Language Overflow - 2015-08-30

« first day (72 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3160 days later) »

5:32 AM

I found some here: blog.udemy.com/repetition-in-poetry . Care to try to identify which it is? :-) My head started hurting after three or four terms. — Victor Bazarov yesterday

> And, as he stoop'd again to take it up,
The mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff
That down fell priest and book and book and priest:
'Now take them up,' quoth he, 'if any list.'’

Maybe commoratio, maybe epimone, I think.

(Also, I guessed the pronunciation of epimone wrong.)

5:57 AM

I don't get it..however. the word "up" there is an adjective,right? — 오준수 yesterday

Yes. Like in "time is up". — Victor Bazarov yesterday

That's actually an interesting question. What is this up?

Though knowing what it is is probably not the most important thing for learners, imho--knowing what it means and knowing how to use it right is far more important--it's still interesting to analyze what this up is.

I have a hunch that it may not be an adjective.

I want my CGEL now, but I have to wait Kinokuniya to confirm me when they get hold of the book and ready to ship it to me, which will take about 4-6 weeks.

2 hours later…

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

7:59 AM

@DamkerngT. How. Ever, I've never heard "up time".

Hullo @happenask! For discussion, please visit ELL's Cabin: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/22937/ells-cabin

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:15 AM

@Snail you're the 7th most active chat user of all time, in all of SE.

@Dam you're 12th.

I'm 104th.

8:56 AM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Yay, besides being Sir Commentsalot, I'm also Chatsalot!

0

Q: I'd like to ask how much money I have to pay for the swimming pool in the hotel

Here's the context: I have gone on a trip and am staying at a hotel. I'd like to ask how much money I have to pay for the swimming pool in the hotel. I'd like to ask how much money it costs me to use the swimming pool. Can I omit 'money' here? I'd like to ask how much it is t...

sentence-construction

Hmm... I can't remember any hotel that I've used and had to pay for the swimming pool!

Is there such a hotel?!

Paying for swimming in the pool at a sport club is, otoh, common.

Hmm... which is more common: a sport club or a sports club?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Sportz club.

LOL

1 hour later…

Anonymous

10:23 AM

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=20940

Anonymous

I feel like this is something we've discussed before, but I'm too lazy to search.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

10:50 AM

@Stoney yeah, that didn't beat me.

@snailboat Ah, I think that's about that tweet.

BTW, good morning!

Hmm... the plural ratios are a little lower than I expected.

I expected it would've been something like 90%+.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It's actually 5 a.m. there. O.o

11:25 AM

@snailboat It goes way back: ell.stackexchange.com/q/1269/32

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB IIRC there was also some discussion between Snail and Damking in another chatroom about it.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I can't remember or find what this refers to - but I'm glad you're unbeaten.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB "Divide" -> "Parse"; "Decorate" -> "Modify"

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 'doh! (I'm still on my first cup of coffee, so I'm slow.)

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I really like this version of DT's handle.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Hee, he himself doesn't like to be called a king. And @Damking doesn't ping him. :\

12:03 PM

Can we go for a simpler one by putting such instead of kind(s)? A straightforward instruction: Such problem should/must/is(to) be avoided. The word such does refer to kind(s) of. Correct me if I'm wrong. — Maulik V Nov 28 '13 at 6:29

Such problem is ungrammatical, afaik.

@DamkerngT. Yes. Either Such a problem or Such problems.

nods -- So I'm not sure why it's gotten an upvote.

I remember that I've brought this type(s)/kind(s) of X(s) a few times.

Perhaps in another room.

Ah, I found that comment of mine!

I just found the Usage note on this page, which I think is useful: oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/kind. According to the Usage, "The plural of kind often causes difficulty. With this or that, speaking of one kind, use a singular construction: [...] The ungrammatical use 'these kind' rather than 'these kinds' (as in 'these kind of questions are not relevant') has been recorded since the 14th century, and although often encountered today, it should be avoided." — Damkerng T. May 13 at 2:53

The more tricky one is these kinds of X, which is relatively rare in the corpus I've tried.

yesterday, by Damkerng T.

