Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

00:18

0

In my paper, I want to say a sentence like this: Inspiring from human societies, we want to do something. As I searched it seems that "inspiring from" is not correct. What should I use instead of that? Just to clarify, I don't want to use "inspired by", since human societies did not DO anyt...

word-usage

Their first language prohibits that?

In His music interested me, the music interested "me". The same goes to His music inspired me. The music inspired "me", and thus I'm inspired by his music. There is no need to avoid saying Inspired by an inanimate thing, we do such and such. — Damkerng T. 1 min ago

Anonymous

00:41

@DamkerngT. I suppose it's possible it's L1 interference, though it could also be a simple misunderstanding in English

Damkerng T.

Ah, I should fix the tense (I was inspired by his music), but I think it's older than 5 minutes now.

Anonymous

Well, I'm inspired by his music is also grammatical, at any rate :-)

Anonymous

Even if it's not the exact sentence you meant to type.

CopperKettle

01:13

A very interesting answer, I wonder why nobody else mentioned that possibility:

1

A: "But these are the exceptions rather than the rule" - could we omit the first definite article here?

No, dropping the article makes little sense here. And this based on grammar, not on the collocation the exception rather than the rule. And note it is a collocation and not an idiom. The author uses the exceptions because he has a definite subset of mental illnesses in mind. The construction of ...

Anonymous

I've been going through the unanswered questions list (note: attributive plural) looking for answers good enough to upvote. If at least one answer on each question reaches 1 point, then it's removed from the unanswered questions list.

Anonymous

So unfortunately, I've used all my votes and can't downvote the answer you linked ;-)

CopperKettle

@snailboat A noble deed!

@snailboat Oh, so you disagree with my secret admirer, User1?

Anonymous

I don't think the article needs to be inserted.

Anonymous

(I don't think it's "dropped" if it's not present―it's not a matter of ellipsis)

CopperKettle

01:16

@snailboat I see.. Anyway, the more opinions the better.

Anonymous

Woah. I like some of Tbridges42's answer, but . . .

Anonymous

> But these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Anonymous

If I pronounce it like that, I sound ridiculous.

Anonymous

I don't see any reason to stress the or than . . . ?

Anonymous

> But these are exceptions rather than the rule.

Anonymous

01:18

This sounds silly, too.

Damkerng T.

I think I wouldn't stress than, with or without that the.

Anonymous

I don't agree with Nate Eldredge's answer at all . . .

Anonymous

It's an interesting guess, but the association would never have occurred to me.

Anonymous

And I think I'm capable of deciding whether the sounds good or not without reference to that idiom.

jimsug

Do you think that the sentence means These are the [only] exceptions rather than the rule?

Anonymous

01:21

books.google.com/ngrams/…

jimsug

And There are [some] exceptions rather than the rule, just doesn't make sense?

Anonymous

The red line should include the blue line.

Anonymous

Let's try out some subtraction . . .

jimsug

yeah

Anonymous

I had to put it in parentheses to get it to understand it as a (mathematical) expression. Did I get the syntax right here? books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

01:23

This would seem to suggest the shows up roughly half the time.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, Google doesn't publicly expose an interface to 6-grams

Anonymous

So I can't put rule at the end of either term

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/?c=glowbe&q=40789971

Anonymous

I found 15/24 results in GloWbE with the

Anonymous

The numbers are too small to really go by, unfortunately

Anonymous

01:26

> Many cite the example of a relative of hers and one or two others who succeeded without going to university. However they fail to understand that they are exceptions rather than the rule. For every Alan Sugar who left school at 15, there are thousands, maybe millions more that flounder and fail in ways they wouldn't have had someone sat them in a lecture hall at 18.

Anonymous

> I'm not trying to hammer anything with a screwdriver, I'm just trying to figure out why you think your so-called "edge cases" are exceptions rather than the rule, and how legally enforcing and protecting metadata will miraculously endow today's derivative works with originality worthy of Intellectual Monopoly protection.

Anonymous

There's definitely plenty of usage without the

Anonymous

So the question is, how do the semantics differ, assuming they do? (Back to jimsug's question)

Anonymous

And is the difference relevant to the case in the OP's question?

