texts: Why /t/ after /k/ sometimes is pronounced like a mild aspirated T but sometimes is pronounced like unaspirated T?

texts:
See this word:

doctor /ˈdɑːktər/, the /t/ in this case seems to be like a mild aspirated T (that is there may have a bit air coming out of your mouth) Source.

But expected /ɪkˈspektɪd/, the /t/ in this case seems to be like an unaspirated T (that is there is no air coming out of your mouth) Source

& attractive /əˈtræktɪv/, the /t/ in this case seems to be like an unaspirated T (that is there is no air coming out of your mouth) Source

Is there any source that mentions about this issue?

Updated:

I recorded my own voice of unaspirated T  & aspirated T in attractive, please check it

unaspirated T: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o9iLQ2SktLZjVzVG4taHBsUVk/view

aspirated T: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o9iLQ2SktLWnR5SGM1Tlh4NVk/view


texts: What is the difference between "Class of 2004" and "Batch of 2004"? I have a feeling that one means the students who joined the university in 2004 and the other means those who graduated in 2004. Is that correct? And if so — then which is which?


texts:
In sentences like "but now it is running" or "but now it is standing"
What are the words running/standing? I believe they're verbs/gerunds but I have some friends who think they are predicate adjectives.

What if I change the sentence to "but now it is bettering" . Is bettering an adjective here or still used as a verb?


texts: proper word or phrase for 'already eaten or drank by other person/animal'

texts: Is there a single word or a short phrase to better describe a consumable item (e.g. drink or food) that has already been nibbled or sipped at? The relevance of this word or phrase would be in a situation where someone has eaten or drank some food such that it cannot be given to someone else, due to, for example, saliva.


texts: A word for a place where you store antiques

texts: I'm writing a song and I'm trying to come up with a word for a place, a room, a shop, or even a piece of furniture where people store old things or collectible objects. The idea is to imply that something is old or is more like a collection piece now by saying it is getting saved there (in the song).


texts: My word processor soft-hyphenated condolences as condolenc-es. Does this look natural to the eyes of native speakers? I, a non-native speaker, think it should be condolen-ces.


texts: Why "planet of the apes" but "planet of the blind"

texts: Why is it planet of the apes but planet of the blind? Is that "s" necessary after the ape? I know that the can change singular nouns and adjectives into plural nouns. But is there any rule?


texts:
Weird one, but here's a partial sentence I recently heard a coworker use:

"The only way that meeting could have been more boring, was if/is if/were if...."

I won't say which she used, as I'd like to get a general opinion on what should have been used. (If this sentence makes sense at all in general.)


texts: Terminology for pairs of words with the same meaning, similar or same pronunciation but different spelling

texts:
Is there a term describe word pairs like colour/color that have the same meaning, similar or same pronunciation but a different spelling?

The most common examples I can think of are English/American spelling variants, though there are alternative transliterations of foreign words would fit the bill too (e.g., Ziggurat/Ziqqurat).

I was wondering if there is a recognised word for describing these word pairings as we have terminology like "homonym", "heteronym" etc. for words with different meanings.


texts:
Can someone confirm or deny or improve my understanding of the traditional way of using the word "penny" in Britain?

Let's say "traditional" means, at the very least, before decimalization (or should I say "decimalisation"?).

My tentative understanding is:

The plural of penny when referring to a quantity of money is "pence", and
The plural when talking about a number of coins might have been "pennies".

Thus if you had a coin worth five times as much as a penny then you had five pence but you didn't have five pennies, but if you had the same amount of money in the form of five coins, then maybe you had five pennies.

Certainly in the U.S.A. if you have five coins each worth one cent you have five pennies, and if you have the same amount in the form of one coin you have five cents, but only if it were an unserious informal rhetorical device emphasizing the meagerness of the quantity might it be called "five pennies". (The word "penny" referring to the one-cent coin is unofficial but universal and not at all informal.)


texts: How to use commas around the word "both"?

texts:
In the following sentence, how should I place commas around the word "both"? Should there be a comma before AND a comma after "both", or ONLY after it? Should there be commas at all?

  This includes strengthening my knowledge in the fundamental subjects of this field, and gaining more experience in, both, robotics research, as well as the implementation of developed theory on physical robotic systems.

The above sentence is trying to say that I wish to do two things:

Strengthen my knowledge in the fundamental subjects of an aforementioned field of study (namely, robotics).
Gain experience in two types of tasks: (a) conducting research in robotics; and (b) implementing theory (developed through research) on physical robotic systems.


texts: What does "earn their paychecks" mean in the following newspaper excerpt?

texts: The nation and the world would be better off if Congress took a break from partisanship and finally debated a legal framework for the American military action .... Republican lawmakers prefer to simply blame President Obama rather than earn their paychecks.


texts: Is there a word that describes a somewhat subtle, critical remark that an author uses in their writing?

texts:
Here are some examples of what I mean:

From Kate Chopin's The Awakening: "'You are burnt beyond recognition,' he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage." -- It sounds as if Chopin resents men like Mr. Pontellier who treat women as property; she subtly denounces this character in her narration.
Spoken by Marlow, From Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: "'It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind...The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it.'" -- Personally, I see Marlow as Conrad's puppet, his means of censuring the racist imperialists of his time. It's as if Conrad speaks through Marlow in a sort of sarcastic tone.
From John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath: "The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses." -- Clearly, Steinbeck disapproves of the modern technologies of his time. He sees tractors as cold, lifeless machines that rape the land and leave nothing behind but dust.

Is there a single word that could sum up this technique of incorporating your own thoughts and feelings into the narrative (and not writing in something personal, like second person point of view)?


texts: Why is there no consistency in the plural forms of words ending on an "f" (e.g. safe, roof, dwarf, etc.)?

texts:
The plural form of leaf is leaves, although according to Merriam-Webster leafs is also correct. Dwarf can be pluralized as either dwarfs or dwarves. Conversely, the words roof and safe are pluralized as roofs and safes.

Is there any logic underpinning these variations? Is there a historical trend where words that were previously pluralized as -ves are now being increasingly pluralized as -fs?


texts: A relative pronoun followed by a transitive verb like "find"

texts:
The verb find + it is still valid in this type of sentence?
"I've used this type of syllabus which I don't find it suitable"
Should i omit the "it" in the sentence?


texts:
"May I know your good name” is a typically Indian way of honouring another person by asking their name using an adjective like sweet, good, beautiful, et cetera. Of course there won’t ever be any bad or sour name (unless we feel it such) when asking.

If this manner of asking someone’s name is incorrect or inappropriate, then how could I make it sound more polite and amicable without negotiating the basic principles of English?


texts: Which is a common name for logographic Chinese characters in English?

texts:
I'm wondering which is a common name for logographic Chinese characters in English-speaking countries, especially among the people who have no background in Eastern Asian languages considering that:

The word "Hieroglyphs" appears to be more associated with ancient Egypt writings rather than with Chinese characters
"Hanzi" or "Kanji" looks a bit specific, so I'm wondering if most of non-CJK learners can understand that
The word "Logograms" is too generic and doesn't appears to be strongly associated with Chinese glyphs


texts:
Lately, some fruit like kiwis have been sold with a spoon and knife combo.

Is there a term for these implements?  I tried looking up spife and knoon but it came out empty.  All I get is sporks and more sporks.

Edit I just looked up spife again: must have type it incorrectly the last time.  It is called a spife.  Wiki says it is called something else but when I looked up that word it was Czech for some female private parts.

Would the plural be spifes or spives?


texts: Words to use to confirm an amount for a task

texts:
Someone wants a task to be done by me. And before picking I want to quote an amount say 50$ for it.
So some ways to quote an amount is  :

Are you fine with 50$ for this task ?
Will 50$ work for you ?

Are above lines correct ? Any better way to convey the same ?


texts:
This part is designed for resting stable on the curved surface

Is 'resting stable' right?


texts:
I remember hearing a few years ago that English had 8,000 different sounds, and it's something that has stuck with me this entire time. I've started to question this knowledge, since googling various search terms yields only a single non-academic result:

https://twitter.com/zschilleci/status/658649029601943552

There seem to only be '44 key sounds' in English, based on search results. This seems more correct.

There is at least one other person who seems to think that there are 8,000 sounds in the English language? If this assertion is hopelessly incorrect, where do you think this assertion comes from?

It seems to be something akin to the myth that humans only use 10% of their brain.

Thanks.


texts: Is there a difference between "ascendants" and "ancestors"?

texts:
Without noticing myself, I've mixed the use of "ascendants" and "ancestors" in some documentation I've written.

In an arbitrary hierarchy (of either people or things), what would be the most correct term to use, to describe my parent(s) parent(s) parent(s), etc.?

That is, descendants would be my children, their children, and so forth. In the exact reverse order, would ascendants and ancestors be interchangeable, or would one be preferred over the other?

Both TheFreeDictionary.com and Dictionary.com lists ancestor as a synonym of ascendants, though neither precisely defines it in the context of a hierarchy per se.


texts: Do both sides of the conjunction need to align with the next part of the sentence?

texts:
If someone can improve my title, please do. I seem to be missing some vocabulary.

I was writing an SO answer and ran into something that has always bothered me. Consider the following sentence:

  These provide an easy way to stop the user from creating or moving
  events to the past.

Expanded, this would be:
These provide an easy way to stop the user from
[creating events to the past] or
[moving events to the past].

"Moving events to the past" works but you cannot "create events to the past".

I could change it to:

These provide an easy way to stop the user from creating events in the past or moving events to the past.

But while that feels more accurate, it's longer and doesn't read as well. In fact it's actually confusing and requires a second read to understand.

Maybe it would be slightly better as:

These provide an easy way to stop the user from creating events in the past and from moving events to the past.

