English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

David Wallace

12:01 AM

Umm, I think it's a type of tree.

tchrist

Oh.

David Wallace

My apologies, I misspelt it.

tchrist

Usually sports teams take animal names, not plants.

David Wallace

Waratah

Waratah (Telopea) is an endemic, Australian genus of five species of large shrubs or small trees, native to the southeastern parts of Australia (New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania). The most well-known species in this genus is Telopea speciosissima, which has bright red flowers and is the NSW state emblem. The waratah is a member of the plant family Proteaceae, a family of flowering plants distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The key diagnostic feature of Proteaceae is the inflorescence which is often very large and showy, bright colours and consisting of many small flowers densel...

tchrist

Warreners?

Pretty color.

David Wallace

12:02 AM

Here is a better video of better scrums.

►

featuring the Mighty All Blacks, and some Irish guys.

tchrist

I’m something of an anti-authority, but I can’t think of any other sports teams who have a floral name rather than a faunal one.

David Wallace

Toronto Maple Leafs?

tchrist

So it is a jump ball!

Ah yes.

Should be leaves. Ick.

David Wallace

Oh, and I forgot the Silver Ferns. I should be shot.

tchrist

They are?

David Wallace

12:08 AM

mynetball.co.nz/silver-ferns.html

tchrist

Way too sporty for a proper geek.

David Wallace

Who said I was a geek?

tchrist

Pretty sure you have an SO account.

Or had had.

David Wallace

@Cerberus Actually, your answer makes me think of the old joke about the three baseball umpires. I am tempted to add it as a comment.

tchrist

Maybe not /. though.

David Wallace

12:14 AM

Hmm, yes, SO, but not /..

Shame they didn't call it slashstar.

tchrist

Isn’t that unfortunate!

You should have written “/.” instead, since everybody knows that “/..” and “/.” are the same.

David Wallace

But it was the end of the sentence. The second full stop was punctuation.

tchrist

One suppresses the double dot.

David Wallace

This one doesn't.

tchrist

And I am making a “..” joke. Don’t step on it.

David Wallace

12:16 AM

Otherwise, I might have meant slash.

tchrist

Which is also the same.

David Wallace

@tchrist Who's there?

tchrist

chthon(tchrist)% ls -ldi / /.. /.
2 drwxr-xr-x  21 root  wheel  1024 Aug 23  2010 /
2 drwxr-xr-x  21 root  wheel  1024 Aug 23  2010 /.
2 drwxr-xr-x  21 root  wheel  1024 Aug 23  2010 /..

Same i-number.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Oh, what is it about?

Well, besides three umpires...

David Wallace

@tchrist Yes, I got the joke. Thank you. I'm not THAT much of a non-geek.

@Cerberus I was looking for it online, but every page I found that had it told it badly.

tchrist

12:21 AM

Cerb won’t’ve gotten it.

David Wallace

So there are three baseball umpires, discussing how they each call balls and strikes. The first one says "I calls them as I sees them". The second one says "I calls them as they is". The third one says "They ain't nothing till I calls them".

tchrist

Well, sure.

David Wallace

And I can't post it as a comment on your answer, as I no longer have an account on Ling.SE. Maybe one of my sock puppets can help.

Cerberus

Hah.

That certainly is a linguistic joke.

David Wallace

But apt to performative declarations, yes?

Hah! It's occurred to me that if I recreate myself on Ling.SE, I shall have more rep than I had previously.

Cerberus

12:28 AM

Hah, because Ling was your first site ever? I cannot believe that?

tchrist

@DavidWallace John Lawler claims no native speaker of English living today has ever used shall for the simple future in a hundred years, or some such nonsense.

I don’t believe him, mind you.

David Wallace

I shall go and contradict him then.

Where and when did he claim such a thing?

tchrist

No, you shan’t, as you’ve relinquished your account.

On ELU, and more than once.

David Wallace

You should say "won't" in that context.

tchrist

It is the modal future of command/inevitability.

Not the simple future.

I meant it that way.

David Wallace

12:32 AM

Yes, all right. But you really shouldn't command me.

tchrist

Ok, call it the fated future.

David Wallace

Of course, I could be the only native speaker in the entire world who uses "shall" more often than "will" in the first person simple future.

tchrist

Really?

In inversion, it is normal.

Shall I? Shall we?

David Wallace

Yes, but those usually aren't simple future.

"Shall we dance" means "would you like to dance with me".

tchrist

So “Shall we go?” means “Would you like for us to go?”?

David Wallace

12:34 AM

Umm, yes, I'd say so.

