texts:
I am an information Architect and UX Designer. I am in the process of classifying content for an internal knowledge base and find myself in a bit of a struggle separating topics that are primarily used for navigation and types of articles that i am proposing to use as metadata for search filters.

The general approach is that users can browse content by topic and filter using metadata. To give an example:

"Account Management" is a topic while "Procedures" is an article type.

So while I intuitively classified the content this way. I would like to :

Understand What is the difference between a topic and a type of content?
Know of any resources or reference material that i can use to improve my knowledge on the subject

Hope that my question is clear but happy to clarify and add more details i f need be

Many Thanks


texts: Doesn't matter what is correct or what correct is?

texts:
When we're asking a question we use a reversed order of words:

  Where is he?

When we're stating something we're using the normal order:

  I don't know where he is.

But what about one?

  It doesn't matter what is correct - if enough people make that mistake it stops being a mistake anymore.

Above I see the reversed order. Or maybe it just appears that way? At the moment of writing this I'm realizing that maybe it's not the case here since it's a verb-adjective pair instead of a verb-noun pair?

But anyway, maybe the alternative is correct then?

  It doesn't matter what correct is - if enough people make that mistake it stops being a mistake anymore.


texts: When are 'tion', 'sion', and 'cion' used

texts:
I am confused when the spellings "tion", "sion", and "cion" are used in words that contain the "shun" sound.

Are there any rules to help me understand when to use the correct spelling in a word?


texts: Convey 2 meanings in one sentence correctly

texts:
The sentence is

"Tom was the first ever student from Jacksonville University to qualify for the prestigious math competition, while only being in his sophomore year"

What i what to emphasise is that Tom managed to qualify for the competition while still being only in his sophomore year. As in, he was really young but still managed to qualify - this means he possessed an advanced skillset.

However, the given sentence can also be interpreted as Tom was the only person to qualify for the competition from the Sophomore year - e.i there are more people from other years who qualified.

I'm not sure how I can correctly put the point forward, would really appreciate some help!


texts:
I was writing an email to my colleague and as part of it I wrote

  Would it be possible for you to help me with this?

I felt a bit awkward after sending the mail. Should it be would or will? I know that would is a past form of will but it is also used to indicate politeness. In this case, it was extremely important for me to sound polite and formal. Please advise regarding the correct usage.

I have already seen these  questions: "Would" vs "Will" and "Would" vs "Will", but I need some more insights as to when would is used as part of a question asking for a favour.


texts: English equivalent of Polish saying "The truth is like an ass, each person has its own"

texts:
I'm looking for English equivalent of colloquial but popular Polish saying "Racja jest jak dupa, każdy ma własną" that literally means "The truth is like an ass, each person has its own".

Explanation
This saying is a quote of part of Józef Piłsudski's conversation with a journalist. I guess it's self explanatory.


texts: Is the direct object of the verb "is" a noun, adjective, or either?

texts:
In the sentence fragment "The black dog" black is clearly in adjective.

In the sentence "The dog is black" is black an adjective or a noun? More generally speaking, in sentences of the form "X is Y" is Y considered a noun, adjective, or is it context sensitive?


texts:
Today, we had an exam in our English classroom. one of the questions was:

All the rubbish .... in the sea is a real danger to health.
A) floated B) floating C) which floating D) is floating

I checked B (floating) because I thought rubbish can float itself as a subject so It couldn't be passive. But our teacher said that it's wrong and option A is the true one because rubbishes can't float themselves so it's a passive sentence.
The problem is this, I can't understand why it's a passive sentence! because in our book, there is a sentence like this:

These plates (talking about crust plates) float on the soft, plastic
mantle below the crust.

In the above sentence, the plates can float so the sentence is active but why in the quiz the rubbishes can not float and are passive?


texts:
From http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html,

  I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of
  my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to
  see that sentence written down. I squirm to avoid it. But if there
  weren't something real there, why would I squirm? The fact is, once
  you have kids, you're probably going to care more about them than you
  do about yourself. And attention is a zero-sum game. Only one idea at
  a time can be the top idea in your mind. Once you have kids, it will
  often be your kids, and that means it will less often be some project
  you're working on.

  I have some hacks for sailing close to this wind. For example, when I
  write essays, I think about what I'd want my kids to know. That drives
  me to get things right. And when I was writing Bel, I told my kids
  that once I finished it I'd take them to Africa. When you say that
  sort of thing to a little kid, they treat it as a promise. Which meant
  I had to finish or I'd be taking away their trip to Africa. Maybe if
  I'm really lucky such tricks could put me net ahead. But the wind is
  there, no question.

Is wind children, ambition, or something else?


texts: Difference between "under", "underneath", "below" and "beneath"

texts:
It leads me to the confusion, when it comes to contradicting between some prepositions.

Today, I want to know the distinction between the two similar senses of these prepositions: under, underneath, below and beneath.

Sense No. 1. extending directly below (something else) or extending directly underneath.

The following example sentence suggests that we can use all of the four prepositions mentioned above:

  Our bedroom is right under theirs.

  Our bedroom is right underneath theirs.

  I am not sure wether this sentence 2 can this be like this: underneath theirs, is our bedroom.

  Our bedroom is right below theirs.
  Our bedroom is right beneath theirs.

Sense No. 2. at a lower level or layer than, or so as to be concealed.

The sentence for this sense:

  The tunnel under the crags . . .
  The tunnel underneath the crags . . .
  The tunnel below the crags . . .
  The tunnel beneath the crags . . .

The Oxford Dictionaries site provides the same definitions of these two senses of under, underneath, below, beneath. In terms of these two senses, is there any subtle difference between these four prepositions? Or one is most formal/informal than the rest.

And what about their spelling pattern:

  If under is to underneath, but why below is to beneath, rather than belowneath?


texts: What is a term/word for all details involved in the production of an item (ex: machinery used, settings,  material, size)?


texts: Please help me understand the meaning of these sentences

texts:
The documentary I am watching is about WW2 (wartime Dover, actually).
And the narrator, who is aboard a helicopter, utters these sentences, putting  himself in the shoes of a German airman:

We know the Luftwaffe bombarded this airfield time and time again.
Hawkinge was a key part of our defenses.
Straight over the top. Bombs gone. Have we got ‘em Mike?

(Mike is the helicopter pilot.)**
I don't understand the sentences in bold.


texts: Starting a Question with "Why Not . . ." Inappropriate?

texts:
Microsoft Word has underlined a question I typed starting with "why not." Something along the lines of:

  Why not walk to the hall every morning before the sun has risen and while the streets are empty?

According to Word, this is a non-standard question.

Is it correct in a semi-formal article that's intended for the Internet audience? I thought it was standard enough.


texts:
I’m having trouble understanding the meaning of disposal advance. What do the following sentences mean?

  These are the amounts that we believe you are entitled to. You can derive no rights. The amounts are at your disposal advance.


texts: Idioms: Exploiting/Taking Advantage of Others (negative connotation)

texts:
Could you please give me an idiom, proverb, or saying that describes someone who exploits and take advantage of others?
An idiomatic expression that has a negative connotation.
Or maybe to say that one only pray when he/she needs God.
Or something similar to this (I quit praying when I got my prayers answered).
Thank you in advance.


texts: If we describe a child as friendly and enthusiastic where should we use article?Is it she is a friendly and enthusiastic child or she is friendly and a enthusiastic child,


texts:
I came across this saying "karma is a bitch" a few times while reading some comments online recently. I understand karma as a religious concept to mean "what goes around, comes around". I also understand that bitch is a derogatory word for insulting a woman.

Why is karma being referred to as a bitch? Is this a new interpretation on what karma is about?


texts: How does one refer to people who use online handles?

texts:
I know this more in line with Etiquette (which is only a proposal), but it's been bugging me for a while, and I'd like some clarification.

When referring to others on this site (and many others, including forums, chat rooms, etc.) sometimes, online handles of users may not reveal gender.  For example, taking user @Robusto, if I were to never click on his profile page, how would I refer to .....yeah.

If I'd like to reference @Robusto somehow (pretend I'm thanking @Robusto for @Robusto editing my question)

"Thanks to @Robusto for editing my question, he really helped me out."

or

"Thanks to @Robusto for editing my question, she really helped me out."

or

"Thanks to @Robusto for editing my question, they really helped me out."

or

"Thanks to @Robusto for editing my question, it really helped me out."

What do I do in this case?


texts:
I'm working a piece of software that, as part of what it does, will extract/uncompress a ZIP file. I'd like to report this to the user by showing the word "unzipping" alone.

Will displaying the word "unzipping" alone, with little further context, have any unwanted sexual innuendos and/or sound funny to a native speaker? If so, how strong would the innuendo be?

The closest questions I could find here is  Compressed vs. zipped, but that doesn't answer my question.

For the sake of completeness, 1) the file is always a ZIP file, "unzipping" seems to be the correct word to use, 2) using "extracting" instead would be my second choice, but I worry if it would end up being misinterpreted as something along the lines of "extracting information from data", which will happen later on, 3) I could say "extracting [the] ZIP file", but have a somewhat limited space to show this in, and 4) I'm just really curious.


texts: What's the word regarding hiring few employee of minority groups to achieve pseudo equality?

texts: I just suddenly forgot this word, and couldn't find anything relevant from Google.


texts:
A question was recently posed about the sentence

"This is what 51,000 people looks like."

The question was, "Is this grammatical?"

It seems opinions vary on how to handle this sentence.  I feel that 51,000 is an adjective describing people and so "looks" should be "look" as in "This is what 51,000 people look like."

