texts:
I'm editing the autobiography of a German-American woman who grew up during Hitler's reign. There are several instances where she uses quotation marks in a way that I'm not sure is correct.

1.
Life has a way of taking unexpected turns, or as a German saying goes, "Der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt."

Is it correct to use quotation marks around the saying in this instance?  She's not actually speaking it. Should it be italicized?

2.
However, when I told them I was pregnant, I was out the door. "We cannot have a pregnant woman stand behind the counter and serve our clients.  How would that look?"  I was devastated.

Obviously, these quotes are paraphrased and not verbatim words in a direct quote, and they stand alone within the paragraph. The speaker is not identified.  I'm thinking the best remedy is to rewrite these sentences and describe what was said instead of treating what was said as quotes.


texts: What does “non-white-haired audiences” mean in “Tony Awards, filled with desperate pleas to get non-white-haired audiences”?

texts:
Vanity Fair (June 8 issue) carries an article under the title, “Larry David wasn’t nominated but he stole the 2015 Tonys anyway.” It starts with the following passage:

  “It was a long and high-octave Tony Awards, filled with desperate
  pleas to get non-white-haired audiences to shell out a few hundred for
  theater tickets. Like most awards shows, you get to that point where
  you give up and look forward to the recaps tomorrow to narrow down the
  high points for you, which is why we’re here, with the good and the
  disappointing from the 69th Tony Awards.”
  - http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/06/tony-awards-best-moments-larry-david-kelli-ohara?

What does “non-white haired audiences" mean? Does it mean literally the young sector of audiences, though it sounds like a too round-about wording to me?


texts: There is a specific word meaning 'without my asking' and I cannot seem to recall it whatsoever. Used in a sentence: "she told me all about her personal life 'without my asking."


texts:
It looks okay. Why does it sound awkward, then:

  They wanted her to leave. They did not say so openly, but many of them
  looked so relieved when she headed for the door that it might be
  implied.

I don't know ... "may have been"? "might have been"? Bummer.


texts: What preposition is used after "enthusiastic": "for" or "about"?

texts:
In the following sentence, what is the correct preposition after enthusiastic? Or are they both correct?

"...might present more difficulty to get enthusiastic and hopeful for religious and mystic issues".
"...might present more difficulty to get enthusiastic and hopeful about religious and mystic issues".


texts:
I'm confused about how to pronounce -al at the end of the word.

These words end with -al and are pronounced without a "ə" sound.

dig·it·al /ˈdijitl/
men·tal /ˈmentl/

These words also end with -al, but are pronounced with a "ə" sound.

lo·cal /ˈlōkəl/
glob·al /ˈglōbəl/
herb·al /ˈ(h)ərbəl/

Why does the first group not have the "ə" sound, but the second group does?


texts: "The Words That Maketh Murder" by PJ Harvey

texts:
Re. the PJ Harvery song,  "The Words That Maketh Murder".

I have read some debate as to whether maketh is correct. See linguaphiles.livejournal.com. That discussion was I think inconclusive.

One view is that there is a standard idiom the clothes maketh the man so PJ Harvery's line is fine.

Another view is Middle English verbs on Wikipedia/Wiktionary says maketh would be 3rd person singular :

  I singe
  [...]
  he/she/it singeth
  [...]
   they singen


texts: "which a life of Patriotism eminently entitles and quallifies, to enjoy." - Letter from March 6th 1797 by Oliver Ellsworth

texts:
With the same ardour that I have sought the felicity and glory of your Administration, do I now implore for you in repose, those sublime pleasures from a review of the past and perspective of the future, which a life of Patriotism eminently entitles and quallifies, to enjoy.
  Source: 1797 Letter from Oliver Ellsworth (3rd Chief Justice of the US) to George Washington

First, why did Ellsworth precede the verb ("to enjoy") with the predicate ("those sublime pleasurse ... entitles and quallifies") ?

I register that this is a letter from 1797 but would like a deeper explanation. I then moved "to enjoy" to a modern position :

  With the same ardour that I have sought the felicity and glory of your Administration, do I now implore for you in repose to enjoy, those sublime pleasures from a review of the past and perspective of the future, which a life of Patriotism eminently entitles and quallifies.

Second, I'm still muddled by the bolded phrase. Shouldn't the verbs be "entitle TO" and "quallify (ie qualify) FOR" ? The verbs with no prepositions afterwards sound deficient :

  With the same ardour that I have sought the felicity and glory of your Administration, do I now implore for you in repose to enjoy those sublime pleasures which a life of Patriotism eminently entitles YOU TO and quallifies YOU FOR. from a review of the past and perspective of the future.

Supplement to Andrew Leach's Answer:

Could you please demystify how and why "to enjoy" should succeed
"those sublime pleasures ... which a life of ... entitles and qualifies",
and NOT precede it?
How and why did Ellsworth omit "YOU" as the direct object of entitles and quallifies?
How can I make sense of #1 in my second box, if I wanted to position "to enjoy" before  "those sublime pleasures ... which a life of ... entitles and qualifies" ?

In other words, is it possible to construe Ellsworth's writing with "to enjoy" before "those sublime pleasures ..." ?

I don't apprehend why, but possibly due to bias towards my first impression, I still think this conceivable.


texts:
Being a non-native speaker, I have of course a bit of a problem with writing my thesis in English.
In the thesis, I propose a software solution and I describe it. What I am not sure is: should I use "going to" (as it is planned) or "will"?
Because it seems there are too many "going tos":

  The patient is going to activate the system. The system is going to
  show a stand-by screen, which is going to disappear after 5 seconds.


texts:
Can "hew to" and "conform with/to" be used just about interchangeably for whatever register of AE, including the most formal prose?

...shall hew to the law and the recognized standards of legal construction.source
Rather than hew to the rules...source


texts: Which preposition is used with tolerance in this sentence?

texts:
I want to use the word tolerance in the context of infectious diseases.

This sentence:

  The immune response will mediate either clearance or tolerance
  preposition infections.

In other words, the immune system will either get rid of infections from the body or on the contrary will tolerate them.

Is it of, to, from, toward or what? which preposition is more correct?


texts: Is there a word complementary to "ullage"?

texts:
"Ullage" is a useful name for the empty space that often remains in a container of liquid after it has been filled as much as is practical. (Think of the small space at the top of a sealed bottle of wine.)

Is there a name for the complementary situation, where a vessel has been emptied as much as is practical, or its design allows, but there still remains in the vessel a quantity of liquid that is inaccessible? I can think of "dregs" but wonder if there is another word that does not have the connotation of "the worst part" as "dregs" has. A word that could be used in the following sentence without disparaging the quality of the liquid that has been lost.

"The poor placement of the submersible pump made dregs unavoidable."


texts:
Is there an idiom for looking back on the "glory days" and saying "it was better back then."

  it was better before


texts: Optimization, performance, or efficiency not due to algorithm or strategy

texts: Is there any idiomatic way to describe the aspect of optimization, performance, or efficiency that is not due to choice of algorithm or strategy? I'm not necessarily looking for formal computer science terminology but it shouldn't seem too odd in a casual programming context.


texts: Which verb should be used instead of "involve" here?

texts:
In an academic writing, I have such sentences:
This field of study involves several concerns. Among many others, we focus on two of them which is more related to our research in the next subsection.
It seems "involve" is not a suitable word here. Do you have any suggestions for this?


texts:
Are "depression" and "happiness" antonyms?
Are they mutually exclusive?
Does the absence of one imply the presence of the other?

(I am trying to ascertain the semantic validity of using depression-metrics as a gauge of happiness)


texts: What mnemonics help solve common linguistic issues?

texts:
Example: i before e, except after c.

Are there mnemonic devices to help remember other spelling and grammar issues? Bonus points for pointing out exceptions to the rule.


texts: What's the right possessive pronoun for "nobody"?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a correct gender-neutral, singular pronoun (“his” versus “her” versus “their”)?
  None as plural indefinite pronoun

Should it be his or their here:

A: Why did you put on that baseball cap?

B: Because I want to take shower

A: Nobody takes shower with his cap on.


texts: "Not least because..." - negation as a set phrase

texts:
The phrase "not least because" seems to be everywhere in journalism and other writing, often as an understated negation meaning, in large part because.

  Individual publications, and even some publishers, lack the resources to mount an all-out arms race against ad blockers, not least because they’re unlikely to attract engineering talent when there are so many startups and established tech companies plying potential hires with equity—or at least free meals.

"Why Facebook is really blocking Ad blockers," The New Yorker

MacMillan provides a phrase definition of not least:

  used for emphasizing the importance of a particular aspect of a situation

I at first assumed based on an Ngram search that the phrase was a recent one, but I found one use from 1897:

  The figures given above must be highly gratifying to the examining bodies, not least because they show that the present stage of musical education warrants further demands upon those who aspire to authoritative recognition.

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)10 Feb 1897, Wed

That use seems casual and idiomatic, so I assume the phrase must go back even further than that.

Questions:

Would this construction qualify as a set phrase?
Did this phrase exist significantly earlier than the turn of the century?


texts:
A term used in a contract stated this "Specialist oils or spark plugs may be required for your vehicle's service.  Specialist oil is at a set cost of £24 whilst if recommended Spark Plugs will be quoted to you on the day of your service.",
In the first sentence, does "Specialist" describe only "oils" or both "oils" and "spark plugs"?
Does the second sentence clarify anything in the first?


texts: How to approach to business mails when the sender starts becoming a bit informal?

texts:
I am sharing emails repeatedly with a woman who is sharing a prospect for a job with me.

It started with "Dear Candidate"
Then

"Dear (my name)"

On the other hand, each time I have been replying to her with "Dear Madame" salutation.

Should I also start changing my salutation as well? If yes, then to what?


texts: A word or term for: "in another person's body"

texts:
What would be the word or term to describe a person who found themselves in another living person's body or the name of the process that put them there?

