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user227867
1:07 AM
@Cerberus I thought you use British spelling. Why did you spell practice?
 
tchrist
tchrist
I’ve decided that we're using the wrong notation for American diphthongs.
The first, main part of the diphthong in the word toe (before the semivowel glide) is exactly the same as first, main part of the diphthong in toy.
So just as toe has [toʊ] so too does toy have [toɪ]. There is no way in hell it has [tɔɪ] because [ɔ] is the vowel of thought and law and dog and dawn and call and calm, and that is not what’s going on.
I refuse to parrot wrong phonetics any longer.
I also believe that American English can sometimes have a pure and unglided [o] and [e] rather than the alleged [oʊ] and [eɪ] in certain non-terminal positions.
It depends what follows.
I’m used to making phonemic distinctions for those in Spanish, so I know what it is not to have it.
So for example the singular–plural distinction of estás, estáis in the indicative versus estés, estéis in the subjunctive are exactly parallel.
Take the English example of stay with a falling diphthong versus steak without one.
Steak is not just the word stay with a "k" appended. You have to drop the glide.
Similarly with English no versus note, and for the same reason.
This is even clearer when the [e] or [o] comes before an [ɻʷ], as in bay versus berry and so versus sorry or toe versus Tory.
Sigh. I’m going to have to make this a question to get Lawler’s attention.
@suməlic What do you think of my supercited soliloquy’s thesis?
 
J doh
J doh
2:24 AM
Hello. In the phrase 'My friend will go to a concert tomorrow', the final tomorrow is marked as an adverb by my professor. Surely it's a noun and a mistake in the notes or am I being stupid?
 
Færd
Færd
> Tomorrow's a good day to go to a concert.
> I'll see you at tomorrow's concert.
But,
> My friend will go to a concert. When will he go to a concert? Tomorrow.
 
J doh
J doh
So, a noun in the example given (by my prof)?
 
Færd
Færd
2:41 AM
@Jdoh It explains what time the friend will go to the concert. It adds the timing of the verb to the verb.
So an adverb there.
(Some people may call it something else, but not a noun.)
 
J doh
J doh
Thanks. How about 'to a concert on Monday'. Is that preposition - article - noun - preposition - noun
and what is the 'Some people may call it something else'?
 
Færd
Færd
@Jdoh Are you uncertain about Monday? It's a noun there, because it follows a preposition.
 
J doh
J doh
I was only unsure because before asking you I'd have bet lots of money that 'tomorrow' in my first example was a noun too.
 
Færd
Færd
Is it clear to you now?
 
J doh
J doh
not really :)

I understand that nouns follow prepositions and I understand that in the first example 'tomorrow
 
Færd
Færd
2:51 AM
> a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then, there ).
 
J doh
J doh
changes the timing of the noun but so does 'on Monday'
is 'on Monday' an adverb phrase made of a noun and preposition?
 
Færd
Færd
@Jdoh On Monday is a phrase consisting of two words, each word having its own category and function. Monday there is a noun, while the whole phrase on Monday is an adverbial prepositional phrase in He will go to a concert on Monday.
 
J doh
J doh
Thanks.

In 'Tomorrow he will go to a concert', is 'tomorrow' still an adv?
 
Færd
Færd
Sure.
 
J doh
J doh
Thanks a lot. I've been wrong for years! I do understand zero derivation but would have sworn that 'tomorrow' was a noun.

I need to cook breakfast now for nagging children.

Happy Sunday! You've cleared it up nicely for me.
 