These are my questions:

1) What function does 51,000 serve in the sentence?
2) How are numbers treated in general when they appear before nouns?   I ask because I have heard people say "Here's 30 Dollars."  Should it be "is" or "are?"  Seems like people are referring to "30" and not "Dollars."
3) What function does "look" play in the above sentence?
4) Also, it seems that because 51,000 is written as a number (instead of fifty one thousand) people are treating it like a group whereas if it were written, I think it would be harder to do that.  Does writing it as a number or as words change things?
5) Also, if the sentence were "Here is what 51,000 people looks like." would the word "here" change the sentence and how we parse the it?


texts: Is "Were there cattle on the road?" grammatically correct?

texts:
Is

  Were there cattle on the road?

grammatically correct? What is the rule regarding the usage of was and were around collective nouns ?


texts: What term would you use to indicate a maiden name you weren't born with?

texts:
My adopted sister is married and took her husband's name. She includes her former last name (my last name) in parentheses on her work email. In this case, née wouldn't be an accurate designation (although it would be practical).

Is there a term/word meaning 'name I had previously' that doesn't indicate 'I was born with this name'?

For clarity:

née Jane Yu
(grew up as) Jane Smith
(Current name) Jane Naik
Name as on office email: Jane Naik (_?_ Smith)

To be clear, I am not confused about the fact that née could be used correctly in this situation. I am asking whether there is an alternate term that doesn't literally mean "born" that could be used in short form, such as the email example I gave above.


texts: Exaggerating a sample to represent the whole

texts:
Is there a word for when you exaggerate a limited sample to give a fact or opinion about a whole population, especially for the purposes of boasting.

e.g.
"All French wine is delicious!", said M Pompidou even though he had tasted only a few French wines.

What is he doing here, beyond just exaggerating? Would this be hyperbole?


texts: Serial comma in academic papers in mathematics and computer science

texts:
Is there a predominant style in academic papers in computer science concerning the usage or the omission of the serial comma? What do ACM and IEEE do in general? I failed to find it out on my own.
Is there any style guide of an academic publisher that suggests (or prescribes) that US-English papers in the two disciplines (mathematics, computer science) omit the serial comma in general?


texts:
The company ofutable (pronounced UFO-table) likes to start their movies with a black background, and

  An ufotable Production

emblazoned in the middle of the screen.

As a native english speaker, I find this phrase rather jarring.  It seems grammatically incorrect.

I'm confident it should be:

  A ufotable Production

Why?


texts: Term for "her husband" when she is dead?

texts:
If a woman dies, and was married at the time of death and the husband is still alive, how would one refer to her husband? I dont think he would now be called her ex-husband? And obviously not her late husband either.  Is he still just "her husband"? For example, in these phrases:

her husband was worried about her health
her husband is distraught

Edit: addressed issues raised


texts:
How would a native speaker of (American) English, especially one working in software development, pronounce the word “K.I.S.S.” (referring to the K.I.S.S. principle) ?

I guess pronouncing it either as an acronym or as one word (“kiss”) are both acceptable but I would like to know which one is more common.


texts:
Example:

  He began descending the cliff. I watched as, inch by inch, he vanished
  into the darkness below and left a waving rope on here above.

I have doubts about the phrase because it sounds a bit odd, and got not results on Google.

Is it common to say leaving a/an X here/there above? If not, what's a better alternative?


texts: word for when you realize you've said something stupid

texts:
Say you're trying to lie to someone about why you weren't in class or whatever. You blurt out the first excuse that comes to mind (maybe like "I caught typhoid fever", or something similarly hard to believe) but once you've said it, you immediately realize how terrible of a lie that was. So the (negative) emotion you'd get in that moment would be...?

The closest phrase I can find is "instant regret" but I swear to God there's an actual word for this feeling. It's not flustered, embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated, or any of the other synonyms for 'embarrassed' I can find.

An example that encapsulates that moment is the famous, We're all fine here scene from Star Wars

Also just realized it's probably an adjective I'm looking for and not a noun. D'oh!


texts:
I know that dare is a semi-modal verb. I just don't know when to use it like a modal auxiliary verb and when to use it like a normal verb. Given the following examples:

  How dare you ...
  How do you dare ...

Is it only up to the speaker as to which one to use? Or does it depend on the circumstances?


texts:
Quite often when I type the word "anymore" in software featuring built-in spell check, I get the following kind of warning:

(this one is courtesy of TortoiseGit).

i.e., the "anymore" word gets underlined as if it didn't exist. I'm not a native speaker, so every time I see the above, I'm in doubt.

Is "anymore" a word?

Grammarly seems to agree:

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/anymore-vs-any-more/

But then why on earth aren't software dictionaries up to date? I mean, anymore doesn't look like an esoteric word that would rarely be used, so I would expect, if the warning was a false positive, that it would have been quickly reported and corrected already?

Could it be that it's valid in BE, and not in AE, or the other way around?


texts: What is the verb X if X relates to "prerequisite" as the verb "require" relates to "requirement"?

texts:
The context of this question is naming a function in programming. I'd like to find a good name for a function that takes a parameter of type prerequisite.

For instance, if I have a function that takes a parameter of type requirement, then the name of it could be require.

But what would be a good corresponding name when the parameter is a prerequisite?


texts: How can I join many adjectives to one word and create a grammatical phrase?

texts:
I have to describe an object that is:
a pair of

round/rounded earrings,
made of wood/wooden,
with bosses of brass/brass bossed?

How can I put it in a single statement?

I think that it could be right to say "round wooden earrings with bosses of brass" but I'm not sure, since I'm not a native speaker of English.


texts: What is the origin of "set" (noun) as used in "television set"? Tubes?

texts:
The colloquial (and mostly archaic) term "television set" invokes a narrow use of set (noun). Merriam-Webster defines this as:

(22) an apparatus of electronic components assembled so as to function as a unit

(With "television set" being the only example)
The Cambridge Dictionary offers an even more narrow definition, where set has the specific meaning of "television set".
I am wondering what the etymology of this term is here, and I have a guess: I believe that because televisions--and radios before them-- were constructed principally using a set of vacuum tubes that the set is a sort of metonym.
"Radio set" is easily found as a common term in historic text back when radios were larger standalone devices, or in the context of CB or ham radio, both of which grew from vacuum-tube-based equipment.
And I observe that contra the Merriam-Webster definition, no other kind of "apparatus" I can think of gets this shorthand. We don't speak of a toaster set or a dishwasher set or a personal computer set. The only examples I know of are devices that originated with sets of vacuum tubes.
Maybe I'm overthinking this. Can anyone enlighten the tracing of etymology there? Why are (were) televisions known as television sets?


texts:
Curtains, when hung up make an "S" pattern back and forth.

I was recently talking about hanging up a sheet on a wall, and the sentence I wanted to say was similar to:

"If you hang up that sheet, then it'll be _____".

Wrinkly comes to mind, but that implies permanency, which is not what I want.

Is there a word that means "not flat" in a non-permanent way?


texts: A proper substitute to "highly reactive"

texts:
I have to use the expression " highly reactive" a lot in my everyday writings.

Can there be another word or phrase to put it better and which still connotes the
correct meaning.

  Plutonium is a ("highly reactive") element.


texts: Convey the idea of partial similarity in a list of things in a sentence/

texts:
I have the following sentence:

  Surveyed meta-heuristics techniques like Tabu Search, Simulated annealing and Constraint Satisfaction Problem(CSP).

The problem is CSP is not a meta-heuristic. How can I convey the idea that only two things after like are similar and not the thing after and.

Any help appreciated.


texts:
Which one is the most general: "ox", "bull", "bison" or "buffalo"?

I've looked it up in Wikipedia, but it seems that the authors of articles in Wikipedia are trying to avoid using general terms and would rather use special scientific terms derived from Latin, which makes definitions very accurate and that's, of course, the way how any article in encyclopedia should be. But here I am more concerned about general terms and their usage, not precise definitions. So, which one of those four words seems more inclusive to you? (I know "cattle" would probably "swallow" them all :) )


texts: What is considered as verbatim copying exactly?

texts:
I am always confused when it the word verbatim copying or word for word comes up.
What does that exactly mean

For example

The statement below:
Examining and investigating any electrical components malfunctions or electrical system/s failures, as part of the post-installation support serviceand taking the necessary action/s in order to rectify it in accordance with the authorizations provided to perform the task from the client

Is it a verbatim copy or even a copy paste of the statement below"

Investigate electrical or electronic failures

I really dont how does ot differ from normal copy paste
Advice is needed please


texts: What does this long sentence mean? The part "..believing, that is, that ...."

texts:
What does this long sentence mean? I am confused in the parts-

Part 1: " believing, that is, that..." and

Part 2: "in terms of good and evil, confusing human issues with matters that do not relate to us"

"Both insisted on rejecting Democritus’s naturalistic explanations in favour of trying to understand the world in finalistic terms – believing, that is, that everything that happens has a purpose, a way of thinking that would reveal itself to be very misleading for understanding the ways of nature – or, in terms of good and evil, confusing human issues with matters that do not relate to us."


texts: Gender neutral form of "Gallant Fraternity"?

texts:
So there's this concept in Wuxia of the "Gallant Fraternity", an informal society of martial brothers and sisters dedicated to justice and defending the weak.

But the original term comes from Chinese, which is an almost entirely gender neutral language, and, use of "fraternity", at this stage of history, is problematic because it implies gender exclusivity, which was never the intent of the original Chinese term.

By the same token, "Gallant Fraternity" has a nice ring, so alternate proposals must also be aesthetically attractive.

Note: This is about the proper noun "Gallant Fraternity", which has extensive usage in English, not about the common noun "fraternity".

  early 14c., "body of men associated by common interest," from Old French fraternité (12c.), from Latin fraternitatem (nominative fraternitas) "brotherhood," from fraternus "brotherly," from frater "brother," from PIE root *bhrater- "brother." Meaning "state or condition of being as brothers" is from late 15c. College Greek-letter organization sense is from 1777, first in reference to Phi Beta Kappa.
  SOURCE: Online Etymology Dictionary


texts: What is an adjective to describe something that burns at a hot temperature?

texts:
I am looking for a phrase or a single word that describes something that burns at a high temperature, like in this sentence:

  His temper was volatile and {hot-burning}, like acetone.

"Hot-burning" is the closest thing I can think of, but seems clunky and incorrect.


texts:
I am about to collect information from multiple sources and transform them into one language/terminology.