Anonymous

(Also, why do I sometimes feel like semantics is singular, and other times plural? That seems weird to me.)

Anonymous

01:28

That's all I've got for now. I can't come up with a valid answer to the question off the top of my head because I'm not sure about the question of semantics.

CopperKettle

Sorry, I need to be busy elsewhere! Bye, Snails, Dam, Jimsug!

Anonymous

Later, Copper!

Damkerng T.

They sure imply two different things to me, but I guess the implications I think would be different from what native speakers think.

See you around @CopperKettle!

If they wrote But these are exceptions rather than the rule, I would think that the writer hadn't categorized mental disorders before he wrote that sentence.

But if they wrote But these are the exceptions rather than the rule (which they did), I would think that the writer had already categorized the mental disorders, likely into two groups, in their mind before he wrote that sentence.

It seems like I read the sentence a little differently from CopperKettle.

(I just read his opinion in the question.)

My reading seems to be in line with TRomano's.

Anonymous

I haven't read TRomano's answer yet.

Damkerng T.

Here, it is not that we are presenting examples from a set, but an acknowledgment of the very existence of the set. Every rule has its exceptions. Like "these are the pros, and those are the cons". — TRomano Jul 25 at 10:39

Catija seemed to read the sentence the same way CopperKettle did, though.

Yes. It's completely fine. In fact... "the exceptions" makes it sound (to me) like "the only exceptions"... which clearly isn't the case. Omitting "the" makes it sound more open, implying that those two are two of many rather than a finite list of only two items. I posted this before I read the deleted answer, so I came to this conclusion independent of it. — Catija Jul 31 at 6:31

Anonymous

01:39

Naively, I would expect "they are the X rather than the Y" implies that the set is divided into X and Y

Damkerng T.

That would be similar to TRomano's and my reading.

Anonymous

Whereas "they are X rather than the Y" implies that they're examples of X

Anonymous

But when I think about it, I feel like it's likely to be non-exhaustive in either case.

Damkerng T.

The important thing about this the, imho, is to make the sentence talking about two groups, not two things.

Anonymous

I think in "(the) exception(s) rather than the rule", it's always going to be about groups.

Anonymous

01:43

If you say "He's the exception rather than the rule", you're not necessarily saying he's the only exception.

jimsug

@snailboat byu has a google books interface

Damkerng T.

Interesting. This time (He's the exception rather than the rule), I read it that he's the only exception.

Anonymous

@jimsug Yes, are you saying you think it would be useful here?

jimsug

@snailboat But you can't search both American and British English at the same time. googlebooks.byu.edu/x.asp

Damkerng T.

I should turn my model further.

jimsug

01:45

@snailboat It's a bit more flexible, plus I guess you can inspect results more easily.

Damkerng T.

@jimsug It's very strange that BYU asked me to create an account to it to use Google Books, but when I did that, it told me that I'd already had one. ('Cause I already have one for COCA.)

So, basically, I can't use the BYU interface, because I've used it 15 times already.

Anonymous

Nope, the BYU interface doesn't support 6-grams either, and the results links just jump to Google Books, which is unfortunate . . .

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Just use the login you made for COCA

Damkerng T.

@snailboat If I do that, when I switch to Google Books, BYU will think I haven't logged in yet!

It's very weird!

Oh, it allows me today, but as an anonymous user, I think.

Anonymous

Yeah, I don't think this phrase carries the meaning of exhaustive listing of exceptions, regardless of whether the is inserted

Anonymous

01:50

I've been looking through results, and I think if the exhaustive listing meaning is taken from the phrase, it's because it makes sense to interpret it that way contextually

Damkerng T.

nods

Too bad that Cocopop didn't discuss whether it's possible to write the sentence without the the.

Anonymous

My conclusion: the doesn't really matter in terms of meaning

Anonymous

Although I think there must be cases where that isn't true.

Anonymous

In the examples I looked at, it didn't seem to me that it made a difference.

Anonymous

Maybe the exhaustive listing interpretation is available if the is present in the right context, but is never available without the?

Anonymous

02:04

But in most contexts that interpretation isn't selected, so the ends up not affecting the meaning most of the time?

Anonymous

It certainly does affect the sound of the sentence.

Anonymous

Maybe after some more research I could write an answer, but for now I'm still going to hold off.

