English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Johan Larsson

12:02 AM

ok

Google translate translates it differently

tchrist

That is American style. Your spec said it had to be British style.

The module allows both.

Johan Larsson

ah ok, that explains it, ty again

tchrist

        # OPTIONAL PARAMETERS CHANGE TRANSLATION:

           $words = NUMWORDS(12345, group=>1);
                       # "one, two, three, four, five"

           $words = NUMWORDS(12345, group=>2);
                       # "twelve, thirty-four, five"

           $words = NUMWORDS(12345, group=>3);
                       # "one twenty-three, forty-five"

           $words = NUMWORDS(1234, 'and'=>'');
                       # "one thousand, two hundred thirty-four"

           $words = NUMWORDS(1234, 'and'=>', plus');

Type "man Lingua::EN::Inflect" after you install the module, or go find its manpage out the web somewhere.

It gives the full API, which is quite rich.

Johan Larsson

ok

tchrist

> “English is hard!” says Math-Barbie.

Johan Larsson

12:15 AM

Does that make me Swedish Ken?

Johan Larsson

12:59 AM

Found this also

Mahnax

1:25 AM

-1

Q: Which type(singular or plural) is right for 'count'(verb)?

Say, "Count xxx!" Which (or what) type should be used in xxx? Plural or Singular? Count children? Count child?

grammatical-number

Robusto

1:48 AM

0

Q: "atop" verses "on top of"

I'm sure this is silly and won't be terribly difficult to answer : can one climb atop a mountain or is it proper to say climb on top of.. or does it matter? I'm thinking the later is correct.

grammaticality differences

Gen Ref.

user19161

2:11 AM

@Mahnax Actually, I like that question, voting to reopen.

user19161

@tchrist Math is hard, says English-Barbie.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy Seriously??

Yannbane

What is a nicer way of saying "it was done to achieve a bigger goal"?

user19161

@Mahnax Yes. =) Well, I am nuts! Maybe general reference, but I understand what his question is all about!

Mahnax

@JasperLoy I understand what it is about too, that does not make it good for EL&U.

If it is GR then it should be closed as such, no?

user19161

2:17 AM

@Yannbane One needs more context to answer your question. There is also nothing wrong with your sentence.

Yannbane

@JasperLoy Yeah but it looked a bit clumsy to me...

user19161

@Mahnax Well, it's up to users to cast votes, that's what votes are for.

cornbread ninja

howdy

How's the coffeehouse, @Mahnax?

user19161

3:37 AM

@cornbreadninja I saw your cake on top of a cake.

cornbread ninja

3:57 AM

@JasperLoy good!

Cerberus

6:56 AM

Tell me this ad isn't totally insane.

Wrong on so many levels.

First, trying to manipulate people into defrauding doctors.

Secondly, the woman looks much worse after the botox.

A horrible plastic, puffy doll.

Thank goodness Adblock blocks this in Firefox. I chanced upon it in Chrome.

Cerberus

8:23 AM

@Mrshinyandnew > "What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the idea that being highly self-confident - loving yourself, believing in yourself - is the key to success. Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's widely held, it's very deeply held, and it's also untrue."

bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20756247

user19161

9:33 AM

@Cerberus Is that you?

RegDwighт

9:54 AM

@Cerberus why? It's an excellent ad for a pirate copy of Photoshop. $5 only!

Robusto

10:42 AM

21

A: Correct position of "only"

In the given example there's not much difference. But there can be a great deal of difference in other constructions involving the same idea. Consider: I only eat fish when I'm sick. I eat fish only when I'm sick. I eat only fish when I'm sick. I submit that the first sentence is ...

So why did this answer garner a single down vote, after all this time. This is certainly enemy action.

OK, that's it. I quit. I'm not answering questions on this site anymore. I don't even think I'll be around much. Bye.

user19161

11:00 AM

@Robusto Relax dude, relax.

user19161

@RegDwighт Just use the GIMP!

Meysam

11:24 AM

@JasperLoy Helo

user19161

@Meysam Hello!

Meysam

@JasperLoy Can you help me with the meaning of "down toward" in this text?
"In one place, where a busy little city with banks and newspapers and fire companies and a mayor and aldermen had been, was nothing but a wide expanse of emerald turf, with not even the faintest sign that human life had ever been present there. This was **down toward** Tuttletown"

user19161

@Meysam This sentence is very hard to parse!

Matt Эллен

@Robusto Don't leave forever! Don't let the scoundrels win.

3

Meysam

Does it mean that this deserted place is located down the Tuttletown? or does it mean that Tuttletown is the very place the author is talking about?

@JasperLoy find the full text here: classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/mtwain/bl-mtwain-cal.htm

Matt Эллен

11:34 AM

@Meysam down is often used with regards to position, e.g. "I'm going down to my parent's house this evening", even is the place isn't actually lower, or more southerly, than where one currently is. toward is a direction. "This was down toward Tuttletown" means that the place was in the same direction as Tuttletown.

