Language Overflow - 2016-01-12 (page 1 of 3)

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2:07 AM

money, honey

Many of them came from Germanic stems which didn't use an O sound in them.

1 hour later…

3:22 AM

@Dam I put Rise of the Guardians on my "to watch" list. In general, I love Roger Ebert's writing on film. He rates this one quite highly: rogerebert.com/reviews/rise-of-the-guardians-2012. The documentary about him is inspiring: rogerebert.com/reviews/life-itself-2014

4:03 AM

You know Roger Ebert is dead?

1 hour later…

5:14 AM

Yes, but his website contains all his reviews and some of his protoges continue to operate the site.

( @Nih )

@Nih .. .Ah, you ask because I use the present tense form for a something that is arguably or seemingly past! As I do in the previous sentence, and this one!

("... He rates this one quite highly ....")

5:37 AM

hey. :)

hi @lekon

hey @JimReynolds

i posted a question about whether the word "Past", and the word "After" are interchangeable when it comes to conveying something relating to time.

If i said "I'll be there past 10", instead of "After 10", would it be wrong?

Yes, it would be wrong.

We can say "I'll be there at 10 past 10," meaning 10:10.

5:53 AM

i see.

It's not simple.

suppose it's 20 past 10, and i don't have a watch on me.
Could i then say, i don't know what the exact time is, i suppose it's somewhere about past 10.

it kinda hits me as a correct sentence, the above.^

Well, it would be understandable, but not how us native speakers would say it, at least not normally, at least not Americans!

Well, let me correct that.

I think Americans would sometimes say that in speech. If someone said that, the listener would most likely understand it and not even think about it.

Oh no. I have to correct my correction! I was right originally.

._.) how would you convey the same meaning without being accurate about the time?
10:20 being the time.

I suppose most common: I suppose it's about 20 past 10.

I suppose it's around 20 past.

We might not include 10, if we assume the listener knows the hour.

6:00 AM

suppose the listener doesn't know the hour.
and you don't know it's about 20, you just know it's past 10.

I assume, you'd have to use a sentence like the one i did, to convey what time it is.

"It's probably past 10." or something.

Yes. That would be common.

It's probably past 10.

It's probably after 10.

I think/guess it's sometime after 10.

I think it's after 10.

i see.
Well, what about this.
It's way past your bedtime.
It's way after your bedtime.

I've never heard anyone use the latter here.

I think the former is much more common.

But I am confident people also say the latter fairly often.

i see.

oh, i have a few more doubts i need to rid myself of.

in street.
on street.
at street.

Ah. It's complex!

6:10 AM

which is basically why i just use

"i was walking the streets." or "i was walking down the street" ._.

Well, if I told you that children shouldn't play in the street, does it give you an idea of how we use it?

It follows the main way we use "in" for information about location.

If you walk in the streets, you might get hit by a car!

You might find this enjoyable: owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/594/03

See especially the bottom of the page. It shows some diagrams of streets and gives some explanation.

ah.!
examples.
it's always easier to be able to comprehend stuff when there are pictures involved. xD
I'll give it a look right away.

:-)

i'm at office, or i'm in office?

6:29 AM

We say both.

In some contexts they have different meanings.

jimmy answered your question @lekonchekon

19

Q: "At" or "in" the office?

When do you use at the office? And when do you use in the office? What's the difference between the phrases?

word-choice prepositions at-in

thanks. :)
i'll give it a look.

NP :)

that was helpful. :)

that's good :)

6:34 AM

Is Jimmy the top voted answer?

It's quite good.

the least voted answer

:D

but that's better than having no votes :(

Suppose someone calls our cell phone and asks where we are. We tend to use both when we think of it as "of all the places I could be, my/the office is the place."

Well, I'm on my phone now, so it's hard to type much more at the moment!

Jimmy is right, but I think it's not the most helpful way to understand the issue.

Yup, It's hard and arduous to type on this phone >>>>>>>>>>>>>

okay, now i gotta ask.
Who exactly is Jimmy?
I don't remember having come across that name when i went through all their answers.

user image

Jim is Jimmy

Or Jimmy is Jim

6:46 AM

okay, i need to stop snorting that white stuff they have me snort every time i don't use my common sense. -_-

:D

this reminds me.

