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04:04
@snailplane should it not be "to the ELL chat"?
Anonymous
04:20
@CowperKettle Nope!
Anonymous
I mean, you could say that. But if I said the, I'd probably say the ELL chat room or something like that.
@snailplane Ah, so "chat" means not the room but the "activity of chatting"
Good morning!
Anonymous
It's the same as in chat.
Anonymous
It doesn't really refer to a specific chat room so much as chat in general.
Anonymous
Of course, I made it more specific when I said "ELL chat", but that still doesn't narrow it down to a specific room.
Anonymous
04:28
You could use the if it made sense in context, though.
05:20
good morning (almost afternoon) all
happy Monday (?)
Anonymous
05:55
It will be Monday here in about two hours.
Anonymous
For now, I am enjoying my late Sunday evening.
Anonymous
But good morning (almost afternoon) and happy Monday to you :-)
@M.A.R. Some sources say that using "quality " as an adjective is recommended before nouns. And the usage as a complement is informal. Btw, it can be used with "a". It's interesting. Is it used as a subject complement with an indefinite article?
It will be Tuesday here in 13 hours
it is extremely clear and sunny
I have 144 points on Cross Validated! Yay
Anonymous
06:34
@CowperKettle Woo hoo! :-)
08:53
49 hours of self-studying statistics got me as far as this
Congrats!
0
Q: When you are going to find out the months of military service in someone's country

A-friendWhereas the rules of military service differs from country to country, I was wondering if someone could let me know which one of the following self-made sentences sounds more natural in this sense: How many months do you do your military service in your country? How long is your military...

Hmm... I wonder if it's a well-posed question.
It's probably not an obligation in many countries.
So, the answerer can answer "Zero months"
I served my zero months in the army and can consider myself a grown man
0
Q: Can the Off-Topic Flag Include a Reason that Is "This Is a Request for Resources"?

Teacher KSHuangRight now, the off-topic reasons include: Basic questions on spelling, meaning or pronunciation are off-topic as they should be answered using a dictionary. See: Policy for questions that are entirely answerable with a dictionary. Proofreading questions are off-topic unless a specific source of...

09:04
@CowperKettle I wonder if he'll be surprised if my answer is 26 years? :)
@DamkerngT. you served in the army for 26 years?
@CowperKettle I suppose being in the reserve is considered in "service" as well. :D
When I say "Just for the buzzing effect", do you understand what I mean? In fact, I intended to say I just wanted to express myself, in no hope of what I said causing any significant or fundamental change. But I'm not sure if native speakers can understand me in that sense.
I think they'll understand.
@DamkerngT. "The soldier sleeps on, the service goes on" (A Russian army proverb)
09:07
@CowperKettle Hehe!
(0:
The meaning of the proverb is "take all the rest you can while you're in the army: that will still count as your service time"
Nice! And true, I think!
Soldat spit, sluzhba idyot
Yeah, I have no doubt about whether they can understand because a native speaker told me he understood.
Btw, can I just say "Yeah, I've confirmed that". Again, I feel the word confirm here is a bit off after previous discussion in this room.
Anonymous
@ZhengquanBai You can definitely say that.
Anonymous
09:11
@ZhengquanBai No idea.
Anonymous
What is "the buzzing effect"?
Anonymous
That sentence might make sentence to me if I had some context to understand it in. I'm not sure.
@ZhengquanBai I suppose it was technically correct. It just wasn't my typical choice.
@snailplane Are you a native speaker?
Anonymous
@ZhengquanBai Yup.
09:13
Great.
@snailplane Are you here to render help to English learners?
> Blatantly off-topic (this question has nothing to do with learning the English language).
Huh?
I don't think we really have such a reason!
@ZhengquanBai No, the reason is to post some pictures of snails. :P
Anonymous
09:38
@ZhengquanBai Well, I try :-)
@DamkerngT. I didn't quite understand why you poked me on that statement.
@ZhengquanBai Sorry if it came out wrong. I thought it would be friendly and fun.
Apart of analyzing some sentence, I'm usually not a serious guy in this chat.
@DamkerngT. I'm okay with that. You have nothing to be sorry for.
Thanks for your understanding!
You are such a nice guy with whom everybody should be able to get along. Professional, helpful, caring, warm-hearted...
09:51
Thanks! That's very nice of you!
And, so are you.@snailplane, little cute snail.
 
