ELL's Cabin

Damkerng T.

06:23

An observation: Why does 'It's probably days since ...' have only four hits on Google?

Damkerng T.

07:42

0

Q: How wrong is 'I have send'?

Yes, I know: it should be "I have sent". But honestly, working in an international company, I don't think I see this spelled correctly more than 1 time out of 10. So I started wondering: do native English speakers have the same difficulty with this tense?

Hmm...

M.A.Ramezani

08:00

@DamkerngT. This ain't a real question!

Damkerng T.

More like a complaint!

M.A.Ramezani

Hullo! Sorry I just raised my ugly head. Gotta go now. Be back in some future tense...

Damkerng T.

See you epistemically.

Damkerng T.

08:20

-1

A: Take a bus or take the bus?

Both these mean the same thing: I take a bus from work to home and I take the bus from work to home. The first very slightly emphasises the trip from work to home while the second points to the mode of travel as being the important part of the sentence. Both though could be used without any sort ...

Hmm... why the downvote?

Hello, @Doni! Welcome to the room!

Damkerng T.

09:43

English does not have a genitive case. It has possessive pronouns, which function like pronouns inflected in the genitive case. — Brian Hitchcock 42 mins ago

Hmm...

agent5566

12:25

Hi everyone

Does anyone know the film "Taxi driver" with Rober De Niro?

there is famous phrase "You talkin' to me?", so i have a question

why is there no "to be" in the phrase?

Damkerng T.

I haven't watched this one.

But "You talkin' to me?" sounds perfectly fine.

agent5566

where is auxiliary verb there?

Damkerng T.

Oh, well...

agent5566

i think it should be "Are you talking to me?", no?

Damkerng T.

In spoken English we can omit it, when speaking casually.

Like in some poems, you'll find 'Tis.

(for It is)

agent5566

12:35

hmm, i see

Damkerng T.

Sometimes we drop 'you' altogether, like "Looking for a job? Call us at ..."

agent5566

So, could i drop "Does" in my question?:

"anyone knows the film "Taxi driver" with Rober De Niro?"

Damkerng T.

Yes, but you have to say "Anyone know", not "Anyone knows ..."

Because you are supposed to drop "Does" there.

agent5566

i've got it

maybe ;)

Damkerng T.

:D

agent5566

12:46

I had experience of talking with native speaker at first time on weekend, i couldn't say almost anything :D I caught some sort of stupor

Damkerng T.

Hehe! I'm sure you will do it better next time. :-)

agent5566

I hope

@DamkerngT. thanks a lot for help

Damkerng T.

My pleasure!

Anonymous

13:13

@agent5566 Just pretend the first word is there, but isn't pronounced anymore. ~~Are~~ you talking to me? ~~Does~~ anyone know?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Whether the pronouns have a possessive form or the possessive forms are separate lexemes doesn't seem like an especially interesting question to me. Either way, you've got possessive forms.

Anonymous

Still, we can try to answer it.

Anonymous

If they aren't inflectional forms, then why can 's generally not attach to pronouns?

Anonymous

Well, it can: the girl who punched me's car, although many speakers would prefer to rephrase that.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat The question is about the 's form. So I wasn't sure why the genetive case vs. possessive pronouns was brought up.

@snailboat That would be at least awkwark! imho

BTW, good morning!

Anonymous

13:20

But what about her and my favorite movie? Why can't we use 's?

Anonymous

おはよう〜

Damkerng T.

'Cause it's the way of English pronouns, I think. :-)

Anonymous

Well, it's a difficult topic theoretically.

Anonymous

There's no easy answer

Anonymous

Most people don't really need to worry about it, I think

Damkerng T.

13:22

(There are no special forms for possessive pronouns in Thai, BTW.)

nods

Anonymous

Is there an analytic genitive marker like Japanese の?

Damkerng T.

I guess it's the same in Japanese. (watashi-no-...)

Anonymous

Yay

Damkerng T.

Yes. There is this word ของ.

Anonymous

People have proposed in the past that particles like の were actually inflectional endings for nouns, but that analysis just doesn't work

Anonymous

13:25

You can put a parenthetical before の

Damkerng T.

I think they could be very similar at the deeper level. But on the surface level, I think it's very unlikely to treat it as some kind of inflection.

Anonymous

But try putting a parenthetical before an affix like English -ly or Japanese 〜ます! It doesn't work

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I think の has to be treated as a separate word

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The question referred to the use of 's as "genitive", which I think is fine

Damkerng T.

13:30

Me too!

Anonymous

I don't think we need a comment saying there is no genitive case

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It looked a bit out of place, so I posted it here. :P

Anonymous

I'm sorry, I didn't read the question until just now :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, I haven't really read the question either! :-)

I guess I have to say sorry as well. :D

Anonymous

But regardless I disagree with the comment

Damkerng T.

