I heard that there is one, which is it? I couldn't find it. All I found was Blue Monday (date) on Wikipedia but here I am looking for a day of the week. Is there one?
The problem:
I've recently seen questions in this form:
Some title that might need polishing
< a lot of background that usually doesn't add to the question >< a question that the OP wanted to tackle with >< the answer OP had in mind, has a 80% degree of certainty and just needs a nod > ...
I mentioned in an old question that it would need a book long answer once. As it turned out, Ben Kovitz summed it up quite nicely in the length of the average SE long answer.
If you want to form a question, how/what/which etc. should be followed by a verb. And here, the verb is 'can'.
So,
How can we achieve this?
forms a question.
Take another example.
How we do it
is not forming a question. You need an auxiliary verb there to form a question.
How ...
Wow, +2 in 7 views.
(I haven't read anything, but +2 in 7 views is rare on ELL.)
Ahh... one suggested edit. Probably one +1 was by RuchirM, and the other +1 was by the OP.
Interesting...
The suggested edit:
> How can we achieve this? OR How we can achieve this? (Can I put a question mark?)
Maybe the capitalization of OR is common in grammar books in India.
An ELL question got some highly upvoted answers that don't jive with the answers given at English Language & Usage on a related question.
I am concerned that the ELL readers are being given unhelpful guidance on this matter. What can be done about this?
The question reminds me that we have another kind of problem (or non-problem but needs us to reach a consensus).
"Should we try more to find a duplicate of a new question in our old questions, when the new question is obviously easy and it's likely that it was asked before?"
“Why We Shout In Anger” ~ A short story on Relationships
A Hindu saint who was visiting river Ganges to take bath found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his disciples smiled ‘n asked. ‘Why do people shout in anger shout at each other?’
Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, ‘Because we lose our calm, we shout.’ ‘But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner.’ asked the saint.
Yes, but I'm not saying the OP's thoughts should be in an answer . . . Some questions are just not questions; the OP "asks": "I answered this by doing blah blah blah . . ." They want us to pat on their back and say "kudos for solving this problem!" rather than teach them something in form of an answer. I'm requesting those to be prohibited; or at least discouraged; as those questions are just a pile-on in the unanswered questions at their best. — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M15 mins ago
@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I think your comment may weaken your case.
I often hear the term "meta effect" on many meta SE sites. What is the meta effect? I have Googled it but can't find anything about it on any meta site.
And even when you're quite sure that the OP wants a compliment, try to read it in an exactly opposite way first. You could guess wrong. But let's say you guessed right, trying to oppose yourself will make you be more objective.
And your arguments will look less like a personal attack.
I wanted to post a link to a comment on our 2015 Moderator Election page, but I can't. Everywhere else, the date/time stamp after the commenter's username is a separate "hotspot" (in the Google Chrome browser under Windows, I just right-click and select Copy link address, so I can paste the link ...
@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M The last time I installed a userscript I had to get Andy to install a bunch of dev tools on my computer because it didn't work, and he ended up submitting a patch to the GitHub project because of it being broken.
It was not a fun process and I don't want to do it again.
The problem:
I've recently seen questions in this form:
Some title that might need polishing
< a lot of background that usually doesn't add to the question >< a question that the OP wanted to tackle with >< the answer OP had in mind, has a 80% degree of certainty and just needs a nod > ...
If you want to form a question, how/what/which etc. should be followed by a verb. And here, the verb is 'can'.
So,
How can we achieve this?
forms a question.
Take another example.
How we do it
is not forming a question. You need an auxiliary verb there to form a question.
How ...
An ELL question got some highly upvoted answers that don't jive with the answers given at English Language & Usage on a related question.
I am concerned that the ELL readers are being given unhelpful guidance on this matter. What can be done about this?
What is the proper way to ask?
How can we achieve this?
or
How we can archive this?
What's the difference between them?
I often hear the term "meta effect" on many meta SE sites. What is the meta effect? I have Googled it but can't find anything about it on any meta site.
