Language Overflow - 2015-12-14 (page 2 of 2)

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2:00 PM

Romaine lettuce

Romaine or cos lettuce is a variety of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. var. longifolia) that grows in a tall head of sturdy leaves with firm ribs down their centers. Unlike most lettuces, it is tolerant of heat. == Origin and etymology == In English, the most common name in North America is "romaine", while elsewhere it is known as "cos lettuce". Many dictionaries trace the word cos to the name of the Greek island of Cos, from which the lettuce was presumably introduced. Other authorities trace it to the Arabic word for lettuce, خس khus ([ˈxus]). It apparently reached the West via Rome, as in Italian...

@snailboat Thanks!

There isn't even a Russian Interwiki for this article!

Anonymous

Wow, really? Romaine is one of my staple foods :-)

Anonymous

The snails and I eat a lot of the same things.

It looks like a healthy food!

Anonymous

It's good, although it's mostly water. Slightly more nutritious than iceberg lettuce

Anonymous

Probably the most nutritious green I eat is spinach

Anonymous

2:03 PM

I share little bits of spinach with the snails, but they don't like it much!

(0:

Anonymous

They also dislike any kind of leaf with a reddish color to it.

Anonymous

They're quite picky really! :-)

(0:

Like cats. If you pamper cats too much they become extremely fussy eaters.

@snailboat Romance Lettuce! :P

Anonymous

2:07 PM

Snails can definitely learn to be picky. If you feed them cucumber on a regular basis, they won't eat anything else! But it's not nutritious enough for them to live off of.

Anonymous

I think sliced cucumber is heaven for snails. I haven't found anything else they go quite as crazy over!

"It's moist, it's delicious, it's like heaven!" thought a snail. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Cognate!

Anonymous

Snails do love sources of moisture.

Anonymous

If you turn a faucet to a trickle and bring a snail to the falling water, they're usually fascinated by it.

2:10 PM

I can imagine that!

Anonymous

I still think the masochist sounds unnatural. There's no obvious justification for definite marking in context, so I can't figure out what meaning it would have, and so of course I can't contrast the and a in terms of meaning in that particular example.

Anonymous

The multiply upvoted answers don't make any sense to me at all.

0

A: Confusion about "as"

Your question of ethnicity is the same faced by people in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodia. China has had a huge population, and by extension, has had a huge diaspora. The distinguishing factor is whether a person is ethnic Chinese, that is, originally from China (arguments of ancie...

Native speakers of English seem to have the antennae for article use but not for transmitting information about this usage to others.

Hmm... that's confusing, I think, to say that a Taiwanese is ethnic Taiwanese!

@CopperKettle A cat asked a man, "How can you walk on two limbs?" The man replied, "I don't know. I just walk."

:D

Anonymous

2:18 PM

@CopperKettle I apologize that my article descriptions have been inadequate!

(0:

@snailboat It has been adequate, and is! (0: I meant others.

The man asked the cat, "How can you jump so high?" The cat replied, "I don't know. I just jump!"

Anonymous

Someone star the cat line!

@DamkerngT. The wife asked the man: "Why are you speaking to the cat?"

LOL

2:19 PM

(0:

"I don't know. I just want to." said the husband. ;-)

(0:

Anonymous

I found out I can add my own stars to messages other people have starred on mobile chat. I just can't add stars to unstarred messages. Weird, huh?

Mobile applications are weird.

@snailboat Hah! Is that a secret feature?

2:21 PM

@DamkerngT. Yes.

It's secret feature of SE mobile that even the desktop version doesn't benefit from.

"For instance, Persian simplifies its noun-adjective agreements. This is very clear when looking at numbers: we say "one cow", "two cows", and "three cows", while in Persian you'd say the equivalent of "one cow", "two cow", and "three cow". "

(from the discussion section to McWhorter's article)

@CopperKettle That's true. But does that mean English is weird?

That makes Persian weird IMO.

I think all languages are weird in some way.

And that means none of them are weird. ;)

Anonymous

Every natural language has its own individual character. Some features are common, some are rare. But languages are so complicated that they're sure to have at least a few unusual aspects to them.

2:31 PM

Another one: "My language (Dutch) also has no genders associated with nouns (only in the dictionary, but no one knows if a fork is male or female), also has extremely difficult spelling (the yearly national spelling bee competition of Flanders and Netherlands produces a winner that still makes 2 or 3 mistakes, and the average is around 20 mistakes in a text of 30 sentences). "

Anonymous

All weird, none weird.

