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CowperKettle

00:19

Word of the day: labret /ˈleɪbɹɨt/

/ˈleɪbɹɨt/

New Meta Question

03:17

0

Q: Adding the feature of 'favorite' or 'followers'

We all have favorite questions and answers on this wonderful platform. Why can't we have 'favorite' users here? For example, I like J.R.'s, StoneyB's, and a few others' answers and want to get notified. This can further be extended to showing the number of 'followers' as we have on most of the ...

feature-request

Anonymous

08:26

Word of the day: confabulate

3

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

10:18

@snailboat Noice, I expected it to be "comfortable" + "confusable"

Huh, I wonder if I should be worried about this arbitration stuff

I'm not residing in the US

Heck, I can't buy a chocolate bar from outside the country

Anonymous

10:43

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ I would imagine it's pretty unlikely to affect you.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I thought it said lab rat at first!

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@snailboat yay for lawyery bull crap

0

Q: Adding the feature of 'favorite' or 'followers'

We all have favorite questions and answers on this wonderful platform. Why can't we have 'favorite' users here? For example, I like J.R.'s, StoneyB's, and a few others' answers and want to get notified. This can further be extended to showing the number of 'followers' as we have on most of the ...

feature-request

Heh, he keeps thinking you can favorite answers

Good nitpicking point in arguments if you disagree with him

@CowperKettle is that like "elaborate"?

OK, I wanna unsee the Google results for that word

Anonymous

11:30

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ I used a dictionary instead of searching on Google.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@snailboat I have MW on android, but I keep forgetting to check it instead of googling

Different story when I'm offline

Hi @Ice

Anonymous

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Hi MAR!

Anonymous

Hello! Welcome to ELL chat!

Anonymous

Are words of the day any random words? Because I just checked out some previous ones, I don't think I would ever use some of them. So, what's the use of having them?

Anonymous

Every SE chat is so welcoming. Good vibes~

Anonymous

11:42

:D

Anonymous

Oh, I wouldn't take the "word of the day" thing too seriously. They're just for fun :-)

Anonymous

Out of the five WOTDs I can see starred right now, I'd say . . .

Anonymous

I posted confabulate when I ran across it in a blog post, and foofaraw when a friend used it in conversation.

Anonymous

Moolah is common enough to be worth knowing, although I don't actually use that word myself.

Anonymous

I like having a lot of these words in my passive vocabulary, even if I don't plan to retain them as part of my active vocabulary.

Anonymous

11:46

In other words, it might be worth understanding them even if I don't plan to use them myself.

Anonymous

As far as labret and Fremdscham, I've never seen those before myself.

Anonymous

The latter is reminiscent of schadenfreude, which I think most speakers are familiar with.

Anonymous

12:01

That's the history of all. Haha. The first statement was self explanatory. '"Just for fun!" I just wanted to know the purpose behind having those words. That was a quite good explanation. Thanks! :D

Anonymous

Word of the day(hour?): fete feɪt/

skull

12:17

Word of the year

The word(s) of the year, sometimes capitalized as "Word(s) of the Year" and abbreviated "WOTY" (or "WotY"), refers to any of various assessments as to the most important word(s) or expression(s) in the public sphere during a specific year. The German tradition, Wort des Jahres was started in 1971. The American Dialect Society's Word of the Year is the oldest English-language version, and the only one that is announced after the end of the calendar year, determined by a vote of independent linguists, and not tied to commercial interest. However, various other organizations also announce Words of...

Anonymous

13:18

By the way, @IceInkberry, if you have a word you want to share, feel free :-) It doesn't have to be rare.

Anonymous

Okay, thanks! :)

Anonymous

Oh! You already did!

Anonymous

Sometimes I'm not very observant.

Anonymous

13:47

Here's where I ran into confabulate: rsbakker.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/…

Anonymous

It's a review of (or perhaps a response to) The Knowledge Illusion. I haven't read the book, but it looks interesting!

Anonymous

15:27

@FumbleFingers Okay, I misunderstood you as implying that a native speaker would somehow know to include the before Taj Mahal even without having heard it before. And yes, Taj Mahal is always preceded by some kind of determining word like the (I'm not trying to argue against that). — userr2684291 2 days ago

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Until I read this comment, it hadn't occurred to me that there might be native speakers who haven't heard of the Taj Mahal before.

Anonymous

I don't know if it's always preceded by the. I know that my ear demands the, and it seems pretty certain about it! But I don't know if everyone everywhere speaks the same way I do.

