Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

01:03

I don't want to be negative but this video "youtu.be/3VO1F_XZBFQ"; shows that you are not supposed to used "will" with "hope" checked it out it's almost at the end of the video at min. 7:47 — Manuel Hernandez 12 mins ago

@ManuelHernandez Check this out: bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1837_aae/…. — Damkerng T. 21 secs ago

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, that's a good link!

Anonymous

I left a comment before reading the page you linked to.

Damkerng T.

> Okay? Now let's take a look at the future tense. When, right now it's like what? Nine in the morning, and it's raining heavily outside, so I say I hope it stops raining. Okay? In the evening. Now evening is another like probably 6-7 hours from now, so I say I hope it stops raining in the evening. I'm using a present verb here(?) to I'm indicating the future. Right? A lot of people say, "I hope it will stop raining" when-- remember this is wrong. With "hope", you'll(?) never use "will". Just put the verb in the present tense, although it indicates something in the future.

@snailboat Oh, I didn't see your comment.

Anonymous

I left it after you posted the comment here :-)

Damkerng T.

I think to say With "hope", you never use "will" is probably too strong.

Ah, I see!

Anonymous

01:35

@DamkerngT. I don't always read all the comments (or the links in those comments) before responding. Maybe I should, but I can be kind of lazy :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I don't, either, lately. :D

So I usually try to limit the scope of my comment to what I read when I write one.

I still miss the point, sometimes.

Anonymous

Happens to everyone :-)

Anonymous

11:06

@CowperKettle @V.V. Russian chat in Japanese.SE chat :-)

Damkerng T.

13:34

An interesting thread of comments:

This looks like "Intelligent Design" waffle about "irreducible complexity" to me. That's a pseudoscientific argument maintaining that evolution can't be true because a metabolic circuit or an assembly of neurons is too complicated to arise all at once, but an incomplete early version would have no survival advantage (because it wouldn't work at all), so evolution couldn't lead to improvements. Essentially, concrete wholes are complex integral structures (which the author thinks only God could have created). — FumbleFingers 42 mins ago

I think this concrete is the opposite of abstract, i.e., a concrete whole is something that emerges from the sum of its parts. To be sure, I'd need to read more, so I'll leave this as a comment. In any case, you can still understand the gist of the sentence, I believe, by skipping this concrete. — Damkerng T. 36 mins ago

@Damkerng: In context, you need to be careful about using emerges there, since emergent complexity refers to the (abstract?) qualities / behaviours / capabilities of an "irreducibly complex" biological component, rather than the physical "object, body part" instantiating that complexity. — FumbleFingers 29 mins ago

@FumbleFingers - Brilliant comments, as usual. I wish you would post your first comment above as an answer, which would successfully put this question to bed before it starts a discussion or invites humor (e.g., "concrete holes" are dense neutron stars, etc.). — Mark Hubbard 22 secs ago

(I put them here in case they get deleted.)

Anyway,

I think FumbleFingers and I took the author's idea differently. For FumbleFingers, it's something which the author thinks only God could have created. To me, it seems like the author thinks the exact opposite.

But I don't really know. I think I need to read more of the book.

In a way, it reminds me of The Blind Watchmaker.

@yubrajsharma 1) Because the preterite itself does not always express tense (time reference): it is also used to express modality (actual or logical factuality and probability) and courtesy (polite non-demand or obliqueness). 2) Because the modal verbs have evolved many different uses over the thousand-plus-year history of the language, and are still evolving new uses. Some of these uses have mostly disappeared, but have left "fossils" behind in certain fixed phrases and contexts. — StoneyB 25 mins ago

^worth noting

56

Q: Turned down a client after accepting dinner. Did I act poorly?

I was approached by a guy recently who wanted me to be involved in his startup. He asked me to meet him, he bought me dinner, talked about funding and market potential, etc, then invited me to see the technology. I told him my rate and he laughed and said it was more than his lead developer, but...

It could happen to you!

in Japanese Language, 15 hours ago, by snailboat

@broccoliforest Oh! That's a very fun topic.

A huge wall of text spotted in Japanese.SE chat room!

