Language Overflow

CowperKettle

02:32

@Færd "Этимологический словарь Фасмера" Fasmer's Etymologic Dictionary

Sorry, but it's in Russian

Max Julius Friedrich Vasmer (Russian: Макс Ю́лиус Фри́дрих Фа́смер; 28 February 1886 – 30 November 1962) was a Russian-born German linguist. He studied problems of etymology in Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages and worked on the history of Slavic, Baltic, Iranian, and Finno-Ugric peoples. Born to German parents in Saint Petersburg, Vasmer graduated from Saint Petersburg University in 1907. From 1910 he delivered lectures there as a professor. During the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922 he worked in the Universities of Saratov and of Yuryev (Tartu). In 1921 he settled in Leipzig, but...

An amazing man.

He continued to work on the Russian Etymological Dictionary through the Second World War, in Berlin

In 1944 his house was bombed, and he had to restore the index card collection for the Dictionary from scratch

example entry

Sawasdee khrap all

Færd

02:59

@CowperKettle Thanks Cowp! And good morning.

CowperKettle

04:27

Ancient manuscript on which a cat pissed.

> [Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.]
Cologne, Historisches Archiv, G.B. quarto, 249, fol. 68r

source

CowperKettle

08:15

I installed a 24" monitor instead of my old 17" monitor, and gosh it's way too big

I'll have to make windows smaller

There should be some setting to limit browser window sizes

CowperKettle

08:38

Dad came back from mushroom hunting

Nelson is quite amazed ^_^

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Give him a couple mushrooms. I bet he'll play with it. :-)

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. No.. he loves to play with olives

Damkerng T.

:-)

CowperKettle

And to eat grated carrot O_O

Nelson is an odd admiral

He is not in the best mood because I took him from another room for the photo session.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle He's photogenic anyway. :D

CowperKettle

08:52

@DamkerngT. I will tell him that you liked him! (0:

Damkerng T.

:D

CowperKettle

He tried sniffing the shrooms but did not like them much

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Try to take a photo of him with a bowl of fish. I guess he won't just sniff it. :D

CowperKettle

(0:

I'm not sure. He has way too much food.. (0:

Damkerng T.

Hee... Same here. :D

Damkerng T.

09:21

Word of the Day: gogglebox

CowperKettle

09:44

in The Periodic Table, 3 mins ago, by Wildcat

This in turn allows us to predict and control what will happen in a particular solution.

Is this ^^ an unnatural phrase ("allows us")?

Damkerng T.

I don't know what that This is, but it sounds fine to me.

CowperKettle

I recall that @snailplane said that "allows us to" is unnatufal

Damkerng T.

Hmm...

Maybe it depends on the thing or the person that allows.

CowperKettle

Ah, maybe she said it regarding "allows" without "us"

Damkerng T.

Ahh

CowperKettle

09:48

like "The new equipment will allow to increase the capacity of the plant by 20%"

Damkerng T.

Ah, that indeed is weird.

CowperKettle

I now translate this as "The new equipment will permit a 20% increase in .."

Or simply "The new equipment will increase .."

Damkerng T.

nods

CowperKettle

10:57

photos of Yekaterinburg

Stack Exchange

11:08

0

Q: Shlould the use of reference be more encouraged?

According to the current rules: Links to external resources are encouraged, but please add context around the link so your fellow users will have some idea what it is and why it’s there. Always quote the most relevant part of an important link, in case the target site is unreachable or go...

discussion

Færd

Each finger has three parts/segments, except for the thumb that has two. What are they called?

The parts each between two knuckles, having one bone inside.

Damkerng T.

11:34

@Færd I can't think of any common word. Neither in English nor in my first language.

@CowperKettle The sky tour looks cool!

Færd

Interesting. There's a well-known word for that in Farsi.

Actually, it can mean both knuckle and the part between two knuckles.

@DamkerngT. It's funny I came to know that today (or yesterday).

Damkerng T.

@Færd Oh, how coincidental!

