Language Overflow

Man_From_India

01:28

@CowperKettle It's nothing new. I mean to doubt the existance of god. Many people have done, is doing that. Many even wrote about it and got published. Remember the famous Times magazine cover story Is God dead?

It doesn't make sense that for writing something like that you get killed, or get dragged to court etc.

CowperKettle

04:13

@snailboat I think their webserver ate the "=" sign.

But I can't understand why "and" equals "if"

Good morning, Snails, Damkerng!

@Man_From_India Yes, that is why (or "this is why") this case has concerned many here. That guy was merely trolling in a religious community in Vkontakte. That deserved banning, well, maybe a fine of a couple of thousands of rubles, but he has been subjected to psychiatric evaluation, staying in a hospital for a month, and now faces a real jail term.

This is just unbelievable, it's like we're in the 19th century.

@snailboat Poor ducks! (0:

tchrist

04:40

@CowperKettle 17th

CowperKettle

05:05

@tchrist century?

Lipogram

A lipogram (from Ancient Greek: λειπογράμματος, leipográmmatos, "leaving out a letter") is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting in writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is avoided—usually a common vowel, and frequently E, the most common letter in the English language. Larousse defines a lipogram as a "literary work in which one compels oneself strictly to exclude one or several letters of the alphabet". Extended Ancient Greek texts avoiding the letter sigma are the earliest examples of lipograms. Writing a lipogram may be a trivial...

Anonymous

05:26

Well, then is there a call to stop answering questions in a comment? If one is too lazy or busy to provide a real answer that requires real effort, shouldn't they desist from posting a comment-answer? It is very often high rep folks that do this. — Wyatt 2 mins ago

Anonymous

This originally said:

Anonymous

> It is @snailboat and others of high rep that often do this.

Anonymous

Darn that comment-answering snailboat :-(

Damkerng T.

07:49

I hope this comment of mine is not a comment-answer!

Speaking from experience, I think it takes about 3 hint-comments to make a good answer. :-)

Anonymous

Definitely not an answer.

Anonymous

in' is an interesting case, since the velar stop originally indicated by g is gone in the usual pronunciation of ng, and n' indicates a different nasal than ng rather than indicating something is actually omitted.

Anonymous

I wish I had an easy way to type IPA on my phone.

CowperKettle

09:03

The World's Worst Business Babble Translated Into Human Speak

I searched for 'business babble' after reading this moronic piece of business babble:

0

Q: what is the meaning of long-term enduring?

As Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh recently shared with me, “If employees weren’t happy, they would not make customers happy. If customers weren’t happy, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We believe that if we get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like delivering great service, or building ...

meaning

Damkerng T.

09:14

@CowperKettle Human Speak!

The word Human Speak makes me think that speaking is not what humans (people) normally do.

Hmm... Whiteboard it? That sounds a bit outdated. :P

CowperKettle

11:29

What other tags that we can use exists in this site? — 박용현 6 mins ago

@DamkerngT. (0:

I wonder is there's a page with a full list of all the ELL tags.

IͶΔ

@CowperKettle Other than the tags page?

CowperKettle

@IͶΔ The tags page?

IͶΔ

ell.stackexchange.com/tags

CowperKettle

Thanks!

IͶΔ

You've gotta be kidding me, mister CKettle

CowperKettle

11:40

I'm reading about the construction of fats, glycerine and stuff, and getting distracted by ELL.

IͶΔ

Burn ELL

@Fard Persian.

We don't call a clock "Sa'at" in English. We shouldn't call Persian "Farsi" either.

IͶΔ

12:07

Hullo @Varun

Fard

12:34

@IͶΔ Surprised that you don't distinguish between ordinary nouns and proper nouns. There are better arguments in favor of "Persian".

IͶΔ

@Fard Language names are not treated like proper nouns.

And it's not called ordinary nouns, thankuverymuch

Fard

But they should be treated like other proper nouns.

Crazy Ninja

hi

Fard

Hey!

Crazy Ninja

I am going to write an email to the manager

I need some help

Fard

12:46

regarding?

Crazy Ninja

My account(work reporting tool) was blocked last week because of attempting 3 times with a wrong password

after that my account was automatically blocked

So, I had to write an email the to management in order to unlock it

Fard

Good luck with it!

Crazy Ninja

after unlocking it, i had to change the password

so i did

But now again I forgot it. My browser didn't save the password for that webpage

So, I want some help to write this email

:(

Fard

You should keep your passwords and stuff somewhere safe.

Crazy Ninja

my fault.

