English Language Learners

Anonymous

4:00 PM

@Nico Hehe!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, that answer that was at +2 eventually got up to +7

Anonymous

Though the downvoter never removed their downvote! I wonder if they still think it's wrong

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yay! I'm happy for you!

Anonymous

My recent answer list looks better now, though it still has that answer that's only at +2

Anonymous

(Maybe because I talked about logophoric pronouns?)

Anonymous

4:14 PM

People don't upvote as much on ELL generally speaking. But questions on ELL often get promoted via the Hot Questions sidebar, so you end up with very highly ranked questions and answers anyway

Anonymous

My recent answers list on ELL is much spottier.

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/users/230/…

Anonymous

You can see basically which questions were promoted in the sidebar

Anonymous

Those aren't necessarily better answers than the others

Anonymous

The ones with higher scores

Anonymous

4:16 PM

I'm sure there are other factors going into answer score, but they're massively overwhelmed by the Hot Questions factor

Nico

@snailboat I'll blame to the question, not to the answer. :)

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure if it's ELL or JSE that is unlike most other stacks.

@Nico How would people vote on the Spanish stack? Do they vote often enough, or they rarely vote?

Anonymous

3

A: Finished seeing the contents? Now, wait a sec.! Did you vote?

Indeed ELL does seem to have a dearth of votes. Here are the average number of votes per post as of a few days ago, excluding deleted posts, for the language sites on Stack Exchange (plus the top, bottom and median (Linguistics) sites in terms of average votes per post): up do...

Damkerng T.

I still don't know how to make such a query myself.

Anonymous

Note that Japanese has more votes per question even though ELL has more promoted questions

Nico

4:23 PM

@DamkerngT. rarely (although there are exceptions). My impression is that there isn't as much activity as on ELL. Something that Spanish.SE is missing is a chat room like this one.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/79468/…

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I wonder if this is somehow related to the culture of Japanese people.

Anonymous

I don't know. Other language stacks have more votes per question, too.

Anonymous

It might have to do with ELL having more questions than the other language stacks.

Anonymous

I read every question on Japanese.SE because there aren't too many of them. At the moment, 5.7/day

Nico

4:26 PM

@snailboat I clock "Run Query" but nothing happens. What am I missing?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Thanks for the link! I'm still waiting for the result...

Btw, I think I passed the human test. :D

Anonymous

@Nico Hmm. That's weird!

Nico

I've just noticed a timing box on the top left corner.

Damkerng T.

Me too!

Nico

duration (ms) from start (ms) query time (ms)
http://data.stackexchange.com:80/stackoverflo... 6.5 +0.0 3 sql 1.4
Controller: QueryController.Edit 68.2 +4.7 5 sql 2.4
Render : Editor 2.8 +73.3 1 sql 0.6
show time with children 5.5 % in sql
client event duration (ms) time from start (ms)
Response 139.0 +361.0
Unload Event 2.0 +363.0
Dom Content Loaded Event 115.0 +880.0
Dom Complete +1308.0

Anonymous

4:32 PM

ell.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits

Anonymous

1

Q: The relative pronoun 'which' in this sentence AND the ensuing omssion

The complete sentence: Yet I should point out before I proceed with this line that when I use ‘ideology,’ I do not mean to imply the now-familiar sinister connotations of mischief or falsehood attached to the term; rather, I see Scott’s ideology simply as a mindset or a belief system whi...

Damkerng T.

My 'NO' to the latter option! :) — Maulik V 11 hours ago

Anonymous

Gapping! But… um :-)

Nico

what does it make a question a greatest-hit? It doesn't seem to be only the number of views.

Damkerng T.

Another potentially "not useful" comment.

Anonymous

4:37 PM

@Nico Or a bunch of responses, I guess.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I gave up on flagging these comments since I don't want to rack up a bunch of declined flags.

Damkerng T.

Ah, it's a new question!

Anonymous

I'm surprised this got so many views: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/2764/…

Anonymous

I wonder if that phrase is opaque to learners

Damkerng T.

@snailboat "and he to it" should be fine if I can think of what he is or does to it. Who is he and what is it again? :-)

@snailboat I'm not sure. It isn't opaque to me.

Anonymous

4:43 PM

@DamkerngT. [ A mindset or a belief system ] was [ true to him ], and [ he ] ~~was~~ [ ~~true~~ to it (the mindset or belief system) ].

Nico

@DamkerngT. Perhaps the meaning of discretion.

