Language Overflow

Nature Rocks

05:39

Hello

Need help

"what is that event about?" Is this statement right ?

Nature Rocks

06:16

"what is the team size for the event newspaper costume design ?" Is this proper ?

Anonymous

06:35

It's grammatical, but "How large is the team for X?" sounds more natural than "What is the team size for X?"

Anonymous

The event newspaper costume design is a complicated noun phrase, and it could make perfect sense in context, but without context I find it a little bit difficult to understand.

Anonymous

Not wrong, but I don't have any context to help me understand it, so it's difficult for me to follow.

Nature Rocks

07:01

Thank u

CowperKettle

Song of the Day

I can't understand the words. I understand about 60%.

First heard today on a jog.

I failed to find the lyrics online.

It's about booze.

Many a Ukrainian song is about boozing.

(0:

But the sounds are sunny

It's nice to jog to such an accompaniment

Good mild spring morn

Met my distant relatives in the park

They went there to find some squirrels to feed

I pointed out the best areas and continued jogging

Hope they found a squirrel or two

In the link that I gave, the video is wrong - this is not this song

You've got to press the triangular play button above the video, to the left of "Vidirvani - Горілка"

CowperKettle

07:47

Tequilajazzz - "НаливайЯ"

►

This Ukrainian song reminded me of the old (1998) Russian song by Tequilajazz

About boozing (0:

Nalivay is an imperative mood verb meaning "Pour!"

They added ya, which is really a feminine ending that turns something into a feminine noun

and sounds to the Russian ear like Narnia

Like some faraway fairy land

So it's a song about some far-away fairy land where people booze a lot.

Stack Exchange

4

Q: When can we use 'much' in affirmative clauses?

I found the below in Cambridge Dictionary web-site: We use much in questions and negative clauses to talk about degrees of something. We don’t use much in affirmative clauses. Also, it the same web-site, I found the following: She runs much faster than he does. here also I notice...

Damkerng T.

08:31

@CowperKettle Lucky squirrels!

@CowperKettle Haha!

CowperKettle

08:43

@DamkerngT. Yes, a lot of people come to feed them (0:

Damkerng T.

When I glanced through your post the first time, I thought they hunted them. :P

CowperKettle

No, no (0:

e1.ru/news/spool/news_id-462662.html

Several young men were caught recently in the Mayakovsky Park

They were catching squirrels

Damkerng T.

(^_^)

CowperKettle

They will be fined 4000 rubles

which is just $50

Damkerng T.

Good for the squirrels!

CowperKettle

08:49

Yes

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Reminds me of this clip:

Drew Carey Reveals The Secret To Winning $10,000 At Plinko

►

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

11:31

→ 68 messages moved to Trashcan

V.V.

Good afternoon!

We hsd a cup of tea while we waited for her.(while we were waiting for her.) Are both possible?

And we were having a cup of tea while we were waiting for her.

userr2684291

@V.V. Yes.

V.V.

@userr2684291 Thanks, zdravo. Tell me the difference, how you understand it,please

I am interested in past simple in particular.

userr2684291

11:53

@V.V. I don't see any difference, really.

V.V.

OK, thanks.

There should be, I believe.

userr2684291

@V.V. PEU says "We usually use 'while' to say that two longer actions or situations go/went on at the same time. We can use progressive or simple tenses."

Examples:
While you were reading the paper, I was working.
John cooked supper while I watched TV.

V.V.

And when one verb is in the past simple and the other is in the past cont?

userr2684291

@V.V. "While I was writing a letter, the window opened." You use this pattern when an action interrupts another action.

@V.V. However, it doesn't really have to be that: "While you're doing this, pay close attention..."

V.V.

I read it while you were drying your hair.From camb dict.

Perhaps past simple gives a completed action.

userr2684291

12:07

@V.V. In that sentence, the past simple denotes an action that could have started and finished while the other action was in progress.

In fact, I can't think of a context where it'd mean something else.

@V.V. My sentiments – approximately. (:

V.V.

Good, that makes sense. So if we have two verbs in the same tense, they are simultaneous and interchangeable, right?

If the tenses are different, simple and cont.,there's either interruption or completion, or something else.

I wonder if they are interchangeable, though.

EngFan

hello!!

V.V.

Hi.

M.A.R.

