ELL's Cabin

Araucaria

00:40

@StoneyB, Nice to see you, even if lurking in the background! Tis late. Ciao all!

StoneyB

03:27

@Araucaria Hi, A. Not exactly lurking: just a sort of digital trace or gap left by my absence.

Damkerng T.

08:07

0

Q: What is the difference between "fees" and "charge" , in simple English, please?

Total miscellaneous charges: includes charges from TXU Energy that aren't related to your electricity usage - like deposits, late fees, payment assist fees , etc - or charges for other TXU Energy products you've enroled in ( like home warranty and other home services). What does the word "f...

word-meaning

Hmm... that's an interesting way to ask a question. (And I think Stephie's response is quite correct.)

"I do not want to get an insight on that, if so, I would have looked it up on Wikipedia, I just need a pharaphrasing to get what it is about. I mean what is the difference between fee and charge Thank you in advance."

Isn't knowing the difference between fee and charge insightful?

Mamta D

09:21

+1 to @DamkerngT for the insight.

Damkerng T.

11:14

I think the question could be salvaged, though I don't know if it's worth saving.

Damkerng T.

13:06

I dont have time or else would have provided you with dozens of comments stating 'ungrammatical'. And you know this all very well. And I'm not sure whether teaching someone even how to write comments has ever happened here before. Anyway lets not digress. @damkrengt — Maulik V ♦ 2 hours ago

Anyone understand his message?

"whether teaching someone even how to write comments has ever happened here before"?

I think we all try to avoid writing bad comments (which can come in several forms), and we even discuss that sometimes both informally in comments, and a little more formally on the meta site.

So, I really can't figure out or be sure what his italicized know means.

@MaulikV So, when you have time for that (whatever that is you tried to say), please consider clarifying your idea if you think it matters to us.

Araucaria

Nice question here, but needs reopen votes :)

1

Q: John is not able to express his needs appropriately nor to initiate communication. is it right?

John is not able to express his needs appropriately nor to initiate communication. Is the grammar correct ? My question is are the negative words used correctly. So is it possible to use two of them in the sentence? Is my use of the two negative words correct here, or does it cause a probl...

grammar negation coordination neither-nor

Damkerng T.

13:21

Oh, I got this!

Maybe I have too many tabs of ELL questions

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. What counts as a request?

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria I guess every time we open a question or refresh the page counts as a request.

Araucaria

nods

Damkerng T.

My browser just crashed, and I have 475 tabs on this window, over 400 are ELL questions. So, maybe that was why they gave me that "We're sorry..." message when I restarted my browser. :-)

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Yes, that sounds probable!

@DamkerngT. Is it all back to normal now?

Damkerng T.

13:28

Yes, it looks normal now. I'm reading the question you mentioned above.

Voted!

14

Q: How to deal with homework questions

What is the community's stance on people asking homework questions on the site? There was a recent question that got me thinking about the issue; this question seems like a blatant copy & paste from a homework assignment, complete with multiple choices. There was no mention of it being homework...

discussion appropriate-questions

^Could be useful on ELL as well.

Araucaria

13:44

@DamkerngT. hooray! 3 to go!

@DamkerngT. Isn't it kind of covered now by the "research" requirement?

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria Yes, I think it is. -- I was looking for something longer and more specific about homework. It looks like we possibly have more of homework questions coming lately.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Sheez ..., look at this ...

0

Q: What's the difference between these two sentences?

I felt ill because I had drunk six cups of coffee. I felt ill because I drank six cups of coffee. I think both of them are correct. Do they differ in meaning? Reopen note by Araucaria Somehow this question got closed as a duplicate of: What's the difference between these two sent...

tense verb past-tense past-perfect

@DamkerngT. Yes, I think that's true. I don't mind good homework questions ...

Damkerng T.

nods -- That meta post also said a similar idea.

Hmm... about the drink/drank... I'm still reading...

The old question is highly relevant, though this one could use its own answers.

So I voted to reopen.

