English Language Learners

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Damkerng T.

08:07

Hi, @Cerberus!

@Cerberus Could you change the feed meta.ell.stackexchange.com/feeds to be a message feed of the room?

I'd like to use this room as the main room for ELL as it's supposed to be, as it once was.

6 hours later…

Cerberus

14:21

@DamkerngT. Umm is that possible?

How would I do that?

I can only change what feeds are displayed here in chat...

Damkerng T.

@Cerberus Yes, you sure can do that, on the info page of the room. :-)

On the tab "Feeds", the feed of the ELL meta site (meta.ell.stackexchange.com/feeds) is now a ticker feed.

Cerberus

Damkerng T.

I think it's better to change it to a "message" feed.

Cerberus

@DamkerngT. This is what I see.

@DamkerngT. Oh, I get it now.

Feeds

Cerberus has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

Damkerng T.

14:24

Yay! Thanks!

Cerberus

Done!

We don't have a lot of Meta questions, do we?

Damkerng T.

Exactly.

So I think it'd be better as a message feed.

Cerberus

Right.

In case people start complaining we can always gag them or something.

Damkerng T.

LOL

I hadn't seen you here for a long while, but I was glad to see you in here earlier today.

I hope everything is going great in your life.

Cerberus

It is!

How about you?

Bangkok seems to be fairly quite nowadays?

Damkerng T.

14:27

Not so great, but I'm okay with it.

Bangkok can take care of itself, I think. :D

(I live in an outer area of Bangkok.)

Q: What does the statement "I can do that, but I don't have to" mean?

My father-in-law took me to another city to get finger printed for the DHS. I asked him if he wanted to come into the building with me to get finger printed, and he said "I can do that, but I don't have to" What does it mean???

phrase-usage

Aww... one downvote, one VTC!

Cerberus

@DamkerngT. I'm sure it can!

@DamkerngT. Is it something you'd care to talk about? Or maybe some other time?

Damkerng T.

@Cerberus Don't worry. It's not that big of a deal. It's my own burden anyway. But thanks!

Damkerng T.

14:52

@Cerberus Man_From_India asked me this in another room:

in Language Overflow (Experimental), 3 hours ago, by Man_From_India

there is another confusion. "fruit" is uncountable and countable. i have observed that BrE use it as uncountable and AmE use it both way generally. So is it also correct to say in AmE "live on fruit(s) and vegetables". Am i right?

I don't have any good answer, so I think maybe you can help us with this fruit thing. :-)

Cerberus

@DamkerngT. OK then, I hope this burden will soon be reduced, then.

Damkerng T.

@Cerberus Thank you very much.

Cerberus

@DamkerngT. I would say the collective noun is generally preferred.

I don't know about America.

Damkerng T.

So, fruits and vegetables would sound awkward in BrE, I guess?

Cerberus

I would say pieces of fruit for a basket of apples, and fruits for different kinds of fruit.

Damkerng T.

14:54

nods -- Like fish.

Cerberus

I can't speak for all Britons!

Damkerng T.

True!

Cerberus

I only know in what direction principles of traditional style would point.

Damkerng T.

But what do you think? (Your opinions are highly regarded here. :-)

Cerberus

Well, I would use it as I said above.

Damkerng T.

14:55

I see. Thanks!

Cerberus

No fruits for pieces of fruit.

Unless there is no alternative.

Damkerng T.

I found this example in Macmillan Dictionary: a shrub with white flowers and small red fruits

It confuses me a bit. I mean, I don't feel like the red fruits are of different kinds.

4 hours later…

Stack Exchange

18:56

Q: List of authors of 21st century

The problem is that I want to improve my english by reading books, but I don't know which books should I read to know about correct 21st century English. I could find some books through Google but they were for adults. I wish to know the list of authors whose work can trusted to be grammatical...

discussion

1 hour later…

Damkerng T.

20:24

Q: Can be thought of as [verb]+ing ... What's the grammar and use?

Consider this example: Subjectivity detection or ranking at the document level can be thought of as having its roots in studies in genre classification. I don't get what is the type of clause after thought of as, and what meaning this structure is trying to convey.