Shall I tell you why I think so?

tchrist

Do.

David Wallace

You have just proved my point by answering my question. If it were simple future, you would have been unable to answer.

tchrist

I also commanded you. :)

David Wallace

But the very fact that I interpreted it as an answer to my question, and not as a command, indicates that I believed that you could answer my question.

Cerberus

@tchrist God, he can be impossible.

David Wallace

12:37 AM

Give me a link!

I shall send one of my socks.

tchrist

Wow, the Google Books for literal “shall they” pulls up ancient stuff!

@DavidWallace I have to google to find you one. SO search suckissimos.

Well, I wouldn't give them that answer, anyway. No native English speaker ever uses shall for the future, or for anything else outside a couple fixed phrases and legal terminology. After teaching for 40+ years I've learned you do nobody a favor by lying to them. If you don't like it, I'm sorry; but I'm not in charge of what you read or how you interpret it. And vice versa. — John Lawler Aug 12 at 18:49

Et voilà.

@Cerberus See what I mean?

David Wallace

But you've already contradicted him!

tchrist

I’m not a native speaker, apparently.

David Wallace

Nor I, obviously.

But this was almost four months ago. Is it not possible that he has since seen the error of his ways?

tchrist

It isn’t the first time he’s said, nor perhaps the last.

More google fu.

Cerberus

12:47 AM

@tchrist Ugh, so annoying.

tchrist

1

A: "I will" or "I shall"

In modern (non-legal) American English, the modal auxiliary shall is not used, except in two idiomatic constructions, both first person, both questions, and both involving invitations and offers: Plural Shall we? can occur alone as a tag for an invitation starting with Let's: Let's take a walk...

> Other than those constructions, any use of shall by a native speaker of American English is being read aloud (or is being recited from memory) from an archaic formal, written source (e.g, Congress shall make no law ..., Thou shalt not ...).

Bah.

I just twitted him.

David Wallace

How much rep do I need to be able to comment?

Aha! I am NOT a native speaker of American English. So I'll pass on that one, thanks.

tchrist

50

David Wallace

Bother. My most reputable sock has only 49.

Maybe I shall contradict Lawler on another day.

Cerberus

Linguists from a certain cultural region I shall not designate precisely have this weird socialist idea rhat all language must be natural and casual, and that people do not use language for various cultural functions.

David Wallace

12:52 AM

Wow. What do you mean by "cultural region"?

Cerberus

Chomsky and Pinker are part of this tradition.

@DavidWallace I couldn't say, or Tchrist would have my head.

A.-S. linguists.

Although many other linguists are not immune either.

tchrist

Who's your audience? And what are you trying to tell them? Shall is a very strange verb to use in technical writing -- it's rarely used in English, and then usually only in laws. BTW, enforce does not take an infinitive complement; it requires a real noun as object, typically law, rule, edict, prohibition, or some such. — John Lawler May 20 at 18:11

David Wallace

But "shall" is common in technical writing.

tchrist

He means from the English-speak countries.

David Wallace

Does he ever read any technical writing?

tchrist

12:55 AM

@DavidWallace There is even an RFC about that very thing!

David Wallace

I have read that RFC.

Or maybe I skimmed most of it.

But I have certainly had it open on my screen and behaved as if I were reading it.

tchrist

RFC 2119.

It is an order, and it's framed in legalese. Correctly. Only legal documents use shall with third person subjects. The two lead to the same semantics, but have quite different pragmatics, as they should. — John Lawler Aug 10 at 14:14

David Wallace

I'm sure I remember a longer RFC, that insisted on the use of the word "shall" in specifications, to describe requirements.

Maybe I read a longer RFC immediately after reading this one, or something.

He might argue that a software specification is a legal document.

tchrist

Shall for commands is certainly permitted. “What am I going to say? You shall say nothing!”

No, it isn’t simple future.

Hey, look: @Robusto’s been taking out the garbage.

David Wallace

3

A: Can we use "Do your Button" for "Close your button"?

Here in the US, I wouldn't use "button" as the noun. I'd use the verb in one of many ways: Button yourself up (Jacket or shirt) Button up your pants (The button above the zipper) And so on...

tchrist

1:05 AM

That’s a threefer.

David Wallace

Is this for real? What do you Americans call a button if you don't use button as a noun?

tchrist

@DavidWallace Button isn’t a noun?

I’ll just butt on a head.

David Wallace

I would argue that "shall" and "must" are basically interchangeable, provided the subject is not "I" or "we".

tchrist

Mostly. There are some uses of “they shall” that cannot be flipped into “they must”, though.