His parents would beat him every time he made a mistake.
His parents would beat him for every time he made a mistake.

How much difference does the word "For" make here?

7:02 AM

@JimReynolds It's a nice animation, well-made, both the story and audio-visual stuff. RIP, Roger Ebert.

@DamkerngT

@lekonchekon For seems to sound more formal and more marginal to me.

hey. :3

Why does it go, "if i had a penny for every time someone said that to me", and not go "if i had a penny every time someone said that to me."

Are you sure that the latter is really wrong?

(And penny? That sounds old! -- Of course, not AmE.)

nope.
it seems fine to me.
It's not often that i see people using the latter though.

7:09 AM

It may just be a frozen phrase.

i'd use the one with "for" here, still.

i don't think so.
I still come across people who use it quite often.

i come across people who still use it quite often.*

People who use "penny"?

The earliest I can find is for a surprisingly large amount. Mark Twain in 1809: If I had a dollar for every person killed per year in India (by snake-bite), I would rather have it than any other property — FumbleFingers Oct 28 '13 at 5:04

user image

huh.
But i still see them using the phrase "If i had a penny for every time...." all the time.

Wow, is that even grammatical?

Other than how the word everytime is used as one word, it seems pretty okay to me.

7:16 AM

My sense is that we would normally give a different meaning to beat him for every time ....

Why am I beating lekon right now?

I'm beating him for every time he ever made an English mistake.

I think "If I had X (for) every Y" is a set phrase.

Based on Mark Twain's?

i was just trying to understand why people use "For" at times when it's not required.
Like, "how long have you been working here for."

Everything else but time-related Y would need "for".

I am now (or on one occasion) beating him (for=in response to) [some reason]

I think it is a set phrase, yes.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if people unconsciously omit the for fairly often.

In speech.

i see.

7:21 AM

Ahhh... The you've never left my mind quote is so sweet!

:-)

yup.
it's so sweet that i'm going to use it on my girlfriend, and hope she doesn't find out i'm not the one that came up with it.

._.

Hopefully she'll be so overwhelmed with romance, she won't be able to even consider whether you made it up yourself or not!

:3

I'm off to a good start chatting with Jennifer: a-i.com/show_tree.asp?id=115

Speaking of romance, maybe she was programmed just for you, Dam.

7:26 AM

Haha!

She asked me if I'm a student.

I said: "I'm a student of life, I suppose."

She replied: That's kind of interesting, tell me more. ok then, Wait, so you are a student or not?

O.O

You guys don't watch tv often, do you?

Hehe!

I usually watch "Comedy Central"

I guess my TV watches me more often than the other way around. :P

7:28 AM

Since I'm in Taiwan, there are not all that many English channels on cable here. I usually watch that channel, BBC World News, Discovery, Sundance channel.

I miss my Sundance channel.

I manage to find other TV shows. I'm a big fan of Game of Thrones, like everyone else, I guess.

They let me watch it for free in December.

Why did you ask, lekon?

It has some really good content, Dam.

nods

It's different from HBO and co.

7:30 AM

I should be watching Jim Cleans His Apartment and Does His Laundry.

Yes. Though you made me realize something.

Must be interesting to watch. :-)

I don't think we often use "and co" with ... companies!

Unless it's actually a company name.

Hah!

I see. Okay, how about "and the like" instead of "and co."?

That's felicitous, of course, and so is HBO and co.

I haven't even started watching Game of Thrones yet.
There's a show called The Office ; it has the two versions, one's the UK version, the other's the US version ; the US version has Steve Carell in it.
It's funnier than Sienfeld, and Friends.

Dwight Schrute: Welcome to the Hotel Hell. Check-in time in now, check-out time is never.
Jim Halpert: Does my room have cable?
Dwight Schrute: No. And the sheets are made of fire.
Jim Halpert: Can I change rooms?
Dwight Schrute: Sorry we're all booked up. Hell convention in town.
Jim Halpert: Can I have a late check-out?
Dwight Schrute: I'll have to talk to the manager.
Jim Halpert: You're not the manager, even in your own fantasy?
Dwight Schrute: I'm the owner.. the co-owner. With Satan!
Jim Halpert: Okay, just so I understand it. In your wildest fantasy, you are in hell and you are co-ru…

7:33 AM

Most people would read or hear it without a second thought. But I think we might be less likely to utter it. If that makes any sense.

