Language Overflow

Anonymous

17:00

So are we all in agreement? Or some reasonable approximation thereof? :-)

Damkerng T.

I think so. :D

StoneyB

I believe we are.

CopperKettle

Voiced alveolar implosive -- I tried to make this sound by pulling in air, and got zero results.

StoneyB

Tut-tut. Plus a hum.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Funny that it's what Thai house lizards sound like to us over here. :-)

(Even though I don't think I've ever heard them make any sound. :-)

CopperKettle

17:04

Common house gecko

The common house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) (not to be confused with the Mediterranean species Hemidactylus turcicus known as Mediterranean house gecko), is a native of Southeast Asia. It is also known as the Pacific house gecko, the Asian house gecko, or simply, the house lizard. Most geckos are nocturnal, hiding during the day and foraging for insects at night. They can be seen climbing walls of houses and other buildings in search of insects attracted to porch lights, hence their name "house gecko". Spread around the world by ships, these geckos are now common in the Deep South of the United...

They look cute.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I remember one book on phonetics started out by explaining the pulmonic-egressive airstream mechanism. That, of course, means expelling air out from the lungs. The author explained that all languages use this mechanism for most of their sounds, and many languages use it for all of their sounds. He then went on to say that it's not any harder to speak while breathing in, but no languages use a pulmonic-ingressive airstream mechanism for ordinary speech.

Anonymous

I read that and thought to myself: "Huh! It's not any harder to speak while breathing in? I've got to try that!"

Anonymous

And let me tell you, my mileage varied. :-)

CopperKettle

It figures! (0:

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle They are! They're also the common prey in my house. :D

CopperKettle

17:06

@DamkerngT. Hagu preys on them?

Damkerng T.

Yes! Hehe!

CopperKettle

Poor lizards..

Damkerng T.

Sadly, but true. :-)

Anonymous

I love lizards. We have Western Fence Lizards here. (Wait, do I capitalize that? Western Fence Lizards. Western fence lizards. Probably not.)

Anonymous

They're very cute, but they're not particularly bright, and they're terrified of humans.

CopperKettle

17:07

@snailboat I'm googling them up! (0:

Western fence lizard

The western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) is a common lizard of Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Northern Mexico, and the surrounding area. As the ventral abdomen of an adult is characteristically blue, it is also known as the blue-belly. It is a member of the genus Sceloporus (the spiny lizards). == TaxonomyEdit == Taxonomy for the western fence lizard has been under much debate. S. occidentalis belongs in the order Squamata (snakes and lizards) and the suborder Iguania. The family in which it belongs is still under scrutiny. The family Phrynosomatidae, along...

Anonymous

Of course, they should be terrified of humans. That's a survival mechanism. But the poor little things! They try so hard to get away, but they can't figure out why they can't get through the vent!

CopperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

I've helped a few of them. Hagu always gets upset when I do that. :-)

StoneyB

We have chameleons in the south (even more common than geckos). They're ordinarily bright green.

Anonymous

Ooh! I love chameleons.

Anonymous

17:09

I used to have a pet newt.

StoneyB

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB oh! They're green to blend in with the leaves, perhaps.

Newts are cute!

That guy is cute, too!

CopperKettle

We have squirrels, but they won't get in my apartment.. too high. (0: But I found a Golden Finch with a broken wing once in February.

StoneyB

But they change colors to blend into their surroundings.

Anonymous

I've always had a hard time keeping track of the difference between all of those animals. You'd think I'd have it down by now, but it's tricky.

Anonymous

17:10

@StoneyB Looks just like Pascal from Tangled! :-)

StoneyB

When I was in school there was a recurring fad for girls to catch chameleons and put little jewelry chains around their necks and pin the other end of the chain to their blouse or sweater.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I forgot that guy!

@StoneyB LOL

Anonymous

CopperKettle

@StoneyB And carry them on hands?

Anonymous

This is a lizard I found.

Damkerng T.

17:13

@snailboat Where is it? Where is it? :P

StoneyB

@CopperKettle No, on their shoulders.

CopperKettle

@snailboat It's very blended into his surroundings.

