texts: Is there an expression or idiom which corresponds to changing one's mind very often?

texts: Ironically, what motivated my question was a French-language textbook. In French, there is an expression "changer d'avis comme de chemise" which would translate to "changing one's mind as often as one's shirt". Is there an equivalent expression or idiom in English?


texts:
I'm not a native english speaker so there are still some things that I don't fully understand.

What is the best way to say, in a software, that an item is waiting for the approval of someone? "Pending approval" or "Approval pending"?, Internet gave me ambiguous responses.

Waiting for your comments! thanks.


texts: Simple past or Present Perfect with “this week”

texts:
Please look at the following,

  a) I finished my work this week.

This means I am either speaking at the end of the week or that I am speaking on any day of the week expecting no more work for the week. Am I right? Or are there few other scenarios? If yes, then please let me know.

  b) I have finished my work this week.

Please tell me how this sentence is different from the above one? I fail to understand the difference.


texts:
I know in order to have perfect past we must have a simple past too.
but in conditional type 3. I cannot see any simple past.
"If she had gone to university, she would have found a really good job."
The past perfect is 'If she had gone to university'
but I wonder where is the simple past.
and what is the tense of this sentence
"she would have found a really good job."


texts: Is it grammatically correct to use 'Certification training' in this context?

texts:
This paragraph is for CV and I have a question. Is it grammatically correct to use 'Certification training'?

  Certification

  Fluke Networks

  Certification training on the operation of the Network Analyser
  Fluke Networks Etherscope®

  Cisco Network Academy

  CCNA Exploration: Accessing the WAN
  CCNA Exploration: LAN Switching and Wireless
  CCNA Exploration: Routing Protocols and Concept
  CCNA Exploration: Network Fundamentals

Thank in advance for your help.


texts: Do you use 'twist someone's arm' to talk about relationship?

texts:
He didn’t want to force himself to keep the bad relationship.

He didn’t want to twist his arm to keep the bad relationship.

In the dictionary, twist someone's arm means to try to force someone to do something.
Is the second example sentence okay to mean 'force himself'? I'm curious if it's okay to use it to talk about relationship.


texts:
Which sentence is correct?

The size of X and Y is the same.
The sizes of X and Y is the same.
The size of X and Y are the same.
The sizes of X and Y are the same.

As a non-native speaker, my feeling is that 2) is totally wrong, and 1) and 4) are equally right.


texts: It's hard to remember its spelling because it has so many syllables, I often say it as 'on-na-ma-to-pee-a'... and even if I pronounce it correctly, the last few letters are a nightmare for me. Is there a mnemonic for 'onomatopoeia'?


texts: Ambiguity of "bag down for a better ride"

texts:
Today I saw a sign on the train that said

  Bag down for a better ride.

There was an accompanying picture of someone carrying a large bag on his back, possibly causing inconvenience to others:

Initially, I thought it meant put less things in your bag, with bag used as a verb in the sign. Later on, I realised it meant put down your bag, with bag used as a noun instead. Can it really mean either thing?


texts: Is there a word for someone born through incest?

texts: The word 'bastard' is used liberally throughout Game of Thrones and it made me wonder about the children born through incest.


texts: Has the word lust got any positive meaning to it?

texts: I've been hearing it quite a while... Sexual desire is the only meaning I know... But have heard people using it positively too.. Which doesn't seem to be giving that "sexual desire" sort of relation to it.


texts: What punctuation do I use between the words "words" and "he"?

texts: Thousands of people gathered just to hear his motivating words he was truly an inspiration to others.


texts:
What's the word for when something happens in life that makes you take a step outside of the normal routine of life and view your self in an existential way.

For example, you witness what the internet calls a "glitch in the matrix" which makes you question reality. Another example would be in the movie: "The Truman Show" when a camera falls out of the sky and he realizes his whole world is a lie.

Example: Ned experienced a moment of _________ making him stop and wonder what the point of all this was.


texts: Is there a word or adjective to describe an unnecessary correction?

texts: When in casual conversation, being full accurate or detailed on what you mean isn't always necessary. For example, if I were to tell someone I want to buy a certain "waterproof" speaker and they correct me by saying it is water resistant, although it wasn't necessary. In the context of that conversation, they understand what I mean and it isn't needed to make clarification.


texts: In soccer, if a player waits for another player to get into a proper position before passing the ball to him then can I say "That was a nicely waited pass" or would that be grammatically correct?


texts: Looking for a term, similar to "epigraph," meaning a quotation given in order to explain another text

texts:
For an English Lit. essay I am writing on TS Eliot and Joyce, I wish to use a Biblical quotation I find useful in illuminating certain themes common to their work (1 Corinthians 13 if anyone is interested---I think the ideas about love/charity, growth from childhood to adulthood and some of its metaphors are highly applicable).

However, I lack the word for such a quotation; I have considered "epigraph," "citation," "touchstone" and "reference point," however none of these seem entirely apt. Rather than positioning the quotation as an epigraph, I would prefer to introduce it in the actual essay itself. I would use it in the context something like the following: "to explain Eliot's metaphor, I cite 1 Corinthians 13 as a (blank)."

I am not sure if there is a precise word, however I will be grateful to any suggestions!


texts:
In computer science, the environment in which software runs is called "development", "staging", and "production".

I am faced with a piece of software that can only exist in one environment. It goes out and retrieves data, but only one version of it can exist in the company. This is to prevent us from being double-billed.

I was thinking of calling the new environment "singleton" to describe to people that only one instance of it should exist.

Is there a better word to describe the environment?


texts:
As Election Day loomed in 2012, traffic at the New York Times website spiked, as is normal during moments of national importance. But this time, something was different. A wildly disproportionate fraction of this traffic—more than 70 percent by some reports—was visiting a single location in the sprawling domain. It wasn’t a front-page breaking news story, and it wasn’t commentary from one of the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning columnists; it was instead a blog run by a baseball stats geek turned election forecaster named Nate Silver. Less than a year later, ESPN and ABC News lured Silver away from the Times (which tried to retain him by promising a staff of up to a dozen writers) in a major deal that would give Silver’s operation a role in everything from sports to weather to network news segments to, improbably enough, Academy Awards telecasts. Though there’s debate about the methodological rigor of Silver’s hand-tuned models, there are few who deny that in 2012 this thirty-five-year-old data whiz was a winner in our economy.
— Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport, pub. Piatkus 2016

I don't get what's going on. What models? What does the author mean by rigor? Rigor on what? So, does he control the broadcast?


texts: Abbreviating "of course" to course or 'course - is apostrophe needed to indicate missing word?

texts: I'm looking at some dialogue that has been written as "'Course not!". Is the apostrophe here - indicating the missing word "of" - correct, incorrect or optional for clarity? Although it is unlikely that this would be misinterpreted as an instruction not to course.


texts: Something or other vs something or another?

texts:
Which of these two sentences would be correct?

I recall that he was out looking for something or another.
I recall that he was out looking for something or other.

Basically, should I use "something or another" or "something or other"?

Also, as an aside, should the question mark at the end of my previous sentence go inside the quotation marks or is it correct as it is?


texts:
Which should be used: of or off?

  It is a branch of/off the main tree.

The actual context is program code branches and in that context the plural branches is not suitable.


texts: sentence structure with whose elections systems

texts:
The following is an excerpt from the New York Times of Nov. 22.
In Michigan, Republicans have zeroed in on Detroit, whose elections system the president has falsely portrayed as so flawed that its entire vote should be thrown out. Lost on no one in those cities is what they have in common: large populations of Black voters.
I cannot make out the part reading "whose elections system the president has falsely portrayed as so flawed that its entire vote should be thrown out."
There seems to be something missing there. Or is this completely OK grammatically?


texts: "From" Phrases Regarding Time (. . . "from next month")

texts:
It's my first time posting, so let me know if I do anything wrong.

I have a random question. It’s regarding #2. I told my student it’s fine, based on the primarily UK and Indian news articles I found with similar sentences, but it still sounds a bit weird to me. I don’t know if it’s my own idiolect or if it sounds strange to other people too.

  I can give you money next month.
  I can give you money from next month.
  I can give you money from next month on/onward.
  I can give you money a week from next month.

I think it may be because there is a semantic issue in my head, where #2 could possibly have two meanings:

"from" = after (+ onwards), like in #3.
"from" = “from”, as in the source of the noun (e.g. “I can give you money that I’ll have next month”/”I can give you next month’s money.”)

Even that second meaning sounds weird though. I think there’s more confusion in this with “from last month” (e.g. "I gave you money from last month"). So perhaps I’ve started avoiding this type of sentence with both “last” and “next” to avoid confusion, and thus find it strange to say.

I don’t know… The more I look at this, the more I become confused. Am I just going crazy?


texts: What is the antonym of the noun "creatives"?

texts:
Web designers, graphic designers, painters, sculptors and whittlers are all largely considered creatives.

If web developers, software developers, programmers and engineers are not also considered creatives - and they usually aren't, in the average person's use of the word - what are they? Is there an antonym for "creatives"?

Example sentence:

  Both creatives and [non-creatives] need to work together and adapt to one another's needs to achieve our company's goals.


texts: >2-word compound modifiers and suspended hyphens

texts:
I have been taught that when creating compound modifiers, a hyphen (-) should be used if the compound consists of two words, while an en-dash (–) is used if the compound consists of three or more words:

I am Vancouver-based journalist.
You are a New York–based journalist.
She is a Rio de Janeiro–based journalist.

I have also been taught that when listing multiple compound modifiers that share a common base(?), one can use a suspended hyphen to avoid repetition:

He is a Canada-, US-, and Brazil-based journalist.

My question, finally, is how these two rules work together. Are the following sentences correct?

