texts: Does "cafe" relate to the word "cafeteria?"

texts:
I know that the word cafe (referring to a place to go eat) stems directly from the same word in French meaning coffee, but what etymological connection does it have with the English word cafeteria? The two words have different connotations in English but I wonder if cafeteria and cafe share a closer background or snynonymity (either in English or Fench) or if one's usage predates the other's.

General reference resources vary about the details, especially as concerns the origins of cafeteria. Merriam Webster, with reference to cafeteria in the sense of "a restaurant in which the customers serve themselves or are served at a counter and take the food to tables to eat" and in the sense of "lunchroom", says the origins are

  American Spanish cafetería coffeehouse, from cafetera coffee maker, from French cafetière, from café.

  First Known Use: 1894.

Merriam gives the first known use of cafeteria as a adjective in the sense of "providing a selection from which a choice may be made" as 1908.

Random House (at Dictionary.com), for noun senses similar to those given by Merriam, says the origin is earlier:

  1830-40, Americanism; < American Spanish cafetería café, equivalent to Spanish cafeter(a) coffeemaker (< French caf(f) etière; café coffee + -ière, feminine of -ier -ier2; t apparently by analogy with words such as bouquetière flower seller, from bases ending in t) + -ía -ia.

Wiktionary is very loose about the date of origin for cafeteria, but provides a more detailed description of the language origins:

  (Mid 19th or 20th century) American Spanish cafetería (“coffeehouse”), from cafetera (“coffee maker”), from French cafetière, from café, from Ottoman Turkish قهوه (kahve) (Turkish kahve), from Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa, “coffee”).


texts:
English is a foreign language to me, and one word that is particularly confusing is "polarize". In physics, it has contradictory definitions; when polarizing waves you remove inequality, but polarizing can also mean to cause something to acquire polarity, or in other word emphasize inequality. When applied to opinions, however, people usually seem to have the second definition in mind.

In a Huffington Post blog entry, I found the phrase "polarized opposite opinions". Is this an indication that "polarized opinions" on its own could be interpreted as "unified opinions" unless clarified? Otherwise, how should I understand the phrase?
I've compared the number of search results for "polarized opinions" and "polarizing opinions", and the latter seems to be more popular. Nevertheless, to me that one seems to imply that the opinions themselves bear the responsibility of dividing people into groups, instead of blaming the people who formulate the opinions. Is that correct, or is there another distinction between "polarized" and "polarizing"?

Thanks!


texts: What is the word for people who deliberately listen to other people's talk?

texts:
I want one word substitution for it.
I thought intruder but it is incorrect.


texts: Is there any rule for determining which is the more preferable pronunciation for a word with different pronunciation

texts:
"Association" is pronounced as either
/əˌsəʊsiˈeɪʃ(ə)n/
Or
/əˌsoʊʃiˈeɪʃən/
What I am focusing on in this example is the middle sound /ʃ/ -sh- which is made with ⟨ci⟩.
Something came to my mind that there might be a rule in English which says that
If a word has different pronunciations, the one which is made by different letters (here ⟨ci⟩) is preferred to other pronunciations which use a sound made by fewer letters (here /s/ made by ⟨c⟩ alone).
There are similar rules in other languages; for example in Arabic, if two words are synonyms the one with more letters is the preferred choice.


texts: Word / simile for a city in decay or in lawlessness

texts:
My friend told me that Kobe is the only city in Japan in which he saw hobos and where there are no rules for walking on the sidewalk. I flippantly asked him whether it was the Sodom or Gomorrah of Japan. (Hyperbole, of course!) But this usage feels wrong.

The MacMillian dictionary connotes these cities with sexual decay, primarily:

  Sodom and Gomorrah

  /ˌsɑdəm ən ɡəˈmɔrə/
   two cities in the Bible that were destroyed by God as punishment for the sexual behavior of the people who lived there. People sometimes say that a place is like Sodom and Gomorrah as a way of saying that they are very shocked by people’s sexual behavior in that place.

Wikipedia:

  Sodom and Gomorrah have been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality viewed as a deviation.

Which makes sense.

But how do we convey a sense of non-sexual decay or lawlessness?


texts: Is there a single word for someone who forms their own opinion based entirely on their personal experience, without having been influenced by any outside source?


texts: Compound Adjectives: Usage after "is" / Usage with noun

texts:
I'm currently writing a text in which I have some object called a graph, which has the attribute of being planar in a special way, namely in the multi-level way. I'm pretty certain that I should call this a multi-level-planar graph. Calling it a multi-level planar graph would introduce the ambiguity whether the graph is multi-level and planar, or whether it is, well, multi-level-planar.

Now the confusion starts. What if I want to write

  The graph is multi-level-planar.

Is the last hyphen correct here? Saying the graph is multi-level planar would not open up any ambiguity (that I could see). However, it feels like this is inconsistent.

The second confusion is this: I have some techique that tests a graph for whether it is multi-level-planar. Do I call this

  multi-level-planarity testing

or

  multi-level planarity testing

In the first case I now suddenly have a hyphen between a (compound) adjective and a noun - is that allowed? The second case again is ambiguous: Is the testing or the planarity multi-level?

Thanks for any help!


texts: delayed 45 minutes or delayed by 45 minutes

texts:
I have found this sentence in an English book : "Your plane is delayed 45 minutes"
I would spontanously have said " your plane is delayed by 45 minutes" I 'd like to know if both sentences are correct. Thanks in advance


texts:
Is Planning, architecture and implementation of correct English if I want to express that I did

the planning
planning of the architecture
and the implementation of something?


texts: Idiom: A person who is unfolding truth, changing statements during the conversation

texts:
I was talking to my team member on an issue. He was putting in new statements every time I countered his previous statement.
I think I can't use "truth" for these statements because when I countered, then the previous and current statements were contradictory. "After-thoughts" would be right, maybe.
Our conversation looks like you keep peeling the onion to reach a core of onion (i.e., truth).
Example:

Me: Why you didn't do Task1
TM: I wasn't at my desk
Me: But you sent one email to 'X' where in I'm also in CC
TM: Because I need some more info on Task 1
Me: Then why are you telling me now?
TM: I got stuck in Fun-Friday activities in office

Is there an idiom/phrase for this situation?


texts: What kind of accent is this one (possibly from Kentucky)?

texts:
Is this one of regional accent in the USA or simply a defect in speech?
If it's a regional accent, is it a typical Kentucky accent?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oKlERHhPt0&t=490s


texts: positive or negative denotation question. Please help!

texts: Denotation refers to a word's meaning. Does the word MOBILE have a positive or negative denotation?


texts: What's the difference between "sea port" and "maritime port"?

texts:
Road transport is not the only sector concerned. LNG is also used in
  maritime and inland waterway transport. The Commission therefore
  proposes the installation of fuel stations in leading European sea and
  maritime ports (for 2020 and 2025, respectively).

(source)

What's the difference between sea port and maritime port?


texts: Is there a general or collective term for a gathering that involves eating?

texts: For example lunch, dinner, birthday part or food at a wake as opposed to a gathering not may or may not serve food and drink.


texts:
My wife was practicing a tune ("Rose Cottage") on her flute, and I was trying to think of a term to describe it.  "Cloying" came to mind, but, double-checking the definition, I see that it means not simply "sweet" and "sentimental", but sickeningly so.

Is there a word which conveys the sense of being sweet and sentimental, perhaps approaching maudlin, but without the negative connotation of "cloying".

If you want a tune to reference ("Rose Cottage" is hard to find on the web), think of the tune for "Danny Boy" (or, as I prefer to call it, "British Bottom").

Update:  I apologize for not clearly defining the sort of word I was looking for.  This is mainly because I sort of expected an obvious choice to pop out right away, either a common word I'd just overlooked, or an arcane musical term that is traditionally assigned to such music.  So I hadn't really thought through the criteria I'd use if no "obvious" term appeared.

The characteristics I hoped to capture were, best as I can express, these two:

A basic "heart-tugging" nature -- not so much in terms of calling up an emotion of sentimentality or passion or "tear jerking", but simply a sort of (alas, indescribable) flutter in your chest.  On hearing the tune you tend to stop and listen, and you feel this sort of need to take some deep breaths and let the music calm you.
(Speaking as a non-music person)  There seems to be something about the note progression that contributes to this "hear-tugging" effect.  The tunes are simple and, to my uneducated ear, completely lacking in any hint of dissonance.  But I suspect that it's more than that, that music theory (which includes the "rules" for note progressions) actually has a term for this.

It's worth noting that "A Gift to be Simple", one of the tunes I place in this category, has a much faster (and somewhat more irregular) tempo than the other two, so I don't think tempo is that much of a factor here.

Finally, I should reiterate that I'm speaking here of the TUNE, not any association that lyrics might have, nor any association with a particular instrument (though a flute has the advantage of producing a very "pure" note, avoiding harmonics which would complicate the note progression).

The answer:  I guess I must settle for "mesmerizing" as the word best fitting (albeit still poorly) my (admittedly poorly stated) criteria.  The suggestion of the Russian "toska" is maybe better, but it's pretty much unknown in English.

I'll give the bounty to Mari-Lou, though, since she had a lot of good input.

Added:  I was reminded today that Gustav Holst's Thaxted has some of this same quality, even though it is of a much different style.


texts: Better sentence structure - Inversion sentence with should

texts:
My original sentence is:

Should the doctrine of democracy be proved to be an important and effective mean to control the government, it should not be reformed insofar as the effect of which is to limit the effectiveness of it

I am not sure if the sentence is grammatically correct.

Do you think "should" is a better choice than "if" in this sentence?

Having considered some of the comments below, would it be better if I put it as -

Should the doctrine be proved to be an effective control against the government, any reform that might undermine its effectiveness would be undesirable

Thank you so much


texts:
I'm reviewing a paper about pain, the author writes: "chronic pain is developed in many patients"; what they mean is "chronic pain develops in many patients."

What is a proper grammatical explanation of this correction?


texts: It is a question about phrasal verbs related to perspective

texts:
Let's imagine a situation in which you have people being caught and going to jail. You can say " they are taking people into jail".
Now the first question: is this sentence correct when I use the phrasal verb"taking into" ?

