English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

1:00 PM

Found it.

> Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.

From "The Theologians"

ЯegDwight

Well yes. Any my library literally spans 1500 miles.

Matt Эллен

in one really wide book?

tchrist

Big scroll.

> Como todo poseedor de una biblioteca, Aureliano se sabía culpable de no conocerla hasta el fin; esa controversia le permitió cumplir con muchos libros que parecían reprocharle su incuria.

ЯegDwight

The bits and pieces I have here I actually do know in their entirety.

tchrist

Now I wonder whether I’m remembering Eco having quoted that as an epigram.

The irony drips.

Found El Alef. Found “Los teólogos”. No epigram there, although other tales have one. Must be Eco echoing Borges. Now I have to find The Name of the Rose, which although I have in both Italian and in English, I know where neither is.

Found both. No epigraphs. Perhaps in How to Travel with a Salmon? No, that’s a lighter tome.

Matt Эллен

1:16 PM

> As any holder of a library, Aurelian was known not guilty of knowing until the end; such dispute allowed him to meet many books

mmmmm. Google translate

tchrist

Yes, well.

The verb cumplir con means to do whatever is needed/necessary/obligated. Basically, deal with, kinda. It can be used with people to mean meeting/going through whatever demands politesse puts on you.

Hm, “handle”, but that isn’t quite right for people, maybe.

Here is the full Spanish-language text for “Los teólogos”. I haven’t found it in translation on the Web.

ЯegDwight

¡Cumpliaños feliz!

tchrist

That’s the other sense.

ЯegDwight

They always say that.

tchrist

> 3. tr. Llegar a tener la edad que se indica o un número cabal de años o meses. Hoy cumple Juan catorce años.

Don’t me tease.

He aquí la RAE.

ЯegDwight

1:28 PM

I see you have a Spanish dictionary handy. Why don't you look up broma?

tchrist

Sí.

I knew.

It’s a song.

Cumpleaños feliz

"Cumpleaños feliz" es una canción popular que se entona en las celebraciones de cumpleaños. Es la versión española del Happy birthday to you, que según el Libro Guinness de los récords es la canción más popular en lengua inglesa. Ha sido traducida a muchos idiomas, aunque a menudo se canta con los versos originales en inglés incluso en países de lengua distinta a la inglesa. Esta obra fue escrita por las hermanas estadounidenses Patty Hill y Mildred Hill en 1893. Como ambas eran maestras de profesión, la canción fue escrita para que los alumnos se diesen los buenos días en clase. Su tí...

Grace Note

Juan turned fourteen, I see

ЯegDwight

@tchrist You have just infringed a patent.

tchrist

I haven’t sung it.

Matt Эллен

Go Robot! It's your birthday!

ЯegDwight

1:30 PM

@tchrist tell that to the patent holder.

tchrist

The inversion is for the meter of the song, I think.

One normally says the salutation the other way around.

ЯegDwight

See, people will even break their own language to infringe a patent.

People should pay!!!!

tchrist

The Hills are over.

ЯegDwight

> Trabajo propio

Does that mean he baked the cake, too?

Cuz otherwise I'll go and claim that the Kremlin was my trabajo propio.

tchrist

What did you do, look up patent in the RAE?

ЯegDwight

1:34 PM

@tchrist no, your birthday-cake image.

tchrist

There are many White Houses in the world.

Oh, la fuente.

ЯegDwight

Yes, la fuente.

tchrist

I always get serious crosstalk in Quelle surprise, because of misconstruing the first word to be German.

It’s like the font of all surprise.

ЯegDwight

Funny, doesn't happen to any Germans that I know.

tchrist

I used it for a pun once, and have never been able to shake it.

It’s like the universe taking its revenge on the punster.

ЯegDwight

1:39 PM

A great karmic joke.

tchrist

Kinda like Aunt Mae telling the bratty kid not to keep doing that yucky expression with his face unless he wants to get stuck that way.

At least eggcorn is accidental.

Puns we do to ourselves.

@ЯegDwight If you have an alternate and/or non-elision interpretation to the “an X similar to (non-possessive) Y” , you should post it.

ЯegDwight

I don't have an alternative interpretation, really. I interpret it at face value. I don't elide anything. I know when I do.

tchrist

You say face value, but you don’t mean that.

ЯegDwight

Of course you could point out that is a similar construction to German, but that isn't it, either.

tchrist

Face value has no genitive relationship in the word or sequence of words.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:46 PM

ЯegDwight

-3

Q: My account is not accepting any more questions

I have read other questions that have similar problems and I am not able to see if this is a permanent ban or something but the question that i have asked is really DEBATABLE its general yes but also its understanding of techinical jargon, my account over is at stackoverflow same name as this acc...

