texts: Hyphens in verb construction containing prefix such as "re"

texts:
In semi-formal business writing in the United States, I often observe that writers tend to add a hyphen between a prefix and the root infinitive of verbs. In many of the cases, the resulting verb either does not appear in the dictionary at all, with or without the hyphen; or it does appear, but does not contain the hyphen.

It seems to me that the reason why we tend to insert the hyphen is because the verb, taken as a whole with its prefix, seems unnatural; so adding a hyphen is a syntactical decoration that has a similar effect to adding quotation marks around an unfamiliar word, or an invented word. The person must be thinking in their head, "Let's take this ordinary word that everyone understands, and tack on a prefix that everyone also understands... oh, wait, that sounds weird. Is that even a word? Hmm, probably not... well, I'll put a hyphen in here so that people can clearly separate the prefix from the verb and, by mentally putting the two together, understand the meaning."

Some examples:

"Re-opened" — All the dictionaries I could find (online, at least) give the infinitive "reopen", and some of them actually conjugate it as "reopened" in the examples.
"Re-tested" — I could find a few dictionaries that give the infinitive "retest", but none that specify "re-tested" as a conjugation. The only dictionary I could find with this infinitive was thefreedictionary.com; MW doesn't have it.

Another popular prefix is "un-", but that can often be substituted with an antonym; for example "undeployed" could become "removed" or "reverted deployment of...".

My questions/remarks about this tendency are as follows:

Obviously, if an authoritative dictionary of the English language lists the infinitive with the prefix but without a hyphen, it is an error to add a hyphen, either to the infinitive or to any conjugation. Correct?
If an authoritative dictionary does not list the infinitive with the desired prefix at all, and the writer wants to use the prefix with that infinitive anyway, is it more appropriate to include a hyphen or to omit it? This question is important because many business and technical scenarios require the application of unconventional prefixes to infinitives. The meaning of these words is often understood very intuitively by insular "in-groups" of readers who are colleagues and use these terms as jargon in a particular field of discourse.
Other than quoting the dictionary, are there any more abstract rules of the English language that I could cite to justify including (or not including) a hyphen in these cases? I am especially interested in rules that would explain, to those who think the hyphen belongs there, why it does not. If there is a general case rule that would apply to most or all cases of tacking on prefixes to existing infinitives, that would be ideal.
While I prefer avoiding these problems whenever possible, by using appropriate antonyms for "un-" and appropriate repetition words for "re-", sometimes it is necessary to apply a prefix and create a jargon term, or write down a jargon term that is completely entrenched in the verbal usage of a large population.


texts: Do Brits understand rhyming slang or are they sometimes puzzled by it too?

texts:
Most people know that rhyming slang is a colorful addition to British English, where someone says something that is not the intended word but rhymes with it. For example,

  He was brown bread.

might be understood to mean

  He was dead.

When I watch British films I hear a lot of it, and some of it I get and some of it I don't. Is the expectation that some of it will be deliberately obscure, or is it just that my American ears aren't attuned to it? Are the instances that appear in movies in common usage, and so understood right away, or are they often created on the spot, verbal riffs that the listener has to think about and may or may not understand?


texts: Is there a specific word that means, "a quote from a poem?"

texts:
I was wondering if there is a simpler way to say, "a quote from a poem." I thought about the word excerpt, but that seems to apply to a bigger chunk of writing. Whereas in this instance, I am referring to five short lines of text in a poem.

Any insight would be helpful.


texts: What is the phrase that means a quality that is "constant throughout" a larger thing

texts: I'm trying to say: throughout someone's life, hard work was a constant theme and I was going to use:"his whole life was underscored by hard work" but I'm pretty sure that's not what that means at all and it might not even make sense. Does anyone know what phrase I'm looking for?


texts: "First item from both sets" vs "First items from both sets"

texts:
I was commenting on a question on Stackoverflow and found myself writing:

  You are comparing the first item from both sets

Meaning in this case that the OP was taking an item from one collection, and an item from a second collection, and comparing them, with emphasis on the fact that the comparison was of the very first item picked from each collection.

My phrasing made sense in my head because in each set, you take the first item.  But on further thought, it seemed odd because you wouldn't say

  You are comparing the item.

Yet when I look at the phrase

  You are comparing the first items from both sets

it seems unnatural to me.

Is my original phrase correct, or should I have written "items?"

I've done some googling and couldn't find a clear example that differentiates between the two forms.


texts: What accent does David Gower speak with?

texts:
According to this meta post accent questions, especially those that are well researched and about real-life public figures are on topic.

I'm just curious as to what accent the English cricket commentator David Gower speaks with. I see from his wiki page he was born in Kent but that page says nothing about where he was educated. The sounds he makes sure is pleasant.

PS - Here is a link, copyright should be OK looks like an official youtube channel.


texts:
A security guard wishes to address multiple people respectfully at once. Does he say:

  Sorry, sir, but this ID is invalid.

or

  Sorry, sirs, but your IDs are invalid.

or something like

  Sorry, gentlemen, but your IDs are invalid.


texts: How would you apply the idiom "I'm $verb'ed out" to "eat"?

texts:
I've often heard people apply the suffix -ed after a verb to create phrase, "I'm $verb'ed out." They do this to mean that they've already done $verb, and don't intend to do it in the immediate future because they've already done too much of it, or just the right amount.

So I'm sitting in my hotel room watching the boob tube and I'm wondering how would I apply this context to "eat" such that it doesn't get interpreted as dirty innuendo. It's a preventative measure, I know I'm not good at that.

"I'm eat'ed out" just sounds wrong. Above the obvious potential misinterpretation, it just doesn't sound right. I can't put my finger in it, why?


texts:
The following paragraph is a review on "Ocean's 8". What is the meaning of "caper" in this context?

"The website's critical consensus reads, "Ocean's 8 isn't quite as smooth as its predecessors, but still has enough cast chemistry and flair to enjoyably lift the price of a ticket from filmgoers up for an undemanding caper."

According to Cambridge Dictionary, "caper" means 1. an illegal, unusual, or entertaining activity. 2. a small, dark green flower bud that is used as an ingredient to give a slightly sour taste to food.

However, it seems "caper" in this context means something else. Thank you.


texts:
Which of the following sentences are most appropriate?

Hence, the teachers/educators need to look upon these points and further explore the child’s ‘behavior’; what the Psychologist call as the “Child Psychology.”

Hence, the teachers/educators need to look upon these points and further explore the child’s behavior; what the Psychologist call as the “Child Psychology.”

Hence,  the teachers/educators need to look upon these points and further explore the child’s "behavior"; what the Psychologist call as the “Child Psychology.”

What is more appropriate: "behavior" or 'behavior'?

Kindly advice the correct phrase if it is none of the above.

Edit

Here is the complete paragraph I have written:

  As the summer holidays are around in most of the schools, the teachers
  should take a break from regular teaching assignments and should try
  to understand improvement required with regard to some common issues
  faced by them, such as facing difficulties in dealing with children
  with special needs. Hence the teachers/educators need to look upon these points and further explore
  the child’s ‘behavior’ or what the Psychologist call as the “Child
  Psychology.” Child psychology basically deals with children’s attitude
  and behavior from pre-natal stage to adolescence stage. In this
  article we are going to explain aims & scope of child psychology along
  with its importance for a teacher.


texts: Term for words like Snowmageddon, Nipplegate and even cheeseburger?

texts:
Is there a term for words like Snowmageddon, Nipplegate and even cheeseburger?

I know they're portmanteaus (or portmanteaux), but they seem to belong to a special class of portmanteau.

In the title examples, Armageddon, Watergate and hamburger seem to be the "mother" terms respectively (more so than snow, nipple, and cheese), and the derived terms Snowmageddon, Nipplegate and cheeseburger seem to be child terms in the sense that each clearly alludes to its mother term and could conceivably have sibling terms like Floodmageddon, Lewinskygate, and chiliburger.

Actually, the more I thought about examples of this phenomenon, the more I came up with examples that fit the description but weren't strictly portmanteaus. One might be "Rat Pack", which gets referenced by "Brat Pack" and "Frat Pack". Idk, maybe I'm getting too inclusive.

Is anyone familiar with a term for this or has seen a list of them? I love lists.


texts: Alternative to the idiomatic phrase "highway robbery"

texts: I was wondering whether there were any other alternatives to the phrase "highway robbery". I am trying to say the same thing in a light-hearted, but not too casual way.


texts: Are there any studies on changes in British English to become more like American English?

texts:
With the spread of American popular culture (movies, books, franchises, etc.) and technical jargon (manuals, Web syntaxes, default spell-check settings, etc.), I'm wondering if there have been any studies on a resulting general change in the use of traditional British English conventions, particularly in places such as Britain and Ireland, in the direction of American conventions.

In particular, I'm looking for the results of systematic studies on the topic, or strong evidence for change or lack of change of British English usage.  (For example, the change of a few key conventions over the past 5, 10 or 20 years.)

I refer equally to spoken conventions (e.g., "come and see" vs. "come see") as well as spelling (e.g., "centred" vs. "centered").


texts: Does “uxorious” have sexual connotations?

texts:
I understand the literal meaning of uxorious, but does it have sexual implications?  That is, does it just mean that one is excessively devoted to one’s wife, or does it imply excessive sexual interest in her?

For example, Lord Byron wrote:

  The same things change their names at such a rate;
  For instance—passion in a lover’s glorious,
  But in a husband is pronounced uxorious.

There it seems to carry a possibly sexual tone, but I’ve seen other cases where it doesn’t.


texts:
At the college where I teach, a class might be canceled if too few students sign up for it. We say the class didn't "make".

"I'll be teaching that class in the spring... if it makes."

Is there a better way of putting it? Common use, intransitive verb, active voice, preferably a single word?


texts: Punctuation of quoted sentence used as a subject of outer sentence

texts:
I know the rules of punctuation when interrupting a sentence of dialogue, but how do you punctuate the end of a quoted sentence which is used as the subject of another sentence?

