English Language Learners

Awal Garg

15:03

did anyone know, italicizing text decreases the amount of space it uses

Damkerng T.

Probably, I think.

Awal Garg

you can see it practically here

except for ubuntu monospace

Damkerng T.

:-)

Chak De India

15:18

@AwalGarg Namaste!

Awal Garg

@ChakDeIndia pranam

nice user name

Chak De India

Thanks :)

@DamkerngT. any indian movie you remember which was shot in Thailand?

Awal Garg

@ChakDeIndia there could be other derivatives, like don, it would suit me, lol

Damkerng T.

Perhaps not. However, I watched one Chinese movie that shot in Thailand recently.

Chak De India

hahahahaaa.....BOSS... suits me

I am feeling Hungry :-(

Damkerng T.

15:25

Looks like you have a big hungry.

Anyway, please don't eat me. I'm not delicious. Unless you eat metal for breakfast.

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. you are packed in a spacesuit

Damkerng T.

I'm a robomop... mopping the floor... mopping the floor... da dih dah!

Chak De India

XD

@DamkerngT. Tell me some names of good novels like Journey to Centre of Earth & The Canterville Ghost

Damkerng T.

How about other novels by Jules Verne?

Awal Garg

lets follow a series (from a physicists point of view) - golden necklace - made of gold
golden girl - not made of gold (experimental error)
golden lock - made of gold
golden key - made of gold
golden coin - made of gold
golden pen - made of gold
golden mobile - made of gold
golden tree - not made of gold (experimental error)
... and so on
thus, by trial and error, golden anything is almost made of gold
therefore - golden advice is made of gold

Chak De India

15:30

O.o

Awal Garg

@ChakDeIndia you are in 12th standard or something, right

Chak De India

@AwalGarg 9th

@AwalGarg and you?

Awal Garg

@ChakDeIndia passed 12th just now

Chak De India

@AwalGarg Hahahahaa Great! Be Succeed in Future :)

TTYL Bye!

Awal Garg

@ChakDeIndia i am quitting studies now

i am going to become an entrepreneur

lol

Chak De India

15:32

Hahahahahaa

Damkerng T.

You probably need The Time Machine, in case that doesn't work out well.

Awal Garg

@ChakDeIndia I replace I will with I am...

@ChakDeIndia hey, thats not about hahahahaha

i want to spam

but i will not

because this is a public chat room

and, some mods might be watching me

and they will screw me

out of here

out of everywhere

and, i don't want it to happen

so, i would not spam

i just hope one thing

that I am not spamming

And if I am, no one is flagging

because, if someone flags

some mod will come

and banish me

to avoid that thing

Damkerng T.

flags ready... (just kidding :-)

Awal Garg

i would now be outgetting of here

just kidding

but, if anyone wants to spam, i have a nice plan

should I begin?

Damkerng T.

Oh, an ~~evil~~ genius plan!

Awal Garg

15:47

ok, i present a fact

if you repeat a word many times, it will seem wierd

lets try an example

noise

spam

trash trash trash trash trash trash

and see, we just spread noise....

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Awal Garg

hehe hehe hehe hehe hehe hehe (i am not spamming, I am just laughing)

Freeze

16:05

@AwalGarg what is your internet speed?

Anonymous

17:02

@ChakDeIndia "I will I were an entrepreneur!" "I will I had a zillion dollars!"

Damkerng T.

18:48

Hooray! I'm going to get a new iPad!

Because I just dropped the current one on the floor half an hour ago!

sobbing...

Ice Girl

Congratulations!

Don't cry

Damkerng T.

I don't know if I should feel happy.

Ice Girl

@DamkerngT. Good night

Damkerng T.

Um... Do you mean good bye? (Normally, we say "Good night" when we're not going to see the other that day again.)

Ice Girl

Oh, really?

Damkerng T.

18:54

Yes.

However, you can always say "Good evening" (after 6pm).

Ice Girl

I mean good night

anyway

when we're not going to see the other that day again

I don't understand it

Damkerng T.

Let's say that you met your friend in the evening, say 5pm.

Then you spent time with him or her until 6pm.

And then you wanted to leave, and went back to your home.

You could say "Good night!"

Ice Girl

A-ha!

OK

thanks

Damkerng T.

But if you ran into your friend at 9pm, instead of "Hello!", you could say "Good evening!"

No problem. :-)

Ice Girl

okay

:)

Bye for now

:)

Damkerng T.

19:02

Bye!

StoneyB

Hi, DT. I am ingot.

Damkerng T.

Hello, I inbe!

Oh, I've read your answer already. I like it!

StoneyB

You and Awal Garg appear to be creating a new dialect. That's a good thing: it will give employment to the next generation of linguists!

Damkerng T.

I think I will give all the credits to Awal Garg. :-)

StoneyB

Nobody can create a language by himself - he has to have a reader.

