Language Overflow - 2015-12-21

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11:40 AM

in English Language & Usage, 2 hours ago, by Hugo

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/17/guest-post-clarity-is-king-the-evidence-that-‌reveals-the-desperate-need-to-re-think-the-way-we-write/

Spotted in another room. (Thanks, Hugo!)

> Clarity is king – the evidence that reveals the desperate need to re-think the way we write

> In 2012, research by Christopher Trudeau at the Thomas M Cooley Law School in Michigan, into the use of language in legal documents found two things, one obvious, the other surprising.
First, when given a choice, 80% of people preferred sentences written in clear English (for example, 97% preferred ‘among other things’ over the more traditional Latin phrase ‘inter alia’) and the more complex the issue, the greater that preference. But second, it found that the more educated the person, the more specialist their knowledge, the greater their preference for plain English. The old argument (…

It's a little sad that most proficiency tests seem to prefer sophisticated writing.

I suppose that it's like Garner said, which is, to put it in my own words, the stage of learner is "starting out from simple, then sophistication, then simplification".

Correction: the stages of learning are: orientation (starting out from simple), then sophistication, then simplification.

12:02 PM

Interesting. I thought The mezzo will sing whether she feels up to it or The mezzo will sing whether we like it would be fine in English, even though it'd be an odd thing to say. — Damkerng T. 1 min ago

I may have to think about it later.

@DamkerngT. I'm afraid not. The alternative "or not" can only be left implicit in embedded questions (I don't know whether the mezzo will feel up to [or not]); in adjunctive clauses it must be explicit (The mezzo will sing whether she feels up to it or not). — StoneyB 54 secs ago

A-ha!

12:25 PM

vCould be useful!

@MarkH - You can find some good starter tips here. — J.R. ♦ 16 hours ago

^A stock message for when someone asks about formatting

@DamkerngT. vCould?

Think of my v as a down-arrow.

BTW, this is the first time I've seen a meta question migrated back to the main site.

Oh.

0

Q: How would you say in English "So weit war ich auch schon!"?

I would like to say that in circumstances like: The proposed solutions, which I have received are not new to me.

We need a German translator here!

@DamkerngT. *transchlator

12:36 PM

Hah!

Wait for it.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. ↓

Hehe! Thanks!

1 hour later…

2:11 PM

Hi all!

Hi @DamkerngT.!

Look to this sentence. The study is conducted in the period time from November to May.

Hi! @Hanaa

Do you want to check whether the sentence is grammatical or not?

2:34 PM

No

I'd like to check its content

The words

2 hours later…

4:41 PM

@Hanaa I'm not sure I understand your message. The words look rather okay, I think. The way it's arranged could be problematic, though.

0

Q: So, introduce yourself /ˌɪn.trəˈduːs jɔːˈself/ will become /ˌɪn.trəˈduːʃɔːˈself/ right?

ok, In dialects with yod dropping, /juː/ is pronounced the same as /uː/ after coronal consonants (/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /θ/, and /l/) in the same syllable, so that dew /djuː/ is pronounced the same as do /duː/. In dialects with yod coalescence, /tj/, /dj/, /sj/ and /zj/ are pronou...

I yod-drop.

Zeus, dew, news, etc. lack a /j/ for me.

I started to drop my yod around a couple years ago.

The video doesn't really use a pure /tr/ in "introduce".

And the first vowel of "yourself" is not /ɔː/ here.

4:59 PM

I didn't want to use any kind of transcription in that question, either /.../ or [...]. I thought the OP might get the wrong idea.

and he took a non-rhotic pronunciation to compare to a rhotic speaker...

nods

and the vowels don't sync either.

It's already not easy for an average person to do phonetic transcription, not to mention learners.

It seems like the OP copy-pasted from his dictionary of choice.

due to the lack of sync.

5:03 PM

nods

1 hour later…

6:10 PM

user image

My orange cake. ^_^

@Hanaa Yum!

It is tasty yes @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Salam @Hanaa!

6:26 PM

Salam Muhammad and Hanaa!

\o @Cop per bottle

@Hanaa Looks delicious!

per bottle?

Ah, CopperBottle

@DamkerngT. To the layman or an uneducated person a complicated legal text may seem more trustworthy.

"In his discourses to a rural congregation he judiciously kept down his erudition to such a degree, that one of his parishioners characterised him to an enquiring friend as a aplain honest man, but no latiner”

(simple folks prefered sermons to be told in uncomprehensible Latin)

(it was more "reputable" (0: )

6:51 PM

@CopperKettle :-)

Some like the show more than the messages.

7:08 PM

(0:

Interesting

1

Q: sentence with while in a reported speech

Yesterday I saw a girl when I was parking my car. She was crying. She explained to me while her boyfriend was driving her home, they had had a terrible argument.Her boyfriend had stopped the car and had forced her out of it. Is past perfect used had had because it is reported speech: I th...

backshifting reported-speech

Hi @CopperKettle

I searched in COCA

Hi, @Hanaa!

Salam @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I found 2 instances of "He said that while he was" and 1 instance for "She said that while she was", but zero for "she said that while she had been" (and for "he")

"She said that while she was back in Texas for the visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, she and first lady Laura Bush took a long walk and talked about how much her family missed being in the state."

(Washington Post) --- Why not had been? O_o

Interesting!

Oh, wait, it's COCA, right?

7:11 PM

@DamkerngT. Yes!

I've got a "secret hat", simple blue with a wide brim.

