ELL's Cabin

Damkerng T.

11:12

2 comments (potentially) = 1 answer. :-) — Damkerng T. 17 secs ago

Damkerng T.

12:05

100

A: Is there any more 'respectful word' than 'beggars' for these wonderful guys?

Beggar refers to someone who is unemployed and depends on asking (begging) people passing by for money. Those who do give them money do so out of charity. Busker refers to a street performer (could be music, art or drama) who performs for anyone walking by in the hope that many will pay them for...

Oh, the first three-digit answer I've seen on ELL, ever!

ASR

12:35

hi all

how are you?

@DamkerngT. hi

Damkerng T.

Hi!

ASR

how are you?

@Alice hi

Damkerng T.

Good, thanks. How are you?

ASR

12:55

@DamkerngT. I am fine.

are you working?

Damkerng T.

I'm browsing around.

ASR

@DamkerngT. do you know mysql ?

Damkerng T.

Yes, but I don't want to turn this chat room into a programming room, unless you're going to make some jokes about it. :-)

1

Q: Its or Their to refer to a company?

The company will issue (their, its) annual report next month. In this case, should I use "its" or "their"?

pronouns

I wish we had better answers.

ASR

13:17

@DamkerngT. :) ok

tchrist

The answer is that it doesn't matter.

> The picture of orange juice prominently displayed by the American Agronomics Corporation in their annual report is an invitation that is very tempting.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist nods -- Though I found that the choice of its (for that specific "issue its/their annual report") is overwhelming!

tchrist

> But Hutton is as forthright in their annual report as they were in their public self-examination following the scandal (perhaps the only instance of a major public firm going public with a report of its own misdeeds).

@DamkerngT. I saw that.

> NDAB was requested to review methods and approaches used by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in assessing their annual report, U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves.

> The company may prepare a set of financial statements showing investments in human assets under proposed human resource accounting conventions and include these statements as supplementary information in their annual report.

Damkerng T.

Oh, these are in American English.

tchrist

You can find quite a few uses of their annual report in Google Books that refer to a single company.

And yes, they are in American English.

Which is why I feel that people overreach to say that American English does not do this.

Damkerng T.

13:31

nods -- Your examples indeed surprised me.

Upvoted your comment. :-)

tchrist

> See their Annual Report, 1912 See also City Club of Milwaukee Committee on Public Health, Medkul Inspection in the Schoob of Milwaukee (Milwaukee, 1919).

> Each research facility has to show upon inspection, and include in their annual report, assurances that professionally acceptable standards for the care, treatment and use of animals are being used during the actual research or ...

That's something of a distributive their to match each.

> By the way, JAFFE sent me a copy of their annual report.” “Heidlinger won't be thrilled with your calling the client without his approval. He's convinced that only attorneys are smart enough to ask simple questions.”

That's fiction.

> Nonetheless, when you're researching a new customer, it makes sense to visit their web site and send for their annual report and 10K. It's easy, too, to search for articles on them in back issues of Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, Harvard ...

> In New York State, for instance, any corporation organized under the laws of New York that spends or gives more than $500 to any cause as a contribution or a grant must report the contribution in their annual report to the stockholders.

> In fact, one of the largest mortgage companies, Canada Permanent, also operates one of the largest trust companies and, as their annual report spells out: “There are few financial companies whose services are so widespread as those of ...

Damkerng T.

Most of these sound quite okay to me because I can think of their as a group of people.

tchrist

I do, too.

Damkerng T.

7 mins ago, by tchrist

> The company may prepare a set of financial statements showing investments in human assets under proposed human resource accounting conventions and include these statements as supplementary information in their annual report.

This one is a bit different; I can't tell exactly why.

tchrist

> We are glad to see that the Special Commission in relation to the common schools of this city call particular attention to this state of things in their annual report to the Governor.

> The American Tract Society at Boston give numerous interesting facts in their Annual Report, showing that the blessing of God still attends their labors.

Damkerng T.

13:40

Maybe the more legalese it's like, the less sense of relating to people it'd be to me.

tchrist

> THE Board of Education respectfully present to the General Assembly their Annual Report on the two departments of education committed to their care

However, there are a great deal more examples from the 19th century than from the 20th.

Man_From_India

14:25

@DamkerngT. Snap shot from that book

Not a very satisfied answer I wrote, but that is all I could learn ever since I posted that question.

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India Thanks!

