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01:15
@snailboat You may be happy to learn that I've come up with additions to my Canonical List of the CXXXVII English Conditionals.
@snailboat s/inguistics/ife/
 
3 hours later…
03:50
In the USA, Person1 posted a picture with a new BMW and Person2 commented "Not much of a truck!".
What did Person2 mean? It's not a real car? It's not big? It looks nice?
04:10
@NicolasRaoul I think it's similar to "You call that a truck?"
But Person1 did not use the word "truck" at all... the picture was posted with description "Test driving in XYZ ‪#‎435i‬"
It would be something along the lines of "I wouldn't call it a truck!".
It can also mean that even though the design of the vehicle tries to cover the functions of a truck, that vehicle can't function as a truck very well.
@JohnClifford IF (SOME EVENT E DOESN'T HAPPEN):
THEN USE PAST TENSE WHEN DESCRIBING WHAT HAPPENS IN ABSENCE OF EVENT E
I wonder, what language is that?!
Is that how Grammarly and the like encode the rules?
04:25
Hi,@DamkerngT.,there was an interesting discussion yesterday.
@V.V. The part that I missed, right? :-)
Didn't you? I missed more.
Aww... good thing we have the chat log!
BTW, the chat log is officially called (on the Help page, iirc) "transcript".
Dam, what was the name of the day?
@V.V. Oh, you mean "Pi Day"?
It's the Pi in math. :D
04:29
Yes
And any additional meaning?
The ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. Or so they say.
Writing the date as 3/14/16 (which is normal in North America) makes it easy to see it as the value of Pi.
Ah, that's it.
That's clear, I just thought it might mean something more.
It meant the date.
nods -- That's right!
I think it was a joke about the car. It's big (great ) but not as big as the truck.
Could be. It depends a lot on the context.
Now I wonder what that BMW looks like...
04:41
Should be huge, though I am not an expert.
05:22
Hm, I guess that if you're thinking dirty on this one, you should consider that for what it's worth there's a girl in the gang, and they clearly say "There's baloney in our slacks". Even though she's not wearing a slack, and neither is Wakko... — Joao Arruda 2 hours ago
@Wyatt Please remember that when people learn a new language, they may understand the literal meaning of a statement, but have difficulty seeing much further than that. At least for me, when I study Spanish I find that occasionally I can parse the meaning of each individual word in a sentence, but get lost when trying to understand the meaning of it as a whole. Furthermore, I know of at least one person for whom English is not her first language, who has told me that she takes longer to "get things" in English as opposed to Spanish, even though she speaks both languages fluently. — silvascientist 39 mins ago
Interesting viewpoints.
I think it's all about metalinguistics.
I guess people who have higher metalinguistic awareness can cope with this kind of stuff better in a second language.
(Like some folks who are natural born imitators, which seem to have an easier time acquiring a second language as well.)
05:54
0
Q: How should I read these numerical phrases?

SoudabehHow should I read these sentences that contain numerical (?) phrases? A: "I have gone there 3-4 times." 1- I have gone there three, four times. 2- I have gone there three to four times. 3- I have gone there three or four times. 4-? B: "Bring me 10-15 apples". 1- Bring me ten, fif...

The first time I saw the title, I thought it was about reading aloud.
But it seems like she used read to mean "understand".
(as seen in her comments)
Hmm... but was it just because all of our answers took her 'read' as 'understand' or 'interpret'?
Oh, this answer mentions reading aloud.
1
A: How should I read these numerical phrases?

EraThe hyphen indicates a range which is verbally expressed using to. In some cases this is synonymous with the or form, but 3-4 literally means "three to four". If you're reading the sentence out loud, say to. The form with a comma is an informal version of the or form. The distinction matters bec...