Very good, I had no questions for him anyway.

@tchrist it's hard to explain, yes.

tchrist

@ЯegDwight I wish I could better explain why that feels like you’ve left some words out.

ЯegDwight

@tchrist oh I understand that.

It's not about my not understanding your point.

It's about my not being able to explain mine. If I have one.

tchrist

It really isn’t used in American English, and seems ungrammatical/missing/funny. You have to analyse it as an assumed/unwritten possessive case for it to make sense.

ЯegDwight

Worse still, it actually depends on the phrase for me.

tchrist

1:49 PM

What do you mean?

ЯegDwight

Some phrases I do find slightly weird. Others not at all. The construction is identical.

Matt Эллен

RegDwight's Owl is similar to The Queen <- nonsense

tchrist

Yes, I found that in the examples. Some were weird, some were not, but there was no syntactic difference.

Like similar to last time.

That one is ok.

ЯegDwight

So yeah, even for me it works except when it doesn't.

I guess you could say that.

Matt Эллен

RegDwight has an Owl similar to The Queen. <- sense

tchrist

1:51 PM

I think somehow it might be putting similar in front of the noun where things go awry.

ЯegDwight

But that's irrelevant since this is my third-and-a-half language. I'm taking a back seat.

tchrist

@MattЭллен Those say the same to me.

ЯegDwight

Wouldn't be the first question I made sure not to meddle with.

tchrist

Which is why it is nonsense.

You are saying an owl is like a queen, not that his owl is like the queen’s owl.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен So the owl is similar to the queen? or the possession of the owl is similar to the queen's possession of an owl? or the owl is similar to the queen's owl?

Matt Эллен

1:52 PM

but I'm not in the second one

tchrist

I am sure you know what you mean. I don’t mean to say otherwise.

Matt Эллен

:D

tchrist

But I don’t know what you mean.

ЯegDwight

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 you could ask that about anything and everything. Every statement ever is ambiguous.

tchrist

Neither apparently does Mr Shiny.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:53 PM

@MattЭллен To me, you are saying that Reg's bird is comparable to the queen herself.

tchrist

Yes, exactly.

Hence my befuddlement.

@ЯegDwight When were you planning on learning the other half of English?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ЯegDwight Well, I can guess based on context what he likely means. But to me, both sentences compare a bird and a monarch.

Matt Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I was just testing the hypothesis that it works for me in a circumstance that I wouldn't have come across

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен It doesn't work for me.

ЯegDwight

@tchrist after/by/during/instead of reading Tolkien, I guess.

tchrist

1:54 PM

Aye, that would do it.

ЯegDwight

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I do think Matt has a point there.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ЯegDwight you forgot "before"

tchrist

@ЯegDwight I’m sure he does. He isn’t on autoplay. That doesn’t mean I know what it is.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nope.

ЯegDwight

I'm just saying that in case the answers don't mention what Matt just did, they should.

There is a difference for me.

tchrist

wahs

ЯegDwight

1:56 PM

Whether there is a difference for you or Mr Shiny is irrelevant, because we've already established that there won't be.

tchrist

So German has the same construct?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ЯegDwight Well, I guess, if I think about it, the first example is a direct comparison between a bird and a monarch, which I would correct using context if that wasn't what the correct implication was. The second one is more proper, if I add in some elided words to suggest the queen's ownership of an owl is the comparand.

ЯegDwight

@tchrist I didn't give it enough thought yet. It does, but I'm not sure if it's actually stricter than what we have here.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

However, I'd still consider the second one imprecise at best.

ЯegDwight

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yeah something like that.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 of course. Again, we've already established that. In fact that's why the question exists in the first place.

tchrist

1:58 PM

It’s hard to find recent German influences on pockets of English. Not impossible, but not frequent.

ЯegDwight

That's the premise.

Robusto

0

Q: To what extent it is wrong (I feel myself to be...)?

I was told that it is a typical mistake for Russian speakers to say I feel myself badly instead of I feel ill. I wonder to what extent such constructs sound wrong to native speakers? I feel myself badly I feel myself well I feel myself to be a hero I feel myself to be an astro...

grammar sentence syntax

Surely this has been answered OVER 9000 times.

tchrist

No me siento bien.

ЯegDwight

@tchrist "Ich habe den gleichen Hut wie Jana" is unexceptional. Even if you or MrShiny were native speakers of German, you wouldn't so much as notice.

tchrist

@Robusto Looks like intrusive reflexivity.

