English Language Learners

Anonymous

17:00

I've noticed that speakers of Indian English are sometimes more keen on titles than I'd expect. I've been knighted several times in this chat room alone.

Awal Garg

Thats why I dream of a world where everyone follows the same culture...

Fantasier

That'd be kind of boring.

Anonymous

Which is always awkward.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yes, sir.

:D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Don't make me frown at you.

Anonymous

17:01

I'll do it.

Anonymous

Not bluffing!

Damkerng T.

I was just trying to demonstrate a bad usage. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well done! Please refrain ;-)

Nico

Time to go! Bye! (making like a foetus and heading out) }:>

Awal Garg

@Nico bye!

Anonymous

17:02

Well!

Damkerng T.

Have a nice evening! See you soon!

Anonymous

I must admit I'm nonplussed

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Gotcha.

Awal Garg

ok, back in there just 1 last time. Is it ok if I just say - "Stop it." no titles?

Damkerng T.

It sounds like our @AwalGarg would like to woo or court someone. :-)

@AwalGarg Prolly.

Awal Garg

17:04

assuming I am obviously in a convo with that very person...

@DamkerngT. haha, you!

ok. Its enough of serious business for today...

Lets talk fun.

I wanna say - "Busy-ness"

Anonymous

@Nico I like the tree version better.

Awal Garg

so, probably, it should be "bus'i'ness"

but, it isn't. why?

Damkerng T.

}:> <-- looks like a moose.

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. it looks like a random arrangement of symbols used to make emoticons.

Damkerng T.

@AwalGarg You mean, bus-eye-ness?

Anonymous

17:07

People put words together all the time.

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. y-e-s-s

@snailboat to make sentences?

Anonymous

No, from pieces. Like, let's say, busy and -ness. Some hundred years back, people put those two together

Anonymous

It ended up spelled business, but it also took on a new meaning.

Anonymous

So it was no longer simply the combination of busy and -ness.

Anonymous

When this happens, we say the combination is lexicalized. That is, it's has become a "lexical item". It needs its own entry in a dictionary to explain it, because you can't figure out what it means from busy and -ness

Awal Garg

17:09

so, if I wanna make a "busy" translation of the word "trueness", then how will we spell it according the ~~damn~~ rules of linguistics?

Anonymous

There's lots of examples. Like disgruntled. It needs its own entry in the dictionary because you can't put it together from dis- and other stuff.

Anonymous

Business is one such example. Busyness is a more recent coinage which is intended to have the meaning you'd expect from -ness, but it's somewhat clumsy and people prefer to work around the problem by rephrasing

Awal Garg

@snailboat but, busyness breaks rules, doesn't it?

Anonymous

collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/busyness

Awal Garg

gotta go. power died. bye!!

Anonymous

17:12

See you!

Damkerng T.

See you soon!

Anonymous

Busyness is distinguished in writing by spelling, and in speech by the middle vowel (which is, I think, obligatorily reduced by syncope in business)

Anonymous

But it's a clumsy word and I wouldn't use it unless I were forced to.

Damkerng T.

Strange. I've just heard a tall beer in Django Unchained, but there was no glass, I think. It's in a bottle.

Anonymous

I don't know about beer height.

Anonymous

17:14

May your beers be tall and in a hand!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods -- I think I don't like busyness much; but some people might know how to use it creatively.

@snailboat LOL

Anonymous

Hey. If you were to hold a bird in your hand, but put your hand inside a bush, would the bird then have the value of an unbounded number of birds?

Damkerng T.

I think it depends on whether I put the same hand I want to hold a bird inside a bush or not.

If it were the same hand, it would be fair to say it's an unbounded number of birds, I think. :D

Oh, Django Unchained has lots of interesting songs, including rap ones.

Anonymous

I'm not familiar with that

Damkerng T.

I mean, the most challenging thing for me in listening tasks seems to be the rap music. :D

I could use some of rap songs in the movie.

Anonymous

17:29

I don't listen to much rap, myself

Damkerng T.

