English questions

[Travis B.]

Do you mean the term "pre school kids" implies the narrator is a child but not an adult? If so, does the implication come from "kid"? Is it because "kid" is an informal word, a word which is mostly used only by children, rarely by adults?

I think I’d disagree with Rounin Ryuuji’s assessment here — ‘pre-school kids’ sounds oddly specific to me, but not child-like at all.

I suppose the contexts in which I'd been accustomed to hearing it (I tend to encounter more adults who would say pre-schoolers nowadays, too) were mostly children referring to each-other. It may just be a fluke, or it may be a dialectal difference.

Kid and kids are informal, but are not limited to use by kids at all but are very frequently used by adults — rather, child and children are both rather formal, and have different connotations (e.g. in some contexts one may refer to a young adult as a "kid" where you would never call them a "child", and one would not call teenagers "children" except when one is referring to their legal status as such) that limit their use. Unless I was doing formal writing I would readily use pre-school kids myself. Note that pre-schoolers comes of as somewhat more formal than pre-school kids, and as for *pre-school children I have neither used it nor heard it.

[azhong]

I've written a passage (as a writing exercise). Is there anything unnatural or ungrammaticall?
Thank you.

The young father arrived at the convenience store almost at the same time with as me. On his scooter he was carrying his two sons, both still pre-school pre-schoolers in age. As soon as the scooter stopped at the veranda, the elder older child, who had been standing on the footrest platform, jumped off the vehicle joyfully and dashed toward the entrance of the store, leaving behind his younger brother, who was still sitting on the backseat back seat holding his father's waist.

"Wait!", said the father toward his striding son.

[bradrn]

That’s pretty good! I could make a handful of corrections:

The young father arrived at the convenience store almost at the same time withas me. On his scooter he was carrying his two sons, both still pre-schoolpre-schoolers. As soon as the scooter stopped at the veranda, the elderoldest child, who had been standing on the footrest platform, jumped off the vehicle joyfully and dashed toward the entrance of the store, leaving behind his younger brother, who was still sitting on the backseatback seat holding his father's waist.

"Wait!", said the father said totoward his striding son.

Some comments:

• As a noun, ‘pre-school’ refers to the institution of pre-school itself. A person who goes to pre-school is a ‘pre-schooler’. (But as already noted, this sounds oddly specific; you might want to instead consider something like On his scooter he was carrying his two sons, both still pre-schoolers in age, which explicitly connects their status as pre-schoolers to the relevance of that fact for the current situation.)
• ‘Elder’ is always used with reference to very old people (a.k.a. ‘the elderly’), not very young people. For the latter, you need to use the comparatives ‘older’ and ‘oldest’.
• I’m not quite sure what you mean by a ‘footrest platform’, but that’s probably just because I’ve never seen a motorised scooter.
• If I recall correctly, ‘backseat’ can only be an adjective; the corresponding noun phrase always has a space, i.e. ‘back seat’.
• ‘Said the father to his son’ uses subject-verb inversion, which sounds quite archaic (which I think I may have mentioned earlier). ‘X said towards Y’ sounds very unusual to me, and would only be possible when X physically turned and obviously talked straight in the direction of Y; almost always, you would want to use ‘X said to Y’ instead.
• ‘Striding’ sounds very odd here; my best guess as to why is that the present participle tends to indicate a state when used as an adjective, whereas here you’re using it for an action. I can’t think of a good replacement word, but I suspect you don’t need to specify the son at all, since it’s obvious from context. (Indeed, I suspect you might be able to leave that whole prepositional phrase out: “Wait!”, the father said.)

[Linguoboy]

If I recall correctly, ‘backseat’ can only be an adjective; the corresponding noun phrase always has a space, i.e. ‘back seat’.

I'm sure there are some style guides which require such a distinction. In my experience, though, there is considerable variation in actual usage between spacing, hyphenation, and writing together in such cases. Personally, I wouldn't raise an eyebrow at any of these variants in this context.

[Ryusenshi]

What do you guys think of 'mainstream fiction?'

Not sure. Isn't that term specific to what is usually called "literary fiction" or "serious literature"?

