ELL's Cabin - 2015-12-04

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Anonymous

4:54 AM

user image

5:50 AM

To the close voters -that question is about replying with 'neither' and 'SO'. This is about 'neither' and TOO. You mean 'so' and 'too' are equal? Furthermore, do they have the same structure in replying? Like - 'So do I' equals 'I too'? — Maulik V ♦ 1 hour ago

@MaulikV I think I disagree with you insisting on having your question your way. Isn't it better to fight in the old question (ell.stackexchange.com/q/58140/3281) to get it reopened? I also think that you can even reopen it single-handedly, if you really want to.

4 hours later…

10:14 AM

Hi people

1 hour later…

11:25 AM

@agent5566 o/

11:44 AM

Oh, someone alive is here :)

Not really.

Molecules aren't considered alive.

@agent5566 "Oh, there's someone alive in here" is more like it. (0: Existential construction. (0:

Hi, Muhammad!

o/

0

Q: why it is Black Friday called?

In the Western(USA and Canada) there is a shopping fest(festival) called Black Friday, i wonder why it is on Friday but not on Saturday,Sunday, Monday etc. And logically it must be called Green or Yellow Friday because everybody happy, everybody wins where does darkness(Black) stem from? see. Gre...

I knew right away the guy was a German. (0:

He he

The thing is that you're generalizing. None of what you've written is wrong. Nevertheless, when you're writing in terms of generalizing what happens in language, your analysis has to be as complete as possible; otherwise, it's considered a flawed analysis. Hence why writing canonical posts is as cumbersome as it is. — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 59 secs ago

12:09 PM

thnks @CopperKettle

never heard of using "in" before "here"

it's strange to see adverbs with prepositions

3

Q: "In here", "from here", and "at here"

I just read the discussed topic "look here vs. look at here": Which one is correct? "Look here" or "Look at here"? It's got me wondering. What is the reason for not using the preposition at before here? Is it because here is an adverb and it is wrong to use a preposition before an adverb? What...

grammar prepositions adverbs sentence-structure locatives

@agent5566 You're welcome!

@CopperKettle hm, let me see

interesting

nods

12:51 PM

I'm still confused about perfect contitious. Most of sources say that the group of tenses are used to show perfect **duration** of an activity in time or number of times. My question is it exactly for that task? or the tenses can be **real** usful without pointing time or number of times? Yes, i saw some examples without durations, but i can't handle the real usefulness. For example:

I've been watching TV.

Why can't i just say something like this? :

I was watching TV couple of minutes ago

@agent5566 You can say that.

Tense is one of the aspects of language that's been hurt by prescription a lot.

yeah, it's killing me

So i guess that the tense is using when we can't just use perfect, for example:

I have watched TV

there is no sense in this, isn't it?

whatching TV can't be perfect

*watching

Hmm, I have watched TV is dubious.

But it's hard for me to persuade myself to use absolute phrases like 'can't', 'won't', 'isn't possible' and others in the case of tense, aspect and modality.

1 hour later…

2:20 PM

I could sound strange out of context.

@DamkerngT. What? What context are you in now?

BTW changing profile pic.

Oh, right! My sentence was out of context as well, 'cause I just jumped in the middle of a conversation which was over!

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Isn't your profile pic the same one?

BTW, I was talking about I have watched TV.

2:40 PM

@DamkerngT. Oh, then you typo'ed. :)

Oh my. New profile pic rocks.

Ah, you've changed into a ball.

'Ball' is way too crude to explain dodecahedrane.

Next time, I'll be pagodane. Remind yourself to remind me @Dam.

:D

@DamkerngT. Chemists have an innate love for balls. Go take a look at how many profile pics we have at chem that are fullerenes. :)

Because of the symmetry, I guess

2:45 PM

I personally liken dodecahedrane's 2D view to jewels.

@DamkerngT. That's not the half of it. Fullerenes have been reported to exist in inter-galactical nebulas; their properties are like 2D analogues of aromatic compounds, their thermodynamic stability still amazes scientists, they look like a ball, and their aromaticity and exotic compounds and reactions are a wide field of study.

But human beings do like symmetry I think.

3:21 PM

ell.stackexchange.com/users/24743/rathony – Unsuspended; God bless America.

@Dam Raspberry pie.SE looks really nice with the new custom design. :)

\o @Stoney

Yo, @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I suppose so. (Haven't look yet.)

James, Avon Lake, Ohio, USA

2k 3 15

single-word-requests phrase-requests phrases idiom-requests terminology word-choice expressions

Hi, @StoneyB!

Cool avatar, not as cool as mine. ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

@DamkerngT. I envy their logo.

3:29 PM

Hi, @DamkerngT.

I was just thinking about you . . . Wishing you'd write that Canonical Post on How to Use the Dictionary.

