English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

13:00

"You go there." is excluded?

Anonymous

Probably not, unless you're using it as an imperative with an explicit subject

Damkerng T.

nods

user116848

@snailboat Quite the opposite. That's why I asked if it looked flirtatious :D

Anonymous

If you want it to look more flirtatious, try "Hey, you! :-)"

user116848

What? A fight? No!

Anonymous

13:01

With your own smiley of choice

Anonymous

That way it won't be interpreted as "Hey you! What's the matter with you!? Grr!"

Anonymous

But more like "Hey, you! :-) How've you been?"

user116848

@snailboat Oh, so it would be okay?

user116848

I see

Anonymous

In which case it's a rather familiar expression

user116848

13:02

Yes it is.

Anonymous

So it could seem presumptuous if you aren't already close to the person

user116848

nods - So the simple greetings are good here.

user116848

But change is good.

user116848

I was all LOL when I read your comment about "picking a fight"

Anonymous

That's one use of "Hey you!"

Anonymous

13:05

Expressing hostility

user116848

Good to know.

CopperKettle

Practically each part of the banana tree - the trunk, the leaves, the root - is used by man.

Maybe such use of each will be okay..

Damkerng T.

Oh, that!

CopperKettle

(reading a question at SE)

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I dunno.

Damkerng T.

13:12

My first impression: using each there is probably BrE.

Anonymous

I don't want to call it ungrammatical. I mean, I do want to. But

Anonymous

My intuition says each degrades the sentence rather drastically

CopperKettle

thanks for the answer, Snailboat! To my ear, "each" sounds okay somewhy. I'll try to read up on this.

Anonymous

Each and every are both distributive universal quantifiers, and they're fairly similar

Anonymous

@CopperKettle See chapter four of Tunstall's dissertation

CopperKettle

13:15

@snailboat Okay (0:

Anonymous

folk.uio.no/daghaug/corpusseminar/Tunstall1998.pdf

CopperKettle

Got it!

Anonymous

In particular, turn to page 116 of the PDF (marked page 103 on the actual dissertation)

CopperKettle

I've just zoomed in on this page a second ago (0: (I just, of course, no Present Perfect)

Anonymous

I think that when every is being used non-distributively with a degree modifier (almost every or practically every) it's very strange to replace it with each because each is always distributive

CopperKettle

13:20

So "each" is more distributive while "every" is more clumpy.

We travel to Mallorca almost each year. (Wrong)

Anonymous

frowny

Anonymous

Almost each isn't possible… But maybe almost [each year] is possible… My brain is unhappy that I'm trying to make it work, though

Anonymous

I think I'm going to give in and surrender to my brain :-)

CopperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

13:24

Notice what it didn't find? :-)

CopperKettle

yes

Anonymous

I got the idea when I saw Damkerng's comment

CopperKettle

Interesting. So "practically every part" of the tree is a no-no too.

Anonymous

Why?

Anonymous

It seems fine.

Anonymous

13:26

"Practically each part" is on the no-no list, though.

CopperKettle

ah, yes.

Damkerng T.

I got mentioned!

Almost each "something else" might be possible. (Just a guess.)

Maybe almost each day. -- trying...

Anonymous

Yeah, because there, each isn't being forced into a non-distributive role

user116848

@CopperKettle Use "Almost every". It is very common and easy.

Anonymous

That's almost [each day], meaning almost daily

Damkerng T.

13:30

nods -- The Ngram seems to confirm that.

CopperKettle

@Farooq okay!

Anonymous

Still, almost each day is certainly not common

Anonymous

Although it's significantly better than our other example

Anonymous

I don't think it's something I ever say

Anonymous

> Bangladesh is criss-crossed by more than 230 rivers, which ravage the deltaic country almost each year. At least 14 of 64 districts have been hit with floods spreading from the north towards the Bay of Bengal.

Damkerng T.

13:34

I think almost every year (instead of almost each year) would sound rather off in that sentence.

Anonymous

Some of the corpus results I see for almost each look fine, while others I expect almost every instead

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't know.

Damkerng T.

I expect that they refer to some certain set of years in their study.

Anonymous

In the LDC corpora I'm searching, almost every is over a hundred times more common than almost each

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Maybe every is okay, too.

Anonymous

13:35

And in almost every example, almost every would sound fine to me (or in some cases better)

user116848

@CopperKettle You can also use "often" if you want. For example:

user116848

> We often travel to Mallorca

Anonymous

I found almost each and every one in the Fisher spoken English corpus! :-)

CopperKettle

@Farooq I know, Farooq, I was just trying to scratch this each itch

Damkerng T.

