texts: Shorter way to say "split [user story] into tasks"

texts:
In scrum (a project management methodology often used for software development), there are user stories (or items) which team members split into smaller tasks when they start working on them.

To describe that "splitting into tasks", in Finnish I'd simply say something like "Taskitetaan se." ("Let's split it into tasks." And yes, that's a horrible anglicism.)

What would be a shorter way to say that in English?

I'm tempted to just "verb" the noun, and use something like "Let's task it". How acceptable or understandable would you find that?


texts: What are parents with a living child called, compared to "Shidu" parents (parents who have lost their only child)?

texts: The parents who have lost their only child are known as Shidu parents (失独父母) in China, I don't think ‘normal parents’ is a good phrase, do you have any suggestions? I want to use this phrase in a research article.


texts: "Serial potential drop" or "series of potential drops"

texts: I would like to use the word serial in the sense that it denotes a sequential arrangement of objects. In that regard, is it better to say "serial potential drop" instead of "a series of potential drops"?


texts: Which is correct, “He asked how am I” or “He asked how I am”?

texts:
Which is the correct word order?

He asked how am I.
He asked how I am.

I have heard both forms, I think latter one is correct, but so many people use the first one, that I'm not sure anymore...
I think it should rather be “He asked how I was”, no?


texts:
I've checked major online dictionaries to get this clarified but have had no luck so far.

What does to "pit a car" mean?

Example sentence: Pitting a car in a residential area is really dangerous.

Edit

I've been provided with English subtitles that I'm now translating to my mother tongue.

Above sentence is from a really brief dialogue between policemen. Not much further context.


texts:
When writing about a trial, should four-year Statute of Limitations have the four-year spelled out or as 4 year Statute of Limitations?

Also, should Preliminary Hearing, Mediation, Discovery, Pre-Trial Conference, Civil Trial, and Statute of Limitations be in title case or lower case?


texts:
Consider the following use of a hyphen:

There are many bear-like animals.

Now, how does the hyphenation change if "bear" is replaced by "grizzly bear"?  Which of the following would be appropriate:

There are many grizzly bear-like animals.
There are many grizzly bear -like animals.

The intended meaning is not "There are many grizzly (gray-haired) animals that resemble bears," but rather "there are many animals that resemble grizzly bears (Ursus arctos)".


texts: Is there a word to describe feathers, scales, fur, hair, etc. on an animal

texts: Is there a word to describe or reference feathers, scales, fur, hair, exoskeleton (maybe?), etc. on a creature?


texts: What are "a" and "certain" adding in meaning to the phrase "a certain Mr. Ripley"?

texts:
Consider the following sentences:

  I had my identity stolen by Mr. Ripley.

and

  I had my identity stolen by a Mr. Ripley.

and

  I had my identity stolen by a certain Mr. Ripley.

In what sense do these 3 sentences differ from one another?  How do a and certain modify the middle and last sentences?


texts: What is the difference between "supplant" , "supersede", and "replace"?

texts: The words supplant, supersede, and replace share similar meaning. What is the difference between them?


texts: What is the idiom, expression or proverb for 'If you let them use you once they will use you for life'?

texts:
What is the idiom, expression or proverb for

  If you bend once, they will bend you for life.

In Indian culture in marathi language, we have a saying

"Jithe oli/mau mathi, tithe atti" which literally means "wherever wet/soft ground, there is exploitation." The meaning is wherever people find niceness, kindness, or generosity, people will take advantage of their niceness. That is, if one yields or allows himself to be used then the other party squeezed them to the last drop.

This is usually used in business, like client vs. subcontractor relationship or client vs. service provider relationship or client vs. customer relationship, or in an employer/employee context.


texts:
Regarding the sentence The hectic atmosphere caused by household chores and meal preparation fills the house

Can I substitute caused by with of or from and still maintain the same meaning? My concern is that it would make it less clear and kind of unnatural

If you have any other sugestions I'd highly appreciate it


texts:
We all know that you do not belong here, have no idea what you are talking about, and can't actually script.

Should this be interpreted as

  We all know that you do not belong here
  You have no idea what you are talking about
  You can't actually script

Or

  We all know that you do not belong here
  We have no idea what you are talking about
  We can't actually script

And why?


texts: Alternatives for "For the sake of completeness"?

texts:
I'd like to include in a paper on mathematics the phrase:

  "for the sake of completeness, we first show..."

or words to that effect. However, the word "completeness" has a precise technical interpretation in mathematics and so I'd prefer not to use it. Any suggestions for alternatives?


texts: Use of "receive" by someone, by President use of receive in press

texts:
The question is about how to use the English verb "receive" in formal business and diplomatic reporting. Hope it is clear.

I work in Kazakhstan and I need some help in editing a news. In my quick google search, I found that most of the Kazakh Press including almost all the CIS/former USSR countries are writing in the fashion that "President of Kazakhstan/Head of the State received Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan....".

For example, "Kazakh President receives PM Massimov" as per http://inform.kz/en/kazakh-president-receives-pm-massimov_a2829894

My Understanding: Generally, the word/verb "receive" is used only when two dignitaries of equal level meet, or when the President meets a foreigner (not just an ordinary foreigner) or religious leader, or delegation commanding high respect. So, the verb "receive" is used when the President meets ambassadors, visiting PMs, and Presidents.

For example: The Pope Receives The Prime Minister of Saint Vincent...............

http://www.gettyimages.com/event/the-pope-receives-the-prime-minister-of-saint-vincent-and-the-grenadines-459206761

The President Receives President Xi of the People’s Republic of China.... From WhiteHouse Website

Also, the verb "receive" is mostly used in passive form to show that "someone was received by some other person" or "will be received at some place on some date".

Chinese President....before heading to Washington, D.C., where he will be received at the White House with a 21-gun salute and a state dinner. From NYT
Chinese President was received by Bangladesh President.... From NZ Herald

While talking about the meeting of Akimat/City Mayor of Astana (or by our Prime Minister or by Foreign Minister or by anyone working locally in Kazakhstan) with the President, it is not right to say "President received them" as they (all of them) are junior in rank/hierarchy and the President does not receive them.

I am surprised because in English, different words are used for different meetings such as "received/received"-explained above, "granted an audience" - when meeting takes place with King/Queen, "paid a visit" - if someone comes to see/meet the president, "Called on/was called on" - when official meeting takes place etc. depending on the situation.

So, I think it is better to use the word "visit" or "meet" while talking about meetings with President.
For example:

Foreign Minister met the Head of the State to discuss about progress on Expo-2017 (and Not: Head of the State receives/received Foreign Minister.)
Prime Minister visited the Head of the State/President and submitted the annual report (and Not Head of the State receives/received Prime Minister.)

Any comments?


texts: What word is used to refer to a transvestite hater?

texts:
Suppose that someone hates transvestites or hermaphrodites. How should we call such a person? What are most appropriate words to describe exactly that kinds of intolerance?

It is in some way close to homophobia, but not exactly.

UPD: For my dear down voters. This is a regular question, one of many of such questions. It is nor a joke, neither I'm trying to troll. Actually, this question came up to  my mind after I had read following Kurt Vonneguts' quote:

  Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.


texts: Single word for "separated for a while with the expectation to be reunited"

texts:
I'm writing a story in first person view. In that story the main character is writing about how he is now separated from a once close friend. In telling the story, I want the main character to subtly express how he really want to reunite with the friend when he say the word that is supposed to mean "separated". So what I'm looking for is a word that also carries the expectation to be reunited in addition to be separated, that can be used to replace the word "separated" in the following sentence:

  This is the story of me being separated.

And as a side note, I actually want to use the word as the title of the story also.


texts:
I am looking for a word or term that encapsulates both the payor and payee. ideally it would be used in a bookkeeping context.

Example:

  Company X both receives and and sends payments to company Y. In the bookkeeping transactions they are ....

Please, do not feel limited to the example given.


texts: Why do we have "anxiousness", but not "frightenness"?

texts:
Why do we have the word "anxiousness", but not the word "frighteness"? Both would mean something similar: "Being anxious" respectively Being frightened"

ps: To make it even more analogous, I could accept "frightenedness" as well.


texts: Synonym for sorry, except without the apologetic meaning

texts:
What is a word that means the same thing as "sorry", except without the meaning of apology. The image above illustrates what I mean.

Edit: Although the answers below are fine, I would like it to function in a sentence similar to "sorry". Indeed, it would be best if it could be directly substituted for the word "sorry" in a sentence. (Especially good if it's a single word.)


texts:
I believe the grammatically correct way is to omit the to before the verb (find in this case). Can someone confirm?

  What you have to do instead is find a way to redefine the problem ...

I ask this because I have also seen constructions like

  What you have to do instead is to find a way to redefine the problem ...

Are both correct?


texts: What was the archaic source of "All Turns To Yesterday"?

texts:
I was recently reminded of Mediæval Bæbes' performance of "All Turns To Yesterday" (perhaps best known from its adaptation into Delerium's Aria).

I've read that it's a rendition of a traditional Middle English poem (lyrics quoted below), but I can't find any information about what the source of this poem or its provenance might be.

The grammar and lexicon sounds to me like it's been somewhat modernized, which may be why I can't find anything when I search on the lyrics, or maybe it's just because Google is overwhelmed with references to the Delerium song.

Is this poem attributed in any historical source? Do we know who wrote it and when?

  I have wist, sin i couthe meen,
  That children hath by candle light
  Her shadewe on the wal iseen,
  And ronne therafter all the night.

  Bisy aboute they han they han ben
  And whom they catchen it best wolde wene

  I have wist, sin i couthe meen,
  That children hath by candle light
  The shadewe catchen they ne might,
  For no lines that they couthe lay.
  This shadewe i may likne aright
  To this world and yesterday.


texts:
What is a word that means small pieces coming together to make a big thing?

