texts:
I've heard an annoying person referred to as a ragtail and I've found a reference to the word below; however, I'm uncertain of the etymology. I'm curious to know why a ragtail is an annoying person. Any ideas?

http://books.google.com/books?id=DsFIAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=ragtail+an+annoying+person&source=bl&ots=vQb-bE9SEa&sig=sEpvDaVHBW9zz4fkmSj0z7w77qc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2LeUU57iK4iQqgbVrYCYBQ&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ragtail%20an%20annoying%20person&f=false


texts: Is "further" now used for both physical and metaphorical distances?

texts:
Is it true that 'further' and 'farther' are becoming interchangeable?

He drove further north.
His furthest destination to travel is 167 miles.

This link says that further is now widely "used and accepted in all senses, even to designate physical distance."


texts: Do “asymmetric” and “dissymmetric” have different meaning?

texts:
I get that usually a- (or un-) and di- prefixes mean different things, e.g. uninterested and disinterested. However, both asymmetric and dissymmetric refer to the lack of symmetry (which the NOAD indicates: “lacking symmetry”). Does that make them freely interchangeable?

Bonus points: why the hell does dissymetry have two s?


texts: Word to describe quality of being a blind study

texts:
I'm writing an application that deals with blind studies. What would be the correct term to use when describing whether or not a study is blind? No matter which word I use it always ends up sounding awkward so I'm wondering what the correct term would be.

Blindedness
Blindness
Blind
Masked (?)

I am also looking for the opposite words, for example, is it correct usage to describe users as "blind/unblind" or "blinded/unblinded"?


texts: Comma placement in "Another, just as important, aspect"

texts:
Is the comma placement correct in

  Another, just as important, aspect is. . . .

or should they rather be omitted?


texts: What does "up she rises" mean in the sea shanty "Drunken Sailor"?

texts:
It's early in the morning, so perhaps the sailor in question is rousing from his drunken stupor.  But sailors were traditionally all men, so why "up she rises"?  Is the sailor being mocked, or does it refer to something else entirely?

  What'll we do with a drunken sailor,
  Earl-aye in the morning?

Chorus:

  Weigh heigh and up she rises
  Earl-aye in the morning

An additional gold doubloon will be awarded for an explanation of the odd pronunciation of early (earl-aye /ˈɜːlaɪ/).


texts: “Exceptionally, I play tennis.” – Odd use of “exceptionally”?

texts:
The following uses of “exceptionally” (by a non-native speaker) seem odd to me. Even though at least one dictionary shows such usage, I get no corpus hits, so I suspect that this usage is odd. And if odd, what would be a more natural expression?

  Your argument was exceptionally considered.

  Exceptionally, the application was rejected.

  Option 2 is available exceptionally.

If these examples are not odd, then the following should be ok:

  I usually play tennis, but exceptionally I play golf.

  I usually play tennis, but I exceptionally play golf.

  I usually play tennis, but I play golf exceptionally.

But none of these examples seems natural to me.

However,  at least one dictionary, Macmillan, lists this very usage:

  exceptionally

  in a way that is different from what happens in other cases or
  situaions

  Exceptionally, candidates with other qualifications will be considered for admission to the course.

But, when I do a corpus search to see if this is actually used:

Ngram  Search

"Exceptionally he": No hits

"Exceptionally she": No hits

"Exceptionally it": No hits

Univ. Michigan Student Paper Corpus

14 hits. But all for "exceptionally" before an adjective, such as "exceptionally accurate," which seems a normal usage.


texts:
Self-aggrandizing is a word that I have in mind, but it doesn't seem suitable to describe one who laughs at their own joke, even when nobody else does.

  He's a _______, a person who cannot help but laugh at his own jokes


texts:
This phrase is in constant use by many lately , just to appreciate a person in something.

But I personally feel there's some problem in this - "You are the best" makes better sense.

Is this even grammatically correct to use it? OR is there any alternative?


texts:
Here are the definitions of the words from Oxford Living Dictionaries:

sprain - wrench or twist the ligaments of (an ankle, wrist, or other
joint) violently so as to cause pain and swelling but not dislocation.
‘Few dancers manage to perform without ever spraining an ankle.’
twist 1.6  - injure (a joint) by wrenching it.
‘he twisted his ankle trying to avoid his opponent's lunge’

What is the difference in meaning between these two terms? Is it the pain and swelling that is mentioned for sprain? Is there no pain or swelling in a twisted ankle?


texts: Where can we use "would" for future without conditional sentences? Please describe with example of sentences.


texts: What does Quentin Crisp mean with the quote "To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody"?

texts:
I came across a quote from Quentin Crisp, "To my disappointment I now realized that to know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody. ", in a newsletter.

However, I can't figure out what it means. Does he mean if somebody claims to "know all", he's actually "despising everybody"? Or does he mean once somebody knows all, he will proceed to despise everybody instead of forgiving all?

I'm not sure if this would be more suited to this SE or the English Learner SE. Feel free to migrate it if it's not appropriate here.


texts: Category of words — 'another', 'an additional', "an alternative", etc

texts:
I'm afraid I've had a sudden lapse of memory and have forgotten what category these kinds of words belong to. These words are used to expand upon another point within the same category.

For example:

  One factor
  An additional factor
  Another factor
  An alternative factor


texts:
My question is: How come the three words "awesome," "awe," and "awe-inspiring" denote positivism with the root awe, they are virtuous too,but the 4th word "awful" denotes negativity.
Even the spelling of "awe" gets pruned to "aw", as if the "e" of "awe" chewed up the virtues of "awe" like a rat and ran away with them. It leaves me clueless. Hope you help me locate the rat.


texts: "have a refined bearing" OR "have a bearing with/of refinement"

texts:
thank you for answering my question.

I was learning "bearing" with all its collocations, and there I learned that it can be used to describe the way in which someone move/stand/behave.

I recalled that "refinement" can also be used to express one's way of behaving. So I was thinking whether if it's possible to form a phrase from them. Do you have a suggestion?

Thank you for your time again.


texts: How can I quote a play from the middle of a line?

texts:
Here is the play stanza:

Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio] And, noble
signior,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

I do not need this part, "Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio]." Should I just use an ellipsis to start the line from the middle?


texts: "String of numbers" vs. "field of numbers"

texts:
I'm trying to choose a name for a variable in my program that includes some number tandem.
What is the difference between string and field in this case? For example, which one is better: "field of numbers" or "string of numbers"?


texts: Which is preferable: "We are all..." or "We all are..."?

texts:
"We are all mad."
"We all are mad."

I think each of these conveys the same idea. Besides this, we can use "we are all" alone.
I hear the first one more frequently.

Does the second one sound worse to a native speaker? I wonder about this.

Note: I'm not a native speaker.


texts: One word for older/younger brothers and sisters

texts:
In Japanese, Chinese and Korean etc, they all have specific "term" to address the older/younger brothers and sisters.
In Korean, there are even separate terms called by female and male, like Hyung by male and Oppa by female, and they both mean older brother. For example,

Girl: He's my Oppa.
Boy: He's my Hyung.
He's her Oppa and his Hyung.

I wonder if there is any word in English that describes the relations instead of using the combination of an adjective and a noun.


texts: Is it grammatically incorrect to use "frequented to"?


texts: Is there a word to refer to all people in a country who are citizens, non-citizens, undocumented, etc?

texts:
I have already tried Google, Oxford Dictionary, etc., but it was all to no end, so as a last resort I've decided to come here and ask this question, as it is personally important that I get an answer to it.

We often hear things like "citizens' rights are..." or "this is a country full of great citizens that...", but what about non-citizens? Is there a word for people who are citizens, residents, non-citizens, non-residents, undocumented immigrants, etc., in the English language? In other words, is there an inclusive word for this sort of thing?

The only word of which I could possibly think that would be acceptable is 'denizen', but does that word operate in a way that I want it to?


texts: Can an adjective change the use of zero versus definite article?

texts:
I have a little issue with the use of zero versus definite article, since I tend to abuse the former one.

Consider the following sentences:

  The issue described above influences the quality of software.
  This general issue affects the speed of applications.
  This affects the reliability of hardware.

The use of software, applications and hardware seems to me 'general', so according to what I know about english grammar, zero article should be used.

Suppose to add an adjective to 'specialize' such nouns, but still staying relatively general (i.e., not referring to specific applications).

  The issue described above influences the quality of the? produced software.
  This general issue affects the speed of the? deployed applications.
  This affects the reliability of the? produced hardware.

In these last cases, is it mandatory to use the definite article or is zero article still acceptable? Is there grammar reference that justifies the answer?


texts: How do you say it when you are extremely relying on someone or something?

texts: I want to say "I'm at the whim of X"  but it just doesn't sound right.  There is another word for this but for some reason I just can't think of it.


texts: Is inversion correct after "I asked how old..."?

texts:
Being curious about the tractor, I asked how old is that tractor?
Being curious about the tractor, I asked how old that tractor is?

The grammar checker that I used stated that the first sentence shown above is wrong (looks OK to me). I re-worded the sentence as shown in the 2nd sentence, and my grammar checker then approved the 2nd sentence shown above.

Here is what my grammar checker had to say about the 1st sentence:

  It appears that the verb and noun phrases "is that tractor" are incorrectly inverted. Consider changing the word order.

Which of these two sentences uses the correct word order, and why?


texts:
I’ve encountered these sentences in the net:

“My morals are mine, not others.” “Decisions are yours, not others.” “American values are ours, not others”.

I wonder whether they are correct regarding the possessive form of others. I think it should be others’ not others. For example, the first sentence should be

“My Morals are mine, not others’.”

I’ve searched the net with the words “possessive forms”, “possessive forms ending”, “possessive without noun”, “possessive omitting noun”, “possessive pronoun”, and other related words to find the correct possessive form that is without following noun (like others’, the book’s, the car’s. I don’t know what this form is called in English), but to no avail. I believe that, when I was a student (not a native English speaker one), I was taught that I could omit the noun after apostrophe s if it was understood what the omitted noun is. So the word others’ should be the correct word. But when I searched the net to check with these words - mine, not others’ / yours, not others’ / ours, not others’ – the word not others came up much more often than the word not others’.