But I still don't like it. So,

Is my original sentence actually incorrect?
If so, under what conditions would it be "acceptable"? As a native English speaker it doesn't sound wrong, but my programmer brain is shouting syntax error.
Is there another solution that retains readability and brevity? (for this type of sentence, not just this exact example).


texts: Is there a rule in British English about how to pronounce "either"?

texts: There are two common pronunciations of "either": British /ˈaɪðər/ and American /ˈiːðər/. If Americans are more or less consistent in this regard, then the Brits seem to be freely using both. In fact, from what I can tell, "either this or that" is more often in the first form, whereas "me either" is in the second. But I may be wrong. Is there any kind of an informal rule in the modern British English with regard to this?


texts: “Minutes later” vs. “a few minutes later”

texts:
Can I say this:

  I forgot about it minutes later.

Or do I have to say it this way instead:

  I forgot about it a few minutes later.


texts: The effect that influences each participant due to the contribution

texts:
A positive effect that influences each of the participants due to their contribution, participation, and teamwork.

For example, person A and person B are doing the project closely together, which helps and educates both of them, while at the same time moves the project forward, how can this positive, ______ effect be called?

P.S. Please, tell me if you do not understand clearly what I mean, I will try to rephrase. Thank you!


texts:
I think everybody has such a friend: you are not really close friends, you mainly talk about one topic. This topic is the reason why you text/message your friend and mostly not things like "how are you?".

Here's  specific example:

I've got a friend who lives 9000 km away with a time difference of nine hours. That's why it's pretty hard to reach her and it's nearly impossible to talk to her everyday to get the latest news. I already visit her, so she's more than "someone that I used to know". But we share interest in one topic, so everytime she or I see something about it (e.g. book, ad, social media post) we're sending a text or a photo. But that's pretty much it, we don't ask for work or the daily routine, because we noticed it takes too much time till we get the responds, e.g. if she asks "how was your day?" after she's done with work, I'm sleeping so she'll get the responds hours later and it has nothing to do with my mood the day before.

I think we all have such friends, you meet them once or twice but it's somehow connected to a topic (maybe a band or a movie).

So I am asking what would you call such a friendship, if it's a friendship after all.

I was thinking about a sketchy friendship maybe? I'm sure you'll find better words.


texts:
Let him do it because it's his baby.
Don't push this job on me because it's your baby, not mine.
This classic show car is his baby.
Hey baby, how are you doing today?

I understand that the speaker used the word baby to describe work in the first and second examples. The 3rd example is confusing me. How can a car be one's work? Please help improve my understanding.

I know the slang word baby means "a woman who is young", as in the last example, someone is talking to a woman/girl.


texts: What is a word for two word phrases which describe the same thing but are worded differently?

texts:
I'm normalizing some data in a spreadsheet (because I party hard) and I have entries like

  "Windows 7 Pro 64 bit"

and

  "Win 7 x64 pro"

These entries obviously describe the same thing, and I'm changing them as such. What is the word or phrase which would describe these two different-but-identical-in-spirit entries?


texts:
I think this question came up in a conversation with a friend...we were discussing how serving lunch could be made more efficient.

  They could _____ the lunch line by doing this or that.

The only word we could think of was "efficienize", but I doubt that's an actual word. Any ideas?


texts: Is there a name for this type of double speak?

texts:
My colleague will indirectly ask me to do something by using a statement Eg. John needs a form = can you print me a form to fill out on behalf of John. Her tone of voice does not indicate it's a request but she stares waiting for me to do it.  I need to put a name to this annoyance.  Thanks!

Edit: I am ideally looking for a pejorative adjective as a name/definition.

Here is another example:
"We've ran out of microbrushes in here" = Please can you get me some more microbrushes
A small request but the statements are quite abrupt and used instead of a question.

Here is another non workplace example:
Someone may say "This man has just collapsed" but everyone takes this statement as a direction to help the man Eg. "Please help this man he has collapsed"

(This is my first time using this app thank you for everyone's patience!)


texts: "it is suitable for employees who don't want responsibilities"

texts: "responsibilities" is marked wrong. In general, I am having problem determing when to use plural and when to use singular form of a word. Any help is greatly apprciated.


texts: Truefully vs Truthfully -- interchangeable?

texts:
Are truefully and truthfully essentially the same?

Does one have an implication, intonation, or standard use
that the other does not?

I know from Oxford's online dictionary
that trueful is an actual word.
However I can't tell if it has a history,
or if they've included it due to common use (or perhaps misuse?)


texts:
I am lost on the usage of inquire. Are any of the following sentences acceptable? If so, which is the most appropriate?

  I'd like to inquire if you are still accepting applications?
  I'd like to inquire as to if you are still accepting applications or not?
  I'd like to inquire whether you are currently accepting applications.

This is part of a formal letter and I am held up on how to correctly write this sentence.
This question is is similar to this question.


texts: What figure of speech involves playing on different senses of the same word?

texts:
Is there a technical term in rhetoric for playing on different senses of the same word in a brief text as shown below? Truncated quotation follows:

"The land is the source or material whence wealth is drawn ... The land produces grass, roots, grains, flax, cotton, hemp, shrubs and woods of many kinds with their fruits, barks, and foliage, such as those of the mulberry trees for silkworms; it produces mines and minerals. The work of man makes wealth out of all that. The rivers and seas provide fish .... But these seas and rivers belong to the adjacent lands."

The first instance of "land" is generic. The second refers to "land" in the sense of "earth" as "soil" or "dirt". Then we have a synecdoche whereby rivers and seas are "land," now in the sense of the "earth" as the "world," and finally we have "land" in the sense of "nation" which asserts rights over the adjacent waters.

It has been decades since I studied classical rhetoric and figures of speech.


texts: I'm looking for a word that matches a financial concept

texts:
I'm looking for a word that I'm not sure exists (disclaimer: English is not my first language).
The foreign exchange market deals with currencies e.g. USD, EUR, etc.
The stock market e.g. NASDAQ deals with public companies' stock, e.g. AAPL.
There are markets, and there are the entities that are traded in those markets.
What's the generic name of these entities, so I could say:

AAPL is a ________ in NASDAQ
Gold is a ________ in the metals market
USD is a ________ in the currency market

etc...


texts: When to use conclusion and conclusions in a scientific article or report?

texts:
I am writing a scientific report in English. For the final part, should I use conclusion or conclusions? I am a bit confused because in my memory it's an uncountable noun. But I saw many journal papers using either conclusion or the plural form conclusions.

Does that mean when using conclusions, there are more than one finding in the article?


texts:
I'm having trouble understanding the following paragraph from Far From The Madding Crowd.

  Had the wife now but gone no further. Yet, perhaps, under the harrowing circumstances, to speak out was the one wrong act which can be better understood, if not forgiven in her, than the right and politic one, her rival being now but a corpse. All the feeling she had been betrayed into showing she drew back to herself again by a strenuous effort of self-command.

1: Had the wife now but gone no furtherDoes this mean "If only the wife had not gone further."?

2: to speak out was the one wrong act which can be better understood, if not forgiven in her, than the right and politic one, her rival being now but a corpse.What does he mean by this?


texts:
My workplace has presented me with the opportunity this month to attend a "grammar" webinar that is suppose to help me enhance my grammar skills. I thought they were good already...

I don't have time to attend so will probably miss it, but I feel I should attend because of what was in the email for registration we received.

It gives a list of sentences and asks what's wrong with them, and that if they look correct you should attend!

Could someone explain what is fundamentally wrong with the following sentences?

  The firm is proud to have served our clients for fifty years.
  Martin and Deborah's reports were both submitted on time.
  If you don't feel well, go and lay down.
  This is a very unique situation.
  I felt badly when my friend lost her job.

They look fine to me and that worries me.
The only reason I can think of to attempt corrections is because the email suggests that they are wrong!

My corrections:

For example, in the first sentence are they using "served" in the wrong tense so they're saying they don't serve clients anymore?

In the second sentence is the apostrophe 's' suggesting that Deborah owns both the reports like a possessive (I think that's what it's called)?

I've always followed a rule (I know...) that if I could switch the sentence parts where the comma is and it sounds normal then the comma is OK like in the third sentence. "Go lay down if you don't feel well" sounds normal to me.

Does the badly in sentence five need to be replaced with "bad" because of the trailing -ly?


texts: Is there a difference in meaning between "fill {something} in" and “fill {something} out” in American English?

texts:
Is there a subtle or significant difference in meaning between the following?

  fill something in
  fill something  out

In my humble opinion, the two expressions are interchangeable and both mean to complete something, usually it's a form or an official document by filling in the blank spaces or filling it out i.e. become full.

However, is it true in some American English dialects, fill in means to supply information  whilst fill something out means to complete something in its entirety?

This piece of information was imparted to me by a very competent American English speaker.

  I am referring to an aspectual difference when out is used in conjunction with the verb.

I disagreed, based on instinct (common sense?), I sustain that there is no difference in meaning between the two. Oxford Living Dictionaries doesn't mention this subtle difference in meaning but I'm not an American English native speaker, maybe the user is onto something?


texts: How is the phrase "When your program breaks, you get to keep both pieces." commonly used?

texts:
One such example in source code files open-sourced by Apple:

 /*
 * WARNING  DANGER  HAZARD  BEWARE  EEK
 *
 * Everything in this file is for Apple Internal use only.
 * These will change in arbitrary OS updates and in unpredictable ways.
 * When your program breaks, you get to keep both pieces.
 */

The warning basically means the source code is internal to Apple and is subject to change. Software developers who use these files should not expect the 'interface' to stay the same between version. If the interface is indeed changed, any program that depends on the file will be broken.

What I do not quite understand are:

1) Is the phrase When <something> breaks, you get to keep both pieces a common one? If so, how is it usually used?

2) Does 'both pieces' means 'two pieces' here?

3) Is it supposed to be playful in tone? Is there any other implied meaning based on the context?


texts: Since when do scouts look, rather than listen?

texts:
Scout (verb) seems to be attested in English from late 14c.: "observe or explore as a scout, travel in search of information," from Old French escouter "to listen, heed" (Modern French écouter).
[Etymonline entry]

Dictionaries list meanings for scout assosicated with looking,
searching, exploring, etc. All of these, even if figurative, seem to employ or connote visual, rather than auditory perception. On the other hand, the French word (the Old French source and the modern French cognate) is associated with listening.