Second question: if I'm inside that jail and I see more people coming in, will it be correct if I say: they are bringing up more prisoners?
I mean the phrasal verb "bring up" can be used in this case?


texts: "Authorize up to $3000 payment" vs. "authorize up to $3000 in payment"

texts:
Does there need to be a preposition in this sentence? It just feels awkward…

  The Commission may authorize up to $3,000.00 payment for expenses of an eligible person or an eligible dependent family member.

When I read it, it feels like there should be an "in" after "$3,000.00." Or alternatively, the article "a" should be before "$3,000.00."

This is something that I've been asked to edit and this just feels incomplete.

How would you rewrite this?


texts: What is the single word that describes a person who always gossips? (For example, telling things about others which are not true.)


texts: What are someone's last words, spoken on their deathbed, called? What about those that are perhaps left written or scribed on paper?


texts:
In the following sentence, I want to know if I've understand the correct meaning or not:

  This version holds that the wave function does not so much describe the state of the physical system as the state of our knowledge of the system.

Can we say that it means the wave function describes the state of our knowledge  of the system more than it describes the state of the physical system  ?

It is worth noting that in the Cambridge Dictionary, we read:

not so much sth as sth

If you say that something is not so much one thing as something else, you mean it is more the second thing:
They're not so much lovers as friends.
I don't feel angry so much as sad.


texts: “Her and her brother's” or “Hers and her brother's”

texts:
(1) Her and her brother's gifts are under the tree.

(2) Hers and her brother's gifts are under the tree.

Something tells me the (1) is correct, but (2) looks/sounds better to me.
Searched internet for help but found little.
And what about something like this? "She heard hers and Debbie’s names spoken clearly and, touchingly, with warmth." Do I remove the S on hers, or the S on names perhaps?


texts: What is the best word (or term) to identify pronouncing W's for L's and R's?

texts:
Is there a specific/proper/technical term for it?  And not just the R-flop, but specifically the L-flop to W.
What would work here:

“I'm watching Formula 1 on Sky Sports and the __________ of the Brit announcers is so annoying - it's killing me."
“Billie Piper is so hot.  Her __________ in Dr. Who has me rubbing my legs together like a cricket.”

You get the idea.

Rhotacism – I think related to other speech “impediments”, possibly too specific to the letter R, or at least not specific enough, I don't think
Elmer Fudd Syndrome – too pejorative
Baby Talk – perfect in above sentences, but I think reserved for intentional use.
Johnathan Ross Syndrome - ?
The L/R to W speech impediment - ?
L-vocalization - ?
“non-rhotic dialect r fronting” - ?

Ref.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld3A3QCpXd4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6j63IyE-EM
http://dialectblog.com/2011/05/26/the-trubbow-with-l-vocalization/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ElmuhFuddSyndwome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotacism
http://dialectblog.com/2011/02/07/jonathan-ross-and-the-letter-r/


texts:
A passage from The Magus, by John Fowles, reads:

  The wishful tradition is that our family came over from France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes- noble Huguenots remotely allied to Honore d'Urfe, author of the seventeenth-century best-seller L'Astree.

I could not figure out the meaning of "wishful" in this context. What does "wishful tradition" mean, here?


texts: What's the difference between "large share" and "high share"?

texts:
Please help me!
In the passage below, can I replace highest with largest / lowest with smallest?

the United States had the highest housing expenditure share, 26% of total expenditures in 2009. The United Kingdom and Japan followed, with 24% and 22%, respectively. Canada had the lowest housing share at 21%.


texts:
What is the correct form, and why, in scientific papers (US English)?

  e.g.
  e. g.


texts: "Schedule in advance" vs "schedule". Is "in advance" unnecessary?

texts:
I'm not sure if it is correct to say "schedule in advance" or just "schedule".

Is it correct to say "schedule in advance" or should it just be "schedule" and "in advance" is unnecessary? What's the difference between the two?


texts: Ambiguity of "I don't know what you know."

texts:
This sentence is interesting to me:

I don't know what you know.

It seems ambiguous. It has two possible meanings. It is so ambiguous that I'm actually struggling a bit to explain the differences without using ambiguous wording, as even context does not always bring clarity to this sentence:

It could mean that I am acknowledging that you have knowledge that I don't have. For example, "You are an expert. I am a novice. I don't know what you know." In that case "what" seems to be referring to the knowledge itself.
It could also mean that I am unaware of the collection of things that you are knowledgeable about. For example:

I give an explanation that is unnecessary, as you already know the reasons.
You: "I already know that, you don't need to explain."
Me: "I don't know what you know. I explained it just in case."

It also doesn't necessarily seem specific to this form. "I don't know the things that you know" has a similar ambiguity.

The above two differences are similar to the differences between (respectively):

I don't have what you have.
I don't know what you have.

Or, I guess, in general: "I don't X what you X" vs "I don't know what you X". The ambiguity arises when X is "know": The two constructions end up identical.

So, I have two questions:

What is the source of this ambiguity? In particular, is the sentence ambiguous because I have learned to take grammatical shortcuts when using it (that is, is "I don't know what you know" grammatically incomplete, thus leading to ambiguity)?
What is the difference between the two readings of this sentence? Does the "what" serve as a subtly different part of speech, for example? Or, considering the "I don't ____ what you have" parallels, perhaps the differences are in the "know"s? It's almost like the first "know" in the second meaning of "I don't know what you know" is subtly different than the other three "know"s.


texts: "Passive voice" versus "passive construction" versus "passive sentence" versus "passive form"

texts:
I've been living in japan so long I don't remember how to speak English.
On some websites the authors uses the phrase "passive form"
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/activepassive.html.
While here I often read passive construction or passive voice but in highschool I never heard the phrase passive voice. The teacher only ever described a sentence as passive or active. I didn't hear that there was such a thing as passive voice until I began studying ancient Greek and had no idea that English verbs in the passive __ could be referee to as being in the passive voice but. Can I also use the word passive as a noun?

Ie. This verb is written in the passive.


texts: What is packaging tape called in the US?

texts: What is adhesive tape (or "Scotch" tape) that is used for packaging things is usually called in the United States? What verb do you usually use for "package something with packaging tape"? Maybe "to scotch something"?


texts: What's the word for someone who studies partial differential equations?

texts:
Mathematics has many words for the people who specialise in particular subdisciplines:

geometers, who study geometry
algebraists, who study algebra
combinatorialists, who study combinatorics
probabilists, who study probability
statisticians, who study statistics
analysts, who study analysis
???, who study partial differential equations

Partial differential equations (PDEs) is a large field in mathematics, with many people working in it. It would be nice to have a word by which to refer to those people, along with all the other words for people in other parts of maths.

What is the noun for a person who studies PDEs?

Example sentence:

  The conference will be of interest to all manner of analysts: measure theorists, numerical analysts, functional analysts, and [???].


texts: "I don’t want your Facebook or Twitter account as I don’t use it" vs. "...don't use them"

texts:
Two singular subjects connected by or should always take a singular pronoun. This is what I have understood. But if I want to write something like this then the second one looks more natural to me:

I don’t want your Facebook or Twitter account as I don’t use it.
I don’t want your Facebook or Twitter account as I don’t use them.


texts: What does "short" mean in "Did the flight crew simply land the aircraft short?"?

texts:
The sentence in the title is from a piece of news online:

  Based on the debris field, the aircraft appears to have struck the rock sea wall well before the start of the runway. There are some marks on the sea wall, consistent with an impact of some part of the plane. Some aircraft debris ended up in the water.
  What we don't know: Did the flight crew simply land the aircraft short?

I've looked up the Merriam-Webster dictionary and have found that "short" has the following meanings as an adverb:

1 : in a curt manner
2 : for or during a brief time short-lasting
3 : at a disadvantage : UNAWARES caught short
4 : in an abrupt manner : SUDDENLY the car stopped short
5 : at some point or degree before a goal or limit aimed at or under consideration the shells fell short; quit a month short of graduation
6 : clean across the axle was snapped short
7 : by or as if by a short sale

I think both (1) and (4) make sense.  Nevertheless I would like to know which one is more accurate in such context. Could somebody explain the differences between (1) and (4)?


texts: Is there an idiomatic simile for "as wrong as"?

texts: The simile "as RIGHT as rain" is idiomatic in English. Is there an idiomatic equivalent for "wrong"? If so what is it? If not, any suggestions?


texts: Which is correct, "on-line" or "online"?

texts:
I am still seeing uses of on-line, though I think it is incorrect. For example:

  A web browser enables a user to go on-line/online.

Can you tell me which is the more appropriate to use, on-line or online?


texts:
I am wondering:

Instead of saying: "I would like to have/drink 2 glasses/bottles of Coke zero/light", what would be the plural form of the more colloquial rendering?:

I will drink 2 Coke zeros

or

I will drink two Cokes zero?

Same with "light"? --> two Cokes light / two Coke lights?

Or are both forms in use actually?


texts: LESS (noun): "Hundreds of soldiers arrive, but less [of them] remain(s)"

texts:
LESS (noun) "a smaller amount or quantity":
Hundreds of soldiers arrived, but less of them remained.
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/least

What would be the correct agreement for the verb remain in the following two sentences then?

Hundreds of soldiers arrive every day, but less of them remain(s).

Hundreds of soldiers arrive every day, but less remain(s).


texts: What is the 'female equivalent' of a sausage fest?

texts:
The term 'sausage fest' is quite often used when you talk about a group of which most (or all) members are male.
What would be the term for a female dominated group of people?
I have looked online, but most answer seem quite silly. Even though sausage fest isn't a very professional term either, it does seem more likely to be used in a casual conversation then clam jam or taco party.


texts: Word for a false definition used for comedic effect

texts:
Is there a word for a false definition given in jest?

I don't know if such a word exists, but I'm interested to know it if it does.