I've recently had a couple of experiences while sleeping that were so real that they troubled me for months afterwards. I do not believe they were dreams. I dream often and these were nothing like a dream and I have found nothing to describe this. Please help...


texts: Which verbs cannot be used in the progressive form in any case?

texts: We know for a fact that if a stative predicate is used in the progressive form, it will change the meaning of the sentence, e.g. 'I have a car' / 'I'm having a headache', where in the former a possessive meaning is given, and in the latter an experience meaning is given. According to the official IELTS grammar book, there are some verbs which cannot absolutely be used in the progressive form. Is it because they do not change meaning in the progressive form and thus don't make grammatical sense? If so, would 'own' be a good example? In this case would you be able to share a list of verbs that don't make grammatical sense in the progressive form?


texts:
I found this question on the SAT Practice Test. Is this sentence grammatically correct?
<Today, being white- collar doesn't just mean working in an office, it means having the power to decide the fates of blue-collar workers.>
As far as I know, we can connect clauses in a compound sentence in one of the following ways:

coordinate conjunction
coordinate conjunction + comma
semi-colon
semi-colon + conjunctive adverb + comma
colon
comma [only if there is a list of clauses - 3 or more clauses]


texts:
What is the difference between cohabit and cohabitate? I know the general definition of these words, but I cannot distinguish between the two (i.e., in my mind the definitions are identical).
I see that cohabit is in (Google's) online dictionary and cohabitate is not, but in practice the two seem to be used interchangeably.


texts: Is there a term for fiction authors whose writing style is technically the most important feature of their books?

texts:
I'm re-reading "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov right now, and I must say, the author is very consistent in never allowing himself merely to narrate: each paragraph, if not each sentence, is loaded with metaphors, allusions, elegant turns of phrase, humorous word-play, twisted and sprained shades of meaning, and so forth.

A very different author, William Faulkner, uses different words, different imagery, different everything, except the method: each paragraph, if not each sentence, is unmistakably Faulkner's, and all of them are packed with Faulkner's signature twists and turns.

There are a few others, including Joyce, whom I dislike intensely, but he, too, is one of ...

Well, that, actually, is the question. Is there a term for authors of that sort? I mean, "stylists" is what comes to mind first, except that in today's cultural climate, the word would sooner invoke images of the bright lights in a Manhattan beauty salon than those of a patient storyteller burning the midnight oil.

Clearly there is, or was, an entire movement, before and after World War II. There was a whole category of these people. Similar to, say, the Lake Poets.

Is there an official term?


texts:
I want to know if the following sentence is correct:

Therefore, the order of X will be determined as
soon as the following results are proved:

My aim is to determine the order of an object, X. For this, I need to prove other results. Is this sentence grammatically correct?


texts: I want to know meaning of some expressions in some sentences

texts:
The book I'm reading is 'The death of the heart' of Elizabeth Bowen.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Heart)
And this book have very difficult expressions. these are some of them and I want to know meaning of those expression.

  He and Irene and Portia, all more and more piano, trailed up and down the cold parts of Riviera, till he caught a chill and died in
  a nursing home.

In this sentence what is the meaning of 'all more and more piano'?
Is there other meaning in piano other than instrument?
In the pages I read so far, there's no mention about music at all.

  She was a scrap of a widow, ever so plucky, just back from china, with damp little hands, husky voice and defective tear-ducts
  that gave her eyes always ratehr a swimmy look.

She is Irene in above sentence.
In this sentence 'a scrap of a widow' means that she is widow?

  She had a prostrated way of looking up at you, and that fluffy, bird's nesty hair that hairpins get lost in.(She also Irene)

'a prostrated way of looking up at you' means, she look at you with exhausted expression in her face?

Thank you in advance.


texts: What is the English term to say job quitting?

texts:
Say, we often use the term "lay-off" to express the meaning that the company is laying off their employees because it is not making any profit at this moment.

Now, there is other situation when the company is doing OK but most of the employees don't like to work for the company because the jobs are too boring. So, many employees are quitting their jobs daily.

Is it OK to say this sentence and is there a better way to express it?

  The job quitting rate in this company is very high.


texts: "Product by company" or "product from company"

texts:
Suppose that there is a company named Megasoft. Megasoft has just launched their new software application to the public called Softronic.
Which is correct: Softronic by Megasoft or Softronic from Megasoft?


texts: Why "interesting" is sometimes pronounced as "intra-sting"

texts: Why is interesting sometimes pronounced as intra-sting? The same goes for interest sometimes being pronounced without the first e.


texts:
Combining (1) and (2) implies (3).
(1) and (2) combined imply (3).

I am writing a paper in maths, and (1), (2), and (3) are all mathematical expressions. A co-author wrote like Number 1 but I thought it was weird so I changed it to Number 2, but I'm not really sure if Number 1 is incorrect. I feel like Number 1 is saying the act of combining (1) and (2) is implying something, not the expressions (1) and (2). But at the same time I found some papers where they wrote like Number 1 so I'm quite confused.

So are Number 1 and Number 2 the same? If so, which is preferable?

Thank you!


texts:
I need to interpret simple imperative sentences.

Certainly (a) "Drink the milk." is a legal imperative sentence, as are (b) "Drink a milk." and "Drink the milks.," (but with a different "milk" noun).

Is "Drink milk." a legal imperative sentence? If so what does it mean?

My concern in the "declarative" feel to "Drink milk." "Cut trees.".


texts:
Is there a word for a large collection of (plausible) scenarios either:

In general,
In the context of a play?

Thanks :)


texts:
If I need to ask someone about their birth order, what question is usually used? Let's say I do not ask how many children his family has first.

What is your birth order? or Which child are you in your family?


texts: What is the use of this phrase "..there is a case to be made that.."?

texts:
Can anybody help me describe this phrase ? i don't understand what the author mean.

Context

Zimmermann dreamed of changing the world. And he would. Only not quite in the way he intended. Indeed, there is a case to be made that Arthur Zimmermann was one of the most destructive individuals of the 20th century.

Source: History of the world by Andrew Marr - Episode 7


texts: Why are the divisions of the Bible called "verses"?

texts: In common parlance, a verse is a writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme. Most of the books of Bible contain prose which do not follow metrical rhythm or rhyme. But their sentences are called verses. My question therefore is: Why are the divisions of the Bible called verses?


texts: Single word for denoting "various divisions of the day"

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  What is the category name to describe “day”, “night”, or “dusk”?

What would be the hypernym for the various divisions of the day such as morning, noon, evening or night?


texts: Why is "distro", rather than "distri", short for "distribution" in Linux world?

texts: Why is distro, rather than distri, short for distribution in Linux world?


texts: Correct words to differentiate between two different types of rechargeable battery longevity

texts:
A rechargeable battery has two different types of longevity:

How long the battery will last for a specific application.  For example, the duration of time that the battery, when charged, can be used to operate your smartphone until it runs out of power.

How long the battery will be a viable battery.  For example, the duration of time from new that it takes for your battery to no longer be able to effectively hold a charge.

Both of these terms refer to rechargeable battery longevity, but the definition of the word longevity is not sufficiently narrow for the reader to immediately understand the meaning.
What words can be used for each case to concisely inform the user of the intended meanings?


texts: What is one’s mother-in-law’s mother-in-law called?


texts: "Is there any proof" versus "are there any proofs"

texts:
The stack exchange question "Is there any concrete-solid proofs of this space odyssey?" made me want to edit it to remove the s in proofs (someone with enough flair did), however it made me wonder about the plurality of any and proofs.

So please enlighten me about which one is  correct.

  Is there any concrete-solid proof of this space odyssey?
  Are there any concrete-solid proofs of this space odyssey?

If the asker wants to hear about at least one proof, the first one is OK, but what is correct if he wants at least two pieces of evidence?


texts: Does anyone know what the literal reference to "slow on the uptake" is and where it originated?  I have only ever found similar phrases, but this one.  I know its meaning.


texts: Word for answering the question you wish had been asked not the one asked?

texts:
This is really common with politicians where they answer a potentially probing question as if they had been asked an entirely other question.
Hypothetical example:

Interviewer: "Is it true that today's budget will put single parents out on the street due to the draconian cuts to childcare supports?"
Politician: "That's a great question, Interviewer. Families are our top priority as the government of country X because we've been talking to citizens of country X and they've told us how important their families are to them. That's why we are boosting the economy of country X to help families by taking the restrictions off business so they can afford to pay the citizens of country X more..."

I know broadly this would be called 'spin' or 'obfuscation' but I'm interested to know if a term exists for this more specifically.
Is there a word for this type of question dodging?


texts: What is the difference between "I have been looking for you" and "I have looked for you"?

texts:
I am facing an unfortunate complication while studying the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses.
I can't understand the difference between some of their parts.
What is the difference between I've been looking for you all day and I've looked for you all day?
The point is, which should I use when I find my friend?
Because they both seem to be finished when I have found my friend, they should not.


texts:
I have a question about the usage of "whose" and "of which".
I have learned that

  a. Do you see the mountain whose top is covered with snow?

and

  b. Do you see the mountain the top of which is covered with snow?

have the same meaning.

Now, please consider

  For a nation whose food culture is admired all over the world, Japan depends to a surprising degree on imported food.

If I use "of which" in this, would the correct sentence be

  For a nation the food culture of which is …

or

  For a nation of which the food culture is …?


texts:
I've just written the sentence:

  people may recognize standards that deem them unworthy

and weren't sure whether it is correct: can a standard deem you unworthy? Would it sound too odd, or merely a bit academic?

And if it does sound odd-what other verb could be used in this case (i.e. to describe a standard according to which people are considered unworthy)?


texts:
I am currently learning Japanese and for the Chinese characters, there is a really nice book that combines stories or images to each character. The problem is that sometimes the description is a bit difficult for a non native English speaker (I wasn't sure though where to ask this question, here or in the English learners stack). The Character is the following:

And I cite the description from the book:

This character is sort of a nickname for the Japanese flag with its
well-known emblem of the rising sun. If you can picture two seams
running down that great red sun, and then imagine it sitting on a
baseball bat for a flagpole, you have a slightly irreverent-but not
altogether inaccurate-picture of how the sport has caught on in the
Land of the Rising Sun.

