Language Overflow

CowperKettle

02:31

19

Q: Drilled into studs, light flickered momentarily but everything else seems fine now - should I be worried?

I was installing shelving in my closets, when drilled a hole into studs, the lights flickered momentarily for 2 seconds. I stopped drilling, and everything else seems fine now. The circuit didn't break and the lights are no longer flickering. There doesn't seem to be any sockets around the swi...

electrical

Does he mean "wall studs"?

Wall stud

A wall stud is a vertical framing member in a building's wall of smaller cross section than a post. They are a fundamental element in building framing. == Etymology == Stud is an ancient word related to similar words in Old English, Old Norse, Middle High German, and Old Teutonic generally meaning prop or support. Other historical words with similar meaning are quarter and scantling (one sense meaning a smaller timber, not necessarily the same use). Stick is a colloquial term for both framing lumber (timber) and a "timber tree" (a tree trunk good for using as lumber (timber)). Thus the names "stick...

Jim Reynolds

03:32

@Avicenna @Car over the break 27 during the break 335

COCA

In the break 163

Would include alternative definitions of break. Place a bioadhesive in the break (of a bone; things like that)

@CowperKettle Yes

Avicenna

05:47

@JimReynolds So during the break is more common.

After that is in the break; and over the break is not really common.

Damkerng T.

06:13

One potentially harmful result of using corpora in language learning is the illusion of common equals correct.

(Just a random thought. Or an echo or something. :-)

Hey @DamkerngT., would you mind posting the essential gist of your comment as an answer? I'd love to upvote it. :) — Omnidisciplinarianist 11 hours ago

Ah, but I didn't plan to write an answer when I posted my comment!

DEAD

07:09

Then plan

CowperKettle

08:31

Sawasdee afternoon, peeps

Absurd Russian song of the day

Губка Боб - Комбайнер!!! SpongeBob SquarePants real life

►

DEAD

@CowperKettle \o

Jim Reynolds

09:16

@DamkerngT. Yet, if speakers often say something, descriptivists may set a high bar to deeming it ungrammatical or nonstandard.

Damkerng T.

@JimReynolds Oh, that's fine. There are, however, other kinds of conclusions that we (learners) have to be careful.

Basically, I think data is only a positive proof, and not even exclusively at that.

Jim Reynolds

The bigger caveat with corpus info on in the break is that it might be used with other meanings of break, and contexts we might be surprised by.

Damkerng T.

For example, if we find lots of hits of a string, say, "mumbo jumbo to the lingo" (it's just something gobbledygook from my brain :), it may be safe to conclude that mumbo jumbo to the lingo is grammatical, but we can't use it to conclude that mumbo jumbo on the lingo is ungrammatical, even though we don't find a single hit of it.

Jim Reynolds

Insert link A in the break in loop C.

Agreed. Stamped. Approved.

Damkerng T.

Yay! :D

Jim Reynolds

09:22

Robot's logic processors back online today.

Damkerng T.

Wait, did I do anything logically incorrect yesterday?! :D

Jim Reynolds

We do come to depend on them. Please don't expose to excessive moisture or temperatures.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Jim Reynolds

I doubt it. But I was teasing as if so.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! (Phew!)

@JimReynolds I wish we had better corpus tools. Maybe pro-linguists have some, or maybe I just don't know them.

Anonymous

09:29

@JimReynolds Speakers often say ain't, but it's famously considered non-standard.

Jim Reynolds

I'm more concerned about reports that candidate @DEAD J. Trump is calling for the building of a wall. A wall to keep snails from (oh, so slowly) immigrating to ELL.

It's obvious where he is aiming his scare tactics.

The ELL nation comprises many molluskophobes.

Damkerng T.

@JimReynolds If squint your eyes hard enough when you look at the background of this chat room, you may see that lots of snails are already here! Some look like a circle, some look like a rectangle. :P

Jim Reynolds

Some of my best friends are snails, but should we be actively promoting snailness?

Damkerng T.

@JimReynolds Snail mails are lovely!

Jim Reynolds

Is it politically correct to describe them as "slimey"?

