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Araucaria
Araucaria
12:54 AM
@DamkerngT. Erm, no!
 
 
1 hour later…
toha
toha
2:15 AM
If a great wave shall fall
And fall upon us all
Then between the sand and stone
Could you make it on your own?
Morning all
start the day with a music
 
 
4 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
6:13 AM
"Hotel California" transcribed into Russian by a kid not knowing English
 
toha
toha
good score
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Good morning!
"Good score"?
 
toha
toha
6:31 AM
good morning.. yes, the score 29/36
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
ah (0:
> O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
 
Anonymous
 
Anonymous
I had no idea about dumpster and skip!
 
Anonymous
That is to say, I use the word dumpster but was unfamiliar with skip until just now.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Skip = a place where rubbish it put?
 
Anonymous
6:43 AM
I also had no idea dumpster used to be a trademark.
 
Anonymous
@CowperKettle So it seems!
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I remember the word "rubbish tip" or something like that
 
Anonymous
I don't know that term either!
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
You're not very familiar with Pom-speak (0:
(waits for this message to be flagged)
 
toha
toha
UK US trademark Dumpster a large metal container into which people put unwanted objects or building or garden waste, and which is brought to and taken away from a place by a special truck when people ask for it
Skip (container)
A skip (UK English) or dumpster (US and Canadian English) is a large open-topped waste container designed for loading onto a special type of lorry. Instead of being emptied into a garbage truck on site, as a wheelie bin is, a skip is removed, or replaced by an empty skip, and then tipped at a landfill site or transfer station. Typically skip bins have a distinctive shape: the longitudinal cross-section of the skip bin is either a trapezoid or two stacked trapezoids. The lower trapezoid has the smaller edge at the bottom of the skip bin, and a longer edge at the top. Where there is an upper trapezoid...
 
Anonymous
6:57 AM
I didn't know that term either…
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> The origins of calling a rubbish cart a skip (most often found in Australia and the UK) come from the word 'skep', used to refer to a basket. 'Skep' itself comes from the Late Old English sceppe, from Old Norse skeppa 'basket'.[citation needed]
They still call the mining shaft which is used for the transportation of workers the "skip shaft"
Sorry, my bad.
> The second compartment is used for one or more skips, used to hoist ore to the surface. Smaller mining operations use a skip mounted underneath the cage, rather than a separate device, while some large mines have separate shafts for the cage and skips.
Not workers but ore.
Workers are transported via the 'cage shaft'
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
8:05 AM
> - Dear, there's that smell of suffering about you. Have you been fussing again?
- No mom, the other kids there fussing, it's just that I was meditating nearby.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
8:19 AM
I didn't know this skip either!
I guess skipper may sound a bit weird to me from now on!
Hello, @snailplane!
Hello, @V.V.!
 
V.V.
V.V.
Hi!
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
@Nihilist_Frost IDK!
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
 
Anonymous
Hello! :-)
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ "Mobile phones have revolutionized the way scientists study human behavior, allowing them to watch people on a scale that has never been previously imagined." -- I guess that must've been scary before 1984!
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
8:25 AM
For sure @DamkerngT.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Has anyone ever heard of "the basic structure of a sentence: WHO > WHAT > WHERE > WHEN > HOW > WHY", BTW?
 
Anonymous
No, I haven't.
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
A list?
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
nods -- It seem like a good idea, but I don't know if it's really a good idea.
@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ No, the structure of a typical sentence, like "He (who) told her (what) in his office (where) yesterday (when) briefly (how) to do another survey (why).”
 
Anonymous
Kind of a clumsy sentence, isn't it?
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
8:33 AM
nods
 
V.V.
V.V.
Yes, I heard about it. What -where-when (word order after a predicate.
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Overly parenthesisized :P
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
@Sᴋᴜʟʟᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ The parentheses are only for showing what parts of the structure those chunks are.
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
I see.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
@V.V. Oh! In a grammar book?
I tried to conform to her structure, BTW. :D
 
V.V.
V.V.
8:35 AM
I think so, but don't remember where.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Interesting!
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
I would call it an "instructional sentence."
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Maybe there really is something like that in another language.
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
or a step by step
 
V.V.
V.V.
Beginner level.
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
8:37 AM
Perhaps a pararethetically labeled sentence?
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
I'm not sure but it looks like she meant it for all sentences in general.
 
Sina
Sina
Hi
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Hi!
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Hello
 
Sina
Sina
@DamkerngT. whst about "it". Again"who" or "What"? The table is in the kitchen. The table (what) is (?) in the kitchen (where).
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
8:55 AM
If I understand the video right, The table is in the kitchen follows the structure.
The table, which is WHO, comes before in the kitchen, which is WHERE.
In her idea, I guess she meant the "subject" by WHO.
 
