Language Overflow

CowperKettle

04:54

Browning of the Day: Sonnet 26

> I lived with visions for my company,
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come ... to be,

> Belovèd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts)
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants —
Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

Jude Niroshan

05:14

Greetings!

I'm looking for a nicer way to ask for any updates on some of the customer reported problems

Actually those are pending status from customers

They haven't provide us what we asked yet. So I need to write and ask them about the progress of them

M.A.R.

06:24

@ColleenV Huh, she's a she?

Jude Niroshan

@M.A.R. Hi

M.A.R.

@JudeNiroshan Low

Jude Niroshan

Someone in my team asked the customer to follow some tasks and provide him a log file

it's been a month now

M.A.R.

@JudeNiroshan This kind of thing works best if you already provide us a draft to work with/correct. Two reasons: 1. I'm lazy 2. No matter how much context you provide, we'll be missing some

Anonymous

@M.A.R. It's impolite to use it here. "Huh, she's a she?" would be okay. Using it moves her down the animacy hierarchy.

M.A.R.

06:27

Oh, K.

But can't edit that message right now

Anonymous

I can edit it for you, if you'd like.

M.A.R.

Sure

Jude Niroshan

I thought of writing something like this -> Hi John, Can we have the error log file, please?

M.A.R.

I was thinking 'user' and I should've said 'they' but said 'it' instead

@JudeNiroshan If you want it to be more polite, change 'can' to 'could' and 'we have' to 'you provide . . . for us'

Could you provide the error log file for us, please?

Jude Niroshan

@M.A.R. appreciate it. thanks :)

Anonymous

06:31

Longer messages in general are more polite. If you added a few details, it might seem less abrupt. "Hi, John. I just wanted to check in since it's a been a month since our last exchange, and I still don't have the error log file we discussed. Could you please send me the file if you have it? Thank you."

Jude Niroshan

@snailplane wow

M.A.R.

That too.

Jude Niroshan

that is 200% polite :D

xD

M.A.R.

Unless you don't want him to get cheeky.

Jude Niroshan

@M.A.R. hope you won't feel bad about it :)

M.A.R.

06:34

Feel bad about what?

Jude Niroshan

just kidding :D

M.A.R.

I never feel bad about just kidding

V.V.

Morning, have a nice day!

Jude Niroshan

o/

V.V.

Does anybody come across "sharp paint" as an idiom? Or should it be simply "sharp point"?

I should have written "did".

We can't do it regularly.

Anonymous

06:49

@V.V. I don't know what sharp paint means.

Anonymous

It sounds like, well, paint that's sharp.

Anonymous

Like, maybe it died and a chip broke off and the chip is sharp. Or something. I dunno.

Anonymous

Sharp point makes more sense :-)

Anonymous

@V.V. I would use Has: Has anyone come across sharp paint as an idiom?

V.V.

The boy wrote this sentence :"The pencil has a sharp paint" and said that his teacher explained that the thing is important.

Thanks @snailplane

Anonymous

07:00

@V.V. Yes, that should be point.

V.V.

Is there an idiom with "point"?

Ah, yes, that's clear.

CowperKettle

07:47

Good afternoon!

Such a sunny day

The last winter day in Yekaterinburg

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle -1 degrees. You must be boiling right now.

CowperKettle

> My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where Sverdlovsk men their stormy Oblast tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword.
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter, lingering, chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain’s breast,
But meteors glare and stormy glooms invest.

Sverdlovsk Oblast

Sverdlovsk Oblast (Свердло́вская о́бласть, Sverdlovskaya oblast) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia located in the Urals Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Yekaterinburg, formerly known as Sverdlovsk. Its population is 4,297,747 (according to the 2010 Census). == Geography == Most of the oblast is spread over the eastern slopes of the Middle and North Urals and the Western Siberian Plain. Only in the southwest does the oblast stretch onto the western slopes of the Ural Mountains. The highest mountains all rise in the North Urals, Konzhakovsky Kamen at 1,569 metres...

@M.A.R. \o, Muhammad!

M.A.R.

\o Artyom

That name is still too Greek for me

CowperKettle

+10 °C in Tabriz.. lucky

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Tabriz's mildish weather can make both Russians and Thais jealous.

CowperKettle

08:00

(0:

CowperKettle

09:10

Ah, I almost forgot - has my card arrived by mail, @snailplane?

If it hasn't, it has beaten the previous record. (0:

BBL, busy

SmokeDetector

09:47

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Subtracts A from B by Ggggggggggg on ell.SE

CowperKettle

10:53

> Participants at the Congress have the option of giving a presentation, and if you would wish to give a presentation, our company would be very pleased.

