texts: Name for phrase where you just state a noun

texts:
What is this type of phrase called? What parts of speech does it employ?

Situation: your brother does something silly. You say to him: "You and your crazy antics..."

This was brought up cause I wanted to apply it to something besides "you", in this case, someone's company. I said "Oh, your company and its crazy exams..." That seems to work but is a bit stranger.


texts: Better Modifer to Denote Knowing What Something is Than, "...I know what it is?"

texts:
In Portal, GLaDOS says, "You are kidding me. Did you just stuff that aperture Science thing we don't know what it does into an Aperture Science emergency incinerator? That has got to be the dumbest thing that- woah wOah WoAH~" and something about that full sentence, "we don't know what it does" used as an adjunct really bothers me. People do this a lot too. Removing 'is' might make it a little better, but I'm pretty sure that still wouldn't be correct. In that particular case, she could have said, "...thing whose function we don't know..." (Although something shorter and without the inanimate 'whose' would be nice) but I don't know what word one would use like that in place of 'purpose' for what something is. There are some that kinda work, but they're all a little too specific: type, variety, specification, and classification all imply a set of possibilities, into one of which our thing fits, identity is mostly for people, and other words have other problems. (I did do some thesaurus and dictionary seeking.)
Do y'all have a better phrase than, "whose ___ we don't know," or a better word than the ones I listed? Thanks.


texts:
The following lyrics I'm about to post from the song Virginia, rapped by Pusha-T from the now defunct duo, Clipse.  For background in answering my question, in the rap, Pusha-T has begun bragging about his home and past life in Virginia, the tough guys from the area he grew up around with, and how well he sold cocaine.

  See I turned to the Lord when them times got tough
  Bullied through streets, powder I pushed and shoved
  In that ole' Virginey
  Out of ten niggas, nine are guinea
  No money, all they know is gimme, got semis waitin'

My question is: What does guinea mean here?

First, though, I should say that I know that guinea is an ethnic slur for Italians, but I really don't think that fits in with the background of the rap — for one thing, I don't think that Virginia particularly known for a high density of Italians, as say, New Jersey and Rhode Island are, and secondly, Pusha-T, and "niggas" in general, are Black.   Moreover, as far as I know, if guinea where being used in the aforementioned sense, it would be pejorative, while here Pusha seems to be using it in a positive sense, to say something like "in my hometown, 9 out 10 of my dudes are tough/brave/badass."   I am certain that this is not the first time either, that I have heard guinea being used in a positive sense.

So can anyone precisely zero in what sense guinea is supposed to mean here?  What's the etymology?


texts: Meaning of "Midoriya leans over the railing—so far—so far that the world cannot follow if and where he falls."

texts:
Midoriya leans over the railing—so far—so far that the world cannot follow if and where he falls. He stretches his scarred arms out, baring himself to a fierce wind that pushes the hair from his forehead. The setting sun stains his skin gold, and he is not unlike a child, and then he is nothing like one.

I can’t understand the first sentence


texts: When and why did people start referring to back flips as "gainers"

texts: I've heard this several times of the course of this year and wondered if the term "gainer" used to replace "backflip" was just slang or if there was actual reasoning behind it


texts: Is the word "that" required in a "[aspect] is that [consequence]" structure?

texts:
Writing a scientific report and got stuck on the following. I have a few sentences like this:

The downside of cycling through the rain is I will be cold

Which is basically: "The [some aspect] is [consequence]".
A colleague mentioned it is incorrect without the word "that" (this might be because of our native language, which is Dutch):

The downside of cycling through the rain is that I will be cold

So, what is the role of "that" here? Is it required?
Comparable questions that I think do not cover this exactly: Is 'that' required in this sentence?, Is "is that" grammatically correct?


texts: Can someone help me explain what this sentence mean in email my teacher sent?

texts:
I am a non-native English speaker.

I have trouble understanding the following sentence (below). Can someone please explain to me in simple English.

"There are a few things in the code you were given which would easily reference a knowledgeable, trustworthy on the Internet to guide what your testing expectations should be."

Thanks in advance.


texts: What are the differences between "seems not" and "doesn't seem"?

texts:
Are the following sentences correct?

  He seems not to want to help us

and

  He seems want to help us.

Is it correct if I use "seem" in a negative sentence? Which role does "seem" play?

Is there any difference in meaning between:

It seems not working for me.
It doesn't seem work for me.
It seems not to be working.

Please tell me the differences between the three of them and in which situation I can use them.


texts: Word for a course with only two evaluations

texts:
Context:
I have a friend taking a course right now, and the prof explained that the course was "biracial" because it only has 2 tests. A midterm and final worth 50% each.
I am sure that they misunderstood the word, and it can't be biracial, as it would be such an awkward usage if it was a joke.
So the question is, is there any single word to describe a course which only has 2 tests or evaluations?


texts: What is the word to refer to customers who are no longer visiting?

texts:
For customers who still visit frequently, we call them "existing customers". But what do we call those who used to visit, but are no longer coming back?

I'm thinking of terms like "left customers", "ex-customers", "quitting customers"... but they all sound odd to me.

Thanks a lot for your help.


texts: Is it correct to use zero article before 'mechanic' and 'hairdresser' in this sentence?

texts:
Is it correct to not use an article before the occupations in this sentence?

  Two 18-year-olds, Ron Smith, mechanic, and George Major, hairdresser, were arrested yesterday.


texts:
Which one is correct here and why?

  He is taller than me.
  He is taller than I.


texts: Is "on one hand, on the other hand" a cliche?

texts:
We should find a Way of long peace instead of living just for today.  On one hand, we have to prevent the community from coming apart and suffering the disasters caused by it, on the other hand, to find a way of long peace for the society.
  (my own translation of a Chinese article)

An American friend told me that we should sift through more the original structure of the Chinese sentence in order to give a fluent translation. ALthough correct, it is awkard in English.The main problem, he says, is "on one hand..on the other hand".

This is really a big problem for me, because in the article I am going to translate, there are abundant "on one hand..on the other hand". I am aware that it comes from English. But now in Engish it has become a cliche? Whereas in Chinese we desperately need it to clarify the logic in our thinking.

It seems to me, "on the other hand", if used independently, is acceptable. But when being used together" with "on one hand", is actually boring and dull.

I donot know which phrase substitute perfectly for "on one hand..on the other hand".Please give me some advice.


texts: Usage of "As ..." in the beginning of a sentence, Any alternatives?

texts:
I use the following type of sentences a lot, because I do not know any alternatives:

E.g.

  As my child grows over time, I become older.

By which I mean that I my child is growing, and I am getting older, and this is a constant process.

What are the alternative ways to express such things?

Thanks!


texts: Is it "I developed a fascination with machines" or "for machines"?

texts:
What is correct?
I developed a fascination with machines or for machines?


texts: Word/phrase to fill the blank: "I could see my vague reflection on the misty window ______ my surroundings."

texts:
I'm writing a short story, and here's where I'm stuck over word-choice:

I peered through the window with the slick navy blue curtains, swinging to and fro to the movement of the minibus, blocking my view to some extent. I could see my vague reflection on the misty window ______ my surroundings.

You're on a minibus. It's raining—just a light shower. You look at and through the window pane which is made of glass. Of course, you see your surroundings. But you also see a vague reflection of yourself, as well as the real outside through the glass window.
         trees, roads               ||||       you, your cat, the seats of the bus
  (outside bus - surrounding)     (window)         (inside bus - reflection)

Your reflection's on the top of or over the picture of your surroundings. I want to describe exactly how it's on top of that.
It's floating over the picture of your surroundings? It's lightly pasted on that picture? It's acting like a two-way mirror?
What do you think should fill the blank?

EDIT: I want to convey the lightness or vagueness of the reflections over the surroundings. It's not another layer over your surroundings. Rather it just blends with it, very nicely and very subtly. You don't even notice it if you don't look hard enough.
The shorter the word/phrase, the better—since if too long a word goes before "...my surroundings" it gets hard to understand that your "surroundings" is something that you see on the window, along with your reflection. The "my surroundings" part gets further away from the main clause "I could see my [...]".
So far at one with and watermarking get the closest to what I had in mind.


texts: How did pro + curare semantically shift to mean 'cause, effect'?

texts:
Lexico's definition of 'procure'

Etymonline on 'procure (v.)':

  c.1300, "bring about, cause, effect,"
  from Old French procurer "care for, be occupied with; bring about, cause; acquire, provide" (13c.) and directly from Late Latin procurare "manage, take care of;"
  from pro- "in behalf of" (see pro-) + curare "care for" (see cure (v.)).

  Main modern sense "obtain; recruit" (late 14c.) is via "take pains to get" (mid-14c.). Meaning "to obtain (women) for sexual gratification" is attested from c.1600. Related: Procured; procuring.

What semantic notions underlie "in behalf of" + "care for" with "bring about, cause, effect" ?
Why was pro-* upheld as the prefix?
This hypothetical can unveil why pro- baffles me. Imagine a comatose patient (C) who has appointed an attorney-in-fact (A) (by a Power of Attorney). If A cares in behalf of C, then why does C need

'persuade or cause (someone) to do something' (Lexico's Definition 2)
or 'cause (something) to happen' (Definition 2.1)?

C already has the Power of Attorney!  C's clearly acting alone.


texts: Difference between "offense" and "offence"

texts:
Between offense and offence, which one is more correct spelling?

If both are correct, are there any differences in shades of meaning and/or usage?


texts: doesn't worry about what others think, independent confident

texts: How would you describe someone who doesn't worry about what other people think? Someone who has the confidence to think for themselves. It could be a quality or adjective.  One word preferred


texts: Where did 'cahoot" come from, when did it first appear, and how did it acquire its pejorative sense?

texts:
According to Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003), cahoot, meaning a partnership or league, and usually expressed in the plural form "in cahoots," has a first known publication date of 1829, and a possible French derivation:

cahoot n {perh. fr. F cahute cabin, hut} (1829) : PARTNERSHIP, LEAGUE — usu. used in pl. {they're in cahoots}

But an early reference work that listed the word—John Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms (1848)—lists a different etymology:

CAHOOT. Probably from cohort, Spanish and French, defined in the old French and English Dictionary of Hollyband, 1593, as "a company, a band." It is used at the South and West [of the United States] to denote a company or union of men for a predatory excursion, and sometimes for a partnership in business.

