Language Overflow

Man_From_India

04:51

This is taken from here

It claims the following sentence is incorrect -

> On the day of the match, everyone hoped for fine weather.

It says that preposition for and about is incorrect. And the correct was of. My answer was for, and I think of/about are impossible.

At least in this particular sentence.

M.A.Ramezani

06:56

o/ @Dam!

How's your day?

I'm thinking about a question for ELL.

Damkerng T.

Hi! Good. Thanks! -- What is it?

M.A.Ramezani

Let me see and Google and see if it's even logical.

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India I think hope of/about sounds really wrong.

M.A.Ramezani

Nah. It doesn't make a good one.

@Man_From_India Are they FLAWLESS too?

Damkerng T.

Hope of may work if hope is a noun.

M.A.Ramezani

07:01

@Man_From_India However, with a for, I'm expecting an a before fine.

Damkerng T.

Hmm...

Let's check (both hope the verb with of/about, and a fine weather)...

[hope].[v*] [ii*] (corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=40240660): 1532 results, 11 are hope about, none for [hope] of.

Wait, why is there no [hope] for?

[hope].[v*] for|to|of|about (corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=40240671): 28384 results, 21 hope of (all but few are false positives), 14 hope about

The false positives are like We hope of course.

Among those few hope of are:

> It was akin to first confronting my mortality because I learned that I could not depend on my body to do all that I expected and hoped of it.

> And so while we're sending out block grants, while we're dismantling programs that have not completely satisfied everything we hoped of them, we have to concern ourselves about those who may be cut loose, and we have to be prepared to help them.

> It was so dark and shadowed we couldn't even hope of finding a gas can among those mystery metal shapes and barrels, and the smell of farm animals and the sound of their shifting in stalls in the deep back blackness of the barn.

> We'll be right back with Ambassador Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, the Ambassador to Bahrain from Saudi Arabia, and more of your phone calls - we hope of the normal variety.

> I think that the position of the administration - and I would hope of the other Western nations - would be to say to Gorbachev,' You now have the full support of Yeltsin. ...'

M.A.Ramezani

@Dam BTW my question was whether if any of these were "more correct":

> My point exactly.

> Exactly my point.

Now, I see they aren't that different.

Damkerng T.

I've heard My point exactly more often.

Right.

M.A.Ramezani

07:16

I think I think too much.

Damkerng T.

These hope of above sounds a bit like expect of, which is possible when we mean expect (something) of someone. I'm not sure if it's really work with hope, but maybe it does.

In any case, weather is not a person.

M.A.Ramezani

That is weird.

@Dam have you seen the latest meta question?

Damkerng T.

replied in the Cabin.

About hope for/of (a) fine weather...

You can check out the results of this https://www.google.com/search?q="hope+*+fine+weather"

(Only 6 pages)

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. What does that asterisk do?

Damkerng T.

Any (number of any) words.

So, it's a bit unfortunate that that site conflates hope the verb with hope the noun.

M.A.Ramezani

07:34

That's Google. It's never helpful when it should be.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani I meant the site Man_From_India linked to.

M.A.Ramezani

Dunno @Dam, maybe pazzo flared up on the site because of the meta.SE post.

Oh!

Damkerng T.

Let's talk about that in another room, either the main room or the Cabin is fine with me.

M.A.Ramezani

OK.

Man_From_India

08:08

@M.A.Ramezani Right :)

@DamkerngT. I also think so.

M.A.Ramezani

Who dares summon me?

Oh hullo @Man!

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. I think I have found examples of "hope of someone" in COCA

@M.A.Ramezani Hi...how is everything going?

M.A.Ramezani

Dang this printer.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Now see how these so called educational sites are! :'( They should not be such careless :(

Damkerng T.

11:34

This could be fun (and funny too, maybe) to read:

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2470

lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/passives.html

(Look at those red marks (incorrectly) marking the bashed passive voices.)

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. tl;dr.

Damkerng T.

Try the second link. Should be more obvious.

M.A.Ramezani

Holy s*it!

Damkerng T.

From the first link (Language Log):

> I have seen a paper marked by a teaching assistant who was wrong concerning 70 percent of the passives that he red-circled in a student paper, but this is more extreme.

Quite likely, the assistant is a native speaker.

M.A.Ramezani

Or, from a language that hates passives.

Damkerng T.

11:40

But we can't know for sure.

nods

> Why play grammarian when you don't have a clue about the grammatical structure of your native language, rather than do something you might be good at, like writing political analysis in your native language? To pick up prestige? Grammarians are high-prestige role models? I don't think so.