@JimReynolds It does. Thanks for the tip!

I think I ran into The Office (UK) once. Not like it much, the accents were too thick for me back then.

I guess I should be okay with it now.

I've only seen The Office a few times, US version. I thought it was quite good, but somehow I never felt compelled to try to watch it in earnest.

I haven't watched the UK version either. xD

It's better than most other shows these days, i'd say.
Another show that i found really awesome was breaking bad. *_*

i wish they made a few more seasons.

<-- following a rerun of House of Cards and thinks it's pretty good!

Perhaps my favorite TV show of all time is Carnivale.

That always makes me think of the great film, House of Games.

imdb.com/title/tt0093223

7:40 AM

@JimReynolds I wonder if they will have it rerun on any channel soon. Maybe on Cinemax.

@JimReynolds , why are you in Taiwan, by the way?

I remember I watched an entire season of Breaking Bad on Sundance (when they let me watch it for free in another life :P). A very cool series. Can't remember which season.

I met my partner/boyfriend when we were both studying in New York City. He is from here, and after four years together in New York, we decided to move here together.

I love Breaking Bad. I've seen all of them!

Nice. :D

I remember that he bombed the old guy in a room!

7:45 AM

Oh, that's in the final season, I'm fairly sure.

Ahh

i don't think so.
The old guy was in a hospital.
Wait, we're talking about the one who couldn't talk, and was always seated in his wheelchair, right?

Yes! That's the guy I remember.

Yes. And did he also kill Gus in the same bombing?

Yikes. I guess I need to watch it all again.

Gus was a tanned man who was kinda running the town, right?

7:47 AM

yup.
The way Gus was died, holding his tie knot.
that was pretty awesome.

tanned man, running the town. xD
sure.

(It was a marathon watch, so I can't remember much of it.)

Are you expressing doubt that a brown-skinned guy would run a giant drug operation?

Hehe! I didn't say that!

I meant lekon ... it's not an accusatory question in the least.

What's this? imdb.com/title/tt0460690/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_10

A TV series called The Unit?

Heard of it?

I love everything I've seen David Mamet do. And I'm shocked to find that he did so much I wasn't aware of!

He wrote Hannibal.

user image

7:50 AM

I think I ran into one of its episodes once. I was too busy back then.

Haha! What a photo!

i know right. xD

@JimReynolds Oh! The series?

Yes.

Pretty cool!

(I mean awesome!)

Gotta go. See y'all later. o/

\o

7:56 AM

Bye, dam. :3

3 hours later…

10:56 AM

Because an ELL question asked about Adele's song. I had a chance to hear her song again, but this time I heard it like this...

Adele - Skyfall (Lyric Video)

"Let this sky fall. When it crumballs. We will stand tall."

:P

11:20 AM

Would you believe that I just found out who Adele was a few days ago?

Do you mean you heard "crumbles" in a different way?

I had seen her name in news and heard her talked about. So I knew as much that she was a popular, er, popular singer.

But I heard a song at a friend's home last week, and asked my friends, "What song is this? Who is it? I've always liked this song, but I have never known who or what it is."

I thought I had been hearing it for years! Haha. Strange.

They said it's such and such, by Adele. O.O

0

A: Enumeration of different parts of speech

We needn't consider anything particularly esoteric or obscure to assess the grammaticality of your example. Your example is in the form: He was this and (he was) that. We can certainly leave out the second he was. Whether or not your example is good or bad style is entirely subjective....

@JimReynolds Yes! I think it was for better rhyming.

I just wrote whatever. O.O

It sounds good to me. :D

PoS again!

We "needn't".

Learners really love PoS!

11:26 AM

We "NEEDN'T"

It all sounds funny. Or much of it. I hear "Let duh sky faw"

need can be an aux. verb, too!

or something like that.

@JimReynolds Haha!

You and snailboat can code it all day with your glyphs.

Which I think the two of you just make up yourselves.

11:27 AM

@JimR you misspelled "thy" in your answer.

Anonymous

@JimReynolds It's called coordination of unlikes, and sometimes it's perfectly grammatical. People are often taught the rule that you have to put the same sort of constituents together (say, an adjective phrase and another adjective phrase), but that's not the case.