I'm looking for a word like "snowballing".


texts: A word for each form of a scenario that has more than one form?

texts:
I have these two scenarios 1 and 2 in both of which a subject is put to an experiment but in two different environments. Each of these scenarios has two different forms, in one the subject has information x and in the other has not. How may I call each of these forms. For example, what word is a good choice for the blank in the following sentence?

  In the first ... of the first scenario, the subject has information x.

The words I have in mind but am not sure about are "variation" and "variant".


texts:
For an academic paper, I wrote (referring to the makeup of part-time faculty)

"Level of teaching experience is mixed."

I was marked for a grammatical error, with the professor noting it should be "The level of teaching experienced is mixed."

I really wasn't going for a definite article, but perhaps I'm wrong. Thoughts on this?


texts: What is the meaning of the suffix '-ory' (laboratory, conservatory)?

texts:
I am interested in the the meaning which the suffix '-ory' contributes to words like laboratory, conservatory and lavatory.
I often find if difficult to research prefixes and suffixes, so would be grateful of some input.


texts: What does the phrase "a monk's game" mean?

texts:
I heard this in a podcast from The Economist magazine. I can find a few usages online, but no definitions. Maybe I am spelling it wrong. Is it monk, or is it another word that sounds like monk?

The context was: "Predicting the price of oil is a monk's game."


texts: Origin of the "breach" sense of "compromise"

texts:
Both wiktionary and etymonline give the origin of compromise as Latin com (together) +  promittere (promise).  This is the most common use of this word: to mutually promise to [abide by an arbitrated decision.]

However, the word also has the sense of impairing or breaching, as in "to compromise one's reputation [due to one's inappropriate action]" or "to compromise national security [by revealing information]."  Where did this meaning of compromise originate?


texts: Is there a word for a positive, enriching type of escapism

texts:
Escapism is a valuable tool, especially in times of extreme stress, but to me seeking escapism one is not pursuing something that will enrich or bring growth to his/her life rather simply a way to avoid dealing with unpleasant realities. To me it never rises above being a distraction.

Is there a word for getting so lost in something that for lack of a better way of saying it, feeds one's soul, i.e. great music, theater, literature, visual art, etc?


texts: Why "I didn't have the heart to tell him"?

texts: When you say "I didn't have the heart to tell him [insert uncomfortable truth here]", it means that you didn't say it because it would have hurt their feelings in some way.  That seems a little bit backwards; in any other context, being sensitive about someone's feelings is having "a big heart" or "too much heart," and being "heartless" is being insensitive and not caring about others.  So why does the heart metaphor seem to be backwards in this particular expression?


texts:
Consider this, please:
Person A: My brother was supposed to appear for an interview at 8am, and now it's 10. I don't know if he got the job or not. But one thing is for sure,

If he got the job, he would be very happy now.

If he got the job, I would assume he is very happy now.

If he had got(ten) the job, he would be very happy now.

If he had got(ten) the job, I would assume he is very happy now.

Are these sentences all correct?


texts: Term for: Looking at someone like they're stupid

texts: I'm writing something where on character looks at another character like they're stupid. Is there an adverb or something for that? For example: When the grown man asked his friends where babies come from they looked at him 'like he was stupid'. is there a word I can use to replace that?


texts: What is “Build We Won’t” in complete form?

texts:
New York Times (July 3) carries an article written by its Op-Ed columnist, Paul Krugman under the title, “Build We Won’t.” in which the author claims;

  “In prosperous times, public spending on roads, bridges and so on
  competes with the private sector for resources. Since 2008, however,
  our economy has been awash in unemployed workers and capital with no
  place to go. Putting those idle resources to work building useful
  stuff should have been a no-brainer. --- Everyone from progressive
  think tanks to the United States Chamber of Commerce thinks we need
  good roads. Yet the combination of anti-tax ideology and deficit
  hysteria that mostly whipped up in an attempt to bully President Obama
  into spending cuts means that we’re letting our highways, and our
  future, erode away.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/04/opinion/paul-krugman-build-we-wont.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region

I can understand the point Paul Krugman argues, but I’m not clear with what the caption, “Build we won’t.” means.

I thought it can go like “Build what we will not build. But it doesn’t make sense as a sentence.

How can I parse “Build we won’t”? Is it common to save the word to such a few words in writing, particularly in journalism English?


texts: Is it ok for me to switch from first person to third person here, or can I do this better in first person?

texts:
I’m currently trying to update my résumé from my tired old version to something more up to date. I’m currently having a little trouble with wording here:

  I’m a self-directed learner who has taught himself (and is still learning) to work with Linux systems.

The switch between first and third person seems natural to me, but I'm told it’s a bit odd. I’m wondering whether it’s correct, and if not, how I’d word it.


texts: Can I say "feeding the server with data by the bus riders"?

texts: I want to write something about Android app for bus tracking system based on Crowdsourcing. So can I use feeding like this? "Feeding the server with data by the bus riders"


texts:
Professor Lawrence Lessig in his blog writes:

  Aaron had literally done nothing in his life “to make money.” He was fortunate Reddit turned out as it did, but from his work building the RSS standard, to his work architecting Creative Commons, to his work liberating public records, to his work building a free public library, to his work supporting Change Congress/FixCongressFirst/Rootstrikers, and then Demand Progress, Aaron was always and only working for (at least his conception of) the public good. He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.

What does I get wrong and But I also get proportionality mean in this context?


texts:
In my native language German, every animal has an article. This is understandable, if one wants for example to distinguish a male pig (boar) from a female pig (sow). But if one just talks about the animal in genral, the article is basically at random.

But how is it in English, when there may be the same distinction for animal genders, but for the animal a such there are no articles?

So why for example does one say to a meowing cat She's hungry. without knowing if the cat is really a she?


texts:
What is the word used to describe that feeling you occasionally get while falling?

If you don't know the feeling, it feels like the midsection of your gut is becoming numb and is trying to escape out of the top of your ribcage.

Update: Unfortunately a single word for this feeling doesn't seem to exist. If this word doesn't exist, is there a short phrase used to describe this feeling?

Answer: There is no specific term for this. The closest phrase is in fact 'feeling of falling'. The answer which selected as correct and did state that there is not specific term for the feeling.


texts: When is the proper time to use the word "persons" in a sentence instead of using "people"?


texts: Use of "confess" when followed by interrogative clause (e.g. I confessed to my parents what I ate last night)

texts:
I am not a native speaker, but just wondering if you can use a non-why question as the embedding clause of confess.

  a. I confessed to my wife why I started smoking again.

(Pretty sure this one with why-question is grammatical, right?)

What about:

  b. I confessed to my parents what I ate last night.

(Suppose that my parents do not let me eat junk food, but last night I ate potato chips secretly and felt guilty about it.)

  c. I want to confess to my parents what I ate last night.

(Same context as (b))

Thank you!


texts: Synonym for "no-brainer" to describe that it's an easy decision to buy a certain product

texts:
I'm looking for a word like "no-brainer" (but that word seems too clunky to me).

I'll use it in a situation like this:

  The normal price for this product is $5k, but since we really want
  you to have this, we made it a no-brainer. One single payment of
  $1k.

"Cinch" and "cakewalk" don't quite feel right either.

The closest other term I could think of was "slam dunk", but that feels a little bit clunky and informal too.

What is a professional-sounding word or short phrase I could use to indicate that this decision is so easy to make because the details favor the buyer?


texts: Shorter, sarcastic way to express "The cook must have made a mistake"

texts: I'm writing a scene in which a character says, "The cook must have made a mistake," as a sarcastic remark about the quality of the food that was served.  Is there another, shorter, way to get across the same sarcasm, preferably with one word?


texts: What metaphor or phrase can describe an object that is aesthetically pleasing yet totally useless?

texts: Is there a conventional metaphor or phrase that just hits this meaning:good-looking yet useless?


texts: Can all transitive verbs take to-infinitive clauses?

texts:
Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it
  is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be
  required to bear. — Jane Eyre

It seems ‘your fate to be required to bear’ is a to-infinitive clause (or non-finite-clause by Bas Aarts: “They would hate [Jim to sell his boat].”) and the object of cannot bear; what it is means ‘whatever it is’ and can be put in brackets.

Can all transitive verbs take the clauses as their objects?

If you see the object of cannot bear as what-clause, would you let me know just the last question?


texts: What does the phrase 'Quote-O-Matic' mean?

texts: A sample application in the book 'Test Drive ASP.NET MVC' used this as its title.


texts: "Series" – a noun of multitude similar to "lot", "majority", "percentage", "proportion"– verb agreement

texts:
According to Garner's fourth edition

Though serving as a plural when the need arises, series is ordinarily
a singular noun. But it is also a noun of
multitude, so that phrases such as a series of things take a plural
verb. However, the collocation there {has been - is} a series has predominated
in print sources.
Common nouns of
multitude: lot, majority, mass, minority, multitude,
percentage, proportion, variety.

However, the entry of series of the American Heritage Dictionary reads

When it has the singular sense of "one set," it takes a singular verb,
even when series is followed by of and a plural noun: A series of
lectures is scheduled.

Are these dissimilar usages stylic advice?
Secondly, the inversion after there also chooses singular elsewhere; why is it so?

When the verb precedes the noun percentage, a singular verb is required. That is, a higher percentage of them are, but there is a higher percentage of them.


texts:
I was surfing around when I came across this sentence:

She cuts the cake into eighths.

Is that a grammatically correct way to phrase it? Or is it "cut into eight"?


texts: How did kool-aid come to be the drink of fanboys?

texts: Why does Kool-Aid relate to being something's fanboy/fangirl?


texts:
In the hot story of today (the U.S. Senate report on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"), I noticed the following:

  He was subjected to numerous and repeated torture techniques, to include being waterboarded 83 times.