That quite surprised and confused me. So, I posted a question here in hope that someone could help me.

The 2nd edited part:

And as I said, I’ve tried to learn more about the correct use of the possessive apostrophe s that is without a noun following but couldn’t. Now, I’m not sure what said was clear enough. To be more clear, the following is an example of what I’m trying to mean:

The golden key is this car’s key, not that car’s.

Is the use of < that car’s > in the above sentence correct, and is there a technical term for such a word (the use of apostrophe s without a noun following)? I’d like to learn more about it but don’t know what is(are) the word(s) to search.

Best regards,

Chirapat


texts:
Some documents such as medical prescriptions and cheques employ the word "only" in an interesting manner:

(Dpbsmith via Wikipedia)

On cheques the usage is something like "Three hundred dollars only".

The intention seems to be to prevent tampering by making it impossible to alter the original meaning simply by appending text.

My questions:

Is this indeed why "only" is used in such contexts?
When and where did this practice originate?
Where is it still in common use today?


texts: Are there English words used to describe the materials used to cheat in an examination? If yes, please I need some examples.


texts: Word or short phrase for seeing without observing

texts:
I don't mean inattentional blindness, where something is right in front of you but because of your attention being elsewhere you don't notice it at all and might deny it was even there if asked later.

I mean, when you idly, passively see something, and you do minimally notice it (if someone later asks "did you see X" you'll say yes), but it doesn't register, you don't process it properly or think about what you're seeing, you process it on autopilot.

Is there a word or simple, short, familiar phrase for that?

For example, earlier today over brunch,  while my mind and the conversation were on other things, I saw a man walking a goat on a string down a main city road. I saw it, and I even idly, inattentively watched him tugging on the reluctant goat's string to pull it away from the fast-moving traffic, but it wasn't until my partner asked if I'd seen the man with the goat that I processed it at all and it registered that it was anything unusual.

I had seen it, I just hadn't observed it or really taken it in.

It's something often used for comic affect in film and TV, especially cartoons, especially as the setup for a double-take. I think a lot of disciplines like Asian martial arts and "mindfulness" regimes try to teach people against doing this. But I can't think what it's called.


texts:
How should this sentence be punctuated?

  The former are dogs, the latter: cats.

Or is it:

  The former are dogs; the latter, cats.

Or something else?


texts: How do you say 'self-important' when applied to a group of people?

texts:
I am writing a text about how the team "Leopard Trek" (Tour de France) is perceived by people in Luxembourg as a 'luxembourgish' team, even though it has an international roster of multiple countries. The only thing it has to do with Luxembourg is the few luxembourgish drivers it has and the fact that it is registered in Luxembourg.

The term I am trying to use is 'self-important', since I think it is kind of arrogant when people here speak of 'Team Luxembourg' or 'Team Schleck'. However, I think that the word would put the critic on the team (which is innocent) instead of the fans.

How would you describe a group of people (or a general situation), that only see their part of a common struggle/team/collaboration instead of thinking of themselves as a part of a whole.


texts: Is there a term for "minimum effort to maintain service"?

texts:
I am documenting a piece of software that will be transferred to a customer. The customer will run the software continuously. They may choose to update and improve it, but this is optional.

To keep the software running smoothly, there is a minimum set of upkeep tasks that must be done periodically. Things like checking error logs, testing server uptime, making backups, and so on.

For the document, I want a recognizable term to describe this set of activities. Here are words I thought of so far, which I feel are inadequate:

Minimum upkeep tasks
Maintenance mode
Life support activities
Bare-bones operation


texts:
I have included this quote with single apostrophe within a sentence amidst letter writing. Is this allowed?

  Amidst his speech, I still remember his famous quote (saying): ‘Customer experience is the driving factor to choose right technology, It is not the technology that we force to sell in the market’, “iPhone” being one good example from this quote.


texts: "choose from" vs "choose out of" vs "choose among"

texts:
I tried to form a sentence like this:

X chooses Y from three Zs.
X chooses Y out of three Zs.

I couldn't choose which one is better, and after googling found question on en.se  and thread on forum.wordreference.com and ended up with three options:

choose from
choose out of
choose among

In the question on en.se dcaswell's answer states:

With choose from you can select many items. With choose among you are selecting a single item.

What about choose out of?
What is the difference between three options?


texts: How to avoid excessive usage of personal pronoun?

texts:
English is not my first language and often I (as a Portuguese speaker) find that my sentences get too awkward with the number of personal pronouns that I usually use.

Here is a generic example:

  Thank you, #PERSONNAME for contacting me. I do appreciate that you did it.
  I don't know anyone at the moment, but I will let my contacts know and if I find someone interested in the position I will let you know about it.

As you can see, I used the personal pronoun 5 times in a very simple paragraph, I wonder if this is "Okay" or how could I rephrase (in general, not just those sentences) to avoid such excessive usage?


texts:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081226070704AAhqTFt;

  Maybe its the sound like a Kooing, like a little baby would make?

What does Kooing mean in this context? Is Koo a word or something?


texts: Single Word for people financially tied to a Loan

texts:
Let's say you have a student loan. It's possible that the borrower, cosigner, and student are three different people (Perhaps mom is the borrower, grandma is the cosigner, and I'm the student). Is there a single word that collectively defines our relationship to a loan?

I know that all three parties would be considered authorized parties on the loan, but "authorized parties" is two words, and I'm looking for one.

I know that all individuals are people, but while both "individuals" and "people" are one word, they do not imply an association to a loan (In the context that I'm going for, there are people/parties that aren't associated to loans from a borrower/cosigner/student perspective [i.e. the university/bank that granted the loan, the customer service representative that bugs you about paying back your loan, etc]).

I've also considered using "borrower" for this, but then when being descriptive, you have to say "borrower-borrower" to refer to the actual borrower (meaning not the cosigner or student).

Additional types of people could include a payor, being someone who is authorized to make payments on a loan, but is not necessarily financially responsible for the loan (and is also not already the borrower, cosigner, or student).

With all of these relations in mind, it's difficult to find a word that describes all of these individuals, as not everyone is financially responsible for the loan (i.e payor and student [if not the borrower/cosigner]), and not everyone receives disbursements on the loan (i.e. cosigner and payor), and not everyone makes payments on the loan (i.e. cosigner and student [if not the borrower]).

Right now, the shortest description I can think of is "authorized users", but I'm still not a fan of how long that is.


texts:
I find it rather hard to look up the word "blameshift" in a dictionary. It appears in some dictionaries, but not many. The one dictionary I have found it in is Wiktionary. But I was unable to find this word, hyphenated or un-hyphenated, in Merriam  Webster's online dictionary, or Collins' online dictionary.

Wiktionary gives the following definition:

  (biblical) To blame another for one's own wrong-doing. Blameshifting can be caused by pointing the finger at another when trying to save one's skin.

I find it very interesting that they consider this word to be biblical. Does it appear in any English translations of the Bible? But more importantly, could anyone explain the etymology of the word "blameshift"? How long has this word been around? I know that the word "blame" ultimately comes from Ancient Greek (βλασφημέω) but I would be interested to know how exactly the compound word, "blameshift", came about.

I woud like to caution you, by the way, not to write off the etymology as that of two separate words: "blame" and "shift". The above questions that I ask are far more specific. I am interested in when and where these words came together, to form a compound. I am interested to know why many dictionaries do not list this compound word. I am interested in why Wiktionary thinks it is biblical. You can probably tell by now that my questions go beyond the etymology of its parts: I am interested in the etymology of the whole.


texts:
Consider these sentences:

Be it ever so humble,...
Hallowed be your name.

I think these two have similar structure whose elements are merely arranged differently; why I think so is they can also be written as:

May it be ever so humble,...
May your name be hallowed.

Do they have different ways of arrangement because the forms of subject vary?


texts: Hyphenating measurements in case of a fraction

texts: I am now quite comfortable with the rules of hyphenating measurements (For example, 5-foot-long rod, 7-inch-long handle, etc.) However, what is the rule for hyphenation if the number is a fraction. Say, 1/2-inch-long piece of ginger? I would ideally want to keep the fraction, the instance I am using it in, does not allow the usage of "half-inch-long".


texts: What is the difference between "in conclusion" and "by way of conclusion"?

texts: "In conclusion" is common, while "by way of conclusion" is quite formal. But what does "by way of conclusion" truly mean that differs from "in conclusion"?


texts: When somebody says that somebody else is between apartments, what do they mean? Take this sentence as an example: My brother lives in Chicago. At the moment he’s between apartments, so he‘s living with a friend.


texts:
This is an excerpt from this article.

  (The annual conference at) Hong Kong
  will be momentous as much for what is
  approved as for what is turned down or
  left on the gas.

Does 'left on the gas' mean something that has been postponed, as I understood from the context? If yes, what is the origin of the phrase? Or does it mean something else altogether?


texts:
Could anyone tell me if my examples below is correct, I mean, tenses?

"In fact, I've been thinking about keeping this path when I've finished business school..."
"In fact, I've been thinking about keeping this path when I finish business school...."

I wanted to say : when I have finished my school => future

Thanks :-)


texts: Adjectives acting in the capacity of adverbs? Or just accumulative adjectives?

texts:
You seem scary happy.
That house is scary big.

Not sure if I am over-reading it, but it seems to me here "scary" functions in the capacity of adverb modifying the adjective that follows: happy in a scary way; big in a scary way. That they don't follow the normal adjective ordering also indicates they are not coordinate adjectives.
So are they accumulative adjectives? I am not so sure. I am trying to think of other similar examples, but haven't found any off the top of my head.


texts: Words play - does it have a special name in English? How to do the same with 'security' word for example?

texts:
By looking at this picture:

Or at the title of this album:

You can see that the authors used there something which I call a word game. My question is, does doing so has an official name?

