, I did a quick glance on that one.

I remember that the meat was in the last section.

StoneyB

1:05 AM

'A got some flak for a 'placeholder' answer a couple weeks ago.

Damkerng T.

Also, I'm not sure if I would agree with the answer. Real speech is hard.

Anonymous

Is it okay to post a partial answer (a placeholder?) and delete it while you work on it?

Anonymous

I did that accidentally a month ago, when I realized my answer was incomplete

Damkerng T.

Oh, Logan's Run's setting is the 21st century. And we're now in the 21st century!

StoneyB

It's hard not to, and I don't see why it should be objectionable. I usually cut it out and paste it in email to myself to work on later; but a couple of times I've lost the email!

For really long ones I downloaded a Markdown editor to work in.

Anonymous

1:10 AM

There was a bit of a kerfuffle when someone posted an empty placeholder answer and left it undeleted

Anonymous

I can understand. It was Not An Answer at that point.

StoneyB

That was Araucaria, I'm pretty sure.

Anonymous

But if you post and then immediately delete it, it doesn't seem like there's any harm done.

Anonymous

I wanted to type kerfluffle.

StoneyB

I read kerfluffle.

Anonymous

1:11 AM

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Damkerng T.

I thank you for a new word!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Kerfuffle is a fun word!

Anonymous

It could stand to be slightly fluffier.

Damkerng T.

Wow, it goes up even more sharply 8 years after that!

Anonymous

At this rate, soon it will be the only word we ever say

Damkerng T.

1:13 AM

Hehe, I like the sound of fluffy.

LOL

Anonymous

Of course you do. You're a cat person :-D

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

►

Damkerng T.

Looks really cute!

►

I clicked randomly on the recommended videos!

StoneyB

1:32 AM

Oh, bother. My computer has entered slowdown mode. I can't watch the kittens :(

Anonymous

5:02 AM

@DamkerngT. technologyreview.com/view/531911/…

Anonymous

Whoops :-)

Anonymous

I meant to send the link to the Asimov article!

Damkerng T.

Oh, I didn't know that Asimov Holdings exists!

Anonymous

I didn't either. I guess it's Asimov's estate?

Anonymous

I don't know much about that sort of thing.

Damkerng T.

5:05 AM

Oh, its link to flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1959/1959%20-%200699.html is quite useful!

Look here! flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/1959.html

I can swim in Aviation for years!

Anonymous

What are these PDFs?

Damkerng T.

I think it's a magazine, linked to from your article: GLIPAR (Guide Line Identification Program for Antimissile Research)

> But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men, simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.

I guess that the fact that I came up with a lot of ideas similar to other inventors around the same time (usually a few years ahead, usually less than five years, so maybe they got exactly the same thing in mind at exactly the same time I did, they just did not announce it to the public) is quite in line with the reasoning Asimov gave.

@snailboat It's a great read! Thanks a lot!

Damkerng T.

7:06 AM

1

Q: past simple or present perfect with since

I have just finished reading a good book and say: "It has been a long time since I have read a good book ." if I want to emphasize the gap in time between the last time I read a good book and now ; or is it better to write " since I read a good book ". But I think in this case it is not the g...

grammar

> "It has been a long time since I have read a good book ." if I want to emphasize the gap in time between the last time I read a good book and now

I'm not 100% sure, but I think they can't really emphasize the gap in time between then and now that way, because they've just finished reading the book.

I think I would use:

> It had been a long time since I (had) read a good book like this.
It was a long time since I (had) read a good book like this.

Or maybe "a book this good".

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's been a long time since (the last time) I read a good book.

Anonymous

No perfect there

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But in your example with had and had, it's okay

Anonymous

Because you're backshifting

Anonymous

The was and had example could work too, it's just a little harder for me to imagine the right context

Anonymous

7:19 AM

I like your "a book this good" more than "a good book like this"

Anonymous

Or "a book as good as this (or that) one"

Anonymous

Or "a book (that was) this good"

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yay! I like "a book this good" too. Don't know why. Hehe. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It sounds nice. It sounds pretty natural.

Damkerng T.

But does "It's been a long time since I've read a good book" sound really wrong?

Anonymous

7:22 AM

This good is either a postpositive adjective phrase, or if you prefer, a reduced relative clause

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I guess not. I want to get rid of the 've, personally...

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think I tend to use simple rather than perfect in the since-clauses in those examples.

I think a new badge for editing posts is very effective!

Anonymous

Oh yeah?

Anonymous

I only have the bronze one, I think.

Anonymous

7:35 AM

Although I do have the gold "copy editor" badge and the bronze "excavator" badge

Damkerng T.

