Language Overflow

Anonymous

02:02

@AIQ Nope. I believe a certain moderator on this site never bothered with the questionnaire at all and got elected anyway.

Anonymous

It’s a good idea to fill it out when you can, though.

Anonymous

02:13

Don’t let that stop you from nominating, at any rate.

AIQ

03:29

@M.A.R. Do you find this a little, just a little, strange? ell.stackexchange.com/questions/205330/…

Cardinal

04:04

Phrase of the night: Crab Rangoon

:-)

@AIQ I just upped "plan B"

:-)

SmokeDetector

05:08

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, potentially bad keyword in answer, toxic answer detected (159): Can I say "Is this yours book"? by Samuel Adams on ell.SE

CowperKettle

Word of the day: otherkin

AIQ

05:47

@Cardinal I am just a little surprised that the accepted answer is "fallback plan"

Cardinal

06:04

@AIQ Nods

Featured Questions

06:53

2

Q: How to use two IF conditions in one sentence?

Please help in framing sentence using two If condition. I will form sentence using below if conditions. if zero conditional. "If I change this data and again someone change this, which data should I consider" If Second conditional/imagination. "If suppose I changed this data and again someone...

conditional-constructions

Eddie Kal

07:42

just entered the race...

3

AIQ

@EddieKal Yasss!

Eddie Kal

@AIQ You should run too, seriously

AIQ

@EddieKal I may write something up just for fun and the experience ...

Eddie Kal

07:58

You have been more active than most users. You'd make a great moderator. I think enthusiasm plays a big part.

AIQ

Thanks EddieKal :)

ColleenV

11:29

@DecapitatedSoul Well, that’s disappointing. I was hoping they had a source.

@AIQ You have all of the qualifications you need. You have been part of the community long enough to understand it, and you care about it ;)

M.A.R.

12:08

@EddieKal Yaaay!

@AIQ I've heard backup plan more often than fallback plan

It rolls better too

Frequency: Plan B > Backup plan > Contingency plan > fallback plan

That's my guess

AIQ

@M.A.R. Yes. Right. I don't understand how the answer with 115 up-votes is not accepted but that with 45 is.

But what do I know, I don't understand great many things ...

Decapitated Soul

'Oh I find them all over the place. Whenever I encounter one I especially like while reading, or watching Downton Abby, I stop and jot it down for later. Then of course I’m always perusing various dictionaries.' — Grandiloquent.

@ColleenV

(Sorry for ping :P)

M.A.R.

12:31

@AIQ an accept is the OP saying "this answer helped me"

You push a button, and you pin an answer to the top

Others might find another answer more useful.

It's not all that rare

AIQ

@M.A.R. True, but that "fallback plan" thingy is really bugging meee. Thanks for taking a look though ...

CowperKettle

13:49

Word of the day: goat tower

userr2684291

14:12

I've never heard anyone say that thing, fallback plan. I understood it immediately, though, as I would the simple fallback, but backup plan is the usual collocation. Googling fallback plan I find it's used in project management or whatever.

Anonymous

@AIQ It happens sometimes. Often it's because, after asking the question, the OP immediately accepts the first answer and never looks back.

userr2684291

The term might even carry a different connotative meaning (at least it does for me, more like the default label rather than a different case).

AIQ

14:26

@userr2684291 Same.

user435118

14:37

@ColleenV thanks for your question on my questionnaire post, it got me thinking :)

ColleenV

@userr2684291 And we can also use "fallback" without anything, i.e. If we run out of toilet paper, our fallback is to install a bidet.

user435118

@ColleenV Didn't you used to be a moderator?

ColleenV

@Daniil (:

Yes, I resigned in November

user435118

I remember seeing a diamond by your name last year

user435118

@ColleenV Because of the Monica situation I guess?

ColleenV

14:39

But I held on to my diamond for a little while until there could be elections

and then it turned out by doing that I was pushing ELL further down the list for elections so I asked them to take it away in March

@Daniil Yeah, there's a link to my resignation post in my profile.

user435118

Is there a list of elections?

user435118

I remember seeing something like that

ColleenV

The "elections" tag on Meta

is a good place to start

(nope meta tags to link correctly here - use "election" not "elections")

user435118

election

user435118

No, I mean a list of SE elections network wide?

ColleenV

14:43

Not that I know of - I would assume that just the sites' communities are notified

You might ask @catija in the election chat room

user435118

@ColleenV Will do, thanks

ColleenV

9

Q: Is there a way to see election summaries across Stack Exchange?

