English Language Learners

Anonymous

16:00

It is special. It is not quite like which, where, and the rest of the wh-words

Anonymous

You can call it "relative that", if you like

Anonymous

That's what McCawley calls it.

Nico

but the idea that "that" introduces a relative clause with an omitted pronoun ... I don't see the need

how would you call it?

Anonymous

You don't have to put it that way. Just figure out a way that explains everything and use that

Anonymous

The theory isn't important, what's important is coming up with the right set of set of sentences (or observations about sentences, however you approach it)

Nico

16:02

Is it the only difference that you cannot say "with that"?

Anonymous

Well, that can't be the object of a preposition.

Anonymous

Normally we say that a wh-word replaces a missing part of the relative clause:

Nico

*The people of where I come from?

It also sounds wrong.

Anonymous

[ I like something ]

Anonymous

[ I like which ]　　←　which has replaced something

Anonymous

16:05

[ which I like ___ ] 　←　which has been fronted

Anonymous

Here, you can say which is the object of like.

Anonymous

It's a pronoun standing in for something.

Anonymous

[ you talked to someone ]

Anonymous

[ you talked to whom ]

Anonymous

[ whom you talked to ____ ]

Anonymous

16:07

[ to whom you talked __　____ ]

Anonymous

[ that you talked to ____ ]

Anonymous

*[ to that you talked __　____ ]

Nico

@DamkerngT. it could be. I'm not sure either

Anonymous

*[ you talked to that ]

Anonymous

There's not much motivation to claim that that is filling in the gap, that that is a fronted relative pronoun

Anonymous

16:09

Because it can never occur in situ, unlike a relative pronoun, and it cannot occur in the syntactic position you expect it to (as the object of a preposition)

Anonymous

So it seems instead to introduce the relative clause when it appears, and that means that the relativized constituent has gone missing--it's easiest to say that there was a relative pronoun there which was deleted

Anonymous

The person [ you talked to ~~whom~~ ]

Anonymous

The person [ that you talked to ~~whom~~ ]

Anonymous

Whether you want to say it's fronted before it's deleted is up to you, since there's no evidence one way or the other

Anonymous

But in any case, this is just a matter of theory, and like I said it's not particularly important :-)

Anonymous

16:12

The only thing that really matters is making sure you speak or write sentences correctly and understand the utterances or writings of others

Nico

OK, I understand the argument, but I need to think more about it.

Anonymous

Sure.

Anonymous

In other words, the facts are important, the theory is secondary

Anonymous

You don't have to accept that argument, either

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm speculating that The Book of Tea might be originally written in Japanese. I don't know if this paper contains some part of the original Japanese text. jrc.sophia.ac.jp/kiyou/ki26/hattori.pdf.

Nico

16:13

and thanks! We are really fortunate that you share your knowledge.

Damkerng T.

(I'm done with my speculation. The rest must be depended on you. :-)

@Nico Exactly!

claps -- for snailboat

Nico

:)

Damkerng T.

Oh, my typos.

My typoses. My precious typoses.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. You just linked to a paper which says it was originally written in English in 1906 and then translated to Japanese in 1922.

Damkerng T.

Oh! I see!

Thanks for the info.

Translated back by the author himself?

Anonymous

16:15

The sentence I quoted earlier was the sentence in Japanese that corresponded to the English sentence the OP asked about

Anonymous

The paper doesn't say

Damkerng T.

Okakura Kakuzō (岡倉覚三, February 14, 1862 – September 2, 1913)

Anonymous

It was translated by someone else, it seems

Damkerng T.

Obviously, the back translation must be done by someone else.

Anonymous

Hiroshi Muraoka

Anonymous

16:19

So maybe it was a red herring

Anonymous

I originally thought that it would help me confirm what the English meant

Damkerng T.

I don't know Hiroshi Muraoka. looking up...

I couldn't find him.

Anonymous

aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/person346.html

Anonymous

But I suppose I can disregard the Japanese translation entirely then

Damkerng T.

I see.

I think the sentence must look really odd to most people, to the point that it looks like an ungrammatical one.

0

A: Is this strange sentence grammatically correct?

Yes, it should be "through our demure..." Because "our demure contemplation of the Imperfect" isn't something that's meetable.

This one is loud and clear.

Anonymous

16:24

Well, my intuition says "That sentence doesn't make any sense"

Damkerng T.

Hehe.

Anonymous

But then a little voice in back says "It means because A, B!"

