English Language & Usage

7:25 AM

6 hours!?!

Q: What is the basic difference in usage

7:47 AM

0

What is the basic difference between "Made Of" and "Made From." We find both of the expressions used in English language. For instance, "This chair is made of wood," and "Cream is made from milk." Though the question is quite simple, but I confuse the two expressions very often. How do we differe...

grammar

Nondescriptive title of the day.

Q: Article/No Article with Weather

Nondescriptive title from the day?

user19161

8:09 AM

0

There are two correct (I hope so :) sentences with 'weather' taken from a book: Was the weather nice? Did you have nice weather? Can somebody explain why there's an article in the first sentence and there isn't an article in the second one? Thanks in advance.

grammar articles

user19161

Kris's answer. Facepalm.

8:49 AM

Hahahaha.

Without the article, it refers to the weather in general.

Gold.

9:00 AM

Pada kiša, ubi miša. Pada snijeg, ubi pacova.

It's snowing?

Thx, Mr. upstairs — stckxchng 7 hours ago

Whatever he means by that.

Q: what is the meaning of to be + past participle type sentence?

10:06 AM

@RegDwightB8 Are you there? Do you want this question (after I fix it)?

0

here i am little bit confused with this kind of sentences.i can not understand to be + p.p type sentence use and meaning.i also confuse for "by" ,it is used for passive voice : In many parallel algorithms, communication operations need to be restricted to certain subsets of processes. MPI prov...

english

Yeah. Belongs here.

Might get closed as gen-ref or too localized, but that's a whole nother story.

It certainly doesn't belong on Linguini.SE.

Linguini :P Ok, I'll fix the style and spelling and send it over. Maybe you can get something out of it.

We'll see!

I do wonder how he managed to find you but not find us.

That's a good question... :D

Done! It's all yours.

ahallooo

10:15 AM

:)

Hey there

Thanks! I always wanted one.

Hi, Alenanno :)

Have you guys heard about those sites that are going to be closed?

I have. It's a sad thing to see

Yup... Especially sites like Literature that you'd expect to see open.

That's actually the only one I've heard about so far. Still haven't read the blog post.

10:18 AM

Robusto called that one

Blog - Stack Exchange: When a Site Grows Quiet

Shog9 on April 25, 2012

In the lifecycle of a Stack Exchange site, we’ve long held the philosophy that “it takes as long as it takes” to build a sustainable community:

The simple answer is, it takes as long as it takes. We’ll wait. If a site needs more activity, go out and evangelize it. As long as your site shows steady progress and continues to make the Internet a better place to get expert answers to your questions, it will march on.

But when a site struggles to maintain any semblance of steady progress — when it’s struggling to garner an audience, a healthy core of experts, and a steady stre …

Actually I might do just that right now.

There's a list there

>Next week, we’re shutting down six sites that fall into this category:

Astronomy
Economics
Literature
Firearms
Healthcare IT
Theoretical Physics

I didn't know there was a Firearms SE by the way.

10:19 AM

the category being

But when a site struggles to maintain any semblance of steady progress — when it’s struggling to garner an audience, a healthy core of experts, and a steady stream of questions — it becomes increasingly unlikely that the site will find a core audience to sustain it.

@Alenanno I don't think I knew about healthcare IT either

I'm trying to get Linguistics and Chinese out of that... maelstrom. While I'm optimistic about the former, I'm not sure about the latter. It almost looks like most don't care apart from me and someone else.

surely there are enough Chinese speakers! They must want reps too?

What kind of person doesn't want reps?

Ahah they want rep maybe, but an active user is more than that. You know, those users that help beyond gaining rep, with comments, closing, on Meta, etc.

Astronomy is a pity. Mr D will be devastated.

Then again he was the first one to see it coming, a year ago.

@Alenanno ~~Next week, we’re shutting down six sites that fall into this category:~~ => "Next week, we're shutting down six sites that fall into these categories:"

10:23 AM

You do have some feeling when it's going to happen. :/

@Robusto Why me? lol

@Robusto worse than that, they don't mean categories at all. They just mean the sites.

"Next week we are shutting down these six sites."

well, if you read the post, it makes more sense

Yeah. It is a particularly infelicitous turn of phrase.

