texts: Is there a name for the use of symbols in place of curse words, for example #$@&%*!?


texts: Origin of "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."?

texts:
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. - Confucius

What is the origin, and evolution, of this popular quote? It has a nice air of pseudo-profundity to it; one problem though: Confucius never said this. Quite understandable, since he's like the Chinese version of Einstein when it comes to quote misattributions. There's also a bit of absurdity in the first two sentences - why is sight, rather than sound, vital to memory?

Most Chinese sources would point at this alternate phrase as the origin, not by Confucius but by Xunzi, which is pretty close as he was a big Confucian:

  不闻不若闻之，闻之不若见之，见之不若知之，知之不若行之；学至于行之而止矣。

A rough translation: "Not hearing is not as good as hearing, hearing is not as good as seeing, seeing is not as good as knowing, knowing is not as good as acting; true learning continues until it is put into action."

The two quotes are very similar; they both argue for the value of learning by doing, but you can see the slight differences in the process: the misattributed English quote talks about memory (forget/remember), whereas no such thing exists in the Xunzi quote.

This leads to two possibilities:

It was from Xunzi, just liberally translated and slightly misattributed.
It was from someone else; after all it's a pretty common sentiment to express.

What was the first instance of this phrase in its current form or similar, and who said/wrote it? Are there any earlier forms of this phrase that hint towards an origin?


texts: What is the term for taking it out on someone even though you will be harmed by this too?

texts:
When you are so mad at someone that you make a bad decision, even though you will be harmed by it as well, in order to harm that person; is there a good term for this?

For example burning $100 because he owns $20 of it.


texts: What is the difference between "wondrous" and "wonderful"?

texts:
I have done some research, and I have a hypothesis, largely based on an answer to this same question on Quora. First, allow me to state my research. I looked up the definitions of these two words on Merriam Webster. The definitions are close if not synonymous.

  wonderful

  1 : exciting wonder : marvelous, astonishing  · a sight wonderful to behold
  2 : unusually good : admirable · did a wonderful job

  wondrous

  : that is to be marveled at : extraordinary · a wondrous feat

The first definition of wonderful is quite similar to the definition of wondrous. So I don't think we can draw a distinction just using the first sense given for wonderful. The second sense, however, is a bit different. There is a difference between something that is "extremely good" and something that excites wonder. The latter is more poetic and emotional.

This Quora answer seems to touch on this. It claims that the two words are synonymous, but that wondrous is better reserved for poetic and emotional situations.

Hypothesis

This has led me to form a hypothesis, and I would like to know whether you think it correct. Has the word wonderful shed its first meaning and adopted the second? I am referring in particular to the meanings given within the Merriam-Webster definition.

Does wonderful have less to do with things that excite wonder, nowadays, in American English, and more to do with things that are extremely good? Does wondrous do a better job of capturing that lost meaning of wonderful, i.e. things that excite wonder?

Second hypothesis

If wonderful has indeed shed its first meaning of "exciting wonder", then I would guess this is because the word is simply too cliché. I would assume the same is true for words like amazing, awesome and awful. It would be more poignant to say that someone was in awe, or that something was awe-inspiring or mesmerizing, as these words are used less often.


texts: Will readers easily understand the following sentence, or should I express it differently?

texts:
What happened, happened, and the past cannot be changed.

Are the commas correctly used? Also, I'm concerned some readers will believe I mistakenly typed the word "happened" twice. Is there a better way to express this, or is it fine?


texts:
I am currently working on a fictitious legal system and am now looking for a single word describing a breach of privacy, in the sense of a home invasion but also, if possible, indecent exposure (as in a breach of one's own privacy).

I could (unsurprisingly) not find a legal term that fits.

It would be ideal if it were a noun so it could be placed in the following context:

  The accused committed an act of _____

I am aware of the fact that a fictitious system would allow for any word, but am curious to hear you response.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome and I hope you enjoy the challenge.


texts:
I was having a chat with a friend earlier, at some point he said "you should have a score of 180, bit short of that aren't you? ;)", at which I responded with "I figure you're shorter :D".

Now, I guess this phrase can be interpreted in two ways:

He is shorter than me to that score, hence he is closer to it;
He is shorter of it than me, hence he has a lower score.

Which of the two interpretations is correct?

I get that the first interpretation may be correct when we are talking about a goal: "I am short of a goal" means that I am at some distance from achieving it, whereas "I am shorter than you of that same goal" might mean that I am at a closer distance from it compared to the other person (possibly?). I'm not really sure (that's why I am asking here in the end, we could not figure out who was "right").

Also, is relative superlative even allowed in this instance?

As my name suggests I am not a native speaker, so every bit of help is gonna be useful. Thanks!


texts: Is there a word for a document with structure, such as a W2 or a lease?

texts:
Is there a word for a document with syntactic structure, that is, where the layout of the document encodes information (via, for instance, tables or the placement of labels)?

"Form" suggests that the document needs to be filled in. A form is an example of what I am talking about, but not the right word.

Other examples could be a passport, a receipt, etc.


texts: Why was the indirect speech not used in the following sentence?

texts:
The witness said that he heard two bullets being shot before he noticed two men running down the street

The sentence contains both, reported speech and sequel of actions. Therefore I believe that pluperfect tense should have been used, however, this sentence origins from a C2 - Level English book, therefore I am confused.


texts:
Is there any logical explanation for how the phrase making out came together?

I know that it has sexual implications (at least kissing, with the intent go further), I just can't imagine its ancestry.


texts:
Is this sentence correct?

"I wracked my brain, trying to put the timeline together. Just minutes before she’d died, Lara had gone to the flower shop down the road."

Or just it be: "I wracked my brain, trying to put the timeline together. Just minutes before she died, Lara had gone to the flower shop down the road."

Thank you for your help!


texts: Why do we say ‘I have "a" husband (wife)?

texts:
Though it may sound a very primitive question to native English speakers, the use of ‘article’ is always the greatest headache to me because we don’t have this part of speech in our language system (I don’t think Chinese language has it either).

I’ve vaguely learned the rules of articles in English grammar books, but am not really familiar with it.

So when I found the following sentence in the New York Times’ article (December 21), titled, “Looking for a Place to Die,” I was puzzled whether I can say “I have a wife/ She has a husband,” or "I have wife / She has husband."

  The patient was a fairly young woman and she’d had cancer for as long as her youngest child had been alive. She had another child, too, a few years older, and a husband whose drawn eyes and tense frame bore the strain of trying to keep it all together. Extended family lived far away and couldn’t be brought closer. The husband and kids lived more than an hour’s drive from the hospital.

When I come across the phrase “She had another child and a husband, I felt like she had one of several husbands she had. Theoretically, you can’t have multiple husbands (or wives) at a time.

When you simply say “I have (she has) husband,” what article should I use, a, the, or non-article?

Follow-up question:

Which is correct, “I have a husband who keeps saying ‘I love you.’ to me," and “I have the husband who keeps saying ‘I love you.’ to me.”?

I’m asking this, because I still remember that I was told at English class of high school more than 60 years ago that the definite article should be used for antecedent (husband in this case) whenever followed by modifier (that) clause.


texts:
If movement is meant as in a political movement can one say:

To introduce a movement

Or would another verb be more appropriate?


texts: The act of using a cliché with little consideration for what you're actually saying

texts:
How best to say this?

I can think of "carelessly" or "throwaway" but suppose the following sentence:

"Such clichés are often used with little thought"

Is there a better way to say this? Something in my mind keeps nagging that there is. The implication I want to evoke is that the clichés are overused, often without real understanding of what is being said.


texts: Is there a term to refer to the potential of something to be repeated (or not)?

texts:
Like, say an ordered pair can have repeats such as (1,1), whereas a set can't - {1,1} isn't a valid set.

I don't mean a word to describe whether a thing has or has not been repeated, but whether it's possible for a particular thing to be repeated. (1,0) is an ordered pair without any repeat elements, but because it's an ordered pair, it's elements could've been repeated. A set's elements would never have this possibility.

The closest word I could come up with is just "repetitive", but that's not quite right - saying (1,0) was repetitive would likely raise eyebrows, so I've since dismissed it.


texts: Why have English words adopted the feminine version of French words with -if endings?

texts:
There seems to be a pattern with English words using the ending -ive to have been adopted from the French female variant.

Eg: [english <- french(masculine/feminine)]

active <- act(if/ive)
massive <- mass(if/ive)
motive <- mot(if/ive)
abusive <- abus(if/ive)
competitive <- compétit(if/ive)
positive <- posit(if/ive)
progressive <- progress(if/ive)

Why is it that the English language more closely resembles the French feminine variants over the masculine ones?


texts:
With the help of dictionaries, I’ve assembled a list of letters that can be silent in English:

  For most letters, I found more than one example, what are the other examples of a silent z (rendezvous) and silent m (mnemonic)?
  Also, If we can think of examples of silent Qs or Vs.

Foyer- ?, am I right about the silent 'r', though there are no words in American English. However, I read it somewhere that BrE has some silent Rs.


texts: Comparing two juxtaposed elements by way of clause inversion?

texts:
What is this sort of sentence/style/literary device called?  I'm sure it has a name.

  There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness
  without love.

It appears that a point is being inverted to circularly tie to the initial point.  I just don't know how to label this device.

Perhaps some more context:

  There is no ice cream without vanilla, and there is no vanilla without ice
  cream.

or

  Cookies are good, but there is no good without cookies.

I'd clarify this better if I had a clue of what's actually going on here, but to help you understand: people usually create statements this way to sound wise and/or righteous while causing a person to think (and it's usually a trivial attempt, for the record).  It's a cliche style.


texts: Brackets upon brackets? (Mine vs. Supreme Court Justice's)

texts:
I'm doing some homework.  I am quoting from an administrative law decision.  The hearing officer who wrote the decision quoted from a Supreme Court dissenting opinion, which quoted from a previous decision (Burlington School Committee v. Dept Ed., 471 U. S. 359 (1985)).  The dissenting opinion was written with impeccable scholarly style, as you can imagine.

