Language Overflow

M.A.Ramezani

07:08

omg OMG OMG

CopperKettle asked a question!

Damkerng T.

09:26

+1 I took the liberty of fixing minor typos. It was so tempting for me to edit is preferable over to preferable to because I would always use to, but then I thought preferable over might be possible in Indian English. (This could be useful: english.stackexchange.com/questions/1752/…, talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/…) — Damkerng T. May 6 at 22:00

I still think it should be prefer(able) to not prefer(able) over.

(ell.stackexchange.com/questions/60919/… led me to the old question.)

6

Q: Which version is correct and normally used, "between you and me" or "between you and I"?

I was listening to the song Superman by Eminem. I've listened it before many times but from the time I've started learning English grammar I am getting confused while reading or listening English. This time I got stuck at the line "Too much pride, between you and I Not a jealous man but females l...

So I won't forget to read.

Damkerng T.

14:18

I suppose I should write a little about my idea of "why some people (or books) can explain a thing more clearly and in a way that is easier to understand than others".

Could be an interesting topic.

Let's wait until I'm a little less busy...

(This question ell.stackexchange.com/q/60947/3281 reminds me of that idea I have.)

M.A.Ramezani

16:19

@DamkerngT. What's your idea? I'm really up to some human-psychology/language discussion.

Damkerng T.

Good evening!

M.A.Ramezani

Evening! 25 mins to iftar.

Am not that thirsty today; compared to some gym / Kung Fu days.

Damkerng T.

Basically, I consider the matter in two aspects: communication skills, and knowledge acquisition.

@M.A.Ramezani Glad you didn't do Kung Fu today. :D

M.A.Ramezani

Yes, Hmm. . .

@DamkerngT. That's why Jim dared coming to chat.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

M.A.Ramezani

16:23

@DamkerngT. I'm more interested in what the former can do.

Some people say I'm really good at teaching stuff (including my parents).

Damkerng T.

An average person wouldn't have much trouble in explaining not-too-complicated things, imho.

M.A.Ramezani

Define complicated.

IMO, complicated, this time, means how broad a course a subject is.

Damkerng T.

But some people seem to be better at organizing their thoughts, so they would have a better chance when they want to explain a subject.

M.A.Ramezani

It has linear relation to how much teaching is needed.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Well, a matter can be complicated because it has many interconnected or related parts inside it.

nods

M.A.Ramezani

16:26

Also, I realize if the decision of teaching is off the top of the head (i.e. on a very short notice) it becomes a very hard task for the teacher.

e.g. If they asked you right now to teach some dudes how the UI you're on works, how successful do you think you can be?

But maybe that's just me.

Damkerng T.

To put it simply, the crux of my idea is like, the more insightful on a subject you are, the more plainly you can explain the subject.

Which can be counter-intuitive for many people, I think.

Some people expect the explanation should be more complicated when the subject is complicated, not less.

M.A.Ramezani

If my little brother asked me at the very moment what London Dispersion Forces are, I'd stare at him for five minutes before deciding how to start.

Damkerng T.

I expect less.

nods

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. IMO the "Delta" is very important.

Damkerng T.

Tell me more about the Delta.

M.A.Ramezani

16:31

Knowledge of the teacher - Knowledge of the learner.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see.

Yes, it could be a very good reason for a teacher to choose an approach for an explanation.

That reflects the part "communication skills" in my idea.

Any knowledgeable person can explain things (at least to themselves) from their own angle.

M.A.Ramezani

Yes.

Damkerng T.

It'll take another extra step to explain things from the other's angle or standpoint.

M.A.Ramezani

Sometimes they can do that to themselves without talking.

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani Most of the time, if you asked me.

M.A.Ramezani

16:35

Also, another very important aspect (occurred to me more than a few times) is the language in which you learn what you learn.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I've heard so many times that our first language is the best one.

(when we learn anything)

M.A.Ramezani

No, that's not the half of it.

Damkerng T.

(particularly in young people)

@M.A.Ramezani What's your idea?

