English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

In the grammar of English, the term do-support (or do-insertion) refers to the use of the auxiliary verb do, including its inflected forms does and did, to produce negated clauses and questions, as well as other constructions in which subject–auxiliary inversion is required. The verb do can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, where it usually serves to add emphasis, as in "I did shut the fridge." However in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the rules of English syntax permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is presen...

Sudhir

3:08 PM

do is not acting as verb as here, I guess.

KitFox

Yeah, I think so. That's probably why you are confused.

We stick a do in there, and that gets conjugated. The ending verb doesn't.

simchona

To compare, you could also say "How will you do [on the exam]?"

KitFox

So you would have "How does Topper do?"

It's because in that case you are inverting the subject and the verb to make a question.

Sudhir

Okay I got it

Thanks @simchona @KitFox.

Monica

I hope they won't close my new post

KitFox

3:10 PM

But in that tense, you are essentially asking about the generic case.

Sudhir

@KitFox: I've more doubts.

KitFox

You have more questions?

Sudhir

Yes

simchona

@Sudhir You're missing a verb

Sudhir

Where do we use has had ?

KitFox

3:14 PM

Hmm. He has had a tough time.

She has had dogs ever since she was a girl.

simchona

She has had a cold for two weeks

Sudhir

Can it be (had has)?

KitFox

It's the have auxiliary + have as a verb.

@Sudhir I can't think of any.

simchona

@KitFox Could you take a look at this?

KitFox

@simchona Sure. You have a concern?

simchona

3:17 PM

@KitFox Can we disambiguate it a little?

I think it's a bit confusing as to the actual question, but that could also just be me

I'm a bit jet lagged, and my English is lagging too

KitFox

Let me think.

I'm almost out of battery. I need to switch devices. I think her question is about the correct tense given that a time point has been specified.

bbl.

Sudhir

@simchona: Where did you done your graduation?

Is it correct?

Mitch

"Where did you have your graduation?"

Monica

Who usually closes the posts?

Sudhir

or Where did you do your graduation?

Mitch

3:28 PM

do or have is the infinitive form.

Sudhir

@Mitch: Please explain

Mitch

unconjugated.

simchona

You wouldn't really "do" graduation

Mitch

Where did you eat your lunch?

Mahnax

Where did you graduate? is what I'd say.

Mitch

3:29 PM

Where does he sleep at night?

simchona

The second verb isn't conjugated but the first is

French is similar

Mitch

the italicized words are infinitives. they are not supposed to agree with anything.

Sudhir

@simchona: I didn't get the semantics of conjugated what you explained.

Mitch

"He need to have a snack then take a nap."

same thing.

Monica

Bye all

Mitch

3:32 PM

I think. He thinks That's about all the conjugation there is in English. But whatever littel there is there, you don't even do that with the infinitive.

Sudhir

He does work on Drupal Vs He works on Drupal?

Which is right?

simchona

Both

Sudhir

Sure?

simchona

Ummmmmmm. Yes?

Depends on what you mean

KitFox

In the first, work is a noun. In the second, work is the verb.

RegDwighт

3:55 PM

0

Q: More than one adjective modifying more than one noun

I have difficulty when there is more than adjective trying to modify more than one noun. What is the meaning of this sentence? - "We have new and pre-owned cars and trucks" Also, where can I obtain practice exercises so I become good at this task? Thanks

meaning

This is egregious.

2

Q: Two adjectives for two nouns

I saw this on a billboard recently We have new and pre-owned cars and trucks Clearly the intention is to modify "cars and trucks" with the two adjectives "used and preowned" and although the construction does make sense intuitively (and colloquially), I was wondering if there are any spec...

grammar adjectives

KitFox

A thousand pardons.

I was not listening.

Stupid cookies. Stupid iPad.

tchrist

4:43 PM

@Jez And even that is missing some. “Today I say that I will eat there soon. Yesterday I said that I would eat there soon.” There is no future-in-the-past listing.

simchona

@kit can you take over this

In previous question you said you do not have any special method to find it and I know you can't unless in claim and guess like me so my question is valid and I do not know why you down voted it! — user37324 3 mins ago

Sudhir

@simchona:You remember my question.

