English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

« first day (2482 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2734 days later) »

Feeds

05:46

What would you call someone who suffers directly from another man's success? Context: talking about how Steve Jobs undermined and betrayed his best friend from college, Daniel Kottke. He did not give Kottke shares during Apple's IPO in 1980, and he succeeded while Kottke was left in the dust. ...

2 hours later…

Feeds

07:32

-1

Q: how can we change second person in indirect speech

Sir, if there is no object in the reporting speech then how can we change you the second person?

single-word-requests meaning word-choice grammaticality phrases

1 hour later…

Feeds

08:44

Q: Word for data/information from medical scanner

I need a word for "information from a scanning as it appears in the image used for diagnostics". My context is medical (physics). SPECT and CT are two scanning techniques with different information that is combined into one image: "The SPECT information is classified into five classes and ...

single-word-requests phrases science medical

1 hour later…

Feeds

10:04

Q: Is there a single English word that describes the inevitability of paternal disapointment?

I thought perhaps disillusionment, but it seems to broad. Even a single word for paternal disappointment would be a great start. Thanks!

single-word-requests

1 hour later…

Feeds

11:18

Q: What would you call someone who doesn't want others to have an education?

I was on the phone with someone in my local council to inquire about a new private school that might be built on the property behind my house. During the call they asked if I wanted to object (I said yes because I don't want people looking into my private backyard from school buildings and becaus...

single-word-requests phrase-requests

Will Hunting

This room only has 3 people in it now excluding me, which is very rare, LOL.

Mitch

11:38

@WillHunting I'm not here either

Færd

12:23

So wichtig is related to weight, Bund (as in Bundesland) to bind, and Hafen (as in Flughafen) to haven. English can serve as the gateway to so many languages. Crazy.

What is the adjective that means "of length"? Linear?

Like, "X measurements", as opposed to spatial etc. I guess linear works, but there may be better choices.

Does the noun length have an adjectival form?

tchrist

12:53

@Færd long

J doh

13:48

Hello all.

Can anyone tell me the correct term for describing sentences where the objects are having things done to them? Is it 'passive'?

eg. I had my car washed, I had my hair cut, I had my question answered

Thanks

Færd

@tchrist I thought it might have an obvious answer.

And I still don't know an adjective meaning "of length", besides linear (if linear is acceptable).

Tonepoet

@tchrist Prove it. =P

Feeds

-1

Q: Can someone comment or answer "Is there a name for a literary genre where the main character wanders around?"

I wanted to add to the discussion: An omnibus is a particularly related collection of vignettes by an author, whereas an anthology is typically works of different authors. However, it is not possible to post a comment or answer it for such a disreputable person such as myself.

single-word-requests

Færd

14:07

@Jdoh Some of those of the form have something done can be called "causative". I don't know if there is a commonly used name for the reflexive causative ones that you ask about.

J doh

Thanks. I think I'd settled on causative as the correct word. Somehow isn't quite what I'm after but I don't have the linguistic ability to describe it better.

Færd

@Jdoh Please note that not all those are causative in meaning, like your last example, "I had my question answered" and like "I had my roof blown off in the storm.". They're more about experiencing something.

J doh

Yep

tchrist

14:33

@Færd Note PIE vowel-mutation underpinnings: long > length, broad > breadth, wide > width

And yes, we did used to have a noun called wrength -- how wrong can it be? :)

Mitch

@Færd Give a complete sentence with the slot.

'longitudinal' might work

1 hour later…

Ahmed

15:44

@Mitch Okay, but don't you use its plural either? "Eatables" in real life?

There is an example sentence from Websters and I am pretty sure I use the word: "a survival course in which you learn which wild plants are eatable"

Also, I found this in ODO: "‘Like any other college canteen, this shop has eatables and stationery articles required by the students."

terdon

@Ahmed That's a noun, not an adjective. "All eatables are edible".

Ahmed

Oh okay.

terdon

But yeah, that page makes a good point, it can indeed also be an adjective. It's just not very common unless you mean to say that something, while edible, is so unpleasant as to not really be "eatable".

Will Hunting

All edibles are edible. All eatables are eatable. All edibles are eatable. All eatables are edible. LOL

Ahmed

16:20

And I am bad at cracking jokes. The best jokes I have cracked were by mistake. Like I said something without even trying to be funny and people digged it.

Mitch

16:39

@Ahmed No, I'd say 'edibles'.

Using 'eatable' sounds like someone who couldn't remember that 'edible' is the word you use for 'thing you can eat' and just made up on the spot 'eat' + 'able' must be 'eatable'.

terdon

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Mitch

But it could be that this is an error that has been made so many times now that people are coming to accept it as standard. The dictionaries tend to give entries for what people say, but they don't always say which is more common, which is standard, which is acceptable for which register, etc.

terdon

Apparently, according to NGrams, "eatable" had its heyday in the 19th century. Not much of a heyday mind.

Mitch

drinkable vs potable similar but follows my personal introspection that drinkable is much more acceptable

Ahmed

@Mitch Okay, thanks. I will try to use "edible" too.

I eat these biscuits sometimes: "Wheatables"

Mitch

16:45

From a non-native learning perspective, all the words tend to have no feeling whatsoever; you just learn that this word fits in or doesn't because someone said so.

Ahmed

@Mitch Yep, mostly by noticing other native speakers or people who are good at English.

Mitch

From a native speaker who hadn't heard 'edible' before but wanted to say that you are able to eat something safely, 'edible' sounds a little fancy, but 'eatable' sounds a little like kid talk (because kids tend to overgeneralize)

@Ahmed Hm... good one. I vaguely have heard of them. I wonder if the people who made up the name were thinking of that. 'Whedibles' sounds really wrong!

Ahmed

Yep, "Whedibles" sounds unnatural and weird.

Feeds

17:08

Q: What's a good word for someone who is always pissed off?

For example this person is rarely happy and always seems like something has annoyed them.

single-word-requests

2 hours later…

Robusto

19:26

Guess I can cross that one off my bucket list ...

1 hour later…

Feeds

20:48

Q: Beginning a conversation "from afar"

Alice wants to discuss with Bob something he likely does not want to discuss. So she first starts talking about something indirectly related to the topic, gradually approaching the topic, so that eventually they end up discussing it. In Russian, one would say that she "began the conversation fr...