Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

10:00

Some old articles:

> What does it mean to be “fluent” in a language?

M.A.Ramezani

Thy.

Damkerng T.

> Last year [2010], Arizona Board of Education decided that any teacher deemed not “fluent” in English cannot teach young, English-language learners. In this case, the state is interpreting an accent as disqualifying a teacher. The Board defines the changes in accent very minutely. For example, if a teacher says, “lebels” instead of “levels” that is determined to be an accent so serious that a teacher cannot teach.

> blog.dictionary.com/fluency

@M.A.Ramezani Hello

M.A.Ramezani

Hullo!

I thought you were gonna put a list of articles in Shakespeare English.

Damkerng T.

Heh!

Sorry 'bout the disappointment. :D

M.A.Ramezani

I'm aiming for Marshal on chem.SE.

Damkerng T.

10:04

What's "Marshal" for?

M.A.Ramezani

Raising 500 helpful flags.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

That's quite a lot. How many flags have you got already?

M.A.Ramezani

201.

Damkerng T.

Ah, that will take a while.

M.A.Ramezani

I wonder how many you have.

Damkerng T.

10:07

I think about a hundred, probably a little less than a hundred.

Oh, it's 102.

M.A.Ramezani

Why it's not fair! I don't have a famous question badge! I WANT IT NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!

Damkerng T.

Oh, I don't know how to get one.

I think it will come when some of our questions are old enough. :D

Browsing through famous questions on ELL, I think it's rather clear that they share one characteristic: they're common problems.

For example, Is “series” Plural or Singular?; Should I say “what does it means” or “what does it mean”?; I received vs. I've received your mail; etc.

One weird thing is that even with a lot of views, a lot of these questions and their answers don't have a lot of votes.

A lot of views by non-subscribers, perhaps?

Oh, I just know that I'm hungry! BBL

M.A.Ramezani

Cya!

Damkerng T.

10:36

Back!

Come to think of it, 97% accuracy is not very high.

Let's suppose that a part of speech tagger can tag the part of speech of words at 97% accuracy.

That means it can get 97 out of 100 words right.

That seems pretty good.

But, can it tag the entire sentences correctly?

Let's say that on average, a sentence is 10 words long.

0.97^10 = 0.737

So, that means that on average, a PoS tagger with 97% accuracy can tag only 7 sentences out of 10 correctly!

If the average length of a sentence is longer, say 16, this number will go down even further. 0.97^16 = 0.614. That's only about 6 out of 10 sentences!

Damkerng T.

10:54

0

Q: "You will be informed of this by email" - or is it "informed of that"?

From a lang-8 post: Once the necessary documents have been received, your account will be activated and you will be informed of that by email. I've recommented to change the pronoun that to this. But why exactly? This signals greater proximity relative to that, and sometimes emotional pro...

pronouns

Good question!

I agree with that--um... I mean this.

M.A.Ramezani

I agree with avoiding a structure like zis.

But I reckon it's a dis to a native speaker's ears.

Damkerng T.

If you pronounce it as "zis", I think it's not easy to be heard as "dis".

M.A.Ramezani

I don't pronounce this like any of these.

But it's sometimes fun to imitate other accents.

Damkerng T.

Good!

M.A.Ramezani

Surprisingly, I get the pronunciations of thirsty, thirty etc. highly nativish.

Maybe it's because such delicate pronunciation rules exist in Arabic.

It's really important for a Muslim to recite their Quran correctly.

Damkerng T.

10:59

nods

Damkerng T.

11:46

0

Q: A definite article before "silent mode"

Why do the natives of the English language not use a definite article before "silent mode" while saying, "My cell-phone is on silent mode."? Thanks a lot!

articles

Hmm... it's a bit wordy even with mode.

I think My phone is on silent is probably the likeliest.

M.A.Ramezani

I think it doesn't have an article for the same reason Damkerng doesn't.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I don't think silent is a name.

M.A.Ramezani

It's an attribution.

Damkerng T.

12:06

Thinking to himself: sentence correction tests in GRE, GMAT, and the like need you to think very literally.

For example, 'Auna is taller than any woman in her class.' is wrong because 'Auna' is one of the women in her class.

M.A.Ramezani

Foof!

Damkerng T.

That's how these tests work. It's probably not how real people think.

As far as I know, these tests are for both native and non-native speakers, but probably the primary testers the test designers have in mind are the native speakers.

Now, some learner tests think, incorrect in my opinion, that they should test their learners who learn English as a second language the same thing.