So Dutch spelling also in disarray with pronunciation.

Anonymous

Whose language is Dutch?

Danes?

Anonymous

Orthography lagging behind language is very nearly universal.

Anonymous

2:32 PM

I was asking who wrote the quoted text.

LOL @Copper @Dam @Snail this year we have a secret hat named 'Abby's revenge'.

@snailboat It's from the comments section to McWhorter's article. (0:

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Hah! How to get one?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. What is that supposed to mean? I'll google.

It's rewarded for commenting on Jon Ericson's posts. Jon was responsible for WB last year, and he made a secret hat for when you'd comment on one of Abby Hairboat's posts.

Wonder if you enjoy Abby's revenge this year? ;) — Shadow Wizard 1 hour ago

2:34 PM

Oh!

Now he's getting close to 5000 pings.

Anonymous

It takes time for language to change, though, so orthographies that have been established or reformed recently can be quite shallow.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. If you would open a Persian book from year 1000, could you read it fluently? A commenter said that the Iranian language has not changed.

@CopperKettle I would, but I'd run into occasional speed bumps in understanding the meaning.

The biggest change has been the removal of a great portion of vocabulary.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Wow. I would just look in amazement. I tried reading the Tale of Igor's Campaign. It's like Chinese to me.

2:38 PM

And some pronunciations have changed.

Anonymous

No living language is frozen in time.

Anonymous

But some move faster than others :-)

I'm pretty sure he'd think Thai is easy. (And semi-formal, standard Thai is indeed easy. So we can say that Thai is both easy and difficult at the same time, imho.)

@DamkerngT. So Thai is Schrodinger's language?

@snailboat A cat got curious, "How can a language move without legs?" :-)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Ah, Thai is like an onion.

2:40 PM

@DamkerngT. Would you just give Hagu something he could sleep on? He seemed to have a bad day.

@DamkerngT. Shrek?

Anonymous

English speakers wouldn't be able to understand English from a thousand years ago without serious study. The same is true of Japanese.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Hehe!

Anonymous

Some places have a culture of studying old languages.

nods -- Personally, I like ancient Thai. IMHO, it was very sincere.

Anonymous

Japanese speakers study Classical Japanese, Chinese speakers study Classical Chinese

Anonymous

2:43 PM

Did you study it in school?

I suppose that's why I like country music so much.

Here next year's curriculum will contain some French for studying.

@snailboat Not really, but almost every Thai would have read part of our first stele.

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Khamhaeng#The_Ramkhamhaeng_stele)

Most texts in that era would sound pretty much like country music. I mean, people would say, "I like you" when they meant "I like you" and "I hate you" when they meant "I hate you".

I think the language started to get more complicated at around 400 years ago.

0

Q: Difference between Past Perfect and Pluperfect tense

Is there any difference between Past perfect and pluperfect tense? Please help me to understand with below example Conversation 1 A) You need to call him B) I had called him. Conversation 2 A) Why are you so upset? B) I had ordered this dress online. But this is not the same whic...

tense past-tense

Anyone know what "pluperfect" is supposed to be?

(I can see only the past perfect in the question.)

Anonymous

2:59 PM

It's not normally used in descriptions of English.

Anonymous

When it is, it's usually a label for the past perfect, I think.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. English has legs!

@snailboat Oh, yes! -- going to tell the cat so... :-)

@DamkerngT. I wondered this too.

3:20 PM

@DamkerngT. My wife, who spent the last six weeks working on one of Alfred the Great's translations of St. Augustine into English, would tell you it got complicated long before that!

@StoneyB BTW you can adjust your hat to fit your avatar.

@StoneyB I'm sure it happened long before that in English!

Iirc, Shakespeare lived some time 400 years ago.

FAA Announces Small UAS Registration Rule (in case you own some drones)

3:51 PM

Hi all. Can you tell me how to contact the moderators of ELL?

@kitty Depends.

Is the thing you need to inform them of really moderator-y and important?

0

A: Which is grammatically correct: 'update on' or 'update about' my status?

I'd recommend a different construction, since taking the indirect object "you" for "update" is uncommon at best, and ungrammatical or semantically lagging at worst. Instead go with I will inform you on further updates to my status.

I received a message from the ELL system, saying that I earned a Sufganiyot, because I "ask, answer, or vote on December 14th"

Hey @Dam I'm looking to hunt a hat.

