ELL's Cabin

Anonymous

14:00

I should've written "needs to be" but somehow I naturally came up with "need be" :-)

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Put it in a funny way, we all always have an invisible calendar with us!

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. Yeah!

Anonymous

That works!

Fantasier

Thank you~ There seems to be countless interesting stuffs in language :) I learn something new about it every day!

Damkerng T.

Me too!

Today I learned must have and must have ... now. :-)

Anonymous

14:05

Affirmative modal need isn't really part of my idiolect

Anonymous

So I wonder how I came up with it

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes. Leech mentioned must and need as special.

Anonymous

Yes, and they vary between AmE and BrE

Anonymous

In AmE both mustn't and needn't are marginal

Damkerng T.

nods -- But must not should be alright in AmE, I think.

Anonymous

14:08

Yes

Damkerng T.

alright "all right. Many people consider this to be incorrect." -- Ah, good to know!

Anonymous

Yes

Fantasier

Yes

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. All right!

Fantasier

I learnt "alright" first, "all right" later. For a long time I thought "all right" was wrong!

Anonymous

14:09

But times change. To-day becomes today! :-)

Anonymous

Each other is on its way to becoming eachother

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier I learned "all right" first, then tried to compress it to "alright" later.

MARamezani

I learned the alphabet first.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Fantasier

Yeah, guess what? Me too!

Anonymous

14:10

I think alright is okay.

Damkerng T.

I think I'm gonna use someday more often, too. Not sure if it's a good idea.

Anonymous

Someday is normal

Anonymous

Be careful of the following distinctions: someday / some day, sometime / some time, everyday / every day

Damkerng T.

nods

And sometimes too.

Hmm... I can't see the difference between someday and some day.

Oh, I see.

Anonymous

1

Q: Is it ellipsis or appositive?

"Hassan speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin." I don't know how "not Mandarin." is working here. Is it a parenthetical element? I think ellipsis may occur after comma, but I am not sure. Are there any ellipsis? If no ellipsis occurs here, please tell me how to understand where ellipsis occurs. I thi...

Anonymous

14:15

I feel the urge to answer "no"

Anonymous

Good question, though!

MARamezani

No.

Here! I did it for you.

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Which type is it?

Anonymous

Thanks!

Damkerng T.

Wait, "not Mandarin" is not a phrase.

MARamezani

14:17

@DamkerngT. It's a question...

Wait...Isn't it an elliptic parenthetical?

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani :D

MARamezani

@Dam it's not an appositive.

It's not a parenthetical.

What phrase does it explain?

Anonymous

I'm still on Team No

Gowtham

hey guys , which is right "that question was rhetorical" or "that question was a rhetoric"

Anonymous

The former

MARamezani

14:20

@Gowtham Hullo!

Damkerng T.

I guess explaining it with ellipsis is probably the easiest.

MARamezani

@snailboat Me too.

@DamkerngT. And the correct way to do.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Is rhetoric countable?

Anonymous

Not usually.

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. Yes. The plural: Rhetorix. (That reminds me of a dinosaur)

Damkerng T.

14:21

LOL

Anonymous

I think it can be explained without ellipsis

Fantasier

Interesting!

MARamezani

@snailboat Hmm..

Damkerng T.

@Gowtham I'd suggest using the former.

MARamezani

Can't think of a way to do it without ellipsis.

Gowtham

14:23

@DamkerngT. thanks

MARamezani

@Gowtham Doesn't mean I'm wrong!

Damkerng T.

My pleasure.

@MARamezani o_O

Fantasier

Wut

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Oh, you mean using rhetorix?

MARamezani

Oooh. Indians really like saying wut.

Anonymous

14:24

Apples, not bananas, are my favorite fruit.

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. Nah. I told @gowtham rhetoric was better.

Gowtham

@MARamezani O.o

MARamezani

Of course, if he asked why,

I would've said because I said so.

Gowtham

haha

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm guessing that it's a noun phrase: [ Apples, not bananas, ].

Anonymous

14:26

I've seen a lot of Americans type wut

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. Seems far to me.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Thais like to go to wats. :D

Anonymous

It was apples, not bananas, that she liked.

MARamezani

Watt?

Fantasier

Hmmm

@DamkerngT. It took me a while to see what you did there lol

Damkerng T.

14:27

:D

Fantasier

Actually, on the contrary, I rarely go to Wats these days.

MARamezani

I'm thinking of expanding my revolution of hello to hullo to what to watt

Damkerng T.

Aww...

@MARamezani Wait, Watt is a unit, right?

