Language Overflow

sun-solar-arrow

01:05

Hello, "Leaving TPP" - Is this correct?

CowperKettle

02:37

As correct as "Meeting BPP"

EngFan

03:18

@user2684291 : I am learning new things

CowperKettle

04:06

> Blonde-Haired Moth With Small Genitals Named After Donald Trump

iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/…

Stack Exchange

04:25

1

Q: The use of article in "(The) originator drugs that have been approved and recommended for use are listed in Table 1"

The originator drugs that have been approved in Russia and are recommended for use as reference drugs are listed in Table 1. Would the absence of the imply that Table 1 lists only some of the approved-and-recommended drugs? Would the presence of the imply that the table lists all such drugs...

articles

CowperKettle

05:58

@JimReynolds - thanks for your answer!

Ah, a helpful feature, this chat notice

QuokMoon

06:09

Good morning

V.V.

Morning

CowperKettle

Morning good

V.V.

Found both "in " and "on", but more examples with "in"

In dictionaries

QuokMoon

It may be possible cause "In" used for unspecific time ,location or indicate some place ,express while doing something and indicate a belief,opinion ,interest of feeling.

In Contrast "on" is less characteristics than "In".

CowperKettle

07:02

Word of the day: famoused

> Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:

The painful warrior famoused for fight, / After a thousand victories once foiled, / Is from the book of honour razed quite, / And all the rest forgot for which he toiled

Chrome offered to change "famoused" to "famous ed"

CowperKettle

07:23

Trump = Bane? And we give it back to you...the people

►

M.A.R.

07:41

@Jude Huh?

Stack Exchange

07:59

1

Q: "is just a recommended minimum" vs. "is just the recommended minimum"

From a guideline document: At least two orthogonal studies should be performed to establish comparability. However, this number is just the recommended minimum, and is not optimal. Since the first sentence makes the recommendation, I think that it is okay to use the. At least two orth...

articles

user62015

Hi

Engines used in space shuttles are much larger (a)/ and more strong (b)/ than the ones used in jet planes.(c)/ No error(d)

I think it should be much stronger instead of more strong, section b

M.A.R.

@user62015 Shouldn't it be ''stronger''?

user62015

much stronger or just stronger?

CowperKettle

what's wrong with more strong?

M.A.R.

Either option is fine

@CowperKettle They expect you to say it's wrong

@user62015 Because of coordination, even the version without ''much'' is understood as with ''much''

CowperKettle

08:05

I'd say "no error"

user62015

I think both are adjectives and shouldn't be used together

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle What is wrong with you? Try to dumb yourself down to the level of examiners ಠ_ಠ

user62015

ahahaha

M.A.R.

@user62015 No no, the examiner just wants you to remember you've seen ''stronger'' somewhere, so ''more strong'' must be wrong

user62015

Just stronger instead of more strong, let me rewrite the sentence "Engines used in space shuttles are much larger (a)/ and stronger (b)/ than the ones used in jet planes.(c)/ No error(d)"

Does it make sense?

M.A.R.

08:08

books.google.com/ngrams/…

@user62015 Yep, it's correct

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. I'm just reading some other stuff... how to register as a private business entity..

Russian taxation and reporting system etc.

6% tax + social payment + cost of special bank account... etc etc etc

M.A.R.

Etc

Anonymous

08:23

@CowperKettle It does sound funny. Usually monosyllabic adjectives use the inflectional comparative forms.

Anonymous

But you could say something like "It's more strong than sturdy" if you felt like strong was a more appropriate adjective than sturdy, in response to someone describing something as sturdy.

Anonymous

Just as an example of a grammatical sentence with the substring more strong.

CowperKettle

@snailplane but it's more fun!

Anonymous

There are some lexical exceptions. Fun is exceptional all around.

Anonymous

See, until recently, fun was pretty much just a noun.

CowperKettle

08:27

ah

Funny how time flies

I remember it still a noun

(0:

BBL

Anonymous

For some speakers, it's still kinda nouny.

Anonymous

I'm 35, and to me funner and funnest actually sound fine, but they're more or less restricted to informal language.

Anonymous

To older speakers, funner and funnest sound quite weird.

Anonymous

But yeah, the generalization for -er/-est versus more/most is something like: Monosyllabic adjectives almost always appear with -er, trisyllabic adjectives almost always appear with more, but in between those two you've got a lot more variation.

Anonymous

There are just some special exceptions you have to memorize, like the fixed phrase curiouser and curiouser (a quote).

Anonymous

08:31

For two-syllable adjectives, things are more complicated, but you can find some patterns there, too.

Anonymous

Adjectives always appear with more in metalinguistic comparison.

