Language Overflow

Kinzle B

00:00

Ah, I see. I think I'll have to rely on Gbooks. :)

So many fake ones in Gsearch.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence I think I've heard I'm happy to ... more often than I'd be happy to ...

Or maybe I'm more than happy to ...

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, it's also possible with am ('m).

Anonymous

I'm always happy to help!

Kinzle B

The bad thing is dictionaries don't have collocations like this. :( They have
"comfortable with/about", but never gerunds/to-infinitive.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane I didn't think of the contractions much, just the contrast between am and would be.

Anonymous

00:06

@DamkerngT. Oh, sure. I wasn't trying to draw attention to the distinction between am and 'm, sorry :-)

Kinzle B

Her parents were happy to know she’d got a good job. From: macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/happy_1 :)

Damkerng T.

@KinzleB Not to mention in or that and so on!

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. Interesting. I'm happy with "Happy to help" (sentence fragment, informal), but I think "I'm happy to help" is less common - possibly because the context is usually either talking about future effort or past effort, but rarely current effort.

Anonymous

My first two choices (Macmillan and Longman) both failed me on comfortable :-(

Kinzle B

The tricky thing is the context cannot tell you whether it should be ing or to-inf.

Lawrence

00:09

@DamkerngT. Adding something before happy seems to help.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence I'd be happy to help sounds a bit too formal to me, personally.

Anonymous

@Lawrence It works with conditionals, or with adverbs of frequency: I'm always happy to help or I'm happy to help if you need anything.

Anonymous

I think it also works when you're actually in the process of helping someone: "I'm sorry to put you to all this trouble, Bob!" "Oh, it's no problem, Alice! I'm happy to help."

Anonymous

I'm not sure who comes after Alice and Bob. Someone with a C-name. :-)

Lawrence

@snailplane Yes, you're right on all 3 constructions. It's interesting how context changes one's perspective.

@snailplane Charlie, I think.

Anonymous

00:11

All right, I'll remember that. Charlie :-)

Kinzle B

@DamkerngT. No, that is quite common, even in informal register, I suppose.

Damkerng T.

@KinzleB It sounds, hmm..., a bit like wanting to keep distance.

Which would be fine if we want to keep formality.

Anonymous

Sometimes people talk about politeness in terms of distance. Polite ～ distal.

Kinzle B

@DamkerngT. more polite, I think! The speaker is not sure his hearer really need his/her help.

Anonymous

But then it would be contrasted with direct rather than proximal.

Anonymous

00:13

I don't really like distal though. Maybe indirect? :-)

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. It depends on which word you stress. If you stress happy, it's cheerful. If you stress be, it's reserved.

Damkerng T.

@KinzleB Being too polite is sometimes not a very good idea. It depends on context, as usual, though.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. There are some people who, well, you know they're upset when they start being polite.

Anonymous

(I put in well to force a prosodic break so you wouldn't read they as a resumptive pronoun!)

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence This might be funny, but when I imagine Jonny Lee Miller (Holmes in Elementary) saying I'd be HAPpy to help you, it sounds a bit sarcastic, but when I imagine him saying I'm HAPpy to help you, it sounds neutral. :D

Lawrence

00:18

@snailplane Going back a bit in the chat, but you're missed when you're not around.

Damkerng T.

But if it's said by some other BrE speaker, say, James Corden, I think I'd be happy to help you sounds neutral.

Anonymous

@Lawrence Oh no! Well, I sometimes have medical things that take me away from ELL chat.

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. Hmm, you've got a point.

Anonymous

But on the flip side, I currently have medical things which give me lots of time for ELL chat :-)

Anonymous

By the way, I know resumptive pronoun is a fairly technical term, but Wikipedia has a great example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resumptive_pronoun

Anonymous

00:20

I think the example makes it fairly clear :-)

Lawrence

@snailplane It's good to have an eye for the silver lining. Makes life happier. :)

Anonymous

@Lawrence Well, don't be surprised if I'm a little out of it Monday, or maybe all of next week, but after that things should be looking up :-)

Lawrence

@snailplane Sounds like something serious - wishing you all the best with it.