Anonymous

A → B. Unicode arrow.

Damkerng T.

Nice arrow. :-)

Anonymous

Unicode arrows are important.

Damkerng T.

16:25

Did you feel something like this when you read Walden?

@snailboat They are!

Anonymous

You're saying this to me as though I've actually read all of Walden.

Damkerng T.

Who knows? Hehe.

I'm sure I don't know.

Maybe it was your assignment. :-)

Anonymous

But yeah, there are always constructions I'm unfamiliar with in older literature.

Anonymous

You just do what you always do: make the best of it from context.

Anonymous

At least, that's what I do.

Damkerng T.

16:26

I've never read The Romance of Three Kingdoms in English.

Anonymous

Me either.

Damkerng T.

Making out the meaning is what I do. I'm Sir Guess-A-Lot!

Anonymous

(Me saying "me either" makes it sound like I've read it in another language--darned implicatures!)

Damkerng T.

Hehe! -- to implicatures

3

Q: My swimming pool would hold 20,000 gallons of water

Forgive me for asking numerous questions about "would" on and on.╮(╯-╰)╭Somehow I hate this word and also love it. 13 — used to say that something is possible or likely ▪ I think my swimming pool would [=could] hold 20,000 gallons of water. Source Is Merriam correct about this usage? ...

modal-verbs

I invite everyone on his behalf to answer the question.

Anonymous

Oh, I hate modal verbs.

Damkerng T.

16:34

I answered him two questions earlier today. I think the two upvotes I got weren't from him.

:D

But I think I helped him a bit, and that's more important.

So this I decided that he should have a chance to get good answers from others this time.

> Mr Pistorius said it was his personality to confront what he believed was an intruder.

I think this one is related to the sentence from the "tea" question.

Anonymous

I found a 7-volume set of Romance of the Three Kingdoms in Japanese. It looks like 3072 pages

Anonymous

chikumashobo.co.jp/product/9784480037305

Damkerng T.

Wow! I estimated only 1500-2500 pages.

Anonymous

I don't know about Thai or Chinese, but Japanese books tend to have more pages than English.

Anonymous

A novel that's around 350-400 pages in English might be over 700 in Japanese

Anonymous

16:41

There's a nine-volume set for the Japanese translation of Lord of the Rings

Damkerng T.

I'd say that English and Thai translations are about the same (depending on the direction of the translation and who translated it).

Oh, dang!

It reminds me of my own books.

I have the Thai version.

It's three volumes.

My friend borrowed Volume I.

Anonymous

The original is split into six books (often published as three volumes or one volume), while in Japanese you can get it in six books, with three of those books split into halves

Damkerng T.

And, I think you can guess what happened next.

Anonymous

I'm pretty sure that LOTR has been published in other formats in Japanese--I only know about the one that they had at Kinokuniya when I got it

Anonymous

Books die when you lend them to people, in my experience.

Anonymous

16:43

No one treats loaned books kindly. I don't know why not.

Anonymous

It might just be my set of friends. :-)

Damkerng T.

I don't know whether it died or not. It's never returned. :(

Anonymous

Oh, yeah! That happens, too.

Anonymous

That's a subset of died, for me.

Damkerng T.

So I still have the remaining two volumes. Cool!

I see.

Anonymous

16:44

Um, I'm using that word in an idiosyncratic fashion. I probably shouldn't be doing that in the ELL chat. ;-)

Anonymous

But that's how I talk.

Damkerng T.

I have the Chinese version, in three volumes. Yay!

Anonymous

I lost my guitar when I moved here. (It got ruined.) So I say my guitar died. It's very sad.

Anonymous

That was my fourth guitar out of six.

Damkerng T.

sad for the guitar.

Anonymous

16:45

@DamkerngT. Wow!

Anonymous

Is it pleasing aesthetically?

Damkerng T.

I bought it several years ago.

Anonymous

Guitars mean a lot to me.

Anonymous

I think it's because when you play, the instrument becomes a part of you.

Anonymous

And you sing through your instrument.

Damkerng T.

16:46

I'm not sure. It looks so, but I've never really read it.

(Never went further than page 10)

Anonymous

Oh, I didn't think you were literate in Chinese

Damkerng T.

I'm sure not! :-)

Anonymous

Is it in Classical Chinese?

Damkerng T.

I just bought it while I was in Beijing.

Anonymous

Or a modern translation?

Damkerng T.

