texts:
The phrase: "Translate this last phrase and write your answer in the comments on it, please."

I found it on a Russian website, I'm a Russian speaker and I know for a fact that 'on it' refers to this exact phrase. But I feel like on it makes no sense here and feels redundant in English. Does it make any sense having it there or it's just a bad literal translation?

Edit: The web page has about 10 phrases, each of them has a comment section. The previous phrases were there to state a riddle. This phrase is the last one and it is used to gather answers — just to have them all in one place.


texts: Why isn't "giraves" the plural of "giraffe" like "wolves" is for "wolf"?

texts:
The plural of giraffe, according to Merriam Webster and some other dictionaries I checked, is "giraffes".
Normally when the final sound of an English word is F, its plural ends in V sound. But not always.
Examples:

knife → knives
wife → wives
life → lives
wolf → wolves
leaf → leaves.

But giraffe → giraffes?
My best guess would be that the former words are all native English words while "giraffe" is not.
I searched "wolf" in Etymology Dictionary and it says:

from Old English wulf

For "life" it says:

Old English life (dative lif)

For "wife" it says:

Middle English wif, wyf, from Old English wif

For "knife" it says:

late Old English cnif

BUT for "giraffe" the entry is quite different:

long-necked ruminant animal of Africa, 1590s, giraffa, from Italian giraffa, from Arabic zarafa, probably from an African language. Earlier Middle English spellings varied wildly, depending on the foreign source, and included jarraf, ziraph, and gerfauntz, some apparently directly from Arabic, the last reflecting some confusion with olifaunt "elephant.
The modern form of the English word is attested by c. 1600 and is via French girafe (13c.). Replaced earlier camelopard (from Latin camelopardalis), which was the basis form the name of the "giraffe" constellation Camelopardalis, among those added to the map 1590s by Flemish cartographer Petrus Plancius.

So why is the plural of giraffe different than the other similar words? Why is it not "giraves"?


texts: What is it called, when a situation is described in a complicated way instead of a simple one?

texts:
How do you say in English, when one describes the matter in a more complicated manner than it is?
For instance, one has two options, A and B; and either of them has to be accepted. One wants to say the same matter in either of the following two ways:

Incorrectly failing to reject A.

Incorrectly accepting A.

Both 1) and 2) are equivalent statements, but in 1) the person is speaking in a complicated way.
In other words, what a situation/way is called when it is being described in a complicated manner, instead of simple one.
I hope, you understand what I want to ask.


texts:
While watching a video of Stephen Jenkinson I was challenged by the declaration that grammatically 'die' cannot be used as a passive verb.

Is it possible to use die as a passive verb?  Nothing I tried seems to make sense.

For example:

  He was died. (incorrect grammar)

According to: grammar.ccc.commnet.edu

  Verbs are also said to be either active (The executive committee approved the new policy) or passive (The new policy was approved by the executive committee) in voice.

  In the active voice, the subject and verb relationship is
  straightforward: the subject is a be-er or a do-er and the verb moves
  the sentence along.

  In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is neither a do-er
  or a be-er, but is acted upon by some other agent or by something
  unnamed (The new policy was approved).

In reality, it seems like death is an agent that can act upon a living entity against its' will. A person might go through the dying process all the while fighting death. Finally, if the person is taken by death against their wishes; then we can't use the active voice.

I suppose it could be said that "he has been taken by death". However, the verb die seems unusable. In the scenario above, he was not the do-er or the be-er.


texts: Is "ambiguate" a word, or is there a word with a similar meaning?

texts: I want to say something along the lines of "obscure", such as "He obscured the details" but I want it to capture the idea that the obscurity lies in the ambiguous nature of his description.


texts: What is the meaning of joke "may it plizzle the cozizzle" in Futurama?

texts:
In Futurama 5ACV16, character Leela, while in court, says "May it plizzle the cozizzle" instead of "may it please the court" to the judge (Snoop Dogg's head).

I am not native English speaker, but I understand it is supposed to be funny. One part of being funny is the fact that wrong expression is used in the courtroom. However, I feel there is also some English language aspect of this being funny.

So, why is it funny? What is "cozizzle"? Is there some cultural context of this joke I am missing?

Is it funny because "plizzle" rhymes with "cozizzle", and "cozizzle" mimics some words from the Snoop Doggs songs? Which words? I searched his lyrics, found nothing relevant. Googling "cozizzle" finds nothing relevant as well. Is it supposed to mimic ethnical slang?

Any suggestions are welcome.


texts: Word for the day you have spent half of your life with someone

texts:
My wife and I are approaching the point in our lives where we have been together for longer than we haven't.
I was born in 81, she in 82 and we got together in 2000. I'm planning to celebrate the exact date this happens for each of us.

Is there a word for the landmark date where days prior to the start of a relationship becomes less than days in the relationship?


texts: Single word for describing author, time, place and type of a document?

texts:
I have a collection of documents (research articles). I have to report about their authors, when they were published (years), where they were published (e.g. Country or University) and what type of documents they are? (e.g. conference papers, journal papers etc).

I want to give a title to this section where I report all these properties of the documents. I was thinking something like geography, cartography etc. but they don't seem to fit for all of the mentioned properties. Is there any word in English that can cover all these properties?

Any help would be appreciated.


texts:
I was making a smoothie for myself and had just been watching a documentary on the world of marketing and this thought popped into my head.

  Nature's good in a cup

Am I right that the above is incorrect? It should be Nature's goodness right?

I was trying to keep it short and snazzy :)


texts: Looking for etymology or information on the alternate meaning of "I don't care to X"

texts:
Unless I'm mistaken, in most of the English speaking world, the phrase "I don't care to X" indicates that the speaker prefers not to do the particular activity.  However, as I was reminded during a visit recently, in some parts of the southern US, it actually has another meaning that's roughly opposite.  That is, that the speaker doesn't mind doing the activity.  For example:

  I don't care to get dirty.

would normally mean that the speaker doesn't like getting dirty, and would presumably try to avoid it.  However, it was clear from context that the speaker meant that unlike others with whom she was comparing herself, she would be willing to participate in an activity that would get her quite dirty.

Does anyone have any information on the history of this particular meaning?  Did both meanings come into existence simultaneously and one became non-standard or did one enter later? Are there other areas/dialects that use the alternate meaning? Any other information you happen to have would be appreciated.


texts: How would this sentence be properly formatted?

texts: "He expressed genuine interest in how both of our paths came to cross this day: me, a hundred miles from home, and him, only a moment away from leaving the locked entry."


texts: Third person present and past in King James Bible

texts:
I am currently reading the Gospel According to John in a King James Version of the Bible, and I cannot understand the use of the third person singular in some of the verses:

1:38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
1:42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

I read online that saith is used in present tense, but it doesn't seem to fit in the first verse. Translating to modern English, we would read:

Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and says unto them, (...)

Is saith really the present tense, and said the past tense, or I'm confusing things up?


texts:
A determiner serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context.

Highs & Lows, an addict's path to recovery.
Highs & Lows: addicts path to recovery.

So is the second example wrong without the determiner or stylistic choice? They both have the same meaning but one references one single person.
You may see usage of the second example in a newspaper for instance.


texts: Am I right in thinking that I'm using "opposite" as both a noun and an adjective?

texts:
I am using the word opposite in two ways:

1) To refer to something that has an opposite; 'heat' is an opposite because it has an opposite, 'cold', whereas 'three' is not an opposite because there is no 'opposite' of three.

2) To refer to things that are opposites; to describe the relationship between opposites; 'heat' and 'cold' are opposites.

The first one (I hope) is a noun. Is the second usage as an adjective? I would think so as it describes a relationship, but one could say "the opposites heat and cold", in which case as a pair they are opposites, so would that just make them both 'an opposite', as used in the first definition?


texts: Best word to describe assesing value of a project

texts:
I am a web developer, I often work with clients who like to know how much my work will cost them. The problem is - I am not a native English speaker and I need to tell them that I evaluated the price to be "x" dollars. I need to describe this process with one word.

Up until now we used the word "quote", but I guess it's incorrect.

Examples:

Could you give me a quote for this project?
Message me with your suggested quote.

I need a word to replace "quote" for those sentences to be correct. I'd appreciate any help, thank you.


texts: Can the word "cue" be used to start a (this) sentence?

texts:
Here's an example of how I'd like to use the word. The use is in author's voice. I've hidden the actual joke and replaced it with a dummy text since the joke would be lost here anyway.

  "Here, the robot makes a joke". Cue annoying robotic laughter.


texts:
Is there a single word to describe an entity (for example a boat, ship or power station) that requires some crew, staff or manning in order to function?

This is subtly different from using the words manned or crewed to describe an entity that is currently staffed, since this does not mean that it must be staffed to operate.


texts: Where can I find information about the history of the study of Old English?

texts:
I'm curious about when the English, in early modern period, first found out about texts such as Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon chronicles and realised it was an old version of English? Or did they always know about the history of the English language?

When did linguistic studies of the English language begin? I mean, today we can pick an Old English word and say which word it developed into in Modern English; when did this study first begin?


texts:
When I was reading a novel by Steinbeck, I have met the sentence below:
"He stalked her then, game-wise, as he had the woodchucks on the knoll when day after day he had lain lifeless as a young stone and watched the old wary chucks bring their children out to sun."
I am confused a bit.
Do "...as he had..." mean "... "as if he was watching..."? Would you please explain the grammatical structure in that sentence!
Thanks so much!


texts: The plural of "noun of noun", three types of combination

texts:
Just wondering what's the plural form of "noun of noun". Should the 's' be added to the first noun or the second, or both?

Example: we will examine the 'concentration of heavy metal' in this paper.

concentrations of heavy metals.
Does this indicate each heavy metal has more than one concentration?

concentrations of heavy metal.
 Only one type of heavy metal, and has many concentrations?

concentration of heavy metals.
Does this indicate there are many types of heavy metals and each has only one concentration?

