ELL's Cabin

Anonymous

00:22

ell.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/25558

Anonymous

Any thoughts on this edit?

Damkerng T.

Good. I think.

Hmm... CopperKettle inserted conditional-constructions.

Catija

@snailboat I don't know grammar.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. There's would, after all

Maybe I was wrong

Anonymous

> 1. It would be nice [to see you before I left].
> 2. It would be nice [if I saw you before I left].

jimsug

00:29

[1] is ungrammatical IMO

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle This should be easily solved by looking up its definition somewhere.

Anonymous

@jimsug What? Really?

Damkerng T.

Maybe CGEL defines it somewhere in the book.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Not at 5:00 AM.. (0:

jimsug

@snailboat I think so. Wait. Not. Wait. Maybe. Umm. Seems less natural.

Damkerng T.

00:30

@CopperKettle I see. :D

jimsug

Maybe questionable at least. Dammit.

I personally prefer leave

Anonymous

I'll quote David Crystal's Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics

Damkerng T.

@jimsug What if it's in a narrative past?

Catija

Leave leave leave leave.... Get that left out of here.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. I don't know grammar terms.

Anonymous

00:32

> conditional (adj./n.) (cond) A term used in grammatical description to refer to clauses whose semantic role is the expression of hypotheses or conditions. In English, these are introduced by if, unless, and a few other conjunctions (e.g. if John asks, tell him…).

2

jimsug

Well, not the ones that most people know ;)

Anonymous

> The traditional grammatical notion of 'conditional tense' (using would, should) is usually interpreted in terms of aspectual or modal verb form analyses of English, although this is morphologically expressed in many languages (e.g. French). Sometimes the term is used to refer to the entire two-part construction, consisting of protasis and apodosis (see apodosis). See also material conditional.

jimsug

Not unless you're of the Halliday school of linguistics.

Damkerng T.

@jimsug Let's say in a novel, where all sentences are written in the past tense.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. Is this reported speech or quoted speech?

Anonymous

00:33

I think both left and leave are on equal footing.

Damkerng T.

@jimsug I was thinking about a narrative.

Anonymous

@jimsug IIRC Damkerng just got Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar :-)

jimsug

@dam that's a fun book, if you have it.

Damkerng T.

LOL -- Still haven't read it as much as I want to.

jimsug

It's to SFL is to formal linguistics as Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz

;)

Damkerng T.

00:35

:D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It looks like you have someone else you can ask for help while you read it, now :-)

Anonymous

I mean, if you need it.

Damkerng T.

nods :D

@snailboat Hmm... judging from the definition, It'd be nice ..., I'd like to ..., I wish ..., I hope ... and such are all conditionals.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, I hope it's clear that people have defined conditional in a bunch of different ways.

Anonymous

If this is an academic question, I (as a physicist) have nothing worthwhile to contribute. If, however, you are asking to decide what pronunciation you, yourself, should use, you will not err if you pronounce all the consonants in this phrase. Many people enunciate clearly -- even on the East Coast -- and those who do may, possibly, be the people you would like to think "What an intelligent, well spoken young man!" when they meet you. (If this sounds patronizing, I did not mean it that way.) — ab2 Jul 18 at 17:25

Anonymous

00:38

"Many people enunciate clearly ― even on the East Coast" ← poor East Coast :-)

jimsug

GloWbE doesn't like the long search string, I think.

I'm trying to get data on would be nice to [v*] [p*] before [p*] [leave]

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Aight!

I found a few on Google Books a while ago. -- looking...

> books.google.com/books?id=LC6pEdUcqVcC&pg=PA73

> It would be rather nice to hear from home before we went off.

> books.google.com/books?id=YA7gLtcwMMcC&pg=PA349

> ..., that it would be nice to have Donovan's views before he finally decided on one.

jimsug

Is that reported or quoted speech, though?

Because that matters.

Damkerng T.

Both aren't in reported speech, afaict.

> books.google.com/books?id=mCJ0lnw6tS0C&pg=PT17

jimsug

interesting.

Damkerng T.

00:45

> We decided it would be a nice surprise to have it all done before Daddy came home from work.

Oh, sorry. A different pattern.

But not a very different one.

jimsug

See, I think I would tend to say It would be nice to sth before I leave

Damkerng T.

Me too.

I doubt if I will be able to find one with left in quoted speech.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. This is reported speech.

Damkerng T.

nods

jimsug

Even though it's not technically speech, it is syntactically similar/identical.

My linguistics is rusty, but a projected thought differs from projected speech only in the verbs that it takes. It's a projection either way.

Catija

00:47

I'll read the answer when you guys decide what it is... but if the answer isn't "leave", I'm not voting for it.

Damkerng T.

@jimsug But wouldn't it be similar in the narrative past? (I mean those narrative written in the past tenses.)

jimsug

@Catija I want to say leave, because I speak English. Deal with it. But also corpus data is fun.