Where did you do your graduation?

this one?

simchona

5:00 PM

Yes, I remember.

Sudhir

Is this correct?

simchona

It's correct, but it doesn't sound right.

So grammar-wise it's fine, but the phrase "do your graduation" isn't really idiomatic

Sudhir

-4

Q: Correct usage in this sentence?

While talking to my friend, I came to know that this sentence is wrong. Where did you done your graduation? Please explain why it is wrong. Also, what should come here?

past-tense

simchona

Ok, what about this. I agree with the closing.

Sudhir

Ok

The third season of the popular television show will ends on a ground note with celebrating dancing and making fun. What's wrong with it?

I think ends is incorrect.

@simchona?

simchona

5:09 PM

Yup, should be "will end"

Or just "ends"

"Making fun" doesn't sound right either

It's usually that you "make fun of someone" or "make fun of something"

Sudhir

ok

Sudhir

5:28 PM

@simchona: I was recounting my experience where an auto driver made me [to] wait and also demanded ₹400.

Is to wrong here?

simchona

Yes.

Sudhir

Why?

simchona

Without to, the sentence is grammatical

Ok, I don't have time to explain the why of everything

Sudhir

Ok

no pbm

Rose growers is followed by The?

simchona

Huh?

Sudhir

5:39 PM

?

simchona

@Sudhir This question makes no sense.

Sudhir

ok leave it

Scientists have tried to grow new stems in the ear that get damage with age.

What's incorrect?

simchona

*Scientists

ear?

What the hell is ear doing there

Are we talking about an actual person's ear?

Sudhir

Yeah

simchona

Are you referring to stem cells?

Sudhir

5:41 PM

Yes

simchona

Then you need to say that

Stems != stem cells

Sudhir

get is right here?

simchona

Yes, but it must be damaged

Sudhir

but the ans is gets damaged

I think its wrong.

simchona

I just said it had to be damaged

The answer is right

Sudhir

5:45 PM

it should be get damaged.

I'm talking about get.

simchona

You're right, get sounds better

Except it matters whether the ear gets damaged, or the stems do

So if you're referring to the ear, it should still be gets

So the answer is still right, after all

Sudhir

for ear it should be gets

simchona

Yes.

Sudhir

Your English knowledge is very good.

I highly appreciate it.

simchona

You're welcome

Sudhir

5:49 PM

:)

I'm Indian trying hard to master it.

Hindi being my native language.

What you do?

simchona

What do you do

I'm a student

Sudhir

Great!

I thought you to be a programmer.

simchona

I program, but it isn't my job

Sudhir

So where you're studying?

I mean which course?

simchona

Where are you studying

Sudhir

5:56 PM

thanks

We Indians usually speak wrong eng

simchona

You're still learning! Even native speakers make mistakes

Sudhir

no one interrupts us.

Ethereal

Nothing wrong.

Sudhir

@simchona: I need to practice/practise?

simchona

@Sudhir Practice, in American English.

I'm not sure how British English treats that

Sudhir

6:11 PM

What's your age?

simchona

I'd rather not say

Sudhir

I wonder you being smaller than me.

knows more than me.

simchona

I think you might mean "I wonder if you are younger than me"

"Smaller" refers to physical size

Sudhir

Hats off to you.

Yes you're right.

One of the best speaker.

tchrist

6:23 PM

This is . . . I dunno, inappropriate? Dangerous baiting trying to make you reveal things that shouldn’t be revealed?

When you cannot prove you have such thing you cannot ask such irrational requests. I say request. Kitfox said a different thing in the other topic. Anyway please send your ideas as an answer not in comment. I think you know better than me that comments are to improve questions not arguments. — user37324 29 mins ago

Not a good idea.

simchona

I'm pretty sure explaining the mod tools renders them useless.