He picked up after the third ring, and I reported the situation.
“I'll be there with the moving company in half an hour, but I'm sending a team to reinforce the men at your place right now. They should be there in eight minutes [?] ” was his reply.

or

"I know that I know nothing [?]" is a quote attributed to Socrates.

What punctuation mark(s?) should go in place of [?] ? The full stop of the prior sentence? A comma before the consecutive closure? Nothing at all?


texts: whites and other color words as clothing of particular colors

texts:
The dictionary lists one sense of 'whites' as white clothing. But no parallel sense is listed for 'reds' and other color words. I am wondering whether this sense of 'whites' can be generalized to other color words, so that 'reds' means 'red clothing' and 'blacks' means 'black clothing', etc.

I'd appreciate your help.


texts: How can I ask WH questions for a sentence that contains Passive Voice? What is the rule for it?

texts:
The example of sentence is

  A feast had been prepared at the hotel La Reserve to celebrate the engagement of Edmond and Mercedes.

I'd like to ask this question:

  Where had a feast been prepared?

Is it correct?


texts:
Automatic translation of classes to relations requires every regular, i.e. non-subclass and non-association classes to have a primary key.

  Automatic translation of classes to relations requires every regular, i.e. non-subclass and non-association classes, to have a primary key.

Which of the above is correct?


texts: A word that means the ability to detach oneself from past work

texts:
A valuable trait in business (as well as in life) appears to be the ability to detach oneself from past work.  The inability to do so could be called authorship bias and is related both to confirmation bias and to the sunk cost fallacy.

Is there a word in English to describe this skill ?


texts: When talking about decades, is it correct to write "90's" with an apostrophe?

texts: When referring to decades such as the nineties, is it correct to write 90's with an apostrophe?


texts: As you see in this example of online Cambridge dictionary,"they" is used to refer "a porsche". How can it possible?


texts: Is "the" allowed to be used in this case?

texts:
My dad and I are arguing whether "the" is able to be used in this sentence:

  Where did he find the time and energy to fight so many times?

I say that "the" is allowed to be used but my dad says "the" cannot be used in this case. Can "the" be used in the above sentence/question and if possible, when are you allowed to use "the" in a sentence?

EDIT: Seemingly, I wrote the sentence wrong. The sentence should be:

  Where did he find the energy and time to fight so many times?

But I will take in account of all answers made before this edit.


texts:
What is correct?
It has to be paid in cash.
It has to be paid cash.
It has to be paid in cache.
It has to be paid cache.

If more would be correct, is there a difference in when to use what?

I'm asking because I just read through some legal document where both cash and cache are used.


texts: When should I use an em-dash, an en-dash, and a hyphen?

texts: I generally know how to use a hyphen, but when should I use an en-dash (–) instead of an em-dash, or when should I use a hyphen (-) instead of an em-dash (—)?


texts: Is there a word for confusing words like 'everyday' with phrases like 'every day'?

texts:
I see people confusing words that are compounded from two words with a phrase made from those words. This is easy to do, as they look and sound very similar:

For example:

"everyday", an adjective, with "every day", which I assume is a prepositional (or adverbial?) phrase.
"giveaway", a noun, with "give away", a phrase containing a verb.
"awhile", an adverb, with "a while", a noun phrase.

However, the word "everyday" has a defined meaning in Standard English, and it's different to "every day". My question assumes that the inevitable language change that leads to each pair merging hasn't happened yet.

Phenomena like this sometimes have specific names (like 'metathesis'). Is there a technical name given to this mixup?


texts: Do I change the person in a quote talking about myself?

texts:
When someone says to me

  You definitely know what you're talking about!

and I'm proud of this and relay it to someone else, how do I quote this?

  My thesis subject is approved because I "definitely know what I'm talking about"!
  My thesis subject is approved because "you definitely know what you're talking about"!

It feels wrong to change the person when you're quoting (a quote shouldn't be changed in the first place) but it sounds wrong if I take the literal quote.


texts: Serial comma before "and should be approved" or is it a compound predicate that does not require a comma?

texts:
In this particular situation, I cannot decide if the comma before "and should be approved" is needed because it is part of the series before it, or it is a compound predicate situation in which the comma is not needed. I do not have the option to reword the sentence.

  The cost for the new service is fair, just, and reasonable, and should
  be approved by the Board.


texts: How many English words are of native origin?

texts: What percentage of current English words are of native Anglo-Saxon origin? I have seen stats about how large percentages of the English words currently in use come from French, Latin, or German origins, but I want to know how many truly native words the English language has left.


texts: Idiom or phrase that calls for solidarity with others in problem

texts:
There is an idiom in my language that translates to something like:

  If you don't do anything about the robber when he's robbing your neighbor's house, then next house he will rob is yours.

Essentially, standing for other's rights is equivalent to standing for your own.

Is there any idiom or phrase in English that conveys this point?


texts:
Which of these is preferable? Is it considered tautology (or pleonasm) or flabby writing?

We are performing scheduled maintenance work on Friday.

We are performing scheduled maintenance on Friday.


texts: Is "sun seems to have set" (on an idea) a metaphor/simile or synechdoche/metonymy

texts:
Is the follow quote a 1) metaphor or simile or an examples 2) synechdoche or metonymy

  "Sun seems to have set" (on an idea)

Metonymy is

  "a figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of
  something else with which it is closely associated. We can come across
  examples of metonymy both from literature and in everyday life."
  (Source)

So I thought the sun replaces a day (sun and daytime are closely related), and so it is an example of metonymy.

Yet my book says its a metaphor. I can somewhat see it is metaphorical in that it replaces the time span of an idea with the time span of a day, but thought metonymy is a better fit.

Context of quote

  The greatest recent event – that ‘God is dead’, that the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable – is already beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe.For the few at least, whose eyes – the suspicion in whose eyes is strong and subtle enough for this spectacle, some sun seems to have set and some ancient and profound trust has been turned into doubt; to them our old world must appear daily more like evening, more mistrustful, stranger, ‘older’. But in the main one may say: The event itself is far too great, too remote from the multitude’s capacity for comprehension even for the tidings of it to be thought of having arrived as yet. Much less may one suppose that many people know as yet what this event really means – and how much must collapse now that this faith has been undermined because it was built upon this faith, propped up by it, grown in it; for example, the whole of our European morality. This long plenitude and sequence of breakdown, destruction, ruin, and cataclysm that is now impending – who could guess enough of it today to be compelled to play the teacher and advance proclaimer of this monstrous logic of terror, the prophet of a gloom and an eclipse of the sun whose like has probably never yet occurred on earth? -  Friedrich Nietzsche


texts: "the class of 1991" versus "the class of '91"

texts: which one is used? and if you have "the class of 2001" is it more proper the former or the latter ("the class of 2001" or "the class of '01" or  "the class of '1")? and are there differences between spoken and written english?


texts:
MS Word has been complaining of a grammatical Word Confusion error when I use converge.

Here's my sentence:

  Managers had converged the thousands of ideas into a handful of big ideas.

If I drop the from the sentence Word does not find any error. Also, if I exchange converged for combined Word is happy. However, I guess what I would like to say with converge is a mix of merged and combined.

Is that my confusion or is there a better word?


texts: Differentiating different sets in an or statement?

texts:
"Available to U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States that have been medically determined to have a permanent disability"
In the above statement (a cookie to those who can guess where that came from), if one were to read it
with no context -- what would the correct interpretation?

It is available to the set of {U.S. Citizens} or the set of {permanent residents of the U.S. that have a disability}.

It is available to the set of {U.S. Citizens or Permanent residents of the U.S.} either of which have a permanent disability.

How would one go about "fixing" the statement to be more clear in either interpretations?


texts: Does "candlelight" mean "compare side by side"?

texts:
Some of my colleagues use the word "candlelight" to mean "directly compare similar things".

A specific example is comparing two lines on a line chart like this:

  "We can use this chart to candlelight result groups"

I cannot find any references to this meaning of the word. Is it a recognised use of the word and, if so, what is its etymology?


texts:
I know the wiki origin puts SNAFU as appearing during WWII as the first in a long line of military slang, BUT, years ago I recollect reading in an electronics magazine, likely 'Wireless World' from 60's-70's (hence inclusion here), that this term was one of several similar acronyms which originated in US telegraphy around the time of the Iron Horse, Indian raids etc.

A telegraph operator, on arriving at the scene of a break, might find that the local American Indians had pulled down telegraph poles.  'Situation Normal' meant that the raiders had gone and 'All Fouled Up' referred to the state of the wire.  The engineer on scene would hook up his telegraph set and report, via Morse, certain terse messages to indicate state of play.  There were other related messages; though I don't recall which they were.

This all makes some sense, as when the US joined in WWII there was a chronic shortage of trained telegraph operators and history records that retired operators (otherwise too old to meet draft requirements) were initially brought in to perform telegraphy duties and training on Navy ships.  Working backwards these gentleman would have been present during the peak of US telegraphy operations and would have been steeped in the traditions of the service going back to its introduction in the mid 1800's.
Can anyone identify the provenance of this article?  I think it is too old to have found its way into public domain via PDF.  It paints a great story so please don't tell me it was dated April 1st!
More importantly it highlights a problem with google/wiki 'knowledge' as relates to topics where there exists little knowledge.  Once the received wisdom finds its way onto the net, it becomes 'truth' even though it may be incorrect.

Any ideas anyone?


texts:
What idiom(s) rather than "talk of the town" can we use to mean a person who is not talked about these days? It may concern a celebrity who is old and not famous among young people. For example:

  Few young people know who Chuck Norris is. He is definitely not the
  talk of the town anymore.

I'm also interested in what we can call a topic which is not so important anymore. For example:

  Who to vote for isn't an interesting conversation topic now that the
  election is over.


texts: Meaning of “The book that should have been in the box”

texts:
http://missingmanuals.com/about.html

The missing manual book series has the tagline “The book that should have been in the box” with the images of a dog carries a book in its mouth.Is it just an idiom or it mean that the dog take this book away from reader box so some fatal information is missed away ? the box in this context might refer to a package box of software product perhaps ?


texts:
I found a web site called http://shitformakingwebsites.com/ to find excellent-quality materials for work.