Can you picture this scene? And if yes, rephrase it in a simpler way?


texts: What is the difference between catalogue and catalog? I cannot really decide which one to use for a product catalogue for a shop.


texts:
A petition to pardon "Making a Murderer" subject Steven Avery made news recently when it was responded to by the White House's We the People team.

I became interested by the response when I read about "commutations". Referring to President Obama's past activities...

  That's why he has granted 184 commutations total -- more than the last five presidents combined -- and has issued 66 pardons over his time in office.

Commute here seems to be different than pardoning. Perhaps it only means to lessen a sentence, versus pardoning's complete removal of one?

Anyway, the definition of commute that I believe is more common is like "to travel to or from work".

How are these two definitions related? What is their common interpretation?


texts: Why did "species" take over the singular?

texts:
As far as I know, it is very rare to have a noun in English that is both singular and plural and ends with "s". But "species" is such a noun, and I was surprised to learn that it actually became that way after originally having "specie" as the singular (from Latin).
Why did this happen?
I saw this other English SE post but it did not explain what drove the shift, and it seems counter-intuitive that people actually stopped using "specie" for the singular since switching to "species" would go against the default rule that adding "s" denotes the plural.


texts:
Plurals derived from Latin words ending with -us normally have the ending -i.  However, the plural of virus is viruses and the plural of bonus is bonuses because these words do not have Latin plurals in English.

Considering the fact that the majority of English words come from Latin (or Greek, usually via Latin), why don't these words have Latin plurals in English?

Ok, viri is Latin for "men", not "viruses"; and boni in Latin means "good men", not "bonuses", but we are speaking English, so why don't we use viri and boni as plurals for virus and bonus in order to follow normal convention?


texts: Best word to convey a panther's forward crouching/slinking motion

texts:
I'm looking for the best word to convey a panther's forward crouching/slinking motion when it is sneaking up on it's victim.

By "best", I mean moving stealthily forward while crouching low and silent, ready to spring at any moment, tension held back, foreboding, graceful, poetic, beautiful, yet terrible.

I'm working on a poem in which this word is key. I once knew the word but it now escapes me. No synonyms in any thesaurus suggest the word I knew/forgot. These are the words I've already considered and rejected: avoid, bypass, conceal oneself, crawl, creep, crouch, dodge, elude, evade, glide, go furtively, go stealthily, hide, lie in wait, lurk, pad, pass quietly, prowl, pussyfoot, shirk, sidle, sidestep, skulk, slack, slide, slink, slip, slither, sly, snake, sneak, snoop, steal, and tiptoe. There are more but I tired of writing them all.

I know that I should be asking something that lends itself to being answered and not something that elicits discussion.

The other question mostly duplicates my question, except perhaps for my poetic criterion, but none of the responses to my question or the other one are the one I'm searching for. I'm afraid I've reached the point of diminishing returns.

Sorry for troubling you.


texts: Why does the writer use multiple hyphens?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
Is a lengthy combination of words with hyphens like “the worst not-technically-in-a-recession year in American history” a new fashion of writing?

But I have found that people who don't have it are frequently the ones hell-bent on writing stories. I'm sure anyway that they are the ones who write the books and the magazine article on how-to-write-short-stories.
(from Mystery and Manners by F. O'Connor)

In this passage, "how-to-write-short-stories" is preceded by "on" and doesn't modify a noun. Could anyone explain this  usage?


texts:
He and my family both hope you can come to see us.

Is the word "both" here correct? or should I use "all", but "all" doesn't feel right either.


texts: Gender neutral singular “they” in the first person singular

texts:
Can I use they in the following fashion when referring to oneself?

  [Name] is a Web Developer at [company Name]. They holds a B.S. in Computer Science.

The emphasis here is when one tries to refer to themself without using she/he or her/him.

  [Name] is a Web Developer at [company Name]. They hold a B.S. in Computer Science.

Turns it into an Illeism and sounds somewhat pompous.

Is there any way to use they in a singular form to refer to oneself? Something along the lines of

  Name is a Web Developer at companyName. Xe holds a B.S. in Computer Science.

but that is more recognized.


texts:
First of all, technically this probably should be at the English Language Learners site, because I'm an English learner, but my intuition says I'll probably get more useful answers here because of my question's nature. Tell me if I'm wrong about it.

Now, I'll try to tell briefly my experience learning about diphthongs.
Recently, I talked (text messages) with a 15 y/o General American speaker about English pronunciation. The main topic was diphthongs. I wanted to know more about their nature, how native speakers understand it. And what really surprised me is he didn't really know what vowels I was talking about. From all vowels he only named 2 which as he considered consist from 2 "parts" — /ɔɪ/ and /aʊ/. Also, /ɔɪ/, as he said, consists from /oʊ/ + /iː/ while /aʊ/ consists from some vowel + some glide (he didn't tell about /u:/. Also, the starting "some vowel" first appeared to him to exist in English as standalone which surprised me, but then he couldn't name a word with this "vowel"). Then he said /oʊ/, /aɪ/, /eɪ/ diphthongs appear to be single-vowel sounds to him. After some conversation, he kinda agreed that /aɪ/ has two points. When listened to /oʊ/ pronunciation on dictionary.com he heard it as a single-vowel sound, although for me (a Russian speaker), it had some glide to /u:/. Then I asked him to pronounce /oʊ/ and then /u:/ and then he realized it's still an /oʊ/. So, /u:/ sounds like an optional addition to the first sound. He nevertheless couldn't name the reason behind the move to /u:/. The same situation with /eɪ/ sometimes having /i:/ after first sound.

At the end of our talk I had got quite a lot of information about how he pronounces vowels, but almost none information about why he pronounces them  this way. For example why can't he move to /u:/ after first sound in /aɪ/ and move to /i:/ after first sound in /aʊ/. Why he moves to /i:/ in /eɪ/ but doesn't in /e/ etc.

So basically, I want to find some deep information about psychology of English pronunciation, or at least some ideas on this topic. I found nothing on the internet yet.


texts: Meaning of "f*ck" in the following conversation

texts:
This conversation is from "Youth in Revolt" movie.

A boy named Nick met his colleague, a girl, in a music shop while purchasing a DVD and after a little talk, her boyfriend hugged her from behind in front of Nick. Then the girl chuckles and says: "Chad, fuck you". He replies — "Oh, fuck you, you love it."

Obviously, fuck here doesn't mean "sexual intercourse" or "destroy or ruin" or "make someone angry", which are meanings from Oxford Dictionary online.

What is the meaning of fuck you here?


texts: Is there an English equivalent of this common Maldivian Proverb meaning "to do something carelessly or perfunctorily"?

texts:
The proverb is "Amaa buneethee fara-h dhiy-un" which basically translates to "To walk along the shore (the point of which is to collect cowrie shells which were used as currency among seafarers and residents around the Indian Ocean), just because his/her mother had instructed him to do so ie. carelessly, aimlessly, in a poor attempt... etc?

Some decades ago, it had been common practise to do this daily, and it was often the case that  kids sent to do this chore often wandered around aimlessly or played about and returned with barely any shells or none at all, certainly less than someone who had actually attempted to do so.

Cheers!


texts: Short idiomatic word for "low-complexity"

texts:
I am looking for suggestions to convert "low-complexity" (in the context of computations or a program) into a simple, short idiomatic word or adjective (not "simple"). [EDIT] It is meant to be used in several places, and I would like to avoid repetitions with very close-by terms.

Example is use : "the polynomial predictor is of low-complexity" > "the polynomial predictor is []" or [EDIT] "this [] approach".

[EDIT] The more precise context is that of online or "real-time" computing. A task, or part of a program, should be executed in a limited amount of time. The  trade-off is: do it as good as possible, possibly complex, at the cost of other tasks that should be executed during the same period. Or at the risk that the aforementioned task cannot complete in the given amount of time. Here, low-complexity entails that the number of basic operations for the task is evaluated (somehow "bounded") and known to be able to complete.

"Low-complexity" does not mean no complexity at all. There is some, but quite tractable with little pain. Like "low-rate" does not stand for "free".

[EDIT] I thought about "scarce", or "tight", and am not unsure they apply in the context. "Efficiency" is good, it possibly does not convey the same direct "impact" to the technical reader.

[EDIT] I finally choosed a vaguer "hasty", with the acronym CHOP for "Computationally Hasty Online Prediction", which gracefully appeared before looking for the helicopter sound.


texts:
Is it grammatically okay to say " in a similar way as (subject + verb)"?
For example, "A behaves in a similar way as B does".

Or should I choose another expression for this meaning to be grammatically better?


texts: How ‘HOW’ change the meaning of the Twinkle song?

texts:
I'm a Spanish speaker so this makes me confused. In the song, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

I would understand

  I wonder what you are! ==> Me pregunto que eres (seras)!

But they add HOW before. And I can't find something similar to translate to.

  How I wonder what you are!

Google translator doesn't make sense to me:

  ¡Cómo me pregunto lo que eres!

With these two it doesn't have any problem.

  Are you sure? ==> Esta usted seguro?
  How are you sure? ==> Como esta usted seguro?

So what is the meaning of that sentence?
Is wondering how become what is now?


texts: Is the following acceptable: was expecting + if I hadn't had

texts:
I sent an email recently to a hotel where I'm going to stay, but I got a flight cancelation. Here's a passage from my email,

  I had my flight canceled today, I was expecting to arrive at the hotel in time for the checking, if I hadn't had this cancelation…"

My question is whether I can say

  I was expecting… if I hadn't had…

Is this construction grammatically correct or acceptable? Or maybe I should've used something like, …would have expected...

