Language Overflow - 2017-07-14

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user33250

04:20

Hi, Tag sentence construction created by MODS after seeing my question here. Later, this Tags added to 1971 questions.

SmokeDetector

04:53

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: What does "Heaven" mean here by Shikha on ell.SE

2 hours later…

kitty

06:58

Hi all

Hello!

Bye

CowperKettle

07:29

> • The deviation of the measured concentration of the antibody in the model solutions from the nominal value should not exceed 20% for the concentration of 750 ng/mL.

I think I'm wrong here and it should be the article "a"

Is it so?

Anonymous

07:58

@CowperKettle Well, the is not ungrammatical, but I think a is probably more appropriate.

CowperKettle

@snailplane Thank you! Now I will ponder why the is not ungrammatical

Why just not abolish articles at all?

Good afternoon

Anonymous

Definiteness is basically a matter of contextual meaning, that is, pragmatics. The definite article is a pragmatic marker.

Anonymous

The indefinite article also indicates grammatical number.

Anonymous

Swapping one article for another often results in a grammatical sentence, but one which is appropriate in a slightly different set of contexts.

2

CowperKettle

So "Keep the solution at the temperature of 10 °C" can also be grammatical?

1

Q: "for the concentration of 750 ng/mL" vs. "for a concentration of 750 ng/mL"

The deviation of the measured concentration of the antibody in the model solutions from the nominal value should not exceed 20% for the concentration of 750 ng/mL. The meaning is: when the nominal concentration specified for the model solution is 750 ng/mL, the values obtained through measur...

Anonymous

08:03

Sure.

Anonymous

It's not ungrammatical, it suggests you've already introduced a concentration of 750 ng/mL into the discourse and you are now referring back to it.

Anonymous

Most likely that is not appropriate, so a fits better.

CowperKettle

Ah, so by this yardstick "Keep the solution at the temperature of 10 °C" will always be a gaffe

Cardinal

08:19

@CowperKettle Couldn't you say this in two sentence? The second sentence can be something like, the deviation from the nominal value should not exceed 20%.

Personally, I prefer "short and directly to the point" sentences in academic texts.

> For the concentration 750ng/ml, the deviation from the nominal value should not exceed 20%.

CowperKettle

nods

Cardinal

Provided that you already introduced the deviation and model.

CowperKettle

I'm too tired to think. I will just proofread as-is and submit to the manager

Cardinal

OK.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I hope you can get some rest soon, then!

userr2684291

08:57

@snailplane But what about the... (the opposite of anaphoric) type of definiteness? I.e., doesn't the value determine the temperature sufficiently? There can't be more than one temperature of 10 K, for instance, I could be specifying the temperature right there.

userr2684291

09:08

@CowperKettle There must be a way to suggest the noun you're talking about has (not) been mentioned or is (not) known. Different languages deal with the issue differently.

SmokeDetector

09:48

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer: How to establish a comparison between the IELTS(academic) and FCE? by kiajames on ell.SE

CowperKettle

10:20

I constantly misspell aliquot as aliquote

V.V.

11:09

Aligote

Feeds

0

Q: Hello moderators, what is the maximum number of questions that I can ask every day?

I have asked three questions in the last 24 hours, and I feel embarrassed because I think I have made the stackexchange system busy. I would like to know whether there is any restriction on the number of questions that a user can ask every day? Is it 5 or 10 something ( I am guessing)? Thank...

1 hour later…

Feeds

12:24

2

Q: Past Perfect VS Past Simple in the context of previous experience

I have three extracts: 1st: A: Do you know this man? B: Yes, I had met him before war, but I haven't seen him since that time. 2nd: A: Is he a student? B: Yes, he studies at our university. He worked at our university. He worked at our factory before he entered the unive...

past-perfect past-simple

3 hours later…

V.V.

15:29

"He'll blow his nose on her once too often, and then. " The first part is almost clear, but what is "and then"?

Bad connection again.

V.V.

15:42

@userr2684291, have a look, will you?

Anonymous

16:01

@userr2684291 Hmm, but we don't usually conceptualize quantities as unique, so when I hear the in Cowper's phrase, I think of the anaphoric use.

Anonymous

Well, I've never been happy with the "uniqueness" term, since uniqueness isn't actually a requirement for specificity. But most of the time, specific uses of the definite article are also unique.

Anonymous

Sometimes they aren't: journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/BLS/…

Anonymous

But unique or undifferentiable and not relevantly differentiable in context is a bit of a mouthful.

userr2684291

16:25

@V.V. I take it to mean "and then some more", i.e., "too many times".

Anonymous

16:46

@V.V. Is there any context? Out of context, it doesn't sound quite right to me.