I found the 3 types of plural forms all exist in academic papers.


texts: Is there a term to describe words whose pronunciation bears little relationship to their spelling?

texts:
The English language is peppered with wonderfully weird spelling/pronunciation combinations. For example

colonel, pronounced kur-nl, probably my favorite, there isn't even an r in the word!
Gloucester, pronounced glos-ter
Worcestershire, pronounced woos-ter-sheer

And the list goes on, wikipedia has an extensive list of strangely pronounced spelled names here. No one unfamiliar with these words would be able to guess how to pronounce them, their pronunciation is usually the product of their particular history. Colonel, for example comes from the French colonel and has kept its original spelling but not its pronunciation.

So, is there a word to describe words whose pronunciation cannot be inferred from their spelling?


texts:
I am not a native English speaker, but as a mathematician (well, PhD student in mathematics) I need to write daily in this language. Sometimes, I have doubts about the correct formulation of certain sentences, and as I tend to be a perfectionist, this makes me waste a lot of time on research on the web. Sometimes, however, I am not able to find what I am looking for. This is one of these times.

A section of an article I am writing is dedicated to notions already well-known in the literature, and in particular to a theorem called the Homotopy Transfer Theorem. I want to make this explicit in the title of the section, thus I named it

  Reminder of the Homotopy Transfer Theorem.

However my advisor (who is also not a native English speaker) told me that I should write

  Reminder on the Homotopy Transfer Theorem.

As already mentioned, I looked online but my research was not conclusive. For example, in this discussion in a forum they say that it is a matter of "what sounds better". Does anyone have a rule on which one to use - of, or on - or, if both are correct, an opinion on which one sounds better in this case?


texts:
I'm trying to figure out what to choose between Past Perfect Simple and Past Perfect Continuous in the following sentence:

  Mr Georgiou had been working/had worked for the company for twenty years when
  he retired.

My choice was "had been working" because of the duration factor, "for twenty years". However, the book reports "had worked" as the correct answer. Isn't the above sentence emphasizing the duration of the action instead of the action itself?

Source: Common CAE Mistakes at CAE


texts: What is the difference between "truthfully" and "honestly"?

texts: These are different words, and their usage (context) differs substantially.  How would you define them or explain the difference (if you believe there is one)?


texts: What is a word for ascribing divine characteristics to a machine?

texts:
We use anthropomorphize to describe when human qualities have been ascribed to non-human creatures, objects, etc.

What is a word to that captures the situation when seemingly divine (or godlike) qualities have been ascribed to machines or software?

Usage: Many of the responses to the chess match between Google's AlphaZero and Stockfish - or more precisely, the responses to some of the moves played by the former in said match - seem to be delivered in a register that _____ AlphaZero. For example, Nigel Short wrote: "On seeing the engine's games, I feel like I am in the presence of God."


texts: What does "becoming grounded in your body" mean?

texts:
Every day, I get emails from Ennatought. Mails sometimes say for my type (The Investigator): "Become grounded in your body". Here is one such message:

  Try this practice and therapeutic strategy today: Become grounded in your body and allow grieving and processing of feelings, especially rejection and futility. When you are present to these issues, do you notice anything shift in yourself?

So what does it mean exactly? What should I make of this sentence?


texts:
I'm providing the following sentences as representatives of other similar instances.

  The survival of a TV channel depends on it attracting as many viewers
  as possible.

  The survival of a TV channel depends on its attracting as many viewers
  as possible.

Which one would be preferable?
I've seen both of the forms before. What is the related grammar/usage called so I can study further?


texts: What is the name for items separated by commas without conjunctive?

texts:
What is the name for constructions like the following, where the final conjunctive is omitted?

He came, he saw, he conquered.
The sirens were constant, loud, annoying.

I'm sure I heard this stylistic flourish given a proper name, but I can't remember where. I use this fairly often for effect and I'm sure it's grammatically correct.
This question is similar, but is to do with the appropriateness, rather than the name, of this contruction.
This question asks whether it is acceptable, but not its name.


texts: In reply to "Do they have...", which is correct — "yes, they do" or "yes, they have"?

texts:
My daughter is in an 5th grade English class in Germany with a teacher who teaches British English.

The teacher asked what is the correct response to

  Do they have some?

My daughter, who has learned mostly from hearing American English spoken, responded:

  Yes, they do.

The teacher said that she should instead say:

  Yes, they have.

What is going on here? Is this a difference between American/British English or is one of these more correct than the other?


texts: How do you describe a person who delights in prodding your weaknesses. Example: a loan officer of a bank who picks at your plan in a way that is embarrassing and he keeps it up for half an hour.


texts: How else can I express the concept of 'to not play it safe'

texts:
I'm using this expression in an essay at the moment, but I feel that it is coming across syntactically awkward. To put it into context: "...a reflection of my need to not play it too safe elsewhere." Are there other ways to convey the same concept so it flows better?

Edit: I've already used the work 'risk' twice in the same paragraph.


texts: What do you call a person who does not like to share things even though he/she has two or three of the same things?

texts: She has 5 headphones but she does not like to share even though we live under the same roof.


texts: Which one is correct: 'She was the first woman ever elected as President' or 'She was the first woman ever to be elected as President'?

texts: I think both sentences are ok but my teacher said I could only use the latter? I have also asked some friends yet they gave different opinions, so I'm not sure which one is proper. please help.


texts: Why is she saying “bang him on the counter” when he is a small living thing?

texts:
It says on a dictionary that ‘bang’ means to hit violently or noisily. However, I think the following bang means merely put or place because the object is a rat and because Ron ‘placed him’ after the witch’s words.
But why is she saying “bang” in this situation?
(Ron is talking with the consultant witch of a magical pet shop.)

”It’s my rat,” he told the witch. “He’s been a bit off-color ever since I brought him back from Egypt.”
”Bang him on the counter,” said the witch, pulling a pair of heavy black spectacles out of her pocket.
Ron lifted Scabbers out of his inside pocket and placed him next to the cage of his fellow rats, …(Harry Potter 3 [US Version]: p.58)


texts: What is the difference between /a/ and /æ/?

texts:
I don't quite understand the difference between /a/ and /æ/.
Google gives the transcription for 'add' as /ad/, while Wiktionary returns /æd/.

Are these sounds actually distinct or is this just two different ways of writing the same one?


texts:
I see many usages of this word in google (http://www.google.com/search?q=lazies), but I can't find its definition.  What does it mean?  Is it proper to use it in the following sentence:

  This book is for lazies. (It's easy reading)


texts: Difference between "shall not exceed XXX" and "may be XXX but not longer"

texts:
The candidate's statement shall not exceed two hundred words.

The candidate's statement may be two hundred words but not longer.

I think there is no difference in meaning between these sentences, but I'm uncomfortable with the first one. Can I always use the second one in any case? Or is the first sometimes preferable?


texts: I suppose I am confused in general about the use of "into" versus "in to." For this case, though, consider the sentence, "I moved into my apartment today" as opposed to "I moved in to my apartment today." I like the sound of "moved into," but is "moved in" like an idiom that needs to be left in that form to work? Any assistance in sorting out my confusion would be greatly appreciated.


texts: "The damage to the heart and liver are permanent": why plural?

texts:
In episode 11 of season 5 on House M.D. Dr. Cuddy says to the patient:

  The damage to the heart and liver are permanent.

Is it correct? Shouldn't it be is permanent since it refers to the word damage which is an uncountable noun which usually takes a verb in the singular form like sugar *is* bad?


texts: In a written work, is it better to reference people by their first or last name?

texts:
In a work, when you introduce someone by their full name and later refer to them in a context which is not appropriate for a pronoun, do you use their first or last name?

Example: "Eli Whitney is credited with inventing the concept of interchangeable parts. [...] Out of this contract, (Eli or Whitney) developed a sample of guns which he then presented to the United States Congress"


texts: Pronunciation of plural form of words ending in "-th"

texts: I have realized that to pronounce the plural form of words ending in -th, we have to drop the letter "h". e.g. Months is pronounced /mʌnts/. But I have never seen this point mentioned in any context. I just want to make sure that this rule is correct and can be always applied.


texts:
"If you have any doubt", let me know."
"If you have any doubts, let me know."

Both sound correct. Are there any subtle differences in meaning?


texts: How to punctuate a sentence containing two introductory phrases or words?

texts:
Consider the following example:

  Now, to finish off, I would like to add one last stroke.

If my understanding is correct, "now to finish off" is an introductory part. So there definitely should be a comma before I.

However, I am not sure if there are two separate introductory words/phrases("now" and "to finish off") or one.

And if there are two, should they be separated with a comma in formal writing or not? What is the general rule for this?


texts:
He was a man of perhaps forty five, and his face was thick featured, phlegmatic, with sunlines around small light eyes — the face of a deliberate man.
Nightmare Town Stories By Dashiell Hammett

What is sunlines?
Is it a wrinkle made by sunlight or something?
This word can't be found anywhere in dictionary or elsewhere.


texts:
This question has come straight from this great question title: Pants — why is it plural?
I just thought that if somebody hadn't already edited the title, it is either written right, or all editors just liked the play on words.

So how do we say it?


texts: What does “snug as a nun’s wimple or loose as a suggestion mean?

texts:
The Time Magazine’s article (November 5, 2015) titled, “Is Iran finally ready for change?” begins with the following passage:

  “The politics of Iran may be relentlessly convoluted, but for years it
  was possible to judge at least the general direction of things by
  doing a little girl watching. Or, at least, trying to. Hijab that can
  be worn snug as a nun’s wimple or loose as a suggestion – was of
  immense importance to Iranian hard-liners, who like Romantic poets and
  Miss Clairol equated hair with sexuality, a quality strictly forbidden
  in public."

