English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

22:00

I should go to uncomma school.

Anonymous

Actually, that's an interesting sentence.

Anonymous

The author is gapping are when the first half of the sentence has is.

Anonymous

Is that normal? I suppose it is

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Or, if you're trendy enough, comma unschool.

Damkerng T.

:)

Anonymous

22:02

I'm looking up gapping now.

Anonymous

Oh, some of the examples have that very comma.

Anonymous

> [One girl has written a poem], and [the other ___ a short story].

Damkerng T.

I think they are coordinating clauses.

So, comma is likely.

Anonymous

> [Smith completed the course in thirty-five minutes], and [Johnson ___ in thirty-seven].

Anonymous

Well, they are. Sort of.

Anonymous

22:04

The remnant caused by gapping is an apparent non-constituent, but it acts like a real constituent

Anonymous

> Maggie ordered a banana split and Myra ___ an ice-cream sundae.

Anonymous

I like the uncomma ones better. :-)

Damkerng T.

Maggie ordered a banana split and Myra--an ice-cream sundae.

By the way, do you know Silas Marner.

Anonymous

I know of Silas Marner. :-)

Damkerng T.

S. Tsow wrote that Silas Marner is a classic, traditionally taught at the sophomore level.

Anonymous

22:09

@DamkerngT. I find your hyphens intriguing.

Anonymous

Hmm.

Anonymous

In my experience, different people get taught different classics. :-)

Damkerng T.

Just want to confirm that he told the truth. :)

Anonymous

At the school I went to, it was up to the individual teachers to some extent.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Is it good?

Anonymous

22:10

So I didn't end up reading the same things some of my fellow students did.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Um. Maybe! :-)

Anonymous

I wouldn't put hyphens there. I'm not going to go so far as to call it wrong.

Anonymous

It doesn't seem wrong to me, but it does seem unfamiliar.

Damkerng T.

Aha!

Anonymous

I guess I like it, upon further reflection.

Anonymous

22:12

I still wouldn't do it myself, though. :-)

Anonymous

Hello, @WendiKidd!

Damkerng T.

Oh! @WendiKidd, Hello!

@snailplane It might need poetic license. :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Be careful. If you get too wild with your punctuation, you can have your poetic license revoked!

Damkerng T.

Please don't revoke mine. Please.

making cat's eyes effect

Anonymous

Oh, don't worry. I'm not in charge.

Anonymous

22:14

Remember, I don't even know how to use punctuation right.

Damkerng T.

^^

Anonymous

Although I certainly have doorstops enough to tell me how.

Damkerng T.

Hmm...

doorstops is maybe an adjective here...

Anonymous

Oh, no. It's a noun.

Damkerng T.

Used as an adjective?

Anonymous

22:16

Doorstop is a playful term for rather large books.

Anonymous

No, enough is a postmodifier.

Damkerng T.

I'm not familiar with this specific use of a postmodifier.

Anonymous

Hence peak doorstop, when books finally stopped increasing in size

Anonymous

(Modeled on peak oil :-)

Damkerng T.

^^

I think it will keep growing.

Anonymous

22:17

I wonder if you asked about my English if it would get close votes. "That ain't no good English! Don't be askin' about it!"

Damkerng T.

confused

Anonymous

Well, you seemed unable to parse my sentence: "Although I certainly have doorstops enough to tell me how."

Anonymous

And sometimes when people ask about sentences on ELL, they get close votes if people don't like them.

Anonymous

So I imagined, hypothetically, what would happen if you asked about that sentence--

Damkerng T.

I was able to parse, but it was incorrect. Hehe.

Anonymous

22:20

--does it count as Good English?

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see.

@snailplane Is that true?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sure. We've had questions where someone asked about English that didn't make sense, and people close voted with the reason "Unclear what you're asking"

Anonymous

That was the consensus on meta, too. "Unclear what you're asking."

Damkerng T.

Hehe.

Anonymous

3

Q: What should we do when a user asks about nonsensical English?