There may be a semantic continuum between hearing, (heeding, spying, gaining information, exploring, searching,) and seeing. However, I imagine a single usage is usually narrower in meaning than this full scale.

My question is whether the word scout, either in verbal or nominal form, can be attested in English as pertaining to hearing, rather than seeing. Putative examples, I suppose, would be historical and hard to come by. If so, how and when did the semantic shift from hearing to seeing take place? If not, are there examples of early figurative usage that explain the shift in the meaning of the English verb?


texts: What word describes a person who acts like a goody-good because they fear repercussion from authority?

texts:
Is there a word in English that describes the behavior of someone who realizes they are being monitored by some authority or supervisor, and as such, are acting on "their best behavior"? For instance, a school yard bully might act like a sweet, innocent child and treat other children with kindness if she knows that the teacher is watching.

I'm looking for a word that describes this type of phony "goody-two-shoes" type behavior. Sanctimonious and pious are close, but both imply that the portrayer considers herself to be morally superior, which doesn't fit this scenario. Insincere is spot on (its fake/feigned behavior), but is too generalized and doesn't apply specifically to the above scenario where an actor is pretending to be a goody-two-shoes because they fear repercussion from some authority.

Another example: I might pretend to be working diligently if I know my boss is watching me closely, but the minute he goes on vacation I slack off and stop working.

Any ideas?


texts:
What is a word for a gap that is too large to close?

I don't like insurmountable because that is a mountain and impassable just doesn't do it for me.

Any ideas?


texts: How often are words used for outerwear in British English considered underwear in American English?

texts:
There are some differences between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) and in the subject area of clothing, these can lead to some amusing mistakes. I have two examples of this where the AmE clothing term can cause some amusement (or even offence) to a BrE speaker. I would like to know if there are any that work the other way round.

The most obvious example is the pants/trousers comparison. An American friend, on arrival in the UK, complimented a native with the phrase "Nice pants!". Apparently they looked horrified and disappeared to check on the visibility of their underwear. The word "pants" is equivalent to "underpants" or "knickers" in the UK, and what you wear over them is called "trousers".

There is an item of clothing which is made to hold trousers up. I've just found out that in the US, the word is suspenders. In the UK, the word is "braces" or "galluses". It leads to the lovely alliteration "belt and braces". The BrE term "suspenders" means an undergarment to hold stockings up: suspenders attach to a suspender belt (which is a garter belt in AmE). Suggesting that someone whose trousers are falling down should wear suspenders could be taken the wrong way in the UK. It also leads me to question how the suspenders reference in The Lumberjack Song was interpreted internationally.

In both cases, a word that refers to an undergarment in BrE names an outer garment in AmE. I'm looking for any examples that work the other way round. I'd like to avoid any possible clothing-related faux pas in the US, or, indeed, any other English speaking nation.

To clarify, I can think of three examples of items of clothing that refer to outerwear in AmE but underwear in BrE. The examples are pants (trousers vs knickers), suspenders (braces vs garter belt) and vest (waistcoat vs, well, vest). The question is are there any examples which are considered outerwear in BrE but underwear in AmE? Anything that is likely to raise a snigger or a wardrobe-malfunction check if you compliment someone on it.


texts:
I am tangled with the problem of using affect /effect.

In an experiment,

The defocusing of projector lens blurs the projected images that are projected onto an object.The projected images are used to generate the shape of the object using a method X.

Now I want opinion regarding these cases

Projected images are effected/affected by defocusing
The defocusing of images further effects/affects the method X.
The method X is effected/affected by defocusing.
The defocusing of projected images further effects/affects object's shape.


texts: Possible grammatical errors in a sentence (comma placement and verb agreement)

texts:
There is either one or no errors in the following statement.

  Every spring in rural Vermont the sound of sap dripping into galvanized metal buckets signal the beginning of the traditional season for gathering maple syrup.

There are two things I don't see right, one of which is obviously the culprit.

Directly after "rural Vermont" [Shouldn't there be a comma after it]
"signal" [The subject is "sound" (singular), so the verb should end in an s.

I'm more on the side of the second one rather than the first. Or there could be no error at all.


texts: Is there a term for "because the script needed it" for things that otherwise don't make sense?

texts:
And yes I know of a MacGuffin, but I'm thinking more of other plot tools.

Edit and it's not Deus Ex Machina. It's not some random outside event.  It's people making odd choices that further along a predestined plot.

Why was the secret chip in a car in Fast Five/Furious 7?  Because the script needed it. Why did they go up against a tank in a 70s Japanese car?  Because the script needed it. Why did the (now widowed) woman of the man James Bond killed suddenly want to bang his killer in Spectre?  Because the script needed it. Why did Batman fight Superman? Didn't make sense, but the ....  You get it.

Edit I did hear one phrase, though limited (obviously) to visual media - F--k the plot, just set up the shot


texts: How would you say someone was "disrespecting you" correctly?

texts: Is there a grammatically correct synonym for the word "disrespect" in the form of a verb? As in: "Please stop disrespecting me, Bill."


texts: what does “it is to+ sth（a noun）” mean? Is it a common usage of “to” to be followed by a noun?

texts:
I've read a sentence in the Economist. And the sentence is

  "If Mr Rajapaska falls it will not be to a popular rising but because of anger at rising prices, corruption and one-family rule."

I'm having trouble understanding the usage and the meaning of "it will not be to a ...". Is there a usage of " it is to" followed by a noun? And also, what does the former half of this sentence mean?


texts: Is there a name for the substitution of "the + singular noun" for a plural noun?

texts:
For instance, I might say, "Overcrowding is a major concern in the classroom today" rather than "Overcrowding is a major concern in classrooms today".
Is that substitution a literary device?
The closest I can get is metonymy or synechdoche, which have similar functions but still don't match this specific kind of substitution.


texts: What is the word that means "creating complexity"?

texts: The word I'm looking for was used in the context of describing some versions of Cellular Automata (i.e. Conway's Game of Life). It means creating complex, interesting results. I would liken the word to "generative". Does anyone know what word I'm looking for?


texts: Usage of plesionyms (i.e. slightly differing synonyms)

texts:
Plesionyms are synonymous words which have slight differences in meaning.

What are the examples of it? I found:

Fog v Mist
Fearless v Brave

When and why are they are used?

What are the aspects which differentiate plesionymic synonyms from cognitive synonyms?


texts: Is there any English/American equivalent for the Hungarian phrase "beating the nettle with someone else's penis"?

texts: I am trying to translate this comically vulgar Hungarian phrase,  often (but not exclusively) used in a political context. It means to make someone else carry out one's rash or risky ideas, usually for the person's own benefit. So, for instance, when the issue emerges of how US economic sanctions on Russia hurt the local economy or jeopardize local gas supplies, Hungarians may say something like "Uncle Sam has chosen to beat the nettle with someone else's penis/dick". It is also used as an interjection: "Don't beat it with mine...!", or euphemised. Can you think of any matching idiom or vague equivalent? Thanks in advance.


texts: doctors appointments or doctor's appointments or doctors' appointments

texts:
"Doctor's appointment" or "doctors appointment"?
Not sure this was properly addressed before but question was where to put the "'" on the s.
In the question it was about having multiple appointments that day, each appointment with a different doctor. So when you state you have multiple appointments that day with different doctors what should it be?
My guess is i have doctors appointments. Is that right?


texts:
I just wrote [he] has or will read [some text] in an ELL chat room. But looking at it (or more accurately, listening to my "inner voice" trying to "read it aloud"), I find it bothers me a lot.

A quick check on Google Books finds a claimed 432 written instances of has or will read, and 910 instances of has read or will read, which suggests a significant minority of writers don't have a problem with the fact that the two different read's don't sound the same.

When I check the same construction with other verbs that don't have the same written form for past participle and present tense, it seems people nearly always include both (e.g. has worked or will work:1230, has or will work:8; has arrived or will arrive:357, has or will arrive:7).

I'm not usually a big fan of "grammatical rules", but it seems to me there "ought" to be a rule that you shouldn't delete one instance of the verb unless it's "the same" as the one you're keeping. And it also seems to me that since language is primarily spoken, "the same" ought to mean "sounds the same when spoken", not "looks the same when written".

Can anyone who knows more than me about formal rules of grammar settle this one?

As an aside, offhand I can't think of any verb where the past participle and present tense sound the same but are written differently (maybe there aren't any), but would deletion be okay in that case?


texts: Is conjunction reduction possible within an if's compound apodosis?

texts:
I have the following sentence:

  If the researcher knew the mechanism, any feature of the population would be known, any (causal) relationships in the population would be completely traceable, and any realization of that population would be completely predictable.

In this case, it is extremly unlikely the researcher will ever know "the mechanism", so we use if + past tense in the conditional's protasis followed by modal would + infinitive in its resulting apodosis.

My question: Do I have to fully repeat would be in every conjoined clause, or can I also simplify by writing:

  If the researcher knew the mechanism, any feature of the population would be known, any (causal) relationships in the population be completely traceable, and any realization of that population be completely predictable.

I can't really say why, but somehow this second version sounds right to me. However, being a non-native speaker, I'd rather ask for guidance here.


texts: Is it near real time, near real-time, near-real time, or near-real-time?

texts:
Your energy usage will be available in

near real time
near-real time
near real-time
near-real-time

  on your mobile.

Which is/are correct?

[Google Ngram]


texts: How to abbreviate in an essay the title of a work that consists of a name and a surname?

texts: I am writing an essay on the short story "Harrison Bergeron."  How should I abbreviate the title if I don't want to write out the whole name?  Would it simply be "Bergeron" or Harrison?"


texts:
How would we classify the phrase "worn out?" I know it can belong to the verb figure of speech, but here I'm interested in the usage where it seems to function as an adjective.