Anonymous

I tend to write answers too hastily

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think that's the case, and it's essentially the same as part of ultrasawblade's answer.

> You do not use an article before plural nouns in English unless you mean a specific set of X or multiple groups of X previously mentioned or observed.

Anonymous

But that's not what I said.

Damkerng T.

02:09

Probably not exactly the same, but I think the underlying concepts of his and your ideas are the same.

Anonymous

I don't think so . . .

Damkerng T.

Oh!?

Anonymous

I think that in this case the makes no difference most of the time. (Certainly in all the examples I looked at.)

Anonymous

I think that in the right context, it could make a difference.

Damkerng T.

He seems to also think so.

Anonymous

02:10

But the sentence you quoted contradicts what I just wrote.

Damkerng T.

I think that he also thinks so, too.

Hmm...

Anonymous

Well, let me read his whole answer.

Anonymous

Hmm, no, I don't think it's quite the same as what I'm thinking, but it seems like a decent enough answer anyway.

Damkerng T.

Maybe I expand on his thinking a little too much. :-)

Anonymous

Well, I don't agree with his answer exactly, but . . .

Anonymous

02:13

TRomano's answer is good, although it's posted as a comment so it can't be accepted

Damkerng T.

Especially the part "previously mentioned or observed", which I think all native speakers know that it's not limited to only that.

@snailboat nods -- I agree with him too.

Anonymous

Well, part of the universe of discourse shared by speaker and listener.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

It's funny how different people learn different meanings for acronyms.

Anonymous

Or learn multiple meanings, but favor whichever they've seen more often.

Anonymous

02:22

Like, when I see "Japanese VN", I think "Japanese verbal noun".

Anonymous

But it can also mean "Japanese visual novel"

Damkerng T.

Visual novel, like graphic novel, or manga?

Oh, it's a type of games!

Anonymous

Yeah! I played one called Steins;Gate [sic]

Damkerng T.

Oh, on Xbox?

Anonymous

It seems like a really neat medium, but I've had a hard time finding ones that seem like I'd like them.

Anonymous

02:25

No, on my computer. I don't have an Xbox

Damkerng T.

Ahh

> The game is described by the development team as a "hypothetical science ADV".

^That's another acronym!

Anonymous

The problem is that, if you look at the genre, most of them are adult titles :-(

Anonymous

ADV = アドベンチャー 'adventure'

Anonymous

You might call it an abbreviation rather than an acronym

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I didn't know about the name of its genre in English, but one of my friends showed them to me once, and he had, like, tons and tons of them!

Anonymous

02:27

@DamkerngT. In Japanese, people say eroge (lit. "erotic game")

Damkerng T.

A-ha! A portmanteau!

Anonymous

No, it's just a clipping

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see.

Anonymous

Metrical clipping tends to reduce phrases to 2:2 or 4:4 morae

Anonymous

スノーボード snowboard → スノボー sno-bō

Anonymous

02:29

Here's a single word reduced in this fashion

Anonymous

In some cases, a long final syllable can be shortened, e.g. クソゲーム 'crap game' → クソゲ 'crap ga(me)'

Damkerng T.

If someone said "snowbo" to me, I would have no idea what it is!

Anonymous

In Japanese, this is a very productive way of clipping words

Anonymous

The speaker has some freedom in choosing which morae to preserve

Anonymous

サムライフラメンコ 'Samurai Flamenco'　→　サムメンコ 'Samumenco'

Damkerng T.

02:31

Hehe!

Anonymous

This one's 2:3 instead of 2:2, and it chooses the beginning and end instead of the beginning of each word

Anonymous

These might be called portmanteaux in English but I would avoid that term myself because the process by which they're formed is quite distinct

Anonymous

And because they can be shortenings of single words, not just phrases

Anonymous

So I call them metrical clippings

Anonymous

Most often they fit a 2:2 or 4:4 rhythm

Anonymous

02:33

ファミリーコンピュータ 'Family Computer'　→　ファミコン 'Famicom'

Anonymous

There's a 2:2 example

Anonymous

I wonder if I can think of dorkier examples :-)

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

Oh! I can!

Anonymous

Another 2:1 example.

