English Language Learners - 2014-07-23 (page 2 of 2)

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12:02 PM

3

Q: "Using Causative Verbs"

The causative verbs are: "Make, Have and Get" "I made my brother carry my suitcase." "I had my brother carry my suitcase." "I got my brother to carry my suitcase." Why we should use an infinitive form for "get"? What is the rule for using them? Is there any special rule for use of them?

grammaticality usage verb verb-forms

LOL

My guess is that IceGirl was about to post her own answer but then StoneyB posted his first. :D

@DamkerngT. If you do so, please post it on Meta for those of us with no manners and socially challenged.

@Nico I've seen a lot of good ones before. I think I should start collecting them. :) Posting it on the meta is a good idea!

Anonymous

12:40 PM

@DamkerngT. I agree

12:51 PM

Hello @IceGirl.

@DamkerngT. Hi. What do you mean?

Thank you for the answer. However, it is recommended to cite the source when we quote text written by someone else or when we copy the text from books or websites. — Damkerng T. 35 mins ago

I mean about your comment

I mean that^.

yeah

I didn't understand it well

12:52 PM

I believe that you copied most of the text in your answer from somewhere else. Am I right?

(There is nothing wrong with that.)

No

Hmm?

Why do you say that?

So you wrote all of those examples and explanations yourself?

yes

Anonymous

12:54 PM

parkerdavid.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/4/1/1341916/…

Are you parkerdavid?

@snailboat I don't know what are you talking about? I can not open this site

Anonymous

It was just a random spot on the internet with the exact same text

Anonymous

That's evidence that it came from somewhere.

Anonymous

Let's take a look…

Anonymous

12:56 PM

Maybe here: archive.org/details/GrammarA

Anonymous

Hmm, archive.org has a lot of pirated material, doesn't it?

Oh, I think I've seen that book mentioned on ELU before!

Anonymous

I don't have that book.

Me either.

Anonymous

But a Google search for Ice Girl's text led me there.

12:58 PM

I found parkerdavid's page, but not the book.

Anonymous

Go to page 362 of the book

Anonymous

That must be what parkerdavid copied

All in all, @IceGirl, I believe that it's okay to write your own answer by copying example sentences and explanations from somewhere else, but if you do so, please cite it (that is, tell where you copied it from).

Anonymous

Her answer is plagiarized from Betty Schrampfer Azar's Understanding and Using English Grammar, 3rd. ed, p.362

Anonymous

That seems to be the right conclusion

Anonymous

1:02 PM

I flagged

One flag is enough, I think.

By the way, your meta post "Is it okay for users to delete questions and re-ask them verbatim?" is interesting. I guess that moderators will need to merge it. I also think that it should be discouraged, but it's also a piece of evidence that the OP hasn't gotten their answer.

Anonymous

If nothing else, I find it disconcerting.

Hi Everyone. How are you guys?

Anonymous

Hello! Welcome back to ELL chat!

Hi! I'm considering answering a question I didn't want to answer. :)

Anonymous

1:12 PM

@DamkerngT. Uh oh!

Maybe I shouldn't answer that question. :D

Anonymous

Which one?

That "In the way in which" one.

Anonymous

Oh! That one.

hehe... Sorry about that.

Ok, I will not ask any question today.

Anonymous

1:16 PM

What are you apologizing for?

It's okay. There are a lot of people here. You can ask questions and anyone can pick it up and answer.

@Kabir101 (By the way, the question I mentioned wasn't your question. No need to apologize, I think. Not sure to whom you apologized, though. :-)

Oh yeah, that is ok. I thought you were talking about my questions.

Nope. :D

Anonymous

1:37 PM

technically though, the hour does own it's own delay, it has a delay of, an hour, right? — BigHomie 8 mins ago

Anonymous

*headdesk*

Oh, it went network-wide!

