No, no bad things. If they were imprisoned for a crime, the judgement was unfair.

oh

Emerson is a genius!

So they are waiting for us!

Please read us!!

It's a beautiful metaphor

Thank you!

I gotta free more prisoners!

Oh yes, lovely way to see it

The more I free the smarter I ll get

Damn straight!

so boxes is also a metaphor?

box is a cover here

Yes

wow

Boxes

shelves

covers

all prisons

Think of it!

thank you

You are say, Les Miserables. (My favorite classic novel) You could be imprisoned on a shelf, in a box, under a bed - It is only when you are opened and can tell your story, that you are free.

@IceGirl Yes, Female, Alaskan, 45 years old, native English speaker, I love dogs and cooking

OK

@Jolenealaska Do you have children?

I see.

Les Miserables is a very long story...

loonger than Moby dick

Unfortunately no. I wish I did. I'm looking into raising a foster child.

There is such a mine of love as almost might supply desert.

What does it mean?

Yes, Les Miserables is VERY long. Lovers of it affectionately refer to the book as "the brick"

:(

@user4550 I think I can answer that, my gut suggests what it means, but I need morecontext to be sure

yeah which is longer, War and Peace or Les MIserables?

emilyspoetryblog.com/2013/08/29/…

They are both on the list of 10 longest books ever, but I can't remember which is longer.

this is the poem im talking about hee.

Mine is definately a metaphor that means "supply", perhaps endless supply.

love supplies a desert?

Desert - supply

How can I make a different room?

Desert - dying from want of what - water?

I can give what I have in abundance

I can love you

I have and enless supply of love

so the subject of the verb supply is what?

I have so much love to give, I can almost supply a desert

This is lyrical stuff. Don't look for stuff like that. This adjective modifies this noun? Fuggetaboutit. He's probably not following those kinds of rules anyway.

brb

i see

thank you

Lyrical language is best understood by visualizing it. Look at this: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/7362/…

@StoneyB can I summon you this way?

Hi, Jolene

@Jolenealaska I am at your service.

@StoneyB Hello!

Wazzup?

Nice to finally meet you

Likewise. I've been enjoying your posts tremendously.

I just wanted to meet you. I have found your presence on this board absolutely grand.

Seems to be a discussion of metaphor going on.

Yes, words sometimes fail me because I don't have the vocabulary to explain "stuff"

What brought you to ELL, anyhoo? I know you're active on cooking - I loved the ice tray spikes!

I cna help sometimes to grab understanding, but second clauses and gerands? Fuggetabouitit

Neat that you saw that!

I have no idea what brought me here

probably a question on the "hot" list

@Jolenealaska Oh, the stuff vocabulary is just handles. My father was an English professor, so I knew the old vocabulary practically before you were born, and I picked up the new vocabulary by following John Lawler on ELU.

I completely get that.

My "expertise" in the English langage comes from the fact that I read a lot, and my family talked a lot. I've just been immersed in the language for 45 years

@Jolenealaska So it's good for something! ... You're a godsend to this site: the questions have been exploding for about two months now, and we've desperately needed more people who not only know the answers but can spot the underlying problems.

I would love to be a help here. The mission of this site sparks something in me.

Ey, Jojo! Stoner!

CERBY!!

How you doin.

Reading is a Great Goodness. Particularly with our learners, who have in many cases very limited opportunities for speaking with literate native speakers.

'Tis true.

What a pleasure to see such a familiar face so completely out of context

Haha.

Yo, the tricapitate.

Yeah, it's like meeting your mother in the red-light district, right?

Ave.

Heehee something like that

Phone.

Stoney, Cerby is from (The Netherlands?) but his mastery of English is really impressive

@StoneyB Have you seen my "joker" question?

Oh, I've been following him for almost two years. He is also a mainstay of linguistics.SE, and if I remember correctly an authority on palaeography.

@Jolenealaska No, what's the joker question?