But the hearing officer was a little bit sloppy.  He left out the Burlington citation.  I want to add this, in brackets, for completeness.  (Otherwise, the reader would wonder why there were quotation marks at that point in the text.)  I know how to do this -- with brackets!

But there are already some brackets present.  The person who put the original brackets there was Justice Breyer.

How do I distinguish between my brackets and Justice Breyer's?  Or is it okay to mix apples and oranges and make no distinction between my brackets and his?

Here's what I've got (with my bracketed material in bold):

  The practical significance of the Act's participatory rights and procedural protections may be seriously diminished if parents are unable to obtain reimbursement for the costs of their experts. In IDEA cases, experts are necessary….  [W]ithout cost reimbursement for prevailing experts, 'the child's right to a free appropriate public education, the parents' right to participate fully in developing a proper individualized education plan (IEP), and all the procedural safeguards would be less complete' [quoting from Burlington School Committee v. Dept Ed., 471 U. S. 359 (1985)]…[and] is a far cry from the level playing field that Congress envisioned.

In case you want to see the original publications:

The hearing decision is Case Number 16795, decided March 24, 2017, decided by Brad H. Rosken, Esq., which was published by the State of New York in the first of the 2017 zip files here (see 97507-20170324.pdf).
Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion is here.
The Burlington decision quoted by Justice Breyer is here.


texts: make you remember or make you remembered

texts:
Please, someone help me to learn which one is correct...

He will make you remember or He will make you remembered.


texts: Is the following expression correct and idiomatic?

texts:
If it's not correct or idiomatic, can you please mention which would be the best way to say that we don't want the second person to be sorry.

"Brother, no need to be apologetic"


texts: What's the difference between "I must help her" and " I have to help her"

texts:
To me "I must help her" sounds wrong. I feel that I would rarely say this.

On one website
  they say that 'must' is more for personal obligations (e.g. I must help my mother.) and that 'have to' is for external obligations (e.g. my boss says I have to finish the report.)

Is it that simple (and vague)?
Or does anyone have a better explanation?


texts:
What is the difference between might have and could have?

He might have come. He might have studied.
He could have come. He could have studied.

How would you describe a possibility? For example:

It's possible that he came from a different culture.
It's possible that he come from a different cutlure.


texts: Is 'botifed' the right word to say humans are behaving more like robots?

texts:
From this article:
"We generally view the machine/human divide as a one-way street of advancing technology. Machines, we are repeatedly told, are becoming more human-like—but humans are also becoming more botifed."

https://qz.com/944470/bots-are-sounding-more-like-humans-but-humans-are-sounding-more-like-bots/

Even though it is not a word, I would have expected 'botified', but 'botifed' feels totally unusual.


texts: "like it like you" vs "like it, like you"

texts:
My husband and I have discussed for an hour over this and we still haven’t agreed. Please help!
Do these two sentences have different meanings?

(A) She doesn’t like it like you.
(B) She doesn’t like it, like you.


texts: using plural when referring to cent and cents

texts: What is the correct grammar when saying cent or cents? Do you use plural when you are referring to more than 1.  For example do you say I have Five Hundred Dollars and 36 cents in the bank or Five Hundred Dollars and 36 "cent".


texts: Why is "biblical" the only proper adjective to not use upper case?

texts:
Generally, when an adjective is derived from a proper noun, the adjective also has a capital initial, hence Googleable, Mancunian, British, and Shavian. (In contrast, verbs are not given capitals, hence to google and to hoover.) For some reason, though, biblical is an exception. The word Bible itself can be used as a normal noun (the fisherman’s bible, or a bible for cooks), but biblical clearly refers to the proper-noun usage of Bible, and yet it is not given a capital initial. Why is this?

(Actually, a minority of dictionaries do give a capital initial, but that usage is rare in my experience.)


texts:
In an article, I need to report my results in the form of a table. Also I want to show (exactly copy the same table in my article with proper citation) the corresponding table from a paper (showing the results of that paper) and then discuss the similarities and differences of the two tables (showing my results and the other papers' results). What verb should I use for showing the table of the other table? For example:
This table corresponds to Table 3 of paper X, which we report in Table IV.

The questions is that what verb I should use instead of report? something like copy? repeat? show?


texts: What do you call a colleague under you in the organisations structure?

texts:
I'm after a word that best describes a person that works under someone else.

For example, I had a joke with my manager saying that I have to do his bidding because I'm his subordinate. We laughed, then later thought what is the actual word for this relationship with a manager? Subordinate seems a little harsh for the context.

For context you could call this a standard office type work environment.

Edit: I'm in the UK.


texts:
Am I using the phrase if you will correctly here?

  To be honest, she wasn't much to look at, a plain Jane, if you will.


texts: Difference beween "oscillate", "vibrate", "shake", "quake", "resonate"?

texts:
[Background]

I am not a native English speaker. I am learning electronics and comes to some circuit that can "oscillate".

[Question]

I want to know the difference beween "oscillate", "vibrate", "shake", "quake" and "resonate".

And why a device is named "oscilloscope" rather than "shakescope" or "vibratescope"?


texts: What is the correct pronunciation of 'cwtch'?

texts:
I heard this word for the first time in this news item when a little girl pronounced it rhyming with 'clutch'. After her Dad died a company made a cuddle bear or 'memory bear' out of Dad's clothes for her.

When she 'cwtches' the bear, she is reminded of the way her father hugged her.

The word comes from Welsh and cwtchclothing.co.uk explain on their website that a 'cwtch' is not just a cuddle or hug, there is a background context of protection from the big wide world and its daunting nature. The Welsh word, transliterated into English (for English has no exact equivalent) means more than the physical act. It denotes the protective nature of the person performing the act.

The OED merely says it it is a cuddle or hug and the OED states that the word rhymes with 'butch'. The OED describes the word as 'Welsh English'.

So the OED disagrees with the spoken example of the little girl on the news item.

Can anyone tell me how properly to pronounce it ?


texts:
How can I simply understand the difference between "contain" and "include" ? I can kinda sense it but cannot explain it properly.
Include example:

Deaths from car accidents include all deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Because the human immunodeficiency virus was not classified as a cause of death until 1987, H.I.V. death totals before 1987 include all AIDS patient deaths, some of which may have been caused by accidents or diseases unrelated to H.I.V.; after 1987, totals include all H.I.V. deaths as defined by the N.C.H.S. Deaths from guns include homicides, suicides and accidental deaths from firearms, in addition to firearm deaths of undetermined intent. It excludes firearm deaths caused by legal intervention. Deaths from drug overdoses excludes deaths caused by substance use disorder or withdrawal, which accounted for an additional 2,573 deaths in 2015.

include examples
Contain example:

In addition to their active ingredients, sunscreens contain a preservative to prevent microbe growth (more on those preservatives below). Some sunscreen makers also boast that their formulas contain antioxidants, which are theoretically nice because they can soak up free radicals that can damage cells, but according to chemist Perry Romanowski, they’re not present in lotions in a quantity that can be helpful to you. Many sunscreens also contain added fragrance. You may want to avoid fragrances as they can be irritating, and what makes a good fragrance is largely personal. That said, the sunscreen chemicals themselves still have a scent, so it’s hard to find a sunscreen that smells like absolutely nothing.

contain examples


texts: What's a word for "newcomer to politics"?

texts: Incumbent means someone who currently holds office.  Is there a word that describes someone who is completely new to politics, like "rookie" does for sports.  I feel like "rookie" doesn't fit well with political office, though.


texts:
The phrase I don't know how to hyphenate is

asset type specific keywords and patterns

and the negated version

non asset type specific keywords and patterns.

I looked around and found this Q&A How would you hyphenate a 4 word phrase?, which more or less answers my question.
However, I'm using the phrases above as table headings in technical documentation, so I would prefer it to be more concise.


texts: Do dictionaries use polysemes in definitions without sufficiently explaining which sense/s is/are involved?

texts:
I want to know if the definitions grouped in a dictionary are stated in unequivocal language.

e.g. Wax has the following definition:

  [literary] become larger or stronger. his anger waxed

– Is only one sense of "stronger" meant here?

Presumably:

  became more intense.

I ask both to improve my use of dictionaries, and because I will find it baffling if an English language learner needs to work out which single meaning a term appearing in a definition has.


texts:
I am not native english speaker
English is my 2nd Language

When I moved to Australia I noticed people here adding the letter R in between words that ends with vowel and the other that starts with vowel.

Example

When saying "The idea of" they say "The idear of"

"The media against ..." becomes "The mediar against ..."

Even when word ends with vowel (speaking vowel) and the next starts with vowel they add R

Example

"They saw us" become "The sawr us"

Is this common practice in English? or it is just for Australian?
Is there anything similar somewhere else or other rules similar to this?


texts:
A simple question, so to re-iterate the title:

Why is a "field" on a form called a field?

A quick search for the etymology results in:

  Old English feld "plain, open land" (as opposed to woodland), also "a
  parcel of land marked off and used for pasture or tillage," probably
  related to Old English folde "earth, land," from Proto-Germanic
  *felthuz "flat land" (common West Germanic, cf. Old Saxon and Old Frisian feld "field," Old Saxon folda "earth," Middle Dutch velt,
  Dutch veld Old High German felt, German Feld "field," but not found
  outside it; Swedish fält, Danish felt are borrowed from German), from
  PIE *pel(e)-tu-, from root *pele- (2) "flat, to spread" (see plane
  (n.1)).

  Finnish pelto "field" is believed to have been adapted from
  Proto-Germanic. The English spelling with -ie- probably is the work of
  Anglo-French scribes (cf. brief, piece). Collective use for "all
  engaged in a sport" (or, in horseracing, all but the favorite) is
  1742; play the field "avoid commitment" (1936) is from notion of
  gamblers betting on other horses than the favorite. Field glasses
  attested by 1836.

No mention of its use in forms?


texts:
What is does the word "even" mean in this sentence?

