Language Overflow

userr2684291

00:30

@snailboat ell.stackexchange.com/q/171314/3395 I don't remember exactly but we talked about this, at least in context of plural genitives, I think, where a plain-case plural replaces the genitive? I.e., that's the tendency nowadays?

Hope y'all're doing fine. (:

Anonymous

01:29

11

A: Shouldn't "five minute walk" be "five minutes walk" in this sentence?

When a modifier comes directly before a noun, we say that it's in attributive position: Attributive noun: a chicken pie Attributive adjective: a tasty pie When a noun is used attributively, you typically put it in the singular: a chicken pie *a chickens pie 　(non-standard) This tende...

Anonymous

Quirk et al is now somewhat out-of-date and I believe attributive plurals are more common today than they were even in the 80s, but I don't have any numbers for you.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

07:19

Snail and Colleen already added cool questions

@Snail should I add a "lack of research close reason" question to the questionnaire?

Anonymous

08:09

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ You could, although it actually sounds more like something you'd want to write a meta post about.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

09:26

@snailboat I think I have

Shrug

CowperKettle

09:50

@snailboat What a forty years' period makes to a nice grammar book!

userr2684291

11:28

@snailboat Thank you.

@CowperKettle Well CoGEL does present a synchronic overview of English grammar, I believe.

userr2684291

12:13

#3 is boils down to this: SE doesn’t have a mechanism for easily notifying individual users. — J.R. ♦ 10 hours ago

Yeah, the technology just isn't there yet, unfortunately.

What a bunch of nonsense.

Anonymous

13:35

I haven't head so-so since the adoption of meh. — Mazura Jun 30 at 18:27

Anonymous

Do you suppose these things are related? So-so and meh seem quite different to me.

Anonymous

I was surprised to see people comparing them.

userr2684291

Indeed.

I'm just reading through these answers...

Anonymous

This is just my own personal intuition, but I don't feel I can generally substitute one for the other without something being off.

Anonymous

"You want to get something to eat?" "Meh/*So-so. Not really."

userr2684291

13:37

They're not the same. So-so is more positive, or more neutral.

Haha, well, the example you list is obviously the way it is because meh is an exclamation or such.

Anonymous

Meh is markedly informal, and so-so isn't especially.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Yeah, but that's a real difference. I mostly use meh in situations where so-so would be inappropriate.

Anonymous

I mean, where it wouldn't make sense.

userr2684291

Right.

Anonymous

So-so isn't especially formal, but it's not restricted to informal speech like meh.

userr2684291

13:40

I think maybe there's a trend towards exaggeration. One example could be literally? I might be mistaken, though.

Maybe that's just me.

Anonymous

Literally is walking the same road as literal, very, verily, truly, real, really, serious, seriously, legit(imate), legitimately, and so on.

userr2684291

Someone from South Africa answered; I like that.

Hm, yeah.

But anyway, I agree that so-so and meh are different.

We have the equivalent of so-so in Croatian, and to me it sounds very cute, but it's also not really used.

Anonymous

No one objects when we say really to mean 'very' or very to mean 'really', even if we don't mean those words in their literal meanings. There's something about literal that bugs people, though, and I'm not sure if it's just memetic peeving, recency, or some expectation that the word be autological.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 What is it?

userr2684291

It's tak'-tak' (more informal) or tako-tako (more positive).

Here it's also commonly used to describe relationships They're [with each other] so-so.

Anonymous

13:48

In Japanese, mā mā.

userr2684291

Hah.

By the way, the accepted answer reiterates the tale about How are you? but more often than not I find the story not necessarily true as my pen pals will actually tell me what's going on in their lives when I ask them that.

Anonymous

How are you? is a really versatile expression.

userr2684291

They'll tell me exactly how they're feeling to the point where I remember and contemplate the above story.

Anonymous

It can be entirely phatic. If I'm at the grocery store, and a teller asks me "How are you?", and I start to tell them my life story, they might engage me in conversation, but they might also be a bit dismayed I answered seriously.

Anonymous

But if I say it earnestly to an old friend I haven't spoken to in years, they'll probably assume I want a serious answer. Of course, they still have the option of interacting more superficially if they want to for some reason.

Anonymous

13:54

If you were just in an accident, and someone asks you How are you?, it's almost certainly a heartfelt invitation for a genuine response.

userr2684291

Right.

Anonymous

I think it all just depends on context. The listener has to read the situation and decide if the first speaker wants a genuine response, and then they have to decide whether they want to give a genuine response.

Anonymous

I think since we're so practiced in using it as a phatic expression, giving less genuine responses to it comes fairly easily to most people.

Anonymous

I know some people are a bit off-put by the question and don't really know how to respond, though. There are all kinds of people in the world, and some people don't do well with that sort of interaction.

Anonymous

As you might have surmised, I'm the sort who talks too much when given the opportunity :-) I'm very chatty.

userr2684291

13:57

Haha.

Anonymous

Very good explanation. I'd also say that I've never actually actively heard someone say the word (phrase? vocalisation?) 'meh' as part of a sentence (and I'm part of the generation that started using it!). The only use I've actually come across is as a standalone response which I read to be one of the 'not so good' responses. So "Hey, how are you?" -> "Meh", which would read to me as an invitation to ask what's wrong similar to responding with "Not so great". — Ynneadwraith Jul 2 at 13:50

Anonymous

What generation is that, I wonder? People who were alive in 1994 and later?

userr2684291

But you're right, it really depends on the context. If one of my peers asks me What's up? they don't really expect me to answer earnestly, unless we haven't seen each other recently, then that's asking about my studies and stuff like that.

