Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

00:19

@Catija I'm not sure if the house spirits really like red fanta. Maybe some do! :D

Actually, none of those sound wrong to me. Some are more common than others, but all of them are grammatically correct and understandable. Particularly the bus is leaving in ten minutes - that sounds perfectly natural, like something I would say myself. — stangdon 2 hours ago

nods -- I agree with stangdon.

@stangdon I read Michael Swan's grammar books and as far as I remember it was written there that "going to", Future Obligation and Present Continuous about the Future can't be used with objects. We can't say "The plane is taking off in 20 minutes" but we can say "I am coming out in 5 minutes" — SovereignSun 2 hours ago

Now, that makes me curious in which entry Swan wrote that.

CowperKettle

00:34

1

A: Do I need a hyphen in "1000-L bioreactor"? Hyphens with abbreviated units of measure

Numeric metric expressions with the abbreviated metric measurement name should be written after the number with no space. The cultivation was performed in a 1000L bioreactor. I bought 250kg of X, 250ml of Y, 250cm of Z, etc. 3cm x 4cm strip.

Hmm.

Damkerng T.

I'm sure I've seen stuff similar to 1000-L before!

CowperKettle

But I do see 250 mL used with a hiatus between the two words

Me too

Sawasdee khrap!

Damkerng T.

Zdorovo and sawasdee khrap!

1

Q: A common word or group or description of all the following: Love, Lust, Crush, Infatuation

You love a girl. You also have a crush on a girl who works in your office. You also have a lust on a neighborhood girl. What word would you use to describe all of them? Your "Romances"? Your "Affairs"? Your "heartthrobs"? Maybe "amorous affairs" looks good. Is it possible to come up with a single...

word-request

But why does it have to be one word!?!

Yeah, my first choice would be affection, too, if I had to choose.

(like in Max's answer)

CowperKettle

> You love a girl. You also have a crush on a girl who works in your office. You also have a lust on a neighborhood girl. What word would you use to describe all of them?

Your "killers", if they find out.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

But I think the OP wants an umbrella word for those feelings.

Fawad

00:43

Bye and CYA are synonym? Can I use both words same time?

Damkerng T.

Huh?

CYA doesn't mean Bye, I think.

Fawad

So both words can be used same time?

skill patrol

See you.

C ya

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see!

Yeah, better written as two words.

skill patrol

Bye, see you.

Damkerng T.

00:46

That would be fine.

skill patrol

Bye, cya

Damkerng T.

That would be fine, too, as long as the A is not capitalized, I think!

skill patrol

@Fawad yes

Damkerng T.

Capitalizing it makes me think of another word.

Um, phrase.

Fawad

OK, thanks

skill patrol

00:47

np pal

Anonymous

00:59

@DamkerngT. Me too. It makes it look like an acronym for a slang phrase.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Good morning/evening!

Anonymous

As skill patrol demonstrates, the standard spelling is see you, and cya is an informal spelling for the same thing you can find used in chat and such.

Anonymous

Good afternoon! :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, right! Hehe!

Huh? Wait! Isn't it 6pm already over there?

Anonymous

Yes

Anonymous

01:05

I just wanted to be different, after you chose morning and evening.

Anonymous

Is 6pm evening and not afternoon?

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see! :D

Anonymous

The sun is still up here.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane It's in the evening for me.

The sun usually sets a little after 6 over here.

Anonymous

Well, to me, afternoon and evening have always been kind of fuzzy. I don't know where one ends and the other begins.

Damkerng T.

01:06

Or 6:30 in summer.

Anonymous

But I think of evening as kind of late, usually after the sun has set or while it's getting near the horizon.

Anonymous

It doesn't feel like the sun is low enough to count as evening yet.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I remember that it was very surprising for me to walk at 8pm in Frankfurt and it still looked bright enough.

Anonymous

Sunset is at 7:36, according to Weather Underground.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Hmm... I wonder why. I mean California is not very far from the equator either, right?

Anonymous

01:09

I'm around 37°N.

Damkerng T.

Whoa! That's way up north than I expected.

CowperKettle

I'm 56.80 °N

Damkerng T.

You two are much closer! (^_^)

CowperKettle

That's a warming thought

Damkerng T.

:D

CowperKettle

01:11

Especially at +3 °C

(0:

My hometown is at 64.92 °N

Damkerng T.

Must be even colder.

CowperKettle

It is minus 24 °C there now..

Damkerng T.

Brrr... Snowman must like it there. :D

CowperKettle

(0:

> The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

Damkerng T.

Interesting... chill - April - still.

CowperKettle

01:14

Frost has only a handful of good poems

And this is one of them

Damkerng T.

04:13

0

Q: Looking for a negative word to describe someone who speaks in a way that appeals to masses, regardless of if they believe in what they say

I'm trying to mentally describe someone who seems that they don't believe the opinions they say, but only say them on platforms because they know they will get a massive amount of support and praise for holding such a, typically common, belief. This person may try to start an argument on the win...

word-request

Hmm... I wonder if it's really that context-less.

> A man goes on Facebook and writes "Irish people are people, too!".

It's hard to imagine someone writing that without any previous context.

Virtue signalling is the best descriptor so far, thanks very much! Is there a similar word or idea to describe "virtue signalling" if the act in question is not necessarily virtuous nor a political belief, just a common opinion? For example, if I said "Breaking Bad is such a good show" simply because I know a lot of people will defend or agree with me? — Feeble Minded Man Mar 8 at 21:35

The other example ("Breaking Bad is such a good show") is an even weaker example, IMO.

M.A.R.

07:20

@DamkerngT. Breaking Bad is such a good show

user62015

11:21

Hi!

