texts:
Is there a specific history behind the term "Legal Mind"? Meaning, the following phrase would be quite typical in describing a lawyer or closely related occupations:

That lawyer possesses a brilliant legal mind.

Compare that with terminology used for other professions:

It is evident from his writings that he was a brilliant scientist.

As far as I have known, this term 'mind' is unique in being used in relation law.
If this is so, why has it developed in this way?


texts: understanding 'your likeliest bet' and 'settle into' in context

texts:
Could somebody rewrite the italicized sentence in a simpler way? I don't know explain what the author intended to say there.

I've looked up the meaning of the words in the title:

  Settle in (also settle into sth): to begin to feel happy and relaxed in a new situation, home, job etc. (longman-it's installed on my pc so I can't provide a link)

for likeliest bet, there was almost nothing except the similar phrase "best bet":

  safest or most reliable course of action :  surest means to a desired end :  most advantageous approach :  most satisfactory choice
  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/best%20bet

I've no idea which definition would be more suitable here.

  Can we be certain that any particular employee will conform to this rule? Absolutely not. But successful businesses are built on a series of well-calculated bets, not guarantees. And your likeliest bet is that your employees have already settled into the personalities and aptitudes that they’ll have in the future.


texts: How did 'cast' semantically shift to mean 'turn'?

texts:
I was researching the etymology of caster (n. 2), which contends that 'cast' had 'the old sense of "turn."'  Then I researched cast (v.) and read that it originally signified

  "to throw, throw violently, fling, hurl," from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse kasta "to throw" (cognate with Swedish kasta, Danish kaste, North Frisian kastin), of uncertain origin.

What semantic notions underlie 'throw, fling, hurl' with 'turn'?
cast (n.) mentions it:

  A cast in the eye "slight squint" (early 14c.) preserves the older verbal sense of "warp, turn," via the notion of "permanent motion or turn."


texts: In spite of several reminders, he **DID** not so far send any reply to my letters

texts:
In spite of several reminders, he did not so far send any reply to
  my letters.

The above sentence is incorrect whereas the correct version is:

  In spite of several reminders, he has not so far send any reply to
  my letters."

Why do we use has but not did in this sentence?


texts: Can transitive verbs be further broken down?

texts:
Can transitive verbs be further broken down into different types of transitive verbs?

For example, I think there are change of state transitive verbs and stative transitive verbs, and was wondering if there any other types.


texts:
In a mathematical sense, the opposite of "X" is "not X" and this works in all cases.

But in language text books, or in common usage, there is a lot of ambiguity in "opposite".
Eg.
Father ~ Mother
Son ~ Daughter
Here, both are with reference to the speaker, meaning "my father" ~ "my mother".

Husband ~ Wife
Here , the reference point itself changes, meaning I can not have both husband and wife.

More-over, why should only the sex change for opposite ? Can Son be the opposite of Father ? Considering reversal of both characteristics, we should have Father as the opposite of Daughter, in line with the Dictionary meaning of opposite "Being directly across from each other; facing" or "Characterized by opposite extremes; completely opposed" [from wordweb].

Friend ~ Enemy, Acquaintance, Stranger ?
Uncle ~ Aunt, Nephew, Niece ?

It seems more logical (unambiguous) to use the mathematical sense : opposite of "Father" is "not Father".

In language learning books, what does "opposite" really mean ? Is it some arbitrary colloquialisms ? Is there some unambiguous meaning ?


texts: differences between using of first and firstly

texts:
When Eva was first diagnosed with diabetes she was twenty.

When Eva was firstly diagnosed with diabetes she was twenty.

Which one is grammatically correct to say and as I know both first and firstly we can use as an adverb.


texts:
I have scoured out dictionaries searching for the word wiener without success. As you can notice I am not a native speaker.
I usually see the this phrase as a demeaning joke on animations when some character is lured to say one's name when actually it turns out as something stupid like "I'm a wiener" or "I. C. Wiener".

Can someone say where is the joke on it? Because it sounds to me like "winner", what is not a demeaning word, reather it comes as a comendation.


texts:
I have to do a dissertation on William Jay Lorsch and Paul R. Lawrence, so I was looking for information, but I found a term of which I don't know the meaning. The complete sentence is:

  Jay W. Lorsch is the Louis Kirstein Professor of Human Relations at the Harvard Business School.

What does it mean to be the Louis Kirstein Professor? Is it some sort of a term used in English to refer to some kind of statute for a teacher or something?

I've tried to find the meaning of this term and I have not found it anywhere.


texts:
In the latest Futurama episode, there was a scene with the dialogue:

  Professor: Now, for the first time, we may be able to see the infinitesimal fabric of matter itself, laying bare the most fundamental laws of the universe.

  Leela (whispering): Hey, Fry, I know something
  you could lay bare.

  Fry (obviously not getting it): Leela, shh, I'm trying to
  listen to a physics lecture.

  ... a few seconds later in the episode ...

  Professor: Now, to penetrate its deepest mysteries.

  Leela (whispering): Hey, Fry.

  Fry: Leela! No means no!

Obviously, in the second scene, where Leela was cut by Fry, she meant to say, "Hey Fry, I know what you could penetrate." The irony was in Fry not getting it all the time. What I don't understand is: what does the first Leela's proposal mean (marked bold in the dialogue)?


texts:
When I joined 3 people were working on the project, after 6 months it was handed to me alone and those three were assigned to different projects. I need to write it in resume/appraisal but don't know how to express it I asked a friend who suggested to write something like following:

  I increased FTE savings by consecutively handling the work (or work
  load) of three.


texts:
I am currently confused about the usage of "will" and "would", especially when proposing a solution.

For example, I want to promote recycling of plastic bottles to improve the environment.

Should I use:

Recycling plastic bottles will improve our environment.
Recycling plastic bottles would improve our environment.

In addition, I don't know which conditional sentence is correct:

If the government raise taxes on alcohol, our lives will be better.
If the government raised taxes on alcohol, our lives would be better.

Thank you very much.


texts: What would be the correct formatting or rewording of the onomatopoeia "crunch-crunched"?

texts:
I am editing a historical fiction novel, and this clause has come up.

As the Model T's wheels crunch-crunched their way up the gravel driveway...

Is this clause grammatically correct? Should I use one of the following examples instead?:
the Model T's wheels crunch crunched
the Model T's wheels crunch-crunched
the Model T's wheels crunch crunched
the Model T's wheels crunched
the Model T's wheels went crunch crunch


texts: discount to vs discount off vs discount off of vs discount from

texts:
To get the full A app company experience, we recommend you upgrade to
  our paid version (at a substantial discount TO list price).

I found that sentence on a website of an app company and the preposition 'to' is confusing to me. I guess the whole sentence means if the original price is 10 dollars, users can get a huge discount like 30%, 50% or 80%. My question is can I change the preposition having the same meaning as follows?

  a. at a substantial discount TO list price
  b. at a substantial discount FROM list price
  c. at a substantial discount OFF list price
  d. at a substantial discount OFF OF list price

Are the four sentences grammatically correct and interchangeable? I am also wondering which one is frequently used most.


texts:
I am reading on many many websites or videos something like:

  "All rights goes to their respectful owners"
  "Jack and other characters mention are property of Dreamworks and respectful owners"
  "All characters are copyright to their respectful owners"
  "All Photos belong to their respectful owners and are being used..."

I am puzzled. Should it not be "respective owners" ?

Well I am sure there should be owners who "show respect", but I am suspecting they are just misspelling a word in this context. Is that wrong ?


texts: What is a suitable phrase for the situation?

texts:
I had written it down last year, but couldn't find it or remember it.

The character has a very unique problem. So there are no previous solutions to it. The phrase I'm looking for might fit here

"What do I do? Not like anything like this had ever happened before"


texts: "Happy new year to you and your broker who [are trusting | have trusted | trust] us for so many years

texts:
Which is the correct form?
The source text uses "are trusting" but I feel it should be "have trusted".


texts: "Indicative", "Suggestive", and other alternatives

texts:
I am documenting a software design for a scheduling system. The system allows users to allocate tasks to people. The UI displays a list of people, alongside their pattern of working hours. Tasks can be allocated outside a person's working hours.

I am trying to decide on the most elegant way to express this rule.

So far I have a few alternatives:

"The working hours displayed are suggestive"
"The working hours displayed are a guide"
"The working hours displayed are not enforced"
"The working hours displayed are indicative"

I'm sure there is a more elegant word, but can't recall it at the moment.


texts: When should or could I change the pronunciation of a word, like in water, little, lot

texts:
I've been learning English as a second language for years. I can read English articles without big problem. The problem is speaking. I am currently trying to improve my speaking English.

In a course, the teacher told me that I should change the pronunciation of a word to make it more smoothly, e.g, lot should pronounce like lod in following sentence: The second issue is that a lot of times I ended up having my repo in an inconsistent state. Also when I realise I could pronounce water like wader, it will be much easier to speak faster. Same situation in little. Though I have known some words like school, ski, skate long before.

Is there any mechanism to explain this? Or any rules to do it?


texts: "As long as" in a sentence with two negatives

texts:
A Japanese friend of mine told me that, according to some articles that she read online (written in Japanese), the following sentence is incorrect:

"She won't forgive you as long as you don't apologize to her."

She doesn't understand why it would be considered incorrect, as we use 'as long as' with two negative verbs all the time (e.g. It won't break as long as you don't touch it).

