Sunday, February 13, 2022

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

reversing extraposition

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 08:30 AM PST

Let's as­sume we have this sen­tence:

It was the in­ven­tion of the hand-held cal­cu­la­tor that pro­vided the orig­i­nal tech­nol­ogy for the present gen­er­a­tion of small but pow­er­ful com­put­ers.

I al­ready know that the word It is a "dummy" and here we have ex­tra­po­si­tional trans­for­ma­tion, which means we can replace It with the that-clause from the end of the sen­tence. But if we do this, then the that-clause is miss­ing its sub­ject:

That pro­vided the orig­i­nal tech­nol­ogy for the present gen­er­a­tion of small but pow­er­ful com­put­ers was the in­ven­tion of the hand-held cal­cu­la­tor.

Re­cently I viewed a course about trans­for­ma­tional gram­mar which men­tioned that when a rel­a­tive clause is used as an NP (sub­ject or ob­ject of the sen­tence), the rel­a­tive clause should con­tain all parts of the sen­tence, in­clud­ing sub­ject, ob­ject, and so on.

But in the sen­tence above, we see how the sub­ject in the that pro­vided part has been omit­ted.

Which one is wrong? The sen­tence I re­versed from ex­tra­po­si­tional trans­for­ma­tion, or the rule which was on that course?

Terms in a specific context. Are they proper nouns and/or technical terms?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 08:08 AM PST

Currently I am writing a report where I explain some basic concepts for developing plug-ins in Moodle. During this I am a bit struggling about the using of typical Moodle terms.

Moodle has, for example, terms like "Activity", "Resource", "Context", "Block" and I am unsure if they are proper nouns and if I should capitalize them?

Furthermore I am questioning if they are a technical term or are they common? (I mean "Resource" in general is common, but in Moodle it is more a "Moodle resource" so it is more technical or not?)

If I look at the documentation, for example Resources, more or less everything is not capitalized. However, in Activities, they are...

Any suggestions or opinions?

Please rate this writing task in IELTS bands [closed]

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 07:46 AM PST

You have lost an item of value on a train.

Write a letter to the railway company. In your letter

  • describe the item
  • explain where and when you left it
  • say what action you would like the company to take

Write at least 150 words.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Dear Sir or Madam,

I, John Doe am writing this letter to inform you that I lost my Cellphone in the Atlanta train station's pantry area. The Cellphone which I lost is very valuable for me as I do most of my business with it as I am salesman by profession and it has all the contacts of my clients. It's a White colour Apple IPHONE 11 with green colour cover on it. Also, it has small crack on the bottom left edge of the screen.

On the 20th of May which is last Friday I came to Atlanta train station around 5PM to board the train which was scheduled for 5:15PM, However, I heard the announcement that train is delayed by an hour and thought to myself that it is a good opportunity to something before the long journey. I headed to station's pantry and to my surprise it was crowded. I ended up sharing L shaped table below the big clock with few folks. I assumptions are while I was placing the order I missed-placed my phone on the order counter or else I left it on the table. Any which way I am confident that I lost my phone on in the station's pantry.

I would like to request you to look into this matter promptly as this is hindering my business in major way. For any updates please reach out to me on given email address or phone number.

Thanks in advance.

Yours faithfully,

John Doe

academic IELTS thank you [closed]

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 06:56 AM PST

With the emergence of mass media, music is becoming popular in daily life. Seemingly, music brings the profound merits for individuals and societies. First and foremost, music might connect each person to the past. As a case in point, ''Tien Quan Ca'', written by Nam Cao, is filled up with reminiscence of the brave Vietnamese soldiers having shed their blood for the revolutionary cause. Owing to those pieces of music like this, each individual can cultivate their own patriotism and has more understanding of history as well as conventional culture belonging to the whole Nation. As a result, those are more likely to be better citizen, even devote more their lives for the cause of national construction and defense. In addition, exposing to beautiful melody exert a couple of positive effects on people's health, seemingly. Obviously, should a person compose or listen to any song, that one's sentiment could be expressed and evoked. Because music is linguistically neutral, anybody can understand and lend a sympathetic ear, which backs in feeling further relieved. Furthermore, learning to play an instrument such as piano, violin, guitar, cello with a regular practice combined listening to music Mozart can enable learners to enhance gradually their intelligence. In conclusion, catchy rhythm and symphony of songs is greatly advantageous, especially when people have respect for them.

