Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

01:50

2

Q: How do I know if the word is step or glide in English

Today I had a lesson in school about steps and glides and I didn't understand it. My first question what is about steps and glides. My second question is how do I know if the sentence ends with steps or glide? Here are some examples: She is friendly and outgoing. The sentence ends with ...

pronunciation

An interesting technique for teaching pronunciation.

> And some words have different stresses with different meanings. Outgoing, for instance, has a primary stress on -GO- when it means "extroverted", but on OUT- when it means departing: ...

Oh, that's new to me!

Maybe it's more like OUTGOing and OUTgoing.

Damkerng T.

03:52

> Elise: Invite me to dinner, Frank?
Frank Taylor: What?
Elise: [gives him a look]
Frank Taylor: Would you like to have dinner?
Elise: Women don't like questions.
Frank Taylor: Join me for dinner.
Elise: Too demanding.
Frank Taylor: Join me for dinner?
Elise: Another question.
Frank Taylor: [thinks for a moment] I'm having dinner, if you'd care to join me.
Elise: [smiles at him]

> The Tourist (2010)

A short, but very interesting dialogue.

It shows how subtle our language can be.

Man_From_India

08:54

I always thought the following is ungrammatical, because according to grammar we should use fewer instead of less.

> Less than 1000 people were rescued from the accident site.

But I found less than * people in BBC news articles. So a bit confused. Help!

Damkerng T.

09:18

@Man_From_India I think strictly speaking, it should be fewer; however, I remember I've read somewhere that it's quite relaxed now.

I think it's because some people read it this way:

> [ less than 1000 ] people ...

While traditionally, it would be,

> [ fewer than ] 1000 people

Anonymous

09:49

@Man_From_India itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html

2

Anonymous

> Here is the rule as it is usually encountered: fewer refers to number among things that are counted, and less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured. This rule is simple enough and easy enough to follow. It has only one fault -- it is not accurate for all usage.

Anonymous

> If we were to write the rule from the observation of actual usage, it would be the same for fewer: fewer does refer to number among things that are counted. However, it would be different for less: less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted. Our amended rule describes the actual usage of the past thousand years or so.

Anonymous

> The OED shows that less has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great -- he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin -- more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially less has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language.

Anonymous

> After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that fewer might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker's lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe less used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated.

Anonymous

So it's not really that the rule became more relaxed. Rather, less for countables has been around as far back as our records go. Centuries later, someone decided it was a bad idea, but that hasn't really changed the English language very much.

Damkerng T.

09:59

nods

Perhaps it's like the singular they.

BTW, good morning!

Anonymous

Morning! :-)

Damkerng T.

I forgot to say "Good July!" to you yesterday. :-)

Well, I think I can say it today, too, anyway. So, good July!

Anonymous

10:18

Merry midyear!

Damkerng T.

Merry midyear! (I missed the leap second, though!)

Damkerng T.

12:58

4

Q: Why don't we add an "s" on to these verbs?

Why we don't add an "s" on to the verb in these examples? John, turn on the light. Stig, eat your breakfast. Maya, wait a minute, please. I learned in school if the verb comes before "he", "she", or "it" we add an "s" on to the verb. I am looking forward to the answer, and I appr...

grammar verb-forms imperative

This should be a good topic for further research.

Is it a mood? Is it ellipsis?

I've just noticed its similarity to another construction: It's important that you be careful.

Damkerng T.

13:30

> Nowadays writing teachers are more likely to recognize that many professional writers use sentence fragments repeatedly and artfully, often several at a time, in criticism, journalism, fiction, biography, history, essays.

> Often the fragments are linked semantically or syntactically to words in the preceding and following sentences. Some are like appositives in their relation to words that precede or follow. Fragments are still usually avoided, however, in legal, medical, scientific, and engineering documents, treatises, articles, and even correspondence.

> --Artful Sentences

Anonymous

The same form of the verb is used for infinitive, imperative, and subjunctive clauses. So, you might call this the infinitive-imperative-subjunctive form. But "plain form" is shorter, so CGEL uses that.

Anonymous

That doesn't mean that imperatives are infinitives, or that infinitives are subjunctives, etc.

Anonymous

There are distributional and semantic criteria for distinguishing the three.

Damkerng T.

13:50

wondering about the criteria, but I guess CGEL would list them...

-1

Q: How could I address students with a higher grade than me?

I know the word upperclassman but it means a junior or senior student in an American high school, college, or university. If I was a freshman I cannot call a sophomore an upperclassman. What the word should mean: to not only be a junior or senior student but a student with any higher grade. What'...

word-choice word-request

Could be used as an example to show that we can't completely separate culture from language.