Oh, it looks like we really have a voting problem.

Anonymous

Yeah?

Damkerng T.

The best of my last three answers got +3.

Yours is +5, jimsug's is +3.

Anonymous

Hey, I'm 2/3rds of the way to getting that 1000 back.

Anonymous

I'm at -326 rep for the week :-)

Damkerng T.

17:31

You got a lot of votes from that "a... a... a..." question. :D

Anonymous

→ ell.stackexchange.com/users/230/…

Anonymous

I have two answers at only one vote

Anonymous

And six answers at only two votes

Damkerng T.

I mean I expected a user like jimsug to get more than +3 on average.

And me is somewhere between +2 and +3.

It looks like it dropped a bit.

Anonymous

Eh.

Damkerng T.

17:33

I expected you'd get +5 or above on average.

Anonymous

My average, for the last 25 answers, is +6.6

Damkerng T.

See, that's in line with my estimates. :D

Anonymous

I think that when you have more rep, people upvote you more often.

Anonymous

So there's a bit of feedback.

Damkerng T.

I think it's not only that; the quality and style of answers are the factors too.

Anonymous

17:35

I don't think it's only that. But I think that newer users, on average, who write good content, don't get as many votes. 　←　Which of these commas should I kill?

Anonymous

Commapocalypse!

Damkerng T.

If you told me to delete one, I might choose to delete the one before on average.

Actually, I think your sentence reads fine without any commas at all.

Anonymous

> But I think that newer users on average who write good content don't get as many votes.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

> But I think that on average newer users who write good content don't get as many votes.

Anonymous

17:38

> But I think that, on average, newer users who write good content don't get as many votes.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That's even better.

@snailboat This one seems good enough to be in some published paper. :)

Anonymous

Hah!

Anonymous

Since I'm a terrible writer, I'll take that as a compliment. :-)

Damkerng T.

I believe you can say that, though I don't rather agree with the "terrible" part, maybe "terrific" is better. :D

Tea time! brb

Anonymous

I think that I too will Tea time! brb.

Jasper Loy

17:46

I see this chat is dominated by you two, lol.

Damkerng T.

Hi!

Damkerng T.

18:11

blog.stackoverflow.com/2014/05/…

What should I make of it?

Anonymous

I don't know. The proposal doesn't do anything to help sites like ELL or JLSE

Anonymous

But there are other things mentioned in that post, so I can't be certain which you're referring to

Jasper Loy

Anyone here can approve edits?

I am trying to get my rep to be a multiple of 5, lol.

Anonymous

Yes, we can.

Jasper Loy

Ah maybe you can take a look at my edit here ell.stackexchange.com/questions/24549/…

Anonymous

18:16

There you go

Jasper Loy

OK, I will try to aim for 200 rep and then retire, lol. But I will try to keep my accounts instead of delete them

Anonymous

→ matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/2497/…

Anonymous

You could change substracting to subtracting here

Jasper Loy

@snailboat OK I will work on it

Anonymous

It's too minor an edit, so the site won't let me make it :-)

Jasper Loy

18:19

Ah I see. I joined that site because they migrated my post there, lol

Damkerng T.

> Essentially, we are scaring legitimate, thoughtful people away from getting help. That’s one side of the problem. Additionally, some of our best users are getting more frustrated than we want them to be and (importantly) expressing that it’s hard for them to find questions that they want to answer.

Though I'm not sure about how their solutions will help our sites

I think we share the same problems.

s/sites/stack/

Damkerng T.

18:37

@JasperLoy It's nice to see your new avatar! :-)

Jasper Loy

@DamkerngT. Oh yeah, the default one is nice this time, so I kept it

Damkerng T.

:)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It won't.

Anonymous

And to some extent, yeah, we do.

Anonymous

The average quality of a question on Q&A sites is pretty low, though

Anonymous

18:43

You have to draw a line somewhere, and on some level the act of rejecting a question is never going to be nice

Anonymous

No matter how nice you are about it

Anonymous

Some of the mechanisms built into SE are negative in nature, too, like downvotes

Anonymous

Say, did you read this? medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/aad9d49da238

Damkerng T.

