English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

KitFox

01:00

@MattЭллен Decaf tea, yes.

Mahnax

04:48

Hm, it's dead in here.

Let's spice things up!

adds spicy peppers

user19161

06:59

@Mahnax Red peppers and green peppers are both delicious.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy What about orange and yellow?

user19161

@Mahnax Are there such peppers?

Mahnax

@JasperLoy Yes!

Bell pepper

Bell pepper, also known as sweet pepper or a pepper (in the UK) and capsicum (in Australia and New Zealand), is a cultivar group of the species Capsicum annuum (chili pepper). Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, orange and green. Bell peppers are sometimes grouped with less pungent pepper varieties as "sweet peppers". Peppers are native to Mexico, Central America and northern South America. Pepper seeds were later carried to Spain in 1493 and from there spread to other European, African and Asian countries. Today, China is the world's largest...

user19161

@Mahnax Come to think of it, I think I have seen them too!

Mahnax

user19161

07:01

@Mahnax Looks like apple, orange, pear.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy No, it looks like pepper, pepper, pepper.

Silly silly.

user19161

@Mahnax I thought silly silly silly would be better, since you said pepper pepper pepper.

Matt Эллен

08:52

@Cerberus le chat sigh

►

Jez

@MattЭллен Haha, great

RegDwight Ѭſ道

0

Q: Does Lord and God interchangeable?

Is there any difference between,The Lord is my shepherd and The God is my shepherd. Does Lord and God interchangeable?

I'm trying to think of a language in which "does" would be correct in that position.

Then again the OP's from India, and I'm not really familiar with any of the languages there.

Matt Эллен

09:21

quite unusual. It's perhaps a confusion about question words

Matt Эллен

09:58

@KitFox ah! good thinking. maybe I'll give it a try.

I like Afrikaans, it's like Dutch with English training wheels

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Haha, very nice.

The French pronunciation is incomprehensible, but still.

Robusto

10:16

@Mahnax A traffic light made of peppers? Hot!

@MattЭллен Haha. "Paw de Deux" is obviously a pun on the balletic pas de deux.

Cerberus

D'eux.

Matt Эллен

10:36

de vous

user19161

@Robusto You are full of such unbelievable wordplay.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 Well, "does" doesn't really exist in another language, does it?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Jez: pastebin.com/Ur1wJuAX

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 I thought you knew Tamil.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy Dutch "doet".

RegDwight Ѭſ道

10:41

No, I only know Emil.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 I like the singer Emil Chau = Zhou Hua Jian.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus ♪ doet to me one more time... ♪

Matt Эллен

:D

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Doets for One.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 No flirting in this chat!

Cerberus

10:42

@RegDwightѬſ道 Hah, you mean "doe het"?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus you know who's in my TV right now, Linda de Mol.

She is unkillable.

Cerberus

Oh no!

You poor people.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

A new show. "The winner is"

Cerberus

How you must suffer.

Why do you people like our blondes so much?

Don't you have any of yourselves?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus We do not.

Cerberus

10:43

No?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus we do.

Cerberus

Then what's the deal?

How is her German, by the way?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Y u ask me????? IM already suffering!!!!

Cerberus

I imagine she must have a Dutch accent.

user19161

Should I watch Transformers 3 if I only watched 1 and 2?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

10:44

@Cerberus Her German is like my Ukrainian. Or yours.

Cerberus

Hehe.

I see.

Then what the hell is she doing there!?

Matt Эллен

@JasperLoy no. you should just not watch it at all, ever

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JasperLoy you watched Transformers 1 and 2? And you still have enough brain left to ask questions? Fascinating.

user19161

@MattЭллен Why do you dislike the show?

Matt Эллен

sadly, @Reg, I've seen them all

RegDwight Ѭſ道

10:46

Now I understand everything.

Reality runs down my spine, and all the pieces finally fit.

Matt Эллен

@JasperLoy Transformers 3 is a very pretty film. it lacks in every other department

user19161

@MattЭллен Pretty? I only know there is no Megan Fox.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

0

Q: Doctor Pérez did some surgery on my knee?

What is the natural way to say, in English, that a certain doctor did some surgery on --for instance-- my knee? In Spanish we say "El doctor Pérez me operó la rodilla". Doctor Pérez did some surgery on my knee? Thank you.

medical

Funneh.

Matt Эллен

@JasperLoy I mean the over all visuals are nice.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The doctor did some surgery on me. But then he got bored.

Anyway, Mahlzeit.

Matt Эллен

10:48

Njoi

user19161

I was surprised to see "mahlzeit" listed in my dictionary.

user19161

I think "boo" should be in it too.

Robusto

11:34

Jul 1 '11 at 13:25, by Robusto

From OMBT by McWhorter:
1. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes encountered Celtic speakers.
2. Meaningless *do* in the affirmative, negative, and interrogative is found nowhere on earth except in Celtic and English.
3. English is the only Germanic language that uses its verb-noun progressive as the only to express present tense; Welsh and Cornish do the same.

Pay special attention to point #2.