Anonymous

Yeah, sorry, bit of a textwall there :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, it wasn't like that at all! I find it interesting. :-)

If I could copy and paste chat transcripts without losing the formatting, I'd copy it over to here.

(But I can't so I simply linked to it. :-)

Also interesting...

in Japanese Language, 14 hours ago, by snailboat

(For a robust defense of to as a defective auxiliary, see Auxiliaries: To's company (Levine 2012).)

Man_From_India

14:08

@DamkerngT. It's in page no. 1172

But I am sorry, I put it in a different way yesterday. Here is the screenshot.

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India I see. Don't worry! And thanks for the screenshot!

Man_From_India

No problem :-)

Anonymous

15:15

featured doesn't really seem to expire after 30 days.

Anonymous

I think it might expire after 37 days.

Anonymous

Did someone add a week without updating the documentation?

Anonymous

I found an example on meta.Japanese.SE where Community unfeatured after 37 days.

Anonymous

And my meta.English.SE post has been featured for more than 30 days. Has it entered its bonus week?

Anonymous

I've been watching my meta post and its meteoric rise. (Not that I've ever heard of a meteor rising, mind you.)

Anonymous

15:18

It's got the most votes of any meta.English.SE post now! :-) I won meta!

Anonymous

proud

Anonymous

Maybe it's proof that the English.SE folks do care about ELL :-)

Anonymous

0

Q: They will never forget what you did / what you have done

They will never forget what you did. They will never forget what you have done. Which one is correct?

past-tense

Anonymous

People ask questions like this a lot. "Which one is correct?"

Anonymous

A lot of the time, both choices are possible.

Anonymous

15:21

This is the second time I've seen a question like this today. (The first time was in English.SE chat earlier this morning.)

Anonymous

I'm not sure how useful it is to have a bunch of questions about the simple past versus past perfect that just ask which one is right.

Anonymous

But it seems to be a really common thing to ask.

Man_From_India

@snailboat Or But it seems a really common thing to ask :-)

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Sure, though speakers of my dialect are less likely to say it that way.

Man_From_India

@snailboat Yes that is what the screen shot says.

1

Q: There's nothing to do but do/to do something

According to the rule, the infinitive is used without the particle TO in conjunction with the following expressions: rather/sooner than; do + anything/nothing/everything but. He'd sooner kill his wife than forgive her. This device can do everything but talk. My parents do nothing b...

grammar

There I made a point. Both are correct. I think there is difference in preference. In my opinion BrE prefer the version without to, and AmE prefers the version with to.

Is my assumption correct?

Anonymous

15:27

You could turn your assumption into a hypothesis and figure out a way to test it – maybe with corpora such as COCA and BNC? :-)

Man_From_India

I did, but asking you for your native intuition, especially AmE.

Anonymous

Okay, if you want me to make a guess based on my intuition, I'll guess that AmE speakers are particularly likely to use to be there, but that BrE speakers still do it more often than not.

Anonymous

Will the evidence agree with my guess? Stay tuned! :-)

Man_From_India

@snailboat Wait

I am asking you about There is nothing else to do but (to) wait and watch.

Anonymous

Oh.

Anonymous

15:31

I misunderstood!

Man_From_India

Here I think to is preferred in AmE and in BrE it's without to.

Anonymous

I didn't notice that you pasted a link to a question until just now.

Man_From_India

Oh no problem :-)

I don't have much doubt now about seem (to be) construction now, now that I have done enough search for it :-)

Anonymous

I think both AmE and BrE speakers prefer to.

Anonymous

I have this old answer which I revised after our last discussion:

Anonymous

15:35

2

A: The easiest thing to do is [to] call for a taxi

They're both acceptable. Searching the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), I find: thing to do is to [V*] 208 results thing to do is [V*] 93 results As you can see, we find plenty of examples both with and without to, but the version with to is somewhat more...

Anonymous

Maybe I should add BrE results here.

Man_From_India

Oh thanks nice answer. I narrowed down the search a little bit. I searched it this way - nothing else to do but [v] vs nothing else to do but to [v]

Anonymous

The results I found might not apply to your case.