Færd
Færd
2:58 AM
Have a nice breakfast!
@Jdoh Some modern linguists have different categorizations, but I didn't want to confuse you with that, because I haven't yet learnt their theory. But even they do not call 'tomorrow' a noun in Tomorrow he will go to a concert.
@tchrist The first part of the diphthong in so is not the same as the vowel in sorry, is it?
As far as I can tell, sorry, berry, and Tory do not have diphthongs at all; not clipped, not whole. I'm not sure why are you drawing that analogy there.
I understand that the glide in steak is shorter compared to the one in stay. It's clipped, not dropped altogether, right?
(Correction: are you drawing --> you are drawing)
@tchrist Nice observation. I didn't know they phoneticize boy and bowl differently.
Well, maybe you didn't aim that at lay NNS people like me.
 
tchrist
tchrist
3:28 AM
@Færd I thought it was. Sounds like the same to me. Say so. Now say sore. Now say sorry. There are people with a different vowel in sorry though.
@Færd We’re told that there’s a diphthong in berry and Tory, and I just cannot hear it.
Oh ok, I have found some sources saying that the diphthong in oyster, coil, boy is /oɪ/ after all.
Interesting way to present it.
Which is in English, don't worry. :)
Sure is a lot easier to understand than the weird things from Britain.
 
suməlic
suməlic
4:06 AM
@tchrist I think it's certainly reasonable to identify the first element of the diphthong in "toy" with the GOAT vowel in an analysis of modern American English. There are still some historical remnants of its being identified with the THOUGHT vowel, such as "lawyer" = "loyer," but that's pretty frozen.
Before /r/, it's of course also true that we don't normally get an offglide. From what I understood, though, the vowels in this position are often ambiguous between /ɛ/ and /e/ on the one hand, and /ɔ/ and /o/ on the other. There is morphological evidence for an analysis as /ɔr/, such as "drawer," but this could again be interpreted as a historical rather than a current correspondence.
My accent doesn't have /ɔ/ as a phoneme, so I'd definitely transcribe "drawer" with /or/ (a distinct vowel phoneme from "draw" with /ɑ/) but some people who do have /ɔ/ might still feel these words have the same vowel. Evidently you don't though.
 
tchrist
tchrist
@suməlic I have /ɔ/ in draw but not in drawer, which rhymes with floor and more for me, so /dror/ broadly speaking.
Lawyer and sawyer are interesting.
Note that I mean the drawers of one's desk, not a drawer of drawings.
 
suməlic
suməlic
In my idiolect, an analysis of "berry" and "sorry" as containing tense /er/ and /or/ is supported by a parallel smoothing of tense mid vowels before /l/ to something like [e̞ə̯ɫ] and [o̞ə̯ɫ].
 
tchrist
tchrist
For ale and ole?
 
suməlic
suməlic
yeah
 
tchrist
tchrist
So sure.
I do that too, but it takes hunting the symbols for the narrow transcription.
:)
There are of course other ways to write that.
You could use the "syllabic consonant" downtick under the dark L and skip the schwa.
 
suməlic
suməlic
4:17 AM
@tchrist Ah, it's just a guess; it's not as precise as it looks. I don't actually know to what extent the schwa-offglide exists, but I think it's there to some extent as a side effect of the velarization on the /l/. I wanted to make clear that it doesn't constitute a separate syllable.
 
tchrist
tchrist
But they don't really sound like they have two syllables of course, at least this side of the Mason–Dixon line.
I finally realized I have a schwa offglide in bath but not in trap.
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist Nah, it's not syllabic. That's why I used the breve under the schwa. It's one syllable, but I think it centers a bit at the end.
 
tchrist
tchrist
The bath thing is due to /æ/ tensing.
I’m not sure it’s completely tense, but it’s like [beəθ].
It’s certainly higher than in trap for me.
Not phonemically. It’s like Canadian raising in tight but not in tide. Allophone only.
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist The thing is, it doesn't really make a difference whether one uses /oɪ/ or /ɔɪ/ as the phonemic notation, because there isn't a contrast. It's like how MOUTH and PRICE are usually written as /aʊ/ and /aɪ/, even though for many speakers there is a small difference between the initial positions of the vowels. For me, /æʊ/ and /ɑɪ/ would work about as well as a transcription.
@tchrist Ah, I only use that allophone before nasals. What's the conditioning factor in "bath"? The voiceless fricative?
 