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. Left.

Fantasier

...Well, I think we should probably get back to the more interesting point here :P

Damkerng T.

14:29

Yes, I want to read more about apples and bananas.

Anonymous

No, Watt is a name

MARamezani

Ah.

Anonymous

The unit is lower case

MARamezani

@snailboat And a unit.

But not an SI unit.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

14:30

But the abbreviation W is capitalized

Gowtham

@MARamezani named after the name anyway :D

MARamezani

@Gowtham SOMEONE ON MY SIDE!

Fantasier

@MARamezani It's an SI unit. (By derivation)

MARamezani

@Fantasier I dun goofed.

Gowtham

its not a fundamental unit, but a derived one ..or something

MARamezani

14:31

I meant it's a "derived" unit.

Fantasier

@MARamezani Which means it's still an SI unit!

Anonymous

So 3 Watts are three people named Watt, possibly related, while 3 watts is an amount of power

MARamezani

I know.

@snailboat Ooooh, but I used watt in the first of the sentence which makes it Watt, respectively.

5 mins ago, by MARamezani

I'm thinking of expanding my revolution of hello to hullo to what to watt

Lowercase.

Anonymous

The distinction is neutralized in that situation—but I was responding to Damkerng

MARamezani

I'm free of charge.

Anonymous

14:33

Who used it non-initially

Gowtham

ciao

Anonymous

Later!

Damkerng T.

Ciao!

MARamezani

Tatta!

Damkerng T.

is feeling like he should make a plea, but decided not to...

MARamezani

14:36

Good.

Fantasier

....

I just realised I'm in The English Learning Cabin and not the usual room.

Anonymous

Oh, a plea?

Anonymous

It's true.

MARamezani

@Fantasier We wrecked down the hall.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier We have two rooms now!

MARamezani

14:38

@DamkerngT. Or rather, one room.

Fantasier

@MARamezani Did you burn it all down to the ground and tear every piece of the ruins apart by hand? Cause that's what I would've done.

MARamezani

@Fantasier Working on it...

Fantasier

Good

Anonymous

Wow, you disliked the old room that much? :-) (I assume that's not actually what you meant, but it sounded like it!)

MARamezani

@snailboat I just sympathized with Fantasierium. Raises hands

Fantasier

14:40

@snailboat Nah, I just wanted to sound more aggressive and radical than him :P

Anonymous

MAR has a habit of renaming people

MARamezani

@snailboat I thought I used the right name. He has the symbol Fa next to Fantasierium.

Fantasier

I'm fine with that, I guess. As long as my name doesn't become Supercaulifantasieristicexpialidociousm or something.

Anonymous

That's a pretty long name.

MARamezani

@Fantasier Okay supercaulifantasiericexpialidociousim.

Damkerng T.

14:43

@Fantasier TM that! before MAR uses it!

Ah, too late!

Anonymous

And he made it even longer.

MARamezani

My laptop's mouse doesn't work. What should I do?

1) chat

2) die

3) do something technical

Anonymous

Hit the mouse with a blunt object

Damkerng T.

4) talk to your mouse

MARamezani

4) Go on a rant about this question's getting closed.

Fantasier

14:44

I didn't know laptops have pets.

Good to know.

Anonymous

Primarily opinion based

MARamezani

5) None of the above.

@snailboat It's a touchpad.

6) 1 &2

7) Definitely 2

Jim Reynolds

Is your mouse's laptop ok?

MARamezani

@JimReynolds Let me check.

Anonymous

Oh, okay. I thought it was a mouse for some reason.

MARamezani

14:45

Wait a minute!

Fantasier

Ohhhh. So laptops' pets are so smart that they know how to use laptops!

Jim Reynolds

O.O

Anonymous

Mice are cute

MARamezani

There are no laptops for the mouse.

Unless it steals them!

Anonymous

But I like all rodents

Damkerng T.

14:46

Poor mice in the labs.

Jim Reynolds

@Dam here's a c-sirt.org report for a certain website. Does it look safe to you?

MARamezani

All rodents like you too @Snailor

Damkerng T.

@JimReynolds Let me see...

Jim Reynolds

Oh wait.

Anonymous

Who is this "Snailor"?

Jim Reynolds

14:46

My baaaad.

MARamezani

@JimReynolds Someone.

Jim Reynolds

It actually gives a report on all of *bit.ly

Damkerng T.

Oh, so we have two different CSIRT?

MARamezani

@snailboat Who is *who is this "Snailor"?

Jim Reynolds

No wonder it's so bad.

