texts: Is the term "antagonym" widely used to describe a word that is its own antonym?

texts:
There are several words which have contradictory meanings. They may have one meaning now, and have had a different meaning in the past. For example, the current definition of peruse is:

  to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner

However, the older definition (which is still included in the Merriam Webster entry) is:

  to examine or consider with attention and in detail

Is there a name for these pairs of words which have contradictory meanings? One site names them antagonyms, but is this widely known and used? Or is there another term?


texts: Can you use "extremely lesser" in a sentence?

texts:
I read this on a blog:

This sounds wrong to me, but I'm not sure which rule it breaks.

Surely it should have been "much less intensive...".

Is there any grammatical justification for using "extremely lesser"?


texts: What does "dire is the horseman's wheel" mean?

texts:
This line comes from the Scottish patriotic song "Scotland the Brave".

  Bold hearts and nodding plumes wave o'er their bloody tombs,
  Deepeyed in gore is the green tartan's wave,
  Shivering are the ranks of steel dire is the horseman's wheel,
  Victorious in battlefield Scotland the brave.

The rest of the stanza makes sense to me in the poetic language of songs, but I don't get this line. Presumably "wheel" here is referring to "turn", but then I don't see why that would be described as "dire".


texts: What is the meaning of Mark O'Brien's "The Man in the Iron Lung" poem?

texts:
"I scream
The body electric,
This yellow, metal, pulsing cylinder
Whooshing all day, all night
In its repetitive dumb mechanical rhythm.
Rudely, it inserts itself in the map of my body,
Which my midnight mind,
Dream-drenched cartographer of terra incognita,
Draws upon the dark parchment of sleep.
I scream
In my body electric;
A dream snake bites my left leg.
Indignant, I shake the gods by their abrupt shoulders,
Demanding to know how such a vile slitherer
Could enter my serene metal shell.
The snake is punished with death,
The specialty of the gods.
Clamp-jawed still in my leg,
It must be removed;
The dream of the snake
Must be removed,
While I am restored
By Consciousness, that cruelest of gods,
In metal hard reluctance
To my limited, awkward, déclasé
Body electric,
As it whispers promises of health,
Whooshes beautiful lies of invulnerability,
Sighs sibilantly, seraphically, relentlessly:
It is me,
It is me."

...I'm very confused by the meaning of this poem. The author had polio, which explains the general gist of the poem, but when I try and break each line down, I get confused. Why does he reference Walt Whitman's "I Sing The Body Electric," and what is up with that dream snake?


texts: Grammar question from A Christmas Carol: meaning of "quite as well that -- as have"?

texts:
I am reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and finally reached the last few pages, but I am stuck with the following paragraph.

  Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more;
  and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as
  good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old
  city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good
  old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he
  let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know
  that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some
  people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing
  that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well
  that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in
  less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite
  enough for him.

I can't quite figure out the "quite as well that -- as have--" part. My guess is that it means something like "he thought it just as well that they wrinkle up their eyes in grins, rather than making their faces look uglier", but I might be wrong. Could someone explain the meaning of this sentence and the grammar used here? Thanks!

Edit: I think I'm starting to grasp the meaning now, but I still don't get the grammar...why can "as" mean "rather than"? Is this usage of "as well--as" explained in dictionaries?


texts: What is the origin of "off-color", as in "an off-color joke"? I can't think of an obvious explanation, and fishing the internet produced conflicting explanations (gems, choleric moods...).


texts: Is there a software that can help my speech and grammar

texts: Is there a software that can help me to improve my speech and grammar?...like learning the past participle,present participle and etc...also in constructing the sentences...or if there is no software can you tell me where i can start in learning my english skills.I know this is ridiculous question but i am serious to gain knowledge.I hope some one can help me on this.


texts: Is there a word for something that does NOT belong to someone?

texts:
We use owned to denote something that we possess or that belongs to someone. What can we call things that do not belong to someone?

[Editor's note: I can't tell whether the asker wants a word for something that a specific person does not own, or a word for something that nobody owns.]


texts:
I’ve heard it’s becoming more acceptable to omit commas if doing so doesn’t make the writing confusing.
If a sentence starts with a subordinate / dependent clause but the sentence is short, does it need the comma? For example:
When spring arrives, the flowers bloom.
Can the comma be omitted?


texts:
On Twitter I see people say things like

her guilt is spiraling

Or

spiraling into madness

What does this mean?


texts: Is there a word that means "an argument/proposition potentially vulnerable to attack"?

texts:
A friend made an argument that I thought was fairly strong but had fairly easy lines of attack available against it. (Whether or not these lines of attack are strong/valid is unknown.) Is there a good word or phrase that would describe this proposition of his? The best phrases I can think of are "potentially assailable proposition" or "an argument that may have holes in it" or "an argument potentially vulnerable to attack".

Assuming Bob is my friend who just made the argument described above, an example usage would be in response to him:

Bob, I think that is a ____.

Edit: After thinking about this more, a key point in this question is that the argument is only potentially weak but not certainly weak.


texts: There is a subtle or perhaps more than subtle difference between the phrases "no longer valid" and "invalid". Can English experts elaborate with examples where one should be used and not the other.


texts: Is there a grammar error here: "He does nothing but chase girls all day"?

texts:
I found this sentence in a book written for English learners:

  He does nothing but chase girls all day.

But I feel that 'chase' should have been 'chases' (so to agree with the sentence subject 'he').  I think the sentence above is a short form for:

  He does nothing but he chases girls all day.

Am I right? Thanks.


texts: “Investigation report” vs “Investigative report”

texts:
There's an article on the internet written about how to write a report of an investigation.

However, I'm a bit confused of the usage of "investigation" and "investigative" in the article.

The link of the article is here: https://i-sight.com/resources/ultimate-guide-to-writing-investigation-reports/

In that article, they call it "Investigation reports" in the title, but they use "Investigative report" in the body of the article, instead.

I don't know whether this sort of usage is their mistake or it's grammatically correct. If they're absolutely correct, please explain to me the difference between "Investigation report" and "Investigative report".

And a side question, can I use "Investigating report"?

Many thanks.


texts: I'm trying to decide how to describe someone. He is not very wise, but that is also due to his ignorance. Should I use "innocence" or "immature" and can someone please explain the difference between these two phrases?


texts: What is a word to describe a statement that seems meaningless

texts:
Is there a phrase or word in the English language that describes a statement or a discourse that seems meaningless or so broad it lacks value?

For example

  Society grows best when those who plant trees don't expect to sit in
  shade.

While the sentence is cohesive, I personally find it meaningless. Is there a word to describe this? Saying this statement is trivial wouldn't be correct, as the implications are not obvious.

Basically I'm asking what's a politically correct synonym for saying something is "bullshit".

Another example is this quote

  We are prisoners in the present, locked in eternal transition between
  our past and our future.

Perhaps in context it's meaningful but to arbitrarily say we are prisoners of the present, I personally find is idiotic.


texts: Is there a word for talking without moving your mouth?

texts:
I don't mean Ventriloquism exactly, I mean talking around what you may already have in your mouth... For instance say you put something gross in your mouth and ask if its okay to spit it out.
Example: "Hey this broccoli is so gross. Do I have to eat it?" *said with broccoli in mouth but not ingested"

Sorry this is to crude, I just don't know how to exactly describe it...


texts: Word for being asked many difficult questions

texts: "I'm getting ready for the oral exam. I'm sure the teacher will ____ me with a lot of difficult questions."


texts: A couple of questions in regards to this passage

texts:
I'm sorry for such an unclear title, but I really can't figure out a better one to include all my questions.

The following passage is quoted from "An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy":

  One is sometimes invited to believe that the final stage in the understanding of Aristotle's metaphysics is an appreciation of the profound and mysterious nature of Being qua Being. Rather, the first step towards such an understanding is the realization that Being qua Being is a chimerical spectre engendered by inattention to Aristotle's logic.

What does rather at the beginning of second sentence mean here?
What does such an understanding in second sentence mean, does it mean "that the final stage in the understanding of Aristotle's metaphysics is an appreciation of the profound and mysterious nature of Being qua Being"?
What was engendered by inattention to Aristotle's logic, the realization or a chimerical spectre? If the answer is latter.Then, what if I want to say the realization was engendered by inattention to Aristotle's logic?


texts:
In 2001, the word "d'oh" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary after years and years of being Homer Simpson's catchphrase on the American TV show The Simpsons.

Are there any other words that were popularized by a television show or movie enough to be officially included in the English language? I am not aware of any, but surely there must be a few others.


texts: Can something be more unique than something else? Can something be very unique?

texts: Family debate - one says that uniqueness is relative, others say something either is or is not unique. Does uniqueness mean that there is only one of a certain thing/person, so that it would mean more unusual than rare?


texts:
The job of a student leader is onerous,  he says, and you can become overwhelmed by the responsibilities and workload. “So you must set up an action framework, and follow it through,” he advises.

Above is an article, the interviewee was interviewed by someone, which was in the past. Then why is present tense used?


texts: What do you call technical and semantic aspects of the law?

texts:
In Russian there is an idiom letter and spirit of the law (буква и дух закона). Letter is a metaphor for technical aspects of the law. Spirit is the purpose the law was adopted for.

There are cases, when a technically legal (in accordance with the letter part) lawsuit contradicts the purpose of the laws (the spirit part). For example, when a person sues a company for spilling coffee on themselves it's a technically correct case that misuses the laws. The purpose of the consumer protection laws is to protect people from misconduct of the companies, not from their own stupidity.

Another example: In "Breaking Bad" the agency that fights drug dealers tracks a criminal (Bob Ehrmantraut). His lawyer can't find any other way to stop this but to demand a restraining order (he accuses them of sexually harrassing the old man) on the officers in question. Again, this may be technically legal, but it goes against the intended purpose of the law.

What do you call these aspects in English? I'm looking for a nice expression or metaphor.

Sample use in a sentence:

  At this point in time the Yeltsin regime already broke the law both in A and B.

