Language Overflow - 2016-03-18 (page 1 of 2)

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Anonymous

00:26

nature.com/news/…

Anonymous

> Some scientists do not like to use the word 'prion' in connection with the amyloids associated with common neurodegenerative diseases, or to describe any of their properties as 'prion-like' — because of its connotation of infectious, deadly disease.

Anonymous

> “The public has this perception of the word 'prion',” says Alzheimer's researcher Brad Hyman at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and this matters, even if their ideas are wrong. “One of my patients told me that she wasn't getting any hugs any more from her husband who had read about the case in the media — that made me sad,” he says.

Anonymous

No comment on the article's use of semantics or spaced em dashes.

Anonymous

The point about prion is interesting, though.

CowperKettle

01:39

@snailboat It looks scary.

Good morning, Snailboat!

Anonymous

02:30

@CowperKettle Which SE site do I ask about paper exploding under pressure on? youtube.com/watch?v=KuG_CeEZV6w

V.V.

02:44

Morning, @snailboat! Hope you are fine.

4 hours later…

Damkerng T.

06:28

Hey, transformers done!

Damkerng T.

07:18

I would not call this a "basic question". — J.R. ♦ May 7 '14 at 16:05

Note to self: most of the time, learners would get the basic stuff wrong in production. On the other hand, the difficult stuff that they get wrong is usually in processing, particularly, writing.

In other words, almost everything is so basic, and because it's so basic, it's so basic that most learners will get it wrong.

@snailboat I remember a girl managed to do that without any tool!

Hmm... or did she just prove it?

Ah, right! pomonahistorical.org/12times.htm

A nice quote in there:

> Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.

> --Through the Looking Glass by L. Carroll

1 hour later…

Damkerng T.

08:49

0

Q: Word for a person sitting next to you

I'm looking for a word to name or call a person who's sitting next to me and i mean it in general

word-choice word-request

SWR!

I would simply call them "the next guy" or "the guy next to me", but those are not single words.

(It could be in code: theNextGuy, aka theGuyNextToMe.)

Damkerng T.

09:50

It took me a while to realize that you seem to try to generalize the sentence pattern of a general fact of a thing. Though your pattern is valid (apart from playing hockeys, which should have been playing hockey), it's not the only possible pattern. For example, Water is important (water is uncountable); The tiger hunts by night and preys on a variety of animals, including deer, wild hog, and peafowl (a fact about the whole species). — Damkerng T. 1 min ago

I think I've never got formatting right the first time in any of my long comments!

IͶΔ

10:01

@DamkerngT. You should learn from Peter

2 hours later…

IͶΔ

11:33

Wrote an answer today.

I feel like cheating. I quoted something on ELU that itself was a quote.

IͶΔ

11:44

Hullo @Laila! Unfortunately, you need 20 reputation points to talk in chat.

2 hours later…

IͶΔ

13:46

I have 3333 rep on ELL now. :)

IͶΔ

14:10

The IAU ban came after the 'redefinition of 'planet' to include the IAU president's mom' incident.

Isn't this indeed the biggest punctuation challenge of them all?

Catija

14:34

The solution is simple... stop using emoticons.

IͶΔ

15:12

@Catija That's what I've been trying to rid the world of. To no avail.

</dramatic>

IͶΔ

16:06

Hey! The results are out and I just won the first stage of national chem olympiad. Next stage is in April 27.

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ Big congratulations!

Pandya

Is it right/ok to use aware-ing (present-continuous)?

Damkerng T.

In normal conversation, I wouldn't think so.

IͶΔ

@Pandya O_O

I think you need another verb. Tell us what you wanna tell.

Pandya

consider I was not aware about something and you've pointed out me/ talked / introduced about it and I want to say : Thanks for aware-ing me about it

Is aware a verb?

IͶΔ

16:20

@Pandya You introduce someone to a topic not about a topic.

> Thanks for introducing me to the topic.

Pandya

ok

Hmm.. I found aware as only Adjective

IͶΔ

Yes, aware can't be a verb.

You're allowed to make everything a verb when you're talking to @Dam though.

Pandya

as he is owner of LOverflow!

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ I'm kinda aware-ish. ;-}

IͶΔ

That bracket makes for such a robotic smiley.

@Pandya LoveOverflow (/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

Damkerng T.

16:25

@Pandya Aye. Yours truly!

Anonymous

be aware of something

Anonymous

of rather than about

IͶΔ

That too

The Art of Preps

Either preparations, or prepositions, or a combination thereof.

Morning @Snail

Damkerng T.

Word of the Day: bush baby (aka galago)

For some unknown reason, when I hear the name Demi Lovato, I think of Danny DeVito! (Sorry, Demi Lovato!)

Alex82

16:44

...?

Huh, I have a question.

How did I enter this room if I'm not on the community?

IͶΔ

Hullo @Alex! Welcome to LO!

Alex82

No need for joining?

IͶΔ

Chat is across the network thing.

Alex82

Hello IN.

Oh, I didn't know.

Thank you.

IͶΔ

As long as you have 20 rep across all the SE sites, you can chat in all public chatrooms.'