13:33

(Oh, "Do the needful" question is back right at the top of the main page again!)

Anonymous

Personally, I don't think it should have been edited and reopened

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm not really good at terminologies (I hope to fix that soon), but I thought that comment is probably debatable.

Anonymous

It already had several answers

Damkerng T.

0

A: "Do the needful" -- Why is it used instead of asking a question?

It was a common saying in the times of British colonization in India. It has since become antiquated outside of India, but is still in use amongst English speaking Indians. I work for a large worldwide tech company and it is very common with our India counterparts.

Anonymous

Well, the terminology has to reflect something—an underlying theory or a pragmatic choice

Damkerng T.

13:35

This has already been stated in the other answers. — Chenmunka 1 min ago

Ahh

Anonymous

By the latter I mean that you may choose a less theoretically justified term simply to communicate better with your intended audience

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

That's a choice you can make

Man_From_India

good evening/morning guys!

Anonymous

Morning! :-)

Damkerng T.

13:39

Good morning! @Man_From_India

agent5566

Hi

Anonymous

Word of the day: hormesis

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. evening :-)

hi @agent5566

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Probably has something to do with hormones.

Anonymous

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

Damkerng T.

13:45

Ahh... The effect could be useful for snake whisperers. :-)

M.A.Ramezani

17:08

BTW I'm back...

OH NO!

M.A.Ramezani

17:39

16

Q: Is 'cat' a shell built-in or an external program?

When I use the type command to find out if cat is a shell built-in or an external program I get the output below: -$ type cat cat is hashed (/bin/cat) -$ Does this mean that cat is an external program which is /bin/cat? I got confused, because when I checked the output below for echo I got to...

bash cat echo shell-builtin

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Hehe!

M.A.Ramezani

@Dam is interested.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Is this phrase a double-negation? なにを考えているかわからない

mamasi

Hi :)

M.A.Ramezani

Is that a phrase?!

Hullo!

mamasi

17:40

How are you?

Damkerng T.

@mamasi Hi!

M.A.Ramezani

Fine, +1. You?

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani I think it could be both.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. It could be 'Hagu' too.

Damkerng T.

The fact that you have /bin/cat doesn't mean that your shell will use it.

mamasi

17:41

Thanks, I'm fine

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani True!

M.A.Ramezani

Yesterday was memorable...Having Copper here after so long...

BTW @Dane is charmed by @Copper.

Damkerng T.

Nice. :-)

M.A.Ramezani

[email protected] us a bit about yourself.

Oh, you don't have an ELL account. Your funeral.

@DamkerngT. Any interesting thingies today?

Damkerng T.

I haven't checked our main site out yet. :-)

M.A.Ramezani

17:47

Good point.

Today I'm baffled by diborane - Hydrogen chloride.

Damkerng T.

3

Q: How to distinguish 'month' and 'months' in pronunciation?

How to pronounce the two and distinguish them in pronunciation as I almost hear them the same.

american-english pronunciation british-english american-accent

M.A.Ramezani

That's easy!

Damkerng T.

That makes me want to search for month/months in sound clips around the web.

M.A.Ramezani

@Dam in some languages, /s/ sound is more widespread, like Persian.

Damkerng T.

I think there are too many ways to pronounce it. (I mean, by native speakers, in their real speech.)

M.A.Ramezani

17:49

I mean, we pronounce th and s both as /s/.

Damkerng T.

In English, too?

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. Yeah, even some don't pronounce th at all.

@DamkerngT. Nah.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

M.A.Ramezani

Let me find that IPA keyboard...

See @Dam, th in clothes is pronounced /ð/.

Damkerng T.

Yes, with a /z/ too.

M.A.Ramezani

17:55

Yep. So in months, some natives tend to avoid pronouncing /ð/.

And they just pronounce /z/.

This phenomenon is referred to as...@Snailboat ping!

Damkerng T.

That's one way to pronounce it, I think.

Anonymous

Hello!

Damkerng T.

Hello!

M.A.Ramezani

Speaking of...

Hullo!

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani Replacing /ð/ with /z/ is basically non-native

M.A.Ramezani

17:59

Really?

Then I'm a native.

Anonymous

According to A Handbook of Varieties of English, p.1124, it occurs only in some Asian varieties, presumably due to language contact (contact with non-native speakers)

M.A.Ramezani

Oh!

Then it does happen, only to Persian people.

Anonymous

Replacing /ð/ with /d/ is much more widespread, but still considered a non-standard / stigmatized pronunciation

Anonymous

At least, it's stigmatized in the US and UK

Anonymous

If I heard z when I expected ð, I'd think I was hearing a foreign accent

Anonymous

18:03

Oh, hey

Anonymous

I'm dumb! I didn't read the conversation very carefully

Anonymous

8 mins ago, by M.A.Ramezani

Yep. So in months, some natives tend to avoid pronouncing /ð/.