I know that there are currently elections happening on Workplace.SE and Sustainability.SE. A while back there was a meta post ("Experimenting with Pro Tempore elections") indicating that a lot of sites would be having elections around roughly the same time. I tried to see if there was a tool to ...

feature-request election

Decapitated Soul

wHaT iS tHiS kInD oF caPiTAliSaTiOn caLleD?

user435118

@DecapitatedSoul cRaZY RanDOm caPiTAliSaTiOn

user435118

@DecapitatedSoul Is there an acutal name for it?

Decapitated Soul

14:56

Yep.

6

A: WhAt iS tHiS kINd oF caPiTaLiSAtIOn cAlLeD? - random capitalisation or intermittent capitalisation

After digging for a long time, I finally discovered the name of this kind of capitalisation. It's called studly caps or sometimes sticky caps. Studly caps: Studly caps is a form of text notation in which the capitalization of letters varies by some pattern, or arbitrarily (usually also o...

I used to call them 'random intermittent caps' before discovering its actual name.

Or 'sporadic caps'

Anonymous

16:03

@Daniil Yay, you got enough reputation! :-)

Anonymous

@EddieKal @Daniil Thanks for nominating, both of you. I think that, whatever the outcome of the election, it's going to be good for our site and our community.

2

Anonymous

(I'm not pinging Glorfindel because he's not pingable in here, but he's certainly a great candidate!)

CowperKettle

@snailcar Snailcar for President!

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Yay!

user435118

16:37

@snailcar Agreed

user435118

How do you make yourself pingable in a room?

Anonymous

@Daniil It's based on who's been in the room recently.

Anonymous

So if someone joins the room, they'll be pingable in here, and they'll still be pingable for a while after they leave.

user435118

@snailcar Ok, thanks

Eddie Kal

16:53

@snailcar Thank you. It'll be fun.

AIQ

Jesus ...

Eddie Kal

@AIQ Good job getting it in

AIQ

Thanks!

Eddie Kal

@Daniil You have a typo in your election blurb. I think you meant "I haven't got a very good ELL track record".

user435118

@EddieKal Yeah, fixed. Thanks

user435118

17:05

@AIQ Good luck!

AIQ

Thanks! You too, @Daniil

user435118

@AIQ Where are your questionnaire answers?

AIQ

I am writing them

now

user435118

@AIQ Thanks :)

user435118

@AIQ Ok

Eddie Kal

17:08

@Daniil Hi, just out of curiosity, you mention that you are a student and don't have much Internet access during the day. It makes me wonder if you are receiving secondary education. Do you mind me asking?

user435118

@EddieKal Actually, I'll take that back

user435118

What do you mean by secondary education?

Eddie Kal

@Daniil I just thought if you are in college, Internet access would be relatively easy, so I was wondering if you are in high school

user435118

@EddieKal Oh I see, yes I'm in high school

user435118

I do have some access during breaks but not a lot

Eddie Kal

17:13

That is super cool! :) I wish I'd been more active online in high school.

Best of luck! both in the election and in school

Anonymous

And a fourth candidate!

Anonymous

I'm smiling right now.

user435118

@EddieKal Thanks, I'll probably do better in school than in the election :)

user435118

I don't think I have any chance winning the election honestly

user435118

Good luck in the election to you too! @EddieKal

ColleenV

17:27

@Cardinal But the question specifically said they didn't want to use "plan b"? I don't want to say plan B, because that's too informal ...

user435118

Would appreciate anybodys help: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/107589/…

user435118

Not sure what else to say ^

Martin

Can anybody help me with this grammar question: Say that I have some assumptions (A1) to (An). Is the subject (A1) to (An) singular or plural? E.g. is it "Assume that (A1) to (An) hold/holds" which is correct?

ColleenV

@Martin *Assume that assumptions A1 through An hold..." I'm guessing that you have identifiers for each assumption?

It's hard to say what would be the best choice without more context

You might also write "Assume those assumptions hold true..." if you have referred to that group of assumptions before

Martin

Yes, (A1) to (An) are separately defined elsewhere. So "(A1) to (An)" becomes singular - interesting. What about "(A1) to (An) and (B1)". Does this then become plural?

ColleenV

17:36

No, I would probably use "hold" regardless

Unless you've named that list - like Assumptions A1-AN (the blue hypothesis)... Then "Assume the blue hypothesis holds true..."

And I'm just making up stuff, because it's been more than 2 decades since my last formal logic class lol

I don't remember any of the terminology

Martin

Do you have some reference for these rules? Every webpage I read about whether to use plural or singular verbs only considers two subjects joined by either "and" or "or".

ColleenV

@Martin There was a question on ELL

There's a difference between, for example, "Fish and Chips" (singular)

user435118

@ColleenV you know the questions feed in chat?

user435118

Is there a way to get pinged when a new item appears?

