Language Overflow

Araucaria

12:00 AM

@snailboat No, I've never heard that either ...

Anonymous

I wonder how many people are comfortable with a mail to mean 'an email'.

Damkerng T.

Calling "email" "mail" sounds a little weird to me.

But it's probably becoming the norm?

Araucaria

@snailboat Oh, I thought that was a US thing?

Anonymous

It sounds normal to me, but I'm surrounded by computer people.

Anonymous

@Araucaria Is it? I have no idea! :-)

Damkerng T.

12:01 AM

(Like calling "mobile phone" "phone".)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, yeah. My friend called me on the phone the other day. I explained that phones are for texting, and my friend complained that you can't text with a land line!

Anonymous

And my first instinct was to say "Well, a land line isn't a phone!" But of course, that's ridiculous!

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Araucaria

@snailboat It's probably not, it's just what my brain had categorised it as ... Might be a computery thing ...

Computery person thingie

@DamkerngT. @snailboat Stoney's comment up there which I looked at again whilst scanning up was interesting grammatically ...
*I have to run nuke frozen burritos for my son's dinner*

Anonymous

What Arnold Zwicky calls a quasi-serial verb (QSV) construction!

Araucaria

12:06 AM

Grrr whay's that not italicking?

Anonymous

Formatting only works in one-line messages. If you (even accidentally) have more than one line, it doesn't work!

Araucaria

@snailboat Cool!I am definitely looking that up (tomorrow).Would that cover go fetch?

Anonymous

@Araucaria Yes!

Anonymous

Some speakers accept run or hurry as the first verb.

Damkerng T.

I wonder if it covers "order take away". :-) -- (I have a hunch that it's different.)

Araucaria

12:08 AM

@snailboat go shopping? (I suspect not, but just checking ...)

@DamkerngT. I think that TA's probably a noun there ...

Damkerng T.

Ah, sorry! I was thinking of our old question, which is about "ordered takeout".

> ell.stackexchange.com/questions/39642/…

Hmm... grammar

What would be a better tag or tags for it?

Araucaria

@snailboat It's strange that, I think it makes s difference (to my BE ear, at least) what the second verb is. So run get sounds normal. run fetch too. But anything very descriptive, like run nuke, or run dismantle sounds odd (but pleasing) ... (shrugs)

@DamkerngT. better or extra? I won't be able to find it if it doesn't have a grammar tag ...

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria I think of it as an emphatic version of go nuke. :P

Araucaria

That sounds weird and wonderful to me too! :D

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria It seems like our tagging direction is to kill the tag grammar.

Araucaria

12:19 AM

@DamkerngT. Hmmm, not totally unsympathetic, but have you seen this question of mine?

Anonymous

I vaguely recall that some speakers produce strings of three verbs!

Araucaria

@snailboat Does you got an example?

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria Yes, I think I was either the first or the second voter.

Anonymous

No, I only vaguely recall :-(

Anonymous

Zwicky has a paper titled Go look at the modern language to test hypotheses about the past where he talks about the origin of the construction. (Spoiler: he doesn't think it comes from go and look!)

Araucaria

12:21 AM

@DamkerngT. So, that question was a gentle way of me trying to say that I find the grammar tag useful ... :)

Anonymous

Also see Constraints on intransitive serial-verb constructions in modern colloquial English (Pullum 1990)

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria Me too, but it seems like the majority of our users voted to kill the grammar tag.

10

Q: Is This Tag Useful? Episode 1 - The Big Boss (grammar)

I guess one of the best ways to get your message across is putting a TL;DR in the beginning. If you agree with the sentiments of the TL;DR the rest might not be necessary to read but if grammar has saved your life somewhere, bear with me so I'll tell you why it's not a good tag. So here goes: TL...

Araucaria

@snailboat Don't delete any of these refs!!

Damkerng T.

I wonder how many verbs English has. Is its number less than 10k?

Anonymous

People make new verbs all the time.

Anonymous

12:29 AM

And we forget old ones that people don't use anymore.

Damkerng T.

Let's say only the stable ones (in main dictionaries) and we count only headwords (so stand, stand down, stand up, etc. are one verb)

Anonymous

Well, we can convert nouns to verbs readily: "I microwaved the egg. It exploded!" A lot of these catch on and become (what I think you mean by) "stable" verbs.

