English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

12:19 AM

@ktm5124 You might.

I'm not worried.

Araucaria

1:48 AM

@Mitch What's with the migration vote with relation to this question here?

ktm5124

@Araucaria That's exactly what I'm talking about in my Meta thread. People are made to feel unnecessarily unwelcome.

Mitch

3:08 AM

@Araucaria I didn't vote to migrate

user227867

@ktm5124 Don't worry. There are better things to do with your life than SE.

Araucaria

3:24 AM

@Mitch What was the close vote for then, Mitch?

@ktm5124 Which thread old bean?

ktm5124

@Araucaria meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/9720/….

@WillHunting I agree. However, I've gained a lot from my experiences on Stack Overflow and Latin Stack Exchange. Especially from Latin Stack Exchange. I was hoping to have a similarly good experience on ELU. But when I started becoming more active, I noticed the rudeness, and was kind of shocked.

ktm5124

7:59 AM

Well, I've worked out my differences with one SE user and it has made me very happy. Blessed are the peacemakers. (I wish I had adopted this attitude a bit sooner.)

(Adding this as a note of optimism, as I was feeling pretty resigned not so long ago.)

Araucaria

11:32 AM

@ktm5124 Yes, I've read and upvoted that :)

Abcd

11:46 AM

Is there someone here who can check my essays please. I will be indebted.

I am actually in need of help.

Cerberus

12:59 PM

@ktm5124 Anyone I know?

Or would you rather not talk about it now.

curiousdannii

1:17 PM

Is it unreasonable to ask people to edit their questions to ask single clear and specific questions in both the question body and title?

Because so many people refuse to do so.

(context)

Mitch

2:02 PM

@Araucaria duplicate. It looked like the question linked there.

Helmar

2:22 PM

Phew, there actually voted 5 people to close this meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/9720/…

@ktm5124 Now it's only three votes to be open again.

@curiousdannii Actually it is unreasonable for any decently complex topic

You cannot provide a concise, specific and clear question for a complex topic in a title.

Just pick the topic of any good physics dissertation they would all make terrible Q&A site question titles

Thus, by definition your title will be a simplification that tries to neither discourage experts by triviality nor the knowledgeable enthusiast by over-conflating the issue.

Anonymous

There is actually no reason the title of the question has to contain a question.

Anonymous

It should be clear and specific and provide a way to identify the question.

Anonymous

You should be able to tell what the question is about.

Anonymous

2:37 PM

But the title doesn't have to be phrased in the form of a question.

curiousdannii

@Helmar I didn't specify concise, and my main concern is question titles which don't ask anything but only quote an example phrase.

@Helmar the format of the title of a dissertation or any research article in general is not a question. The format of the title of a question on a stack exchange site is meant to be an actual question

Anonymous

224

A: How do I write a good title?

1. Make the topic stand out. The purpose of a title is to attract people interested in your topic or who can give you an answer. People scan web pages quickly. Make it easy for them to notice your question. Some people read via the RSS feed (Stack Overflow example), so they don't see tags. 2. K...

Anonymous

I like most of the "good examples" in that post, except I think it's silly that lots of them have question marks without actually being questions.

curiousdannii

2:55 PM

@snailplane I think several of those good examples are actually pretty terrible!

@MarkHarrison This post is severely outdated and no longer true. A lot of your good examples are in fact very bad examples of question titles for our network, by today's standards. Your answer received a bit of attention because it was brought up on Meta Stack Overflow that it's being linked in a notice and giving users bad advice. — animuson ♦ Feb 3 '15 at 16:18

Anonymous

Ehh, but not in ways that are really relevant to EL&U.

curiousdannii

@snailplane what happens in ELU is that people quote a phrase for their question title, so you have no idea what the issue is about until you read the full question body

Helmar

@curiousdannii You want it in the title. That means by technical limitations you are requiring a certain conciseness.

curiousdannii

@Helmar I'm right here in chat with you. Don't roll-back an edit without talking about it!

Helmar

@curiousdannii Well, I wasn't and I didn't know you were here when I did

curiousdannii

3:03 PM

@Helmar sure. But almost all good questions can be asked in the limits the site sets

Helmar

Anyways your edit clearly oversimplifies the question at hand because anything with "grammaticality" in the title makes the most valued users puke.

It's also not the core of the question

curiousdannii

@Helmar nonsense

Helmar

"How does the grammar of these sentences affect their meaning? Why is it that need takes a passive infinitival clause in (1) but an active gerund-participle clause in (2)?"

You simply cannot boil that down to a grammaticality thing

There is a reason it is tagged grammar, not grammaticality

curiousdannii

@Helmar the OP seems to think that first question is irrelevant. I would've posted it positively along the lines of the second question, but I kept what I could of the original title because it was obviously significant to the OP

@Helmar yes, because it isn't asking for a grammaticallity judgement but for an explanation of why some constructions are grammatical and others are not.

