English Language Learners

MARamezani

19:00

ELL is relatively young, comparing it to SEs like chemistry or bio.

Damkerng T.

I think Hope this helps is neither particularly good or bad.

MARamezani

Oh I realize you know "bio" as a different word than biology.

Anonymous

Really? I know bio as 'biology'

Damkerng T.

But well said, in your meta post. @MARamezani!

Anonymous

What else is it?

MARamezani

19:02

Oh, apparently you guys aren't the only ones that are fond of "drink or eat soup" scenario!

@snailboat If a native hears "bio" would they think of it as "profile info" or "biology"?

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

@MARamezani Oh! Uh, maybe it depends on context.

Anonymous

I had biology primed, so that was the only thing I could think of.

Anonymous

I guess it could be either.

MARamezani

I see [a psychological, maybe] effect of chatting is reduced stress about tomorrow's test!

Anonymous

19:05

@MARamezani Woo hoo!

Anonymous

I see one effect of chatting: lots of time has disappeared on me ;-)

Anonymous

(There's that adversative construction again!)

Damkerng T.

:D

MARamezani

I solve all the questions in the previous olympiads. (i.e.: Exam preparation) Yeah, so for me also, it is time killing!

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Cool!

2

A: How helpful is it to add "Hope this is helpful!" to an ELL answer?

Er, I'd think that there are much more significant things to be worried about than that. ONE: For instance, how about getting members to back up their grammatical opinions with vetted grammar sources? There's too much nonsense and too much bad info being given in answer posts, and those answer p...

I think that deserves another post indeed.

Points 1 and 3 are more serious, especially in the long run.

1

A: Adjective or possessive?

When you talk about possessiveness, the article is not put. The house of Tom -okay But... The Tom's house - not okay. So... Who is the president of France? -okay Who is France's president? -okay. But... Who is the France's president? -not okay. As far are preferring one...

Anonymous

19:10

Strictly speaking, that doesn't answer the question.

Damkerng T.

I remember he wrote something wrong about this pattern before.

Anonymous

But it seems the OP is happy with it.

Anonymous

No one mentioned what "Who is the France president?" could mean

Damkerng T.

nods

MARamezani

@snailboat maybe this is a case of

Anonymous

19:11

"Our company has three presidents: one in the US, one in France, and one in Spain." "Ah, who is the France president?" "That would be Damkerng."

Damkerng T.

Oh, he answered 999 times already!

Anonymous

Here's my first attempt at contriving a scenario for it :-)

MARamezani

12

Q: Not so fast! (When should I accept my answer?)

So, someone has answered your question, and you haven't even waited a full hour yet. That's great! As you might already know, the Stack Exchange model encourages you to accept an answer from those given. As one meta post says: Accepting an answer is important as it both rewards posters for so...

discussion

Damkerng T.

(Probably more than that. I'm sure he has deleted some of his posts.)

Hello, @StoneyB!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, I don't mean to say that the OP shouldn't be happy with it

Damkerng T.

19:12

@snailboat If that were real, it would be nice!

Anonymous

That's their choice

StoneyB

Hi guys. Droppin by to see what's grammatically chic these days.

Anonymous

I've been looking for a chance to say tmesis all day, but one hasn't come up.

Anonymous

I guess I'll just wedge it in here.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Eating vs drinking noodles, perhaps. :-)

@snailboat Wow!

StoneyB

19:14

@snailboat Fan-f**g-tastic. (or is that distinguishable as an infix?)

oops, boss calling ,,, bye

MARamezani

@snailboat Now that you want to, could you give me four examples of tmesis structure? :)

Anonymous

@StoneyB McCawley wrote a paper about that called "Where you can shove infixes"

Damkerng T.

I'm sure that Cinde-happy-rella is possible. :D

MARamezani

@snailboat do you agree with Hellion's answer to my Q?

Anonymous

I haven't read it yet

Anonymous

19:22

@DamkerngT. Yeah, it can precede secondary stress

Anonymous

@MARamezani It looks pretty good.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I haven't thought of stresses with infixes before!

But it looks like it is so indeed!

