English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

user227867

1:10 PM

The conversation view in outlook.com and gmail.com are different. Deleting a thread in gmail deletes everything, while one has to separately delete twice, inbox and sent, to delete a whole conversation. For your info, please.

user227867

1:35 PM

0

Q: Proposal to merge ELU and ELL

Over the past few years, I have spent some time on ELU and ELL. I understand that ELL was formed because of the dropping standard of questions asked by mostly learners of the language. If I recall correctly, however, Robert Cartaino never saw the need for a separate ELL, and it was Jeff Atwood's ...

discussion

user227867

I am ready to be severely criticised for making ignorant remarks on the above post, but I really wanted to offer this suggestion.

user227867

@Rathony and @Tonepoet You may be interested in my latest meta post. ^

Tonepoet

@WillHunting It is interesting, although I don't know what to think of it.

user227867

@Tonepoet The response will probably be: all your points are wrong and irrelevant, and we have already thought about them, or something like that, which I disagree with.

Tonepoet

I really think the only way a proposal like this has a chance is if you go over both community's heads and complain to management that the purpose of the websites has proven too similar to maintain separate websites.

user227867

1:47 PM

Well, the meta post is there. The SE staff do take a look at them.

Tonepoet

Perhaps, but I don't think our meta will persuade them to to anything.

user227867

It will be interesting to see what response we get on that post, from anyone.

user227867

Other than 100 downvotes, of course, LOL.

user227867

By the way, is this proposal the first such one on meta? I don't know...

Tonepoet

I think it might be the first time it was proposed as a separate question. I'm not completely sure though.

user227867

1:53 PM

If you have any comments to support my proposal, this is the time to post them on meta, as comments or answers.

user227867

I probably will not respond to any comment there, because I lack the energy and time to do so, since I am still very sick.

tchrist

2:57 PM

Damnatio memoriae

Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "condemnation of memory," meaning that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate on traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State. The intent was to erase the malefactor from history, a task somewhat easier in ancient times, when documentation was limited. == Overview == === Etymology === The sense of the expression damnatio memoriae and of the sanction is to cancel every trace of the person from the life of Rome, as if he or she had never existed, in order to preserve...

Færd

3:39 PM

> two out of three new airports built worldwide are in China

> two out of a total of 24 female subjects ...

> So three out of the last fourteen clients you worked with attacked you in sim.

Does this out of only occur between two numbers?

I guess not.

> ? Only two out of all the oranges were worm-eaten.

> ? Out of our students, these few couldn't pass the final exam.

user227867

Seven downvotes on my meta post and not a single comment explaining why merger is a bad idea, LOL.

user227867

5:54 PM

So far, +5 and -9 on meta, not bad, LOL.

ktm5124

@Færd That's a great question. I don't know, myself. But one line of thought would be asking yourself, are there any countable nouns that "out of" cannot be used with?"

- Only two out of all the airports were scheduling flights that night. fine

- Only two out of the airports were scheduling flights that night. awkward

- Only two of the airports were scheduling flights that night. fine

Perhaps "out of" is mostly used, in this sense, with words like "all, "total", or numerals.

And I think that sense is basically: the concept of a portion of the whole.

That's the reason why #2 sounds awkward, because it doesn't express the entirety of airports.

Færd

6:09 PM

@ktm5124 I feel the same. I wanted to draw attention to that with my two last example sentences (marked by ?), the first one of which has all and the second doesn't.

It's just a feeling though. I'm glad a native speaker agrees with me on that.

Thanks for the answer.

@ktm5124 Cf: Two of the airports were scheduling flights that night. (without only)

ktm5124

@WillHunting I found your Meta thread to be really useful.

Færd

That's a bit awkward too, no? I wonder how exactly only and all etc spice it up into acceptability.

ktm5124

I was actually thinking about this myself, the other day. Whether it really makes sense to have a Heaven and Hell in the English world of Stack Exchange.

Færd

Forget the Cf message. I misread something.

ktm5124

@Færd I think that sentence sounds fine.

@Færd Oh okay, sure.