I cannot get an idea of the meaning and analogy of ‘(Hijab) worn snug as a nun’s wimple or “loose as a suggestion.”’ What does it mean? Is “loose as a suggestion” a popular set of words?


texts: Hyphenation of -oriented when preceded by two words

texts:
Which of these two is correct:

  (a) I have experience in data science-oriented programming languages.

or

  (b) I have experience in data-science-oriented programming languages.


texts: What word could describe a person with integrity or the difference between a person with integrity and one without?

texts: I am trying to get the perfect word to separate those having integrity and those who lack it. I am trying to describe someone who accepts full ownership for their choices even the more regrettable ones


texts:
Please turn off the fans.

vs.

Please turn the fans off.

Please explain as well, preferably with examples.


texts: How to describe very tasty and probably unhealthy food

texts:
I'm looking for a word to describe food that is very tasty and unhealthy/fattening, probably served in oversize portions.
For example: a mountain of pancakes with lots of butter, chocolate, fruit and cream, a whole bucket of bacon, a triple cheeseburger, etc.

I don't mean the oversize crazy dishes you sometimes see on YouTube videos but the ones you might actually serve at your table.

In Hebrew we would probably use the word: מֻשְׁחָת, which means corrupt or immoral and can also mean it is done only for the body's pleasure.

I'm not just talking about junk food.

Here are some examples:


texts: Is "unlock or sign in and rate" correct grammar?

texts:
There are two options: 'unlock' and 'sign in and rate'.

Does the following sentence reflect the two options?

  Unlock or sign in and rate.


texts:
Example: -100 and +100 - is there a way of describing the relationship between these numbers?

Obviously, I've already come up with "opposite", is there anything else?

This is for use in an email.

Example usage:

There's an issue with records that contain values that are opposite values of each other, -100 and +100


texts:
About pronunciation of "thank you"

"thanks" [θæŋks] are usually [θæŋs].
"think so" [θiŋk-so] tends to be pronounced [θiŋ-so].

In a consonant group, the consonants, such as k, p, t. are omitted.

if you look at the most famous Merriam Webster dictionary in the United States,
"thanks" can be ˈ[thaŋ(k)s] omitted by 'k'.
It's explained.
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thanks)

In that sense,
"thank-you" [θæŋk-juː]
( As the principle that k pronunciation is omitted)

Is it possible to pronunciation that omits k as in [θæŋ-juː]?

I'm curious.


texts: What is the origin of the phrase "'til the cows come home"?

texts:
What is the origin of the term 'til the cows come home? While discussing this with friends tonight, the group had two possible explanations:

Cows return to their barn for milking at a given time late each night.
If a cow runs away or escapes, it doesn't return, unlike horses, which will return to their stable. As such, 'til the cows come home is an indefinitely long time.

So, which is correct? If anybody can point me to a reputable source explaining the history of this phrase, I'd be interested to know.


texts: A word that describes "a song that is not easy to get tired of"?

texts:
In Chinese there is a word called "耐聽" to describe a song that you can listen to for a million times and you wouldn't get tired or sick of it. Is there an English word suits this description? Example sentence would be "This song is ______. I can never get tired of it."
Some songs have beautiful melodies and you enjoy them at first. But only after a while you found that you've had enough of them and you do not enjoy these songs any more. You would say "The song sounds great at first. But it is not ______. I don't love it anymore. In fact, I feel sick of it now."


texts: What terms can I use to distinguish both online and in-person classes?

texts:
I'm trying to come up with two different words to describe:

a group of students attending an online course;
a group of students attending an in-person course.

Is it possible to use something like: "online class" and "in-person class"?


texts: Is there a proper name for the 3 asterisks that are used to suggest temporal discontinuity?

texts:
For example, when some long prose passage ends, this appears:

* *  *

Then some new prose passage begins.  The three asterisks dividing the two prose sections are understood to divide the two sections into non-continuous temporal spaces.

I am interested in knowing if there is a specific name to describe symbolic or graphical markings that are meant to suggest temporal discontinuity.


texts: What is the antonym of 'embedded system?'

texts:
My resume needs an expression to describe experience I've had working with computers that are not part of a larger hardware system.

I thought of using 'desktops' but this is a very restricted subset of non-embedded systems.


texts: Historical change in the use of "dude" in 60's US

texts:
My understanding of the history of the word "dude" is the following. The word was originally a mocking term around 1890 in the US for a city man who wore overly fancy clothes. In the West, it became a term for city people who were out of place in a frontier environment. For example, a "dude ranch" still refers to a place where men from the city come for a vacation and pretend to be cowboys. Then, finally, in 60's California surf culture it became a slangy way for young people to address each other. From there it passed into national culture in the US ca. 1970-80.
But ell.SE user JimmyJames protests in comments on my answer that there is evidence that it actually came into vogue in the 60's as African-American slang in New York City. He points to this on etymonline.com:
"Application to any male is recorded by 1966, U.S., originally in African-American vernacular."
He thinks it's unlikely that it could have ever filtered from white California surf culture to African-American NYC culture.
It seems like both hypotheses are sketchy. How did "dude" actually transition from the 19th-century meaning (an east-coast dandy) to its 20-century meaning (counterculture, egalitarian, applicable to all males, and usable as a form of address)? Can anyone fill in any evidence for what actually happened?
Related:
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/253873/could-it-be-that-the-word-dude-is-insulting
Etymology of “dude” and progression in language


texts: History of the phrase "keep it together"

texts:
Often used in conjunction with panic-inducing situations, what does the "it" reference in the phrase "keep it together"?

The closest established phrase would be "keep your wits together".

When and how did the phrase "keep it together" evolve and come into widespread use?


texts: Fisherman/Fisherwoman and Gender-neutral Forms

texts:
What is the unisex form of a word like fisherman? Do you have to use fisherman and fisherwoman separately, or is fisherperson acceptable? I couldn’t find a dictionary with the word …

In general, what do you do when a word does not have a unisex form?


texts:
... and I want to advise they, too, come for a session.
... and I want to advise that they, too, come for a session.

The first is how I first wrote it. Do I need that?


texts: Is there a word for people who emit positive vibes and negative vibes?

texts:
It's happened to me tons of times. See some people on Tv, live in office or anywhere, meet them and without their saying much you feel some positive energy oozing out of them. Although sometimes it is negative too. When it is -ve you don't like seeing them again.

I was wondering if there is a word for such people ?
Thank you.


texts: Is ‘toss a bone to somebody’ a popular English idiom?

texts:
I came across the phrase ‘toss a bone’ in the headline of the New York Times article (July 15) in its Business section that reads “As a Watchdog Starves, Wall Street Is Tossed a Bone.”

I checked dictionaries at hands to find no entry of this idiom, though I found ‘cast a bone between’ and ‘throw a bone,’ neither of which seems to be near ‘toss a bone.’

In this search, I found the phrase appearing in the lyrics of Confederate Railroad in Youtube that goes:

  "So toss a little bone to the working man
  Make it a law that we all get a raise
  And prices go a little l..."

From the context of the headline of NYT article and the foregoing Confederate Railroad lyrics, I guess ‘toss a bone’ implies ‘to give a bate, or little reward (incentive) to somebody.’ Am I right?

Is ‘toss a bone to somebody’ a popular English (or American) phrase apart from the Confederate Railroad’s song?.


texts:
I see lawyer texts saying, for example
"will be distributed pro rata shares held"

Should this be "pro rata to shares held"?


texts: Comma usage: something happened, not because of this, but this

texts:
Does this sentence need a comma?
The bells were attached to the priestly garments not as an object of worship but as an object of purpose.

Lately, I have found myself wanting to use this sentence structure: something happened, not because of this, but this.  I have refrained from doing so because I was not sure about proper comma usage in this situation.
I have searched for an answer to this specific question on several sites and have not found an answer. I have seen several posts relating to “not only this, but also that,” but those posts do not seem to apply to my question. I would appreciate any help you can provide.


texts: Is my use of "that that" in this sentence gramaticaly correct

texts:
Abbreviated version:
"I thought that that wasn't a thing in the U.S.A. anymore at all!"

Entire sentence:
"My entire world was blown away when I heard that 800,000 kids in America (the U.S.A.) work illegally, because I thought that that wasn't a thing in the U.S.A. anymore at all!"


texts: Looking for a list of hapax legomena that have lost their meanings over time

texts: These are words that have lost their meanings over time and can't be reconstructed from context, as it only appeared in that context once and not in others. I've searched with Google but came up empty. I tried searching the OED for "unknown origin", but that returns none of them, just words like dog or bigot, whose meanings are known but whose exact origins are lost.


texts: Word to describe a manager who's loyalties lie with superiors rather than subordinates

texts:
I'm looking for a word to describe the managerial style of a manager who's loyalties and demeanor are allied to this person's superiors rather than with this person's subordinates.

One word that describes this would be 'Corporate' but that feels like it has negative connotations and I'm looking for a more netural sounding word.


texts: Using commas around names that specify relationship

texts:
I've been getting conflicting information on this problem. If I write:

"My brother Sam loves to eat cake." OR

"My brother, Sam, loves to eat cake."

OR to be REALLY clear
"One of my brothers, Sam, loves to eat cake."

Do I leave out the comma around his name in the first one to indicate that I have other brothers other than Sam? If so, I don't understand this because he is my ONLY brother that is "Sam" whether or not I have other brothers, and why should me having other brothers be of interest to anyone anyway?

Does the second one indicate he is my only brother by being written with the commas?

Or should I just use the last one, which would sound odd if I was writing this to someone who is aware of Sam and that I have other brothers already.


texts: What is the term for the incorrect use of a similar sounding word when writing?

texts:
What is the term when, in writing, a word is incorrectly replaced by a similar sounding word?

I think this occurs more commonly with popular phrases where the writer has only heard the word being used in speech, and hasn't seen it in text.

Some examples:

Things took a turn for the worst - where it should be worse
These events are unpresidented - where it should be unprecedented

I think this is a different issue than misspelling, because the writer is unaware of the proper use of the word they have written, even if they have spelled it correctly.

The most relevant term I have seen is misword, but according to the Merriam-Webster, it is for a word that is "wrongly spoken" not written.

