I have some questions

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LifeDeath
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-07-14, 17:26

Hello! I've recently had my exams. And when I passed English I had to retell a text to a teacher. The text was about tecnologies/science and something like that. Then the teacher would ask me a couple of questions. She said that with tecnologies people learned how to make weapon and started more wars. I said something like "it's not necessarily the only reason, but people just like to blame science for it". When I got home I remembered the conversation and seriously wondered it the phrase "People like to blame science for it" is correct. Because, I don't remember where, but I've heard things like "Blame on it" or "blame is on you". I thought that I might have confused "on" and "for". I then tried to look for some information on it on the internet. I found that if the consequence goes the first, we use "for". Like "People like to blame science for wars". But if the reason goes the first, then we use "on" - "People like to blame wars on science".
I think that in my sentence the reason (science) goes the first and then the consequence "it" (wars and other bad things).
So it must be "for". But I can't be sure as those examples that I've provided above won't let me. Can you say what option is correct?


Another question. I was listening again to "The Show Must Go On" and a couple of phrases interested me.
Almost at the end of the song there's following "I'll top the bill". What does it mean? I'd been of a wrong perception of this sentence because long ago I saw a wrong Russian translation, it was "I'll pay the bill". But this time I noticed that it should mean something completely different. Does "top" mean "to get to the first position on a list"? But "bill" is an amount of money that you have to pay, how can one top it? Or maybe it can mean "list"? If so, I suppose that the sentence mean "I'll shift myself to the first and highest place (position) among some specific people (who are on the list)", doesn't it?

The next phrase is "I'll overkill". I didn't know what a verb mean, but I found out that the noun means "to do something to an excessive degree, more that required". So the verb must just mean the action of it. Maybe like "You overkilled at giving him 1000$, it think that 20$ would be pretty enough".
But what does this sentence realated to? If you say that you "will oerkill" you also have to mention in what field. Otherwise it's up in the air. It's like if I say to you "I will do". You'll probably want to know what I will do.
Maybe it's related to the previous sentence. But then I can't understand - how "topping te bill" can be an overkill? I mean, you can be the first, second, third, etc. But even if you are the first there's nothing about it. The whole pack of outcomes is discrete. I think that "overkilling" should be related to something more abstract or where an immense amount of power might be needed. Like destruction, maybe emotions, hard-working, etc.
But "toppig the bill" is just a factual thing. Getting at the first position is a factual thing. Nothing especial.
So I think I'm confused here.

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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-14, 17:45

LifeDeath wrote:Hello! I've recently had my exams. And when I passed English I had to retell a text to a teacher. The text was about technologies/science and somethingstuff like that. Then the teacher would asked me a couple of questions. She said that with technologiesy people learned how to make weapons and started more wars. I said something like "it's not necessarily the only reason, but people just like to blame science for it". When I got home I remembered the conversation and seriously wondered it the phrase "People like to blame science for it" is correct. Because, I don't remember where, but I've heard things like "Blame on it" or "blame is on you". I thought that I might have confused "on" and "for". I then tried to look for some information on it on the internet. I found that if the consequence goes the first, we use "for". Like "People like to blame science for wars". But if the reason goes the first, then we use "on" - "People like to blame wars on science".

I never gave it much thought before, but this is a pretty useful summary.

LifeDeath wrote:I think that in my sentence the reason (science) goes the first and then the consequence "it" (wars and other bad things).
So it must be "for". But I can't be sure as those examples that I've provided above won't let me. Can you say what option is correct?

The way you phrased it was correct.


LifeDeath wrote:Another question. I was listening again to "The Show Must Go On" and a couple of phrases interested me.
Almost at the end of the song there's following "I'll top the bill". What does it mean? I'd been of a wronghad a false perception of this sentence because long ago I saw a wrong Russian translation, it was "I'll pay the bill". But this time I noticed that it should mean something completely different. Does "top" mean "to get to the first position on a list"? But "bill" is an amount of money that you have to pay, how can one top it? Or maybe it can mean "list"? If so, I suppose that the sentence mean "I'll shift myself to the first and highest place (position) among some specific people (who are on the list)", doesn't it?

Basically. One of the meanings of "bill" (#7 in this list) is a list of performers in a show. Traditionally, the most important performers are listed first in very large type in order to grab people's attention. So if you "top the bill" (or get top billing), it means you are the most important act in the show.

LifeDeath wrote:The next phrase is "I'll overkill". I didn't know what that means as a verb, but I found out that the noun means "to do something to an excessive degree, more that required". So the verb must just mean the action of it.

Definition here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/overkill#Verb

LifeDeath wrote:Maybe like "You overkilled at giving him 1000$, itI think that 20$ would be pretty enough".

The dollar sign precedes an amount, i.e. "$1000", "$20".

LifeDeath wrote:But what does this sentence realated to? If you say that you "will overkill" you also have to mention in what field. Otherwise it's up in the air. It's like if I say to you "I will do". You'll probably want to know what I will do.

The entire song is about performing. That's all the context you need to understand that he's talking about putting even more into a performance than he needs to in order to succeed.
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-07-18, 17:51

linguoboy wrote:The dollar sign precedes an amount, i.e. "$1000", "$20".

I've noticed you've corrected me before. This is interesting. I thought that the sign just replaced the word. Cause people say "My child piggybanked 100 dollars" and no one says "My child piggybanked dollars 100". So there must be any other reason in using the sign rather than saving time and space in writing.

And I have a couple of simple questions today:

Do you think there's the difference between "sooner" and "earlier"? I caught myself thinking that they can be interchangeable in a context like "I needed to go there sooner/earlier".

