English Language Learners

Anonymous

03:00

5

The first thing came to my mind was those small trees that grow from those cracks in the walls or pavement. Why? Because I got some of them myself! NOTE: If I don't pull them off, they will grow really fast. So, yes, they rooted indeed! I believe that seams can be used so in your sentence be...

Anonymous

Hey, that's what I pictured, too! :-)

Parth Kohli

04:03

@DamkerngT. Good morning.

Parth Kohli

10:25

@skullpatrol Hello.

skullpatrol

@ParthKohli Hi

Parth Kohli

@skullpatrol how're you?

skullpatrol

@ParthKohli Fine thanks, how are you?

Parth Kohli

@skullpatrol lol, I'm "OK"

skullpatrol

:D

Parth Kohli

10:37

@skullpatrol OS.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hehe. This is the first time I answered an ELL question using my new iPad. :D

Hi @ParthKohli!

Hi @skullpatrol!

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. Congratulations! Air or Mini?

skullpatrol

@DamkerngT. Hi pal :D

Damkerng T.

@ParthKohli It's Air!

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. That's great!

Damkerng T.

10:42

Yeah! I just realized that its camera is much better than my old one!

Parth Kohli

Enjoy the experience. :)

Damkerng T.

Thanks. :-)

Parth Kohli

Oh, which one did you have before this one?

Damkerng T.

It's an iPad 2.

Parth Kohli

Oh - you must also have noticed the screen resolution itself. iPad 2 doesn't have a retina display and is heavy as hell.

Damkerng T.

10:44

Yes, but I kinda like iPad 2 pixels too. Kinda retro. Hehe.

But iPad Air brightness is better. I mean, it's now way too bright as iPad 2.

Parth Kohli

iOS 8 is going to be announced within weeks!

Damkerng T.

Oh, I don't know that. Thanks for the news.

Parth Kohli

Apple has announced WWDC for June 2 this year.

skullpatrol

and the iPhone 6 is coming soon

Parth Kohli

Yes, but the next iPhone is going to be announced nearly when iOS 8 is launched publicly.

Which is September-October.

Damkerng T.

10:47

Will iPhone 6 be able to fly?

skullpatrol

faster than a speeding bullet

Damkerng T.

:)

Parth Kohli

lol

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hooray! I just answered a question on my desktop computer again. Hopefully it's not missing any esses ;-)

Parth Kohli

There's something very stupid about the transparent iPhone concept design: the phone isn't gonna be hollow!

Damkerng T.

10:48

@snailboat Yay! Not missing any esses is very important.

Anonymous

It's so you can see the unreplaceable battery inside, taunting you.

Parth Kohli

@snailboat hahaha

skullpatrol

OK guys I gotta go, see ya :-)

Damkerng T.

@ParthKohli Don't tell me that they're gonna make it transparent.

Parth Kohli

@skullpatrol No! You are my knight!

Damkerng T.

10:49

@skullpatrol See you. Have a nice day!

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. That's what the "leaked designs" say. That's what they say every year.

Anonymous

@skullpatrol Fare thee well, skull patrol!

Parth Kohli

There's no way to make it transparent.

skullpatrol

Have fun and stay out of trouble

Parth Kohli

@skullpatrol I hope I do!

skullpatrol

10:50

@ParthKohli try

Damkerng T.

:)

Parth Kohli

It's been an adventurous week for me.

Anonymous

Oh, ELL is fun. I hope people don't mind my answers being too technical from time to time :-)

Damkerng T.

Maybe iPhone 12 will be able to do those Transformers things. :D

Oh, we can have code in bold too!

Anonymous

You sure can.

Parth Kohli

10:52

How do you format code again?

code

Aha.

Anonymous

You can't do it in chat.

Anonymous

Damkerng was referring to an answer on ELL.

Parth Kohli

StoneyB's rep is pretty good for a forum that's only in beta.

Anonymous

StoneyB is a solid contributor with a large number of answers.

Damkerng T.

nods

Parth Kohli

10:54

Yes, he's been here ever since ELL started.

Anonymous

And he has an awful lot of upvotes for his good answers.