Our friends in Siberia had a pet squirrel. It used to jump on their window curtains.

Damkerng T.

Squirrel as a pet? Hmm... could be nice. I wonder which wallpaper has a better chance of survival, the one with a cat, and the one with a squirrel.

Anonymous

Lizards don't change color like chameleons do, but I guess years of evolution prepared them for blending in with a dusty grating, some concrete, a rock, and some unraked redwood needles ;-)

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Their house was in the woods, so it probably was free to wander off and return.

Anonymous

17:17

Squirrels aren't domesticated and need a lot of space and family.

Damkerng T.

That's cool!

Anonymous

Our neighbor's cat hunts the squirrels that live here.

Anonymous

Poor squirrels!

Damkerng T.

I bet that squirrels get away most of the time.

CopperKettle

Cat? It must be a very good cat. I regularly see dogs failing to catch squirrels in our park.

Anonymous

17:18

They do get away most of the time. Squirrels are very fast and dextrous :-)

Anonymous

And the cat is probably a little overfed.

CopperKettle

Heh

Damkerng T.

Haha!

The picture of Hagu trying to catch a bird came to mind. :-)

Anonymous

Dextrous isn't the word I want. What word do I want?

CopperKettle

"All things above were bright and fair,
All things were glad and free;
Lithe squirrels darted here and there,
And wild birds filled the echoing air
With songs of Liberty!"

Lithe

Anonymous

17:19

I'll just say nimble :-)

CopperKettle

Okay. (0: You're not Longfellow then! (0:

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Lithe is a nice sounding word!

CopperKettle

@snailboat Yes!

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I'm one of those folks who isn't on entirely good terms with the English language, but tries to write stuff anyway. :-)

StoneyB

Nimble is good.

Anonymous

17:20

So, not Longfellow. Not in the least!

CopperKettle

@snailboat Today is your self-belittling day! (0:

StoneyB

@CopperKettle Not if she doesn't like Longfellow.

Damkerng T.

Wondering if "a lithe new athlete" will get "th" elided. :P

CopperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

Choose Your Own Adventure!

Anonymous

17:22

Page one.

Anonymous

Are you, in fact, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?

Anonymous

If you are, turn to page two.

Anonymous

If for some reason you are not, turn to page three.

Anonymous

Page three!

Anonymous

Would you like to claim you compare favorably to Longfellow?

Anonymous

17:23

If so, please try writing a better Choose Your Own Adventure next time!

CopperKettle

Oh. This book was even translated into Russian. Must be a nice book for kids.

Basically like an adventure game, only on paper.

Anonymous

I really like salamanders.

Anonymous

google.com/search?q=salamander&tbm=isch

StoneyB

What's on page two?

Nihilist_Frost

another orthography question on SE: "Why isn't Giraffe spelled 'Jiraffe'?"

rofl

English orthography at its silliest.

which words does <c> not make soft C when it is the soft position?

e.g. soccer, Celt

"Celt" isn't consistent.

"soccer" is.

Damkerng T.

17:31

@snailboat i.ytimg.com/vi/KBh-E0iXjHU/hqdefault.jpg <-- "..." (Is that real?)

Nihilist_Frost

@DamkerngT. Is that a whale carcass?

Damkerng T.

@Nihilist_Frost English is consistent in its own way, I think.

@Nihilist_Frost Not sure. The page says "giant salamander"!

(youtube.com/watch?v=KBh-E0iXjHU)

Nihilist_Frost

@DamkerngT. A ha! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander

it is a salamander?

Chinese Giant Salamander.

the size may be photoshopped though?

Damkerng T.

I think it looks too big in the photo. You're probably right.

Anonymous

nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AsiaTrail/GiantSalamanders

Anonymous

17:37

> Japanese giant salamanders are about 55 pounds and five feet long.

Nihilist_Frost

@snailboat Still too long

Damkerng T.

Five feet is still awesome!

Anonymous

@StoneyB I just imagine page two laughs at me and says "No, seriously." before asking again.