How can I come up with similar examples, with given words, for instance, with security word?


texts: That's all they pick on now. (To Have and Have Not by Hemingway)

texts:
This is from Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not.

I don't understand the meaning of the following: "That's all they pick on now. Any kind of sporting people. Anybody with any sort of a cheerful outlook."

“They tell me they ain’t going to let no girls out on the streets after six o’clock at night and no girls in any of the places,” Freddy says to Big Lucie’s daughter.
“That’s what they say.”
“It’s getting to be a hell of a town,” Freddy says.
“Hell of a town is right. You just walk outside to get a sandwich and a coca-cola and they arrest you and fine you fifteen dollars.”
“That’s all they pick on now,” says Big Lucie’s daughter. “Any kind of sporting people. Anybody with any sort of a cheerful outlook.”
“If something don’t happen to this town pretty quick things are going to be bad.”


texts: "How many girls did you ask their name for?"

texts: Is this question grammatically sound? It sounds slightly weird to me, and not sure if it can be paraphrased. Could somebody clarify please?


texts: Should I use "did" or "does" when asking a question about the meaning of what someone said?

texts:
Here are two example questions:

What did he mean by that?
What does he mean by that?

Question 1 seems correct to me because it uses the past tense word 'did,' but the word could also signify that his meaning has changed; which it hasn't. This is why I also think that question 2 could be correct. Would I use Question 2 if the statement the person is referring to was just asked, and use question 1 when the statement was said a while ago?

Can someone please clear my confusion? Thanks!


texts: History of the phrase "The walls are closing in"

texts:
There is an interesting and common figurative phrase, the walls are closing in, indicating that someone is trapped, panicked, running out of time, or doomed.

There is a related question about the phrase here, but it doesn't deal with the history or origin of the phrase:

Walls closing in

The phrase got a lot of attention recently when someone close to U.S. President Trump used it to describe the mood inside the White House.  This appeared in The Washington Post shortly after the indictment of several former members of the Trump campaign.

  “The walls are closing in,” said one senior Republican in close contact with top staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. “Everyone is freaking out.”

Google NGram suggests that the phrase appeared in the middle of the 20th century and grew gradually in frequency of use.

I've heard this phrase so frequently that I don't think twice hearing it, but on further thought, it seems like a unique idiom, as the notion of walls literally closing in on somebody is not something that anyone would experience in a literal sense.

Looking further, I found some early uses that suggest to me that the phrase was possibly adopted from references used in World War II, where "walls" refers to the walls of an army encircling the enemy.

This newspaper clipping appeared on January 1st, 1944, and quotes President Roosevelt saying "walls are closing in remorselessly on our enemies."

1944 - Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) 01 Jan. (paywall)

Questions:

Did this figurative phrase indeed originate in a military context?
Did Roosevelt's use of the phrase prompt the popularity of the metaphor?
Are there earlier examples of the phrase used in a figurative context?


texts: What do these uncommon expressions mean?

texts:
I'm a non-native English speaker and I've heard and read a lot of expressions that I believe are supposed to mean "Goodbye"; however, I don't really know what they mean (in a literal sense) and how I'm supposed to respond to these uncommon phrases. I'd appreciate it if you could help me out with understanding these phrases better.

  Catch you on the rebound
  To the winch wench
  Take care, butterfly
  Blow a kiss, Goldfish
  Don't get attacked by a bear, it's night-time!
  Once more unto the breach, dear friends!
  Time to scoot, little newt.
  Forever and forever farewell. If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed. If not, 'tis true parting was well made (I just don't understand the meaning of the last sentence in this one)


texts:
Wiktionary gives the meaning of "break bad" but does not mention about the origin:

  1. (colloquial, of an event or of one's fortunes) To go wrong; to go downhill.

  2. (colloquial, chiefly Southern US and Midwest US, of a person) To go bad; to turn toward immorality or crime.

Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (by Jonathon Green) has the below definition that gives a hint about the origin:

  break bad v. 1 [1960s] (US Black) to become angry and aggressive 2 [1980s] (US campus) to perform well. [BREAK v.2 (3) + SE bad]

  break v.2 (US) 3 [1930s] to conduct oneself.

It looks like the origin is African American Vernacular English but how did this phrase emerge exactly? And how did it gain a new meaning (with almost opposite connotations) in campus slang?


texts: Why is there so much "pulling" involved in English driving?

texts:
There seems to a variety of terminology around the verb "to pull" in English driving, which always puzzles me. Here are some examples:

to pull out of/into something: to drive out of/into
to pull over: (transitive: to stop; especially police, right?)
to pull in (intransitive: to arrive at a destination or come to a stop)
to pull away: e.g., maneuver the vehicle out of its parking spot and resume driving

Do these phrases have some (common) historical origin (such as, being pulled by a horse before cars were motorized), or did I miss some very general meaning of "to pull" when learning English?


texts: What is the etymology of "business end"?

texts: What is the origin of the phrase "business end"?


texts: What is English counterpart to Japanese phrase, “往生際が悪い” – behave disgracefully toward the end of life?

texts:
I was at a loss when I was asked by my friend how to translate a Japanese expression, “oujogiwa ga warui - 往生際が悪い,” which literally means “die in wrong (disgraceful) manner” into English. The phrase is applied to someone who doesn’t concede his or her wrong-doing, failure, loss of game, or defeat, even though they are very obvious to others. Conversely, “往生際がよい - Oujougiwaga yoi” means to act fairly and bow out gracefully from the stage.
Google Translation gave “bad birth.” Kenkyusha’s Japanese-English Dictionary 5th Ed. gave “the moment of death,” the same Kenkyusha’s “New College Japanese-English Dictionary, 5th Edition gave “Do not know when quit or admit one is wrong.” as a translation of “往生際(が悪い). None of them seemed to be the one I was seeking for.
Are there similar expressions in English?


texts: Do there exist male names that derive from female names in English?

texts:
I've seen a lot of female names that are simply derivatives of male names, mostly of biblical origin:

Michaela, Michelle from Michael, Michel
Joan, Joanna, Joanne, Jane, Jean from John, Jean
Stephanie from Stephen
Gabriella from Gabriel

Female biblical names like Mary or Rachel tend to be entirely original, belong to female holders.

Male names that derive from female names are almost certainly not the norm, but I still wonder if there are exceptions.


texts: What's the difference between "overrun" and "infest"?

texts:
Our kitchen is overrun with cockroaches
  The barn was infested with rats

What's the difference between overrun and infest in those examples? And if they mean the same, which one is more common in everyday English?


texts:
I have strong interest in something.
For a passive version: something catch my strong interest, but I think 'catch' is not idiomatic.

Could anyone have idea about that?


texts: What does “Small words” in “They are small words that reflect a dark and negative point of view.”?

texts:
Washington Post (June 27) picked up Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s comment digging in Sen. Wendy Davis for her filibustering the abortion bill in his speech delivered at a convention of the National Right to Life organization in the article titled, “Rick Perry: Wendy Davis should know better,” and Davis’ counterblow.

Perry said in his speech;

  “She’s the daughter of as single woman; she was a teenage mother
  herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School.
  -- It’s just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential,
  --”

  Davis responded to Perry’s statement “is without dignity and tarnishes
  the high office he holds. They are small words that reflect a dark and
  negative point of view.” - Source

I’m drawn to the word, “small word.” It doesn’t appear in none of Cambridge, Oxford, and Merriam Webster English Dictionary.

Google Ngram shows incidence and currency of “small words” since 1980 up to date at an average 0.000002 to 0.000004 emergence level.

I used to be told by my English teacher at college 60 years ago(!) to use as much a plain and short word as possible and refrain from using a “big word” when speaking and writing in English, so I understood "big words" means lengthy and pedantry words like legal terms.

However, I don’t understand what “small words” mean. It doesn’t seem to be an antonym of ‘big words.’

Does it mean a short, terse, but poignant expression? Is it a common word, though I can’t find it in any of leading English dictionaries?


texts: What do you call these people on the street?

texts:
What is the name for the people on the street who often times work for a non-profit organization and usually are soliciting donations (but maybe doing other things such as collecting signatures for a petition, or just spreading information)?

You can usually tell who they are because they're wearing a uniform and holding clipboards and approaching strangers who walk by. I was just accosted by one and would like to know how to refer to them so I can relay the story to other people.


texts: Comparative - dollars became more valuable as toilet paper than currency

texts:
New Zimbabwe dollars became more valuable as toilet paper than currency.

I saw this sentence in an English exam. Is it a correct sentence?
It seems to me that new Zimbabwe dollars is compared with currency. Am I wrong?


texts:
I have a form, it looks like

And I want the users know the items of the form can't not be all zero.

Should I say Items must not be all zero or Items can't be all zero


texts: Is there a word that means the opposite of what it describes?

texts: For example a water fall with a name of dry falls?


texts:
Is there a contraction for "I was"?

There are contractions for "I am" (I'm), "I will" (I'll), "I have" (I've), "I would" (I'd), and yet the simple past tense seems conspicuously missing. Why is that? Does that reasoning apply to "I did" and "I had" as well?


texts: Subject-Verb Agreement with separate clauses

texts:
Which is grammatically correct, and why?

This device does two things: create the whatzit and set the squorple in place.
This device does two things: creates the whatzit and sets the squorple in place.


texts:
Which among the two below is correct?

Usage Data unavailable.

OR

Usage Data is unavailable.


texts: Circumstantial: Can anything be 'circumstantial' but evidence?

texts:
I have come across the word circumstantial but I have only ever seen it used in the phrase 'circumstantial evidence'. I would like to ask if anything can be 'circumstantial' apart from evidence. When I say 'circumstantial' I mean it with the definition:

(adj) fully detailed and specific about particulars

not the legal definition as:

(adj) pointing indirectly towards someone's guilt but not conclusively proving it

If so, how is the word used? Thank you.


texts:
I'm looking for a name for my blog, crisp yet interesting. The idea is, when we tear paper into tiny bits and let it fly from the roof, it looks like a beautiful whirlpool of paper shower, i couldn't express this in words. The closest I could come up with is paper bits, but that sounds least interesting for a blog name.
P.S - I would be posting poetry, paintings and photography in it.


texts: Historical resistance to inanimate 'will'

texts:
English, it is said, has no future tense. To indicate future we do not inflect our verbs but instead use the modal verb will.

