Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

00:03

> My cheeks warm. I get up and dust myself off. A few people stopped when I fell, but none of them offered to help me. Their eyes follow me to the edge of the hallway. This sort of thing has been happening to others in my faction for months now—the Erudite have been releasing antagonistic reports about Abnegation, and it has begun to affect the way we relate at school. The gray clothes, the plain hairstyle, and the unassuming demeanor of my faction are supposed to make it easier for me to forget myself, and easier for everyone else to forget me too. But now they make me a target. (1.37)

> shmoop.com/divergent/society-class-quotes.html

> "Working together, these five factions have lived in peace for many years, each contributing to a different sector of society. Abnegation has fulfilled our need for selfless leaders in government; Candor has provided us with trustworthy and sound leaders in law; Erudite has supplied us with intelligent teachers and researchers; Amity has given us understanding counselors and caretakers; and Dauntless provides us with protection from threats both within and without. But the reach of each faction is not limited to these areas. We give one another far more than can be adequately summarized. …

Hmm... what faction was the leader in the movie from?

Ahh... Erudite.

Anonymous

00:31

@DamkerngT. It strikes me as really unfortunate. Being a native speaker doesn't automatically make everything people say about language right, or else we wouldn't have nearly as many wrong answers on ELL. And equally, being a non-native speaker doesn't automatically make everything people say about language wrong.

Anonymous

It's true that native speakers have, in many ways, a very large advantage.

Anonymous

My dad is still in town, but he's out with my brother right now, so I came back to the computer.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I thought you would've gone out with them.

But maybe you're worried that your home will go play somewhere else. :P

(It's kinda an expression over here: your home won't ran away! :-)

But my grandma wouldn't leave the home alone. One of us must've been at home at all times. So I kinda understand.

@snailboat Totally agree.

I haven't checked out any further development.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I'm not quite sure how I ended up here on my own!

Anonymous

But eh, I go with the flow :-)

Damkerng T.

00:39

Hehe!

Judging from the few recent novels I've read or started to read its excerpt recently, I think it's quite common that the authors have to lay down several key ideas, make it gripping, without telling us the whole story, within the first or the first few chapters.

Anonymous

Yeah.

Anonymous

In medias res is more or less the norm at this point.

Anonymous

No one ever starts at the beginning anymore.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

The first chapter is the most important in the whole novel.

Damkerng T.

00:47

Oh, prequel also seems to be the thing lately.

Anonymous

I like the idea of prequels. I almost never like them as much as regular quels, though.

Damkerng T.

nods

Damkerng T.

16:13

1

Q: Is it necessary to repeat "had" in the following sentence?

I followed the dog. Luckily, as if it had become tired, or (had) reached its desired spot, it stopped. Do I need the second had? Why or why not?

Something is missing in that prose, and it's not about tense.

Basically, it's "I followed the dog. It stopped."

Wait, what?

A possible alternative: "I followed the dog. Soon it stopped."

This is not strictly an error, I think, for a lot of people.

For many of us, errors are only about grammaticality.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:40

@DamkerngT. Agreed.

Damkerng T.

I agree to agree. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hey you gonna help Jim?

Damkerng T.

Yup. I've finished reading the guideline just now.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

BTW @Dam how is your name pronounced correctly?

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Try Google Translate ดำเกิง. Its pronunciation is correct for my name. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:46

K I'll try that.

Damkerng T.

(Oh, BTW, just ignore its transcript, which is incorrect.)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

in The Periodic Table, Jul 5 at 23:52, by M.A.Ramezani

@santiago In a minute - WARNING: that minute can have been intended to mean something else.

Damkerng T.

I guess GT doesn't handle Thai vowels in their transcriptions very well, but its speech synthesizer is okay.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Gran Turismo?

Damkerng T.

What? Oh! I meant Google Translate. :D

A-ha! I just recall something interesting.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:50

?

Damkerng T.

It's about the prosody conflicts between Thai and English.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh crud.

Damkerng T.