Anonymous

14:48

Mu

Jim Reynolds

O.O

MARamezani

@snailboat Greek letter?

Jim Reynolds

That's the sound of one u leaning up against an M.

MARamezani

@JimReynolds M is the master of the other letters.

I told it to be.

Because it's what that starts MAR.

In fact, it was M, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H... But nooo, jealous people couldn't have M as the first letter.

Anonymous

Read GEB

MARamezani

14:50

OK.

Anonymous

M is the first letter in the dictionary.

Anonymous

Lexicographers sometimes begin with M instead of A for various reasons...

Anonymous

The OED3 updates began with M, for example.

MARamezani

The main reason: They wanna plagiarize my name...

Ooooh, that kid's way outta his league

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Are you reading GEB in Japanese? :P

Anonymous

14:55

Hah! Now there's an amusing idea

Damkerng T.

Oh, that reminds me that we haven't seen "godel9" for a while.

Anonymous

You know I'm bad at Japanese, right? :-)

Damkerng T.

Eh? I thought the opposite!

MARamezani

Who's that?

@snailboat Right. You're terrible at Japanese.

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani A nice ELL user who uses the cover of An Eternal Golden Braid as his avatar.

MARamezani

14:56

And snails have jets behind their back.

Anonymous

Thanks!

Anonymous

Snails do have jets, but they don't use them often

Anonymous

They're content to live slow, peaceful lives

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. Stop pinging me, when was the last time this eternal guy visited here?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat If snails use Mozilla, they might find Jetpack useful!

@MARamezani Dunno. Last year, I think.

MARamezani

14:57

o.0

Damkerng T.

Oh, Last seen Mar 18 at 2:26

MARamezani

How on Earth did you get reminded of him? Are you running a defragment process or something?

Oh.

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. I thought they were eternal.

Damkerng T.

Quite possibly.

MARamezani

@Fantasier Our chemicaloid eyes can't see it/him/her.

You need to be the worthy one.

Damkerng T.

15:00

Somehow I remember him as him, but I could be wrong about that...

MARamezani

Oh, I meant the chosen one.

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani The One in Kung Fu Hustle?

MARamezani

The One is a movie itself.

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes!

MARamezani

K. Gotta go. Later!

Damkerng T.

15:04

Later!

Damkerng T.

15:21

0

Q: Does "That thing/one I don't know" sound natural?

I know that some people use this when they want to say that they have no idea about that particular thing. But the thing is that, in my case none of them are native English speakers. So I thought it's worth to ask if natives use That thing I don't know. Though, indeed, it sounds OK and some nativ...

grammar phrase-usage conversation

Oh, isn't this related to @Fantasier's that vs. the?

Fantasier

Hmmm

I think it's a distinct case. :)

Damkerng T.

'That Thing You Do!' is playing in my mind.

@Fantasier It's not exactly the same, but I think it's kinda related because of the that.

Hmm... it would be better if they made the sentence they heard non-native speakers said obvious.

Because I think "I'm not sure about that one. I don't know." is perfectly fine.

Fantasier

I think "That I don't know" is actually "That, I don't know" where that is fronted.

Damkerng T.

nods

Fantasier

But "That thing/one I don't know." is more likely to be (?) "That thing/one (that) I don't know." So the two aren't quite similar.

Damkerng T.

15:28

Argh! Context, context, context!

Still have 'That Thing You Do!' playing in another tab...

Fantasier

What is 'That Thing You Do!'? A song?

Damkerng T.

Yes!

The Wonders - That Thing You Do HD sub esp

►

Fantasier

In 2 million pieces lol

That must be painful :'(

Freddy

hello everyone

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Hmm... I thought it was "into a million pieces".

@Freddy Hello!

Fantasier

15:30

@DamkerngT. Oh, my bad lol

Yeah, wouldn't make sense with "in 2"

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Still painful. :-)

Freddy

For first time it happened that Maths S.E. is not answering my question!

Damkerng T.

@Freddy Congrats!

Freddy

ups that was typo, I meant not answering lol

Damkerng T.

"He can not only kill them, he can cook them for dinner, then use their skins to make a coat." — Tetsujin 44 mins ago

:-)

@Freddy Oh, no! I'm sorry to hear that!

Damkerng T.

15:52

Note to self: It's not possible in English to recast "It must be true that [a clause in the present perfect]" with "It must have been ..."
a) It must be true that he's doing something now. --> He must be doing something now.
?b) It must be true that he was doing something then. --> He must ?be doing something then.
?c) It must be true that he's been doing something now. --> He ?must have been doing something now.
d) It must be true that he'd been doing something then. --> He must have been doing something then.