I am a New York– and Vancouver-based journalist.
You are a Vancouver- and New York–based journalist.
She is a Rio de Janeiro–, Vancouver-, and New York–based journalist.


texts: Does "precipitation" have anything to do with "precipitous"?

texts:
precipitation

the action or process of precipitating a substance from a solution.
rain, snow, sleet, or hail that falls to the ground.
archaic,the fact or quality of acting suddenly and rashly

It's a synonymous of drop I think;

While precipitous

dangerously high or steep:
(of an action) done suddenly and without careful consideration:

synonyms: steep · sheer · perpendicular · abrupt · sharp · vertical

Both give me a sense of abruptly and related to the "altitude", "vertical".
So, it's of pure coincidence or they have something to do with each other? Say coming from a same root? Tried but found nothing related, So I thought I'd post. Apologies if it contains grammar mistakes and wrong use of words. Feel free to edit it.


texts:
Is there a single word to denote the amount of time before something expires? For example:

  The password is valid for another 10 hours

What's the word that is equivalent to "good for a period of" ?


texts: how do you call a person who doesn't share responsibility

texts:
How do you call a person who does all the work on their own for a given project and never share responsibilities with other people just because they think that no-one else could ever be as good as themselves?

This word has a negative connotation and is not a compliment.


texts:
I’m not sure whether this sentence is correct or not,
“The man turned his computer on and covered his eyes, such was the light emitted from the screen.” or "such powerful was the light emitted from the screen."

I know that I could say:
“Such was the light emitted from the screen, that …”

But my question is, can I put the part of the sentence with “such” at the end, as the first example?

Thanks


texts: Meaning of "black on black" in Nickelback's "Animals"

texts:
The song "Animals" by Nickelback starts with the following lines:

I, I'm driving black on black
Just got my license back
I got this feeling in my veins
This train is coming off the track

I am confused about what "black on black" means in relation to driving. Several translations of the lyrics that I've seen (which are probably just copies of one single translation) interpret it as "very slowly", which seems to not fit the spirit of the song and its portrayal of the driver.
Urban Dictionary, however, defines "black on black" as:

The epitome of style. Referring to any and all things that can be categorized by having black as the background color and, again, black as the accent color.

Any black vehicle on black rims.

The second definition does sorta fit the song's style and driving black on black, but still doesn't feel right.
So, what does it actually mean?


texts:
In the show 'Friends' there is an exchange between Ross and Joey that goes like this:

  Joey: I'm in this show called 'The Days of Our Lives'.
  Ross: Dude, it's just 'Days of Our Lives'. There's no 'the'.

Sadly, I fail to see humor in this and it's most likely due to my poor understanding of the many meanings of the article 'the'.

I also think understanding this joke could make me understand how the reception of the name "The Facebook" differs from just "Facebook" (the site used to be called thefacebook.com in the past, there's even a mention of that in the movie "The Social Network").

Could you help me understand this, please?


texts: This was the first phrase to ...?... into his head

texts: What verb best fits here, meaning it was the first form of words that crossed his mind?


texts:
The word 'master' is obviously gendered sometimes, but is it always so?

There is the perhaps traditional sense associated with servitude.

Master Frodo
Master of the realm

In these cases the word cold be replaced with mistress without sounding unusual.

Then there are cases which are traditional terms, but don't seem to be applied differently if a female is applicable.

master at arms
quarter master

Then there is a more general. Master of something. For example

  She was a master of disguise

To my mind this may not be gendered. I've not seen 'mistress' used in this way. Also outside of a formal title 'mistress' has other, less positive connotations.

Is it still gendered in this sense? Are there good neutral alternatives?


texts:
My friend just told me that his teacher, a native speaker, taught him - that many and much are mainly used in negative sentences and not commonly in affirmative sentences; furthermore, I happened to read an article concerning that matter while searching about it. Here are the examples the article gives:

  There aren't many chairs in the room.
  I don't have much time.
  He doesn't need much money.

As this is not familiar with me, I am rather confused about this. I have never thought that many is not common in affrimative sentences, and because of that I got a question: what adjective should I use then in formal affirmative sentences? I know that a lot of is informal and so is not preferable to use it in formal contexts. For example, what should replace many in the following sentence? And is many that not suitable to be used in affirmative sentences?

  He has many questions I could not possibly answer.


texts: What does "wipe your chin and walk away" mean?

texts:
In the movie The Social Network Sean Parker says in his first meeting with Mark:

  Sean Parker: "And they want you to say 'thank you' while you, excuse me, wipe your chin and walk away."

I never was quite able to figure this one out , so what exactly does wipe your chin and walk away refers to?

If you wish, you can see to the YouTube clip of the conversation   here.


texts: What is the word to describe that something is overly hyped?

texts:
What is the word to describe that something is overly-hyped?

I mean something like buzzword or buzzphrase but of course those are not adjectives.


texts: Some substitution words for "up in the air"?

texts:
"Up in the air" is not formal in academic writing.

Can anyone provide me another word (as clean as possible, don't use another idiom) which has the same meaning?


texts: Word for "making something more tolerable?"

texts:
Example:

  We created art and entertainment to distract us and to [...] life.

What's the word or phrase to use in a situation like this?

The only thing I can think of is 'to soften up.' But I'm not sure.


texts:
I want one word which indicates "Something with great veracity". Here, the emphasis of veracity is more towards "accuracy" than "truth".

It's a thing, an instrument that has good veracity.

I want to use this word as a name for such an instrument.


texts: Is the clause "chances are" grammatically correct?

texts:
You've most certainly heard this:

  Chances are, he overslept this morning.

I realize the comma is a splice, but it's there only to emphasize the pause that usually accompanies it.  When written out, it should probably look like this:

  Chances are he overslept this morning.

However, when you read into it, it doesn't make any sense.  I would say that using such a clause is grammatically incorrect.  Instead, I believe people should be saying:

  The chances are high that he overslept this morning.

Am I correct?


texts: Is it ever effective to use modern and archaic grammar together?

texts:
A manuscript I'm currently editing has brought up a new (to me) problem - There's a character who speaks in archaic forms ("thee" and "thou", essentially). I've noted to the writer that this is coming across oddly.

After some thought, I realized that the problem is that the character's speech is a mix of modern and archaic English. Can anyone point out any references to using this kind of grammar effectively? The only fairly complete one I've found is at a site on fantasy art, so I'm not sure this is a good source for language advice.

Fantasy Art Resource Project: 'Thou' in Archaic Grammar


texts: Single word denoting transition of something from present to future time

texts:
Is there any word in dictionary, which denotes transition from present to future.

Use case: I have a powerpoint slide which contains two graphs in same slide. One graph shows company's present revenue and other graph shows projected revenue after 2 years. I am looking for a word which can help making the title of such slide. Which will denote transition from present to future


texts: poetic or artistic uses of prefix "proto"

texts:
The prefix "proto" is found in technical writing, meaning "first" (as in the first form of a chemical compound or biological process). But it's an evocative word for me as a composer when used to refer to the origins, deep in the unconscious, of a creative idea. I call the first sketch of a composition the protocomposition. I would like to know if "proto" is sometimes used this way by poets and writers.

The origin of life and creativity fascinates me, and I think there's mystery there. We can ask small questions like, "How did my composition evolve to get to this place?" Or we can ponder the moment a human life comes into existence and how a person is formed, gradually, over time. Or we can ask giant questions like "Where does the universe come from?"

Somehow, something very tiny--a fetus, the early universe, or a dumb little ditty--changes over time to become something magnificent.

I don't have the answers, but I love to sense the profundity of the questions as conveyed in art. If I simply say the word "proto," thinking of the potential of something very small and young, I feel a stirring.

If I have managed to convey something of what I mean, I would be interested if "proto" is ever used this way.

Edit: let me be more specific -- of course I know I can use it however I like in my own writing, but I'd like to see if other people have done so. Some made-up examples would be be a poem titled "Proto," or a neologism in a poem like "protofeeling." Or it could be the use of any existing proto- word but in a context that appeals to the emotions. The technical "proto" words don't convey much of the almost-spiritual feeling we can have about potentials--potential life, potential feeling, etc.


texts: How to use the pattern "a reverse process of"?

texts:
I have two sentences:

Activity A is a process of constructing a product by combining component B and C.
Activity X, however, "is a process in the reverse direction" of Activity A, in which it attempts to decompose A into their subcomponents.

What is the best way to rewrite sentence 2, in particular the phrase "is a process in the reverse direction", so that sentence 2 highlights the contrast between Activity A and Activity X?

Thanks


texts: What's the difference between at hand, on hand and in hand? At hand seems to me as if you have something in reach. On hand is if you have something in stock. And in hand can be used as if you have more time at your disposal.


texts: How to differentiate between writing an introduction and a conclusion?

texts: I know this sounds silly but bear with me. In the introduction, I state my thesis and briefly point out the ideas to follow. In a conclusion, I re-state the ideas that I have discussed in the body. I always find myself writing the same stuff as an introduction and the conclusion. How would I clearly differentiate between the two?


texts: How do I paraphrase "distribute as evenly as possible"?

texts: For the phrase "distribute as evenly as possible", could we use a simpler one—something like "distribute evenly possible" or  "distribute possibly evenly". I know these are wrong, but I can't figure out the right one.


texts: Would it make sense to say "pessimism biased tone"?

texts:
I am trying to write a thesis sentence for and English class assignment.
This is the sentence for context:

  This book should be added to the school's literature curriculum because of the pessimism biased tone the narrator uses to talk about his life.


texts: Is there a name for someone that's good at number games but bad at math?


texts: I've come across phrases like "What price freedom?" a lot. I speak British English and it doesn't read nicely to me. It seems some words are missing. Does it mean "What is the price of X?"? Where did this phrase originate from and why is it used in this way?


texts: What's large about the Large Hadron Collider?

texts: In Connolly's "The Gates", the narrator says, rather superciliously, "The Large Hadron Collider is, as the name suggests, large."  I realised that I had always thought of it as the (Large Hadron) Collider, since its goal is to discover extremely massive particles, rather than the Large (Hadron Collider).  CERN says "The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator", which suggests that my interpretation is wrong.  (Also, there is the "Large Electron–Positron Collider", which, since 'large electron' is meaningless, must clearly be a "Large (Electron–Positron Collider)".)  Does anyone know for sure?


texts: Can someone please identify this literary device

texts:
"Mike-schmike." I muttered, preoccupied by the way he'd said "you and I." I liked it more than I should.

