English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Is there a word that means "connected to a conversation, being able to hear, read or any similar phrase" for "video conversation, chat, phone conversation"? I am trying to think and I can't find a very idiomatic way of saying this. Could you also provide with an example sentence, or a few of them? "Be on the line" can be used for phone conversation, but what about other form of communication like radio, video chat, etc?
For example:
Don't talk bad about him, he's still ___.
I think there is no best way to convey this meaning. You can use:
- ... he's still around
- ... he's still close
- ... he's still listening
- ... he's still in the listening range
- ... he can still hear us / read the messages / in front of the screen
- ... he's still with us (this has the second meaning of "he's still alive")
At work where we constantly use online conferencing services we often say
- ... he's still dialed in
- ... he's still in the call
- ... he's still online
- ... he's still joined
- ... he's still there, but on mute.
Last one, which is particular (at least for me) to written language online forums, where people read along without posting:
- ... he's still lurking (Noun: a lurker)
Disclaimer: Most of them derived from some of the often heard computer announcements that are part of our conferencing solution, where you are regularly given instructions on how to dial in or are given audio notifications like Peter has joined the meeting.
Language background: I'm German, and our conferencing mostly happens with non-native English-speaking colleagues from Spain, Germany, China and a lot of native English speakers from India.
