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What is the difference between "I've come to realize" and "I have realized"? I've come to realize. I have realized. Could you simplify the meaning of each sentence in very very simple English so that I can get the difference easily. Could you clarify with more examples? <Q> In many contexts there's no real difference. <S> But including come to before the primary verb is effectively a "spatial" figurative usage, implying you have "traveled" some considerable distance (in time , and/or between different widely-separated mental states ) before "arriving" at your realization. <S> Therefore. <S> I have <S> come to <S> realize X would normally be interpreted as meaning it took some time before you realized it (perhaps because initially you didn't want to accept the reality of X). <S> It might help to contrast... <S> 1: <S> He gradually realized it was actually quite simple. <S> 2: <S> He instantly realized it was actually quite simple. <S> 3: <S> He came to realize it was actually quite simple. <S> 4: <S> He gradually came to realize it was actually quite simple. <S> 5: ? <S> He instantly came to realize it was actually quite simple. <S> ... <S> where #1, #3, and #4 are semantically more or less equivalent, but #5 is idiomatically unlikely, to say the least. <S> A couple more points are worth making. <S> First, neither of OP's examples are likely utterances - you usually realize something <S> [that you didn't know before] . <S> The second point is a bit more subtle. <S> Idiomatically, I realize it's simple <S> usually simply means <S> I am aware <S> [that] it's simple , with no implication that you're having that realization now (or indeed ever had it in the past - you could quite reasonably say <S> I realize you love me, Mum without implying there <S> was ever a time when you didn't know this). <S> There's probably a connection between the way Simple Present works with realize and the fact that Present Perfect isn't very often used except where the act of realizing is adjectivally modified (as in OP has gradually realized it's not as hard as he first thought ). <S> As the name suggests, Present Perfect implies a connection to time of speaking , so that last example implies something like <S> It took me a while to realize this, but eventually [and very recently] I have done so . <S> There's no real point in referring to the past "act of realizing" unless you want to say something about how that happened - you may as well use Simple Present if it's only relevant that you know it now . <A> It also implies you completed your realisation. <S> "I have come to realise" <S> Implies you have recently been realising something. <S> This realisation is on-going, not sudden but progressive. <S> In contrast with the above, it doesn't explicitly state if you already completed your realisation. <S> More simply: <S> "I have realised" Implies recent realisation. <S> "I have come to realise <S> " Implies a recent progressive realisation. <A> Use "have come to realize" when you want to highlight that it has taken you a bit of time or effort before you begin to realize. <S> The sentence "The ambience is not the same as what we have come to expect at the place." also suggests a sense of nostalgia.
| "I have realised" Implies you have realised something, recently.
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The sentence with all but I've made the sentence: The airport was built all but with the techonology I mentioned earlier. I'm trying to learn how to use the all but idiom in the sentences. I'm nt sure about the sentence, it seems a little wierd to me. <Q> Most the examples that I can think of mean this figuratively. <S> I don't let her cook anymore; she all but burnt the house down the last time she tried. <S> She probably didn't literally almost burn the house down, but the speaker/writer is trying to say that's how bad her cooking was. <S> My dog all but bit the face off the last salesman the last time he was around, <S> So they don't come around my house anymore. <S> Again, the dog has likely not literally bitten anything, but the speaker/writer is trying to say that's how scary the dog was. <S> So, given this: The airport was built all but with the technology I mentioned earlier. <S> This implies that "with the technology I mentioned earlier" is something that would push "airport" over some type of limit/threshold. <S> It is difficult to know for sure what that is without more surrounding context, but I would guess it has something to do with intrusive surveillance or security technology. <S> It is odd to use all <S> but like this. <A> I think why your construction sounds weird is the placement of the word "with". <S> It seems like it should be: <S> The airport was built with all but the technology I mentioned earlier. <S> " <S> All but" is modifying "the technology I mentioned earlier". <S> Here, it's short for "all (technology) but the technology I mentioned earlier", where the "but" is to mean "except". <S> It's strange to move the "with" in between them for the same reason it would be strange to see: <S> The airport was built all technology but with the technology I mentioned earlier. <S> And this clearly doesn't make sense since with our conjunction "but", we should be able to look at the first phrase and have them make sense: <S> The airport was built all technology <S> Clearly, this is begging for a "with" between "built" and "all technology". <A> The "all but" idiom describes something that is as close as possible to being [adjective] as it possibly can without actually being [adjective]. <S> For example: "I was all but unconscious after that boxing match. <S> " <S> A boxer might say this after he had a very close match where he was probably delirious or coming very close to being knocked out, but managed to win in the end. <S> This post might help: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/9967/all-but-idiom-has-two-meanings
| All but X is often used in colorful language to express that something has done everything possible to almost, but not quite, cross a limit or threshold that should not be crossed.