Araucaria

14:06

@DamkerngT. I don't see how thee other one's relevant, because the OP obviuosly understands what the past perfect is for. They just want to know whether it's required here, where the sequence of events is self-evident. That's how it seems to me, anyhow .. :)

@DamkerngT. But thanks for the reopen vote on there ...! I re-edited the question again so that it's less, erm, frustrated ..

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria I understand your (valid) point. I think it's related because the answers (at least two) make it clear that the difference is about tense. So it's not the questions that are duplicate, it's the answers that could be duplicates (or somewhat lookalikes), imho.

I'm not sure about this OP. I mean, whether they know about the past simple vs. the past perfect.

I think they must have some ideas, though perhaps not very clear ones.

Usually, when I found something like this, I'd post a comment "Related: ..." or "Related (and possibly a duplicate of): ..." and let others decide whether they're really duplicates when I'm not sure or haven't enough time to read enough to be sure.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. What's your view on the answer to their question?

Damkerng T.

The new one?

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Yes ...

Damkerng T.

Sorry for being AFK for a while.

I think we may answer them by pointing to them the nuances of the past simple and the past perfect.

When it matters, when it doesn't matter much, and so on.

Araucaria

14:18

@DamkerngT. Exactly so, but that ain't covered in the other post at all ;)

Damkerng T.

Which is why I understand your point and voted to reopen it. :-)

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. yes! :)

Araucaria

14:53

0

A: Is the word 'restrictionable' correct?

We can freely make new adjectives from verbs using the suffix -able. It does not matter at all whether these words have ever been used before. It does not matter if these words are in the dictionary or not. Anybody can understand these words as long as they understand the verb involved. When we c...

Damkerng T.

I wish you had posted that answer as the first one!

The other answer suggests that "restricionable" is good and they have no problem understanding it.

Anonymous

15:13

Can we reopen the restrictionable question? I think the idea that it can be easily answered via Google is based on one or two unstated misconceptions...

Damkerng T.

I'm fine either way. I mean, I don't think it's a well-posed question. It didn't occur to me that the OP is really interested in the rule for general cases. (Also consider, goable, gettable, puttable; how about puttingable, wentable, beable, performedable, performanceable, informationable, etc.)

Anonymous

Well, it's implicit in the question. If someone asks whether "Can I goes?" is grammatical, we know the problem is with goes, and we know what sort of problem it is. Same thing here.

Anonymous

The only difference is that this is morphology rather than syntax.

Anonymous

It may not be the world's best phrased question, sure.

Anonymous

But we can still answer whether restrictionable is grammatical.

Damkerng T.

15:22

More interestingly, the OP wrote "restrict + able = >that may or should be restricted?"

I don't know where the "-tion" part came from! :-)

I think it's safer for learners to use only existing words in dictionaries. When they're good enough to coin their own words, they probably won't ask this kind of question.

Also, it's possible that they added -tion to make it a noun because knowledge is a noun (knowledgeable).

Anonymous

Oh, knowledgeable is a great example!

Anonymous

We don't use knowledge as a verb anymore, but we used to!

Damkerng T.

Oh! We did?!

Anonymous

Yep! Well, for sufficiently large values of we. Folks before I was born :-)

Anonymous

Compare acknowledge.

Damkerng T.

15:32

Ahh

Anonymous

There are some examples of -able attached to nouns, though.

Anonymous

The OED suggests this is because of an analysis ambiguity resulting from many nouns and verbs having the same form. They give examples like saleable where only the noun exists.

Damkerng T.

Some -able words seems to have their own meanings, e.g., beable.

Anonymous

Beable? I'm not familiar with beable.

Araucaria

@snailboat There are aren't there. I couldn't think of any when I was writing the answer though (thanks for the edit by the way!). Can you think of any off the top of your head?

Damkerng T.

15:35

They say it exists in physics.

Araucaria

@snailboat Ah you just gave one!

Anonymous

ncatlab.org/nlab/show/beable

2

Araucaria

@snailboat Also it's helpful for readers / learners / teachers too!