I started wondering why "sh*t" can be used so positively here.  I have a similar question about "nigga".


texts: When someone uses the phrase "the week of the [Sunday's date]" does that usually refer to the week preceding that Sunday or after it?


texts: Looking for words similar to "lagging" and "ahead of"

texts:
In computer networking, assume that I'm waiting for packets which are ordered by sequence number. First I get sequence number 1, and then 2, then 3 …

Assume that I now have 99 packets and I'm waiting for the packet with sequence number 100.
If I get a packet with sequence number 50, since I have received it already, I say
this packet is an obsolete packet or lagging packet. But if I get a packet with sequence number 200, how do I describe it? An advanced packet?


texts:
It is commonly asserted that the subject of a sentence is the noun or pronoun that does something or exists in a particular state of being. Therefore, in the sentence

"All but Jones are here"

the subject would seem to be "all," but in fact it is not true that "all" exist in the particular state of being "here," because Jones is absent.

Is it actually inaccurate to define the subject as something that performs a verb or exists in a particular state of being? Is it sufficient/better/more accurate to say simply that the subject is the noun or pronoun that dictates the inflection of the verb? Or is it the case that the actual subject is "all but Jones"?


texts:
This is where I want to apply that word:

  "He discovered the meaninglessness of consumerism and work"

I looked in dictionaries and reverse dictionaries but for some reason I can't find a word that is easier to pronounce and shorter than meaninglessness.

Any suggestions?


texts:
I have a user interface where I want to tell the users "Please update your configuration before uploading (read how)".

Is the "read how" part grammatical?

For various reasons I can't have the hyperlink in the body of the message (i.e. "update your configuration" can't be the link). I'm also hard pressed for space. Other suggestions are certainly welcome, but my main question is whether "(read how)" is an acceptable expression in this context.


texts:
Reading a J.K Rowling book, I came across the following:

  It's only dying a bit later than I would have, because I am never going to the dark side!

Is the would have part compete here or does it have an implied unspoken verb after it? For example: would have died.  And is it a future or a past conditional in this context? If it's a past one then how could it be used in a future context?


texts: Another way to say "to become a better person"

texts:
When I'm asked the generic question, "why do you do community service?" I usually respond by saying

"because it makes me a better person," or

"because doing community service allows me to develop as a person."

What are some common synonyms or other ways of saying "to become a better person"?


texts: Which would you use: full-size, full-sized, full size or full sized?

texts:
I want to use full-sized, as in:

  Click here to download a full-sized version of this image.

But Google NGrams disagrees:

So, given:

full-size
full-sized
full size
full sized

which would you employ and why?


texts: Is there a valid English word for "playability"?

texts:
I edit a lot of writing on the topic of cue sports, like pool and billiards. The word "playability" comes up a lot.

For example, if one is trying to explain that a pool cue is excellent in feel and performance, one might say: "My new custom pool cue has great playability."

I don't believe "playability" is a word, and if that is the case, what could be used in its place?

A similar example is the word "drivability" which I believe was invented by marketers in the 1970's to describe how well a car drives.

Both of these are commonly not found in spell checking dictionaries so I want to check here for whether or not they are legitimate in general writing.


texts: Why does the past tense form of sleep have a weak suffix?

texts:
Meaning: to sleep is a strong verb in the Germanic languages. While I'm quite aware that strong vs weak anything has very little bearing on modern English, this is still something that puzzles me.

Sleep and slept do show some kind of ablaut, but then where does the -t come from? Why was it added to the end of this verb? I know very little about the specifics of English etymology, and only really have the viewpoint of studying other Germanic languages.

Was it just something as simple as not wanting "slep" as a word and adding the -t made it easier to say/understand? Or just some kind of leveling to make it like wept, kept, etc.?


texts: There are content that is good. Would this be a correct sentence?

texts:
There are content that is good.

It uses "are" and "is" in the same sentence. Is that correct?


texts: Single word for a self-confessed traveler who constantly talks about his travels regardless of the audience interest, circumstance or relevence?

texts:
What would be a good single word for a self-confessed traveler who constantly talks about his travels, rattling off place names ("Oh that one time in Timbaktu....", "Thank you for the coffee! Speaking of coffee, the best mocha I've ever had was at this coffee shop in Addis Ababaa...."), prone to self-aggrandizement and having a tendency to hog the show everytime, dispensing free travel-advice, exotic restaurant reviews and like regardless of the audience interest, circumstance or relevance?

Neologisms, humorous & creative wordplays will be appreciated!


texts: A word to describe how prepared someone is to vote

texts:
I'm looking for a word—specifically, a noun—that would describe how prepared someone is to vote.

For example, saying Laura is more of a [word] than Leslie would imply that Laura has done more research into who she wants to vote for than Leslie has.

It wouldn't necessarily mean Laura is more smart, educated, or wealthy than Leslie.

Specifically, I'd rather not use the phrase "well-informed voter". For example, if I say Leslie is a well-informed voter, then it's not clear if Leslie is well-informed about everything in general, or just about voting. I'm trying to find a word that specifically refers to informedness on voting, but not necessarily anything else.

Does such a word exist? If not, is there a word I could create through which this meaning could easily be inferred?


texts: Why do so many people use a preposition with which to end a sentence?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  When is it okay to end a sentence in a preposition?

I see it a lot, even though my elementary teacher told me it is wrong. This is probably a new development, a sign that our language is in decay. Soon none of us will be able to understand each other. But this sloppiness is a disaster, up with which I will not put.

What are your own experiences with this terrible phenomenon? How may we roll it back? Should moderators strike out at such language abuse? What do you do to correct your friends, family, and colleagues? Do you leave them notes, too? Voice mails? Should all existing literature be corrected and republished as well, the old editions burned?


texts: How to use an adjective and multiple nouns with articles?

texts:
Which is a correct way to use a single adjective and multiple nouns with articles?

  I have a new note and a pen.
  I have a new note and a new pen.
  I have a note and a pen which are new.
  (None of above)

It seems ambigious whether a pen is new or not.
Adjective new is redundant.
It seems the most clear, but it sounds a little bit unnatural and structure is complicated than (1) and (2). Hence, if a sentence gets longer, it would be hard to read and understand.


texts: Two words in this sentence “Primroses, lipstick-red and butter-navelled.”

texts:
What are the meanings of these two words: lipstick-red and butter-navelled?
Do they mean the color of primroses?


texts: Which version of this sentence is correct?

texts:
As not being an english native, I have trouble deciding which version of this sentence is correct gramatically?
Grant special permissions to your employees to use different features of this program for a more streamline workflow.
or
Grant special permissions to your employees to use different features of this program for a more streamlined workflow.
When I read this sentence out loud, the version with the streamlined word sounds ok to me, but some of my friends and colleagues are saying that the correct form is with the streamline version, because streamlined would be in past tense.


texts: Word for making an implication with tone

texts:
Sometimes when people use the name of the person they're talking to in a statement it's used to dismiss the discussion at hand. For example, "Because the sky is blue, Alice" or "If you have two two's, Bob, then you have four."

The person making the statement isn't explicitly dismissing the conversation, but said with the right tone, they imply dismissal. And said with another tone, they don't imply dismissal.

Then, is there a word for "when tone implies meaning"?


texts: Sentence to Indicate Change (That is not a cliché)

texts:
I have a sentence that I need to replace; one that is somewhat cliché. What would be a good sentence (Or perhaps a phrase) that could indicate change in a somewhat stale/monotonous environment?

Sentence:

  Like a breath of fresh air.


texts:
Some phrases have three dots indicating an ellipsis at the end of a statement/sentence.

How can one refer to such a phrase/sentence?

I naturally want to refer to them as "ellipsed sentences," but that is clearly wrong as ellipsed refers to having a regular oval shape (i.e., the shape of an ellipse).

Does such a word exist?


texts: is this sentence correct "In addition to the above, for the last one year, I have also been serving as DNO of Bishnupur District."


texts: State of the art "of" or "in" model checking

texts:
I am writing a B.Sc. thesis in computer science, and I'm hesitating between "in" and "of" in the following phrase:

  State of the art in model checking

Should it be:

  State of the art of model checking

I'm not sure if it is good language to use so many "of".


texts:
I see the phrase "may opt" on a lot of medical documents as in "the patient may opt to choose from the following..." and I am wondering if this is redundant. Why not just use "the patient may choose from the following..."

Is there a small nuance that I am missing? Perhaps the addition of "opt" means the patient has the choice to not choose anything at all?


texts: Does a term exist for the class of words in English that have no exact synonyms (duodecimal, petrichor, labrador, to cite a few random examples)?  This would be that class of words for which a thesaurus could provide only a circumlocution.


texts: What does it mean to say "Someone won't know I'm there"?

texts: In one of the video clips of SNL(https://is.gd/WVr1OQ), the man said the thing that drives his mom crazy is "when he sometimes wake up earlier than his mom, he gets out of their bed so that his mom won't know he's there." Does the sentence mean the same as his mom will know he's not there?


texts:
I posted a photo that was very serene. I wrote as my heading:

  The serenity of this speaks to me.

But I don't know if that's correct. Should I have instead said:

  The serenity in this speaks to me.

I can't stop it from ruminating in my head.


texts: Suitable idiom for a situation, where one thinks that by getting rid of the effect, one has gotten rid of the cause

texts:
Suitable idiom needed for describing a situation, where one thinks that by getting rid of an unwanted effect, one has gotten rid of its cause, while in reality the cause remains and will start to create the unwanted effects again.

For example, if the symptoms of some disease are cured, but the disease itself remains uncured and will start to cause the symptoms again

Thanks!


texts: Correct use of hyphenation with multi-word noun and adjective

texts:
I am not a native English speaker and was wondering how to properly combine the noun "password policy" and the adjective "based".

So for "policy", I would write "policy-based", but how about "password", "policy" and "based"?