Anonymous

It'll be okay :-)

Lawrence

:)

Heading out now. Time for some food again. :)

Nice chatting, everyone. Bye!

Kinzle B

00:23

I think you mean "so you would read they as a resumptive pronoun". Isn't "they" a resumptive pronoun here? @snailplane

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence See you soon!

@snailplane I hope the tough time will pass swiftly and things will look up and up and up!

@KinzleB This message, I suppose? There are some people who, well, you know they're upset when they start being polite.

If there was no well, it would look a bit odd (see resumptive pronoun above): There are some people who you know they're upset when they start being polite. -- who you know they're ... would be a case of resumptive pronoun.

Kinzle B

I think it means "There are some people who are upset when they start being polite.", so it's resumptive?

Anonymous

@KinzleB It would be if it were all one big sentence. I put in well to make it sound like (in speech) I gave up on the first sentence, and started over with a new sentence.

Damkerng T.

who you know they're is resumptive. We'd normally say who you know are.

Anonymous

Native speakers sometimes use resumptive pronouns, but in general we don't like how they sound, so we try to avoid them if we can think of any way to rephrase it.

Anonymous

00:31

I put in well hoping it would make it sound like it wasn't a resumptive pronoun :-)

Kinzle B

Ah, I see. It is, but you made it sound like it wasn't. :)

Anonymous

That's what I tried to do, at any rate.

Kinzle B

For us non-native speakers, we wouldn't frown at it. :)

Damkerng T.

Wait, I am happy to play basketball is ungrammatical?!

Maybe it's because of the context they had in mind.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't think it is.

Damkerng T.

00:43

A comment in that thread (forum.wordreference.com/threads/…) gave it a thumbs down.

Anonymous

I feel like our site is a little bit too close-happy.

Anonymous

I think closing some questions is important, but I would like to see more questions remain open in general.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Lately, yes, I think so.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I think they probably did evaluate it with an imaginary mental context in which it did not work.

Anonymous

But presented without context, I have to make one up, and I don't think it's too hard to come up with one that does work.

Damkerng T.

00:46

@snailplane nods -- Sometimes an opinion by a native speaker surprises me. Mostly, it's something along the same lines.

Anonymous

> Alice: Hey, Bob! Want to play a game?
> Bob: Sure, what do you want to play?
> Alice: I'm not sure. What sorts of games do you like?
> Bob: Well, I'm happy to play basketball.
> Alice: Oh, I was thinking more along the lines of video games.
> Bob: Ah, I'm sorry. I don't really play video games.
> Alice: What about a basketball video game?
> Bob: Oh, they have those? Sure, let's give it a shot.

Anonymous

Here's my imaginary crummy dialogue.

Anonymous

Bask in its crumminess, and I'll be right back.

Damkerng T.

More or less the same context as mine! A 'pick and choose' context. :D

I just edited a question a couple hours ago. I understand that it's not easy for anyone to read the OP's original question. It looked very confusing to me at first as well, but when I took a couple minutes trying to read the question, it wasn't that hard to understand the OP's intent.

@Ahmed For questions about will/would, the will-would tag may be helpful. — P. E. Dant 1 hour ago

Oh! I didn't know we had this tag!

Hmm... but is it useful/helpful?

Hi! @Qwerp-Derp Welcome to the room! Please feel free to hang around with us. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'm in favor of it.

Anonymous

00:54

I don't know if it's helpful, to be honest.

Anonymous

But I think we can give it a shot and, if after a while it turns out not to be useful, we can remove it.

Anonymous

But I don't think we've had it long enough to see if people find it helpful or not.