tchrist
tchrist
I think so.
Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩
There are a variety of pronunciations in modern English and in historical forms of the language for words spelt with the letter ⟨a⟩. Most of these go back to the low vowel (the "short A") of earlier Middle English, which later developed both long and short forms. The sound of the long vowel was altered in the Great Vowel Shift, but later a new long A (or "broad A") developed which was not subject to the shift. These processes have produced the three main pronunciations of ⟨a⟩ in present-day English: those found in the words trap, face and father. Separate developments have produced addition...
 
suməlic
suməlic
4:24 AM
@tchrist Interesting that you don't have a phonemic split. I'd think it would split like CLOTH and British BATH.
 
tchrist
tchrist
In /æ/ or in /ɑɪ/?
 
suməlic
suməlic
In /æ/. How do you pronounce "baths"? Do you used the raised allophone, and is the fricative voiced or voiceless?
 
tchrist
tchrist
It's voiced for me.
And no, it isn't raised any longer once the /z/ gets added!
Because that voices the previously unvoiced fricative before it.
> In the Mid-Atlantic dialect, including Baltimore and Philadelphia, but also in the traditional dialects of Greater New York City, New Orleans (Yat), and Cincinnati (amongst older speakers), the tense /eə/ is an entirely separate phoneme from /æ/ (in Labovian linguistic variable notation, the phonemes are represented as "aeh" and "ae" respectively), since certain minimal pairs can be found.
Interesting.
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist Interesting. I don't think I have any alternations between [æ] and [eə] in my own speech.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Notice in that table it’s conditioned by /θ/ only, not by the voiced version.
I only very recently noticed it.
I first noticed it because man and trap have such a different vowel. Are you sure you don't?
The one in man is way higher.
 
suməlic
suməlic
4:29 AM
@tchrist Yes, but I'd guessed it would spread to plurals and the like by analogy.
 
tchrist
tchrist
I’m someone who voices both instances of s in houses but not the one in house.
There’s therefore a minimal pair between houses and house’s for me.
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist I have the "nasal system" of TRAP-tensing, so I do have [eə] in man. What I meant by "no alternations" is that there aren't any cases where adding a suffix or otherwise inflecting a word changes the vowel from [æ] to [eə] or vice versa for me.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Ah.
I don't have the the Northern cities vowel shift, or else I would have it in trap as well.
I remember kids who were teased for their bagging sounding like begging though.
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist In the Minnesota area, it's common to use the tense variant before /g/ as well as before nasals.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Yes, Green Bay and Duluth both have that.
> The realization of this "tense" (as opposed to "lax") /æ/ varies from [æ̝ˑ] to [ɛə] to [eə] to [ɪə], depending on the speaker's regional accent.
Now I have to look up what MODIFIER LETTER HALF TRIANGULAR COLON is. Is that half-long?
 
suməlic
suməlic
4:37 AM
@tchrist Yeah. I'd assume the reason it's used here is to indicate that it doesn't pattern exactly like the fully long vowel phonemes (for example, even though it's "tense" it can't occur word-finally).
In terms of pure phonetics, even the non-tense allophone of /æ/ is commonly longer than, say, /ɪ/. From what I remember, this fits with a general trend that can sometimes be seen of low vowels tending to be phonetically longer than high vowels (so among the phonemically tense vowels, /iː/ is often not as long as /ɑː/). I don't know if that trend is universal, but I think it holds in general for most Germanic languages.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Pete and pot.
Or goat?
No, that's the other.
How is /ɑː/ ever tense?
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist Well, it can occur in an open syllable, so I assumed it fit into the tense vowel system. I probably shouldn't use that word though as I really don't understand the theoretical underpinning of the concept of vowel "tenseness." From the Wikipedia article, I got the sense that it was all based on intuition and phonology, and is kind of suspect as a phonetic classification. I usually just use "tense" as a synonym for "phonologically long."
 