Anonymous

That's how it reads to me

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah! Now it's easy to read. :D -- Thanks!

Nico

@snailboat there is a term for that use of "and" or "or". It's been mentioned in the past, but I can't find it.

Anonymous

It's not Conjunction Reduction

Nico

4:47 PM

That's it!

Anonymous

I mean, that's the term, but it's not what's going on :-)

Nico

isn't it?

Anonymous

Gapping is a kind of medial deletion which can apply to non-constituents

Anonymous

This is unusual in English

Nico

What do you mean by gapping?

Anonymous

4:50 PM

A kind of medial deletion which can apply to non-constituents, leaving an apparent gap behind in the middle of the sentence, generally limited to coordinate constructions

Damkerng T.

Is it only me or that post really doesn't ask any question indeed?

Ahh... "Please give me some guidance" ... "Also what do you think of the preposition "to" in ..."

Anonymous

> [He went to New York] and [he went to Las Vegas].

Anonymous

> [He went to New York] and [he went to Las Vegas].

Anonymous

> [He went to New York] and [~~he went~~ to Las Vegas].

Anonymous

> [He went to New York] and [~~he went to~~ Las Vegas].

Anonymous

4:52 PM

This is Conjunction Reduction (in generative grammar terms) and as you can see here it is a type of initial deletion

Anonymous

Although I personally don't believe any deletion is going on in CR, I think it's a helpful metaphor for explaining certain types of coordination.

Damkerng T.

ell.stackexchange.com/q/30243/3281 -- The OP asked about "Don't let someone into somewhere" and the answers are about "Let someone in". :-)

Anonymous

Here's an alternative analysis of the above CR without positing deletion:

Anonymous

> [He went to New York] and [he went to Las Vegas].
> He [went to New York] and [went to Las Vegas].
> He went [to New York] and [to Las Vegas].
> He went to [New York] and [Las Vegas].

Anonymous

So for example in the last sentence, we would say that New York and Las Vegas have been coordinated by and, and both are in construction with He went to at the same time

Anonymous

4:55 PM

And nothing has been deleted

Anonymous

(And appears as a marker in the final coordinate)

Anonymous

Actually, I'll simplify that by pulling and out--looks neater that way, even if and does technically attach to the last coordinate

Anonymous

There we go :-)

Nico

And what do you mean by "... which can apply to non-constituents"?

Anonymous

> On Monday she'd been in Paris and on Tuesday ~~she'd been~~ in Bonn.

Nico

5:01 PM

removal of non-constituents sounds like a double-negation.

Anonymous

Oh, do you know what a constituent is in grammar?

Nico

If it wasn't a constituent how could it be removed?

@snailboat I'm afraid that may be the source of my confusion.

Anonymous

When I write a sentence like this one, I put a bunch of words in linear order.

Anonymous

A sequence of words is called a string

Anonymous

For example, "I write a sentence like" is a string

Anonymous

5:04 PM

If I were to draw a syntax tree for that sentence, though…

Nico

Constituent (linguistics)

In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down into constituent parts. The constituent structure of sentences is identified using constituency tests. These tests manipulate some portion of a sentence and based on the result, clues are delivered about the immediate constituent structure of the sentence. Many constituents are phrases. A phrase is a...

Anonymous

Oh, sure, skip straight to the good stuff ;-)

Anonymous

Take away my fun!

Nico

Sorry!

Anonymous

Hehe, I'm just kidding ;-)

Anonymous

5:04 PM

I was going to link there, too.

Nico

Go on, I like how you explain things!

Damkerng T.

nods

I couldn't pass this human test!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Was it a CAPTCHA?

Nico

138?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

> 1000 1010

Anonymous

5:09 PM

Hee.

Damkerng T.

> Error: looks like you typed in the wrong words - try again

Anonymous

Oh, it must be trying to trick you into reading as binary, like the Nico-bot did over there

Damkerng T.

whirrr -- BEEP BEEP!

Anonymous

Only robots know binary.

Anonymous

ONE ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ZERO ZERO ONE ONE ZERO ONE

Nico

5:10 PM

Are phrases and constituents the same thing?

@snailboat The UD fails to mention I'm also a bit of a geek!

Anonymous

@Nico You could probably ask something to that effect on the Linguistics SE

Anonymous

Here is what I would say

Anonymous

Phrases are constituents.

Anonymous

Some constituents aren't phrases.