An example of what I mean would be:

  Politics - a latin word stemming from
  Poli- — meaning many
  Ticks — meaning blood-sucking butt lumps

Or this snippet about oil:

  ALL - noun. A petroleum-based lubricant.
  Usage: "I sure hope my brother from Georgia puts all in my pickup truck."


texts: Why does a company's name spelled like a name, even if it's spelled differently in its logo?

texts:
There are companies which spell their name in their logo in a non standard way, specifically in all caps or all lower case. Some examples are:
Intel

Acer

Yahoo!

Yet, when their names are written, whether by the companies themselves or others, they are spelled like normal names, only the first letter of each word is capitalized. This is strange to me especially since in the case of names of artists or artistic works like k.d. lang or Yellow mY skYcaptain the non-standard capitalization is conserved.
Why are names of companies are not capitalized as they appear in their logo?
* the exception to this is companies whose names are abbreviations, like IBM and NBC, where the capitalization stays, but I know that this is because abbreviations are written in all caps many times, even if it's not a name
* * this is not a question about special characters, or graphic elements in the logo, only about capitalization


texts:
Is "clockwisality" a valid word for discussing whether something is clockwise or anti-clockwise? If not, what words if any can express this?

For example,

  In the context of the anime "Bleach", which clockwisality should the swastika be? Should it be "卍" or "卐"?

One possibility I can think of is using "clockwiseness", but the resulting sentence is awkward:

  In the context of the anime "Bleach", does the swastika have clockwiseness?

to me may indicate it has clockwiseness, anticlockwiseness, or neither.


texts:
I know we can use both fruit and fruits (countable noun and uncountable noun):

The fruit began to rot.
The fruits began to rot.

What has confused me is passion fruit because it has the word fruit in it!  Is passion fruit a noun, or is it an adjective (passion) and a noun (fruit)? I assume the former but I am not sure because of the singular/plural forms of mouse/mice (in regards to the animal and computer equipment — same word, but different meanings). This is why I am questioning my own ears when I say the following out loud:

There are many passion fruit in this bowl.
There are many passion fruits in this bowl.

I have read Is using "fruits" as the plural of "fruit" acceptable? which is nearly a dupe other than it doesn’t specifically state by region, and although fruit is used as an example I’m not sure if it applies as I’m talking about a different noun.

So my two questions are

Are all four examples acceptable in English?
Are all four examples acceptable in American English?


texts: What is the plural of interrogative words (what, who, where, when, how, why, etc.)

texts:
If interrogative words are used as nouns, how are they pluralized?

Example: This will answer your hows and whys.

What is the correct form?

whys (the same as most English words?)
why's (following the rationale of pluralized acronyms?)
why (they cannot be pluralized?)


texts:
In the musical Hamilton, Jefferson states of Hamilton:

I get no satisfaction witnessing his fits of passion,
The way he primps and preens and dresses like the pits of fashion

Which I would think means that he dresses poorly.  But later, Jefferson addresses Hamilton's sartorial choices yet again:

  He knows nothing of loyalty.
  Smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty

Which I would think means that he dresses very extravagantly. This doesn't seem to square with the first statement, so what does dressing like 'the pits of fashion' really mean?


texts: What is the origin of "long" and "short" in finance?

texts:
In finance, "short selling" or "shorting" is the practice of borrowing shares of stock and immediately selling them in hopes they will decline in value, allowing you to repurchase them later at a lower price, repay your debt (of stock), and walk away with a profit.

More generally, one who stands to profit from the decline of an asset is said to have a "short position" on that asset, or to be "short [the asset]". Analogously, a "long position" is one that rises with the underlying asset. If Sally owns a lot of gold, one might say "Sally is long gold," since she stands to profit from gold increasing in value.

What is the origin of these terms? I assume that "short sale" came first, and "long" was just the natural opposite, but why was the word "short" used in the first place?


texts: What term has suddenly replaced the term "physically challenged" from 1996?

texts:
Why has the term "physically challenged" been used less and less since 1996-97 (ngram), while the term "mentally challenged" continues to have a positive trend?

What term has gradually replaced the term "physically challenged" since 1996?


texts: What is a word for the 'glue that binds (subject) together'?

texts: I am looking for a word that ascribes one underlying argument as the common characteristic of three arguments... appreciate your help :)


texts: Both forms of future continuous in the same sentence

texts:
I did an online quiz and I wish someone to tell me why my answer was reported to be incorrect. In the sentence below, I selected "She is going to be preparing dinner" but apparently the correct answer was "She will be preparing dinner".

Sentence:

Tomorrow at this time, they will also be doing the same thing. She is going to be preparing dinner and he is going to be reading. They are very predictable people!

Source: englishpage.com


texts: Is this sentence grammatically correct? Is it a comma-splice if it's a list?

texts:
This is the sentence: "Many wore mere sweatpants and ragged t-shirts, several wore no shirts at all, and few carried backpacks."

My question: does having a comma after "t-shirts" make the sentence a grammatically incorrect/run-on sentence? Or is the grammar acceptable given that "several wore no shirts at all" is part of a comma separated list (i.e. x, y, and z)?


texts: How to write "Stay up-to-date with notifications" or "Stay up to date with notifications"

texts:
Please help, how to write correctly "Stay up-to-date with notifications" or "Stay up to date with notifications".
To me it seems to be an adjective here, therefore I would choose "up-to-date".
Please explain.


texts:
I'm wondering about contradictions in zero-conditional explanation in different sources.

Some of them state that only Present simple + present simple is correct.

Some of them state that present and past simple are correct till both sides have the same tense.

And some of them state that all simple tenses (present + past + futute) are correcnt till both sides have the same tense.

Which source is right (for American English)? And if I can use past and/or future - what the difference between all of them?


texts: If a word has two different meanings, is it two different words or one word with different meanings?

texts:
My brother and sister-in-law are arguing about whether "train" meaning locomotive and "train" meaning teach constitutes one word with two different meanings or if it's two different words.  I said that the etymology appears to be the same, so it would be one word with two different meanings ... but the more I think about it, the less sure I am that this is correct.  One's a noun, the other is a verb, so ... does that make it two different words?

Help!


texts:
I'm reading a professionally written business document and I am seeing the word "is" placed oddly to my eyes and ears.  I wanted to see if there is a grammatical reason for the choice that I should be following.

Example:  Reading a book largely is an indoor activity.

I would write that: reading a book is largely an indoor activity.

Is the former grammatically more correct (or more grammatically correct)? Or is it just the style of the author?


texts: Are there English equivalents for “as beautiful as butt inside out”?

texts:
There is an old saying in Ukrainian folklore, which literally sounds like “[someone is] as beautiful as ass inside out” (“Гарна як срака навиворіт”). It is used when one wants to point a person's unattractiveness in ironic way, comparing it with something clearly not pleasant.

So I wonder what could be the equivalent proverb(s) in English with similar connotation, which can be used in same context. The proverb scheme seems to look like "as beautiful/attractive as [something unexpectedly nasty]". Any other not that precise, but idiomatic and figurative expressions with the same meaning would be appreciated as well.

To clarify the original word sraka (butt) and it's different meanings in Ukrainian (I translated it from Ukrainian, so there may be inaccuracies):

СРАКА, (sraka) 1. The bottom part of a human or an animal.

  being unable to see smth as well as their own ass without a mirror (Не бачити, як
  власної сраки без дзеркала) -  not to get something  desirable

1.1. Anus

  [Someone] was in the ass, saw shit (В сраці був, гімно видів) — about
  ignorant person

1.2. The bottom part which has unaesthetic look

  Too look like a dead man's ass (Виглядати, як небіжчика срака); as
  beautiful as ass inside out (Гарна, як срака навиворіт) - to look unattractive

1.3.  The bottom part of a human as indecent place that is embarrassing to display

1.4. The bottom part of a human to beat, execute punishment

  Beat the ass for the head to become wise (Бий в сраку, аби голова
  розумна була) - about the appropriateness to apply physical methods of
  punishment

1.5. The bottom part of a human as the limited room, where one can go, be located, or to contain smth

  [Someone] would get inside [another person's] ass, if he could (Він
  вліз би йому в сраку, якби міг) – about a person being sycophant,
  bootlicker

1.6.  The bottom part of a human as the representation of their psychosocial characteristics

  bare ass (з голою сракою) — with no money, no property

2. A person having negative qualities; // goof

  drunk ass (п'яна срака) – drunk person

3. The bottom part of a human as the sexual object

4. Very complicated, hopeless and unpleasant situation

Source: Lesya Stavytska. Ukrainian Without Taboos: A Dictionary of Obscenities, Euphemisms and Sexual Slang


texts:
Upon search, I found out that sideburns has evolved from burnsides, named after the Civil War veteran and Rhode Island senator Ambrose Burnside. See here

But surely sideburns existed before him, so what where they called then? Simply beard on cheeks/sides of face?


texts:
Tonight I heard someone say, "We're going off tangent here."

I take this to be a mistaken conflation of "off on a tangent" with "off track."

However, is a shift occurring? Is "off tangent" developing some currency? Is it becoming accepted? Or is it still fundamentally incorrect?


texts:
According to Longman's English grammar's book:

  We can use two objects after verbs like give and buy.
  Instead of: Give the book to me, we can say: Give me the book.
  lnstead of: Buy the book for me, we can say: Buy me the book.
  2 Some verbs combine with TO: bring, give, lend, pay, post, sell, send, show, tell, write:
  Bring that book to me. -, Bring me that book.
  3 Other verbs combine with FOR: buy, choose, cook, cut, do, fetch, find, get, make, order:
  Please order a meal for me. -, Please order me a meal.
  4 We can put it and them after the verb: Give it to me. Buy them for me. Do it for me.
  With e.g. give and buy, we can say: Give me it. Buy me them. (But not 'Do me it')
  We say: Give it to John. Buy them for John. (Not *Give John it4*Buy John them') "

Neither the preposition can be dropped nor the construction's placement can be altered if the indirect object is a noun and the direct object is a pronoun:

I bought John them - Wrong
I bought them for John - Correct

Did I get it right??


texts:
I came across this term while proofreading an unpublished poem by an Irish poet. The context is not important so I'll just say that it is clear that it means “toy cars”.