tchrist
tchrist
Ok.
1 hour ago, by tchrist
user image
You can see why bag can sound like beg to some people as it moves towards /e/.
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist Yeah, the classification of the non-high vowels as "tense" or "lax" seems to be variable. The following site calls /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ tense: msu.edu/course/asc/232/Charts/Tense-Lax_Vowels.html But from what I recall, John Lawler agrees with the chart that you posted.
 
tchrist
tchrist
We have a bunch of lax+tense pairings, so tense /o/ versus lax /ɔ/.
At least, that's how I think of it.
The five Spanish vowels are perceived by their Portuguese neighbors as being all five "closed", unlike their own system where especially e and o also have "open" variants. In Portugal but not Brazil there is both a closed and an open a, though.
(I'm using their notation for open/closed.)
But it maps to normal open and close.
In fact, the Spanish vowels are not quite as closed as the Portuguese imagine them — they’re actually [e̞, ä, o̞].
 
suməlic
suməlic
4:53 AM
@tchrist Phonetically, that makes sense, but phonemically, /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ behave more like /i/ and /e/ than like /ɪ/ and /ɛ/. I'm most comfortable thinking in terms of length distinctions, although that doesn't make as tidy a system in American English as it does in British English.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Yes, length distinctions don't seem to make much phonemic sense in most American English dialects.
 
suməlic
suməlic
I feel like the following analysis would sort of make sense for me: æ ʌ ɛ ɪ ʊ
ɑː oː eː iː uː
aj oj
ɑr or er ir r̩
aw
 
tchrist
tchrist
So /oː/ is your GOAT vowel?
Or your gore vowel? :)
 
suməlic
suməlic
The former. In this scheme, "gore" would be /gor/. The short vowels here don't really correspond well to their "long" counterparts. Especially, /ʌ/ isn't all that similar to /oː/, although it's kind of similar.
 
tchrist
tchrist
SIGH Now I’ve just gone and discommoded a billion L2 subcontinentals.
0
A: Please, why can't I use "the below"? Seriously?

tchristIt’s because the below whatever is nearly always better written the following whatever or quite simply this whatever. It sounds foreign otherwise. I every now and then search the site for “the below” and fix them up. Besides sounding wrong of itself, it is a nearly unfailing indicator of a post...

But I'm falling over in my chair, and bed would be softer. Thanks for stopping by.
 
suməlic
suməlic
5:05 AM
@tchrist Hmm, for some reason I thought there was some earlier question about this.
 
tchrist
tchrist
There is, but he asked a meta question kinda.
19
Q: Which is correct: "the below information" or "the information below"?

Dennis WilliamsonI frequently see statements that refer to something later in the text that use a phrase such as "the below information". Is it more correct instead to say "the information below" (or "the following information")?

grammaticality word-order above-below
 
suməlic
suməlic
@tchrist Ah, I see. That makes more sense now: I remembered seeing the second question you linked.
 
tchrist
tchrist
6
Q: "the above" is correct, "the below" is not?

EwanI have often read "None of the above" at the end of multiple-choice questions (and I guess this is shorthand for "None of the above items"). Recently, in answering a help center email with my answer on top of the help center’s suggestions, I wrote "none of the below helps me". It struck me as in...

word-usage above-below
6
Q: "Above"/"below" before/after a noun

GnubieI have seen sentences similar to the following: (1) See the reference above. (2) See the reference below. And, (3) See the above reference. But not, (4) See the below reference. Are all these forms acceptable? Which is/are preferred in formal writing?

adjectives adverbs word-order above-below
Hah, I hadn't even read my revision when I answered him.
I wonder if they just don’t use demonstrative determiners beneath the Himalayas.
I’m just guessing where he's from. Haven't read the profile or anything.
It just sounds like ugly lawyerese to me.
Not something I would ever actually say.
We have one or two native speakers who do use it.
Theirs I leave be.
Mostly it's a good thing to search on to find other things that also need help.
 