World map with countries in size of their stock market: http://wef.ch/1h8Sm2M ht @ValaAfshar http://t.co/WBS4zxKqwe

Tweeted by dinapomeranz on August 27, 2015 at 1:37 AM

The message in the tweet is interesting. It's with countries in size of their stock market.

My hunch is with countries in size of their stock markets would sound better.

But the Twitter user is a native speaker (afaict).

@DamkerngT. I actually would question that, based the earliest publication listed on her directory profile.

looking...

hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=603214&facInfo=pub

> Pomeranz, Dina D. "Wirtschaftswissenschaft im Dienste der Armen: Ökonomen propagieren neue Evaluationsmethoden in der Entwicklungshilfe." Neue Zürcher Zeitung (March 13, 2008). View Details

12:17 PM

Thanks for the link!

translate: Wirtschaftswissenschaft im Dienste der Armen: Ökonomen propagieren neue Evaluationsmethoden in der Entwicklungshilfe

(from German) Economic science in the service of the poor: economists promote new evaluation methods in development aid

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

"Germans tend to have subtle grammar errors in their English." - Says an analysis of the Germans in The Periodic Table

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Americans, however, tend to have gross grammar errors.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Is that an analysis performed by Germans or analysis on Germans?

:/

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@jimsug between Germans.

12:20 PM

between Germans, about Germans? :P

Ah, ambiguity.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Around Germans.

@jimsug And how many Germans are there in the periodic table?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB Lemme count. 3 at least.

There used to be 4.

My mind went straight to a lightbulb joke for some reason.

> How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb?

> None. The lightbulb does not break at all, if manufactured in Germany

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hah I've heard that!

12:22 PM

or

> One. They are efficient and don't have humor.

:/

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

:\

Are you German?

or

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

or

Haha! I can say that there is some truth in those sayings.

> We have Gastarbeiter for that.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12:23 PM

Haha!

I think I was qualified as a "guest worker" back then, though my visa would've said otherwise.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Clockwise?

The first thing I noticed when I arrived at my room was the door. Doors in Germany make virtually all the doors in my house look like toys.

@DamkerngT. Aha! Now I understand why your English is so good - you lived in Germany!

I haven't! I've just spent only approx. two months in total.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12:27 PM

I wish I could go to some English-speaking country for two months.

I lived in Austria for six months, but I had to learn German from reading. Nobody would speak German with me.

Though I used English to communicate with friends and colleagues, we were all non-native speakers, and my grammar wasn't really good.

I feel like France was a little reluctant to help me learn.

(French, that is. Not German.)

I didn't actually try to speak German in France, so perhaps a missed opportunity there.

@StoneyB A funny thing is, when someone said "Thank you" in German, I thought they called my name every time!

2

I did try to speak French in the German part of Switzerland, though. That was awkward.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

12:28 PM

Danke is the only word I know from German.

@Stoney what does ich mean?

rauchen verboten

@jimsug They don't even speak German in the German part of Switzerland.

@StoneyB That could be true. The only empirical evidence I have is that they don't speak French :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Is ich an article?

'Cause I see it in their messages a lot.

Isn't it I?

12:30 PM

it's I.

Ich bien herein.

German ich sounds very distinctive.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

g-block elements

One does not simply speak English 24/7. (This is the german Fo...

@Stoney there's somewhere for you to speak German in.

But they're not present right now.

Where I was, though, it was generally spoken i.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M That's OK. I haven't actually spoken German since 1962.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well those are native Germans and seeing the transcript could be a learner opportunity.

12:32 PM

Hey, man, I'm still trying to learn English!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I thought it's a losing battle to learn a language.

It won't be, if you don't see it as a battle. ;-)

It's a question of how much time you can put into it.

And I've always been of the opinion that learning to do something you'll do often is a lot more useful than something you don't do too frequently.