I Googled the term and see that it refers to a brand-name of die-cast toy car made by the British company Meccano starting in 1931, but, as far as I can tell, petering out in the early 1970s.

Is this a term that’s generally recognized, today, on both sides of the Atlantic? If I said “that’s a dinky car” in the US to an 18-year-old, would they understand? Or would the term only be understood by an older person (I’m Canadian and in my 40s, so I'm guessing older than me)? Would it only be understood in the UK/Ireland (/Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.)?

In other words:

1. Is the term recognizable to a younger person? If so, in which countries?
2. Is the term recognizable to a North American? If so, of what ages?

And finally:

3. Is there a term for a toy car (other than toy car) that is widely recognized by English speakers of different ages and from different countries?


texts: How prevalent is "I'm game" compared to "I'm in"?

texts:
Is it common to say "I'm game" in place of "I'm in" or "Count me in"?

Is it used often in American English?


texts: Is there such a thing as "pangram for phonemes"?

texts:
English has a lot of pangrams, which are short sentences that use every letter of the alphabet at least once. This website has several examples. But is there a similar thing that is designed to use (almost) every phoneme of the English language?

I know it would be nearly impossible to come up with something that uses all of them (and it is mostly likely going to be a paragraph, and not a sentence, given the amount of phonemes), but still, my question remains: is there such a thing? (And what is it called?)


texts: What do you call a team of magnificent people?

texts:
Can you suggest/provide a word for a team of magnificent (intelligent or the likes) people?

I'm thinking of words that are not cliche like geniuses..


texts: Is "ie." acceptable or must it always be "i.e."?

texts: I'm a computer programmer and have been using ie. and eg. for years in internal reports, emails, comments in the code, etc. Where a spell-checker is hovering in the background I have just ignored its' suggestion for these abbreviations assuming it wasn't important. But I'm busy writing my MSc (in a technical subject, Computer Science, not in English language!) and want this to be correct. Does it make a difference or does it have to be i.e. and e.g.?


texts: Which of the following is the correct usage of: meteor/meteorite

texts:
I hope a meteor falls on your head.

or

I hope a meteorite falls on your head.

And why?
Definition of meteor:

1 : an atmospheric phenomenon (such as lightning or a snowfall)
2a : any of the small particles of matter in the solar system that are directly observable only by their incandescence from frictional heating on entry into the atmosphere
2b : the streak of light produced by the passage of a meteor

Definition of meteorite:

a meteor that reaches the surface of the earth without being completely vaporized

Technically the rock hasn't reached the surface of the earth at the time of head hitting, but it would reach the surface of the earth without being vaporized (and probably still will) if it hadn't encountered the head. So, which is the correct term?


texts:
What words might a thief (of any variety) use to describe the victims of his theft?

Con artists in film often use "mark", for example. Is there other jargon specific to the con branch* of crime? How about burglars? Muggers? Bank robbers? Politicians? Oh, sorry... Highwaymen? Pickpockets?

*We might call these words "con-specific". :p


texts:
These two seem very similar. What are the major differences between the two?
For example, in the following sentence,

  Substitute the lesser punishment for the greater one.

Can one use "less" instead of "lesser" here?


texts: Victorian English slang: 'earnest' ~ 'gay'?

texts:
Is it true that Victorians would understand earnest in a slang sense to mean gay? For example, in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is there an assumed pun on "earnest"? This was suggested in Wikipedia:

  The use of the name Earnest may have been a homosexual in-joke. In 1892, three years before Wilde wrote the play, John Gambril Nicholson had published the book of pederastic poetry Love in Earnest. The sonnet Of Boys' Names included the verse: "Though Frank may ring like silver bell / And Cecil softer music claim / They cannot work the miracle / –'Tis Ernest sets my heart a-flame."[76] The word "earnest" may also have been a code-word for homosexual, as in: "Is he earnest?", in the same way that "Is he so?" and "Is he musical?" were employed.[77]

  [76] Nicholson (1892:61) (Love in Earnest: Sonnets, Ballades, and Lyrics)
   [77] Ellmann (1988:88) (a long the riverrun: Selected Essays)


texts: A word generalizing over inputs and outputs (of a system)

texts:
I'm looking for one or more words that generalize over both 'input' and 'output'. If I had to convey this in a phrase, I would say "values that cross a system boundary".

For context, I'm looking for a clear word for a computer program I'm writing. I have a "black box" (e.g. an algorithm or a computational model). It has inputs and outputs. I need to find a good name for a programmatic construct that includes both the inputs and outputs.

Here is an example sentence: "The ____(plural noun)____ to the car efficiency algorithm are: engine cylinder count, engine displacement, vehicle weight, and vehicle miles per gallon".


texts: Looking for an Equivalent to the AWL for Academic Idioms

texts:
Coxhead developed and evaluated something called the "Academic Word List" for English Language Learners. This is a list of (supposedly) the most common "academic" terms
to be used by students from non-English speaking countries to prepare them to study
in countries like the States, Canada, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, New Zealand, and Australia.

Does anyone have an idea if there is an "Academic Idioms List?" I've search over 30 websites and only found, for example, the top 50 English Idioms or the top 100 English Idioms. But I'm looking for a list that focuses more on "academic" idioms like "shed light on,"
"take advantage of," and so forth.

I have the Cambridge and Oxford English Idioms Dictionaries, but again, these offer all
kinds of idioms. I'm focused on finding "academic-based" ones.

Much thanks!!!!!


texts: "planning the" vs. "planning of"; "producing the" vs. "producing of"

texts:
I cannot find an explanation for the use of gerund + of, such as:

planning of our future vacation;
producing of sound; etc.,

—versus the same without of.

I prefer without of.

Which is correct?


texts: When is it most appropriate to use "anthropomorphic" as opposed to "anthropomorphized"? Is there any difference between the two?


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Pertaining to the Senses

Sound is to aural as smell is to olfactory as touch is to tactile as taste is to... what?

I can't think of a word that describes the sense of taste. Any help appreciated.


texts:
I have read the following sentence in a 5 score independent writing TOEFL test.

"After stating that everyone’s opinion can be different about this, for me honesty,
in other words, always telling the truth is the most important consideration in a relationship."

the usage of "in other words" is kind of loose and feels wrong to me.


texts:
In German language, there is the beautiful expression "seinen inneren Schweinehund überwinden", which amounts to "to overcome one's inner pig-dog", and vividly describes the feeling of surpassing the barrier of discomfort related to certain things which are good for you in the mid-term, but tedious in the moment. Examples are going running, waking up early, exercising or learning a new language. Another German periphrasis of that kind would be "über seinen eigenen Schatten springen", which is, according to Linguee, "a leopard cannot change its spots". I hope that is helpful.

One wonderful depiction of this expression is done by the German Comic author Flix, here.

(I am sorry if I should have put this question in the German forum, but I think it would not have been appropriate there, either.)

Edit: Ideally, the imagery of an external creature or foe that has to be surpassed, or a friend that has to be supported, should remain part of the expression. But I am guessing I ask too much here. ;)


texts: Is the word priorize acceptable?  I used it and my son laughed at me and said the word is prioritize.


texts: Two sentences with a comma and no conjunction

texts:
The SK Telecom article at Wikipedia says

  SK Telecom is South Korea's largest wireless carrier, it leads the local market with 50.5 percent share as of 2008.

But can it be written like this? The sentence after the comma has a verb but not a conjunction. Why were both sentences written without conjucntion?

I was taught that a comma can join sentences, but not sentences that have two or more verbs without a conjunction. Is my understanding correct?


texts: Should not the tenses in the sentence be the same?

texts:
In the third century BC, when Roman ambassadors were negotiating with
  the Greek city of Tarentum, an ill-judged laugh put paid to any hope
  of peace. Ancient writers disagree about the exact cause of the
  mirth…(Confronting The Classics, by Mary Beard)

The meaning of the second part of the sentence is unclear to me. The first part uses past progressive tense, whereas the second uses past, should not the tenses be the same?


texts: What is the definition of plain cereal? What is the definition of plain wheat germ?

texts:
Searching on the internet left me with no answers.

Later edit : plain cereal in this context : http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1562/2


texts: What are the different meanings of the word "radical" in its adjectival form?

texts:
There are various applications of the word "radical" in its adjectival form. Such as, radical feminists, radical politicians, radical ideas, radical terrorists etc. Nowadays, it is widely used to refer to political groups to slam them. My question is, what are its different meanings in different contexts as an adjective?
The oxford dictionary defines radical as:

advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social
reform; representing or supporting an extreme section of a political
party.

But media often refers to politicians who aren't advocating any change (e.g. Iranians, Saudis, Iraqis). Why and how does that make sense? How is a Muslim scholar from Iran or Saudi Arabia radical when they aren't advocating any change and in fact are trying to protect their own system?


texts: Would you say "wanna" when you want something? For example, "I wanna a new PC", instead of "I want a new PC"?


texts: Is there any standard term for a file name, excluding the extension?

texts:
Take the following file name:

  Example.txt

Is there any term for the name "Example", as opposed to "Example.txt"?  Either one of those two can be referred to as the "file name", although as Kristina Lopez seemed to suggest in the comments, it can be helpful at times to use "file name" to refer specifically to the part before the extension.

Is there a general word that is specific to that interpretation, and if so, what would it be?  This doesn't have anything to do with the folder path of the file, just the name of the file itself.

My research is currently showing that there's likely no standard name for this (although certain entities may have their own phrases that they use).  In .NET, for instance, the function Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension doesn't really use any special terminology, and almost exactly the same phrase is used in various other contexts.

To follow the rule for the single-word-requests tag, this sample sentence is included:

  We need the software to provide two separate options for a file name, one for the <"base name">, and one for the extension.

Semi-standard words are fine, but not anything that's specific to one particular framework, company, etc.


texts:
In sentences like "Go home," the 'You' is implied, as in 'You go home.'

What would be the implied words/full form of the sentence "Poor you"?

It certainly isn't "You are poor."

** I am editing this question to clarify what I'm looking for - I know what the meaning of this sentence is (both meanings and the difference). I'm merely curious as to how to write it out with the verb so as to make it a grammatically complete sentence. Just like 'Go' would be 'You go.' **


texts:
So, I'm working on a document that is going to go out to the public shortly and I'm hung up on this one item.