LOL -- Thanks for the honor! I'm not sure I really use dictionaries like anybody else or if it is a really good way to use them.

Well, I can't do it: the only dictionaries I routinely consult are OED and MED!

I guess that there must be some recent questions that made you think about the topic.

@StoneyB Ahh -- Too heavy for most learners, I suppose.

There's a new Meta question over on ELU, where people keep saying "Send your dictionary questions to ELL". Bah.

@DamkerngT. Not really of much use to learners, anyway.

Oh!

@StoneyB I guess they don't know that dictionary questions are off-topic on ELL too.

3:35 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Nice masthead, but it's just plain ole Helvetica inside. And blue.blue.blue - I'm so sick of blue websites.

@DamkerngT. I told em.

Thanks! -- I think I need to catch up with the question for a bit to see if I can do anything useful.

@StoneyB Well, the fonts won't update themselves.

The community has to want another font.

Dunno why I'm so grumpy today -- work's slack and I ought to be enjoying myself.

Chem's font is the coolest font ever.

Except it squishes some numbers.

Yah, Georgia is very handsome. ELU uses that. But it's a little restricted on the trans-ASCII characters.

But it has very nice points.

4:12 PM

@StoneyB It's a long thread of comment in that meta post! I'm not sure it's really how to use dictionaries (for learners), though.

It's unclear whether the questions that were commented with "user 1: Did you look "word in question" up in a dictionary? user 2: Ya, you should just look that up That is one example I saw that stood out" were about reading comprehension or word usage.

Hmm, now I'm all O_O

@Dam what parts of OED are free and what parts aren't?

Dictionaries are great tool for reading comprehension. For word usage, we may need some specialized dictionaries.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. If I'm not mistaken, no part of it is free. But OED1 (an old edition) is free.

@DamkerngT. Then how can I see word entries without having a subscription?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Where and how did you see them?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. You can't. Unless you are affiliated with an institution (such as your university library) which has a subscription.

4:16 PM

@DamkerngT. Word of the day is Yarn-bomb and I saw a definition and a search bar to search for any words I wanted.

What the heck? oed.com/view/Entry/35948773?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I'm not sure I understand. Perhaps it's because your university can access it?

@DamkerngT. I don't have a university at home.

Or wait a minute, @Stoney @Dam what if we're observing a beautiful bug?

user image

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. What you've got is a little teaser, which gives you access to a handful of words

(Sorry if the image is a bit large in size) That's what I can see.

4:21 PM

Oh. I can swear I was able to access the full definition for the word 'comment', but now it just redirects me to the login page.

The right window is for yarn, n.

@DamkerngT. I clicked 'continue'.

I see no "continue" link.

@DamkerngT. In the message that says 'cookies are there ~~to steal your information~~'.

Hmm... I don't think I saw that message either.

4:26 PM

I see that message in a gray box in your screenshot.

But I remember that some ELL users can access the whole online OED.

Oh, I see! It disappeared when I reopened that window again.

Most British users have access through municipal libraries, and many academic users in the US have access through their university libraries.

nods

Most Persian users have access through [ . . . ].

You are better placed than we to answer that.

An individual subscription is $295/year in the US

4:30 PM

Then I should leave that ellipsis alone.

user image

For me, these freely available resources are more than enough.

TFD is always awesome.

They're in my bookmarks. Actually, they reflect the order of my "go to" resources.

\o @YviDe! Welcome!

@DamkerngT. Macmillan in the beginning. Why am I not surprised?

Hehe!

National Library Week 2016 (April 10-16)

That's several months away!

(But it's easy to remember for me. I can add that to my activity plan for the next Songkran!)

@FumbleFingers there's a difference between what a word means and how it is used. As an ESL teacher, I can see why many of the dictionary questions are posted. Some are best handled on ELL but others such as What's the difference between forecast and predict are quite suitable for a healthy examination on ELU. — michael_timofeev 1 hour ago

BTW, I think that's exactly the kind of dictionary-related question that fits ELL.

Even so, it'd be the best for our learner to look up both forecast and predict before asking "What's the difference between 'forecast' and 'predict'?"

4:42 PM

@DamkerngT. I remember Nima asking what's the difference between speculate and a totally unrelated word.

Oh, we had something similar yesterday, iirc.

The main problem at hand is that teachers rarely teach 'how to fish'.

Hmm... looks like the question has been deleted.

Even though my English teachers outta schools were nice, I don't remember any of them teaching how to fish dictionaries and other language sources, except maybe one of them. I never knew of language log or n-grams or CGEL before joining SE lang sites and I proudly carried the title 'advanced English learner'.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. You had personal tutors?

4:48 PM

And we're not really in the business of teaching 'how to fish'. That really ought to be the job of the teachers; but they seem to have dropped the ball, so perhaps a series of posts on how to use dictionaries and related reference works would be valuable. [Yes, I'm looking at you, DT!]

