@sn

Er ... @snailboat: The plural affix can be separated from words used metalinguistically with an apostrophe: as's

I jus wanna say that 's's are one of my favorite things to pluralize metalinguistically, but as's's are a close second.

Oh, that should be: one of my favorite metalinguistic plurals to pluralize metalinguistically.

@BenKovitz I read your answer

Yes it's also very common in my mother tongue to use verb of motion to describe some quality. For example if I give the word by word translation it will come down to something like this - His walk, his talk is very strange. (it means the way he speaks, the way he talks. They are all very strange.)

@Man_From_India Thanks!

You know how strange translation is :-D

@Man_From_India How about using a verb of physical motion in both ways--without converting it into a noun?

Like "the path runs 2.5 miles".

Yes that is possible

In that example

What's a typical verb for the "path" example?

Well in my mother tongue the path runs 2 miles don't have any such verb

What verb would you use instead?

i mean it only say the path is 2 miles

Innnteresting.

What is your mother tongue?

or more precisely 2miles path

bengali

Hmm, I just googled and found that Bengali is another Indo-European language (not surprising).

and i think it's very hard to learn bengali for a foreign people

:-) yes

What do you think makes it hard for foreigners to learn Bengali?

Lot of influence, because of British i guess

well it's root is sanskrit....and that is very tough...we indians don't understand it at all :-)

Throughout north india preferred language is hindi, and if u know hindi it's not hard to pick up bengali or vice versa

Well, the script is certainly beautiful.

Yes it's...you know when in school days I had to learn bengali grammar I used to find it too difficult...i don't know much about grammar in my mother tongue :-( too tough.

Interesting. I was just reading the Wikipedia article about the grammar.

Grammar is a strangely difficult thing to get hold of.

Can you think of an example in Bengali where a verb of motion can also describe an object's size or shape?

and when it's your mother tongue, people like me generally avoids them :-)

well give me sometime

OK. :)

I'm going to run out and get a sandwich before the shop closes. I'll be back later...

sure...hurry :-)

Hello

How do you upload image from phone?

:-( bad....anyway I use my laptop for stackexchange. Today I gave the app a try...

but the app looks really awesome...only problem so far i found is the absence of photo upload option

Ahh i see :-) anyway i think it's better for casual chat

Now enjoying India vs West Indies match.

cricket.. world cup

Is it what sports or which sports?

"What sport?" or "Which sport?" are both fine.

Okay :-) ohh i could not yet come up with any example.

I mean verb of motion used as a qualifier.

Hi!

@Man_From_India Oh the SE app? How is it?

Hmmm for casual chat it's good :-)

Ah forget it. I hate chatting with anything smaller than my laptop.

I love handy things.

Sometimes they're too handy.

What a great way! I'm chatting with u using my apps while enjoying cricket on TV lying down on cozy bed... Ah what a life!! Complete bliss :-)

Good for you.

I have a theology assignment for tomorrow.

Ohhh... U should study hard.

Should. :)

:-)

What a predicament!

Back at periodic table.

(Chemistry chat)

Have u added any new number to the table?

Well, as I think what you mean, I'd say it's pretty complicated.

But if i know any Alchemy it's you only. And they can do wonder ;-)

So you see, IUPAC doesn't usually accept the claim of the group of scientists that say they've discovered a new element. So officially, we have no more than 112 elements.

i see...

See u later...

Oh no no no no, IUPAC did accept the existence of Fl and Rg.

:-)

Good times good times. I remember a time when I'd memorized all of the elements' symbols and atomic numbers.

Later then, I realized it wasn't necessary.

But still, that's memorable.

@DamkerngT. Hi.

Yes?

sorry can i ask one question?

@snailboat It's pretty much the as what you can do with English input.

Just think of lowercase and uppercase characters are completely different characters. Sort of.

@IceGirl Sure. Why not!

@DamkerngT. A 49-year-old man presented with an acute onset of folliculitis on his right cheek. what does 'presented with' mean?

He has such a symptom.

i want to translate this sentence and i have a problem with that phrase

can i say that means introduce=presented with?

Check out this definition: macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/present_2. Sense 11.

Not really. It's the best to think of it as have.

OK

A-ha!