Damkerng T.

09:34

Hmm... maybe I should've written Snail mail is lovely because the word is from another era.

Jim Reynolds

Do they have a preferred term for that?

Anonymous

We don't generally use mail as countable in reference to postal mail.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

People do sometimes say things like send me a mail in reference to electronic mail, though.

Anonymous

But for postal mail, I think that would always be a letter instead.

Jim Reynolds

09:36

If someone wrote Snails are gross! Can I feel sure certain nominees wouldn't retaliate against free expression?

Anonymous

@JimReynolds There are some people here who dislike snails :-( Poor snails. All they wanted to do was eat all of your plants and reproduce until the planet was overrun.

Damkerng T.

@JimReynolds Snail lovers are silent, reading your sentence ...

Jim Reynolds

Your inability to see that stuff as rational justification deems you: LEGALLY INSANE.

Damkerng T.

(I was trying to allude to my recent answer: ell.stackexchange.com/a/98461/3281 :)

Jim Reynolds

@DamkerngT. :)

Anonymous

09:39

If one snail can reproduce twelve times in a year, and both snails in the pair can lay a hundred eggs, and it takes two months for those eggs to be laid, hatch, and for the hatched snails to reach reproductive age, how long will it take for there to be more snails than atoms in the universe?

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Integer overflow exception thrown. Program halted. Rebooted... -- Soon, I think. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. You need to upgrade to a sescentibit processor.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

That is, after all, the only reasonable way to handle bignums. Make the processor word size larger and hope for the best :-)

Færd

> What I did was watch TV.

> What I do is watch TV.

> What I was doing was watching TV.

Anonymous

09:44

Bare infinitival complement licensed by do in the subject.

Anonymous

Oh, I interrupted too early.

Anonymous

Sorry, go on :-)

Færd

No problem. :)

Why does it have to be the gerund-participle in the third sentence?

Not the infinitive?

Anonymous

Good question! I don't know why a GP do in the subject requires a GP in the complement.

Anonymous

But it's a good observation :-)

Færd

09:46

But you do agree that watch doesn't fit in the third one, right?

Anonymous

Yes, that sounds ungrammatical to me.

Færd

Thanks!

So I guess I should ask it on one of the main sites.

Anonymous

Sure. Though why questions are hard. It's much easier to make an observation that something is than to figure out why.

Anonymous

You could probably make some argument from semantics.

Færd

True.

I did a lot of COCA searching, and the is part is almost clear to me.

And I tried to find something about it in CGEL and other authorities, but failed.

Anonymous

09:49

I don't recall anything about that in CGEL.

Damkerng T.

Semantics mismatch?

Færd

If it were there, it would be in the fused relatives chapter I guess.

Anonymous

I remember thinking CGEL's coverage of this topic wasn't quite adequate.

Færd

Yeah.

@DamkerngT. What do you mean?

Damkerng T.

It's like calling a male her, I think.

Anonymous

09:51

See p.1255

Anonymous

I think it should be covered under 7.3, but it's not.

Færd

Or maybe p. 1422.

Yeah, it's not addressed directly.

I guess in the structure 'copula + gerund-participle' (what I was doing) the participle is seen as a noun, and requires an equivalent on the other side of the sentence, which would be another participle (was watching).

Damkerng T.

An interesting guess. I can't say I agree with the reasoning, though.

Færd

Me neither.

Damkerng T.

For me, the example #3 is somewhat like saying Close the book to page 10. We wouldn't say that because we wouldn't think like that.

Færd

10:03

You mean such a structure doesn't normally occur?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... what I mean is like, we don't say what we don't think about.

Færd

But it's not hard to come up with a scenario that that sentence can just fit in.

Damkerng T.

But that's not how the idea or the sentence is formed in the speaker's mind, I think. (or at least it's unlikely)

In my idea, we don't actually describe scenarios when we use language, we deliver our thoughts.

Færd

Our thoughts form according to the scenario that's going on.

If I wanted to emphasize what I was doing, that construction would be the way to do it, for me.

Damkerng T.

