ELL's Cabin

12:01 AM

> I've many times heard this phrase "it wasn't me" here the case of me is dative in that case should we say "it wasn't us" if the agent is plural?

Alex K did understand and answered perfectly. — user1474062 13 hours ago

That's weird.

Anonymous

I'm not sure it was right to change the question to say accusative instead of dative.

Damkerng T.

The OP gives us two signals: dative, and plural.

Anonymous

Modern English doesn't have a dative case, it's true.

Anonymous

And the pronoun is accusative in form.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

12:03 AM

But it seems like that's something that needs to be addressed specifically.

Damkerng T.

What surprised me the most was that Alex K guessed what the OP wanted right! :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The question is actually pretty clear to me.

Anonymous

> It wasn't me.

Anonymous

> It wasn't us.

Anonymous

They know the first one is okay. They want to know if the second one is okay.

Damkerng T.

12:04 AM

If the agent is plural?

As opposed to It wasn't we?

Anonymous

Yeah. Agent is the semantic role of that noun phrase.

Anonymous

I can't come up with any other way to interpret the term, anyway.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sure.

Damkerng T.

I think my first interpretation if a native speaker wrote that question would be, as opposed to It weren't us.

Anonymous

Can you explain why?

Damkerng T.

12:07 AM

Because the sentence says so.

Anonymous

What sentence?

Damkerng T.

> I've many times heard this phrase "it wasn't me" here the case of me is dative in that case should we say "it wasn't us" if the agent is plural?

Anonymous

What is it that it says?

Anonymous

I don't see anything about the form of the verb.

Damkerng T.

No, but it didn't say anything about the pronoun either.

Anonymous

12:08 AM

Sure it did.

Anonymous

That's the only thing the agent can possibly refer to.

Anonymous

It is a dummy and has no semantic role.

Anonymous

The verb is a verb and has no semantic role.

Damkerng T.

It just states the condition, not the question, imho.

Anonymous

So they're making me plural.

Damkerng T.

12:09 AM

Then what's the question?

Anonymous

Is it right to say "It wasn't us"?

Anonymous

(Answer: yes! :-)

Damkerng T.

I mean if they know "It wasn't me" is correct, and logically, the plural of "me" is "us", why would they have to ask that question.

Anonymous

Dunno!

Damkerng T.

Only one possibility remains: they wanted a confirmation.

Anonymous

12:10 AM

But they did get at least one wrong answer :-)

Damkerng T.

OP: I want to know if It wasn't us is correct. <-- they wanted us to confirm them that it's correct.

Anonymous

Pretty much?

Damkerng T.

OP: I want to know if It wasn't us is correct. <-- they didn't know the answer

Anonymous

I see what you're saying.

Damkerng T.

That's two ways to look at the question, imho. And my default would be the latter, because I assume that the OP is an unknower (judging from the sentence in the question).

Anonymous

12:12 AM

They haven't made it clear whether they're focusing on it, wasn't, or us.

Damkerng T.

nods

Actually, I really did think maybe they were unsure if they had to say They weren't us, even!

(But the distance would be two steps from It wasn't me, so it's less likely.)

Anonymous

To me like they wanted to know what the dative plural personal pronoun form is. Of course, there isn't one.

Anonymous

And their reason for wanting to know that was to figure out which plural form to put into "It wasn't ＿＿"

Anonymous

Because they thought that the thingy there was "dative".

Damkerng T.

It gave me the impression that the OP knows (or at least thinks) that both us and me are dative.

Anonymous

12:17 AM

Yeah.

Anonymous

That's why I thought the edit was perhaps a bit hasty.

Anonymous

Now there are three answers, but none of them have explained that the thingy in question isn't "dative".

Anonymous

Well, one did, but that was the answer that was wrong . . .

Anonymous

Oh! Yes you're right, my case is accusative but not dative.It's a confusing of being both acc. and dat. have the same form at writing, by the way good explanation — user1474062 13 hours ago

Damkerng T.

I now regret that I didn't upvote the first comment.

Question is not that clear. Please explain more and you punctuation. — onlyforthis 17 hours ago

Anonymous

12:19 AM

You can still upvote it! :-)

Anonymous

(and you punctuation?)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

@snailboat Looks like someone who presses their r key weakly like I do.

