Language Overflow

Araucaria

00:20

@snailboat What? Did someone say conditionals!?

@snailboat I can't find the conditional, but please fill me in. Am just popping past, but will have a look again tomorrow ... Night all! Not that any of you guys are around. Hasta manana, am hitting the hay.

Anonymous

03:28

captionbot.ai

Anonymous

skill patrol

funny :D

Anonymous

Poor CaptionBot doesn't understand snails.

Anonymous

03:33

It recognized lettuce! :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

Good morning, @snailboat!

Anonymous

Good morning!

CowperKettle

"at a park"? I thought it should say "in a park"

otherwise, spot-on

Anonymous

That's pretty good!

Anonymous

I've been feeding snail pictures to CaptionBot, but it's completely snail-blind. It hasn't noticed the snail in any of them!

Anonymous

03:39

CowperKettle

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Hahah! It's totally snail-blind.

Anonymous

It can recognize the blanket and the cat perfectly, but it has no idea there's a giant snail shell in the picture.

CowperKettle

@snailboat I think snails evolved to be merged with the environment, in order not to be eaten.

Anonymous

03:40

I'm really impressed it recognized the "banana".

Anonymous

(A human probably wouldn't call a slice of banana "a banana", but still.)

CowperKettle

> Who seeks him must be worse than blind,
(He and his house are so combined,)
If, finding it, he fails to find
Its master.

Anonymous

Snail poetry?

CowperKettle

Yes, by Cowper.

"and he seems rectangle"?

Anonymous

That's very odd!

CowperKettle

03:44

The picture is odd?

You know, it does look strange. (0:

Maybe Bill Gates does not like snails.

Anonymous

;_;

Anonymous

CowperKettle

Yes, that image bot won't be hired as a malacologist.

Anonymous

We'd better try out some other mollusks before we give up on it.

Anonymous

CowperKettle

03:52

@snailboat I think this is some strange thing.. Dunno what that is

Anonymous

Wow!

Anonymous

Not cat-blind, that's for sure.

Anonymous

Nicely done, CaptionBot!

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

03:53

"himself"?

CowperKettle

He means, "someone's selfie in a mirror, just before that person applied a brush to their hair"

Anonymous

Haha!

CowperKettle

Anonymous

It's not completely snail-blind!

CowperKettle

03:58

Yay!

johnchae

Hey guys,

CowperKettle

Anonymous

Hi, @johnchae! Feel free to interrupt the captionbot chat if you'd like to talk about English :-)

CowperKettle

@johnchae Good morning!

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Oh no! Cat blindness!

CowperKettle

03:59

Yes. I thought it would 100% recognize the cat!

johnchae

@snailboat: Hey, yes I always come here to talk about English

^^

@CowperKettle Hey there,

CowperKettle

BBL!

V.V.

06:04

Oh, they invented a new mobile chat. But you don't see people present there. That is inconvenient. But you can correct your messages there. Don't know what's better. Found the old version and returned to it.

CowperKettle

06:16

Mobile chat? I'll need to set up some new service plan for my phone to enable Internet access. (0:

Good midday, V.V.!

Anonymous

06:27

@V.V. I use the old version, but when I need to edit I switch to the new version temporarily and go back when I'm done :-)

V.V.

06:48

Morning, Snailboat!

But where is the switch?

I found it. Let's see how correcting works.

It didn't

Anonymous

07:18

Oh no!

Anonymous

Well, you have to edit within 2 minutes of sending the message.

Anonymous

Since I'm a moderator on Japanese.SE, I'm also a chat moderator on SE more generally, and that means I can edit messages at any time.

Anonymous

If you ever really need me to edit or delete a message for you for some reason, feel free to ping me :-)

PhMgBr

I'm pretty sure I felt free to ping @Snail even when I didn't need to have something deleted.

@Snail please edit all my typoes !!flip

Oh wait, this isn't Periodic Table

Anonymous

Hi, LetterletterLetterletterLetterletter!

PhMgBr

07:23

|o

Although I seem to recognize a syntax parse error.

Feel free to call me PhMgBr.

-3

Q: Is asking "why" for kids?

Ok folks, I admit this topic may not be that constructive, or too philosophical, but it may help people write better questions. I tend to be annoyed by questions starting with "why". For at least two reasons : This is the stereotypical question asked by children from the day they can speak. Th...

discussion

O_o

skill patrol

shouldn't that be pH in your username?

PhMgBr

Why?

skill patrol

power of hydrogen

PhMgBr

No no no no

Google PhMgBr

Anonymous

@PhMgBr 'Why' questions are often difficult to answer in linguistics. Of course, it depends on how we interpret 'why'.