Any help would be appreciated


texts: Why can a bird be pulled but never caught?

texts:
In the UK there is a popular idiomatic saying:

  To pull a bird.

"Bird" is a well known Brit expression for a young woman. In the USA, I think "chick" is more popular.  The above expression means to have success in fixing a date or going to bed with an attractive woman.

I'd like to know why the verb, "pull" was preferred and not catch, get, take, trap, or even grab.

And why do Americans go for "chicks" and never "birds"?


texts:
Be the following sentence:
Sometimes he (Martin) saw Mr. Clayton while the/this latter was looking over the account books he (Martin) had written before.
If I replace “the/this latter” with “he”, Mr. Clayton, it will probably be confused with the first “he”, Martin, and also with the last, Martin again, “he”.
Then, my question is: can I remove “the/this latter” using only “this”?
Additionally, is there another option than “the/this latter”?
Thanks in advance for any help.


texts:
Is this sentence grammatically correct?

  Who do I need to send product information to?


texts: When ordering coffee, do you say "two milks" or "two milk"?

texts: I've already searched the site if this question had been asked before however I didn't find anything related to my question. Every time I order coffee some people sort of correct me by saying 2 milks some others use 2 milk. Can someone explain which is the correct form and why?


texts: What is the plural of ‘the last will and testament’?

texts:
I need the plural of ‘the last will testament of X’. Is it ‘the last wills and testaments of X and Y’?

To clarify, this is UK usage. I’m writing to a solicitor.


texts:
I've noticed quite a number of religious professionals of late have used phrases such as "let's exegete this text" or "we need to exegete Paul's meaning here." Of course, an exegete is one skilled in exegesis, but I have never heard of "to exegete" being in accepted usage. Wiktionary included it as a possibility, but I would hardly consider that an authoritative source. Roger Wibberly critiqued a book titled Medieval Music as Medieval Exegesis in Music and Letters 82.2 (2001): 291-293 and argued that "the often-used verb 'to exegete' strikes a note of literary discord within a generally elegant text."

Is the verb "to exegete" becoming accepted usage? Obviously, it has been used consistently in at least one published source and is currently being widely used in religious circles.


texts: sə'bɔ:dɪneɪt - səˈbɔːdɪnɪt - səˈbɔːdɪnət - səˈbɔːdnɪt - Which pronunciation is correct?

texts:
I think it's the first time I'm so confused and lost.
Some years ago when I was studying English I learnt the word "subordinate" pronounced as [səˈbɔːdnɪt].
Now I can see other three types of pronunciation [sə'bɔ:dɪneɪt - səˈbɔːdɪnɪt - səˈbɔːdɪnət] from different sources.
Would you help me to clarify which is correct?


texts: meaning of this sentence 'the children carried their life-story no further on his behoof'?

texts:
The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; in the course of a few months he considered that he should have known their names, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have been introduced to their favourite toys. They remained however, as non-committal as the long blank wall that shut them off from the meadow, a wall over which their three heads sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had parents in India -- that much Octavian had learned in the neighbourhood; the children, beyond grouping themselves garment-wise into sexes, a girl and two boys, carried their life-story no further on his behoof. And now it seemed he was engaged in something which touched them closely, but must be hidden from their knowledge.

It's from Hector Hugh Munro's (Saki) "Penance".

Expecting some help to understand the meaning of the above sentence of ~.


texts: Why do we use different prepositions in "no point in" and "no reason to"?

texts: I am wondering why in "There's no point in doing that" we use the preposition in but in "There's no reason to do that" we use the preposition to?


texts: How should I use the question "or am I?" and what does it express?

texts:
I've seen it many times, but I just don't get it.

  I am a good student, or am I?

  I am not a good student, or am I not?

  I am a good student, or am I not?

  I am not a good student, or am I?

1) Which of those examples above are correct?

2) What's the use of this kind of question?

3) Is it simply rhetorical as I see it?

4) What's its structure meant to be like? (g.e: aff sentence - aff question?)

5) What's the intention of the speaker with this kind of question?

6) What's the listener's interpretetion of it?


texts: What is the difference between "I don't hope so." and "I don't hope that."?


texts: A a verb synonymous with "destroy [document]"?

texts: What is a synonym of "destroy," when the thing destroyed is a collection of documents. The destruction is intentional because the documents are not considered to have come from the authorized source of learning. In essence, the destruction is really to disable dissemination. Thanks.


texts: Is "thanks" appropriate to be polite in this situation?

texts:
Question on usage of "thanks":

On past January I was on my vacations in London taking some photos of London Bridge when I made a joke with some foreign photographers (Germans, I think) : I was holding a very common Sony camera, and I said something like that: "let me teach you how to take photos with my professional camera". Everyone laughed and one of them offered to take a panoramic photo of me using my memory card on his camera. I was very pleased, said "Thanks so much!" and left.

My question is:

In this situation, was "thanks" appropriate to politely demonstrate that I was very pleased with what they did?


texts:
In RP English, the 'w' in "sword" is silent. Wiktionary suggests /sɔːd/ and /soʊrd/.

Why? Are there other words like this? The 'w' is pronounced in words like "swollen", "swoop", "sworn" and "swore".


texts: What's the difference between "overlook", "ignore" and "neglect"?

texts: It seems these words all mean you didn't pay enough attention to something.


texts: What is the proper term for etching or digging of wall to hide conduit of cables

texts:
I am creating a scope of work and I can't seem to find the right term to say...

(including context)

Contractor should provide in wall conduit. If no in wall conduit is available, contractor should arrange "wall digging/wall etching" at their own expense.

Thanks


texts: For example a whole crowd of men surrounded and beat someone up.


texts: Are "till" and "until" perfectly interchangeable at the beginning of a sentence?

texts:
In the following sentences, would one of these conjunctions sound better than the other?

  Until/Till my daughter got married, I had never been abroad.
  Until/Till you change your mind, I won't help you.


texts: Is "safes" an acceptable alternative to "makes safe"

texts:
Though I know it's uncommon usage (and intentionally so).  Is the follow sentence legitimate?

  She safes the dangerous area so it cannot be stumbled upon.

Obviously, modern usage would be "she makes safe", but some research on my part shows that "safes" is an acceptable "third-person singular simple present" form of safe.

Am I correct?


texts: Is this sentence grammatically correct or not?

texts:
Is this correct?

Such cooperation can prepare students to be good team players and understand the value of other people’s perspectives.

Or should it be "...players and to understand..."

Or would both versions be correct?

Thank you!


texts:
I wrote the following sentence in Microsoft Word:

  I was destined to one day live in the corridors of the Great Library and digest the world.

And Word wanted me to change "one day" to "one-day".

Any thoughts on this? I couldn't find this precise question on here, appreciate any help.


texts:
What is the opposite word for "appreciate" that I can use in a sentence like this one :-

"If you like my work I would be happy if you appreciate it. If you do not like my work, you have the right to __________ it."


texts: What is the term for (a person who responds/the act of responding) to a simple request as though it were an exaggerated version?

texts:
What is the term for (a person who responds/the act of responding) to a request as though it were a much more demanding/unreasonable request?

Example:

  Andrew (at home) texts, "I'd like to take the car to get an oil change
  sometime soon."
  Barbara (driving) replies, "I'm driving Charlie
  to the ER with a broken ankle, but I can turn around right now
  and bring the car to you. I'm 30 minutes away from the house."

The feeling Barbara is trying to evoke is that she's a long-suffering person doing her best to satisfy Andrew's whims, no matter the cost. Or like the Jewish mother/lightbulb joke whose punchline is "Go, have a good time, I'll just sit here in the dark, alone." Except that Barbara's behavior is more intended to suggest that Andrew is both demanding and capricious, when he is neither.

I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes either Barbara or her behavior. "Hyperbole" isn't quite right, nor is "melodrama" (although it's closer)...

"Barbara's ________ makes me not want to talk to her at all."


texts: What is the main difference between adjective clause with subject pronoun and object pronoun?


texts: Word or a short phrase to describe a person who is socially responsible

texts:
I’m looking for a single catchy word or a short phrase to describe a person who is socially responsible. The “responsibility” meaning seems to be too official and not catchy enough. I’m looking for a word to deliver the idea of belonging, social involvement, caring, compassion, when company or person is not just announcing it’s belonging to some socially important deeds, but really delivers something good (money or pro bono help) to those who need it.

For example, I want to say

  “Bob is a real/really _____”.

It can be in two words, but one is much better. It can be a slang word, a newly blended word, idiom, whatever comes to your mind when it's used in general speaking, writing or reading.


texts: Why "Search apps", "Search files", etc. in software UIs, instead of "Search for ~"?

texts:
Sometimes, typically in software UI text, I see a string labeled "Search apps", "Search files", or something like that (The screenshot below is one example).
But actually, such a function is to search for the target object.
Could anyone explain me how "for" can be omitted here grammatically?


texts: "I found it a strain having to concentrate for so long." Why does this sentence use 'having'?

texts:
I read below sentence.

  I found it a strain having to concentrate for so long.

I guess this sentence means 'I got pressure that I can't give all my attention for long hours'.

My question is why there is 'having'? Does it imply 'have to concentrate'(indicating meaning of obligation) or 'have concentrated'(indicating present perfect)?


texts:
Looking through the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (part of the Oxford Style Manual, I was suprised to read in its dictionary part the following entry on page 619a:

  apodictic clearly established, not -deictic

The Oxford Dictionaries entry for apodictic says the etymology is:

  via Latin from Greek apodeiktikos, from apodeiknunai 'show off,
  demonstrate'.