@Færd True. But it's only just one factor. It's like a stimulus.

Which is why people from different languages think of the same situation differently.

We encode our thoughts differently.

Færd

10:09

Hmm! :)

Damkerng T.

A quick example, if I hadn't learned English, the concept of sisters would never occur to me!

Because my first language has no such concept. In other words, in my first language, I'm not allow to conceptualize the concept of "sisters".

(It has only "younger sister" or "older sister", but never just "sister".)

Færd

Sorry, my mind was somewhere else; I was focusing on the grammaticality of the sentence. I couldn't follow your thoughts.

@DamkerngT. But sure you can introduce the concept in your language?

Damkerng T.

So, in my first language, saying Jane and Ellie are sisters is extremely unlikely.

Færd

Is it true for brothers too?

Damkerng T.

@Færd I don't think we really can, but of course, we have lots of workarounds. Like the way English has many ways to deal with future events. :D

@Færd Yes, the same.

We have another kind of concept, "younger" and "older".

Jane and Ellie are younger-and-older makes perfect sense in Thai.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't make much sense in English.

Færd

10:17

Interesting.

Damkerng T.

My idea when reading your example, What I was doing was watching TV, was like, the speaker is thinking about what was happening, so maybe (just maybe, because I don't have a native English brain) it's unlikely that the speaker will use an infinitive.

Færd

So, assuming you're correct, how does it differ from What I did was watch TV?

Damkerng T.

The difference is about what was happening and what happened.

Færd

Then according to your reasoning it should be * What I did was watched TV, no?

Damkerng T.

@Færd No, not that.

"What happened" is a whole event. I didn't mean it as anything about tense.

Færd

10:22

How does your theory reject that?

I'm just trying to understand your point.

Damkerng T.

A whole event, and something in action.

In other words, I was thinking more about aspects.

Færd

Mmm. Why is the effect of the aspect absent here? :

> What I haven't done is watch TV.

Damkerng T.

If we have to change the tense every time, we would get another English in which I heard him told you that is grammatical.

@Færd Sounds strange, I think.

Færd

Corrected.

Anonymous

@Færd I was going to comment, but then you edited it :-)

Damkerng T.

10:25

Ah, the edited version is passable, I think!

But maybe both watch and watching are okay.

Færd

After the perfect you mean?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Færd

Maybe.

Cardinal

10:47

I think there is already similar question on ELL

Færd

You'll be a great help if you find them.

0

Q: "What I'm doing is watching TV." — Why does it have to be the gerund-participle ('watching')?

What I do is watch TV. What I did was watch TV. What I had done was watch TV. ... But, What I am doing is watching TV. The only possible form of watch in the last sentence is the gerund-participle, which cannot occur in the previous ones: *What I am doing is...

present-participle participle infinitive-vs-gerund

DEAD

@Færd Heh, I'd always ask this stuff on ELL.

Færd

@Araucaria Thought you might be interested to take a look. ^

DEAD

I haven't still persuaded myself to post on ELU.

Færd

@DEAD Good! Where?

DEAD

10:53

Which brings me to the question; what would be the difference between ELL and ELU for people like me?

@Færd I haven't asked anything. I'd = I would

Færd

Oh.

I don't really know where I can get better responses.

I've had my bad experiences on both.

Chat is the most comfortable place for me.

DEAD

You just found your solution

Færd

Has Arau's avatar changed? Do we have more than one Araucaria?

Anonymous

Has it? I don't think I could recognize him if it changed.

Færd

When I type @A... , an unfamiliar avatar appears as a suggestion.

Anonymous

11:05

Well, your automatically generated avatar can change under certain conditions.

DEAD

@Færd There is an issue with gravatar identicons, and the team is investigating.

Anonymous

@DEAD Wow, really? Link, please :-)

DEAD

9

A: Why is my profile image different?

We noticed the same thing too last night. For at least one user, the gravatars in chat were not what they're supposed to be on main, even though the profile pages contained the original gravatars (when loaded by the same chat user), what they should've been. Looking into the issue, I found mysel...

What would you guys have ever done without me?

