English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

09:06

This is basically about reasoning. (I would argue that it's not about any specific language.) From what I glanced through, the author seems to warn the reader to avoid concluding things imprecisely. For example, if I said, "We can use this book as a doorstop," it doesn't mean that I asserted that the book can't be used for any other purposes. — Damkerng T. 2 mins ago

@snailboat This is exactly the kind of things I told you about before when I said I wanted to express complex thoughts more neatly.

I'm sure that that comment of mine can be improved a bit. For example, I used "if I said" but then later I wrote "the book can't be" and now I wonder if "the book couldn't be" would be better.

Damkerng T.

12:20

Nevertheless, I heard native speakers don't use this, do they? "He's written a book of which I've forgotten the name." — nima_persian Aug 22 at 17:40

Hmm... I'm sure that native speakers use this, though not very often, and probably unlikely in normal speech.

I wonder which native speakers he heard that from.

user116848

hi

user116848

Thanks for the explanation yesterday!

Damkerng T.

You're welcome! I would recommend you to check that with a second opinion, though.

I think figuring out who said what in subtitles alone (without the videos) is quite difficult and error-prone.

user116848

Yes I know. I also asked that Qs on the main site of ELU but couldn't get any clear response. I am editing my Qs now :-)

user116848

12:42

3

Q: I'd know my life before I had even lived it

"Nothing but boys, following in their father's footsteps. I'd know my life before I had even lived it". I'd know my life before I had even lived it Is this sentence past or imaginary present? If it is past then why aren't we saying "I knew my life before I had even lived it"? What does "wou...

Damkerng T.

Oh, so it was Lucy who said that. Then, it's about the present.

She was imagining forward, I think.

user116848

Yes she said it to her father. The script is very bad on the website.

Damkerng T.

Basically it's a mixed conditional. (of the second and the third.)

Lookie, lookie, ... -- (I remember that I found a site that is quite good on mixed conditionals.)

Oh, I think it can't handle this case well.

In any case, I think what most grammar books try to say about the second (conditional) and the third is that the second is unreal yet-to-come (or unreal non-past) and the third is unreal what-have-done.

> I'd know my life before I had even lived it.

> I'd know my life even before I started living it.

Both have basically the same meaning.

user116848

12:58

Yes your sentence "I'd know my life even before I started living it." sounds simple

Damkerng T.

That was my intention. :D

Oh, I just learned that we had another Reddick last year.

How could I miss it in the world?

user116848

I heard about that one but didn't watch it because didn't hear the movie's reputation much :-)

user116848

Also Reddick (new one) is very slow

Damkerng T.

Hah!

It was done badly?

Maybe that's the reason why I didn't know about it. :-)

user116848

This Savannah movie I was watching yesterday wasn't appealing to me either. I only watched it because I like the actor in it (Jim Caviezel). He is the man from the passion of Christ (man playing Jesus). I love his series "Person of Interest". You should try watching it :-) very neat and clean series unlike "Game of Thrones"

user116848

13:12

Yes I think Reddick was done badly :D

Anonymous

The additional context is very helpful

Anonymous

Thank you for adding it

user116848

Welcome!

user116848

So can you provide me with an answer :-)

user116848

Or you think Damks explanation is okay

Anonymous

13:18

I'm typing from my phone right now

Damkerng T.

I just got a power outage!

Anonymous

I actually managed to write an answer to another question anyway just now, though :-)

Anonymous

Oh no!

Damkerng T.

It was boom! (I actually heard that sort of sound. I think a transformer out there was gone.) Then it came back in less that a couple of secs.

But it took me about 5 minutes before I could actually get back online.

Anonymous

I think in your question, Arrowfar, it could help to imagine what the sentences might be if they were more complete. As it is, things are implied.

Anonymous

13:21

That's why we need context to interpret it.

Anonymous

Are you in a lightning storm?

Damkerng T.

Not really, I think, at the moment.

user116848

@snailboat So this girl 'Lucy' in the movie was in love with the main character (Jim Caviezel actor) and she was arguing with her father to to let her marry him. This is when they exchange this dialogue

Anonymous

In my hometown, one time lightning struck a major transformer and power wasn't entirely restored for over a week

Damkerng T.

Wow! A week, in the US?!

user116848

13:24

Here power breakdowns occur too. Every once a while :-)

Anonymous

Sure, the US has power outages. They're pretty rare out here at the moment

Anonymous

Back in the Midwest they were more common.