Anonymous

02:35

Remember I told you I got a 3DS? In the game I've been playing,

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

there was that puzzle with the bar, right? I told you about the three drinks and their colors (green sun)

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Did I tell you about the baka joke?

Damkerng T.

Nope!

Anonymous

02:36

I examined the bar counter, and the character observed that it was a バーカウンター 'bar counter'

Anonymous

And then the other character abbreviated it to バーカ

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Anonymous

And they were like, "Are you saying they put this bar counter here to call us stupid!?"

Anonymous

See, this sort of abbreviation is very productive :-)

Anonymous

I can come up with another dorky example, too.

Anonymous

02:38

There's a cartoon called Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo

Anonymous

やまだくんとななにんのまじょ　→　やまじょ

Anonymous

This one is an actual blend!

Anonymous

The two 2-mora sections overlap.

Anonymous

That's the only example I can think of where they overlap, though.

Damkerng T.

The last example reminds me of credibility.

Anonymous

02:41

Oh, how so?

Damkerng T.

Though it's from credible, not credit, though.

Anonymous

Yeah.

Anonymous

There was no it there to begin with.

Damkerng T.

But somehow the meaning of credibility seems to be used for people or ideas that deserve the credits. :D

Anonymous

Credit and credible derive from two different forms of credere

Anonymous

02:43

Although credit has shifted in meaning

Anonymous

So it no longer means 'trust, belief'

Damkerng T.

But discredit still doesn't shift, or at least hasn't shifted that much.

Anonymous

"still hasn't shifted [in meaning]"

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Anonymous

I'm playing my third visual novel now. That's why I got the 3DS. It seems like such a neat medium! Basically, you get to read a story and hear the voice acting for all of the text while you read. So I think that makes it a really good way to practice connecting the spoken language with the written language!

Anonymous

02:48

So it's a shame so many of the games are of that sort.

Anonymous

Getting an audiobook plus a paper book is also a really good way to practice, but audiobooks aren't popular in Japan, so it's hard to find very many.

Anonymous

I've got Harry Potter in Japanese on paper and in audiobook format! :-)

Anonymous

But to be honest I'm pretty tired of Harry Potter.

Anonymous

I definitely feel like it's helpful if you can find media that let you read along with spoken text.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! 'Cause lots of ELL questions are about HP? :P

Anonymous

02:51

Haha, no, I just, well,

Anonymous

I never read Harry Potter until book 7 came out.

Anonymous

When I heard the series was done, I bought all seven and read them one after another.

Anonymous

And on the whole, I liked it quite a lot, but not enough to want to re- and re-re-read it.

Anonymous

It's not like my favorite series or anything.

Damkerng T.

Some novels that I like are a bit goofy. :-)

Anonymous

02:54

Well, I'll read just about anything in the urban fantasy genre except Twilight or Anita Blake past book eight, so I don't have room to criticize :-)

Damkerng T.

I just bought this on Kindle (Decipher: amazon.com/Decipher-Stel-Pavlou/dp/0312366965), even though I have its paperback version and have finished reading it years ago.

I guess I like it because the hero is a linguist. :P

Anonymous

Oh! Really?

Damkerng T.

How many novels are like that?! :-)

Hmm... dunno why 'is' sounds good to me up there.

Anonymous

Are

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think grammatically, it should be are.

Anonymous

02:56

Twenty novels is a lot to read. Twenty novels are like that.

Anonymous

The former is a measure expression.

Damkerng T.

This pattern can trick me sometimes.

I think it could trick native speakers sometimes, too.

(I think we have a question about "X gallons of water is/are", not sure how to find it.)

Anonymous

Try searching for measure expressions singular agreement?

Anonymous

Ten gallons of water is a lot to drink.

Anonymous

Ten gallons of water walk into a bar. The first one says "Drinks are in me!"

Damkerng T.

03:00

Found it!

Hmm... sometimes my keyboard just doesn't work!

3

Q: "Five thousand tons of water flow/flows"?

Every minute, five thousand tons of water flow/flows over a cliff into the river below. Should the verb 'flow' be conjugated in singular or plural in this sentence?

grammatical-number subject-verb-agreement singular-vs-plural

Anonymous

Sorry, my joke didn't really work :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, I was busy searching! Sorry!