I wonder what would be the correct term for this process?

Maybe a different word would fit even better?

Thanks!


texts: What's a concise word for "difficult to explain"

texts:
I'm looking for a word similar to "ineffable" but without the connotation of impossible to understand, just difficult to understand. This is my sentence so far, but I'd like to make it more concise:

  To illustrate the [difficult to explain] concept of anatman, the parable of Nagasena and the King likens the mind to a chariot; a chariot is not a pole, nor a wheel, it is the sum total of its parts.


texts: Is 'defines' a proper synonym for 'definitions'?

texts:
I have seen this word being used many times, following it usually, but not always terrible English. Is it a proper use?

One example:
http://libopencm3.org/docs/latest/stm32l1/html/group__i2c__defines.html
Here the documentation points a file (and many other on the left) which include various definitions, and files are called '... defines'


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Which is correct: “drive safe” or “drive safely”?

Sometimes I see sentences like "I can do something really quick", rather than "I can do something really quickly".

My questions are:

Is "I can do something really quick" correct in grammar?
Is the usage of "verb + adj" a common pattern in English? If so, what's their key difference with "verb + adv"? And can you also make some other examples of using the "verb + adj" pattern?


texts: "I am a beneficiary from" or "I benefited from"?

texts:
Which is more native like?

I personally am a beneficiary of the good policies he conducted.

or

I personally benefited from the good policies he conducted.


texts: When do you use "this is because" in the present tense versus "this was because" in the past tense?

texts:
I found this from a blog where the writer used this is because:

  Through the experience of the DSCE, I felt like my life goal had finally been achieved, but when I desperately pleaded with God to let me back into that state, I soon realized it was almost impossible to achieve on my own. This is because I had only become partially self-realized.

Shouldn't the author have used this was because because they were
referring a past event? If not, can someone please explain the rule
regarding when to use this is because versus when to use this was because?


texts: What do you call those two strands coming out of the electric capacitors?

texts:
Here is a picture of a capacitor:

What are these two metal wires called in the professional world in the US?


texts: How did nominal come to mean "within acceptable tolerances"?

texts:
The word "nominal" has a number of definitions.
For example, the Free Dictionary gives seven:

nom·i·nal  (nm-nl) adj.

a. Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.
b. Assigned to or bearing a person's name: nominal shares.
Existing in name only.
Philosophy Of or relating to nominalism.
Insignificantly small; trifling: a nominal sum.
Business
a. Of, relating to, or being the amount or face value of a sum of money or a stock    certificate, for example, and not the purchasing power or market value.
b. Of, relating to, or being the rate of interest or return without adjustment for compounding or inflation.
Grammar Of or relating to a noun or word group that functions as a noun.
Aerospace & Engineering According to plan or design: a nominal flight check.
[...]

[Middle English nominalle, of nouns, from Latin nōminālis, of names, from nōmen, nōmin-, name; see nō̆men- in Indo-European roots.]

This consistent with the definitions in OED3 and other sources.
Most of the definitions are clearly from the sense of "names" and "nouns" - and from that idea of something being only in name, but not in reality.
However, the aerospace sense seems quite different. During a recent rocket launch, the announcer repeated phrases like "Height is nominal. Power is nominal." to mean these values were within the acceptable and expected ranges.
The OED references these sources [Hat tip @tchrist]:

6. (See quot. 1970.)

1966 Aviation Week & Space Technology 5 Dec. 30/1  The mission is to launch the 800-lb. Prime vehicle to effect a nominal re-entry at 400,000 ft. following injection at 26,000 fps.

1970 N. Armstrong et al. First on Moon vi. 124  An example of misuse is our use of the word ‘nominal’, which most of the English-speaking world interprets as meaning small, minimal-and we usually use it in the sense of being average or normal.

1970 R. Turnill Lang. Space 94  Nominal, a favourite word, meaning within prescribed limits; anything from ‘perfect’ to acceptable.

1972 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 26 July 3/1  As one engineer said, ‘She is phenomenally nominal’ — nominal being space jargon for operating-as-planned.

I wonder if anyone can explain that derivation. Is it derived from the other senses of nominal? Is it influenced by the word "normal"?


texts: What is the word for digressing from a topic to talk passionately about something?

texts:
Basically when someone jumps to a kind of related topic and talks about it very passionately for a while. What is the word for that?
As in, "I hate to go on a -------- but I want to tell the group about how the themes in this book relate to modern topics."
Not tangent or digress.


texts: "Bar none (the most/the best...)" for "without exceptions or by far (the most/the best...)"

texts:
I once came across the idiom "bar none" for "by far/with no exceptions" as in "He's bar none the best player on the team", after what (for some reason unbeknownst to my forty three year old self) it was forgotten and fell into oblivion...until just recently, as I came to rediscover it sometime earlier today searching the Net for some other expression I previously posted about.

And so, I wish someone would tell me whether this idiom is acceptable for all English registers, or definitely belongs to informal, colloquial usage and, as such, should be best avoided in formal style.

e.g.

Bill is bar none the most talented photographer...
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=703015


texts: The word for "too far into the future to predict", often about the state of technology

texts:
What is the word for when you can't predict the future because of the rapidly changing landscape.

For example, the state of technology in the future. Due to the boost in devices in the last few years, the state of devices in 20 years is "_".

I thought it began with the letter S or P...


texts:
The bellow rose and fell, then it blared out one last time, rising out of its own momentum as if it were escaping finally, after centuries of waiting, into silence. The beady night noises closed in again.
  Flannery O'Connor: The Violent Bear It Away

Does the phrase in bold mean

to rise out of proportion
to spin off on its own?


texts: What does it mean: "his contempt for the norms designed to hold would-be kings in check"?

texts:
Does this mean Trump has a contempt for traditional ways in Washington to contain political rivals and prefers to a more sensational way?

Just how much trouble that can cause was on sensational display this week, with his sacking of James Comey—only the second director of the FBI to have been kicked out. Mr Comey has made mistakes and Mr Trump was within his rights. But the president has succeeded only in drawing attention to questions about his links to Russia and his contempt for the norms designed to hold would-be kings in check.

The Economist, May 13 Issue, Courting trouble
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721904-impulsiveness-and-shallowness-americas-president-threaten-economy-well-rule


texts:
"It  looks at the somewhat squeamish work being produced by artists relishing in new gene technologies."

What type of artworks are "squeamish works"?
What does "relishing in" mean here? Does it mean "the artists working in the field of ..."?


texts:
What's the meaning of crawling up the walls?

  I work at home and I could easily stay here for a month or two... I rarely get to stay in for so long cause I always have stuff to do in the weekends, bills to pay or stuff with the wife but I love staying at home.

  F*** that, I couldn't do a week without getting out. 3-4 days and I'm crawling up the walls.


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Are collective nouns always plural, or are certain ones singular?

Should company names be followed by "has" or "have"? It depends on whether a company is treated as a singular proper-noun:

  Samsung has gotten itself in a lot of trouble recently.

Or plural proper-noun:

  Samsung have stated they don't imitate cooler products.

Are both acceptable?


texts: The feeling when a familiar object is missing or in a different place

texts:
If someone has misplaced a familiar object like a wedding ring or wristwatch, they might say they "feel naked without it", or that it's "like a missing tooth".

It's not exactly "pining" for something, and "Saudade" or "Sehnsucht" is too extreme.

The person might not even realize which item is missing, or it may not be missing at all, only moved to a different place; but because of habit the person expects it to be in its old place.

Is there a noun or noun phrase for this feeling that is more specific to misplaced objects than "disorientation", "nagging uneasiness or "lingering anxiety"?


texts:
One of my math students was recently solving some word problems and gave up on one with the note: "Who knows? What do words mean anymore?"
An amusing comment but also an intriguing syntax. At first I thought my reaction was to anymore being a negative polarity item without much of a negative context, but I think the question syntax licences NPIs (compare "What do words even mean?" and "Do words mean anything?"). Now I think it's just the lack of the negative with which "anymore" tends to be paired.
I wonder, how would you gloss the contribution of "anymore" to this sentence? Has anyone collected more data on this recent use of "anymore" so we can get a fuller picture?


texts: What is the word for when you say something like "I'm dying" but don't mean it?

texts: I'm really have trouble even describing the definition of this word, but I saw a post somewhere that was talking about how people these days say things like, "I'm dying" or "I'm dead" or something like that but they obviously don't mean it. Like they are being extreme. This is truly murdering my brain right now. (Kinda like that.)


texts:
There had to be some way to automate this process on a large scale.
There had to be some way to automate this process at a large scale.

Which of these sentences is grammatically correct, and, if both are, preferred or standard in American English?


texts: Is "non-life-threatening" punctuated correctly with two hyphens?

texts:
The news reporter said, “The victim's injuries were non-life-threatening.” [Verbatim quote, so I cannot alter the wording to say "...were not life-threatening".]

Is non-life-threatening correctly punctuated with two hyphens as shown? Or should it be nonlife-threatening in this particular context?


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  ***zation vs ***sation?

So, there seem to be some contradicting opinions on this matter. Can anyone shed some light on this case?

Might be similar to visualize vs visualise, etc. I thought it might be a British vs American English matter.


texts: What's the difference between "bring about" and "implement"?

texts:
In my English workbook there is an exercise to match words with their description.
I'm confused by the following match that've been made by the authors (I checked it in answers section):

implement - make something that has been decided start to happen

bring about - make something happen

There are examples: implement a change, bring about change.

As for me, implementation sounds more like a whole process from beginning to the end, so I opted for the opposite match.

So could someone please dispel my doubts and explain the difference? Would you agree with such descriptions of the words?


texts: Is there a word for 'within ten units of'?

texts:
Is there a word that can used like decade, but when talking about units not years?

For example, everyone knows that:

2006 is within a decade of 1998
1989 is in the same decade as 1984

However, when you try to do the same for units, it's not so easy:

45 is within ten of 38 (sounds a bit weird, but is acceptable)
76 is in the same ten as 74 just doesn't sound right at all!


texts: How do the rules of English inform understanding of one of our language's most disputed sentences?

texts:
Yes, historical context is important, but forget it for a moment. Taken at face value, what does the text mean?

