Language Overflow

engfan

04:08

hello, everyone

"I love swimming but I can't swim" can this be called ironical sentence?

Damkerng T.

06:10

4

A: When can't we shorten It is to It's

Contractions can be used in any position in a sentence; however, homophone contractions such as "it's" and "they're" sound better when followed by another word or phrase. The reason is that the sounds of "its" and "it's" and "they're" and "they are" are so similar that they can be confusing un...

I think GG's can explain It is what it is, but probably not It isn't what it isn't.

(We don't have to say It isn't what it is not.)

@engfan I think ironic sentence sounds a little better (though ironical sentence should be okay, too). I don't think we really need that sentence. It's just ironic or irony. Then again, people seem to have different opinions on what "irony" is.

Damkerng T.

07:12

1

Q: "Surprise or surprising" What word choice would be correct here?

I came across this question and I should decide which of these two answers is correct. The spectators showed _____ at the unexpected victory of the local basketball team. a) surprising b) surprise I am told that the correct answer is "b". The spectators showed surprise a...

Interestingly, the string "spectators showed surprise" got only 4 hits on Google.

One on ELL, another on a TOEIC test (which is probably the OP's source).

One from a newspaper, back in 1946: newspapers.com/newspage/117138681

The last one is from another newspaper, back in 1954: newspapers.com/newspage/53010634

No wonder the sentence reads a bit strange to me.

I suppose it's safe to say that your left and right hands is more common, but your left and right hand is also in use.

ell.stackexchange.com/questions/111702/…

The question is gone now.

I wonder how many questions are deleted before I have a chance to view them.

engfan

08:22

@snailplane@DamkerngT.@mike: Are all group nouns treated "singular". For example :The government is working hard to eradicate poverty

mike

It depends on the group noun AFAIK

engfan

The police are looking for the thief who stole my bag last night

Cardinal

@engfan Good question, I think I can remember some of them used as plural, conveying the fact that you are talking about the members within the group.

@engfan Police is always p;ural.

mike

If, in context, the group noun is working together as a unit, it can be referred to in the singular

engfan

@Cardinal :hello

Cardinal

08:24

@engfan Hi o/

mike

for example, "The government is working hard to eradicate poverty"

If individual action is implied, then plural is used

(I need to find a better worded explanation than that :) )

engfan

@mike: sure

mike

@engfan There's a nice explanation here: blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/09/…

Cardinal

< P.S: I am a learner. Don't take me serious :-) >

Damkerng T.

@engfan I have an uncommon rule of thumb (which I think is more useful than most explanations you may find in grammar books).

It's about internal vs. external views. (My own terms, not standard linguistic ones).

Basically, these nouns are groups of people.

It depends on what you see when you think of the group when you use a noun of this kind.

If you see people (internal), it's plural.

If you see an abstract group (external), it's singular.

Which makes it possible to use either plural or singular in most cases.

If you tune your internalization of these nouns (i.e., what you think when you think of these nouns) and correct it when you get it wrong, soon you'll find it's easy to use most of these nouns correctly.

;-)

engfan

08:41

hmm, i think a few examples would help me understand your point .

Damkerng T.

Well, your example was government, right?

Let's find some examples!

> The Mexican government has announced its plans to raise the minimum wage next year.

Apparently, the writer thinks of this government as an abstract entity.

When it acts, it acts as a whole, a "one thing".

engfan

ok, that's singular , how can we make it plural ?

Damkerng T.

> This last reason may be imaginary, but the first is conclusive ; and if the government don't agree to give up the duties ...

This one is a text from 1845

The chat room is acting up again!

@engfan It's clear that the plural government is rarer than the singular government.

engfan

hmm. i mean we can say the 'government is' , but not 'government are'

Damkerng T.

@engfan It's more typical nowadays that government is thought of as a singular noun.

This answer did a better job than me:

5

A: Band Name Grammar

Band is a collective noun, and so is The Black Keys. In British English you can use either is or are (also, was or were), depending on how you view the noun. Plural verbs are more common overall. If a collective noun is seen as a whole, sole, impersonal unit, then singular verbs are more common:...