Learning a language is a lot more difficult when/if you don't practise regularly - that's pretty much undisputed.

There's a lot of debate, though, about what you should practise.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

K guys I'm heading to the Kung Fu class, see y'all later!

12:37 PM

Happy Kung Fu-ing!

Break some faces.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@StoneyB See, that's why I'd be a good mod.

JR sets em up, MAR takes em out, jimsug lugs the guts into the neighbour room.

2

I wonder if they teach the Buddha Palm style in your class.

user image

(BTW, I think the Buddha Palm style is only fictional, though I'm not really sure.)

That hand looks like five fingers and no thumb.

12:40 PM

The photo was from Kung Fu Hustle.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. My hands aren't that big.

We missed that one in my Film Crit courses.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Oh, that's the effect of the style. Your "chi" will amplify the size of your hand.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

OK I don't have any Greek letters.

Perhaps it's spelled "qi" in pinyin.

12:41 PM

(Rho, rho, rho your boat ...)

@StoneyB Hehe!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Now I wonder, is the guy pressed down, or is the hand pushing him up? O.o

It's spelled <chi> in Dungeons & Dragons.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M The guy on the floor used the Toad style. He attacked our protagonist up into the sky. The protagonist retaliated with the Buddha Palm style (from up above).

Hardware store's opening now, so I gotta run buy a new input valve: my toilet's trying to swallow the entire upper Mississippi.

12:54 PM

Aww... see you later! Hope you'll find the right valve there!

What they taught me in the scene shop: if it don't fit, force it.

Haha!

3 hours later…

3:46 PM

@sna chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/23612438#23612438

Hmm... ? Why dat no show snailboat's comment?

You would have to reply to it, @JimReynolds here's the reply number - :23612438

Hi! Long time no see youse guyses and girlses.

@JimReynolds Hi :D Have you been busy? I've missed seeing you!

I wander if my absinthe is effecting my language scills.

@JimReynolds Well, too much absinthe can do that to anyone.

3:51 PM

:-)

It makth the heart grow fonder, for sure.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@JimReynolds It has to be without any other text.

Oh!

Where di you come from?

You scared me.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Zis chatception thingy iz cool

Yes, I'm just working a lot, Cat.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@JimReynolds Milky way G., Solar S., Earth P.

3:52 PM

:'(

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

LIES!

Aug 23 at 8:52, by snailboat

@JimReynolds That's an example of one of those asyndetic coordination thingies. I sometimes leave out coordinators. I'm not sure why. What do you think?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Now rinse and repeat.

Working a lot at imagining ways to destroy inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

He still hasn't inverse-unmirrored his name, even though I directly expressed my disapproval?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Good luck with that. You're gonna need it. I totally didn't learn this from a movie.

3:53 PM

I will talk about him as if he is not here until that's taken care of.

O.O

He should take all the pills.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yes. Only 3261 of them isn't enough.

asyndetic coordination thingies -- snailboat is getting more and more technical.

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Me, prolly. O.O

Incisely!!

I searched for "inception quotes" and that was at the top of the list.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Postcisely!

3:58 PM

O.0

O.o

o.O

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

0.0

Stop chatflooding.

Or floodchatting? jimsug would know.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I SAID STOP!

O.O

7 mins ago, by inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@JimReynolds Milky way G., Solar S., Earth P.

And U?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

No U too.

4:01 PM

What is larger than the universe,
More evil than the devil or inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M
Poor people have lots of it,
Rich people need it,
And if you eat it, you will die?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

McDonald's hamburger.

I improved it. Accurifiedated it.

How did you know that???

O.0

0.O

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Some people think.

Then there's you.

@JimReynolds Nothing.

4:37 PM

:-)

@jims

"The meta site is in shades of grey."

-1

Q: what is english?