  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Is the leading clause an essential modifier or an absolute phrase? This is not a political question! Justify your answer with appeals to rules of English usage.

What say you, grammarians?


texts:
In my language (Vietnamese), there is a proverb (or at least a common saying) that proverbs are the treasure of our ancestors. Do we have such proverbs, proverbial phrases or sayings in English?

There is a book Proverbs and sayings from ancient times - the imperishable treasure of Bulgaria. Maybe we can say "proverbs are the imperishable treasure from ancient times"?


texts: Question mark or period at the end of "What is your favorite song, and explain why"

texts:
Which would be correct?

  What is your favorite song, and explain why? (I'm thinking this is right.)
   What is your favorite
  song, and explain why.

This could be written as, "What is your favorite song? Explain why." But that seems kind of clunky. Looking at similar questions on this site I see that maybe there isn't a great answer to this (or maybe that this question is more straight forward than what I was looking at). I dislike the Chicago Manual of Style format, so ideally one of the two choices above would be correct.


texts: Is there a specific verb that means "to hold something high in the air", such as a flag or a sign?


texts:
Here is a sentence from Dickens:

  On somebody’s motion, we resolved to go downstairs to the dress-boxes,
  where the ladies were.

This is a scene in a theatre, when drunk Copperfield with friends goes to some specific part of the building where ladies were. But I can't find anywhere a definition of the word "dress-boxes", nor its picture.
It was translated into Russian as a "theatre box"(ложа, loža) in the Russian translation of the book. This makes sense, but why "dress"?


texts: Best term in worldwide English for a "monthly cost"?

texts:
I need the most accurate, known, day-to-day term to express a cost that is paid by a customer on a month to month basis in order to use a service. E.g: Netflix, Internet, Cable TV... If possible, a single word expression is better!

So far, I could only come up with "monthly cost" and "monthly fee".


texts: Can you call a voicemail greeting a voicemail?

texts:
I just wrote an email where I was sharing someone's voicemail greeting, but instead of referring to it as a voicemail greeting, I simply called it a voicemail.

  I called this number and it left a voice mail telling me to call his cell phone.

Am I using voicemail correctly here? Or should I have said "voice mail greeting" instead? The former came to mind automatically, so I wrote that in my email. But I realized after writing it that it could easily be confused with the voicemail you leave on someone's answering machine.

What would you call a voice mail greeting? Would you call it a  voice mail greeting, a voice mail, or an answering message? Are all three equally acceptable?


texts:
I have a few short sentences here:

"I might eat some food."
and
"I like to eat food."

In traditional grammar, it seems like these would be simple sentences. But are they actually complex sentences because there is some sort of infinitival non-finite clause in each sentence?

I would like some clarification if using a simple "infinitive phrase" or "participle phrase" as it would be called in traditional grammar, creates a complex sentence.

A complex sentence is a sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. This website shows examples of them:
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/complex-sentence-examples.html

However, it only includes "traditional examples." Like dependent clauses with "because" "after" "whenever."

It does not show clauses like "The man started to chow down on his dinner." This is a sentence that is not like the others, but if it does in fact have a non-finite clause, shouldn't it also be a complex sentence?


texts: What would you call someone who creates a problem out of thin air?

texts:
I will type this out as if I were talking to a person.

My thought of this came about at home with my roommate who is about 50 years old. We hang out and talk, watch YouTube, work, live together. Pretty much everything. Well, he and I were hanging out and talking. I say to him "Hey, I'm gonna go smoke a cig real quick." Himself acknowledging that I was leaving the room. No problem, right? As it turned out he kept talking as I was outside. He had thought I was just right in the next room. After that he comes out screaming and cursing. Calling me with all sort of names and all colors of the rainbow. Not letting me speak and saying "Just shut up you don't give a shit."

My question, being from a grammatical view point would be: what is a single word for an explosive temper used upon another with a huge notice of short term memory loss?


texts: When using an apostrophe at the beginning of someone's name, should the next letter be capitalised?

texts:
In my new book, the main character's name is Stacey.
Her brother, Toby, is unable to pronounce her whole name and calls her "acey".
When writing her name in his speech, I would use an apostrophe to show that the letters 'st' are missing.
The question is whether to then use a capital 'a' or not...
'acey or 'Acey?

I am tempted to use 'acey because the apostrophe shows that the capital letter 'S' is missing. I believe that the rule would be the same as a missing 'H' in 'enry - which I think would be correct.


texts:
I'm in a friendly argument with a supervisor about this one, and I'd like some data: Does one say "WiFis" when referring to multiple WiFi networks, or does one say "WiFi"?

I suppose alternately, one could just say "WiFi networks," but this is more concerned with descriptive usage than prescriptive usage.


texts:
I understand that when being metaphorical you're saying that something IS something, for example: "The moon is a ball of cheese". Because I'm saying that the moon IS a ball of cheese it is of course metaphorical.

Would this count as metaphorical language?:

  "He fell down the bottomless pit to his death".

(Of course, a pit can't be bottomless, that's impossible). So, although this isn't necessarily saying that the pit is bottomless as opposed to appearing bottomless, could it still be classed as metaphorical explanation of the pit? Could this bottomless pit be classed as metaphorical? Could one interpret the sentence into saying that the pit is bottomless?


texts:
I heard someone say "make it (the meeting) after 3 o'clock." To me, it sounded pretty idiomatic, but I was unsure as to the grammar of it.

"After three o'clock" is a prepositional phrase, then how does it come in the position of object complement? Is it grammatical to say it?


texts: "One of previously used" vs. "one of the previously used"

texts:
Now you can select your username in one of the following ways:

  Enter it manually.
  Use one of the previously used

By previously used it means previously used usernames but I do not want to repeat username twice.

I am not sure if should be

  one of previously used

or

  one of the previously used


texts: How do you describe this trait/behaviour?

texts:
I'm trying to describe this personality trait/behaviour that someone demonstrates. Consider this situation; while a group of colleagues hangs out at a bar, someone suddenly
suggests a lottery group play where everyone puts in a small amount of money. While everyone willingly participates, one person refused and opted out of the play.

What are some ways of describing this particular person's behaviour and/or the personality trait that this person possesses? Obviously he's cheap, but leaving money aside, I'm trying to describe his behaviour/trait with emphasis to the negativity and fact of him not willing to act with the group.

Another example maybe, if the group of colleagues suddenly decides to go bowling and the same individual opted out again because he dislikes it greatly. Not all the rest of the people in the group likes bowling but they go anyways. What quality is this individual lacking? And what are some ways of describing this kind of behaviour and personality trait?


texts: Are differing pronunciations of "second" a regional difference?

texts:
According to Wiktionary the word "second" can be pronounced one of two ways in the US:
/ˈsɛk.(ə)nd/
and
/ˈsɛk.(ə)nt/

I've googled to try to find anything about the difference between these pronunciations, be it morphophonemic or simply a regional variation. However my search was to no avail as "second" is a common word, often with results of alternative/second pronunciations of other words popping up.

Can anyone enlighten me on why there is a difference in pronunciation of this word?

For reference, I'm from  the US South and I say it with a final "t."


texts: Subject-auxiliary inversions not associated with questions

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Inversion in “only [adverb] have they”

Is there some rule governing the following, or similar, subject-auxiliary inversions (*"Rarely they do see the light of day", *"Never I have been so insulted")?

  In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate. Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible inconvenience. (link)

  Rarely do they see the light of day; it's generally judged to be in no one's commercial interest that they should. Just occasionally, however, like a seemingly dormant volcano, they explode into the open. (link)


texts: I have read that things "produce" smells. Something creates a certain smell, is OK, I believe. I could not find "something makes a smell" during my online search, however. I wanted to say, "The milk in the refrigerator is off and making a strange smell in there." Can I?


texts:
Suppose that a teacher says

  I will minus your points if you cheat.

To mean "I will deduct your points."
Here, minus is apparently used as a verb.
Checking out the dictionaries,
it can be seen that minus is only listed
as a preposition, adjective, and/or noun.
However, some people argue that "minus your points" is a phrase
commonly used.
Therefore, I ask this question here to double-check
that it is invalid to use "minus" as a verb.

Is this phrase acceptable?
If so, is it commonly used?


texts: What job descriptions are currently accepted as gendered?

texts:
It seems to me that in my lifetime, the use of "actress" has fallen out of favor in lieu of "actor", while relatively recently the term "comedienne" has been climbing in popularity. These blog posts seem to confirm my perception: "actress" and "comedienne".

I wonder, in the present day, what nouns for jobs or vocations today are still gendered?


texts: How to refer in English to the Spanish "consonante" and "asonante" rhymes?

texts:
Verses in Spanish language can have two types of rhyme:

Consonante rhyme, in which every sound from the stressed syllable to the end are the same.
Asonante rhyme, in which every vowel sound from the stressed syllable to the end are the same.

A typical example of consonante rhyme would be coche/noche (somewhat similar to English rhyme light/night), whereas an asonante rhyme would be noche/doce where the vowel sounds o/e match but not so the consonant sound ch/c (it may be similar to trying to rhyme light with mind).

I have seen that in English you can talk about assonance (or vowel harmony) and consonance, but it seems to me that those terms do not refer to exactly the same idea as shown above.

So, what is the proper way to refer to the Spanish consonante and asonante rhymes in English? Or should I just write asonante rhyme? Would that be understood provided the right context?


texts: What is the word to signify "someone is yet having that specific relationship with me"

texts:
I'm looking for a word to express my thought or feeling. Say for example, I'm talking or writing about my life. Therein, I've to say about my wife ( who is yet my wife in legal terms or so & still not divorced ). Whenever I say about her, I want the reader or listener should get the feel that although she is currently my wife but she should have been divorced from me yet. So I came up to something like I can say "she is my yet wife; my yet wife told". But this is not literally correct. So, I need a word which can substitute "yet".