One year after BH's previous answer; it seems like nothing changed much. :D

This uncommon use of 's (from a non-native speaker's perspective) reminds me of those words such as huntsmen, swordsman, etc.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's right, those are compounded genitives.

Anonymous

2:48 PM

But it's the throw of a stone away. Doesn't that make it possessive? Possession doesn't necessarily mean ownership. — starsplusplus 22 mins ago

Anonymous

Everyone must have a very different concept of possession than I do

nods -- When the rules aren't official, people can always come up with their own explanations. This is quite handy particularly in English. :)

Anonymous

3:39 PM

Sigh, another unpopular answer.

? -- I think your answer "a stone's throw" is quite popular.

Anonymous

Well, it's getting comments from all sorts of people with criticism.

I think it's okay. Good learners would know better.

Anonymous

Well, look at the latest comment

Anonymous

That chart is very confusing, and seems downright inaccurate... what are the column headings? — Tiercelet 17 mins ago

3:46 PM

When I heard people say "downright inaccurate", I'd expect them to give at least one example.

Anonymous

I thought it was self-explanatory with the portion I typed up, but I can add more

It is, to me.

I think it would be so to most readers, too.

Anonymous

It doesn't have column headings

Anonymous

It does, however, have a bit of explanation

It'd be strange for an immediate level or higher learner to ask for column headings for that chart.

I think it's more likely that an average native speaker might need more explanations.

Anonymous

3:50 PM

I edited it

Still no headings, but more explanation. :D

Anonymous

I thought it was self-explanatory, but since you had trouble with it I typed up most of the preceding paragraph. (It doesn't have headings.) — snailplane 17 secs ago

:D

4:17 PM

I posted this...

The part "successfully enough to work" is quite confusing. I guess that you might mean either "which I believe would be enough to get the job done" or "which I believe should be enough to succeed in my career". — Damkerng T. 12 secs ago

and voted to close.

Anonymous

I think Tiercelet's answer is reinventing syntactic constituency

Anonymous

If you read the "Adjective/Adverb Binding" section

Frankly, it's even more confusing to me than the chart you quoted.

Anonymous

Um, the chart was confusing to you too? :-(

I didn't mean that. :)

Anonymous

4:23 PM

Ohh.

Anonymous

Well, even implies it.

Forgive me for my bad phrasing. :)

Anonymous

Even more X than Y = "Y was already very X, but this is even more so"

Anonymous

Actually, the stone's throw question getting promoted has brought a rash of headdeskery upon the site

Anonymous

-1

A: Something a 'stone's throw away' from something - what's an apostrophe and an article doing there?

A stone's throw suggests a possessive character, i.e. The throw of a stone. Regarding the "Old people's home", I've always thought of it as "Old peoples' home"

Anonymous

4:24 PM

Regarding people: it depends. Are you referring to — eric_lagergren 19 mins ago

What I felt was probably like this (the first time I saw your chart), "What is this?" But once I really get down to read it, it's fine.

Anonymous

Which to me appear to be Not An Answer and Not A Comment respectively

I think the question could confuse native speakers because it might be unclear what "possessive" means.

lol

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The first sentence of my answer says

Anonymous

> Intuitively, we try to label all uses of the genitive 's as possession, but semantically it just doesn't work.

Anonymous

4:26 PM

This is also true of of

That's fair.

That's fair too!

Anonymous

And I think a lot of people think of the three as roughly equivalent

Pre-certifies... does it even exist?

Anonymous

Possession 〜 of 〜 's

Anonymous

Even though all three are distinct.

4:26 PM

@Kabir101 Pre-certified?

Anonymous

@Kabir101 Precertification could mean something in some context, but I can't tell from just the word itself

I'm still not sure about this answer: ell.stackexchange.com/a/29798/3281

Anonymous

Like if you trust Bob so you certify all of Bob's Frozen Couches as Super Cool™ without even checking to see if the cushion thermostats work

The OP's versions are unquoted, and the answer tried to quote them.