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. :-) no problem

Damkerng T.

I like it that they found some noun phrases in the survey. :-)

Man_From_India

I think they are very few, but too common for example - next week, last year etc

Damkerng T.

nods

Man_From_India

14:34

But for a learner (and me included) to decide which noun can be used this way.

Damkerng T.

There are two possible ways to explain them, imho: either with ellipsis or as NPs.

Man_From_India

nods but ellipsis itself is very tricky for a learner

Damkerng T.

Indeed. And NPs would be more natural (imo).

Man_From_India

like you can say in the sentence he approached in a friendly way

we can omit in, and can be explained that the preposition is omitted or it's a elliptical structure

but if we replace way with manner, it's something different.

Damkerng T.

"She did it that manner" would sound odd.

Man_From_India

14:37

I think it's the property of some particular nouns (very few I think) that enables them to act this way

@DamkerngT. Exactly, not only odd, it can be considered incorrect.

Damkerng T.

nods

Man_From_India

There is not much thing written about this or I haven't found anything.

Damkerng T.

I'm glad you raised it up on ELL. :D

Man_From_India

Yes I found some papers in the internet but they are full of linguistics symbols that loook more like mathematical symbols

Damkerng T.

LOL

I can imagine some of those. :D

Man_From_India

14:40

@DamkerngT. Even after the bounty there is no good answer, the answer I like the most among them is the one written by Jonah

Damkerng T.

I admit that I haven't read all of them (and neither Jonah's).

Man_From_India

Today I read all :-)

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Damkerng T.

15:19

← 14 messages moved from Language Overflow

Anonymous

16:29

Spam: ell.stackexchange.com/a/71116/230

ASR

17:11

@snailboat HOW ARE U?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:44

@ASR Don't shout.

ASR

OK

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:55

@snailboat LOL

> Thanks for the help here's the answer [...]

tchrist

@tchrist : I understand its a duplicate question but in that question they suggested that it should be 'was'. However in the question ell.stackexchange.com/questions/70412/… Ben Kovitz said in 'comments' section that there are no rules. So if there are no rules then it means 'is' should also be correct ? — iamRR 59 secs ago

There is something mildly troubling about the underpinning assumptions here.

Twice over, even.

First about SE: ask the question again to get another answer.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well, I do agree with Ben, but saying "there are no rules; this is a human language" is misleading to a poor soul.

tchrist

Second about English: that there are rules and that correctness means something.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah.

tchrist

All that matters is whether native speakers say and understand something.

That is the whole of the law.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:00

There are rules; ELLers learn but the most simplified, and thus have to learn not to abide them in other contexts.

tchrist

I don't think they know what correct or grammatical or rules might really mean.

The rule is Go thou and do likewise.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Thing is, when you're communicating, the default pre-assumptions must be something that you both have a clear vision of, while that can hardly (never?) be true for the ELLer side.

Anonymous

18:27

-1

A: When a word ends in 's' or 'x', do you add 's or just an '?

MY NAME IS MELISS. IN 5th GRADE, MRS WALSH USED ME AS THE EXAMPLE OF HOW TO MAKE THE POSSESSIVE FORM OF A NAME ENDING IN 'S'. SHE TAUGHT ME TO PUT AN APOSTROPHE AFTER THE SECOND 'S', AND PRONOUNCE IT THE SAME WAY AS I WOULD, WITHOUT THE APOSTROPHE. Neily.Knowitall, ENGLISH... BINDING RULES......

tchrist

Poor soul.

It’s so sad.

But it isn't here fault that her teachers were ignorant.

@DamkerngT. Please protect that question.

@snailboat Should we edit it?

Or is that turd-polishing?

Anonymous

I didn't think it was salvageable, so I voted to delete.

Anonymous

I think it's an attempt to comment on the other answers more than anything.

Damkerng T.

Done!

tchrist

@DamkerngT. Thanks.

@snailboat That’s what I was afraid of.

Damkerng T.

18:31

I think we need one more vote to delete.

@tchrist No, thank you!

Ah, it's a very old question.

tchrist

I need to tell the poor girl before I can't.

Welcome to English Language Learners, Meliss. This is an answer to another post, not really an answer itself, so it will likely be deleted. When you gain enough reputation by posting real answers, you will be able to comment. You have a sweet name, but unfortunately for you, your teacher was mistaken. The possessive of singular names ending in ‑s is ‑s’s like Meliss’s, Bess’s, Ross’s, Thomas’s, James’s. The only exception is for names whose last syllable sounds like the word ease and is not stressed, like Sophocles’, Ramses’, Pericles’, Socrates’. — tchrist 2 mins ago

Done.