12:27

Hullo all

V.V.

We can use while or as to talk about two longer events or activities happening at the same time. We can use either simple or continuous verb forms:

We spent long evenings talking in my sitting-room while he played the music he had chosen and explained his ideas. Yes,

Interchangeable.

userr2684291

@V.V. That's what the book says anyway.

M.A.R.

IIRC there was some language theory or something that said if two things in language are completely interchangeable, one will eventually get removed.

userr2684291

12:45

@M.A.R. Like "asunder" (= apart)?

M.A.R.

I don't think the examples are few

EngFan

consent for joining the company - is this grammatical ?

M.A.R.

There are a lot of Persian word s that eventually were obsolete and deleted from language because the Arabic variant was shorter

@EngFan Yes. Is it a letter?

EngFan

a reply to a company .

Request you to review the same and get back to us with your consent . I am suppose to rely to their email , so can i write the subject as "consent for joining the company"?

user62015

13:03

I am the one (a)/ who am (b)/ to be blamed. (c)/ No error (d) I think it should who is instead of who am

M.A.R.

@user62015 I would delete the 'who am' altogether

@EngFan What? I didn't get you

''I'm the one to be blamed'' is really commonly said and I've heard it a lot.

But the ''who am'' version is clumsy, if not wrong.

@user62015 Your correction won't fix it though

user62015

Okay.

Checking

I got back.

Okay.

Any suggestion?

M.A.R.

13:21

@user62015 Remove all of B, as I said

user62015

Thanks.

I did.

Thank you so much.

There was a tough question?

Will you have a look?

Damkerng T.

I think I am the one who ... is okay, but it should be who is rather than who am.

M.A.R.

@user62015 Where?

@DamkerngT. \o

Damkerng T.

o/

user62015

Okay.

M.A.R.

13:23

Exactly, I wondered what's wrong with it

user62015

Please wait.

M.A.R.

9

Q: The Amazing Migration of an English terminology question to Russian Language Stack Exchange

I've just discovered that my question asking about an English term that an English biotechnitian would use was migrated to, of all possible SEs, the Russian Language SE. This is just to register my amazement at this decision. I've very little free time right now. Let me cite a comment left by...

discussion specific-question

@Cowp roasting a Bio.SE mod

Damkerng T.

Not sure 'bout their guidelines.

M.A.R.

'The Amazing Migration' sounds like a movie I'd watch

Damkerng T.

It's a couple of sequels, right?

M.A.R.

13:25

@DamkerngT. The second one is about an electric mod migrating questions wrongly

Damkerng T.

LOL

user62015

I am the one (a)/ who am (b)/ to be blamed. (c)/ No error (d)

What I think possible solutions are:

I am the one (a)/ who is (b)/ to be blamed. (c)/ No error (d)

M.A.R.

@user62015 This one is correct

user62015

Who is?

Okay.

@DamkerngT. I also suggested that it should be who is instead of who am

Damkerng T.

nods

user62015

13:29

Thanks.

Damkerng T.

Sure! :D

user62015

I am not able to understand this question yet.

The later part of Gandhi’s life (a)/ till he was assassinated (b)/ was in considerable measure the life of the nation as well. (c)/No error (d)

Someone told me latter instead of later

What do you think friends?

Damkerng T.

I don't think latter is a real improvement.

But latter should be okay, too.

user62015

Okay.

So do you see any thing here?

Damkerng T.

I've already made my comment. Yesterday.

user62015

13:32

or would you suggest no error?

Oh!

No error?

Damkerng T.

19 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

@user62015 Hmm... I don't think (a) is really wrong.

user62015

I agree.

Any other section maybe answer has wrong option in the answer key.

If you can see anything else wrong let me know otherwise I think it is no error

M.A.R.

I can't make sense of the last part.

Not 'no error', but the part before it of course

user62015

Okay.

Let me check again

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. I think it's okay. [his life] was, in considerable measure, the life of ...

M.A.R.

13:35

Commas. COMMAS.

Damkerng T.

I suppose the commas are optional.

M.A.R.

No, they help you not get confused

At least one of them is mandatory

As mandatory as a comma can get

Damkerng T.

Indeed. But the test seems to be designed to confuse you as much as possible. :P

M.A.R.