CowperKettle

@snailplane metalinguistic comparison = when two different phrases (structurally) are compared?

Anonymous

Think of it as comparison with quotation marks around the things you're comparing.

Anonymous

You're comparing which word or phrase is more appropriate.

CowperKettle

ah!

Cardinal

08:43

Hi my friends.

Good point:!

theslot.jezebel.com/…

CowperKettle

Good afternoon, Cardinal

Cardinal

Privet.

Cop have a look on this magnificent trees:

brightside.me/article/…

CowperKettle

Beautiful!

A picture I made in 2010

In a park nearby

Not as famoused as those pictures but still nice

Cardinal

@CowperKettle Yes. I love trees.

CowperKettle

It's zemestân, but the park is still beautiful

zemestân = winter (Farsi)

Cardinal

08:51

@CowperKettle Yes. Nice one Cope.

CowperKettle

zima = winter (Russian) - probably the same root; stress on the last vowel

Cardinal

@CowperKettle nod sounds interesting.

user62015

In the flying game, there are a host of (a)/ new low-cost airlines that dare to roar,providing a glimmer of hope of (b)/ more cheaper air transport to millions. (c)/ No error (d)

In this question I think there are two errors first there are a host and more cheaper

Cardinal

I took that photo last May.

@CowperKettle

@user62015 However, I think more cheaper is more wrong. I have no idea why.

@CowperKettle Oh, I didn't notice that you already post it.

M.A.R.

@Cardinal Mystic!

@Cardinal Because it's wrong

user62015

09:04

They must be there is a host and much cheaper?

Cardinal

@M.A.R. Yop, I like mist-ic :)

CowperKettle

@Cardinal Wow!

They are giant!

user62015

Okay.

Thanks.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Or maybe the picture is taken from an ant's point of view

CowperKettle

Look who's talking, a molecule (0:

Cardinal

09:05

@M.A.R. No as you can see the bottom of the trees are not visible.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle HEY

Cardinal

The forest in the north of Iran is very ancient.

M.A.R.

@Cardinal That's because the ant is looking up

Cardinal

@M.A.R. yes, i was in a sitting position, I don't know what it is called in English!

M.A.R.

@Cardinal Sitting on a toilet

Cardinal

09:18

@M.A.R. :))

M.A.R.

Cardinal

@M.A.R. LoL

Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests

The Caspian Hyrcanian Mixed Forests ecoregion, in the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, is an area of lush lowland and montane forests covering about 55,000 square kilometres (21,000 sq mi) near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea of Iran and Azerbaijan. The forest is named after the ancient region of Hyrcania ("wolf land"). == Setting == In Iran, this ecoregion includes the coast along the Caspian Sea and the northern slopes of the Alborz Mountains. It covers parts of five provinces of Iran from east to west including: North Khorasan Province, Golestan Province (entirely southern...

Hyrcania

Hyrcania (/hərˈkeɪniə/) (Greek: Ὑρκανία Hyrkania, Old Persian: Varkâna, Middle Persian: Gurgān, Akkadian: Urqananu) is a historical region composed of the land south-east of the Caspian Sea, bound in the south by the Alborz mountain range and the Kopet Dag in the east. The region served as a satrapy (province) of the Median Empire, a sub-province of the Achaemenid Empire, and a province within its successors, the Seleucid, Arsacid and Sasanian empires. Hyrcania bordered Parthia to the east (later known as Abarshahr), Dihistan to the north, Media to the south and Mardia to the west. After the fall...

M.A.R.

@Cardinal Hey, didn't know that had a Wikipedia page

I'm drinking coffee AND browsing the Net and it's almost 1:00 p.m.

I feel a bit European

Cardinal

09:36

@M.A.R. Do they drink and brows on almost 1:00 PM?

M.A.R.

Probably

When they're slacking off work

Cardinal

@M.A.R. That's too Persian!

M.A.R.

Let's agree to disagree

Cardinal

:))

M.A.R.

09:53

user62015

10:31

Hi @V.V.

V.V.

10:58

Good afternoon.

user62015

Hi

V.V.

Should be "is a host" and "much"

user62015

Thanks.

Damkerng T.

0

A: Could stay and Could have stayed

I could stay with her, but i didn't. This means I had the chance but I chose not to or had other things to do. I could have stayed with her, but I hadn't. This means I wanted to stay but there was not a chance for it. These are similar to the construction of conditionals in English. I advise ...

I'm 90% sure that M K is not a native speaker.

I could have stayed with her, but I hadn't is probably fine in a novel.

I could have stayed with her, but I didn't would sound much more natural in real speech, assuming a common context.