I can see our users becoming more helpful on editing!

> "A human being will not mean till he is educated and intelligent."
I copied this sentence from a magazine.this had been written as motto.
http://ell.stackexchange.com/q/37360/3281

I wonder what magazine is that!

Mean as an intransitive verb sounds really odd to me.

Anonymous

Erm.

Anonymous

Sounds non-native

Anonymous

7:52 AM

@DamkerngT. @Fantasier area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/78889/…

Damkerng T.

Ah, we have another chance to try!

> If Thai has the word "เผ็ด" (pèt) for "hot and spicy", why when I order "spicy" at Thai restaurants do the kitchen staff use a loanword "spai-see"?
I've had this happen at multiple Thai restaurants in Sydney where the staff are Thai speakers, and even when I try to order in Thai saying "เผ็ดมาก" the person at the counter calls out "spai-see" to the kitchen! – hippietrail Oct 13 at 6:25

Interesting! Though I think most Thais know the word spicy, I think it's not a loanword.

It happens in Sydney, probably?

Anonymous

8:19 AM

Can you think of any exciting questions to ask?

Anonymous

They could be questions you could answer, rather than questions you'd ask yourself.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Hmm...

Anonymous

I asked a couple

Anonymous

I'm not really sure what I can contribute myself though

Damkerng T.

Let me have a look...

Interesting questions!

> Is it true that Southern Thai is a separate language from Standard Thai? How well can speakers of one understand the other?

I wonder that myself, too. But you already know that. :-)

Probably a Thai who is not very familiar with Southern Thai might feel frustrating when Southerners speak really fast. Another case is when they use unfamiliar words or phrases.

Anonymous

8:25 AM

I added another question

Damkerng T.

(I guess it would be pretty much like when an Englishman heard badonkadonk. :-) -- I got that from Ellen, btw.

Oh, Thai's r dropping (or using l instead of r) is really interesting!

I will collect more data for a couple of days before giving feedback.

A lot of people do it all the time, and a lot of people (including a lot of those who also do it all the time) consider that it's incorrect.

Some of them will shift to pronounce a clear r in formal occasions, but this is not quite easy once it's become their second nature. Breaking a habit is hard.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, it sure is.

Anonymous

If it were easier to break a lifetime habit, maybe I could get rid of this lisp :-)

Anonymous

More relevantly, though

Anonymous

In Japanese, there are things I learned to pronounce long a long time ago

Damkerng T.

8:34 AM

Or I could speak with a neater American accent!

Anonymous

Because I learned based on writing instead of listening

Anonymous

And it's hard for me to unlearn those things, years later!

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I pronounce words with the wrong pitch accent, for example

Anonymous

Because I learned those words in writing so I never learned where the accent fell

Anonymous

8:35 AM

I think this is a common problem among learners of Japanese.

Damkerng T.

nods

I think mapping from sounds to characters is probably easier than mapping characters to sounds later in life.

Anonymous

Hmm. What if we imagine not knowing about Thai tones, and trying to listen to Thai?

Anonymous

We might try to write down the vowels and consonants and not realize we need to pay attention to the tones too

Damkerng T.

I guess it would sound natural!

Quite possibly!

Anonymous

When I hear a tonal language and I try to say something in it

Anonymous

8:39 AM

If I don't know what tones to use, my brain always makes something up

Anonymous

I know that's not especially useful . . . but it just doesn't sound right to me without some sort of tones :-)

Anonymous

So I try to say something with all the wrong tones! ;-)

Anonymous

It's pretty silly, probably :-)

Damkerng T.

LOL -- That's very understandable, though. :-)

Anonymous

If I had to pronounce Thai but didn't know what tones, would it be best to pronounce things in a monotone?

Anonymous

8:40 AM

What would cause the least amount of misunderstanding?

Damkerng T.

Probably not a good idea, but maybe a better idea than pronouncing it with the wrong tones.

Anonymous

Hehe, the real answer is "Don't do that!" :-)

Anonymous

The way Martin describes pitch accent in Japanese made a lot of sense to me

Anonymous

He said pitch is something you memorize along with consonants and vowels :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, consonants too? Hmm...

Hmm... maybe those liquids or semi-vowels, I guess.

Anonymous

8:44 AM

Well, what he meant was

Anonymous

When you learn a word, you learn consonants, vowels, and pitch

Anonymous

Those are the three things that make up a word!

Anonymous

He didn't mean you have to pitch the consonants :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

Sorry for being unclear!

Damkerng T.

8:45 AM

So, he didn't mention anything about stressing. Or practically, there is no stressing?