Is there any difference between "over" and "rather than"? I suppose they sometimes can be interchangeable. Or am I wrong?
For example:
"I prefer the first one over/rather than the second."
"I have chosen that thing over/rather than the one that you suggested."

In fact, I'm not really sure if "over" is correct here. But I guess I've seen such usage somwhere.

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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-18, 19:43

LifeDeath wrote:
linguoboy wrote:The dollar sign precedes an amount, i.e. "$1000", "$20".

I've noticed you've corrected me before. This is interesting. I thought that the sign just replaced the word. Cause people say "My child piggybanked 100 dollars"

Do people in fact say that? I personally have never heard "piggybank" verbed that way.

LifeDeath wrote:So there must be any other reason infor using the sign rather than beside saving time and space in writing.

I don't follow your logic. It saves time and space regardless where it's placed. It's just an arbitrary convention that it comes before the amount whereas other currency signs normally come after. Note that the British pound sign (£) follows the same convention.

LifeDeath wrote:Do you think there's the difference between "sooner" and "earlier"? I caught myself thinking that they can be interchangeable in a context like "I needed to go there sooner/earlier".

"Soon" is relative to the time of speaking. "Early" is relative to a fixed time, like the start time for an event or a time of day. Compare:

"When I started the new job, I was coming in a 9 a.m. But the boss told me I needed to come to work earlier, so now I start at 8 a.m."

"I told my boss I wanted to start the new job at the end of the month, but she told me I needed to start sooner than that, so I'll be starting next week."

LifeDeath wrote:Is there any difference between "over" and "rather than"? I suppose they sometimes can be interchangeable. Or am I wrong?
For example:
"I prefer the first one over/rather than the second."
"I have chosen that thing over/rather than the one that you suggested."

In fact, I'm not really sure if "over" is correct here. But I guess I've seen such usage somewhere.

I would call it "informal". The more usual preposition to use would be to.
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-07-30, 17:16

Hi!
In an English community one guy posted this picture. He asked whether the underlined "is" is a correct usage or not.
One women said that it seems like a typo. She said that it absolutely makes sense when "is" is thrown off.
But there was another guy (who usually answers difficult questions and considered to be an experienced teacher of English), who said that in this instanse "is" is a predicate of a very long subject which is "it was after (the interview started)".
He suggests this scheme: "I'm sure it...[subject]...is when he realized...".
But this sounds strange to me, too. I'd expect to hear something like "I'm sure it...[subject] when he realized...".
What do you think?

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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-31, 3:20

LifeDeath wrote:In an English community one guy posted this picture. He asked whether the underlined "is" is a correct usage or not.
One woman said that it seems like a typo. She said that it absolutely makes sense when "is" is thrownleft off.
But there was another guy (who usually answers difficult questions and is considered to be an experienced teacher of English), who said that in this instanse "is" is a predicate of a very long subject which is "it was after (the interview started)".
He suggests this scheme: "I'm sure it...[subject]...is when he realized...".
But this sounds strange to me, too. I'd expect to hear something like "I'm sure it...[subject] when he realized...".
What do you think?

I think your "experienced teacher" is trying too hard to explain a quirk of colloquial English. I doubt it's a typo in the strict sense because this is the sort of thing you'll actually hear people say in conversation. In school we were taught not to say things like, "What it is is when" (e.g. "What it is is when you have the two-on-two portion of the fight, one guy is taken out, submitted or knocked out, and the referee steps in to stop it."). The fact that they had to teach us not to do this is evidence of how common it is.

To make the "is" correct according to prescriptive rules, you'd have to phrase the sentence differently. "After the interview started is when he realised DC was not all there" is perfectly grammatical. But when you use a cleft construction with a dummy subject, it pulls the verb along with it. Compare:

"DC is who we're talking about." > "It's DC (who) we're talking about."

"It's DC is who we're talking about" is something you might hear someone say, but if you recorded that sentence and played it back for them, they'd almost certainly tell you the second "is" is a mistake. It's the same with your example. If someone were writing that sentence instead of speaking it aloud, they'd almost certainly go back and fix it by removing the "is".
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-08-04, 21:01

Okay.
One interesting thing happened yesterday. I really want to know your opinion. This was again in the English community. A girl posted this screenshot and asked why the last option is correct as she answerd the first. I told her that theoretically they are both correct. Of course "bit" is the best and most natural here. But I said that there can be context where "bites" is an option no matter how bad it sounds but it's not ungrammmatical. I said that as the simple present it had a habitual meaning, but if we take another non-instantenious verb instead we may have a pretty sensful sentence. But then came the guy that I mentioned in my previous post and answered her, too. And in his answer he said that it should be "bit" and it's totally wrong to use "bites".
Well, now I want to ask you what you think. First of all, I absolutely agree that the simple past sounds best while "bites" even in a proper context is too peculiar. But if we're talking about the theoretical possibility, is that really breaks all the grammar rules? I think I came up with three possible types of context where it works. But before I list them, I want to notice that the guy pointed out that the expression "the other day" may refer only to the past.
Here's my list:

1. I don't know if it's possible in English but in Russian there's a method when we use present tense when talking about the past and using some past-markers, such as "yesterday", "seven days ago", "the other day", etc.
E.g.: "How was it?"
"Oh, you won't believe! Yesterday he just approaches me an tells me that I have to forgive him!"

I don't know what this thing's called. But it's possible in Russian and maybe in English.