Anonymous

@Helmar I don't think there's any need to roll back that edit.

Helmar

3:08 PM

@curiousdannii Well seems and obviously are two assumptions that I don't agree with.

curiousdannii

But the positive and negative questions are just the converse of each other.

Anonymous

@Helmar What is the core of the question? The portion you quoted a moment ago?

Anonymous

In your opinion, I mean.

Helmar

@snailplane I don't need my opinion

This question is basically about why it is that the verb need appears to be a control verb [or Equi-deletion verb, if you prefer] when it's followed by an infinitival clause, whereas it works like a hollow clause verb [or a tough-movement verb, if you prefer that terminology] when followed by a gerund-participle clause.

Clearly, this calls for a discussion of gerund-participles. However, it has been linked to a supposed dupe which asks about the dialectical possibility of the verb need taking a past participle as a complement.

There is a meta post where Araucaria explains what it is about

curiousdannii

@Helmar the OP thought they never asked about semantics, and has declined to change the title suggesting they really like how it was before I edited it

Helmar

3:11 PM

That meta post does neither support @curiousdannii assumption that the sentences are obviously significant in the title nor the assumption (seems) that the why-question is irrelevant.

Thus, I am truly baffled why there was an edit grossly misrepresenting the question in the title.

Anonymous

Erm, maybe we could explicitly ask Araucaria's opinion before editing further. :-)

Anonymous

@Araucaria Any thoughts?

Helmar

@snailplane Exactly.

Why edit a post of an active high-rep user?

And of a question the two are disputing over on meta no less.

That is honestly just beyond bad style. No matter the intentions.

curiousdannii

@Helmar so that the useless title would at least be somewhat less useless

I was considering just adding the asterisks

Would that be better in your opinions?

Helmar

@curiousdannii I am not saying the title couldn't be better.

Anonymous

3:16 PM

Ah, now we know Araucaria's opinion:

Anonymous

english.stackexchange.com/posts/360061/revisions

curiousdannii

sigh

Helmar

Oh boy @curiousdannii did you actually unilaterally roll back my rollback after chastising me for not consulting you while you were chatting with me?

That's honestly beyond ridiculous.

Araucaria

@snailplane Thanks Snailplane, Thanks @Helmar

:)

curiousdannii

@Helmar of course, but I did rebuke you

@Araucaria I tried a new title with the asterisks, is that okay?

Cerberus

3:20 PM

It seems to me that too many high-reps come to this site not mainly to ask and answer questions, but rather to post negative comments on and close other people's questions.

5

Araucaria

@curiousdannii Well it's a bit wonky, because there's nothing wonky with those per se, unless they are actually meant to mean the same as sentences (1) and (2). And what I'm most interested in is why need is a control predicate with an infinitive and a tough predicate with a gerund-participle.

Cerberus

Closing a question, and posting a negative comment, should be the exception, not the default. Especially with respect to newish users.

3

terdon

@curiousdannii That title wasn't useless at all! It clearly stated the subject of the question. Your roll back war, on the other hand does seem way out of line! One user rejected your edit and you did it again (which is already usually bad form), then the OP themselves rejected it and you insisted! Tat is almost always bad form unless there's something seriously wrong.

curiousdannii

@Cerberus I'd love to answer questions, if it were easier to see the good ones. But too many high rep users spend all their time trying to prop up and save terrible questions

Cerberus

I think my opinion is the opposite of yours.

curiousdannii

3:22 PM

@terdon why does one user (except for the Op) get to unilaterally reject edits? That's not how it's meant to work. And I didn't reinstate it after the OP rolled it back

@Araucaria that sounds like an excellent title right there :)

terdon

I think the main issue here is that for many years now, the ELU community has been trying to reach a homogeneous approach to what we want from ELU. This is very simply never going to happen. The community is just too heterogeneous with established users on both sides of the debate, some of which want this site to be an ivory tower, while others are more lenient.

I think it's about time we accepted that no consensus will ever be reached and we each focus on the questions/answers we enjoy and stop attempting to impose our views on the rest of the community.

@curiousdannii For the same reason you get to unilaterally make them. If someone objects, you back off unless there's something egregious. Their opinion is just as valid as yours.

curiousdannii

@terdon if the site is so disunited it might be more productive to split the site

Anonymous

> This post has been locked while disputes about its content are being resolved.

Helmar

Great job @curiousdannii now it's locked...

terdon

@curiousdannii Been there, done that.

Cerberus

3:25 PM

@terdon But I think it is written in the statutes of the tower that other people's contributions must be constantly criticised.

terdon

Of course they should.

Constructively, anyway. And that's great.

curiousdannii

@terdon there was no voiced objection, only a roll-back

Anonymous

@Helmar Can we dial it back a bit and try to discussion the question title dispassionately? Maybe if we can agree on a title we can ask for it to be unlocked and carry on with the question-and-answer business :-)

terdon

But these meta wars we keep having about what is and is not on topic, are getting us nowhere.

