English Language Learners

9:11 AM

Alternate way to say this >>> "Please refer to this..."

@JudeNiroshan Please refer to our website for more information. -> For more information, visit our website.

There are many ways to rephrase it. It mostly depends on this and what coming after this.

Hello world!

@snailboat Thanks for the comment. I think the flap-t is a little too strong (so it's more like /d/). And the pitch of up is falling instead of rising as a typical "Pick it up." should have.

@SimonAndréForsberg The raiders.

@MARamezani Hello, chemlet!

9:19 AM

Greetings both of you

Hey! Akh, sorry I'm now recovering from my anger.

@JimReynolds Yeah. Of course. Delete ELL's chat room.

@SimonAndréForsberg I meant that loosing your senses because of a mini-game and raiding other websites is just, immature.

Anyways, as I was saying, I became angry.

I thought we won't have rants in chemistry.

But we did. Aaargh!

It was April Fool's, so I think things were fine.

@MARamezani Oh, I suppose that happens everywhere.

@DamkerngT. Eh, it's post-apocalypse in meta.SE now.

@DamkerngT. Happened in ELL too?

I remember you shared one of our meta posts with us here.

I remember meta.ELL's posts were stupid suggestions not rants.

9:26 AM

I remember even our mod received it as a rant.

Is ELL's chat localized?

You mean that question?

Not the chat. The main site.

I know.

Well, actually, I meant this one: meta.ell.stackexchange.com/q/1163/3281.

Oh yeah, that one.

That's some pretty good and well-formatted rant!

9:33 AM

Indeed!

Not to mention with great grammar.

But with some strange word-choices.

Oligarchy.

Hehe.

Forum-wide assessment amuses me most.

It's really interesting how some people think they are making valid points when they're angry.

^Star that. ^

Anonymous

I was thinking about the flap /t/, too

Hello @snailboat!

Anonymous

9:38 AM

I don't understand the bit about rising intonation. Is "pick it up" supposed to be a polar or echo question? I didn't think it was

@DamkerngT. "Please refer to this.." i'm putting this in an email

everyone in our office is typing the exactly the same way like above

I think the up should sound like "up!" (ranging from a mild stressing to a very strong one if it was a command given to a soldier).

@JudeNiroshan I think the phrase is quite okay.

Anonymous

Hello

I mean when you are asking the reading to refer to something (i.e. this).

Hello!

@DamkerngT. yeah.. agree with you. This is not telling reader to refer to a document. It's to refer to a website link. I'm fed-up with this phase now. As you suggested, all better for when referring to a attached document. So in my case, it's asking to refer to a url. Can you give me some formal and nice phases that impress this same idea ?

9:43 AM

@snailboat So, to my ear, it sounds a little more like "PICK it up" than "pick it UP". Because he used the low (falling) tone in up; though at the same time he added more volume to it.

@JudeNiroshan Oh, if it's a link, visit will work fine.

On the other hand, if you want to refer to a web page before getting down to the business, According to is another alternative I usually use.

i think that won't be suite to my scenario. What i have is a jira ID that is something like tracking our work. So, when i ask for someother person to do a work. i send him a email say like this>>>

'Hi John,
Please refer to this jira ID BONO-6534
Regards,
Jude'

That's weird. (Just my opinion.)

So, this is the whole email body. Nothing else

Unless I knew exactly why I'd want to refer to it (maybe I'd asked for it), I'd think it's weird.

My first reaction: Please refer to this jira ID BONO-6534 -- to do what? (or for what)?

yeah... In that 'jira ID : BONO-6545' has mentioned in detail what that person suppose to do (the work)

9:52 AM

I think phrasing it like this is clearer.

"Please find the tracking information about our work at this Jira ID: BONO-6534."

@JudeNiroshan Oh, so you didn't report the work progress to that person, you want them to finish a task, right?

hmm.. that is ok

If he's a friend (who is working on the same team), I might write, "Hi, John. Please fix this: Jira ID: BONO-6545."

If I want something really dry, I might write, "A new ticket was issued. Please provide the solution or assign someone to handle the ticket accordingly. You can find the ticket via this Jira ID: BONO-6545."