Blog - Stack Exchange: When a Site Grows Quiet

Shog9 on April 25, 2012

In the lifecycle of a Stack Exchange site, we’ve long held the philosophy that “it takes as long as it takes” to build a sustainable community:

The simple answer is, it takes as long as it takes. We’ll wait. If a site needs more activity, go out and evangelize it. As long as your site shows steady progress and continues to make the Internet a better place to get expert answers to your questions, it will march on.

But when a site struggles to maintain any semblance of steady progress — when it’s struggling to garner an audience, a healthy core of experts, and a steady stre …

brb

10:25 AM

How is it possible that Firearms failed? I guess if you have real guns, you don't need to go shooting your mouth off about them?

I guess real guys with real guns have their own manly corners of the Internet already.

Kind of like with Poker.Se.

It will never take off because there are existing communities already, and the lockin effect there is ginormous.

then how did EL&U take off?

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Yeah. Those are the ones who believe Obama wants to take them away and trample on their freedoms.

why didn't people stick to LL, etc.?

@MattЭллен What? We love shooting our mouths off.

10:27 AM

SE, by design, is full of keyboard warriors, not guys with Brownings.

@Robusto indeed! but there are plenty of online places you can discuss English

Well you know what's funny. Or sad. We probably don't get many more new questions than Astronomy or Literature. It's all smoke and mirrors here.

I am saying that without knowing jack about how many questions Astronomy or Literature actually get.

@MattЭллен But we don't discuss English on ELU.SE. We pontificate about English. There's a difference.

LOL, good point.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 If by smoke and mirrors you mean ELU Lite and retreads, then yeah.

10:29 AM

@Robusto yeah.

We do get like OVER 9000 questions a day, but OVER 9001 of them get closed within LESS THAN 7 minutes.

Viva la pontificate.

And what does stay open is actually quite localized, if you're honest.

And Yoichi accounts for fully 5% of our question count.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 that's a big if

See? I could have said he accounts for barely 5% of our question count and it would seem like less.

10:31 AM

@MattЭллен I am used to bludgeoning people to death with giant IFs.

eep!

@Robusto you should ask why on EL&U

@Robusto I want know different of "barely' and fully". What is this grammer?

I already made that observation in a comment somewhere. I forget where.

Oh! I know! It was on the Internet!

or was it in the Internet?

10:33 AM

There's a question for that.

Q: Does the phrase "fully n percent" have real meaning?

0

For example: Fully 46 percent of the recipients polled in the social sciences had... Is this simply a way to avoid starting the sentence with a number? As in: Forty-six percent... I understand that, mathematically speaking, percents can be fractional. In the context of this example...

meaning word-choice phrases

There it is.

It was in teh Internetz. I nu it.

U did. congraz

Hellz yeah I rule. pwned!

@RegDwightB8 What does Сочиняй Мечты mean?

"Real meaning", for me, is right up there with "good grammar".

It either has a meaning or it does not.

10:36 AM

Real is an intensifier, like fully

you could exchange it for intense crap

@Alenanno write/compose dreams.

@MattЭллен Maybe he mean "actual meaning"

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Oh nice... :D

Oh, and it's imperative.

Not obvious in English.

Yes I figured

My bête noire is "Is X grammatical."

10:37 AM

for the ending

Now that I think about it, maybe I knew a verb сочинать, but I'm not sure.

@MattЭллен Could you change it for intense crap?

сочинять

I knew it.

xD

what is this sochinyats?

Now I won't ever forget about it!

10:38 AM

@Robusto It's grammar.

@Robusto yes

Does anybody around here use the Visual Thesaurus web site?

@Robusto It's a verb.

No. Grammar is grammar. QED.

But it's Russian. They have strange words for everything.

10:39 AM

@Alenanno I know it's a verb. I probably sochinyayu without even realizing it.

@Robusto Then why did you ask?

Because I didn't know the meaning, dummy.

write/compose

Aaaand we've come full circle.

@Robusto You made a poor choice of words, then. :P

10:40 AM

I can recognize a Russian infinitive, give me at least that much credit.

user19161

@Alenanno Maybe he was testing you.

@Robusto I will!

I've only forgotten 99.9999 percent of everything else about Russian.