LOL

Anonymous

Aw, it never got a decent answer.

Damkerng T.

I know enough to not vote any of them!

I think it won't take really long before my browser crashes again.

Anonymous

The key is that there are two ways of thinking about it:

Anonymous

03:05

1. Is "twenty dollars" referring to an amount of money?

Anonymous

OR

Anonymous

2. Is "twenty dollars" referring to twenty individual dollars?

Anonymous

All twenty dollars are marked with red ink.

Anonymous

Twenty dollars is more than I'm willing to spend.

Anonymous

The same works for other sorts of measure expressions.

Anonymous

03:06

1. Is "twenty miles" referring to a distance?

Anonymous

2. Is "twenty miles" referring to twenty individual miles?

Anonymous

In examples like this, the latter interpretation is pretty rare.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think I prefer flows in the question too. But when I think about it more carefully, I think maybe both are possible.

> Every minute, five thousand tons of water flow(s) over a cliff into the river below.

Anonymous

I put a bounty on it.

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Catija

03:09

Wow... now that's a bounty. I trust you'll actually award it to the person who deserves it.

Actually, now that I think about it... I don't think I've seen him since that question... but maybe I've just been missing the questions.

Anonymous

Well, I'm sure other people can learn from it.

Anonymous

@Catija I pick my bounty amounts sort of at random. It doesn't seem like the amount has a major influence on how many people write answers.

Anonymous

You can get lots of answers with a 50-point bounty, but sometimes a 500-point bounty goes unclaimed.

Catija

Huh, interesting. You certainly have the rep to spare, regardless :P

Anonymous

I guess so. Oh, I should offer another 100-point bounty

Anonymous

03:13

I'm not sure on what question . . .

Anonymous

It says "46 Offered bounties for 7,900 reputation", and if I offer a 100-point bounty, I can get it to an even 8,000 :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's the motivation! :-)

Anonymous

Yeah. Who cares about people getting answers? I just need my numbers to go up. Precious, precious numbers.

Catija

I've never offered a bounty. I'm very attached to my rep. I don't have enough to give them away. :p

Anonymous

Wow, this is a funny spam: ell.stackexchange.com/a/63397/230

Anonymous

03:15

Thanks for deleting it :-)

Anonymous

But really? "one direction is life and im a proud directioner."?

Catija

@snailboat Honestly, that's better than the equivalent "Jesus Christ" spam that was on M&TV the other day

Damkerng T.

I think my first bounty was before when I had even 800 rep points.

Anonymous

@Catija Religious spam is weird.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It was the first answer I saw today! :-)

Anonymous

03:17

@Catija I don't want my reputation on ELL to end up higher than my reputation on Japanese.SE, because I want Japanese.SE to stay on the top of my accounts list.

Catija

@snailboat Yeah. I joked with the Mod on M&TV that we should try to send it to Christianity.SE.

Anonymous

Right now, I'm almost 5000 points ahead on Japanese.SE, so I don't really need to make my ELL reputation any lower, but if I'd never offered any bounties, ELL would be on top!

Anonymous

And we can't have that!

Damkerng T.

That kind of spam makes people feel weird to flag or vote to delete, perhaps?

Catija

@snailboat That makes sense. ELL is my highest right now. I answer most questions here. I think my answers on M&TV get a lot of rep but there are fewer answers.

Anonymous

03:18

@DamkerngT. Does it? I would do both without hesitation.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat applauds!

@snailboat Oh!

Catija

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I have no issue getting it deleted. I fully support anyone's personal choice in that matter but I don't need it rubbed in my face.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

There we go.

Anonymous

-700 reputation today! :-)

Catija

03:39

I really want to get to 2K on ELU. I'm so tired of not being able to see votes... oh wait... is that 5K? Crud. I'll never get there.

Oh, it's 3K. That's not quite so bad... but still.:(

Anonymous

@Catija I think you can see vote counts at 1k and vote to close or reopen at 3k

Damkerng T.

Oh, they upped the requirements?

Anonymous

english.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/established-user

Anonymous

english.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/close-questions

Damkerng T.

I think I can see the votes, and I have barely more than 1k there.

16

Q: “I’m too tired to drive”: Why does removing 'too' make this sentence ungrammatical?