Fard

12:49

Well I hope there'll be no problem.

Crazy Ninja

but now i need to recover this again

IͶΔ

@Fard Do you think Japanese people call their language "Japanese"?

Fard

The worst thing is you'll have to set up a new account. Is that too bad?

IͶΔ

'Nuff said

Fard

@IͶΔ You mean you don't wanna continue the discussion about this?

Crazy Ninja

12:50

will this work?

Hi.
I apologies for losing my password again. Please be patient enough to reset my account.
User Name : xyz

Kind regards,
Ninja

IͶΔ

I would, but is there more to discuss?

@CrazyNinja Yes

Fard

@IͶΔ We can ask some English speaking people

Crazy Ninja

@IͶΔ No need any modification for it?

Fard

who have Persian acquaintances

IͶΔ

@Fard How would their stance be any more helpful?

Crazy Ninja

12:52

Is it better to mention that i had a issue with the browser?

IͶΔ

@CrazyNinja I apologize.

And you reset the password, not the account.

Fard

We can ask them how their Persian acquaintances call their language.

Crazy Ninja

@IͶΔ yes. the password

IͶΔ

@Fard This is pretty straightforward: "Farsi" is a transliteration, and "Persian" has been the word for some centuries. Why do we want to change that?

@CrazyNinja But you've written "reset my account".

Crazy Ninja

@IͶΔ sorry. it should be 'password'

IͶΔ

12:54

OK then we're done.

Fard

@IͶΔ Farsi (فارسی‎ fārsi),[23] or Parsi (پارسی‎) has been the name for Persian used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for political reasons, in English, Farsi has become the name of the Persian language as it is spoken in Iran.

Persian language

Persian (/ˈpɜːrʒən/ or /ˈpɜːrʃən/; فارسی fārsi [fɒːɾˈsiː]) is the predominant modern descendant of Old Persian, a southwestern Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan (officially known as Dari since 1958 for political reasons), and Tajikistan (officially known as Tajiki since the Soviet era for political reasons), and some other regions which historically came under Persian influence. The Persian language is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanid...

Dari (دری‎ darī)[24] was a synonym for fārsi in Persian, but again for political reasons, since the latter decades of the 20th century, has become the name for the Persian language as it is spoken in Afghanistan, where it is one of the two official languages; it is sometimes called Afghan Persian in English.[25]

IͶΔ

@Fard And we're not politicians, are we?

Fard

I'm saying all things being equal, "farsi" is a better choice.

IͶΔ

It isn't.

Fard

And nowadays Farsi is used among foreigners like Persian is.

IͶΔ

12:57

I'm entitled to my choice, you to yours. None of us is more correct.

Fard

:0)

What about "Dari"? :P

IͶΔ

:O

It's contagious @Cowper.

Fard

OK. I better go now. Have a nice day.

IͶΔ

@Fard I'd just call it Dari.

Persian is the language spoken in Iran. Nothing will change that.

Fard

Iranian people call it Farsi. This may change in the course of time, but not any soon.

Damkerng T.

13:01

There seems to be an argument for either side. Personally, I'm fine with either.

IͶΔ

@Fard I'm Iranian.

Damkerng T.

But in an international context, I think writing something like Persian (Farsi) may probably be clearer.

IͶΔ

Yeah sure.

Fard

Interestingly enough, Oxford Dictionary has them as synonyms (if you go through the definitions.)

Damkerng T.

For example, I don't think Japanese people call their language Japanese in their own language, but when they speak English, they wouldn't call their language Nihon-go, either, I think.

IͶΔ

13:02

@Fard The distinctions they're trying to make are pretty meaningless and arbitrary.

Damkerng T.

On the other hand, Chinese people on the main land wouldn't call their language Chinese even when they speak English. They'd call it Mandarin.

Fard

Good for Chinese people on that.

Damkerng T.

Chinese languages and dialects are quite complicated, as far as I can tell.

However, I think they'd still call their writing characters "Chinese characters".

Fard

Well, they're two separate cases.

China is the name of their country.

Chinese would be fine for their language.

Nowadays, we call our country Iran.

Iranian would have been clear enough for our language.

But Persian ...

IͶΔ

Takes a step back to realize how weird 'the Iranian language' sounds like

Fard

13:07

Yeah. You're right.

IͶΔ

I still prefer Persian to anything non-Persian.

Fard

I was just hypothesizing.

But it's not stranger than Chinese.

IͶΔ

Farsi makes me a bit uneasy when I'm speaking English, just like how Persian makes me uneasy when I'm speaking Persian.