Parth Kohli

I'm not good with reasoning -- I just know that something is. That is why I'm not too regular with ELL.

Anonymous

Sure. Not everyone has to take a technical approach to language.

Anonymous

Knowing that something is is a great skill.

Damkerng T.

nods

Parth Kohli

10:58

@snailboat Good to hear.

IIRC, you were there that day too.

Anonymous

I don't remember that day.

Parth Kohli

@snailboat Thank God you don't.

Anonymous

@ParthKohli Um, yippee? :-)

Fantasier

I'm hungry.

(Out of the blue)

Anonymous

Would you say that you need food badly?

Fantasier

11:00

I think I'm hungry, not starving :P

Damkerng T.

Of all of our avatars, I think only one is edible.

3

Anonymous

Um.

Damkerng T.

:D

Fantasier

I think humans are edible, too.

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. LOL.

Anonymous

11:01

Ahem.

Fantasier

Wait what.

Damkerng T.

I mean the banana. :D

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. So subtle. Loved it.

Damkerng T.

@ParthKohli Thanks. Hehe.

Anonymous

I believe that we can come up with at least two different analyses for the sentence. If we treated "look at" as a phrasal verb, then "him" would be the (direct) object of the verb "to look at". On the other hand, if we treated "look" as a verb, and "at" as a preposition, then this "look" wold be an intransitive verb, that is, it has no object. And in this case, if we wanted to say "him" is an object of anything, it would have to be the object of the preposition "at", which is perhaps not useful for learners at large. I'm fine with either analysis. Imo, sometimes, analysis is not very useful. — Damkerng T. 20 hours ago

Damkerng T.

11:04

Oh, I wrote that yesterday.

I think the original sentence was I looked at him.

Anonymous

Look at is not a verb + particle combination, which we can tell because it doesn't exhibit particle shift (look at the bird, *look the bird at). Nor is it non-compositional, so it's not an idiom.

Damkerng T.

(Not sure about the tense.)

Anonymous

So there's no justification to apply the label phrasal verb

Damkerng T.

I think it might be used in the sense of "I studied him."

Though it's quite unlikely.

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. "I studied him" sounds way too intimate...

Damkerng T.

11:09

@snailboat Hmm... This is interesting. I haven't thought before that phrasal verbs would allow both patterns: V P noun and V noun P.

Parth Kohli

This person's bio is crazy.

> Physics and chemistry teacher.
I love classical music and languages.
I speak French, English, German, Spanish, Italian and Turkish; now learning Japanese.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Turn the lamp on. Turn on the lamp.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yes, but is it always the case (to be qualified as a phrasal verb)?

Fantasier

Repost!

6

A: Difference between verb+preposition and phrasal verbs

There are several types of phrasal verb, and several types of verb + preposition. Not all of them are constituents, they serve different functions, they're all irregular as hell, and they're all governed by the matrix verb. Every verb has its own assortment of special idioms, affordances, prohi...

Damkerng T.

Have to go for a while; will come back later.

Anonymous

11:10

That's the main justification for calling on a particle, that on the lamp doesn't appear to form a preposition phrase

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Your earlier question did not imply this question

Santi Santichaivekin

11:22

็Hi~

Fantasier

Hello

Santi Santichaivekin

A coup A coup!!!

Parth Kohli

@SantiSantichaivekin Are you from India?

Fantasier

@ParthKohli He's a Thai.

Santi Santichaivekin

Nope, Thailand. ^ ^

Parth Kohli

11:25

@Fantasier Oh - why are most of the people here Thai?

Fantasier

Because we planned to take over this site :)

Parth Kohli

Hahaha

Santi Santichaivekin

well, @Fantasier invited me. =b.

A coup is happening right at this moment ^ ^. I hope I will have no school tomorrow.

Parth Kohli

A COUP?!

I THOUGHT IT WASN'T A COUP.

Fantasier

IT WASN'T.

NOW IT IS.

Parth Kohli

11:32

D:

Fantasier

It's actually about an hour ago.

I thought you knew it. Breaking news everywhere.

Parth Kohli

That's not the breaking news in India.