@kitty That's Winter Bash.

I have searched the Help about what that means

but of no luck finding any answer

Hi MAR.

@kitty It's a tradition in Stack Exchange.

@kitty \o

They celebrate winter opening.

3:53 PM

What does it mean? Because I have never given any answer on ELL yet.

It's kinda like a game. Think Easter Eggs.

Oh Isee. Thank you.

Thank you you guys for the help.

See you later.

No problem. And, have fun!

No need to thank me!

Anyway, AIWS @Dam I'm hunting the 'speedy hat' thingy with that answer. :)

Oh!

3:58 PM

Dammit I was wrong!

Aww

I think update you on my status sounds better than about.

I think both are equally fine, rethinking.

4:28 PM

0

Q: Any differences between "I didn't have many apples" and "I had few apples"?

We all know that "I had a few apples" and "I had few apples" are different. I wondered what the possible differences would be in the meaning of these two sentences: I didn't have many apples. I had few apples. Well, we know that "few" is a negative quantifier and it's the opposite of 'ma...

negation determiner quantifiers

^^ That's a very intelligent question from an even more intelligent OP. CC @Copper @Dam

(0:

5:05 PM

I decided to out a mask on my avatar, lol

winter bash

Nice hat!

5:21 PM

@Copper @Dam I posted the answer:

0

A: Any differences between "I didn't have many apples" and "I had few apples"?

Yes, they convey different meanings. Down-to-Earth I didn't have many apples. I had few apples. Simply put, sentence one conveys the meaning that the speaker didn't have as many apples as it would take to call the apples "many". Sentence two tells us that the speaker had a small nu...

Things you do for hats . . .

Hey @Stoney, I might need your expertise to be as precise as possible in that answer of mine. ^^^

If I get a few upvotes that might go to the HNQ list. :P

5:47 PM

Hmm... I'm not sure if I agree with CGEL.

Do you have one eye?

If you agree with CGEL, your answer would be "yes".

@DamkerngT. nitrogen oxide, molecules don't have eyes.

I'm an exception. I don't count.

But what do you mean @Dam? I'm interested.

I think they mixed something up the same way older grammars mix up PoS with functions.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Well, what is your answer?

Do you have one eye?

2 mins ago, by Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. nitrogen oxide, molecules don't have eyes.

Then, we don't have anything to discuss.

That was a "no".

Nitrogen oxide is "NO", @Dam. :)

5:52 PM

Suppose that you are a normal boy, do you have one eye?

But gimme your argument. I'm interested to hear.

@DamkerngT. My human disguise has two eyes.

Surprise at where the letter F came from

It's just a simple yes or no question. Why evade it?

@DamkerngT. Well, I am saying "no".

No, I don't have one eye.

So, as a boy or a young man, you don't have one eye?

5:54 PM

I don't have one eye. I have two.

If I say "I don't have an eye", it could imply that "I have no eyes", while that's not correct for my human form.

But Chatper 5, section 5.2 Scalar entailments and implicatures hinges upon that your answer should be "Yes". Or at least, it can be "Yes".

How so?

What does "Max has four children" mean?

It means he has four children.

i.e. the number of his girls and boys equals 4.

Or more precisely, according to CGEL, how many possible children Max can have, given that the above statement entails the proposition.

5:57 PM

No no no no, CGEL said negating "many" results in a paucal implication.

Have you read [17] i?

Actually, your answer also hinges upon this.

I just did now.

Without it, there wouldn't be any difference, as one native speaker said.

CGEL says "if max has 5 children, he does have 4".

Yes.

5:59 PM

And that's correct, no?

that is correct.

It's the basis of this riddle

So, in entailment, wouldn't it be correct to say that he has 4 children while in fact he may have 5 children?

I still agree with CGEL @Dam: I do have one eye, because I have two eyes.

@DamkerngT. Yeah. We may say that.

We have to take into account why are we asking how many.

Now, you just changed your answer from "No" to "Yes", right?

@Nihilist_Frost That's the part I think CGEL is missing.

6:01 PM

if we wanted a total, saying that you had four children when you have five is wrong.

@DamkerngT. Yeah, since the statements had different implications.

It's like in traditional grammars where we focus only on PoS, and ignored the functions of phrases/words.

"I have one eye" is incorrect when you restrict it.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. To the context of "how many total eyes you have right now".

the asker wants a total; give them the total.