@snailboat reading...

Oh, it looks like a nice article. Thanks!

It's indeed a vicious circle.

No, they used the term a vicious spiral.

Anonymous

Yeah, one of them vicious round things

Anonymous

18:54

Round things can be virtuous, too.

Damkerng T.

Like wheels. :D

Anonymous

"We were trapped in a virtuous wheel, always spinning, spinning, spinning toward justice!"

Damkerng T.

Whoever said that, I thank them. It gives us hope.

> “Given that users who receive no feedback post less frequently, a potentially effective strategy could be to ignore undesired behaviour and provide no feedback at all,”

Interesting.

Is that what happened to some of my answers? :-)

(When they got no votes at all.)

Jasper Loy

There is usually nobody in the math educators chat lol

Damkerng T.

@JasperLoy It's not the same stack as the Math.SE, right?

I'd like to note that you don't need difficult words to demonstrate this feature of English. Most beginners know how to pronounce Bye!, by, and baby. Just point this out for them would work. :-) — Damkerng T. 29 secs ago

Jasper Loy

19:03

@DamkerngT. Nope

Damkerng T.

Somehow I think repeating the verb twice in two different tenses reads better. For example, I might say, "I have (always) trusted, and hopefully will (be able to) continue to trust you" It's just my opinion, anyway. — Damkerng T. 1 min ago

Hmm... Maybe I should convert that into an answer.

Anonymous

Maaaybe.

Anonymous

In this situation you could get away with some coordination of unlikes, too.

Damkerng T.

Already posted it. :)

Anonymous

Not that I'm recommending it :-)

Anonymous

19:18

A-ha!

Anonymous

I hopefully will be able to continue to trust you is a little long-winded for me

Damkerng T.

I think the sentence could be read in several ways. One way I think I might like is a very emphatic version: "I have always TRUSTED [pause] and hopefully will be able to continue to TRUST [pause] YOU." (The YOU part is not as emphasized as TRUSTED/TRUST, but it's not dimmed.)

Anonymous

The OP's example is right out, though.

Damkerng T.

I think I hopefully will continue to might sound better.

Anonymous

*hopefully will always trusted

Anonymous

19:20

> I have always trusted and hopefully will always trust you.

Anonymous

This is okay.

Anonymous

> *I always have, and hopefully will continue to trust you.

Anonymous

This is worse. (Sorry, FumbleFingers!)

Anonymous

I wouldn't call that grammatical.

Anonymous

Is Why so sure? really a common idiom? I can't specifically recall having heard it

Damkerng T.

19:29

Me either. It looks like it's common enough for many people, though.

Anonymous

I can think of lots of examples of Why so X? but sure doesn't fit in that slot for me

Anonymous

I find zero examples of this common idiom in COCA

Damkerng T.

Ahh... Why so serious? -- I remember this one.

Anonymous

Yep! And Why so glum?

Jasper Loy

Why so X is just short for Why are you so X

Anonymous

19:45

Sorta.

Damkerng T.

I've a short clip (2 minutes long) I'd like to have my transcription checked. If that's okay with you.

Anonymous

Most of the time, you can take it as ellipsis of a verb and a subject. If you do, then you have to supply different ones in different contexts.

Damkerng T.

It's a very famous clip, I think. It's iPhone 4 unveiled: youtube.com/watch?v=wn3OCIcE8ds

Anonymous

"Drum Hadley has a lot of friends." "Why ~~does he have~~ so many?" "Because I need them."

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think it's ellipsis.

> For 2010, we're gonna take the biggest leap since the original iPhone.
[*Whoo! Whoohoo! -- applause*]

And so today, today, we're introducing iPhone 4,
[*Whoohoo! -- applause*]

the 4th generation iPhone.