That said, as a native speaker, it intuitively rubs me the wrong way, and 'if' seems to be the obvious choice here. So, is it grammatically incorrect? And if so, why? Any insights would be appreciated.


texts: Is the hyphen correct, in lieu of the percent symbol, in this suspended compound?

texts:
The Associated Press replied to me and said the suspended compound below is correct exactly as presented (that is, a hyphen after 10 without the % symbol). Do you concur with the logic and the correctness of the punctuation below? Please, no suggestions for a recast.

  a 10- to 15%-a-year increase

(Doesn’t it appear as though the 10- means “a 10-a-year to 15%-a-year increase," which obviously doesn’t make sense. Or is the punctuation above spot on with the hyphen doubling in brass and wearing two hats as both the suspending hyphen and the replacement for the % symbol?)


texts: How do you choose between stressed 'to be' and unstressed?

texts:
I am wondering in which context people stress the "be" in English grammar.
Both Wiktionary and Wordrefence have a stressed and an unstressed form in their dictionary.
I know that, for example, the verb "to have" is used in strong form only when used negatively:

"I have seen her." /aɪ həv si:n hə/

and

"I haven't seen her." /aɪ hævnt si:n hə/

But for the verb "to be", I can't find an example where we could use it negatively.


texts: What is the grammatical term for "only"?

texts: In this line "I said to my agent I only want to work with even bigger stars" (from the Graham Norton Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw_o8LYX5dw), what is the language term for the word "only"?


texts: find something good/ find something to be good

texts:
May I ask if there is any difference in connotation/ formality, when switching the sentence structure 'find something good' to 'find something to be good'? Sometimes my editors did this change in editing my articles. Below please see one example. Thanks!

Original Version:
He used the word ‘pu jie’ during a Legislative Council meeting, probably because he found it coarse.

Revised Version:
He used the word ‘pu jie’ during a Legislative Council meeting, probably because he found it to be coarse.


texts: Requesting a word - "Progressing" - "Slow but gradually moving."

texts:
Looking for a word that fits "progression" or "slow but gradually moving", using this for a list of uncompleted factors that have multiple states.

For example:

Finished.
Developing.
Progressing. (Would be active currently, but not finished.)

Another solution to this would be a word, for something that has been finished to a certain point but is still currently active and developing.

*Edited: Its for a list, its going to be used for managing the current state in which said "project" has reached.


texts:
A quote in a book contained the word "con[struction]."

It was used just as the word construct would have been. Is con ever used as an abbreviation of construction? Would there be any other reason to complete the quote like that?

Unfortunately I can't quote the context; I lost the bookmark, I don't remember the page, and I lack a searchable copy. I do remember that the quote was not weird in any other way, and that there was no apparent reason to do this. The book in question is Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. The word might have been "con[truct]".


texts: In the book "Charlotte's Web," or In the book "Charlotte's Web",?

texts: When stating a book title, is the comma before or after the quotations?


texts:
May I use the word "Indeed" instead of the word "Yeah..." in the beginning of a sentence? I want to understand if it would express a confirmation and compassion. For example:

  "Indeed, the news is not extremely good"


texts: Do you have to intend to hit a target to miss it?

texts: In order to "miss" something, would you have to intend to hit it in the first place?


texts: Attributive and predicative position of an adjective

texts:
I have some difficulty understanding the position of adjectives.
In English I have to put the adjective before the referred name (e.g., I'm an Italian man).

In some languages (as Italian or Ancient Greek), the adjective (or another grammatical element) can have two positions:

attributive: "gli uomini buoni" (the set of men who are good).
predicative: "i buoni uomini" (the men who are inherently good: all the men are good).

How do you translate?

the good men
????


texts:
Mandatory or binding – which is the better word?  Here is the context: I'm dealing with a contract that forces me to complete one task by a specific date. Is this a mandatory date, or a binding date? Which word is better?

Could you suggest an alternative word if one is more appropriate?


texts:
I never heard of the word "triggeronomy." What does it mean?

  “She’s bright,” Harlan said. “Mrs. McReady at school says Shan’s the brightest pupil she’s taught in her whole career, and that stretches back almost 40 years. She’s good in English, and she’s even better in the maths, which Mrs. McReady says is rare in girls. She can do triggeronomy, Wilf. Did you know that? Mrs. McReady herself can’t do triggeronomy.” No, I hadn’t known, but I knew how to say the word. I felt, however, that this might not be the time to correct my neighbor’s pronunciation. -- Full Dark, No Stars , Stephen King


texts:
I know /əˈfreɪd/ is the schoolbook version of pronouncing "afraid". However, I constantly find myself pronouncing it like /əˈfred/ instead. Is it just a natural thing to do when speaking or does it sound odd to a native speaker?

Thanks in advance!

edit: I would use the first variant in a context where this word receives extra stress i.e. is of some importance, like in "Who is he afraid of?". It's only when the word isn't really important and gets sort of swallowed in the phrase.


texts: Why do some people pronounce "singer" as "singGer"?

texts:
I teach English to elementary students in Korea.
One day, I noticed an African American female teacher pronounce the word,"singer" differently- "sinGer" , a strong G-sound. Is it common in America? Recently while watching CNN, I saw an basketball star pronounce this word the same way.
I just want to know whether it has to do with region, ethnicity, or etc.
I would appreciate if you could let me know. Thanks.


texts: Is bodyvertising a word that can describe a person who sells his body for advertising purposes? For example with a tattoo or any other method.


texts: Multiple usage of Past Perfect in a one sentence. How to recognize which action took place first?

texts:
I know that Past Perfect means "earlier past" and is used to clarify which action took place first in chronological order, but what when there are more actions in the past perfect that need to be specifically placed on the timeline? How do I know which action in the past perfect took place first? Here are some examples illustrating my concern:

At around one o'clock, the busker had been playing the guitar for hours, but he hadn't earned enough money to buy lunch, so he stopped.
When we found him, he had already fallen asleep. He had been waiting for us for too long.
When I came to the beach, the lifeguard told me that she had been watching swimmers all morning, but luckily, so far nobody had been in real danger.


texts:
In Steven Pressfield's Do the work book there is an expression I don't understand (my emphasis):

  Resistance's Greatest Hits

  The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities
  that most commonly elicit Resistance.

  The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film,
  dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.
  The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise,
  for profit or otherwise.

  [...]

  Any activity whose aim is the acquisition of chiseled abdominals.

Pressfield's resistance is sum total of all behaviors that prevent artists from working (incl. but not limited to laziness). I understand chiseled and abdominals, but I don't understand what activity he means here.

What activities does the author mean in item 5?


texts: Is there a word specifically referring to the stand upon which a large book is displayed, opened to a page?

texts: I'm thinking in particular of dictionaries or illuminated bibles being displayed on these stands, which are at least waist-high on a standing person, constructed of wood.  Is there a particular word for this, other than "book stand"?


texts: Why is "Whoever thought of that idea" a noun clause?

texts:
Whoever thought of that idea is a genius. reference
whoever=anyone that reference

I am confused by this clause and I think it should be a relative clause, because "a person" can be a genius instead of that clause "Whoever thought of that idea".
References:

Fused relative constructions


texts:
In editing science papers, I routinely come across the phrase "Altogether, these results suggest that..." I have changed it to "All together" because it seems to me that the phrase is referring to considering all of the results together. But I have seen "Altogether" so many times that I decided to look it up again, and now I am unsure. Perhaps the meaning is "All in all, these results suggest that..."

The examples I have seen in Garner's and Grammar Girl don't really match this situation. For example, "Altogether, I have too many socks" vs "My socks are all together in my dresser."

I am still leaning toward "All together" because it is modifying "these results" whereas in the example of "altogether" above, it is modifying "I have".

Or perhaps because it is ambiguous, I should leave it as is?


texts:
Is it:

  As Lilly lay down tucked up in her bed, all the days events span round in her head.

or

  As Lilly lay down tucked up in her bed, all the day’s events span round in her head.


texts: Is there a word or phrase for teaching someone a bad thing?

texts:
Say a father want to teach his children a lesson by giving an example of a behavior or thing that is immoral or illegal. Or imagine a teenager want to teach his or her friend a rude action and you as his or her best friend want to advice him or her not to do that. Or a TV program that isn't suitable for children.

How can I as a mother or best friend, tell them that what you are teaching or the example you are giving may have a bad impact on them because they will learn something (like using drugs) that they may want to try that because of the natural curiosity of human being?

I am looking for a word that means "the way of teaching, especially to children, where you teach someone something immoral or illegal not on purpose."


texts: How do you pronounce Calvin in British English

texts: How do the British pronounce the 'a' between c and l? Is it like 'callous' or 'call'?


texts: A more formal English expression for K-12 (in the US)?

texts:
This is US-specific.

I had mistakenly believed that grade school meant K-12. Turns out it refers only to elementary school. Is there a more formal (but fairly succinct) English expression for K-12?


texts: When did the phrase "bought of", meaning "bought from" or "purchased from", fall into disuse when referring to an individual selling an item?

texts:
I recently purchased a book published in 1826 in New York City that has an old handwritten inscription inside the front cover which reads as follows (the names have been changed for clarity):
Dr John Smith book bought of Mr James Jones
I am trying to figure out when the exchange may have taken place, so I am wondering when the phrase "bought of" fell into disuse in favor of "bought from" and "purchased from" commonly used today.


texts: Settle a debate: is one win a "win streak"?

texts:
A coworker and I are friendly rivals who play Foosball almost daily. I won a few games in a row and was celebrating my three-game win streak. He then won a single game, and has been celebrating his "one-game win streak".

I'm contending that it's not a win streak if he's only won a single game. A win streak is a trend, a linear pattern, and you can't spot a trend, pattern, or streak in a single data point. Similarly, you wouldn't say you've won "one game in a row", simply because one point cannot be "in a row". My argument is that you need at least two games in succession to establish a "win streak", and that a single game is just a "win".

He's pointing to the Wikipedia definitions of a win streak, which states that "In sports, a winning streak is winning one or more games in succession".

Which one of us is correct?


texts: Word for "moving up one conceptual level"

texts:
Bats and rats are mammals.
1 and 2 are positive integers.
Oaks and maples are trees.
Carrots and cake are food.

I seek a word to describe this, the process of finding a concept that encompasses several given concepts. Is there such a word?


texts: Why are formal and standoffish synonyms?

texts: I recently saw the synonyms for Formal on Google and was wondering why standoffish is apart of it? Because being formal is being polite, while standoffish is unfriendly. What makes these two words synonyms oh and also here is a picture


texts:
I want to say ongoing research on matter X using the word decades. The research started from the date of discovery of matter x in 1982 onwards. This should be an opening statement of an academic abstract.

