English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

09:23

2

Q: "What makes her laugh IS..." or "What makes her laugh ARE..." - plural or singular?

Sometimes I get confused by the usage of "what" as a pronoun. Specifically, I am not sure if "what" stands for "the thing that" or for "the things that" or for both. For example, should I say "What makes her laugh is ..." or "What makes her laugh are ..." or "What make her laugh are ..."?

Very interesting!

> a) What makes her laugh are dirty jokes.
b) What makes her laugh is dirty jokes.
c) What make her laugh are dirty jokes.

Between a) and c), I like c) better.

after thinking about it for a while...

I think we can rephrase What with The thing/things that.

> a) ?The things that makes her laugh are dirty jokes.
b) The thing that makes her laugh is dirty jokes.
c) The things that make her laugh are dirty jokes.
d) ?The thing that makes her laugh are dirty jokes.

Now I think I know why a) bothers me.

Hanaa

Hello!

I think singular

Damkerng T.

Hello, @Hanaa!

@CopperKettle "What makes her laugh are dirty jokes," somewhat bothers me. To demonstrate why it bothers me, I came up with this alternative: *The thing that makes her laugh are dirty jokes. But it's just my gut feeling. Frankly, being another non-native speaker makes me feel like I know nothing at all about this one. — Damkerng T. 44 secs ago

So I left my comment.

CopperKettle

09:41

@DamkerngT. - the sentence is indeed strange; writing this answer was an "instrument flight" for me, I'll need to get it run by past Snailboat. (0: — CopperKettle 2 mins ago

Good afternonn @DamkerngT., @Hanaa!

(off to make some tea)

Damkerng T.

nods -- Good afternoon, @CopperKettle!

Hanaa

Good afternoon@CopperKettle

CopperKettle

Phrase of the day: "pie in the sky" (0:

Damkerng T.

My pie in the sky is fire in the sky. (UFO!)

CopperKettle

(0;

Damkerng T.

09:56

Nothing really related to English, but that chart makes G3258 look very attractive, doesn't it?!

A Pentium that runs (stock) on a par with Core i5, and on a par with the best Core i7 when being overclocked!

CopperKettle

With ruble falling down like a stone, I no longer attend PC hardware related sites, in order not to disappoint myself. (0:

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

CopperKettle

"the" ruble is probably more correct

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think the ruble works better.

CopperKettle

I'm cooking millet and shuttling between the kitchen and the room (0:

Damkerng T.

10:08

I just checked with my local store. It seems like I can get G3258 at around only $74!

@CopperKettle That sounds nice.

Aww... Now I'm feeling hungry!

CopperKettle

10:22

(0:

@DamkerngT. That's cheap! Now, I'll need to do some reading. Bye, Damkerng, Hanna!

CopperKettle

10:45

@DamkerngT. Do you mean UFO? We have a nice hard rock song about UFO, from about 1980.

With tongue in cheeck lyrics, quite literary.. (0:

The Flying Saucer - the rock group is called Aquarium.

I've just jotted down a rought translation, trying to keep true to the rhythm

"Have you ever seen it cutting the wild blue yonder,
The saucer that flies, that crockery piece?
How many supreme repartees
We owe to this crockery piece
And how many families kept (saved?) from tearing asunder."

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Ah, yes. That's right! I've seen the movie Fire in the Sky once.

@CopperKettle Flying Saucer. The saucer that flies!

CopperKettle

Yes, the meaning of the song is "families stop bickering, because looking and discussing flying saucers give them something to talk about"

"flying saucers bring some diversity to your mundane lives"

A nice song.

Off to the store. Bye!

Ilan

@DamkerngT. hi

how are you?

what variant do you prefer to use "tall building" or "high building"?

@snailboat hello :)

Anonymous

11:02

I like tall better personally

Ilan

in ngram this variant is more frequent since 60s

sixties

60ies?

Anonymous

Oh yeah? What if you check American and British separately? Is it true of both?

Ilan

I checked British

In AE this tendency began from 1930

so, the building is tall :)

@snailboat how do you say: "It is his 11 (or 12) birthday". I mean should it be eleventh?? twelveth?

