texts: What does "prod issues" mean in computer science and software engineering?

texts:
DevOps engineers are those who are good at debugging, troubleshooting, analyzing prod issues and providing solutions. Who have good hands on technologies like unix shell scripting, perl, SQL etc.
Software engineering is typically involved in designing, writing code and fixing the bugs reported

What "prod issues" means here? I have google it but still confused.


texts:
I have sometimes seen people using concretely in places where I would normally use specifically. I am not sure if both words correctly apply or if concretely is just a mistranslation from another language. For example:

  We do have contacts with people abroad, concretely with various trade
  unions...

  We will only deal with mathematical problems, or, more concretely,
  with a certain subset of such problems.

  We detected certain problems with some measures, concretely with the
  extreme values obtained from some indicators.

Is this correct?


texts:
For a long time I have been using trustworthy as the adjective for of trust. However, I recently heard someone say trustable, and it piqued my interest. Apparently it is a word on Merriam-Webster as well.

So which is the correct usage of the adjective form of trust?


texts: More descriptive, strong verb to replace "came back"

texts:
I am writing an exposé in writing class. In my lead I am trying to find a verb to replace "came back"
Here is the example:

  Billy Bob "came back" from behind to win the trophy.

In the active voice verb tense, what would the best verb to replace this?


texts: Does "intends but to X" mean "intends something other than X"?

texts:
He intends but to help.

Does the above sentence mean:

  He intends anything but to/other than to help.


texts: Use of the plural of tang (as in taste or smell)

texts:
Discussing with friends, we decided tang (like a flavour or smell) is a noun. Smell, when pluralised is smells. Flavour - flavours.  What's the plural of tang?

We believe it would be simply 'tangs' but it sounds crazily weird in a sentence. Eg if you mix chilli and blue cheese together,  would it be possible to say 'the meal had two strong tangs'?


texts: Alternative to the expression "we are going to"

texts:
At the moment I'm writing a sort of economical report over Bosch GmbH. That's a group work and I would like to report our data and our analysis in the most clear and straightforward way.
I have an issue though, I found myself writing an awful lot of times the expression "we are going to". Here some examples

In this section we are going to focus on the financial...
We are going to perform a first level analysis of ROE...
For the short term situation we are going to use two different approach...

I don't really like to use the WE, but neither I can seem to find a non redundant solution to say the same thing.

Thank you in advance


texts: Is there a word for colloquial forms of address?

texts:
For example, "dude," "man," "buddy," "pal," etc, when used to stand in for someone's name.  "Hey, pal, how's it going?"

Is there a word for terms like these?  Or is "colloquialism" as close as we can get?


texts: Why is there a distinction between "its" and "it's"?

texts:
While I know technically the English language has a distinction because when there's a conflict between the possessive form and a contraction, the contraction wins. That is:

Its is the possessive form of it—and this will presumably be followed by some form of noun spec or something.
It's is short for "it is" or "it has" (as in "it's been years since...").

The rule of thumb I use to remember this is that it follows the same pattern as whose and who's, for which the correct use is much more obvious.

While technically I see why there's (ha ha) a distinction, I can't think of any case why it really needs to be there, because for every use of either construct, the meaning intended is usually (if not always) obvious from context. Case in point: many questions and answers written on the Stack Exchange network are written incorrectly, yet nobody notices or cares. (Usually in my case, I default to "it's" then realize I screwed up)

As a single word, I could see why it'd be ambiguous, but I don't see why in typical prose it would matter.

Is there a specific reason for this in earlier dialects of English, or specific cases where choosing the incorrect form leads to lack of understanding of a particular sentence?


texts: Is there a word for inheritance from male to male to male. For example, a father has a son(1) and a daughter; the son(1) has sons(2); those sons(2) have sons(3). And maybe the last name is keep amongst the males, but the daughters would take the husband's surname(which would be different). In Chinese culture, this is the tradition. Is this true for other cultures?


texts:
I am looking for an expression to use for a piece of news that only was discovered very recently, similar to "breaking". Is it ok to use "just in " or "fresh in"? I feel like I heard something along those lines, but cannot remember the exact expression.

Example:

Just/Fresh in: After hours of diligent digging, Barki excavated an amazingly tasty bone!


texts: What does "it" stand for in phrases such as "get/hold it together"?

texts:
Each time I encounter these turns of phrase, I wonder whether I'm quite grasping the meaning.

Edward Norton says in an interview that

  the hardest part was getting it together

as he talks about the filmmaking process.

In Supernatural, Sam says to Dean:

  "Dude, get it together."

It's pretty easy to infer what "it" means from context. I am familiar with expressions like pull/get/hold yourself together, get your act together, get your shit together, and so forth.

Is that what the function of "it" is, substituting for all those concepts, as if the speaker couldn't be bothered to use the entire phrase?


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  To hyphenate or not?

Which is the proper one? I mainly use this term in computer terminology, like "grid multicolumn sorting".


texts: Which is appropriate: First to understand OR to first understand

texts:
I am writing an article on Psychology and stumbled across the following choices:

1- To begin with child psychology, it is important first to understand what psychology all about is.

2- To begin with child psychology, it is important to first understand what psychology all about is.

3- To begin with child psychology, it is important first  to  understand what psychology is all about.

4- To begin with child psychology, it is important to first understand what psychology is all about.

Which  of the above sentences is most appropriate?   I have italicized  the phrases which are confusing to me.   Also do I need a question mark or a period at the end ?


texts: What is the word for "stepping stone" if it is used in a derogatory sense?

texts:
I checked the meaning of stepping stone in a dictionary, it was

  a means of progress

What would be the word for stepping stone if I want to use it in a negative sense? For example,

  He used him as a stepping stone in his business but when he became successful, he left him for dead.


texts:
Which one is grammatically correct? Situation: I already bought coffee.

1) I told myself I'd buy coffee if I find my book.
2) I told myself I'd buy coffee if I found my book.

Thanks.


texts: Is there an adjective to say "will be maintained up-to-date"?

texts:
I would like to say the following:

  an up-to-date database which will be maintained up-to-date

This sentence is nested within a larger sentence, therefore I would like to keep it as short as possible, without losing the two ideas: the database is currently up-to-date, and the database will be maintained up-to-date in the future. My co-authors suggested:

  a current yet updatable database

But I do not think this is correct in English (more-or-less direct translation from French). I am struggling to find a decent, short way to formulate this sentence. I would appreciate any help. Perhaps there is an English expression to say that?


texts: Is there any rule of silent initial letters in English?

texts: Mostly we some times uses silent words like knife, knock, knee etc i want to know is there any law in english please also inform me why these are silent? I am a new english language learner.


texts: Can I use quotation marks to suggest that somebody should say something?

texts:
Simple question, can I use double quotes (") to suggest that somebody should say something?

For example, can I say:

  You should say "Hello" to your neighbours

Is this grammatically correct?


texts:
Is there a non-sexist term for a girl drink such as a strawberry daiquiri, banana sunshine, or squashed strawberry alley cat?

I find these drinks delicious, and would like a term to refer them without any sexist connotations.


texts: Verbs for "lexicography" and "cartography"

texts:
While I'm performing the act of being a lexicographer or a cartographer (I know that they are different trades/acts) what verbs describe what I'm doing?

For example lexicography is what is being performed, but how do you say something similar to a diver dives or a fisherman fishes when talking about lexicography and cartography, or in fact a -graphy in the general case?

edit:

Just had a thought.... I think the answer is constructs, this is based on my belief that -graphy means to draw together or build up.


texts: Why is 'Done' pronounced with a short ŏ vowel sound instead of the long ō vowel sound? Rules typically dictate when a word ends with an E, it changes the O to a long vowel sound.  I've tried to find the etymology, but can't really find anything.


texts: What is the difference between "dream" and "ambition"?

texts:
I don't understand how dream differs from ambition in the following quote:

  I don't feel like summing up my ambition as just a dream, but I do have an ambition. The ambition to restore my clan and to kill a certain man without fail.


texts:
I ask only about mien's definition of 'A person’s look or manner', and not the Yao people.

  OED: Etymology:  Probably a merging of two words of distinct origins:
   (i) shortened < demean n.;
  (ii) a loan < Middle French, French mine countenance, facial expression (13th cent. in Old French in phrase faire mines to grimace, make faces), appearance, manner, air (late 15th cent.), probably < Breton min muzzle (see below).

I heed the Etymological Fallacy, but is the English spelling of mien strange or startling? If it's shortened or derived from 'demean' (as OED says above), would 'mean' be more natural?
  For example, modern French still retains the spelling « mine » to mean 'appearance, look'.


texts: Can "in order to keep" be used in place of "allowing"?

texts:
A quote from a Wikipedia article is as follows:

  An alternative approach commonly used in spacecraft is to divert surplus PV power into a resistive load, allowing the panel to operate continuously at its peak power point.

This quote causes a conflict, mentioned here.

Can't we simply replace "allowing" with "in order to keep" in this sentence and let the meaning remain the same? If so, can't we reinterpret this claim as:

"Since our aim is operating the panel continuously at its peak power point, we divert the surplus PV power into a resistive load."

Context

Above quote may not be understood without giving the context. There is a device called MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) that does something¹ to extract the maximum power from a PV (Photovoltaic cell). Above situation refers to a state where the produced energy is greater than the demand. At this point, one has no choice other than simply ignoring the energy production² or wasting the energy actively by a resistor¹¹.

Wasting the energy production by either technique is an inevitable result at this point. Actively wasting the energy obviously causes the PV to operate at its maximum power point, yes. However, I expect the subsequent sentence explain the difference between those techniques, thus the main purpose. Here, the sentence starting with "allowing" is the subsequent one so I expect that it's the main purpose of performing the preceding action (actively wasting the energy).

However, the real benefit of wasting the energy by an external system that hasn't mentioned in the article is that the extracted energy helps the PV to cool down a little bit.

