You say "I saw some EE student C code once" is grammatical?
How about "I saw some American woman English speak once"? ;-)
I wonder who is "lot competent" here!
Your example is wrong because "code" in my sentence is a noun, not a verb as you assumed.
Is English your 1st language? Thanks for showing us more "lot competent."
Hint, if you're wrong, but mistakenly try to come back and tell me I'm wrong, I'm going to let you have it with both barrels.
"if your'e using it as a noun, by the way, you are wrong - I think student needs to be possessive."
Exactly. And you need an apostrophe to indicate that if you want your readers to parse the sentence properly.
"I saw an EE student's C Code once" (student is singular) or " I saw some EE students' C code once" (students are plural). I've seen some grammar books recommend an extra s anyway for the latter case as in "I saw some students's C code once" though I suspect that is unused these days. [1]
"why are we attacking people's grammar. It's irrelevant to the discussion!"
This.
Speaking or writing 100% grammatically correct English (assuming such a beast exists, which is a separate discussion) or making a typo here and there is irrelevant to someone's competence as a programmer.
Using minor grammatical errors to judge people as incompetent is, at the least, foolish.
I don't think strcredzero is incompetent because he missed an apostrophe or wrote an ill formed sentence. But by the same token I don't think Aditya is incompetent as a programmer (which was the topic under discussion btw - EE students being good programmers or not) just because he said "lot competent". Give the guy a break.
[1] From Strunk's "Elements of Style"
"Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's.
Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,
Charles's friend
Burns's poems
the witch's malice
This is the usage of the United States Government Printing Office and of the Oxford University Press."
Who ever said anyone was a bad programmer? This is the same irony as the "qualaty" initiative from Dilbert. At that point it was an ironic and relevant quip. It's you guys that turned it into ego bashing -- while displaying grammatical incompetence even as you incorrectly criticize my grammar.
Incidentally you're still wrong. Ambiguously parse-able English sentences are still grammatically correct if one of the possibilities is correct.
Oh, and you assumed student was a noun when it's an adjective in your analysis. Sheesh! Is English your 1st language? "Student code" where student is a noun acting as adjective is a commonly accepted pattern of use in North America and Britain.
"you assumed student was a noun when it's an adjective in your analysis. Sheesh! "
Well that reflects on how well you structure your sentences as a writer doesn't it?
Why take the attitude of "my sentence looks completely ill structured but it has multiple possible parses and I know one of them is right and I leave you to figure out which one vs writing clearly in the first place and meanwhile I'll "ironically quip" on some other fellow's minor errors vs sticking to the argument at hand"?
"Is English your 1st language?"
I already said it wasn't. And I don't need to have it as my first language to show you your sentence structure is sucky.
Everyone who has English as a first language doesn't write it well. Conversely some people who have English as a their n-th language speak or write well. So what?
" "Student code" where student is a noun acting as adjective is a commonly accepted pattern of use in North America and Britain."
And "lot competent" is Indian English. again, so what? Who said adherence to "North American English" is the metric of programming competence of EE students (which was what Aditya was talking about) and you explicitly pointed his sentence as "ironic"?
I quote
"Aditya:- So trust me, we're lot competent.
StrcredZero: Ironically, this needs editing.""
It is hard to read your "ironically" as anything other than "you are not as competent as you claim and your sentence structure reveals it" . What was the "irony" here?
Bigotry and irony are different.
But, whatever, I tire of this bickering and this thread is overlong. I rest my case and yield you the field and the (dubious) victory! [Exit thread]
It is hard to read your "ironically" as anything other than "you are not as competent as you claim and your sentence structure reveals it" . What was the "irony" here?
Apparently you have a penchant for jumping to conclusions, then behaving defensively when your shortcomings are pointed out. Thanks for revealing yourself so cheaply and easily.
But that's immaterial - why are we attacking people's grammar. It's irrelevant to the discussion
It was just an ironic quip in the first comment, and topical there. Subsequently, I was merely reacting to the erroneous counterattack that I was wrong.
"It was just an ironic quip in the first comment, and topical there. Subsequently, I was merely reacting to the erroneous counterattack that I was wrong."
I didn't say you were wrong, leave alone attack you (at least no more than you attacked Aditya - Mine was an "just an ironic quip" too, just like yours ;-) )
I said if Aditya's sentence needed editing for bad structure/incorrect usage of English (as you implied in your coment), then so did yours by the same token. I guess you just missed the "irony"!
"The (ironic) problem is that you assumed the wrong part of speech"
The real irony is that you write as ill structured sentences as you accuse other people of doing and you don't see it yet. If you can't write clear, uambigous sentences in your ( I assume) native language and have to resort to "but ambigous entences are all right if you can parse it some way" as a defence, it reflects on you as a writer.
In comparison, the "lot competent" phrase Aditya used is much more clear and unambigous in communicating what he intended, though it isn't quite the Queen's English. The real irony here is that you think you are doing a better job!.
But, yeah whatever! May you ever be so ironic ;-). I am done talking to you on this topic! Cheers!
In comparison, the "lot competent" phrase Aditya used is much more clear and unambigous in communicating what he intended, though it isn't quite the Queen's English. The real irony here is that you think you are doing a better job!.
Wow, you aren't a native English speaker, are you? I've never had someone mistake the phrase "student code" until now.
"Your example is wrong because "code" in my sentence is a noun, not a verb as you assumed."
It doesn't matter. You can still make unparseable sentences using code as a noun.
"I saw some EE student C code" (where code is used as a noun) is just as wrong as " I saw some kids Basketball play" (where play is a noun). You need something more to craft an unambigous sentence.
"I saw someone noun-used-as-adjective+noun" is wrong anyway.
To use your logic "I saw someone C code" == "I saw someone English speech". (speech is a noun)
"Hint, if you're wrong, but mistakenly try to come back and tell me I'm wrong, I'm going to let you have it with both barrels."
Is English your 1st language? Thanks for showing us more "lot competent."
Hint, if you're wrong, but mistakenly try to come back and tell me I'm wrong, I'm going to let you have it with both barrels.