Today, someone asked what this sentence means: This first choice of yours is no second best of all. Without additional context, I think the answer is "nothing". And we were informed that there was no additional context, so I posted "nothing" as an answer. However, my answer was converted ...

Damkerng T.

22:23

Ah, it's your question.

Cerberus

@snailplane That is how I would read it, yes.

Anonymous

@Cerberus I'm unable to come up with anything useful and concrete to say about the question as it's written, I decided.

Anonymous

I can come up with vague things to say about it.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The consensus seems to be that ELL is about helping language learners understand English sentences written by a native speaker. I'm struggling to recall specifics that would help me find questions that have been closed, but . . .

Anonymous

Let's see.

Anonymous

22:26

Maybe not quite consensus, but

Damkerng T.

I think this Q is about the OP trying to rephrase his sentence.

Hmm... Should I use sheit as S. Tsow suggested.

Anonymous

Maybe I shouldn't characterize it as a consensus at all.

Damkerng T.

(He suggested to use sheit as a universal pronoun.)

Anonymous

What I should say is: I think some people think ELL should be what I described.

Anonymous

But I'm failing to come up with links to support what I said, because ELL has lots and lots of questions.

Damkerng T.

22:28

@snailplane I +1.

Anonymous

By the way, do you think this is on-topic?

Anonymous

1

Q: Sources to find similar spelling words?

When I learn some new words, I think I have seen them before, and then realize that they are probably some close-spelling words, but I can't think of them now. Are there sources where I can look up for similar spelling words for a given word? For example, "grotesque". Thanks!

spelling

Damkerng T.

I wasn't even sure what he wanted.

Until he said "agrep -3 grotesque /usr/share/dict/words" works.

I'm not sure about on-topic, but I think it's a valid question for learners.

Anonymous

By the way, agrep's innards are terrifying.

Damkerng T.

So probably needs to be included in the FAQ.

Cerberus

22:31

@snailplane Wise.

Anonymous

I suggest never looking. It's like finding out what goes into a sausage.

Anonymous

1

Q: Go into the wrapper of bygone time

I wrote this sentence - Now I can’t see those custom. They seem to have gone into the wrapper of bygone time. Do you think "go into the wrapper of bygone time" works here? I didn't find any reference, so may be I am the first one to write this. So native speakers, do you think it's underst...

word-choice sentence-construction

Anonymous

This question has four close votes. Not five, though!

Damkerng T.

@snailplane I think the guys who invented the algo are cool!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I guess.

Damkerng T.

22:32

@snailplane If you watched Heroes, I'm sometimes like Cylar.

Anonymous

At the time I had reason to trawl through its guts, we worked at the same company.

Damkerng T.

(Loving to see how things work.)

Anonymous

I think the actual implementation was thrown together by grad students

Anonymous

And the whole thing is kind of terrifying.

Damkerng T.

The more terrifying, the more interesting.

Anonymous

22:33

That's one way to look at it!

Damkerng T.

(Should I say "fun"? as in Japanese's fun?)

Anonymous

Hmm. What's Japanese's fun? Tanosii?

Damkerng T.

fun ~ interesting

Anonymous

Omosiroi

Damkerng T.

That's the word!

I voted close that Q already. :-)

Anonymous

22:35

Ha!

Anonymous

I liked it.

Damkerng T.

I liked it too.

Anonymous

2

Q: What's the meaning of "in the 90s"

From NPR(describing how the honeybees keep warm): They(honeybees) actually kind of cluster together and form a bee ball around the queen and then vibrate their wings, and that keeps the whole nest up at warm, in the 90s. Generally "in the 90s" means a time, just as "the 1990s", but it seems...

phrase

WendiKidd

@DamkerngT. Interesting! In English we usually call this "puppy dog eyes". I love hearing expressions from other languages :) Also, hi to you and @snailplane! Sorry, just noticed your messages and went to backread chat :)

Anonymous

@WendiKidd Oh! Somehow I missed what DamkerngT said until you commented on it. That is interesting!