But do we always read that hyphen or dash aloud as to?
I think many speakers simply skip it, and read only the numbers.
Morning @Dam
Morning!
No school until 20 days later \o/
Congrats!
06:22
So, what else is new?
I should prolly change avatar.
I think you've already seen the latest meta post.
And commented on it.
@IͶΔ Yes.
:D
It's fun to comment on ourselves, eh?
Having the sign DO NOT ENTER on a door is like telling people TRY TO ENTER THE BEST YOU CAN!
06:26
Esp. if it's Wayne.
I never knew I'd like dark humor.
O_O
We have a new question on the main site saying "I know it's racist, but is it racist?"
Hmm... I wonder what the OP's question is really about.
They didn't say they know it.
We should have a "ETYMOLOGY IS OFF-TOPIC" sign on ELL's door. We'd get etymology questions everyday after that.
34
Q: Be Jon Skeet for a month

tvanfossonPrompted by the recent questions about negative voted questions and inspired by the actual most negative question on meta. Because it's obvious that unless Jon, God forbid, would lose interest or capacity to participate in StackOverflow, none of us will ever have a chance to make it to #1, I pro...

oh my god it is Ash :) — Maryam 38 secs ago
Oh man! Now I see how close "Ash" is to ash.
06:42
Hi! @DamkerngT.
@user62015 Hi!
@DamkerngT. How are you?
I'm good. Thanks! How are you?
@DamkerngT. I am great. Thanks.
@user you don't need to ping Dam for every message.
06:46
@DamkerngT. Could you tell me, which option is correct? Spoken English or English Spoken
@user62015 Dude, not cool.
It's spoken English.
I'm sure @IͶΔ can answer that, too. ;-)
@DamkerngT. Thanks.
@DamkerngT. The thing is I'm being ignored for some reason, and that annoys me.
06:49
@user62015 No problem.
@IͶΔ Rog!
@DamkerngT. Reactive Organic Gas, since that's what I know of that term?
@IͶΔ Think astronauts. Or pilots. :D
The jokes are indeed very smart.
I did not get this joke at all.
Good high noon, Muhammad.
\o
@Cop it's subtle, read it again.
07:00
BTW, I don't think we put our phones to our heads that often anymore.
I used my first Galaxy Tab the way most people would use their smartphones nowadays when I talked to someone on my phone, and it looked sort of silly. I mean really silly, back then.
The same goes to the way it used my Galaxy Tab to take a photo.
People just gave me a "look"!
Now everybody does the same thing I did.
@DamkerngT. You used Galaxy Tab to take a photo?!?!?!?!?!?!
?!!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!
You're supposed to feel alien now.
I guess that's why they game me that look. :P
But hey! I've never done this!
I'd do much worse
Oh hey, we're all weirdos and normal people at the same time.
07:11
I guess so!
But that itself is weird, so I think the weirdo part is winning.
BTW, I found this while searching for the above photo...
Disclaimer: Try not to hate-read it.
That's because you never catch them in the middle of it. Flashlight below
> Today our company sent you a pretty complete set of samples. Or has sent you?
Good high noon (+22 minutes), @Dam!
Good afternoon!
I'd say sent you, but I think has sent is fine in this sentence in BrE.
07:22
I'd also say "sent", since it's a "done deal".
IIRC, if the result or the consequence is in the focus, most speakers would automatically use the present perfect.
A typical example would be I've broken my leg.
Ah, so if I'm writing a letter to berate my partner for not replying to that letter, I'd use "has".
nods -- I think so, though I think either would be fine.
Hah!
I wonder how many robots it would take!
07:27
@CowperKettle Hmm, I think @Dam can hold our whole apartment in one hand.
LOL -- I'm not Batman (when he fought Superman with his exoskeleton suit).
Hey, it's on YouTube! (Of course!)
Guten morgen!
guten Nachmittag!
Guten something!
07:32
How is everyone?
Guten, danke.
I'm okay! -- raising hand
Only fatigued for some reason..
@CowperKettle Did you finally get the joke?
@IͶΔ No, I'm busy reading other stuff..
07:34
If it's about tense, it explains the fatiguishness.
(0:
Maybe it's the thyroid. My TSH improved, but is still above the norm.
Still good news, I suppose.
Maybe I should up my L-thyro dosage. (0: I'll attend an endocrinologist and ask her.
Yes, good news. I wonder what would've happened to me 100 years ago, with no L-thyroxine and no blood tests available.
@CowperKettle You wouldn't have blood tests.
I want to make a pun but nothing has occurred to me yet.
07:43
@JohnClifford Only I'm allowed to make puns.
0
Q: A boy eats a freshly pounded rice cake

thein lwinIn an AP photo, I found the following sentence. A boy eats a freshly pounded rice cake. I'd like to know the usage of simple present tense in this sentence. Thanks a lot.

