Language Overflow

Man_From_India

00:00

@ColleenV thank you. Got it.

Damkerng T.

00:56

I would write "Mark carried a gun in his briefcase for *protection". As written, "for safety reasons" could also mean to keep the gun from getting into the wrong hands (supposing the briefcase is locked, anyway). — user3169 yesterday

Just protection still sounds a little bit odd to me, though. I think for self-protection sounds better, at least to me.

Man_From_India

01:33

@snailplane I was discussing about adjunct of time here.

@Man_From_India , from my link to the Oxford English Dictionary, "The show opens tomorrow" (when does it open? Tomorrow) — Andrew 2 mins ago

I known that tomorrow is a temporal adjunct, but strangly we can't leave it out. Why it that so? Is it, then, not an adjunct?

> The show opens tomorrow.

Hmmm that tomorrow here is not an adjunct, it's a complement, there.

Anonymous

02:13

@Man_From_India It's grammatical without tomorrow, but the aspectual interpretation changes because it's no longer futurive, and there's an interaction between tense and aspect there.

Anonymous

If you put it in a context where it would be interpreted as futurive anyway, it would work without tomorrow.

Man_From_India

@snailplane i don't know nothing about these. Can you provide me the CGEL chaper or any other book entry, if you are free now :-)

Anonymous

That's kind of hard to do, though.

Man_From_India

Ok no problem :-) it must be in the chapter where it deals with tense and aspects.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Umm, I can try to write a longer explanation later.

Man_From_India

02:17

Actually I want to know about futurive.

@snailplane that would be great. Thanks.

Anonymous

Oh, well, you know that the simple present can have a futurive interpretation, right?

Man_From_India

Right.

Rereading it, I think I got what you mean.

Anonymous

You also know that dynamic verbs in the simple present tend to receive a habitual or iterative interpretation? Although a marginal present-time narration interpretation is also possible.

Man_From_India

Correct.

Anonymous

But when you anchor it in time with a temporal adjunct, the aspectual interpretation changes.

Man_From_India

02:21

Hmmm it seems like it's opening now, right?

Anonymous

Well, that interpretation is possible.

Anonymous

But if the show were opening now you'd be more likely to use the progressive: The show is opening now.

Man_From_India

nods

Anonymous

Using the simple present to narrate events as they happen is not very common.

Anonymous

A habitual interpretation or iterative interpretation with The show opens is kind of silly.

Anonymous

02:25

So it doesn't work terribly well, I feel, but that's just a matter of the meaning of the sentence.

Anonymous

It's not ungrammatical.

Man_From_India

02:48

Hmmm

Stack Exchange

04:32

1

Q: Why are we removing kindness and encouragement?

It can take a great deal of effort and courage for a non-native speaker to get started on Slack which, despite being immensely valuable, can also be rather nit-picky in its moderation. I remember feeling like people were so cold and quick to issue a meta-rejection of how I phrased a question or w...

discussion

Damkerng T.

05:00

0

Q: Which is better: "go ahead..." or "proceed..." quite well

Which is better? I'll work on it 4 hours per day so project should proceed quite well. I'll work on it 4 hours per day so project should go ahead quite well.

grammar phrase-choice

I suppose that go ahead is an okay choice, though it sounds a bit strange to me.

Proceed sounds a little better, but my natural choice would be make progress.

Assuming that I guess the intended meaning correctly.

And quite likely, I'll phrase it entirely differently, like so our project will finish on time or something along the lines.

CowperKettle

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

..

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

..

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

..

(All in Present Simple)

I liked the color combination so much

Sawasdee khrap

CowperKettle

06:48

@ColleenV This is the southern part of the Ural Mountain Ridge that goes North-South for 2000 kilometers and ends on the arctic shores

Yes, beautiful

CowperKettle

07:41

> Morphology, growth characteristics, viability, and viability after the thawing of the CLB cryovial. (from a table that lists tests performed with a Cell Line Bank; Should it not be "thaw" instead of "thawing", I wonder)

CowperKettle

07:55

wineunearthed.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/…

Two words of the day: punt and divot

2

Both apparently mean "a small cavity in the bottom of a wine bottle"

I never knew punt has this meaning

It is apparently absent in Wiktionary

> To maintain cell viability and prevent the cells from contamination, the cell banks are stored in liquid nitrogen vapors at specifiedextra-low temperatures.

> > To maintain cell viability and prevent the cells from contamination, the cell banks are stored in liquid nitrogen vapors at definedextra-low temperatures.

I wonder if "specified" and "defined" are synonymous in this context

CowperKettle

08:15

> The storage temperature is recorded continuously. (Would not it be "temperatures", rather, since the cell bank's temperature will be changing slightly over time.. resulting in "temperatures"?)

> The levels of liquid nitrogen in the vessels are contolled. (can I use "controlled" here to mean "they are monitored and adjusted to keep them in the target range"?)

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Sawasdee khrap!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. Privet! (0:

Damkerng T.