But I'm reading articles on it.

Earlier, it was not really a coup, right?

Fantasier

It wasn't.

Santi Santichaivekin

maybe I should change is happening to is taking place, it sounds more appropriate.

Fantasier

I'd personally say 'we're having a coup at the moment'.

Parth Kohli

11:35

OK, I see.

Anonymous

Yikes!

Anonymous

@Fantasier That does sound rather calm. Like "There's an interesting show on the television right now."

Santi Santichaivekin

@ParthKohli I think you read an article on martial law in Thailand.

Parth Kohli

@SantiSantichaivekin Yup, I did.

Anonymous

"We're having a coup at the moment. Maybe a spot of tea later on--oh, and the kids have soccer practice this afternoon."

3

Santi Santichaivekin

11:36

I mean in an article about Thailand.

Fantasier

@snailboat Oh, I didn't realise how that sounded, but it's actually quite calm for most people.

Parth Kohli

@snailboat Hahah!

Fantasier

We somehow got used to it, which is not a good thing, of course.

Santi Santichaivekin

@Fantasier me too

Fantasier

Anyway, I think I should refrain from talking about that from this point :-)

Santi Santichaivekin

11:40

@Fantasier Hmmn? Why?

Anonymous

Ahh

Fantasier

@SantiSantichaivekin Hmm, why not? I mean, I don't think it's appropriate to talk about anything political here, let alone a coup.

Anonymous

You may talk about politics if you so desire.

Anonymous

I avoid doing so most of the time

Fantasier

No. I don't like it. Often leads to unnecessary conflicts.

Anonymous

11:43

I understand.

Anonymous

I avoid it, too, a lot of the time.

Parth Kohli

It's a democratic system here, but it doesn't work too well.

Anonymous

Do they ever?

Parth Kohli

lol.

Which system do you prefer?

Anonymous

Oh, I don't disprefer democracy.

Anonymous

11:46

I just don't think it works very often ;-)

Parth Kohli

I hold the same opinion. Which system works the best according to you?

Anonymous

This talking about politics stuff is a slippery slope. If we keep talking about politics, soon we'll be talking about politics! And we know where that leads.

Parth Kohli

Don't worry, I'm not a political debater. I just like to know a thing or two. :)

Anonymous

Hey, that's exactly how many things I know!

Parth Kohli

Hahaha.

Damkerng T.

12:03

@Fantasier Thanks. Bookmarked! -- digesting...

@snailboat I think I didn't phrase my question well enough. :-)

@Fantasier +1

Parth Kohli

"Do you believe in God?"
"No."
BOOM! Dead.
"Do you believe in God?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe in my God?
"No."
BOOM! Dead

Damkerng T.

I know about a handful of Hindu Gods.

Parth Kohli

Hindi = language. Hindu = religion.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I'm sorry about that.

Fixed. :-)

Parth Kohli

No offense taken, lol.

Damkerng T.

12:11

Anyway, whatever happened, I'm glad that I still have my internet connection.

Very important.

Parth Kohli

Hehe.

How's the scene outside your home? Is it chaotic or just normal?

Damkerng T.

Looks rather normal, I think.

A new announcement is coming up.

Parth Kohli

I see.

Anonymous

@ParthKohli This looks like a tough quiz!

Damkerng T.

Nothing new in the news.

Parth Kohli

12:15

@snailboat :)

Damkerng T.

12:48

RIP my cable.

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. Which cable?

Damkerng T.

Umm... my cable TV.

Parth Kohli

The cable television?

Oh.

Let's just hope that this is the worst caused by the coup.

Damkerng T.

I think they know that I should spend more time on ELL. :-)

Santi Santichaivekin

@ParthKohli Did I mention the curfew?

Damkerng T.

12:51

Ah, this is English related.

Parth Kohli

@SantiSantichaivekin Oh, you didn't. Well - that's bad.

Damkerng T.

National Peace and Order Maintaining Council

Santi Santichaivekin

@ParthKohli actually not so bad, just at night.

Anonymous

I feel like I should be able to find a pattern in all of X versus all of the X, but I can't, so I withdrew my answer for the moment.