This is a line from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight novel (page 25). How would we describe 'Mike-schmike' in terms of a literary device. Is there a special name for the rhyming pejorative here?


texts: Is “man with the monocle” an established idiom or just a figurative expression?

texts:
I saw the phrase “the man with the monocle” in the following sentence of the article titled “Five myths about millionaires,” appearing in Washington Post September 24th issue:

  “This past week, President Obama tried to sell his new “millionaires’ tax” to the Rust Belt. But who are the millionaires Obama is talking about? And will a tax on them help the economy? Let’s examine a few presumptions about the man with the monocle on the Monopoly board.”

The last line revived my vague memory that the chairman of a New York private bank and murderous villain, Bryce Fenston in Jeffery Archer’s mystery, “False Impression” used to wear a monocle.

I checked “man with the monocle” on Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, none of which registers “man with the monocle” as an idiom associated with “monocle,” but Wikipedia provides explanation of “monocle” as:

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the monocle was generally associated with wealthy upper-class men. Combined with a morning coat and a top-hat, the monocle completed the costume of the stereotypical 1890s capitalist.

From Wikipedia, I understand “man with the monocle” means “wealthy upper-class man.” However, is “man with the monocle” an idiom or just a figurative expression?

If I used “man with the monocle” in colloquial conversation instead of “wealthy man,” does it sound odd or pedantic?


texts: Term for exaggerations such as "always", "never", "constantly", and so on

texts: I believe there is a term for words such as never, always, constantly, and so forth; words that generally exaggerate the situation being described. Unfortunately, I can't recall what that term is if I am correct in that there is indeed such a term. Can anyone help me with this question?


texts:
Is it (grammatically) correct to put “thus” at the end of a sentence, like in this example?

  Most properties carry over directly. We only need to discuss them for one case thus.

I know that I could move thus to the beginning: “Thus we only need to discuss them for one case.”
I try to not overuse such conjunctions at the beginning of sentences, as for me, it seems to disrupt the “flow”.

How about “hence” instead of “thus”, does it make a difference?


texts: In "Dear X" what function does "X" serve?

texts:
I answered a question (Should I use capital or small letter here? "Dear All" or "Dear all"?) about capitalizing "all" in "Dear All,"  In answering this, my thinking was "what function does "all" serve?"  Today, while answering another post, I came across a website discussing the use of a colon (http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/colons.asp).  It states that in formal greetings you should use a colon after Dear Mr. Jobs, as in "Dear Mr Jobs:"  In my writing classes, I teach students to use a comma after the name and after "sincerely," (closed style).  When I was growing up, I remember seeing the colon used a lot, as well as "Sirs:"  These usages seem to have gone out of fashion.  I know that open style does not use comma.

If, as the writer of the wesbite says, you should use a colon, X has one function; if you use a comma, another function; and if there is no comma, something else.   Also, we call "Dear X" a salutation but it is the beginning of a sentence.  Did people in English at one time start letters with more full "openings" such as "My dear Constance, ..." so the comma makes more sense?  What about in ancient times?  Did the Romans use a comma or no comma after "Dear Cicero[ ] I hope this letter finds you well in exile."

So, in a letter, what function does the "X" serve in "Dear X" and what function is the phrase "Dear X?"


texts: When should one use pending, as opposed to left or remaining?


texts: Sequence of tenses in elaborate sentences?

texts:
Sorry I've been pelting you with my linguistic questions lately, but since I'm trying to do my best to make my English perfect, I just have to keep bothering you :)

Today's question regards something, I believe I could most adequatly refer to as the sequence of tenses. Without further ado:

While it's clear to me that when I use two separate verbs in one sentence, within the boundaries of one tense, the correct phrase should look like this:

  I will go there and look for him.

  I have been there and seen some serious shit.

  I had broken the law and gotten shot three times, before I understood my mistakes.

And so on, random gibberish; these all are still correct, right?

Though somehow I became hesitant about whether a little more complicated sentence that I formulated would still be correct:

  They are believed to have been there but not done a thing.

Something sounds a bit off for me here, but I'm not sure how I could fix it. "But not do a thing" isn't the right answer, I suppose, as it would clearly violate the verb tense consistency. Or perhaps I'm just overreacting and it's all okay?

Also, I would be highly grateful if you could point out my mistakes in any of my posts, should some inconsistencies occur.

Edit: Thank you so far, yet my doubts haven't been resolved completely yet :) I get that my sentences are correct, but would the last one still be if I were to say "but not have done a thing"? And if so, which one would you prefer, and would the latter case affect somehow the overall meaning?


texts: How to use "when" vs. "while" on the following occasions?

texts:
Please have a look at these sentence pairs:

  When I worked as a teacher, I met a good friend.
  While I was working as a teacher, I met a good friend.

  When I had a dream, I thought of the idea.
  While I was having a dream, I thought of the idea.

Which ones are correct? And why?


texts: Is there any oxymoron word for the word “oxymoron”?

texts:
I have also asked this in ELL, but I'm taking a risk (may be closed very soon) to ask it here again since I'm not getting enough response.

I just have a bizarre thought, though I can't say where will be I using this! So basically oxymoron is use of combining of two contradictory terms that would produce a seemingly incongruous meaning.

But can anyone tell me is there a word that "oxymoronifies" (I think I just created that word) the word oxymoron itself. Opposite of oxymoron doesn't quite hold the meaning.

I can think of prominent oxymoron.


texts: Does "snatch up" have the meaning "rush to purchase"?

texts: One of the famous English teachers in Taiwan tells the reader that "snatch ... up" has the meaning "rush to purchase". I looked snatch up in a lot of dictionaries and can't find that meaning. Could anyone that are native speakers corroborate it? Thanks.


texts: Unfinished time word and Present perfect

texts:
I've seen in the following page I should use the present perfect in a sentence with an unfinished time word.
http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/present-perfect-or-past-simple.html
However in the news I often see the past simple instead, example:

A woman died today
A man was killed today.

Why is the past simple correct ? Could it be possible to say these instead?

A woman has died today
A man has been killed today.


texts:
I'm a non-native speaker.

Amongst others, Merriam-Webster defines the noun 'Bridge' as follows:

  a time, place, or means of connection or transition building a bridge between the two cultures the bridge from war to peace

If I were to use the verb 'to bridge' in a temporal context, e.g

  He could bridge the waiting time by solving puzzles

would that sound natural to native speakers?


texts: Word that describes terms that exclude or divide people

texts:
A few examples:

A creationist and an evolutionist want to save an endangered bee species. The creationist remarks about how bees were 'created' to pollinate plants. The evolutionist no longer wants to work with the creationist.
A man and woman are discussing how to promote equality between the sexes in the workplace. At some point, the woman complains about the 'manosphere'. This discourages the man from participating in the movement, he feels attacked by use of that term.
A pro-life woman and a pro-choice woman want to help out single mothers. The pro-lifer says single mothers are people that didn't 'murder' their babies. The pro-choicer sees that as an accusation, since she supports abortion as an option.

In all the examples, the word in quotes divides the people, hindering the cause. What do we call those words? In each situation, neutral language could have been used, or the word wasn't necessary to describe the cause.

If my examples are offensive to anyone, please help me improve them.


texts: Can I say "We sell sea food by the weight of the item?" in a restaurant?

texts: In my restaurant, we sell seafood this way: if you choose a big fish and it weighs 1.5 kilograms, you only have to pay for 1.5 kilo of that fish and  don't have to buy more or less. I mean you don't have to do that to round up or round down the weight of the item, you don't have to buy exactly 1 kilo or 2 kilos. So in this case, can I say "We sell seafood by the weight of the item?"


texts: A man I knew, born in 1921, used to enter a room at festive gatherings and say "Turn out all the lights and call on the Lord." Do you know the origin of that phrase, or do you think it was just an idiosyncrasy of his?


texts: Compound adjectives functioning as adverbs modifying other adjectives; is it possible and grammatical?

texts: Soul-crushingly bad; heartbreakingly sad; bone-crunchingly violent; etc. I swear I have seen it done, but I am not sure whether it's proper grammar or not.


texts: Difference between "collaborative environment" and "collaboration environment"

texts: I've seen these phrases in some technical articles. Is there any difference between these phrases?


texts:
Is this the correct use of brackets?

"[To me], this value means to respect your colleagues."


texts:
Sometimes, "I told you so" is expected by the target. What if we want to surprise them with another famous phrase which would deliver the same message, perhaps with more intensity. Sometimes, "I told you so" doesn't quite say it, maybe because we wish it carried more weight.

What are other possibilities? A single word, or phrase or idiom maybe.


texts:
What’s the farthest I could travel back in time and converse properly in English?

And what caused this ‘new style’ of English speaking [that we know (and love) today]?


texts: I've often been confused how 'quite' can mean so many things and upon leaning that it comes from 'quit' I only have more questions. How did quit semantically drift to come to mean quite?


texts: What is the difference between "temper" and "disposition"?

texts: What is the difference between "temper" and "disposition" in reference to a person?


texts: How did "inferno" enter the English language?

texts:
The more common and oldest English term to refer to the infernal region is  Hell:

  Old English hel, helle, "nether world, abode of the dead, infernal regions, place of torment for the wicked after death," from Proto-Germanic *haljo "the underworld".

A foreign term with the same meaning entered the English Laguage centuries later. The term is Inferno and its usage appear to be from the works of the medieval poet Dante Alighieri.

  1834, "Hell, the infernal regions," from Italian inferno, from Late Latin infernus "Hell," in classical Latin "the lower world". The Italian form inferno has been used in English since 1834, via Dante.

Curiously, the relative adjective infernal had been known in English for seven centuries before Inferno was used in English:

  late 14c., "of or pertaining to the underworld," (ancient Tartarus, the sunless abode of the dead, or the Christian Hell), from Old French enfernal, infernal "of Hell, hellish" (12c.).

(Etymonline)

Dante wrote the "Devine Comedy"  in the early years of the 14th century, but, for some reason  his "Inferno" became popular only in the 19th century.

(Wikipedia)

Questions:

What made Dante's "Inferno" so popular  at the beginning of the 19th century as to enter English usage?

Was it originally a BrE or an AmE thing?


texts: Is this the correct way to form this sentence?

texts:
I'm not sure how to construct this sentence:
"Imagine buying a house, information about which has been withheld."
or
"Imagine buying a house about which information has been been withheld."
Is it clear that I'm saying the information has been withheld rather than the house? Are these sentences grammatically correct?
Could some please explain what's going on here grammatically?


texts:
Here is paragraph which I quoted from a book.

The words "penny a liner", "mendicant", "scullion", and "cut-throat", were epithets so intentionally inexpressive and equivocal, as to be worse than nothing when applied to the author of the very worst stanzas ever penned by one of the human race.

I can't understand the meaning of 'to be worse than nothing'.
I don't know how things are gonna worse than naught(zero). or is it possible?


texts: Is there a term for French words adopted by the English language, such as "hors d'oeuvres" or "objet d'art"

texts:
I would call them "Frenchisms" or some such -ism, but I figured I'd at least ask first. So is there a name for such adopted foreign phrases? Also, how about those adopted from languages other than French? Same deal?

I know neologisms are new terms or phrases that have yet to be made official, but that's not so relevant here, since these adopted phrases aren't exactly new.


texts: I worked vs. I was working vs. I have been working all day

texts:
I teach English to beginners and I usually begin the lesson by asking them how they spent their day. Many of them say "Oh, I worked all day today", and sometimes I hear "I was working today". Something about the first one doesn't feel right, but the second one seems OK, and I couldn't say why.

I would personally say "I've been working all day". Since I'm not really a native speaker, I have a hard time discerning all the subtleties in meanings.


texts: Is usage of word "some" has the same meaning as indefinite article?

texts:
Is that true that the indefinite article can be always replaced with word "some" and it will be nearly always the same meaning?
Examples:

I have bought a house = I have bought some house
I walked in the forest and have met a squirrel = I walked in the forest and have met some squirrel
The sandwich contains a cheese = The sandwich contains some cheese

Am I correct?


texts:
1
An n-dimensional generalisation
OR
2
A n-dimensional generalisation.
I would like to say the first is correct but my friend insists the second.
Which is the correct way?


texts:
Can a list item have have more than one paragraph? if so, how many is the maximum recommended? and when that type of lengthy list item is used? Is there a difference in length between bullet and numbered list items?

I've never seen a list item of more than one paragraph, so I'm curious if they actually exist or are must nots.

After reading the answers and comments I clarify that I'm not referring to nested lists.


texts: Does "to spike" imply something plummets after skyrocketing?

texts:
I know that to spike means to rise quickly, and that's also what dictionaries told me. However, when talking about charts and graphs, the noun spike actually includes both the sharp rise as well as steep fall of a metric, hence forming a shape akin to a spike.

Therefore I wonder, does the more general usage of to spike in the sense of rising sharply also imply that the thing being described also quickly falls back down shortly after? Or does it both have and not have this implication, depending on context (aside graphs)?


texts: Is 'euphemism' definition by dictionary.com correct?

texts:
Euphemism - noun

  the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.
  the expression so substituted: “To pass away” is a euphemism for “to die.”.

Is this correct? "To pass away" is thought to be offensive, while "to die" is mild?


texts:
From Isaac Asimov (Little Lost Robot)

  WHEN I DID SEE SUSAN CALVIN AGAIN, IT WAS AT the door of her office

Is this a grammatic error? Past simple - WHEN I SAW SUSAN


texts:
OED gives a connection between the German verb zielen and the English preposition till. The semantic connection between German zielen and the verb till (cultivating land) seems a bit far-fetched. I would rather see a connection between German das Land bestellen and English to till the land.

I wonder why this connection is not seen or discussed. And it is for me an example of how easily  in etymology one sticks to similar words as zielen even when the semantics is doubtful.


texts: Grammatical number of expressions following "each"

texts:
I have difficulties in using each.
Which would be correct in the following sentences?

  They are each connected to a hydrogen atom/hydrogen atoms.
  They each are connected to a hydrogen atom/hydrogen atoms.
  They are connected to each hydrogen atom/atoms. [Assuming that each of them is connected to one H atom.]
  We each have our own car/cars. [Assuming that each of us has one car.]


texts: More recently, I have come across a sentence in Los Angles Times, which says "A White House office dedicated to the issue, similar to the White House office focusing on climate change, would put a heavy thumb on the bureaucracy of government". I was wondering whether put a heavy thumb on means criticize. Thanks for help.


texts: Have non-gradable adjectives ever come to be used as gradable?

texts:
Are there examples of non-gradable adjectives that, over time, have come to be used as gradable?

For example, has a word commonly accepted as non-gradable (like binary in "It's a binary choice" [example suggested by @JasonBassford]) ever transitioned to being commonly accepted as measurable in degrees?

An example of what this might look like:

There seem to be competing definitions for anonymization, and therefore anonymized. It seems the non-gradable definition is prevalent, and I wonder if that might change in the future.

One definition asserts that anonymized data is, by definition, irreversibly anonymized:

  Anonymization: The act of permanently and completely removing personal identifiers from data, such as converting personally identifiable information into aggregated data... Once this data is stripped of personally identifying elements, those elements can never be re-associated with the data or the underlying individual.

— Educause, emphasis mine

Another definition seems to allow for the possibility of incomplete anonymization:

  Anonymization: The process in which individually identifiable data is altered in such a way that it no longer can be related back to a given individual. Among many techniques, there are three primary ways that data is anonymized... Note that all of these processes will not guarantee that data is no longer identifiable and have to be performed in such a way that does not harm the usability of the data.

— IAPP, emphasis mine

Under the former definition, anonymized would seem to be a non-gradable adjective (that is, data is either anonymized or not-anonymized, with no degrees of anonymization in between).

Under the latter definition, anonymized would seem to be a minimum-standard absolute gradable adjective (that is, anonymized data possesses a non-zero degree of anonymization).

Update:

@CWill aptly pointed out that the second definition doesn't necessarily mean anonymized is gradable, because an incomplete anonymization process may not result in data which may be described as anonymized.

However, I've found uses of anonymized which necessitate its measurement in degrees rather than two categories. For example:

  A piece of text is under-anonymized if identifying information (such as names and locations) are only partially removed or replaced in a way that the described individuals can still be re-identified in a given document.

— What does it mean to anonymize text?


texts:
(When they are used properly), pyrethroids have been found to pose very little risk on human.
What is the grammatical name and function of the expression in the bracket?


texts: Plural of "fleece" when referring to fleece jacket

texts: Is the word fleece when referring to a fleece jacket also the plural form, or is that fleeces?


texts: How does 'so much as' develop to mean 'even'?

texts:
What's an intuitive derivation behind ODO's definition that helps to internalise its meaning:

  so much as = [with negative] Even:

I couldn't find the etymology for this adverbial phrase? Is this the correct term?

Example from  p 42, Mastering the National Admissions Test for Law, Mark Shepherd

  Unlike many of the essays that you will have written in
  the past, the LNAT [a test] does not seek to test factual knowledge, so much as understanding
  and the ability to develop persuasive arguments. Almost without fail, there will be
  subtleties to the question that are not immediately obvious and that will set apart
  those candidates with a genuine insight into the subject from those with a superficial
  knowledge.


texts: Why do we say "In which" in many formal essays and documents? I never understood this. The definition for which on Merriam Webster is "being what one or ones out of a group". Why is it that we have adapted to using the word 'which' outside of interrogative sentences?


texts: Is this sentence structure correct? I catch myself using this structure a lot

texts:
This is a line from a story I'm writing:
"The blanket had been peeled back, revealing imprints of recent slumber."
Is this correct or should I make another sentence for the second clause?


texts: Are there words to describe "smell concepts"?

texts:
For visual impressions, we have a rich vocabulary to describe concepts without using concrete objects:

Color: blue, red, green, bright, dark. Combinations of those.
Shapes: Round, pointy, straight, curved, concave, convex, flat, rough, ...
Textures: Striped, dotted, dashed, ...

For auditory impressions I can also name a few:

Volume: Loud, silent
Frequency: low, high

For gustatory sensations I would say concepts are:

Salty
Bitter
Sour
Sweet
Umami

The tactile concepts are similar to the visual ones:

Shapes: See above
Roughness
Elasticity

Now to my question: Of course, I can say something smells like a flower, like grass, like excrements, like grilling, wet dog, ....

But those are only analogies. And quite vague ones, too. So for example, if I wanted to describe somebody the smell of a specific type of wood, I would have no idea how to do so. Is this only my fault / problem (so: do I simply lack the words, but there are some) or is this a broader phenomenon (and thus could be asked on https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/)?


texts: A term for the intertwining of media and the subjects they are covering

texts:
Is there a good term to describe the symbiotic relationships that we see so often between media (broadly defined) and the subjects they're covering? I'm thinking of how TMZ tends to give Bieber favorable coverage and Bieber gives TMZ exclusives and more access in exchange. I'm also thinking of how a member of the elite might pay an author (through access or simply money) to write a favorable biography about him or her. My best attempt would be media-subject entanglement, or something to that effect, but I'm hoping maybe there's a preestablished term for it out of the journalist or communications literature.

An example sentence: TMZ's relationship with Justin Bieber is a good example of media-subject entanglement.

PS: I don't actually care about TMZ and Bieber. It just came to mind since I read a great New Yorker article on TMZ recently that covered it.


texts: In this exercise I have to put verbs in correct tense (Present Simple VS Continous). I did not get why the correct form us "HE FINALLY CHOOSES", not he is finally choosing? It is not applied to the rule of habits or repeated actions.


texts: How should I understand "short of " in this sentence?

texts:
I learned the following sentence from The Economist (December 3rd-9th 2011).