Alex82

16:46

I thought you could only chat when you were 20 rep on a specific site.

IͶΔ

No, it's across network.

Hmm, I think meta.ELL is a bit more quiet than it should be.

Alex82

Hm?

Why?

IͶΔ

@Dam why am I getting the creeping feeling that I and @Colleen are the only people active on meta.ELL right now?

@Alex82 Dunno, post-Halloween trick or treat?

Alex82

Or april fools?

IͶΔ

Maybe someone's gonna come out and go all "Boo"?

I'm freaking out.

Meta.ELL is unusually quiet!

Alex82

16:59

Sp00ky.

IͶΔ

It's haunted

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ I'm not sure. I'm not very active on the main site either right now.

Welcome to the room! @Alex82

IͶΔ

@DamkerngT. I mean, the meta posts aren't getting views, votes, answers, or ANYTHING.

Anonymous

There is currently a moth resting on my monitor.

IͶΔ

Actually Colleen answered and commented on one of them.

But I'm . . . WOW

Damkerng T.

17:10

@snailboat Hah!

IͶΔ

But I'm pretty up for some meta action and no one's with me

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ Maybe because all the recent meta posts are about tags?

IͶΔ

@snailboat Brings in Naphthalene >:)

OK sorry, I know you're passionate about everything smaller or larger than you.

Anonymous

Oh, leave the poor moth alone!

Anonymous

It just wants to rest :-)

Anonymous

17:12

Oh, I'm wrong. There it goes!

Anonymous

Farewell, Mothra!

Damkerng T.

It may want to catch its breath.

Oh, bye-bye, Moth!

Anonymous

No, it wants to land on my face! Bad moth! :-)

Damkerng T.

Haha!

IͶΔ

@DamkerngT. I'm okayer with have wanted

@snailboat Call that gratitude

You're shiny, that's why.

Turn off your indicator lights

Damkerng T.

17:13

@IͶΔ I didn't know that it had already been in the past at that time.

IͶΔ

@DamkerngT. I had had have having been had had.

Anonymous

?SYNTAX ERROR

Anonymous

READY.

IͶΔ

@snailboat No, it's called echoinginchatroomification.

Anonymous

@IͶΔ Moths in general seem to be unaware of people.

IͶΔ

17:16

But aware of hexabenzocoronenes.

Anonymous

Or, if they're aware of us, they don't fear us like many animals do.

Anonymous

Moths seem to treat me as furniture.

IͶΔ

Flags @moth as offensive

Anonymous

I like moths. :-)

Anonymous

I don't really know how the big ones get in here.

Damkerng T.

17:18

Phrase of the day: a moth on a mod :P

Anonymous

It doesn't happen very often, but once in a while one gets inside.

IͶΔ

@snailboat Is it mothy where you live?

Anonymous

Maybe they see the light and crawl under the door to reach it, or something like that.

IͶΔ

Tabriz isn't mothy at all.

Anonymous

@IͶΔ Not terribly.

IͶΔ

17:19

Not the part I live in at least.

Anonymous

I like moths, though :-)

Anonymous

Also, I've named all moths Mothra.

IͶΔ

City center is some 4 degrees hotter than here usually.

Anonymous

So if you ever hear me call a moth by name, that's why.

IͶΔ

Moth-sensei

Anonymous

17:20

This particular moth is still treating me as furniture.

IͶΔ

> City center is some 4 degrees hotter than here usually.

I wonder if I'm okay with omitting the article because this is casual talk.

Anonymous

It seems like it's eligible for conversational deletion, but I would personally leave the the there.

IͶΔ

8

Q: Delete the phrase "I'm" from the sentence by native speaker

I hear many native speakers say, for example, "glad to connect" or "Not sure about that". Where they delete "I am" at the beginning of the sentence, Is that kind of "short the talk", I mean to speak a fewer words, or it has a conditions/rules to delete those words?

ellipsis informal-english spoken-english

This is the second time a question I answer turns out to be a dupe.

Damkerng T.

If we try harder, and look at the questions from a pedagogical point of view, probably almost all questions are duplicates.

IͶΔ

Haha this is when we misunderstand each other:

user image

Damkerng T.

17:27

I'd say, it's still at least about 30-40% even with a practical point of view.

@IͶΔ You answered the question and voted to close on it at the same time!

IͶΔ

Not at the same time.

A guy pointed me to the dupe later.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

1

Q: have got phrase for Americans

I have heard that in American English, if I say "have got", the American would think that I am not educated as it should be "have gotten", yet I heard Americans said this in lots of movies. So is the phrase "have got" ok to use for the Americans?

verb american-english participles

IͶΔ

If that thing wasn't closed, it would've been an HNQ, but I don't care about rep anyway.

Damkerng T.

I'm sure we would find a dup for that if we tried.

So, maybe the site works generation-after-generation-wise.

IͶΔ

Such a massive "if"

Damkerng T.

17:32

It's always easier just to write a quick answer.

(or comments)

Anonymous

Do we have a really good answer somewhere about have got and have gotten?