Anonymous

Of minor note: in some languages, people also use verbs corresponding to 'eat' or 'drink' for things like taking vitamins or pills, but in English we use take for that

MARamezani

I actually favor his point about using "have". Gosh! Why didn't I think of that before?!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, generally you want to infix your expletives before the strongest available stress

Damkerng T.

19:24

nods

Anonymous

So, abso-!@*$&-lutely, but not ab-!*#($&(!*#-solutely or absolute-!#&$*#!&$*-ly*

MARamezani

Take a pill. Yeah, that one I'm aware of.

Damkerng T.

lol

Anonymous

Hmm, I may have hit obscenicon overload.

Damkerng T.

I remember that I felt weird watching the first few episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Lots of fraking happened!

MARamezani

19:30

0

Q: Please, check if I defined predicates correctly

As the weather was nasty he remained at home. Was nasty - the compound nominal predicate that consists of a link-verb of of being (was) and a predicative expressed by an adjective (nasty). Remained - the simple verbal predicate expressed by a notional verb in Past Tense, Common aspect, Non-Pe...

grammar

What title do you suggest?

Damkerng T.

It's 10 questions in a question!

Anonymous

I suggested a close vote ;-(

MARamezani

I, for one, think that it's too brood!

Oh, so you do agree with me.

Damkerng T.

Me, too. I think it's better to split the question.

Anonymous

Looking up 1 word in 1000 still feels like a lot.

MARamezani

19:31

Yeah. Take a look at my comment!

Anonymous

I think it's because they aren't evenly distributed, so sometimes there are a few in a shorter space

Anonymous

But if I think back, 1 in 1000 is a lot better than it used to be :-)

Damkerng T.

Also, it makes me think of homework.

Anonymous

Hmm, I suppose it does.

MARamezani

They wanna check their homework, I suppose.

Anonymous

19:33

0

Q: I wish and I'd rather

I have gone through many Q and A's on some other sites regarding this but I still dont have clarity about the usage of both. Please read the following sentences. I wish I hadn't sold my car. I'd rather I hadn't sold my car. I wish you hadn't left your job. I'd rather you hadn't left your job. ...

usage

Anonymous

This is interesting.

Damkerng T.

Instead of worrying about grammar stuff, I'd worry more about "Is this possible to use the infinitive in these sentences?" in one of their questions, if I were them.

Anonymous

If we're comparing had rather with wish, why not: "?I wish you won't sell your car." versus "I'd rather you don't sell your car."

Anonymous

That sort of comparison. I don't know what the wish sentence to compare should be. Something ungrammatical, take your pick?

Anonymous

opposite-word

Anonymous

19:35

Here's another redundant tag

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods

MARamezani

Maybe we should start a meta post...

kitty

can I join in

MARamezani

...that does the clean up for tags.

Anonymous

You can say stuff.

MARamezani

19:36

Oh hi @kitty!

Damkerng T.

Sure @kitty!

MARamezani

What do you think guys?

Damkerng T.

About? Oh, cleaning up the tags.

MARamezani

Yes.

Anonymous

Go for it. So far we've got opposite-word → antonyms and comparison → word-choice

Damkerng T.

19:37

+1

MARamezani

I feel lazy!

Alright alright! Your silence broke me!

Anonymous

Woo hoo!

Anonymous

All part of my plan.

MARamezani

@snailboat MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anonymous

I'm actually not a very good evil schemer.

Anonymous

19:41

Actually, the only reason I ended up answering questions on ELL today is because you pointed me to stuff on the site that made me sign in.

MARamezani

I wrote the title as "tag merging academy".

Anonymous

Otherwise I'd have kept up my two-month streak of not contributing

Anonymous

So maybe you're the evil schemer here.

MARamezani

Wait a minute guys.... A single post would draw lesser attention to the tag that needs removing, wouldn't it?

So what do you think I post something about these two tags only?

Anonymous

You could do that. Then people could focus on the individual tags in their responses

Damkerng T.

19:44

I still can't figure out if I wish you hadn't left your job and I'd rather you hadn't left your job are identical.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Wish seems stronger to me.