@JasperLoy Have you ever used the Visual Thesaurus web site?

user19161

@skullpatrol No, I love dictionaries and hate thesauruses.

10:41 AM

why the hate, @Jas?

The correct plural is thesaurusae's. Or thesaurussians.

yah why?

@JasperLoy Thesaurus Rex is your bête noire

user19161

@MattЭллен Well, I don't like to confuse myself with 9000 synonyms of a word.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Also thesauri.

10:42 AM

I see

Yeah, Jasper only knows 18k words and he's happy. :P

Doesn't sound happy to me.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Yes, according to testyourvocab.com. QED.

That's like the left hand hating the right hand.

If he bothered with synonyms, that'd be just two words!

user19161

10:43 AM

@Robusto True, but working on that.

Anyway, Mahlzeit. I am amazed I got this far without coffee. AFK.

Gutsten.

Does anybody agree with my left-hand, right-hand analogy between a dictionary and a thesaurus?

I dunno. I never use thesauri.

I do use dictionaries every day.

@skullpatrol I use both, but what analogy?

10:52 AM

I don't consider myself onehanded.

That Jasper hating Thesauruses is like a left hand hating a right hand? No that doesn't make sense

Well...

You could try "Like loving your right hand and hating your left"

or some such

Haha. Hm.

@MattЭллен Yes that is what I meant :D

10:54 AM

That evokes all kinds of double-entendres.

Well, one kind of double-entendres.

lol, so it does

A: What is the correct pronunciation of the word "solder"?

0

Ipso facto. God Siver Sodder, or Gold Silver Solder. I mean, where does it all end. Like the Bible, do we just pick out the bits that we like and discard the rest..?

lol

just like the bible.

I think it's a great idea to start answers with "Ipso facto".

Actually I am on my way to figuring out the perfect answer.

(0_0)

10:58 AM

Start with "ipso facto". Mention the Bible, possibly also Strunk (not White!). Close with "my left foot itches BRB".

If we all agree that a word can have more than one meaning, then the word would be in the palm of the left hand and the various meanings would be pointed to by the fingers of that hand.

Is today the International Analogy Day?

If many words can mean the same thing then that meaning can be in the palm of the right hand and the fingers of the right hand can be the various words.

@RegDwightB8 are you there?

I am here.

11:11 AM

I seem to be the victim of a serial upvote. About an hour ago, somebody awarded 10 upvotes to various answers of mine on English.SE, increasing my rep by 100. This seems dishonest. Is there some way to undo this?

@DavidWallace it will be undone automatically.

@DavidWallace It will be undone by the system, eventually.

Ten is way too much.

I have my suspicions that this might be something to do with the weather, if you see what I mean.

Don't get me wrong, they were all fantastic answers that deserved upvotes.

It'd be weird if you thought the opposite. :P

11:14 AM

There are only a handful of people who have cast more than 5 votes for you. If it's a serial upvoter, he's one of them.

Oh damn, is it Friday? Boring meeting time!

OK, I'm relieved that this will be undone. I'm tempted to ping the person that I suspect and ask him/her not to do it; but I doubt whether this will have much effect.

Does anybody want to up/down vote my right hand left hand analogy? chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/4381327#4381327

11:27 AM

@skullpatrol You mean star it or flag it? No, not particularly, but thanks for offering.

Anyway, getting late. 'Night all.

@DavidWallace I meant do you find it at all interesting?

@DavidWallace You could ameliorate the effect by asking an ELU Lite question, which would get downvoted and closed fairly quickly.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Calling today Internet Analogy Day is like calling your dog Internet Analogy Dog.

@Robusto like calling your dog Internet Analogy Dog?

Yes.

International Analogy Day

11:39 AM

Ah, well ... whatever. You know what I meant.

@Robusto Please explain :)

I typed Internet instead of International because my fingers are programmed to do that.

See, I did it again.

If my fingers start typing I-n-t-e-r-n, the ganglia in my hands finish it with e-t. Kind of weird, actually, but there it is.

@Robusto What is an "Internet Analogy Dog"???

A misnomer.

@Robusto So "International Analogy Day" is a misnomer?

11:47 AM

I told you it was a mistake. What more do you want?

Your opinion.

@Robusto I still don't understand. Perhaps it would be easier if you had an analogy for me?