Nihilist_Frost

as long as the height of three men? fake

CopperKettle

This "Genius" website is just genius. It has such verses that I never read on other websites, and there are comments and explanations.

Even has Trumbull Stickney.

Damkerng T.

17:50

Somewhat like Kindle highlights and notes.

Anonymous

Oh, I just realized that the people I was trying to get to do my work for me (that means you, Copper Kettle and Damkerng T!) were non-native speakers, and the OP asked for feedback specifically from native speakers. So now I'm wondering, did that part of the question put you two off from responding? Or would you not have posted anyway?

Anonymous

I wish questions didn't use exclusionary language like that.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Partly, yes.

I think what he asked for is fair, though.

(Another part is that I don't fell like I really know, anyway.)

Anonymous

I'm just concerned that asking for feedback from native speakers biases the question toward people sharing their intuition, when the topic of discussion is actually rather counterintuitive! It seems like we could quote a reference or three instead, which a non-native speaker should be able to do, too.

Anonymous

I don't think it's bad asking for feedback from native speakers if a question requires it, but I don't think this one does.

CopperKettle

18:04

nods

I've just learned a new sense for the word dope

Anonymous

Alternatively, someone could do some research with an audio corpus and Praat :-)

CopperKettle

> "This poem is sad but dope though"

Anonymous

How would you define dope in that context?

CopperKettle

@snailboat Not me, I'm still reeling after replying to I am man (0:

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Oh, I liked that one! :-)

CopperKettle

18:07

> In 1981, ‘dope’ made the leap from noun to adjective and, more importantly, from negative connotation to positive connotation, coming to mean excellent in the lexicon of the emerging hip-hop culture. The process by which dope became good is known as inversion or incongruity.

@snailboat Thanks! (0:

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I am way too lazy for that. I haven't even written my non-doing-that answer, even after laying out all the research I need for myself.

CopperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

I'm gonna pass audio analysis for today, too. (feel a bit guilty!)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I didn't actually expect anyone to do it!

Damkerng T.

Hehe! It was only just in case. :D

Anonymous

18:09

I turned Language Overflow into some kind of not-answer-posting guilt-fest. Except for Copper Kettle. He's still happy after posting his I am man answer :-)

Anonymous

Happy, reeling, close enough.

Damkerng T.

I'm man enough not to post answers today. :P

(That must be related to CopperKettle's answer somewhat!)

Anonymous

CopperKettle

@snailboat But it has a! It should be "are you dude enough"! (0:

Anonymous

Oh, well, it's different grammatically, but all this talk of being man enough to such-and-such reminded me of it, so I posted the picture :-)

CopperKettle

18:13

Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja

Bad Dudes Vs DragonNinja, also called Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja, often referred to simply as Bad Dudes, and known in Japan simply as DragonNinja (ドラゴンニンジャ), is a 1988 arcade game developed and published by Data East. It was also ported to many computer and game console home systems. The game was followed by a 1991 spiritual successor Two Crude Dudes (known in Japan as Crude Buster). After Data East became defunct due to their bankruptcy in 2003, G-Mode bought the intellectual rights to the arcade game as well as most other Data East games and licensed them globally. The game is a side-scrolling...

Anonymous

I always thought it was really funny.

Damkerng T.

:D

CopperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

I guess a bad enough dude is another example of what your quote above calls 'inversion or incongruity'!

CopperKettle

(0: I guess it is!

Anonymous

18:16

Today in the life of snailboat: get invited to Shakespeare chat, post picture of Bad Dudes.

StoneyB

And a fence lizard!

Anonymous

I think we made pictures of cute animals officially on-topic here.

Damkerng T.

We did! They still are on-topic!

Anonymous

I have some more pictures of my new hamsters to share later! :-)

StoneyB

Hello, @Corundum

@snailboat (but not hampsters)

Anonymous

18:18

Welcome to ELL chat!

Damkerng T.

Welcome to the room!

Corundum

Hullo, just having a look around :)

Anonymous

The hamsters aren't feeling very epenthetic right now.

CopperKettle

(0:

StoneyB

I appear to have committed the epenthetic fallacy.

A term coined by John Russakin.