My sentence is:

  Over three decades following its discovery, matter x has been a
  focus of ongoing research worldwide.

or

  For over three decades following its discovery, matter x has been a
  focus of ongoing research worldwide.

or

  For more than three decades following its discovery, matter x has
  been a focus of ongoing research worldwide.

which one is more correct?


texts: What does this mean and what is the origin of this phrase?


texts: What is the question tag for "I used to swim in the Tilak tank"?

texts:
What is the question tag that can be added to the following sentence?

  I used to swim in the Tilak tank.

This is question from an MCQ test whose options were

did I?
would I?


texts: Is there a noun meaning 'book of poetry/poems'?

texts:
There is a noun meaning 'book of fiction': 'novel'.
But there doesn't seem to be a noun meaning 'book of poetry/poems'. Or is there?


texts: What is there in the English corpus beside nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc?

texts:
As you can see from this NGram, the total number of words in the indexed English corpus that were nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determinants, pronouns, adpositions, numerals, conjunctions, or particles was around 83%.

This could be an infrastructure or programming issue, but assuming it's not, what possible explanation is there that this number is not 100%? Things like interjections are left out, but are 17% of the words in the entirety of Google's indexed literature interjections, or is there a better explanation?


texts: termination with "without" in a sentence

texts:
If you begin now to recognize these potentialities of your deeper mind, they will take form in the world without.

What does the part in the bold mean?

When I read the sentence I was like "without what?"


texts: Politically correct way of saying "perceived by others as better"

texts:
I work for a startup and am trying to write a sentence in a professional email along the lines of:

  We can compete with other/better-known companies like Google and
  Amazon by appealing to the interviewee's desire to make a big impact
  on a company.

I'm looking for an adjective that focuses more on the fact that people think that another company is better rather than on the fact that the other company is simply better known.


texts:
Consider the following statement;

  He commented that,"I have such a miserable cold, your sarcastic
  remarks are hardly making any effect on me."

How to know the usage of 'that' here? Is 'that' redundant here?

Also about punctuation;

  "I have such a miserable cold, your sarcastic remarks are hardly
  making any effect on me," He commented.

Should there be comma or full-stop at '...effect on me," He commented.

Also in following, should there be comma or full stop after 'He commented';

  He commented."I have such a miserable cold, your sarcastic remarks are
  hardly making any effect on me."


texts: What is a person with no lower limbs called?

texts:
Suppose a person is either not born with legs or they have been amputated, what would he be called ?

I have heard "Amputee" but it is not specific, it does not imply that a person has no legs.


texts:
There was some confusion, Mother let me know.

The sentence, on the one hand, has a comma splice, using a comma to connect two independent clauses. On the other hand, this is a case of an implied conjunction (as in: "There was some confusion, as Mother let me know").

Now, if the order of the clauses were flipped, it seems like it wouldn't need a comma.

  Mother let me know there was some confusion.
  Is this because the conjunction (in that case: "then") would also be implied?

I try to help my students recognize independent clauses and realize when to use commas, conjunctions, and periods, but I realize that I'm now breaking those very same rules. I'd like some clarity.


texts:
Are these two verbs the same? According to Longman, they are the same.

Here are some made up sentences:

  I rolled this (up) into a ball.
  Let's roll (up) our sleeves.

(I made up these sentences just to ask if they could mean the same.)


texts: If "often" is used as an adverb, does it need to be hyphenated?

texts:
In this sentence, should "often difficult" be hyphenated?

  At the arcade the brothers were able to leave behind their often difficult domestic situation.

My gut instinct tells me it should be hyphenated, but "often-difficult" looks odd to me.


texts: What do you call someone interested in learning many languages?

texts: What do you call a person who is interested in many languages? I think linguist and polyglot refer to a person who is already well-versed. I need a word for a person who is just interested and starting off to be a linguist in the future.


texts: What does it mean to defend a play as a work of art?

texts:
My theatre professor has given me an assignment, part of which is to defend a play we watched as a work of art - "The Piano Lesson" by August Wilson. However, she hasn't explicitly said what that meant. Up to now, I had considered the statement equivalent to her asking, "Why is this play a work of art?".

However, there seems to be a bit of a problem. I've created a list of subquestions related to the definition of art (as spelled out in my textbook). One of the questions I wrote is, "How does the play reveal to us what people treasure and admire?". The problem is that the best answer I can come up with also happens to be an answer to another one of my professor's questions, which is "What is the significance of the piano?". Now, the piano in the play was a family heirloom that had belonged to the mother of one of the main characters of the play. That's why my answer satisfies both questions.

I am now left to wonder - When my teacher asked me to defend the play as a work of art, did she mean to ask me why the play is a work of art?

Edit: This is a study guide that is supposed to be based on the reading. The reading assignment doesn't appear to mention critics, but a quiz based on the reading does have a question on the role of a critic.


texts: is the following sentence correct? "Please select each articles condition."

texts:
A customer should choose the condition for each "article".
"articles" is also the plural form of "article".
so is "Please select each articles condition." correct, or should i use something like "...article's..."?

Thank you in advance.


texts:
Tolkien, C S Lewis, there amongst the dreaming spires in Oxford with their over-mapped and over-textured mythopoeic inklings of an underlying landscape, a default Arcadia. Henry Treece, Nicholas Moore, intoxicated with Apocalypse and monged on Dylan Thomas, seeking immanence from every bud, from spit-dilutions left in brown glass bottles.

Source: Introduction to A Voyage to Arcturus by Alan Moore

Can you please explain what is meant by the part in bold?


texts: How do you capitalize a proper noun such as "iPhone"?

texts: I was always taught to capitalize the first letter of the first word in a sentence, and also the first letter of proper nouns. In the last few years it's been common for certain firms to name their brands something that is always spelled with a small first letter and a capital second letter. It is almost as if they demand the rules of usage are changed. What do you do about this? Where is the inquisition when you need it? Should you start a sentence with "IPhone"? Should you use "iphone" in the middle of a sentence?


texts: "It was possible for me to proceed to the..... "

texts: "It was possible for me to proceed to the US for my graduate studies because I was offered a scholarship". Is this sentence grammatically correct?  Should it be "It became possible..... " Or are they both ccorrect?


texts: What does "which I find convincing" refer to in this quotation?

texts:
I have two questions:

What is "which I find convincing" referring to? to "pleasing analyses" or "the idea that we should not get too carried away with pleasing analyses"?
What does "But at the end of the day they are models" mean? does it mean "and finally these analyses convert to models"?

Context:

  It is tempting to apply contemporary theories, both scientific and unwittingly socio-political, to the human mind to make definitive explanations as to how the brain evolved and operates, but in perhaps fifty years time we may see it all differently again. I say this as a reminder to myself not to get too carried away with pleasing analyses such as the examples that follow, which I find convincing because they somehow ring true for me instinctively. But at the end of the day they are models.The brain is not arranged this way, it may have evolved differently, but for the time being it is plausible and helpful to consider it so metaphorically.

From Art and Science (Sian Ede)


texts: Please elaborate what does it mean by soft skill in term of English language.


texts: What is the (single) word for: the art/science of naming a complicated matter in a single word?

texts:
It's kinda difficult to describe what I mean exactly, but I couldn't think of an example. Maybe I can add it later if I come up with one.

-edit-

The art/science of naming for example these complex situations within a single word:

• (not mine) "Waited a long time to read book. Read book. Didn't like book. Life now empty." "There should be a word for that."

• The empty but also content feeling you get after finishing a story or movie because you're "life" within the story stops. There could be a word for this.


texts:
I'm not sure about this but it seems to me that "not good" always has a firm negative connotation, i.e. it is equivalent to "bad", whereas "not bad" doesn't necessarily have a firm positive connotation; it can lean towards "decent" or even "mediocre".
For example if you found a dish to be mediocre/slightly above mediocre "not bad" would be a fitting description. But if you found it to be mediocre/slightly below mediocre "not good" seems to be too strongly negative to aptly describe it.
So my question is: is my interpretation correct? And if so, why is this the case, since I'd expect these two phrases to be symmetric, as in, direct opposites.


texts: Regent and Viceroy: When should I use one over the other?

texts:
These words appear to be synonymous, so I checked to see the difference on Wikidiff which gives the following definitions:

One who governs a country, province, or colony as the representative of a monarch.

One who rules in place of the monarch, especially because the monarch is too young, absent, or disabled.

I also checked thesaurus.plus which uses the same definition for each and also notes the following:

  Viceroy and regent are semantically related. in director topic. In some cases you can use "Viceroy" instead a noun "Regent"

Despite that, I did not see a clear difference. What exactly is the overlap? Where is the difference? When would you use one over the other?


texts: When referring to a culture, should that culture's name be capitalised?

texts:
For instance, which of these is correct?

  Gather and analyse Maori learner achievement data...

or

  Gather and analyse maori learner achievement data...


texts: The use of "majorly" to describe abundance of something

texts:
I hear the term 'majorly' being used often these days and wanted to check the correctness of it. For example,

  This article is majorly flawed.

And likewise,

  The customer was majorly upset.

If this usage is considered informal, what is a more formal alternative word to 'majorly'?


texts:
In an article by Juan Cole about the recent release of the Kennedy-Files it states that

  According to an informant, Ruby had a “good in” with the Dallas police [...]

I haven't found anything like this phrasing in a quick google-search or anywhere on this forum. I get from the context, that having a "good in" reflects having good relations to somebody, but is this some form of outdated chicago colloquialism or what? Why doesn't google know it?


texts: I'm looking for a psychology term related to behavior motivation or inducement

texts:
Its a single word that essentially means something like motivation.

There are both positive and negative versions of it like positive something - motivate by giving reward when someone does a good thing, or negative something - motivate by punishing when someone does a bad thing.