Anonymous

So I don't know if we can come up with an exact number.

Anonymous

But!

Anonymous

I wouldn't be surprised if someone came up with a number of around 10,000 verbs.

Damkerng T.

12:32 AM

It sounds like a good number, right?!

Anonymous

In the top 60,000 most common words in COCA, about 5000 are verbs.

Anonymous

In the top 10,000 most common, about 2000 are verbs.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Well, there's ten votes there. I didn't downvote it, but the point isn't do a majority of us guys dislike this tag. The question is, is it doing a positive job for (some) users? I don't really want to go head to head with my young and eager and enthusiastic chat buddy. I'm sure that a majority of Fantasier's downvoters were frequenters of chat - Maulik's too. But I think that ...

they represent users of ELL better than the other posters. More importantly, if I can't use that filter, I WANT A NEW FILTER, and otherwise I'll throw my rattle out the pram! ;D

Damkerng T.

BTW, @Araucaria, I used this as a counter-argument (that grammar could be useful):

Oct 11 at 19:00, by Damkerng T.

If you can see why "cats" and "dogs" each takes 1/3 of questions on Pets, you would understand why I don't think the tag itself is a real problem.

Anonymous

I upvoted Fantasier's post.

Damkerng T.

12:34 AM

and asked:

Oct 11 at 19:05, by Damkerng T.

But what if we had another user who wanted to answer all new grammar questions?

Looks like we do have such a user! (I mean you, @Araucaria :P)

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Not you too?

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria I'm more like all over the place. :P

Araucaria

@snailboat Great!!!!!

Damkerng T.

I upvoted Fantasier's answer too, BTW.

Anonymous

I think English has a few hundred irregular verbs and a few thousand regular verbs. (I expect the numbers to vary quite a bit depending on what you count, though!) Most new verbs are going to be regular.

Anonymous

12:36 AM

I don't know how the numbers would change if you counted verb-particle and verb-preposition idioms.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Treble good! I think he's got a point. I'm kinda surprised that grammar doesn't represent more! Nice work guys:)

Anonymous

The number could probably go up quite a bit if you counted more and more rare verbs. And there's no clear dividing line between "archaic" and "not archaic", so it's hard to know where to stop counting . . .

Araucaria

@snailboat Only a few thousand? Oh, I thought there'd be more than that (don't know why though)

Anonymous

So depending on how you count (do you include phrasal verbs? The rarest of rare verbs? Verbs that many but not all speakers would consider archaic?), I imagine you could push the number well past 10,000. But I'm just speculating.

Araucaria

@snailboat Any notional fifures for nouns?

Or even figures, if you don't know the fifures ...

Anonymous

12:40 AM

Hehe! Well, nouns are the most open class by far, and they make up about half of the top 60,000 words in COCA. So any number I can come up with would be even vaguer than what I came up with for verbs just now

Damkerng T.

I asked that because I think maybe, just maybe, we can group all the verbs into a handleable (<-- my -able word!) number of verbs. Verbs in each group share the same semantic and syntax.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. There are definitely a lot of groups you can make! Semantics and syntax tend to line up but they don't always line up neatly.

Damkerng T.

I was thinking of a few thousand groups.

Realistic? I'm not sure. :-)

Anonymous

People do that sort of thing. I don't know a lot about it.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Scary is the word that sprang to mind!

Damkerng T.

12:42 AM

Hehe!

Anonymous

Maybe see English Verb Classes and Alternations (Levin 1993)

Damkerng T.

I have it ready on my shelf!

Anonymous

Do you remember this message?

Damkerng T.

It's a great start, imho.

Anonymous

> Levin breaks them down into three groups: give-type verbs (give, hand, lend, loan, rent, sell, ...), send-type verbs (send, mail, ship, ...), and throw-type verbs (fling, flip, kick, lob, slap, shoot, throw, toss, ...)

Anonymous

12:44 AM

When we were talking about verbs you can use in both "I gave her the book" and "I gave the book to her"?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, you already have it!

Damkerng T.

Hee

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. I can't remember, did you get CaGEL?