A Google Books search reveals that John Jamieson, An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808) lists cahute as a Scottish word (drawn from French) with two meanings:

CAHUTE, s. 1. The cabin of a ship. [Example:] Into the Katherine thou made a foul cahute. Evergreen, ii. 71. at 26. Katherine is the name of the ship here referred to. This is probably the primary sense. 2. A small or private apartment of any kind. [Example omitted.]
Germ. kaiute, koiute, the cabin of a ship, Su.G. kaijuta, id. Wachter derives the term from koie, a place inclosed; Belg. schaaps-kooi, a fold for sheep. C. B. cau, to shut; Gr κωοι, caverna. He also mentions Gr. κεω cubo, and κοιτη cubile, as probable roots of koie and koiute. Fr. cahute, a hut, a cottage; Ir. ca, cai, a house.

This would tend to strengthen Merriam-Webster's theory that cahoot originated with the French cahute, since Scottish immigrants to the United States might have brought Scottish cahute with them.
On the other hand, the 1829 instance of cahoot cited by Merriam-Webster is probably the following one (cited in J.E. Lighter, Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang [1993] as being from 1829), from Samuel Kirkham, English Grammar in Familiar Lectures (1831), in a chapter on "Provincialisms" and a subsection on instances from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, or Mississippi:

Hese in cahoot with me.

which is corrected by Kirkham to

He is in partnership with me.

The 1833 edition of Kirkham has cohoot for cahoot, and J.L. Lighter indicates that the 1829 edition did as well, which suggests that the word may first have appeared in U.S. English with the spelling cohoot—which certainly has more in common with cohort than with cahute. For its part, Lighter approaches the etymology question with caution:

cahoot n {orig. uncert.; perh. [from] F cahute 'cabin, hut'}

So I have three questions:

Where did cahoot come from?

When was it first used in written English?

How did it acquire its lingering pejorative sense (mentioned in Bartlett in 1848 as referring to "a company or union of men for a predatory excursion")?


texts:
I heard the following statement in the success story of Philip Armour,  the captain of American meatpacking industry, which was broadcasted on radio by Success Journal on April 15th, and was interested in the expression, “take (one) to the cleaners”:

  “Philip Armour had struck gold, selling canned food to hungry miners.
  His Armour can meats are still popular. But when he came time to
  diversify things, Philip didn’t want to be taken to the cleaners, or
  have his company get scrubbed out. He needed a guaranteed winner, or
  product just about everyone would buy.”

Google Ngram shows that the phrase came into use during 1930 through 1940, and after a brief hiatus, it started to regain currency from 1960 from 0.00000005% to 0.00000014% level in 2000.

Cambridge online dictionary defines the meaning of this idiom as;

to get a lot of money from somebody, usually by cheating them.

I feel like associating “take to the cleaners” with a Japanese idiom, 身ぐるみ剥ぐ、which means to rob a person of all money and property by stripping off his or her clothes cleanly. What is the origin of “take to the cleaners”? Why did this idiom come up so late in 1930?

P.S.

I wasn't aware of possible duplication of my question with the previous question asking the meaning and origin of this idiom posted by apparently German user, Hauser in January 2017, until being advised of so by both Listeneva and Janus Bahs Jacquet after posting.

But most humbly, given answers to the previous question don't seem to me very clear and definite enough about the source of origin of the phrase. Could somebody give the pages, titles, authors of the reliable sources articulating the origin of this idiom? I don't think it so difficult for you native English speakers, English language connoisseurs to come up with them in light of relatively recent advent of the idiom.


texts: Why can "a set of [plural noun]" be written as "a [singular noun] set" but not "a [plural noun] set"?

texts:
"A set of tools" can alternatively be written as "a tool set" (or toolset), but "a tools set" sounds very unnatural.
The same can be said of a number of other examples: "a book pile" vs "a books pile", "a paper stack" vs "a papers stack", etc.

Why is this the case? Why is "a tool set" correct but not "a tools set"?
What is the name of this kind of grammatical structure?


texts:
Nobody but guards on duty were allowed inside the building itself and outsiders were blank from the compound altogether.

The only words I can think of for blank are barred or forbidden to enter both of which sound a little too formal. Any advice?


texts:
Here is the scenario:
An actor is not so good looking but he cultivated a personality that no one can disapprove of.

Is the sentence right? Can you suggest better synonym of "cultivated"?


texts: "level of interest of " or "level of interest to "

texts:
Which of these options is more correct?

  "level of interest of social dance"
  "level of interest to social dance"?

To provide some context: the question as a part of a survey.


texts: Deduction from past form of " have (got) to "

texts:
I'd like to ask if there is any form of " have (got) to "  in order to make a deduction  from the past   equivalent to " must have + past participle" ?

For example:

  They hadn’t eaten all day. They must have been hungry.

Is there any structures as follows:

  They hadn’t eaten all day. They have to have been hungry.

or

  They hadn’t eaten all day. They had to have been hungry.


texts: Not quite "strawman" -- a word for stating a non-believed proposition?

texts:
[Begin video clip]"The Earth is flat. You can walk from here to there and you never start tilting." [End video clip] "So it might have appeared to people at one time..." [Discard rest of hour-long lecture on how we know the Earth is round.]

It is an increasingly common political tactic to find statements that, when removed from context, say the very opposite of what the speaker clearly intends to communicate. But "out of context" is not forceful enough to describe the situation, since the need for more context generally arises from some need for nuance or equivocation.

"Strawman" is not the word, since a strawman argument is weak or off-point. The "in context, the opposite of what is ultimately argued" statement may be perfectly valid.

The best I've come up with is "counter-propositional" but at that point, you might as well say "In context, [s]he said the opposite..."


texts: I came across the sentence "It's been thirty years since my parents first met." I am sure that if I heard "It's been thirty years that my parents first met", I would accept it as grammatical, but I can't find any reference to support this. Am I wrong?


texts: Does the phrase "fine with me" have a negative connotation?

texts:
I have always thought that you could answer "it's ok with me" or "it's fine with me" when you agree with something that somebody proposed, like a meeting time.

But apparently the phrase can have a negative connotation.

According to this Urban Dictionary it means:

  I could care less. Usually used when
  someone is being overly dramatic and
  is explaining the extreme action they
  are planning to do in response to a
  situation that they think you should
  care a lot about, but still somehow
  you don't similar to "that's just fine
  with me"

Since I wasn't sure if this source was reliable, I googled it and apparently the definition is correct:

"We made our play, and I came out on top. Okay? Now, if you want to start the game up again, that's fine with me."
The Italian Job (film)

"I'd never have a hookup but if that's what someone is into, fine with me."
Comment on a blog post

Can I be misinterpreted when I say "it's fine with me" meaning that I agree with the proposal? My concern is that it can be understood as "ok, i don't really care."


texts: Does anyone know if there is a ‘ball-bowl’ merger in Australia?

texts:
I live in Australia, and I recently had a moment of confusion when talking with someone who had merged the words ball and bowl. They pronounced it something like /bɔl/. They said fall, small, wall, role, and whole all the same way, but said tall with the (in my speech) normal /oː/.

Has anyone seen anything like this before? Is it new or have I just completely missed it?


texts: Give someone advice in advance with good intent?

texts:
There is a word for this in Hungarian (my native language) 'útravaló' which literally means something like "things to be used on your journey". I couldn't find a translation yet in any dictionary. (I've checked 5 different ones.)

Is there an English word for the things (either physical or mental) that you give to someone for the reason/intent that she/he might have some use for them while you cannot help him?

It's not always clear that the person will actually need them, but usually if he does, it would save him from a great danger. Often a danger that he may not be able to handle without the things you give him.

These things could be advice, or things to think about. Physical examples that come to my mind are from folk tales, where the hero gets magical objects and advice on when to use them. They always save him from danger. The word can also be used ironically, when someone won't behave like he should, seemingly naively, but you think that he should have known better, so you give the things for him to think about, doubting that they are new to him or that he is innocent.


texts: Term for a bullet hitting a bystander in a gunfight

texts:
What is the term for a bullet hitting a bystander in a gunfight?

When it misses the intended target and hits a bystander.


texts:
'There was a time when he was our class representative.'

Which one is a proper replacement of the above sentence?

1) There was a time when he used to be our class representative.

2) There was a time when he was used to be our class representative.

I feel that the 1st one is correct.


texts: Tense agreement: If I have a chance... I would

texts:
Here is the example sentence my Japanese teacher who teaches English gave to her students:

  If I have a chance to visit... I would like to visit...

This immediately struck me as odd. My instinct is to make both verbs past tense and say:

  If I had the chance to visit... I would visit...

Then you have a conditional using the unreal past to describe a hypothetical situation.

Now, I assume the "would like to" is an attempt to make "want to" more formal. But my brain just doesn't like the present tense "have" and the past tense "would" put together.

My question is, is the first example sentence grammatical? And if it is grammatical, is the second sentence just more idiomatic?


texts: Term describing where someone is from or what nationality they are?

texts: Is there a term for the word that describes where a person is from or what nationality they are?  For example, someone from America is an American, and someone from Finland is a Finn.  Is there are term for the words American and Finn that denotes that they mean "someone from  a particular place"?  I could have sworn I stumbled upon such a word years ago, but I cannot for the life of me remember it.


texts: Noun Capitalization When Used With Common Nouns

texts:
I have come across a few written documents by my peers that have what I would call a proper noun grouped with a common noun. So as an example without any capitalization:

  Select the edit menu from the menu bar.

The way I usually see them write it is:

  Select the Edit menu from the Menu bar.

