texts: What is a good alternative to "the film is set in"?

texts:
I'm writing a paper about a movie.

I would like to start like this:

  Monsters is a 2010 independent science-fiction film directed by Gareth Edwards and set in the Mexico-U.S. border region. It is set in the present; however, a significant event has changed human history six years before ....

I would like to avoid duplicating "set", but I can't think of a good alternative. The thesaurus isn't helpful because it doesn't seem to cover the case of "to be set", at least dictionary.com's doesn't.

What are good alternatives here? I'll restructure the sentences if none exists, but I thought I'd ask first.


texts: What does "He is so odd a mixture of" mean?

texts:
The following passage is from Pride and Prejudice.

Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character.

With my limited knowledge of English, I know the following combinations are ok.

He was odd..
He was so odd..
He was a mixture of...
He was an odd mixture of...

But what does "so odd a mixture of" mean here? It feels like some words are missing in this phase. How should I interpret this phase?
Thank you.


texts: Can this be used instead of "and so on"?

texts:
Can "etc", "so on" also be used as "and things of that nature".

Example:
In school you need to have, pen, pencil, pencil case and things of that nature.

English is not my first language, I hope you understand my question.
Thanks


texts: What do you call a person working in law?

texts:
Politics is to politician as law is to what?

A hypernym for lawyer/judge/law student, etc.

Edit: Not only in the legal system, anyone practicing or researching the subject. Maybe politics wasn't the best example.


texts: Is the phrase "I'm afraid" interchangeable with "I am afraid"?

texts: I don't think I've ever seen the phrase/idiom used with the non-contracted "I am". If it's not interchangeable, would it be odd to see that phrase in a poem where there aren't any other contractions? Would it break the consistency?


texts: Can you use the word atheistic to describe a lack of belief towards one specific religion?

texts: I don't believe in any deities. Therefore I am an atheist. But if I were to just express that I don't believe in say Zeus, would it be correct to say "I am atheistic towards Zeus"? Take a person who follows and believes in religion X and who doesn't believe in any other religion including religion Y. This person is not an atheist in the broader sense as they believe in the deity of religion X. But is it correct to say that they are atheistic towards Y ? Or even that they are a Y atheist ?


texts: Could articles be omitted in descriptions of art?

texts:
Compiling brief descriptions of art objects, is it okay to make do mostly without articles? For instance (about an old coin),

Eagle under crown; shield featuring Moscow’s coat-of-arms on eagle’s
chest; scepter and orb in claws.

Another example:

Armored knight standing right. Sword in right hand, bundle of arrows
splitting date 16—75 in left.


texts: "Change in meaning (or role, or use)" vs "Change of meaning (or role, or use)

texts:
I'm slightly confused. I'm editing my notes from an introductory lecture to grammar and I found this:

  A change in the form of the word in order to express a change in the
  use, meaning or role in the sentence.

What difference would it make to the meaning if I wrote "A change of the form of the word", if any? "Change of the meaning"? "Change of the role"?


texts: Rules for single-word comparatives and superlatives

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  “More clear” vs “Clearer”, when to use “more” instead of “-er”

Are there any rules for which words are allowed to have -er and -est endings? Being a native speaker, I do it by ear, but what distinguishes free/freer/freest, calm/calmer/calmest, and speedy/speedier/speediest from watchful/*watchfuller/*watchfullest or creative/*creativer/*creativest ?


texts: Are there any verbs that accept multiple prepositions and as a result differ in meaning?

texts:
In some languages there are particular verbs that can be used both with and without a preposition. In some of these cases, the verb also accepts multiple prepositions.
Example 1: Below is an example in Turkish using the verb "vurdu". This verb can accept a preposition but also function without it (although with a difference in meaning).

Çılgın adam beni vurdu. (The crazy man shot me.)
Çılgın adam bana vurdu. (The crazy man hit me.)

The word "beni", used in the first sentence, is in the accusative case (object pronoun). The word "bana", used in the second sentence, can be translated as "to me". So the difference between the two sentences is that the latter has the preposition "to", which changes the meaning of the verb.
Example 2: Here is another example in Turkish using the verb "kalsın". This verb can accept (at least) two prepositions.

Diğerleri ona kalsın. (Let him have the rest (of something).)
Diğerleri onla kalsın. (Leave the rest (of something) with him.)

"ona" can be translated as "to him", where as "onla" can be translated as "with him". The first sentence can imply that you shouldn't cheat him by taking his share of whatever is being discussed. The second sentence can imply that you should leave/give whatever is being discussed to the person so that he can keep/safeguard it.
I've been thinking about this for a while now, and the closest example I can think of, in English, is the usage of "home" vs "to my house". Although the phrase "We're going home" is just as valid as "We're going to my house", the meaning of the verb does not change.
So, does such a grammatical pattern exist in English, where the verb changes in meaning based on the presence or type of preposition used?


texts: does this statement refer to futur tense?

texts: commemoration to be held for victims. I mean: do these have same meaning "commemoration will be held for victims"


texts: Is there a general term for an inventory item that is taken from over time?

texts:
For example, let's say there's a business that has reels of wire rope, yarn, or chain. Or even tanks full of gasoline. In all of those cases, what is being sold is not the whole reel or tank, but measurable parts of it. Compare this with an off-the-shelf item that is just sold whole.

I'm looking for a term to use to refer to these items that are not sold whole. Is there such a term?


texts: In which single word can this be summarized?

texts:
Say you have several companies working for you to achieve/complete a certain task, but the one who does best/finishes the job gets the commission for the job. I'm aware of the term pitch (from the elevator pitch) but I'm looking for synonyms or alternative words to describe this type of behavior/scenario.

Even better; if there's a name for this and was described by someone in history I'd like to read about it.

Any suggestions?


texts:
I wonder what the correct question form of the following sentence is:

  Diet Coke has been made since 1982.

Is it correct to say "How long has Diet Coke been made for?"
And should we use the preposition "for" or not?
Or is there a better way to form a question?


texts:
English is not my native language. I have a confusion regarding 2 sentences.

1) I can't see any more

2) I can't see no more

I speak like I mentioned the first one, is the second sentence correct? There are a lot of sentences that I heard recently where people use no instead of any.


texts: Word used to describe the act of dominating a conversation?

texts:
Someone dominates a conversation by not letting others get a word in.  I'm thinking its a combination of snow job and fillibuster (though not political in nature).

EDIT: to clarify, Not quite a long tedious speech; Speaker prompts a response but doesnt actually allow the response to be heard because the speaker begins talking again as if the response was heard.


texts:
The Stack Exchange Winter Bash 2013 has me thinking about hats, as my collection is growing. I know that the terms for people who collect specific things are generally obscure, but they do exist. Perhaps the most common of those types of words is "philatelist"— a person who collects stamps.

Is there a similar word for a person who collects hats?


texts:
I'm searching for a noun that represents the opposite of rest/remainder.

For example, "Highlight the rest of this page." The word "rest" in this case represents everything between the current location and the end of the page.

I'm looking for a word that would represent everything between the current location and the beginning of the page.


texts: Can you brew wine, or is the word "brew" specific to Beer, coffee, and tea?

texts: I would like to know whether or not wine can be brewed, and secondly if the wine-making process is considered brewing. It seems that some definitions are specific to beer, coffee, and tea, where others are not.


texts: Displaying two things scaled differently - ratio?

texts:
If got a picture that displays things. As thing A is alot bigger than thing B, I have downsized A. Not mentioning this size adjustment may confuse viewers and transport a wrong message. How can I tell the viewer with as little words as possible that the sizes of A and B are not comparable without adjusting the scale.

  A is displayed with smaller ratio

Is this okay, or should I use in as a preposition? Is there a best practise way of saying this?


texts:
Is there a word that means "outdated name"?
For example:

Record, although very little music is on vinyl
Film, although most movies are digital
Horsepower, although no one uses horses as a metric anymore
Phone, although it's mostly used to access the web

and so on.


texts:
The following passage is quoted from an article in the Observer, Sunday 15 September 2013
titled This glorious and unruly English language that lets everyone in  What does the phrase "to find within it their own unique cadences" mean?

  What the would-be linguistic dictators called the "anarchy" of the English language has been redefined by writers from the greater anglophone world as its great generosity.  Its glory is that it lets everyone in without making them all the same.  English was multicultural long before it contained that word.  Because it is itself an unruly bastard tongue, it is capacious enough for everyone to find within it their own unique cadences.  The England that once had pretensions to govern this glorious tongue is gone.


texts: What is the meaning of "Independent Oversight"?

texts: I'm reading privacy documents and this words came up, I have no idea what it exactly means.


texts: Way to express that someone does something with a hidden purpose

texts:
Is there a common (not too formal) specific word or expression used to state that someone is doing something with a hidden, but not necessarily bad, purpose?

I mean something analogous to the Italian expression avere secondi fini.

Searching the net I've found two of them:

to have ulterior motives
to have a hidden agenda

The first seems fairly formal (I've never heard that until today), whereas I wouldn't use the second for small matters. A government or a manager could have an hidden agenda, but could we say that a 14 years old has an hidden agenda (not ironically, of course) if he asks his mom if he can help her washing the dishes?

Are my conclusions/impressions in the previous paragraph correct? Are there alternative expressions besides those two?

I'm looking for common, informal, idioms, but not slang, i.e. something that can be also acceptable in a written text, albeit informal.


texts:
When telling a story about myself from the past, I have found myself in an internal debate over whether the correct way to segue into the present is:

  That was me twelve years ago.

Or:

  That was I twelve years ago.