¹: MPPT to Photovoltaic cell is just like a vacuum cleaner to a carpet. If you keep the hose too far from the carpet, it can't suck anything. Similarly, if you stick the hose to the carpet, it can't suck anything either. There is an optimum distance between hose and the carpet. You will find it with trial and error, just like MPPT. With a varying vacuum cleaner power (analogy to the changing weather conditions), you have to re-adjust this distance periodically (assuming you can't hear the sound change).

²: Ignoring energy is letting hose lay down on the floor while the vacuum cleaner is continuing to operate.

¹¹: When your carpet is clean, keep using the vacuum cleaner at its maximum power by sucking dirt from the street.


texts:
I'm noticing, whilst watching the George Floyd trial, that a couple of the witnesses are using the word "Correct" in response to yes/no questions, as a substitute for "Yes".
Since they're not getting called out on this, is it actually the case that this is acceptable language in a Minnesota courtroom?
Example:

"Is your co-worker older than you?"
"Correct."


texts:
"Which is exactly what you don’t want your programmers learning."

Is "learning" gerund or present participle in the above sentence?


texts:
What's the best verb to express that I opened the packaging of a product by tearing it off?

Tear apart the packaging? Rip the packaging? Or is there any better verb or phrase to be used?


texts:
"That question should be asked to the teacher, not me."
OR
"That question should be asked from the teacher, not me."


texts: What does it mean? For What: "Well" in this sentence? Performing - noun or verb?

texts: "Regularly performing well in worldwide livable city rankings, Vancouver has a new ambitious goal of becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020?"


texts: Is there a poetic/literary term for "Ice Age" (besides "glacial epoch")?


texts: What would be the difference between 'President' as referred to D. Trump and 'Chairman' as referred to Kim J. II ? Is there any difference as far as politics is concerned ? Or is it just in context they want to use synonyms ?


texts: Precise word to differentiate "major" and "minor" in music

texts:
In a similar manner to the way that we use "sex" to differentiate male and female, I want to find the best word to differentiate major and minor.

The Wikipedia page on the subject did not use any such word in its explanation. Nor did anything in the search engine results I looked through. That doesn't sound promising, but at the same time, I would be surprised if there was truly no word for this, as music is filled with so much terminology. It seems to have a word for every teeny tiny little nuance of the subject, if there is no word to refer to whether something is major or minor, it wouldn't seem characteristic of itself.

Here is a sentence to work with:

  This composition's ______________ is minor.

Much like:

  This person's sex is male.


texts: Using “you got it” in the sense of “you are welcome”

texts:
Normally I would assume the meaning of you got it were something like:

  You do understand it right.
      You’ve achieved your goal.

Or even

  I’ll do it for you very shortly.

But from time to time I hear it used as a replacement for you are welcome, especially in bars, restaurants, or cafés.

Is this just a more polite way of saying the same thing,  or is it more related to informal speech?


texts: Is > a valid noun phrase construction to indicate purpose of the head noun in a normal sentence (i.e. not in a title)?

texts:
The following two sentences are patentese (written in language used in a patent):

A display apparatus includes a display device for displaying an image.
The display apparatus may include an optical film for limiting reflection of external, ambient light.

In 'normal' general English, I would say that writing "to display" and "to limit" sounds more natural, where the "to" is short for "in order to", thus using the << noun + "to (in order to)" + infinitive >> noun phrase construction instead.  Also, acceptable would be << noun + "for the purpose of" + gerund >>, but this is perhaps unnecessarily long-winded.
Doing a search online gives acceptable examples of the noun phrase construction << noun + "for" + gerund >> used in titles, for example:

A simple method for displaying the hydropathic character of a protein
Options for Limiting the Potential to Emit (PTE) of a Stationary Source Under Section 112 and Title V of the Clean Air Act (CAA)

For these titles (that are a noun phrase standalone construction without a verb), the << noun + "for" + gerund >> construction is valid and sounds natural to me, but what about if we change these into a normal sentence including verbs, for example:

We describe a simple method for displaying the hydropathic character of a protein.
There are options for limiting the potential to emit (PTE) of a stationary source under Section 112 and Title V of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

The latter quoted sentence sounds fine, but the former sounds a bit unnatural to me due to the << noun + "for" + gerund >> construction within.
[[My original question, referred to these two quotes of titles with this unintentionally misleading comment: But these seem to be missing a verb, if what is intended is a normal complete sentence.]]
So, I'd like to ask:
Are the first two sentences quoted above acceptable? Do they sound natural? If not, why not and what are the best alternatives?


texts: What does the phrase “I’m down with” mean?

texts:
I was wondering about the meaning of:

  I am down with something.

Also, I was wondering whether people say:

  I am up with something.

If so, what does it mean?


texts: I checked on the Internet, it's all out there, sometimes it is "That hurt" and sometimes it's "That hurts", so which one is correct?


texts: Why did -ful prevail instead of -full for adjectives?

texts:
A lot of adjectives in English are based on a noun + the ending -ful.

The opposite adjective is usually constructed with the ending -less

According to Wiktionary, both endings -ful and -full existed in Old and Middle English. Moreover, it seems that this ending is based as expected on the word full, just like the ending -less is based on the word less.

However, it seems that the ending -full does not exist in modern English and it is considered a typo to write it as such.

So why did -ful with one l stick, when the spelling of full that sticked was the one with two l's?


texts: Which is grammatically correct: "There is tea and juice" or "There are tea and juice"?

texts:
The bread and butter was tasty
  Bread and butter are sold in this shop.

I  have been taught when things are considered separately, we should use 'are' but when they are used collectively, we should use 'is'.

But in the following example, which one is correct?

  A. There is tea and juice
  B. There are tea and juice


texts: Is capitalizing "master" and other honorifics appropriate?

texts:
In BDSM relationships, a dominant male is often referred by his submissive counterpart as a "master", "sir" or by some other honorific. Some in the BDSM lifestyle insist that words referring to the dominant person in a relationship should always be capitalized, whereas those referring to the submissive partner should be written in lower case. While such a generalization does not adhere to the rules of the English language, I can't help but think that there are situations where capitalization is appropriate.

In particular, I am wondering whether capitalization of "master" is appropriate in the following examples, where the word refers to a specific person:

"Welcome home, Master."

"No, Master, I haven't finished my chores yet."

"My Master will be with you shortly."

I believe that the capitalization in the first two examples is correct, but not in the third. However, I am not certain about which rules apply and I'd appreciate it if somebody could shed more light on the matter.


texts:
I was at the bookstore and came across a book titled, "You have to Fucking Eat" The book was written in the style of a child's picture book while the content and underlying message is more mature aimed at adults/teens with eating disorders.

My friend and I were discussing this style of writing, knowing that there must be a specific term for such a juxstaposition of content and style/apparent audience. The best we could come up with was "parody." While that label fits, I'm not sure that it is most accurate.

Another example is how sometimes Pixar movies have joke or two thrown in for the parents which would go over the heads of the children.

Is there a better word for that than parody?


texts:
I need to prepare the title of a document.

I am not sure whether it should sound like this:

"The proposal for implementation of a new architecture"

or

"The proposal of implementation of a new architecture"

The meaning is that we are asking for permission to implement a new architecture in our system (application) and we are explaining how this process should look like.


texts: If craven means "contemptibly lacking in courage," what do "craven desires" and "craven idols" mean?

texts:
I was recently reviewing the meaning of the word "craven," which included trying to find some good examples of its usage.  More often than not, I came across the phrases, "craven desires" and "craven idols," neither of which seem to be using the definitions I find for "craven."  I am assuming that the word "craven" in these instances is acting more like a participle of some sort for the verb "to crave," but, thus far, I have not found any dictionary entry that alludes to this.  For phrases so common as "craven desires" and "craven idols" why do I not see some mention made of this?

Addendum:

Well, there's at least one decent answer in this thread that I will award the green checkmark to if no others surface, so I don't know how necessary this is at this point.  However, since I felt my initial question was sufficient and sense that others will, too, I will elaborate a bit to explain why I am adding to my original question.  First of all, I am really quite shocked that so many have never heard of the phrase "craven idol(s)" before.  (See comments below.)  I will wholeheartedly admit that I was unaware that it was a rock band and I did have to do some major revisions to my search parameters to finally get something that wasn't about that band.  Nevertheless, in my defense, I had heard or seen the phrase "craven idols" so long ago that I couldn't even tell you when it became part of my memory bank.  Not considering myself all that "well read," I was surprised to see that so many in this alleged erudite forum would be so dumbfounded by the phrase "craven idol."  But to suffice the skepticism of those below, what follows are some examples of the written word and its use of the phrase "craven idol(s)."  [I won't bother adding examples of "craven desires" because someone already took the time and trouble to do so (see the answers below)].  Examples of craven idol and/or craven idols follow:

  "Saint Paul makes the law of nature the basis for his claim that God can legitimately punish those who violate its precepts and inclinations.  He especially condemns the pagan practice of idol worship — of making God into the image of mortals, birds, and snakes.  Saint Paul is not referring to people who find themselves ignorant about the true God.  He addresses those whose personal wickedness compels them to reduce God to a craven idol."

  Source: Praying with Saint Paul: Daily Reflections on the Letters of Saint Paul

  "Garrett, damned to hell as he could well see, knew now, much to his horror, that Vanra's loyalty had been easily purchased.  The bodyguard's honour was swayed by gold alone and, alas, Garratt's reliance on the mere honour of the soldiering brotherhood could never topple that craven idol of greed."

  Source: Shadows Beneath the Watch Tower

  "In some universities, lecturers fearful of sparking a suicide refuse to fail even the poorest students. "I often think of the implications for the student and the family before failing anyone," says one professor at Sogang University. But Korean students and their families, whose faith in the omnipotent powers of education is greater than in any other Confucian country in Asia, are worshipping a craven idol. If anyone takes too close a look at the system, they will be in for a rude awakening."

  Source: Korea Economic Report, Vol. 8, p. 36

I see I still haven't added an example of "craven idols" yet, so here's one more.  For the record, there were several I could have chosen.  I suppose this is as good as any:

  "These 'evil men who had been used to milking the villagers for years by parading bronze peacocks and other such craven idols among the villages and thus collecting large sums for their own use' had to be put down."