Anonymous

2

Q: how to get 'an extra 9 hours'

I had to read these sentences in an article. Most people need from 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours of sleep a night. You cannot save hours of sleep the way you save money in the bank. If you have only 5 hours of sleep for three nights, you don't need to sleep an extra 9 hours on the weekend. I ...

comprehension

Anonymous

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a math puzzle, and not about learning English — user3169 8 hours ago

Anonymous

@user3169 my OP is not a math puzzle. Not being a native, I don't understand the phrase '5 hours of sleep for three nights'. Instead of it, I want to use the phrase '5 hours of sleep each night for three nights'. — thein lwin 1 min ago

Anonymous

00:56

The OP edited their question. Should we reopen it?

Damkerng T.

@snailplane It looks like the OP doesn't know what it means indeed!

Voted!

> Most people need from 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours of sleep a night. You cannot save hours of sleep the way you save money in the bank. If you have only 5 hours of sleep for three nights, you don't need to sleep an extra 9 hours on the weekend.

Hmm... but that isn't the way a bank would work!

We'd normally deposit before withdraw our money, I think.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Haha, good point! :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe! :D

Anonymous

I think this question is about learning English, but that might not have been clear to the close voters based on the original form of the question. @theinlwin Is there anything else you can add to make your question a little bit clearer so we can get it reopened? What exactly is it that confuses you about this if-phrase? — snailplane ♦ 30 secs ago

Anonymous

I'd be willing to reopen it in its current state, but if we can get a little bit of clarification, even better :-)

Damkerng T.

01:04

:D

I think it's my turn to head off. Have a nice day and a good chat, everyone!

Oh, I just remember, @Rubisco! Avicenna said good-bye and all the best to you.

@JimReynolds Hello! But see you later! :P

Jim Reynolds

@Lawrence and all, I'm alive and well. Writing on a deadline and a couple of new classes to teach. I had warned this room that you'd be tragically deprived of my presence, but then I hung around, and hung around . . . One of those people who keeps saying goodbye but never leaves! I'll be back one day, with all my sweet Jim juiciness!

@Dam o/

Anonymous

01:19

Hi, @JimReynolds! Welcome back :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Have a good day!

Man_From_India

Good Day is a name of a biscuit here :-) talking about biscuits, I am yet to have breakfast. Good morning, all. Let's get up.

Anonymous

Is that BrE biscuit (= AmE cookie)?

Anonymous

Good morning! :-)

Anonymous

Here in California, it's the afternoon.

Anonymous

01:29

Six in the afternoon, sun's still up. Do I call it 'afternoon' or 'evening'? I'm not sure!

Man_From_India

01:44

It's 7.14 AM here

@snailplane i don't know, I take biscuits and cookies to be different.

Qwerp-Derp

Hello!

Man_From_India

Hi

Anonymous

02:32

@Man_From_India Me too.

Anonymous

But I use the AmE definitions for both words.

Anonymous

Hello, @Qwerp-Derp! Welcome to ELL chat :-)

Qwerp-Derp

Hello, @snailplane!

Is this the room of the Grammar Police?

Anonymous

Well, we can discuss grammar, but we don't actually lock any people away :-)

Man_From_India

:-)

Qwerp-Derp

02:45

LOL

Ah, good to know.

CowperKettle

03:09

@snailplane Good evening, Snails! It's after sunup here too. (0:

> First Known Use of sunup. 1653.

I recall this word from Shelby Foote's book

Виктор Цой — Муравейник

►

>
A new day is starting
Cars are going here and there
Since even the Sun is not lazy to rise,
It's a small task for us
The anthill is busy
If an ant has broken a leg, that means naught
He will recover by and by
Or maybe he will die, not a big deal

Second stanza

> I hate it when someone lies
But I'm also tired of the truth
I tried to find a refuge -
They say I did not try enough
And I don't know the percentage
Of madmen at this point in time
But when I hear and I look around
- It must be quite high

Third stanza

>
And we could have waged a war
Against those who are against us
Because those who against those who against us
Cannot overcome them without us

>
Our future is all in the fog
Our past flips from heaven to hell and back
Our money avoid our pockets
The morning's here, get up!