As long as you trust that we have them, just know that we have them

tchrist

I don’t know about useless, but I very much approve of the current situation, and disagree with the request.

simchona

I would ask you to speak up, but I think she'll just explode at you

She's misreading everything

tchrist

I am very good at getting girls to explode, you know. Boys too, ’soften as not.

simchona

Oh, you feisty thing you

tchrist

6:26 PM

Some people are determined to take everything wrong. There is no help for them, since telling them that would ipso facto be taken wrong.

simchona

Wise words

If only there weren't just one downvote, so she couldn't be like "IT WAS YOU!!!!!", even if it weren't

tchrist

I’ve answered.

simchona

My hero.

That wasn't meant to sound sarcastic, by the way

tchrist

I am too quick to downvote things I am annoyed by.

simchona

I hate when people accuse others of voting down

Whether or not it's true

tchrist

6:38 PM

Wasn’t even my downvote.

►

Sanctus sanctus sanctus

Robusto

Dona eis requiem

Andrew Leach

Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods?

!!!

user19161

7:01 PM

@tchrist That suit looks nice. Let's put it on.

Jonathan Dickinson

Hi everyone, I have a really quick question. I am looking for the specific word that describes the type of irony currently being experienced in Holland. They walled off the sea and are now having a drought. Any ideas?

cosmic irony came to my mind, but someone here is convinced there is a more succint term for it

Robusto

That would be Dutch aqueous irony.

Jonathan Dickinson

:D

Cerberus

@JonathanDickinson Umm what?

There is no drought.

What you are thinking of is probably dramatic irony, though.

user19161

Aqueous irony or ironic water?

Jonathan Dickinson

7:05 PM

In one of the towns there, apparently. Speaking to someone who lives there right now.

Cerberus

He probably means draft, not drought, hehe.

I can assure you, there is no drought.

We do suffer from terrible drafts in winter, though.

@JonathanDickinson Which town?

Jonathan Dickinson

Leeuwarden

Robusto

@Cerberus Surely you mean draughts.

Cerberus

@JonathanDickinson I really don't believe it, haha sorry.

Jonathan Dickinson

You are talking about Foehn winds? We have that in South Africa as well (Berg Winds)

Still any ideas regarding that irony, whether or not it is the case

Cerberus

7:08 PM

@JonathanDickinson No I was joking, I meant drafts inside the house.

Jonathan Dickinson

Sounds like he is going to be living off that for a while :)

Cerberus

The only "drought" I can find is when there was less rain than usual near Leeuwarden in 2011...

Jonathan Dickinson

It might be a pipe blockage, I came in half-way through the conversation and they were trying to figure out what the word to describe the situation is

Cerberus

Oh haha.

That sounds more likely.

Robusto

@Cerberus Why do you insist on using the non-British spelling? That is so non-Anglopohile of you.

Cerberus

7:11 PM

weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Netherlands/Leeuwarden

@Robusto Oh, hmm, I knew there was something. Those words always confuse me.

Because I don't think the army thing is draught in British?

tchrist

@Cerberus No, they’re checkered.

Robusto

Yet you leap in anyway, tongue and tail wagging, fastening your teeth around the wrong spelling for your particular predilections.

Cerberus

Always.

Robusto

6 ÷ 2(1+2) = ?

What answer do you get for that?

tchrist

@Robusto You spelled peculiar wrong.

Robusto

7:14 PM

Particuliar?

Cerberus

Get where?

Multiplication should go before division...

tchrist

@Cerberus Why? They have the same precedence.

Robusto

@Cerberus "If an arithmetical or algebraical term contains ÷ and ×, there is at present no agreement as to which sign shall be used first."

Cerberus

I was taught multiplication goes first.

tchrist

That is not right.

Robusto

7:16 PM

You were also taught that order of operations proceeds left to right, ne?

tchrist

Moreover, it does not matter.

Cerberus

Mijnheer Van Dalen Wacht Op Antwoord.

