Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

09:28

Just saw a (mis)translation on The X Factor UK 11: เมลเคี่ยวมาก. It should be เมลเขี้ยวมาก. It's not exactly about translation; it's about spelling.

M.A.Ramezani

What is X Factor?

Damkerng T.

09:51

@M.A.Ramezani It's a TV show, sort of like America's Got Talent and such.

M.A.Ramezani

Oh.

M.A.Ramezani

10:13

Hehe when in the world did I write this comment?

ell.stackexchange.com/q/49159/#comment91755_49159

Damkerng T.

10:32

@M.A.Ramezani A few months ago, apparently. :-)

M.A.Ramezani

Good thing I wasn't fasting back then.

Damkerng T.

:D

M.A.Ramezani

> \setlength{\unitlength}{2mm}
\begin{picture}(30,20)
\linethickness{0.075mm}
\multiput(0,0)(1,0){26}%
{\line(0,1){20}}
\multiput(0,0)(0,1){21}%
{\line(1,0){25}}
\linethickness{0.15mm}
\multiput(0,0)(5,0){6}%
{\line(0,1){20}}
\multiput(0,0)(0,5){5}%
{\line(1,0){25}}
\linethickness{0.3mm}
\multiput(5,0)(10,0){2}%
{\line(0,1){20}}
\multiput(0,5)(0,10){2}%
{\line(1,0){25}}
\end{picture}

Hehe it didn't render.

I wonder why.

Damkerng T.

Not sure, I don't use MathJax or ChatJax anyway.

BTW, I find this question interesting:

0

Q: I don't understand how to use much and more as a noun here

I don't understand how to use much and more as a noun here. Kimchi soup is a little more of a challenge. Doing too much of anything is not good for anyone. I'm familiar with situations where two of them is used as a modifier, but I don't know how to understand it here. Much and more is...

pronouns

M.A.Ramezani

The picture environment does exist in the main LaTeX.

Damkerng T.

10:37

What is the function or much, more, and most.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. Ah, not much again!

Damkerng T.

Again?

I thought this one was the first that explicit asked if much/more is a noun.

It makes me think if it's really a noun (or pronoun, let's say).

Also, I think the functions of much/more in the two sentences aren't exactly the same.

> a) Kimchi soup is a little more of a challenge.
b) Doing too much of anything is not good for anyone.

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm. . . Before answering, I should load my language terminology libraries.

Damkerng T.

Good idea!

It reminds me of a few difficult to analyze sentences (about PoS) in Thai... Just want to write it down before I may forget...

> น้ำร้อนมาก (The water is very hot.)

> น้ำร้อนแล้ว (The water is hot already.)

> นี่มันน้ำเดือดจริง ๆ (This is truly boiling water! or This water is truly boiling!)

> น้ำเดือดแล้ว (The water is boiling already.)

What is ร้อน? What is เดือด? (PoS)

M.A.Ramezani

They're Thai words.

Damkerng T.

10:46

Sure that!

M.A.Ramezani

Well where's my money? I answered your question.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani But what about their PoS?

M.A.Ramezani

0.

Or 0.5 if you want.

Damkerng T.

0.5 PoS? I don't know what that means!

Going to do some chores... BBL...

M.A.Ramezani

Cya!

Damkerng T.

12:02

@M.A.Ramezani Back! (Oh, no!)

M.A.Ramezani

Oh. NO!

Damkerng T.

Somehow I've just watched an episode of Veep for the first time, and I find its language is very interesting. I like the way they use the language in the show. It's mostly political-ish; it's mostly formal, and yet at the same time it's hilarious.

I'm also thinking about continue reading 時をかける少女 (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) after putting it on hold for quite a while this weekend.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. Haven't seen the show, but I know what you're talking about. A formal language can be very funny if it's intended to be.

Hey I'm getting Copy Editor on chem.SE!

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Nice!

Talking about copy-editing, I think it should've been thinking about continuing reading; thinking about continue reading may work if continue reading ... is quoted.

M.A.Ramezani

Where?