Anonymous

18:22

I like little language jokes.

CopperKettle

Anonymous

For a while I went around saying haplogy, but after a while I realized that just made it hard to look up what the heck I was talking about :-)

2

CopperKettle

(A Russian calendar for 1916 - could be re-used today)

Anonymous

Your calendar fell over!

CopperKettle

haplology

Noun: haplology ‎(countable and uncountable, plural haplologies)

(linguistics) The process of deleting one of two almost identical syllables within a word.

StoneyB

18:23

@CopperKettle With a different outcome, we may hope.

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Interesting!

CopperKettle

@StoneyB I do hope. (0:

@DamkerngT. Yes, the dates fall on the same week-days!

Anonymous

What are the odds! (Don't answer that.)

Damkerng T.

It was exactly 100 years ago, too. What a nice number!

CopperKettle

English pronunciation of library as /ˈlaɪ.bɹi/ (not /ˈlaɪ.bɹə.ɹi/) <<< from "haplology"

@snailboat Is that some wordplay? I don't get it. (0:

StoneyB

18:26

@CopperKettle Look at her word more closely.

CopperKettle

@StoneyB "you're calendar follower"?

StoneyB

@CopperKettle No, haplogy.

CopperKettle

@StoneyB Ah, I see. (0:

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Maybe snailboat used reverse psychology. A door with the sign "Do not enter" actually makes you want to enter even more!

StoneyB

Sorta like the guy on Beyond the Fringe who said "I always enjoy a good joke when it's pointed out to me."

CopperKettle

18:29

The cat managed to catch a snowball!

Damkerng T.

Ah... I was thinking that he was a poor cat! :-)

CopperKettle

He looks quite well-fed! (0:

Damkerng T.

Hmm... If only I had snow...

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Don't you have skating rinks? You can try ice skating.

It's almost like snow. And there must be some high mountain towns in Thailand with snow.

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Oh, yes! I tried, once. I hurriedly crossed out "skate champion" out of my list right away.

CopperKettle

18:34

@DamkerngT. LOL (0:

Damkerng T.

It never snows, however high the mountain is.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Yes, I did a google check. Strange. Even in Tunisia and Algeria there are snow resorts.

Damkerng T.

Artificial snow?

CopperKettle

Damkerng T.

Nice!

CopperKettle

18:36

@DamkerngT. No, in mountanous areas. Hanaa told us once.

Damkerng T.

Oh, right!

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. The last picture was shot following the century's toughest blizzard in the late 1970s or early 1980s

The whole city stopped functioning for a day. (0:

Damkerng T.

Wait, so the traffic light should've been high above the ground, right?

CopperKettle

Yes. (0:

Damkerng T.

Oh!

CopperKettle

18:40

In Siberia, roads have to be cleaned from snow daily, or else it would be rather impossible to travel. By each side of each apartment flat's porch there are high breastworks of snow, with a passage in the middle.

Damkerng T.

It must be a tough job for whoever has to clear the road.

CopperKettle

Yes. For kids it's great to have the mounds of snow everywhere though. There's usually one mound per yard that is above human height or even higher, and it is turned into a chute by making one side slanting and pouring water on it.

So you can slide down it.

And in Yekaterinburg, there's an Ice City in the city centre.

Damkerng T.

19:02

Looks like heaven in my imagination!

(I'm the opposite of Olaf the snowman who dreams of summer.)

StoneyB

That's cause in your imagination you don't have to shovel snow.

Damkerng T.

LOL -- True!

Damkerng T.

19:14

〈最新〉英語構文事典 -- The title (The Taishukan Contemporary Dictionary of English Constructions) sounds exciting!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. Taishukan? If I hear that word I'd think it's one of Bruce Lee's techniques.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! His technique is called Jeet-kundo, iirc.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I know.

But he knows of almost all martial art.

All that existed back then.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I can't remember what he wrote about Muay Thai.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Hydroxyl a question hit my mind: Is Muay Thai Thai?

Damkerng T.

19:20

(I read his book--or a book based on his book--once, but only a bit here and there.)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I think so!