  It's good to be busy, even you missed a good lunch.

When I heard it, it gave me the impression to mean that I am not normally busy, but now I am, so that "even" I (who I am not normally busy) missed my lunch.

Did I understand it wrong?


texts: How does one describe people who do not pick up irony, or vibes?

texts:
I realise that at a severe level this can present as a symptom of Asperger's Syndrome, or High Functioning Autism. But I am not talking about that.

I am referring to people who just don't seem to understand irony. For example, let's say we have a doormat outside our house with the words 'BEWARE OF THE OLD WOMAN' written on it.

I think most people, at least in Britain, would see it as a joke. But some, at the extreme, might expect to meet a fierce old lady. Other's, less afflicted, might think it was a severe instance of political incorrectness. What do we call someone who just doesn't see the joke?

Or let's say that someone comes to dinner and is thoroughly miserable all evening, and the host or hostess just does not pick up on the fact that it is because of a difficulty that the guest has in their lives.

Do we say 'Penelope is 'insensitive'? No that isn't quite the word is it? Because had Penelope understood the reason she would have been as sympathetic as the next person. It was just that it simply never occurred to Penelope that her guest might be feeling sad about something, that she, the guest was not able to talk about. There are people who just don't pick up signs around them. Metaphorically they have no peripheral vision. They only see the obvious, and what is straight in front of them.

How do we describe such people?


texts: What does 'of a just,as of a' mean in this quote from Neitzsche mean?

texts: Considerate. The wish not to annoy anyone or injure anyone can be an equally good indication of a just, as of a fearful disposition.


texts:
The House of Representatives shall chuse their [modernly, its]
Speaker.
U.S. Const. art. I, § 2

Wouldn't the use of its here be "animateness-neutral", so to speak, as opposed to their?


texts: When and where did "bad boy" start being used to mean something impressive, e.g. "Let's take this bad boy out for a spin!"

texts:
The term "bad boy" literally means a boy who is bad. Those of us who were boys and grew up speaking English are likely to have heard it applied to us, either as a description or a warning.

Somewhere along the way this term acquired another meaning rather far afield from its original one:

  bad boy
  3. Something that is considered especially impressive, potent, or powerful. My new motorcycle has some real power in the engine; I can't wait to take this bad boy out on the road.

From TFD Online

I had always thought this to be an American term, but just this evening I heard it used on a British TV crime drama. That got me to wondering who started using it first. It could be that the term originated in the UK, or that the term wafted its way across the pond from the US.

Can anybody nail down when and where this specialized meaning of "bad boy" gained currency?


texts:
I have a doubt with preposition usage.

Why is it "at night" and "in evening/afternoon/".

If somebody could explain this exceptional case.


texts:
I saw this sentence in a newspaper:

  The crucial question they should have asked, but it was not, was what was Gordhan's intention at the time of his decision to allow Pillay early retirement.

Do you agree with me that the third "was" is in the incorrect place, or is this acceptable? I would have thought it should be:

  The crucial question they should have asked, but it was not, was what Gordhan's intention was at the time of his decision to allow Pillay early retirement.

Please explain the reason why you think my version is correct. Must indirectly quoted questions be in the passive voice? Can you please reference a source where I can learn more about this?

Here are my thoughts on the sentence structure. "The crucial question they should have asked, but it was not" is the subject, with "crucial" being an adjective, "they should have asked" being an adjectival phrase and "but it was not" being a subordinate clause to the adjectival phrase. So that can be shortened to "the question". Then "was" is the verb. Then comes the indirect quotation of the question, with "at the time of his decision to allow Pillay early retirement" being an adverbial phrase of time. So to strip the sentence down to its skeleton structure, it reads: The question was what Gordhan's intention was.


texts: Is it okay to say "X has enriched the research of Y"?

texts:
In my original sentence, X is the pluralism of a concept, and Y is an emotion.

My question is, simply put, can research be the object of enrich? I know that we can say "enrich our lives", "enrich our understanding of something", but is it correct to say "enrich the research of emotion"?


texts: Why does a verbose person talk "nineteen to the dozen"?

texts: Though it is by no means common, I've heard this expression multiple times recently, and I'm wondering why it isn't "eighteen" to the dozen, or "thirteen", or "twenty".  Where did "nineteen" come from?


texts: What are your favorite English language tools?

texts:
To prevent myself from asking an obvious, silly question multiple times: What are the English language tools you found most useful?

I found Corpus Concordance English extremely useful for looking up collocations.

Please, one tool per answer.


texts:
Is there a noun form of the verb "to decline"?

That is, is there a word that follows this pattern:

to accept  -> acceptance
to decline -> ?

I am aware of the word declination which is the closest I've found, but that seems to reflect the meaning of "decline" as related to "incline" and "recline" rather than the synonym of refuse.

If not, are there synonyms of "decline" that follow this pattern?


texts: Can we neglect subject in passive voice?

texts:
Hello I want to know that whether the following statement grammatically and semantically correct or not

ceremony has been decided to be held tomorrow

here it is in passive voice and we are not caring about who is conducting the ceremony.


texts: What is the word for a fear of hippopotamuses?

texts:
The word hippophobia refers to a fear of horses (apparently hippos are "water horses") and the words zoophobia refers to a fear of animals in general, but I can't seem to find a word for a fear exclusively confined to hippopotamuses.

To clarify, I am not talking about the healthy fear that a normal person would have of a large two ton animal being in their close vicinity, but an irrational fear of such a creature even when the situation would not warrant it, i.e. a true phobia.  For instance, some children will seem to go through phases where they will have a phobia of something, becoming hysterical on sight of said thing even when they are in a safe protective setting where there is nothing to worry about.


texts: "Take account of" vs. "take into account"

texts:
Is there any difference in meaning between:

  take account of
  take into account

Or do they both mean "to take into consideration"?


texts: Is there a term for "an official text for how to handle certain scenarios"?

texts:
I am compiling a book of checklists for myself and my team. These checklists will be indexed based on certain scenarios that they fix. For instance, under "Computer Won't Turn On", one might list "Is it plugged in?", "Does it need to be charged?", etc.

Is there a term for such a thing?

My immediate thought was "red book", but apparently that already has devilish and communist connotations.


texts: Meaning of "I kissed her for her mother"

texts:
I recently re-read E.J. Brady's Down in Honolulu, but this line has stuck out to me:

  I kissed her for her mother,
    I gev' her one, two, three;
  I squoze her for her brother—
    'T was all the same to me.

I understand this is not standard English, but how I should read the phrases "for her mother" and "for her brother" in this context? It could be "in honor of her cultural heritage", but the other lines seem to contradict this; or am I missing something obvious?

The author was Australian and this poem was written at the end of the 19th century, so perhaps this is a regionalism particular to his dialect.


texts: "Which" vs. "what" — what's the difference and when should you use one or the other?

texts:
Most of the time one or the other feels better, but every so often, "which" vs. "what" trips me up.

So, what's the exact difference and when should you use one or the other?


texts:
In Dude, Where's My Car?, Jesse and Chester use the word "shibby" a lot. I could not find this word in any dictionary, but Urban Dictionary defines it as a slang term.

What is the origin of this word? When did it start being used? I checked etymonline.com but there is no entry for shibby.


texts:
Dictionary uses IPA to depict the sound. However, most of them do not include diacritics, and thus it is very hard for learner to distinguish the sound.

See this quote from Wiki

  IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types,
  letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter
  ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a single letter, [t], or with a
  letter plus diacritics, [t̺ʰ], depending on how precise one wishes to
  be.[note 2] Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic
  transcription; thus, /t/ is less specific than, and could refer to,
  either [t̺ʰ] or [t], depending on the context and language.

For example, see this word "Thai" /taɪ/ in http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/thai

I think it should be depicted as t̺ʰai since t generates quite a lot of air.

So, Do we have any English dictionary that shows precisely both letters and diacritics?


texts: What's the meaning of "You better take this"?

texts:
My mother tongue is Hindi. I was watching an English movie when I came across the below sentence. Although it is a dual language movie and that helps me to understand English and improve my vocabulary, there is one sentence that I cannot understand.

And after searching on Google, now I am here.

What's the difference between:

  You better take this.

and:

  You take this.


texts:
Which one is the most appropriate:

He is the bravest man to ever exist.
He is the bravest man that has ever existed.
He is the bravest man ever existed.


texts:
Can you please confirm which of the following three is correct?

  I shared some ideas with Jon, which he agrees is a good solution for the problem we are facing.
  I shared some ideas with Jon, which he agreed is a good solution for the problem we are facing.
  I shared some ideas with Jon, which he agreed was a good solution for the problem we are facing.

I get confused with which tense to use when something happened in the past that relates to something in the present or future.


texts:
The question Precedence of “and” and “or” asks if there is any notion of precedence ordering in the English and it would seem not, based on the answers.
Regardless of that, if you saw the following piece of text, how would interpret it and why?

The prerequisite(s) of module AB1234:
GN3001 and GN3002 or BC3006 and BC3007.


texts: Kindly explain the meaning of the sentence

texts:
I can't understand the meaning of the second part of this sentence, particularly terms "outbreaks" and "recalls".

"For now, the focus at Clear Labs is on indexing for the enterprise, one that includes creating a future where food brands can be proactive rather than reactive to outbreaks or recalls."

I suppose "outbreaks" means a disease outbreak, but have no idea about "recall".

Here's a link to the original article.


texts: Is the phrase "Only to later realize" correct in usage?

texts:
I have this sentence:

  Attended ABC college where I topped the English subject in 10th grade (only to later realize that my love for the language couldn’t end there).