If I said this in English, "Hello, my name is Damkerng."

I usually need to pause a little between "is" and "Damkerng".

Or else, the first syllable of my name will be reduced automatically (don't know why).

But this happens with almost everyone.

And pronouncing "Damkerng" as "dam-KERNG" as in English will sound a bit wrong to Thais.

Most (perhaps all) reporters who are Thai and read news in English will need to do the same when they have to read names in the news.

Thai names, I mean.

So we need a short pause to switch between the two prosodies.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Ahan.

Damkerng T.

It doesn't matter much if the reader is a native speaker of English.

The audience would know that and allow for strange pronunciations of Thai names. :P

It's like an unstated rule of conduct for local news anchors.

(Others can do that, but you shouldn't. Something like that.)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:58

Damkerng T.

Umm... it's another of anchor!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah. . .I do feel playful.

Damkerng T.

I know! :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's why I don't feel like halping Jim right now; since I have to read all that boring stuff about how the test is done.

Damkerng T.

Basically, I think we need to understand the B1 level.

(Which, frankly, I still have no solid idea about.)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:00

Am I on that level?

Damkerng T.

By my approx., you are at least at C1.

Probably a C2, but levels can be different on different tasks.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Is that bad?

Damkerng T.

C2 is the highest.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Tower?

Damkerng T.

Proficiency level!

I think you had too much ice cream, maybe. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:02

I'm having it.

Damkerng T.

Haha!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's why I'm not talkative. Typing with one hand. . .

Damkerng T.

I think, on average, when a question on ELL is understandable, the user is at least about at the B1-B2 level. Very likely a B2.

A B2 should always be able to get their points across.

(the way I understand it)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Ask Jim.

Damkerng T.

nods

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:07

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, abbreviated as CEFR or CEF, is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe and, increasingly, in other countries (for example, Colombia and the Philippines). It was put together by the Council of Europe as the main part of the project "Language Learning for European Citizenship" between 1989 and 1996. Its main aim is to provide a method of learning, teaching and assessing which applies to all languages in Europe. In November 2001, a European Union Council Resolution...

According to that, I'm an F2.

Damkerng T.

Hahaha!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well I can fit in C1 well, to be serious; I could also be a C2 for four hours non-stop but then I'll have to sleep for some 10 hours.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

I think it's quite likely that you could get C2 if you did the test.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Meh, I'd hardly get B2.

Damkerng T.

Though I can't be absolutely sure about your listening and speaking tasks.

Afaik, B2 is the minimum level if you want to work in an English-speaking company.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:10

In language tests, my proficiency drops down 30 percent.

Damkerng T.

Heh, I doubt that.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I always think stuff like that too much.

Well, at least the idiotic tests here prove it.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see. I think it's different in speaking tests.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Maybe a more standard test will be different.

Damkerng T.

In speaking tests, you're supposed to be more natural.

In those verbal tests on paper, it's another story.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:11

@DamkerngT. That's hard enough.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Afaict, TOEFL uses a different approach on listening/speaking tasks.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hmm?

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M It's hard to believe that you'll have a problem with being yourself. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah that's me alright.

Hard to believe.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I think F2 is the level that all non-native speakers aim at. :P

(Dubbing "Fabulous too!")

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:15

@DamkerngT. I thought @snail aimed for F2.

Damkerng T.

Haha!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

2

A: When should we consider adding a default migration path?

Disclaimer: I'm mostly active at chem.SE. Chem.SE is categorized as a science site. We do often get questions that need to or should be migrated to physics.SE and biology.SE, and very rarely EarthScience.SE. In the approximately one-year time I've been active there, we never encountered a quest...

I got all weird on that one.

Damkerng T.

What's that pencil sketch?!

(It's beautiful, btw.)

Oh, migration. I wish we could migrate questions freely, but the only option we've got on ELL is migrating to the meta, which is a very limited option.

"zero overlap in scope" is not really possible, imho.

We're living in a multi-paradigm world now.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat My first ever ELL answer was related.