  Source: The Well-protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909


texts: What is the best word to describe someone who always anticipates things?

texts:
What is the best word to describe a person who always anticipates or thinks of future or possible things (occurrences) according to previous events;
i.e., who extrapolates to the consequences of current information,
when those consequences are not obvious to others.

Examples in home and work contexts:

When he saw an excavation happening near his home,
he anticipated that maybe the water line would be out and prepared for it.
When he saw a news item about an event that happened,
he realized his boss is in tune with these events
and he anticipated how this would affect his boss's decisions and planning.


texts: Can the adjective "inevitable" be used in these cases?

texts:
I was just wondering whether 'inevitable' can be used in this case:

  If she died, there would inevitable sadness.

I've seen 'inevitable tension' being used before, so would it be right in that case?


texts:
In the following sentence

  “I’m okay,” I mutter, finally managing to take a sharp inhale of
  air.

is it okay to use "inhale" as a noun here, or should it only be a verb? I feel like "inhale" is the verb and "inhalation" is the noun, but when I type "inhale of air" into Google, I get 32,000 hits, so I guess it may be acceptable.

Should this usage now be considered correct or has it not (yet?) become common  enough to be considered so?


texts: I said: "I believe he know me." But that was marked wrong. The right answer should be: "I believe he knows me." But if I remember correctly about subjunctive structure, after verbs like hope, believe, we should use the infinitive form of the verb? Like; "I hope he win" instead of "I hope he wins". Can someone confirm that for me?


texts: Why "bu" in burial is pronounced as "be" in bed?

texts: Why "bu" in burial is not pronounced as "bu" in burrow? Is there a rule behind it, or it's just random?


texts: I'm looking for a suitable synonym to say you need "throw everything you've got" at a problem

texts: When to fix a particular problem you need to use many different approaches all at the same time.  What synonym could i use to express this.


texts: When writing about Mongolian felt tent houses in English should the word "ger" or "yurt" be used?

texts:
I'm travelling in Mongolia at the moment and being a language buff I've been wondering whether if I were writing about my experiences here whether I ought to use the term yurt or ger when mentioning the traditional round felt tent houses used by nomads and elsewhere.

Mongolian гэр used as a restaurant/inn. Photo by hippietrail.

Even though the word "yurt" is not very common in English I would regard it as definitely a loanword and would expect others to think so soo. (I might well describe it in the first use anyway.)

But the "yurt" is not a Mongolian word but used in Central Asian countries. Here the same dwelling is called a "ger".

At least Wiktionary also considers "ger" to be a loanword into English. But it has a very low threshold of three uses in "durably archived" media in an English context to qualify. Or so I belive. I don't know what other dictionaries say or how people feel about it generally.

What say ye experts?


texts: What's an expression that means bringing something to where it can be seen or used?

texts:
I'm specifically thinking of in a public service context. Say there is a resource that exists but no one knows about it or makes use of it, so instead of waiting for the people to come to the resource, we bring the resource to where the people already are. Is there an expression for that?

This doesn't really capture the meaning, but I'm thinking it would be phrased sort of like the opposite of "leading a horse to water" but instead, we are "bringing water to a horse."


texts:
I have seen both spellings of this word, falsy and falsey.

It can mean "something that is equivalent to false" in computer science, such as "The only two falsy values in the Ruby Language are false and nil".

What is the correct usage of this word?


texts: Website giving pronunciations of English words recorded in different dialects?

texts: I'm aware that there are certain websites around that provide recorded examples of English words pronounced in different accents/dialects.  Could anybody list some of them?


texts: Difference between "to fear" and "to be afraid of"

texts:
I fear/am afraid I changed my gender.
The very thing I fear/am afraid of is the thing that I can't realize that I actually changed not the thing that I consciously know that I changed. That in fact I hide and fear being/am afraid to be open instead!

What is the difference between using to fear and to be afraid of in these examples?


texts: How to interpret "...the disinfectant burnt her inside out, of course"

texts:
A character in a play is talking about how a girl committed suicide by swallowing strong disinfectant, but it's "burnt her inside out" that I'm questioning.

It may be possible to interpret it in both ways, but if any, which one out of these two:

"...burnt her inside out" - "inside out" as in she was burnt from the inside out.
"...burnt her inside out" - "inside out" as in an a tee shirt that is inside out.

Which one is more likely to be correct?
Can one interpret it in both ways?


texts: Why does Ross use Present Perfect here if he's speaking about the past?!


texts:
I was reading an article in The Economist and came across the phrase "Perhaps their time is come at last."

  The founder of the first vegan society said in 1944 that "in time [people] will view with abhorrence the idea that men once fed on the products of animals' bodies." Many since have shared his hope. Perhaps their time is come at last.

I googled it but couldn't find any satisfactory reason as to why the author should use "Time is come" instead of "Time has come". Any ideas?


texts:
In Finnish, 'linja-auto' is a bus, and 'rekka-auto' is a truck. If I were to write that I traveled with both I would write

  Matkustin linja- ja rekka-autolla.

The sentence is equal to

  Matkustin linja-autolla ja rekka-autolla

so the hyphen (-) can be used to avoid repeating the word 'auto' (meaning a car).

Are there similar constructs in English?


texts: Do adjectives ending in "-ed" derive from words that were once used as verbs?

texts:
Talented derives from talent, which is not a verb in Modern English.

Has talent ever been used as verb? Are there any words ending in -ed that derive from words once used as verb that is not used nowadays?


texts: Is a tin-ear one who dislikes music or one who dislikes new popular music? Why?

texts: I know folks who couldn't hear well used to use a tin-ear to help but I don't understand the connection between a tin-ear and a dislike of music or of new popular music.


texts:
What is the difference between the following two statements?

If I went home for dinner, I took a glass of soft drink.
If I went home for dinner, I would take a glass of soft drink.

Are both of them correct? If not, why can't we use the second one? And if I say: "Would both of them be correct?" instead of "Are both of them correct?", which one would sound more natural?


texts: What does this sentence mean - "He was a capitalist who appropriated the rhetoric of the commune where he had lived"

texts:
This sentence comes from a book that describes Steve Jobs.

Here is the context: (taken from Amazon.com)

  In the summer of 1985, when Steve Jobs was stripped of power at the company he cofounded, when his office was moved to a vacant building he called Siberia, he didn't know what to do. He was thirty years old, and he owned more than $100 million worth of Apple stock. He didn't have to work, not for the money, at least, and not for the fame. He had appeared on the cover of Time and had accepted the National Technology Award at the White House. His niche in economic history was already secure as the preeminent popularizer of the personal computer. His mention in American cultural history was certain as well. In an era when commerce was equated with conformity, when industry was seen as the staid and soulless province of balding older men, he was an unprecedented phenom. He was a businessman posing as an idealistic revolutionary, striving for social change. He was a capitalist who appropriated the rhetoric of the commune where he had lived. He was a barefooted chairman of the board who took his girlfriend to Grateful Dead concerts and quoted an entire verse of Bob Dylan lyrics at a shareholders meeting. He was a "young industrialist," as he preferred to call himself, an epithet that sounded delightfully unlikely. He was a pop-culture icon, a media hero, a role model, a sex symbol, and teen heartthrob.


texts: Synonym For Locating When Context Is Not Geographical Location

texts:
So I am writing a research paper where we are predicting the location of a user's mobile device, the location being Pocket, Hand etc. Now, whenever I read my paper title I feel that locating is a misleading term as it somehow gives the image of Geographical Location and not what my research is about. So I would like to swap this term with something more relevant, yet my knowledge fails me to find such a word.

Any ideas? My tentative paper title is: Locating Mobile Devices Accurately Using...


texts: Is complacent a positive word or negative word?

texts:
When is complacent used in a positive or a negative sense?

I always thought it was used in a negative sense, please correct me if I am wrong


texts: What does “Your hair is so white now, it can talk back to police” mean?

texts:
Vanity Fair magazine (April 27) introduced a barrel of jokes about political figures Cecily Strong delivered at Best White House Correspondents’ Dinner held on April 25th in Washington under the headline, “Cecily Strong’s best White House Correspondents’ Dinner jokes.” The following is one of them:

“Mr. President, thank you for taking time off of Jimmy Fallon’s show
to be here,” Strong said. One joke that had Obama slapping the table
in laughter: “Your hair is so white now, it can talk back to police.”
- "Cecily Strong’s Best White House Correspondents’ Dinner Jokes", Vanity Fair

I know asking the meaning of a joke is boorish, but I don’t understand why you can talk back to police when your hair is white.
Is it because a senior person (whose hair is white) is regarded as sensible or authoritative, or politically incorrectly, white hair makes black look white? If it's the latter, why did Mr. Obama tapped the table in laughter to such a risque joke? I’m 82 years old, but I’m not sure whether my gray hair works in arguing with police. What does the above line mean?


texts:
What is the name and ‘grammatical’ function (not communicative function) of the word going in the sentences below?

1-  I like going to the cinema
2-  I am going to the cinema

Im very confused in this.


texts: "Have at it" : what's the object of the transitive verb "have" here?

texts: I intuitively understand the meaning of the phrase "have at it!", but I can't explain it to myself. I understand that "to have" in this sense requires an object to be valid, so why is it missing here yet it doesn't sound as weird as other objectless to have, such as "The president has in the office"?


texts: Listing items where the last item has the word 'and' in it

texts:
I have a list of two items.  One of the items has the word 'and' in it.  How do I punctuate this so it is clear that there are only two items in this list?

The items in bullet format:

Maths
Art and History

If we make a sentence to list these items, even explicitly saying there are two items, it is unclear which are the two items. For example:

  This term I am teaching two modules and they are Maths and Art and History.

One might use common sense to say history belongs with art more than maths perhaps.  But there are many cases, I'm sure, where it isn't so obvious.


texts:
"To obtain deeper insight into lignin biosynthesis and the metabolic network it is embedded in, we used a systems biology approach as defined by Ideker et al"

In this sentence, I'm confused about the clause-- "it is embedded in", is it an attributive clause?


texts:
I listen to my fair share of Hip-Hop but I'm still not sure what * exactly* it means for a guy to be " sweating" on a girl or vice-versa.