Robusto

2:00 PM

More extrusive, maybe.

tchrist

@ЯegDwight That looks fine. I can say that I have the same something as someone else.

Because the has is elided.

ЯegDwight

The has is not elided there. Adding a has in there would be ungrammatical in German.

You would have to jump through all kinds of quirky hoops to shoehorn another verb into that sentence.

Matt Эллен

Timothy Dalton eats icecream similar to Keith Richards

tchrist

@ЯegDwight Hm.

@MattЭллен That’s mind-blowing here.

Matt Эллен

:D

ЯegDwight

2:02 PM

Like, "Ich habe den gleichen Hut wie Jana ihn hat" or "Ich habe den gleichen Hut wie Jana einen hat", or whatever, and those are the best and shortest I can think of, and they are ugly as hell.

Robusto

@ЯegDwight "I have the same hat as Jana" is unremarkable in English as well.

tchrist

@Robusto And there the elided has is no problem.

Matt Эллен

I think similarly to is the more likely phrase

Robusto

@MattЭллен Wut?

ЯegDwight

@Robusto the point is, in German it doesn't matter what determiner you use there. Same, similar, comparable, knock yourself out. Same difference.

Matt Эллен

2:03 PM

@Robusto In the thing I wrote about icecream

tchrist

So you think they are using similar to to mean similarly to?

Robusto

@MattЭллен You Brits and your funny ~~circumcisions~~ circumlocutions.

Matt Эллен

@tchrist only in actions

not in having

tchrist

“I see you’re wearing the same hat as last time” is not especially weird, is it?

Matt Эллен

sounds normal to me

tchrist

2:05 PM

Sounds fine to me, too, which is curious.

But “That’s the same hat as Monday” is getting to be a problem again. Not all the way , which it would be if it were a person. Just getting there.

Should be “as on Monday”, probably.

Time seems a little looser than people.

Matt Эллен

That's is verging on the boundary, but you're wearing isn't

tchrist

Hm.

Matt Эллен

That's the same car as Roger. You're driving the same car as Roger.

tchrist

Noun vs verb.

Right!

ЯegDwight

@tchrist To understand how I feel, note how you wouldn't call that an elision. The "last time" doesn't feel like you are omitting a "[the one you were wearing] last time [I saw you]". It feels just like "last time", period. It certainly feels different when you say, oh I dunno, "Will do" instead of "I will do".

Matt Эллен

2:09 PM

@tchrist But it's still OK. I wouldn't think you were calling Roger a car.

tchrist

@MattЭллен #2 is ok. #1 is not ok. I think you have something here.

ЯegDwight

As Martha said (I think it was Martha?), you can redress and redecorate anything to your heart's content. Once you have accepted a construction as grammatical, you can always stuff it with more words to make whatever point you wish. But that's not what's going on here. Not for me anyway.

tchrist

@MattЭллен North Americans would.

Matt Эллен

hmmm

tchrist

MrShiny is Canadian.

Mitch and I are American.

We could ask @Mahnax.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:12 PM

@MattЭллен In both of your sentences I feel like you've left something out. 1. 's. 2. [drives|has|does].

tchrist

The only OED citation of similar X to is one demonstrating how it used to be with instead of to. 1832 Thirlwall in Rem. (1878) III. 86 ― A legend of similar import with that of the death of Hercules.

ЯegDwight

@tchrist oh and that's just a calque from Russian. Word-for-word translation where proper translation would be proper. Not really much of a question, if you ask me.

tchrist

And even there, they use the that of construct.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I would understand both sentences just fine and not think that Roger is a car or that you are trying to say that. But I would consider such language "informal" because it's so imprecise as to be technically wrong.

tchrist

@ЯegDwight That’s why I said: No me siento bien. You wind up with the same problem.

ЯegDwight

2:14 PM

@tchrist right. I guess I missed that bit.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I found it in what I presume to be formal British writing in my citations, like “In consultation, our members observed that other people with a similar disability to Mr Malcolm — perhaps with varying degrees of severity — would have been able to understand the sub-letting regulations.”

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist gah!

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, exactly.

ЯegDwight

Shrug.

Matt Эллен

lol It's funny that I find that perfectly fine

ЯegDwight

2:17 PM

It's unambiguous and concise.

Meysam

Hello

Matt Эллен

Hello

ЯegDwight

In scientific writing, that's a virtue.

Matt Эллен

Quite

ЯegDwight

You can only make it worse by making it wordier.

Matt Эллен

2:18 PM

@Meysam If someone told you "I'm living in a penthouse similar to Meysam", would you find that odd?