Now after 15 years I realize the truth of the parenthesized statement, so how exactly should I state this? "Only to later realize" OR "Only later did I realize". I want to emphasize that period of time and hence prefer retaining the first usage of the phrase. Please correct me if I am grammatically incorrect.


texts: Reminding others of one’s favors for them

texts:
What do you call a person who keeps reminding others of one’s favors for them?
When you fight with a person who then keeps telling you I did that I did this for you and so on. I want to tell them that it's inappropriate to remind others of the favors you did for them, especially if I appreciate those favors and try my best to return them.


texts: What's the term for an antonym of a continuum?

texts:
Today I was trying to figure out an orthogonal word for "aesthetics", and was having a bit of trouble searching for it as "aesthetics orthogonal" and "aesthetics antonym" gave nothing useful—the latter just yielded synonyms to "ugly". (Didactic was the word I eventually settled on after coming up with it and double-checking the definition, but that's another issue)

"Orthogonal" would seem to be what I want, and as a scientist makes sense to me, but another question makes me think twice about using it in a broader context.

In short, what is the term for a word that would run along a different continuum that is perhaps related but distinct, for example:

beauty vs. intelligence
agility vs. power
height vs. width


texts: What's the meaning if someone says you are ridiculously cute

texts: Meaning of ridiculously cute. It is in positive or in negative sense??


texts:
I have a dataset, it has the problem that data changes overtime.

In the pic above, the distribution is plotted every 5 years, and it could be seen that the distribution is not constant, it changes over time?

How should I describe it? I used to call it time shift, but it seems not very proper? I need a short title to put it in a sub-title in my paper.


texts: How do I apply on and off using 'and' in the middle?

texts: My specific example is on and off line. I am confused about how to join them without writing online and offline every time.  Thank you so much for any help!


texts: If the intent is to reduce the # of characters in footnotes/endnotes (using the Chicago/Turabian style), would it be proper to replace "and" with "&"? For example, "ed. & trans," pages "4, 7, & 19," etc.


texts:
Russian law allows households to possess a certain amount of land (1-6 acres) where family members can grow vegetables, fruits and so forth and sell such agricultural products freely without paying taxes.
I am looking for the best translation of the definition for such farms in English. Therefore, my question for native speakers is this: which variant from the below seems most appropriate to you?

household ancillary farm
private subsidiary farm(ing)
household plot

Or something else?


texts: Does "sell" have a direct object in "This is the car that Peter wants to sell"?

texts:
For the following sentence, I can identify "This car" as the direct object of the verb "sell".

  Peter wants to sell this car.

However, if the sentence is changed as follows, does the verb "sell" still have direct object?

  This is the car that Peter wants to sell.


texts: Difference between Inflection and Declension

texts:
I had looked up the dictionary regarding the meaning of Declension and it denotes : a list of Inflections.

What is the main difference between inflection and Declension? To What does the dictionary refer with the word list?


texts: I think the answer is either a or b, but I am leaning towards a. However, the answer key says it is d? That just totally sounds wrong to me, but I can't explain why...


texts: What is the part of speech of a word that refers to the word itself

texts:
If I say:

  Some words that I like are: "desk", "lovely", and "enticingly".

What parts of speech are the quoted words?

Used in a typical sentence they'd be: noun, adjective, and adverb respectively. But it doesn't seem right that this distinction should also be made in the sentence above.

(This wikipedia page is as far as I got in my research: Use–mention distinction


texts: a few more 'appears' OR a few more 'appear'?

texts:
the context is to describe the number of scientific articles in the list.
if I add a particular descriptor, the number of articles increases.
the question is: the expression "a few" is understood as plural (they appear) or as singular (it appears). of course is easy to change the sentence, but then I wouldn't learn this one. thank you for your help!!


texts:
Should one use has been or was in the following sentence, and why?

  For many years the USA has been a British colony.
  For many years the USA was a British colony.


texts: What does "Someone was wearing heavy black coats" mean?

texts:
I came across a sentence "They were wearing heavy black coats" .  I
want to know what 'heavy' means here. Does it mean the coat was heavy
( maybe the materials used to make the coat are of high density to
make it thick enough to keep warm) ? Or does it mean the color of the
coat was very dark?  And what about light grey jacet?  Is it talking
about the color or the weight ? THanks .


texts: Help understanding errors from English exam in Cyprus

texts:
I had the following questions on an exam:

  SECTION 1: GENERAL ERRORS
  The following sentences contain ONE grammatical or vocabulary error that has been underlined. Briefly explain why it is an error.

  Question 1: Jessica boasted for having won the first prize.
  Question 2: The teacher wondered where were the students at the time.
  Question 3: The men are sociable beings by nature.
  Question 4: He has not yet gone to the bed.
  Question 5: His room's windows are open.
  Question 6: It is everybody's duty to defend their country.

I understand the issues with questions 1-4, but why are the words/phrases in italics in questions 5 and 6 considered as an error?


texts:
Is it correct to say "I and none of my friends are able to cook Chinese food"?

I was wondering how I can say that I was not able to do something, and none of my friends were able to either.


texts: Why is the word "how" considered an adverb, even if the answer is an adjective?

texts:
Consider this question and its related answer:

Question:
How was the pizza?
Answer:
It was delicious.

The question is asking how, which is defined in every dictionary as an adverb, but the answer is delicious, which is an adjective.
Why is how considered an adverb, even in this case?


texts: Is there a specific verb for when a person goes "um" and "ah" while they are thinking what to say?

texts:
Often you hear people go "um" and "ah" (or alternatively "erm") while they are thinking what to say.

I have come across "um and ah" or "umming and ahing" but this sounds rather informal and colloquial.

I was hoping there is a more formal, single-word verb that describes this action.


texts: What exactly does "President Obama will ‘fold faster than a lawn chair’" mean?

texts:
In today’s Washington Post’s “Today’s Quote,” picked up from the comment of
Former Reagan Budget director David Stockman in an interview with The Daily Beast (hat tip to Political Wire), I came across the phrase “Obama will fold faster than a lawn chair.”

As I could not get the idea of “fold faster a lawn chair,” or even “fold a lawn chair,” I consulted Merriam Webster, Cambridge Dictionary Online and The online Slang Dictionary in vain to find none of them carry the definition of the above phrases.

Is David Stockman predicting that President Obama will withdraw his agenda easily like  folding a lawn chair, (or give up lawn chair i.e. his stand) and succumb to Republicans to accept their budget reduction plan? What is the exact meaning of “fold faster a lawn chair”? Is this a well-established cliché, though I couldn’t find it in any of dictionaries available?

The sentence containing this phrase is as follows:

  Bring it on. I think the Republicans need to stand rigidly firm and shut the government down for a few days. The Obama White House is weak. If the Republicans hold the line, Obama will fold faster than a lawn chair. And the Republicans will get their $60 billion in reductions.


texts: Can someone be instilled with medication?

texts:
I am looking specifically for how to use the first definition given here:

  to cause to enter drop by drop (instill medication into the infected eye)

but I imagine usage rules would apply equally to the the sense of instilling a sense of something in someone.

I can't work out if "patients were instilled with medication" would be incorrect, or if it is just an alternative construction of "medication was instilled into patients".

My Google search results are dominated by usage pertaining to instilling a sense of something in someone or variants of "All patients instilled a tear substitute in 1 eye", which doesn't in itself suggest anything about whether the form in question is incorrect.

So can someone be instilled with medication, or is medication always instilled by or into someone?


texts: does "open to charges of" equal to "doing propaganda" here?

texts:
Always open to charges of propaganda and interference in the internal affairs of other nations, public diplomacy challenged both the spirit and letter of the Havana Convention.
Book | Diplomacy: A Very Short Introduction

As far as I understand, it means:
A charge placed against a defendant, usually to enable the police to gain time for the discovery of further evidence, so that another more serious charge may be made.
But it is not appropriate.


texts: “Total” relates to “sum” as X relates to “product”

texts:
In algebra, there is (as I see it) a subtle difference between “sum” and “total”:
a sum is a term consisting of several summands that are added up,e.g., “5+5”,
whereas the total is the result of this summation, i.e., “10”.

Is this distinction made, or is that only my way to read it?

If the distinction is made, is there similarly a separate word for the result of a product?


texts: As a non- native speaker of English, I often find myself struggling with the usage of the suffix -al in adjectives. For instance, what's the difference between the words "historic" and "historical", "metaphoric" and "metaphorical", etc? Are there any rules as far as this suffix is concerned?


texts:
Could you please tell me where the bookstore is?

What is the subject in this sentence? You or bookstore?

Here we are asking another one by calling you and the topic of our question is that bookstore. I'm confused which one is really the subject here.


texts: To do something is something - what use of the infinitive is this?

texts:
I teach English and a student of mine recently came out with the following sentence:

  She thinks that to become a marketing manager is the opportunity she seeks for.

I thought this was a curious use of the infinitive. It's wrong in this case but I do think the structure is sometimes used in English, for example in sentences like: 'to be a miner is a wonderful thing' (normally it would be the gerund here but I think the infinitive is legitimate). But I don't think I could say exactly when it can be used.

Any ideas that anyone has would be greatly appreciated!

M


texts: How is the rule with the ending comma in sequences in a sentence?

texts:
Saying an English sentence with a listing or sequence of several terms, there will always be a comma in between each term and it will end with an "and" before the last term.

My question is, should there be a comma before the "and" as well? That is, is this correct:

  I have this, this, this, and this.

or is this correct:

  I have this, this, this and this.

I have seen the first version with an ending comma often. This is very different from my native language (Danish, where the second sentence structure would always without exceptions be the only correct one.) Thus I am would like to have made clear what the grammatical rules are and if it must or can be included.

I am quite sure that there should be no comma before "and" in a sentence of just two terms, like:

  I have this and this.

So, how is the correct use and rule of the last term in a sequence of several (more than two) terms in a sentence?


texts: Where should "inherent" be in these sentences?

texts:
This sentence is from the Cambridge dictionary: "There are risks inherent in almost every sport." inherent is an adjective, and it describes risks at there so as a second alternative "There are inherent risks in almost every sport."
that should be more natural usage as I consider how I should use adjectives such as "red car", "green flag" etc.

