Monday, February 7, 2022

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Engish learning pain points

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 10:58 AM PST

About few months ago I restarted to learn english. And now I start notice that I have some pain points in learning english (difficulty in learning a new words, etc). Also I'm studying to bachelor's degree on statistics and I have an idea. I want to make a little statistical research about the english learning pain points. And I ask you help me to make this research. I created a survey and I will appreciate if you take it. Also after finishing my research I can share with results of my research here and maybe someone can improve himself english learning.

Here is a link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WSQ7VGR

which is correct? "traffic congestion" or "traffic congestions"

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 10:38 AM PST

i know the word "congestion" is uncountable itself. However, in some articles, I saw "traffic congestions." I am wondering if the usage below is correct or not.

  1. Traffic congestion happens a lot during holidays.
  2. If there are serious congestions on roads, we may be late for the party.
  3. A severe congestion was seen on roads yesterday.

Help me complete the verse

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 09:57 AM PST

I have heard an expression that includes "four is too many, and five is not allowed." So what is the whole saying?

Is 'the' always used before 'noun+of+noun'? [migrated]

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 08:35 AM PST

I have seen 'the' omitted before such constructions (noun+of+noun) many times. So, is it safe to omit 'the' in such cases or is there some rule regarding when to use 'the' before 'noun+of+noun' constructions?

"Depend on if" means "depend on whether"?

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 11:04 AM PST

Can I replace "depend on whether" below with "depend on if"? I ask because "whether" can be replaced with "if" some times. 'I'll see whether she's at home' same as I'll see if she's at home.

Second language learners' divergence from target language pragmatic norms | Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching. Maria Pia Gomez-Laich. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh .

Although the importance of explicit teaching of pragmatics is well recognized in the literature, learning norms and rules of pragmatics largely depends on learners' subjectivity. Learners' convergence or divergence from the L2 pragmatic norms, both consciously and out of awareness, sometimes depends on whether these norms fit their image of self and their L1 cultural identity. Since identity-related conflict can have significant consequences for the acquisition of second language pragmatics, failing to consider the centrality of learners' identities will produce an inadequate understanding of SLA.

Frontiers | Plasticity, Variability and Age in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism | Psychology. David Birdsong, Department of French and Italian, The University of Texas at Austin. Front. Psychol., 12 March 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00081.

That is, the L1 appears to influence pronunciation in the dominant L2, but not the other way around. Perception experiments with a larger sample of Greek–English bilinguals (Antoniou et al., 2012, p. 592) reveal a still more complex pattern of dominance relationships, one that depends on whether the task is categorization or discrimination of voicing: "The results suggest that a bilingual is a single (dominant-language) listener with respect to discrimination, but behaves more like a monolingual of the activated language with respect to discrimination judgments."

Universal Grammar as a Model of Second Language Learning. Dr. Ahmed Qadoury Al-Khudhairy, Assistant Lecturer, University of Wassit, College of Education, Department of English.

whether a language allows null subject or not

  • depends on whether INFL is proper governor (GB)

  • depends on morphological uniformity (B)

  • depends on whether affixes are generated in the syntax or in the lexicon (MP). See Katamba (1993:56,158-59).

What is the difference between sapience and sophonce?

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 08:36 AM PST

The words sentient and sapient have fairly clear meanings, but the neologism sophont appears to be a synonym of sapient. Yet in a number of fiction a kind of hierarchy is made between the three.

In a fair amount of science fiction, the word sentient is misused as a synonym of sapient. In fiction such as Star Wars, this is further mangled into a distinction between "non-sentient" or "sub-sentient," "semi-sentient" and "fully sentient."

Initially I thought the sentient, sapient and sophont distinction was just a semantically correct version of the Star Wars-style of terminology. Yet fiction that uses this "correct" terminology, such as Orion's Arm or The Eldraeverse, often has dramatically different definitions and ideas about cognition (such as sapience without sentience, which I have difficulty imagining).

Even sentience may even be quantified as a "sentience quotient," unrelated to sapience or sophone, on which both plants and animals are measured. I don't know where I heard the idea, but I was initially under the impressions that plants were not sentient at all (by lacking nervous systems) until the quotient measured their sentience as much lower than animals.

I have no idea which distinction between sapient and sophont is correct, if any.

The usage of 'as in' in a sentence starting with 'nor'

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 08:07 AM PST

The Elantra Sport is a fun car to drive, even if there isn't nearly as much front-end grip as the newest Civic Si, nor does aggressive trail-braking net any oversteer in tight turns as in the Ford Focus ST.

Does this sentence mean that the Ford Focus ST nets some oversteer in tight turns when this car does aggressive trail-braking?

Due to the presence of 'as in' in the sentence above, I finds it somewhat vague...

And does the writer view that character of the Ford Focus as something positive?

It is + (time) + to + (verb)?

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 10:00 AM PST

Actually, I'm asking for an another way to say "it takes + (time) + to + (verb)".

For example, is "It is 1 hour to go to the hospital" correct or the "it takes + (time) + to + (verb)" construction is the only way to make a sentence in this sense?

“To cover the waterfront” usage

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 08:40 AM PST

There is an idiom to cover the waterfront:

to deal with every detail concerning a specific topic

[McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs via TFD]

Could you say thank you for covering the waterfront when someone has finished explaining things?

Also, can you say "we'll cover the waterfront"? for instance, when starting a partnership with a company? I'm intending to say we will help you in every details in setting up your business— "of course, we will cover the waterfront, and support you, etc."

How to write date range succinctly and unambiguously in American written English?

Posted: 07 Feb 2022 08:25 AM PST

How to write date range succinctly and unambiguously in American written English?

In a sentence I usually use "from January 1, 1923 through December 31, 1986". But it is too long for use in section titles.

It is relatively easy to find documentation on single date formatting compliant to standards and conventions for different locales. But I can't seem to find standards on date ranges formatting.

For example, for American English, how to format a date range so it's both succinct and unambiguous?

If the ends have different years, both should show up, e.g. 5/1/2011 - 5/4/2012.

What if the two years are same? I don't like 5/12/2012 - 7/21/2012 as it repeats the year unnecessarily; 5/12 - 7/21/2012 seems odd too. Any suggestions?
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