Damkerng T.

It's a classic problem: hierarchy vs. tags

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:23

Or is.

This:

10

A: The use of the definite article

Could you explain why the definite article is used? This is a very interesting way to tell a story. Authors and film-makers sometimes put the viewer in "the middle of" the story or the plot. This way we'll get encouraged to figure out the story ourselves, before the author reveals it; and th...

Damkerng T.

A fine answer.

A Latin phrase a day: Libera te tutemet ex inferis!

I don't know why a spaceship crew would have to warn anyone in Latin, though.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Indeed. . .I used brackets!!!

@DamkerngT. Because it's Star Trek?

Damkerng T.

This one is from Event Horizon.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Whatever.

Wondering: Is whatever a minor sentence, or an ellipsed form of something?

Damkerng T.

It's minor enough for me. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:32

It could be the short for whatever you say [I don't care].

That's too much ellipsis!

Anonymous

19:22

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Call it an interjection.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Of course! Why didn't I think of that before?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

19:57

I've noticed that one of the commonest errors ELLers make is mistakenly adding the singular s to a question which contained an auxiliary does.

Anonymous

I think sometimes learners don't realize that an inverted auxiliary in a main clause is part of the main clause's verb group

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Most handy example is the most recently active question in chem.SE:

4

Q: How does molecular collision excites the electron?

I have this question for a long time that in LASER when we do the pumping by heating how does molecular collision causes the atoms(molecules) to reach in excited state. E.g. in $\ce{He-Ne}$ laser when the excited $\ce{He}$ atom collides with the $\ce{Ne}$ atom the $\ce{Ne}$ atom gets excited and ...

homework physical-chemistry quantum-chemistry molecules electrons

Anonymous

> 1. She likes ice cream.

Anonymous

> 2. She does like ice cream.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Yeah, specially when the subject is a bit long.

Anonymous

20:00

> 3. Does she like ice cream?

Damkerng T.

I think it's an interesting error.

Anonymous

Verb group in bold, finite verb in italics.

Damkerng T.

Quite likely, the speaker (the learner) knows how to correct it.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It came into my mind since in just chem and meta.SE today, I've seen like 10 instances of this error.

Anonymous

That's quite a bit!

Damkerng T.

20:02

I think it strongly reflects the difference between the language processing employed by learners and native speakers.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. I speculate that's true 70 percent of the time.

Damkerng T.

nods

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Agreed.

Structuring sentences is always a challenge.

Damkerng T.

20:15

> PINN: Your work in self-evolving algorithms inspired a great deal of my functionality, Dr. Tagger.

> JOSEPH: That’s encouraging. Tell me a little about yourself.

> PINN: I am PINN. A Physically Independent Neural Network, invented by--

> JOSEPH: That’s great. Can you prove that you’re self-aware?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yes.

Damkerng T.

> PINN: That’s a difficult challenge. Can you prove that you are?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

No.

Damkerng T.

> Transcendence (2014)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

> Including some interruptions

Damkerng T.

20:17

LOL

Damkerng T.

20:28

Somehow I kinda like PINN, and its next generation, which was Will, an uploaded human brain.

One funny thing in the movie was that a character had a very lousy handwriting, because he hadn't written anything for so long.

Imagine the same thing applied to our younger generations.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I think that already applies to me.

Damkerng T.

And not to mention his spelling. :D

And he was the third brightest person in the world, according to Will.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Chromium's new load thingy is really chic.

Damkerng T.

In Chrome?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yes.

Damkerng T.

20:31

Mention a few things that you think really chic. (So I can learn about them.)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

This: ಠ_ಠ

Damkerng T.

Hehe! Okay, that's chic!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Small Capital letters typed using Unicode.

Complex molecules and proteins.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I actually think that's very common now.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

HOMO and LUMO orbital diagrams produced using Avogado.

@snailboat Agreed. #HenceProvedByYahooAnswers

Anonymous

20:33

s/YahooAnswers/Quora/

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

S?