Damkerng T.

12:11

In my message above.

> I'm also thinking about continue reading 時をかける少女 (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) ...

M.A.Ramezani

Oh.

Damkerng T.

-1

Q: Does 'of' mean 'to be'?

[Source:] Majority opinion, Slaughter-House Cases, 1873, by Justice Samuel Freeman Miller . We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this Amendment of great weight in this argument I'm guessing that the preposition of can be replaced with the infinitive 'to be'. Even if ...

grammaticality legal 1800s

Though his questions are over half of our unanswered questions, I kinda like what he reads.

M.A.Ramezani

I wonder why he hasn't given up on ELL yet.

Hehe I love that guy.

OH MY GOD! This. Is. So. Ironic!

Anonymous

12:34

@DamkerngT. がんばってね！＾＾　でね、質問があったら、ぜひ Japanese.SE へどうぞ～

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Me either.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The phrase "mean 'to be'" is deceptively unmeaningful

Damkerng T.

@snailboat ありがとうおざいます！

Anonymous

Although be appears in a very large number of constructions, many of which have associated semantics, be in most cases is basically a function word and it's difficult to assign a great deal of meaning to it

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think he has trouble with two things: parsing and prepositions.

Anonymous

12:36

I didn't downvote, by the way

Damkerng T.

Me either!

Anonymous

On the other hand, of is definitely a function word, and I think it's even harder to assign meaning to it

Damkerng T.

nods

It somewhat relates to another question:

Anonymous

> Also, of is a particle here (and NOT a preposition) because of is separated from the verb 'think' by the noun phrase coloured in grey.

Anonymous

Nope. It's not a particle.

Damkerng T.

12:38

2 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

> a) Kimchi soup is a little more of a challenge.
b) Doing too much of anything is not good for anyone.

Anonymous

> The OED's entry for of is lengthy with 60 definitions, which no one is expected to read entirely, but how can I determine which definition matches?

Anonymous

Hahaha.

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

I don't know LeP, how can you tell which definition matches without reading them? That'd be a nice trick.

Anonymous

I feel like this discussion we just had might have been better in the other chat room.

Damkerng T.

12:44

Could be. :D

At the moment, I try to recap the dialogue in the episode of Veep I've just watched.

I think this part is funny, but I didn't quite get the whole of it when I watched it:

Anonymous

I would write: "At the moment, I'm trying to recap the dialogue in the episode of Veep I just watched."

Damkerng T.

> Isn't snowballing what you did to Lee Patterson when you had her fired?
No, that was scapegoating. Again, apologies.
You haven't asked me a question.
What is the difference between scapegoating and snowballing? It's not my fault. That's the difference.

(BTW, thanks, springfieldspringfield.co.uk!)

Hmm... is there a typo in that subtitle: You haven't asked me a question. -- Maybe it was You haven't answered me the question.

@snailboat nods

@snailboat It's funny that I try is my second choice, after carefully thinking. :-)

I think I'm okay with both just watched and have just watched. Not sure. I think just makes all the difference to me (my thinking/processing).

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I think adding have is okay. I wouldn't do it personally, but it's okay.

Anonymous

But I try seems problematic to me.

Damkerng T.

About "carefully thinking", it's obvious that it wasn't very careful. Or to be more correct, I wasn't very careful. :-)

Anonymous

12:54

@DamkerngT. *You haven't answered me the question is ungrammatical. You haven't answered my question works.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Indeed. I remember myself in that split second thinking 'maybe saying trying to recap might sound a bit too much'.

@snailboat nods -- I still have no idea how to untangle that dialogue properly.

Anonymous

If you have audio, I can try to help.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'll have to wait until it's rerun again, I think.

Oh, I can try YouTube!

Damkerng T.

14:20

> Are you on some kind of satellite delay, Mr. Egan?

M.A.Ramezani

No.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! You aren't, I'm sure. -- I quoted that because it reminds me of another question on ELL.

3

Q: What do these jokes mean?