> --Geoffrey K. Pullum

M.A.Ramezani

11:55

@DamkerngT. Poor guy though, their idiotic mistakes went viral.

Damkerng T.

Viral?

M.A.Ramezani

Internetal. Something!

Damkerng T.

I didn't know that his corrections are well-known.

But they're sure in the public now.

('in public' would be better)

Damkerng T.

12:49

1

A: easy-going vs easy going

Hyphens often disappear over time as compound adjectives become more established phrases, so it's no surprise that the hyphen in easy going is disappearing in some places. The Ngram for this is pretty nifty; as the two-word phrase rose in popularity, authors began to dispense with the hyphen, e...

Another language change. (Nice graph, BTW)

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. They changed English because I use very easygoing rather than the other options.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! :D

M.A.Ramezani

413

Q: Can Stack Overflow and Meta's logos be changed temporarily to the "#LoveOverflows" logo?

Stack Exchange just tweeted this image following the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in favor of gay marriage: #LoveWins #LoveOverflows Please can this be made the logo for a couple of days? I'm thinking Stack Overflow. LoveOverflow chat room for the more... off topic discussions...

WHAT A DRAMA!

Damkerng T.

I'd had no idea that it can be spelled easygoing until I saw that graph.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. I had no idea about the hyphenated form.

Man_From_India

12:52

Some time back noticed pazzo's "nuke my profile" post. Why is he leaving? Any idea?

Damkerng T.

Oh! The hyphenated one is my default spelling.

@Man_From_India I have no idea. Haven't been on the main site much lately.

M.A.Ramezani

btw

BTW

btw

My rep is 5333.

Damkerng T.

Is it a prime number or something?

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Nor do I :( but why on earth he is up to deleting his profile completely? :O

Oh I just won 400 bounty from Pazzo :D

Damkerng T.

Usually, when this kind of thing happens, it's a result of what happened within previous 24 hours.

M.A.Ramezani

12:55

@DamkerngT. No. It's an interesting number. a five and three threes.

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India Yay! Congrats!

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Thanks :-) but it's basically due to ur help :) u showed me PEU entry first. So thank u.

Damkerng T.

It was my pleasure!

Man_From_India

It's very unfortunate that he is leaving :'(

Damkerng T.

You added your own analysis, which is very fine, imo, too. :-)

Yes. It's a little sad.

Man_From_India

12:57

:-)

M.A.Ramezani

Where's snailboat?

Damkerng T.

That's another sad thing...

M.A.Ramezani

An employee has to review your request. Please give it a little time. Employees can go through a special process that preserves your votes by transferring them to Community before the account is removed. (Moderators can delete accounts themselves but generally don't when they're high rep accounts—that's left for employees to deal with.) — snailboat 2 hours ago

Damkerng T.

But I saw her on the meta the last hour.

nods

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Especially becse he was a contributing member. Nice answers from him.

Damkerng T.

12:58

Indeed!

Man_From_India

@M.A.Ramezani Same thing I was thinking :)

Anonymous

@Man_From_India I'm here!

Anonymous

I snuck into the room without an invitation.

Damkerng T.

Oh, hello! @snailboat!

Everyone misses you!

Anonymous

Sometimes I need to take a break from chat :-)

M.A.Ramezani

12:59

@snailboat Fireworks!

Man_From_India

@snailboat It sounded like Rocky Balboa in Rocky III :D

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY YOU'RE HERE! AND YES, I'M YELLING!

Man_From_India

Welcome back @snailboat

Anonymous

Ahh! Caps lock!

M.A.Ramezani

It's fun, not as fun as LaTeX$\ldots$.

Anonymous

13:01

I logged back in to ELL today. A user asked a question on Japanese.SE about how to translate some English sentences, but the English sentences didn't quite work. So I suggested they head over here :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ahh

M.A.Ramezani

Oh.

Anonymous

1

Q: Is this use of "define" correct?

I'm asking this because my question on Japanese.SE will be answered with different meaning and nuance (possibly ambiguous question) I have these sentences "How X is defined as being Y?" "How X is defined to be Y?" "How to define X as Y?" (assume X is a noun word and Y is an adjec...

grammar meaning

M.A.Ramezani

And while you're at it, I went on a rampage in The Periodic Table.

Damkerng T.

I haven't noticed a translation question... --- Oh!

Anonymous

13:02

A rampage, eh?

M.A.Ramezani

Everyone's abusing $\LaTeX$ now.

in The Periodic Table, 27 mins ago, by M.A.Ramezani

Screw that. $\fbox{Here's a button}$

See for yourself.