A and B represent the technical and the semantic aspect of the law.


texts: Why does "appropriate" (and also "duplicate", "deliberate" etc) have a different vowel in their adjective/noun and verb forms?

texts:
TL;DR
There are adjectives/nouns--verb pairs in which the adjectives/nouns have weak vowel in the last syllable and the verb has strong for example:

duplicate (adj): /ˈdjuːplɪkət/
duplicate (v.): /ˈdjuːplɪkeɪt/

Why?
Explanation
There are adjective/noun - verb pairs that have the same spelling and origin, but the adjectives/nouns have weak vowel in the last syllable, while the verbs have strong. While deliberating the pronunciation of the adjective deliberate, I noticed that the verb form and the adjective had different vowels in the last syllable. I don't know if it happens in other words, but the words that I've noticed mostly end in -ate:

Word
Adj/noun
verb

deliberate
/dɪˈlɪb(ə)rət/
/dɪˈlɪbəreɪt

delegate
/ˈdɛlɪɡət/
/ˈdɛlɪɡeɪt/

appropriate
/əˈprəʊprɪət/
/əˈprəʊprɪeɪt/

approximate
/əˈprɒksɪmət/
/əˈprɒksɪmeɪt/

duplicate
/ˈdjuːplɪkət/
/ˈdjuːplɪkeɪt

separate
/ˈsɛp(ə)rət/
/ˈsɛpəreɪt/

estimate
/ˈɛstɪmət/
/ˈɛstɪmeɪt/

The above words can be adjectives/nouns or verbs.
I understand that in other noun-verb pairs such as protest, the stress varies and the strong/weak vowel is because of that:

protest (n.): /ˈprəʊtɛst/
protest (v.): /prəˈtɛst/

But in this case the main stress in both words (adjectives/nouns and verbs) fall on the same syllable, but the last syllable in verb has the diphthong  /eɪ/, while the adjectives/nouns have schwa /ə/, so the word appropriate have two pronunciation in the title sentence:

Why doesn't "appropriate" /ə/ appropriate the pronunciation of "appropriate" /eɪ/?

While looking up their etymologies, I found out that most (if not all) of these words entered English in the 15th century. Etymonline doesn't explain why the adjectives/nouns and the verbs have different vowels.
Googling didn't help and I'm unable to find any information on this topic.
Why are these pairs pronounced differently?
What is the origin of this distinction?


texts:
I have booked a table for ten at a restaurant. Now, I need to inform them that I have done so.
Do I say,"The reservations are for 11.30." or "The reservation is for 11.30." ?

Alternatively, can I use "The table is booked for 11.30"?


texts: Word for a poem in which lines begin with letters of a previous word

texts:
I was wondering if someone knew the word that describes a poem where each word begins with the letters of a previous word, of if such a word even exists.

An example of such a poem is this: http://crosswords.net23.net/poems/Joshua.html
(I wrote it)

Someone told me there was a word for this kind of thing, but he couldn't remember it, either.


texts: What does "churned it up like a mud puddle" mean here?

texts:
From Paul Graham's talk for high school students:

  But as so often happens, the closer you get to the truth, the messier your sentence gets. We've taken a nice, neat (but wrong) slogan, and churned it up like a mud puddle. It doesn't make a very good speech anymore.

My understanding is that it means the slogan is being used for so many times that it does not sound good any more (hence the mud puddle simile). Is that correct?


texts: Can we say "help yourself" considering that you're ready to share your food

texts:
For example:

Do you want some cookies?
no
Are you sure?
Yes
If you'll change your mind. Help yourself


texts: What's the best way to write nested "and" clauses?

texts:
Say I have the following sentence:

  I went to the store to buy eggs, regular, chocolate and soy milk, apples, and bread.

There are two and clauses here, one that describes the kinds of milk I was buying, and one that describes the other groceries.

One option would be:

  I went to the store to buy eggs, regular milk, chocolate milk, soy milk, apples, and bread.

But that seems redundant and wordy. What's best? A big problem with the first one is that it's not immediately clear whether I mean chocolate or chocolate milk, since chocolate can be either a noun or an adjective in this case.


texts: What is the style of writing used in the Summa Theologica called?

texts: St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica has a very distinctive and consistent style. It seems as though his style of writing starts with a proposition and then lists some objections, then a reply, then a refutation of the objections and finally a conclusion. What is it called?


texts:
In'The Zen of Python', the last line states:

  "Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!"

What is the meaning of the word "honking" in this sentence?
I have read another question about the word "honking" in What does "honking" mean in this context? and they said: "Big honking [x]" is a colloquial way of saying very big [x]. Do these words have same meaning or the "honking" in the line has another meaning ?


texts: A word for excessive or unnecessary debate on an unimportant issue

texts:
I'm looking for a word that describes the phenomenon whereby a committee of people engage in lengthy and overindulgent debate on matters that, in the grand scheme of things, are broadly irrelevant, as a consequence of their ego and exaggerated sense of importance of the matter at hand.

I'm aware that this is a rather specific single word request, and I apologise in advance if it falls into the category of overly narrow.


texts: Is "place name + er" ("New Yorker") a productive morpheme?

texts: I know a handful of cities whose denizens can be called "city+er", e.g. Londoner. But is this construction still in active use today and can new demonyms be formed by it?


texts: "Your something with title ..." or "Your something with the title ..."?

texts:
In our software we are showing a status message when submitting something with a certain title.

Which wording is more correct for such a message?

  Your abstract with title "foo" has been received.

or

  Your abstract with the title "foo" has been received.


texts: What is a person being shown something called?

texts: Let's say I am demonstrating to a person "how to flip a chair" by flipping a chair for him. What is the person who is being demonstrated to called?


texts:
Most of the time I do confused with similar like sentences. Explain like I'm 5.
Thanks in advance.

Research is:
Are our consultants obligated to follow this Code of conduct?
I am obligate to submit time sheet today.


texts: What nouns could symbolize a choice between 2 options?

texts:
I want to name a process that has exactly two possible paths.  I'd like to give it a symbolic name.  These concepts come to mind but I'm hoping to think of others:

coin flip
double-edged sword
window
two-way mirror
telephone / fax
switch track (for trains)
fork

I'd like the concept to be widely accessible / understood.  Ideally it would have a positive leaning toward it, as it will be used with medical patients.

What are some other objects / concepts that go two ways or have a choice of two paths?


texts: Is there a term for words or phrases that we associate correctly, but not by definition or origin?

texts:
Simply put, I am looking to find out if there exists a term for words or phrases that we have commonly accepted connotations for, despite whether or not context exists of its definition or origin.

For example:

Breaking news: Most people probably cannot correctly identify the exact origin or official definition for this phrase; despite this, we all can understand it to mean a piece of information that is fresh and typically holds significance.
Classifieds (Adverts): Classifieds, in relation to adverts, is one that I find most fascinating. The large majority of people you may ask will think of social classes (work) or soliciting classified information, as most of us, especially in the day of online newspapers, are more familiar with a different meaning of the word classified.
Break a leg!: The most weak of any of what I could mention, though popular; consequently, hyperbole is not what I am seeking here. The Vaudeville origins may not be well known, however almost all people do not take this phrase literally - rather, we know it to be a call to good luck.

I do hope this question makes some sense.


texts:
Let us say I am trying to come up with a sentence that talks about properties of a computer algorithm and I wish to say that the algorithm is inherently fast. which is the right way to say it?

The algorithm is fast in nature

or

The algorithm is fast by nature


texts: How to describe level of proficiency that is native-like?

texts:
I haven't been born or raised in an English-speaking country, so I feel like saying that I'm a native speaker would be deceptive. On the other hand, saying that I'm proficient is an understatement.

English is dominant in my day-to-day life, I'm very much immersed in the American media, I get all the cultural references and jokes. I feel as comfortable when I speak in English as when I speak in my native language. Non-natives never suspect I'm not a native, though natives do sometimes pick up on something after we talk for a while.

I'm writing a CV and I'm looking for a suitable label. Usually I simply stated that I have a C2 language certificate but since I've gotten the certificate I've improved and - as I said - now it kind of seems as an understatement.
Any suggestions?


texts: Is there a general rule for the prefixation of "un-" and "de-" to words?

texts:
Given the different questions we have seen about the prefixes "de-" and "un-", I have grown curious if there is a overarching rule for terms that need undoing.

“Unselect” or “Deselect”?
“Unregister” vs “Deregister”

For actions taken that need to be revoked or reversed, which prefix is preferred? Is there a distinction created by the underlying terms? Is it purely a usage issue where the one most used is the one to use? Do "un-" and "de-" actually have different meanings such that both could help determine which is most appropriate?


texts: What do the joints signify in the metaphor "carve nature at the joints"?

texts:
I first encountered this metaphor in the 2nd sentence of p 267 , Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (1 ed, 1999) by Simon Blackburn. If it pertains to my question below, please ask me to quote it.
Source: p 309. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff

  [...] On this view, a
  conceptual system can succeed for fail to fit well, that is, to "carve nature
  at the joints." It can choose different joints to carve at, that is, it can con
  ceptualize different aspects Of reality. In addition, conceptual systems
  can vary in their "fineness of grain," that is, they can carve nature into big
  chunks or small artful slices: as Whorf puts it, with a "blunt instrument"
  Or a "rapier." But a conceptual system cannot create new joints, because
  objectivism assumes that all the joints are given ahead of time, ob-
  jectively, once and for all. A conceptual system is accurate if it always
  finds joints in nature (though it certainly won't find all of them) and inac-
  curate if it misses the joints and hits a bone or nothing at all.

Even if I correctly inferred 'joints' to signify the parts of nature, the noun 'joints' implies a sense of organised structure or synthesis, and so appears a strange choice for referring to something as pure and spontaneous as nature. So what have I neglected?


texts: Is "received with thanks" stilted English?

texts:
I just got a receipt which said "Received with thanks the sum of ..." Thanks stands for gratitude, so this looks fine to me as far as grammar is concerned.