Anonymous

Here, when they do occur they're usually brief.

Anonymous

The recent quake knocked out power for some folks.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... Quakes make a good reason.

Anonymous

13:26

Around 2000, we had a number of outages due to corruption at the utility companies

Damkerng T.

That's a surprise for me. I would be less surprised if it had happened elsewhere.

Anonymous

The US has plenty of problems. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise :-)

user116848

@snailboat you mean Enron era? :-)

user116848

I studied about corrupt companies in my accountancy studies :D

Damkerng T.

A-ha! That sounds like your line of work. :D

Anonymous

13:28

Yes

Anonymous

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

user116848

But got flunked in the same paper

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

user116848

But hopefully will clear it next time :)

Damkerng T.

Gotta go for a bit. I think I should check if everything on my servers is still working properly. :-)

user116848

13:30

See ya Damks :)

user116848

Oh, here is the actor I like. I am not gay, I like girls only though :-)

user116848

user116848

In the movie Sanannah

Anonymous

So, like, but not like like :-)

user116848

Oh no! somebody took out a vote from my Qs. I got a negative vote. Nooo

user116848

13:33

@snailboat Exactly!

Anonymous

I gave your question an upvote

user116848

Thanks!

user116848

Did you write the answer snailplane?

user116848

I don't mean to be annoying by asking

user116848

Am I?

Anonymous

13:37

I did not write an answer yet. I'm not sure how best to explain it. The top answer (about the if ... part being missing) makes sense to me but it wasn't clear enough for you, so I need to come up with a better explanation if I'm going to post something

Anonymous

I wouldn't worry too much about downvotes on ELU. (I suppose you already aren't worrying too much, so that works out :-)

user116848

I see. Take your time. Thanks anyways :)

Anonymous

There are users there with a huge number of downvotes who I don't think are competent to be voting

user116848

Yes it's very difficult to achieve reputation there (on ELU)

Anonymous

It's probably best if I don't name names

user116848

13:39

Hmm. I agree

user116848

@snailboat So mods can find the names of the downvoters??

user116848

Am I in the list?

Damkerng T.

@Arrowfar I remember that there was a time that I got a strange look when I went to a movie with another male friend. Some of my friends are gay. I went to a couple of gay bars before. And I'm fine with it, even though I'm not gay. :-)

user116848

haha :D

user116848

That's very funny Damk

Damkerng T.

13:47

@Arrowfar I guess it's not that difficult. A good part of my reps there was from single-word request questions. :-)

user116848

So what happens when you go to a gay bar? :-)

Anonymous

I am not a mod on English.SE nor on ELL, only on Japanese.SE. It is often obvious who's voting, though.

Damkerng T.

Oh, someone tried to hit on me!

Anonymous

Hit on? Rather different from hit

Damkerng T.

It was very confusing. I wasn't really sure who was gay and who wasn't. I didn't have a good gaydar.

@snailboat Ah, yes. Thanks!

Anonymous

13:49

And you can see the total upvotes and downvotes on someone's profile without being a moderator.

Damkerng T.

Hit on is not at the very top of my vocab list. ;-)

Anonymous

For example, I believe Kris's profile lists thousands of downvotes.

Anonymous

> 5,811 Votes Cast
Of the votes cast, 2,189 were up-votes and 3,622 were down-votes. Kris voted on questions 2,018 times and 3,793 times on answers.

Damkerng T.

Oh, those stats are public, I think.

Anonymous

Yes

Damkerng T.

13:58

Hey, I've voted over 5000 times already on ELL!

Anonymous

Yay! Almost all upvotes? :-)

Anonymous

How about me? Have I hit 5000?

Damkerng T.

That's true too. :D

Anonymous

It's harder to check on my phone.

Damkerng T.

The page says yours is 4504 votes.

3,937 up, 567 down

Anonymous

14:00

Oh, I checked! 4500!

Anonymous

I'm no longer ELL's top voter!

Damkerng T.

Hehe

Anonymous

I should downvote less

Damkerng T.

It's okay, I think. I wish I could have voted down more.

Anonymous

Lately I try to downvote when a wrong answer is above a right answer

Damkerng T.