Anonymous

At least in the OP's case, both seem just fine.

Damkerng T.

13:04

PEU explains it adequately, I think.

Entry 36.

Anonymous

Oh, does it?

Anonymous

Just a moment.

Anonymous

Yeah, that seems all right.

Anonymous

It says that both are possible. I didn't consider the pronoun case separatelyy.

Damkerng T.

Yes. So I wonder about the reasons GrammarMonster gave.

Anonymous

13:10

I edited my answer.

Anonymous

I've seen other iffy advice on GrammarMonster.

Anonymous

They sometimes give "baby rules", sometimes saying at the side that they're not actually "rules"

Anonymous

This is one of those cases

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

And also, this is my first time citing PEU, ever! I knew I got that book for some reason! ;-)

Damkerng T.

13:14

Yay!

Parth Kohli

PEU?

Anonymous

Michael Swan's Practical English Usage

Anonymous

It's a pedagogical grammar.

Parth Kohli

Oh, I've heard of that book!

Damkerng T.

My main grammar book. :-)

Anonymous

13:16

I usually refer to reference grammars, which may be why my answers end up with random jargon :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Thanks for the pointer!

Anonymous

I flipped through CGEL but I couldn't find it.

Damkerng T.

No problem. I was looking it up because of Maulik's reply.

Anonymous

It may be in there somewhere. It's hard to find stuff sometimes.

Damkerng T.

I'm sure it is in there. :D

Anonymous

13:20

Hey, Quirk et al. has some finer-grained rules.

Anonymous

They say all of the is strange with time-reference nouns:

Anonymous

> ? all of the day/hour/week

Damkerng T.

Oh! Interesting!

Anonymous

> I haven't seen him all day / the whole day / *all the day / *all of the day.

Damkerng T.

A little curious, is whole day (without the) possible?

Anonymous

13:24

Not generally

Damkerng T.

nods

I think I must be confused by the sound of all day in some dialects.

Anonymous

All day is fine. Whole day is strange.

Anonymous

Whole comes after a determiner like a or the

Anonymous

All is a determiner

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That's what I'm used to too.

I don't know where that sound "whole day" in the back of my mind came from.

Anonymous

13:29

Cool Hand Louis owes no allegience to any terminological nation.

Anonymous

He just said that gold 1) is an adjective 2) is a modifier 3) can act like an adjective 4) is a noun adjunct 5) is an attributive noun

Damkerng T.

What made you say that? :-)

Anonymous

All in one paragraph!

Damkerng T.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Awal Garg

@snailboat do you teach?

Anonymous

13:31

Whatever, I upvoted it. +1 for making my head explode.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Wow! That's an awful lot!

Anonymous

@AwalGarg I'm just a snailboat.

Damkerng T.

Um... I don't understand why the other answer was deleted.

Awal Garg

@snailboat a snail is not a boat, the vice-versa as well is untrue. The combination of the two, well... its kinda oxymoron. I know you must be a teacher. And your students must be brilliant :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't know why J.R. deleted it.

Anonymous

13:37

@AwalGarg Janthinidae are boatlike snails with brilliant violet shells. They fashion rafts out of bubbles and use them to float on the surface of the ocean

Anonymous

Awal Garg

@snailboat see, as I said. It is kinda oxymoron. To quote you to yourself: "They are boat- like structures..."

@snailboat oh such a beautiful snail that is :) I wish I had one at home.

@snailboat how do I get one of that at my place?

Damkerng T.

I think technically, "How to ..." or "What to use ..." is not a question.

But it's common to see such questions.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, it's common to see such interrogative clauses

Anonymous

13:53

@AwalGarg I'm not sure. I don't have any sea snails.

Awal Garg

what does he mean? ell.stackexchange.com/questions/23994/…

Anonymous

I have no idea.

Damkerng T.

Sounds like parallel computing.

My best guess: MU = multi-user, SU = single-user

Somehow I think multiuser looks fine, but singleuser doesn't.

Anonymous

That's because multi- is a prefix, but single isn't.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Fantasier

14:03

Is there a prefix that means single used as opposed to multi-?

