Language Overflow

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:52 AM

@tchrist O.o Isn't that utterance ungrammatical? I always thought it should be looks Jewish not looks like Jewish.

Don't mind me, my head must have been blown to bits today.

Mamta D

10:12 AM

0

Q: Passive for "Ram goes to school"

This is one timeless problem that every school boy in India has scratched his head over. What would be the passive for 'Ram goes to school' ? PS: Every students first guess is "The school was gotten to by Ram"

Anyone can answer this?

I don't think the current answer is correct but if no one answers, the OP may accept it.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@MamtaD Um, can you passivize sentences with intransitive verbs?

Mamta D

I don't think so but then what do we tell him?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Tell him that an ELL site exists.

Araucaria

10:27 AM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Yes, of course you can!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Araucaria #awkward, no?

@Arau so what would be the passive form of the sentence above?

Araucaria

11:16 AM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Which sentence?

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria "Ram goes to school"

ELU seems to suggest "The school is/was/has been gone to by Ram".

1

Q: "exist" vs. "there are"

Which of the following sentences is more natural or normal, is there any difference? Currently, there are powerful query languages for XML. Currently, powerful query languages exist for XML. What are the other alternatives?

word-usage difference

This makes me think... can we really write "Currently, powerful query languages exist for XML"?

I think "Currently, powerful query languages for XML exist" flows better.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. That one can't be passivised felicitously because prepositional passives often only work when the Object of the active clause preposition undergoes some kind of physical or emotional change or there is some kind of mental involvement with the Object of the preposition by the Subject. Compare: This bed has been slept in and ?this bed has been slept over or ?... how the town was arrived at with how the decision was arrived at

Damkerng T.

nods -- I thought the suggestions over there weren't quite right, but it might be passable. It looks like the question could use a deeper discussion.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. The bed being slept in leaves the bed all messy, but the being slept over has no effect on it

@DamkerngT. I'm sure F.E. wrote a good post on that over here at ELL

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria If only we could easily find it!

Related questions:

"There was an unexpected incident occurred while they were in the car" (http://ell.stackexchange.com/q/71265/3281)
"In the Prague treebank, a specific language called PML based on XML has been developed, which provides a scheme for annotation of various information." (http://ell.stackexchange.com/q/71332/3281)

Araucaria

11:38 AM

8

A: Use of "go" in passive form

Can we use verb "Go" in passive voice? Yes, we can. Golly, that was an easy one to answer. :D Wut? You'd like some examples? How about, The child's hair was gone through with a fine tooth metal comb to remove nits. which is an example of a prepositional passive. If that example is...

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria Yay!

Araucaria

3

A: Use of "go" in passive form

QUESTION: Can we use verb "Go" in passive voice? Here, in this post, I'll show that "GO" can be in passive voice by showing an active/passive pair of sentences, where the direct object of "GO" of an active sentence is passivized to create that passive version. Consider the context of where ...

4

A: Passive voice and prepositional phrases

The basic question is whether sentence C is acceptable, but the motivation behind it is to know whether there are examples of PPs in active sentences that can function as subjects of passive ones. Well, let me answer the motivation part of your question first -- because it is the easy part! ...

Damkerng T.

Oh, we have more than one!

Araucaria

(but note the comment under the last one - which F.E. later seemed to think was maybe correct ...)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... refer to... that's interesting.

I don't think CGEL would call go (to) a prepositional verb like refer (to).

Araucaria

11:45 AM

@DamkerngT. I don't know about that, I'd have to do some research on that ...

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria F.E. mentioned "Note that the verb "refer (to)" is labeled as a prepositional verb by CGEL, and that its preposition "to" is considered to be a mobile specified preposition. CGEL discusses these topics, including the verb "refer", on pages 274-80." as an aside. (in case you missed it)

Mamta D

Added F.E's link to the "Ram goes to school" post. Thank you guys.

Araucaria

12:03 PM

@DamkerngT. Thanks. Did you buy CaGEL?