Anonymous

"I went to the store". The subject here is a noun phrase, "I"

Anonymous

5:14 PM

That noun phrase is a constituent, like all phrases

Anonymous

The head of this phrase is the pronoun I

Anonymous

It's the sole constituent of the phrase

Damkerng T.

Would you call "to the" a phrase?

Anonymous

But it is not itself a phrase―it does not have a head

Anonymous

It is a word

Anonymous

5:15 PM

(Not to imply that all phrases have heads)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. No

Anonymous

Though, typically in order to decide whether something is a constituent phrase, we would start by analyzing a complete sentence

Nico

Are the consitituents of that example: [ I ] [ went ] [ to the store ] ?

Anonymous

So I have to imagine a sentence: "I went [to the] store." Nope, doesn't seem like a valid grouping. I would call it simply a string

Damkerng T.

nods -- That is a sound explanation.

Anonymous

5:18 PM

The constituents are:
[I went to the store]
[I] [went to the store]
[I] [went] [to the store]
[I] [went] [to] [the store]
[I] [went] [to] [the] [store]

Anonymous

If that notation makes any sense.

Damkerng T.

I think "I want to sing" is a bit trickier. :D

Anonymous

In each line, I subdivide further.

Anonymous

There, I changed my notation

Anonymous

[I want to sing]
[I] [want to sing]
[I] [want] [to sing]
[I] [want] [to] [sing]

Damkerng T.

5:20 PM

But it's "You can sing if you want to". :-)

Anonymous

There we have PAE (Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis)

Anonymous

> You can sing if you want to ~~sing~~.

Damkerng T.

It makes me fell as if "want to" is a constituent.

Anonymous

It is.

Nico

is it?

Anonymous

5:22 PM

It's a verb phrase!

Nico

How about "I want a bike"?

Anonymous

But, if you like, you can write it "want to ___" to indicate that it contains a gap, which is itself a constituent.

Anonymous

Intuitively, we know what that gap represents.

Nico

[I want a bike] -- [I] [want a bike] -- [I] [want] [a bike] -- [I] [want] [a] [bike]

Anonymous

(If we didn't know, we couldn't leave a gap there!)

Anonymous

5:23 PM

@Nico Yep!

Anonymous

First you divide the clause into subject and predicate.

Anonymous

Then you divide the predicate into the verb and object

Anonymous

And the object, being a noun phrase, can be divided into a determiner and nominal (← this is somewhat nontraditional terminology)

Anonymous

Article and noun, if you like.

Nico

OK, let's assume I know what a constituent is. What is it a non-constituent?

Anonymous

5:26 PM

"I want" in "I want a bike" is a non-constituent

Anonymous

"want a" in "I want a bike" is a non-constituent

Nico

Ohh!!! Now I get what your meant!

Anonymous

Constituents are the building blocks of sentences.

Anonymous

Strings are simply words that happen to be next to each other linearly―they may or may not be constituents

Damkerng T.

Here is my mini-theory. I think we don't pause non-constituently. In other words, ideally, we pause only between constituents, and these constituents reflect the way we think.

Anonymous

5:30 PM

In speech, we have planning delays.

Anonymous

We can pause in lots of places while we try to think of the next word

Anonymous

"It's an example of, umm, hypercalciuria?"

Nico

> I want to ride a bike

> I wanna ride a bike

Anonymous

(The speaker had to pause and think to try to remember the word because they don't use it often)

Nico

Is "want to" a non-constituent?

Anonymous

5:33 PM

You'd think, but…

Anonymous

@Nico The Morpholexical Nature of English to-Contraction (Pullum 1997)

Damkerng T.

> "We might call it a, umm, an umbrella!"

I'm not sure, but I think it seems like we tend to repeat the last incomplete part.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Also possible! If the delay is long enough, we often repeat ourselves, I think.

Damkerng T.

So true!

Anonymous

"We might call it a, um, call it an umbrella"

Anonymous

5:35 PM

We can probably characterize at least some dysfluencies as speech errors since they're not really intended and would be absent from planned speech

Anonymous

But pauses are natural even in planned speech

Anonymous

So maybe in a theory related to pauses, we can exclude dysfluencies

Nico

@snailboat Some goodies for my commute back home!!!

Anonymous

yes. the nucleus of the syllable in abstention is /$\epsilon$/ and not the n. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_consonant — hunter 6 hours ago

Anonymous

What does this mean?