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How is cohesion different from adhesion? I am trying to understand cohesion, but it looks similar to adhesion . I want to know how cohesion is different from adhesion Could you please give an example (basic English)? I am trying to understand this from the computer science perspective. <Q> Cohesion generally refers to the ability/tendency of a homogeneous substance or mixture of different things/ingredients to... <S> cohere - to hold together firmly as parts of the same mass (alternate) - to be logically or aesthetically consistent <S> Adhesion generally relates to the ability of something to... <S> adhere - <S> to stick to something : to attach firmly to something (alternate) - to hold fast or stick by or as if by gluing , suction, grasping, or fusing <S> (Italics mine, to emphasize those aspects that normally distinguish the two words.) <S> Thus one could say that something exhibits cohesion <S> all on its own <S> (it stays together in a lump), but adhesion normally implies sticking to something else . <S> I'm not aware of any domain-specific sense of adhesion in the context of computing. <A> Cohesion has a specific meaning in Computer Science that relates to the similarity of elements within a larger system. <S> While it is most commonly used in software engineering to describe how closely the methods of a class are related to the purpose of the class, it can also used in broader terms - you could say that the StackExchange family of communities are a quite cohesive system. <S> I've not heard of adhesion being used in relation to CS although adhere as a verb is used - we adhere (or, at least, we should try to) to standards. <S> So, you could say that "we adhere to best practice in OOP by ensuring that we write classes with with a high degree of cohesion." <S> I guess that you could mangle that sentence to use both adhesion and cohesion and still have it make sense, but it would sound awkward. <A> In my notes from my 2016 programming practices class, there's Coupling: <S> The degree of reliance on other modules/functions. <S> Cohesion: <S> The degree to which a function adheres to one task.
| In the context of software, cohesion refers to the degree to which the elements of a module belong together .
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What is the meaning of this sentence? "as having" is the confusing part I am reading a text about how literature can be used to shape moral behavior in kids. But I don't seem to understand the meaning of this segment. This part "...as having narrative meaning", what does it mean? Here is the text: In addition, children acutely understand their own moral behavior as having narrative meaning, and moral stories provide a blueprint for the internalization of moral behavior <Q> If it's the sentence structure that you're unfamiliar with, here's how to think of it: <S> [The subject] understands [the object] as having [attributes] = <S> [The subject] understands that [the object] has [attributes] <S> If it's the content of the phrase that is the issue, PerryW successfully translated it for you. <S> This excerpt is a good example of "academese," the complicated and confusing language that most scholars use when they write. <A> I had to dig up a copy of the article to be sure of this, it comes from a study called "The Hidden Virtues of Harry Potter: Using J.K. Rowling's Novels to Facilitate Character Education with Juvenile Delinquents" <S> Narrative meaning here is the same as saying that they see their behavior as a component of the story that they place themselves in. <A> For a simple paraphrase, try children acutely understand that their own moral behavior (has)/(relates to) narrative meaning or children acutely associate their own moral behavior with the meaning of the narrative
| The writer is saying that children see their own lives in the form of stories and equate their own behavior to that of characters in fiction.
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Is it ok to use 'Empire' twice in a sentence? I went through this source when I read the following sentence: It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the short-lived First Mexican Empire , followed by membership in the United Provinces of Central America, from which it formally declared sovereignty in 1847. Now, my questions are: Do they talk about the British Empire while using 'empire'? Here, if it is not directly told, then what's the need to write it, and that too in small letters? Is it necessary to write? Is it ok to remove one 'Empire' in the following way:It remained a peripheral colony until independence as part of the short-lived First Mexican Empire,... Thank you for your help. Can the sentence change the meaning? <Q> The sentence before the one you post is Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous people before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. <S> Now to answer your questions 1 <S> The "empire" is a common noun. <S> It does not need to start with a capital letter. <S> It refers to the Spanish Empire (which is the name of an empire). <S> We are supposed to equate "Spanish rule" with the Spanish Empire. <S> Obviously you didn't do this. <S> Some readers may also know that the First Mexican Empire is the name used to talk about Mexico in the early days of its attempt to gain permanent independence from (the empire of) Spain. <S> This may help to make the mental leap from "the empire"to "Spanish rule" = "Spanish Empire." <S> Overall, for an "encyclopedia" entry, I think it requires its readers to make too many mental leaps (it assumes too much knowledge on the part of the reader). <S> 2 <S> If you take out "of the empire" from the sentence, we immediately ask "a peripheral colony of what?" <S> The use "of the empire" (note the direct article) tells us it is of an empire that the writer expects to know about, and this is why we are meant to equate "the empire" with the previously-mentioned "Spanish rule. <S> " This is probably why the sentence uses the word "E/empire" twice, and it is "okay" to do so. <A> For your first question, the empire is referring to the Spanish Empire, but to the same extent as if it was referring to the British one. <S> It is not capitalized because it is referring to the empire not as if it was explicitly the