I usually edit it to:

  Select the Edit Menu from the Menu Bar

Because they are referring to a specific menu and a specific tool bar. Lately though, I have seen several others use the first form which makes me question if I have been making the correct edit or if I have been wrong this whole time.

Two more examples:

Example 1:

  I want to be a writer.

How would the capitalization go for:

  I want to be a fiction writer.

Would it still be all lower case or capitalized since it names a specific type of writer or is fiction actually an adjective in this case?

Example 2:

Imagine I have a box with three buttons on them that we have labeled play button, square button, and blue button which conveniently look exactly how the name describes them.

  Press the blue button.

Would I capitalize blue button since we have labeled it as such or would it be an adjective?

I hope my question makes sense. Thanks in advance for the advice.

Note:

In typing out adjective to tag this question, I saw attributive-nouns pop up. I never heard of this before, but the quick definition given in the tag description seems to fit my fiction writer example, meaning I would not capitalize in that case. My other examples don't seem to fit and would still be either proper nouns or adjectives. Is this a valid conclusion?


texts: Is "please find enclosed the attachment" grammatical?

texts:
In my office everyone uses "Please find enclosed the attachment" in emails.

I can't digest the "the" between "enclosed" and "attachment". Is the sentence grammatical?


texts:
I want to say: "kate's bucket list" but we need to have "kate" at the end of the sentence (that is the requirement). So I thought of "bucket list of kate" but it sounded a bit.... I don't know... bad in my ear.

Is "bucket list of kate" correct, or is there another better alternative to keep kate at the end of the phrase?

Thanks


texts: What is the intended pronunciation of "gist" (as in gist.github.com)?

texts: Until today I've always heard it pronounced "jist" (similar to "just" or "gin"), but I just heard someone pronounce it with the same g-sound as "gold" or "give". What's the intended pronunciation?


texts: What does "the storm booming without in solemn swells" mean?(from Moby Dick)


texts:
My brain immediately suggested the non-word "promisand", but I doubt I would be understood if I said that.  What's a good word (or failing that, phrase) for the action or thing that was promised?  This reminds me of Latin expressions like Carthaginem esse delendam (Carthage must be destroyed, lit., 'Carthage is a thing-which-is-to-be-destroyed') or perhaps that once-common mathematical expression QED quod erat demonstrandum ('that was a thing-which-is-to-be-proven').

Circumlocution or other forms are often possible: "He gave me the promised widget" or "He did what he promised he would".  But sometimes it's useful to have a word that stands on its own.

More generally, is there a good way to express the construction 'thing-which-is-to-be-X'?  In Latin this is a gerundive, though it seems in my brief searches that the term means different things in English and other languages.


texts: International Phonetic Alphabet: why are the symbols used for the letter "i" in "champion" and "billion" different?

texts:
If you have a look at the phonetic transcriptions (in IPA, International Phonetic Alphabet) of "champion" and "billion" you get a different symbol for the letter "i" (Cambridge Dictionaries Online, British English, and Collins Dictionary Online):

it is a [j + schwa + n] in "billion", but an [i + schwa + n] in "champion" (usually, both the j and the i without a dot to make it clear that they are phonetic symbols and not ordinary letters).

I just cannot figure out why a difference is made there, where – try as I may – I cannot hear any?! Cannot they both be palatalised?

Honestly… !


texts: Term for one brother–sister pair marrying another?

texts:
While translating a book on the aboriginal people of northwest India, I came across a tradition of marriages, where one brother–sister pair were married to another brother–sister pair, as well as many similar traditions.

They have a word for this kind of marriages in my native language, so I was wondering whether English has such a word, too.  Does it?


texts: A word for: motivating someone to do something by accusing them of being afraid

texts:
When someone tries to talk another into doing something, and accuses them of being afraid of doing it in order to spur enthusiasm in the latter and make them try to prove they are not. Is there a single word in English to express this tactic?
e.g. From Game of Thrones (Season 1):

Ranger: "We should head back to the wall!"
Ranger's Commander: "Did the dead frighten you?"


texts: Does the phrase "pass out" also mean "to graduate"?

texts:
I'm from India and the phrase Pass Out is widely used here  to imply graduation. Googling as well as asking teachers keeps giving me mixed opinions.
So, is this usage actually correct?


texts: How does "if you must know" differ from "you may (might) know"?

texts:
In the following Washington Post's article (Feb. 13) reporting the outcome of CPAC 2011, I found the phrase if you must know.

I think this phrase means though it may not be essential knowledge that you are supposed to have, or just for your reference. What is the difference of nuance among if you must know, you may know, and you might know, which is difficult for non-native English learner to discern?

  The three-day Conservative Political Action Conference ended Saturday afternoon with a meaningless presidential straw poll (if you must know, libertarian gadfly Ron Paul won for the second year in a row).


texts:
I read the poem 'A Roadside Stand' by Robert Frost, and I have accumulated a few questions through the poem. So, I will be posting some questions from the same poem, if you can please answer my other questions as well. Thanks to all :)

See the quote below. In this, the writer has used the word 'quarts' for most probably the wooden boxes in which strawberries are kept. When I searched on the internet about 'quart', I found that it is actually by definition a unit of measurement.

So, my question is that - Are quarts (i.e the boxes) called quarts because these boxes are of 1-quart volume? or is it called a quart for another reason? Can I call any wooden box a quart?

  The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead,
  Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
  At having the landscape marred with the artless paint
  Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong
  Offered for sale wild berries in wooden quarts,
  Or crook-necked golden squash with silver warts,
  Or beauty rest in a beautiful mountain scene


texts: Passive Voice of "Do you know her": What preposition should be used?

texts:
When we put the following sentence into the passive voice, is the agent introduced by the preposition by, as it usually is with other verbs?

  Active: Do you know her?
  Passive : Is she known by you?


texts:
As I was going through Leviathan I realized that in some places Hobbes left an article before covenant, despite not placing the word in quotation marks:

1. "God is King of all the Earth by his Power: but of his chosen people, he is King by Covenant."

2. "Again, one of the Contractors, may deliver the Thing contracted for on his part, and leave the other to perform his part at some determinate time after, and in the mean time be trusted; and then the Contract on his part, is called PACT, or COVENANT:"

3. "For Justice, that is to say, Performance of Covenant, and giving to every man his own, is a Dictate of the Law of Nature."

In the second example covenant has all the letters capitalized, is it a substitute of quotation marks? If so, I still don't understand why Hobbes left out the in the first sentence and a in the third.

In other places he placed a before covenant:

4. "And for that cause, in buying, and selling, and other acts of Contract, A Promise is equivalent to a Covenant; and therefore obligatory."

Are all the four sentences correct?
According to the research I did covenant is countable, it should be preceded by an article anytime it is
in singular.


texts:
What is a G2K company? I assume G2K does not mean good to know.

  SMB/SME companies don't have the resources to hire 1-3 social managers, incorporate listening and engaging platforms like a G2K company.

Context.


texts: Is "He was shot in the street" ambiguous?

texts:
I'd say both of these uses of "he was shot" make sense:

"How did he die?" -- "He was shot in the street" [meaning shot dead]
"He was shot in the street, but luckily the bullet only hit his foot." [meaning shot at -- there was a bullet coming his way]

Would you agree?

And what would you think of a headline "He was shot in the street". Is the man dead or was he just 'shot at'?


texts: Is the usage "all ... are not" always the same as "not all ... are"?

texts:
Is it true that both the following lines are identical in English?

All dogs are animals. All animals are not dogs.
All dogs are animals. Not all animals are dogs.

In some other languages, (1) and (2) are not the same. In those languages, (1) means "none of any animal is a dog" and is different from (2).  But in English, are (1) and (2) identical? (although, some people may prefer writing (2)?)

This comes up in a computer programming book, with the word "promise" meaning one particular thing, and a "thenable" meaning also some particular thing, and that line is, "all promises are thenables, but all thenables are not promises".  From this context, it seems like the second part of that line means "not all thenables are promises".

Is this true in a specific situation, such as:

a. I have a bag of shapes in the bag. All triangles are blue. All blue shapes are not triangles.
 b. I have a bag of shapes in the bag. All triangles are blue. Not all blue shapes are triangles.

Again, is (a) and (b) identical in English?  There are people who actually say as a standalone sentence, "All blue shapes are not triangle" or "All answers are not good answers" -- and I usually take it to be "none of the blue shape is a triangle", or "none of the answer is a good answer" -- so sometimes this may cause confusion to me. But sometimes I do hear somebody saying an assertive statement such as "All of these oranges are not good." Is that also the same as "Not all of these oranges are good"?


texts: Is the use of "all set" exclusive to certain regions?

texts:
I grew up in the Northeastern US where the use of the phrase "all set" to mean "ready" or "finished" is common.

An example would be, "Are you all set with that?" (perhaps while pointing to an unfinished meal)

Another example would be, "Are we all set?" (as in "Are we ready to go?")

I never gave it a second thought until a friend from California told me that the usage of "all set" really threw him off when he moved to the Northeast. He had never heard that usage before ... hence my curiosity.

Is the use of "all set" exclusive to certain regions in the US? Is it used at all in Great Britain?


texts: What's the difference between 'collision' and 'conflict'? In SQL language, should I say 'PK collision' or 'PK conflict'?


texts:
If I have a list that begins with:

"Cars He Wants to Buy"

Is it implied that that list contains ALL the cars he wants to buy?  Or is it implied that it is just some?

My thought was that an "all" is implied, but I wanted to make sure "Cars He Wants to Buy" is clear enough.


texts: What do you call the "one who requests" and the "one who offers"?

texts:
In some sort of an exchange (maybe of services, maybe of items), there are those who seek and then request, and those who offer. What would be pleasent nouns to use for these roles? "requester"/"requestor" and "offerer" don't sound right ("offerer" especially).

A shade of meaning that needs to be reflected in the nouns I'm interested in is that these cannot be ongoing services, i.e. the "offerer" does not offer you to also get some of what s/he is providing all the time to many people. If an agreement is made, the offerer will do something; otherwise s/he will not be doing it.