Man_From_India

In COCA the version with to dominates, but interestingly in BNC there is no result for the version with to.

Anonymous

Maybe in your case to is less likely for reasons of prosody.

Anonymous

15:38

Let's take a look.

Anonymous

In COCA I find 27 results with to, 2 results without to.

Man_From_India

Yes right.

Anonymous

Er, I think I said that backwards.

Anonymous

I find 27 results without to, and 2 results with to.

Anonymous

COCA without to – 27 results and COCA with to – 2 results

Anonymous

15:42

Sometimes my brain just wants to mix things up!

Man_From_India

@snailboat haha I did the same mistake :D And it's contagions!

I removed my preference part from my answer.

Anonymous

The same searches in BNC give me 7 and 0.

Anonymous

So they seem to line up with the COCA results.

Man_From_India

right

Anonymous

I think that the most likely reason in that case is prosody. It sounds a bit more awkward with to.

Anonymous

15:43

You really want a word that'll bear stress after but.

Anonymous

It's okay both ways, though.

Man_From_India

I see. What is prosody btw?

Is it the stress?

Is it like emphasizing?

Anonymous

> prosody (n.) A term used in suprasegmental phonetics and phonology to refer collectively to variations in pitch, loudness, tempo, and rhythm. [ . . . ]

Anonymous

From David Crystal's linguistics dictionary.

Man_From_India

Ahhh I see.

Anonymous

15:48

Prosody is an old term. The use in linguistics today is slightly different from the traditional definition.

Man_From_India

You gave the current definition, or the traditional one?

Anonymous

The current definition as used in linguistics.

Man_From_India

ok.

Anonymous

So that's what the word means if you run into it in Huddleston & Pullum 2002 or Quirk et al 1985 :-)

Man_From_India

I actually didn't notice :-O I might have run into it, but didn't give much thought.

Damkerng T.

16:02

2

Q: What is the meaning of the "toward which the only honest stance is one of natural piety."?

When I am reading Philosophy and Simulation, I encounter bizarre sentence that is shown below But their position toward explanation gave their views an inevitable mystical tone: emergent properties, they said, must be accepted ...

meaning-in-context phrase-meaning

Oh, I see. That's the book.

I guess we'll have more controversial subjects from the book coming.

goodreads.com/book/show/10393464-philosophy-and-simulation

Man_From_India

16:22

A visual delight :-)

0

Q: Biting off an apple vs Biting into an apple

What is the semantic difference between the following sentences? She bit into an apple. She bit off an apple. Another example 1.A man whose arm was bitten into by an alligator.( if it makes a sense) 2.A man whose arm was bitten off by an alligator. ( longman) In the first...

prepositions sentence-meaning

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India Especially the little chewing guy!

Some is another possibility, but it doesn't mean "approximately more than" in some of your example sentences. E.g., three hours and some minutes is clearly longer than three hours, but I haven't heard eight o'clock and some minutes (though it would be perfectly understandable, I believe). Sometime after eight (o'clock) is more likely. Some ten books doesn't really have to be more than ten book. (It's more like "around/about/approximately" ten books.) On the other hand, She looks forty-something is perfectly idiomatic. — Damkerng T. 2 mins ago

I wrote that and now I'm thinking about ten books and then some, or maybe ten and then some book.

Oops! A typo spotted!

@DamkerngT, Thanks, Can I use "-something" in other examples too? — Soudabeh 38 secs ago

Haha!

Now I have to think! Hmm...

Ten-something books -- doesn't sound right.

Eight-something o'clock -- doesn't sound right, either.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Which one?

Damkerng T.

doesn't really have to be more than ten book. :-)

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. ten and then some books? :O

@DamkerngT. Ah I see :-)

Damkerng T.

I think ten and then some books maybe passable, but it doesn't sound very good to me.

Perhaps, ten and some books? I'm not sure.

Man_From_India

16:33

ten something books?

Or simply more than ten books?

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India It didn't sound right, but maybe ... I don't know, now it sounds better than it did.

@Man_From_India That would work, too, though it lacks the sense of slightly more.

Man_From_India

It was just my wild guess :-)

Damkerng T.

Hey, slightly more than ten books.