Spanish Empire, but rather, to the empire the Mexico was a colony of. <S> It is saying the empire that Mexico belonged to, which happened to be the Spanish Empire. <S> In that sense; since it's not a proper noun by itself it need not be capitalized, and since the "Mexican Empire " is proper, it is capitalized. <S> As for your second question, you can write it without the first empire , since the sentence still has the same meaning: <S> Mexico was a colony at one point, but then it became independent. <S> It is just saying the same thing with fewer details. <A> In general, avoid using the same word twice in one sentence. <S> It sounds awkward to repeat words. <S> Exceptions include short, common words like "he" and "the", and cases where you are deliberately making a parallel. <S> This is not an absolute rule but simply a guideline. <S> If eliminating the duplication makes the sentence difficult to understand, live with it. <S> But none of those exceptions apply here. <S> There is an added problem with this sentence that the word "empire" is being used to refer to two different empires, but this is not clearly spelled out. <S> The common solution to this problem is to reword it to use some alternative to the word you were tempted to repeat. <S> In this case, I'd be inclined to write something like, <S> "It remained a peripheral colony of Spain until independence as part of the short-lived First Mexican Empire, followed by membership in the United Provinces of Central America, from which it formally declared sovereignty in 1847." <S> RE capitalization: Many words can be used as both part of a proper noun and as a common noun. <S> The word is capitalized when used as part of a proper noun, and is not capitalized when used as a common noun. <S> In this case, the "Spanish Empire" versus "an empire". <S> That said, sometimes a generic word is used as a proper noun and capitalized. <S> For example, when I was growing up near New York City, people in the region routinely referred to it simply as "the City". <S> The Hebrew Bible routinely refers to the Mediterranean Sea as simply "the Sea" and the Euphrates River as "the River", and in English Bibles they are capitalized like I just wrote them. <S> And note I repeated the word "capitalized" many times in the above paragraph, and I don't think I made it particularly awkward.
| And, lastly, for the question in the title, it is perfectly fine to use the word empire twice in a sentence, especially since the two empires mentioned are different empires, not the same ones, so it is not redundant.
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May I say "It is less than 1 minute to print the paper"? I know that we can write the sentence in the title as It takes less than 1 minute to print the paper. But is It is less than 1 minute to print the paper. also correct? What I want to emphasize is that it is very fast to print the paper. <Q> I think you should rephrase as "The printing takes less than one minute" if you really want to emphasize the speed. <S> If you say, "it is less", you should be comparing to something else, which you are not. <S> For example, you might say "it is less than 5 dollars". <S> Overall, when you refer to "it" in your sentences, you are talking about the printer. <S> The printer is not "less" itself, but it "takes less" time to print. <A> What is the context? <S> If you are saying that a specific printer is very fast, you need to be more quantitative. <S> "It takes less than one minute to print N pages." <S> If you are telling a person that his job will be done quickly, say: "It will take less than a minute to print the paper." <A> Part 1: <S> Okay, you want to emphasize on the printing speeds right? <S> First of all, the way printing speeds are measured (depending on the printer type) is characters per minute (cpm) for character printers <S> lines per minute (lpm) for line printers <S> pages per minute (ppm) for modern laser printers <S> We do not measure the printer speeds by papers per minute . <S> So both your sentence constructions are technically wrong because of the wrong unit of measurement and grammatically wrong as well. <S> It is technically wrong because, when you say print the paper , it actually means "to print the physical paper " a few years ago this might have sounded dumb, but now a days you have 3D printers right, they print 3D objects, so I can say something like " My printer(3D printer) printed this toy in 5 minutes " which does not mean that the printer printed something on the toy , it means, <S> the printer printed the toy . <S> So "It takes less than 1 minute to print the paper ." <S> sounds like the printer physically printed the paper, which is not right. <S> You might ask, why " a page"? <S> what about " the page"?. <S> Part 2 Ignoring the technicalities, it must be printing <S> a paper and not printing the paper . <S> When do we use the ? <S> we use <S> the to point to unique and/or singular things. <S> example <S> The Sun (even thought it is just one of billions of stars, the earth has only one Sun) <S> The Moon <S> The Taj Mahal <S> but in your sentence it is just a sheet of paper from a stack of papers <S> right? <S> So to put it in your own words you can say It takes less than 1 minute to print a page or <S> It takes less than a minute to print a page . <S> This way it emphasizes the speed. <S> I am sure there are better ways to re-phrase it, <S> but I guess you are not a native speaker of English <S> and you have tried to just directly translate your thoughts to English. <S> So this will do fine. <S> If you want to be very specific about the speed you can mention something like <S> It can print 100 pages per minute or something similar. <A> I have to imagine the context here. <S> Say I have a new printer, and I want to tell someone how fast it is. <S> As a test, I'm using a multi-page paper (e.g., maybe a paper written for school, or maybe a technical research paper). <S> In this situation, the first sentence is something I would say, as a native US English speaker: <S> It takes less than one minute to print the paper. <S> In this context, the second sentence is not what I would naturally say, because I'm commenting on the amount of time an event takes, not what something is. <S> Note that a key assumption I'm making is that "paper" doesn't mean "a sheet of paper."