Which means 4/5ths of the population won't put it there

@DamkerngT. We do have such placements of adverbs in our tests too, but they don't usually require the comma

Damkerng T.

nods

user62015

13:38

Okay.

was in considerable measure the life of the nation as well.

Do you think this line makes sense?

V.V.

@user62015 no mistakes.

user62015

Are you sure? @V.V.

EngFan

@M.A.R. : The company sent me an email asking to rely them :*Congratulations! Further to our discussions over the last few days, glad to share an offer for the position of ABC
Request you to review the same and get back to us with your consent, consequent to which we shall initiate the downstream activities.*
Now my question is whether I can write *consent for joining the company* as the subject of mail ?

Ahmbro Dude

Hello. .

EngFan

@DamkerngT. : hello!

Ahmbro Dude

13:51

Is this sentence grammatically correct. "They dreamed of a society where everyone was equal"

Damkerng T.

@EngFan Hello!

EngFan

@AhmbroDude: hello!

Damkerng T.

@AhmbroDude Yes.

Ahmbro Dude

That answer was just my intuition. Could you please explain me why it can't be "They dreamed of a society where everyone "were" equal"?

Damkerng T.

It's fine to use were as well.

Why do you think it's wrong or something?

Ahmbro Dude

13:55

I guess, everyone is singular, and so the verb should be "was".

M.A.R.

@EngFan Hmm, it's not a bad choice

But @Dam is more experienced about this and can give some better advice.

Damkerng T.

Generally, a sentence is supposed to convey something, usually something with a specific meaning. This is why context is important.

But if you found the sentence in a prep book or something similar,

Ahmbro Dude

But how come "were" is grammatically correct in this context?

Damkerng T.

it's quite likely that they want to demonstrate the concept of "subjunctive".

EngFan

@M.A.R. : could u please suggest what should be my subject of the email?

Damkerng T.

13:58

@AhmbroDude You could try searching for irrealis.

M.A.R.

@EngFan I'm trying to think of something that contains ''request''

Looking at @Dam

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. What was the context?

M.A.R.

8 mins ago, by EngFan

@M.A.R. : The company sent me an email asking to rely them :*Congratulations! Further to our discussions over the last few days, glad to share an offer for the position of ABC
Request you to review the same and get back to us with your consent, consequent to which we shall initiate the downstream activities.*
Now my question is whether I can write *consent for joining the company* as the subject of mail ?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... "Request you to review the same".

I hope the meaning is clear in the context.

Me: The same as what?!

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. The same as congratulations

Damkerng T.

14:03

Hmm... but more importantly, what'll be the content of the email?

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. I wantz job kthxbai

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. In that case, you don't need any title. Just click reply, and the title will automatically be: Re: [original title here]. :-)

M.A.R.

I'm not looking for a job

English fan is

EngFan. Whatever

Damkerng T.

Actually, "Re: ..." always works, I suppose. :D

M.A.R.

I sometimes get the feeling we're a problem-solving machine in the form of a chatroom

We help people get jobs, and date.

Damkerng T.

14:05

(^_^)

M.A.R.

What's next? Writing someone's thesis?

WE NEED TO GO BIG

Damkerng T.

LOL

M.A.R.

Let's translate Shakespeare's Helmet to 5 languages for the fun of it.

V.V.

@user62015 where do you suspect a mistake? Check "later" though.

Damkerng T.

0

Q: How to understand "things flying through the air experience drag because of the momentum of the air they're showing out of the way"?

In the article Weightless Arrow from the What If? book, I meet this sentence: That means things flying through the air experience drag because of the momentum of the air they're showing out of the way - not from cohesion between air molecules. How should I understand the sentence before the...

sentence-construction sentence-structure

Bah! I read the whole question and was thinking about writing an answer...

then I scrolled down...

M.A.R.

14:11

I've noticed that even when the question is crap, the title is usually unique

Damkerng T.

and saw a good answer already posted down there.

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. Boom

Damkerng T.

^_^

M.A.R.

You were ninja'd by the great Stoney

Damkerng T.

0

Q: "She does Sinjit" What does this "Sinjit" mean?

I found the following word in English vocabulary in use book. The lessen describe how to use do / did / done. She does Sinjit. What does the Sinjit mean? I couldn't find it in dictionaries.

meaning

This one is also interesting...

If I'm not mistaken, the book is English Vocabulary in Use.