I knew that word a long time ago, but presently beats my memory! Can you help me out?


texts: Is there a noun for a person who helps tourists?

texts:
I'm looking for a word (if exists) that means a person who helps and guides tourists in her/his city.

As in

  The __________ told them about local customs and showed them the finest sights in the city.


texts:
Can someone help me identify the subject + the controlling idea of this sentence.
If you’ve ever dreamed of exploring Andalucia, Catalonia, or Mallorca, we invite you to explore Spain on a bike tour with us.
Thank you,


texts: "Opposite of (someone/something)" for "across from/opposite" in nonstandard colloquial prose

texts:
Consider the following quotes (emphasis mine).

  For a split second, I meet eyes with an older man standing in a still gaze just opposite of me amidst the sudden chaos. source

  Taking a seat on a stool just opposite of me, he gives me a huge smile. source

  Guards stood at my door and one sat just opposite of me, his eyes never leaving my face. source (see page 39)

  I was surprised when I caught sight of Alex, who was waiting just opposite of the bathrooms. source

  They were standing just opposite of the road and looked hungry, so we picked some of the grass that was just out of their reach and feed them. source

  There were two groups of people standing just opposite of each other. source

These quotes are all using opposite of to mean "across from" or "opposite". Are these uses acceptable in formal English writing? Or do they imply a less formal register, i.e. are these meant to merely be reproductions of casual speech?

Please also consider this NGram: source


texts: Which determiner to use before 'space race'

texts:
This was the conversation:

A : Why can't all space agencies work together for the better of humanity?

B : The space race, friend!

B meant the general meaning 'the competition between nations regarding achievements in the field of space exploration', while A contended 'The space race' refers exclusively to the rivalry between the Soviet and the USA in the 1960's.


texts: What term means "a language one does not know and is not learning?"

texts:
In linguistics and foreign language teaching, there are various terms to describe languages one knows or is learning, e.g.:

L1, first language, native language, mother tongue; a language one acquired from birth.
L2, second language; a language one learned or is learning, it not their mother tongue.
Target language, in the context of language learning, the language one is trying to learn.

What term can be used to describe a language that a subject does not know, they are not currently learning, and it is not their "target" of study?

The term should be fairly precise, such that readers can readily recognize that this term is neither a L1 nor a target language nor a partially learned language.
A term used in academic writing in the fields of linguistics, foreign language teaching, or second language acquisition studies is preferred, but if none is available, a new term that is consistent enough to fit in a set along with the other examples will be fine.


texts: Sarcastic way to say something is unexpected

texts: My friend's husband once bought her breakfast and she was surprised since he rarely did that. She wanted to say something like "that was unexpected" but in a more joking and sarcastic tone. We thought of a slang in Chinese "the sun rises from the west." Is there a similar expression in English or an expression that conveys the same idea? I searched and "wonders never cease" came out. Is it a perfect fit in this situation? How about "once in a blue moon" and "pigs might fly"? Thanks!


texts: Can you grammatically end a sentence with "with"?

texts:
Do you want to come with?
Can I come with?

I seem to hear this construction more often in recent years, but it still grates on my ear.
I know it's often said that one shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition, but I class that rule along with split infinitives (i.e. — pedantic tosh).
Is it always informal/casual speech to end a sentence with "with"? Was it ever thus?


texts: You cannot "eat your cake and have it" or "have your cake and eat it"?

texts:
Which is it?

  You cannot eat your cake and have it, too.

meaning you can have it or you can eat it, but once it's gone there's no cake left to eat.

  You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

meaning, as I understand it, you actually own the cake, so you can eat it if you want to.

A brief Google search suggests the second option is common usage (though I would argue misusage.)


texts: Is the phrase "spherical ball" redundant?

texts:
In a computer science course, our professor was explaining the idea of object oriented programming using the analogy of soccer.   While reading the Wikipedia article on Association Football, it said this:

  Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a
  sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical
  ball

If ball is connotated with a round, spherical object, is saying "spherical ball" redundant?


texts: Single word request: "universally fatal" (especially to humans) without any connotation of intentionality or evil?

texts:
Malign seems great, but it carries connotations of deliberate evil (like "malevolent").

Fatal or terminal might work, but aren't specific enough.


texts: Is there a word for the payment to someone who attends a meeting?

texts:
I'm looking for a word that describes the wage given to someone (a committee member) for attending the meetings/sessions of the committee.

I've done some research and have seen this question Is there a word for payments made to freelance workers such as designers? and its answers, and retainer and stipend are the only words that I can think are the most related, but I don't think they're exactly the word I am looking for. Is there another word that would have a closer meaning?

This is my sentence:

  Committee members are entitled to receive adequate attendance wage which will be paid by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.


texts:
Is the word "literally" used appropriately in the following sentence from XKCD?

  I just realized these are literally the same people

Source for those unfamiliar with XKCD


texts: Use of the word conciliated in Call of the wild

texts:
"as he looked at each brutal performance, the lesson was driven home to Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, though not necessarily conciliated" from Call of the Wild.

I do not understand the use of the word conciliated here.


texts: Are there any grammar errors in this sentence? 'Never believe anything because any other person has believed it.' Thank you~


texts:
Forasmuch as whosoever speaketh to another, intendeth thereby to make him understand what he saith; if he speak unto him, either in a language which he that heareth understandeth not, or use any word in other sense than he believeth is the sense of him that heareth; he intendeth also to make him not understand what he saith; which is a contradiction of himself. It is therefore always to be supposed, that he which intendeth not to deceive, alloweth the private interpretation of his speech to him to whom it is addressed.

I don't understand the bold parts.

"or use any word in other sense than this listener's understanding of the word."
he believeth is the sense of him that heareth.
This he is the speaker and him is the listener?

"which means this speaker is contradicting himself, because he wants the listener to understand him but at the same time he doesn't want the listener to understand him"

"people who don't want to deceive people allow what they say to be understood by the listener"

Is this correct?


texts:
This is a bit of a complicated question. The context is that someone gave advice to someone else. The whole situation is narrated in the past. I fear that by using the past tense, the reader may understand that the advice was taken heed of (since the verbs are all conjugated in the past), when it was actually completely disregarded right from the start.

Sentence:

  Someone suggested I deliberately - if not duplicitously
  actually - switch to my mother tongue as I spoke English in the
  meeting, making it look as though I were so nervous in defending
  myself that I involuntarily inserted a few words from my mother
  tongue; then follow that insertion with  “uh, uh, I am sorry, I mean,
  uh,  . . .”

Now the issue is that this advice was NOT taken heed of. However, because of the past narration (as in 'inserted' and other verbs), I fear it may look like it was. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.


texts: How rude is it to use " bloody hell " in a conversation?

texts:
In South Africa throughout the 1960-1980 whilst growing up, ' bloody hell ' was and still is used as an exclamation ( like gee whiz, far out, good Heavens) or as a frustration release ( like damn, oh no! ).
Is it deemed rude to use ' bloody hell ' in conversation?


texts: If I am quoting two short consecutive sentences, but the first sentence is the last of a paragraph and the second sentence is the first sentence of the following paragraph, how do I show this? Must I use a block quote?


texts: A political ideology that combines ideas of others to solve problems at hand?

texts:
I'm looking for an existing word or neologism to name a political ideology that uses principles and ideas of others.

The goal of this ideology is mix and combine approaches in order to best reply to problems experienced in society.

Alternatively, as this is for fiction the issue with such an ideology is that it might end up being corrupted so if you have any ideas for a second word for an approach that would exist independently of parties and ideologies then feel free to formulate one.

Thanks in advance.


texts: How to hyphenate names starting with "Mc"

texts: Take a name starting with Mc, like McDonald. How do you hyphenate it? McDon-ald or Mc-Don-ald?


texts: FOR more than four decades vs [X]more than four decade?

texts:
I read an aritlce saying:

  We are so proud to represent Queen and are thrilled to see the song
  still inspiring new fans around the world more than four decades
  after its release.

from this site.

I am wondering why there is no 'for'(like 'for more than four decades after its release'). I thought 'decades' is noun so it needs preposition to make prepositional phrase such as for two decades, for two years. Is the 'more than four decades' prepositional phrase so that it modifies the prepositional phrase      'after its release'?


texts: There is a word for "Something is about to happen" and it ends with -age. What is that?

texts: There is a word for the meaning "Something is about to happen" and it ends with "age". And I have not used it for a very long time so forgot it. Can someone help me out with it??


texts: Had never had/never had - past perfect vs simple past

texts:
This would probably be considered a duplicate, but I looked at the other similar questions and still can't figure out what to do in this instance. Would simple past or past perfect be better here?

  I didn't understand how it was possible to miss something I never had.

or

  I didn't understand how it was possible to miss something I had never had.


texts:
A new girl around me had been hospitalized over the weekend for a non-urgent issue. The same day, I wrote to her that I was available to visit her, to see if she needed any help or something (and if things were OK we might have had some fun afterwards).  She replied back to me:
"That's amazingly sweet but I'm exhausted. I've been hear since 11:30. I'm not fit for public consumption"

What did she mean by her last sentence?!!!


texts: Should I pluralize based on an item in parentheses

texts:
Which of the following two sentences is correct:

Jon (and Michael) is smart.
Jon (and Michael) are smart.

This example is clearly contrived but my question is whether the sentence should be grammatically correct when you erase the text in parentheses (Jon is smart) or should it be grammatically correct when read with the text in parentheses (Jon and Michael are smart).


texts: 'Thus it was... redeemed and wed?' What does that mean in 2018?

texts:
Here are two paragraphs from Clive Barker's Weaveworld.
I am really having trouble digesting two phrases.

True joy is a profound remembering; and true grief the same.
Thus it was, when the dust storm that had snatched Cal up finally died, and he opened his eyes to see the Fugue spread before him, he felt as though the few fragile moments of epiphany he'd tasted in his twenty-six years - tasted but always lost - were here redeemed and wed.