Ah, but some other comment already addressed that.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. That's exact.

Damkerng T.

16:49

Word of the Day: waffle

(No, it doesn't only mean that delicious cake.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, you could probably say that, but people probably don't say it very often.

Damkerng T.

nods

There are a few comments after that.

On second thought, I think you can say that (The number of the stolen books was ten-something; or ten-something books as a noun phrase on its own), though I wouldn't use it personally. (It works, but it sounds ... too informal, I think.) For me, N-something works best when it's someone's age, and N is at least twenty. You may want to get second (and third and fourth :P) opinions. Using -something like this could make another interesting question! — Damkerng T. 9 mins ago

Damkerng T.

17:08

9

Q: "She never saw a bear before she moved to Alaska." Why incorrect?

The rule says if the order of two actions/events is clear then the past perfect is not necessary, i.e. you can use past simple. So if the sentence has before or after then the order is clear and therefore the rule applies. The site here says the first sentence is incorrect. Is he/she right? If so...

past-tense past-perfect

Aww ... I hadn't seen that question. It links to a web page. That page is debunked!

Man_From_India

Ah finally a question here on the conjunction but at the end of a sentence.

1

Q: "I do nothing but!" acceptable ellipsis?

A: You probably do that a lot, don't you? B: I do nothing but! Does that ellipsis in B's answer sound correct?

ellipsis

Though ellipsis is more relevant here. But this question reminds me that non-standard modern usage of but at the end of a sentence.

Damkerng T.

I wish all ELL questions had a title like this:

Man cooking Egg Omelette and giving it to customer on bread.

►

:-)

Man_From_India

He looks like another man from India :D haha

I am a collective noun :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe! True!

@ManuelHernandez - That's a really good point! If my cousins are here, and I want them to go away, I would say, "I wish they would leave" because we're talking about the future. "I wish they left" isn't something I would usually say, and I can't really think of a good way that I'd ever use it. — stangdon 18 mins ago

Something about aktionsart, I think.

I wish they had left works. I wish they would leave also works. I wish they left doesn't work quite well.

Man_From_India

17:29

And I was talking about this usage of but at the end of the sentence -

0

A: "I do nothing but!" acceptable ellipsis?

Here in this context that but at the end of the sentence might take a NP as ellipsis,like this - I do nothing but (that). But that is not always the case. Let me quote from Fowler's Modern English Usage - but at end of sentence - One of the most surprising and largely unc...

Damkerng T.

I think we would need a comma for this dialectal but, but it's interesting!

Hmm...

Something to think about: 'I wish X would VERB' vs. 'I hope X (will) VERB(s)'

Damkerng T.

17:52

> Robot monk: Crowd pleaser and online friend
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-36108567

Now we have a robot monk!

> Humanoid robot opens bottles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28316199

I still think I'm cooler. :D

> Rise of the Robots - and Donald Trump
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36111869

Hah! The two topics are related!

Word of the Day: encroach

Damkerng T.

18:33

This is going to be problematic, I suppose.

I wish I would have a car* is completely agrammatical in English and actually sounds uneducated. Don't try getting into a university using that....or getting a high-level job somewhere. It's marked as uneducated usage. "Hay los que saben, y los otros...." — Lambie 55 mins ago

(Don't forget to have a look at the comments in the question. I'm not sure how I should clear the air. Maybe I'll leave it and let it run its course.)

But!

What does "Hay los que saben, y los otros...." mean, really?

I can't understand it. I don't hear how it's said. But I have a feeling that it's not very nice.

Catija

The argument on that first answer is getting a bit much

Damkerng T.

nods

> This study has shown frequent use of would have in past counterfactual if- and wish-clauses among American participants in Minnesota, and its prevailing acceptance in an informal written dialogue among participants in Minnesota and other Midwestern and Southern states. Past research has also evidenced the widespread usage of would have in past counterfactual if- and wish-clauses for centuries in many parts of the United States and Great Britain.

> In contrast, the majority of English language resources have neglected or avoided mentioning the past counterfactual would have usage or labeled it wrong or “non-standard.” Further research is necessary to discover the way that the would have usage might be correlated with linguistic and extralinguistic factors. Language is rich in variety; not all usages are consciously analyzed by speakers and not all speakers share a single interpretation of a usage.