But is this old-fashioned and/or stilted? Are there more formal ways of expressing this idea?


texts: Why is 'harmful' the correct choice in this 'fill in the blank' situation?

texts:
Although gossip is not h______ chat that can make conversations exciting, it can also be a way to spread something untrue about other people.

The above sentence is taken from a larger text on the topic of 'Netiquette' - internet manners.
The text is part of an example high-school entrance exam for Chinese students from back in 2016.
Each blank must only be filled with one word. The first letter of the word is provided to help students narrow down the number of possible word choices.
According to the answer sheet, the blank is to be filled by using the word harmful, which (to me) makes very little, if any, sense at all in this structure.
I have double-checked the example's punctuation and ran the "Although gossip is not harmful chat..." search string and its permutations through both Google and Bing, in the hopes of landing a hit that could confirm or refute the usage of harmful - all to no avail.
Below is an excerpt from the text including the sentences surrounding the problematic blank.

The manners also i(nclude) not looking through others' phones and not gossiping about others over mesasges, e(specially) when you choose "reply all" to send a message to a group of people.
Although gossip is not h(armful) chat that can make conversations exciting, it can also be a way to spread something untrue about other people. Gossip can be even stronger on social media than in real life, so it's b(etter) not to gossip.

Other than this being simply a case of Chinglish, is there another explanation as to why the usage of harmful is correct here?


texts: What is it called phonetically, when Americans change the pronunciation of "pronunciation" to "pro-*noun*-ciation"?

texts: I used to have quite a bit of trouble spelling the word pronunciation because it's a long word, and because the way I pronounce it misleads me — I say "pro-noun-ciation" instead of "pro-nun-ciation". What would a phoneticist say I was doing when I change the quality of the vowel?


texts: what is a shorter phrase of "a shelter for collecting outcome"?

texts: What is a shorter phrase for "a shelter that collects outcome"?


texts: I'm trying to find out where does the word OK come from?


texts: Is "key" as an adjective, meaning "crucial", standard in American English?

texts:
As an adjective, key can mean "Of crucial importance" (Oxford).  For example: the key facts are the most important facts, or a key worker is an employee whose role is especially vital.

In British English, key in this sense is every bit as common and well-understood as crucial would be. There are some stock phrases where it's especially familiar, but it's not limited to those; you could put it in front of any noun (say, key elephant) and, with the right context, it would make perfect sense ("the matriarch is the key elephant to protect from poachers").

Many years ago, when I was a rookie, someone much more experienced told me that I shouldn't use key as an adjective because "Americans don't understand it".  I've been carrying that "fact" with me ever since then – and was just about to impart it to someone else the other day, when I paused to wonder whether it's actually true.

I can obviously see that the meaning is listed in American-centric dictionaries (e.g. Merriam-Webster), but that doesn't help me understand whether it's a common use or an obscure one.  I can't find anything about it in any online American style guide but, again, that might mean it's completely uncontroversial or it might mean it's utterly obscure.  And the fact the word key has so many different meanings makes it a difficult one just to Google for!

So, can anyone help please?


texts: "Thank you very much" vs "thank you so much"

texts: Would you briefly explain the use of the following wish in different perspective with various examples please?


texts: Singular vs plural: the effect of conjunctions

texts:
Consider:

Please check that the username and password is correct.
Please check that the username and password are correct.

If I had to break the statement into its parts:

Please check that the username is correct.
Please check that the password is correct.

I feel that username and password can be seen as a single noun and therefore the correct form is is. Based on this answer, I'm confused: the number of the verb is determined by the number of the verb's subject. Is username the subject or object?

Can someone please advise?

This question was marked as a duplicate but the duplicate tagged isn't quite related. Rather, based on @user2370114 response, this question is a better match. Furthermore, it doesn't address my concern about the subject vs object distinction (as answered by @RegDwigнt♦).

To summarize:

If you are speaking of multiple things, and even if both were singular, the copula (verb of being) would still be plural.
Both username and password are the subject. Interestingly, in my use here, are felt more natural :)

So can I rather ask: is there ever a time when items can be seen as a single subject and therefore take the singular form of the verb?


texts: "Dink on their record", except "Dink" appears to be the wrong word?

texts:
I was talking to some coworkers and we were talking about some negative publicity on a company. I wanted to say "looks like another dink on their record", but I realized I was not sure if that was the correct word.
I double-checked the dictionary, and couldn't find a definition that matched my meaning:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dink
I'm thinking something like "scratch" or "dent" or "negative mark".
Like if you were driving down a tight alley and "dinked" the side of your car?
Am I just completely making up this definition? Not sure where I learned to use "dink" that way. I think maybe from Counterstrike where you get hit in the head it's a "dink"?
so question is: Is dink the right word to use in this context? if not, is there a word that sounds like dink that i'm potentially conflating?


texts:
I kind of feel like the first comma in the sentence below should be a semi-colon.  Does anything else in there read funny?

  As you’ll see in my enclosed resume, I
  have the educational background,
  professional experience and track
  record for which you are searching.


texts:
" Inspiring, informing and celebrating teachers since 1988".
Is this sentence right?
I'm confuse whether all -ing verbs in this sentence act as a gerund as a noun or a present participial as an adjective. Gerund as a noun needs a verb while present participle as an adjective needs a subject, right?

I hope someone could help me verify and explain that sentence above. Thank you.


texts: What is the difference between faulty coordination and faulty parallelism?

texts:
What is the difference between the two errors ?
I've tried to understand the difference between them , but none of the sources helps .


texts: Are there names for consonant-shifts when suffixes are added?

texts: I saw a spelling mistake on an SO question: submittion. That got me wondering, is there a name for the shift of ‑mit‑ to ‑miss‑ in submission, permission, admission and so on? Are there other patterns like this in English words? (Not simple stuff like dropping an e for confuse/confusion) and if so, are these patterns related to the language we took the word from?


texts: Word for when someone enforces a rule on some occasions but not others

texts: If you have a set of rules that no one follows due to lack of enforcement, but on rare occasions when a rule is broken, out of convenience for the rule maker, they enact discipline for breaking that rule?


texts:
I cannot find an alternative to name this concept: In a negotiation process, after a proposal is presented, time is left for the parties to comment on or object to it.

"Waiting period" alludes to the view of the party who brought the proposal and suggests passivity. Is there a term or an expression which would describe this period more positively?

("Grace period" was a candidate, but its meaning seems too remote.)


texts: What is the name of that feeling when one discovers that there is something "most others know that I didn't know"?

texts:
The person gets into some situation, certainly not perceived as a good one and not necessarily too bad one either, and then finds that most other people don't get into such situations. And he begins to wonder "what do/did others know that I don't/didn't?" or "how come nobody told me this obvious thing before?"

This might relate to the situation when somebody puts a lot of efforts into some occupation only to find that he doesn't succeed because his circle of friends doesn't have enough important contacts that others worked to develop.

Or this might relate to the situation when most of your circle of friends didn't get recruited into the military because their families preemptively found some possibly false though accepted excuses, and you realize that you just didn't know about any of this?

paranoia - implies some degree of obsession which isn't what I ask.

dawn - is the close term, but it doesn't imply that most others know this.

otherworldly - generic term that might apply to that person

naive - another generic term that implies a simplified/straightforward view of the world

I also wouldn't qualify such person as a loser because he supposedly put his best efforts, but the important pieces of information just eluded him for some reason.

There might be some terms in psychoanalysis or psychiatry that describe this, but I don't imply any degree of morbidity.

something that seems to be obvious to most others but not to me and nobody told me

There might be several terms: the feeling, the thing itself, and its realization. It also can be implied unknown what is it? or known how come no-one told me this?.

The thing might also remain perpetually illusive.


texts:
I am not sure about the usage of the word “restriction”. I would like to use it in a sentence like: “This video has some distribution and/or age restrictions”.

Can I use “has some” or is there a better way?


texts: Term for a person who can read but cannot write

texts:
I'm looking for a term to accurately describe a person who can only read but cannot write. While I'm primarily concerned with people who have never learned to write, I would also be interested in any additional terms used to represent people who have lost the ability to write as a result of disuse.

Both illiterate and unlettered imply an inability to read as well as to write.


texts: Word to describe someone's childhood stories that are funny, at their funeral?

texts:
My partner is writing a eulogy for his Mum. He is describing a time when she would share funny stories from her childhood. So here is the word we can't figure out.

I always knew I had Mum's Sense of humour. Mum would tell us her childhood stories. They were ?????

The word should mean "funny unforgettable"


texts: Difference between “undertone” and “overtone”

texts: Is there any meaningful difference between the terms undertone and overtone with regard to an utterance in the sense of an implicit meaning?


texts:
What's the difference between "afraid of + verb" and "afraid to + verb"?

Isn't "afraid of" used more for generalisations and "afraid to"
for a particular situation? For example:

She's afraid of touching spiders.

She's afraid to touch the spider.


texts: Can anybody explain what is 'a soft sentence' ? why they use words like that?

texts:
Can anybody explain what is 'a soft sentence'? Why do they use words like that?

Context

"they" are the German government, Hitler committed an offence and they gave him a 'soft sentence' the whole sentence is 'Sympathetic judges gave Hitler a soft sentence for treason. He was imprisoned in the nearby town of Landsberg.'


texts: What little had remained until recently of his ideals for the future has now perished.


texts: How do I understand the syntax of “He puts to good use things other people have thrown away”?

texts:
He puts to good use things other people have thrown away.

I have only seen “put something to good use”，but I haven’t ever seen this
pattern that is used here, which is more complicated.
Is “he put to good use” the adj. of “things”？Does it mean “the things
that he puts good use to”？


texts: Was the holocaust a massacre or a genocide

texts: What is the difference between massacre and murder? Like specifically.


texts:
The following is a comment made by a poster in response to this article:

  Absolutely correct. Intentionally obscuring who you are and what your desires are may lead to heartache and in rare occurrences broken lives. I personally, unlike this articles author never ever want to come close to breaking another individuals life.

