texts:
OED gives the definition and a quote from 1833 as the earliest reference as:

  The first week-day after Christmas-day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas-box. So also Boxing-night, Boxing-time.

  1833   in A. Mathews Mem. C. Mathews (1839) IV. viii. 173   To the completion of his dismay, he arrives in London on boxing-day.

According the Etymonline, it goes back as early as 1809:

  1809, "first weekday after Christmas," on which postmen and others expect to receive a Christmas present, originally in reference to the custom of distributing the contents of the Christmas box, which was placed in the church for charity collections. See box (n.1). The custom is older than the phrase

However, most of the other sources say that the origin is unclear and list several possible theories.

Wikipedia states that the exact etymology of the term "boxing day" is unclear. There are several competing theories, none of which is definitive. The European tradition, which has long included giving money and other gifts to those who were needy and in service positions, has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown. It is believed to be in reference to the Alms Box placed in places of worship to collect donations to the poor.

Britishfood.about.com lists four possible origins and says that it might be related to all of them:

A ‘Christmas Box’ in Britain is a name for a Christmas present.
Boxing Day was a day off for servants and when they received a ‘Christmas Box’ from the master. The servants would also go home to give ‘Christmas Boxes’ to their families.
A box to collect money for the poor was placed in Churches on Christmas day then opened the next day.
Great sailing ships when setting sail would have a sealed box containing money on board for good luck.If the voyage were a success the box was given to a priest, opened at Christmas and the contents given to the poor.

Finally, snopes.com debunks most of the theories and gives the following origin as the best bet:

  The holiday's roots can be traced to Britain, where Boxing Day is also known as St. Stephen's Day. Reduced to the simplest essence, its origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Gifts among equals were exchanged on or before Christmas Day,
  but beneficences to those less fortunate were bestowed the day after.

  And that's about as much as anyone can definitively say about its origin because once you step beyond that point, it's straight into the quagmire of debated claims and dueling folklorists. Which, by the way, is what we're about to muddy our boots with.

Well, it looks like I already answered the question but different sources say different things. I trust the users on this site who have advanced searching skills and can find a definitive answer.

What is the exact origin of this phrase? Can we find a better answer based on the first usages of this phrase?


texts: Help to understand meaning from 'Christmas Carol' preface

texts:
I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of
  an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves,
  with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their
  house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Parts that I can't understand are bold. Could anyone help me to get their meanings?


texts: Running for the 4th time versus for a 4th time

texts:
Which of the two is correct and in what context can either be used?
I read a poster where they had written that a course is running for a 4th time.
However I have not read such a sentence before so if you please explain it for me.

Grateful


texts: Exact meaning of sell as a going concern

texts:
how do you interprete the sentence below

"He sold the cafe as a going concern."
Logically, shouldn't the above sentence be : he bought instead of sold ?
Do you understand bankrupcy  or anything negative from this sentence? Because when sth or somewhre is making profits , we won't sell it .
And  above all, does  " going concern"  have negative aspect of  meaning whenever  this expression is used in a sentence.


texts:
How do we use myself as the only subject of a sentence?

For example I once heard some people saying Myself am to be blamed. Is this grammatically correct? How is it different from I am to be blamed?


texts: What do you say about a person who is a higher rank than a hobbyist?

texts:
What do you say about someone who does something as a hobby, but has higher knowledge than others and can transfer his/her hobby into a profession?

Example sentence: "Adam has superior knowledge about coffee. He's a ____"

I thought about Expert or Professional, but they feel too high on the spectrum.


texts: Two adverbs in a row: "I counted my classmates one by one out loud."

texts:
Separation, if any, between two adverbs:
(1) I counted my classmates one by one out loud.
(2) I counted my classmates one by one, out loud. [comma]
(3) I counted my classmates one by one and out loud. [and]
I understand that there are other ways to express this concept and that out loud implies counting one by one, but I want to preserve the emphasis as well as the brevity. I do not want to rewrite the sentence but am happy to switch one by one and out loud around if there is a clear preference. Many thanks for your always thoughtful advice. Jim


texts:
I'm reading a book, it says:

  If anyone has reason to think of himself as special, it's he.

Is this correct? I think It should be It's him right? If this is still correct, what is the reason of using this kind of grammar?


texts:
I'm a native speaker of English, and I don't know how many times I've wanted to say "happilier" instead of "more happily", or "happiliest" instead of "most happily". Is there any record of such comparative/superlative adverbs (-lier, -liest) being used, even if it is in weird experimental literature?

Interesting problems arise with words already ending in "-ly", e.g.:

sillily: in a silly manner
sillilier: in a sillier manner
sillilily: in a manner suggesting a silly manner (double-adverb)
sillililiest: in a manner suggesting the silliest manner possible

(Typeset in fixed-width not because I think it's right, but because otherwise it's impossible to read "sillililiest".)


texts: Why do we refer to most senses by just their names: "poor hearing" or "poor sight", but, rather oddly, say "poor sense of smell"?


texts: Statement where the words are in question order

texts:
I am watching a video series to prepare for CCNA certification tests. The instructor has this horrible habit of making a statement with words that sound like he's asking a question, e.g.

… it’s going to tell you what is the hostname of the device…

I would assume the correct verbiage would be …what the hostname of the device is….
This is but one of many examples. Here are a couple more:

You wouldn't want to memorize what are all the mac addresses of the switches…
… so if you wanted to change how often are they sending their messages…

Even though it's driving me up the wall, I'm not here simply to vent. I'm curious. Is there a term for this specific type of incorrect sentence?


texts: Using the word "whether" instead of "which"

texts:
Can I use the word "whether" instead of "which" as in the following sentence?

"How to Decide Whether to Use Product A or Product B" (this is a heading)

I would usually write it as "How to Decide which to Use: Product A or Product B"
or just "When to Use Product A or Product B".

If the first example with "whether" is acceptable, in what situation is it more suitable than other two ways of suggesting options?


texts: How to make a comparative analogy sentence

texts:
Is it correct to make an analogy like this?

"It's like throwing yourself into a lion's den!"
I'm not looking for any kind of idioms. In fact, I'm emphasizing on the usage of the first part of my sentence above. It's like ... .

How do you say "doing something is like doing something else" in English in the case that you would like to start with a subject pronoun like "it" or "this" and so on?
Is it proper to start with "It's like"? I know I'm not a native speaker, it sounds a little stilted to me nevertheless.

Don't sign that contract because it's like having yourself to ask for a permission whenever you want to use your own money!

Isn't this ungrammatical/unnatural? thoughts?


texts: Is "further strengthen" or "further bolster" redundant?

texts:
For example,

  To further strengthen my graduate school application, I studied Spanish in Argentina for a semester.

The wording seems redundant and awkward to me, but it's common and I'd like some SE users' input.


texts: What's the verb for "to drink small amounts of drink"?

texts: What's the verb for "to drink small amounts of drink" (especially to enjoy it as slowly and long as possibly)? What's the drinking equivalent of "nibble"?


texts:
in many context the expression "here we go" is used, in a soccer match, in TV Shows by Show men , in some songs for example:
  Oh, here we go
  Feel it in my soul

I'd like to know what does it mean exactly?


texts: Why was the ruler of the British Empire not an Emperor/Empress?

texts: Alternatively, why was it called the British Empire when it was really the Kingdom of Great Britain? To me, having a empire without an emperor is as nonsensical as having a kingdom without a king. They seem to imply each other, yet it didn't work that way. Is there a good explanation for it?


texts:
So, English isn't my native language and my school teacher gave us this:

Complete: Let's go.............. my office.
A) at
B) in
C) out
D) for
E) into

I would go for at/in/into. She said it was "for" and explained it to me using some direct translations to my language, but that answer does not make any sense to me. Is "for" even a possible answer to this?


texts: What part-of-speech is "all" in these sentences?

texts:
These different dictionarys don't agree about what part-of-speech "all" is when it goes between subject and verb:

For Cambridge dictionary is an adverb

The kids all go to school on the same bus. link

For Macmillan dictionary is a pronoun

These buildings all belong to the college. link

For Merrian-Webster dictionary is an adjective

They all came late.
We all need to work faster. link

I am a little confused about them. Can some of you explain them?
Thanks for your answers


texts: “Deliberately” vs. “intentionally” vs. “on purpose”

texts:
I wonder if there is any difference between usage of these three:

deliberately
intentionally
on purpose

Are they completely interchangeable? Are they at the same level of formality?

I found some explanation (forums) Googling the three words, but I don’t find them reliable since people simply stated their own opinion.

In the dictionary, they are mentioned as synonymous: deliberately means intentionally, and on purpose means deliberately.


texts: Historical use of 'repetitive' and 'repetitious' in BE/AE

texts:
Two oddities (I think so, anyway) I've just now stumbled across with the ngram viewer:

In 18th century American English, things got very repetitive. Is there an historical reason that books written in that era show such a large spike in use of the words?
What happened in 2002 that caused such a dramatic turnaround in use of 'repetitive' in British English? I cannot think of an exact synonym, nor any particular reason.

Am I reading to much into these? They both seem statistically (without actually running any numbers) significant to me - especially the latter.


texts:
The following two sentences are taken from A comprehensive grammar of the English language by R. Quirk et al.:

"He saw one or other of the men."
"All of the compounds to be listed in this section are formed on one or other of the patterns already described."

And there are many more sentences in which "one or other" is used. Can it be considered correct? To my ears "one or other" doesn't seem grammatical.
There's "one or another" or "one or the other"....
But the above-mentioned one looks a bit strange.


texts:
"Nellie washed the dishes in the sink."

This sentence is ambiguous, and the prepositional phrase can be read two ways--either as 'Nellie washed (in the sink) the dishes', in which case it is an adverbial phrase,  or 'Nellie washed the dishes (that were in the sink, but not those, say, on the table)', in which case it is an adjectival phrase.

Moving the prepositional phrase doesn't help. If I say "In the sink, Nellie washed the dishes" it sounds as though Nellie is standing in the sink.