> Yet if our goal is to understand language and if a language belongs to its users, it should be studied as it is actually used and perceived.

> Source: “I Wish I Would Have Known!”: The Usage of Would Have in Past Counterfactual If- and Wish-Clauses. Ishihara, Noriko, University of Minnesota.

> URL: escholarship.org/uc/item/5wd0w3sz.pdf

Catija

Abusive language on the newest answer: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/46078/…

Damkerng T.

18:50

We need two more delete votes.

Anonymous

Voted to delete!

Anonymous

Today is Earth Day.

Damkerng T.

Huh? I missed it!

Anonymous

Well, it's still Earth Day here :-)

Catija

I guess that since I flagged, I can't vote to delete... or because of the changed rep requirements, I no longer have that ability.

Anonymous

18:55

I think it's the latter. I did both.

Catija

Yeah. I guess I need 20K now... Ugh.

Damkerng T.

@Catija nods -- sad

Anonymous

I've noticed things get deleted from review more often lately.

Catija

There are only 9 users with sufficient rep to delete. That's disappointing and potentially problematic.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I turned off a few light bulbs as my redemption!

Anonymous

18:56

Yay!

Damkerng T.

Sorry, Earth! I hope it's not too late. :-)

@Catija Indeed

Catija

It's never too late! Earth Day is about awareness... changing your practices should be an everyday thing!

CowperKettle

19:24

@snailboat Nice (0:

@Catija Yay!

Damkerng T.

Okay, I flagged the latest comment in that question as "non-constructive". It's up to the mods now.

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. You might shut down a tab or hundred. (0:

Good evening all!

Catija

@DamkerngT. Which one? The car question? I flagged the entire answer a while ago. :P

Damkerng T.

@Catija Oh, I see!

@CowperKettle Haha! My browser just crashed because of that. :-)

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. Again? But you've changed your hardware. Still it crashes?

Damkerng T.

19:39

@CowperKettle I think it's not really about the hardware. I think Firefox wasn't designed to handle this many tabs. :-)

Færd

Hi everyone! Feels nice to be back home.

CowperKettle

(0:

Færd

@snailboat What was this q sound you mentioned? Is it the sound of the k in okaasan?

CowperKettle

@Færd You were traveling?

Damkerng T.

@Færd Hi!

Færd

19:40

@CowperKettle Yes, kind of!

Oh, no. I definitely was.

Damkerng T.

@Færd IIRC, the Q in Japanese is used for something like the second t in chotto.

Anonymous

@Færd No, it's the moraic obstruent, /Q/. It's realized as gemination in most contexts: あった /aQta/ [ɑtːːɑ], あっさ /aQsa/ [ɑsːːɑ]

Damkerng T.

Ah! snailboat is around! :D

Anonymous

It's written っ in kana.

Anonymous

Yes! I'm back.

Anonymous

19:42

Earlier I was chatting from a train station :-)

Færd

@snailboat Is it voiced? Let me look those words up..

Damkerng T.

Hmm... is chatting also chatting or is it something like chattingo in Japanese? :P

Anonymous

@Færd Should I explain the transcription conventions?

Catija

cha-tingu?

Anonymous

The forward slashes indicate a phonemic transcription. The square brackets indicate a phonetic transcription.

Damkerng T.

19:43

@Catija Somehow that sounds very cute! :D

Anonymous

The phonetic transcription tells you what the physical sounds you're making are.

Færd

@snailboat Not really. Just wanted to see if it's the same voice as the Arabic Q or not.

Anonymous

So when I write /aQta/ and say it's realized phonetically as [ɑtːːɑ], you can see that the /Q/ does not represent a voiced sound.

Anonymous

I don't have to tell you.

Færd

@snailboat Oh, I missed that.

Anonymous

19:45

So that's why I offered to explain :-)

Færd

No, quite familiar with that. Thanks. :)

Damkerng T.

