ELL's Cabin

Damkerng T.

00:33

-2

A: Ambiguity of 'Blank Paper', 'Blank Lined Paper', and 'Lined Paper which is not blank'

yetdy tutwuyftyfdtrwuydyqwduywrytdwgdyffdga dat

Please help flag/delete it. Thank you in advance.

Jude Niroshan

08:06

Greetings!

Damkerng T.

09:09

@JudeNiroshan Hi!

Jude Niroshan

10:27

Hi. I wasn't infront of the the machine

how are you?

Damkerng T.

12:52

@JudeNiroshan Neither was I! Let's try some other time. :-)

Catija

14:48

So, I just heard that Anime is getting mod elections without a site design... maybe we'll be able to get on that list soon.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

15:47

Hopefully.

Anonymous

1

A: Why should we say "play the piano" instead of "play a piano"?

There is no logical reason for the use of "the" + musical instrumement. It is simply an idiomatic matter. Maybe there is French influence, though in French it is "jouer du piano" (to play of the piano; I have never found out how this genitive can be explained; but "du" is a form of the definite a...

Anonymous

I noticed that I'm the only one who upvoted rogermue's answer

Anonymous

This issue was covered on ELU long before ELL existed. Most of the answers there as well as here are simply people attempting to rationalise whatever usage tendencies they favour themselves, but there are no real "standards". — FumbleFingers 2 hours ago

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat I agree, so I +1'd too.

Anonymous

I upvoted Robusto's answer on ELU

Anonymous

15:55

0

A: Omission of definite article with musical instruments

"I shoulde'v learned to play the guitar, I shoulde'v learned to play them drums" - Dire Straits. I would definitely go for "the piano". In fact the first sentence sounds strange.

Anonymous

I'm fascinated by the spelling shoulde'v

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hush. It's the correct spelling. You've been told the wrong thing in school.

Anonymous

It's true that the ELU question isn't actually the same as the ELL question.

Anonymous

It's still helpful to link to the ELU question, though.

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I learned to spell almost entirely on my own. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

15:58

You've lied to yourself then.

Anonymous

Darn myself!

Anonymous

(More grammatical: Darn me!)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Seriously though, how did they do that typo. I need to learn some stuff from them.

Anonymous

Doesn't look like a typo.

Anonymous

They spelled it that way twice.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

16:00

Oh my.

Anonymous

Almost anyone can master a spoken language as a native speaker, but people vary considerably more in their ability to pick up writing and subtle written conventions like spelling.

Anonymous

Some people are intelligent but have a difficult time with letters.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Don't tell me they were thinking of the pronunciation when they typo'ed that.

Anonymous

Though overall this user's spelling is fairly good, and they might not be a native speaker.

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M That would be my guess.

Anonymous

16:01

After all, the vowel sound comes before the /v/ in pronunciation, not after.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's the only thing that makes sense about that answer.

Anonymous

The clitic form of have (spelled 've) is pronounced /əv/

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah I know.

Anonymous

I always say "I play piano".

Anonymous

I never say "I play the piano".

Anonymous

16:03

Just a single data point. I know not everyone talks the same way I do.

Anonymous

Most of my friends are musicians. I don't know if that's an influence or not.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I don't say anything because I don't have anything to say about any kinds of piano.

Anonymous

I have lots of things to say about piano.

Anonymous

I'm not a real pianist, though.

Anonymous

I've played piano all my life, pretty much. But, you know, pretty badly.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

16:06

I only played it once on mobile.

Anonymous

I can still trick people into thinking I can play it by hitting a bunch of keys.

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Oh yeah?

Anonymous

Didja get some kind of piano app?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yes. And then uninstalled it after that one play.

I dunno why I'm really tempted to use some smileys today.

Anonymous

I usually use way too many smileys.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

16:07

:) ;) >:)

Anonymous

I picked up the habit as a teenager and I've never broken it.

Aaron Brown

@snailboat I'll add my data point: I play the piano. I'm a decent pianist.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Huh now I feel better.

Anonymous

I don't use quite as many these days.