ЯegDwight

Right. Let's hear how Farsi handles that.

Meysam

@MattЭллен I would find that odd, because I expect them to say: "I'm living in a penthouse similar to Meysam's"

O-ha.

Interesting

Well, well.

2:20 PM

@ЯegDwight Almost suppresses a farsically comment.

New data point, that.

ЯegDwight

@tchrist I'm messing with Meysam, because for some reason he insists I say Persian.

tchrist

endonym, exonym?

ЯegDwight

Some kind of -m.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ЯegDwight if by "worse" you mean "grammatical"

Meysamonym

ЯegDwight

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 see, you just used an ungrammatical sentence. I don't understand it!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:22 PM

@ЯegDwight rolls eyes

ЯegDwight

Try to make it grammatical and you will never get anything done.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 anyway, you know better than think this is a site where we label stuff ungrammatical that native speakers actually use.

Meysam

Guys! Isn't or redundant in this sentence? "Images must not contain any artificially added borders or of any kind"

Mahnax

@tchrist Ask me what?

ЯegDwight

Next data point! Sweet, sweet data point!

tchrist

@ЯegDwight Even when I can eventually work out what people is trying to said, that doesn’t make them grammatics.

ЯegDwight

2:23 PM

@tchrist that just doesn't make them native speakers of your idiolect. Of which there's exactly one anyway.

Hello, by the way.

Hello!

Hello

Hello!

Who is here?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ЯegDwight I am hereby declaring all those native speakers wrong, in favour of the other native speakers who agree with me. /cerberus-mode.

Matt Эллен

2:24 PM

lol

tchrist

@Mahnax What do you think of the British "similar X to Y" constructs, is the question. I’ll cite them from the chatlog.

ЯegDwight

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 that is a fair thing to say. You could proudly wave a stamp with a picture of your Queen when doing so.

tchrist

6 mins ago, by Matt Эллен

@Meysam If someone told you "I'm living in a penthouse similar to Meysam", would you find that odd?

9 mins ago, by tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I found it in what I presume to be formal British writing in my citations, like “In consultation, our members observed that other people with a similar disability to Mr Malcolm — perhaps with varying degrees of severity — would have been able to understand the sub-letting regulations.”

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ЯegDwight In this case, I'm siding with the Americans, so I wouldn't wave the stamp. I'd wave the copyright act, which they so graciously wrote for us.

tchrist

35 mins ago, by Matt Эллен

RegDwight's Owl is similar to The Queen <- nonsense

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:26 PM

brb

tchrist

We have two American and one Canadian datapoints, and we are seeking a second Canadian one.

Meysam

Should I ever need to repeat my question, I will feel free to do that.

ЯegDwight

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I would be skeptical if someone wrote a copyright act for me, but kept the original right act to themselves.

Matt Эллен

@Meysam or seems a little odd there

tchrist

19 mins ago, by Matt Эллен

That's the same car as Roger. You're driving the same car as Roger.

@Mahnax What do you think of that last one?

Mahnax

2:27 PM

@tchrist That sounds a little odd. "Meysam's" at the end would be more common here.

ЯegDwight

@Meysam I'm still thinking. Better than I ever did, looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid.

Mahnax

The second one sounds normal.

tchrist

Cars?

This is about this question:

3

Of late I have noticed British people using the following sort of construct: John and Jane make such a cute couple because John always wears a similar hat to Jane. To my ear, that is ungrammatical, or at least nonsensical, because John seems to have mistaken his wife for a hat! John’s hat ...

american-english british-english possessive comparison

Matt’s “That’s the same car as Roger” weirds me out.

Or maybe that should be ‘Matt “That’s the same car as Roger” weirds me out.’.

Matt Эллен

@Meysam the or needs a noun or pronoun after it: "Images must not contain any artificially added borders or borders of any kind", or "Images must not contain any artificially added borders or any of any kind"

ЯegDwight

@Meysam Actually I think a noun is missing there. An [X] of any kind.

@MattЭллен "Image must not contain any of any kind"? Who's the pineapple now?

TRiG

2:31 PM

@Robusto A "dual carriageway" is specifically a road with a barrier down the middle. O'Connell Street in Dublin is a dual carriageway. I think you'd be hard pressed to call it a highway. The words have different meanings.

tchrist

Images must not contain any borders artificially added or of any kind.

Mahnax

@tchrist Nah, the disability one.

The cars one sounds weird.

Matt Эллен

@ЯegDwight ya ya ya. I copy badly myself

tchrist

“The car one sounds weird.” Datapoint.