My instincts tell me the first is correct (object pronoun after a verb and it sounds better to my ears). But, I'm not sure if pronouns after linking verbs should be object pronouns. Which is correct?


texts:
Alright, so this is a pretty pervasive style in modern CGI characters now:

Colloquially I'd refer to it as "anime hair but real" but anyone who isn't familiar with anime won't even know what that means (plus it's still animated) and I'd like a definition that can stand on its own. What sort of adjectives could I use to describe it? Spiky implies something more punk; it's kinda feathery but calling that would confuse it with the feathered hair fad of the 70s; it's too neat to be shaggy, and as for beyond that, I'll shamelessly admit I'm not proficient with hair. Is there an actual name for this style?


texts: How should an English speaker pronounce "vice versa"?

texts:
When using vice versa in spoken English, I tend to just completely Anglicise it and pronounce it vise VER-ser, with only one syllable in vice.

The original would be something like VEE-cay VER-sa, but I often hear people use a hybrid pronunciation more like VY-ser VER-ser, with two syllables in each word.

Which is the "correct" way to say it?

French loan phrases seem to stay fairly true to the original pronunciation, e.g. déjà vu doesn't become dedger-view and je ne sais quoi isn't juh nee sayz kwoy.
So should vice versa be pronounced true to the original?


texts:
In Portuguese, a college diploma is colloquially referred to as a “canudo”, literally a “tube”. This usage is typically semi-dismissive, for example if you want to imply a diploma — the actual piece of paper — for a certain course is worth more than the education it represents.

Is there a similar word in English?


texts: Was "man" a gender-neutral word in common usage at some point?

texts:
I've seen some times the claim that in the past "man" was a non-gendered word, with "wifman" referring to female individuals and "wereman" referring to male individuals. I've found some indications that "wifman" was either a predecessor or a complement to "woman", and even the root for the current "wife". I've failed to find solid information regarding "man" being a truly neutral word (and not just a masculine word applied to both female and male individuals) and "wereman" or any alternative being the default word for male individuals.

So, was "man" a non-gendered word in the English language or its predecessors at some point, with different words derived from it (as woman is today) to refer to both male and female individuals?

Note: My main language is entirely gendered, and we have no way to address someone in a gender-neutral way that is common usage. If anything comes across as rude, please say so and I'll correct it. I understand this may be a sensitive topic.


texts:
A friend of mine, George, called the other day.
The poem "The Road Not Taken" is one of Robert Frost's most famous works.

How come sentence 1 requires commas and sentence 2 does not? Both phrases ("George" and "The Road Not Taken") both specify the subject.


texts: What is the difference between "social butterfly" and "socialite"?

texts:
I think both are one and the same but that word socialite may best describe a person formally and it may also describe person's lifestyle while social butterfly describes person who socializes at an outing such as parties. Please help me understand the difference.

If they're one and same but difference is in formality, please let me know!


texts: Are /ɑːɹ/ (as in "start") and /æɹ/ (as in "parody", "marry", or "clarity") allophones? It seems that the latter can only occur when the /æɹ/ precedes a vowel in the word; i.e., when the /ɹ/ would be pronounced in a non-rhotic accent even if there are no following words. I speak a variety of American English where /æɹ/ is pronounced /eɹ/, so it isn't intuitively clear to me whether /ɑːɹ/ and /æɹ/ actually are or aren't allophones.


texts: Why "silver-tongued" for someone who is convincing?

texts:
I understand that "silver-tongued" or "silver-tongued devil" means to be a good orator, or:

  able to speak in a way that makes other people do or believe what you want them to do or believe
  Merriam Webster

My question is: why silver?

This question on quora goes into detail about where & when the phrase appears to originate from.

But why would silver be chosen as the adjective to describe someone's tongue?

I'm making the assumption that it means the valuable metal silver and not simply the color, but would gold not have been more apt, as it is worth more? Or why not jewel encrusted tongue?

It just seems rather arbitrary to choose a valuable metal, but not the most valuable, to describe someone with a tongue that is valuable. I was wondering if there is any evidence of a deeper or more substantial meaning as to the original choice.


texts: Should /l/ sound be always pronounced completely?

texts:
Normally, your tongue should touch the roof of your mouth when you pronounce the /l/ sound. The light /l/ sound and some of the dark /l/ sound, such as 'look', 'cancel', can be pronounced easily.

But the pronouncing of dark /l/ sound followed by a consonant is difficult in touching the roof of mouth, especially when I speak fast. 'twelve', 'also', 'Kelvin' are this kind of words.

So my question is as follows.

Q1. Is the action of tongue touching the roof of mouth is necessary in all situations when I pronounce /l/ sound?

Q2. When some words like 'value' are pronounced, should the /l/ sound and the /j/ sound be connected ? If they are not connected, does it mean that the action of tongue touching the roof of mouth doesn't exist? (Especially American accent.)

Thanks in advance.


texts: What is an onomatopoeia for heavy breathing?

texts: The only one I can think of is "huff," but this isn't very good. I'm trying to find onomatopoeia for the way a person breathes just after they've been running hard.


texts: The influence of non-native speakers on the English language

texts:
I can’t lay my hands on the reference, but David Crystal has reported an increase in the use of informations by native speakers, as a result of its use by non-native speakers. The OED has 59 citations showing its use.

  @Barrie England (link)

Recently, I posted a question hinting that the non-native speakers' request: "How do you call [it]?", was slowly becoming more common even among native speakers, even Barak Obama (one of the most eloquent orators in today's politics) used this construction in a recent speech held in Germany.

What expressions by non-native speakers are being used/adopted by English native speakers today?
How has global English affected “English as she is spoke” by BrEng, AmEng and AusEng speakers?


texts: Punctuation for sentence ending in quotation marks and a Question mark that is part of a title

texts:
What is the correct punctuation for a sentence which has quotations with a question mark as part of the title and the title is the end of the sentence?

Dr. Spencer Johnson discussed the principle in his book "Who Moved My Cheese?".

Does a period go at the end of the sentence, as shown here or not?


texts: "It has no link wih proverty. Because if it was then neither this engineer or designer join this radical group." Is this a gramatically correct sentence?if not,then please let me know how this can be corrected.


texts:
Is there an idiomatic way to say that it took a lot of time and effort for someone to do something?

Example: you ask someone a question to which they are reluctant to give an answer, but eventually, and especially after a lot of struggle, they do. And now you want to say something like "oh my god he went through hell to answer that (which isn't befitting of course)". What should we say?


texts:
Should "Jobs's" be pronounced "Jobs" or "Jobsis"?

Thanks!


texts:
My question concerns the following Siouxsie and the Banshees lyrics:

Come let's take flight, let's quit this scene tonight
Whilst they sleep on endless, in their wrecked designs
Sleep on endless in your wrecked designs

Is "endless" an adverb in this case? I suspect that this usage is the same as what's discussed in this question, but I want to be sure. Another possibility I considered is that it's an adjective describing the subjects.


texts:
Hello and happy holidays.

While reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I came across the expression "consound it" in Huck's dialogue parts.

"Consound it, Tom Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o' what I am."

"Then consound it, we've fooled away all this work for nothing."

Does anyone know what it means? I am guessing by context that it works as an interjection and it means "quit it", "give it up" or something. Thanks in advance!


texts: The meaning of "did not immediately respond to requests for comment"

texts:
This expression is included in many news stories but to me, it's frustratingly vague.

I see these as "weasel words" - some journalist leaves a voice mail for someone, waits 10 seconds for a callback then goes to press saying there was no immediate response.

From a journalistic perspective, what is the true meaning of this expression? Is the meaning deliberately vague to sensationalize the news?


texts: Are there other interjections to substitute for "jeez", "good grief", "oh my god", "and other interjections containing religion?

texts: I would like to know if there are interjections expressing exasperation, annoyance, anger, frustration without connection to religion. Preferably doesn't originate from it either. No euphemism too. Much appreciated.


texts: word for getting hit in the head, lowering your neck and raising your shoulder? (shrug?)

texts:
i am looking for a word that describes the action of lowering your head/neck and raising your shoulder as if being hit by a board or in this example, a frying pan.

all i can think of is shrug, but that doesn't sound exactly right.


texts: Usage of 'nebulous' and 'makeup' in this sentence

texts:
While reading an article on Mediterranean diet, I found the following sentence:

  While somewhat nebulous in specific makeup, the diet is typically said to be rich in fish, nuts, fresh vegetables, olive oil and fruit.

I think this, partially, means while this is not clear to some degree; however, I can't get how makeup is used in this sentence.


texts:
I have three (could grow to be more) bad reasons for a situation and I wondered if there is such a thing as a triple whammy that is an extension of the double whammy. From my research online, a triple whammy means a totally different thing. I have pasted the definition that I found in the Free Dictionary, but that originally came from McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions:

triple whammy definition:
1. n. a powerful treatment; a powerful shock : The market crash, the trade figures, and the death of the secretary of defense was a powerful triple whammy in Washington politics this week.

Is this just a higher "degree of badness," or does it mean something different altogether?


texts: Why do we use two p's instead of one when spelling "equipped"?


texts: Should I write go down into the valley or down into the valley?

texts:
We followed the footpath across the field and down into the valley.
We followed the footpath across the field and went down into the valley.

What is difference in meaning above two sentences?


texts:
I have always wondered if using "of course" in a sentence requires comma usage, because we tend to pause when using "of course" in language. The first sentence is from what I am writing now. Is it correct? I also gave some other variations, just to receive feedback on which may be an incorrect usage of commas with "of course."

"Of course, considering the matter in hindsight, those thoughts of mine were ridiculous."
"Considering the matter in hindsight, those thoughts of mine were, of course, ridiculous."
"Considering the matter in hindsight, those thoughts of mine were of course ridiculous."


texts: How do American English and British English use the definite article differently?

texts:
I decided to make sure that I know this important difference between American and British English, so I wrote what I have found out so far and I would be grateful to anyone who reads this and tells me whether I am wrong, or not.

In British English when people say  to hospital or in hospital when  talking  about somebody being there as a patient they don't use the definite article : "I had to go to hospital", "She spent two weeks in hospital". And the meaning is that somebody was there as a patient.