Sina
Sina
It is complicated. Then poor students should memorize these structures?
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Well, it's perhaps up to her students. Apparently, a lot of people like her lessons.
 
Sina
Sina
Reminds me somehow of structural linguistics.
But in a way gives more freedom to the learners to choose what to put in the sentence.
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
9:28 AM
She definitely lays out the structure in a memorizable pattern :-)
 
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
Sᴋᴜʟʟ ᴘᴇᴛʀᴏʟ
9:44 AM
@Sina ^
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
10:35 AM
Today's random reflection: What is art? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if someone finds million upon million of digits of Pi beautiful, is Pi a piece of art?
6
Q: What does web-mistress imply as a job title

manav m-n I love that none needs my permission to take my code and do something cool with it, and someone else can do the same with that code. I love that an "end user" is usually only a few hours work away from being an active documenter, bug-reporter, web-mistress or coder in most projects. ...

meaning word-usage meaning-in-context slang spelling
It's a word!
Word of the Day: webmistress
 
Færd
Færd
11:00 AM
Reminds me of singress.
(my thing; never seen it elsewhere)
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
11:23 AM
3
Q: As It Tends To Be The Case

meatieI have a question about the usage of (or lack thereof) "it" in this article: Peyton Manning's retirement press conference on Monday felt closer to a wake — he's not going to play football anymore, but he also is not dying. That is good news for lots of people (and Papa John). As tends to ...

meaning grammar usage
An interesting quirk.
I think I agree with TRomano in his comments (but I didn't upvote any of his).
(The actual stats are 72 vs. 6 hits for "as tends to be the case" and "as it tends to be the case".)
(And 312 vs. 30 hits for "as seems to be the case" and "as it seems to be the case".)
(And 197 vs. 29 hits for "as appears to be the case" and "as it appears to be the case".)
 
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
1:46 PM
0
Q: "a feature that was located more broadly within wider policing of ideal Olympian femininity"

CowperKettleFrom an article titled "I think gorilla-like back effusions of hair are rather a turn-off": 'Excessive hair' and male body hair (removal) discourse.: For instance, many of the German male athletes, much like their female compatriots, had completely hairless armpits; an observation that seems...

phrase-meaning
"moronic pseudo-academic language strikes back"
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:14 PM
> Even while the series was still being played, 18-year-old Chinese Go champion Ke Jie remarked that he could beat Google's Deepmind computer. Now he has his chance. At the 37th World Amateur Go Championship in Chinese city of Wuxi this weekend, a spokesman for the Chinese Go Association revealed that representatives have been in contact with the team behind AlphaGo and will set up a match
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Nice, though I wonder why human tries to compete with their calculators.
It must be something anthropologists know very well!
@CowperKettle Does the book say more about "policing of ideal Olympian femininity"?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@DamkerngT. I have no access to the referenced book
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Ahh
That makes it a bit difficult.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I have the fulltext of the article though
It babbles like this for 11 pages.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Hehe!
Must be a nice babpler.
(babble + paper)
I've seen a lot of questions that I don't know how to salvage today.
Here is a milder case:
0
Q: Is it correct form- sentence?

tylianypI want to reply to my friend for greeting me somewhere on the internet, but I haven't spoken English for a long time and I just don't know if I have used the right words/structure. ''You're welcome! I would also like to thank you- it was a pleasure to meet you !'' Is this correct?

sentence-construction
If there weren't a lot of comments under the question, I might've asked "How did your friend greet you?"
Also, I wonder what they meant by "correct form- sentence".
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:33 PM
> Maybe someone will kindly untangle the issue then I've returned from my evening jog.
I wonder if this sentence is okay in terms of tenses used.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
"By the time" instead of "then", perhaps.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Ah.. so it's mainly okay, thank you!@
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
If it's not then, I think!
 
Anonymous
3:15 PM
I agree with Damkerng!
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
Yay!
I just heard another Knock-knock joke, which wouldn't work in chat. Have you heard the "interrupting cow" one? It's kinda funny face-to-face, I think. :D
Oh, it has several memes of its own! So it must be quite common.
 
V.V.
V.V.
1
Q: Adjective Instead of Adverb?

UTF-8I just read this Wikipedia article and have a questing regarding this sentence: Moulds can be obtained to uniformly cast bullets of a diameter producing optimum accuracy in a specific firearm, and a firearm owner possessing such a mould can obtain a supply of those bullets independent of unre...

adverbs
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
As usual, a comment appears to be the best answer. :P
 
V.V.
V.V.
"independent of..." is an adjective phrase (dangling modifier) that modifies the subject.?..
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
3:30 PM
Personally, I think both may work, and I think I like independently of a little better.
@V.V. Yes, which ruins that answer.
(I meant "yes" as in you're right. I didn't mean that part of the answer was right.)
 