The same construction is there in the report itself. To include? What happened to including?


texts: What's the meaning of this quote? "May he who loves not others love himself."

texts: "May he who loves not others love himself." What's the meaning of this quote? I couldn't understand it.


texts: How should terminal punctuation work when quoting a Hebrew snippet in English text?

texts:
In American English, full stops (periods) and commas are always typeset within quotation marks (that is, before the closing quotation mark). Does this rule still apply when the quoted matter is in a right-to-left language? Does it even make sense to refer to the rightmost quotation mark as the closing quotation mark in this context?

I’m doing some proofreading, and though I’m not American myself, I am trying to apply American punctuation rules. I’m wondering what to do with this:

  That makes the entire end of the sentence, "כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד",
  into a description of God; “Him whose glorious kingdom is forever” (or, one could even say, “Him whose kingdom’s glory is forever”, to avoid the “מלכות כבודו” issue).


texts:
In an exercise, I had to choose one of the options given to fill in the blank.

  The orthodox view of a single intelligence, widely, if wrongly, accepted today in the minds of the general population, --------------, who by the second decade of this century had put forth its major precepts.

  a few researchers whose energies and convictions originated those
  originated from the energies and convictions of a few researchers ✔
  the energies and convictions of which originated and a few researchers
  with which originated the energies and convictions of a few researchers

Why is (2) correct and the others are wrong?


texts: "Syndicate something to boot" Definition

texts:
What is the meaning of the bolded part?

  Fewer people seek critical opinion, especially when they’ve been bludgeoned by aggressive (and effective, as it turns out) viral marketing campaigns that extend far beyond traditional means, and editors are conscious of this fact. Why pay salary and benefits for a single critic when you can hire three free-lancers for less money, and syndicate their 250-word minireviews to boot?

does it mean ignore their 250-word mini reviews?


texts:
Finagle's law states that

  Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong at the worst possible moment.

It is commonly attributed to SF editor John Campbell. Did he actually coin the phrase, or did he merely popularize it? If the latter, who coined it? When was it coined and in what context?


texts: Which one is correct grammatically, saying "I'm feeling hunger" or "I'm feeling hungry"

texts: I'm a little bit confused. In "I'm feeling  hunger."  hunger is noun but in "I'm feeling hungry"  hungry is an adjective. which is grammatically correct? what the verb 'feel' follows an adjective or a noun.


texts: How to use both/either in negative sentences?

texts:
I recently saw this sentence,

"the system has not been yet used in both large and small cities".

I wonder if both can be used in negative sentences like this? If not, how can "either" be used in such a sentence where two names are mentioned afterwards? we cannot say EITHER large And small cities. also both refers to positive sentences.

Thank you in advance


texts:
As a part of my community, I will do everything that needs be done to
  resist the evil project of the oil company. (self-made)

I am not sure whether “as a part of” is appropriate or not, because “as part of” seems to be more idiomatic. But here I want to emphasize my existence as a individual. So can I write that “as a part of” ?


texts: The mysterious, unenunciated "w" in the "-wich" of English place names

texts:
Doing some reading lately, I've been pondering the strange pronunciations of English place names — namely, that of the 'w' in the "–wich" suffix, which, as I understand it, is not enunciated.   For example, listening and watching many British programmes has taught me that Norwich is pronounced NORR-ich, Warwick is pronounced WORR-ick, and many of us know that Greenwich is pronounced GREN-ich.

My question is pretty simple, I think:  Are these pronunciations the historical pronunciations, and for etymological reasons (or some other reason perhaps) a superfluous 'w' was added?  That seems especially likely with ancient place names; many English cities can boast of rich histories stretching back to pre-Roman times.   Or, on the other hand, is this just a common corruption, promulgated by "Standard English" to elide this "-w" — perhaps there is some dialect in England that would properly pronounce it when speaking?


texts: Do you need to use "on" or "upon" when referring to dates?

texts:
When defining a date, should I use on, upon or when, or can I leave these words out?

For example, can I say:

  The date the company allots the securities is known as the Despatch Date.

or should I say:

  The date on which/upon which/when the company allots the securities is known as the Despatch Date.


texts:
I'm looking for a word that describes a company that sells software.  I'm trying to use it in the following context:

  "Older operating systems, such as Windows XP and MacOSX 10.8, have
  several security weaknesses because they are no longer supported by
  their _______."

I thought of using "vendors" but that doesn't quite seem to fit.  "Parent companies" seems too clunky.  I'm thinking "distributers" might fit best but even that doesn't sound quite right.


texts: Is there a word or expression to describe when someone has learned a big word and is waiting for an opportunity to use it?

texts:
Is there a word or expression to describe when someone has learned a big word and is waiting for an opportunity to use it, in conversation, or otherwise?

Logophile doesn't really work for me.


texts: What does "creep" mean in the song "Creep" by Radiohead?

texts:
If someone knows English and Portuguese, I'd like help with a translation of the lyrics of the song Creep by Radiohead. The translations we have here translate creep to Portuguese as verme, esquisito or esquisitão, however, verme in Portuguese has a direct meaning as "worm" in English and esquisito means "weird"; esquisitão is only the augmentative of "weird".

According to the sense of the lyrics, the girl rejects the singer and escapes from him because she is superior to him; she is too good for him and thus cannot have a relationship with him or give him attention. I guess in this scenario the best translation to Portuguese is nojento which means "disgusting". Am I correct?

A contextual portion of the lyrics is

  You're so ****in' special
  I wish I was special
  But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.
  What the hell am I doing here?


texts: Is there any archaic word for "finally"?

texts: So I was wondering whether there is any archaic word that means "finally" or "at last"?


texts: Plural Usage when describing a particular feature of a large collection of objects

texts:
In each group, which sentence(s) is(are) correct?
Group 1:
(1) She found the size of their brain had decreased.
(2) She found the size of their brains had decreased.
Group 2:
(1) Miranda focused on the behavior of urban and rural blackbirds.
(1) Miranda focused on the behaviors of urban and rural blackbirds.

Here, I am trying to gain some insight into the usage of plural when describing a particular feature of a large collection of objects. For example, one one hand, each bird had only one "size of brain", so it is reasonable to use single. However, the collection of "birds" had multiple "size of brains", so it is also possible that we should use plural here.


texts: Word or phrase describing a painful learning experience

texts:
I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes that something has been learned painfully (physical or metaphorical pain).
Example: I have ...... learned not to touch my eyes after chopping chili peppers.
Doesn't strictly need to be an adverb.


texts:
The word "military profile" is sometimes in the news.

For example,

(1) India Monday said it was 'conscious and watchful' of China's growing military profile
    and...
(2) NATO to raise military profile around Kosovo.(Headline)

According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, "profile" means:
1. a side view of someone's head
2. a short description that gives important details about a person, a group of people, or a place
3. something that is high profile is noticed by many people or gets a lot of attention
4. to behave quietly and avoid doing things that will make people notice you
5. if a person or an organization raises its profile, it gets more attention from the public
6. an edge or shape of something seen against a background

In this case, "profile" probably refers to the definition of 5. But I am not sure what (1) and (2) mean. Does "military profile" mean "military might", military role", or "military WHAT"? What would you paraphrase this word as?


texts: In a sentence like "the movie was so bad that it was hilarious" does it entail that at one point, it wasn't hilarious?

texts:
The movie was so bad that it was hilarious.
The area was so cold that plants couldn't be grown.
The jewel was so expensive that people couldn't buy it.

In sentences like these, that is used to indicate result, but a result is "a thing that is caused or produced by something else" which would imply that at some point, the thing was not the thing indicated by "that." That means at some point, the movie wasn't hilarious, that plants could be grown, and that people could buy the jewel, but that doesn't seem right, but if "that" doesn't indicate result in these sentences, I'm not sure how else to define it.


texts:
Are the following sentences correct grammatically?

1- The war had two hundred woundeds. (And not wounded soldiers)
2- There are two modals in that sentence. (And not modal verbs)

That is, can we add plural s to the adjectives?


texts: How to use two prefixes "comma" "and" stem in two situations

texts:
My native language is Dutch. We have a subtle, but useful way of combining the ingredients: Prefix (+ comma) + and + Prefix + stem. However, I do not know whether the same rules apply in the English language, e.g.:

"Copper-, and iron-based materials"
This means two or more materials. One or more based on copper, and at least another one based on steel, or vice versa.

"Copper- and iron-based materials"
This indicates multiple materials composed of copper and iron.

Thus the comma makes the difference. Furthermore, the hyphen is necessary. And last but not least: "copper-based materials and iron-based materials" does not make useful use of the rules of language.

So what are the rules?

Thank you,

Max


texts: What's the term for not just being wrong, but the exact opposite of right?

texts:
I'd like to concisely (ideally, in one word) express my opinion that the styling on the "Removed permissions" and "Added permissions" text in the picture below is not just wrong, but the exact opposite of right:

For purposes of a short subject line in a bug report, I'd like to say that "permission changes are presented wrongly", but rather than wrongly, I'd like to use for emphasis a word that has additional connotations of being inverted, swapped (though swapped is perhaps wrong, because it implies that the items were once styled the other way- but they've always been like this). I'd prefer to stay away from words like 'moronic' - I want to be polite.

(for the curious, the styling is correct from the point of a computerised diff, where green typically denotes additions and red deletions - but wrong from the point of view of user-experience and security, because the most dangerous items are styled with green, and the least dangerous with red, opposite to conventional warning design)


texts:
It is a bit tricky to use denote in a sentence like this. I am confused, which one of the following is correct? Or if none of them are correct, can you suggest a better way to say this?

  The third reported attack that we denote by the "xyz" attack, occurs
  when ..

Or

  The third reported attack that we denote the "xyz" attack, occurs
  when ..

Or

  The third reported attack that we denote it by the "xyz" attack, occurs
  when ..

By "denote", I mean to "call" it. The "xyz" in my sentence is a name that we created for the attack.


texts: Why do we "drive to the United Nations" but "drive to United Airlines"?

texts:
I understand why we "drive to Microsoft" but must "drive to the United Nations".