So I think your answer is not very accurate because it doesn't say anything about the context. It simply gives the interpretations as something universal.

6:05 PM

If you claimed that you had two nukes, and people find out you had a hundred nukes, that's a problem.

@DamkerngT. I did say the difference in meaning is not always voiced.

I asked "are the meanings the same?" and I answered "no".

Hence it is a comprehensive answer.

I think it should be obvious that something changed your opinion when I asked the question "Do you have one eye?" before and after we discussed 5.2.

@DamkerngT. Yes, context did, but see my previous message.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I don't think I agree with that, unless you try to interpret can as is (which is basically the same trick CGEL uses in their arguments).

Two things can be different doesn't mean two things are (always) different.

@DamkerngT. Hence the last paragraph.

Oh but wait here @Dam.

6:09 PM

No, it's not "is very subtle and may go unnoticed". -- I think it's context dependent.

Your arguments don't hold for this case.

Since this is about negating "many" and using "few".

Of course, "not many" could mean "few", and it could not, and that's the point of my answer.

Okay, let's try this.

"Not all of the sailors tried to defend their captain!"

Hmm.

If someone said that, would you think he meant "None of the sailors tried to defend their captain"?

I upvoted MAR

6:11 PM

@DamkerngT. No. I wouldn't judge that fast.

@Nihilist_Frost (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

"Hence, we can say that if sentence one is true, so are others."

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I would interpret it as "at least some of the sailors did defend the captain, but there were sailors that didn't"

Sentence one = "None of the sailors", and "Not all of the sailors" is one of the others, yes?

If "none" is true, so is "not all".

@Nihilist_Frost Nailed it.

But the opposite isn't true.

So what's wrong if someone said "Not all of the sailors" to mean "None of the sailors"?

6:14 PM

@DamkerngT. Nothing. "Not all" contains "none", they may mean the same, they may not.

Math time!

See?

I rested my case.

"none of the sailors" means that not a single one of the sailors defended the captain.

If 2 is a natural number, it's a real number too.

I still don't see a wrong argument from CGEL in this very case.

@DamkerngT. But isn't that what I said in my answer? Confused

If one can knock off an axiom that a postulate is based on, one doesn't need to prove whether the postulate is correct or not.

What I don't like about this section of CGEL is that they turn it into logic. Now, I don't say that we don't use language to express logic. But I think we all agree that the two things aren't the same. And when we do that, a shaky ground follows.

Not that I don't understand what they think, but I don't think the way they express it is rigorous.

I did see how your argument holds for four and five.

But it doesn't hold for "not many" and "few".

6:19 PM

Wait, maybe they tried to be too rigorous, and thus failed because it's about language.

4 doesn't belong to 'set' 5.

But "few" is a subset of "not all".

I just got it.

I wish @Snail would engage in this discussion.

Then it would've devolved into Japanese. :P

:D

Then to snails, then cats, then molecules, and Korean food.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Didn't devolve the last time I posted katakana

FWIW, I think I'd be more okay with your answer if it were "can be very subtle and may go unnoticed", but this shifts to problem to "when" exactly that it is very subtle and may go unnoticed.

6:25 PM

Hullo @barrycarter! Welcome to LO!

@Nihilist_Frost When did you do it?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. The "Gough" thing

Because if we always insist on the subtlety, we'd become an "un-corporative" conversation partner.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Thanks. I was hoping to find some questions to answer in stack chats, but there don't appear to be many, at least not "easy enough for me" ones

@barrycarter I think we have lots of unanswered questions, but difficulty levels vary. :P

BTW, welcome to the chat!

@DamkerngT. Oh, I meant questions in the chat itself, not on the boards. I'm trying to real-time help people, but, so far, I haven't found any really good way to do so.

6:27 PM

Ahh

@barrycarter You can hang here!

What are you an expert in?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I be hanging :) I'm not really an expert in anything, but I can help people with mostly math and science topics, but I'm also a native English speaker and can help with simple English usage questions.

Must be a hanging expert. :P

@barrycarter Oh, you might be an expert in being a nice guy.

That, too!

6:30 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. No, I'm actually a terrible person, but I haven't found an opportunity to make the world a worse place so far today.

Any suggestions?

@barrycarter Increasing its entropy?

They say entropy brings peace.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yes, but that's a natural consequence of existence. I'd like something that more directly harms the world.