(Not a real) Example 1: Suppose it's a forum in which people offer or request to have a stimulating intellectual conversation about some subject. Or offer to spot someone lifting weights and request someone to spot them. Offerers, and requesters.

I know there's a related question on "someone who makes a request", but I thought I'd ask about both terms together since the choice could be related.


texts: Which one is correct " I have done a lot of cooking lately" and "I have been doing a lot of cooking lately"?

texts: Which one is correct " I have done a lot of cooking lately" and "I have been doing a lot of cooking lately" ? As far as I know, "Lately" is mostly used in the present perfect continuous, but when I choose "I have been doing a lot of cooking lately" as the correct answer, they said it is wrong. So, I am so confused about those two sentences.


texts: Which version of this sentence with a linking adverb is grammatically acceptable?

texts:
I am unsure if the word "therefore" is called a linking adverb.

I have the following sentences. Which version is grammatically acceptable?

My preference, therefore, is to travel by train
My preference is, therefore, to travel by train.

Should "therefore" be separated by a comma?

(I want to use "therefore" in the middle of the sentence. I know it can be used in the beginning and end of a sentence.)


texts:
Children with lower IQs were more persistent and resilient even when faced with frustrations, and they practiced until bettering their abilities and becoming better chess players than those with higher IQs.

Is the "until" a conjunction or preposition in the sentence? It looks like "prep + gerund" to me. if not, can u tell me why it cannot be a preposition?


texts: Alternative phrase for "to linger on (an issue)"

texts:
I want lay out several arguments about the same issue. I am looking for an alternative phrase for "to linger on (an issue)", to use it in a context similar to this, in order to introduce my second/another argument: "To linger on this issue / to continue on this point, there is also a potential problem with..."

To linger feels as if if has a negative connation (implying that I am boring the reader with my arguments). I am looking for a phrase which does NOT have this connation.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!


texts: Does anybody know how many words in the OED have the remark "of unknown origin"?. I read it often, but have no idea how to find an answer. I guess one would have to ask the editorial staff of the OED.


texts: What's the name of a person who gives his name to owns something for somebody that can't have anything legally tied to his name?

texts: For example, I am a criminal and police is looking for anything tied to my name, so I use someone that I trust to put everything in his/her name, so this person would be legally responsible for it, but I am the who actually owns and commands it. What is the word used to describe this person who lends his/her name?


texts: "send ... both me and ..." vs "send ... both myself and ..."

texts:
Which is correct/preferable in the context of a third party sending file X via email: "please send X to both me and Ann" or "please send X to both myself and Ann" and why? Google returns hundreds of millions of results for both.

Same question for a different word order:"please send both me and Ann X [once it's ready]" vs "please send both myself and Ann X [once it's ready]". Or is such a word order wrong altogether?


texts:
In this sentence "for" is used as coordinate connector, so therefore, both before and after "for" should be a complete clause right?
"Despite its small size and slow gait, the wolverine is an effective predator"
is normal.
"What it lacks in speed and size it makes up in strength and endurance."
I'm confused with this one. It seems to have 2 subjects.
Or when we use the connector "for" we should add another noun as an object for it? Quite confusing..


texts: “It took me all of ten minutes to find out” - what does “it took me” mean?

texts:
I have a little confusion on understanding the sentence:

  It took me all of ten minutes to find out .

Why couldn't it be "I took all of ten minutes to find out"?


texts: The syntax of 'a mere one stroke', 'a mere one game', etc

texts:
However, Bryson DeChambeau seized the lead by the end of Friday's second round and was a mere one stroke ahead of Reed and Erik van Rooyen.
  (From Bleacher Report)

It seems that a here is not a normal indefinite article because it doesn't seem to determine the head noun stroke. Note that a mere here means merely.

The question is how to parse a mere one stroke:

(1) [a mere] [one stroke]

(2) [[a mere] one] stroke

(3) a [mere [one stroke]]

(4) a [[mere one] stroke]

(5) [a [mere one]] stroke

Here's a similar example having the same construction:

  He played a mere one game in Miami, logging 12 special-teams snaps. (Yahoo Sports)


texts: Unfamiliar usage of the phrase "as from"'

texts:
This is a paragraph from one of Wodehouse's books.

Nephew(also the narrator):"Golly!"
Aunt:"You may well say 'Golly!' Anatole, God's gift tothe gastric juices, gone like the dew off the petal of a rose, all through your idiocy. Perhaps you understand now why I want you to go and jump in that pond. I might have known that some hideous disaster would strike this house like a thunderbolt if once you wriggled your way into it and started trying to be clever."
Harsh words, of course, as from aunt to nephew, but I bore her no resentment. No doubt, if you looked at it from a certain angle, Bertram might be considered to have made something of a floater.

What does the phrase as from mean? Does it mean some kind of emphasis? Or are there any implied words which are not present directly,  e.g. as (seen) from? Please give me some examples from the Internet of similar usage. Thank you.


texts:
We're upstairs.

In this sentence, is upstairs a noun or an adverb? I think it's the latter because if it was a noun, the sentence is missing a preposition before upstairs. To my knowledge, in a SVC sentence, only nouns or adjectives can be a complement. Are adverbs of location, or locatives, exceptions to this rule?


texts:
On average every 1.1st or 1.1th something?
On average every 1.2nd or 1.2th something?
On average every 1.3rd or 1.3th something?

What is the correct formulation for a decimal ordinal number?

Hah! I knew I would find it sooner or later!

Google for: "0.75th quantile"

"Statistical Methods in the Atmospheric Sciences"
"Recursive Quantile Estimation with Application to Value at Risk"
"Economic Value of Weather and Climate Forecasts"
...


texts: What are the alternative word(s) to “optics” used in New York Times and Washington Post articles?

texts:
I saw the word, “optics” in two different articles of NYT and Washington Post:

As Mueller builds his Russia special counsel team, every hire is under scrutiny

  While many experts see no major issues, others say the optical problem
  could undermine public confidence in the probe. -

Aides’ Biggest Worry on Trump’s Europe Trip: A Meeting With Putin

  The air of uncertainty about the meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is only heightened by President Trump’s tendency for unpredictable utterances and awkward optics.

As I was unfamiliar with the word ‘optics’ used in a ‘political’ connotation, I checked OED and CED online, and found out:

Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘optics’ as:

(North Ame.) Typically in a political context) the way in which an event or course of action is perceived by the public.

Cambridge English Dictionary defines ‘optics’ as;
The public opinion and understanding of a situation after seeing it as the media shows it and the possible political effect of this.

It seems ‘optics’ means public impression or understanding of a specific political action / situation.
But I have difficulty in reconciling the above usage, “the optical problem could undermine public confidence” and “(President’s) awkward optics,” with the definitions of both OED and CED,  because the former sounds like Russia special counsel team members’ optics and the latter Mr. Trump’s optics as against “public optics.”

I hope my point get through to you. What are the alternative short word(s) to “optics” used in the above examples?


texts: Which pronoun do I use to refer a gender-neutral subject?

texts:
I want to say that "Feeding from a human doesn't mean killing them" (yes, vampire stuff), but I feel like the them I'm using isn't correct.

But I don't want to use he/she because a human can be either, and I don't want to use it because it sounds weird. What is the best option here?


texts: Is 'Three years after the attack, Betty Elliot was living among the Aucas.' a complex sentence or a simple sentence?


texts:
From Lord of the Rings:

  ‘You be careful of yourself, Maggot!’ she called. ‘Don’t go arguing with any foreigners, and come straight back!’
  ‘I will!’ said he, and drove out of the gate.

Normally we should see here "he said". I've seen the form "said he" a couple of times in literary works to express solemnity, but I don't think that applies here.
When would you say "said he" rather than the common "he said"?


texts: punctuation when abbreviation at the end

texts:
It's about using the right punctuation when abbreviation is used at the end of sentence. It has been asked here when the sentence is a question: How to deal with abbreviations at the end of a question?.

What about sentences like the following:

The opinions of this articles are those of the author(s),
and do not necessarily reflect the views of Google Inc..

Two dots or one dot?


texts:
I am wondering whether I should capitalize the first word after the colon in the following sentence:

  I wondered: how can I utilize knowledge of algebra to reach my goals?

All resources on the internet I found dealt with different cases, such as enumerating after a colon. However, I am almost putting a different sentence after the colon.

I am aware I could rephrase the sentence not to include a colon, but I need to include it.


texts: Difference between to live on and to live by

texts:
My vocabulary trainer stands "to live on" and my vocabulary trainer says that it means that somebody does something to make one's living (by doing something).

  Example: I live on selling cars.

But I have also learned that "to live by" means exactly the same (and I have often heard sentences like "I'm living by selling cars").

Well, my question is: When should I use "to live by" and when "to live on"? Or is one of these prepositions wrong?


texts:
For example, if one asks "what's two thousand plus two thousand", one could write it like this:

  2,000 + 2,000

But when one writes the date:

  January 2, 2000

So why do we put commas when writing numbers in a numerical equation but not with years?


texts: What to call information related to a film?

texts:
What is called a film's info such as year, director, country, actors, actresses, language, length... all the info related to it.

I don't want to say metadata or credits. Any other words?

EDIT:
I want to find film equivalent of masthead (used in print)


texts: Every household has a drawer, box or case full of little assorted items — buttons, plastic bendy things, screws, small metal pipes, etc. — that are usually very inexpensive and generally considered to be junk. What would you call these things? Trifle is the closest word that I can think of but even that isn’t “junk” enough.


texts: Adjectives that describe something is well-recognized?

texts:
I am looking for an adjective (single word) to describe something that is well-recognized (that it is able to serve certain functions). It is more on the common knowledge side, not on the side of "just being popular". Some close adjective that I can think of is cherished, valued, etc., but they still sound slightly off.

Example sentence:

  Despite the "well-recognized" services he has provided to the nation, there are still ongoing disagreements on whether he should become the president.

