English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2016-03-04 (page 1 of 2)

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12:04 AM

@Terah You are technically right, so it depends on context (like almost anything); but chances are light if no context is given.

1:00 AM

My work here is done.

1:15 AM

What was your work?

It's unclear what you mean by a sentence like this in I am wondering whether "by it" is required in a sentence like this? Do you mean the original (But it, like, really puts, like, Star Wars in its crosshairs)? Or do you mean your paraphrase: "It (meaning SpaceBalls) puts Start Wars in a position to be criticized by it(meaning Spaceballs)"? Or do you mean: It puts StarWars in the cross hairs. -- Note that we normally use I put the book on the table, not I put the book on the table by me. -- Also, one use of the passive voice is to avoid talking about the "agent" explicitly. — Damkerng T. 1 min ago

I'm not sure it's a good idea to vote to close (e.g., as "unclear what you're asking") a migrated question.

But I wish that when a question is unclear, we would ask the OP to clarify their points before we migrate the question.

I don't know if this is a question about the idiom "in the cross hairs," which is a metaphoric reference to a telescopic gun sight, or ("I am wondering whether 'by it' is required...") if the question is really about ambiguous pronoun reference. Either way, it's ELL-y, I think. — Rob_Ster 8 hours ago

It's clear that folks on EL&U also think it's unclear.

(BTW, I'm not even sure if my comment will reach the OP. The OP is not a user on ELL anyway.)

4 hours later…

5:22 AM

Old general reference question english.stackexchange.com/questions/166042/…

Another old one. english.stackexchange.com/questions/267837/…

2 hours later…

7:31 AM

Morning everyone

1 hour later…

8:40 AM

@Terah Hi, how are you today?

@IͶΔ Hi, can I ask you a quick question?

8:57 AM

Morning Rathony! All good here, just 9 more hours until the weekend :) How are you?

@Terah I am good. Friday is a slow day for ELU.

@terdon Hi, terdon.

hi

Can I ask you a quick question? @terdon

Sure

Is there any way that I can search a word or phrase within one certain tag only?

I mean you want to find XYZ in Single-Word-Request tag only.

9:01 AM

Try [single-word-requests] xyz

Got it.

Thanks a lot.

I wanted to find loner in the tag. english.stackexchange.com/…

Because I thought this question sounds familiar. english.stackexchange.com/questions/311473/…

It seems to be dupe.

OK

This question was closed with a single vote. english.stackexchange.com/questions/267863/…

@terdon And it has one delete vote. If I link it as dupe, it won't be deleted, right?

You can't. It's already closed.

Oh, really?

9:07 AM

You can't vote to close already closed posts, no

No, I mean link the new question as duplicate to the closed question.

Oh. Why? It's not a dupe of that one.

It's a different question.

Yes, loner answers it but the question is very different (not that the question in the body and the one in the title are not the same).

Do you mean it is different because of the context?

Yes

Hermit certainly doesn't fit the newer question, for example.

Also, it's generally not a good idea to close things as dupes of already closed questions. It's untidy.

I see.

But the issue is this. The question is not clear.

9:13 AM

Which one? The old one? No, it's not. Which is why it's not a good dupe target.

I mean the new one.

@Terah What do you think? Is the question clear enough to you?

Is it? It seems perfectly clear to me.

So, you think the loner is the right word, right?

Or what do you think is the best term to describe him?

Sorry, let me read back (at work, so distracting at times :P)

No worry.

9:15 AM

@Rathony I'd say loner, yes.

Is loner informal?

Ah, that question - yeah, I have no problems with the question itself

Or even unsociable or introverted but loner is spot on.

@Rathony Shoot

@IͶΔ Hi, terdon helped me. Thanks.

I don't need to shoot. :-)

9:18 AM

I too think that 'Loner' is the best reply so far though - it's more neutral than any of the other suggestions, imo

I think the previous OP accepted a wrong answer.

