Language Overflow

« first day (1617 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (1917 days later) »

New Meta Question

02:18

Q: Looking for a dictionary with standard American English example for foreign learners

Here is the thing. As a foreign learner, for example, when I look up sticker, I also need to learn common usage and scenario for it. This is what I mean standard examples. Is there a specific verb for sticker to stick it somewhere? Or Do I use some universal verbs to put, use, place, set, lay a s...

discussion

3 hours later…

CowperKettle

05:43

10 hours later…

userr2684291

16:05

I just found out integer comes from in + tangere. What a revelation, lol. Entire as well.

CowperKettle

16:29

My two cats, Behemoth and Nelson

Behemoth is closer to the camera

Behemoth is a character in a novel by Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita (Russian: Мастер и Маргарита) is a novel by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin's regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967, after the writer's death. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, in Paris. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The novel has since been published in several languages and editions. The story concerns a visit by the devil to th...

> the mischievous, trigger-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth;

Anonymous

16:47

Cute!

CowperKettle

Bad puns: that's how eye roll.

Anonymous

How meta, a joke that responds to itself!

CowperKettle

I think it should be "eyes roll"

or "eye rolls"

CowperKettle

17:13

A bit of evening lollery: twitter.com/SaoSasha/status/1197320791706263552

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I feel like it doesn't really work, or at least doesn't work as well, if you change it. I mean, I'd probably still get the joke, but I think it works better when you can read it aloud (or hear it in your head) as that's how I roll.

Anonymous

If you change it to eye rolls it's a little weird, since now you're putting primary stress on eye instead of rolls, which probably makes it just a little more difficult to understand the joke.

Anonymous

I dunno.

CowperKettle

17:56

Yes, I see - on the first reading it was very funny to me but then I suddenly realized that it's not very grammatical ))

ColleenV

18:32

@CowperKettle Actually, I think having a small error in a joke is a good thing. It gives witty people something to riff off of, and exposes the people who think being correct is more important than being funny...

1 hour later…

CowperKettle

19:34

nods

I hope nothing bad happens to @M.A.R.

They say that the Internet is totally switched off in Iran now, and there are riots against the regime

CowperKettle

19:47

ColleenV

19:59

@CowperKettle I hope so too.

ColleenV

20:16

@CowperKettle I came across another eye pun that made me smile...

“Break-in at the Apple store! Police looking for iWitnesses!”

Anonymous

20:37

@Araucaria Do you disagree with CGEL's analysis of the modifiers in these examples as compound adjectives? a three-inch nail, a five-mile walk, a two-year moratorium, a two-hour walk, an eight-pound baby (p.470 and 1660)

Anonymous

I happened across your comment on EL&U:

Anonymous

Hmm, can't see any adjectives there. But shouldn't it in any case be 210 million-person market? — Araucaria 5 hours ago

skullpatrol

kW-hr

:-)

ussually written kW*h

Anonymous

The case for the adjective analysis does seem a bit weak. They aren't gradable (*very two-year, *more two-year). Their only function seems to be Attributive, a function nouns also have, and these compounds have nouns as heads, not adjectives.

Anonymous

But there doesn't seem to be a clear-cut case for analyzing them as compound nouns, either.

skullpatrol

20:54

aren't they just hyphenating the unit of measure onto the number?

1 hour later…

AIQ

22:19

I was reading one of my very early questions in ELU... This is perhaps one of the best comments (as in useful feedback) I ever got in ELL/ELU:

"Well, for starters get rid of the overwhelming, that's the one tripping you off. As long as it stays there you have to use something boring like amount or number, because the overwelming already does all the work. Once it's gone, everything will click into place and you can finally transfer that work to a nice juicy noun that has overwhelming as part of its definition. Like I dunno, avalanche, barrage, flood, myriad, shitton, or any number of others.

Don't go with tide, tides come and go and are very shortlived. You're looking for something that keeps ploughing on and on and on."

It was RegDwigнt

so nicely written, I can't stop reading it

« first day (1617 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (1917 days later) »

all rooms