@Farooq I think that would mean something else, though its meaning is quite close to the original.

user116848

13:38

@CopperKettle I know :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Nice!

user116848

@DamkerngT. yeah

Damkerng T.

> Back in my school days, I traveled back to Yala every year.
Back in my school days, each year, I traveled back to Yala in the summer.

user116848

"Almost each" looks okay. Still "Almost every" has 72,400,000 entries on Google compared to only 428,000 for "Almost each".

Anonymous

Google result estimates are not reliable

Anonymous

13:43

You can check a corpus like COCA

user116848

Yes

Anonymous

Or Google Books

Anonymous

In COCA we find a ratio of around 600:1, and in Google Books we find a ratio of around 200:1

Anonymous

(We're dividing by a small number, so the difference between those ratios isn't especially surprising)

Anonymous

In the LDC news corpus, we find 20304 results for almost every and 83 for almost each

Damkerng T.

13:47

I think all corpora are pretty much in line.

Anonymous

Almost each probably hardly ever occurs in conversation

Anonymous

Probably occasionally. :-)

Anonymous

I couldn't find any examples in my chat corpus, but I had hundreds of examples of almost every

Anonymous

Almost likewise for the Fisher and Switchboard conversation corpora

Anonymous

Hey, CGEL has a simple explanation.

Anonymous

13:50

> Every, but not each, permits modification

2

Anonymous

That must be why I need to parse it as almost [each day] to understand it

Anonymous

(p.379)

Damkerng T.

Oh, almost each of them seems to be common enough.

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=35552567

Anonymous

This is a search for　 almost each|all of

Anonymous

13:57

2033 for all and 0 for each …

Damkerng T.

Interesting!

Maybe almost each of them is obsolete.

Anonymous

How did you determine that it was common?

Damkerng T.

Google Books.

It's not that common, but it's common enough in the results.

Anonymous

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

The usual universal quantifier there would be all

Anonymous

14:02

It is roughly one thousand times more common.

Anonymous

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

So I think it's fair to call almost each of them uncommon

Damkerng T.

I think the alternative might not be all, but every one. I mean, to say almost every one of them is ....

Anonymous

Is that what almost each of them is supposed to mean?

Damkerng T.

In my sense, yes.

Anonymous

14:04

It's hard for me to interpret since it's ungrammatical

Damkerng T.

I think using each for every is probably obsolete. (That's why my first impression was "perhaps BrE".)

CopperKettle

I shall comfort my knees with red bruises of prostration
For each and every “each” used with premodification

(0:

Anonymous

I don't understand the connection between BrE and obsolete

Anonymous

AmE is the more conservative of the two dialect groups

Damkerng T.

@snailboat To me, old BrE usage is still quite active in formal register and maybe in other dialects, while the BrE itself moves on.

(I sometimes feel that when I hear some expressions in InE.)

Anonymous

14:08

It's true that each variety of English hangs onto its own random bits from the past.

Anonymous

Japanese.SE just got an answer that ended on a stabbing.

Anonymous

I'm afraid!

Anonymous

1

A: How to rephrase sentences with an ambiguous は to indicate the contrastive or thematic / 「主題」と「対比」の解釈の余地のある、あいまいな「は」の言い換え方

The bad news-は we don't really have an effective way to distinguish them. The good news-は in fact you don't have to distinguish them. The particle は's function could be loosely described as "singling out one thing you and me know as the current focus", that is, every usage theoretically carries ...

Anonymous

It's like a twist ending.

Anonymous

Like "Oh, hey, I'm learning about Japanese! La, dee dah ♬ This is fun! Learn, learn, learn, … Oh, what's this? stab"

Anonymous

14:10

Little did the learner know what awaited her at the end of the answer.

Damkerng T.

Looks like a good place for the sound of stabbing!

(I don't know the sound of stabbing in Japanese. In Thai, it's ฉึก chuhg.)

Anonymous

Hmm.

Damkerng T.

Aww... the question is about は!

Anonymous

How about ぶすぶす?

Anonymous

dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/192850/m0u

Anonymous

14:13

Sense three

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's a reasonable sound!

Anonymous

That's a repeated sound.

Anonymous

So um, for a repeated stabbing.

Damkerng T.

Oh, Thai have a character for repeating sound (or the last word)!

Anonymous

If you used it in a sentence as an adverb (which you can often do with mimetic sounds in Japanese), it would be ぶすり（と） or ぶすっと

Anonymous

14:14

神々　＝　神神

Damkerng T.

ฉึกๆๆๆๆ <-- That's 5 ฉึก. Hehe!

