Language Overflow

CowperKettle

05:56

Good morning!

+1 °C

M.A.R.

06:12

@CowperKettle PFFT, that's not even negative degrees.

CowperKettle

07:12

Japan's Most Terrifying Bridge: Eshima Ohashi 日本最恐江島大橋 ★ ONLY in JAPAN #33

►

a pear-shaped bridge

V.V.

08:50

Morning.

“Yeah, right,” she said, and the sweet pinch became a pungent smirk. She took her glass and swallowed the rest of her drink with a tart little face. What's "a pungent smirk "? and "a tart little face"?

@CowperKettle,help.

CowperKettle

едкая ухмылка, кислая мордашка

(0:

V.V.

09:19

@CowperKettle thanks, кислая, not more?

Ехидная мина?

user62015

09:44

Most of the developing countries find it(a)/ difficult to cope up with the problems(b)/ created by the sudden impact of technological progress(c)/ No error (d) I think we must replace "cope up with" with "cope with"

M.A.R.

@user62015 I guess so

user62015

Thanks.

CowperKettle

10:27

@V.V. Quite possible! (0:

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle What's 'Ehidnaya'?

CowperKettle

11:09

@M.A.R. impishly venomous..

like when someone is pleased with getting the upper hand over you concerning some trifling issue, and their face is glowing with this pleasure

*glows

"a foxy little face"

Damkerng T.

11:33

1

Q: "the" in front the word following

In this sentence, do I need "the" in front of the word following: This problem became evident during following few months. or: This problem became evident during the following few months.

articles

This is more subtle than it looks.

Because in following months is also possible.

Though chances are, the OP needs in the following months anyway.

> Revisions to all components are made in following months as additional data become available.

An example for in following months.

Off to garden...

user62015

11:50

Hi@DamkerngT. I have a very complicated question

“Saint George, strike for us!” exclaimed the Knight.

The knight ordered Saint George to strike for them. The Knight prayed that Saint George might strike for them. The knight requested Saint George to strike away. The Knight requested Saint George that he should strike us.

Stack Exchange

12:32

0

Q: Using Past Perfect in English conversation

I called call center executive yesterday but I did not received proper reply from him. Hence again today I called to call center again and start my conversation as below. Me: Hi, My Name is XYZ and my problem is ABC Executive: Sorry, you dialed wrong extension please dial 123 Me: I had called ...

past-tense past-perfect

userr2684291

@user62015 What do you think?

CowperKettle

13:42

Аукцион по продаже коров в Техасе

►

I should post a question like "Please help me understand what he says at second 30"

userr2684291

@CowperKettle en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_chant It's not really important what he says, he's just repeating filler words.

youtube.com/watch?v=ngM4dzTyN30 They even hold competitions.

Damkerng T.

@user62015 It's not very complicated. It's old and you copied it incorrectly.

But I guess I'd put a comma there as well.

looking for the original...

Ah, there seems to be no commas in the original.

> books.google.com/books?id=2v_AEKQnXI4C&pg=PA133

Without commas, I'd understand it a little differently, but it's more or less the same anyway.

@CowperKettle LOL -- Makes me think of Betty Botter. :)-

EngFan

14:18

hello!!

Damkerng T.

Hi!

EngFan

As soon as logged in ,changed my user ID and password the page displayed a message saying

or

As soon as logged in and changed my user ID and password the page displayed a message saying

Damkerng T.

A comma after password would make it read much better.

Anonymous

As soon as I logged in

Damkerng T.

Oh, I missed that!

Anonymous

14:19

You can't replace and with a comma in that sentence because you don't have a list of three things.

EngFan

is it correct to use a comma after

after logged in

Anonymous

You are coordinating two things: ① logged in, and ② changed my user ID and password

Anonymous

As soon as I [logged in] and [changed my [user ID and password]]

EngFan

ok

got it

@snailplane @DamkerngT. : thanks a lot

Damkerng T.

Snailplane's explanation is very good. :)

CowperKettle

14:24

I bet her obfuscations would be no worse.

@DamkerngT. Try turning on Google's auto-subtitles there, it will be funnier

(0:

I first came across the word pannetiere there

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Hahaha!

When it does speech recognition mindlessly.

CowperKettle

It says "don't forget about panettiere" at 00:11

Damkerng T.

