"However fast you..." vs "No matter how..."

[Daemon99]

Now that my laughter has subsided a bit, tell me something, Molly. What exactly are you going to do with all of your “scores” after you find them?

Now that cracked me up :lol: Really Molly, what are you going to do with all that information…err… data?

[Yankee]

@Molly

Let’s say that for years, based on you native intuition, you had been telling students that an certain item was not used in a certain registers/text-types/genres. What if, by searching many corpora, you found out that the item in question was actually used and very frequently in such registers/text-types/genres? What would you do? What would be your reaction?

Doing your smoke and mirrors routine again, Molly?

[Molly]

@Yankee

Doing your smoke and mirrors routine again, Molly?

Doing you avoid all such questions like the plague routine again, Amy? You have the Mr P-astor habit of expecting people to answer many of your questions but baulk at answering the questions of others. Why is that?

[Yankee]

@Molly

On corpora: Let’s remember why corpora came about. One of the main reasons was because some people had doubts about the validity and trustworthiness of native intuitions. They are a tool, not yet perfect, to help us check native intuitions.

Do you have a credible source for that?

I’m glad that you’ve finally realized that the corpora are not perfect. When do you expect perfection to be reached and who is going to tell us?

@Molly

You don’t seem to have any need for them, many of us do. We’ll get better and better at using them while you ignore our attempts and continue demanding instant expertise.

You seem to make lots of mistakes. You erroneously stated shortly after your appearance here that I had never used corpora. You pompously presumed that I knew nothing about corpora. You chose to sarcastically answer my question about the necessity of spitting words in the corpora. (In view of the crazy “scores” posted in this thread, it would seem that I was quite justified in questioning that corpus practice.)

In fact, I have used corpora for quite some time, and have also suggested that others use them as a resource – especially for finding examples of how words are used in context, for example. However, I advise against using corpora blindly – as you did in this thread. And I don’t believe that a string of corpus numbers will help the majority of ESL students speak English better.

[Molly]

Do you have a credible source for that?

What type of source would be credible in you eyes?

I’m glad that you’ve finally realized that the corpora are not perfect.

Wow, you really are a wool-puller, aren’t you? I’ve said many times that one should CHECK MANY SOURCES. Have you gone deaf or something?

You chose to sarcastically answer my question about the necessity of spitting words in the corpora.

NO SPITTING ALLOWED. :lol:

In fact, I have used corpora for quite some time, and have also suggested that others use them as a resource – especially for finding examples of how words are used in context, for example.

But you’ve never advised anyone on how to search contractions, right?

And I don’t believe that a string of corpus numbers will help the majority of ESL students speak English better.

Nor will some of the advice of certain native speakers, right? Multi-source searching called for. Checking examples in context, consideration of registers, knowing more about the teacher’s: social background, language bias, socio-political stance on language use/acceptability, age, nationality, gender etc. all help to make a better user of a language. The “Baa-baa!” approach to language learning has long since left (most) of us.

[Alan]

Hi Amy,

Don’t take it amiss as I know it was just a typo but I felt that ‘spitting words’ does tend to sum up this elongated thread.

Alan

[Molly]

@Alan

Hi Amy,

Don’t take it amiss as I know it was just a typo but I felt that ‘spitting words’ does tend to sum up this elongated thread.

Alan

:lol:

[Yankee]

Yes, you may be right, Alan. And I suppose I don’t actually need to know what Molly’s smoky reaction to 94% would be.
.
.

@Molly

Do you have a credible source for that?

What type of source would be credible in you eyes? [color=blue]I take that smoke-and-mirrors response to mean that you don’t have any source at all. Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors…

I’m glad that you’ve finally realized that the corpora are not perfect.

Wow, you really are a wool-puller, aren’t you? I’ve said many times that one should CHECK MANY SOURCES. [color=blue]Somehow I seem to have missed any mention of the many other sources you checked when you posted those corpora “scores”. Have you gone deaf or something? [color=blue]I wasn’t aware that your posts had audio tracks. Is that where you hid your other sources?:shock:

You chose to sarcastically answer my question about the necessity of spitting words in the corpora.

NO SPITTING ALLOWED. :lol: [color=blue]Lucky for you that my typo provided you with an easy way out of that one, eh? Maybe we should now declare that to be the official way to spell “splitting”. After all, there is now an example of it online in black and white. You may forever refer back to it as proof that the L in the word “splitting” may be omitted. Typos as proof of usage, right? Yup, that’s the smoke-filled world of “Molly”…

In fact, I have used corpora for quite some time, and have also suggested that others use them as a resource – especially for finding examples of how words are used in context, for example.

But you’ve never advised anyone on how to search contractions, right? [color=blue]No, I doubt that I’ve ever advised someone on how to search contractions. How to search for them, perhaps, but not how to search them. On the other hand, my students have also generally been more interested in finding things other than contractions in context.

And I don’t believe that a string of corpus numbers will help the majority of ESL students speak English better.

Nor will some of the advice of certain native speakers, right? [color=blue]Right. In fact, there is one I know whose name just happens to begin with an M. Perhaps you’re also thinking of her?

[Molly]

@Yankee

Yes, you may be right, Alan. And I suppose I don’t actually need to know what Molly’s smoky reaction to 94% would be.
.
.

Nor I regarding your answer to “Let’s say that for years, based on you native intuition…”

If you only want to receive answers and do not want to give them, the word “forum” has no meaning, does it?

[Molly]

And how much less would you think before using “can not” if you had a mere 94%?

Around 5-6 percent less. Now we’re on about 20 answers from me and 1 from you. You may “owe” me.

[Prezbucky]

99.8% is probably about right… and the 0.2% that are “can not” are attributable to careless editing.

hehe

---

Molly, I’m not sure if someone has already answered this, but I would imagine most of us think of “cannot” as one word.

IMO, the best way to research this is to read – novels, articles, etc.

read published work – not some grammar-challenged person’s usage mutilations on the web.

Some usage mistakes are popular, but the fact that they’re popular does not make them correct.

[Molly]

99.8% is probably about right… and the 0.2% that are “can not” are attributable to careless editing.

Who are the experts?

Frequently Asked Questions

Spelling

Can ‘cannot’ also be written as two words ‘can not’? Printer Friendly Version

Both cannot and can not are acceptable spellings, but the first is much more usual. You would use can not when the ‘not’ forms part of another construction such as ‘not only’

askoxford.com/asktheexperts/ … ot?view=uk

Go Oxford, go!

[MrPedantic]

@Molly

Both cannot and can not are acceptable spellings, but the first is much more usual. You would use can not when the ‘not’ forms part of another construction such as ‘not only’

:?

How does that support:

@Molly

The American Corpus, for the Academic register, gives:

CANNOT - 0
CAN NOT - 21261

For all “books, newspapers, magazines, professional-level essays, etc.” the American corpus gives.

CAN NOT - 56588
CANNOT - 105

Back to the drawing board, Prez?

?

MrP

[Molly]

How does that support:

How does labouring the issue support forum use? Moving on… (if you’re ready that is).