2. The next conext is sarcastic. Example:
"When do you give me my money back?"
"I give them to you yesterday".

Thereby the second guy hints that he won't give the money to the first guy. It can be used as a joke in Russian and I don't see why it can't be used like that in English.

3. I think this is the most appropriate and possible explanation. What if "the other day" is used here contextually?
I guess that non-natives learn English expressions as set phrases while native speakers know that they can be a part of a context. For example: "I have two free days: Tuesday and Wednesday. I do not plan to go there on Tuesday, so I think I go there the other day".
Or maybe like this:
"There's a tradition in our family: my son has to bite me a couple of days before his birthday. His birthday is on Friday, today is Tuesday. Tomorrow he'll be out all the day".
"That means he won't be able tomorrow? Your tradition is broken?"
"No, my son just bites me the other day. On Thursday."

I know it's dumb, but I've tried to show you what I mean. I don't see how something here is incorrect and what exactly might be.
I doubted a lot if that is possible but then I found this page on the internet and it has encouraged me a little. But do not fully trust to a random native speaker. That's why I'm asking here for your opinion over the matter. Is that possible in theory?

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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-04, 21:57

LifeDeath wrote:OneAn interesting thing happened yesterday. I really want to know your opinion. This was again in the English community. A girl posted this screenshot and asked why the last option is correct as she answered the first. I told her that theoretically they are both correct. Of course "bit" is the best and most natural here. But I said that there can be context where "bites" is an option no matter how bad it sounds but it's not ungrammmatical. I said that as the simple present it had a habitual meaning, but if we take another non-instantaneous verb instead we may have a pretty sensfulsensible sentence. But then came the guy that I mentioned in my previous post and answered her, too. And in his answer he said that it should be "bit" and it's totally wrong to use "bites".
Well, now I want to ask you what you think. First of all, I absolutely agree that the simple past sounds best while "bites" even in a proper context is too peculiar. But if we're talking about the theoretical possibility, does that really breaks all the grammartical rules? I think I came up with three possible types of context where it works. But before I list them, I want to notice that the guy pointed out that the expression "the other day" may refer only to the past.
Here's my list:

1. I don't know if it's possible in English but in Russian there's a method whenre we use present tense when talking about the past and using some past-markers, such as "yesterday", "seven days ago", "the other day", etc.
E.g.: "How was it?"
"Oh, you won't believe! Yesterday he just approaches me an tells me that I have to forgive him!"

I don't know what this thing's called. But it's possible in Russian and maybe in English.

In English, we call this the "historical present". It's a particular type of narrative style (i.e. you only use it when telling a story) and is generally very colloquial. So it's a "marked" usage. But a sentence in isolation on a test like this--with no indication that it is part of a longer narrative--calls for unmarked usage.

LifeDeath wrote:2. The next context is sarcastic. Example:
"When dowill you give me my money back?"
"I give them to you yesterday".

Thereby the second guy hints that he won't give the money to the first guy. It can be used as a joke in Russian and I don't see why it can't be used like that in English.

I have never ever seen this done in English. It sounds hideously wrong to me.

LifeDeath wrote:3. I think this is the most appropriate and possible explanation. What if "the other day" is used here contextually?
I guess that non-natives learn English expressions as set phrases while native speakers know that they can be a part of a context. For example: "I have two free days: Tuesday and Wednesday. I do not plan to go there on Tuesday, so I think I will go there the other day".
Or maybe like this:
"There's a tradition in our family: my son has to bite me a couple of days before his birthday. His birthday is on Friday, today is Tuesday. Tomorrow he'll be out all the day".
"That means he won't be able to tomorrow? Your tradition is broken?"
"No, my son just bites me the other day. On Thursday."

I know it's dumb, but I've tried to show you what I mean. I don't see how something here is incorrect and what exactly might be.

"Bites" doesn't work for me there, since its meaning is habitual and that context calls for a marked future (as with "go", above).

LifeDeath wrote:I doubted a lot if that is possible but then I found this page on the internet and it has encouraged me a little. But I do not fully trust to a random native speaker. That's why I'm asking here for your opinion overin the matter. Is that possible in theory?

Aren't I just a random native speaker?

I agree with him, but look at how he had to establish a context where the expression would be correct.

Grammar is very contextual. As we've seen, there are usages which work fine in song lyrics but sound awful in more formal contexts--and vice versa. A test of grammar is its own sort of literary genre. The answers they're looking for are the most unmarked ones which are grammatically correct. Yeah, you can create a context where "the other day" means "one of two days previously mentioned". But 99.999% of the time, it means "an unspecified day in the past".

Native speakers know this, and that's how they choose their answers appropriately. So if the point of the test is to give the answers a native speaker would, you all should be approaching the questions in the same way, not racking your brains for some exceptional set of circumstances which makes one of the other options acceptable. What's really the point of that?
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-08-05, 20:27

linguoboy wrote:I have never ever seen this done in English. It sounds hideously wrong to me.

Well, maybe I was wrong when I said that is sounds natural in Russian. But there's a strory that I remember reading as a child. It's short so I'll translate it and maybe you will understand what I mean.
"Once upon a time a devil (Chort in origin) borrows some money to a man. The man says to the devil that he needs to come the following day to take them back. The next days things repeat. Not to answer every time himself the man hung a nameplate on which it was written "come tomorrow". So the devil kept coming every single day. One day he decides that noting will happen if he misses/omits one day because he didn't want to go to see the same nameplate. But the next day, when he went to the man's house, he saw the nameplate where it was written "come yesterday". "It seems that I lost my money" - thought the devil."

linguoboy wrote:Aren't I just a random native speaker?