Matt Эллен

11:49

We am speshol

Rob

So the sign of zero is positive in French

user19161

@Rob I would not say that. It is simply the case that in French mathematical texts, "positive" includes zero and so does "negative".

Rob

More proof that mathematics is influenced by language.

user19161

@Rob The same ambiguity arises when we speak of "increasing function" or "decreasing function". Equality may or may not be allowed.

user19161

@Rob Not really. It is just that language expresses it differently.

Rob

12:03

Expressing it differently does not influence how it is thought of?

@DavidWallace Hi.

user19161

@Rob Well, in this case there is not much of an influence, just different ways of expressing something. But there is also the issue of how we think in terms of the language we use most, and that is another matter.

David Wallace

Hi Rob.

Rob

“positive” usually means >0 in English, and “positif” usually means >=0 in French

These are two different ideas.

A new language is a new perspective of life.

David Wallace

but sometimes not a very different one from the one you already have.

user19161

@Rob In English texts we call the case greater than or equals zero "non-negative" then.

Rob

12:14

But not "positive" so zero is positive in French.

David Wallace

I would say "positif" is French for "non-negative". Just like "demander" is French for "ask" - sometimes words mean something slightly different from what they look like they mean.

Rob

In French, zero is considered to be both positive and negative. The French words positif and négatif mean the same as English "positive or zero" and "negative or zero" respectively.

zero is considered to be both positive and negative.

user19161

@Rob According to the meaning of the words in the language, yes. But that does not "influence" math.

user19161

@MattЭллен I was there for only 5 min!

Rob

Expressing math in a different language does not influence how it is thought of?

David Wallace

12:23

It might, but it seems unlikely.

Rob

The above example is interesting just for that reason.

Have you never put something in your own words and it made more sense i.e. it influenced how you thought about it?

David Wallace

That's not the same as "a different language" though.

Rob

The French consider 0 to be both positive and negative.

David Wallace

No, they consider it to be both non-negative and non-positive. As do Anglophones.

Rob

That is not what the translation above states.

David Wallace

12:34

Sorry, what translation? If it's translating French into English, and "positif" becomes "positive"; then according to Gilles' comments above, it's wrong.

Rob

12:48

@DavidWallace How do you interpret his comment?

“positif” includes 0

David Wallace

38 mins ago, by David Wallace

I would say "positif" is French for "non-negative". Just like "demander" is French for "ask" - sometimes words mean something slightly different from what they look like they mean.

Mahnax

16:07

@Cerb I was right about my Physics test!

Gigili

@Mahnax You got the highest grade?

Matt Эллен

16:27

some people are so pleasant

Gigili

@MattЭллен They're so ***ing pleasant, you mean.

Matt Эллен

:D aye, that's more like it

Vitaly

@MattЭллен logs.omegle.com/25412c

Matt Эллен

@Vitaly stranger 1 understood then stopped caring

Matt Эллен

17:06

this omegle is immense

they're still at it after god knows how long

Matt Эллен

17:57

the longest omegle. It is very foul mouthed.

Jez

18:37

@Matt Shame you don't speak German, you seem to have a lot of spare time ;-)

Matt Эллен

Aye, it's true. I was sat reading a book while they chuntered on :)

Jez

@RegDwight Thanks. The latest translation file is: pastebin.com/PLW2w8pN

@RegDwight It would be really useful if you could quickly translate the letters, starting from 7aca6ccd-3007-482b-8eaa-3595c0fdc167, as I think they involve some trick German idioms

@Matt By the way, do you have 'vote to close' privileges?

Matt Эллен

18:56

@Jez at EL&U I do

why do you ask?

user19161

@Jez 3000 rep gives you that.

user19161

@MattЭллен What book is that?

Matt Эллен

@JasperLoy I'm reading Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Jez

@Matt in that case, could you vote to reopen this?

2

Q: English equivalent for German "wie eine Seifenblase zerplatzen"?

In German, there is an idiomatic phrase: wie eine Seifenblase zerplatzen Its literal translation is "burst like a soap bubble"; if something will "burst like a soap bubble", it will fail miserably. Is there a good analogous English expression? The only one I can think of is "fall like a h...

idioms translation german

user19161

@Jez Oh, sorry to hear you are still at it!

user19161

19:02

@MattЭллен I am reading ELU transcript by ELU chat users.

Matt Эллен

@Jez ok

Jez

thanks

Matt Эллен

we need the close reason "buzz off kid, you bother me"

0

Q: Didn't you know there+ was/is

What is the difference between the following: Didn't you know there was a thunderstorm today. Didn't you know there is a thunderstorm today. Isn't the second one ungrammatical?

grammar

RegDwight Ѭſ道

0

A: Didn't you know there+ was/is

Both are grammatical. The first one could be replaced as follow: "Didn't you know that is expected a tunderstorm today."

Matt Эллен

bah

RegDwight Ѭſ道

19:12

Yeah. You can replace it as follow. Just not in English.

Matt Эллен

lol

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MattЭллен actually we had a question about the use of the past tense in "did you know", but I can't find it.

Matt Эллен

hmmm

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Oh damn. You killed it before I could leave my comment.