He put on his worn out shoes.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused as to whether I should include a hyphen as well.
I'm guessing that there is some kind of classification for this. I know we have compound nouns, is there a compound adjective or a phrasal adjective?


texts:
My apology if I'm disrespecting the forum with such question, but after all we are here to learn.
Are three way and threesome different from each other?
Have I written "Three way" correctly?


texts: Politely asking "Why is this taking so long??"

texts:
I am trying to write a business email and, as English is not my first language, I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with a really polite way of saying the following:

  Hi, It's been a week since I e-mailed you asking you for the documentation, and you haven't replied yet. I'm in a hurry, so, would you please send them to me as soon as possible?"

Here's what I've come up with so far:

  I am looking forward to receiving these documents, as they are essential to our development. Would you please forward them as soon as possible?

But I feel that "Would you please forward them as soon as possible" is not polite enough. Is it? Are there any other options here?


texts: Can "childs" ever be the plural of "child", in standard English?

texts: Is the word childs ever used instead of children for the plural of child? And was it ever a part of standard English vocabulary but later neglected?


texts: As a Brit, I'm used to the phrase named after being used to say how something got its name. For example, in Wikipedia's List of eponymous roads in London, we read that Addison Road is named after the English essayist, poet, playwright and politician Joseph Addision(1672–1719). But sometimes I hear or read named for, where it's clear from the context that the intent is the same. It seems to me that this latter usage is exclusively American. Is this so? And in what sense is for being used here?


texts: Need a proper English expression to reflect a concept

texts:
I am working on translating software and its documentation to English. This software basically organizes and stores technical documents.

A document may consist of a set of various files, stored on a server. Usually, only one user will work on a document, while others could download its files.

I would like to have a name for this set of files, relative to the document. I am thinking of body of the document but I am not sure that it sounds OK.


texts:
In Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party (1921), there is this question I cannot decipher semantically nor grammatically.
In this scene, this high-society family is preparing a garden party. Cream puffs are delivered, and Laura utters the question in bold in the text below:

"Godber's has come," announced Sadie, issuing out of the pantry. She
had seen the man pass the window.
That meant the cream puffs had come. Godber's were famous for their
cream puffs. Nobody ever thought of making them at home.
"Bring them in and put them on the table, my girl," ordered cook.
Sadie brought them in and went back to the door. Of course Laura and
Jose were far too grown-up to really care about such things. All the
same, they couldn't help agreeing that the puffs looked very
attractive. Very. Cook began arranging them, shaking off the extra
icing sugar.
"Don't they carry one back to all one's parties?" said Laura.
"I suppose they do," said practical Jose, who never liked to be
carried back. "They look beautifully light and feathery, I must say."

What does it mean to carry one back in this context? And to all one's parties?
It's also confusing the following play on words, I assume, by Jose. He never likes to be carried back...?
Is this word usage something characteristic of British English, or an archaic expression?


texts: Why are the notes or protocol of a meeting referred to as its 'minutes'?

texts:
A minute is 60 seconds. Something 'minute' is small, minor, perhaps short.

Now, what about the minutes of a meeting or a session? As in, its written protocol? Are they called that because:

The minutes are short or brief compared to everything that was actually spoken?
The minutes are sometimes prefixed by the time within the meeting?
Something having to do with the morphology etymology of the word 'minute'?


texts: Usage of past perfect continuous and past continuous tense

texts:
Which sentence is correct?

  I had been waiting here for two hours until you finally arrived.

  I was waiting here for two hours until you finally arrived.

Which one is correct?

How does one know whether to use past perfect continuous or past continuous?


texts: "It was not before several years since/after" construction...is this even correct?

texts:
I am writing a text and I have a doubt related to the construction of a sentence. I am not sure whether this is an idiomatic expression in English, or simply a commonly used construction (if even).

If that's an excuse, my first language is not English, but Portuguese!

So here it is:

  It was not before several years since/after the first meta-analysis had shown the thrombolytic drugs to be effective in the secondary prevention of mortality, that the experts started recommending such therapy with consistency.

My main doubt is: is this "it was not before several years since/after" correct?

If it's correct, is it elegant? Or too rocambolesque?

Thank you!

Claudia


texts: How to distinguish bars of chocolate from candy bars?

texts:
Coming from German, we have two words for "chocolate bars": The Schokoriegel which is a candy bar containing chocolate, and the Schokoladentafel, a large (often 100g) and flat slab (usually divided into pieces) of either pure chocolate or chocolate with some other ingredients. Many other languages share this distinction (eg. French tablette de chocolat vs barre chocolatée) In English, "chocolate bar" may refer to either of these, though some call the former "candy bar" instead.
How can I specifically refer to the latter kind of chocolate bars in English to avoid confusion?
People I talked to have suggested "bar of chocolate", as this implies the bar is primarily made of chocolate, but this term doesn't seem to be well accepted by internet resources. Some consider it fully synonymous with "chocolate bar"1 2, others don't recognise it at all3 4 5. From those I've seen, only Wiktionary seems to accept it with this specific meaning6.


texts:
A tall tale is a folkloric story that is generally wildly exaggerated and told for the amusement of the listeners.  Tall tale tellers usually claim some sort of personal involvement in the story.  I was curious about the origin of the phrase itself, and in the course of poking around, I found that tall in this phrase means exaggerated, so "tall tale" means an "exaggerated story."

What I can't seem to find is where this term originated.  It seems to be sometime in the middle to late 1800s in the US, but who coined this term?  Was it a famous author?  Did someone publish a book of tall tales around that time?

(More specifically, the argument revolves around whether or not Mark Twain was responsible, although if it's not him, then who?)

EDIT:
According to Etymology Online, tall "meaning 'exaggerated' (as in tall tale) is Amer.Eng. colloquial attested by 1846."  (Now I will look to find where it is attested in 1846.)

Another Edit:
An additional bit of interest is that a tall tale is considered folklore, and this word (folk-lore) was very famously coined by William Thoms in 1846.


texts: Better name for filter condition operators?

texts:
I’m developing a data filtering system and am a little confused regarding how to name the condition operators for this system. Which of these cases are preferable (or quite applicable) for filter condition operators?

[Within/Not within a radius of] vs [Is within/Is not within a radius of]
[Inside/Not inside polygon] vs [Is/Is not inside polygon]
[In/Not in branch] vs [Is/Is not in branch]

Typical filter condition example:

  [Geographic Point (Lat/Lng)] [Within a radius of] [1000] [meter(s) from] [1000 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10028, USA]


texts: What does "an example of this" mean and refer to in this explanation?

texts:
In the following explanation:

Irregularity: The quality of not being regular in shape or form, or an example of this.

I don't understand what "an example of this" means. What does "example" mean in this context?

Thanks in advance


texts: difference between the OALD pronunciation of /i/ in happy /ˈhæpi/ and /ɪ/ in sit /sɪt/?

texts:
I wanted to learn more about phonetics and I stumbled across this website:

  http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/about/english/pronunciation_english

However, I couldn't get what the difference is between the pronunciation of /i/ in the word happy /ˈhæpi/ and /ɪ/ in sit /sɪt/ and also between /ʊ/ in the word put /pʊt/ and /u/ in the word actual /ˈæktʃuəl/. This strangely only appears in the online Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries, and I  couldn't seem to find it in any other.


texts: I was looking for the meaning of Draw up and this was the definition:" to cause to a halt". The thing is it confused me more because I have no idea what halt means and in what sentences could I use It. Thank you I'll be looking forward for your answers!


texts: "Road liable to flooding" — is this roadsign grammatically correct?

texts:
I passed the roadsign below while driving home late last night, and realised that despite how many times I had seen it, I was still surprised by the choice of words used and unsure if it was actually grammatically correct.

After all, the wording on roadsigns is crucial. As we all know, it needs to be clear and succinct.

So, to my mind the words

  Road liable to flooding

should be

  Road liable to flood

or it could be rewritten

  Road prone to flooding

Am I right, or is the original ok?


texts: Starting a sentence with "This because" or "This to"

texts:
Is it common to say the following: (assuming that both sentences are "too long" to combine into one). Or are there better ways to say these things?

  I prefer to go to work without my bags and to read a book on
  the train. This because it gives me a good feeling when I arrive at
  my work place...

or

  Smart applications exploit the intertwinement of software, hardware,
  and network capabilities to exchange large amounts of information.
  This to optimize contemporary failures in a dedicated way...


texts:
What does funny farm mean in the following lyrics?

  They're coming to take me away ha ha
  They're coming to take me away ho ho hee hee ha ha
  To the funny farm
  Where life is beautiful all the time


texts: It shall not be published in any document or broadcasted or transmitted in any way.


texts: How to name "people who talk a lot" in a company, without sounding rude

texts:
I'm delivering a presentation in which I want to mention people "who talk a lot" in companies. To me (non native english speaker), this term sounds a bit offensive.
I want to describe the kind of people that always talk about a solution, but never implement them. People that tell stories that never materialize. People that never deliver results, but are highly regarded just because they seem confident. People that create their worth through perception not results.
What would be the best 2-3 word expression of phrase to describe these persons without sounding offensive?
Thanks a lot!


texts: Correct? "I have three new books, two bought from Amazon, and another one given by my sister"

texts:
"I have three new books, two bought from Amazon, and another one given by my sister".

I was writing this sentence, but is not sure if it is correct grammarly. Is there a better way to say it?

Thank you very much!!


texts: Whats' wrong with the following sentence?

texts:
One thing that despise me is when people cannot look me in eye.

I believe that the statement is grammatically wrong since we are using passive voice in the sentence so it should be 'despises' instead of despise .
Moreover , I believe the sentence doesn't make any sense. Its' hard for me to justify since I am not a native speaker  of English language .


texts: wrong usage of "cool" when compared to "cold"

texts: Is it totally wrong to say "it is really cool outside" instead of saying "it is really cold outside"?


texts: How to describe changing status of object

texts: What is the correct way to say that I have changed the status of an object? I want to say that I have statused or status'd the object but the first gets underlined by my spell-checker and the second doesn't look correct.


texts: What is an expression for finishing up work on a newspaper/magazine issue?

texts:
Suppose your team is working on a newspaper issue of which the deadline is approaching. Therefore, final touches must be put to it before sending it to the printers. What expression do you use to express this?
Is this right?

