Language Overflow - 2015-12-07

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12:38 AM

A bounty from the dark side for you guys:

2

Q: A Question About Quantifier Shift for "each of you" to "you each"

I understand from reading similar posts on this topic that if I want to write a sentence using "each of you," I should follow this with a singular verb. So, for example, "Each of you has given your all this year" is correct, and "Each of you have given your all this year" is incorrect. If I'm r...

subject-verb-agreement quantifiers

12:55 AM

I just realized I write the letter H without taking my pencil off the paper.

@淖韶晋 Doesn’t everyone?

@tchrist I can't decipher if that's sarcasm or not, but most of my friends write using three strokes on paper

user image

eh

h

1:05 AM

capital H, print

That isn't writing.

You said write.

=_= well then

user image

Of course, that can be done with one stroke as well.

Bit fancier is all.

I end up writing a capital H by writing a backwards N and looping the pencil back around through it

1:19 AM

It's funny. When I was a kid, to be called writing it had to be cursive. If it wasn't cursive, it was merely printing.

And not especially well regarded.

Anonymous

1:41 AM

@tchrist I'm actually unfamiliar with that!

Anonymous

I had trouble learning cursive when I was young. I taught myself how to write (note: not cursive) before I started school, and then they insisted on making me re-learn how to write my letters because I didn't write each part in the direction and order they wanted me to . . .

Anonymous

And I had trouble re-learning to write everything backwards :-(

@snailboat Do you do your kanji in the right stroke order? :)

Anonymous

Yes!

Anonymous

I didn't start learning to write Japanese until I was a teenager.

1:44 AM

@snailboat Really? I would have thought you'd've had the same lingo.

Anonymous

And I never had any trouble writing Japanese top-to-bottom, left-to-right.

Anonymous

But English printed letters, I always wrote those from the bottom right.

Anonymous

Maybe because I taught myself to do it that way first, it was harder to learn it the "right" way.

Anonymous

And I never did learn to write cursive.

wow

Anonymous

1:45 AM

Everyone else my age did.

Anonymous

But I think they might be giving up on teaching cursive now. I mean, at some schools. I don't know.

Anonymous

Anyway, I had trouble with the whole writing thing as a child. I have very neat handwriting now, though :-)

Anonymous

Or, um, hand-printing?

Anonymous

And I can write my own name in cursive. Just not other stuff :-)

It's funny, most of my shopping lists are printed, but cards and letters are always written.

Also, we got to use the write–print distinction because it was impossible for anyone to have a home computer printing system: remember that this was the late 60s when I entered school.

2:03 AM

If you write Chinese cursive it's nearly unrecognizable.

Anonymous

Ehh, you get better at recognizing it over time.

Anonymous

Better to say it can be nearly unrecognizable :-)

user image

Anonymous

I've had a long day.

Recognize it?

Anonymous

2:12 AM

I'm going to go fall over :-)

@snailboat I kinda worry about you sometimes. You seem not to sleep.

The paste above is some ligatures from a chancery Greek face.

George Douros’s Alexander face, to be precise.

But please get some rest, @snailboat.

5 hours later…

7:28 AM

5

Q: Alternative word for Karma, but when nothing is expected in return

I'm creating a monopoly style game that allows people to "win" in any of these 3 areas: capitalism (traditional monopoly) karma giving Giving with no expectation of return I'm having trouble coming up with an appropriate term for that last one... something appealing, and suitable for a perso...

single-word-requests word-choice games

Hmm... Karma giving. I wonder what it means...

I mean, when people use it in English.

(I was raised with a concept that karma is of individuals. We can't transfer any of our karma from one person to another.)

2 hours later…

9:44 AM

I think some people pronounce sure the same way they pronounce shore.

9:55 AM

@DamkerngT. or like shor. In Hindi it means "noise" :D

@CopperKettle yes. that is quite informative. It answered me. Thanks. — Maulik V ♦ 6 mins ago

It's weird that he thinks JL's answer answers his question, but mine doesn't.

Both answers cover basically the same thing. I'd say mine covers more, because it also covers informal usage.

10:25 AM

I wonder if there is any language that doesn't have a word for "love".

(Inspired by youtube.com/…. -- Content warning: 14+)

@DamkerngT. You're welcome, @MaulikV! But it answered me struck me as not very natural. I would say "It provided me with an answer" or something like that... I'm not sure what would be the best formulation.