Fard

Habit?

IͶΔ

Farsi's just a romanization of a Persian word. Persian is the name of a language certain human beings talk in.

Damkerng T.

13:09

Maybe something similar happened to several cities and countries. I mean, people sometimes changed their names in English.

Fard

Well, Persian is not English @DamkerngT.

It's Greek.

IͶΔ

And Greek is cool.

Damkerng T.

Some well-known examples are Bombay (Mumbai), Peking (Beijing), Burma, etc.

IͶΔ

Mhm.

Damkerng T.

@Fard The way I see it, it's English in English contexts.

IͶΔ

13:10

Etymology kicks in.

Just because a word has roots in Latin or Greek or whatever doesn't mean it's still in those languages after it's been used in another language a lot.

Damkerng T.

But you sure know more about the etymology of the word than me. Then again, I don't really think it's relevant in English. We can settle it down to anything most of us agree upon.

Fard

Exactly.

IͶΔ

Persian, that is.

Fard

I'm not gonna argue like that. :)

CowperKettle

@IͶΔ What is contagious?

Damkerng T.

13:13

I remember that there was a time almost nobody knew what country Myanma is.

It took a while.

IͶΔ

16 mins ago, by Fard

:0)

CowperKettle

Ah.

Damkerng T.

(0:

Fard

I have a nice nose.

IͶΔ

Fard

13:14

Image not found.

IͶΔ

(/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

Fard

Now found.

Well, if you prove it, I'll accept. But it's not math or something. It's how we decide to settle it down.

I agree that Persian is cooler.

Well, we won't be able to settle it between the two of us.

More people are needed.

IͶΔ

@Dam be the Thai-breaker. :P

Fard

But we agreed on Dari, no? :)

IͶΔ

We did.

Damkerng T.

13:17

@IͶΔ Hehe! It's a homonym!

Fard

OK. Now I can go with piece of mind. Have a nice day/night everybody.

Damkerng T.

I don't think I'm qualified to give my vote on the matter.

Yay! See you soon!

Peace!

IͶΔ

War!

Damkerng T.

Saying 'Peace' makes me feel a decade older. :P

@IͶΔ Well, a decade or two ago, Peace (out) as a farewell was common.

IͶΔ

@Fard Bye! It's called Persian. :P

BTW, interesting discussion here between me and Stoney @Fard:

Aug 16 '15 at 12:29, by StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Style is self-revelation ... May I ask Why you prefer Persian?

Aug 16 '15 at 12:25, by StoneyB

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M By the way, I've been meaning to ask: do you refer to your native language as Persian or as Farsi?

Damkerng T.

13:22

I think most speakers who know both words would be okay with either.

IͶΔ

Yeah. But it's always fun to argue.

CowperKettle

14:02

Lilliput and Blefuscu

Lilliput and Blefuscu are two fictional island nations that appear in the first part of the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The two islands are neighbours in the South Indian Ocean, separated by a channel eight hundred yards wide. Both are inhabited by tiny people who are about one-twelfth the height of ordinary human beings. Both kingdoms are empires, i.e. realms ruled by a self-styled emperor. The capital of Lilliput is Mildendo. == Geography == Swift gives the location of Lilliput and Blefuscu as Latitude 30°2′S, to the northwest of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). Because this...

Damkerng T.

15:20

0

Q: What are we going to do now? / What will we do now?

I and my friend discussed a grammar exercise related to future tenses like this: We seem to be completely lost. What (we, do) _________ now? For me, 'what are we going to do now' sounds much more natural than 'what will we do now' in this case. My friend asked me why but I had no idea. I s...

future-tense future-time

The OP linked to a blog post: phrasemix.com/blog/…

Let's jump to the highlighted part:

> "I'm __ing" is for things that you have solid plans for: "I'm meeting them for lunch in 10 minutes."
"I'm going to" is for things you intend to do: "I'm going to wake up at 7:15 tomorrow."
"I will" involves deciding (an act of will, if you will...) at that moment: "OK, I'll call you later then."

I think the analysis is not wrong, but as it appears to me, it's misleading.

(Then again, it's really hard to get this kind of stuff right. Particularly, if the one who does the analysis is a native speaker.)

(Why? You may wonder. It's because we, as native speakers of our own languages, aren't familiar with seeing things like a robot.)

(Umm... I mean a learner. But really, when it comes to learning a second language, a learner and a robot are not that different from each other.)

Back to the article...

I think the article focuses too much in the analysis on the use of going to vs. will with I.

It could be different with he or she or we or they.