But why do we "drive to United Airlines" rather than "drive to the United Airlines"?


texts: How is the expression 'in my work' used in the following question?

texts:
"I am a sport data analyst. In my work, I watch baseball games all the time."
I want to know what 'in my work' means in the above sentences. I guess it could be 'in my working place', or 'while I'm working.' Thank you for reading this.


texts: Word to describe "when sensitive information is given to a trusted proxy in case of untimely death"

texts: What's a good word to describe the situation when sensitive information is given to a trusted proxy (such as a lawyer), to be released only when a certain event occurs, such as a person's untimely death?


texts: Stating two separate facts the same idea, but still keeping them exclusive of one another?

texts:
I apologize if this has been asked before, but I wasn't even sure what question to look for.

In English, if I said the sentence:

  I helped clean and prune the garden in the backyard.

Of course, it seems that when I refer to cleaning and pruning, I am talking about the garden in the backyard. My question is, how can I make it seem like I am talking about cleaning the backyard as a whole, but only pruning the garden, without any redundancy?

If I say:

  I helped clean the backyard and prune the garden in the backyard.

Is it not redundant to say "backyard" twice?


texts: Is "physically based rendering" grammatically correct?

texts:
Physically based rendering is a relatively new but established term in computer graphics that refers to rendering that tries to closely mimic the laws of physics for more photorealistic results.

The term sounds weird to me. I would rather have called it "physics based rendering". Is "physically based" equally correct? Are there any other examples of phrases with "-lly based" or something similar?


texts: What is the term for repetition of an initial syllable in successive words?

texts:
In Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread, one character comments on the name of another

  Carla Carlucci: alliteration. Or something more than alliteration, but I don’t know the term for it.

Alliteration is

  the use of the same consonant (consonantal alliteration) or of a vowel, not necessarily the same vowel (vocalic alliteration), at the beginning of each word or each stressed syllable in a line of verse, as in around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.

Collins

Homeoteleuton is

  the use of word-endings that are similar or the same, either intentionally for rhetorical effect or by mistake during copying of text.

Collins

An example is found in Ursula K. LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven

  He arrived at ideas the slow way, never skating
  over the clear, hard ice of logic, nor soaring
  on the slipstreams of imagination, but slogging,
  plodding along on the heavy ground of existence.

Obviously there is alliteration present in Ms. Tyler’s example, but it does seem like something more, deserving of its own nomenclature. Is there a standard term for the repeated use of a syllable at the beginning of successive words?


texts: Can I use the word "where" as a Subordinating Conjunction which is not referring to a place or location?

texts:
I'm about to finish writing a thesis on technical topics.
I'm contemplating, whether or not I'm using the word "where" correctly as a subordinating conjunction.

English is my second language.

Here are a couple of examples. I'll appreciate your response regarding the correctness of these sentences, as well as general information on the right usage of "where".

Example 1:
Neglecting first its nonlinear effects, the fiber can be represented
by means of its frequency response
(here comes an equation with variables that have to be determined),
where ω =2πf is the angular frequency in rad/s, α is the wavelength-dependent attenuation constant in Np/m, β ( ω ) is the phase constant in 1/m, and L is the length of the fiber (in m).

Example 2:
The fibers can be roughly separated into two types, namely a multi-mode fiber and a single-mode fiber (SMF) [19], where the latter is considered in the remaining of this chapter.

Example 3:
The phase response shows that the amount of dispersion depends both on the fiber length and the signal bandwidth, where the impact of CD grows linearly with the transmission length, but quadratically with the signal bandwidth.

Example 4:
Fig. 2.2 shows the received signal on the complex plane for the three different scenarios, where the symbol transitions are illustrated in gray and the Baud-rate sampled constellation points in blue.

Example 5:
 The black dots denote the nodes of the network, and the blue lines are the connecting optical transmission links, where the investigated link path is highlighted in pink. (something tells me that in this case I should use "whereas" rather than "where"...).

Example 6:
It is also possible to consider the equalization problem as an estimation problem, where the estimation error between the equalized and the transmitted sequence has to be minimized.

I think you've got the point.

Many thanks in advance for your help

Roi


texts: Does "hieroglyph" only refer to the ancient Egyptian form of writing or to any writing system whose basic elements represent words?

texts:
If somebody refers to Chinese or Japanese characters as hieroglyphs are they right or wrong? Aren't there many hieroglyphic writing systems? If somebody says hieroglyphs refers only to Ancient Egyptian writing are they merely pedantic or just plain wrong?

I know there are quite a few other terms used for Chinese and Japanese characters (han character, hanja, hanzi, ideogram, ideograph, kanji, pictogram, pictograph, sinogram, sinograph...). And I know that those characters used to be used in Korea and Vietnam, but I don't want to get sidetracked and focus just on the applicability of this term, not whether there are better or less ambiguous or more precise or more technical terms.


texts: "Makeshift flamethrower" or "handmade flamethrower"?

texts:
I am trying to describe the causes of a fire that begun when someone used a makeshift—or handmade—flamethrower.

Some context:

The fire broke out in a prison, when two rival gangs fought each other over a room. An inmate attached a plastic hose to a gas canister, opened the valve and lit a flame, thus turning it into a handmade/makeshift flamethrower.

Should I use handmade or makeshift?


texts:
The titles of freestanding works (books, movies, plays, albums, etc.) are italicized; smaller parts within these works (chapters in a book, articles in a magazine, songs within an album) are not (they are put in quotes, instead).

How are software titles treated?

My understanding is that if a particular program resembles a book or a dramatic work (like a video game), its title is italicized -- otherwise, it is treated as a proper noun, just like any other product.

  I played Grand Theft Auto, instead of reading "Democracy in Ancient Greece" in Microsoft Encarta and preparing my presentation in PowerPoint.

Is this approach correct?


texts:
What is the plural of Mars? Is it Marses or Mars' (note the apostrophe)? Or something else?

EDIT: I'm not sure where I got the idea of Mars' from. I suppose I was thinking it might be a zero plural where the word doesn't change, like fish, and just threw in the apostrophe like certain other oddities do, e.g., 1960's, pulling 5 g's (g-force).

This came up because a certain attack helicopter configuration is called the Mars, and I need to refer to multiple Marses and multiple Neptunes, but at least the latter is clearly plural.


texts: to-infinitive as a direct object(noun phrase)? (as in 'I promised to buy her a pizza tomorrow')

texts: I think this 'to' is some kind of connecting word. I think it connects a verb and what the verb intends. I think in this usage, the originally transitive verb becomes an intransitive verb needing a complement. I think some Americans could consider the to-infinitive as a adverbial complement that describe what the before verb intends, and 'to' as a connecting word. Do Americans or some Americans not regard it as a noun phrase, but as what I think of?


texts:
"I have a song, meaning that I'm now a composer." Should there be a comma before "meaning that"? What type of speech is "meaning that" and how do the rules apply?

Here's a site that puts a comma before "meaning that".


texts:
I read a sentence:

  There were more than five times the number of students in chemistry as the number of students in physics.

Does that mean (1) the number of students in chemistry divided by the number of students in physics is greater than five or (2) the number of students in physics divided by the number of students in chemistry is greater than five?

I know what "five times as much" means, but I'm confused by the sentence above.


texts: How should the name of a series of books be formatted?

texts:
I know that you underline – or if you're typing, you put the words in italics – the titles of books, and that you put chapters or quotations from a book in "quotes," but do you do anything to the font of a series of books; for example, Ranger's Apprentice?

I'm using this in an author's note, writing about how I am writing a book while reading a series, and that I want to mention that a specific series that I was reading inspired me.


texts: "At day five", "on day five", or something else?

texts:
When considering a set of days and writing about them in a 'diary mode', what preposition should I use in the following example:

  He died at day 5 of the treatment.
  He died on day 5 of the treatment.


texts: How to say "older" or "oldest" when talking about time?

texts:
I have several time attributes, like "modification time", "access time", etc. And I want to compare these attributes for some objects:

  How to find the object with the [word meaning "oldest"] modification time?

Or:

  Take the first object that has [word meaning "newer"] access time than others.

What are the words that fill the blanks?

Update: To clarify the confusion about the way of comparison, I provide an example.

Let the first object have the modification time "7:00 1/2/2014", and the second "8:00 1/2/2014".

The first object was modified earlier — it has "older" modification time than the second one. The second object was modified later — it has "newer" modification time that the first one.


texts: she sells seashells type of rhyming style

texts: You know how the pairing of words she sells & the word seashells sound similar in rhyme , is there a specific type of technique that has more than one word rhyme with one word?


texts: How do you call a person who sees his work in everywhere

texts:
How do you call that person who's so crazy about their work that they see it in everything?

For example, there's a girl who's a grammar teacher. And when she reads a novel, she always explains herself in her head all the grammar rules. Then, there's a tech YouTuber. And every time he sees a new tech coming out, he starts thinking about how would he unbox/review it on his channel.

It's something in psychology.

Can't find the words anywhere.


texts: Who could help me analyze the grammar structure of this sentence?

texts:
John Dewey once observed that more of our time than most of us care to admit is spent “trifling with mental pictures, random recollections, pleasant but unfounded hopes, flitting, half-developed impressions.”

This sentence is from "Beyond feelings, a guide to critical thinking".

I could analyze it to this extent:

"John Dewey" is subject, "once observed " is the verb phrase. and all the content after "that" is the object of "once observed".
But I don't know how to deconstruct it:

  more of our time than most of us care to admit is spent “trifling with mental pictures, random recollections, pleasant but unfounded hopes, flitting, half-developed impressions.”

What's the meaning of "care to admit"? Maybe they have some other meaning which blocks me to understand this statement.


texts: Name for someone who writes content to generate website traffic

texts:
What is the job title or name for people who creates content for a social media website to drive traffic.

For example, a new social media site wants viewers so they have a small group of people who are content experts write posts and answer other posts.  They may or may not be paid.

Options I've got so far:

Volunteers, moderators, early adopters, betas...