Anonymous

Had rather seems more like an expression of a preference, potentially a weak one

Damkerng T.

Wait, is this one had rather or would rather?

Anonymous

Uh. We decided the other day that both of them exist.

Anonymous

I'll go with would rather since you asked me though :-)

Damkerng T.

19:45

Ah, but I remember that you favored would rather!

Anonymous

I do! And, well, the thing is

Anonymous

It's 'd rather in my mind, and I tried to expand it and got confused! ;-)

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see. :-)

Anonymous

See? I'm a walking example.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

19:46

(Of what, I dare not say)

Damkerng T.

Of people who use both alternatives, I think. :D

MARamezani

:D

Anonymous

Well, I think I'd actually never say had rather

Anonymous

I was just trying to come up with its citation form because typing 'd rather seems weird by itself

Anonymous

Checking my chat logs, I find 48 examples of me typing would rather and 0 of had rather

Anonymous

19:47

So I'm going to chalk it up to error!

Anonymous

I can make errors too, y'know. I make them every day!

Damkerng T.

Don't worry! All your errors *are belong to us!

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

I like that you starred it.

Damkerng T.

Hee

Anonymous

19:49

Seriously, I was staring at 'd rather thinking "Oh, I'd better replace that 'd with something …" and the correct answer did not appear in my head readily

Anonymous

I think in my mind it really is just 'd rather

Damkerng T.

If that's a popular error originated in Japanese. It *don't matter is probably originated in Thai.

@snailboat nods

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It don't matter is not an error, it's perfectly natural non-standard English in a number of dialects

Damkerng T.

Ah!

Anonymous

For example, AAVE

Anonymous

19:50

It could be produced by an error in a dialect that doesn't contain it, but…

Damkerng T.

But when a Thai said that, we could be quite certain that they made an error! :-)

Anonymous

I suspect that the large majority of "It don't matter"s are not errors

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That makes sense!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I think the reason that had rather seems plausible is because normally it sounds identical to 'd rather

Anonymous

If I read "I had rather" out loud, I contract the had and it ends up sounding fine

Anonymous

19:54

But if I actually give had its full form, it sounds really strange!

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's true!

Anonymous

Whereas if I give would its full form, it sounds normal.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anyway, I like would rather better.

Anonymous

So when had rather goes through my brain and sounds okay, it's because I'm reading it like 'd rather :-)

Damkerng T.

So that's why!

Anonymous

19:55

I just spent a few minutes thinking this through and pronouncing stuff :-)

Anonymous

But I dunno. Maybe you shouldn't trust my brain on this one.

Damkerng T.

1

Q: Sentence Stress: I'm sort of busy right now

I heard this phrase in a TV show: "I'm sort of busy right now". You can listen it here (I cut out the phrase): https://clyp.it/4khla44l Phonetically it looks like: [ɑɪm soərt əv bɪzi raɪt naʊ]. The words "sort" and "of" can be linked together, because of the consonant + vowel. But this is not w...

american-english pronunciation american-accent word-stress

Another spoken English question!

It'd be better if the answer mentioned which one is unmarked.

Oh, he actually mentioned that. (this is the default way)

Anonymous

I don't think the current answer or the current comment really address the question

MARamezani

Ho ho, merry sixth spam edit suggestion! That one was quite offensive.

Damkerng T.

Oh! ?

MARamezani

20:00

You're gonna miss it @DamkerngT.! Go check it out!

Anonymous

Well, where do you think the stress would fall in I'm sorta?

Anonymous

Sixth? Where at?

Damkerng T.

Why is there no number after review on the main page in my browser?

MARamezani

You lost it!

Anonymous

Ah, that's not spam, that's just offensive.

Anonymous

20:00

I got it :-)

Damkerng T.

I sure missed it!

MARamezani

Maybe it's an offensive spam.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. 'Cause it's deliberately not an accurate reflection of the current queue size. They believe that would place too big a demand on their servers

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Here it is: ell.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/19572

MARamezani

Well, @DamkerngT. two edit reviews say enough.