Anonymous

I don't know. :-)

user116848

6:16 PM

@DamkerngT. Oh, thanks it was subjunctive, I am pretty sure now!

Hi

Hi

When the tenses look strange but it was said by a native speaker, don't forget "subjunctive". :)

Hi!

Anonymous

17 hours ago, by Arrowfar

@F.E. We say (let's say): "it seemed only fair I return the favor" after doing a favor for someone. Why not "it seemed only fair I returned the favor"

@skullpatrol Did you know what happen to my account?

6:19 PM

@IceGirl no

What happened to your account?

Anonymous

Here, the form return is ambiguous in form: is it subjunctive or present tense?

Anonymous

We can fix that by changing the example

Anonymous

> It seemed only fair [ ~~that~~ he return the favor ].

Anonymous

Hmm…

6:21 PM

Yeah subjunctive.

Anonymous

It's not he returns, but he return :-)

Mandative, or what do kids call it these days?

Anonymous

The third person singular is handy for telling the difference.

The third person singular, also called the third wheel.

@Cerberus Probably, mandative. :)

6:23 PM

Right!

Anonymous

Nicely answered.

Anonymous

I haven't gotten any more complaints on my genitive answer yet.

user116848

Oh, Hi!

Anonymous

A nice moderator appears to have deleted the comment that made me headdesk.

Yay!

Anonymous

6:24 PM

5 hours ago, by snailboat

technically though, the hour does own it's own delay, it has a delay of, an hour, right? — BigHomie 8 mins ago

Anonymous

(describing an hour's delay)

1

Q: What are you doing?

If someone asks you what are you doing, can you answer what you are being done to? Example: Bob: What are you doing? Joe: I am being licked by my dog. Being is a verb, like is and are. Can I say the answer is logical, or "correct"?

verb questions answers

*This question makes me being smiling. :)

In my L1, we have a typical dialogue. Its approximate English version: "Where are you going?" "Three yards and two feet."

(Used to refer to a reply that doesn't make any sense. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's funny because the answer is "yes" but I can't come up with much of any explanation beyond that

Interesting! :D

Anonymous

What do you think the anawer is?

6:34 PM

I think the answer (in that question) makes sense, though it might be illogical, strictly speaking.

Anonymous

> "What are you doing?" "Being eaten by piranhas."

lol

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, you have to figure out what people say first, then apply logic (if possible)

I think we don't really need question-answer agreements in real-life.

Anonymous

Well, felicity is a matter of meaning

6:35 PM

@snailboat You could say many uses of the genitive are metaphoric possession.

Anonymous

@Cerberus You could.

"Being the possession of x → belonging to x → being strongly associated with x".

Anonymous

Probably you could come up with a spectrum of "that makes sense" to "ummmm"

> "What are you doing?" "I'm being chased by a dog!"

What else I could reply in that situation.

@snailboat No, this makes some sense.

Anonymous

6:36 PM

Some uses are probably pretty far removed. Hey, are we talking about 's or of?

I think they work the same way.

Anonymous

Very similarly, yes

Anonymous

Obviously they don't have quite the same range as one another

Anonymous

(And can be used together)

> The snail belongs to my father. Snail belongs to the category of nouns. (I sense something of a metaphor.)

Anonymous

6:37 PM

"A friend of Bob's" (the friend belongs to Bob's? To Bob's what?)

@snailboat In the sense that they can have a fairly similar semantic range with respect to possession and its possible metaphors like belonging to, being asosciated with.

Anonymous

I'm comfortable enough with the idea of possession as a metaphor, but I don't think that means it's accurate to say it always denotes actual possession

Anonymous

I mean, you're making a fine point.

It is only true in a way to say that it denotes possession, and certainly not actual possession. In many contexts, it will be less helpful anyway.

I just wanted to make a somewhat side-notey remark.