Anonymous

Can we come up with a more specific example than do something?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm still reviewing it. :D

I think anything that can be thought of an activity should fit the cases.

Perhaps, like watching TV, playing tennis, doing homework, etc.

Ah, I put ? at the wrong place, but I don't think it makes much difference.

Anonymous

Oh, you edited the examples

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

Let's see

Anonymous

15:57

> It must be true that he's eating dinner now.　→　He must be eating dinner now.

Anonymous

> It must be true that he was eating dinner then.　→　He must have been eating dinner then.

Anonymous

I don't think that generally must can be used as though it's a past tense form

Damkerng T.

Okay, I think I'm starting to see the point, the aspect is shifted to the time phrase in the "must have been" construction.

Anonymous

Surely historically it was one

Anonymous

But that's just etymology. Past must is dead, as far as I can tell

Anonymous

16:00

Though:

Anonymous

> %If he had stayed in the army he must surely have become a colonel. (CGEL p.109)

Damkerng T.

That works for me without surely, even!

Anonymous

CGEL claims some speakers allow must in this position

Anonymous

I don't. But apparently some do.

Anonymous

"However, such examples are rare and of marginal status; the remote conditional normally requires a preterite modal."

Damkerng T.

16:03

nods

Would have become, I think (that CGEL means).

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, in their analysis the preterite modals include would as well as could, along with should (in certain uses), and might (for some speakers)

Damkerng T.

nods

I think my problem was sometimes I use must as if I use will and sometimes I use must as if I use would.

1

Q: had you done something, something else would happen or would have happened?

Example with a context (an excerpt from "The Art & Science of Java: An Introduction to Computer Science" by Eric Roberts): For example, executing the line println("Top student " + topStudent) would produce the following output: Top student = John Doe (#20456) Had you left out the impl...

past-tense

I haven't read the comments in details yet, but I think the comments are weird.

(Because Had you left out the implementation of the toString method, Java would instead use the default definition of the toString method from the Object class. sounds better to me than would have instead used.)

To me, it's a hypothetical even tafter someone had written a code, but before the compiler would compile it.

Anonymous

16:19

It doesn't look like an error to me

Damkerng T.

I hadn't really read the comments yet, but it seems like all the comments say the original is bad writing.

Anonymous

Hmm, I think I like the original better than TRomano's version

Damkerng T.

Me too! -- Oh, I've already said that. Hehe!

Anonymous

We need to make sure we read the whole excerpt in context

Anonymous

> For example, executing the line [...] would produce the following output: [...]

Anonymous

16:21

> Had you left out the implementation of the toString method, Java would instead use the default definition of the toString method from the Object class.

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

The reader didn't actually do anything

Anonymous

And Java didn't actually do anything

Anonymous

They're just hypotheticals, like you said

Damkerng T.

16:37

Ah, "line of drawings" is another tricky phrase!

Catija

17:00

@snailboat You do linguistics, right? Do you know any history on this:

0

Q: Object pronouns + verb+ing

As non native speaker of English , I'm having trouble making sense of a structure pertaining to object pronouns. Likelihood of me doing this.... Your plan involves me attempting to prepare plans necessary for you. Chances of me getting into that school is high. What is it that est...

pronouns gerund

Anonymous

19:55

@Catija I think F.E. and Araucaria have both written posts on that subject on ELL citing CGEL, and I believe StoneyB has written a couple that I can't find now which talk about the history

Anonymous

What specifically did you want to know about the history? How they came about? Which is more common, which was once more common, and how that's changing over time?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I just think it's a coordination of noun phrases

Catija

@snailboat The latter of them. I'd be interesting to see if the switch to "me" is part of what I consider the laziness of many English speakers... There are many common usages today that would have been considered ungrammatical in the past... such as the rampant dropping of -ly from adverbs.

Anonymous

@Catija It's not laziness, but it is language change

Anonymous

I'm being made to listen to some very loud dubstep on some bad car speakers, through a wall

Catija

20:01

@snailboat I get that it's changing, I still think that a lot of it is laziness in speech... and people who aren't properly taught how to speak... but now I'm just starting to sound like Henry Higgins... which isn't an uncommon occurrence for me.

Iplodman

Hullo!

@snailboat Oh lawd, I feel sorry for you. I like my dubstep, but not other people's.