Færd

Yeah!

Damkerng T.

@Færd In Thai, we could use a workaround, like "parts" of fingers.

I think it could be similar in English.

A segment, perhaps.

Færd

Yes, it's possible. Segment would be good.

Damkerng T.

11:39

@Færd If we don't want to be specific, the same word for "knuckle" could mean either in Thai as well!

Færd

Cool! This occurred to you just now?

Damkerng T.

@Færd I think so. I mean, after trying to think of something specific. The word is a bit ambiguous, I think.

Færd

I think if the English word exists it must be used in the Wiki page for finger. I went over it and found nothing.

Damkerng T.

TIL be to do with (which would be my natural choice) is chiefly BrE!

Færd

The bones are called phalanxes BTW.

@DamkerngT. Not have to do with?

Damkerng T.

11:44

@Færd Frankly, no. I just saw has to do with in an answer and got curious, so I checked, and learned. :)

Færd

I feel the other way round!

I would like to have the freedom to mix and match, although some say not to.

Between BrE and AmE, I mean.

Damkerng T.

nods

Færd

For example, I like cotton bud (BrE) far better than Q-tip (AmE).

Damkerng T.

I'm okay with both be/have something to do with, but when it,s just be/have to do with, I prefer be.

@Færd cotton bud is my choice, too!

Færd

Maybe when it comes to grammar, one should be more careful about consistency, but with words I feel less constrained.

Just my feeling.

Damkerng T.

11:50

My English is not 100% AmE anyway, even though it's mostly AmE like.

Færd

Yeah, me too.

There was this English woman who had lived in Iran for eight years, and she had become a bit Americanized in her accent and choice of words. I asked her, and she said "It's sorta inevitable!".

But she said when she talked with her friends back home she returned to her original state.

Damkerng T.

Oh! That's interesting!

Færd

44

Q: Is it OK to mix American and British English?

I normally write using the American English forms, but for some particular words, I tend to naturally write it in the British manner (like with the word favourite rather than favorite). Is it wrong to mix both styles? If not *wrong*, does it looks weird?

american-english british-english

CowperKettle

13:49

Protein A

Protein A is a 42 kDa surface protein originally found in the cell wall of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. It is encoded by the spa gene and its regulation is controlled by DNA topology, cellular osmolarity, and a two-component system called ArlS-ArlR. It has found use in biochemical research because of its ability to bind immunoglobulins. It is composed of five homologous Ig-binding domains that fold into a three-helix bundle. Each domain is able to bind proteins from many mammalian species, most notably IgGs. It binds the heavy chain within the Fc region of most immunoglobulins and also within...

I wonder if one should capitalize Protein in "residual Protein A"

My Russian text describes an assay for measuring the content of residual Protein A in a drug product.

Lawrence

Interesting post on ELU:

0

Q: Joining qualified nouns

Is it ok to use "red and black buses and cabs" to mean "red and black buses and red and black cabs" for a city that has red buses, black buses, red cabs, and blacks cabs? If not, what would be a better construction? And are there any formal writing guidelines/rules around this? Formal as in some...

noun-phrases conjunction-reduction

What I find interesting is this: if I say "a mix of red and black buses and cabs", it doesn't bring up the picture of two-toned vehicles. That is, it isn't "(a mix of red and black) buses and cabs".

@CowperKettle Capitalise it if "Protein A" is a proper noun. Capitalise "Residual Protein A" if that is a proper noun. Otherwise, if protein and residual protein are both simple nouns (acting as adjectives?), then the word order is probably a convention of that field. If the field also has capitalisation conventions, use them; otherwise, in the simple noun case, it's probably safe to keep them in lower case (or sentence case).

CowperKettle

ok, I'll cap the Protein

Evening, Lawrence and all!

Lawrence

14:08

@CowperKettle Howdy.

That reminds me.

@snailplane I withdraw my question. :)

@CowperKettle Nelson looks like a type of cat we used to have.

