Language Overflow - 2018-07-16

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4:06 AM

If I say "a gift from my English pupil", would this be understood to mean "my pupil, whom I teach English"?

I have a friend whom I teach English. I'm not sure how I would refer to her in English.

"This is a gift from my pupil of English" looks clumsier

Or maybe "This is a gift from my English language pupil"?

Hm.

Clearest might be to use any of the terms for "the learning of English", such as ESL: "a gift from my ESL pupil".

Thank you!

Then the attributive is unambiguous, and it avoids the clunkiness of the other alternatives

I googled for "my math pupil" and there are almost no results

Yeah, it's admittedly not a very common thing to need to say

although "my math student"/"my ESL student" might be more common

For example

4:12 AM

@NathanTuggy Are you going to run?

... because I see you saying so but tomorrow is the deadline, I think :P

@Catija: Yup, finishing up questionnaire, gonna let it simmer while I sleep, then post tomorrow before work.

Good. :) Best of luck!

Thanks!

You're a great candidate. I think your work here and on MSE is laudable.

I really appreciate the kind words, and I hope to be able to show the many less-Meta-involved voters something of my mindset and abilities.

2 hours later…

6:01 AM

@userr2684291 Dissipate inside the universe, from a more condensed to a less condensed form, leading to increased enthropy

5 hours later…

10:42 AM

@NathanTuggy I hope you'll post something soon. The nomination phase ends in a few hours.

3 hours later…

1:53 PM

@CowperKettle You're probs right then. (It's spelled entropy, by the way.)

4 hours later…

Anonymous

6:02 PM

@userr2684291 Yeah, I would guess the th is by confusion with enthalpy.

Anonymous

One hour left for nominations.

Why the heck does someone keep removing my comments telling askers to look things up in a dictionary?

ell.stackexchange.com/questions/172077/… For example here. This question could be resolved entirely by looking all the words in the question in a dictionary.

Anonymous

I'm not sure why those specific comments were deleted. You could post on meta asking why.

: )

Alright.

Also, I don't think it's by confusion with enthalpy. I've rarely used this word and I made the same mistake.

Anonymous

Really? I imagined most people learned both words around the same time.

6:14 PM

Speaking for myself, I was using "entropy" in my early teens, but I probably learned "enthalpy" in college.

Not me. I learned about entropy in physics and enthalpy was taught in chemistry.

(Primary/high school.)

I know that doesn't exclude learning about it around the same time, but usually our classes aren't really related.

Also, in my first language they're spelled entalpija and entropija, so...

Well, nomination and questionnaire are up, half an hour before I have to go off to work. Timing!

6:31 PM

@NathanTuggy Good. Now go earn 100 rep :P

I know, right?

7:15 PM

@userr2684291 You see, being a human, I increase entropy by spelling it the wrong way.

And you increase it even further by spending energy to correct me.

We are doomed if we go on this wya.

Ugh.

I have to go to work tomorrow. What's the world coming to...

> Heat is work and work's a curse
And all the heat in the universe
It's gonna cool down as it can't increase
Then there'll be no more work
And they'll be perfect peace
Really?
Yeah, that's entropy, man!

Woo!

song

7:58 PM

Alright, I wrote up the question. Hopefully I can get some answers.

New Meta Question

0

Q: Why the heck do you keep removing my comments telling askers to look things up

Let's see, Exhibit A: How to address a woman in a letter? When writing a letter or an e-mail to a man I know the (sur-)name of ("Smith"), I would write: Dear Mr. Smith, What should I use when addressing a woman? Is it (like for married women): Dear Mrs. Smith, Or just: Dea...

discussion comments moderation

Anonymous

2 hours ago, by snailboat

One hour left for nominations.

Anonymous

Nice work on time zones there, snailboat.

8:14 PM

Close enough.

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