Anonymous

Well, regardless of whether the music's good or not, it sounds better when it's played back on good speakers in a good room and not filtered through a wall :-)

Iplodman

Anyone got any idea what kind of thing I should put on the first page of a book?

@snailboat I agree with that :)

Anonymous

@Iplodman "This page intentionally left blank"

Iplodman

@snailboat I don't want to make it sound like a test ;)

It usually has some kind of information.

Author name, etc.

Anonymous

20:07

You can worry about that after the book is finished once you've decided what to do with it :-)

Iplodman

^ :)

Anonymous

Write, write, write!

Anonymous

Didn't you say before you had one chapter finished?

Anonymous

Only N chapters left! :-)

Iplodman

I'm on the second c:

I wrote a plan (on a post-it note) today, since it occurred to me that I had a lack of one.

Anonymous

20:13

@Iplodman It's called front matter, by the way

Anonymous

In case you want to look it up

Iplodman

Hm, I wonder if a question about the use of whitespace in writing would be on-topic at writers.SE.

@snailboat Ah, thankee! Be blessed for thoust time!

:)

Anonymous

-est is a verbal inflectional affix :-) I heare, thou hearest, he heareth

Iplodman

Damn, you've out-grammar'd me :)

Damkerng T.

20:37

@snailboat Ahh, a comma that works like "and" it is!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Similar to X, but not Y

Anonymous

Though not exactly the same

Damkerng T.

Yes, that would sound different.

I think X, and not Y is closer.

Anonymous

Hmm, sounds reasonable to me

Damkerng T.

0

Q: What is the meaning of the term "beggage"?

This phrase I heard recently in an airport in the US. I didn't completely understand the announcement, which she first mentioned "begs" which I understand, as in to beg for something. But then she said "Unattended beggage may be damaged or destroyed." I heard it many times, so I remember, this is...

vocabulary

It's interesting (that one's "baggage" is heard as "beggage" by another)!

5

A: black—his gloves of finest mole -- what is mole?

A Mole: Their pelts are regularly used for various purposes and are extremely desirable for their soft texture: Moles' pelts have a velvety texture not found in surface animals. Surface-dwelling animals tend to have longer fur with a natural tendency for the nap to lie in a particular dire...

Ah, it's a big, big mole!

Anonymous

20:48

I didn't know people used mole fur

Damkerng T.

Me either!

Iplodman

News to me!

Damkerng T.

I don't know how it feels like.

Anonymous

Both answers mention it, though

Damkerng T.

Hullo @Iplodman!

Anonymous

20:50

I like moles

Iplodman

@DamkerngT. Hullo!

How are you? :)

Damkerng T.

I'm good, thanks. How are you?

Anonymous

Iplodman

Good thanks! Still writing the second chapter :)

Anonymous

There's a cuter picture :-)

Damkerng T.

20:51

@snailboat Aww

@Iplodman Yay!

Oops!

Anonymous

My new little snail is eating.

Iplodman

Moles are also the stuff of nightmares.

Yay! What did you call him?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, your new snail seems to eat more than others!

Anonymous

Well, it's a growing snail! It needs nourishment! :-)

Anonymous

@Iplodman I don't have a name yet!

Anonymous

20:53

My other snails are Moon, Luna, and Ponyo

Iplodman

@snailboat How about Helio, as in heliocentric model? Goes with your space theme :)

Anonymous

Helios!

Damkerng T.

I remember someone suggested Sheldon (and perhaps Sandy) in another room. :-)

Anonymous

Kirke.

Damkerng T.

Ah, Helio matches Hullo very well! :D

Anonymous

20:55

Daughter of the Sun.

Iplodman

in English Language Learners, yesterday, by Iplodman

Shelldon?

:)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, I thought that's a male name.

@Iplodman Ah, yes!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Kirk is. You might know Kirke as Circe!

Damkerng T.

A bit more familiar but still not very familiar to me.

Anonymous

(Pronounce the 'e' at the end)

Anonymous

20:56

Circe is the Daughter of the Sun.

Anonymous

Grand-Daughter of the Ocean.

Anonymous

I was just free associating after Iplodman suggested Helio :-)

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Catija

21:22

@snailboat That image is much cuter than the one I used.

Jim Reynolds

21:53

The green text in @Iplodman's link has a 3D effect. First time I've noticed this. I see it on my phone screen. The green text appears to be closer, like it's printed on the nearer surface of the display glass.

1 hour ago, by Iplodman

Moles are also the stuff of nightmares.

Damkerng T.

22:13

@JimReynolds I think it's your phone that caused the 3D effect, perhaps.

Morning @Jim!

Transcript for