14:01

But I decided to choose the upvotes only policy. :-)

Anonymous

But if I see something wrong and it's not ranked highly I don't worry so much about it

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That's very important. I think it's not good when a wrong answer got more upvotes.

Anonymous

That's because I think the goal is to move the correct answers to the top

Damkerng T.

(Hey, this is a perfect time for a wrong answer. :-)

Anonymous

Hehe, yep!

Anonymous

14:04

I'm still not sure how best to describe articles with right/wrong answer and the like

Anonymous

Many things I do not know...

Damkerng T.

It can still give me a pause sometimes.

Anonymous

My latest answer is my only recent answer to meet your +3 threshold.

Anonymous

I've been writing bad answers lately :-)

Damkerng T.

My latest answer is below that threshold. :(

The strange thing is even though I think we have a voting (too few) problem, some answers still get a lot of votes easily without having to be on the network.

Anonymous

14:07

Votes on ELL have always been inexplicable.

Damkerng T.

I remember one of @oerkelens's answers today. I think it has more than 10 votes now.

It's a very good answer, so it's fair and square. I upvoted his too.

So it's kinda confusing. I think we have the problem most of the time. But sometimes it seems quite okay.

Anonymous

Oh, I think people can understand why will is inappropriate in Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful? if they understand will

Anonymous

To clarify, I mean why it would be inappropriate to say when I will be

Damkerng T.

Oh, I had to learn it explicitly. :D

Anonymous

I don't think it needs a special rule, or rather, I think the rule follows from how it's generally used

Damkerng T.

14:15

It should be the latter case (no rules), but according to the way most learners learn, I think it's more about rules.

Anonymous

When I will be older is, presumably, now. I will be older, assuming nothing goes wrong and prevents it from happening :-)

Damkerng T.

So it's one of those gotchas in English.

Anonymous

Sure. Teaching a rule is fine.

Anonymous

I'm not saying people shouldn't, just that in principle I think you can understand it without an exception

Anonymous

To me it seems to follow from the meaning will adds

Damkerng T.

14:18

I think the confusion happens exactly because they teach us rules. :)

Or at least, they teach us about tenses.

So, will means the future tense.

Anonymous

So it makes me wonder if the problem isn't a failure to teach what meaning will brings to the table

Damkerng T.

How can Will you still ... which is obviously in a future tense go together with I'm no longer ... which is obviously in a present tense?

@snailboat I think the problem can be traced back to the concept of tenses.

And I think that's why it distorts the meaning of will (and so many other things) a bit.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Also, I hope people don't think that you can never say "when I will"

Anonymous

(or "when I'm going to", etc.)

Damkerng T.

I think I've seen StoneyB's comment that can help clearing the issue up. But it's just a comment, and I can't remember which question it's in.

Anonymous

14:24

Good ol' StoneyB.

Damkerng T.

Oh, this.

No, it's an actual future. The difference lies between an 'integrated' when clause, when she has time, an adjunct to the head clause, and a non-restrictive relative when clause, when she will have time, an adjunct to tomorrow. — StoneyB yesterday

I guess I saw it when I read oerkelens's answer.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That question must have been promoted.

Anonymous

2304 views in one day and all those votes.

Damkerng T.

Oh! I thought wrong!

Anonymous

Meanwhile over on Japanese.SE, I got to +17 on a question that wasn't promoted :-)

Anonymous

14:32

So voting is definitely a different beastie.

Damkerng T.

Definitely!

Anonymous

@Arrowfar Votes are private. If you downvoted me on Japanese.SE (where I'm a moderator), I probably wouldn't be able to tell it was you unless I could tell through publicly available information.

Anonymous

Moderators can see some information relating to votes, but I wouldn't be able to go see who downvoted a particular answer, for example.

Anonymous

A few employees can see who voted for what directly, so if there's suspicion of bad faith moderators can ask employees to look

Anonymous

Since I'm not a moderator on English.SE or on ELL.SE, I wouldn't be part of that process and wouldn't be able to talk to employees about votes you've cast or received

Anonymous

14:38

(And moderators on ELU wouldn't be able to say "Hey, tell me what Arrowfar's votes are!")

Anonymous

14:58

@DamkerngT. Keep in mind that the phonological schwa in English can have a fairly wide range of variation. There are a number of reduced sounds that don't really contrast with one another―or to put it another way, a rather large continuous range of reduced sounds that we consider the same phoneme. It might not be exactly a mid-central unrounded vowel, which is what you might call a schwa phonetically.