Five thousand rupees ———— collected from the public.
(A) were (B) was (C) have (D) have been Answer says B @DamkerngT. @M.A.R. @snailplane

Damkerng T.

12:04

@user62015 All (except C) are possible, IMO. But I think it has to be was in India.

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

Araucaria

13:36

2

Q: Why do people pronounce the word "of" as if it's "ov"?

I've noticed that normally people pronounce the word "of" as if it's "ov". Iv'e checked it also in Cambridge dictionary and I found it slightly different, there the pronunciation is "ovf" (=diphthong of "vf"). Are there other cases in English that we spell "f" as if it's "v"? What is the reason...

pronunciation

@user62015 Yes, @Dam is right. All good except (c)

M.A.R.

13:52

Why do non-native speakers assume hostility because of language barrier?

M.A.R.

15:14

> Client: I need Grammar editing / proofreading of 250 pages. What’s the prise ? [original mispelling]

Me: I would need more information to prepare a quote – for example, an idea of the total number of words, the genre of writing, and a sample chapter or two. However I am fully booked with editing work until the end of July, so if you need the work done before then you would need to find someone else.

Meanwhile, I Google the guy and discover he’s a well-known plagiarist.

Client: Okay, what about a Fiction Action/Adventure book - 90,000 approx. word count? I need to be sure if you could h…

userr2684291

15:52

@M.A.R. What a shame.

(They had an ideal opportunity to use [sic] there.)

Feeds

17:10

4

Q: "process used to manufacture Atinumab" vs. "manufacturing process of Atinumab"

Analysis of the stability of the process used to manufacture Atinumab, substance-solution. Analysis of the stability of the manufacturing process of Atinumab, substance-solution. Which one is better stylistically? I prefer the first option, but a fellow translator said that she prefers th...

style

CowperKettle

Khodafarez, @M.A.R.

M.A.R.

?

CowperKettle

Ooops

I forgot the word

for "good evening"

M.A.R.

The greeting is 'Salam'

The goodbye is 'Khodahafez'

CowperKettle

aaaah!

Salam!

M.A.R.

17:19

So you should be saying 'salam'

Dobry Vecher!

CowperKettle

Vecher Dobry (0:

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Your mail arrived!

CowperKettle

@snailplane That's great! (0:

I scribbled some Japanese on the card (0:

I sent it on 8 of February, planning for it to arrive by 8th of March ^_^

Anonymous

It only took two months :-)

CowperKettle

Yes! Time flies! (0:

Anonymous

17:27

The postal service is amazing.

CowperKettle

(0:

CowperKettle

18:50

River Iset near Kamensk-Uralsky

Great bicycle ride today, about 70 kilometers

My bicycle (0:

In a derelict church

skull petrol

Nice.

(0:

CowperKettle

Yes. The birch trees are beautiful

The birch is the symbol of Russia after all

skull petrol

Officially?

CowperKettle

Dunno.. but it's one of the symbols

skull petrol

Hmm.

CowperKettle

19:01

> Just below my window
Stands a birch-tree white,
Under snow in winter
Gleaming silver bright.
On the fluffy branches
Sparkling in a row
Dangle pretty tassels
Of the purest snow.

> There the birch in silence
Slumbers all day long
And the snow gleams brightly
In the golden sun.
And the dawn demurely
Going on its rounds
With a silver mantle
Decks again the boughs.

(Sergey Yesenin, 1913)

skull petrol

birch

Noun: birch (plural birches)

Any of various trees of the genus Betula, native to countries in the Northern Hemisphere.
A hard wood taken from the birch tree, typically used to make furniture.
A stick, rod or bundle of twigs made from birch wood, used for punishment.
A birch-bark canoe.

Verb: birch (third-person singular simple present birches, present participle birching, simple past and past participle birched)

to punish with a stick, bundle of twigs, or rod made of birch wood.
to punish as though one were using a stick, bundle of twigs, or rod made of birch wood.

Interesting, it can be used as a verb.

"...the national tree of Finland and Russia..."

M.A.R.

19:34

clientsfromhell.net/post/134056644080/…

Damkerng T.

22:45

@JamesK, stubborn has a much broader meaning. Winston Churchill was definitely stubborn, but at the same time he was open-minded and had a voracious appetite for new information. — JavaLatte 15 hours ago

An interesting argument.

But isn't it true that by the same token, the suggested blinkered wouldn't cut it, either?

1

A: Is there a word for a person who's like this?

The word blinkered is probably appropriate. Here is the definition from the Cambridge Dictionary: A blinkered person is unable or unwilling to understand other people's beliefs, and blinkered opinions or ways of behaving show someone is unable or unwilling to understand other people The wor...

> A blinkered person is unable or unwilling to understand ...

Unable or unwilling -- so it doesn't have to only mean "unwilling".

If we go that far, to the point that we want to cover all the aspects the OP mentions in the question, I'd say English has no such word.

I can't think of any word in my first language either.

It's simply too specific, without any focused main aspects.

But if we're a bit flexible, I'd say stubborn along with other words would fit just fine.

Depending on what shades of meaning we want to convey.

ColleenV

23:51

We have a cluster of questions about the difference between wouldn't and didn't. I linked them all to this question:

1

Q: Difference between wouldn't and didn't

What is the difference between would not and did not? For example: I called my girlfriend but she wouldn't stop. I called my girlfriend but she didn't stop.

meaning-in-context modal-verbs auxiliary-verbs

I don't find the answers to any of them particularly compelling. Can I get some help in sorting which question would be the best "master" question. I'll offer a bounty on it to try to generate some more answers...

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