In his answer to Why do we say “was supposed to” for “should have”? Cerberus guides us through how words often shift from communicating desirability to communicating probability. In the case of will he writes,

  Will once expressed only that someone desired something ... but it has gradually acquired a sense of probability, in that it now means "it is very likely that I go" for most speakers of English, especially Americans.

I am curious whether there was ever any resistance to the use of will with inanimate subjects. I can imagine people objecting to giving intent or desire to non-thinking things.

Of course, as this shift/addition in meaning is quite old and dates as far back as the late 9th century, finding any documentation of grammarian pushback may be impossible. (See OED will, v. 16.) However, scanning through the OED's examples it appears the first use of will as a future auxiliary with an inanimate subject is from 1563:

  If a darke cloude be at the sunne rysing, in whiche the sunne soone after is hidde..rayn wyll followe.

Also, English grammar is not immune to retroactive prescriptivism (see singular they) so I can imagine the possibility of people rejecting will for inanimate subjects well after it became standard usage, and when evidence is more likely.

Was there ever any resistance to the use of will or other desire-expressing verbs with inanimate subjects?


texts:
I understand sultry means:

  (of the air or weather) hot and humid.
  (of a person, especially a woman) attractive in a way that suggests a passionate nature.

Lot of people associate sultry with definition 2.

In about a month (at the end of Summer 2015) I am leading an online study session (I am studying for Cisco certification and we are encouraged to teach what we know to deepen our understanding) that will be announced by Cisco Learning Network.

I like to pick catchy titles, but I doubt they will accept sultry, in the title, as in:

  Bygone Sultry days of Summer: What the Port Remembers

This session will actually review Cisco switching, including port security that includes "sticky" Mac address. Hence,the port of the Switch is remembering this Mac address ....

What is another word for sultry that is just as catchy, but is appropriate for an IT environment?

Update

  sultry

is perfectly fine, will present this , thank you all!


texts: How to describe a person who puts down others to make themself feel superior

texts: I am trying to describe a character who insults and degrades everyone around her to feel better and to give the appearance that she is superior to everyone else. This character doesn't actually dislike anyone, but feels compelled to act in an arrogant manner because of her high social standing. Is there any word or phrase that can help me describe this person, particularly something that implies the motivation behind her disrespectful actions?


texts:
Please help me to understand sentence '' You’re a gnat’s ass away from having this conversation behind bars.'' to in the following dialog in movie ''Headlock'' (about minute 26 to 27).
PETER TO TESS: Are you fucking kidding me?! You’re a gnat’s ass away from having this conversation behind bars. Do you realize that? Jesus Christ, Tess. What are you trying to accomplish here?
TESS TO PETER: What is this trying to accomplish, Peter.
PETER TO TESS: I’m following procedure!
TESS TO PETER: Procedure? Don’t give me those company bullshit lines!


texts:
I am writing my Ph.D. Thesis in US English and have two questions on hyphenating.

Would it be re-entry or reentry?
Would it be (re)training or (re-)training? Or would it be retraining at all times? In my study, people might get retraining but not always. Therefore, I sometimes use parentheses.

Is there a general rule (in US English) for using these hyphenations?
Thank you all in advance.
Cheers,
Roy


texts:
From page 15 of Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities,

Castor bean is a dramatic annual or tender perennial shrub with deeply lobed leaves, prickly seedpods, and large, speckled seeds.

I can understand that "tender perennial shrub" means "live for many years, that is not winter hardy", but I don't know the meaning of "dramatic" in the above sentence.
What does "a dramatic annual shrub" mean?


texts: It doesn't sound right, but I might be mistaken. A quick search shows that people do use it, but they could be wrong as well (I suspect the phrase is ok, and I am wrong).


texts: "Don't teach somebody to do bad things" - is there any expressions in English?

texts:
In Russian there's a sort of expressions like "Не учи его/ee плохому". Literally, "Do not teach him/her to do bad things", usually used, when somebody gives an advice, that could be harmful for the person, who targeted with advice.

Is there any expressions for this in English, or this should be translated as is?


texts: What is the meaning of the word ' period' in the following context?

texts:
I am learning English by reading the New York Times. It is difficult, of course, but a challenge at the same time. In the international edition it said:

The president is unfit for this crisis. Period.

In Spanish we would say: al tiempo. (time has the last word and all the answers, or the passage of time)

Who could help me?


texts: Pronouns: a word class or a subclass of nouns?

texts: In the recently published ‘Oxford Modern English Grammar’, Bas Aarts classifies pronouns with nouns and not as a separate word class. In this, he follows the authors of ‘The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language’.  Is this now a widely accepted practice in pedagogic circles on both sides of the Atlantic?


texts: What is the meaning of this sentence in Lolita?

texts:
Here is the paragraph from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita:-

  My task proved simpler than either of us had anticipated. Save for the correction of obvious solecisms and a careful suppression of a few tenacious details that despite “H.H.”‘s own efforts still subsisted in his text as signposts and tombstones (indicative of places or persons that taste would conceal and compassion spare), this remarkable memoir is presented intact.

I don't understand the meaning of the bold part. Specifically, what is meant by "taste" and "compassion" here?


texts: Parentheticals - referential, and antecedent use of pronouns

texts:
I am giving feedback on the following sentence:

  "After one other attack (almost killing Chief Brody’s children) he decides that he needs to take action and he, Matt Hooper (marine biologist) and Quint (shark hunter) go off in Quint’s boat."

My issues / question:

This is grammatically confusing writing - the 'he' pronoun refers to no noun / subject in the sentence.
Obviously the author intends us to understand 'he' as referring to the parenthetical use of the proper noun 'Chief Brody'.
QUESTION 1: This is, surely, precluded by the use of parentheses as adding additional information, rather than key information (such as proper nouns)?
The sentence: "After one other attack (almost killing his children) Brody decides that he needs to take action..." would be correct. However, this does not follow the law that the pronoun 'his' should follow the noun 'Brody'.
QUESTION 2: Is there a deeper grammatical law I need to know to explain all this?
Meta-question 1: Am I making too many metaphors with nesting in programming space (or thesis statements in philosophy) and the English used in the first block-quoted sentence is fine, when it comes down to it?

Meta-question 2: What sort of modification's can be carried out in parentheses? For example, is the sentence "The boy (who was named Jim) ran away..." correct because it explicitly names the noun, rather than implicitly? E.g. "Running away (for the boy named Jim) wasn't new..." is stylistic, rather than incorrect.

Pedagogical question: how does one teach this in a simple way?


texts:
I noted that some are asked 'When will the meeting be held?' but I'm confused why does some people use "When will be the meeting held?"

What is the correct one?
If only the first sentence is correct, what is the reason for it?


texts:
A widget has one button. This button performs different functions depending on the widget's mode at the time the button is pressed.

Can this be said to have modality, or a modal design?


texts: nothing is holding *thinks up* if you need something

texts:
I received an email with:
"I just want to ensure that nothing is holding thinks up if you need something."
I know what he meant:"I just want to ensure that you're ready (or you can use what you need) if you need something."

But I can't explain the structure of the part "thinks up".

Nothing(Subject)
is holding (verb)
thinks up (this should be an objective. what was omitted here?)


texts: What do you call the maximum number of recent values used for calculating an average

texts:
A sensor measures some physical quantity (like temperature). The measured value is tapped every 100ms or so. An average is calculated over the x most recently measured values. I.e. with every new measurement the oldest value will be discarded, the new value will be included and the average will then be recalculated.

What is a common term for the size x?

EDIT:
After having found out, that the term for this specific kind of average is "moving average" and having read the corresponding wikipedia article, I believe "sample size" may be the right term. Would that be correct? Is there a better word?


texts: Is it correct to say 'I wish some magic happens'?

texts:
Another read I come across in which a guy has written, "I wish you could see that young restless orphan who has no house to live in, none to get food from, whose pshychological centre has been damaged to the hilt. I wish you could see the pain of that abandoned girl on road who has set huge ambitions, but not priviliged enough to reach them, whose each tear drop brings earthquakes in the place on which it has fallen. I wish some magic happens and brings back all your lost senses and you start loving each and every human being going through hardships.
Is this at all correct to say happens after wish as the author has written above?
The writer is Indian. Not native.


texts: To what do the "letters" in the title "a man of letters" refer?

texts:
The term man of letters, as I understand it, was used in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe an individual who lived a marked intellectual life; who might, for example, own a large library, conduct independent scientific investigations on his own initiative, and be engaged in correspondence with leading literary and scientific figures of  his time.

However, I have been confused for a time to what the letters in the appellation refer to.  I have 3 hypotheses, in order of my confidence in them:

A man of letters is referred to as such because of the voluminous correspondence such a man would be expected to keep, as befitting a man acquainted with the leading literary and scientific figures of his day; we might expect the study room of a man of a letters to be replete with mail from all over the country, and much of his intellectual oeuvre might be completed within such letters.    There are many prominent examples of this sort of thing; Darwin's letters contain much original work, as did Alexander Hamilton's.
The appellation to refers to the distinct British habit of abbreviating all sorts of personal and professional accomplishments with letters of the Latin Alphabet.   For example, an Alexander Trevelyan, BA, MA, Ph. D, FRS, KB might be appropriately described as a man of letters.
It refers to simply the sort the material that should fill such a man's life; books, pamphlets, tractates and so on.  The letters refer more to his literacy, than to his correspondence.