Martin

@ColleenV Okay, I will try to find it. Thank you very much.

ColleenV

17:41

I will look for it too and link it here if I find it

I think it was this one:

20

Q: "There IS/ARE rice, meat and tomatoes on my plate"

I saw this sentence on Internet recently written by a native speaker, so I wondered why native speakers tend to use this grammar. Explain to me why I should I use "is" instead of "are"? Is it grammatically correct? "There is rice, meat and tomatoes on my plate" Why "There are rice, meat a...

subject-verb-agreement grammatical-number existentials

But really I'm just intuiting it as a native speaker, so it's possible I'm wrong.

Especially if we're talking about domain specific technical language

Martin

@ColleenV Great I will give it a read. Thanks again :)

ColleenV

@Daniil I think the only way to do that is to add the feed to your own feed reader that notifies you

@Martin This might help too.. I feel like "There is list.." Might be different from "list of things are..."

24

Q: Plurality of verb depending on plurality of list elements

This question is also open on EL&U: “There Is”/“There are” depends on plurality of the first list element or not? Considering the amount of controversy it aroused, I believe it's past "Learners'" level. An edit was suggested to my sentence. There was were an orange, some grapes, two apple...

subject-verb-agreement singular-vs-plural lists

You can tell from the scores and the bounties that it's a controversial subject

I'm not sure either of those questions exactly answers your question, but the related links might lead you somewhere

user435118

17:58

Someone needs to post a question to test my feed reader :) ...

ColleenV

The anticipation is worth savoring...

user435118

I want to have dinner... :/

user435118

As soon as it works, I'll go

ColleenV

Will it be 5 minutes from now? 30 seconds? 2 hours? During dinner?

user435118

I set the feed for 4 SE sites so hopefully very soon

ColleenV

17:59

How often do we get that feeling awaiting for something pleasant as opposed to something negative ;)

user435118

Ooh, voting starts in < 1 hour

AIQ

19:22

Em. got to 30K in two years??

damn ...

userr2684291

19:53

gist.github.com/zmwangx/… Accurate.

I got to 3k in 5 years.

Can anyone beat that? And I mean while being active...

Cardinal

@ColleenV You are right, I didn't the question properly last night.

Decapitated Soul

Ooh, it's election time...

XD

Cardinal

@ColleenV And by the way, is "plan B" really informal?

userr2684291

It's definitely not formal-sounding, so it's neutral/informal.

AIQ

My first choice is @EddieKal

Decapitated Soul

20:05

My first choice is @AIQ

AIQ

lol

Decapitated Soul

:D

AIQ

So strange but thanks!

Decapitated Soul

Why strange?

Don't you want to be a mod?

AIQ

I do of course! :)

So, where can we see the number? or will it be after 8 days?

like waiting for a bounty

Cardinal

20:08

I voted for Edie, glroy finger, and AIQ. May the "F=MA" be with you guys.

Decapitated Soul

Can you see that?

Cardinal

I am wondering can we have a blog post kind of thing on ELL.

Like transfering @StonyB's canonical post to a blog section?

AIQ

@DecapitatedSoul muchas gracias

Cardinal

I would really love to do research kind of things in form of blogs.

Shrug

Decapitated Soul

@AIQ, No lo menciones.

@Cardinal Go to ELU then. :P

Cardinal

20:12

@DecapitatedSoul hmm, that's too advance for me.

I am a noobie :-)

Decapitated Soul

@Cardinal Who says?

There are loads of noobs on ELU

It doesn't matter.

Cardinal

@DecapitatedSoul Myself.

Decapitated Soul

Don't think you're a noob because you aren't and there's no such thing as 'noob' on ELU, by the way.

Cardinal

@DecapitatedSoul Could not say you are not right :-)

AIQ

learnt about all major election voting methods - FPTP, plurality, runoff, mixed member proportional, two rounds, but never heard Meek STV method ...

Decapitated Soul

20:14

I'm absolutely right!

Cardinal

0:-)

Decapitated Soul

@AIQ You'll be a good mod!

Cardinal

Alright guys, I'll catch up with you later.

Take care.

Decapitated Soul

:))

ColleenV

20:31

@Cardinal I don't think so, but the answer should explain that if they want to suggest it even though the author has discarded it.

Hey @AIQ Don't forget to link your questionnaire answers to your nomination post!

Oh darn it looks like it's too late

AIQ

Oh I forgot cause I did the questionnaire afterwards

ColleenV

@AIQ I asked Catija if she can help

AIQ

i think @EddieKal also did not link it in the nomination post

thanks

ColleenV

I asked for both of you, hopefully a CM can unlock and edit real quick :)

@Cardinal It looks like "blog overflow" was discontinued a while ago...

english.blogoverflow.com/about

We could probably abuse ELL's Meta for blog-like posts that link to posts on the main ELL site.