Helmar

@curiousdannii For future reference, if I rollback an edit of yours, you can take it as wholehearted disagreement.

Cerberus

3:26 PM

@terdon Even constructively, I think the negative comments are too hard on new users.

terdon

@curiousdannii That is an objection. You chose to re-impose your opinion instead of taking it to meta or chat. had this been a serious edit, that would be understandable but for a cosmetic change to the title? Not so much.

curiousdannii

@Helmar disagreement isn't enough of a reason to roll-back an edit

Anonymous

@Araucaria Do you have a strong opinion about what the question title should be like? Is there a way to incorporate the bits you mentioned in here into a new title?

Anonymous

'Cause if we could make you and curiousdannii both happy at the same time somehow, that would be great. :-)

curiousdannii

@terdon I did take it to chat! I put back the proposed improvement and waited for an explanation of why it was deficient

terdon

3:28 PM

Also, @curiousdannii, your edit is flat out wrong. There's nothing ungrammatical about The carrots need to chop. It just means something else. But in terms of grammar, it is absolutely fine.

@curiousdannii Well yes, but after initiating a rollback war that led to the post being locked.

Helmar

@curiousdannii exactly, that means it was really high on that scale of disagreement. Meaning you should consider actually asking me or taking it to meta before re-back-rolling anything

Cerberus

> Why can 'need' take a passive infinitival clause, but an active gerund-participle clause?

curiousdannii

@terdon noted. Infelicitous may have been a better word.

terdon

As a general rule, re-rollbacking a rollbacked edit should only be done in extremely clear cases. That's why such edit wars raise automatic mod flags.

4

Cerberus

How would that be as a title?

terdon

3:30 PM

@Cerberus Incomprehensible :)

Cerberus

Well, not to those who would be able to answer the question!

Araucaria

@tchrist Is it possible to lock it in line with the OP's original title, please

terdon

@Cerberus True. Presumably :P

curiousdannii

@terdon I didn't know they raised mod flags. I will be much much more reluctant to do so now

Cerberus

If necessary, people can look up the terms!

Færd

3:31 PM

The original title is catchier when one scans the question queue.

curiousdannii

@Cerberus maybe "but only an active..."

Anonymous

This post explains what triggers the flag: meta.stackexchange.com/a/222644/215040

terdon

@curiousdannii That's secondary. That's not a reason not to start rollback wars. The reason is that they are an attempt to impose your opinion on others and that is a Bad Thing® nine times out of ten.

That they raise a flag is an effect of their wrongness, not a cause of it.

curiousdannii

@terdon I never participate in a war, which I consider two roll backs by one person

tchrist

@Araucaria Done.

Helmar

3:33 PM

@curiousdannii You should not refrain from it because it raises mod flags. You should refrain from it because your opinion has been challenged and that cannot be solved by re-rollbacking.

Cerberus

@curiousdannii I think it can only take an active gerund, but I wanted to stay as close to A's wording as possible.

Araucaria

@tchrist Thanks.

curiousdannii

@Helmar I just think that if you're going to challenge a well intentioned edit you raise the challenge before taking action. The roll-back feature is designed for reverting abuse, not raising challenges to what was intended to be improvements

Helmar

@curiousdannii You do realize that you contradict yourself, right? Rolling back my rollback afterwards is a great deal mightier a challenge.

At that point you do know that at least one person strongly disagrees with you

curiousdannii

@Helmar I was reverting what I considered vandalism, but went to chat to give you the benefit of the doubt and a chance to put forward your case

terdon

3:38 PM

@curiousdannii The general rule, as far as I know is: 1) you see something that can be improved and you make an edit. 2) Someone else considers your improvement detrimental to the post and rolls your edit back. 3) You back off unless the rollback is abusive and your edit is, beyond any reasonable doubt, an improvement. If 4) you do consider it an improvement and roll the rollback back, any further disagreement should go to meta.

Note that 4) is usually the point to go to meta though. Unless your edit is, as I said, beyond any reasonable reproach.

Helmar

@curiousdannii So you decided completely unilaterally that my rollback is an abuse and not well intentioned while your edit of a post that you were simultaneously sparring with the OP on meta over was more valid.

terdon

Now, if in all this, the OP who is an experienced user of the site and, after all, the final authority on their own question also expresses an opinion via a rollback, then it's most certainly time to back off and take it to meta/chat.