16:48

I'm not even sure, but I asked someone else (a Hong Kong guy) to specifically ask the bookstore owner to find the original one for me.

Anonymous

Ahh, neat!

Damkerng T.

So I guess it should be in the original text.

Anonymous

Classical Chinese is neat. Of course, I can't really read it. :-)

Damkerng T.

But I'm not so sure. :-)

Anonymous

I can't really read Classical Japanese, either. Although I've studied it somewhat.

Damkerng T.

16:49

I like Chinese and Japanese characters.

Anonymous

The topics are related, in a sense, because Classical Chinese used to be cross-culturally the written language for many cultures

Damkerng T.

Their calligraphic arts are neat!

Anonymous

So Japanese used to be written, more or less, as Classical Chinese

Anonymous

Which is not a terribly effective way to write Japanese, but :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I love calligraphy!

Damkerng T.

16:51

Yay!

Anonymous

I've always loved kanji, and of course hanzi are mostly the same thing.

Anonymous

Japan invented some of their own "kan" ji, though :-)

Anonymous

And of course they've diverged a little in various ways

Damkerng T.

Yeah, they look a bit different; both are really charming!

Anonymous

I like traditional Chinese

Damkerng T.

16:52

My three volumes are in traditional Chinese!

Hmm... you know that three characters (I think they're the same in both Japanese and Chinese) for down, middle, and up, I think?

Anonymous

下中上

Damkerng T.

Exactly!

The problem is, I don't know how to arrange the three volumes. :(

Anonymous

In my LOTR, the books that are divided into two parts are labeled 上 and 下

Anonymous

上 is the first, 中 is the second, 下 is the third

Damkerng T.

And which one should be the leftmost one?

上?

Anonymous

16:56

Oh! Well, they're read from right to left, so 下中上, right?

Damkerng T.

My version looks a bit strange.

Anonymous

I don't know--you could put them on the shelf whichever way you like

Anonymous

I always put books on the shelf with numbers increasing to the right

Anonymous

Regardless of which way the book is read

Damkerng T.

If I stack them vertically, 上中下, the first page will be on the top.

(I mean the 上 volume is on the top.)

(And so is its first page, in the 上 volume.)

Is that normal?

Anonymous

16:59

It sounds normal to me!

Damkerng T.

Oh!

So if I titled the stack upright, the 上 volume would be the leftmost one.

Anonymous

Oh, I read 上中下 as an order, like 123

Damkerng T.

Yes. It looks like so.

Anonymous

Are the books written horizontally or vertically?

Damkerng T.

Vertically.

Anonymous

17:00

And the front page of 上 is at the right.

Anonymous

Right?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Anonymous

Or is it flipped around?

Anonymous

Then I would put 上 on the right

Anonymous

That's just me :-)

Damkerng T.

17:01

A-ha!

The thing is I've already forgotten how they were arranged originally.

(Btw, can I write "they were" as "they're"?)

Anonymous

That would be "they are"

Anonymous

Actually, I lied. I think I'd put 上 on the left.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see. It's the same as "He's".

Oh!

Anonymous

Just because that's how all my other books are. :-)

Anonymous

Ascending to the right

Fantasier

17:03

@DamkerngT. Wait, you've got the เจ้าพระยาพระคลัง (หน) version?

Damkerng T.

Yes, a reprinted one.

But it's not complete anymore.

It looks strange when the 上 volume is the topmost one.

Fantasier

I see.

Anonymous

Unless it had like a fancy circle or something printed across the bindings of all 3. I don't think I could live with having my books in reverse order if the binding forced me to put them in a certain order

Damkerng T.

I mean, 上 means down, right?

Anonymous

No

Anonymous

17:05

上 is up :-)

Damkerng T.

No?

Oh, I messed up!

Now I know why they don't make sense to me. Thank you! :-)

Anonymous

Oh, good!

Damkerng T.

It was me that didn't make any sense. Hehe.

Hehe. Now they look neat in their own box. :-)

Anonymous

Yay!

Damkerng T.

In the right order, even!

Nico

17:07

I'm off! Everyone, have a good the weekend!

Damkerng T.

Have a nice weekend!

See you soon!

Fantasier

See you!

Damkerng T.

still happy with the three books :-)

Fantasier

Speaking of this weekend, it's Songkran, so I'm staying home!

Damkerng T.

Me too!

Fantasier

17:09

Sleeping all day!