EngFan

14:14

@M.A.R.: ??

M.A.R.

@EngFan The title should be Re: <Whatever title the company used>

Damkerng T.

I wonder... which edition and on which page.

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. Sinjit sounds like a Bollywood actor

Damkerng T.

nods -- which makes the question a tough one in English.

M.A.R.

And it also reminds me of this

Elaeagnus angustifolia

Elaeagnus angustifolia, commonly called Russian olive, silver berry, oleaster, Persian olive, or wild olive, or commonly referred to as senjid or sinjid in Afghanistan and senjed in Iran, is a species of Elaeagnus, native to western and central Asia, Afghanistan, from southern Russia and Kazakhstan to Turkey and Iran. It is now also widely established in North America as an introduced species. == Name == Its common name comes from its similarity in appearance to the olive (Olea europaea), in a different botanical family, Oleaceae. == Description == Elaeagnus angustifolia is a usually t...

Damkerng T.

14:17

Hah! How come?

"commonly referred to as senjid or sinjid in Afghanistan and senjed in Iran"

M.A.R.

. . . commonly referred to as senjid or sinjid in Afghanistan and senjed in Iran . . .

Damkerng T.

Ahh

M.A.R.

Also, how the hell should we pronounce 'aea'?

Damkerng T.

"el-la-e-aeg-nus"?

Or maybe "el-lae-aeg-nus"?

English is hard! :D

EngFan

@M.A.R.: the title is offer from ABC( company name)

M.A.R.

14:23

@EngFan Good

When you say 'Re: something' you mean you're responding to it

EngFan

@M.A.R.: so I should write RE : offer form ABC ?

M.A.R.

Yes

EngFan

alright , thank you so very much

Damkerng T.

Word of the Day: spintronic

2

M.A.R.

@EngFan Thank Damking

@DamkerngT. Nice! New word

Damkerng T.

14:35

:D

Glad you like it!

M.A.R.

I guess I study electrons' spintronics in proton NMR

Damkerng T.

Ahh... quite possible.

M.A.R.

Proton NMR ^

Looks fancy, doesn't it?

Damkerng T.

It would be nice if it comes with axes and legends.

But quite fancy nonetheless.

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. I just took the picture from the internet somewhere

Damkerng T.

14:39

Hehe!

M.A.R.

As the internettal tradition implies, you should never be complete

Always lack info

Always look stupid

The vertical thingy is the peak intensity.

Damkerng T.

Nice find!

M.A.R.

PPM is because the amount of shift is some millionth the strength of the applied magnetic field

Also I think it should be 'ppm' not 'PPM', because it's a unit rather than an abbreviation

Damkerng T.

Agreed.

BTW, I wonder when I will buy my first helium-filled hard drive. Must be awesome! :)

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. So, have you ever studied some spintronics thingies in your major, which I never got to find out?

@DamkerngT. Your computer runs on balloons?

Damkerng T.

14:43

@M.A.R. No, it's never come to light.

@M.A.R. Ah, this technology is real!

M.A.R.

Balloons are real

Damkerng T.

I suppose it makes the HDD spins faster because helium is lighter than air.

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. It would, but I don't know the mechanism

Maybe Boltzmann distribution at play

Damkerng T.

Me either. I just heard about it only recently.

> A helium-sealed hard drive requires less power, produces less noise, makes fewer vibrations, produces less heat, requires less space, holds more data and ...

Wow, what's not to love?!

If it included costs much less money, it would be perfect!

M.A.R.

This world is about flaws

V.V.

15:58

@user62015 no I was not guite sure, I checked, with life they use "later", with " part", it is the latter, so I was wrong. The latter part or period of time.

CowperKettle

17:24

> The New York Tri-State area has a population of 1.6 million Russian-Americans and 600,000 of them live in New York City.[3] There are over 220,000 Russian-speaking Jews living in New York City.[4] Approximately 100,000 Russian Americans in the New York metropolitan area were born in Russia.

WOW

Zdorovo, I mean

M.A.R.

17:40

@CowperKettle Why is it surprising? They're not Canadians #if-you-know-what-I-mean

CowperKettle

17:59

(0:

user62015

Hi

Could you help me out?

Could you confirm me that if we use a noun as an adjective it is always singular, right? @DamkerngT. @snailplane

M.A.R.