What does it mean when your life is broken, or to break someone's life?


texts: Is there a single noun, preferably not a gerund, for the act of exceeding or surpassing? In editing test reports and similar technical material, I come across the notion of exceeding or surpassing a limit, threshold, or expectation. My dictionary searches have yielded only gerunds. I've considered "exceedance" but cannot find evidence that it is a word.


texts:
I suffer from spending inordinate amounts of time on email.  Once in a while I get an email that I can respond to succinctly by saying, "Thanks for the suggestion -- will do."

Suppose I respond to the email after carrying out the person's suggestion.  Is there something a little less terse than "Thanks for the suggestion -- done"?


texts:
I and my friend have started examining sentences to recognise parts of speech in them. In our discourse, we could not agree on the point that "naming" in the below sentence is a verb.

  The White House website, without naming China, promises “to use every tool at the federal government’s disposal” to end trade abuses.

Can you please help in explaining if "naming" is used as a verb or if it is a different part of speech?


texts: Why does the word "inadvertently" mean "not knowingly"?

texts: The root is advertently. That means “knowingly”. Fair enough. The root of advertently is advertent. That means “attention”. Hmmm … quite close. The root of advertent is advert, which means “advertising”. Okay, I am missing something here. What does advertising have to do with advertently? Are these the real root words?


texts: word/phrase for initial set of data or givens

texts: I'm searching for a neutral phrase that conveys the concept of the initial condition/situation/position/set of givens or factors impacting an outcome. For example, the idea of a 'headstart' conveys an advantageous initial position toward pursuing a goal. I am searching for something similar without the connotation of an advantage - but simply indicating the 'start' position, and a certain 'opening' configuration of facts.


texts: Can a Noun Idiomatically applying to more than one thing remain in the singular when it represents a quality or thing possessed in common?

texts:
Basic education consists of more than 1 Grade. Therefore a group of grades forms basic education.
"Grades 1 to 6 are basic education" Which is true because we are not implying any one grade forms all the basic education for kids. (Any and all of the grades teach basic education).
However if we group the Grades does this not now change? If we use "Grades 1 to 6" or "Grade 1 to 6" to denote a part in the educational system. Then they would actually become the name of the group were are describing?
If we renamed the group to First Stage then we would write "The first Stage is basic education".
So, which of the following would be correct? I would suggest all three. The first two are groups and we make a statement about Basic education (it takes place in Grade 1 to 6), but the last is a reference to what the individual grades do.

Grades 1 to 6 "is basic education for kids"
Grade 1 to 6 "is basic education for kids"
Grades 1 to 6 "are basic education for kids"

To me the use of "is" sounds natural as well as correct, however this maybe some colloquial influence. I have failed to find any reference to the Noun Idiomatically applying to more than one thing remain in the singular for anything unless it relates to a person
Theodore Bernstein, in "Dos, Don'ts and Maybes of English Usage", says that

Idiomatically the noun applying to more than one person remains in the
singular when (a) it represents a quality or thing possessed in common
("The audience's curiosity was aroused"); or (b) it is an abstraction
("The judges applied their reason to the problem"), or (c) it is a
figurative word ("All ten children had a sweet tooth") (203).

Ref:  Guide to Grammar and Writing


texts: What is the origin of the expression "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"?

texts:
Was Frederick Nietzsche the first to use it in his 1888 book Twilight of the Idols?

I no longer think so after listening to a provocative guide at the partly excavated ruins of the San Isidro de los Destiladeros sugar plantation and mill near Trinidad, Cuba. She described how slaves barely got enough food to stay alive – owners provided just enough to keep them working. When they could, weak and starving slaves foraged in nearby woods for anything edible. But Cuba's plants were completely unfamiliar to the Africans. Some of the collected plants were edible and "made them stronger." Poisonous plants killed them. In Spanish, "Lo que no te mata te hace más fuerte."

From Encyclo-Britannica:

  In the 19th century Cuba imported more than 600,000 African slaves, most of whom arrived after 1820, the date that Spain and Great Britain agreed would mark the end of slave trading in the Spanish colonies... in 1860 Cuba produced nearly one-third of the world’s sugar.


texts: Duplicate auxiliary verbs in a sentence (may we / should we delete the second?)

texts:
What is a general rule for use of auxiliary verbs in sentence? Should we duplicate it or not?
For instance,

  It is available for every item and (is) used with . . .


texts:
It seemed that we were closing in on a vision of our universe in which everything to be calculated, predicted, understood. However two theories eternal inflation and string theory now suggest that the same fundamental principles from which the laws of nature derive may lead to many different self consistent universes with many different properties.

paradox by definition is:

  statement or situation that appear illogical or contradictory but that may reveal an underlying truth.

It seems to me that the sentence starting from "however" is perfectly a contradiction to the sentence before it. But according to my answer key, "speculation" is a better answer as to which rhetorical strategy the author uses.

Source (where I found it): My SAT Critical Reading Preparatory Book


texts:
I have a question regarding reading dollar amounts. At this store, I saw some scrunchies on sale for $5 per dozen.

Should I say,

  These scrunchies is a five dollar per dozen item.

or is this completely incorrect? Should I reword everything into something like this:

  These scrunchies are priced at five dollars per dozen.


texts:
I would like to ask about two things

Can both "while" and "when" be used with a gerund?
Which one sounds better: "While ordering" or "when ordering" ?

While ordering a taxi, reliability is very important
When ordering a taxi, reliability is very important
When you order a taxi, reliability is very important


texts: What's the exact meaning of "You should have passed the exam."?

texts:
You should have passed the exam.

Can be understood as:

You are very smart; the exam is very easy for you; but you didn't
pass the exam.
You are very lazy; the exam wasn't that hard for you, but you failed.

How to correctly use should in many contexts like this?

Update:

Answer to "Can you elaborate how you arrive at the second interpretation?"

google "define:should", the first result tells us:

  used to emphasize to a listener how striking an event is or was. "you should have seen Marge's face"

  emphasizing how surprising an event was.
  "I was in this shop when who should I see across the street but Tobias"


texts:
Based on this message:

  I hope you consider my application has awaken your interest and I
  am looking forward for a meeting with you to explain deeply of myself.

The message is used in the end of my resume. Do you consider the message as correct grammar?

Today, I'm a newbie in English Language & usage.


texts:
I was interested in the following piece which appeared in an article titled "Let's Be Philosophical" by Russel Baker in The New York Times (January 25, 1987).

  It was that incident, in fact, that renewed my determination to get
  busy with reading philosophy. It is humiliating to be caught
  accidentally confusing Descartes with Hume.

  And accident it was, of course, for I am thoroughly familiar with the
  thought of Descartes. It is famously stated in his ''Puto ergo sum,''
  a Latin expression meaning, ''I am putative, therefore I do sums.''
  This is sometimes written, ''Cogito ergo sum,'' meaning, ''Being
  incognito, I naturally add up.''

  David Hume, on the other hand, was incapable of thinking such thoughts
  since he was never either putative or incognito and, being Scottish,
  detested the very idea of thinking in Latin. This he considered a
  disgusting affectation that the English used to show off Oxford
  educations.

Oxford Dictionary of English defines "incognito" as "(of a person) having one's true identity concealed".

Can someone clarify if the journalist correctly uses the word "incognito", as I'm not sure on this circumstance, even after reading the Latin origin this word ("incognitus", from in - 'not' + cognitus (past participle of cognoscere 'know')?


texts:
Let's say there is an atmospheric condition where the water in a bucket partially freezes then reverts back to a completely liquid state and vacillates back and forth but never actually freezes. Is the following sentence grammatically incorrect? "the water in the bucket is trying to freeze".

Someone I am debating claims that it is incorrect because an inanimate object can't "try". They say that "tend" should be used instead. I argue that tend isn't the perfect word to use because it implies a likelyhood or a certain outcome- eg "water tends to freeze at 31.9 degrees but not at 32.1".

I would never use try in a sentence like "thunderstorms try to produce heavy rain". They obviously "tend to produce heavy rain". For some reason, however, I find "the water in the bucket is trying to freeze" much more logical in this case than "the water in the bucket is tending to freeze". I would use the latter phrase if the water was freezing or mostly frozen, but not if it was staying liquid with brief forays into a crystal state.


texts:
In a golf video game I'm working on: "Succeed a putt from 50 feet."

This use of "succeed" bothers me whenever I see it, but I can't formalize why I think it's wrong.


texts: The correct pronunciation of the last vowel in words "a priori" and "a posteriori"

texts: English.SE, Hi, first time being here. I have had this confusion about the pronunciation of "a priori" and "a posteriori" for a long time, normally I just read the last vowel as /i/, however today my office mate asked me about this for he saw the pronunciation on Merriam-Webster online dictionary shows that the last vowel reads as /ai/, this reminded me that the philosophy professors whose lectures I took before didn't agree on this pronunciation either. Since I learned that Immanuel Kant borrowed these words from Latin, I wonder what is the correct way to pronounce these words in Latin or at least in a Latin'ish way.


texts: Do two subjects need to be connected by a conjunction

texts:
Temporary-employment agencies benefit not only from the increasing demand for clerical workers but also from the higher profits made when highly paid professionals are placed, requests for whom have increased in the recent wave of corporate takeover.

I am confused about the lack of conjunction after the comma. The way I see it, there are two main subjects, temporary-employment agencies and requests, but there is no conjunction to connect them.


texts: "The way in which": a grammar mistake or not?

texts:
I'm studying English pronouns and my book says that the sentence "the way in which" is incorrect and I have to use, instead, only "the way". Is it true? And if so, why?

Here are some sentences:

  1) That's the way in which the world goes round.

  2) That's the way in which I like it.