Is there any reason other than simple convention why the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors recommends writing "apodictic" despite the etymological origin of the word?


texts:
When telling a story in the present tense, what tense should we use for actions that take place before another action in the story, for example:

The king turns to his wife, who has already had a heart attack, and asks her...[Present Perfect]
The king turns to his wife, who had already had a heart attack, and asks her...[Past Perfect]
The king turns to his wife, who already had a heart attack, and ask her...[Simple Past]
The king turns to his wife, who already has a heart attack, and asks her...[Present Simple]


texts: Is there always a difference between /ə(ɹ)z/ and /ɪz/?

texts:
Is there always a difference between the following two sounds:

/ɪz/ as in the end of 'hedges'
/ə(ɹ)z/ as in the end of 'ledgers'

They seem super close. Is there any accent in which they sound the same, perhaps because of vowel reduction?


texts: What is the origin of the phrase "What, me worry"? (It isn't Mad Magazine!)

texts:
In Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, Erik Larson discusses the early history of the submarine.  According to Larson, the submarine was regarded as an "iron coffin" until the work of John Philip Holland, an Irish engineer.

Larson says (page 57): "A famous 1898 cartoon, based on a photograph....shows Holland emerging in top hat [actually it may have been a derby] from the hatch of one of his submarines with the caption "What, me worry?"  For the photograph on which the cartoon may have been based, see Wikipedia, John Philip Holland

I have not been able to find the cartoon; nor have I been able to find if the phrase was in use before 1898, or if it originated in the cartoon.

(See also Richard Compton-Hall The Submarine Pioneers: The Beginnings of Underwater Warfare, Chapter Three.))


texts: Opposite (sort of) of mutually exclusive?

texts:
Paint cannot be red and blue as these are mutually exclusive.
It cannot be night and day as these are mutually exclusive.

However unlike paint, which can be neither red nor green (for example: blue), it's always night or day. It can impossibly be not night and not day.

Mutually exclusive indicates the impossibility of terms being true at the same time.

Is there a similar expression for the impossibility of terms being false at the same time?

(edit)
Note that the expression or phrase I'm looking for, e.g. "these things are xxx" would be equal to saying that their opposites are mutually exclusive.

This is fundamentally different than saying "these things are not mutually exclusive" or "these things are mutually inclusive" (which both mean the things can co-exist, but don't rule out the possibility of none existing).

Saying things are mutually exclusive means at most one can occur. What I'm looking for should indicate that at least one must occur.


texts: With accuracy of or with an accuracy of?

texts:
I am trying to write a paper for publishing. In writing one sentence, I am doubtful which way of writing would be correct.
A Differential Pressure (DP) transmitter with a maximum working pressure of 2000 psi and accuracy of ± 0.02% reading was used to measure the pressure drop across the core.
A Differential Pressure (DP) transmitter with a maximum working pressure of 2000 psi and an accuracy of ± 0.02% reading was used to measure the pressure drop across the core.
Thanks


texts: Completing something just to finish it despite lack of interest - is called …?

texts:
Recently I started reading a novel that I was excited to read. After getting approximately 45% into it, I lost the pace. It started becoming slow and lousy.

I thought to leave it unfinished but it was from one of my favorite writer (Paulo), so why not just complete it just to meet the finish line?

Sometimes we complete work just because we have started it, regardless of its interest. Is there a word or phrase for this situation?


texts: About the pronunciation rules. Sometimes I mispronounce the N to NG if the next word starts with "th" or etc

texts: I don't know if this is considered to be a natural reaction or not. Sometimes I mispronounce the N to NG if the next word starts with "th" or etc. Like "throw another shrimp on the barbie". When I run the words "shrimp", "on", "the" together, I sound like this:"shrimpong the barbie". My tongue would automatically place backward in convenience of pronouncing the "th" sound. Is it that my pronunciation is wrong? Or is it really a common phenomena? Is there a saying that words end with "N" sound should be changed "ng" sound in certain case?


texts: Where does the [sic] go in this sentence?

texts:
I'm quoting a sentence that has an error in it.

  ...visitors need to need to apply for a temporary residence permit...

I don't want to correct the error, I want to quote it as it's written. But I want to put a [sic] in there. Where does the [sic] go? Also, should it be in (parentheses) or [brackets]?


texts: I'm trying to describe a sound i.e. a popping sound which is metallic. How do I phrase such a sound?

texts:
The best I could come up with is Metallic Pop which doesn't suit the rest of the writing style at all, which has a bit more imaginative use of adjectives.
What other phrase could I use to describe such a sound? The sound I was thinking of was somewhat similar to the Hangouts Pop notification sound.
A word that sounds serious, brooding even. If possible.

If I had to describe it, it would be the Hangouts Pop sound, but more metallic nature.

And ping IS a good word for it, yes. But it feels too...short? I would really like to know if there was a phrase to describe it? Something ominous yet sounding high-tech.

If it helps in anyway, the object making the sound is what I call a compressible bag, which takes in a special kind of radiation and compresses its contents into a miniscule dimension. To make it easier to carry. Once the compression is done, it makes the sound. To say that the process is over.


texts: I am writing a list of questions to be asked in an interview, and was wondering about the title of my list. Is it supposed to be called "Questions to Artists" or "Questions for Artists"? What is the right form, presuming it is me who is going to be asking the artists questions?


texts: How can i refer to people who live in the other half of a duplex?

texts: Is there a word to refer specifically to the people who live in the other part of a duplex (two-family house, side-by-side)? Not neighbor, i think, as that's more generic.


texts:
An expression below embarrasses me. Why not "it's" but "their" litter?

  a cat can use their litter box.

in the context we are talking about a few cats, but in this, specific, example we speak about one cat.


texts: "I am going to bed" vs. "I will be going to bed"

texts:
What is the difference between saying the following?

I am going to bed in a few minutes.
I will be going to bed in a few minutes.

Or

I will be getting off here. Or, I guess, I will be getting off here. See you.
I am getting off here. Or, I guess, I am getting off here. See you.

Which one seems more fluent and natural?


texts: What does "delinquent" mean in this context?

texts:
I'm more or less aware of the meanings of the word delinquent. However, I can't decide what it exaclty means in the following quote which is from god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens and where he discusses the child abuse among clergymen:

  Sometimes the resulting frustration expressed itself in horrible excesses of corporal punishment, which is bad enough in itself. But when the artificial inhibitions really collapse, as we have seen them do, they result in behavior which no average masturbating, fornicating sinner could even begin to contemplate without horror. This is not the result of a few delinquents among the shepherds, but an outcome of an ideology which sought to establish clerical control by means of control of the sexual instinct and even of the sexual organs.

I know "delinquent" doesn't have hundreds of meanings but I know it is used for "an (especially young/teenager) offender of a minor crime" and "failure to perform one's duty". Since I think there are no teenage clergymen to guard the children, I am confused about what the word "deliquent" really means here. Maybe it means "negligence"?

Thank you.


texts:
If one student received A, another B, and the other C,
Can I use the following expression?

The students received A, B and C, respectively.


texts: What does the phrase "the fine point" mean?

texts:
I heard about this sentence,

  "How to do it well? The fine point: ...."

What does 'the fine point' mean in this context?


texts: Origin of the "preposition+relative pronoun" construction as used to avoid sentence-terminal prepositions

texts:
The rule against using prepositions to end sentences with is bogus—that much is clear—but what about the syntactic construction commonly used to avoid violating this rule, as parodied in the phrase popularly attributed to Winston Churchill, "the sort of nonsense up with which I shall not put"?
It takes the form of the preposition in question, followed by a relative pronoun (that, which, whom—never, in my experience, who, despite the declining usage of whom).  I'm seeing it less and less as the bogosity of the sentence-terminal preposition rule becomes better and better known, so what I'm wondering is when this syntactic construction came into use.  Something similar is used in formulae such as "To whom it may concern" and "In which..." followed by the description of whatever Winnie the Pooh does this chapter, but I'm specifically wondering about the form that is used to encapsulate in the middle of a sentence a preposition that would otherwise fall to the end.
Does this usage only exist in the language to avoid using prepositions to end sentences with, or does it predate that very prohibition?
EDIT: tchrist indicates by the addition of a tag that this sentence construction is an example of pied piping—this checks out.


texts: Another word for hitting another person's hip with our hip romantically

texts:
Generally we hit our friends or loved ones with our hip on their side of the hip while walking aside them romantically.i need a word or phrase for it.
and need a phrase or word for when We hit with our shoulder against other's shoulder accidentally or purposely like how we see in movies hero n heroine dash with each other and books falls down kind of.


texts: Should this relative clause start with "whom" or "to whom"?

texts:
Which of the following sentences is correct according to English grammar and usage? (Note: this was asked in an examination and I have to select only one of the four sentences.)

  1) The fishermen, whom the flood victims owed their lives, were rewarded by the government.

  2) The fishermen, to which the flood victims owed their lives, were rewarded by the government.

  3) The fishermen, to whom the flood victims owed their lives, were rewarded by the government.

  4) The fishermen, that the flood victims owed their lives, were rewarded by the government.

I think it is 1) or 3), but I’m not sure which. Is “to” required before “whom” in a sentence like this?


texts: Reference to word or phrase that has previously appeared in parentheses

texts:
Consider the following sentence:

  There are three options (Halifax, Winnipeg and Saskatoon). Of the
  three, Winnipeg is the best choice because of X, Y and Z.

The sentence is pretty straightforward. My question has to do with style: is it awkward to make reference to something (Winnipeg) that has previously only been referred to in parentheses?

Of course I could rewrite the sentence in any number of ways. My question has to do with whether there is a rule or convention that suggests that a word or phrase needs to be in the "real" (non-parenthetical) text if it is referred to later on in the text.

I have tried to research the question but tend to turn up references to parenthetical referencing.


texts: Can I use "because" and "if" consecutively in a sentence?

texts:
This is the sentence in question:

  I would like to be able to make an unlimited number of wishes because if I wish for money, life, and love, I don't have to work and I don't have to be afraid of death.


texts: A word that describes a word for which there are no words

texts:
I have searched the internet, read every dictionary and scanned website after website, and cannot find a word that describes a word for which there are presently, in your language, no words. Does such a word exist.