Before I used this website I thought that a native speaker was someone who just speaks English fluently. But after you and other guys here have answerd my questions and explained so many hard linguistic issues (which I think are not even learned in English countries) I can't seriously consider those guys who think themselves Gods just because they speak English fluently (cause they do not usually know any linguistic terms and are not able to explain some hard grammar). So, you surely have a huge authority.

linguoboy wrote:But 99.999% of the time, it means "an unspecified day in the past".

I know this is an estimate but I didn't know that it was so huge. Because I don't see what's wrong to refer to a day as "the other day" in the same way we usually use "the other" to refer to other adjectives. Does "day" have fewer rights?

linguoboy wrote:Native speakers know this, and that's how they choose their answers appropriately. So if the point of the test is to give the answers a native speaker would, you all should be approaching the questions in the same way, not racking your brains for some exceptional set of circumstances which makes one of the other options
acceptable. What's really the point of that?

Because I think that saying that any other options are not correct is destructive to those who learn. Those who design tests probably need to make all other answers obviously incorrect. And if someone is taught that only one option is correct and is forbidden to use the others, his creativity will be killed. And that's really bad. I remember my teacher saying "Don't try to say what you are not able to express". But creativity is what helps people to speak, to make interesting sentences, to use grammar and vocabulary flexibly, to become a native-like speaker.

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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-05, 22:39

LifeDeath wrote:Well, maybe I was wrong when I said that is sounds natural in Russian. But there's a strory that I remember reading as a child. It's short so I'll translate it and maybe you will understand what I mean.

"Once upon a time athe Devil (Chort in origin) borrowslends some money to a man. The man says to the Devil that he needs to come the following day to take themit back.

It's not clear from how you've phrased it who's supposed to come back the following day. If it's the Devil, something like "The man tells the Devil to come back the following day to collect his money."

LifeDeath wrote: The next days things repeatthe same thing happens. NSo as not to have to answer every time himselfkeep saying the same thing, the man hunghangs a nameplate on which it wasis written "come tomorrow". So the Devil keptkeeps coming every single day.

If you start narrating in the historical present, keep with it. Switching back and forth sounds really awkward.

LifeDeath wrote:One day he decides that noting will happen if he misses/omits one day because he doesn't want to go to see the same nameplate. But the next day, when he wentgoes to the man's house, he saw the nameplate where it was written on the nameplate "come yesterday". "It seems that I lost my money" - thoughtthinks the devil."

Cute story, but I don't see how it relates to the point at hand.

LifeDeath wrote:
linguoboy wrote:Aren't I just a random native speaker?

Before I used this website I thought that a native speaker was someone who just speaks English fluently. But after you and other guys here have answered my questions and explained so many hard linguistic issues (which I think are not even learnedtaught in English-speaking countries) I can't seriously consider those guys who think themselves gods just because they speak English fluently (cause they do not usually know any linguistic terms and are not able to explain some hard grammar). So, you surely have a hugea lot of authority.

Fluency, being a native speaker, and being able to explain things using grammatical terminology are different skills and don't always go together. I sometimes find that non-native speakers are able to explain grammar better because they've had to learn it explicitly whereas native speakers just say what "sounds correct" to them and can't explain why they say one thing and not another.

LifeDeath wrote:
linguoboy wrote:But 99.999% of the time, it means "an unspecified day in the past".

I know this is an estimate but I didn't know that it was so huge. Because I don't see what's wrong towith referring to a day as "the other day" in the same way we usually use "the other" to refer to other adjectivesnouns. Does "day" have fewer rights?

Words don't have "rights". Words do have usages. As I've explained to you many times, you can't use abstract reasoning to ascertain what proper usage is. It's a fundamentally empirical question: What the majority of fluent native speakers accept as correct is "correct" regardless whether it conforms to some abstract analysis or not.

Google "the other day" and see for yourself what the distribution is. You'll have to go through many many examples of it meaning "an unspecified day in the past" before you find it being used in any other way. That's just a fact about English. It's a fixed phrase which functions as a time expression in a way that, for instance, "the other house" or "the other girl" does not.

LifeDeath wrote:
linguoboy wrote:Native speakers know this, and that's how they choose their answers appropriately. So if the point of the test is to give the answers a native speaker would, you all should be approaching the questions in the same way, not racking your brains for some exceptional set of circumstances which makes one of the other options acceptable. What's really the point of that?

Because I think that saying that any other options are not correct is destructive to those who learn. Those who design tests probably need to make all other answers obviously incorrect. And if someone is taught that only one option is correct and it is forbidden to use the others, his creativity will be killed. And that's really bad. I remember my teacher saying "Don't try to say what you are not able to express". But creativity is what helps people to speak, to make interesting sentences, to use grammar and vocabulary flexibly, to become a native-like speaker.

As with art, it's best to know the rules before you set out to break them. If you try to teach learners every single possible usage which could be accepted as correct in some convoluted set of circumstances, you will confuse them. Everyone understands that there are exceptions to rules of usage and if they're wise, they know that they'll learn them in time and what they need initially are the most broadly-applicable generalisations.

I do agree with you that text makers should be encouraged to use adjectives like "best" or "most acceptable" rather than "correct". But I stand by what I said about competent learners knowing what is and isn't expected of them on a standardised test.
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-09-15, 17:07

Hello! I wasn't home for a while so I didn't have an opportunity to ask questions coming to my mind. Now that I'm back, I'll ask a couple of them at first.

linguoboy wrote:Cute story, but I don't see how it relates to the point at hand.