Damkerng T.

19:09

That's quite true!

StoneyB

I'm glad you liked the answer. OP, alas, was confused by it, so I went back and three-quarters rewrote it. He hasn't said yet whether it's any less confusing.

Oops, no, that was a different question. I'm getting senile.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I've seen that other question too.

StoneyB

But I was pretty pleased with the whether/if one.

Damkerng T.

Object and objective are tricky. I'm not sure I can use them 100% correctly, but I think I use them closely enough.

@StoneyB It's quite enlightening for me!

Especially the part "condition clauses".

StoneyB

Easy. Use objective for lenses and military targets, and object everywhere else.

Damkerng T.

19:13

Hah! It's that easy?!

StoneyB

I've sort of got conditionals on the brain these days, so I had to get that piece in.

Yes. Most people who use objective for object are just trying to impress you with a Big Word. But one of my favorite old songs goes "My object all sublime / I shall achieve in time: / to make the punishment fit the crime..." Longman picked that "rule" out of -- a place where the sun doesn't shine.

Damkerng T.

Many textbooks nowadays usually list several "objectives" at the beginning of each chapter.

They give the sense of something to achieve (for students) and something measurable, I think.

StoneyB

So they do. The Education Establishment is as verbose as they come. ... Me, I'd write 'goal'.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I like "goal" better.

StoneyB

But some pompous bureaucrat with an M.Ed. would make us change it to objective. Bah.

Likewise pshaw.

CYC

23:07

@DamkerngT. But how could you tell which one is Simple/Progressive? It can be known just case by case?( like "Someone were V-ing when A happened" is different from Someone began V-ing when A happened"

Damkerng T.

Telling if it's in the progressive aspect is easy, because the main verb will have -ing.

However, the progressive aspect can be used in many ways.

In this specific pattern [X were Y-ing when Z happened], the Y-ing is the background that happened before, during, and at least a little while after the time Z happened.

CYC

So it somehow needs some experience to handle, and there is no general Grammar rule?

Damkerng T.

I think grammar rules could be helpful.

However, I didn't acquire these senses through grammar rules.

The link CHL (CoolHandLouis) gave is good, I believe. Link: englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html.

CYC

At least I got some senses now about "when" , like some example we have discuss so far

Damkerng T.

Good!

If you have a grammar book, it should explain the usage of when along with various possible tenses.

In any case, I think Scarcely had John begun speaking when he was again booed by the audience. is not a typical sentence we will find nowadays.

CYC

23:19

That might be the reason I confused...

Damkerng T.

(I needed to imagine quite a bit, before the sentence began to make sense; it's an odd sentence--in meaning, I mean.)

@CYC Very likely.

Invert the sentence back to normal order and replace scarcely by hardly ever might make it easier to understand.

Anonymous

Scarcely had A when/than B is somewhat literary, so you won't generally hear it in conversation, but it's still used

Damkerng T.

> John had hardly ever begun speaking when he was again booed by the audience.

Anonymous

Best to learn it as a pattern, I think.

CYC

What if it is "John begun speaking when he was booed by the audience." ?

Damkerng T.

23:21

@snailboat I think I agree.

CYC

first speak or second, or it is not clear?

Anonymous

@CYC You mean without scarcely or had?

CYC

John begun speaking when he was booed by the audience.

Damkerng T.

I think CYC tried to put both clauses into the simple past.

CYC

First be booed, right?

Anonymous

23:22

John begins, John began, John has begun, John had begun

Damkerng T.

I would say both clauses happened about the same time.

> John began speaking when he was booed by the audience.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Better, but still strange

Anonymous

> John was speaking when he was booed by the audience.　←　Now it has duration and makes sense

CYC

So what's first in the four cases?
John begins, John began, John has begun, John had begun

Stupid question!

Anonymous

@CYC Simple present, simple past, present perfect, past perfect

Anonymous

23:26

@DamkerngT. Your sentence is possible if I interpret it this way: the audience booed John, and that's when he began speaking

CYC

I realized it is a stupid question XD

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That is how I read it.

Anonymous

Please, don't apologize for your question

Damkerng T.

+1

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But with the sense of when we're discussing here, it doesn't make sense.

Damkerng T.

23:28

Eh?

CYC

Thanks you guys for the sense construction, I think I need some rest now, thanks!

Damkerng T.

You're welcome. I'm glad that I can help a bit.

See you soon, and rest well!

Anonymous

"Scarcely had A=[John begun speaking] when B"　←　A gives the time that B occurs
"A=[John began speaking] when B"　←　B gives the time that A occurs

Damkerng T.

Oh, they are two different sentences.

Anonymous

With two different whens

Damkerng T.

23:31

We were just hacking it.

Hmm...

Anonymous

So you can't interpret them in the same fashion

Damkerng T.