LOL

CowperKettle

Hayden Panettiere

Hayden Leslie Panettiere (born August 21, 1989) is an American actress, model, singer, and activist. She is known for her roles as cheerleader Claire Bennet on the NBC sci-fi series Heroes (2006–10), Juliette Barnes in the ABC/CMT musical-drama series Nashville (2012–present) and Kairi in the video game series Kingdom Hearts. A native of New York City, she first appeared in a commercial at the age of 11 months. She began her acting career by playing Sarah Roberts on One Life to Live (1994–97), and Lizzie Spaulding on Guiding Light (1996–2000), before starring at age 10 as Sheryl Yoast in the Disney...

Damkerng T.

(^_^)

CowperKettle

14:29

I shall never forget you, Panettiere

Damkerng T.

Just saw her on a late show last week. :D

CowperKettle

In the name of all cows sold in Texas, I will remember you always, always

And bulls

and geldings

Damkerng T.

LOL

BTW, I bet that even IBM Watson can't quite catch what these auctioneers say. :D

CowperKettle

In short, in the name of all Texas stock I shall remember you.

(0:

Damkerng T.

555

CowperKettle

14:32

Texas cows and international politics

Damkerng T.

I suspect that being able to adapt to a completely new environment is still one virtue of human beings after the coming post-robot/AI era.

@CowperKettle LOLROTF!

CowperKettle

I'm not an AI expert..

Damkerng T.

Though they're much more flexible at non-rules things, compared to the previous generations, they're more or less still working better at repetitive tasks.

CowperKettle

I dunno.. I dunno.

Maybe 90% of what my brain does are repetitive tasks.

Damkerng T.

Okay, let's get back to politics of cows. :P

CowperKettle

14:34

Like, the subcortical regions

And, when the experts have created the necessary "subcortical substrate" for AI systems, they may just explode in performance.

Damkerng T.

I doubt that, I doubt that. :D

CowperKettle

Imagine they create a system that can ask questions on ELL SE. Awkward questions, but still permitting it to learn new things.

Damkerng T.

Maybe they just went straight to the enlightening state and decided to leave our earth immediately, once we powered them up. :P

CowperKettle

Once they created such a system, "you can't unmince the mincemeat" as the Russian saying goes. It will be hard to stop AI proliferation then.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Living with them might be tough to the current generations of us.

But it might be different for those of us in the near future.

CowperKettle

14:37

Because such systems will bring such profits that the shareholders won't stop.

Damkerng T.

(See, a lot of kids these days are very familiar with sharing everything in their lives with the world.)

CowperKettle

You can't pull the plug when 100 000 000 shareholders want the plug to stay in.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle I'm sure if these systems are really smarts, the shareholders would be their first targets. :P

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. Maybe not. We are supporting more bacterial cells than actual body cells per person. Maybe an AI system will find it profitable to be the upper layer of a symbiont.

Damkerng T.

Could be. This must be way over my level. :-)

I'll leave that to those AIs themselves.

But if they play chess unlike us, I don't think they will think like us.

CowperKettle

14:41

yes

CowperKettle

14:52

I should try teaching someone English in real life, to prepare for the day when translators are not needed.

Or try learning how to program.

Damkerng T.

I don't think translators won't be needed any time soon. Our cameras are very good. Our photo editing software is very good. Yet, painters still have their work. Yes, an average person might not ever hire a painter or buy a piece of art all their life, but that doesn't mean everyone is the same. I think translators would be somewhat like painters in this respect.

I say, a lot of people are already okay with this level of speech recognition, machine translation, etc.

Those people are not me, though. And I hope not you as well.

Mindlessly believing or trusting in machines is a trait I've never had.

CowperKettle

17:07

nods

userr2684291

19:21

@Andrew Duvet and comforter are not interchangeable; a comforter (which, FWIW, I learned as bedspread) is used as an outer layer, and colored or patterned. A duvet is plain and usually covered with a duvet cover (like a giant pillowcase). — choster 43 mins ago

I'm not sure this distinction exists in AmE. Could anyone corroborate this?

Damkerng T.

20:06

@Shannak don't be surprised if you find English speakers don't know what you mean when you use the "correct" term for things you find around the house. For example, not everyone will know a "duvet" is a quilted cover for the bed. I first learned to call this a "comforter". — Andrew 2 hours ago

I think this is pretty likely.

Perhaps the same applies to almost everywhere, in any languages.

M.A.R.

\o

Damkerng T.

o/

(I meant when there are more than one term seem to apply to similar things, and that it requires uncommon knowledge to distinguish these similar things accurately. E.g., I call anything that looks like a spoon spoon, in all languages. I might qualify it a bit, like, a small spoon, a salad spoon, a large spoon, and so on. But this is laughable to those who know what they're called.)