Does this show a fundamental problem with English syntax? I'm pretty sure German syntax would deal with this more precisely.


texts: What do you call the star that appears before night (evening)?

texts:
Early star? Evening star? I searched for both on Google, but weird stuff came up:

  Early star - definition of Early star by The Free Dictionary
  www.thefreedictionary.com/Early+star (Astronomy) astronomy any massive
  hot star of spectral type O, B, or A. Compare: late-type star. [C20:
  from the mistaken belief that hot and old stars evolved into ...

Source: The Free Dictionary

  Astronomy[edit] The planet Venus when it appears in the west (evening
  sky), after sunset The ancient Greeks gave it the name Hesperus Less
  commonly, the planet Mercury when it appears in the west (evening sky)
  after sunset

Source: Wikipedia

What's the most common way to refer to it?


texts: Conversion into passive voice and order of the words

texts:
This is a sentence in active voice: He cannot rear any cattle on his farm.
Its passive would be: Any cattle cannot be reared by him on his farm? OR On his farm, any cattle cannot be reared by him? OR Any cattle cannot be reared on his farm by him? Do all the three conversions mean the same thing, does order of words have any effect on the meaning?


texts: Is "Actor Peter Fonda found dead body inside car" correct?

texts: "Actor Peter Fonda found dead body inside car" - that's the title that Yahoo first chose for its news article confusing so many people Is this kind of title correct? (They just changed to "Police: actor Peter Fonda finds dead body in car").


texts: Term in English for short physical exercise in the middle of a lesson - Физкульминутка

texts:
In Russian, there is a popular concept "Физкульминутка" (Physical culture minute) - this is a very short break in the middle of a lesson for physical exercise to rest.
Is there a term in English for this?
What do you call these breaks - exercises like "clap your hands, stamp your feet, ..."?


texts:
What's the word for speech that talks about someones achievements, their character etc, like you would in a eulogy, except they're not dead.

For example, they might be receiving an award.

What do you call this speech?


texts: Does "That" have to be next to the noun it modifies?

texts:
Inside a prep book the following sentence is WRONG on the grounds that "that" modifies the closest noun "home".

  John F. Kennedy, one of the most social U.S. presidents, held many parties in his family home that featured elaborate meals of local fish and lobster, famous guest and late nights.

However, in the same book, the following sentence is CORRECT with the reasoning that "that" is not restrictive and clearly modifies parties.

  John held parties for his kids that featured clowns, numerous exotic animals, and lots of food.

What am I missing here?


texts: Word for "excessively sweet" with negative connotation

texts:
Which word can describe a product or dish which is so sweet that it is almost impossible to eat or to enjoy it? For example "this jam is ___ , i can't even eat it".
I found "sugary" and "honeyed" (linked in the "sugary" entry) but I think they are rather postive than negative.


texts: What is the meaning of "He was a myth made man"?

texts: I can't understand the meaning. Is it "He was a mythical person" or "He was a myth that became a man"?


texts: Raj has breakfast almost always before 7:45 AM. On rare occasions, he has after 7:45 AM, but never after 8:00 AM. So If he says "I always have my breakfast latest by 8:00 AM" to convey this fact, is Raj's usage correct?


texts: Congrats (instead of "congratulations") OK?

texts:
I'm a British ex-pat, living in the US for forty years. The Americans have started saying "congrats" (for "congratulations") in informal contexts.

To me, this sounds antiquated and upper-class. "I say old chap, oodles of congrats."

Does it still sound that way in the UK, or does it sound normal?


texts:
Which one is correct?

Neither my friend nor I feel my best in the morning.
Neither my friend nor I feel her best in the morning.
Neither my friend nor I feel our best in the morning.

I already know that the verb agrees with the subject closer to the verb:

Neither my friends nor my brother understands me. (correct)
Neither my friends nor my brother understand me. (wrong)

AND

Neither my brother nor my friends understand me. (correct)
Neither my brother nor my friends understands me. (wrong)


texts: What do you call a person who "shuts down" ideas?

texts: You know, the kind of person who you tell stuff like "I really want to go to this thing" and they point out everything wrong with it.


texts: The difference between"move over " and "get out of the way"

texts:
I have searched for the difference between the two idioms "move over" and "get out of the the way", and I found no results.

Are they interchangeable when we politely ask for some physical space?


texts:
As a native (American) English speaker, I change written decades to their numerical forms like the following:
Eighties = 80s, nineties = 90s

Throughout my time on the internet, though, I have seen a lot of second-language English speakers write decades ending in ies, like so:
Eighties = 80ies, nineties = 90ies

Is there any reason that this should be preferred?


texts: Do I use commas before the word "to" in the following sentence:

texts: The JP-8 pipelines included 7.4 miles of parallel 10-inch pipelines from the Navy's transfer pump house manifold to the custody transfer to the Anderson Air Force Base.


texts:
What is the negative form of the word "extreme" for this context:

  Temperature/climate insignificantly influences the production of honey due to
  the  ______(non-extreme)______  temperature during monsoon season.


texts: "More than one" is to "plural" as "less than one" is to what?

texts: We call the quantity of more than one (singular) plural. Is there any general word similar to this for a quantity less than one (singular)?


texts: Using plural to describe a compound list item

texts:
Say I have the following list:

• DataDetail – Implements functionalities of the Data detail window, i.e., accepted data monitoring on individual ports of the FPGA multiplexers and the switch.

• ErrorView – Implements the functionalities of the Error view window, i.e., source id error monitoring for a given port and the ability to mask the error.

... etc, all the items follow more or less the same pattern. Then I have a group of items which share some common property, but I don't want to list every single one of them out, so I create a compound item:

•Muxframe, SwitchFrame, Coreframe – Implements the monitoring and control functionalities related to the FPGA multiplexers, FPGA switch, and readout computers in the Link status window, respectively.

My question is in regard to the boldened "implements". Should I use plural or singular here? I.e., "implement", or "implements"?"


texts: Has "Needs Fixing" or "Needs Painting" Increased in Use

texts:
If one came home a little tired and emotional and knocked over the gatepost, the next morning one could say any of these things:

The gate needs fixing.  (1)

The gate needs to be fixed.  (2)

First, does the first construction have a name?  That is, what part of speech is "Fixing" in this usage?
It's a bit like a noun, as in, "I need a drink;"  but it seems that it's special because it comes from the verb "to fix."

Secondly, has the use of this construction increased dramatically recently?

I seem to hear it all the time now, particularly in speech.  I used to feel it was a British English thing, but I hear it in USA too.
I hear things like this all the time now,
"The fire needs putting out."
"The shed needs painting."
"The list needs sorting."  etc.

To be clear, I'm asking if usage (1) has recently increased dramatically in usage over method (2).   I am sure I have perceived such an increase.  I was also interested in whether there's a name for "fixing" or "painting" or "sorting" when used like this.

Also, to clarify, I'm not saying the "needs fixing" construction is new.  I can remember hearing it all my life, back to the 1950s.   I'm asking whether there's been a recent dramatic increase in how often people say it compared to the alternatives, such as, "the car needs to be fixed."

Thanks


texts: Comma after "Unfortunately" in the beginning of a sentence.

texts:
Here, Cambridge doesn't use a comma.  I am confused.
Example in Cambridge Dictionary:
Unfortunately we can't come this evening after all.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/unfortunately

On different pages i found some rules telling there needs to be a comma.
Examples follow:

We do usually put a comma after adverbs like 'unfortunately'. They are called 'sentence adverbs' because they modify the whole sentence and often give the opinion of the speaker/writer.

A parenthetical phrase adding detail to the main clause. Initially placed parentheticals are normally set off by a comma.

Cause I'm studying for my Level 2 graduation, i want going crazy reading
here and there comma rules followed by looking in the Cambridge Dictionary
without finding them there.

HELP me out please !


texts: Is there a single-word antonym for "Opportunity"?

texts: We would often say there is "an opportunity" somewhere, but I can't find any evidence of a word to describe a dearth of opportunity. It's derived from opportune, which has inopportune as a negation, but the shape of an inopportunity doesn't seem correct and is very clunky to say. Is there a single word meaning "no opportunity"?


texts: What is meant by "Would you be happy to put a no obligation visual together for me?"

texts:
I get reply from one of my client today

Would you be happy to put a no obligation visual together for me?

What does he mean to say? As there is no more lines, we could not get what he meant to say.


texts: A word for "something that can be rolled-back"

texts: Supposing I have a given operation/sequence of operations that can be either commited or rolled-back, can I say that each operation is "rollbackable"? What is a word for something that can be rolled back?


texts: 'Using a keyboard is better' v 'It's better to use a keyboard': and why IT with the infinitive?

texts:
I'm trying to make sense of the rule behind "to use" vs "using" in these specific cases

  Using a keyboard is better.
  To use a keyboard is better.
  It's better to use a keyboard.
  It's better using a keyboard.

I'm not a native speaker, but my feeling is that (2) and (4) sound wrong. I deduce that whether one should choose "to use" or "using" in these cases depends on the order of the words in the sentence, rather than on the meaning, but I don't understand why.

What is the rule here?


texts:
Does English have third-person imperatives, or only second-person ones?  Consider:

Jeff, turn the heat in here way down, please, but don’t anyone turn his suit heater on. We need to get used to that cold as soon as we can. [citation]

The first part is obviously a normal imperative, vocatively addressing Jeff in the second person by using the regular command form.

But what then is the second half?  Isn’t anyone always a third-person pronoun?  Is this a third-person imperative?  Can those even exist?  Or has anyone become a second-person pronoun here?

These are not rare, either.  This Google Books search comes up with going on a million hits.

But what are they?  You can do similar things with someone, everyone, no one, etc.  This seems stronger than an indirect command like “Let them eat cake,” because it seems to be actually addressing all these anyone-people.

Update

The thing that throws me about the original citation is that if it is really a second-person in disguise, then why isn’t it

But don’t everyone turn your suit heater on.

As in:

Everybody give me your opinions.

It almost seems that people randomly pick your, his, and their to match with somebody, anybody, everybody when used in a second-person command:

Eric get me some water, somebody give up their chair so he can site down. [citation]

If, as John says, this “must” be second person because it is a command, then shouldn’t it “always” be your instead of their?    Are there rules about this?  Are any of these clearly “right” or clearly “wrong”?