Anonymous

(Actually, saleable is the only example they give where only the noun exists!)

Damkerng T.

Ahh... so "beable" is not that popular. :D

Anonymous

15:41

I don't think N + -able is really productive today, at any rate. Since there aren't many examples, it was probably never very productive in the first place. The OED dates saleable back to 1530.

Araucaria

@snailboat @DamkerngT. We can also do it with phrasal verbs "very turn off and onable" "unputdownable" and so forth.

Anonymous

Oh, how about companionable?

Araucaria

@snailboat I was thinking that there's that old saying "there's no noun that can't be verbed". After someone has said that you can then freely say "how about X, I'm sure that isn't verbable."

@snailboat That's a verb though too, isn't it?

Damkerng T.

wondering if "chicken burritoable" is possible... :P

Anonymous

Oh, I guess you're right!

Araucaria

15:46

@DamkerngT. I'm not very chicken burritoable, I'm a vegetarian!

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

The OED has lots of -able words. Bewailable!

Anonymous

Oh, here's an interesting one. Cabinetable: 1896 Daily News 28 Nov. 4/7 "The Prime Minister is...chosen...practically by public opinion, and a small knot of what we may call 'Cabinetable' men."

Anonymous

Though it makes me imagine that there is a verb Cabinet!

Damkerng T.

That makes me think... is bewareable possible...

Anonymous

15:52

@DamkerngT. I think I claimed that it wasn't!

Damkerng T.

:D

Araucaria

@snailboat Ah, but maybe you formed the verb backwards from the adjective :D

Anonymous

5

A: To be able to toggle something

Adding -able to transitive verbs is still a fairly productive process in today's English. Since toggle is a transitive verb, you should be able to form toggleable (meaning "able to be toggled") and be understood, even if the reader has never seen the word before. There are lexical exceptions wh...

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Hmm, yes, usedable won't work either?

Anonymous

This is what I wrote about -able. Or more accurately, what dumb 2013 snailboat wrote about -able.

Damkerng T.

15:55

But we already have usable.

Araucaria

@snailboat I'm sure I've seen loathable around!

Anonymous

Well, to me it feels like a nonce formation at best. But I might as well edit my answer.

Damkerng T.

Ugh! I'd rather use loathsome.

Anonymous

I did write "doesn't usually attach to". Luckily, I hedged! :-)

Araucaria

@snailboat Yes, don't edit!

Anonymous

15:58

It does seem there are no instances of loathable in BNC or COCA.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. How about if you didn't loathe it but your mum did?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... seems like we don't have fearable either.

@Araucaria it was loathsome to/for her?

Anonymous

Hey, @DamkerngT., you got Huddleston's old book, right? Introduction to the Grammar of English (1984)?

Damkerng T.

Checking the title...

Yes!

Anonymous

He talks about -able on pages 27-28.

Araucaria

16:00

@DamkerngT. "I can think of no one very easily comparable in looks or in manner with Mr. Higgins, that most lovable and most fearable gentleman", Thackeray.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Starred that!

@snailboat Thanks!

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Yes, but you might agree that someone was easily loathable, but that you liked them for some reason

@DamkerngT....but you're right, your versions more likely!

Damkerng T.

marriageable!

Anonymous

Oh, that's a great example! :-)

Damkerng T.

0

Q: How would a British say this in a formal letter?

English is not my main language, but I'm quite a perfectionist so I always try to improve it. In a recent message to a british coworker, I've written the following sentence: The delivery record shows that the aforementioned shipment to (addressee's address), was collected by the address...

british-english formal

I haven"t read the answer, but I think the comma before was shouldn't be there.

Anonymous

16:08

Yeah, outside of certain exceptional circumstances, commas rarely appear between subject and verb in English today.