What is the natural way to say "increment by 0.5"? [migrated]

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 06:36 AM PST

I have a digital scale. The number on the display goes up like 0.0kg, 0.5kg, 1.0kg, 1.5kg... What are good ways to describe this?

My ideas are below.

  1. This can scale every 0.5kg.
  2. The number increments by 0.5.
  3. This can scale weight in the increments of 0.5.

Is ‘most’ for all the adjectives in this context?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 03:12 AM PST

Is the 'most' here for all the adjectives after it. Is there any general rule to be applied in such cases?

Evolution, ecology, and population biology have given us tremendous understanding and insights, but have for the most part missed one of the most important, interesting, exciting, explanatory, and unifying aspects of evolution, ecology, and how ecosystems function. This is that organisms, species, and life itself generate the vast majority of the biodiversity on Earth, much more than would be present from physical and chemi- cal factors alone.

If there is no reporting verb, would you still use comma in these constructions?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 07:40 AM PST

Usually, after a reporting verb, there is bound to be a comma, but what if the constructions are as follow:

As if waiting for me to say that one sentence, Cornelia followed up with a request, "Welp, there's one thing you can help me with."

In this example, there is no reporting verb, but with "followed up with a request" it sounds more correct to my ears to add a comma.

"Ah, um, how do I say this?" Scratching the back of my head, I blurted out the content of my mind: "You sure are pretty today."

Looking at this example, "blurted out" is a reporting verb, and therefore, is accompanied with a comma, but because there's an additional "the content of my mind," I think that colon is better.

Still, are these two constructions even grammatically correct?

Is it correct to say "native speaker of X, bilingual in Y"?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 01:15 AM PST

I want to say that I am a "native English speaker" but add that I am also a native speaker of Hebrew as well. I am looking for a clear and concise way to covey this. Thanks in advance.

How to understand this quote? [closed]

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 12:51 AM PST

"Leap of faith – yes, but only after reflection" ― Soren Kierkegaard

Is this quote an ironic description of the fact that a leap of faith often occurs after too much reflection, or is it a positive statement that leap of faith should occur only after reflection?

Should I use the -s in verb? [closed]

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 12:34 AM PST

What is the right option to say this sentence: "Girls who never disappoint" or "Girls who never disappointS"?

The difference between saying you're "from somewhere", "raised somewhere" and "grew up somewhere."

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 10:45 AM PST

Raised

The Cambridge English dictionary states that to "raise" is:

to take care of a person, or an animal or plant, until they are completely grown

Taken literally, if you were to spend 0-17 in Canada, and 17-18 in Italy, would you only be able to say you were raised in Italy?

In the above example, could they say that they "grew up in" or "are from" Canada but were still raised in Italy, i.e. is the meaning different?

Grew up / from

Now take a person who says "I'm from Canada but I grew up in Italy."

Does this imply that:

  1. Their family is Canadian, but they spent 0-18 in Italy.
  2. They spent their pre-schooling in Italy.
  3. They spent their primary school years in Italy.
  4. They spent their secondary school years in Italy.
  5. All or some combination of the above

Bringing it back to the "raised" dilemma, would changing the sentence to "I'm from Canada but I was raised in Italy" change the above answer?

Does this perhaps vary by location?

Reason I'm asking

Sometimes I meet people who are staunchly insistent they are from, grew up in or raised in a city they moved away from when they were 12. These people denounce the place they moved to when they were 12.

The reverse happens just as often, I'll meet people who are staunchly insistent they're from, grew up in or raised in a city they moved to when they were 12. They denounce the place they spent their first 12 years in.

Do these terms follow any logic or is it purely sentimental? I was using Canada and Italy as placeholders, would the meaning change if we were to use cities or towns within the same country?

What is the meaning of these words? [closed]

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 07:21 PM PST

group of six rough frame buildings was bisected by a narrow dirt street; there was a scattering of tents beyond the buildings on either side. The wagon passed first on its left a loosely erected tent of army drab with rolled-up sides, which held from the roof flap a flat board crudely lettered in red, JOE LONG, BARBAR. On the opposite side of the road was a low building, almost square, windowless, with a flap of canvas for a door; across the bare front boards of this building were the more carefully executed letters

Is this prepositional phrase a supplement or modifier?

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 05:16 PM PST

In the morning, he drove to work.

Now he knew what to do.

Having read about supplements and modifiers (two types of adjunct), I have started to become confused. Supplements are considered to be non-essential, and the easiest way to identify them is to acknowledge their association with commas. However, none of the examples provided have addressed fronted adverbs and prepositional phrases, such as the ones above. They are always obvious supplements: sentence adverbials, non-restrictive participle clauses, non-restrictive appositives, absolute constructions, etc.