Anonymous

5:40 PM

yes, [st] prononuced /s/ is exactly when the next syllable is syllabic /n/ or syllabic /l/; this is what was already written above and is consistent with all your data (except Leicester -- place names are hopeless! I was going to add a bunch more place names to the "exceptions" rule and then gave up.) — hunter 7 hours ago

Anonymous

Here I guess hunter uses [] to mean <>

Anonymous

Hmm…

Anonymous

as to your other question, orthographic [c] always represents an unvoiced consonant (exception: czar, I'm sure there are others if we allow relatively recent borrowings from Slavic languages). Whether that consonant is /s/, /k/, or /ʃ/ will depend on the next letter: if it is written [a, o, u] the c is /k/; if it is written [e, i, y] the c is /s/, except that as usual /sj/ assimilates to /ʃ/; so, cell, call, ocean. — hunter 7 hours ago

Anonymous

Ah, yes, hunter uses [] to mean <> here, too

Damkerng T.

Wait, what is <> for, typically?

Anonymous

5:42 PM

A written symbol.

Anonymous

<written symbol> [phone] /phoneme/

Nico

@snailboat listen /ˈlisən/ I think he meant /n/ is a syllable

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see.

Anonymous

Grapheme is the technical term.

Anonymous

@Nico Sure, sort of!

Damkerng T.

5:43 PM

I usually pronounce mountain with a syllabic-n.

Anonymous

If you analyze /ˈlisən/ as having a syllabic n, then you're presumably one of those generative phonologists who say the underlying phonemic string /ən/ is realized phonetically as [n̩]

Anonymous

So you could say syllabic [n̩]

Anonymous

But writing /ən/ then calling /n/ syllabic doesn't appear to make sense

Anonymous

(Otherwise, why are you writing that schwa?)

Anonymous

Me, I'd write ˈlɪsn̩

Nico

5:46 PM

@snailboat I don't pronounce it as a syllable (but I'm very far from being a reference in english pronounciation) :p

Anonymous

@Nico Ah, then you would want some sort of vowel in there to be the nucleus :-)

Anonymous

Me, I always pronounce the n as syllabic

Nico

To me, each syllable receives to some degree a stress. How can I put it? each syllable is defines by pang of voice. Do you know what I mean?

Anonymous

I mean, I think I do.

Anonymous

@Nico That's probably not how I define syllable, personally

Anonymous

5:48 PM

@DamkerngT. Me too.

Nico

listen /ˈlisən/ to me is /ˈlis/ /sən/

I.e. 2 syllables!

Anonymous

It's two syllables to me, too.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yay!

Nico

I am sooo late! I'm gonna be in trouble.

Damkerng T.

@Nico I think I know what you mean. (My L1 is basically both syllabic-like and stress-timed-like at the same time.)

Nico

5:50 PM

Thanks for all the explanations! cu!

Anonymous

If I over-enunciate listen, it sounds like ˈlɪ.sɪn

Damkerng T.

@Nico Hurry! Or you'll miss your train! (Or whatever vehicle there)

Anonymous

Otherwise, it's ˈlɪs.n̩

Damkerng T.

That dot is curious. :-)

Anonymous

It marks a syllable boundary.

Damkerng T.

5:52 PM

Ahh... I remember that we've discussed computer.

Anonymous

Mountain has umm

Damkerng T.

Probably two syllables. :D

Anonymous

ˈmaʊ̃ʔ.n̩

Anonymous

The diacritics aren't showing up in the right place on my screen

Anonymous

It's supposed to say that [ʊ] is a nasalized vowel (representing the phoneme /n/), and /t/ has been glottalized to [ʔ]

Anonymous

5:55 PM

And then the final [n] is syllabic

Anonymous

Since it's a phonetic transcription, it would vary by context―the final [n] would be [ŋ] if it appeared in the phrase mountain climbing

Anonymous

The diacritics for nasalization and syllabicity don't show up in the right place on my screen :-(

Anonymous

Which makes these transcriptions of limited utility

Damkerng T.

I think it looks quite all right on mine. :)

Anonymous

Oh! Yay

Damkerng T.

5:59 PM

However, I still have no luck running that query (average-number-of-recent-votes-on-all-sites).

I think the query ran fine, but I couldn't see the results.

Anonymous

The left is how it shows up for me in chat

Damkerng T.

Mine looks like the right one.

Anonymous

Yippee!

Anonymous

I wonder why it looks wrong for me

Damkerng T.

6:01 PM

Do Japanese settings get involved?

Anonymous

Hmm… Seems doubtful.

Anonymous

One moment.

