ELL's Cabin

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12:06 AM

@snailboat Weird thing is, it seemed to be working last time I checked. And guess what I did . . . Nothing except turning mouse keys, speech recognition and on-screen keyboard on . . .

(I was trying to get used to the change)

jimsug

If anyone uses firefox and hasn't tried Vimperator yet, I highly recommend it

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well played Win8. Well played.

@jimsug what's vampirator?

jimsug

Adds keyboard bindings to most browser functions.

:tabopen google vimperator

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's useful, @Dam might be interested.

@Jim do you know of any good speech recognition software I could use? Preferably freeware.

0

Q: I will go to UK to study English for two months

I will go to UK to study English. I want to know what should I do before going to UK. I will go to UK next month. For example wards, grammar.

Wards?

jimsug

Hmm, I haven't used speech synthesising software for aages. Well, that hasn't come baked into whatever OS I was using.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12:11 AM

And what a title. What a question.

jimsug

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M At least it makes it easy to identify.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah, guess that's true for spams too.

jimsug

Get them to train Smokey on bad ELL titles :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's actually a good idea.

But it'll only happen in Daisyland. :/

jimsug

We could run a smokey instance ourselves.

Wait, how did they license it...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12:20 AM

@jimsug Say, such a bot would be very useful to have, yeah.

jimsug

But also, do we get enough volume to warrant it?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@jimsug We'll get 20 per day I'm sure.

Having someone or something to remind us would be most useful . .. And shiny.

tchrist

1:53 AM

There are only 26 questions a day. I see no reason that they aren't all edited for title, tags, tip, and licence.

Anonymous

5:38 AM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I believe I've found the upgoat you're always talking about: i.imgur.com/elW6Tl6.jpg

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hah! That's so marvelous!

Damkerng T.

6:06 AM

I wish to run into @WendiKidd in the chat soon.

I want to thank her. Okay, let me drop her a message. @WendiKidd, thanks for the comment!

It'd be nice if SE Markdown supported tables:

| Col 1 | Col 2 |
| ----- | ----- |
| Cell  | Cell  |

tchrist

6:33 AM

@DamkerngT. That won’t have pinged her. It didn't autocomplete.

Damkerng T.

Will she be notified when she's here?

tchrist

No.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

tchrist

I can ping her, though.

Damkerng T.

It's okay. I don't want to interrupt her.

tchrist

6:35 AM

Okay.

Damkerng T.

Thanks for the tip! I've been using chat for almost two years, yet there are still many more things to learn. :-)

tchrist

If I ping her, she gets the ping even if she hasn't been here for a while -- which is the current case.

Damkerng T.

(Another example is, I still don't know how to paste Google Ngram search that has * in it in the chat room.)

tchrist

"That has * in it"?

Damkerng T.

Yes, like when I search for a preposition: provide * them

tchrist

6:38 AM

OH.

There might be a way; I forget. I would use COCA for stuff like that I think.

Damkerng T.

books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=provided+*+them&year_start=1800&ye‌ar_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t2%3B%2Cprovided%20*%20them%3‌B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bprovided%20for%20them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20with%20them%3B%‌2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20by%20them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20to%20them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bpro‌vided%20against%20them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20in%20them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20‌between%20them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20among%20them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20of%20‌them%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bprovided%20tor%20them%3B%2Cc0

See, it's broken.

tchrist

Oh.

Use Google's URL shortener.

Damkerng T.

Yes, I have to use googl (I think) as a workaround every time.

Oh, it's goo.gl.

@tchrist If she hasn't been here for a while, I think pinging her won't interrupt her in the middle of something. Could you ping her for me, then, please? Just mentioning to her that I want to thank her would be great.

tchrist

@DamkerngT. Hey @WendiKidd some of your adoring community members want to say nice things to you.

That got her. :)

Damkerng T.

A-ha! Thanks!

tchrist

6:44 AM

No problem. I don't get to superping very much. :)

Damkerng T.

I thought you'd have had to do it in a mod room or something. :D

tchrist

No, I can summon her anywhere.

There are uses for superpinging from a mod room, but this isn't one of them.

Damkerng T.

nods

tchrist

0

Q: What does "Bird-cry" stand for?