Thank you.


texts: Using “would” with the present tense in conditional clauses

texts:
I have met such sentence in my tutorial text:

  "Today my brother has announced that he is going to enter the university next year. I wondered if he had thought it over properly. He would be able to pass all the exams providing he studies at full speed, wouldn't he?"

I wonder if we can use "would" with present tense in the conditional clause. I feel that it may have something with subjunctive uncertainty, but I'm not sure. All grammar rules I've found prescribe to use "will" instead of "would" in this example, as it is 1st conditional. Can you tell me, please, if such usage is ok and how can it be explained grammatically?

Another example I've met on this forum while trying to browse the answer to my question (It was a part of the answer to a related question, but it didn't clarify the usage rules):

  "If you are a mathematician, and understand the conjugal relationship between real and imaginary numbers, you would see that the subjunctive is the imaginary conjugate of the real world.


texts:
In a writing exercise I sent to my English teacher, she wrote some comments evaluating my writing. Some comments were about what I did, and others were about what I should do. In the sentences about what I should do she used the Imperative form. But, one of the sentences was this one:

  Put a touch of personal feeling in
  your conclusion.

The problem is that the word "Put" can be Preterit, Past Participle or Present Participle. So, how can I know if "Put" was used as a Preterit or to build an Imperative clause?


texts: When quoting someone, is it proper to change "gotta" to "got to" without modifying the rest of the quote?

texts:
Lately, when I read quotes in the media, I've seen the following styles:

Spoken: "I gotta try harder."
Written: "I got to try harder."

Is is just my stupid ear/eye/brain that does a record scratch at this? It feels more consistent to leave the "gotta" if the transcribed quote is going to change "gotta" to "got to." I know "I gotta" isn't grammatically correct but "I got to" sounds so wrong to me, and I feel like the style used to be to change "I gotta" to "I've got to." Am I going crazy?


texts: Is "remove commented out code" correct English?

texts:
As a programmer, I often use the term "Remove commented out code" as a commit message when checking in code. I wonder whether this is correct English.

To use an example outside the realm of programming, consider these two phrases for contrast:

"Help the poor people"

"Help the left behind people"

The first seems reasonable, while the second sounds clunky. Is it grammatically correct? I assume it could be said better.

What about my initial example? Is there a better way to phrase it or is it ok?


texts:
A lot of people say this when they are challenging someone else:

  I'll verse you.

I thought this sentence was grammatically correct. However one day my computer teacher got into an argument with us about it. He whipped out a dictionary and began searching the word "verse" and told us the definition and said that saying "verse" as in challenging is wrong. It should be used as in Home verses Guest. Is that right? If it is, why does the majority say it this way?


texts: Should there be a question mark in a quoted question?

texts:
This is the tweet I want to tweet:

  All people repeat after me - I pledge I will not ask every co-worker I
  run into on Monday, 'how was your weekend'.

Should there be a question mark after "weekend"? Are there any other grammatical problems with this tweet?


texts: Can I write, 'I found sick children among ostensibly normal schoolboys'; is it the same as   'I found sick children among apparently normal schoolboys'


texts: Word/expression for the feeling you get when you look at someone you love?

texts:
Is there a specific word/phrase  I can use for the feeling one would get when they look at someone they love ? For example:

Every morning when she entered the classroom, my heart would start beating faster. A feeling of ___ would rush through my veins.

I'm not sure if the word euphoria would be the best word here or not, hence I'm asking this question. I'm looking for a word that is in the context of the feeling of love towards someone, not just excitement in general.


texts:
You can cancel the tickets up to thirty minutes before the scheduled departure of the train.

Is the use of 'up to'semantically correct? Or, is 'at least' more appropriate to replace 'up to'?

Should it be rewritten to make the sense clearer in following manner?

  You can cancel the tickets any time but at least thirty minutes before the scheduled departure of the train.


texts: What is the meaning of "pathetic" in this phrase?

texts:
This book from 1889, presenting a scholarly study of Christian hymns, has the following phrase:

  It may be said, and with truth, that the Magnificat of Mary, the Nunc Dimittis of old Simeon, and, above all, that the Gloria in Excelsis Deo of the angels at Bethlehem, antedate this hymn of our Lord and His apostles. It may also be said, and with the same truth, that these furnished to the early Christians their earliest expressions of praise. But it appears that the Last Supper, with its pathetic union of Jewish and Christian ideas, was also the place at which the Psalms of David and the spiritual songs of primitive Christianity were united. The thought that this reveals is larger than these limits will permit us to discuss. It is in brief that as Jesus Christ came, “not to destroy, but to fulfil,” He designed to show to His Church that gratitude, love, trust, and adoration were to be combined in all future psalmody. The t’hillim of the Jew were to become the hymni of the Christian.

Now, according to the OED and Wiktionary, there seems to be further meanings of this word than that related to pity (perhaps the most used nowadays). I think the author does not intend to use the word in that sense. What is the intended meaning here?

PS: the paywalled/full version of the OED lists 6 meanings of pathetic.


texts: Are my half siblings related to my half brother?

texts: My parents Bianca and Ivan are currently married and have always been since before I was born. Both of my parents have had previous relationships in the past. Bianca had a previous relationship with Henry and have a son named John, making John my half brother. Ivan had a previous relationship with Alicia, and have two sons named Frank and Ernest, making Frank and Ernst my half brothers. After that, Ivan met Katy and have a daughter named Pamela, making Pamela my half sister. So basically, I have one brother from my mom’s side and two brothers and one sister from my dad’s side. John knows who my other half siblings are but he doesn’t know them at all and he barely sees them. Is he related to them?Is there a term for this relationship?  I suspect he really isn’t but I’m just curious.


texts: Early usage, you can take the boy out of the country

texts:
Regarding the common English form,

You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy...

(Meaning - "This boy remains a bucolic rube even though he moved from his origins.")
Does anyone have any real, solid examples of early use of this phrase?
For non-native readers, it is used widely in English in different variations. (So, if you are disparaging relaxed Californians, it would be ".. California", etc.)  I do not know if "boy / country" was the first use, but it feels like it.
Please, it's easy to google on the net low-quality crap about the origin of this phrase. If you are new to this site, quoting a crap, unsourced, website is not an answer, thanks!!
Note that the earliest actual, real, usage example anyone has so far is
1913.
It would be great to find an earlier usage example.


texts:
While writing questions with infinitive, I realized that it is common to say

How to + verb
What to + verb
When to + verb
Where to + verb
Who to + verb

But it is very uncommon to say

Why to + verb

as confirmed by Ngram, for which we prefer the version without "to". I would have thought that all interrogative pronouns should follow the same pattern.
Examples include:

Why make diversity so hard to achieve? Source
What to expect when you're expecting Source
How to flatten your abs with yoga Source

What is the ethymological reason behind this?


texts: When a substitute response is given, although it does not address the main issue, is called?

texts:
This is not done to evade the question, but rather offered perhaps in consolation. Such as when one is looking for the doctor, who is currently out of reach, and you say, "how about I give you a cup of coffee and a magazine (while you wait)."
The counter proposal does not address the question at all, but it is not done in trickery. I don't mean it as a non sequitur. It means something closer to "in lieu" of... I just forgot the phase or term that defines this situation.


texts:
I'm trying to write a tagline for my live blogging service, and this is what I've come up with:

  Live blogs that are a breeze to write, a pleasure to read and are actually updated in real-time.

Is that correct grammar or should it be

  Live blogs that are a breeze to write, a pleasure to read and actually updated in real-time.

The completions 'a breeze to write' and 'a pleasure to read' both follow '... that are'. So why does 'are actually...' sound better to me? Doesn't that repeat the 'are'?


texts: Meaning of "bulging with Pongo's lunch" in the following sentence

texts:
From Uncle Fred Flits By by P.G. Wodehouse:

The meaning of bulging by dictionary is: protruding part, a sudden increase in number or quantity, and last is: an advantage. I don't see any of these fit in the phrase "bulging with Pongo's lunch" - How can these be applied to "lunch" - a food ?

  So when, on the occasion to which I allude, he stood pink and genial on Pongo's hearth-rug, bulging with Pongo's lunch and wreathed in the smoke of one of Pongo's cigars, and said: 'And now, my boy, for a pleasant and instructive afternoon,' you will readily understand why the unfortunate young clam gazed at him as he would have gazed at two-penn'orth of dynamite, had he discovered it lighting up in his presence.

Please explain me the meaning of the sentence also, I am not able to clearly get its meaning although I have referred the oxford dictionary for all the words I don't know.


texts:
In the following sentence, "Science has made navigation to all parts of our planet possible," what are the capitalization rules for the words our planet?

our Planet
Our Planet


texts:
In a license contract we have, this legalenglish quote:

  LICENSEE reserves the right to terminate this License Agreement with or without cause upon 90 days written notice for LICENSOR beyond the three year term.

I am struggling to find the meaning of "upon 90 days written notice". Does this mean LICENSEE needs to inform LICENSOR about the termination of the contract 90 days before it happens?


texts: Footnoting superscript with a colon preceding a block quote - Australian Style Manual

texts:
So the Australian Style manual specifies that superscript is placed within punctuation except for at the end of a sentence, where it falls outside of the full stop. All well and good, but how about in the circumstance when the (complete) sentence ends with a colon that precedes a block quote? Does the superscript fall inside or outside of the colon?

I guess the question is whether the colon, in this case, constitutes the 'end of the sentence'.


texts: Origin and exact meaning of the phrase "I have to go see a man about a dog"

texts:
I hear my older coworkers use this idiom/phrase occasionally. It seems possibly to be a humorous way to get out of a conversation. Even as a native English speaker, I've never figured out the exact situation you would use this phrase. It almost sounds like it may have once been a punchline to a joke in a movie or something.