CowperKettle

@Lawrence He is British, so I called him Nelson. (0:

Lawrence

@CowperKettle :)

Have you trained it to do tricks?

CowperKettle

Gerard Manley Hopkins did not occur to me for some reason.

@Lawrence Only the toilet trick

Lawrence

@CowperKettle Evidently, he did. :)

But perhaps not in time for Nelson.

CowperKettle

I'm not Yuri Kuklachov to train cats do tricks (0:

Театр кошек Куклачёва

►

Lawrence

14:20

@CowperKettle Haha. Ours was sort of a stray, so it trained itself.

CowperKettle

I memorized the phrase "house-broken" but I'm not very versed in using it

Lawrence

@CowperKettle Very entertaining - thanks for sharing. They might even have learnt to herd cats. :)

@CowperKettle Ah, yes. An odd phrase, isn't it?

CowperKettle

@Lawrence It's not the best video of Юрий Куклачев's cat circus (you may google for videos using the Russian name, there are very good videos where he himself is featured)

Lawrence

@CowperKettle Thank you. :)

The first name looks a bit like Yuri. Is the second something like Kikrayev?

CowperKettle

Kuklachyov

Lawrence

14:26

Ah, the letter that looks like a lambda, not R.

CowperKettle

Sorry, I'm multitasking

reading about sandwich ELISA

Lawrence

@CowperKettle Enjoy your microbiology reading!

Damkerng T.

15:03

0

Q: Is "issue is working" correct expression?

Today this issue is working fine for me. I saw this phrase and got confused. I would rather say "This issue resolved" or "I haven't noticed this issue today". Is that correct expression? Are my variants valid?

expressions

The question is a bit confusing, I think.

CowperKettle

16:43

Коробка 2016 фильм в HD. Твой двор - твои правила.

►

The movie that took first place in the Ural Film Festival

About an amateur soccer team

Damkerng T.

1

Q: "What is the age of marriage in your culture?"

Some time ago, I had an IELTS exam and my examiner asked me: What is the age of marriage in your culture? I thought he simply is mentioning the culture that I grow up with so I said: It varies from person to person in my family, since my cousin has got married when she was 23 but my th...

meaning-in-context ambiguity ielts

Boo! at the examiner!

CowperKettle

Odd examiner

Damkerng T.

> Examiner: What is the age of marriage in your culture?
Me: How the bleep would I know?!

"It varies from person to person in my family, since my cousin has got married when she was 23 but my that got married when he was 26, but overall I can say it is between 20 to 30." -- This is a perfectly logical and correct answer.

CowperKettle

Yes.

Damkerng T.

If I met the examiner in real life, I might ask them, What's the age of marriage in YOUR culture?

CowperKettle

16:48

The examiner is odd, that's all.

Damkerng T.

nods

CowperKettle

My dad took the photo while picking mushrooms

Damkerng T.

More mushrooms!

If only Nelson ate mushrooms... :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

BTW, that question is another piece of evidence that Exam English is not real English.

I also take IELTS and I examine Chinese learners, I think your answer gives people the impression that you are answering about your family but not your culture, to improve it, you can say people normally get married between 20 to 30, but it varies from person to person, for examples... (I always tell my students to address the question first.) — EmmaXL 13 hours ago

That's very formulaic and dry.

CowperKettle

16:52

Exam everything is not real everything.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Indeed!

CowperKettle

There's a saying in Russia when a University graduate is enrolled on his first job: "Forget everything you've learned in the University"

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Oh, it's the whole movie!

@CowperKettle Hehe!

CowperKettle

There's a joke about that. A young man comes for a job interview. The interviewer asks a lot of questions related to the speciality, and sees that the young man knows a lot. He says: "we accept you, but forget everything you've learned in your University". Young man says "Okay, I actually never studied in a University".

The interviewer says: "Sorry then, but we can't accept you. We only take persons with a diploma"

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

CowperKettle

16:56

It's Catch 22

Damkerng T.