Anonymous

22:36

Hello!

WendiKidd

:)

Anonymous

I'm corrupting DamkerngT's formidable command of English by talking, well, like I talk.

WendiKidd

Haha

Damkerng T.

^^

(That's another kind of cat's eyes--smiling almost laughing.)

Um.. formidable is too exaggerated!

I've got only 20,000 words on my vocab test. :)

Most people on EL&U got way better results. Hehe.

testyourvocab.com/result?user=3362186

(By the way, I'm very curious why I've got such a round number result.)

Trying a new effect...

making puppy dog eyes

WendiKidd

hehe

Damkerng T.

22:42

:)

WendiKidd

Now I'm going to try that test... I'm curious.

(Also 20,000 sounds like a lot!!)

@DamkerngT. Did you read what it says below?

> Most native English adult speakers who have taken the test fall in the range 20,000–35,000 words.

So I think formidable is apt :)

Damkerng T.

Ah, thank you.

But really, our EL&U guys have at least like 35,000++.

I think Robusto got something almost 45,000.

Anonymous

I got 34100.

Damkerng T.

Wow!

@snailplane I think that's much better than the 80th percentile.

(According to their chart.)

WendiKidd

tatterdemalion??

Damkerng T.

22:53

Never heard of it. :)

WendiKidd

I got 31,800. So snailplane beats me, but that's not surprising :)

Damkerng T.

@WendiKidd That's over 150% more than me. :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Over 50% more!

Damkerng T.

Yeah!

WendiKidd

@DamkerngT. You'd get infinity % more than me in your native language. Unless your native language is Spanish, in which case I know a tiny bit, so you'd maybe beat me by 2000% ;)

Anonymous

22:56

@WendiKidd Name some Thai words!

Damkerng T.

I see. That's probably true too!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. 150% more than 20,000 is 50,000.

WendiKidd

@snailplane Alas, I know none.

Anonymous

Language is weird.

Damkerng T.

I posted a question once about whey two-fold increase is a 100% increase. Hehe.

Anonymous

22:57

@WendiKidd I know one! Thai!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. On ELL or elsewhere?

Damkerng T.

Of course!

@snailplane EL&U

WendiKidd

Yeah. 150% of something is original +50%. 150% more than something is original + original + 50%

Damkerng T.

3

Q: Why is "a 100% increase" the same amount as "a two-fold increase"?

and is such interpretation the norm? When something went from 4 units to 8 units, most authoritative sources seem to agree with the use of "a two-fold increase", even though what was actually increased is more like "one-fold", i.e. the original quantity. But if the "two-fold increase" is the co...

expressions numbers mathematics

Anonymous

I call EL&U ELU in defiance of its centerpiece ampersand.

Damkerng T.

22:58

LOL

WendiKidd

@DamkerngT. Because when you increase something, you add to the original whatever was changed. So if I start out with 10 and I increase by 100%, I must add 10 to the original 10 and get 20. If I increase by 50% I must add 5 (50% of 10) to the original 10, and get 15.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It gets a lot more confusing when you start saying things like "four times as slow"

Anonymous

Or "four times slower than . . ."

Damkerng T.

That's so true!

Anonymous

I have no idea why someone called it "sloppy usage"

Damkerng T.

23:00

One of my project almost failed because of such a weird interpretation.

Anonymous

I just read through the answers and comments over there.

Anonymous

Oh yeah?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

They wrote the spec.

They wanted a new system that can perform 70% better than their current system.

I figured... That wasn't too hard.

Anonymous

Uh huh?

Damkerng T.

Say, if the old system can run a job with in one hour.

Anonymous

23:02

But they wanted it to run in 30% of the time?

Damkerng T.

If the new system can run it within half an hour, it should comply the spec, right?

Anonymous

Yeah. But they really wanted a 233% increase? :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Exactly!

Anonymous

Yipes!

Damkerng T.

And we had a long debate.

I almost got fined.