My questions are the following:

What is the meaning and function of the phrase "Thus it was"?
What is the meaning of "redeemed and wed"?


texts: What is a word (verb) for asking a question where you know the answer, and you're trying to get someone else to say it?

texts:
For example:

  "And Columbus sailed the ocean blue in...?" the teacher _____ed, scanning the room for someone to call on."


texts:
I wonder if "owed" and "due" mean the opposite in the following quote from Wikipedia?

In banking and accountancy, the outstanding balance is the amount of
money owed, (or due), that remains in a deposit account (or a
loan account) at a given date, after all past remittances, payments
and withdrawal have been accounted for. It can be positive (then, in
the balance sheet of a firm, it is an asset) or negative (a
liability).

I think  owed and due both mean someone owes someone else another something. But in the quote, it looks like owed means someone else owes someone something, and due means someone owes someone else something. I am confused.
Thanks!


texts:
During small talk I heard someone say,

  Think tall thoughts. That might help.

when another person was complaining about being short-heighted.

I checked online information, but I still need some clarification here.

Does this phrase mean:

(1) Just imagine you are tall and you will be more confident?

(2) Try to think from tall people's perspective and you will find the disadvantages of being tall?

(3) Imagine you are tall and you might grow taller? (Most online examples seem to have this meaning, but the hearer is an adult. I doubt that could help.)

(4) figurative or humorous use: Try to look on the bright side or think about being successful?

(5) Anything else?


texts: "Imaginatively" as a synonym for "in imagination"

texts:
The expression "in imagination" shows up in phrases such as "meanings may be infinitely combined and rearranged in imagination" (John Dewey).
I have also, just once or twice, heard artists say things like "the beholder can rearrange the objects imaginatively", meaning that the beholder can move the objects around in their imagination. Another example of this usage would be this sentence "Imaginatively, Glasgow exists as a music-hall song and a few bad novels." (from https://www.frieze.com/article/why-alasdair-grays-1934-2019-weird-visions-cannot-be-canonized).
So the usage I'm asking about is when "imaginatively" is used to mean "in imagination" and not "with imagination" as is usual. What is the history of this usage? It sounds rare and alternative to me, and I haven't found it in any of the dictionaries that I've consulted. Could it be a calque from some other European language? What's going on?


texts: If I look at a book about vehicles, can I say “What kind of vehicle is it?" to get the answer “It’s a bike." (or a truck, a car, a motorcycle, etc)? Is that question correct or not? How should I ask?


texts: Etymology and distinction between pottage and potage

texts:
At dictionary.com, there is a bit of an inconsistency in the origins and meaning of two historical variants of the same (probably French) word:

Potage

  noun, French Cookery.
  1. soup, especially any thick soup made with cream.

  Word Origin
  C16: from Old French; see pottage.

... and Pottage

  noun
  1. a thick soup made of vegetables, with or without meat.

  Word Origin
  1175-1225; Middle English potage < Old French: literally, something in or from a pot.

Do these words refer to different kinds of soup?

Why are there two spelling variants in English?


texts: " 'Such' amount" or " 'such an' amount"?

texts:
Is there any difference between them!? If you google both: 1 and 2, the amount of retrieved results are very similar. I'd like to know if there's any (grammar) rule that makes it clear when to use an after such.

PS: I used amount only as a means of an illustrative example.

UPDATE (example using such [an] amount of money):

"provisions shall be deemed such an amount of money or indebtedness as bears the same proportion"
"on and after 2011, such amount of money as may be authorized by the Secretary of the Defense may be withheld temporarily..."


texts:
For me it's quite hard to pronounce with correctly, especially when I try to speak faster. For example, saying with sauce nearly breaks my tongue.

Do you have any advice for me? Can I reduce the with somehow, like saying wi.. sauce?


texts: Should "rather" be used in this context?

texts:
Translating from german, the word "rather" (as replacement for "ziemlich") sounds kind of wrong to me, but I would like to check with an example:
"Rather innovative", shouldn't it be "Quite innovative" or "Fairly innovative" instead?
The context here is a basic rating (in english), with 4 values (imagine a dropdown):

"Not innovative"
"Somewhat innovative"
"(Rather) innovative"
"Very innovative"

"The project is rather innovative"
The word "rather" is also used in other 4-tier choices like that. It has been translated by a colleague and just sounded wrong to me, but I wanted to double check since neither of us is a native english speaker. Translation software offers "rather" as a possibility.
What is the most naturally sounding choice here? Is "rather" the right word, or would another word be a better fit?


texts:
I'm not a native speaker. So when you go to the church, what it's the most common word to describe the liturgy?

Complete the phrase:

I'm going to the _______ (the event of prayer that takes place in a church)


texts: Is there any synonymous word in English to describe an inoffensive girl?

texts:
In Asian countries, such as China and Korea, populace's aesthetic is quite different from the US.

We prefer a girl who is more sweet, pure, and inoffensive, (my translation is not authentic in English, since sweet can be used to describe any kind of attractive females). And in Asian countries, it is a praise for a girl if she has the characteristics above. I am just wondering whether there are commendatory and exact words in English to describe such girls (not the word to describe their lack of sex experience).

PS:
I once read a paper, named Automated Inference on Sociopsychological Impressions of Attractive Female Faces, in arXiv.org. It explores the potential of supervised machine learning in face-induced social computing and cognition. Their research subjects are restricted to young Chinese females that are considered by mainstream Chinese to have attractive faces:

They run the Baidu (Baidu is an engine same as Google) image search engine with key words: beautiful/pretty/attractive girls/young women, to select the sample images. The Baidu image search engine relies mainly on captions, labels and blogs associated with the images to produce the query results. The selected face images are divided into two subsets, denoted by S+ (sweet, endearing, elegance, tender, caring, cute.)and S− (pretentious, pompous, indifferent, coquettish), corresponding to the approval and disapproval type respectively. And the image I showed belongs to S+. I know the Chinese characters they actually used as key words. However, since the author of this paper is Chinese, I think their translation of their key words searching for images in search engine is not correct. Hence I am wondering whether there are excat words to describe these girls in S+.

Here's a link of the paper mentioned above.


texts: What is the device called when you use the same word but with two different meanings in a phrase for effect

texts:
What is the name of the device used when an author uses the same word to different effects in a sentence. Here, the word 'good' is used as both a noun and adjective
e.g. 'and good goods swimming in the water' - Samuel Pepys


texts: Is there a term for an intentional, pleasing juxtaposition of elements?

texts:
I made a paper plane out of airplane documents.
There's something satisfying about combinations like this, but I've never been able to locate a word that captures the concept:

It has the same feeling as irony, but there's no contradiction;
It's like serendipity, but with no luck or chance as it's an intentional combination;
It's like coincidence or synchronicity, but intentional instead of accidental

Is there a single word for this? The closest I can describe is "a satisfying juxtaposition", which doesn't have the right feel to me.


texts: Looking for explanation of "His smile fair as spring, as towards him he draws you"

texts:
As the title, I couldn't figured out anything by myself from this sentence

  His smile fair as spring, as towards him he draws you.

Especially "fair as spring", seems my first time to see the combination like this, I looked up "fair" in dictionary.com to see the list of meanings, this way usually can solve my question, but not this time

Can anyone give a clue about "fair as spring"? will be the best if another clue relating to second part of the sentence :P

Thank you very much

Its referenced in a game "The Witcher 3" mirror master song
btw, hearts of stone is a wonderful DLC


texts: The cases where no definite article is needed

texts:
In technical writing, I believe expressions like these do not require a definite article:

Function f(x) is such and such. Graph G has such property. Equation (10) combined with something else gives that.

I mean one should not (or need not?) say "the function f(x)", "the graph G", "the equation (10)", etc..

This is my recollection from what a copy editor did to my writing a long time ago. Is this impression correct? If so, what is the name of this rule? I mean how can I refer others to this point?


texts: How do I say a thing that I know but not sure understand clearly

texts:
I'm going to describe a definition to team members that most of them may know it, but they probably don't understand much. So, is there any good English words to say a thing that is:

easy to hear and know it
hard to understand to the edge
pretty confused

For example:
"Have you ever known about the X? That's one of the most suggest word term in our working methodology."

Thank you.


texts:
Self-irony is very popular in my home country, Denmark, and I find it defined on the Internet as "the ability to laugh at oneself, to take oneself lightly".

I also find it in some dictionaries but apparently not in the most widely used. Does the word (combo) exist or don't native English speakers know how to laugh at themselves?


texts: Need a word that describes a biweekly publication

texts:
Our company publishes an internal e-newsletter that we call the <Title> Weekly. We're now going to publish every other week, so the title needs to be changed. The first solution that came to mind was <Title> Biweekly, but a few questions on this site have pointed out that "biweekly" is a troublesome word, and we didn't really like the word anyways.

What is a good word to describe a publication that is now publishing less than it used to? Searching around on this site yielded "fortnightly" as an idea, but that doesn't fly as well across the pond. I just learned about the existence of "hebdomadal", but I doubt that "bihebdomadal" would get approved.