Thanks read it

:)

You're welcome!

really thanks @DamkerngT.

;)

My pleasure!

You are still a good teacher! @DamkerngT.

and also kind

:)

Thank you!

I'm rather busy at the moment. I just dropped in for a bit.

OK

See you later!

:)

See you around!

How to pronounce "ভাসা" = "bhasa" and "ভাসা ভাসা জ্ঞান" = "bhasa bhasa gaan"

@Man_From_India So is it like "floating knowledge"?

well if you translate it. But that actually mean "superficial knowledge"

imagine the knowledge is just like floating, not going deep. shallow...so the knowledge is superficial

same thing...."the path runs 2 mile"...the path is not actually running.

Hmm, it still doesn't sound quite like a verb of motion also indicating a shape. In these expressions, you always say "the (thing) (verbs) (something)" to indicate that (thing) has the same size or shape as (something). So, I think you need three elements for this to work.

well u can use that bengali verb to actually mean "to float". You can say "নৌকা ভাসছে" (nouka basche) to mean "the boat is floating" (নৌকা= boat). actually the structure of bengali is completely different to what we see in English :-)

@Man_From_India It certainly sounds like a metaphor. But not the peculiar type where a path's shape gets the same verb as an object moving along the path. Wow, maybe Bengali doesn't have that! I figured it's probably not common to all languages.

@Man_From_India I'm actually not sure yet if Latin had it. Latin is a lot closer to Proto-Indo-European, like Sanskrit--and maybe like Bengali. Who knows, maybe PIE didn't have it.

may be i am not a very knowledgable person as far as Bengali grammar is concerned :-) but it's really interesting...

I don't think you need to be an expert on grammar. Admittedly, it's a weird concept. I think most English speakers have no idea how weird it is to say "the speed limit runs only to the state line".

:-)

Can you use the Bengali word for "stretch" to mean "occupy space"?

yes we do

but again when we use it as a verb the form changes :-O

Hmm. This might be it.

Do you say something like "This city stretches for miles"?

yes we do :-)

That's it!

OK, so far, then, all languages that I've asked people about have it. :)

I'm actually a little disappointed. I'm hoping that meatie's mother tongue doesn't have it, and that's why she's confused.

Can you think of another one like "stretch"?

well it's not always good think English like any other language. Every language is different.

hmmm

can't think of anything right now :-(

When I wrote that answer, I was thinking that it might be very unusual to use verbs of motions this way. Now I'm thinking that maybe it's unusual to use verbs of motion this way so much.

but i think English supports such usage. so no harm

@BenKovitz I understood. But, is it "wrong"? It's usable right? It was given in Spot the error.

@AmitJoki Is what wrong?

@AmitJoki What was in Spot the Error?

The sentence "I'm working here since 200"

@AmitJoki Oh, sorry, I was talking about something completely different (verbs of motion).

@δοῦλος Yo, δοῦλος, are you there?

so, what's your opinion on it? Is it outright wrong? @BenKovitz

@AmitJoki No, it's definitely not wrong. However, it's not the usual way to say it. It emphasizes something different than usual.

@AmitJoki I have to think hard to figure out the difference in emphasis!

Okay thanks for clarifying :)

@AmitJoki Do you have the URL to the question handy? I can take a look at it to refresh my memory.

@BenKovitz what question?

Oh! If you mean that Spot the error, it was my middle school question paper. So there's no url :p

@AmitJoki The one where you asked about "I'm working here since 200".

@BenKovitz I've replied to that. See my previous comment. It's my middle school question, where the sentence was asked under the heading "Spot the error".

@AmitJoki Oh, OK. I thought I remembered reading it on the main site and posting a link in a comment.

@AmitJoki My (possibly false) memory of this is so wrong, I'm still searching for it on ELL...

I'd suggest looking it on google's search as SE's search sucks at large.

@AmitJoki Well, maybe it was yesterday here in chat, and my brain has merged chat with ELL.

@AmitJoki Good idea. I'll try that right now.

@BenKovitz great :)

@AmitJoki Oh well, it must have been chat. I remember the "200".

@AmitJoki Well, anyway, did you mean 2:00, as in the afternoon, or was that a typo for 2000?