David Wallace

I thought my reputation was supposed to go up if I deleted an answer that had downvotes but no upvotes?

tchrist

1:15 AM

It does, but not immediately. And it might not at all, if it is older than 3 months.

> ...they fail, within twenty days after they shall have taken possession of said land, to make such application; or if, having made the same, they shall fail to prosecute the proceedings thus commenced, diligently to a conclusion, it shall be lawful for ...

That “it shall be unlawful” is something of a command, I suppose.

David Wallace

Grumble. Wish I had let my answer stay then.

tchrist

Then undelete it.

David Wallace

But I've lost it!

tchrist

Google.

Still in cache.

David Wallace

Oh, bother, I just lost 6 more rep. It must have had 1 up and 2 down - I thought it only had 1 down. Undeleting immediately.

tchrist

1:17 AM

You can see your own deleted answers.

> While they conform to the laws and regulations in force, they shall be at liberty to manage themselves their own business, subject to the jurisdiction of either party, as well in respect to the consignment and sale of their goods by wholesale or ...

It is surprisingly hard to find examples that aren’t KJV.

David Wallace

OK, fair enough; you couldn't really say "must" there.

There; I've gone back to 49.

I could edit something, I suppose.

tchrist

> If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit, at the expiration of six months.

And that is from 2010, no less. But it is a must, isn’t it?

Hm.

David Wallace

I wish I could edit comments. You said "cut to the chance" 54 minutes ago - that was surely not what you meant.

tchrist

Albert Einstein wrote something entitled “Only Then Shall We Find Courage”.

Of course, he is a native speaker a German.

David Wallace

And is not alive today.

tchrist

1:23 AM

So much bullshit, still.

Cerberus

1:34 AM

@tchrist Shall was never simple future in the second and third persons. It only became simple future in the first.

I shall, you will, they will.

tchrist

I understand the theory.

Cerberus

Good.

tchrist

And I shall take it under consideration.

But Lawler won’t.

Cerberus

It is more than a theory, you know.

tchrist

Model.

It really isn’t taught, you know.

Cerberus

1:37 AM

It is what I was taught.

When I was 12.

It is also what Fowler taught in the twenties.

David Wallace

Lots of "English as a second language" books teach this.

Maybe not the more modern ones.

Cerberus

Kaybe not.

David Wallace

I feel a shall/will question coming on.

Cerberus

What Fowler wrote matches my experience.

tchrist

It isn’t taught in little native-speaker school.

David Wallace

1:40 AM

That be true. I remember being teased at school for saying shall.

But I rose above it, because I knew I was right.

Cerberus

Well...your grammatical education...

tchrist

Because by the time one can talk about first-vs-2/3 persons, it is too late to recraft what they have already learned.

It is not like "I am, you are, he is".

David Wallace

You can say "I or we" though.

It may be that my father is the only other native speaker on the face of the planet who says shall.

Cerberus

Of course not.

tchrist

I use it, but it is register-dependent.

David Wallace

1:42 AM

I am frequently register-inappropriate.

tchrist

In conversational registers, it is always contracted, so you cannot say what it is or was.

I’ll have you know.

Cerberus

Many linguists have this idealised image of what a farmer says when you wake him up in the middle of the night, and that is the purest form of language, and the rest is derived or artificial.

David Wallace

@tchrist Huh? I have conversations in which it is not contracted.

tchrist

That isn’t the same register then.

David Wallace

Phone me. We can converse. I shall shall. You may will.

Cerberus

1:45 AM

I shan't.

David Wallace

Nor will Tom.

Cerberus

Too expensive.

David Wallace

5

A: What's the tense for repetitive past action?

You don't need to replace it with anything as it is officially a perfectly grammatical usage of would: Would (3): Used to; was or were habitually accustomed to ( + bare infinitive); indicating an action in the past that happened repeatedly or commonly. [from 9th c.] The example from the dic...

I like that his source is "the dictionary".

tchrist

There’s a lot of that going around, except in this Dictionary, which is of course a proper noun.

Cerberus

There is only One...

tchrist

1:48 AM

Aye.

Cerberus

To bind them all.

tchrist

It takes a special binding, you know.

Mine is nicely sewn.

Cerberus

First forging, then binding.

Oh, that binding.

tchrist

I’ve heard most hardcovers in the UK are no longer sewn. For shame!

Cerberus

Then what? Glued?

tchrist

1:53 AM

Apparently.

> Case binding is the most common type of hardcover binding for books. The pages are arranged in signatures and glued together into a "textblock.". The textblock is then attached to the cover or "case" which is made of cardboard covered with paper, cloth, vinyl or leather. This is also known as perfect binding, cloth binding, or edition binding.

