Language Overflow

Nihilist_Frost

00:04

@DamkerngT. was it a pure dr?

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. It seems reasonable and accurate to me, though I'd put the "no room for ambiguity" phrase somewhere else in the sentence.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB I'm not sure how often people would use pre-teen to mean 5 years old.

@Nihilist_Frost How can I know whether it's a pure "dr" or not?

Nihilist_Frost

@DamkerngT. forget it.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

FWIW, the "dr" sounded like they came out as one to me.

Nihilist_Frost

"dress" always started with an affricate for me.

StoneyB

00:10

@DamkerngT. Mmm ... that's a good point. A pre-teen is probably ten to twelve, but adjectival "pre-teen" might have a wider application. If he said "if you want to imply you may have been teaching a child as young as ten or even eight" I'd be happier.

Nihilist_Frost

@StoneyB a ten-to-twelve-year-old doesn't really have the "teen" vibe

but somewhat near close

What does "what" rhyme with, in your accent?

StoneyB

Consensus seems to be that "pre-teen" means 9-12.

My original dialect? "but".

Nihilist_Frost

What is almost always /wʌt/ for me.

StoneyB

Usually /hwʌt/, before I became an actor.

Damkerng T.

dropbox.com/s/yyx9ol6xofpsryv/…

@Nihilist_Frost You can find that You need to get dressed in the clip above.

Nihilist_Frost

00:21

the "wut" slang comes from the /wʌt/ pronunciation of "what".

Anonymous

00:38

@StoneyB It seems accurate? I'm confused.

Anonymous

Peter wrote:

Anonymous

> Teenagers are considered to be over than 10, in their teens, however it usually refers to those 13 and above, due to how school class rankings are in the US.

Anonymous

Teens start at 10, apparently, which makes pre-teens people who are younger than 10.

Anonymous

I've never run into this definition of teen before.

Anonymous

I would have thought a teenager was something like Macmillan's definition:

Anonymous

00:40

> a young person between the ages of 13 and 19

Anonymous

And a pre-teen would be younger than 13, but contextually with some minimum age (9 or 10?)

Nihilist_Frost

@snailboat I thought that was an overly technical definition - not a common-use one.

Anonymous

@Nihilist_Frost I thought it was wrong rather than overly technical.

Nihilist_Frost

@snailboat In practical use, it's wrong.

Anonymous

The important thing is that Peter thinks the boundary of teen and pre-teen is 10 rather than 13.

Anonymous

00:43

Whether it includes younger children isn't quite so important if we haven't gotten the basics right.

StoneyB

Ignore the dictionary definitions. A "pre-teen" is an annoying brat you can easily wrap in a blanket and hang in the cleset. A "teenager" is an annoying brat who can easily wrap you up and hang you in the closet.

Anonymous

'Cause thirteen is the first number that ends in -teen.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Hehe!

Nihilist_Frost

@snailboat Peter is wrong.

@snailboat Rule of thumb. Teen ages have the -teen suffix.

StoneyB

@Nihilist_Frost Exactly.

Anonymous

00:45

@Nihilist_Frost Yeah. I thought that everyone agreed on that. I'm surprised to find out otherwise!

Nihilist_Frost

can you link to Peter's comment?

StoneyB

@snailboat Me too.

Nihilist_Frost

@StoneyB Common sense!

Damkerng T.

1 hour ago, by Damkerng T.

Pre-teen would indicated anyone younger than 10, so if you want to imply you may have been teaching a 5 year old, than you can use that. 11 year old is your best bet. You will find teachers are usually very specific in how they describe their students since different abilities are expected at different ages with no room for ambiguity. — Peter 11 hours ago

Anonymous

@Nihilist_Frost Make sure to interpret his comment in the context of his answer.

StoneyB

00:47

@DamkerngT. Yes, I see I didn't read the first part of that at all carefully.

Damkerng T.

> Teenagers are considered to be over than 10, in their teens, however it usually refers to those 13 and above, due to how school class rankings are in the US.

I guess he may be confused by high-schooler vs. pre-schooler.

Nihilist_Frost

@DamkerngT. I don't think the definition is influenced by school class rankings at all.

Damkerng T.

Me either! Which was why I found it very weird!

Nihilist_Frost

it's something cultural and regarding our lifestyles.

StoneyB

0-1 baby, 1-3 toddler, 3-7 little kid, 7-9 kid, 9-12 pre-teen, 13-19 teenager, with a slop year at all the edges.

2

Nihilist_Frost

00:54

@StoneyB Pretty much.

>Peter's first definition of "teenager" is easily refuted by a simple Google search. A teen is explicitly defined as a person from ages 13-19. I don't think the correct definition is even influenced by the school system. It's more of cultural attitude of people ages 13-19 (kids undergoing the maturation process to adulthood) versus people ages 9-13 (bigger children, but not maturing yet).

Any comments on my comment?

Damkerng T.

Nothing but a nod.