I wonder if this sentence is okay.. I've just composed it

I had trouble formulating the phrase before the comma

the first comma

M.A.R.

It's okay, but depending on where you say it and whether you need to be clear or good writing is necessary I'd omit the second 'presentation'

CowperKettle

thanks!

ColleenV

11:56

@M.A.R. Actually I don't know. I should have said "They be righteous" :)

Anonymous

12:37

@CowperKettle I'm afraid it's setting new records every day!

CowperKettle

13:12

(0:

CowperKettle

13:34

> Awesome still massively popular but say goodbye to tar-rah matey

en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ta-ra

tar rah means good-bye

Never knew that

M.A.R.

14:07

o.o

userr2684291

14:31

Tyrosemiophilia

Tyrosemiophilia is the hobby of collecting cheese labels. As of 2015, the world's largest collection encompasses 227,703 label designs. Tyrosemiophilia is briefly mentioned in V., the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon (p. 419 Vintage, 1995 edition) and in Erotic Potential of My Wife (Le Potentiel érotique de ma femme) by David Foenkinos. == References... ==

Stack Exchange

15:07

1

Q: Joining word "And" with adjectives

I often meet "and" being used with adjectives when speaking of a singular object. He has blond and curly hair. Instead of: He has blond curly hair. She is an attractive and young woman. Instead of: She is an attractive young woman. Are they correct?

userr2684291

15:42

Tmesis

Tmesis (/ˈtmiːsɪs, təˈmiː-/; Ancient Greek: τμῆσις tmēsis, "a cutting" < τέμνω temnō, "I cut") is a linguistic phenomenon in which a word or phrase is separated into two parts, with other words interrupting between them. == Verbs == Tmesis of prefixed verbs (whereby the prefix is separated from the simple verb) was an original feature of the Ancient Greek language, common in Homer (and later poetry), but not used in Attic prose. Such separable verbs are also part of the normal grammatical usage of some modern languages, such as Dutch and German. === Ancient Greek === Tmesis in Ancient G...

SmokeDetector

17:13

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (batch report: post 1 out of 2): How to write items in a list by Hahahahhaahhahahahhahahahahhah on ell.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (batch report: post 2 out of 2): How to write items in a list by Hahahahhaahhahahahhahahahahhah on ell.SE

V.V.

Romcom. Never heard that. Interesting.

Damkerng T.

Me either.

Sawasdee and Privet khrap!

V.V.

Sawasdee.

Kha

I wonder if it is in the dictionary. "Roo "might have been more logical.

Room

Damkerng T.

Room for romantic?

V.V.

Sit is for what? Situation?

Damkerng T.

17:22

Sitcom.

But sitcom is from situation comedy, so yeah, situation is logical.

V.V.

What is rom for?

Damkerng T.

Romantic, I think.

V.V.

Ah!

Damkerng T.

@userr2684291 Let's make it our Word of the Day!

Word of the Day: tyrosemiophilia

2

V.V.

I learned about selkie, a kind of mermaid.

Damkerng T.

17:30

That's another thing I don't know about! :D

Ohh, beautiful!

V.V.

I haven't heard those myths before.

What is beautiful?

Damkerng T.

Selkies. (Is that the correct spelling?) (^_^)

V.V.

There are several variants. Silkie also

From seal.

Damkerng T.

nods

Hey, there's a stamp set for them!

(used to collect stamps)

CowperKettle

17:49

kopakonan?

I ordered a 2TB Seagate Ironwolf (ST2000VN004)..

as a backup drive

Damkerng T.

Awoo!

CowperKettle

I never collected stamps, but I loved to go and look at them. We had one book store where they were sold

Damkerng T.

> For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. --Rudyard Kipling

CowperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

:D

Stamps are cute little things. It's easy to get drawn to them. :-)

CowperKettle

17:52

> The time wasted worst is the time spent reading about computer hardware. -- Rudyard Kipling

Damkerng T.

Hah!

:D

CowperKettle

(0:

> The main problem with quotations published on the Internet is that people immediately believe in their authenticity. (Vladimir Lenin)

I'm too disorganized to collect stamps. If I start collecting them, that would consume 90% of my time.

I read different discussions about hard drives, and.. god. It's the same stuff I read 10 years ago. You are better off just picking at random.

Damkerng T.

It could be some happy time. :-)

@CowperKettle Exactly!

Just check the size, and the price, and off you go! :D

CowperKettle

I prefer poetry memorization as a time-filler. It suits bicycle riding. It's hard to collect stamps while bicycle riding (0:

Damkerng T.

Haha! That's very true!

CowperKettle

17:58

(0:

Damkerng T.

Sad news: My IBM X31 notebook from about 13-14 years ago won't boot anymore.