M.A.Ramezani

I can teach you organochem way better in English than I can do in Turkish or Persian.

Because

I've learned most of the organochem I've learned in English.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... that could be a reason.

And because you've learned it in English, now we can never know whether you'd've learned it better in another language.

M.A.Ramezani

16:40

That's partially true.

Gosh it feels good to be multilingual.

Damkerng T.

nods

2

A: If the lava will come down as far as this, we will evacuate these houses

You are absolutely correct. You should not use "will" in a conditional like this. Instead, you should use "does". If the lava does come down as far as this, we will evacuate these houses. Or "comes down" If the lava comes down as far as this, we will evacuate these houses.

Hmm... not sure if that answer is correct.

> If the lava does come down as far as this, we will evacuate these houses.

Heh, by the time it comes down this far, you won't have any houses left to evacuate, I'd say.

(Which is why I think *If the lava will come down this far, ... in this case is correct.)*

(Then again, will may not be the best choice; perhaps could, can, may, or might is a better choice.)

Ah, a good rephrase...

> If we're informed that the lava will come down as far as this, we will evacuate these houses.

M.A.Ramezani

16:58

That makes better sense.

Damkerng T.

17:09

0

Q: due + possessive pronoun + rank

I encountered the bold (see below) here. Google Books attests to its use in the 21st century. Source: p 191, Lord Chesterfield and His World, 1935, by Samuel Shellabarger PhD (Harvard) One likes to think of him especially in the little village of Spa, installed at the Court Of London o...

grammaticality

A curious case of due.

Due as an adjective is not that uncommon (e.g. with all due respect), but this one seems to modify both his rank and the deference at the same time.

M.A.Ramezani

I like to see @Stoney answer that.

Damkerng T.

In other words, it looks a little like a linker (my own jargon) or a preposition in standard English.

@M.A.Ramezani That would be nice!

Damkerng T.

17:41

> "The hardest thing to do in the world is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn."
--Ernest Hemingway

Anonymous

18:21

@DamkerngT. Yes! What a good question!

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. I'm not a human being!

Hey I'm proud of this comment of mine here:

OK, so I got a downvote. This either means 1) It was a random and thoughtless bad joke. 2) It wasn't a random and thoughtless bad joke. If it's the latter, could the downvoter say what their opinion is and how could it be better than what I suggested? — M.A.Ramezani yesterday

I might template it next time I wanna whine about a downvote.

Anonymous

Comments like that are usually considered noise and deleted on sight (if anyone's bothering to do so), but if you're going to leave one, maybe you could figure out a way to keep it positive, asking if you can read more about their point of view

Anonymous

I think that's more likely to lead to a constructive conversation

Anonymous

I can't really suggest any specific phrasing

Anonymous

You'd be surprised how many users leave comments complaining about anonymous downvotes on Japanese.SE :-)

M.A.Ramezani

18:28

@snailboat Yes. Exactly.

But this time, everyone's :O at the downvote.

Anonymous

Not only that―some people flag every post of theirs that receives a downvote

Anonymous

There's a third possibility. Someone could have fat fingered the down arrow.

Anonymous

There've been a couple times when I managed to downvote something without realizing on my iPhone.

M.A.Ramezani

Yeah, me too.

Anonymous

Sometimes I wish votes weren't locked in. I feel silly editing something just to reverse my vote :-)

M.A.Ramezani

18:32

Yeah, that's weird. I'm still trying to figure out why it's that.

Anonymous

I believe it's to prevent 'strategic' voting

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm. . . Hmm.

Anonymous

29

A: The answer to tactical downvoting problem?

Tactical downvoting is something Jeff and the team has been aware of for a while, there has even been a blog post about it. One of the recent changes Jeff made to avoid this is the timed voting, which means you can't reverse a vote after a certain period of time. There is also scripts in place t...

M.A.Ramezani

Oh, I've missed that for sure.

Damkerng T.

19:02

The second would be understood as "He is something". — Stephie 7 hours ago

Oh, this might be the reason that gave rise to "have got"!