If the first sentence is correct, could there anyone explain why Cambridge dictionary uses this word after the "risks"? This makes a difference because it affects how I use adjectives in sentences.


texts:
I'd like to understand when I should use "slice" or "piece", for example:

"He's eaten three slices of pizza, and two pieces of cake".

Why do I have to use "slice" with pizza, but "piece" with cake?

In Brazilian Portuguese, my native language, we can use whichever we want to, especially colloquially.


texts:
I know I'm getting to a lot of these strange phrases, but what does this mean? I'm doing an English report and I'm supposed to find out a lot of these kinds of phrases. Here's an example in a sentence:

  Bob did a Devon Loch in the last minutes of the match.


texts: "Battle of..." and "seige of..." capitalization

texts: I edit a lot of military history articles, and I know that named battles use a capital "B" for "Battle", e.g. the Battle of Agincourt. However, when it's a siege rather than a pitched battle, most sources out there seem to favour a lower-case "s", e.g. the siege of Orleans. Could anyone shed any light on why this might be?


texts: How can I fix this run on sentence? Is it run-on sentence?

texts:
This is the sentence I am writing:
Hearing about this school's dynamic extracurricular activities since I was a child from my father, an alumni, has also excited me about attending your college.
My question is about the "since I was a child" part. Do I need to put commas so that the sentence becomes
"Hearing about this school's dynamic extracurricular activities, since I was a child, from my father, an alumni, has also excited me about attending your college."


texts: what does "our step family mash-up" mean?

texts:
in a movie, a girl describes her family new house as a place for her mother to write the next book, big enough for her and her brother and her step family mash-up.
her mom is married a man who has two kids.


texts: Ordering of multiple, consecutive adjectives

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Adjective order

One a comedy show, one of the comedians was a female who was black and from the UK. The host introduced her as a the first black, female, British comedian he has had on the show.

On a package of salmon, the label read Smoked Norwegian Steelhead Salmon. (There were no commas because it was a package—commas are necessary in prose though right?)

When using multiple, consecutive adjectives for a noun, is there a rule of thumb (or even hard and fast rule) for ordering of the adjectives? A reasonable theory is that it should go from least to most specific, but since English tends to do things in reverse, it would go the other way around. That fits for the salmon, but not the comedienne’s list, yet both feel natural.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  “So long as” vs. “as long as”

  It is no problem so long as they aren't answering.

I think that's not a correct phrase, but I can't find out how to correct it.


texts:
I’ve been wondering why “past times” is wrong and only “times past” is correct and grammatical.
When we refer to some events which occurred in the past, we can say “past events.” But why can’t we say “past times,”
when we want to say the times which already passed?


texts: Word or expression for a constituent that perfectly exemplifies the whole

texts:
Suppose that The Godfather: Part III (1990) is considered appalling, but you can't put your finger on exactly why, mainly because there are a plethora of reasons, most of which you lack the training/education/expertise to comment in-depth on (e.g. the writing, directing, editing etc.), so you use what you consider to be a disastrous moment/scene as an example, and think "this pretty much sums it up", for example this scene, what would you call a scene like that? A single word or expression is satisfactory.

As an example:

  "The Godfather 3 is so bad, for so many reasons, but here is a ______ that perfectly represents everything wrong with the movie."

An expression is also acceptable, and the example I gave is flexible (doesn't have to be structured as it is in the example).


texts: How did the word Solicitor come to mean two different professions?

texts:
In the US, it's very commonplace to see signs on homes and businesses indicated "No soliciting", which I construe to mean, "Please don't show up just to try and sell us something. We're not interested." I've had friends whom have worked as door-to-door salespeople and as canvassers, both of which would be considered solicitors and not welcome at those locations.
In my work, I occasionally have need to interact with municipalities and their designated attorney, whose position is often titled, "Township Solicitor." Presumably this person is also someone that you don't want to show up at your door as well, but for very different reasons.
Given that these are two very different professions that evoke a very different image, I'm curious how they came to both use the same word.


texts: Which came first: "do much of anything" or "do much if anything"

texts:
I came across the following online:

  I'm not actually sure this project will do much if anything to help since ...

Since there are no commas, I first read it as

  I'm not actually sure this project will do much of anything to help since ...

Are these two phrases (do much of/if anything) approximately the same, or did one arise much earlier than the other?


texts: Translation of German "Bolzplatz" – what's the name for an outdoor area whose purpose is to provide room for soccer/football?

texts:
I am particularly looking for a good translation for the German word "Bolzplatz". This is an outdoor area where people can play soccer/football (you know, this is the most favorite sports in Germany).

Dictionaries provided me play area, football area, football ground; none of which really carries the connotation of the German word.
Speaking of connotation, the German word bolzen means something like to kick something aimlessly, unsystematically around. Translation for bolzen could be to kick around/about or perhaps to slam. When playing on a "Bolzplatz", people do not have tactics or strategies. They just kick the ball and try to shoot a goal (oh, yet an aim), but there's no clear pattern how to achieve this.

I've read on Wikipedia that playgrounds may contain an area where people can play such sports, but when I think of the term playground, I rather think of an area for little children with swings, jungle gyms and so on.

While searching the Internet, I've also looked up streetball (although I'm pretty sure that terms related to streetball do not carry the meaning of the German word; when saying "Bolzplatz" I'm definitely not thinking of a basketball court) and came across the term outdoor court. This, however, sounds like a well-kept outdoor area which could even be used for professional sports, but a "Bolzplatz" usually is in a very bad shape, like missing turf or torn goal nets.

Hopefully, I could clarify what the German word "Bolzplatz" means. Is there an English word that reflects the same idea or, at least, similarly as given above?

Here's a picture from the German Wikipedia page on "Bolzplatz".


texts: The sentence is— "Her and James' life shouldn't be a topic of discussion for them." I believe that it should be she and James' and not her James'. Which version of the sentence is correct? Please help me out, thank you.


texts: Alternative word to describe 'pigeon-holing' someone to win an argument

texts:
I see this a lot on the internet, twitter etc. As an example say some random democrat is in a debate with a republican. Whatever the topic was, the democrat might say something along the lines of 'anyway you're probably just a racist so I don't care what you say...'. It's where the opposing party 'picks' one or more of the worst possible cases about 'you', factual or not, and just uses them to paint you as being 'worthless' or at least not worth debating with, ergo they win the argument. Another example might be someone trying to describe their belief in a 9/11 conspiracy. The opposing side might say 'yeah and you believe the moon landings were fake and JFK etc etc'. The conspiracy theorist may or may not hold those beliefs, but the opponent in this case just paints the picture that they do so they can be safely dismissed.
Does that make sense? is there a word for when people do that?


texts: "Ski in / Ski out" – Which action is which?

texts:
Hotels on ski fields directly connected to the lift system are often referred to as "ski in / ski out" hotels.

In this context, does "ski out" refer to the action of skiing out to the mountain, or skiing out of the mountain back to the hotel (with "ski in" being the opposite)?


texts: Is "got insane" a correct sentence with a meaning?

texts:
First of all: it should be obvious English is not my native language. ;)

A customer of mine just bought a domain, gotinsane, and I am just wondering if it has some meaning and if it is correct English.


texts: "Two pairs of trousers" vs. "two trousers"

texts:
I have read the following sentence in an exercise book written by a non-native speaker:

  Wilson has bought two trousers.

I know that it is very common to say "Wilson has bought two pairs of trousers". But is the sentence from the exercise book acceptable to native speakers?


texts:
I know that some/any are used with plural (with some exceptions), but what about this?

  I can give you a book...if there is any

Is that correct? I want to say that if there is any book, I will give it to him.

And what about plural?

  I can give you the books...if there are some

Or should it be "any?


texts:
I have a sentence use relative clause like this:
"She has become the first and only one that working for Pepsi in Laos."
It passed some grammar checking tool like Grammarly smoothly, but one of my friend said it's missing "is" after that: "that's working for..."
Is it correct in grammar?


texts: can nymous be used as an antonym of anonymous

texts: What should I use as an antonym of anonymous ? is nymous a correct antonym of anonymous ?


texts: How do I combine these 2 sentences by using the subjunctive mood?

texts:
I learned Chinese as a child.
I can write Chinese now.

If I want to combine these 2 sentences into one with the subjunctive mood, which sentence showed below is correct?

If I hadn't had learned Chinese as a child, I wouldn't be able to write it now.

or

If I hadn't had learned Chinese as a child, I wouldn't have been able to write it now.

Thanks for the reply.


texts:
I just read "yet on the other hand" in a published research article and it seemed off to me. Is it just me? Is there a better alternative?

Specifically: The yet seems to be redundant to on the other hand and doesn't appear in the dictionary or typical examples I've seen that use on the other hand. Is it necessarily  redundant? Is there a valid use case where yet is added to on the other hand?


texts: Are there any contemporary English words derived from same root as Euterpe & Terpsichore?

texts:
Euterpe & Terpsichore both contain the same etymological word root:

  Euterpe
  muse of music, from Greek Euterpe, literally "well-pleasing," from eu "well" (see eu-) + terpein "to delight, please" (see Terpsichore). "

and

  Terpsichore
  the muse of the dance, Greek Terpsikhore, literally "enjoyment of dance," from terpein "to delight" (from PIE root terp- "to satisfy;") + khoros "dance, chorus"

Does the Greek word root, terpein, or the parent PIE root terp- survive in any contemporary English word (not directly related to the two muses themselves)?


texts: In a sentence like "At the party, I ate and drank" where the actions are done concurrently, does the order of the verbs show anything about chronological order? For example, in "At the party, I ate and drank" does the fact that "drank" is second mean that you only started drinking after eating something and then only after that did you do the actions together concurrently, or is possible that you did drink before eating and the whole sequence of events is ambiguous?


texts: What is the practical difference between “ignorant” and “naïve”?

texts:
As these terms are defined in online dictionaries, ignorant means a lack of education, while naïve means a lack of worldly experience.

What is the practical difference between these two?
When would I use one and not the other?

We could consider education to be the acquisition of knowledge, and experience to be knowledge acquired first-hand. In that case, these two words would have no practical difference, yet I have had people strongly disagree with me in some discussions.

