English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2012-08-20 (page 1 of 8)

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12:00 AM

Just regular people.

OK.

They would look like tourists here.

They live here.

This is a university town, with a very outdoor lifestyle, completely unpretentious.

We don’t go in for glamour fakery.

But in the country they might pass for locals.

We eat outside all the time.

Even in the winter.

So do you feel that clothing shouldn't serve to make people look better at all?

12:02 AM

People just wear there jackets, is all.

Fancy dress has its place, I imagine.

I wear costumes for Halloween, too.

But not in daily life?

I don’t care to come off as a slop, but come on, who am I trying to impress, and why?

user image

Some of those people are dressed up. Can you tell which ones? :)

It's not so much about impressing as it is about aesthetics, like having a table that you think looks good.

@tchrist The pink skirt? As for the rest, I don't know. Are cowboy hats normal in America?

Yes, the pink skirt.

The cowboy hats, well, they probably don’t think of themselves as wearing a costume, but yeah, it has that rodeo look to it, doesn’t it?

But people wear it around normally, yeah.

I don't know: it would be dressing up here.

12:08 AM

Not here.

Yeah, it's all relative.

I think it’s dressing up because I could not countenance wearing long trousers during summer months.

But everybody seems to be wearing long trousers in that picture?

So anyway, you feel buying a nice-looking table is OK, but a nice-looking jacket is not?

It was kinda cold that day. It stormed.

Maybe that’s it.

I dress up for weddings and funerals.

47 secs ago, by Cerberus

So anyway, you feel buying a nice-looking table is OK, but a nice-looking jacket is not?

12:10 AM

Jackets are for keeping warm, right?

Or dry.

Same thing.

Is one different from the other?

Tables are for putting stuff on them.

But that is not my question.

I try not to buy ugly things to wear, no.

But I am not into pretentious show-clothes either.

There is a big difference.

I would never ever ever wear a suit-jacket. Unless someone were dead.

Probably me.

Do you have any furniture that looks good to you?

sighs

WAIT!

Are you overdressed for the weather????

cornbread ninja

@tchrist omg, black socks with shorts. :P

12:13 AM

Of course you are too hot!

cornbread ninja

Heh.

@cornbreadninja Must be Europeans.

Nobody seems to have sent them the memo.

cornbread ninja

My mother will wear a thin hoodie in 105-degree weather to hide her "fat" arms.

brb team fortress

@tchrist Telling you what I am wearing right now would be indecent, so no.

That is not where I was going. :(

If you walk around in hot clothes, you will be hot.

12:15 AM

I have a feeling you're trying to evade the fundamental issue here.

You like to dress up.

I don't really like to dress up, but I just want to look normal and non-ugly.

And that’s all this is about.

user19161

@Cerberus You must be in your undies now...

Apparently.

Or a sock.

12:16 AM

Aren't you clever.

Maybe he’s got a sock on.

That would explain it.

Maybe I am a sock.

Well, that is a major fashion faux pas, you know.

If you are only wearing one thing, the sock is the wrong one to wear.

user19161

@tchrist Oh no, are you thinking what I am thinking?

@JasperLoy Might be.

user19161

12:17 AM

@tchrist I see you are very naughty too...

Moi?

Are you referring to this?

Make it go away!!!!

Lord God no!

The customary dress of Papuas.

Gee.

I figured you must be wearing a hat.

12:18 AM

You and your American prudeness!

It fit in with the stylish image you like to project. :)

Young man, I have been to Burning Man eight times. If you think I’m a prude, you have never been.

I want to be non-ugly. I have no hopes of being stylish.

@tchrist You screamed like a girl at the penis tubes.

My first piece of advice is to ditch the baseball cap and get a beret.

For formal occasions, a tophat might work.

user19161

@Cerberus Is that what they are called?

Assuming, of course, that is the only thing you are wearing.

Men should not wear gourds on their dicks.

Which reminds me, I should be cooking up my zucchini for supper.

@Cerberus They were unfashionable. :)

I could show you fashionable, but I’d get flagged.

12:24 AM

@JasperLoy I don't know...

@tchrist Haha, show me!

I dare you!

Um... what a time for me to enter the room @tchrist

Nice try, sweetums.

Hi y'all.

Hello.

I think I have an interesting question, but I'm having a terrible time with phrasing it.

12:26 AM

That’s the wide angle. Want the zoom, too?

I see nothing. I guess that's what I am supposed to see?

@SpareOom Ask it here first?

It's too long to say, "Is there a rule which states why it's unnatural to say something like, 'Can you tell who I'm by my voice alone?'"

user19161

Hi @spare, the last time I saw you was when you visited the dentist.

But I really want to know more generally than just I'm.

@SpareOom Sure.

You can’t back a contraction with to be if it’s the main verb, only if it is an auxiliary.

12:28 AM

The dentist went well as far as I can remember. Thanks for asking.

@Cerberus Don’t blink so much.

@tchrist I do not believe it works that way.

"I'm Cerberus."

You’re right.

I rather think it has something to do with topic and focus.

And possibly euphony.

It sounds wrong with lots of examples in endings of phrases.

12:29 AM

Sentence accent.

It needs to take prosodic stress.

@Cerberus And I'm going to have to look up what all that means.

When you make a contraction, you lose that.

I'm going to get answers that are better than the question!

Generally.

12:30 AM

You can even stress the contracted form: "But that's not Cerberus: I'm Cerberus."

@SpareOom I think the question is good, and clear enough. Are there any duplicates about when contractions are possible?