Still, it's not easy to explain in the one-size-fits-all manner.

So...

back to the OP's question:

> Could I explain to my friend, in that case, it means:
'what are we going to do now?' = 'What do we intend to do now?"
'what will we do now?' = 'what do we decide to do now?"

I'd say, yes, and no.

> a) We seem to be completely lost. What are we going to do now?

> b) We seem to be completely lost. What will we do now?

> c) We seem to be completely lost. What should we do now?

(The question didn't mention c), which I think is another natural choice, but this kind of exercise is like that, it wouldn't include the most natural choices. Isn't that strange? An exercise for teaching someone to learn another language purposely excludes some natural choices just to force the learner to focus only on the choices the exercise wants to focus on.)

I'd say a) is what the exercise wants. And the exercise designer overlooked something, and that something is that b) could work, too, though it would suggest a different thing.

BTW...

The author of the blog is a native speaker, but I'm not.

(Oh, but I've already said that this kind of analysis could be native speakers' disadvantage.)

Hello, @anonymister! Welcome to the room!

Anonymous

Hey there.I was just checking all the site rooms :D

Damkerng T.

15:35

Ah, I see! :D

CowperKettle

15:55

Can we have standalone sentences without a predicate in this way: "Today I review a poem by John Keats. A deep reflection on human life, expressed in powerful words".

(The second sentence)

Russian allows sentences of this kind.

Damkerng T.

Ah, a quote in my recent post may answer your question.

CowperKettle

Really?

Damkerng T.

2

A: Haruki Murakami, Phrases, Em-Dash Use?

There are a few points in your question that we should address differently. Let's begin with the grammatical ones: Is "You said that the mind is like the wind, but perhaps it is we who are like the wind. Knowing nothing, simply blowing through." grammatical? And what is Knowing nothing, simply ...

> Nowadays writing teachers are more likely to recognize that many professional writers use sentence fragments repeatedly and artfully, often several at a time, in criticism, journalism, fiction, biography, history, essays. Often the fragments are linked semantically or syntactically to words in the preceding and following sentences. Some are like appositives in their relation to words that precede or follow. Fragments are still usually avoided, however, in legal, medical, scientific, and engineering documents, treatises, articles, and even correspondence.

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. Thank you!

Damkerng T.

My pleasure!

CowperKettle

16:02

> This text is based on the original Keats's lines.

Hmm..

Would not that mean that there are clones of Keats, and the text is not based on their lines..

I'd remake it into "This text is based on Keats's original lines."

Damkerng T.

I didn't notice it until you pointed it out.

I agree that Keats's original lines is better.

Now I wonder if the s after the apostrophe is really necessary...

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. It's not. It's often written as just Keats'

Damkerng T.

Ahh

@CowperKettle Funny that Gulliver's Travels (the movie) came up several times on my Fox Movies channel this weekend. :D

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. (0:

Damkerng T.

I didn't watch it though, but I had watched it once. Not sure how many years ago.

CowperKettle

16:09

I watched a Soviet version, I believe, ages ago.

Damkerng T.

It's a classic!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. You watched the Soviet version?

Новый Гулливер / The New Gulliver (Александр Птушко, 1935) (En subs)

►

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle I meant the story. I've never watched the Soviet version.

CowperKettle

Ah. (0:

Damkerng T.

The Hollywood remake (2010) has a robot, too, BTW! -- How can Liliputans fight Gulliver? They made a giant robot!

CowperKettle

16:12

It's quite cute in the Stalin-era version, with some funny songs. In the end the capitalists get the boot, of course. (0:

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle I think the music is very Hollywood-like!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. Yes, the matter is, some Russian movies of the pre-war era followed the Hollywood standard in a way. Movies of the light, entertaining kind.

Damkerng T.

nods

What's the boat name? (It looks like APTEK to me.)

CowperKettle

I can't see any English subtitles though.

I wonder how to enable them.

Damkerng T.

Hah! The subtitles aren't the same everywhere?

CowperKettle

16:15

Are you seeing subtitles?

Damkerng T.

Yes!

CowperKettle

Strange. Usually they are enabled using that rounded coglike thingie.

Damkerng T.

I can paste it for you if you want me to.

CowperKettle

I believe you, but when I press the cog icon, no "subtitles" sign is in sight.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I just thought you wanted it for a translation review or something. :-)

CowperKettle

16:18

I was curious as to the quality of the translation.

Damkerng T.

Lemme try pasting it here. (It's 450+ lines long. Not sure if the chat can hold it in one message.)