EDIT: This also includes words that are similar sounding, but not homophones.

EDIT2: Using the wrong word when writing, not in conversation


texts:
I think I understand the difference between “error” and “mistake”, but today I saw this article about Google’s self-driving cars that has the following sentence:

  A lot of this won’t be a surprise, especially if you already know that driver error causes 94% of crashes.

(Here “driver” refers to a person who drives a car, not to a part of computer software.)

On the one hand, it looks like the author is a native speaker. But on the other hand, my intuition and understanding of English tells me that it is incorrect to use “error” there, isn’t it?


texts:
Imagine somebody asks to confirm your identity;

"Are you Mr./Ms. X?"

Do you reply with "I sure am!" or "I surely am!"?

I'm struggling to know whether to apply the adverb form here. What's the rule with adverbs and "to be"? Phrases like "I am cold" or "She is tired" seem all right, but ones like "I am good" seem more suspect.


texts:
I'm still confused between the two, so please help?

"Life is so much more than just stealing and killing."


texts: I'm editing a manuscript that uses the phrase "get a handle on it". The action is taking place in the late 19th century, and this usage seems somewhat anachronistic to me. However, I can't locate anything to back up this feeling. Does anyone know when this phrase was first used? (Even better would be knowing when its use was in vogue.)


texts: How to use the word extend vs put in a sentence

texts: If you wanna say someone put their hand on my shoulder throughout the window should i say extended his hand on my shoulder?


texts: What is the grammar rule for the preposition after the word free? Why do we say free of impurities but free of charge?


texts: When is "Your" grammatically correct instead of "You are"

texts:
So a while ago, I edited an answer on meta, wondering Your should be replaced with You are. Here is an excerpt from the post:

  You are [Your] not being able to cast another close vote is also officially by design. We only let users vote to close once, whether the question is successfully closed or not. In this particular case, it might be useful for the vote to be cleared in such a way as if it had never existed at all, thus allowing you to vote to close again for a different reason........

It was later revised stating, "Your" is grammatically correct there. I believe he might be right as he is a moderator. Though I would want to know the reason behind it.

I've been googling for a while now and followed these posts:

Is there some rule against ending a sentence with the contraction “it's”?
Is it okay to say “Yes you're.” instead of “Yes you are.”? [duplicate]
Would it be grammatically correct to say “You're” instead of “You are”? [duplicate]

But still don't know how come this is grammatically correct?


texts: Why do we say "there is" denoting existence?

texts:
I am intrigued by the usage of the expressions there is/there are denoting existence. Specifically, I am curious about the reason why we use an adverb of place even when referring to things that occupy no physical location (e.g. there is a positive number that, when multiplied by itself, yields 25).

What is the history behind this expression?


texts: Why are I and O always capitalized, but a is not?

texts:
There are three single-letter words. They are the article a, the pronoun I, and the interjection O.
The pronoun I and the interjection O are always capitalized, but the article a follows normal capitalization rules. Why is this the case? When and where did this originate?

Edit: As described in the answers to Question 7988, the pronoun I was first used in the 13th century, to avoid confusion with the dotless j, and was retained as a typographic convention because i "gets lost" due to its small size. However, this does not explain why O is always capitalized, but a is not, since a and o are approximately the same size.


texts: Phase transition: 1st order, first-order, 1 superscript st - order

texts:
I have read several articles from non-native speakers about phase transitions. They are roughly classified in different orders, depending on the behavior of thermodynamic potentials at the phase transition. Now what is a good way of writing about the different orders:

Thank you for any advice.


texts: What is an English word for when a problem requires a solution to solve and reach that same solution?

texts: I need to log into a website, but i don't have the Username and Password. When I contact support they answered me by giving a link to view their comment on their secure tech support page. To view the page it requires me to log in with the credentials i asked for in the first place. What is the English word for this?


texts: Comma placement in "developing cutting edge websites and previously video games"

texts:
This is the opening line of my CV so I would like it to be correct. Would this be the correct place to put the comma? I've always been taught not to put a comma before and.

  I’m a talented and versatile programming and UI professional with 5 years of commercial experience in developing cutting-edge websites, and previously video games.


texts: What is the terminology for a phrase whose common usage is diametrically opposite to its literal meaning?

texts:
For example, consider the following simple phrases one typically says upon entering a popular restaurant:

I love chicken.
I love fish.

If the person literally loves fish, he/she wouldn't really want to take its life and eat it. What they really mean to say is I love cutting and eating a fish.

Does this come under Irony? But Irony is generally a deliberate attempt to reverse a meaning for creating humor.


texts:
Why do we "wear" perfume, and not "apply" it?

For example, why do we say "Alice wore her mother's perfume", and not "Alice applied her mother's perfume"?

What's your take on this?


texts: Idiom Question: "And no money is spent by the dead."

texts:
I'm actually a native English speaker that can't seem to figure this one out, nor can I find it online. Unfortunately, I can't really give context: it's in pretty convoluted academic writing in a very small field.

It seems to be something like "so it doesn't really matter" or "the outcome is the same," I just can't really come up with an explanation of why that might be. Any help would be great, either in clarifying the figurative meaning or the literal explanation behind it!

Here's the best paraphrased context I can give:

  ... here's a single exception to this rule, but it actually doesn't even apply here...and no money is spent by the dead.

I realize how unhelpful that must be, but as I said, the writing is too convoluted to be helpful in this case.


texts: Is there a word for hate against religions or a specific religion?

texts:
We have racism, which implies hate against one or more races.

We have sexism, which implies hate against one of the sexes.

We have nationalism, which implies hate against one or more nationalities.

Is there such a single word for hate against one or more religions?

I realize that this might be difficult to answer because some religions closely identify with certain races and/or nationalities. If it makes it easier, the question can be narrowed down to Christianity, specifically, or broadened to describe a general hatred for all religion.


texts: Term for writing a number as "five" vs "5"?

texts:
What I mean is, if I said "Write the number _ ", then you would write "5", "27", etc.

Whereas if I said instead "Write the number _ ", then you would write "five", "twenty-seven", etc.

I'm not just looking for the oft-used expression "write it out"....I'm wondering if there are proper terms for these two options, possibly obvious ones I'm not thinking of.


texts: Pronunciation of onomatopoeia, pharmacopoeia, etc

texts:
Words such as onomatopoeia and pharmacopoeia incorporate the Greek suffix -poeia, meaning to make or to prepare. Wiktionary's provided etymology for onomatopoeia reads:

  From Ancient Greek ὀνοματοποιία (onomatopoiia)

I'm curious to know how the Greek onomatopoiia is/was pronounced and if the -poeia suffix in the English equivalent has always been pronounced /piːə/.

Also, are there any words in English that have simplified -poeia to -pia or similar?


texts:
A co-worker and I are fairly strongly divided on how to pronounce Linux. For a northern Midwest American (Milwaukee area, Wisconsin, to be exact), should it be pronounced

lin-uh ks

or

li'nuks?

pronunciations from: Linux. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved August 15, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Linux


texts: Possessive with distinct ownership by multiple parties, "please remember to unlock John's and my offices"

texts:
I apologize if this has already been asked, I was unsure how to phrase my question. If I am trying to ask someone to remember to come by unlock the office of my coworker and my own office how would I say it? Would this be correct? "Please stop by when you have a moment and unlock John's and my offices" We each only have one office and so I questioned whether this would be an appropriate way to convey the idea.

Thanks!


texts: rephrase "as they are mutually understood"

texts:
I'm trying to translate an SLA ( Service Level Agreement ) from English to Dutch. But i can't wrap my head around the following sentence:

  This Agreement outlines the parameters of all IT services covered as
  they are mutually understood by the primary stakeholders.

The first part isn't difficult, but I'm having problems with the second part:

  as they are mutually understood by...

Can somebody rephrase this line please? Maybe that helps me with translating this line to.


texts: Is it "stern talking too", or "stern talking to"?

texts:
In the following sentence:

  I'll have to give myself a stern talking to.

is it "stern talking to", or "stern talking too"?


texts: What is good word to describe the emotion of bliss combined with exhaustion after recovering from illness?

texts:
In the early stage of infection and also during various stages of other illnesses one normally experiences the emotion that is quite nicely expressed as malaise, meaning a general uncomfort in your entire body, usually interpreted as "something is not right with me". After a succesful fight against infection your body enters a different state characterized by a deep sense of calm, nearly bliss, but normally accompanied by fatigue and the wish to sleep and rest. The dreams during this second stage are quite blissful, but not easily remembered, whereas the dreams during malaise may be quite disturbing, wild, fast-paced and demanding. The scenes of dreams during feverish malaise sleep tend to stick in consciousness which makes them easier to remember, even though they make notoriously little sense, which makes remembering them rather unappealing. Usually one remembers most the stark contrast between stormy waves and mirror-like surface of the sea when no wind has blown over it for weeks.

What is a fitting word for this post infection stage, similar to the way malaise manages to describe the first stage so well?

I remember a scene from the fellowship of the ring LOTR movie that captures this emotion quite well in images: https://youtu.be/tw-gCzBsAFI especially the first few seconds.

An example sentence could be:
When I woke up that morning after my fever chills the malaise had disappeared. In it’s place a feeling of [insert word here] had stepped: my body was suddenly at ease, but I was still very weak.

Creative ideas including poetic expression is welcome. Ideally it would just be one word though. I hope such a word exists!


texts: Should I use "brothers" to refer to a mixed gender collection of siblings?

texts:
I know I can use siblings, but this seems strange in some contexts.
Let's say I am opening a lemonade booth with my sister and I want to call the company "Lemon Bros."; would that be correct?


texts: Do you have mixed feelings "on" something or "about" something?

texts: It seems to me that both the forms are used but I don't know if they have the same meaning or not.


texts:
"Since" has two different meanings: from the time that, and because; I have a question related to the latter one.