2 hours later…
11:34
Word of the Day: unassuming
3
12:06
1
A: Difficulty finding vs Difficulty in finding

Cookie MonsterOnly the first sentence is correct because that's the standard idiom that all use to say that they have trouble doing something. As for the second sentence, that one is not natural and sounds kind of wrong, if you ask me. You can use the following idioms to mean the same thing (they are absolute...

Argh! This answer got an upvote!
@V.V. Well, you can say ''it has a high quality'', or ''it is of high quality'', which is the sentence in question. In the latter, it's the complement of the preposition ''of'' I believe
12:19
Heh, @ShahidanShaari, I would say, don't go crazy :D. The "of" in your example sentence indicates that the products are "made of" or "come from" high quality materials. "Their products are [made] of very high quality [materials]." And so your other example sentences would be, "The good food is of [good] taste," "The rough surface is of the [rough] rock," and "The niceness of the place is of Hong Kong," but please note that these are very poetic uses of the language. Not as everyday as your example sentence. — Teacher KSHuang 2 mins ago
Hmm... probably misleading.
This product is of high quality = "This product is made of high quality materials."?
I don't think so.
But I don't know how to explain it either.
attempting to describe what's going on in my head when I hear this kind of 'X is of Y'...
First, I will imagine the idealized prototype of Y.
Then I will instantiate the stereotype of X of Y.
Then I will read X is of Y as "X is X of Y".
Basically, X is an example/instance (or are examples/instances) of such "X of Y" stereotype.
I think that's how I think.
0
Q: Calculating a 95% CI on the mean - is there an error in my calculation?

CopperKettleA problem from Chapter 10, section 8 of the Online Stat Book: I consulted a table of critical values of Student's t distribution, and it said 1.729 is the critical value for the 95% CI when the degrees of freedom is 19. Thus my calculation had this form: Upper Limit = 14.25 + (1.729)*(1.78...

12:44
@CowperKettle You probably looked it up under the wrong column, I think.
1.729 looks more like the value of the 90% CI.
(I guessed the values based on this table:)
Dam, I looked up the value for 95% and n-1=19
19 is the "degrees of freedom"
The lower limit could be 0 but it is not clear that a two-sided interval would make 0 the lower cutoff. It is possible that this is for a one-sided interval. the number you get and the number in the book differ by only the second decimal place. So other possibilities are round off error or or differences in interpolation from a t table. Maybe you can clear up thee issues and then focus on a question that could be answered. — Michael Chernick 4 mins ago
@DamkerngT. I'm not sure how I parse it internally, but the version with "of" sounds better. "It's a high-quality product." is another okay option. "The product is high quality." sounds as though a layperson said it – as if they're saying "the product is an instance of high quality (products)".
I don't understand a thing in this comment O_O
@CowperKettle Yes, if there were a row for t: n-1=19, it should've been between the rows for n-1=15 and n-1 = 25.
It has a row for v=19
12:52
@CowperKettle Hah! Hmm... there must be something wrong with either of these tables!
Hmm... Probability less than the critical value (t1-α,ν)
It sounds like it's for one-sided tests.
I've no idea what those are.
I'll just read another chapter then.
BBL
> For a two-sided test, we compute 1 - α/2, or 1 - 0.05/2 = 0.975 when α = 0.05.
Hope you'll get an answer on Stats SE!
@user2684291 nods -- I think The product is high quality is probably more normal in casual speech.
A-ha! Here is part of the instructions on how use the table over there, @CowperKettle!
> For a two-sided test, find the column corresponding to 1-α/2 and reject the null hypothesis if the absolute value of the test statistic is greater than the value of t1-α/2,ν in the table below.
Assuming that your test is a two-sided test. α for 95% CI would 0.5, but we have to find the column corresponding to 1-α/2, i.e. 1-0.5/2 = 0.975, for n-1=19.
It's 2.093 in the table.
Looks like the comment by Michael Chernick is along the same lines.
Thank you very much, @DamkerngT.! I do not understand this all yet. I will try to. (0:
Don't mention it! -- I'm sure you can!
Maybe someone will post a dummy-style answer
13:07
@DamkerngT. Yeah.
0
Q: Is Sherlock Holmes good to study English?

jack bangThe novel was first published over 100 years ago. Its English might be quite different than it is now. The question is this: Will reading it help me to improve my English?