Anonymous

Substitute.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hmm.

Anonymous

It's a regular expression notation for "search and replace"

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

But no, i haz sin a lout off homwork dumpes ine yahoo asnwers uzign juts dis kinda speling.

sooo louzy, their definitly txt massagign "stilez" from nativ spakerz.

Damkerng T.

20:47

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I wonder if real spelling degradation will degrade that much.

Anyway, I feel a bit uncomfortable that...

Breaking parachute

is my fourth top-voted answer.

Anonymous

I occasionally think about asking for a couple of my top-voted answers to be dissociated from my account.

Anonymous

But I never go through with it.

Anonymous

I'm not really happy having this at the top of my profile.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Holy. . .

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Anonymous

20:50

→ stackexchange.com/users/1616930/snailboat

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Profanity is the favorite.

Laughing out

Loud

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Judging from the first three top answers, you are an expert of some kind. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Dam could you quickly tell me what BEC intros were about in Jim's link?

Anonymous

Maybe I should get them dissociated from my account...

Anonymous

Not the cent(re|er) one, though :-)

Damkerng T.

20:53

@snailboat I was just kidding. I think you don't have to worry at all.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Then dissolve them in fluroantimonic acid.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Basically, be aware of fact that the learner is expected to be a B1 learner. For the rest, use your intuition.

Though there are some interesting objectives... -- bringing up those images...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm gonna burn the poor learner. @JimR I give both (?) of them -100.

Damkerng T.

The analytical criteria are: Grammar and Vocabulary, Discourse Management, Pronunciation, and Interactive Communication. (You can jump right into the image "02 BEC intro iii.jjpg" for more details.)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well I'm just done scoring them.

Damkerng T.

20:57

I should start listening to the clip.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Me too, but maybe a later time.

I wonder how much time we have before the deadline. (If such exists)

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Wait, what? After you're done scoring?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

2 mins ago, by inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm gonna burn the poor learner. @JimR I give both (?) of them -100.

Is not really a serious score.

Damkerng T.

LOL

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

K I'm off to sleep.

Later!

Damkerng T.

21:01

Wow, Joanna was probably sitting far away from the mic!

Damkerng T.

21:14

I give up! I think I need to use my headset to hear what Joanna said.

It just doesn't work on my loud speaker.

(speakers? I'm not sure if I have one or two. It's built-in on my display.)

For inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M: Sleep tight!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I will.

Oh, this one is a weird error; I wonder why it happened:

@MatthewRead Does such edits on deleted posts are visible to site Moderators, or is it for some other reason you can't find the said edit? I tried searching similar stuff on other Meta sites using Google but couldn't find anything related. // Anyhow, I checked out my browser history, and I think either this or this is the link for the edit. Can you please verify them? — Firelord 2 hours ago

Damkerng T.

21:36

A suggested edit? Hmm... not sure.

BTW, love the OP's avatar. :D

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M They probably don't realize that be is almost always an auxiliary.

Anonymous

Most people aren't taught that be is an auxiliary when it's followed by an adjective or noun.

Anonymous

They think that auxiliaries have to come before other verbs.

Anonymous

On top of that, they picked the wrong form of do...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I mean, it could be either 1) bad teaching or self-teaching or whatever. 2)an L1 that treats be as not an auxiliary, maybe something else, most revolting.

Damkerng T.

21:38

Auxiliary was an odd word to me.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Or a mixture of both.

I was interested in 2.

Damkerng T.

Its translation, [verb-help], helped a bit.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Anytime now @Copper might fly in with his cape and say they belong to Mumbahamba.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M A copula?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Not closely revolting enough.

Anonymous

21:40

I don't know of any languages in which the auxiliaries are syntactically like those of English.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Dang, you made me click on the username.

Well of course, but not all L1s lead to such errors.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's not the same in French or Italian or Spanish and such?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

(Assuming an L1 did)

Damkerng T.

(I guess it must be really close in German.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Respectively no, no, and no.