What does "bird-cry" mean? Does it mean "rain" when it comes with "sunshine", "wind", and "plants"?

phrases

Poor lost soul.

I have no idea what they want.

Damkerng T.

I wonder why they think "bird-cry" means "rain".

tchrist

6:53 AM

Perhaps I’ve found his answer:

0

A: 'Give you notice' vs 'Give you a notice'

Discusses the Unique feathers of antarctic penguins that work similarity To a waterproof diving suit.

Damkerng T.

Is it a song? (and the music video makes them think so)

tchrist

I have no idea, trust me.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

tchrist

Now if I could only move the answer to the question, maybe they'd both go away happy and leave the rest of us forever puzzled.

Damkerng T.

LOL

tchrist

7:12 AM

> "Employees have required a registration fee.": A group of employees (assuming an employee union or the like) has passed this registration fee requirement.

Does that sound right to you?

I would say the employee union has, but i would say that a group of employees have.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist Marginal, I think.

tchrist

Perhaps too much English. I oon't know.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think its meaning is weird.

I didn't think much at first glance.

tchrist

I think the parens with x or y in the singular distracted the poster.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... this is interesting. I found this sentence and this phrase in Macmillan Dictionary:

> A group of her friends was waiting for her inside.

> a group of words that make up a phrase

tchrist

7:21 AM

This might be a UK/US predisposition.

And I'm just contaminated.

I think I would usually say that the whole group of them are waiting for you.

But if I were thinking of them like a ball team or something, I could use is.

Damkerng T.

Agreements can be very tricky at times.

I'm sure I do it the wrong way often enough. :D

tchrist

I'm not sure there is a wrong way.

I think they both work, and express slightly different things.

Damkerng T.

I meant in some other simpler cases:

tchrist

The kitties have come to take me to bed.

Damkerng T.

(cont.) Personally, it seems to me that modal verbs keep evolving, and shall (and perhaps will, too) are a bit special in this respect, because their meanings seem to depend on whether the grammatical subject is the first person or not. A good (but controversial) example for showing the distinction is I shall drown; no one will save me! (as in I'm going to drown) vs. I will drown; no one shall save me! (as in I want to drown). (I found it on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shall_and_will.) — Damkerng T. yesterday

@tchrist Good night!

tchrist

7:26 AM

Night!

Damkerng T.

Hope to see you in the title editing room tomorrow.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:43 AM

@snailboat That looks cool!

user116848

9:50 AM

Hello.

user116848

How are we all today?

jimsug

Good, good.

0

A: Congratulations! English Language Learners is graduating!

Not sure exactly when it happened, but the beta label is gone. Hurrah!

user116848

Hi @jimsug.

user116848

@jimsug Yay!

user116848

+1

user116848

10:01 AM

So upvotes on the site's meta doesn't increase the overall votes on the main site I'm guessing, right?

jimsug

It doesn't affect main at all, no.

You don't gain reputation from meta, nor does it count towards vote counts, badges, etc, on main.

user116848

I see.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@jimsug Hurrah is actually Persian. O.o

jimsug

Oh, interesting.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Or maybe it's a loan word. I dunno.

Damkerng T.

10:29 AM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M etymonline.com/index.php?term=hurrah agrees with you!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

Damkerng T.

11:34 AM

It's only 14 more votes, everyone!

2 days ago, by inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Stoney's not much away from 100k.

jimsug

not that we're encouraging serial voting.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@jimsug But I want a free dinner!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12:41 PM

How TCE will happen:
1. I give you a search link.
2. You give me a number. If you give me 20, that means you're going to take care of 20 titles. Out of those 20, there may be 10 bad titles, 5 good titles and 5 great titles. (The number doesn't mean you have to edit 20 titles. Just that you have to check 20 questions)
3. If you had any questions about how to rephrase a question title, or whether if it needs rephrasing, you can bring them up here.

Rules and Recommendations: (Ask me why if you object)
1. Don't edit closed questions.
2. Edit not only the title, but the tags and preferably some stuff in the question.
3. Take a look at the title FAQ if you were ever curious about how to formulate a good title.

The first buzzword we need to deal with is "correct". Please sort by newest for consistency.

Note that this should all be fun. If it isn't fun for you, don't participate.