'Now' and 'In the morning' can be placed in different positions, and because of their shortness (the two examples being no more than three words), the commas are optional. I would say that they modify 'drove' and 'knew', respectively. This being the case, are they modifiers with and without commas?

When I use a name or mention a person/character at the beginning of a sentence before referring to them via a pronoun, do I use a comma or semi-colon?

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 05:04 PM PST

Here's the sentence example:

And Lucy, she often goes for a run.

And Lucy; she often goes for a run.

Which is more appropriate?

Thank you.

Term or phrase that means the reverse of "is located at/within"

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 01:48 AM PST

Consider a thing that is located within another thing, say a particular store (not one of a chain of stores, but a distinct non-fungible individual store) within a particular mall.

We can describe the relationship of the store to the mall as

The store (ID XYZ) is located at/within the ABC mall

How would the reverse relationship be succinctly described using a single phrase?

The ABC mall contains store (ID XYZ)

Doesn't convey the right meaning IMHO, and I have never heard contains used this way.

The ABC mall has within it store (ID XYZ)

Is better IMHO.

Is there a clearer/simpler way to say this?

Note: I would like a single phrase, not a split one, so not

The ABC mall has store (ID XYZ) located within it

I'm looking for something to fill this gap:

The ABC mall ... store (ID XYZ)

The actual use case is for cataloging the location of all basketball courts used for a competition where multiple sports centres are involved. I want to express almost mathematically that such as such a sports complex has within it these particular (named) courts.

This is not about describing what types of courts exist within a sports centre or what kind of services it offers. It's about the specific location of each specific court.

In absence of or in the absence of

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 04:04 PM PST

I am wondering whether the first phrase is correct? It seems to be in use ( based on Google searches). If it is, in what cases should we use it instead of the form with 'the'? Thank you!

Keep looping while + semantics and programming language

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 08:36 AM PST

This question could be viewed as an ELL question. However, I am posting it here as I am looking for a two-fold confirmation: semantic/grammatical and programming language usage for purposes of confirming to skeptical French participants in the FLI forum what I have already said.

Python code snippet from Ben Stephenson's Python Manual

I was informed in the French forum that: "It's not clear to me whether the keep is very meaningful in English in such a context or just structural, but that's off topic. Consider continuer à boucler might create an ambiguity or some weirdness in this context that keep looping wouldn't introduce. This is no general context here, like keep applying pressure to the wound when someone is already doing so, surely you can see that. The 1:1 won't cut it imho"

So, my question really is in English: Semantically (but not in the form used in an instruction), doesn't Keep looping while in English mean: Continue looping while? And would just using the idea of looping work? Isn't "keep" in "keep looping" meaningful? The text cited above is from an online Python course manual.

I was also informed by one poster that in English, when translating Keep verb+ing into French that: "maybe in English, you can say to someone who is thirsty, keep drinking until you are no longer thirsty but in French, we'd say until you are no longer thirsty, but not continue to drink until..." ["Peut être qu'en anglais on peut dire à quelqu'un qui à soif keep drinking until you are no longer thirsty mais en français on dira bois jusqu'à ce que tu n'aie plus soif, pas continue à boire jusqu'à..."]

I find that rather gobsmacking. The basic idea of keep + verb+ing is simply continue to [do something]. Now, obviously, the thirst idea is really quite odd as a way to "prove" what is said in another language. However, let's play along. If someone is told me to drink water (a medical professional, for example), "Drink water until [whatever].", that is not the same thing as "Keep drinking until [whatever]".

It's rather hilarious in information theory terms that the imperative form in computer programming really means the programmer (sender) is sending a message to a language function that a machine (the recipient) will execute.

The code snippet from Python exhibits typical a instruction statement structure AKA imperative programming. Yep, instructions are written using the imperative form of verbs. Is "Loop while the user enters a non-zero number", the same as "Keep looping while the user enters a non-zero number"? If not (which I assume is correct), please state formal reasons why this is so. I assume some answers will mention iterations (repetitions) of an instruction until some "state" is reached.

Which one is more correct, "White-eye Man" or “White-Eye Man”？

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 10:20 AM PST

My son loves white-eyes, a kind of bird,very much. He wants name his storybook like spider man or iron man, so he decides to name it "white-eye man".

I am not quite sure which one is correct if it is placed in the title or in the context.

What is the difference between "Make" and "Get" when they come with an adjective?

