English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Robusto

12:19 AM

@Færd That's possible, I suppose, but I doubt there's any way of verifying that.

Mitch

@Færd Oh. I thought COCA also had a switch in thee to also give Br vs Am. Maybe it's in ...

corpus.byu.edu/bnc

Also, looking at UD, that entry starts off, let's say, respectably. Then it devolves into strange vulgarity, and then...

and then, which is the one thing that UD is great at, it reminded me of ...

tea bagging.

look it up. it seems that your 'bagging on' is short for 'teabagging on' or thereabouts.

roughly

very loosely

but closer than anything else.

it's the only thing that makes sense of it all

5 hours later…

tchrist

5:12 AM

Why Does Greek Sound Like Spanish?!

►

@terdon ^^^^^^^

tchrist

5:30 AM

I see what he's saying, but it doesn't seem quite so similar as he's making it out. There's some timing differences going on,

But yes, the consonants sound right and such. No stupid hard voiced stops where they don't belong unless you want to break your mouth.

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

7:56 AM

Poem of the day: An Ode to Snailboat

> Who is quicker than thought?
That's our learned Snailboat,
Who will give a prompt answer
More often than not.

> 'Cause she belongs to Tiny House Movement,
Her shell is both her house and parking lot,
And ever seeks grammatical improvement,
Because she is a learned gastropod.

4 hours later…

Matt E. Эллен

11:46 AM

good day

1 hour later…

SmokeDetector

12:57 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Url in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, +7 more (1,085): healthandbeautydoctor.com/alpha-titan-testo by equen1953 on english.SE

tchrist

A: When can "very" modify a prepositional phrase?

(1) Modifying prepositional phrases with very needs degree meaning and is unusual The adverb very modifies expressions that can take on different degrees, i.e. whose semantics allow for a scale on which a concept can be compared. We can test for the presence of degrees with a paraphrase such as ...

Similar to Shakespeare’s use of very like, he also licenced very worth when in Twelve Night he had Viola say: “It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing / And speak to him in many sorts of music / That will allow me very worth his service. / What else may hap, to time I will commit.” It’s still not very gradable in present-day English, for though I can marginally imagine something being “more/most worth my while”, its regular inflections by degree (⁕worther, ⁕worthest) have been ungrammatical since the 18tᵗʰ century. — tchrist ♦ 2 mins ago

Cerberus

1:14 PM

@CowperKettle I love it! By whom?

CowperKettle

@Cerberus By me

tchrist

@CowperKettle Has she seen it yet? :)

CowperKettle

1:39 PM

@tchrist Not yet. It came to me suddenly, I was doodling using starred phrases in the Language Overflow chatroom )))

Pedro Tamaroff

I have a quick question which may not be worth a post.
Has anyone come across the following construction? "We're given you"
I've seen it some days ago in Dublin's transport ads, as in "We're given you great discounts" or something of the sort, and it doesn't seem to be a typo.

I would expect "We've given you..." instead.

Robusto

@PedroTamaroff You might have run across "We're givin' [giving] you great discounts." Givin' sounds the same as given.

Pedro Tamaroff

Yeah that makes sense, perhaps it was too quick of a read. But I am sort of convinced it said "given". I'll try to look around again today when I'm in town. :)

@Robusto (It was a street poster, not on the radio or TV.)

Robusto

Well, then it could chalked up to semi-illiteracy.

Like when people write "I should of known" instead of "I should have known" ...

Pedro Tamaroff

Sure. I'll try to find it again today and see what happens...

4 hours later…