English Language Learners

StoneyB

02:26

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now —*Dylan*

3

infinitesimal

05:56

Whoa, and if you overlay a Fibonacci spiral on a golden spiral it matches up almost perfectly!

Hanaa

08:15

Hi all :)

It seems i lost a great discussion yesterday

Heavy rains here ...........

Damkerng T.

08:50

Nice flowchart! @infinitesimal!

infinitesimal

Thanks :D

Majid

09:16

How can i delete my account.

infinitesimal

09:53

Use this

kitty

11:44

Loading English Language Learners
Just a second…

I have tried several times before I can chat

XD

Man_From_India

hi @kitty

kitty

12:14

Hi there

Man_From_India

r u a native speaker?

kitty

I can not send any messages out, the server seems very busy.

Man_From_India

Oh :-( but fortunately it's working fine for me :-)

kitty

hi Man_From_India. What name do you prefer to be called?

Man_From_India

Anything you like to :-) u seem to be clever :-)

kitty

12:18

I am new here

Man_From_India

Or MFI is also fine :-)

kitty

XDD

Man_From_India

Yes I see you are new here. Where r u from?

kitty

MFI, my background is kinda boring

Man_From_India

U mean your profile picture?

So is it for me as well :-)

kitty

12:25

I don't know what my native language is, MFI

Man_From_India

I mean what is your first language?

kitty

No, I am confused of it

it's hard to tell

I have two grandmas, Thai and Japanese, my grandpa is Chinese so do my father, my mother is Australian

what is my first language then?

Man_From_India

Ohh so you have grown up listening to multiple languages. Better ask it this way ;-) What language are you most comfortable with?

kitty

I was banned by usingEnglish forum because they thought I was not telling the truth

Man_From_India

Because of this fact? :-O u could have written that language you are most comfortable with as your native language. I guess it's either Chinese or English. But it will also depend on where you have grown up?

kitty

12:32

not I am not living with my grand parents so I don't know Thai and Japanese, but I can read some basic Chinese characters.

Man_From_India

usingEnglish is good forum, I once used it, but not for long time. And now I don't go there anymore.

Man_From_India

12:48

@snailboat This is another sentence parsing question for you. I have the following sentence -

> But there are some grains of fact, as the men whom he mentions Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates are all mentioned by Manucci as with Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh, Smith and Roach also appear in the Surat Records in 1667 and 1672 and the son of the latter is mentioned in 1704.

Source here

My question I don't understand this italic part of the sentence - as with Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh

Could you please tell me the construction of this sentence and meaning also?

I think the meaning of the sentence is -

"He (the narrator) mentioned the name of Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates, Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe. Manucci also mentioned the names of Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates. Not Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe. He (the narrator) mentioned Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad and Dara."

This is what I got from the quoted sentence. Don't know if I am right. The as with ... part is confusing. Please explain that part.

Damkerng T.

I think a comma before the second as would help.

Robo-parsing: "But there are some grains of fact" "as yada yada" "as with yada yada"

I think it might also help if we read with Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh as something floatable.

I should restart my browser. I think I have ~1500 tabs now.

user116848

@DamkerngT. Hi! Your tabs remain a mystery to me :-)

user116848

@Man_From_India Hi!

Damkerng T.

13:10

Oh, a few more hundred tabs are dedicated to VGA cards and PC cases.

I'm looking into GPU programming at the moment.

just finished restarting the whole thing!

To my dismay, this Core i7 can't cope with my extreme browsing really well.

And Firefox will become really sluggish when it eats up about 3GB of memory.

user116848

So do you also work in graphics?

user116848

I mean the need for graphics card.

Damkerng T.

Not really.

GPU is different from CPU because a GPU will have way more # of cores.

But GPU cores are relatively dumb.

user116848

Graphics processing unit

A graphics processing unit (GPU), also occasionally called visual processing unit (VPU), is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles. Modern GPUs are very efficient at manipulating computer graphics and image processing, and their highly parallel structure makes them more effective than general-purpose CPUs for algorithms where processing of large blocks of data is done...

Damkerng T.

What I'm really looking into is the use of GPU on parallel programming.

Yes! That!

user116848

13:16

I see. Yeah, it is kinda new for me.

Damkerng T.

Maybe I should've said parallel computing rather than programming, but it's not much different.

It's new for me, too!

user116848

I used to use graphics card when I played PC games. Now I use only the built-in card.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... you mean an on-board chipset, I think.

user116848

Yeah, that one.

Damkerng T.

Does that mean that you don't play games as often?

user116848

13:18

No, I don't these days :-)

Damkerng T.