Good evening everyone. I'm Muning waves. I don't know if you allowed this kind of question but I just want to try luck. I've been looking for a website or forum where I could post anything and everything in English. Where I share my thoughts, ideas and opinions. That there's also a person who has...

sentence-construction

I find @Catija's comment, quoted above, to be itself meta. I'm not sure what that makes this observation. O.O

Hmm? @JimReynolds

Your comment, "The meta site is in shades of grey", can have a double meaning. I'm just being silly.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

5:44 PM

@Dam check the meta; I wrote something about closing.

3 hours later…

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

8:55 PM

@Dam you here?

Please! I want someone to tell me "stats" can mean "number".

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Huh?

Can you use it in a sentence?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well I'm doing research on how many close votes age away.

On not-so-big SEs, aging away means the vote was unjustified 99% of the time.

ok...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Then I suddenly realized; my table column description says "question stats"; while under it I've only written the number of the questions in the site.

Here's a link @Cat:

0

A: Formatting Sandbox—please test stuff here

\begin{array}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}\hline {\small \color{red}{\mathbf{Site~Name}}} & {\small \mathit{x} \downarrow} & {\small \mathbf{\color{blue}{Question~Stats}}} & {\small \mathbf{\color{green}{Answer~Stats}}} & {\small \mathbf{\color{magenta}{Visits/day}}} & {\small \mathbf{\color{brown}{QPD}}} & ...

Oh, I'd use "qty" for quantity. Or simply "quantity". It's not really a number, either, it's an amount.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:01 PM

Does that mean I should change the wording?

"stats" doesn't really mean what you want it to there... it's sort of confusing to me. I think SE uses "questions asked"...

Or you could do "total questions" ...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It's not really questions asked because it doesn't take deleted questions into account.

Though, that might make it confusing... is it all questions ever asked, including deleted ones...

But that's where you put a little asterisk and explain what it means.

You could also use "existing questions"...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Megafacepalm Why didn't I think of "total" before? I need to get some sleep.

´◣д◢`@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I saw that art piece in one of the other answers... it's odd... it sort of looks like boobs in a bikini...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:08 PM

WHAT?!

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M It does... I don't know what it's supposed to be of.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Which answer?

0

A: Formatting Sandbox—please test stuff here

Predefined colors are limited. ಠ_ಠ I hate limits. (´◣д◢`+) But, fear not my internet friends, for we have $\mathrm{\color{red}{R}\color{green}{G}\color{blue}{B}}$. For those not in the know. So let's get colorful: \begin{array}{|c:c|c:c|c:c|} \hline \#000000 & {\rm \small \color{#000000}{Black}} &...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

(´◣д◢`+) <-- This?

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Yes... that's what I put in my original message.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:12 PM

Well it's an angry face. Like, very angry.

Wait how on Earth does that look like boobs?!

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Have you never seen boobs in a bikini top?

user image

user image

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

So should any two black triangles look like boobs in a bikini?

That second one is more like the "angry face".

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well congrats for the simile of the century. :)

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M No... but it has that little symbol in the middle that looks like cleavage.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

9:16 PM

It's a letter; I dunno, maybe Russian.

And it's supposed to be a mouth open wide, shouting.

De (Д д; italics: Д д) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. De commonly represents the voiced dental plosive /d/, like the pronunciation of ⟨d⟩ in admit. De is romanized using the Latin letter D. == History == The Cyrillic letter De was derived from the Greek letter Delta (Δ δ). In the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was добро (dobro), meaning "good". In the Cyrillic numeral system, De had a value of 4. == Form == The major graphic difference between De and its modern Greek equivalent lies in the two descenders ("feet") below the lower corners of the Cyrillic letter. The descenders were borrowed...

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Why would a mouth be between your eyes?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Because you can't put it lower in a chatroom.

I have to go help my husband finish the beer brewing process...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

You mean the ritual.

9:34 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Ritual?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Da beer brewing ritual.

Bah, nevermind.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M It's more science than anything. I don't even drink it, I just help him make it sometimes. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

user image

HA HA... nice.

« first day (72 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3160 days later) »

Transcript for

Aug '1530

Language Overflow

This is the main chat room for ell.stackexchange.com. Welcome!

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile