Language Overflow

Avicenna

14:00

@Lawrence You know, if we accept that the phrase "money amplifies our tendency" is deleted, so it's like we mean that money causes overreaction, and money causes swinging from..., i.e. it cause to different things. That way the clause after comma cannot be explanation about overreaction.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... "P able to actually be the group of five Qs?"

@Lawrence Oh, yes! :) You, too, I guess?

Avicenna

I don't interrup you 2 anymore.

Thank you @Lawrence! :-)

Lawrence

@Avicenna No, the phrase isn't deleted.

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna We're multi-topicing all the time! :-)

Lawrence

(Don't worry, that's how chat goes :) . Just follow the arrow link to see which message each new message relates to.)

Damkerng T.

14:02

@Avicenna Hmm... maybe I should try to help rephrasing it.

Lawrence

@Avicenna The "money ..." phrase is still there. But after "overreact", the phrase after the comma tells you what they meant when they said "overreact".

@DamkerngT. Yes, most definitely male.

Damkerng T.

> ..., money amplifies our tendency to overreact, which is to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong.

Does that help? @Avicenna

Avicenna

@Lawrence yes I know it.

Damkerng T.

Or maybe, money amplifies our tendency to overreact, and by "overreact", we mean "to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong".

Avicenna

I know it. I was discussing this.

25 mins ago, by Lawrence

... The second chunk has two parts. The second is an example of ellipsis, where a phrase is left out but the context makes clear that it's there.

Damkerng T.

14:07

Reading the condition "P able to actually be the group of five Qs?"again, I think it prohibits P is one of the five Qs, even though it's perfectly natural.

Lawrence

@Avicenna Time for a reset / resync :) . How do you understand the whole sentence now?

Avicenna

I asked what phrase @Lawrence mean. The answer was: money amplifies... and I said that was not cotrect and explained why I say so.

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. That is a good way of rewriting that second chunk.

Avicenna

:32026981

34 mins ago, by Avicenna

I read it again, to swing... is explaining overreact. But I guess nowadays a dash is used instead of comma to give explanation.

Lawrence

@Avicenna Glad to help. At least, I hope I helped. :)

Damkerng T.

14:11

@Lawrence Yay! ;-)

Lawrence

@Avicenna Ah, I haven't commented about that yet.

Anonymous

I saw him, the barber is probably right dislocation and not apposition. I saw my brother, the barber would be apposition.

Damkerng T.

Good morning! @snailplane

Avicenna

@Lawrence I waa talking all about that!

Hi @snailplane!

Lawrence

@Avicenna Ok. :)

Damkerng T.

14:13

@Avicenna Personally, I think people use commas more often than dashes in this case when they write casually.

Anonymous

1

A: Shorter phrase or word to say `the day before yesterday`

What about simply saying 2 days ago?

Lawrence

Hi @Snailplane, congratulations on your modliness.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Hehe!

Anonymous

Does it make sense to convert this to a comment? Two people seem to feel it should be one. A third user has voted to delete.

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's an answer, not a question.

Lawrence

14:14

@Avicenna A dash would work as well, but to me, a comma keeps the flow going a bit better. Dashes tend to be read with a slightly longer pause than commas.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Agree with all of them. I think converting it to a comment is probably better.

Lawrence

@snailplane I'd agree with converting it to a comment. There's no supporting argument or reference.

What's your standard at Learners for the boundary between answer and comment?

Avicenna

Thank you both :-)

Anonymous

It seems like most community members think this makes an okay comment, but not an answer.

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna No problem! :-)

Anonymous

14:17

I'm trying to do what the community wants, so I converted it to a comment rather than deleting it outright.

Lawrence

@Avicenna You're welcome. :)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane I thought it was a cute question!

> Title: Shorter phrase or word to say `the day before yesterday`
Body: What about simply saying '2 days ago'?

:-)

Anonymous

It's quite common to have a word for this, but English doesn't!

Anonymous

Thai does, doesn't it?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... probably not.

Anonymous

14:20

Oh! Somehow I thought it did.

Damkerng T.

But we have the day after tomorrow!

And 2 days after tomorrow!

Anonymous

Wow, so you have those but not the equivalent in the past!

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Oh, yes! We have!

Anonymous

Oh :-)

Damkerng T.

I think it's fading and the lit. of "2 days ago" is becoming more and more popular.

DEAD

14:22

@Lawrence All these?

Common, it was just two messages!