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. or a spatula

Damkerng T.

Yeah!

M.A.R.

-3

Q: How to correctly pronounce "p" in Trump

I used many online resources to find out how to correctly pronounce the ending "P" in "Trump" is it aspirated "ph" or is it "p"?

pronunciation

He couldn't have possibly felt more important now

If he could read, that is

Damkerng T.

20:18

I think they have a misconception of the pronunciation of English "p".

They seem to know that "ph", perhaps in their first language, is aspirated.

Which might make them think that some English "p"s are supposed to be unaspirated.

But it's confusing to think of it that way.

It's better to know about the concept of "released" and "unreleased" stops.

M.A.R.

20:35

One interesting trait of language that intrigues linguists is that you can create infinitely different sentences using different combinations of words. When taking it as a whole, it doesn't make much sense to speak of all the rules that govern different sentences, but choosing one rule and trying to understand it. This question is kinda broad, as a result. — M.A.R. 15 mins ago

All who agree say 'aye'

BTW, that OP seems to have mastered the art of clickbait titles and getting to HNQ, and they want to so bad

I kinda hate HNQ at the moment

Damkerng T.

20:51

Don't know if the question is really too broad, but it sure is based on misconception.

@M.A.R. Oh!?

Their questions got about +1 to +4. Maybe +2.5 on the average.

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. Oh. Look at the title. Obvious attempt at HNQ.

Damkerng T.

Ahhh

I see what you mean.

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. Well, their last question made it to HNQ, at the very least

It ended up with four votes, but only because they jumped from topic to topic

BTW, I was gonna start working on the new canonicallish post

But it's too late now, gotta do it tomorrow

I wonder if it's a good idea though @Dam

I want to clear up 'modifier' vs. 'adjective'

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. For this kind of question, I'd say an OP should be able to get the first approximation by using Google Translate to translate the word in their own language that's used to call the same thing.

M.A.R.

IOW, lexical vs. syntactic categories, and a little explanation on what parts of speech is

Damkerng T.

20:56

@M.A.R. Hmm... they aren't on the same axis, IMO.

M.A.R.

The only problem might be not everyone agrees on what to call a determinative

@DamkerngT. Yes, exactly why I wanna clear it up

Damkerng T.

By bringing modifiers in, you would want to bring in complements too.

M.A.R.

Hmm, that sounds loooong

Damkerng T.

And this might be confusing.

M.A.R.

I'll see what I can do

Damkerng T.

20:57

nods

M.A.R.

dons

Damkerng T.

@M.A.R. It's a good idea anyway.

M.A.R.

Hmm, maybe there's not much need to dive in into complements

It won't be obvious unless I start typing

If I see it's gonna be too long a post, I'll stop and answer questions with clickbait titles instead

Damkerng T.

0

A: Question about "in such a way as would make them seem magical and occult"

THIS IS HOW I BECAME RICH,POWERFUL AND FAMOUS AGAIN THROUGH([email protected]) i am Becky Lizzy nelson from southern coastal Beth.Yes its true i came across this email of how to join a powerful secret money filled soc...

Strange. SmokeDetector didn't kick in.

If you're referring to the current U.S. president, there are innumerable clips of him saying his own name (really, it's impossible to avoid them; I've tried). That is the best place to start when pronouncing anyone's name, as spelling is only loosely tied to pronunciation in English. — choster 1 hour ago

Good idea, but might be impractical. I'd say it's impractical until the OP knows the basic phonology of English.

(Informally is fine.)

The thing is, we wouldn't know how to divide what we hear into "sounds" (or phonemes) when we're listening to speech in another language unless we know how the "sounds" in that language work.

M.A.R.

@DamkerngT. It's been having hiccups lately. I wouldn't be surprised

Damkerng T.

21:05

Got it

M.A.R.

Maybe it just didn't catch it

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Question about "in such a way as would make them seem magical and occult" by jane on ell.SE

Anonymous

22:20

@M.A.R. Why did this question get 4 downvotes?

Anonymous

If it gets closed as "entirely answerable with a dictionary", I'm going to reopen it.

Catija

23:27

@snailplane Not that it's a good reason... but a lot of people downvote based on content rather than on question quality... I've seen lots of questions about sexual matters downvoted for no reason I can discern other than it being about a "taboo" topic... I could imagine people who think this is a topic they dislike... even look at Stoney's answer - I'm not sure that calling him "Grand Orange" is appropriate... but there it is.

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