Anonymous

I used to put them on almost every message.

Anonymous

16:07

@AaronBrown Nice! Well done.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@AaronBrown \o

Aaron Brown

Hi :)

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M You just had to get the smileys out of your system. (Smilies? Smileys?)

Anonymous

I'm not very smiley this week.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah, unless I had to use them 2k times in each message.

Anonymous

16:09

I usually smile all the time. I'm a nervous smiler, see. So I end up tacking on smileys all the time whenever I'm smiling in real life, which is pretty often.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Smileyeiseseis

Anonymous

I remember looking up numbers briefly, maybe in COCA, a year or two ago.

Anonymous

I remember thinking that the is more common with some instruments than others.

Anonymous

I think it's probably quite likely that it varies dialectally or has varied over time as well.

Aaron Brown

That's probably true on both counts.

Anecdotally, people I've played with in bands seem to drop the the.

Anonymous

16:14

In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (p.408), under 'Fixed expressions containing the definite article', the use of the with musical instruments is described as "large arbitrary"

Aaron Brown

As in, I would almost always hear "Do you play bass?" not "Do you play the bass?"

*rock bands that is.

Anonymous

Yeah, I'd never say I play the bass.

Anonymous

I always say I play bass.

Anonymous

And I claim to play bass much more often than I claim to play piano :-)

Aaron Brown

Haha

In that context I'd probably say "I play keyboard" or something like that.

Anonymous

16:16

Oh, yeah.

Anonymous

I play keys.

Aaron Brown

right

Since you can't usually lug an actual piano up onto the stage.

Anonymous

I call my stage piano a piano. I guess some people might think that's weird.

Anonymous

It sounds cooler than calling it a 'portable keyboard'.

Aaron Brown

I don't think it's weird.

Although if you said that I would probably assume it was one of those that has weighted keys and is meant to feel like a piano.

Anonymous

16:19

It's 88 keys, fully weighted. A Kurzweil

Aaron Brown

nice!

Anonymous

It also has many, many stickers on it.

Aaron Brown

:D

My main stage instrument when I did play in a band was an electric Hammond organ.

I wouldn't have thought to call that a piano, haha.

Anonymous

Oh, nice! My organ is an imitation, a Nord Electro

Anonymous

It's nice and portable :-)

Aaron Brown

16:21

Ooh I like those as well.

Never owned one though.

Anonymous

I don't know what sort you had exactly

Aaron Brown

Something similar to this: samash.com/…-Keyboards--Channeladvisor-_-Hammond+XK-1C+Compact+61-Key+Organ&utm_source=GSH‌&utm_medium=CSE&utm_campaign=Channeladvisor&CAWELAID=500002510000032057&CAGPSPN=p‌la&catargetid=500002510000023462&cadevice=c&gclid=Cj0KEQjwuqauBRDhnfvnxMvKy6UBEiQ‌AmTLQu7JyAaKLrfMdRsghOh3c2uqhB64hrgzAb3UuNk95dXUaAoT_8P8HAQ

Anonymous

Oh, nice!

Aaron Brown

I don't remember what model it was exactly, it's been a while.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Huh?

Aaron Brown

16:23

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M ??

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M What is your "Huh?" in response to?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Dat link.

Aaron Brown

That's similar to the electric organ I used to own.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

But it's no longer huh now. You may continue.

Aaron Brown

I wish I still had that thing, but I sold it to someone that was going to use it more than I do now

I'm glad it's still getting played, anyway.

@snailboat At any rate, maybe there is a "rock band/pop band" dialect?

There's definitely jargon surrounding that, but I don't think it's really a "dialect".

Anonymous

16:35

Maybe just call it a lect :-)

Aaron Brown

Huh, I didn't know that word. Learn something new every day!

Nathan Tuggy

if anybody's noticed my tag-editing spree the last few minutes, I've been burning passage-correction with holy fire, and the one remaining question should get roomba'd quite soon.

Anonymous

@NathanTuggy I did notice!