Damkerng T.

My order is still pending, sadly.

I think they try to reduce their shipping cost, and my book will be shipped together when the cargo is full.

Actually, I've got two books pending.

tchrist

1:07 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M FTFY

Damkerng T.

1:35 PM

Hmm... "looks like <adj.>" shouldn't be ungrammatical, I think.

E.g., "It looks like red."

Damkerng T.

5:29 PM

^Could be a cute avatar. :-)

Damkerng T.

6:21 PM

Interesting corpus results of the day:

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

1

Q: Negation in "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...

negation coordination neither-nor

An episode of "Ministry of Nors" could be useful. :D

tchrist

6:50 PM

Microsoft makes cowards of nearly everyone.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist About Windows 10?

tchrist

Actually, about nor.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:16 PM

@DamkerngT. I would never say "it looks like red". I would say "it looks red". "Like" seems to me as if it requires a noun with a determiner.

Damkerng T.

It's followed by a noun, most of the time.

Try this, "They looked like crazy".

To me, it doesn't mean the same thing as "They looked crazy".

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. I'm still dubious about this.

Damkerng T.

I just don't want to be FLAWLESS. That's all.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hmm, I refrain from any further assumptions about the construction.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I agree that a noun phrase after "look like" is more common, though.

-1

Q: How to ask in another way: "How many bones is in the skull"

I want to ask this question in another way. Something like "From How many bones is the skull made of" or "how many bones is the skull consist of" It's important to me that it will be the way that English native speaker used to ask these questions. (I'm not English native speaker as ...

word-choice

I had to ask myself, are skulls bones too?!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:39 PM

@DamkerngT. First impression: Looks like someone doesn't know what they're looking for.

Damkerng T.

It seems so, in English, I think.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Definitely bones.

166

Q: Stack Exchange Glossary - Dictionary of Commonly-Used Terms

What are the common phrases, words, abbreviations that are used on Stack Overflow, Server Fault, Super User, Meta Stack Overflow, and the other Stack Exchange sites? This is meant to be a very quick overview, not an in-depth tutorial. When considering whether a term ought to be included, please ...

support faq glossary

Hey @Dam whaddya say we make something like this for ELLers on meta?

Damkerng T.

For what purpose? I thought we used the same set of words.

Anonymous

Hello!

Damkerng T.

Hello!

:D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:42 PM

@DamkerngT. I'm not sure how many ELLers will know it when you use the terms "BNC, COCA, Ngram" etc.

@snailboat Hullo~!

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Oh, I see!

Anonymous

When I use the term n-gram, it doesn't mean "a graph from Google Books Ngram Viewer".

Anonymous

I can't speak for anyone else.

Damkerng T.

I think we could use a list of our own, then.

@snailboat To me, Ngram and n-gram are two different things.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. A Google search could do it; but it's a pain and it would make a difference if an expert on the matter writes their view of the terms rather than a bunch of chavs in Urban dictionary.

Damkerng T.

7:44 PM

Like (Google) Books and books.

Anonymous

Well, Ngram is an alternate spelling of n-gram.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat I said Ngram not n-gram!

Anonymous

They're the same word.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hmm, do we have t-gram?

Tertiary gram

Or maybe even sec-gram.

Anonymous

I'm not about to start distinguishing the two personally, although I do spell it the way Google wants when I'm using the name of their product since it is a proper name.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:45 PM

too-much-chemistry

Damkerng T.

nods -- But to me, Google has already taken the spot for Ngram.

Anonymous

And of course I capitalize it.

Anonymous

Keep in mind that people sometimes capitalize N-gram even when it's not part of a proper name.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

in The Periodic Table, Oct 16 at 9:03, by inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

You mean when Ben answers one of those ~~dumps~~ illegitimately and deceivingly queried queries?