Anonymous

07:31

Sometimes we interpret 'why' as meaning 'what pattern have we discovered that predicts this outcome', and that sort of question is answerable.

Anonymous

But it's really a 'what' question in disguise.

Anonymous

A true 'why' question, like "Why is this pattern here?" can sometimes be unanswerable.

Anonymous

Of course, it depends on the specific example.

PhMgBr

It also sometimes can be in science.

But generally saying all why's are for kids is too useless and large a generalization.

Anonymous

I like how you very subtly implied that linguistics is not scientific :-)

skill patrol

07:34

why? :P

PhMgBr

Zed? P:

skill patrol

just because i said so

Anonymous

@skillpatrol Hwy is that word spelled that way?

PhMgBr

HWY would be a nice acid.

Tungsten Yttrium hydride

Wait, it wouldn't be an acid at all

Anonymous

ʍaɪːːːːːːːː ʍaɪːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːː

skill patrol

07:38

looks like an abbreviation for highway

Anonymous

So it does!

Anonymous

I hadn't noticed because I was busy interpreting it the other way :-)

skill patrol

:-)

relative linguistics

PhMgBr

10:13

-13

Q: What qualities or excellences are shared by the most upvoted questions?

I ask this, in general, for all SE websites.

discussion

CC @Stoney @Dam

Færd

13:00

This question had gotten but a few incorrect or not-completely-correct replies. I tried to come up with a better answer.

0

A: "(many fewer/a lot of fewer/little fewer/much fewer) people than usual"

Prenote: A lot of fewer is incorrect. Of comes before a noun, and doesn't exist in the adverbial form (which you want to use here, with an adjective), so it's a lot fewer. Little and a little are different. I assume that you wanted to ask about a little. Short answer many fewer / a lot fe...

Man_From_India

I think this answer is pretty strange -

1

A: What's the difference, "It feels like spring." and "I feel like spring."?

"It feels like spring": The man senses (sees, hears, smells, and feels) spring-like qualities in the world around him. "I feel like spring": The man notices that his internal mental state matches feelings he has had during past spring days. "It doesn't feel like Friday": Something you noticed a...

I doubt if - I feel like spring - makes any sense. I can't think of any context where it can be relevant or make some sense. But the answer says it means something like - "The man notices that his internal mental state matches feelings he has had during past spring days."

I really doubt its credibility. Can anyone confirm if this is true?

Damkerng T.

13:23

@Færd Nice! -- I wish you had mentioned far fewer closer to the top.

Maybe in the Prenote section.

Færd

@DamkerngT. But I mentioned it in the short answer!

Damkerng T.

@Færd Here is a trick I learned while being here on SE. Your answers will get more upvotes if you write the answer in the first sentence or two!

Also, it helps if you make it bold!

Færd

I don't really care about upvotes, but yeah, it makes it more easily noticeable. Maybe I'll edit. Thanks. :)

Damkerng T.

But rep points aside, it helps the learner to spot the most important message you want them to have more easily.

skill patrol

^

Very important

That's why titles must be informative

Damkerng T.

13:32

nods

Færd

But you have to be really lazy or in so much of a hurry to even ignore the short answer and just read the first line.

Damkerng T.

I think it's something to do with the attention span of an average person, which is getting shorter and shorter.

Færd

Sadly, sometimes.

skill patrol

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, right?

Damkerng T.

I didn't mean to say that long answers are not good or not important. It's just that it's not easy to pin the reader's eyes on screen, I think.

@skillpatrol Aww

Færd

13:38

@Man_From_India I upvoted that answer. Although I feel like spring may not be a very common way to say I feel like it's spring, but in the situation described in the Original Post, that's a good answer IMO.

@DamkerngT. I guess you're right, but I still don't feel like doing that, partly because the question isn't about the most common choice of words.

Damkerng T.

Understood. :D

skill patrol

Aww as in cute saying?

Færd

It's a sound you make when your jaw drops, I guess.

Damkerng T.

@skillpatrol It conveys several feelings at once! :-)

skill patrol

Indeed

Man_From_India

13:45

@Færd The sentence - I feel like it's spring. - though make sense, but seems very odd.

skill patrol

It feels like spring

Man_From_India

@skillpatrol That is okay

Færd

@Man_From_India From COCA:

> I feel like it 's perfect.

> I feel like it 's Wednesday now

And nearly 200 other examples.

Man_From_India

hmmm

I haven't checked them, though.

Damkerng T.

I feel like it's <something> is normal enough. I'm not sure if I feel like <something> in the meaning of "I feel like it's <something>" is very common.