Damkerng T.

Wait, I missed the last announcement.

But I think schools are closed now.

Fantasier

That's for sure.

Damkerng T.

Did they say for how long?

Fantasier

I didn't catch it either.

Anonymous

@Fantasier uni-

Fantasier

14:05

Oh my friend tweeted; it's '23-25 May'

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Fantasier

@snailboat I see!

Anonymous

Uni- : multi- :: mono- : poly- (more or less)

Damkerng T.

In this case, I think uniuser sounds weird.

Anonymous

That's because single user is the set alternative to multi-user in computing

Anonymous

14:08

And also because uniuser sounds funny.

Anonymous

Things that sound funny often sound weird as a consequence.

Anonymous

It works the other way around, too.

Damkerng T.

:) True, that!

Hmm... many of my tweet feeds are dead now.

Well, they're not dead as in RIP, but nothing new on the feeds for a while already.

Fantasier

Huh, mine still goes like crazy.

(Oh well I follow 305 people :P)

Damkerng T.

I'm sure we monitor different feeds. :D

Fantasier

14:20

We're actually watching the same feed. Because I'm behind you right now!

(No, actually.)

Damkerng T.

:D

Fantasier

(That'd be real creepy)

Damkerng T.

Oh, now there's a rumor that the net will be gone at 10pm.

Fantasier

Before there was a rumour that it would be gone at 8pm.

Probably at 10pm there will be another one saying it will be gone at midnight.

Damkerng T.

LOL

I think it's much more difficult than the old days, when we still didn't have the Internet.

Fantasier

14:30

What is (much more difficult)?

Damkerng T.

The actions needed. When I was young, radio and TV stations were enough. :-)

Hmm... I think sometimes, we couldn't use phones too. (Mobile phone didn't exist yet, of course.)

So it was very different back then.

Fantasier

Hmm. I see.

Is there a good alternative to 'I see'? I can't think of any :-P

Damkerng T.

I think I see is fine. :D

Hey, this is my fifth, so I've got some experience, I think.

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. Me too.

But I'm just looking for other ways to say it.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier I can think of an alternative: "I can imagine that."

Fantasier

14:38

@DamkerngT. Oh, that works, I think.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I don't know the word (in English) for this thing, the text that runs at the bottom of TV screen. Does running text work?

Fantasier

I forgot what it's called.

Moving text? Seems just as weird...

Anonymous

News ticker

A news ticker, sometimes called a "crawler" or "slide", resides in the lower third of the television screen space on television news networks dedicated to presenting headlines or minor pieces of news. It may also refer to a long, thin scoreboard-style display seen around the front of some offices or public buildings. The news ticker has been used in Europe in countries such as United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland for some years, and they are also used in several Asian countries and Australia. In the United States, tickers were long used on a special event basis by broadcast television sta...

Damkerng T.

Ahh... Thanks!

That's the word I was looking for!

Actually, I should've known it; stock tickers are common.

But ticker didn't come up.

In another post,

Odd; this is certainly less detailed than snailplane's answer, but how is it incorrect or downvote-worthy? — Alexander 17 mins ago

I think he has a point. But maybe "This is one of those circumstances and being in written form does not change this." got him a downvote.

I think I might need to look up some style guides I can access.

Anonymous

14:55

I don't know. I just upvoted because it looks fine to me :-) — snailplane 28 secs ago

Damkerng T.

Oh, if my internet was gone, how could I access my 34-thousand books?!

Anonymous

That's a large number of books.

Damkerng T.

Yes. I know I won't be able to read all of them. :D

Anonymous

I wish I had more books. I miss some of the books I accidentally parted with last year. :-(

Anonymous

My books are there for me, though, internet or no.

Anonymous

14:57

I love paper :-)

Damkerng T.

Now I can see one advantage of paper books over ebooks. :-)

Anonymous

I can access Martin 1975 on Google Books. I can only read randomly selected passages there

Anonymous

But I can use it as a search function then retreat to my paper copy :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, that's a good way to search paper books. I will borrow this trick of yours. :D

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