Nihilist_Frost

I would've downvoted Peter's answer if I didn't care about my reputation going down.

StoneyB

@Nihilist_Frost Swish!

Anonymous

Sometimes commenting is more helpful than downvoting.

Nihilist_Frost

01:11

Peter is taking it at a wrong angle.

the OP of the question is confused between the culturally-laced term "teenager" and the skill classifier "elementary-level".

"ESL" is pretty technical.

funny that irregular past tenses can vary by dialect!

Nihilist_Frost

02:11

Dictionary.com has usage warnings for fuck, cunt, nigger, where else?

Damkerng T.

02:56

@Nihilist_Frost They're all OFFENSIVE in Macmillan.

CopperKettle

2

A: Present participle or relative clause: "writing this thing" in "You did too good of a job writing this thing"

This is a really gnarly question! I have two nominees: a gerund clause in apposition to the direct object a good job ... This understands writing this thing as fundamentally a restatement or specification of job—it tells what good job it is that you did. a gerund clause acting as an optional co...

"a gerund clause acting as an optional complement to the noun phrase a good job ... This understands the gerund clause as one of the constructions licensed by specify job (I got a job writing ads)"

"licensed by specify job"? Still I don't get it.

maybe "in order to specify the word job"?

Anonymous

03:14

@Nihilist_Frost I checked a dozen dictionaries for the first word on the list, and every one of them marked it as vulgar, offensive, or taboo.

Anonymous

So the answer is probably "wherever".

StoneyB

03:49

@CopperKettle Oh, bother. I fixed it wrong, deleted the wrong word ... it should be "licensed to specify job": that is, the word job licenses gerund clauses to specify what particular job is intended. I've fixed it again.

CopperKettle

07:37

@StoneyB Thank you! I gather that it's not a supplementive then..

@Nihilist_Frost Some of these words were not very harsh long time ago.

Gropecunt Lane

Gropecunt Lane /ˈɡroʊpkʌnt ˈleɪn/ was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street's function or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound of the words grope and cunt. Streets with that name were often in the busiest parts of medieval towns and cities, and at least one appears to have been an important thoroughfare. Although...

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

09:29

\o @Dam

Damkerng T.

o/

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

How're you today?

700 helpful flags. Not bad, not bad!

Damkerng T.

Hah!

I'm good. Thanks! How're you?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

SE combined, it must be around 1500. Still disappointing.

@Jasper tomorrow is the day of destiny. :)

When I'll post the answer "OK, the community wants us to proceed"

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

09:52

OK let's not get over-dramatic.

I'm gonna hold a chat event weekly, to deal with and burn teh grammerz!

Damkerng T.

Oh! Don't forget to post the event here.

CopperKettle

Good afternoon! Just peeking in. (0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Afternoon!

CopperKettle

What that chat event will be about?

Damkerng T.

Good afternoon!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

10:00

15

Q: The Great Retagging Event - Episode 1: The one-taggers

TRE will be held at $\ldots$? Famous final words The Retagging Event (TRE) What good is in working so much on cleaning tags if they're not applied to questions? I thought, we should do something extraordinary. Oh no Rationale Editing questions bumps them up; and so...

Except it'll be about retagging grammar.

CopperKettle

Ah, I see. I saw Newuser killing "grammar" actively the other day.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Usernew?

CopperKettle

An Indian guy.

Yes, Usernew, probably. (0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Well, for the reasons mentioned in the post above, we can't do it in large amounts.

But the event will be like "OK sorry, step aside, this tag is quarantined . . . "

CopperKettle

I do it in a leisurly way.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

10:03

We'll gonna break the activez page!

@CopperKettle Sure, but getting an edit done in 40 seconds per person is what I'm aiming at in that 90 (?) minutes of the event.

CopperKettle

This looks like an erroneous use of the Present Perfect to me.

that I have left

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. nods

Bye!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle Not to me.

BTW @Dam @Cop a chem question you'll find interesting:

-2

Q: What's the reaction here?

I have found a gif photo on the internet and I am very curious what is happening there? What reaction is the reason for that?

reaction

Damkerng T.

Mentos and Cola?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. No, hydrogenperoxide and potassium iodide.

CopperKettle

10:27

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Nice! My friend posted this on Facebook a while ago. She's a chem teacher.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. But the taking of the money happened after the act of leaving them in the locker room.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle Dunno, it seems they're treating the two events on two different time frames or what.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

11:17

@Dam what are you doing right now? I'm helping GT.

It feels fun.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Does it learn from your help?

I'm doing stuff (with some TeX!)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. That much I'm not sure. Certainly there should be reviews for translations?

Damkerng T.

I think it seems to be good at chunk processing, though it shows no sign of knowing how to relate chunks together.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. Haha! +1! I'm writing geology stuff with TeX.

@DamkerngT. I find validating translations fun.

Damkerng T.