  The company is excited about recent growth trends in the Phoenix Valley.

I'm just not sure if the 'v' should be capitalized or not.


texts:
Is the use of "that" in the sentence below a relative pronoun? It does stand in place of the noun ('view'), but I'm not sure if this is a relative pronoun. Can someone please explain? Thank you.

  It is my view that we should legalize abortion.


texts: Do you know any idiom/proverb for saying "that's great! Literally everybody got aware of our problem!"

texts: How do you sarcastically say "that's great! Literally everybody got aware of our problem!" if you want to use an idiom/proverb?


texts: how much vegetables or how many vegetables?

texts:
I know that vegetable is a count noun, but Which one of the quantifiers do we use with vegetables.
How much vegetables do our bodies need?
How many vegetables do our bodies need?


texts:
I have read a definition about "personal data" in an ISO/IEC document which states

  Details of the personal or material circumstances of an identified or identifiable natural person.

I don't understand that. Can some one explain that? What does material circumstances mean here?


texts: Single word for making a situation doubly worse

texts: I'm thinking of a situation, wherein instead of helping someone's cause the helper rather doubly complicates the problem by giving an uneasy solution to it. For example, I'm assuming a person who doesn't know the meaning of the word sorry, he's tried to be helped with the synonym apologetic, of which he has no clue either, now his problem is twofold and his cause hasn't been helped but rather complicated.


texts: What does the grave accent mark on words mean?

texts:
What exactly does the grave accent mean in English?

An example from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30:

  The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan


texts: Why are movies so hard to understand (and what can you do about it)?

texts:
I have been learning English for many, many years now and think I have acquired quite some mastery. Yesterday I saw just another English (American) flick and thought it was a different language, but definitly not English. I had to turn the (English) subtitles on... :-(

Why is it so very hard to understand movies - and do you have a panacea to it?


texts: You can't put a flower in an a**hole and call it a vase

texts:
I am not trying to be funny (other than the fact that the joke is, in and of itself, funny).
I'm asking someone to parse this for me. Seems to me it should be something like, "You can't put a flower in an ahole and say it's in a vase."
Or, "You can't put a flower in an ahole and call the a**hole a vase."
Isn't "flower" the object of the sentence and therefore what the pronoun "it" stands for?


texts: Is there a word for "invented words that are a natural extrapolation of etymology"

texts:
In "(India)" english, there is a word "prepone", which is the opposite of "postpone".

It's interesting that this word appears in a non-native dialect of English (although that's debatable given the prevalence of English use in India). This word appears to be an invented word, as a natural extrapolation of root Latin prefixes.

Is there a word for such an invented word, that plays upon classical etymological origin?

Is there further still a name for invented words in a language when being used by non-native speakers?


texts: Is this xkcd sentence grammatically correct?

texts:
So I saw this xkcd, and when I tried reading it, I always felt like the ending was a bit... unbalanced.

It says:

  You're in a box on wheels hurtling along several times faster than evolution could possibly have prepared you to go. (Next 5 miles.)

I can't figure out what's wrong with it, though... it's as if some word (e.g. "at"?) was supposed to follow the word "go".

So I was wondering, is the sentence grammatically correct, or is it indeed missing something?
If so, what?


texts: What's a simple word for "un-split" or "made of a single piece"?

texts:
My company makes a product, a sort of table, that comes in two versions: a "split" version that breaks into two halves for more easy shipping/handling, and an "un-split" version that's made of a single large piece. I'm trying to come up with a word to use for the un-split version (besides "un-split"), that carries implications of "made of a single piece as opposed to multiple pieces". So we would have the "Split Table" and the "[Un-split?] Table".
I'd like this word to be usable by us internally and also for customer-facing/marketing materials. So it should be simple and colloquial but sufficiently descriptive.
Some words that don't quite fit the bill:

Single (this is too ambiguous)
Whole, Full, etc. (because even the split version is "whole" and "full" after you put the halves together)

I've seen the word "monolithic" used in this context, and it's probably the closest I've found in terms of meaning (made of a single piece), but it's more of a mouthful than I'd like.
The next closest I've found is "integral", but even that is a little more formal than I'd like.
I'm hoping there's a simple, colloquial word I'm not thinking of that would be a fitting substitute for "Un-split Table" or "Single-piece Table".
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
EDIT: Clarification after receiving few answers: I over-simplified things a bit so as not to go too far into the intricacies of our product. In fact, even the "un-split" version of the table is made up of multiple visually distinct pieces. It's just that they all get "permanently" pre-assembled together by us. (This is also true for each half of the split version). Therefore, I'd like to find a word that has heavier connotations of "a single, self-complete structure" rather than "a single piece". Again, monolithic does this well but unfortunately is not colloquial enough.
I realize this clarification changes the nature of the question, and is also probably more niche and unlikely to have a good single-word answer. So if no new answers come in that satisfy that clarification, I'll probably accept one of the current answers, as they do satisfy the original question quite well.


texts:
Does the following need a question mark?

Lucas’s main concern was who would he take to the apostrophe party.


texts:
Which sentence is preferred?

The value of A or B is 50% each
The value of A and B are 50% each
The values of A and B are 50% each


texts: How do you write an ellipsis following an abbreviation?

texts:
Consider the following sentence (off of the top of my head just to illustrate an example):

  I hate the N.C.A.A....but I understand that it's a necessary evil.

When following an abbreviation with an ellipsis, should you have three or four dots? Should the period following the last "A" in "N.C.A.A." be omitted or included, given the ellipsis right afterwards?


texts: Use of article before the word "closure"

texts:
Today i came across a sentence while reading a newspaper

"Half-yearly exams of secondary schools will be deferred due to closure of educational institutions"

But i think they were supposed to use "the" before  closure like "the closure of educational institutions". Since it was talking about the closure resulted from coronavirus, it should be a definite thing.


texts:
Having made (in vain) a good faith effort to answer this question without troubling the esteemed community, I pray the following expert-level advice on what I think all will agree is a thought-provoking matter:

What type of statement do you refer to if you call something by what it is not, like:

"That is not good"  instead of  "That is bad"


texts: What's the term for untapped capacity or inventory that is brought to market by rising prices?

texts:
I want to answer this question on Homebrew.SE, but I'm at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

One example of the concept I'm trying to describe is gold that had heretofore been sitting in people's jewelry boxes or bottom drawers. With skyrocketing prices, more people became more aware that they were sitting on a valuable resource, and thus brought that resource to market.

For some reason, my brain is trapped on the metaphor of dark matter, which is not apt.

What would you call that untapped inventory? "Untapped inventory"?


texts: What's another way of saying that something 'captures the essence' of something?

texts:
I'm having a hard time coming up with a similar phrase or word, and have already used 'captures the essence' nearby.

In context:

  Unfortunately, this quantity is impossible to calculate in practice, as P is a continuous random variable, and we only have finitely many samples in a real dataset. Therefore, it is necessary to use a proxy metric that captures the essence of (2.36).


texts: Short way of saying pre-exterior (of a line or order)

texts:
Actually, I'm looking for a short version of a collection of highly related words:

Pre-exterior (before the beginning)
Pre-interior (after the beginning)
Post-exterior (after the ending)
Post-interior (before the ending)

The objective is to provide names for a small piece of a computer program that handle things in an order or a "line" with say "sub-lines"

Imagine this situation:

you have a line within a line. people within the bigger line, that are not in the "sub-line" are denoted with the character "A" vs where the "sub-line" people are denoted with the character "a" like this:

A | A | A | A | a | a | a | a | a | a | a| a | a | a | A | A | A

I am looking to name each of these characters: the italicized "A", the italicized "a", the bold "A", and the bold "a"


texts:
We have a new group of shirts we are posting to our website.  It is a group of shirts from a single brand.  Not from multiple brands and not multiple categories (example: shirts and pants) from a single brand.

  New Arrivals This Week

OR

  New Arrival This Week


texts:
I'm trying to describe a high level job thus

  You have to worry about the minutiae and the ...

I'm looking for a word that is the opposite of small details... i.e. the big picture.

Is there a word that means that but that remains as close to the Latin root as minutiae?


texts: Is the writer of this line trying to shorten "time-saving and labor-saving" into "time- and labor-saving"?

texts:
Here's the paragraph is question below. The part I'm talking about is in bold.

  Festool has a reputation for producing expensive tools that provide
  benefits the other brands either lack or end up chasing down. Superior
  dust collection, clever ergonomics, precision adjustability, unique
  time- and labor-saving features, a system-based approach to design,
  and even careful consideration of the tools' Systainer carrying cases,
  all speak of a design attention lavished on their products that you
  simply don't see from most manufacturers these days.

Is the writer trying to shorten time-saving and labor-saving or just adding labor to time-saving? I understand what he's trying to say in general but I was a little confused with the construction of this sentence.


texts: Larry Trask seems to be violating rules about commas as mentioned in his own guide

texts:
I was reading Larry Trask's guide on how to use the comma.  His node11.html mentions that we should not use a joining comma before any word other than and, or, but, while and yet.

But in node13.html, he seems to be making some dubious uses of comma violating the rules he has mentioned in his guide. For example,

  "So, the bracketing commas shouldn't be there."

The comma used in that sentence is not a listing comma. It is not followed by and, or, but, while or yet. It is not a gapping comma either, and doesn't seem like a bracketing comma.  Then why is the comma there?

Trask suggests that we fix such punctuation using semicolons. A comma should precede only the five connecting words he has mentioned: and, or, but, while and yet. For anything else, we should use a semicolon. But he doesn't do so in the next example. Why not?

  "This is a good sentence, so you have now got the bracketing commas in the right places."


texts:
From some comments in the answers for common English usage mistakes (now deleted, 10k only), there's confusion around the usage of I vs. me:

While the sentence, "the other attendees are myself and Steve," is agreed to be incorrect, there's confusion about whether the correct form is "the other attendees are me and Steve" or "the other attendees are Steve and I."