... The implications seemed nothing short of revolutionary.

I've looked it up at this online dictionary. It is said that it means "of a lesser degree than". What's the function of this phrase here? How should I understand this sentence?


texts: Is there a word for the "primary" verb in a clause?

texts:
In an answer to another question, I erroneously said:

  Each sentence sentence normally be one complete thought, with a noun and a verb. You should generally not have two verbs per sentence

What I was trying to say was that each sentence should have one... "primary verb", but I'm looking for the actual term to describe this. I am sure "primary verb" is not it.

As an example, user brilliant commented on that question and gave this example:

  As for those who like to place a lot of commas in the sentence and think that they do the right in acting that way, I would tell them that each sentence should be one complete thought, with a noun and a verb, and, therefore, there should be generally only one verb in it.

In that sentence, there's a lot of verbs... What is the way to describe the verb "would", as used in "I would tell", and only that verb?


texts:
A nosy parker is someone who doesn't mind their own business. They will poke their noses into other people's affairs, and attempt to eke out whatever information they can, the more personal the better.  A busybody is a near equivalent, and perhaps more familiar term to American speakers.

On the web, several theories abound as to who Mr. Parker might have been.

The first candidate is Matthew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury between 1559 and 1575, and supposedly renowned for his numerous enquiries and investigations into the activities of the English clergy.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), instead, nominates a 1907 picture postcard entitled ‘The Adventures of Nosey Parker’ as being the likeliest candidate.

  “the original ‘nosy parker’ was one who played Peeping Tom to love-making couples in Hyde Park.”

From a Daily Express postcard, dated 1918, the physical traits of the character are well-defined. (source)

The lexicographer, Eric Partridge, suggests that Parker is derived from park-keeper, a  caretaker of a park or large enclosure of land, at the time of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851.

However, all of the references I consulted agreed to reject the authoritarian yet pious Matthew Parker, based on one, indisputable, fact: the phrase ‘nosey parker’ only appeared in print three hundred years after his death. Each one cites the 1890 May issue of Belgravia, as bearing the earliest example in print. What the majority of online sources fail to mention, is that Nosey Parker (note the capital letters) is preceded by a certain Mr. Poll Pry.

  "So I says to 'im (you'll understn' as we had been a walkin' out about four months, an' I was gittin' a bit sick of 'im anì his wavs). “now, lookey 'ere, Mr. Poll Pry, you're a asking' too many questions for me, there's too much of Mr. Nosey Parker about you, an' I'd 'ave you to know as I'm a laidee, but perhaps you thought as I was a J.an' yer could 'ave me on a bit of toast, but you're mistaken, and so yer 'ad better sling yer ook.”

The last candidate is American, and a woman, but whose last name is not Parker.  I discovered a Mrs. Nosey in Locke's National Monthly, 1874

  Then turning a corner, we encountered Mrs Nosey. I had great respect for Mrs Nosey. She was a woman one was obliged to respect. I trembled lest I looked dishevelled, lest she should detect something in my eye which hadn't ought to be there. You know her well. She is acute, critical. She has kindly, cat-like ways; but she has, also, a protruberance on her face which nothing escapes. It is as delicate in its groping and detecting as the proboscis of the elephant. People speak well of her in a constrained way: because they dare not whisper their true opinion, lest that nose should protrude through walls and catch them in the act She Nose-s all current events; she can smell secret sins.

The description above tells us that Nosey was an appellation for anyone who exhibited a larger than average-sized nose, but the excerpt also suggests that nosey/nosy meant someone who pried into people's private affairs effortlessly.

Questions

Can someone find an earlier instance of Nosey Parker (or nosy parker) than 1890?
As to the "identity" of Parker, is there a fourth or fifth possible candidate?
Is nosy parker used only among British English speakers, as Cambridge and Oxford Dictionaries state? Do Americans call a prying person, nosey/nosy?

Sources

The Phrase Finder
Matthew Parker, Wikipedia
Watch Your Language!: Mother Tongue and Her Wayward Children
By Robert M. Gorrell
Grammarphobia
World Wide Words
Word Histories


texts: Is there a rule for transforming surnames into adjectives?

texts:
To be sure, there's a whole bunch of suffixes that are used for this, and some transformations seem to be completely arbitrary while some others deliberate and even a bit contrite.

Rubenesque actually takes liberties with the painter's name, which is Rubens, as does

Thoreauvian, from Thoreau.

Platonic takes advantage of the original Greek spelling of Plato's name (Platon). Shouldn't it be Platoesque instead?

Byronic is straight-forward enough. What about

Shavian, though? When did G.B. Shaw ever ask for a good shave?

And what are you supposed to do with

Edgar Allan Poe
Giacomo Puccini
or even Leonardo, for that matter?

There are no duplicates of this question. One seeming duplicate only touches upon the subject lightly and approaches the matter from a different angle.


texts: Just as there are a few nicknames for the U.S. ("Uncle Sam", "Columbia", "Yankee Land"), are there nicknames for England, or the U.K. for that matter?

texts: This may look like General Reference, but I've googled "list of nicknames for England", "list of nicknames for the United Kingdom", and all I got was "list of city nicknames in the United Kingdom" or "list of nicknames for counties of the United Kingdom" and even "list of names and nicknames for the English". I'm not looking for nicknames for the English or the British, though.  My question is: Are there nicknames for England (or the United Kingdom)? Where and when did they originate?


texts: " you are cold" is ambiguous in English"

texts:
In describing living creatures English is ambiguous. Even if we leave aside possible figurative meanings, "you are cold" may signify either that you are externally cold when someone touches you-cold in the sense that an inaminate object is cold- or that you feel cold to yourself internally. There appears to be no way to remove the ambiguity short of using an explanatory phrase; "you feel cold" still has two possible literal meanings. As we shall see some other languages are not ambiguous on this  point.

Source: Adjectives of temperature by Clifford H Prator, professor of English, University of California

I would like to know whether the sentence "You are cold" is  really ambiguous as the professor claims.I do not like or sound to be controversial


texts: How to label events chronologically from most recent?

texts:
I'm working on a job application and would like to label the applicant's employment history starting with the most recent.

The most recent would obviously be labelled Most Recent. But how would I refer to the most recent after that? Next Most Recent? Second Most Recent?


texts: I am looking for a word for "the ability of being interacted to/with", expressing that something is interactive, its interactive nature/quality. Specifically looking for a noun.


texts:
A man is driving to New York with his son. His son says:

Dad, where are we?

The man says:

We are three hours away from New York.

(I mean they will arrive in New York in 3 hours)

Is this phrase 3 hours away from New York is correct?


texts: is there a difference for example between : zoology facts and zoological facts?

texts: I can't see any difference between the two, I would like someone who is advanced to shed some light ^^


texts: Are 'glimpse' and 'glance' interchangeable as verbs?

texts:
I do realise we tend to use glance at something and to catch a glimpse of, but many dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster, suggest that the latter can also function as a verb. When it does, does it have the meaning as the former?

  intransitive verb

  archaic : glimmer
  : to look briefly · glimpsed at the letter and then threw it aside

  transitive verb
  : to get a brief look at · glimpsed him as he sped by in his car

(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glimpse)

I feel this definition suggests it indirectly as well: http://www.english-for-students.com/difference-between-glimpse-and-glance.html

What do you think?


texts: When using symbols instead of words in writing, do I use "an" or "a" before the symbol?

texts:
The sentence in question:

  Every list item that is marked with an * is optional.

The word "asterisks" isn't spelled out, so I'm not sure if "an" or "a" is the correct word to put before it.


texts: Is this an inversion? If so, why would you use an inversion in this case?

texts:
Here's a quote from a CNN transcript, wherein a consumer psychologist says the following:
"What is relatively new are shoppers turning on other shoppers."

If "what is relatively new" were the subject, she would have said "is" as opposed to "are". Hence, it's an inversion having "shoppers" as the subject. Am I right?

If I'm right, then the question: why use an inversion in this particular case? Specifically, why use "are" instead of "is"?

For the whole transcript, see: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1211/22/cnr.03.html

I did some follow-up research on what-cleft construction and would like to update my question by adding the following:

Swan says in Practical English Usage at 130, "A what-clause is normally considered to be singular...a plural verb is sometimes possible before a plural noun in an informal style." And Swan shows this example: "What we want is/are some of those cakes." (Emphasis in original.)

According to Swan, therefore, both "is" and "are" are possible, correct English in his "cakes" example. Also, he states that "are" is an informal style, which means that "is" is more formal.

Do you guys agree with this and is this applicable to my CNN example as well?


texts:
The following sentence is from an essay by Thomas Reid:

  Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life.

What does he mean by "taking a standard"?


texts: Does this sentence of Melville lack a verb?

texts:
I cannot make much sense of of the following passage from Moby-Dick:

It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that same commander’s cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of the table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical.

Initially it crossed my mind that their here might be just a misspelling of there are/there're. Yet, after careful scrutiny, it seems to me that the sentence lacks a verb. I dared rewriting it:

It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that same commander’s cabin, and straightway appears their inoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of the table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical.

Can this somewhat long-winded sentence be elliptical at the same time? If so - is the sentence correct? How would you rewrite it? Do you agree with my paraphrase?


texts: What should i say to a person sitting next to me (in a bus or a plane), if I need him to let me out? Let me out, please or let me through, please?


texts: Can "around" be used to mean "concerning"?

texts:
Question: Can around be used to mean concerning?

Background: As an academic editor, I have come across the usage of around as in concerning or about (i.e., having to do with) in numerous PhD dissertations. Around in this sense often collocates with research, as in the contrived example:

  Research around this topic has yet to yield any useful insights.