@DamkerngT. It doesn't really matter if it's written in the past if it's quoted speech.

Anonymous

@Catija Haha, good to know :-)

Anonymous

Someone could turn that into a spin-off question focusing on leave versus left.

jimsug

> He said, "I would want to eat it before I go."

> He said that he would want to eat it before he went.

Damkerng T.

00:49

@jimsug Yes. I meant that the unquoted story-telling is quite similar to reported speech.

Anonymous

Me, I just sorta put words together until they sound okay, and it sounds okay to me either way…

jimsug

@DamkerngT. Right. ~~It is reported speech.~~ Wait not really.

Damkerng T.

> He was sitting there in the room. I looked at him. I knew what he was thinking. He would want to eat it before he went.

jimsug

Yeah, but reported speech/thought involves the attribution of an idea to another person

Damkerng T.

nods

jimsug

00:51

You can't turn He was sitting there in the room into quoted speech, because it's not speech.

Whereas you can turn He said that he would want to eat it before he went into the other thing. Quoted speech.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... actually, I think we can turn a narrative past into a narrative present.

jimsug

Sure. But that's not the same as turning it into quoted speech.

Damkerng T.

nods

jimsug

He says that he would want to eat it before he goes/went.

Hmm. Interesting. I could use either there. I still prefer goes though.

Damkerng T.

In the present tense/narration, I think would acts differently.

jimsug

00:55

Narration does not have special syntax.

It might have special style and that might affect the choice of words, but it isn't different, syntactically.

Damkerng T.

I mean would in these two sentences seems to act differently to me.

> 3a. He would want to eat it before he goes.

> 3b. He would want to eat it before he went.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I just mean there's no way to differentiate present narration from other present tense language, syntactically. Can you?

Damkerng T.

No I can't. But it's good to remind learners that in normal speech, we do pretty much the same thing as in the narrative present, though not precisely the same.

jimsug

Is it, though? Are there hard and fast rules about what you do and don't do in narration vs normal language? I would argue not in any way meaningful to a language learner.

i.e. from their point of view, how would they know the difference between someone telling a story that was written, and someone telling a story?

Damkerng T.

I have no hard and fast rules. The most obvious one I can observe is the use of the progressive aspect.

In normal life, I wouldn't say, "She walks to him."

jimsug

01:00

Not for a once-off event, no.

> How does she get to him at his office? She walks to him.

Damkerng T.

nods -- (The use of the progressive aspect is not directly related to the would question, but that's one difference between real speech and story telling I can tell.)

Anonymous

There are a bunch of interesting grammatical subtleties that appear in storytelling, like free indirect speech

Damkerng T.

In story telling, "She walks to him" (for "She is walking to him") is fine.

Anonymous

"How do you cook potatoes?" "First, I take a potato and stab it to death with a fork. Then I remember I was supposed to wash it, and I throw it in the oven until I decide it's probably burnt. I open the oven door and stab it with a bamboo skewer just to make sure it's dead, then I feast upon its innards."

Anonymous

I think this is slightly different from storytelling.

Damkerng T.

01:06

nods -- a demonstration/instruction?

I think it's a kind of narration.

Anonymous

But, for example, free indirect speech (with a sudden, unmarked shift of deictic center) would be rather unexpected.

Anonymous

As would tight third narration ;-)

Damkerng T.

looking it up!...

"tight third-person POV narration"?

Anonymous

"That's right," snailboat said. Just when had Damkerng gotten so good at looking things up?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It happens intermittently. He thought to himself, unquoted.

Yay!

Anonymous

01:22

That's not actually how I make potatoes, but it's not so far off.

Anonymous

I just ate potatoes!

Anonymous

They were tasty.

Damkerng T.

Aww... I just had sukiyaki! (Thai style, though)

Anonymous

Oh, tasty!

Anonymous

I'm not consuming a lot of sugar, at the moment.

Anonymous

01:23

Well, not refined sugar.

Anonymous

I love sukiyaki sauce, though.

Damkerng T.

Maybe-- yep, in the sauce. A little, probably.

Anonymous

I don't know what Thai sukiyaki is like.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, I just call it sukiyaki. :P

Anonymous

Well, there's nothing wrong with some sugar in moderation. :-)

Anonymous

01:24

Thai suki

Thai suki, known simply as suki (Thai: สุกี้, pronounced [sū.kîː]) in Thailand, is a Thai variant of hot pot, a communal dish where diners dip meat, seafood, noodles, dumplings and vegetables into a pot of broth cooking at the table and dip it into a spicy "sukiyaki sauce" before eating. Despite the name, the dish only barely resembles Japanese sukiyaki, having more in common with shabu shabu and Chinese hot pot. Thai sukiyaki evolved from Chinese hot pot served in restaurants catering to members of Thailand's sizeable ethnic Chinese clientele, in which an aluminum pot was heated on a charcoal...