Which, if any of these, is correct?


texts: What grammatical construct is this: "you wouldn't know that to talk to him"

texts:
I just encountered the following sentence which struck me as kind of strange:

  you wouldn't know that to talk to him

I guess it means: "you wouldn't know that when you talk to him" or "if you talked to him" (but I am not sure).

My question
Is my interpretation correct? Which grammatical construct is that? Is it informal, non-standard or regional?


texts: Transcription of plastic injection machine video

texts: In order to improve my technical english and my mechanical knowledgments I’have been transcribing some study materials. Between 1:23 and 1:30 min of this video (https://youtu.be/qn16JtE_vLc) I could not hear the words spoken. Could anyone help me with the transcription of this snippet?


texts: Are there any other words to describe "willing to do anything for love"?

texts:
I'm given a project to do some character analysis of Ward Beach, an American fossil hunter from a short story by Anthony Doerr called Mkondo, and I'm pretty much stuck.

It was something like this :

The date for his return ticket passed, his visa expired, his malaria medication ran out. He wrote the museum to beg a month of unpaid leave. The Long Rains came: violent showers followed by choking humidity, steam in the streets, rainbows on the mountains. Sometimes a deluge swept goats into the river by his hotel. From his balcony Ward would watch them drift past, speeding between the banks, paddling hard to keep their noses above the water, and he
felt sometimes that he was like those goats, swept up in circumstances beyond his control, swimming hard against the current, churning with silent desperation. Maybe living was no more than getting swept over a riverbed and eventually out to sea, no choices to make, only the vast, formless ocean ahead,
the frothing waves, the lightless tomb of its depths.

Every day he sent a driver into the mountains with a gift: desiccated moths, fossilized corals, a blue jar with eight tiny medusae floating inside. Three swallowtail butterflies pinned to velvet in a small plastic case. Returning to his hotel, his heart sounding evenly in his chest, Ward began to feel the glimmers of something burgeoning inside, a strange and bottomless strength emerging from the pit of him. Flesh fell from his body. His appetite was endless. By the middle
of May he could run and keep running and felt, suddenly one morning, moving out past the basket merchants and the clay pits south of town, the vast pan of the sea glittering before him and the blue smoke of charcoal fires hanging above the beaches, that he could run forever.

It wasn’t until late May that Ward drove north once more, across the Pangani, up the intricate, rutted roads, above the plantations, and into the rainforest. His legs crackled with a new energy—she would not get away this time. She met him at the door, breathless: he had brought his last gift. He stood trembling with his fists balled at his sides and watched her unwrap the silver ribbon from the box. Inside was a living monarch butterfly. It danced from between her hands
and began to wander through the house.
"It was sent here from the museum in a cocoon," Ward said, watching it bump against the ceiling. It must have just emerged.

Naima was looking at him.
"You look different," she said. "You’ve changed."
All through dinner her attention passed over his face, his arms, the veins on the backs of hands. She lit a paraffin candle on the table and a twisting reflection of the flame stood twinned in her eyes.
"I’ve come," he announced, "to ask you to come home with me and be my wife."


texts: Looking for word or succinct phrase for group incompetence

texts:
I'm looking for a non-vulgar word or short, succinct phrase to describe group behavior wherein all of the individuals are making the same stupid choice.  The vulgar "clusterfuck" is close.  Acting like "lemmings" has some of the connotations I'm looking for as well.

Example:  The other day I drove to pick my son up at school.  As usual, there was a traffic jam.  On this day, it was made worse by the fact that a dozen people ignored the empty parking spots along the curb and instead waiting in line behind each other, causing a jam which spilled beyond the intersection, blocking traffic on other streets.  It was an example of one person after another making the same stupid choice, rather than thinking for themselves.  The situation was a real XXXX.

EDIT:  As is often the case with English (maybe all natural languages?), the answers have provided multiple ways to say this, with multiple fine shadings of meaning.  Thank you all.  How do I fairly select only one answer as the answer, when several work well?


texts:
I am looking for a verb that would be something like an antonym for piling up, describing the action of raising a pile from the bottom, specially making the base of the pile wider. For example, like adding the lower layers of a pyramid from the bottom -- if that was technically possible.

Another way of putting it, after reading some of the comments, would be something in between "prop up", "jacking up" and "churning". The suggestion to use "churning" reminded me of the tale where a mouse fell into a bucket of milk and desperately began to kick and kick and swim and swim and churn. Until the kicking and swimming and churning turned the milk into cream, and then butter. And the mouse climbed to safety.

So would one say that the mice was "raised" or "jacked up" by the butter...


texts: What is the difference between coquette and flirt? They seem to mean the exact same thing; is it only their historical or etymological baggage that determines different usage?


texts: A word to describe feeling less of an emotion

texts:
What is a verb and also a phrasal verb to describe to gradually feel less of an emotion (anger) over a period of time to the point of almost non-existent?

For example: John was ridiculed by Dave during class, making him want to punch Dave out, but at the time it was inconvenient to do so.  By the time class is over his anger has already ___ and he no longer wanted to give him a beating.


texts: What does the phrase "shake a chicken (in the middle of the room)" mean?

texts:
The 1957 song 'Let's Have a Party' by Jessie Mae Robinson includes the lyric:

I've never kissed a bear, I've never kissed a goon,
But I can shake a chicken in the middle of the room.

What does the phrase shake a chicken refer to? From the context of the song, it seems like it might be a dance; other places guess along the lines of voodoo or something more overtly sexual.
For context, there is a clip of the line from the song from the film Party, starring Elvis Presley.


texts:
I would like to know a word/phrase that can be used to describe the eyes of a person seeking/pleading approval. Similar to the colloquial usage 'puppy eyes'.

Sample usage:

  Her mother insisted on going home after school. She looked at her with puppy eyes pleading her mother to take her to the park.


texts:
I saw following today:

  [Removed for Ceremonial Reasons]

What does it mean by "ceremonial reasons"?

It was originally in SO post, where content was removed. But I am interested more in general sense:

Does it have multiple meanings?
In what context it can be used?


texts:
I saw a sentence like this:

  Wilkinson is contesting the release, and threatened to sue should it be released.

I could understand it but do you know what do they call this kind of use of "should" in grammar?


texts:
How common is it for native English speakers to actively replace the past tense 'did' with the past participle 'done'?  I used to think it was only really done in rather vulgar dialects, but I have increasingly heard this usage now by people who speak otherwise normal Received Pronunciation, or Standard American English:

  I done the report.  You done it yesterday.  He done it already.

I can't help but interpret this replacement of 'did' as sounding somehow uneducated, but is it becoming a standard in some dialects?  Is the word 'did' dying out?  And do these speakers use the 'done' replacement when switching the word order around in a question; for example, would they say:

  Done you do it today?

... or even:

  Done you it today?

... instead of:

  Did you do it today?


texts: 'Have the ability to quickly adapt with changing technologies'. Is this a grammatically correct construction?

texts: I'd like to know whether the preposition "with" is the best choice after the verb "adapt".


texts:
I've seen prose referring to HTML pages and html pages. What is the correct English written description (assuming in modern English - in a written technical book) for an html page?

  Open the HTML page in your browser

or

  Open the html page in your browser

Assumptions:

I understand this is an acronym and so should be capitalized
I also understand that as this is used in idiomatic English for people typing in web pages, it is frequently used and understood in the lowercase form

My question is: What is the correct term in English prose for HTML page or html page?


texts: Shorter alternative to Language Proficiency?

texts:
I'm using "language proficiency" as a field name in a form where users are to key in the languages that they are proficient in (does not matter if written or oral).
However, the phrase is rather long.  Is there a shorter dummy down alternative?


texts: Which variation of this sentence would be correct? Are vs. Is

texts:
I'm curious which I should use of the following:

If you or someone you know are having troubles logging on to VMware, please ask Bob Smith for help.
If you or someone you know is having troubles logging on to VMware, please ask Bob Smith for help.

Where VMware is the name of a computer network system / software.


texts:
If we have a number which represents the number of images, do you call that the images count or the image count?

If you take the example with the images you could say:

  The '15' is the image count for this album

But you could also say:

  What is the minimum images count to take part in the photography competition

Which one is correct? Do you use the pluralized noun or not?


texts:
What is the meaning of cabbage-hood in the following sentence?

  When you can know the heady joy of mental action, why would you opt for a lobotomy, for voluntary cabbage-hood?


texts: If an adjective is removed, what's the consequence?

texts:
OK. I am going to mess with the Constitution and remove the word "several." Would the meaning of the Commerce Clause be the same?

  The Commerce Clause refers to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the
  U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power “to regulate
  commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with
  the Indian tribes.”


texts: Making acronyms/initialisms from hyphenated words

texts:
Should we use only the first part of a hyphenated compound word to coin an initialism/acronym?

E.g. would "on-site detector circuit" become OSDC or ODC?

Or does it depend on the particular hyphenated word?


texts:
I've heard a couple of pronunciations "macra may", "ma craym", "ma craym".

So, which is the correct one?


texts: Was "their being followed" replaced by "they're being followed" over the years?

texts:
I was reading A Study in Scarlet yesterday and noticed the following sentence:

  They must have thought that there was some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out alone, and never after nightfall.

I'm not a native English speaker, when I first saw "their being" I thought it was a typo, and the correct spelling would be "they're [they were] being followed", then I realized the word being was actually the noun, not the verb, that made sense, but I couldn't recall ever seeing this "version" of the expression used. I mostly see "they're being followed", "he's being followed", etc.

With the story being over 200 years old (first published 1887), I assumed this was an old expression that was replaced in later years with the common "they're being", Google Ngram viewer shows a general decrease in use of "their being followed" over the last 300 years, vs a slight increase of "they're being followed" since the 1960's, with the latter form overtaking the former during the mid-1990's.

My question is, is the latter form basically a "mistake" emerging from a typo that was later "accepted"? Or was this caused because th common usage of the word "being" changed from a noun to a verb over the years?


texts: Comma between adjectives in title of thesis

texts:
Is there a comma missing in "A Heuristic for Capacitated Hierarchical Resource Location Problems"? It is a title of a bachelor's thesis.

