@snailboat A cute little hamster!

@snailboat I think that would be mine. I mentioned "chocolates are best served cold" first. I hope its delicious taste can make up for the fault. :-)

We shouldn't use the word itself as its own definienda or in its own definientia.

:D

Discovery of the day: "cannot wait" does not exist in COCA!

Oh! That's how it works!

Word of the day (COCA specific): ca n't

Maybe it's the way they clean up the data.

Me either!

me too

:-O

I don't know if they mentioned it anywhere on their website.

This begs another question: How do COCA transcribe their spoken corpora?

Ahh...

In any case, I don't think that cannot is that rare in books.

Does this deserve a question post?

can not vs cannot vs can't

I'd feel more comfortable if cannot doesn't exist at all in COCA, btw.

So I can be sure that it's about data massaging.

@snailboat I thought about didn't too, but I hesitated. TYftC!

See what happened when I was too focused on cannot! :-)

I should fork another brain. :-)

One for thinking in Thai, another for thinking in English, which I already have; and yet another for processing logic and reasoning thingies!

So I can think three ways at once effortlessly. :-)

Looks like my 2nd and 3rd virtual brains are overlapping.

hmm..."virtual" brain, now there is an idea :-)

to match "virtual" personae

Oh! I've never thought of that--personae--before!

Interestingly, I think my Thai default personality and English default personality are close, but not identical.

My English personality seems to be a bit more outspoken.

The patterns I use to deliver thoughts in the two languages are not identical, either.

They are two different makes of "vehicles."

@oerkelens You are very quick, as usual. :-)

@DamkerngT. thank you. I am not sure what you are referring to exactly :)

@oerkelens I've already forgotten the question, but I remember that I was about to post a comment about dropping the comma in the OP's sentence or something and after I'd finished typing just about half a sentence, I saw your comment came up! That was really, really fast. :-)

@DamkerngT. Ah, that one :)

yups, sometimes I am fast :)

It's more like almost always, I think. :-)

If we were living in the Wild West, I surely wouldn't want to find myself in a duel up against you. :-)

:P

Well, when I see something and I have the time to write - I can be fast :)

but I am not always able to spend the time :P

It's good to see you around helping our users.

Today I was a bit busy--trying to make a program written for Linux run on Windows--without much success, I would say.

still scratching my head...

:)

m.tickld.com/x/english-isnt-as-easy-as-you-think

Well, if you look closely, any language is just as crazy.

true, true :)

In Thai we have two words which mean '(my)self/me' and 'him/her', but in certain situations the meanings can change to 'you' and 'I'.

the only ones that tripped me up at all were ones where we don't really use one of the words anymore

I don't think anyone would write "sewer" to mean "someone who sews" anymore

some of the other questions have answers

like strange plural formations (“mouse” → “mice”)

It can be explained etymologically, I believe.

yup

same with verbs that change vowel sounds for past

sing, sang, sung

that used to be the norm

indeed

have you studied Old English, snailboat?

it's fun to find stuff that's the same

it's like seeing a ruin

no

I was trying to find other pictures of your cow slug

and found that

@snailboat

yeah it does look like that style

@snailboat Ohh scary! Never seen such a thung.