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M.A.R.

10:31 AM

@Lambie What post are you referring to?

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Repeating characters in title (65): ""xxxxxxxxxx," (someone) said." or ""xxxxxxxxxx," said (someone)" by Takashi on ell.SE

Lambie

2:20 PM

@M.A.R. ell.stackexchange.com/questions/258830/… I am struck dumb by the incredible ignorance displayed in those comments and answers. And the two downvotes. Whether there is subject-verb inversion or not, an adjective must follow the "not", regardless. Why don't the honchos ever step up in these cases??

I have noticed over the years in online language forums, that when an entire group of lemmings go over the cliff, the one who doesn't is ignored. I call this "the great silence". I guess people are so shocked by what they hear, they all run away. And those who do know refuse to step up. I've often wondered why that is.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

4:22 PM

@M.A.R. Hi Mar o/

I was wondering if you ever contribute to Wikipedia?

M.A.R.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Hi! Long time no see

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I have only ever contributed very minor edits

CowperKettle

I wrote about a hundred articles in English Wikipedia, but mostly very small ones

Like this one:

Copper Kettle

"Copper Kettle" (also known as "Get you a Copper Kettle", "In the pale moonlight") is a song composed by Albert Frank Beddoe and made popular by Joan Baez. Pete Seeger's account dates the song to 1946, mentioning its probable folk origin, while in a 1962 Time readers column A. F. Beddoe says that the song was written by him in 1953 as part of the folk opera Go Lightly, Stranger. The song praises the good aspects of moonshining as told to the listener by a man whose "daddy made whiskey, and granddaddy did too". The line "We ain't paid no whiskey tax since 1792" alludes to an unpopular tax imposed...

Lambie

@M.A.R. Are you ignoring my answer to your question? That's what people do around here: deflect, deflect, deflect, as it were.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

4:38 PM

A friend of mine's written a Wiki post on a famous Iranian daf player. However, because the musician is Iranian, and not well known in the West, all of the links are to sources in Farsi, including for example national Iranian TV/news outlets. A couple of mod-like people are preventing the post from appearing because they say there are no 'reputable' sources. Apparently they don't count Iranian sources as 'reputable' or 'reliable' or whatever. ...

My friend's stumped about what to do ... Any ideas @CowperKettle and @M.A.R.?

CowperKettle

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Is there an article in the Iranian Wikipedia section about the same player?

One article about a Russian musician I wrote was also deleted from English Wikipedia. So it goes. In some cases, there is not enough hard evidence to justify inclusion.

The article on Cerebral folate deficiency I wrote was deleted rapidly, and I had to put some effort to reinstate it.

M.A.R.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. well uh, I'm not certain how those work, but an article in Persian should improve the chances. If they still insist the sources aren't reputable, it might be worth simply asking the mods how to make it work.

CowperKettle

There are a lot of inner Wikipedia discussion pages where one could ask for help. Like Village Pump

Araucaria - Not here any more.

@M.A.R. Do you mean write the article in Persian?

Thanks for the useful info @CowperKettle!!!

M.A.R.

@Lambie I saw your response, the question and the responses to it, but I forgot to respond in chat. I'm just gonna put this out there: you're evidently a knowledgeable person, but you're a bit difficult. Not just around me, but in general. Assuming people are ignoring your response deliberately, it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The alternative is calmly, kindly explaining why you're certain the construction is made up, because even in that post I can sense that that crucial piece

. . . of information is lost in how loudly you're voicing your objection.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. yeah, what Cowp said

Araucaria - Not here any more.

4:49 PM

Thanks :)

M.A.R.

I think I certainly remember articles about people that contained sources in another language.

Lambie

@M.A.R. That is quite an extrapolation you make there. I'm "difficult" so that's why I got four downvotes?? How do you explain the upvotes (many) on straight out wrong answers? Here's what I think: regardless of my personality, which, by the way, does not come out in my answer, I began my participating by asking: where does this quote come from? And when people like BillJ put under my answer: this is basically nonsense, what do you say>

M.A.R.

@Lambie No, what I mean is perhaps the downvoters don't comment because engaging in a discussion where their stance would be belittled and called nonsense, as opposed to a calmer, more pleasant discussion of how the language works and doesn't work, might contribute to your feeling of being ignored, regardless of whether that sentence is absolutely ungrammatical or not

Lambie

The question and my answer and the other answers are an case in point of the kind of aporia that arises on ELL and the ozzer site and which cannot be resolved unless the honchos (you know who I mean) decide to upvote and/or comment. My objections became "loud" after all the answers were up. The downvotes came right away.

But no one even commented on my answer. So, it's a pity really. Some people get to make personal comments to me and stentorian comments ("this is grammatical") which makes everyone else ignore the obvious.

My actual answer is very calm. And the OP did not even bother to answer my question.