Thank you guys for the discussion. I'm afraid there is no single phrase to express what I wanted to say.

[Richard W]

‘Elder’ is always used with reference to very old people (a.k.a. ‘the elderly’), not very young people. For the latter, you need to use the comparatives ‘older’ and ‘oldest’.

But if you want to write the Queen's English, it is obligatory when comparing siblings.

[Travis B.]

‘Elder’ is always used with reference to very old people (a.k.a. ‘the elderly’), not very young people. For the latter, you need to use the comparatives ‘older’ and ‘oldest’.

But if you want to write the Queen's English, it is obligatory when comparing siblings.

Umm, using elder to compare siblings sounds downright archaic in the English I am used to.

[azhong]

Is the passage okay? Thank you in advance for your comments.

The entrance of this convenience store had two layers of doors; or, according to the internet, the adjoining small space outside the automatic door had a terminology: a windbreak room. With adding two manual side doors, the design could keep the store cleaner by preventing dust and insects from entering. Besides, it also saved energy by reducing the cooled air leaking out.

(This is what I've tried to narrate: a windbreak room.)

[Linguoboy]

The entrance of this convenience store had two layers sets of doors; or, according to the internet, the term for the adjoining small space outside the automatic door had a terminology is: a windbreak room. With By adding two manual side doors, the design could keep the store cleaner by preventing dust and insects from entering. Besides, it would also saved energy by reducing the cooled air leaking out.

Okay, first big thing: Typically, you would use present tense throughout in a paragraph like this, not past tense. This store presumably still exists; even if it doesn't, windbreak rooms exist in other buildings. The only time you would normally use past tense is if you were describing, say, an architectural feature that is completely obsolete, e.g. the entrance design of an Ancient Egyptian structure or something. (Even here you could use present tense if you were describing a specific existing structure at a particular archaeological site as opposed to the type of feature more generally.)

Small things:
1. "Terminology" is normally a collective noun, meaning the set of terms for a particular subject taken as a whole. It can't be used to refer to one particular piece of terminology.
2. We no longer generally talk about "cooled air". Moreover, you could just say something like "by reducing air leakage". The reader is capable of making the connexion between saving energy and the fact that the air in question is cooled (or heated).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Added on top of Linguoboy's corrections, which are (mostly) implemented without comment

The entrance of this convenience store had [has] two sets of doors;or, a [A]ccording to the internet, the term for the adjoining small space outside [between] the [two sets of] automatic door[s] is [called a] a windbreak room. By adding two manual side doors, the design could keep keeps the store cleaner by preventing dust and insects from entering. Besides, [I]t would also save[s] energy by reducing the [amount of heated or] cooled air leaking out that escapes.

These are mostly stylistic notes:

• Using things like "the term for [x] is" is, generally speaking, far less-natural and idiomatic than "[x] is called";
• The punctuation used in the above would normally be "this is called a 'windbreak room'", and not "this is called 'a windbreak room'", unless the "a" is a part of a proper name (and here, it isn't);
• As Linguoboy notes, you would use the present tense here normally, as this building feature isn't obsolete;
• I would still use "cooled air" in some very technical contexts, but "cool air" does sound better here to me, too; if you do use it (which in this context does feel all right to me), I would, as noted, specify both "heated or cooled";
• Presumably, the feature actually performs this function rather than just doing it hypothetically, so one would not use the potential could keep but rather the indicative keeps;
• This is a minor quibble, but "leaking out" sounds to me like something escaping a pipe or duct, or from the sealed system of a refrigerator.

[azhong]

With By adding two manual side doors, the design keeps the store cleaner.

I've recalled a word that I couldn't find yesterday: flank. So,
Q: how is the sentence?

Flanked by manual doors, the added enclosure [on the front of the automatic door] turns the route and keeps the store cleaner.

Q: Is "flanked" more natural than "being flanked"?
(I have a feeling that the "being" is added to emphasize a ongoing status that is more dynamic and will change anytime. And a status that is more static and seems to last forever suits better without "being"?)

Thank you.

[azhong]

A small question about "need". Is it grammatical to say
It never need change. (=It never needs to change.)