Have you heard of Tony Jaa or Ong Bak?

I saw him before Ong Bak came out. It's nice to have someone bring back the ancient style of Muay Thai to the public.

Iirc, Bruce Lee seemed to know only a subset of Muay Thai, but his evaluation was fair, according to what he appeared to know about it.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

19:37

@DamkerngT. Yeah . . . no.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Well, Ong Bak was his first movie.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Oh, those are movie names?

I know them by their Persian translation.

"Big boss"

Damkerng T.

I didn't know that they translated the title, too.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

They translate literally everything.

Sometimes it becomes very funny. :)

Damkerng T.

I bet!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

19:45

For instance, @Dam, an "imam jooma" is someone who 'coordinates' our Friday prayer. So I saw a street sign that read: "Imam Friday Street"

Damkerng T.

I can't find his old promotion tour (on several TV channels back then) before his first movie. I remember that I dropped my jaw because I thought those moves only exist in pictures.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. LOL

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

IKR

@Dam Since not many are fluent English speakers here, we sometimes have very funny typos in very funny circumstances in very official stuff.

Damkerng T.

Can't wait to see one. :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Well, I've seen like a billion shop "welcome" signs which were basically one of these: Wellcom, well come, welcomm, welcomme, wellcome, wilcome, willcom, welcoom, welcom, etc.

I can't remember seeing a correct "welcome".

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

19:52

You remember that park sign that said "please pay your fee before existing"?

It's way worse in Iran.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I think I saw something similar in Beijing!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. The Shaolin dudes are a bit philosophical.

Damkerng T.

Well, I guess it's not that hard to find such signs over here either.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I conclude that English is doomed.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

19:55

The other day I saw a sign on a "Merck" product that said "mad in China".

Damkerng T.

That's scary! :P

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Oh, speaking of typos, Smokey caught something funny today.

Damkerng T.

Smokey! It's got a nice nickname!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

stackoverflow.com/posts/14194764/revisions — See revision 3.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

19:58

Also someone forgot the ell in "flag" the other day.

It was hilarious.

> fag the post for moderator attention

CopperKettle

Interesting. Shoemaking was called a "gentle craft"

gentle craft

Noun: (the) gentle craft ‎(plural not attested)

(archaic) Shoemaking; the trade of a cobbler.
(archaic) Fishing; angling.
1892, W. H. Hudson, Fan: The Story of a Young Girl's Life, ch. 20:
1904, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Church Yard, ch. 28:

From a poem by Charles Lamb:

"All unadvised, and in an evil hour,
Lured by aspiring thoughts, my son, you doft
The lowly labours of the Gentle Craft
For learned toils, which blood and spirits sour."

Hi, Muhammad!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

\o

Damkerng T.

Why gentle? That's quite curious.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

We're talking 'bout funny typos @Cop. You got some?

@Corundum you here? ಠ_ಠ

CopperKettle

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Nope.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

20:11

@CopperKettle You live in a sad world.

CopperKettle

But a grammatically correct one.

I posted one thing that could be classified as a typo in punctuation

Good-night!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle No I meant typos IRL.

Damkerng T.

Gute Nacht!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle Night!

CopperKettle

Man shot inside Paris police station. Just announced that terror threat is at highest level. Germany is a total mess-big crime. GET SMART!

Tweeted by realDonaldTrump on January 7, 2016 at 1:24 PM

twitter.com/jenifusion/status/…

Damkerng T.

21:51

0

A: I am confused by the following:

'Forbid' is a raising verb ('I' is raised from the 'worry' clause to 'me') and the sub-verb is marked by making it infinite ('to worry'); but since 'forbid' has a negative connotation, the infinitive marker 'to' is often changed (by analogy with the preposition 'to[wards]') to the preposition 'fr...

o_O

The answer sounds like it's coming from a linguistic point of view, but does this how English really work?

("raising verb", "'I' is raised", "sub-verb")

forbid ... from -- Hmm..

Oh, oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/…

OLD includes both forbid someone from doing something and forbid someone to do something.

Looks like it's another good case of from VERBing vs. to VERB.

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