Jonathan Dickinson

according to the mnemonic (BODMAS) division comes first

Cerberus

That's weird.

tchrist

a*b/c = a*(b/c) = (a*b)/c

Cerberus

7:17 PM

Multiplication comes first in our mnemonic.

user19161

@Robusto Someone asked that a few hours ago.

user19161

Seems to be a popular facebook question...

Cerberus

@Robusto So my answer would definitely be 1, but Jonathan's would be 9.

simchona

For things of the same precedence, isn't it left to right?

tchrist

ᵃᵇ⁄c

@simchona Iff they’re left-associating operators.

Jonathan Dickinson

7:18 PM

doesn't really matter though, multiplication and division are commutative

tchrist

a**b**c is a**(b**c)

Cerberus

Naaah.

tchrist

Because exponentiation is right-associating.

Cerberus

If you do division first, you get 9.

Multiplication, 1.

tchrist

@JonathanDickinson I already said that. :)

Uh oh.

This is not going to be pretty.

Jonathan Dickinson

7:19 PM

that's breaking the rules cerberus, brackets (*B*ODMAS) come first

Cerberus

The point is, you shouldn't be using the division sight at all.

You should always use horizontal bars.

simchona

@JonathanDickinson PEMDAS.

tchrist

*sign

And it doesn’t matter.

Robusto

Here is Tara Haelle's analysis.

Cerberus

@JonathanDickinson No, no, then you get 6 / 2*3.

same problem.

user19161

7:21 PM

It's not even a math problem, just a notation problem.

user19161

I don't even know what BODMAS or PEMDAS say, LOL.

Cerberus

The brackets are immaterial in this example, because the same problem appears if you just take 6 / 2 * 3.

Jonathan Dickinson

the multiplication sign is implicit between the 2 and the parenthesis

it's short-hand, syntactic sugar

Robusto

Problems with PEMDAS

user19161

Anyway, why are we discussing this? Oh, because it is the single room with every possible discussion.

tchrist

7:22 PM

% bc -l
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
6 / 2 * 3
9.00000000000000000000

Cerberus

@JonathanDickinson Hence 6 / 2 * 3.

Robusto

The Javascript console on this page yields this result:

6/2*(1+2)
9

tchrist

macbook# perl -le 'print 6/2*3'
9
macbook# perl -le 'print 6*2/3'
4

@Robusto What, your shell broken? :)

Cerberus

You should always write it like this.

user19161

@Cerberus Cute!

tchrist

7:25 PM

Your dot is in the wrong place.

user19161

Is that your handwriting?

Cerberus

Because anything under or above the fraction line automatically gets "brackets".

Robusto

@tchrist Yep. And the yolk's on you.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy Yes. Although it is too basic to call it handwriting!

I always add plenty of brackets when forced to use "/" as the divisor.

Robusto

@Cerberus Why are you using the variables C and D? 6/2*C2+D?

Cerberus

7:27 PM

@Robusto Oh, aesthetic reasons.

Robusto

> But there really are a lot of problems with this process. First off, because multiplication and division are inverses (they undo one another), it’s perfectly legal to divide before you multiply. Same thing goes for addition and subtraction. That means that PEDMAS, PEDMSA and PEMDSA are also acceptable acronyms. (Not so black and white any more, eh?)

Cerberus

Surely it does not distract from the issue?

tchrist

Why are you right-handed?

@sim That was weird; I guess they fixed that.

It used to work.

Mitch

@tchrist no no not that, you meant "Why, are you not right-handed?"

user19161

I can't recall who is a leftie in this room...

Cerberus

7:37 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Do you think Australia and Argentina should flip the months?

So our January becomes their July?

tchrist

@JasperLoy By their handwriting shalt thou know them.

user19161

@tchrist Anyway, I am a leftie, yay!

Robusto

sicherheitstacho.eu/?lang=en

Cerberus

tchrist

Province my ass.

Cerberus

7:48 PM

@Robusto What are you trying to tell us?