Færd

We would be DEAD.

DEAD

The issue happens for some people and not for others.

It also sometimes happens for me and sometimes doesn't.

So it's hella weird.

Færd

11:10

Imma take off now. See y'all.

DEAD

I see two Helmars at the same time Snail.

How mysteriously cool and weird is that?

Anonymous

@DEAD I only see one :-(

Anonymous

Oh, I scrolled up. Now I can see both :-)

DEAD

Yay

That feeling of satisfaction when someone else reproduces a bug you observed, and you keep telling yourself "You weren't crazy after all"

Oh, something hit my mind Snail.

Why do we say himself instead of he-self?

I mean, it makes sense. Prolly

Anonymous

@DEAD Good question for English.SE :-)

DEAD

11:20

@snailplane Is it?

Well, it is etymology, but I don't want to be tossed at ELL.

google.com/…

Hmm, hisself

Anonymous

@DEAD Yes. The etymology of the -self forms is complicated.

Anonymous

But we used to say the equivalents of he self, him self, his self.

CowperKettle

Good afternoon, Snails, DEAD, Raven!

DEAD

\o

0

Q: Reflexive pronouns to affect false intellectual tone

In the comments on this answer from another question, a discussion was started regarding the way native speakers use reflexive pronouns to sound "more intellectual" (for example: "I myself have found in this research..."). I know it isn't correct in standard English, but I wonder if it has a lit...

etymology usage tone

Disappointing

Anonymous

"I know it isn't correct in standard English" ← But it is! It's perfectly standard.

CowperKettle

11:24

> Дата внесения Изменения « » 20 г. (Date of Revision: "_" _____ 20) -- I wonder whether in English we use quotation marks to indicate where the date (day of the months) should be entered

DEAD

Alright, I might ask something there

CowperKettle

In Russian, we use quotation marks in a form, the person puts there the date, say, "24" August 2016

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I don't really understand that convention.

CowperKettle

It's a form, for filling out by a person

Anonymous

Like, even though you just explained it, it's unfamiliar enough that I need to force it through my brain still.

Anonymous

11:26

So I think most English speakers would be confused by it.

CowperKettle

Maybe in English we only use underscores: Date of Revision: _____________ 20__

And the person fills in: 24 August 2016

Anonymous

In my experience, forms almost always have a simple blank for the date: _______

CowperKettle

ah, thank you!

Russians love to put the Christmas-tree quotation marks everywhere: « »

Anonymous

Unless it's one of those standardized test sorts, where each number has a box or a set of bubbles to fill in :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

11:28

@CowperKettle Guillemets!

CowperKettle

Yes. (0:

Anonymous

Japanese occasionally uses a guillemet-alike: 《》

Anonymous

French uses actually guillemets.

CowperKettle

Translators are always admonished to never use the angle quotes in English

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Quotation marks and their uses vary greatly from orthography to orthography, don't they? Some people have trouble accepting that uses that are familiar to them might be confusing to someone else.

Anonymous

11:30

In Japanese, it's fairly common to put quotation marks around a word to emphasize it. Sometimes even around part of a word.

Anonymous

But that sort of use is considered illiterate in English.

CowperKettle

@snailplane The persons who supervise translators often have poor knowledge of English but they glance across the translation and pick upon the wrong use of quotation marks and such stuff.

Anonymous

Worse, it can be confusing, because the emphatic quotes can be interpreted as scare quotes.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I see!

CowperKettle

Around part of a word?

Nice.

Anonymous

11:31

Yes, because in Japanese, usually words are written without spaces.

CowperKettle

ah, no spaces between words

Anonymous

So it's not as confusing to insert quotes around part of a word, although it's still uncommon.

CowperKettle

Military march of the day

(0:

Back to my translation!

Anonymous

My father's favorite genre of music is the march.

Anonymous

I grew up listening to many a march. :-)

user227867

11:44

Is this the official ELL main chat?

Anonymous

No, but the main ELL chat has been mostly abandoned.

Anonymous

We should figure out something to do about that if it stays inactive.

Anonymous

ELL's Cabin

This is the former main chat room for English Language Learner...