Today we are closing the (February) issue.


texts:
what does "My friend the musician" mean?

my friend is the musician OR my musician friend or somethings else?


texts: Difference between "How are you?" and "How are you doing?"

texts:
I've heard a lot of times that there is a major difference between saying:

  How are you?
  and
   How are you doing?

Is that true? I've heard one was like an extension of “Hello” and does not mean anything, so you should not answer it with “Fine, thank you. What about you?” but also with “How are you (doing)?” But I just don't remember which of them means what.


texts: How to say formally 'once he paid off all the debt'

texts:
I am translating an article of association from Japanese to English. I am stuck at a sentence which means:

His membership shall be terminated once he paid off all his debt
from the Association, if he owes any.

How to write this sentence formally? As 'pay off all his debt' sounds a bit weird to me. I'm not a native speaker. Please help, and thanks in advance. ;-)


texts: What word describes the day between two statutory holidays—"not officially active"?

texts:
Suppose you're a student and Tuesday and Thursday are official holidays. School is closed on those days, but, Wednesday, it is open. I need to know what English people call such a Wednesday.
Where I live, people would say classes on Wednesday "aren't officially active". I need to know what common word, phrase, or idiom English people would use to describe "not officially active".
In our country, people tend to not go to school on such days though they shouldn't. If a child doesn't go to school on Wednesday and his parents ask,

Why aren't you going to school today?

He might reply,

Well the school is _______ (officially open yet closed).

I need the English word to fill the gap.


texts: Are the commas inserted correctly in these two sentences?

texts:
√ When Martha screamed "Fire!", her neighbor called 911.
{Should there be a comma after "screamed"? Is the comma placed correctly after "Fire!"?}

√ When Jake asked "Where's the bathroom?", Sheila pointed to the outhouse.
{Should there be a comma after "asked"? Is the comma placed correctly after "bathroom?"?}

Do you agree with the punctuation in both sentences!

Thank you.


texts: "Someone of Company" or "Someone from Company"

texts:
Which one is correct to say?

"Hi, it's Jack of HP Inc"
"Hi, it's Jack from HP Inc"


texts: Is "those" used as an anaphor or a deictic?

texts:
The following is from an essay titled "'DOUBLE SUFFERING' WHEN WOMEN TARGETED NOT ONLY FOR GENDER BUT ALSO FOR RELIGION":

A year ago, a special conference focusing on this issue heard how women are being increasingly targeted as a deliberate strategy to rob them of their faith and their identity.
Records of women being systematically targeted in order to undermine "opposing" groups, in both armed conflict and inter-communal tension, stretch back millennia.
From dictating rules by which "other" women must live, through to sexual assault and forced pregnancy, prostitution and marriage, the power of this targeting is clear: women who survive are injured, traumatised and shamed.
Those enduring sexual violence may then be ostracised from their community.

In the last sentence, "those" seems to mean not just "those people" but "those women".
If so, is "those" used as an anaphor or a deictic?


texts:
"Can you provide me more information why this conclusion is valid?"
"I have no idea why he called."

(1) Are these why-clauses relative clauses?
(2) Is "why" a relative adverb or a relative pronoun here?
(3) I have found "the reason why" (though it's redundant). But can "why" be placed after other nouns as in the above examples?


texts: I have observed a recent trend to pronounce "the" as "thuh" even if it is followed by a vowel (as in "thuh evening.")  Is this regional (I live in Alabama) or national?  I think it's the latter.   And does anyone have an idea about why this has happened?  Has the glottal stop become fashionable?  Is it typical of an age group?


texts: Expression for someone who is not a professional, but still an expert

texts:
In our day and age you don't need to go to university or college to become an expert at something: encyclopedias, instant access to tens of thousands of textbooks and classics (both free and not), papers, discussion boards, educational videos and actual filmed lectures at the most prestigious of universities, Q&A sites where it's not rare for an answerer to have a PhD, the following question seems very topical (to me, at least).

What expression is best suitable for a person who does not hold a degree in something, but is still an expert in this something (sometimes ironically being a better expert than one who does hold a degree)?

The best expression that comes to mind is 'enthusiast', but it's not serious enough, in my opinion.


texts: Need help understanding sentence with term "over constraining"

texts:
We do not believe in over constraining the team beyond its capacity.

I'm having trouble understanding that sentence.

What does "over constraining" mean?  I found this but I don't see how those answers help in this example.

I think (hope!) the intent of the original was along the lines of: "We do not believe in pushing the team beyond its capacity."

... but is that restatement truly equivalent to the original example?

many thanks, first time post to ELU!


texts: Adjective phrase/clause to describe the object of the sentence

texts:
Am I using the adjective phrase correctly in the following sentence? "I want to be someone like you, smart and beautiful."

I know that using the adjective phrase to describe the subject of the sentence would be correct as in "Afraid, John forced himself to run away from the cabin." So does the same apply to the object of the sentence as was the case in my first sentence?


texts:
Why is say simple present, and not said? This isn't a repeated action, nor is it a general truth.

What sense or meaning was the writer going to express?

  American Airlines and Alaska Airlines say they will cooperate more closely on West Coast service, including new American flights from Seattle to India's technology hub in Bangalore. [emphasis added]

American and Alaska strike deal around Seattle flights


texts: Genitive of Sunrise: Sunrise' or Sunrise's

texts: I just don't like 'Sunrise's' very much. I want to write "Sunrise' breaking light over the plains" but I'm not sure if it should really be "Sunrise's breaking light over the plains." Whaddaya think?


texts:
Is it correct to say "15 percent less than 25"?

To me, it doesn't make 100% sense.


texts: "woodsy" vs. "woody" for "covered with trees/wooded" in NAmEng

texts:
What's the difference between those terms?

Context would be a quaint little village nestled into a hillside covered with trees, sort of like this one.

WOODY:

  4. Abounding in trees; wooded. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language)

  1. abounding with woods; wooded. (Random House Kennerman Webster's College Dictionary)

  2. abounding in trees. (WordNet by Farlex)

  The Free Dictionary

  1. abounding or overgroon with woods M-W

  1. abounding with wood; wooded Random House

  1. (Of an area of land) covered with trees:
  a woody dale ODO

  3. adjective (GROUP OF TREES) having many trees: They lived in a remote house set high on a woody hillside. CDO

  countryside boisé (Collins-Robert French and English Dictionary, Éd. 1985)

WOODSY:

  Relating to, characteristic of, or suggestive of the woods. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language)
  (Forestry) US and Canadian of, reminiscent of, or connected with woods: a woodsy mountain hideaway. (CED)
  abounding in trees (WordNet by Farlex)

  The Free Dictionary

  having many trees : covered with trees M-W

  North American Of, relating to, or characteristic of wood or woodlands:
  trails through woodsy countryside ODO

  (informal, especially North American English) covered with trees; connected with woods OLD

  US, informal 1. having many trees : covered with trees
  a woodsy area MWLD

  (US) countryside boisé (Collins-Robert French and English Dictionary, Éd. 1985)

Ngram


texts: Is there a neutral term for "politically correct"?

texts: Although no one disagrees with making speech impartial and not offensive, some people think that the process of "Political Correctness" has been carried too far, so the phrase is sometimes considered offensive or derogatory. Is there a better way of saying: "worded so as not to offend anyone"?


texts: "None of us is" vs "None of us are", Which is Correct?

texts:
Background
We have a motivational poster in our office that says:

None of us is as smart as all of us.

I think that it's grammatically incorrect, and here is my reasoning:

All of the tigers have spots.
All of us are here.
None of us are dead
yet.

The three examples all sound correct when using the plural "are", rather than "is".
Question
Unfortunately, some of my coworkers disagree with me. They believe that the quote is correct when it uses the word "is". So my question is this:
Is the motivational quote grammatically correct or should it say "all"?


texts: Often I find myself wanting to use 'totality' in a sentence that would otherwise work with 'total'. What are the correct usages of 'totality' given that both nouns describing the sum or completeness of something?


texts: Should we say less or fewer "fruit and vegetables"?

texts: Fruit is uncountable but vegetables is countable, so we should use less or fewer before them together?


texts:
What does "I'd be a * if anything" mean exactly?

Examples:

#1:

  Let's see, I bought a Phenom 1
  motherboard, and two Phenom II
  motherboards recently. Can't remember
  how many between 486 and the FXs I
  bought. I've probably owned more AMD
  motherboards than Intel, so
  personally, I'd be a fanboy of AMD
  if anything.

#2:

  He didn't know me personally and just
  assumed things and I felt more like
  I'd be a slave than a team member if
  anything.


texts:
Can someone explain to me the meaning of this sentence?

  I
  have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting
  over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of
  intelligence.

Does this sentence mean: I have trouble overcoming my limitations even when I don't consider the fact that God doesn't distribute the gift of intelligence evenly.

This sentence is taken from the book  How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.


texts:
The noun "vicinity" is used with the preposition "in" before it and sometimes with "of" after it:

There are a few hotels in the vicinity.
There is a good shop in the vicinity of the station.

Why isn't it correct to say "in the station vicinity" making a compound noun?
It's OK to say "the center of the city" and "the city center" but it's not the same with "vicinity"...


texts: Avunculicide is the act of killing an uncle. Is there an equivalent term for the act of killing an aunt?


texts: Should I conjugate into the preterit "occcur" in the following sentence?

texts:
Here is the sentence in question :
It hadn't occur to you that this person could potentially become a menace for you over the coming years ?


texts: Should I say I work "for" or "with" my supervisor?

texts:
I have heard people saying both "I work for him" and "I work with him" when they are talking about their supervisors. But, since these people were not native English speakers, I could not figure out which one was the correct one.

