I just have to ask a quick question.. what's the difference between "eating while watching" and "watching while eating". Does it suggest that whatever the "main thing" i.e. on which you are more focused on (eating or watching) should come before while?
@cpx In this particular case, I would say that the difference is simply in what the speaker wants to emphasize (the linguistic term is focus, I believe); but more generally, clauses like these set up a kind of foreground–background relationship. For example, the sentence “He dreamed while he slept” is appropriate, but the sentence *“He slept while he dreamed” would be pragmatically infelicitous because dreaming is contingent on sleeping.
(The asterisk is commonly used to mark ungrammatical or unfelicitous sentences in linguistics.)
In “eating while watching” the watching is what happens in the background.
Compare: (1) He read while she danced. (2) He read and she danced.
In the first sentence, the reading event occurs against the background of the dancing event (an asymmetrical relationship); in the second sentence, those events co-occur independently of each other (the relationship is symmetrical).
The event that happens in the background comes after the while, yes. That is why *“He slept while he dreamed” is a bad sentence. The dreaming cannot happen in the background because you have to be asleep in order to dream in the first place.
Sorry, I have to leave the computer for a while. CU.
@Cerberus “Eating while watching”. Note that the “watching” comes after the “while”. And not before the “while”. And isn't compassed by the “while” like this: “whiwatchingile”. Good morning.
@Cerberus Damn. Is there a typology of number systems for natural languages that incorporates the fact that we must account for the paucal to be an option in the number hierarchy at more than one point, since the standard straightforward singular > dual > trial > plural hierarchy wouldn't work?
@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yes, there is no other option. Even those who would incorrectly write spaces there (the majority) would say it in one breath. Of course such long words would be ugly and bad style, and frankly absurd, so you will not see those ever.
@Cerberus Why wouldn't they? The dual and paucal are found in Yimas IIRC. They just redefine the paucal to exclude two, just like they “redefine” the plural to exclude two in languages that lack the dual like English.
@Cerberus I'm not saying that all ways are equal. But you must admit that putting in spaces (or not) is a functional feature that aids or hinders readability (and writeability) and the rules that have emerged (yes, emerged) are arbitrary and sometimes absurd.
@Cerberus Sure, sometimes it's hard to tell if a word modifies one word or another. But that doesn't mean that having spaces doesn't do more good than harm.
@Cerberus So what? Now you're talking about register and before I was talking about spelling/grammar.
anyway: I must reboot my machine, because the software for my Harmony remote only runs in Windows and I find I must change a setting.
word choice is complicated based on what ideas you are trying to express and how you want to express them. Spelling is just a convention. It is far more standardized. punctuation (including word spacing) is like spelling in that it's only visible in written language. There is flexibility or actual disagreement about how punctuation should or shouldn't be used.
So if some people write networktime or network-time or network time it's just a matter of taste. It isn't, eg, considered impolite to use the Oxford comma.
@Cerberus my point was that when I said "the rules must change" I was talking about the rules for putting spaces in dutch nouns, because as you stated nobody follows that rule.
It is taught in schools that one should not write "netwerk tijd". And it is advisable to write netwerktijd if you don't want to look like someone who doesn't care or know anything about aesthetics and literary tradition.
Look, just because it is taught in schools doesn't make it right. That's an appeal to authority.
And aesthetics are highly subjective. If someone writes in a style that is aesthetically displeasing, their readers will reject it. Or maybe the readers won't care and that style will become pleasing over time as people get used to it.
@Cerberus So if "the majority" of dutch people would not spell some or all dutch compound nouns as single words, preferring to use spaces, I claim that the so-called "rule" of "no spaces in compound nouns" is no longer a rule.
@Cerberus Honestly I feel like every argument I have with you has you changing your position half-way through the argument then claiming that THAT was your position all along.
ok, windows has finished updating. Time to reboot.
@MrShinyandNew安宇 You seem to think I am some kind of half-wit who doesn't know the least thing about language. I don't mean this in an insulted way: I'm not annoyed at all. Just don't interpret what I say in some naïve way.
In fact I'm still waayyy too drunk to be annoyed or dislike people.
@Cerberus Then you invested so much time and effort into learning the "right" way that your brain set up an elaborate rationalization as to why your way is better.
And of those who do, when they notice it they realize that they are making a mistake. It's never used that way as an intentional usage.
Unlike, say, the word "irregardless", which over-negates, and is used unthinkingly because people use it as a whole word and don't analyze it as "not regard not"
"they're" is a spelling mistake. It's not an incorrect word choice. The spelling rules are arbitrary but they are agreed-upon.
The spelling rules follow a convention. "They + are = they're". That convention is arbitrary. But it is agreed-upon: I don't know of anyone who advocates or uses the common contractions differently.
@Cerberus No, I think it is qualitatively different. The spelling of "their" is arbitrary, but the spelling of "they're" is not, it emerges from the conventions of contractions. If you had picked their vs there it'd be different: English uses the apostrophe only in certain ways, and none of those cases fit the "their" case.
@Cerberus I never said they were objectively true. I claim that the case for "they're" being incorrect in "they're books" is stronger than the case for "school teacher" being incorrect instead of "schoolteacher"
> My dear chap, there was never a time in the early years of molecular biology when we sat around the table with a bunch of philosophers saying ‘let us define life first.’ We just went out there and found out what it was: a double helix. —Francis Crick, allegedly
@DavidWallace I actually think it's safe to use those words with English learners. There's a difference in kind between native English speakers who struggle with their own language and English learners: the latter are waaaay more likely to use a dictionary.