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Why was this question closed? the right way to introduce a vivid recollection in English

The explanation there says:

Questions asking for someone to find and correct errors or improve the phrasing are considered requests for proofreading and are off-topic.

But I didn't ask there for proofreading at all! I just brought up an example, in which I usually stumble upon a similar situation and don't know how to express that thought of mine in English properly. The example I used was only for making my problem clear.

Besides, I used the tag "phrase-request". Using that tag is absolutely on-topic.

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    I wasn't involved in closing your question, but it is incorrect to assume that a tag can make a question on-topic. Requests for someone to write a sentence for you aren't on-topic even if you add a "fix-my-sentence" tag. That sort of writing advice doesn't help many other people learn English because it is too specific to your particular situation and can't be extrapolated to something someone else is trying to write in English.
    – ColleenV
    Jan 31, 2022 at 16:50
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    Looks like a good candidate for "opinion based". Is there a single "right way"? There are dozens of ways to express your idea: you can actually use "I have one particularly vivid recollection of a skit performed by him/him performing a hilarious skit/a comedy sketch that was aired/broadcast/played two years ago. It highlighted his comedic talents... etc."
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jan 31, 2022 at 17:38
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    It is unfortunate that ELL's chat isn't more active. Questions about phrasing are something learners really need help with even though they are out of scope for the main site, and the chat room would be a good place to discuss different options. Those discussions might even prompt questions that are on-topic. EL&U's room is more active, but I don't know if they welcome these sorts of questions from learners.
    – ColleenV
    Jan 31, 2022 at 18:51
  • @Mari-LouA (1) "Looks like a good candidate for "opinion based"..." - In fact, it would be more understandable for me if my question were closed on these grounds. However, the explanations that I was given there was "because your question is asking for someone to find and correct errors or improve your phrasing" which was absolutely not true. And even in case of opinion-based questions, we English learners are in quite an awkward situation here. What I mean is it's really hard to know sometimes whether the question you are asking is going to be an opinion-based question or not.
    – brilliant
    Jan 31, 2022 at 23:46
  • @Mari-LouA (2) Let's say there is a standard and very common expression in my first language conveying one particular thought and I want to know how to express that very thought in English. It is just natural then for me to assume that there must be also a common expression in English conveying that same thought. But then it turns out that there is no such one well-established phrase in English for that particular thought and, thus, there are numerous ways to go about that in English. Consequently, my question then becomes an opinion-based one and a candidate for being closed.
    – brilliant
    Jan 31, 2022 at 23:47
  • @Mari-LouA (3) But how did I know that there was no such one common phrase for that particular thought in English in the first place?! It's kind of ridiculous then: it turns out that before I even try to post a question about some possibly existing phrase (the existence of which is not clear to me), I am already supposed to know where that phrase exists in English or not (because if it doesn't, my question will be an opinion-base and, thus, off-topic). But how can I have that knowledge if I don't ask such question?
    – brilliant
    Jan 31, 2022 at 23:48
  • @ColleenV (1) "is too specific to your particular situation and can't be extrapolated to something someone else is trying to write in English..." - Language is an ocean of things. It cannot be studied within a day or a month because besides its general features that "can be extrapolated to other things" there are also myriads of particular things that are only valid in some particular situations. If you want to master a language, you won't do it by just tackling those generalities and not paying attention to particularities.
    – brilliant
    Feb 1, 2022 at 0:25
  • @ColleenV (2) And any learner of a language will only benefit from learning those particularities, too, instead of ignoring them on the grounds of being "too specific". In fact, I have met a lot of learners of my first language that had been studying only the general things of it assuming that they would get by with it, and I have also met those who had been exposed to only particular things of the language (for example, at a work setting) and did not even set themselves the goal of mastering the language.
    – brilliant
    Feb 1, 2022 at 0:26
  • @ColleenV (3) What's ironical is that it was much easier for the latter to jump to other areas of the language after they had acquired some level of confidence in their particular area, while the former were still kind of "dangling in the air", sliding on the surface, and never really diving into the ocean.
    – brilliant
    Feb 1, 2022 at 0:26
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    I’m not sure what any of that has to do with the scope of this site. This isn’t a tutoring site.
    – ColleenV
    Feb 1, 2022 at 4:04
  • @ColleenV - Well, this is a site for learners of English.
    – brilliant
    Feb 1, 2022 at 4:14
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    I don't think the question, as phrased and edited, was "bad". But it is similar to the hundreds of questions that have been closed because they asked "is this correct?" How is defining something "right" different from saying whether it is "correct"? You could edit your Q, and say you are unsure about the collocation of vivid. You could ask how to shorten the phrase ...memory of him how he once participated... which, I hasten to add isn't wrong just slightly wordy, but then again it risks falling under writing advice and "style" which makes it off-topic.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Feb 1, 2022 at 23:01
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    I don't understand why folks are downvoting this. It's perfectly acceptable to come to meta to ask the community why they felt a particular question was off-topic. Without feedback it's difficult to improve.
    – ColleenV
    Feb 8, 2022 at 15:16
  • @ColleenV You always say this isn't a tutoring site but for me all these questions about English on ELL boil down to tutoring, whether at a beginner level or advanced plus level. Personally, I enjoy style questions and it's too bad the site doesn't favor them.
    – Lambie
    Feb 8, 2022 at 21:04
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    @Lambie I understand, but ELL can't be all things to all people and do any of it well. There are many online communities that are oriented toward 1 on 1 tutoring and tolerate more subjective questions that would welcome more participation by native speakers. There's no reason to limit sharing your expertise to just SE sites.
    – ColleenV
    Feb 9, 2022 at 14:12

1 Answer 1

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You may want to take the tour again and reread the part that says "Not all questions work well in our format." That doesn't mean questions that are outside ELL's scope have no value. It just means they just don't fit this Q&A format very well.

Your question is essentially "How should I word this?" There are too many answers to that question, and no way to objectively rank one answer as more "correct" than another. Questions with many equally valid but distinct answers are off-topic here.

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  • (1) "Your question is essentially "How should I word this?"" - Not at all! My question was "How is this thought usually expressed in English?". The text that I used in my question was just an example that I came up with and that I was sure was a wrong way to express that thought. I wasn't seeking for corrections or proofreading of the text in my example. What I was seeking was the idiomatic way of expressing that thought in English.
    – brilliant
    Mar 31, 2022 at 5:39
  • (2) It just turned out later that, unlike in my first language, there was no such one well-established idiomatic expression in English (that would commonly introduce a speaker's vivid recollection from the past) and, therefore, my question came off as an opinion-based one. However, I never asked for proof-reading.
    – brilliant
    Mar 31, 2022 at 5:39

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