Araucaria

@Cerberus Problem is it can take both an active or a passive infinitival. The thing with the infinitive is that the subject of the verb in the main clause is interpreted as the subject of the infinitival: "X needs to leave" means something like "X needs X to leave". But with the gerund participle the subject of need is interpreted as the object of the GP: "X needs doing" means something like "X needs [chopping X]" or rather "It's necessary to chop X". So it's hard to coin succinctly!

curiousdannii

@terdon as flawed as calling ungrammatical what may be in another context grammatical, making the title an actual question is IMO beyond reasonable doubt an improvement

terdon

@curiousdannii No it isn't. Never has been. There is absolutely no reason for the title of a question to end in a question mark. None whatsoever.

curiousdannii

3:40 PM

@Helmar just as you decided completely unilaterally and with no attempt to communicate with me

terdon

Look, both of you were well within your rights when doing your first edit. Be that an edit or a rollback. It's that you continued to do so after you saw that the other party disagreed that's the problem.

Araucaria

I should have called it"carrots"

terdon

Everyone's opinion is equally valid. Nobody gets to impose theirs.

curiousdannii

@terdon quoting a phrase communicates nothing about what the problem is about. Okay, maybe question titles don't need to be strict questions, but they should be predicates: topic and comment

terdon

@curiousdannii Topic is enough. A title should just be enough to pique the interest of the people who might be able to answer.

Helmar

3:43 PM

@curiousdannii I edited once you literally tried to start a no-yes-no-yes-editing war.

curiousdannii

@terdon then there's no point having titles. Might as well just have tags

@Helmar I did not, I asked you on chat, and I would never continue a no yes no yes war

terdon

@curiousdannii Not at all. A title is what you see when looking at the list of questions. It should convey what the question is about not, however, necessarily the question itself.

Helmar

@curiousdannii The time stamps tell me that you didn't wait until I replied in regard to that question

You asked a seemingly random question about title clarity.

Anonymous

@terdon And it should be specific enough that you can find the question in the future without having to look at it and six other questions with the same name.

curiousdannii

@terdon I disagree but won't push the issue. The original title was still very non informative, and was about the secondary issue rather than the primary question!

@snailplane well all the others should be closed as dupes if they're that similar

terdon

3:46 PM

@snailplane Yep. Which, in my view, the original title was.

Anonymous

@terdon I think it was.

tchrist

I need to go run an errand. I hope this isn't still going on when I get back.

Anonymous

Take care.

curiousdannii

It's very late and I need to sleep

Helmar

@terdon Yes, it was.

curiousdannii

3:48 PM

Please pick a title, whether a question or not which is actually about the primary issue being asked.

Helmar

@curiousdannii It's in meta's hands now

Unrelated is anyone else still being redirected to ell with that question?

Not sure what my browser is doing there

curiousdannii

@Helmar I went with my gut and tried to both simultaneously. On other sites that has gone okay. I do sincerely regret and apologise rolling it back before we had a proper chance to discuss it

user227867

@Cerberus Real experts just sit in this chat and discuss philosophy and Latin. =P

Helmar

@curiousdannii Well, let's just not do it again ;)

Cerberus

@Araucaria Hence "can". I understand the issue!

In fact, I have debated it several times on various SE sites.

curiousdannii

3:52 PM

@Helmar the no questions for linguists question goes to ELL, the bad dupes goes to ELU

user227867

Everyone makes mistakes. Forgive yourself and move on.

Cerberus

The fact that the infinitive could be used passively in older English too more or less statisfied me.

user227867

Anyway, today was the worst day of the year for me.

Anonymous

@Helmar Oh, that's strange. I'm not being redirected, no. But the meta post links to ELL. Should it be updated to link to the question on EL&U now that it's been bounced back?

user227867

@snailplane By the way, do you know how often Collins publishes its English dictionary? Every four years? The big, big one.

Anonymous

3:54 PM

I do not.

Araucaria

@Cerberus Yes, I saw your interesting comment to JL.

Anonymous

Wikipedia says it's generally every 3-4 years, with an exception for their 30th anniversary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins_English_Dictionary

user227867

I am glad nobody ever edited my post, so I did not need to rollback. =P

Araucaria

@snailplane Done :)

user227867

@snailplane Next time I see you, you should be called snailrocket. =P

Anonymous

3:59 PM

Ah, thank you :-)

Anonymous

@WillHunting My polymorphism is in short supply!

user227867

Today, I felt extremely anxious, maybe the worst in two years. But I have just calmed down a little...

user227867

@sumelic The red flowers smell of autumn.

user62015

Hi

It took a long time for him to realize, what the truth was?

what is truth?
what was the truth?
what the truth was?
No improvement

Answer says c

I agree but question mark should be removed

leadthecompetition.in/english/grammar/…

Helmar

4:15 PM

I agree

No real reason for the thing to be there at all. If there were no comma the whole thing could be a question but with the comma it looks more like a statement.

However test questions are ripped from any context so just revel in your answering correctly and move on.

@Araucaria you are looking for input on mechanics and methods to keep good questions on ELU, right?