Somebody give me your ticket.
Somebody give me their ticket.
Somebody give me his ticket.
Somebody give me her ticket.

The first seems to be rare in comparison to the others, so just might be a mistake. But it looks the most correct of any of them to me.


texts: Can we use "comma" and "or" in a single sentense at the same time

texts: You can select a document type, e.g. Invoice or Receipt, Bank or Card Statement, Other Document upon upload. If left blank, Receipt Bot will classify the documents automatically based on the content


texts: Is an object of a verb a complement of a verb or of a verb phrase (a predicate)?

texts:
a. I love you.

Here, you is the object of the verb love. It's also a complement, because it completes the meaning of the sentence.

Per Wikipedia, complement is defined as:

  In grammar, a complement is a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression.

What is the given expression in (a)?
Is it love or love you? Does you complete the meaning of the verb itself or the meaning of the predicate?

Just because example (a) is elementary doesn't mean the question also is. By the same token, just because the above sentence is quoted from a wiki doesn't mean it's a bad idea to start a question based on the sentence.

I believe the quoted sentence is a good place to start a serious question because it cites three authoritative references:

Crystal, D. 1997. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, 4th edition, Oxford, UK: Blackwell. (75).

Matthews, P. 1981. Syntax. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (142f.)

Huddleston, R. 1988. English grammar: An outline. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.(note 2)


texts: Grammaticality of "I have a car, neither does Sara"

texts:
Can we say "I have a red car. Neither does Sara." or must we say "I have a red car but Sara doesn't."?

I have read this on a website and they said that the first sentence is incorrect but I don't think the same so I need your help.


texts: Aeronautical equivalents of the nautical terms "port" and "starboard"

texts: Are there any aeronautical terms for left and right sides of a plane, essentially equivalent to their nautical counterpart terms of port and starboard for the respective left and right sides of a seaworthy vessel?


texts: "Open to opportunities" vs. "open for opportunities"

texts:
I want to know which sentence is correct and why:

  I'm open to new opportunities.
  I'm open for new opportunities.


texts: What is the grouping word for "Intra/Inter' feature

texts:
For Big/Small there is "Size".
For Long/Short there is "Length".

Whats the grouping word for Intra/Inter?


texts:
Despite its primarily functional origins, the hash tag has broken out of its social media context and is a kind of colloquialism, usually intended as a joke, but utilized in just about any form of communication - even spoken, e.g. "hash tag yolo!" (shudder).

What is the meaning of this usage of a hash tag, outside of social media and incapable of performing its original function?

edit: I'm not really asking about the origin or the actual meaning of a hash tag, only this ironic new usage after being popularized by social media. Another way to phrase this question is: how can you describe to someone who has never used social media what another person means when they verbally say "hash tag yolo"?


texts: Can I say "Putting forward our clients daily needs"?

texts:
Is it a right way to write like this?

I would like to emphasize on the meaning that our clients daily needs are the most high priority, and we put all of our effort.


texts: Does using 'by' in this syntax suggest facilitation or purely cause / effect?

texts:
Have a look at this sentence:

'We finance better housing for our customers, by helping turn their houses into homes.'

Does 'by' in this sentence only indicate that the logical cause and effect is out of place? That first we help, then we finance? (usage of the gerund, first clause deems to be the first action, usage of the preposition 'by'). Therefore the sentence would be constructed: 'By financing..., we help turn...'.

However, does the sentence sound correct to you? In that 'we finance... by helping turn', the 'by' is a synonym of 'and in doing this' (we help turn...), showing that financing helps transform their lives, facilitating help via financing without need to change the syntax?

In the end, the answer is in the syntax. The linear L-R cause / effect sentence would be coherent in replacing 'by helping' with 'to help': 'We finance better housing for our customers to help turn their houses into homes'.

Also 'by' can be kept and the cause / effect understood R-L when you see the word 'better' as key. Being a comparative, it compares the established experience of helping, the comparative should indicate progress up to and after a main verb in the present tense e.g.: 'We serve better our users by helping understand them'. Hence grammatically 'We finance better (the) housing for our customers, by helping turn their houses into homes.' Thanks for all the input.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  What is the rule for adjective order?

As a Dutch schoolboy, during English grammar lessons (long ago...) I got one rule hammered into my head like a mantra: time before place:

  In the 1930s, in England, nobody prepared for war.

But as I gradually got more fluent in English I started to wonder whether this "rule" really made sense. Let me change the sentence a bit:

  In the 1930s, in England, nobody prepared for war, whereas in the 17th and 18th centuries everybody did.

Correct grammar, right? (Let history.stackexchange challenge the historical truth). But I think it makes sense to say

  In England, in the 1930s nobody prepared for war, whereas in the 17th and 18th centuries everybody did.

because it emphasizes the contrast between the time periods better than in the former sentence.

And when I just say

  In England, in the 1930s, nobody prepared for war.

does that sound warped to a native speaker?

So: how valid (or natural) is this rule?

(By the way, later I learned that the full rule is manner before time before place, but let's not go into that — yet).


texts: A word or sentence that makes no sense until you understand the irregular spelling

texts:
English has a "intricate" relationship between graphemes and phonemes,i.e. there is no sure way of knowing how to pronounce something by just looking at its written form.

Generally any language has this property, but English is much more complicated in comparison to - say - Italian (which happens to be my native language).

This fact is known, and I remember stumbling upon a very nice sentence by an English Author, who leverage on this fact and wrote a sentence whose words did not make any sense together, but if you read them, then the "sounds" formed a perfectly meaningful phrase.

I seem to remember something concerning "god" and a "fish"?

Not sure though.

Anybody remember that?


texts: What to call someone who is unable/bad in holding a converstation

texts:
Okay, So I am in often in a conversation with this person. But I have now realized that all our talks have been futile because he keeps on repeating the same topics. Topics I have talked about before.

I just want to tell him you are 'x word' and don't want to continue having conversations with him.


texts: Difference between "highly" and "extremely"?

texts:
Somewhere I read that 'This container contains highly flammable petrol '. This particular instruction is written in my native as well as in the English language. My confusion arose when I was going to convert the sentence from my native language to English. I  thought that it should be extremely rather than highly. I also found that both have the same meaning in my native language.

Can anybody tell me the difference between highly and extremely? When should I use each one? (Please give examples)


texts:
I want to know if this sentence is grammatically correct.

Is there anyone else who have access to admin panel? If so, please provide us all ip addresses from all users in order to monitor your website traffic.


texts: Words with Transposed or Inverted Syllables

texts:
In its definition of sideburns, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2003) refers to the spelling as an "anagram of burnsides." But since derubniss, sisburden, and ubersnids are likewise anagrams of burnsides, the term anagram doesn't get at the most interesting aspect of sideburns, which is its transposition or inversion of complete syllables from the original word. (The Eleventh Collegiate dates burnsides to 1875 and sideburns to 1887.)

Similarly, tagrag goes back at least as far as 1599, when Shakespeare has Casca say (in act 1, scene 2 of Julius Caesar) "If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man"; ragtag, meanwhile, has a first-occurrence date of 1820, according to the Eleventh Collegiate. And finally the Eleventh Collegiate dates woodpecker to circa 1530 and peckerwood to 1904.

The closest descriptive terms for sideburns, ragtag, and peckerwood that I've been able to find are metaplasm ("moving from their natural place letters or syllables of a word") and metathesis ("transposition of letters out of normal order in a word")—both definitions quoted from Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (1968). But is there a term that specifically refers to whole-syllable transpositions and not to partial or augmented ones (like the anagrams/metaplasms bass-ackwards, erewhon, and spandex)?

And secondly, are there other examples of English words that fall into this class? I'm looking for words that reverse syllables while (at least at first) retaining the original meaning of the word, not words (like passover and overpass) that happen to have mirrored syllables.


texts: Are there rules for forming adjectives from names?

texts:
I may not be using the right terms for what I'm asking, but for example, "Cartesian" is an adjective derived from Descartes' name, and "Dickensian" is an adjective derived from Charles Dickens' name, both of which are used to describe things that are related to the particular person they refer to. Are there rules (even loose rules) for how such adjectives are created, or is it more of an art than a science? Is there a special name for such adjectives (like a "demonym" is a noun for people from a particular place)?

Thank you in advance for any help. Please let me know if you'd like any clarification of what I'm asking!

Edit

And if there aren't rules for this, what are the most common suffixes used, and what are examples of such suffixes?


texts: Is it ok to say “mutually practice together”?

texts:
Is it correct to say

  This way we can mutually practice together.

Since mutually has already been mentioned, is it correct if I use the word together at the end? It may be redundant, but is it wrong?


texts: How to write formally and tersely that someone's work is utter nonsense and overly complicated?


texts:
I would say do you in this situation because no makes it negative. However, when I say it out loud, do you sound weird and don't you fits better. Which one is correct?

Ex: 1- You have no interest in me, do you?
    2- You have no interest in me, don't you?


texts: Using "physiology" to describe posture/physical state

texts:
Lately I hear a lot of use of the word "physiology" to mean the current state of your body; posture, heart rate, thoughts, etc.  For example, "Manage your physiology to stay focused at work" would mean sit upright, shoulders back, breathe slowly, and other such physical changes we can control that are conducive to better focus and comfort.

I'm pretty sure this is improper use blown into a buzzword; physiology is the biological study of how organisms function.

Is the proper word "physicality"?  Is there another word to summarize "physical state" in this context?


texts: Which is correct: "Who is Greek president" or "Who is the Greek president"?

texts:
I saw this in a trivia quiz on Stuff.

Who is Greek president?

Jose Barroso
Karolos Papoulias
Lucas Papademos
Panagiotis Pikrammenos

(sic)

Surely the word "the" should be in there somewhere?  But I've heard, for example, "US President Barack Obama" used instead of "the US President Barack Obama", so I'm curious if this construct is actually valid.


texts: Why do we say "he asked after you" not "he asked about you"?

texts: What are the origins of "ask after" and is it dying out as the way we currently speak?


texts: Can I say: the use of specific models "took its flight" with the development of a specific theory, meaning that the models were used more often?


texts:
Please present your next idea.