"password-policy-based", "password policy-based" or "password policy based"?


texts: What does the term "liaison" amount to in the English language as regards the particular accent called Received Pronunciation?

texts:
In my study of the pronunciation of English (RP), the sources that I happened to use, means of information of a moment and forgotten or permanent ones such as the Longman Pronunciation dictionary (JC Wells), showed  no other concern for the concept of liaison than in the well delimited and straightforward problem of elimination of hiatuses in the particular case of r-ending words. The whole of what one will ever need, as far as I know, so as to manage the problem of liaisons in RP is found on the following extract from the dictionary mentioned above.

However, what I took for granted for years has been recently challenged by someone who cannot believe that RP is an accent without liaisons, bar the very simple case of the R-liaison. As I was asked to provide a reference to the effect of confirming this fact I could find some new evidence but nothing substantial and even less a set of rules. For instance, this web page (A guide to learning English) has nothing more to offer than an indication of R-liaisons and one more possibility involving t.

more (r)and more / not (t)at all (liaison)

There is confirmation in this glossary (Paul Meier dialect Services) since "liaison" is defined as "the strategy of using the final sound of one word to initiate the following. A defining quality of French speech". It follows from this that the incidence of the concept of liaison on the English language should be negligeable.
It would be the case however  that SSB (Standard Southern British) is a term that has replaced "RP". This can be read in the article "The Features of Singapore English Pronunciation: Implication for Teachers" (David Deterding and Robert Hvitfeldt).

Standard Southern British (SSB), roughly equivalent to the older term Received Pronunciation (RP), will be used as […]

It can be found further in this article that SSB is an accent where liaisons have some new importance, new at least from my point of view.

There are many factors that may contribute […]. One is that SSB has considerable liaison between words. For example, in SSB the words 'get up' would usually be said with no break between them.

Question:
Considering RP in its most traditional version and not as what it might have become, is the scheme of liaisons in  RP comprising more features than R-liaison?


texts:
I know what "Black Friday" is and how the phrase first came about.
What I would like to know is how the phrase evolved into "Black & blue Friday" which seems to have come about in very recent years.

Although I can make a guess, I have not found any clear cut explanation.
My guess is that the phrase slipped from black that depicts  the crowds of people in the shops and streets on that particular Friday to black & blue to depict the bruises shoppers get from jostling in the heavy crowds.

First question: is my guess good? If not why do people say Black & blue Friday?
Second question: when (and how/where, if anyone knows) did the phrase first appear?


texts: What is the correct way to express the ordinal form of a large number?

texts:
If I want to express...

  The 1114th person

...with the number in words, would it be best to do...

  The one thousand, one hundred and fourteenth person

...or hyphenated...

  The one-thousand-one-hundred-and-fourteenth person

...or something else?


texts: Present perfect tense with the verb 'is'

texts:
I would like to know how to use the verb to be and its past participle.

For example:

  The rain is gone.

Is is present perfect tense here?


texts: What is the meaning of "To have too much in your locker"

texts:
In this video entitled Daniel Sturridge surprises unsuspecting school kids, he says
 "You have too much in your locker"

Here is the transcript at 4 mins 55 seconds approximately:

  Daniel: What's your celebration?
  Kid: A front flip.
  Daniel: Huh?
  Kid: A front flip.
  Daniel: I can't do a front flip. You know, I was gonna say "let's do your celebration together" but obviously this guy's got too much in his locker.

Does it mean that the kid is very skilled or talented? If not, what does it mean ?


texts: Usage of lapse referring to a loan application?

texts:
I wonder, if a loan applicant chooses not to accept or go any further with a loan application, would you describe that act as cancelling or lapsing the application?, i.e., is the application cancelled or lapsed?

To emphasise: This is specifically related to loan applications, and in Norwegian we use the expression "bortfalle", which literally means "fall away", to refer to both the passive and the active case when it comes to loan applications. The verb usually is a "timeout lapse" in other uses. Are you positive to "lapse" cannot be used transitively in this particular context in English? Would "withdraw" be the financially correct term to use here?


texts:
"Another pattern, that regularly appears, is a Not Found response that queries the database...".

I think this is incorrect but I'm not sure.

I think the correct version should be:

  "Another pattern that regularly appears is a Not Found response that queries the database"

However, what rule is coming into place here? I originally said it was because "that regularly appears" was a restrictive appositive, but I don't think that's right now.


texts:
"learn to [verb]"
"learn how to [verb]"

Is [1] merely a less formal version of [2]? If not, does [1] communicate something subtly different? Consider the following:

In [2], the object of learning is explicitly "how to [verb]" (for instance, "I will learn how to speak French").

Is the object of learning in [1] "to [verb]" or is it something implicit and abstract that allows the subject "to [verb]"? For instance, in "I will learn to speak French", the object of learning would be the prerequisite elements for speaking French: "French phonemes, grammar, syntax, etc.".


texts: Plural form of "out of the goodness of his heart"

texts:
If I want to refer to a group of people, which one of these two sentences is correct?

They're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
They're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Or is trying to make this expression plural a bad idea in the first place? If so, what equivalent expression should I use instead?


texts:
I need advice on the best use of the verb show.

When do you use showed?
I find myself substituting has shown, even when I meant to use the preterit in my sentence.

I prefer "she has shown" over "she has showed"; are there differences in phrasal verbs, such as "show up" or "show out"?

Do you ever use "shew" and its family?


texts: What is the difference between the vowels in "sole" and "solo"?

texts: To my ears, the vowel in "sole" or "soul" sounds different from the first vowel in "solo"; it sounds somewhat similar to the vowel in "caught", while the vowel in "solo" does not.  (You can listen to sample clips by clicking on the speaker icons in this web page and this one.)  The dictionaries I've looked at however don't seem to show this in their indicated pronunciations.  What then is the nature and explanation of the difference?  I am using American pronunciations.


texts: Are baby cougars and cheetahs properly kittens or cubs?

texts:
I always thought felid cubs should be baby panthers (of genus Panther, hence "lion/tiger/jaguar/(snow) leopard cubs"). Young of other felids should be kittens (hence "lynx/bobcat kittens" for example). But it seems like baby cougars and cheetahs are a special case, probably due to their large size compared to other felids, because Google searches on nationalgeographic.com returns comparable results for "cougar/puma/cheetah kittens" and "cougar/puma/cheetah cubs".

So are baby cougars and cheetahs properly kittens or cubs?


texts:
Does here "loci for modes of thought" mean "a place for different types of thought"?

  And claims from the science community that their swirling,
  colour-clashing representations of cells or chaotic systems are
  aesthetically rich seem to miss the artistic point. Biologist Stephen
  Jay Gould has called science images ‘loci for modes of thought’ and
  for artists the ‘thought’ will relate to the quest for multiple ways
  of interpreting what it feels like to be human rather than the search
  for a harmonious picture or an indication of absolute meaning.

Art and Science, Sian Ede


texts: What does "I got a bee up my ass about you two" mean?

texts:
The context is:

  Just so you know, I got a bee up my ass about you two.


texts: Can a subordinate clause have two functions at the same time?

texts:
Please consider the following example:

  What can we do that is more important than choosing the men and women who serve us by running our government?

The that-clause looks like a relative clause to me. It modifies the word "what" (or the answer to it). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Could we make a slight rewording to make the same clause function as a complement?

If I'm getting it all wrong, please enlighten me.


texts: Difference between "exercise" and "workout"

texts:
We can say: I will do exercise today or I will do workout today.

Is there any difference between them?


texts:
I sometimes see phrases like "smart hotel", "smart restaurant" (especially in guide books). From context I usually understand it as "expensive but worthy". Is it correct understanding? Why is word "smart" used? I rarely see it used in that way outside of this context. I never heard "smart car" in that sense for example.

Edit: Example of usage (that actually encouraged me to ask this question), this is quote from guide book about Morocco: "However, it is a waste of time trying to negotiate at peak of the high season, or in the very smart hotels, such as the La Mamounia in Marrakech". So it is even used in comparative form. Apparently this La Mamounia Hotel is one of the most luxurious and expensive hotels in Marrakech.


texts: Tin percint of all Dimmocrats in the Sinnate

texts:
TIn percInt of all DImmocrats in the SInnate are sInsitive to this concern, but the represIntative from PInnsylvania thEnks that some common sInse should be applied.

Two questions:

Am I mistaken if I think that most Americans do not pronounce words in this way?

Am I mistaken in thinking that lately every narrator on every TV commercial and every news broadcaster in the U.S.A. has been doing this?  It seems as if there are no exceptions, and since I expect news broadcasters and the like to be exceptionally superstitious, I wonder if someone with a crystal ball ordered them to do this (via some published pronunciation guide distributed to people in their line of work) and they're fearful of disobeying?


texts: Omission of definite article before common nouns in pairs

texts:
I am well aware that the usage of, or the omission of, the definite article "the" has been a frequently asked question, here and elsewhere. I have read up on existing questions on this matter. (But I could have missed some. So if this question has indeed been asked before, forgive me.)

My question concerns a specific case of article omission.
It is my understanding that the definite article can/should be omitted before certain common nouns. For example:

  Both husband and wife received serious injuries.

Also

  In the mirror, daughter sees the future, and mother the past.

The second example is more complex, because the common noun "mother" may be used as a proper noun. AFAIK, "daughter" can't.

But come to think of it, I can't articulate the exact rules that govern this kind of omission.

The aforementioned site states the rule as follows:

  Before common nouns when they go in pairs

It doesn't really satisfy my inquisitiveness, because it's not a dictionary, and seems like a site for English learners. What kind of common nouns? Any specific rules? None of the other sites on article omission that I have found has this rule.

My question, in sum, is multi-fold.