Renaissance man :)

Hold on Stoney, I'll grab it

Oh, anybody can read the fine Italian hand. Cerberus reads rat-nibbled mediaeval manuscripts and probably the abominable English chancery script, too.

I'm kind of imagining doing something like that often. Weekly maybe

@StoneyB Haha, self-proclaimed.

That'

We don't often read Middle English, actually.

But insular script, yes.

Latin.

That's him. He missed an Edgar Allen Poe reference though. Twas shocking.

That's a nice question.

But I must now take my leave.

See you around! Everywhere, haha.

poof

@Jolenealaska That's a terrific question. The sort of leavening the site needs - whimsical and useful at the same time.

I am so glad you think so

I want to play with it. I hope to get awe inspiringly mangled responses from people putting themselves "out there"

@Jolenealaska Well, if you ever wanted to read old MSS the time is finally here. I'm astonished by what-all you can find on the internet these days. I was able to pull down the entire text of Chretien's Perceval for my wife, who was just starting to work with Old French, and illustrate it with printouts of photographs of a 14th century MS.

And if people like you...well you in particular, stick your nose in once and a while to help with criticism ...

Questions are much harder to write than answers. On an answer all you have to do is figure out what you know; on a question you have to define very precisely what you don't know.

heehee...I can recite the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales in Middle English..Do I get points for that?

I played Desdemona...

Fersher. I only know the first four lines off the top of my head. ... But I've directed Othello.

I've read three different translations of Les Miserables (my fave)

heheheee

Desdemona's tough - hard to find a person under the costume. And any actor capable of playing her would probably find it more fun to play Emilia.

I can still do my big line ...Most gracious duke, prosperous ear, charter in your voice, yada yada

God that was so long ago. I was maybe 17. Othello was in his 40s

I haven't read Les Miserables since high school. Dickens is my man for 19th century novels. I remember clear as day getting through with the first chapter of Bleak House and thinking, Well, there's the entirety of Kafka; what's next. (But his women are dreadful, except the comic ones.)

During my death scene, once I ended up embarrassingly exposed. Unfortunately that was the night my parents attended.

That's a good match. My Othello was far too young.

It contributed, no doubt, to the erotic tension of the scene!

How long has it been since your theater days?

Shit...I was 17. Erotic tension was my life. I tried (and failed) to seduce the director

I had a tryst with Iago though

I did my last show in '95 ... No, I lie, I came back to do a part for my wife a couple years later, when she had to can an actor, but I had pretty much lost interest.

It's the old joke. Journalist asks the actor-manager: "Did Ophelia sleep with Hamlet?" "In my company, inevitably."

All my life I've kept a dream role in my pocket. As a teenager I wanted so badly to play Rizzo, never had the chance. Now it's Mme Thernardier. I bring the house down doing Karaoke - Master of the House

Do you still act?

No

Not for lack of desire though

I landed a nice part in a short film 2 summers ago, I just went to an audition listed in craigslist and got the part. Kind of cool, I was excited....

Then, no joke...

The day before we were supposed to start shooting..

Wait for it...

I broke my leg

Opportunities here (Anchorage) are rare. But I still have the drive. I love to perform, but rarely get the chance beyond killer Karaoke at the American Legion.

Where is home?

ROFL ... I only did camera work once. There was a TV series (which died, deservedly, almost immediately) featuring a lawyer who traveled up and down the Mississippi solving crimes, and I landed a nice little one-scene role as a crazed survivalist. Home's St. Louis for nearly forty years now, but I grew up in Alabama.

Alabama is like a foreign land to me. I've never been to St. Louis but I imagine it's similar to where I grew up, Des Moines, Iowa

I've been in Alaska for nearly 20 years now...God, has it been that long?

Have I said why I "summoned" you?

Alabama was a foreign land to most of the country in my day. I was there in the George Wallace days ...

No, you haven't ...

I just want to express my admiration. I see you as a leader and shaker here, I am hopeful that I can help with the mission. It's a good mission.