I'm elaborating a bit on the meaning of "yet" which I used as adjective for "wife" as in "yet wife". Say, you say someone to leave your house. After 1 hour I go and see he is still there at your house and hasn't left yet. Then I come to say you that see that person hasn't left your house yet. That's what I want to imply that she is my wife yet though she should have been divorced from me a long time back.

Can one say the right way of expressing that thought or feeling.


texts: The antonym of “greedy” is “generous”. Is there a word for “not greedy” (one who is content with what he has)?


texts: Does the "elbow-handshake" have any relation to the phrase "rubbing elbows"?

texts:
This is probably answerable with a general reference (or a pair of such references), but I have not been able to find one.

Etymology Online does not cover the origin of "rubbing-elbows" as meaning to socialize or mingle in a crowd in either the section covering rub or elbow. Other top search hits just cover the meaning of the phrase in discussions of synonyms for socializing (hob-nob etc.), without going into the history and origins.

There is also the "elbow-handshake" (or less formally the "elbow-bump"), where literally rubbing elbows or forearms substitutes for a handshake greeting. Wikipedia traces this to a leprosy outbreak circa 1970 (in Hawaii, among peoples whose primary language may or may not have been English), but is very light on references. I first recall hearing of this handshake from watching a documentary about one of the 1990's Africa Ebola outbreaks, where it was presented as a de-facto greeting replacement that crossed cultures, creeds and nations.

My questions are what is the origin and time period of the phrase "rubbing elbows"? And does the practice of greeting with elbows or arms instead of hand have a more definite origin? And if so, is there any evidence that it was adopted with any conscious awareness of a literal acting out of a the common idiom "rubbing elbows"?


texts:
Whenever I listen to English, it is AmE and I've seldom heard BrE because in Japan we're mainly taught AmE. (But I've seen BrE many times.) So, I have a little knowledge of BrE pronunciation only through a dictionary but I don't know how British people today pronounce words. I heard these days the number of British people usiug AmE is increasing and pronunciation varies from age to age or region to region. I really want to know how British people today, the average age and living near London, pronounce the following words.

water  BrE /ˈwɔːtə(r)/ or AmE /ˈwɑːtər/
either      BrE /ˈaɪðə(r)/ or AmE /ˈiːðər/
herb  BrE /hɜːb/ or AmE /ɜːrb/
letter  BrE /ˈletə(r)/ or AmE /ˈletər/
data   BrE /ˈdɑːtə/ or AmE /ˈdeɪtə/
aunt  BrE /ɑːnt/ or AmE /ænt/
air  BrE /eə(r)/or AmE /er/
vitamin  BrE /ˈvɪtəmɪn/ or AmE /ˈvaɪtəmɪn/
advertisement  BrE /ədˈvɜːtɪsmənt or AmE /ˌædvərˈtaɪzmənt
garage  BrE /ˈɡærɑːʒ/ or /ˈɡærɪdʒ/ or AmE /ɡəˈrɑːʒ/ ,


texts: emphasizing someone has definitely done something like "I did go there"

texts:
I suspect I might be wrong saying "We did were there", "I did was there".

I presume there must be infinitive form of a verb after the verb "do" of a certain tense, i.e. "We did be there", "I did be there".

Is it a common rule for this case or are there any exceptions?

Also, could you point me out to the grammar where I can find some info about this?


texts:
Writing a sequence of years, 1970, 71, 72, 87, 88, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98

Which is best: 1970 - 72, 87 - 88, 92 - 98
or: 1970 - 72, 87, 88, 92 - 98

It is the 87, 88 that cause confusion. Should they be hyphenated as a string?
Thank you
David Hayhoe
UK


texts: 'idiot smile' vs. 'idiotic smile', idiomaticity and usage

texts:
I observed that 'idiot' is sometimes used as a modifier, which, as grammar.ccc says, 'are like teenagers: they fall in love with whatever they're next to. Make sure they're next to something they ought to modify!'
Some instances of real English usage I found, among others, are the following:

What kind of idiot teenager agrees to baby-sit on a millennial New Year's Eve, anyhow?
They tried a plastic slide, but some idiot teenager broke it. Wood? It splinters as it ages.

Other than those there are a lot of other example, especially in reference to children, boys and girls.
So, I would like to know whether the English language has some limit in using 'idiot' as a modifier outside those cases.
I ask because I want to say that a friend of mine has an 'idiot smile', but after searching a bit I didn't find a lot of occurence of that expression and it seems that 'idiotic smile' is preferred.


texts: What's the origin of the idiom "cut corners"?

texts:
Cut corners is defined as

  to do something in the easiest, cheapest or quickest way, often by ignoring rules or leaving something out especially at the expense of high standards.

What is the origin of this idiom?


texts: What is the etymology of "-cade" as in motorcade or cavalcade?

texts:
What is the etymology for "Cade" as in motorcade or cavalcade? I guess it has a similar meaning in "cascade" as well.

I checked Etymonline "but it didn't explain the etymology of "cade". Just that "in 20c. -cade came to be regarded as a suffix"


texts: What is the aerial equivalent of bathing when one enjoys the breeze?

texts:
To wash by immersing one's body in water is called bathing. Then what is the verb for lounging in a breeze enjoying the wind washing through your hair, your underarms and your toes?

I'm trying to translate this phrase. I would like a verb for air bathing that is equally poetic and languorous.

“浴乎沂，风乎舞雩，咏而归"

A direct, unpoetic translation might be:

  To (water) bathe in the Yi river, to (air) bathe by the Wuyu altar, to sing back home.


texts: Is it proper to omit periods after honorifics (Mr, Mrs, Dr)?

texts:
I've been reading the Economist lately and they apparently don't punctuate honorifics like "Mr.", "Mrs.", e.g.

  The popular rejection of Mr Mubarak offers the Middle East’s best chance for reform in decades.

I believe it's a British magazine, but is such a use proper or common in American English?


texts: Word for listening to a single song over and over

texts:
Is there an English verb that would mean listening to a single song (on repeat) over and over just because one likes it so much? In my language we have a word that would in English literally mean something like "to outwear" or "to wear down".

For example, one buys a record and then, instead of listening to all the songs from the album, sticks to one single song, playing it for five days without listening to any other music.


texts: Is there a word for an election candidate who does not want anyone to do the job?

texts:
There are terms for election candidates who have no intention of winning. These include paper candidates, fielded to allow people to show support for a point of view, but where the candidate does not expect, or wish, to win. Another is dummy candidate where the candidate hopes to attract votes away from one of the major candidates in order to benefit the other. There are also stalking horse candidates aiming to show support for change, and so encourge bigger beasts to enter the fray.
I am looking for a term for a candidate who does want to win the election, but has no intention of fulfilling the role if elected. He wishes to be elected in order to prevent it being done at all. Is there a word or phrase with this meaning?
Here is an example. An elected official is responsible for arranging for public footpaths to be kept clear of weeds and obstacles and in a usable condition. Many of these paths run adjacent to people's back gardens or across farmland. The current holder of the post is a keen rambler and walker and has been doing a particularly good job, and the paths are better used. However many of the local residents would prefer the paths to be less used and somebody is standing for the post who intends to do the very minimum he can get away with, becasue he, like many of his neighbours, does not want the paths to be maintained.
A similar thing happens in the UK Parliament where political party Sinn Fein have seven MPs who refuse to take their seats. This is entirely legal and they were quite open about their intent before the election.


texts:
I want to refer to a member of our lab, who is working with me on the same project, and I was wondering what would be the best term to use.

We are both mainly students, but we also work as Research Assistants.

I feel that co-worker might imply that we have a full-time jobs

I also feel that lab member might imply that we do separate/different things since the lab could have many students.

co-student seems perfect if this word existed - we're both students, but we also work together.


texts:
We all know that if we want to eat outside the restaurant we say "take away", but what about if you want to eat inside? Do you say to the cashier "eating here"?

Is there a common phrase ?


texts: Does English have any singularia tantum besides mass nouns?

texts:
Singularia tantum and pluralia tantum are, respectively, nouns that have only a singular form and nouns that have only a plural form.

In English, we have a handful of pluralia tantum that are mass nouns which take the plural form (e.g. "riches" and "remains"), a whole load of pluralia tantum that refer to things that come in pairs (e.g. "trousers", "sunglasses", "knickers", or "scissors"), and at least one plurale tantum that fits into neither of the above categories ("clothes", meaning multiple items of clothing - it's clear what the hypothetical singular "clothe" would mean, yet it mysteriously isn't a word). Singularia tantum, on the other hand, seem less varied. As far as I can tell, they are all mass nouns - things like "information", "milk", and "racism".

One can imagine there being a singulare tantum that is not a mass noun. For example, we can imagine an alternate universe in which it is still correct English to talk about "a dog", but talking about "dogs" in the plural is incorrect and funny in the same way that it is incorrect and funny to talk about a "scissor". It might seem unintuitive to think that such a noun even could exist - surely, if it is not a mass noun, then people would just pluralise it with an "s" on the end like most other words? But the converse argument could just as well be made about countable pluralia tantum, and I still cannot go to a shop and buy a "clothe". Hence my question: do we have any such countable singularia tantum in the language? Have we in the past?


texts: I need an alternative for "her whole life"

texts:
In my story a young girl only understands the life of a dancer, but once her dream comes to an end she doesn't know what to do with herself.

I need a better way of saying

  She danced all day every day
  or
  She danced her whole life


texts: Is there a well-known term for the synonym or near-synonym "telescoping" words?

texts:
This has been rattling around in the back of my mind for many years (way before Stack Exchange came into existence), so it's a relief to finally ask the question.

There are words that can be "contracted" by removing one or more letter(s) (without changing the order of the letters) to form a shorter word with the same meaning, or one very close to it.