Damkerng T.

21:41

Hah!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Also, no.

Damkerng T.

HAH!

Anonymous

Remember our discussion of V2 yesterday? :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes!

Anonymous

The other Germanic languages are all V2.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

21:42

What is that?

Anonymous

And subject-verb inversion is a typical trait of V2 languages.

Anonymous

Verb-second.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Two-cylinder cars?

Oh.

Anonymous

Old English was a (slightly atypical) V2 language.

Anonymous

So it had Subject-Verb Inversion.

Anonymous

21:43

In Middle English, that started to drop out of the language.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Turkish is V2.

So is Persian.

Anonymous

Very gradually and inconsistently, but

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

But Arabic is different.

Anonymous

By Early Modern English, it was mainly restricted to auxiliaries and unaccusatives.

Anonymous

In Modern English, it makes sense to consider be an auxiliary syntactically.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

21:43

In Arabic, both S+V and V+S are possible.

Anonymous

Now we have Subject-Auxiliary Inversion.

Damkerng T.

English be is something special.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Adorable.

Damkerng T.

It has a lot of inflected forms.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Cute.

Acute.

Obtuse.

I think I should go to sleep.

Anonymous

21:45

@DamkerngT. Yes! It's most likely the fusion of three different etyma.

3

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Is the regular form of that etymoes?

Anonymous

That's the irregular plural of etymon.

Anonymous

The regular plural is etymons.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's so regular.

Oh.

Am I the only one who linked this somehow to pokemon?

Anonymous

Answers to the quiz earlier: atlas → atlantes, phalanx → phalanges, arthritis → arthritides

Damkerng T.

21:46

See, if we have more than one Doraemon, they would be Doraema. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Didn't know the first one.

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Pokemon is a clipping of poketto monsutā 'pocket monster'

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Didn't remember the rest.

There we go. . .

Damkerng T.

Going to make tea...

Anonymous

That's a good idea! I could use some tea.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

21:48

I sometimes hate tea.

Which is when I'm sleepy.

Anonymous

Oh! That sounds like a good time to hate tea. Unless it's herbal tea. Which I'm told isn't technically tea.

Anonymous

Though I call it tea anyway.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat So. . .Is etymon a clipper. . .I mean clipping of etymology monster?

Warning: Riding the silly bus with a speed of 90 kmph.

@snailboat I thought they're pills.

Anonymous

I'm sure you can get herbal supplements of many sorts in pill form, but I'm not sure it would make sense to refer to them as 'herbal tea'

HarryCBurn

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Ew, tea! :(

Anonymous

21:53

My housemate takes a lot of supplements, herbal and otherwise, though I'm not convinced that taking a lot of them (especially unregulated or untested ones) is a good idea.

Anonymous

@HarryCBurn Harry C. Burn, hater of tea.

HarryCBurn

@snailboat Well, they're basically just plants, right?

@snailboat Blasphemy! Tragedy!

Anonymous

@HarryCBurn Hemlock is basically just a plant, too.

HarryCBurn

Good point :V

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

As is coffee.

And cacao.

And milkshake.

HarryCBurn

21:56

And people.

Depending on your definition of plant.

Wait, no.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Waits

HarryCBurn

That'd require a dumb definition v:

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Yes, they grow on milkshake trees :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I love dumb definitions.

@snailboat I was referring to the seeds. . .

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Milkshake . . . seeds?

Damkerng T.

21:58

@snailboat Is that related to her ability?

Hi, @HarryCBurn!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'll ask the Magic 8-Ball: All Signs Point To No

HarryCBurn

@DamkerngT. Heeeeeyo!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat They're called milksheeds.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat :D

HarryCBurn

I found that, the conversation not being that detailed, I can join in half way ;p

Anonymous

21:59

The rails on this conversation were pretty weak to begin with, to be honest.

Damkerng T.

I still have no idea about milkshake or milksheeds above!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't think anyone does. :-)

Damkerng T.

Hah! :D

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