  Did you buy her a present?

  No vacancies at present.

Do all the bold words have the same spelling, yet all of them have different meanings based on the context?


texts:
The OED attests wannabe as slang in 1976 as a noun and 1986 as an adjective.

A person who tries to emulate someone else, esp. a celebrity, in appearance and behaviour; a person who wants to belong to and tries to fit in with a particular group of people. Frequently depreciative.

Earliest attestation:

At 38 she had 21 years of racket life behind her. Whereas Joe, that year, was still a Jimmy Cagney wannabe.

1976 - New York 26 July 43/3

But the building-blocks of the term seem to go back much further, and a search of newspaper archives shows "wanna-be" with a hyphen in a larger compound as early as 1936.

Who will be mayor of the Friendly House?  That question has been asked time and time again at the settlement during the past week, and will not be answered until election day, tomorrow.
Contestants in the "hot" mayorality race being staged at the settlement are "Wanna-be-Mayor, Mr. Twittlebottom," who really is Paul Sferro, and "Would-be-Mayor, Mr. Flop Always, the Duke of Westinghouse.' who in private life is Steve Gano.

1936 - News-Journal (Mansfield, OH) 2 Nov. 1/3 (paywall)

Admittedly, this use of "wanna-be" seems like a one-off, and appearing so much earlier than the attested term, it seems to be unrelated.
However, much earlier we can find "want-to-be" used in an almost identical construction in an article on voting rights during the American Civil War.

The true Union men, although outnumbered by their "erring brethren," are determined to test the legality of certain want-to-be voters.

1865 - The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) 19 June 1/5 (paywall)

Is wannabe as defined in the OED and popularly used today an outgrowth of phrases like "want-to-be" as found in much earlier uses, or are these related uses coincidental to the rise of "wannabe?"


texts: Is there a word saying something is "of length zero" or "of duration zero"?

texts:
Just as the word empty is saying that something is of volume zero I wonder if there is a word that says that something is of length zero or has a duration of zero.

Sample Sentence:

  The program should terminate if the calculated period is
  _______.


texts: What do you call a modifier placed at the beginning of a sentence for dramatic effect?

texts:
For example, take two of Mignon McLaughlin's aphorisms:

"For the happiest life, rigorously plan your days, and leave your nights open to chance."

"No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have already half thought of it ourselves."

Neither "For the happiest life" nor "No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated" is a dangling modifier. But both feel like cliff-hangers.

Is there a term, or are there terms, for this (linguistic and/or colloquial)?


texts:
If, for example, a teacher was asking their students to continue working for 30 minutes, would it be grammatically correct for them to say "do thirty minutes' work" or would they have to say "do thirty minutes of work"?

Thanks.


texts: "Act in a certain way" or "act a certain way"

texts:
When I should put "in" after the verb "act"?
I occasionally see some don't put "in" between "act" and "a certain way". Example:

"But you must act in a certain way, so that you can appropriate what is yours."
"We don't have to act a certain way."

Also I have a problem with using "the/this/that way" with "act", because some put "in" between them, however, others don't!


texts: What is the meaning of "clubbed to death?" The song Clubbed to Death was the reason of my question :)


texts: Vowel in "-ang" and "-ank" Words: Pronunciation and Dictionary Transcription

texts:
Has anyone found the vowel in "-ang" and "-ank" words transcribed differently than /æ/? The sound, to my ear, is not the same as the /æ/ sound in words like "ran." I hear the vowel as closer to /eI/ or somewhere in between /eI/ and /æ/.

For reference, listen to the pronunciation of "ran":

http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/ran?q=ran

And the pronunciation of "rang":

http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/rang?q=rang


texts: How best to write this sentence. Grade | Mark | Score related

texts:
I'm trying to figure out how best to write that I've been awarded for obtaining the second best (is it better to say highest?) grade|mark|score. I'm talking about the final grade|mark|score of a degree (not of a single exam), which is represented by a number instead of a letter.

So far I've been writing "Award for the second best mark", but not sure whether it's correct or may be improved.


texts: Origins of English Double-C Pronunciations

texts:
Looking into Pronunciation of double consonants, turned up an apparent rule for pronouncing a double-C in English that seems to parallel the Italian rule for pronouncing a single C.  If the "cc" is followed by a bright vowel ("i" or "e"), it is pronounced /ks/:

  accent, occipital, eccentric

Otherwise it is pronounced /k/:

  account, occasion, occupy

A dictionary search throws up a few exceptions to this, which mostly appear to be musical loan words from Italian which are still pronounced as the in original ("acciaccatura" for example).

The question is this: how did this rule come about?  The parallel with Italian is close enough to make me very suspicious, but I haven't been able to prove a connection between the two.


texts: Does “from the middle out” in Obama campaign ad mean ‘to start (growth) from,” or “to help out” the middle class?

texts:
In the recent ‘I believe’ campaign ad, President Obama talks to camera;

  “I believe that the way you grow the economy is from the middle out. I believe in fighting for the middle class because if they’re prospering all of us will prosper. That’s the idea of America and that’s why America is the greatest nation on earth.”

What does grow the economy “from the middle out” exactly mean? Does it mean to let start the economy growing from the middle class, and extend its benefits to other (upper and lower) classes,’ or it only refers to the middle?

If we omit ‘out,’ from the line, does it ruin the whole sentence? What is the significance of having ‘out’ in this context?


texts: I remember there's a word that means people/animal fixing their attention on something. It could be used to describe wolves or otherwise circling around preys. Does anyone know what that word might be?


texts: "It will be the first time (that) I have flown to America." Is the "that"-clause a relative clause?

texts:
It will be the first time (that) I have flown to America.

The above example sentence is borrowed from this earlier post.
Depending on context, there can be other variations as follows:

It is the first time (that) I have flown to America.
It was the first time (that) I had flown to America.

The parentheses are there to indicate that that is optional.
What exactly is this that-clause? Is it an ordinary relative clause?
If it is, why is it not allowed to use "when" instead of "that"?

It will be the first time when I have flown to America. (?)

Ngram: is the first time that vs. is the first time when
Edit: I'm leaning toward the relative clause.
The only thing that bothers me is that a relative clause generally allows "when" instead of "that" insofar as the antecedent is some kind of "time". Are there some other relative clauses that don't quite allow "when" for a "time" antecedent?


texts: Can I say, “The alternative to it are private schools.”?

texts: Is it possible to use this word order for the two subjects?


texts: Can "I'm passing today" colloquially mean "I'm going to refrain (from doing this) today"?

texts:
There's this colloquial expression "I'll pass (on that)" which means "I'll refrain (from doing this)".

I'm curious if by saying "I'm passing today" as in "I'm going to pass today" one could convey similar meaning.

To give it a bit of context:

  "Hey, are you going for lunch?" - "No, thanks. I'm passing today."


texts:
Mr Jackson passed away a couple of weeks ago. As he was Christian his family buried him by Christian religion.

Is it correct to use by in this sentence?


texts:
I saw instances of "people go bald" on the web. I guess it should be the equivalent of "people become bald". Can I always use "go" instead of "become"? Like:
Go broken
Go sad


texts: Is "There was a herd of cattle eating grass" a valid sentence?

texts:
This is just a simple question, but I was wondering about this. I would think "herd" is the subject here, and since a herd can't eat (only an individual cow can), would I need to rearrange this sentence to be accurate?

If this is a correct sentence, what if I changed it to "There was a herd of cattle all eating grass"? Does that make a difference?


texts:
What is the official rule when mentioning a city/ state in a sentence?

I always thought there was a requirement for a comma between the city and state, however is there also supposed to be a comma afterwards?

  Tim also enjoys football games, jumping on his motorcycle and being a
  guide for the Fredrick, Alabama, restaurant scene.

I personally think it looks clunky, however I'm told that it is opinionated and that the above is correct.  Should the sentence be written like this?

  Tim also enjoys football games, jumping on his motorcycle and being a
  guide for the Fredrick, Alabama restaurant scene.


texts: Wishing someone good luck in continuing something without yourself without sounding hypocritical or sarcastic

texts:
I'm fretting over an email to what was a potential customer. This person announced that he will do the project I pitched on with another company.

I sincerely want to wish the customer good luck with the project, but I can't find the correct phrasing. I'm afraid "Wishing you all the best with the project" might sound like the hypocritical uttering of a sore loser who actually wants the project to go flat on its belly.

Any suggestions as to how one who 'has lost' can still sincerely write he wishes the very best for everyone?


texts: How can I express the idea of CSS floats to ordinary people?

texts:
Let me first explain what CSS floats are.

Normally, without any floats, text and image look like this:

If the image is floated left, it looks like this:

If the image is floated right, it looks like this:

When there is a float, the text will wrap around the image.

In my app, I want to give users options to set the style they want. I want them to choose from the above three styles. But I don't think ordinary people understand what CSS floats are. So I guess I need to express this idea in a more colloquial way. Currently, I have these in mind:

Text not wrapping image
Text wraps image, image on the left
Text wraps image, image on the right

I think they are too long. Is there a more concise/colloquial way to express these?


texts:
Australian music has a remarkable history stretching back to 50,000 –
  60,000 years

vs

  Australian music had a remarkable history stretching back to
  50,000 – 60,000 years

which is the correct form?


texts: For as long "as" ... ? When is the last as not used? What are the rules?

texts:
For instance:

  For as long as it takes...

but

  For as long we have a future...

I know how to use them because I heard them being used, but I don't know whether there is a rule or not.


texts:
I am looking for a phrase that is used occasionally in English as a near synonym of "expertise". For some reason, "coup d'mentarie" keeps going through my mind, but I don't believe this actually means anything at all and it doesn't produce any results on the web.

To clarify, I am looking for a word or phrase that sounds similar to this, whilst I am foggy about the language of origin and precise meaning. French is just a guess. :)


texts:
We commonly say right and left in lieu of clockwise and counterclockwise. Is this somehow a consequence of the fact that most people are right-handed? Or is this an accidental feature of English, which is not shared with the other languages?