@V.V. I think a host (of Xs) takes are rather than is.

It's like a number of, I think. -- cc @user62015

@MK In your source, the example is I could have gone to Oxford University but I preferred Harvard. Also, in the explanation, it's "We can use 'could have' to talk about something somebody was capable of doing but didn't do." rather than "hadn't done". — Damkerng T. 1 min ago

Just in case someone might want to comment on my comment.

(Please feel free to do so!)

M.A.R.

11:13

@DamkerngT. I'm 99 percent sure. No native speaker would try to explain all the nuances that come about with using a particular tense

NNS do, and usually from their textbook

V.V.

@user62015 Aha, that's another meaning! Then "are".

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. Good point!

M.A.R.

If you ask an NS what ''I could have stayed with her, but I didn't'' means, and that NS is not Snail and in any way related to Snail, it's very likely that they'll say ''Um, you know . . . It means that . . . It means that you didn't stay with her''

V.V.

I could stay but I wouldn't.

user62015

@V.V. I am so sorry I was away.

V.V.

11:19

I could have stayed, but I didn't.

Damkerng T.

Not my source . It's a reference. And Past simple and past perfect in this case are interchangeable because they do not affect the meaning. But for one to be precise they should go by the rule past participle when the thing is not sure enough. It removes the ambiguity in the case of the first two examples. It's the rule whether you use it or not is a matter of convineince — M K 3 mins ago

user62015

So you mean to say that are is fine there?

Damkerng T.

Ahh... that comment makes it clear.

@user62015 Yes, I think are is a better choice.

user62015

Okay.

but are a host?

Damkerng T.

I haven't checked, but I think a host of works more like a number of than a majority of.

A number of books are on the table. -- We wouldn't use is here.

user62015

11:21

Okay. Do you want me to send you the question again?

V.V.

A host of is a number of, I checked

user62015

I understand a number and the number

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Okay! It's confirmed, then! Thanks! :-)

V.V.

And I first thought of a person

user62015

Okay.

Okay so finally are a host is fine, right? And we must change more cheaper to much cheaper?

Damkerng T.

11:23

What's the sentence again?

2 hours ago, by user62015

In the flying game, there are a host of (a)/ new low-cost airlines that dare to roar,providing a glimmer of hope of (b)/ more cheaper air transport to millions. (c)/ No error (d)

Yes, there are a host of new low-cost airlines is fine.

user62015

Okay.

Damkerng T.

much cheaper air transport is good, too!

user62015

Okay so the error is in section C

Damkerng T.

nods

user62015

Thanks you friends.

Damkerng T.

11:25

I think more might work in a different meaning, but it sounds too weird to try to read it that way.

No problem!

I'm off to my garden. See y'all soon!

user62015

Enjoy!!

V.V.

See you.

Damkerng T.

12:08

1

Q: I know Who(m) you spoke to or I know to whom you spoke

1.I know Who(m) you spoke to. 2.I know who(m) it was given to. according to above noun clauses ,Can we move the preposition 'to' before 'whom'? e.g:1.I know to whom you spoke. 2.I know to whom it was given .

clauses

Please flag new answers!

user62015

Hi

basic right for or basic right of?

The right to adequate food (a) / and clean drinking water should be regarded as a (b)/ basic right of all citizens of India (c)/ No error (d)

Damkerng T.

Of is a much safer choice, IMO.

user62015

Okay.

So what other error can you see?

Damkerng T.

I think it's probably okay as is.

(Then again, I don't like the way they write much.)

user62015

12:23

Okay. Thanks,

Zhengquan Bai

@DamkerngT. @CowperKettle @snailplane How amiable you guys have already been!

Damkerng T.

Amiable and amicable we are! (^_^)

Hmm... seems like the new Airpods are received well.

I wonder how well they will do when one of them fall out of our ear...

EngFan

12:39

Hello everyone 😊

@M.A.R. : What's agree to disagree?

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. Oh, they seem to be a troll attempt? You mean the ones from userblahblahblah?

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. Yup!

M.A.R.

Hmm, why aren't you flagging?

Damkerng T.

I did!

M.A.R.

@EngFan It's something like ''love to hate''. It just means ''disagree''

@DamkerngT. As abusive?

Damkerng T.

12:43

Not an answer.

M.A.R.

That's boring

Damkerng T.

LOL

M.A.R.

12:57

dilbert.com/strip/2015-04-21 -- The whole page including the comments is awesome

Damkerng T.

13:51

3

Q: Active voice, "Do not smoke" to passive voice

The following sentence is in the active voice: "Do not smoke." What is its equivalent in the passive voice? 1- Let the smoke not be done. or 2- Smoking is prohibited.

passive-voice active-voice

sad

user2684291

@DamkerngT. What's sad?