If then for some other reasons British English speakers  will use the definite article which will change the meaning itself, I noticed that, in American English, native speakers often use the  the and if they need to show that somebody is in church to pray,  in school as a student, in hospital as a patient, in prison as a prisoner, they use 'in' and not 'at'. Do American English speakers use 'at' like British English speakers use 'the' to give the sentences a different meaning?

Are my sentences correct? Do they show American English usage?

He is in the school. (enrolled as a student)
He is at the school. (for some different reasons)
He is in the hospital. (as a patient)
He is at the hospital. (visiting somebody)
He is in the church. (to pray)
He is at the church. (for some different reasons)
He is in the university. (as a student)
He is at the university. (not as a student)
He is in the college. (as a student)
He is at the college. (Not as a student)
He is in the prison. (as a prisoner)
He is at the prison. (not as a prisoner)


texts: "The accomplishments we achieve will allow us to grow as individuals." Is this correct?

texts: I do not think the verb "achieve" collocates with "accomplishment" as it seems redundant. Any alternative verb suggestion would be welcome.


texts: How did the 'for-' prefix evolve into its negative meanings?

texts:
Preface: I hope for an equally, if not more, instructive answer like this for 'be-'.

  [for-:]
      prefix usually meaning "away, opposite, completely,"
  from Old English for-, [1] indicating loss or destruction, [2] but in other cases completion,
   and used as well with intensive or [3] pejorative force,
  from Proto-Germanic * fur "before, in" (cognates [...]);
  from PIE * pr-, from root  * per- (1) [4] "forward, through" (see per).

  In verbs the prefix denotes (a) intensive or completive action or process, or (b) action that miscarries, turns out for the worse, results in failure, or produces adverse or opposite results. In many verbs the prefix exhibits both meanings, and the verbs frequently have secondary and figurative meanings or are synonymous with the simplex. [Middle English Dictionary]

  Probably originally in Germanic with a sense of [4] "forward, forth," but it spun out complex sense developments in the historical languages. [...] Ultimately from the same root as fore (adv.).  [...]

I am guessing that forwardness to act, implies interest and willingness to act, which can inspire (a). Please advise whether this previous sentence seems to explain how [4] evolved to mean  [2] and (a).

But how might have [4] evolved to mean (b) ( which Etymonline divides into [1] and [3] )?
What shifted semantically?


texts:
Can for follow want in a sentence? For example,

I really wanted for it to happen.

I wanted for these products to be back in stock.

In the first sentence, omitting for will be totally alright but for some reason, adding it doesn't sound wrong to me either. Can somebody shed light on this?


texts: Can we use "Since..., thus.... as a grammatically valid sentence?

texts:
I am wondering if below sentence (and in general, all similar sentences) is grammatically correct and semantically meaningful:

Since I have graduated from school, thus I should find a job.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  When is the use of “north” more appropriate than “northern” and vice versa?

Is there any rule when to use North and when Northern as adjective?

I thought that it's North for entirety of the thing located in the North and Northern for only the northern part of a bigger whole, but this is not always the case: Northern Hemisphere, Ohio Northern University, North Seattle Community College, North Africa.


texts: "trends from 400M visitors" vs "trends by 400M visitors"

texts:
The Overflow Blog, April 20, 2020

  How the pandemic changed traffic trends from 400M visitors across 172 Stack Exchange sites.

I have a problem with one of the prepositions used in that statement, most noticeably "from". It feels that the sentence should end something like this: "traffic trends from 400M to 550M" Instead, the announcement is about the change in visitors' interests and participation across the SE network. Biology.SE and Puzzle.SE, to name but two, owing to the recent pandemic have witnessed a significant surge in numbers of posts and visits.

My quibble is with "from", would "by" have been incorrect?

  How the pandemic changed traffic trends by 400M visitors across 172 Stack…

Chrome's online dictionary seems to confirm my impression: by “identifying the agent performing an action.”

Or would the following be clearer; stylistically better?

  How 400M visitors from 172 Stack Exchange sites changed traffic trends during the pandemic…


texts:
Recently I read an article about the Windows Phone design. The author kept mentioning the term spread, as in "single spread" and "long spread of content". I thought they would be explained later on in the article, so I read on, but tough luck. He just kept using it. So I stopped reading, confused.

Here's a part of the article demonstrating the use of the term in context:

  Even though Panoramas are made out of panels or sections, we should design them as single long spreads of content. Think of one of those two, three or even four page spreads in magazines. The ones that unfold, sometimes being the cover itself, and others being pages within the magazine for an advertisement or poster. By designing the Panorama as a single spread and not in chunks you will be able to sell the immersive experience that Panoramas offer in a much more compelling manner to users.

What does spread mean here? What is "a single spread", what are "four page spreads"?


texts: Some fantasy and science fiction novels have characters who do not like personal pronouns; they use constructions like "This one is eager to attend" rather than "I am eager to attend". What person is that considered? Is it still first, or does that make it third?


texts: Is there a popular expression in english to say "pasadomañana" as in spanish?

texts: There is in spanish a word "pasadomañana" to refer to the day after tomorrow, I wonder if maybe there is an popular/informal way to mean the same without say the day after tomorrow


texts: Is "preciser" a valid comparative of "precise"?

texts:
I encountered preciser as a comparative of precise and thought it was incorrect.  However, some reputable online dictionaries (1, 2) return hits for "preciser".  But they do not explicitly list the word, so maybe what I am seeing is just an automatic redirection to precise.

Can preciser be considered valid?


texts: Hyphenation of “ You ain’t a-kiddin’ ” and such

texts: In a piece of dialogue, would we use a hyphen after "a" in the phrases "You ain't a-shittin'" and "You ain't a-kiddin'"?


texts:
What is a word that means "fear of being discovered"?
Preferably a word but a phrase will also do just fine.
In my case I want to use it like:

  He had constant fear that he would be discovered as the murderer
  He had ___ that he was going to be discovered as the murderer


texts:
What can this phrase possible mean?

  And I didn't know kiwis had hair

I have parsed this as well as I can and cannot come up with anything that makes sense.

Reference for context: comment under this StackOverflow Question

Is it a phrase or structure commonly used in some corner of the world?


texts:
The product will be launched within 6 months of/from project kick-off.

'Of' typically indicates possession, but 'from' can be used to describe future actions. The product launch depends on the kick-off date, but I'm not sure if it belongs to the kick-off.
Also, I do not want to say "will be launched 6 months after kick-off" because that communicates a strict 6-month timeline.


texts: Use of the Phrase "In sequel" to begin a sentence

texts:
Is Using the phrase "In sequel" (making referrence to something in the past) correct in a sentence. For instance:

" In sequel" to our previous conversation, I sent a Forward mail to your box...


texts:
What does it mean and what is different between Shan't & won't
I need the answer with example

thank you


texts: Men sweat, but women glisten. What's the equivalent for a woman for snoring?

texts: Colloquially, we say that men sweat, but women glisten.  Is there an equivalent word for describing when women snore?


texts: What's the most neutral reply to "Can you do me a favor?"

texts:
While the answer to my question may be considered highly subjective, I can't help but feel like there's an extremely neutral way to reply to the phrase I'm inspecting.

The question normally frustrates me because I see it as a trap: if I reply, "Sure!" or "Absolutely," I'll end up committing myself to something without knowing what it is. On the other hand, if I decline, I'd be refusing exposure to something that may be beneficial -- plus, the one asking may see me as close-minded (not that it matters).

So I'm looking for a reply that falls between an absolute decline and absolute blind acceptance.


texts: "Take something into account" vs "Take into account something" — are both correct?

texts:
Are the two usages both correct? Personally, I'd prefer

  take something into account

but I have heard some professors and academic textbook authors prefer

  take into account something.

Am I good to use what I prefer or the latter one is more correct?


texts: Are the phrases "some" and "many" determiners?

texts: Are they quantifiers or determiners, I am unsure about the answer to this question.


texts:
"You just won the lottery? Chapeau!"

This is the first time I have seen such usage in English.

Literally 'Chapeau' means 'hat', but the intention (that I get from the internet) is something like 'My hat is off to you' or 'Hats off!' or 'Congratulations!' or 'Mad props!' or 'Good for you' or 'Cheers'.

The primary question is: What is the provenance of this in English.

And secondary questions:
- at what point did it enter English? Is it direct to British English from across the channel? Or is it North American only, borrowed from French-Canadian?
- And what is the feel of it? Is it mostly ironic (as 'good for you' often is)?
- Is there a difference in English usage between the French singular 'chapeau!' and the plural 'chapeaux!' (or is it meaningless distinction in English). I've seen both usages.


texts: What do you call someone who is obsessed with video games?

texts:
I need a slang word which means someone addicted to playing video or computer games.
Could gameaholic work?

It can't be nerd or geek because although those expressions denote someone who is obsessive, behaves in an  eccentric manner, and is viewed as a loner; today those terms refer to people who possess a certain expertise in a specialist field and a passion for hi-tech things in general.

I would like a word for someone who plays online or computer games continuously well into the small hours. I was thinking of midnight gamer or RPG fanatic, but obviously they're not idiomatic. Wikipedia's article: Role Playing Game terms didn't prove to be very helpful.

And I would also like to know if an equivalent term for a middle-aged man or woman, for example a house-wife who has only recently caught the computer-playing bug because her own children play video games.

I did look at this question and although I quite like the term, mouse potato, and it's fairly accurate, it doesn't quite convey the obsessive and compulsive element I had in mind.


texts: Which is more natural: peer or peer groups?

texts:
I ran an experiment on a website where I allocated different users into different groups. (Example: if there were six users: A, B, C, D, E, and F, it could be that users A, B, and C were allocated to group 1, while D, E, F were allocated to group 2, and users in group 1 only saw each other and not users of group 2, and likewise users of group 2 only saw users of group 2.)

I found that user behavior was affected by the other users in that user's group. Which is more appropriate:

I find that one's contributions are significantly affected by one's peer group.
I find that one's contributions are significantly affected by one's peers.