Anonymous

I don't have ChatJax turned on.

M.A.Ramezani

Bookmarklet! meta.chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/89/7448

You can make a bookmark of the code in Martin's answer.

It also has mhchem enabled, since that package is REALLY necessary in an English Language chatroom.

Man_From_India

Time to play, see you guys later :)

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India Have some fun!

M.A.Ramezani

13:05

@Man_From_India Play volleyball?

Cya anyways.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But be careful―if you say "Semantic satiation strikes again!" enough, it loses all meaning!

Damkerng T.

Hehe! You read the log! :D

Anonymous

I went to the beginning of the chat to find out what this room was about.

M.A.Ramezani

BTW @snailboat while you were absent, all the dramatic news happened here: Ramadan started, Iran reached the crucial moments of volleyball world league matches, and that's about it.

Damkerng T.

I can tell you my idea my idea about the three rooms very briefly.

English Language Leaners: quick corrections + main site stuff/management

M.A.Ramezani

13:09

Basically, only the pieces of news about me are the exciting news.

Damkerng T.

ELL's cabin: long-term learning + hang out.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. And jibber-jabbers.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani That, too.

Language Overflow: Random thoughts about language, language learning, learners, and their language

:P

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani News is singular.

Damkerng T.

Originally, its name was Damkerng's Language Overflow. :P

M.A.Ramezani

13:10

Yes.

I somehow ended up pluralizing that.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ah, I see!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't think people typically pronounce it that way...? But those vowels are pretty close, I suppose.

Anonymous

chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2015/05/18/…

Damkerng T.

Like a loose /e/ sound, perhaps?

> Exactly what we need for the purpose at hand: Competence is what you expect; performance is what you get.

:-)

Thanks for an interesting post!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, vowels vary a bit each time, right? No two pronunciations of a vowel are ever exactly alike. And if the [ɛ] is pronounced just a little bit more open than usual, it might sound more like [æ].

Anonymous

13:16

Alternatively, because they're so close to begin with, it's easy to imagine that the OP misheard the pronunciation.

Anonymous

I don't know. There's a lot of variation in vowel realization in English across accents, and I don't know a lot about it.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I thought the OP's listening must've been involved.

Anonymous

That was my first guess.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's the definition I'm going to use from now on!

Damkerng T.

Hah! :-)

Anonymous

13:19

1

Q: Active/passive voice

It would be a great help to me,if someone avoid my doubt in the following two sentences, considering each separately. 1) It is being cautious.(typical sentence for an animal), 2) It is being organized.(it refers to some event) Are both of these sentences in present continuous tense (in...

active-voice

Damkerng T.

It's a very tricky thing, imho.

Anonymous

I think the second example is ambiguous with respect to category. Is organized an adjective or a past participial verb form?

Damkerng T.

Yes!

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat My first thoughts too.

Damkerng T.

Pazzo posted an interesting answer to another related question:

1

A: "I am surprised": passive voice or adjective?

This is an answer in progress. Expect a lot of downvotes. I accept that this is an answer in progress. Yet I have placed a 500-point bounty over at the ELU question that allegedly has a canonical answer to your question: How can I reliably and accurately identify the passive voice in writing or s...

M.A.Ramezani

13:21

> This is an answer in progress. Expect a lot of downvotes.

I think I know what's going on.

@Pazzo wasn't enjoying this anymore.

He was being cynical about the community back there.

I blame ~~ELU~~ unicorns.

Anonymous

What if we kept that sort of discussion in the other room?

Damkerng T.

nods

M.A.Ramezani

Yes, OK OK.

But if you wanna only have languagic discussions here, I suggest throwing me out.

I always go off-topic.

Damkerng T.

I said this a ~~couple~~ few days ago:

Jun 22 at 17:42, by Damkerng T.

I try to aim at 80% meat, and 20% casual; but I'm not a super-strict person.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. They don't like deep center embedding.

Anonymous

13:25

In general, higher levels of nesting are more easily tolerated at the periphery

Anonymous

That is to say, nesting works better towards the left or right edge of the sentence. Especially the right.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Is deep center embedding a linguistic term?

looking...

Anonymous

Your example is an example of center embedding.

Anonymous

That is, embedding in the center.

Anonymous

Center embedding

In linguistics, center embedding refers to the process of embedding a phrase in the middle of another phrase of the same type. This often leads to difficulty with parsing which would be difficult to explain on grammatical grounds alone. The most frequently used example involves embedding a relative clause inside another one as in: A man that a woman loves A man that a woman that a child knows loves A man that a woman that a child that a bird saw knows loves A man that a woman that a child that a bird that I heard saw knows loves In theories of natural language parsing, the difficulty with multiple...