Anyone want to write an answer about the historical present or the narrative present?
Hmm... I wonder if the a in this tagline is the best choice.
> A death of a woman and four men. Who is innocent?
I guess it could be even more ambiguous with the though.
The?
A death of a woman and four man. Who the innocent!
08:01
I meant, The death of a woman and four men. Who is innocent? !
Now I'm okayer with zero article.
08:28
I'm terrible with 0 zero articles.
08:51
@JohnClifford Hydroxyl. Hands a pill that cures 0 zero articles
:D
Would you agree that an edit request which just changes one of the possible sentences OP was asking about would be better-served as an answer or comment explaining why the edit works better than any of their own suggestions?
I voted to reject it based on it being so.
@JohnClifford I would. Link to the edit?
No, link to the review.
I don't think I can link to it since I've taken an action on it.
08:56
Wait, don't need it.
@JohnClifford You can. Now I just clicked on the timeline and got it.
The edit request was to change the structure/wording of sentence 2 in the OP.
Ah, cool.
Ace.
I am drunk with power.
@John you can access the links to the reviews you have done in "history".
Also, there's a timeline for each post on SE, which is the coolest little hidden feature I've ever seen.
Yeah, I remembered I could see the edit request from the "edit" link right after I told you I couldn't link it. :P
I didn't realise you could get that much detail, though. Where is that accessed?
I use a StackApps script that says "SE modifications". It adds a "timeline" link to every post. Of course, you just need to add the post ID to the X.SE.com/posts/[ID]/timeline format.
Oh, I thought maybe there was a built-in link for it.
There's a reason it's called a hidden feature man.
0
Q: Using a slash (/) between multi-word phrases

Phi_1.618How would you suggest using a forward slash (/) between multi-word phrases? Should a slash be even used between multi-word phrases? For example - Following are the open/in progress issues. or Following are the open/ in progress issues. or Following are the open/in-progress issue...

09:02
49
Q: SE Modifications -- Username autocomplete in comments, inline revision source, and utility links

Tim Stone Screenshot About This userscript adds four main features: Various utility links on posts and in the top bar Inline viewing of post revision source Markdown on the post history page Links on comment timestamps for linking to specific comments (with enhanced "link-ability" for people wit...