Good for you! :-)

user116848

Good luck with your hardware hunting.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! Thanks!

I think I might end up with GTX 960, which appears to be capable yet affordable.

user116848

Yeah, I hear GeForce cards are pretty good. But they can also be quite expensive.

Damkerng T.

nods

> amazon.com/…

Isn't the price of something like that curious? :-)

user116848

13:26

Oh, haha.

user116848

Pricey!

Damkerng T.

That one has 2816 cores!

But this one: amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Dual-Link-Graphics-12G-P4-3990-KR/dp/…, which is less expensive, has 5760 cores!

These are monsters! :-)

user116848

Yes, they are :)

user116848

So one drawback I found with the graphics cards is that their fans can be quite delicate.

user116848

All the cards that I used, their fans broke within a year or so, due to overusing perhaps.

user116848

13:36

Or maybe overheating.

Damkerng T.

@Farooq Oh, no! Poor things!

Only a year or so?

Hmm... a few of my low-end cards seem to get by just fine for years.

user116848

Yeah, more or less. Max two years :-)

Damkerng T.

But I haven't used them for gaming much.

What model did you use, if I can ask?

user116848

I used to have some Radeon graphic card in my PC. Then I changed it to GeForce. Now it is some built-in card.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

user116848

13:40

I can't remember which GeForce though. It was pretty good for new PC games at the time.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I guess it must be a mid-range one.

user116848

Yeah, mid-range one, exactly.

Damkerng T.

The one I just removed from one of my old PCs (to save the energy) looks like this: asus.com/Graphics_Cards/EN8400GS_SILENTHTP512M

No fans!

user116848

Look like a nice and simple one!

Damkerng T.

Yup. But it eats 7W even when I don't run any games!

Oh, correction, I think it's more like 9W.

user116848

13:45

So does this card without fan hangs (crash) your system?

user116848

I used to have one without fan too. But it hung my system so often I had to change it.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Not really. I think it depends on our setups.

user116848

So, getting the right mix of hardware for a PC can be quite a work. That used to be my one of the worries when I played PC games. Good thing I am over that stage of my life :-)

Damkerng T.

Yes. That's true. I think it sounds like you could've had a problem with heat management. Good thing it's in the past! :-)

user116848

So I think mid-range ones (cards) are good because cheap ones are worse than not having any.

user116848

13:53

@DamkerngT. Yeah, heat management. That is very true.

user116848

Over heating is always the problem.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I'm building a new PC for my browsing. The RAM could arrive tomorrow. I intend to run it with on-board graphics. It might be interesting to see how well it can perform.

@Farooq Yes. And these VGA cards and high-end CPUs in the last few years generate lots of heat!

Man_From_India

@Farooq hi...sorry I was out for sometime

Damkerng T.

Welcome back @Man_From_India!

Man_From_India

Hi @DamkerngT.

user116848

13:55

@Man_From_India np. Hi back! :-)

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. I didn't get you.What do u mean by floatable?

Damkerng T.

Ah, float is my idiosyncrasy. I usually use it when I feel that a part of sentence can float around!

> As far as I know, they want to get it done.
They, as far as I know, want to get it done.
They want to get it done, as far as I know.

Man_From_India

i see

do u think the sentence is strange?

Damkerng T.

I think it's a bit awkward, but that's just my feeling.

Man_From_India

hmm...but do u get a different meaning from what I got from it?

Damkerng T.

14:02

I usually try to avoid writing something that requires most people to read twice (or even more times!).

Man_From_India

good and probably best thing :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, what was the meaning you thought, btw?

Man_From_India

"He (the narrator) mentioned the name of Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates, Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe. Manucci also mentioned the names of Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates. Not Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe. He (the narrator) mentioned Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad and Dara."

Damkerng T.

I just dropped in for a bit when I posted that.

1 hour ago, by Man_From_India

> But there are some grains of fact, as the men whom he mentions Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates are all mentioned by Manucci as with Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh, Smith and Roach also appear in the Surat Records in 1667 and 1672 and the son of the latter is mentioned in 1704.

Man_From_India

Yes that is the original sentence, and what I think of it is this

"He (the narrator) mentioned the name of Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates, Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe. Manucci also mentioned the names of Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates. Not Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe. He (the narrator) mentioned Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad and Dara."

Damkerng T.

14:05

FWIW, I think it's a bit ambiguous.

Man_From_India

as in?

Damkerng T.

For someone who knows nothing about those people, it will be ambiguous.

How many people did Manucci mention?