TCE notes and tips

2

user116848

1:05 PM

I see Copperkettle on the main site.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

1:41 PM

I brought some ice cream!

user116848

How is it?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Not sure. Am waiting for TCE.

user116848

I'm a sucker for chocolate flavor.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Almost everyone is.

jimsug

Hmm, I should probably get a snack.

Jude Niroshan

1:47 PM

Greetings everyone !

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

\o

user116848

Hi!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@jimsug You definitely should.

So should @Dam.

Jude Niroshan

pilled up all work because of unplanned schedules of our lecturers. I'm fed up with this now

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

:\

Damkerng T.

1:48 PM

I ran out of snacks.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. TCE's in one hour!

Damkerng T.

10-4!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Huh?

Damkerng T.

(roughly) I got you.

14

Q: What does “10-4 ” mean?

I could have asked this question personally to my respected colleague who gave me a valuable answer to the question, “Is the ‘tame the infinite becoming an idiom or a popular phrase,” which I posted yesterday, but I thought this deserves an independent question. He, the answerer gave me the comm...

meaning meaning-in-context jargon

Oh, a nice list of ten codes.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

By the way,please,don't block me from asking questions.i have no any teacher who could teach me english.. This english website is only one stuff i could rely on..just let me know if i make some unacceptable mistakes.and i will behave myself sincerely. — 오준수 40 mins ago

user116848

1:53 PM

Hmm.

user116848

Who is blocking them?

user116848

Wow, nima has three gold badges. Never noticed that.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Arrowfar It's SE's auto message because their Qs haven't got many votes.

-6

Q: What should I do when I see a "question ban warning"?

When I ask question, It says following: Wait! Some of your past questions have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from asking any more. For help formulating a clear, useful question, see: How do I ask a good question? Also, edit your previous questions...

support asking-questions post-ban

jimsug

@Arrowfar Three Famous Questions

user116848

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I see. And the SE message is visible to the OP only?

user116848

1:58 PM

@jimsug Yeah.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Arrowfar Yes.

user116848

But how did you figure that out? :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm a meta guy FWIW. ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

2:47 PM

We officially unofficially started TCE. If you wanna join, ping me.

Hullo @Fanta!

Fantasier

wutwutwut

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

tuwtuwtuw

Damkerng T.

4:52 PM

@Catija The Title clean-up room needs you! (If you're free to help, of course. ;-) chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/28833/…

Catija

@DamkerngT. Sorry, I'm just on my computer for a minute. I have to make breakfast.

Damkerng T.

That's okay! Have a good time making breakfast! :-)

Jude Niroshan

@bukashka101 Sri Lanka

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@bukashka101 You should totally meet Copper when he comes to chat. He's from Yekaterinburg.

Damkerng T.

0

Q: how the two mean considering the time? as early as and at least

Haviing taken into account the former pairs, would you please show me how to correct the later pairs? There was as little as people in the party There was at least people in the party. He wakes up as early as 6 He wakes up at least 6.

adverbs

What examples!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

5:06 PM

0

Q: Which of these statements is correct?

A friend and I were discussing a past event and she said: "I don't know when you left yesterday" but I thought she ought to say: "I don't know when you leave yesterday" Please tell me which one is correct?

questions

@Dam can you VTD this?

Damkerng T.

I can't. "Post is locked."

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Why? @Maulik can you check this with J.R. and Wendi?

Damkerng T.

I think that happens when a migrated question is rejected.

jimsug

Correct, the Community user silently locks it.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. But it makes no sense to have that question around.

jimsug

5:09 PM

ell.stackexchange.com/posts/59942/timeline

Damkerng T.

I think that's why we have to be careful to open migration paths between stacks.

jimsug

Just get them to ask a new question, easy.

StoneyB

5:26 PM

@jimsug, @DamkerngT., @inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M, @Cat: There's a question that's been closed as 'proofreading', ell.stackexchange.com/q/67854/32 -- made a tiny edit which shows exactly where the problem lies, and his answer shows that it's actually an important issue. I urge y'all to reopen this.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Not sure, but okay, if you say so.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think the real problem lies much deeper than that, but I'll vote to reopen.

Hi, @DamkerngT.!

Hullo @Copper!

Hi!