  3) Now we'll consider the two ways in which aircraft can fly.


texts: When exactly does "overnight on" certain day happen?

texts: When somebody says for example "That will happen overnight on Wednesday", do they mean it will happen on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, or between Wednesday and Thursday?


texts: Term for a word with opposite meaning to its root?

texts: I remember coming across a term for a word which has an opposite (or at least very different) meaning from its etymological root word's meaning. Does anyone know what this term is?


texts: Does the "rule of the last antecedent" apply to casual conversation?

texts:
The Supreme Court recently decided Lockhart v United States using the rule that

  a limiting clause or phrase . . . should ordinarily
  be read as modifying only the noun or phrase that it
  immediately follows.

to interpret

  ... the laws
  of any State relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual
  abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor
  or ward, ...

so that "involving a minor or ward" only modifies "abusive sexual conduct", and not "aggravated sexual abuse" or "sexual abuse".

Is that a rule that should be followed in casual conversation? For example how would you understand,

  Is there any beer or soda in the fridge?

  I bought a shirt and shoes that fit.

  I don't like to talk to strangers or people I live with.

Also, are there some rules of cadence or intonation that might help to distinguish the meanings?


texts: What is the ᴄᴏʀʀᴇᴄᴛ English pronunciation of a character pointer in C-like programming languages?

texts:
In programming languages like C, Go, and C++, the character pointer data
type
is denoted using:

char *

What is the correct English pronunciation for this data type?

Is it /kɑr stɑr/, so with the ‹ch› of char pronounced as in character /ˈkerəktər/ and choir /kwɑɪr/?
Is it /tʃɑr stɑr/, so with the ‹ch› of char pronounced as in chair /tʃer/ and child /tʃɑɪld/?

My colleague has been arguing that the correct way is the second version, not the first version.

Who’s right?


texts: Looking for an adjective describing a system with small number of assumptions (or rules)

texts:
I am looking for a word that can be used to describe a system (or a model) with a small number of rules or assumptions. For example, the number of grammatical rules in Japanese is much lower than in Russian.

The meaning I want is close to: concise, succinct or terse, except that these words specifically mean "expressed in few words," while I am looking for something that is more abstract, and describes the low count of assumptions, rules, and statements.

Saying "Japanese is a more concise language than Russian" would mean that ideas can be expressed with fewer words in Japanese than they can in Russian, which is not at all what I want to say.


texts: Question regarding a list of speech titles

texts:
Pretty stumped on how this sentence should look. It just seems like too much punctuation. This is regarding topics for talks at a conference. Thanks!

Topics will include: “Tools of the Trade”, “Making Your Own Tools”, “Industrial Clay: Content and Use”, “How We Finish a Surface”, and “Using Industrial Clay to Cast Molds”.


texts: Most appropriate use of 'to prioritise'?

texts:
Online dictionaries I have consulted are ambiguous on this.  Does 'to prioritise' something mean just to give something a priority value (eg. Low) or to set that value to 'High' (or both)?

In many technical/project management fields, it is important to identify if a task's priority has been assessed.  Until then, it could be said to be in an 'un-prioritised' state (not 'de-prioritised', which implies that a previously set value of priority has been reduced).

If 'to prioritise' strictly means 'to assign a value of priority', then what is the term for increasing the level of priority.  Likewise, if the priority is un-set (not reduced), has it been 'un-prioritised' (as I referred to above), or maybe 'aprioritised'?


texts:
"Use the installation wizard to choose between either a and b, or to install both of them simultaneously."
or is it
"Use the installation wizard to choose between either a or b, or to install both of them simultaneously."

Also, is there a comma before the second or, am I omitting any other comma(s), is it grammatically correct to have such a structure even, should I restructure it ;0


texts: What is the antonym of "digital native"?

texts:
A digital native is someone who has grown up with all the new technologies, like the Internet, and has no troubles adapting to new ones.

Yet there is still are quite a few who never really got in touch with these technologies; people born in the 60s and 70s, who still buy their music on CD, watch TV on a television, and only read news printed on paper.

So I am not looking for digital immigrant, as those people I want to describe aren't even discovering this new technology yet. They are still oblivious about them.

How would I call them?


texts: What do you call such kind of food/drink?

texts: If we feel tired or weak, we have some kind of food like chocolate or tea to make ourselves active or fresh. Is there any particular word or phrase for such food?


texts:
I try to understand the song 'Sober' by band Tool. And there are couple of sentence with won't followed by pronoun or noun and without verb. For example:

'Jesus, won't you f*cking whistle nothing
 But the past and done.'

'Mother Mary won't you whisper nothing
but the past and done.'

Also, I've seen same sentence in the 'Passeneger' by Deftones:

Chrome buttons, buckles and leather surfaces
These and other lucky witnesses
Now to calm me
**This time won't you please**
Drive faster
Roll the windows down

Maybe in Tool's lyrics it is interrogative with dot instead of question mark, but sentence by Deftones I can't understand at all. How should I interpret this?


texts: Is this correct English? What should one do when you're supposed to have *two* punctuations at *one* position?

texts:
This is the first sentence of which
  ground-breaking document:

  "The importance of a Web page is an
  inherently subjective matter, which
  depends on the readers interests,
  knowledge and attitudes."

In the paragraph above, is "This is... document" correct English? Also, theoretically, shouldn't there be two punctuations after "document", a colon, and a question mark, since it's a question. What do you do in such a case?

Possibly related question: A colon after "following"


texts: Case of the first letter after parentheses

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Where does the period go when using parentheses?

Consider the following example:

  It is obvious that f(x) < x (Assuming x > 0).

Should I capitalize the first letter of "Assuming"?


texts: Is "irresoluteoscillating" a word? Strange result from Thesaurus.com

texts:
I did a search on thesaurus.com for the word wavering, and one of the suggested synonyms that was listed was irresoluteoscillating.

However, the Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries did not have the word listed (Oxford: link, MW: link).

I suspect this is an error on behalf of Thesaurus.com.


texts: Is there a countable form for "literature"?

texts:
Literature is an uncountable noun, so we can't say one literature or two literatures.

But is there a countable form, as there is for information? One piece of information, for instance.


texts: Word to refer to a mother/father who has daughters vs. having sons

texts:
I was wondering if there is an English word or short phrase referring to a mother/father of sons as opposed to a mother/father of daughters (and vice versa).

The situation could be that someone who has a daughter has different concerns, let's say, in parenting than someone who has a son would have.

Let me know if you need more explanation.


texts: What's the difference between "e.g." and "ex."?

texts:
E.g. is short for exempli gratia, and is in common use to introduce an example within a sentence.

  Submit a sample of academic writing, e.g., a dissertation chapter.

However, some authors use ex. or ex: (short for "example") for the same purpose, and this form is listed in some authorities like the Wiktionary.

  Submit a sample of academic writing, ex: a dissertation chapter.

I know they both roughly mean "example", but which one should I use, and when? Are there connotations associated with one or the other?

This question has been asked elsewhere, and this very answer comes up when you ask Google about the difference. It would be good to get an EL&U answer for it.


texts:
I have searched and asked others for the answer to this but have come up dry: what is the name or technique in music where musical notes approximate/imitate speech? Note that I am not talking about vocoders where speech is modulated by tones or notes, but rather the technique of arranging notes so they sound similar in pitch/length to spoken syllables. An example is the intro to "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner.

Onomatopoeia is really the reverse of the term or idea I'm after.

I asked in the music.stackexchange.com site and while there was no consensus one of the users suggested that I ask the question here. "Rhetoric in music" and "lyrical melody" were suggested as starting points, but I find them vague and not accurate enough to the topic at hand.


texts: How do I introduce this relative clause clearly?

texts:
As we shall see later on, there are pairs of genes ______ neither gene
  dominates but each lessens the effects of the other.

Which of the following makes the most sense to create the relative clause?
-that
-whose
-in which
-whom
-of which


texts: Word/phrase to unambiguously refer to "aunt, uncle, and cousins"?

texts:
Consider this phrase

  Today I toured around the city with an aunt, uncle and cousins who came to visit me.

Is there a shorter word/expression that unambiguously refers to my aunt, uncle and cousins?

I am aware of relatives, but this is not unambiguous. So, if I say relatives, someone might feel the need to ask for further clarification, for instance, if it was my nuclear family who came to visit me.


texts: What "pining and repining" meant in 17th century?

texts: ...like in : may be dying or even pining and repining" or "dragging the pining ang repining victim to the grave"?


texts: Using an apostrophe; Centres or Centre's?

texts:
My sentence says:

  Coventry city centre's main transport links.

but there is a red line under "centre's" in MS word. Is it "centres" or "centre's"? I thought that you use an apostrophe for belonging.

Thanks in advance.


texts: "Plan not to retire" or "Plan to not retire"?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Order of “not” with infinitive

Someone edited my post on another StackExchange.com site to change the former to the latter.

Which is better?  I wrote the phrase the first way so that the infinitive wasn't split, but would appreciate other interpretations.


texts: Finnegan's Wake: "the least successful of whom was..."

texts:
Does the following sentence sound awkward because of the positioning of whom?

  Beans grew up in a Roman Catholic household with four brothers; the least successful of whom was the bank president.


texts:
In all of the descriptive dictionary definitions of “emoji” I've encountered thus far (e.g. Merriam-Webster entry), the plural of emoji is given an optional “s.”

  plural emoji or emo·jis

In the responses to When was “emoji” first used?, the term is described as a Latinized version of its Japanese progenitor.

Though it doesn't follow the Latin pattern exactly (there is no emojus of which I am aware), does its Latinization lend any credence to an argument in favor of using emoji for both the singular and plural form of the noun (i.e. as a defective/invariant noun)?


texts:
I am not looking for a fact here, I know that this is highly debatable. My question is about the information mentioned here in the sentence:

Many scientists believe that global warming and its consequences are highly influenced by human activities and not by natural fluctuations.

I understand it as a comparison i.e. global warming is more affected by human behavior than by nature. Am I right? Or does it mean it is not affected by nature at all?