Probably sad but true. :D

CowperKettle

nods

I've no idea what the age of marriage is in my culture. All the way from 15 to 85 I guess.

Damkerng T.

LOL

CowperKettle

It's not pre-revolutionary Russia anyway.

It was from 12 to 22, probably, in the late 19th century.

Damkerng T.

I think this comment gets it right:

I'm not sure, but could it be that the examiner was asking at what age can people get legally married in your culture? — Mikiko 14 hours ago

Instead of using a clear and unambiguous question, the examiner intentionally used a somewhat unusual question, which probably suits a more formal setting better.

CowperKettle

17:01

Ah, then it is 16 years in Russia, with lower limits in some regions.

Damkerng T.

The literal translation of that question works in both meanings in my first language, but if someone used that to ask a test taker in a language exam, I'd say the exam is bad.

It's just my personal opinion, anyway.

CowperKettle

In mid-19th century Russia a woman was considered odd if not married by age 20 (A demography research website)

But it varied quite a lot even then.

In the Western regions it was okay.

In St Petersburg it was the same as in Europe

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle When I still went up the hills (for hill-tribe camps organized by our hill tribe club), most local young boys were bewildered by the fact that none of us were married, and we were around 18-22 already back then.

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. I bicycled across the city a year back, and struck up a conversation with a Chinese tourist woman. She made square eyes at me when she learned that I was not married.

Damkerng T.

LOL

CowperKettle

17:07

(0:

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Well, maybe she was looking for a possibility. :P

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. I recall you were telling about that. You were helping the tribes?

@DamkerngT. No, she was an oldish lady. (0: And with a very broken English. (0:

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Yes. We have a camp about every 3 months. But only 1 big camp a year.

@CowperKettle Aww

CowperKettle

She just travelled on trains.

Across Russia.

Knowing zero Russian.

And knowing English quite bad.

Damkerng T.

I think they're still going up there, trying to help out. (Though in reality we learn more about life than we can give from these camps.)

@CowperKettle Awesome! She's quite an adventurer!

CowperKettle

17:10

yes (0:

@DamkerngT. They bring some food there and tools, or just research local traditions?

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle In my days, we went up there to teach. (I'm not sure if it's still the same.)

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. Teach people read and write?

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle And do some maths!

CowperKettle

Nice!

@DamkerngT. In Russia, the state takes indigenous kids away to teach them, or, in the latter years, organizes special travelling schools

Damkerng T.

But I can't say that it's really effective. The most important thing that all heads of the camps know is that it will bring some attention to the authorities (that this hill exists, something like that).

@CowperKettle Nice!

CowperKettle

17:14

Nomadic School Project

Damkerng T.

Nice! -- They look quite determined!

CowperKettle

In my Yamalo-Nenets Okrug (region)

Damkerng T.

This is the club I used to be in: th-th.facebook.com/HilltribeclubCU/?ref=nf

Some recent activities of the club: youtube.com/watch?v=S4WOCY1RvUE

CowperKettle

> over 4000 kids are taught in boarding schools (in the Okrug)

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Do they speak Russian, or they have to learn Russian in these schools.

CowperKettle

17:17

@DamkerngT. I think they speak some basic Russian. Good question. I'm not sure.

My dad's friend Pyotr Lazyamov spoke Russian, but with accent

A nomad.

Damkerng T.

nods

CowperKettle

He had 80 deers. I don't know if that's much or not.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Reminds me of a recent movie, Big Game. :P

In the video at 5:17, that was one of my main tasks. :)

CowperKettle

(0:

To cook food?

There's the palm of a hand with some translucent stuff

Damkerng T.

Oh, I'm not very good at cooking. But I knew how to cook rice, especially when it was for many people at once. :)

That's, um, hmm... what's the word, hail something.

Ah, hailstones!

CowperKettle

17:22

ah

Damkerng T.

They're quite small over here.

But they're very, very rare. :D

CowperKettle

(0:

I had a friend, a girl, who travelled to Old Believers' villages and recorded songs and tales.