Anonymous

23:03

Oh, no!

Damkerng T.

Fortunately, my argument survived.

Anonymous

Hooray! You prevailed!

Damkerng T.

^^

It was a result of two different sets of people.

WendiKidd

@snailplane Okay, clearly my math is failing here. 70% better than is 170% of, is it not? How is it 233? (Also Damkerng do you mean fined or fired? What would the fine have been for?)

Damkerng T.

Those who wrote the spec just wanted 70% performance increase.

Anonymous

23:05

I actually took that testyourvocab.com thing last February.

Damkerng T.

Those who did the acceptance test, not knowing anything about the original intention, reinterpret the spec at their will.

Anonymous

I went and looked up the score I got before rather than re-take it (since retaking it would bias my score higher)

Damkerng T.

@WendiKidd I meant fined. I was the project leader.

Anonymous

@WendiKidd Well, 1 / (1 - .7) - 1 = 2 1/3

Damkerng T.

If I couldn't close the project, it's my responsibility.

It was a really big project.

Anonymous

23:07

They interpreted "70% better" as taking (100% - 70%) = 30% of the time it previously did, was my guess.

Damkerng T.

(For me.)

WendiKidd

@DamkerngT. That's crazy! How much were they going to make you pay? :(

Damkerng T.

I challenged them... "How would you interpret 110% increase?"

Anonymous

Inverse of .3 is 3.33..., subtract 1 to change from "run at 333% efficiency" to "run 233% more efficient"

Anonymous

That's how I got the number in my guess.

Damkerng T.

23:08

@WendiKidd Oh! I would be fined a lot, each day, from the day that I couldn't close it on time.

WendiKidd

That's.... yeah. Math shouldn't be that complicated. haha

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh! Your project runs on tachyons now.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane That was my argument. A 110% increase, according to their interpretation, must finish the job before it started.

I guess at least about $1,000 a day, maybe more, I forgot the exact number.

But it was very scary.

Thank goodness! I survived that.

I like the word tachyons.

Very trekky.

It's dawn here already. :)

Anonymous

Oh, yeah.

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Anonymous

23:20

@DamkerngT. Why did the tachyons cross the road?

Anonymous

Because they were already on the other side!

Damkerng T.

Haha! Good one!

(You probably know about the impossible drive.)

(Or is it improbable drive?)

(The one in Douglas Adams' book.)

Anonymous

That's the Infinite Improbability Drive.

Damkerng T.

Ah, that.

Must be related to tachyons. :)

Joining SE is a good idea for me.

Anonymous

Yay

Anonymous

23:26

I learned a lot about Japanese by participating in JLSE.

Damkerng T.

Yes. My first few posts reflect the time I had to help my nephew about his English.

Anonymous

That's our new acronym. Although I like to say "Japanese Language (formerly & Usage)", it takes too much time to type.

Cerberus

Heh.

Damkerng T.

And a year after that, I made some breakthrough on parts of my own English skills.

Cerberus

Or how about JaL FU?

Damkerng T.

23:27

formerly... :)

Anonymous

Oh, my.

Damkerng T.

I think we should be allowed to swear frag! in ELL.

Just read a post by Grammar Girl that has Sir Fragalot in it.

Sir Fragalot loves to say and write fragments a lot.

So, JaL FU? Frag!

Anonymous

That's a less common minced oath.

Anonymous

I don't want to go near it, personally.

Damkerng T.

Okay, I will avoid it. :)

Anonymous

23:30

Well, you can do what you like :-)

Anonymous

I only decide what I say, not what others say.

Damkerng T.

I see.

Anonymous

To be honest, I'm even more confused reading about unergatives and unaccusatives in Japanese.

Cerberus

Heh.

Anonymous

Unergatives are hinoukaku doushi, and unaccusatives are hitaikaku doushi

Anonymous

23:33

It seems that aruku "to walk" is unergative, but saku "to bloom" is unaccusative. According to this paper.