The two strongest examples I can think of right now are:

rapscallion -> rascal

and

satiate -> sate

This is a slightly weaker example:

rapine -> rape

Even though "rape" has come, in modern usage, to refer almost exclusively to a sexual crime, it can still be used in a more literary (and purposefully anachronistic) sense to mean "the plunder and pillage of a country or region". In that sense, "rape" can be used in a similar fashion to "rapine"; in any case, the two words are etymologically related to the Latin rapere which is tied to the archaic usage.

Another weaker example:

transliterate -> translate

These words are near-synonyms, but there is a definite difference in their meaning. Still, I guess this pair would qualify, albeit in a looser sense.

I wanted to exclude some relatively trivial examples, such as:

(inflammable -> flammable)

(perambulate -> ambulate)

and so forth. So I've imposed the additional rule (arbitrary though it may seem) that the "stripped" letters must not come from the start or the end of the word, but only from its middle.

Acronyms and portmanteaus are also excluded, as are "slangier" contractions e.g.:

(modulator-demodulator -> modem)

(motor-hotel -> motel)

(certitude or certainty or certificate -> cert)

I guess the long-short forms of the same word would form a linguistic doublet. I've coined the term "telescoping word" to describe the long form that "collapses" into the short form with letter deletion sans anagramming.

My question is: has this phenomenon already been studied? If so, what name have authorities given it? Is there already an existing reference or resource on it? Thanks in advance.

(This is not a duplicate of Is there a term for a word inside another word?, as that is asking about the more general phenomenon of words (not necessarily synonyms) occurring within larger words. In fact, the question specifically mentions "kangaroo word" and states that a broader scope is being sought.)


texts: Is there an idiom that can be used to describe the specialty of a situation/object?

texts:
For instance,

the <best part> of living alone is the privacy.

Is there an idiom which can be used for such a sentence?
I'm looking for a rather well-known phrase originating from literature, like how 'Achilles' heel' is used to describe a fatal flaw.


texts:
Watching Columbo, S02E04 Dagger of the Mind and this exchange takes place between Columbo and a Detective. They are in a gentleman's club, leather furniture, bookcases of old books, butler, etc.

  Detective: Would you, uh, care to sit here?
   Columbo: When you said "club," I thought you meant a country club or a health club.
  Detective: Mm. Bit stuffy, I'm afraid. Hasn't changed since Father's day.
  Columbo: My father was an Elk once, till my mother stopped him.
  Detective: Ah.

It is quite hard to hear what Columbo is saying but it sounds like he's saying "My father was an Elk once".

I don't know what this might mean though, in the context.


texts: I was taught that the Present Continuous is formed using the Gerund, but that you call it the Present Participle.  Even though these two forms look exactly alike in English, in other languages they do not.  Can you explain this discrepancy?


texts: Predicate-less and predicate-full sentence

texts:
In Polish language there is a strict meaning to sentence - it requires a predicate to be used explicitly. Any "sentence" without a predicate is called a sentence equivalent. However as I learned sentence does not have a strict meaning in English.

If that's the case, is there an English word that means "sentence with predicate" or "sentence without predicate"?


texts:
Is it (1) correct, (2) natural/wise to say the following in english: "[X] will be possible to be used here as [Y, ie. some function/role]"?

Are there any alternatives, and if there are, are they a superior or (else) a roughly equialent thing to say?

If it's not correct, could you point out what's wrong with it?

What I want to express is that in the future "you will be able to use X as Y here". Ie. you will be able to use the ladder (not yet built) as an aid to climb up to the roof. Of course I could use this form, but I'm trying to express it with the former to see if it is possible/OK. In particular I'm trying to avoid putting "you" or "one" in the sentence, but only if it's OK to do so.


texts: How to correctly write this conditional phrase?

texts:
I’m struggling with a conditional clause. This one is easy:

If I were you, I would do xyz ...

But I have these three statements:

I was a student.
It was my vacation.
My professor gave me this assignment.

Now, I want to turn these three into conditional clauses:

If I were a student, and it were my vacation, and my professor gave me this assignment, I would do xyz ...

Somehow, this doesn’t sound right. How do I fix it? (I want to keep the informal, conversational tone denoted by the repeated and)


texts: Verb agreement in “It is you who has/have come”

texts:
Today I was playing the video game Assassin’s Creed Syndicate on my PC. In a mission where the player whose name is Evie Frye meets a guy, the guy says I thought Jacob was coming but  that

  I am glad that it is you who have come.

After hearing this, I got a little bit confused because  I would have used has instead. So native English speakers, could you please tell me which verb is suitable to use here?


texts: I need help with the the conditional sentences, please explain there structures with the examples in simple English


texts: meaning of preposition "for" in "sing for joy"

texts:
I have read the following sentence:

They drink and sing for joy.

What does that mean? Are they so happy that they sing to celebrate it?


texts: Condescending, empathising or 'let us reason together' "we"

texts:
What is the term for the condescending usage of "we" that essentially means "you"?  For example, when talking to a child, you might say "we need to be on our best behavior."  A slight variant could be the instructive tone commonly found in mathematical proofs, e.g. "we see from (xxx) that (yyy), which tells us that (zzz)..."

I thought for quite some time that this was the meaning of "the royal we", but it turns out that is a different thing.  What is the condescending usage actually called?


texts: The comma in the phrase "all day, every day" and more

texts:
Whenever I read anything, I often notice these commas in between dependent clauses. Are they correct? The answer I'm not looking for is along the lines of, "That's just where you pause."

Here are a couple examples of what I mean:

  I'm going to the meeting tomorrow, on a Tuesday.

  He loves going outside, in his wheelchair.

Why are these commas placed here?


texts: Proper usage of Prefix "UN" is there a word as "UNSWAPPING"

texts: A closed group in Facebook bash me for asking them if there's such word as "UNSWAPPING" I reached Google and Dictionaries of which I failed to find this word. Yes, there's an adjective "unswapped" but I never found "UNSWAPPING" please help me. I want to know the precise answer. Thank you!


texts: "I thought I did this, but it turns out I only thought about doing it and then forgot to do it?"

texts:
Is there a word for

  "I thought I did this thing, but it turns out I only thought about doing it and then forgot to do it?"

It's like the feeling you get when someone messages you, and then you forget to message them back because you had composed a message in your mind, thought you sent it, and then forgot to do so.

Is there a word for this feeling or the action that leads to it (in English or any language)?


texts:
There are many instances in Google Books  of this expression which sounds very unfamiliar to me:

  Crystal wanted to work on her Science project for three-quarters of an hour. She only worked for a third of an hour. Connections Maths 7, Volume 7 -  Edward Duffy,Lorraine Mottershead,G. Murty
  In the Niger Delta where river craft are employed for fishing and shellfish collecting field measurements show that a 5km distance takes about half an hour for a hand-paddled dug-out and a third of an hour for the Yamaha engine - The Early History of the Niger Delta -  Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa,F. N. Anozie,Nwanna Nzewunwa
  "Maybe no more than a third of an hour ago,"  replied the mage. "You think he might have found something?" Clara turned her attention fully to the matter at hand. Gambit's End - Chad Corrie
  Now remember, even though we had a gross production of $900 at 1 1 :00, we must take into consideration a second visit of about a third of an hour at "no charge" plus a laboratory invoice. The Dental Consultant Looks at Insurance
  After a third of an hour, the flames began to abate, and the longboat began to list badly. A hand let her painter go. All the while, the 1 6 pounders continued their vigorous fire, and the schooner's deck reeked of cordite. Henry Lunt & the spymaster - Tom McNamara
  It is reasonable to count it as a third of an hour devoted to Ph.D. students, one-third to Master's students and one-third to research- fee students. In this way, it was possible to distribute teaching hours between students on different courses.Graduate School: a Study of Graduate Work at the London School of Economics

Is a third of an hour  a valid current expression? or is it used just within specific  contexts, scientific for instance? or  is it just an archaic expression substituted by the more common 20 minutes?

Edit:

@close-voter: what is opinion based? Which of my three questions?


texts:
Which one is correct?

Usually I won't photograph birds with man-made objects (such as utility poles), but that was an unusual day.
Usually I wouldn't photograph birds with man-made objects (such as utility poles), but that was an unusual day.

I am trying to express my strategy or usual habit, so what would be correct "won't" or "wouldn't"?


texts: I have a question about active and passive voice

texts:
I find the standard examples of active and passive voice on, say, Purdue Owl to be pretty obvious. For example, "He kicked the ball" versus "The ball was kicked by him."

For the examples, Someone was talking about whether these different sentences were passive or active voice during a story critique. But when you have "Her hair was dark" vs "She had dark hair." It doesn't seem that either of these would be passive voice. "Her hair was dark" is passive voice? because in passive voice the subject should be receiving the action of the sentence, but that doesn't look to be the case here—her hair is simply dark and only an auxiliary verb is present.

Also, someone was saying "she looked young" is passive, but "she was young" is not passive. But this makes no sense to me. Are they perhaps meaning one is less precise, and they weren't talking about passive/active voice at all when they were saying it was passive? Because all I'm seeing that's different about these two phrases is a narrator that is either uncertain or certain about the subject's age.


texts:
What is a word for "people who converse"?

I'm trying to write a pretty long essay for my English class, but I can't figure out what this word is.


texts:
There is a term orbit insertion which means a maneuver performed by a spacecraft flying by a celestial body in order to become an artificial satellite.

What word or phrase would you use to describe the result of this process? And from the following sentences, which are correct?

  The probe entered the orbit of Mars.
   The probe inserted into the orbit of
  Mars.
  The probe was inserted into the orbit of Mars.


texts: Why is the math in Winnie the Pooh's so poor? Is it deliberate?

texts:
Earlier, I was reading Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne and lit upon this passage:

  Piglet is so small that he slips into a pocket, where it is very
  comforting to feel him when you are not quite sure whether twice seven
  is twelve or twenty-two.

I was confused because twice seven should be 14, not 12 nor 22.