V.V.
V.V.
The answer is good, I think, but for this.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
nods
Then again, I don't like that sentence from Wikipedia much.
> Most cast bullets are made of lead alloyed with tin and antimony; but zinc alloys have been used when lead is scarce, and may be used again in response to concerns about lead toxicity.
I wouldn't use when lead is scarce there.
 
V.V.
V.V.
3:47 PM
Perhaps It's a translation.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
I think not. I skimmed through the article a bit, and I think the writer is a native speaker.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> Hopefully someone will have untangled the issue when I return from my evening jog
Maybe someone will kindly untangle the issue when I've returned from my evening jog
I wonder which is better
Is "when I've returned" an error?
Good evening, V.V.!
 
Anonymous
I think when lead is scarce is okay.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
4:06 PM
@snailplane It goes well with have been used, but it's bit odd when may be used again is right after it.
I think.
> Although some bullet casting procedures can be accomplished with heating elements used for cooking; care must be taken to avoid contaminating food preparation areas and/or utensils with lead alloys.
^a strange semicolon.
@CowperKettle It sounds a bit odd, though I'm not sure if I should think it's an error.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:38 PM
@DamkerngT. Thank you!
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
No problem. Don't forget to get a second opinion, just to be sure! :-)
 
V.V.
V.V.
Good evening, C.K.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:57 PM
@DamkerngT. I don't understand what is wrong about 'when lead is scarce'
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
@CowperKettle I don't think it's ungrammatical. It just doesn't sound like a good way to put it, IMO.
Let's see ... It's a bit like, I watch a late show every night. I may watch it again when the show is back. Doesn't it sound a bit odd?
I guess that's how we got unnecessarily complicated sentences. That's why a lot of people are afraid to write simple sentences.
In the example above, to show "cohesion", the subject of the passage went from "the hotel" to "the dancing competition". Aren't they different stories?!
 
 
2 hours later…
Sina
Sina
7:02 PM
@CowperKettle what do you think about this: a feature broadly was located before the end of the period of widely gaurding the standard feminine qualities of an olympian.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
7:28 PM
@Sina Thank you for the suggestion, Sina. I still don't understand that sentence. Let it remain a myster.
y.
 
 
1 hour later…
Anonymous
8:54 PM
in Japanese Language, 14 hours ago, by 優しいエイリアン
@snailplane He is taller than I am. He is taller than me. The latter is wrong, according to the Toefl books.
 
Anonymous
Why would a TOEFL book say He is taller than me is wrong? :-(
 
Catija
Catija
Interesting. Seems fine... ish. I'd prefer He's taller than I am... but I don't think the latter is wrong...
 
Anonymous
Does the TOEFL test formal English only?
 
Anonymous
It's not uncommon for people to conflate formality with correctness, unfortunately.
 
Catija
Catija
Probably. It's used for collegiate entrance exams, so I would guess they might have a higher bar for "correctness"?
 
Anonymous
9:44 PM
Well, it's not really a higher bar.
 
Anonymous
It's just the wrong bar.
 
Anonymous
I mean, you can certainly test people on what's expected in formal settings.
 
Anonymous
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
 
Anonymous
But that doesn't make formal English more correct than informal English, just more appropriate in that context.
 
Catija
Catija
True.
 
Anonymous
9:47 PM
I think it's important not to label all informal English as wrong, because learners need to know the difference between what works and what doesn't in informal settings too.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
If I understand correctly, based on their official video channel, I don't think than me vs. than I am is a point that a learner has to worry about at all.
 
Anonymous
Oh, on the official test? Phew!
 
Anonymous
I worry about some of the books, though. I don't know what TOEFL book that person has, but for all I know it may not accurately represent the test material.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
nods
 
Anonymous
Thanks for the link! :-)
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
9:49 PM
It looks like TOEFL focuses more on comprehension rather than grammar on the minute scale. But grammar is still important in their writing section, I suppose.
My pleasure!
Unlike IELTS or GMAT, there appears to be no sentence correction in TOEFL.
 
Anonymous
Well, I'm glad I don't have to advise anyone on test content.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
:D
 
Anonymous
I'm happy to help when I can, but I just don't know anything about those tests.
 
Damkerng T.
Damkerng T.
It looks like TOEFL will heavily probe the test taker's ability to comprehend, reason, and infer, along with their vocabulary skill. I think it's almost like GMAT without the sentence correction section.
Wow, what a message!
> "During the preparation process, you don't have to learn English language (sic). You just have to learn how to do tasks that are typical to TOEFL."
Loud and clear. :-)
I wonder how well I can do the 60-second speaking test in my first language.
Sometimes I also wonder if these students can do better on this kind of test in their second language than in their first language!
 

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