I had a look on Urban Dictionary but couldn't really find anything that fits.

So what does it mean to be "sweating" on someone?


texts: What is the general word for a "language-changing" process?

texts:
Is there a word for  a force or process that changes language? Something like "lingomorphic" (a word I just made up.)

Walter Benjamin has an essay called "The task of the translator" where he suggests that good translations should change/enrich the target language. I was writing a paper on this for school and had shown how Classic Greek had indeed influenced the English used in the King James version of the Bible. I want to write a sentence that says

  "Benjamin thinks it should not just be sacred texts which are given this __________ privilege".

On Google I found lots of words for specific types of language change but I could not find a more general word that means something like "language-changing" or "language-morphing" or my made up word - "Lingumorphic". Is there such a word?


texts: Is there a difference between "on condition that" and "provided that"?

texts:
Do the terms "provided that" and "on condition that" mean the same? Or is there any difference in usage?

The means will be available provided that the state will allocate its part of financing vs. The means will be available on condition that the state will allocate its part of financing.


texts:
Hey english stackexchange!
I was wondering why correlation is written with 2 r's?
I'd expect the word to come from relation with the prefix co-, thus making it "corelation". However, the German word "Korrelation" is also written with 2 Rs. I expect there to be a background story to this.
Maybe someone can shed some light into this :-)


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  What is the plural of the word “index”?

I have a vague thought that indices would be used when index refers to a position in a sequential collection of some sort, but indexes is used when index itself refers to a collection of values.

  One index in the sequence. Several indices in the sequence.

  One book index. Many book indexes.

Is this correct?


texts: Telekinetic and Telepathic, Terminology.

texts: I've been looking through literature I can't find a word to describe someone who is telepathic and  has telekinesis. Someone who's telepathic is a Telepath, someone who has telekinesis is a telekinetic. But with so many literary characters displaying both abilities, I began to wonder, what do you call someone who exhibits both abilities?


texts: Cronyism probably comes from Greek khronios ("long-lasting") which has a sense of "old friend". But how is it connected with today's meaning?


texts:
are these 2 sentences correct?
1)They were exempted from punishment.
2)They were exempted from being punished.
Thanks in advance.


texts: Different ways to say alike to something

texts:
I am writing a game analysis and don't want to say the word "fellow". I originally had "This is where guild wars 2 differs from its fellow games ... " How else could I word this? I have included the sentence before it for context.

  Questing is the biggest staple of any MMO you will ever play; there isn’t a game out there that doesn’t require the player to either kill some bad guys or bring the quest giver ten of a certain item. This is where Guild Wars 2 differs from its fellow games ...

Thank you.


texts: Is it "is" or "are" after "that" in the expression ...X of Y that is/are? Context provided in the question

texts:
I am aware of the solution using "can" or "will" to circumvent the issue, but I really want to know the answer. In the sentence below, "efficacy" is what "that" describes, not "gamification mechanics". However, the word "that" immediately follows "gamification mechanics", which got me confused.
Cross-platform comparison of multiple pro-green programs will be a valuable addition to the literature because it helps researchers measure the efficacy of gamification mechanics that is/are particularly robust in some situations but not others.
Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thank you in advance.


texts: Origin, meaning, and derivation of 'boof' as a verb in U.S. slang

texts:
Recently, the following entry included in a page from a 1983 yearbook for a high school in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area has gained considerable notoriety in U.S. politics:

Judge — Have You Boofed Yet?

Two major U.S. slang dictionaries—J. E. Lighter, Random House Historical Dictionary of Slang (1994) and Robert Chapman & Barbara Ann Kipfer, Dictionary of American Slang, third edition (1995) and fourth edition (2007)—have no entry for boof.
Pamela Munro, Slang U: The Official Dictionary of College Slang (1989), however, has entries for boofa and boofed:

boofa stupid person, loser, dork (pronounced {búfə}, like "boo" plus "fa" as in "sofa") | Jimmy's such a boofa! All he does is waste time  playing with his Rubik's cube; he doesn't even speak!
boofed puffed out, bouffant (usually, of a hairdo; pronounced {búft}—rhymes with "poofed") | After she got a perm, Jan's hair was totally boofed. {[from] bouffant, perhaps influenced by poofed}

And Jonathon Green, Slang Dictionary (2008) has several potentially relevant entries:

boof n. {unknown} {2000s} (US prison) contraband hidden in the rectum.
boofa n. (also boofer) {BOOFHEAD n. (1) ["Lincolnshire dial. {1940s+} (orig. Aus[tralian]) a fool, an idiot, a simpleton"] or BUTTFUCKER n. ["one who engages in anal intercourse"]} {1970s+} (US) a fool, an incompetent.
boofed (out) adj. {S[tandard] E[nglish] bouffant} {1980s+} (US campus) puffed out, usu. of hair.

I have three questions:

What is the earliest published instance of boof as a verb?

What did boof as a verb originally mean?

What source word or words (if any) is it derived from?


texts: Is there any evidence for "altercate" ever having been pronounced with stress on the second syllable?

texts:
In modern English, polysyllabic verbs ending in -ate are regularly stressed on the third-to-last syllable. (There are some (possible) exceptions, such as incarnate, impregnate, and elongate.)

But it seems that certain speakers in the past followed a different rule, whereby the stress fell on the second-to-last syllable when it was "closed" (ended in a consonant) in Latin. A well-known example of an -ate verb that used to have this stress pattern is contemplate; the Oxford English Dictionary entry for this word summarizes the situation as follows:

  In a few rare cases (Shakespeare, Hudibras) stressed ˈcontemplate in 16–17th cent.; also by Kenrick 1773, Webster 1828, among writers on pronunciation. Byron, Shelley, and Tennyson have both modes, but the orthoepists generally have conˈtemplate down to third quarter of 19th cent.; since that time ˈcontemplate has more and more prevailed, and conˈtemplate begins to have a flavour of age. This is the common tendency with all verbs in -ate. Of these, the antepenult stress is historical in all words in which the penult represents a short Latin syllable, as acˈcelerate, ˈanimate, ˈfascinate, ˈmachinate, ˈmilitate, or one prosodically short or long, as in ˈcelebrate, ˈconsecrate, ˈemigrate; regularly also when the penult has a vowel long in Latin, as ˈalienate, ˈaspirate, conˈcatenate, ˈdenudate, eˈlaborate, ˈindurate, ˈpersonate, ˈruinate (Latin aliēno, aspīro, etc.). But where the penult has two or three consonants giving positional length, the stress has historically been on the penult, and its shift to the antepenult is recent or still in progress, as in acervate, adumbrate, alternate, compensate, concentrate, condensate, confiscate, conquassate, constellate, demonstrate, decussate, desiccate, enervate, exacerbate, exculpate, illustrate, inculcate, objurgate, etc., all familiar with penult stress to middle-aged men. The influence of the noun of action in -ation is a factor in the change; thus the analogy of ˌconseˈcration, ˈconsecrate, etc., suggests ˌdemonˈstration, ˈdemonstrate. But there being no remonstration in use, reˈmonstrate, supported by reˈmonstrance, keeps the earlier stress.

(bolding added for emphasis)

Based on this information, I thought that the rare verb altercate must have used to have a pronunciation with stress on the second-to-last syllable. But I've had some trouble finding material that supports my guess.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the present-day pronunciations as "Brit. /ˈɔːltəkeɪt/, /ˈɒltəkeɪt/, U.S. /ˈɔltərˌkeɪt/, /ˈɑltərˌkeɪt/" and has a note saying "N.E.D. (1884) also gives the pronunciation as (æ·ltəɹkeit) /ˈæltəkeɪt/" (which is interesting, but doesn't answer my question).

One of the earlier OED citations, from F. Quarles Divine Fancies i. xl (the OED gives the date as 1632), uses the word in verse in a context where it seems it would have to scan as stressed-unstressed-stressed:

  Whenas my Body and my Soule shall plight
   Inviolable faith, and never fight
   Nor wrangle more, nor altercate, again,
   About that strife-begetting question, Sin !

(The Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Francis Quarles, by Alexander B. Grosart, 1880)

Annoyingly, the verb doesn't seem to have an entry in John Walker's Critical Pronunciation Dictionary of 1791, although Walker evidently was familar with it since he uses it in the definitions of "to chop" and "to stickle" (though the "stickle" definition doesn't seem to have originated with Walker, as it can also be found in Sheridan's dictionary and Johnson's dictionary).

The 21st edition of Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1775) gives the stress on the first syllable.

Does anyone know of any evidence for stress ever falling on the second syllable of altercate in the past? I'm thinking the most likely place such information would appear is in old dictionaries or poems. The OED's earliest citation for the verb is from 1530.


texts: How to explain an acronym inside a quote

texts:
I'm currently doing an essay and I haven't previously given context

"private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases." how d I explain what GCHQ is?
Is this correct?
"private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ[Government Communications Headquarters] databases."

Or should I just put if after the quote?


texts: Should "I am going to do sth" be repeated?

texts:
I am puzzled. Which is the correct variant?

"I am going to do my homework, and I am going to play a game of chess with my neighbour."
"I am going to do my homework and play a game of chess with my neighbour".

Maybe, in the first sentence, we mean a sequence of actions, and in the second sentence we mean that the person is going to do his homework and play chess simultaneously? Sorry, I tried to find the answer but I failed.


texts:
This stems from a discussion over on ELL which has moved beyond being useful to second-language learners.  In short, consider the sentence:

  It weighs about 5 pounds.

What part of speech is "about?"

Since the verb "weigh" is not having any effect on the "about five pounds," I think it must be intransitive.  That leaves the "about five pounds" as a long adverbial phrase, modifying the verb, right?

If that is correct, then isn't "about" an adverb modifying the adverbial noun "pounds?"