Nope. I mean 2000

OK. "I'm working here since 2:00" works a little better. "I'm working here since 2000" sounds like more of a stretch.

So, would it be wrong?

@AmitJoki So, this was a homework assignment?

@BenKovitz nah, kind of exam, revision to be precise.

I see. Well, my guess about what the exam is trying to do is see if you know to use the perfect present tense. That's the most ordinary tense for saying that.

@BenKovitz yup. But we haven't been thought of certain rules, which would apply in this case. And the sentence sounded correct to me. Certain friends of mine have written it in perfect present tense as it was given in their guide(which I hadn't bought)

@AmitJoki I wrote an explanation of the perfect present tense here, which I like. No one is ever satisfied with anyone else's explanation of perfect tenses, though. ;)

@BenKovitz reading it.

@AmitJoki People do use the present continuous ("I am working here since...") in situations like that, but it usually carries an unusual meaning, simply because it's unusual to do that. For example, the present continuous would probably suggest that you're getting very tired of working here, or that you have been expecting to start working somewhere else for a long time now and it hasn't happened.

The weird uses of tenses are probably too hard to understand until you've mastered the basic ones. The weird ones all take their meaning by how they vary from what's normally done.

The perfect present even in its most ordinary forms can be very hard to learn if you didn't grow up using a tense like that.

Ah, I ain't too noob when it comes to tenses. I go by instincts, so I thought it would not be wrong instead of thinking it's right.

@AmitJoki I think you are wise to go by instincts. When people think too much about rules, they don't develop a feel, or an "ear", for the language.

yeah. I still don't know what certain terms(apart from too basic stuff) mean. But can write more or less error-free English.

@AmitJoki However, the perfect present in English is infamous for baffling people learning English as a second language. So, it's probably worthwhile to spend a little while figuring out how it works. I worded my answer to explain how you need to think about time, rather than in terms of rules.

I think I've got the hang of it.

@AmitJoki Hey, that's correct perfect-present tense right there!

oh, well. That's good for me :p

@AmitJoki I thought the fact about how the perfect-present tense is used to introduce news stories was especially interesting. It illustrates that when you "think" in English, you are constantly aware of time intervals, and if any time interval is handy, you use a perfect tense to "anchor" the conversation to it.

@BenKovitz Yeah. I do some writing(blogging) too. But am not able to constantly update, as I'm losing interest in it. But that's also due to the lack of plot I guess.

@AmitJoki It's actually an interesting and hard question to explain what it means when you use the present continuous where the present perfect is expected. I think I have a good idea about it now.

Hi guys! What's up?

Hehe. Again we have seven questions closed out of the fifteen questions back at chemistry.

@AmitJoki I think when you say "I'm working here since 2000", you're "stretching" the present into...15 years. You're not treating it as a time interval, you're treating it as one point in time, smeared across those 15 years. So, it suggests that 15 years is way too long.

@MARamezani Hi, aspiring world's leading chemistry nerd!

Haha!

@BenKovitz yeah, it's stretching too much I suppose.

Oh well. I wanted to start learning python a while ago - not because of python, because of chemistry.

@AmitJoki Is it hard?

As hard as C++?

@MARamezani no. The whitespace hurts though :p

@AmitJoki Well, you can do it. It can be a very effective way of communicating the emotion that you feel when something is taking way too long. (Well, the only people who hear the emotion are people who are very accustomed to English tenses.)

@MARamezani I'm doing Python programming right now! It's a research project.

Oh well. Maybe I should get a crack at it, again.

@MARamezani Python is super-super-easy. C++ is probably the hardest programming language there is to learn. Python is designed to very easy to pick up.

@BenKovitz and no one in my area are native-English speakers. So arguing about feels would be redundant.

to be very easy, I meant

@AmitJoki Yeah, arguing about English tenses with people who don't really "get" them is silly.

@BenKovitz learning C is more difficult I suppose.

Dang it. C++ was the first computing language I started to learn! :) :(

Maybe that's why I ran away!

@MARamezani Worst choice to get started with! I've seen them use C++ to introduce people to programming in the U.S., too. It's crazy.

But the easiest is definitely Ruby. I love it. Javascript is damn easy too, though tough at the beginning stage.