So, this kind of test is widespread. It's common in several countries that people learn English as a second language.

I think it's common over here in my country; it seems to common in India; it's probably common everywhere (else? :P) too.

IMHO, they conflate language acquisition with language refinement.

M.A.Ramezani

Yes.

Let's burn 'em down.

Damkerng T.

Also, if we go by their standards, all newspapers and reporters will probably fail the standards.

M.A.Ramezani

Yes. Definitely.

Damkerng T.

12:21

I think all this happens because there is a few unspoken rules going on. Let's talk about one I have in mind.

We want ELL learners to "master" English when they finish their English courses.

M.A.Ramezani

Yes, and defining that is a chore itself.

Damkerng T.

nods

M.A.Ramezani

IMO defining that has to do with what the aim of the learner is.

Damkerng T.

And it may be awkward if the courses teach the learners, even indirectly, to develop the same errors as native speakers. :D

M.A.Ramezani

Yeah.

Damkerng T.

12:23

@M.A.Ramezani Indeed! And since a lot of these learners want to study abroad, they have to pass those GRE/GMAT tests.

M.A.Ramezani

I suddenly remembered I remembered onerhaul last night.

Damkerng T.

What was it about?

Oh, you mean you had to remember the word?

M.A.Ramezani

in ELL's Cabin, Jun 3 at 12:23, by M.A.Ramezani

Onerhaul?

I remembered the chat incident.

Damkerng T.

LOL!

Back to my point, all these courses seem to try to teach learners who are non-native speakers to acquire natural English at its best, but they do that unnaturally, or so it seems. (Why else we don't have the same errors?!)

We don't have the same errors, we can't make the same corrections!

M.A.Ramezani

I promise I'll have the same errors next time.

Damkerng T.

12:30

:D

Now some may be lured into thinking that if they can get their students beat these tests, their students may be better at English than native speakers!

Which is absurd, imo.

If their students can beat these tests, and can outperform native speakers in these tests, it means only one thing and one thing only: their students are really good at these tests. Nothing more (and nothing less).

M.A.Ramezani

These tests have something in relation to fluency in English, but they're not in linear relation.

Damkerng T.

Exactly!

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. Yes, exactly.

Damkerng T.

Talking about fluency, I think a lot of people define fluency very loosely.

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm.

Damkerng T.

12:36

They might think of fluency and proficiency synonymously, I mean.

M.A.Ramezani

IMO fluency is not being afraid to talk with a native speaker.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Fluency is supposed to be fluid-ish.

Damkerng T.

12:51

Actually prefer that over this in that sentence. "You will be informed of that (happening) by email". I think maybe it's because of the timing of the events. The activation is at some indeterminate time after receiving the documents. I were writing it, I might say "Once ... received, you will be informed by email when your account has been activated. " — ColleenV 15 mins ago

Oh!

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. Wait. . . Shouldn't have she used an inversion? Her if clause seems ungrammatical to me.

Damkerng T.

If clause?

Oh, I see. I think it's a typo.

M.A.Ramezani

K @Dam I gotta go! Cya near iftar!

Damkerng T.

See you!

Anonymous

13:39

Yeah, I think she just forgot to type If

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Good evening!

Oh, I mean morning! :D

Anonymous

@Damkerng Language acquisition is hard. I know people who've spent decades in the US "naturally acquiring" English who haven't improved appreciably in a long time. And I don't mean to say that they need to improve—they're functioning at their own levels, mostly—but I also think it's true that there's a limit to how much many people acquire over time as adults

Anonymous

Most people lock in a lot of their mistakes and never stop making them

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think it's because the way we acquire the language.

Anonymous

It does seem to be different for everyone

Anonymous

13:44

You know, the same thing happens with guitar.

Damkerng T.

Oh! That's really interesting!

(Because I'm not very sure that it's the same with swimming.)

Anonymous

People naturally get better just playing on the guitar, but they make mistakes and get really good at making those same mistakes for years, and then it's hard to unlearn

Damkerng T.

nods -- Oh, yes! It's very difficult to unlearn!

Anonymous

So they hit plateaus where they can't seem to improve

Anonymous

First year students who teach themselves do things like, for example, never using their pinky finger

Anonymous

13:46

They spend all this time in the habit of using only three fingers!

Anonymous

And it becomes their natural mode of playing

Damkerng T.