Anonymous

So you should expect all four spellings (Ngram, N-gram, ngram, n-gram) to be used with the same set of meanings.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:47 PM

Sometimes we're easier off indicating it with a single vague or extreme-ish word rather than a clear phrase.

Anonymous

People might not take referring to questions as "dumps" very well.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat N-gram is a gram that has bonded to a nitrogen, n-gram is "normal" gram (i.e. nonbranched), ngram is n times "gram" and Ngram is . . . don't mind me, I'm babbling because it's late at night. :)

Anonymous

By the way, I'm not saying you shouldn't distinguish Ngram and n-gram.

Anonymous

I'm just pointing out that not everyone does :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat For ref.: meta.chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/2975/…

Which makes me wonder . . . is n-gram chiral?

Anonymous

7:50 PM

If you rotate it, you get u-gram!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

O.O

Damkerng T.

u-gram!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

This is a conspiracy! They wanted to kill Darius from the beginning! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

Huh, @Snail has an account on chem! \o/

Anonymous

Technically!

Anonymous

I have accounts on just about every SE site, 'cept the few I'd specifically rather not.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:53 PM

Hmm, a chat reg after two years in The Periodic Table, one third of all of the starred messages are mine.

Anonymous

The rooms where I am are a bit biased in favor of me being starred. Why? 'Cause I'm on mobile chat a lot, and I can't star other people's messages from mobile :-(

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Stars @Snail's message

You're now allowed to flip a table.

Anonymous

I don't have a ちゃぶ台 to flip!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh my, I should flip one too.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ （ノT＿T)ノ＾┻━┻ (/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

Anonymous

We don't really have those sorts of tables here in the U.S. I mean, most of us don't.

tchrist

7:57 PM

traduce:
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ （ノT＿T)ノ＾┻━┻ (/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

Anonymous

youtube.com/watch?v=Tt6tQf_sdJc ← A tea table flipping tournament!

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

Tokyo Tower is pretty good at chabudai-gaeshi!

Damkerng T.

The trophy was... a golden tea table!

Anonymous

8:12 PM

I'd suggest not ending sentences with prepositions, but most native English speakers no longer follow that rule. — DaaaahWhoosh 6 mins ago

Anonymous

That's okay. It was never actually a rule in the first place. — snailboat 1 min ago

Anonymous

That's all I had the energy to respond with this time.

Damkerng T.

It happened because the question was (still is) at top of the page.

Hmm... do I need 'the' before 'top'?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I think so.

Damkerng T.

Thanks! I don't know what I was thinking! :D

BTW, my Kindle is dead. -- sad

Anonymous

8:20 PM

Oh no! :-(

Anonymous

What happens when a Kindle dies? Do the books on it get passed on to whatever medium you replace it with?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat All the books are still on my purchased items list. I still can view them on the web in the meanwhile.

Anonymous

Phew!

Anonymous

I don't have one of those.

Damkerng T.

I'm thinking about buying a new old Kindle to replace the dead one.

The new Paperwhite Kindles look cool, but they have no TTS!

Anonymous

8:22 PM

New as in a replacement for your old unit, old as in a previous year's product line?

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

What is TTS?

Anonymous

Text to speech?

Anonymous

Why would they remove that? It seems mean.

Damkerng T.

Yes! They removed this feature from newer generations of Kindles. I'm not sure why.

Anonymous

8:23 PM

People who can't see as well rely on text to speech.

Anonymous

My housemate is legally blind and has a Kindle.

Anonymous

She can still see, but not as well as most people.

Anonymous

Hers is one of the older ones.

Anonymous

I don't have one myself.

Damkerng T.

I can still see fine, but not as sharply as I once could.

Anonymous

8:24 PM

I can't either. I have glasses! :-)

Anonymous

I can see things that are right in front of my face pretty well, though.

Damkerng T.

So, TTS would be nice!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

My eyes were never the resolution they're supposed™ to be.

Damkerng T.

(Even though it sounds more robot-ish than Siri.)

Anonymous

I like listening to audiobooks read by good actors.