When used as the meaning of "because", can I use had p.p with since? For example:

  Since you had eaten all the desserts, we couldn't eat any dessert.

or can it be used just with simple past tense, like this:

  Since you ate all the desserts, we couldn't eat any dessert.

I'd like to know if both of them are correct.


texts: Should I use "is needed" or "is in need"?

texts:
I am writing my master's thesis now, and I got a small question on the two terms in the title. You probably noticed, my English sucks...

I have a sentence like: "this model is needed", but I want to change the to sentence to "this model is in need". Is that correct?


texts: What do you call an airplane that is going down and about to crash?

texts:
Example sentence:

  The plane went on a __ for a few minutes before crashing into the Pacific
  Ocean.

I thought the word was down dive or something like that. But a Google search told me that I was wrong.

What's the correct term to use here?


texts:
What are the differences between I am on it and I am at it? What does the latter mean? I found the definition of the former on Urban Dictionary and understand that it means I'm going to solve it shortly. For instance:

  A: This guy is making noise and I cannot concentrate on my work.
  B: Don't worry, I am on it.

I've also heard:

  Oh, those reds are at it again.

in the context of a feud between reds and blues. Googling did not help.


texts: In the adjective+preposition collocation, can any other word occur in between them?

texts:
I am hungry for breakfast

is an example of such collocation while

  I have lived by the bay area

isn't because it has a slightly different grammatical pattern.

My question is whether there are sentences like

  I am hungry in XYZ for ABC.

in general and in particular as stated above?


texts:
As a result, we have a math curriculum with no historical perspective or thematic coherence, a fragmented collection of assorted topics and techniques, united only by the ease with which they can be reduced to step-by-step procedures.

What does the author mean by "united only by the ease with which they can be reduced to step-by-step procedures"?


texts: Left-dislocation of a content clause, or just a comma splice?

texts:
Consider the following sentences, which all have the pattern

X, that's what I say.

where X is a complete clause:

[1a] Nobody ever got something for nothing, that's what I say. (source)

[1b] The previous spring's where it's born, that's what I say. (source; scroll up)

[1c] She'd be a fool to turn ye down, that's what I say. (source)

[1d] Never trust an ethnic restaurant full of white people, that's what I say. (source)

[1e] Let them know that they've got to be afraid of you, that's what I say. (source)

They all seem to be related to a corresponding pseudo-cleft in which X becomes a content clause, namely,

What I say is that X.

So, for example, we have

[2a] What I say is that nobody ever got something for nothing.

and similarly for the other examples.

Now, this reminds me of left-dislocation, as discussed in another question on the English stackexchange:

[3] A good attitude, that's what counts.

This is, apparently, a straightforward case of a left-dislocation of

[4] What counts is a good attitude.

However, all examples of dislocation I've seen discussed so far involve a dislocation of a noun phrase (such as a good attitude). True, CGEL, for one, says only that dislocation usually involves an NP (p. 1408), so presumably other things could be dislocated as well. In full, CGEL says

  A dislocated clause has a constituent, usually an NP, located to the
  left or right of the nucleus of the clause, with an anaphorically
  linked pronoun or comparable form within the nucleus itself.

It seems to me like the examples [1a]-[1e] could fit this definition...

One specific thing that worried me for a time about the left-dislocation theory in the case of the examples [1a]-[1e] is  that the word that appears in both the non-dislocated and the (allegedly) dislocated sentences:

[1a'] Nobody ever got something for nothing, that is what I say.

[2a] What I say is that nobody ever got something for nothing.

In contrast, in the attested examples of left-dislocation, that only appears in the dislocated sentence:

[3] A good attitude, that is what counts.

[4] What counts is a good attitude.

However, I don't think that this superficial breaking of the [3] vs. [4] pattern matters. After all,  that in [2a] is a subordinator introducing the content clause, whereas in [1a'] it is a pronoun, just like in [3].

My real worry is that I haven't personally seen any attested examples of left-dislocation other than those of an NP. In fact, the predecessor of CGEL, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik, says that only NPs feature in left-dislocation (p. 1310)... On the other hand, CGEL leaves the door open for other kinds, but it doesn't provide any examples. And as these two are my go-to sources at the moment, I don't know what to think.

So: are the examples [1a]-[1e] all instances of left-dislocation of a content clause? Or are they mere comma splices, so that one should really have, e.g.,

[5a] Nobody ever got something for nothing; that's what I say.

instead?


texts:
I understand that 'withal' can be used as a preposition at the end of a clause to mean 'with' or 'therewith' but it can, I think, also be used to mean 'in addition' or 'together with'.

Concerning the latter meaning, I'm trying to write a poem and wish to use something like the following:

  He wax'd in stature great withal.

to mean "He additionally waxed great in stature".

However, does this make any sense?


texts:
Consider the following sentence:

  Oh you think this speech is insulting? Don't worry, it gets much more (insulting).

How should I phrase this sentence? Can I omit the second occurrence of the adjective or do I have to make a repetition?

I feel the sentence is unclear without it, but sounds stupid with it.

I don't have this problem with regular adjective, where the repetition feels more natural as the word is still different:

  Oh you think this is scary? Don't worry, it gets much scarier.

I thought of using

  don't worry, it gets much worse.

but I don't want to add a notion of good or bad. Insulting isn't the best example and without context you might want to use much worse but I'm sure there are adjective that don't have any good or bad connotation so it wouldn't solve the problem.


texts: What should I call someone addicted to mobile appliances?

texts:
Nowadays we can see many people using their mobile phone all day long.  They are always busy with it and don’t care about the things going around them, whether for social networking like Facebook and Twitter and such, or for messengers like BBM and Whatsapp and the like.

I would really like to know what the one word for this kind of person is.

In a nutshell: a mobile-appliance addicted person.


texts: Pejorative word for events like ribbon-cutting ceremony, Association party & fests which are counterproductive activities for an organization

texts:
Pejorative word for attending "ribbon cutting ceremonies, ribbon cutting ceremonies, Association parties and fests" by a country's missions post abroad who are meant to be engaged in welfare of country's diaspora in a foreign country but instead do the above activities.

Example: The Ecuadorian embassy in Poland is hopeless and indifferent, they are most involved in ___________ (ribbon cutting ceremonies, Association parties and fests)


texts: Use of "would" when describing habits in present

texts:
My question pertains to one specific form of usage of "would".
Is is inappropriate or even incorrect or, a fortiori, not understandable, if we use (read as: on utilise) "would" when referring to present habits, if we do not want to render a general statement, but rather a specific, concrete, to-one-person-relating one; when we would like to describe one´s typical approach or typical characteristic, one´s peculiarities.

Thank you! :)

Examples:

(1) Here I think "would" is more appropriate.
It is 8 a.m. My friend would (usually) get in a hurry when having overslept.
vs.
It is 8 a.m. My friend will (usually) get in a hurry when having overslept.

(2) Here I think "will" is more appropriate.
Sun would (always) rise in the east.
vs.
Sun will (always) rise in the east.


texts:
Which of the following three are correct?

I would recommend reading the footnotes wherever indicated: they're quite informative.
I would recommend reading the footnotes wherever indicated; they're quite informative.
I would recommend reading the footnotes wherever indicated -- they're quite informative.


texts:
counselor attorney at law makes sense?
I find issue with the preposition "at."


texts:
Is 'throw a fit' (or the similar 'have a fit', 'pitch a fit', etc) considered offensive, or potentially offensive? After all I've seen two possible origins for it, one related to medical convulsions and epilepsy (https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/pitch-a-fit), one less defined but related to hysteria (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/have-a-fit).

Also, can anyone suggest an alternative? 'Throw/have a tantrum' is all I've come up with but maybe there's a better one that does not sound so childish.


texts:
Consider this couplet (it's just an example)

  The driver drove home safely.
  The Traveller returned home.

  The driver drove home. Safely,
  the Traveller returned home.

If the placement of the period is not explicit then it is ambiguous (assume no capitalization and no punctuation). But both versions make sense (sort of, it's not a great eg)

Is this a poetic device? Does it have a name?


texts: Looking for a word which means: Taking something simple and making it into something complex

texts:
Let's say I have a very simple object, like a LEGO car (my cars were always pretty basic) and I remake it into a very complex object, like the Batmobile, what would be an appropriate term for this?

I thought of transform, but that seems like it can go two ways and I'm specifically looking for the simple to complex route.

What I by mean by complex is not necessarily overly complex for no good reason. I actually need the functionality of the much improved product.


texts: What are the differences between "what is with", "what is up with" and "what is wrong with"?

texts:
I am watching the drama called Friends at the moment and many times actors used to say one of them. I think it seems like that those expressions are little bit similar to each other.

Please, tell me how those expressions are different.

Thank you in advance.


texts: Is "It is these two issues that we need to pay attention to." a correct sentence?

texts:
I hear many native speakers do say sentences that do not strictly follow the subject-verb agreement grammar rules. (This is off-topic, but do they do it without realizing it?)

But in writing, this shouldn't be the case. So I'm wondering how to phrase the sentence in the title. I cannot specify the exact reason, but I can sense that there is a difference in how the two sentences sound:

  We need to pay attention to these two issues.
  It is these two issues that we need to pay attention to.

For me, the latter seems to emphasize the issues after mentioning the issues beforehand, whereas the former just sounds weaker.

According to the subject-verb agreement, the latter should be written in other form. But how?

Thanks.


texts: English is my second language and I'm wondering what's the exactly meaning of "somebody unplugged"? Such as "Joe Biden unplugged"?


texts:
Why do we use the Verb without 's' after 'that' in this case? I've met this one in discord's description.

  Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text, whether you’re part of a school club, a nightly gaming group, a worldwide art community, or just a handful of friends that want to hang out.

In my language, in such cases 'that' becomes a subject, so I'd write '...that wants to...'


texts: "Nobody want to go there," or "nobody wants to go there"?

texts:
In English, the number 0 is treated as plural. It is then:

0 seconds
1 second
1.2 seconds
2 seconds

Shouldn't it be "nobody want to go there," instead of "nobody wants to go there"?