I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain this to me.


texts: Is it necessary to use personal pronoun with whatever, whoever etc. everytime?

texts:
Consider the following sentences:
1. Whatever you give, I'll eat.
2. Whatever you give, will be eaten.
Now consider this:
3.a) Whatever happens, happens for good.
3.b) Whatever happens, it happens for good.

4.a) Whoever comes first, will be talked politely to.
4.b) Whoever comes first, he will be talked politely to.

1 and 2 seem to be correct, but when it comes to 3 and 4, which of the parts are correct? I


texts:
If two people are debating, and one of them asked the other person a question and he got confused and couldn't answer this question. But he is impressed with this question.

Is there any verb describes this situation??


texts: Purchased at rates from/at rates ranging from

texts:
Question: Does it sound natural with or without "ranging from"? Or should it be omitted?
I've seen examples of sentences with the noun "price" and both variants - with/without "ranging from" - are possible, as far as I've seen.
Context: I want to explain to users that a certain number of projects have been ordered from freelancers within the range of, let's say, $15 - $20 per hour. The sentence will be similar to the following: 30% of {tasks/projects} were ordered at rates from/ranging from $10 to $20 per hour.
I'm not sure whether I can find a grammatical rule to apply here, so asking native speakers to confirm which variant (with/without "ranging from" will sound natural to you).


texts:
Should I write/say "Island of Guernsay", "Island of Madagascar", "Island of Taiwan", etc. or is it OK to write/say "Island Guernsay", "Island Taiwan", etc without "OF" as it is in German and Dutch?
(Sorry, English is not my native language)


texts: What do you call someone with no ambition?

texts:
I'm looking for a noun to use in a description of someone who genuinely works hard and does well, but with no direction. He has no goals, and is aimless. He just doesn't know what he wants to work towards so he generally just settles for something.

Definitely not lazy. Trying to finish this sentence: "...but he certainly didn't fit the stereotype of a (....)."


texts: What is the term which can be used to describe a person who is suffering from many phobias? I searched about this on Google but found nothing useful.


texts: "material flung", "drawn across its orbit"

texts:
The following quote is from "The Mars Mystery" by Graham Hancock.

  "The best suggestion is that the material flung at Mars was drawn across its orbit because of 'perturbations and collisions of bodies in the asteroid belt' probably caused by the atmospheric attraction of Jupiter".

The author is talking about possible causes of dichotomy on Mars, e.g the northern hemisphere is three kilometers lower. It's a pleasure to follow the clear and concise way of thinking of Graham Hancock. However, in the quote, I stumbled when I tried to imagine the description.

Is it said that:

1) Jupiter's [atmosphere] attraction caused the asteroids [from the asteroid belt, parts or the wholes] to collide, disintegrate, and fall onto the northern hemisphere of Mars.

2) Thrown mass of material of Mars (called 'material flung'), as a result of numerous bombardments of only the northern hemisphere, started orbiting Mars or joined the asteroid belt.

I must confess that I have no idea what 'drawn across its orbit' might mean here if I tried to apply my rudimentary knowledge of astronomy.


texts: "Would-be" meaning "potential": must it be hyphenated?

texts: Suppose I write, "Giving exams in class thwarts would-be cheaters."  Must "would-be" have a hyphen?  Or would it be preferable to write it without a hyphen?  (It seems easier to read with the hyphen.)


texts: People who tell me vs. people telling me

texts:
I'm wondering if there's any difference, be it semantically, grammatically and so on, between phrases like:

I hate people telling me what to do. / I hate people who tell me what to do.
They're just a bunch of guys having too much free time / They're just a bunch of guys who have too much free time.
I have a soft spot for girls wearing skirts. / I have a soft spot for girls who wear skirts.


texts: How does 'give it up for ...' mean 'clap for ...'?

texts:
Well, now I understand that this is so, but the first few times I heard this, I had no idea what 'giving it up' meant.

What is the derivation? How do you get from 'giving it up' to 'clapping'?


texts:
Imagine that a boat belonged to three separate people, who each paid an equal share for the boat. Which one is correct?

"That is Kyle, Joey, and Mark's boat."
"That is Kyle's, Joey's, and Mark's boat."

I am oversimplifying the issue for the purpose of clarification, so I understand that in the example I could easily say "That boat belongs to Kyle, Joey, and Mark." What I am actually writing is a lot more complicated, so I am looking simply for the answer of the apostrophe issue in the hypothetical situation above.


texts:
What do you mean that it's wrong?

In the above sentence, is the that-clause an adverbial clause? Or a complement? What is the syntactic function of the string "(that) it's wrong"?

In other words, what are the grammatical relations in the sentence?

Here are more real examples from COCA (with and without the that):

  OK, what do you mean that your children are trying to kill you?
  What do you mean that it's believed that's where he got off?
  What do you mean you found him?
  What do you mean they run the show?


texts: What is the name of an entry in an index? For example, an element of a taxonomy is a taxon and elements of a taxonomy are taxa. What is the equivalent for an index?


texts: "Who has you doing that?" Can you explain the grammatical structure, and correctness of this? To me, a native speaker, and teacher, it is perfectly acceptable. However a non native speaker, also a teacher, questioned the correctness of it. As explaining grammar can be a bit of a task, can anyone help?


texts: What is the correct term for paper that has become wet and deformed as it dried out?

texts:
If a paper is submerged in water for some time then left to dry, most often the paper will be deformed. It won't be as flat as it was originally, but wavy (and not wrinkled).

This is most apparent in water damaged books:

Q: What is the correct terminology for this type of deformation?


texts: How to say correctly in the past "login" or "logined"?

texts:
A person who perform login to site. This person:

"was login" to site
"logined" to site

Which version is correct?


texts: What is the general term for animal "rituals"?

texts:
I am having a hard time figuring out whether there's a good word for the concept of different animal recurring behavior, such as mating rituals, seasonal migration, nest building, and other "rituals" that animals generally do and redo usually based on what kind of animal they are.

It could be seasonal, such as described above, or even generational, such as when some flying birds always teach their younglings to fly by being coerced out of the nest, and sea turtles hatch on the beach running towards the shoreline. So the repetition is key and is based on a given animal group's biology and social structure.

The best word I've found so far has been "Ritual" based on its usage in mating rituals, but I wanted to know if it is appropriate to use it for general recurring animal behavior given its religious connotations etymologically. I'm also curious about, and I wouldn't mind being enlightened of any possible industry-/faculty-specific terminology that describes and fits what I'm looking for with one caveat; The more well known and simple a word or phrase, the better.

I hope my description of what I am looking for is clear.
Thank you in advance for any help


texts: I had never heard the word inkhorn before I saw it used in https://english.stackexchange.com/a/62354/13812. The NOAD says that this is a historical noun meaning a small portable container for ink, and that as an adjective it denotes pedantic words or expressions used only in academic writing. How did we get from the one to the other?


texts: An idiom for deriving pleasure from another's suffering

texts:
I believe it is what the Germans call "Schadenfreude". English itself has no such equivalent word. (Although it has been adopted as a loanword.)

Does an idiom exist that describes it?


texts: What does type or print name and title mean?

texts:
I am filling out my articles of organization to form an LLC and in the last part it says to type or print my name and title.

I know what the type or print part means but I'm confused with what the title part means.


texts:
By-products is a secondary product derived from a production process of primary product.

Is there anything like tri-product, four, five .. Nth?

Thank you.


texts:
Here's a related question where this came up. I made an assumption in my answer that I want to bring to discussion.
I know the rule for adjective order:

Opinion     Size    Age     Shape   Colour  Material    Origin  Purpose

Now, how and where exactly does weight fit in here? Does it belong to any of the mentioned categories or can we sort it between two of them?
As in:

This is a beautiful and heavy glass paperweight.
The app is fast and lightweight.


texts: Teknonymy in English:referring to someone by the name of their child

texts:
In Arabic , we have a way to call people using using their child name or even a name they chose. The name will be as follows :

(Abu)+ name of child
Abu means father of

(Um)+ name of child
Um means mother of

Is there a similar way to call people in English?


texts: Do most native speakers understand most idioms?

texts:
I wrote to a friend, who is a native speaker of English about visiting her father. I wrote

  Should I give him a ring before visiting?

Here giving someone a ring is an English idiom which means calling someone on the telephone. However, from her reply, she apparently did not understand me:

  Just give him a card of encouragement.

I am learning English as a foreign language and it is discouraging when using a learnt idiom to a native speaker, he/she does not understand. This happened in an e-mail conversation so my pronunciation is not the reason.

Should I keep using idioms like this? Do most native speakers understand most English idioms?


texts:
I'm an American who lives in Germany and hear many kinds of English spoken by many nationalities.

Just as "one can either write organization or organisation but the main point is to be consistent" I have also generally applied this rule to my speech.

Especially when I was teaching English I would make it a point to not say phrases such as:

  Spot on!

even though I thought it was cool. And instead of saying:

  Shall we go?

I would say:

  Do you want to go?

I can imagine if you are teaching English or if you are representing a company from London or New York or Sydney you have a certain obligation to speak as if you come from that place.

In what contexts is it important to maintain your accent or dialect?


texts:
That construction has always bothered me.

People will say it's because you envy a person not a thing, and that on the surface is okay, but then why isn't it I envy you for your thing, or because of your thing?
Why is it okay, in this particular construction, to drop the preposition?  It reminds me of the french "Once upon a time" construction: Il était une fois une vache qui rit. which also seems like it's missing something.

On the other hand there are also examples on the internet that do include a preposition. For example:

  I envy you for your lovely car.

and this makes it more confusing because now it seems like it's more of a personal choice and I wonder even more why they are both allowed and which came first?


texts:
In past tense works (novels, etc.) is there a place for some present tense verbs, such as "think" or "know" or "was."

Example: I turned to leave, and he didn't try to stop me. I think I surprised him. I know I surprised myself.