1

Q: Meaning of "dark-glass way"

Excerpted from poetryfoundation.org: And so, in its dark-glass way, “If—” reflects modern uncertainty after all. It’s a masterpiece of timing, of structure, of rhetoric (the genre that Yeats pointedly contrasted with poetry). But the more you read it, the more you hear a countersong beneath t...

phrase-meaning

Yeats! Someone is reading Yeats'!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

11:25

Sometimes GT asks me to translate something unfathomable.

Like

> I great you

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Evidently, it doesn't try to understand what we write.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Dam WTH is "TD HG"?

Google translated "td hg" in English to "TD HG" in Persian.

Damkerng T.

Hg as in mercury?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Dunno.

To Dine mercury?

Too Damn; Harvesting Goblins

Train Doors Hate Genesis?

Damkerng T.

Terminator D. Hacking Genisys?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

11:32

Top Devils Hanging Glory?

Damkerng T.

Eww

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

OK sorry.

Terrain Dracula Hiding from Gretel?

Oh I managed to make one that makes sense. ^_^

Haha @Dam I guess you're right. GT translates everything literally, like "morning honey!"

Damkerng T.

I have a very crude idea how it works. I kinda understand why it keeps producing funny texts. :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Dam BTW, now that you're fiddling with TeX, this could be very useful to you if you already haven't seen it.

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Hey, it's TUGboat!

Damkerng T.

11:59

0

Q: How to convey the leave information to Clients

I always have this doubt. I want to inform my leave plans to my clients. Is it okay to just inform them with: "I will be on leave on January 14 and January 15 due to local festival". I feel it is incomplete. Please share your suggestions.

sentence-construction formal

An interesting letter (or email). Do people do that?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

You never know what a billion people can do.

Damkerng T.

My stock brokers never tell me when they will leave for their vacations.

Not to mention my insurance representatives.

I'm sure snailboat must find my first sentence either interesting or wrong!

But the full idea was: My stock brokers never tell me when they will leave for their vacations when they leave for their vacations.

(Or perhaps: My stock brokers never tell me when they will leave for their vacations when they plan their vacations)

While it may be clear to OP, could you please elaborate on the first two sentences. "Some people...lenient... take offense" ? What benefit of doubt are we talking about? I am confused. — Jony Agarwal 31 mins ago

Answer translators wanted!

Nihilist_Frost

@CopperKettle How taboo was prostitution back then?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost 15 degrees Celsius.

How should Copper answer that?!

Anonymous

12:47

@CopperKettle I agree with you. The present perfect sounds strange there.

CopperKettle

13:03

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Maybe I'm a Highlander, who knows! (0:

@snailboat thanks, Snails!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle Yeah an Atlas tells me that much.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

13:24

What a weird spelling, "turquoise" has.

↑↑↑↑↑↑ Minor sentence?

@Snail is that a minor sentence? Then, is it an exclamative, even though I used a period? :P

Anonymous

15:57

No, yes, and get rid of that comma :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@snailboat OK then get in line for when I get the blueness and can edit messages of ∞ mins ago.

That comma indicated a pause in my speech, rather than anything else. O-o

CopperKettle

16:37

Joined to makes it sound as if he has become physically connected to the gym. That might make an interesting science fiction or horror story, but wouldn't sound right in most circumstances. — Erick G. Hagstrom 13 mins ago

Indeed. A native speaker might even read this as "He is finally joined to the gym"

Anonymous

16:50

@CopperKettle You're going to pass me on the reputation list soon! :-)

CopperKettle

@snailboat I should go cold turkey! (0:

Damkerng T.

> Borg: We finally succeed in making him join us, Gym. Mwahaha

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

17:57

@Snail would you want to join us for the not-so-far retagging event, or would you prefer to stay out of the headache of edits?

Damkerng T.

20:46

0

A: Lewis Carroll is confusing me

It's true that the sentence could be mind-boggling at first, but my opinion is that the sentence is not difficult, but it's structurally complicated. It's not difficult in the sense that it has any difficult words or phrases. (The use of otherwise than could be a bit unfamiliar, though.) What rea...

^I posted that to note that I followed a link in StoneyB's answer and found that someone read it like this:

Never imagine yourself to be [
  otherwise than [
    what it might appear to others that [
      [ what you were or might have been ] was
        not otherwise than [
          [ what you had been ]
      ]
    ] would have appeared
      to them
      to be otherwise
  ]
]

Which I think is less syntactically sound.

Damkerng T.

21:02

I think there is another sensible reading, but it needs a comma.

Hmm... not quite right. The last to be otherwise makes it hard to tie up the loose end.

Never imagine yourself to be
  otherwise than
    [ what it might appear to others ]
(Never imagine) that [
  [ what you were or might have been ] was
    not otherwise than [
      [ what you had been ]
  ]
] would have appeared
  to them
  to be otherwise

I think this should be okay, too, but it really needs a comma there (before that), I think.

Another possibility: the use of that and/or relative clauses and/or otherwise than were different back then.

When did Lewis Carroll write it?

1865

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