Is there a word or term that means a word that doesn't exist in a language?


texts: Is "Dumb thing's broken" grammatically correct?

texts:
I'm studying English watching Big Hero 6.
The movie script has a line "Dumb thing's broken." (Hiro's line)

My question is that if it's grammatically correct.
As far as I know, the noun 'thing' is countable. So it should be used like 'a thing', 'the thing', or 'things'.
I thought it should be "The dumb thing's broken', but my teacher says it's okay as it is. He says it doesn't need any article.
I'm confused. Please enlighten me.


texts: What does "hit" mean in today's headline?

texts:
Can anybody tell me the meaning of "hit" in this CNN headline: "British bank takes $125 million hit from Brexit risks".

I've looked up the word in several dictionaries, but I can't find any suitable definition.

Thanks a lot.

Best,


texts: On the usage of the expression “What differentiate(s)”

texts:
Question one: Which of the following sentences are grammatically correct?

1) What differentiate apples from oranges are their colors and sizes.

2) What differentiates apples from oranges is their colors and sizes.

3) What differentiates an apple from oranges is its colors and sizes.

4) What differentiates an apple from oranges are their colors and sizes.

5) What differentiate apples and oranges are their colors and sizes.

Question two: Do you have any alternatives for the above sentences?

I've searched the web to understand which expression to use, but I could not find a specific rule.


texts:
There is a film called "plasticized"(http://www.plasticizedthemovie.com/about-the-film/).
And one researcher on the sailing voyage explains as below..

The philosophy that there is, an away, that, you know, we say we throw something away.
That you can create something to be used for a minute that lasts forever,
is evil in my opinion.
What I think needs to happen with people who, companies that produce plastic is in the whole scope of the products impact, they need to calculate for its environmental impact economically.

What does it mean "an away"(as noun?!)in these contents?


texts: How has the phrase the "Mecca of some activity" originated and not the "Rome" or "Athens"

texts:
This is not a question about religion at all. My point is Rome and Athens are examples of older civilizations and there is the saying "All roads lead to Rome" indicating it's supremacy in the Ancient world.

So how did it come to pass that Wimbledon is the Mecca of tennis and not another city name fits?

Etymonline offers

  Fig. sense of "any place one holds supremely sacred" (usually with
  lower-case m-) is from 1850

Does anyone have a good explanation of the origin and rise of this phrase?


texts: Translating Physics: phenomena show or shows?

texts:
I'm reading Russian tutorial about basic Physics and saving images for the Anki cards describe them in English, Google translator helps me.
I entered in Google translator phrase about the fact that bodies consists of small parcels.
What phenomena show that substances are composed of particles separated by gaps?
Why does phenomena show? Is phenomena a plural form?


texts: Using hyphen and quote marks in composed term?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  When is it necessary to use a hyphen in writing a compound word?

I want to write a term composed out of multiple words, and I would like to know whether I have to use hyphens or quotes.

Following options came to my mind:

'but he said' argument
'but he said'-argument
but-he-said argument
but-he-said-argument


texts: How do you say the total amount of time that has been spent in a job position?

texts:
I'd like to know what's the best word to describe someone that has been in a certain job position. For example, if I was hired in January and now it's March, my _______ (word I'd like to know) is 3 months.

In Spanish, I'd say antigüedad.
Searching for this word in English it's translated as antiquity but it is defined as:

  The ancient past, especially the period before the Middle Ages. Great Age.

So saying: My antiquity in the position is 3 months seems to be inaccurate, isn't it?

Please advise.
Thanks in advance!


texts: An adjective for "doubt" when it is not reasonable?

texts:
Some people raised serious doubts as to the value of the research on
global warming. But such doubts are ------ .
Some people raised serious doubts as to the value of the research on
global warming. But such doubts are not ------ .

I can think of "im/plausible", "ir/rational", "un/reasonable", and "un/justified". And I can see each of these being used here or there online. But I would like to know what is the most idiomatic adjective when we want to say a doubt is not reasonable or appropriate.


texts:
Although I can recognize and construct phrases that include usage of poetic devices, I certainly cannot define all of them accurately.

For example, I read in a book that  metaphor is defined as transfer of qualities between two certain physical objects. And I found the definition to be so accurate that anyone reading it the first time would understand the meaning of metaphor without having to go through tons of examples.

Likewise, simile would mean the similarities between two objects.

So I wanted to ask if there could be a similar accurate definition for other existing devices like irony, alliteration, and analogy.

I mean I know what irony means and can distinguish between an irony and other given devices but I'm somehow not able to accurately define it without the help of examples.


texts: Which is more correct: "denied of" or "denied to"?

texts: I encountered a question in an exam which finishes with the sentence, "What rights are being denied to Chris?" I was always under the impression that one says "denied of" rather than "to", but is there a rule to this that must be followed? Is one more correct than the other, or are both generally accepted?


texts:
I came across this phrase on a news website:

  "It is shocking but not surprising," said the parliamentarian to..

and I wondered to myself if that is indeed a valid phrase in English. A google search for Shocking but not surprising reveals many articles and pages. The dictionary says shocking means intense surprise:

  adjective
  1. causing intense surprise, disgust, horror, etc.

Although I can "guess" the meaning of the phrase, it does seem a bit odd. How can one be intensely surprised but not surprised at the same time?. It does seem in popular use, but is it a valid English phrase? If it is, can some one please provide a good example of the actual meaning with context?

Thanks in advance.


texts: Word for internalizing excessive critique & acting upon it

texts:
When a parent or a person of authority excessively critizises a child like "you  never get your homework on time" even if this was a false accusation the child will internalize those remarks and begin to act upon them and as a direct result to the remarks never getting their homework on time.

Is there a word in psychology to describe this phenomenon?


texts: Is it correct to say "that place is like 5 miles from here"? I'm not sure if the use of "like" is correct?


texts: "people aged from 15 to 24" vs "people ages from 15 to 24": which is grammatically correct?

texts:
Here is a sentence excerpted from an APA psychological research paper,

  Teen suicide is a growing health concern. It is the third-leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24, surpassed only by homicide and accidents, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

I've heard people use both "people aged from X to Y" and "people ages from X to Y" quite often, but I've always been believing that only the former is grammatically correct, whereas in the latter the "ages" doesn't seem to serve as any grammatical component of this sentence. So when I see an APA paper use "ages" in that way, I am just quite surprised: I just can't believe such an authoritative and rigourous academic institution will let such an explicit (and indeed naive, even to a non-native speaker's eyes) grammatical mistake survive in their publications. I'm aware that in daily language usage one ought not to become so fussy over insignificant matters like this, but I do wonder whether it should be paid attention to in academic writings.

OR, using "ages" in that way is no longer considered a grammatical mistake? Honestly I don't think this'd be true, but if it really is, I'd be grateful to be informed. Thanks!


texts: Adjective word that means a person who sets up decisions and plans

texts:
I'm trying to find the word that is used as an Adjective which means a characteristic of a person who sets up all the plans and decisions.

This word is usually used in relationships when a girl, e.g, is asking the guy to always set up the plan for a date instead of asking her where would she want to go.

This word in a sentence would be like:-
"Stop asking me what i want. I want you to be _______"


texts: "The following considerations give occasion to this task."

texts: Is the titular sentence a grammatical and stylistically acceptable segue from the statement of the aim of an essay to an account of why the research in it is relevant?


texts:
He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set.

Is to lay a typo? If I'm not mistaken, one can only lie on one's stomach, not lay on it.

For this to be a duplicate question, I would have had to ask, again, what are the differences about the intransitive verb to lie and the transitive verb to lay. But this is not what my question is about. Since this question is not about the textbook differences between these two verbs, it cannot really be a duplicate question as some people on this site vehemently, though pointlessly, have been arguing.
Rather, my question is contextual, not theoretical. I don't want to know what these difference are in general (as they're theoretically laid out in every English grammar). I merely want to know why in the context of the excerpt I've quoted the verb that was used is not in keeping with the grammatical guidelines laid out in the answer to the question that my own is supposedly a duplicate of.
So anyone insisting on saying that a contextual question is the same as a theoretical question is just ill-meant and ignorant of the actual thing that I have in fact asked.
I hope this is a clear enough edit for everybody on this site.


texts: Why are "suffice" and "sufficient" pronounced so differently?

texts:
Today I heard somebody use a form of the verb "suffice" (which means "to be sufficient") pronouncing it like the verb "surface" without an r (and where that "a" makes more of an "i" sound).  This person was logically, but incorrectly, adopting the "i" sound from "sufficient" which shares a root and meaning.  The consonant sound in that second syllable is also quite different between the two words (having the c more like a z than an sh).

Why is this?

Other similarly puzzling questions:

Why A is pronounced differently in "opacity" and "opaque"
Why are the first syllables of “nature” and “natural” pronounced differently?
Why are "nation" and "national" pronounced differently?
Why are "look" and "school" pronounced differently?
Why are Kansas and Arkansas pronounced differently?

I suspect Trisyllabic laxing might answer part of the question, but I don't think that explains it all.


texts: Should I use "this" or "next" in a question about time?

texts:
My son asked me this question:

Today is June 12. Tom will play a video game on _ Sunday (which is June 15).

And the choice is either "this" or "next."

So which one should it be?


texts:
I'm confused with this rule:
 1. If one subject is singular and the other is plural, and the words are connected by the words "or," "nor," "neither/nor," "either/or," or "not only/but also," use the verb form of the subject that is nearest the verb.

And I came across this question:
Not only the students but also the teacher (was, were) anxious to finish the lesson.

If the above rule is followed, the answer is WAS. However, if I use http://www.reverso.net/spell-checker/english-spelling-grammar/ to check, the answer is WERE.

Which is correct? Please enlighten me. Thank you.


texts: A word for teasing someone with information they desire

texts:
Is there a word (or a better sentence) to describe the following concept:

Enticing someone by letting them know you have the information they seek, yet smugly refuse to divulge it.


texts: What is the term for using an ancestral given name as a surname?

texts:
This is NOT a question about people who have surnames that are usually found as given names, such as Rand Paul.