Or something else?


texts:
1- Mr Andrew is ......man that you can trust him.

a) such a.   b) such an.   C) such the.

2- Mr Andrew is......man that you can trust.

a)such an    b)such the    c) such

I am a bit confused, can someone provide an explanation for each one? Thanks in advance


texts:
My virgin post!

Which has the most appropriate preposition usage of the following two sentences;

Do you have a hypothesis on why you got sick?
Do you have a hypothesis about how you got sick?

Or would you reformulate the sentence altogether?


texts: Can a sport field not surrounded by seats be called an arena?

texts:
I found the following definitions of the word ‘Arena’:

1)   A large, flat area surrounded by seats used for sports or entertainment (dictionary.cambridge.org)
2)   A level area surrounded by seating, in which sports, entertainments, and other public events are held. (en.oxforddictionaries.com)

My question is as follows: Can a sport field (e.g. cricket or soccer) be called an arena if it is not surrounded by seats and there is no space for an audience?
All other definitions I have found specify that an arena must have seats for spectators.

Thank you for your answer in advance.


texts: Differences between the ways to express the future

texts:
There are basically five ways to express the future: will + infinitive, be going to + infinitive, present simple, present continuous, and be to + infinitive. Can you please tell me the differences between them?
Examples:
The meeting will begin at 9.00 a.m. (will + infinitive)
I'm going to collect the children at 8.00. (be going to)
I should be finished by the time you get back. (present simple)
I'm not asking Tom to the party. (present continuous)
The European Parliament is to introduce a new law on safety at work. (be to + infinitive)
Thanks!!!


texts: Hyphenation in compounds with abbreviation remarks

texts:
So far I understood, that hyphenation should aid readability.

Examples [1, 2]:

  North America-based company

  A Gaussian mixture model-based approach

  We propose spherical Gaussian-based approximations to calculate this analytically.

Although, this never aligned with my understanding of parsing trees, I would still like to apply this rule.

How does it extend to abbreviation remarks?

  Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based approach

  Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF)-inspired method

My own understanding of how to parse the words is as follows, which does not seem to be reflected in how hyphens are used:

{
  {
    {
      Gaussian {
        mixture model
      }
    } (GMM)
  }-based
} approach


texts: Is it "authenticate with" or "authenticate against"?

texts:
In computing, I'm used to talk about "authenticating against a server". However, it came to my attention that many people use "with" instead of "against" in that sentence, and the Google test seems to prove them right.
Are both valid expressions? Do they mean exactly the same? Do you know any dictionary or style guide out there that states either that one of them is the only valid expression or that one of them is better than the other one?


texts:
What kind of verb should be used in order to say that something has increased or created inefficiency?

Maybe generate or produce?

Edit: I'm asking this because created or increased inefficiency sound wrong to me instinctively and when I read them out loud.


texts: nouns separated from postpositive adjectives by a comma

texts:
If geometrical patterns below is separated from marked by a comma that means marked refers to the flower beds. Is this reasoning correct? I once read something about this but I cannot seem to remember where it was or what the rule was.

  The garden, surrounded by tall fuschia hedges, had the flower beds
  worked in complicated geometrical patterns, marked with smooth
  white stones. The white cobbled paths, scarcely as wide as a rake's
  head, wound laboriously round beds hardly larger than a big straw hat,
  beds in the shape of stars, half-moons, triangles, and circles all
  overgrown with a shaggy tangle of flowers run wild.

Source: My Family and Other Animals (1956) by Gerald Durrell


texts:
I wonder if there is any phrase or idiom to express a situation, where one of the discussion participants, lacking arguments to upkeep a constructive discussion, steers the direction to personae:

-- ... So these are my arguments, proving that you are completely wrong. Do you agree?
-- This is utter rubbish, only fools like you think that way!


texts:
A couple of days ago, I saw a character on the show Californication type Fade in: and then continue to write a movie script (as you can see here).

Yesterday, I heard someone say:

  If you would like to write a successful book, just type "Fade in" and start writing.

Is Fade in an idiom around authors? Is it commonly used?


texts: Is there a word for when you use a descriptor in place for a word/phrase you've forgotten?

texts: Best example I can give is a post I saw a while back where someone was trying to remember the name for a manta ray and described it as a sea pancake instead. Logically you could call it a sea pancake and most native speakers will get the gist of what you mean, but the actual name is still manta ray. Is there a word for that sort of phrasing in writing when you use nonstandard language but it still gets the point across or works as a valid name/descriptor?


texts: Which is correct, "dataset" or "data set"?

texts: I keep writing dataset. Is that correct, or should I write data set?


texts: Is use of the word "dwarfism" considered offensive?

texts:
Ellie Simmonds, 4ft tall, is a British national treasure. In 2008, she captured the nation's heart when at the Beijing Paralympics she won two gold medals in the pool, at the age of 13. She has since won several more, gold, silver and bronze, in London and now in Rio. At the London games there was a wonderful moment when the Prime Minister, David Cameron (over 6ft tall) had to bend almost double to kiss her on both cheeks when he presented her with one of her medals.

Ellie suffers from achondroplasia, an inherited condition in which the growth of long bones by ossification of cartilage is retarded, resulting in very short limbs and sometimes a face which is small in relation to the skull (Oxford Dictionary Online)

The dictionary entry does not refer to dwarfism at all, and nor does the Wiki entry on Ellie Simmonds. But achondroplasia is such a mouthful of a word, and very few people know what it means, that it seems better to say she suffers from dwarfism.

Is there anything wrong with that?


texts: Something like deserdia but google turns up nothing, means list of desired characteristics.


texts: What does ‘shoe–leather journalism’ mean?

texts:
I found the word ‘Shoe-leather journalism’ in the following lead copy of the New York Times article (July 28) titled ‘In baring facts of train crash, bogs erode China censorship.’

  “China’s Twitter-like microblogs posted an astounding 26 million messages on the crash, a potent amalgam of contempt, suspicion and shoe-leather journalism.”

Merriam-Webster com.dictionary gives the definition of ‘shoe-leather’ as ‘involving or using basic, direct, or old-fashioned methods', and shows shoe–leather journalism as an example without any explanation.

Does ‘Shoe-leather journalism’ mean old-fashioned journalism or stereotype reporting style? Does it have something to do with a country’s governing system? What is the origin of ‘Shoe-leather journalism’?


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Is there another way of saying 'user-unfriendly'?

Regarding the usability of some sort of system (whether soft- or hardware), what would be a good (and established!) word to express that something lacks usability. The best I could come up with was "non-usability" but I believe there existed an actual antonym.


texts: Like a reflection from the aspect of an angel

texts:
I am reading the book "Jane Eyre" and there is a sentence which I can't understand: "like a reflection from the aspect of an angel" What does the word "aspect" mean in this case?

This is the context. Thank you very much in advance for your help:

  There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy (the patron of the school in which she studied told her in public that she was a servant of the devil.)

  What my sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit.

  I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel.

  Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm "the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.


texts:
I'm writing a Statement of Purpose for graduate programs in mathematics. I wrote:

  I sincerely hope that I will have the opportunity to join
  (university) and to train to become a mature mathematician.

Is it better to say "train to become a mature mathematician" or "train me to become a mature mathematician"? Is there any better expression regarding this? Any suggestions will be appreciated.


texts:
Regarding this (original) sentence:

  Off of the great room, to the left of the fireplace, was a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor, where the bedrooms were, and down to the basement, where the spiders were.

You could easily, lucidly write this:

  Off of the great room was a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor and down to the basement.

Which means that the removed parts are "not necessary," and in need of commas, but this seems to work just fine:

  Off of the great room to the left of the fireplace was a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor where the bedrooms were and down to the basement where the spiders were.

Is it just a matter of style? Or is one "wrong," "improper," or "frowned upon?"


texts:
I think they both acceptable, but which one you recommend me to use in conversation.

  If he were/was an elephant.

Isn't were sounds too formal/oldfashioned?


texts: In the turn of phrase "scared the living daylights out of me" what does "living daylights" refer to?  Where does this particular idiom originate?


texts: Does this sentence regarding "coleopteran" make sense?

texts:
There's some ambiguity between Polish and English ( as far as beetles are concerned). Please help me determine if this sentence makes any sense at all.
Thank you.

  I know that a (forest) dung beetle can be called a coleopteran. Because every beetle is a coleopteran. But you need to know that not every coleopteran is a beetle.


texts: Is it acceptable to add extra words at the end of a sentence, to clarify its meaning?

texts:
It's certainly done a lot in every-day speech. But is it acceptable to say:

  I'm happy today, me.

or, to take it to another level:

  He was well behaved, my son, this morning.

And, if so, is there a name for this construction?


texts: Confused by the past tense and the present tense

texts:
Suppose I'm talking about some design scheme. I say something like
"foo was once designed and implemented in a way called bar that ...". Then I want to introduce the original scheme "bar", for example, "in the bar method, foo ...". To describe the behaviors of "foo" in the old design scheme, what tense should I use here? And are there any general rules about these cases?


texts: How did 'milieu' evolve to mean 'social environment'?

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

milieu = A person’s social environment:
Etymonline: "surroundings," 1877, from French milieu, "middle, medium, mean," literally "middle place" (12c.), from mi "middle" (from Latin medius; see medial (adj.)) + lieu "place" (see lieu).

Yet how does 'middle place' induce the definition?


texts: Piece of time/fragment of time/portion of time/bits of time

texts:
I have a question regarding the use of certain words to express an idea that implies portions of time.
Is a “piece of time” an idiom or does it literally mean a “fragment of time”?

I would really like to know if there’s another natural way to say “a fragment of time”.