I also saw in TOEFL that "any __" should be used with a singular.  But I see it very common that it is a plural also.  Why is that?  (updated: example, "we don't have any apples any more" vs "If you get any apple, please let me know.")


texts: Would it be grammatically correct to say "You're" instead of "You are"?

texts: Example: If someone says they're wrong and they're right, so someone corrects them, telling them they're right, they deny it again, can you say "You're" instead of "You are"


texts: Meaning of Inward and Outward Interest in the context

texts:
I am not able to understand the the context in which inward and outward are being used. (I know inward for introvert, and outward for extrovert), but what does inward interest and outward interest mean here ?
"You have both introverted and extroverted tendencies - at different times and different occasions. Your interests are turned in about equal proportions, both inward and outward."
Book - Word Power by Norman Lewis


texts: What part of speech is the word "another"?

texts:
In this sentence

  He stayed another five years.

the word another isn't a determiner (because five is a determiner), and isn't a pronoun.

So what part of speech is it? Wiktionary says that another can only be a determiner and a pronoun.


texts: Word/phrase to mean something that just happens once

texts:
What is the word/phrase to mean something that just happens once? For example,

  I have often been told/expected to do this and not to do that. I become aimless
  and gradually lose the idea of who I am. I ask myself "What is the point?" If
  life is just once thing, why can't I live my life in my own way,
  the way I think is right and suitable to me? If I cannot, I would
  rather live a shorter life.


texts: What is the difference between -ic and -al?

texts: Is there a defined difference between words like "egotistic" and egotistical" or "manic" and "maniacal" in that one could have a manic smile or maniacal laughter and other words that have similar forms?


texts: Embedding a sentence in another sentence

texts:
In my native language Slovene, we often put a sentence in the middle of another sentence
to further clarify the context. An example would be,

  A few years ago - being young and stupid - I was stealing neighbour's cherries.

Does this construct exist in English language and if yes, what is it called?


texts: Does that mean I can pay on the 8th May, or before 23:59 7th May?


texts: Do you remember the English expression "content is better than..." which means "real inside content is better than superficial outside appearance"?

texts:
I remember that once upon a time I heard the expression "content is better than...", which means  that real inside content is better than superficial outside appearance.

But I couldn't remember the "..." in "content is better than...".

Can you fill in the missing word?


texts: Can you ever use the continuous aspect with “usually”?

texts:
One English teacher told me that this sentence:

  Usually, I am going to school.

is not correct, that the correct version would be to use the simple present:

  Usually, I go to school.

Even though I trust authorities, I’d like to examine this further. Can you tell me, is it really true that using the present continuous in this case is wrong?

The Grammarly application is not complaining in this case.


texts: Word class / part of speech of 'whoever'

texts:
I know that the word 'whoever' is a pronoun , but is it
a. an indefinite pronounce ,
b. a relative pronoun , or
c. An indefinite relative pronoun- and does such a classification actually exist?
Would appreciate your views. Thanks.


texts:
I happen to read the introduction to a professor of English from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. One of the sentences is given below.

  She has been in the teaching line for the past five years.

I heard some people utter 'teaching field'. I would like to know whether it is teaching line or teaching field or is there any other better expression than these two usages?


texts: How should I define a line in an event's programme?

texts:
I'm currently struggling with defining parts of an event programme in a database structure.

In Norwegian it's called "programpost", which makes "program post" feel natural. But there is nothing on the internet as far as I can tell to validate this term. Google Translate suggests "program record", but I don't think this is a commonly used term. I have also considered "programme entry".

Is there any common term for this information? If the programme was to be presented as a spreadsheet, each row would represent for example a contest, or a presentation or similar things that people would do at the event, ordered by time.

Does anyone know, or have ideas for which terms might work?


texts: What do you call seeming "hyperbole" that's actually true?

texts:
I saw an ad for a residential and commercial area on a bus the other day. It said something like this, with the emphasis being mine.

  Along the [whatever corridor], we have six barber shops, ten restaurants, five cafes, and two yacht brokers.

That got me curious. I have no doubts of the legitimacy of the claim, I certainly believe that there are two yacht brokers in the area, but unless I've greatly underestimated where I live, I don't imagine that information is actually meant to be useful. Rather, it's present as an example to express something similar to "we have everything here, we even have two yacht brokers!" The idea probably isn't that people will read through the list whilst yacht-shopping and decide to visit the area in search of a deal.

So, my question, what is this called? It reminds me of hyperbole, since it's using an "exaggeration" (of sorts, anyway--not really) to show a point, but am I right to think that a hyperbole is, by definition, not actually true? "I work a million hours every week" seems a lot more like a hyperbole than the more accurate "I work seventy hours every week," even though both are relatively big numbers.

This seems like a similar type of rhetoric, but I can't find anything that seems to resemble it.


texts: What are the casual words that helps to express yourself in Internet chat

texts:
English is the second language for most of us. So when we chat in the internet, sometime our wordings looks more formal and not interesting. But I found when I chat with native English Guys, they uses some interesting(casual)  wordings to express their real feeling. So what are the such wordings do you uses in your internet chat. here are some i recognize.

I'm going to leave - got to go (g2g).
Well, that is an unfortunate situation - Oh man, that stinks


texts: What is the equivalent of append or add to push to front?

texts:
I am in a programming context. I am writing a commit message and I am struggling to find a word for the following action: In a list of items, I added some elements at the front of the list. We are used to append or add to push to the back of the list. In this case I would have written:

  fix(scope): append missing element to list X

but in my case, I don't know which verb to use.

  fix(scope): __{verb}__ missing element to list X

So, what is the equivalent of append or add to push onto the front of something?


texts: "Sign into your account" or "Sign in to your account"?

texts: Which is correct? Is it that you are signing "into" your account or "in to" your account?


texts: Are "like" and "such as" completely synonymous?

texts:
"Like" and "such as" seem to fit the exact same sentences:

I want a cookie like that
I want a cookie such as that

There are plenty of variations where they differ:

I like cookies
I, like, eat cookies
I use cookies as such: Eat them; bake them; store them.

But the usage I am interested in is when they compare one thing to another. When is it best to use one or the other? Are there different connotations? Other examples:

A friend like you is a treasure / A friend such as you is a treasure
I hate tests like these / I hate tests such as these
No one cares like you / No one cares such as you

The last "such as" seems iffy to me.


texts: Describe someone who stays "True to themselves"

texts:
What's another word or phrase for "true to himself"?

  He remains true to himself even when his friend is murdered.

In this case, let's say 'He' is some sort of activist whose friend is murdered by a gang wanting 'He' to shut up. However, 'He' does not shut up and continues to raise awareness for whatever it is the gang members do not want to draw attention to.

Basically, 'He' keeps doing what he knows is morally correct, despite something bad happening to him as a consequence.


texts: What is the “‑cide” word for killing one’s husband?

texts:
We have uxoricide for killing one’s wife, but what is the equivalent term for killing one’s husband?

Similarly, what is the husband-specific equivalent for the adjective uxorial?


texts:
I'm trying to form a list like the following:

  I'm interested in new technologies such as web development using various javascript packages including: node.js;meteor.js;backbone.js, contributing to open source projects on github, and getting my hands deep into code.

Is the way I list the three javascript packages correct? Or would you suggest something different?


texts: Why "Here COMES the bus!" but "Here he COMES!"?

texts:
What is the difference between:

  Here he comes!

and

  Here comes the bus!

Why in the first sentence "comes" is placed after the subject "he", but in 2nd one before the subject "the bus"?


texts: I've come across the word litotes, which means a rhetorical understatement. However, I’m having trouble understanding how to use it in colloquial English. Could someone please give an example?


texts: Correct way of referring to words in a snippet to explain words?

texts:
I have just created this Q&A. I would like to know what is the correct way of referring to words in a code block in order to explain them:

  SourceURI like this:

prefix:UUID:UUID

  In which a prefix is a String, e.g. "hello" and a UUID is a
  UUID, e.g. cd15b4ef-f3c4-49bd-92f4-10a93c041c75.

I my opinion in which is not the correct way of referring. If true, what is the correct way of referring?


texts:
English isn't my native language, just letting you guys know. I can't wrap my head around about which is the correct form. Once I get or once I'll get?
For example: Once I get my car fixed, I'll go.


texts: What is the jargon term for something which is (unjustifiably) unique?

texts:
There is a (derogatory) jargon term, which I am having trouble recalling, for something (or someone) that is unique, often in an obnoxious or unjustified way. (For example, in a message handling application, a message type that needs special handling when all other messages share a common path.) Does anyone know what it is?

I want to say it's either "butterfly" or "special flower" (or "special _____", anyway), but as you can probably imagine, trying to search on these terms it is extremely difficult to get contextually relevant results. If you can confirm, please cite sources, either examples of other usage, or better yet, a jargon dictionary entry.


texts:
We commonly use this word in office, and the definitions point to its meaning.

But is this an actual word? It's not in the Oxford English Dictionary.


texts: Confusing Comparatives (as few ~ as, as many ~ as)

texts:
I am very confused with the following sentences and I would like to ask you all what you think.

I have as many books as you do.

This means, if you have 6 books, I have 6 books too. I get this. Then if you say,

I have one third as many books as you do.

Question 1) Does this mean, if you have 6 books, do I have 8? (=6 + 6*(1/3)) or 2?(=6 * (1/3))

How does this meaning change if I switch the many with few?

I have one third as few books as you do.

Question 2) Does this mean, if you have 6 books, do I have 4? (=6 - (6*(1/3))

Can anyone explain this to me?  Also, I haven't really heard anyone say as few ~ as. Do you guys not use this at all?


texts: Using the "ex" prefix on a multiple word subject

texts:
What is the proper way to use the "ex" prefix to more than one word?

Examples:

  He is an ex-school bus driver.
  My ex baseball coach taught me.
  I am an ex-Fish and Game Warden.

"ex-school" seems awkward. It looks as if he is a bus driver for ex-schools.
"ex" by itself (no hyphen) doesn't seem right either. Is it?
"ex-Fish" just sounds ridiculous.

Is this correct usage? Can each part be hyphenated, or the hyphen dropped altogether?

Is there another way to make this more clear while still keeping the "ex" prefix?


texts: check vs checked for bucket list or todo list

texts:
I want to express that something is done on my todo list or bucket list, in short written form.

Which is the more appropriate way, "XXX, checked." or "XXX, check."?

I understand that in oral form, "check" is more appropriate because it is literally the action that you are doing, but what about written form, where the action has been done?


texts: Please? Please! What does the word "please" do?

texts:
Please is weirder than a 3 dollar bill! Does please make any statement a question? Is it polite?

"TAKE OUT THE TRASH" vs. "Take out the trash, please" is one an option?

My son always says when I say please it makes it a question then he never does no chores! Also, some of them Midwesterner folks use it in place of "what?" or "come again?" What the heck!?!


texts: What is the word for a step that is too small?

texts:
What word would you use to descripe a step of a process that should be combined with another step because it is too small to be its 'own' step?

Example.

Create a copy of the file.
Rename the file.
Make the file name "hello.txt".
Open the file.. blah blah blah...

You could consider step 2 and 3 to be a single step. What would you describe step 3 as, considering it is a miniscule step and could be combined with 2?

Kind of a bad example... I'll try to think of another if I can.

Hopefully you understand what I mean by this.


texts: Device, which allows a person to jump from a window uninjured

texts:
When there is a fire, people sometimes jump from windows. In order for them to survive it, on the ground firemen stand in circle, each of them holding a big piece of textile in their hands. The person, who jumps from the window lands on that cloth (and not on the ground) and thus survives.

What do you call this piece of fabric (or device, if it's more than just a special cloth) ?

This is how I want to use the word in a sentence (X is the placeholder for the word):

  Riggs gets up to the roof and palavers with a man, who wants to commit suicide, until the policemen spread out (deploy) X on the bottom.


texts:
Is there a general rule for creating a noun based on an action?

In the example below, there are two actions.

"Press button when you've resolved or gave up."

I'd like to express it using nouns like so:

"Press button upon resolution or XXX."

Is it as simple as "giving up" or is there a better way (in this particular case of "giving up")? Can that suggestion (if any) be made general?


texts: What would be the proper writing of head-end, as a single word or two words separated by comma or space?

texts:
I see 3 ways of writing headend:

headend
head end
head-end

Note, I already know that all of them are acceptable but it has to be one that would be better.

To make the problem more interesting, if I would apply CamelCase convention to it, it should be Headend or HeadEnd?


texts:
What is a single word for a person who, as a habit, exaggerates a lot when relating information?

So for example, they relate something that happened but exaggerate so much that they are including clear falsehood and they are well known for doing that.


texts: What would the punctuation be after "But I had to ask myself"

texts:
I want to write this

  But I had to ask myself what do I want to learn more of and am I ready to devote myself?

Please help me with this whole sentence punctuation and wording!


texts: Engineer by trade vs Engineering degree?

texts: If someone says he is an engineer by trade, does it mean he had an engineering degree or it is mostly he does not and he had acquired his skills and knowledge on the field ?


texts: Alternatives for "which is .." or "which can be ..." in scientific papers

texts:
I am trying to write an article and I find myself often using the phrases such as:

  ... is the thing which is ...
  ... is the thing which can be used for ...

Is there any alternative patterns for this usage for scientific papers, by separating the sentences or by using different conjunctions?


texts: Adjective for something that can be responded to

texts:
What is an adjective for something that can be responded to? I tried respondable but it looks like it isn't in the dictionary and it felt wrong anyway.

Update: I need to use it in the context of responding to user requests by the company staff. So the user request is [insert the word here] if there is an option (like a checkbox) to respond to the request.


texts:
Is this sentence grammatically correct?

"The great sea creature came alongside Lotty and nudged him, so he climbed on board its strong back.

I don't get what sentence structure the second part is.
"he climbed back on board" sounds correct to me, but why is "its strong back" added right after?
Can it have a place there? and, if yes, I'll be grateful if you could state some examples such as the above-mentioned.


texts: Synonym for I will get back to you or I come back to you?

texts: What is the synonym for saying I will get back to you or I come back to you?


texts:
I have a problem understanding usage of articles before abstract nouns.
There are a couple of rules I found:

Use articles with uncountable abstract nouns to refer to a specific feeling: a deep distrust, an everlasting love, the love of music
We only use an article before an abstract noun if we wish to talk about a specific type of the noun

Could you please explain, why the following sentences are correct (they are from a textbook):

1) However, it ends with great optimism. - it seems to me like a specific feeling that requires an indefinite article

2) Would you like to experience the deep sense of satisfaction you get from creating your own original work - why do we use the article before deep sense, not an indefinite article a or no article?

3) She brought me up in relative peace and security - why don't we need any article before peace and security?

4) I was overwhelmed by the excitement of such an adventure - why do we need the here?

Thank you for your help in advance!


texts:
Recently, one of my relatives started studying the English Language and she came to discuss that the contraction of there are can also be written as the're  because that's they way she learnt it at school. I am assuming this new contraction is wrong, but I am not a native English speaker and I studied English grammar long time ago, so I would like to know if this new form is right or wrong. I base my assumption on the following points:

The contraction of there are is there're but it is rarely used because of the double /r/ pronunciation.
According to the answer from Is "there're" (similar to "there's") a correct contraction? , the contraction there're is correct but it is more often to use there's.

All suggestions and examples are welcome :)


texts: How to pronounce bechamel the English way?

texts:
I had an argument with my friend the other day about the pronunciation of bechamel.

Everyone I know is pronouncing it like besha-mel. I've looked it up though and found out that the correct pronunciation is bay-shah-mel (according to Cambridge), which reports that the word derives from French. However, I've been told that if pronounced the English way it would sound like the former beh-shah-mel with the 'sh' sound, which I do not agree with since I'd pronounce bech- with a 'k' sound.

As far as I'm concerned there's no rule regarding this; it's one of those things you have to learn and memorise (see this thread), but I'd like to know if the English (incorrect) pronunciation of bechamel would sound like beh-cah-mel with the 'k' sound or the previously mentioned 'sh' sound.


texts: "Sally & Rhod's Wedding" - where should the apostrophe go?


texts:
In todays news:
"Ronda Rousey tipped for UFC return by Holly Holm following knockout loss"

What does "tipped" mean in this sentence?  I checked the dictionary and do not see any fitting definition.

It is a UK newspaper so maybe its a UK meaning.


texts: Why do I need two commas around the "however" in the following sentence?

texts:
In this following sentence, I'm particularly confused with why you would need to have the comma between "out" and "however".
"He found out, however, that the public preferred live magic acts to filmed versions.
would the "however" be nonrestrictive?
The previous sentences were:
Specializing in stage illusions, he thought the camera offered potential to expand his spectacular magic productions. By 1895, he was working with the new invention"


texts: English equivalent to the Indian saying "Like a thief being stung by a scorpion"

texts:
The title is the literal translation of a south Indian proverb, used to describe situations where a person who's already guilty will be proven so, if he voices himself against something.

Examples:

From the literal saying : A thief entered a house at night, and a scorpion stung him. He cant shout out loud, otherwise he'll be caught. He just has to bear it.
A student skipped school on the day of a field trip to a local hospital, unbeknownst to his parents. The parents later found out that there was a break out of some disease at the said hospital and decide to get him a preventive vaccination for it. He doesn't like injections, but cant tell his parents that he didn't actually visit the hospital.


texts: Is bunch countable? Can you have "bunches" of something?

texts:
I was just looking up a recipe and this is what I saw:

  2 large bunches of spinach, about 1 lb

I'm confused. Since bunch means lot of something, I've never seen someone counting it. After all, technically 2 bunches of something is still bunch all together, isn't it?

Is the recipe wrong, or do I have something to learn today?


texts: When do we consider English speakers' familiarity as a proof?

texts:
English, like many other languages, has its own usage of words and convention that can only be captured by practicing and speaking with natives. For instance, if a non-English-speaker comes up with a grammatically correct sentence, that doesn't always mean it is correct.

So, in which cases do we accept answers that indicate familiarity or unfamiliarity of certain word usage from English speakers as a supporting argument or a proof?


texts: What's the origin of the phrase - "For the life of me"?

texts:
The ODO definition is:

(informal) However hard I try; even if my life depended on it

I have come across this phrase quite a lot of times in EL&U:

For the life of me, I can't remember that word...

I can't, for the life of me, find an idiom...

and so on.
I tried to visualize it via Ngram plots and it indicates that the usage started somewhere around early 1760s but can't pin-point an exact source or timeline.
Is there any interesting etymology behind this expression?


texts: a good word in english, for human studies that are discussed in religion

texts:
in religion, when we talk about human, we're talking about a being which has different faculties, and has soul, and is everlasting. we're not simply talking about social aspects of human or how they behave toward one another.

so the term need to cover these areas as well. like where have we come from, what are we doing here, where are we going, and what difference we have from animals, what are our different faculties (sense, imagination, wisdom, ... our never satisfying thirst for perfection ...) . you know, like how human is talked in philosophy.

anthropology might work, but is there a better word for it?

thanks in advance.


texts: what do you call a person who has chosen not to have children?

texts:
what do you call a person who has chosen not to have children ?

a person who can breed but has decided not to for lifestyle or moral ethical or economical reasons


texts:
In the phrase:

  He demonstrated that he was true

What word class does that belong to?
In general, which word classes can it belong to? For example, relative pronoun, determiner, ...

THX


texts: meaning of the phrase "issue of quantum of"

texts:
I often find the phrase "issue of quantum of" in the rulings made by the U.S courts like these:

  The substance of the argument is that the court deciding the issue of
  quantum of damages would be better suited to decide the proper scale
  of costs.