Anonymous

It's kind of weird in terms of phonology.

Anonymous

15:21

Unfortunately, I've seen a number of different definitions now.

Anonymous

web.mit.edu/~flemming/www/paper/rosasroses.pdf

2

Anonymous

There's a chart here on page 5 of the PDF (page 87 of the text)

user116848

15:39

Some questions on ELL and ELU get thousands of views. So how do we know which question is gonna be promoted or will achieve Ks of views?

user116848

Because giving answers to these questions accumulates so many votes :-)

Anonymous

@Arrowfar There's a formula.

user116848

@snailboat Which is?

Anonymous

29

A: How are "Hot" Questions Selected?

What formula should be used to determine "hot" questions? Based on my analysis of the above and the comments so far, here's the second version of what I have implemented so far. This might suck. I don't know: (log(Qviews)*4) + ((Qanswers * Qscore)/5) + sum(Ascores) --------------------...

Anonymous

Assuming this isn't out-of-date (which is probably not a safe assumption), that is the formula

Anonymous

15:47

Oh hey.

Anonymous

25

A: How do the "arbitrary hotness points" work on the new Stack Exchange home page?

Basically what's documented here: What formula should be used to determine "hot" questions? We have a few tweaks: Succeeding questions from the same site are penalized by increasing amounts. So, the first question from SO in the list gets multiplied by 1.0, the second by 0.98, the third ...

Anonymous

That's the one I meant to link to.

Anonymous

Not the first one.

user116848

I don't get it. So who selects the questions to get so many views?

Anonymous

No one.

Anonymous

15:49

It's automatic.

Anonymous

Generally speaking:

Anonymous

If a question is answered very quickly, and if both the answer and question are upvoted, and especially if it gets multiple answers, it'll move up the list and appear in the "Hot Network Questions" sidebar on multiple sites.

user116848

The formula looks confusing. Do you know when will we get the next Ks views question on ELL or ELU today?

Anonymous

No, it's not periodic.

user116848

So people who don't have a user account on SE site can vote too for that question or answer? Because I see that votes accumulates too fast when we answer that type of question.

Anonymous

15:52

They get promoted on other SE sites. It's pretty easy to add another SE account, and then you can vote.

Anonymous

And a lot of the people who click through are people who have accounts on various SE sites, but don't use most of them.

Anonymous

So it's a combination of new signups and existing users who wouldn't have seen the question otherwise

user116848

They get promoted on other SE sites? meaning that ELL question can be on the Math SE site too?

Anonymous

Yeah, there's a sidebar on the lower-right of most SE pages

Anonymous

15:56

See, questions from other SE sites are getting promoted.

user116848

Ahh that.... I never look at that bar :-)

Anonymous

A lot of people do. It used to be in the drop-down in the old top bar

Anonymous

But they moved it over there, and I think it gets more clicks now.

Anonymous

They also started shuffling it more

user116848

I thought those were some kinda advertisements :D

Anonymous

15:57

Which means that questions that don't score as highly with the formula have a chance to be promoted

user116848

But come to think of it you are right :)

Anonymous

Well, they are some kinda advertisements, if you think about it :-)

user116848

You bet :)

Anonymous

Certainly no harm will come from ignoring the list

user116848

Yes. So snailplane what software did you use to mark that page above with red pen? Can I do that too?

Anonymous

15:59

I am using Windows right now, so I used MS Paint, which comes with the OS

Anonymous

I hit print screen to take a picture, then I went to MS Paint and pasted my screen, and then I drew on it. :-)

user116848

Yes I knew :)

Anonymous

:-)

user116848

hehe

user116848

I thought you were using some kinda software

Anonymous

16:01

MS Paint is some kinda software. :-)

user116848

Yes it is :-)

user116848

But you uploaded it so fast. I would have taken almost five to six minutes :p

user116848

16:17

I guess the people who use cell phone to chat here their avatars remain here. Others like me their avatars disappears when they close the browser or leave their computers, am I right?

user116848

I never use internet on my mobile phone

user116848

I think it's fun to use internet and other applications on computer unlike cell.

Anonymous

18:27

It's definitely much nicer using a computer with a big screen and keyboard.

Anonymous

But I'm not always at my computer :-)

StoneyB

Next step: two big screens!

Anonymous

Oh! People do that.