Any ideas? It doesn't even have to be a synonym of biweekly; in fact, it'd probably be better if we went in another direction. The publication is publishing less frequently so the idea of scaling back could be in play, but the new format opens the door for a more focused and relevant publication, because we won't be struggling for content week after week. So, a word like "condensed" could be on the table as well. Or, even a word that's better than "regular" to indicate that while it's not as frequent, it's still a regular publication.


texts: Term to define a specific tactic used when engaged in an argument

texts: As a tactic to "win" an argument, when one party has accepted responsibility for a specific action, the insatiable second party repeatedly finds/adds/remembers another infraction for the first party to acknowledge and accept responsibility for?


texts: What’s the meaning of the two English expressions "mouthing" and "mock biting"?

texts:
What are mouthing and mock biting?
I’m trying to understand what mouthing and mock biting mean. Here is the context — it describes a monkey reconciliation behavior:

After a fight, stump-tailed macaques have ritualized reconciliation behaviors: the subordinate presents his rump to the dominant individual that acknowledges the gesture. The dominant male may embrace and kiss the subordinate, which will respond with “teeth chattering” and “lip smacking,” both signs of submission. Finally, the subordinate offers a hand to the dominant individual who will softly mouth or “mock bite” the hand. After this interaction, the bond is purportedly restored and the dominance hierarchy is reinforced (de Waal 1993; Srivastava 1999).
Source: Primate Fact Sheet on the Stump-tailed macaque
(Macaca arctoides) at http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/stump-tailed_macaque/behav

Since the question has been downvoted and put on hold, maybe because it sounds too obvious to native English speakers, it might be useful to add that:

I did not find anything about these expressions.
When translated word-by-word into French, neither expression makes any sense.*

I therefore surmise that since a direct calque into French makes no sense for these terms, they must have some special non-literal/idiomatic meaning that is greater than the sum of their individual words.
My guess
The closest I can find in French for mock bite seems to  be mordiller, meaning a serie of gentle bites. I could make out the sense, though I have never seen any simians (like a chimpanzee ape or a macaque monkey) doing that.
To mouth seems to mean in this context “to put one’s hand in one’s mouth” but I doubt that applies here in the case  because a macaque’s hand is quite big.

Footnotes
* As an aside, if anyone happens to know a good French equivalent for these terms, whatever they really mean in English, I'd be very interested to learn these. But I can’t translate these into French until I learn what they actually mean in English.


texts: Does the interjection "steady on!" mean something to a Brit?

texts:
More from the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House.  In this particular scene, one character, Sergeant George, is infuriated at another character, Mr. Smallwood, his petty landlord come to turn him out of his place of business; all the while Smallwood is reneging on a past agreement between the two men.  The situation quickly escalates and George, a military man, and a man of honor, threatens Mr. Smallwood by leveling a pistol at him, causing Smallwood to cry out "steady on!", and hurriedly retreat from his mission of eviction.

So my question is: What does this phrase, "steady on", mean? I got from context that it would cause someone angry to stop what they're doing, but does it mean something more exact outside this particular context? If it does in fact mean something, how do you get from the ambiguous "steady on" to the actual meaning of the phrase — what's the thinking behind the "steady", for example? And finally, would the phrase be current today?


texts:
In terms of conditional sentences, is it correct to say:

if you knew why I WAS here, then I wouldn't need to be here.

or

If you knew why I WERE here, then I wouldn't need to be here.

Which type of conditional is this? Type 2?
I was thought at school that there are three types of conditionals. Are there more of them?


texts:
I have a character who is of questionable morals and happens to shamelessly kill people for a living. They neither care who they kill nor care whether their actions are wrong, so long as they get their paycheck. I've described them as "sordid" and I rather like the way the word works in my text, but I read synonyms and am curious if this is the word. It seems to be more like sleazy in the way an old motel meant to house you while you're with a few hookers.

So, is there a better word I could use? If so, does it start with "s"? The alliteration with my character's name is nice and it would be really cool if I could keep that.


texts: What are Fowler's guidelines for comma usage for this phrase?

texts:
I don't need to set off "at times" in commas here, do I?

  "It is an at times fraught debate... "

The alternative is as follows:

  "It is an, at times, fraught debate... "

And, a second question, is "at times" in this clause an adverb modifying the adjective "fraught"?

And, if I'm right to think there's no such thing as a compound adverb, I need not concern myself with hyphens here (ie, "at-times"), need I?

I'm editing a peer-reviewed work and am chary of rephrasing at a late stage of the process. It's for a law journal, and the guide is Fowler's; I could find nothing there of assistance on this point, however. (That's not to say there's nothing there to help me!)


texts: Is the use of "all set" correct in this context?

texts:
This is the context:

  The rules of playing cricket are very easy. All you need to do is
  follow my instructions. Get the bat and ball from the storeroom and we
  are all set.

But this doesn't sound quite correct to me. I am getting the that feeling I need to add "to go" in the end.

  The rules of playing cricket are very easy. All you need to do is
  follow my instructions. Get the bat and ball from the storeroom and we
  are all set to go.

Is the first sentence correct or is it necessary to add "to go" in the end? What grammatical difference does adding "to go" make?


texts:
I've a sentence structured as below for a leaflet:

  Fill in the survey and you can win x!
  Plus, a chance to be entered into a draw to win y!

I typed this sentence and I just naturally added a comma after 'Plus'

Should I?


texts: Answering a question about multiple people with 'nor'

texts:
Someone asked a question in an email addressing a group (3 people). We had to respond in the negative. I am not clear on if this sentence is grammatically correct. The response I sent was:

A, B and I have not done it.

Now, logically if I use and, it sounds incorrect because I should be using an or to represent the fact that none of us have done it. For example, if it was two people, I would probably just say:

Neither A nor I have done it.

Instead of,

A and I have not done it.

So my question is:

Is there a way to write sentence 1 in the same way as sentence 2?
Is sentence 1 grammatically correct?


texts: I'm working on my summer reading, and one of the assignments I have to complete for a book is 'Latter of Advice.' My report was going great right before I got to the character's unintentional mistake. Now after every five to six words, the words (unintentional mistake) is written, and I really want to change that.


texts: Is there a term or phrase for a list of residents displayed at the door in a shared home?

texts: I currently live in a rented home with roommates not related to me. All residents of the house are listed on a laminated paper dispayed by the house's mail slot. In our experience, the United States Postal Service will not deliver mail (especially packages) to our address unless the receiver's name is present on this list. Is there a term or specific phrase for this list of current residents displayed to the postal carrier?


texts: How is 'transparent' used in this context?

texts:
ERP system has become important because it uses IT to integrate
  information of all operations of an entire company. Ketikidis et al.
  (2008) conclude that ERP system improves the competitive advantage of
  a company. The major operations are combined in a single software
  module (Kalakota and Robinson, 1999; Bingi et al., 1999). Matolcsy et
  al. (2005) show that it is important to follow and control logistics
  to reduce unnecessary costs when the process is transparent enough.
  Davenport (1998) recommends ERP system can help the management control
  operations to raise the competitive advantage of a company. The
  operational performance of a company using ERP system outshines that
  of a company without it (Hunton et al., 2003).

I can't really seem to understand how the word 'transparent' is used in the above context. How can a process be transparent?


texts: Use of "exist" in "Can there exist an uncountable planar graph?"

texts:
Can there exist an uncountable planar graph?

This usage of exist bothers me. In this context, my understanding is that it is used as a replacement for be. That looks very strange to me. However, I found it in the writing of a person who is very good at teaching and explaining, and I guess it might be actually correct. Is it?

EDIT: This is actually a title of a Mathematics Stack Exchange question.


texts:
This is a sentence that I wrote:

  In the text, words such as greenbacks, ironclads, and blockade were used.

However, I think there should be quotations around the words. How would I place them? Would I include the commas in the quotations?

Also, would the word greenbacks need to be Greenbacks?


texts:
Is it the "title of the books" or the "name of the book"? which one should I use and why?
Thanks in advance.


texts:
When speaking precisely or technically, one would say that "Homo erectus and homo sapiens are two species of hominid" rather than "Homo erectus and homo sapiens are two species of hominids." The hominid here should be singular because we are speaking about instances of a single class ("class" being used here in its broader sense, not in the sense of taxonomic grouping).

Now let's consider more common parallel constructions replacing the word species with other words.

  Tide and Wisk are two brands of detergent.
      Tide and Wisk are two brands of detergents.

  Cats and dogs are two types of pet you can buy at Pets-R-Us.
      Cats and dogs are two types of pets you can buy at Pets-R-Us.

I feel that using the singular noun to specify the class is more grammatically correct, but sounds stilted in conversation. Almost everyone I hear making these constructions uses the plural form. What are your thoughts about singular vs. plural here?

Edit

Here's a more extreme example that may help clarify the issue. Consider the following sentence:

  It was my first attempt at calming an angry crowd, and I just
      stood there while people were hurling all kinds of insults at me.

Here I think the singular insult sounds strange, if not downright wrong.

Further Edit

I just noticed in A Treasury for Word Lovers (Morton S. Freeman, 1983) a section entitled "Types of Errors." This is a book about (American) English usage by an English professor and editor, which purports to be a "practical guide for serious writers and readers." I wish I could say this discovery satisfies the question, but in fact I now feel somewhat farther from the truth, if there is any single "truth" in this matter. But at least I don't have to worry about being wrong when using the plural form of the class in these constructions.


texts:
Which of the following is correct?

  I, too, have seen that movie.

or:

  I too, have seen that movie.

The former seems correct to me from examining the inflection with which I would say it, but it looks a little awkward.


texts: What is the single-word category name for such things as breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and deserts?

texts:
If Sunday, Monday, Tuesday are considered “days”, and  spring, summer, autumn/fall, winter are considered “seasons”, then what category name corresponds to things like breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and deserts?

I’m looking for a category name better than food or recipe or course.

Background: I created an app for recipes and wanted to have a name for the filter with which the user can choose a different “type” (this is the word I'm looking for) of recipes.


texts:
Through the magic of introspection I've discovered something about myself. It doesn't feel pleasant to say but I feel good when I behave magnanimously. And when I say I feel good, I don't mean I feel good because I was nice to someone, it's more like I somehow feel superior to others when I show them generosity.

I realize this incredibly conceited of me but more importantly I am wondering if there is a word for this? Being overly magnanimous to satisfy your own inflated sense of superiority.


texts: Have I transformed this reported speech correctly?

texts:
She asked the teacher what should she do.

Should it read as -

  She asked the teacher, What has to be done?