I'm not a native speaker, but I think there should be a comma between Capacitated and Hierarchical because both refer to the resource location problem (not the hierarchy is capacitated). But a native speaker told me that commas aren't necessary in titles. What's correct?


texts:
I'm wondering if there's a difference in meaning between these two:
Get the best of VS Get the Best out of

Get the best of your washing machine
I understand that the washing machine might not be that good and that one will give me tips to get the best of it
Get the best out of your washing machine
I understand that whether or not it is a good washing machine, one will give me tips to make it work at full capacity

Is that correct?

Thx in advance,


texts: How should one properly punctuate layered argument?

texts:
In my writing, I sometimes deal with complex concepts, some of which - if they are to be properly expressed (by which I mean precisely expressed) to a reader new to the concept - are dealt with in a sentence which consists of three layers; as is this one. Here, the brackets are the inner layer, dashes the intermediary, and the outer is the sentence itself.

Sometimes I have found it convenient to further complicate matters by conveying two concepts - already embedded in the intermediary layer;  necessary because of depth of argument - which are divided by a semicolon, within dashes.

For the first time in my life, I saw - yesterday (in ELL) whilst browsing - someone use double brackets. They expressed a thought (and then another thought ((interrupted by another thought)) which was bracketed) which was well worth reading about.

I don't find any of this at all difficult to digest, myself.

But my question is, does any of it conform to normal expectations of punctuation ?


texts: Is the word `credentials` singular or plural?

texts:
I know that the word credentials is the plural form of credential.

And I'm referring to a single pair of username and password as credentials. Oxford dictionary also suggests that the word credentials is widely used over the word credential. Taking all these into account,

Which of the following is right?

The credentials that you have provided are invalid.
The credentials that you have provided is invalid.

EDIT: I'm referring to a single pair of username and password as credentials, That's what has made me ask this question.


texts: Possessive apostrophe for song title ending in a exclamation and in quotes

texts:
I'm subbing a piece a of writing that contains the following sentence.

  ‘Press Heavenwards!’ exclamation mark gives away a Godspeed influence.

'Press Heavenwards!' is a song title that includes an exclamation mark. In our publication song titles are distinguished by single quote marks. Obviously the possessive case of the song title is being used, but how to signify it?


texts: An adjective for 'a concept that seems random and built on wishful thinking'

texts:
I'm looking for an adjective that I can put before the noun 'concept':

A concept that seems random, wild (wild in the sense of drawing on various ideas and mixing them together) and built on wishful thinking and can hardly be proved.


texts:
Where should periods be placed in this sentence:

  "XYX signed the contract with ABDC Ltd (ABCL)."

Should there be a period after Ltd, or is just one period after the paranthesis OK?


texts: Are "in" and "at" the same in some situations?

texts:
If someone calls me, and I say I can't talk to them at the moment, because I'm at school, is there any difference between the following two sentences?

  I'm at school.
  I'm in school.

Do they convey the same meaning or they are different?


texts:
So, I've got this phrase: ''Far from fleeing monotony, animals crave it, and what they most dread is to see it end.''

Can someone explain me why it is written ''to see it end'' rather than ''to see it ending''?

From the same category I've got ''to see him leave'' rather than ''to see him leaving''. Why is this use of infinitive ?


texts:
I am not sure if the following sentence is correct:

  I do not like a small talk.

Should it be “a small talk” or “small talk”?


texts: Is there a better phrase / word choice than 'jealous of' when a man looks and smiles at my wife?

texts:
One of the meanings of 'jealous' as mentioned on dictionary.com is:

solicitous or vigilant in maintaining or guarding something: 'The American people are jealous of their freedom.'

Now, if a man looked and smiled at my wife I would become very jealous but if I described this and said: 'I'm jealous of my wife.' it would not reflect the situation or my feeling.

It would suggest that my wife has something that I want but don't have. Also, it may imply that my wife did something to make me jealous - which in the above situation never happened because it was the man that looked and smiled.

In Arabic there is a specific word and preposition to reflect these types of situations as opposed to the use of jealousy to mean wanting something someone else has, which in Arabic has yet another different word.

The above example from dictionary.com about Americans being jealous of their freedom does not leave any room for misunderstanding or multiple meanings because it is not possible to be jealous of an inanimate object (albeit an abstract one like 'freedom') but it is ambiguous when it comes to people like my example above, hence the possible misunderstanding and lack of accuracy in expression.


texts: Can I split the word "being" with a "-" (hyphen)?

texts:
In the following sentence I want to use the word "being". I was told that my use of the word "being" is confusing or unclear. Can I write "being" as "be-ing"? Is that even an acceptable way to write the word?

I am saying the members of nature are being without trying to be.

  He depicts the quiet [being or be-ing] of the inhabitants of nature as deliberate living and the busy misdirected life of the working man as without reward or self-actualization.


texts: Word meaning something is technically accurate but overly simplistic

texts: I am trying to think of a word used to describe someone who is intentionally oversimplifying an argument by making a statement that is technically true, but ignores a lot of issues. Its an adjective similar to describing the person as being intentionally obtuse or too clever for their own good.


texts: A term describing the replacement of a specific word in a saying with one that ryhmes

texts:
I understand this is quite a complicated title, however I have failed to discover a word (or a few words) to adequately describe the creative language used when changing a saying (or well-known phrase) into something slightly different, with a different meaning but still echoing the original phrase used.

As much as that was a horrible way of trying to explain the concept, I will provide an example that expressed want I want to sufficiently and coherently explain.

A reasonably well-known phrase which was used on a recent Batman film by Christopher Nolan (although this won't have been the first use of the phrase) is:

  Some people just want to watch the world burn

Recently, I came across this photo which was a very clever (in my opinion) use of that phrase, changing it slightly to give it a different meaning based upon the current situation:

  Some thugs just want to watch the world learn [see photo below]

Which is very clever and I was wondering if there is a word that describes the creative language used here.

Any insight would be much appreciated.


texts: How to properly use name parts in English?

texts:
I think people name in my language is very different from how it is used in English, so please properly explain it so I can use correctly.

In my country, people name usually have 3 parts, if I am named (full name) "A B C", then my child's name will be something like "A X Y" (so I think the first part, A, is family name). People call me by "C", or "B C" if someone else also named "C". We never use "A" to refer someone. Also, my wife doesn't change her first part to "A".

Please explain, in English:

How would my name be? (C A B, C B A?)
How do you refer me in normal - informal context (say, a classmate) if no one has the same name as mine?
The second question in context of me being your lover or very close friend?
The second question in context of formal context (Mr. ...)?
What would be my son name and my wife name if we move to US?

And one more question: is there any differences about those between English-speaking countries (UK, US, Australia...)?


texts: When is the correct time to use 'granter' or 'grantor'

texts:
We have a site where we have people grant each other favors.  Within the site, we have copy that says when you grant someone a favor, "you are a 'x'".  Should the person who grants a favor to another person be called a 'granter' or a 'grantor'?

It seems from looking at the dictionary that either would fit, but I'm wondering which one is the best to standardize on.


texts: What's the word for something that determines what choice to make?

texts:
Say there are multiple factors that influences decision making, and one factor can solely determine which choice to make.

Is there a word for this kind of key factor?


texts:
The pronunciations are stated /lʌntʃ/ and /lʌndʒ/ on Cambridge dictionary, by hearing the audios provided the only difference I can spot is that they tend to drag the first syllable of Lunge a bit longer.

But /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ sound identical to me here. Is there a difference that I failed to identify with my non-native ears?

Lunch
Lunge


texts: how to tell if you fall down your head will *** the floor?

texts:
how to say in the below scenario...

  if you fall down in the floor, your head will _ _ _ _ _ _ in the floor.

the blank should talk about the crashing of head with the floor. What is the correct form to use while speaking with a kid.


texts: What does "the main entrance is around the back of the building" mean?

texts:
Ok, I found this sentence "The real entrance is actually around the back of the house, on the ground floor" in this article
let look at this picture

This building has 4 sides
-The orange one is the front of the building
-The green one is the back of the building
-The purple one is one side of the building. The other side of the building is not colored.
So, What does it mean when we say "the main entrance is around the back of the building"?
Does it mean the main entrance is at the green or purple one?
Note: The orange side faces the main street
Also, in the dictionary

Around (preposition) d : on or to another side of (something)
We were surprised by what we saw when we walked around the corner.
There's another door around the back of the house.

if this meaning applies to the word "around", it means the main entrance is not at the back of the house but on one of the sides of the house


texts: can I use "used to" for something is "used for" some objective?

texts:
I am curious about using "used to" which is used for expressing some habitual actions in the past. But how to use it for passive voices?

Example 1:

I used to eat chocolate too much when I was a baby

This example is OK. What about the second one?

Example 2:

a) This computer is used to calculate statistics.

b) This computer is used for calculating statistics.

Which one is more suitable? In other words, are both of them give the same meaning? I am avoiding making contextual mistakes.

My problem is that I have read a sentence and I thought it should be corrected:

Actual sentence:

Bivariate linear regression is used to measure the degree of linear relationship between two variables.

After correction (not sure if it is really required):

Bivariate linear regression is used for measuring the degree of linear relationship between two variables.

I think (b) should be.


texts: "replace with" vs. "replace by" in the sense of substituting strings

texts:
Given that both prepositions are acceptable in general contexts with a slight deviation in usage, meaning, and voice ("Replace with" versus "replace by" has a too wide scope), let us narrow the task down semantically and vary only the form of "replace". Here, we are going to speak only about replacing in the sense of substituting substrings of strings by/with other substrings.