Man_From_India

14:05

@snailboat Thanks for the link :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. When I say "distributional", I'm really referring to syntax. When the plain form appears in a clause that has the syntactic shape of an imperative clause, you can refer to that clause as imperative, and that has associated semantic traits (confined in time, prototypically used for directives, subject usually omitted when it's you), whereas if it has the syntactic shape of an infinitival clause, we call it an infinitive, and that has associated semantic traits as well

Anonymous

Since the syntactic and semantic traits of an infinitival clause are not a superset of the syntactic and semantic traits of an imperative clause, it seems like a mistake to say that imperative clauses have the verb in "infinitive" form

Anonymous

@Man_From_India It comes up a lot :-)

Anonymous

> 1. Someday I want [ to move to New York. ]
> 2. *Someday I want [ nobody move! ]

Anonymous

Although both bracketed clauses use the plain form of the verb, the clauses have different distribution. You can't substitute one for the other and end up with a grammatical sentence.

Anonymous

14:12

There are syntactic differences both within the clause, and with respect to the role the clause plays in the rest of the sentence.

Man_From_India

@snailboat But it's correct - Someday I want (that) nobody moves?

Right?

Anonymous

> Someday I want [ for nobody to move. ]

Man_From_India

But the sentence with that is incorrect? And do they mean differently?

Anonymous

The sentence with that is non-standard.

Man_From_India

@snailboat Oh ok thanks :-)

Damkerng T.

14:23

A marginal sentence: >:P

> Someday I'll demand nobody move.

Anonymous

"I want [ that-clause ]" is non-standard, but it does appear in some dialects.

Anonymous

There's also a bit of dialect, often parodied, in which "You want me to" is replaced with "You want I should"

Anonymous

And similar.

Anonymous

(I'm not sure how to describe it generally)

Damkerng T.

0

Q: would try to undermine

"The perception is that somebody would try to undermine Russia as a country that opposes the United States, and then we will need to defend ourselves by military means," he explained. Source: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war I am not sure in what sense the auxiliary verb "would"...

meaning

This may be the fourth question I've seen this week that states that would means habit or repeated actions in the past.

Oh, BTW, what is the tense of I'll be there tomorrow?

The simple present?

Or no tense?

Anonymous

14:32

There are two verbs. The first is a modal auxiliary, and if we grant that will and would are forms of the same word, and we call these tenses, and if we call these the present and past tenses, then will is present tense. Be is non-finite and has no tense

Damkerng T.

nods -- Makes sense. Thanks!

Anonymous

It's not simple present; will is there.

Anonymous

Simple present is simply: "I'm there tomorrow."

Anonymous

Once you add an analytic marker of aspect (be V-ing or have V-ed) or modality (will V, may V) it's no longer simple

Damkerng T.

18:02

3

Q: When can we use the words "presume" and "assume"?

According to Merriam-Webster, presume means to expect or assume especially with confidence to suppose to be true without proof while assume means to pretend to have or be to take as granted or true Does it mean they are somewhat synonymous and can be used in a sentence interchangeably...

word-usage word-choice synonyms

A very close pair.

M.A.Ramezani

Yep.

Anonymous

18:21

But they aren't interchangeable.

Damkerng T.

Indeed.

> Let's *presume that A, B, and C are integers, ...

Anonymous

18:34

Also, presume relates to presumptuous, but assume has no corresponding *assumptuous

M.A.Ramezani

19:06

@snailboat I know what word I'm gonna coin next time. . .

Damkerng T.

0

Q: In agreement with, In accordance with

I have a question about "in agreement with" and "in accordance with". Dictionaries think they are approximately the same. But for these sentence pairs: 1a. He acted in agreement with the rules. 1b. He acted in accordance with the rules. 2a. His behavior was in agreement with the ...

grammar meaning usage

Another similar pair.

grammarist.com/usage/accord-accordance

M.A.Ramezani

Not that similar.

Damkerng T.

It's similar because people often misuse them.

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm. . . Can we always use in agreement with where we used in accordance with?

Damkerng T.

No.

I'd say, better never.

M.A.Ramezani

19:16

Darn. . . What's with the chat?

M.A.Ramezani

20:44

I login and logout and login again. . .

Anonymous

It's working okay for me.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Poor thing!

@snailboat It's working okay for me too!

Damkerng T.

22:08

Word of the Day: expergefactor

(Yet Another) Word of the Day: uhtcearu

Anonymous

23:03

Hey, I don't know either of those words! :-)

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