> I wish we would get back to saying America is too busy to hate.
http://www.blackstarnews.com/us-politics/elections/hillary-clinton-denies-she-started-obama-birther-smear-in-2008

I think Hillary Clinton is anything but uneducated.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The epenthetic vowel par excellence in Japanese is /u/, inserted after almost any consonant. The main exception is that following /t/ and /d/, you typically use /o/ instead.

Catija

It's a lack of sound... a stop. sort of... @snailboat is a lot better at explaining than I am but it's reminiscent of double consonants in Italian, too, like the double z in pizza or double t in spaghetti. It's a "lift".

Anonymous

So it would be /gu/ at the end, not /go/.

Damkerng T.

19:48

@snailboat I see! Oh, right! It's Ringu!

Catija

@snailboat YAY! I got that part right. :P

Anonymous

チャッティング chattingu /čaQtiɴgu/ [c̟ɕɑtːːĩŋgɯ]

Damkerng T.

チャット

Noun: チャット ‎(romaji chatto)

Internet chat

Verb: チャットする ‎(romaji chatto suru)

chat on the Internet

It's real!

Anonymous

That's a more established word :-)

Anonymous

But you can apply Japanese loanword phonology to chatting if you like.

Anonymous

19:53

chattingu is what you get.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I just noticed that it's chatto rather than chattu.

(But I think chatto sounds somewhat better.)

Anonymous

Right, because the epenthetic vowel follows /t/.

Anonymous

After /t/ or /d/, you typically use /o/.

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Anonymous

You'll notice a few exceptions to the rule I gave above, but this will work for the vast majority of cases.

Damkerng T.

19:55

nods -- Thanks!

Færd

Why is that chatto linked to the Italian word chatto?

Automatically perhaps

Anonymous

I don't see the link.

Færd

(On the Wiktionary page I meant.)

Anonymous

I'm looking at the Wiktionary page, but I don't see the link.

Damkerng T.

Me either.

Færd

19:57

Strange.

Anonymous

Oh, I see. You have to click the chatto rōmaji link.

Anonymous

Yeah, there should be a link back from that page, I suppose, under Japanese → Romanization, but there isn't.

Færd

Right.

Anonymous

I guess they make those by hand.

Anonymous

Wiktionary is kind of a mess.

Færd

20:02

Like Wikipedia (to a lesser extent), perhaps.

Anonymous

Well, I like Wiktionary.

Anonymous

It will never be anything like a reliable reference, but sometimes it's a useful resource.

Færd

Sometimes it tells you things that other dictionaries don't.

Anonymous

Yeah, like: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:Imma

Færd

And this one: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/have_a_nice_day

> ... a cultural connotation as a stereotypical display of impersonality, disinterest, or passive-aggressive behavior.

Anonymous

20:08

blinks

Anonymous

Well, every time I've ever used it, it's been sincere.

Færd

@snailboat Wow.

@snailboat I've heard that from other native speakers too. :)

But I've came across it being used as explained there. Maybe too singular to be worthy of an entry in a dictioanry.

Anonymous

come

Færd

Sigh

:)

Anonymous

Some speakers grow up saying things like I've came, but it's considered non-standard, so these speakers generally learn not to say it when Standard English is expected.

Færd

20:13

It wasn't intentional on my part.

Anonymous

Well, I figured it was a typo.

Anonymous

But it's a fun topic.

Færd

So they say I've went as well?

Anonymous

Yep!

Færd

Irk!

Anonymous

20:17

> Oh, I always knew this would happen. I wish I would have went back and -- and been the perfect father and everything, but I didn't. I mean, it's just something that's happened, and you can't turn it back.

Anonymous

> Woman 8:... you know? I mean, you know, but I -- my kids have went through the same things, you know?
> RIVERA: Like what? Like what?
> Woman 8: Like, my son, he was six at the time, [ . . . ]

Færd

It's getting curious. How many people do actually use this have + past tense construction?

Anonymous

A lot. Generally Americans, I think.

Anonymous

Of course, you'll find lots and lots of Americans who'll say it sounds terrible to them, but people do say it.

Anonymous

I definitely knew people who said it where I grew up.

Færd

20:21

Wow. I'd never heard of it.

I have such a limited listening experience.