CowperKettle

03:51

Is this proper usage:

> Microtitre plates can be centrifuged in Eppendorf 5810 R with swing out rotor A-4-62 and microplate holders.

(from Google Books)

I mean, they use the name of the centrifuge only, without an indefinite article.

> Minimal sample volume: 20 µL. (or "minimum"?)

@snailplane Yay!

Shubh prabhaat, @Man_From_India ji!

Man_From_India

04:25

Good morning Kettle

0

Q: Why do we use "of a" in these type of constructions?

It's not very uncommon to find the sentences like: It looks like your teacher might have made a little of a mistake. It was last I ever saw of him. Let go of an opportunity. I've kicked enough of these guys' butts. It was an end befitting of a Shinobi. I believe that the...

prepositions

CowperKettle

I'm not sure: is it "equipment wipers" or "equipment wipes"?

The fiberless thingies we use to clean lab equipment

Man_From_India

Wiper seems reasonable.

CowperKettle

Thanks!

Dhanyavaad, I mean

Man_From_India

Blade wiper, windshield wipers etc.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Could you describe them for me?

Anonymous

04:33

If it's like a cloth, I would say wipe.

CowperKettle

@snailplane Thank you!

Yes, it is like a piece of cloth

Or piece of tissue

My glossary produced by a senor translator has both "wipers" and "wipes", which made me wonder

> wipers for equipment
wipers for floor
wipers for hands
wipers for walls

I should probably tell her to correct these entries

> I tried to find a refuge -
They say I did not try enough

Is this okay, or is "I did not try hard enough" better?

hand wipes, hand wipers

So it must be 'wipes'

Man_From_India

try enough and try hard enough. Both are okay.

CowperKettle

Dhanyavaad!

Anonymous

I prefer wipe. Try a Google Image Search for wiper.

CowperKettle

Ah, windshild wipers

Anonymous

04:44

I think you'll mostly find tools and devices.

Anonymous

I'm on my phone and I haven't tried searching yet.

CowperKettle

@snailplane I see windshield wipers!

> windshield wipers slapping time

Anonymous

Not just those, but you should also see manual wipers, the sort of thing with a handle?

CowperKettle

@snailplane Yes, but quite far below

Anonymous

Well, windshield wipers are most often simply referred to as wipers.

CowperKettle

04:47

And this

Anonymous

So that's not too surprising.

Anonymous

Haha!

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

Is that good for your back?

CowperKettle

Dunno, I never tried!

Anonymous

04:47

I'd be afraid to find out :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

> Polymerase chain reaction in real time (Russian) >> quantitative PCR (English)

Word of the day: hydraulic head

Sam

07:37

hey everyone
do you people use often the expression "rack up" in your casual conversations?

Anonymous

07:50

Maybe once in a while.

Anonymous

0

Q: "Get punished" and "be punished"

What is the difference between these two? They will be punished. They will get punished.

difference passive

Anonymous

Do we have a good post about get-passives?

Damkerng T.

08:58

@snailplane Don't be afraid to find out. :-)

Hmm... your answer is the most upvoted answer about the get-passive: ell.stackexchange.com/a/34190/3281.

Rubisco

10:20

@DamkerngT. She's leaving the building?

Damkerng T.

@Rubisco Yes. She told me so, and asked me to pass her words to you.

Rubisco

Aww

Thanks Avi and I wish a straight road to success with beautiful scenery for you

Today I feel really sick.

Well . . . I felt.

It seemed to have been food poisoning.

Now I've rested and recharged my batteries, but my back hurts because of so much sleep.

Damkerng T.

@Rubisco Oh, no!

@Rubisco Some stretching would help a little, I think.