CowperKettle

I decided to keep a spare copy of the system on the 2TB HDD, and as soon as my primary HDD goes to the better world (it has been clicking suspiciously on each startup for the last 3 months) I'll just run the system from the 2TB HDD and order an SSD

@DamkerngT. I'm sorry for your loss

Damkerng T.

It gets past the Windows XP logo, blinks the wi-fi LED, and then screen will go blank.

CowperKettle

It probably was too slow for 2017

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Thanks. It served me well.

CowperKettle

18:02

I have a subnotebook in a box somewhere. It works, but very slowly.

Acer One

Damkerng T.

I haven't used it for years. I brought it out because I wanted to install some suspicious programs. :P

CowperKettle

(0:

It decided to commit suicide rather than suffer the ignominy of running a suspicious software

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

CowperKettle

(0:

Intel Pentium M (1.6 Ghz) - not bad

Damkerng T.

Indeed

Almost top of the line back then.

Anyway, Ironwolf is a good choice, I think.

CowperKettle

18:07

I hope so.. They give a 3-year warranty

Damkerng T.

Um, I meant, by the way. :D

nods

It's a bit hard to type for me ATM, because there's a notebook between me and the keyboard. :-)

(This one is an Acer from 8-10 years ago.)

CowperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

I can remember now why I stopped using it.

It's too damned hot!

CowperKettle

Too Darn Hot - Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Collection - (Remastered High Quality )

►

Damkerng T.

Haha!

CowperKettle

18:10

(0:

CowperKettle

18:29

Маша и Медведь (Masha and The Bear) - Маша плюс каша (17 Серия)

►

A Russian cartoon episode has accumulated 2 000 000 000+ views on YouTube

It bested Gangnam Style

*beat

userr2684291

@CowperKettle It hasn't, though.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Whoa!

CowperKettle

anyway, I'm amazed

Damkerng T.

That's about half the world!

CowperKettle

yes.. and there's nothing special in the cartoon

Damkerng T.

18:37

I wonder what made it so popular.

CowperKettle

I just glanced.. maybe it's something with me, but I see nothing special (0:

Damkerng T.

BTW, I feel like I'm making barbecue or something. Both the heat and the sounds (of the fan) are really like barbecuing!

userr2684291

@CowperKettle I'll never understand why the italic Cyrillic script looks so much different from the roman script.

CowperKettle

(0:

@userr2684291 the letter t - Russian т - turns into ш but overturned

Damkerng T.

LOL -- A user on an online auction board named themself ขอเราเถอะ ขอบคุณนะ ~ "Let me have it, thank you" :-)

CowperKettle

18:44

(0:

On a Russian online auction 10 years ago, a guy was selling a moped (a small motor-bike). He muddled the description and when asked to correct, he wrote: "that's not my moped, I only placed the ad"

And people started to make jokes. Then someone started rhyming this line he posted. Then more and more people came, and it became an internet meme in Russia

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

CowperKettle

And now when you want to ask something in a sphere of knowledge where you know little, you may say "Pardon me, that's not my moped, but may I ask ..." etc

goo.gl/R4oth

Ah, turns out that was a full fledged motor-bike. The guy who placed the ad called it "moped" by mistake

And that got people laughing

Damkerng T.

(^_^)

CowperKettle

The price grew from $3000 to $6000, but it became so famous that the owner decided not to sell it after all

Damkerng T.

Aww

CowperKettle

18:50

The Suzuki company awarded the chap who placed the ad

Damkerng T.

Looks like a cool bike.

A-ha! No wonder why it looks somewhat familiar! It's Suzuki!

CowperKettle

The article says that in China there's a similar expression, - "打酱油"

Is there a lot of Suzuki bikes in Thailand?

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Yes, but it looked familiar to me because this type of bike is also popular among Kamen Riders. :P

CowperKettle

ah!

Damkerng T.

:D

Not the same model, but looks cool anyway. :D

CowperKettle

18:55

(0:

Damkerng T.

I guess this bike-thing of Kamen Riders is similar to the cape-thing of Hollywood superheroes. :-)

2

A: In what expressions I can use possessions and where I can't (e.g. today's evening-?)

It's this evening and not today's evening or today evening. It's winter and not winter weather. However, if you wonder whether or not an apostrophe 's' is to be put, you may have a look on something called attributive noun. In such cases, nouns modify the other nouns and therefore, they go wi...

Sigh

But the question is not a very good one anyway.

CowperKettle

A view in Moscow

The statue is of Lenin

Damkerng T.

Looks almost like a superhero! :D

CowperKettle

Just before undressing and putting on a spandex suit

Damkerng T.

Haha!

CowperKettle

19:00

Lenin-Man will destroy capitalism!

Damkerng T.

Hahaha!