@snailboat I checked them separately actually, I don't know how to check in parallel

Anonymous

11:28

Eleventh, twelfth

Ilan

oh, thanks :)

Anonymous

Written 11th or 12th for short, if you like, but you can't just write "11 birthday" without th

Ilan

so, about dates (of birthdays) we should use the -th form?

Let's say "She was born in November 11th"?

Anonymous

In that case, you can write "She was born on November 11" if you're writing American English

Anonymous

I think in BrE you'd more likely write 11 November

Ilan

11:35

hm

ok

thanks

@snailboat do you have any idea what this comparison means - books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

Here is how you check multiple corpora at once: books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

Born in October is fine. Born in October 19 is not.

Anonymous

The graph doesn't distinguish the two so it doesn't tell you anything useful

Ilan

oh, thanks for the tip!

Anonymous

Use in for a month, on for a day

Ilan

11:41

now I see that I should use on - books.google.com/ngrams/…

now I see, Nov 6 is a day, so I should use ON, just NOV is a month - I should use IN

Anonymous

Right!

Ilan

great

small difference with big sense

CopperKettle

12:00

Good afternoon @snailboat!

And good afternoon @Ilan!

Ilan

hi

CopperKettle

I wonder if my answer was right here:

2

Q: "What makes her laugh IS..." or "What makes her laugh ARE..." - plural or singular?

Sometimes I get confused by the usage of "what" as a pronoun. Specifically, I am not sure if "what" stands for "the thing that" or for "the things that" or for both. For example, should I say "What makes her laugh is ..." or "What makes her laugh are ..." or "What make her laugh are ..."?

relative-pronouns subject-verb-agreement interrogative content-clause pseudo-cleft-sentence

Ilan

@CopperKettle how do you translate

CopperKettle

@Ilan what?

Ilan

"так бы сразу и сказал"

CopperKettle

12:02

@Ilan "You should've said it right away"

BBL

Ilan

said it or said that?

CopperKettle

I'm not sure

A good question

Ilan

:)

I cannot ask this is English :)

CopperKettle

You might ask this question at ELL

Ilan

hh

how do you translate the source :))?/

it is endless

CopperKettle

12:12

Excuse me?

What source?

Ilan

"так бы сразу и сказал"

:)

we should start from this poin t

CopperKettle

I should've said that seems to take the lead

Ilan

yes

complicated phrase

CopperKettle

It's very rare on Google Books for some reason. There must be a more idiomatic construction.

"You should've told me" is very widespread on the other hand

Ilan

hm

I'll try to find the idiom for that

CopperKettle

12:25

I'll try to look in COCA or whatever

user965347

what planet that very stink?

CopperKettle

@Ilan From the COCA corpus: "Well, then, my friend, you should have said so straightaway!"

Ilan

so

:)

the third variation

CopperKettle

It's from Silverberg, the Sci Fi writer, so it must be idiomatic

Eloise was in bed with the radio on. " I'm glad to hear it. " # " You can laugh if you want to, but it happens all the time. People's throats swell up and they can't catch their breath. " # " If you were worried, Grace, you should have said so. "

If you were worried, Grace, you should have said so

So it's so again.

Ilan

ok, it seems to be the right version

CopperKettle

12:32

There's also a nice vernacular expresion "on her say-so"

"Don't just believe it on my say-so - find out for yourself."

Ilan

hm

CopperKettle

When I try to search for "should've said so" (with the clitic), the COCA finds nothing. I probably don't know how to format it properly.

Ilan

should have said

?

CopperKettle

" Libby, " he said, " I don't disappoint you on purpose. " # " If you didn't want to come you should have said so, " she told him. " If it was so much trouble, if you couldn't tear yourself away for eight measly days with your own wife, then you should have just said so. "

Ilan

looking for the phrase I was stuck by Lukashenko's aphorisms

cannot stop to read :))

CopperKettle

12:38

@Ilan you've struck upon a list of the potato-planter's aphorisms?