I hope she understands what I meant by her having a sweet name.

Also Mercedes’ for the same reasons.

Greek μέλισσα is bee.

And mellifluous flows like honey.

It is a sweet thing.

Anonymous

19:00

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Your avatar is a picture of a snail! :-)

Anonymous

I approve.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

19:12

@snailboat Huh, thanks. At least it's better than @Dam's analogy.

Hear that @Dam? I'M NOT A KAIJU! ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

Anonymous

I went through the list of delete votes: ell.stackexchange.com/tools?tab=Delete&daterange=last30days

Anonymous

There's a bunch. I added a delete vote to most of them.

Anonymous

It told me I ran out of delete votes!

Anonymous

I've never gotten that message before.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Aww... that Kaiju could be cute, too. :P

Anonymous

19:15

By the way, 怪獣（かいじゅう） has a long vowel at the end.

Anonymous

Kaijū! :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Kaijuuuuuuuuuuu?

Damkerng T.

LOL

@snailboat How many can we vote a day?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Deleting stuff.

@DamkerngT. 5, then one vote is added per 1k rep.

There was also something else which I can't remember for the life of him.

Damkerng T.

Aren't they cute? google.com/search?q=kaiju+cute+toy&tbm=isch

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

19:19

BTW @Snail @Dam I'm happy that TsOH looks cute, I always thought it's very ruthless.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I dunno. A lot?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

3 mins ago, by inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. 5, then one vote is added per 1k rep.

I just ran out of delete votes. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Anonymous

I thought I had a lot more votes left.

Anonymous

Did I really vote to delete 25 things today?

Damkerng T.

I think I cast a few today, and I've never really run out of delete/close votes, iirc.

Anonymous

19:23

I voted to delete 23 things today.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Comes by rep, more votes.

Is cool, speaking like Yoda.

Anonymous

So "one vote is added per 1k rep" must exclude the first 2k you need to get the privilege.

Anonymous

So it's really more like 3 + rep/1000.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Yes.

I think there was also some accordance with moderation thingies, i.e. flagging, editing etc.

Anonymous

19:25

Or rep/1000 - 15 for graduated sites?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

-12.

Wait, my math just finished.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... iamRR's quest on is/was is still going on.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

\o @Stoney the . . . I dunno, what should I call you?

Hmm, what'bout @Stoney the drummer?

Anonymous

Help, I ran out of delete votes! ell.stackexchange.com/a/71124/230

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Stoney ^

BTW, @Stoney we'd love it if you take a visit to the Delete queue.

ell.stackexchange.com/tools?tab=Delete&daterange=last30days

Hey @Stoney would have like a 100 votes!

Anonymous

19:30

If it's not obvious, you can click the little grey triangle to list more than 3 posts with delete votes at once.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Ooops, sorry for the mass of pings Stoney. ._____.

tchrist

20:09

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M It always tells me I already voted. :(

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

StoneyB

20:23

@snailboat Don't think that would work: I played my last gig in 1982! My son's the drummer now.

tchrist

Oh really? Do you have any musicians in the family? :)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Bah dum tss

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I had no idea this was there. I don't know how much good it will do ... are they likely to be overturned for serial deletevoting?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Hmm? When they get deleted, they get forgotten.

StoneyB

@tchrist My son took his college degree in Percussion(performance). My wife was a pianist until she tore up a thumb ligament playing softball.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Only 30

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

20:29

@StoneyB Oh huh, that's the max number of votes per day. :/

tchrist

@StoneyB No such thing.

@StoneyB That's very sad.

StoneyB

@tchrist A little -- but she's compensating by studying dead languages.

Anonymous

21:11

@StoneyB Oh, I think that message was from inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M. But I love drums! I'm not really a drummer and never will be, but I love to play when I get a chance :-)

Anonymous

I kind of want to get one of those Yamaha electronic kits, just for fun.

Anonymous

Even though I've never had my own kit, I somehow developed an incurable habit of air drumming over the years.

tchrist

21:28

The final /s/ is unmistakable as a plural marker. Most people rhyme months with dunce, hunts, grunts, stunts in connected speech. — tchrist 53 secs ago

I’ll let other minds fills in the blank.

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