For better or worse, English is the universal language

if we can all express ourselves and understand others

it's like the key to world peace

Wallace...HA! I used to shop in the mall where he was shot

It's very kind of you. I don't see myself as a leader - more as a quarrelsome (or querulous) voice on the margin who's only permitted to hang around because a) he handles a large volume of QQ and b) nobody's figured out to how to shut him up.

Heehee...You obviously have a great volume of knowledge. It doesn't take long for a newbie here to see you as an authority. Rep points and a buck will buy you a cup of coffee, but yours do indicate that you have put effort into this site and what it is trying to do...

But, yeah, the mission's there. My loyalty's not to world peace but to Great Mother Language. 'Way back in ELL's definition period I said something on the order of "I can't stand by when there are people who want to learn English so much they're willing to make fools of themselves in public."

That kind of wraps around what I'm hoping to do with a series of movie clip questions. Here's a safe place to make a fool of yourself.

But I'm no kind of authority. Snailplane knows more formal grammar than I'll ever find time to learn. DamkerngT has an awesome grasp of phonetics. The mods and folks like you and FumbleFingers have a much firmer grasp on contemporary idiom than I. I'm just a mechanic, a techie: I know how to do stuff with the language, because I've actually seen and worked with a very large range of what's been done with it.

Keep it up with the fun questions. I'll weigh in if nobody else does. I only missed the one from last night because I was half a state away at a concert my son was in.

At any rate, you are a screenname that is quickly recognized by newbies here (like me). As time goes on I will learn about others. The names you mention are familiar in a warm and fuzzy way, but I don't feel yet that I have a grasp of their particular (gotta good word for "niche" in this context?)

And now, alas, the people who pay me want me to do something in return ... bother. I reelyreely hope my wife gets accepted to a doctoral program with an assistantship attached, so I can at least semi-retire.

Very good to kind of meet you. I'm Jolene, and I am all ears if you ever want to commnicate with me

Enjoy your day.

> As Clark and DiFrancesco entered the floor, Clark turned around to look at his coworkers still in the stairwell and watched as they had decided to go up the stairs to the roof instead of down. The group would all go on to lose their lives that day as access to the roof was locked. There were also no plans for helicopter rescues from the roof as the NYPD deemed it to unsafe to attempt.

Suppose that I want to report the event in present tenses, is it okay to write it like this: The group will all go on to lose their lives that day as access to the roof is locked.

Or, how about this? The group would all go on to lose their lives that day as access to the roof is locked.

Answering from the gut, I'd say go for it with the first line, it sounds fine. I can't explain why, but I don't like the second option. I'll ponder for a moment.

@DamkerngT. Again I can't exactly explain why, but the second line is clunky. It's better if you delete the words "go on".

@Jolenealaska Just The group will all lose their lives ..., I think.

(Sorry for double "ding"s :-)

Yes. Then comma after access, delete "to"

no prob. dings make me feel popular

Hah! If you take dings that way, then... okay! :D

Hmm... I'm not sure about your comment on access, I think it was about "the access to the roof".

The group would lose their lives that day, access to the roof was locked. I think

I'm sorry, I meant delete "as"

not "to"

Without as as conjunction, it sounds to me like something is missing.

It made me think... is it an apposition? or an additive?

I think it's technically correct either way as far as that goes, it only works without "as" if you use a comma. I'm struggling a bit with "was" or "is" brb, I'll see if the Google Gods can help with that.

I couldn't find a precise answer, but I got enough from the Google Gods to support the idea that "was" is the proper choice, not "is"

I believe that was is the normal way for reporting an event in the past.

I just try to shift it to the present.

I mean shift the whole thing, every sentence.

BTW, I am the last person in the world to ask about what certain usages are called. English 101 was a looong time ago. It's a vocabulary I've long since purged.

I am good at "feeling out" what is proper, I'm lousy at expressing why.

You're in a much better position than me. I don't even know which ones are the correct usages. In a sense, I haven't really learned it.