CowperKettle

(0:

Good night!

Damkerng T.

Sleep tight! o/

My barbecue, um, notebook, is almost done, too.

2

Q: toilet invigilator or toilet keeper

In our country, during an exam hour there is an invigilator whose duty is to stand guard outside the toilet. He makes the invigilation of cheating and records the list of students who use toilet during the exam time. How should we call this teacher, toilet invigilator or toilet keeper?

word-request british-english

Wow, the students in England were so bad that they have a word for this job!

userr2684291

Haha, I read that as "invigorator".

Damkerng T.

:D

1

Q: Is that gramatically correct or just a mistake?

I think this trend has for more advantage than any negative effects that come with it. I understood the idea what they say, but I'm not sure it's grammatically correct.

sentence-meaning american-english british-english

@JavaLatte why is that off topic? I didn't even know it was a spelling mistake. I just asked and learned it. — winnervswinner 1 min ago

Hmm... fair points from both sides.

What to do? What to do?

@winnervswinner I understand your feeling. However, it's been discussed on our meta site before, e.g., meta.ell.stackexchange.com/questions/2716/…. The main point is it's unlikely that a typo will benefit other learners. (Unless we look at it as a puzzle, IMO.) — Damkerng T. 8 secs ago

Okay, I voted to close it.

userr2684291

19:19

@DamkerngT. My sentiments exactly.

12

A: Is there a difference between rock and stone?

Here, you can use this shoddily drawn table.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

userr2684291

19:38

Is it customary to include "The", as in this sentence (from the accepted answer to the question to which the above answer is given): "I'm quoting from my old The Penguin Dictionary of Geology by..." The person even put the title in italics, but I'd either rephrase it or bin the "The" altogether.

Haha, I just witnessed accepting of an answer, then changing to another answer.

Catija

20:10

@userr2684291 I'd vote for rephrase but it depends on how formal you're being. The more formal, the more you need to include the "The".

userr2684291

@Catija I hear you.

Catija

You all may be interested - someone put up a proofreading proposal on Area 51. I'm not personally a fan of the idea but I can understand that may not be universal.

1

Proofreading

Proposed Q&A site for getting proofreading and feedback for your English writing.

Currently in definition.

user62015

20:35

The Executive Council constituted of ten members.
(a)consists of (b)comprises of
(c)constituted of (d)No improvement
@M.A.R. @DamkerngT. @snailplane Please help

Damkerng T.

I think there is a recent question about this.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Please see the proposal Catija linked above

user62015

Any idea?

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Usage varies. To my ear, it's better not to include it. That said, it's more common to include it than my ear would have you believe.

Anonymous

@user62015 What do you think?

user62015

20:37

A

userr2684291

21:03

@Catija I think changing the rep system (e.g., 1 rep. point per word fixed) or adding a new feature might incentivize people to help more, but I don't see how it fits the SE paradigm in the large.

Catija

@userr2684291 It doesn't fit, no. And SE will not change the rep system. I'm guessing that the CMs may close it before it gets very far... I can't imagine that it's the first time something of this sort has come up but if there is a big demand, they may change their mind.

Anonymous

22:01

@user62015 I think A sounds best, too.

Anonymous

I don't understand why C is a choice. It appears to be the same as what you typed the first time.

skullpetrol

Yup, I'd go with (a) also.

userr2684291

Me too.

Is C not possible, though?

Catija

@userr2684291 Not without "was".

Anonymous

@userr2684291 It doesn't make sense as an "improvement" because it's the same as the original text.

Catija

22:15

I guess "The Executive Council was constituted of ten members" could work... but I'm not really a fan of that usage of constituted.

Anonymous

And yes, the original does not have the form of a complete sentence. More like a noun phrase, written with an initial capital letter and a trailing period.

Anonymous

Even then, I don't think people say constituted of very much.

Anonymous

0

A: With Lang-8 shutting down, where will we send proofreading questions?

I've had this idea for a while, but I think now is as good a time as any to put it into action. Why not Proofreading Stack Exchange? I just proposed it on Area 51, so it's not an immediate solution (and so much can change by the time it gets to the next phases). If you don't know how Area 51 wo...

userr2684291

@Catija Oh, yeah. I didn't read carefully.

@snailplane Right, I understood your remark. (: And thanks for your input.

Laters.

SmokeDetector

22:45

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected, offensive title detected: Is it right using 'like' word in the movie Pulp fiction? (Then why are you trying to fuck him like a bitch, Brett?) by Max on ell.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected, offensive title detected: Is it right using of the word 'like' in the movie Pulp fiction? (Then why are you trying to fuck him like a bitch, Brett?) by Max on ell.SE

Catija

@SmokeDetector Hush.

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