Anonymous

8:26 PM

I wish audiobooks were more popular in Japan!

Anonymous

I'd get a lot more books to listen to :-)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... if Thai were more popular, I might try to sell audiobooks reading some myself. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Our Persian Literature teacher has a really, really, really really awesome voice when he reads some poems we caffeinate.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hey, you've got a good voice for that sort of thing!

Anonymous

Of course, I know nothing of your acting abilities.

Anonymous

8:27 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M You caffeinate poems?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat We get caffeinated.

Anonymous

Now that sounds like chemistry!

Damkerng T.

:D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Hagu . . . is . . . ei . . . cat.

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I thought that's what you meant, but your sentence doesn't make that parse available.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:28 PM

@snailboat I messed up my sentence in the middle, yeah.

Anonymous

> We are currently offline for maintenance

Anonymous

Noooo!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat ELL? SO? SE? Meta? IUPAC? RSC? COCA?

Anonymous

Probably.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's as vague as it gets for a response.

Damkerng T.

8:32 PM

@snailboat Arrrghhh!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

#NewTypoTrend: Missing "s" in "response".

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Like French!

Anonymous

Une réponse !

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh, that's a typo as big as a language. O.o

Anonymous

French lost a bunch of esses.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:34 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Hoomin autoincorrect is worse than a bot.

9

Q: A proposed solution to the "grammar" dilemma -- Please contribute your answers to the "what is grammar" post

This is the follow-up of Is This Tag Useful? Episode 1 - The Big Boss (grammar). (i.e. intended to be the community decision on the matter, if people agree with the sentiments of this meta post) TL;DR I believe the opposite side has a point, while reaching the wrong conclusion. So I take all of...

discussion featured tags tag-cleaning

This can't possibly get more boring.

BTW I was watching Top Gear the other day. They were headed to Chernobyl.

It was awesome, and scary.

A silent, evacuated-for-40-years city. :O

Abandoned playgrounds, buildings, cars . . .

It was scarier than post-apocalyptic movies, since . . . it was real!

And funny thing is, Jeremy's car ran out of gas in the middle of the city, where the radiometer thingy went nuts.

@Dam please unpin.

Damkerng T.

Okay. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

(Because I'm asking on meta)

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Top Gear at Chernobyl?

Is it safe now?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Hmm.

@DamkerngT. No.

Anonymous

I just realized the snail might not be eating OH.

Damkerng T.

8:46 PM

I'm not sure if it was Chernobyl the city or the plant.

Anonymous

It might be saying "OH"

Damkerng T.

LOL

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. It was the city, of course they didn't go to the more dangerous parts.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Their journey was from some village (IIRC) to Kiev to Chernobyl.

Jeremy tried to learn Ukranian on the go, and his communication with the natives was hilarious.

And their mission was to make cars run out of gas.

Damkerng T.

8:53 PM

Oh, what kind of fuel did they use over there?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Gasoline? They didn't mention it, I thought they meant the normal fuel fuel.

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

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M That doesn't sound very hard. Don't you just keep driving without filling up the tank?

Anonymous

I've never seen that show, but I understand it's very popular.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat The contest was in making it run out of gas ASAP.

Anonymous

Oh! So they have to drive as inefficiently as possible?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:59 PM

Yes.

IIRC Jeremy put some extra 300 kilos on his car, James just covered all of the holes in his car for a reason I don't remember, and Hammond drove zigzag-ily.

Damkerng T.

9:11 PM

Ah, the site is back!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Whose back?

Damkerng T.

By the way, I picked up some books (Thai) and read a few bits of them!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bgabadfao17kjpq/20151021%20-%20Royal%20Page%27s%20Tradition%20-%20ancient%20text%20%28excerpt%29.mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8w5z2zvc2j8q8e5/20151021%20-%20The%20Hobbit%20%28Thai%2C%20ch.1%2C%20excerpt%29.mp3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bpatrklqsh30oj4/20151021%20-%20The%20Death%20in%20Color%20of%20Honey%20-%20modern%20drama%20%28majjuraj-see-nampheung%2C%20ch.5%2C%20from%20Thairath%29.mp3

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M ELL

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

ELL's back is back? O.o

@DamkerngT. Oh my I'm sooo gonna listen to them!