According to Wikipedia, the word deasil, which is a synonym for clockwise, derives from Latin "dexter" (which means "right"). But this does not explain the association between linear and circular directions.


texts:
Some people I know have a ‘lazy tone’ on their British accent pronouncing their ‘th’ as ‘v’.

  Don’t bover about the weava.
  (Don’t bother about the weather.)

It’s not a slur, because the ‘t’ in don’t and about is still there.

It’s not a lisp either.

My question is: What is the word for pronouncing ‘th’ as ‘v’ as part of your English accent?


texts: When do we need to put a comma after "so" at the beginning of a sentence?

texts:
I noticed that most of the times when the conjunction "so" is used at the beginning of a sentence, it is followed by a comma:

  So, this gets published but the fact that it is inaccurate gets moderated out.

Occasionally, I find sentences with no comma after "so":

  So he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath.

I am guessing that whether to put comma or not after the "so" conjunction is related to the context and emphasis rather than to the sentence structure, but I am unable to pinpoint it out.

So when do we need to put comma after "so"? (← Do I need a comma after the "so" here?)

P.S.: I know there is another usage of "so" as an adjective or an adverb, in which case no comma is necessary, for example: "So big is the caravan that it cannot fit into the garage."

P.S.: I did skim through the list of questions with [comma] tag, and found no question on this conjunction yet.


texts: I'v spent two years each in A and B writing and Reporting

texts:
What does the following sentence mean:

I then explained that I have spent two years each in Central America and Hong Kong writing and Reporting on...

Does it mean he spent one year in each location, or two years in each?
What is the grammar of "each" here?


texts:
In this sentence:

  I've throw back a lot of orange juice.

What does to “throw back (orange juice)” mean?


texts: Why is the surname Gray more common than the surname Grey in the UK?

texts:
An EL&U question from 2010 asks Which is the correct spelling: "grey" or "gray"? The answers very sensibly point out the split between the UK and former British commonwealth nations preference for grey and the U.S. preference for gray.

But  if you look up the phone listings for the surnames Gray and Grey in an arbitrarily selected UK city (I chose Sheffield, Yorkshire), you get many more for Gray than for Grey. For example, for Sheffield, I got 52 matches for Gray versus 6 for Grey at the BT The Phone Book site, as of September 1, 2014.

A quick trip to Samuel Johnson’s 1756 Dictionary of the English Language reveals this entry for gray:

  GRAY,  a. [ʒɲæʒ, Saxon; grau, Danish] 1.  White with a mixture of black. Newton. 2. White or hoary with old age. Walton. 3. Dark like the opening or close of day. Camden.

And this entry for grey:

  GREY, a. [gris, French] See GRAY.

Does it follow that most Gray surnames were adopted on the model of the Danish grau and/or during the period of dominance (assuming that there was one) of gray in British English, while the surname Grey reflects a preference for the French antecedent gris and/or a later adoption of or switching to the current UK preference for grey? If not, what is the explanation? And when (if ever) did British English abandon Samuel Johnson’s evident preference for gray as the standard spelling of the non-surname word?


texts: Are the following classed as "hyperbole"?

texts:
When used in a non-literal, colloquial context, would the phrase "is criminal" be considered hyperbole?

For example, used in the following sentence by someone unhappy with how the board are running a company, and without any implication of any actual crime:

  What they have done to the business is criminal

If not, what would it be classified as?


texts: Other expressions for "to be the devil's advocate"?

texts:
Is there another way or expression to say:

  He is the devil's advocate

I don't quite like this expression, and I don't know if it is a good idea to use it in a religious context.


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

texts: Is there another way of saying something is 'user-unfriendly'?


texts: Sum up the users? Or sum up the number of users?

texts:
Let's say that there is a list of users and I want to know how many users are in the list.

Would I 'sum up the users,' 'sum the users,' 'sum up the number of the users,' 'sum the number of users,' or something else?


texts:
In a tourist  brochure  I've recently read the expression "dead-and-alive"  which was used do describe a boring, dull city with no nightlife. I had not heard  this expression for a while  and it reminded me of my English teacher (an Irish gentleman) who often used it with a derogatory connotation.

Apparently, only the Collins  dictionary cites the term
dead-and-alive (adjective):

  British (of a place, activity, or person) dull; uninteresting.

while Merriam-Webster cites a similar term but it does not say if it is a an AmE or a BrE one:

dead-alive:

  alive but as if dead :  dull, spiritless

According to Ngram both expressions seem to have been  popular in the past decades, but they are apparently still used. Unluckily with hyphenated expressions Ngram results are often tricky.

Questions:

Are the expressions cited above still commonly used in BrE or are they sort of outdated?
Are dead-and-alive or dead-alive totally unknown to AmE speakers?
Can anyone trace their origin?


texts: Does the word "Intellectual" imply intelligence?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  intellectual and intelligent

The word intellectual seems to be exclusively used to describe an intelligent person.

However, my understanding of the word "intellectual" is that it describes someone who likes to think - a "thinker". This in itself does not imply intelligence.

So, is there such a thing as an unintelligent intellectual, or is this contradictory?


texts: 10 meters from you vs. in 10 meters from you

texts:
I have seen both but as I am not a native speaker - which one is preferable?
"There is a lion in 10 meters from you" vs " There is a lion 10 meters from you". "The truck had stopped in several meters from me" vs "The truck had stopped several meters from me" ?
Thanks!


texts: How to punctuate sentences like "I'm just calling a spade, a spade."

texts:
I was browsing Area 51 and I saw this comment:

  I'm just calling a spade, a spade.

I'm never quite sure how to punctuate sentences like these where a phrase is repeated back to back, without any other words to separate them. Not putting punctuation feels weird, but so does adding a comma. Neither intuitively read like I would say them in a conversation.

With a comma, I would pause before reading the second "a spade"; without punctuation, the inflexion in my voice would be off.

So, is "I'm just calling a spade, a spade." properly punctuated?


texts: Verification of the sound heard for the last vowel of "Virginia" in the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want"

texts: In this recording, at 3 min  18 s is found the name "Virginia" and my ear tells me that, for some reason or other, the a of this name is pronounced /e/ and not /ə/; shortly after that, in the word "sorbet" the e is pronounced /ə/, as it should, and I have no problem hearing it. Could someone who trust their ears deny or confirm this fact?


texts: American English pronunciation of 't' after 'n'

texts:
As a native British English speaker I often notice what seems to be an omission of the "t" sound by American speakers when the letter follows an "n".

Examples:

Interview ---> Innerview

Internet ---> Innernet

Questions

Do U.S. speakers hear it the same way as I do or am I missing a very subtle sound?

Does this pronunciation vary a lot across the States?

Is there an obvious explanation?


texts: 'Suffer' word etymology from Arabic صفر doubt?

texts: 'Suffer' word etymology from Arabic صفر (safar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safar)  which is the name of a month of suffering has any relation?


texts:
I've been struggling with an independent clause question:

  I always run at night, and then I go see my nephew.

Would a comma go before "and"? I wasn't sure if "then I go see my nephew" would be considered an independent clause. I know "then" is an adverb, but I'm not sure if I can start a sentence with it.


texts: "Help me do something a lot." vs "Help me a lot to do something."?

texts: I want to indicate that I need help, with something particular, and that person that will help me, will help me a lot. Both variants in title seem incorrect to me, and I don't know how to write this correctly. Maybe using some punctuation?


texts: What's the difference between 'seize' and 'capture'?

texts:
Here's the sentence that is confusing to me.

  Only twice did it [the castle] feature in serious conflict when in
  1484 it was A25 _______ by Richard III and in 1645 during the Civil
  War when attacked by the parliamentarian troops of Sir William Waller,
  which left it partially ruined.

had
seized
held
captured

In the answers to this exercise, 'capture' stands as correct. I was wondering: why not 'seize'? Could somebody explain to me?


texts: Word describing multiple paths to the same abstract outcome

texts:
I am looking for a word I came across but forgot to note down. It describes that multiple pathways can lead to the same outcome — not in terms of physical paths but rather in terms of an abstract state being reached.
The word is academic English and to me it seemed to originate from Latin (I think something with equi...). I have been unsuccessfully searching for it for a while now.

I am not trying to portray the fact that all pathways have the same outcome. Rather, we see one outcome and there might be different pathways leading to it (i.e. looking from the perspective of the outcome back — trying to explain that it can have different pathways). Refer to this academic paper — just read the abstract — to get an idea.


texts: Term for phonological elements of a dialect

texts:
A dialect encompasses various traits of a group, including vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (phonology). Is there a common term specifically for the phonological elements of a dialect? I’d like to ask another question about those, and I’m wondering whether there is a more succinct way to refer to them.

The specific context I’m thinking of is the way people typically have a different “dialect” when they sing, but generally only pronunciation-wise. I’d like a way to refer to that kind of “dialect” without using scare quotes and then explaining at length exactly what I’m talking about.

For a related example, people often change their vocabulary to suit the occasion, and we call that kind of “dialect” a register. I’m wondering whether there’s an analogous term for phonology.


texts:
I'm really not sure how to correctly use consulting.

For example:

  The business offers consulting for(?) programming.

  Their employees consult their customers for(?) programming.

In sentences like these, I'm not certain what words to use.

Is for, the correct term? Or is it rather consult with?

edit: Maybe I'm using the completely wrong term. Consulting in terms of giving advice, is what I meant.

edit2: According to this source, it should be used like this:

  Consult somebody about/on something:

  I expect to be consulted about major issues.

So the initial statements would be:

  The business offers consulting about programming.

  Their employees consult their customers about programming.

Is that correct?


texts:
Is there a past tense of the verb "to wing," meaning to make up on the fly?

Inspired by a blog post of Wil Wheaton, quoted partially below.

  "Is it from a recipe, or are you
  winging it?"

  "I've made so many different recipes
  from so many different places, I just
  looked through the pantry and
  refrigerator and wung it."

  We looked at each other. "Wung it?" I
  said. "I think I mean I am winging it.
  What's the past-tense of winging it?
  Wang it? Winged it?"