12

Q: No questions for Linguists on EL&U

Apparently, questions which actually ask about aspects of the English Language which might be interesting to linguists, etymologists or serious language enthusiasts are now banned on EL&U. Single word-request junkies who have the disinclination for such questions to appear on EL&U have started se...

discussion

It seems to me that everyone got way to involved with your one example.

sumelic

@WillHunting Hi! I starred your "philosophy and Latin" comment

Anonymous

@user62015 The comma and question mark are both strange.

user62015

Yes.

Thanks everyone

Catija

4:39 PM

Obviously, the simplest solution is to turn off user migrations.

Anonymous

Noo! Please keep feeding ELL questions :-)

Anonymous

We need to feed ELL so it can grow up strong and healthy.

user227867

@snailplane I actually find that ELL has many well-written grammar questions, not ELU, in recent times.

Cerberus

I feel that ELL's radulae are softer than EL&U's.

user227867

That is because non-native speakers actually take time to learn grammar formally.

user227867

4:48 PM

While native speakers just ask for single word requests and things like that.

user227867

So it seems that ELL has become the real ELU and ELU has become the real ELL.

user227867

That is why I never wanted the split into ELL and ELU in the first place.

Catija

ELL has plenty of content. Restricting the pipeline wouldn't stop the migrations, it would just make them a bit more moderated... then questions like Arau's wouldn't get migrated and really low-quality ones wouldn't either (hopefully).

user227867

I think it is a big mistake, this split, and one day, more people will realise it and join the two sites.

user227867

But we cannot force people to think in similar ways, so this merger may never ever happen for the next ten years.

Catija

4:50 PM

Merger's never going to happen.

user227867

It will happen if the people in power agree and make it happen. The power always wins.

user227867

IIRC, Robert Cartaino did not want the split, but Jeff Atwood wanted it, made a comment, and the split was done, before he left SE.

Anonymous

In theory, I would like a single site that addresses the needs of both communities. However, I think that merging them would just make both communities miserable, and the needs of neither community would be met.

Anonymous

So, misewell keep 'em separate. :-)

user227867

I may be very wrong, but I think that non-trivial questions on ELU are misinterpreted as trivial questions because of the way they are written. And then these questions get downvoted and closed.

user227867

4:53 PM

Really, until now, I cannot see how the questions on ELU are of a higher level than those of ELL. They are all of the same level to me.

user227867

In fact, on many occasions, I feel that the ELL questions are of a higher level, but I am only a banana with no knowledge of grammar.

Anonymous

And here I thought you were a blue square.

user227867

However, I have indeed purchased a copy of A Student's Introduction To English Grammar, and also Grammatically Correct. Together, I think they suffice for all my English grammar needs.

Catija

But ELL questions may require more work because they're often poorly written... so editing is necessary... or the asker isn't really sure what they're asking about, so there's not much detail, so you have to interact with them to get more info out to improve the question.

ELU tends to prefer perfectly written, clear, concise questions that are already researched... many ELLs can't do that.

user227867

And a lot of this research is actually just copy and paste from here and there, which is something even the answerer can do, not the asker. I don't mind poorly written questions though. If you can edit it and post a good answer, the whole post is good.

user227867

4:57 PM

@Catija Are you a moderator on ELL?

Catija

Nope.

user227867

Oh, you sound like one. =P

Catija

Snail is :P

user227867

Hey @Tonepoet today I spent quite a bit on buying the four Routlege Reference Grammars at routledge.com/languages/series/RRG. Just to share with you. These are the best grammars in English for these four languages.

Catija

I just have lots of rep. I haven't been as active since they graduated. Every now and then I come to ELU to complain about migrations. Never does any good. Doesn't help that a lot of the ELL mods seem to want them, so shrug.

user227867

4:59 PM

I was very happy with ELU five years ago.

user227867

Lots of questions and answers, even if some aren't perfect.

user227867

But now, things get downvoted and closevoted more easily, and the site seems like a zombie to me.

user227867

Commenting on this and that needing research and stuff like that.

user227867

Research is important, but sometimes some people just can't find anything.

user227867

Do they then have to write 'I can't find anything' to show they have done their research? I don't think so.

user227867

5:02 PM

And some things are so obvious and common knowledge and you post them and someone comments that there are no references, when it is so common that really none are needed.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting That wouldn't even suffice unless they indicated where they looked.

user227867

The thing about trying to make this site look academic by posting references even for trivial facts is that it then looks extremely stupid when you have to reference something like a 1+1=2

user227867

@Tonepoet Yeah, and I think this culture is being overdone, of requiring research, in many cases.

user227867

By the way, I cannot find any reference for 1+1=2. To prove that would require a whole course in axiomatic set theory, constructing the natural numbers from first principles.

user227867

@Tonepoet So, are you actually beginning to like long division now?