This is the first thing I'd like to ask about. A couple of days ago I was arguing with my friend over the influence of grammar onto the use of a language (I mean, how grammar influences the way people communicate and express themselves). So that story shows that context can be untypical or even paradoxical. But does that mean that such usages are strictly forbidden? No, I think people tend to use a language flexibly, that's how one's mind works, and sometimes it can be against the grammar. My friend said that grammar constraints descriptiveness. Then maybe before deciding whether a usage is correct in a context or not, it'd be better to decide whether we're talking about using of grammar or using of language? What do you think? I remember here, on this forum, you called people who totally follow rules of grammar "prescriptive pedants". But I think this isn't good. It makes using of language harder for a learner and even for a native speaker.


I've continued to listen to some contemporary songs as I was interested.

In Eminem song "Without Me" there's a sentence "I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley". Shouldn't it be "I have been the worst thing since Elvis Presley". It really sounds strange because I expect the perfect here. Isn't what we use it for as we've many times discussed here? Something that began in the past and is still ongoing. Well, I thought maybe it's some kind of slang. But slang is when you use some strange expressions, words. or incorrect forms. But this is the aspect and I think this is how natives think. It's really confusing me.

In another song of his "The Way I Am" there's "I'm not gonna be able to top on "My Name Is" and pigeon-holed into some poppy sensation". I've been trying to understand what "pigeon-holed" means here for more than a couple of months and I still haven't. I've found some obscene definitions on the internet, but I can't see how they could work here. Probably the meaning is different. Can you help me understand it?

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Re: I have some questions

Postby Dormouse559 » 2017-09-15, 18:41

LifeDeath wrote:This is the first thing I'd like to ask about. A couple of days ago I was arguing with my friend over the influence of grammar onto the use of a language (I mean, how grammar influences the way people communicate and express themselves). So that story shows that context can be untypical unusual/atypical or even paradoxical. But does that mean that such usages are strictly forbidden? No, I think people tend to use a language flexibly, that's how one's mind works, and sometimes it can be go against the grammar. My friend said that grammar constraints descriptiveness. Then maybe before deciding whether a usage is correct in a context or not, it'd be better to decide whether we're talking about using of grammar or using of language? What do you think? I remember here, on this forum, you called people who totally follow grammar rules "prescriptive pedants". But I don't think this is good. It makes it harder to use language harder for a learner and even for a native speaker.
There's a difference between being a prescriptivist and pointing out when a construction sounds unnatural. All language, even the most casual, slangy, low-prestige kind, has structure; not every conceivable turn of phrase will work or mean what you expect. Both linguoboy and I base our corrections mainly on that pre-existing structure. We describe that structure, making us "descriptivists". I think both of us are careful when explaining prescriptive rules to label them as such.

On using "yesterday" in a non-past context, it's certainly possible, but it apparently doesn't mean the same thing as in Russian. It usually means that something is late or needs to be done very soon. If your boss tells you, "I need your report yesterday," it means you need to finish your report as soon as possible, and it strongly implies the report is already late.

LifeDeath wrote:In the Eminem song "Without Me" there's a sentence "I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley". Shouldn't it be "I have been the worst thing since Elvis Presley". It really sounds strange because I expect the perfect here. Isn't what we use it for as we've many times discussed here? Something that began in the past and is still ongoing. Well, I thought maybe it's some kind of slang. But slang is when you use some strange expressions, words. or incorrect forms. But this is the aspect and I think this is how natives think. It's really confusing me.
Correction: Present perfect refers to an event that began in the past and is relevant in the present, not necessarily ongoing.

For events defined by the fact that they are ongoing, you normally use the present progressive (be [verb]ing), but "to be" is one of the verbs that prefers the simple present. The sentence describes an ongoing state of being with the verb "to be"; therefore, you use simple present.

LifeDeath wrote:In another song of his "The Way I Am" there's "I'm not gonna be able to top on "My Name Is" and pigeon-holed into some poppy sensation". I've been trying to understand what "pigeon-holed" means here for more than a couple of months (or "more than a few months" / "several months") and I still haven't managed to. I've found some obscene definitions on the internet, but I can't see how they could work here. Probably the meaning is different. Can you help me understand it?
"To pigeon-hole" - to categorize someone, limiting them to that category, often based on stereotypes. Eminem is saying he doesn't like being limited to pop music.
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-09-19, 16:58

Alright, thanks.
I'm sorry but I still do not understand the second question.
Dormouse559 wrote:For events defined by the fact that they are ongoing, you normally use the present progressive (be [verb]ing), but "to be" is one of the verbs that prefers the simple present. The sentence describes an ongoing state of being with the verb "to be"; therefore, you use simple present.

Is it some general information on using the present progressive and perfect? Or is it an answer for the question? You say that in this case the "be" is ongoing and that's why it is in the simple present. But isn't that how people naturally use it? I mean, you say "be" if you talk about habitual things; you say "be being" if you put emphasis on the very present moment to describe the way someone's acting/behaving.
Well, I would perfectly understand this as a common idiomatic usage but I remember this conversation:

linguoboy wrote:
LifeDeath wrote:"I am working for them for 2 years already."
"I have been working for them for two years already."
Whenever I hear the first version, I know without a doubt that the speaker is non-native. This is one of the most common errors I hear from learners of English, even those who are fairly advanced otherwise. But I've never once heard a native speaker say it, not ever.