Anonymous

Japanese has pitch accent, not stress accent

Anonymous

There's actually been some investigation into Japanese to see if the "pitch accent" description is inadequate and there's some role played by stress

Anonymous

Likewise, there are people who want to describe English as a "pitch accent" language, where the primary cue of a stressed syllable is actually pitch!

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think I can hear them stress too, though it's unclear when or where they do that. I guess it's quite similar to the intonation of English.

Anonymous

But the latest I've read is that in Japanese stress is really not a correlate of accent that any speakers cue off of

Anonymous

8:47 AM

That is, if you stress something like in English it simply doesn't affect native speakers' perception of accent location

Anonymous

Which is not to say you can't do it, at least a little bit

Anonymous

Though it would be weird doing it to as great as an extent as you find in English

Anonymous

The actual physical correlates of pitch accent perception in Japanese are surprising, though

Damkerng T.

Very high, you mean?

Anonymous

It's possible for the actual high point to be either before or after the mora that's perceived as accented!

Damkerng T.

8:48 AM

Eh?

Anonymous

They're called 遅下がり "late fall" and 早下がり "early fall" in Japanese

Damkerng T.

And both alternatives are equally okay for native speakers? Interesting!

Anonymous

Yes, because the actual physical trait that correlates with perception of accent location isn't the location of the high point!

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

hasegawa.berkeley.edu/Papers/F0PeakDelayBLS.pdf

Damkerng T.

8:53 AM

@snailboat Oh, by the way, you just sort of reminded me of one interesting thing, which might give a hint that why using the wrong tones might be not that harmful. -- Different dialects in Thai use different sets of tones!

Anonymous

Take a look at the graph on page 3

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh!

Anonymous

The same argument is advanced for Japanese regularly, that since Japanese dialects use pitch differently it can't be that big of a deal

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Isn't that odd?! :-)

Anonymous

Since Japanese speakers can all understand each other

Anonymous

8:54 AM

But in Japanese, the functional load of pitch accent is (I believe, at least!) much lower than that of tone in Thai!

Damkerng T.

"The function of F0-peak delay in Japanese" -- Hah!

Anonymous

See, as she explains, the actual peak may occur in the /i/ of /namida/, but the accent is still perceived as appearing on the first mora

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hmm... That sounds like evidence supporting the idea that syllables do exist in Japanese!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Pitch accent is one of the main pieces of evidence syllable-ists use to argue for their syllabo-centric views! :-)

Anonymous

We talk about accented moras.

Damkerng T.

8:59 AM

Oh! That's weird. I thought pitch accent means moras!

Anonymous

But did you know that in Japanese there's no pitch accent distinction between the first and second morae of a syllable?

Anonymous

A pitch accent can only appear in one place in a given syllable.

Anonymous

Even if that syllable is two morae long, as in /toʜ.kyoʜ/

Anonymous

(Four morae total, two syllables total)

Damkerng T.

I guess it's HHLL or maybe LHLL.

Anonymous

9:00 AM

HHLL is impossible in Tokyo Japanese for most speakers

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

As it happens, it's actually unaccented, LHHH

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

LHHH, though, doesn't mean you pronounce a low pitch and then an even high pitch for three morae

Anonymous

It's just an approximation that means "pitch rises at the beginning, and there's no steep fall"

Anonymous

9:02 AM

But it would actually be pretty common for it to go back down a little bit

Anonymous

So perhaps that's why you perceive LL at the end

Anonymous

But there's no rapid/steep fall that a Japanese speaker would perceive as marking an accent

Anonymous

So any fall that's present is just intonation

Anonymous

Details like this are why it's best to learn by repeating after a Japanese person :-)

Anonymous

It's hard to describe all of this in a way that makes sense through text only!

Damkerng T.

9:03 AM

Indeed!

Maybe listen, then check the explanation, listen again, then check it again, and repeat it over and over. :-)

Anonymous

A language learning website with short F0 graphs over the text and playable recordings for all sample text would be neat

Damkerng T.

Oh, indeed!

Anonymous

By the way, gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/jpn/search/index/word

Damkerng T.

Wait, maybe we have to teach the learners a bit about F0, but it's probably not that hard to understand.

Anonymous

This is a website with recordings by a pair of professional voice actors (one male, one female) for most common Japanese verbs in a number of different inflected forms

Damkerng T.

9:06 AM

Neat!

Anonymous

So you can see あく there (LH) becomes polite あきます (LHHL)

Anonymous

And that's because of the accent on the polite auxiliary 〜ます

Anonymous

It indicates pitch accent in the transcriptions (accented moras in red), but unfortunately doesn't indicate devoiced vowels

Anonymous

But still, it's a great resource for a learner :-)

Damkerng T.

