Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 06:25:43PM -0600, R0b0t1 wrote: > On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 11:03 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > [Far off topic] > > Allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. Thanks for the hearty laughs. It reminded me of a joke in which a priest’s son and

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Friday, 2 February 2018 23:44:16 GMT Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 20:34:04 +, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > > > But its a bad habit which I will never get into! > > > > > > Couldn't you have said "…habit that I…" in the fact that you were > > > referencing a specific habit, not

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On 02/02/18 17:28, Grant Taylor wrote: On 02/02/2018 01:10 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: We could use Perl. I see your Perl and raise you Lisp. Or the "language to replace all languages", PL/1 Cheers, Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 20:34:04 +, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > > But its a bad habit which I will never get into! > > > > Couldn't you have said "…habit that I…" in the fact that you were > > referencing a specific habit, not just a generic place holder? > > Nope. He said it's a bad habit.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Fri, Feb 02 2018, Grant Taylor wrote: > On 02/02/2018 01:03 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: > >> But its a bad habit which I will never get into! > > Couldn't you have said "…habit that I…" in the fact that you were > referencing a specific habit, not just a generic place holder? > > If I'm

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Friday, 2 February 2018 20:05:21 GMT Grant Taylor wrote: > On 02/02/2018 01:03 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: > > But its a bad habit which I will never get into! > > Couldn't you have said "…habit that I…" in the fact that you were > referencing a specific habit, not just a generic place holder?

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On 02/02/2018 01:03 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_relative_clauses#That_or_which_for_non-human_antecedents This mentions Fowlers, the reference that Peter said to read. Thank you. Unfortunately, the distinction, and so the subtleties of meaning, is falling

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On 02/02/2018 01:10 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: We could use Perl. I see your Perl and raise you Lisp. -- Grant. . . . unix || die smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

hehehehe :-) Old joke but a good one: Q: Why don't we obfuscate perl? A; Because that makes it more readable On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 10:10 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Fri, 2 Feb 2018 09:34:06 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: > > > As a native English speaker I can never

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Fri, 2 Feb 2018 09:34:06 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: > As a native English speaker I can never remember the precedence rules > about its and it's... Its easy ;-) > I vote we dump English in it's entirety and all switch to Python Come one! Most people can't handle basic spelling and

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 21:06:15 -0700, Grant Taylor wrote: > > And don't get me started on people using "which" when they should be > > using "that". > > > > (In this case, which is correct but it should have a preceding > > comma). > > Please defend / expound upon your statement. - Because I'd

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On 02/02/2018 09:47, Frank Steinmetzger wrote: On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 09:34:06AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: PS.: As a non-native, I always found e.g. and i.e. easy to keep apart because when you say "e.g." as a word without the dots, it becomes "eg", which, phonetically, is the start of the

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 09:34:06AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: > > PS.: As a non-native, I always found e.g. and i.e. easy to keep apart > > because when you say "e.g." as a word without the dots, it becomes "eg", > > which, phonetically, is the start of the word "example". > > > > As a native

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On 02/02/2018 00:52, Frank Steinmetzger wrote: On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 06:55:30PM +, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 13:12:07 -0500, Rich Freeman wrote: Well, as long as we're explaining grammar, I'll elaborate a tiny bit more since a lot of people (including native English

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On 02/01/2018 11:55 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: MUPHRY'S LAW: The principle that any criticism of the writing of others will itself contain at least one grammatical error. And don't get me started on people using "which" when they should be using "that". (In this case, which is correct but it

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 8:31 PM, Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 00:41:29 +, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > Good for him. 10/10 means "well done, but you're never going to get any > better". A depressing concept :( > More like, "well done, and you will get better,

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 00:41:29 +, Peter Humphrey wrote: > 9/10 for effort, though, as my Dad might have said. :) > > (He was a teacher, and he never gave 10/10 for anything because, he > said, surely there must always be some room for improvement. You see > what we children had to cope

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Friday, 2 February 2018 00:25:43 GMT R0b0t1 wrote: > On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 11:03 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > [Far off topic] > > Allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive > purposes Very funny, but I'm sorry to say I stopped reading at

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 11:03 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: > [Far off topic] Allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thursday, 1 February 2018 18:12:07 GMT Rich Freeman wrote: > On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > I've been seeing some confusion recently about the abbreviations e.g. > > and > > i.e. Their meanings are: > > > > E.g.Exempli gratia -

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thursday, 1 February 2018 22:52:14 GMT Frank Steinmetzger wrote: > PS.: As a non-native, I always found e.g. and i.e. easy to keep apart > because when you say "e.g." as a word without the dots, it becomes "eg", > which, phonetically, is the start of the word "example". Aargh! No, no, no.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 06:05:35PM -0500, Jack wrote: > On 2018.02.01 17:52, Frank Steinmetzger wrote: > [snip...] > > PS.: As a non-native, I always found e.g. and i.e. easy to keep apart > > because when you say "e.g." as a word without the dots, it becomes > > "eg", which, phonetically, is the

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On 2018.02.01 17:52, Frank Steinmetzger wrote: [snip...] PS.: As a non-native, I always found e.g. and i.e. easy to keep apart because when you say "e.g." as a word without the dots, it becomes "eg", which, phonetically, is the start of the word "example". A non-native speaker of English,

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 06:55:30PM +, Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 13:12:07 -0500, Rich Freeman wrote: > > > Well, as long as we're explaining grammar, I'll elaborate a tiny bit > > more since a lot of people (including native English speakers) get > > these wrong. > [snip] > > I

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 13:12:07 -0500, Rich Freeman wrote: > Well, as long as we're explaining grammar, I'll elaborate a tiny bit > more since a lot of people (including native English speakers) get > these wrong. [snip] > I figured that would make > the example more confusion which would defeat the

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > I've been seeing some confusion recently about the abbreviations e.g. and > i.e. Their meanings are: > > E.g.Exempli gratia - Latin for "for the sake of example"; > I.e.Id est

[gentoo-user] [OT] A little help for non-native English speakers

Hello list, [Far off topic] I've been seeing some confusion recently about the abbreviations e.g. and i.e. Their meanings are: E.g.Exempli gratia - Latin for "for the sake of example"; I.e.Id est - Latin for "that is". HTH. I'll ge back to sleep now.