I believe the word highly here is key, but I am not very sure.

p.s. not a native speaker, obviously :)


texts: Is it correct to use the word "then" to imply something of the past?

texts:
I am trying to identify something that was once a new thing. I used the word "then" to imply the subject as something that is already a past. But I am not sure if this is grammatically and semantically correct. For example:

  The team wanted to show the features of the then new Windows XP.

In this case, Windows XP was new. It is not new now. However, does the word "then" imply this meaning?

Also, should it be "then new", or "then-new"?


texts: Does a dichotomy imply that the two events are collectively exhaustive?

texts:
According to Webster's dictionary, a dichotomy is "a splitting of two mutually exclusive groups or entities".

However, does this imply that the two events must be collectively exhaustive (i.e. that at least one of them must occur)?
For example, does the phrase "a dichotomy of people who love alcohol and people who hate alcohol" make sense (since there are other choices, including being indifferent towards alcohol), or does it strictly have to be a partition (both events are mutually exclusive and cover all possibilities)?


texts: Misuse of past perfect or just ignore it?

texts: Why do I hear many Americans saying things like "I had ate all I could" or "I had went to the school earlier?" Anyone else notice this or am I being overly strict?


texts: Is there a single word for “one who explains his point of view very clearly”?

texts:
I am looking for a single word for a person who is able to explain himself very clearly and using the best possible words, etc.
I am not looking for "perspicuous", etc. The focus is more on the language part: someone who uses the right language and words to describe himself.
I know the word exists but its just skipping my head at the moment!!!
Please help.


texts:
I was wondering if interchange and exchange are equivalent and can be used interchangeably or exchangeably (okay this is an example already)?
What are the differences between their prefixes, inter- and ex-?

  It is common for XML to be used in interchanging data over the Internet.


texts: When do attributive adjectives follow nouns and pronouns?

texts:
In the examples below, "big" and "better" are adjectives following a noun and a pronoun (respectively) that they qualify:

The couple were shopping for a house big enough for their 42 children.
I don't like Clinton and Trump; I want someone better than those two.

Can someone state a general rule saying when this is done?


texts: "do statistical inference" or "make statistical inference"?

texts: Shall I use do or make together with statistical inference? Refering to this site, do is used "when someone performs an action, activity or task" and make for "constructing, building or creating". In my understanding of "statistical inference" it can be both: the action of drawing conclusions and the results of this process. So which one shall I use?


texts: "I have been to France." vs. "I have been in France."

texts: Do we use "to" or "in" when talking about being to/in another location?


texts: is there another way of saying: "shaky structures"?

texts:
What expression would an English teacher use to say that the handling of the language is a bit uncertain not with used with precision? In Swedish you can say (translated literally): your wording/structures - are phrased in an uncertain way.

Would a native speker use any of theses expressions: *shaky, cumbersome,ungainly, akward ....... or.....


texts: involves AAA and oftentimes BBB: programmers needed

texts:
I came cross these sentences today:

  When you write your code, you might end up with a chunk of code that is no longer used but still part of the program. Watch out for cases like these: remember that every line of code involves some work by the CPU and oftentimes a read or write to memory.

And I wonder what the construction "involves some work by the CPU and oftentimes a read or write to memory" means. Which of the following would you say is closer in meaning to it?

a) Every line of code involves some work by the CPU. And oftentimes, every line of code involves a read or write to memory.

b) Every line of code involves some work by the CPU. And oftentimes, the work involved is a read or write to memory.

I am confused because, theoretically, accessing memory is indeed one of the jobs of a CPU.


texts: Most common consonant sound (token frequency)

texts: If the schwa is the most common sound (and vowel sound) in English, it makes me wonder for ages: what is the most common consonant sound in English, in regards to everyday use?


texts: Is there a subtle difference between "inherent" and "intrinsic"?

texts: I've always used "inherent" and "intrinsic" interchangeably. Dictionary.com doesn't offer much help in distinguishing them.


texts: Definition of "kissing cousins"— Are the dictionaries wrong/incomplete?

texts:
With relatives in the US south, I always thought that the definition of "kissing cousin" was a second cousin (or more distant) whom you could kiss and subsequently marry (FWIW I never did either!).

However, a number of dictionaries have a very different definition: namely, a relation close enough to kiss on meeting (sort of like a hug, I gather).  I never heard the term used this way.  Is it a recent "invention"?

Example:

  kissing cousin
  noun
  1. A relative close enough to be kissed in salutation, hence anyone with whom a person is fairly intimate:
  The two species will often prove to be kissing cousins, for they'll crossbreed.
  You guys talk like kissing cousins

TFD and Oxford Dictionaries confirm The Dictionary of American Slang's definition.

The closest reference I found to the idea I mentioned was the discussing of Cousin Marriage in Wikepedia.

Has any else heard the term used to refer to cousins who can be married?


texts: Writing some as (S)ome - What does this really mean?

texts:
Statement: (S)ome happenings in the wake of freedom left a large legacy of misunderstanding.
Your employer(s) were not able to produce substantial documents to support your case. [background: two employer documents were required, a response from someone uses employer(s) - what is this kind of writing?


texts:
I am currently thinking of engraving text for our wedding rings. Idea is to engrave some nice combination of two words (one word per ring) in order to get phrase close to “forever together”.

I do like word eternity, so one combination that I could think of is eternally together.

Is that word combination "sound" and correct in terms of usage?

Maybe there is another option close in meaning?


texts:
I overheard my manager asking "What are you up to?"

What does that idiom mean? Is it an informal/negative way of asking??


texts:
I often get messages that end in "thank you in advance".  Is it a recent trend or is it my imagination?

This expression strikes me as misused in many situations.  One example was a recent post on this website(no offense intended to the author).  The question posted was ended with "thank you in advance".  What if the comment to the question is insulting or condescending.  The writer would not be grateful.

Let's say my sister tells me she would like a sweater for her birthday and ends the message with "Thank you in advance."  It is more like an order.  Emails from work ask for reports to be written by the end of the day.  "Thank you in advance" is often the included.  If there is an emergency and the report is not completed, is the sender still thankful?

In informal situations, it is useful.  If you can't thank someone because you will be away or busy, the phrase fits.  Is is presumptuous in formal situations, or am I blowing this out of porportion?


texts: What's another word for "fancy knowledge"?

texts: I'm trying to describe how politicians are using "fancy knowledge" to trick citizens. What word or words will suit to deliver the idea?


texts: We have come too far or we have came too far?

texts: Which is correct? "It has to be end here. We have come too far" is it correct? Or it should be came?


texts: What is the official rule(s) regarding punctuation and end-sentence participles?

texts:
I tried searching for this, but only received more questions, instead of answers. Recently, I was asked a question about participial phrases and the punctuation that surrounds them. Attempting to answer the question with what I thought to be a cut-and-dry answer, I confused my own self when looking to examples that might present ambiguity. Previously, I had always been taught that, grammatically speaking, we are supposed to put a comma before a participle phrase when it doesn't have its modifying object right next to it. This would prevent ambiguity in most cases. For example, "I jumped over the cow, attempting to get away." versus the counterpart with the comma omitted, meaning something different. However, what are the rules when these participles seem to be complementing? I have a hard time explaining this to non-native speakers who are focusing on the bare structure of sentences. This is the example that they asked me about:

"I went to the concert wearing a gray t-shirt." They asked if a comma should be after "concert", and to be honest, I really don't know. Usually, I would be quick to say it does, as per the grammatical structure and the rules that I've been taught; "I went to the concert, wearing a gray t-shirt." I saw this because the rule would prevent ambiguity when present. But then again, would it make sense to leave the comma out when there is no sign of common sense ambiguity. And if so, what role would the participle play in the sentence? I want to say a type of complement.


texts: Which speech impediments contain the phonemes affected by said impediments?

texts:
There are at least a few terms used to describe specific speech impediments which are themselves difficult for a person with said speech impediment to say.  For example:

Lisp:  Frequently conceived of as causing a person to pronounce the letter "s" as "th", although other forms of the condition exist.
Rhotacism:  Inability to pronounce the letter "r".
Blaesitas:  Softening hard consonants and hardening soft consonants;  including the pronunciation of "b" as "v" or "p".

Are there more examples like this?

Was this a deliberate choice (presumably related to alliteration), or is it merely coincidental?  I'm sure doctors wouldn't have chosen these words specifically because the affected people can't pronounce them, but is there an explanation of why these terms in particular were adopted?


texts: "over his turned temples", from a poem by G.M.Hopkins

texts:
From Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, "The Furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down"

  Then over his turnèd temples—here—

  Was a rose, or, failing that,

  Rough-Robin or five-lipped campion clear

  For a beauty-bow to his hat

I wonder what turned temples mean here. Should we read it as "his head girdled round (="turned") with a wreath (of flowers)" ? That is, does the poet use temples as a synecdoche for "head", because there's a wreath at about the temples' level?


texts: I'm looking for the spelling of the word which is pronounced [cashay] and means "a desired status". eg. "being knowledgeable in popular TV shows has a certain [cashay] among teenagers today."


texts: What do you call a person who thinks a lot?

texts:
Is there any specific word for a person who is always involved in processing a thought?

I could find synonyms for 'deep thought' - contemplation, rumination and so on. But I couldn't find if there exists a word describing the person always involved in deep thought


texts: Can I use the plural form when stating the possession of just one item?

texts:
If I want to say I have something without emphasis on the quantity, are both of these sentences ok?

I have an apple.
I have apples. (I may just have one apple.)


texts: The meaning of "troph" as in heterotroph or trophy?

texts: What does "troph" mean when we break down words, and where does it originate?


texts: Which animals can and can't be prefixed with "she-"?

texts:
I've heard of "she-wolf" (partially from mythology, partially from pop music), and I'm wondering which animals "she-" can and can't be used on.