Anonymous

Officially, this is still the main room.

user227867

I see. So this must be the pseudoofficial one for now. Good enough for me.

Anonymous

11:45

Yeah, you could say that :-)

user227867

Hey @snailplane do you want to hear me sing?

Anonymous

Sure, although I can't right now.

user227867

'O sole mio

►

user227867

I deleted my old channel and created a new one.

Anonymous

I changed my mind and put on headphones.

user227867

11:47

This is my first HD video, lol.

Anonymous

Nice vibrato :-)

Anonymous

Bravo :-)

Anonymous

I need to get some new headphones. These ones are starting to hurt my left ear because of how they fit.

user227867

Hehe, you can sing and let me hear too. =)

Anonymous

Well, I could. But I don't want to do that right now. :-)

user227867

11:53

I just deleted about 20 videos to make better ones. Previously I used 480p. This one is 720p. Better on big screens.

user227867

I am going to use my channel as a practice tool. Can remake videos as many times as I like and improve each time.

DEAD

Wut

Welcome to LO @Jasp

user227867

@DEAD Welcome to my channel, lol.

user227867

You know, the questions on ELL seem better written than those on ELU, lol.

user227867

Ooh, DEAD and snailplane are running for ELL mod, ooh!

user227867

12:05

This is so exciting!

DEAD

ooooooooh

user227867

I can't vote.

DEAD

@JasperLoy Well, I'm not really excited because I don't care much about winning.

My chances are slim, and there are more deserving people.

user227867

I think I am going to like ELL better than ELU.

DEAD

I wanted a chatty mod, so I ran, but it doesn't matter whether it's me, Snail, or Nathan.

As long as whoever gets elected does come to chat.

A mod in chat is really handy, you know

user227867

12:15

I just made my first post on ELL.

user227867

I hope this community is not so prone to cast downvotes.

DEAD

Yay

@JasperLoy This community is really prone to casting upvotes when it shouldn't have been

user227867

@DEAD Yay!

DEAD

You're finally gonna learn how to despise upvotes

user227867

I think ELU has become the most unfriendly site on SE.

user227867

12:26

I think I am going to make this my primary site from now.

DEAD

@JasperLoy I haven't participated there yet, but yeah, it has some reputation network-wide.

user227867

@DEAD The problem with the people there is that they think they are very smart when the opposite is true.

DEAD

OK well, there's already enough unhappiness among the two sites.

I don't think they'd respond positively to backbiting in this chat.

I guess it's the linguist obsession with bureaucracy. :)

user227867

Then there are also some nasty characters in the chat there.

DEAD

Like that DEAD guy. He's a jerk

user227867

12:31

Is this chat very busy?

DEAD

Not as much as ELU chat, but there are quite some chatters here.

I guess we get, hmm, 1000 messages per day

Oh wait.

Actually, these days it is as busy as there.

5

A: Avatar picture problem?

We're aware of the issue, but we're not sure what exactly is going on. As far as we know, it's not something on our end. Gravatar seems to be serving different identicons for the same hash but different requested sizes... and only sometimes. Marc Gravell wrote up some more details here: http://m...

user227867

@DEAD I see. With me coming, it will become 10,000 a day, lol.

DEAD

CC @Snail @Færd

user227867

@DEAD You speak Persian right?

DEAD

@JasperLoy Yep, my mother tongue is Azeri which is a dialect of Turkish, but I speak Persian like a native Persianer.

Since it's the official language of Iran.

user227867

12:40

I see. My mother tongue is Gibberish.

DEAD

Nice, a man from Gibberland!

That's the only place that didn't have an LO chatter

user227867

May I ask who the regulars in this chat are?

DEAD

@JasperLoy Me, snailplane, DamkerngT, CowperKettle, Jim Reynolds, and occasionally, Araucaria.

Also Cardinal, Avicenna, and sometimes StoneyB.

user227867

@DEAD Thanks. And also me, of course, LOL.

DEAD

I surely hope so!

user227867

12:47

At first, I thought snail was filling out applications for the last month, from the star wall, lol.