Are there more authoritative sources that talk about this issue?
Are there more specific and detailed rules? Does the pair have to exhibit symmetry in their positions and/or functions in the sentence?
What is it called in linguistics, if it has a name?
In sentences where this rule applies, can we not omit, namely keep, the definite article? Basically, in these cases, is it "the article can be omitted" or "the article should be omitted"? (I am leaning towards "can be omitted".) Also would a sentence that keeps the articles read verbose? And what kind of nuances would people say are caused by keeping the articles? E.g. "Both the husband and the wife received serious injuries" v.s. "Both husband and wife received serious injuries."
This might be another can of worms, but why can't "daughter" and "son" be proper nouns, as "Mom", "Father", or can they?


texts: While I read through the Canterbury Tales, I noticed that the Oxford Cleric has nothing to do with the church. What does his title even mean.


texts: What causes a verb to be infinitive only?

texts: Why are some verbs only usable in the infinitive? The one example I can think of is "to spite" (see "to wit in the accepted answer). While wiktionary claims that spited is a word, that doesn't match other ite words, like bite or smite. OED disagrees, saying there is no past tense.


texts: What is it called when an incorrect homophone is used for humor?

texts:
There's this inside joke I just entered into where people use the word "riposte" as in the fencing term, to be jokingly interpreted as "re-post" as in calling something a duplication.

There's an article that discusses both, but more as a correction to lay out the near homophones and direct a hearer to their correct spellings and usages.
https://grammarist.com/homophones/riposte-vs-repost/

In the case I'm seeing, there's a deliberate misuse for humorous purposes. Is there a word for such a thing?

There seems to be some related concepts such as unconsciously choosing a wrong homophone though knowing the difference if greater attention was had (homophone aphasia) and the eggcorn where someone unknowingly mixes up homophones. But in our situation it's deliberate.


texts:
I have a question about the interposition “fools that they are” in the following:

  “Fools that they are, they never knew thy guiltless pride, thy true spirit.”

Using Google’s Ngram Viewer, I found other works in which this appears. Its meaning is clear, and I’ve seen similar constructions: “fool though he is,” for instance. But can anyone tell me what this (almost rhetorical) device is called, and also why “that” is used instead of one pronoun or another (or none at all)?

Thank you!


texts: "Have you got familiar with new working environment?" Which tense should i use in this sentence?

texts:
I have been confused by the use of some tenses. Especially when i have to use state verb.
To the sentence above, Can i use simple present tense here. Like:
Do you get familiar with new working environment?
Or
Did you get familiar with new working environment?
Does it have the same meaning?
Thank you for helping me.


texts: What grammar rules are violated by "when you" statements?

texts:
For the past couple of years there has been a trend on twitter and facebook to post statuses with incomplete "when you" statements.  These statements are intended to imply some unstated, but obvious result.

Examples:

When you find your fly down after you just got off stage.
When you see your ex out with someone uglier than you.
When you have a severe allergy and find peanuts AFTER you take a bite of your brownie.
When your kids all have sleepovers on the same night.

These are clearly incomplete thoughts, but are they in some way grammatically incorrect?  If so, what rules do they violate?


texts: Should one use singular or plural form when the number is equivalent to one or negative one?

texts:
I understand that for a countable noun, one is supposed to use the singular form if and only if the number is equal to one or negative one; for example:

one degree
negative one degree
0.75 degrees

Now my question is, what if the number is not expressed explicitly as one or negative one, but is essentially equal to one? For example, which of the following is correct:

1.0 degree or 1.0 degrees?
negative four over four degree or negative four over four degrees?

Edit: I just realised that for the difference between 1.0 degrees and 1.0 degree, it has been answered here. However, the question about negative four over four degree or negative four over four degrees remains unclear to me.


texts:
Talking to someone who says

  What if my son is a hero!

would someone respond

  It would not surprise me if he is

Or would they respond

  It would not surprise me if he was


texts:
In a speech for the Collections as Data event at the Library of Congress, Maciej Cegłowski says this:

  As every speaker has correctly said, it is a signal honor to be here.

What is a 'signal honor'?

Searching Google/MW did not yield any results.


texts: What is the common root between "contumacious" and "contumelious"?

texts:
I'm interested in understanding the meanings of the 2 words :

  contumacious - Wilfully obstinate; stubbornly disobedient

and

  contumelious - Arrogantly insolent

in the context of their word roots. It seems that they have at least 1 root in common, so it would be nice to know the other 2 different roots, and their other usages in English words (if any).


texts: Is there an olfactory equivalent expression to "the scenic route"?

texts:
"Taking the scenic route" implies taking a less direct alternative to the most direct route toward some destination for the purpose of experiencing more interesting scenery along the way. So, is there an expression, phrase, or idiom that basically means the same thing for smells?

For example, when I walk my dog in the park, I let him choose the route we take.  As such, our route through the park will often make erratic turns and circle back on itself in a path generally determined by his nose, i.e. by the direction toward the most interesting (to him) smells each instant.

If I were to be asked later to describe where our walk in the park went, I could euphemistically say, "we took the scenic route" through the park.  But that implies my dog was navigating by sight when in fact he was navigating by smell (he is almost blind). So is there an olfactory equivalent to "the scenic route" in a case like this, for smells?

"The smelly route" definitely has a negative connotation.
"The mellifluous route" or "The quiet route" might work for an auditory equivalent.  But what would be an olfactory equivalent?


texts: What is a good single word to cover both save and share?

texts: I'm trying to come up with a word that can be used in a menu in a piece of software where the options include saving to the user's computer, saving to the cloud and sharing on various social media sites.  All the ways the data could persist, only I don't think many of the users would understand "persist."


texts: Where would the commas go in this sentence?

texts:
A man so powerful he could crush stones in his hands approached me.

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing after "powerful" and maybe "hands"?


texts: How many syllables are in the word 'hour'?

texts: Does the word 'hour' have 1 or 2 syllables?


texts: What's a verb that means carefully crafting language to avoid future accusations of hypocrisy?

texts:
Examples:

Any time that you're ____ing, you should probably reconsider your actions.
To the astute, the ____ing was disgusting behavior - to the average person, it just sounded sensible.
I couldn't reveal the whole story, so I just ____ed, hoping that nobody would listen, those who listened would forget, and those who didn't forget would seem whiny and stuck in the past.

Prophylactic double-speak[ing] doesn't get to the heart of the hypocrisy.

Advocating for the Devil seems too well-intentioned.

False im-moralizing just confusing.

Temporary/transient normalization is too buzz-wordy.


texts:
Consider the following titles for, say, a name of a university course, or a textbook:

"Introduction to McGuffin Systems"
"Introductory McGuffin Systems"
"McGuffin Systems Introductory"

and let's suppose the course does actually teach you about McGuffin Systems (i.e. not like the introduction to a book where the actual contents comes afterwards).

Which of these three titles is (more) valid for use? Which - to the best of your knowledge - is more commonly used? And does any of them carry a nuance of meaning which the others do not?


texts: Why is a cold shower called a “Scottish Shower”?

texts:
A hot shower capped off with a cold rinse is  often called a Scottish Shower.
The expression appears to be closely related to Ian Fleming who used it in his novels, but it is not clear whether he actually coined the expression:

It’s been called the “Scottish Shower.” Ian Fleming’s title character, the memorable James Bond, often took this shower, which began with hot water and ended with brisk and invigorating icy, cold water, not in the movies, but in the novels themselves.
Perhaps mention of this unique shower had something to do with Fleming’s Scottish background … or, perhaps not.

From Off The Grid News
When and where did the expression originate? Has it really something to do with a traditional Scottish custom or is it just a literary  invention?


texts:
Whenever I go to use the pseudo- prefix, I always have to pause for a moment and decide what the correct e-u order is. Often times I get it wrong. Built in typo correction frequently helps, though there are some instances (irssi, ... written forms) where such a feature does not exist.

I'm very interested in a witty/rhythmic/useful mnemonic to help me remember the correct spelling of pseudo- in full, or even something specific to the e-u ordering.


texts: Meaning and use of “would have to be” in this context

texts:
Student: Hi professor, I was hoping to ask you a few questions about
  the class you're teaching next semester, the course on Polish drama I
  was thinking of taking it.

  Professor: Well, that's an upper division course. You don't look
  familiar to me. Are you a student in this department?

  Student: No, actually I'm not.

  Professor: Ok, have you had other classes in the Slavic languages
  department, here or somewhere else?

  Student: No, that's the thing. I was just wondering how good my
  Polish would have to be whether the class is taught Polish or not.

  Professor: Well, you'd have to have some knowledge of it. By that
  level a lot of students are quite fluent, plus there're some native
  speakers in the department. And we don't plan for it to happen, but
  it's pretty common for the discussions to kind of move in and out of
  English and Polish and it can be difficult to follow. So, how well do
  you speak Polish?

  Student: Hmm, not so great.

Does the student mean this:
"I just want to know the requisite Polish level for taking the class which is taught Polish, and the requisite Polish level for taking the class which is not taught Polish."


texts: When can "as" be used instead of "when"?

texts:
I am having problems explaining the use of "as" and "when" to my foreign language pupils...

To me, this sentence is wrong "Even as he had the chance to help, he did not."
I would say "Even when he had the chance..."

However, I do occassionally use as in a temporal sense, e.g. "As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives.. etc".
How can it be explained? When can "as" be used instead of "when" and more importantly, when not?
Looking forward to your ideas!!


texts: I have learned that the word for a person from Britain is a Brit. But, I was browsing the Internet and I saw reading the Guardian that the word is Briton. I researched, and found that Briton is the more accurate word, but I have heard the word Brit used multiple times by people I know over the years.


texts: What we call the next consecutive question in series of problem

texts:
on stack overflow we can edit the questions and this problem is based on that.

Scenario

I was asking problem A and got the solution of A but face a new problem B.

How do I  mention (reference  back) the problem A while telling problem B?

also
How do I mention  (reference forth) the problem B when updating the question  of problem A ?