Damkerng T.

13:26

A-ha!

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. Of course it is. How could you doubt @snail?

Anonymous

When you do it more than once, you have multiple center embedding.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani True!

Anonymous

When something is deeply embedded, that means it's embedded multiple times.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. Seems you've forgotten the conventions here.

Anonymous

13:27

But my emphasis was on the "center" part.

M.A.Ramezani

@snail talks, we star.

Damkerng T.

I can't think of periphery embedding clearly.

Anonymous

ling.helsinki.fi/~fkarlsso/ceb5.pdf

Damkerng T.

I could use some examples, I think.

Anonymous

books.google.com/…

Anonymous

13:30

mcgill.ca/neurocoglab/files/neurocoglab/…

Damkerng T.

> The ancient manuscript that the grad student who the new card catalog had confused a great deal was studying in the library was missing a page.

Somehow it seems to be more tolerable than 3-level center embedding sentences.

(Still not sure about the criteria for center embedding.)

Anonymous

They're embedded in the center.

Anonymous

Sent[ Sent[ Sentence 3 ]ence 2 ]ence 1

Anonymous

Like that.

Anonymous

Except pretend I wrote clause instead of sentence.

Damkerng T.

13:34

Thank you very much for introducing me to a great subject!

Anonymous

Now imagine a sentence with a bunch of relative clauses at the end. Or even just a couple.

Anonymous

books.google.co.jp/…

Anonymous

If you want examples of stacked relatives, you can look up "stacked relatives".

Anonymous

Or maybe you could look up unbounded dependency constructions. Those are probably a better example.

Anonymous

I guess stacked relatives are stacked and not really embedded in one another :-)

M.A.Ramezani

13:39

This is very interesting!

Anonymous

Hmm, where to find a good example of multiple embedding at the right periphery...?

Anonymous

I think there might be an example in Aspects.

Anonymous

I'm too lazy to check. :-)

M.A.Ramezani

I vote for internet.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat How about: Here is the ancient manuscript that had confused the grad student who was studying in the library a great deal.

:D

Anonymous

13:40

@DamkerngT. Oh! That works! :-)

M.A.Ramezani

Very interesting. You guys are making me make my writing even more incomprehensible.

Damkerng T.

Lots of good search keywords up there.

@M.A.Ramezani LOL

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani The internet is good. Right now I'm too lazy to grab any book that isn't within arm's reach of my computer.

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat Me too.

Anonymous

Which is actually a decent number, since my floor is covered in books.

Anonymous

13:44

Not like covered covered. I'm just resorting to a little hyperbole :-)

Anonymous

My floor is actually covered by carpet.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat You may confuse your books with your tiles. :P

Anonymous

But I do have lots of stacks of books around.

Anonymous

I wish I picked better books for my piles, though. A lot of these books, I'm never going to read or refer to again.

Anonymous

I just read The Martian by Andy Weir. It was really good.

Anonymous

13:46

So that's my most recent book. The trade paperback :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's the one the movie is based on!

Anonymous

Oh! Right, yeah, they're making a movie!

Anonymous

I recommend reading the book!

Anonymous

It's short. I read it in one sitting.

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat You do that too?

Anonymous

13:47

It's hard not to. It's a real page-turner! And funny :-)

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani Sometimes.

Anonymous

1

Q: Is this use of "define" correct?

I have these sentences "How is X defined as being Y?" "How is X defined to be Y?" "How to define X as Y?" (assume X is a noun word and Y is an adjective word) Take "How is volcano defined as being active?" for example. Are those grammatically correct? Are those giving differe...

grammar meaning

M.A.Ramezani

If I get down to reading a story book, I read it until it finishes. And nothing will stop me, certainly not a bunch of brain explosions, apocalypses, @Dam's pinging me etc.

Anonymous

This question is going to get closed, it looks like

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Just bought it!

M.A.Ramezani

13:49

Oh no, I'm 3 reps away from close votes!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yay!

Damkerng T.

I think it's a duplicate. (At least about the part How is ...? vs. How to ...?)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That seems strange.

Anonymous

In certain circles, these forms are described like this:

Anonymous

> take + -ed = took
> take + -en = taken
> walk + -ed = walked
> walk + -en = walked

Anonymous

13:52

Which might also seem a little weird.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think it's because most of verbs in their past participle forms have the -ed ending.

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm$\ldots$

Anonymous

Yeah. In regular verbs, there's no past tense - past participle contrast

Damkerng T.