@JimReynolds Come to think of it, yes, that /l/ sounds really like a "w".

Anonymous

Famous example (among linguists): He's a republican and proud of it!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. /l/ vocalization!

Oh. Hmm... I wonder if I'll incorporate that.

Drats! Why did I ask?

11:28 AM

> He is red, of another planet, and father to 249.

Or is it just one drat? Let me try.

Drat!

I was just picturing you, when I wrote that, MAR.

The example sentences demonstrate @JimR's nature perfectly.

Isnt' my needn't ok'dnt?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. ?

Some good, bad, and ugly examples:
"He's a republican and proud of it."
"Let the sky fall, and them stand tall."
"I have a book and to run to school."

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Can you guess why *I have a book and to run to school is ungrammatical?

Anonymous

11:31 AM

Unless you already know the rule :-)

Hmm... I think have and have to are different.

Anonymous

Yep! You can't construe one have two different ways like that.

One is a main verb, the other is umm... a modal verb?

How coincidental that I already started editing my answer to include all of those examples and observations that the two of you are making. And I wrote it all just before snailboat boated in.

It's ok if you somehow saw what I was writing and failed to credit me, though.

Anonymous

It's one of Pullum's (jokingly named) "therapy verbs": wanna, gonna, usta, hafta, gotta, oughta, and sposta :-)

2

Anonymous

11:34 AM

lingo.stanford.edu/sag/papers/pullum97.pdf

Mustent be petty, mustn't we?

Mustn't be something, mustn't we?

There is a -/- unbalanced polarity tag question ??

snailboat, is that a comprehensible way of describing it, if not the only way?

Anonymous

Most tags are opposite polarity, some are constant polarity.

Anonymous

> You like soup, don't you?

Anonymous

> You like soup, do you?

Yes. But why change the subject?

Anonymous

11:36 AM

Opposite polarity tags are also called reversed polarity tags.

Now I'm hungry.

LOL

Anonymous

@JimReynolds Spreading activation! ;-)

You like soup, do you? THEN HERE'S SOME SOUP!!

Places @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. in a giant cauldron of boiling liquid.

Opposite polarity?

What do you call the element before the tag?

Thank you for your helpful answer. This made my fog completely sunny. Sorry for my literally Japanese expression. Thank you again. — Go Tyosyu 24 mins ago

Anonymous

11:38 AM

@DamkerngT. web.stanford.edu/~zwicky/phonological-resolution.pdf

See, I even learn Japanese while reading ELL answers!

You mean any +,- or -,+?

Clear as a bell, ringing in the rain.

made my fog sunny.

Anonymous

@JimReynolds The anchor.

Anonymous

Anchor, tag?

Ok. Nice term.

11:39 AM

@snailboat I didn't think it was about phonology, but when I tried reading "I have a book and to run to school" aloud, it was really awkward.

Anonymous

Ah, the paper builds up to situations where phonology is relevant, but it starts by describing more basic situations.

just exercised the 5-second rule

(Germs can't get to your food if you pick it up from the floor in 5 seconds. :P)

Anonymous

Oh, that rule's made it to Thailand, has it? ← constant polarity tag

Ah, but I heard it on NPR!

Lemme check... (I remember that he said Oxford has a study that proves it!)

Oh, wrong U! It was Aston!

This looks like a slightly different, topic, snailboat: Joint Elimination Coordination Element (JECE) is a staff element of United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) with the mission of integrating WMD . . . .

11:44 AM

aston.ac.uk/about/news/releases/2014/march/…

O.O

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. A study? I always thought it was something made up by college kids or something :-)

Hehe! I guess they set out to find the truth about the myth!

Anonymous

@JimReynolds What topic shall we discuss?

We must continue with a current one: I want to know what @Dam picked up off of his filthy floor.

nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?_r=0

I found that article life-changing.

11:47 AM

LOL -- It was a piece of broccoli.

Leaves keyboard to lick his kitty's litterbox.

Broccoli but not necess-celery.

Anonymous

@JimReynolds If you keep a pet snail cage too clean, snails have a hard time. They need some bacteria in the soil and so forth.

Yes. By cell count, we are all more non-human than human.

> ell.stackexchange.com/q/78546/3281

Where I go left or go right, the worms truly do turn.