Ilan

ya

CopperKettle

I remember one, "наш парламент я перетрАхивал и буду перетрАхивать"

Ilan

I have found 111

orator.ru/lukashenko.html

try to stop reading

Damkerng T.

@Ilan Hi!

Aww... I missed snailboat again!

Ilan

:

:)

Damkerng T.

12:42

@Ilan You can try describing these charts instead:

CopperKettle

Yes, sadly, snailboat has left the building

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Indeed!

CopperKettle

@Ilan I like this: "I'm an atheist, yes, but I'm an Orthodox atheist"

Ilan

:)

@DamkerngT. don't understand the graphs

:(

Damkerng T.

That could happen to anyone! I'm not sure about the X-axis myself.

Ilan

12:45

:)

CopperKettle

And another "In order to achieve high living standards, we will live in dug-outs, if necessary"

Ilan

the more load of CPUs the more time takes to perform an operations

Damkerng T.

It looks like no CPUs could render all the frames. That's my guess.

Ilan

:)

the upper line shows the worst CPU

Damkerng T.

It's from a post about the Pentium G3258 at 4.8GHz.

Ilan

12:47

the lowest - the best one

Damkerng T.

@Ilan nods

Ilan

what CPU do you prefer?

Damkerng T.

Pentium G3258, which normally runs at 3.2GHz.

CopperKettle

The less frames are dropped, the higher the peak times go for rendering the frames

That's a tough graph

Ilan

the idea of this graph is that the lowest line is for better CPU while the upper line graph is for the worst one

Damkerng T.

12:50

nods

CopperKettle

Yes, the better processors render frames faster, even if we force them to render each frame

Ilan

:)

CopperKettle

Of course they render the images even faster if we allow the engine to drop some frames

Damkerng T.

That's a really good interpretation!

CopperKettle

bows down thank you!

Damkerng T.

12:52

By the way, this Pentium G3258 processor is the 20th anniversary Pentium!

Intel released it to celebrate their 20 years of the Pentium brand.

CopperKettle

nice!

Damkerng T.

So, I think the fact that they allow such a high overclocking is actually their gimmick. :-)

CopperKettle

I remember Celeron 300 mHz was overclockable to 450 mHz (0:

Damkerng T.

It's kinda like when we bought a stock car and boosted it up to compete with a Ferrari!

CopperKettle

My friend had one.

Damkerng T.

12:54

@CopperKettle Nice!

CopperKettle

Britain has recently allowed driverless cars on roads for testing. SkyNet gets closer (0:

Damkerng T.

Hah! Now they're on the road?!?

Ilan

it could be nice option

CopperKettle

"The government promised a full review of current legislation by the summer of 2017."

bbc.com/news/technology-31364441

Damkerng T.

I don't want myself being run over by any autonomous vehicle!

CopperKettle

12:57

They will rewrite the Road Code to allow for driverless car

Damkerng T.

nods

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. The chances will probably be lower than 0.0001% compared to being run over by a driver-equipped car

Damkerng T.

lol

CopperKettle

I was returning from a jog and was nearly run over when a car passed at high speed in front of me despite the red traffic sign

I guess a driverless car would never have done that

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

@CopperKettle Unless it's malfunctioning!

CopperKettle

12:59

Now I take my headphones off before crossing the road and watch very, very carefully (0:

@DamkerngT. or hacked (0:

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Yes!

Hmm... come to think of it, that could make those cars great tools for assassins!

CopperKettle

During the last Critical Mass bicycle ride some couple were so enrapt looking at the bicyclists that they drove into the car ahead, just as I was pedaling nearby.

Damkerng T.

Oh, how bad was it!?

CopperKettle

Nothing serious, their hood got accordioned a bit, nobody was hurt

Damkerng T.

Ah... that's good!

CopperKettle

13:08

"hood" or "bonnet". a good occasion to learn a new word.

Hood (vehicle)

The hood (US & Canada) or bonnet (most Commonwealth countries) is the hinged cover over the engine of motor vehicles that allows access to the engine compartment (or trunk on rear-engine and some mid-engine vehicles) for maintenance and repair. In British terminology, hood refers to a fabric cover over the passenger compartment of the car (known as the 'top' in the US). In many motor vehicles built in the 1930s and 1940s, the resemblance to an actual hood or bonnet is clear when open and viewed head-on; in modern vehicles it continues to serve the same purpose but no longer resembles a head covering...