Anonymous

I got some fructose from bananas today! I ate two of them.

Damkerng T.

Some cooked sliced pork, some cooked vegetables, with the sauce.

jimsug

@snailboat What if the question was "how did you cook these potatoes?"

Damkerng T.

Oh, that chain. Salty!

Anonymous

Between the potatoes and bananas, I'm certain to have gotten a bunch of potassium.

jimsug

01:25

@DamkerngT. It's a different, instructive genre of language.

Damkerng T.

nods

Somehow that kind of language seems to blend in with recent novels pretty well.

(I don't know why, but I think more and more people just write their novels in the present tense!)

Anonymous

"How did you cook these potatoes?" "First, I took a couple potatoes, rinsed them with water and stabbed them to death with a fork. Then I saw them giving me the stink eye, so I took a knife and cut those eyes out. Hah! Serves them right. Next, I opened the oven door and tossed what was left of the potatoes in the oven. I came back an hour later, opened the oven door, and stabbed them with a bamboo skewer just to make sure they were dead."

Damkerng T.

@snailboat A more true to the truth version? :-)

Anonymous

Now I guess it's more like a story. It's still pretty cruddy in terms of educational value :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's in past tenses.

Anonymous

01:28

@DamkerngT. I should probably mention turning the oven to 350°F at some point.

Damkerng T.

I like the way you make it sound like the potatoes got killed in the process. :P

jimsug

@snailboat And it becomes even more like a story if the question is "@DamkerngT., how did snailboat cook these potatoes?"

Anonymous

Well, they're certainly less likely to grow into new potato plants than they were two hours ago.

Anonymous

Pretty sure they were still alive when I started stabbing them.

Anonymous

But it takes more than that to put a potato down.

jimsug

01:30

@snailboat Stab them in the eyes, that's the trick ;)

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Anonymous

I'm currently dissolving the potatoes' guts in hydrochloric acid, although there are plenty of other enzymes in there to tear them apart at a molecular level.

Anonymous

When I'm through, the potatoes won't even be recognizable.

Damkerng T.

The next blockbuster: Zomtatoes!!

(with two !)

> Six days in to what should be a greatest two months of my life, and
it’s turned in to a nightmare.
I don’t even know who’ll read this. I guess someone will find it
eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now.

> --The Martian

(Never mind the typos. They were fixed in the Kindle edition.)

(Talking about Kindle, I wish I could copy text from Kindle books.)

Anonymous

I know the editor changed a to the, but I still find it really interesting that he wrote "a greatest two months of my life" in that draft.

Jim Reynolds

03:05

Yells: @snailboat !!!!!!!!

Anonymous

03:21

Snaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii oops, ran out of oxygen...

Jim Reynolds

:-)

You yanked your comments out from under my feet here: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/62739/…

I'm like all, "as snailboat said, blah, blah, blah." And "I agree with snailboat here, where she says etc., etc., etc."

Then --poof!-

Anonymous

Oh, well... Sometimes snails move faster than expected

Jim Reynolds

Do you think that one is a duplicate of this?

And then, and THEN, here: Don't we have an answer by you, in a comment box? ell.stackexchange.com/questions/24200/…

Was that before you adopted your position, or after you gave it up and decided to, er, slither with the flow?

glide?

Anonymous

03:39

Hey, I've been a member of Team Comment for a while.

Anonymous

Ever since I went back and deleted my meta posts :-)

Anonymous

Occasionally it occurs to me to argue against comment answers, but I usually give up pretty fast and go back to Team Comment.

Anonymous

I don't really like the feeling of pushing against the status quo. It feels like conflict, I feel grumpy, and it makes me want to just shrug and do what other people do instead :-)

Anonymous

More helping people, less grumping, y'know?

Jim Reynolds

Yes, I understand. I wasn't complaining or challenging, just asking. Yesterday, I was ready to fight for what's right and fantasized about re-igniting the don't-answer-in-comments revolution.

Catija

04:02

I don't like answering in comments but a lot of people seem happy with answers that don't have explanations...

1

Q: Plurality of a collection

Take the sentence: Update the titles of each document Should title(s) be plural? I am unsure because there are multiple titles since we have a collection of documents but only referring to a single one at a time.

singular-vs-plural

This one could have been answered an hour ago if I didn't feel guilty about just saying "no" Title should be singular.

jimsug

@khan yes, although it is technically correct, the usage patterns tell a different story: GloWbE CoCA searches show that storied/storeyed is far, far less often used than story - and storeyed does not appear in AmE at all. While your answer is technically correct, it's likely to get unwanted attention because it's not commonly-used. — jimsug 1 min ago

I reject this answer and will substitute mine... maybe.