M.A.R.

There are quite a few assumptions here, with which I occasionally find myself making too: 1) the downvotes are the blind leading the blind, people who don't know what they're talking about 2) the people are deliberately ignoring you, as opposed to not taking the extra effort of commenting, 3) that you're definitely right, there has never been this sort of inversion or whatever it is in English

I haven't encountered this personally, and I haven't taken the effort to confirm it's a mistranslation, so I can't make these assumptions myself

Lambie

5:01 PM

@M.A.R. Correct. It is not the inversion that is wrong. It is the not placing the Not next to an adjective. My goodness, basic advanced literary knowledge.

M.A.R.

@Lambie I'm not sure I know who you mean. The active userbase? The other answerers?

Lambie

@M.A.R. It is not a mistranslation: it is a translation rendered in incorrect English. I am saying, as a translator with 30 years in the saddle, that it can only be a translation. There are too many red flags.

@M.A.R. Sorry, what do you mean?

M.A.R.

@Lambie who are the honchos you're referring to?

Well, this answer, which gets things wrong, that I can confirm:

"Hardly is he brave who kills a tiger." Not grammatical. Grammatical would be: "Hardly brave is he who kills a tiger." hardly, never and scarcely have to stay next to the adjective brave. I guess no one really understand inversions around here. — Lambie 19 hours ago

Lambie

@M.A.R. The guys with 20-page resumes. You know. Shall I name a couple? :)

M.A.R.

People will fixate on your "I guess no one really understands inversions . . . "

Lambie

5:06 PM

Well,that came way later. And it's true and it's not even aggressive.

M.A.R.

A better critique IMHO would have been to straightforwardly challenge how they're applying the pattern with "hardly" to this case.

It doesn't even have "hardly"! Straightforwardly, so the answerer couldn't evade the question

Lambie

@M.A.R. But I did write it. You quoted it above. What more could I do??

M.A.R.

@Lambie it's the sort of comment that will only invoke thinking if it's directed at a philosopher. People on the internet will see fit to look at the screen with a grim expression and remember not to like you in a later post.

There's no accountability with that

Lambie

Even saints sometimes lose patience. At least I didn't write: go learn basic grammar as one guy said to me.

M.A.R.

Well that's just rude. And is stupid this:

Yes, it's grammatical; even beautiful. Because it is not the normal or 'contemporary' way of saying this it forces the reader to carefully consider what is being said; to slow down. — MarkK 24 hours ago

Wait, the first answerer is saying it's wrong

So . . . Hmm

Lambie

5:15 PM

@M.A.R.What's your point about that last quote you just gave?

M.A.R.

Well, that comment is outright wrong, stupid even. That's something to lash out at, with big words and ugly subtle rhetoric

The first answer is saying it's wrong, that's how I'm reading, although they're a bit hesitant to give the final verdict.

Bill keeps saying it's right, so one would encourage him to write an answer explaining his stance

I'd like to see SF's answer backed up, it sounds useless without it

Lambie

@M.A.R. Well, now you have confused me. That comment from Mark is uninformed, but wrong and stupid even? And you tell me I'm difficult? I think to say: I guess no one knows x, is not aggressive. It's a half-decent way of saying no one knows what the hell they are talking about....

M.A.R.

@Lambie well, I'm not defending any answer on that thread, so I can make such a comment liberally. Starting a war in the comments about how misguided yoda-speak-is-beautiful people are is pointless, or I would have commented there instead of here.

You should take a glimpse at 2018 meta SO to see how many people consider bluntness to be rude. (Yeah, Dutch people often run into problems in PC environments) I'm still offering that as an explanation why one answer has 6 votes and the other -2. It doesn't have much to do with correctness, and that sucks, but it's ELL, not a peer-reviewed journal

Lambie

@M.A.R. You should consider defending mine as it is the only one that is anywhere near being accurate. I am not starting any war. Here's my opinion: the answers are all BS because people don't even realize the thing is a translation, a bad translation, with poor English.

M.A.R.

@Lambie it's a translation from Latin?

Lambie

5:30 PM

@M.A.R. Oh, oh, oh....that thing you said about Dutch people. Yes, I see what you mean. I doubt that it is from Latin. More likely some Indian language due to the tiger. Or Spanish or Portuguese due to the lack of a subject: Not is brave....

I pointed out the red flags in my answer and what pisses me off is the OP's apparent refusal to say where he or she got the thing.

OR It could be from Latin by a non-native English speaker.

M.A.R.

@Lambie I doubt they would ever provide references. It's such an alien concept, to a majority of people, not just non-native speakers of English

Anyway, gotta go study some. TTYL

Lambie

What is an alien concept??

okay, thanks for the chat.

M.A.R.

Providing sources for claims

Lambie

5:49 PM