Would the answer hold true if we were talking about the price tag on something?:

  This shirt costs about 5 pounds.


texts: What do you call someone who is constantly obssessed with spending time with you and constantly wanting to socialise?

texts: I know the obvious word would be outgoing, but it gets to the level where you just think their life is just boring because all they want to do is be outside or chill with you 24/7 so I was wondering if there was a proper word to describe a person like that, maybe tedious?


texts:
This is a question specifically about English language usage in mathematics, but it is probably the same in all topics (however I can't really think of an example in everyday life!).

Should I say "A is conjugate to B" or "A is conjugate with B"? I'm pretty sure "A is the conjugate of B" is acceptable, but I think (at least one) of the previous is also correct.

I'm referring to "conjugate" as in "subgroups are conjugate".


texts: Painting term for the reflective lighting of a surface?

texts:
In oil painting especially, I believe there is a technical word for the light that's reflected from one surface onto another (in the scene that's being painted). For example, if there's a reddish-brown rock next to a white wall, the color of the rock is reflected, almost like a glow, off the wall. Likewise, I have some blue boxes under some florescent lights that create a blue glow on the ceiling directly overhead.

I'm also interested if there's a corresponding term in physics for this phenomenon.


texts: Is there any difference at naming of inverted comma and quote?

texts:
There is one symbol ‘ . . .’ that can be called as quote or inverted comma.

Is there any difference between these names? What is the origin of term inverted comma?

I think it's legacy of our industrial society and computers where term inverted used very often.


texts: I would like to know which one is BrE and which is AmE?  The words are coach vs long distance bus.


texts: In the 1951 film "Scrooge" with Alastair Sim, Mrs. Dilber runs down the stairs screaming and says "You'll force me to scream for the beagle!" What does she mean by that?


texts:
I have came across this phrase twice.Once in Oliver Twist and now again in "My financial Career" by Stephen Leacock.

  Reckless with misery, I made up my mind. 'Yes the whole thing.' 'You withdraw your money from the bank?' 'Every cent of it.' 'Are you not going to deposit any more?' said the clerk, astonished. 'Never.' A foolish hope struck me that they might think something had insulted me while I was writing the cheque and that I had ...


texts: What does "a musical family that never sat down" means?

texts:
I was going over Viriginia Apgar's Wiki of today's doodle.

In the beginning of Her Early Life and Education, it states that she was a part of "a musical family that never sat down".

I just wonder what it means. Does anyone know?


texts: Is it true that a word ending in -y is more likely to be an adjective than a noun?

texts:
Claim: a word ending in -y is most likely not a noun but an adjective.

Don't have my tagged corpus handy to check. Anyone have the stats on Parts-Of-Speech of words ending in y and assuming they don't end in -ly?


texts: Is it true that only the positions of the first and last letter in a word matter, the rest can be scrambled?

texts:
I read this sometime ago,

  Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
  Cmabridge uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer
  in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
  are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht
  frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit
  pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses
  and you can sitll raed it wouthit
  porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not
  raed ervey lteter by it slef but the
  wrod as a wlohe.

I'm guessing that the Cambridge research probably doesn't exist, but is it true that we can normally understand a sentence whose letters are scrambled in this way?


texts:
As I know about and around can be used when we estimate something, for example,

  I'll arrived around 3:00 PM.

or

  I'm here about 10 minutes.

I want to know, are there any rules or idioms when to use about or around?


texts:
I came across the phrase, “suck it up and go” in the columnist’s answer to a question from a reader of Carolyn Hax's column in Washington Post’s “Lifestyle” section (July 2nd).
The Q&A titled “Ever the aunt, never the godmom” begins with the following sentence:

  “Dear Carolyn: We just got an invitation to the baptism of my seventh nephew on my husband’s side. Once again we were not considered as godparents. I felt snubbed. -- Is this a legitimate snub? Should I talk to my sister-in-law about it?”

and Carolyn answers:

  “Boycotting the baptism in a wounded huff would be petty, yes, and that’s the main reason to suck it up and go - but you also need to go because nothing would undermine your own purpose more tidily than staying home.”

I checked the meaning of “suck it up and go” in English Japanese dictionaries at hand only to find one of them shows “suck it and see” meaning “to try” as a British and  Australian usage. Online dictionaries register “suck it (up) and “go suck,” but not “suck it up and go.”

What does “suck it up and go” mean? Is it an American version of “suck it and see”?


texts:
Which word is more appropriate in a geographical mapping context when referring to counties in a state, contiguous states within a country, contiguous countries within a continent, etc?

Are they interchangeable? Based on this n-gram 'coterminous' is more common, though 'conterminous' seems more accurate?

Coterminous

having the same border or covering the same area
being the same in extent; coextensive in range or scope

Conterminous

having a common boundary; bordering; contiguous
meeting at the ends; without an intervening gap


texts: "Childlessness is hereditary in our family" What do you call a statement containing a contradiction such as the example?

texts:
This kind of sentence is usually absurd and may or may not be recognized as such by the person who utters it.

She will regret it till the day she dies, if she lives that long!
"Aren't you going to John's funeral?  After all, you were best friends."  "Why should I? I'm sure he won't come to mine."


texts: Am I using the saxon genitive where I shouldn't?

texts:
I have been edited in some SE post while using the saxon genitive in the next sentence, where I'm referring to the ToC of the corresponding MWE.

In this' MWE ToC A and B should link to the same point.

The edition was to change this' with this. What is the problem there?

"when talking about things that belong to other things"


texts:
No letter will make the Lannisters love us better. Not once they hear that we’ve been helping Stannis.
  (from A Feast for Crows)

I don't understand the sentences above. Does 'not once' mean 'never' or 'frequently'? Could you convert two sentences into one?

Is this correct?
"No letter will make the Lannisters love us better if they hear that we’ve been helping Stannis."


texts: Is this correct usage of the past perfect?

texts:
I noticed that her eyes had been dancing as she looked out at the scenery.

It appeared in a state-sponsored high school leaving examination in Slovakia last week and it seems to have been adapted from a short story by a native speaker, so it really ought to be correct, but I don't see how or why.

Past continuous seems the obvious choice, this just seems wrong as it's all happening at the same time.


texts:
Is it valid to use 'a' to describe two nouns?

For example: "I am going to town to get a burger and chips" or "they do a nice burger and chips"

The concern I have is I am not sure if it is valid to consider "burger and chips" as a single noun phrase.


texts: What's the Scottish equivalent of the prefix "Anglo-"?

texts:
Scotch gets misused and I don't want to join those ranks if it's incorrect.
Celtic seems to cover a wider area.
Pictish seems to be specific to the Northeast.
Gaelic I always assume to be Irish.
All of them seem to have pros and cons but I'm not sure any of them are correct.
Thanks.
Mike.
Edit:
This is for the next census form. Instead of the regular "British" under nationality, I want to put Scottish-European, or the equivelent.


texts: What's a word that means arbitrary, but doesn't carry a negative connotation?

texts:
I'm looking for a word that describes a choice made without reason, but that has a neutral-to-positive connotation. I had always thought that "arbitrary" is inherently neutral, but in practice I've found most people take it pejoratively regardless of the context.

My idea is to encourage someone to make a choice without encouraging creativity, to relieve the pressure of a decision without discouraging personal intention, i.e. to say that the choice can be meaningful or meaningless. The best I can think of so far is "random" but I'm unsure if the positive meaning is conveyed when written.


texts: When referring to a noun, when does the gender matter?

texts:
In most languages, gender plays a much more important role than in English. Nevertheless, it is possible to refer to a noun using its gender.

  The ship was launched on 4 October 1853. Tayleur left Liverpool on 19 January 1854, on her maiden voyage.

How does one know that "ship" is feminine? Are there masculine nouns?


texts:
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/vbseq.html

Here, what does 'sequence' mean? Does it mean 'multiple sentences'? Or it means 'a paragraph'?


texts:
Is it better to say:

  "something is available for pickup in my office"

or

  "something is available to be picked up in my office"?

Also is pickup one word or two in the above sentence?


texts: “Firstly, secondly” vs. “Firstly, lastly” when listing just two points

texts:
Normally, if we which to illustrate our points, we can use firstly, secondly, lastly (or last but not least or finally).

  There are a few pieces of information we need to notice:
  Firstly,
  Secondly,
  Lastly,

But consider that we have only two points, are we going to use

  There are a few pieces of information we need to notice:
  Firstly,
  Secondly,

or

  There are a few pieces of information we need to notice:
  Firstly,
  Lastly,

It seems like firstly→secondly does not have an ending, and firstly→lastly seems to be too fast to end. Is there a better way to talk about them for when you have just two points to make?


texts: "the result being, as she had predicted, normal"?

texts:
I got this following sentence from a book "I had brewed her a pot of green tea and taken her temperature despite her protests, the result being, as she had predicted, normal."
Why does the author write "being". In my opinion, it should be "was", shouldn't it?


texts: Is there a shorter way of saying 'people who live or are planning to live in (this country)'?

texts:
I'm building a forum for people who live or are planning to live in Taiwan. It is mainly for foreigners to ask questions or start topics.

I was wondering is there is a shorter way of saying that (or it is just OK as it is right now?)


texts: Word for "translating" English to English

texts: Is there a specific word for "translating" a work from period Modern English into contemporary English?  For example, if Locke's philosophies were rewritten point by point in contemporary English, would you say they had been translated?  Rendered?  Adapted?  Something else?


texts: "You are going to want to" vs "You will want to"

texts:
So I was going to say something the other day like

"After eating this, you are going to want to go there."

I wanted to express that after eating that, the person would end up with a wish about going to some place. It's taken out of context, it could be a restaurant or so here.

Is this a correct/good way of saying this? What gave me some doubts is that it was kind of a messy sentence to say. It has two "go" in it and everything.
Is perhaps the formulation "After eating this, you will want to go to there" better? As I understood from the thread below though, "you will want to" is more intended for instructions. So how would this fit here?
What does "you will want to" mean?

Is this thing expressed differently in different regions?