Please explain why the sentence might be incorrect.


texts: Term to describe how much something has changed from its original configuration

texts:
Is there a term that describes how far removed or how many change steps are between two given states or configurations?
Complexity is a term to describe that something is intricate or complicated, but it does seem to reflect the number of steps required to make the change. Degrees of change may be closer, but that doesn't seem to be a common term.
As an example, a star has a great many components, parts, currents, etc., and could be considered complex. In comparison, a child's toy is much less complex, but the number of proceeding steps required for a toy to exist (a planet to form, complex life to evolve, etc) is far greater. A child's toy made from refined uranium, while of the same complexity as one made from wood, requires again more steps to create.
I am looking for a term to describe that the toy is far further removed from the universal base configuration than (for example) a star due to a greater number of steps required for the thing to exist.


texts: What could we call a "market for predicting decisions"?

texts:
I've always called these "decision markets", and will do so here to simplify the language in this discussion. But that term is overused to the point of being confusing, and I'm curious if anyone can come up with a better one.

By "decision market", I mean a prediction market in which the traders are explicitly attempting to predict a decision made by the market's own judge.

About Prediction Markets:

A prediction market is usually described as being one in which the traders are attempting to predict the outcome of some future event. But in implementation, a prediction market always has a judge -- usually a single person, but sometimes a committee -- who uses their own interpretation of the event's outcome to set contract values at expiration.  So in effect, a prediction market is really a market in which the traders are attempting to predict the judge's decision regarding the event.

An example of a prediction market is one in which the traded contracts represent the probability of one or more political candidates winning an election. In this case, the prospectus describes how the judge will decide who the winner was, and might reference the New York Times as an external authority on the election results. A well-written prospectus will always provide an "escape" clause, though, to allow the judge to close out contracts at a reasonable price in the face of unforeseen circumstances, such as a failure of the newspaper itself.

About Decision Markets:

An example of a decision market is one in which the traded contracts represent the release date of an open-source software package. In this example, the judge is the maintainer of the package, and the prospectus states that the judge will ultimately decide when to release the software, based not only on available information such as outstanding known bugs, but also on the price information provided by the market itself. This, for example, gives the market the opportunity to provide quantified signals regarding issues that might otherwise be hidden in mailing list discussions.

I don't know of any active decision markets.  I'd like to start an open-source project for software which would support them, which leads me to the above question.


texts: When is it appropriate to use non-breaking spaces?

texts:
I started using non-breaking spaces (represented in the following examples by an underscore) between a number and a unit of measure (10_ft), and within a name (Dr._John_Smith).  I like the "look" of using non-breaking spaces to prevent titles from wrapping, but I don't know if it's technically correct or not.  Is there a hard rule for this, or it a matter of style?  Are their other circumstances when non-breaking spaces are usual?

Just in case it's news to anyone: you can enter a non-breaking space with Ctrl-Shift-Space in Word and Outlook, and possibly other applications.


texts: What is the word for situation when something was done in most probable way, despite the fact it could go differently by an accident?

texts:
For example: on my daily way to work I could trip and hurt my leg accidently, but if I arrive without being hurt, how should I describe it? I arrived _ _ _ ?

Luckily or happily are words that seem to fit above example, but what if the "happy" or "lucky" way of doing things is statistically insignificant? For example, if my daily way to work would require walking through tree districts with the highest crime rate, I could say I accidently arrived without being hurt, but what should I say if things went as expected? I arrived _ _ _?

Edit: Is there a word which fits both situations?


texts: “shouldn't have {gone/been} to the party”

texts:
What is the correct rephrasing for this sentence?

  I went to the party and now I regret it.

  I shouldn't have gone to the party
  I shouldn't have been to the party


texts:
I would like to know the difference between "What a shame!" and "Such a shame!"". When do I use one or the other?

I am Brazilian, so I don't know exactly how to use them.


texts: Proper phrasing of "My first foray into"

texts:
I am writing a purpose statement for a PhD program in mathematics and would like advice on properly phrasing this sentence:

  My first foray into unusual mathematics was an introductory course in cryptography.

It might be a case of over-reading it, but for some reason this sentence just doesn't sound right in my head. Should I change it to

  My first foray into unusual mathematics was taking an introductory course in cryptography during my sophomore year.

Other advice would be appreciated.


texts: Is there a word for a comment which makes no sense or adds nothing to the current discussion?

texts:
Consider this conversation:

  John: I am giving free chess lessons.
  Mary: Nice! You’re a true teacher.
  John: How so?
  Mary: A true teacher imparts knowledge without a price tag.
  John: But what if teaching is his only source of income? Would he not be a “true” teacher then?
  Mark (in response to the question above): You clearly mentioned “free chess lesson”.

I don’t see how Mark’s comment adds anything to the discussion or makes sense in the current discussion. It is “redundant” — that’s one word for it — but is there a more fitting word?


texts: Can "shavelings" be used to refer to Asian monks? Or does it only refer to Occidental shaven-headed church men?

texts:
Can "shavelings" be used to refer to Asian monks? Or it only refers to Occidental shaven-headed church men?
Can a shaven-headed civilian be called a "shaveling"?


texts: Is there a word for the fear that one might be a hypochondriac?

texts: This seems like a fundamental thing that would have a word for it—oftentimes one worries about a health condition, but then one is afraid to get it looked into as one is afraid of being a hypochondriac.


texts: Is it grammatical to use ellipses to indicate a character reminiscing?

texts:
Is the usage of ellipses correct here?

He sat on his wooden desk, fixing the reel on his cassette. When he played the cassette, his mind played the memories of the past ...
[a paragraph outlining the past memories]

The character is reminiscing about the past.


texts: Using the word "murder" in "killer explosion"

texts:
I saw a post today on social media
"78 people were killed by the explosion in Lebanon"
And I commented "since you used the word "killer" rather than "died", can we assume it's a murder?"
I got hate comments suddenly and got confused, I know it's common to use killer in storms, earthquakes and such but can we also use the word murder?
Does using the word killer really is correct?
I'm confused, thanks for the answers


texts: Variant of the phrase "broad brush strokes"

texts:
I'm looking for a phrase that captures the idea that one is dividing material up crudely. The context is a claim that in discussing a certain issue, we only need to make rather crude divisions (or employ simplistic categories) in order to get the point.

Obviously, painting in broad brushstrokes is pretty much this, but it would be good to use a metaphor that implies cutting/division. Closest I can think of is "rough cuts".

The sentence would look like this (with square brackets replaced):

  At this point, it is sufficient to [paint in broad brush strokes]

Some context as requested...

I'm writing an essay in which I draw distinctions between advertising and other activities that might involve persuasion or manipulation (public discourse, art, fundraising etc.). Obviously, there are many subtle distinctions between these activities, since they vary so much internally and between one another. But I only need to roughly demarcate some tentative boundaries between them.


texts: What is the name of the paper that stickers are usually sold on?

texts:
When we purchase stickers, they usually come stuck to another sheet of paper which it is easy to peel them off of. What is that paper called?

For example, we might say I just removed the sticker from _____ and then stuck it onto my wall.


texts: Difference between "Call to action" and "Call for action"

texts:
Not being a native English speaker, I feel that there is some difference in meaning between

  Call to action

and

  Call for action

However my research was unfruitful. Is there a difference between these two expressions?


texts:
This question comes out of curiosity. I have seen some people mention you just divided by zero. For example,

http://thxforthe.info/2007/12/02/you-son-of-a-bitch-you-just-divided-by-zero-didnt-you/
The title says "YOU SON OF A BITCH – You just divided by zero, didn’t you?"
A comment posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL0QGn4lx_Y : K4Kendetta says -"Donno what it is about this song, but it gets to me. As jjared said, I feel happy and sad at the same time...somehow. Loquat....I believe you just divided by zero..."

These two cases may or may not be in different contexts, but is there any meaning to the expression? I guess it means you did a difficult task. Is that true?


texts: "I can have it mailed to you if you wish."

texts:
recently a visitor at work forgot his mobile charger at my desk. He wrote me an email asking if it's still there.

For some mysterious reason I answered: "Yes, indeed. I can have it mailed to you if you wish." I tried to express that I can ask someone (the receptionist) to do so.

Meanwhile I am quite unsure if "I can have it mailed" is any form of understandable English at all :))).

Is this a correct, common phrase?

Cheers,
Alex


texts:
I found myself writing such that many times already. Which synonyms would be adequate? Here is a typical example:

  For theory 1 Eq. (1.1.1) can be written as ... , while for theory 2
  A must be replaced by B, such that ...


texts:
There is a song called "Alive", by Pearl Jam. The opening line is:

  Son, she said, have I got a little story for you

Despite the subject-auxiliary inversion ("have I"), which would be expected in an English question, the subordinate clause is affirmative. What is the function of this inversion?


texts: Addressing several doctors in a salutation

texts: Good morning Drs Smith, Brown, and Jones, (Is this correct?)


texts: How to interpret two clauses separated by a semicolon, then followed with a colon

texts:
If two clauses separated by a semicolon are then followed with a colon, does the colon apply to only the second clause, after which it appears, or does it apply to both clauses being considered as a single "unit"?
It would look like the following: clause 1; clause 2: clause 3.
So does the colon apply to only clause 2, or does it apply to clause 1 and clause 2 considered as a single "unit"?


texts: What does “the feet the wrong way round in the toilet cubicle, the teeth brushing” mean?

texts:
This is an extract from a Guardian article:

  Teenage angst is hardly new. It is simply exacerbated by the
  conditions in which we live: relentless social media, exam stress,
  economic disenfranchisement and a sense that the world is on its last
  legs. None of this is a recipe for good mental health. Indeed,
  distress is all around us. Just ask teachers.
  The long sleeves covering the cuts, the feet the wrong way round in the toilet cubicle, the teeth brushing; these things afflict so many
  girls. The annual Children’s Society Report confirms this. It is an
  intelligent, multifaceted report that understands how disadvantage
  itself is complex.

I’m not quite sure what “The long sleeves covering the cuts, the feet the wrong way round in the toilet cubicle, the teeth brushing; these things afflict so many girls” means.

I'm thinking some girls cut themselves as a way to be cool or to get some kind of satisfaction from hurting themselves... am I correct? As to the rest of the sentence I'm completely lost. What does "the feet the wrong way round in the toilet cubicle, the teeth brushing" mean? Are these ways people hurt themselves or be bullied by others?