Frankly, this is the first time I've read someone saying that in an answer.

Færd

13:49

@DamkerngT. Yes. But in the context (described in the Original Post) it makes total sense to me.

Damkerng T.

Could be. I'm not very sure. I wish the OP had shared the link.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. It now makes sense, both are not same meaning.

And in addition to that you can't omit it's in that sentence.

skill patrol

I just did

Damkerng T.

@skillpatrol :D

Man_From_India

It's from COCA.

> This is a show where I feel like people will want to sample it.

Damkerng T.

13:52

Hello, @LePetitRobot! Welcome to the room!

Man_From_India

To me it sounds very odd.

Damkerng T.

In a way, you can think of "I feel like" like "I think". That's pretty much it, I think.

Færd

@Man_From_India It's not I feel like ..., it's I feel (=sense) like(=as if) ....

Damkerng T.

(Better be more specific. Reading "It feels like" as "It thinks" doesn't work!)

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. I got the meaning, but just that it sounds very odd to me.

@Færd Oh like in the sense of as if? Hmmmm somewhere I read that it's not very popular or something like that.

Damkerng T.

13:56

I don't know, maybe "feel like" = "feel as if" is too new to me.

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Same here.

Færd

I'm not saying that you can substitute as if for like.

Damkerng T.

In any case, this part in the answer looks okay to me:

> "I don't feel like Friday": Something occurred on this Friday that makes you wish today were not Friday.

Another sense of "feel like" is like "wanna have".

Færd

I'm merely saying what I think like means here.

Damkerng T.

(But that's not the sense the answer was talking about.)

Man_From_India

13:57

@Færd Yes got it, but it's new to me too :-)

Damkerng T.

@Færd I understand. Maybe everything will click when I hear it in context. :-)

Maybe the closest phrase that enables me to relate to "I feel like spring" is "I don't feel like it".

(Which basically, I take it as "I don't feel like I wanna have it".)

Færd

@Man_From_India Well, check out the conjunctional meaning of like in the Oxford Dictionary. :)

Gives this example:

> As though; as if:

> I felt like I’d been kicked by a camel.

Damkerng T.

I'd say that's a different pattern.

I wonder if the speaker in that clip was saying it like, "I feel, like, spring".

Man_From_India

Thanks for the link, and down the page the usage note clears all the confusion. It's considered to most speaker as incorrect.

Valentin Tihomirov

Which "ball" do you mean in "to be on the ball?"

Damkerng T.

14:06

Context?

Do you mean the ball in the idiom?

Valentin Tihomirov

Yes

Færd

@Man_From_India Where does it say most speakers?

Damkerng T.

I wish I could upload to the chat room the page for that idiom in a book I have. :-)

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. Yes you are right, after considering it and seeing many other similar constructions I am convinced that it's correct.

Damkerng T.

But here is its explanation: the "ball" refers to a football. A player who is "on the ball" -- in other words has the ball by his or her feet -- is in control of what's happening. (There is a cute illus. of the idiom on the page, too, but it's not the best time for me to show it to you. :-))

Man_From_India

14:10

@Færd Hmmm true it doesn't mention, but it is safer to claim it that way (when I do it) :-)

Færd

@Man_From_India I don't think so. I come across it all the time, especially in the informal/spoken register.

Man_From_India

Yes I forgot the mention Standard English :-(

Færd

True, It may be safer to avoid it in sensitive situations, like exams etc.

Damkerng T.

"I feel like bleep!" is also very common, but it doesn't mean "I feel like it's bleep!"

Man_From_India

Fowler has something similar to say.

Though he cited lots of example sentences from literary works from renowned writers he still feels it's vulgar in current standard.

Damkerng T.

14:15

Hah! Wait, vulgar?

The "feel like", or the bleep?

Man_From_India

No the use of like for as if/though.

Damkerng T.

Hah! (Still feel it's surprising!)

Did "vulgar" mean something different in Fowler's time?

Man_From_India

I just browsed the first paragraph, and it seems like it says like that. I didn't read the complete entry.

Damkerng T.

A-ha! That vulgar must be used in this sense: "lacking the ability to judge what is attractive, appropriate, etc."

Færd

@PhMgBr Do you study for the Chemistry Olympiad? I have some medalists among my friends, if you sought consultation or something.

Man_From_India

14:21

Hmmm might be, and oh of course it doesn't mean what the word "vulgar" brings to mind :-)

@DamkerngT. How do you feel about it?

> "I feel like spring": The man notices that his internal mental state matches feelings he has had during past spring days.

(This is from the answer.)