For the record, I don't like these options...


texts: Is "Which countries is Nicaragua competing with?" grammatically correct?

texts:
Something seems off about the following sentence, but I can't put my finger on it:

Which countries is Nicaragua competing with?

Alternatives I considered:

With which countries is Nicaragua competing?
Who is Nicaragua competing with?

Open to suggestions, including the "the first sentence is fine", but if there's a better way to ask this question, I'd like to know what it is and why it is preferred (what rules apply, etc.)


texts:
I heard this phrase spoken on a British TV show. It was obvious from context that it meant 'a little white lie'.

How did this colloquialism arise? I have my own theory about about how this may have derived from Cockney rhyming slang, but I am more interested in the correct background.

@Dancrumb It was an episode of "Inspector Lewis". I can't place the exact episode, but Lewis was leaning on a newspaper reporter he had caught in a lie. The lie had been to cover up his infidelity, not relevant to the case and he stated to the Inspector...


texts: What does it mean to "talk a dog off a meat truck"?

texts:
He is someone who could talk a dog off a meat truck.

What does this idiom mean?


texts: Is it "shooting the messenger" when you are assigned the whole responsibility for merely dropping a clue in an assignment you are not involved in

texts:
"What is my boss doing" is it "shooting the messenger"?

Case: I am working for a company and here is a given situation. We receive an email from other department to resolve an insurance issue. My boss forwards the email to a Person S and my supervisor and me in CC since it is his task/responsibility. We have a cultural expectation that if any one knows anything better he should not wait to contribute even when one is not asked for it. Since I knew a year back stuff of this issue which I worked on. What I did was I collected year back information and send it back to my boss and rest in CC. As result of me sending the mail to him my boss hereon without any forethought starts to forward like dumping all the resulting correspondence to me instead of "Person S".

PS: I am well know for being a go-to colleague. This is happening on numerous occasion and i have let known the situation to my boss but he discards such complaints as whining. We also have this culture of dumping work on one who initiates. "Person S" does not have courtesy to take back the responsibility what is officially assigned to him and keeps quite about it.


texts:
Can you say this?

And please do be honest.

I'm trying to tell somebody that I wish that they are honest with the reply that they are about to write to me.
Is the "do" part redundant?


texts:
Can, in some instances, conclude and decide be used just about interchangeably as far as AmEng goes?

Please, consider the following examples:

  The committee concluded on a plan of action.

  The committee decided on a plan of action.

-and-

  We decided to postpone our vacation for a week.

  We concluded to postpone our vacation for a week.

-and-

  We found some stale bread, which we decided to eat.

  We found some stale bread, which we concluded to eat.

-and-

  He decided that dinner would be at 7 o'clock, and asked guests to arrive at 6.

  He concluded that dinner would be at 7 o'clock, and asked guests to arrive at 6.

DECIDE

  to infer on the basis of evidence :  conclude they decided that he was right.

  M-W

  To make a judgment or determine a preference; come to a conclusion decide on where to go.

  Random House

CONCLUDE

  To reach as a logically necessary end by reasoning :  infer on the basis of evidence *concluded that her argument was sound.

  To make a decision about :  decide concluded he would wait a little longer

  M-W

  To decide, determine, or resolve: He concluded that he would go no matter what the weather.

  To arrive at an opinion or judgment; come to a decision; decide:
  The jury concluded to set the accused free.

  Random House

  To decide; determine.

  Collins American English Dictionary


texts:
"When the round steel bar is magnetised by passing alternating current through its length flux density is greatest at the surface"

I found it in the book written by English people
I don't know why there is 'at' and not 'on' the surface. Do you know why?


texts: Without, free from, lacking, etc.: Unambiguous total negation with "OR"?

texts:
In the following, “does not cause” seems to be clear negation, and total negation requires “or”, therefore:

The widget does not cause deformities or cracks

However, it is unclear to me whether the following types of words and phrases are strong enough in negation to enable an “or” to clearly express total negation.
For example:

The widget leaves a product:
without X or Y

free from X or Y

lacking X or Y

Questions:

Would, for example,  “. . . without X or Y” above unambiguously mean “having no X and having no Y”?

What is the term for this class of words and phrases and are there other common members of the group?


texts: Which tense should I choose for this sentence?

texts:
All the lessons I learned from my Twenty years of my life has boiled
  down to a big message that the process of self-perfection is highly
  entangled with the effort to define the self, i.e., to find
  self-identity. As this identity grows broad and broad, the definition
  of a better self becomes tricky.

I wonder which tense is better in the clause "all the lessons I learned". I think it may be more appropriate to use the past tense, because they happened in the past. But on the other hand, this lessons seem to be stable, and not subject to change, despite coming to form a bigger message. Besides, I use present tense for the main structure.


texts: Meaning of "opps" and "come out of retirement"

texts:
What's the meaning of opps and come out of retirement?

  Whats the longest you've gone without having sex?

  3 years.

  wo

  And get this, I've only slept with 2 women in my entire life. Was a save it till you're married guy... 1st girl I was engaged to.

  Had plenty of opps before and after her. I really like my current girl so I decided to come out of retirement.


texts: My favourite animal is a dog, the dog or dog

texts:
I consider myself a pretty advanced English teacher and user. Nonetheless, I've recently found myself in a pretty difficult spot trying to explain which of the following sentences is correct:

My favourite animal is a dog
My favourite animal is the dog
My favourite animal is dog

My instinct tells me the dog is the correct one, but I've found so many instances on the internet where native speakers say My favourite animal is dog that makes me wonder if that sentence is also correct.
Additionally, I know that a sentence like My favourite food is pizza sounds pretty right to me, making the whole thing so complicated that I cannot figure out any rule that governs using articles in the above sentences.


texts:
Help me please about the exact meaning of the phrase in bold, please!

  Treasury Secretary, who met the king during his tour of the region in mid-November, described him to John as a broken man unlikely to rise to the
  importance of the moment.

I should note the king was encounter a revolution, and the president was trying to persuade him to act firmly.

Thanks endlessly.


texts:
Can somebody explain when to use could have  and  could have been  and under what circumstances? Please explain with an example.

Is it something to do with the active (could have) and the passive voice (could have been)?

I think, if I have understood correctly, that this rule also applies to (would have/ would have been) and (should have / should have been).


texts:
Growing up I had a friend whose family would constantly say "Are you going with?" or similar.  It always annoyed me.  Fast forward 20 years and now I have a coworker who does the same.

"I'm going to lunch, do you want to come with?"

It annoys me, but is it wrong?

p.s. Sorry if this is a duplicate.  It was a difficult thing to search.


texts: Is the antecedent of a relative pronoun in a prepositional 'of' phrase a matter of choice?For example,

texts:
The bag of books that was found belongs to me.
The bag of books that talk about history belong to me.

Thanks


texts: Is "must" more used than "have to" in written language?

texts:
I was taught that there is a difference in the kind of obligation one can express through 'must' and 'have to'. If I say
I must do this.
I imply that I feel an inner urge to do this, whereas if I say
I have to do this.
the obligation is somewhat external, coming from somebody else, not necessarily as an inner conviction.
I am proofreading a book and I must say that in written language I definitely prefer 'must' rather than 'have to'. Yet my friend tells me: 'If I say must I feel obliged, if I say have to it comes from the heart.' English is her mother tongue, not mine. I just wonder if my instinct is right. Thank you for your help.
PS: Does not have to sound more spoken language than must?


texts:
I realise this is probably a somewhat confusing question, which really has two distinct parts, but I thought of them in relation to one another so...

Firstly, with the phrase 'Having done that was a rewarding experience', is the word having acting as gerund or a participle (i.e. (My) having done that was a rewarding experience)?

Additionally, I was curious as to how to categorize the italicised words in phrases such as the ones below.

He paused, weighing up his options, then chose.
The man, considering his options, looked into the distance.
Having thought it over, I think it's a good idea.

What grammatical term describes these words? I would understand, for instance, if a phrase said 'He paused, weighed up his options, then chose', since 'weighed' is clearly a past participle describing how 'he weighed up his options'; however, 'he weighing up his options' is clearly nonsensical. Are they simply verb phrases with no relation to the subject? Perhaps there is an obvious answer; hopefully someone can provide it or at least offer some improved grammatical context to my question.


texts: Is there a word or phrase to describe ambiguous sarcasm?

texts:
To be specific, this statement refers to a phrase in which the writer/speaker's intention of being sarcastic is not disclosed to the reader/listener (deliberately or accidentally). The effect strongly depends on the vocal inflection placed on the statement. Is there a better word or phrase than "ambiguous sarcasm"?

EDIT:

This includes the case in which the speaker is unsure about his or her intentions, leaving the implication of the statement for interpretation.


texts: If an independent clause stands on its own, is it still considered a clause?

texts:
There are several definitions related to clauses in my textbook that am a little confused about, and I would greatly appreciate some clarification.

Here are the definitions:

Clause. A group of words which contains a subject and a verb but is in itself not a complete sentence, but a part of a complex or compound sentence.
A  complex sentence is a sentence which contains at least one dependent and one independent clause.

  While we were away, our house was robbed.

An independent clause is a main clause, one that is not subordinate.

In the example given in definition 2, we have a dependent clause ("While we were away") and an independent clause ("our house was robbed.") It seems to me that the independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence ("Our house was robbed.")

However, it looks like based on definition 1, this would not qualify as a clause, since it is itself a complete sentence and is not part of a complex or compound sentence.

Is it correct to say that when an independent clause stands on its own, it is not considered a clause? If so, is it considered anything besides "a sentence"?