@Terah The issue is I think loner is not informal. It is a standard and everyday word

@Rathony That's what informal means here.

@Rathony Would that not be what informal is all about?

Ah, soz, I lagged behind

> I'm not looking for the absolutely precise medical term for a mental illness (because such behavior may not in fact be an illness), just an informal word.

@Terah Too slow! :P

Darn my two finger typing skills! :P

9:20 AM

I see.

I got it.

Looking at the previous answer that was provided, it does seem that the OP was a bit hasty there

I still believe the OP got the wrong answer. english.stackexchange.com/questions/267863/…

Sorry, I meant the previous question

@Terah But the OP is caring enough to accept an answer. The acceptance rate on ELU is ridiculously low.

Yeap. @Terah

I agree with you there, Rathony. On the other hand.. the answer might be correct if the question is wrong (ie. the OP might have been looking for 'introvert' all along)

9:23 AM

Yeap. I also think so.

@Terah Nothing much left on ELU to ask. Most of grammar questions are duplicates.

Or ELL questions.

Considering how the answer we would have picked was actually posted earlier than the accepted one...

Like this. english.stackexchange.com/questions/311468/…

@Terah It is not very rare. The OP has the right to choose whatever they want.

They don't care what others think.

Yeah, I've been doing some searches and most questions appear to be asked even more than once - I think the main problem, or rather, reason for that, is that the asker has a specific situation in mind that might not correspond enough with their situation for them to correctly value the answers that were already provided.

Or, the asker can't apply the concepts in the first to what they already know.

@IͶΔ Exactly

9:27 AM

@Rathony Ah, no, of course - that comment was meant to indicate that the OP was perhaps indeed looking for the word 'introverted' all along.

Actually, no, the reason for that is that less than 1% of this site's askers do some research.

@IͶΔ Well, yes, hence them asking the question again

Haha, that might be true as well, but perhaps more difficult to prove :)

Not really

I see 7 answers accepted out of 50 questions that were asked 16 hours ago.

I only accept the answers to the questions I ask after two days, that is, if the answer is eligible.

9:29 AM

@Rathony That's good. There's no reason to accept immediately.

It gives people the chance to post a different answer.

It would interesting to see some data from a week @Rath.

@terdon as you know most of the questions are asked by one-off users.

Some of then didn't even come back after posting crap.

@Rathony So?

@Rathony Yes, that happens.

I agree with you there - people might be less inclined to write a good answer just because an OP already accepted one, good or bad.

But some one-off users also accept. In any case, having a high accept percentage for those questions asked in the last 16 hours would be a bad thing, not a good thing.

9:32 AM

I want to take a look at data if there is any.

I don't think the acceptance rate will sharply increase as time passes.

Well, I have no insight into any of that, so I'll leave you to the analysis ;)

I'm not saying it will. I'm just saying that the fact that it is low for recent questions is a good thing.

In any case, people tend to get too hung up on acceptance.

@terdon I checked the third page 50 questions and 11 acceptances out of 50.

Questions are marked as answered when they have at least one upvoted answer.

With all the duplicates, ideally, the number of questions asked would also drop, putting the acceptance percentage into a more accurate context. I guess it would be a topic for the meta site.. I mean, technically, there are a number of implementations that might help reduce the number of duplicate questions

9:35 AM

@Terah The problem is they don't search before posting questions.

(moving forward, in the long run, to prevent the site from going stale, some changes would have to be made anyways, I guess?)

@Terah That's what I am trying to suggest

Exactly - so, for example, the question cannot be asked until you go to a 2 step wizard in which you have to search for an existing question frst/

first*

ELU will continue to be swamped with ELL questions and duplicates.

@Terah We can't do that. My solution would be close all the question first and open them with vote.

It will be extreme. :-)

I think you're getting a little bit too obsessed with the whole thing.

9:39 AM

Hahaha, well, I never shied away from good old hard work, so whatever you all decide needs doing, I'll help :)

But out of curiosity, why would a verification step be impossible?