Though I am now fine with the "Friday" sentence, but I'm not with this one, though both have same surface structure.

Damkerng T.

I feel like it's not the best way to put it. ^_^

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. This is a safe adobe :-)

Oh btw how you did enjoy your water sports today? What do you call it?

Damkerng T.

I'm not that young anymore. :-)

Man_From_India

(The Times of India posted a picture regarding this celebration today morning)

Damkerng T.

Some call it "throwing water", some "water throwing".

Yay!

Man_From_India

14:28

@DamkerngT. I mean no particular native name?

Damkerng T.

Oh, you mean "Songkran", I think.

สงกรานต์

Man_From_India

Ah right.

That is the festival, not the water throwing celebration, right?

Damkerng T.

You're right. The throwing water activity is "len nam" (เล่นน้ำ) or "sard nam" (สาดน้ำ).

Man_From_India

Ahhh... from the picture it looks like our Holi celebration but unlike Holi it's only water.

Damkerng T.

A-ha! I think I've seen some photos of Holi before but didn't know the name.

It's chalk colors in Holi, right?

Man_From_India

14:34

In Holi it's colour. Back in ancient days it said the colours were made of herbal stuffs, and has some medical benefits. It was played to ward off the infection/disease during the change of season that happens during the holi celebration.

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Man_From_India

Now colors are made of mostly chemicals, and have adverse effects.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Man_From_India

So doctors suggests not to play or if at all make it as less as possible and with much precautions.

Damkerng T.

That's a bit sad. It looks so colorful.

Man_From_India

14:36

@DamkerngT. No, Holi is celebrated with a lot of colors. Red, green, yellow, you call it :-) a riots of colours.

Damkerng T.

14:51

> Why Movie Made?
1/10
With title like this you know you get pretty much lot of junk. Acting bad. Script bad. Director bad. Grammar bad.

Movie make lot of noise that really not music and lot of people yell. Movie make bad racial stereotype. Why come every movie with black hero have drug addict? Why come hero always have to dance to be success? Why come famous rapper always have to be in dance movie? Why come letter "s" can't be in title?

Hollywood need to stop dumb down audience and make movie that have people with brain who know how speak proper English.

(A review on How She Move at IMDb)

It's a bit harsh!

Damkerng T.

16:00

Word of the Day: epistolary

PhMgBr

17:23

@DamkerngT. "Grammar bad". Says someone that says afterwards "Movie make lot of noise that really not music and lot of people yell. Movie make bad racial stereotype. Why come every movie with black hero have drug addict? Why come hero always have to dance to be success? Why come famous rapper always have to be in dance movie?"

I can count some 30 grammatical errors.

@Færd Thanks! I'm used to being my own consultant.

And I am.

Damkerng T.

@PhMgBr I think every error was on purpose.

PhMgBr

@DamkerngT. Even "why come"?

Doesn't beat me.

Damkerng T.

For an ungrammatical alternative of "How come".

PhMgBr

I would've killed it if it beat me.

Yeah, but I don't think that would be a reference to the grammatical error in the movie title.

Damkerng T.

The movie title is "How She Move". The title of the review is "Why Movie Make". See the sarcasm?

PhMgBr

17:30

Eh shrugs

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I'm not sure how it can be grammatical in standard English.

PhMgBr

It's not like my uncle wrote that review or made that movie.

Not much point in arguing about it.

Damkerng T.

nods

PhMgBr

That said, Grignard reagents are the coolest things among coolest things.

Damkerng T.

:D

PhMgBr

17:31

Organolithium is peckish

PhMgBr

18:13

4

Q: Adding complex symbols to Latex

I am trying to add International phonetic alphabets to to my thesis. For some of the characters, I have no idea, how to add it to tex. The retroflex is giving me troubles. \documentclass{article} \usepackage{tipa} \begin{document} \begin{tabular}{llllllll} ~ & Labial

xetex characters linguistics tipa

Feeling free to ping @Snail

Don't we all love IPA

tchrist

India pale ale

India pale ale (IPA) is a hoppy beer style within the broader category of pale ale. The first known use of the term "India pale ale" is an advertisement in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser in 1829. It was also referred to as pale ale as prepared for India, India ale, pale India ale, or pale export India ale. == History == The term pale ale originally denoted an ale that had been brewed from pale malt. The pale ales of the early 18th century were lightly hopped and quite different from today's pale ales. By the mid-18th century, pale ale was mostly brewed with coke-fired malt, which...

PhMgBr

Haha

Anonymous

19:42

I've noticed recently that folks on Stack Exchange often think things are phrasal verbs when I don't think they are . . . and they sometimes don't think things are phrasal verbs when I think they actually are!