I read a lot. I come from a long line of talkers that speak well. I have been immersed in the language for 46 years. I can barely define gerund.

In a sense, every non-native speaker who still produces something ungrammatical, haven't really things that could help them to avoid making such mistakes. That's the way I see it.

(And I'm in that group, too.)

@Jolenealaska I've heard that the term gerund and present participle could confuse learners. My favorite grammar book avoids both terms.

It uses the term "verb in -ing form" instead.

I kind of see that as my "niche" here. There are others that can explain rules in precise academic terms. "Gerund" was just the first example of a relatively obscure term that popped into my head. It probably popped there because I just (uncharacteristically) used the word in an answer on the main site.

So back to the original question, I would just abandon the second attempt and go with the first.

nods

I think that clears things up. Thank you for the help!

I think "would" is just too problematic. It keeps you kind of locked in the past tense.

I think I probably use "would" in the present tense more often than I should.

Or something like that.

you mean "more", not "too"

Ah, yes. Thank you.

I'm a terrible typist, so I tend to assume mistakes are just typos. But I'll point out things like that if you would like me to.

Btw, please feel free to correct my English. I like to learn.

That's great. What are you reading these days?

Don't worry too much about typos. Typos in real-time chats are fine, imo.

A few things, beside those related to my work.

They had better be, or I'm screwed :)

I'm reading a novel by Hemingway. You probably have seen me type it here before.

Which one?

A Farewell to Arms

Nice! It's been a long time, but I loved that one.

You can search the title here and you will see all the chapters I typed here. :-)

I type one chapter a day.

I'm on Book V now, I think the story is going to be on downturn from this point on.

Somehow I have missed that. I'll watch for it now that I know. I'm sure you've told me, but what is your native language?

My native language is Thai.

Wow, the very word brings to mind great food.

Thai, like many other Asian languages, has no articles, countability, singularity, tenses, modals.

@Jolenealaska Oh, I'm sure Thai must remind you of some dishes. :-)

I lived in Korea for a year. It was striking how different the language was. I learned to mimic a few key phases, but I didn't even get close to grasping the heart of the language.

Korea is a nice place too! You were in Seoul, perhaps?

Yep, and just north of it.

Is Korean food spicy, in your opinion?

Again, just thinking of it makes me hungry.

Hehe. Sorry. I can try not talking about food, either, if that can help. :-)

A-ha! You must also like Thai food, then.

I think Tom Yam Kung and Som Tum are probably well-known enough.

I still crave this insane Pork Kimchi Soup from this little place in Itaewon

Oh, Itaewon. I've only seen it on TV.

I've tried for years to duplicate it, but it just isn't the same.

I think Kimchi can be something tricky.

As far as I know, there are so many recipes to make Kimchi, and it also takes time.

It's a kind of fermentation, I think.

I've even gone to every little dive Korean joint in town to find kimchi as good as that soup. It's a no-go.

In Korean restaurants?

Yes, long fermentation plays a big part in many types of kimchi.

Yes, dive implies tiny place with mismatched chairs and scruffy floor. Often, especially when looking for food from a certain culture, those are the best places to find great food.

Still it's a no-go? Hmm...

I probably had a similar experience when I was trying to find a good Thai restaurant in Frankfurt.

Since I did get good at mimicking key Korean phrases, I'd startle the hell out of the recent immigrants running those joints.

A-ha!

I bet that you can count 1 to 10 in Korean. :-)

It's strange that Korean's 20 sounds really like Thai's 20.

Nope, funny thing, I cant. But I do hello, goodbye, please, thank you like a local :)

I think it's yee-ship in Korean.

I see, I see.

Here's a good one...Daughter is the same word in English and Dutch

Hah! Good to know, thanks!

The spelling is slightly different, but the pronunciation and meaning are the same.

Oh, talking about spelling, Korean letters are neat too.

They look like Chinese letters, but they're sounds!

Yes. I never really learned how they worked, but it seemed very efficient compared to English.

English is just a mess.