Haha!
It's a fair question, though. :D
It might be opinion-based, but the answers could be useful even though they're just opinions.
Similar idea: learning English from lyrics is a bad idea -- I don't know how many times I've seen we tell our learners that on our site.
Reading is hard; let's go shopping.
Hmm... probably 'seen us tell' is more kosher
4-K
4-K
I have a bottle of Phenol and it reads: Pesticide/bactericide/fungicide/germicide. Now I am wondering if the use of slash indicates all the purpose of the fluid?
All I know about a slash is that it stands for "or"
It's a bit like both and and or, I think.
4-K
4-K
13:12
and a space before and after a slash indicates line break.
It definitely kills.
Just google it, I guess? Haha.
@4-K I don't think the spaces around these slashes mean anything much.
"She's my secretary/receptionist" -- Surely, she's both.
4-K
4-K
I think they both are different
13:14
In speech, this could even be indicated by saying "secretary-slash-receptionist".
@DamkerngT. I tried reading Sherlock Holmes and found it excruciatingly boring and simplistic.
I was amazed. I loved the movie as a kid.
Hah! (I've never really read the novels.)
@CowperKettle Maybe the beauty is in the structure?
I'm not sure I'd recommend old novels to English learners.
Readapted and abridged versions thereof – sure, I guess.
13:28
@snailplane Remember back when we were discussing the closed question stats recently posted on Meta? Shog9 updated them with statistics for questions asked and closed just in 2016 and I thought they were interesting:
9
A: 2016: a year in closing

Shog9A few folks have requested (or expressed dismay and confusion at the absence of) data on questions that were both asked and closed in 2016. So... Here it is: Site Name QuestionsAsked Closed PctClosed DuplicatesClosed DuplicatesReopened OTClosed OTReopened Unclear...

Anime's statistics are more realistic now that the old questions they cleaned up aren't counted
Expression of the day: pay it forward
14:28
@CowperKettle, whisker - fitting, what can it be?
Hi all
@ZhengquanBai The direction of the increasing gravitational potential.
@user2684291 What?
0
Q: Is there a Difference between ELL, and ELU?

CatfishFTWWhat is the difference between ELL and ELU..?? is there common things between both?

14:36
Why do you say "The direction of the increasing gravitational potential."?
@V.V. context?
What's the difference between pea nuts and almonds ?
Hi everyone! Good evening!
Can I say "We share 21 friends in common." to mean "We have 21 mutual friends?"
@ZhengquanBai = "up".
Why can't I understand you.
14:45
Anyway, I've got around to reading Sherlock Holmes – it doesn't seem that bad at all. For some reason I thought it'd be akin to Austen's "Pride 'n' Prejudice". The book I'm currently in the process of reading is "Infinite Jest" by Wallace.
@ZhengquanBai "What's 'up'?" can be understood literally.
Oh, I have no problems understanding "What's up".
Anonymous
@ZhengquanBai user was making a joke by deliberately misinterpreting what you said :-)
Oh, you're just making a joke!
I got it now.
How amazing! That really developed my sense of humor in English.
Yeah, I was acting immature.
@ZhengquanBai I suspect you want: "Have something in common."
Yeah, another person from another stackoverflow room has pointed it out to me.
14:52
@ZhengquanBai The second sentence ("We have 21 mutual friends.") sounds good.
Hi @user2684291
Peanut and almond ?
0
Q: Why do I get a different result when calculating the probability in a t distribution using a Stat Treck calculator?

CopperKettleFrom Online Stat Book: I used the Stat Treck t-distribution calculator instead, and got this: Why is the result different from the one provided in the test, and the one calculated using the Online Stat Book t-distibution calculator?