Anonymous

I can say at least that my expectation is that it's always preceded by a definite article.

ColleenV

15:46

@snailboat We could say “my Taj Mahal” in some circumstances

userr2684291

16:04

That's what I meant by "some kind of determining word like the".

Very vague and amateurish, I know.

Anonymous

@ColleenV Well, you could use all sorts of determiners other than the if they made sense in context. But I wouldn't expect those situations to come up, generally speaking.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 It was fine. My is definite and can function as a Determiner.

userr2684291

( :

Anonymous

You could even make it indefinite in the right context: a second Taj Mahal

Anonymous

How about this example: Thanks to the step by step instructions, students crafted a cardboard Taj Mahal.

userr2684291

16:14

But that's obviously not the same.

Anonymous

Yeah, it's different. Although so is my Taj Mahal.

Anonymous

So I suppose I should have been a little more restrictive about the meaning when I said I always expect to hear the Taj Mahal. When I wrote that, I was really only thinking of the versus zero, actually.

Anonymous

It sounds funny to me if you just remove the.

userr2684291

I mean... it refers to another entity, doesn't it? Both my and the refer to the original one.

The versions with those words I mean.

Anonymous

My is deictic, so we can't discuss which Taj Mahal the phrase refers to without a context.

userr2684291

16:19

Ah yes. I guess so is the in the right context.

Anonymous

For me it's easier to think of contexts where it doesn't refer to the same one, but it could go either way.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 In the same way the moon might not refer to Luna in a science fiction novel set on another planet, but in the large majority of contexts it would.

ColleenV

@userr2684291 I didn’t read through the entire discussion in detail (I’m at work) Sorry if I derailed anyone :)

userr2684291

Right, right.

Anonymous

We're chatting. We started derailed :-)

Anonymous

16:24

@userr2684291 We get a lot of questions about a and the, often without any context at all, so it's often impossible to write a good answer.

Anonymous

Definiteness is pragmatic.

userr2684291

They are different ways of saying the same thing, and neither is "non-standard" nor ungrammatical. — Robusto 3 hours ago

I know it's the same topic we had yesterday but this seems to be upvoted and I'm not sure if it's okay.

I'd classify wish you would've in the same category as wish you had've. I can't google efficiently right now, though.

userr2684291

16:42

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Follow4follow?

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Or at least a closely related topic.

Anonymous

I'm reluctant to call it non-standard.

Anonymous

There's probably an interesting discussion to be had there, though :-)

userr2684291

16:56

3

Q: Is 'had have + past participle' a correct grammatical form?

It has been suggested in some quarters that had have, followed by a past participle, is a regionalism that has no place in standard English grammar. If I had have known you were coming, I would have been prepared, or If I'd have known you were coming, I would have been prepared, mean essentially...

grammar tenses

> If Jones would have/ had have/ would’ve/ had’ve/ woulda’/ hada’/ would of / had of taken arsenic, he would have shown some symptoms. [NSSC]

Anonymous

It sounds so weird to me with had.

userr2684291

Of course, what works in a plain if-clause may not in the wish one and vice versa.

Anonymous

I've had discussions about this before, but I don't really remember the conclusions we came to.

userr2684291

(I say the because I'm referring to the corresponding one.)

Anonymous

@userr2684291 The complements of wish need special treatment and have to be described separately in a grammar.

userr2684291

17:00

):

Anonymous

Your sad face is going against the grain.

userr2684291

I'm in the camp a wish clause expands into the corresponding if clause.

Because even would works as a special case of would in the if clause.

But not would have.

Okay I can't talk / type properly right now and I'm annoyed.

⛵

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Yay, it's a sailboat!

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

19:24

@userr2684291 I'd follow you for 10 upvotes and a 50 rep bounty. Take it or leave it

userr2684291

23:12

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ That's... 150 reputatoes, I reckon.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Mmm, baked reputato.

userr2684291

@snailboat To study late or go to bed and study early? Just a hypothetical... I think the bed-lag isn't worth it, but no review is also kinda bad.

I wonder if there are any papers on that topic.

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Anyway. How about 3 upvotes on any answer you want, and a possibility to earn 500 on a question of your choosing (your answer has to have the highest number of upvotes). If you fail to get that, you sign a little contract and you work for me for the next 25 years under my terms.

I'll give you food and shelter for the first 4 months.

Er, up there it should read 500 rep if that wasn't obvious.

High risk–high reward kinda thing, yunno?

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