Which one is the correct sentence while writing problem B ?

  prior to this question [ link of problem A ]
  along with this question [ link of problem A ]

it's seems like consecutive question, child question would be asked based on parent question.What we call these kind of questions?


texts: What does it mean when Nancy Pelosi criticizes the revised Republican Health-care plan as "doo-doo stuck to their shoe”?

texts:
Washington Examiner (April 27) carries an article titled “Pelosi: GOP will have 'doo-doo' on its shoes if Obamacare repeal," in which she argues;

  “I think President Trump is really making fools of the members of
  Congress, of his own party. He's asking them to vote for a bill that
  is wildly unpopular in the country, is the wrong thing to do first and
  foremost. It's going to be doo-doo stuck to their shoe for a long time
  to come with terrible consequences for the American questions."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pelosi-gop-will-have-doo-doo-on-its-shoes-if-obamacare-repeal-passes/article/2621457"

Though I cannot find “doo-doo” in Oxford Advanced English Leaners Dictionary at hand, Kenkyusha’s English Japanese Dictionary gives definition of “doo” as (slang) pee, crap.

Does “doo-doo stuck to one’s shoe” mean an indelible and foul stain? Is it a popular phrasing? What are easier and more decent alternatives to “doo-doo stuck to one’s shoe”?


texts: Is the 'w' in 'cow' a vowel or a consonant?

texts:
Is the w in cow a vowel or a consonant?
Assuming it is considered a vowel, would it likewise be so in how?

I learned that the vowels are "a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y."

If w can be a vowel, what other letters can be vowels?
What is the definition of a vowel?

By the way, I know w can be a vowel, for example in the word cwm, described in the OED as:

  A valley; in Physical Geogr., a bowl-shaped hollow partly enclosed by steep walls
  lying at the head of a valley or on a mountain slope and formed originally by a
  glacier; a cirque.


texts:
I'm looking for a synonym for "curious" that is undoubtedly positive. "Curious" itself is fairly neutral--it could be interpreted as a good thing, but it's sometimes seen as a bad thing (i.e., "Curiosity killed the cat."). There are plenty of other synonyms that are wholly negative: "nosy," "snoopy," "prying," etc. Are there any other synonyms for "curious" that make it clear it's a good thing, such as to describe someone who's curious about an academic subject and wants to learn more about it?

I've already tried Webster.com's thesaurus search, as well as thesaurus.com and synonym.com, but the only results there are either neutral or negative.


texts:
I recently wrote a scientific paper and I don't know if it is correct to start a sentence directly with a verb-ing, for ex.:

  Keeping these conditions in mind [...].

Or should I use:

  By keeping these conditions in mind [...].

I am not an english speaker, so this might be a stupid question... However, which sentence is correct ?


texts: Meaning of the German "ersatz" in English

texts:
As a native German I know some well-known uses of German phrases, but I was
astonished that a book from a British reporter I am reading today used "ersatz"
without explanation.

Is the word "ersatz" well-known in anglo-saxon countries ? What is the
connotation of "ersatz": Do you use it more humorously or more in earnest.
From the context it is not clear what connotation it has, how would you
use it and how do you understand it ?


texts: Is there a word or expression for a small crush on someone?

texts:
I am not very sure if the word crush ("an intense and usually passing infatuation") can be used between two strangers.

For example, a man sees a beautiful woman for the first time in his life. Could he have a crush on the woman? It seems to me that the word crush is too strong.

If I want to express a feeling in the heart–some small movement in the heart caused by seeing the woman–what word would I use? It's just a temporary flash in the heart. It seems the heart is moved by some force.

How does English address such feelings other than by saying: "I had a temporary heart-moving crush on you"?


texts: Is "you best should run" correct English?

texts:
Many people say "you best should go to sleep" "you best should borrow a book from the library"

Is it strictly correct English? what is the technical description for such a figure of speech?

Is it the same as "you best ought to borrow a book"?


texts: Speculative conditional: Why does it use the past tense or past perfect tense?

texts: We use simple past to state a hypothetical present situation that we would like to speculate about (If they were here, I would be happy), past perfect for a hypothetical past (had they been here, I would have been happy), and simple present to a hypothetical future. Any explanation why this makes sense, as opposed to past for past, present for present, and future for future?


texts: "We will never have x until we can do y"

texts:
I heard this in a science lecture.

Is this a correct use of the word "never"? I'm not a native English speaker, but for me, "never" means we know that there's is no point in time (past, present or future) when it is true. "Until" means that there may be a point in the future when something changes from false to true (or vice versa). From that standpoint, "never" means that there can be no "until", or am I missing something?


texts: What is "remedy against the lusts of the flesh"?

texts:
I am struggling to understand the following sentence.

“I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.”
― Thomas Mann

I read this post but still I don't understand "... remedy against ... ".
Does the phrase "the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh" mean the best remedy after 'damages' of sexual activities, etc. or does it mean the best means to prevent someone from the lusts of the flesh, or something else?


texts: how to recognize places and people's names easily during conversation

texts:
I can distinguish places or names easily when I am reading because they have capital letters. However that information is not conveyed through conversation. I found it difficult for me to recognize a word that is a place or name when I am listening, which sometimes gives me a hard time to understand what the other people are saying.
Is there a way that I can train myself to be more familiar with names and places during conversation?


texts:
What is more correct saying about hours?

A bigger overlap of our business hours.
A longer overlap of our business hours.

UPDATE

The context: we want to shift working hours, so employees from different countries work together longer.


texts: Is there a word for exceptional writing?

texts: Is there a word to describe the gift of exceptional writing? Or, what would you call someone whose writing is well above average?


texts: Does everyone in the U.S. (and beyond?) pronounce "Buick" with the Spanish B/V, or is this a regional thing?

texts:
There's a long and dry story to this, so I'll just get to the point and ask the question:

Does everyone in the U.S. (and beyond?) pronounce the beginnng of the word "Buick" with the "Spanish" combination B/V sound, or is this a regional thing?

That is, when I hear people mention this make of car, it sounds as if they begin the word with a sound that is a cross between the letters B and V, so that you could just as easily think the person were saying either "View-ick" or "Byoo-
ick" but you're not sure which one they intend.

This is the only "English" (?) word I've ever noticed with its "B" being pronounced in the Spanish ("B = V = B", or "B = BV") fashion.

Is this a common anomaly (IOW, is it pronounced that way throughout the US or even the world)? If not, what is the usual way of pronouncing it? If what I've heard is a regionalism, how wide is that region (perhaps limited to northern
California)?


texts:
I'm reading Robert Bringhurst's book The Elements of Typographic Style (4th edition), and encounter this sentence on the top of page 10:

  That freedom is denied us if the tradition is concealed or left for dead.

I think only phrases like

be denied by somebody
deny somebody

are valid, but after searching I find some webpages just use "be denied somebody" for "be denied by somebody", as on the website of The New York Times,

  British Memoirist Is Denied U.S. Entry,

and on The Washington Post,

  Leading Muslim Scholar Is Denied U.S. Travel Visa.

So, is the "be denied somebody" form widely accepted? Is it a special usage?

EDIT

For better understanding of the original sentence, this is the poetic context:

  Typography thrives as a shared concern -- and there are no paths at all where there are no shared desires and directions. A typographer determined to forge new routes must move, like other solitary travelers, through uninhabited country and against the grain of the land, crossing common thoroughfares in the silence before dawn. The subject of this book is not typographic solitude, but the old, well-traveled roads at the core of the tradition: paths that each of us is free to follow or not, and to enter and leave when we choose -- if only we know the paths are there and have a sense of where they lead. That freedom is denied us if the tradition is concealed or left for dead. Originality is everywhere, but much originality is blocked if the way back to earlier discoveries is cut or overgrown.


texts: Is this the correct useage of... including; but not only,

texts: Is this the correct useage of, "every possible accessory and trimming a body could desire to adorn their costumes with, including; but not only, brightly colored ribbons, buttons, needles of brass and threads of fine silk"


texts: Is "devolve" a sloppy (if technically permissable) way to say "de-evolve"?

texts:
I have a question about the word "devolve." The most traditional usage, if I judge by the OED, is to mean "to pass down to or onto," as in a title or an inheritance or similar. Other related meanings of "falling to" or  "rolling down" to or upon are related to this. I see this quite a bit these days in British media in the discussion of Brexit.
My question has to do with the usage I hear and see quite often now in the US which is to mean "deteriorate." I see this quite a lot in US publications (e.g. Newsweek recently: "Should ramped-up tensions between the U.S. and North Korea devolve into outright nuclear war..." or a recent article in Food and Wine magazine asking, "Will the concept evolve (devolve?) into murder-mystery theater?") I see it constantly in academic writing as well.
The OED gives this usage as 8b, quite far down the list of meanings, and gives only one example (from 1830, a "scholar devolving into a buffoon"), origin obscure. Even though the origin of this usage seems to emerge before Darwin, I would guess that the widespread usage nowadays in this sense of degeneration is due to a conceptual pairing with "evolution" (implying positive progress), even though this is only based on an apparent similarity of devolve with "de-evolve," not a real etymological basis in the word. This usage seems wrong or at least questionable to me--but maybe I am just being too rigid.

Is this a usage that you deem legitimate enough to be tolerated, despite the misunderstanding of meaning that seems to drive it, or does the false foundation (evolve vs "devolve" rather than de-evolve) make it sloppy usage on some level? Or is it a popular misuse to be avoided, akin to sports athletes and everyone else claiming they feel "truly humbled" by a victory rather than honored?


texts: Naming the action of putting legs apart sideways when walking/climbing

texts:
When one climbs a mountain path, one often takes care to put one foot more to the left, the other more to the right, with a distance between them.

What os the right English terms for this? "Spreading one's legs" normally applies to sitting or lying down, not to walking? So how do I call this one?


texts: What's the difference between manful and manly?

texts:
What's the difference between "manful" and "manly"? Both are adjectives derived from the word "man", and Wiktionary has fairly similar definitions of the two words: manful versus manly.

Is manly usually used when describing a man or woman, while either is fine when describing something other than a person?


texts: Is there a word for a question whose phrasing renders its answer essentially useless?

texts:
I am looking for a word similar to "uninformative" but not quite, since "uninformative" applies to the answer but I want the word for the corresponding question with an answer that is necessarily uninformative. Arguably, rhetorical questions are a subset of this sort of question, but there are other types as well so that's not quite satisfactory. I've thought of "useless" and its synonyms but was wondering if there is a term specifically for questions of this sort.