Lawrence

@snailplane Can you have a look at my answer, please? I'm having some difficulty with expressing the nuanced difference between "X was one of the only 5 Y" and "X was one of only 5 Y", where X is one of the 5 (not the whole group of 5). I want to say that dropping the emphasises "only 5" - i.e. the small size of the group; keeping "the" emphasises ... what? (The coherence of the group? The group itself? Something other than how small the group is?)

6

A: One of only five

Yes, it's grammatically correct. "Only five" in this context means that five proposals were accepted, and no others. Only adjective [attributive] 1 Alone of its or their kind; single or solitary: From "More example sentences": It's always a good sign when you can recognise almost every si...

@DEAD Heh. :)

@DEAD Who knows how many more would come tumbling over. :P

@DEAD But I'm curious - what did you do?

DEAD

There's a 'feeds' tab in room info.

You can tweak what's being automagically posted into a room.

Lawrence

@DEAD You deleted some, right?

DEAD

Yes, those were feeds from when LO was unofficial.

We choose some good tags and asked SE to only give feeds about them.

Lawrence

@DEAD Oh, I see.

So where are those Stack Exchange posts coming from? They seem random.

DEAD

14:30

@Lawrence ELL

The newest ones

Damkerng T.

Ah, two comments sharing my idea!

I don't see anything wrong with one of the only five proposals… - it seems equivalent to one of only five proposals… to me. — nekomatic 32 mins ago

@BillJ I don't really see the potential in this sentence for the five to refer to a collective/lot. Do you have an example sentence in mind? — shawnt00 26 mins ago

Lawrence

@DEAD Oh. :)

@DamkerngT. Yes, I saw nekomatic's comment. Usually, when a message is unclear, it's up to the speaker to clarify. I'm a little stuck, though, so I hope snailplane can help me out.

(Stepping away for a few minutes.)

Anonymous

15:06

@Lawrence I'm sorry, I don't have a good explanation for that off the top of my head.

Anonymous

I can probably write more when I get home.

Lawrence

@snailplane No problem. Thanks for taking a look. I'm re-writing the second half. May I ping you to take a look again when I'm done?

V.V.

Excuse me, but it seems both are correct.

See English Grammar Today.

Lawrence

@V.V. Yes, that's true. I'm trying to express the nuanced difference between them.

I think that the version without the emphasises how few were accepted.

... And the version with the emphasises something else.

I suspect there may be an adjective vs adverb thing at play here.

V.V.

If you need that Dictionary Cambridge. Org.

Cardinal

15:17

@Lawrence I definitely agree with Bill

V.V.

No,Cardinal, he is wrong this time.

Lawrence

@Cardinal I've expressed something to that effect in the paragraph that links to BillJ's comment.

V.V.

Only as an adjective

We use only as an adjective to mean that there is just one or very few of something, or that there are no others:

He was the only person in the room.

Lawrence

There is the problem, though, that "X is one of (the) only 5 of Y" requires X and Y to be of the same kind of thing.

V.V.

Only as an adverb

We use only as an adverb to mean that something is limited to some people, things, an amount or an activity:

The difference is slight, that of a unique group.

Lawrence

15:22

@V.V. So "These are only 2 gems." uses only as an adjective, while "These are the only 2 gems" uses only as an adverb, right?

Cardinal

@Lawrence I couldn't see your comments

Damkerng T.

> It was not only regarded as important that these articles should be taxed, but so important as to be embodied in one of the only three resolutions that were adopted.

Lawrence

@Cardinal I deleted them because they related to an earlier draft of my answer.

Damkerng T.

^Real example

I don't think they had several sets of "three resolutions". Nor is it unidiomatic.

V.V.

I am not sure, but they say, the ony is an adjective whereas "only" is an adverb.

Cardinal

15:25

@V.V. agreed

Lawrence

@V.V. In "These are only 2 gems", only modifies 2, which in turn modifies gems.

V.V.

But those things a native speaker knows better, I think.

Lawrence

"Gems" is a noun, so "2" is an adjective, which makes "only" an adjective as well.

It chunks up as "These are ((only 2) gems)."

Let's change "2" to "green" for clarity. No pun intended. :)

These are (only green) gems.

These might not be very good examples.

I think I'll sleep on this.

Damkerng T.

Sometimes, PoS (part of speech) is not a very good tool!

Lawrence

Thanks for taking the time to have a look, and to interact with me on this, @DamkerngT., @V.V. and @Cardinal.