:D

The subject of the context is logging that contributes to extinction of animal populations. It looks like "loaded" is a typo. Substitute "logged" in that sentence and it makes sense. — Robusto 3 hours ago

A-ha! That was my first thought as well.

Strange that people have to rely on resources that are not curated well.

Hmm...

The original seems to be loaded indeed.

archive.org/stream/french123/IELTS1#page/n93/mode/2up

Damkerng T.

09:13

@CowperKettle The only "punt" I know is one in NFL!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. same here

maybe the author used the word wrongly?

Damkerng T.

I don't know. I thought it was a new word sense, at least to me!

CowperKettle

> Regular Meeting of the PJSC TATNEFT’s Board of Directors Was Held

A great headline

tatneft.ru/press-center/press-releases/more/4872/?lang=en

Shakespeare sonnet of the day: 129

> Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,

> A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,
Before a joy proposed behind a dream.
All this the world well knows yet none knows well,
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

CowperKettle

09:49

Sonnet 65 is great:

> Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation, where alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

> Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Jude

11:13

hi

@DamkerngT. are you free?

anyone available?

Anonymous

Good morning :-)

Jude

We had a meeting with our product owner (Person who acts as the client). I scheduled this meeting with 4 other people. It was to explain some issue in our software product

my colleage who is seating next to me is the QA person is the responsible quality assurance person

in the meeting PO (product owner) had asked some questions; and I pointed those questions to QA

this is remarked as a bad sign by Tech lead who was in that same meeting

after the meeting he made a statement like, "Hereafter anyone who is scheduling the meeting has to be well prepared"

this makes feel like, it was my problem. But which is clearly not.

Anonymous

:-(

Anonymous

That sounds frustrating.

Jude

@snailplane should I want to put a personal email to my tech lead in a very criticizing manner?

Anonymous

11:20

Umm.

Jude

saying that I was well prepared but that QA person had act as irresponsible way

Anonymous

I don't know if I'm really qualified to give advice on that topic.

Jude

Every question what I asked from him, he just bounced them back to me... That feels like we never talked about this meeting before

but the real fact is, his lack of knowledge about the context that we were talking in the meeting

@snailplane I know; you are an anonymous person to me. I'm just asking; think if you were me; and how would you act to this?

Note :

my evaluation is coming at the end of this month, completing a 1 year working

Anonymous

@Jude It's a really tough situation, because I think blaming others never looks good, but taking the blame for others isn't a very good outcome either.

Jude

@snailplane exactly! that's why in every way; i'm getting ignored because I don't blame to anyone in my workplace even if they are wrong

Anonymous

11:25

If you can figure out a way to make it sound like you're explaining the situation objectively, and not being 'very criticizing' as you put it, maybe that would be best . . .

Anonymous

But I don't know.

Jude

Should I just address this personally to the Teach lead, or just leave it?

But if I just leave it; it reflects that I was not prepared for the meeting and now I just accepted my mistake

Man_From_India

@Man_From_India The deictic nature of today, tomorrow, nowadays, etc., is not in dispute. They are used to form what CGEL calls "temporal location expressions" which are sometimes adverbs. As nouns, they don't take determiners, which is another wild hair. But the purpose of Wiktionary is to reflect the current consensus of reference works where POS are concerned, however flawed they may appear. If we can recruit John Lawler to edit Wiktionary, now, that would be a worthwhile project, and one that would cause the fur to fly. — P. E. Dant 7 hours ago

This is strange, the part where he says that it's an adverb. I never knew CGEL says it. Want to confirm from others if that is correct.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India You can avoid that sort of unproductive discussion in the comments in the future by explaining in your original comment that although they're traditionally considered adverbs (and so are listed that way in dictionaries), Huddleston & Pullum have demonstrated that they actually fit into the pronoun class.

Anonymous

11:44

@Man_From_India Pages 564 and 429 are where they're analyzed as pronouns. CGEL says explicitly that they are not adverbs.

Anonymous

At any rate, what dictionaries say isn't particularly interesting or useful, so that comment discussion doesn't help the question much.

Anonymous

What's important is the analysis behind the term you choose. CGEL says pronoun, but it doesn't matter so much that they call it a pronoun – what are important are the facts of usage which fit CGEL's analysis.

Anonymous

Whether that's even relevant to the discussion depends on the question, of course.

Man_From_India

12:10

nods I made the comment just to answer the question on the title of the question. And thank you for confirming :-)

Damkerng T.

I think a bit differently, but it's not really important. The page suggests "If you have an introductory word (or two) that is being used as an adverb", so we're not really talking about PoS here because the concept doesn't apply to phrases, and the OP seems to be aware of this as they phrased the question with "adverbial phrases".

In any case, I don't think the cited page conforms to either traditional or modern grammar.

> Now used as both an adverb (first example) and a conjunction (second example):
Now I need to pull my pie out of the oven.
Now, I know it’s a bad idea, but I’m going to do it anyway.

> victoryediting.com/introductory-words-such-as-now-today-etc

Now, I know it's a bad idea, but ... -- This now is a conjunction?! I don't think so.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. me neither.

Damkerng T.

Also, I think the page confuses grammar with style.