Damkerng T.

20:01

Aww...

That's not very nice!

Anonymous

Getting reputation on ELU is always easier than on ELL. I don't know why

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Isn't it the other way around?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. No? :-)

Anonymous

I mean, I get higher scores on ELU on average than on ELL.

Damkerng T.

Dunno!

Anonymous

20:02

I don't know about other people.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see.

I haven't engaged in ELU activities for a while. Maybe since last year.

Anonymous

Me either.

Anonymous

I posted my first answer there since like, October? a few hours ago

Damkerng T.

Nice!

Anonymous

5

A: How is "deque" commonly pronounced?

From The Art of Computer Programming, volume 1, section 2.2.1 "Stacks, Queues, and Deques": A deque ("double-ended queue") is a linear list for which all insertions and deletions (and usually all accesses) are made at the ends of the list. A deque is therefore more general than a stack or a ...

Anonymous

20:04

I figured I would add an answer with the TAOCP cite since it was missing from the accepted answer

Anonymous

And I got 5 upvotes, even though there's already an accepted answer! :-)

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

I mean, um, six! :-)

Damkerng T.

That's what :D was for. :D

Anonymous

So that's averaging four times what I got on ELL for my answers today.

Anonymous

20:06

I mean, that's not always the case. But my average is higher on ELU anyway.

Anonymous

I have that one question at +82 on ELU :-D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hehe, I guessed as much!

Damkerng T.

Hee

Anonymous

I doubt I'll ever have a question at +82 on ELL.

Damkerng T.

Ah, that's why Man_From_India mentioned ergative verb today.

Anonymous

20:08

Uh-huh! I stole it from him. From the land of ergativity.

Damkerng T.

I think voting is still one of the main problems of ELL.

Hehe!

Anonymous

It's funny that 喝 means 'drink' in Chinese. In Japanese, it only has the 'shout loudly' meaning

Anonymous

I assumed "drink soup" was a Chinese quirk myself. We use 喝汤, which literally means "drink soup", as 喝 is the word for "drinking". — Joe Z. 13 mins ago

Damkerng T.

Eh? 'shout loudly', too?

Anonymous

Yeah, it has both meanings in Chinese.

Damkerng T.

20:10

Ahh

Hooray! Tomorrow is New Year!

Do they have Japanese New Year separately from the common New Year as well?

Anonymous

The Japanese New Year is now January 1

Anonymous

But there's another celebration on the lunar new year, I guess

Damkerng T.

Oh, the lunar new year is around the same time as Chinese new year, I think.

One nice thing about being a quarter-Chinese Thai is that I can celebrate new years three times a year!

Anonymous

That's because the Chinese one is lunar :-)

Anonymous

I think.

Damkerng T.

20:15

A-ha!

Anonymous

I'm not really an expert on all this calendar stuff.

MARamezani

There goes "tag merging academy"

0

Q: Tag merging academy

First of all, a discussion in chat has brought us these ideas that if there's a tag to be discussed about, why not a single post that covers all? Please comment on this post and let me know if such thing is acceptable by the community. The idea of this post is to firstly discuss the possibility o...

discussion tags tag-synonyms

Though I agree I typed it in a rather indecisive manner.

Damkerng T.

I'd title it Tag merge movement. :-)

Anonymous

Can I add little Unicode arrows?

Damkerng T.

Tag merging academy is fine, too, I think.

MARamezani

20:17

Did you know that Iranians were the first to have an actually accurate calendar?

No offence!

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Ah, I didn't know that.

I thought it was Inca people.

MARamezani

But we have a proverb in Persian (derived from a poem) that says:

Anonymous

I don't think you said anything I could reasonably take offense to

MARamezani

"If your dad is awesome, that doesn't mean you are."

Damkerng T.

Absolutely true.

MARamezani

20:19

It's a bit "heavier" in meaning, but I simplified it.

Anonymous

I added the arrows. If you don't like it, you can revert it :-)

Damkerng T.

+1 for the arrows!

Anonymous

+1 for have soup. I never say "eat soup" OR "drink soup." (AmE) — Adam 21 mins ago

Anonymous

See? We've got another haver on our hands!