Maybe you can crack this, @DamkerngT. (0:
I never found English learning so vivid and effective before I had access to youtube and stackoverflow.
I need to learn how to make a quarrel in English.
!!wiki/almond
14:59
The almond (Prunus dulcis, syn. Prunus amygdalus) is a species of tree native to the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and North Africa. "Almond" is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genus Prunus, it is classified with the peach in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by the corrugated shell (endocarp) surrounding the seed. The fruit of the almond is a drupe, consisting of an outer hull and a hard shell with the seed, which is not a true nut, inside. Shelling almonds refers to removing the shell to reveal the seed. Almonds...
That would be embarrassing if I don't know what to say when I'm mad at someone.
@ZhengquanBai Try reading books. They are great too
I'm reading The Sandcastle by Murdoch
Will do.
@ZhengquanBai A scowl usually suffices. Or a certain gesture, haha.
15:05
makes sense
I learned the word scowl. I'll learn it by heart.
@ZhengquanBai - try the Anki software
It's freeware
an unassuming but powerful program, although it made me scowl many a time due to its hidden complexity
Bookmarked. Will try it out. And I recommend you give quizlet.com a shot.
Anonymous
@yubraj That sounds tasty :-)
15:25
Umm..really? That's it.
@ZhengquanBai How does that help? I've never learned words that way. I think I learn words unconsciously.
@snailplane What about walnut ? Do you like eating it ?
@user2684291 Me too. I don't like remembering words using flashcards.
I sometimes look up definitions of words I don't know, and sometimes it sticks. Other times it doesn't.
Some words I've looked up dozens of times and they never seem to stick, haha.
Learning words unconsciously is the best way.
15:29
@ZhengquanBai that's too bad.
I don't know if it is, but I feel as though you only learn them through context. If you encounter some word many times, it will become an option in your brain the next time you wish to say something similar.
Using words/Phrases in sentences and converting them into pictures could be a good method to remember words or phrases. Because we remember in pictures not in words.
We make mental images of the words that we need to remember.
IMO
Hm.
Here's what I'll try. I'll try to learn the actual contexts, parts of sentences, along with words that I wanna learn.
@ZhengquanBai you cannot immerse yourself in all the possible contexts
You will find yourself groping for words if you don't force-learn a couple of thousands using flashcards
15:37
It requires, I feel, lots of wit to put a word in a context in which you've never heard it before.
Yeah, everything exists for a reason.
Good night.
Later, crocodile.
We can do so by linking and associating those words or phrases to the images that remind of us everytime we think of.
Yeah, but I think that by doing that, you inadvertently limit yourself.
Anonymous
@yubraj Walnuts are okay. I don't eat them very often.
15:50
Oh! Why ? But I'm just talking about how to remember the English words.
Nods @snail
@yubraj I mean, whatever helps you.
@yubraj For peanuts versus almonds definitely.
I was just confused before googling them.
16:04
@yubraj Well, yeah, that's the usual course of events. The OLD entries sometimes contain illustrations to help you assimilate new vocabulary; especially those words that are difficult/tedious to define accurately.
The same is true for the LDOCE.
16:19
@CowperKettle It's again the one-sided vs two-sided thing, I guess.
Your calculator shows the result for P(T<=2), not P(-2<=T<2).
In other words, your calculator will give you the area under the leftmost probability curve.
@yubraj visual.merriam-webster.com/sports-games/outdoor-leisure/camping/… There's also this website. It's great, though the design is somewhat unsophisticated, in my book. ^^
@CowperKettle (con't -- my browser just crashed ^_^) But your test wants the area under the third curve.
So, you need to find the white area under the leftmost curve (i.e., P(T>2)) and then subtract it from the value you got from your calculator (because the third curve got two equal white areas).
You got P(T<=2) = 0.9633.
The white area (i.e., P(T>2)) = 1-0.9633 = 0.0367
So, the answer (for P(-2<=T<=2)) would be 0.9633-0.0367.
Answer: 0.9266.
(not serious) The difference between peanuts and almonds? It's about 4 dollars a pound. :P
Lol
16:35
Uh, I'm sorry
I haven't been in a math chat before
Hello everybody :-)
Hello! Welcome to the room!
@M.A.R. What are the odds, because that was about probability. :>
@user2684291 1/2 I swear
16:42
(^_^)
16:53
@DamkerngT. but how do I know that? It said T<=2, so I thought it gave me the area from (-2T) to (+2T)
If it says T<=2, it makes more sense to assume that the range is -infinity < T <= 2.
But "t" is just a standard deviation. It goes to the both ways from the center. So I assumed that it calculated the area of the third chart.
Anyway thank you!
I think it depends on the calculator, but I guess accumulative (from -infinity) probability is probably more common.
@CowperKettle You're welcome!
17:22
hi all, newbie here.
can somebody think of the word that fits there ?
I'm not a native speaker. Anyway, I'll weigh in so you can get a head start.
@DamkerngT. please go ahead, thank you.
Personally, I think it depends on the nature of the intern. (I suppose you meant an intern rather than interns, because you wrote a worker.)
But FWIW, here are some first few words came to my mind: wage, compensation, and maybe allowance.
Salary might also be possible, depending on the nature of hiring.
I was thinking of software-engineering as a field, maybe I should have mentioned that.
@shirish nods -- That would be a great idea!
17:30
@DamkerngT. -- just edited and did that, thanx.
17:50
1
A: "part of" vs. "the part of"