Anonymous

15:32

Adjectives don't, in general, modify adjectives.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence Thanks for the discussion, and of course, the answer on the main site!

Cardinal

You're welcome

V.V.

Only a few hundred houses survived the hurricane Adverb

Cardinal

Although I didn't talk much

V.V.

And it's not different from gems.

Anonymous

15:33

Setting aside the question of what exactly only modifies in only two gems, I think it's a focus adverb, not an adjective. It comes before the determiner, something adjectives only do in a very restricted capacity.

DEAD

Did Lawr just become one of our regulars?

V.V.

He will, I think he liked it.

Cardinal

0

Q: "Donald Trump to meet Mexican president"

I saw on the TV news this title: Donald Trump to meet Mexican president Shouldn't it be: Donald Trump to meet Mexico president Is there any pun in that title or it is just a common way to use nationality?

DEAD

It is just a common way to use nationality.

Anonymous

No pun.

Cardinal

15:42

Got it, I deleted the question

Since I received a great feed-back here

I 've never heard amreican president, but US president or POTUS

Damkerng T.

A random note: some people write "one of only the N Xs", even!

And I'm not sure what to think about this example: "It is the the western-most part of the island and is one of only the only two 'states' to have three coast-lines."!

(BTW, "the the"!)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Seems like an error.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I mean, both of the things you pointed out seem like errors.

V.V.

It just occurred to me "only "two and "the only gems".@Lawrence

Damkerng T.

15:50

Oh!

> ... was father Jean Schoonbroodt, who is today one of only the two Joyceans who has attended all the Symposiums of the International James Joyce Foundation.

Anonymous

Hmm, I wonder if that's an error or legitimate variation.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... looks like it's the only one of the few examples in Google Books! (that I can see the full sentence)

Anonymous

What do you think?

Damkerng T.

@snailplane I have no idea! Hehe!

V.V.

Snailplane, what about promised pics?

DEAD

15:54

Promised pics?

Anonymous

Oh, I need to take more snail pictures! Zeta has grown quite a bit.

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal POTUS? You gotta watch National Treasure 2. :P

DEAD

National Pressure 2. Coming to cinemas.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Cardinal

Nopee, I heard that from detective fusco in person of interest

The interesting point is If I wanted to say same thing, I would say:

> ... was among the 5 accepted animals

among

Damkerng T.

17:43

7

A: "In a while" vs. "for a while"

The distinction between for Duration and in Duration depends on where the Reference Time is. Reference time is an Instant in time, not a Duration; but Duration is measured from it. In Duration refers to a time period Duration long that ends at the Reference Time For Duration refers to a ti...

user62015

Hi@DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

^The first post by John Lawler that I think is somewhat strange. E.g., try I'll visit Beijing in/for a week.

@user62015 Hi!

user62015

It took a long time for him to realize, what the truth was?

Do you think is it right?

or it should be used: It took a long time for him to realize, what was the truth?

DEAD

@user62015 Wrong punctuation.

Damkerng T.

@user62015 Neither is good.

user62015

17:46

ok

DEAD

It took a long time for him to realize what the truth was.

user62015

I have to choose one?

Direct speech?

Damkerng T.

+1 for DEAD!

DEAD

I'd upvote myself if I could.

@user62015 Are you asking, or are you making a statement?

Please use the correct punctuation marks since we can't hear you, and the only thing we know about you is what you type.

user62015

I am solving the question paper and it shows "what the truth was?" it as the correct answer

Damkerng T.

17:49

@user62015 It has a comma?

DEAD

The question mark is again wrong.

It's prolly a rash examiner.

Damkerng T.

Burn the paper!

DEAD

If we gathered all the errors in User62015's books and papers, we could write a book ourselves.

Damkerng T.

LOL

user62015

ahahhaah @DamkerngT. @DEAD Thank you so much.

Damkerng T.

17:50

No problem!

DEAD

@user62015 NP

@Snail could you please un-feature the questionnaire now?

Ahh the comfort of having a pingable mod

Cardinal

18:29

> -2 1 hour ago removed User was removed (learn more)

I'm eager to know who was that user :D

Damkerng T.

Hmm... -2? That's a little strange.

Cardinal

@DEAD What about this:
It took him a long time to understand the animals' attitude !

Damkerng T.

How could that user give you +2 previously?

DEAD

@DamkerngT. It's not

@Cardinal You edited a post they owned.