Wiktionary mentions a variety of animals (she-ass, she-bear, she-cat, she-dog, she-elephant, she-goat, she-monkey, she-wolf) but apart from them all being placental mammals, there doesn't seem to be anything in common between them - some are domesticated, some aren't, some are carnivorous, some are vegetarian.

Which animals can "she-" and can't be used on, and why?

I tried looking for information on this, but came up with http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/115063-she-horse and http://lydbury.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2148.0 which don't fully answer my question.

The online etymology dictionary doesn't have any information about she as a prefix.


texts: Where can the Longman communication 3000 (most common spoken and written words) just starting on 2000?

texts:
I want to review my vocabulary by checking the longman list of most spoken and written  words from 2000 to 3000 (from 1 to 2000 I assume I know). Here I found the complete list:

http://www.lextutor.ca/freq/lists_download/longman_3000_list.pdf

I wanted the 2000 to 3000 separated from the other ones.


texts: Word to describe that task should happen in one way and one way only

texts:
I'm looking for an adjective that describes that tasks should be approached "one-ly".

To give some context:

[Task] must be performed in one way and exclusively one way.

or

There must exist precisely one method of performing [task].

I am looking for an adjective that describes this "one-ness". The adjective does not need to specify what the method is, it should merely prescribe that the task should be approached in precisely one way.

The closest word I could think of is "uniform".


texts: Same words with different syllabification

texts:
I am Italian and I need to split English words into syllables for suprasegmental phonetic analysis. I'm noticing that the Longman Online Dictionary http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/ gives different syllabification according to whether a word is a noun or verb/adjective.
For example:

study (verb): study (one syllable)
study (noun): stud - y

or

open (adj): o-pen
open (verb): open (one syllable)

Is there a specific reason for that and hopefully a specific rule to follow?


texts:
In New York Times’ (November 7) article under the title, “Poppy Bush finally gives junior a spanking,” Maureen Dowd introduced the following statement of Jon Meacham’s new biography, “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush.

  ”While G.W. Bush used to say that what he liked about Dick Cheney and
  Donald Rumsfeld was their brass appendages, Poppy offered a dimmer
  anatomical appraisal, calling each an “iron-ass.”

I’ve never heard the word, “iron-ass.” I don’t find this word in neither Oxford nor Cambridge online English dictionary.

Google Ngram shows that the word emerged around 1915 and continues intermittent usage at a nominal level of 0.000000045 in 2000 in contrast to “iron butt,” of which incidence rate is a digit higher (0.000000376).

Incidentally, Urban dictionary defines “iron butt” as a nickname for a long-distance motorcyclist. It often specifically applies to someone who has motorcycled 1000 miles in a 24-hour period.

What does “iron-ass” mean? Does it mean wrongheaded or ironhanded? Is this popular word, though Google Ngram indicates otherwise?


texts: Mystery word indicating a body part in a medical book published in 1563

texts:
The following title is written in a book by surgeon T. Gale published in 1563. I have trouble translating the last word: "Of woundes of the [x]".

Mainly the second letter after "B" is blank for me, B?ESTE...


texts: What's the difference between "false", "counterfeit", and "forged" when describing a document?

texts:
I'm reading Schengen Borders Code (2006R0562—EN) and in the Annex V Part B there's a list of reasons for refusing entry that includes

  (B) has a false/counterfeit/forged travel document

As far as I know, any of those would mean that the document bearer either obtained the document in an illegal way or has edited the document.

What would those three qualifications exactly mean and what's the difference between them?


texts:
Edit: Give a better explanation of my problem.

I am writing a computer program. I like to make analogies within my code to help me express the intent when I read it months down the line and it all looks like gibberish (code easily becomes gibberish if you aren't careful).

I am interested to find another word for someone/something who/that identifies something. The best I can come up with is "an identifier".

There is currently a theme of a police investigation throughout my code. There is a Detective and a Suspect; the Detective interrogates the Suspect (a web page).

I want a word to identify a bit of my application that, given a response (from a web server), after some investigation, identifies the implications of or meaning expressed by that response.

So far I have named the code the "identifier" because it identifies the meaning of the response.

The word must express the intent of identification, because that is the purpose of the code. Although witness is the right word in the context of the analogy it is not the word that I am looking for because the issue for me is expressing the purpose of the code.

Bonus points if you identify a better analogy. (When I reach 15.)


texts: Is there one word for "not challenged enough"?

texts:
I was typing an essay and wrote unchallenged to mean that the subject didn't feel challenged, but then I realized that unchallenged means "undisputed" and the definition that I thought isn't really attributed to the word. So, my question is, is there one adjective that means "not challenged enough?"
Thank you :)


texts: Expression for misrepresenting statistics

texts:
Sometimes when a lot of data is gathered, an argument against the majority can rely on selecting the rarer case.
For example, a medical procedure which usually does more harm than good can be defended by statements from the few it has benefited.
Is there a word or expression for this? It could be "cherry-picking", but that doesn't signify the deception taking place.


texts: Is there a verb form of the word 'surgery'?

texts: Surgery as a noun is also performance of a surgical procedure. Surgical is an adjective. I couldn't find anywhere a verb for surgery. Like how you 'operate' for the noun operation.


texts: Word/phrase to describe a behavioral condition where a little bit of effort kills motivation

texts:
There's a name of a psychological condition/behavior/phenomenon to describe the fact that a small increase in the difficulty of a task will prevent a person from doing the task at all.  It stems from psychology and behavioral analysis, and it's often referred to by experimenters.  It has implications in Computer Science with regards to users and the amount of effort required to complete a task in a program.

I can't recall what it is, and I'm having no luck with DDG.

I believe its 2 or 3 words together, and when I last read about it, it was on Wikipedia; I just can't recall its name.  It's a specific name of a thing.  I believe I've also seen it referenced in the SE communities on various meta.SE's.

Example

Some scientists running an experiment would take note of how test subjects would choose between a set of things.  If one of the things was slightly more difficult to obtain, often that slight increase in difficulty would be sufficient to prevent the test subjects from choosing that thing, and would instead choose the less difficult thing.

More concrete example

In more concrete terms, if the test subjects were supposed to pick up cards, then most test subjects would pick up cards off of the table because bending down to the floor would be slightly more difficult.


texts: About cases you don't use the article "the" and "a" | Would anybody be able to tell me why there is no article in this case?

texts:
I read an article of the link below:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-protester-shot-1.5303783

My question is why the subject "Hong Kong protester" in the title has no article "a" and similarly the specific word "China's Communist Party" has no article "the" in front of them, even though those articles are put in front of each word in the body.

Would anybody be able to tell me why in this case?


texts:
In the past year, I've started to hear phrases like "I know I've been gone for a minute..." when the speaker is referring to a time period that is significantly longer than 60 seconds (multiple days). That is, they don't even mean a relatively short period of time (unless they compare it to a decade or something).

Is this word drift actually happening? And, if so, where did it start? Is it purposely ironic?

Examples: 1, 2


texts: complicated sentence in “To Kill a Mockingbird”

texts:
I am from China. I tries to read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. I met a question in a sentence. The sentence is in the paragraph below.

  Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess. In England, Simon was irritated by the persecution of those who called themselves Methodists at the hands of their more liberal brethren, and as Simon called himself a Methodist, he worked his way across the Atlantic to Philadelphia, thence to Jamaica, thence to Mobile, and up the Saint Stephens. Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel. So Simon, having forgotten his teacher’s dictum on the possession of human chattels, bought three slaves and with their aid established a homestead on the banks of the Alabama River some forty miles above Saint Stephens. He returned to Saint Stephens only once, to find a wife, and with her established a line that ran high to daughters. Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.

The sentence is "Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel".

Does "Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling" mean "Simon was aware that John Wesley very harshly criticized using many words to describe purchases and sales in the writing"?

Does "the putting on of gold and costly apparel" mean "Simon dressed himself in gold and expensive clothes "?

Does the word "as" in "as the putting on of gold and costly apparel" have the same meaning as the word "as" in the sentence "A flat stone was used as a table"?

http://www.penfield.edu/webpages/jgarbarino/files/to_kill_a_mockingbird_text.pdf


texts: Any difference between "past" and "last"?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  “In the last 3 months” vs “in the past 3 months”

Which of the following is the right one to use?
(a) In the past three years, ....
(b) In the last three years, ....


texts: What rules govern uniform mispronounciation of romance languages?

texts:
As someone who isn’t a native speaker of English, I’m often fascinated by how those who are seem to change the pronunciation of words originally from French, Italian, Spanish, and so on in a seemingly uniform manner.

But what unofficial rules govern this?

For instance, I recently looked in my fridge and saw a bottle of Tabasco chipotle hot sauce. The label said pronounced chee-POHT-lay and obviously, that's nowhere near how a Spanish speaking person would say it.

image credit social-brain.com

But what is it that makes Englishmen and Americans alike mispronounce — or perhaps I should say alter the pronunciation — in the same way?


texts: Is the comma in the sentence: 'His is the Yorkshire Terrier, the one with the red collar' correct?

texts: Is this comma correct or should it be a colon?


texts: plural or singular for a single-entry set

texts: There is a term "a set of generalized coordinates" in physics that is used to describe a system. But for some simple systems, the set contains just one generalized coordinate. Can we say, for example, "we define {x} as a set of generalized coordinates"?


texts: Dichotomy... trichotomy... what about more than three cases?

texts:
Is there a synonym or (concise phrase) for a dichotomy when there is an unspecified number of discrete groups?

The exact number is not known, so it is not suitable to write tetrachotomy, hexachotomy, etc.


texts: How to say no politely and friendly to recommendations from waiters/staffs at a restaurant/cafe?

texts:
I am not a native English speaker and have a question about alternative expressions for "no thank you" especially in a Cafe/restaurant.

When I order something over a counter or at a table, sometimes staffs/waiters friendly offer some recommendations like "How would you like today's soup with?" or "Would you like to try new dark chocolate cookies?"　with good smiles.