Hmm... but "Question is not that clear".

I didn't understand why you don't understand. If you are not agent of a verb,you say: it wasn't me but if the agent of verb is plural e.g. we i mean a group of people,one could say it wasn't us ? — user1474062 14 hours ago

Maybe I should read that carefully.

That's confusing, isn't it?

Anonymous

Yeah, good point.

Anonymous

They're mixing up semantic roles with syntactic function with grammatical form.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

12:23 AM

That explains why they say agent here.

Anonymous

Instead of something like "the complement of wasn't"

Anonymous

The semantic role isn't actually relevant to picking the right form for that word.

Damkerng T.

In OP's mind: It wasn't me <-- me is not the agent of a the verb

Anonymous

So it's a little weird to identify it as "the agent".

Damkerng T.

In OP's mind: It wasn't us <-- we is the agent of (the) verb

Anonymous

12:26 AM

"Who threw chalk at my head!?" "It wasn't me ~~that/who threw chalk at your head~~!"

Damkerng T.

I think they have a problem with negation as well.

Anonymous

Well, it's probably a lost cause anyway. They're studying a grammar which claims English has a dative case.

Damkerng T.

Okay, I threw in the towel! :D

Anonymous

I think we've identified a number of potential sources of confusion.

Damkerng T.

I don't know how to help, I think, and they seem to be happy with Alex K's answer. That should be good enough. :-)

Anonymous

12:28 AM

On the bright side, they don't actually need to know what case is to learn to speak English.

Damkerng T.

That's very true!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I definitely see your point of view now, though, after you explained why it might be interpreted as a question about wasn't versus weren't.

Anonymous

Until you explained, I just couldn't figure out why someone would interpret it that way.

Damkerng T.

I hope that English tests wouldn't include this kind of question ("Is that you?" a) "Yes, it is I." b) "Yes, it is me.")

Anonymous

Ergh.

Anonymous

12:35 AM

Tests don't necessarily test the actual language :-(

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I can now understand why Alex K answered the question that way too! Thank you!

Anonymous

Sometimes you have to do some mind reading.

Damkerng T.

nods

Because if the examiner is someone like one of the answerers, the test takers would need to answer a).

I'm thinking, which style guide writes Eg without any period.

And what grammar calls copula verbs, verbs of being?

Anonymous

Oh, that's a new one on me.

Damkerng T.

Basically, I'm trying to assess the dialect of a user. :D

Anonymous

12:40 AM

I've seen eg and I actually rather like the periodless style. I particularly like vs and cf and others where there was only a period at the end.

Anonymous

I deliberately write vs, but I think it bugs some folks :-)

Damkerng T.

And who would write I, we, he etc (not ...) with neither periods nor commas around etc?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Suddenly I'm hyper-aware of my dialect! Is saying folks a marker of sociolect? How about new one on me? Panic!

Damkerng T.

I think it hints at AmE. :D

Folks is neutral, I think.

Anonymous

I think British English is a bit more progressive about not using periods.

Anonymous

12:43 AM

People still use them, of course.

Damkerng T.

Oh, they use Whilst. That gives more weight to the other side of the pond.

Anonymous

Ah, I remember when we looked through corpora we found that whilst was particularly rare in AmE, and most of the people who used it in the AmE corpora were actually BrE speakers!

Anonymous

I don't think it's entirely absent from AmE, but it's a pretty strong marker.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

That is, I would never tell someone they were wrong for saying 'whilst' in AmE.

Anonymous

12:45 AM

But you don't hear it very much, relatively speaking.

Anonymous

I think in AmE, we write Dr. for Doctor quite often

Anonymous

And in BrE, they write Dr most of the time.

Damkerng T.

At this point, I can't tell where they're from.

But surely highly fluent in English (native or not).

Anonymous

(Notice in that example, there's nothing missing at the end. The last letter of Doctor is 'r'. It's different from etc.)

Anonymous

By the way, I have no idea who we're talking about :-)

Damkerng T.

12:48 AM

Well, I analyze everyone routinely, so it could be anyone. :D

I remember that someone on ELL condemns the use of Dr with a period as incorrect.