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria I've ordered it from my local Kinokuniya bookstore. My order status is still pending. :(

Anonymous

Sep 27 at 14:08, by Damkerng T.

Indeed! BTW, another book just arrived! (English Verb Classes and Alternations)

Damkerng T.

12:46 AM

Every book I ordered from Amazon.com and .co.jp has arrived (except for one).

@snailboat Yes! :D

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. But you saw the pdf from that rice, meat, peas answer, right?

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria Ah, yes. I'm not a big fan of reading PDF files on screen, though.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Is that a Japanese store?

@DamkerngT. Me neither! One of the best buys I ever made ... :)

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria It is one, but it's also one of the two that I know will import books from the US.

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. You don't live there though do you?

Damkerng T.

12:49 AM

Ah, it's a branch of Kino in Bangkok. :-)

I decided to order CaGEL from Kino because its price plus shipping is much lower than on Amazon.com (or Cambridge).

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Ah, I see!

Damkerng T.

I think almost all books I've ordered from overseas are via Amazon.co.jp. (Again, it's because of the shipping cost.)

Amazon.co.jp makes the best balance between the shipping cost and time for me.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Now I'm curious about what other books I can recommend to you, just to see if you can go back in time and buy them a month in advance!

Damkerng T.

Any recommendation is welcome!

Araucaria

Night all!

Nice chatting .. :)

Anonymous

12:58 AM

@DamkerngT. Okay, for my first attempt . . . Did you happen to buy English Syntax and Argumentation a month ago? :-)

Damkerng T.

I did not. :D

Anonymous

Aww!

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria Good night!

Anonymous

Honestly, I'm not sure which sorts of books you're interested in.

Anonymous

There's a lot of very specific research published about English and linguistics in general, and I'm not familiar with most of it!

Damkerng T.

1:01 AM

I'm interested in books that help me to understand English better.

Anonymous

A-ha!

Anonymous

Do you find that technical references are helpful?

Anonymous

I like to read fiction in languages I'm learning :-)

Damkerng T.

I'm more interested in practical stuff, but I don't mind wading through technicalities to get to my goal, if necessary.

Oh, a fancy book cover! (English Syntax and Argumentation)

Anonymous

Up to the fourth edition now!

Anonymous

1:04 AM

I don't know how they differ.

Anonymous

The editions, I mean.

Anonymous

But I assume he changed stuff.

Damkerng T.

I'm looking at its third ed. on Amazon.

Anonymous

A-ha!

Damkerng T.

I think I've seen the author's name on ELL (maybe ELU?) before.

Anonymous

1:08 AM

Yeah, people quote him a lot. I mean, in general, not just on EL*.

Anonymous

I haven't read most of what he's written, though.

Damkerng T.

Some parts of my Wish List. :D

Damkerng T.

1:27 AM

Ahh

Searching for "I tried to explain why I had been delayed but he ..... my excuse as pathetic" (no quotes) returned only 7 results (one is our ELL question).

So these questions are for KPDS & UDS tests.

From jlls.org/vol9no2/81-94.pdf, "This paper focuses on the washback effects of two high-stakes Foreign Language Tests (KPDS and UDS) of Turkey."

So now we know where the questions are from.

Ahh...

> Washback is a type of impact, which relates to the effects of high‐stakes tests on classroom practices – particularly teaching and learning.

> ... can be positive or negative, to the extent that it either promotes or impedes the accomplishment of educational goals held by learners and/or programme personnel. (Bailey, 1996)

Anonymous

Whew, I was so confused!

Anonymous

Someone made a post on Japanese.SE

Anonymous

in which every space was a non-breaking space.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Anonymous

Apparently if they write their posts in Evernote and copy-and-paste them into the SE Android app, that's what happens.

Damkerng T.

1:35 AM

What was the root cause? Evernote? Or the SE Android app? Or both?

Anonymous

Shrug!

Anonymous

I don't have enough information to answer that question.

Damkerng T.

I'm glad that your problem is solved!

Anonymous

Really interesting problem, though!

Anonymous

0

Q: Why is this line wrapping in the middle of a word?