  "I don't know, but it's not 'wung
  it,'" she said. I couldn't argue with
  her.


texts: Is it customary to omit or replace ‘head’ with ‘x-year / mile/ pound’ in the idiom “have a head start on sb” when the advantage should be quantified?

texts:
There is the following statement in Jeffery Archer’s fiction “The Fourth Estate,” of which I admit I’m a terribly slow reader:

  “The tactics made it possible for Armstrong Communication to declare a
  profit of 90,000 the year he and Hahn (co-owner) parted, and a year
  later the Manchester Guardian named Richard Armstrong Young
  Entrepreneur of the Year. Charlotte reminded him that he was nearer
  forty than thirty. “True,” he replied, “but never forget that all my
  rivals had a twenty-year start on me.” - P359

I surmise “a twenty-year start on me” equals ““a twenty-year head start on me.”

Is it customary to omit ‘head’ of the idiom, ‘have a head start on’ by replacing it with a placeholder such as X-year / mile / pound/ class, and grade as used here, when quantification is required?


texts: Word for someone who wants to use something excessively right after learning it?

texts: For example, he/she has recently learned colons in English class, and he/she proceeds to use colons in every paragraph of an essay.


texts: Is it acceptable to say “It is one of my most important things.”?

texts:
My question is if I want to say

  It is one of the most important things for me.

In another way, can I say

  It is one of my most important things.

instead? And does the latter one sound strange to native speakers?


texts: Rule for deciding the plural form of "space jellyfish"?

texts:
I've just written the question Are there “Space Jellyfish” in Florida? Would they be possible?

The phenomenon is described in Wikipedia as follows:

  A space jellyfish (or jellyfish UFO; also rocket jellyfish) is a rocket launch related phenomenon that frequently is misidentified as an alien UFO. The phenomenon is caused by sunlight reflecting off the high altitude rocket plume gases emitted by the launching rocket, at pre-dawn and post-dusk, the twilight plumes. The observer is shrouded in darkness, while at high altitudes, sunlight is able to reflect off the exhaust that is being lit before dawn reaches lower altitudes or after dusk has already left lower altitudes, due the curvature of the Earth and its rotation causing the day-night cycle. This luminous apparition is reminiscent of a jellyfish.

In the title I used the plural form space jellyfish because it sounds humorous, as if there could be a school of such fish. But in the body of the question, I use space jellyfishes because I feel that this is more likely correct.

But I don't know why I feel this way nor how I made this choice.

Is there a grammatical rule that I'm using intuitively without realizing it? Is there some a priori reason that would tell us that the fishes form would be the correct choice, presuming that it is?


texts:
I could never make sense out of the largely informal and colloquial phrase, no nothing. Minus minus equals plus. So literally, no nothing comes to mean something or anything. But it is almost always used in the opposite sense.

  Exams over. No worries, no studies, no nothing!

Why and how was it coined?

Simply nothing serves the job well. Why was it even thought of?


texts: Confusion over the antonyms of "Dawn" and "Dusk"

texts:
I always learnt "Dusk" to be the opposite of "Dawn" and used it like that until today when I am told it should be "Twilight".
The context is from following question which is asking us to complete the pattern
Prologue:Epilogue::Dawn:?

1)Dusk      2)Evening
3)Twilight  4)Morning

And the right answer is given as Twilight.
So if Twilight is opposite of Dawn then what is the opposite of Dusk?
What is the common usage?


texts: Its respective owners/Their respective owners

texts:
I'm wondering which one would be grammatically correct. I think both make sense, however, I do think that one is grammatical and the other isn't.

  All credit goes to its respective owners.

  All credit goes to their respective owners.


texts: semantic property shared by words between class of words

texts:
What semantic property or properties are shared any words in 1 and 2?

alive, asleep, dead, married, pregnant
tall, smart, interesting, bad, tired

I don't see any shared between those words.


texts: Is participle clause commonly used in spoken English?

texts: I have never heard a native speaker use sentence with participle clause such as ‘Thinking about her past, she cried bitterly.’; ‘Bitten by a snake, she died.’ in their day-to-day conversation although I see in writing.


texts: Is this the opposite of 'making a virtue out of a necessity'?

texts:
We all know what it means to 'make a virtue out of a necessity'. The only bananas on offer at the supermarket are 'fair trade', so we buy them and then pretend to ourselves and others that we have done something virtuous. Or a company is obliged by its employment contracts to pay double the statutory severance terms, but it parades the fact of having done so as generosity on its part.

But I am thinking of a slightly different situation. Let us consider the case of low-energy light bulbs.  It is my contention that they do not give off as much light as the old equivalent high-energy ones. But we are using them as a contribution to saving the planet from global warming. But what I find particularly annoying is people who will insist that the bulbs give the same light value.

One sees this attitude all the time. Because something has virtue, yet incorporates drawbacks, some people will insist that the drawbacks do not exist.

Does this amount to the corollary i.e. does it 'make a necessity out of a virtue'? Or how else do we describe such thinking?


texts:
I mean, "How to describe a person who has done well in every task except one, but he has done extremely bad in that 'one' task which adversely affects the overall result.
I don't literally mean one though.

For example, someone gets extremely good marks in every subject (except one) in school -- he's the top scorer in each individual subject (except one) --  but he's got extremely low marks in one of them, and as a result he's no more first.
We can say he is inconsistent. But it's not exactly what the condition is. It doesn't emphasize the extremeness. Bottleneck is another word which I think could be used. But how do we say it -- "He made a bottleneck?"

I'd prefer the word/phrase which fills the following blank:
"He is ____."


texts:
In this GDC talk the speaker says

  If you run on your last click you're doing it wrong.

What does running on your last click mean? What are some example use cases?


texts: Can you get 'high' on alcohol or only 'drunk'?

texts:
According to a friend of mine, saying someone is 'high' on alcohol as opposed to drunk is incorrect. I always assumed you were drunk when you had too much alcohol and would say someone was high on alcohol until that limit was reached.

In short, I need to know if it's incorrect to say someone is high on alcohol and that someone can only be high on drugs and the like.


texts: Is there a word that describes a statement whose negative is senseless or would otherwise never be used?

texts:
Consider the statement "I like to have fun" or "I like to spend time with my friends".

These border on tautologies though I don't think they would be considered as such by most. Although these statements purport meaning, the are in fact devoid of it.

For example, "fun" is by definition something people like to do, so to say "I like to have fun" is redundant. Similarly, "friends" are people that you like to hang out with, so to say "I like to spend time with my friends" is again redundant.

To me, these statements are empty of meaning but don't quite fully fall under the category of something that is trite or vapid. The fact that their opposites, "I don't like to have fun" or "I don't like to spend time with my friends" would rarely, if ever, be in circulation (except in some pathological cases), begs for a term that reaches beyond the concept of a "empty" or "unoriginal" idea and captures this implication I describe above about its opposite.

Personal ads such as online dating profiles are replete with these phrases. I can't help but feel that there's a specific word to describe them.


texts: Usage of "Who's to Say X", Followed by Defending X, or Attacking X?

texts:
I have seen two different uses of "Who's to say X". It appears to me, that the author could either defend X in a sarcastic or ironic way, or could attack X by presenting evidence contrary to X. My question is: is my understanding correct in that "Who's to say X" could be used in two opposite ways?

Example 1: Who’s to say that we’re to blame for global warming? Source 1

In my understanding, example 1 means: I challenge you to prove we're to blame for global warming. We're probably not to blame for global warming. That is, there are external factors or circumstances outside our control which cause or at least contribute to global warming.

Example 2: Medicare is portrayed as getting the best deal from the system because Medicare pays less per service. But remember how the system works. Who's to say Medicare doesn't pay less per procedure because it's being billed for many more procedures, because that's how providers are allowed to maximize their revenues from the payer known as Medicare? In fact, plenty of evidence suggests this is exactly how Medicare operates. Source 2

In my understanding, example 2 means: Medicare is  commonly portrayed as less costly. I challenge you to prove it costs more according to this complex and not frequently-analyzed approach. Well, in fact, it does cost more! And exactly due to the aforementioned, not well-known technique!

Is my understanding of the usage a correct one? Particularly, in example 2, I feel that my interpretation could be improved.

Thanks for any help.


texts:
Question:

The English term for:

  the total area of a building/floor in m2/Sq Ft that needs to be cleaned

Is that called the "Cleaning surface", or the "Cleaning area"?


texts: Is there a phrase for the generation that is taking care of three generations of family members?

texts:
The phrase "member of the sandwich generation" refers to a person who is taking care of children and elderly parents.

Is there a phrase (or word) for a person who is taking care of parents, children and grandchildren?  Or grandparents, parents and children?

Example: Alice and Tom are members of the ___________ generation; they are taking responsibility for her grandmother, his mother and their three young children.

Edit in response to comment of dwjohnston:

I have not seen an article about this phenomenon, but that doesn't mean there aren't any.  I have seen this referred to several times in articles about the sandwich generation (SG) as an extension of the SG problem.  As more people live into their 90s, this will become more common (although one hopes not of long duration for any one care-giver.)


texts: Words like "defenestrate" for throwing things from a moving car, and from a rooftop

texts:
When someone throws something or someone out of a window, we have a word for it: Defenestrate

The meaning of defenestrate given by Oxford Dictionary:

  formal or ,humorous The action of throwing someone out of a window:

  'death by defenestration has a venerable history'

I am looking for two words similar to it:

1) - To throw someone/something out of a moving car.
2) - To throw someone/something from a rooftop.

I could not find any.

PS - I asked this question on ELL, but they say that it is a Word Golf and so I am asking it here.


texts: What is the opposite of a grazing angle?

texts:
A grazing angle is almost parallel to the surface.

Is there another word for an angle almost perpendicular to the surface?

(Or is that just it?)


texts: Regional word for paperboard that school children use in projects?

texts:
I'm talking about large paperboard that school children create their projects on. They might draw or paste things on them, usually to present some sort of information. You may see them carrying them rolled up and held with a rubber band.

M's global warming poster presentation by ttcopley.

What is this called in the New York region?


texts:
What is the origin of the phrase "got the monk on"?

  Where I grew up near Doncaster the phrase "S/he's got the monk on" was commonly used to describe someone who was sulking.

I've seen a few different theories, such as monk being short for monkey as in the phrase "monkey on my back". Or it's because monks take a vow of silence. However, these are all just speculation.