But it would still be in the Q&A format

Eddie Kal

21:36

@AIQ Thank you for reminding me. Well I actually tried but couldn't, since there wasn't enough space

Urls are too long. I wonder if there is a way inter-site links within the SE network can be shorter

ColleenV

@EddieKal The "share" function shortens them a lot, especially if you trim your userid off the end.

So https://ell.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4783/ is the same things as : https://ell.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4783/contributors-guide-to-english-language-learners

Oh well duh, it looks like you just change questions to "q" and trim everything after the question ID.

For answers you still need to use the share thing to get their ID easily: https://ell.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4784/

I almost forgot what I came here for...

Good luck to all of the ELL Moderator candidates!

Eddie Kal

I see. Thanks!

user435118

21:54

@ColleenV Thanks :)

Luc

22:12

I got a notification to vote in the election and was surprised to find nobody has both experience with moderation tools and is actually active on the site :|

Daniil most of all, with an account that looks like it was newly created. Can't tell if it was a previously-banned troll that made a new account and is quickly pushing some answers to be able to run for moderator, or if it's legit... so I'm not sure that anyone who doesn't personally know them should vote for them, it's kind of fishy.

so that left three candidates and three votes... bit of a weird election

ColleenV

22:41

@Luc Daniil is in this chat room. I’m sure they would be happy to answer any questions you have that aren’t covered by the questionnaire

user435118

Hello @Luc, I would be happy to discuss this with you

user435118

First of all, I can assure you I am fully eligible to run in this election. Second, I only ran because I had 2k+ rep and have experience in using ELL.SE and the scope of the site

user435118

@Luc I do have experience with 10k tools before as I stated in my nomination post

user435118

For more info, have a read of this:

user435118

32

Q: For anyone wondering about Daniil

---content from him below, approved by CM in TL to post. It’s Daniil from Travel. My accounts were destroyed by a CM so I had to go. Please post this message from me on meta: Hello Travel community, Daniil here. I enjoyed contributing to this site. I am sorry, but I have to go. It’s not my c...

discussion user-accounts users

user435118

22:57

Will be happy to answer more questions, I do think it is unfair to say: so I'm not sure that anyone who doesn't personally know them should vote for them, it's kind of fishy.

user435118

Proof of old account returned by Wayback machine: web.archive.org/web/2019*/ell.stackexchange.com/users/85640/daniil-manokhin

user435118

@ColleenV What do you think about this, am I fishy?

Eddie Kal

23:17

@Daniil I think not allowing people who are legally considered "minors" to participate is just stupid. Btw, are you in the clear now? Because the post you linked says you won't come back until mid 2021.

user435118

@EddieKal Yes, I am clear because of Brexit, so I am only required to be 13+ which I am

Eddie Kal

lol never thought Brexit would do any real good for anybody. Here's an exception.

user435118

@EddieKal :) Same

Eddie Kal

I am glad you are able to keep being part of the community. I hate it when they drive people away for stupid things like this. Did you ever learn how they found out how old you were? How could they know you were a minor?

user435118

@EddieKal I do not wish to disclose that publicly, no offence

user435118

23:31

Long story short, a question I posted on a SE site

Eddie Kal

@Daniil Totally understandable. No worries. I was just curious to what extent users are being monitored by managers. Glad it works out for you.

user435118

@EddieKal I hoped to have my posts reassociated both here and on Travel.SE but after 5+ emails, I give up

user435118

That’s why I almost feel sad when people say don’t vote for him unless you know him, it’s not my fault that I got destroyed and lost my reputation after countless attempts to get it back.

user435118

And now people think I’m a newbie who knows nothing about ELL, guess I just have to deal with it :/

user435118

Feel mistreated in a way that I gave so much time to SE and couldn’t return my work to me

user435118

23:41

They said they need their legal team to investigate, 4 months later and repeated follow-up emails - nothing

user435118

Even though i was promised by a CM to have my posts back when I was destroyed at the time of destruction

user435118

Anyway, good night everyone!

Eddie Kal

@Daniil I've had something very similar happen to me too. I have experienced almost the exact same course of events. I know how extremely frustrating and disheartening this can be.

Something very strange is that you appear to be using two unrelated accounts. One on Travel, the other on ELL. It looks like they are not associated on the network. Maybe if you get your ELL account combined with your Travel account, people will know you are an experienced user

could help your election

user435118

Good suggestion, they are linked just hidden.

user435118

Does my profile look better now?

user435118

23:54

i hide most of my accounts as I have 50+, most of which have 101 rep and are for flagging spam

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