The following sentences in question are short versions of somewhat more complicated sentences taken from the description of some algorithm. The sentences have been uniformized to abstract from irrelevant algorithm details:

In the next step, we replace the substring x of the string axby
by/with y.
In the next step, replace the substring x of the string axby
by/with y.
In the next step, the substring x of the string axby is replaced by/with y.
We proceed by replacing the substring x of the string axby by/with y.
We proceed, replacing the substring x of the string axby by/with y.
The next step is to replace the substring x of the string axby by/with y.
The next step is the replacement of the substring x of the string axby by/with y.

(If anyone is interested: if x occurs neither in a nor in by, the result of the replacement will be ayby.)

How would you formulate the sentences 1–7 and why?

As an aside, notice that the passive form 3 has no agent.

As another aside, if anyone is interested, the algorithm itself has the form

[

Input: some string

Output: some other string

do foo
do bar
do bla

]

I have several options of how to write down the "do xxx" parts using any style in the range 1–7. Moreover, a few versions of the algorithm are scattered around the paper. The paper is going to be submitted to a serious computer science venue.


texts: I don't mean the diving equipment, but used as a synonym to 'homeless man'. Is it used as a common phrase or just an invention of Ian Anderson.


texts: Is the expression "North Star" (meaning a constant or guide) commonly used in the Southern Hemisphere?

texts: Since the North Star isn't visible below the Equator, I'm wondering whether English speakers in, for example, Australia or South Africa, would typically use or understand this expression.  If not, is there an equivalent expression involving the Southern Cross or any of its constituent stars?


texts: Is there a way to praise the action rather than the intelligence or strength?

texts:
Considering: https://parenting.stackexchange.com/a/11556/2221

  Kids who are constantly told, "You are so beautiful" can actually
  become overly worried when their looks change and become overly
  critical of themselves.

  Kids that are constantly told, "Wow you are so smart" can often find
  themselves fearful of letting the whole world see they aren't smart by
  answering something with a "wrong" answer. They then won't try things
  for fear of failure.

  Kids who have their physical attributes (such as strength, speed,
  coordination) commented on frequently, "Wow you are so strong, that is
  amazing" can have similar responses too - they stop trying athletic
  activities out of concern they won't be the best at whatever it is.

  Kids that get used to constant compliments also start to take the
  absence of a compliment as a failure. Which puts you in a position
  where just because you didn't notice your child picked up two toys
  without a reminder, you are sending a "bad" message by not commenting
  on this good act.

  This means that instead of giving compliments, your default should be
  to talk to the child about what they think. In a small child, that
  might be something like, "wow, it looks like wearing that dress makes
  you feel really good." or, "How did throwing the ball that far make
  you feel?" Of course, mixing in an actual compliment here and there
  won't hurt, just be careful not to overdo it.

The infant is 1 year old.

When I tell her "Give me the ball", she looks for the ball, picks it up and gives it to me.
When I tell her "Pull baba's hair", she looks for her father and pulls his hair.
When I tell her "Where is the fan?", she points at the roof.
When I tell her "Where is the pigeon?", she goes to the balcony to find them.

Now, I do NOT want to praise her intelligence.
What is the one-word for praising the above mentioned acts?


texts:
I have a service that deals with open hours of businesses.

People can browse the service and see if their favorite business is open right now and if not, when is the next time that it will be open.

If the place is open, we say

  Open now.

If the place is closed right now but will open in the next few minutes we say

  Opening in 45 minutes.

If the place will open later today we mention the exact time

  Opens at 2:00 pm.

And lastly, if for example it's Monday and the place will only be open in Wednesday, we say

  Opens in Wednesday at 2:00 pm.

My question is about the last case.

Should it be "Opens in Wednesday at 2:00 pm." or "Opens on Wednesday at 2:00 pm" or perhaps something else ?

Thanks!


texts:
I don't why I am asking this, but is this sentence grammatically correct?
"I realised that I didn't carry my book with me".
Just wondering about the "that I didn't" phrase after "realise".
Thanks!


texts: Is this the right definition of literal?

texts:
I just asked whether dictionaries (specifically the OED) might, for one lemma, state several different definitions which are literal. And there seems to be some confusion about my use of 'literal' there, that e.g. 'speak' only ever literally means to make speech with the mouth. Perhaps because that its most conversational sense, or perhaps because it is the main definition or sense, I'm not sure.

So does literal use mean only use the root meaning of a word?

I thought that a "figure of speech" is something which departs from accepted usage of its terms, but is it in fact departing from primary use?


texts: "All I've done" or "All what I've done"?

texts:
Is the "what" required to come after "all"? Are the following sentences grammatically correct? What is the grammar point here? I understood that there should be a subject and a main verb. In this case, should the subject be "all what I've done"? Or "all I've done"?

1) All (what) I've done is sleep.
2) After all (what) I've done, I still fail to ...


texts: Is the "is being employed" bit in this sentence grammatical?

texts: Mr. Peter is being employed at our company as "Marketing Supervisor" as of 01.01.2010 till date with a monthly salary of 0000.0000


texts:
I know if you are referring to 'centuries' in general, you don't use a capital letter.

I know that if you are talking about a particular century, like 'the 20th Century', it's a capital letter.

If you are referring to 'the present century', is it supposed to be like that or is it supposed to be 'the present Century' or even 'the Present Century'?


texts: Why is using "have" or "have had" necessary?

texts:
Just one example I recently saw, I also hear people talking this way, and wonder why.
Washington Post title today reads, "Many who have received the coronavirus vaccine wonder..."
Another news title reads, "People who have had the vaccine..."
Why is it necessary to add "have" or "have had" instead of simplifying the statement with, "Many who received the coronavirus vaccine wonder..."?
Just seems like adding extra words, which looks/sounds wordy instead of getting to the point.


texts:
Does anybody know the meaning of italicized phrase?

  Fye upon your name!
  In wrath, for loss of silvan game,
  Saint Hilda’s priest ye slew.

It's passage from Walter Scott's Marmion, Canto Second. Something about ‘silvan’ I found here, however the phrase ‘silvan game’ still makes no sense for me.

  Then Whitby’s nuns exulting told,
  How to their house three Barons bold
  Must menial service do;
  While horns blow out a note of shame,
  And monks cry ‘Fye upon your name!
  In wrath, for loss of silvan game,
  Saint Hilda’s priest ye slew.’—
  ‘This, on Ascension-day, each year,
  While labouring on our harbour-pier,
  Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear.’

This is whole text of complete thought, but it brings nothing useful, I think.

Thanks.


texts: Meaning of "No other language but shell would do something like that"

texts:
The sentence :

No other language but shell would do something like that

comes from here: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html

Does it mean good or bad ?

Do I mean "Shell is good, because only it can do it" or "Shell is bad, because no other computer language will do things in that way"


texts:
On a YouTube video titled "How Do You Die From Alzheimer's?", one commenter wrote:
"[R]ight grammar is[,] a [sic]

how did a person die from alzheimer's?

...[W]rong grammar is[,] a [sic] [simplifying;EA]

how do you die from alzheimer's?"

Looking past the egregious construction, it appears that the poster is concerned with the tense. I suppose the thought is that one cannot properly use the present tense for an act, like dying. Or else, the commenter is thinking that an analysis of death can only occur after the fact.
Is the commenter correct?
Thanks :-)


texts: Should I use the singular or plural here?

texts:
The following two phrases MS Word marks as wrong, whereas I think they are correct; but I would like feedback to be sure.

  Microsoft and Cisco are both designing ...

MS Word suggests changing the are to is.

  What additional hardware and software will the business be required to obtain?

MS Word suggests changing the be to are.

In both cases I think MS Word's suggestion is wrong, but I would like to have this confirmed.


texts:
I want to connect the following sentences with an appropriate word.

  Violation of rights triggers war. Prevention of violation of rights prevents war.

Is the antonym of likewise suitable for this?


texts:
If the firework happens every 30 minutes from 7:00 7:30, 8:00, 8:30, ... 19:00
Can I say: There will be a fireworks display every half hour on the sharp.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Why do English writers avoid explicit numerals?

In German, numbers below (and including) twelve are spelt out (eins, zwei, ...) while the numbers above twelve are usually written as numbers (13, 14, ...).

It's an informal rule, but still. Is this similar in English?


texts: Why isn't the subjunctive ("that she be") used in "He insists that she is crazy"?

texts:
Subjunctive clause:

  He insists that she go to the store

instead of "that she goes"

but we don't say

  He insists that she be crazy

we would normally say "that she is crazy".

Which is the correct usage and why?


texts: Mixing American and British punctuation conventions

texts:
I was reading a newspaper article and found -- what I believe is -- a mix of American and British conventions when it comes to punctuation. (I'm an engineer by trade, not a linguist.) I'd expect you to pick one convention or the other and be consistent.

Is there a reason behind this 'inconsistency'?

  After all, most of us have one and a half to two hours REM sleep a night – the phase in which dreams mostly occur – yet “we remember a very small fraction of our dreams”. Regarding his near-drowning experience, he says he has “little to no idea what the ‘purpose’ of that dream was in terms of underlying neuronal activity – but I can certainly tell you the clear message that it left me. Do not take your most cherished things in life for granted and do take the time to savour and love all that is important to you.” This particular dream, he says, “pushed me into taking a step back”.

  He also believes that “sleep is very important to consolidating memories and even learning new skills”, whether emotional, cognitive or even physical. (...)

  After all, even Blagrove, who is not convinced of the function of dreams, believes in their usefulness. “We are producing a whole complicated film while we sleep,” he says. (...)

source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/03/night-terrors-what-do-anxiety-dreams-mean (bold is mine)

Related (but doesn't answer the question, unless I missed something):

When should end punctuation go inside quotes?
How should I punctuate around quotes?


texts: "I ain't never seen" vs "I ain't seen" which one is correct?

texts: As far as i know we do not need to add "never" because ain't is already have a negative meaning.


texts:
I have found in WordReference English-Greek Dictionary the following sentence:

  Harriet Bell is an author who writes under her surname and first initial:H.Bell.