Thanks!


texts: What is a continued sequel movie and non continued sequel movie called?

texts:
What is a Non-continued sequel movie vs Continued sequel called?
1.) What i mean by non-continued sequel is that the theme, name of the movie is quite the same, some additional characters may be added, some original character may be deleted. But IMPORTANTLY the lead characters (atleast 2) are different and surely different cast and storyline will not be continual to the original story (one reason is (2 lead) characters are changed).
Example: Movie like (1.) Speed (1994) (2.) Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
2.) What i mean by continued sequel is that the theme, name of the movie is the same, some additional characters may be added, some original character may be deleted. But IMPORTANTLY the lead characters (atleast 2) are same and same cast and storyline will be continual or may be different but continual to the original.
Example: Movie like (1.) Spider-Man (2002) (2.) Spider-Man 2 (2004) (3.) Spider-Man 3 (2007)


texts: Word for something like an addiction that you don't miss or crave when it's actually gone

texts:
Addiction is defined as "the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma."  But sometimes a person will find something which they do not suffer any withdrawal from when the y stop doing it for a while, and they do not feel any great need to seek out on your own.  Yet when they are actively engaged with it, they just do not want to stop and can find it very difficult to pull themselves away from.

As an example, "My son is addicted to MineCraft.  Once he sits down at it he will play for hours, not even wanting to stop to eat or sleep even when all his friends have gone home.  Yet unless one of his friends wants to play it with him to begin with he never touches it."

I feel like "addicted" is the wrong word, because while the "psychological enslavement" part is correct, it does not seem to form a habit or exhibit withdrawal symptoms.  It's almost like a temporary addiction that goes away whenever the stimuli is removed.  Is there a word for this?


texts: How should I capitalize "Clean Up the Tags and Branches" as a title to a section?

texts:
Specifically, I am wondering how "Clean Up" should be capitalized.  I have three plausible options:

"Clean Up"
"Clean-up"
"Clean up"

It all really depends on what part of speech "up" is and whether it requires hyphenation.

I was thinking that "clean up" is a phrasal verb and... I don't know...


texts: Equivalent idiom for "God does not have a stick"

texts:
In Turkish we have this idiom, "God does not have a stick" which means that God has His own way of punishing. (Say you make fun of somebody for his shortcoming, and soon you suddenly have that same shortcoming.)

Is there an equivalent in English?


texts: What's the difference between care and care about?

texts:
I want to know if there is any distinction between care and care about. For instance, I often say 'What do I care about?' rather than 'What do I care?'. I looked up the Merriam-Webster dictionary and it did not help. It seems care and care about are almost the same. Sure I know in care about, care is an intransitive verb.

My possibly wrong guess is that care about puts more emphasis on the object that we care while care is very much focused on the verb itself.

'What do I care about' is really weird like you guys said. It should be 'What does somebody else care about?'. My bad :).


texts:
Which one of the following sentences is correct ?

That comes from my subconsciousness.
That comes from my subconscious.


texts: "Keith does not a hint take" or "A hint does Keith not take"

texts:
While wasting time on the internet (as I am wont to do), I came across a video in which somebody was criticizing a blog-post and corrected the statement

*Keith does not a hint take.

supplying his corrected version

**A hint does Keith not take.

with the added explanation that the first sentence implies that there is a hint not taking Keith, unlike his phrasing.  In either case, the intended connotation is supposed to be that of the statement

Keith does not take a hint.

Do either of the above statements carry this meaning?
To my ears, the first statement seems perfectly comprehensible and does not appear to flip subject and object, while the second seems convoluted.  Maybe something like "A hint Keith does not take" is something more along the lines the critic was going for? At any rate, I would appreciate an explanation as to which of the above statements are grammatical and/or carry their intended meaning.
Edit: Just ran into my old post and was curious. The video I was talking about is here.


texts: Adjectives that do not have predicative position

texts:
I've read somewhere that some adjectives cannot be used in the predicative position; for example "this is a major problem" is acceptable, but "the problem is major" is not acceptable.

I'm wondering what other adjectives cannot be used in predicative position other than major. Is it the only one we have in English?


texts: Difference between "larder" and "pantry"

texts:
What is the difference between larder and pantry? Is it size? Or content?

I found very similar definitions for both terms, something like

  a room/place in which food is stored.

Which of the words is better for a separate room next to the kitchen, and which is better for a food-dedicated cupboard? Or even for a separate house for food storage, like they used to have in castles?


texts:
It was a little death, not being able to make a tale out of the small moments of life.

I don't see the connection between death and life. How do these relate and make this metaphor effective?


texts: (Adj) Word for "Related to the content" of media, rather than related to the medium

texts:
I'm talking about the different problems related to the experience of watching lecture videos.

Certain problems such as video resolution or audio quality are technological.

Other problems are related to the content of the videos, such as incorrect information being taught, or long periods of action without speaking (ie writing on the board).

How can I describe the latter problem? I'm leaning towards contentual, from this question with the following definition:

contentual
adjective
Relating to content (as apposed to context)

The answer to that question says 'contentual' is in the OED, but I haven't been able to find it.
Can I use 'contentual'? If not, what adjective should I use?


texts:
I would like to know which sentence is grammatically true?
The failure of the student A and B results something.
The failure of the student A and B result something.
Since we are are talking about failure of the student A and failure of the student B, it feels like result.
However it also feels like results, because we don't really explicitly saying the failure for student B.
Can you enlighten me?

Quick google search of both sentences (till result/results):
... result: About 451.000.000 results (0,67 seconds)
... results: About 374.000.000 results (0,62 seconds)

Deepl and Google Translate from German to English:
# Deepl
Der Ausfall des Schülers A und B ergibt
The failure of student A and B results in

# Google Translate
Der Ausfall des Schülers A und B ergibt
The failure of student A and B results

I am confused...


texts: Using of "at the turn of" with words other than "century" or "year" (or similar)

texts:
I have doubts regarding the use of "at the turn of".

I know that I can say "at the turn of the XX century" to point out a period in between the XIX and the XX century (straddling the two centuries).

In a similar way, can I say something like, for instance, "at the turn of the beginning of the school year" to mean a period of time straddling the period immediatly before and after the starting of the school year, or "at the turn of his arrest", to indicate a period immediatly before and after his arrest?

Thank you


texts: What's a word for conflicting emotions all felt at once such as loneliness, sadness, happiness, being content but also feeling as if something isn't right?


texts:
I read in some places on the 'net that the dipthong/digraph æ is pronounced like the "a" in "cat." But all the words I know that contain that word pronounce with the tongue more forward, closer to  a short "e." "Aesthetic," Encyclopaedia," "archaeology." I would go so far as to say it is not so far from the long "a" as in "day."

Can someone clear this up, using language for a non-linguist (someone who would generally not know a digraph from a dipthong, which I had to look up)? I am hoping it is a little more cool and "European" than just "cat."


texts:
I'm about to post an ad for our company survey but I'm not sure which of the following (the position of should) is correct.

  Take the survey on which computer should our company get next.

or

  Take the survey on which computer our company should get next.


texts: "If you don't do it, I'll". Why does that sentence feel so awkward?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Is there some rule against ending a sentence with the contraction “it’s”?

Earlier today while writing a very informal email, I expressed:

  If you don't do it, I will.

Upon looking at it, I realized that "I will" could be contracted to "I'll", however, this is completely unheard of and feels quite awkward.  I am now quite curious, is there a reason why ending a sentence with "I'll" feels (or is) so inappropriate?

I understand that the use of contractions is generally an informal use of language so rules of usage can be a bit loose. Therefore, this is a case that to me doesn't make logical sense and  I'm a bit confused.  Why does it feel wrong when an "I'll" is placed at at that end of a sentence, even though such an expression is informal and not, technically, an incorrect usage of the contraction "I'll?"


texts: There are more than one seller + verb form?

texts:
My question is which sentence is correct?

There is more than one seller claims that ...
There are more than one seller claims that ...
There is more than one seller claiming that ...

According to the accepted answer in this question, it seems that using there is is correct. However, I don't know what is the suitable form for claim.


texts:
What's the opposite of a nip in the air?

Nip is for cold, what do we say for a slight hotness in the air?


texts: How is "special rates" used in the St. Trinian's school song?

texts:
The following lyrics from "Defenders of Anarchy" on the St. Trinian's (2007) soundtrack have actually confused me for some time because I can't tell whether "special rates" is being used in a British slang sense I'm unaware of.

So scam all the toffs the neats and the freaks,
Blackmail the goths, the slappers and the geeks,
And if they complain we'll do it all again.
We do as we damn well please
The ASBOs, the chavs, the emos and their mates,
To torment the slags we offer special rates,
And if they complain we'll do it all again.
Defenders of anarchy

As an American I usually think of "special rates" meaning a discount, but I could also see it meaning an extra markup for the kind of customer for whom a "special" effort is required just because they're so annoying.
So, is there a slang connotation here, a misuse, a regular use, or have I just been overthinking it?


texts:
What better way to express " I'm watching you (spy)" :

Surveillance or monitoring (monitor)?

What's the difference?


texts: Word or phrase for someone who is very generous, but only on their own terms

texts:
Imagine you have a friend who has very generously offered to drive you to the airport in the morning. Your flight however is delayed and it turns out you really don't need that drive until the afternoon. When you inform your friend of this, he suggests you hire a taxi instead, since he was planning to take a nap after lunch.

I'm looking for a word or phrase that captures the contrast between someone's generosity and their inflexibility in how they are generous. I don't necessarily want to imply that these restrictions on their generosity are unreasonable, just surprising, given that generosity is so often paired with a desire to accommodate.

The archetypal example is probably parents who are willing to spend a fortune on a lavish wedding for their daughter, but make a stink when that daughter requests some small thing that they do not see as essential.


texts: Word for a group of "like-minded" people

texts:
I know there's a word for "like-minded" people, generally used in a negative context.  For example, you could say employees of the CIA are __, in that they all want to ensure the security of the nation, whatever the price/cost.  I think it starts with a "c", it's on the tip of my tongue and I can't think of it.  Any ideas?