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. not for the content?!

Damkerng T.

20:21

@MARamezani No. That's for the upvote! :D

@snailboat I think eat soup is weird.

MARamezani

I wish my question appeared in the hot questions.

Pls tooth fairy!

Wait, do tooth fairies grant wishes?

Damkerng T.

Dunno. I know that Blue Fairy does.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's the most common verb, but others share your opinion.

Anonymous

Some people are uncomfortable with both eat and drink for things like soup, and have gives them a way to avoid saying either one :-) — snailboat Feb 9 at 9:17

Damkerng T.

nods

Is eat soup even more common than drink soup?

Anonymous

20:25

Yes.

Damkerng T.

That's a surprise!

Anonymous

Significantly more common

Damkerng T.

Wow!

Anonymous

This chart is probably flawed, but: books.google.com/ngrams/…

Damkerng T.

Hah! Even more frequently used than have soup!

Anonymous

20:27

Oh, yes.

Anonymous

The graph here is probably making have soup seem more common than it is, actually

MARamezani

Fun fact: Google NGrams are forbidden in Iran. Google forbids them! Why should everything be political?

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

Anonymous

Anonymous

Then I'll upload the graph

MARamezani

20:29

Oh that's really nice of you!

Whoa, guys, you know what the reviewing and the reviewers in ELL remind me of?

Come on, make a wild guess.

Damkerng T.

Dunno. Who is it that you're thinking of?

MARamezani

In chemistry, reviewing is like this:

People review stuff in ELL in less than 10 seconds!

As if they're grabbing 'em.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

MARamezani

Two days ago, when I clicked review in chemistry, I saw 8 unreviewed first posts!

Damkerng T.

It's close to the reality, I think. About 80% of the post I've reviewed was done in less than a minute. The rest could take much longer time.

MARamezani

20:36

I'm just saying!

I had this pic in my brain as soon as I got to 350 rep.

Anonymous

Hah! Ten seconds, really?

Anonymous

Well, sometimes when I review it's because I've already seen the post in question

Anonymous

And I'm finding it in the review queue so I can cast my vote, so to speak :-)

Anonymous

I think our reviewers seem to do a good job, though.

Anonymous

A while back we had some robo-reviewers (as we discussed earlier)

MARamezani

20:42

The guy you trademarked as robo-reviewer is still there you know!

Anonymous

Well, is he robo-reviewing?

Anonymous

I was under the impression he'd reformed!

MARamezani

I feel bad for him.

Anonymous

Robo-reviewer is the established term on SE for that behavior

MARamezani

Being treated like that doesn't leave one any rep (actual rep), does it?

Maybe you should have gone nameless.

Anonymous

20:44

No.

MARamezani

And then you say you're not evil schemer!

Anonymous

I never actually named names in my post.

Anonymous

Of course, anyone could find out by looking.

Anonymous

I don't believe I mistreated anyone in that post.

MARamezani

Let's change the subject, shall we? How is the weather? :)

Anonymous

20:47

It's okay, I'm unlikely to make meta posts of that sort again.

Anonymous

I don't participate much in ELL anymore.

MARamezani

That's too bad. Btw, what kind of a voter are you?

Damkerng T.

Robo-reviewing is supposed to be my job, I'd say!

:D

Whirrr!

MARamezani

:D

You like to vote questions, answers, comments, or what?

I could look into your profile, but I rather you say it.

Damkerng T.

All of the above!

MARamezani

20:51

Which one do you vote more?

Damkerng T.

I try to vote answers more because it seems like not many people vote them.

Demonstrating robo-reviewing: Clank, clank, ... (open a post), whirrr, ... (click on "no action needed"), clank, clank, ... (repeating the same thing on the next post), whirr, ...

MARamezani

lol

Damkerng T.

That's how robo-reviewing's done the right way. :P

MARamezani

That doesn't take much effort for an spoiler to come and downvote the question!

See the vote counts for drink/eat.

Damkerng T.

One downvote!

MARamezani

20:59

Still makes me >:O

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