Russian lacks perfect aspect and that's why a lot of people have problems choosing a proper tense. But I think that I've been getting better at developing the ability to "know" what tense to use in a context recently. And sometimes it's really obvious that the perfect aspect is needed. Just as in the discussion above.
I think that in the sentence "I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley" by "Elvis Presley" is meant the period of his life or his releasing of songs. Whatever one is meant is obviously in the past. That's why "since Elvis Presley" means "since a moment which is in the past". And in the moment of speaking Eminem's being "the worst thing" is still relevant as the opposite is not stated. That being said, we have an event that began in the past and is relevant in the moment of speaking. Isn't this the perfect opportunity for using the perfect tense? I guess it would be even incorrect to use something else here. Look at these examples:
"I loved you all my life".
"I never was to London since I was born".
"I am waiting for you for 20 minutes already".
"Did you ever see the rainbow in your life".

I think they all sound terrible without adding the perfect aspect. What if we say "for the recent years after Elvis Presley" instead of "since Elvis Presley"? I think that the meaning is not changed, but now it is similar to that been-working example above: "I am the worst thing for the recent years after Elvis Presley". Don't you want to use the perfect tense here instead? Probably you do. But doesn't this mean that the original sentence must be "I have been the worst thing since Elvis Presley" according to all the assumptions I've made in this message? Where am I wrong?

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Re: I have some questions

Postby Dormouse559 » 2017-09-19, 19:47

LifeDeath wrote:
Dormouse559 wrote:For events defined by the fact that they are ongoing, you normally use the present progressive (be [verb]ing), but "to be" is one of the verbs that prefers the simple present. The sentence describes an ongoing state of being with the verb "to be"; therefore, you use simple present.

Is it some general information on using the present progressive and perfect? Or is it an answer for the question? You say that in this case the "be" is ongoing and that's why it is in the simple present. But isn't that how people naturally use it? I mean, you say "be" if you talk about habitual things; you say "be being" if you put emphasis on the very present moment to describe the way someone's acting/behaving.
You are right about "be" in present progressive. But "be" in the simple present describes a state that is ongoing, whether it's temporary or enduring, singular or habitual. When someone says, "I am a teacher", it includes the past, present and future.

LifeDeath wrote:Well, I would perfectly understand this as a common idiomatic usage but I remember this conversation:
...
Where am I wrong?
You're comparing two similar but uncomparable constructions. There's "since" when meant purely to introduce a temporal phrase. "I've loved rock-and-roll since Elvis Presley."

But then there's the turn of phrase Eminem used, which I'd describe less as a temporal phrase and more as a comparative expression, a way of comparing two things with regard to time. Eminem is comparing himself to Elvis Presley, saying Elvis is the only person at least as bad as Eminem, but with the nuance that this applies only in the time period between Elvis and Eminem. Eminem is allowing for the possibility that some future artist could be just as bad as him. Most importantly for our situation, this phrase being comparative rather than temporal means that "since" has no bearing on what aspect we use. Eminem uses the simple present because his state of being the worst since Elvis is ongoing. The present perfect makes it sound like he may have stopped being the worst.
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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-09-20, 9:03

Interesting, thanks.

linguoboy wrote:
LifeDeath wrote:I think that emotions are usually mass nouns. So we don't say "a love" or "an anger" because those are mass nouns. I think that "shame" follows the same principle. But I've noticed that in some specific expressions that rule doesn't work! Like "What a shame!". What is this phenomenon called? Or "What a love they have! I think I'll never meet my own prince charming!".
I think it's a form of metonymy. In the first case, "shame" is used to mean "a shameful event". In the second, "love" is used to mean "a love affair".


I want to ask, can "weather" be used in the same way as metonym to refer to a 'kind of weather' or a 'spell (period) of weather'? On an English topic guys were discussing this. I tried to Google it myself and I've only found when people were saying that this is not correct. But what about the example that I've showed above?
"What a weather!"
"What weather!"

I don't know why but the first exclamation sounds better to me. The second is awkward. It sounds as if it's an answer for the "You remember about the weather?" regardless the intonation. What do you think?

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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-09-20, 18:03

LifeDeath wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
LifeDeath wrote:I think that emotions are usually mass nouns. So we don't say "a love" or "an anger" because those are mass nouns. I think that "shame" follows the same principle. But I've noticed that in some specific expressions that rule doesn't work! Like "What a shame!". What is this phenomenon called? Or "What a love they have! I think I'll never meet my own prince charming!".
I think it's a form of metonymy. In the first case, "shame" is used to mean "a shameful event". In the second, "love" is used to mean "a love affair".

I want to ask, can "weather" be used in the same way as a metonym to refer to a 'kind of weather' or a 'spell (period) of weather'? On an English topic guys were discussing this. I tried to Google it myself and I've only found where people were saying that this is not correct. But what about the example that I've showedn above?
"What a weather!"
"What weather!"

I don't know why but the first exclamation sounds better to me. The second is awkward. It sounds as if it's an answer forto the question "You remember about the weather?" regardless of the intonation. What do you think?

"Weather" can't be a count noun in my dialect, so I would have to go with "What weather!" The OED specifically lists the usage with an indefinite article as "obsolete" (e.g. "Lord, this is an huge rayn! This were a weder for to slepen inne." [Chaucer]).

Note that especially in the context of aviation, "weather" can mean specifically "adverse weather; storm", e.g. "They couldn't go any further tonight, not without running the additional risk of night flying, and running into weather after dark was hardly sensible."
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Re: I have some questions

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-10-05, 3:23

Late, but:
LifeDeath wrote:Thank you for this answer and analysis.