I didn't find any, but I don't use search efficiently.

Can you tell who I’m against? Can you tell who I’m with before I tell you? But not: Can you tell me who *I’m before you meet me?

It also is problematic with I'll, I'd, You'll We'll... You can't always substitute the contraction.

It somehow dangles all exposed there in an uncomplimentary fashion, like your picture.

user19161

@spare Are you posting this on main now?

12:34 AM

I didn’t have the same thing for supper as *you’d.

I'm trying to get the wording fixed so it makes sense.

I didn’t have the same thing for supper as you had.

@tchrist Right!

Perhaps it is only possible in non-elliptic usage when the ellipsis occurs in the element governed by it?

I didn’t have the same thing for supper as you’d thought I’d have.

12:35 AM

But it is still often impossible even then.

I will have some, but *she’ll not.

Anyway, when I get the question posted, feel free to edit it to improve it.

I will have some, but she won’t.

@tchrist The issue is not contraction there.

What is it?

I thought we were finding places where you could not use a contraction.

12:36 AM

@tchrist Both of those sounded ok to me.

"She’ll not" is weird.

@tchrist I mean in your example "she'll not". I think.

user19161

@tchrist It's OK for me.

Ok, I’ll do one in the positive.

The issue is that won't trumps 'll not.

12:37 AM

@tchrist Maybe it's rare, but not wrong sounding to me

user19161

She'll not do this.

user19161

Does that sound weird?

Would you like to go? Sure *I’d.

@JasperLoy I would always say "she won't".

user19161

Will she do this? She'll not.

user19161

12:38 AM

Also fine.

No, Jasper.

It isn’t.

But I cannot say why.

@JasperLoy A bit odd, but I'm thinking poetic would be ok.

@JasperLoy That gets an asterisk from me.

Will you have some? Yes, *I’ll.

@tchrist Agreed, that is wrong.

12:39 AM

All problematicals.

I think a contraction governing ellipsis may be part of the issue.

user19161

@tchrist That is weird for me.

There is also an issue with contraction + inversion.

Or any abnormal word order.

@tchrist Agreed.

It needn’t be verbal ellipsis, just any complement.

12:40 AM

I'm sure this is all explained in the CGEL or any decent grammar, but that is no fun.

user19161

I am thinking I might prefer "she'll not" to "she won't" if I want to emphasize the "not".

@tchrist Yes, just ellipsis.

@JasperLoy Only if there is more to say.

user19161

Like if I want to shout "she'll NOT".

Modal don’t mind.

@JasperLoy I couldn’t.

12:41 AM

There are probably examples where who'd can't be used for who would, but I can't think right now.

Can you hear me? No I can’t.

Modals are ok.

With negatives.

user19161

So this question looks like it will get 9000 votes then.

"Yes, *I’ll." is forbidden. "No, I won’t." is permitted.

Yes, negative contractions appear to behave differently.

user19161

This is totally off here, but anyone knows latexmk and auto-pst-pdf very well here?

12:44 AM

Even they are not always possible, but that is rare.

@JasperLoy Unless someone answers it so fast it never gets seen! :P

user19161

@SpareOom It will still get seen if it is answered!

cornbread ninja

@tchrist pull up your socks, the Chilis are coming.

1:10 AM

@JasperLoy I'm messing up the formatting! Argh!

englishforums.com/English/WhatRulesFormingContractions/mczn/…

Isn't helpful.

@tchrist, @Cerberus, @JasperLoy How about: He didn't give her flowers for her birthday, but *I'd've.

1:25 AM

It may not be wholly forbidden, but it feels weird.

I think maybe the forming words tag is wrong.

I bet John Lawler knows the answer to your question.

@SpareOom From the short examples you gave in your posting, it looks like you can’t put a pronoun+verb contraction at the end of a sentence, but your earlier example of "Can you tell who I'm by my voice alone?'"" shows that it's really more than that.

@tchrist Should I edit the first one to what I mentioned here?

@Cerberus I always forget how super-formal the Dutch are. Do you have to dress up to go to work?

@SpareOom I think it might help, yes.

1:44 AM

I cannot believe we have no direct-object or indirect-object tags! What am I missing?

@cornbreadninja I am unshodden and unsocked. I just reread your phrase and realized it had a puppetry reading, too, though.

Hm, or just unshod?

I bet it had no -en.

consults OED

Both are attested. Digging deeper.

1836 F. Mahony Rel. Father Prout 176 ― It is far from my purpose··to tread on such solemn ground save with··feet duly unshodden.
1838 Lytton Calderon iv, ― To place our unshodden feet upon the necks of kings.

I think unshodden is a bit more old-fashioned. It has fewer citations, too.

The original seems to be unshod, with unshodden a Victorian affectation.

And by original, I mean. . .

C. 897 K. Ælfred Gregory’s Past. C. v. 45 ― Đonne bið us suiðe fracoðlice oðer fot unscod.

Besides Ælfred , all of Spenser, Pope, Brontë, Darwin, Hume and many more use only unshod, not unshodden.

So I am now officially one of the unshod.

That was too quick for me.

@SpareOom May I help you?

@tchrist It was a typo. lol I was going to ask if italicizing the wrong word made the word look stressed.

Let me fix that for you.

I’ll put a ? on them.

@tchrist Whatever you think will get the point across.

@tchrist I'll clarify to Fumblefingers as well, rather than downvoting his answer.

K, just a sec and I'll check it in.

Done.

@tchrist Thanks.

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