Anonymous

a two-storied building does seem unfamiliar to my AmE ear

Anonymous

Marginal at best...?

Catija

04:19

I have to go to bed but I'm completely and utterly confused by this:

0

A: How to say "teatime" in American oral English?

As far as I know (as an American who lived, very briefly in England), there is no word in the US for the British concept of "tea", "teatime" or "afternoon tea". In fact, the Wikipedia Article on it pretty clearly points out that it's a UK & Ireland concept: Tea refers to several different m...

(the comments on the answer)

jimsug

@snailboat Yup. The stats support your unease.

Catija

Am I really being rude? I'm making a joke and this guy is acting like a troll.

Jim Reynolds

A two-storied building sounds fine to me.

jimsug

@JimReynolds That's the problem though. Without research, evidence and data, every answer is going to be "it sounds fine to me/it sounds wrong. say this (instead)"

Jim Reynolds

I didn't answer. I shared a comment with you in here.

Anonymous

04:33

@Catija Nice answer :-)

Jim Reynolds

@Cat. Not rude, and most of us get your intent. But I'd say that it appears the person took offense in good faith and, in a way, who can say he's wrong? There's no objective standard.

We probably wouldn't call a poor African country uncivilized. What if we were one of its citizens? There's intent, interpretation, context. Complicated.

@jimsug Khan never said that it was common. In fact, he mentioned it last, introduced it with "moreover", and then said in comments that it may be rare but here are some dictionary references. I don't see how your findings tell a different story.

Anonymous

Well, a learner might read the answer and start saying storeyed

Jim Reynolds

A three-storied/storeyed building?

What if a learner did learn that?

Anonymous

It's questionable whether it's useful to teach it as a "correct" alternative, even if the answer hadn't actually said anything incorrect

Anonymous

I don't think anything in the answer is wrong

jimsug

04:48

@JimReynolds It's not clear that when he says "you don't hear" he means "it's rare"; he cites the dictionary as though it is gospel, which it isn't; moreover just means besides, so it's not like he's saying "but this is more correct"

Anonymous

I think I meant to type hasn't, but my fingers and phone weren't willing to cooperate with one another, so we got hadn't instead

jimsug

"it's not wrong because it's in the dictionary" is omitting the crucial information that "it's used about 10x less than story/storey"

Jim Reynolds

Well, we can find LOTS of words that are used 10x less than an alternative.

You would forbid them from being mentioned?

jimsug's rule!

jimsug

I suggest you stop putting words in my mouth, it's quite rude.

Jim Reynolds

Where did I?

jimsug

04:52

1 min ago, by Jim Reynolds

You would forbid them from being mentioned?

Jim Reynolds

That's a question.

jimsug

1 min ago, by Jim Reynolds

jimsug's rule!

Jim Reynolds

That was an attempt at a joke. I apologize.

jimsug

Well, it failed, and quite frankly, there are ways to convey that it's a joke, especially when we're having what would probably be considered an argument about something.

Jim Reynolds

I apologized.

jimsug

04:53

Yes, and I accept your apology. I am explaining how the need for an apology can be avoided in the future.

Anonymous

Now the joke I was going to make feels inappropriate.

Catija

@snailboat Thanks :)

Anonymous

I was going to say, "At any rate, I agree with Jim."

jimsug

shrug

Jim Reynolds

Ha!

Politician.;

Anonymous

04:55

Which I thought would be funny because there's two Jims.

Catija

@JimReynolds I get that. I just am frustrated because it makes it seem like I can't make any jokes without worrying about offending someone.

jimsug

I don't mean the answer is wrong, in it's entirety. It is just incomplete. Suggesting that storeyed is an equal alternative to storey is just... incomplete.

Jim Reynolds

Where there are relationships, there are conflicts.

Anonymous

@jimsug Yeah, I agree with that.

Jim Reynolds

Where there is communication, there is miscommunication.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

04:56

Like here.

jimsug

Well, unfortunately if you want to make a joke, you need to take that risk. But the middle of a discussion (which was probably closer to an argument) is probably not the right time.

At least, not without some emoticon to make it clear ;)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

\o{all}[@JimR][@Jims][@snail][@cat]

Jim Reynolds

Khan started with "you should say x-story/storey"

Anonymous

@Catija I understand, I actually get pretty frustrated after comment exchanges like that. But you know, from my third party perspective, my feeling is "Eh. The answer's fine. They said what they wanted to say, you responded reasonably, now it's time to move on and ignore whatever else they have to say on the subject."

Jim Reynolds

And then "although it's not common, it's also correct . . . "

Anonymous

04:59

I like to think of it as an active/passive vocabulary thing. Teach learners to say the common thing, but also to understand the less common thing.

jimsug

I think it's just not always clear to language learners that just because something is in the dictionary, they should use it.

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