ELL's Cabin

Maulik V

04:56

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. The meta question was about it so supporting answer is supporting the stance!

Mamta D

05:15

2

Usernew

06:23

@MamtaD we speak Hindi, thankfully. :)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. what Maulik said!

Mamta D

06:42

@Usernew haha, yes!

Now reading: nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/sep/24/elmore-leonard-story

"In the words he gives his characters, he often dispenses with verb-tense niceties and above all with subordinate conjunctions and the conditional and subjunctive verb forms that go with them"

"In certain of his novels, these grammatical adjustments, combined with regional usage, produce something one could call dialect. "

Usernew

07:08

@MamtaD Interesting read!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

08:56

@MaulikV About it not about him.

The intention behind posting is important, but not when it's not what's being discussed \CC @Maulik @User.

You two still don't know what I disagree with leaving that question open.

And unfortunately, I'm not feeling like explaining it.

You may have understood it if you read some ELU meta.

@MamtaD There's nothing conflicting for someone who understands what they read.

I wonder what's the anti-fat regime for?

If it weren't for lipids, your body wouldn't have existed . . .

\end{monologue}

Anonymous

20:57

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. It goes in and out of fashion to demonize particular macronutrients. For a while fat was the bogeyman. Right now carbs are.

Damkerng T.

21:14

@snailboat Beware of fat and carbs this Halloween. :-)

Anonymous

I'm not eating any Halloween candy this year, although I will be giving it to trick-or-treaters, which I feel a little conflicted about.

StoneyB

21:24

@snailboat Give them popcorn!

Anonymous

22:07

By the way, I thought the text in Mamta's image was pretty amusing :-)

Anonymous

@StoneyB There's an idea! :-)

Damkerng T.

Wow, I can't read the whole news because Yahoo! gets rid of my scrollbar!

news.yahoo.com/…

0

Q: blanked the day commemorating victims of state terror -- what really does "blanked" mean there?

Source: Russia opens major gulag museum as Putin blanks victims' commemorations Example: Russia on Friday opened a major new museum on the horrors of the Soviet gulag labour camp system but President Vladimir Putin blanked the day commemorating victims of state terror. What exactly do you ...

meaning

I guess that if he blanked it, it would mean that the day was blanked, that is the effect it should've gotten was neutralized.

Somehow. Which I can't confirm.

Anonymous

News used to be one of Yahoo!'s best properties.

Anonymous

Do you ever use Google News?

Damkerng T.

I think they may pay too much attention to their mobile and small devices audiences.

@snailboat Not really. I only read news via Twitter feeds nowadays.

Anonymous

22:17

Blanked must have some specialized meaning in this context.

Damkerng T.

Before that, I read real newspapers. :D

Anonymous

I used to read real newspapers!

Anonymous

I don't get a single paper newspaper these days.

Damkerng T.

Me either!

Anonymous

Nor do I go to any newspapers' web sites directly.

Anonymous

22:19

It seems like they used the verb blank intentionally.

Anonymous

It appears twice, once in the article's headline and once in the article itself.

Damkerng T.

I don't think it's a typo, but I'm not sure if my guess was right.

Anonymous

I think it means something like what you said, but I don't think this is an established use of blank.

Damkerng T.

I'm watching Dead Poets Society. (I guess they're rerunning it because there is the word dead in the title! But that's not what the movie is about!)

The scene "Rip it out!" just came up a few minutes ago.

I guess a remake of the movie in the next few years from now could change the dialogue to "Stomp on it!" (silence) "Yes. I mean stomp on your tablets, gentlemen!"

Hmm... do boys-only schools still exist in America?

Anonymous

22:35

Apparently they do!

Anonymous

nytimes.com/2014/12/01/education/…

Anonymous

I don't think they're particularly common anymore, though.

Damkerng T.

I think I heard this in a clip I'm trying to transcribe. Does this make any sense? "It all feeds into Trump's campaign strategy which has been to really bats and mice attention and publicity."

Anonymous

It seems like bats and mice should be replaced with a verb of some sort. Optimize?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... that would make sense, but it can't explain the /b/ (or something similar) there.