One person tried to explain that ignorant is when a person doesnt know about something, whereas naïve is when a person does or should know about something but fails to act on the knowledge or fails to acquire the knowledge before acting.

Could someone please clarify?


texts: A thing whose name is hard to track down

texts:
Is there a word/phrase for a thing whose name is hard to track down?

Sometimes there is a concept which I believe must have a name, but I can't find that name; it's hard to track down ; I don't know what to search for in Google but I suspect once I have the word I 'll be able to glean information on it.

E.g., this Bible quote:

  And Joshua, and all of Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had.

... is using a lots of repeated 'and's presumably for emphasis and I know there must be a name of that literary device; I sort of understand the concept, but I just can't put my finger on the word for it.  Googling for "repeated and" can send me down rabbit holes. From here, I eventually learn the term in this instance is polysyndeton, and armed with that word, it's easy to get find out more.

Example sentence:

  I'd like to know what is the literary device being used in the quote but it's a  _______.


texts: Is "burning (something) in effigy" used only for representations, not the actual thing?

texts:
The phrase "to burn (something) in effigy" means:

  To burn or to hang an image or picture of a person, as a token of
  public odium.

Would it be appropriate to use this phrase about an inanimate object? For example, if you had a car that was constantly breaking down, could you say you'd like to "burn it in effigy" upon buying a new car, or is this phrase used exclusively used for representations of objects of disdain?


texts:
Had he and I but met

  By some old ancient inn,

  We should have set us down to wet

  Right many a nipperkin!

Source: The man he killed by Thomas Hardy


texts: Why are "sugar" and "sure" pronounced with an SH?

texts:
As far as I know, those are the only two.  They should be pronounced Soogher and Soor, shouldn't they?  I looked them up on Dictionary.com, and their etymologies reveal no trace of an SH, except where the listing for sugar had:

  Middle English sugre, sucre (noun) < Middle French sucre  < Medieval Latin succārum  < Italian zucchero  < Arabic sukkar;  obscurely akin to Persian shakar, Greek sákcharon

I see an obscure kinship to shakar, but the word morphed so many times since then that the SH disappeared pretty much completely.  And sure is even worse, with no sign of SH:

  Middle English sur ( e ) < Middle French sur, Old French seur  < Latin sēcūrus

Why are these the only two like this?


texts:
Am I right in believing that venomous and poisonous are not interchangeable?

Venomous death would include being bitten by something and then you would die from the animal's venom.
"From Merriam-Webster - venom noun ven·om | \ ˈve-nəm \ Definition of venom (Entry 1 of 2) 1: a toxic substance produced by some animals (such as snakes, scorpions, or bees) that is injected into prey or an enemy chiefly by biting or stinging and has an injurious or lethal effect"

Poisonous death would include you biting into something and then you would die from being poisoned by the animal.
"From Merriam-Webster - poison noun poi·son | \ ˈpȯi-zᵊn \ Definition of poison (Entry 1 of 3) 1a: a substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism b(1): something destructive or harmful (2): an object of aversion or abhorrence 2: a substance that inhibits the activity of another substance or the course of a reaction or process a catalyst poison"

The toxicity levels are a general gradient which would set to determine the level of toxicity within the poison or venom.
"From Merriam-Webster - toxicity noun tox·ic·i·ty | \ täk-ˈsi-sə-tē \ plural toxicities Definition of toxicity : the quality or state of being toxic: such as a : the quality, state, or relative degree of being poisonous measuring the toxicity level of the soil The toxicity of some chemical agents degrades significantly over time, so it is unclear how lethal the stockpiles are. — David S. Cloud"

This would be the correct scientific lexicon within their definitions.

It’s all down to the method of delivery. Venoms must be injected to be effective, whereas poisons can come into contact with skin, or be inhaled, eaten or touched. So the puffer fish is poisonous if you eat the wrong part, because its liver contains tetrodotoxin, but its bite contains no toxins. sciencefocus.com/nature/… BBC Science focus makes clear the difference between 'poison and cemon within snakes' The blue-ringed octopus, however, can inject the same tetrodotoxin with its bite, so it is venomous. There is only one species of snake that is both venomous and poisonous. The Asian tiger snake has one toxin for its venomous bite, but it also stores a poison in its skin that comes from the toads that it eats.

Can anyone further this assertion?


texts: Difference between "devotement" and "devotion"

texts:
I had never seen or heard of the word "devotement" until reading it in my Chinese girlfriend's brother's college application essay. To me, it's always been "devotion." However, I noticed that Google Drive was not marking it as an unknown word, so I looked it up on Google. Turns out it's defined in plenty of online dictionaries with a definition equivalent to that of "devotion." It even exists in thesauruses. But for the life of me, I could not find something that talked about when you would use "devotement" instead of "devotion", or how such a similar word ended up in usage. Even now, Chrome's spell check doesn't like that I've placed "devotement" in this paragraph. Why Drive's spellcheck doesn't complain when Chrome's does... only adds to the mystery for me.

Can anyone clear this up for me? Why does "devotement" exist? When would one use it?


texts: Is the use of a period within quotes, in a sentence, accepted?

texts:
In the article by Anthoney McCartney on Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/man-arrested-red-carpet-says-never-hit-pitt-172635914.html):

  Don't get offended at me. Don't get mad at me. And just to be thankful that I show it's easy to get access to you and maybe you have to tighten security," Sediuk said. He said celebrities should be cautious when talking to fans. "Obviously, I don't want to say, 'Don't talk to fans.' But (be) cautious.

Looking at the last sentence, is the period within the second quotes technically correct within the quotes outside? Or, is the last sentence technically correct? I've always held that a period does not have to be confined to the end of the sentence but was divided about it. Because the period is the end, is it not? Now, for the first time ever, I've seen an example in an article I just happened to read, and my age-old doubt just got "re-ignited".

What are your thoughts? Is it acceptable? At least Yahoo! QA seems to think so?


texts: In many university departments (within certain fields), a typical course will consist of a series of lectures and then some additional lectures given by teaching assistants (TAs). Suppose that we are speaking about a math department, then one of these TA lectures may typically be the TA solving some exercises, while the main lectures mostly focus on going through the course material. My question is, what do you call these additional lectures? Where I'm active (where English is not the native language), I've seen things like exercise session, supplementary lecture, tutorial, problem solving class, etc. Is there a "proper" word for it? What are these "lectures" (they're not lectures, because they are quite different from the (main) lectures of acourse) called elsewhere?


texts: Correct Preposition: the risk-adjusted cost (the cost is adjusted by, in, for, with or according to risk?)

texts:
I cannot correctly understand the Title of academic papers such as "the risk-adjusted cost".
Here, the cost is adjusted by, in, for, with or according to risk?
Which preposition is more correct or comes first to the mind of a native English speaker?
Thank you in advance.


texts:
I am wondering whether I can use "be about to" and "soon" or "immediately" in one sentence?
I found online that the following two sentences "The medical team is about to start immediately" and "He is about to leave soon" are wrong.


texts: Is "get someone up" the same as "wake someone up"?

texts:
Is using get up in this expression correct?

  I am sorry I woke you up.
  I am sorry I got you up.

I use get up for wake up all the time, but in this expression it sounds a bit odd.


texts: Should I place comma after mentioning what the secondary character did and after mentioning the person's title?

texts:
Take the following message as an example:
Here I am talking to 'Mr. David' who is an executive chef regarding an application for 'Head Chef' where 'Ms. Jolie' told me (by email) that 'Mr. David' will call me the last week but didn't. Its the end of the week and I would send him this message to his number that she gave me to get some feedback:

Dear Mr. David,
My name is {name}, I was told by Ms. Jolie who gave me this
number, that you, the Executive chef, will call me anytime this week
regarding my application for "head chef".

My question, are the commas here added correctly? or something is out of place?


texts:
sisters and brothers are siblings.

sisters and brothers from different sibling parents are cousins.

what do you call after cousin? or in general, same level descendants, is there word for that?


texts:
"By the age of ten, Thorleif was keeping detailed notebooks, which he maintained for years."

Does this sentence mean that Thorleif stopped keeping detailed notebooks when he reached the age of ten or he started keeping them when he reached the age of ten. I'm confused.

Thanks,


texts: Is there a word for the most granular parts of currency, eg, cents, pence, etc?

texts:
I am writing some instructions and I want my audience to understand that an amount must be entered in cents / pence / Eurocents / Satoshis etc. Is there a word that describes these small, granular parts of currency?

I'm dealing with non-physical objects, e.g. in an online payments system.


texts: How do you say the coming week in the weekend?

texts:
Now it is on Saturday(25 May 2013), how do you say the coming week(the week from 27th-)?
Next week or is it already this week? Is there any other ways to say the coming week?


texts: How can James Joyce's 'word' “egourge” be seen, via Greek, as “worker for the self” or "self-employed"?

texts:
In Finnegans Wake, James Joyce uses the 'word' egourge (p.g. 49-50), which syntactically yields ego-urge, which makes sense semantically.

Finnwake.com claims that egourge also derives from "egoourgos (gr) - worker for the self", but, of course, Google Translate does not seem to know of any word "egoourgos".

In what sense can “egourge” be seen, via Greek, as “worker for the self” or "self-employed"?

This relates to  essentially the same question on our sister site Literature.


texts: Classic phrase regarding a growing distance from our children

texts:
At the end of Miranda July's recent WSJ article, she offers the following melancholic observation:

  From the moment your kids are born, you’re always losing them.

I've occasionally heard sentiment such as this from people I've met over the years; and still find it striking. Is there a canonical, poetic, or well-known phrase/quotation for this remark?


texts:
I was reading the paper today about a skier

...losing control on an icy ski slope and colliding with a tree.

This seems to be rather a strange usage of collide; the word seems to me to carry the implication that the things that collide are both active agents, and the tree cannot by any stretch of the imagination be held responsible for this accident. This definition here seems to support that idea:-

to strike one another or one against the other with a forceful impact;
come into violent contact; crash: The two cars collided with an
ear-splitting crash.

Is that so, or can stationary or even immobile objects collide with things?


texts:
From Aurora Leigh:

  Or worse, we'll say. For dogs, unjustly kicked,
  Yell, bite at need; but if your dramatist
  (Being wronged by some five hundred nobodies
  Because their grosser brains most naturally
  Misjudge the fineness of his subtle wit)
  Shows teeth an almond's breath, protests the length
  Of a modest phrase,–' My gentle countrymen,
  'There's something in it, haply of your fault,'–
  Why then, besides five hundred nobodies,
  He'll have five thousand, and five thousand more,
  Against him,–the whole public,–all the hoofs
  Of King Saul's father's asses, in full drove,–
  And obviously deserve it.

What is the meaning of "haply of your fault"? Does it mean "perhaps this phrase that you find inappropriate alludes to some of your faults?

I'm not asking for literary criticism. I cannot understand the basic meaning of the phrase.


texts: Umbrella term for words like indifference, neglect, deafening silence, ignorance (as in not care), disregard, insensitive, cold shoulder, inaction

texts:
I have been trying to research and catalog words that describe phenomenon related to an attitude or state to things that involve neither superficially positive nor negative immediate impacts (or does not involve significant positive nor negative emotions of the agent that uses them), words that along the lines of JK Rowling's quote

"Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike"

I figure if there is a phrase or a single word that can describe the category that all these words belong to may help me on locating more of them efficiently.

The words subjectively reminds of the concept of nothingness or nihilism or despair, but words that describe nothingness and despair do not accurately capture the objective meaning because the words listed in the title is often used in an active (and often derogatory) form rather than a neutral state of something. They are also not as direct, intense, as clearly derogative and negative terms like despair, but of a more subtle nature (which in this case, the negative impact is not immediately apparent but takes time to become obvious).

As an example of usage, this umbrella term (or phrase) should be able to modify JK Rowling's quote as follows

"[The phrase to be seeked, that can encompass every (English) word that has the same nature as the words and phrases in the title ] often do much more damage than outright dislike"

EDIT: Interjection such as Whatever, Anyway are not preferred because the word or phrase is intended to be used in a non colloquial context

  What is the umbrella terms for these often derogative, but subtle words?


texts: "Thus" at the beginning of the sentence or between subject and verb

texts:
"Thus" can be used both at the very beginning of the sentence, or between the subject and the verb:

At high altitude, the boiling point of water is lower than at sea-level.

Thus, pasta takes a longer time to cook.

Pasta thus takes a longer time to cook.

Are there differences between them?


texts:
I am preparing for an aptitude test and then I came to a question. I need to find the 'tone' of a line that is written below.

John likes work, it fascinates him! He can sit and look at it for hours.

I am not sure whether it is good place to ask this type of question. If it's not, please let me know. I will delete this question

Answer: Sarcastic

Thank you in advance.
-Vaibhav


texts: What is a single word to use in place of 'Costing a large number of lives'?

texts:
If I'm writing a sentence such as
"The second World War was the single most wasteful and (Costing a large number of lives/ having a high death toll) war in the History of Mankind.
What single word/phrase can I use to convey the ideas in the bracketed portion.


texts: How to say “Fall asleep in 60 seconds” with 22 characters?

texts:
I’m a German app developer of the app “Pulse Breathing” that has recently had some success on the App Store and whose catch-phrase in the marketing strategy is: “Fall asleep in 60 seconds”.
Now, the App Store has introduced some changes that make it harder to expose this marketing argument to the customers who visit my app page: until not too long ago, apps had a title (“Pulse Breathing”) and a subtitle (“Fall asleep in 60 seconds!”) that we’re displayed on the top of the page.
Now, Apple has replaced the subtitle with the developer’s name, which makes it harder to market the app with this catchphrase.
So, I thought, why not put the subtitle into the title of the app as well? Turns out, the app title has a limit of 30 characters, which makes “Pulse - Fall asleep in 60 seconds” two or three characters too long. So I thought of alternatives.
My first ideas (which I don‘t really like) were:

“Pulse - Fall asleep in 60 secs!”
“Pulse - Slumber in 60 seconds!“

The first one, I think, is too informal and takes away the credibility of a health app. Concerning the second one, I do like the idea of slumber, since it‘s practically impossible to fall asleep in 60 seconds, it’s just a catch-phrase; then again, I don’t know even know if it’s grammatically correct (would an English native say it like that?) and if it’s not this little bit too complex to really stand out. Fall asleep in 60 seconds, is simple, trivial and really stands out.

Do you have any ideas what else I could use? And how do you like my ideas?

Thanks in advance!


texts:
These two statements are identical except that first one contains the preposition "of" after the word "understanding", while the second one doesn't:

"Gained an understanding of and had hands-on experience on Satellite Broadcasting and AM broadcasting.

"Gained an understanding and had hands-on experience on Satellite Broadcasting and AM broadcasting."

Is the version with "of" better than the version without it, or is it worse, or are they the same?


texts: Word for "A person who has a busy life but still manages to do everything on time"

texts:
What's a suitable word for
"A person who has a busy life but still manages to do everything on time"?

Thanks in advance.


texts:
New-car buyers often fear that they're getting a "Friday afternoon" vehicle!

What does a "Friday afternoon" vehicle mean?


texts: Term for a newcomer, who has already had some knowledge?

texts:
I'm looking for a term for a person who is a newcomer by definition, but has already had some knowledge in the field. Say this one are going to a lab in a field they didn't study before, so of course they are far more behind in both knowledge and experience to anyone in the lab. However, they have read a lot of Wikipedia articles in the related field, and has caught basic foundations, enough for them to ask not too novice questions.

What is the word for this person?


texts:
What is the difference between the verbs to squander and to waste? For example:

to squander money
to waste money


texts:
Please clarify. This sentence talks about the future event

"Which political party would you vote for in the 2019 assembly elections?"

If we talk about the future that can happen, why would somebody use "would"? can we use "will" in the above sentence in the place of "Would"


texts: What word with the meaning 'merchant', 'tradesman' or 'businessman' has the most negative connotation?

texts: I am looking for a word (preferably and adjective) to describe someone who only does something for others if he gets something in return, like a 'merchant spirited' person. I would like to use a word with a rather negative connotation. It is for a title of a book but I am not sure if the word 'merchant' carries a negative connotation or there is a better one.


texts: Two words for physical and mental charisma

texts:
In role playing games charisma is often used for "measuring force of personality". E.g. D&D 5e use the following description of charisma: "Charisma measures your ability to interact effectively with others. It includes such factors as confidence and eloquence, and it can represent a charming or commanding personality."

I'm looking for two words describing the physical and mental parts of this charisma.

Examples of physical presence:

Appearance. Not necessarily beauty as a horrendous monster might also command a strong physical presence.
Wearing the right clothes.
Speaking in the right tone.
Making the right gestures.

Examples of mental presence:

Knowing what appearance will provoke the wanted reactions.
Knowing what the right clothes are.
Knowing what to say.
Knowing what gestures to make.

What are the two words I'm looking for?


texts: a phrase for "to lure and chop a turtle's head"

texts:
There must be a similar phrase in English, meaning to lure the target from protection (like turtle's shell) or hiding, in order to capture or kill it.

My English dictionary gives "draw a snake out of its hole", but Googling suggests it is also used literally, not metaphorically. For example, someone accidentally let loose their pet snake and want to catch it back. So is this the expression that you would use?

I am looking for an expression, the more compact the better.


texts: Is there difference between "go with" and "come with"?

texts:
There is no social shaming that comes with knowing nothing about our local politicals. (Joe Clein Column, Time Magazine, August26)

Can I change "come with" into "go with" here? It seems to me that "go with" is too much used as an idiom to mean something  essentially or normally goes together with something else. But here the author is just to negate any necessary relation between the two things.

Is the difference between "come with" and "go with" based on, or related to, the difference between "come" and "go"? Maybe the difference between them is just a product of habit?


texts:
Most of the references I can find about the word “ought” indicate that even when negating it, you should use an infinitive: “You ought not to go there.”

That sounds quite bad to my ear. Much better sounding to me is “You ought not go there.” Without the “to”.

Comparing this to similar usage of “should” does no good, since they can’t even agree without negation: “should go” versus “ought to go”.

Now that I think about it, I am suddenly far from certain that “ought to go” actually contains an infinitive in the first place; maybe “ought to” works together as some part of speech that modifies the verb, rather than “to go” being a unit.

I’m obviously no linguist. Can someone shed some light on this for me? Specifically, can you explain the function/part-of-speech of each word in a way that makes it clear whether "to go" or "go" is more correct?


texts: Term for a phrase with a word followed by its antonym

texts: If I use the term "bitter-sweet", its a particular type of term, because sweet is the opposite of bitter, but I just can't recall what it's called. I've tried googling all sorts of variations of the title, but the only links that come up are thesauruses.


texts:
Are women “wired” to be more emotional? Not exactly — but new research provides more evidence that the male and female brain may have very different ways of processing emotion. How Men And Women Process Emotions Differently

Hi,
I would like to know what "be wird to be" means.

I tried to google it, but I could not find a good answer.

Could you please help me?


texts: Why is "x" used as an abbreviation for some nouns?

texts:
This question is related, but is not a duplicate, of Why do some words have "X" as a substitute?.

I have noticed that a few nouns can be significantly abbreviated with an "x" at the end. Some examples come to mind:

Transmit → Tx
Receive → Rx
Passengers → Pax
Tickets → Tix

There are likely others in existence I'm not aware of. Most abbreviated nouns ending in "x" seem to be used only as technical jargon (in this case, Fax, Fax, Transportation, Entertainment, respectively). What is the history of using "x" at the end of a word to severely shorten it? And, does the usage of "x" in this context have a single word to describe it?


texts:
When I am writing an essay, do I spell out times? How would I write AM or PM?