This is grammatical: I'm too tired to drive. but this isn't: I'm tired to drive. Why? How can removing an adverb make a sentence ungrammatical? In a sentence like “He slowly walked down the street”, you can remove the adverb and still get a grammatical sentence: “He walked down the ...

grammar adverbs phrasal-verbs phrasal-adjective

It still is an interesting question.

Catija

03:44

@snailboat I can see votes, I'm talking about being able to see if someone's VTC a question. It's one of my favorite things on ELL and M&TV.

Anonymous

Ohh, see close votes. Yeah.

Anonymous

I deliberately made a push to get to 3k on ELU.

Damkerng T.

Because "She's very young to be going" has got some results.

Anonymous

It's not so bad. It's easier to get rep on ELU than on ELL.

Catija

@DamkerngT. That's because the "too" is implied there, for some reason. Not sure why.

Damkerng T.

03:46

SWR is abundant over there, I think.

Anonymous

I think it's slightly different from the too version.

Catija

@DamkerngT. Yeah, those are great if you can get in early... which I never do.

Damkerng T.

@Catija Aww

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, that too, I guess.

Anonymous

Oh! I answered 7 single word requests.

Anonymous

03:47

I have 60 posts total on ELU.

Catija

Good idea, but don't use a colon in the middle of a grammatical unit -- in each case, the bullet points could be completing the sentence started in the opening. Use a colon if you set it up like — ewormuth 2 mins ago

I'm not sure what he's saying... do you think he interrupted himself somehow?

Damkerng T.

For a non-native speaker, SWR is probably the easiest type of question.

Anonymous

They might have accidentally submitted the comment early by bumping the enter key.

Anonymous

Sometimes I use Japanese input to type things like  . . .  or ― or the like

Anonymous

But SE grabs the enter keypress that I use to confirm my selection in Japanese input and submits the comment early

Anonymous

03:50

Because it's not designed to work with Japanese input

Anonymous

(They disable that bug on a few sites like Japanese.SE, so it always surprises me when I run into it on other sites)

Catija

I just don't get what's wrong with using a colon at the beginning of a list. I don't read it as the continuation of a sentence. It's bullet points.

Damkerng T.

@Catija Me either.

Anonymous

Some people believe that a complete sentence should come before a colon.

Anonymous

Of course, people believe lots of things.

Catija

03:52

@snailboat But there is a complete sentence before the colon: "In this book I found a variety of grammatical and textual errors"

Anonymous

Well, including doesn't have a complement:

Anonymous

> *In this book I found a variety of grammatical and textual errors including.

Catija

I did continue the sentence, but only to emphasize that the list was not exhaustive.

Anonymous

In a way, the following list is filling in for that complement, so it's fine.

Catija

Is there a way I could rephrase the sentence so that this person doesn't find issue with what I think is a stupid "rule"?

Anonymous

03:53

Yes.

Anonymous

> In this book, I found a variety of grammatical and textual errors such as the following:

Anonymous

"such as the following" doesn't have the form of a phrase without a complement

Anonymous

"including ＿＿＿" does (but that's okay)

Catija

Bah, I'm getting grumpy. I'm going to try to sleep. See you around.

Damkerng T.

I think I would write the OP's sentence like this:

> In this book, I kept finding irregular verb tense problems (especially lie/lay, sit/set and run), lack of subjunctive case (i.e., "He wished he was" instead of the correct form "He wished he were"), and repeated typos (e.g., "were" instead of "where", and vice versa).

Good night!

Anonymous

03:56

I don't think you need to edit, though. Yours is fine.

Anonymous

Rest well, Catija!

Damkerng T.

nods -- The bullet list would work fine.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'm afraid their sentence needs more work than that.

Anonymous

The subjunctive is not a case.

Damkerng T.

Oh, right. But it's their word.

Catija

03:58

It's a mood?

Damkerng T.

I think, at least in Latin.

Anonymous

@Catija Traditionally it would be called a mood, yes.

Damkerng T.

I can't tell whether the OP is a native speaker or not.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It seems unlikely.

Catija

I've always thought people who were picky about "was" vs "were" were a bit pedantic.