I know the best response to their friendliness is to order their recommendations but most of the time I cannot. I do my best to express my appreciation saying "no thank you" with a regretful smile but I always feel bad about my poor vocabulary.

Could you tell me any friendly expressions other than "no thank you" that I can use in that situation?


texts: Minimizing the Number of Syllables when Pronouncing Years

texts:
Question
Do native English speakers minimize the number of syllables when they pronounce years?
Furthermore, is there linguistics/psychology literature on this phenomenon?

Observations
Here is a table showing how I pronounce some years (I don't know how to render into the IPA, but I hope this is clear enough).

Year
Pronounced (R)
Pedantic (E)
(E - R)

1701
seventeen-o-one (5)
one thousand seven hundred one (8)
3

1777
seventeen-seventy-seven (8)
one thousand seven hundred seventy seven (12)
4

1901
nineteen-o-one (4)
one thousand nine hundred one (7)
3

1999
nineteen-ninety-nine (5)
one thousand nine hundred ninety nine (9)
4

2000
two-thousand (3)
two thousand (3)
0

2001
two-thousand-one (4)
two thousand one (4)
0

2007
two-thousand-seven (5)
two thousand seven (5)
0

2009
two-thousand-nine (4)
two thousand nine (4)
0

2010
twenty-ten (3)
two thousand ten (4)
1

2011
twenty-eleven (5)
two thousand eleven (6)
1

2020
twenty-twenty (4)
two thousand twenty (5)
1

Year is a numeral representation of a year, Pronounced is how I pronounce the year, Pedantic shows how I would pronounce the number formally, (numbers in parentheses) show my count for the number of syllables in each word. (E - R) shows the difference between the number of syllables in the pedantic and pronounced cases, representing how many syllables I avoid pronouncing by taking a shortcut. Notice that (E - R) is always greater than or equal to zero.

In each row, the way I pronounce a year appears to be near the lowest possible number of syllables that still communicates the number.
An exception is 1777. I could save one syllable by saying "one seven seven seven"—seven syllables instead of eight.
I do not pronounce 2009 as "twenty-o-nine," but that pronunciation does not seem bad since it has the same number of syllables as "two-thousand-nine."
Some Comments and Prior Reading
I noticed this at the transitions between the 2000, 2010, and 2020 decades; and currently the "minimizing syllables" hypothesis is my best guess for why I often hear years pronounced differently.
An article that discussed how years in the first decades (00s) remarked on differences between American English and British English pronunciation, but the majority of its focus was whether the term 'aughts' was used historically[1]

... Americans living at the turn of the century referred to individual years as “aughts,” meaning zero, as in “nineteen aught one,” “nineteen aught two,” etc.

"Nineteen aught one" and "Nineteen o one" have the same number of syllables by my count.
A Macmillan Dictionary Blog post speculated on how we might pronounce years that haven't occurred yet (e.g. 2100, 2101), and claimed (without citing) a BBC newsreaders poll that people usually pronounced 2009 as "twenty oh nine," then concluded:[2]

As for why this way of saying years arose in the first place, I suspect it is simply because it is easier and quicker – try saying 1777 both ways to see what I mean.

There are a few previous English Language & Usage StackExchange posts that deal with similar topics:

Saying dates in English (closed)
Quiz Show Jeopardy: Are the 1910s called 'nineteen-tens' or 'nineteen-teens

... but neither fit the 'minimize syllables' portion.
The accepted answer to What are the rules for pronunciation of years in English? deals with this, but doesn't cite sources.
Footnotes

[1]: Beam, Christopher. "The Uh-Ohs; What should we call the last decade?". Slate, 18 Dec. 2009. Accessed 17 April 2021.
[2]: Potter, Liz. "Saying dates". Macmillan Dictionary Blog, 2010. Accessed 17 April 2021.


texts: L versus LL in British versus US English

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  When is “L” doubled?

Is there any guidance on the usage of doubled consonants, particularly L, in British versus US English? For example 'Travelled' v. 'Traveled', 'Cancelled' v. 'Canceled', but then 'Enrolment' v. 'Enrollment'. Then there's 'Travelling' v. 'Traveling' etc.

In each case I've put what I consider to be the British standard first.

Just wondering if there's any consistency, for example 'in present and past participles ending in L the British usage is to add a second L'?


texts:
Do these two phrases have the same meaning?

He met a lot of  people in London.
He met quite a lot of people in London.

or

I swim a lot.
I swim quite a lot.

Do the above sentences in each pair mean the same thing?


texts: What is the origin of the knock-knock joke?

texts: Almost everyone knows about knock-knock jokes.  Who made them up, and why did they catch on?


texts:
Is the following sentence grammatically correct?

  G is generated by 2k+t number of 7-cycles.

Edit:
I found the following expressions

  then the product set A X B has the arithmetic n X m number of elements.

in https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0793185149, and

  If A[21] is the array to be checked and the maximum value that it stores is M, then take another array B[M] with M number of elements.

in https://books.google.com/books?isbn=9380599021

which convinced me that my sentence is correct.

Thank you, for your attentions.


texts:
If a measurement is a quantitative observation, then what is the word for a qualitative observation?

Measurement: 1 cup
X: smells old


texts:
I recently read a blog and come across the phrase "True dat".
I think it means "Agree". But what is "dat" exactly?
Thanks,


texts:
paranoid /ˈperəˌnoɪd/

Is there a trend that /æ/ makes a transition to /e/ in America?

When I first came across the pronunciation in Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s (2008 version), I thought there might be a typo. But merriam-webster.com has /e/ sound followed by /a/-- \ˈper-ə-ˌnoid, ˌpa-rə-\

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1986 version) has /a/ followed by /e/.
So I guess /e/ is a new trend. Is it really a new trend? On what cases does the sound be used? - none has /ket/ for cat.


texts: "Presented today with" vs "presented herself today with"?

texts:
Context: Hospital setting – Referral Letter

She presented today with symptoms of COPD.
She presented herself today with symptoms of COPD.

In both cases, to the hospital is omitted. Are both correct? The first sentence somehow doesn't ring right.


texts: Is there a British equivalent for "Monday morning quarterback"?

texts:
Is there a British or general English (as opposed to Americanism) equivalent for "Monday morning quarterback" that describes someone who acts as if they had known the result of something all along. Or someone who criticizes something after the fact.

She is playing a Monday morning quarterback and acting as if she had seen it coming.

or

He always plays the Monday morning quarterback and tells us what we should have done.


texts: How should I phrase a response to acknowledge special considerations without sounding arrogant?

texts:
I requested to change majors, which required special accommodations for me from the program chair person.
I was just notified by email that my request was accepted.
In that email, the sender says essentially that my request will be approved 'based on [my] current qualifications'.

I want to acknowledge and express genuine appreciation of these special considerations, without sounding arrogant or patronizing.

My initial instinct was something like the following:

  I realize that my coursework doesn't match what the other students have taken, and I appreciate both your willingness to consider the content of the courses I've taken and your time in doing so.

(My entire response is longer, but this is the part that I'm worried sounds arrogant when I read it back.)

I'm particularly concerned about the acknowledgement part, which I've phrased here as "I realize that ...".
I've tried replacing 'realize' with various synonyms, but the sentence still sounds patronizing to me.
I thought about being more explicit, e.g., "I want to acknowledge that ...", but this doesn't sound 'right' to me either.

How should I phrase a response (in an email) to acknowledge special considerations without sounding arrogant?


texts:
I read in a book and see this paragraph:

  'In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. NOW it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a dispute.'

What do "gave the wall" and "take it" mean in this context? I think "gave the wall" is build the wall and "take it" is destroy the wall. Right or wrong? Or it refer to a indirect meaning?


texts: In my example, do I use quotes around the terms I'm referring to?

texts:
In economics literature, the IV approach uses what is commonly referred to as the “first stage” and the “reduced form”.

Should I italicize them instead? I'm not sure what to use because I have not written many economics research papers.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Is it supposed to be a HTML or an HTML
  When should I use “a” versus “an” in front of a word beginning with the letter h?
  How does one correctly pronounce the letter 'H': “Aych” or “haych”?

While not strictly a programming question, it does appear when talking about programming and in documentation, etc.

It is proper to say a href or an href? (This anchor has (a/an) href element.)

I am familiar with the English rule of using an iff the next word starts with a vowel, but many blogs are saying an href. I was wondering if href is an exception or those blogs have incorrect usage.


texts: Which is correct? As soon as the class resume? or As soon as the class resumed?

texts: Which of the question above is grammatically correct? As soon as the class resume? or As soon as the class resumed?. Or there is a better statement for that? Thanks!


texts: Would it be more correct to say "active winter holidays" or "winter activity holidays"?

texts: I have seen both phrases used by tourism websites. Are both correct?


texts: What is a word which encapsulates the meaning of both the words 'widow' and 'female divorcee' in one?

texts:
I'm trying to find a word which encapsulates within it the meaning of the term 'widow' and the term 'female divorcee' implicitly.

So for example, rather than having to explicitly state:

  The individual could be a widow or a female divorcee.

You could just say:

  The individual is a __________.

and that word would imply both the aforementioned words.

Is there such a word?


texts: A word for the basic elements of a videogame (physics, rules etc.)

texts:
I'm looking for a word that describes, in game development, the stage at which you have finished programming the character's physics, the basic rules of the game and possibly the graphics and music.

I'm not talking about an "engine" as that is much more bare bones than the stage I'm talking about, though it's similar. I could use the Unity engine and start making a game, and then get to the point where I have finished programming the rules and the physics and what kind of a game it is, and now all that is left is creating levels and finishing touches.

I suppose "framework" is kind of what I'm looking for, but more specific to videogames.

  I'm using the Unity Engine. I have just finished creating the ******, now all that's left is to create some actual levels.


texts: Terminology and the morphology of 'librarian'

texts:
I was hoping someone could help me out with a terminology question.
What is it called when you remove a letter to add a derivational bound morpheme to a free morpheme (i.e. library + -ian = librar(y)ian.
Thanks in advance