(I've always used the heuristic of removing the other people from the sentence, so I always thought "the other attendee is me" would be correct, instead of "the other attendee is I." Is this true, or am I using a flawed heuristic?)


texts: Why doesn't it go like "him and his wife"?

texts:
Please take a look at this excerpt from The Catcher in the Rye:

  I think I probably woke he and his wife up, because it took them a helluva long time to answer the phone.

This phrase confused me. Why does the author not write "him and his wife", rather than "he and his wife"?
Also, I'm slightly confused about his use of "a helluva" - could someone give me other examples of its use? I think I understand what it means, but I'm not sure how to use it in practice.


texts:
Ironically, someone offered this correction:

Irregardless is a word commonly used in place of regardless or irrespective, which has caused controversy since the early twentieth century, though the word appeared in print as early as 1795. Most dictionaries list it as nonstandard or incorrect usage, and recommend that "regardless" should be used instead

Further down in the same thread, they asked, "Why do fools like you keep forgetting...", to which I replied, "Why do fools such as you keep insisting..."

So, who got it right?

Am I over-extending the lesson of my mother's pet peeve, i.e. she always corrected the TV in the '50-60s whenever she heard "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" which properly said would have been "Winston tastes good, as a cigarette should".

Of course, today that's not seen on TV, having been replaced by "Smoking [Winston] causes lung cancer, as smoking any cigarette would".


texts: Can omitting -ly suffix of an adverb cause ambiguity?

texts:
Sometimes, I forget to use the proper form when an adverb is required. Or sometimes it simply doesn't appear to me one is required, unless I actually consider the grammar of my sentence. I suppose that's mostly because in my native language (German), there is no morphological difference between an adverb and an adjective.

This led me to wonder:
Is this distinction in English merely an idiosyncrasy or can I really semantically convey something other than intended, if I omit the suffix by mistake?


texts:
The goal for these negotiations is to reach a mutually-agreed long-term comprehensive solution that would ensure Iranˈs nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful.

while we have a noun phrase "the goal" connected to another noun phrase "these negotiations", why isn't of used instead of for?


texts: How to describe making sounds with your throat?

texts: Say if someone asked you a yes/no question, and you make that note of assent with your throat to let them know that yes is the answer to the question, how would you describe that through writing? I don't just want to say 'She made a note of assent' or whatever... Is there an actual descriptive word, or onomatopoeic word I can use?


texts: What term means "all of the words one knows"?

texts: What term, ideally used by linguists, refers to the entire collection of words that a person knows? For example, if someone opened up a dictionary, and created a list of all of the words they know, what term would refer to that list?


texts: what is the difference between verbal and oral?

texts:
what is the difference between verbal and oral ?

I am looking forward to the answer and I appreciate your effort


texts:
“He alwas in St.Peter’s Square in Roma in 1978 WHEN John Paul II became Pope and in Tehran a year later WHEN the Shah fell.”
Can I use “as” to replace the “when”？


texts: "My personal opinion is..." Is it always pointless to use the words "personal" and "personally"?

texts:
Is this kind of redundancy acceptable in both speech and writing, formal and informal ?  Would the following sentences have their meaning changed if we omitted "personal" or "personally" ?  Would they lose anything at all ?

  She is a personal friend of mine.
  It's my personal opinion....
  Personally, I would advise you...
  The manager said he will examine the matter personally.
  Personally, I don't care whether...
  I have a personal interest in the matter.


texts:
Used in this sentence (by a friend):

  Well, if it doesn't work, just bucket and chuck it.


texts: What does "mechanical sympathy" & "transcend crude oversimplifications" mean?

texts:
Am going through a documentation.
In the below quote:

“You don’t have to be an engineer to be be a racing driver, but you do have to have Mechanical Sympathy.” – Jackie Stewart, racing driver

What is the meaning of "mechanical sympathy"?

In the below statement:

First, let’s think about why it’s important to transcend crude oversimplifications like “disk I/O is faster than network I/O.”

Dictionary meaning of "transcend" is "to rise above or go beyond", but going beyond crude oversimplications? I don't get the meaning...
2)
What does "transcend crude oversimplifications" mean?


texts:
Here are my constructions:

  He has the ability to develop policies, procedures and solutions
  that improve network disaster recovery and business continuity.
  He has the ability to developing policies, procedures and
  solutions that improve network disaster recovery and business
  continuity.

So my question is, should I use 'develop' or 'developing'?


texts:
Water with a low pH can be described as "acidic" water. How would you refer to water with a high pH?

I would guess it's "alkalitic" or "alkalinic," but I can't find any references to those words at Dictionary.com.


texts: single word noun for somebody who is unfaithful to their spouse / relationship-partner

texts:
There seems to be a range of adjectives to describe such people, and the noun for such an action is infidelity, but I couldn't find a noun that can be commonly used to describe the unfaithful person.

  he/she has been cheating on his/her spouse/partner, he/she is a __________

(This train of thought was prompted by somebody's garbled answer here that was giving an example involving infidelity.)

Please note: 'adulterer/ adulteress' is an obvious option, but its legal definition presupposes marriage, at least here in India, so I should like to find some other word to fit this question.


texts:
Michael was in deep sleep, then suddenly came awake.

So it's the first time I came upon the word "came awake". I assume it means the same as "woke up". Does it really? How it differs from "woke up" or "awoke"? Or is it just not a usual way of saying it? Would you sound normal if you'd use "came awake" on daily basis?


texts: Is the noun "device" correctly used as a modifier in the phrase "the device box"?

texts:
For example, "the instruction manual can be found in the device's box". "Device's" doesn't sound right to me, so I thought of using: "the instruction manual can be found in the device box".

Is it correct to use "device" as a modifier/adjective? In general, when is it correct to use a noun as a modifier?


texts: Word for "the books a person is reading"

texts:
My usual ____ include science fiction and philosophy.

What is a word that means "books I'm reading"? Equivalent to "parlance" as far as parlance refers to the words or types of words a person likes to use.


texts: Is there a category name for verbs beginning with 'be-'? Is 'be-' a general prefix for words?

texts:
I wonder about words like:

Beseech
Befallen
Beholder (?)
Bewitch
Befool
Befriend
Befog

and so on...

Those words have always caught my attention, and I find them somewhat more sophisticated.

My questions are (no need to answer all at once) :

Is there a category for such words? For example, if I would be to search for words like 'greater', 'higher', 'more beautiful', I would find them under the comparatives category.
Can 'be-' be used as a prefix in general? If so, how does it work?
How is the usage of such words viewed but a native English speaker? E.g. Archaic, poetic, prosaic, convoluted, just ok... ? I ask it because I've seen them to be used more in literature.


texts: Can laboring and belaboring be used in the same way?

texts:
While reading the book, Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future (amazon link), I came upon the following sentence:

  I know I am laboring this point, but the reason for going through this
  example in excruciating detail is to understand exactly what
  information is used to arrive at this answer.

I believe that is an incorrect use of the word laboring and the author most likely intended to use belaboring, but I'm curious if the word laboring can be used in this way.

Dictionary.com gives belaboring as:

  to explain, worry about, or work at (something) repeatedly or more
  than is necessary: He kept belaboring the point long after we had
  agreed.


texts:
Consider the sentence:
"The boxes must be filled up to the last box".

Does this mean 'including' the last box or all 'but' the last box?

If I ask you to start with 1 and count up to 8, you'll likely say "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8".

But, if I lay a Black, Blue, Red and Yellow marker in front of you and ask you to start with the Black marker and take the caps off up to the Yellow marker. Do you take the cap off the Yellow marker?


texts: Why is "I see a few trees" correct but "I see a many trees" not?

texts:
Why is "I see a few trees" grammatically correct but "I see a many trees" not?

I notice that "I see few trees" and "I see many trees" are both grammatically correct, since "few" and "many" are both determiners.

"I see a few trees" has two determiners. Why is it grammatical in the case of "few" but not in the case of "many"?


texts: Can I juxtapose two clauses that share one object?

texts:
To make the sentence short, I am putting two clauses side by side that share one object. The sentence I wanted to say is:

  Meltwater of the glaciers, especially outbursts of glacier-dammed
  lakes and moraine-dammed lakes, provide deluges of water, and glacial
  outwash provides abundant loose material, for debris flows.

Is it Okay to write like this?


texts: Might the word "hushpuppy" be a corruption of a Native American word?

texts:
I have always doubted the traditional explanation of the origin of the word "hushpuppy" since the word sounds like a borrowing from a Native American language. The 'explanation' that it comes from someone frying up a dollop of cornbread batter to quiet the dogs sounds like folk etymology.

.                     .    (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The practice of making bread from ground maize comes from Native Americans, after all, so it is not a stretch to think that a form of Native American bread might have retained a Native American name, possibly in a corrupted form.

Are there any Native American linguists in this group who might shed some light on this subject?


texts: Title for a person who studies or compiles adages?

texts: I would like to know  if there is a word to describe a person who studies and/or compiles adages in English.


texts: How can the phrase "a tireless workaholic" be defined?

texts: I want to heap praise on a person. He is a very hard-worker and works most of the time of a day. He takes a great workload and is always eager to take further workload. His tasks are quantitatively and qualitatively appreciable. He never complains and keeps on discharging the jobs with a smile. I want to devise a catchline, much like what most of the advertisements today use, for him. The catchline I devised is "... a tireless workaholic". (I know that "workaholic" has a negative shade and is used mainly for those who keep so engrossed in work that they have no time for the other aspects of life. But, I find no better word either. So, I have settled for "workaholic". Now, I want to change the shade of the word by qualifying the word with a positive adjective. I find no better adjective than "tireless".) First, I do not know if the catchline is grammatically correct. If correct, I do not know if, for "tireless", a better adjective could be substituted. Please help me.


texts: What is the comparative form of "tense"?

texts:
According to Webster's Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Macmillian English Dictionary, the comparative form of "tense" should be "tenser", but I find such an example in Oxford Dictionary: "The atmosphere in the meeting was getting more and more tense. "

So I got confused, which comparative form is used more often, "tenser" or "more tense"?


texts:
I was writing a comment on another website, and considered introducing it with a piece of trivia. My classical education kicked into gear, and I wanted to say "Relevant trivium: ..."