Rubisco

Nah, just wanna sleep more

Damkerng T.

Okay! That's good! :D

Rubisco

10:33

Now I understand the joy of sleeping.

Damkerng T.

zzz :-)

Rubisco

Tell Hagu I'd invade his dreams

Damkerng T.

Hey, you know, he's sleeping, too!

V.V.

Found a company of sleeping beauties.

Quietly leaving the room and closing the door.

Damkerng T.

@V.V. :)

Good afternoon, @V.V.!

V.V.

10:51

Sawasdee kha,@DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

Sawasdee khrap!

I'm multitasking, so I'm not very talkative at the moment. But feel free to discuss or talk about anything. :)

V.V.

Dam, can't find the duplicate answer, but sure there was. For was/were question, subject -verb agreement with "or" in the subject.

Damkerng T.

@V.V. Hmm.. which question are we talking about here?

Could you paste its link in the chat?

V.V.

0

Q: Using was or were

Which one should I use in a sentence such as this: The abstract or the references information of many papers was/were not available.

subject-verb-agreement grammatical-number

Damkerng T.

Thank you!

Hmm...

> The abstract or the references information of many papers was/were not available.

the references information?

I think either the reference information or the references' information would sound better.

There is only one noun anyway, I think.

V.V.

11:00

Dam, getting used to technical things a little.

Damkerng T.

information

V.V.

A weird sentence

Damkerng T.

@V.V. nods -- I think we have to be careful here. Many technical documents were written by non-native speakers. the references information may not be absolutely wrong, though.

I wonder if snailplane or someone else has written a post about coordination.

user62015

11:40

@HI

Lawrence

13:06

@JimReynolds Glad to hear it. All the best for your endeavours. :)

V.V.

@user62015 Hi.

Damkerng T.

1

Q: "to be" or "will be"?

I encounter a sentence as follows: The results were much like those of James Bernoulli’s Art of Conjecture (1713), developed analytically by Laplace in the late 18th century; but P´olya thought the resemblance to be only qualitative. I wonder if the to be in black can be replaced as "w...

grammar future-time

Hmm... that's an interesting pattern.

[ Someone thinks something to be ADJ ]

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. That sounds so sad. Can nothing be done for her situation?

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence It's her decision. I still hope she will change her mind.

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. Yeah.

Damkerng T.

13:17

I tried to persuade her to stay, but didn't succeed. But I do still hope.

Lawrence

@snailplane Can you have a look at the following, please? I'd like a second opinion on my intuition on this answer-in-comment to the question-in-comment.

@TRomano I think it might be because the phrase "only for Mifune to tell him," (the presence of the comma is significant) leads to an expectation that the next part is a direct quote of what Mifune told him. Without the comma, the expectation is reported speech. That is, we're considering the pattern "M tells N, X", where N is a noun phrase (whoever M is 'telling'), and X is the communication. For example, Mickey tells Minnie, "I have a present for you", but Micky tells Minnie he has a present for her. ... — Lawrence 15 mins ago

@TRomano ... As an aside, there might also be some constraints on X - my earlier example of hello might not be enough. It needs to be something for which the indirect-speech equivalent can follow the word that. — Lawrence 14 mins ago

Damkerng T.

I'm not snailplane, but this part in TRomano's first comment sounds a little odd:

The quotation is not idiomatic. We don't use "tell" with direct quotes. Idiomatic would be "...only for Mifune to say to him 'Neither did I'" or "only to have Mifune say to him 'Neither did I'". Kid learns that he had no reason to be reluctant. The facts have made his worry nugatory. — TRomano yesterday

[ We don't use "tell" with direct quotes ] -- Hmm...

go browse some Hemingway's books...

> To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

FWIW, "Hello." is not a real sentence (or a major sentence or a full sentence, whatever you call it).

Stack Exchange

14:41

0

Q: What's the difference between [adjective-phrase] and [phrasal-adjective]?