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm, @Dam is in he is something is a copula right?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

M.A.Ramezani

Good. I might write an answer to that question.

omg OMG OMG

Anonymous

Keep in mind the auxiliary status of stative have varies by dialect

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm?

Anonymous

19:13

books.google.com/…

Anonymous

(In CGEL, they call it 'stative'; in ASItEG, they call it 'static'. Same thing.)

M.A.Ramezani

Ahan.

Hmm. . . @Dam am I the only one here that didn't know of a, say, inchoative aspect?

Anonymous

Often called ingressive aspect

M.A.Ramezani

Well

YAY! I learned something new today! Fireworks

Anonymous

Linguistics has a zillion terms.

M.A.Ramezani

19:22

Like tmesis.

Anonymous

And conation!

M.A.Ramezani

O.O What in the world is Ryukyuan?

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani You're not alone. :-)

Anonymous

Ryukyuan languages

Anonymous

Spoken on the Ryukyu islands

M.A.Ramezani

19:23

Hehehe that's a hard spelling thingy.

Anonymous

in English Language Learners, Mar 31 at 13:59, by snailboat

That is, people who aren't terribly happy with the idea of explicitly teaching grammar with all those fancy words like apodosis, tmesis, mediopassive, optative, boulomaic, abessive, phasic, hodiernal, and those other words linguists secretly make up just to see students suffer

2

M.A.Ramezani

Specially on the internet.

It certainly feels good to be evil.

O.O my messages came in in a reversed order.

Anonymous

Yeah, SE chat is kind of weird.

Anonymous

It shouldn't be hard to keep messages sequenced, but apparently the code doesn't do that.

Damkerng T.

If someone says, "John's a book," will you think for maybe half a second that they might mean John is really a book?

M.A.Ramezani

19:28

Aaargh! Do I have to add in English every time I want a Google result about English in English?!

Damkerng T.

Ah, a better sentence, "John's a cook".

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. I'd think that for way more than half a second.

Then I'd feel a big unease.

Damkerng T.

:D

M.A.Ramezani

Because it's not an ELL's chatroom, I'd wonder how to teach 'em English that doesn't sound awkward for them.

Damkerng T.

"John's a cook. He's so rich." (The first 's works either when you think of it as has or is.)

Anonymous

19:31

@M.A.Ramezani Add a search with &lr=lang_en in it, like google.com/search?q=%s&lr=lang_en

Anonymous

The %s is a placeholder for your browser to replace with your search term

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. I'd definitely think it's the is version.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Not in my dialect. Always is, is.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

But I can imagine it in another dialect. Though I'm not a native speaker of another dialect.

Anonymous

19:32

I'm only a native speaker of my own :-)

Damkerng T.

It's easier for me to think of it in both dialects. I have no real dialect I think!

Anonymous

Well, you've got a lect.

Anonymous

It's an idiolect.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! True!

M.A.Ramezani

I have a dialect. It's right here. Say hullo to @snail and @Dam dialect!

Damkerng T.

19:34

hullo is the new hello!

M.A.Ramezani

HULLO! I AM A DIALECT.

Dialect, @Dam. @Dam, dialect.

Hmm. . . A question.

@Dam @Snail other than versions, what other word is appropriate to refer to the relation between Windows and XP, 7, 8, 8.1 etc.?

Damkerng T.

Version is the best word, imho.

M.A.Ramezani

This hit my mind because this funny meta.SE question:

-3

Q: Which site can I ask about the different flavors of Windows OS?

I want to ask questions about the different flavors of Windows OS but am not sure which site is best. Super User, Server Fault, Stack Overflow, other?

support site-recommendation

Damkerng T.

Flavor makes me think of not only the version.

M.A.Ramezani

. . .But the flavor also.

Damkerng T.

19:39

Maybe Home, Professional, Ultimate, and such.

M.A.Ramezani

Makes me think of banana.

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani Why "other than version"?

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat Am just curious. What's the nearest synonym to version in this case?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, that's the same impression I get

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani Dunno!