Anonymous

♪ Sleep, sleep, sleep ♪

Damkerng T.

Hmm... but shouldn't it be a great time for you to have great fun?

Songkran is the best. -- in my memory, I mean. ;-)

Fantasier

No. I'd rather not travel (to other provinces) during this period. It's too crowded...

Damkerng T.

Oh, I'm sure it's very crowded.

But that's the fun part. :-)

Once in Chiang Rai, once in Khon Kaen, twice in Phuket, several times in Chiang Mai.

Most of the times in Bangkok, of course.

My typos. -- sad

Oh, I just learned that "Call it." means "Call the play."

Interesting!

Anonymous

18:14

@DamkerngT. I don't know that phrase.

Anonymous

The latter, I mean

Anonymous

Is it a sports term?

Damkerng T.

It was from a movie. (The Avengers)

One of our answerers mentioned that it was from NFL!

I thought "(You) call it!" means "You makes the call!"

Anonymous

I saw The Avengers.

Damkerng T.

(Whatever that "it" means.)

Yay!

2

Q: Meaning of "call it" in The Avengers

I have been studying English by reading The Avengers script. Here are two passages. The Avengers look up, watching as more Leviathans and hundreds of warriors fly through the portal. — Natasha: G... Guys? — Stark: Call it, Captain. — Captain: All right, listen up. [blah blah] Seeing ...

meaning-in-context pronouns

Anonymous

18:20

Well, there's no implied play there, but they're making an argument about etymology, where the phrases come from

Anonymous

And I can't claim to know where they comes from...

Anonymous

I tried looking through the OED's entry for call just now, but I didn't see a relevant sense

Anonymous

Anyway, it's synchronically unrelated to football.

Damkerng T.

I think bruised reed's answer makes it rather clear about "the play".

Anonymous

msam's answer is the one that, I believe, describes the way the phrase was used in the movie

Damkerng T.

18:22

Very convincing.

I upvoted msam's answer.

Oh, I like this:

By the time means not later than the time; the event in the clause after the phrase doesn't necessarily have to occur before. — Fantasier 1 hour ago

It looked strange to me when the OP tried to assert that by the time ~ before.

It's even more strange that most people on the web seem to agree.

Anonymous

Hmm. The phrase judgment call predate American football

Damkerng T.

I think no(t) later than is much better.

@snailboat I think I heard "You made the call" the first time in the context of one officer talking to a sheriff.

Anonymous

Yeah, people make judgment calls all the time.

Anonymous

That's what "call it" means. In the medical case, too--they make the decision that nothing more can be done and it's time to quit trying

Damkerng T.

nods -- That makes perfect sense.

Anonymous

18:29

@DamkerngT. I agree that "no later" is good

Anonymous

Which is rather close in meaning to "before", but intuitively "no later" seems to fit better.

Damkerng T.

That's what I think.

Anonymous

No later is inclusive, before is exclusive.

Anonymous

"Get here by nine." "Get here before nine."

Damkerng T.

I think people who mentioned that by the time ~ before thought only about the tenses.

@snailboat Agree.

Anonymous

18:31

And what it's inclusive or exclusive of is often more than a single point in time.

Anonymous

Pragmatically speaking, if I ask you to get here before the show start, I probably don't mean seconds before.

Anonymous

Depending on context, I might mean a while before: "Could you get here before the show and help me set up?"

Anonymous

??"Could you get here by the time the show begins and help me set up?"

Damkerng T.

Haha. That's weird.

Anonymous

So the difference can be rather large.

Anonymous

18:34

English from two hundred years ago sounds so different. I always have my head stuck in the imaginary future, with science fiction and such.

Anonymous

Sometime it's the imaginary future of the past, where people have androids but still use rotary phones and have never heard of the internet.

Damkerng T.

Yeah! That's true!

Anonymous

Hello, Ice Girl! You're bouncing in and out of the room a lot.

Damkerng T.

In any case, I love Asimov's Robot Series.

Anonymous

I love a lot of Asimov's writing. Some of my favorite is the original Foundation trilogy (by which I mean the first eight or nine stories, collected in three volumes)

Damkerng T.

18:36

She's blinking (in and out).

Anonymous

But anything with the three laws is classic.

Anonymous

When I hear about the zeroth conditional, it reminds me of the zeroth law.

GATA

Hi all :) Would and could someone help me to describe this painting?

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

Did you read that one?

GATA

18:37

Damkerng T.

Tranquil?