For instance:

Each one has

His own piece of time

And his own piece of space,

His own fragment of life

And his own fragment of death.


texts: Confused about the meaning of a sentence from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent

texts:
The following excerpt is from The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad:

“Typical of this form of degeneracy—these drawings, I mean.”
“You would call that lad a degenerate, would you?” mumbled Mr Verloc.
Comrade Alexander Ossipon—nicknamed the Doctor, ex-medical student without a degree; afterwards wandering lecturer to working-men’s associations upon the socialistic aspects of hygiene; author of a popular quasi-medical study (in the form of a cheap pamphlet seized promptly by the police) entitled “The Corroding Vices of the Middle Classes”; special delegate of the more or less mysterious Red Committee, together with Karl Yundt and Michaelis for the work of literary propaganda—turned upon the obscure familiar of at least two Embassies that glance of insufferable, hopelessly dense sufficiency which nothing but the frequentation of science can give to the dulness of common mortals.
“That’s what he may be called scientifically. Very good type too, altogether, of that sort of degenerate. It’s enough to glance at the lobes of his ears. If you read Lombroso—”

I fail to understand the meaning of those words in bold; can anybody explain or paraphrase the sentence with the bold part for me?


texts: Can I place "little" after a linking verb "be"? For example, the effect of a quantity on the price is little.


texts: What part of speech is "remaining alive"?

texts:
Is remaining alive well structured in the following sentence? What does it exactly mean? Is remaining in this case a verb or an adjective?

Example sentence:
But naturally we do not take that into account, any more that we take into account that dinner, and the next day again, dinner, is the condition of our remaining alive.

My sincere apologies if my english makes you cringe, but im jolly desperate.


texts: A person who is adamant because he knows he is right, without being rude

texts:
At my workplace, my senior, who is senior than me by age, experience and knowledge is always right.
I want to tell (admit/appraise) him that, I do what he says and do not put my POV because at the end of conversation he will emerge as correct with all facts and examples and convince all of us in meeting.
I don't want to use stubborn, adamant or any other rude word because he is never rude but polite.
Edit: I want to add more maybe it is more  or less similar to what I wrote, still I think it would bring us more closer to that word.

He doesn't easily surrender to what anyone says in meeting and put facts across to in support of his point.
Generally it becomes kind of interactive debate session and he appears to be winner in the end.

Steadfast:

He could come up as "Sorry, what did you say" and
I go like "blah blah.."
He again, "No dear, I am not that person" another debate started.

Authoritative, Self-reliant or Self-Righteous:

He could come up as "Oh no dear, I don't want to act as Authority, authoritative here, I am just putting facts on the table".

I am looking for word that people would accept, without any explanation/after-thoughts.


texts: Difference between terminology and nomenclature?

texts:
What is the difference between terminology and nomenclature?

If I want to say that I use the same words with the exact same meaning as author X, what would you say?

"We use the same terminology as author X"

or

"We use the same nomenclature as author X"


texts: Is there an intended audience for a book, or intended readers? I want to say the targeted sphere of people that would buy and read the book. I mean, for whom the book was written. How do you say it better? To my ear for some reason audience sounds better


texts: I was there by your side vs I was by your side there

texts:
She was by my side in the building.
  She was in the building by my side.

The first sentence says that she was in the building, and she was staying beside me.

The second sentence says that she was in the building that was by my side.

But the sentences below do not work like that.

  3.I was there by your side.

  4.I was by your side there.

Comparing the third sentence to the second sentence, I should comprehend the third sentence as saying that I was there that was by your side. And the fourth one should mean that I was by your side when I was there. But the third one means that I was by your side when I was there, and the fourth one doesn't make much sense to me. I don't even know if the fourth one is grammatically correct. Can you guys provide any explanation?


texts: Is this clause restrictive or non-restrictive?

texts:
I'm debating whether the noun phrase "John Locke's Two Treatises of Government" is restrictive or non-restrictive in this context:

  Benjamin Franklin was introduced to democratic ideals when he read one of the most influential works of his time: John Locke's Two Treatises of Government.

My instinct is that "John Locke's Two Treatises of Government" is restrictive, because the the phrase "one of the most influential works of his time" suggests that there were several influential works. Naming the specific work that Franklin had read restricts the several influential works down to just one.

However, I think it could also be argued that the prepositional phrase "of the most influential works of his time" is purely ornamental. The leading noun is "one", which is singular. The leading noun refers to just one thing, so citing  "John Locke's Two Treatises of Government" isn't restricting anything.


texts: Can the Future Perfect be used in a main clause of a conditional sentence that has a stative/non-action verb in the if-clause?

texts:
A student asked me this question today about a sentence like:

(1) If Canada's population is 40 million, the Canadian economy will have been more dynamic.

I was asked if it corresponded, in a future conditional sense, to the third conditional sentence (2) If Canada's population had been 40 million, the Canadian economy would have been more dynamic.

To me, sentence #1 sounds utterly ungrammatical, and my tentative theory is that the ungrammaticality is because of the stative/non-action verb in the if-clause.  I can come up with unusual--but grammatical--sentences using Future Perfect in the main clause and a Simple Present action verb in the if-clause, such as If she agrees to marry me, we will have lived together for a year by next Christmas.  But I have not been able to dream up a corresponding, grammatical example that uses a stative/non-action verb in the if-clause, nor can I think of a way to transpose the meaning of #2 (third conditional) to #1.

I need some help with this, and my search of umpteen grammar reference books, Google, and the ELU archives has not helped.  Please enlighten me.


texts:
What's the difference between these two?

How could I have missed that?
How could I miss that?


texts: What is the spelt-out form of “What gives”?

texts:
I noticed the phrase “What gives?” in the following lines of the article of Washington Post (August 29) article, titled “Is Ron Paul being ignored?”

“And yet talk to almost anyone in politics — Republicans or Democrats — and the idea of Ron Paul as a top-tier candidate for president is greeted with either a laugh or an eye roll (or both.)
What gives?
Paul appears to be suffering from the “once bitten, twice shy” tendency of the media.”

It appears to me “What gives?” is a common and frequently-used phrase, but I don’t think I’ve seen this phrase so often in written English format like newspaper articles, much less in English textbooks we use.
Does it mean “for what (reason)?” or "What is its implication?" What is the spelt-out format of “What gives?”


texts: Is it poor form to start too many sentences with I?

texts:
I often find myself writing a lot of comments to blog posts and responses on forums, and have noticed a tendency to start a lot of sentences with 'I'. 'I think...', 'I had no idea', 'I used to...' etc. Is there a general style guideline about avoiding this, or is is acceptable when you're writing opinionated pieces?

Repetition in general is poor style in my book, but when I start to shift around my sentences to avoid starting them with 'I', they tend to sound too stilted.


texts: What does the phrase "punctuate proceedings" mean in this context?

texts:
Here is the sentence:

  With this app, You can add audio effects, and you can also punctuate proceedings with the sound
  of a flying aeroplane or an air horn.

The sentence is from a DJ app which lets its users access a great number of sound tools on their mobile.

I know the lexical meanings of both punctuate and proceedings, but I am not sure what do they mean when used together in this context. Is it about adding special sounds to signify intervals between events or does it simply mean adding some sounds which are played intermittently?


texts: Less formal synonym for "Confirmed", "Acknowledged"

texts:
I'm looking for a less formal synonym for "Confirmed" or "Ackowledged", that retains some brevity.  As an example, say I've received an e-mail from my manager asking me to switch to a different task.  The request is clear, and I'd like to acknowledge that I've read and understood it, but I don't need even that much vebosity.  I could reply with just "Roger" but that just seems almost too informal:

"We've got clearance, Clarence."
"Roger, Roger."
"What's our vector, Victor?"


texts: What is the difference between "to encourage" and "to call on"?

texts:
For me, Russian speaking person, It is distinctively difficult to identify the difference in meaning between these two words within the context. Are these interchangeable?

The encourage has multiple meanings in Russian that makes it confusing for me.

  1) I encourage you all to do well in your studies.

  2) I call on all the people to not take action.


texts: Can you use a ditransitive construction with the verb 'to attribute'?

texts:
Examples:

John attributed his cold to his wife.
Jane attributed wisdom to her father that he didn't really possess.

The above are standard transitive constructions.  Can I then properly say the following using a ditransitive construction?

Examples:

John attributed his wife his cold.
Jane attributed her father ('with'?) wisdom he didn't really possess.


texts:
Which of the following sound more appropriate?

The projects that I have worked on are .....

The projects that I have worked on were....

The projects had funding, which is either x type or y type.

The projects had funding, which was either x type or y type.

Please provide me with any reading materials on this topic if possible.


texts: "the other half were" vs. "the other half was"

texts:
In the following sentence, "other half" and "were" do not seem to match up:

  In one study conducted by the University of Michigan, half of the participants were asked to solve a puzzle while mentally referring to themselves as "I," while the other half were asked to use "you".

Shouldn't it be the other half "was" asked to use "you"?


texts:
In a question I recently posted as to the difference between "intrinsic" and "inherent", an incidental issue arose. Which is more appropriate:

  Inherent in...

or

  Inherent to...

Gardner's Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage states that inherent takes the proposition in, not to.
Random House Dictionary uses the following example:

  factors inherent in the situation.

Yet, Ngram viewer has similar statistics for both usages, and there seem to be different (trans-Atlantic?) intuitions.


texts:
In Australia, I often hear the phrase "the Tyranny of Distance", but I'm not exactly sure what it means.

I know that the phrase originated from The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia's History, and that the word "tyranny" is being used metaphorically, to indicate that something has a very strong influence.

Is there an exact meaning to the phrase? Or has it become a cliche?

onelook.com didn't have any entries apart from the book, plus an album named after a lyric from a song by a NZ band.


texts: Is the word "clinic", as in a basketball clinic, a natural and "warm" choice compared to alternatives such as "camp" and "program"?

texts:
I'm developing a website for a client who provides physical education programs for elementary schools. The client frequently uses the word clinic to refer to his more targeted sports programs for kids, e.g. a basketball clinic. Of course the client is referring to the following definition (from Merriam Webster online):

  a group meeting devoted to the analysis and solution of concrete problems or to the acquiring of specific skills or knowledge <writing clinics> <golf clinics>

However, this usage feels unnatural to me. I've only heard the word clinic used in the context of hospitals, patient care facilities, laboratories, and the like. I worry that the imagery triggered by the word clinic is not as "warm" as alternative words like camp, course, and program. From a marketing perspective, I feel that an alternative word should be used.