Anonymous

19:40

Revision isn't quite the same thing, but it's the closest I can think of...

M.A.Ramezani

@snailboat Nah. Dunno [exclamation mark] isn't exactly a synonym.

Damkerng T.

Another possibility is maybe edition.

I'm not sure, but maybe Windows Media Center is an edition.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. No, the edition refers to home, ultimate etc..

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani According to Microsoft?

(I haven't checked.)

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. According to unicorns.

But yeah.

Damkerng T.

19:42

I see.

M.A.Ramezani

If not MS, then something just as official.

Cuz it says home edition.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think I've heard only Windows Home lately--enough that I'm not sure what Home is anymore.

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. A dog house.

Damkerng T.

Microsoft wouldn't agree with you. :P

M.A.Ramezani

That's their problem, not mine.

Damkerng T.

19:46

In other news, the YouTube app on my old iPad doesn't work anymore.

(Not really on-topic, but I've watched mobile ads for 5 minutes straight already!)

M.A.Ramezani

20:14

Hey @snail I think I got you a populist badge on meta.ELL.

M.A.Ramezani

22:50

What the? What in the world is lojban?

Damkerng T.

@M.A.Ramezani A synthetic language.

I know two such languages (and know that there are more): Lojban and Esperanto. Not that I can speak any of them.

M.A.Ramezani

I wonder how famous it is.

Damkerng T.

The most well-known one would be Esperanto.

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm. . . The big question: Should I learn it?

Damkerng T.

My simple answer is no. :-)

Esperanto was made with the intention to replace English as a lingua franca. (or so I've heard)

But I think most people would simply use English.

Also, they try to make it language-neutral, to which I think not very successful.

Unless all languages in the world are European ones.

If we were to make a new lingua franca language that's easy for everyone to learn, I think we'd want letters from English, sounds from Japanese (but no pitch-accent), and (ahem!) grammar from Thai. :P

M.A.Ramezani

23:00

Well, I'd learn it.

It seems good for coding stuff I don't want ~~you~~ people to understand.

Damkerng T.

I wonder how practical it is.

M.A.Ramezani

They say its grammar doesn't have exceptions, exceptionally.

Damkerng T.

Well, when a language has no exceptions, you can expect that it's not practical.

M.A.Ramezani

Yes, only good for labeling stuff.

Which is what I'm gonna do with it.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! It's up to you anyway. :D

M.A.Ramezani

23:04

Taji toji teejy joo.

lojban.github.io/cll/2/1

Hey it might be good for my English too. . . I might understand it better.

Damkerng T.

Could be; though I doubt that because you're multilingual already.

M.A.Ramezani

OK, I'll understand it better with some impurities.

Like water vapor - the classic lab headache.

Damkerng T.

:-)

Damkerng T.

23:18

Lojban

Lojban (pronounced [ˈloʒban]) is a constructed, syntactically unambiguous human language based on predicate logic, succeeding the Loglan project. The name "Lojban" is a compound formed from loj and ban, which are short forms of logji (logic) and bangu (language). The Logical Language Group (LLG) began developing Lojban in 1987. The LLG sought to realize Loglan's purposes, and further improve the language by making it more usable and freely available (as indicated by its official full English title, "Lojban: A Realization of Loglan"). After a long initial period of debating and testing, the baseline...

> It is a trite remark and a true one, that ' there are now more books printed than can be read.'
--The Boston Literary Magazine, 1833

Somehow I find it irony!

M.A.Ramezani

why?

Damkerng T.

The date (well, the year).

M.A.Ramezani

Still don't get it.

Damkerng T.

I wonder what the author would say if he learned about the Internet.

M.A.Ramezani

Oh!

Damkerng T.

23:34

Perhaps, It is a trite remark and a true one, that ' there are now more books printed than can be read, far more than everyone everywhere in the world can come together and try to help read all of them, not to mention all endless videos we can never entirely exhaust the availability.'

M.A.Ramezani

Let's burn YouTube down.

Damkerng T.

:D

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