I wonder if this is technically off-topic since the placement of a slash isn't so much an English usage issue.
@JohnClifford I can't judge that since I'm not an ELU modding regular.
Not reliably I mean.
It's a tricky one, because I guess you could argue its relevance.
Ja
Max Williams' comment provides a compelling argument for voting off-topic because the answer is easily searchable online, though.
09:06
I wish we had that close reason on ELL.
I wish we had THAT ATTITUDE on ELL.
It kind of does, the first off-topic close reason means the same thing.
MAR on meta.chem -> Gets stuff done
MAR on meta.ELL -> Gets tired of arguing why he's right and thus doesn't get stuff done
But yeah, they don't seem to be quite as trigger-happy with the closevotes.
Same goes for everyone, I think.
I'm yet to see a decision being made on meta.ELL this month.
I've never even looked at ELL's meta site to be honest.
09:09
It's nice that we don't go o'er the close button as soon as we open a link to a question, but unfortunately meta.ELL is way too much talk and not much action at all.
Hence, it's pretty useless.
Though I'm an idiot, so I keep engaging in useless activities.
Stumbled upon this. I wonder where StoneyB is now.
> If we offend, it is with our good will
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end.
@DamkerngT. What's with the willThat?
TIL, it's impossible to type a multi-line message in chat on mobile.
(Or is it possible but I just simply don't know how?)
They keep it a secret. I'll get fired if I tell you that.
Haha!
I kinda think that the explanation given by SparkNotes is not correct.
09:21
I don't think it is either.
Though I get the impression No Fear Shakespeare is meant to be humourous. :P
Oh! I must've missed that! :P
An interesting self-correction:
> If anyone wants to talk about controlling or emotionally manipulating parents (especially if one or both of them have a personality disorder like my mom does) feel free to PM me.
> *manipulative
What is English anyway *facepalm*
It's great how the meaning of a sentence changes completely just by using a different word.
I think manipulating might be okay.
It works, but it's potentially ambiguous as it could also mean "the act of manipulating my own parents emotionally" rather than the intended "parents who emotionally manipulate you".
Ah, you're right!
Thanks!
09:32
This is a tricky one...
The edit contains terms the OP might not actually know, which probably won't help them any.
@JohnClifford Reject.
There are, however, a couple of perfectly-legitimate edits in it.
Not a tricky one, tho'. ^^'
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
09:35
Oh, asked Jun 4 '13!
Edits aren't meant to be comments or replies. They're just edits.
They should be in the "capitalize "i", dammit" spirit not "here's the answer" spirit.
Although the edit clarifies several of the grammatical constructs OP referred to, this may confuse OP if he doesn't know their proper names.
That's what I'm putting as my reason.
Hullo @unknown! Welcome to LO!
Actually, yeah, I'll just put attempt to reply.
Mhm
09:37
Thanks, IͶΔ.
Hi, @unknown! Welcome to the room!
Oh, and I thought that native speakers don't have to learn grammar in school: k12reader.com/term/noun-clause
@DamkerngT. Wha? What made you think that?
Whatever K12 uses could be another good set of grammar terms.
Is the etiquette of dealing with posts flagged as low-quality pretty much the same as dealing with, say, reopen votes? Just deal with the answer as it should be without worrying about when it was posted? There's one in the queue in a question that was posted in September last year.
But it's school stuff of course.
@JohnClifford The time is irrelevant in VLQ.
09:41
@IͶΔ Because it seems like most native speakers don't know much about grammatical terminology.
School stuff's always "hey, I totally studied that twelve years ago and the only thing I remember is that I studied it."
@DamkerngT. They don't. That's because it's school stuff.
Probably :-)
Making any studying mandatory backfires.
To be fair I still remember the 'methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptane, octane' activity series from high school chemistry.
I think it'd be the best if we have only one set of grammatical terms in ELL posts, but that seems to be unrealistic. Still, I hope that we can have only a few sets of them.
09:44
Like, only a billion.
@JohnClifford Activity series?
A list of substances ranked in order of relative reactivity.
Alkanes only burn. They don't react with practically anything you find.
Only superacids protonate alkanes.
I don't remember that much of high school chemistry. :P
Haha we all admit it some time.
I remember just enough to memorise that list and that a mole isn't a small furry rodent.
09:45
I feel like I skipped all chem classes. :P
@JohnClifford Hmm, you might be talking about the enthalpy of combustion and flame temperature.
Possibly. I only remember the list, not specifically what it was for. XD
And I only remember that because we had a mnemonic for it: "Mrs Edwards Plays Basketball, Please Hold Her Overcoat".
2
You could've just remembered what the numbers stand for.
Chem mnemonics ftw!
The "recommend deletion" options don't cover whatever this is. XD
09:50
Haha
Hmm, surprising how much it matches spam regex.
I went with "no comment needed".
I really don't think any is. :P
0
A: Tense match problem

John CliffordThey're all grammatical, and differ slightly in meaning: I think they take their son to school by car In the present, I believe that on a regular basis they use the car to take their son to school. I thought they took their son to school by car In the past (probably but not necessari...