The context, for me, is that people frequently ask "is this possible?" in terms of work projects, the answer to which is always "yes", but they really needed to ask "is this practical" or "how long will this take?"


texts: Word that describes exploration coupled with transformation?

texts:
Is there a verb that combines the sense of explore as well as transforming that which you are exploring? For instance, if I want to describe an explorer who also changed the lands he visited, is there a way to combine that into a single word? The closest I can think of is 'plunder' or perhaps 'raid', but they have negative connotations, and imply taking what isn't yours. I want one that is morally neutral.

The word 'quarry' is close, but again implies taking things. But what I want is more general, that could apply to Johnny Appleseed (who made the world better), but also to a marauder who takes things.


texts: What is the difference between "conserve" and "preserve"?

texts:
In particular, I want to ask if we have the term "conserved food". E.g.

  I have ordered some of your favorite dishes, like chicken, pork, and [conserved/preserved] fish.

This is a question in our mid-term paper. Our teacher said it should be preserved.

Below is the explanation from Longman Contemporary Dictionary:

  conserve

  to protect something and prevent it from changing or being damaged
  = preserve

  　We must conserve our woodlands for future generations.
  　efforts to conserve fish stocks
  to use as little water, energy etc as possible so that it is not wasted

  　systems designed to conserve energy


texts: What do we call English transliterations re-transliterated into English?

texts:
Anime is an an abbreviation of animation transliterated into Japanese and then back into English (It could also be argued that it is a loan word, but for the sake of my point here we don't need to discuss this).

how do we classify English words that have been transliterated into another language and then transliterated back into English?

(Perhaps this phoenomonon doesn't even exist, like I imagine it does.)


texts: someone say, an auther or movie writer, keep repeating the old story, or old style, in Chinese, there is a saying called "fried cold rice", meaning dish up the old food, is there any same idiom in English? thanks.


texts:
How do I clearly distinguish between:

Moving images only
Moving images and audio

Using as few words as possible, without it sounding 'awkward' of course.

  Black Hat Guy:   "I was watching and listening to this moving image with audio data stream on my LCD screen and speakers respectively about..."

  Mrs. Roberts:      "You were what?"

  Black Hat Guy:   "I was watching a video on my computer about..."

For both technical and non-technical usage?


texts:
The following sentence comes to me a bit intricate:

  The ultimate responsibility still rests in the hands of Internet users who vote – they, along with the officials elected to serve them, make up the global community.

I didn't understand the understand  the use of the dash and the commas and what does the expression Internet users who vote – they...  mean?
Why did the writer use the personal pronoun "they " to refer to internet users? Does he need a new subject after the dash? What is after all the grammatical structure of this sentence?

I need an overall explanation of this sentence, please!


texts: A better expression for "sharing workshop in a company"

texts:
I am trying to find a better expression for this:

  I mean that the workshop is about the sharing of conversation with company people
  so to improve company


texts: What does "[arête]" mean, inside of a quote?

texts:
My copy of Xenophon has a sentence that looks like this:

  ...because she alone makes the development of moral excellence [arête] a public duty.

(italics are in the quote itself; "she" refers to Sparta)

What does [arête] mean here? Online, I could only find information about a certain type of rock formation.


texts: Do you need to use "sic" for every error, or just the first occurrence?

texts:
I am typing into a computer a Civil War diary.  The (unknown) author's spelling errors are actually quite consistent.

Example:   "Troutman told Doug and me to ride ahead and riddjup an area to make camp."  Troutman was probably from Pennsylvania and meant "read-up" the camp.  The author spells this as riddjup about 40 times in a 250 page diary.

Is it necessary in a transcription to use "sic." at every error, or is it sufficient to use it only at the first occurrence.


texts:
Consider the following sentence . My boss (say Mr X) wrote this to me in an email and before this paragraph he actually gave a list of items that I need to work on :

  We will have a Webex meeting at 9:00 AM on Friday with Y to review
  these items.  Please confirm that you can make it.

Is he saying that I should be done with those items before 9:00 AM on Friday and then have the meeting with Y or is he just asking me to confirm my availablitiy for that meeting ?


texts: They also serve who only stand and wait. What is the function of "who only............wait"?

texts:
Is the part "who only ...wait" a noun clause acting as direct object?

I am confused because the verb "serve" is shown to be an intransitive verb in the book in this particular example.


texts: What would you call someone, with money, who attends an all inclusive  fund-raiser, refuses to pay the attendance fee, and sends his girlfriend up to the bar all night to get him goblets of wine while he listens to the band?  BTW, the GF paid up her end of things.


texts: Was the informal usage of "kosher" an AmE one originally?

texts:
The Jewish term kosher is also used informally to mean:

genuine and legitimate:
she consulted lawyers to make sure everything was kosher (ODO)

This usage dates back to the end of the 19th century:

generalized sense of "correct, legitimate" is from 1896. (Etymonline)

The OED cites some early usages:

1896 Farmer & Henley Slang IV. 135/1 Kosh (or Kosher)... Adj. (common).—Fair; square.

1924 Cosmopolitan Nov. 104/2 It don't sound kosher to me!

Questions:

Was this informal usage of "kosher" an AmE one originally?
Is the term mainly used in AmE or is it common usage in BrE and in other English dialects?


texts: Opening and closing a letter - is there a name for this style?

texts:
Sorry if this isn’t the right place for this question, but I’ve Googled high and low and found nothing.

I’ve noticed that some letters start and close with handwriting, e.g. “Dear Mrs Smith” and “Yours sincerely, Mr Smith” will be hand written, while the rest of the letter is typed by computer/typewriter.

Examples are the Prime Minister of the UK and from the Queen’s staff at Buckingham Palace. See photos below.

Is there a name for this style? When is this style appropriate? I really like it, because it seems more personal. Could I adopt this style myself?


texts: "this, this and this": plural or singular?

texts:
My comment from  meta.SO:

  And finally, the style of badges should be the same on this, this, and this page.

At the point where I'd say page/pages, am I talking about the group of three pages, or the last one page?


texts:
I know there's an idiom "bit by bit".

The question is is it okay to say "bits by bits"?
I mean people would understand the meaning but are they both considered idioms (is it a formal expression)?

Thank you


texts:
I am given the following sentence:
"I've always known you were a good friend."
I know that "I" is the subject pronoun "'ve" is the contracted form of the auxiliary verb "have", "always" is an adverb of frequency, and "known" is the past participle.
Can someone tell me what parts of speech the rest of the words are?  I am having a lot of trouble with this.  Also, is "you were a good friend" a defining clause? Thanks in advance.


texts: Meaning and origin of "if you catch my drift"

texts: What does the expression if you catch my drift mean? Where does it originate? I've heard it in the context to signify something like if you know what I mean.


texts: Why is the word "impeding" used as synonym for "imminent"?

texts:
As far as I can tell, every dictionary definition (example) of "impede" talks about blocking, delaying, retard in movement... "impeding" something from happening. The word seems to come from a Latin expression meaning "to shackle the feet".

And yet, I see in daily use it is very common to use "impeding" to refer to something imminent, something that will happen sooner or later, and most likely impossible to stop. Example: "the impeding demise of ...".

What's the explanation for this usage?


texts:
Which expression is preferred? I found in writing the expression

  "Not just a ___."

but maybe it is better to write

  "Not only a ___."

What do you think? Does it even matter? The context is a very large MNC describing their offers. "We offer not just vechiles, but also..."


texts: I would ask you to.. vs I would like to ask you to

texts:
(a) I would ask you to forward the document to the associates in New York
(b) I would like to ask you to forward the document to the associates in New York

My understanding was that (b) is the only correct form; (a) can only be used if the speaker has a counterfactual premise in mind, as in "If it were me, I would ask you to forward...." I could come up with a number of situations where (a) might sound natural enough, but at least, (a) does not mean the same thing as (b) under normal circumstances.
Recently, however, I keep receiving emails asking me to do something using the construction (a), and they seem to be intended to convey the meaning of (b). Granted, most of them are from non-English speaking countries, but I see this usage so often it makes me wonder:
Is it acceptable, or at least common, to make a request -- asking someone to do something for you -- using the form "I would ask you to" as in (a) above?
Note:
A few people have pointed out my question aoove might be a duplicate of this question:
Which dialects of English consider “would” to be a polite form of “will”? .  But that page concerns Indian dialects of English and I do not see any connection, unless this usage of "would" as in (a) only, or at least mainly, is common in India.
Thank you.


texts: Idiom for "something is not as bad as they say"

texts:
I am looking for the way to translate the Russian saying that goes something like this " the Devil is not as dangerous as he was described, or, in direct translation, painted". Please help!

I look for the idiom in reference to a situation, not a person.


texts: Might the use of the word "where" be inapt in these three sentences?

texts:
The question found here triggered a question in my mind. Lately I've been noticing how people tend to use the word where in a way which to me seems inapt. Some examples:

Anorexia is a condition where a person, usually a young female, has such a poor body image that she virtually starves herself to death.

A phobia is where you have a fear of, say, clowns, and this fear seemingly has no rational basis.

The abused dog suffered from hypothermia, a condition where the body's core temperature drops to a near-fatal level.

Wouldn't the words in which (or when, in the case of the hypothermic dog) be a better fit than where in the first and third examples?

Anorexia is a condition in which a person . . ..

The abused dog suffered from hypothermia, a condition in which . . .. Or, The abused dog suffered from hypothermia, a condition when . . ..

Wouldn't the word when, or the words a condition in which, be a better fit than where in the second example?

A phobia is when . . .. Or, A phobia is a condition in which . . ..

I'm not suggesting my substitutions are necessarily the best or that they exhaust the number of possibilities, but isn't the use of the word where inapt in my examples? If so, why? If not, why not?


texts:
How would you word it properly?

Could you hang a bag of IV fluid for Patient 123?

Could you hang a bag of IV fluid on Patient 123?

Could you hang a bag of IV fluid to Patient 123?

Which one is correct? If there's none then how would you word it?