I confess! I found them really hard! I think the jokes are all about using witty words in English. Here is the original source. Please help me understand them all. (a) Your mother is so classless, she could be a Marxist utopia. (b) Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip? To get the...

meaning meaning-in-context

19

Q: Sarcastic Idioms for being slow to notice something

The scenario: The power was out but it came back up. However, a friend or family member noticed that late and said: Oh, the power is back up! You noticed that long before they did (sometimes because it is obvious). You want to comment on/about their late notice sarcastically with something ...

idioms idiom-request

@snailboat I found the video! Going to record the audio of that part.

For some reasons, it's easier to find TV episodes (of about every well-known series!) on the web than I thought.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. That would've been more on-topic in math.SE.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Hah!

Oh, I linked to the wrong question.

It's the second one and this one:

11

Q: When you don't understand a joke right away

In my native language we have lots of ways (some of them very funny) of saying that you, or someone else didn't understand a joke right away. That is, he/she needed some time to figure it out. I wonder if there's any idiomatic way of expressing that in English.

word-request idioms jokes

M.A.Ramezani

Why did he?

@DamkerngT. BTW I noticed (again?) that CarSmack has gone.

Anonymous

14:33

@M.A.Ramezani I think you commented on that earlier this week, too. Or was it last week?

M.A.Ramezani

Nah, that was about Pazzo @snail.

Anonymous

That's the same person.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani CarSmack was an old name of pazzo.

M.A.Ramezani

Wait. . .

Oh.

@DamkerngT. Hehe this is a joke book!

I specially loved @Stoney's answer.

Damkerng T.

"What is the difference between scapegoating and snowballing?" (audio): dropbox.com/s/xcrn42nps6t44ps/…

(at ~0:38)

M.A.Ramezani

14:52

Pin it!

Anonymous

15:07

@DamkerngT. This transcription looks correct.

Anonymous

Also, ew :-)

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think I misremembered what happened in that scene. It was a bit quick.

Eww... Indeed!

Anonymous

Funny clip, though.

Damkerng T.

It makes me want to watch the whole series!

M.A.Ramezani

90 mins to iftar. Now synchronize with me, set your timers, and let's count the minutes together.

Anonymous

15:09

Is iftar when you break your fast?

M.A.Ramezani

Yes.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Hang in there!

Damkerng T.

15:51

I'll admit that I guessed wrong.

books.google.com/ngrams/… — TRomano 4 hours ago

My guts say it should be "Faculty of Science", but apparently "Faculty of Sciences" is ubiquitous!

0

Q: the Armenian capital Yerevan or Armenian capital Yerevan

Example (news story, Russia warns against "colour revolution" in Armenia): Large crowds of mostly young people have been protesting in the Armenian capital Yerevan for more than 10 days, demanding the government scrap plans to raise the price of electricity for households. Is it possible to...

acrticles

(Marked for later research)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. They're both common.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I guess both mean more or less the same, even.

Anonymous

Hmm, well, I don't want to argue that they don't, but I don't want to say that they do, either

Damkerng T.

Science as a whole vs. sciences as branches, perhaps?

Anonymous

Practically speaking there may be no difference, but the s does at least indicate a plurality of kind, I think

Damkerng T.

19:10

Catch up is an interesting word.

Someone's catching up with another someone's something (like height or success) means that their that something is still lower or behind.

But someone's caught up with another someone's something means that they are on the same par.

There may be a linguistic term for this kind of verb.

But more importantly, what are the English verbs that behave like this? And how many? Maybe a lot.

Damkerng T.

20:11

Maybe almost all the action verbs. It's more about the aspect, though catch up with sounds like a verb with a goal.

Damkerng T.

21:11

1

Q: When should I use "difference" or "differences"?

Dictionaries (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/difference http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/difference) say "difference" can be used both as a countable noun and an uncountable noun. I am confused with it. I am wondering when I should use "difference" or "differences".

nouns singular-vs-plural

Another one of the most difficult characteristics of English for non-native speakers to grasp.

Something can "make a difference", yet something else can "make little (or no) difference".

The search continues...

Transcript for