Language Overflow

CowperKettle

01:10

@Cardinal Good morning!

CowperKettle

01:21

+8°C

Daynm it's cold

StoneyB

Good whatever-it-is-there, @CowperKettle

CowperKettle

@StoneyB Good morning, Stoney!

It's 6:22 am

StoneyB

Ah . . . it's 8:22 pm here.

Whatcha got new in the poetry line?

CowperKettle

> It's awfully bad luck on Diana
Her ponies have swallowed their bits.
She fished down their throats with a spanner.
And frightened them all into fits.

(I'm packing things for a bicycle ride)

StoneyB

Hah! . . . I bet you'd enjoy Housman. Do you know his work?

CowperKettle

01:26

@StoneyB I remember "Housman", lemme see

StoneyB

'In the back back garden, Thomasina,
Did you recently vociferate a squeal?'
'Oh, I trod up an amphisbaena,
And it bit me on the toe and on the heel.
Yes, it bit me (do you know)
With its tail upon the toe,
While it bit me with its head upon the heel!'

'How excessively distracting and confusing.
Pray what, Thomasina, did you do?'
'Oh, I took the garden scissors I was using
And I snipped it irretrievably in two.
And it split with such a scrunch
That I shall not want my lunch.
And if you had heard the noise no more would you.'

CowperKettle

This Housman?:

> Good creatures, do you love your lives
And have you ears for sense?
Here is a knife like other knives,
That cost me eighteen pence.

I need but stick it in my heart
And down will come the sky,
And earth's foundations will depart
And all you folk will die.

StoneyB

That's him. A famous scholar of Classical Greek, too.

CowperKettle

A good poet

> He stood, and heard the steeple
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people
It tossed them down.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour,
He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;
And then the clock collected in the tower
Its strength, and struck.

StoneyB

Very nearly a great poet, with an uncanny aptitude for the meters of human speech.

[Sorry, not Greek but Latin scholar. It's all Greek to me!]

CowperKettle

01:35

nods

StoneyB

01:46

Yonder See the Morning

Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again.

CowperKettle

> People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.

StoneyB

I'm gonna hafta sit down and read some Millay in the quiet. I owe you for that!

CowperKettle

(0:

> It is no gift I tender,
A loan is all I can;
But do not scorn the lender;
Man gets no more from man.

Oh, mortal man may borrow
What mortal man can lend;
And 'twill not end to-morrow,
Though sure enough 'twill end.

If death and time are stronger,
A love may yet be strong;
The world will last for longer,
But this will last for long.

Housman is very "level" in feeling, but with good skill.

StoneyB

My favorite piece of his is Terence, this is stupid stuff--an entire theory of poetry in 75 lines. And just about every damn line quotable, too.

2

"Malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man."

9:00 The clock has collected its strength . . . I'm off to bed. Thanks for Betjeman and Millay!

CowperKettle

02:24

Good night, Stoney!

I was busy packing..

Spotted a man on a bicycle on the road I'm going to ride through

Obyezdnaya Road

Lawrence

02:36

@CowperKettle Have a good trip!

Færd

"Ought best to" -- interesting.

3

Lawrence

03:13

@Catija Did you end up finding something suitable as tag wording for clothing+sewing?

Student

04:38

@DamkerngT. I only confirmed the use of both "on" and "in" in that sentence :) Just leave the "lays" then lol However, being a "globetrotter" I've found it's common to ask "how is you?". Have a fab weekend! :D

Cardinal

06:29

> There are several ways to achieve this goal. For me, that way is through X

Is "For me, that way is through X" correct?

Damkerng T.

06:41

@Student So we've got on bed somewhere in the world, and How is you? all over the world? Interesting!

@Cardinal It depends on your context. That could be problematic if it's unclear what it refers to.

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. "There are several ways to improve the society. For me, that way is through reading books." For example. I want to use those sentences in the beginning of an essay or something.

Damkerng T.

Better use one, then.

UD has an entry mentioning something about Shropshire for How's you?

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. Nodes

Little Alien

07:34

Who is looking 'over sb's shoulder': one who overlooks the other to criticize him, or the other who feels a threat from the first one?