5:30 PM

@DamkerngT. The real problem is that Nima should get a copy of Harry Potter and read, read, read (0: Instead of nitpicking at SE

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Hi, Muhammad!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@CopperKettle Have you read about TCE?

CopperKettle

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Totally Cool Enterntainment?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@CopperKettle Tablet Cavalier Entrance.

CopperKettle

No, I'm afraid not (0:

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12

Q: How can I write a better title for my ELL question?

I have an ELL question; but the Stack Exchange format obliges me to write a title not shorter than 15 characters and not longer than 150 characters. So, how do I write a good title? Link to the main answer and Link to the TL;DR version for your ease of use.

discussion featured questions title faq-proposed

TL;DR: We started burning out bad titles.

CopperKettle

5:32 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Good thing!

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle IMHO, it's about the method he chooses to learn the language.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Precisely.

Jude Niroshan

9gag.com/gag/aGRBdrz?ref=tp

StoneyB

@CopperKettle 99.5% true; but rewriting's good, too. It makes you appropriate the language in a way that even the most rigorous course of reading doesn't.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

So @Copper take a look at these two:

3

Q: Title Cleanup Event (TCE) - An invitation

Q: How should we fix the problem of bad question titles on ELL? A: Basically, my approach consists of three major stages: Make a meta post and teach people how to write good titles. (Done) Edit bad titles and make them better. Ban some keywords in titles, or give a warning message to users tha...

discussion title

Title clean-up (Phase 4: Time for Tit…

Welcome! This is a room intended for conversations solely for ...

CopperKettle

5:34 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Nice!

Damkerng T.

BTW, I think I disagree with this part:

> With your revision, the idiom "no less than" is broken, and this makes the sentence ungrammatical.

Because "less than" is an idiom, too.

CopperKettle

I really should be translating now.. I unlocked SE from StayFocusd to get answers regarding a piece I was training upon, and got digressed.

@DamkerngT. A nice point!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@CopperKettle So no help in TCE? ;/

CopperKettle

nope (0:

unless someone translates stuff into Russian for me (0:

@DamkerngT. Yes, I should revise my answer!

thank you!

bye, Muhammad, Damkerng, Stoney!

Damkerng T.

Welcome! I haven't read your answer thoroughly, but I got stuck with that point, so...

Good night!

Have fun at work!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

5:39 PM

Night Copper!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

6:00 PM

Please congratulate our great answerer - @StoneyB - for reaching 100,000 rep milestone!

6

Damkerng T.

Oh, congratulations!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

If the system doesn't detect my voting as serial voting.

But since you're a nice guy, you'll upvote him too.

Anonymous

8:37 PM

@CopperKettle Oh no!

Anonymous

@StoneyB I believe that's what Damkerng does! :-)

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Thanks, guys ... I owe y'all an internet dinner. ... Sorry to take so long responding - I was on my weekly 3 hour phone call with my wife!

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I'm not sure about the giving you a number part. I'm more comfortable with just editing a bunch until my brain feels frazzled.

user116848

@StoneyB Congrats!

Anonymous

I didn't count, either.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:40 PM

@snailboat Well, you had to have the rest of the cake. All of us said something like "throw me 50".

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Ice cream and cake!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Nom nom nom

user116848

I missed the chat event I guess.

user116848

I have an English question. What is right "An N" or "A N"?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Arrowfar An N.

user116848

8:46 PM

okay, yeah it seems that way.

user116848

I was going for the latter.

user116848

I found this, it seems very useful:

user116848

> An a
A b
A c
An e
A d
An f
A g
An h
An I
A j
A k
An l
An M
An n
An o
A p
A q
An r
An S
A t
A u
A v
A w
An x
A y
A z

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It just depends on how you pronounce them, no black magic.

user116848

In real life I mix them up all the time.

user116848

8:56 PM

No one notices it though. Still I like to correct myself.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well natives even get it wrong sometimes.

user116848

Yeah.

user116848

Last year when I was giving interviews I asked this question just to be on the safe side heh:

user116848

2

Q: the and thee (I prefer to pronounce it as thuh all the time)

My question is can I always pronounce THE with thuh instead of thee? Because unlike "a" "an" rule, pronouncing "thee" seems cumbersome for some people (including me) Note that I know the "emphasis" and "vowel, consonant" rule about THE but I still prefer to pronounce it as thuh everytime. So can ...

pronunciation definite-article non-native-english sandhi

user116848

But since no one notices it in real life I am automatically going back to my old ways :-)

Anonymous

9:20 PM

10

A: Should individual letters be preceded with "an"?

