(So does "Let's eat some restaurant." :P)

@DamkerngT. He he! A bun shop sounds like a good restaurant to eat too :D

Hehe!

@snailboat @DamkerngT. I wonder if a story is an "event" with this kind of meaning, and that maybe we can generally use where with event antecedents? What do you think?

*That was the election where Bush lost the vote but became the president of the USA", for example ... ?

I tend to think that a story can be thought of as an abstract place.

But the standard explanation ("where" = "in which") works, too, I think.

@DamkerngT. Yes, but the sentence means - I think - either that a) "It was the kind of story (telling of a story) where you had to be there (at the telling of the story) to appreciate the story" or b) "It was the kind of adventure (in a place) where you had to be (in that place) to understand what really happened (in that place)". I think normally the sentence would be read with the first interpretation ...

@DamkerngT. because I don't think you can "be there" in a story in the "in which" sense, can you?

The sentence didn't make much sense to me the first time I read it. I think it was because I wasn't sure about the intended meaning, particularly what "there" is.

But you could definitely have "It's a story where everyone goes crazy, stops eating meat, gets on with their fellow human beings and lives happily ever after". That's a good sentence with a story and an in which meaning for the relative clause, methinks!

@DamkerngT. Yeah, it's not straightforward ...

at all ... I really had to struggle to work out the right kind of context for that sentence

@DamkerngT. I so wish I could speak any other language as well as you (and Phenyl and Færd and loads of other guys here) speak English ... I'm very jealous!

@Araucaria Hah! I'm sure your other languages are fine, too.

@DamkerngT. I can speak Spanish fluently in one tense. :( (But that's quite good for me ;))

@Araucaria I'm sure your Spanish is way better than mine!

@DamkerngT. OK, I'm going to bid you all adieu and leave you in peace and pretend to do some work. Ciao, lingsters

See you later! o/

Oooh! I came back because I desperately need to share something with you two guys (guys=peeps). I emailed GKP today ...

@DamkerngT. @snailboat I found a post of his that I read years ago about interrogatives and conditionals on Language Log. It's here. It's really interesting.

But then I noticed that it said that you could email Pullum about his posts (I don't think that means that he'll read them necessarily, or even answer them, but still). So I bit the bullet and sent him an email.

@Araucaria Yay!

Have you gotten any reply from him?

@DamkerngT. Yay! I felt really brave. But er, it was just an email ... I'm actually at the same uni as GKP, but because I'm not physically there very often, I've never seen him there. I saw him once at UCL though ...

Yay!!

@DamkerngT. No. I know someone who corresponds with him via email, but it usuallytakes a week or two. However, I doubt he can respond to every email he gets or even a large proportion of them, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

Just going to cross my fingers instead :D

@DamkerngT. Me too!!!!

Thanks :)

Thank you, too! I feel like I can write to them about the error in the Index, too, now!

nods -- I promise I'll do that tomorrow!

@snailboat Yay! What did you eail him about?

@snailboat as a relative pronoun?

/ 'subordinator'?

Did you mention that before somewhere here? I seem to remember you talking about that and getting very interested and intrigued, because it seems very strong evidence to me that that's a pronoun ...

@Araucaria Thanks for sharing that.

@snailboat Yes, I remember it

@skillpatrol Hi Skill!

Hello!

:-)

Very interesting article.

@skillpatrol Yeah, it really is!

The comments too.

Book marked :-)

Guys, I am going AFTK (learned that a few weeks ago). This is an official euphemism for killing my self by setting fire to dried tobacco plant leaves and breathing in the toxic smoke. Will be back! @skillpatrol I don't think that GKP's arguments there are that convincing though ...

...it definitely deserves a closer read.

Perhaps that's his intent.

@skillpatrol Maybe, but his take is a bit strange for me. It doesn't fit in well with the rest of the CGEL way of thinking ... (shrugs)

@snailboat What did he say about that? I'm dying to know ...!

@skillpatrol I don't want to bore you to death, but I can explain why if you want.

@snailboat @DamkerngT. @skillpatrol Wow, just got a reply ...

Hah! Yay!!

@DamkerngT. Yes!

Thanks!

You could share the reply with us (if you want to)!

@DamkerngT. I promise I will tomorrow, if don't later tonight! I'm being turfed out of my local pub!

@Araucaria Oh! What happened?! I have a hunch that it's a long story.