Cookie MonsterA part of something literally means that it is a part of it amongst all other parts. The head is a part of the human body. It is one part out of many other parts that constitute the human body. Part of something, without any article, means that it belongs to that something or is found there. Sin...

Argh! Again, he got the main point (i.e., the answer that the is more appropriate) right, but the rest about part vs. a part is probably misleading!
thinking to himself: or are answers just opinions? ...
18:14
@DamkerngT. I wonder why TomB said the anarthrous version works; to my ear, it doesn't work at all. It's a specific piece of string – it entails "a" or "the", depending on further context.
nods
Hmm... I read the original sentence again, and I think it's probably okay without the.
I might've thought it works better than I'm thinking if I didn't know how regex works.
@snailplane - are there any modern languages that are becoming more and more complex? Or do all languages become less complex with time, with no exceptions?
Anonymous
Is part of is fine.
Anonymous
@CowperKettle Wow! What a question!
Anonymous
Let's imagine a world in which natural languages all get simpler, instead of doing what they normally do.
18:19
@snailplane I wonder if it has been discussed on Linguistics SE
Anonymous
Wouldn't we run out of language eventually?
But they do get simpler
Anonymous
Well, sure.
The lose cases
Anonymous
But they get more complex at the same time.
Anonymous
18:19
The complexity moves from one place to another.
Waterbed effect?
Anonymous
You lose morphology (cases), you gain syntax.
Ah, so morphologically there are no languages that gain in complexity nowadays?
Anonymous
Oh, certainly that is not the case.
Anonymous
It's more of a cycle.
Anonymous
18:21
For example, postpositions (syntax) can become case endings (morphology).
Anonymous
Japanese, for example, has gained a lot of morphology from syntax that got squished together into word endings.
Oh, I'm late for the class!
Is it this way?
English Syntax and Morphology with Snail S. Plane
@M.A.R. Yes, so bring your parents to school tomorrow!
Anonymous
English, on the other hand, has been gaining syntax and losing morphology.
@snailplane ah, so Japanese has gained morphology. I never knew that.
Waterbed theory is the observation, ascribed to Larry Wall, that some systems, such as human and computer languages, contain a minimum amount of complexity, and that attempting to "push down" the complexity of such a system in one place will invariably cause complexity to "pop up" elsewhere. This behavior is likened to a waterbed mattress which contains a certain amount of water; it is possible to push down the mattress in one place, but the displaced water will always cause the mattress to rise elsewhere, because water does not compress. It is impossible to push down the waterbed everywhere at...
18:24
@CowperKettle I think first morphology gets harder, syntax easier. After some time, when morphology is hard enough, it starts getting easier and syntax harder.
Like an oscillation
So it makes sense for different languages in the world to be in different phases of this oscillation
Considering how I informally speak Persian to friends and the non-standard stuff I use, it seems Persian might be gaining inflectional complexity
I mean Persian verbs are sooooo easy!
@DamkerngT. Doesn't "that matches a pattern specified..." define "part", hence the definite article?
@user2684291 I suppose it's just "hence the definite article is a better choice", but not quite as to "hence the definite article is a must".
OK, why isn't it a must, since the phrase clearly defines it?
Because it's possible that the speaker or the author might not have thought of the specific part yet before they reached the that part?
Hmm, so we're wondering if the phrase in that question is okay without an article?
It's okay without an article.
18:30
@DamkerngT. Haha.
The string is specified and article-d.
Hi melat! (melat is a Persian term meaning people)
Privet!
@Cardinal I read that as ''hi meat''
Hi, @Cardinal! Long time no see!
Also hi.
18:31
> Development of biosimilar drugs containing antibodies as the drug substance (is this the okay?)
@M.A.R. That's because of the fact that your sweat-heart "konkour" is coming!
@M.A.R. No, the "the" before "string" is there for a different reason. That string has already been chosen.
@DamkerngT. Sawasdee Khrap!
It's the part that needs defining.
@Cardinal Salam!
18:32
@Cardinal Oh haha no. I'm not that out yet
@user2684291 Doesn't need it IMO
OK, why?
The zero article is also hard!
Also, I think although you haha'd Dam's comment, it's really common for writers to use zero article for whatever they specify next in their writing
Wondering if I start calling Dam Dem, how long it will take for him to shoot my head off
Well, it's kind of funny to say that it's OK because the person didn't think what they were gonna say next.
@M.A.R. (^_^)
18:36
@DamkerngT. So 30 minutes
@user2684291 It does get funny sometimes. It's like, I dunno, the clause after is answering the expected ''what part of the string?'' question
So the clause adequately ''defines'' the part.
@M.A.R. your new avatar suggests that you've been exposed to "edge coloring" problems!
In graph theory, an edge coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to the edges of the graph so that no two adjacent edges have the same color. For example, the figure to the right shows an edge coloring of a graph by the colors red, blue, and green. Edge colorings are one of several different types of graph coloring. The edge-coloring problem asks whether it is possible to color the edges of a given graph using at most k different colors, for a given value of k, or with the fewest possible colors. The minimum required number of colors for the edges of a given graph is called the chromatic...
I won't call them problems
Just colorfully evading a colorless avatar
> Jensen & Toft (1995) list 23 open problems concerning edge coloring. They include:
18:40
Please list them all.
They all are on that wiki above!
I should brush up on this.
@Cardinal ''Should I color my graph with crayons or markers?''?
@M.A.R. Hmm, I have no idea about the tools, but coloring itself can be a very complicated task!
I don't know if this helps, but maybe it can keep our thoughts rolling.
> The container_of() macro returns a pointer to the struct that contains this struct member.
I think this a pointer to is comparable to our part of.
@DamkerngT. You can't say "the pointer" there, though.
@M.A.R. Is it a kind of metaphor or something? I mean the "dead horse"
@DamkerngT. Can you?
@Cardinal ''beating a dead horse''
1
Q: Present or Past tense in this sentence