This is an extension to the previous post "Put up an IV fluid". Would it matter if I used hang instead of put up? Thanks.


texts:
What is the word for a lucky object, a thing you hold in your hand for good luck?  Perhaps a stone.  A small object that represents good fortune. I think it begins with tal-

Like a necklaces of a Hawaiian God (like in that Partridge Family TV episode.)  You might even rub it or keep it in your pocket when you go to Vegas.


texts: Is "Windows-based PC" a correct term in American English?

texts:
I am writing a support message to a customer support of an audio hardware vendor. I need to describe them that I am running Microsoft Windows as the main OS on my computer. Is "Windows-based PC" term it correct to describe a computer with say Windows XP installed?

An example of using the term:

I am using the Audigy card with onboard firewire controller to connect my audio device to a Windows-based PC.


texts: What does 'set up' mean in this sentence?

texts:
'Authorities are reporting a spike in thefts of Tide, and in some cities they have set up task forces where the detergent is sold to track the number of bottles in stores'

Can we say its meaning is 'organize or plan something'?


texts: What is the connotation of the word 'O'?

texts:
What is the author trying to convey with the word 'O' in the following:

  He has told you, O man, what is good;


texts: "Cheat" or "hack" - related to computer games

texts:
When someone does something that is not allowed in a computer game, others tell him that he is cheating or hacking.

Which word is more suitable?


texts: When is it acceptable to start a sentence with an "-ing" word?

texts:
Here's my example. It is a sentence that begins in the middle of a paragraph and I'm using it as a transition.

"Living in Costa Rica also gave me the opportunity to interact with the local population."

Or can I re-write the sentence like this:

"Additionally, living in Costa Rica also gave me the opportunity to interact with the local population."


texts: What is the word that describes the fumes and oils carried in them that are given off naturally by certain trees

texts: When one walks near certain evergreen trees, many times the scent of turpentine can be smelled --- likewise, the natural oils that are evaporating in to the vicinity.


texts: How to distinguish "timesheets pending for approval" & "timesheets awaiting for your approval" in phrases?

texts:
There are two buttons.
Button A is for the timesheets submitted by user but still waiting for someone's approval, I want button A displays like this: Pending Approval (3)

Note: (3) means the quantity of timesheets that pending for approval.

And button B is for the timesheets submitted by others but require for this user's approval.

My question: How to describe Button B? Should I make it as "Awaiting for your  approval", or any shorter pharse?


texts: Why is the adjectival form of “governor” gubernatorial?

texts: Why isn’t the adjectival form “governatorial” or something similar? Why did “gubernatorial” become the standard and accepted adjective for “governor”? Govern’s adjective is governable and not gubernable. Government’s adjective is governmental and not gubernmental. Why then is governor’s adjective gubernatorial?


texts: Is there a more eloquent way to say this?

texts: I'm writing a Salutatorian speech, and would like to say something to the effect "I'm up here and I don't know why." However, I don't know how to say it without offending anybody or seeming rude... help?


texts: Why don't X and Y make a plural subject in "There is X and Y?

texts: Subjects usually agree with verbs and series of nouns usually make a plural subject as far as I know. Thus in sentences like "A book, two pencils and a pen are lying on the table." we use are and not is. So why does "there" seem to break the rule in the sentence "There is a book, two pencils and a pen on the table."? Is there any logic behind it? Or maybe some history?


texts: What's a good expression for "too much information"?

texts: If someone provides too many details on something, basically making it more difficult to extract the actual information asked for, what is a good expression to describe this? Is superfluous adequate or too harsh? Would it make a difference whether the too-much-information was on purpose or inadvertently?


texts: What would you call the husband of a widow?

texts:
I'm confused as I've been googling a bit and have seen "dead husband", "former husband", ... and even "ex-husband"...

So what would you use for ______ in polite conversation:

  The ______ of the woman in the big house down the street must've liked his gadgets a lot!

and

  I like working in your garden because your ______ had all the tools I need.

I'm looking for one (or maybe two?) words that politely provide context.


texts: Likening an amount of something to something else

texts:
I would like to know how to express that, for example an amount of comments received on a paper is so big that it could've been an essay/that it looks/seems like an essay.

I got an essay worthy amount of comments? I got an essay's worth of comments?

I would appreciate if you could offer natural ways of expressing this.


texts: What is the type of an adjective "fed up"

texts:
Recently, I stumbled upon a phrase "fed up" in one sentence. On the first glance, I was thinking it should be a phrasal verb but it didn't correlate with the sentence meaning. I found out that it is an adjective with the meaning: "Unable or unwilling to put up with something any longer".

It seems to be a compound adjective greatly explained here - https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Compound-Adjectives.htm, like a combination of a past participle and a preposition.

Now, I'm in a mess - what the difference between compound adjectives like that and phrasal verbs.

Do you know any other compound adjectives that resemble phrasal verbs?


texts: Which one How should I say: This is my most-loved picture or my most loved picture

texts:
Which one is correct?
most-loved (or) most loved
How should I say: This is my most-loved picture or my most loved picture.


texts: Noun for someone with a childlike heart (positive)

texts: What noun could be used to describe someone ingenuous, innocent, with a child like heart?


texts: Analogy of people observing something from different viewpoints without recognizing it's the same thing

texts:
I'm seeking to find this analogy which I vaguely recall.

A group of four or five different people are blindfolded and touch different parts of... something. I seem to recall that it was an animal, perhaps a dog.

One is touching the soft ears, one the sharp teeth, one the wet nose, one the rough paw pads. They are arguing about what it is, thinking that the portion they observe is representative of the whole.

The point of the story is to point out the danger in making assumptions about a large topic when you are only observing a small part of it.

Is there a specific source for this? Would I refer to it as an idiom? fable? analogy?


texts:
'I am glad to meet you.'
'I am happy to meet you.'

I heard from somewhere that the latter is usually used by children and those who are very intimate with each other. Is it true?
Do you think it have any differences?


texts:
I'm developing an app with "following" functionality similar to Twitter, where you can follow someone to see their updates, but it doesn't have to be a mutual "friend" situation like Facebook.

My wording issue is I need to be able to say something like what, on Facebook, would be "5 friends liked this," but saying "5 People You Are Following Liked This" is too long.

Is there a single word, or shorter phrase, that could replace "People You Are Following?"


texts:
:)

I came across a sample essay, and there was a comma before "is that" in it.
I am not sure why a comma is needed in that context. Can anyone help me with this?

Here is a short excerpt from the sample essay.

'The main reason as to why I agree with some parents’ attitude in regard to TV restriction, is that children do not have the willpower to self-regulate yet'.

Thank you.


texts: How do we know how words were pronounced hundreds of years ago?

texts:
Recently, I've spent some time reading "The Canturbury Tales", by Geoffrey Chaucer.  There are a number of resources out there to help make sense of the old language he uses, but I've noticed that several sources make matter-of-fact statements describing how the language was pronounced in Chaucer's time.

For example, the WIKIpedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales) says that Chaucer's generation was among the last that pronounced the "e" at the end of words such as "care".

How can anyone claim to know how words were pronounced hundreds of years ago?

The only thing I can guess it is that linguists would make inferences about how some words were pronounced based on how rhyming poems were written.


texts:
Is the following sentence proper English?

"X can best be defined as Y"

And if so, can it be used in academic writing?


texts:
What is the uncollective noun for proration, which can be used with 's'?

people; collective noun
person; uncollective noun

The proration above can be used in such a context.

Ex.
Changing a subscription often results in a proration: a charge adjustment.
 So you can prepare your customer for any additional expense that comes with a plan change, we provide a method of previewing a proration.
 Alternatively, you can choose to disable proration.


texts: Why is it called a nut (as in nuts and bolts)?

texts:
I've tried to find this out and it seems to be a dark hole. Etymology Online   doesn't have much

nut, (n.)
"hard seed," Old English hnutu, from Proto-Germanic *hnut- (source also of Old Norse hnot, Dutch noot, Old High German hnuz, German Nuss "nut"), from PIE kneu- "nut" (source also of Latin nux; see nucleus). Sense of "testicle" is attested from 1915. Nut-brown is from c. 1300 of animals; c. 1500 of complexions of women.
Meaning "crazy person, crank" is attested from 1903 (British form nutter first attested 1958; nut-case is from 1959); see nuts. American English slang sense of "amount of money required for something" is first recorded 1912. The nut that goes onto a bolt is first recorded 1610s (used of other small mechanical pieces since early 15c.). Nuts and bolts "fundamentals" is from 1960.

There is some evidence that it is from the middle French word for screw, escroue, perhaps indicating that the two items were conflated
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=screw

screw (n.)
"cylinder of wood or metal with a spiral ridge round it; hole in which a screw turns," c. 1400, from Middle French escroue "nut, cylindrical socket, screwhole," of uncertain etymology; not found in other Romanic languages. Perhaps via Gallo-Roman *scroba or West Germanic *scruva from Vulgar Latin scrobis "screw-head groove," in classical Latin "ditch, trench," also "vagina" (Diez, though OED finds this "phonologically impossible").

The name for nut in French is still écrou apparently from the the hole made by swine in rooting, but still referring to the mechanical not botanical nut.
http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/cide/155273/Screw
But as Diaz says, this seems to be phonetically impossible.
Re the history of the nut and bolt, the screw thread is nothing new, it was around from at least the times of Babylon and Archimedes, the real innovation in the late 16th century was the pairing of a part that had a screw thread on the inside. Prior to that, fasteners were more like pegs, still called bolts and they date back to the Ancient Rome. The nut in the threaded bolt and nut invented Besson in France was probably a simple square block of wood with a hole in the middle, probably tightened with a piece of rope wrapped tightly around it to act as a wrench. Probably at the time, the screw and nut was sold as a set (and why wouldn't it be, one is pointless without the other) simply named a escroue, and it wasn't until later, perhaps when they were being produced by Hindley of York in 1641 that the names diverged.


texts:
"we know that they don't take excellent decisions that causes that the covid-19 ends"

"we know that they don't take excellent decisions causing the covid-19 ends"

in firs sentence, I want to reduce last "that clause" but I'm not sure whether it's correct