:-)

CowperKettle

08:55

> Under this scheme, FeedCHO33 is used as the basal medium; to this medium boost solutions No. 3 and No. 41 are added. ("the" or "a"? there can be only one basal medium in a bioreactor)

Sawasdee khrap

Damkerng T.

Also note that people from different dialects may think of these nouns differently.

Sawasdee khrap!

engfan

@DamkerngT. ;
:-)

CowperKettle

I always zero in on articles, due to their exigency. I must be overvalorizing them.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Either is fine with me, actually. Though I think the is safer.

CowperKettle

Thank you!

Damkerng T.

08:56

@CowperKettle LOL

I see we practice our words of the day regularly! :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

@DamkerngT. regular practice is the essence of chronotherapy

Damkerng T.

LOL

Unknown123

09:38

Might I ask something?
What is the difference between recurrent, recurrence, recursive, and recursion?

toha

hello @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

@toha Hi!

toha

I heard there is chaos in Burma

when buddhism kill moslems

Damkerng T.

@Unknown123 Where did you find these words? Do you know or have you checked out their meanings?

toha

Are You live near there?

Damkerng T.

09:42

No, but maybe mike is.

toha

Are you watch the news on tv station on your country?

about that case

Damkerng T.

Not at the moment, but this issue is not new.

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Rohingya_refugee_crisis

toha

Yes. This case happened so many times

What do You think about this case?

Damkerng T.

It sounds like it's been escalating.

@toha It's not an issue I want to talk about much.

It's just sad.

toha

Ok no prob

toha

10:01

Is mike from Burma?

Damkerng T.

Better ask @mike himself. :-)

toha

Yes. He was appeared online few minutes ago

Maybe he is busy now

mike

Mike is here :)

was cooking dinner

And yes, I live in Myanmar (formerly Burma)

toha

Wow.. @mike How do You do? My name is Toha

#introduceMySelf

mike

Nice to meet you :)

And yes, there's a lot of fighting at the moment in the northern states here

bbc.com/news/world-asia-38168917

toha

10:10

Nice to meet you. I saw T2000 online frequently. But not with mike. This is (maybe) first time I saw mike at this chat room.

@mike Nice info. And how with your place?

Are You safe?

Damkerng T.

(I suppose that T2000 would be me. :-)

mike

I haven't been around here long :) I'm not surprised you haven't seen me

toha

@DamkerngT. Correct!

Damkerng T.

Haha! :D

mike

In the south, where I am, there aren't any particular problems

but further north, in Rakhine state, many are being killed

toha

10:13

@mike Good, nice to hear it. And I feel sorry to this case.

mike

indeed. It's a terrible tragedy

but at least it's getting coverage now in the world press, which is good.

Unknown123

@DamkerngT. I found it on dictionary.com but I don't understand it clearly. It seems to be mixed up or depends on the context?

Damkerng T.

Recursive is probably only mainly used in computer science.

So is recursion.

CowperKettle

Ah, so Mike lives quite close to Damkerng

Damkerng T.

I think you can find the meanings of the remaining words in your dictionary.

@CowperKettle Probably not very far. Like half a day drive. :-)

CowperKettle

10:25

In this sublunary world, that's quite close

Damkerng T.

:D

CowperKettle

(0:

It's -8.2°C here

15:30, which means 50 min to sunset

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Brrr!

(But I guess it's warm for you. :-)

mike

It's 30°C here right now

sunset in 33 minutes

CowperKettle

> The medium and the feed supplements were sterilized following their preparation using the sterilizing filtration method with 0.22 µm pore size membrane filters.

Now I'll go for a jog (0:

> Following their preparation, the medium and the feed supplements were subjected to sterilizing filtration using 0.22 µm pore size membrane filters.

THat's better.

Minus 8 is ideal for jogging, and it was snowing heavily, so the paths are not slippery.

Damkerng T.

10:38

Have fun!

Cardinal

I think I have fulfilled my planned tasks to large extent. In fact, I will only add few words each week from no on. My brain really feels satiety! I want to give it a temporary verbal rest!

Anonymous

11:27

Oh, very nice :-)

Anonymous

Do you do cloze deletions?

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. Thank you, I have had it.

@Cardinal you're crazy! I've only managed to input 1200 words there

1152 even

okay, now for some shower and holy donuts

Damkerng T.