Is there any more definitive evidence as to the origin and meaning of the phrase?


texts: Is there an idiom for saying something that might turn out wrong or making a wild prediction?

texts: Example: I might be _______ but Brasil will win this world cup.


texts: Is there a word for the commonly used given name of a person?

texts: In Swedish we have the word tilltalsnamn (addressing name) which is one of the given names used when referring to a person. This name may or may not be the first among the given names. So a person with the full name Carl Johan Persson, say, may have the tilltalsnamn Johan. Is there a similar concept in English?


texts: can you tell me the usage of shall in daily speaking

texts:
I'm writting to ask for some help
Can you tell me the usages of shall in daily speaking
Thank you.


texts: Should I use sprang or sprung in this case?

texts:
She..... to her feet when she knew the right answer.

A) Spring
B) Sprung
C) Sprang


texts:
Was just reading The $100 Startup and came across this sentence:

  Happily, the launch was successful.

Is this a dangling modifier (not sure if that's what it's called)? Or some other error? It seems to me that it's the launch here in the sentence that's going about its business happily, not the author.


texts:
Simple question, I'm sure, but I'm having trouble finding an answer.

I'm writing a methodology and want to say "I will privilege [this theory] over [another]."

I can't find any instances of the preposition "over" coordinating privilege as a verb. Please advise if this usage is correct, or if there is an alternative way of stating the above.

Kind regards.


texts: A generic noun for something being compared?

texts:
I'm looking for a noun to use in place of "comparable object," which would make sense in the following context:

  Four "comparable objects" were ranked based on their performance in a recent comparison.

I keep thinking of the word "competitor," but I'm not satisfied with it, which made me think of the following analogy:

competitor : competition :: ??? : comparison


texts:
The official definition of demure is: "reserved, modest, and shy."

But does it also imply submissiveness?


texts: What is the word to describe "annoying but commonly accepted"?

texts:
For example: You're searching for your wedding location. You google, called, email - go through all the process of finding the perfect location.

It's super annoying but at the same time you accept it because it's such a common pain that people tend to "accept" it because "That's just the way it is". How would you describe this word?


texts:
I ran into the following sentence from this article:

  ...“Swarmkit” to refer to the plumbing open source orchestration project.

After referring dictionary, I still can't figure out what is the exact meaning of plumbing here. Could anyone help to explain it?


texts:
What does it mean when people say 'something more like'?
I saw this expression form the article, but I really just don't get it.
The full sentence is "Traditionally, something more like $50 has been the low end, with literary translation at around $120, and high-end work at $250."


texts: Comma in coordinating conjunction that includes an if-clause

texts:
On the basis of this Q&A, I understand that my example sentence is a coordinating conjunction; however, I can't seem to figure out the relationship between the first clause, and the if-clause. Should there be a comma before the or and why?

  Please let me know your thoughts *(,)*or if you experience any trouble opening the attachment.


texts: Why do many foreigners forget to say 'it' while speaking English?

texts:
"Is often seen -- you know -- these foreign players,  they forget to say "it" -- I mean, while speaking in English... is odd to hear, you know... is peculiar, is that how you say? Even I forget to say, some time... I LIKE TO LEARN English,  but is difficult. Often times I don't get. Is very nice language, yes, but -- I don't know to say these -- is very different!  But I like," the WTA star said.

Why do foreigners from a variety of different native languages forget to say "it" in particular while speaking (as yet grammatically undeveloped) English? Is it related to the way sentences are constructed in their native tongue(s)?


texts:
I came across this question, but I do not find the answer to what's bothering me.

Can memory be used to refer to a particular piece of your past experience that you remember well? E.g.:

  I have a good memory of putting my key on the table.

If this usage is not appropriate — what would you suggest?


texts: How to wish someone "Happy New Year" in a professional, formal and friendly way

texts:
English is my second language. I still struggle with it especially when I have to write a formal email.

I need to send an email to several of my business associates in reply to theirs. It contains some technical explanation related to our project, after which I would like to wish them Happy New Year. What is a professional, formal and friendly way to say this?


texts:
I am confused at whether or not there is a weak form at preposition's 'ON'.
I've checked at some dictionaries at Cambridge and Oxford dictionary, they don't mention on the weak form's pronunciation.
However, I, am a Japanese, checked at English-Japanese dictionaries, they mention on the weak form as /ən/.

For example, is there the difference of pronunciation between 'It goes on' and 'There is an apple on the table' in connected speech?

Does it exist?

Thanks
Yuichi

*It's Edited


texts:
I've been studying the different structures between 'prefer' and 'rather'. I have a few questions.

Can use 'to' after 'would prefer' like

  I'd prefer you to stay at home tonight.

Can I use the past tense after 'would prefer' like 'would rather'?
If I can, are the meanings of these two sentences the same?

  I'd rather you didn't go out. vs I'd prefer you didn't go out.

Should I put 'that' after 'would prefer'?


texts: Pronunciation of the letter "c" or "ce" in Australian English

texts: In an Australian TV program the disease "encephalitis" was pronounced "enKephalitis."  Is there a rule about the pronunciation of the letter "c" in Australian English?


texts:
Important information can be stored in a computer

vs

  Important information can be stored on a computer

Also, can we use stored and saved alternatively/interchangebaly with computer.

E.g.

  Important information can be saved in a computer


texts: Listing two opposite opinions in an academic paper

texts:
My spouse is writing an academic paper about artificial intelligence.  She wants to list some arguments that support the idea that a certain algorithm is intelligent, and some arguments that resist the idea.

Each list of argument is about one page long, and every argument is a passage. I think that a one-page gap between On the first hand and On the other hand would be excessive.

What's the appropriate way to start each list in a way that shows the contrast?


texts:
I am reviewing a set of guidelines which make frequent use of to ensure, like:

  The soup should be taken off the gas after cooking, to ensure that it does not burn.

I want the text to be less clumsy, so I’d like to change to ensure to so that, like:

  The soup should be taken off the gas after cooking, so that it does not burn.

Is the latter correct?


texts:
Consider the sentence,
"ribosomes are attached to the outside of the endoplasmic reticulum or nuclear envelope."

Interpretation A - "ribosomes are attached to the OUTSIDE of the endoplasmic reticulum or to the OUTSIDE of nuclear envelope".

Interpretation B - "ribosomes are attached to the OUTSIDE of the endoplasmic reticulum, or attached to(not specifically to the OUTSIDE of) the nuclear envelope".

which one is correct?


texts:
I looked at the thesaurus and wasn't satisfied with any of them. [beam, emit, send, transmit]

I'm looking for a word that means move to another place instantly - preferably less than 3 syllables.

Thanks

Edit: Thanks everyone for your suggestions


texts:
Which of the following is correct?

I am leaving for London.
I am leaving to London.

I have always thought the first one is correct till I came across the name of this painting.


texts: Does anyone know the origin of the phrase "walk it off"?

texts: Ex. When someone gets hurt, usually in sports, and someone tells you to "walk it off"


texts: Maxims that have to do with persistence?

texts:
I am looking for idiomatic expressions that convey the value of persistence, such as a long, drawn-out battle where the victor is necessarily the person who simply outlasted the other. I know there is at least one good one, but I can't think of any.

EDIT: Upon reading SethJeffrey's answer, I just realized I am actually looking for a maxim, not an idiom. I want something a little bit more substantial than an idiom. Here's an example I just made up: "It's not the obstacles on the roadway, it's the length of the track." This isn't very good...I'm looking for something like that, only a real maxim.


texts:
I read an article, and here is an excerpt:

  "One instance involved a staff member emailing his work group to say he'd completed a job, which the interviewee interpreted as 'big-noting' himself," Dr Yell said. "Consequently, he replied with a sarcastic email, cc'ed to the group, asking 'what took him so long', in order to 'kick him off his peg'.

What does "kick him off his peg" mean? And what is it's origin?


texts:
Let consider below example:

  Varicella Zoster, the virus that causes chickenpox and shingles, a far
  more dangerous, harmful, and longer-lasting disease in older adults
  that impacts the nervous system.

I above para which is far more dangerous varicella zoster or shingles?.

Does it mean varicella zoster cause chickenpox and shingles?


texts: Madlib - Our advice to the newly-weds is to (verb) your (verb) (adjective plural) as much as possible

texts:
We have been invited to a wedding this fall, and in order to RSVP we have been asked to complete a Mad Lib for the couple.

I've hit a snag.

The sentence that is stumping us is
"Our advice to the newly-weds is to make sure to always (verb) your (verb)(adjective plural) as much as possible."

The first (verb) is fairly easy, although the second (verb) followed by (adjective plural) is frustrating me to no end. Is this something that should even be able to work? If so, what am I not understanding?

Also ANY suggestions to help us finish this would be appreciated.

"Mad Libs is a phrasal template word game where one player prompts others for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story, before reading the – often comical or nonsensical – story aloud. The game is frequently played as a party game or as a pastime."


texts: What's it called when you buy something you don't really need?

texts:
What's it called when you buy something you don't really need ?

  A(n) ________ purchase


texts: I heard so many translation for "casino royale" Bond movie

texts: is the name "Casino Royale" correct? or should it probably better "Royale Casino"?


texts:
In general, if I say:

  From December 15th to December 16th

Would you expect the range to be from 12/15 00:00 to 12/16 23:59 or would you expect it to be from 12/15 00:00 to 12/15 23:59?


texts: Correct format for using multiple "in"' in a sentence

texts:
I have sentence that I cannot figure out how to structure correctly. I am not sure if using "in" too much in a sentence in incorrect. I was told the sentence below is not the correct way to say this, but am unsure how else to say it.

Any help would be appreciated.

MB Kit Systems was founded in 1996 within Akron, Ohio, with a strong background in the use of structural aluminum profile to replace welded, painted steel in a wide range of applications.


texts: Comma after "In Section 2", "In what follows", or "In 1999"?

texts:
I am not exactly sure when I should use a comma after an intro phrase.

For example, I have read articles (published in the same journal) in which "In Section 2" gets a comma and others where it does not (so I am now confused). Is there a rule, and does the rule depend on what type of intro is used?