What's the difference between adjective-phrase and phrasal-adjective? Should they be merged? Could we write some tag wiki/usage guidance to make any difference clearer?

discussion tags tag-synonyms

Anonymous

15:10

The community seems to be split on reopening this question:

Anonymous

2

Q: how to get 'an extra 9 hours'

I had to read these sentences in an article. Most people need from 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours of sleep a night. You cannot save hours of sleep the way you save money in the bank. If you have only 5 hours of sleep for three nights, you don't need to sleep an extra 9 hours on the weekend. I ...

comprehension

Anonymous

It's at 3 reopen votes, but there have been some Leave Closed reviews.

Anonymous

Erf, that phrasal-adjective tag appears to have been created in error.

Anonymous

And it hasn't been used really consistently since then.

V.V.

15:25

It's a normal question. I don't know if "for" explains that it is "each day".

Damkerng T.

16:16

There are only 50 questions in total for the tags adjective-phrase and phrasal-adjective. Make them synonymous?

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. What does that count seconds at the rate of 5 to the mile means in the following sentence?

> I had been taught to observe them (thunder storm) analytically, counting off the seconds between flash and boom at the rate of five to the mile, tracking the approaching storm...

Damkerng T.

The distance is approx. 5 seconds a mile.

I usually count to 4 because I use the metric system.

(The sound comes after the light about 4 seconds if the source is 1 km away.)

Man_From_India

Hmmm but the language was a bit difficult for me :(

Damkerng T.

You could think of it as [ at the rate of [ five (seconds) to the mile ] ].

"five seconds to the mile" is the rate.

Man_From_India

Yes, that second after five would make it much better for me.

Damkerng T.

16:48

1

Q: What is the meaning of ' I don't want him in the room.'

I think the sentence means that I don't want the situation that he is in the room. Am I right? I want to know the meaning of the sentence.

grammar

Hmm...

The thought of voting to close the question crossed my mind.

I don't know.

It's a bit strange to me that he wasn't sure about the meaning of I don't want him in the room, but fine with I don't want the situation that he is in the room.

CowperKettle

18:13

How is his name pronounced in English?

Evening, @V.V.!

CowperKettle

18:45

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Bak Yong Hyeon, I think.

CowperKettle

Thanks, @DamkerngT.!

user62015

@CowperKettle @DamkerngT. Hi!

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle No problem!

user62015

I need your help here @DamkerngT. @CowperKettle

Damkerng T.

18:46

Hi, @user62015

@user62015 What is it?

user62015

(A) The audience is requested / (B) to leave / (C) by the nearest exit. / (D) no error Answer says option A, why?

CowperKettle

Probably are

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I think is is fine.

CowperKettle

I think it is fine too

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure if The audience are is really fine.

user62015

18:48

Okay.

The?

CowperKettle

Found this

Damkerng T.

The should be fine. It's context dependent, but it wouldn't be ungrammatical.

(Just audience, without any article, would be.)

@CowperKettle Hmm... it's are in Indian English, perhaps.

CowperKettle

19

Q: Is "audience" singular or plural?

I want to use 'audience' in the following sentence. In what form should I use it? Is it a singular or plural noun? How the audience demotivate players in the NBA. How the audience demotivates players in the NBA.

nouns grammatical-number verb-agreement

user62015

@CowperKettle But in this example pronoun is their but here we don't have any pronoun.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Nice find!

CowperKettle

18:51

@user62015 I don't understand, sorry

user62015

@DamkerngT. @CowperKettle Thanks. I got the answer.

CowperKettle

It seems to the a US/UK thing, and India is "UK" in a sense

Great answer. How ironic that the Brits don't speak proper english! :-p — Bob Aug 2 '12 at 20:10

user62015

(A) Look, / (B) it / (C) rains / (D) no error Answer says C, why? @DamkerngT. @CowperKettle

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle LOL

@user62015 Look, it rains doesn't work.