11:54

0

Q: Meaning of "whatever floats your boat"?

My friends are bullying me because I don't know what "whatever floats your boat" is. I have asked everyone (even teachers), but no one will give an answer. Please tell me what it means!

phrase-meaning

To close, or not to close? ...

Cardinal

@snailplane Yay! As you suggested!

@CowperKettle Yop. I need to learn words. I use Anki because of its great reviewing system.

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal A mock Cloze test:

> ____ comes in a jar.

:-)

Cardinal

Marmalade?

Damkerng T.

Try again. :-)

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. Old phones' applications

Damkerng T.

12:00

LOL -- Not quite. :-)

BTW, it's from a TV show. (^_^)

(I should've changed comes to come(s) because one of the top two answers is singular and the other is plural.)

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. I noticed that :D

I cheated:

amazon.com/When-Lightning-Comes-Ernest-Polacco/dp/0142403504

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal Cool!

(BTW, in the show, the answers are pickles and jelly. :-)

Cardinal

I see. :D that jar is different from that jar :-)

Damkerng T.

I guess so! :D

CowperKettle

12:27

@Cardinal that's great, but 3000 words?! I'm tired of repeating my stacks already (0:

I dunno what 'cloze deletions' are

Cloze test

A cloze test (also cloze deletion test) is an exercise, test, or assessment consisting of a portion of text with certain words removed (cloze text), where the participant is asked to replace the missing words. Cloze tests require the ability to understand context and vocabulary in order to identify the correct words or type of words that belong in the deleted passages of a text. This exercise is commonly administered for the assessment of native and second language learning and instruction. The word cloze is derived from closure in Gestalt theory. The exercise was first described by W.L. Taylor...

I wonder why there's z in that 'cloze' and not s

is 'cloze' different in meaning from 'close'?

I never tried cloze deletions in Anki

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Yes

CowperKettle

@snailplane good evening, Snails!

Anonymous

In this context, it is spelled with a 'z'.

CowperKettle

I never noticed that "z". I thought it was the US custom to use z where the dwellers of Cor Blimey use s

Anonymous

Good morning :-)

CowperKettle

12:33

(0:

Anonymous

@CowperKettle The word close is normally spelled with an 's'.

CowperKettle

> With the price of f______ going up all the t______, more people are trying
t___ raise some of their f_____ in their own back y______.

Anonymous

-ise is usually spelled -ize in the U.S., and by a minority of BrE speakers as well.

CowperKettle

In Yekaterinburg, the price of f____ has kept quite stable over the last several years.

Even though food became more expensive

@snailplane Yes, I noticed that (0:

Anonymous

But that's -ise. We don't do it to every 's' :-)

Anonymous

12:36

I mean, I don't go around calling you Kettlez. I'm not hip enough.

CowperKettle

How merciful of you, Americanz!

Anonymous

Yo, Kettlez, wazzup?

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

I hit peak hipness years ago, and I'll be reaching tragic unhipness levels any day now.

Anonymous

So I had to turn in my "spelling random stuff with a 'z'" card years ago.

Anonymous

12:39

They don't budge on that one.

CowperKettle

sighs

Anonymous

zighz

CowperKettle

who don't budge?

Anonymous

Oh, it was a joke. The Hipster's Union, maybe. I dunno. :-)

CowperKettle

We should valorize the frumpy s then. (0:

Anonymous

12:40

I valorize all frumpiness!

Anonymous

I should rewrite my entire answer.

Anonymous

Maybe later. I decided to hit submit instead.

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

Writing answers is hard.

CowperKettle

You're too quick with that 'submit' button. Maybe it's time to think of chronotherapy.

Anonymous

12:42

I know, right? It's time to valorize chronotheuraputics.

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

For the sake of our future.

CowperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

Guess who is the person of the year for 2016?

CowperKettle

Hmmmmm...... Trump?

Anonymous

12:46

Me.

CowperKettle

Frump?

Anonymous

Oh wait. I didn't do anything significant in 2016.

Damkerng T.

I wish you both were right!

Anonymous

I forgot.

Anonymous

I'm surprised it's not Trump.

CowperKettle

12:47

> I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Anonymous

I like frogs.

CowperKettle

I don't know if I like them. I saw too little of them.

Anonymous

I had a pet frog.