Anonymous

That's for repeating the last kanji, though, not the last sound...

Anonymous

御御御付 is おみおつけ, and you can write 御々々付 even though the sound changes each time

Damkerng T.

Google Translate translates 神神 as "God God"!

Anonymous

Haha!

Anonymous

14:16

The kanji repetition marker is always optional.

Anonymous

So you can write out 神々 as 神神.

Anonymous

People generally don't, but you can.

Anonymous

In this case, it's a reduplicative plural.

Anonymous

Reduplication of nouns in Japanese is very often used to indicate plurality

Anonymous

人　（ひと）　　　＝　person
人々（ひとびと）　＝　people

Anonymous

14:17

神　（かみ）　　　＝　god
神々（かみがみ）　＝　gods

Anonymous

But

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

蝶　　（ちょう）　　　　＝　butterfly
蝶々　（ちょうちょう）　＝　butterfly

CopperKettle

I heard that "woman woman" stands for "noise" in Japanese. Could be a joke though.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

14:17

So reduplication doesn't always indicate plurality

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Well, the kanji for kasimasii is 姦しい, but that's not necessarily common knowledge

Anonymous

That kanji has such negative connotations that it wouldn't usually be used for that word

Anonymous

姦 is made of 女 'female; woman' three times

CopperKettle

oh, so its a rare pejorative term

Anonymous

No, the word is not rare

Anonymous

14:20

It just is usually written in kana as かしましい

CopperKettle

oh

in syllables

Anonymous

The kanji 姦 is used in words such as 強姦 'rape'

Anonymous

It has strong negative connotations

CopperKettle

姦 = big noise?

Anonymous

The word kasimasii doesn't have positive connotations, but it's not nearly as negative

Anonymous

14:22

The core meaning of 姦 is 'wicked' or 'evil'

Anonymous

It's used for various Sino-Japanese compounds referring to acts such as bribery, deceit, theft, and for sexual acts or relationships considered to be wrong (bestiality, necrophilia, rape, adultery, incest)

CopperKettle

oh

Anonymous

These meanings all existed already in Chinese

Anonymous

The Japanese applied the character to the 'noisy' word after they borrowed it

Anonymous

But these days the word isn't written that way most of the time

CopperKettle

14:27

nods

Anonymous

By the way, the word exists independently of the character used to write it

Anonymous

Some people conflate characters with words in Japanese, but you should avoid doing this

CopperKettle

The word "wicked" exists independently of 姦 ?

Anonymous

Chinese characters are just a matter of writing.

Anonymous

Japanese words would, and did, exist before Chinese characters were borrowed

Anonymous

14:30

And there's a many-to-many relationship between them

CopperKettle

oh, but in China it's a closer overlap, I see.

Anonymous

Yes, in mainstream Mandarin Chinese, the relationship between characters and morphemes is rather more straightforward, though not perfect

Anonymous

14:47

Why do you suppose you knit your brows?

CopperKettle

Me?

Because they consist of filaments, probably

Damkerng T.

Do we? Maybe frowning looks like knitting.

Anonymous

Oh, hey, check knit, v. 4.a in the OED

CopperKettle

Oh, it's not online.. I looked up etymology, but nothing suspicious there

Anonymous

Oh, I thought you had OED access

Anonymous

15:01

> 4.a. To draw closely together; to contract in folds or wrinkles; †to clench (the fist).

c 1386 Chaucer Knt.'s T. 270 This Palamon gan knytte his browes tweye.
c 1489 Caxton Sonnes of Aymon i. 48 He frompeled his forhede and knytted his browes.
1593 Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iii. i. 15 He knits his Brow, and shewes an angry Eye.
1602 Marston Antonio's Rev. v. i. Wks. 1856 I. 132 They all..knit their fists at him.
1611 Cotgr., s'Acroupir, a Horse to knit, or draw vp, or gather togither, his hinder parts.

Anonymous

There :-)

CopperKettle

Thanks. (0:

Anonymous

I thought that was interesting.

CopperKettle

But the original meaning is still "to tie into a knot"..

In Russian, there's a slang expression "to tread (one's) buns" for "to vacillate, to procrastinate". Not one of my favorite expressions. (0:

The "one's" part is implied, I think.

It's not spelled out whose the buns are and what are they exactly

The expression first emerged in 1990s

Damkerng T.

Some people always have their brows knitted together. :-)

Anonymous

15:09

Like someone tied their brows in a knot and now they don't know how to do undo it? :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

CopperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

Oh, some people also do amazing things with their beards!

CopperKettle

I learned a (the?) nice expression "beetle-browed" several days ago..