The other day was one of the first day of my life that I spent in an English speaking country, so I realized that I've got to step up my game a few notches :)


texts: Word that means a "slow and painful transformation"

texts: I'd like to describe a process of change that is both slow and painful for those involved using a verb or phrasal verb (heck, throw me an adjective if you have one, no complaints). Is there a word that could capture this sentiment?


texts: What is the grammatically correct way to say "Have you ever been shot at?"

texts:
"Have you ever been shot?" is semantically different since it implied the person was actually hit.

"Have you ever been under fire?" is better but is also ambiguous since "under fire" has the alternate meaning of "heavily criticized". Even if the firearm attack meaning is understood, it has the connotation that the subject is also armed (soldier, police) or at least in a situation where an attack is expected to some degree, whereas "shot at" does not have this nuance.

So what I'm going for is a grammatically correct re-phrase of the question which maintains the clarity of the grammatically incorrect form.


texts: Was “God be with ye” grammatically correct at the time?

texts:
Several dictionaries I have consulted, as well as another question here on English.SE, state that the origin of the word goodbye is “God be with ye”.

Shouldn’t it be “God be with you” or perhaps “God be with thee”, or did the preposition with really take the nominative?


texts: Should I use "vue de l'esprit" in English?

texts:
I'm a French-native-speaker.
I'm not sure in which cases the French expression vue de l'esprit should be used, or if it should not be used. Is there any general case or rule?

For example, I have a blog post title that I'm thinking about in French as Vue de l'esprit : [a game name], because the post is about a game's drawings that drive its development. I'm not sure if I should use vue de l'esprit, mind view, or something like that.

Some people told me it's pretentious, so I may use another English expression instead, but whether to do so is not very clear to me.


texts:
I was searching for an English translation for the German Vordenker. Basically a person, often a scientist, who began or further significantly developed a new concept or theory by contributing epoch-making publications or comments. Translation services give out expressions that have more the connotation of thinking about actual future events or things to me, e.g. innovative business ideas/products or future studies. But Vordenker doesn’t imply thinking of future actually, rather new ideas outside of current paradigms. Also Vordenker is in my opinion especially used in a historical or biographical context, as you can only judge his influence retrospectively (e.g. times cited). A lot of scientists in German wikipedia are described as Vordenker in the first sentence while there seems to be no common english term in the english wikipedia.

Thought leader has a too imperative character.

Forward thinker implies to me thinking of future itself.

Key figure is too inexact.

Visionary means someone with new ideas, which possibly never have come true in retrospect.

Pre-thinker sounds like awkward & uncommon English. Is there a better known expression? Or what would be a good one regarding above constraints?

Update: See how german.SE thinks about appropriate synonyms

https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/2337/whats-a-synonym-next-to-vordenker-vorreiter-freidenker-pionier/2344#2344


texts:
'Upliftment' in South Africa and Asia signifies raising the economic and education status of the underprivileged or marginalised communities/groups.
Is there a British/American word (which is not
slang) which is a synonym?


texts: In the past tense, do you use "lay" if you come across someone lying down?

texts:
I thought this would be a quick search but I can't find the answer. I understand that lay is the past tense of lie but does this not sound awkward?

If one was writing in past tense, would it be correct to say something like "I opened the door to find her. She lay out on her back, staring at the ceiling."?


texts: Name for words that are counterparts to each other in some context but not antonyms?

texts:
What is the name for words that are contrasting counterparts or near opposites to each other in some context, but are not generally strict antonyms?

Some examples with word1 word2 (example context):

boys girls (sex or gender roles)
man machine (discussion of technological division of labor)
data control (standard digital hardware architecture)
plants animals (high-school level cellular biology)
shoes socks (standard layers of footwear)
weapons armor (two distinct types of equipment in a game)


texts: The comparative of "environmentally friendly"

texts: When using the comparative with environmentally friendly would it be correct to say environmentally friendlier, or more environmentally friendly?


texts:
What does "I can't never" mean?
For example: "We can't never come here."
Please, explain in other words.


texts:
I read the following sentence in a newspaper about a restaurateur's reasons  for abolishing tipping: "Many of the owners other reasons sound like the typical complaints of British tourists, who are perpetually confused by whom to pay and how much."

"By" preceding the use of "whom" does not sound right to me. For me the word "by" introduces the performer of an action, whereas I always thought "whom" refers to an object. This must be good English as it was in reputable newspaper, so can anyone explain how this makes sense?


texts:
I just wrote the following sentence:

  … there might have been interesting reasons for as to why they did.

My question concerns the passage "reasons for as to why". While this sounds perfectly right to my non-native speaker self, I wonder whether it includes just too man prepositions and whether "reasons as to why" would also do the trick. Any ideas about the difference between "reasons (for) as to why" and about which one ought to be preferred?

(By the way: google search provides hundreds of thousands example for both.)


texts: Is "recherché" a commonly used word for "summary"?

texts:
In Czech, the word rešerše, i.e. the localized version of the French recherché, has two meanings:

the act of looking up information on a topic
a summary of the found information

Thus if one asked for a rešerše, he/she would expect to get a summary on the topic in question.

Now, I was just editing someone's English CV and found the word used frequently there, the person claims it is commonly used in English, too. Is that true?


texts:
Is it acceptable to use back in place of ago ?

example :

  They met around three years back

or

  They met around three years ago

I saw the former being used in a reputed Indian daily today.


texts: Kind of sincere, earnest, like you might find in a kids' movie; homely, a little banal, or... it's on the tip of my tongue!


texts: Verb tense use with the locution "every day" in this sentence

texts:
This sentence "The customer service representatives (had fielded) more than 150 calls every day regarding the new name of the company", is part of an exercice where we have to correct a word or phrase in each sentence

the word to correct here is the one between brackets, it's obviously wrong, and our teacher told us that you have to put it in the simple present (fields) because of the locution "every day" present in the sentence, but I was not convinced and I don't have much confidence in our teacher because I know she's not very competent, so I decided to browse the web to search for answers and so here I am ...

I felt like we can also say (have fielded) or maybe even (have been fielding) in the sentence, and now that I think about it maybe we can also say (are fielding), but I am not sure ...

Can someone tell me which one is correct please ? And why ?

Thanks


texts: I'm learning figurative language in reading class

texts: What kind of figurative language is an author using when he says the boats, " hiccuped, growled, and whined"?


texts: Origin of the expression "Gone for a toss" in Indian English

texts:
I recently heard the expression "gone for a toss", which in Indian English means afaik "broken beyond repair" or "completely out of order".

What is the origin of this expression? Is it borrowed from Cricket?


texts: Idiom/phrase for someone that looks completely different from everyone else

texts:
I swear, there's a phrase (a simile) I hear a lot that describes when someone just appears different from everyone else in a given crowd or location.

For example, (and I'm trying to be as sensitive as I can), something like a tall person in a midget convention or something. Or a blue bowl in a cupboard filled with red dinnerware. A person (or thing) that just utterly and completely doesn't fit in with everyone (or everything) else there.

I've been trying to look up this phrase for the past half an hour at least, and my Google searches are just not returning anything useful.

Are there any phrases or similes that come to mind?


texts: Is there an idiom for the situation where no extraordinary people are available but mediocre ones?

texts:
I am looking for an equivalent of a Chinese saying "If there are no great generals left in Shu, Liao Hua (a military general of Shu) will be the vanguard."

It can be interpreted as "the state of Shu lacked great talents and new blood so that they had to let the elderly Liao Hua to fight in the vanguard". It is basically a situation where an unfit person is forced into a job because no one suitable can be found.


texts: Is "drool" used correctly here? "I am all drools for this library"

texts:
I need to understand, is 'drool' also used to express how you are in awe of something. Like, is this sentence right?

  I am all drools for this library. It has a great collection of books.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks.


texts:
Consider the following sentence:

"Is there anything you could say which would still be extant in 24 hours time?"

Does it make sense to use the word 'extant' to mean that some proposition would still be true at some time rather than that some object is still in existence?

Cheers folks.


texts: What does "…not immune to such charges" mean?

texts:
This is a GRE text completion sentence

  To claim that the prevailing account of an important incident, whether it happened last century or last week, is corrupted by disinformation is to enter _______ waters, for any subsequent account offered is similarly _______ such charges.

These were the options for each blank, the emboldened ones being the right choices.

familiar
uncharted
treacherous

related to
guilty of
not immune to

What is the sentence talking about when they say "for any subsequent account offered is similarly not immune to such charges." What charges? Because I don't quite understand the second part of the sentence I have a hard time picking a choice as well.


texts: "From case D to C" or "from cases D to C"

texts:
I am checking the galley proofs of a scientific paper we submitted, and the copy-editor changed

  In the transition from case D to C, ...

to

  In the transition from cases D to C, ...

Why is this preferred?

More context, for those interested:

  Looking at the proof for the upper bound in Section 5 (specifically,
  the second case in Figure 13b), we observe that in the transition from case D to C, there is 2 · |as| of unused potential. Since we are trying to show ...


texts: What is the one word expression for 'wayside grass'?

texts: I knew a word that meant wayside grass in English; but now I can not remember.


texts: Is health related or health-related correct in speaking about health related issues?

texts: Is health related or health-related correct?  For example, would one write health related issues or health-related issues and health related efforts or health-related efforts?


texts: Is it common to use "Amen" to show agreement?

texts: Instead of using "Amen" as Christians finish their prayer, is it also common in English-speaking churches (I'm from a Chinese-speaking church) to say "Amen" whenever believers feel strongly like to agree with others as they pray? I'm talking about this use as a response to other's prayer, and after a person's own spiritually encouraging sharing, as in:"We finally got a chance to talk about God there. Amen!" Thanks for the answer.


texts: After the colon, should I use “to speak” and then “to be” or just the bare infinitives?

texts:
After the colon, should I use “to speak” and then “to be” or just the bare infinitives in the following sentence:

Now, you can see what the two necessary conditions were in order to stay here: (to) respect  these old men and (to) be an honest
man.


texts: When did the phrase "draw into one's orbit" first appear?

texts:
My question is a bit more complicated than that, actually. Here's a quote from Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita":

  "Whose cat has scratched poor you?" A full-blown fleshy handsome woman
  of the repulsive type to which I was particularly attractive might ask
  me at the "lodge," during a table d'hote dinner followed by dancing
  promised to Lo. This was one of the reasons why I tried to keep as far
  away from people as possible, while Lo, on the other hand, would do
  her utmost to draw as many potential witnesses into her orbit as she
  could.