3 mins ago, by Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@barrycarter You can hang here!

@barrycarter (in an evil voice) Downvote something. :P

@DamkerngT. Ooooh!

6:32 PM

why are dental fricatives uncommon cross-linguistically?

@DamkerngT. Wait a minute, you tried to trick me! If I downvote a bad question, I'm actually doing the world a service. Nice try, though.

Oh, is it? Wait, what are the dental fricative sounds in English?

@Nihilist_Frost Did you just ask why more people don't use a click language?

with velars being more common?

@barrycarter Hehe!

6:33 PM

@DamkerngT. The "th" sounds

@Nihilist_Frost Maybe because they're not creative?

θ and ð

Because we have to reveal our teeth more often? :P

(Apparently, I'm in a weird mood today. :P)

Let's see, what Asian languages have such dental fricative sounds? ...

(I can think of only a few Asian cultures in which people seem to like to reveal their teeth.)

The British are particularly sensitive about revealing their teeth.

@DamkerngT. Burmese.

6:37 PM

Hah! But they do use /θ/ and /ð/.

nods -- As far as I can tell, they are quite open. :D

I just got a spam saying I had a bill due on "November 31, 2015"

Oh, I meant they should be particularly sensitive...

@barrycarter Ah, it's way past due now!

@DamkerngT. I'd better open that zip file and see what this is about ;)

Oh, wait, it's just spam. -- Phew!

@barrycarter it's spam/virus maybe

6:40 PM

@Nihilist_Frost Yes, I was teasing. I've been getting dozens of these today. Some with Excel macros, other just zip files.

@DamkerngT. Arabic.

Persian used to have, doesn't anymore.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've noticed them (Burmese people) use /θ/ before. (There are a handful of Burmese folks living in my village; most do housework, some are nannies, or perhaps gardeners.)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I thought he was talking about the more "Eastern" part of Asia.

@Nihilist_Frost He just said "Asian" tho'.

I think I should try to pay more attention when the two nannies who like to do their gossip near my house gossip their bosses again. :P

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I think people in the Middle East are a little shy as well.

6:43 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Unfortunately "Asian" has an Eastern connotation in several contexts.

@Nihilist_Frost And an Asian connotation in one context. I just gave the smallest chance we count as humans. :P

I think the contrast (of shyness) was more obvious a few decades ago.

Hmm, I'm changing hats.

We live in a post-globalized world, so maybe cultures converge more and more.

Oh, neat! I have only one hat!

9.

6:48 PM

Cognates can be an annoyance to find, though

English "do" and French faire

I can't figure out the link between the two.

faire from Latin facere from PIE *dhe

Ahh

I wonder how dh -> f

Oh, in some regions, people pronounce "th" sounds with "f" and "v"!

6:50 PM

Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/dʰeh₁-

== Proto-Indo-European == === Root === *dʰeh₁- to do, put, place ==== Derived terms ==== *dʰeh₁- ‎(root present) Balto-Slavic: *dētei Slavic: *děti Germanic: *dōną (from o-grade) (see there for further descendants) Italic: Latin: -dō, only in compounds: abdō, condō, crēdō, didō *dʰé-dʰeh₁- ‎(reduplicated present) Germanic: *dedē (past tense of *dōną, from imperfect; possibly also the source of the past tense suffix of weak verbs) Hellenic: Ancient Greek: τίθημι ‎(títhēmi) Indo-Iranian: Sanskrit: दधाति ‎(dádhāti) *dʰéh₁-mn̥ *dʰéh₁s *dʰéh₁-tis *dʰóh₁-mos *dʰh₁-meló-Hellenic: Ancient...

@Nihilist_Frost You should figure out how "p" turned into "f" in some Persian words. :P

I think I've seen some Indian guys write the voiced "th" as "dh" before.

Hmm... dádhāti doesn't ring any bell for me.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. stop turns to fricative? reminds me of father vs pater

We have ดัด "dad" (the "a" is pronounced like Japanese "a") meaning "imitate" which is close enough, perhaps.

@Nihilist_Frost Oh yeah . . .

6:55 PM

dʰ > θ > f is the only way I can sense out the dʰ > f for Latin

for facere

and fumus

7:39 PM

user image

I think my version (if I wanted to say something like that) would be:

> I'm not arguing. I just want to explain why I think what I think is right is right.

@DamkerngT. Tho' the point of the poster, and the reason the satiric voice, is the sentence you changed into something wise.