@terdon It was a joke.

haha, not just obsessed, too obsessed :P

@Terah Verification?

@Terah I don't know. If it had been possible, it would have been implemented.

@terdon Please see this question. english.stackexchange.com/questions/311425/…

@terdon: yeah, like one more step before a question can be posted, similar to the search one has to do before flagging a question as duplicate, where the user has to search for duplicates to ensure none exist, before he can post the question.

Like a forced research, basically

9:43 AM

@Terah The thing is it is extremely difficult to find a dupe for newbies.

@Terah For one thing because SE search is crap. It is very easy not to find duplicates.

@Terah They would click whatever button to say yes to post their questions. They just need quick fix.

@Rathony - I don't know - solutions tend to be following the issues - implementations such as the one I'm introducing would not be put in just because it's technically possible but because there would be a need, like now'ish'.

Haha, yeah, I agree that finding a duplicate is not easy, but at least it's research :P

What would this OP do if there are steps to follow to post this question english.stackexchange.com/questions/311425/…

@Rathony Well, it's certainly not a dupe of his previous one. It would benefit from more context though.

9:45 AM

@terdon I am not saying this is a dupe. There is no difference in the way the OP asked the question

Basically, tell me what I want to know!!! type of question.

Well, yes. All questions are "tell me what I want to know" questions. That's sorta the definition of question.

And if you don't think it's a dupe, why did you tell the OP it is?

Sorry but I don't see the difference between this question and your previous question, Is this a gerund? and this question is even unclear. If you don't understand gerund and present participle, I'd like to advise you to visit our sister site English Language Learners, but please make sure you take the tour and visit their Help Center before posting any question. Please don't post the same question there. — Rathony 5 hours ago

@Rathony True, that one would be tricky...but keep in mind that no solution will provide 100% coverage - the idea, at least in my opinion, of any solution is to try and deal with a majority.

@terdon No question about that. But we have guidelines on how to ask the question. No OP bothers to check them and learn them.

Yes. That's something you get used to.

@terdon I meant I don't see the difference in the way the question was asked.

@terdon clearly the OP is confused with gerund after of. The fact I did that vs the fact of my doing.

Basically same question as "a picture of watching the movie"

Jus replaced picture with fact.

It is close to dupe depending on how you see it.

9:51 AM

No it's not, @Rathony. The one is asking whether watching is a gerund and the other is asking about the general case of replacing the fact that I did X with my doing X. They are not dupes.

@terdon The problem with this question is there is no answer without any context. The OP asks us to show some formula as in mathematics, but I don't think it is possible.

Agreed, but that doesn't make it a dupe. If we want to educate users about how the site works, we need to give them the right information.

@terdon The OP thought that watching is a gerund.

Yes

The OP thinks doing is a gerund.

He can't tell the difference.

I advised him to take the tour and visit Help Center.

9:53 AM

Well, both watching and doing are gerunds, as far as I know. In any case, of course the OP doesn't know something, that's why they're asking!

@Terah It doesn't work. :-)

@terdon watching is not a gerund. It is present participle.

@terdon Please see the first comment of Fumble Fingers.

@Rathony It depends on the context in which it is used.

@terdon There are a lot of disputes about gerund and present participle.

@Rathony Which is precisely what makes the question worth asking.

But the principle is gerund is a noun acting like a verb and participle is a verb.

9:57 AM

@Rathony Yes. As I said, it depends on context. You can't say that the word itself is one or the other. Or, rather, you can say that the word itself is either.

@Rathony And there's the answer.

@terdon I didn't close-vote it, but the community decided it is general reference.

Yes. I don't disagree. All I'm saying is that the other question is not a dupe.

It is unclear, since it lacks context, but not a dupe.

@terdon The way I see this issue is this. We should guide the OP to ELL. Closing it is not a solution.

That's why the OP asked the second question on ELU.

And you did. So everything's dandy.