Damkerng T.

Imagine you're writing something at your desk, maybe using your computer, sitting. Then there's someone standing behind you watching you doing that. They're looking over your shoulder, right? I think it's easier to understand who is who in the idiom that way.

Little Alien

07:51

@DamkerngT. It is clear. But I obviously ask because looking over one's shoulder means two things at once: 1. to behave in a way that shows you feel nervous about something that might happen and 2. to watch carefully what someone is doing, especially so that you can criticize them.

I do not understand how your view can explain the first meaning, which is also given as keeping watch for danger or threats to oneself.

That is why I ask who is watching here.

Damkerng T.

@LittleAlien Because it sounded like you had no idea who is the one who's looking/watching.

Little Alien

I am asking it.

Damkerng T.

Maybe I misunderstood you. Let me read your messages again.

@LittleAlien The two guys are basically doing the same thing, but why they're doing that would depend on your context.

Little Alien

One is threatening another is under threat. They do the same thing, indeed. The only difference is only in the context. I am wondering whose shoulder are they looking over.

Damkerng T.

On, wait. I think I misunderstood your point.

@LittleAlien Okay, let me try again. (I wouldn't use the word "threat", though.) ...

In this idiom, macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/…, there are two people involved.

In this idiom, macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/…, there's only one person involved.

When you're nervous that something (or someone) is behind you, you may look over your shoulder to see if that something (or someone) is catching up with you. This is what macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/… means.

24 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

Imagine you're writing something at your desk, maybe using your computer, sitting. Then there's someone standing behind you watching you doing that. They're looking over your shoulder, right? I think it's easier to understand who is who in the idiom that way.

The message I posted 24 minutes ago describes what macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/… means.

Student

08:04

@DamkerngT. Indeed! We should always remember that they were born with their instinctive grammar (that's why they can't give us answer sometimes for certain questions) and we, as the English learners, always try to find any answer for any question :)

Damkerng T.

@Student I still have no idea about their dialects, though.

As far as I can tell, it's not normal for them to use How is you? (or How's you?, for that matter).

Maybe it's so in just a few dialects.

Student

@DamkerngT. I don't have intention to mention theirs as it is too personal, means it is based on my experience but they are ENSs.

Damkerng T.

Just saying that they're native speakers doesn't help much, though. It's hard to verify anything that way.

Student

Of course I didn't learn to ask "how is you" instead of "how are you" when I first studied English, but that's the fact when I gather with the community.

Damkerng T.

There're lots of factors involved, too, like in what kind of mood were they in when they said that?, did they say that to you or to their peers?, did they do this routinely, like several times, as if it's a usual thing?, did they think this is acceptable in standard English? and so on.

@Student Sometimes people intentionally say the wrong thing to look "cool" or just to have some "fun". This happens in my native language, too. I suppose it happens in every language.

Student

08:10

No, it has nothing to do with the mood. I find it in daily coms.

Damkerng T.

Interesting! :D

Student

It surely is! :)

Damkerng T.

Is this an online community or a physical community somewhere in the world?

If it's the latter, you would do me a favor if you told me where that community is. (It doesn't have to be very precise. Just the name of a state or something similar would do. :-)

@Færd My first thought was it was outdated, but it looks like some people still use it!

Lawrence

09:34

@DamkerngT. Gezuntheit.

Martin Sleziak

09:53

If I use OP as the shortcut for "original poster", which of these two would be correct: *OPs question" or "OP's question"? I guess the latter one...?

Lawrence

@MartinSleziak You'll need the possessive, so include the apostrophe. You should normally also use the definite article: "The OP's question ...".

Martin Sleziak

Thanks!

Lawrence

:)

Cardinal

> To illustrate this, I would like to draw on a personal experience.

I want to use that sentence to imply

I wan to give an explanation- an example, a personal experience.

Does it sound idiomatic to use "draw on" with "would like"?

Damkerng T.

10:10

Using would like with draw on should be fine.

But draw on a personal experience, hmm...

Maybe draw on my personal experiences is better.

Or maybe share a personal experience with you.

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. I wrote "my personal" firstly, but I changed to "personal experience"

Damkerng T.