That this website was itself hacked by Chinese hackers?

user19161

@Cerberus Taiwan is a province of China? I did not know that!

Cerberus

@JasperLoy It's not.

Robusto

@Cerberus Nah. The Russians got there first. China had to settle for sloppy seconds.

Cerberus

That's why I posted that.

user19161

I am totally for Taiwanese independence.

Robusto

7:49 PM

The Chinese consider it a province.

tchrist

You understand why, right?

Cerberus

@Robusto You mean the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan, not the People's Republic.

tchrist

They’ve been hacked by the Chinese. Of course.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy Taiwan is independent.

Robusto

I mean not Formosa.

user19161

7:50 PM

@Cerberus Not to China.

Cerberus

That is, Taiwan officially claims China, and China claims Taiwan.

tchrist

@Robusto Awwww

You cannot deny that Formosa was a prettier name than Taiwan.

user19161

@Cerberus Yeah, I know that theory, haha.

Cerberus

The Chinese government fled Peking during the Communist uprising, and they ended up on Taiwan.

Robusto

Careful, or I'll bring up Quimoy and Matsu. Or however they're transliterated.

@tchrist Of course.

Cerberus

7:51 PM

So officially, the Kuomintang hold, or used to hold, that the government located in Taipei was the government of all of China.

user19161

-4

Q: 6/2*(1+2) is 1 or 9?

Possible Duplicate: What is 48÷2(9+3)? Please, look at the picture? Which calculator shows true result and how to prove achieved result?

arithmetic math-software

Cerberus

The Commies, on the other hand, claim their revolution owns all the territories of pre-Communist China.

Robusto

@tchrist In fact, its name in Portuguese (Ilha Formosa) literally means "Beautiful Island."

user19161

I think Taiwan and China should just let each other be independent.

Cerberus

It is interesting to note that, recently, the Kuomintang has become friendlier towards China than the other main party in Taiwan.

tchrist

7:53 PM

@Robusto You’re doing it again.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy Yeah, well, that's what's happening de facto.

Robusto

@tchrist Doing what again?

tchrist

Explaining my own jokes to me. Which I already knew. Which is why I said it.

Cerberus

But some people in Taiwan are open to some sort of political union with China.

Robusto

@tchrist Then ya shoulda said beautiful instead of pretty.

user19161

7:54 PM

@Cerberus Amazing how some people just want to control others.

tchrist

That’s ok, Jasper appreciates it.

Silly.

user19161

This world is full of stupidity and evil.

tchrist

Like, who in this room is most likely to know what a Portuguese word means, eh there now?

Robusto

@JasperLoy Also beauty and intelligence and goodness.

@tchrist Pas moi.

tchrist

Eggs. Grandma. Suck. Teach. Don’t.

user19161

7:56 PM

@Robusto Yes, like Robusto.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy Yeah...on the other hand, what would you do if a major shopping street in Singapore declared independence?

tchrist

@Cerberus Left or right?

Cerberus

And began levying tolls?

user19161

@Cerberus Well, that would not happen, of course.

Cerberus

@tchrist ?

@JasperLoy But what if it did?

tchrist

7:56 PM

I wondered if it were split down the median.

Robusto

@Cerberus Singapore is nothing but a major shopping street. That's all it has. Do you think it could declare indepedence from itself?

Cerberus

Wouldn't you think they were ridiculous? Wouldn't it be annoying if you couldn't tax this expensibe shopping street?

user19161

@Cerberus Well, I don't speculate on such things.

tchrist

Hm, pedology.

Cerberus

@Robusto Where there's a will, there's a street.

@JasperLoy I was trying to make you see the nationalist standpoint against independence.

It is always easy to root for the underdog, "let those people be free!".

user19161

7:58 PM

@Cerberus I see it, but a shopping street is different...

Cerberus

Why is it different?

user19161

I don't compare a human to an ant.

Robusto

Singaporean revolutions are like GET requests. They're always idempotent.

Cerberus

All those Singaporean revolutions.

It never stops.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…