I wonder if it's the same in the BrE corpus.

Yay!

But come to think of it, I think I don't like to use the past perfect with while myself either.

I too feel okay with was, but I wonder why.

Perhaps while asks us to think of a certain point in time.

> The rafters above it were stained black with decades of smoke from fires burning in the central hearth, while the wooden floor had been liberally sprinkled with dried grass and fragrant herbs.

(from a book on Google Books)

This one, however, seems to suit the occasion.

> I realized that while I had been concentrating on presenting my evidence, on appearing capable and authoritative so that I would be taken seriously, Rafferty had been concentrating on bonding with the jury.

@DamkerngT. They were stained black when the hero looked at them. They were in that state. The act of sprinking had happened earlier.

nods

I think the second example shares something with the first example.

7:18 PM

"while her boyfriend was driving her home, they had had a terrible argument." --- isn't it strange, when taken out of context? Two different times. While dinosaurs roamed the Earth, America launched the Apollo mission.

It's illogical to me.

Where is the problem?

Hmm... it's difficult to explain.

Okay, let's try a simpler example...

@Hanaa The problem is was indicates an earlier past, and had had indicated a deeper past. So how they could have had that argument in two different while driving a car?

You gave many examples

7:20 PM

> While I'm sitting down to think about the problem, I've had this solution.

("a simpler example" suggests that it's not the already given ones.)

It may make some sense (the had had a terrible argument one), but I don't think it's the sense I'm thinking that could make it possible.

@CopperKettle For me, it'd be better say: they had terrible argument

Because it is a sequence of past actions happening in the same time " the time of driving"

driving then having terrible arguments

@Hanaa Yes, but in reported speech we sometimes do backshifting.

She says: "we were driving and had an argument" (direct speech)

She said that they had been driving and had had an argument. (reported speech)

Yes in reported speech the past tense becomes past perfect

But for some reason, with while the first verb is not backshifted, according to the COCA corpus. There's the rub.

I have no idea about COCA

:D

7:28 PM

@Hanaa corpus.byu.edu/coca

(0:

I work with the Br C

natcorp.ox.ac.uk

@CopperKettle Yeah, the thing doesn't balance out.

Thanks

In most of these tense thingies, I tell myself "yeah, that works/doesn't work". I can't usually explain why.

7:31 PM

(0:

Google returns 26 results for "She said that while she had been"

~0

@CopperKettle Hmm... that's not bad for a 7-word-long string.

nods

Wait, Google or Google Books?

Just Google

271 for "She said that while she was"

7:34 PM

Oh! Hmm... I'm not sure, then.

"She said that while she was assigned to a lift reserved exclusively for senators from June 1977 through January 1978, Packwood on numerous occasions grabbed her, backed her against a wall and kissed her on the lips against her will." (here at least there is no contradiction in tenses: simple past throughout)

@CopperKettle Seems legit: She said that while she was hungry.

nods

Anyway, the meaning of the sentence is OK

(removed)

7:37 PM

Robert William "Bob" Packwood (born September 11, 1932) is a U.S. politician from Oregon and a member of the Republican Party. He resigned from the United States Senate, under threat of expulsion, in 1995 after allegations of sexual harassment, abuse and assault of women emerged. == Early life and careerEdit == Packwood was born in Portland, Oregon, graduated from Grant High School in 1950, and then in 1954 graduated from Willamette University in Salem. Packwood is the great-grandson of William H. Packwood, the youngest member of the Oregon Constitutional Convention of 1857. Packwood had his great...

Bob Packwood was backshifted, eventually.

nods -- Suddenly think of Frank Underwood...

nods

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… Search this it might help you. — Sam Harrington 2 mins ago

What?!

It might befuddle you further, I'd say. ():

@DamkerngT. I had had had not had not had had had not had had had not not not had seen that one.

7:43 PM

When translated in Russian, that "had had" sentence is crystal-clear.

I had better had had some sleep. (0:

:D

Good night!

Oh, the sentence is fine with punctuation.

Night o/

7:55 PM

Good night @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. and @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Learn well!

G'night @Hanaa

Good night! Sleep tight!

8:16 PM

Eeeeek I feel weird someone calling me a teacher.

It's too soon for me!

8:29 PM

@Nothing "if the phrase is unestablished"? Then who is defining it? After all, not every thing we coin gets to be a real term, otherwise it would be possible to make half a dictionary by my coinages in ELL's chat alone. — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 18 secs ago

A bit of an exaggeration, but it gets the message across.

I don't feel good about this.

My "comment FAQ" meta post turned into something like a complaint placeholder and J.R. seems more and more trying to defend the mods' efficiency rather than staying focused.

2 hours later…

10:12 PM

is this a good place to learn english?

I doubt that.

But we can discuss anything language here. :-)

BTW, welcome to the room! @wuden

@wuden Welcome! Some people find it a good place to learn some English; some find it a good place to practice English; some people just sorta hang out and contribute to global warming.

LOL

there is no snow where I live too :[

hello all

Hello!

10:18 PM

Hi!

10:31 PM

I think this is probably grammatical, but highly unidiomatic:

> Back my home, the weather is much warmer.

@DamkerngT. Back home the weather's much warmer.

Yes!

I tried to come up with an example that could free learners from clinging to grammar.

I didn't mean that grammar is not important, but maybe it shouldn't be the primary thing in learning a second language, at least before we reach a certain level.

People seem to have their own ways to learn, though.

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Dec '1521

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