Araucaria

6:18 PM

@ktm5124 I think that's ok if you're talking about other things apart from airports :)

ktm5124

@Araucaria Only two out of the frogs were croaking that night. I think this is awkward

Araucaria

@ktm5124 Yes, I think that the of-PP needs to specify an absolute set of things.

ktm5124

@Araucaria Only two of the frogs were croaking that night. Sounds better.

Araucaria

@ktm5124 I think it needs to mean two things from the frog group of things, which means that you can't be talking about frogs in general.

ktm5124

@Araucaria Yeah, the answer I gave was that "out of" is used with a concept of a whole or entirety. That is, it expresses a portion of the whole.

(Particularly a "whole" that could possibly be enumerated.)

Maybe enumerated set would be better, to use your word, set.

Araucaria

6:22 PM

@ktm5124 I think those types of sentence normal sound better when the of-PP comes first.

@ktm5124 Yes, you're right. That what I was trying to express above :)

ktm5124

@Araucaria I think that can often come down to style. If you want to emphasize "Only two" in those sentences, it would make sense to put it first.

- We had a really fierce blizzard last night. Only two out of all the airports were scheduling flights.

Araucaria

@ktm5124 Hmm. Maybe. But for me Out of all the airports, only two were scheduling flights actually accentuates the only two ...

Mitch

@WillHunting Did you ask your question on ELL?

Do they care?

Araucaria

@ktm5124 See you. I'm getting booted out of the college by the cleaners!

ktm5124

@Araucaria See you!

Færd

6:47 PM

Hey! Further discussion about my question!

> Consider the following set of dice:
Die A has sides 2, 2, 4, 4, 9, 9.
Die B has sides 1, 1, 6, 6, 8, 8.
Die C has sides 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7.
The probability that A rolls a higher number than B, the probability that B rolls higher than C, and the probability that C rolls higher than A are all 5/9.

(from here)

Funny math.

user227867

8:00 PM

@Mitch I did not. I have no account there now.

user227867

@Araucaria It must be a janitor called Will Hunting.

user227867

@ktm5124 Hehe. I am glad I still can write an 'essay' after so many years of leaving school, lol.

user227867

@Mitch The Upanishads translated by Olivelle, Radhakrishnan, and Nikhilananda are the three I have shortlisted.

user227867

@JohanLarsson How are you? Still the same hairstyle?

Johan Larsson

yea

ktm5124

8:15 PM

@Will Hunting I haven't thought about it a lot, but it makes a lot of sense. It seems like the questions we get are mainly ELL questions and single word requests. Yet people like to answer interesting questions. Single word requests can get boring very quickly. So it's natural that people will want to answer ELL questions.

user227867

@ktm5124 I have thought about it since the split, lol. I was here way back then.

ktm5124

Perhaps the ELU/ELL split was not made with an accurate perception of the kind of questions we receive, and their frequency. I think statistics would help a lot to give people an objective sense of our question base.

user227867

I think the split was made because of a very powerful man, Jeff Atwood.

user227867

The issue was discussed on Area 51 where they propose new sites.

user227867

I think all that it took was a comment from him after the matter was decided.

user227867

8:17 PM

Of course there are arguments on both sides.

user227867

But sometimes a word from an influential person can sway people so that all the arguments on on side can be highlighted and those on the other side downplayed.

user227867

Also, on different days, the same person might decide differently whether to split or not.

user227867

But anyway, it doesn't really matter to me whether it splits or not.

user227867

I just thought it is better for users in general not to split, so I wrote the meta post.

user227867

@ktm5124 I don't believe in statistics very much myself, lol. Why not spend some time on each site and get a feel for them?

user227867

8:27 PM

Last week was a terrible week for me, the worst of the whole year. But it is now a new week and I am much better.

user227867

@ktm5124 Now Math Overflow and Math Stackexchange really should be two sites. They were never split but arose independently. The former is for research mathematics. Is ELU for research English? No.

user227867

Where is Thursagen? I miss you, LOL.

user227867

9:39 PM

Very easy to mix up terdon and tchrist, since both are mods and both start with a small t.

user227867

At least Tonepoet is not a mod and starts with a big T.

sumelic

10:47 PM

@ktm5124 I maintain that rather than splitting off ELL, it would have been better to split off SWR. It's certainly a big enough category to have a site of its own. And I wouldn't mind having them somewhere else

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…