Anonymous

16:22

Oh, but it's such an interesting question, and so hard to answer! Certainly a simple search on Google would be insufficient. Most dictionaries have entries for -able (e.g. the ODE), but they don't really explain the rules for -able affixation. How is a learner to know that desirable is okay but wantable is generally not? They have access to positive evidence but not negative. I feel like questions about affixation should be considered as on-topic as any other sort of grammar question. That's why I voted to reopen. — snailboat 2 mins ago

Anonymous

I wrote a comment explaining why I voted to reopen.

Damkerng T.

Wantable? How about goable and lookable? :-)

Araucaria

0

Q: Can we reopen this morphology question?

The following morphology question is useful and interesting. The question isn't excellently framed. The OP, of course, would find it difficult to frame in the first place, unless they knew words like suffix, affix and so forth. It is difficult to pinpoint what the problem is. However, it brings u...

support reopen

Damkerng T.

Hah! A meta post!

Araucaria

It's definitely going to get some downvotes, but I'm used to that on Meta now!

Damkerng T.

16:30

We need only two more votes.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Hope we get them!

@snailboat Will you write a post if it gets reopened?

@snailboat Gwan, gwan, gwan, gwan, gwan ... :)

@DamkerngT. By folks, off home!

Damkerng T.

Safe trip!

Stack Exchange

0

Q: Can we reopen this morphology question?

The following morphology question is useful and interesting. The question isn't excellently framed. The OP, of course, would find it difficult to frame in the first place, unless they knew words like suffix, affix and so forth. It is difficult to pinpoint what the problem is. However, it brings u...

support reopen

Anonymous

17:09

@DamkerngT. Well, want is usually transitive. Go and look are usually intransitive.

Anonymous

-able attaches productively to transitive verbs, but it doesn't attach to all of them!

Anonymous

We can talk about productivity as a scale, shades of grey rather than black and white. Things can be very productive, or not very productive, or somewhere in between.

Man_From_India

@snailboat Even -able attaches with nouns as well as is the case for the question.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Yes, but it's much less productive!

Anonymous

Let's take Damkerng's example of beable.

Anonymous

17:14

Beable simply doesn't fit the usual pattern of a transitive verb + -able.

Anonymous

It doesn't mean no one ever formed it. Clearly someone did!

Anonymous

But it's really an exception that doesn't fit very well with the rules we all carry around (implicitly) in our heads.

Damkerng T.

Ah, we have another case of possible plagiarism.

Anonymous

Although we don't articulate or think about these rules, fluent speakers know they can add -able to lots of words productively simply because they see (or hear) it done all the time. Formation by analogy.

Man_From_India

Fowler's Modern English Usage says there are some -able words for which there is no related noun or transitive verb.

Damkerng T.

17:16

I don't think it was intentional. Usernew just doesn't know that we should cite our sources properly.

Man_From_India

so it clearly means that there is no such rule :(

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Oh, no, you're confused.

Damkerng T.

@Usernew Please cite your source in your answer.

Man_From_India

:O

Anonymous

The "rule" is a description of how we form words. It's not a law passed down through the ages which people must obey.

Man_From_India

17:18

right...

Anonymous

By and large, people form words with -able (in) a certain way, and that's why we say it's a useful description.

Anonymous

It doesn't matter whether words exist in the lexicon that can't be productively formed following this rule.

Damkerng T.

@Usernew Please see How do we handle source attributions that do not conform to the new rules?.

Anonymous

The question is, are people forming new words that don't fit the rule? If so, then we need to revise our description.

Damkerng T.

Hello, @Man_From_India!

Anonymous

17:20

A lot of words were borrowed with -able built-in, attached in another language to a source we don't have in English.

Anonymous

These are lexical, part of our vocabulary.

Man_From_India

Good evening @DamkerngT.

It is festive season here :-)

Damkerng T.

Sounds nice!

Anonymous

We don't need to worry about them when we're talking about how words are productively formed, because a rule for producing new words is just a description of what we do today.

Anonymous

And even a recent coinage like beable that doesn't follow the rules doesn't mean the rules are wrong―in general people don't form words like that, so as a description it's still pretty accurate.