I'm asking on English.SE in case I'm simply ignorant, or at least ignorant to a difference of language in generations. That is, I'm in my mid-20s, my client is in his 30s or 40s, and the target audience would be in the client's age group: parents, teachers, principals, and coaches. Given that I'd like to use their generation's language, is clinic a more natural choice?


texts: Whad does "sad eyes up glad eyes down" mean?

texts: Out of the lawn, bland Mrs. Haze, complete with camera, grew up like a fakir’s fake tree and  after some heliotropic fussing-sad eyes up, glad eyes down  had the cheek of taking my picture as I sat on the steps.


texts: I'm searching for a word that identifies one of the two "halves" of a dyad. The word "half" seems inappropriate because it suggests a whole that has been sundered. I've also considered "element," "part," "side," "unit," "division," "member," "component," "simple," and "adjunct," but none captures the connotation of something in a reciprocal relationship with its opposite.


texts: What is the wrap on a coffee mug or a thermos called?

texts: When I buy a cup of coffee for taking away, the seller usually wraps the cup with tissue for reducing the heat or coldness when I hold the cup in my hand. There are also thick wraps that are made of some kind of rubber for putting it around the coffee cup or a thermos for sales as well. Does it have a name or just call it a wrap?


texts: Correct tense for events which happend long time ago but still have direct connection with present time

texts:
Suppose that a man disappeared twenty years ago and I haven't had a notice about him since then. What should I say to my interlocutor if I want to tell him about this story?

  You know, Harry has disappeared.

Though it sounds like he has disappeared recently. Or:

  You know, Harry disappeared.

But my opponent could think that Harry had disappeared some time ago and then again had been discovered. Or:

  You know, Harry had disappeared.

But here... Why, it's rather strange usage here itself IMHO. That would mean I think that I wanted to tell about some events which had occurred in the past and that Harry had disappeared before those events and had never been discovered until then.

Can anybody throw light upon this matter?


texts: Whatever happened to "eyeglasses", "facial tissues", and "video game consoles"?

texts:
Now-a-days, we tend to ask:"Have you seen my glasses anywhere?" "Do you have any spare tissues to lend me?" and "How many consoles do you own?"

It's just quicker to say and any native speaker will understand, despite the (possible) ambiguity of these terms; e.g., Where are my glasses? could be interpreted as Where are my drinking vessels? But in real life, this never happens.

Essentially, I have three questions:

When did the shortened names; glasses, tissues and consoles first appear and took over from their longer named "parents"?
Is there a name for this type of noun which originally began as a compound word (sometimes joined by a hyphen) and was eventually reduced to a single-word?
Are there any other compound nouns which have dropped one or more lexemes but still retain their original meanings?

NB: I am not referring to portmanteau words which are neologisms made by blending two words together such as smoke and fog to obtain smog. Neither would I consider them to be contractions because there is no omission of internal letters for example; gov't, govt, gov and dep't or dept. I can only think of "shortened" which fits the bill but can also stand for contractions; unless I am mistaken.

Despite skimming through the relevant Wikipedia pages, I found no explanation or references as to why, (although I think that is easily explained) or when, these names were shortened and became more popular.

Source Wikipedia: eyeglasses; facial tissues; video game consoles.

EDIT: In my original title I had included "tissue paper" but as several users have commented, tissue paper is used for wrapping delicate objects whereas tissues normally sold in boxes are commonly referred to as facial tissues, especially in the US.


texts: What do you call a person who doesn't like to help?

texts: I've always wondered what this type of person is called. Never found an answer, so I though I'd ask here.


texts: I want to make a official call and ask the other person whether he is free or not at that particular time. I think asking, “Are you free now?” does't sound formal. So, are there any alternatives to it?


texts: Word for the relation between two different generalisations

texts: I'm looking for a word for the relation between two concepts that are both different generalisations of the same concept. As an example, take the scalar product and cross product between vectors, from the product between scalars.


texts:
In the sentence below:
"The other theory underlying Wright's design is that of organic architecture: that structure should appear to be an extension of their surroundings. "
Question: I know the first that is referring to "theory," but what I am confused is that why colon is used here? Because I think the second "that" is leading an apposition clause explaining what the preceding " the theory of organic architecture" is.


texts: I've been reading Thank You, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse and couldn't understand what he meant by "The man must have the crust of a rhinoceros".


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  “There is no rule” vs. “there isn’t rule”

If I'm not mistaken, both "There isn't a storm." and "There is no storm." have the same meaning.

I understand that the first one is the "contraction" of the second one, but what I can't understand is that if it is the contraction of the second, why the is second "There is no storm" and not "There is not storm"?


texts: "The application stays on (or in) the same screen."?

texts:
The application stays on/in the same screen.

In sounds a lot better but aren't things on the screen?


texts:
The following is an excerpt from the CNN news of July 20.
What does “next level henchman status” mean in this context?

While temperatures in the area could reach 102 degrees, it'll likely feel even worse: The heat index, or the more accurate temperature your body feels when air temperature and humidity are both factored in, could be as high as 115 degrees, the weather service said.
That's simply too hot for lawbreaking, Braintree police said.
Committing a crime in this sort of weather is "next level henchmen status," the department said, not to mention dangerous to the offender's health.


texts:
Which of these sentences should I use?

  Algorithms 1 and 2 work in time O(n) and O(n^2) respectively.

Or

  Algorithms 1 and 2 work in times O(n) and O(n^2) respectively.


texts: What adjective would best describe adjectives that are related to feelings?

texts:
Joyful, happy, angry, hilarious, lovable, annoying, poignant, melancholic, depressing, cheerful, hateful, etc. All these ones are adjectives. Some of them can be applied to those objects who experience those feelings that these adjectives imply. Some of them can be applied to those objects that only cause those feelings in others. However, they are all related to feelings whether those are physical feelings (those that one's body can feel, like pain) or "soulish" feelings (those that are felt in one's soul, like liking or sympathy).

So, the question is how to name all these adjectives? Is there any term for such ones? (A term consisting of only one adjective is preferable).


texts:
I'd like to get advise on this!

Ireland intends to relocate 3,205 refugees to their territory.
OR
Ireland intends to relocates 920 refugees into their territory.


texts: How to say that you are going to do something really soon?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  “Do it very quickly” vs “do it ASAP”

Quite often I need to say that I will do something really soon - e.g. in a few hours, but not sure how much time it will take exactly.

I usually say something like:

  I will make it shortly

  I will do it in a short while

What are the most common phrases for this?

"I will do it soon" sounds rather lengthy. "I will do it ASAP" sounds unsure.


texts:
The controversy surrounding [something]

If there are 2 sides, 1 side supporting [something] and another side opposing [something], which side does it represent?


texts: What word describes keeping something for purposes of reference, and tracking history?

texts:
Context: At a Town council meeting, one policy was rescinded, and a new policy was presented. One councillor requested that a record be kept of the old policy for reference so the new policy could be better understood. Like a breadcrumb trail, so people who read the new policy could know where it came from and how it evolved.

I'm trying to fill in the blank:

  Councillor [...] requested that the intent of the old policy be preserved in
  the new policy for _________ purposes...


texts: Is there a word or phrase to describe the action of replying to communication via another medium? For example, if someone sends me a message containing a question via Facebook and I reply to it via a SMS text message. In this case the person asking the question, gets an answer, but may be confused by it because of the medium for the reply, or because the chosen medium may lack context for the response.


texts: What's another educated word for "Hater", as in someone who wants to see another fail or lose and uses negativity to do so?

texts:
Ex. This type of person will say or do something negative to you when you accomplish something great in life, simply because they want to put you down and hurt your self esteem or confidence. No one asked their opinion, they simply lash out negative verbal attacks or actions to put you down.
For lack of better words, I would say, "You're just a hater".
However, the word "hater" by its definition would not make sense in this statement. Let's say you could prove in court and to anyone that this person does not hate you at all. So if they're not a "hater" of you, what word would describe them?


texts:
Do they mean the same when used in a sentence?

Example:

  A scream would occasionally escape from her, only to be absorbed by
  the dark metallic walls.

  A scream would occasionally escape from her, but only to be absorbed by
  the dark metallic walls.

Do both sentences mean the same? If not, what would be the difference?


texts: Is an apostrophe with a decade (e.g. 1920’s) generally considered “incorrect”?

texts:
I typically don’t use an apostrophe with plurals in any situation, but I always assumed that the use of an apostrophe in constructions like acronyms:

  Forty BA’s were given out to students this year.

or numbers:

  Though the greatest period instability occurred during the 1950’s when. . . .

was more or less ok. I would personally use BAs and 1950s here, but I've never thought the apostrophe in this case was necessarily “incorrect”. What say ye?


texts: Describe a noun using "pronoun + verb" OR "-ing verb" after the noun

texts:
So I was trying to google this, but I have no idea how to describe my question. I tried a few different keywords and still couldn't find the answer.

Basically, I am wondering if there is any difference between this one:

  I love studying mathematics, the subject that combines abstract theory with real world applications.

And this one

  I love studying mathematics, the subject combining abstract theory with real world applications.

This might not be the best example but is the one that I can come up with right now. Are they grammatically correct? and is there any difference between them?

Thanks a lot.


texts:
Here is the sentence:

In 2002, as defense minister, he had, according to French prosecutors in an ongoing case, taken a 114-million-euro bribe to buy French submarines.

May I ask why there is no article before the word defense? If I add the article the, how would the sentence's meaning change?

According to federal indictments, Goldman was drawn into the plot early in 2009, when two senior employees—Tim Leissner, head of investment banking for Southeast Asia, and Roger Ng, a managing director—first met Low.

Why isn't there an article - the - before federal indictments?