Damkerng T.

I don't know its meaning.

CopperKettle

15:20

big bushy brows (0:

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

I guess brows like beetles :-)

Anonymous

google.com/…

CopperKettle

(0:

The beetles of his brows were knitted fast
With worries of the future and the past

Anonymous

I might have heard it before, but I'm not sure.

Anonymous

15:24

It might be one of the many expressions I don't know in my own language

CopperKettle

I heard it on the radio

BBC Worldservice

Damkerng T.

I can't imagine beetles that look like bushy brows. Maybe beetles over there look like that. :-)

CopperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

I reached my daily vote limit on ELL!

Anonymous

I haven't done that in a while.

Damkerng T.

15:30

@snailboat Congrats!

> If you try to make a field that already has data an indexed field with no duplicates and the data does not consist of unique values, the system will not let you save the new index.

Anonymous

I'm still the #2 voter.

Anonymous

But I'm afraid I'm falling further behind.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. That was a hard one. I did not understood the meaning until I looked up the source

Damkerng T.

If someone wrote that in a document I got involved, I surely would request a revision.

CopperKettle

(... or "I hadn't been able to understand the meaning..)

Damkerng T.

15:34

@snailboat Hee. :-)

Anonymous

"I didn't understand"

CopperKettle

@snailboat yes, indeed!

user4215

15:52

@snailboat hi

user116848

16:19

Is there a way to hide some of our questions in our profile without deleting them?

user116848

I mean questions not answers.

user116848

ping me

user116848

I asked because in our profile some anonymity would be nice for SEs like Workplace SE, Workplace SE etc.

user116848

I have asked a couple of questions in the past there that are rather embarrassing for me (if they are there for everyone to see!)

user116848

I didn't use to use chat in the past so I thought "What the hell" just ask anything.

user116848

16:26

Now it looks kinda embarrassing.

user116848

Just a thought.

user116848

There has been a talk of Health SE in chat in the other room (and the anonymity in it) That's how I got the idea all of a sudden.

user116848

Maybe I'll have to change my username to Arrowfar again to get all the anonymity here.

Damkerng T.

@Farooq There is no feature to to hide them, as far as I know. SE is meant to be public. What we ask today might be useful for someone else later. I'd think that Health SE works the same way. If you're uncomfortable with the profile, just don't tell who you really are. (I think most users do this. I do this.) Just like the topic of this room states: But remember this is a public room: do not give out personal contact information here.

user116848

nods - I see your point.

user116848

16:36

Yeah, chat is public too.

user116848

But profile can be seen by anyone like my "employer/boss".

user116848

No one goes though all the transcript of chat though.

Damkerng T.

Same as Facebook, Twitter, etc. :D

user116848

@DamkerngT. Hehe!

user116848

I know :-)

Damkerng T.

16:37

@Farooq Maybe, maybe not. :D

user116848

@DamkerngT. Yeah, that is true unfortunately.

user116848

But 50-50 chance

user116848

Still I try to be careful what to say here :-)

user116848

So, I never face any issues.

user116848

But I asked because in my profile there are questions in which I wrote I failed my papers etc. That looks pretty bad.

Damkerng T.

16:39

A couple of weeks ago I heard about someone posted some message on their Facebook, sort of like what if he had something illegal in his house (I can't remember the details). Ninety minutes later, S.W.A.T. showed up and broke into his house with a warrant.

That made me think, someone must always read Facebook and Twitter (and who knows what else) of everyone at all time.

user116848

Haha! Seriously?

Damkerng T.

Yup. It was on the news.

user116848

Oh

user116848

That is for those who are into illegal stuff.

user116848

:-)

Damkerng T.

16:40

I mean, 90 minutes. Go figure!

In that case, he didn't do anything wrong. He just posted a what-if or hypothetical message.

user116848

Many people use many facebook profiles. That is quite scary too.

user116848

I mean the profiles can be very misleading too.

Damkerng T.

nods

user116848

It is the internet after all.

user116848

It is kinda okay too because even employers asks what are your strengths and weaknesses :-)

Damkerng T.

16:46

Dog got killed during the raid was also mentioned in the news, iirc. Poor dog!

user116848

Oh, no.

user116848

Which country?

user116848

I see. US, right?

Damkerng T.

Heh, I think you can guess. :D

Yup.

user116848

Yeah SWAT

user116848

16:47

Silly question :-)

Damkerng T.

It wasn't. I just don't want to type too many related keywords in a short period of time.

I don't want unexpected visitors. :D

user116848

Oh

user116848

We should give a break! :D

Damkerng T.