Was it before or after "orbit" became a popular astronomical term? (I.e. before or after Kepler?)


texts:
Collins American English Dictionary says:

  squinch (skwɪntʃ)

  (US)

  transitive verb

  to squint (the eyes); squinched up her eyes in disgust. M-W

    2.

  a. to pucker or screw up (the face, nose, brow, etc.); Jonathan squinched his face into a grimace. Google Books

  b. to squeeze or compress; She squinched the paper up in an angry twist and stood to throw it into the stove Google Books; Robert squinched the ketchup bottle, trying to get the last bit out.

  intransitive verb

  to squint, pucker, or contort
  to crouch down or draw oneself together so as to seem smaller; I squinched down under the sheet; The man squinched down to fit under the table (Source: American Literature Unit 11 Vocab Notes.)
  to flinch

  Word Origin: probably blend of squint and pinch

  First Known Use: 1835

  Example Sentences Including "squinch:"

  Cooper saw her squinch up her eyes, trying to make out who was standing outside her kitchen window.

  An unhappy smile is still a smile, insofar as the corners of the mouth are drawn back or upturned. However, the eyebrows may be furrowed, and the eyes may be squinched or teary. Also, the lips tend to be pressed together, rather than relaxed as in a happy smile. ELU

My question is, how do native speakers of AmEng use the verb squinch in the senses supported above by CAED?

In addition, what's the difference between using either "squinch" or "squint/flinch" as in the following examples:

  She squinched (up) her eyes, trying to make out who was standing outside.

  She squinted her eyes, trying to make out who was standing outside.

-and-

  The driver squinched as the sun hit his windshield.

  The driver squinted as the sun hit his windshield.

-and-

  The children squinched so as to scare each other.

  The children squinted so as to scare each other.

-and-

  He squinched as the cold water struck him.

  He flinched as the cold water struck him.

-and-

  She squinched when they showed the slaughtering of the calf.

  She flinched when they showed the slaughtering of the calf.


texts: What type of antonym pair is borrow and lend? (and more generally, what's the relationship between relational vs. reversive antonyms?)

texts: I've seen different sources (linguistics textbooks, online sources) classify the pair as "reversive" or as "relational/converse" antonyms. More generally, it seems sources vary in their coverage of the main antonym types--they all discuss gradable and binary/complementary pairs, but some give reversives and not converse and vice versa. It makes me think they're often lumped together, but it seems reversives and converse antonyms are distinct. For example, it seems reversives are primarily verbs. Can reversives be seen as a sub-type of converse? Thanks for shedding any light on this!


texts: A more formal alternative to "trial by fire"

texts: A group of us were forced to figure out how to perform a task with little to no instructions.  The closest phrase I could come up with is "trial by fire", but this is for use in a cover letter for a job.  Is there a less colloquial way to express this concept?  "Learn on the job" came to mind, but we didn't really have a supervisor to go ask for help.


texts: single word to represent the phrase "being available/helpful 24/7" in a team

texts: I was just wondering if there was a single word to represent the phrase "something that is available/accessible all the time". The context for this is to thanks all the members of a team who helped to accomplish something and they were available 24/7 for the last few weeks.


texts: What is the equivalent of "euphony" when applied to writing?

texts:
In the details below, I use something to stand in for the word I am looking for. Speech may have euphony; writing may have something.

For example, when writing about the relative sizes of items, I might prefer to use "gigantic" and "tiny" as opposed to "big" and "minuscule," for consistency between word length and meaning. This has to do with the way the words appear on visually the page, not necessarily how they sound. In particular, the words chosen have something because of their character (or letter) count.

Clarification: I suppose "looks good" would be the meaning I am seeking (euphony is basically "sounds good" / "good sound"). I am looking for a single word, though, that is specific to writing. A lot of things that aren't writing "look good."

In response to @Zan700: he picks out that my above example is analogous to onomatopoeia. But here is another example: I might find words whose characters are all the same height to be pleasing to the eye, so for a user ID, I might pick "neo" instead of "Neo" (as Neo does in The Matrix). For simlar reasons, I might use the verb "peg" instead of "spike," because "spike" is too spiky in appearance (spikier than "peg"). In this example, the chosen  words have something because of the shapes of the individual letters.

Yet another example: in the following poem (yes, I checked the definition of poetry in the OED), the characters are arranged in a visually pleasing  manner: the antecedents line up vertically, as do the consequents, etc:

first <- function(x)
                                if
    (0  <  x %|% length) x[[1]] else if
    (x %|%    is.vector) x      else
                         NULL

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so some would find the following, syntactically and semantically equivalent poem more pleasing:

first <- function(x) if (0 < x %|% length) x[[1]] else if (x %|% is.vector) x else NULL

The preceding poems have something because of their layout.

So the meaning I'm looking for is "looks good," but not necessarily for any particular reason, just as euphony does not, in and of itself, have a particular reason behind "sounding good" (it could sound good because it rhymes, because of alliteration, or because it sounds like one's own name).

If there is no such word, perhaps I could invent one (say, for use as a proper name in a fictional story, or in a poem). Someone with better Greek could make a suggestion. Perhaps eumatia?


texts:
This is not due to or getting aggravated by malaria.
Does it mean
This is not due to malaria and also this is not getting aggravated by malaria?


texts: I am in search of a good dictionary (meanings/definitions) with American IPA pronunciation... Any suggestions?

texts:
I am in search of a good dictionary (meanings, definitions, etymology) with American IPA pronunciation. Any suggestions?

Thank You!


texts:
I saw a Cook Islands tourism ad, and the English spoken there seemed very similar to New Zealand English. For example, the accent, and the use of "bro". (The sense of humour is also very similar to that of New Zealand, such as John Clarke's). This wouldn't be surprising, as the Cook Islands are in free association with New Zealand.

However, Paradise or Gloucester? The Pacific islanders who all speak with a West Country accent on Daily Mail Australia (not the most reliable source, I know), cites a researcher who associates the accent with the West Country in the UK, and apparently has no mention of New Zealand English. (I assume that if New Zealand English is also influenced by that of the West Country, it'd have been mentioned)

Is the English spoken in the Cook Islands similar to New Zealand English?

Searching for "Cook Islands English" mainly gave matches unrelated to the concept of the version of English spoken in the Cook Islands.


texts: Choking Game: what is a "locked doors" warning sign?

texts:
Today, I heard about the so called "Choking Game" which is allegedly a game played by irresponsible kids where you restrict blood flow to your brain in order to, later on, produce the sensation of having the blood rush back into it. Basically, you ask someone to choke you.

I eventually saw this image talking about it:

In the "Warning signs" section, what is Locked doors?


texts: How does it look v What does it look lke

texts: When people say how does it look, I want to answer "with its eyes."  I prefer a perfectly good "What does it look like?"though I hear and read the other version all the time! Which is correct?....I have even seen and heard "How does it look like?


texts: I know that there are two ways to pronounce the th sound. Like in the word 'then' and 'thing'. But in a lot of cases I hear it pronounced as a d sound, especially in fast speech or if it comes after the s consonant, for example. As in across the floor or as they went. In cases like these it doesn't sound to me as the voiced form of the th. Am I right or am I deaf?


texts: "What number is our wagon?" or "What's our wagon number?"?

texts: Which one of these two is correct? Which one is more common? Or, if none of them is correct, how would you ask this question?


texts: What was your main problem, when/in performing the analysis? [dangler]

texts:
(1) What was your main problem, when performing the analysis?
(2) What was your main problem, in performing the analysis?

"When performing the analysis" in (1) is a dangler.
"In performing the analysis" in (2) is not a dangler.
Am I right? Thanks!


texts: single word adjective for 'temperature-related'

texts:
As temporal is the adjective which describes things relating to time, is there such a (non-hyphenated) word for temperature? The hyphenated 'temperature-related' works, but I'm curious about non-hyphenated ones.

For context, I'm looking for an equivalent phrase to:

 "one's culinary preferences"

but with the word as described above.

Google has thus far been unhelpful in my search, though it did lead me to this fantastic list.


texts: Why is ‘Earth’ often spelt with a lowercase e, even when referring to the planet?

texts:
The word earth has several meanings; the most central one is ‘soil, dirt’, that thing we walk on when we’re outside. It’s also used as a name for the planet we live on.

The Lexico definition for this sense has:

  (also Earth)
  The planet on which we live; the world

Note the word also: the entry is lowercase, and this sense, in which it functions as a proper noun, also appears capitalised.

But proper nouns are as a rule always capitalised. Mars, Pluto, Venus, and all the other planet names in our solar system are always capitalised.

The first two of the following examples of lowercase earth are from the King James Bible and show that this isn’t a new thing; it’s been like this for a long time:

Job 26:5–13, Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

  Dead things are formed from under the waters,
  and the inhabitants thereof.
  Hell is naked before him,
  and destruction hath no covering.
  He stretcheth out the north over the empty place,
  and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
  He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds;
  and the cloud is not rent under them.
  He holdeth back the face of his throne,
  and spreadeth his cloud upon it.
  He hath compassed the waters with bounds,
  until the day and night come to an end.
  The pillars of heaven tremble
  and are astonished at his reproof.
  He divideth the sea with his power,
  and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud.
  By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens;
  his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.

Psalm 24:1–3, Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

  The earth is the Lᴏʀᴅ’s, and the fulness thereof;
  the world, and they that dwell therein.
  For he hath founded it upon the seas,
  and established it upon the floods.
  Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lᴏʀᴅ?
  or who shall stand in his holy place?

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Folio 1, 1623

  The Lunaticke, the Louer, and the Poet,
  Are of imagination all compact.
  One sees more diuels then vaste hell can hold;
  That is the mad man. The Louer, all as franticke,
  Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egipt.
  The Poets eye in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance
  From heauen to earth, from earth to heauen.