We'd say Look, it's raining!

user62015

Yes. @DamkerngT. Thank you so much.

Damkerng T.

18:53

NP!

CowperKettle

19:10

> The plate was treated with staining and destaining solutions, then incubated with constant shaking in an incubator shaker at (37 ± 1)°С until the image was clear. (I wonder if this is the right phrase in a description of an isoelectric focusing procedure).

> Boletus edulis (English: penny bun, cep, porcino or porcini) is a basidiomycete fungus, and the type species of the genus Boletus.

Found only three penny buns today. (0:

Good night!

But a lot of other shrooms

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Good night!

Hi, @Fiksdal! Welcome to the room!

Anonymous

19:39

@DamkerngT. Well, she deleted her account, but if she chooses, she can always come back. :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane I hope she will!

Anonymous

@CowperKettle But that's not a sentence! ;-)

Damkerng T.

BTW, good morning!

Anonymous

Good morning!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, let's take a look at GloWbE, the Global Corpus of Web-based English: corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/?c=glowbe&q=50386957

Damkerng T.

19:52

@snailplane It's only 9 more morning minutes over there, right?

Anonymous

Results are set to per mil.

Kinzle B

Hi, morning! It's nearly 4 a.m. :)

I just woke up.

Damkerng T.

@KinzleB Morning!

@snailplane Hmm... what's GH?

Kinzle B

I suspect you never sleep. :)

Damkerng T.

@KinzleB :D

Anonymous

19:54

@DamkerngT. Ghana.

Damkerng T.

@KinzleB The night is still young over here! (for me) :P

@snailplane A-ha! Thanks!

Anonymous

The ones I would suggest focusing on to start are US/CA (broadly AmE), GB/IE (broadly BrE), and AU/NZ (broadly AusE).

Damkerng T.

Besides GB, IE, HK, it's only GH that audience is often used with plural verbs.

Anonymous

If you look at the GB or IE results with were/are, I think you'll find that they seem like perfectly legitimate uses by native speakers.

Anonymous

But here in the U.S., we generally don't say "The audience were/are". So it is indeed dialectal.

2

Kinzle B

19:56

@snailplane Ma'am, could you help me with one of my previous questions? I have been thinking about it for quite a long time.

Anonymous

@KinzleB Could you provide me with a link?

Anonymous

I'm still catching up with chat messages :-)

Kinzle B

2

Q: "Bare infinitive" vs. "perfect infinitive" in past time narration

They emerged from the tunnel and were on the airport highway, with its lights on both sides attached to tall standards. Witty had watched Hardy operating the automobile at first, and had not spoken. He began to play with Yolanda, who was on her mother's lap, before they reached the air...

tense infinitive backshifting indirect-speech

@snailplane Since by this time has past time reference, I think the quoted sentence should be "they might have been married by this time" rather than "they might be married by this time". Why did the writer use the bare infinitive form over the perfect infinitive form?

Anonymous

I don't think by this time really has past time reference. There's a shift of deictic center, and by this time refers to the same thing now would in this context.

Anonymous

20:16

@DamkerngT. The internet claims it's 3 seconds! :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Ah, did I misremember my training?!

Aww... it looks like so!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. 340 m/s is the number I'm finding.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Don't feel bad! I remembered one second per mile. That's quite a bit further off :-)

Damkerng T.

Apparently, if I were sent to a battleground somewhere, I'd estimate the wrong distance if I spotted someone on the other side smoking!

Oh, wait! The training was for firing.

Kinzle B

@snailplane I see. But I think the perfect infinitive form would indicate counterfactuality here. Is "might be married" not counterfactual here? It seems not to be in accordance with the context.

Damkerng T.

20:22

@KinzleB But why does it have to be counterfactual?

Kinzle B

@DamkerngT. Because they are not married.

Damkerng T.

@KinzleB That's the situation, not a thought.

The situation never really forces the tense and aspect.

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