Nathan Tuggy

@snailboat some of those questions still need deletion though! ;)

*wears "I voted" sticker

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/tools?tab=Delete&daterange=today

Aaron Brown

16:41

Unreal Tournament Killing Spree Sound

►

Anonymous

@Catija Yeah, maybe so. I have no idea anymore.

Anonymous

ELL is certainly beyond the 10 question/day threshold (and has been the entire time it's been running, I believe).

Anonymous

ELL started around 15 questions/day, dropped to around 10, but then went back up and is now up to about 25.

Aaron Brown

Wasn't there a meta.stackexchange post saying they were going to start to skip the site design waiting list for graduations?

since there's a huge backlog.

Anonymous

Yeah, there's some meta discussion along those lines.

Anonymous

16:44

I stopped paying attention to what they say about graduation, though. Now I just watch to see what they do.

Aaron Brown

Probably a wise choice.

Nathan Tuggy

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/260754/… is what they say

Aaron Brown

I haven't followed the do part much.

Anonymous

@NathanTuggy Thanks :-)

Nathan Tuggy

np

Anonymous

16:46

Japanese.SE was near the top of the old graduation queue.

Anonymous

I don't know what its current status is.

Anonymous

Japanese.SE is my home on SE.

Anonymous

ELL was near the top of the list, too.

Anonymous

About a year ago, the queue was mentioned in this comment:

Anonymous

Current list in the queue is: Salesforce, Expression Engine, Anime, Computer Science, Japanese, Cryptography, Movies, Blender, and English Language Learners. — Grace Note ♦ Aug 6 '14 at 0:13

Anonymous

16:52

Which was apparently an ordered list.

Aaron Brown

What have they graduated since then?

Anonymous

(I keep using 'list' and 'queue' interchangeably. I'm too lazy to edit my messages and be consistent.)

Catija

@AaronBrown Well, Anime is getting Mod elections... so that's part of graduation.

Anonymous

@AaronBrown I believe Salesforce and Expression Engine graduated not long after that comment was left, and then Movies

Nathan Tuggy

@Catija ... usually. They may be trying out splitting the graduation parts

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

16:54

Hmm, why does it need to be a secret?

Anonymous

But now I imagine stuff is different.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Why does the list need to be secret?

Anonymous

Someone somewhere is keeping a list of which sites have graduated and when.

Catija

@snailboat Movies graduated in January and has a site design. Maybe I'm missing half of the conversation, though.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Guys, a weird thing:

Catija

16:55

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Who said the list is secret? There's a list in my question about it.

Anonymous

@Catija Right, so three of the sites on that list graduated after it was posted.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Link!

Catija

@snailboat Oh, that must have been what I was missing... though I never interpreted it as an "ordered list".

Anonymous

@Catija But she said it was.

Catija

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M It's the same one snail posted.

Anonymous

16:57

Well, to be more precise:

Anonymous

@Christian As far as I'm aware, it's ordered. Salesforce and Expression Engine are currently in progress. As for the "rest of the graduation process", the only other major occurrence with graduation is the user elections happening. The design really is the big bells and whistles that come with graduation, and without it... there's little much at all to speak of that happens. There's basically as much fanfare and celebration as happened with the announcement I made on Japanese. Which wasn't much at all, and understandably so given the lack of big flair and everything. — Grace Note ♦ Aug 6 '14 at 12:25

Catija

8

Q: Site Launched, who is next?

Movies and TV is now a Full Fledged Site! With a fancy new design! Congratulations to them. Now we all want to know what the order of the remaining sites is...right? Who's next to get their fancy design out of the beta sites that are already scheduled for graduation? There was some mentioning o...

Anonymous

So Grace Note said "as far as I'm aware".

Catija

Oh, wait, it's not the same list. The one I saw was from after Movies' graduation.

Anonymous

A-ha

Anonymous

16:59

I'm pretty stoked about "Japanese Cryptography" — jonsca Jan 29 at 0:15

Catija

I think Robert's answer covers a lot of this...

Catija

17:11

@snailboat That should be a thing.

HarryCBurn

17:28

Hey, I see four new guys in here!