Ah, because using only three fingers seems to be easier.

nods

Anonymous

And most of them have a death grip on the instrument. Tons of tension

Anonymous

Any time they play something they think is hard, they tense up!

Anonymous

Which ironically makes it much harder :-)

Damkerng T.

13:47

Oh, it took me almost a year (about 6-9 months, iirc) before I knew how to hit the shuttlecock right! (Basically, without any tension.)

@snailboat Indeed!

Anonymous

Tension is the enemy!

Damkerng T.

True!

It's the same in swimming. If you tense up, you sink. :-)

Anonymous

When I was in school, everyone knew how to swim but me

Damkerng T.

Aww...

Oh, wait, you said "knew" not "learned"!

Anonymous

Well, I'm sure the process of learning preceded the state of knowing :-)

Anonymous

13:51

They already knew how to swim!

Damkerng T.

Yes, so everyone had already learned swimming somewhere else.

I didn't know how to swim until I graduated.

Anonymous

I didn't, though.

Anonymous

They tossed me in the deep end of the pool, and they had to jump in and pull me out shortly thereafter... :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I have a secret. It's not as difficult as you might think! :D

@snailboat Oh, no! That's not very nice!

Anonymous

And I spent the rest of swimming class in the shallow end of the pool.

Damkerng T.

13:53

I guess most of the time standing. :D

Anonymous

Yes! I sort of learned a little swimming, though.

Anonymous

But I was too afraid to swim out to the deep end.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I'm afraid of drowning.

Anonymous

I don't know if I could swim today. I'm guessing not really :-)

Damkerng T.

13:55

You know, I think you are exactly the kind of a student that I'd like to teach how to swim. :-)

Anonymous

Hah!

Damkerng T.

We would spend most of the first hour or half an hour sitting and talking and picking things up from the bottom of the pool. :D

Then we would learn how to stay under the water, then float, then swim, then swim better.

Oh, I forgot one very important thing, breathing.

Anonymous

Oh, right! Breathing is important in everything

Anonymous

It's so easy to forget about it

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

Anonymous

13:59

I think I've floated successfully before

Damkerng T.

Normally, I'd teach that as soon as we start to float.

Yay!

Anonymous

My brother had trouble floating, I think, due to his extremely low body fat

Damkerng T.

Most men sink naturally.

But not very fast.

Anonymous

Back then he always looked like a skeleton

Damkerng T.

Oh! I remember you told me about his metabolism.

Anonymous

14:02

He's gained weight since then

Anonymous

He's up to a low normal weight

Anonymous

I think it's more than just resting metabolism, though

Damkerng T.

His lifestyle, too, perhaps?

Anonymous

Some people, when they eat more than their hypothalamus wants them to, literally radiate heat and burn off calories—adaptive thermogenesis

Damkerng T.

Oh! That's new to me!

Anonymous

14:05

And they feel an unconscious compulsion to walk around, fidget, and so forth to burn the excess calories

Anonymous

And if they still have an excess, their brain makes food less appetizing and they forget to eat

Anonymous

It's all part of a complicated body fat regulation system

Anonymous

Some people have a lot of trouble gaining weight if they overeat, and have trouble overeating in the first place

Damkerng T.

Some are the opposite.

I don't know which group is bigger in number.

Anonymous

That's true, though I think most of those people need an obesogenic environment to really disregulate their body weight. Historically that sort of environment was rare and few people became obese, even those with worse genetics

Anonymous

14:09

Of course, it's not rare anymore!

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

Anonymous

I do know I was amazed as a child when my brother ate significantly more than me and remained extremely underweight

Anonymous

He'd eat a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese by himself! :-)

Damkerng T.

That's a gift! :D

I remember that about 20 years ago, there was a campaign or something telling us that food was going to be scarce. But now we have lots and lots of food.

Anonymous

Oh, we've gotten a lot better at producing high yield crops and so forth, I think

Anonymous

14:13

But our soil is becoming depleted as we overfarm, and the crops tend to have fewer vitamins and minerals than they did a hundred years ago

Damkerng T.

nods -- Last year or the year before that, I think, I heard on TV about city farming. Maybe it's going to be scarce again.

Anonymous

I only know about soil depletion in the US—I don't know about the rest of the world

Damkerng T.

And fish would be gone soon, or so they say.

Anonymous

Oh, I worry a little about mercury levels in fish

Damkerng T.

I've heard about that too, but I still eat fish anyway.

Anonymous

14:16

Well, fish is very healthy! :-)

Damkerng T.