I hope a mention inside the Chat will summon Maulik here. (0:

@CopperKettle I'd simply say "It answers my question".

@DamkerngT. Nice!

Ah, he's in another room!

I googled and found this: "I asked the vast bulk of the earth of my God, and it answered me, "I am not He, but He made me.""

10:33 AM

That's another kind of answer, I think. It's like "it answered my call(ing)."

nods

BBL!

See you around!

11:18 AM

3

Q: Why the indefinite article in "Their campaign mounts in fury as a free Europe crumbles"

From The Imitation Game (2014), more spefically, from a WW2-era newsreel snippet inserted into the movie to keep the viewer up to date with the events: The German Army has fanned out across Europe, From Poland to Serbia, Lithuania to Denmark, Norway to France. The Nazi flag now flies from mo...

That's a curious use of "a"! @CopperKettle

I want to see that movie now.

Retrospective diagnoses of autism

A retrospective diagnosis is the practice of identifying a condition in a historical figure using modern knowledge, methods and medical classifications. Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were first identified by Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner in 1943, and it was not until many years later that they were formally recognised by the medical community. Journalists, academics and autism professionals have speculated that certain famous or notable historical people had autism or other autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger syndrome. Such speculations are often disputed. For example, several auti...

Hmm...

I just found that page because of an article about Alan Turing says that he was potentially autistic.

We live in an age that everyone can be opinionated, I think.

How about we speculate those speculators?

11:39 AM

@DamkerngT. Yes! But I can't wrap my head around it. Haven't been able yet.

I think I may get more ideas about it if I've seen the movie. TRomano's suggestion is not bad, though I'm not in a position to judge.

@DamkerngT. It's not a brilliant movie. The scenario is full of cliches.

Aww

An autistic genius, a girl, a mean-tempered military commander.

Other movies are also full of cliches, however. (0:

But they sometimes have some quality that draws you in.

Benedict Cumberbatch looks good, iirc. I think I've seen its trailer once but didn't pay much attention to it.

11:42 AM

@DamkerngT. You can see that he's a good actor.

The scriptwriters should have worked more diligently..

Indeed! -- I remember him as Khan and Holmes. :-)

(0:

nods

I don't get it how a hypothetical Europe can undergo real crumbling.

Maybe someone will post another answers.

BBL!

11:55 AM

> I didn't want to comment the above comment, but now it's got two upvotes, so I probably should say something about it: "Where would *have I left my keys?" would be considered grammatical in standard English. It should've been written "Where would I have left my keys?" -- Note that I'm not saying that MaulikV was wrong, because he might just try to translate it literally, but didn't say anything about literal translation

Argh! I posted and edited and reposted it and I still got it wrong.

I didn't want to comment the above comment, but now it's got two upvotes, so I probably should say something about it: "Where would *have I left my keys?" would be considered ungrammatical in standard English. It should've been written "Where would I have left my keys?" -- Note that I'm not saying that MaulikV was wrong, because he might just try to translate it literally, but didn't say anything about literal translation — Damkerng T. 6 secs ago

Now, that's what I wanted to say.

Heh! I still missed out my last period!

Writing long comments can be a pain!

2 hours later…

2:05 PM

@DamkerngT. I'm starting to think we have to ignore certain users.

2 hours later…

3:48 PM

Minor CSS changes to sites. Looks great.

4:10 PM

I haven't even noticed that!

4:42 PM

0

Q: Why "aversion" does not correspond to "aver"

I thought that the noun "aversion" derived from the verb "aver". However, it seems they have different meanings. My question is how can an English learner know such nouns ? I don't think there is a general rule. Should I consider such cases as the things that must be memorized ?

meaning etymology morphology

Answering this well will need knowledge of the history of the "-ion" prefix and Latin sound changes

Migrate to ELU.

comprehend --> comprehension

The noun aversion does not derive from the verb aver.

@tchrist it's more cognate with "avert"

Yes.

4:51 PM

t -> s happened in Latin.

Hmm... Perhaps there are not many -t words with their -sion.

Old French seems to have gotten confused about aversus and adversus, merging them into avers.

Most are -d, it seems.

Aversion is from Latin aversionem.

nods

4:52 PM

Perhaps via the French word of the same spelling.

This makes me think that the OP is not Indian, because a similar kind of sound change exists in Sanskrit.

I think the -ion suffix developed as a generalization of the -ion from French loans.