Meysam

@MattЭллен So if one goes down to that direction, they will first reach the deserted place, and then Tuttletown. right?

yes

tankio

no probs :)

I'm finally having a shot at the Necromancer hat.

Though I might be just a tad too late to that party.

We'll see.

Matt Эллен

11:39 AM

good luck

RegDwighт

Shameless self-plug:

0

A: "A variety of X is/are"

Here are the actual usage stats from the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): BNC COCA a variety of [n*]/[nn2] is 15/11 47/15 a variety of [n*]/[nn2] are 26/26 83/82 For those unfamiliar with the qu...

Xblast time!

BBL

user19161

@matt Where is the MSO post on how "thanks" is considered noise? I can't find it now...

Matt Эллен

@JasperLoy one sec...

335

Q: Should 'Hi', 'thanks,' taglines, and salutations be removed from posts?

I edit a lot of posts every day. I often run across posts with 'Hi' and 'Thanks' on the top and the bottom of the post respectively. I also run across things like: --User Should these items be removed during the editing of the post by an editor?

discussion editing etiquette quality-filter signatures

If you'd like the answer I often quote:

135

A: Should 'Hi', 'thanks,' taglines, and salutations be removed from posts?

Yes. I view this in quite a simplistic way. Let's take your action out of the equation - if we had two parallel worlds, one with the question including the greetings, etc, and one without, which would we choose? I'd choose the world where the questions just had the required information, as reada...

user19161

@MattЭллен I have been doing edits on MSE. The MSE folks are not as good at edits as ELU folks, and sometimes my edits are questioned!

Matt Эллен

gosh!

Well, they'll learn to accept you in the end

user19161

11:48 AM

So I feel I need to educate them on some "standard practices" on SE.

Matt Эллен

Quite

user19161

Like how to ping in a chatroom or on main!

user19161

And also, how to edit!

Matt Эллен

they need to read the faqs

user19161

Of course, if it is just a "thanks" and nothing else to edit, I won't touch the post.

user19161

11:49 AM

But usually there are other things to be changed, so one makes the maximal improvement. QED.

Meysam

@JasperLoy Maybe it's the other way around. I mean, maybe the ELU folks are not as good at edits as MSE folks, that's why your edits are never questioned here.

Matt Эллен

Quit Editing Damnit!

user19161

@Meysam HAHAHAHA, well, the MSE folks are pretty bad at English I can tell you.

Meysam

@JasperLoy It is therefore not the other way around!

user19161

@MattЭллен He leaves for you to earn more rep! =)

RegDwighт

11:59 AM

@Robusto it got linked from a recent question. Now look at the comments there.

KitFox

Morning.

@RegDwighт roflmao

Matt Эллен

Morning @Kit

tchrist

@RegDwighт Careful, you’ll just make @Rob insecure if you get another one:

RegDwighт

Oh. I have that many?

tchrist

For the nonce.

RegDwighт

12:02 PM

I remember one and a half.

tchrist

These sneak up on you.

KitFox

@Matt I wrote another article for the Nose.

RegDwighт

Nope, not on me.

All of mine were on purpose. I actively worked towards each and every one.

tchrist

I got a Revival the other day, which is something I’d never even noticed before.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox ORLY? Would you be so kind as to provide a link?

KitFox

12:03 PM

It's not done yet.

tchrist

I imagine Hugo works at them; he seems that way. But I was surprised at all of Barrie’s.

Matt Эллен

oh

Well, I look forward to reading it, then!

tchrist

@RegDwighт Hard to do that with non-integral responses.

KitFox

It's due out today though. It was a last minute thing because Neil is sick.

And he hates writing.

Matt Эллен

oh dear

KitFox

12:10 PM

I think he's trying to sucker me into being a regular contributor.

tchrist

@Reg I was looking for the canonical premodifier-agreement question (where it looks like a prep phase but isn’t quite because it doesn’t affect agreement: a lot/variety/etc of). I am not sure we have a canonical one, but what I am sure of is we don’t have a tag for it. I am still looking for something from Barrie or Lawler about this. They’ve posted about it, but I can’t quite find it.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox hehehe

do you think you will be?

KitFox

I suppose it is possible.

It isn't really the kind of thing I want to do with my writing.

It's kind of an ego boost though.

RegDwighт

3

A: "The current crop of X (was/were)" - Which is correct?

‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’ suggests that where the quantifier is informal, plural agreement is more likely. Informal quantifiers include a batch of, a bunch of and a handful of. A crop of seems to be very like these, pointing to the plural agreement which the example displays. The sen...

KitFox

I have to commute. Later!