Anonymous

22:44

I was trying to repeat bats and mice to myself to figure out what it could sound like.

Anonymous

Bat some eyes? :-) Doesn't fit either . . .

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It does sound like bat some eyes!

Anonymous

I'd probably have to hear it myself.

Damkerng T.

Give me a couple of minutes. I will upload the clip.

Anonymous

Yay!

Damkerng T.

22:47

dropbox.com/s/tko4p6b652q0twh/bats%20and%20mice.mp3?dl=0

Anonymous

Maximize

Damkerng T.

LOL

Thank you very much!

Now it fits!

Anonymous

/b/ and /m/ are pretty similar, so that makes more sense than my first guess :-)

Damkerng T.

I knew I would have a good laugh soon, and I really did!

Anonymous

Yay!

Damkerng T.

22:50

I think it was his /sɪ/ in maximize that confused me.

BTW, my first guess was "back some ice" which is as equally funny as "bats and mice". :-)

Anonymous

23:36

@DamkerngT. What do you find confusing about it?

Damkerng T.

It sounds more like a standard schwa.

I expected it to be a schwa of some other vowel, not "xi" in "maximize".

Anonymous

Well, the other two syllables are stressed, so reducing the vowel in some way is to be expected, and most speakers probably aren't going to notice whatever variation there is in the actual phonetic quality.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think he could say "mack some ize" exactly like that. :D

Hmm... come to think of it, it looks like I couldn't recognize the word because I misheard one phoneme in each of the three syllables.

Anonymous

I think most speakers wouldn't notice whether it has a [ɪ̃m] or [ə̃m] or [m̩]

Damkerng T.

Probably when this happens, I will miss the word and have to guess every time.

Anonymous

23:44

I think in my own speech I use [ə̃m] or [m̩]

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I have another challenging part. Right now I just have it written "(inaudible)" in my transcript. :-)

Anonymous

Depending on whether my lips fully close when the [s] ends or slightly afterwards

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That would be more or less like his pronunciation, I think.

Anonymous

I wouldn't be surprised to hear people pronounce it as two syllables, getting rid of the middle syllable entirely (syllabic compression)

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

23:46

Although I don't think I do that myself . . .

Damkerng T.

I'm still not sure why I heard his /m/ as /b/.

Anonymous

It's hard to analyze your own speech, though, unless you've recorded it while you weren't thinking about it.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. They're both bilabial and very similar in phonetic quality.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods -- Even though my first language has both /b/ and /m/. I guess it must've been the style of articulation or something.

Anonymous

If the audio is unclear or the pronunciation is ambiguous, I think a native speaker would generally hear whichever is possible or expected given the lexical, grammatical, and semantic context. They'd know baximize isn't a word and that maximize made sense in context, so they'd automatically (unconsciously) rule out the former and "hear" the latter.

Anonymous

23:48

Speaking of which, did you get Native Listening yet? :-)

Anonymous

It's not just about being able to hear [b] and [m].

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, they came together! But Native Listening is still in the box.

Anonymous

If you isolate that sound and played it to native speakers, I wonder if they'd be able to identify it. :-)

Anonymous

Context plays a major role in identifying sounds.

Anonymous

That's why native speakers are so much better at identifying real speech in noise or when there are parts missing―they fill in the blanks without realizing they're doing so! But take the same sounds out of context, and native speakers may not be able to identify them any better than non-native speakers.

Anonymous

23:51

The more listening practice you get and general language exposure you have, the better your L2 system gets at doing the same thing.

Anonymous

Then it starts to sound to you like the expected consonant, even if the actual audio is technically ambiguous!

Anonymous

Native Listening might look a lot smaller, and well, it is, but it's a pretty dense book! Small type, more pages than you think . . . It's got a lot of information!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh! I expected it to be much lighter than CGEL because of its look indeed.

Anonymous

Well, it is, but it's still bigger than you might think :-)

Anonymous

Chapters 3-5 cover the relevant details here.

Transcript for