Yes, compared to other meats, fish is the best!

Anonymous

My Thai friend is always trying to get me to eat more fish and cook with fish sauce

Damkerng T.

Hehe! I'm not sure what you would think about fish sauce.

To Thais, it's definitely delicious.

Anonymous

My favorite thing about Thai food is hot peppers!

Anonymous

I use soy sauce

Damkerng T.

14:18

Have they tried to have you try Som Tam?

(Not sure about the spelling over there, but it's supposed to sound like that.)

Anonymous

Which one is that?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... you can think of it as Thai's salad, I think.

Anonymous

What do you put in it?

Damkerng T.

Mostly papaya, tomato, other veggies.

Anonymous

I like salads but I just eat the veggies, I don't put any kind of sauce or dressing on them

Damkerng T.

14:20

There are several recipes.

Green papaya salad

Green papaya salad is a spicy salad made from shredded unripe papaya. It is of Lao origin but it is also eaten throughout Southeast Asia. Locally known in Cambodia as bok l'hong (Khmer: បុកល្ហុង, pronounced [ɓok lhoŋ]), in Laos as tam som (Lao: ຕໍາສົ້ມ) or the more specific name tam maak hoong (Lao: ຕໍາໝາກຫຸ່ງ, Lao pronunciation: [tàm.ma᷆ːk.hūŋ]), in Thailand as som tam (Thai: ส้มตำ, pronounced [sôm tam]), and in Vietnam as goi du du. Som tam, the Thai variation, was listed at number 46 on World's 50 most delicious foods compiled by CNN Go in 2011. == Preparation == The dish combines the five...

Anonymous

That looks so good

Damkerng T.

I'm more familiar with another recipe, which looks a little brighter.

Anonymous

Ooh

Anonymous

You have no idea how hungry this is making me :-)

Damkerng T.

Sorry about that! :D

Anonymous

14:23

What is pla ra?

Damkerng T.

BTW, there is a movie named Somtam. :-)

@snailboat A special kind of fermented fish in a jar.

Oh, Pla ra has its own Wikipedia page too: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pla_ra

Pla ra is somewhat like Kimchi but it's fish. :P

Anonymous

I wonder if I can learn to make som tam

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I bet your Thai friend knows how to make Som Tam.

(Not sure if I should capitalize it that way.)

Anonymous

Probably does! :-)

Anonymous

I'll ask!

Damkerng T.

14:33

Sounds like a good idea! :D

Anonymous

There are a bunch of Thai restaurants in the area, by the way

Damkerng T.

Oh, but you'll need a right tool, which I don't know how to call it in English.

Anonymous

Oh, like what?

Damkerng T.

Oh, I actually know its name: mortar.

But I'm not sure that mortars are the same everywhere.

Anonymous

Mortar and pestle?

Damkerng T.

14:35

Yes!

Anonymous

That's one of those things I learned in French before English for some reason

Damkerng T.

Hah!

So French has mortars and pestles too?

Anonymous

Mortier et pilon !

Anonymous

Isn't pilon a great word?

Damkerng T.

It sounds like something big!

Anonymous

14:39

Like a pylon!

Damkerng T.

Ah, that must've been why I thought it sounded like something big!

Damkerng T.

15:07

Welcome, @M.A.Ramezani!

Damkerng T.

15:18

Oh, I chose the wrong user name!

Welcome, @Man_From_India!

Weird, I remember you said something about tolls. Maybe something like "Don't feed the tolls" in ELU chat room. Somehow the message was gone; I couldn't find it.

Anonymous

Trolls

Anonymous

With an 'r'

Anonymous

Whew, writing an answer from my phone is a lot of work!

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes! I should've eaten more. Sorry!

@snailboat Oh! I haven't seen your answer.

Anonymous

That's what happened in the UK. They didn't eat enough, and they lost their R's!

Damkerng T.

15:27

Hehe!

I'm not sure but I think I've got a bit low blood sugar at the moment.

Anonymous

Me too. I'm in a prolonged caloric restriction

Damkerng T.

Ah, found it. MετάEd said it in the other room.

Anonymous

And most of my numbers aren't particularly high to begin with. I don't normally have high blood glucose. Actually, I have low blood pressure, a slow heart rate...

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I was all of a sudden so hungry this evening, not sure why. Maybe it's my sleep cycle.

Still doesn't feel quite right, but good enough.