There are only a few who are enthusiastic enough to guide those OPs

They get confused. They don't know how to ask questions. I think those two questions will be better received on ELL.

Maybe even upvoted.

10:01 AM

Can you define 'guide' for me? Do you mean simply linking to ELL so that the OP may visit the site and try again, or is there more one can pro-actively do to get the question where it belongs?

@Terah Either migrate the question to ELL or comment to them "You don't belong here. You belong on ELL. Don't even think about asking another question here. Go to ELL. Good luck!!" type of guide.

But the comment should be polite. :-)

OK. That's completely the wrong way of thinking about it. The OP doesn't belong anywhere. The question does. If a question is interesting to a native speaker, it is fine here. If it is not, it might be better on ELL. However, the OPs latest question shouldn't be migrated because it is unclear and we don't migrate crap.

You left a comment letting them know that ELL exists. That's all you can do apart from helping them clarify the question.

@terdon My point is this. A learner is highly unlikely to ask an on-topic question on ELU.

@Rathony Not true. For the classic example, see one of our own mods:

Yoichi Oishi ♦, Japan

28.6k 50 210 522

meaning phrases meaning-in-context idioms usage word-usage expressions

@terdon He worked at international firm using English. I think he is more fluent than me.

10:07 AM

If the migration to ELL is a transparant process, in that the OP can easily track his question, perhaps that would be preferential..

I mean basic learners.

People who are learning the language often have very interesting questions because they notice things that natives take for granted.

Never consider that a user belongs on ELU or ELL, it is always dependent on the specific question in, um, question.

@terdon Agree. They can ask those interesting questions on ELL, too.

@terdon It will create another confusion for them.

On another note... could it be that people end up on ELU because the ELL site just isn't as pretty? :P

Two taglines clearly state the difference.

@Terah That's a very important question. ELL is new. Only 2 years old. Traffic is very low.

Look at the name of ELU. English.Stackexchange.Com.

10:09 AM

I mean, this is half jokingly of course, but I find ELU just a bit more intuitive than ELL, and it's color scheme appeals more to me than the ELL one does.. it sort of repels me.

If you read the address, all the people in the world would think ELU is the site for English.

That said, I'm going to spend a little more time on ELL I think :)

@Terah It will be a great experience. Don't be disappointed at the quality of answers there.

and yeah, the URL, and of course how quickly it comes up on Google in comparison to ELL, can make a big difference.

@terdon Etymologist, Linguists and Serious English enthusiasts are different from those who learn the language as a second language.

10:12 AM

Nah - I mean, it's the learner channel.. where I assume there are more other learners that still venture to answer questions, with or without a good grasp of the language :)

@Rathony Not really. Some of our highest rep users have learned English as a foreign language. So have you, I think.

Let's say I learned English for 10 years. Maybe I should belong to ELL for 1 to 7 years and belong on ELU at 8 to 10 years, for example.

Ah, but the road from learner to being advanced enough...is long :)

@Terah Exactly.

We have created ELL for a reason. Some users thought it would be necessary for basic questions from learners.

OK. We created it. Then, what are we doing on ELU? That's my fundamental question.

Is closing the question all that we can do for learners expecting they will come up with one good interesting on-topic question for ELU?

I firmly believe we should make more efforts to guide them to ELL.

If we don't do that, it beats the whole purpose of creating ELL.

It will beg the question, was it really a good idea to create ELL in the first place?

My personal opinion is it was never a good idea.

There was no ELU in the first place.

I suggest you go through some of the dozens of discussions on meta about this. We now have a migration path to ELL. We do make an effort to guide them there. We don't always manage to but such is life.

10:18 AM

It started as ELL and created another ELL. How stupid is that?

@Rathony What are you on about?

ELU was never ELL.

ELU was ELL

Still ELU is ELL

It was a dream.

ELU will never become ELU.

Look at those question from the start, english.stackexchange.com/questions?page=1344&sort=newest

There was no ELU in the first place.