Could someone help me interpret this sentence? Thanks!


texts: What is the spelling of program/programme

texts: Do you say program or programme? Which one is original english? Which one should we use?


texts: Use quotation marks for phrases on items

texts:
I am editing a story with a character who is wearing a "Search and Rescue" T-shirt. If I understand correctly, "Search and Rescue" is not a proper name. The shirt simply identifies the character as a member of the Search and Rescue team. So, in this context, how would the phrase "Search and Rescue T-shirt" be punctuated?

Would it be any different if the shirt had a name (as in a "Metallica T-shirt"), or if the shirt had a phrase (such as a "Keep Calm and Carry On T-shirt")?


texts:
1)What are a group of people who live in the same place like city, state or nation, called?
2)What are the group of people who are part of the same institution or organization called?


texts:
Which is your most favourite subject in school ?
  What is your most favourite subject in school ?

Which one is acceptable?  If both are acceptable, do they have any difference in meaning?


texts:
I’m proofreading for a friend (not that I am an expert on English or his subject matter!), and he has used the word stiffnesss in an engineering context.
I believed the plural should be stiffnesses, but a quick Internet search suggests that stiffness might be a noun without a plural, such as sheep or furniture.
Excerpted examples:

connected to its neighbour by spring and bending stiffness’s
these stiffness’s and the damping encountered are calculated by


texts:
I learned the rule recently. Then I was confused a little bit.
The song Every lie, by My Darkest Days, has the line:

  Trying to undo the love that I'm tied to. Who haven't you lied to?

as far as I understand instead of 'who' must be 'whom' or maybe I misunderstood something... or may it be an exception?


texts:
The Wikipedia entry for arity lists a sequence of adjectives meaning in group of (a particular number of elements). When referring to numbers between 0 and 10, the -ary adjectives are:

0 - nullary
1 - unary
2 - binary
3 - ternary
4 - quaternary
5 - quinary
6 - senary
7 - septenary
8 - octonary or octary
9 - novenary or nonary
10 - decenery or denary

Can this sequence be continued? What are the rules (if any) to form the adjective meaning n-ary (in group of n)?


texts:
These dangerous goods, until which are delivered to the place of storage, must be packed inside shock-absorbing materials.

Does this sound wrong or hard to be comprehended? If it does, what's the better way to rewrite while keeping the order?


texts: "This question has been asked at Stack Overflow" vs. "on Stack Overflow"

texts:
How should I phrase it:

  This question has been asked at Stack Overflow.

Or,

  This question has been asked on Stack Overflow.


texts: Meaning of "to wrestle places from their surveillance grids"

texts:
His concern is tracing the individual and personal history in the seemingly banal, and wrestling anonymous places from their recording and surveillance grids.

What could "wrestling something from their something" mean?

Does it mean that the person is struggling to get the anonymous places out of their surveillance grids? Or does it mean that the person is struggling against the anonymous places in their surveillance grids?

Or does it mean something else entirely?

I'm reading through an artist's introduction and there are so many expressions I understand only partially. I do get the "nuance" of the expression, but if I were to put it in my own words, I could not.

What could that sentence possibly mean?


texts:
I want to say the following sentence,

You will now eat, at my house

This type of usage, although not common in the US or UK is very common for speakers from Europe or Russia when they speak English. My question is what is this type of tense or verbal conjugation called?
Background: I want to write that so and so said this to me, and this is a common usage for European English speakers.

Based on the comments, here is an edit:
I do not have a problem with this usage. I would like to say that the xxx tense usage is perfectly normal in Russian. What is xxx?


texts: Usage of English variants of foreign place names (Regensburg - Ratisbon)

texts: Many place names have different form/spelling in English and in the original language of the country, in which they lie, e.g. Lyons x Lyon, The Hague x Den Haag, Munich x München. Most of them are used so commonly that there is no question about their usage in English (e.g. I would definitely write Cologne and not Köln); however, there are also cases, which are more ambiguous because they are not used often. Specifically, I came across an English variant Ratisbon for Regensburg in Germany. I never encountered this variant before and I wonder whether I should use it in a list of publications, if all other places of publication in this case are anglicized (e.g. Cologne, Munich). What is the general rule for using anglicized versions of place names versus the use in the original language?


texts: A phrase for something that has a lot of advantages but comes with a lot of problems

texts:
I'm working on an academic article and need a phrase for a situation where something seems very good, but without the proper tools is useless.
for example:
Let's say you have Wikipedia with all it's knowledge but no search engine. so it is basically useless.

Thanks!


texts:
I have a new approach and data and I want to apply this new approach on a set of data.
But a friend of mine says I have to a apply it to the data. So in

  We apply this novel approach X the naninani corpus.

is it on or to?


texts: What is the adverb in this sentence? It was dark outside and an icy wind made me shiver

texts: It was dark outside and an icy wind made me shiver.


texts: A fitting word/description for a person who seems more mature in appearance than most people his age?

texts:
I'm trying to describe a person who is young (in his youth 19-24, past teenage years) who at a first glance might look mature or wiser for his age. But if you talk to him you get to know him as a little naive though only in experience but not in wisdom.

So I have a description like "His face is calm and impassive and combined with his white hair makes him look wiser than 19"

Can I use a word or phrase that can define this kind of person without giving away details?
And is the description even correct to explain this kind of person?


texts: Looking for an idiom or a slang word/phrase for a formal reply with no intent to help

texts:
There is a word in Russian "отписка", which could mean "unsubscription" but also has in some context could mean "written reply in a very formal way with no intent to really help". Like a very polite "fuck off" reply.
So I feel like there should be a similar idiom or a slang word for this in English. Are there any?


texts: What does "Bastion of righteousness" mean?

texts: I heard someone use this to describe star wars Obi Wan Kenobi. I know it must mean the quality of being morally right or justifiable but can you define it more specifically.


texts:
Is this grammatically correct? The survival kit of an English teacher.

I doubt if this should be written as follows: An English teacher's survival kit.

While I know the second one is grammatically correct, the first option sounds better. As far as I know when we talk about possession, we have to use the Saxon genitive.


texts: Help with understanding the phrase "to the effect" in this context

texts:
What does to the effect mean in this sentence?

  Consider suppositions to the effect that someone is supposing something.


texts: Plural noun after "the last", e.g. "The last vestige/traces", should it be singular?

texts: Sorry, if it sounds trivial, I saw people wrote "the last vestiges....." and 'the last traces ....", should it be singlar? but obviously it is more common in plural, is it a common practice or is there any rule I messed in English?


texts: What is a word for "loosely mirror" something/someone else?

texts: The student "loosely mirrored" the moves of the dance instructor, trying his best to mimic the motions.


texts: Article and plural for a title of a section

texts:
Which one of the following titles is better?

  (1) The Specifying of the Planning Horizon
  (2) Specifying of the Planning Horizon
  (3) Specifying of Planning Horizons

The context is : a planner works in a cyclic way; for each planning cycle, it needs to specify a planning horizon according to the situation at the start of the planning cycle. In the corresponding section, the author would like to introduce how the planner specifies the planning horizon each time.

Thanks!


texts: find something gone or find something has gone

texts:
Are both of them right?

Next morning when you wake up, you find your kidney has gone.
Next morning when you wake up, you find your kidney gone.

If they are all right, what's the difference?


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Gender-neutral equivalent for “Take it like a man”

Does this make sense?  For instance:

  "John, just man up and get on with it".

You can't say this to a female, so what is the appropriate equivalent?


texts: Is there an alternative expression for 'opening band' or 'opening act'?

texts:
The question says it all.

Together with a colleague we were looking for this. We both had the feeling that there's another way to say it.


texts: single word noun for the author of a grant proposal

texts:
I was wondering if there is a shorter way (preferably a single word noun) to refer to the author of a grant proposal?

I looked up the word "proposer", but can't find the exact same usage in any dictionaries. Google search suggests that this is a French word.

The closest thing I can find is an example in this ESL question: What's the word for a party to whom a business proposal is made?

  Proposer and proposed-party.

  Both the proposing and proposed companies of the joint-marketing
  campaign celebrated their deal with much fanfare and publicity.

But the example cites no sources and doesn't actually contain the word "proposer". In addition, I'm not sure if it's the same context as a grant proposal.

Could anyone offer an official source, or suggest an alternative?


texts:
Funnily enough, food is often used metaphorically to describe someone's eccentricity or level of sanity.

We have nuts

  Slang. a foolish, silly, or eccentric person. an insane person; psychotic. adj.
  "crazy," 1846, e.g. to be off one's nut, "be insane," (1860), from earlier be nutts upon "be very fond of" (1785) Meaning "crazy person, crank" is attested from 1903, (British form nutter first attested 1958; nut-case is from 1959)

crackers

  adjective 1. (postpositive) ( Brit) a slang word for insane.  Also, he was plain crackers [1928+; formed with the British suffix -ers, like bonkers, preggers, etc]

fruity

  adjective Eccentric; odd; nutty, weird (1930s+ Teenagers)

fruitcake

  Slang. a crazy or eccentric person;  meaning "lunatic person" is first attested 1952.

bananas

  adj. "crazy," 1968; esp in the phrase go bananas, earlier (1935) it was noted as an underworld
  slang term for "sexually perverted." Crazy; nuts: I could see that my calm was driving him bananas (1970s+)
  [from the idiomatic expression] to drive somebody bananas

and cupcake

  noun An eccentric person; nutball: regarding puppeteers as kind of
  weird cupcakes who play with dolls / the publishing cupcake who nailed
  you on the couch and then fired you (1970s+)

And yet I couldn't come up with any beverages, meat, or vegetables to add to that list. Why are baked "bread" products and fruits more commonly associated with eccentricity or madness? Are there any other foods I can add to this list? Are there any forgotten or archaic food words that describe a person's sanity?

P.S. Please add references/backup/sources with your answers. Thanks!

Source: All definitions taken from Dictionary.com

EDIT: Related to origins of nuts meaning madness is a question entitled
 How did the phrase “Are you nuts” come about?