Now, this is really hard,
[*laughter*]
and there are... there are well over a hundred new features and we don't have time to cover all of them today. So I get to cover eight of them with you. Eight new features of the iPhone 4. The first one, an "All new design".
[*clapping*]
Now, stop me before I'd've already seen this.

I think I found a good example of people who "Wow-a-lot" all the time. :D

Anonymous

19:57

This is really hot, not this is really hard

Damkerng T.

I thought of hot too, but I wasn't sure. Thanks 1. :D

Anonymous

Stop me if you've already seen this

Damkerng T.

Ahh... that one is hard for me. Thanks 2.

Anonymous

You've got to see this thing in person

Anonymous

One of the most beautiful designs

Damkerng T.

19:59

Oh, I haven't heard that 've. Thanks 3 and 4.

Anonymous

One of the most beautiful things we've ever made

Damkerng T.

Thanks 5!

Anonymous

The precision of which this is made

Anonymous

Is beyond any consumer product

Anonymous

Is like a beautiful old

Damkerng T.

20:00

@snailboat I think he said it twice, maybe is and then it's.

Anonymous

It's unheard of in consumer products today

Anonymous

No, he says is twice

Damkerng T.

Ahh... Thanks. Thanks 6-10!

Anonymous

Apparently the camera brand is spelled Leica

Anonymous

I had to look that up

Anonymous

20:02

Geogous should be spelled gorgeous

Damkerng T.

Thanks 11 and 12!

Anonymous

His phrase beyond the doubt strikes me as unusual

Anonymous

Some of your punctuation would need to change.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Eh? Isn't it common? Please tell me about the punctuation.

Anonymous

Umm

Anonymous

20:04

Do you have an updated version of the transcription? :-)

Damkerng T.

Here goes.

> For 2010, we're gonna take the biggest leap since the original iPhone.
[*Whoo! Whoohoo! -- applause*]

And so today, today, we're introducing iPhone 4,
[*Whoohoo! -- applause*]

the 4th generation iPhone.

Now, this is really hot,
[*laughter*]
and there are... there are well over a hundred new features and we don't have time to cover all of them today. So I get to cover eight of them with you. Eight new features of the iPhone 4. The first one, an "All new design".
[*clapping*]
Now, stop me you've already seen this.

Anonymous

A minor fix: that should say stop me if you've already seen this

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes.

Anonymous

I was thinking you'd need to join the sentences once you changed it's to is, and you did that

Anonymous

You wouldn't usually put quotes around all new design, and if you did, you wouldn't usually capitalize it, but I understand if you wanted to refer to what was on the screen

Damkerng T.

20:07

nods

It appears so on the screen.

Anonymous

Yeah. I still wouldn't do it.

Anonymous

But I understand

Damkerng T.

How about I italicize it?

Anonymous

I wouldn't do that either

Damkerng T.

nods -- I see. Fixed.

Anonymous

20:08

I think he was using the words normally

Anonymous

I wouldn't put a comma after Glass

Damkerng T.

nods

I think it looks quite good now.

Anonymous

It's pretty good. I don't think I'd put a comma before is either, personally. It's pretty rare that you want to put a comma between a subject and a predicate

Damkerng T.

I'm going to suggest "followers" and "enthusiasts".

Anonymous

Suggest them for what?

Damkerng T.

20:11

@snailboat I see. Fixed. I was influenced by his long pause.

Hmm... Where was that link gone?

It's the "Wow-a-lot" question.

0

Q: What to call someone who cries out "wow" all the time?

What to call someone who (silently, but loud enough that the talking person hears it) cries out "wow" (throughout another person's monologue) all the time as an expression of delight or admiration (?) The talking person is someone of authority.

Anonymous

Oh! From the other day

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Hmm... Why the downvotes on Maulik's answer?

Damkerng T.

I just got an idea that people in that event also Wow! and Woohoo! a lot. :D

I didn't.

Anonymous

I didn't suggest that you did

Anonymous

20:13

I was just wondering aloud why the two downvotes are there

Damkerng T.

But I think flattering doesn't sound like a sincere thing.