Anonymous

17:22

And anyway, language made of a natural phenomena. They're messy, they don't fit into neat little boxes. It's okay if we aim for "mostly accurate" and discuss exceptions and the limitations of our "rules".

Anonymous

That doesn't mean we have to throw the rules out! :-)

Anonymous

"Sentences reversing" against rule the break to me for possible technically it's though even fact that out points that way a in language the describe usefully can we and this like talk don't simply people.

Damkerng T.

You're talking backward! :D

Anonymous

Here's another way to think about it: if the description is right 99% of the time and wrong 1% of the time, it's still more accurate than "anything goes", which is wrong 99% of the time and right 1% of the time :-) So we can start by keeping the description instead of throwing it out, and then we can revise our description to try to get it closer to 100%.

Anonymous

We never get to 100%, of course.

Anonymous

17:27

Even a world's-best-doorstop-length treatment like CGEL isn't going to accurately cover every case.

Anonymous

And that's okay. :-)

Anonymous

(Pardon the lengthy response!)

Anonymous

@Man_From_India By the way, derivational morphology tends to be much less regular than inflectional morphology. That's to be expected.

Anonymous

The inflectional suffix -ing attaches to literally every English non-defective verb the same way.

Anonymous

The derivational suffix -able may be highly productive, but it's not surprising that it has some idiosyncrasies.

Anonymous

17:44

@Man_From_India I think it might take a fair bit of original research to answer your question about the distribution of way-NPs vs in-PPs with way-NP complements.

Anonymous

I'll try to do some research later (this weekend?) and see if I can't come up with a description, but at the moment I still can't answer it.

Usernew

which question are you talking about @DamkerngT.?

Damkerng T.

The some dozens of mangoes one.

Usernew

wait, I will try :(

It is froma google book, I don't know the author :(

*from a

Damkerng T.

BTW, I expected "four dozen mangoes" or "four dozens of mangoes" (and "dozens of mangoes", of course), but Google Ngram surprised me.

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Usernew

17:54

Actually, I got so confused that I edited my answer like 3-4 times :(

is it good now?
http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/71408/four-dozen-or-four-dozens/71409#71409

Damkerng T.

Thanks for the edit!

Usernew

@DamkerngT.

I think the OP is still confused about "dozens of mangoes"

Damkerng T.

nods -- Saying "N dozen(s) of mangoes" is not usual in English, afaict.

The more common expressions are "N dozen mangoes" and "dozens of mangoes".

Usernew

Ngram surprised you for a reaosn

*reason

@DamkerngT. Did you mean "A fact"?

Damkerng T.

A fact? Oh, I meant AFAICT.

Usernew

18:08

got it :)

these slangs :(

Damkerng T.

Hehe! Sorry!

Usernew

No problemo :P Well I have to go and watch the movie "Inside Out."

Damkerng T.

Have fun!

Usernew

Good Night!

Damkerng T.

Good night!

Usernew

18:09

Thank you! I hope I will learn some english from it :)

Damkerng T.

No problem! (I think I'd use from as well.)

Anonymous

18:44

@Usernew I hear it's really good! :-)

Anonymous

I haven't seen it yet.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

It's hard to come up with good searches to illustrate the range of constructions because we expect individual examples to be relatively uncommon . . .

Anonymous

We can expect lots of possible examples to fall through the cracks because they don't meet the minimum number of results to appear in the charts.

Damkerng T.

in Language Overflow, 34 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

It's three hundred of them (men/people), but three hundreds of years.

@snailboat I found that trend in Google Ngram.

Anonymous

18:58

Well, the former can be partitive.

Anonymous

The latter would have to be three hundred of the years or something like that to be partitive.

Anonymous

But them is a pronoun and doesn't take a determiner.

Anonymous

I expect three hundred years to be more common than three hundreds of years.

Damkerng T.

I think we can safely assume that!

Anonymous

Yeah, about a thousand times more common, looks like.