Robert Cartaino and kiamlaluno have answered your question, but since there are only twenty-six letters, I thought I'd try to illustrate the point by typing up a pair of lists. The following letters begin with vowel sounds: an A an E an F an H an I an L an M an N an O an R ...

user116848

Never saw that question before. It is from 2013, nice.

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Native speakers (I wouldn't say "natives") sometimes mispronounce things, and sometimes they don't plan far enough ahead or change their train-of-thought midstream, so they end up saying something that doesn't match the correct allophone of a(n). But they're basically guaranteed to know what the "right answer" is.

Anonymous

On the other hand, if you do end up saying a and need to say a word beginning with a vowel, one strategy to avoid hiatus is to insert a glottal stop.

Anonymous

Another strategy is to backtrack and say the article again, but this time an.

Anonymous

The situation is different with the, where native speakers are more likely not to use the allophones laid out in textbooks.

Anonymous

9:27 PM

With a(n), there's very little variation.

Anonymous

Well, aside from variation before ‹h›.

Anonymous

The situation with ‹h› is complicated, and I can't describe it accurately off the top of my head.

Anonymous

I'm writing ‹h› in angle brackets to indicate that I'm talking about words that begin with the letter, not the sound /h/.

Anonymous

When I write /h/ it indicates the phoneme.

Anonymous

There are people who say an before certain words that begin with /h/ today.

Anonymous

9:33 PM

What we would expect is simply following the same rule, a before words that begin with /h/, but an if you don't pronounce the /h/ (and therefore begin the word with a vowel sound). But there are people who use an even if they do pronounce the /h/.

Anonymous

The interesting thing is, it's more common for some words than others.

Anonymous

Although I never do it myself, I've heard enough people say an historic with a pronounced /h/ that it doesn't really sound strange to my ears. But an herbivore with a pronounced /h/ sounds quite odd!

Anonymous

Anyway, I can't really explain it, but people have written about it on a number of occasions, so I think I can find some references if people want them.

Anonymous

If I recall correctly, starting with Jespersen!

user116848

9:58 PM

If you can find them easily then of course, why not?

Anonymous

Yes, let's see. The Jespersen reference is A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles: Syntax (vol.4), page 407.

Anonymous

I think there must be good resources online.

Anonymous

I think I remember seeing them before.

Anonymous

Ah, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage again turns out to be a good resource!

Anonymous

An answer by Barrie England:

Anonymous

10:06 PM

3

A: Why we say "an historical" but "a history"

Here are the final words of the relevant article in ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’: Nowadays the silent h persists only in a handful of French loanwords (heir, honest, honour, hour and their derivatives), and these need to be preceded by an. The h of other loanwords like heroic, h...

Anonymous

Barrie England always wrote such nice, concise answers.

tchrist

10:51 PM

Does ELL have a no-downvote policy?

It seems like it.

Anonymous

11:04 PM

I have about a thousand downvotes.

Anonymous

I have a very high total number of votes, though. Many other users downvote more often, proportionately.

Anonymous

But I think downvotes are necessary. And ELL has a lot of content which is just, well, wrong.

Anonymous

When I have the time and energy, and when it seems like it's more constructive, I try to find other ways to address it. Editing, comments, and so on.

Anonymous

If I really voted the way I thought, though, I'd have a lot more downvotes than I do.

Anonymous

This is just my subjective impression, but I think 2014 brought us more low quality answers than 2013.

Anonymous

11:13 PM

I didn't downvote as much in 2013.

Anonymous

In 2015, I haven't been participating as much. I still vote, but not as much overall. Right now, I'm on the periphery of the community.

Anonymous

And I haven't been reading every post, so I'm not really sure whether the quality has gone up or down. I do think we've had some valuable contributors in all of 2013, 2014, and 2015, though often these were different people in each year.

Anonymous

Maybe there are fewer downvotes because I'm not voting as much.

Title clean-up (Phase 4: Time for Tit…

Transcript for