I haven't been able to find any discussions dealing with this usage, but I have found that:

non-spacial definitions of around do not appear to cover any meaning similar to concerning or about (in the sense of concerning) (e.g., Merriam-Webster)
existing discussions on the usage of around as in about deals with meaning similar to approximately (e.g., Garner's Modern American Usage)
This list of synonyms for concerning includes about, but not around.

I'm thinking that because about and around are interchangeable or vary regionally when used to mean approximately, writers transfer this interchangeability to other meanings. In this case, I mean that the meaning of about that denotes relevance is being transferred (inappropriately) to around.

Because of all this, I have, in every instance, changed around to concerning, about, on, etc, but, I'd love confirmation that this is a necessary change. Can anyone point me to any resources that validate this usage of around?


texts:
At its height, The Almohad Caliphate controlled much of the Iberian
Peninsula and Northwest Africa.

or

At its height, The Almohad Caliphate controlled much of the Iberian
Peninsula and Northwestern Africa.


texts: For father, we have daddy, dada, papa, poppy, etc. For mother, we have momma, mommy, mama, etc.  Is there a term of endearment that fits either role? I've racked my brain thinking of one and I can't. For children, the only gender neutral one I can think of is 'kiddo', or 'kid' to some people.


texts: Can a non-finite clause come after semicolon?

texts:
Every morning the princess wakes up and kisses the frog; hoping to see it turn into a prince.

Is the above construction wrong?

From Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck:

  His huge companion dropped his blankets and flung himself down and drank from the surface of the green pool; drank with long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse.


texts: "Sensual / likes physical pleasures" without sexual connotation?

texts:
Looking for a word or expression to describe someone who's very into physical sensations, liking things varying from climbing, to baths, to working with their hands. "Sensual" is the closest word that I know, but that has a very sexual connotation, which I'd like to avoid. Similarly for "liking physical pleasures

Thanks!


texts: Have any English words been turned foreign only to be then used again in English in an altered state?

texts: What are some examples of English words that got taken into use in a foreign language in a changed state, and then subsequently re-entered the English language in state B or even state C.


texts: What does “It’s always a pig in a poke. So why not a pig who pokes?”mean?

texts:
In an article under the title, “Trump the disrupter,” (New York Times August 10 issue), Op-ed columnist, Maureen Dowd wrote:

  “It is really hard to know who you’re electing. That’s because you
  can’t foresee what crises will crop up, or what gremlins of insecurity
  and perversity the White House will inevitably elicit in presidential
  psyches.

  You can have a candidate like W., after sincerely telling us he will
  have a “humble” foreign policy, proceed to stumble jejunely into
  decades-long wars in the Middle East. You can have a charming newcomer
  like Barack Obama, ascending like a political Pegasus, who loses
  altitude because it turns out he disdains politics. It’s always a pig
  in a poke. So why not a pig who pokes?”
  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-trump-the-disrupter.html?

I know “a pig in a poke” as a cliché. But I cannot make out what the next line - "Why not a pig who pokes” means?

Does it mean a would-be President is allowed to become a chameleon once he attains the throne? What does the second “poke” as a verb mean?

P.S.

As the second thought after rereading the quote, I came to think “Why not a pig who pokes” means “Isn't it good to have a pig who pokes out the poke and reveals what he really is, or attempts?” But I’m not sure of whether it’s on the mark or not.


texts:
There is the sentence:
"Women have an ability to make men think they are in charge".

I do not get who is in charge eventually?

Women make men think that men in charge?
or
Women make men think that women in charge?

Who are 'they' in this particular context?

I suppose the second option is correct but still hesitate.


texts:
I saw duty's antonyms is right.
How is it sir/ma'am kindly explain


texts: Is "Harley machine" really a phrase used for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle?

texts:
In the musical movie "Little Shop of Horrors" (1986), in the song "Feed Me (Git It)", the lyrics go:

  Seymour: [Sung] Gee I'd like a Harley machine

  Toolin' around like I was James Dean

  Makin' all the guys on the corner turn green

Obviously whoever wrote the lyrics had to rhyme with "Dean" and "green", so "machine" fits, but is that actually what anyone would call a motorbike? "Harley machine"? Or maybe it's specifically intended to sound stupid/silly since "Seymour" is a very meak and "nerdy" character -- the opposite of who you'd imagine driving a motorcycle?


texts:
What do you call a person/thing that is needed to finish the system/project/goals or plans?

Without it/him or her, the system/project/goals or plans can never be finished just like the last piece of puzzle.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Is it all right to use “in hopes of” to mean “with the aim of”?

Which of the following is preferable: "I'm doing this in the hope that it will be helpful to someone", or "I'm doing this in the hope that it is helpful to someone"?


texts: I'm almost sure it's 36 thousands, since we're talking about 36 not 1. But I'm in doubt because 36 already indicates that it's more than 1, so maybe, just maybe, it could be 36 thousand?


texts:
How can I use the possessive case with many objects " s' "?
2Jane and 2Mary 2room;
it is right? :
girls’ books
Jane and Maries’ rooms
the children’s toys
the workmen’s tools
Peter and Helens’ flats are large
10Jane and 10Mary 10*room;
Jane and Maries’ rooms
or/and
Janes' and Maries’ rooms


texts:
The New York Times is running an article on the terror attacks in France that begins with "The government faced gaping questions over its failure..."

Does the phrase "gaping question" actually make sense?


texts: Word for doing something but not wanting other people to notice?

texts:
It's not secretly. For example, I'm at a mall with a friend, then I notice someone from my school. I point to them to show my friend, who I go to school with. But I don't want the other person to notice. So I _______ point at them.
It's a synonym of secretly. I know it starts with an s and ends with a e sound or vowel form of y sound.


texts: Where to give the title in precis writing—at the beginning or at the end?

texts: In my English guide book there are some examples on precis writing. But the title of every precis is given at the end. Is it a rule to write a precis that way, or do I need to give the title at the beginning?


texts: What did James Baldwin mean by "as clean as a bone"?

texts:
In his interview with The Paris Review, James Baldwin in answer to the question "As your experience about writing accrues, what would you say increases with knowledge?", says:

You learn how little you know. It becomes much more difficult because the hardest thing in the world is simplicity. And the most fearful thing, too. It becomes more difficult because you have to strip yourself of all your disguises, some of which you didn’t know you had. You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.

The idiom struck me as odd because I'd never come across any such idiom before. This prompted a quick search on the Internet but to no avail.
So what was Baldwin's idea behind the metaphor? I'm guessing he was hinting at some sort of "Occam's razor" applied to writing, as it were— that is, writing should be kept as simple as possible and stripped of any fripperies, like a bone stripped of all flesh. I'm not sure though, and hence the question. But even if that be the case, isn't it a rather poor metaphor considering "stripping a bone clean of its meat" essentially doesn't leave much to savour?


texts: What is the least amount of punctuation required in the following:

texts:
He told them to stop their whining.

Is there a way to write the above correctly without using quotation marks?


texts:
Which sentence uses the correct capitalization for the name of the season?

  I will travel in the summer of 2013.

or

  I will travel in the Summer of 2013.


texts: Alternative verb for "to rest" to suggest an uncomfortable fit?

texts:
I'm looking for an alternative to a specific meaning of the verb "to rest". After a (very) quick search, the definition which I found the best was:

Be placed or supported so as to stay in a specified position.

I'm looking for an alternative to the word that implies that the position of the object (how it is resting and where it is resting) is uncomfortable. It's not the easiest to explain, so I'll give you the piece.

The landline rests in the crook of her neck, and she speaks fast...
The landline ____ in the crook of her neck, and she speaks fast...

To set the scene, this is essentially a description of the narrator's mother, who is forced to hold the phone uncomfortably as her hands are occupied.
Although I found lie (as in, "The landline lies in the crook of her neck...", and this may seem more "negative", it doesn't sound right to me.
EDIT 1: A word which is better is wedged:

The landline is wedged into the crook of her neck, and she speaks fast...

Alternatives and answers are still greatly appreciated.
EDIT 2: I'm also looking for something that isn't too much out of touch.
EDIT 3: Just to clarify, the landline is the phone itself, not the cord or anything. I didn't realise that it would cause any confusion.


texts: In New Zealand English, is it usual to pronounce the words "women" and "woman" the same?

texts:
For example,  in this video from 2:00 onwards,  the Prime Minister of New Zealand says "woman/women" several times.   The context shows clearly that she means the word to be plural,  but she says "woman" every time - or to look at it another way,  she pronounces the plural the same way that "woman" would usually be pronounced.

My question is,  is it usual for the two words to sound indistinguishable in NZ English,  or is this perhaps just a particular local dialect?

Also,  do New Zealanders sometimes write "woman" when they're referring to the plural  (in the same way that "sheep" and "deer" are the written plurals),   or is this just a pronunciation characteristic that doesn't show up in writing?


texts:
Is there a concise term or abbreviation for "Decimal Places"?

I have a table that I'm trying to squeeze in information and the column header is wider than the information it contains.

Context:

Value        Decimal Places <---too long!
_____________________________________
10.12               2
1.123               3

I've considered precision, but it has another meaning in the context of the table.  At this stage, the best I've come up with is decimals.

Note: I need to explicitly state the number of decimals.


texts: Semicolon or comma: "because _(, or ;) then _, _, _"

texts:
Is it correct to have my first comma after dairy?

Also, what would you break this sentence up into "grammatically?"  That is, what do I call my "because" statement and the following listing?  Knowing this would make searching for an answer easier.

  Because of my sensitivity to dairy, your homemade milk, cheese, and butter hurt my stomach.


texts: What is the difference between "regretting one's decision" and " going back on one's decision"?

texts:
1- I regretted my decision to go  there.
2- I went back on my decision to go there.

Did the narrator go to that given place or not?


texts: What are some alternatives for "nurturing bosom"?

texts:
Consider this sentence:

  "Are you prepared to leave the nurturing bosom of [business-name]'s help and support staff?"

I'm looking for something that is a little more professional yet still conveys a compelling warning.