Awesome :)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Four?

\o

HarryCBurn

Might be less, I'm not to vigilant with names ;P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

What's my name?

HarryCBurn

Nathan Tuggy/Fantasier/Ahmad/Aaron are the choices.

Nathan Tuggy

I'm not that new :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:30

He's that new. He's lying.

Anonymous

Four new people.

Anonymous

New to Harry C. Burn, at any rate.

Anonymous

But hey. It's never too late to welcome someone to ELL chat!

Anonymous

@Ahmad In your latest comment, you talked about the Adj+N versus the N+N

Anonymous

It doesn't matter whether the thingy before the head noun is an adjective or a noun.

HarryCBurn

17:33

@snailboat Note that my name isn't Harry C. Burn, it's Harry C-[part of second name]-burn-- wait, it's actually both!

Anonymous

Either way, it's an attributive modifier.

HarryCBurn

@NathanTuggy Psh!

;)

Aaron Brown

17:47

Hi @HarryCBurn!

HarryCBurn

:)

So what's everyone up to?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm not up to anything. I'm down to sitting on a sofa.

HarryCBurn

Awesome ;p

Aaron Brown

I'm eating/drinking a spinach/berry smoothie.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh, which reminds me . . . TO THE HONEYDEW!

Aaron Brown

17:51

@HarryCBurn What are you up to Mr. C-burn?

HarryCBurn

18:41

@Aaron Learning Django :P

Catija

20:21

0

Q: Using/avoiding "the" after/before possessive construction with"of"

I am wondering when we should use "the" after a possessive construction with "of"? Is this necessary to use/avoid "the" before a possessive construction with "of"? For example, consider: the observation of the instability the observation of an instability an observation of the instability ...

definite-article possessive

Is this even really a possessive use?

Anonymous

I wouldn't say so

Anonymous

But they may just labeling anything with of as a 'possessive construction'

Catija

I don't see any of those options as obviously bad. It really just depends on what they're saying. I believe any of them could be appropriate in the right situation.

Anonymous

No, Google, I didn't mean to type "sailboat" in double quotes :-(

Catija

Awwww. :( Silly Google.

Anonymous

20:25

's and of each expresses a fairly wide range of relationships, and those ranges overlap, sometimes with one being more natural than the other

Anonymous

CGEL gives a big list of relationships that can be expressed with of but not 's

Anonymous

Like the two kinds of shrub but not *shrub's two kinds

Catija

Are they still considered "possessives" or something else?

Anonymous

I only call something 'possessive' if it indicates that A owns B

Anonymous

Some people use 'possessive' as a synonym for 'genitive'

Anonymous

20:32

So, anything with 's would be "possessive", and genitive pronouns like my/your/her would be "possessive"

Anonymous

That's okay. I don't do that, but it's okay.

Anonymous

Much more confusing is that some people give both of and 's the same label.

Anonymous

They call them both "genitives" or both "possessives"

Anonymous

And that just confuses things, because the two aren't alike syntactically or semantically.

Anonymous

We can follow CGEL and refer to of-phrases as "obliques", if we want.

Anonymous

20:33

Or we can just say of-phrases.

Anonymous

Because some people use the same label for both 's and of, we get confusing terms like the "double genitive", like "those friends of mine"

Anonymous

(I'm not sure that was helpful, but that's about what I've got to say on the subject . . . ) :-)

Catija

Very helpful. It was interesting to read. I feel like I agree with your take on it.

Catija

20:52

So, It is certainly a noun clause. isn't it ? The additional question is there any concerns on longevity of a noun clause ? — Cardinal 2 mins ago

"longevity of a noun clause"? I don't know what that means.

Anonymous

They probably don't know the difference between longevity and length yet.

Catija

@snailboat Ah, That makes sense.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Catija do they decay or something?

Catija

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M That's what I was thinking... maybe it will become obsolete in the future... which some things certainly do but... I don't think it applies here.

Anonymous

21:45

@BackwardsMAR A noun clause has a half-life of sixteen nanoquatloos

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