Anonymous

Also, can we all agree that blowing your nose on someone once is once too often? :-)

Anonymous

My best guess would be the same as userr's: and then means 'and then some'. But it doesn't sound natural to me, so I wonder if it's a dialectal difference or something else.

Anonymous

It sounds incomplete, so I'd wonder if it was connecting to whatever the following sentence is instead.

kitty

Hi all

Can someone help me please?

Catija

@snailplane Definitely... possibly unless they're you're own kid.

I swear I've seen parents use their own clothes as a snot rag if they don't have a wipe.

kitty

16:57

Hi Catija

userr2684291

I read that as children for a second.

Catija

@V.V. Are we sure this isn't like the hanging InE "do the needful"? The implication of the elipsis on the end... He'll blow his nose on her once to often, and then... [she'll snap]

kitty

Andrew has left this comment in his question, Using "that depend" links effects to depend. If you want "drinking wine" to be the subject, you have to use a different conjunction

Catija

Link?

kitty

the sentence, Using "that depend" links effects to depend, is too complicated for me to understand, so I googled for the term, links effect to
but all the results are about HTML and Adobe CSS things.
Can someone help me please? Does "link effects to" mean "give effect to"?

@Catija, here is the link

@kitty also note my edited answer. Using "that depend" links effects to depend. If you want "drinking wine" to be the subject, you have to use a different conjunction. — Andrew 29 mins ago

Language Overflow

This is the main chat room for ell.stackexchange.com. Welcome!

Anonymous

17:00

See how Andrew wrote effects and depend (with italics)? That means he's talking about the words effects and depend.

Anonymous

The sentence uses the word effects, and the sentence uses the word depend.

Anonymous

Andrew is saying that the two words are linked together.

kitty

Hi @snailplane, could you explain it please? I can not understand it

is links effects to a phrasal verb or what?

Anonymous

No.

Anonymous

Link A to B means connect A to B.

Anonymous

17:02

Andrew is saying that one word is connected to the other.

Anonymous

One word is effects. The other word is depend.

kitty

Thank you @snailplane

I see it now

Thank you so much!

Anonymous

The italics are like quotes.

kitty

Thank you @snailplane

Anonymous

:-)

kitty

17:05

I am not sure if it is alright

I am just curious to ask you a personal question

I have seen someone called snailboat somewhere

Is it you?

Anonymous

I have used the names snailplane and snailboat on Stack Exchange.

Anonymous

I don't use those names on other websites.

userr2684291

I wonder when the next transformation's gonna happen.

Anonymous

I like this name. I might just keep it forever. :-)

kitty

Yes, so you are also a member on Japanese language forum?

Anonymous

17:07

Yes

kitty

Good to hear that

Thank you

userr2684291

17:25

"We have seen that none of the previous analyses can account for all uses of the definite article in English." Before reading a paper on articles in English, remember that a theory can only be disproven.

userr2684291

17:39

@snailplane What if a range of concentrations were mentioned in the text before, or it's implied because of certain chemical laws or processes the reader would know about? (The sentence goes "...the nominal value should not exceed 20% for the concentration of 750 ng/mL.")

V.V.

18:30

Thank you all.Very helpful ideas. Perhaps it's a transition to the next sentence.

He'll blow his nose on her once too often, and then. Between the rock and the hard cheese, that's where she sits, inert as a prisoner, making little crosses on the wall, like knitting, counting the stitches row on row, that old trick to mark off the days

CowperKettle

19:09

Eduard Arkadyevich Asadov (Russian: Эдуа́рд Арка́дьевич Аса́дов; IPA: [ɪdʊˈart ɐrˈkadʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ɐˈsadəf]; September 7, 1923 – April 21, 2004) was a Russian poet and writer of Armenian origin. Born in the town of Merv, Turkestan ASSR, to Armenian family. Both parents were teachers. Father (born 1898) fought Dashnaks in the Caucasus during the Civil War. After his father's death in 1929, Eduard and his mother moved to Sverdlovsk to her father Ivan Kalustovich Kurdov. At the age of 8 Eduard composed his first poem, then entered the Pioneers' Organization and, later, Komsomol. Moved to Moscow in 1939...

user image

Translated a stanza from his poem

Good night

Cardinal

20:01

0

Q: Present perfect and past simple in one sentence

Is it grammatically correct to use present perfect and past simple tense in the following sentence? She has been mad at John for five days, as she couldn't go to Paris because of him.

grammar sentence-construction tense

> She has been mad at John for five days, as she couldn't go to Paris because of him.

I think it's a good question.

present perfect means there is a connection to the present.

On the other hand, you have a past tense and you want to use this past tense to describe a period of time which continues up to now.

Hence, the question.

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