 
1 hour later…
user227867
6:36 AM
Firefox freezes much lesser than Chrome on my Mint with Cinnamon.
 
user227867
9:19 AM
@Tonepoet I am feeling bored.
 
user227867
12:18 PM
@JOSH Hello, I hope you become ELU #1 soon!
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
2:25 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: Colloquial expression for a cigarette by Shankensteinium on english.stackexchange.com
 
 
1 hour later…
user227867
3:52 PM
Still getting votes for my "knowledge worker" answer, lol.
 
user227867
If only getting money were so easy, lol.
 
tchrist
tchrist
4:24 PM
“Suffer not a subtlety to live.” —The Internet
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
5:08 PM
@tchrist Maybe I.P.A. is experiencing vowel shift! =P
 
tchrist
tchrist
Loose tools are always uncomfortable.
 
user227867
If vowels shift, just shift them back.
 
terdon
terdon
@tchrist do you happen to have or know of a tool that will let me check either what fonts on my system support a given unicode glyph or, at least, check if a given font supports it?
I found Font::TTF which seems like the way to go, but just thought I'd ask in case you have something lying around already.
 
tchrist
tchrist
@terdon I have two strategies that I use, but I doubt they'll help you. One is to lock down the font in an html page and see what I get for that code point. The other is to use the Mac Font Book utility. Neither is particularly programmatic.
 
terdon
terdon
OK, thanks. I'll see if I can whip something up. But if you haven't, that would suggest it won't be a 20minute thing for me. I tried to get this simple python thing to work but failed and I hoped there was something equally simple in Perl.
 
tchrist
tchrist
5:21 PM
I don't know the font libs.
There may well be one.
The thing is, browsers have their own ideas about fonts and font substitution paths.
Me, I'm a blind man who paints by the numbers.
What exotic code point do you hope to employ?
0
Q: A person who adapts to a political regime

Irina MichatoayWhat do you call a politician who adapts to a political regime?

single-word-requests
waits for the punchline
Could the answer be . . .




. . . a politician?
Enquiring minds want to know®
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@tchrist Or an orange that looks like a human
 
terdon
terdon
@tchrist I'm trying to get ⛅ into conky and can't. I want to figure out if the issue is conky's unicode support or if I'm just not using a font that has it. So I figured I'd find a font that has it first.
 
tchrist
tchrist
@M.A.R. Not an orange, but “a shriveled tangerine, covered in golden retriever hair, filled with bile, that I wouldn’t leave alone with the woman I love”
@terdon Different operating system and browsers have varying strategies on this. Some will find it if any font has it; others will not.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@tchrist At least we know who you're voting for
 
tchrist
tchrist
@M.A.R. No, you know whom I’m not voting for. :)
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
5:34 PM
Oh, right.
Somebody make me a presidential candidate. I wanna try it.
It sounds fun.
 
tchrist
tchrist
The underlying problem is far more distressing than even its current figurehead.
And no vote will change that.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I should just call the aliens next door to eradicate these irritating hoomins.
 
tchrist
tchrist
I for one welcome our Canadian overlords.
@M.A.R. I think my ballot had like a couple dozen possible choices for president. Perhaps you were one of them.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Heh well, I definitely won't start another war.
And I have prolly paid all my taxes.
And I'm not orange.
 
tchrist
tchrist
5:49 PM
I had dinner last night with some friends and their young son. She's Persian. Looking at the son I wonder whether this isn't some sort of answer to what ails the world.
I know infinitely more half-Persians than I know half-nutjobs.
I was wrong. This says 21 choices. I thought I counted 22. boulderweekly.com/news/2016-vote-guide/Uh
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:15 PM
in Language Overflow, 9 secs ago, by M.A.R.
This is a must-watch. It's nice. Sorry for the obscene language in the title.
 