Anonymous

Which is supposed to explain the ungrammaticality of a certain construction.

Damkerng T.

Heh?

I'm not sure. But it sounds like Thai have them too.

Anonymous

Yeah?

Damkerng T.

That's what I'm not sure since I'm still unsure what unergative is.

Anonymous

I can't figure out why saku would be unaccusative.

Damkerng T.

23:34

But for example...

Anonymous

Me either.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. What I have written down is that it's a type of intransitive verb where the subject is the actor who initiates the action

Damkerng T.

If someone asked Did you eat anything yet? [eat-something-yet]...

An appropriate answer is Ate. [eat-already]

Anonymous

This is actually the same context the paper discusses.

Cerberus

@snailplane That sounds correct for unergative.

Unergative = transitive with agent; unaccusative = transitive without agent.

Damkerng T.

23:37

@snailplane Does this mean that all intransitive verbs in active voice are ergative?

Cerberus

's What Wikipedia says.

Anonymous

Mou tabeta ka? "Have you eaten yet?" ?Iie, mada tabenai. or Iie, mada tabete inai. ("No, I haven't eaten yet.")

Damkerng T.

That's a transitive verb with an agent.

Anonymous

Sakura wa mou saita ka? "Have the cherry blossoms bloomed yet?" Iie, mada sakanai. or Iie, mada saite inai. ("No, they haven't bloomed yet.")

Damkerng T.

Do Japaneses have to say that they explicitly?

(In Thai, we don't have to.)

[not-bloom-yet] is enough.

Anonymous

23:41

No. Japanese is a pro-drop language.

Damkerng T.

pro-drop?

Ah, I see. This pro means prefer.

Anonymous

Pronoun

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Quite similar to Thai.

Thai is a pro pro-drop language. :)

Anonymous

Oh, yes, I've read that about it.

Damkerng T.

Perhaps that's why most of us have a hard time learning English.

Anonymous

23:44

Thais are pros at pronoun dropping.

Damkerng T.

We can actually drop almost anything.

To the point that grammar does virtually almost not exist.

But it does.

Anonymous

Well, I wouldn't go that far. :-)

Anonymous

I'm a firm believer in the existence of grammar.

Damkerng T.

For example, instead of asking Is this book good?, we simply say [good-yes].

Anonymous

You can delete a little bit of stuff in English.

Damkerng T.

23:46

And that makes most of us curious why do we have to say Is this book good? in English. :)

Anonymous

"Yeah, s'good."

Anonymous

"Yeah, pretty good."

Anonymous

Oh, not a response, but the question

Damkerng T.

I mean [good-yes?] as a question.

Anonymous

My mind saw "yes" and assumed it was an answer. Stupid mind.

Damkerng T.

23:47

That's why the grammars of the two languages are so different.

Anonymous

"Yes" here is like a tag question?

Damkerng T.

Tense. None.

Structure. None.

Article. None.

Preposition. Really flexible.

Hehe.

Anonymous

But you've got aspect, right?

Anonymous

Japanese doesn't have articles or any kind of determiner.

Damkerng T.

Aspect, a little.

If you say yet, already are aspects, then we have them.

Anonymous

23:49

What do you mean by "structure, none"?

Damkerng T.

We can drop most of them.

Anonymous

I'm willing to bet you Thai has grammar.

Damkerng T.

4 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

But it does.

That's what I said.

Anonymous

I win!

Anonymous

Yay!

Damkerng T.

23:50

But it's really flexible.

[eat-rice-yet?]

[rice-eat-already] <- okay

[eat-rice-already] <- also okay

[eat-already] <- okay too

(We can even say [eat-go-already] too. Haha.)

@snailplane I believe that Thai's grammar was influenced by English grammar (or at least some Western language's grammar, maybe Latin too).

...

From a Wikipedia page about Thai language (in Thai)...

Thai has no inflection at all, no tense, no case, no mood, no voice, no gender, no number.

I think that's correct.

Ah, they classified Thai as an Analytic language.

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