Damkerng T.

These passive voice transformation exercises make me sad.

user2684291

Why?

Damkerng T.

It's usually a) not realistic, or b) incorrect or misleading.

user2684291

How is it "incorrect or misleading"? They're practicing passive constructions, it doesn't matter if it's realistic.

Damkerng T.

13:59

I suppose these teachers who like these exercises might try to have their students transform Run! into the passive voice, too, sometimes.

@user2684291 How could Smoking is prohibited be the passive voice of Do not smoke?

@user2684291 It's not realistic if the exercise convinces the learner to believe that these is how they are supposed to used the language.

user2684291

@DamkerngT. Yes, we had that once. The correct answer is that you can't make a passive form because it's an intransitive verb (in this meaning, I presume).

Damkerng T.

nods

user2684291

@DamkerngT. It's used in English, though.

Damkerng T.

@user2684291 Yes, but they wouldn't know when to use it.

And when not to use it.

user2684291

Through practice, you adopt the "mechanics", so you can do it when you actually need it.

@DamkerngT. Those rules are taught separately.

Just like forming the future perfect thingy.

Damkerng T.

14:05

I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that these students who have or have had to learn these transformations mechanically tend to use the passive voice in the wrong place.

user2684291

Could you give an example where you saw it used incorrectly?

I haven't noticed this at all. Maybe I'm a victim of the system myself.

Haha.

Damkerng T.

Haha! I guess we don't need to invent any example. I'm sure if we browse through examples on Lang-8, we'll find some.

I'm not really in the mood right now, though.

@user2684291 This link looks interesting, esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/passive_voice.htm, but I can't open it.

user2684291

@DamkerngT. I didn't know about this site.

Damkerng T.

I think we might find some interesting examples in there.

@user2684291 It's an interesting website, IMO.

It promotes learning a second language through sentence correction.

Ah! Found one on our site.

0

Q: Why only "it", not "this" or "that"?

It seems you are incompetent to achieve our goal. The chocolate tastes sweet when it is tasted. (Quasi-passive voice) It is raining. Your request, it is under consideration now. and so on, so on and so on... These constructions, if you observe, can easily understand the simil...

pronouns demonstrative-pronouns

The chocolate tastes sweet when it is tasted -- I daresay, this is a product of these transformation exercises!

In any case, this is sadder...

Which character in what episode and season? I'm curious. (And I might overlooked it when I watched it.) If it's the latest season, I might still have it on my PVR. :-) — Damkerng T. 2 hours ago

Why did I type might overlooked?

Anonymous

14:41

@DamkerngT. Yes, that sentence is very strange and would normally only occur in poorly written educational materials, I think.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Good morning!

user2684291

15:02

@DamkerngT. I just tried to correct some of the posts there in my first language... and it's very difficult.

Some sentences sound a bit off but you can't really tell how to correct it, or know why it's wrong.

Damkerng T.

@user2684291 I guess many of them could be fixed in too many ways as well.

M.A.R.

16:01

Is the last sentence grammatical?

If so, that would be really interesting

I'm itching for a HNQ

user2684291

@M.A.R. Looks like it.

M.A.R.

@user2684291 So you mean the whole NP is understood as singular, while ''people'' itself is plural?

user2684291

There's "a" before "people", so it must be singular. Maybe the form is plural.

I don't know if that makes sense.

M.A.R.

What I know is that count is applied both to nouns and NPs.

Even if there is singularity branching, i.e. the NP consists of only one word

And they're usually the same

But sometimes, they're not

But I've never seen ''people'' used this way

This one was genuinely amusing

user2684291

I don't know what you're talking about.

M.A.R.

16:14

Which part?

@user2684291 Do you have CGEL?

user2684291

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People

M.A.R.

ʕ ⊃･ ◡ ･ ʔ⊃︵┻━┻

Dang it

I was hoping to get an interesting grammatical discussion out of it

I was aware of this sense previously -__-

@user2684291 Aside from that, everything I said is legit though and less insane than most of the time

c.f. ''three eggs is plenty''

It's CGEL's example.

EngFan

Is it correct to say " what's the difference between command, request and order" ?
Or
Should one say "what's the difference among ..."

I think we use between when we're talking about only two things

user2684291

I think you don't know what you're talking about.

Javed Ahmed

I and my friends are running an online social group for educating people on some topic. We share with them our terms and conditions and request for some information like their gender, state, country and language as a form. Once they submit the form, they will be tagged to a teacher and we will share the teacher's contact with them and ask them to not misuse the teachers info. We are trying to make a short and clear message to inform this upon their form submission. Following is the sentence that I have made so far,

M.A.R.