DEAD

Alrighty, I gotta take a nap. Cya

user227867

Me too, goodnight.

DEAD

\o

CowperKettle

@snailplane Really! Great! I generally dislike military things, but sometimes they sound beautiful, and this one has nice lyrics. The lyrics is not 100% jingoistic. The song tells about the regimen commander squandering his squadron's money on booze and girls. "Commanders, do not do like this, your soldiers know everything".

Now that I deciphered the lyrics, I can see why it is popular in Ukraine.

I've got a question. An official document is bound with lace and this lace is "fixed" with a small rectangular sheet of paper, on which there is a standard Russian formula: "2 sheets are bound, numbered and sealed with stamps".

Is this "bound, numbered and sealed" okay in terms of English officialeze?

I found numerous Russian translators' discussions as to how properly translate this phrase.

Here are some discussions:

proz.com/kudoz/russian_to_english/…

proz.com/kudoz/russian_to_english/law_general/…

@snailplane My dad used to put headphones on me when I was a toddler and put on Beatles albums.

And we had boatloads of "bard music" (Russian alternatives of Bob Dylan and stuff)

He generally hated military stuff and spoiled a hunting party once by preventing folk from firing at animals.

(0:

Found a page on Wiki about bard music

Bard (Soviet Union)

The term bard (Russian: "бард" bard) came to be used in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, and continues to be used in Russia today, to refer to singer-songwriters who wrote songs outside the Soviet establishment, similarly to folk singers of the American folk music revival. Because in bard music songwriters perform their own songs, the genre is also commonly referred to as author song ("авторская песня" avtorskaya pesnya). Bard poetry differs from other poetry mainly in being sung with simple guitar accompaniment as opposed to being spoken. Another difference is that it focuses less on style...

Araucaria

13:04

@Færd No. There's a stuff up with the caching (don't know how you spell that). This glitch only happens with some browsers. I have asked a question on meta about it.

@Færd I am interested! But I do not have any answers!

CowperKettle

13:43

> Packaging: 5 g, 10 g, 15 g, 20 g, 50 g, 100 g, 500 g in a double-layer polyethylene bag or in a double bag. (???)

Is this okay?

The meaning is: the drug is either packed in a single double-layer bag, or in two bags, one put into the other.

4

Q: Is it right/appropriate to say "double bag it?"

What one would say to get another (plastic) bag for carrying heavy groceries? Is it right to tell the cashier "would you please double bag it?" I am asking this question because when I tried to search the web for such phrase, I ended up with many results suggesting perverted, sexual connotation...

phrases slang questions

double bag seems to fit

Cardinal

14:14

11

Q: Using bare infinitive after 'does'

All he does is watching TV. I said this sentence and my native friend corrected me and said 'you need to use bare infinitive here' All he does is watch TV. Why is this right while the other is false? If I change the placement of the complement and subject, I will have this sentence: ...

infinitive bare-infinitive

Avicenna

15:39

@Cardinal I tend to use gerund rather than infinitive.

I feel we need a noun there so my mind automatically chooses gerund.

Why infinitive?

I should find out?

Cardinal

That's the question related to what @Færd already asked

He asked me to posted here

Avicenna

What question?

On ELL?

Cardinal

Ok, he had a discussion here that you can see by scrolling the page

then, he asked the question on ELU

I said there is a similar question on ELL

He asked me to posted here

BTW, the Yuri's question is great.

Avicenna

I see.

Cardinal

Yuri is a Persian, too (@DamkerngT. maybe is Persian) :))

I do not see any ambiguity that makes us use perfect tense in #1. I think in the second sentence the perfect tense has been used because you had guessed before that he could have been wrong. Now, it has been proved that she is more wrong. BTW, I am learner and It is a good question. ^_^ — Cardinal 1 hour ago

Jim Reynolds

16:49

@snailplane @DEAD Nomination question: If elected, would you confer upon me the title: ELL Grand Master of Knowledge? Thank you.

DEAD

@JimReynolds No, that position is already taken

Come back next year, sorry

ELL's Cabin

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