It seems more natural to put a comma after "In Section 2" or "In 1999", but it does not seem as natural to put one after "In what follows".


texts: Unusual usage of 'no sooner ... than ...'

texts:
I've encountered a sentence where

  they would no sooner [A] than they'd [B]

apparently means

  they would rather [B] than [A]

I've read that the construction 'no sooner [A] than [B]' is used to describe a situation where an event [A] is followed immediately by [B]. Because of that, according to my intuition, if I had to substitute 'no sooner than' with 'would rather' - which doesn't make much sense to me - I wouldn't invert the order of [A] and [B]. That is to say, for me the first sentence grammatically feels like

  they would rather [A] than [B]

and not

  they would rather [B] than [A]

My first question is whether it makes sense to use 'no sooner than' when actually  meaning 'rather than'. My second question is about the order of events if we can indeed use it as 'rather than'.


texts: How to agree verb with has and will in same sentence?

texts:
The sentence is-

The management has never and will never close the door to negotiations.

Textbooks says closed should be use instead of close.

I am confused as it sounds strange to ears.
Which one is grammatically correct?


texts: The Survey of College Words and Phrases by Eugene H. Babbitt published in 1900 lists the word owl-eyed to mean intoxicated. Any ideas as to why an owl-eyed person is an intoxicated person?


texts: Use of 3 ands when dealing with two short lists

texts:
I love cute and witty penguins and beautiful sunsets on the beach.

Is this the correct way to say this?  Normally i'd be fine using this sentence structure, but, supposing i'm writing something formal, is it grammatically incorrect?


texts: Phrase for advocacy group having a disincentive to achieve its stated goal?

texts:
There are many advocacy groups that have goals, such that, if and when their goal is achieved, they would essentially become obsolete and have no need to exist anymore. Hence, there is something of a conflict of interest between a group's stated goal and the generic unstated goal of advocacy groups, i.e. perpetuate their own existence indefinitely. Thus the desire for fundraising might override the desire to be most effective in achieving the stated goal.

I swear I've heard a phrase for this situation before, but it escapes me, and I have been unable to come up with a set of search terms that don't get flooded with unrelated information.


texts: Relative clause “which” and “that” - what is the difference in this case?

texts:
Found this in my 9th-grade sister’s English textbook.

Fill the blank with a relative clause.

The movie ( ) I saw yesterday was good.
That is the chair ( ) I made yesterday.

The answer for 1. was “which” and/or “that”, while the answer for 2. was just “that”. I couldn’t see much difference between these two sentences. Can somebody tell me what is happening here?


texts: A perfect (honest) pangram that is understandable for a regular native user?

texts:
Pangrams were pure wordplays, that because of IT has become a nice tool to test keyboard and fonts, assuming they are easy to remember and short. Therefore perfect pangrams are so nice: you don't need to repeat any character (with the exception of the space).

I've looked on the list of pangrams and I've noticed that most of them are either not perfect or are heavily using acronyms, initials, own names etc. (which I call not "honest", because it's a bit cheating).

Those "honest" looked like a gibberish for me:

  Jink cwm, zag veldt, fob qursh pyx

However, those are real English words, only I doubt a bit, a regular native speaker would understand them. So 2 questions arise:

1) Are such pangrams as above understandable for a regular English native speaker?

2) If not, are there any others that would be perfect, honest (no acronyms, exotic own names etc.) and written with commonly known words?

Just to give some context, the Polish perfect pangram

  Mężny bądź, chroń pułk twój i sześć flag.

would be understood by any native speaker, and it makes perfectly sense (be brave, protect your regiment and six flags). It's a poetry masterpiece, you can say.


texts: Laundry (noun) is the washing of clothing and linens. what do we call the laundry after laundering?

texts:
While reading a chapter on laundry and the various techniques associated with it, it reflected that the clothes lined for washing were termed as laundry and so were the washed/ironed clothes.

Could there be a word or specific term to denote the washed/ironed linen.


texts: What is an antonym for "prior" that is shorter than "subsequent?"

texts:
In a software application, two drop-down lists are presented. The first is labeled "relative period" and is populated with "Prior," "Current," and "Subsequent." The second list is labeled "interval" and is populated with month names, quarter names, and other intervals like "year to date."

I am hoping to find a shorter, less formal-sounding alternative to "subsequent." Does one exist?


texts: What's the difference between 'fowl' and 'poultry'?

texts:
As the title says, I'm interested in the semantic difference between these two words.

OALD gives the definition of fowl as "a bird that is kept for its meat and eggs, for example a chicken."

Poultry is defined by the same dictionary as "chickens, ducks and geese, kept for its meat and eggs."

While the two definitions sound quite identical to me, my understanding of the difference between them is that fowl is more narrowly focused on a bird being treated as a single object, but at the same time allows for the flexibility of the semantic content of the word, so that the word is not rigidly associated with and applied to any specific kind of birds.

Poultry in turn seems to treat the object in its plurality and also to have some minor constrictions on its semantics, thus limiting a wide notion to a number of particular cases.

With all that said, I ask that you either confirm or deny the validity of my intuitive explanation for the question I'm seeking the answer to.


texts: Capitalisation in texts where the title is also a concept that is referred to within the text?

texts:
I'm going to use Karpman's drama triangle as an example for my question because I can't seem to find any consistency around its capitalisation (although I'll admit I don't own the book).

Say you have a book, in this example, 'The Drama Triangle', and you also refer to the drama triangle within the text because it's the key concept. Is it correct to capitalise it because it's the title of the book, or incorrect because it's not a proper noun? Or does it become a proper noun in this case? And if it should be capitalised, should 'the' be capitalised as well?

For example, 'breaking The Drama Triangle', 'when using The Triangle', and so on.

I barely know what to look up to research this. The closest I can find seems to be this question, which suggests the title including 'the' would be capitalised as it's part of the name. I really am confused so any help would be appreciated, thank you.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Using verbs with multiple meanings

I am not sure if this is Indian English but the verb carry is often used in India to speak of a pregnant woman and often without an object as,

  his wife was carrying when he joined the army.

So my first question is, does that sound ambiguous to a native English speaker?

If that doesn't sound ambiguous, I am sure this does.

  She was carrying twins and a bulky bag in her hands.

This could mean,

  1) She was carrying twins in her hands and a bulky bag.
  2) She was pregnant with twins and was carrying a bulky bag in her hands.

In fact, the confusion can arise even without the bulky bag part. So my second question is, is carry a good enough word to talk about a pregnant woman?

Edit: Removed "would one be wise to avoid using it in that sense?" to make the topic more suitable for Q&A format of SE.


texts: What do you call a person who chooses to ignore someone at specific periods of time

texts:
Imagine a person X who chooses to ignore his/her responsibilities and family at will, only to attend to them when he/she sees a tangible gain to be had out of it.

Selfish is one option, but I'm looking for something more specific.


texts: Other way of saying "with his/her back facing me."

texts:
Is there another common way of saying: with his/her back facing me?

For example:

  The person was standing in the middle of the clearing,
  [...back...] me.

I don't want to use his/her because I don't want to reveal the sex of the person.

Any suggestions?


texts:
If someone says "I'm not doing it". Which of the following responses are
grammatically right.

I'm not doing it either.
I'm not doing it as well.
I too am not doing it.
I also am not doing it.


texts: How to capitalize "get out of" in a title according to CMOS?

texts:
I need to know how to correctly capitalize this title. I usually go with the Chicago Manual of Style for rules, but wasn't able to find anything regarding something like this:

  This Is How He Finally Got the Hell Out Of Mexico!
  This Is How He Finally Got the Hell Out of Mexico!
  This Is How He Finally Got the Hell out of Mexico!

I know that prepositions should not be capitalized as long as they are shorter than five letters. So is "out of" a single preposition consisting of two words, or does "out" act as a part of the phrasal verb "get out"?


texts: Difference in pronunciation: "cookie" and "kooky"

texts:
Is there any audible difference between this two words? Google Translate provides very similar transcriptions for them:

cookie - ˈko͝okē
kooky - ˈko͞okē


texts:
I recently read a famous motivational quote :

  "If you want to shine like a sun, burn like a sun"

As per my knowledge here the usage of article a is completely wrong, because there is only one sun, ahh! at least for us.

Please tell me whether it is right to say like this or the quote is wrong.


texts: What does this sentence mean and what is 'general furniture'?

texts:
What is the meaning of this sentence?

  The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered.

What is general furniture?

What does profuse mean in this sentence?


texts: Please can someone tell me some proper words to say after someone say "Welcome to our office"? Other than just "thank you"?


texts: Is there a word for a phenomenon where someone gets promoted two-five tier above their original rank regardless of the reason?

texts:
Is there a word for a phenomenon where someone gets promoted two-five tier above their original rank regardless of the reason (preferably neutral word)

Example 1 (positive example): one student would be promoted say hypothetically from grade 3 directly to grade 5 or 6 (because of gauging his/her intelligence).

Example 2 (Negative example): in this example, a employee unbelievably promoted directly from being a peon or a clerk to department manager (in a large organization) under whom there are people working like officers, clerks, peons, senior officers working (for the sake of explaining in this example it is because of long term sycophancy).

I suppose I have come across a word in Wikipedia but cannot find it.


texts: Do I ruin/spoil/decrease my appetite in this context?

texts:
I wonder which word is more appropriate in the dialogue below, especially in British English. Usually I prefer "ruin", but it sounds a little bit strong here, at least to me as a non-native speaker. The chosen word should be the most polite one.

  A: Would you like some chocolate?

  B: I don't want to ruin/spoil/decrease my appetite just before lunch. Thanks.


texts: Why do "consulting engineers" advise, not consult?

texts:
I am interested to find if the two terms consulting and advising are interchangeable, particularly in business.

Generally, one consults someone else, who advises. That is, the seeker of information is consulting, and the giver of information advises.

However, there are firms of consulting engineers and other similar outfits. They don’t consult, they advise, so it appears that the terms are indeed synonymous, at least in certain circumstances. What are those circumstances? The dictionary definitions I found (linked above) don’t mention that consult can mean advise or counsel.