Anonymous

Well, Maulik asked before writing his answer whether the OP meant sincere or otherwise

Damkerng T.

Does my reasoning make sense?

Anonymous

Is that person really surprised or just falsely praising? — Maulik V May 26 at 9:01

Anonymous

@Maulik - Perhaps it seemed a bit artificial, because it was done so consistantly. — user76935 May 26 at 9:05

Anonymous

20:14

So it seemed like he was trying to respect the OP's intent.

Anonymous

Follower or enthusiast...

Anonymous

I dunno :-)

Anonymous

I couldn't think of a good answer, myself

Anonymous

Follower could work

Damkerng T.

@snailplane - I was thinking about a lickspittle, but wasn't sure actually. — user76935 May 26 at 9:02

Oh, if the OP thought of lickspittle, follower might not work.

What the OP wrote in the question and in comments are not in agreement.

Now, I'm not sure what the OP meant either.

Anonymous

20:18

Yeah, that's why I was asking questions

Anonymous

I got rid of them after the OP clarified what they meant

Anonymous

Hey, look at this!

Anonymous

2

Q: "Not only will we ..." or "We will not only ..."?

Is it possible that both of the following sentences are correct? Or is only the second one correct? Not only will we hear more noise during the day and night, but we will also lose our special old park. We will not only hear more noise during the day and at night, but we will also lose ...

word-order

Anonymous

A clear question with helpful comments and a helpful answer :-)

Damkerng T.

Nice!

Anonymous

20:21

Anonymous

This is my onion. It flowered, and it also fell over.

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's beautiful!

Anonymous

It looks like most of the little mini-flower thingies haven't opened yet.

Anonymous

But you can see a couple that did on either side

Anonymous

It's like a flower made up of a hundred smaller flowers

Damkerng T.

20:22

They're gonna bloom soon, I think.

Indeed!

I didn't expect that many flowers from the same stalk!

Did I spell it correctly?

Ahh... Looks like so.

Anonymous

I don't know which word you mean, but it all looks like it's spelled correctly.

Anonymous

It's about two feet tall. Onion flowers grow taller than I imagined.

Damkerng T.

I don't say stalk very often.

Anonymous

It mostly grew straight up, wobbling a bit as it went

Anonymous

But it finally gave up and fell over!

Damkerng T.

20:25

Eh? It fell over?

Anonymous

See, the top of the flower is inches from the sidewalk

Damkerng T.

I thought you used a strange angle. :D

Anonymous

It was growing straight up!

Anonymous

Actually, it fell over a couple times, but I helped it recover its upness

Anonymous

Its upward orientation

Damkerng T.

20:26

A-ha!

Anonymous

It's strange.

Anonymous

It was very windy one day, and I saw it had fallen over in one direction, all the way to the right

Damkerng T.

Do you have a full picture of it?

Anonymous

The next day, it was all the way to the left!

Anonymous

No, I didn't take one, but I will later

Damkerng T.

20:26

Oh, it's alive!

Anonymous

I straightened it slightly after that, and the next day it was growing straight up without a bend!

Anonymous

Plants are a mystery to me.

Damkerng T.

They generally follow the sun.

Anonymous

All I know is, I had an old onion and it started to sprout, so I put it in the ground.

Anonymous

And then it turned into a plant!

Anonymous

20:27

Sometimes I water it.

Damkerng T.

Wonderful!

Anonymous

I found out about a strange construction in Japanese today

Anonymous

If a noun can be construed to have a gradable component semantically, it can informally be modified by an intensifier

Anonymous

> Ano hito wa totemo inaka da. 'That person is very rustic.'

Anonymous

Inaka is a noun! It means the countryside, way out away from the city

Anonymous

20:30

And totemo is a generic intensifier like English very

Damkerng T.

Gradability is different in different languages, I think.

Anonymous

So this example is literally "That person is very countryside"

Damkerng T.

Oh, I think we grade the countryside quality too in Thai. :D

Anonymous

It's very rare that totemo modifies a noun in Japanese.