I'm sorry @Rathony but I've had this conversation so many times over the years, it gets tiring. Yes, there have always been questions here that did not belong here. This is true of every single site on the SE network. That's why we have tools to close and migrate them. However, the scope of ELU has always been the same. Despite the fact that many new users don't know what that is.

It was another Yahoo answer with stricter rules on asking and answering which were not very well implemented from time to time.

Pats @Ter Poor @ter

10:21 AM

Starting yet another witch hunt, trying to rid the site of the unworthy learners is not something I have any interest in.

@terdon I don't want to call it ridding the site of the unworthy learners.

I'd like to call it "guiding innocent sheep to a better promising land called ELL".

where they will be upvoted, cheered with answers they deserve.

" . . . where they can post crap and get upvoted for it"

without getting downvoted, closed and chided on ELU.

@IͶΔ That's an ELL issue. :-)

(/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

@IͶΔ I don't think ELL is the only site where crap is upvoted.

and rewarded with an answer.

10:26 AM

Sorry, had an brief impromptu meeting, back now

Yeah. English Language Learners is another one.

Seriously tho', on bigger sites this problem is worse.

@IͶΔ Don't get too much disappointed.

The issue is ELL is not big.

ELL will never be big.

So when ELL will get to the size of math.SE, god help us

@Rathony What makes you say that?

10:27 AM

ELU will attract all the questions and kick them away before they can learn what ELL means. :-)

That's the asker's problem.

But no, ELL is growing fast.

@Rathony That's just it. No it's not. If a question is bad, we don't direct it to ELL, we don't try to migrate it, we just close it. Because it's crap. If a question is a good, clear question, that shows research effort but is something any native speaker would know, then—and only then—do we migrate to ELL.

@IͶΔ Because you have a few trolls and a few who keep asking crpa without getting suspended and many who keep asking the same questions.

That's the golden rule of migrating: Do. Not. Migrate. Crap.

58

A: Why was this question closed as off-topic without being migrated?

What's the golden rule of question migrations? Don't. Migrate. Crap. Guess what I thought that question was? Go on, guess!

@Rathony Are you kidding me? ELU has 100 times more trolls than us.

10:30 AM

@terdon What I am saying is it might not be a terrible idea to introduce the OP to ELL.

@Rathony It isn't, as long as you do so for a good question.

@IͶΔ It depends on how you define trolls.

If it's a decent question that would be a better fit for ELL, by all means, mention it.

Hint: Sci-fi

But I'm applying the same definitions.

I just don't see what else you'd like to do. Mention it, cast your close vote if one is deserved, and be done with it.

10:31 AM

Or leave a comment that says there is ELL. Go there for your next question like this. Welcome to English Language & Usage. Your question seems to be too basic for this community. For future questions, I'd like to advise you to visit our sister site English Language Learners, but please make sure you take the tour and visit their Help Center before posting any question.

user image

@Rathony I disagree that basic goes to ELL and hard does not.

This cat is pushing a watermelon out of a lake knowing exactly he can't eat it.

@terdon What I meant was basically we have to try to post that kind of comment more.

Not just close it for lack of research or whatever.

@Rathony We post it all the fricking time!

We didn't for the gerund question.

Which led to the second question.

@Rathony Well then, if you think that's what's needed, why don't you do so?

10:37 AM

I am doing it more than enough I think.

Great. Good for you.

I am saying other members are not doing it enough about which I can't do anything

I firmly believe users who can't tell the difference between gerund and participle are learners.

@Rathony We have 1358 comments containing the text ell.stackexchange.com.

I firmly believe you're wrong.

@Rath actually it's mostly learners who do need to make the distinction.

In the end, it'll be choosing between two evils anyway, imo.. I mean, with enough individual guidance and dialog, even the crappiest question can be edited into a worthwhile contribution, with a matching answer.. the question is, how much effort should moderators (and interested users like I presume most folk in this chat) put into maintaining the quality of the questions and answers?