Blankfein told employees in a 2014 meeting, around the time federal prosecutors launched a criminal investigation of Vella’s dealings in Libya.

Similar for this, why isn't there an article before the word federal?

According to a 2019 federal indictment, Low sent Michel $21 million, much of it to be laundered into a number of Democratic campaigns.

Wheres for this sentence, there is an article (an) before federal.
Can someone explain?


texts: What do you call an object that resembles a concave triangle?

texts:
What would you call a triangular object with two sloping, concave sides? See the following image. Consider object A, object B and the entire structure as a whole; object C. What do we call object C?

It is related to architecture. I'm trying to describe the structure of an opera house design proposal.


texts: What is the first usage of the word "doobie" in OED?

texts: It is almost impossible to get a clear answer to this question in the US online.  For example:  Ted and Fay were smoking a doobie to clear their heads before going out.


texts: 'That's a good one, isn't it/that?' -- Question Tag after Demonstratives

texts:
Regarding the question in the title, I think we should use it:

  That's a good one, isn't it?

'Isn't that' is respectively rare in this position, but I'm not sure if it's incorrect.

My question is: should we always use it in the question tag instead of this or that?


texts: What do I call the window in the warehouse which is used to submit kitted goods to the customer?

texts:
I'm translating a text about a warehousing system inside a company. There is a window inside the warehouse through which the person (say, from a production department) may collect the goods and/or materials kitted on his order (see "order picking"), and then go and use these in his production department.

What do I call this window? In Russian it is the "hand-over window" (окно выдачи). Or "hand-out window".

  The conveyors are equipped with the necessary quantity of geared motors, chains, rollers, bearings, photoelectric retro-reflective sensors, circuit breakers, thermal switches etc. to ensure the safe transportation of items in pallets or in boxes loaded on pallets to the hand-over window.


texts:
How would you rewrite the following sentence more properly?

  The sea is blue and the sky also.

I know that there is a specific construction using so, but in fact I never used it...


texts: Regarding music: "in a track" or "on a track"

texts:
Is it

1.1 "it doesn't matter if you hear it on rap tracks"
1.2 "it doesn't matter if you hear it in rap tracks"

Would it be different if I use "song" instead?

2.1 "it doesn't matter if you hear it on rap songs"
2.2 "it doesn't matter if you hear it in rap songs"

My gut feeling says "on" is correct, with 2.2 allowed colloquially


texts: Difference between Anything and Something

texts:
Is there any meaning difference between these two sentences below?

  If this story has taught us anything, it's that...

  If this story has taught us something, it's that...

If there's not, why is the former preferred over the latter?


texts: I was just seeing the CV of Dr. Donald Knuth, which he calls as his Curriculum Vitæ. So is Curriculum Vitæ more appropriate than the commonly used Curriculum Vitae?


texts: the meaning of "need not be uniquely determined"

texts:
i don't understand the meaning of the "even" and "need not be uniquely determined" in this phrase:
True, even the will of supporters of particular parties is still likely to be multidimensional, so partisan interest need not be uniquely determined


texts: "Adverbial phrase" vs "Adverbial clause"

texts: Please tell me what the difference is between an adverbial phrase and an adverbial clause.


texts: Is it correct for someone to say that they've "fixed the apparent problems" with something?

texts:
Either there were no problems and therefore nothing to fix.
Or there were some problems are therefore something to fix.
But how can apparent problems be fixed?
Unless "apparent" in this context means "obvious"?
I'm confused!


texts: "we are going to x, y, z" implicit order

texts:
When someone says "I'm going to x,y,z" is there an implicit order to this? Such as going to x first then y followed by z. If so what is this called?

I assuming that interpreting this sentence as the person going to z first then y and lastly x is also valid.


texts: A bit confused! does indirect speech apply to other verbs such as "think", "hope",.. instead of "say"?

texts:
Ok, I am not native speaker & all my knowledge normally came from textbook.

When teacher teaches Indirect speech at school, they often use the verb "say".

For example:

Direct speech: It is raining hard today.

Indirect speech: She said that it was raining hard yesterday.

We have to change the "present simple" to "past simple" & "today" to "yesterday".

Ok, no problem.

But my question is that

does indirect speech apply to other verbs such as "think", "hope",.. instead of "say"?

For example, can we say:

Indirect speech: She thought that it was raining hard yesterday

or "She laughed at me that it was raining hard yesterday".


texts: What is the stylistic form to use for including foreign text in an English article?

texts:
Academic texts often include translations of terms, and these are included in parentheses. Is there a standard to use when including foreign language text (e.g. Arabic, Russian, Chinese, etc.)?

Let's say we include a term in Russian, perestroika or перестро́йка.

The essay might include the sentence:

"Mikhail Gorbachev initiated the political reforms of 'restructuring' or 'perestroika'".

However, I would like to include the original Russian word as well. How does one do this? What order should the words be in, i.e. the translation in English, the transliterated English, and the original word?

Another example:

"Japanese singer Kyu Sakamoto (坂本 九 ) became famous in the West for the hit "I look up as I walk" or "上を向いて歩こう" (Ue o Muite Arukō)."

What is the correct style to use? What should the correct order be?


texts:
You can do whatever you are thinking of using a nested table for using
  CSS and clean markup.

— From "Programming the Mobile Web" by Maximiliano Firtman.

I do understand the general sense of the sentence, which is: you should use CSS and clean markup. But it appears to me that there is a typo in this sentence and it has to be:

  You can do whatever you are thinking of by using CSS and clean markup for using
   a nested table.

Is my assumption correct? If not, can someone construe the meaning of the sentence?


texts:
In the first sentence, the term ‘per year’ is placed within the sentence and in the second sentence, at the end.
Which pattern is correct and which one is wrong?

The business purchases about 24 tons of hosiery waste as raw material per year from different suppliers located mainly in Dhaka district.

The business purchases about 20 tons of raw materials from different suppliers located mainly in Dhaka district per year.


texts: "When did you last have" or "When did you have last"?

texts:
Which of the two is spelled correctly?

When did you last have your hair cut?
When did you have last your hair cut?

As you can see, have and last swapped their positions, is there any rule we use to know when to swap them?

And, if both are spelled correctly, what is the function of have in this kind of sentence?


texts: Is "I'd like to introduce to you" still in use? Does it fit in the following sentence?

texts: With a great deal of pleasure, I'd like to introduce to you one of the most respected criminal prosecutors in the country, Ms. ABC.


texts:
"I am hoping for an idealistic world which do/does not exist"
What should I use here? Do or does? Also please tell where do I learn these basic concepts?


texts:
I cannot figure out what 'post cemetery' means in the following site:

  Fort Mackinac Post Cemetery is located approximately a half mile north of Fort Mackinac, near Skull Cave, a burial site for American Indians. The earliest interments in the post cemetery likely date to the mid-1820's.

https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/lots/fort_mackinac.asp


texts: Repetition of the indefinite article with several nouns

texts:
Now there's another question for the repetition of indefinite article with several adjectives, but my question here is rather about nouns.

Examples:

  She's a manager and a shareholder.

or

  She's a manager and shareholder.

Do we make use of only one indefinite article or add several?


texts: Is there any expression for "it is kind of [troublesome]?

texts:
Here is the situation.

I always wear short pants when I go to gym. Even if it is really cold outside, I wear short pants, because I will end up changing into short pants if I go to gym in long pants. As such, I always wear short pants when I go to gym.

In this situation, I would like to say 'it is kind of _____.'
Are there any words to express this feeling?

I used to say 'it is kind of troublesome.' But I don't think it is the right expression. Would it be okay if I say 'it is kind of chore'?


texts: What are the possible metaphorical meanings behind the word "lithium"?

texts:
I am aware that the lithium is a chemical element (a metal, more precisely), but I was wondering if it is commonly used as a metaphor in English language? Maybe to describe a situation or a sentiment, or in some other way. What made me think about this is that two of the song that I like are named "Lithium" (by bands Nirvana and Evanescence), without any apparent connection to the literal meaning of the word.
I just want to point out that I am not asking the explanation of the lyrics of the songs, I am just wondering about the metaphorical usage of the word "lithium" that you are familiar with, since I couldn't find anything googling.


texts:
This phrasal verb means to persuade someone when we try offering something.

Examples :

Can I interest you in coffee?
Can I interest you in having a special relationship between us?

Do native speakers use this term when persuading people?
Can I also use the term as in question #2?


texts:
The passage below comes from a book, Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly: -

  A bright spot presented itself in the form of another man’s problem.
  A. Philip Randolph, the head of the largest black labor union in the
  country, demanded that Roosevelt open lucrative war jobs to Negro
  applicants, threatening in the summer of 1941 to bring one hundred
  thousand Negroes to the nation’s capital in protest if the president
  rebuffed his demand. “Who the hell is this guy Randolph?” fumed Joseph
  Rauh, the president’s aide. Roosevelt blinked.

I'd like to ask the meaning of 'blink' in this context.
In a dictionary I find two probable candidates, meaning #2 and #3, but I cannot narrow to one exact meaning between both.
(I am leaning to #3 meaning, to ignore, though.)

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/blinked

to be startled or dismayed (usu. fol. by at):

▪ She blinked at his outburst.
to look evasively or with indifference; ignore (often fol. by at):

▪ to blink at another's eccentricities.


texts:
I am writing an academic report and I am trying to figure out how to punctuate the following:

  The previous results cannot provide an answer to questions like, what is the probability of X given Y and Z ?, because the precise correlations between the variables are still unknown.

My questions are:

Should I use italics for the question, wrap it with quotes or not use any indication on it?
Should I put a question mark at the end of it?
Do I need commas before and after the question?

I have read the answers to this related question: How to puncutuate when using self imposed questions in a declarative sentence. However, I'm not sure this is the same case, as it is not really an internal though but more like an open question to the reader.

Reformulations of the sentence are also welcome.