tchrist
tchrist
I'm going to have to go answer a certain question.
And do so exhaustively.
Probably two questions.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Yay
 
tchrist
tchrist
sighs
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I just answered something on Chem yesterday
It got to HNQ.
 
tchrist
tchrist
I answer stuff all the time.
I don’t always answer exhaustively.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:18 PM
I rarely answer.
I rarely post on main sites
 
tchrist
tchrist
I guess I don't know what I mean by “all the time”. It feels like it to me, but maybe not. english.stackexchange.com/users/2085/…
I have only twenty answers for October.
And today is already the twenty-third of that month.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Well, an answer everyday keeps the info rot away
 
tchrist
tchrist
I participate in closing more questions per day than I participate in answering.
Sad.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Heh, that's true for all my days
I have at least 2000 close votes on chem, and less than 50 answers.
 
tchrist
tchrist
mac(tchrist)% head src/perl/gc.c
/*
 *   'Mercy!' cried Gandalf.  'If the giving of information is to be the cure
 * of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering
 * you.  What more do you want to know?'
 *   'The names of all the stars, and of all living things, and the whole
 * history of Middle-earth and Over-heaven and of the Sundering Seas,'
 * laughed Pippin.
 *
 *     [p.599 of _The Lord of the Rings_, III/xi: "The Palantír"]
 */
@M.A.R. “At least”?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:28 PM
@tchrist Yeah. I can't count them!
 
tchrist
tchrist
hmms
I thought one could.
@M.A.R. What does this say to you‌​?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@tchrist Only 848. O.O
THAT'S UMPOSSIBLEZ
I have 2500 CV reviews.
If we take only 2000 of them to be 'close', which isn't at all unreasonable, that would result in 2k. O.O
 
tchrist
tchrist
Can you deleted votes?
Yes, you can.
So you think that 80% of your close-vote reviews are ones in which you’ve elected closure?
I can see what you mean about this being difficult to calculate.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:52 PM
@tchrist Oh, I think I can't see votes for deleted questions
I'm not 10k yet.
@tchrist Even more.
Y'know, it's usually the typical homework dump.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Oh, so no, you likely could not, unless perhaps it were your own.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
So that makes sense.
I have VTC'd a damn lot of crap.
But hey, it prolly still can't be 1200.
 
tchrist
tchrist
I have cast 1,909 votes to close on Stack Overflow.
On ELU, the count exceeds that number thrice doubled.
 
 
1 hour later…
Justyna Nogala
Justyna Nogala
8:07 PM
"I shall consider the way in which the individual in ordinary work situations presents himself and his activity to others"
What could the "activity" mean in this context?
please I need your help guys ;).
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@JustynaNogala It is unclear.
It should mean "things he is doing or has done".
So it could be those things he does as part of his job.
The context is also less than clear.
 
Justyna Nogala
Justyna Nogala
Yeah could be
could not
As a translator I have to add something to it anyway.
The thing which intrigues me a lot is why the author used singular form?
We usually talk about "activities" we do at work right?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
8:22 PM
Well, the word activity can be used as a countable noun: then you would use a plural in that sentence, as you say.
But it can also be used as an uncountable/mass noun.
Then it has a more general, abstract meaning.
And uncountable nouns are never pluralised.
The meaning of the uncountable noun in this sentence is somewhat vague i.m.o.
In fact, the whole sentence sounds stilted and vague to me.
But that's what commercialese is known for...
 
tchrist
tchrist
8:58 PM
Two bloody hours, damn it all, doing penance:
0
A: Six feet/foot five: Do "inches" affect the grammatical form of "foot"?

tchristYulia. I’d like to try to answer your questions in a way that will be useful to you. Please advise if I have misunderstood what you’ve asked, which I believe to be this: Can it ever be grammatical to say “six feet five” instead of the normal “six foot five”? Answer: Not really; if you say fee...

 
codinginsane
codinginsane
9:08 PM
Hello, i want to say that i thought something and i was angry at the time can i say "How could this happen? I thought to myself filled with anger"
or is it wrong ?
 