Indeed! I'm doing a quick experiment for a bit.

Anonymous

9:08 AM

Yay

Anonymous

By the way, there's one thing that seems to be left out of most descriptions of pitch accent in Japanese that I think is actually rather important

Anonymous

When there's an accented syllable, the rise at the beginning is rather more significant

Anonymous

Since you have to go up before you go down!

Damkerng T.

Oh, probably not a good time for it. I just want to check their F0, but it seems like I can't record the audio played from my browser easily at the moment.

Anonymous

I think that rise tells the listener "There's an accented syllable coming up! Listen for where it falls!"

Anonymous

9:10 AM

And without that rise, I think sometimes it's possible for a fall to be fairly significant but still not perceived as marking an accent location

Anonymous

(Instead it sounds like "intonation")

Anonymous

Kind of tricky :-)

Damkerng T.

The female voice sounds pretty much like the one in Aritokirikirisu audio book!

Anonymous

I noticed she speakers a little more slowly than the male voice actor

Anonymous

Although both are very clear

Anonymous

9:14 AM

If you listen to かいます, both the male and female voice actors, you can hear a difference in the devoicing of the final vowel

Damkerng T.

I was about to say that!

Anonymous

Or in some of the other 〜ます ones

Anonymous

Strictly speaking, reducing / devoicing / deleting the final vowel in です and ます is never obligatory

Damkerng T.

I think it's more like it's a speaker thing rather than a gender thing.

Anonymous

Yes, that's right

Anonymous

9:16 AM

There are times when no one would devoice it

Anonymous

And there are speakers who naturally pronounce the vowel fully as their normal pronunciation

Anonymous

Although those are mostly speakers of dialects other than Tokyo dialect

Damkerng T.

9:45 AM

3

A: Production of (the) so-called "green tires": is article necessary?

In the context you have supplied, the is best omitted. This is because the zero-article allows for an indefinite reference to "green tires." It appears that no particular type of "green tires" is meant, just "green tires" in general. In addition, if I read the "green tires," I would expect furthe...

I upvoted this because I think it's about 'tires', not 'so-called', and this answer is in-line with my idea.

But maybe I should ask you first.

Anonymous

Um, I still have no idea :-)

Anonymous

It's very difficult with only an explanation for context and no actual text

Anonymous

Questions about articles are often very difficult.

Anonymous

'one does not normally include the definite article before "so-called".' is demonstrably false

Anonymous

On the other hand, "In the context you have supplied, the is best omitted." seems like a reasonable enough opinion

Anonymous

9:52 AM

I can't tell well enough myself to decide if I agree

Anonymous

And here's the opposite opinion! "Including the definite article is probably the right wording."

Anonymous

My inclination is more toward agreeing with CarSmack's answer, I suppose

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I agree with you that so-called is neutral with respect to definiteness and the choice of article needs to be made as it normally would be

Anonymous

It's not like same where the modifier influences your choice for semantic reasons

Anonymous

books.google.com/…

Anonymous

9:58 AM

0

Q: What "its" even though the noun is plural?

Let the young have its youth While you who have survived it look back in joy and appreciation or else in awe and wonder... Only Children Of The Universe Are We By Dudley (CHRIS) Christian young is plural so why is "its used here?

grammar

Anonymous

Damkerng T.

10:44 AM

@snailboat It indeed looks like Comic Sans!

@learner Google Books has page 30, which says "Let the young have their youth", and page 32, which says "Let the young have its youth". Unfortunately, it doesn't have page 31, which might be necessary to make sense of the switch from their to its . . . — snailboat 38 mins ago

Hey, I can see page 31!

Anonymous

I can't!

Anonymous

Do they show different pages to different people in different regions?

Anonymous

Mine says 「31 ページはこの書籍のプレビューに含まれていません。」 = "Page 31 is not included in the preview for this publication."

Damkerng T.

I probably should've typed it instead of uploading the image, but I'm a bit lazy.

I think the writer changes the sense of "the youth" here.

Anonymous

Apparently, but it doesn't make any sense to me

Anonymous

10:51 AM

I'll be the first to admit I have no ear for poetry, but I'll also be the first to admit that this poetry isn't really to my taste

Anonymous

I can't say I really want to make sense of it

Anonymous

I tried briefly, thanks to you uploading this page

Anonymous

But it just doesn't click for me

Damkerng T.

Hmm... How long has Comic Sans been with us?

Anonymous

Not since the 70s. Someone at Microsoft made it in the 90s, I believe

Damkerng T.

10:53 AM

This is very weird, I think.