Why is this question wrapping strangely? The word unfavourable is split across two lines: If you edit the post, there doesn't seem to be a space between unf and avourable. In fact, if I change my browser font size, it wraps into unfav and ourable, or into u and nfavourable, and so on. ...

discussion

Anonymous

1:36 AM

Look at the screen shots!

Anonymous

unf-avourable!

Anonymous

Well, without the hyphen.

Damkerng T.

Because a   was there!

Oh, it wasn't exactly there, but lots of   were all over the place!

So, the browser has to wrap it somehow anyway!

Anonymous

Yeah, I guess!

Damkerng T.

BTW, I'm glad that I found this term: washback!

> If a test has positive washback, ‘there is no difference between teaching the curriculum and teaching to the test’ (Weigle & Jensen, 1997, p. 205)

> Negative washback: - a mismatch between the stated goals of instruction and the focus of assessment, - may lead to the abandonment of instructional goals in favour of test preparation.

Anonymous

1:40 AM

Oh, I missed all the stuff you typed while I was trying to figure that out.

Damkerng T.

So I think it's the negative washback in English courses that makes me sad.

Anonymous

Interesting! I hadn't heard of that term until just now.

Anonymous

It seems like a very useful concept!

Damkerng T.

Indeed! It makes the concept more tangible!

Anonymous

I wonder what people who study for the JLPT study.

Damkerng T.

1:45 AM

> In conclusion, KPDS and ÜDS have positive washback effect only on reading skills of the Turkish academics while these tests have negative on writing, listening and speaking skills.

Aww

It sounds harsh, but realistic.

Welcome to the real world of Exam English.

ELL

7 1

exam-question word-choice complementation subordinate-clauses

This is probably often asked, but what makes a user an unregistered user again?

Anonymous

Um. I dunno!

Anonymous

I probably should know.

Anonymous

51

Q: What does it mean when someone's an Unregistered User?

I looked at someone's profile and it said Unregistered User. What does that mean?

support unregistered-users

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Anonymous

It's one of the many things that probably makes me somewhat remiss as a moderator . . . :-)

Anonymous

1:51 AM

I swear I'll eventually learn how this site works!

Damkerng T.

(^_^)

Anonymous

I just have higher priorities, like doing lots of chatting.

Damkerng T.

I think there are lots of Easter's Eggs around. :-)

@snailboat Yay! :-)

tchrist

2:11 AM

@snailboat Being remiss sounds like you just got divorced. :)

Man_From_India

3:24 AM

I was writing an answer to the four dozen mangoes question. In COCA I'm surprised to find these two sentences -

> One demonstrator died of a heart attack and dozens others were injured in Thursday's anti-austerity riots, that erupted after hundreds of masked youths attacked peaceful demonstrators.

and this one -

> A Palestinian bombing attack yesterday in Tel Aviv killed a 19-year-old woman, a female soldier, an Israeli, wounded dozens others.

I think those are typos and they will be dozen others.

Man_From_India

3:57 AM

But if it's a dozen others, it won't mean a lot of.

But if it's dozens of others, it will mean a lot of.

Anonymous

5:02 AM

Old Japanese had wh-movement. Modern Japanese does not.

Anonymous

Could English lose wh-movement in the next thousand years?

Anonymous

(Will English exist in a thousand years!?)

CopperKettle

5:16 AM

I wonder why do we say on second thought and not on a second thought.

Top of the morning, @snailboat!

Anonymous

@CopperKettle That's a great question!

Anonymous

On a second thought isn't entirely unattested, though.

CopperKettle

It flows better with a. I've just discovered that there's no a there.

(busy, sorry)

Anonymous

The one without a sounds better to me, probably because it's the only one I've actually heard people say, not because of any real difference in euphony.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle No worries, I'm just reading :-)

Anonymous

5:25 AM

It's late here and I'm sleepy!

CopperKettle

("I must have entered the wrong year!")

The internet is a scourge.

(0:

Mamta D

5:40 AM

That's from Back to the Future, right? Haven't seen it yet but heard tons about it.

What's the one movie that everyone around has seen and you haven't? Like a cult or popular movie?

CopperKettle

8:57 AM

@MamtaD Yes, that's a cult movie. You're lucky for having not watched it yet, because it's a pleasure to watch it.