So, maybe PEU made a good call. (Calling the past participle form the -ed form, and avoiding saying anything about the past form entirely.)

Anonymous

The problem is that "-ed form" often refers to the past tense (or preterite) form, so people might get confused.

Damkerng T.

13:55

nods

Anonymous

I think I called past participle forms -ed forms before.

Anonymous

But I do all sorts of crazy things. It's 'cause I get confused easily.

Damkerng T.

I'm not even sure what I used to use the -ed form for.

M.A.Ramezani

To ed'ing?

Anonymous

My favorite is "-ing form."

Damkerng T.

14:01

It's my favorite too!

Anonymous

Gerund-participial form is not only mouthful but an eyeful and a brainful as well

Anonymous

And -ing attaches more or less without exception to every non-defective verb in English

Damkerng T.

Sometimes it's really difficult to judge whether it's a gerund or a participle.

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat That's why I put it there.

Damkerng T.

Oh, that define question is cross-posted on ELU, too!

Anonymous

14:04

Yeah, it looks like it kinda is.

Anonymous

0

Q: What "How is X defined as being Y" is actually asking?

Take "How is volcano defined as being active?" for example. Is it answered with one of these answers: Make forth the meaning of "active volcano" Features of a volcano that make a volcano can be defined as being "active volcano" or features of a volcano make it such that we would classify it as...

grammar

Anonymous

1

Q: How to say "How is X defined as being Y?"

"How is X defined as being Y?" is similar with "How is X defined to be Y?", and "How to define X as Y?". Assume X is noun word and Y is adjective word. However, I'm not sure if those are similar in Japanese. From my understanding, I can form the Japanese sentence with these words: 何【ど】の様【よう】...

grammar

Damkerng T.

Oh! It's from JLSE!

Anonymous

Uh-huh. I suggested they head over to ELL!

Anonymous

"How X is defined as being Y?", "How X is defined to be Y?", and "How defines X as Y?" are all ungrammatical. (The first two have marginal uses as echo questions, but that doesn't appear to be what you intended.) I suggest visiting ELL.SE. — snailboat ♦ 2 hours ago

Damkerng T.

14:07

I think "Volcano is defined as being active" is a weird sentence in English.

Anonymous

It is.

Damkerng T.

But This volcano is said to be active is fine.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah! I do. It is very colloquial, though. "I like to post pictures of snails. Because snails."

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah :-)

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat Seeing that diamond makes my body shiver. Vvvvv.

Anonymous

14:10

@M.A.Ramezani ♦

Anonymous

Enjoy your frisson!

M.A.Ramezani

Enjoying . . . Please wait

Anonymous

Please waiting!

Anonymous

Please waiting complete.

M.A.Ramezani

That is the most charming phrasal compound verb thingy we made so far.

Damkerng T.

14:16

@snailboat A-ha! I remember you used it. Not sure if it was about snails. But now we can be sure that you've said it at least once about snails. :D

enjoyed a browser crash for a few minutes...

Anonymous

Oh no!

Anonymous

One of my snails crashed a few minutes ago.

Damkerng T.

Oh no!

Anonymous

They were sleeping on the wall, and another snail snailed up to them and pushed them off!

Damkerng T.

How can that possibly happen!?

Ouch!

Anonymous

14:17

They woke up upside down!

M.A.Ramezani

Jealousy.

HarryCBurn

Hullo!

Damkerng T.

Hello!

HarryCBurn

How are we?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I can't believe what I see in the first sentence of the novel!

We are okay!

HarryCBurn

14:29

@snailboat And then the robots invaded!

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. What can you see?

Damkerng T.

Two novels in a row that have f*ck(ed) in the opening sentence.

Maybe it's trending.

Anonymous

14:41

Well, it gets the reader's attention. :-)

Damkerng T.

It does!

Man_From_India

@M.A.Ramezani No, today I did just jogging and mostly played with my neighbour's little kid :-)

M.A.Ramezani

Teehee

Man_From_India

:-)

3

Q: Verb "contribute to" + "doing something"

I would like to contribute to arresting that man. Is this grammatically correct? I mean to have an influence on / bring about arresting him.

grammar verb-forms

Do you think that usage is ungrammatical? I found lots of hit in COCA and BNC.

Anonymous

14:58

@Man_From_India Perfectly grammatical. Maybe a tad strange, but grammatical :-)

Man_From_India

Strange? :O okay...might be...but there are lots of example in corpus.

M.A.Ramezani

@Man_From_India How often will you hear that?

Anonymous

Examples of what, exactly?

M.A.Ramezani

Rather than hearing

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