Damkerng T.

It went off line a little while ago.

Hehe!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 39 mins ago, by Feeds

We're making some adjustments to tag length on certain sites and will be causing a few database locks. We'll try to keep impact minimal.

Tweeted by StackStatus on October 20, 2015 at 8:35 PM

Damkerng T.

9:16 PM

Yep!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Now all you need is a quiet room and some intro music and you're set! :-)

Anonymous

Damkerng™ brand audio books!

Damkerng T.

LOL -- Intro/background music is important!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Intro music? He should play Mozart's symphony no. 49.

♪

♫

♪♫

Damkerng T.

They're all first takes, so it's far from perfect, but I have to say that I had a good time reading them. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:18 PM

@Nihilist Another annoying thing is long comment threads. Please refrain from adding not comments as comments. — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 4 mins ago

Anonymous

They should move the blog link on ELU to between the chat and log out links. It's bad UI having the chat link on the left only some of the time.

Anonymous

Or better, put the ELU blog link somewhere else entirely.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

*terrible

tchrist

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Kip kip kurray!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Snail RE edit: Um, sorry, my English might have finished suddenly. "holded" facepalm

Damkerng T.

9:30 PM

Oh, "She is no student" went network-wide yesterday!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

The algorithm is borked (a funny version of "broken").

Damkerng T.

It's surely borged. :D

Anonymous

Huh. I never related borked to broken mentally.

Anonymous

Is that what it comes from?

Anonymous

eps.mcgill.ca/jargon/jargon.html#borken

Damkerng T.

9:39 PM

Ah, a jargon file!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Mmm @Stoney @Snail @Dam what's the phrase/word for when someone uses perhaps artificial stats to claim they're really precise in what they're measuring?

Anonymous

Lying?

Damkerng T.

cooking data?

or just statistics

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Roasting data?

StoneyB

cherry-picking?

That's selecting the data which suit your argument and ignoring those which don't.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:41 PM

We have a nice word in Turkish for it. We say

> That's his believification.

Get the picture?

Damkerng T.

Ahh... that's called hollywoodization in my book. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Imagine you're going to buy some product.

StoneyB

confirmation bias

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Would you not believe the guy's being honest with the price if he says "this would be 12 dollars and 39 cents" rather than "this'd be 12 dollars"?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I did that myself sometimes. :P

Anonymous

9:45 PM

What would you think if someone told you that English had 1,025,109.8 words?

Anonymous

languagemonitor.com/number-of-words/…

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat I wouldn't think anything.

Damkerng T.

I would hastily ask, how did you get that number?

StoneyB

I would want to know what 8 tenths of a word is.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

> Currently there is a new word created every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words per day.

I believe I'm responsible for that. :P

StoneyB

9:46 PM

It doesn't matter how many words are created. What matters is how many words are accepted.

Damkerng T.

<-- adding another maxim to his list: "Not all words are equal"

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Some words are only eight tenths of what they could be?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Some words are more equal than others.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That's what the stats say!

Anonymous

My favorite Futurama quote is "each more identical than the last!"

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:50 PM

So, what exactly is the word for "belivification"?

Anonymous

Although "You are technically correct―the best kind of correct" is pretty quotable.

Damkerng T.

Oh, Bangkok made it to the list! languagemonitor.com/fashion/…

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

i.e. some stat used to make you believe something as honest

Damkerng T.

I should believe them, perhaps. :D

Anonymous

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death. Several other people...

StoneyB

9:51 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I want to know more about your speaking Turkish.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. You know, I have a "friend" in school, who claims to have visited Bangkok.