@CopperKettle It was me and a few adults.

I bet the majority of learners know how to use dictionaries. They just don't show up here, exactly because of this. (0:

I've got a third term to the 'fish' metaphor. "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat every day. Teach a man to cook a fish and he'll open a restaurant!

We're in the teaching people to cook fish biz.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Specialized courses? My sister attended courses, as an add-on to her school lessons.

The audience at the courses also ranged from 12 to 62. (0:

@CopperKettle Well, simply finding a word, they can do. But when the question is anything of other formatting than 'How does dictionary define X?', they fail to use any sources to reach an answer.

@CopperKettle Dunno what should I call it.

It was classes in a language institute.

4:51 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. "Dunno what I should call it." (probably) (0:

I think I've got homework. :-)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. That's quite cool.

@CopperKettle Yah, I mixed up since I taught someone inversion yesterday.

(0:

Most of what I said was 'it's old English and nothing you should be taught, even though they do'.

Not old old English.

I meant Early modern. But that's how it translated.

I forgot, what are verbs that are both transitive and intransitive called in English?

@Dam @Copper ^

Hey @Cat. You don't chat here often anymore. :/

4:55 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Hm.. I read about it, but have forgot.

@CopperKettle That's a long name.

I guess you mean the middle voice.

ditransitive?

no..

@DamkerngT. No no.

There are some verbs that can both be transitive and intransitive, with crudely the same meaning.

Example from a Persian perspective: Cook

ambitransitive

4:57 PM

@snailboat introduced a useful term for that, and now I've forgotten it - for verbs like boil whose Patients can also be used as Agents.

In Persian, we can both say 'The food cooked' and 'I cooked the food'.

Same in English.

The house is building in the street. (an example from McWhorter's book)

Bingo.

@CopperKettle Hmm.

@CopperKettle No that's the old passival . . . it wasn't snailboat, it was Fantasier, and the term was labile verbs.

5:00 PM

Oh, right!

@StoneyB Ah, I see. Thanks!

Ambitransitive verb

An ambitransitive verb is a verb that can be intransitive or transitive without requiring a morphological change. That is, the same verb form may or may not require a direct object. English has a large number of ambitransitive verbs. Examples include read, break, and understand (e.g., "I read the book," saying what was read, or just "I read all afternoon"). Ambitransitive verbs are common in some languages, and much less so in other languages, where valency tends to be fixed, and there are explicit valency-changing operations (such as passive voice, antipassive voice, applicatives, causatives,...

Same thing?

Ambitransitive = labile?

Nope; that's an alternation between activity without an object and accomplishment with an object. The cook/boil/drive thing transfers Agency to the Patient.

@StoneyB Ehh, um, I don't get it.

I'm cooking eggs: I is the Agent, eggs the Patient.

5:03 PM

I was looking for ambitransitive, but labile interests me and I wanna know what it means, really.

Eggs are being cooked: Now Eggs is the Subject, but its still the Patient.

@StoneyB Got that.

@StoneyB Mhm. Voice change.

Eggs are cooking: Now Eggs is both Subject and Agent - they're doing it all by themselves.

O_O

Ahan. In ambitransitive the agent doesn't take the place of the agent, right @Stoney?

In 'ambitransitive' the Agent is still the Subject, but there may or may not be an Object.

Whatcha doin? --I'm reading.

5:07 PM

I think I got it.

Whatcha reading? --I'm reading War and Peace.

... that's ambitransitive read.

How is it? --It reads pretty well.

Thumbs up

... That's labile read.

That's labile 'read'.

Yeah.

My brains are cooking. But thanks.

5:10 PM

But lability is the ability of the verb to be used both ways, not specifically the 'middle-voice' use in "It reads pretty well".

Nom nom nom knowledge.

Latin labilis, adj = "slippery"

Hmm, example of antipassive voice in English?

Hmm, I've never encountered antipassive . . .

Huh, my teacher actually did mean "labile verbs".

Now the only question that remains is what these are called in Persian.

5:12 PM

www-01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/…

This is why folks used to yell at me for calling the "reads well" usage 'ergative' -- ergative languages treat case differently.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I just found out that Russian has the antipassive voice.

Now this is above my pay grade. I dunno if Persian has it.

Ergative–absolutive language

An ergative–absolutive language, also simply called an ergative language, is a language in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb. For instance, instead of saying "she moved" and "I moved her", speakers of an ergative language would say the equivalent of "her moved" and "I moved her". == Ergative vs. accusative languagesEdit == An ergative language maintains a syntactic or morphological equivalence (such as the same word order or grammatical case) for the object of...

They always confuse me, since all of the languages I've studied are nominative–accusative.