No problem! :)
Yes. Maybe it's when "losing opportunities" and "failing at something" is are kind of the same thing. For example, you bought a lotterty ticket, its number was winning and you won a billion (I need the name of a currency here because otherwise, it doesn't really make sense in this context), and on your way to take the prize, you accidentally dropped your ticket into a sewage grid when sewer while crossing a road. So after a couple of years, you can could say, "I could have had got(ten) a billion (currency name), but in fact, I didn't". So I think this is kind of loosing the opportunity.

Well the thing is that I guess that I know how to pronounce vowels properly in English. I think that I can say some simple and casual sentences pretty well (comparing to how I read), especially if I just speak. But when it comes to reading, things change. Maybe it's because I have to read another man's (I'd probably say "person's" here instead of "man's") thoughts, and because there are some words that I'm just not familiar with at all. Anyway I will be working on that problem.

Oh, I, on the other hand, contrariwisely thought that I overpronounced it,; I think it's especially noticeablye in the word "drinking" almost in at the end of the text.

Didn't know about "y", henceforth I will be trying to spell pronounce it correctly. But I always tried kept trying to pronounce "ea" properly, too bad I didn't succeed.

[...]

That's interesting, I didn't know about that. I think it's a popular word and I've heard it many times and knew how to pronounce it.

And about that. I think that I've always pronounced it analogically to by analogy with "certain", where the "t" is pronounced if I'm not mistaken.

Well it's also hard to learn where it should be voiced pronounced and where not. I am used to the fact that it's not voiced pronounced in "honesty". I thought that it would be unvoiced be silent/not be pronounced in other words of that type.

So I think that to learn all that, I need to practice and listen to native speakers a lot.

Babbsagg wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Babbsagg wrote:I'm no specialist on AmE, but I think it's less common there. Maybe because those T's are usually pronounced like D's already? When listening to AmE, I always hear "bedder" instead of "better", "buddon" instead of "button" etc.

Those aren't d's. You're talking about a well-studied phenomenon known as "tapping" or "flapping": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapping. The sound in question is actually [ɾ], but it probably sounds like [d] to you since that's the closest equivalent in most varieties of German.

[...]

Thanks for the info, learning never stops.

Just so you know, Americans also tend to perceive those sounds as Ds.

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Re: I have some questions

Postby LifeDeath » 2017-10-10, 17:56

Thanks!

So today I've got a couple of new questions.

1. I reread the poem from the LOTR:

"From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."


And I wondered, can "of" and "from" be interchangeable? I thought about it when I was at the sentence "From the ashes a fire shall be woken". I think that "from" usually means something like "literally from the position". So "From the ashes" must mean that the ashes are the source of the fire, right? And right from that place where they are the fire starts. But I guess that in this instance, the ashes are the source, but not in terms of place yet in terms of material. It's like those ashes become afire. But isn't is what we use "of" for? At least one of its usages. So I tried to say "Of the ashes a fire shall be woken". Do you think it's possible? Do you think there's a difference?



2. I want to talk about perfect aspect once more. As I said it's hard to understand if the thing does not exist in your language. But I'm trying to get better and I think I'm pretty good at some examples. I suppose it is easier with non-instantaneous verbs. We are taught that the perfect usually requires result. So, is this result something material or just factual and abstract? That's where misunderstanding shows up. But it's obvious that aspects do not serve only one case. Their usage is comprehensive. So I came up with an example a couple of days ago and I want to show it to you.
Imagine that you and your friend/girlfriend sleep in one flat. There's a fly in a room that's noising all night long. In the morning you smack the fly. And when you come to another room, your friend asks you: "Why is it so quiet here?". And you answer: "Because I smacked that fly!". Do we use the simple past here? I mean, there's no result of the action being done. And the action itself is factual. You just share some information over the reason of the ambience having become quiet.
Another example - the whole narration is the same, but at the end when being asked the question - you show your palm of hand with a smacked fly on it, pointing at it with a finger of the other hand, so now you'd answer "Because I have smacked that fly!". Here you use the perfect because there's the observable result - a body of the fly. How would you say?
It can be extended to any situation. The general problem is, it's hard to see the result of instantaneous actions. I mean, what do we understand by "result"? Is it something that appears/is left after performing an action? Or is it the fact of performing an action itself? Well, if the answer is the second, then I understand why people have problems understanding it. Because every action that happened by the moment of speaking may be categorized in that way.
I remember this:
linguoboy wrote:Instantaneous actions can be either semelfactive (from the Latin for "single occurrence") or iterative (from the Latin for "again").

So are semelfactive actions used in the perfect aspect? I assume that any action that happened only once is factual. So to say, it's just a fact - it either happened or it didn't happen. And simple past in English is used to talk about such actions. But, of course, I'm incorrect. The example appears immediately: "I have seen him this week". But maybe I'm confusing something, is the action here semelfactive? Logically enough, it should be. The number of times I "experienced" seeing him during the week is "one". So it proves that the perfect aspect extends its usage on semelfactive actions, if I'm not mistaken.
But things're getting harder with iterative actions. What does iterative mean? Do those actions happen systematically and thus repeatedly? How many time does an action have to have happened in the past so that I could call it iterative? I suppose there's no rules on it. Is it an action that's happened at least twice by the moment of speaking?
I also noticed one interesting peculiar thing, when I want to stress iterativeness I use... progressive aspect.
"I've been seeing him this week". Sounds to me that I regularly or many times saw him during the week. And this is strange because progressive aspect serves to indicate the ongoing nature of an action as you said. And this is a well known fact. Do you agree with that or am I wrong? So it seems that an iterative action here is treated like an ongoing one, which is pretty strange.