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 08:09 PM PST

I see that people use both of them, but are there any differences between them? what do they mean exactly?

For instance:

I got him upset.

I made him upset.

Specific Term for prejudice/prejudiced behaviour (racial, gender, etc...) that justifies itself by a prior history of prejudice?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 09:59 AM PST

If someone made the following, certainly problematic, statements:

"There is a higher risk (member of oppressed minority) will underperform at a job or task, since it is more likely they are traumatized or disenfranchised by prejudice and/or poor treatment they have suffered in the past."

"(Member of oppressed minority) cannot be trusted, since there is an above average likelihood they will harbor mistrust or resentment due to being treated poorly before."

Is there a specific term for this kind of thinking/prejudiced behaviour - which can easily lead to a factually racist or other anti-minority outcome, WITHOUT a need for the person making that kind of judgement to be themselves categorically racist or against the minority in question?

Choosing the correct form of a verb

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 05:03 PM PST

Should we use "choose" or "choosing"?

I was browsing the Internet when I stumbled upon this word play in a retailer catalog

Door handles and locks: the key to choosing wisely

At first the sentence seemed strange to me but after a quick research it came out that both are correct. Could you confirm?

Is there a different meaning those two?

I'd appreciate it if + <past tense> + until + <present or past tense?>

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 12:06 AM PST

These three examples have the same construction of

I'd appreciate it if you + past tense verb + ... + until + subject + present or past tense verb...

The first one has the present tense verb finish after until whereas the other two have the past tense verbs got and were:

From the movie 'Kingsman' (video clip):

(1) Listen boys, I've had a rather emotional day. So whatever your beef with Eggsy is, I'd appreciate it enormously if you could leave us in peace until I finish this lovely pint of Guinness.

From the book "The Ultimate Plan: A Financial Survival Guide for Life's Unexpected Events":

(2) So if you must have an attack, I'd appreciate it if you could wait until we got to Broadway.

From the book "Touching Darkness: Number 2 in series":

(3) 'Still, Melissa,' he said, 'this is a classroom, and I'd appreciate it if you waited until you were out in the hall before turning that thing on.'

Note that all the verbs after until (finish, got, and were) describe a future situation.

Can you have the past tense verb finished in (1)?

Also, can you have the present tense verbs get and are in (2) and (3), respectively?

Is there a rule that determines the tense of the verbs after until?

"Personal Use Program" or "Personal-Use Program"?

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 09:03 PM PST

Help me settle a discussion on this topic. Everywhere I look, within my company's internal documents as well as documents from other companies, a "personal use" program is not hyphenated. A colleague of mine believes it should be hyphenated, and is under that impression thanks to the AP Style Guide's rule on compound modifiers used as an adjective:

"When a compound modifier — two or more words that express a single concept — precedes a noun, use hyphens to link all the words in the compound except the adverb very and all adverbs that end in -ly: a first-quarter touchdown, a bluish-green dress, a full-time job, a well-known man, a better-qualified woman, a know-it-all attitude, a very good time, an easily remembered rule."

This seems like a "substitute teacher" issue to me. "Personal" is an adjective and "use" is a noun. That would make this a compound noun and not require a hyphen, right? Or sort of right?

Can someone clear this up for me?

What is this figure of speech called?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 03:04 AM PST

Is 'rootless weeds' an example of a figure of speech?If it is,what is it called?

It is from the poem'An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum ' (by Stephen Spender).

'Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.

Word order in: What would be the further steps?

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 09:01 PM PST

What is the right word order in sentence:

What would be the further steps?

or

What would the further steps be?

Meaning of "harsh mistress"

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 04:14 PM PST

What does harsh mistress mean in this sentence?

Nostalgia can be a harsh mistress.

Is 'smth' a correct abbreviation in American English?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 07:26 AM PST

How common is the usage of 'smth' in American English as an abbreviation of 'something'?

Can "fires" be used as the plural of "fire"?

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 02:13 AM PST

Can "fire" be plural? Can I say:

Do fires cause cancer?

Any reference on the usage of a backtick and single quotation mark like `this'?

Posted: 12 Feb 2022 11:36 PM PST

Why do I sometimes see a backtick with a single quote `like this'? What's the name of this usage? What are some good references so I can find more information by myself?

Difference between "computation" and "calculation"

Posted: 13 Feb 2022 02:35 AM PST

If the words computation and calculation are not perfect synonyms what is the difference between them? Which one describes more accurately what is done by a person computing or calculating something on a piece of paper?
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