I'm curious what is the exact meaning/usage of this phrase/idiom? Where does it originate?


texts: Why is "stackexchange" sometimes abbreviated "sx" and not "se"?

texts:
I've been posting a few questions on the TeX site lately, and have come across several comments on questions saying Welcome to TeX.sx.

Why is stackexchange abbreviated as sx? The few times I used an abbreviation myself, it was se.


texts: Word for describing moderate movement speed

texts:
What word can be used to describe moving at a moderate pace?

Moving Slowly describes slow speed.
Moving Quickly describes fast speed.

I am looking for the best single word replacement. Moving Moderately is what comes to mind but doesn't satisfy me very much.

The context is to have a list of words from which a user can choose the best adverb to describe the speed of a moving object.

Detailed Context
Working on a software tool for a person to use while monitoring video. In this software they will be able to assign different speeds to a "target" (not a person and not alive). I need to have a list of adverbs they can choose from (thus the reason for a single word, otherwise the list will look funny and be too complicated).


texts: Is it two-third or two-thirds? If both are correct, how does their usage differ?


texts: 'the' usage : used to mark a noun as being used generically

texts:
The question:

The definite article 'the' has many usages. However, I cannot quite understand one usage, that is, 'used to mark a noun as being used generically'. What does it mean by 'noun being used generically'? Can anyone please shed some light on this and set some examples.

An example for this use is 'The dog is a quadruped.'

How can I  distinguish if the author is expressing a generic noun/idea instead of specifying something in front of 'the'?

Readers Note:

Readers interested in this question might like this question here:

 - A query about the use of Generic Reference with nationalities

That question is about using generic noun phrases with nationalities.


texts:
During a conversation, I said "I am not concerning", instead of opting for " I am not concerned".

I figured it would be alright as "I am not hurting" instead of "I am not hurt" is perfectly fine (AFAIK).

How correct is it?


texts: What does "strip away all the sound and fury" means?

texts:
I have seen this quotation from Ed Miliband's current rhetoric:

  "Strip away all of the sound and fury and what people across England, Scotland and Wales, across every part of the UK, are saying is that this country doesn't care about me," Miliband then says. "Politics doesn't listen. The economy doesn't work. And they're right. But this Labour party has a plan to put it right."

So what does it mean? I do know that "sound" could mean "calm and sane" and "fury" could mean "angry and violent", but how do they fit in here?


texts: Singular or Plural after plural subjects

texts:
In the following sentence, which should I use, singular phone or plural phones?

Most people have (a) smartphone(s) nowadays.

I think singular is correct, because using plural makes it sounds like most people are possessing two or more phones, which is obviously not true.
What happens if I use “the” instead of “a”, in reference to a specific type of smartphone (iPhone12, for example), or if I use singular “Everyone” instead of plural “Most people”?


texts: Usage of a comma before "and" in a fairly complex sentence

texts:
How would I punctuate the following sentence:

  Furious, John strove to catch Jim by the shirt so that he might throw him against the wall, but once more, Jim was too quick.

Where I'm getting stuck is on whether or not I need a comma before the "but once more" part of the sentence.

I have a similar issue on another sentence that is fairly complex:

  When they broke apart, the old warrior bled from many wounds, and for the first time in decades, there was something close to worry in his eyes.

Here, my issue is whether I need a comma before "and for the first time in decades" or if I should leave it out.


texts: I'm looking for an adjective that conveys that something is stored in a folder. "Foldered". Only no dictionary I browsed treats folder as a verb. And fold, enfold, infold do not seem to carry that specific in-a-folder meaning. Google returns 23800 results for "foldered", though... Should I go with the masses?


texts: Word for that which is symbolized by a symbol

texts:
I'm looking for a word that indicates that which is symbolized by a symbol. This is coming from a computer science background where the terms L-value(left value) and R-value(right value) are often used in the context of defining symbols in a compiler for statements that define symbols such as:

A = 1

which defines the symbol A as the number 1. However that which is assigned to the symbol need not be a number in general.

An example sentence where this word could be used is.

Each entry in the table contains a symbol and its corresponding ____________.

One obvious choice is the the word value however that is a bit too vague in this context.


texts:
Dismissible is defined by Vocabulary.com as:

  capable of being removed or taken away or dismissed

Dismiss is (from Merriam Webster):

  to permit or cause to leave

In my context, I am trying to express that a character thinks a notion he’s had is worthy of being dismissed. He thinks the idea is absurd. Aside from just sucking it up and spelling out ‘worthy of dismissal’, which I just don’t really like the sound of, I thought I might say, ‘justifiably dismissible’. However, that ‘capable of being’ part of the definition has me unsure if I can use the word this way. Might it come across that I’m trying to say it should be capable of being dismissed or in some other way that isn’t what I’m looking for?

Also, I tried to look up a single word that matches my meaning, which is ‘ridiculous enough to be disregarded’ or ‘worthy of dismissal’ (either way), but nothing good came out of it. If anyone has one on the top of their head, I’d be happy to hear it.

And here’s how I used the phrase:

  He believed the notion was (justifiably dismissible) to begin with.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Is a company always plural, or are small companies singular?

When asking about the identity of a business/company, which of these is the most correct?

"Who is [Company]?" or "Who are [Company]?"


texts: Is it correct to omit "be" verbs and conjunctions when reporting a sentence?

texts: Can you say "Actor dead aged 44" instead of elaborately saying "Actor dies at age 44"?


texts:
I am writing to a Biology professor and would like to know if the "As a...," is used correctly.

  As an instructor of Cell Biology, I wanted you to know that the library has free video resources.

To me, it seems like I am the instructor of Cell Biology rather than the person reading the message.


texts: Do 'already' and 'just' require the present perfect?

texts:
Compare:

'We already/just gave him a response'.
'We have already/just given him a response'.

Do 'already' and 'just' strictly require the present perfect?


texts: What are the synonyms for 'face-to-face'?

texts:
I found in dictionary - opposite, but that is not the synonym that I am looking for.

I am interested for something like 'local'. For example, "We work with customers face-to-face as well as remotely". With what can I replace "face-to-face" in this sentense?


texts: Why does the word "Catholic" have two contrasting meanings?

texts:
catholic means including a wide variety of things; all-embracing.

and

Catholic means of the Roman Catholic faith.

But whenever I hear the someone say, "I'm catholic", it's hard for me to distinguish which usage are they referring to (even with the context). In writing, its easy to differentiate them by the lowercase/uppercase beginning.

My question, though, is what is the origin of the meaning of these two words? I get confused more because I associate the Catholicism with conservatism which is kinda the opposite of being catholic.


texts: What are the connotations behind partridges?

texts:
I was reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs her Hair" and noticed this line.

  But, after all, this critical circle is not close enough to the stage
  to see the actors' faces and catch the subtler byplay. It can only
  frown and lean, ask questions and make satisfactory deductions from
  its set of postulates, such as the one which states that every young
  man with a large income leads the life of a hunted partridge.

Somehow I feel that had Fitzgerald replaced "partridge" with "pidgeon" or "sparrow," the impact of the sentence would have been lost. So title.


texts:
Here is the context:

  Dance with me the gallowdance.

This is a piece from Lebanon Hanover's lyrics.


texts:
I have asked a question that turned out to be more complicated than I thought. It consists of the meanings of GET and HAVE somebody DO something constructions.
What I understood,

  I will have him get killed

would not be used in regular speech.
But I have read e.g.:

  Have him get addicted to drugs!

Why not to say just "Have him addict to drugs" as I would expect with "have somebody do something" construction?

I was told that there is a construct "have [something happen]" yet I do not fully understand the difference between this and "have somebody do something".

Isn't there also difference between the usage of GET KILLED and GET ADDICTED? I mean - He got killed means simply "He was killed" while "He got addicted" implies a change of a state. My point is whether it is verb-dependent?


texts: Couple - Can I say I have a couple of kids meaning that I have a girl and a boy, or it is only for number, not gender?


texts:
I have seen this construction quite often:

  Online ads have been around since the dawn of the Web, but only in
  recent years have they become the rapturous life dream of Silicon
  Valley.

What is the rule there?. When your sentence doesn't start with pronoun + verb, invert them as verb + pronoun?. I know it sounds awkward but is it possible (grammatically correct) to use something similar to:

  Online ads have been around since the dawn of the Web, but only in
  recent years they have become...

And in any case, does this only work with have (or has)? Maybe it works fine with 'had' but I can't think of an example right now.


texts: Why do questions convert subjects to the accusative, e.g. "Me?" "Him?"

texts:
(Obvious disclaimer about the definition of "accusative case" being a touchy subject in English)
I'm an ESL speaker and have noticed that e.g. in German the following exchange

"You're a wizard, Harry."
"Me?"

Would go like this:

"Du bist ein Zauberer, Harry."
"Ich?"

I used to think this was simply a form of an echo question in German, i.e.

"Ich (bin ein Zauberer)?"

but this clearly falls flat in English

"Me (is a wizard)?"

Actually echoing seems to just drop the verb:

"Me? A wizard?"

So what's going on here? It also seems to work with other pronouns:

"He's a wizard."
"Him?"

This feels like some form of echo question to me but it clearly behaves differently. Other languages seem to share this oddity (e.g. Danish with "Mig?", although both Danish and English presumably got this from some place else like Old Norse) so I'm not sure if it's really just German being weird and there's something completely reasonable I'm overlooking here.


texts: Has “call on someone” meaning “pay a short visit” fallen out of usage?

texts:
It would appear that the usage of call on someone meaning  to visit someone, usually for a short time, as in
“We could call on my parents if we have time” has become somewhat obsolete according to this post on ELL.

The idiomatic expression is well present in  main dictionaries and
 in the ODO, for instance it is cited as the first meaning:

  (1)Pay a visit to (someone):

  ‘he's planning to call on Katherine today’

while the Cambridge Dictionary (3rd entry) defines the expression as an AmE one:

  call on someone (phrasal verb with call US )
   to come to see someone; visit:

  She went to the hospital to call on a sick friend.

So, is this  expression  still used and commonly understood or is it actually “dated”? or is it more a question of AmE vs BrE usage?