Anonymous

Is there a standard way of phrasing it that everyone at the company uses?

@snailboat I guess it's Please refer to XYZ.

@DamkerngT. that's the old traditional phrase that we use

lol

10:03 AM

nods -- I just clarified it for snailboat.

Anonymous

And you want to change the phrase to something clearer or more professional?

Oh, the site review has ended!

Anonymous

I'm always skeptical when it comes to toy sentences like Maulik's seven-that example. Can we really call it grammatical? It might successfully pass through a machine parser, and you might get it through your mental parser with enough work, but it'll fail to make it through the average person's mind under normal conditions

Anonymous

I think it becomes marginally grammatical temporarily for a speaker who's been given the right mental preparation for it

I think you meant mine. :-)

Anonymous

10:08 AM

But I think it remains generally ungrammatical by virtue of failing to pass most people's mental parsers under most conditions

Anonymous

And so I don't think we should use them as examples of grammaticality

Oh, I see. Maulik mentioned a sentence that is nothing but that's! Seven of them.

Anonymous

Same re: buffalo × ∞

I see. He used it again in his recent answer.

Anonymous

Yes, I also agree with J.R.'s comment

10:13 AM

I daresay that parsing an N-that sentence (in real-time) is not Maulik's department.

Anonymous

I mean, there's nothing wrong with constructing toy sentences. It can be fun!

Anonymous

But I think we should keep them separate from natural English

Anonymous

At least on some level

I agree.

Oh, talking about parsing. I found one sentence I can't parse it myself!

Anonymous

That's another resumptive pronoun

10:17 AM

> Compliment is such a miserable Greenland expression, lies at such a chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my constitution, that I cannot for the very soul of me, use it to any person for whom I have the twentieth part of the esteem every one must have for you who knows you.

Anonymous

> I found one sentence [ ~~that~~ I can't parse ____ myself ] .

@snailboat Yes, indeed. (The it myself was an afterthought.)

I think it's clear that the content of the that-clause is this:

> I cannot use compliment to any person for whom I have the twentieth part of the esteem every one must have for you who knows you.

Anonymous

I can parse this but it might be a bit much for me to diagram from my phone :-) I think at least a couple things are odd

I think for whom I have and for you who knows you lost me.

Anonymous

The esteem everyone who knows you must have for you

Anonymous

10:21 AM

The esteem everyone ~~who knows you~~ must have for you who knows you

Oh!

Anonymous

That's a postposed relative

Anonymous

This sentence seems distinctly old-fashioned

Yes, from 1700-something.

Maybe in the 1780s.

Anonymous

Ah, that explains it

10:24 AM

Thanks a lot! It makes sense now!

Anonymous

Today we'd have and before lies and no comma between the subject I and its following predicate beginning with use

(In the sense of parsing. I still don't know what "the twentieth part of that esteem" is!)

Anonymous

Five percent as much esteem as X has

A-ha!

I see!

Anonymous

Can you get the whole sentence now?

10:25 AM

Yes!

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

I think that postposed relative would be somewhat less likely today

I think it means "I think I can't compliment anyone who everyone thinks they have more esteem than me."

Is it close enough?

Anonymous

The rules there are fuzzy, though, and change over time

Anonymous

I will return to this discussion after I've gotten some sleep :-)

Anonymous

10:28 AM

And maybe on an actual keyboard

Ahh... Get some sleep, then!

Anonymous

Good night!

Good night!

Anyone there?

Still here. (But not for long.)

10:39 AM

Well I was posting an answer to that rant.

That was why I wasn't present.

Oh!

Eh, Oligarchy or localized?

In chemistry.

Ah, I see!

I'm also here

If you ever felt bored, take a look at my awesome answer:

10:46 AM

Hi!

A: Chemistry.SE should be more user friendly- really disappointed

0

I'll try to answer you with each of the "points" you make. Something is really wrong with Chemistry.SE. Is it? Why do you think a community is wrong and you are right? Maybe you should start listening to some people. I don't know why but people here on MSE are more interested in formatt...

@user62015 Hello!

I want to ask you something about the passive voice.

Feel free to ask!

Okay. Here we go!

How to convert this sentence into a passive sentence.