PD: I'll kind of abuse the question here, but just checking, that usage of regular font within italicized text to emphasize the hypothetical variable names is ok, right?


texts: An idiom for when you do a work but the work is insufficient

texts: I'm looking for an idiom for when you do a work in order to better a situation. However, the work you do is not sufficient, so even though your work is not entirely wasted (as it does have some function), it was not close to meet the demanded function (e.g. like building a country road when you really needed a freeway).


texts: Can I put a line break between "von" and "Neumann"?

texts: I'm working on a project that discusses John von Neumann. Is it okay to line-break between "von" and "Neumann," or should I specify this as a non-breaking space?


texts:
What does "Per John:" mean?

From the context of the article I'm reading (article unlinked), it seems to mean "From John:" or "John (said):"

What exactly does the word "per" mean when used as such?


texts: what is the name for a word that someone is known for saying?  I tried looking for information on this but came up empty. I thought it was a word that ended in nym but I'm not sure.


texts:
In application development it is common practice to push newly developed versions of code to an environment other then the life environment to have other people test it.

In my previous company we were told by Americans that we couldn't translate the Dutch term 'Acceptatie omgeving' to 'Acceptance environment' because that's not proper English. In my current company however this term is actively used and when I search online dictionaries it seems this word does exist.

Is acceptance environment correct English?
Is it a en_US vs en_UK thing?

UPDATE
Google says: the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered. Or the process or fact of being received as adequate, valid, or suitable.
Which sounds about right to me. So other then the 'weird' feeling, I can't make my case about changing 'Acceptance' to 'Staging'


texts: I just used the phrase "to go off the reservation" -- in the context of the workplace, to go in a direction that management might not approve of -- and realized how strange it is.  What are the (historical and present-day) connotations of that term?


texts: comma before subordinating conjunction "where"

texts:
I have three examples where I am confused about comma usage with the subordinating conjunction 'where':

a) The primal algorithms broadly correspond to implicit congestion control mechanisms where noisy feedback from the network is averaged at some sources using increase/decrease rules, which are commonly found in ..."

b) For relatively explicit algorithms, they broadly correspond to congestion control approaches where sources can adjust their sending rates according to certain algorithms in response to the congestion information fed back by links."

c) The fully explicit algorithms broadly correspond to the explicit congestion control protocols where the links directly allocate their capacities to the passing flows by feeding back the allowed sending rate back to sources.

My question is this: Should I precede the subordinating conjunction 'where' with a comma in the above cases? In addition, is it always the case?


texts: Better way to communicate the sentence "Unlabelled miscellaneous utterances"

texts:
I have utterances and they are all neatly labelled but I have a section for Unlabelled miscellaneous utterances
And I think that name is far too long, is there any better way to write this?


texts: Term describing behaviour of someone that likes to talk about shame or disgust of people, institutions or other things

texts:
The closest description I can think of is a "drama queen/king", except that tends to describe people who like being in a drama.

Instead, I want a phrase describing people who like to pick up on stories such as the following:

questionable decisions of others
controversies
immoral acts

and then they get on their soapbox and passionately rant, uttering phrases like "it's disgusting", "it's a joke", "anyone who agrees with them should be ashamed".

Perhaps the descriptive term for that person might need to include that they are often immune to reason on subjective topics, and that the rants cause displeasure in the listeners, since frequent rants can wear listeners down, as the tone is loud, highly opinionated and of a very negative nature.

The reason I ask is I want search terms to Google to find techniques for dealing with such a person, and protecting one's self from their effects.

Edit: it is not really about whether someone finds faults in others, but the manner in which they frequently rant about issues, either in others, or institutions, or the nature of things.


texts:
I heard a song "As Good As I Once Was" by Toby Keith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=kp&hl=id&v=ldQrapQ4d0Y&gl=ID

There is this part of the lyric that I don't really know the meaning, "I ain't as good as I once was but I'm as good once as I ever was".

By context of the video and the whole lyric I practically guess "I might not be as good as the younger me most of the time now, but if I could be that good at that time I can also be that good this time".

Am I correct?

The placement of "once" is kind of confusing me. I get the first "once", but I don't get the function of the second "once". An example of sentence using "once" with similar function would be great.


texts: Is there any free writing correction website like lang-8 for TOEFL test takers?

texts: I found the https://lang-8.com website and it's pretty cool for writing correction in general, but I would like to know about any alternatives for specially TOEFL test takers if exist?


texts:
When I define a decade, it contains 10 years, starting from '1 and ending on '0.

Specifically, I mean by '1-'9 being 1st-9th and '0 being 10th.

Since the current decade, namely the 2010s, ranging from 2011 to 2020, is about to end.

One time me and some other users were having a conversation on MSE about how the decades are being ordered.

I understand what User45266 is saying, since saying "the 30s" and including 40 (?!) is not very logical.  But (strictly speaking) it is '1-'2-'3-'4-'5-'6-'7-'8-'9-'0, not '0-'1-'2-'3-'4-'5-'6-'7-'8-'9.  For '0 to be the 1st year of the decade there would have to be a "year 0" (?) and there isn't in the common sense.

Did the 2010s already end?  Or is it still in progress (but about to end)?  Does the 2020s contain the years 2021-2030 or 2020-2029?


texts:
The meaning of hope given in Simple Wiktionary as

When someone hopes that something will happen, it means that they want it to happen and they think it is may happen.

This it is may happen is correct or not? I think "it may happen" is sufficient.


texts: Can the word ‘fair’ be used to mean ‘good at something’?

texts:
Here is my sentence: “He’d always been a fair judge of character.”

I am trying to say that he’s a pretty good judge of character without using the word ‘good’. This is because it just fits and sounds better with the rest of the paragraph and using the word ‘good’ will make it weaker. Is this correct or will it be misunderstood to mean that he’s a ‘so/so’ judge of character?


texts: "Buchungsangebot mit Option" translation to English

texts:
I wonder whether I'm on the right Forum.

I need the translation of the German concept "Buchungsangebot mit Option" into English. It's about hotel rooms reservation.

I understand "Buchungsangebot mit Option" is a not binding room reservation, which the client has the right to accept within a certain time. Otherwise, the room gets released.

But I cannot find the translation into English for it.

Thank you.


texts: Is Present Perfect Continuous commonly used in AmE?

texts:
Is Present Perfect Continuous tense a commonly used tense in American English? Or do you somehow simplify it with some other structures? Thank you!
For example:
How long have you been working here?
I have been working here for 5 years now.


texts:
Height and Weight — How to write them when abbreviations are not used.

He was a 6-foot 5-inch man.

(Not: 6-foot-5-inch man, with three hyphens.)

She gave birth to a 7-pound 11-ounce baby.

(Not: 7-pound-11-ounce baby, with three hyphens.)

And, it should be, I believe:

He is 6 feet 5 inches tall. (Not: 6 feet, 5 inches tall.)

The baby weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces. (Not: 7 pounds, 11 ounces.)

Despite variations in punctuation, I believe that we do not separate singular units of measurements like these with commas.

Good to all?


texts:
The expression "nothingburger" to mean in essence "nothing to see here" has become extremely common in political discourse in the USA. From what I remember it really only became prominent in the last two or three years.

What is the origin of this rather odd word, and what provoked the very recent spike in its usage?

(BTW, please, no politically provocative comments in your answer.)


texts: Using imaginary word "Hamletian" in AP Engish Literature annotated bibliography

texts:
I was considering creating the word "Hamletian," meaning "of Hamlet," for use in an annotated bibliography, because I like the sound of "Hamletian criticism" much more than "criticism of Hamlet." It could be used in a manner similar to the following:

  ". . . T. S. Eliot's objections to Goethe and Coleridge's Hamletian criticism in his essay 'Hamlet and His Problems' . . . "

I think it would be an elegant way to express the meaning stated above and to satisfy my stylistic preferences, but I do not want credit deducted for a spelling or grammar error. More generally, is it appropriate and acceptable to create (immediately intelligible) words in a pre-collegiate academic assignment?


texts: Whats the "height" version of, elongate?

texts:
I figured elongate would just mean to "make longer," and would be orientation/dimension dependent.  I Googled it just to double check, and a lot of definitions refer to "longer in relation to the width."

What is the term used to mean longer in height?  Searching for antonyms for elongate wasn't promising.  Could height and width possibly be transposed in the definition?


texts: Can I mix singular and plural for a possessive?

texts:
I want to talk about a specific woman. She is the wife of one of my cousins. So I have several cousins, but not each of them has a wife, and those who have one obviously only have one.

Can I say "one of my cousins' wife"? In which "one of" refers to "one cousin amongst the group of several men who are my cousins"?

If I pronounce this sentence, people can hear "one of my cousin's wife", and then there is a mistake because I say "wife" instead of "wives", as they understand that one cousin has several wives.

So could I write "one of my cousins' wife" or "one of my cousins's wife"? Or should I just give up and switch to "the wife of one of my cousins"? I can say it differently but I'm very interested in knowing what could be possible. Thank you!


texts:
What's the correct form of writing this possessive sentence:

Helena and my birthdays are coming.
Helena's and my birthdays are coming.
My and Helena's birthdays are coming.

Any links about the grammar rules related can be useful.

Thanks in advance


texts: What's the difference between "subject to" and "subjected to" in contracts?

texts:
Applicants are subject to testing ...
Applicants are subjected to testing ...

When employers use "subject to" or "subjected to" in this way, does "subject to" imply they can if they want to, i.e. there's a chance?
Does "subjected to" mean employees are required to take a drug test"?


texts: What do you call a person who suggests ideas?

texts: Sorry if it has already been asked, but what do you call someone who gives ideas/suggestions? At a business meeting or a group discussion, for example.


texts:
I heard "Nickel tour" is to show you around.
From usingenglish.com we can read:

  If someone gives you a nickel tour, they show you around a place.
  ('Fifty-cent tour' is also used.)

I also read it can also mean a cheap visit. Does anyone have more information about that term and where it comes from?