Can anyone see any issues with my answer here?
I think I'm right, but you never know with tense.
10:29
No need to feel tense because of tense. :P
Guys, I think hit my head hard somewhere because an idea hit me.
Hit it back, they dislike confrontation.
Hits idea back
So @Dam, in an attempt to get meta.ELL to finally do some action, should we make a "help & improvement chatroom"?
Could work, but we already have the main room, and really, two seems to be already too many.
(I'm happy with two rooms, though.)
10:34
Oh, sorry. I meant chat event.
Would it be like a brainstorming event?
Raises eyebrows
No, it would be an editing+answering+commenting+retagging event.
Basically, we choose some post and improve it. In every way.
In every way that we can.
Ah, that sounds more realistic.
The thing is now
Not sure how we can pull that off, though.
10:37
Which and how do we choose them?
That actually sounds like a good idea, though getting a consensus on what improvements can be made might be non-trivial.
@JohnClifford I'd just stick to what
. . . already is on meta.
Gawd, I hate pressing enter accidentally
You can edit your chat messages, remember? ;)
My "salvaging" meta post hasn't been a big hit.
Using the TRIANGLE
10:38
This is an attempt to finally apply meta.ELL stuff to the main site.
(I was talking about this meta post: meta.ell.stackexchange.com/questions/2530/…)
@JohnClifford But it's no fun when you're typo isn't a typo.
[...] More important than pointing the asker to some meta post, is to stop our answerers from answering problematic posts. Dear answerer, you're not helping the OP when you answer their question with a guess, you're just making people passionate about keeping ELL clean look like they do that 'cause they don't know the answer, and when that happens, there's flame wars, ignorances, suspensions, and fireworks. While the last one is kinda fun, it also spoils the fun of people who are here to help. So please, stop answering close-worthy questions! — IͶΔ Jul 26 '15 at 16:30
Sheesh
This dude has got some problems.
I can appreciate the point he's trying to make, but that seems a little of an overreaction.
@DamkerngT. Three answers is a good hit.
Also that's a fine example of a garden-path sentence.
"You're just making people passionate about keeping ELL clean"
10:41
@JohnClifford Well, that idiot wrote a meta post later. It seemed people don't agree even on this DAMN VERY OBVIOUS thing.
Makes it sound like answering questions with guesses makes people want to clean it up more. XD
@JohnClifford That isn't the whole sentence.
I know, but that's how it's initially parsed: hence garden-path sentence.
But I love gardens! ;_;
So @Dam, what do you think?
Link to the meta post?
10:42
I think it's a good idea, but I wonder how we can pull it off.
Today is a bad day to go to the forum.
@tchrist Funny things always seem to happen on the way there.
The senators have knives.
I think ELL's Cabin can pull the event nicely @Dam.
Ahh, he died today.
10:44
Who died today?
Caesar. Not the ape, though.
My salad? :(
I just explained the difference between everyday and every day. My work here is done.
I love it when Rathony comments on questions with "This is not your homework service."
He's a nice modder, but he needs to learn some politics. I do too.
@JohnClifford What meta post?
10:48
@JohnClifford BTW, do you switch the fork to the other hand when having salad?
INA: The one you were referring to that you quoted your post from.
And I use my left hand for my fork at all times.
13
Q: Stop answering close-worthy questions!

IͶΔCall to stop answering off-topic questions seems not to have reached the goals it aimed to achieve. Out of the most recent 100 questions that were closed for any other reason than "duplicate", 76 questions have at least one answer. Heck, some of the more mediocre ones have up to 4 answers. 76 qu...

@Dam can we discuss that later when some other meta.ELL folk is around?
Erus!
@JohnClifford Doesn't every one of us?
10:58
Depends on your dominant hand I think.
Right.
I'm left-handed.
Though interestingly enough I use my right hand for my computer mouse.
And for my knife.
If you have a bluetooth mouse and a USB mouse, you can have one of each.
I'm not ambimoustrous.
Set symmetrically so that the index finger is always the selecting one.
Ambimurine.
I am not discomforted by the mouse in either hand, only by when it isn't configured for the index finger.
11:02
Heh, "ambimurine" just makes me picture someone holding a small, furry rodent in each hand.
Anonymous
11:55
Ooh, ambimurine.
Anonymous
I taught myself to use a mouse with my left hand when I was having RSI problems.
Anonymous
I haven't had RSI problems in years, thankfully :-)
snailboat, I had a question for you earlier, and now I've completely forgotten what it was.
It must have been a lie.
Anonymous
I'm essentially right-handed, though.
-4
Q: All SE profiles should indicate if a user is currently suspended on any other sites

Paranoid PandaIn the past I have found troublesome users and upon visiting their SE profiles I have found that they are already suspended on 1 or 2 other SE sites, however if I want to find this out I have to go to all of their SE profiles and they may have very many profiles so it may be hard, or at least, ti...

Anonymous
11:58
That's okay. It's too early in the morning for questions anyway.
My wife is the antonym of morning person.

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