My question relates to the process of Americanization of surnames. For example, I have done genealogical research about descendants of Harry Krewiansky who took the surnames Harris and Harrison, and descendants of Bernard Gogolinsky who took the surname Barney.


texts: Different name for the strip of holey paper from a spiral notebook

texts:
When students rip out papers from a spiral notebook, the edge has a row of little holes.  Unlike when I was young, these pages have perforations running down the right side so that the strips can be easily removed, making the paper much neater.
I taught at university my whole career and we called these annoying strips "shitlets." And it was my (and others') policy that submitted work was to have the shitlets removed.  "Homework with shitlets attached will be returned ungraded.  And if I find shitlets outside my door and your homework shoved under it, then I'm just going to shove it back."
In my retirement, I've picked up a part-time job teaching math at a little Christian school.  I want to have the same policy, but I'm pretty sure that "shitlet" is on the list of words I shouldn't use in the classroom.
So is there another word for shitlets?  Preferably one that is disparaging?  If not, would it be too far off topic to have a contest on this list to coin a Puritan-friendly yet derogatory term for them?  I'd be happy to post a bounty.


texts: Should I use Past Simple or Past Perfect in this sentence?

texts:
He (broke)/(had broken) his leg in March and had been in hospital for about five weeks.

I think it should be (had broken) because it happened before he went to hospital.
Is it correct?


texts: Keeping the spelling 'Kristtorn' while sounding like 'Kriston' - possible with diacritics?

texts:
I want to change my name to Kristtorn, which, when pronounced in English, sounds like 'orn' as in horn (/ɔːn/), but I want to make it sound like  'kriston' (/krɪstɒn/).

However what I am wondering is if using a diaeresis/umlaut (also known as a tréma)difference between umlaut and diaeresis (which are the two dots placed above a letter) would make this work.

For example:  The letter i becomes ï through the use of the diacritic.

This would be used with the 'o' in Kristtorn, to make Kristtörn. So as the ö when pronounced in English sounds like "er" as in her (/əː/), what sound would this produce (when pronounced in English)?

Would it be 'kristen' (/krɪstən/) or possibly 'kriston' (/krɪstɒn/), given that the er sound and the 'r' after the 'ö' sound would come out that way when spoken aloud?

Also, does using the Ø vowel (or any
other symbol) in any part of the word Kristtorn cause it to sound differently? Would the use of this vowel make the desired sound?

I'd love to hear what people come up with here, but mainly what I'm going for is some phonetic way of pronouncing the word as Kriston while keeping the original spelling of 'Kristtorn' intact.


texts: Where did the phrase “put a sock in it” come from?

texts: What are the origin and history of the phrase put a sock in it?


texts: An adverb to mean that something looks to be in a certain way but may or may not be so?

texts:
This country's ranking is ----- promising, but there are doubts
  whether they should be taken at face value.

I am not sure about whether such adverbs as "apparently" or "ostensibly" are good here. Are they? Which one is the most idiomatic one?


texts: Is 'ruffle' used correctly in this sentence?

texts: The opposing team jeered at us while we walked onto the field, but we did not let their comments ruffle our confidence.


texts: Is there a word for "a person who hardly understands things"?

texts:
I have one friend who has a hard time understanding things other people say. While everyone except him understands what someone tried to say, this guy still understands nothing. We always have to explain more and more until he can get it. What can we call him?

It's the same as the student who hardly understands what a teacher says while other students can understand it. (Does not mean he is stupid. He can do the exam well. But the teacher has to speak more than usual.)


texts:
I can think of numerous terms for varying degrees of distrust: mistrust, suspicion, wariness, caution, etc; I can also think of numerous terms for very high degrees of trust: faith, confidence, conviction, etc.
However, try as I might, I can neither think of nor find any single terms for varying, low degrees of positive trust; that is, single words which carry similar or identical meaning to phrases such as "potentially trustworthy", "moderately trusting", or "slightly trustful".


texts:
When I ask someone about a list he told me that "it is in the process of being elaborated".

what does it mean by "in the process of being elaborated"?


texts: Can two nouns appear together in a sentence without a punctuation or a conjunction?

texts:
I am a new NLP engineer and totally a beginner in English linguistics. I want to know if two nouns can appear together in a sentence without a punctuation or a conjunction between both of them? Also, the two nouns should reflect two different entities, not one.
For example,

  The name of the president is Donald Trump.

Part of Speech tagger in NLP tags Donald and Trump as NNP (proper noun) respectively. But in the real world, Donald Trump is one entity.

Thank you.


texts: With which noun should a verb following "(person) or I" agree?

texts:
In the sentence below, should the bolded word be prepare or prepares?

  When my family eats at home, my mom or I prepares the meal.

Normally, I would side with the verb agreeing with its corresponding noun in the sentence. However, since this is an exclusive or, where it's either my mom or I doing the preparation, that means that it would be my mom prepares or I prepare.

I'd like to avoid writing it like the sentence below, as it just sounds a bit awkward.

  When my family eats at home, one of either my mom or me prepares the meal.

I was unable to find any existing questions that covered my scenario exactly. Most deal with (person) and I or the order of the two verbs in the sentence.

How can I write this using the my mom or I syntax?


texts: What does the term sophistry mean today?

texts:
Does the term sophistry as it is used today demand intentional deception or does it also include well-crafted arguments based on faulty assumptions or the use of flawed reasoning?

I just glanced at Merriam-Webster.com and dictionary.com and they didn't define sophistry as an attempted deception, although MW characterized it as the use of subtly deceptive reasoning, which I guess does include the implication of intentional attempt to make someone believe that which is known to be false. However, the initial definitions at both sites didn't include that element and focused more on the fact that the arguments were false. I guess I am wondering how you gauge typical meaning now.


texts: Noun for both false positives and false negatives

texts:
Algorithm X was applied to the data. There were neither false positives nor false negatives.

I'd like to replace the second sentence with

  There were no _______.

Which word covers both false positive and false negative and fits a technical report?


texts: What is the exact meaning of "compensation" with respect to monetary expenses?

texts:
For example,
 in this sentence:

  pursuing goals that reflect genuine human needs, like wanting to feel connected to others, turns out to be more psychologically beneficial than spending one’s life trying to impress others or to accumulate trendy clothes, fancy gizmos, and the money to keep buying them. The latter quest may amount to using compensation to try to compensate for something more meaningful.

Actually, I can’t understand what this sentence means. Can someone explain that?


texts: Grammar, concerning any exceptions of "wish" sentences

texts: Which is correct "Do you ever wish (that) you had gone to..?" or "Do you ever wish (that) you went to..?"


texts: How should I understand the word "bound" in this sentence?

texts:
The following is an excerpt from the book 100 Greatest Science Discoveries of All Time by Kendall Haven.

  Charles Darwin entered Cambridge University in 1827 to become a
  priest, but switched to geology and botany. He graduated in 1831 and,
  at age 22, took a position as naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle
  bound from England for South America and the Pacific.

There are more than 30 entries about the word "bound" in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. I am not able to tell which one is correct.

How should I understand it in the excerpt above?

Edited: Is this question too stupid? The problem is that I don't understand the part of speech for this word here. Furthermore I am not able to judge the pattern of the second sentence.

Edited: This is a very common word in mathematics. However, it is difficult for me to pick up the exact meaning from bunch of entries due to my inefficiency in English when this word is of its uncommon (for me) usage.


texts:
I want to construct a sentence that says the following:
Objects belonging to a king should be treated in a certain way, and what you presented is clearly an object of this kind.
I couldn't find a nice way to phrase it:

-Why did you paint the ball yellow?
-Because you didn't ask me to paint the ball blue.
-Well, all balls should be painted blue, I told so in the meeting yesterday.
-Then please write this on the bulletin board. Policies, which what this clearly is, should be posted on the bulletin board.

How should I phrase the last sentence?


texts: Is the use of the term "bugged" to refer to software bugs in English a worldwide or regional use?

texts:
In the 1950's, the primary uses of the word "bugged" was to describe a room that contained a hidden microphone, or to refer to a telephone line that was being tapped.

Over the last few years, I've seen more and more people use the word "bugged" to refer to a software bug.

For example, someone recently wrote, "That function returns the wrong value, it is bugged."

In contrast, I am used to people writing, "That function returns the wrong value, it has a bug."

Is the use of the word "bugged" to refer to software bugs now universally understood in the English language, or is it predominately used in specific regions?

As a bonus, does anyone know where this particular use of the word "bugged" (as opposed to "bug" or "buggy") originated, and when.  Also, was the origin fostered by a specific cultural group?

UPDATE:

The number of programmers with decades of experience stating they have never encountered anyone using "bugged" in this context is notable.  I postulate that this effect is a consequence of people largely being exposed to highly monolithic environments.  For the non-programmers who state they have never heard people using "bugged" in this way, that is possibly just a reflection of their limited exposure to technical content, as every time I have seen it used has been in a technical context.

For any doubters, programmers or otherwise, here are just a few concrete examples from the real world:

From mozilla.org: 1,2,3,4,5,6
From github.com: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17
From codeplex.com: 1,2,3,4,5
From stackoverflow.com (on StackExchange): 1,2,3

For those interested, general web searches provide thousands of additional examples.  Searches directly on technical websites provides many more examples.

(Note that the above are random examples pulled from a web searches. I apologize in advance if there is any inappropriate content.  Many thanks to NVZ for making the list of examples easier to read.)


texts: Recipe — "spoonfuls" seems right but it seems wrong too

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Why are certain single word compound nouns pluralized in the middle

  Drop by spoonfuls, 2 inches apart, onto a greased baking sheet.

Spoonful or spoonsful? Seems it should be spoonful as there is only one spoon and one dollop of dough.  But it sounds wrong to my ear.  Maybe it is just misused too much in recipes.


texts:
A: Why are you doing this?
B: You only asked for this, didn't you?