Anonymous

It's a common feature in AAVE.

Anonymous

It's called participle leveling.

Færd

I see.

CowperKettle

20:37

Catija

Ooof... flooding?

CowperKettle

Rivers have went a bit wild this spring.

I took the photo today somewhere north of Novouralsk, a 'closed city'.

A 60 km ride.

Færd

@CowperKettle Yeah. Happened here too.

Anonymous

We still don't have enough water here. It rained on me today, though.

Færd

Here they're digging canals here and there to direct the floods.

CowperKettle

20:43

Færd

This one's ominously beautiful. I don't see any damage.

CowperKettle

We tried to evade swamped places.

Some villages are flooded though.

Færd

Floods may take you by surprise.

CowperKettle

Yes, floods are the biggest killers.

Among all of nature's calamities.

List of natural disasters by death toll

A natural disaster is a sudden event that causes widespread destruction, lots of collateral damage or loss of life, brought about by forces other than the acts of human beings. A natural disaster might be caused by earthquakes, flooding, volcanic eruption, landslide, hurricanes etc. In order to be classified as a disaster, it will have profound environmental effect and/or human loss and frequently incurs financial loss. == Ten worst natural disasters == * Estimate by Nova's sources are close to 4 million and yet Encarta's sources report as few as 1 million. Expert estimates report wide variance...

1,000,000–4,000,000 1931 China floods

@snailboat This must be good then! You received a thing that is preciously rare in your neck of the deserts.

(0:

I've just took my washed clothes out of the machine 30 minutes ago. Just as we picknicked and set out for home on bicycles, a rain started, and when I reached home I was wet all through.

Saturday and Sunday will be rainy

wunderground.com/q/zmw:00000.1.28440

Færd

I can't complain about rain. I like it. But not at the cost of others' discomfort.

CowperKettle

20:53

Here's a bit of today's muddy road

Yezhikha Mountain

"Yezhikha" means "female hedgehog" in Russian

Færd

You went on a bike trek?

CowperKettle

Yes

I'm the guy in the white.. jacket?

sports coat?

Færd

@CowperKettle Why female?

CowperKettle

@Færd That's just the name of the mountain. "Mountain" ("gora") is a female noun in Russian.

So quite logically, a mountain (she) is yezhikha (a female hedgehog)

"Gora yezhikha" (mark these "a" female endings)

That's why I thought "Araucaria" was a woman.

Færd

:D

CowperKettle

20:58

(0:

Færd

I like going hiking very much, but I'm loosing my knees apparently.

CowperKettle

@Færd I'm sorry to hear that!

I'm constantly being told to switch to a lighter gear in order to spare my knees.

It's an issue with bicyclists.

Færd

Consulting a physiotherapist won't hurt. :)

CowperKettle

Yes. :0)

Færd

Taking some exercises and making certain muscles more powerful lessens the burden on the knee.

CowperKettle

21:03

nods

Overall muscle-building is considered good.

A "muscle corsette"

The idea that muscles take some strain on themselves, easing the bones' burden.

Good night!

Færd

Good night. :)

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I saw quite a few snails :-)

Damkerng T.

22:38

Are ESL professionals (native and non-native speakers alike) teaching a different English than the one they use?

> Since judgments made by ESL professionals probably would not be representative of perceptions of all native English speakers, results of the judgment activity were scored separately for ESL professionals and other native speakers. Participants indicated what was correct, and what seemed correct but was something they would not personally use. One of the three major tendencies that became evident was a high acceptance rate of would have in past counterfactual if-clauses (see Table 2).

> The majority of non-ESL professionals regarded would have as correct (87% for would have told, 77% for would have studied). A few (5%, 3%) indicated that although would have is correct, they would not use it themselves. This suggests that the rest (82%, 74%) thought that they would use would have in such past counterfactual if-clauses.

> More than half of the ESL professionals considered would have an error and presented the past perfect as an alternative, while approximately one third regarded would have as correct.

(from the same paper)

4 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

> Source: “I Wish I Would Have Known!”: The Usage of Would Have in Past Counterfactual If- and Wish-Clauses. Ishihara, Noriko, University of Minnesota.

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