@StoneyB I want to know more about my Turkish either.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Is this about our "statistics" talk, too?

(Is your friend's claim a data point? :P)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. He always boasts about what he doesn't have and what he has.

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M You said "We have a nice word in Turkish for it". Are you some sort of Farsimpostor?

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M That would be about everything!

I think MAR can speak about 4 languages, more or less.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:56 PM

@Stoney BTW, I researched and, the word "Ariane" was used to refer to Iran back at 300 B.C. by the Greek. So "Iran" is a pretty ancient name.

@StoneyB My mother tongue is a twisted version of Turkish which is in the brink of extinction.

Damkerng T.

(On the other hand, I think I was able to speak Hmong better than Jeremy's Ukranian, but I forget almost all of it now.)

Anonymous

The additive focus particle either is a negative polarity item. It appears in negative contexts: "I don't like fish." "I don't like fish either!"

Anonymous

The additive focus particle too is a positive polarity item. It appears in affirmative contexts: "I love fish!" "I love fish too!" It also appears in interrogatives, surprisingly: "I like fish. Do you like fish too?"

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

> I will eat your souvenirs.

Anonymous

So "I want to know more about my Turkish too", because there's no negation.

Anonymous

9:59 PM

Usually we find negative polarity items, not positive, in interrogative contexts: "Do you even like fish at all?"

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Does it have a name?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Snail I used to get them right. After I studied about polarity in Persian, I keep mixing the definitions and get them wrong/

@StoneyB Azeri Turkish, we call it.

It's a dialect of Turkish.

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M You suffer from bipolar disorder.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Yeah, my magnetic dipole is affected by hydroxyl.

StoneyB

17 million speakers is hardly "on the brink of extinction"

Damkerng T.

10:05 PM

But a disruptive event could happen anywhere and anytime! (I mean to a language.)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB The dialect is different from what they speak in Azerbaijan. It's been contaminated by Persian and Arabic and there's no one preserving it, and at the same time there's this trending that "speaking Persian is classy", hence the vocabulary is vanishing gradually, and IMO most of it already has.

Proof: It's hard for me to understand the words in our contemporaneous poet's Turkish poems.

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Well, but the same thing might have been said by any grumpy Englisc speaker in 1100 or so.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I can feel something similar over here. For example, a lot of younger people don't know what ฉุยฉาย or นวยนาด means.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB There are some idiots thinking they're maverick, but take it too far, to a fascist degree, and make Persians dislike the language even more.

@DamkerngT. I'm not sure it's happening to you, since Thai is a whole language, and the official language of a country. If it is, what language is replacing it?

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Some part of it, I suppose.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

10:12 PM

@DamkerngT. What language is invading Thai?

Damkerng T.

English, of course. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Your case isn't similar to ours.

Anonymous

I have a Japanese dictionary of loanwords from English with two million headwords. Japanese is still Japanese, of course, but it's absorbing loans at an astonishing rate.

Damkerng T.

Then again, perhaps that's how languages evolve.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

The official language of the country here is Persian, but the official language of Thailand is Thai, no?

Anonymous

10:13 PM

The principle of 'total availability' applies here: You can borrow any English word into Japanese at any time.

Damkerng T.

The official language over here is Thai, yes.

@snailboat 2m headwords!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Loanwords are something different, they're part of language evolution and generally productive.

But if English "river" replaces the Japanese word for river, Japanese is in trouble.

Damkerng T.

Loanwords are natural, I suppose. I'm more concerned with the grammar or something more fundamental.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

. . . which is what's happening to my Turkish. :(

Anonymous

Lots of English words have replaced Japanese words. Like the Japanese word for spoon, which is supuun. It replaced the old one, saji.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

10:16 PM

Still not as bad as this Turkish's situation.

Anonymous

Well, I never said anything was bad.

Anonymous

It's true that a sizeable chunk of the Japanese vocabulary is now borrowed from English, although still not as much as is borrowed from Chinese. But I don't see any reason to make a value judgment about that.