Example:

  11:45 PM

How would I write that?


texts: What is it called when I see another person in the mirror when there is only me

texts:
Sometimes when I look into a mirror, I see a vague vision of a woman standing behind me and when I turn my head she's gone: there is no one.

I don't think the word is haunted because I don't believe in ghosts. I am not superstitious. I'm a physic undergraduate, I work on string theory.

Then I remember it only occurs in lucid dreams. And I now have spectrophobia.


texts:
I would like to state the following two sentences:

"The ... problem addresses the question of ..."

"Another direction of research addresses the question of ..."

I would like to replace the second sentence, as it again uses this "to address".

So how about:

"Another direction of research is concerned with the question .."

"Another direction of research asks the question .."

Is there another sentence to avoid "question" completely?

Thank you very much for any inputs.


texts:
I would first like to thank anyone who might pay attention and provide an answer to this question, as I'm new at the community.

I work in a real state agency, and we deal with all kinds of transactions, like buying and selling, leasing, and management of condominiums (like dealing with the landlords and such, arranging polls for changes or fixes in a building, etc).

What's confusing is the specific job title for the various kinds of jobs we have here.

As an example, my specific function is to deal with lessees who are vacating the apartments or houses.

So, my question is the job titles of these sectors:

1)The agents that finds owners of real estate, like apartments, and convince them to let the agency to manage the leasing. I believe it's a leasing agent.

2)Same as above, but for buying and selling of real state. I believe they are real state brokers.

3)The people who work at administrative functions inside a real state agency, like a)those in charge of the vacancy of leased real state (me), b) those in charge of managing the leasing paperwork, and c) those in charge of the condominium management (dealing with apartment managers and landlords).


texts:
Consider a sentence of the following form:

  X, and the Y which comes with it, is good.

Assume X and Y are nouns, and X is singular. Should "is" be replaced with "are"? Is there some other grammatical error I am missing?


texts: All my life, I've been pronouncing certain words wrong. I always pronounced "e" as "eh" in some words instead of "ih." An example would be "precipitation." For the first e, I would pronounce it as eh instead of ih. I recently found out that I've been wrong when I looked in the dictionary. When does e sound like ih? Is it okay if I pronounce it as eh?


texts: What do you call a job offer that isn't a real offer yet?

texts:
A company is interested in a person as a potential employee, and contacts that person. The company's representative describes the role, advertises the benefits, interviews the person etc.

You would call this a job offer(ing?), except the word offer in this context has acquired a very specific meaning: the final phase of the negotiations, when the company is committed to hiring the person and sends a formal job offer listing the salary etc.

Before the formal offer happens, what do you call this?

Example contexts:

Thank you, but I am not interested in your [offer].
I am considering two other [offers] at the moment.


texts: Is it acceptable that the verb "absorb" is used intransitively, especially in the medical and advertising communities?

texts: All references that I've come across list "absorb" only as a transitive verb, yet I find it used commonly in the medical and advertising community intransitively. For example, "Our vitamin C absorbs more quickly". I want to ask, what does it absorb, as absorb is a transitive verb needing an object: "Our brand of paper towel absorbs liquid  more quickly than brand X."--edited. On the other hand a word such as "assimilate" can be used both transitively and intransitively. Whether a word is transitive only or both transitive and intransitive seems to be rather arbitrary, and and I find people taking liberties to speed the process of making transitive verbs into intransitive verbs, for their convenience, I assume; so rather than say the vitamin C is absorbed into the bloodstream they will say the vitamin C absorbs into the bloodstream, which is grammatically incorrect. Adding "into the bloodstream" does not make it any less an intransitive usage in the latter case.


texts:
What exactly is a class? Is it the period of time of one subject? Is a subject a class? Is class a group of people or is that a grade? Is a grade a level or is it an ABCDEF in the score? I have a feeling the English language is left with "class" and "grade" for all terms. That might not be true because I might be missing the true names of these things.

So how do you say these?

People who are being studied things
A subject
An ABCDEF
A place where people study
A period of time during which people who are being studied things sit and learn


texts: Is it correct to write: "She told her to phone him the morning of the next day."

texts:
Is it grammatically correct to leave out in and write "She told her to phone him the morning of the next day" instead of "She told her to phone him in the morning of the next day"?

If not, why not, and does that rule have a name?

My English teacher (not a native English speaker) tells me it is wrong and that in must be in that sentence, but I don't get why.
The task was to transform

  Mrs. X: "Phone me tomorrow afternoon."

from direct into indirect speech. My answer was

  Mrs X. told her to phone her the afternoon of the following day.


texts: "Received widespread adoption": Why the absence of definite article?

texts:
So in the sentence:

  The technology has received widespread adoption.

Why isn't the grammatically correct form be something like:

  The technology has received a widespread adoption.

Or:

  The technology has received widespread adoptions.

?

I've looked through this grammar guide and thought the latter two forms make more sense because adoption is a countable noun, right?


texts:
I have seen the following on different products.

Keep out of the reach of children.
Keep out of reach of children.

What is the difference between those two statements?


texts: One word noun for a person that is always seeking the truth?

texts: Could the word "dogmatic" be used as a noun meaning "a person that is always seeking the truth?" For example, is it valid to say that "Dogmatics had failed at truth seeking"? I am trying to understand the way that it is used in a translation of Friedrich Nietzsche's books. If we can't use "dogmatic" this way, what is a good alternative noun with this meaning?


texts: Can "the man from Earth" mean "caveman"?

texts:
There is a movie called "The Man from Earth" and someone told me that the title is referring to "caveman" because "Earth" meant "cave". I doubt that. I can't find any dictionary supporting that explanation.

All I want to know is whether the statement is true in English: Does the phrase "man from earth" mean "caveman"?


texts: What’s the correct hyphenation in “trying to be a decision maker”?

texts:
Which of these three ways of writing it is right:

decision maker (a space separates the two pieces)
decision-maker (a hyphen separates the two pieces)
decisionmaker (nothing separates the two pieces)

I’ve looked online and in dictionaries, grammar books, source documents, and multiple documents within my organization, but I still cannot find an answer.


texts: Part of speech of "brief" and "short" in the phrases "in brief" and "in short"

texts: The phrases "in brief" and "in short" function as adverbs, but as what part of speech do "brief" and "short" function in these phrases? "Brief" stands alone as both a noun and adjective and could be seen as either in the phrase (i.e. preposition "in" + noun/adjective "brief"), but "short" in the meaning used by the phrase only occurs as an adjective. Are these two phrases exceptional in that an adjective is the object of the preposition (discounting constructions such as, "Do you have this in blue?")? Are they simply "fixed" phrases that can't be broken down into their constituents?


texts: Why do you survive 'by the skin of your teeth'?

texts: If someone does something 'by the skin of their teeth', it means they just barely managed to do it.  What is this idiom supposed to be referring to exactly, and how did it originate?


texts: With the phrase "good night" do you have to use an apostrophe before the word "night" if you are to omit the use of "good?"

texts: Am I actually contracting the phrase by omitting "good" from it, hence the need for the use of an apostrophe?


texts: What's a word for being curious in a worried manner?

texts:
Example:

  My wife was reading the news, her hands shaking, her mouth
  hanging open.

  [...], I leaned over to have a peek.

Is there a word a bit "stronger" than curious? One that shows a bit of apprehension?


texts: Difference between "low-cost" and "cheap"

texts:
Looking into definitions of "low-cost" by Cambridge dictionary

  cheap

and Marriam-Webster dictionary

  obtainable at low cost

it is not clear for me, how it is different from "cheap".

Was the term needed to avoid negative connotation of "cheap" as being of low quality (so it's an equivalent to "not expensive", just shorter)?


texts: "Why was the girl that/who had plenty of money arrested"

texts:
Why is that used in the  following sentence, instead of who?

  Why was the girl that had plenty of money arrested for shoplifting
  some trinkets worth only about two dollars?


texts: How to combine in a sentence two verb–preposition pairs that have the same object?

texts:
Examples:

  Data can be imported to and exported from the application.
  Data can be imported and exported from the application.
  Data can be imported to the application and exported from it.

  The manager defined the products that should be added to and removed from the store.
  The manager defined the products that should be added and removed from the store.
  The manager defined the products that should be added to the store and removed from it.

I assume that the third sentence is correct in my examples. My question is whether the two other sentences are correct.


texts:
I came across this sentence:

  For four months now John has been going to have finished his novel by today.

I would like to know if "John has been going to have finished…" is the structure going to (special expression to talk about the future) in present perfect progressive which I find very weird.

Would it be a mistake to just use "to finish his novel…" instead of "to have finished his novel…"?


texts: I have recently come across the phrase "the screaming abdabs". It is used in sentences such as "it gave me the screaming abdabs", abdabs being and old-fashioned word meaning 'a case of extreme anxiety'. What I want to know is if the phrase can be used in modern writing or, if not, what period of time the phrase comes from or when it is acceptable to be used? Is it Victorian or 20th century or something else? Thanks.


texts: Is the expression "jam-packed" of American origin?

texts: I came across this expression at random, and when reading its definition and reading it in within context, it struck me as a particularly American thing to say. When trying to confirm my suspicion, I couldn't find this kind of information on its origin (merely that it formed in the 18th century and is the merging of two other words). I tried looking on the Merriam Webster site and Cambridge Dictionary (online) and didn't find an origin section that'd specify in which continent or country this expression was first used. Anyone knowledgeable?


texts: How do you call an assumption that makes the problem at hand simpler vs one that complicates it?

texts:
In Hebrew, we have a way of classifying assumptions as either (roughly translated) "relieving" or "worsening" based on whether they "err on the side of caution" for the latter or otherwise for the former, e.g. when trying to secure an airport, a "relieving" assumption would be to assume that no dangerous materials can enter the duty free area, therefore there is no need to have a security checkpoint between that area and the gate, while a "worsening" assumption would be to have that checkpoint.

Is this phrasing valid in English? If not, is there another similar phrasing?