@user62015 No, that is incorrect

user62015

Okay.

M.A.R.

@user62015 \o

user62015

In these days of inflation (a)/ a ten rupees note will not buy you (b)/ even an ordinary meal. (c)/ No error (d)

M.A.R.

18:06

@user62015 They're usually singular

@user62015 If they don't nitpick about the hyphen, it seems correct to me

user62015

Answer says b

a ten rupee note

M.A.R.

IMO they're wrong

It's an overcorrection.

'a [ten-rupees] note' sounds fine. Let's hear this from @Snail though.

user62015

Okay.

Damkerng T.

18:20

0

A: "That's much too late!"

Much is a weird word, it can be a determiner, pronoun, or adverb. When much is used as a determiner, like an article or a possessive like my, his, etc. what follows has to be a noun. So if you immediately follow much with an adjective, it's possible to come across as though you are trying to ...

This is much too weird!

All comments seem to agree that too much late is at least odd, and possibly incorrect.

But the answer seems the suggest that too much late is quite possible!

@user62015 Yeah, the normal form would be a ten-rupee note.

user62015

Thanks.

Damkerng T.

In this respect, baht is a very safe unit, because the plural of baht is baht. :P

user62015

Okay.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... come to think of it, I think bahts is also acceptable.

user62015

Okay.

CowperKettle

19:02

but baht is not safe from the dirty joke standpoint

Neither is bahts

Don't get me wrong, I love bahts.. I mean.. okay

ruble is too much like rubble

some students do pronounce it like rubble, and have to be corrected

Damkerng T.

19:27

(^_^)

Lawrence

19:46

@stangdon LawrenceC is saying that "too much late" doesn't work because "late" isn't a noun. — Lawrence 18 secs ago

M.A.R.

@Cowp was wondering if you could lend me 50 rubbles

@Lawrence Wait, I already thought you're LawrenceC

Lawrence

@M.A.R. Nope. :)

M.A.R.

Sock puppets no lying

Lawrence

Not a sock puppet.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence I humbly disagree. I think adding that asterisk fundamentally changed the answer.

In the answer: "So if you immediately follow much with an adjective, it's possible to come across as though you are trying to use the adjective as a noun."

M.A.R.

19:48

@Lawrence I said no lying

Damkerng T.

According to the answer, it's possible.

Lawrence

@M.A.R. Not lying. LawrenceC predates me by a couple of years or so on this site.

M.A.R.

@Lawrence I'm kidding

Lawrence

Have you been communicating with the wrong person all this while? :)

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. (^_^)

Lawrence

19:49

@M.A.R. Haha, I thought so.

M.A.R.

It's a normal SE gag to call one another socks of other people

Damkerng T.

I feel like they designed it for me!

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. I thought he was treating it as if it was correct at first as well, but the following lines indicate otherwise:

"When much is used as a determiner, like an article or a possessive like my, his, etc. what follows has to be a noun.

So if you immediately follow much with an adjective, it's possible to come across as though you are trying to use the adjective as a noun." -- from [his answer](http://ell.stackexchange.com/a/120668/24861).

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I think you have a point.

I think you're right. But I wonder if our readers/learners will get LawrenceC.

Even though I'm not 100% sure if it's indeed incorrect, it sounds very odd to me. — Damkerng T. 4 hours ago

I wish I'd written two verys. :P

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. How many tabs?

Lawrence

19:55

@M.A.R. There even used to be another user that went by the name Lawrence. We might have had to go by the avatars when we interacted.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. I guess 2600+ is qualified as "too many". :)

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. Not in millitabs unit

Damkerng T.

Haha!

M.A.R.

@Lawrence Stop having a generic name

Try to make it unique and awesome like . . . M.A.R., for example

Lawrence

@M.A.R. You mean, use generic letters instead? :P

Well, I did that with my avatar, actually.

M.A.R.

19:57

@Lawrence Yeah

Even that would be an improvement

Lawrence

@M.A.R. Search Users. There isn't another Lawrence currently, but both mar and Mar show up. :P

Hmm, both at zero rep. So ... sock puppets? :D

M.A.R.

stackoverflow.com/…

@Lawrence Now you know too much

!!kill/@Lawr

Lawrence

Hey, hey! Help! XD

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