English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

15:02

Today I learned "as often as not" from ELL!

Never heard it before.

(Though "more often than not" is very common, and easy to understand.)

Anonymous

Yeah, more often than not is an order of magnitude more common in COCA

Damkerng T.

Come to think of it, it should literally mean "more than half the times".

Anonymous

I have no intuition about that, though. Both seem about the same in my mind.

Anonymous

To me, both are single lexical items.

Damkerng T.

I see.

I've also never thought about some of Thai expressions.

When I break them down, it's possible that they will mean something funny. :-)

Anonymous

15:07

You can't produce phrases like them: *as silly as not, *as common as not, *more frequent than not, *less often than not

Damkerng T.

Oh!

I think *as common as not makes sense!

Anonymous

It doesn't strike me as an actual phrase of standard English

Anonymous

I give it a star.

Damkerng T.

I copied the star.

Anonymous

Yay

Damkerng T.

15:09

Oh, I won't get my iPad tomorrow.

Anonymous

Oh, no!

Damkerng T.

It will be two days after tomorrow, according to Apple.

Perhaps because of the smart cover.

I remember that the site said "within 24 hours". :-)

But only for the iPad itself.

Guess which color of the smart cover I chose.

Anonymous

Which colors are available?

Damkerng T.

red, yellow, blue, green, black

Anonymous

Blue!

Damkerng T.

15:13

Close!

Anonymous

My second guess is green

Damkerng T.

Yay!

My current one is red, so I picked another color for a change. :-)

I hope that the real one will look good, and has a nice shade of green.

Anonymous

I think as often as not and more often than not are still thought of as phrases, not single words, but I don't think you can really come up with any variation on them (insert words, add modifiers, etc.) or produce phrases with the same structure, so I think they can be treated as fossilized idioms

Anonymous

Or fossilized phrases maybe, since their meaning is fairly close to compositional

Anonymous

Hmm.

Anonymous

15:16

What sorts of phrases along those lines can we create?

Damkerng T.

Yes, I understand "more often than not" compositionally.

as far as we can

Anonymous

That's not the same structure

Damkerng T.

(Don't know if it's a good example, though.)

Anonymous

More red than green, more red than not [red]

Anonymous

Hmm.

Damkerng T.

15:17

as good as not?

Anonymous

What?

Anonymous

Is that a thing?

Damkerng T.

I just tried building a new phrase. :-)

Anonymous

"Snails are cute, more often than not."

Anonymous

What can we replace often with? Maybe it's still productive.

Damkerng T.

15:19

Heehee. True, that!

Anonymous

"Snails are cute, *less often than not." ?

Anonymous

"Snails are cute, more commonly than not." ?

Anonymous

To the corpus!

Damkerng T.

Oh, we even have: Much more commonly than not, ...

Anonymous

That's the problem. I tried putting frequent, an adjective, not commonly, an adverb, so I came to the wrong conclusion.

Anonymous

15:21

So I've changed my mind.

Anonymous

More frequently than not is possible, I think

Anonymous

COCA gives: more likely than not

Anonymous

And more times than not

Anonymous

Apart from those 3, everything for more * than not is negligible

Damkerng T.

Oh! What is times in more times than not?

A noun, I think.

Anonymous

15:23

Yeah, I think so, literally representing number of occurrences, but here semantically representing frequency (times out of total)

Anonymous

I think.

Damkerng T.

Trying Google Books to see if there is anything aside those 3.

Anonymous

I see others but they're three orders of magnitude less common than more often than not

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see.

Anonymous

It seems that this phrase chiefly occurs expressing frequency

Damkerng T.

15:25

It seems so.

Anonymous

Often, likely, times being the top three results in COCA with 1345, 113, and 49 results

Anonymous

I don't think it's very productive. I see a number of results with other terms, all very few in number

Anonymous

But I think it was wrong of me to say that it wasn't productive

Anonymous

The next results down the list are still expressing the same basic thing:

Anonymous

More frequently than not (7), more cases than not (5), more days than not (4)

Anonymous

15:29

> Yeah, but Chris, not the right kind of information. More newspapers than not tend to get into the larger issues of the day.