The dog is biting = coбака кусается -- the word "biting" has a reflexive suffix ся that makes it antipassive; you cannot add an object to this verb because of this suffix

The suffix ся originally means himself, herself; but the dog clearly does not bite itself; the suffix serves to designate the dog's quality, its intrinsic manner of action, its usual behaviour.

@CopperKettle Oh. I don't think there are any affixes in Persian that do that, but I can say the Persian equivalent of that sentence suspiciously looks in an antipassive voice.

OK enough messing stuff up for one day.

O_O

(0:

5:20 PM

-2

Q: How can I make this sentence look better?

I read to learn to write. Is it correct? If not how can I make it correct and better?

sentences sentence-structure

@Dam there's a sentence for you to analyze. Have fun!

@CopperKettle In English we'd say simply "This dog bites."

But the original is good already!

@StoneyB Yes, but bites is not antipassive, because you can say "The dog bites trespassers" (it can take an object)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Me, too.

You cannot say sobaka kusaetsya narushitelei (that would look waaaay too silly)

5:23 PM

-2

A: Why isn't water an ionic compound?

It is ionic:D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Remarkable answer. I need to award it the badge "Great great answer".

Heh

@CopperKettle Perzackly. . . . Which is just one more reason why belated attention to Slavic languages caused an earthquake in linguistics around the turn of the 20th century.

Is "ionic" a molecule or atom that has a free orbital or something.. I don't recall

@CopperKettle Ionic is a compound that consists of ions. i.e. species that almost have lost or gained complete control of part of the other atom's electron could density

@StoneyB It takes a brave Britisher to plunge into any Slavic language.

5:25 PM

Better men than I am!

(0:

Former US Ambassador McFaul has a beautiful Russian, for instance, but still slips into mistakes in each sentence.

The farthest afield I ever got was a couple-four months dabbling in Biblical Hebrew.

My sister learned Hebrew for a period, I still have books somewhere in the apartment.

0

Q: Differences between "no sooner had" and "no sooner than"

No sooner had we started the work than he closed the door. Can I use No sooner than instead of No sooner had? When can it be used? If I use No sooner than instead of No sooner had, will the meaning of a sentence remain same?

sentence-construction sentence-meaning sentences sentence-structure sentence-usage

I guess there should be that, not than

"that he closed the door"

But what if that's not a typo?

I'm convincing myself it's a valid sentence.

It's a valid sentence.

Meta.ELL has drowned in small issues again. Not surprising. Nobody is as crazy as me to try and rebuild stuff from scratch.

@CopperKettle BH is fun and highly controversial, especially verbs. Standard scholarly doctrine is that BH has no tense, only aspect.

5:42 PM

nods

I guess there are no "not fun" languages.

@CopperKettle Is Thai grammar fun?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. How should I know? Ask Damkerng. (0:

Less grammar is fun grammar. No @Dam?

My grandma's ancestors must have spoken Yiddish.

Thai is flexible. :-)

5:51 PM

Russian has impersonal sentences: "In the forest silent" (= "It is silent in the forest")

(there's no subject at all)

@CopperKettle I can puzzle out Yiddish; there's a bunch of Hebraisms but it's fundamentally Low German written with the Hebrew alphabet.

nods

Russian has a trainload of German words too

Приложение:Список немецких слов в русском языке

== А == == Б == == В == == Г == == Д == == Е == == З == == И == == К == == Л == == М == == Н == == О == == П == == Р == == С == == Т == == У == == Ф == == Х == == Ц == == Ш == == Э == == Ю == == Я == == По разделам == === Военное дело === === Горное дело, Геология === === Медицина, Стоматология === === Породы собак === === Финансы, Биржа, Экономика === == Примечания == ↑ Фасмер М. Этимологический словарь русского языка, том 1. — Издательство "Прогресс". — 1986. — С. 56. ↑ Локшина С.М. Краткий словарь иностранных слов. — Издатель...

And a lot of Russian "learned" compound words are direct derivations from German, albeit using Russian roots. In the 18th century, translators working on German books just coined new words.

Like, "Weltanschauung" - - > Worldview (Мировоззрение)

6:27 PM

Hmm .. I can't make out many of those, but the few that make sense to me look like Latin and Greek, perhaps filtered through German.. Geologie, Medizina, Stomatologie ... Finansie ... Ekonomika ... "Progress" ...

7:09 PM

0

Q: I received "9" downvtotes in one minute? What happened?

Take a look at my reputation. I received 9 downvotes in just a matter of a minute or two. Do you think it is the right behavior for any member? I am suspecting someone, but I will not name him. He must be feeling ashamed of himself.

7:32 PM

@StackExchange Shortest answer of mine.

OK, not the shortest answer.

I posted an answer basically saying "I agree" in meta.chem.

1 hour later…

8:43 PM

→ 26 messages moved to Language Overflow

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Transcript for

Dec '154

ELL's Cabin

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