Nah, I think we're okay. :-)

user116848

Still it was fun to talk.

user116848

16:49

nods :-)

Damkerng T.

Good news! The number of tabs in my window (only this one) went down from 426 to 412. Yay!

user116848

nice

Damkerng T.

My goal is to get it down to something like 30-40 tabs.

I'm turning my Bookmarks into a journal. :D

user116848

How do you find stuff in that many tabs?

user116848

It sounds cumbersome.

Damkerng T.

16:56

Oh, there is a pointing-down triangle button on the right of each window.

user116848

Let me see...

Damkerng T.

I would click it to have dropdown list and scroll through the list to find my tab.

There are a few more ways to manage the tabs more neatly, but I found that all of them consume more memory, so I got back to the basic.

user116848

ah, the dropdown menu. I see.

user116848

I have many bookmarks too.

user116848

I saved it to my HD.

user116848

16:58

Because some bookmarks are quite important.

Damkerng T.

I back it up sometimes.

I think I will back it up more often, 'cause now I'm using it as a journal.

But if you notice, I can type a little faster now.

user116848

Come to think of it, yeah I noticed :-)

user116848

Firefox has a good and east to use backup options for bookmarks.

Damkerng T.

A thousand tabs can be a good drag. :D

user116848

Yes it can. I have never opened that many though.

user116848

17:01

Good thing you are a robot then. You can handle all those tabs.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

user116848

I can't handle all those tabs :)

Damkerng T.

Whirrr...!

user116848

clank, clank

Damkerng T.

LOL

Btw, Jasper really left SE or it's just temporary? (You mentioned that yesterday, iirc.)

user116848

17:03

Yeah, he left. He'll return I guess.

Damkerng T.

I hope he will.

user116848

He took my original email though. Which I was afraid to give. Still I gave it.

Damkerng T.

nods

user116848

Kit etc. has given him too. So it is okay I guess.

Damkerng T.

nods

user116848

17:05

I got his email. He wrote we will meet someday lol.

user116848

I remembered his lol

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

user116848

So I figured :-)

user116848

It is easy to create filters in email.

Damkerng T.

Ah, true. It's much easier nowadays.

user116848

17:08

I used to get many spams.

user116848

But nowadays it is okay.

Damkerng T.

Me too. I still get so many things I don't really want to read come in every day.

user116848

It was those virus etc. emails.

user116848

They are pretty common.

user116848

Almost everyone gets it.

user116848

17:09

I created many filters in my email.

user116848

Still some spam emails are fun to read.

user116848

I read them in the spam folder sometimes.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

user116848

Although they say not to open them

user116848

So in Person of Interest they can hack almost everything. That looks very ridiculous to me :-)

user116848

17:13

I am not into tech though.

Damkerng T.

I think it's not that different in reality. :D

user116848

ah

user116848

:-)

Damkerng T.

wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all -- Something from 2012.

user116848

ah

user116848

17:31

This room has a great tag. But if we had a smaller tag then we could see more starred messages here. Just a thought.

user116848

I noticed in ELU chat.

user116848

There we have a very small tag now.

user116848

So many starred messages are visible.

user116848

I like the message that our room topic conveys though :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, you mean the room topic.

user116848

17:33

Yeah, the topic.

Damkerng T.

The topic of ELU chat room changed again!

user116848

They change it every so often.

user116848

It is a busy room.

user116848

Also many tags are very funny.

user116848

Many pointless.

user116848

17:36

Many make no sense at all :-)

Damkerng T.

I remember that at one point it was "Unintelligible room. All languages at once."

(Or something along that line.)

user116848

heh

user116848

I have seen many over the months.

user116848

I hope "over the months" is an okay phrase.

Damkerng T.

I think it changes more often lately.

user116848

17:40

Yea, Kit and Rob change it imo.

user116848

I like this interview:

user116848

►

Damkerng T.

Ah, him.

user116848

In this interview he says even Webcams on the laptops can be hacked.

user116848

It sounds scary.

user116848

17:42

They have a word for webcam hack.

user116848

I can't remember the word.

user116848

Let me see...

user116848

I have heard that many people keep their webcams covered at all times.

user116848

Mine is in front of me.

user116848

I'd be like "Hi" lol

Damkerng T.

17:45

nods

Hehe!

Damkerng T.

23:29

> Our train leaves at nine tonight.
Our train is leaving at nine tonight.
Our train leaves at nine tomorrow.
?Our train is leaving at nine tomorrow.

Anonymous

23:58

Why the question mark on the last one?

Anonymous

What do you think of "I'm taking the test next year"?

Transcript for