What's the idea?


texts: Looking for a word or idiom that describe someone whose mood changes constantly

texts:
As the title says, I'm looking for a word or idiom to describe a person whose  mood changes regularly in a very short time and you never know what's going on in his head.
Some examples:

He can be very optimistic about the world and suddenly being extremely pessimistic after seeing some bad news in social media.
He can be very positive about dating a nice girl, yet being nervous because he "smells" something's wrong in the way she texts him.
He reckons for very long time about quitting his job and seem to be very determined. Once again,  a little "maybe" occurs in his head and he change his mind suddenly.


texts:
Which of the following should I say

At any time range, report A has a higher total than report B.
In any time range, report A has a higher total than report B.
Within any time range, report A has a higher total than report B.

Also should I say time range or time frame in this case? Thank you very much.


texts: Apples are "in the tree" or "on the tree"?


texts: Using all with or without a definite article

texts:
In what cases does one have to use all with a definite article?

Some examples:

  All the people in this world...

Could you also please give a link to a reputable source that one can cite?


texts: If you have several presidents awaiting inauguration, should we refer to them as Presidents Elect or President-Elects?


texts:
Apparently the word "triangle" was borrowed into English in the late 1300s.  Triangles are a very common shape in everyday life, and there were certainly English-speaking craftsmen and artists before the 1300s who would have needed a word for them.

What did English call triangles before they borrowed the word "triangle"?


texts: Should I use capital or small letter here? "Dear All" or "Dear all"?

texts:
"Dear team"/ "Dear all"/ "Dear colleagues"
Since I don't use a name after dear, I don't need to use Capital letter. is it correct?


texts: Is there an adverb meaning "by volunteering"?

texts:
I am looking for an idiomatic expression (something similar to "by choice" or by "one's volition") that would mean 'by volunteering.'

Sentence:

  Meeting in cafes (or sometimes in private apartments by
  volunteering), we would discuss a wide range of subjects.

I mean to say that in addition to cafes, which were our regular setting for meetings, some members would volunteer to host us in their apartments.

P.S. The expression "on a voluntary basis" a) sounds a mouthful to me, and b)  implies a sense of regularity which I don't mean to imply in the sentence. Thanks.


texts: Is it a must to add "that of" when using "different from"?

texts: Is it ok to say "the flow structure of wave-driven flow is much different from single-direction flow" or must I say "the flow structure of wave-driven flow is much different from that of single-direction flow"


texts: Different uses of "risk of/to/for" in professional medical literature [style]

texts:
This question is about the preferred style in medical scientific journals.
Consider the following sentences:

risk to develop a severe reaction
risk of developing a severe reaction
risk for developing a severe reaction

Clarity and brevity should probably be the most important when writing in medical journals. So do these sentences have different meanings? Is one use preferred over another?
Which use is the most suited for medical journals?
Any other possible combinations that you suggest?


texts:
When advertising a product as safe to use on rubber should a hyphen be included between the words "rubber" and "safe?" It seems to me that because it is a compound adjective a hyphen should be used, but analogous usages such as "dishwasher safe" seem to be infrequently hyphenated. Is this one of those situations where the choice is purely preferential?

The product is a chemical compound that will likely be used in environments where rubber is present.


texts: Why is the word "phonics" pronounced /ˈfɑnɪks/ instead of /ˈfoʊnɪks/?

texts: Is there any etymological reason for this? Normally, an o in a stressed syllable followed by /n/ and a vowel would be pronounced /oʊ/. And phoneme is pronounced /ˈfoʊnim/. Why does the pronunciation of phonics change? Are there any other words in which this happens systematically?


texts: "business up front, party in the back" origin?

texts: This is a phrase used to describe a mullet. The question is, did it exist before it was used to describe that hairstyle?


texts: A word for making an event more likely or less likely

texts:
In discussions of probability we often find ourselves saying that we can make an event more likely or less likely. It feels wordy, like there should be a single word for that. I don't mean "preclude" or "necessitate." I mean a change of probability that doesn't reach 0% or 100%. For example, we might say:

  If we increase the sample size, we [decrease the probability of] certain kinds of error.
  If we decrease the sample size, we [increase the probability of] certain kinds of error.

What goes in that bracketed space? Not "rarify," which means something else; and not "preclude," which we can never seem to accomplish.


texts: What would you call a positive addiction?

texts: You can be addicted to exercise or healthy food or helping others in the sense that you feel good when you do it and bad when you don't. You can even have the dopamine responses that are conventionally associated with addiction. What word would you use to describe a person that is addicted to a beneficial activity without the connotation that there is something wrong with the person?


texts:
I have a question regarding negative present perfect for past events with effects extending into the present.
Scenario: Just leaving coffee shop with friend #2. “That was fantastic; I haven’t seen friend #1 in years.” However, I just saw her moments ago. Would this use of present perfect be more colloquial, or is it a true example of stative/resultative present perfect? That is, can one still express the effects of not having seen that friend in years via negative present perfect, even though you just saw her?
Could we also have said “I hadn’t seen friend #1 In years”?


texts: “25th December” vs “25 December”: Should I use ordinals or cardinals for the day of the month?

texts:
In one of the IELTS listening tests, there is a fill-out-the-blank question reading:

  The museum is not open on  ___.

My answer was “25th December”. However, the official answer is “25 December”.
Is my answer also correct? Why did they not include th there in their answer?

On the other hand, in another such question like:

  Date: ___.

Here now the official format is like “10th December” with a th. Why did they now include the th in this answer but omitted it in the earlier answer?

Which date format should I use in what circumstances, and why?

How is it to be pronounced in words?


texts:
In our application users can register permanently or do a guest check-out. The users that are using guest checkout are guests.

Is there a word for people who are not guests?


texts: Usage of tense in sentences with "in case"

texts:
"I will give you a map in case you get lost."

"I will give you a map in case you will be getting lost."

Which use of the tenses of the bold portions of the above two sentences is correct?


texts: What is the gramatical term for the beneficiary in a subject-verbs-object sentence?

texts:
I'm writing a web-component where the user is supposed to change some element.

The application allows the user to change the same kind of element in two or more contexts.

The user interface should read something like:

You are changing a table in {the room} bedroom.
You are changing the tiles of {the floor} in bathroom.

this is not a custom-appartment app

You are swapping out an ingredient in {recipe} Chocolate cake.
Your character is trying on a garment on {the body part} head.

In gramatical analysis, we have devices like subject, object, verb, ad-verb, pronomen and those comprise the total of my knowledge on the subject.

The question is; is there a generic name for the component inticated between the curly braces? I need to know this because of an obsession with logically sound or semantically correct variable names.

So the component is none of the mentioned above (I think), but the beneficiary of, or someone who is affected by the subject-verbs-object sentence.


texts:
Does anyone know how to describe the type of poetic syntax of the line:

  "As the deer panteth for the water / So my soul longeth after thee" or something to that effect.

I'm not sure if this would be an example of parataxis or hypotaxis.

Normally, "so" is a coordinating conjunction, which makes me think that this might count as parataxis, but the adverb "as" seems to make the first clause dependent and thus render the syntax as hypotaxis.

Another related question: is as/so a correlative conjunction like neither/nor or either/or?


texts: I need an English expression ( preferably slang ) to express my willingness and commitment to do something ( e.g I will put my heart and soul into it )


texts: What to call a correction slip pasted onto a page of a book?

texts:
I have an old catalogue with new prices pasted in over the old prices. These correction slips are small, only covering the prices but leaving the rest of the page as originally published. What are these slips called? It is not an errata slip, nor a tipped-in page. Those are different things.

I could continue to call them 'correction slips', but there may be better accepted terminology.


texts: What word would be used for someone who shoots video

texts:
I used to work as a guy who used video camera to shoot events. As a non-native English speaker I have struggled to find a word to describe it. So far I have used video recorder but that is feels like little silly 'cause it's VCR.

edit to be more specific, I shot ice hockey games


texts: Should I use hyphens with prefixes like "sub" and "semi"?

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

Some English texts, use the prefix sub put before a given proper word with  "-" between them, for example sub-zero, while in the Mathematical contexts there is no such that "-", for example subgroup or subfield. The same story could be seen for semi. Which way for showing that is right or is better.


texts: Is this a correct usage of "scratching the surface"?

texts:
Scratching the surface of the universe through science and technology.

To my ear it sounds as if something is wrong with this sentence. Is this a correct sentence from grammatical point-of-view? More importantly, does it make sense?


texts: Should it be 'he told me that they had...' or 'he told me that they have...'? The people he was talking about still have the things presently so which would be correct?


texts: Can I substitute 'to' for 'for' here in order to not repeat 'for' twice

texts:
I'm trying to rewrite this sentence, can someone suggest a grammatically correct (and better) sentence:

  I was not prepared for his calm enthusiasm for my question.

I'm thinking something like:

  I was not prepared for his calm enthusiasm to my question.

But I'm not sure that maintains the same meaning and intent by substituting to for for. Is it grammatically correct to say, "his calm enthusiasm to my question"?

The reason I ask, is because (to my native English speaker's ears) the phrase "his calm enthusiasm for my question" sounds correct, even though I'd rather not repeat the word for in the original sentence quoted at top. Maybe I just need to live with the repetition, but I'm very open to having someone suggest any alternative that doesn't involve repeating the word for twice.


texts: Is it correct to say, 'Be knowledgeable of', or 'Be knowledgeable about'?

texts:
Is it correct to say, 'Be knowledgeable of' or 'Be knowledgeable about'?
(As in, 'Be knowledgeable of the menu'.)
(Staff must be knowledgeable of the menu).


texts: "Got Notifications" vs. "Received Notifications"

texts:
For some reason the phrase "Got Notifications" seems rough. "Received Notifications" sounds a bit more natural.

Is there something wrong with the phrase "Got Notifications"? Is there a principle behind this that can explain why I get a funny feeling about it?


texts: You may schedule a meeting vs You can schedule a meeting

texts:
Which of the following sentences is more accurate?

You may schedule a meeting as per your convenience.

vs

You can schedule a meeting as per your convenience.

Or is there a better sentence to convey the same meaning?


texts:
What is the meaning of this British idiom?