Anonymous

I don't know, hunger is a really complicated process that we don't fully understand

Anonymous

15:32

Guyenet's The Hungry Brain should be out in 2016, though

Damkerng T.

Eh?

Anonymous

A book about the neuroscience of hunger

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I thought you mentioned a novel!

Anonymous

It's nonfiction

Anonymous

I'm looking forward to it, though! :-)

Damkerng T.

15:33

Sounds like an interesting book.

Anonymous

The Hungry Brain would make a great title for an SF novel

Damkerng T.

Oh, BTW, I just bought The Princess Bride few days ago.

Anonymous

Yay!!

Damkerng T.

It's the first book that I plan to listen to Kindle. :D

Anonymous

Ooh, I bet the audiobook is good

Anonymous

15:35

I love audiobooks

Damkerng T.

Ah, I'm going to use Kindle's speech synthesizer.

Anonymous

Oh! Wow!

Damkerng T.

Listening to the introduction didn't work as well as I had hoped.

Anonymous

I didn't know it had such a feature

Damkerng T.

About 80% okay, I'd say.

Shift+Sym on Kindle will make it read stuff for you.

Oh, my Kindle is Kindle 3. It's quite old now.

You know what's funny. The first time I tried to have Kindle read The Princess Bride for me, I fell asleep before it got to the halfway of the Introduction!

When I woke up, it'd read about half a book already; all happened while I was sleeping. :D

Man_From_India

15:43

@DamkerngT. Good evening. Was just searching if we can use no all instead not all? no as a determiner in case of no all of them? I found one or two sentences in COCA and BNC

Damkerng T.

Good evening!

No all of them sounds very weird, and probably ungrammatical.

Man_From_India

It sounds odd to me too, but I can't explain how it's ungrammatical :-(

Damkerng T.

I think at least None of them would overrule it.

Man_From_India

> But no All Black team other than 1967 and 1924 has gone through unbeaten and we know very well we will have tough games against Wales and Ireland.' Shelford was in Wales last October to watch Neath beat Toulouse, a result which has led him to a conclusion similar to Wyllie's:' From the performance Neath put on that night, Welsh rugby is in pretty healthy hands.' The matches actually begin on the coastal belt in Cardiff on Saturday (the New Zealand team will be announced this morning

Damkerng T.

Ah, that All Black is the name or a kind of a team.

Man_From_India

15:47

Found this in BNC

Oh right, got it. :-)

Anonymous

No is a determiner, not is not

Damkerng T.

We can't have two determiners modifying the same noun phrase, I think.

Man_From_India

@snailboat Yes... not is adverb and can modify the determiner all, but no is a determiner...so how it is ungrammatical no all?

Anonymous

What Damkerng said

Man_From_India

Yes but we say such a + noun? Both are determiner

Anonymous

15:50

Not true

Anonymous

Such is not a determiner in such a

Damkerng T.

Macmillan says such in such a is a predeterminer.

Man_From_India

ok...but we use all the men etc

Damkerng T.

Macmillan says a similar thing for all, too:

> as a predeterminer (followed by a word such as “the,” “this,” or “his”): I want to hear all the details. ♦ We lost all our money.

Man_From_India

yes I was thinking of that pre determiner + central determiner + post determiner structure.

Damkerng T.

15:53

Hmm... looking up no

Anonymous

The central slot is the only one you can call determiner

Damkerng T.

No can only be an adverb or a determiner. (according to Macmillan)

Anonymous

Predeterminer is not a type of determiner

Man_From_India

But in all the men, both all and the are determiner?

all is also an adverb, but I think it's not adverb here.

Anonymous

No

Damkerng T.

16:01

According to Macmillan, all followed by the, this, his, etc. is a predeterminer.

Man_From_India

hmmmm....but in no all of them -> no + [all of them]. Is that possible?

Anonymous

Nope.

Man_From_India

okay...

Anonymous

But not all of them is just fine :-)

Anonymous

Are we all on the same page now?

Man_From_India

16:38

Yes that is fine (sorry was off to dinner)

Anonymous

Welcome back!

Man_From_India

:-)

Anonymous

Now I'm at a computer!

Anonymous

So I can type sentences that are a little bit longer, if necessary :-)

Man_From_India

No energy :'( I think I will again be able to concentrate tomorrow :-)

Though it's only 10:18 PM here.

Anonymous

17:00

Ah, I can understand that.

Anonymous

Focus is a finite resource.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. What?

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani Welcome, M.A.Ramezani!