It can be seen as a mess, but it's not that mess once we're used to it.

But I got a surprise every once in a while. :D

Especially names.

You do very well. You could easily pass as a native speaker that types as well as I do.

Hah! I'm not sure I'm that good, but thank you!

I think we briefly chatted a few times and I didn't realize that English wasn't your first language.

Hehe. It's not, really. :D

Perhaps my English has improved a little, joining ELL.

I believe you. Since I speak exactly one language fluently, I find it impressive.

I think it's much easier to tell once you've heard my voice.

I practice reading news once in a few days, too!

Have you seen this? ell.stackexchange.com/questions/19023/…

You told me about it earlier this morning (yesterday?).

Once and a while -or- every few days. Not "once in a few days"

MaulikV's answer is more than I expected.

Ah, thank you. once every few days.

Perhaps he is into that movie that I am. :-)

Ah yes, I remember now. I'm kind of like the new kid in class - a lot of people to get to know, but everyone has noticed me because I'm new.

No, not because you're new. It's because of your lovely avatar. :-)

I'm going to do a series of those. I'm really hoping to encourage answers from people at all levels of learning. Maulik is obviously pretty advanced.

That's the first thing I had noticed, and then I noticed your answers, which are very good. I'm glad that you're here.

You like Poo Bear? I like him too :)

@Jolenealaska Of course, he is. In many ways, he could pass me.

@Jolenealaska Like? No, I love him! :D

:)

(I thought of the photo as it, but the bear as him.)

That's good. That's thinking in the language well.

I can't tell if he's a real one or a doll or a CG.

He's real. It's an honest to goodness Alaskan nature shot.

Wow! That makes him even more impressive! He is so cute!

Hello @snailboat (Hmm... are you a boat or a plane right now?)

I like the maternal aspect of the shot too. It fits my on-line persona.

Thanks for reminding me, I meant to look at that again.

@snailboat Now I might need to ask, which answer are you talking about?

I'm sure that I want bounties too. But I remember that I answered one of them not because of the bounty.

Ah, so I guess I answered that one not because of the bounty, indeed.

Ah, that sounds like a true artist.

Too bad I would be an artist who produces commercial arts, if I were an artist.

But I don't mind to do some pieces for free, if I had good reason for it.

+1

@snailboat Evidently, you know Chinese characters and Japanese and Korean. :-)

I agree, since technical "stuff" isn't my bag, I'm not even going to try. There are others here that can answer technical issues with more precision than I can. Sometimes answering from the gut works too. That is where I will focus.

Huh? Knock-knock joke? Recently?

Ah, it sounds like fun in there.

I can almost always say whether or not a line is correct. To try explain "why" is not my cup of tea. I'll leave that to the linguists. If someone is trying to grasp a metaphor? That's where I will jump in.

@snailboat I posted a few YouTube links for you. I don't know if you got them.

Speaking of YouTube links, if you come across any that would make good questions, Ping me and post them here.

Ah, I will.

@snailboat, I know Damkering knows what I'm asking. Do you?

Does it have to be something related to movies?

No, if it suggests a good question, and it's short, I'm interested.

I see, I see.

I think I'm going to intentionally make some of the questions fairly simple, others much deeper.

On that note, and since I'm in the mood, I have a bit of a project that I'm working on. It's a delicate subject, so I'm going to close all other windows (including this one) to focus on it. Have a great day, night, afternoon - whatever it is for you. :) Bye all!

Have a nice day, too!

Thank you, and see you!

@snailboat You caught me, I was procrastinating and not quite gone yet!

My request for YouTube links is for possibly doing a series (hopefully the next one will better) of these: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/19023/…

I wonder why someone moving to Portland is considered a hipster.

Maybe it's an opinion of someone living there.

Thats a great one!

And pay one's compliments.

Pay attention.

Could it be a gallicism?

@snailboat Thanks a million!

Considering that pay is French.

See! Just putting the question out there gets minds whirring!

@snailboat So what did your etymology say?