Anonymous

Nope, looks wrong in Firefox even if I set it to English. :-(

Anonymous

(My usual browser is SeaMonkey, but that shares a rendering engine with Firefox. I just started up vanilla Firefox in English to check.)

Anonymous

I bet it looks fine in Chrome.

Damkerng T.

6:03 PM

That's strange (because I also use Firefox). Ah, possibly Ubuntu!

Anonymous

Yes, I recall that you do

Anonymous

Possibly something to do with which fonts are available on my system

Anonymous

Strange, though

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

The syllabic diacritic renders in the right spot on Chrome, but the nasal diacritic doesn't

Anonymous

6:05 PM

Oh well, that's as much effort as I want to put into that problem

Anonymous

Browsers are a mess.

Damkerng T.

:D

Unbreakable is on my cable again, like, the ninth time!

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

I heard that movie was good.

Anonymous

I've been borrowing the DVD for um, I'm not sure, about since whenever it came out :-)

Anonymous

6:06 PM

I haven't watched it yet.

Damkerng T.

I like it! But after the first few times, I haven't paid much attention. :-)

Anonymous

But my friend liked it and told me to watch it and lent me the DVD.

Anonymous

And I've never given it back to her.

Anonymous

But to be fair, she has my Deadwood DVDs.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

6:07 PM

Deadwood is linguistically interesting.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I think I haven't watched this one.

Anonymous

people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/deadwood.html

Damkerng T.

Ah, that kinda reminds me of Thai period series too. I always wonder, "Did they really talk like that, several hundred years ago? I mean, really, how do they know?"

So I think we have a handful of invented phrases that are supposed to be what people talked several hundred years ago.

Anonymous

Japanese period drama is full of stereotyped speech patterns which are probably not really accurate, but (I think) are intended to give the viewer the feeling that it takes place long ago

Damkerng T.

"gee-whiz" -- Ah, I haven't heard this word for a long while!

I think I haven't heard many words for a long while either. (Like, "Bah!")

Anonymous

6:30 PM

Gee whiz! sounds awfully old-fashioned.

Anonymous

A few months ago, we had a user who said she said Bah!.

Anonymous

I've heard other people say it, I think. Or at least type it :-)

Ice Girl

6:46 PM

@DamkerngT. You always on hold my questions

Damkerng T.

My votes to close are more objective than subjective.

Which question did you talk about?

Ice Girl

you can ask yourself not from me

Damkerng T.

Why do I have to ask myself for something you complain about?

And out of nowhere, at that.

Ice Girl

because

3

Q: what is the difference between "like" and "as"?

what is the difference between "like" and "as"? Do people use these in similar situations? Thanks!

meaning difference usage

Damkerng T.

Yes. That's what I would call "too broad".

And, if you noticed, I was the last one who voted.

Ice Girl

6:51 PM

How to understand that you voted it

nobody can understand it

Damkerng T.

Which means that even though I've seen your question and thought "Oh, this is too broad", I refrain from voting to close on it. I gave my vote after I saw that you got a good answer.

Ice Girl

who upvot and who downvote

Damkerng T.

I don't understand your questions. They're unclear. Can you rephrase them?

Ice Girl

how?

Damkerng T.

(Are they even questions?)

Ice Girl

6:53 PM

I don't have any idea

YES

Damkerng T.

"I don't have any idea" <-- Is this your question?

Ice Girl

no

I can change my question to "The usage of like and as"

good?

or not?

Damkerng T.

Still too broad, in my opinion. But I guess that some users might be happy to answer this kind of question. (You're not alone that wants to ask these questions.)

Ice Girl

So?

Damkerng T.

It's like asking: the usage of 'when'

Or the usage of 'would'

Or the usage of 'could'

Or the usage of 'the'

Or the usage of 'a'

...

The list can go on and on .

Ice Girl

6:57 PM

What is your problem with this question?

Damkerng T.

It's too broad.

I haven't read what oerkelens wrote because it's too long.

But I suspect that a) it's still incomplete, and b) it requires some amount of his energy, which I believe, is above the average level of our average answerer.

7 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

Which means that even though I've seen your question and thought "Oh, this is too broad", I refrain from voting to close on it. I gave my vote after I saw that you got a good answer.

Don't you see that I allow you some time to see if there is someone might pass by and give you a good answer?

Ice Girl

Sorry?

I don't understand

Damkerng T.

If you can't understand what I wrote, how could oerkelens's answer be useful for you?

Ice Girl

Why you talk with me in this way?

Damkerng T.

I talk normally.