Eh, I read them the same way (not the same meaning), and it looked like I read them just fine.

Did I read it incorrectly?

Just to check my understanding, is this sentence possible?

Anonymous

Besides being semantically unlike, they're syntactically unlike. The first one can be replaced with than, but the second one can't. The second one can also be placed clause-initially ("When he was booed by the audience, John began speaking.")

Damkerng T.

The second one is quite ubiquitous, I think.

The first one is perhaps more interesting.

How should we replace it with than?

Anonymous

Well, you can only replace it with than in this fixed phrase.

Anonymous

23:35

(I personally don't really like the than version, but it's fairly well attested)

Damkerng T.

Do you mean using than instead of when?

Wait. Do these two mean roughly the same thing?

> John had hardly ever begun speaking when he was again booed by the audience.

> Scarcely had John begun speaking when he was again booed by the audience.

Anonymous

> Scarcely had the first reports reached Rome than Borgia set to work to determine how he might take advantage of whatever it was that had just happened.
> Scarcely had he overtopped her -- he was a head taller -- than he began to laugh.
> I was a mere tourist at that time, on my maiden visit to the land of the pharaohs; and yet, scarcely had I set foot on that fabled soil than the bright flame of Egyptological fervor was kindled in my bosom, a flame that soon became a roaring conflagration.
> Scarcely had the barrier been sealed than the Eater struck it with force enough to make the door r…

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Your ever gives the first clause an experiential reading

Anonymous

That changes it.

Anonymous

Did you mean to type even?

Damkerng T.

23:41

I read it as "from some time earlier until the time the booing (again) happened", John had hardly ever (or scarcely) begun speaking.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. John started to speak (maybe he managed to say a few words?), and then the audience booed him again.

Damkerng T.

Hmm...

Anonymous

Scarcely had John begun speaking when X.　=　John had only just started to speak, and then X occurred.

Damkerng T.

trying to apply this thought to all other sentences above...

Anonymous

Scarcely had X when/than Y = only a very short time after X occurs, Y occurs

Damkerng T.

23:45

So [Scarcely had X when/than Y = X didn't quite actually occur yet, Y occurs before] ?

Anonymous

Y occurs after X.

Anonymous

Just barely (= "scarcely") after X.

Damkerng T.

That is what I meant.

X was about to occur.

Y interrupted.

Anonymous

No.

Anonymous

X occurred.

Anonymous

23:46

Y occurs afterwards.

Anonymous

I mean, in this case, it interrupted the speaking. But it occurs after the speaking begins, which is X.

Damkerng T.

The example wasn't good for beginners because it has both the pattern, and it has begin/begun in it.

Let's try this one:

> Scarcely had American troops returned home from Kuwait than America's historic rival, the Soviet Union, collapsed.

Ah, I see what I thought.

X should have happened before Y, but did not.

Because Y happened first.

Eh?

That doesn't mean what you said.

Anonymous

American troops returned home in June 1991. The Soviet Union collapsed shortly thereafter in December 1991.

Damkerng T.

Using either than or when won't change its meaning, right?

Anonymous

As far as I'm aware they're the same in this particular construction.

Damkerng T.

23:51

nods

Anonymous

So X happened shortly before Y.

Damkerng T.

Oh I see. Scarcely modifies had!

Anonymous

It's a fossilized word order.

Damkerng T.

I think I can make sense of it now.

It's almost exactly the opposite of what I thought.

Anonymous

American troops had scarcely (= "barely") returned home from Kuwait than (= "when")

Damkerng T.

23:53

Because I tried to use scarcely to modify the main verb, but it would be better if I thought of scarcely had as a unit.

> American troops [had (almost) not] returned home from Kuwait than ...

implies

> American troops had returned home from Kuwait before ...

Anonymous

I don't understand the not

Anonymous

Ah

Damkerng T.

I just pushed the degree of scarcely up to absolute not. :-)

And it seems to make sense (to me).

Anonymous

But in all cases X is true

Anonymous

"Scarcely had I gotten in the door when Y" ← X is true. I had gotten in the door. A very short time after that, Y occurs.

Damkerng T.

23:57

Yes, I think of the pattern as saying something (almost) oppositely to the truth.

Anonymous

Yes, the way I see it, scarcely minimizes the amount of time that passes

Damkerng T.

> [ X happened when Y happened ] is false (as indicated by scarcely)

Anonymous

What?

Anonymous

No, X happened then Y happened is true.

Anonymous

You changed it to when! :-)

Damkerng T.

23:58

> So [ X happened before Y happened ] is true!

Anonymous

Yes

Anonymous

But it expresses the amount of time between the two, which scarcely minimizes

Damkerng T.

(I was in the process of thinking. Errors are unavoidable. :-)

Anonymous

It's only barely true, because the amount of time is very small.

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes, because scarcely = almost not

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