| So the correct form of the sentence would be "It takes less than 1 minute to print a page".
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Difference between "get" or "have "? I am wondering what is the subtle or delicate difference in meaning between the following? A. I had my hair blonde B. I got my hair blonde <Q> In this particular case, where the verb "dyed" is implied (I got my hair dyed blond, I had my hair dyed blond), there is no difference. <S> More generally, to "get" something usually suggests taking part in some action, while to "have" simply establishes that you possess or control it. <S> In these cases, get and have are used as verbs. <S> Sometimes "have" is used to establish tense <S> (I have owned my car for 10 years), and in this case it does not have (see the usage?) <S> the same distinction. <A> The word "had" in your first sentence could mean that sometime in the past, your hair was blond, but your hair is no longer blond now. <S> Another possible way to write your sentences would be: A. <S> My hair was dyed blond. <S> B. <S> My hair is dyed blond. <A> The two sentences you said are, as WhatRoughBeast said, ommitting the dyed . <S> If you say "I got my hair [dyed] blond" you are saying that, in the past, you went and had someone dye your hair while if you say "I had my hair [dyed] blond" <S> you are saying that, at some point in the past, your hair was made to be the color blond. <S> They are very similar. <S> This is an example of perfect past, where the verb have in its past form is used with another verb ( dyed in this case), to form a statement that says something happened in the past.
| The word "got" in your second sentence implies that you recently changed your hair color to blond and that your hair is currently blond.
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"This was the first place I ever worked" - or is it "I have ever worked"? Any difference in meaning? A. This was the first place I ever worked . B. This was the first place I have ever worked . Do you feel any difference in meaning between these? Thanks in advance <Q> As a native US English speaker, I sense no difference in meaning between the two sentences if you were to speak them. <S> However, if you were writing, you should probably have used the second sentence to be grammatically correct. <A> They differ in the usage of either past simple (the first) or past perfect (the second). <S> Past perfect is important when multiple events are discussed and there is an order in which they occurred (which is not the case here, since only one thing is being said, and therefore, both are acceptable). <S> See Simple Past and Past Perfect for more details. <A> These are deceptively simple. <S> (now what did he mean by that-- <S> they're simple but they don't seem to be? <S> Or they seem simple <S> but they aren't?) <S> What's deceptive about this particular example? <S> Well, we know that if it ever was the first place he worked, then it still is the first place he worked, and will always be the first place he worked. <S> So we tend to overlook faux pas in verb tense because of that certainty. <S> A) <S> This was the first place I ever worked. <S> So it should be "the first place I had ever worked <S> ** ". <S> But we can't be sure the narration is in the past. <S> Assuming it's in the present, it makes more sense to say " that was ". <S> But either way it calls for had worked . <S> And in any case, it seems he is no longer working there now. <S> Whether he is working now (or indeed whether he has ever held any other job since the first one) is indetermininable. <S> The use of "ever" is apparently for emphasis. <S> It suggests that the speaker might have been trying for some time to get a job before he landed this(that) job. <S> ("Ever" would seem almost required if you were to say "the only place I [ever] worked ".) <S> (B) <S> This was the first place I have ever worked, <S> This has conflicting tenses. <S> "this was" (past) does not go with "have ever worked" (present perfect.) <S> It should say <S> "This is the first place I have ever worked." <S> (it's your first job, and you are still working at it) <S> Or... See (A).
| By using "this was", you set the time frame, and the narration, in the past. This two sentences don't really have any differences in the meanings of them, and they would both be understood by a native English speaker.