Anonymous

@V.V. Hi! I'm doing well, thanks for your message last night, how are you? :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm not sure. I think we have. I'm sure we have some on EL&U.

IͶΔ

I wish I could close stuff as dupe of stuff on ELU.

Damkerng T.

(That's why I said "try". :-)

IͶΔ

17:34

Stuff

Anonymous

The possessive have got is often labeled British English, but of course it's quite common in American English as well.

Anonymous

This seems to trip everyone up, because there are real differences between the two, despite it being used on both sides of the pond.

V.V.

Fine,thanks, good evening, everyone

Damkerng T.

I think I read in an ELL answer last week that have got is AmE!

(Of course, I didn't believe it.)

Anonymous

Biber et al 1999 has some good frequency information comparing how have, have got and such are used in both dialect groups.

IͶΔ

17:36

@V.V. \o

@snailboat Do they have a song on it?

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Evening!

Anonymous

@IͶΔ I'm afraid you'll have to be the first to write a Musical Grammar of English.

Fard

Hello!

Damkerng T.

Hello!

0

Q: dominate vs domination, verb vs noun, why is domination a noun?

To put things into perspective English is the only language I know. The other day I got curious and started doing some research into words out of curiosity. To be honest I had very little idea what a noun or verb was(and still do). I probably learnt it in the past but it never stuck. So make your...

To put things into perspective English is the only language I know -- the OP is a native speaker of English, perhaps?

IͶΔ

Hullo

Anonymous

17:40

Because it has the noun-forming derivational suffix -ion?

Fard

@IͶΔ If you wanted to have some intellectual fun: persianpuzzles.com :)

Damkerng T.

It looks like the OP wants something even more fundamental.

IͶΔ

@Fard Oh man, it sounds like a weekend gone to waste.

I'll do it some other time

Damkerng T.

For me, it's as if they're asking "What is verb, and what is noun, really?"

Fard

@IͶΔ At your leisure. It'll take you way more than just a weekend. Take your time.

Anonymous

17:44

Sometimes I don't vote to close as a duplicate if I don't think the other question has satisfactory answers. The duplicate mechanism is supposed to help people find the answers to their questions, so if the answers aren't good enough, it's not worth dupe voting.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I haven't read their post very carefully.

Anonymous

> So verbs are actions and nouns are a place, person or thing.

Anonymous

Sadly, they don't know what verbs or nouns are.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat But we can write a better answer and group them together by voting to close as a duplicate; if we want to, I mean.

@snailboat nods -- I think that's the root cause.

Anonymous

You wrote "So verbs are actions and nouns are a place, person or thing." But this definition is wrong. — snailboat 5 secs ago

Damkerng T.

17:47

Hah!

Anonymous

> It absolutely is not the case that you can coherently define lexical categories this way — nouns as words that name things, verbs as words for actions, adjectives as words for qualities, prepositions as words for relations between things, and so on. It simply does not work. It part of an ancient theory of grammar that is not just sick but dead on arrival, like the phlogiston theory of combustion. Only grammar never had its chemical revolution as far as the general public is concerned.

2

AlanCarmack

18:10

Hello

Damkerng T.

Hello!

IͶΔ

Hullo!

@snailboat Are you suggesting Phlogiston isn't REAL?! :'(

IͶΔ

18:50

@Dam doesn't sometimes new users' language knowledge surprise you?

Oh well. Most of them don't ask.

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ Hmm... could you give me an example?

IͶΔ

'Fucking ineffable' sounds like someone remembering how to do self-censorship halfway through a phrase.

0

Q: English, Object complement or adverbial?

If an object complement can be an adjective,noun, or pronoun, what is then "working at the desk" in this sentence : "I found Jack working at the desk"? Why isn't it advebial of place? Thanks a lot!

object-complement

Damkerng T.

Oh, that wasn't a real surprise.

IͶΔ

Sadly enough, since they aren't usually fed by a good source, they tend to use a salad of terminologies.

@DamkerngT. It's not supposed to be a good example

IͶΔ, Iran

3.4k 2 13 40

grammar conjunctions expressions meaning meaning-in-context sentence-meaning sentences

Damkerng T.

I think most of the cases that really surprise me would show some kind of inconsistency in their language skills.

IͶΔ

18:56

2 mins ago, by IͶΔ

Sadly enough, since they aren't usually fed by a good source, they tend to use a salad of terminologies.

Anonymous

@IͶΔ I would never use fungible that way. I would pick a different swear.

Damkerng T.

Like when someone who can write a nice prose but doesn't know an answer to a simple question. Or when someone who seems to always ask intermediate-level questions, and then suddenly writes a strong, solid prose.

IͶΔ

@snailboat Me neither. We're not that guy sitting behind a computer.

Damkerng T.

I've never traded commodities, fungible or not. :P

IͶΔ

user image

Anonymous

18:58

@IͶΔ Actually, I don't swear very much, just in general. :-)

IͶΔ

Me neither.

I think the number of times I'm imitating a chav and swearing in the meanwhile quadruples the number of times I've sworn non-meta-linguistically.

And that sentence doesn't go down my throat. ^^^

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Mar '1618

Language Overflow

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