(A poster on a Russian street: "Marty, we've f*cked up everything")

Damkerng T.

9:11 AM

It's very interesting to see people pitching their ideas about "four dozen(s) of eggs".

(Everyone seems to agree upon "four dozen eggs" and "dozens of eggs", but that's not really the OP's point. So I wonder a little about our top-voted answers.)

I think a good answer should judge both of these straightforwardly and convincingly:

a) whether "four dozen of eggs" is correct

b) whether "four dozens of eggs" is correct

(Or "mangoes" in the OP's examples)

15 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

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

I ended up not voting anyone (except the OP's question itself).

Man_From_India

10:33 AM

@DamkerngT. I have done some research in Corpus

When dozon means 12 the plural is also dozen

When it means a number of it is dozens.

So it must be four dozen eggs, not four dozens of eggs.

And about the use of of I found that only in cases where we mean "some from a group", only there it's used.

OED says we can use of but often it's dropped. Collins Cobuild strictly objected the use of of there. And in corpus I found what Cobuild said, except in cases where we need to mean some from many.

Damkerng T.

OED says we can use of but often it's dropped. What does it say about the form?

(If it's not dropped?)

I think in modern usage, "four dozen(s) of eggs" is probably out of the question! :D

I mean, people simply don't use of.

I think we basically have four possible alternatives that two need to be verified (because it's either rare or outdated).

a) four dozen eggs

b) dozens of eggs

c) four dozen of eggs

d) four dozens of eggs

Man_From_India

I quoted OED in my answer.

Damkerng T.

(The fact that the top voted answers don't even mention c) and d) also suggests how rare they possibly are.)

@Man_From_India I saw that, but it's unclear to me.

What their opinion is on c) and d), I mean.

I have a hunch that both c) and d) were once possible, and then the language was reformed somehow (or somewhat).

Man_From_India

10:49 AM

Yes they are rare in COCA also. I quoted some of what I found in corpus.

Going through various examples I think except (d) every others are possible

tchrist

@Man_From_India People don't say but a and b.

Damkerng T.

nods -- So I think it's interesting to see how the current generations of native speakers react when they see c) or d). ;-)

Man_From_India

Colins Cobuild have a clear usage note. It's there in Free dictionary under the entry - "dozen".

Damkerng T.

looking up...

nods

> Be Careful!
You use the singular form dozen after a number. Don't talk about 'two dozens cups and saucers'. Also, don't use 'of' after dozen. Don't say 'two dozen of cups and saucers'.

Hmm... that left c), actually.

Man_From_India

@tchrist I think (c) is possible only in partitive construction. I found similar examples in COCA

Damkerng T.

10:54 AM

Oh, wait. c) conflicts with their first sentence.

Basically, the Be Careful note boils possible things down to only a) and b).

Man_From_India

Most confusing of them were dozens others to mean a number of.

@DamkerngT. Right.

Damkerng T.

11:29 AM

0

Q: Connected prepositional phrases

It is possible, as we all know, to say those sentences below. It was given to me by a kind woman. I walked on the top of the building with my friend under a moon light. One common point between those sentences is that the prepositional phrases are not connected by a conjunction. It f...

prepositional-phrase ellipsis coordination

An interesting question, though I wonder if it's better on Linguistics.

Also, it's curious why they didn't take another step further:

> I walked on the top of the building with my friend under a moon light.

> = I walked and on the top and of the building and with my friend and under a moon light.

(Not that I support their interpretation, but I think it's an interesting angle.)

tchrist

You cannot say "under a moon light".

Damkerng T.

Oh, right!

tchrist

It has to be "under the light of the moon" with a preposition or else "under the moonlight" as one word.

Damkerng T.

I think "under the moonlight" is more idiomatic. Perhaps because of that song?

tchrist

I agree that "under the moonlight" sounds more normal.

There are lots of moonlight songs though. :)

"By the light of the silvery moon"

Damkerng T.

11:33 AM

Hehe! Probably true. It was that one from Coyote Ugly in my head.

Interestingly, the phrase under the moonlight is probably not in the song!