Damkerng T.

> Mr. A is more countryside than Mr. B.

LOL -- I laughed at my own sentence above.

Anonymous

20:31

In English, you can do it because, informally speaking, you can zero derive an adjective countryside from the noun countryside

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hehe!

Anonymous

Zero derivation is very productive informally.

Anonymous

In English.

Anonymous

Not so in Japanese, where it's much more difficult for words to jump between categories

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I think it's because of the cases.

Anonymous

20:33

The cases mark the roles various nouns play.

Anonymous

Mostly.

Anonymous

But Japanese has a lot of other inflectional morphology that marks other parts of speech

Anonymous

Every verb ends in u

Anonymous

Almost every new derived verb ends in ru

Damkerng T.

Oh, I haven't noticed that.

Anonymous

20:34

(Forming verbs with other consonants isn't really productive in Japanese)

Anonymous

That every verb ends in u, you mean?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

But it looks like so.

Anonymous

It's true. That's the form you'll find in a dictionary.

Anonymous

They have multiple inflectional forms.

Anonymous

When you coin a new verb, it almost always has r-u at the end.

Anonymous

20:36

So Guuguru "Google" becomes gugur-u "to google"

Damkerng T.

:)

It sounds cute!

Anonymous

But most words, when you verb them, you end up adding ru.

Anonymous

It is! It loses the long vowel, because Japanese verbs don't typically have long vowels.

Anonymous

Kopii "copy" becomes kopir-u "to copy" for the same reason.

Anonymous

The long i vowel gets shortened.

Anonymous

20:37

Japanese is a cute language.

Damkerng T.

Oh, they don't use the word xerox.

@snailboat Indeed!

Anonymous

It's much harder for words to become verbs in Japanese.

Anonymous

I have only maybe a thousand examples.

Anonymous

Whereas in English, making up verbs is practically an everyday occurrence.

Damkerng T.

Only a thousand?

Anonymous

20:38

Well, most of them are informal and don't generally occur.

Anonymous

Some are very widespread, like the examples I gave to you.

Damkerng T.

I don't know how many would be many enough that you wouldn't say only. :D

Anonymous

You can coin one on the spot if you like.

Anonymous

Ah, well, I have to collect examples :-)

Anonymous

If I ever want to describe verbs adequately.

Damkerng T.

20:40

Hmm... I don't know how many verbs there are in English.

Anonymous

I have rather a lot of examples of Japanese.

Anonymous

Probably most people know less than 10,000 verbs.

Anonymous

The largest and most open category in English is that of the noun.

Anonymous

Anyone can join noun club, no membership fee required. No shirt, no shoes? Join noun club!

3

Damkerng T.

We do have lots of nouns and adjectives!

And they could combine and pile up!

@snailboat Hey, I like free shirts. Do you have one? :-)

Anonymous

20:41

And I think that is generally true in all languages. About nouns being the most open category, I mean.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sorry, noun club has very few perks.

Damkerng T.

sad

Anonymous

That was an allusion to signs posted everywhere: "No shirt, no shoes, no service!"

Anonymous

That is, stores reserve the right to kick out people who aren't dressed properly.

Damkerng T.

20:43

Epp, Image not found!

Anonymous

But noun club? Noun club welcomes all.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see.

Oh, it looks scary!

Anonymous

I was actually quoting the Simpsons earlier. I do this on occasion, mostly because my brother does, and growing up I absorbed a number of Simpsons quotes from him via osmosis.

Anonymous

At the time, I didn't watch TV.

Anonymous

But there was no escaping Simpsons quotes.

Damkerng T.

20:47

It's difficult to escape from them.

Anonymous

Even today, The Simpsons is still going, apparently.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... They're like Doraemon in terms of popularity, I think.

Anonymous

►

Anonymous

I was kind of misquoting it.

Damkerng T.

Lately, I haven't watched The Simpsons as often as before.

I can't remember that scene, but it looks funny. :D

Anonymous

20:56

I should star stuff in chat more often.

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