Just personal experiences is fine.

Actually, I think personal experience is also fine.

But a personal experience is awkward, IMO.

If you want to "draw on" it.

Cardinal

Nod -- you mean I omit the article

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think draw on personal experiences is the best choice, FWIW.

But if you want to talk about only one instance of your experiences (i.e., what happened to you in the past), I think you may want to consider some other verbs.

Cardinal

I add that article because I will mention an example in the following sentence.
And perhaps in the rest of writing I will mention another example related to personal experiences.

@DamkerngT. Hmm, I think that is the case.

Anonymous

10:17

I've never heard a native speaker say how's you or on bed.

Cardinal

Hi SnailPlane

Anonymous

Good morning :-)

Damkerng T.

10:36

Good morning and evening!

Anonymous

Good evening!

Anonymous

I've just woken up, so it's morning for me both actually and in spirit :-)

Damkerng T.

:D

The spirit of morning! That's very nice! :D

It's funny that UD mentions Shropshire in the entry for How's you? and on our star-wall, StoneyB posted a poem (LXII. Terence, this is stupid stuff) by A. E. Housman (1859–1936). Also A Shropshire Lad. 1896. :D

There must be something about Shropshire. :D

Cardinal

Is it really awkward to say "draw on a personal experience" in that context?

Damkerng T.

I guess it's @snailplane's turn this time. :-)

Hi, @Sami! Welcome to the room!

Sami

10:44

@DamkerngT. Hi ^_^

Damkerng T.

Me singing 'I found a bug' like a song! :-)

Cardinal

@Sami Hi Sami

Sami

@Cardinal Hey :)

Anonymous

@Cardinal You would probably say draw on personal experience without a.

Damkerng T.

> youtube.com/watch?v=0O7wGgmkkDE

Them: First line, every line. Me: Same line, every line ('cause I've got only one line! :P)

Cardinal

10:52

Thanks, you know, I want to use different words in my essay, I hope that would persuade the grader that I know some other words in addition to exemplify and point out, ... .

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That makes the lyrics easier to remember, I suppose :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Hehe! Indeed!

Anonymous

Now I want to listen to Chess again.

Sami

Can i ask about rooms here ?

Damkerng T.

Why not? :-)

What's it about rooms or what rooms you want to ask about?

Sami

11:00

i find rom in russian lang , so is there one in arabic ?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I don't know if there's one.

Anyone?

Sami

Mybe not

well , thank you man :) @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

No problem! :D

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. I don't either

Lawrence

12:11

@snailplane Time flies.

@snailplane It depends what they're drawing (on). They can draw on personal experience (as a monolithic term encompassing all their personal experience) to tackle a problem, or they can draw on a personal experience (a single event) to put together an anecdote.

Cardinal

@Lawrence Thank you Lawrence

Lawrence

@Cardinal You're welcome. :)

Cardinal

In fact, I want to mention an example after that sentence. The example is a bout a previous event.

Lawrence

@Cardinal Go on.

Cardinal

(^_^)/

Lawrence

12:21

@Cardinal Oh, haha. Sorry, I was a bit slow on the uptake.

I get the feeling that I still don't get the joke.

Maybe it's not a joke.

I'll be quiet for a while. :)

@Cardinal It's been a while :) . Did you want to mention an example?

Or was that the example?

Or ... was that a joke?

Cardinal

Hmm, I am not sure what are you talking about!

Lawrence

7 mins ago, by Cardinal

In fact, I want to mention an example after that sentence. The example is a bout a previous event.

Cardinal

I meant after I said "I would like to draw on a personal experience", I want to present an example or explanation which relates to a past event.

Thus, I think I'd better to say a personal ...

Lawrence

@Cardinal Ah, I see. That sentence is normally an introduction to actually presenting the example, so I was waiting for the example to turn up. :)

Cardinal

> To illustrate this, I would like to draw on a personal experience. When I was a student ....... I used to do .....