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"She had grown up, and it was said that she became a barmaid, kind and generous." - is it awkward to use Past Perfect here? From a lang-8 post I was proofreading: A long time ago, there lived a little girl. ... [some things happen: the girl meets a travelling priest etc.] ... The wisdom of his words changed the girl forever. Since then, when someone asked about her father, she said with a smile, "I am a child of Luck". She had grown up , and it was said that she became a barmaid, kind and generous. One rainy night, a young man clothed in rags came into her tavern. I changed the bolded phrase to grew up , but could it be that the Past Perfect is possible here? If the PP is erroneous here, it's hard for me to come up with a nice explanation why. What could be the main obstacle to using the PP in this sentence? The conjunction and ? Maybe "it was said" is too diffuse in duration too? I also guess that "it was said" occured after she became a barmaid, this complicates the picture. What if we delete "it was said": She had grown up and became a barmaid, kind and generous. Would this be okay? <Q> It is perfectly natural to use the past perfect in she had grown up . <S> What is awkward is to link "she had grown up" with verbs that are not in the past perfect. <S> Thus, both She had grown up, and it was said that she became a barmaid, kind and generous. <S> and She had grown up and became a barmaid, kind and generous. <S> do not link with precision the clause <S> she had grown up with the actions of the rest of the sentence. <S> The second version is especially jarring. <S> I can hear an almost audible clank when I read that sentence. <S> To take full advantage of the conjoining nature of and , both actions will be cast in the past perfect: <S> She had grown up and (had) become a barmaid... <S> The first sentence is not as bad, probably because the intervening narrative and <S> it was said that (or even the active and people said ) <S> connects <S> she became a barmaid in some nebulous time relationship to she had grown up . <S> The only thing we know about when the entirety of and it was said that she became a barmaid is that it is after the moment expressed by she had grown up . <S> But years, decades could have transpired in between. <S> Thus, unless one enjoys living in such a nebula, even the first sentence can be tightened by using the past perfect: <S> and it was said that she had become . <A> The second example is not the same, since it states what she became. <S> In the first phrase it is second hand information; we really don't how she is now. <S> Also I would stay with grown up , since "growing up" is a process that occurs over time. <S> Also there is no point in time related to the statement. <A> Yes, the past perfect is possible in your example, but I'd castle the last two sentences and get the following sentence, as in journalistic style: <S> She had grown up and become a barmaid, kind and generous, it was said. <S> The main obstacle on using the past perfect might be the most common mistake with the past perfect that is to overuse it . <S> This said remember that we only use the past perfect when we want to refer to a past that is earlier than another time in the narrative.
| The past perfect summarizes all that came before in her life, even if this was a process, up to the moment in time that the narrator utters those four words.
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Meaning of 《are to》and《go-ahead》and《ever-closer》in this news article Mr. Schäuble stressed that he was not pushing the Greeks to take any particular course and that in any case he was only talking about a temporary exit from the euro. But coming a day before German lawmakers are to give the go-ahead to negotiate the details of the bailout package for Athens, his remarks were evidence of a continuing deep ambivalence among conservatives in Germany about the costs of keeping Greece in the currency zone and a greater willingness to question whether the goal of “ever-closer union” in Europe should be reassessed. My first question has to do with are to . Does it mean are going to or something else? Is it a grammatical matter? I think go-ahead is a noun and ever-closer is an adjective but I have no idea what they really mean. <Q> But coming a day before German lawmakers are to give the go-ahead to negotiate the details of the bailout package for Athens, his remarks were evidence of a continuing deep ambivalence among conservatives in Germany about the costs of keeping Greece in the currency zone and a greater willingness to question whether the goal of “ ever-closer union ” in Europe should be reassessed. <S> Germany's lawmakers are due to meet in a day's time and take a decision on whether to allow to start negotiations regarding a bailout package for Athens. <S> " Go-ahead " - if upon their meeting Germany's lawmakers decide to allow the negotiations to begin, this would mean they have given the go-ahead to this process. <S> " Ever-closer union " - a union in which countries have more and more ties as time passes. <S> A union which becomes closer and closer in its nature with the passage of time. <S> Borrowing a definition from Macmillan , ever <S> : used before a comparative adjective or adverb for showing that something is growing or developing all the time <S> The tax laws grow ever more complex. <S> Our aim is an ever closer union of nation states. <A> The way it is written, the phrase are to is used to use the verb be to talk about the future. <S> Essentially, it is the same as expected to. <S> Are to is used for official matters (i.e verdicts are to determine his sentence). <S> For the words go-ahead and ever-closer : <S> go-ahead , n. Permission to proceed Ever closer is just a hyphenation between the two words "ever" and "closer. <S> " It is an adjective that means closer than it has been before. <A> You can read it this way: But coming a day before German lawmakers are expected to give the go-ahead to negotiate the details of the bailout package for Athens, ... <S> It is an expectation, but we don't know that it will actually happen. <S> Your last sentence is correct.
| " Are to " - are scheduled to, are expected to.