Damkerng T.

Donald Trump is Time magazine's Person of the Year

Anonymous

Oh. I'm no longer surprised.

Anonymous

12:48

That's what I expected. :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane A-ha!

CowperKettle

Yay!

Anonymous

Pepe the Frog

Pepe the Frog is a fictional character from Matt Furie's comic series Boy's Club. It became an internet meme when its popularity steadily grew across Myspace, Gaia Online and 4chan in 2008. By 2015, it had become one of the most popular memes used on Tumblr. Beginning in 2016, his image has increasingly been appropriated as a symbol of the controversial alt-right political movement. Because of the use of Pepe by the alt-right, the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe the Frog to their database of hate symbols in 2016, adding that not all Pepe memes are racist. Since then, Pepe's creator, Matt Furie...

Damkerng T.

Oh! #SavePepe

CowperKettle

@snailplane I only had pet cats. And a pet hedgehog for several days. And a pet owl for one day.

Damkerng T.

12:54

A pet hedgehog and a pet owl are surely uncommon!

Sounds a bit more interesting than cats, even.

CowperKettle

the hedgehog run all night and run me mad

the wild baby owl did not belong in a flat, and I carried it to the zoo

and they relocated it to a special farm

Damkerng T.

How did the owl come to your place in the first place?

CowperKettle

I walked in the nearby park in spring and saw it lying on the grass

baby owls fall out of their nests in spring

some get eaten by dogs, so I picked it

Anonymous

Oh, that's sad.

CowperKettle

I bought some meat and we fed it

It looked quite bloodthirsty when being fed

(0:

Damkerng T.

12:58

:-)

Anonymous

Well, they are carnivores.

Damkerng T.

Owls are hunters, I think.

nods

Anonymous

There are some carnivorous snails, you know.

Anonymous

Snails of prey.

2

CowperKettle

the next morn, I carried it to the zoo. I went into a pet shop on the way to the zoo, and bought a couple of live pet mice - so that the people at the zoo would have something to feed the owl.

I was stupid enough to say the sales lady what I bought the mice for.

She nearly killed me.

She looked quite bloodthirsty.

Damkerng T.

13:01

@CowperKettle I suppose that was only natural!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. yes, pet shop ladies are natural carnivores

user17915

Is this grammer correct?
"I went out with my friend to the mall"

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Well, people don't usually feed live mice to carnivorous pets.

Anonymous

Some people do.

Anonymous

@user17915 Perfect.

user17915

13:03

1. I went out with my friend to the mall
2. I went to the mall with my friend

may be 2 sounds more natural, but is 1 wrong in any way?

Anonymous

My parents used to keep a pet snake.

CowperKettle

@snailplane when I had phoned the zoo, they told me that the owl should have meat with small bones, and that otherwise it might get ill

@snailplane great! I guess there are lots of snakes in California anyway.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle This was back in Illinois.

CowperKettle

ah!

Even here, there are some snakes. Small and not very dangerous.

Anonymous

Arizona has some dangerous snakes.

CowperKettle

13:08

Grass snake

The grass snake (Natrix natrix), sometimes called the ringed snake or water snake, is a Eurasian non-venomous snake. It is often found near water and feeds almost exclusively on amphibians. == Etymology == The name natrix is probably derived from the Latin nare or natare "to swim". == Description == The grass snake is typically dark green or brown in colour with a characteristic yellow collar behind the head, which explains the alternative name ringed snake. The colour may also range from grey to black, with darker colours being more prevalent in colder regions, presumably owing to the thermal...

They say there are grass snakes here

Anonymous

Natrix natrix sounds neat.

CowperKettle

and some vipers, but I don't know about the exact species

they write that "a viper's bite is rarely deadly"

30 persons were bitten by vipers in the summer 2015

Not much

Anonymous

Probably people

CowperKettle

yes

one man died this spring from a viper bite

so there are actual deaths from this

Anonymous

Yikes!

CowperKettle

13:15

compared with traffic accidents, that's nothing.

one man in 3 years

another man was saved

this one

his arm is quite edematous though

Anonymous

Oh, is that where he got bitten?

CowperKettle

two local guys tried to make a selfie with a viper

@snailplane yes, in the arm

or "hand"

Anonymous

You can see it especially in the hand.