10:40 AM

@Rathony Oh, you're completely wrong there. The vast majority of native speakers have no idea what the difference is, if they've even heard of a gerund, they certainly have never heard of a participle.

@Terah The thing is that the poor editor isn't held responsible for making those improvements.

So changing total crap to total gold is something you'd do once a year, not everyday.

But the site has to be moderated everyday.

(I have to agree with terdon there :P It's my main challenge now, getting familiar with the words used in grammatical analysis)

So it's on OP to write something that doesn't need much transformation.

@terdon You learned them before even knowing the word existed. Learners learn the words gerund and participle before they know what they are.

@Rathony But native speakers learn them by heart; they can't apply the labels.

It's not very useful to do so anyway.

10:42 AM

There is a clear distinction between native speakers and nns.

@IͶΔ Exactly.

Yeah, and that echoes in their writing, speaking and other skills.

@Rathony Yes. Natives usually have no knowledge of official grammar. Learners usually know it much better.

It doesn't mean they know syntax. It's just that they use.

So, basically we can tell the difference when they post a question. Most of the time. Not all the time.

Does the fact that you consume water mean you know everything about the water molecule?

Yeah, most of the time.

10:43 AM

Then, we can tell the difference when they post a question and see which of ELU and ELL will be better for them.

Not all the time. Most of the time.

I agree Ino (may I write your name this way or you prefer copy/paste?) - but when it comes to improving the overall quality, there's no one answer to fit 'm all - just the best policy that can be drawn up and put into effect, which will always be disadvantageous to someone, that was sort of the point I was trying to make :P

BTW, @IͶΔ Do you ask native speakers who ask English questions there to go to ELU?

I'm solution oriented :)

@Rathony HOLY JESUS; which native speakers ask stuff on ELL? O_O

@Terah I'm colloid-oriented.

@Dam is object-oriented.

If the policy entails working on the way the users ask questions, I'm all for it, but in the end, when something needs fixing, best way to start is get to it and make changes to the process as we go along :)

10:46 AM

user image

@IͶΔ Quite a few, iirc.

@DamkerngT. I'm not ready for a history lesson.

@DamkerngT. Hi, long time. how are you?

@Rathony Hi! I'm good, thanks! How are you?

I am surviving. :-)

10:47 AM

I take it that it's good news. :-)

@DamkerngT. :-)

@terdon How about this question? english.stackexchange.com/questions/311487/…

The latest question on ELU.

user image

it much be confusing indeed :P

I don't the sign mean know what it is.

@IͶΔ I can't even guess!

10:53 AM

"Not to be slaves of people The slave"

I think that's a reference to the movie Gladiator.

@Rathony - what surprises me is that the question was edited by someone obviously capable of doing so...and it still looks crap :O

@Terah That's when you jump in.

What would be an appropriate action? Edit it again? Leave a comment for the editor? All of the above?

Link?

No humiliation for an editor. Just edit.

10:56 AM

I mean.. with 6k rep, you'd expect some quality work (not trying to sound arrogant, but I live by 'if you choose to do something, do it the best way you can')

As I mentioned before, I don't hesitate to edit any post

alright

But I am tired of editing posts now.

1

Q: Can I use reduce the relative clause after 'since' to a phrase?

The title much be confusing because i don't how to propose it correctly. Here is an example : The Asian Games have been promoted in all aspects since the first Games which were held in 1951 Can be reduced as : The Asian Games have been promoted in all aspects since the first Games held in 1951 ?

verbs whiz-deletion relative

@Terah I don't earn 2 reputation points any more. :-)

10:57 AM

@Terah You'd be surprised . . .

Oh, one close-vote was cast. Lack of research.

What research can the OP possibly do for this kind of whiz-deletion or relative clause question?

That feeling of awesomeness when you make a "this ain't nothing" remark when someone is surprised

@Terah The rep. doesn't guarantee perfection in spelling and grammar.

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