Anonymous

I can honestly say I have no idea whatsoever why the author switches to its

Anonymous

I read it again.

Damkerng T.

As an abstract concept of "Youth", perhaps. I mean, the "Youth" itself.

Personification, I think.

Anonymous

Youth's youth?

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

10:54 AM

Most traits don't belong to themselves

Anonymous

I mean, you could well be right

Anonymous

I'm not saying that you're not :-)

Anonymous

But it seems hokey to me

Damkerng T.

I know exactly the person we should ask, if we really want to know. :-)

Anonymous

The author?

Damkerng T.

10:56 AM

Yup. :P

Anonymous

I can see FumbleFingers closing this as Off Topic LitCrit

Damkerng T.

I wrote who, then changed it to the person. I think probably who is better.

Anonymous

(Other people vote for that reason too, but I can't remember who else, because FF is the vocal one who leaves a comment each time)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. They both work for me.

Damkerng T.

I also voted to close on one question today.

@snailboat Ah, thanks!

Anonymous

10:57 AM

Although I wouldn't emphasize the. It would be much more natural to give intonational prominence to exactly

Anonymous

The same would be true with who: "I know precisely who we should ask!"

Damkerng T.

I would emphasize on both exactly and the (or who).

Anonymous

Me, I'd just stress the intensifier

Damkerng T.

nods -- I see.

Anonymous

exactly - "used for emphasizing that you are referring to a particular thing and no other"

Anonymous

11:00 AM

I remember reading that some people don't like the term "intensifier" for this usage

Anonymous

Because they don't think of it as gradable

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

I guess "emphatic adverb"?

Anonymous

I dunno. :-)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Both of them work for me. :-)

What's weird about the book is that it's copyrighted 1971 but typeset with a font that looks like Comic Sans and Comic Sans was first released in 1994. Hmm...

Anonymous

11:11 AM

Maybe the copyright date is supposed to reflect the date the poems were written.

Anonymous

And it was typeset (probably self-published...?) more recently

Damkerng T.

I dunno! :-)

Anonymous

shrug :-)

Anonymous

My heater smells like cookies. Is that a bad sign?

Damkerng T.

It could be if it tasted delicious too!

Anonymous

11:12 AM

I'm not planning on tasting my heater!

Damkerng T.

When I was in Europe and New Zealand, I think I'd never ever smelled the heater.

Though I abused some of those headers as a drying machine sometimes!

Anonymous

I lived for years without central heating

Anonymous

Hey, you know, in Japan you usually don't have central heating, but they have these neat little things called こたつ!

Anonymous

Kotatsu

A kotatsu (炬燵) is a low, wooden table frame covered by a futon, or heavy blanket, upon which a table top sits. Underneath is a heat source, often built into the table itself. Kotatsu are used almost exclusively in Japan, although similar devices are used elsewhere. == History == The history of the kotatsu begins in the Muromachi era in the 14th century. Its origins begin with the Japanese cooking hearth known as the irori. Charcoal was the primary method of cooking and heating in the traditional Japanese household and was used to heat the irori. By the 14th century in Japan, a seating platform...

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes! They look really neat. I want to have one myself too! I figure it would be great for winters.

And the winter is coming.

In many dorama, kotatsu appear to be perfect places for cats!

Oh, Lifetime channel has Ellen's show now!

I had to watch her clips on YouTube, now I can enjoy full episodes on my cable!

Anonymous

11:22 AM

Yay!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That sounds cute!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Indeed!

Oh, I thought Ellen's is a one-hour show. It's actually half an hour?!

Anonymous

I haven't seen it

Anonymous

I only watch English TV as a social thing, so it only happens when my friends make me :-)

Damkerng T.

I also guessed you wouldn't. :-)

Anonymous

11:25 AM

Which is not to say that I dislike English TV.

Damkerng T.

I don't watch Thai talk shows nowadays myself either!

Anonymous

But my friends make me do enough of it that I don't have any inclination to do so on my own :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

Multiple hours per week.

Damkerng T.

BRB

"How can you tell that your cat really needs something from you?" "When you get up from your chair and he jumps right up and sit in your chair and then does the 'stare'." ;-)

1

Q: Correct active form of the following sentence

Would anybody specify the active form of the following passive sentence. Our team is so blessed to have each other Also please let me know the significance of "have" in the above sentence. I really appreciate any help you can provide

sentence-construction verb passive-voice active-voice

> Our team is so blessed to have each other

I thought about writing a comment saying that the sentence is already in the active voice, then I think maybe the voice is irrelevant.

"The water is clear" technically is in the active voice, perhaps. But if it really is in the active voice, I guess talking about its passive voice is probably meaningless.

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