Damkerng T.

I'm more familiar with hood and bumper. :-)

CopperKettle

I had to look up the word in a vocabulary (0:

Before the train and car epoch started, bumper used to have a different meaning.

Damkerng T.

Oh? -- looking that up...

CopperKettle

Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name, O smile among the shades, for this is fame!

Damkerng T.

nods -- :-)

CopperKettle

13:11

("Written in the Cottage Where Burns was Born", by John Keats, a nice poem)

The drinkers used big glasses to bump against each over when drinking beer

Damkerng T.

Ahh

CopperKettle

that's why bumper crop, bumper harvest still mean "a big harvest" ("a bumper full to the brim")

Damkerng T.

Oh, this one (bumper crop) is nice!

CopperKettle

Yes, I like this expression. (0:

Need to read something, bye!

Damkerng T.

See you! And thanks for a new phrase!

Hanaa

14:14

Hi!

Man_From_India

@Hanaa hello

MARamezani

19:05

Hello? Anyone?

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Yes?

MARamezani

Oh hi @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

Hi!

MARamezani

I had a question that was more like discussion than a real one.

Damkerng T.

What is the question?

MARamezani

19:09

"And I almost forgot, as long as we get rid of that grizzly, wizzly, pastel blue background banner, I am completely happy." This is a sentence one of our cool chemists said about site design.

What's "Grizzly" supposed to mean in there?

Dictionary.reference says it means "gray-like".

Damkerng T.

I think they could've just thought of the sounds.

MARamezani

Does it represent "depression" or something?

That's something I came up with.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... considering that he also said wizzly, perhaps not. I'm not familiar with this expression. But it sounds dizzy!

Did he write or did he speak?

Sorry for the delay. The task in the background makes my computer not very responsive.

MARamezani

Write. He's in Japan. I'm in Iran!

Damkerng T.

Oh, hmm... I thought it could've been whizzly, but writing rules that out.

MARamezani

19:14

I give you the link: meta.chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/604/… it's the last sentence.

The guy can fluently speak English, German, Japanese... Oh my god! He's oddly nerdy!

Damkerng T.

If I were you, I would just ignore that grizzly, wizzly. His message is clear without that doo-dee-doo-dah stuff.

MARamezani

Anyways, have there even been any talk about site design in ELL?

Damkerng T.

I haven't seen any post on that on our meta site yet.

MARamezani

Too bad. But I'm pretty sure ELL will be getting graduated way sooner than Chem or Bio.se.

Damkerng T.

By the way, his grizzly is probably a variation of grisly. (You can look it up in dictionaries. I think it fits his context.)

@MARamezani That would be interesting, I think. :-)

MARamezani

19:20

More questions, more visitors, "cooler" users (Anyone with more than 4000 rep is considered cool :). I'm looking for a futuristic CLEAN ELL.

Let me search up grisly.

Damkerng T.

lol

MARamezani

YEEESSS. Grisly actually can work out.

Btw, wish me luck cuz I'm gonna be taking a chemistry olympiad in three days!

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's cool!

Best of luck, then!

MARamezani

Oh thank you! I'm typing this and studying university chemistry at the same time. It feels like programming with a cup of coffee beside your laptop!

Damkerng T.

Oh, don't let me distract you from your class, then. :-)

MARamezani

19:25

Have a nice day/night/midnight/whatever!

Damkerng T.

Thanks! You too!

Damkerng T.

20:52

Not being an accountant, I usually uses deposit. Saying credit or debit someone's bank account could cause misunderstanding, in my opinion. — Damkerng T. 4 hours ago

Oh! Isn't that a blatant, grammatical error of mine?!

infinitesimal

22:04

Nobody's perfect my friend :-)

in Mathematics, Feb 9 at 10:35, by infinitesimal

There is antimatter, there is dark matter, and there is doesn't matter :D

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

infinitesimal

22:21

np

Pal

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