Man_From_India

how? Because I also don't know about them.

Damkerng T.

That's one thing.

Man_From_India

The story so far didn't mention that

Damkerng T.

14:07

... are all mentioned by Manucci as with Shah Jehan ...

I think this is very crucial to the meaning the writer intends, but it's really unclear (which ideas he tries to relate to which).

The way I read it, I rearrange it to:

> But there are some grains of fact, as the men whom he mentions Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates are all mentioned by Manucci, Smith and Roach also appear in the Surat Records in 1667 and 1672 [as with Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh] and the son of the latter is mentioned in 1704.

I bracketed the part I floated.

Italicizing it might be better.

Man_From_India

hmmm...but what about the as with... part? what function it serves? Is something elliptical there?

Damkerng T.

My feeling is that as with is not the same unit.

(Which makes it super ambiguous, because as has lots of possible meanings.)

Oh, correction. I didn't float the as!

This is what I read:

> But there are some grains of fact, as the men whom he mentions Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates are all mentioned by Manucci, as Smith and Roach also appear in the Surat Records in 1667 and 1672 [with Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh] and the son of the latter is mentioned in 1704.

Man_From_India

I see it in a different way. And can't think of any other way to explain this part. I think as with is a unit. And it means the same way (it mentions) with Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh

And I don't think this is also too convincing

Damkerng T.

Could be.

Man_From_India

ur version I can't agree. Because the italized part. with is hanging, not adding to any particular thing

Damkerng T.

14:15

I think it's ambiguous, but it shouldn't be not too difficult for the readers who are familiar with what he was trying to say.

Man_From_India

it will mean Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe is mentioned in surat Record

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India X appear in 1667 with Y when Z was doing something

Oh! I just noticed something. His sentence is ungrammatical, I think.

Man_From_India

How? :-O

Damkerng T.

He uses appear with 1667!

Not appeared.

Man_From_India

No that is fine I think. Because the present tense is being used here...notice in the first part He mentions ...

Damkerng T.

14:17

Maybe 1667, 1672, 1704 aren't just years.

Yes, but I shouldn't say that I'm mentioning that something is happening in 1667.

At least, in formal writing.

Man_From_India

May be the Surat record in XXXX is the name of some kind of record

Damkerng T.

It could be okay if he didn't use was.

(Because that would make the whole thing historical present.)

Man_From_India

U know I just read that sentence quite a few times. But still not making very clear sense :-(

Damkerng T.

When I read this kind of stuff and find that there are a few possibilities (either because the sentence is genuinely ambiguous or because it's just me that couldn't read it straight), I will keep all possibilities in mind, and skip it.

Usually the ambiguity will sort itself out when I read more.

Maybe within only a few pages more.

Man_From_India

i think that is better...because I was reading a children's ghost story. I don't want to miss the fun for this sentence :-)

Damkerng T.

14:23

Hehe!

I remember that in the first English book I read about programming, I had to finish the last chapter before I was able to understand clearly what the authors were trying to say in the first chapter!

Man_From_India

no matter how old you grow, there is always a child hidden somewhere in your heart :-0 and i am just 26, and my mind is even younger :-)

Damkerng T.

The concept was so outlandish to me, and I couldn't grasp it really well when I'd read only the first chapter.

Man_From_India

ur first english book was a programming book :-O

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India I believe that keeping bright young mind with us could make us younger. :-)

@Man_From_India Yes. It was IBM PC from Inside Out (or something like that, I can't remember its exact name).

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. no other way to dodge the natural way of aging ;-)

Damkerng T.

14:26

I mean, the first one that I was able to really finish!

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. ai i think i also read that book...it's a hardcover, big fat book?

Damkerng T.

The one I read was a paperback.

But it's rather thick. Not superthick, though.

Oh, yes! That's how it looked like!

Man_From_India

i think i also read this book

Damkerng T.

The first curious thing about the book is: why a shoemaker makes (writes) code!

Man_From_India

or may be something very similar...can't remember exactly now

interesting!! what does the offer about it

Damkerng T.

14:30

Shoemaker is one of the authors of the book.

And his name was so curious to me. :-)

Man_From_India

ohh :-D

Damkerng T.

I think that was how I developed my skimming skill.

Oh, I don't understand this word. Skip! I don't understand this paragraph. All right. Skip it!

Man_From_India

Chatting with you for this ling, I can tell skimming is a humble word :-)

Damkerng T.

Somehow I was able to get the whole idea in the end. :-)

@Man_From_India Skimming was exactly what I did when I read that book, I think.