Someone had stolen the computer.

> The computer had been stolen.

10:48 AM

Why we don't use someone here.

Someone is the subject.

What if I say "The computer had been stolen by someone".

So?

Passive sentences are specially there to avoid using the subject.

@user62015 Correct.

Doesn't really matter.

Then what about it?

Kevin had seen the movie before.

That means you put emphasis on the object, which is fine.

@user62015 The movie had been seen [by Kevin].

10:51 AM

My question is very simple can we use someone if we want?

Passive voice is to avoid using the subject, so some linguists don't like that by Kevin though.

@user62015 In the Kevin sentence?

No,

Generally? Yes.

Kevin is fine. I am talking about someone as I have seen people avoid someone most of the cases but they do not avoid a proper name.

So my main question is on someone.

@user62015 Well there are no clear-cut rules on it. When the subject of the sentence is ambiguous, and you use passive voice (which really omits it) I see no reason you'd bring that someone there.

It isn't a matter of grammar.

It's useless. That's the point.

10:58 AM

Okay. Are you sure I just want to confirm as I have an exam on passive voice in coming days.

@user62015 What does your textbook say about bringing the ambiguous subject? Follow it.

Okay.

@user62015 These things are mainly opinion-oriented.

So,

I was confused so I landed here so If someone wants to use someone that is okay or not?

I agree.

Follow your book and/or teacher and you'll be fine.

11:00 AM

What do you do here?

@user62015 Okay, tl;dr.

@user62015 Hanging.

Okay.

See you later. I need to go now.

Bye!

Have a great time. I will talk to you soon.

Bye

12:22 PM

That title was almost certainly created by a Korean; it's doubtful that a native English speaker would choose that. It's not a common or natural expression in English. Bonus shocker: Native speakers rarely use the expression "take a rest." — pyobum 6 hours ago

Hmm...

A: When not to use existential 'there'?

12:59 PM

5

Context is, once again, the important factor! It's important to distinguish between the existential there, and the simple adverbial use (Where is the ball? The ball is there.) Let's have a look at your example sentence: There's the girl I was talking about. Now, this sentence can mean two...

Nothing bad. I just wish it had been written in plain English.

1:56 PM

That's some awesome answer.

Anonymous

2:22 PM

@MARamezani That's actually not an accurate description of the passive.

Anonymous

First, we should separate syntactic roles from semantic roles

Anonymous

Syntactically, the thing which is typically to the left of a verb is still the subject in a passive clause

Anonymous

It participates in subject-auxiliary inversion and so forth

Anonymous

> 1. Someone kidnapped him.　←　active clause

Anonymous

> 2. He was kidnapped ~~by someone~~.　←　passive clause

Anonymous

2:23 PM

> 3. Was he kidnapped ~~by someone~~?　←　subject-auxiliary inversion

Anonymous

I've bolded the subject in all three examples.

Anonymous

But you're close. Something moves out of subject position, and something else moves into subject position.

Anonymous

So one of the main purposes of the passive is to get that something out of subject position.

Anonymous

Now, once we've separated semantic roles from syntactic roles, we can say:

Anonymous

> 1. Someone kidnapped him.　←　someone is the the agent (semantic role) and the subject (syntactic role)

Anonymous

2:26 PM

> 2. He was kidnapped by someone.　←　someone is still the agent (semantic role), but no longer the subject (syntactic role)

Anonymous

The agent has been moved out of subject position.

Anonymous

We have to abstract these concepts from each other because they don't always line up.

Anonymous

Our description suffers if we conflate the two.

Anonymous

Next, we should talk about the requirement in English for an explicit subject in a major sentence.

Anonymous

In English, these are not complete sentences:

Anonymous

2:28 PM

> 1. Kidnapped him.
> 2. Was kidnapped by someone.

@snailboat yes. I see my use of sentences wasn't accurate. Go on. I'm listening/learning.

Anonymous

Phonologically, the beginning of a sentence can be shorn off under certain conditions (called "conversational deletion" if you'd like to look it up), but syntactically the subject is a requirement.

Anonymous

But the by-phrase is optional.

Anonymous

Since we're moving information out of subject position and into the by-phrase,

Anonymous

Why would we do that? A couple reasons.