  He asked the court to determine the issue of fault ahead of the issue
  of quantum of damages.

  However, on the issue of quantum of sentence, the High Court found
  favour with the submission made by the counsel for the appellant.

Could you kindly tell me what the phrase "the issue of quantum (of)" means?
I looked up the phrase in the dictionary but I couldn't find any relevant information.


texts: Etymology of "shagged [out]" (BrE exhausted, knackered)

texts:
I was intrigued by this comment to an earlier ELU post...

  [shagged out] Meaning 'very tired', presumably originating from having lots of sex but used generally to mean tired for whatever reason

...which led me to this dictionary.com entry...

  shagged  [shagd] adjective Informal
  weary; exhausted (usually followed by out)
   They were completely shagged out from the long trip.
  Origin: 1930–35;  origin uncertain

OED tells me the coarse BrE slang verb to shag is also "origin uncertain" (perhaps relating to a rare/obsolete verb sense shag=toss about).

Does anyone know anything more about this? Was that ELU commenter on the right track?

EDIT: Just to clarify. Effectively, I'm asking two questions:

  1: Are shagged=tired and shag=fuck cognate? (do they have a common origin?)
   2: If so, does that mean the commenter was right (i.e. - shagged=tired originally implied post-coital)?


texts:
I have a question related to the usage of "Since" and "after". Actually I found these three sentences on news articles. And I have seen a large number results both in "news" and "Ngrams". Are all these sentence using "after" is correct. I think "since" would be the preferred choice here. And my question is, is the third sentence is correct as written?

1- But, while in April, it was suggested that these three seats would be the sole focus of the Scottish Labour campaign, that attitude has changed after the local elections.

2- A 34-stone man mountain who binged on £5,000 of takeaways a year has shared intimate photos of how his body has changed after losing more than 14 stone in just ten months.

3-Prof David Kipping, of New York’s Columbia University, has been using the Kepler Space Telescope to search for moons around other worlds for years, without success.
‘We’ve had candidates in the past and investigated them, and most of them have evaporated,’ he said. But it seems his luck has changed after he and his team spotted larger-than-expected dips in the amount of light visible as a planet passed in front of Sun-sized star Kepler 1625.


texts:
I'm reading Malcolm Lowry's letters and his second letter to Conrad Aiken finishes like this:
Klioklio, C. M. Lowry
Does anyone know what "klioklio" mean? Thanks in advance!


texts: What is the English word closest to Japanese “Ganbatte,” the word for encouraging people who are in disaster, or challenging a severe ordeal?

texts:
In Japan, after experiencing the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, “Ganbatte” which contains all sense of “Cheer up, Bear up, Keep your chin up, Be courageous, Do your best” became the password of everybody on the streets. With this single word, we can portray all meaning of encouragement. I think perhaps, Chinese word, “加油 - Jia you” well corresponds to “Ganbatte” in its sense and function.

We watch Japanese famous personalities and athletes such as baseball, soccer, and golf players addressing Ganbatte (or Ganbare) to both victims of the great earthquake and general audience who were fortunately intact to the disaster in every ten minutes in TV commercials these days.

What do you think English equivalent to the word, “Ganbatte” closest to the feeling of “Ganbatte” that can be expressed in a single word or very brief phrase?


texts:
'Break his/her heart' is usually used to convey the sadness after a break up.
But can it also be used to say how sad a person is?

For instance: "Seeing her so weak and fragile broke John's heart into thousand pieces"?


texts: Wouldn't the word "passage" suffice?  (That isn't enough of a reason for "passageway" not to exist, though.)


texts: 'yet to collect' is this correct or not?

texts: I have to specify not yet collected whether I can specify 'yet to collect' or 'yet to be collected' which one I can use?


texts: Is this sentence grammatically correct? [I'm passionate about anything marketing]

texts: I've seen some sentences that use the word 'anything' with a noun or adjective such as 'anything crystal'. Can you use 'anything' followed by a verb? i.e. i love anything speaking/writing.


texts: Is the history of h-dropping in English in any way related to the silent h of French?

texts:
I was reading up on Richard the III, and his exploits just now in Wikipedia — as is the nature of Wiki, that further me led to stumble to Stafford, Duke of Buckingham's page, where I learned that one of the motivations he might have had to kill the Princes, Richard III's nephews, was his inheritance of an estate from his great-great-great grandfather, Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Essex and Northampton.

Most of that is besides the point.  But note these words: 'Ereford and North 'ampton.  In My Fair Lady, one of the sentences the protagonist, a linguist, uses to illustrate Eliza's h-dropping is to have her repeat these sentences:

  In 'artford, 'ereford, and 'ampshire, 'urricanes 'ardly ever 'appen.

Now, it's well known that for a long time among the English people, French held a privileged position as a language indicating education and class; it was even spoken as a primary language in lieu of English amongst the upper class, for a couple hundred years after the Norman conquest.   More "prestigious" words in English often come from the French; it's where we get lots of words for governmental and legal bodies, words like conveyances and attorneys general.  Moreover, I believe that h in French is rarely aspirated, and those words where it is pronounced are often descended from the Germanic, which English would likely have cognates to, and might have been looked down upon.

So what I'm wondering is: Would French pronunciations of English place names and estates, which perhaps might have included h-dropping, have percolated in a similar way amongst the population as a result of their prestige?  If your lord, your bishop, and your judge pronounce Hampton with a French-affected 'ampton, would you have been likely to have pronounced things in the same way yourself? I tried checking Wiki for dates, which would helpful to verify this hypothesis: I know that French died out as a basic communicative language amongst the English in the 15th century, but really have no clue when h-dropping entered the language.  Any comments or insights as to its origin would of course be appreciated.


texts:
I am stuck on a word choice problem. I have a large amount of response related data, which were previously stored such that each datum lay within one of the following realms:

law enforcement
health and safety
hazardous materials, or
other

In order to reduce a significant amount of double entry I have decided to switch the coding so that realm is simply an attribute of each datum. I am also doing this for jurisdiction (e.g., state, local, federal) and some other like attributes that were stored as realms.

My question is, "Is there one word that clearly describes the difference in kind for these four types?"

Any hints well appreciated, as the word choice here will influence the structure of a large number of models based on these data.

The closest I've come so far is vocation, but this seems overly general.

edit 1: each datum denotes a a response action taken such as hospitalization, arrest, or called out (i.e., visited the scene).

edit 2: An example datum might be represented like so:

> {???}: Law Enforcement
   - jurisdiction: Local
        + agency: Police
            * measure: Arrest

While it's clearly tempting to place these into a hierarchy, but I must avoid duplicate entries, so I am trying to encode the agency and allow many different agencies to use the same action.

edit 3: In order to clarify I'll phrase as a simile:

Apples and oranges are to fruits what law enforcement and health/safety are to ...


texts:
What does provably good  mean ? Does it mean not good for practical scenario and only good theoretically ?

  None of the hash functions that we would be discussing in today's
  lecture  are  provably good hash functions .

I see it here at 39:06 time line.


texts: Name of implement used for cleaning under your nails?

texts:
What is the correct term for the implement (usually with a little flat hook) used to clean under finger- and toenails?

EDIT: found an image.  This is the doodad I'm talking about:


texts: Two grammar mistakes related to preposition and tenses

texts:
My Japanese student asked me the following questions. His English level is not that good so I'm wondering about how to give him an answer that will help him understand more easily.

1)If you can say "on the weekend" then can you say “on next weekend” in “the seminar is taking place next weekend”? If not then why not?

2)Why do you say “The seminar is taking place this weekend” instead of “this seminar has taken place this weekend”? Is “the staff” the subject if so does that mean “the staff is taking place this weekend”?

I'm not sure about the 1st question myself beside it just not being common to add "on" when it comes to adding "next/last/etc" in front of the word "weekend".

As for the second one, "to be taking place this weekend" and "has taken place this weekend" are obviously different. But I'm not sure how to explain this, specifically when it comes to the subject and the tense.

Any help will be deeply appreciated.


texts: "Come over" and etymology of other idioms

texts:
Can someone explain the etymology of using over in expressions like come over to and go over to as in "pay a casual visit"?

Is there a source for the etymology of idiomatic expressions somewhere?


texts: How can you say 'motor [and] rack and pinion'?

texts:
In a list, is the following correct?

  I'm using a micro-switch, motor and rack and pinion

Or should rack and pinion be treated as two entities:

  I'm using a micro-switch, motor, rack and pinion

Google Books for "motor, rack and pinion" returns 43 results - although only about a half are appropriate, while Google Books for "motor and rack and pinion" returns 2 results

Which version should I use?


texts: What's the opposite of nominal in the astronaut sense?

texts: If some sub-system is not nominal, what do they say?


texts:
What is the correct spelling of the word "nightlife" (e.g. social activities in clubs/bars) in British English?

Is it nightlife (one word) or night life (two words)?


texts: "Implied" is to "explicit" as "implication" is to what?

texts:
I am looking for an antonym of implication that is related in the same way that implied and explicit are related, where explicit means "expressed". This antonym should also fit the following analogy:

Imply is to state as implication is to _____.

Example:

  Alice: "Your argument/statement implies X."

  Bob: "But what I explicitly stated contradicts your perceived
  implication!"

I think it would be very nice to use a word that would mean the exact opposite of implication to emphasize how incorrect a perceived implication is when it contradicts what someone had plainly said or written.

Bob could say, "But my statement/explanation/argument contradicts your perceived implication," which gets the point across, but IMO doesn't convey the full gravity of Alice's blunder that an antonym of implication would. Bob wants to succinctly emphasize that what was plainly stated, when taken at face value, contradicts what Alice thought was implied.

M-W defines explicate as "to give a detailed explanation of." Does that mean that explication is a "detailed explanation"? If so, explication would function well if Bob had indeed provided a detailed explanation or argument. However, if Bob had simply offered a statement or two, I don't think explication would work well.

In short, Bob should say: "My __ contradicts your perceived implication."