@Lawrence nods

Lawrence

12:29

And it does! :)

Cardinal

:-)

Lawrence

You're just rolling on the floor, laughing at me, right? :P

Cardinal

@Lawrence No, just a trace of smile

Lawrence

@Cardinal Waiting for the next edit. :)

Cardinal

Oh, sorry

Lawrence

12:31

@Cardinal Ok, back to business. That sentence with the indefinite article sounds fine.

Anonymous

@Lawrence Yes, but people generally don't say the latter.

Anonymous

You can make sense of the phrase, but it's not very likely that someone would choose to say it in that situation. It's thousands of times less common.

Lawrence

@snailplane Apparently, the Pope drew on one.

Anonymous

It's not ungrammatical, it's just rare.

Anonymous

Which is probably why it seems less idiomatic to me.

Lawrence

12:39

@snailplane Ok.

Anonymous

You have to take frequency into account when comparing the two.

Lawrence

@snailplane Understood. :)

Anonymous

Actually, frequency is very important in language learning in general.

Lawrence

@snailplane Are you going to keep going until I run out of words to indicate agreement? :P

Anonymous

I'm not trying to win an argument.

Lawrence

12:41

Oh, ok.

Well, in that case, I still agree that frequency is important to whether a phrase is idiomatic.

Anonymous

Yeah, although it's also true that we all say things every day that have never been said before.

Anonymous

So it's just one piece of the puzzle. :-)

Lawrence

@snailplane In this case, perhaps the frequency of the respective expressions reflects the frequency of the occasions giving rise to the drawing.

People draw on personal experience for all sorts of things.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence An article by Andrew Medichini. Sadly, finding information about Andrew Medichini is harder than finding draw on a personal experience in Google Books

(Where did my ! go?!)

Lawrence

... But they tend to (explicitly) draw on specific personal experiences only on special occasions, such as when preparing to give a speech.

Anonymous

12:46

@DamkerngT. Is it? It looks like Andrew Medichini is credited for the photo.

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. I just typed "draw on a personal experience" into a search engine for examples, and the link about the Pope came out at the top.

Damkerng T.

Oh, right! A better question would then be who wrote that article!

Anonymous

The story doesn't seem to have a byline. I mean it does, but it seems to be by an anonymous AP reporter.

Lawrence

@snailplane I'm not sure how Google reports hits, but the "a" version comes out at 121K, and the no-article version at 144K.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence Never trust those numbers.

Anonymous

12:50

Google does not report result counts.

Anonymous

It gives you estimates only.

Anonymous

Try searching on Google Books instead.

Damkerng T.

How could a search that has 121K results have only 4 pages?

Anonymous

google.com/…

Lawrence

@snailplane That gives the frequency distribution you expect.

Anonymous

12:51

Google has never tried to make their main site search result count estimates accurate.

Anonymous

Google Books and Google Scholar both tend to be useful corpora, though.

Anonymous

A better place to search would be a large balanced corpus like COCA, but in 520 million words we have 0 results for draw on a personal experience.

Anonymous

It's not large enough to search for extremely rare phrases.

Anonymous

So that's why I went to Google Books. It's a much larger corpus, although it has many problems.

Lawrence

@snailplane The other piece of the puzzle is the way it's used. We have sentences like "The text of both books can be described as subjective, since they often draw on personal experience and discoveries." vs "To draw on a personal experience for a moment: I place the end of a bamboo cane in the centre of my open palm.". For @Cardinal's application, the "a" version is more appropriate.

Damkerng T.

12:57

I'm choosing between a movie about people (might have?) died on Mount Everest and a movie about child molestation.

I guess I'll watch 'Everest'. :)

Anonymous

Yikes!

Cardinal

@Lawrence @snailplane @DamkerngT. Thank you for your contributions.

Lawrence

@Cardinal No problem.

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal No problem here, too! :)

They're starting to climb the mountain!

Cardinal

Can I ask such questions here? I mean asking whether a sentence is idiomatic or not?

Anonymous

13:04

@Deo 忍 is shinobi (the title of the game) or possibly nin (as in ninja) and 密使 is misshi 'secret messenger'.

Anonymous

@Cardinal Sure.

Cardinal

@snailplane Oh, I liked that game when I had a SEGA console.