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

Dharma and Greg at what?

I probably spelled it wrong...

11:49 AM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Ahah Dharma and Greg :D

Ten acre? Teen aggro?

there you go

This teen aggro will not stand.

I agree. It's a metaphor, not an analogy

@skullpatrol You had my opinion and you let it slip through your fingers.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Similes are analogies. QED.

Q: Should the word "then" be used instead of the word "than"

11:52 AM

0

"If a size '2' is beautiful, than my size '22' must be glorious." I believe the word "then" should've been used instead of "than". Correct?

usage

Already voted to close as Gen Ref.

I vetod to colse as too lacolised

I just clicked some shit.

yuk

don't get any on me

2 l8

11:54 AM

:'(

luckily you missed my eye

With the name changing business, does it show up immediately? I've tried changing my name, but it has remained as what it is.

Certain domestic products are gross.

any you 144 of

@MattЭллен it should show up immediately where you changed it, but might take a while to propagate here.

Interesting that philosophy sites get closed but Christianity.SE stays open because there are "correct" answers to all questions. laughs to the point of tears

@Robusto Would you be so kind as to give me your opinion again?

11:56 AM

hmm. it's still the old name on my profile, where I changed it

I'll have to try again

3 mins ago, by RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

2 l8

@MattЭллен no, don't try again, try harder.

I am surrounded by rookies. Tsk tsk tsk.

JSBᾶngs

there was drama on the Firearms proposal at the beginning

Yeah. About teaching your children to use firearms.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 BAH! Stack Exchange won't accept Sinhala script. I'm gonna write to my MP

Q: What is a good starter firearm for children?

11:59 AM

Or was it on Parenting? I actually forget.

You know I think it was actually on Parenting...

Apr 8 '11 at 18:46, by RegDwight

10

What is a good firearm to start children ages 6-12 on for target practice and gun-safety education? Is it best to start with pellet, airsoft, or bebe guns, or go straight to a real firearm? Should you start with rifles or handguns?

safety firearms

a potato gun

problem solved

Yeah if your child is three. Days.

or 30 years

practically endless ammo

At age 6 it should be navigating Apache servers, at age 12 helicopters.

JSBᾶngs

IIRC they got a ton of early support, then the rules for launching were changed, and some of the leading members ragequit

and the proposal never really got back on its feet after that

12:02 PM

hehehe, you said launching

Don't make people with guns ragequit.

go straight to a real firearm? Should you start with rifles or handguns?

yes

???

Seven.

12:04 PM

rifle through the handgun drawer

BTW saying that potato guns have endless ammo is a slap in the face of the proud Irish people.

I'm lucky no proud Irish people were here when I said it then

encrypted-tbn1.google.com/…

of course, they could just use carrots

Tell that to Mr. Potato Head.

Q: "A/An" preceding a parenthetical statement

12:08 PM

duplicate

0

Q: "An (sweet) apple"?

is the correct form A (sweet) apple because the article "A" precedes the word sweet, although it is put in brackets (as a side remark), or is the correct form An (sweet) apple because the effect of "sweet" on the form of the article has been nullified by the brackets? One might argue this ...

articles

37

When a/an precedes a parenthetical aside (sometimes seen in informal/conversational writing), should the vowel rule depend on the first word in parentheses, or the next word in the "regular" flow of the sentence? I need a (memorable) idiom (preceding an m word; use a) or I need an (memo...

articles indefinite-article parentheses

4 views, 2 close votes, 1 minute. That's a record.

I'm going to try and talk the Queen into getting rid of an. People should just know the correct pronunciation of a by looking.

An is the original form. We should keep that one.

A makes you sound illiterate.

Language moves on, man. A makes way more sense. An national monument? Pah!

@MattЭллен I think he makes a good point (about parenthetical statements).

12:16 PM

@MattЭллен A norange? Pah! Next thing you know some moron will reinterpret it as "an orange"!

@skullpatrol a point that has (been made before)

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 exactly, no more an means no more mistakes!

@MattЭллен I meant about the reading of them.

@skullpatrol you mean he has a (amazing) point?

Make that go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol

12:20 PM

Please tell me good things about me.

You are like jQuery.