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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-10-10, 21:39

LifeDeath wrote:And I wondered, can "of" and "from" be interchangeable? I thought about it when I was at the sentence "From the ashes a fire shall be woken". I think that "from" usually means something like "literally from the position". So "From the ashes" must mean that the ashes are the source of the fire, right? And right from that place where they are the fire starts. But I guess that in this instance, the ashes are the source, but not in terms of place yet in terms of material. It's like those ashes become a fire. But isn't is what we use "of" for? At least one of its usages. So I tried to say "Of the ashes a fire shall be woken". Do you think it's possible? Do you think there's a difference?

I disagree with your interpretation. I think the fire will spring up where the ashes are located but the fire itself won't be composed of those ashes. So it is a strictly locational usage.

When talking of material, it's complicated. Even here, of is less common than from. The main context in which it sounds right to me is when there is no article and the phrase is static rather than dynamic. That is:

"The pipe is made of bog oak"

sounds better to me than:

"He'll make the pipe of bog oak"

which has a slightly archaic flair. I'd prefer "He'll make the pipe out of bog oak" or "He'll make the pipe from bog oak".

When there's an article (definite or indefinite) only "out of" and "from" sound acceptable:

"He'll make the pipe out of/from a piece of bog oak."
"He'll make the pipe out of/from the blackened bog oak you found."

tl;dr: They're not interchangeable. Avoid "of" in these circumstances.
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Re: I have some questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-10-11, 17:14

LifeDeath wrote:We are taught that the perfect usually requires a result. So, is this result something material or just factual and abstract? That's where misunderstandings shows up.

LifeDeath wrote:Imagine that you and your friend/girlfriend sleep in onethe same flat. There's a fly in athe room that's noisingmaking noise all night long. In the morning you smackswat the fly. And when you come to another room, your friend asks you: "Why is it so quiet here?". And you answer: "Because I swatted that fly!". Do we use the simple past here? I mean, there's no result of the action being done. And the action itself is factual. You just share some information overregarding the reason offor the ambience having become quiet.

You could use either. If you use the perfect, it focuses on the resulting state of fly-free quiet.

LifeDeath wrote:Another example - the whole narration is the same, but at the end when being asked the question - you show yourthe palm of your hand with a squashed fly on it, pointing at it with a finger of the other hand, so now you'd answer "Because I have smacked that fly!". Here you use the perfect because there's the observable result - a body of the fly. HowWhat would you say?

Again, you could use either. It depends whether you're emphasising the act or the result.

LifeDeath wrote:ItThis can be extended to any situation. The general problem is, it's hard to see the result of instantaneous actions. I mean, what do we understand by "result"? Is it something that appears/is left after performing an action? Or is it the fact of performing an action itself? Well, if the answer is the second, then I understand why people have problems understanding it. Because every action that happensed by before the moment of speaking may be categorized in that way.
I remember this:
linguoboy wrote:Instantaneous actions can be either semelfactive (from the Latin for "single occurrence") or iterative (from the Latin for "again").

So are semelfactive actions used in the perfect aspect? I assume that any action that happened only once is factual. So to say, it's just a fact - it either happened or it didn't happen.

Actions can't be factual, only statements about them can be. And when it comes to evaluating these statements, it doesn't matter how they occurred. "I've been thinking about you all day" is a statement with a certain truth value. If I thought about you only once today, it's factually untrue. It's also untrue if I thought about you exactly twice or if I didn't think about you at all.

LifeDeath wrote:And the simple past in English is used to talk about such actions. But, of course, I'm incorrect. The counterexample appears immediately: "I have seen him this week". But maybe I'm confusing something, is the action here semelfactive? Logically enough, it should be. The number of times I "experienced" seeing him during the week is "one".

But the verb here isn't "experienced", it's "seen". What this statement means is I've seen him at least once this week. It could have been a single occurrence, it could have been a daily occurrence. The use of the perfect doesn't specify which.

LifeDeath wrote:So it proves that the perfect aspect extends its usage onto semelfactive actions, if I'm not mistaken.

You're not. That is correct.

LifeDeath wrote:But things're getting harder with iterative actions. What does iterative mean? Do those actions happen systematically and thus repeatedly? How many time does an action have to have happened in the past so that I could call it iterative? I suppose there's no rules on it. Is it an action that's happened at least twice by the moment of speaking?

By definition, yes it is.

LifeDeath wrote:I also noticed one interesting peculiar thing, when I want to stress iterativeness I use... progressive aspect.
"I've been seeing him this week". Sounds to me thatlike I saw him regularly or many times saw him during the week. And this is strange because progressive aspect serves to indicate the ongoing nature of an action as you said. And this is a well known fact. Do you agree with that or am I wrong? So it seems that an iterative action here is treated like an ongoing one, which is pretty strange.

I'm not sure how that's strange. An iterative process is ongoing. It just consists of distinct steps (iter literally means "journey") rather than a continuous uninterrupted action.

Your example runs into problems because to be seeing someone is an idiom meaning "to be in a casual romantic relationship with someone". If I say "I'm seeing someone from the office", it means I'm dating them. If I want to make clear that they're just appearing before me repeatedly I'd say "I keep seeing someone from the office".

If you really want to communicate that you've seen someone regularly or many times within a week, the simplest way to do this is to use those words:

"I keep seeing him regularly this week."
"I've seen him many times this week."

Notice the different constructions. In the first case, it's implied that the action is habitual, thus the construction uses the simple present. In the second case, you're talking about several distinct occasions (an iterative action) but with no regular schedule to them, so the perfect is used.
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