Tonepoet

5:08 PM

Yeah, I think there are times when the suggested research obviously can't answer the question, or doesn't do so sufficiently. Still, I can see the general point of it. Reproducing The Free Dictionary by Farlex isn't exactly the most productive use of our time.

@WillHunting I haven't done even a bit of mathematics since I mentioned that to you.

user227867

@Tonepoet Hmm OK. May I ask what you have been doing the last few weeks? If that is not too personal.

Tonepoet

Nothing particularly special.

user227867

Hmm OK. You know my situation, so I don't need to mention it again.

user227867

@Tonepoet The CMOS you got has a huge chapter on punctuation. I think if you just want US punctuation, it is very good, but it does not cover UK punctuation at all, IIRC

user227867

@sumelic Not many people star my comments. I usually get zero stars in this chat, very sad... I just starred your comment about starring mine.

Tonepoet

5:18 PM

@WillHunting That is quite alright. Chicago isn't anywhere near the U.K., and I am almost certain more people who care would would be familiar with U.S. English than U.K. English.

I've said it before but if you take the combined population of New Zealand, the U.K., Canada and Australia, the total population is only around 128 mil. The U.S.A. has over twice as many people within it. It has somewhere around 320 mil. people

user227867

@Tonepoet So America dominates the English speaking world? Hehe

user227867

1

Q: It was made beautiful and it was made beautifully

" It was made beautiful and it was made beautifully " " I'm hurt badly and i'm hurt bad" Which one is correct? Since i know that in active voice, we can use both with different meanings. Does passive voice apply the same rule?

grammar

user227867

I cannot understand the purpose of the two comments on this question, and I posted an answer.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting If you're going by population alone, that would probably have to go to India. However, what little I've read of Indian English suggests that it's not used as often as it would be in the other nations I listed.

user227867

@Tonepoet Indian English is only heard in India, period.

user227867

5:30 PM

Am I going to get an upvote for that answer?

Tonepoet

@WillHunting If the internet didn't exist that'd be a good point.

Anonymous

We have a number of speakers of Indian English here in the SF Bay Area.

user227867

@Tonepoet LOL. Some people consider only the spoken form language and not the written form.

user227867

@snailplane SF = San Franciso = South Florida = Supreme Fascist LOL

tchrist

In what parts of the country are budding teenage chefs most apt to look to eggs, beer, and mint? And why?

user227867

5:34 PM

@tchrist Oh, I remember you like to refer to India as the subcontinent. =P

user227867

Little Gordon - part 1

►

user227867

Little Gordon - part 2

►

Tonepoet

@WillHunting The Indian subcontinent has more nations than just India.

user227867

Little Gordon - part 3

►

user227867

@Tonepoet I haven't shown you this before. It's quite funny. Enjoy! ^

sumelic

5:37 PM

@WillHunting lol, maybe they get starred and then get removed immediately. I was proud that my comment the other day got starred, but now it's gone. "This too shall pass" I guess

user227867

@Tonepoet And Southern Africa has more countries than just South Africa.

user227867

And Inner Mongolia is in China and not in Mongolia.

user227867

And Northern Ireland is in Britain and not in Ireland.

Tonepoet

Proper nouns are the devil's words. >_>

user227867

@Tonepoet Wait, no comment on the videos? I know. You must be Little Gordon himself, LOL.

Tonepoet

5:41 PM

@WillHunting I haven't finished watching them yet.

user227867

@Tonepoet And finally, Tonepoet is neither a tone nor a poet. =P

Tonepoet

@WillHunting That's absolutely devilish. ;-)

user227867

@Tonepoet I see myself as a god actually, and not a devil.

user227867

Now now, the shrinks will label that as delusions of grandeur. =P

Tonepoet

@WillHunting I thought you regarded yourself as the King of Antartica. Have you been promoted to the rank of god-king? Regardless, that was a comment regarding my psudeonym moreso than anything about you. =P

Anonymous

5:46 PM

We say cuttlefish bone, but it's not a bone, and the cuttlefish isn't fish.

user227867

@Tonepoet Well, the King was just a joke. But I really see myself as some kind of god in some sense of the word...

user227867

@snailplane I never found out the difference between a rat and a mouse, or a cuttlefish and an octopus, or a prawn and a shrimp. I guess they can all be eaten!

Anonymous

@WillHunting I suppose that is technically true!

user227867

By the way, Gordon Ramsay has opened a restaurant here in Antarctica, in my favourite shopping mall.

user227867

I have not entered the restaurant. I probably don't have enough to pay for the food inside.

Tonepoet

5:52 PM

@snailplane That one's arguable actually on both counts, depending upon the depth of the definitions you accept. A biologist might be appalled by the name cuttlefish bone, but in a very loose sense of the word fish is any animal that lives in the water, and the cuttlefish bone is a firm white substance encased within the flesh of an animal.

user227867

The strange thing is that there is no menu outside, so to see the menu I have to go inside!

user227867

@Tonepoet A biologist will be appalled if I call a spider an insect, but I still like to call them insects

user227867

On my computer, I set the time zone to Antarctica, the keyboard to US, and the language to UK. Funny huh?