Anonymous

Well, the claims in my answer seem to have confused several people :-)

6:40 PM

Umm, yes.

Haha.

I don't know, I didn't find your answer confusing.

Anonymous

So maybe it would have been better if I had tried to explain it differently, but it is too late

Anonymous

It's accepted and I don't want to rewrite it :-)

It's fine.

Anonymous

You didn't seem confused.

Anonymous

Commenters did

Anonymous

6:41 PM

(Some comments are now gone)

That comment you linked to didn't seem confused so much as ignoring your exposition.

Not that it was entirely wrong.

But, oh, well.

I need to get ready for a borrel.

Anonymous

Well, to me it was effectively gibberish.

Anonymous

Good luck borreling!

not sure what this 'borrel' means...

Anonymous

I think something like 'a cocktail party'?

Anonymous

6:44 PM

Let's see

Anonymous

Something to do with alcohol?

Anonymous

What is a borrel!?

Some dictionary says 'light garment'.

Anonymous

Haha.

Anonymous

Do you know a decent online English⇔Dutch dictionary?

6:46 PM

I guess Google Translate would be more effective. :)

Anonymous

Google Translate says 'drink'.

A-ha! Google Translate says drink, with a handful of alternatives such as shot, nip, liquor, peg, ...

Anonymous

australia.nlembassy.org/news/2011/10/the-dutch-borrel.html

Ahh... I get it now. :D

Anonymous

> Going for a drink with friends after work. Going to the pub on a Friday night to enjoy the company of others while stealing a glance at the rugby scores and enjoying a well-deserved glass of wine. Meeting like-minded professionals or colleagues at a work-related reception.

Anonymous

6:48 PM

> Organising a friends or family get-together at your house. Although all of the above mentioned activities include more than one person, they are all substantially different. The Dutch however, would simply refer to all of them as ‘going to a “borrel”’.

Btw, on another stack, I think Google Translate does pretty well on Japanese handwriting recognition.

Anonymous

Handwriting, eh?

Umm... No one mentioned it on the resource page, I think.

Anonymous

Hey, it works!

Anonymous

When did they add that, anyway?

6:50 PM

I'm not sure, but I use it. :)

Anonymous

Wow, it really is pretty good so far

Anonymous

I tried writing 竜 deliberately out of order and it had no problem

Anonymous

Usually handwriting recognition needs you to put in the strokes in about the right order

nods -- I recommend it!

Anonymous

Otherwise it has too many problems dealing with imprecisions in writing

Anonymous

6:53 PM

So you have to write slowly and carefully

This one seems to be quite flexible enough. (I should know that because I'm rather sure that I write it in the wrong order sometimes.)

Anonymous

Daaang

Anonymous

I just drew 神 in two sloppy strokes and it got it

lol

Anonymous

Let's try 鬱!

Anonymous

6:55 PM

Of course, that one's got to be easy because there's so much data in it

Anonymous

It got it seven strokes from the end

Anonymous

I wrote 神 doing the stroke order backwards and writing each stroke from the bottom/right instead of the top/left

Anonymous

Its top guess was a period (what?), but 神 was its second guess

A-ha! That's not too bad, I think.

Anonymous

It's not as good at recognizing 縫 as my EX-WORD

Anonymous

7:01 PM

There, I finally got it to accept 縫 as its first guess

Anonymous

It doesn't seem to matter whether I write it with 辶 or 辶

Anonymous

Still, it seems pretty good

@snailboat Hah, that sounds correct!

A borrel can be a (strong) drink, its primary sense.

Anonymous

It's like "going for drinks"

Or it can be any occasion where people meet and (mainly) have drinks.

So a dinner party is not a borrel.

Anonymous

7:04 PM

I haven't had alcohol yet.

@snailboat Yes, well, it depends. When I say "ik ga naar een borrel", it is more likely to be an organised event. But not necessarily. Oh, well.