In this sentence,when the author says first means first name.Is this correct?In the phrase 'first name' can I omit the word name?If I say 'Harriet Bell is an author who writes under her surname and first name initial:H.Bell',will it be correct?


texts: When did the word "home" become synonymous with "house", in contrast to an apartment home or condo?

texts:
Not long ago, I had a conversation with a gentleman working at my building. I asked him if he lived in the building and he said "No I live in a home."

I thought that was a strange wording, but I understood. I may have heard this phrasing once or twice before (in the Midwest United States). Home is a fancy synonym for house. People in America often talk about "finding a home", and usually mean a single-family house. But my understanding of the word home has always been just a place where you live. That is the first result on Google, which doesn't mention "house". Merriam-Webster does include house as a synonym in definition 1b.

Just today I was talking to someone online, not local, about apartment problems, and I used the word home for apartment, and they said something like "No it's different for people in homes."

So it wasn't my imagination or just a weird quirk of the midwest. This is considered acceptable usage in English, although maybe not common? When and where did this specific sense of the word "home" originate? Is it a recent construct or something I've just not noticed most of my life?


texts: What's the meaning of "reflected back upon" in the following context?

texts:
The passage is an excerpt from an 1823 essay on Macbeth by Thomas De Quincey:

  From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point
  in Macbeth. It was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to
  the murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I
  never could account. The effect was, that it reflected back upon
  the murderer a peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity; yet,
  however obstinately I endeavoured with my understanding to comprehend
  this, for many years I never could see why it should produce such an
  effect.

I know "reflect on" means "To consider or think back on something," but I think this meaning doesn't fit here in the above passage.

Can we equate "reflect back upon" with "produce in"? I mean, "it [the knocking] produced in the murderer a peculiar sense of awfulness..."? Does it have anything to do with the writer feeling sympathy for the murderer?


texts: Describing polka dot and background color

texts:
When you say yellow polka dot bikini, does it mean a bikini with yellow dots or a yellow bikini with dots in another color?

How do you properly describe the color of the polka dot pattern?
If the dots are black and the background is yellow, is it enough to just say "black-yellow polka dot dress"? or do I have to say "yellow dress with black polka dots"?


texts: "it took quite a lot of courage to.." What is the collocation?

texts:
I need some help! I've found this sentence in my CAE book. There was a word missing, I wrote "took". My answer was correct. In my opinion John needed a lot of courage to sing that time. However, the answer key says that the answer is "took" because it's a collocation.

"John remembers that it took quite a lot of courage to sing in public for the first time."

I've looked for the collocation in Macmillan's dictionary and I've found this.

"take courage from something:
to feel more confident and hopeful because of something
We can take courage from his success"

I think that this is not the correct collocation... Could anyone explain to me if I was right or wrong and why?

Thank you!


texts: Is "specialness" a mock euphemistic noun form of "mentally retarded"?

texts:
In https://gist.github.com/brixen/6705046, there's

  I recommend monkey patching Symbol#name in MRI. You can even do this
  with refinements for extra specialness.

(As background, refinements is a feature that the author strongly disagrees with)

Is "specialness" a noun form of "special" (Urban dictionary link), which is used by some as a mock euphemism for mentally retarded?


texts:
He turned around in his chair and pointed out through the sleazy curtains at a distant hill. On top of the hill was a yellow and white house that shone in the sun.
"Hell, that's where he lives. He's got a mess of them. Goldfish, huh? Hell, you could bend me with an eye dropper."
That ended my interest in the little man. I gobbled my food, paid off for it and for three quarts of apple brandy at a dollar a quart, shook hands and went back out to the touring car.

What does this "bend me with an eye dropper" mean?
Chandler is sometimes crypic.
(from "Goldfish" by R. Chandler)


texts: What does "develop attitudes" mean here?

texts:
Kindly explain what "develop attitudes" means in this context of the following passage:

  In the ensuing outrage, a PowerPoint presentation written by St. John surfaced which included a slide in which he referred to engineers with Asperger syndrome as being "the holy grail" of hires. "They work like machines," he wrote, "don’t engage in politics, don’t develop attitudes and never change jobs."

I searched the definition of "Attitude" and came up to 2 options:
1) autist people don't express their attitude to work
2) don't try to affect opinion of other people in a team about something


texts:
Consider the following situation:

A & B are having a conversation. C overhears it.
Either A or B says something C considers controversial.
C later speaks about this in private, but has misheard.

Is there a single compound word that would cover this situation? I am thinking either 'overmisheard' or 'misoverheard':

"I'm sorry, I seem to haveovermisheardyou."

or

"I'm sorry, I seem to havemisoverheardyou."

The latter seems more likely to me, as we're applying the negative prefix 'mis-' (meaning 'incorrectly') to the action of overhearing. I've checked the dictionary but am unable to come conclusively to an existing word so I would like to if there is a word for this or the correct construction for a compound word if there isn't.


texts: Word or phrase for "Normal for that person"

texts:
I am looking for a single word, or phrase, meaning that this is the state that this person is normally in.

In context I have a sentence: "Now, {As was normal for her}, she was smiling with sincerity.". An alternative to {as was normal for her} would be greatly appreciated.


texts: One of a kind necklace - Business Slogan

texts:
i'm working on a business slogan and seeking for native english support with it.
we would like to use "one of a kind necklaces" - meaning that every necklace we sell is unique as slogan.
The question is now.... do we need to write "one of a kind necklace" or "one of a kind necklaces" (plural?)
Thanks a lot!


texts: Difference between "was already" and "has already been"

texts:
What are differences between the following sentences?

The package has already been received.
The package was already received.


texts:
"[on the collapse of Ayr Bank] Englishmen of course suspected a plot by those canny Scots. ‘The deel away wi ye all ye English Pudding boys ken ye nae that Paper is lighter of digestion than Gold’, cries the Scot on the broomstick in the London satire reproduced here, as he zooms back to Scotland with bags full of English gold, leaving chaos and destruction in his wake." (Jonathan Conlin, Critical Lives-Adam Smith)
Can you paraphrase the emphasized part?


texts:
Coming from the UK and in my experience in writing to people on-line, it seems that some cultures that use the English language do not understand that ellipses in communication can come across as sarcastic or gloomy, or a variety of other feelings that usually feel negative to the reader.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say this but I usually find dependent on content but most of the time coming across as negative that the use of ellipses in instant messaging is rude.

What is the bottom line? I hope there is an answer to this...


texts: Word for a non-politician who commits crimes against humanity

texts:
I am looking for a word or phrase to communicate someone who has committed what amounts to crimes against humanity, but who is not a politician or a soldier or military leader.

I want to describe the rubber barons (not robber barons) who exploited people in the Amazon basin at the turn of the 20th century. Not only did they enslave indigenous people to collect latex, but they also kept sex slaves, trafficked in human beings, drove out populations, murdered people, razed villages, etc. Here is a brief reference.

Someone who does this things might be called a war criminal, but these rubber barons were not military leaders, nor was there a war.

The term "slave driver" comes to mind, but slave-holding is not the limit of what they did, and also it has the connotation of a boss or overseer who simply works their employees too hard.

One might call them a "monster" or similar name, but that doesn't indicate the scale or specificity of their evil deeds.

Is there an apt phrase that would indicate the situation?


texts: What are the rules for what "they" refers to when there are two plural nouns in a sentence?

texts:
Some examples:

The Wilsons are angry at the Smiths for the way they parked their car.
The Wilsons haven't hated this Smiths this much since they moved.
The South hasn't hated the North this much since they lost the Civil War.
The red team likes the blue team because they feed their pets.
The red team likes the blue team because they found out the blue team gives to their charity.

In the first sentence, it's clear to me that "they" and "their" refer to the Smiths. Is that based on a grammar rule, or just meaning? It would be nonsensical to be mad at someone for the way you park your own car, so the meaning does give it away.

The second sentence seems less clear for some reason. Did the Smiths move or the Wilsons move?

Is the third sentence wrong usage? If you know that the South lost the Civil War, the meaning is clear. But should grammar rely on historical knowledge?

The fourth sentence seems clear. The blue team feeds the blue team's pets? Is that right?

Why does that work differently in the fifth sentence? I guess the "they found out the blue team" eliminates "they" meaning the blue team so it must mean the red team? What about "their" does it refer to the blue team's charity or the red team's charity?


texts:
For a User Interface of an Information System, options for selecting the Gender is to be given:

Not known

Male

Female

Male - TransGender

Female - TransGender

Is Enuch can be included; as an appropriate (formal) word, which can describe an Individual -neither male nor female? Any other word? Like Third-Gender or something?

Suggestions for all the words are welcome.


texts: Is the term British Isles still acceptable, or is it considered offensive to Irish people who may not consider their island legitimately connected to Great Britain?


texts: Being at the wrong place at the wrong time - is it actually bad?

texts:
If you're at the wrong place at the wrong time, is this actually a bad thing?  Don't the two negatives words result in a positive meaning?  For instance, being at the wrong place at the right time wouldn't be good, and being at the right place at the wrong time, that too would have a negative result.

As I see it, being at the wrong place, at the wrong time, could result in the second negative cancelling out the first negative and therefore the phrase doesn't necessarily have a negative meaning, am I correct?

As an example, take a sales appointment.  You go to the right place at the right time, that's good, you've got there OK.  However you go the right place at the wrong time, and that's not good as you aren't expected, and if you go the wrong place at the right time, well, you've missed your appointment.  Go the wrong place at the right time, doesn't mean you've missed the appointment though does it?  It doesn't mean that you didn't get to the appointment.

Is this correct?  Although it's generally seen as a negative phrase, it could be used positively?  What would be the full implication of this, as all definitions I've seen give this phrase a completely negative meaning and don't take this into account.


texts: Why isn't 'oranger' correct even though it follows being a one- or two-syllable word for adding the comparative inflection?

texts:
So 'orange' is either can be a one- or two-syllable word, however it would incorrect to say something is "oranger". But why?

It follows the rule of being adding the comparative {-er} but it is not correct. Is it because the word orange is being taken as noun?

Thanks.