I realize I could circumvent my quandary by saying "Relevant piece of trivia: ..." but now I am curious - if the dictionary.com definition of trivia is

  plural noun
  1.
  matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; trivialities.

Is there a place for the singular "trivium"? That word was used in the Middle Ages to indicate the first three of seven "core curriculum" subjects taught at University: grammar, logic and rhetoric. The next four subjects were arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy (the quadrivium).

That suggests that the word is taken - but I don't know that for sure.

So at the risk of breaking the rules - here are two questions:

Can one use "trivium" to indicate a single piece of trivia? And if not, what would be the recommended alternative?

Factoid was the only one that sprang to mind. Are there any others?


texts: A word meaning to make a task so difficult that it is practically impossible

texts: As the title says, I am trying to find a verb that means intentionally obstructing and making something so difficult that it is practically impossible to carry out. For context, I am speaking about voter suppression, and I was trying to think of the proper verb to represent the actions of Jim Crow laws on black voters; I came up with obstruction and inhibition, but neither is fully what I am looking for. The nuance in this case is that it is intentional of one entity to be doing this to another entity. Any ideas?


texts: I need to ask which word would be better?

texts:
It was he/ him I was talking about.

Which pronoun would be better for a sensible sentence?


texts: Is prefixing "@" to address a person becoming an English standard?

texts:
In order to address or reply to a person, is prefixing an "@" symbol in front of their names becoming a standard in English?

This is really useful in e-communications wherein a parts of message can be addressed to a particular person out of the bunch without breaking up into sentence fragments.


texts:
I am reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning". On Page 32 the author attributes a quote to Lessing which goes as follows:

  There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.

Can anyone shed some light on this quote? Although the quote at a first glance looked obvious to me, I am not getting exactly what it means philosophically and in what context is it being said by Lessing and then used by Frankl. What made Lessing say this? If you can point where this quote appears first that would be great, too.


texts: looking for an English idiom to describe specialist employment

texts:
There's a French phrase "Mais il faut recruter à l’extérieur : on ne peut pas faire des pâtissiers avec des maçons"
Translates as "However, we have to recruit outside: we cannot make confectionery using stonemasons"

It means that you cannot just take anyone to do a specific job.

Is there a similar idiom in English?

I'm thinking there must be an English idiom, but I cannot find anything online.


texts:
I want to write the following:

This is due to the dramaticness of the day.

What other word can I use?


texts: Somewhere, something, somebody & someone referring to multiple things

texts:
I read the usage of "somewhere, something, somebody & someone" on Cambridge and it says that those words can be used to describe general people & things. But all the example they give uses singular verb (i.e. verbs with s/es). Can those 4 words be used to refer to many unknown/general things, such as in this sentence:

  The ghost costume looks like something from a horror movie.


texts:
Is this a correctly formed sentence? In formal writing does the sentence need to be broken into two sentences?

  As an example consider Myc; when overexpressed it can be a powerful promoter of uncontrolled cell division, yet without accompanying anti-apoptotic mutations, induces cell death.


texts: What is the difference between “Must-do” and “Should-do”?

texts:
There was the following sentence in the article under the caption “Find your happiness “in iVillage. com.: http://www.ivillage.com/what-learn-annoyingly-happy-people/4-b-479266#ixzz2PiSjFoXw

  “If there are two words that are keys to contentment, they are
  ‘limits’ and ‘boundaries,’” says Reiss. “Prioritizing the must-do
  items on our lists is essential, after which the should-do list must
  be narrowed down with polite but firm no-can-do responses.”

It seems the “must-do” things should be prioritized to “should-do” things in making  decisions. Is “Must” an order you must obey, and “should” is a mere recommendation that you can always or easily neglect?

What is the basic difference of “must-do” from “should-do” in terms of the level of obligation, moral and motivational aspects?


texts:
I’m currently searching for the title of my research thesis and I can’t find a good phrase.

I did a “Systematic Analysis of fruit growth” in a generic way and additionally applied the analysis to apples.

Regarding the content I thought of the following title:

“Systematic Analysis of the fruit growth at the example of apples”
“Systematic Analysis of the fruit growth exemplify by apples”

Both sound awkward and might even be not correct (they sound incorrect to me)

I came up with the following other possibilities:

“Systematic Analysis of the fruit growth demonstrated on apples”
“Systematic Analysis of the fruit growth taking the example of apples”
“Systematic Analysis of the fruit growth applied on apples”
“Systematic Analysis of the fruit growth using apples as a case study”
“Systematic Analysis of the fruit growth demonstrated on apples as a case study”

None of these really fits what I wanted to say. I would go for the first one, but I’m not sure whether “demonstrate” might be to informal and one might think of a “demonstration” (show on a stage).

Is there another correct phrase for “at the example of ”?


texts: Is mixed that is used in this sentence "paints are mixed well." an adjective?

texts:
Sometime I am Confused between the adjective and passive voice. For example:

  window is broken?
  window is broken?

The first example shows the state and the second example is in the passive voice. So my question is can I used mixed as an adjective in the following sentences:

  Paints are mixed well.

And is there any way that I can clear my confusion. And how many more verbs are there that behave like an adjective?


texts: Difference between 'play you' and 'play with you'

texts: What is the difference between "I'll play you next" and "I'll play with you next". Is there a grammatical error in both, it both means the same...


texts: What is upward entailment or monotonicity increasing in english?

texts:
Is this how it works?
(1) a. All [workers ↓] [joined for a French dinner ↑]
(1) b. All workers joined for a dinner
A context is upward entailing (shown by [... ↑]) that allows an inference from (1a) to (1b), where French dinner is replaced by a more general concept dinner source: [link] (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.06448.pdf)
then, is it correct to replace (2a) to (2b)?
(2) a. [thieves ↓] [stole Salted butter, clarified butter, and European butter ↑]
(2) b. thieves stole butter


texts: Is ‘Not a peep’ an idiom, or just plain statement?

texts:
I found a phrase ‘not a peep,’ in the Washington Post’s article (September 16) written by Eugene Robinson, which was captioned “Where are the compassionate conservatives?” In the article, Robinson describes the scene of Republican Presidential candidate, Ron Paul’s answering the moderator, Wolf Blitzer’s question at the Tea party debate held on September 12th:

  “Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul a hypothetical question about a young man who elects not to purchase health insurance. The man has a medical crisis, goes into a coma and needs expensive care. “Who pays?” Blitzer asked.

  “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody. . . .”

  Blitzer interrupted: “But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?”

  There were enthusiastic shouts of “Yeah!” from the crowd. “You’d think one of the other candidates might jump in with a word about Christian kindness. Not a peep.”

What does “Not a peep” mean here? Does it mean “No sound, no voice”, or “No answer”? Does it mean the Congressman was unable to talk back even a single word, or other candidates zipperd their mouth, or audience who shouted 'Yes' in accord suddenly fell into silence?

I checked online dictionaries for the words. None of Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, or Urban dictionary has entry of “Not a peep.” I don't know why. Isn’t this an idiom, or just an abridgement of ‘There was no peep.”?


texts:
I have a presentation, and I am trying to make a headline for the slide that describes the page of things we made, I currently have it titled "things we made" but I don't think that is aduequate.

What are some others ways to title it


texts: What is the connotation of "who wouldn't want to be"?

texts:
Yesterday I talked to my colleague. I was saying that if someone got hired by a company, make sure this guy got job A rather than job B. Then my colleague asked me, "Who wouldn't want to take job A?" Did my colleague mean that everyone, given job A and job B available, would always go for job A?

The funny thing is I am having job B. Did my colleague try to make it condescending towards me?

Thanks!


texts:
I'm creating a task management system that provides team managers with an overview of the state of the tasks within a list of projects. This could sum up my intent:

Project A:
  7 open issues
  3 unassigned
  2 without a deadline

Project B:
  ...

The arrangement isn't exactly like this, and in some situations it appears as 7 open issues (2 without a deadline), which, due to its length, is causing an ugly break on the system's UI.

My question is whether there's a verb that would express the same intent, "without a deadline set". I noticed that deadline exists as a verb, but undeadline doesn't (and anyway doesn't sound very good). Any alternatives?

Edit: I'm thinking w/o deadline. It's visually distinguishable and meets the requirements. Any other recommendations are still welcome.


texts: Another word for 'mutual trust' but not 'reciprocal confidence'?

texts:
Is there another word for 'mutual trust' but not the phrase 'reciprocal confidence' ?

Example sentence:
It is the WORD HERE between Mrs Doe and organisation XYZ that enables to gain deeper and more profound insights into these phenomena.


texts:
I'm looking for a word to describe an emotion in fictional lawyer Horace Rumpole. Several characters try to goad him into finding a better-paying, more prestigious job in law. He entertains the idea momentarily but looks at his life, ideals, and principles and then decides he's better off where he is.

What I understand Aristotle's eudaimonia to mean -- happiness derived by living according to virtue -- is close. But it does not always imply that there was cost (or loss of gain) in living so.

For generality, I would rather the word not have the religious connotations of righteousness or martyrdom. Ideally it could be used to describe a "He didn't take the money" situation that I see in some films: The hero agrees to do a job for money, but later (usually privately) refuses the agreed pay because of his principles. The hero (maybe reluctantly) understands that ultimately this is the way he wants it to be.

Is there a single word to describe "contentment in a choice that costs you"?


texts:
I saw this on an application which sound wrong to me? how we can change it make more sense?

Shows you follow are in your library.


texts:
My wife used the expression "you are waking up the house" when my son was making a lot of noise. Now that is actually wrong, I think - that would imply that the house as an entity was being woken, which is wrong as the house is brick.

However, "you are waking up the entire house" is acceptable in British English. So why does adding "Whole" change the meaning so much?

My only thought was that it could be a corruption of "Household". Any thoughts?