PhMgBr

@snailboat On which SE?

Anonymous

ELL and EL&U.

Anonymous

I don't think most of our users know what a "phrasal verb" is.

PhMgBr

That's a phrasal verb. "know what"

Anonymous

@Man_From_India I feel like spring does sound weird.

Anonymous

19:49

I think you might be able to interpret it in context if you try, but I don't think it's something people say very often.

Anonymous

It might be the start of a longer utterance: I feel like spring is just around the corner! :-)

Anonymous

I feel like it's spring seems okay.

Anonymous

= 'It seems to me as though it is now spring.'

Anonymous

Maybe I feel like Spring, if Spring is a personification of spring :-)

PhMgBr

Posted a question today; I broke the curse

0

Q: Why so few fluid phases?

Taking a look at the phase diagram of water By Cmglee - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14939155 I see ice phases as much as up to 'Ice XI', but only one 'liquid' and one 'vapor' phase. Why is this? Either there are many ice phases, or two few liquid ph...

physical-chemistry phase

Damkerng T.

19:56

Hi! @snailboat

Hi! MAR (@PhMgBr)!

PhMgBr

\o

Damkerng T.

How am I supposed to read your name now?!

PhMgBr

Just call me MAR

Damkerng T.

"pee-etch-em-gee-bee-ar"?

Okay :-)

Anonymous

Good morning!

Anonymous

19:58

@DamkerngT. It's pronounced like LetterletterLetterletterLetterletter.

Anonymous

Make sure you pronounce the capitalization.

Damkerng T.

LOL

PhMgBr

Also you can call me Grignard.

Anonymous

Phenylmagnesium bromide

Phenylmagnesium bromide, with the simplified formula C 6H 5MgBr, is a magnesium-containing organometallic compound. It is commercially available as a solution in diethyl ether or tetrahydrofuran (THF). Phenylmagnesium bromide is a Grignard reagent. It is often used as a synthetic equivalent for the phenyl "Ph−" synthon. == Preparation == Phenylmagnesium bromide is commercially available as solutions of diethyl ether or THF. Laboratory preparation involves treating bromobenzene with magnesium metal, usually in the form of turnings. A small amount of iodine may be used to activate the magnesium...

Anonymous

I guess you can call him Phenyl for short. Or, um, for equally long.

PhMgBr

20:00

PMB also works.

Acronymizing the acronym.

But I prefer MAR or INA, as usual.

Damkerng T.

It tried to discern emotions!

PhMgBr

Classic robot

Also since when is @Dam the one posting random pics?

Damkerng T.

When it's about AI!

PhMgBr

(/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

Damkerng T.

PhMgBr

20:06

G'night, I gotta catch something

Damkerng T.

Three is enough for today. All results are funny. :D

Anonymous

20:17

@DamkerngT. "I'm sorry, is this four-and-a-half three-and-a-half two-and-a-half oh five-and-a-half?" "Well, you've got the right number, but I'm afraid there's no one here by the name of snailboat." "Darn! I must have written the number down wrong . . . "

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Aww :-)

Anonymous

@PhMgBr Wait, why do you prefer to be called something other than your username? :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hee :-)

Anonymous

20:33

google.com/…

PhMgBr

20:50

@snailboat no witty response to that

Anonymous

21:19

Oh, well, it's perfectly okay. It's not a criticism :-)

Anonymous

Come to think of it, I know some other people who prefer not to be addressed by their usernames.

Anonymous

For example, I know someone whose username fits the pattern Firstname Lastname, and they prefer to be addressed by Firstname in chat.

Anonymous

So maybe it's not that unusual :-)

Anonymous

21:53

I still think it's weird to use "NGram" to mean ① a particular query on Google Books Ngram Viewer or ② a chart generated by Google Books Ngram Viewer.

Anonymous

That meaning is pretty well established on EL&U and ELL, but I think it's strange from the perspective of an outsider.

Anonymous

I've had plenty of time to get used to it, but I haven't. It still seems strange to me.

Anonymous

When people do it, whether this is true or not, whether this is fair or not, it gives me the impression they don't know what n-gram means.

Damkerng T.

22:35

I wonder how soon we'll find someone using Books to mean Google Books. :-)

Anonymous

22:57

@DamkerngT. CaptionBot is fun, isn't it?

Anonymous

I found that most pictures of rodents end up being "cats".

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Anonymous

I did get one hamster to be a "dog", though.

Damkerng T.

I just got this: I really can't describe the picture 😳

Anonymous

I got that earlier too :-(

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