Is the usage of only here correct so as to mean you were the one who?


texts: I seek a word for the expectation that any arbitrary group of people can be held morally accountable as though they're a single moral agent

texts:
I think this must be a cognitive error of some kind. I just now read the phrase, "the hypocrisy of the left", and it occurred to me that hypocrisy is a moral action, which can be taken only by a moral agent, ie, a person. And "the left" (or "the left wing" or "the political right") are not persons; they don't have stable personalities, they're not moral agents, they can't engage in hypocrisy.

Is there a word for this kind of error, calling on a (usually ill-defined) group of people to exhibit a stable personality and moral accountability?

Single-word request requirements:

Sample sentence: "You get an F for your paper entitled 'The Sins of The Right', because it's based entirely on a cognitive error known as homunculus-ex-vulgus."
Not being sure where to start with a dictionary or thesaurus, I've tried googling misattribution of moral agency and cognitive error moral agency, also group single personality; I went through 50 Common Cognitive Distortions on Psychology Today. I haven't found anything that even sounds similar.
My criteria for choosing the best word: If it's a clinical or technical word, then I guess the best word would be one that literally means what I'm talking about. If metaphor is the only thing available, I guess the best word would be the most neutral-sounding, the least baggage, the kind of word that wouldn't put people on the defensive.
Words I've considered: honestly, homunculus-ex-vulgus fallacy is the only thing I've come up with.
A compound word or phrase is fine. Cheers

P.S. I would be most grateful for any feedback concerning the downvotes.


texts: What will be the word order in converting this to reported speech?

texts:
We need to convert the following to reported speech:

  Why have you taken a room on the tenth floor?

I am confused about the word order.

Should it be

  He asked her why she had taken a room on the tenth floor.

or

  He asked her why had she taken a room on the tenth floor.

or neither? Why?

I suppose since we convert an interrogative sentence into a declarative one (on conversion to reported speech), the correct one would be the first. However, the it doesn't 'sound' right. And English is not lacking in exceptions.


texts: Meaning of the counting rhyme "Eenie Meenie Miney Moe"

texts: Counting rhymes are as we know, used for determining who is it.So last week, we were playing chili-chili-water, and my friend told me that the counting rhynme "Eenie Meenie Miney Moe" actually had a meaning. I asked him but he wouldn't tell me. Could someone quietly explain what the rhyme meant?


texts: Difference between unsuited and unsuitable

texts: Can you use both words as synonyms? Or only in some cases? Or do they have completely different meanings?


texts:
what's the meaning of "to place on the edge of"?

Important for understanding displacements and borderlands associated with
global transformation is growing insecurity as the “free market” devalues labor
by challenging “local” wage rates and relations and nationally constituted environmental and labor laws in ways that place economically vulnerable populations on the edge of legal protections and secure rights

is it meaning that people has no rights?


texts: " booking of our sudent or for our student"? Are there any differences between American and Br english?

texts:
is there a difference between saying: "we would like to confirm the booking of our sudent or for our student"? Are there any differences between American and Br english?

It's supposed to be part of an email confirmation from one school to another, regarding a specific course


texts: I'm looking for a single word that describes all flowers, plants, trees and grass?


texts:
Why do English people employ the expression "out of respect" (for dead people, for example) to denote respectful attention, whereas other expressions based on "out of" are more denoting:

something now missing ("out of sight", "out of milk"),
a strictly negative sense ("out of question"),
a movement out ("move out of the house"),
or a count from a whole ("5 out of 100 children")?

What is the original (historical) common meaning for all those expressions, what is the base picture?


texts:
Does anybody else use 'gravity' as a verb besides people in mining and engineering?

Example: We have to move the tank up the hill so water can gravity to the flotation cells rather than needing to be pumped.


texts: Is there a noun for inverting two clauses so that the personal pronoun is mentioned in advance and only later is its antecedent specified?

texts:
"Charles can be very sarcastic when he wishes.
  "When he wishes, Charles can be very sarcastic.

Is there a word for this kind of inversion?


texts: Is there any other example of this omission of the letter 'b'?


texts:
What is the correct position of "now" in the following sentence. What is the rule for this?

We now consider the second case.
We consider now the second case.
We consider the second case now.
Now we consider the second case

I found on http://www.wordpower.ws/grammar/gramch24.html that it should be after the verb or at the final part of the clause, but what is wrong with the other cases (1) and (4)?


texts: Meaning of this sentence about impeachment

texts:
This is what Woodrow Wilson said about the impeachment process:

"'Nothing short of the grossest offenses against the plain law of the land will suffice to give them speed and effectiveness. Indignation so great as to overgrow party interest may secure a conviction; but nothing else can.'"

What do the phrases "suffice to give them speed and effectiveness" and "Indignation so great as to overgrow party interest" mean?

Thanks in advance.


texts: What's the term for (tech-)companies discouraging integrating with other companies' ecosystem or through public protocols in general?

texts:
Especially when it causes said other companies to look bad?

Example:

Google services and apps are (as far as I'm aware) available for all kinds of devices, Android, Apple, etc. For messaging and calling, it likewise uses either the existing public protocols or makes the technology available on any platform (e.g. regular "texting" and Duo).
On the other hand, Apple has Facetime and iMessage, but these are exclusively produced for Apple products. Since iMessage seems integrated with normal texting, it may appear to iPhone users that Android users' phones are buggy or not working correctly, that they are missing features, and that "they should just get an iPhone".

I understand that this phenomenon is kind of a type of Vendor lock-in, but I feel it goes further because it is at the same time making competitors look bad. It's almost related to marketing, but the ones propagating the idea are the users, not the company. Is there a phrase, term or idiom in natural English or business or academic English that describes this? Or in any other language for that matter?

Note: I'm aware the same thing may be done by Google and other companies. My example is not meant to be a single argument to point out a guilty party or voice dissatisfaction with any company (I in fact wrote this question using an Apple device). The example mentioned is simply the one I'm confronted with the most in my personal daily life, even more so during today's COVID-19 pandemic when we rely on this technology to communicate with our friends and relative.


texts:
In a question paper, there are many questions and the professor intends to say that all the questions are weighted equally. Most commonly, I have come across the following:

  All questions have equal weights.

However I also came across the following recently, which sounds ungrammatical to me, but I am not sure.

  Each question has equal weight.

Is the second usage also correct? Somehow I feel equal does not come across as same in this sentence.


texts: Differences between "coordinate" (n.) and "co-ordinate" (n.)

texts:
I can't seem to spot any differences or usages where one would use the hyphenation version versus the non.

According to Online Etymology they both point to coordinate.

I can see co-ordinate (v.) being used like co-pilot or co-chief, meaning a daulity or partner version. Example: Would you please co-ordinate with Bob. Meaning Bob is already ordinating and if you would also ordinate with him.

Yet I don't see that transferring over to the noun version meaning a location, especially in reference to mathematics and geography.

Is it simply a mix-up, or perhaps a localization issue (UK uses -, USA doesn't) or am I completely off base here?


texts: What is the grammatical name and function for "doing this" in the following sentence?

texts:
Before interview read through your CV first. Doing this will help you answer personal questions.

What is the grammatical name and function for doing this in the sentence above?


texts: How is "thought it an outrage" grammatically correct?

texts:
I came across this sentence:

  He also believed that virtually all good popular music had its roots in black culture, and thought it an outrage that, as jazz became popular across America, its origins were being obscured from view.

Shouldn't it be "thought it WAS an outrage" instead of "thought it an outrage"? What makes the above sentence correct, if it is?


texts: Files with information obtained from spying on people

texts:
Suppose you're living in an oppressive (English-speaking) regime, where intelligence agencies keep files on people with information garnered from informants who interact with them or agents who follow them around.
What verbless adjective-phrase could we use to describe these files?
I'm looking for an adjective-phrase, so I could say these are "[something] files"


texts:
What is a word for someone who is 'anti-Christian' in the way one is 'anti-semitic'? For example,

  Someone who is X is opposed to the doctrines of Christian theology and prejudiced against practicing Christians.

This not to say they are atheist or otherwise advocating for another religion. Rather, they advocate for the destruction of Christianity as a religion. This notion is also distinct from 'internal' heresy, as in a theologian that rejects mainstream Christian theology and advocates alternative readings of the texts or philosophical concepts.


texts: What do we call words that have vernacular meanings at odds with specialized meaning, e.g. "imply"

texts:
A commonly quoted caveat when seeing news reports or scientific data is that "Correlation does not imply causation".

While this is true in the logical sense of imply, i.e. to be sufficient evidence of, it is misleading and somewhat illogical if reader assumes the vernacular definition of imply, i.e. to suggest.

Often correlation does suggest causation, or at least should suggest further investigation in that direction to dismiss a causal link.

There are probably many examples of phrases or words that often have contrary meanings because the everyday usage of the term and the technical meaning of the term have diverged. Is there a term for such words  or instances?


texts: What does “Jus’ folks is jus’ dumb” mean?

texts:
I found the article titled “5 myths about Rick Perry” in today’s New York Times literally dealing with the mystery of Texas Governor who is running for 2012 GOP Presidential nominations entertaining.
However I was caught up with the following lines in the article:

  “He’s a hillbilly dimwit. That’s bias against Texas, pure and simple. --Don’t make the mistake of thinking that jus’ folks is jus’ dumb.”

I interpret ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that “jus’ folks is jus’ dumb’” means “Don’t think an average (or ordinary) person is just a dumb.’ Is my understanding correct?  Is “jus’ folks is jus’ dumb’ “a proverbial expression?

I also came across my usual question about the discordance of numbers of the noun and verb in the above paragraph. Why ‘jus’ folks, which is plural in number is followed by ‘is’ and ‘a dumb,’ both in singular?


texts: Data that is vs Data stored vs Stored data

texts:
Which of the following is correct?

Data that is stored on your computer will be encrypted if ....

Data stored on your computer will be encrypted if ...

Stored data on your computer will be encrypted if ....