Anonymous

2:29 PM

One, and you're right, is so that it can be omitted.

Anonymous

We don't have to say "by someone". And in fact, most passives don't have a by-phrase.

Anonymous

We can call these "short passives", and the passives with by-phrases are "long passives".

Anonymous

Most passives are short passives.

Anonymous

But that's not the only reason.

Anonymous

Sometimes we want to use a long passive to emphasize the actor:

Anonymous

2:30 PM

> Don't you see? The patient was murdered by his own doctor!

@snailboat Yes. I was under the influence of two of my teachers insisting that the by phrase just mustn't be there. While IMO it was optional.

Good thing I didn't misguide them really badly.

Anonymous

This example is from Geoffrey Pullum's online description of the passive, by the way, which is a good discussion of the topic.

Anonymous

He's one of the co-authors of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.

Anonymous

And the passive voice is one of his specialties.

Anonymous

@MARamezani But there's some truth to this. Sometimes including the by-phrase is quite strange.

2:32 PM

Nods

Anonymous

Another reason to use the passive is to move new information out of subject position.

And that decision will just be contextual.

Anonymous

English has a broad preference for new information in non-subject position (although this is not a grammatical requirement, just a preference)

@snailboat Hmm,

Anonymous

That's one of the same reasons we use existential constructions.

2:33 PM

Aha.

Anonymous

> A man is on the corner.

Anonymous

> There's a man on the corner.

Anonymous

By inserting existential there, we've moved a man out of subject position.

Understood.

Anonymous

And the passive works the same way. "The patient was murdered by his own doctor" moves the new information, which you're emphasizing, out of subject position and to the end of the sentence.

Anonymous

2:35 PM

This is an example of information packaging.

2

Anonymous

Also called information structure by some linguists.

Anonymous

@MARamezani Yes, exactly

So, we can use passive to both emphasize the active sentence's subject and its object, right?

Anonymous

Yes, under different conditions

Anonymous

It's most common to use the passive to omit the actor

Anonymous

2:36 PM

Which is why most passives are short.

Hmm, somehow information packaging led me to this:

Focus (linguistics)

Focus is a grammatical category that determines which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information. Focus is related to information structure. Contrastive focus specifically refers to the coding of information that is contrary to the presuppositions of the interlocutor. Related terms include Comment and Rheme. == Functional approaches == Information structure has been described at length by a number of linguists as a grammatical phenomenon. Lexicogrammatical structures that code prominence, or focus, of some information over other information has a particularly...

Focus? Seriously?

Google's been weird today.

Or not.

My bad.

Anonymous

One major work on English information structure is Birner and Ward's Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English (1998).

Anonymous

If you'd like further reading about information packaging.

Available internetically?

Anonymous

No, although The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language has a chapter on information packaging and is available online (but it's not available online legitimately, so it's only there until the publisher decides to ask the Internet Archive to take it offline)

Anonymous

2:44 PM

For a much shorter introduction, you might consider the introductory textbook version of CGEL, called A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

Anonymous

It's something like a sixth the size of CGEL, so it's significantly pared down

Anonymous

It has a similar chapter

@snailboat Think I've read some of it some time.

user116848

Hi

Hullo.

Anonymous

2:48 PM

Hello, arrowfar!

user116848

Hi again snailboat!

user116848

@MARamezani Hullo

Anonymous

My housemate told me yesterday that my pronunciation of hello is more like hullo

Anonymous

So I suppose it must be, since she has a gift for phonetics

Anonymous

Unlike me.

user116848

2:50 PM

That's kinda funny!

Hullo then!

user116848

And cute!

Q: "nearby" (close by) as an adjective, a preposition, or an adverb

Some awesome and read-worthy answers to this question!

5

Would you show me if there could be any potential difference semantically between the two? Please, would you possibly take into account the bounds of possibility that the word "nearby" in the following could be an adjective, or even an adverb: I live in a nearby town. I live in a town n...

Anonymous

Oh, F.E. picked up a copy of Syntactic Phenomena!

Anonymous

That's probably the best book to start with if someone's interested in a generative perspective on English.

2:55 PM

No fair! I want to haz one of those!