Anonymous

(Only one result for newspapers.) Still a statement about frequency

Damkerng T.

More newspapers!

Anonymous

Only very rare cases where it's used to mean "possesses more than 50% of a trait":

Anonymous

> So we have the issue of how do you determine whose life is more valuable than not.

Anonymous

Well, my gloss there was no good.

Anonymous

15:31

> But likewise we are trying to deal with Bin Laden as well. So we have the issue of how do you determine whose life is more valuable than not. My question is, are the African lives any less valuable for compensation than American lives when they each were victimized by Bin Laden's terrorist group.

Anonymous

Here it seems to mean "whose lives you consider valuable, and whose lives you consider not valuable"

Damkerng T.

nods

I think that one is not very common.

Awal Garg

15:47

hmm, so, no more entries?

I think, @DamkerngT. is the winner...

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Awal Garg

I haven't yet announced. I said, I think...

I am closing the contest.

@everyone see this - drive.google.com/file/d/0B5-9GPWwBvYqX1JPZW1MSk40SHc/…

Damkerng T.

@AwalGarg That's nice!

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. haha, i made it myself...

Anonymous

Wow, fancy signature!

Awal Garg

16:04

@snailboat I am great...

Anonymous

@AwalGarg And modest, too!

Awal Garg

16:15

23

Q: Should a dot or period (.) get italicized?

When do we italicise the dot (.) or period symbol, does it actually change the (.). So, is . different from . Can anyone tell just by looking at the example which one is italicised? And does it matter? Same for colon (:) and an underscore (_) Update: To all answerers, thank you very...

font

Damkerng T.

See, it slants!

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Is your question highly rated because you spammed it in lots of chat rooms and continue to spam it so it gets more views, and that got it promoted in the side bar?

Anonymous

Because that's what it seems like.

Anonymous

Nice question, though.

Anonymous

I guess I'll vote it up, too.

Awal Garg

16:22

@snailboat Its not highly rated, but enough to get me par 200rep and list on network...

@snailboat its true although

@snailboat thnx, so nice of you

Anonymous

+24 is pretty good.

Awal Garg

@snailboat the answer that didn't offer much is upvoted the most...

allcaps gave nice points

Anonymous

It has a nice picture.

Anonymous

People vote for charts and pictures.

Awal Garg

@snailboat bad practice...

i think views to the question came because the question was tweeted...

thus the votes..

Anonymous

16:27

Tweeted on the official SE twitter?

Awal Garg

@snailboat seems so...

Anonymous

...because you linked to it in a bunch of chat rooms, so it got a bunch of views early on, so it got singled out by the algorithm to be promoted

Anonymous

So I still think the votes are a result of you linking it all over.

Awal Garg

@snailboat i would now practice that with all my posts

Anonymous

@AwalGarg I dare you to try.

Awal Garg

16:28

@snailboat why?

Anonymous

If I see you habitually cross-posting all your questions to a whole bunch of chat rooms, I'll be frowny

Awal Garg

@snailboat really? i'm sorry

actually I am not

:P

Anonymous

Well, as long as it's on-topic for all of those chat rooms and the people there don't seem to mind, I won't do anything

Anonymous

But if anyone is bothered by it, I will

Awal Garg

@snailboat oh, I see, sorry, you are a mod. I dare try that.

But actually, I either post where I know people, or where it is on-topic

Anonymous

16:31

Hooray

Awal Garg

@snailboat So anyways, what did you mean I will?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg That was post-auxiliary ellipsis

Awal Garg

speak without fear hahaha

@snailboat what?

Anonymous

> Well, as long as it's on-topic for all of those chat rooms and the people there don't seem to mind, I won't [ do anything ]
> But if anyone is bothered by it, I will [ do something ]

Anonymous

It was a reference to the previous sentence

Awal Garg

16:34

@snailboat do something like what? (i am laughing with closed mouth)

Anonymous

@AwalGarg I don't know. Suspend you, I guess?

Awal Garg

@snailboat is that possible?

Anonymous

Yes.

Awal Garg

@snailboat I hope I am not doing anything worth that right now, am I?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg No, you aren't

Awal Garg

16:35

@snailboat Congos, you are a nice mod. Don't leave the job..