Anonymous

If I had to guess, I'd think that meh is probably most common in people ages 50 and younger.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 You can tell a lot by the tone of voice, I feel.

userr2684291

14:01

My neighbor, however, who sees me every day, asks just What's up? but expects me to stop and tell him everything that's happened to me recently and what I'm gonna be doing next week. He's old and a bit lonely.

Anonymous

My neighbors are Japanese and don't have a lot of other people to talk to, I think.

Anonymous

I don't think they ever really got comfortable with English, despite living here for decades.

userr2684291

Yeah, but that sounds like a great opportunity for you to practice your Japanese.

Anonymous

Oh, sure. I use Japanese every day.

Anonymous

Of course, I also use English every day. I live in the United States. This isn't exactly an immersion environment for me.

Anonymous

14:09

Japanese learners are very competitive and orthodox. They spend a lot of time talking about things like learning methods and who's doing what wrong. I'm happy, though, since I understand people and can express myself fine in Japanese and I can read novels and ling papers, which is about what I need to do :-)

Anonymous

Personally, I spend more time talking with people about learning English than about learning Japanese.

userr2684291

I'm grateful for that, haha.

Anonymous

English is such an interesting language.

userr2684291

Anyway, the ODE says about meh: "1990s: apparently popularized by the US television show The Simpsons."

Anonymous

Yes.

userr2684291

14:12

So... it'd be the generation that watched The Simpsons.

Anonymous

The Simpsons has been pretty influential linguistically.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Well, that's pretty much everyone :-)

Anonymous

It was a really popular show for a long time, and I think people of all ages watched it.

userr2684291

@snailboat Could you expand on that a little? All I can find are a dozen words, really.

Anonymous

Not just individual words. Snowclones like Worst. (fill-in-the-blank) Ever.

userr2684291

14:18

Hah.

Anonymous

itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001787.html

userr2684291

That was interesting, thanks.

Hm...

Yes. It's so good, users are deliberately not upvoting it. Instead, they are upvoting the other questions so as to pretend they agree with them. It's a ruse, a ploy, counter psychology… whatever. But I'm not falling for it. Winning! :P — Mari-Lou A 2 hours ago

Counter psychology?

Anonymous

Presumably reverse psychology.

Anonymous

I haven't heard the counter version before.

userr2684291

14:34

It's just odd hearing it from a native speaker of English.

Anonymous

~~Mari-Lou is not a native speaker of English.~~ (Edit: see userr's message below for correction)

Anonymous

At least, she said she wasn't before.

Anonymous

But if she's not, she has very native-like English.

Anonymous

It's possible I've misremembered or misunderstood.

userr2684291

I think her first language is English but, as she herself says, she's been living in Italy for far too long.

Anonymous

14:42

Maybe so. Well, I don't have a strong interest in keeping track of who is and isn't a native speaker, but I suppose you could ask her if you're interested to know.

Anonymous

Sometimes people don't like it when you ask them, but I sometimes do randomly ask people just that so I know whether to put their sentences down as citations or not.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Even native speakers can make word substitution errors.

userr2684291

Right, and the whatever part Mari-Lou included (although perhaps not because she wasn't sure whether it's counter psychology) is idiomatic in those circumstances.

ell.stackexchange.com/q/7180/3395 confirms what I said above.

Anonymous

Thanks, I see.

Anonymous

I do run into people not too infrequently who say they aren't sure whether they should count themselves as native speakers of a language. I guess it's not always really clear.

userr2684291

14:53

Well, maybe they've started forgetting it, but I think once they get back into an environment where their native language is spoken it shouldn't be too difficult to regain the native-like level they spoke at previously.

Maybe a couple of years and you're as good as new.

Anonymous

I edited my message above to include strikethrough. I don't want to misrepresent people.

userr2684291

Haha. (:

Anonymous

I'm heading out in a few minutes. I'm troubled at the moment because the rat(s) that invaded the house seem to have bled on my floor.

Anonymous

That's not good for the rats, and it's not especially good for me either.

userr2684291

Oh goodness me.

Anonymous

14:58

I'm calling someone today to take care of them and rat-proof the house. I found someone local who handles wild rats humanely.

Anonymous

Anonymous

Look at this cute little guy. Picture taken minutes before he managed to escape the trap.

userr2684291

He's even cute.

Anonymous

That was about a week ago.

userr2684291

Beady-eyed, dirty little thing.

Anonymous

15:00

I'm not sure if it was just a bad trap, or if it was the wrong trap to catch rats, or what. It was supposed to be a live trap that doesn't hurt them. (The snap traps are safer for humans and more reliable, I think, than live trapping.)

Anonymous

I can't tell you how startled I was when the rat managed to smack the door to the trap open and bolt out past my feet.

userr2684291

Hahah, wow.

I had a mouse once climb the drape (very quickly) inches from my face at around 2 a.m. as I was on my PC.

I didn't sleep in that room for the next two days until I cleaned it completely and removed the intruder. We use glue for mice, but rats are a bit more tricky (we haven't really had them).

Once I saw my neighbor's dog carrying a huge rat in his mouth with blood dripping from his jaw (sorry). It was as big as a cat.

@snailboat Oh, by the way, I remember Cowper mentioning the place you live. Ironic, huh? (:

Anonymous

15:30

Rat's Corner.

Anonymous

The poor thing cut itself on one of the larger knives in my kitchen, which was big enough that it doesn't fit entirely into the drying rack, so part of the blade was exposed.

SmokeDetector

20:21

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: Can we say "I'll be there one hour later" instead of "I'll be there in an hour"? by Mary Lynn Löwen II on ell.SE

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