Cardinal

I don't have any Idea. I usually do not pay attention to this sort of thing

Damkerng T.

18:33

@DEAD Ahh

DEAD

@Cardinal What about it?

@Cardinal Neither do I.

How can you possibly pay attention, actually?

Damkerng T.

@DEAD But their posts still remain with the site, right?

DEAD

@DamkerngT. Yep

Cardinal

@DEAD Please, nitpick me more clearly

DEAD

@Cardinal About the sentence?

Cardinal

18:34

I meant is it right to say:

It took him a long time to understand the animals' attitude !

DEAD

Let me tell you a little secret.

There was this little boy

He always added a space before punctuation marks

SO I GOT ANGRY AND SHOUTED AT HIM AND THEN HE DIDN'T ADD SPACE BEFORE PUNCTUATION MARKS

The end.

What a nice story.

Anonymous

@DEAD Done :-)

DEAD

Done?

Anonymous

I unfeatured the questionnaire. I didn't have time to respond in chat until now.

DEAD

Oh, the unfeature thing

Anonymous

18:38

I'm waiting for a train :-)

DEAD

Do you have running shoes on?

Cardinal

@DEAD I see, I usually made that mistake unintentionally

Anonymous

I always have running shoes on :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane It's high time to warm up!

DEAD

@Cardinal Other than that, there are no grammatical nitpicks to be made.

Anonymous

18:39

Running didn't help today. I had to help someone who was lost, so I missed my train anyway.

Damkerng T.

Aww

DEAD

Giving directions?

Cardinal

Cardinal Directions?

Anonymous

It was an older person, and he didn't have a phone to look up directions on.

DEAD

Go right, then left, no . . . the other right . . . OK, now head straight to that building. NO THE OTHER ONE, DAMMIT . . . Now take the left . . . Not your left, my left . . .

Damkerng T.

18:40

@snailplane Here is a golden-hearted medal for you! [medal]

Anonymous

Haha, thanks :-)

Cardinal

@DEAD :D

Damkerng T.

:)

Anonymous

The next train's here already.

Damkerng T.

Run!

(But run safely!)

Anonymous

18:42

Well, I was already at the train stop, so I walked onboard in a leisurely manner :-)

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Anonymous

I updated my profile to have something other than the song of malacovehicular polymorphism.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

checking it out...

Anonymous

Oh, I need to update my chat profile, too!

Damkerng T.

I'm happy to see that the song of malacovehicular polymorphism is still there!

Wait, shouldn't it be Hello, everyone! (with a comma)?

Cardinal

18:47

@DamkerngT. what?

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal It's in snailplane's profile. (^_^)

Oops!

Fixed!

Cardinal

:)

Damkerng T.

:)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, a stickler for the vocative comma, are ye? :-)

Damkerng T.

Well, I guess it looks better for our mod! :)

Anonymous

18:50

I'll fix it forthwith.

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Oh, I searched for vocative comma and found a question on ELU,

3

Q: Is vocative comma rule vanishing?

According to some grammars[1][2] and CMS... "Interjections and vocative should be separated from the rest of the sentence by commas". The vocative case [1] is used to indicate direct address (i.e., to show when you are talking to somebody or something directly). Nouns in the vocative case are s...

comma vocative

Anonymous

I think it's fine both ways, personally.

Damkerng T.

My first thought: is it vanishing?!

@snailplane nods

Anonymous

puts("Hello, world!");

Anonymous

Now, what's that comma doing there…?

Anonymous

18:53

English doesn't have a vocative case, by the way.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

If we use the term vocative in English, it's by analogy with the understanding that it's not actually a separate inflectional form.

Cardinal

Good night friends

Damkerng T.

Good night!

Anonymous

So the CMOS is slightly confused there.

Anonymous

18:55

Good night, @Cardinal!

Anonymous

19:14

I have some tag-related meta posts to write now.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Gambatte (kudasai) ne!

V.V.

I got -10 removed user.? What's that?

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Cardinal got -2, probably because of the same user.

V.V.

I had -2 before, but -10???

user62015

@DamkerngT. @snailplane Hi! Please help me with this question

Only when you left I did sleep.

I slept
did I sleep
had I slept
No improvement

Damkerng T.

19:26

Either 5 edits (of that user's posts) or one upvote (cast by that user).

@user62015 did I sleep

user62015

Any reason? I have no idea

V.V.

What have we to do with that?

Damkerng T.