tchrist
tchrist
Yes, it's wrong.
You were filled with anger if you were angry, but the first would be very unusual.
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
how can i use "i thought to myself" and "filled with anger" together
 
tchrist
tchrist
I don't think you can.
Why do you want to do that?
It does not make sense to me.
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
how to describe I was angry and thought about something that made me really mad
 
tchrist
tchrist
What is this thinking to yourself bit?
So you thought about something and got angry?
That is, you got angry after thinking about something?
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
9:12 PM
Ok, let me put some context. I'm writing about booking a bus ticket but my seat was taken and it turns out they don't use seat number. "All seats were already taken! Why do they even assign seat numbers? Why do they sell more tickets than they could handle? I thought to myself filled with anger."
 
tchrist
tchrist
"Thought to myself" is odd, and probably requires some sort of quote or indirect speech.
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
 
tchrist
tchrist
"I thought to myself filled with anger" is not a grammatical sentence.
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
yeah i see. but how do i improve it to get the same meaning
 
tchrist
tchrist
Change "thought to" into "found".
Or just say you got really mad.
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
9:14 PM
I will just say that i got mad :)
 
tchrist
tchrist
Sure.
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
9:29 PM
@tchrist I think he is trying to quote his own thoughts. Such an occurrence doesn't strike me as being especially strange in first person narratives, although I wouldn't expect it in organic speech. If I'm right I would suppose the main problem is the punctuation and manner of speaking it implies.
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
@Tonepoet Exactly! i was trying to quote my own thoughts
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Tonepoet How is that one thinks to oneself filled with anger?
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
@tchrist I think the sentence is missing a while.
Perhaps "I thought to myself, while filled with anger, 'How could this happen to me?'" might work. I'm not 100% sure though.
 
codinginsane
codinginsane
this sounds much better
I found some usages to "while filled with anger" like "It's hard to maintain proper etiquette while filled with anger" and "The vast majority of demonstrations, while filled with anger, do not contain violence"
 
user227867
9:44 PM
I now have 59 votes for my two-line answer, LOL. Something strange is happening in the neighbourhood. I need to call GHOSTBUSTERS.
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
The problem with the original proposal is that it sounds almost as if you are trying to think yourself into a state of anger, which is a very unusual occurrence. While will often be used to indicate that two separate actions are occurring concurrently.
 
user227867
Today four books will arrive from the postman. I am excited. One is the AHD.
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
Oh great: Now you can compare the A.H.D. and N.O.A.D. side by side.
 
user227867
@Tonepoet I deleted my channel again, LOL. The next time I do it, I will try to reach "perfection" in each video.
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
@WillHunting This of course, will only enrage the S.W.R. haters even further than they are now. =P
 
user227867
9:49 PM
@Tonepoet If they are enraged, they need to read the four Nikayas, LOL.
 
user227867
@Tonepoet I actually hope more people will upvote my "youth" answer because I think the question is an important one. In its current form, I think it is well-balanced.
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
We'll see what happens with that.
 
user227867
@Tonepoet And my "pussy" question never got to 50 votes or 10,000 views, sad...
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
 
tchrist
tchrist
10:22 PM
> John doesn't give a damn what strangers think of him. He also doesn't give a damn what his friends or work colleagues think of him. He eats at a packed McDonalds not giving a care of the strangers around him. However if he recognizes someone from his past, university, school, he feels an intense feeling of inadequacy, shame, judgement and self-consciousness. His reason for feeling this is because these people form a benchmark to compare himself with and they will judge him causing him shame. He feel they will judge him for being single, not being wealthy and not being successful. This is …
Why would we know? Seriously???!
Damn it, we’re linguists not psychoanalists.
 
 
1 hour later…
user227867
11:27 PM
I think I will go to Hangouts more instead of coming here @Tonepoet =)
 
Tonepoet
Tonepoet
@WillHunting Whatever you like better I suppose.
 

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