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"Every time I eat (I'm eating) crabs, I feel (I'm feeling) sick" - what difference the continuous aspect makes If I say "Every time I eat crabs, I feel sick" (it is a usual fact that will last all my life.) But is it possible to say "Every time I'm eating crabs, I feel sick." Does it change the meaning of the first part of the sentence? when I say that I am not necessarily eating crabs right now. Would it be possible to say "Every time I'm eating crabs, I'm feeling sick", what would that mean... a temporary situation ( won't last all my life.) <Q> It would be possible, but we don't. <S> There is no meaning added by using the present continuous in this example. <A> Whenever I eat crab, I feel sick afterwards. <S> Or Whenever I've eaten crab, I feel sick. <S> The last tense I'd choose would be the progressive, unless I wished to imply that the sick feeling comes over me while I'm having the meal. <S> An important thing to bear in mind here is the sequence and nature of the actions. <S> As we can see from the last example, the sick feeling can be an incipient feeling (begin to feel). <S> In the first example, using the present tense, we have habitual action; to make abundantly clear that the sick feeling is the result of eating crab (and not the reason for eating crab), we use afterwards . <S> Whenever I eat chicken soup, I'm feeling sick. <S> In the case of the chicken soup, it is eaten because you feel sick. <S> The implication is that you don't normally eat chicken soup, and treat it as a remedy. <A> The repeated use of the progressive form is usually used to indicate immediacy, usually as part of an informal sort of storytelling. <S> "I'm visiting my in-laws, see? <S> And every night they feed me these really good crabs. <S> And every time I'm eating crabs, I'm feeling sick. <S> And then it hits me - they're trying to poison me!" <S> Contrast this with a more standard use of tenses. <S> I went to visit my in-laws, and every evening we had excellent crab dishes. <S> I soon noticed that every time I ate these great crabs I felt sick, and I realized that my in-laws were trying to poison me.
| In fact, using "every time" makes it clear that you are not talking about now , so the present continuous is inappropriate. Whenever I'm eating crab, I begin to feel sick.
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Coupling words that express uncertain things with "will", which indicates likelihood or certainty The following quotation is from Anthony Trollope's The Small House at Allington : But it seems as though she will be so far separated from us. It is not the distance, but the manner of life which makes the separation. I hope you'll never be taken so far from me. The expressions it seems and as though both indicate or give the impression of something that is uncertain, irreal or hypothetical, that is, is not palpable or tangible. On the other hand will indicates a strong likelihood or certainty, yet they are coupled together. The whole thing puzzles me, I just can't understand the way they are doing properly their jobs in the sentence in question. If I were to write that sentence I would probably use would instead of will but I'm not sure of both the author's reasons and if my suggestion might be correct. Would you please throw some light on this so as to help me understand it? <Q> I would probably use 'would' in a sentence like that if I was discussing something that might or might not happen: <S> If she goes, it seems as though she would be so far separated from us. <S> On the other hand, I would be more likely to use the author's construction if it was something that was definitely going to happen, and I was talking about what I thought the result would be: <S> When she goes, it seems as though she will be so far separated from us. <S> It's also worth noting that 'will' does not have to imply a strong certainty. <S> It indicates that the speaker/author has no reason to signal un certainty, but it's a default option as much as a positive signal. <S> If a positive indication of certainty is needed, most people will add an extra modifier such as 'will definitely' or 'will obviously'. <A> But it seems as though she will be so far separated from us. <S> It is not the distance, but the manner of life which makes the separation. <S> I hope you'll never be taken so far from me. <S> It seems... <S> It feels (to me)... <S> or It appears (to me)... ...as though she will be so far separated from us. <S> as if she is going to be separated from us by a great distance. <S> The "as though" is an acknowledgement (like "as if") that the separation is not literally by a great distance. <S> It is the "manner of life" that will separate them. <A> The word will in this sentence simply indicates future <S> tense, not certainty . <S> The sentence is saying that it seems likely or possible that something will happen sometime in the future. <S> For example, if I see you packing your bags, I might say, "It seems as though you will be going on a trip. <S> " I don't know for sure, but it seems probable. <S> And you're not on the trip yet <S> -- I'm just guessing that you will go. <S> Consider these additional examples where will doesn't indicate certainty: <S> I doubt I will go to the lake tomorrow. <S> I don't think he will ever walk again. <S> Do you think I will win the lottery?
| The use of 'will' indicates that the event is certain to happen, while the weaker 'it seems as though' indicate that the results of that event are subjective and/or uncertain.