AhmadI wrote: The whole extraction command is optional and if it isn’t specified, no extraction is performed. But I think "specified" is taken place when the user writes the command, then should I use another tense like: The whole extraction command is optional and if it wasn’t specified...

I don't see any problem with "is".
@M.A.R. Oh, I had heard the "flog" version long time ago. I didn't memorize that because it was BrE.
19:17
@Cardinal None of them are bad or awkward, but since Ahmad wants his book to be perfect, he thinks one option is better than the others
IOW, most of his questions aren't about learning the English language,
or the grammaticality of something he wrote
@Cardinal You've got an extradictionary sense of motto. :>
but a shopping list of sentences to choose from
@M.A.R. I see. I thought he has a problem similar to mine: "The ubiquitous Persian subjunctive moods"
@user2684291 I don't understand your point.
@Cardinal That's no longer a problem once you get used to English's inferior subjunctive
@Cardinal His point is you're an extraordinary person
@M.A.R. Ohom. I have progressed in that context.
19:23
@M.A.R. That's the word I'm alluding to, but "extradictionary" means "of actions, not words", basically, which is purportedly their motto. :>
@M.A.R. yes, if "extraordinary" means "extra - ordinary" or in other words "very ordinary"
(Alas, the word's fallen into obsolescence, but anyway.)
Everyone is extraordinary, and no one is extraordinary.
word of the night: simulacrum
So what's y'all's simulacrum of me?
20:02
@user2684291 It could be possible, but it probably doesn't sound right, especially when I can guess what kind of this pointer would be.

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