11:50 AM

I have a hunch that I'm going to listen to music more often for a few weeks.

Anonymous

Music is life!

Music is a virus.

Viral music!

Hey, this At first sight has no /t/ in first, I think!

> youtu.be/lWA2pjMjpBs?t=80

Anonymous

You can hear all sorts of /t/s I can't!

Ah, a typo, sorry!

11:54 AM

Something made me download this video from YouTube today, out of fear it might disappear.

Anonymous

I just hear [sːː]

Donna Summer I Feel Love (maxi drive mix) 16:9 HD

I don't steal, of course. I just do what the, er, music companies want us to do because, um. You know?

Let's just talk about language.

@JimReynolds It's been there since last Sep. I doubt if it'll go anywhere soon.

BUT IT MIGHT!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ooh, sorry, I didn't even notice that to :-)

11:57 AM

@snailboat My bad. :P

> As has long been known, it is not strictly true that conjuncts must be of the same syntactic category, though most theories of coordination have made this simplifying assumption.

I'm sure that "As has long been known" is not easy to explain, syntactically!

Anonymous

I'm not entirely satisfied with the explanations of comparative constructions in the grammars I have.

Anonymous

I don't currently feel like I can explain them effectively.

12:17 PM

@snailboat a Republican is a noun phrase, and proud of it is ... a

um, complement?

adjective phrase?

O.O

On what plain basis do they mismatch?

Anonymous

@JimReynolds A noun phrase and an adjective phrase.

Anonymous

But they have the same function; they're both complements of be that predicate on the subject he.

Anonymous

In CGEL, this is called "predicative complement" function. In traditional grammar, they'd be called "subject complements".

Anonymous

It's actually very difficult to come up with an exact set of rules for what sorts of things can be coordinated.

Yet I've done so! My Gosh!!!

Yes. And more basically, they're both conjuncts?

Anonymous

12:23 PM

Yes, that's the traditional term.

Anonymous

I'm a fan of coordinates, athough I like coordinand, too.

Anonymous

Strictly speaking, terms like coordinate are more general than conjunct, disjunct, etc.

Anonymous

So they don't express exactly the same thing.

hi , i just want to participate in this chat to improve my English , so feel free to correct me when i'm wrong, my name is Ahmed Kamal , from Egypt , 26 years.

Anonymous

Hello! Welcome to ELL chat!

12:26 PM

what is "ELL" stand for ?

Anonymous

English Language Learners.

Anonymous

English Language Learners is the name of the Q&A site this chat room is attached to.

good

Anonymous

You can ask questions about English there, if you like.

ok , i will when i have one , the advantage that the chat have over the site is , it is quick

so one time i was want to send an email to my boss and posted there but with no quick replay

12:30 PM

And the smartest people are in here right now.

good

:D

@snailboat, I want to publicly thank/acknowledge you for setting me in a better basic direction in my answer, which I'm still working on. What's the best way to do it? A little note inside the answer itself? If so, is there any markup code that best marks you as a community member / user?

Thanks to @snailboat for blah, and futhermore.

There is an attempt to mismatch conjuncts most uglily.

Ahmed, there is often someone in here who is happy to try to help

Sometimes it's better to do both!

Put your question in ELL and let people in here know that you've added it. Then we can decide if we prefer to write an answer on the site, which might help others besides you, or give our thoughts here.

good idea , i'll share the link here the next time

Just make sure to give us your credit card number.

Anonymous

12:46 PM

@JimReynolds Oh, you don't have to do that.

Does it mean you prefer I don't?

Anonymous

No, you can do what you like :-)

I might say something brilliant, and you might get a Nobel prize.

Anonymous

I don't really have advice on how to format it, though.

Thanks to @snailboat for pointing me to the fundamental issue here. She deserves credit for what I got right, and no fault for the answer's travels into

But does the @ do anything in an answer? Or at least tip most or many readers to ... gah.

and travels into ... I'm still working on.

Errorville?

Miselaborationburg?

Anonymous

12:50 PM

The @ doesn't do anything special in an answer.

Anonymous

If you include an @ in an answer, it's a purely social convention.

It's conventional then? Maybe?

Anonymous

Yeah, I think I've seen other people do it.

:)

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Jan '1612

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