Anonymous

People analyze me sometimes.

Anonymous

I think three people on ELL have decided that I'm not a native speaker.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Sometimes people are too quick to judge.

Anonymous

That's always a little strange. (If I can't speak my own native language well enough to pass as a native speaker, what language can I speak well enough!?)

Anonymous

I do make mistakes in my English. Just like pretty much everyone else :-)

Anonymous

12:51 AM

ell.stackexchange.com/posts/73266/revisions

Anonymous

Luckily, we have people who help out by fixing that sort of mistake :-)

Damkerng T.

The patterns of errors made by native and non-native speakers are not quite the same, though.

Anonymous

Sure. I'm not denying that.

Anonymous

Although I think they're distributionally different rather than categorically.

Anonymous

Sure, the distributions don't leave much overlap.

Damkerng T.

12:53 AM

nods

Anonymous

But I think that the better an L2 speaker gets, the closer the error distributions get :-)

Damkerng T.

Some errors can reveal the first language of the speaker, even!

@snailboat Indeed.

Anonymous

Sure. L1–L2 interaction is a major source of errors. Hey, should I use an en dash there, or a hyphen?

Anonymous

L1-L2 interaction.
L1–L2 interaction.

Damkerng T.

I really can't tell unless I look closer.

I like the hyphen, but I think an en dash is technically more correct.

Anonymous

1:03 AM

I think the CMOS wants me to use a hyphen, but I'm not sure.

Damkerng T.

Not sure (actually don't know!) about CMOS, but I think Wikipedia recommends using an en dash for this kind of thing.

Anonymous

I thought we talked about the CMOS a long time ago and you ended up picking up one of the older editions on the cheap :-)

Anonymous

Am I misremembering?

Damkerng T.

Ah, it's MLA!

Anonymous

I don't have that one.

Anonymous

1:07 AM

We were taught to use that in school, though.

Anonymous

I guess the underlying justification for choosing an en dash is fitting one of several semantic criteria.

Anonymous

Like for example, 1995–1999 (the en dash signifies 'to')

Damkerng T.

I can't find information on en dash or this matter in the book, but the book itself uses a dash in things like 5.9.1–4.

Anonymous

And so the reason to use it is that it makes the meaning a little bit clearer.

Anonymous

Although one use seems to be grammatical in nature:

Anonymous

1:09 AM

the post–World War II years

Anonymous

Some people seem to use an en dash when attaching a prefix that logically applies to an entire multi-word phrase (in the orthographic sense).

Anonymous

country music–influenced lyrics

Damkerng T.

MLA recommends using a hyphen in post-Victorian.

Anonymous

In the example I just typed, influenced is not an affix of any kind, of course. But the en dash is intended to show the relationship to country music rather than to just music, so it's the same sort of usage.

Anonymous

You would typically use a hyphen with a prefix attached to a single word.

Anonymous

6:10 AM

I'm running low on energy to spend on ELL right now. Too many people who need too many basic things explained.

Anonymous

People writing answers more than anyone.

CopperKettle

6:22 AM

@snailboat "For with much wisdom is much sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases."

Top of the morning, Snails!

The Irish Rovers - Finnegans Wake

►

Pandya

6:50 AM

I've recently shared Q & A which may helpful for correction and clearing confusion for the Learners:

0

Q: Plural of belief: beliefs or believes?

I found usage of both beliefs and believes and confused while using plural. So, I want to know which is correct plural of belief? Is it believes or belief?

plural

@MaulikV I've one suggestion: The off-topic should be synonyms under scope, refer MSO.

Maulik V

7:19 AM

Why don't you put this on Meta ELL? @Pandya

Damkerng T.

7:30 AM

@snailboat @snailboat People should put more effort into finding duplicates on our site. It's very likely that the basic things asked have already been asked and answered.

Now, what's wrong with the JavaScript! Why did it put your name twice? Maybe it was just me. I don't know!

Damkerng T.

7:42 AM

LOL

I have to edit so many times to get this right!

> Possibly a duplicate of [Framing a question on “results” of a malarial infection] (“Enlargement of the spleen and liver and blockage of capillaries in the brain”)](ell.stackexchange.com/q/73862/3281).