I was watching BBC's Top Gear and the presenters were cracking jokes about people who live in the 22 of the avenues. And that the people who live there like to give nicknames to their home and have specific decoration, stating that they lived in the 22 of the "Acacia Avenue".

As it is also an Iron Maiden song, and since the band is also British, what is up with this expression?

I can't recall in what Top Gear's episode that phrase popped up, but I'm sure it was around the 2008 season.

I found this wiki entry too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_Avenue, Which is midly informative. I see that is something linked to the middle class, but I want to know more about the nuances.


texts: How did the expression "hands down" come to mean "without a doubt?"


texts: I know that both terms exist but I wonder which one would/should be considered (more) correct? Percentile seems an oddball as we also use quantile, decile, quartile, but never perdecile etc.


texts:
I understand that you should use an if the following word begins with an h, however if there is some punctuation (such as a fullstop) in the next word, should it still be an?

  Do you have an .htaccess file?

or

  Do you have a .htaccess file?


texts: Quotation marks - Is there any incoherence in these examples from Wikipedia?

texts:
My question is not about the use of quotation marks, single or double. It's about this paragraph from Wikipedia.

  If quotation marks are used, it is sometimes the practice to distinguish between the quotation marks used for speech and those used for mentioned words, with double quotes in one place and single in the other:

  When Larry said, "That has three letters," he was referring to the
  word 'bee'.
  With reference to "bumbershoot", Peter explained that 'The term refers
  to an umbrella.'

I don't understand the use of quotation marks in the examples: 'bumbershoot' looks like a mentioned word to me and "the term refers to an umbrella" is speech. Have I missed something?

I understand that most people don't make such a distinction (single x double) but that is not what the question is about.  It's all about coherence in the examples.


texts: What is the organization called when a group of clans belong to it?

texts:
I'm looking for the word that describes the classification or organization that has many clans.

For example:

Members belong to a Clan and the Clan has many members
Clans belong to a something and a something has many Clans


texts: "The soundtrack, not the vocals, are good": Is this sentence correct?

texts:
I was recently reading something online and found this sentence:

  The soundtrack, not the vocals, are good.

To me it seems that instead of are good, it should say is good, since the subject of the sentence is the soundtrack (Which is singular). However, now when I look at the sentence again with the is, it just doesn't seem right. (Since the is does not seem to match the plural vocals)

Which word is correct in this context? is or are?


texts:
I have been struggling to find a word that I, at one time, had seen in my vocabulary lessons. I am trying to describe something that is "beautiful or attractive" yet also possessing "sadness or melancholy." I think this word was most commonly used in the sense of describing a lady's face, where the poignant feature was seen as "beautifully sad."

I might say "the damsel's face showed lines of worry and stress, and her eyes dripped a touch. Her tousled hair and reddened skin made her a 'pathetic and beautiful' mess."

As much I try searching for this word, "pathetic" is the closest I've come to finding it. This word could be a borrowed one and potentially naturalized.


texts: What should I call a place that sells "street food"?

texts:
Today I went sightseeing in my city. After I got home I wrote the diary in English, but I didn't know what to call a place that sells "street food". Should I call it restaurant, cafe or something else?

Street food:

Update
From Marcin's answer, I searched each words in his/her answer to find out how to call each type of place that sells food.

Food stall

Food cart

Food van (I'm not sure I can call it "Food van" or not, please correct me if I'm wrong)


texts: Meaning: one Benghazi revelation away from impeachment

texts:
Spoiler alert: he's siding with his friend Vladimir Putin and not with President Obama, whom the action star believes is one Benghazi revelation away from impeachment.

I can't get the meaning of one Benghazi revelation. How do I have to understand it? Please, break it down for me. I asked a friend of mine who is a native English speaker from North Carolina and his answer was this: Benghazi was a scandal for Obama. it means that he thinks Obama is in a tenuous position. Well, that doesn't cut as an answer for me. I need to really understand the inner workings of the phrase.

Much appreciated.


texts: What is the word to describe a person who does not have a personal opinion?

texts:
What is the word to describe a person who does not have a personal opinion or stand on a subject?

If somebody says X is right, then you could agree. But if some other person says X is wrong, and you also agree, you are not really expressing your own opinion. You are simply agreeing with everyone else. How do you describe that kind of personality with one word in a formal way? Specifically, someone who cannot make decisions on their own and depends on others' opinions.


texts:
must steps required before a particular tasks are called pre-requisite

what do we call must steps which should be followed after a particular task

post-requisite is not a valid English word i guess , is there replacement ??


texts: How to name a team within IT organization based on its roles

texts: How would you call a team within an IT organization, which has very broad but relatively shallow knowledge about the specific product (compared to its developers) and is responsible for this product's (software) deployment/delivery to client, maintenance and support?


texts: "Customers of product X" or "Product X customers"?

texts:
Does the word order here change the meaning (even slightly)? Is one version less clear than the other?

I conducted interviews with customers of product X and product Y.
I conducted interviews with product X and product Y customers.

I conducted interviews with two sets of customers. Both sentences appear to show that, but does one show that better? Is one ambiguous in some way?


texts:
I was helping my spouse to proof read some reports, shes a preschool teacher.

One sentence that seemed very strange to me was:

"... he fed him self confidently."

As far as I explain it to my self, is that one doesn't feed them selves?!

I suggested changing the sentence to:

"... he eats with confidence."

But my spouse pointed out that in her guidelines there is a point (quoted as is)

  feeding self confidence

Not really sure what that even means but she used that as a suggestion.


texts: What is the origin of being in "hot water"?

texts: When a person is suspected of doing something that is wrong, they are said to be in "hot water". Why? Did law breakers long ago have hot water thrown on them for their punishment? Were they dunked in hot water?


texts: Meaning of "And a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across"

texts: I am puzzled by the line "And a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across." in Dracula. Would any native speaker be so kind to tell me its meaning?


texts: Why is "the enemy have driven the British and French armies to the sea" grammatically correct?

texts:
In Christopher Nolans "Dunkirk" an opening caption appears with the first sentence:

"the enemy have driven the British and French armies to the sea"

My intuition tells me that it should be "the enemy has driven ..." because the enemy is singular.

As I guess that this is not an error, why is it correct?


texts:
Which of these sentences is correct?

The drug is worn off.
The drug has worn off.

Or are they both correct?

If I added the word Now at the beginning of the sentence, would the correct answer remain has?

Now the drug has worn off.

I would assume the answer would be the same with or without now.


texts: I want to say on social media that I am blessed to have my daughter, but I am not religious and find it awkward when people respond saying that they are sending prayers my way. I appreciate the sentiment, but I'd still like a non-religious word that holds a similar connotation.


texts: Definite article with the names of trains

texts:
I've heard and seen train names that consist of common nouns take a definite article (eg: the Orient Express, the Sabarmati Express, etc., according to Wikipedia.).

I don't know if it's the same case with train names,

1) That consist of a proper noun or the place name they travel from/to (eg: Rawal Express, Pakistan Express, etc.).

2) That consist of more than 1 proper noun or the names of the places of both the origin and the destination (eg: Visakhapatnam - Secunderabad Duronto Express, etc.).


texts: Different pronunciation of "o" in done, lone and gone

texts:
In what case and why is letter 'o' pronounced as 'ʌ' like in the word 'cut' /kʌt/?

Done is pronounced /dʌn/ while other words of the kind are pronounced  differently: lone, bone, tone.

Why is gone pronounced /ɡɒn/?


texts:
I always find myself using phrases such as "fear shot through him" or "adrenaline shot through his veins" or "a shot of adrenaline coursed through him".  What are some other words that I can use to replace shot in these instances?

Fill in the blank: Relief _ through his veins.


texts: In a book I read about all kinds of behavioural oddities people displayed when travelling alone. Then the author continued to mention his own idiosyncrasies by writing "Me, I get a sort of interrogative diarrhoea, I ask private, internal questions (...)". What, I wonder, is the function of/grammatical term for "me"?


texts: Do complex sentences always need a conjunction?

texts:
"At her age, Minggay Awok's only companions were a few charcoal black chickens."

Because of "At her age," does this make the sentence complex, or is it still a simple sentence? I do know complex sentences are supposed to have conjunctions, but this phrase clearly cannot stand on its own.


texts: Could "totally implausible" mean "impossible"?

texts:
The question "What is the difference between 'impossible' and 'implausible'?" has generated an interesting discussion on the differences, if any, between "totally implausible" and "impossible".

More precisely, the debate arose from the following statement:

  Probably, in some contexts, "totally implausible" could mean
  "impossible."

Since it seems that there is controversy on this matter, as the following comments show,

"there's certainly scope for disagreement about what exactly totally implausible means. There's no doubt in my mind that the negating im- prefix is doing something subtly different when applied to “plausible” vs. “possible”. Even if not everyone (or perhaps no-one) agrees with me on that point."
"implausible is often used thus, as if implausible and improbable were synonyms; and what is "totally improbable" is, by definition, impossible. But I think this is a misuse: "not seeming probable" is not the same thing as "not probable". Plausible speaks to perception, probable to fact."
"Not sure I agree that totally implausible could mean impossible. Why does the addition of the adverb change the meaning of implausible to impossible?"

I wonder: could "totally implausible" mean "impossible?"


texts: Why do people use “mayday” and not “help”?

texts: I’m not native English speaker, so I wonder why forces like policemen and firemen and such use  Mayday instead of the simpler Help. What is origin of this habit?


texts: What does "frost your pickle" mean and where did it come from?

texts:
I hear my mom say this all time:

  Well doesn't that just frost your pickle?

I usually laugh because it sounds funny, but honestly I have no idea what it's really supposed to mean, in the sense that I don't really understand why "frost your pickle" makes sense as a phrase. She uses it to express a feeling of annoyance (I guess).

Can anyone identify the history/origin of this phrase? Why is the phrase used in this way?


texts: An English expression for 'femme fatale'

texts: Femme fatale, meaning "an attractive and dangerous woman", is a French expression which has become part of the English language roughly since the beginning of the 20th century. Is there another English word or idiomatic expression which conveys the same meaning?