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'Suggest helping' vs 'Offer to help' - in reported speech My English exercise book has a question related to reported speech like this: Choose the sentence which is closest in meaning to be printed one “Shall I help you with the washing-up, Jane?” John said. A. John told Jane to help him with the washing-up. B. John asked if Jane should help him with the washing-up. C. John suggested helping Jane with the washing-up. D. John offered to help Jane with the washing-up. Even though the given answer key is D, I still think C can be another choice. If you don't think so, could you kindly explain what makes D is the only choice in this case? <Q> C. John suggested helping Jane with the washing-up. <S> Consider some contexts in which this sentence might occur. <S> Julie asked John what she could do to speed things up. <S> John suggested helping Jane with the washing-up. <S> Jane pointed out that Julie was old enough now to have some regular chores, and asked John if he had any ideas. <S> John suggested helping Jane with the washing-up. <S> suggest <S> VERBing does not imply that VERB has any particular subject; specifically, it does not imply that the subject suggests that <S> he <S> should VERB . <S> Consequently, this sentence does not, as the quotation does, imply that John made an offer to help; it at most puts helping Jane forward as a good idea. <A> It's one of those English niggles in that it comes down to a distinction between "shall" and "should". <S> "Shall" is a modal auxiliary verb, the first-person version of "will", and indicates the future tense. <S> Frankly, I see your point in wondering about the validity of C, because shall is used as a suggestion in other contexts, but this is an offer to help, and not him suggesting it as an exciting night out. :) <A> " C is awkward. <S> He suggested helping Jane, to whom? – Damkerng T. 4 hours ago <S> I agree with @DamkerngT. Answer C <S> does a good job of capturing the meaning of> >the original quote, but it's not written in good English. <S> J.R.♦ 4 hours ago" <S> Actually, it's perfectly correct English, although the use of the past tense verb with a present participle is less common in modern use; also, there need not be a person to whom he needs to suggest anything - sentences do not require an object, only a subject. <S> suggest VERBing does not imply any particular subject to VERB; it merely puts >VERBing forward as a good idea. <S> Consequently, this sentence does not, as the >quotation does, imply that John made an offer to help. <S> It doesn't need to imply anything, because it states it pretty explicitly in that sentence, by using the pronoun, "Jane". <S> He VERBED Jane. <S> ahem <S> Not what I meant. <S> And you don't "verb" a subject, anyway, subjects verb objects , but - as mentioned above - <S> you don't need to explicitly state <S> the object - a sentence need only have a subject and a finite verb in order to be complete. <S> Importantly, "helping" isn't the finite verb in that sentence - "suggested" is.
| It should say >something like, "John suggested that he could help Jane with the washing-up." – >
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"My scarf falls off on you." Can "on" go after "fall off"? My scarf falls off on you. Does the sentence make sense when we use "falls off on" ?Could "on" go after "fall off"? Or, can we avoid the "on" totally and still have a sentence that makes sense? like: My scarf falls off you. <Q> This is to fall off + a prepositional phrase (in this case the preposition is on) To your example: <S> My scarf fall off on you. <S> With a singular subject it needs to be falls off on . <S> In your example, it seems like you referring to a past occurrence, so I would use: <S> My scarf fell off on you. <S> A more sensible use of falls off on <S> might be: <S> If my ring is too loose it falls off on the table. <S> In your second example, it is different when you write: <S> My scarf fell off you. <S> You substituted the prepositional phrase on you with a direct object (you), so the meaning changes. <S> This phrase is saying that "you" had the scarf on, and it fell off. <S> But it does not say where it went. <A> This should be a comment, but I don't have the rep on this site to comment. <S> I am trying to visualize the situation. <S> Who is wearing the scarf? <S> If the speaker is wearing the scarf, is she bending over the other person? <S> If so, say: "My scarf fell on you", or, if it is happening as you speak: "My scarf is falling on you." <S> If the other person is wearing your scarf, the Answer above, which says "My scarf fell off you" works, or, if it is happening as you speak, "My scarf is falling off you." <S> You would not say "My scarf fall....." as "scarf" is singular and takes the singular "falls". <S> "My scarf falls onto you" is technically OK, but sounds odd, sort of pseudo-literary. <A> That means that I {am/was} wearing it, then it {falls/fell} off of me and onto you . <S> But if you change it to My scarf {falls/fell} off you. <S> It means "You {are/were} wearing my scarf, then it {falls/fell} off of you. <S> "(Where <S> it goes <S> /went, we know not.)
| Yes, you can say My scarf {falls/fell} off on you.