CowperKettle

I always confuse arm and hand

Anonymous

Very puffy.

CowperKettle

13:19

puffy! I used my dictionary, and it said "edematous".

I felt there was something hinky about "edematous"

puffy is better

Anonymous

Well, edematous means it's bloated with water.

Anonymous

Puffy doesn't say why it's puffy. Could be water, but the word doesn't specifically imply it.

CowperKettle

They write that the majority of people get well within 2-4 days after a viper bite

Anonymous

Swollen would be the neutral term.

Anonymous

Puffy is informal.

Anonymous

13:21

So periorbital puffiness sounds just a little bit silly:

Anonymous

Periorbital puffiness

Periorbital puffiness, also known as "puffy eyes", or swelling around the eyes, is the appearance of swelling in the tissues around the eyes, called the orbits. It is almost exclusively caused by fluid buildup around the eyes, or periorbital edema. Minor puffiness usually detectable below the eyes only (although at times they could be present all around) is often called eye bags. Such transient puffiness is distinct from the age related and gradual increase in the size of the fat pad lying below the lower eyelids (suborbicularis oculi fat - "SOOF") which can also be colloquially referred to as...

CowperKettle

another guy just carried a viper out of the office

quite brave

Anonymous

Wow!

Anonymous

I'm scared of snakes.

Anonymous

I can't identify the harmful ones.

CowperKettle

13:22

Neither can I

Anonymous

@user17915 You can always feel free to interrupt off-topic chat here with questions about English. But in this case I already answered, so I didn't respond the second time you asked. What makes you think 2 is more natural, out of curiosity?

Arrowfar

13:39

hi!

CowperKettle

\o
Sorry, busy translating.. procrastinating in chat.. hope your'e okay, Arrow!

Arrowfar

yes I'm fine, thanks man.

Good luck translating.

So is 'frumpy' only for women or can it be used for males too? hm I wonder.

Hello @DamkerngT. How is your chat bot coming along? :)

Anonymous

It's usually used of women.

Damkerng T.

@Arrowfar Well, it's still in its alpha phase. :-)

Arrowfar

Good morning @snailplane how are you? :-)

@DamkerngT. cool!

Damkerng T.

13:51

I'm thinking about using that image as its avatar. :-)

Anonymous

Cute!

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Arrowfar

I almost forgot my SE password just now before logging. Good thing I had it stored somewhere.

nice avatar pic.

Anonymous

If you have an email address linked to your account, and you still have access to the email address, you can always recover your account via email.

Damkerng T.

Feel free to suggest other avatar photos. :-)

Arrowfar

13:54

@snailplane ah yes I have an email.

Anonymous

The recovery page is at /users/account-recovery on each site.

Arrowfar

@DamkerngT. That's a good pic. Use it! :-)

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Arrowfar

@snailplane Thanks!

Ah found it for this site: ell.stackexchange.com/users/account-recovery

I'm saving the link.

Damkerng T.

!!help

Hello! I'm the humble bot of ELL's main chatroom!

Okay. That's a smoke test. A small step of the bot. :-)

Arrowfar

14:07

How about these?

Damkerng T.

Cute!

Arrowfar

Or um:

Damkerng T.

I just made a new room for this:

Arrowfar

:-)

Damkerng T.

Ellbot's Shack

The place where we build our Ellbot

Cardinal

14:51

Yes, That's really time-eating and exhaustive.
You would never know how strong are you until your only option is being strong!
( *I read something like this couple of times ago*)

Arrowfar

@DamkerngT. There can be more than one answer to cloze deletions right? So in that case "Marmalade" seems like a correct choice too.

I was thinking "Jam" at first.

Without looking at the answers I mean.

Damkerng T.

@Arrowfar My mock cloze deletion exercise wasn't a real one. It was just for fun. :-)

Arrowfar

cool test.

I see :-)

CowperKettle

15:07

@DamkerngT. I like this

Because it does not look like an Apple product

Damkerng T.

LOL -- Thanks!

Arrowfar

I missed all the "valorize" humour here.

reading now.

A plane crash here. Sucks.

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

CowperKettle

15:48

too bad

but much, much more people die in car accidents

Ellbot's Shack

Transcript for