> 0:54
THE NEW GULLIVER
1:00
Free after the book of Jonathan Swift Written by Alexander Ptushko & Grigory Roshal, text writer S. Bolotin
1:11
directed by Alexander Ptushko
1:19
cameramen I. Shkarenkov, Nikolai Renkov
1:25
puppets and decor Sarra Mokil, Yu Shvets
1:33
artists A. Zharenov, A. Nikulin, sculptor A. Tayozhnaya
1:41
Gulliver: V. Konstantinov
1:47
music Leonid Shvarts sound Ya. Kharon, A. Korobov A. Minin
1:56
MOSKINOKOMBINAT (MOSCOW CINEMA CENTRE), 1935 Subs & add.translation by Eus & Chapaev www.dailymotion.com/eus347

(Hey, it can!)

CowperKettle

Does it allow saving it as a file?

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle I just select and copy the subtitles as a text to the clipboard.

I do that sometimes. When I simply want to "read" a clip. :-)

Hey, it's stop motion!

CowperKettle

Now the subtitles have appeared. After a third reload of the page.

Damkerng T.

That's strange!

CowperKettle

16:23

@DamkerngT. Yes, it's a masterpiece.

So great it has survived all these decades.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I always admire people who work with stop motion. They must be very patient.

CowperKettle

Ah, it's another version that has subtitles:

The new Gulliver 1935 Novyj Gulliver English subs Russian Puppet animation

►

@DamkerngT. Yes.

it has some nice gags

Damkerng T.

Heh!

Hanaa

16:39

Hi!

IͶΔ

Low!

CowperKettle

The Beatles - Hello, Goodbye

►

Good evening, @Hanaa!

IͶΔ

@CowperKettle \o x 4

lekon chekon

16:55

hey.

Hanaa

17:07

1

Q: Is there a word for "undissolved flour" when mixing with water?

When you try to mix any kind of liquid with some dry powder, they don't mix well and you can see those unmixed powder form into sort of bubbles! Is there any good word to describe those? If there is no such word, what would be a concise and clear way to describe those? I was calling it 'unmixed...

word-request

The first time i see these words, clumps and globs which refer to not mixed flour powder.

When i prepare cakes, i always have these powder clumps in the beginning of mixing the ingredients.

Nihilist_Frost

Several of my classmates make pronunciation errors in French class on true friends

lekon chekon

Hey
@Hanaa, and @Nihilist_Frost

Hanaa

@lekonchekon Hi :)

lekon chekon

I'm not good at making small talk.
Having said that..

How was your day? :3

Nihilist_Frost

one of those errors is "favorite"

in my French class many of my classmates insert the "ei" diphthong for the "a" in French because that word has said diphthong in English while it doesn't in French.

Hanaa

17:32

@Nihilist_Frost Do you mean they pronounce it /feɪvərɪt/?

Nihilist_Frost

@Hanaa more like /feɪvərit/

Hanaa

@Nihilist_Frost I pronounce it that way in fact

Nihilist_Frost

@Hanaa In English or French?

Hanaa

@Nihilist_Frost In English

Nihilist_Frost

@Hanaa /ɪ/ is not /i/, but I know non-natives might have problems.

Hanaa

17:40

@Nihilist_Frost Yes

What's the difference??

Nihilist_Frost

@Hanaa I tried helping my parents to try to pronounce it, but I have failed because I didn't grasp the specifics.

Hanaa

@Nihilist_Frost Sorry, but to pronounce what?

Nihilist_Frost

Near-close near-front unrounded vowel

The near-close near-front unrounded vowel, or near-high near-front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɪ⟩, i.e. a small capital letter i. The International Phonetic Association advises serifs on the symbol's ends. Some sans-serif fonts do meet this typographic specification. Prior to 1989, there was an alternate symbol for this sound: ⟨ɩ⟩, the use of which is no longer sanctioned by the IPA. Despite that, some modern writings still use it. The Handbook of the International Phonetic...

English short I

/i/ is this:

Close front unrounded vowel

The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English word meet—and often called long-e in American English—although in English this sound has additional length (usually being represented as /iː/) and is not normally pronounced as a pure vowel (it is a slight diphthong) – a purer [i] sound is heard in many other languages, such as French, in words like chic. The close front unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent...

Hanaa

@Nihilist_Frost Thanks!

IͶΔ

@Nihilist_Frost On true friends?

When I make pronunciation mistakes, it's always under true friends. :P

@Nihilist_Frost ⟨ɩ⟩ is weird.

Transcript for