> ell.stackexchange.com/a/101644/3281

user62015

Thanks. Checking.

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Probably nothing. A user deleted their account, or the account is deleted somehow.

It happens sometimes.

V.V.

19:33

Inversion after only, right Dam?

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Yes

V.V.

Have to answer something to restore it.Can I say tnat?

that

Damkerng T.

to make up for it is probably more idiomatic.

V.V.

I avoid phrasal verbs in general.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... how about cover?

V.V.

19:41

Nice.

Damkerng T.

compensate is also possible, but it sounds a bit too serious for me (it's definitely not wrong, though).

V.V.

It's the beginning of a school year tomorrow.

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Yay! Sounds like fun!

V.V.

Sounds like work

We had long summer holidays, three months actually.

You get lazy doing gardening and the chores

Damkerng T.

:)

Gardening is a very fine activity!

V.V.

19:47

And a tasty one.

Anonymous

@user62015 Hi! :-) Looks like Damkerng already helped you while I was gone.

Damkerng T.

:)

V.V.

When does a school year usually start in your countries?

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Over here? It used to be in May, but now it's in August.

V.V.

It's hot in August, I think.

Anonymous

19:52

In the United States, it usually starts in August or September. The exact date varies.

V.V.

Interesting.

Damkerng T.

@V.V. It rains a lot in August!

And September, and October!

V.V.

And it ends in May, right?

Anonymous

In Japan, the school year begins in April, which can cause problems when students go overseas to or from the United States to study.

Anonymous

@V.V. I think early September to early June is fairly typical in the United States.

Damkerng T.

19:54

Roughly yes. We have two semesters a year.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. So the Thai school year is now very close to the United States school year!

Damkerng T.

@snailplane It looks like it's one month behind the US over here!

@snailplane We adjusted the schedule to match most countries in Asean.

V.V.

So how long are summer holidays?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Some people in Japan want to adjust their school schedule to match the rest of the world too, but so far it hasn't happened yet.

Damkerng T.

@V.V. I wonder that myself, too. (The new schedule is used this year onwards.)

Anonymous

19:58

japantoday.com/category/national/view/…

Damkerng T.

I guess the long, nice summer holidays are no more!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I generally went to school during the summer holidays anyway, when I was younger :-)

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I just played, and played. :-)

Anonymous

I kind of miss summer camps.

Damkerng T.

Summer camps are nice, too!

(It's probably not the same over here, but some camps, like leader camps or computer camps are nice, too.)

Anonymous

20:02

I went to speech and debate camp! :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Oh, that's more or less the same as our "leader" camps. :)

Anonymous

Oh, really?

Damkerng T.

Yes. I was in one such camp, once. :-)

(Won a storytelling competition, BTW!)

Anonymous

Oh, nice!

Damkerng T.

Hehe! Thanks!

Anonymous

20:04

Our team didn't often win debate, but I usually got speaker awards while losing :-)

Anonymous

Good times.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane That's, um, nice, too, I think! :)

Good times, indeed.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It was hard to compete with some of the better schools. I had a lot of fun with it, though.

Damkerng T.

I guess it's a bit more serious over there.

But having fun is a big point!

Anonymous

The better schools had very large teams with debate classes during school, and they all did research on a daily basis.

Anonymous

20:07

We had to do all our own research on our own time, and our team was little :-)

Damkerng T.

Ohhh... they sounded like pros!

Anonymous

Although I'd go to summer camp and bring home the research we did at camp, and that helped a lot.

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

We didn't have much faculty support for our team. It was basically all us students doing everything as best we could :-)

Damkerng T.

I went to the camp in my sophomore year, actually. So, no schools versus schools.

V.V.

20:11

Loosing connection, good night, have a nice chat.

Damkerng T.

Good night!

Word of the Day: immaculate

Stack Exchange

21:24

0

Q: Is, sorry to say, the "moderator election" really necessary?

I mean, I have no grudge against any moderators here, or mostly anywhere. but I chose the first pick only because I know him well ( not so well in reality ), then is choosing someone as No1, or No2, or No3, really fair? I mean, What kind of feeling might the moderators who fell in No3 feel like? ...

discussion

Damkerng T.

22:30

4

Q: I am so confused about dangling participles in a sentence

In spite of taking medicine, my health is not improved.. Is this sentence a dangling participle? Why or why not? Explain it to me.

grammar

I'm not very sure, but perhaps some of the comments crossed the lines.

Transcript for