Anonymous

Oh, I see

@snailboat But it's past 9! You really need a drink!

Anonymous

Please, don't let me stop you from borreling.

(I know you don't drink.)

Bai!

7:06 PM

Have a good time borrelling!

3 hours later…

10:08 PM

@DamkerngT. Thank you!

It was good.

It's good to hear that!

user image

Oh, that looks really nice!

The park is on the opposite side of the street.

It's quite nice.

Although the trams make a lot of noise when they go by.

Actually, I kinda like trams. :)

Hmm... I can't remember that they were noisy when I was in Frankfurt.

10:15 PM

Trams are nice. But! They make a lot of noise.

Probably different trams. :)

It kind of depends on the type.

But still!

Hehe!

Charles Bukowski

Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles ('LA'). His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man,...

When there are many cars driving at high speed, that's also a lot of noise.

10:16 PM

That's another interesting author.

What did you have? Beer or something else?

Beer.

Nice!

And my friend ordered fries...

She hadn't eaten yet.

Is the pub by any chance named after him?

10:16 PM

Quite possibly!

I don't actually know.

Sorry for the interruption. As usual I couldn't help myself.

No need to apologize.

No interruption made. :)

The more the merrier!

Your contribution, as I prefer to call it, was quite adroit.

nods

Oh, I just saw your answer. (ell.stackexchange.com/a/29813/3281)

Interesting...

> All you need to do is to figure out a way.

I think my natural choice is probably with to in that sentence.

10:22 PM

I have in the background the opening of the commonwealth games. I think I've had enough Scottish accent for a day. I'm going to switch off the tv.

@DamkerngT. The n-gram viewer shows, however, that is less common.

@Nico Hehe. I'm not sure about the Scottish accent myself. The only one I can recall is probably Sean Connery's. :)

@Nico nods -- Quite true. Luckily, it's not too rare. (Otherwise, I would feel bad. :)

Anonymous

I prefer no to.

Ah, I'm in the minority!

Anonymous

@Nico Consider how the complementation changes if you replace "need to do" with "need"

Anonymous

You might find that explaining it purely as what need requires might not work

Anonymous

10:32 PM

Needn't is always an auxiliary, which we can tell because the contracted form -n't only attaches to auxiliaries

Anonymous

Need can be auxiliary or lexical. As you observe, needn't appears without a following to, which is because it's auxiliary

@snailboat Do you mean:all you need is to figure out a way

> all you need is to figure out a way

?

Anonymous

But the rule for auxiliary versus lexical is more complicated than just negative versus affirmative. Auxiliary need also appears in interrogatives and hypotheticals

Anonymous

Yes, you'll find there that to cannot be removed

I searched for the ngram viewer:

books.google.com/ngrams/…

and my impression was that need + bare-infinitive is rarely used

10:38 PM

Oh! "We need go home" does exist!

Anonymous

But it's not grammatically limited to negative contexts

Anonymous

It most commonly appears in negative contexts but this can't be presented as a strict rule

Your comments have made realise my answer is confusing because I don't distinguish beween need and need to

You need not distinguish between the two, as long as you don't confuse them.

24

A: Explanation of "must needs"

Needs is an old-fashioned or even archaic adverb in modern English. It comes from the noun need and the Germanic masculine/neuter genitive ending -s, which at some point in time came to be used in older English and other Germanic languages to form adverbs. From the Oxford English Dictionary: ...

22

A: Why use "need not" instead of "do not need to"?

There are two verbs need, which mean the same thing but use different constructions: He need not be concerned. Need I be concerned? This need is a modal verb: it always requires an infinitive without to; it doesn't have do-support in questions and negative sentences; and the third pers...

10:58 PM

I knew about the two need-s, but needs is new to me!

Now you know!

Now I know! :)

I've pdated the answer, but I'm so sleepy I think I haven't done a neat job.

Time to sleep!

g'night!

11:38 PM

Night!

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