Matt Эллен

12:12 PM

CU

RegDwighт

6

A: "A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst [...], keeps asking"

In Standard English, formal agreement requires the plural keep. That’s because the head word in the noun phrase a lot of people is people, which is plural. The interrupting clause especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here makes no difference. However, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is not wr...

Barrie has answered a lot of such questions.

More to the point, a lot of such questions has been answered by Barrie.

Matt Эллен

or more sadly, a lot of such questions had been answered by Barrie.

RegDwighт

This is not a tcsh.

Matt Эллен

well, it should stop looking just like one then!

RegDwighт

ls -lSr

top

Matt Эллен

12:18 PM

less error.log

RegDwighт

its
cat's
their
defiantly

tchrist

@RegDwighт tr/\n/ /

RegDwighт

its cat's their defiantly

tchrist

We have a bot!

RegDwighт

Why do you say that we have a bot?

tchrist

12:28 PM

You’re dating yourself.

RegDwighт

Okay so here's the $trillion idea. Actually add such an error.log to every machine, and as soon as its length reaches 1024 Bytes, automatically and permanently disconnect that machine from the Internet.

Matt Эллен

12:59 PM

only four users in the room. Has war broken out?

RegDwighт

Everyone is sick and tired of ELU and moved to Skeptics.

Matt Эллен

do you have some reference to back that up?

RegDwighт

No, but don't make me leave for the site I can ask for it on.

Matt Эллен

:D

tchrist

Well damn it, if there’s no love to be had for that young whippersnapper Shakespeare, I guess I will have to invoke older traditions still.

RegDwighт

1:18 PM

Whoa people, not all at once. Nine questions in just one hour.

user19161

@RegDwighт Maybe everyone has retired.

tchrist

1:36 PM

♬ He came at last to a mansion fine / Down by the river Claydee. / And there was music and there was wine / For the gypsy and his lady. ♬

Matt Эллен

byeee

Jez

interesting how the French seem to transcribe things differently, even from other Romance languages, apparently just to be different

most other languages say "Kim Jong-Un" but the French have to say "Kim Jonh-eun"

admittedly, "un" isn't a word in most languages

tchrist

Think about why.

It is not that it is a word.

It is that the mapping of graphemes to phones works differently in French than in English.

Jez

apparently in French than in any other language

tchrist

Haven’t you seen how Spanish transcribes names?

Jez

1:44 PM

wikipedia says "Kim Jong-un"

tchrist

I wasn’t referring to that one.

Jez

Also, Tourette's syndrome

everyone calls it "Tourette's syndrome" except the French who call it "illness of Gilles de la Tourette"

tchrist

How do you think they spell Qadaffi? Now that way, I assure you.

Damn it, I had another question and you’ve dislodged it from my brain.

Jez

Heh, no-one could decide on how to spell Gadaffi

RegDwighт

2:10 PM

So Gérard Depardieu is a Russian now.

Jez

hahaha

ne pas imposer vos dépots sur moi, je suis riche!!

tchrist

Ken ye the rhyme to grasshopper?
Ken ye the rhyme to grasshopper?
A hempen rein, a horse o’ tree,
A psalm-book, and a Presbyter.

What does that mean?

It appears next to this:

The dog, he shallna keep it lang,
To flinch we’ll mak him fain again;
We’ll hang him hie upon a tree,
And James shall have his ain again.

And seems to be about a Jacobite plot.

But no one knows what it means any longer.

O what’s the rhyme to porringer?
Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
King James the Seventh had ae dochter,
And he gave her to an Oranger.

Ken ye how she requited him?
Ken ye how she requited him?
The lad has into England come,
And ta’en the croon in spite of him.

Sorry, it’s a Jacobite morning here.

I am underwhelmed. Some dickfor didn’t like my Sea Rover reference.

Don’t make me ask another. :)

My question has a discrete answer: find when in literature we first began naming dogs Rover.

It is not an open-ended question. It has an answer. It just takes a bit of work. You can’t just look in Wiktionary.

RegDwighт

It's a slow day. There are like five people online.

tchrist

I was noticing. I wonder why.

MετάEd

2:26 PM

Hat burnout.

RegDwighт

Just a day too early.

tchrist

If a vixen has a litter of five kits, you could call them quintuplets. But what would you call them if she had fifteen in her litter?

RegDwighт

Quintdecimaplets.

tchrist

@Kit See how easy he makes it? :)

Cue the Valkyries!

RegDwighт

Meh. Now get the I Do Say.

tchrist

2:34 PM

Your what hurts?

If I didn’t have to work, I could.

RegDwighт

0

Q: "we have" and "we have that"

I'm writing mathematics. what is more appropriate: 1)Since the fact A is true, we have B=C. 2)Since the fact A is true, we have that B=C. That is, when to use the word "that"