Anonymous

I like having a big screen so that I can see stuff. It's hard to see little stuff.

Anonymous

At least for me. :-)

Anonymous

18:30

I don't like having two big screens because it means I have to turn my neck.

Anonymous

Or at least, I end up doing that.

Anonymous

I think my brother uses four monitors at his job.

Anonymous

It's all too much for me. I just want one screen big enough to see stuff. :-)

StoneyB

I'd use three if I could, but my laptop has only one monitor output. Maybe I could get the company to spring for a 30" superscreen like the grafx folks use, and I could go two windows up on that.

But I love mounting my second screen in portrait mode and reading/writing a full page at a time.

fahdijbeli

19:50

Hi

Anonymous

20:41

Hello!

Anonymous

21:33

I tried flagging a wrong comment-answer again recently. It got declined again.

Anonymous

So the message is "don't flag these, we want them on our site"

Ice Boy

Did you try to explain the reason for the flag?

Anonymous

I picked Not Constructive

Anonymous

I habituated to play golf. — Lucian Sava Sep 1 at 11:17

Anonymous

0

Q: Is there any alternative way to say something you 'used to [infinitive]'?

I'm talking about the use of 'used to' to mean something you did (regularly?) in your past. English has alternative ways to say something in most of the cases but here, I'm finding it very difficult. I seek your help to find an alternative way to say this (without adding any ambiguity) I us...

grammar sentence-construction past-tense sentence-structure alternatives

Anonymous

21:44

Is "I habituated to play golf" a useful answer to "Is there any alternative way to say something you 'used to [infinitive]'?"?

Anonymous

I don't think so, but I can't downvote it or otherwise remove it from the site.

Anonymous

Instead, it's granted a privileged position above all of the answers you can vote on.

Anonymous

But that's okay. ELL uses its comment section very differently than the way comments were designed to be used on Stack Exchange.

Anonymous

Different sites can be different from one another.

Anonymous

We don't all have to follow the Great Stack Exchange Plan.

Anonymous

21:47

I will stop flagging comments like this one.

Ice Boy

icic

-_-

Anonymous

No, I understand why they might want to preserve the comment

Anonymous

There's some follow-up discussion which presumably they feel is valuable, teaching the commenter that habituate isn't used that way

Anonymous

It's a bad idea from a pedagogical perspective, though

Anonymous

The first thing people see when they read the question will be that comment, exposing them to bad English. If they read further, which they may or may not, then they'll see that someone else disagrees.

Anonymous

21:59

But exposing people to bad English is poor pedagogy.

Ice Boy

yes, especially initially

Anonymous

I assume that very few of the people reading the question need to be taught that "I habituated to play golf" is wrong

Anonymous

I managed to get a meta post up to +20 on this subject

Ice Boy

nice

Anonymous

(+21, -1, so there was at least some disagreement)

Anonymous

22:02

But that just shows that some people agree, it doesn't actually give me the power to remove comments like this from the site ;-)

Anonymous

Roundabouts aren't simply referred to as "circles" in the U.S., they are called "traffic circles". — HostileFork 7 hours ago

Anonymous

I don't know the names for those things :-)

Anonymous

I mean, if you asked me to name one, I don't know what I'd call it.

Anonymous

"A, um, place where cars go in circles?"

Anonymous

This is me showing off my vocabulary.

Ice Boy

22:04

:D

cul de sac?

Anonymous

Ah, I know what a cul de sac is. I grew up in one! Well, not literally in. You know. In a house that had a driveway that let out into one. :-)

Anonymous

I hope that's not what a roundabout is. Is that what a roundabout is?

Anonymous

Pretty!

Anonymous

I think that's a roundabout.

Anonymous

22:07

Google Images said so.

Ice Boy

yes

Cul-de-sac

A cul-de-sac, dead end (British, Canadian, American, and Australian English), closed, no through road (British, Canadian, and Australian English) or court (American and Australian English) is a street with only one inlet/outlet. While historically built for other reasons, one of its modern uses is to calm vehicle traffic. == History == Culs-de-sac have appeared in plans of towns and cities before the automotive 20th century, particularly in Arab and Moorish towns. The earliest example of cul-de-sac streets was unearthed in the El-Lahun workers village in Egypt, which was built circa 1885 BCE. The...

Anonymous

A cul de sac is different.

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English Language Learners