Anonymous

@Cardinal Oh, I was talking about this: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/39245/…

Cardinal

@snailplane That's great

Anonymous

I saw Deo in here so I replied here :-)

Anonymous

13:06

I guess there's been more than one game named Shinobi.

Anonymous

This one seems to be a board game.

Cardinal

@snailplane nods

Damkerng T.

Hmm... the spelling of Kathmandu in Thai is very interesting... It's full of less common letters and pronunciations.

> กาฐมาณฑุ [กาด-มาน-ดุ] (เนปาล: काठमाडौं, อังกฤษ: Kathmandu)

Cardinal

Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi

Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (シャドー・ダンサーザ・シークレット・オブ・シノビ), also known as just Shadow Dancer, is a side-scrolling action game developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis in 1990. It was re-released via emulation services such as the Wii's Virtual Console and Microsoft Windows in 2010, and was also included in the North American version of Sega Genesis Collection for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. It is the second game in the Shinobi series released for the Mega Drive, following The Revenge of Shinobi. However, it is not a continuation of the previous game, but rather...

Lawrence

@Cardinal Yes. @Snailplane has indicated that generic chat should cede priority to discussions about the English language.

Anonymous

13:10

Yep. Chatting about whatever is okay too, but feel free to interrupt off-topic chat at any time and talk about English :-)

Cardinal

Wow, I didn't know that they revive the game for modern devices!

Anonymous

I think off-topic chat is important too, so people can practice English talking about things that interest them if they want to.

Anonymous

(As for me, I just like chatting :-)

Anonymous

@Cardinal Neat! :-)

Deo

13:46

@snailplane thank you, this is what I've been looking for

Cardinal

14:06

@DamkerngT. Can I create tags on the main site? How those tags are created?

Anonymous

14:16

@Cardinal If you have enough reputation, then yes. Just go to 'edit tags', type in the name of a tag that doesn't exist yet, and it'll be created.

Anonymous

You only need 300 reputation to create a new tag.

Cardinal

nods

Mystery SpaceX Rocket Explosion! Was It Hit By A UFO ?

►

WoW, that is interesting. I am not sure whether that video has been edited or not.

Man_From_India

3

Q: "them doing it" or "their doing it"?

1. I hate them calling her fat. 2. I hate their calling her fat. Which one is correct and which one is not ? Or do both work under different circumstances ? Please answer with explanation. Thank you. And by correct I mean grammatical and appropriate for formal writing.

How do you find the sentence?

Cardinal

Both are correct IMHO

Man_From_India

> I hate their calling her fat.

Cardinal

14:28

CAGIU says it when using verbs similar to like or hate we can use either forms

I hate John winning the competition.

I hate John's winning the competition.

Man_From_India

I also think it's correct, but I don't think it's very natural.

You won't find people say it very often; that is what I wrote in my answer there.

@Cardinal thanks I just wanted to confirm.

Cardinal

you're welcome

Man_From_India

:)

Damkerng T.

15:28

I'm thinking that it's probably the other way around, about which alternative is used more often.

I/we hate(d)/like(d)/etc. him|them/his|their VERB-ing SOMETHING.

books.google.com/ngrams/…

It looks like it's not easy to gather substantial data in the Google Ngram corpus.

I think it's difficult to make the case that the first one is incorrect when it's used everywhere. — dan_waterworth 19 hours ago

But it's really hard to find such an example anywhere!

"hate them calling" gets 9 pages of results. I think most are false positives.

> I hate people leaving stuff on my door. But mostly, I hate them calling my house. If you call me more than once, I'm not voting for you.

> therhok.com/2010_07_01_archive.html (presumably, a speaker from Oklahoma)

> It made some hate their calling to teach and ...

> The English-American: A New Survey of the West Indies, 1648 By Thomas Gage

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. hate them calling is more common, I thought.

On the other hand using their instead of them is very rare.

Damkerng T.

I tried to search for both alternatives in Google Books. They're very, very rare.

Maybe because it's about hate.

Man_From_India

mmmm I am not very comfortable using google books, because it doesn't let me search other than exact wordings. I tried COCA [hate] [p*] [vvg]. And not a single hit for the genitive preposition.

Damkerng T.