@TRiG Ah, you mean a boulevard. :)

TRiG

@tchrist "You're driving the same car as Roger [is/has]." Simple ellipsis. Fine. "That's the same car as Roger['s]." Less simple ellipsis. Weird.

ЯegDwight

2:32 PM

@Mahnax does it have to do with same vs. similar?

Meysam

Well, the sentence was produced by this person, who seems American:

rfusca ♦, Arkansas

16.6k 5 26

discussion featured-photo feature-request blog off-topic asking-questions support

TRiG

@tchrist Possibly.

tchrist

“Boulevard” is one of those super-regional terms.

Mahnax

@ЯegDwight I don't think so. It's the construction itself.

tchrist

By which I mean the opposite of supra-regional.

Very regional.

ЯegDwight

2:33 PM

@Meysam it sounds like legalese. It's perfectly enough for a normal person to say, "Image must not contain borders". Only a lawyer would go on to tell you which borders exactly it may not contain, oh and no other borders either.

Meysam

5

Q: Weekly Featured Image: Week of September 17, 2012

This is the place to submit and vote on photos for the week of 17 Sept to be featured on the main site. This contest should showcase your best quality work, demonstrating at least moderate skill with a camera and a general understanding of the artistic aspects of photography. Remember, the select...

discussion featured featured-photo

@ЯegDwight Maybe he is a lawyer too!

ЯegDwight

@Mahnax I'm asking because the construction itself is identical. Have a similar disability to Roger, drive a similar car to Roger.

Meysam

@ЯegDwight Or maybe he is not a normal person.

tchrist

I’m going to return to my return to my original idea: that it is an elision of the apostrophe-s.

ЯegDwight

@Meysam oh well that does look like official rules of a competition, so.

tchrist

2:35 PM

And nothing fancier.

Meysam

@ЯegDwight It is

tchrist

They’re dropping the apostrophe-s.

TRiG

@ЯegDwight Hmm. Is that a whisper of a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession?

Matt Эллен

but what if it's a photograph of a border!? how unfair

ЯegDwight

@Meysam so it is okayish for it to be legalese.

@TRiG don't ask me, ask @Mahnax.

TRiG

2:36 PM

@ЯegDwight My preference would be for The image must not have borders.

Mahnax

@ЯegDwight Interesting. The first one sounds fine to me, but the second doesn't.

ЯegDwight

@TRiG yeah right, the verb is a different issue.

TRiG

@ЯegDwight Some languages would distinguish between her arm and her sofa. Are we seeing a similar distinction between Roger's disability and Roger's car? It's a thought.

Mahnax

@TRiG Could be.

ЯegDwight

Everything is possible at zombo.com.

Anything at all.

The unattainable is unknown. The Roger is driven. The lame talk, the dumb walk.

Meysam

2:38 PM

okayish

tchrist

A drive-by rogering.

ЯegDwight

@Mahnax what about the verb? What about drive a similar car to Roger vs. have a similar car to Roger?

Hello everyone!

Hies.

Hello!

2:41 PM

@ЯegDwight Both of those sound unnatural.

ЯegDwight

K

Mahnax

But it is time for maths class.

Good times.

Goodbye.

CU

2:41 PM

@Monica Hi! What brings you here today?

tchrist

hies away to the other room

ЯegDwight

7

Q: History of "Have a good one"

I used to work at a grocery store. When bidding farewell to customers, my coworkers would often use phrases such as "Have a nice day," "Enjoy your day," and the like. One particular phrase that seemed to be common was "Have a good one" (where "a good one" implies "a good day"). Since working t...

phrases american-english history

Monica

The desire to chat in English

ЯegDwight

Wow, this one has four answers by new users.

Quite a collection.

Monica

And new questions of course

:)

Does this sentence sound natural?

A new bill was introduced to the State Council on transferring to the winter time throughout the year.

I think it doesn't.

TRiG

2:48 PM

@Monica It's understandable. And I think it counts as grammatical. It's a bit of a garden-path sentence, though, isn't it?

Matt Эллен

@Monica I expect it's to do with giving up daylight savings time. So instead of "the winter time" it would just be "winter time", although that is ambiguous, because winter time is synonymous with winter

ЯegDwight

Yay! Winter 24/7, 53/365!

TRiG

@ЯegDwight Until Aslan comes.

ЯegDwight

Aslan won't stand a snowflake's chance in hell against Balrog. Give or take any amount of winter time.

Matt Эллен

Strider vs Caspian. who would win?

I have to suggest that to ERBoH

TRiG

2:52 PM

@MattЭллен Do you even have to ask?