Anonymous

I would only suspend you if you were bothering someone

Awal Garg

@snailboat When I don't get off the computer, my mom is bothered. does that count?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Hey, are you utkarsh, by any chance?

Awal Garg

@snailboat no. But that is similar to my real name. Where did you get that?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Oh, there's a user online named utkarsh who likes to troll in chat.

Anonymous

16:38

You just reminded me of him, is all.

Awal Garg

2 mins ago, by Awal Garg

@snailboat When I don't get off the computer, my mom is bothered. does that count?

Anonymous

Why are you quoting that?

Awal Garg

@snailboat you didn't answer that

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Yes, for reasons that are obvious to you

Damkerng T.

Oh, this chat is very active!

Anonymous

16:41

Unfortunately.

Awal Garg

@snailboat no, there are not obvious to me. please tell me (seriously, this is no lol)

Anonymous

I'm fool enough to respond to Awal Garg.

Anonymous

Or I was.

Awal Garg

@snailboat nice way to say bye!!

Damkerng T.

@AwalGarg You also remind me of utkarsh. :-)

Awal Garg

16:43

outgetting of here, would come back soon

Damkerng T.

Have a nice day/evening.

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. you mean, You remind me also of utkarsh.

Damkerng T.

Interesting.

Anonymous

I think "You also remind me of utkarsh" is fine. In speech, you could emphasize me to make the meaning clear

Damkerng T.

I think that would mean You remind me of utkarsh as well.

Thanks!

Anonymous

16:45

I'm not really sure what the best way to phrase it is. But the sentence got its point across

Damkerng T.

Perhaps in AG's dialect, they mean different things.

Anonymous

Well, I feel like the also is a little ambiguous, in theory.

Anonymous

There's a neat description of this in a book somewhere that I don't remember at all :)

Damkerng T.

Hehe.

Anonymous

It could make a good ELL question.

Anonymous

16:48

Maybe change the names to protect the innocent.

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's a good idea!

I might post it in the next hour.

Btw, if I said, "I ~~might~~ may post it in the next hour." instead, would you think that I was asking your permission?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. No, I would only think that if you phrased it as a question.

Damkerng T.

Ah, thank you!

I think someone (a non-native speaker) understood my "I may ..." as asking for a permission several days ago.

I was a little surprised, but I let it pass.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, I see. I think subject-auxiliary inversion is tricky for some learners

Anonymous

It might seem like "may I" and "I may" should have very similar interpretations

Damkerng T.

16:56

I think that someone read my sentence as "May I ...".

oerkelens

21:17

Good morning :)

Damkerng T.

Good morning! :-)

oerkelens

Don't ask me why I woke up :P

Going to fix that right away :)

Damkerng T.

Don't ask me that, either. :-)

Anonymous

Good morning, you two! Whichever one of you lives in morning time.

Damkerng T.

raising hand

Anonymous

21:23

@DamkerngT. Has to be either there

Damkerng T.

Or, sorry, I was a little busy with something else.

Looks like my proficiency level dropped a little.

:D

The real usage of also varies very widely.

oerkelens

And good night :P

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Well, good night!

Sleep well!

oerkelens

Basically I walked into the wrong door looking for my bed :)

Thank you :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, there are a number of ways also can be deployed

Anonymous

21:32

In Josh61's example, there's only so many spots that work:

Anonymous

> Also, I have a sports car.
> I also have a sports car.
> ?I have also a sports car.
> *I have an also sports car.
> *I have a sports also car.
> I have a sports car, also.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I'm about to post a hacking question on also and too.

Anonymous

I tried putting it in each possible position and marking the resulting sentence

Damkerng T.

Yes, I think I agree with the positions.

This is what I'm about to post:

> B1: You also remind me of James.
B2: You remind me also of James.
B3: You remind me of James also.
B4: You, too, remind me of James.
B5: You remind me, too, of James.
B6: You remind me of James, too.

Anonymous

So I don't think he chose the right spot. (Or really answered the OP's question, for that matter.)

Anonymous

21:35

I didn't downvote (and I won't since it's already at -1, I just noticed) but it's not a really helpful answer

Damkerng T.