Edit:

After I posted this question   a new answer, (actually a wiki answer) has been posted on the ELL question which appears to contradict the main   accepted one. Hope someone can offer  a more conclusive answer to this question, if possible.


texts: Is the  reflexion concerning of the humans only and not of the robots which are  reflective only?


texts: Why “Would you mind if I asked you something?” is correct?

texts: Instead of "Would you mind if I ask you something?" Why past tense, I don't get it?


texts: Can I use a semicolon instead of a period in short sentences or with fragments?

texts:
For instance, is the semicolon correct in the following sentences?

Alright; let me see what I can do.
Thank you; I hope you have a good day, too.
Thank you; you too! (as a response to someone)
No; we will pass by my place first.

Thank you so much.


texts: Is an impromptu speech essentially the same as, or different from, an extempore speech?

texts:
I was taught by at least two speech professors that an impromptu speech is one that is given on the spot, with no formal preparation, whereas an extempore speech is one that is prepared in advance.  If this is so--contrary to some dictionary definitions, could the similarity between the words "extemporaneous" and "spontaneous" have created confusion in this regard (as they both contain the ending letters -aneous)?

An impromptu speech is, after all, given spontaneously.  Could an extempore/extemporaneous speech be neither strictly spontaneous nor strictly planned but an admixture of both?

(Perhaps I've answered my own question by suggesting an extempore speech has elements of both spontaneity and planning.  Having done a good deal of public speaking, I have on many occasions departed from my prepared remarks by either adding or subtracting elements in an impromptu or spontaneous way.  A sudden "brainstorm" could trigger such redacting, or even a puzzled look on the faces of my auditors(!), not to mention time constraints.)


texts:
Ben is a dog.
Is the following sentence OK?
"We will feed Ben and other cats at 5pm."


texts: Confused as to whether I should use commas or not

texts:
I am getting some gifts engraved for my wedding party and I can't decide whether to use commas or not. Should it be:

  Thank you Neil
  for being our Usher

or:

  Thank you, Neil,
  for being our Usher

I think the second option is correct but doesn't look quite right, probably due to being separated over two lines. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as once the engraving is done that's it.


texts: Higher volumes of export OR volume of exports?

texts:
The problem gets more complex for India as there are higher volumes of export than that of import.

OR

  The problem gets more complex for India as the volume of exports is higher than that of imports.

which is correct?


texts: What does the abbreviation C.E. mean in a piece of text dated 1828?

texts:
The sentence in which it is used begins: -

  The theatre had been run up in seven months by Mr. Stedman Whitwell, C.E.,

and is found  here


texts:
For example:

"If mullahs are deteriorated in the Islamic schools, bring them to the tavern to correct their ways"

If someone is deteriorated, does it mean they ruin their good behaviors and become bad by going to a bad place along with some evil people, i.e,  visiting Tavern, Bar, Strumpet, etc..


texts:
Open an Instant ICICI Bank Savings Account with your AADHAAR card

I said

  What else document do you require to open a new Savings Account?

Which one is correct to use More or Else or both incorrect?


texts: Non-progressive eventive sentences in the present tense

texts:
When using a non-progressive eventive sentence in the present tense, it typically cannot describe a particular event: it often describes a habit or a generalization. E.g. if one says "John smokes a pipe", the listener would understand that this is a habit.

However, if a novel writer uses "John smokes a pipe" as a title of a chapter, the reader would understand that the chapter will describe a specific event where John smoked a pipe.

Why? Is there any name to this phenomena?


texts:
The words

"asymptote" (used in mathematics), and
"asymptomatic" (used in medicine),

have a large number of letters in common.  So:

  Question:  Is there an etymological link between the words "asymptote" and "asymptomatic"?

And, of course, if so, what is it?


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

texts: How should one address a police officer in English speaking countries? More specifically, in a non-emergency situation—asking directions for example—what is the expected form of address used to call a police officer's attention?


texts:
There appears to be some disagreement over what function yes and no perform in the following sentences:

Yes, you are right.
No, you are mistaken.

According to ODO (yes, no), they are being used as exclamations which are presumably the same as interjections. Webster (yes, no) and Macmillan (yes, no), on the other hand, reckon that they are adverbs. Wiktionary (yes, no) chucks another spanner by stating that yes is being used as an adverb while no is being used as an interjection.

Wiktionary also links to a Wikipedia article on "yes and no" which seemingly disagrees with both options.

  The words yes and no are not easily classified into any of the eight conventional parts of speech. Although sometimes classified as interjections, they do not qualify as such, and they are not adverbs. They are sometimes classified as a part of speech in their own right, sentence words, word sentences, or pro-sentences, although that category contains more than yes and no and not all linguists include them in their lists of sentence words. Sentences consisting solely of one of these two words are classified as minor sentences.

So, which, if anything, is it and why is opinion so divided?


texts:
A single short story can suggest a desired response from the reader. It is a difficult task, though, to create
  a world within a single short story and then repeat this world again in other stories while maintaining a
  consistent flow of ideas. Many authors prefer to use the same setting, indeed, often the same characters in
  each story. Isabel Allende’s Diez Cuentos’ de Eva
  Luna comes to mind. In these stories, Allende uses the small town of Agua Santa as the setting for the entire
  collection.

  Woman Hollering Creek is a collection of short stories by Sandra Cisneros. Rather than using the same
  characters or setting throughout the collection, Cisneros takes a different approach to relating her stories to
  one another. Much of the burden, in fact, is placed on
  the reader, for the characters change each time, as does the setting.
  Furthermore, while the characters are
  largely Mexican American immigrant women, each character presents a distinct style and literary voice. What
  these works have in common is more intuitive; mood, circumstance, time, tone, and imagery all play a role in
  creating the world in which the stories take place

What does these refers to? Are they Sandra's short stories or both of the writers ?


texts: When should I use "finish" instead of "complete," and vice versa?

texts:
I am confused about when to use finish instead of complete and vice versa.

May you help me in understanding when to use those words?


texts:
For I would that all men were even as I myself. (1 Corinthians 7:7)

  I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is.
  (2H4 I.ii.219-220)

Do these would-constructions mean the same thing?


texts: "In the comfort of" or "at the comfort of"?

texts:
Which sentence is correct?

  Buy tickets in the comfort of your home

or

  Buy tickets at the comfort of your home

I saw the first one written on a hoarding but I feel the second one is more acceptable. Please explain which one is correct and why.


texts: Generalized term for correspondence chess

texts:
I'm looking for a term to describe a game where neither player is present at the same time. Chess-by-mail is a good example of this, but the opponents may be separated by time instead of by distance. Another example is my aunt, who used to play Scrabble with her friend by phone. Each had a separate Scrabble board, and she would get a phone call once or twice a day from her friend to let her know what move her friend had made. "Correspondence gaming" is not an uncommon term, but what I'm trying to describe doesn't always involve correspondence. For example, you could have a game set up in the break room at work, where each player just takes turns as they are able, rather than all sitting down and playing at the same time.

Example Sentences:
This Catan tournament will include a _______ game.
He never met his opponent in the ________ game of Uno.

Summary: What is the term for a game where the opponents are separated by time?


texts: Is this a compound adjective, and if so, what parts of it should be capitalized in a title?

texts:
I am currently proofreading some documents which go by the title "Pre and Post Visit Materials". For the life of me, I can't decide whether "post visit" counts as a compound adjective in this instance and therefore needs a hyphen. If it is a compound adjective, then in the title would "Post-Visit" or "Post-visit" be correct? If it isn't a compound adjective, would anyone mind explaining to me why?
Also, is it acceptable to leave "pre" as a stand-alone word without any additional punctuation?
Thanks so much for your help!


texts:
I would like to know if there is a record that the word "YouTuber" appeared first
 time in history.


texts:
I was saying to an American friend, "I pronounce still bad," which she said is a mistake, saying it should be poorly.

Well, I get that part, but when I asked if I can say badly, she said I shouldn't. I asked an Englishman and he said it's perfectly fine. So is it a difference between American English and British English, or am I just not getting it?


texts: Is there an alternative adjective to 'written' with an -al suffix?

texts:
I'm ideally looking for a single word adjective with an -al suffix. i.e. similar to 'verbal', and 'visual' but that relates to written communications rather than spoken or illustrative communications. Does such a word exist?

I'm trying to create a bit of wordplay about different communication methods.

Thank you!


texts: If something is considered the best why is it said to be "the berries"?

texts: According to From Flappers to Rappers: A Study of American Youth Slang by Dr. Thomas Dalzell, "the berries" was a 1920s widely used slang term among American youth to describe something wonderful or very good. I shouldn't be surprised if etymology reveals "the berries" to be much older than the 1920s; however, what I'm most curious to know is why anyone would describe something wonderful or very good as "the berries". Any thoughts?


texts: Another word for someone who uses what they have on hand for purposes other than their original intention

texts:
I am looking for a word akin to resourceful, but I can't put my finger on it. Over the weekend, there were acquaintances that had limited resources on hand and used many of the objects for purposes other than their original intention.
Can anyone help me identify a word for this?


texts: How do you write sentences when referring to sections (of a webpage)?

texts:
If my webpage has sections (ex: internal clients, external clients, feedback), how should I be referring to those sections within a sentence?

The text would NOT be links (clickable).

  To view your mail, visit the "Internal clients" section.
  To view your mail, visit the internal clients section.
  To view your mail, visit the internal clients section.
  To view your mail, visit the Internal clients section.

Are any of the above sentences incorrect? Are there any that are more correct than others?

I read some similar answers and it appears using quotations is the correct answer, but I wanted to know if it was wrong or less correct to go with another solution.


texts: You will not use a little water. You will use little water.?

texts:
You will not  use a little water.
You will use little water.