Man_From_India

:-)

Damkerng T.

14:34

I mean, the whole process of reading is not linear. :-)

It's not like we can read one word at a time from the first page to the last.

Man_From_India

First book in any technology is always like that. I think this is with everybody.

Damkerng T.

(I wonder if somebody really reads books that way!)

nods

> But there are some grains of fact, as the men whom he mentions Robert smith, John White, Thomas Roach and William Gates are all mentioned by Manucci; as well as ~~with~~ Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe when Cambell was with Murad Baksh and Dara Shekoh, Smith and Roach ~~also~~ appear in the Surat Records in 1667 and 1672 and the son of the latter is mentioned in 1704.

I think if I guess his intended meaning right, I might rewrite it as thus.

Man_From_India

Perfect :-) if this is the intended meaning of the author. yes.

Damkerng T.

I guess the Surat Records is some kind of book.

Man_From_India

same thing. I also think it that way. FYI Surat is a place in India.

Damkerng T.

14:48

Oh, so Surat Records might be the historical records of that place.

Man_From_India

it is in the state of Gujarat.

Damkerng T.

nods

Man_From_India

hmm possibly

Damkerng T.

Thinking of the Surat Records as a book allows me to think of all the tenses he uses as felicitous.

Man_From_India

hmm

Damkerng T.

14:51

And because he seems to be a great writer, the tenses are supposed to be felicitous! :-)

Man_From_India

No idea about the writer :-)

Damkerng T.

Anyone who can write such a long sentence and can get it published is supposed to be one! :-)

It's different in this self-publishing era. Anyone can publish whatever they write.

Man_From_India

Actually the one who collected those stories and compiled it is a great writer. These book is a collection of many stories by some other/different writers.

Must be good

Damkerng T.

Ahh

I wish to see snailboat's opinion on that sentence as well. Could be an eye-opening experience. :-)

Man_From_India

:-) yes

Damkerng T.

14:58

9

Q: Why does the "i" in naïve have "two dots"?

I have observed that the word naïve is written with two dots on the i. Why is this? Is it correct to write the word with a single dot, as in naive? Are there any other English words with such two dots?

letters

Man_From_India

one thing I believe it's not solely on an author. For most of the errors his editors are to be blamed.

Damkerng T.

Ah, that's kinda cute as a question!

Man_From_India

Even I didn't know that. I read that question already

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India nods -- Before this decade, editors were really important.

I mean they are still important, but some people just ignore them.

Man_From_India

I think today's toughest yet easiest question was Nima's regarding of vs. for.

Damkerng T.

15:00

Oh, that one! :D

Man_From_India

yes

Damkerng T.

@DamkerngT. - Especially when we forget that Ngrams are case-dependent! — J.R. ♦ 4 hours ago

That's so true!

Man_From_India

In other forum I was one day following his questions. Same questions he asks in multiple forums, and when the people in any forum ask him about anything, he just says he doesn't know anything. Too surprising :-D

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

I take it that he is trying to gather English usage. Could be a good thing.

Scratch that. Should be a good thing.

Man_From_India

Especially when in one forum he says "thanks I got it" or something like that, and in other forum under the same question when he is asked about something he says he doesn't know anything :-O how is that possible?

Damkerng T.

15:05

I remember I've seen a question that I thought he'd already asked a few months ago!

Both on ELL!

Man_From_India

This is not a good thing by any stretch. That is called wasting time :-)

Damkerng T.

Hee

Man_From_India

Even what I am doing right now is also wasting time. But still the time is not wasted for I am talking with a wise person right now :-)

Damkerng T.

sigh -- Right now every site is trying to suggest me a graphics card! I mean everywhere I visit on the web!

Man_From_India

he he

Damkerng T.

15:07

@Man_From_India It makes me wonder if he really understands all the answers he's got.

@Man_From_India They know even what model I'm looking for! Where is the privacy these days?!

Man_From_India

I once suggested him to learn translation from Persian to English and vice versa. At least that is a bit better. What do u think?

Damkerng T.

It mightn't turn out great in the long run, but I think it's a good idea as a starting point.

Right now it's hard to judge how much he can understand what we write.

Out to do some chores. See you soon!

Man_From_India

Obviously not a great suggestion. But see the pattern of questions he asks, and how he responds. He don't take the suggestion of reading fiction of contemporary writers. So I suggested translation to him :-)

see you

MARamezani

17:57

Hmm, dramatic entrance. Let me think.

Oh I got it:

Visssssiiiiiiuuuuuuu

That's supposed to be a plane crashing.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!