Anonymous

8 mins ago, by M.A.Ramezani

And they just pronounce /z/.

Anonymous

I thought you were saying native speakers avoided pronouncing ð in general.

Anonymous

Now that I've read the whole conversation, I understand better.

M.A.Ramezani

18:04

Yes, I thought that was true.

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani Yes, I think in months I do consonant cluster simplification

Anonymous

But I think I pronounce /s/, not /z/

Anonymous

I think many native speakers pronounce months without simplification, though

Anonymous

I have a lisp and it's a little harder for me

M.A.Ramezani

Ahan.

Anonymous

18:06

@DamkerngT. No, it's a clause and only contains one negator (〜ない)

Damkerng T.

I tend to pronounce the cluster "n+th" in a lazy way. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Actually, I think even I tend to pronounce it unsimplified, but I can't really tell unless I check recordings of my own speech when I'm not paying attention

Anonymous

Introspection is unreliable on this sort of thing, so I should look it up, but I'm lazy

Anonymous

> [ なにを　考えている　]-か　わからない

Damkerng T.

Ah! I read なに as ない!

Anonymous

18:08

Oh! That's understandable, but it's なに 'what'

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

This is a subordinate clause.

Anonymous

There are two indications that it's interrogative:
1. It has a wh-word, なに 'what'.
2. It has final か.

Anonymous

You probably know か as a question marker in main clauses. In subordinate clauses it's a little different―it still marks the clause as interrogative, but you can't omit it.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

18:10

So なにを考えているか is an interrogative content clause meaning 'what [you're] thinking'

Anonymous

(There's no subject, but English requires one, so I put one in the English gloss)

Anonymous

And わからない is the negative of わかる 'know/understand', so the whole thing is "I don't know what [you're] thinking"

Anonymous

No need for an explicit subject in Japanese, since you can figure it out from context :-)

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

Anonymous

Does it all make sense?

Anonymous

18:11

Feel free to ask these questions in Japanese.SE if I'm not here, by the way! I go over there, too

Anonymous

And so do other people who can answer :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It does. Many thanks!

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That would be interesting!

Damkerng T.

Yes! I think I'll do it tomorrow!

BTW, スズキクン makes me think that Japanese is downstep in general, like English.

Though it's probably just the software thing.

Anonymous

18:16

@DamkerngT. Japanese pitch accent (in the standard dialect) can be described by where downsteps occur

Anonymous

Upsteps, where they occur, are phonetic and never distinguish between words

Anonymous

That is, they don't have phonemic status, though they do occur

Anonymous

They occur more-or-less predictably once you know where the downsteps are :-)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... so down or up is probably not really important, perhaps?

Anonymous

The standard description is of the location of the accent. Which mora is accented?

Anonymous

18:19

たま↓ご = LHL = taMAgo

Anonymous

Japanese doesn't have secondary accents like English

Anonymous

Probably the biggest difference from English is that in Japanese, the duration of accented moras is basically the same as non-accented

Damkerng T.

nods -- The mora timing forces it. In English, I think we tend to stretch stressed syllables out.

Just found this comment:

@FumbleFingers I got "He's two times smaller then me" today in class. Erm, stumped me ... :) — Araucaria Dec 13 '14 at 1:15

Anonymous

Yes! F0, duration, and intensity are the three main acoustic correlates in English

Damkerng T.

He's two times smaller than me!

Anonymous

18:25

Yes, the meaning of that is unclear

Anonymous

I think native speakers do say things like "I'm twice as small" or "It's ten times smaller"

Damkerng T.

trying to visualize the scene...

Just figuratively, perhaps?

Anonymous

Figuratively?

Anonymous

I think "It's ten times smaller" means something like "It's one tenth the size"

Damkerng T.

Oh!

I thought it was like an exaggeration.

Hmm... I think you're right. It could make sense.

Anonymous

18:30

My intuition says that it's better when the number is larger.

Anonymous

"Millions of times smaller" seems okay.

Anonymous

"Twice as small" is a little iffy

Anonymous

"One half as small" is confusing

Anonymous

"One half times as small"? I guess.

Damkerng T.

My poor brain!

Jim ran half times as slow as James. Who ran faster? :P

M.A.Ramezani

18:32

Me.

I.

Whatever.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, in general you want to use the unmarked of the pair

Anonymous

I think that's actually ungrammatical, "Jim ran half times as slow as James"

Anonymous

I think I'd say "one half times"

Anonymous

Though it feels slightly odd anyway.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

18:36

google.co.jp/search?q=%22millions%20of%20times%20smaller%22

Anonymous

I feel like "millions of times smaller" is fairly clear

Damkerng T.

nods -- It's used in several books, too.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. True!

Anonymous

crystal@wings:~$ which cat
/bin/cat
crystal@wings:~$ builtin cat
bash: builtin: cat: not a shell builtin

Damkerng T.