Can you see my misplaced close bracket? :-)

This is probably all I can contribute during the day today. See you guys later in the evening.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's hard to find duplicates on ELL sometimes.

Anonymous

Have a good day, Damkerng!

Damkerng T.

I don't know why it's hard but it's indeed hard!

Good day! @snailboat

Pandya

8:13 AM

@MaulikV Done!:

0

Q: The [meta-tag:off-topic] should be synonyms under [meta-tag:scope]

On our meta site, there are two different tags off-topic and scope. But actually off-topic is the synonyms under scope. Refer MSO: Also done at U & L.

discussion tag-synonyms meta

StackExchange

8:23 AM

1

Q: The [meta-tag:off-topic] should be synonyms under [meta-tag:scope]

On our meta site, there are two different tags off-topic and scope. But actually off-topic is the synonyms under scope. Refer MSO: Also done at U & L.

discussion tag-synonyms meta

StackExchange

3:47 PM

0

Q: Improperly closed question

This question was closed as a question answerable from a dictionary: The double entendre on "balls" is doubtless a dictionary question; but I don't think a dictionary is going to explain the cultural context behind the boldfaced utterance, the use of tickets to the Policemen's Ball as a 'coded...

discussion

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Explaining jokes is always challenging!

(Not to mention that it could ruin the joke, too.)

IMHO, it usually works only when the learner is almost "get it".

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. Too true. On the other hand, it lets learners understand when they can tell the joke to somebody else, so it contributes to international joviality!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

HEY!

Well, I didn't VTC as GR, but as "unclear". As seen from the comments, the issue the OP has with understanding the phrase isn't clear. — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 2 mins ago

StoneyB

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Well of course it isn't clear. If it were clear there wouldn't be anything to ask about. But it's thoroughly bracketed, in the title and formatting.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@StoneyB No, I mean the query isn't clear.

I want to know what did the woman say and why did the policeman react that way and leave. @CooperKettle — Parm K S 7 hours ago

StoneyB

3:55 PM

['Spose I oughta go post that where you posted it ... back in a minute ...]

StoneyB

4:07 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. OP focuses on what the woman said, and it's pretty obvious why: because what is important in that utterance is what is NOT being said. There's a code there, and if you don't know the code you don't understand what's going on. Part of the charm of the joke is that understanding what's going on is in the end irrelevant to the joke; but OP can't get that, either, unless they understand what's being subverted.

Damkerng T.

4:41 PM

Only one more reopen vote is needed!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

OK I give in.

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Thanks, @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. "Hey, what are internet friends for?"

Damkerng T.

For reopen votes? :P

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

No, for downvoting.

Damkerng T.

4:46 PM

Heh!

StackExchange

7:44 PM

0

Q: Does this answer deserve "five" downvotes?

I don't usually mind my answer being downvoted because I know the voting system here doesn't work. I saw two identical answers, one of which received 31 upvotes and the other received 9 upvotes. The funny thing was the other answer received 3 downvotes. I believe you would understand why the voti...

discussion

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

9:33 PM

@StackExchange Nom nom nom semi-drama.

Anonymous

10:55 PM

It doesn't necessarily need to be downvoted into oblivion, but people up voting a correct answer and downvoting an incorrect answer? That seems like how the site's supposed to work.

Anonymous

My phone doesn't like me writing upvoting as one word.

CopperKettle

11:55 PM

At proz.com, people post and upvote blatantly wrong translations for a word or a phrase. No community-based system will ever be ideal.

Wikipedia has degenerated too, IMHO. Due to the sheer wealth of material contained in the articles.

Anonymous

Wikipedia has always been a bad source for linguistics info, but there are people working to make it better

CopperKettle

The articles become cluttered with unnecessary data, and weaning it out is a mentally unrewarding job, and one requiring a much higher skill than simply adding information.

At some point, it becomes crucial to downsize an article, an who would venture to do this..

Anonymous

It's just very inconsistent. Wikipedia has high quality info alongside low. Accurate info alongside inaccurate. Clear explanations alongside mud.

Anonymous

And it can be hard to sort out the good from the bad.

Transcript for