Language Overflow

Anonymous

21:40

@M.A.R. It's okay, people can ping me. :-)

Anonymous

If I'm busy, I won't respond or I'll respond at a later time.

lekon chekon

@snailplan
Hey, are you busy?

Could you help me out with a few things?

If you're not busy that is.

Anonymous

22:00

@lekonchekon What you can do is just ask the chat room stuff, instead of asking individual people.

Anonymous

And then anyone in the chat room can help if and when they have time :-)

2

Anonymous

(Although like I said I don't mind being pinged :-)

lekon chekon

okay.
So here I go.
What I'm about to ask would be my first question.

Things are worse in my neighborhood than how bad things are in yours.

Things are worse in my neighborhood than things/they are in yours.

Are both these sentences grammatically correct?

Anonymous

The first sentence seems kind of clumsy, but I think it's grammatical.

Anonymous

The second sentence seems grammatical too. Repeating things seems a little clumsy, but it's better with they.

Anonymous

22:06

Also okay: Things are worse in my neighborhood than in yours. or Things are worse in my neighborhood than yours.

Anonymous

A little less verbose.

lekon chekon

Here's what I'm so confused about.

I've posted questions like the one I just asked, on the main site several times, and almost every time I was convinced by the answers/comments of people that the first sentence or other constructions resembling the first's construction are wrong.

1

Q: Are the constructions of both these sentences grammatically correct?

Now, I have posted related questions to what I'm about to post right now. Things in our country were worse then than how bad things are in certain parts of Liberia. Things in our country were worse then than things are in certain parts of Liberia. If I used the former sentence, would it be dee...

Would you say it'd be okay if I kept using constructions similar to the first one's?

You've been looking to join the gym (for) longer than how long it took them to build the great wall of China.

^How about this one?
And I'm sorry for how I just can't seem to come with sentences that don't have a sarcastic touch to them. ._.)

Anonymous

@lekonchekon Whew, TRomano went pretty far. I'm not particularly enamored of that sentence, so I said it seemed "kind of clumsy", but I do think it's grammatical. I wouldn't necessarily encourage you to speak that way, but I mean . . .

Anonymous

You can't necessarily just put everything into "wrong, never use it" and "right, use this all the time" buckets.

Anonymous

Some stuff doesn't really sound that great but isn't outright wrong.

Hanaa

22:18

Good night!

Anonymous

Have a good night, @Hanaa!

Anonymous

@lekonchekon Have you ever heard of resumptive pronouns? It's a classic example of something native speakers use, but don't really like the sound of.

Anonymous

Resumptive pronoun

A resumptive pronoun is a personal pronoun appearing in a relative clause, which restates the antecedent after a pause or interruption (such as an embedded clause, series of adjectives, or a wh-island). 1. This is the girli that whenever it rains shei cries. Resumptive pronouns have been described as "ways of salvaging a sentence that a speaker has started without realizing that it is impossible or at least difficult to finish it grammatically". An English speaker might use a resumptive pronoun in order to prevent violations of syntactic constraints. In many languages resumptive pronouns are...

Anonymous

The example from Wikipedia:

Anonymous

> This is the girl that whenever it rains she cries.

Anonymous

22:19

In general, I would encourage learners not to say sentences like this one.

Anonymous

Native speakers tend to think they don't sound very good.

Anonymous

And yet, native speakers do say things like this.

Anonymous

So what is its status as grammatical or ungrammatical?

Anonymous

It clearly doesn't fit into a bucket labeled "This is correct. Use this all the time."

Anonymous

But that doesn't mean we want to toss it into the bucket labeled "This is wrong. Never use this."

Anonymous

22:20

Sometimes when you're talking about usage, you want a little bit of nuance :-)

Anonymous

So when I was describing your first sentence, I thought:

Anonymous

> Well, I can't say that it's ungrammatical, but I don't really like it.

Anonymous

So I called it a bit clumsy rather than saying "Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

Anonymous

Even TRomano, who appears to be mortal enemies with your sentence, didn't actually call it outright ungrammatical, I don't think.

Anonymous

Sometimes it's more useful to say "Which sentence is better?"

Anonymous

22:23

Then you can go on trying to model your utterances after the better sentence (or a third alternative which is even better), rather than sticking to something which is okay but not great, simply because it's Not Wrong.

Anonymous

@lekonchekon That also seems grammatical but unnecessarily verbose to me.

lekon chekon

I guess, it's best if I at least try to avoid using it.
Why use clumsy constructions when you could just not use clumsy constructions. :p
Although, at this point using constructions like the first one has become kind of a habit.

Btw, can I at least take it that the first sentence is grammatically correct?
Maybe, put it in a bucket that's labeled "This is grammatically correct, but at the same time, clumsy.

Anonymous

I would not recommend it as a model for future sentences, although I don't think there's anything strictly wrong with it.

lekon chekon

clumsy."*

Anonymous

If it's a habit, well, the thing about habits is that the more you practice them, the harder it is to break those habits.

lekon chekon

22:30

yup.

Anonymous

But I think you'll be able to communicate just fine with sentences like that, and that's the most important thing.

Anonymous

So I won't tell you not to make sentences like that. It's up to you :-)

lekon chekon

Would you like to read something?
I kinda tried my hand at writing a few days ago.

Anonymous

How long is it?

lekon chekon

it should take you about 40-50 seconds to finish reading it, I guess.

It's kind of a poem.

._.)

I hope it can be called a poem.

Anonymous

22:33

@lekonchekon You seem very self-conscious, or maybe self-critical. Please, don't worry :-)

lekon chekon

Crippling self-esteem is how I like to put it. ._.)
I got bullied a lot as a kid.

Anonymous

@lekonchekon Oh, me too.

lekon chekon

Self-deprecating humor is all I got now. ._.)

At least, I haven't put that on display here.

xD

Sorry to hear that.

Anonymous

@lekonchekon That's okay too :-)

lekon chekon

Anyway, would you like to read it?

the poem kinda thingy?

And feel free to say no. .-.

Anonymous

22:37

I just want to make this chat room a place where learners (or anyone else) can participate without having to worry too much. Being too self-conscious can make practicing a language very difficult!

Anonymous

Feel free to paste the poem or to link to it.

lekon chekon

It's just a thing of the mind I can't really do much about.
I try my best to keep myself relaxed.

Anonymous

Sure.

Anonymous

Let's see the poem :-)

lekon chekon

On this dark, lonely night,
I lie in my bed.
Looking out the window,
I see the undead.
Their numbers increase as they become more and more visible.
'What are they here for?
Are they here to play with me,
or are they here to slay?'
They're coming for me in waves.
There's no stopping them.
I keep looking out the window in terror,
'It's me, or it's them.
Tonight's the night we put this to an end.'
They're in close proximity now.
Hearing their footsteps nearing,
I get out of bed.
I look myself in the mirror one last time,

In case you don't like it, I'll just have a defence ready.

I don't read a lot. (._.

Anonymous

22:40

Wow, that's dark! Very expressive.

Anonymous

It sounds like a nightmare.

Anonymous

Well written, though.

lekon chekon

Thank you. :')
It means a lot to me.

I have another grammar related question though.
Just answer it when you have some time on your hands.

If you walked into that room while they are having that meeting, the meeting would immediately be put to a stop.

If you walked into that room while they were having that meeting, the meeting would immediately be put to a stop.

And, let's say the meeting's actually going on in some room when the speaker is telling listener this.

Are both the sentences grammatically correct?

do they mean the same?

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