(I know it's grammatical to say
It needn't change.
I am unsure if it still works if the negating "not" is replaced with "never".)

Thank you.

[bradrn]

A small question about "need". Is it grammatical to say
It never need change. (=It never needs to change.)

(I know it's grammatical to say
It needn't change.
I am unsure if it still works if the negating "not" is replaced with "never".)

Thank you.

It still works if ‘not’ is replaced by ‘never’, but like ‘not’, ‘never’ must go after the auxiliary verb:

It need never change.

(Note that ‘need’ as an auxiliary verb is very rare in modern English, and almost always people will just say It never needs to change.)

[Travis B.]

A small question about "need". Is it grammatical to say
It never need change. (=It never needs to change.)

(I know it's grammatical to say
It needn't change.
I am unsure if it still works if the negating "not" is replaced with "never".)

Thank you.

It still works if ‘not’ is replaced by ‘never’, but like ‘not’, ‘never’ must go after the auxiliary verb:

It need never change.

(Note that ‘need’ as an auxiliary verb is very rare in modern English, and almost always people will just say It never needs to change.)

I am not sure if you can call constructions such as It need not change "very rare" myself. It is formal, yes, but I would not call it very rare per se.

[bradrn]

A small question about "need". Is it grammatical to say
It never need change. (=It never needs to change.)

(I know it's grammatical to say
It needn't change.
I am unsure if it still works if the negating "not" is replaced with "never".)

Thank you.

It still works if ‘not’ is replaced by ‘never’, but like ‘not’, ‘never’ must go after the auxiliary verb:

It need never change.

(Note that ‘need’ as an auxiliary verb is very rare in modern English, and almost always people will just say It never needs to change.)

I am not sure if you can call constructions such as It need not change "very rare" myself. It is formal, yes, but I would not call it very rare per se.

Well, when was the last time you saw a clause like that? I certainly can’t recall the last time I did.

[azhong]

Thank you both, bradrn and Travis. I hope my another question here won't interrupt your discussion if it's still ongoing. This is about understanding/translating a German sentence. I suppose most of you understand basic German but I'll still explain. My question rises in understanding/translating "wenig" in the 2nd sentence (vs "ein wenig" in the 1st).

1. Könntest du mir bitte ein wenig Essen geben?
[Could.SUBJ you me.DAT please one little food give]
(Could you please give me a little food?)
- ein wenig: a little
- ein: one
-wenig: little

2. Könntest du mir bitte nur wenig Essen geben?
- nur: only
- wenig: little

It seems that, unlike "little" in English, "wenig" doesn't imply the connotation of negation when it was used along (or else the 2nd German Sentence will make no sense to me). Does the translation meet the meaning of the German sentence (or do you have better translations?)

Could you please give me some food, even if it's only little/ very little/ little?

A related post here in "German Questions".

Thank you.

[Travis B.]

It still works if ‘not’ is replaced by ‘never’, but like ‘not’, ‘never’ must go after the auxiliary verb:

It need never change.

(Note that ‘need’ as an auxiliary verb is very rare in modern English, and almost always people will just say It never needs to change.)

I am not sure if you can call constructions such as It need not change "very rare" myself. It is formal, yes, but I would not call it very rare per se.

Well, when was the last time you saw a clause like that? I certainly can’t recall the last time I did.

I would agree that need as auxiliary without not is very rare and in most cases simply ungrammatical in present-day English.

[Richard W]

(Note that ‘need’ as an auxiliary verb is very rare in modern English, and almost always people will just say It never needs to change.)

Except that 'need not' is not rare as an auxiliary, where it functions as one negative of 'must' and as one negative of 'may'; without abbreviation, writing does not distinguish the negatives 'may not'/mayn't and 'may not', unlike 'cannot' and 'can not'.

[Ares Land]

It registers as British English to me. I don't know if my impression is correct.

[Travis B.]

It registers as British English to me. I don't know if my impression is correct.

I am very much an American and find need not perfectly kosher, if a bit formal, to me. However, *needn't, on the other hand, is not part of my native vocabulary.