Anonymous

19:01

If three hundred of them is partitive, you're selecting three hundred from a larger group. (partitive like part of)

Anonymous

When it's partitive, we usually expect a definite NP after of.

Anonymous

Not everything that looks like that is partitive, so we have to be kind of careful looking at these kinds of things.

Anonymous

[A lot of people] use this site. ← This isn't partitive. The bracketed phrase just means 'many people'.

Anonymous

[A lot of [the people who use this site]] ask questions. ← Now we have a partitive example.

Anonymous

We're identifying a specific group (and so it's definite) and then picking out a subset of that group.

Anonymous

19:05

Three hundreds of years is not partitive. To me it just sounds like an old-fashioned sounding way to say three hundred years, more or less.

Anonymous

19:25

I don't know. I find it really challenging to match up each search string with the possible constructions it could be part of. Picking out good searches is difficult!

Damkerng T.

I think the construction "N UNIT(s) OF NOUN(s)" is relatively rare.

Anonymous

It probably depends on what you're talking about.

Damkerng T.

I think UNIT is a bit misleading term, but I don't have a better word right now.

Anonymous

Six cans of soda, three bottles of beer.

Damkerng T.

nods

When UNIT is NUMERAL, I think it's somewhat different.

Anonymous

19:28

Ah, I see.

Anonymous

Thousands of years, but not (usually) three thousands of years.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

19:41

It all seems very tricky to me.

Anonymous

Do you think this is an off-topic proofreading question? I answered it anyway: ell.stackexchange.com/q/71418/230

Anonymous

Someone downvoted, but no one's close voted.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Snail we're talking about it in LO.

Damkerng T.

I upvoted your answer.

Anonymous

Oh yeah? For some reason I'm in the Cabin but not in Language Overflow! Oops!

Stack Exchange

21:03

0

Q: When should we hold The Retagging Event?

We're going to hold up a chat event (Similar to TCE) to retag almost all of the grammar questions. Are you going to help? What day of the week and at what time are you willing to help us? Personally I'd go with Friday, since it's the weekend here and the last weekday there (Friday evenings are ...

discussion tags chat retagging

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

When should we hold The Retagging Event?

\o @Stoney

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Hi, Mar. 'fraid I'm gonna miss this -- I'm on the road Friday through Sunday. But I'll press ahead with my unscheduled contributions.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB I didn't say it's gonna be Friday, just that Friday is a good time. Feel free to add an alternative time suggestion.

StoneyB

It's more a time-of-day thing for me, usually. I can usually give undivided attention to things in the evening, US Central Time.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M By the way, how many grammar tags were there when you launched this campaign? I see there are 4070 now, and I seem to remember it was much higher before.

Damkerng T.

21:24

@StoneyB applauds

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB It was 4430. clap clap clap

StoneyB

Well, I've killed a bunch, but not 400!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

You've killed 400. :)

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

StoneyB

Unpossible. I only had five hundred and something, and I still have 300 left

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Maybe we have some invisible hands helping.

Is that you @Snail @TCh?

StoneyB

21:31

But I did kill every grammar on the front pages (active and newest) just now, which was only 3 more.

People are paying attention, it seems.

Anonymous

I edited a few.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

The bad thing about this is that I haven't edited much.

At least 150 of my edits were after TCE.

StoneyB

And there are now only 1552 single-tagged grammar - weren't there 1700-and-something before?

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M The cost of leadership

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB 1701, to be precise.

barznjy

22:18

Hi

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hullo!

barznjy

In which language you wrote your name ?

I mean your profile name

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Martian.

barznjy

Do you think this sentence require using "a" before "such"
Therefore, it is important to investigate the impact of such interference on the performance characteristics of an artificial network.

Anonymous

Nope. Better without a.

barznjy

22:25

Thanks a lot. what about the meaning of the sentence, it is clear to you ?

Anonymous

Seems clear enough. Of course, it's easier to judge things like that in context.

Anonymous

@barznjy "What language is your name written in?" ← We don't put spaces before tall punctuation in English.

barznjy

@snailboat Thank you.

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