15:43

> Said Penske, " There'll be people that love them and hate them coming into Cup. "

That make me wonder about Penske. Who is Penske?

Man_From_India

Better example sentence -

> Rosie hates coffee, hates the smell of coffee, and hated me drinking coffee

Damkerng T.

0 vs. 4 perhaps can't tell us anything much.

@Man_From_India Isn't that an interesting tense switching?

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. I too noticed that :-)

but I just copy pasted the exact sentence :-)

> My mother had him buried here because she hated him dying like that, in bed with someone else.

> She hated him driving to the store because undoubtedly he thought if she didn't need lighters ...

Damkerng T.

Somehow I feel like I hate them calling her fat is not a very good sentence, but I don't know why.

she hated him dying like that -- Yes, she hated "him".

She hated him driving to the store -- Yes, she hated "him", too.

Maybe I hate them calling her fat sounds better than I thought.

It's a bit weird to hear someone say "I hate them" even though a reason is supplied.

It makes more sense to me to think that someone might hate it, the "calling her fat".

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. hehe I understand. This is the same feeling I also have. I initially think that some particular construction is not good, but when I see similar examples of that type, my mind changes.

Damkerng T.

15:52

Maybe it's just me, but I feel more comfortable to think of hating an action rather than hating an actor.

But when some people spend enough time together, it's quite possible than some of them may come to hate one another, and something might trigger it.

@Man_From_India I accept both, actually. I was trying to think which alternative (between I hate them/their calling her fat) is likelier.

Man_From_India

Oh I see what causes the problem.

Damkerng T.

I'd like to avoid over-generalization as well, but apparently, the corpus is too small to find anything fruitful.

Man_From_India

I know it's actually the action vs the person. But the [vvg something] part is being done by somebody. For example him driving to the store, it's he who is driving. And his action is being hated.

She might hate him or she might not. But she hate him when he drives to the store.

Damkerng T.

Yes, which is basically a direct way to say "She hates him", with the additional information ("driving to the store").

Hmm... I hate your being seen there, Fred, ... didn't show up when I searched for I hate your [vvg] in COCA!

Man_From_India

> She is a fan of Adam, she loves to see Adam bat for Australia, but she really hates him going to toss for Australia. She still can't forgot Steve tossing coins for Aussie.

I made this sentence.

Damkerng T.

16:03

I think some speakers who wouldn't want to say that she really hates him (doing so) may phrase it with she really hates it that he's going to ...

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Yes. It's really strange, I think that's a bug :(

or maybe they don't include being into [vvg].

Damkerng T.

That makes me wonder how we should search for our example sentences!

FWIW, I don't like I hate you being seen there, Fred. much.

(Though I wouldn't be surprised if I heard someone saying that.)

Man_From_India

No I'm wrong. When I just searched [v*], be comes there as a result. That says my guess that COCA doesn't include being under [vvg] is wrong.

@DamkerngT. your doesn't make it better, in my opinion.

I think this has to do with the sentence's passive voice. A plain active improves the sentence a lot. I hate to see you there.

@DamkerngT. nods

Damkerng T.

Even stranger, I like I hate them being called ... more than I hate their being called ...!

shakes his head :)

Man_From_India

I can't decide too :( let snail have her opinion about this :-)

Damkerng T.

16:50

1

Q: Should the last letter 'd' pronounced in word 'independent'?

I've got to know that the 'T' sound in American English has various pronunciation rules. For example, flap T. And also one of the rule is when T sound followed by an 'n' sound or 'ən' sound, the 'T' SOUND WILL NOT ASPIRATE and people will directly pronounce the 'n' or 'ən' sound through nose, l...

american-english pronunciation american-accent

Aww... I don't know where they got those rules.

I think one misconception about pronunciation is that learners expect real speech and careful speech to sound the same.

Stack Exchange

0

Q: Why this question of mine got so many viewers!

I asked several questions, but one of them ("in this regard" vs. "in this respect") by far has the most viewers with 18K viewers. The next one has just 2K viewers. That question is not such an important question, and even no body gave an up-vote to it. I would like to know what is about this ti...

discussion

Man_From_India

hahahah

Damkerng T.