Damkerng T.

That's very nice!

CowperKettle

She also recorded a lot of obscene chastushkas (short pithy songs)

Damkerng T.

I tried to learn the Hmong language in my spare time in a camp, but I didn't really learn as much as I wanted.

CowperKettle

17:25

> Chastushka is a traditional type of short Russian or Ukrainian humorous folk song with high beat frequency, that consists of one four-lined couplet, full of humor, satire or irony. Usually many chastushki are sung one after another. Chastushka makes use of a simple rhyming scheme to convey humorous or ironic content.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle She could upload it to some website. It must be valuable for others!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. I bet she did, she travelled with Ural University guys

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle She must've had a great time doing that!

CowperKettle

Yes (0:

Деревенский дрыщь поёт частушки 14+

►

Damkerng T.

14+? Is that the rating? :D

CowperKettle

17:28

A village guy singing chastushki

@DamkerngT. The chastushki he sings are about 30% obscene words.

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

CowperKettle

four letter words and stuff

> I fell in love with a tractor driver,

(begins the first chastushka)

The rest is quite obscene

Damkerng T.

LOL

CowperKettle

It's hard to translate evading all the bad words (0:

Damkerng T.

The translation could turn out to be like: bleep bleep bleep ... :P

CowperKettle

17:32

Yes, but it's crafted very good. Real folklore

Are there obscene folk songs in Thai?

Частушки на свадьбе 1

►

A guy sings chastushkas at a wedding

Damkerng T.

He must be singing about the wedding night. :P

CowperKettle

(0:

@DamkerngT. He sings this chastushka to the bride at the start of the video

>
When you fell in love with him
You though it was as small as a gnat
But when his trousers he unzipped
God, you can kill a man with that!

Damkerng T.

LOL

CowperKettle

(0:

and so on

then some political chastushkas about politicians and their fights

Damkerng T.

17:48

Speaking of politics, the language in this clip is quite obscene, too: youtube.com/… (It's pretty strong in the part around minute 8 and 9.) -- Viewer discretion advised.

CowperKettle

(0:

It's good that Trump will not get the seat. (0:

Damkerng T.

We don't know the result yet, so ...

CowperKettle

Even if he gets, the US people will not let him go beyond limits

Damkerng T.

I hope he won't be able to.

CowperKettle

"Unsuable inanimate object'

Damkerng T.

17:54

LOL

Damkerng T.

18:59

Anyway, relevant "Japlish" sign seen in a railway station: "Please do not run into the train." Good advice. — Andrew 2 hours ago

Good advice indeed!

Monad

19:50

Hello! Would this be suitable a place to ask about Latin-derived English prefixes?

Anonymous

20:46

@Monad Sure, I think so. They come from Latin, but they're English now.

Stack Exchange

10

Q: Possessive and language cases

I've just been told my current understanding of possessives is ungrammatical, it was noticed in this sentence The iPhone has been the most successfully sold Apple 's product and I was advised to use it this way The most successfully sold of Apple’s products. The most successfully sold...

possessive case

Anonymous

21:07

Wow, not one answer mentions determiners.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Wow, indeed!

Damkerng T.

22:01

> Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language. A highly regular grammar makes Esperanto easier to learn than other languages of the world. Native speakers of Chinese and English can both learn it to fluency within four months, without having known another foreign language beforehand

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_grammar

That's an interesting claim, the part about native speakers of Chinese.

(esperanto.davidgsimpson.com/eo-verbforms.html)

Doesn't that kinda put native speakers of Chinese (and many other Asian countries) at their disadvantages?

Or is it presumed that these learners would've learned English already.

A fair (or actually biased for fairness) test would be having two groups of Chinese monolingual speakers in their 30s, one group learning Esperanto, and another group learning, say, Thai from scratch, and measuring the results, say, 4-5 months later.

Lawrence

23:39

@DamkerngT. It depends on the context.

Transcript for