@MattЭллен He asks: "One might argue this depends on whether I regard the word within the bracket to be pronounced when the text is read aloud."?

Hiya @KitFox! So glad to see you :)

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I make people superficially look better?

@skullpatrol right, which is the answer in the question it is a dupe of

12:22 PM

@KitFox life is all about looking better superficially.

@MattЭллен Thank you.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Do you feel that my existence enhances your features?

By a factor of seven.

I feel very sad for leaving my little boy at daycare this morning.

He was clinging to me and just sobbing.

Aw.

12:25 PM

hugs @Kit he will love you for it in the end

No, he won't.

not necessarily the end of daycare

He will always feel like his mommy will abandon him when he needs her most.

Or that his mommy's needs come first.

not at all! he will realise she had confidence in him that he could fend for himself

Or he'll realize that he can't manipulate me with his tears.

And that sometimes he just isn't going to get his way.

12:27 PM

which is a good thing

Naturally. That's why being a parent sucks.

baby bird's got to flap his wings

Not yet.

at least practice

He'll be fine.

12:28 PM

yes

It still sucks.

@KitFox It won't matter. In ten or twelve years he'll think you are a waste of skin. Then, slowly, he'll come back to appreciating that you have some redeeming qualities, and then one fine day he'll come to truly value you as someone who can help him with money problems.

ponders this

reviews financial plans

sighs

OK, I'm out. Thanks, you've been a great crowd.

cu Rob

12:30 PM

blows kisses

applause

throws underpants

throws panties

jinx

rips shirt off

hahahaha

12:31 PM

I knew it! you really are Clark Kent

I think underpants and panties are distinctly different.

I question the validity of your jinx.

Actually I am Clerk Kant, but I opted for a pseudonym.

I would too. I hate that f-cking Prussian.

@KitFox surely panties are a subset of underpants?

You are a subset of underpants.

12:32 PM

@MattЭллен I don't know. I have a hard time associating the two.

LOL

@KitFox well, I don't wear panties, so I guess I can understand

Panties are lingerie.

Don't get your panties in a rock'n'roll over this.

Underpants are not.

Them's all just garments.

12:33 PM

Sopping wet panties.

ponders this

It's raining today.

@KitFox lingerie is underwear

Apparently, I am having a palindromic week.

@KitFox Why is your fox now sleeping?

I didn't have much sleep Tuesday night, so I changed my avatar.

I am aboot to cycle in this weather. toodles!

12:35 PM

@MattЭллен bye!

@KitFox Did you catch that mouse on the last one?

scratches head

Did I post a video?

Oh. The last avatar.

yes

Right. I think it was a vole.

And I let it go, because that's how I roll.

encrypted-tbn3.google.com/…

12:38 PM

Yum.

Not as good as the gingerbread man that I ate that time, though.

1:19 PM

@KitFox Protip: You're not supposed to wear the panties on your head.

makes note

My project lead is making me bonkers.

He sends me an URGENT request yesterday (which is my day off) to change a school assignment for a teacher from X to Y. I emailed him this morning that she is assigned at Y already, not X.

He emailed back "What I mean is that it should have been X, but we assigned them as Y?"

I want to email back "Are you sure that's what you mean?"

I find my reaction to that image very confusing.

That's Rare for you.

Indeed.

1:24 PM

Well, that's a pro at work. Note the underpants not worn on the head.

I already noted that. Thank you.

What shall I replace my last names with in my fake-o database?

@KitFox Penultimate names? Antepenultimate names?

That's deep.

Or shallow.

Preantepenultimate names?

@KitFox Unterhose, Pantalon, Calzoncillos Cortos...

1:34 PM

@KitFox keep them the same, but prefix with O'

Hmm.

O'E

O'L

Nah.

1:48 PM

FFFFFUUUUUUU .... washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/…

-1

A: I am not a happy camper

Here's my suggestion for becoming a happy camper: find a better website and pose your question there. These people seem pretty insufferable--a bunch of computer nerds whose intellects far outstrip their judgment and social skills. Check the number of questions they close--it's really astronomica...

aye. I saw

Most bacteria are harmless. In fact, human beings are mostly germs. We are walking around with 90 percent germ cells, 10 percent human cells. They’re in our gut, in our mouth, in our eyebrows.