16:27

@user2684291 Of course I don't. I'm just spewing a couple of random thoughts I read months ago in a grammar book

Still, do you have CGEL, or can you gain access to it @user2?

user2684291

@M.A.R. I was talking to EngFan.

Sorry for not using their handle.

Javed Ahmed

Can anyone kindly help me

M.A.R.

Lemme read it Javed

user2684291

@EngFan I would use "between" there, because that's the more common version.

At least as far as I know.

Javed Ahmed

@M.A.R. Ok

M.A.R.

16:29

@JavedAhmed ''misuse or share the teachers' number''

Javed Ahmed

@M.A.R. Can rephrase the sentence and by the way it's only one teacher

M.A.R.

Also I'm not really familiar with this ''tagging to'' thing, so I don't know if it works there

@JavedAhmed Oh, then change '' . . . teachers' . . . '' to ''teacher's''

Javed Ahmed

@M.A.R. I missed ' before s in teacher

user2684291

I think they're talking about "assigning someone or something to someone".

Javed Ahmed

@user2684291 yes you're right

M.A.R.

16:32

Assigned

Yeah, makes sense

Javed Ahmed

@M.A.R. ok any other changes?

M.A.R.

@JavedAhmed Also useful to say ''assigned to the following teacher, contact number [CONTACT NUMBER]''

Because they need to precisely know what that number indicates, even if it's obvious.

Javed Ahmed

@M.A.R. OK noted

EngFan

@user2684291: Is using between grammatical?

user2684291

Affirmative.

Javed Ahmed

16:35

@M.A.R. what about the last sentense

@user2684291 what do you think about the last sentence in my message

I guess it's correct.

Ok. Thanks.

user2684291

Hm.

@JavedAhmed I would say "Thank you for filling out our form. You are now assigned to the following teacher: Name. Their contact number is xxx-xxx-xxx; please do NOT share this number with anyone. Contact the teacher for further instructions."

M.A.R.

17:28

Word of the day: Fiduciary

3

user2684291

Ah, probably from "fides".

Fido 3, actually.

Alright.

user2684291

17:57

youtu.be/08h0IVs4RKQ?t=29s He says "with this place for me", right? azlyrics.com/lyrics/heavy/whatmakesagoodman.html says it's "blasphemy", which I'm not sure what it means in this context. Then he sings "and time'll tell the test of pedigree"?

M.A.R.

I'm terrible at listening to songs, but I'll give it a shot.

I'm always distracted by the music.

user2684291

@M.A.R. Same, actually. I'm probs singing half of the songs completely wrong.

M.A.R.

Only half? Newbie mistaker

user2684291

I've probably made up dozens of words.

M.A.R.

@user2684291 Oh, crud. I can't listen to it right now. I will be able to in 21 hours and thirty minutes

user2684291

18:05

All right.

!!RemindMe 21 hours and 30 minutes

user2684291

18:18

@user2684291 The lyrics for that song are just wrong: "I entitle swim for blood and birth". Hwat.

CowperKettle

18:40

2

A: "is just a recommended minimum" vs. "is just the recommended minimum"

The sentence form the document does not strike me as natural. Because yes the number was presented in the previous sentence but the number being a "recommended minimum" is new information that has no bearing on the number. In other words, the number information was repeated and modified, not t...

I wonder if he is right

M.A.R.

LOL @Cowp what was that?

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Where? (0:

M.A.R.

The removed message

CowperKettle

Ah, some experiments of mine

^_^

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle First glace: Uses nested blockquotes; do not trust

CowperKettle

18:45

I was.. trying out something (0:

user2684291

You can go to chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/1

M.A.R.

Second glance: I have never figured out how to explain to someone why some kind of article is used somewhere, correctly

user2684291

I test stuff there.

It's called Sandbox or summat akin to that.

M.A.R.

Well yeah, that's good ol' sandbox

Some metas have sandboxes as well

10

Q: Formatting Sandbox – Please test stuff here

What the title says. Use this for testing stuff and gosh I can't believe we didn't have this till now.

discussion formatting

CowperKettle

Okay, next time I will test my CTRL+C/V malfunctions there

user2684291

18:53

Whenever I copy-and-paste something, I immediately override it by copying the last letter or some such. Once bitten, twice shy.

:>

M.A.R.

@user2684291 Lyrics are overrated

CowperKettle

there is nothing to be shy about, I only wanted to discuss the article issue, not the stuff I googled for (0:

M.A.R.

Hehe

Transcript for