Tonepoet

@WillHunting I'll accept it if you also count crabs. =P

user227867

The problem with many operating systems is that they don't let you distinguish between the time zone and the language during first setup.

user227867

5:55 PM

@Tonepoet Quoting a dictionary that is more than 100 years old is like Will Hunting quoting cases more than 100 years old in court before he was sentenced to jail. Therefore, Tonepoet = Will Hunting, QED.

tchrist

Wherever they say experiment oddly.

user227867

@Tonepoet In the Chinese classic Journey To The West, Sun Wukong is referred to as the Monkey King or the Monkey God.

user227867

@Tonepoet By the way, if you read the biography A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar, you will see that John Nash actually thought he was the king of Antarctica. But I wasn't thinking of this when I called myself that.

user227867

One user in the Ubuntu chat said that if anyone said another word about Trump or Clinton he would never ever return to the chat.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting I think citing would be a closer word than quoting. It's not like I reproduced the words. More importantly though, I think the only value of a word is its ability to incite recollection of the concept it represents. That is quite different from the purpose of a law, so laws are not comparable, except when we consider legal precedence.

Mitch

6:02 PM

@WillHunting Many obvious things don't have references. And a Q&A site would be better if it it were the original source (otherwise it's all LMGTFY)

user227867

@Tonepoet You are right, citing is the right word. I messed up.

user227867

@Mitch Which seems to be the case now, innit? LMGTFY

Mitch

@WillHunting haha...did I say that before?

user227867

@Mitch No. What I mean is that with the huge amount of copypasta, it does seem LMGTFY.

Mitch

For example, what's the difference between X and X'. Sometimes the dictionary defintions state it obviously, sometimes, the words sound like exact synonyms from their defitions but native speakers do not use them interchangeably and there's just no existing reference that spells them out.

user227867

6:04 PM

@Mitch This is a very good example, so I am starring it for posterity.

Mitch

@WillHunting Oh right. copypaste answers, though technically correct, seem in poor taste.

user227867

@Mitch Pasta usually tastes good.

Mitch

@WillHunting I prefer that to starring my posterior.

@WillHunting Copying does not.

But...

I'm sure there's a way to 3D print pasta.

user227867

I was shocked when I finally learnt what a 3d printer was.

user227867

Finally got 1650 points, lol.

Tonepoet

6:08 PM

@Mitch I think it's circumstantial. If the reference is fairly axiomatic then further explanation is wasteful. What's particularly bad is when the answer is both axiomatic and easily found.

Mitch

@WillHunting Near the beginning, everything is fun. But then things fal into inertia. The designers of StackExchange were very aware of the history of Q&A sites and wanted to enforce things in a certain way to ... account for the patterns seen many times before

user227867

@Mitch You sound like the new CEO of SE.

Mitch

@Tonepoet copy pastes are usually easily found -or- like OED behind a paywall/library card wall.

@WillHunting I wonder what the salary is.

user227867

I am very happy with my Lenovo laptop. I think every student should buy their laptop. It is cheap and good.

Mitch

SE started probably in 2006/2007 (the initial software and release) with SO starting real questions in 2008, and the multiple sites coming in 2009/2010

Tonepoet

6:11 PM

@Mitch That's usually true, but there are possible exceptions. I think this makes a halfway decent example:

23

A: What is a person who rides on camel-back called?

cameleer dictionary.com a camel driver wiktionary Camel driver or rider, one who travels by camel. Oxford English dictionaries A person who controls or rides a camel. American Heritage dictionary A person who drives or rides a camel. As you can see in the defi...

It could have easily been pared down into a S.L.A. without really any loss in quality if it just replicated and cited one of those dictionaries.

user227867

@Tonepoet and @Mitch I think I should keep this account. I think chatting here can be therapeutic for me and help me heal.

Mitch

@Tonepoet Here's an interesting twist to that:

english.stackexchange.com/a/337433/4972

a highly voted answer was deleted because it is not at all an answer, just a comment. People votes for things they inchoately like, not thinking through things at all.

People are idiots.

user227867

I am going to eat some snacks, later.

Mitch

@WillHunting Nice.

@WillHunting more nice

Tonepoet

@Mitch Ah, I can't see deleted anything. I only have four digits in my rep. total.

Mitch

6:15 PM

considers getting snacks. all pie from thanksgiving has been finished

@Tonepoet vote=16: "Adding to other great suggestions, you need to be careful not to use "jockey" in this case. While jockey means "one who rides an animal in a race," the term "camel jockey" is rudely used to insult Arabs."