[edit] Just for clarification, I do understand that "waking up the house" carries the same meaning, but the interest was that the normal usage is the whole house. And I am interested in why this "whole" makes a difference.


texts: I can't make heads or tails of this paragraph. It's a complex pun. (Warning: mildly "bad language" and urban lingo.)

texts:
Here it is:

  It's your brother's MR. T PUPPET, which of course is kept in the apartment with a sense of profound humorous irony. But as usual with your BRO's exploits, this is no ordinary irony, or anything close to a pedestrian TIER 1 IRONIC GESTURE which is a meager single step removed from sincerity. This is like ten levels of irony removed from the original joke. It might have been funny like eight years ago to joke about Mr. T and how he was sort of lame, but that was the very thing that made him awesome and badass, and that his awesomeness was also sort of the joke. But in this case, the joke is the joke, and that degree of irony itself is ALSO the joke, and so on.

The first line is easy to understand, after that I can't make heads or tails of it.

Source: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002348


texts: Any word followed by "proof" means that something is protected against that word

texts:
I was wondering if you combine any word and add "proof" at the and, does that automatically means that it is protected against the first word?

For example:
Bulletproof - means something that can't be pierced by a bullet

But if I say:
Catproof or Appleproof does that mean something that is protected against cats or apples?

Thank you


texts:
I am travelling to Prague from London for a couple of days.
      - Should I exchange my money here in the UK first?

Having to re-read this question on the travel SE site, I was reminded of financial reports on Bloomberg and similar, where a release of new data is often constructed as, for example, "Full-year profits increased to $4 million from $3.5 million."

This "to... from..." word-order pattern seems mostly to appear in US-sourced copy.

When using such information in my own reports I would invariably reverse the order - to me, it seems far more logical/normal/readable/scannable to write the starting point first, then move to the end point.

Am I being over-critical? Is there any linguistic rationale for "to... from..." that I am missing?


texts: Is there a commonly accepted way of noting that a person makes a non-word sound in a transcription?

texts: I'm transcribing the lyrics of a song into written text. Towards the end of it there's a short recording of someone telling a little anecdote about their day. As this audio reaches its end, he chuckles. Is there a commonly accepted way of noting that a non-word sound was made in the audio when transcribing it?


texts:
Who knocks at the door?
  Who does knock at the door?

Hello, teachers. I am confused here. Usually, first sentence is acceptable.
But I did not read about the second sentence.
Is it correct? Is it an emphatic sentence of present indefinite tense?


texts: Is the word "awful" offensive if used to describe someone's skills?

texts:
I recently read something like:

  Mr X was able to get the job even though his English is awful.

In the above, suppose the background is Mr X landing a job for which good English skills were a requirement.

My first reaction was that the sentence was quite offensive. It felt like if the writer was "looking down" at Mr X, and did not sound very different than "Mr X sucks at English".

But then I realized that I actually might be wrong. I suppose the word "awful" by itself does not have an offensive connotation, and maybe that might be just a neutral statement to express that Mr X's skills are very bad.

If it depends on the context, could you give some examples? Thank you.

PS. Hope it's not an opinion-based question, but hopefully not. If so, please suggest how to improve.


texts: Is it appropriate to use "ecological" word as adjective outside of ecological context

texts: Is it possible to use the word "ecological" as an adjective in a context that doesn't refer to pure ecology? Example: using the expression «An ecological approach» in software engineering to refer to an approach that has components that can be reuse in software engineering.


texts: Can you put the article ‘a’ after the verb ‘are’?

texts:
So, I just read an article, and was confused by the sentence:

  In the study we just described, we found evidence that people’s self-discerning reflections — musings on whether parts of their identity truly define who they are or merely reflect their cultural upbringing — are a critical ingredient in the relationship between living abroad and self-concept clarity."

Source: From How Living Abroad Helps You Develop a Clearer Sense of Self

I always thought that plural verb can't come with the articles 'a' and 'an', as they are incompatible (plural and singular). Well, there are some exceptions like, 'They are a bunch of students'. However, the 'a' in this case is describing one group; it's not a problem.

The quoted sentence is a grammatically correct sentence too, as I've checked on Grammarly. So, can anyone explain to me why is it correct?


texts: Having lived in the USA for several years I've noticed that Americans use the word "hate" a lot. What do they mean? Do they have hate emotion attached when they use this word? Or do they really mean "I don't like" when they say "I hate?" I use the word hate only when I really hate something.


texts:
Many internet sites (like this one) say that the word amoral was coined by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) as a differentiation from immoral. These sites also say that amoral comes from the Greek privative prefix a- "not" and the Latin word moral.

If this were true, amoral and immoral would have completely equivalent meanings, but in philosophy the term amoral implies not to be concerned with morality, whereas immoral implies a direct opposition to certain standards of morality.

So my hypothesis is that the word amoral comes from the Latin prefix a- or ab-, meaning "away from" (source). This makes much more sense to me both for meaning and for coherence with moral, which is also Latin.

I am not an expert, so could you please tell me your opinion about this?


texts: "Up came the sun, and dried up all the rain.", this is a children song lyric. I am wondering if we change the lyric to "Up came the sun, drying up all the rain.", will it still be the same as what it was meant in the beginning? Or will it be a different meaning?


texts: Why phonemic symbols are different among dictionaries

texts: I find the phonemic symbols are different for the same word among dictionaries. Take the word "tuck" for example. In Oxford Learner's Dictionary, its /tʌk/ for both British English and North American English. However, in Kindle's dictionary which is The New Oxford American Dictionary, it's /tək/.  It doesn't make sense to me that one word pronounces differently.


texts:
When should one put a definite article before the word "fullness"?

UPD: To be precise, I have the following sentence.

  The first condition is just (the ?) fullness of A.

Here fullness is some kind of property. What I also know is that I'd say:

  Here we prove fullness of A.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

P.S. I'm also looking for a good consistent English grammar and punctuation book. Would be very grateful for any references.


texts: Word for 'somebody is deeply satisfied after completing a job perfectly'

texts: I am looking for a single adjective for a person who experiences a deep satisfaction on completing a job perfectly and completely. Also, the person might possibly be passionate about the job in question.


texts: "Some of the [superlative adjective] I've ever been" -- another way to phrase this?

texts:
I can't seem to find a non-awkward way of expressing this sort of sentiment: suppose you want to tell a friend about some time you were really, really cold, but it wasn't the coldest you've ever been. How do you express that?

"That was some of the coldest I've ever been"
"That was among the coldest I've ever been"
"Of the times I've been cold, that was among the coldest"

These all seem so clunky to me. Is there a more elegant way to phrase this?
This problem seems to be unique to this situation. In other contexts that are more direct, or less subjective, it doesn't seem to be an issue. For example:

"It is one of the coldest places I've ever been"
"The temperatures were among the coldest I've ever experienced"

But those aren't exactly the sentiments you're trying to capture. It is more nuanced, because you want to convey how cold it felt to you, somewhat subjectively, rather than report on, say, the objective temperatures. If that seems contrived, consider a similar situation where you're describing "some of the loneliest you've ever been".
Many thanks for suggestions on more elegant ways to phrase this kind of sentiment!


texts: Is there a difference between an adverb and an adjectival complement?

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Consider the example: I am happy to wait.
In some publications, the function of the infinitive is called 'adverb'. In others, it is 'complement of adjective'. Is there a difference in the naming of the function? I've always learnt that adverbs do modify adjectives, and I'm wondering why the name of this particular function is not the same everywhere.


texts: Why "like doing something" or "like to do something" but only "dislike doing something"?

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At a further education course for teachers, in Switzerland, (given by two native speakers of English), someone came up with the question of whether you could say "dislike doing something" and "dislike to do something", just as you can say "like doing something" and "like to do somehting".

The answer was you could not, and that it was a question of usage. Period!/Full stop!

Just learn this by heart and stop asking silly questions!

Will keeping your whys to yourself make you… wise?!


texts:
In my mind, "I like him but not her" does not mean exactly the same as "I like him, but not her".
The comma would insist on the opposition and put emphasis on "him" and "her". It puts weight on my dislike for "her". Am I making it up?


texts: I am looking for a single word to describe the hand-out given by teachers after training for the purpose of self-learning. I would like something other than snap-shot, fast facts or bite-size.


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I failed to find example usage of laic after a few minutes of search. I think it should be used this way:

  I am laic at physics.

Is this correct? Should I use layman instead?


texts: About the syntactical function and meaning of "up" in "man up" or "lawyer up"

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As far as I have been able to understand, up in this kind of phrasal verbs is an adverb which, according to this dictionary, means:

  5 Into the desired or a proper condition.

What is interesting about these phrasal verbs is that they do appear to belong to informal American English. The basic pattern for this type of phrasal verbs appears to be [countable] noun + up.

My question is twofold:

Am I correct in my thinking that up is an adverb here meaning into the desired or a proper condition, as quoted earlier? (I would be quite happy to be able to learn what the OED has to say about the particular meaning of up in this kind of phrasal verbs, and a most useful answer for me would quote from it in a most illuminating way).
Is this linguistic pattern of forming new phrasal verbs an ascending trend in American English that is likely to be accepted into formal English any time soon?


texts: Observation: "Take back" is used in impolite speech, while "Bring back" is used in polite speech. Is there any basis to this?

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I'm an English teacher working with an advanced student. They asked me to teach them how to ask for help or support when things aren't going they way they should. I decided to teach him that it is often best to use indirect speech when asking for help, and these two sentences arose in my planning:

I’m afraid my food isn’t heated thoroughly, could you please bring it back to the kitchen

My food is cold, please take it back to the kitchen.

I naturally switch between "bring back" and "take back" in the polite, and less polite versions. If I play and switch them around, each sentence sounds more or less polite, accordingly. Is this just me thinking too hard, or is there some basis for this?


texts: Correct place to use the word "Fathomed"

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I have used "Fathomed" in the following sentence

  "Fathomed the issue. And solved the issue"

to mean

  "I understood the problem and I solved it"

Is this the right way to use fathomed?


texts: Word to describe a person who only speaks a few words

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I need help recalling a phrase or a word. This phrase is used to describe a person who speaks as few words as possible. He or she only speaks when others asks him or her a question.

I've seen this phrase before. It's something like He is stingy with his words.