Anonymous

04:01

Well, the was form has been in competition with the were form for hundreds of years.

Damkerng T.

nods -- but the errors could be typos or brainos.

Anonymous

There are a few key points:

Anonymous

1. The were form is preferred in formal English.

Anonymous

2. The were form appears especially often in certain collocations: "If I were" is very common.

Anonymous

3. The were form is strictly required in certain fossilized constructions: "Were I to agree with you, . . . " but never "Was I to agree with you, . . . "

Anonymous

04:03

But was is commonly used by educated speakers and has been for hundreds of years

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Could be. But it doesn't read like native English.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

> I'm wondering [the best way to punctuate and/or format this sentence]

Anonymous

This would usually have a subordinate interrogative clause as a complement, for example:

Anonymous

> I'm wondering [what the best way is to punctuate and/or format this sentence]

Damkerng T.

04:06

That's the first thing I noticed.

Anonymous

> italics is not available

Anonymous

This would normally take plural agreement:

Anonymous

> italics are not available

Damkerng T.

about could work too, I think.

@snailboat Oh, I missed that one.

Anonymous

I'm also curious what they mean by "irregular verb tense problems" . . .

Anonymous

04:08

But some native speakers certainly do write, well, oddly.

Damkerng T.

The book uses run for ran, perhaps?

Anonymous

So I wouldn't rule it out.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, could be. But it's not clear that they know what a tense is.

Damkerng T.

nods -- That could even favor their nativeness, tough. :D

Anonymous

It's true that most native speakers of English have a shaky grasp of grammatical terminology at best.

Anonymous

04:12

Although the same is certainly true of many learners.

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

Oh talking about grammar, I ran into an interesting paper yesterday.

It says, a student who uses more articles and prepositions will do better in the university!

But those who use more aux. verbs, pronouns, and conjunctions will do worse.

When Small Words Foretell Academic Success: The Case of College Admissions Essays

> Previous studies have found that function word use reflects personality and a variety of social and psychological processes. As noted earlier, function word use has also been associated with cognitive thinking styles and psychological states.

> CDI = 30 + article + preposition - personal pronoun - impersonal pronoun – auxiliary verb – conjunction – adverb – negation.

We live in a time that people do uncommon things with their data!

So it seems like, according to the study, the more propositional the essay is, the better the student will do.

It seems to favor noun piles, and the precise use of verbs and adjectives.

Anonymous

05:26

Be careful not to mix up prepositional with propositional

Anonymous

Luckily Japanese only has postpositions, which are harder to mix up with propositions

Damkerng T.

nods -- I meant propositional this time.

Judging from the favored style the paper seems to point out, I think most sentences in an education essay written by a promising student would be proposition-like.

Anonymous

Oh. What did you mean by it?

Damkerng T.

Instead of writing, "We think that this method is good," a promising student may write, assertively, "The AAA-BBB CCC-DDD XXX method mentioned in the previous studies yields a better result."

We think that this method is good uses two pronouns, one aux. verb, one conjunction.

The AAA-BBB CCC-DDD XXX method mentioned in the previous studies yields a better result uses three articles, one preposition, no pronoun, no aux. verb, no conjunction.

^educational

jimsug

05:43

There's an emerging sociological theory about the condensation of meaning in terms.

Legitimation Code Theory.

Damkerng T.

@jimsug Interesting!

jimsug

Essentially, language that encodes more meaning is likely to seem more "smart" than that that doesn't.

Damkerng T.

Oh! That seems like what the paper suggests.

legitimationcodetheory.com

(I wish it were a .org website. :P)

jimsug

yes.

Karl Maton doesn't like it being called a linguistic theory, because it's more of a semiotic theory, really.

And only a specific code within it — semantic code — deals with the condensation of meaning in signs.

Damkerng T.

The mentioning of semiotic reminds me of one of our users.

looking...

1

Q: having a strong desire to do something, as you have not done it for a long time

When it comes to expressing the fact that, for instance, you have a very strong desire to do something what would you say? For instance, it's a long you have not reading a book: I crave/ long for reading a book having a yen for Any comment would be greatly appreciated. As a footnote, thank...

meaning vocabulary

> I am an ordinary person who has graduated in civil engineering and is studying semiotics and linguistics.

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