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SmokeDetector

04:34

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: "Leave me message as you get free" Is this sentence grammatically wrong? by mr john on ell.SE

6 hours later…

CowperKettle

10:58

Q: How many lines of code were in the first Unix version (with the Thompson shell)?

How many lines of code were in the first Unix version (with the Thompson shell)? Given that the modern Linux kernel has about 15 million lines of code, I do wonder of the amount with the first Unix product released at the time.

Shouldn't it be there were instead of just were?

Anonymous

1. A million lines of code were in blah.
2. There were a million lines of code in blah.
3. How many lines of code were in blah?
4. How many lines of code were there in blah?

skullpatrol

I would choose number 4.

Anonymous

Example 1 is the basic sentence. Example 2 turns it into an existential construction, presenting the same information in a different way. The new information is moved out of subject position thanks to the dummy subject there. In examples 3 and 4 we have interrigatives based on 1 and 2. All four examples are fine.

Anonymous

@skullpatrol That might be the most common choice.

Anonymous

The difference between 3 and 4 is smaller though, I feel, because you aren't moving new information away from the beginning of the sentence by inserting there, whereas in the declarative version it makes a bigger impact for that reason.

skullpatrol

11:07

@CowperKettle the sentence is fine as is.

Anonymous

Example 1, without some special context, is probably less natural than example 2. But I don't feel like example 3 is too much less likely than example 4.

Anonymous

It sounds fine to me too.

CowperKettle

Thank you!

Q: Has a parody of a work of literature ever become more successful than the original work?

I was thinking of this when I read Nineteen-Neighty-Four, a fanfic with My Little Pony ponies in a 1984-ish world. Parodies can be really successful as a way of challenging another work, or the ideas in it. If they're well done, they might also stand on their own as an original work and the one t...

history-of-literature

A single reopen vote needed

By the way, Snails&Skull - happy Old New Year!

Old New Year

The Old New Year or the Orthodox New Year is an informal traditional holiday, celebrated as the start of the New Year by the Julian calendar. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Old New Year falls on January 14 in the Gregorian calendar. The same day is celebrated in India as the sun ends its southward journey and starts moving northward: Makar Sankranti. == In Russia == Although the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic officially adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918, the Russian Orthodox Church continued to use the Julian calendar. The New Year became a holiday which is celebrated by...

skullpatrol

thanks!

CowperKettle

Happy Old New Year, Man ji!

Anonymous

11:10

Happy Belated New Year!

Anonymous

I never said it for the old New Year. I can say it for the new Old New Year now, though.

Anonymous

Happy Old New Year!

CowperKettle