0

Q: The ambiguity of 'also' and 'too'

A, B, and C are chatting. B is a little busy with something on his screen, so B only partially engages the conversation. After chatting for a while, A talks to C: A: You remind me of James. B hears this but is still busy with what something else. The chat continues. After a while, B talks t...

grammar

What do you think of my question?

(I'm so afraid that it could be taken as a duplicate, but I think it has its own merits.)

Anonymous

> B1: Also, you remind me of James.
> B2: You also remind me of James.
> B3: You remind me also of James.
> B4: You remind me of James also.
> B5: *Too, you remind me of James.
> B6: You, too, remind me of James.
> B7: You remind me, too, of James.
> B8: You remind me of James, too.

Anonymous

Sort of inconsistent usage of commas there, I suppose.

Damkerng T.

I think too and also are a little different in this aspect.

Anonymous

Well, I set off too with commas in mine because you did in yours. And I think that I too often set off too with commas, but it usually isn't strictly required

Damkerng T.

21:43

It's strange. I wasn't sure how I should write "double meaning" (double meanings, double meaning, or double-meaning), so I searched the web, and most of the results suggest: double entendre!

I'm thinking about changing the title to: The ambiguity (double meaning) of 'also' and 'too'

Anonymous

Double entendre is associated with a specific kind of double meaning

Damkerng T.

I'm trying to avoid making people think of the ambiguity as a question about using either also or too (choosing between the two).

Anonymous

Too and also are syntactically different

Anonymous

I added B1 and B5 to illustrate that point

Anonymous

(Well, in my numbering.)

Damkerng T.

21:46

nods

Maybe I will leave the question the way it is, and see what will happen.

Anonymous

The preferred position for also is the position I described in a comment on Josh's answer, central (after the first auxiliary if present, before the main verb otherwise), as a modifier in VP structure

Damkerng T.

That is exactly the position recommended in Longman English Grammar.

Anonymous

Too appears as a postmodifier in NP structure

Anonymous

So, if we add an auxiliary: "You've also reminded me of James." "You too have reminded me of James."

Anonymous

You can see that the two diverge.

Anonymous

21:48

Because in the latter, [ You too ] is a NP containing a postmodifier

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Anonymous

The preferred position for too depends on what you're focusing, but it's very common at the end of the sentence

Damkerng T.

That seems to be the default position recommended by most grammar books.

Anonymous

But both also and too can focus a wide variety of constituents

Damkerng T.

Though they also mention the possibility of too in other positions.

Anonymous

21:50

> I realized too that he was in great pain.

Anonymous

Here it seems to be a postmodifier of a verb, not of a noun

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Anonymous

Also, the sentence-initial also position (which modifies the entire clause) is informal

Anonymous

Hmm.

Anonymous

So this all squares with what you already know.

Damkerng T.

21:52

I think the initial also makes it sound rather formal.

Anonymous

Oh, except that. You think it's formal

Anonymous

I think it's informal.

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure, but I think using the initial also requires a comma, and that makes it look rather formal to me.

Anonymous

It requires a comma in the heavy punctuation style that I use.

Anonymous

I don't think that makes it formal, though.

Anonymous

21:54

Well, I type lots of stuff with clause-initial adjuncts set off by commas, often informal in nature

Damkerng T.

It reminds me of something like However, ... Additionally, ... Moreover, ...

Anonymous

I mean, just 'cause I put a comma there doesn't mean I'm being all stuffy about it.

Anonymous

It's just, I like to put commas after clause-initial adjuncts

Anonymous

Me, I like to do it for stylistic reasons, but other people, they might not

Anonymous

Thank you for the downvote — Josh61 20 mins ago

Damkerng T.

21:59

That is not the best move, I'm sure.

Anonymous

Anyway, lots of clause-initial adjuncts are informal. :-)

Damkerng T.

Hah!

I think I found lots of them in papers.

Anonymous

Lots of them are formal, too.

Anonymous

But I think also belongs to the informal category in that position.

Damkerng T.

I see.

I will observe them more closely the next time I read those papers.

Anonymous

22:02

@DamkerngT. You mean you found lots of "Also," in formal papers?