Ah, your shell uses an external cat.

Anonymous

18:46

crystal@wings:~$ type cat
cat is /bin/cat

Anonymous

crystal@sandwich:~$ type snails
snails is hashed (/usr/bin/snails)

Anonymous

It's a program I wrote that draws snails.

Anonymous

It's an important part of my system.

Anonymous

When people log in, they get snails. :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, I was wondering which distro implemented snails. :-)

@snailboat Cute!

Anonymous

18:49

My snails are aestivating because of the heat wave!

Anonymous

Even though we had the A/C on.

Anonymous

Yesterday it got to 39°C

Damkerng T.

Hah!

That's really hot!

Anonymous

I don't really know how they tell, but they seem to be able to tell what the weather is like outside.

Anonymous

They come out when it rains outside, they hide when it's hot outside

Damkerng T.

18:49

Maybe the humidity.

Anonymous

That might be it.

Anonymous

It's been a few days, so I'm going to wake them up soon and give them some nourishment :-)

Damkerng T.

Sounds like fun. :-)

(Another possibility is your snails are espers!)

Anonymous

0

Q: Usage of ".. , and .." vs ".. and ... "

I have noticed in that in cases when listing certain things, the following convention is used a, b, c, d and e But I have also seen some cases where a comma is used before the 'and': a, b, c, d, and e Is there a specific usage case where such a convention comes to play?

grammar commas lists

Anonymous

I was actually momentarily confused because I didn't recognize what ".." was

Anonymous

18:54

(I thought maybe they were asking about punctuation!)

Damkerng T.

They ask about punctuation indeed!

Anonymous

Two dots does not an ellipsis make

Damkerng T.

Someone will mention Oxford commas soon, I think. :D

Anonymous

Well, yes, you're right!

Anonymous

They're asking about the Oxford comma, a.k.a. the serial comma.

Anonymous

18:55

My attention was drawn to the dots.

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat That's MORSE code!

Anonymous

They need one morse dot.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I've forgotten how to read morse code.

Anonymous

Not me.

Anonymous

I know exactly how to read morse code.

Anonymous

18:56

Make my computer do it for me!

Damkerng T.

Is it something like "dih-dah-dah-dih-dah"?

Anonymous

If my computer's not around though, I'm out of luck ;-)

Anonymous

All I remember is S.O.S.

Anonymous

... --- ...

M.A.Ramezani

Poor computers...No wonder they're gonna rebel in 2345.

Damkerng T.

18:57

@snailboat That's really useful!

Anonymous

Are you working through your Japanese textbook?

Anonymous

Or doing any other Japanesing? :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I try to continue reading 時をかける少女, and a few subtitles.

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

I got the first 響け！ユーフォニアム book. There's a cartoon airing right now based on it which I like

Anonymous

19:01

I love music-themed stuff :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's relatively new!

Anonymous

It's airing right now!

M.A.Ramezani

OH my!

I just posted a question in chem.SE.

Anonymous

There are four books published so far

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Yay!

@snailboat The artworks make me think of K-On!

Anonymous

19:03

@DamkerngT. It's the same company animating it

Anonymous

It's really quite different though!

M.A.Ramezani

My question has arisen lots of wind currents in The Periodic Table.

Anonymous

stirred up

Damkerng T.

4

Q: difference between "art"and "arts" as a "modifier"

I have seen both of them, but I am wondering which on is considered correct. And, if they both are correct what is the difference between them? Art Gallery Arts Gallery Thanks.

modifiers

Anonymous

arise is intransitive

Anonymous

19:05

@DamkerngT. I think if you start by looking at a list of collocations, you'll find that there is a difference

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat Oh yes.

Damkerng T.

(no native speakers posted an answer to that question)

Anonymous

But not much of one

M.A.Ramezani

I'm too excited for correct English!

Anonymous

I don't know if I'm correct, though, without looking at a list of uses

Damkerng T.

19:06

I think each country can have their own National Art(s) Gallery/Museum.

M.A.Ramezani

Wondering if Iran does...

Anonymous

Let me type up an example from Quirk et al

Anonymous

> an Arts degree ['a degree in the humanities', as opposed to an art degree 'a degree in fine art']

Anonymous

(p.1334)

Damkerng T.

Makes sense.

Anonymous

19:09

They write: "Highly institutionalized plurals are always retained, in particular when the singular form might lead to ambiguity"

Anonymous

They talk about several classes of attributive plurals

Damkerng T.

"national arts gallery" returns much fewer results on Google Books.

Anonymous

Hmm, it seems like art would be better there...

Anonymous

A national arts gallery would be a gallery of the arts, while a national art gallery would contain pieces of artwork...?

Anonymous

These distinctions are a bit too fine for me

Anonymous

19:13

But I'm trying my best :-)

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