M.A.Ramezani

17:16

Thanks @snail. I just came back from my class.

CopperKettle

Good evening all!

"When I listen to any song, I read it in translation" - or listening and reading - what would you pick?

Anonymous

Instead of When I verb to any noun, I'd go for Whenever I verb to a noun

Anonymous

That's just me, personally.

CopperKettle

@snailboat Thank you!

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat That's me too.

Anonymous

17:26

Whenever I listen to a Russian song, I read along with an English translation.

Anonymous

Something like that? :-)

CopperKettle

@snailboat Yep. (0:

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm.

CopperKettle

It's from this text at Lang-8

Anonymous

> How do you learn foreign languages? And Why do you do it?

M.A.Ramezani

17:27

I'm wondering if the usage of any is grammatical there.

Anonymous

Oh no! My answers are respectively "I dunno!" and "I dunno!"

CopperKettle

"When I listen to any song, I'm reading it in translation. " (she wrote)

M.A.Ramezani

Dang I'm distracted.

CopperKettle

@snailboat The Japanese would like such answers!

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat Mine are it just happens outta the blue.

CopperKettle

17:29

I wonder if one can combine the present-tense "listen" and "am reading" in one sentence..

M.A.Ramezani

> Listen! I just wanna be reading this article! Go away and don't bother me!

Nah, that's cheating.

Maybe.

Anonymous

The imperative listen isn't tensed.

Anonymous

It just happens to have the same form as the plain present tense.

M.A.Ramezani

I knew that was cheating!

CopperKettle

@snailboat Thank you! I was distracted from English grammar peculiarities for several months.

M.A.Ramezani

17:34

And was biking. . .

Totally worth it.

CopperKettle

Yes.. (0:

I'm jogging lately.

Switched from 30 minute jogs to 50 minute jogs, worked so far (a couple a times)

M.A.Ramezani

I sometimes see such stuff as a waste of my time.

CopperKettle

The downside is that the MP3 player should be charged more often (0:

M.A.Ramezani

I sometimes read and jog or do exercises and jog though.

CopperKettle

@M.A.Ramezani Read and jog?

M.A.Ramezani

17:37

@CopperKettle Whaddya listen to?

@CopperKettle Yep.

Anonymous

That's pretty difficult.

Anonymous

When I was younger I always read while I walked.

Anonymous

Never while running, though.

CopperKettle

@snailboat I remember getting a big bruise that way. At an airport.

M.A.Ramezani

Hey @Copper do you want to laugh a little?

0

Q: Confusion about the charge of electrons while orbiting through bohr's energy shells

I came across the following part in my text book. Bohr's atomic theory explained the stability of an atom by the idea of energy shells. He said that while orbiting the nucleus through a particular orbit or energy shell the energy of electrons neither increases nor decreases. The electron does not...

electrons atoms

Anonymous

17:38

@CopperKettle Eventually I learned it wasn't necessarily such a good idea :-)

CopperKettle

@M.A.Ramezani Mwahahaha! The very title makes me laugh!

Anonymous

But I still do use my phone a lot. It's little, though, so at least it generally doesn't block my vision.

CopperKettle

@snailboat Well, at least it was a good Sci-Fi book!

Anonymous

Hehe!

Anonymous

By the way, among fans of written SF, the convention is typically to write 'SF' rather than 'sci-fi'

CopperKettle

17:39

@snailboat Thnaks!

Anonymous

The latter has long been used as a pejorative term among certain groups of fans

Anonymous

It's something of a shibboleth, I suppose.

CopperKettle

@snailboat Never knew that! Probably because I met no hardcore SF fans!

BBL!

Hi Arrowfar! But ... BBL!

Anonymous

jessesword.com/sf/view/210

M.A.Ramezani

@CopperKettle Did you look at the spam?

The second answer.

CopperKettle

17:55

@M.A.Ramezani I did just now, but to me it all a Chinese scroll, frankly.

M.A.Ramezani

Well I haven't laughed like I laughed at that for quite some time.

First of all, I think "discoverer" is a better word than 'inventor". Also, there are well over ten million chemical compounds previously described, and a humongous amount more are out there. I am sure that the discoverers of most chemicals have been lost to time and sheer disinterest. — Nicolau Saker Neto 3 hours ago

I misread that humongous as homogeneous. This is the second time I do that/this.

Anonymous

"This is the second time that I've done that."

Anonymous

I think inventing a chemical compound is akin to inventing a very large number.

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