Tonepoet

@Mitch I won't argue with that. Me and Rathony have discussed that problem before in the reviewers chatroom. Another thing Rathony likes to point out is that hot network questions get a disproportionate number of votes though.

Mitch

A true fact (as opposed to a false one) but not an answer.

@Tonepoet That's...just how things work. The popular get more popular because they're popular and people see them more often and pile on.

Tonepoet

@Mitch I know. I'm just saying that 'highly upvoted' in the absolute sense doesn't seem to mean much for answers. Voting proportions seem to matter more.

Mitch

Actually I don't know for certain if that's a pejorative, if say you are looking at a race of camels. I gues I've heard other epithets that sound worse and don't have a natural reinterpretation that is not pejorative. But then I'm not the target of it so I have no idea.

@Tonepoet Do you mean proportion of up to down?

I can't imagine that it has that much effect because there is so little voting at all.

Tonepoet

@Mitch Yes, the approximate ratio of up to down is what I mean.

Mitch

6:23 PM

maybe should take into account also # f views. But still, the absolute numbers are so low that it is hard to take any true importance out of voting other than if all negative bad, if 5 or more with only 1 or 2 DVs then pretty good, if 10 and above (with whatever DVs) then great.

Tonepoet

@Mitch There's enough voting that takes place here that a very good answer might have one order of magnitude fewer votes on a popular question than it would if the question it answers was unpopular.

@Rathony Oh hello!

Rathony

@Tonepoet I was looking for you in the other room. :-)

tchrist

7:04 PM

0

Q: Failing, Leading and Catching

Here is a sentence which includes three 'ing' form : In October, the company was forced to stop production of its flagship smartphone model after failing to resolve battery problems leading to overheating and the devices catching fire. In this sentence,the three ing-form of the verbs ( fail...

grammaticality gerunds present-participle participles

I cannot understand that question.

user227867

Your 160k looks intimidating to my 1.6k.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting To be fair, you'd probably have much more rep. if you didn't delete your accounts needlessly.

user227867

@Tonepoet Yes. But it's OK, I was just mad, and still am mad.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Anger is always the worst emotion to control any decisions.

user227867

@Tonepoet Sorry, I mean I was just crazy, and still am crazy.

Færd

7:12 PM

> "Leading" is a present participle which has replaced relative pronouns "with" in the sentence. So, It's reduced relative clause.

Is with a relative pronoun?

tchrist

No.

Færd

Maybe that's within?

tchrist

I do not undertand what that question is asking.

Færd

@tchrist The OP's asking about leading, and they're confused between two scenarios. One scenario is definitely that "leading" is a present participle that denotes what follows is a result of what was said.

I'm struggling to understand the other scenario, the one I quoted above.

The other one is that this is a reduced relative clause in that sentence: "leading to overheating and the devices catching fire".

tchrist

@ktm5124 Aren’t Latin present active tu imperatives looking like semi-indicative in that they do not change their stem? tu clamas > clama tu. The 3rd person imperatives like clamet for "let him..." were the subjunctives.

@Færd So with or without whiz deletion?

Færd

7:29 PM

The with should be discarded, I think.

Maybe I understood what the OP was saying, but I still can't work out where is the question.

tchrist

If someone else understands it, I hope they answer. If someone else does not understand it, I hope they say why.

Færd

The fact that something is a reduced relative clause has nothing to do with it denoting causation.

That's my why.

user227867

Where is the best place to learn Latin?

user227867

Rather, which is the best book to learn Latin from?

tchrist

I hear Caesar's are good. :-)

user227867

7:37 PM

I think I will need to use a Teach Yourself Complete Latin for this.

user227867

Oxford seems to have a two volume Latin dictionary which costs a bomb.

tchrist

Wheelock?

user227867

wheelockslatin.com

user227867

Ah, I see.

user227867

If Robusto is Captain America in third position, and Barrie England is in second position, then JOSH should be called Josh Italy in first position.

ktm5124

7:46 PM

@tchrist Yeah, I believe that the second-person imperative in Latin is always formed from the present indicative stem. I personally don't know how closely analogous the subjunctive use, for expressing commands, is to the concept of a 3rd person imperative.

I was looking at this website and it offers some debate on the terminology.

@WillHunting I found this helpful Quora thread and I wish I had gone along with the suggestions. quora.com/What-is-the-best-Latin-textbook.

I ended up choosing another textbook, which is interesting, but I don't think it does as good a job of teaching grammar as I would like...

tchrist

8:26 PM

I have similar questions with English forms.

tchrist

8:47 PM

0

Q: Proper usage of trans-theory terms

A question in the philosophy stack required transgenderism to be defined in order to determine whether the notion conflicted with traditionally defined feminism. In my answer, I quoted an online dictionary's definition of the concept and phrase gender dysphoria, defining it as: The condi...

meaning word-usage meaning-in-context political-correctness gender-politics

The mind reels.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…