:D

8:23 PM

"Valency of a verb" — such a graceful term to use.

Hey @Jasper.

Chem and linguistics are not in that much of a conflict.

I wonder if it was a chemist who used the same term in linguistics first.

3

Q: What did Obama mean when he said "we've surged intelligence-sharing"?

Last week, US president Barack Obama said: Third, we’re working with friends and allies to stop ISIL’s operations -- to disrupt plots, cut off their financing, and prevent them from recruiting more fighters. Since the attacks in Paris, we’ve surged intelligence-sharing with our European alli...

meaning-in-context word-meaning verb transitive-verbs

@Snail am I right in thinking a causative valency increase has happened up there?

Hullo @Stephie

Though it makes me doubtful; there are no other morphemes to indicate this back there.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. <waves>

(enthusiasticly)

@Stephie <matter>

Schrodingerically

I have always been able to accept both concepts ^_^

But I'm sure there was never a cat in his box.

Oh wait, @Snail I found this in Wikipedia:

> English fell (as in "Paul felled the tree") can be thought of as a lexical causative of fall ("the tree fell"), exemplifying this category.[1]:177 This is considered a lexical change because it is not at all productive. If it were productive, it would be an internal change morphological causative (below).

So I think the same applies here?

You are giving me a headache.

8:37 PM

Thank you.

I should remember to tell that to Snail.

He's (or she?) probably less tired that I am atm.

@Stephie She.

And yeah, since she must be having breakfast now.

Hey @Dam even I can leave nice comments!

Yes, it seems to me that he increased the valency of the verb and IOW changed intransitive to transitive. Something like "Paul felled the tree." as explained by Wikipedia (Under irregular stem change) — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 35 secs ago

9:26 PM

1

Q: Which synonym can I use for the word "desired" in this context?

Which synonym can I use for the word "desired" in this context? The monitoring component is the visible interface which the consumers interact with to visualize the desired route location.

Hmm... really?

> "Basic questions on spelling, meaning or pronunciation are off-topic as they should be answered using a dictionary. See: Policy for questions that are entirely answerable with a dictionary" – Subjunctive, StoneyB, shin, Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ., Glorfindel

Should it be answered using a dictionary?

9:41 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. BTW, I think, theoretically, "I didn't have many apples" can mean "because I had all the apples".

(And, "I have not many apples" and "I don't have many apples" convey subtly different meanings as well.)

I created a new tag prescriptive-english, because the OP seems to want it:

I mean "who" instead of "whom" was recognised as a correct form by some kind of organisation which decides which changes can be made to the English language (I don't remember its name). And my question is: which of the above sentences are correct according to the rules of the English language, not acording to what people usually say (I'm not going to say "ain't", although this is also common is some regions). So are you saing that only sentences 1 and 4 are correct, but people use sometimes sentences 2 and 3 as well? — user2738748 1 hour ago

Dead, Very Dead, and Grammar:

> "Is the girl dead?"
"Very."

> --Survivor (2015)

I just realized that English has some well-formed sentences with just pure vowels as well.

> I O U

(Hmm... U is debatable.)

Anonymous

10:21 PM

Aye!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But there is no such organization.

@snailboat I'm not sure why many learners seem to think there is one.

Must be some kind of a conspiracy!

10:34 PM

@DamkerngT. I owe you some candy.

jk

:D

Anonymous

To the candy bank!

You see I was joking about the "I O U"

Anonymous

Ohh :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Because /j/ is a semivowel?

10:43 PM

I guessed so.

Anonymous

Phonetically, though, a semivowel-vowel sequence is a lot like a vowel-vowel sequence

Anonymous

They're considered semivowels mainly because they pattern like consonants phonologically, and we let that leak into our phonetic theory

Anonymous

But [j] phonetically is quite like [i]!

It's just in the beginning part that the difference is more obvious.

Anonymous

Trying saying [iu] in one smooth movement.

10:47 PM

Like, eww? :D

Anonymous

Eww!

Anonymous

Yew!

Anonymous

What do you suppose sets them apart?

Just the tiny bits at the beginning.

anyone notice our /ɱ/ allophone?

Everytime I try to say symphony with a pure /m/ I end up with /ɸ/ afterwards and it sounds slightly odd.

Anonymous

11:00 PM

Please write allophones in square brackets

Anonymous

To avoid confusion

agh

can't edit

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Dec '1514

Language Overflow

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