:}

Anonymous

I noticed he used a double horizontal line in his post for a major boundary.

Anonymous

I've never thought of doing that before. It's a good idea.

Anonymous

There's a lot in that post, though, and it'll take me a bit to read it before I can vote

I haven't voted yet.

Anonymous

I can tell. No one has! :-)

2:57 PM

Oh, had voted Arau's answer, but that was before Nima bountied it.

Anonymous

Oh, I thought we were talking about that particular answer.

BTW, @snailboat you mentioned "housemate". You don't live with your family?

Anonymous

@MARamezani I am not related to my housemate

Anonymous

I moved out when I was a teenager. I'm now 33.

Anonymous

Most of my family currently lives in Arizona, though I grew up in Illinois

Anonymous

2:59 PM

My childhood home has been destroyed

Anonymous

So there's no going back.

Destroyed? Like due to a hurricane? Sad to hear.

Anonymous

Not exactly.

Anonymous

No one was living in it, and the pipes froze, and the place got flooded and ended up being unsalvageable

Anonymous

They tore it down to the very frame

3:01 PM

Aha.

Anonymous

There's a new house there now, though :-)

Anonymous

I haven't seen it yet. I don't go back to Illinois often

Anonymous

Illinois is bad for me. I have trouble breathing there.

Anonymous

The air in California I can breathe

Allergies?

Oh.

Anonymous

3:02 PM

Yeah, allergies and asthma

Anonymous

For me the two are related

Anonymous

Illinois has better food than California, though.

Tabriz has the best food.

Among the three. :}

user116848

@snailboat Aww, I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing it here.

user116848

@MARamezani Here too.

3:08 PM

Seriously though, Tabriz is famous in Tabriz for having industrial suburbs for producing delicious chocolate.

Anonymous

@arrowfar Panta rhei.

user116848

@snailboat The rock band? :)

Anonymous

> No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

3

Anonymous

I'm not familiar with the rock band.

Anonymous

It means "everything flows".

user116848

3:12 PM

@snailboat Very nice saying.

Very nice saying indeed.

Now I'm gonna go and...

Bang

user116848

Bam See you later.

How can you see me?

user116848

I can't. Can you?

user116848

Oh boy here we go again.

3:16 PM

Yes I can. I'm looking at you right now.

@arrowfar It's really better without the poster.

user116848

So I feel like this when you debate:

user116848

Goooood.

MWAHAHAHA. I'm a killer. pun intended

user116848

See, you killed the mood of a good chat.

That's very arrogant of you.

How you dare not call me the mood of a good chat?

user116848

3:23 PM

@MARamezani Because I dare!

user116848

In your face!

user116848

See how that feels?

@arrowfar I docked.

user116848

@MARamezani You mean ducked? What's docked. Wrong spelling.

@arrowfar No wonder coming from a filthy ELU chatter! (FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!)

@arrowfar Wrong spelling deliberately.

user116848

3:25 PM

@MARamezani Well, let's fight then. Round one! Go!

Punch! Punch! Arrowfar falls. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 MAR wins. Not that anyone didn't expect this.

user116848

Well done! You won! That's all you wanted to hear I bet.

Nah. That wasn't all. Say sorry.

user116848

No, you say sorry.

FIGHT! Round two.

user116848

3:29 PM

Nah, I am not in the mood.

Punch. Punch back. Oh this guy's good

Takes out a gun and shoots

That's how you do it.

user116848

No, that's how you lose civility in chat

No, the police can't find out.

user116848

NSA watches everything.

user116848

Eat that!

3:31 PM

NSA's on my side. Money talks.

user116848

Whatever.

BOOM! Eat that. You can't take on a chemist for a word fight!

user116848

Shut the front door!

Oh yeah?

OH YEAH?

Okay.

> جواب ابلهان خاموشیست.

:}

:D

Still you can understand that, right?

@MARamezani Considering your English, your teachers must be good. I wonder why they insisted so.

3:35 PM

Only two of my English teachers said that Dam.

Hmm... there is something wrong with my pipelines again, I think!

I think Arrowfar's using Google translate now.

user116848

I'm not talking to you. That's what I'm doing.