Fantasier

12:39

@DamkerngT. If you count "so" in "So, what have you got?" as a conjunction, then that "now" is probably a conjunction too.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier If we count Now in the second example as a conjunction, then we should count the one in the first example as a conjunction to.

Hmm... probably not. I guess what they meant is there's a pause in the second sentence.

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. I think the first one has a different meaning.

Well

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Not really, probably.

Fantasier

I mean, at least that's what I think the writer meant.

Damkerng T.

"Now that I know it's a bad idea, I'm going to do it anyway."
This one (*Now that*) is more like a typical conjunction.

Fantasier

12:42

> Now I need to pull my pie out of the oven.

This now is temporal, I think.

Or at least meant to be temporal.

Damkerng T.

Both are temporal.

Correction: Both could be temporal.

Fantasier

I don't think the second example is temporal.

Yes, both could be temporal.

Damkerng T.

It's tricky because we sometimes use Now similar to Well.

Fantasier

That's why I said I think the writer meant for the first one to be temporal. The other not.

@DamkerngT. Yes, I think that's the contrast the writer was trying to illustrate.

Damkerng T.

Yet, we never think of Well as a conjuction.

Fantasier

12:44

If that's the case then let's not accept now as a conjunction. I'm fine with that.

I don't agree with the analysis anyway.

Damkerng T.

To be honest, I don't like to think of So in So, what have you got? as a conjunction.

Fantasier

Me neither.

But I'm sure there are people who think that :-)

Damkerng T.

Which is confusing. :-)

I think in traditional grammar, they think of Now as a conjunction in a full-blown sentence Now that I know it's a bad idea, I'm going to do it anyway, rather than one that's used like a discourse marker.

I think this sentence is ungrammatical in prescriptive grammar anyway: And, you like it, too?

So it's not convenient to draw parallel between And, ... and So, ... and Now, ...

Fantasier

uh-huh

Damkerng T.

In our answer:

> It's a good idea to learn these guidelines, and understand what purpose they serve, but then pay attention to how native speakers talk and write, and develop your own personal style.

Maybe I should write like this: hey i know its their, right?

Read too many comments on YouTube and the like today...

0

Q: Use of "linearly " in a sentence

Is use of "linearly " in the following sentences correct grammatically and conceptually? Takao et al. [5] experimentally investigated Wells turbines with linearly variable thickness blades. My means regarding to "linearly" is the following figure:(pleas see the figure)

sentence-construction

Ah, I remember that blade!

Hi! @CowperKettle

0

Q: use of “between” in a sentence

Is use of "between" in a sentences correct grammatically? In variable thickness blade, the profiles between the hub and the mid span, and between mid span and tip are produced through a linear curve similar to Takao et al. 1.

sentence-construction grammaticality

:-)

CowperKettle

13:28

@DamkerngT. Hi!

Damkerng T.

:D

CowperKettle

13:46

My friend took this ride a week ago

some 50-60 kilometers

I love how the trees are arching

Damkerng T.

I can't imagine biking in snow!

@CowperKettle Very beautiful!

Anonymous

14:02

@Fantasier Funny, I would have called it a discourse marker :-)

Fantasier

@snailplane Me too.

It's just that I seem to recall someone calling it a conjunction.

Like I said, I disagree with that analysis.

Anonymous

Ahh, I see.

CowperKettle

17:07

> It's worth pointing out that the protein has a strong predisposition to fragmentation during storage.

I wonder if the word "predisposition" is okay here

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I usually think of predispositions as things that people have.

Anonymous

How about a strong tendency to fragment during storage?

Stack Exchange

19:02

0

Q: How can we ask for other moderators to step in?

I raised a Meta ELL question and one of the moderators assumed that I was raising this issue specifically about them (well, I suppose that this new question is specifically about them if only by default). They then pulled site privilege by trying to have the question merged with another loosely-r...

support moderators

Damkerng T.

20:34

Except @DamkerngT. "loaded with logging" does not seem particularly idiomatic or formal enough in the given context. I'm not sold on the typo theory either, but mostly because that would mean yet another usage of the verb to log in such a short space--a problem the text is probably not concerned with. — Alan Carmack 2 hours ago

Hmm... to load is to log? Is that what the comment means?

Ah, I see. It shouldn't be a typo because if it were a typo, it would mean yet another usage of the verb to log.

But what yet another usage? Doesn't to log mean to log?

Damkerng T.

20:49

> However, in her escape she rushes into another urban area loaded with symbolic meaning about Rome's political dominion.

> The Elegiac Cityscape: Propertius and the Meaning of Roman Mo...

It doesn't sound informal like another kind of loaded (or a load of ...).

Damkerng T.

21:57

@DRF "Carrie has danced at the airport for two hours" is indisputably grammatical. Why would changing one intransitive verb for another make the sentence suddenly ungrammatical? — David Richerby 9 hours ago

"Grammatical (or not)" is a tricky business.

Then again, it's widely accepted that changing one preposition for another, most of the time, would make a given sentence ungrammatical.

Transcript for