Both are same meaning and they are all ok?


texts: what is the meaning of cost in this sentence?

texts:
In these protocols, the focus is on how to manage keys within a group in
a way that minimizes the cost of key distribution when the membership of the group
changes


texts: What is the correct form: two verbs with direct and indirect objects

texts:
I am unsure about the correct way of writing two parallel verbs and the objects (direct and indirect), when these objects are the same pronoun.

Which of these are correct?

Feel free to copy or contribute to it.

Feel free to copy it or contribute to it.


texts: Quote (proverb like structure) of knowing one's options

texts: I'm looking for a quote to use in a sentence that says if it's free and doesn't cost anything to know your options (like a free estimate to a customer) then it can't hurt to find out. And that knowing your options in life is very important.


texts: Is language a technology or is technology a language?

texts: Is spoken/written language a technology or is technology a language?


texts:
I usually download music off the web.
  I usually download music from the web.

What is the difference in between off and from in these sentences?

Which one is more suitable in this context?


texts:
I know the difference between the two.  Breath is a noun and breathe is a verb.  It was taught to me that way and I've never mixed them up in any way because their different pronunciation reflects their difference in spelling.  This is reflected in this NGram chart which shows extremely few documented cases of incorrectly using "to breath" as a verb.

However, I've recently noticed many, many, many people on the internet using "breath" as a verb (e.g. "I need to breath"), and it is quite confusing and irritating.  Is there any history behind this misuse?


texts: Proper term for "converting" time domain data to frequency domain

texts:
I had difficulty deciding if this should go in stack overflow, electrical engineering or here, English language. Forgive me if it's in the wrong place.

I am looking for a word that describes the action (process?) of converting data from time domain to frequency domain.

A term we sometimes use at work (incorrectly) is "decimation" which actually refers to the reduction of the sampling rate of data. It's important to note here that I am referring to only going from time to frequency domain.

Am I overthinking this? Is the answer simply "converting"?


texts:
What noun means "the state of being intrigued/amazed by something"?

For example, the state of being poor is poverty.

Is there such a word for being intrigued/amazed?


texts:
We’ve learned a lot from the moment we started, opened in beta, to the moment we launched.

Is this correct? It reads a bit awkward to have "opened in beta" between the from and to moments.
How would you phrase it better?


texts: 'Birthdate vs birthday'- I know three other people who share my birthdate

texts:
We say birthday and not birthdate

Generally, birthplace is used for place of birth but not birthdate for date of birth.

What is the reason that birthday scores over birthdate when it comes to usage.

  I know three other people who share my birthday

  vs

  I know three other people who share my birthdate


texts: Send something through / by / per / via email?

texts:
What would be the correct preposition:

  "I will send all further details ____ email" ?

I would guess 'through' or 'by' or 'per' or 'via' all sound kind of right, but I'm not sure what's the best choice.


texts:
There is a lengthy thread on the pronunciation of "conch" however I am curious about the plural form "conches."  I've noticed that it can be found as "conchs" as well, but "conches" appears to be the prevailing spelling in British usage at least.  Insofar as it ends in -es it would imply a second syllable which would lend itself to the softer "ch" sound.

Any opinions?


texts:
Is it correct to write in a scientific paper

"With every Hermitian metric there is associated a real vector space"?

This is the version I prefer, but some might say

"With every Hermitian metric is associated a real vector space".

One can also say

"A real vector space is associated with every Hermitian metric"

but the emphasis is not laid on "with every Hermitian metric" in that case.

Which of the first two constructions is better? Do you have a different suggestion?

Many thanks,
Dan


texts:
This is my sentence:

The program should contain various problems in a random order, information, hints, and non-examined questions at the end.

So what is the difference between in a random order or in a randomised order and what is better for this sentence?


texts: What's the meaning for 'de' in "Tour de France"?

texts:
What's the exact meaning for 'de' in Tour de France?

Can I describe an riding event like 'Tour de Hainan Island'?

Assuming I riding around Hainan island by cycling.


texts:
Consider this sentence,

  Until this is proven wrong, we will believe it to be true.

Does it mean either;

This will be proven wrong, and we will continue to believe it is true in the meantime
If this is proven to be wrong, we will believe it's wrong, and we will believe it is true otherwise.

So, when someone use until like this, does it mean the mentioned thing will happen or might happen ?


texts: Is there a pair of words for distinguishing US Federal Government branches from the other components of the Federal Government?

texts:
I'm seeking a pair of words to distinguish between the two entities below, words that make it clear I'm talking about components of government, words that the reader understands as referring to government without needing to be told explicitly.

For example, tire and rim: you don't need me to tell you I'm talking about parts of a wheel, and you understand that the two words refer to specific parts. Or roof and foundation: it's clear I'm talking about two well-defined components of a house; top-o-gov and bottom-o-gov; head-o-chicken and body-o-floppin'.

The two entities in particular:

The "top" part of the US Federal Government, that is, the three branches Executive, Legislative, Judicial.
All the rest of the bureaucracy and machinery such as the Post Office, social programs, embassies, Bureau of Land Management, federal police forces, everything run by the Federal Government but not in the "top" part.


texts: Opposite for "gold standard" for a benchmark of awfulness

texts:
A metaphorical meaning of "gold standard" is something that is really good to be compared with. For example, Wiktionary says

  (idiomatic) A test or measure of comparison that is considered ultimate or ideal.

    The OED is the gold standard for English dictionaries. Everyone wants to see how their version measures up to that ideal.

Is there an example of a benchmark of awfulness, such that if something is worse than item X, then it is very bad?

An example of how this would be used is

  Recently, Kazakhstan has become the _____ for backwardness, with news articles saying that Australia's education system or internet speed is worse than Kazakstan's.

Neither Oxford Dictionaries, the gold standard in dictionaries, nor Wiktionary mentions any antonyms.


texts:
I'm confused about the use of "won't" in a "when" sentence, I've seen many sentences like:

  What to do When Your Dog Won't Eat

is that right? or should it be:

  What to do When Your Dog doesn't Eat


texts: What is the merit of calling a verb phrase a clause?

texts:
Traditionally, a clause is defined as consisting of a subject and predicate.
In Oxford Dictionary, it is defined as:

A unit of grammatical organization next below the sentence in rank and in traditional grammar said to consist of a subject and predicate.

But recent linguistics says you don't need a subject to qualify as a clause.
For example, an imperative clause normally can get away with no subject:

Come on in.

Except for the imperatives, subjectless clauses are essentially non-finite clauses having an infinitive or participle form of a verb.

He wanted [to change his name]. [infinitive]
She was [locking the door]. [participle]
His father got [charged with manslaughter]. [participle]

These bracketed portions all have a verb as its head. That is, they're all verb phrases, which still holds water even in recent linguistics and outside traditional grammar.
Now, what's the merit of reclassifying these verb phrases as non-finite clauses? To me, it merely seems to make the already confusing phrase-clause distinction even more confusing.'


texts: Was 'Nance' used as a generic way to refer to someone's wife in the 19th century?

texts:
In the Adventures of Tom Sawyer novel (chapter XXVI) we can read the following:

  “You don’t know me. Least you don’t know all about that thing. ’Tain’t robbery altogether—it’s revenge!” and a wicked light flamed in his eyes. “I’ll need your help in it. When it’s finished—then Texas. Go home to your Nance and your kids, and stand by till you hear from me.”

In the Spanish translation the "go home to your Nance" part is translated as something closer to "go home with your wife", and we are trying to understand why. One of the reasons I thought about is that that maybe 'Nancy' was not the real name of the character's wife, but rather a generic way to refer to someone's wife, because the speaker says "you don't know me", why would he know the other character's wife's name? Besides the name "Nance" or "Nancy" is never referred again in the book. But in the dictionary I can only find that the word is used nowadays as a way to refer to "an effeminate or homosexual man".

I cannot find any similar texts, so "Nance" does not seem to convey the meaning I thought and the text is probably to be taken literally. Nonetheless, the work was written in the 19th century, so I wonder: Was 'Nance' used as a generic way to refer to someone's wife in America in the 19th century when you did not know the name of that person's wife? If not, can at least be interpreted so in the context of this work?


texts: Expression that means one thing happened after another

texts: I've heard an expression before which basically meant that 2 things happened one after the other and for the life of me I can't remember it. I think it was used in a negative connotation. It went something like this, first comes the ____ then the ____. Please help if you know this. Thanks


texts: Is there a word for "international or domestic travel"?

texts:
I'm looking for a word that represents "type of travel" where that type is either domestic or international.

Does this word exist?


texts: Meaning of once and while in "once in a while"

texts:
How did "once in a while" come to mean "occasionally, from time to time"?

I understand it is an idiomatic usage, but "once" means "one time" and "while" means "in the meantime" , so how can the expression be used to refer to a number of different times?

Has "once" or "while" also other,  possibly archaic, meanings? I could not find any in online dictionaries.


texts:
When’s the last time you slept in an alley, shivering in the cold rain, listening to the beggar next to you 1)cough with a sickness 2)you knew 3)would kill him?

Is "cough" a verb? Is this a correct sentence "Listen to her sing a song"?
What is "you knew"? the beggar whom you knew?
What is the subject of "would kill him"?


texts:
I was recently called out for writing the following:

  I understand perfectly, thank you.

Since ‘thank you’ can be taken to be an independent clause, this would seem to be a run-on sentence. It was my understanding, however, that ‘thank you’ functions as a tag in this case and that the sentence is therefore valid.

Am I correct?


texts:
I read this sentence:

  I'm glad I got to know her.

"Got" can be used like permission, like "I was allowed/able to", but it can also be used like the ongoing status of something, as in

  When I got to this point in my life…

Which is it in this case?


texts: Another way of saying "to pay close attention to"

texts:
The complete sentence goes:

"This is not a perfunctory guideline. (...) This is something you need to pay close attention to while you code."

Something in "to pay close attention to" is bugging me. Any suggestions on how I could improve it? Or does it sound ok as it is?

Edit: there have been some suggestions to use "focus on", which should work in most cases; however, in this particular case, I'm not saying that it should be the center of one's attention, rather something very important that needs to be checked constantly.