> In the past few years a new process has come into use: on the European continent this is known as Otabind, after man who devised the process. The license for the process is now with the Dutch firm of Hexspoor – and they are its main practitioner and proponent. Go to the Hexspoor website (Dutch only), for more about this, especially the afwerkingscollectie page, which goes through all the processes the firm can offer, and the film, which gives glimpses of the Otabind process.

> In North America, a variation of the Otabind process goes under the name of RepKover. Among users of the technique, the publisher of computing books O’Reilly has made quite a noise about it. Clearly, for text books that have to stay open on a desk, while the reader/user is busy at a keyboard, such a technique is useful.

Robusto

@tchrist Fear my Custodian badges.

4

A: "I'm lovin' it"

It is a very common expression. Nowadays it's not at the bleeding edge of hipness (really, it never was) and the McDonald's campaign slogan has made it rather impossible for a person of intelligence to use sans irony. It is a bland and inoffensive attempt at pastel folksiness, the sort of thing t...

I kind of like this answer, especially the last sentence.

tchrist

@Robusto Never heard of the so-called McDonald’s campaign.

Robusto

2:09 AM

May 14 at 21:11, by Robusto

> You are aware that there's this thing called television, and on television they show shows, right?

tchrist

I am in my 35th untelevisioned year.

Robusto

Well, see? That's the problem right there.

tchrist

Or maybe 36th.

Unlikely.

Robusto

I watch television every day, whether I need to or not.

tchrist

Fish. Bicycles. Minds. Televisions.

Robusto

2:12 AM

Yeah, yeah, chewing gum for the mind and all that. I watch it to fall asleep. It is an excellent soporific.

The normal progression is from spaced to hyphenated to nothing at all. Now-a-days, to-morrow. Might as well cut to the chance and try it without. — tchrist 2 hours ago

Did you really mean cut to the chance?

David Wallace

I've already asked him that.

Why not just "humping the leg of vernacular"? It seems pleonastic to add "expression".

Robusto

@DavidWallace It seems petty to find a flaw in my beautiful trope.

David Wallace

Trope, shmope; you brought it up.

53 mins ago, by David Wallace

I wish I could edit comments. You said "cut to the chance" 54 minutes ago - that was surely not what you meant.

Robusto

@DavidWallace Well, since you ask: It wouldn't be as good.

David Wallace

Excellent.

Robusto

2:17 AM

The dog is not humping the leg of the vernacular. It's a lot fussier than that. It goes after vernacular expression.

David Wallace

Aha, a fussy humper.

Does it chase ricercars?

Robusto

Oui. À la recherche du temps perdu.

@tchrist BTW, apropos of TV. The Japanese read more books than any other nationality. They also watch more television. One thing does not preclude the other.

David Wallace

How often am I allowed to change my user name; does anyone know?

Robusto

0

Q: Can we use were issued/ were given and..?

I´m working on improving my grammar ,but I got a couple of question and i´d aprecciate it very much if you could help me :) For example: is it right to say? : The trash dumpers were issued a minimum of a $300 fine per violation by the City of Lawrence or should i say : TO the trash dump...

differences

tchrist

Yup, it’s a problem.

Robusto

2:26 AM

What a poor question.

tchrist

Or seven.

Robusto

Where to begin.

tchrist

With the afuckingcutes.

... then ... proceed ... to the dots ... and ... ellipses.

Robusto

@DavidWallace If anyone would know, Jasper would. Try pinging @WillHunting, which I believe is his current monicker.

tchrist

The try a spellcheck.

I suggest Power Word Kill.

Robusto

2:28 AM

@tchrist ... don't leave out the spaces on the wrong side of the comma ,no less.

tchrist

But that’s a ninth level spell.

Then there is the grovelling.

Robusto

You shouldn't need a ninth-level spell to kill that cheesy little tatterdemalion.

tchrist

All space/ problems withslashes.

It just is not salvageable.

David Wallace

@tchrist You dismiss it very easily.

What I hate is when they ask more than one question within the same posting.

Robusto

> Fernando, I don't want to be unkind, but this question is very poorly written. It would take some effort to figure out what you are really asking, and the way your question is worded raises the possibility that you would not really understand the answers.

That's what I want to say.

David Wallace

2:34 AM

Why don't you review the recent edit to that question first?

Robusto

But I am holding back.

@DavidWallace There is no recent edit.

tchrist

@DavidWallace Not good enough, David.

David Wallace

You rejected it? That was unkind.

tchrist