Chuck Palahniuk, Damned, 2011

  What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.

But why is the Earth’s name so different from the other planets’ names? Why is this proper noun so inconsistently capitalised in English?


texts: Is the use of the participle correct here?

texts:
Do participle phrases and clauses refer to particular instances only or can they also refer to long-term habits?

Studying the topic, he understood the concept well.

Here the sentence refers to a particular time when he studied the topic and understood the concept well. Would it make sense to employ the same phrase or a suitable variant of it to suggest habitual actions? Like someone's studying topics and understanding concepts on a regular basis. Or do I have to write it something like:

Because he studied the topics thoroughly, he understood the concepts well.


texts:
I have an software application that I need to "review against" a set of security guidelines. This seems clear to me, but a colleague questioned this usage.

One alternative would be to review the application "per" the guidelines.

Are there other alternatives? What is the best way to convey this action?


texts: Single-word and non-gender specific term for "every man jack"

texts:
I'm working on a book or blog series concept typifying a role (a software product manager) in a very down-to-earth way, and not in the glorified manner it is often described. I am trying to find a word (adjective) that describes the "every day hero" version of product managers (which are very common) and not the "superhero" versions.
Here's more background on the concept: Most of the time, product managers are described in a very idealistic sense, working at a Silicon Valley elite company, with a lot of support from the executives of the company that doesn't exist in most small- or medium-sized "normal" technology companies. Thus, the majority of "everyday" product managers can't relate to these role descriptions and become frustrated by the literature.
I have found that there are important principles that need to be implemented for the "everyday" product manager.
I'm looking for something along the lines of "every day hero" (think nurse or healthcare worker)  in contrast to "superhero" (Superman, etc.). Something that exemplifies grit, down-to-earthiness, hard work, generally non-unique and inconspicuous, but extremely valuable under the surface.
I've done some research, and found that "every man jack" may possibly describe these people, but it is out-of-date and Jack is still generally considered to be a man's name. The definition of "every man jack" is: everyone without exception, which doesn't quite harp on the idea. Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/every-man-jack
I'm looking for a word in the English language that conveys these principles in a concise way that is not gender specific.
Example: A Guide for the Everyday Product Manager
^ I am trying to replace the term Everyday with a better adjective


texts: Does the word "inebriate" work for marijuana usage?

texts: I've found conflicting answers online. Does the word "inebriate" only apply to the effects of alcohol or also to the effects of cannabis, or any other intoxicant?


texts: ‘Liar’ doesn’t have an antonym NOUN, and ‘honest’ doesn’t have an antonym ADJECTIVE. The best antonym I could find is ‘a cheating honesty’. Is this correct?


texts: The right word for saying goodbye to someone on the street corner, and then both of you walking in the same direction?

texts: This happens occasionally to me in New York.  I will part ways with someone after chatting, and then it will turn out we're both walking in the same direction.  What word captures this phenomenon?


texts: Is it appropriate to use "esteemed felicity" while introducing someone?

texts:
Is it appropriate to use "esteemed felicity" while introducing someone. For example:

  It is with esteemed felicity that I introduce Mr. Dan Thomas......

Felicity means happiness.
Esteemed means respected.

Doesn't respectful happiness sound weird?

I also noticed esteemed felicity being used in different context:

  All that was esteemed felicity here, is totally withdrawn.

What does this mean?


texts:
Should a brand name be italicized when used in a MLA-style paper? For example, tin he following paragraph:

  Future Shop, which offered technology supplies, was closed and in an
  statement the CEO wrote "We regret to inform you..."....

should Future Shop be italicized, as in this example:

  Future Shop, which offered technology supplies, was closed and in an
  statement the CEO wrote "We regret to inform you..."....

I have an MLA handbook but cannot find if I should italicize or not.


texts:
In an old episode of The West Wing, a British Ambassador is referred to as "Lord John Marbury".  Ignoring that once he became Ambassador he'd be Mr Ambassador, what are the possible correct addresses?
My reasoning is that a friend criticised a newspaper which used the form "Lord Firstname Secondname" saying it's supposed to be "Firstname Lord Secondname".
For example, with Lord Coe — or Seb Coe —, his wife is said to be "Carole, Lady Coe", but assume that's just the different names options (as there's a comma)? It's not explicitly stated that there's a correct way to use his (or her) full name, that I can find online.
I tried using the West Wing episode as an example, but they pointed out that it's an American show.  Indeed they get other details wrong, like saying two Commonwealth ambassadors met (when ambassadors of Commonwealth countries are referred to as High Commissioners when dealing with each other).


texts: I'm looking for a word that describes a generic document with questions. Something that might encompass a survey and a quiz simultaneously. Thanks in advance!


texts: How to write the date of an event that lasts a few days

texts:
What is the correct way to write, in American English, that something will happen over a date range?

The event will take place through July 1-10, 2011?
The event will take place from July 1 to July 10, 2011?
The event will take place starting on July 1 through July 10, 2011?

Any other suggestions are welcome.


texts: "constitute EU law an independent and overriding source of domestic law"

texts:
This is wrong? Correct is "constitute EU law AS or INTO an independent and overriding source of domestic law"?

Anne Dennett. Public Law Directions (1 ed 2019). p. 62.

  However, the court also pointed out that the status of EU law was only brought about by the
  ECA 1972 and will only last until it is repealed:
  In our view, then, although the 1972 Act gives effect to EU law, it is not itself the originating
  source of that law. It is … the ‘conduit pipe’ by which EU law is introduced into UK domestic
  law. So long as the 1972 Act remains in force, its effect is to constitute EU law an independent
  and overriding source of domestic law. ([65])

Miller & Anor, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Rev 3) [2017] UKSC 5 (24 January 2017)

  65.  In our view, then, although the 1972 Act gives effect to EU law, it is not itself the originating source of that law. It is, as was said on behalf of the Secretary of State echoing the illuminating analysis of Professor Finnis, the “conduit pipe” by which EU law is introduced into UK domestic law. So long as the 1972 Act remains in force, its effect is to constitute EU law an independent and overriding source of domestic law.


texts: Another phrase for "jumping on the bandwagon"

texts:
I'm looking for a word that would convey the meaning of jumping on the bandwagon in an opportunist way.

So for example, Sara doesn't like Barbara cos of their own petty issues, but doesn't show the dislike. But this one time, Barbara is accused by a fellow student for being racist. Now Sara might not even believe the accusations, but she turns against Barbara and jumps on the bandwagon of 'canceling' Barbara, not because she believes the claims, but because it aligns with her dislike for her, and gives her satisfaction for her own ulterior motives.

I hope I've been able to convey the sense of the phrase. I think I know what it is, but just can't think of it.


texts: Is there a difference between the words "zig", "zag", and "zigzag"?

texts:
In the book "The Green Mile" by Stephen King, a mouse is described to zig and then zag. What's the difference between the words "zigzag", "zig" and "zag"?

The mouse barley avoid Percy's last two jumps, first zigging and then zagging.

I guess I'm unclear as to the description given of what the mouse did. Is he saying the mouse first went in one direction and then went in another to avoid being jumped on?


texts: What is the word for finishing/doing a dare?

texts: Like when there is a "challenge" or a "mission" you can "accomplish" it. What word can you use for a dare. When I dare a person to do something and he does it what does he "do". "dare accomplished"? (I am looking for a better word than accomplished)


texts:
I was once told by an English professor that a comma should never be used before but in a sentence. For years, I have followed her advice but sometimes I just feel like it just needs to be there. On the other hand, my brain also tells me that the word but is, in a sense, performing the same function as a comma in the sentence.

Does anyone know if there is a rule for this?


texts:
Can you think of any activities that makes you feel out of breath?

I think it should be "make you feel out of breath" but my friend says it should be "makes".


texts: Is there a semantic difference in two repeated sentences quoted from a book?

texts:
This is a quote from "Clean Code"--a quite renowned book by Robert C. Martin:

The Total Cost of Owning a Mess
If you have been a programmer for more than two or three years, you have probably been significantly slowed down by someone else’s messy code. If you have been a programmer for longer than two or three years, you have probably been slowed down by messy code. The degree of the slowdown can be significant. (...)

For me the first two sentences bear exactly the same meaning and I am at loss of why they were written next to each other (to the point of suspecting the author to placing a pun on bad style of coding).
What is the semantic difference between the first two sentences that both the author and the editor decided to include?

Author uses this kind of stylistic repetition throughout the book:

Have you ever waded through a mess so grave that it took weeks to do what should have taken hours? Have you seen what should have been a one-line change, made instead in hundreds of different modules? These symptoms are all too common. (...)
Let’s say you believe that messy code is a significant impediment. Let’s say that you accept that the only way to go fast is to keep your code clean. (...)

However in these cases the phrases have clearly distinct or complementary meaning. This is not the case for the passage in question.


texts: If a town square is round, can you still call it a square?

texts: Since the town square is named after its most common shape, what happens if it has a different shape? Is there a different word you can use or is it completely normal to call it a square anyways?


texts:
Single word for "Making a Mold" or some such will work too.  I can't think of it and the Google is ironically overtaken by Microsoft Powerpoint links when I try to search for an answer there.

Hoping for something better than "templetize".

Context: I want to name a machine that does the reverse of what a template does.  I.e., instead of using a template to make an instance of an object, it takes an object, removes the specific properties that make the object a specific instance, and basically leaves you with a template you could use to create objects with.


texts:
I'm writing an essay and I was wondering if I would put a comma here before as:

  Reputation is based on integrity and wisdom as your ability to demonstrate probity would gain you favor among many people.


texts: In words like able, or candle does the l function as a vowel and the e function as a consonant?

texts: I was recently told as part of my THRASS (phonics program for primary schools) training that in words ending in -le such as able, crumple, candle etc that the letter l functions as a vowel with the schwa sound and the letter e functions as a consonant with the "L" sound. This seems counter-intuitive to me and I was wondering if it could be better explained by word origins?