Matt Эллен

Oh, he must have got stage firght

5

Q: Tense for an event that is about to occur as the reader reads

I came across this sentence today in a wait screen for a twitter client: Did you know that this wait is actually Twitter's fault, not ours? Is "Did" correct usage in this case? I didn't know it earlier, but I became aware of it as I read it. Hence this seems logically correct. But a "Do yo...

tense interrogatives

is it like that one?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

19:16

Oh. I guess so.

And I answered it, huh.

Anyhow. I also keep getting this:

2

Q: Is past tense correct here?

Possible Duplicates: He didn't know where New Jersey was… Tense change: previous actions on something that's currently true My wife and I were disagreeing about this today: (A) Did you know Fred was a doctor? (B) Did you know Fred is a doctor? I was arguing for (A)...

past-tense

It is so strikingly similar, and yet different.

Matt Эллен

oh, that does look very similar

it's the opposite question - Fixee ask about something that is on going, Noah asks about something that's finished

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The thing is, "did you know that Fred is a doctor" is grammatical. Fred was a doctor and he still is, and you could have picked that knowledge up at whatever point in time. But I have my doubts about "did you know there's a thunderstorm today".

I mean, even if there is the storm right here right now, where were you supposed to get that knowledge from?

Matt Эллен

yes, that's what struck me too. Unless it had been planned

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Anf if you live in the same area, well then you just know about the storm, so asking "did you know" is kind of pointless.

Unless I think you've locked yourself up in the basement with your playstation.

Matt Эллен

:D

or your're new in town

RegDwight Ѭſ道

19:22

So. I guess what I'm tryng to say is that the example is really poorly chosen.

Gigili

@RegDwightѬſ道 That's what weather forecast is good for.

Matt Эллен

aye

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Gigili and weather forecast is reliable, how?

Just because it forecast stuff for today, doesn't mean you are aware it is happening right now.

Gigili

But you're not completely unaware of it.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

You are.

Gigili

19:25

Are you?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

If the forecast told you that it would be rainy in Hamburg today, do you know what kind of weather Hamburg has right now?

Matt Эллен

interesting: being probabilistically aware of things

RegDwight Ѭſ道

That's my point, though. Aware and probabilistically don't mix.

Gigili

@RegDwightѬſ道 Whatever weather it has, It's not rainy.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Heh.

Gigili

19:27

But Matt just mixed them nicely.

Matt Эллен

with my whisk of juxtaposition

Gigili

I won Reg. Try again later.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

You can be aware of the probability of a thunderstorm, but you can't be probably aware of the thunderstorm.

As soon as it's the thunderstorm, you are either aware or you aren't.

Matt Эллен

:D

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Anyway, now that I've lost to Gigili I'll just go play Zelda instead.

BBL

Matt Эллен

19:30

CU

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Oh and actually the question I had in mind is not the one I answered, but the one linked from the last line of my answer.

7

Q: Why is the past tense used in "I was wondering if you would like to come for dinner?"

Why isn't the present tense used? I am wondering if you would like to come for dinner.

verbs tense

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 Deep thinking. I have given up on reading weather forecasts long ago.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Poooffff!

Gigili

@RegDwightѬſ道 You can be aware of it as opposed to someone who has no idea that it can probably happen. As in you won't be surprised.

You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 It depends on whether one wishes to emphasize that the wondering is still taking place or has taken place long ago.

Gigili

19:34

Actually, I was thinking... Well, maybe I wasn't. Forget it.

@Meysam: Dige beharhal.

FumbleFingers

21:58

@RegDwightѬſ道 I cry foul! english.stackexchange.com/questions/64347

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@FumbleFingers you cry foul too fast. That question is not asking about "do you" vs "did you".

FumbleFingers

@RegDwightѬſ道 that was my point! it's asking about "there was/there is an election today"

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Exactly.

And the original question is asking about "Fred was/Fred is a doctor".

FumbleFingers

@RegDwightѬſ道 so how is that covered by the earlier Q?

hmmm - lemmie go check again...

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The top and accepted answer actually says "My vote for 'is'". Just as your answer does on the newer question. Which I had waited for you to post before closing. :P

FumbleFingers

22:02

...my mistake - I actually followed Mitch's "related" link, not yours. Will delete my pointless witter.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Heh.

FumbleFingers

you win again, but I'll be back!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Well it is confusing indeed. We have too many questions of this kind, but not all really identical.

Which is one reason more to try and close at least some of them as dupes.

In fact if you catch up on the transcript, we left the question completely alone as long as there was that thunderstorm thingy.

FumbleFingers

I quite agree. Usually I'm okay with calling things dups even when they're not quite the same

I just got distracted fixing the thunderstorm instead of looking more at the antecedents

RegDwight Ѭſ道

We had quite a discussion about the thunderstorm, too.

And we addressed the "did you know" part as well, cause there's a question for that.

Or a couple, in fact.

Anyway, I'm AFK for now. Might or might not BBL.

FumbleFingers

22:08

k ty for explication

RegDwight Ѭſ道

np bro lol

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…