The OP confused the -sion as the suffix instead of -ion

nods

2

A: What do you call it when someone searches through your stuff?

Stop digging through my things! For older persons, also: Stop snooping in my things!

The part "For older persons" is curious. :D

No kidding.

5:41 PM

0

Q: What is appositive and modifier?

I always get stuck between appositive and modifier. As first learner in writing, I need to distinguish them. What should I do?

Hmm...

I don't think we really need to know the two terms before we can write in English.

5:54 PM

The question shows very little effort, especially for a guy wishing to be a writer. (0:

Appositives are very easy to spot, IMHO.

1 hour later…

Anonymous

6:59 PM

Conversation → conversate. Oops! :-)

:D

Is it a back formation?

Anonymous

Concentration → concentrate → concenter. Oh, another mistake!

@snailboat what am I missing here?

Anonymous

I'm just conversating about concentering.

LOL

Aversion is rather unique, I think. I don't think we have many of t -> sion.

Anonymous

7:14 PM

An unusual sort of convertion!

Divert - Diversion?

Oh, yes! Is it only for vert?

Anonymous

Maybe we should expult these words from the language!

(0:

Poor aversion! -- Oh, no! I'm confused!

Anonymous

7:17 PM

@DamkerngT. Only vert has permittion to assibilate.

2

because its t would be impossible to read as /sh/

> "You wish to be assibilated?" "No, but that's what you... things do, isn't it?" [the Borg nods] "Resistance is futile?" "Resistance is futile."

0

Q: tenses agreement

Just the other day, I was talking to my mom about how the people who had been brave enough to take part in world war 2 were people we should look up to. Just the other day, I was talking to my mom about how the people who have been brave enough to take part in world war 2 were people we should ...

grammar sentence-construction

My answer was not up to the notch, so he asked yet another question. (0:

This time, he capitalized "I"s though.

What? What kind of question is that?!

A nice question really, if only he did some formatting.. This is the previous:

1

A: Had been/have been... tenses agreement

This is called backshifting. When we use indirect speech, we often put the contents of the speech further in the past. Let's first take a direct speech sentence: Lekon Chekon said: "People who were brave enough to fight in WW2 should serve as examples to us". Now let's report what Lekon ...

7:25 PM

Oh! I wasn't able to tell where his question is!

(0:

Anonymous

I expect all native speakers to know assimilate, but assibilate is quite rare outside of historical linguistics, I think.

@snailboat Yes, this was the first time I saw it!

Ah, it's a real word?!

Anonymous

Yes, and its meaning is fairly transparent: for a sound to become a sibilant

Anonymous

7:29 PM

In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization, as well as commonly the final phase of palatalization. == Romance languages == The word "assibilation" itself contains an example of the phenomenon, being pronounced /əsɪbɪleɪʃən/. The classical Latin tio was pronounced /tio/ (for example, assibilatio was pronounced /asːibilatio/ and attentio /atːentio/). However, in Vulgar Latin it assibilated to /tsio/, and this can still be seen in Italian: attenzione. In French, lenition gave /sjə/, which in English then palatalized to the /ʃə/...

What would be its antonym? Deconsonate? (0:

Maybe Dissibilation. :P

Anonymous

Sure, but no one really talks about dissibilation.

Anonymous

Instead, they'll probably use more specific terms describing the kind of sound it's become.

@DamkerngT. The patient is dissibilating! I need some oxygen, quick!

Anonymous

7:31 PM

Like most words, assibilate doesn't have a well defined antonym.

nods

@CopperKettle After posting it on ELU

@CopperKettle "Yay! The patient made it. Let's send him to Slitherine House!"

@DamkerngT. Smart! (0:

@StoneyB Oops!

7:35 PM

@StoneyB He is a persevering learner!

This time, he added a third sentence.

BBL!

nods -- He also uses "world war 2".

See you later!

I am tempted to retire from reading questions, so I don't have to keep track of them.

I still try to keep looking at the main page, but I click to read only some questions.

2 hours later…

Anonymous

9:26 PM

@tchrist A lot of people seem to wonder whether or not I sleep. But I swear I do! ;-)

I really wish there was IPA for Chinese like there is for English. Pinyin is helpful but I end up getting pronunciations wrong :<

9:46 PM

Latin confundere -> confusus -> French confus -> English "confused"

nd -> s?

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Dec '157

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