So what is this all about?

Oh, right:

Those were me blowing my exam!

Hi everyone!

Hello?...Anyone?

Haha! I knew that without me, this place would turn into a desert! :)

Hanaa

18:46

Hi!

MARamezani

Hi @Hanaa!

Hanaa

Hi all

MARamezani

I don't know if @DamkerngT. and/or @snailboat are present.

The same goes with @Man_From_India.

Did anything trouble you @Hanaa that you came over to ask?

CopperKettle

19:01

Good evening, @MARamezani! How was your chemistry contest?

MARamezani

Oh hi @CopperKettle!

You see what I wrote above?

CopperKettle

@StoneyB (a great song!)

@MARamezani Yes.

MARamezani

So yes. In simple words, I blew it!

CopperKettle

Oh, I read too hurriedly. I'm sorry you blew it!

MARamezani

I'm really doubtful if others made it out of the exam hall!

CopperKettle

19:03

@MARamezani - will there be a second chance?

MARamezani

In fact, @CopperKettle my condition might be better than many contestants'!

The olympiad is actually for people in 12th grade.

(I may have lost the count of grades!)

CopperKettle

Ah, that's good. I hated chemistry in school, but I guess it is interesting to some.

MARamezani

I'm in grade 11.

So, basically I have a second chance.

Next year.

CopperKettle

@MARamezani Ah, that's great! You're an advanced pupul (0:

MARamezani

Oh, should that be "pupil"?

I'm in high school!

CopperKettle

19:06

yes, I'm sloppy (0:

I'm using this StayFocusd thing so I'll go offline now (0:

MARamezani

I thought Damkerng was up for some nagging.

He isn't, so it seems.

CopperKettle

Do all schools in Iran have the 12-grade system?

MARamezani

:)

CopperKettle

(I remember you're in Iran)

MARamezani

Hmm, let me do the calculation.

6 for elementary,

3 for junior high school,

and three for high school.

Yup, that's a twelve.

However, we have a pre-university term.

CopperKettle

19:09

And then there's 5 more years in a university?

MARamezani

Many count that as grade 13.

Of course, the # of years in university depends on the major.

CopperKettle

In Russia, we have only 11 years in school. For my generation, it was only 10 years.

MARamezani

Swearing

:)

CopperKettle

(0:

Welcome to Russia! But you'd have to learn Russian language, which will take a year, so it'll even out.

MARamezani

I figure out, we study pretty advanced things in our educational system.

Rather than most of other countries.

Unfortunately, we lack experimental/practical studying.

If you get what I mean.

CopperKettle

19:12

People say so about Russia too. But it's hard for me to judge.

@MARamezani Practical knowledge.

MARamezani

I give you this:

Four years after chemistry olympiad was established in Iran,

we won a gold medal, globally.

What was the emoticon for bragging, again?

:)

CopperKettle

(0:

You mean Iran won the International Olympiad for Chemistry? That's great!

MARamezani

Yes.

CopperKettle

I usually hear of Russian students taking prizes at programming contests

MARamezani

We do it in theoretical stuff.

Not to mention robotics.

CopperKettle

19:15

The 48th IChO will be held in Isfahan, Iran in 2016

MARamezani

Hah, in your face! :)

CopperKettle

(0:

MARamezani

thanks but what's the direct form for this sentence? — user37421 12 mins ago

I don't know why it's so confusing for me!

CopperKettle

It was great talking to you, I have 5 minutes left on StayFocusd, so I'd better log out! Good night, @MARamezani!

Good night, @Hanaa!

MARamezani

You better uninstall that one!

Bye, @CopperKettle!

CopperKettle

19:18

No, I need to do some proofreading for my sister's work at her university.

Bye!

Hanaa

Bye

MARamezani

Bye!

StoneyB

O, damn. I was hoping to get some help from @CopperKettle, and he's just left. We have a new user who uses syntactic terminology I don't recognize; Google suggests it is drawn from a Russian tradition. CopperKettle, if you see this, would you check out this question and see if you can help?

MARamezani

@StoneyB that could be a sockpuppet of Copper! :)

You're too late!

StoneyB

19:58

@MARamezani You think CK is trolling us? I'm reluctant to think that.

MARamezani

Nah, that's supposed to be a joke!

There should be a leash for pessimism, shouldn't there?

:)

You fell for it!

Triple :)

Don't mind me @Stoney, I've just blown up an exam! (literally)

StoneyB

20:24

@MARamezani A chemistry exam, I take it :)

Transcript for

English Language Learners