Anonymous

Most of the words I use in English are loans. That's fine by me :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah well, what if 80% of the language you speak is another language?

Anonymous

I can't answer that question in a way that makes sense.

Anonymous

10:20 PM

More than 80% of the English vocabulary is borrowed.

StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M It means you're poised for a takeover.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I see what you say.

@StoneyB Ahan.

Anonymous

I think about two thirds of Japanese words are loans.

StoneyB

Think of English, hovering on the periphery of Europe while the prestigious French and Italian and Spanish and German speakers slaughtered each other.

Damkerng T.

But Japanese uses its own grammar, I think.

Anonymous

10:22 PM

@DamkerngT. Yeah. Chinese and English definitely have had effects on Japanese grammar, but they're really very small effects relative to the language as a whole.

Anonymous

Languages do influence other languages' grammar, but that's much harder to do than to influence them at a vocabulary level.

Anonymous

I just learned that clearing migration history reopens a post.

Anonymous

That was confusing!

Damkerng T.

How can we-- oh, on JLSE perhaps?

What?! ell.stackexchange.com/questions/44706/…. Viewed 27705 times, and the top-voted answer has got only 7 votes?!

So, 27698 people viewed that answer and didn't vote it.

Maybe we need a better answer or something?

Anonymous

Yeah, on Japanese.SE.

Anonymous

10:34 PM

I was doing moderatorly things. Poorly. :-)

Anonymous

That's how I roll. Poorly!

StoneyB

@snailboat I think that MAR is claiming his mother tongue has been creolized.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... there are lots of minor related issues in that "It's was nice to talk to you" question, so perhaps 7 is about right.

Anonymous

Ah, I don't know anything about the language situation there. I didn't mean to comment on it.

Anonymous

Am I the only one who thinks "Me too!" would be a weird response?

Anonymous

10:38 PM

1. "It was nice talking to you again!" "Me too!"
2. "It was nice talking to you again!" "You too!"

Anonymous

What do you think?

Anonymous

I don't know why Maulik's answer is downvoted.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think it was because the early revisions.

A bunch of his answers could turn out to be quite the opposite of his first post.

Anonymous

I'm just talking about this particular post.

Damkerng T.

(After lots of comments and other information)

I was talking about early revisions in that post too.

I didn't downvote that one, btw.

StoneyB

10:41 PM

@snailboat "Me, too" is definitely odd. "You, too" is only slightly less odd.

Damkerng T.

Question: How can I reply to the sentence of "It was nice to talk to you" properly in a formal and causal way?

Answer: "Thank you. Same here."

I think it's unclear whether the answer is formal or casual.

Anonymous

Ah, I see what you mean!

Anonymous

Let's fix up that question a little . . .

Anonymous

I'll at least change causal to casual. No need to cause anything! :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

StoneyB

10:43 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Ethnologue ranks your tongue at 3 on a 0(international)-10(extinct) scale. 3 Wider Communication...The language is used in work and mass media without official status to transcend language differences across a region.

Damkerng T.

English is at 0, right?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. This question has over 80,000 views, but no answers above +3: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/5473/…

Damkerng T.

Ugh!

Anonymous

My guess is, the vast majority of the views are people coming in from Google searches who don't have accounts and can't vote.

Anonymous

No, English is at 1.

Damkerng T.

10:48 PM

@snailboat nods

Anonymous

Sep 15 at 8:39, by snailboat

> EGIDS 0 (International) is a category reserved for those few languages that are used as the means of communication in many countries for the purposes of diplomacy and international commerce. Because the Ethnologue organizes the language entries by country, EGIDS 1 (National) is the strongest vitality level that we report.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

But you'd think that if any language were 0, English would be it.

Damkerng T.

Oh, no! Southern Thai and Northern Thai are at 5! And Northeastern Thai is at 6a!

(Thai is at 1, though. Phew)

Oh, I see. 1 = National.

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