> youtube.com/watch?v=bx3s99FNXzI

Hehe! I guess this happens in many language: cough syrup suppresses the cough, not makes you cough. :-)

In Thai, we call it informally ยาไอ (ยา = medicine, ไอ = cough; so ยาไอ ~ cough medicine).

I remember that we used to call it ยาไอ in relatively formal occasions too, then some people started to correct the term and use ยาแก้ไอ instead. ยา = medicine, แก้ = cure, ไอ = cough; ยาแก้ไอ ~ the medicine that cures coughing.

So we now have both ยาแก้ไอ (for formal, semi-formal usage) and ยาไอ for colloquial usage.

Argh! 'many *languages'!

Damkerng T.

3:48 PM

> It’s a balmy night in Manhattan’s financial district, and at a sports bar called Stout, everyone is Tindering. The tables are filled with young women and men who’ve been chasing money and deals on Wall Street all day, and now they’re out looking for hookups. Everyone is drinking, peering into their screens and swiping on the faces of strangers they may have sex with later that evening. Or not.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/08/tinder-hook-up-culture-end-of-dating

Tindering is a verb!

Man_From_India

4:11 PM

@DamkerngT. I edited my answer to Four dozen mangoes-question to include usage note from MW Usage dictionary. It will make things further clear.

You are right from the beginning that the construction four dozen of mangoes - is actually old-fashioned.

Damkerng T.

Interesting analysis by MW!

3

Q: Is there a word for Gel turning into Liquid?

We have a word called evaporation for liquid turning into vapour. Is there a word for something turning from get to liquid? The thing is that I have a plant "aloe Vera" and it has Gel substance in it. But if you pluck it and let it rest for few days, the gel turns into liquid. Is there a word fo...

word-request

Demulsification?

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M a chemist is needed here. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:09 PM

@DamkerngT. Depends.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M o/

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. \o

Damkerng T.

I saw that question and thought to myself, this is a question for you. :D

I doubt if liquefaction is the right word.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It is, I would VTC as unclear.

Damkerng T.

Huh? Unclear?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:15 PM

Yes. Was the gel the result of a precipitation reaction?

(i.e. was it a type of colloid?)

Damkerng T.

> The thing is that I have a plant "aloe Vera" and it has Gel substance in it. But if you pluck it and let it rest for few days, the gel turns into liquid.

Not sure how that would happen though. In a refrigerator, perhaps.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hmm . . .

@Dam I'm not sure what happens.

Damkerng T.

I wonder why after letting it rest for a few days the substance turns into liquid.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Liquefaction is usually caused by the colloid "getting to a rest".

This could be liquefaction, or . . . something else.

The gel could be reacting with the air, the moisture, the container or even may be decomposing for all I know @Dam.

Hold on, lemme ask at the Table.

Damkerng T.

TIA!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:27 PM

@DamkerngT. Transient ischaemic attack?

Damkerng T.

Heh!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

O.O

@Dam . . . I . . . don't think it's liquefaction. For the love of God take a look at the results!

Damkerng T.

Not sure which picture I should look.

Oh, the web results!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:44 PM

@Dam hmm, on second thought, I think I know what's happening to aloe vera.

Damkerng T.

Yay! What happened to it?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

And the process will be liquefaction.

@DamkerngT. Bacteria

Damkerng T.

Oh!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Dam this article touches on the same issue.

And the article is from 1922!

Damkerng T.

Cool!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:58 PM

@Dam I wrote my comments to all of the posts there.

Is there a precipitate formed, or does all of the gel seem to have turned into a liquid? — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 34 mins ago

It is indeed liquefaction. The best speculation I came up so far is Gelatin Liquefaction By Bacteria, which agrees. — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 8 mins ago

Deposition is common; however, sublimate is indeed common in a theoretical chemistry context. If a colloid relaxes though, we'll call the process "sedimentation". — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 5 mins ago

Liquefy it is; they have to expect correction from the nitpicky me if they say melt. :) — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 4 mins ago

It seems bacteria are responsible for the decomposition of the polypeptide chains. I believe the part of "sol->liquid" is indeed "liquefaction", however decomposition (not "decay") is spot on and more scientific. (Note that everyday life usually doesn't refer to what happens 'behind the scenes', rather what is observed) — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 1 min ago

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