GATA

Is this fine? "The sun light has faded the adjacent area but gradually it get more clear as they distance from the light. "

Anonymous

The Evitable Conflict

"The Evitable Conflict" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the June 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and subsequently appeared in the collections I, Robot (1950), The Complete Robot (1982), and Robot Visions (1990). It features the character Stephen Byerley from the earlier story Evidence. Plot summary The "Machines", powerful positronic computers which are used to optimize the world's economy and production, start giving instructions that appear to go against their function. Although each glitch is minor when taken by itself, the fact that t...

Damkerng T.

reading the evitable conflict

Ice Girl

Hi all

Damkerng T.

18:39

Oh, I don't know that he has it as a separate novel!

Anonymous

Sunlight is typically spelled without a space. Get must be gets to agree with it. Distance isn't appropriate--move away, perhaps? Maybe area around it instead of adjacent area? They has no antecedent

Damkerng T.

Hi

GATA

The sunlight has faded the area around it but gradually it gets more clear as they move away from the light.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I'm not sure if the area around is what you wanted to say.

Anonymous

Hmm. Area around it look clunky with the it three words later

GATA

18:41

Thank you :) I am not sure about "move"

Anonymous

That wasn't a great suggestion on my part

Damkerng T.

Is it the foreground or the background that you think it's faded?

Anonymous

Yeah, I don't know.

Damkerng T.

The question was for GATA. Hehe. :-)

Anonymous

I didn't even read what you said. I was continuing my monologue. ;-)

Damkerng T.

18:42

I see.

Anonymous

So I wasn't trying to answer what GATA thought.

Damkerng T.

I was distracted by the blinking.

GATA

@DamkerngT. I think its not about BG or FG. The whole scene is affected by sun.

Damkerng T.

I see @GATA.

Anonymous

Yeah, that is distracting. Ice Girl, can you fix your computer? :-)

GATA

18:43

I am really confused. I cant describe it properly :)

Anonymous

Me either.

Anonymous

I'm bad at this stuff.

Ice Girl

What do you mean?

Anonymous

How about surrounding area?

Anonymous

@IceGirl You keep joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving and joining and leaving

GATA

18:44

That sounds better I think

Ice Girl

:)

Anonymous

I don't know how to fix it.

Ice Girl

I don't know why

Anonymous

Me either.

Anonymous

Maybe something to do with a network.

Ice Girl

18:45

Maybe

Anonymous

I call it "bouncing". Damkerng calls it "blinking". I wonder what other people call it.

Damkerng T.

I wonder that too. :-)

Anonymous

Split the difference: blouncing.

Anonymous

@IceGirl You stopped blouncing! :-)

Damkerng T.

Or binking

Anonymous

18:48

Maybe the internet is happy again.

GATA

How about this one? The whole scene gets more clear as they are placed farther from sun.

Ice Girl

:)

Anonymous

Although more clear is grammatical, I keep wanting to change it to clearer.

Anonymous

@GATA Are placed is weird.

Anonymous

How formal is this supposed to be?

GATA

18:51

semi-formal :)

Anonymous

My style is relatively informal. One of the things educated language users are supposed to do is to master different formality levels, so they can use formal language and informal language as appropriate.

GATA

It's not important I just want it to sound natural.

Anonymous

But me, my formal English isn't all that great. It always sounds stuffy and unnatural.

Damkerng T.

I wonder how Hemingway would describe such a scenery.

GATA

I wonder how one can describe it :D

Damkerng T.

18:54

I'm sure I couldn't write like him, but I'd love to hear him narrate the scene. If I had to write it, I mean.

Anonymous

@GATA The light of the sun has dulled the surrounding area, but as your eye moves further away the landscape becomes gradually clearer and clearer.

Anonymous

Howzat?

Anonymous

Probably not so great.

Damkerng T.

A few words popped up. refract, glare, fade, whiten, hazy.

Anonymous

I thought of some words.

GATA

18:56

Actually it sound a lot better than mine. Thank you very much :)

Anonymous

But I tried not to use most of them.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That's pretty good!

I give up. I think my eye dialect doesn't work this time.

Better write it normally. :-)

GATA

:)

I think now the inclusion of "move" sounds more natural when you relate it to the eyes movement.

Damkerng T.

Yeah!

Anonymous

If I reduced that's, I'd drop sounds from the beginning: "S'pretty good."

Damkerng T.

18:59

Ahh... S'pretty good!

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