Just editing this a bit.  Thanks everyone for your responses.  It may not start with a "c" but the word "cadre" is close to what I'm looking for, but once again with a potentially more negative association.


texts: Is "cover up the original record" correct?

texts:
I want to express that I need to use a new record to replace the original one. For example, after we have re-edited the writing, we might want to save it so that it could replace the original draft. I am wondering if the following expression is correct in a formal letter.

  I would like to cover up my old record with the updated one.

Because cover up might seen with the meaning of covering something not good purposefully.


texts: What is the state in which a person is put to sleep using anaesthesia called?

texts:
When you go to the hospital and they inject you with an anaesthetic, you fall asleep. What is the state when you fall asleep called?

Example sentence:

  I was {asleep due to anaesthetic} during the operation


texts:
Is it sensible to use both "Thank you" and "Cheers" in ending an email?
For example if I sign off.

Thank you, I am looking forward to receiving your response.
Cheers,
(insert name here)

would it's simultaneous use be obvious to most people as being redundant?
(I can get rid of the "thank you" all together and leave the "cheers" to serve the purpose of a thanks and goodbye, but lets say I want to keep both - like "over yonder")


texts: What does it mean for something other than food to be "deep fried"?

texts:
A meme was described to be "deep fried". I think it might have meant that its message was maybe an exaggeration of facts?

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinatalism/comments/cxs224/deep_fried_antinatalism_meme/


texts: Where did the expression "every last one" come from?

texts:
There is, after all, only one last one.  Why did it become common to say "every last one"?

Dictionary.com has a definition for last as follows:

  8.
  individual; single: The lecture won't start until every last person is seated.

It seems plain that the definition was created because of the idiom, and not vice versa.

How was the idiom started?


texts: the accident happened a mile west of Bowes (Is 'west' an adverb?)

texts:
The Lexico Oxford Dictionary defines a use of 'west' as an adverb:

To or towards the west.
he faced west and watched the sunset
the accident happened a mile west of Bowes

I can easily understand the west in the first example is an adverb, but I have a hard time understanding or explaining to others how the one in the second is also an adverb.
Is west in the second example really an adverb? If so, how can you prove that it is?


texts:
How to distinguish the difference between the two of them?
For example, in the following sentence:

  Local times, originating from X and perpetuated by Y, have been abolished.

Why can I not use "originated from X and perpetuating by Y"? I know that this fragment sounds awkward, but I am interested in knowing the rules behind it.


texts: How can I describe a particular point along the width of an object?

texts:
A cube might be 10 meters high, 10 meters deep and 10 meters wide. I can describe a point in that cube as being at a height of 2 meters, and at a depth of 3 meters, but it sounds wrong to say that my point is at a "width" of 4 meters.

Is there a single word to describe how far into the cube my point is along the "width" direction?


texts:
I would need to clarify which one is correct.
My dictionary says “run somebody over” (meaning hit by car) and an example:

  I ran over the dog.

On the internet I found:

  I’m afraid we’ve just run a rabbit over.

But it too says “run somebody/something over”. What is the correct word order? What about the passive (e.g., somebody committed suicide)?

  He got himself ran over.


texts: Whil writing an academic paper, I would like to use the word 'metadata' to describe a sort of a list entry. In this context, I feel like using 'a' before the word 'metadata' as it looks like it clarifies the point that it is a 'single' entry, but the dictionary says the word 'metadata' should be used without an article. Can I use 'a' before the word 'metadata' in my usage, or is there any other options that I can alternatively choose?


texts: Single word for a 'repeat patient', as a returning visitor

texts:
If a patient is discharged and then returns later to a clinic or a hospital, is there a single word we can use to describe them?

"This is not his first visit.  Mr. Jones is a _______."


texts: Is "elder brother" implicit in "brother"?

texts:
I just watched a film called Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.

I wonder how one knows whether he is an elder brother or a younger brother when he only says that he has a brother and does not specify? Does brother usually mean elder?

I saw in the film; when the boy says he has a brother, the girl immediately knows the brother is older than him.


texts: I'm trying to find the right way to say this. "I advise early stage startups with their tech and aspire to build my own someday" vs "I advise early stage startups on their tech and aspire to build my own someday"


texts: shaVe, shaMe, shaPe, shaDe, shaKe, shaRe --> What am I doing here? Does it have a name?

texts:
When you only change one letter from the word and it makes a new word. Does this have a name? Thanks so much in advance!

Also, I'm not sure if my question is 'language usage' related like in grammar but more of a trivial inquiry. I think it'll be important for me to know nonetheless.


texts:
What is the difference in meaning between the two sentences below?

The conference was actually quite interesting.
Actually, the conference was quite interesting.

Thank you!


texts:
Ive often heard people say:

"Your ears are burning."

Specifically after someone hearing people talking about him or her. I'm curious what the origin of this is. There's got to be an interesting story behind this one.


texts: What possessive forms are used for mutual 1st person ownership?

texts:
I want to talk to someone about the house that my wife and I own.  Saying, for example, "My wife's and my house is awesome," sounds a bit funny to me.  What's the best way to express this?

Clarification

I'm asking specifically about the grammar of multiple nouns in possessive form.  I'm particularly curious if it's possible to do this with a first-person pronoun (me).  I am capable of rephrasing this in other ways - my question is not how to express the idea, but about this particular grammatical construction, if it is even legal.


texts:
"....and I'm hungry, and I don't like to eat alone, and I'd be glad to have you face the greasy dangers of a meal at the Finn's with me.”

It's a part of 'Nightmare Town' by Dashiell Hammett (1924).

I don't think at that time people were too concerned about 'greasy food' as these days.

My opinion is the 'greasy dangers' in the cited sentence might have some other meaning, which I can't figure out.


texts: What is a word describing words like stuff and thing?

texts:
A coworker abuses pronouns to the point we don't always understand what he's saying. We asked him to stop using pronouns and he started using words like "the thing", "the stuff". Technically these aren't pronouns.

Is there a technical word explaining what they actually are? The subjective word I keep coming back to is "frustrating."


texts:
The Collins English Usage  reads

Don't use ‘of’ after ‘no one’ or ‘nobody’; Say ‘None of the
children could speak French’.

However in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language on can find : No one of these properties is unique
Is this just stylistic advice? no single one of  seems to accept better plural noun phrases .
When none is modified by almost, it is difficult to avoid treating the word as a plural: Almost none of the officials were interviewed by the committee.


texts: Term for someone who feel the need to learn

texts:
Is there any specific term for someone who feel the need of constantly learning something new ? like a learning disease.

What should the appropriate term be?


texts: A word that means 'everything lined up perfectly'

texts:
I'm looking for a word that means everything went just right, or lined up perfectly. I mean this more in the sense of 'happened very efficiently,' such as an assembly line (be it in a factory, kitchen, etc) that is well timed, well thought out, and effective. Could even be used to describe a well staged dance number.

Is there a word for this particular thing? Also, Synergy is not the word I'm looking for. Tech startups have ruined that word for me. :(


texts: “Nice to meet you all” versus “nice to meet all of you”

texts:
When we want to say nice to meet you to many people, I often hear people say “nice to meet you all” and seldom hear “nice to meet all of you”.

Is there any difference between these two?

nice to meet you all
nice to meet all of you


texts: I want to know if this this grammatically correct "the students have begun their usual morning devotion when the teacher entered"

texts:
I want to know if this sentence is grammatically correct.
'the students have begun their usual morning devotion when the teacher entered the class'

I am confused with have begun and had began


texts: Using "Before" at the beginning of a sentence with "will"

texts:
Is this correct:
"Before I will lay out his argument, I will define my terminology."
Or/and is this correct:
"Before I lay out his argument, I will define my terminology."

I would argue that the latter is correct but the former is not. My boyfriend disagrees. Which one is correct and why? Help!


texts:
Can someone explain to me the meaning of the following phrase:

  You have to be more responsible, because you are going to play anchor
  role in the new project.

My manager said this to me. How should I take it? Was it complimentary or derisive or what?


texts: "Not to want someone doing something." What shade of meaning is attached to using the gerund rather than infinitive?

texts:
On page 137 of First Certificate Trainer by Peter May (Cambridge Books for Cambridge Exams), the last paragraph in Test 4, Use of English Part 2 (a cloze test on a short text entitled Safe camping), reads:

  After meals, pick up any bits of food that might be left on the ground, as these can attract insects – or larger creatures. It also makes sense, for the same reason to keep unused food in closed containers well away from the camp. You don't want a hungry bear or other animal suddenly appearing in your tent!

Why not the structure "(not) to want someone to do something"? Why not "You don't want a hungry bear or other animal to suddenly appear in your tent"? (Or "suddenly to appear in your tent", or "to appear in your tent suddenly"… it is not the place of the adverb I am interested in here.)

The structure "(not) to want someone doing something" is found in the Cambridge Dictionary online, with the example sentence "I don't want a load of traffic going past my house all night, waking me up." But no explanation is given as to when one structure should be used, and when the other.


texts:
Currently, I read Paradise Lost of John Milton and I found a grammatical structure I have not met yet. The sentence is:

  Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the deep: the infernal peers there sit in council.

I have thought that "there" could be used such as:

At the beginning of a sentence following by  a verb: "There is ..." or "There lives a man who ..."
A the beginning of a sentence by the subect-verb inversion in English : "There he is"
At the end of a sentence: "He is in the house. He is there."

Is this form akin to middle (John Milton's) English or is it a grammatical structure I don't know?

If yes, could you say according to that grammatical structure of there "He there is"?


texts: Why am I always compelled to begin a response with "Well, "?

texts: Because of a certain 140 character limit I've learned where I can trim characters on responses but even after all this time I still reply with "Well, so and so . . ." and I go back and have to delete it (even on comments to this site I start with well and then delete it). Is it because that's generally how I would speak a response and I should watch out there too or is this just me?


texts: What do you say in garden or street cricket to indicate you have completed your run?

texts:
In an improvised game of cricket - in the park, the garden or in the street or playground - there is usually just one wicket, and only one batsman. At the bowler's end there is often just a single stump, or even a pullover or something to indicate the point from which the bowler bowls.