Context:

This is part of an advice column warning readers to think twice before they customize a product and lose technical support. Also, this advice is not coming from someone at the company.


texts: Is it right to use 'The' before a language, Like the Japanese, the Hindi?


texts: Why are there several "expressions" in the English language related to the third month of the year?

texts:
You can find some examples of the phenomenon in question below:

Ides of March
March hare, mad as a March hare
March madness
Winds of March, March winds (I recall that the MAD staff even produced a special March winds issue many decades ago).

Can you name another month of the year which is as "popular" in the English language as March? If not, do you have any clue as to why it is that there several "expressions" in English which allude to that month?

Thanks in advance for you insightful replies.


texts:
Both to feign and to feint seem to mean to pretend. Are they synonyms or the same word with only a different spelling?

Or is there an actual concrete difference in their meaning?


texts: "Out of my league" expression avoiding romantic connotations

texts:
E.g. (while discussing the merits of some software developing issue with a co worker):

  I won't argue with you since you're out of my league.

I used to think of "out of one's league" to refer to anything, not only to refer to someone one has no chance of dating. But it seems like it's being used mainly for that purpose (today? Always has been?).

Is there an alternative expression which will not cause misunderstandings, or perhaps I'm wrong and this one won't either?

I do realize that it still doesn't have to mean that. But I'm worried that saying that might be misinterpreted as a hint implying something to that effect.

(Should there be a "misunderstanding" tag?)

EDIT

Since I'm being asked why do I even think it might have the above-mentioned connotation, here are the top Google results for "out of my league expression": (I'm not signed in to Google and I have history turned off in Google settings.)

Featured snippet: "...She was the most beautiful girl in school, and I knew she was out of my league.".

First result: "A person you have no chance with dating/hooking up with because they are considered much more attractive,..."

Then comes the "People also ask"'s first question: "What does it mean when someone says your way out of my league? It's an expression used usually in a romantic context. “I like Alice, but she's out of my league” ..."

Then comes the second result (Quora)'s first result which is the same as the previous.

Then comes the Featured snippet as a result (see above).

Then comes the next result, the first example of which is: "I can't believe that average-looking guy is dating a supermodel—she is totally out of his league!".

Then comes an almost identical result to the previous result.

Then comes the next result titled: "Stop Saying He (Or She) Is Out Of Your League".

So all of the above are mentioned in a romantic setting, sometimes with emphasis.


texts:
I know first and second year undergraduate students are freshmen and sophomores respectively.

Are there similar terms for third and fourth years, given most programmes are three or four year programmes?
If no, is there any reason for coining a word only for the second year (i.e., sophomore)?


texts: The term "color man" for sports announcers

texts: Where did sports announcers get the tag "color man"?


texts:
Some curves are just can't be flattened.

Shouldn't it just be "Some curves just can't be flattened"?

Asking for corrections and suggestions. Thanks in advance.


texts: Use one word to express this: be unable to tell "s" and "th" apart

texts: Someone cannot tell the pronunciation of "th" and "s" apart. I am sure there's a single word that can express this in the context. But I can't remember it now. Anyone can help?


texts: The use of the Present Simple within a short period of time

texts:
Help me understand how idiomatic this usage of the Present Simple is. Usually, PS conveys repeated actions within relatively long (or almost unlimited) time frames. For instance, “The sun rises in the East.” “We live in France.” “I like cheese.” But what bothers me is other examples in which it’s clear that the actions expressed by the Present Simple are within relatively short periods of time.

For example,
 Example A
1)  A: You were out very late last night. I know!

2)  B: Quite right! I was out until three o'clock. And I had too many drinks. That's why my hand shakes.

Example B

1)  A: What’s up with Jake? He is acting strangely today.

2)  B: He offended me yesterday and now he apologizes every other minute.

Example C (this is a real quote from Obama’s speech)

The Republicans were a laugh line throughout the night, especially the presidential field that was, at the same time, holding its 17th debate in North Charleston, South Carolina. "Why do you laugh?" the president deadpanned at one point, to more laughs.

It’s obvious that in all these examples the actions “my hand shakes, he apologizes every other minute, why do you laugh” have started very recently and are not going to last for a long time. That is, the hand is not going to shake for years, he is not going to be apologizing every other minute for months, and they are not going to laugh after the debate is over.

Does it sound logical until now?

Now I wonder if I can apply this principle in other contexts. The contexts have been made up by me.

Example D

I have been witnessing my friend calling to his wife on the phone for 10 minutes. It is a series of calls which doesn’t seem to end immediately. In other words, I suppose that he will keep calling her for, at least, a few minutes more or maybe even more than that. Would it be correct to ask him in this situation: Why do you call her so many times? /Why do you call her every minute? / Why do you call her so often/frequently?

Example E

Let’s imagine that a group of people is having a conference. The conference is supposed to last for 3 weeks. There are a few subjects to discuss. And, let’s say, one of them is “The role of the internet access in rural areas”. What if this topic is being discussed during the first 5 days only. After that period a journalist covering the conference says: “The subject “The role of the internet access in rural areas” was being discussed only during the first five days but now the members of the conference don’t discuss it any more.

Would it be correct to say “don’t discuss it any more.”? Or would the Present Continuous be better here?


texts:
Could someone help me clarify the difference between these two sentences?

Here is the scenario. Due to technical glitch publishing a sales report may take longer than i expected.

Sentence 1: Report may be delayed.
Sentence 2: Report might get delayed.


texts:
For years I thought gingerly meant "with spirit or liveliness," I suppose because "spirit and liveliness" define the noun ginger.

But no; gingerly means "cautiously or carefully." How did it take on this meaning?

The Online Etymology Dictionary's entry is woefully unsatisfying:

  gingerly (adv)   1510s, "elegantly, daintily," perhaps from Old French gensor, comp. of gent "dainty, delicate," from Latin gentius "(well)-born" (see gentle). Meaning "extremely cautiously" is from c.1600.


texts: Grammar question, which statement would be correct?

texts:
Good morning, I am writing an essay on file compression and I have written this sentence and I am not sure whether the first or second version would be correct.

The statement is:

  "Lossless compression is essential as files which require all data to be present, such as a financial report or a database[...]"

Would "such as a financial report or database" be grammatically correct, or would "such as a financial report or a database" be correct?

Thank you for your help!


texts: Can we invent English words based on similar usage? Ex, "can you eat a mouse" or ".. eat mouse"?

texts:
Now, if you study dictionaries, you see that an animal or poultry is a countable noun when you refer to a living thing.
For Example,

  fish [countable] a creature that lives in water, breathes through
  gills, and uses fins and a tail for swimming

  They caught several fish.

but an animal or poultry is an uncountable noun when you refer to its flesh as food

  fish [uncountable] the flesh of fish eaten as food

  I like frozen/smoked/fresh fish

However, we don't have this pair "count - uncount noun" for all animals in English because English people don't eat these kinds of animal. But people in other countries do.

For example,

  mouse(n): a small animal that is covered in fur and has a long
  thin tail. Mice live in fields, in people’s houses or where food is
  stored.

  a field mouse

We have no "mouse" as an uncountable noun that refers to its flesh as food.

So, Can we invent English words based on similar usage?

We can invent a new word "mouse" as an uncountable noun that refers to its flesh as food.

  Eg, which one is correct?

  can you eat a mouse? (this sounds like you eat it raw???)

  can you eat mouse?

I don't want to mean we eat it raw. I mean we can cook it before eating it (ie, we see it as a kind of food like fish or chicken).

Note:  I noticed that people often put "meat" before these not-considered-for-eating animals. For example, "dog meat", "cat meat".....

DO you think that it is safer to put "meat" before these not-considered-for-eating animals?

Extra question:

I am not sure if it is wrong to say:

"I eat 2 chickens & 3 fish" since chicken or fish is considered as an uncountable noun when we see it as a kind of food.


texts: Rules for the usage of "me" VS. "myself"?

texts:
What are general guidelines for the use of "me" and "myself"?

  Did I describe me or did I describe Maria?

OR

  Did I describe myself or did I describe Maria?


texts: In Early Modern English, is "beest" subjunctive or dialectal?

texts:
I am looking for better ways to translate between German and English, and I prefer Early Modern Engliſh, as a mode of speech, but mainly in written form, and I found out the other day that the Southern-Ængliſc "biſt" had survived into Middle Engliſh and Early Modern Engliſh.

I am curious, was "beest" subjunctive in Early-Modern-Engiſh, or dialectal, or both? I assume that the southern dialects (which evolved into such as the dialects of Yorkshire) preserved the word in use-common, as the north spread "are," and the North, or others, adopted "beest" and other "be" conjugations as use in subjunctive form, or to just completely replace "are."

Lastly, is it pronounced [biʔɛst] or [bist]. I assume it is either [biʔɛst] or [beʔɛst~beʔest].

If I am correct in my assumption, then I shall spell it "beëst"


texts: What is the earliest usage of the verb "like" in the sense "to be pleased by"?

texts:
What is the earliest usage of the verb "like" to mean "to be pleased by"? Example: "I like pasta."

In this usage, like as a transitive verb in which the person doing the liking is the subject, and that which is liked is the object.

In Spanish they do it the other way around: One cannot say in Spanish, "I like pasta." Instead you have to say, "pasta pleases me." (me gusta la pasta). Pasta is the subject and the person who likes it is the object.


texts: Word for the situation of being unable to pass opposing pedestrian, as you both start to step same direction

texts:
Is there a word or expression in English, which describes the situation, when you can't pass a  stranger, who is walking towards you on the street, because you both start to step the same direction?

I'm pretty sure I've heard one once. As I remember, it was including "dancing" reference, but in more specific way.


texts: using henceforth in a paragraph to say that I will refer to X as Y from now on

texts:
A said that X and Y are essential to Q.

If I want to refer to X and Y as Z only from now on, how do I use henceforth? Is this grammatically and structurally correct?

  A said that X and Y (henceforth I will refer to X and Y as Z) are essential on Q.

Example:

  Doctor Snoop said that food and water (henceforth I will refer to food and water as nutrition) are essential to survival.