The more you're better at English, the more you're expected to understand. That's quite natural, I think.

You wrote a few moments ago (now deleted):

> But I had a problem with it and now it solved. My best friend answer it very very well

This only means that oerkelens (referred to as your best friend here, I believe) can solve your problem.

Considering his answer, I think my writing here isn't more difficult than his at all.

Ice Girl

7:05 PM

I understand all of the things up to now

his answer is the best answer in the world

Damkerng T.

You should mention that to him, if you feel so.

Ice Girl

@DamkerngT. I told him always

Damkerng T.

I can't see him here.

But I guess that you and him have a private chat room for both of you. -- I knew that because someone else mentioned that here.

He's usually in here until last week, iirc.

Anonymous

7:20 PM

Non-moderators don't have private chat rooms on Stack Exchange.

Anonymous

Gallery rooms are public.

Ice Girl

icic

Anonymous

So anyone can enter and see what you're saying, even though only certain people are allowed to talk

Anonymous

So please make sure you don't say anything you don't want other people to read

Damkerng T.

Ah, I'm glad that @oerkelens is here. :-)

oerkelens

7:25 PM

hiya :)

Damkerng T.

Hi! :D

oerkelens

no fighting here, eh?

Ice Girl

@oerkelens Hi

Damkerng T.

Me, nope. Same old, same old.

Ice Girl

@oerkelens Welcome back to ELL room

oerkelens

7:28 PM

thank you :)

Ice Girl

:)

oerkelens

@IceGirl: I left you some tips :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's interesting. The main effect that closing has is preventing answers from being posted. So in my mind, if a question should be closed, it's because there's a reason to prevent answers from being posted, and so it should be closed before anyone posts an answer.

oerkelens

Now, everyone, play nice. I don;t want to be fought over :)

Anonymous

Otherwise, if I want an answer to be posted, in my mind it should stay open so we can get multiple answers and get the best one voted to the top

Damkerng T.

7:30 PM

@oerkelens Eh? I definitely won't fight over you. :D

Anonymous

That's why I find it very confusing when certain users vote to close and answer a question, which seems to be contradictory

oerkelens

@snailboat agreed. If a question deserves an answer, it is on-topic and should not be closed...

Damkerng T.

My idea is a bit different, because I'm a learner, I think it's better for the OP to at least get some clues before the question get closed.

oerkelens

@snailboat indeed... it is the only time I use a comment for a (short version of) an answer. When I vote to close, but I don't send the asker away with no help at all :)

Anonymous

The reason why we'd put a question on hold as Too Broad is to prevent it from being answered in its current state. That way, the question can be revised and put into a state where it can be answered.

Anonymous

7:32 PM

But if it could already be answered in its current state, then it wasn't really Too Broad.

Anonymous

That's how I see it.

Damkerng T.

@oerkelens That's my idea too. Well, why else I would delay my vote to close? :D

Anonymous

@oerkelens That's why I comment-answer on the learning method questions.

Damkerng T.

Maybe I should've voted to close on it immediately.

Anonymous

(Though I don't vote to close those myself, I hate answering a question I think other people will close.)

Damkerng T.

7:34 PM

Look at what I got in the end, anyway. :(

Anonymous

(Which is also why I generally don't answer ELU questions.)

Anonymous

I didn't actually look at the question in question

oerkelens

@DamkerngT. ooow :( pats Damkerng T. on the back :)

Anonymous

Is that an "awww"?

Anonymous

"owww" = "I got hurt!"

Damkerng T.

7:36 PM

Ouch! (Did you pat me too hard? -- Just kidding!) :-)

Anonymous

"awww" = "sad:(" or "cute!:)"

Ice Girl

:)

oerkelens

@snailboat Well, I meant the awww :)

But I pronounce it owww :)

Damkerng T.

Maybe another user might barge in and make another complain at me soon enough. (I just voted to close on several of their proofreading questions.)

oerkelens

oooow = I got hurt :)

Ice Girl

7:38 PM

:)

oerkelens

@DamkerngT. Duck! and cover!

hums

Anonymous

I've seen a lot of non-native speakers type "ew" or "ow" when I think they mean "aw"

Damkerng T.

Nope. That's not my style. I think it's only fair to at least get some explanations about the reasons behind the vote. Well, if they are willing to listen.

oerkelens

mmmm.... ew = that is disgusting?

Anonymous

Yes

Ice Girl

7:40 PM

Bye all

:)

oerkelens

Bye @IceGirl :)

Ice Girl

@oerkelens :)