Is python as easy as visual basic?

@MARamezani Well, forget all your frustrations with C++. Python is a whole different thing.

@MARamezani Easier than Visual Basic, I'd say.

@BenKovitz actually, it's good. So students get to know OOP at its basic level. I started off with some C++

Wow, you're inspiring me!

@MARamezani C++ is like a tool with hundreds of sharp, pointy projections on it, which you cut yourself on if you make the tiniest mistake. And there's no clue how you're supposed to use C++.

@MARamezani Python is usually set up to be obvious.

I guess Python is written in C or C++

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I'll start python I guess. Over.

@MARamezani If you start the Python interpreter and type "import this", it'll tell you the whole philosophy of the language in short sayings.

@AmitJoki Python is itself written in C.

yeah. It had to be in C

IMO C is too deep. I don't plan to work in MS or something!

Dennis Ritchie, most underrated legend :(

@MARamezani learn what suits your job.

@MARamezani I love C, but I used to be a software engineer, and I used C for what it's for: stuff that most people should never have to think about it, like memory pointers and milking the CPU for all it's worth.

Speaking of Python, I should probably get back to work...

@AmitJoki I'm almost just as your age. I'll earn python because of the advanced computings that are gonna be needed in five years or so.

@MARamezani I smell C# :)

No no. Python's best suited for chemistry calcs.

And biology.

@MARamezani no, I said that as a language that's gonna be needed in 5 years or so.

It's like computing "how many red globules are healthy for a person with diarrhea?"

Well I wanna be a doctor, and a chemist, not a programmer. (hopefully :)

@MARamezani that's good too.

Good enough? :)

time will decide :)

Indeed. Time is the most important fancy-job-changer around here.

It indeed is.

Btw, how good are you at your school lessons? (more precisely, chemistry)

@MARamezani fairly good I'd say. Quite good at chemistry too, but not too good.

I wonder what you guys learn in India in this age. What are your textbook's main topics?

Where are you from? What do you learn? It would be mostly same, I guess.

Iran.

Hmm, are you ninth or tenth grade?

In Chemistry, we learn about metallurgy, reactions, organic compounds(IUPAC Name and all those stuffs) and Atomic Theory. I'm in 10th grade.

Wow metallurgy? Explain more.

Not too deep, just Iron, Copper, Aluminium, galvanization, froth floatation process, Hall's process, Baeyer's process and stuff like that

We study: (in order) Atomic theory, periodic trends, ionic compounds, covalent compounds, and finally organic chemistry basics (IUPAC nomenclature and functional groups)

Don't you study covalent compounds?

But not in detail. We know that its based on weak vandervaals force

yeah.. We do that too.

@AmitJoki Oh that's not true. Van der Waals forces are of different nature than covalent bonding.

ah! I don't remember too much of it. So, don't pull me into it. I'm not that good :p

Anybody still there?

Oh hi @StoneyB!

There's been not much of talking about language today.

At least from when I entered the room. ;)

@MARamezani

Hello

Hi @Majid. Oh I mean Dane!

From Italy

Did you know that Dane is the name of a some kinda dog?

I prefer not to answer.

Did you know that Dane is the name of a Viking from around 1200 A.D.?

Give me a reference.

It also means someone from Denmark.

Enough

What's up?

School

olympiad

typhoon

etc

Nothing. Just laughing at him.

Anyways, TSSSSSSS has told us to do a research job.

Do you remember?

You love it

No

even not about chemistry

what about Azamat?

TSSSSS = Sayyadi!

sorry, AAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAATTTTTTTTTT.

@Majid What about emperor AAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT‌​TTTTTTTT?

beter

I want to earn a new gold badge.

WHAT?

Legendary?

Or illuminator?

Great answer

marshal

Go for it!

populist

You can't get that one!

what about a gold tag badge.

Pffffffffffffffffff. That's way too easy to earn. Go for "autobiographer".

A bit harder.

Unsung hero

three answer with two accepted 0 score one.

Actually, that's not a bad idea//1

Is there any earned steward badge?

In CheSE

Which badge is most difficult badge?

I think" lluminator" or "stellar question".

@Majid No.

or Reversal