:D

Cardinal

17:06

> When it comes to deciding where to leave, we can expect a gamut of suggestions which are not necessarily convergent.

What do you think about this sentence?

V.V.

17:17

Good evening.

Anonymous

@Cardinal It sounds like the author is using a thesaurus.

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal The part where to leave makes me think where to leave what? or maybe the writer meant where to leave for.

@snailplane The rest sounds like something I might find in The New Yorker or something. :D

(But it looks like The New Yorker is changing their style as well.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's a bit overwritten.

Cardinal

@snailplane You mean it looks as if someone forced the"words" into the sentence?

@DamkerngT. The writer is me :-)

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal I know. :D

> The beauty of shearling—besides the weighty, unbeatable warmth—is that it hints at a life spent doing outdoorsy, Marlboro Man things. But for too long it's been stuck in a lifeless tan-and-brown rut that felt more suburban ranch home that ranch hand.

^Something from GQ

Cardinal

17:29

GQ?

Damkerng T.

A magazine

Writers who write for this kind of magazine seem to tend to use a bit more flowery language.

Cardinal

I see.

GforOevOerD

Hi all

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. I wanted to say "deciding on the place of living", but that would make the sentence even more protracted.

@GforOevOerD Hi

GforOevOerD

Is "Origin" noun form of the adjective "Original" ?

Damkerng T.

17:34

@snailplane I was enjoying music on a Japanese channel and I didn't believe my eyes when I saw his face! :P

> youtube.com/watch?v=ERyNY_ztvYo

@GforOevOerD Hi!

@Cardinal Ah, I see! You meant where to live, right?

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. yes, perhaps I should add "to live"

GforOevOerD

@DamkerngT. I like the music. Thanks for sharing.

Damkerng T.

@GforOevOerD Original can be a noun as well. It doesn't mean quite the same thing as origin, though.

@GforOevOerD Glad you like it!

GforOevOerD

@DamkerngT. In my English book, it's been asked to write the noun form of the word "Original". I don't know what that would be.

Damkerng T.

That would be original. :D

Cardinal

17:37

@DamkerngT. Oh, I cannot believe that I wrote leave rather than live, what a shame!

Sorry for the ambiguity

GforOevOerD

@DamkerngT. Thank you!

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal It happens to me sometimes when I have Siri type things for me. :D

@GforOevOerD No problem!

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. :))

Damkerng T.

But I must admit, Siri seems to be a lot better at Thai than last year!

(And she seems to know what I want to say in English better, too!)

Cardinal

nods they improved the app

BTW, I have a Android phone.

Damkerng T.

17:43

Ah, Google Voice Input is good, too!

Cardinal

I didn't check that. Also, MS's Cortana was not very promising the last time I checked it!

The only "big-word" that I used is "gamut" which is not really a big word IMHO. I agree that is verbose. Dose it convey to reader that I forced the words?

Damkerng T.

17:58

Personally, I think it's okay in essay writing.

Damkerng T.

18:22

I just tried Google Voice Input (after quite a while :) It's not bad at all. drive.google.com/file/d/0B8KKQ0fwLEZ9NWZZUExkOU04bmc/…

The error rate is about 7% (6 of 88 words).

But my experience says it works better when the internet connection is not slow.

When it's somewhat slow, Google Voice Input can work very, very badly.

CowperKettle

18:47

Good evening!

A dog at the paintball club liked playing with this plate

I took the plate and turned round, and the dog hand on with its teeth clenched on the plate

Cardinal

@CowperKettle Hi :-)

CowperKettle

Evening, Cardinal!

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle It's a dog thing!

Good evening!

CowperKettle

It's "frisbie"

A frisbee

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. :-)

@CowperKettle I hope that did not hurt the dog!

CowperKettle

18:56

@Cardinal She followed me for about a kilometer after we left the club, it liked it so much

Cardinal

@CowperKettle :-)

CowperKettle

We had to scream at it to go away (0:

Good weather. From tomorrow it will rain and rain

Cardinal

Here is raining at the moment!

CowperKettle

(0:

Cardinal

I like rain and it's sound!

CowperKettle

18:58

It rained three times, but those were short rains

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