This sounds much more natural to me than "I thought I surprised him." Is there a word for this? A rule? Would you rephrase it? If so, how? Thank you.


texts:
I am studying in Korean.

In my grammar book, below sentences are called 'participle phrase'

1) Seeing police officer, he ran away.

2) Buying it online, you have to use a paypal.

3) Realizing his mistake, he apologized immediately.

But when I type 'Participle clause', I really surprised.

Because I totally don't know the detail meaning among 'Participle phrase', 'Participle clause', 'Participle construction'.

What are differences among 'Participle phrase', 'Participle clause', 'Participle construction'?


texts: A slang term derived from another slang term

texts: Is there a word that describes a slang term that was, itself, derived from (or riffs on) another slang term? I was under the impression that the term Snowclone described ths phenomenon, but it seems to be about something else entirely.


texts: Ways to ensure the interlocutor understands you

texts:
What are the best ways to ask an interlocutor whether he understands you in different  circumstances (formal conversation, informal talk)?

What are the best ways to answer such questions meaning "I understand," "I understand and agree," and "I don't understand"?

What are the best ways to let the speaker know that you understand him and/or agree , or you don't understand when you were not asked?


texts: Difference between "humble" and "modest"

texts: What is the difference between humble and modest? I saw one difference here. Is that true? Any other difference?


texts:
I have seen an episode of Mindhunter S1:E9, in on the scenes there is a sentence that has driven my attention:

A: "I'm not like them"

B: "No?"

A: "Them f*ckers are crazy."

Is it possible to use an object pronoun (them) in the place of a subject pronoun (they)?


texts: My son is writing an essay about a dead hero. Most of the verb tense he used is in the PAST, as in, "He was a clever hero." To be consistent, he wrote, "He was an inspiring hero." However, it got me thinking if it would be better to say, "He is an inspiring hero," because he still continues to inspire others even after his death.


texts: Is there any difference between "closure" and "closing"

texts:
Is there any difference between the two in general usage? Can I use the two interchangeably in the context of talking about the end of a business?
For example,

The closure took place at the end of last year.

Can I replace "closure" with "closing"?


texts: "Didn't", "did not", "don't" and "do not" problem

texts:
Though English is for us all, I think it's not for me.

I get confused every time I read books or hear people speak the words didn't, did not, don't and do not. I cannot figure out the right word to use: they all seem alike.

Would you please make me understand where the difference lies?


texts: What term is a hypernym for "story" and "article"?

texts:
I need a single word that can be used to mean article (e.g. something printed in a magazine to inform readers or to argue something) and also story (i.e. some fictional short story printed in a literature publication).

Sometimes story is used to refer to a newspaper article, but readers will be confused if I simply use story as they might think I am excluding other types of non-fiction articles.

What term can I use to describe both kinds of writing?


texts:
I’m watching Auction Kings and a lady from Atlanta (who does not have much of a southern US accent) is putting a calliope up for auction. What caught my attention was the way she pronounce it: /kæliːop/ (cal-ee-ope) instead of /kəˈlaɪ.əpiː/ (call-I-oh-pee).

It didn’t stop there either, otherwise I would have chalked it up to it being just her unfamiliarity with the word. The owner of the gallery, Paul (who has a mild southern accent, similar to Matthew McConaughey), pronounced it the same way during several shots of him filmed after the auction, and numerous other times during the episode. In fact, in one scene, Paul pronounced it like that in front of a musical-instrument expert who was called in to appraise it, but the expert did not correct him (I note that the expert did not say the word at all throughout the segment, possibly to avoid embarrassing Paul on television).

Two of the bidders also pronounced it like that as did the owner again.

I particularly noted the pronunciation because this show was the third time this week that I heard it pronounced this way. The auctioneer however pronounced the way I expected.

(This reminds me of when I was young and saw the name Penelope on paper for the first time. I read the whole book pronouncing her name in my head as Pen-eh-lope—and thinking that the girl was unusual because of her strange name.)

I checked several sites (Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, Wikipedia) and none of them list an alternate spelling.

I thought that maybe it’s just a case of people hearing a new term pronounced incorrectly and repeating it, but Paul and the gallery manager pronounced it like that several times after the auctioneer pronounced it correctly.

Is there a regional (specifically southern US) pronunciation of the word calliope?


texts: non-idiomatic synonym for "sanity check"

texts:
Is there a non-idiomatic word or phrase for "sanity check"?

(meaning a quick test of some system to see whether it is functioning properly)


texts:
What does it mean when too much formality can appear menacing?

Consider the responses when one asks for a lemon:

  "Do you have any lemons in your fridge?"

"No, sorry"
"Nah"
"No, I don't think so."
"Nope."
"Why? Do you need one?"

These responses seem normal or even friendly for some reason. Yet, if I ask,

  "Do you have any lemons in your fridge?"

and the response is

"No."
"No, I don't."
"Why?"

These sentences seem different in tone. Something about their length makes them seem much more hostile. Is there a name for what I'm talking about?


texts: Do I use "is" or "are" in this sentence?

texts:
What strategies is your school using to the reduce summer melt?
OR
What strategies are your school using to the reduce summer melt?


texts: After introducing an acronym, how faithfully must I stick to its use?

texts:
My average scientific paper contains about a dozen of acronyms. Some of them are really helpful: for example, it much more pleasant to write fMRI instead of functional magnetic resonance imaging.
However, I really dislike writing long sentences containing several acronyms. It makes the content difficult to understand for those who are not that familiar with my (sub-)field.
It would be sometimes better to write the acronym in full. However, how "acceptable" is this after introducing an acronym?
In long papers, I would also sometimes like to write out the acronym in full in a new section (e.g., when moving from methods to results and discussion). Some co-authors do not like that.
What is the correct thing to do?
(The use of acronyms – at all – is typically partly dictated by the journal I submit to. Most of them ask to use an acronym instead of writing the name in full if it appears at least thrice in a manuscript.)


texts: Is 'that' required? Does it make a difference?

texts:
I want that he become a doctor.
I want he become a doctor.

Is there any difference between these?


texts:
I'm not a native English speaker. What is the difference between these terms, and which is more common?

"contractors" vs. "construction companies"

If I want to say:

  "It's a software vendor for ..."

, which is more suitable and what is the difference? If I would use "contractors", would anybody understand that it's software for construction companies?

Generally I have always been a bit confused about the term "contractor": while it also means "entrepreneur" or somebody who takes on a contract/job in general, I figure it does not necessarily need to be in the construction field.

Why, from a historical perspective maybe, has "contractor" nevertheless become a term commonly used and understood as "construction contractor"/"home improvement contractor" when somebody just talks about "contractor" - depending on the context of course.

Still, I am confused because the explanation:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/contractor
does not say anything about construction, and Google Translate shows this:

While none of the explanations (two yellows marks at the bottom) say anything about "construction" or "home improvement", the translation clearly translates to German "Bauunternehmen" (which means "Construction company" in German).


texts: Is this "whether" clause modifying a verb? [Whether (or not) issue]

texts:
I have recently read through both "Whether or not" vs. "whether" and an article I found within it, found at http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/whether-or-not/

Using those resources, I have learned that if a "whether" clause modifies a verb, "or not" is needed: They will play tomorrow whether or not it rains. (The clause modifies "play.")

Would the following sentence use "or not" also, because of what I am assuming is an adverbial role: "Putting these videos on YouTube will be a good opportunity for figuring out whether or not a wider audience will enjoy them."

Or would the sentence not use the "or not?"


texts: Computer-related terms that have been adopted in common English

texts:
What terms that are encountered primarily in computer science are now used in regular English, whether the original meaning has been strictly preserved or not?

I'm curious about the linguistic influence of information technology in everyday life and have made the question community wiki.


texts:
Please consider the follow two sentences:

It is hard to agree that by increasing sports facilities is the best
way to improve public health.

The best way to improve public health is by increasing the number of
sports facilities.

Why the first sentence does not need the preposition "by" while the second one does.


texts: Why is it "sequacity" and not "sequenicity"?

texts:
I'm trying to form a sentence along the following lines:

"the difference between sequence and synchronicity is important when it comes to understanding..."

I'm unsure of the proper use of the word "sequence" in this sentence. I'm comparing it to "synchronicity" and immediately thought that the word "sequence", would become "sequenicity". But the dictionary tells me different, "sequacity". I'm not debating that it isn't the correct word, as the word "sequenicity" doesn't exist, it's just not what I expected.


texts: Confusion about some lines in "The Children's Song" by Rudyard Kipling

texts:
In Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Children's Song" from Puck of Pook's Hill, what do the lines in bold mean?

  Teach us to rule ourselves alway,
  Controlled and cleanly night and day;
  That we may bring, if need arise,
  No maimed or worthless sacrifice

  Teach us to look in all our ends
  On Thee for judge, and not our friends;
  That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed
  By fear or favour of the crowd.


texts: Use of 'must have' for obligation in the future

texts:
I have noticed there is a way of using 'must have' to denote finished obligation in the future - somewhat akin to the 'future perfect tense'. An example of what I mean:

  " I must have finished this exercise by tomorrow"

To me, "I must finish this exercise by tomorrow" would be just sufficient, but the above example is especially confusing because it seems to make perfect sense, and yet it seems to violate a rule of thumb I picked up, which is that 'must have' can only be used to express a deduction or an assumption concerning the past.

  eg: "He must have dropped the pen by mistake " meaning 'I believe most certainly he did'.

All the references I checked do not cover this particular use of 'must + past-perfect'. If there were no time signifier - 'by tomorrow' in this example - I would squarely think that this is a statement about the past. So, at the risk of sounding finicky, would a native speaker ever use 'must + present perfect' in this sense?

References:
http://www.englishpage.net/showthread.php?16692-must-have-used-vs-should-have-used
http://www.englishpage.com/modals/must.html


texts: Is "and with" grammatical in this sentence?

texts:
We have registered nurses working on site with a nutritional background to provide weight loss advice to clients and with at least a 2 year working experience.