Is there a shorter/better way of using henceforth in this context?


texts: Is there a term for the part of a word that "pluralizes" it?

texts:
For example, what is the "s" in "apples" or the "ies" in "ponies" called? I found that "morpheme" is probably close, since that's just the smallest grammatical unit in a language, but that's not really identifying the pluralizing nature of the morpheme itself.

I've suggested "pluralizer" to a friend, but that kinda seems made up and I was wondering if there is an actual grammatical term.


texts: What is the origin of the phrase "Eastern Seaboard"?

texts: Today upon hearing reports about how Hurricane Earl was going to hug the Eastern Seaboard I couldn't help but think how strange this phrase is. Is "seaboard" used in any other contexts? What is the origin of this phrase? Does anyone in the US west coast considered their coastline the "Western Seaboard"?


texts: "All the unemployed" vs "every unemployed"

texts:
The right to work implies the obligation on the part of the government to give a job to all the unemployed.

Can I replace all the unemployed with every unemployed. If yes then OK, but if not then why not?


texts:
I live in the house next to/close to the cinema.
  I live in the house that is next to/close to the cinema.

  I go to the school in front of/behind my house.
  I go to the school that is in front of/behind my house.

  I work at a supermarket far from my place.
  I work at a supermarket that is far away from my place.

  My friend lives in the apartment block opposite mine.
  My friend lives in the apartment block that is opposite mine.

Which ones are correct and make sense? Are there any rules or guidelines for this kind of structure?


texts: Order of Correlative Conjunction + Preposition

texts:
Which of the following sentences is correct?  Are both grammatical?

1: I hope to see you in either France or Belgium.

or

2: I hope to see you either in France or [in (optional)] Belgium.

I have looked around in a bunch of different grammar books, including A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, Practical English Usage (Swan), and various online sources and found nothing explicitly addressing this issue (I may have missed it.).  Also, an Ngram shows that both are used almost just as frequently.  This ELL question is very similar, but the answer has no explanation and isn't substantiated at all.
As a native speaker, I find "in either" more natural to both (or is it "both to"?) say and hear, but I'm nonetheless unsure.

Is only one of these choices grammatical, or is it just a stylistic choice?

Edit:
For Sentence 2, the repetition of "in" is optional; please don't answer the question saying that the sentence is ungrammatical because of the omission of the second "in."  Since France and Belgium would both be preceded (if I hadn't omitted the second "in") by "in," repeating the preposition is not required.  It is merely a stylistic choice; I find that repeating the preposition puts more emphasis on the fact that the two options are distinct, so I chose to omit the second "in."


texts:
When someone says "I can only hope to X", what does she mean?

How is it different from the simpler expression "I hope to X"?

Would it be natural to use "I can only hope to" in the following case?

  I know this is just the beginning of many more successes,
  and I can only hope to celebrate them with you in the future.

If not, what would be a good replacement in the above sentence? I would like to say that I am so confident that something will happen (in this case, the success of the person I am addressing), that the only uncertainty I have left is if I will be able to celebrate this success with her.


texts: Determining which good sentiment to wish at each holiday

texts:
Is there any rhyme or reason to how we wish people sentiments for various holidays.  For example:

  "Merry Christmas", "Happy New Year", "Happy Birthday"

are all acceptable sentiments but if we were to interchange them:

  "Happy Christmas", "Merry New Year", "Merry Birthday"

people would agree that, though the sentiment is preserved, the delivery seems a bit off (at least in American English). I ask because I went to wish a friend a "Happy Yom Kippur" today but thought I should check first on what the standard well-wishing is (luckily I checked first... as it is not a "festive" day at all, but rather a somber occasion to reflect and pray).

Do we just use "Happy" unless it is Christmas?

Are there any other "classy" variants that can be substituted seamlessly (for example something like "Jolly New Year" or "Stellar Retirement")?


texts:
What is the etymology of frog? I'm referring to the elaborate braid fastenings often found on 18th and 19th century military costumes, not the amphibian.

Wikipedia tells me

  Frogs and frogging became an important decorative feature on military uniforms from the 17th–19th centuries. This was particularly evident for prestigious regiments, especially cavalry or hussars, and gave rise to the German term for frogging in general, 'Husarentressen'. These dolman jackets were tight-fitting and dominated by extensive frogging, often in luxurious materials such as metallic cording or brocades.

No mention of who invented that type of button  or where it originated from, and not a word on its etymology. Etymonline was a little more helpful:

  frog (n.2) type of fastening for clothing, 1719, originally a belt loop for carrying a weapon, of unknown origin; perhaps from Portuguese froco, from Latin floccus "flock of wool."

The OED mentions when the ‘buttons’ frogs first appeared in print.

  1746 Berkeley Let. Wks. “Laces, frogs, cokades..are so many..obstacles to a soldier's exerting his strength.”

and offers this second example

  1770 W. Richardson Anecd. Russian Emp. 25
  “In a light blue frock with silver frogs.”

The term for the amphibian—frog—is derived from Old English frogga, so it's been around a long time. Why call a hand sewn button  a frog then? Was it military slang? Did the Portuguese invent this type of closure? Was this an English variation on the Chinese knot?

I don't speak Portuguese, so I asked Google translator to lend me a hand. It suggested chenille a type of yarn or fabric, but it's also the  French word for caterpillar, the yarn is said to resemble the caterpillar's soft fur. Those frogs look neither soft or fuzzy to me. However,  frock, which originally meant a man's overcoat and a  type of smock for both men and women, is a loanword derived from Old French froc and Middle French frocq.

Returning to the uniforms, we can see there are a fair number of frogs adorning the military jacket. By the mid 18c, the braidings had become gold  and covered the entire front; was this only embellishment or did the metal buttons and thick knots ostensibly offer protection against sword cuts?

Captain F Farquharson of Eastbury, Dorset, 7th Hussars, 1836.

Which led me to wonder what a large group of frogs (amphibians and fasteners) would be called. There are three venery terms for a group of frogs

army of frogs   2. knot of frogs    3. colony of frogs

The question is, did the venery terms precede the name of the fasteners, in which case I think we may have a plausible answer to my first question, or were  these collective nouns coined in the 19th century?

Questions

Why are these fasteners called frogs?
Were they always called frogs, the term sounds like a witticism.
Was the term frog (fastener) a loanword from French, Portuguese or Latin?


texts: Equivalent phrase to: "tell it to the marines"

texts:
What is a more contemporary equivalent of the phrase: "tell it to the marines"?  One whose intent is to deflect or dismiss a preposterous proposition?

Edited to add a possibility that occurred to me after the original post.  "Pull the other one", meaning that you accuse the other of "pulling your leg" with their previous utterance.


texts:
I've noticed that it is often "ostriches" or "ostrich" according to different sources. Does it vary by the dialect of English?

Normally I'd use Google to determine something like this, but unfortunately the search for "ostrich" plural is overcounted because of references to the singular "ostrich".

Dictionaries laying around were
inconclusive. One listed plural as
"ostrich" another listed "ostriches". In
cases where the dictionaries disagree or
where there are multiple possible
solutions I tend to go with the more common answer. That is something
that can be easily found by googling,
but not in this case


texts:
The whole sentence is

  We show that this approximation, when coupled with an active learning
  strategy, is fast but accurate.

is there a not missing before accurate? Or is the meaning fast and accurate?


texts: Is the term "blind spot" something that only native English speakers would understand?

texts:
Is the term "blind spot" peculiar to the English language, or is it likely to be well understood worldwide, even by people who don't have English as their first language?

Some background
I'm currently searching for a term I can use in some software I'm developing. The feature in question allows the user to draw rectangles over an image to denote areas they'd like to ignore in a later analysis of the image. I need the user to be able to create and delete as many of these areas as they like.

Currently, the areas are called "exclusion areas", but that causes problems when you've got a button labelled "Remove exclusion area". We've seen people being tripped up by the double negative.

One thought was to rename the "exclusion areas" to "blind spots". However, do you think this will cause more problems for non-native English speakers?


texts: Is a participial phrase at the end of a sentence a dangling modifier?

texts:
In this sentence:

  John walked outside, carrying a jug of water.

Is "carrying a jug of water" dangling?
If it isn't, what about the sentence:

  John walked to the car, carrying a jug of water.

In this sentence, is "carrying a jug of water" ambiguous, possibly referring to either "John" or "the car", or is it unambiguously referring to "John"?


texts: How to understand "keeping in mind" in these sentences?

texts:
What does the keeping in mind in the following sentences mean? I find it hard to understand the whole sentence.

  A: According to the present needs, a change should be made in laws. For example, in the past, there were restrictions put the merchants to practice free trade keeping in mind the upliftment of small scale industry and public sector.

  B: Similarly, there can be changes in circumstances that require a change in laws. For example, in case of violence or attack, it becomes essential to put restriction over the common man keeping in mind the interests of the society.


texts: How were last names created? I've heard that names like Smith and Baker were from their original family occupation. But names like Lee and Ballsack?


texts: "I ain’t gonna give nobody none of my jelly roll" (Armstrong, 1958)

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a rule about double negations that aren't meant as double negations (e.g. “We don't need no education”)?
  “I give nothing to no-one” or “I do not give anything to anyone”

  (a)  "I ain’t gonna give nobody none of my jelly roll."

Is (a), the title of one of the odder songs in the Armstrong discography, equivalent to (b) below?

  (b)  "I am not going to give anybody any of my jelly roll."


texts: A word for a wild, uneducated, random guess that turns out to be correct

texts:
Sometimes I find an outsider in a conversation with little or no knowledge about the subject or ground already covered in the conversation makes a random guess about a question no one can answer and it turns out to be correct. I have experienced this often enough that it seems like there might be a word or phrase for it, but if there is I don't remember it. Any insight would be appreciated!

Example:

  Wow, Bert only said that it might be catalytic converter because he heard us say that term earlier in the conversation. He doesn't know anything about cars. I can't believe he was actually right! That was a real ________!