When the batsman runs, he (or she) first approaches the bowler's end. To be 'run out' a fielder needs to break the wicket toward which the batsman is running. So if he only has time to take one run he needs to give some indication that he is not going for a second run. So he has to say something to indicate that his run is completed.

When I was a kid, well over half a century ago, we used to shout 'WICKETS'. But I just noticed last night, in Manchester, playing with my grandson and his mates that they shout 'IN'.

Does anyone else, from one of the great cricket-loving nations, have a view and any particular experience to report in this matter?


texts: How else can I express the concept of ' just to be on the safe side'

texts: I always use this expression when I want to say that I just want to be prudent about something. Are there other ways to convey the same concept, other idioms or expressions I can use alternatively?


texts: What does "gin-and-water reporter" mean?

texts:
The term is from "The Difference Engine" by Bruce Sterling and describes a certain kind of journalist. The story is set at the time of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace/Byron.

What does it mean?


texts: Is the phrase "our POTUS" grammatically correct?

texts: I saw somebody use this on twitter, but I had to do a second take because to me it doesn't make sense. If you expand the acronym you get "our President of the United States". It seems redundant if an American says it, since the it is already specified that the president occupies the American presidency. Is a non-American says it then it seems confusing, almost implying they have their own office named the President of the United States.


texts: "Just as clear as mud as ever" — proper grammar/usage

texts:
A co-worker asked,"How's it going?" to which I replied,

  Oh, it's just as clear as mud as ever!

The context for this is regarding client requirements convolution. The requirements are still unclear. Now 'clear as mud' is a metaphor or colloquialism (don't know which or if either but it's a saying...)

My question is: If I were to write about this, is the above sentence structure correct, or would it be more correct as

  Oh, it's just-as-clear-as-mud as ever!

Or is there an even better way?


texts: Why "answer me" but not "answer me the question"?

texts: Why are "answer me" and "answer the question" acceptable but not "answer me the question"?  Is it similar to "explain me (something)"?


texts: "May not" -- no choice vs. mere restriction

texts:
This is from the tabletop game Warhammer 40k rulebook:

The turn Marines arrive they may not assault.

I always assumed it means they are not allowed to assault. But the meaning "they may choose not to assault" (as opposed to "they must always assault") would be perfectly legitimate too, as far as game rules go.

So how do you tell whether it limits your choices (not allowed to) or extends them (allowed not to)? How it should be worded if the meaning was "allowed not to"?


texts: Is a person "under contract" or "contracted" to do something?


texts:
Say we pick a city, NotLondon. Now assign a nickname, "NotLondon, the city of tears", tears being a metaphor for rain. Should these be capitalized? Should the word 'the' be capitalized? I think it counts as a proper noun, in which case the answer would be yes.

New York: the Big Apple seems obvious to me (although it seems 'the' is not part of the nick name as it is not capitalized), but when using words to describe a city rather than naming it (the city of tears), I'm not so sure. The description is its nickname.

English is not my native tongue, so please be explicit with grammar references.


texts: How are we to parse the phrase "A ship was a long time turning"?

texts:
The phrase "it was a long time turning" is found in the following sentence:

  Owing to the roughness of the sea, the steamer arrived late, when the
  sun had already gone down, and it was a long time turning before it
  tied up.

Чехов, Антон Павлович. 2008. Anton Chekhov’s Short Stories, Second Edition (Norton Critical Edition). W. W. Norton & Company.

I would like to understand the grammar that enables its use. This sounds a bit strange to me. After all, we don't say such things as:

"I was hungry, and I was a long time eating before I got full."

Or do we?

We do have the common idiom "it was a long time coming." However, its idiomaticity is granted through wide usage. The topic sentence above is not so widely used. I therefore hesitate to consider it an idiom.


texts:
"Wall Street banks had made billions of dollars on complex investments backed by mortgages whose value now plunged."
In this sentence, why was the word "value" used as a singular noun here? (or is it an uncountable noun?) From what I thought, since there are multiple mortgages, values should also take a plural form, as each mortgage has a different value.
OR is it the case where the "value" was used as an uncountable noun that includes all the values of the mortgages mentioned?
I would greatly appreciate any help.
Thanks!


texts:
Is there a word that describes someone or something that provokes indecision? "Divisive" is close to what I'm looking for. But that is generally used to describe a person or topic that splits people. The word I'm looking for is one that describes a person (or thing, I guess) who causes people to feel indecisive about something. Is there a good word for this?

For example, a person who might fit this description is a counselor who unhelpfully (or perhaps too helpfully) continuously causes someone to rethink a decision by presenting the positive and negatives of both (or many) sides.


texts: "I can't confirm all what he said" versus "I can't confirm all of what he said"

texts:
I want to know if this sentence is correct without the preposition of in it.

  I can't confirm all what he said.

Should I instead write the following sentence?

  I can't confirm all of what he said.

Regarding usage, I did a quick check of COHA and found some examples that did not use of.

  I don't know all what she knew.

Is this sentence correct?


texts: What is a single word for using something in a good way?

texts:
So, basically what I want is a word for using power in good way. Like opposite for 'abusing power'. Is there a word for that?

I wanted a good word for this sentence - 'The abuse or __ of power results in a collapsing or stable government, respectively'. I considered options like judicious. But nothing seems to properly convey the message. The concept of 'using something productively' seems very fundamental and I thought a fitting word for that would definitely be present.


texts: Pronouncing th after r in Standard American English: /ɹð/

texts:
I natively speak Flemish (Dutch). We trill the R.

I just had a 7-lesson course (over video chat with an American lady) to improve my accent towards Standard American English. According to the test I improved greatly, but there is just one particular sound I still have great trouble with.

If an r gets anywhere near a th, I get a tongue tap (as in /R/). I can now usually manage to get thr right, but r th still often fails, at least if the th is a /ð/. Earth and north are no trouble, but for the is harder, and one I can NEVER even get right (at speed) is bother them. I've heard examples of people saying those words right after each other while still clearly pronouncing that /ɹ/ and /ð/, and I want to know how!

My trouble with bother them is that after the first th, my tongue is moving backwards to produce the r, and then it has to travel too quickly back to the front for the second th, tapping my palate along the way. It seems physically impossible to avoid that.

It's probably mostly related to how I pronounce /ɹ/. My previous habit was to twist my tongue (placing it sideways, touching both top and bottom of the mouth with either sides). While this actually sounded fine, I figured learning the 'right way' might improve my chances of pronouncing composite consonants more correctly. So I'm now trying to always pronounce it by having the sides or my tongue press against my upper molars instead, pointing the tip upwards but not touching. That "the way", right?

So in short:

I would value any very specific tips/explanations on pronouncing bother them correctly, i.e. with /ɹð/ but without tapping the palate.


texts: Is the idiom, "one person's word against another" or "another's"?

texts:
A common idiom is:

This is just one person's word against another.

Is the correct form another or another's? I assumed the extended forms would be:

This is just one person's word against another person's word.
This is just one person's word against another's word.

But I often see the form without a second possessive.


texts: Do Americans who have the cot–caught merger pronounce 'all', 'tall', 'Paul', etc. with the same vowel quality as 'lot'?

texts:
Do American English speakers who pronounce cot and caught as [kʰɑt] pronounce all, tall, Paul, etc. with the same vowel quality?

If my subjective experience is anything to go by, I feel like I've heard Americans say [ɑ] (similar or identical to the vowel of palm, with no lip rounding) more in cot, caught, don, dawn, stock, stalk, etc., yet [ɔ~ɒ] (with rounding, similar to AmE north but with no R and to RP thought) more in all, tall, Paul, etc.

If this is true, it can be construed that either

(a) the so-called cot–caught merger is incomplete before tautosyllabic /l/, just like with /ɹ/ (compare thought and north), i.e.

  ɔ → ɑ / _ [-liquid]

(If this is true, doll has to be pronounced differently from all because it has /dɒl/ in RP.)
(b) there is a conditioned allophone of /ɑ/ that occurs before tautosyllabic /l/, i.e.

  ɑ → ɔ / _ [+lateral]

Note that dictionaries are most likely of no help, because, in phonemic transcription, whether the vowel is transcribed as /ɑ/ or /ɔ/ is a rather arbitrary choice, unless there is a minimal pair of /ɑl/ and /ɔl/ (which there isn't AFAIK).

Am I right in my assumption, or maybe I'm mishearing the velarization of /l/ as rounding or something?


texts: "Explain someone something" correct or wrong?

texts:
I always thought that it is "explain something to someone". However, today I encountered a novel usage from the following snippet: "In response, Accardo asked someone to "explain him the facts of life. And I mean life." Giancana, however, remained adamant and refused to pay.".

I'm conflicted on taking this expression as correct because Accardo is essentially a mobster and is not the literate type. But was he correct?


texts: Is there a word for when you are attempting to google something but can't find the necessary phrase/key words to return the results you're after

texts:
I occasionally run in to the problem. Generally when I'm attempting to achieve something in programming which I know to be possible and also is likely to have been accomplished before. I generally find my specific problem is obviously not going to appear but to frame the problem in general terms makes it almost unintelligible to a person, never mind google.
As an example - "How to check relevance of changes in each attribute to changes in the result"

Sadly attempting to Google the word to describe this phenomenon yielded no answer, possible in a very meta example of the described problem.


texts: Communicate a *feeling* of impossibility

texts:
I need a word or phrase that communicates the feeling of impossibility without communicating a literal impossibility. Example:

  Due to the incessant noise sleep was impossible

It is not truly impossible. It just felt that way due to the mood of the character.

How could I better phrase this to communicate that it felt impossible without saying it was truly impossible?


texts: How should one address a police officer in the US?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  What is the correct form of address for a police officer?

What is the correct way to address a police officer in the US in a non-emergency situation (such as asking directions)?