Is the part in bold grammatical?


texts: Difference between "infinite" and "indefinite"

texts:
I have found that infinite means "very great in amount of degree" while indefinite refers to "a period of time that has no defined end." Is there a subtle, nuanced difference between these terms, or are they interchangeable?

The one difference I noticed is the prefix de-. In the etymology, what special function does de- have here?


texts: How to "hyphenate" the word "standardize"?

texts:
I don't really know if the term "hyphenate" is the correct here, I use it because of my LaTeX usage. What I mean (and if there is a word for this, please let me know) is: how to break "standardize" into syllables?

I tried searching online, however I come with the forms I have in mind, but nothing for sure:

From Hyphenation 24:

From Poetry Soup:

From How Many Syllables:

How should one go on a proper method to "hyphenate" a word?


texts: Non positively connoted synonym for "highlights"

texts:
I'm producing a monthly report that put forward a selection of ten particular cases out of 70 individual entries. I filter for the 5 best and 5 worst cases according to various indicators.  The idea is to bring forward whatever is out of ordinary, bad or good.

So far, the report is called "highlights", but in all dictionnaries I've consulted the word has a positive connotation.

  Webster: something (such as an event or a detail) that is very
  interesting, exciting, or important : the best part of something

  Collins: the most exciting or memorable part of an event or period of
  time

  Oxford: An outstanding part of an event or period of time

It does not seem right to use it with "five worst sellers" of the month, for example, although it's fine with "five more profitable".

Ideally, I'm looking for a synonym of highlights  but that could be also used for negative stuff. A synonym devoid of connotation –if it can be still called a synonym ?

For native speakers, in the following  list of synonyms I found (from Collins+Oxford), what would be the word that sound to you  the less connotated  in a positive or negative manner, what sounds the most neutral ?

  emphasize, stress, accent, feature, set off, show up,
  underline, spotlight, play up, accentuate, flag, foreground, focus
  attention on, call attention to, give prominence to, bring to the
  fore,high point, peak, climax, feature, focus,high point, high spot, best part, climax, culmination, peak, pinnacle, height, top, acme, zenith, apex, summit, apogee, apotheosis, crowning moment, high water mark, most memorable part, most outstanding feature; Latin ne plus ultra

Or , would you have another proposition ?


texts:
Watching the middle-aged Jimmy Connors defeat the middle-aged Martina
  Navratilova at Las Vegas last week, was not so much a tennis match as a fracas in the
  sex war.
  The 14,000 audience was split along gender lines with each victorious shot being
  acclaimed as proof of either male superiority or female equality.
  In the end, even though Connors was handicapped by having only one ball to serve
  and a 3ft wider court to receive in, he walked off with $500,000 prize money by
  vindicating the obvious: that at the top level of tennis men are faster and more
  powerful than women. Feminists have only God to blame for this unfairness.

Could you explain the last sentence 'Feminists have only God to blame for this unfairness'?


texts:
I've seen "turn thrice widdershins" (or variations thereof, such as "turn around thrice widdershins") several times online (1, 2, 3). It seems to be Gaelic in origin, having to do with fairies or witchcraft, but I can't find any concrete information about where this phrase actually came from or how it's significant.

Any idea as to the origins of this?


texts: Synonym of "incorrect" with as little negative connotation as possible

texts:
I'm describing the results of an experiment I did, and I'd like to find a word to put in the blank (I'd also accept alternative ways of phrasing this statement generally):

  We ran a computer simulation, using a very simplified model. The simulation predicted X. When we performed the experiment, we saw that the result was actually Y, showing that our simplified model was indeed _____.

In a different context, I'd normally go with "flawed" or "incorrect", but I'd prefer to cast this in as neutral a light as possible. After all, I didn't do anything wrong; I knew that using a simplified model would likely mean the results of the actual experiment would be somewhat different. If there is a single word that captures the idea "paints an incomplete picture",  I'd probably like that.


texts:
Ben Horowitz tweets, "These annotations have completely convinced me that Newsweek blew the story."

Does this mean that Newsweek was correct, and was the first to the scoop? Or does this mean that Newsweek blew it, got the story wrong?


texts: What is the usage and etymology of phrases such as "Grumpy McGrumpface"

texts:
There is a bunch of phrases such as
Grumpy McGrumpface
Fatty McFatface
F***y McF***face
Sh***y McSh**face

all with some thousand google hits, Trumpy McTrumpface, or software such as Bloaty McBloatface.
How are those phrases used, and how did they enter common usage in the first place?
EDIT: I have learned that this is a phrasal template.


texts: What does a native English speaker think of when he sees the word "commensurable"?

texts:
I am learning the number theory. I am not a native English speaker. I encountered the word commensurable from time to time. Such as:

  the Pythagoreans discovered when they found that the diagonal of
  certain geometric fgures may be incommensurable with their sides.

I guess I need to understand the motivation/origin/construction of the word commensurable to get its real meaning.

ADD 1

As I googled, there can be 3 meanings as below. I think the 1 is reasonable based on the word's origin. But how come it leads to ratio in 2 and especially, ratio of integers in 3??? What's the mind flow of a native English speaker for this?


texts: Can 'more + [adjective] + [plural noun]' be ambiguous sometimes?

texts:
The government would have to take more fundamental steps to address
  the minority's disquiet.

Is this sentence ambiguous? May the implied meanings include:

The government should increase the number of such fundamental
steps.
The government should step up the fundamentality of
[future] steps.


texts: Words are not sparrows; once they have flown they cannot be recaptured

texts: The title of my question is a Russian proverb, for which I cannot think of an analog. All the examples I have seen on this website refer to actions rather than specifically speech. Can anyone give me an example of a colloquial phrase about the irreversibility of speech?


texts: Does "is that ok for you?" means the same of "does that work for you?"

texts:
Do they mean exactly the same?
Is one form more formal/casual than other?

Can I say one of them in a email that is not very formal?


texts: Is there one words or a better phrase to specify daily need goods

texts: like something to describe the commodities we use on a regular basis like stationery , coffee mugs bags, etc.


texts: Medicine language: triage and color codes

texts: I found that in many hospitals, in order to classify patients' health conditions, standard expressions like "code red", "code blue" etc. are used. These expressions do not follow the standard "order of adjectives (adj+noun)" rule. Could you kindly explain this?


texts: "I stay in Canada" vs. "I will stay in Canada"

texts:
Situation: I am in Canada and will go back to Hong Kong next week. So, I want to tell my friends that "I will stay in Canada until the 6th of March".

Question: I do not know if the word will should be used here. I am still in Canada, so, I think here present tense should be used, therefore, it should be written as "I stay in Canada until the 6th of March".

However, a future time "6th of March" is also mentioned in the same sentence. Therefore, future tense seems also reasonable. So, the correct one should be "I will stay in Canada until the 6th of March."

So, what kind of tense should I use here? This is very simple sentence structure for any native speaker, but for me, I still get confused.


texts: How did "replace" come to mean "put something in the place of"?

texts:
Replace has several meanings, but a common one is "to put something in the place of," as in, "After drinking your cola, I replaced it with a beer."

The way in which replace, which seems to most obviously mean "to place again," came to be used in this manner is a mystery to me.


texts: Is there a similar English phrase for this Tamil proverb - "Lavish outside home yet starving inside of it"?

texts:
In Tamil, a south Indian language, there is a saying which roughly translates into English as:

Lavish outside home, starving inside of it.

Background :
This proverb has a mocking tone and indicates people who project themselves to be very rich and appear to spend lavishly on property and things, making their neighbors and the community around them envious of their stature. But in reality, whatever they are spending (or appear to spend) is because they have borrowed huge sums of money from other people and financial institutions. So much in fact that they are unable to feed their own family, probably skip a meal every day but when they step outside their home they try to appear posh and well-to-do.
Some close friends and relatives who know what's really going on with these people use this form of expression.

Generally, I tend to find equivalent English proverbs that have the same tonality and convey the meaning as is but this particular one has been eluding me for long. Any suggestions, even if they don't convey the entire meaning?


texts: I was watching Ted 2 and then Morgan said "Shall we get started?", and I was wondering what is the difference between "Shall we start?" and "Shall we get started?"


texts: How to tell if an adjective is attributive or predicative [EFL context]?

texts: I've been reviewing my grammar lately and I feel a bit stuck in adjectives. Yeah, I know it's not a big deal of a topic, but I think I need some help here because I'm in the language teacher role. I do understand how attributive and predicative adjectives work, yet I can't find an easier way for learners to differentiate between both types - especially if such differentiation doesn't exist in their mother tongues. And yeah, I know I can just explain the whole thing to them, but what if they come across other adjectives they don't know how to use? I just feel a good dictionary might do the trick, that is, with a tagging system that tells adjectives apart according to that syntactic feature: pointing out if they're attributive, predicative or both. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary online sometimes does this -click here and here for examples-, but it seems to me that a more specialised source might be the answer to this dilemma. Well, I'd like to know what your take on this issue is. Suggestions are welcome. Thanks!


texts: Phrases like "Fifth Beatle" or "Fourth estate"

texts: Is there a term for phrases like Fifth Beatle when there's four main Beatles, fourth estate when there were originally only three estates, or Mongolia's Third neighbor policy when it only has two neighbours? Basically, the (n + 1)th item when there's only n items.


texts: Can a part of a idiom be modified? (“On a roll” becomes “on a big roll”)

texts: Is 'on a big roll' whose  base form is the idiom 'on a roll' acceptable?


texts: What's the word for an incompetent athlete?

texts:
What would you call an athlete who is weak, slow-moving, in bad shape etc. As in, for example,

  "No wonder he won in a fight with Kyle, that guy is just a ___."

As you can tell, I am looking for an informal term, so a plain-vanilla 'weakling' won't really do.

In Russia, for instance, you could hear such a person being referred to as 'булка', which literally means 'a bun'(like a cake).