Anonymous

I thought you were speaking more generally.

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure about Also, ... -- I meant the XYZ, ...

Anonymous

Oh!

Anonymous

Many of those are formal.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The ones you list here are sometimes called "connectives"

Anonymous

22:03

I can imagine some users of "Also," in papers, though.

Anonymous

Now I kind of want to look through a survey of "Also," results and see how many are formal and how many are informal

Anonymous

But alas, I'm too lazy.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I think you're right that you'll find lots of XYZ, ... of various sorts

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Anonymous

Your question is really hard, by the way. :-)

Anonymous

22:12

> B: You also remind me of James.

Anonymous

> B: You also remind me of James.

Anonymous

> B: You also remind me of James.

Anonymous

> B: You also remind me of James.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Anonymous

I see those four options for also-focus

Anonymous

22:13

Hmm.

Anonymous

> B: You also remind me of James.

Anonymous

That's five, I think?

Damkerng T.

I think I might speak this: You also remind me of James.

Or this: You also remind me of James. (for emphasis)

Anonymous

Yeah, those are two of my options. I'm having trouble figuring out if all five are distinguished in speech

Anonymous

Or even if I've written out the right five options.

Anonymous

22:18

Ahh. I'm not sure I can come up with a proper list of interpretations.

Anonymous

I feel like you can focus arbitrary combinations of elements.

Damkerng T.

Oh! When I think in BrE accent (influenced by BBC Radio), I think this is also possible: You also remind me of James.

Anonymous

What are you adding to with that statement?

Anonymous

The list of people who something you of someone?

Anonymous

> He makes me think of Chelsea. And you also remind me of James.

Damkerng T.

22:20

I just think of how a character on BBC Radio would say, and I think it fits the pattern. That's all; I didn't really think too much. The sound of BrE speech is usually bobbling up and down, up and down. I don't know why.

Anonymous

Oh, I thought you were saying you'd add special emphasis to those three constituents to make it clear you were giving additive focus to all three

Anonymous

Hmm. I think I fried my brain trying to understand also.

Damkerng T.

Maybe more like: You also re-mind me of James.

Oh, stressing and intonation in real speech can be very tricky!

Anonymous

If that's your stress pattern, then you're adding emphasis to you, it sounds like

Damkerng T.

Yes, that's what I imagined. Perhaps because I was thinking of that pattern before I tried to think in BrE.

Anonymous

22:24

When I used bold, it wasn't for the same thing.

Damkerng T.

It's too bad that we have only two states: bold and normal.

I'd like to have another level of bold(ing).

Anonymous

If you want to communicate stress, you can use an apostrophe. It looks enough like a stress marker to fool most people :-)

Damkerng T.

Aha!

But how can I communicate those typical stressed words (but not really emphasized in the utterance)?

Say, I think this is the basic stressing: You also re-mind me of James.

> You also re'mind me of 'James.

> You also re'mind me of 'James.

Anonymous

Let's distinguish two types of stress: lexical stress, which is a distinctive feature of words (the noun project /ˈprɒdʒɛkt/ is distinguished from the verb project /prəˈdʒɛkt/) and prosodic stress, which is sometimes required ("Tell me what it is" not "Tell me what it's") but can also be applied relatively arbitrarily and contextually for emphasis

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

22:30

Damn you, S key!

Anonymous

:-( It hates me.

Damkerng T.

Bad key!

Anonymous

I probably wore it out typing snails so many times.

Damkerng T.

Oh, you need to press it twice to type snails.

Anonymous

So it's a very important key for me.

Anonymous

22:34

I will let someone else write an answer for that also question. It's too hard for my poor little brain to figure out right now :-)

Damkerng T.

feeling excited

Anonymous

Are you excited about your question?

Damkerng T.

About the answers.

I don't know what they will be like.

I hope they will be good answers. -- finger-crossed

Anonymous

I know I've seen descriptions of additive focus adverbs like also before

Anonymous

I've given you about as much detail in chat as I can manage at the moment

Anonymous

22:37

Which unfortunately falls short of answering how it works semantically

Damkerng T.

I think we discussed at least about the same level as most grammar books do, maybe a little more advanced already.

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