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Word for describing 'water accumulated on roads' I was making a phone conversation with one of my client. I had promised him to do a meeting at a certain place. But I wanted to cancel that meeting because most of the roads on my route had accumulated rain water and it was raining heavily. For that I used the phrase 'road are blocked because of heavy rains' Can you let me know a key word that could describe the road condition. <Q> I would say something like: <S> The roads are flooded by heavy rain. <S> (this usage might be Indian English-specific) <S> Most of the roads have been rendered impassable by heavy rain. <S> Examples from the media: <S> "Many roads remain impassable and are covered by water ." <S> ( source ) <S> "Another day of downpours brought more water-covered roads . <S> Several roads in South Moorhead flooded Wednesday and Thursday North Fargo got the brunt of it." <S> ( source ) <A> Surface water is another word for rainwater – more specifically, rainwater that falls on the ground, on roofs and roads , pavements and paths. <S> As an example usage similar to OP's context, consider... <S> I was forced to drive slowly due to the pools of surface water on the roads. <A> (A slight deviation to @FumbleFingers' answer) <S> Standing water is quite possibly the term. <A> There is really nothing that unnatural with your own words (which is often the case here; people tend to overthink things): <S> Most of the roads on my route have accumulated rain water and it is raining heavily. <S> I might reverse the terms, because and can suggest a cause-and-effect relationship or a Step-1, Step-2 sequence: <S> It is raining heavily and (to my knowledge) <S> most of the roads on my route have accumulated rain water. <S> If in the US, you could add: <S> According to the National Weather Service there are Flash Flood Warnings in the area. <S> And remind your client of the possible peril: <S> I really don't think it is safe for either you or me to risk driving over a low-lying area where there is water over the road <S> All the above are natural phrases for a telephone conversation. <S> Or just keep it simple: <S> It's raining hard and there's a lot of water on the roads (in my area). <S> [It's not safe to drive.] <A> A slightly alternative phrasing would be <S> The roads are inundated and impassable. <A> Puddles, large or small forming everywhere on the road after a few showers is appropriate in the Indian context. <S> The puddles form not because of the rain being heavy or light but because of improper laying of the road.
| The roads are waterlogged .
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What do you call in the USA the people of English ancestry? What do you call the ethnic group of people who are of English ancestry? Do you call them Anglo-Saxons? <Q> Amusingly, at least to those non-Americans who have the pleasure of talking about this subject with Americans, the customary term in conversation is: "English". <S> Similarly, those of German ancestry are called "German", Korean ancestry "Korean", and Zimbabwean ancestry "Zimbabwean". <S> As a culture of immigrants, we more or less wear our ancestry proudly and directly. <S> It doesn't matter how many generations back it goes. <S> Note that this is specifically for use in the US: if you are in Ireland, for example, it would be inappropriate (and potentially rude) to call yourself Irish. <S> This is a fairly common faux pas of Americans abroad. <S> If you are referring to a context in which one would be expected to understand that these individuals are not, in fact, English immigrants but simply Americans of English descent or heritage, you are left with explicit constructions to that effect: Americans of English descent/heritage are concentrated largely in the East, while those of East Asian descent/heritage are in the West <S> Anglo-Saxon tends to stand in for all white Americans in popular usage. <S> At this point I would recommend being quite explicit that you mean the truly Anglo-Saxon ethnic group if you want to use that term, but it has historical meaning only and is in no sense cultural. <S> I assume that this usage is a result of the popularity of the term "WASPs" (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), but I don't have any hard data on that. <A> In the US, we have lots of ways to discuss this depending on what we're talking about: <S> One option is to use the term "heritage" to discuss our origin. <S> I'm of "Italian heritage". <S> We can also enumerate where we come from. <S> The US is the " Great Melting-pot ", so most people are a mix... <S> I'm half Italian, part British, and a little French... <S> and there's some other random stuff in there, too. <S> This means that my parents are from families that came from Italy, Britain, France and a few other places. <S> We often use fractions if we know about what part of our family came from a particular place, and <S> terms like "part" and "a little" if we don't know how much. <S> So, if someone wanted to say that they're English, they could say: I'm of English heritage. <S> I'm 100% English. <S> My family is from England. <S> They could also say British, as that's generally taken to be synonymous. <S> In some circles they might say "Anglo-Saxon"... <S> but I don't think most people know what the term means any more, so it's easier to say the country name. <A> I have never called anyone an Anglo-Saxon. <S> However, to be technical, Anglo-Saxon does mean "of English descent." <S> But that word is rarely used. <S> There is the term WASP , which means "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant." <S> But this is more of a sociological term (see the definition), and by its literal definition excludes: non-whites and non-Protestants. <S> However, as that article shows, this term can also have other meanings, therefore its usage can cause confusion and even dissension. <S> If you want to narrow it down, you can use: English-American . <S> See the same wikipedia article. <S> I do not know anybody who uses that term. <S> Maybe some people do--probably only those who find it important to claim that they are of English descent. <S> British-American is problematic, because Britain encompasses more than just England.
| In the USA, as your question asks, a more common term is Anglo-American .
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No longer ago than yesterday I want to say that something happened yesterday and put emphasis on the fact it was only yesterday, that is recently. Can I put it like this: I saw him no longer ago than yesterday. And if I am mistaken, how would you say it, then? <Q> You are not wrong and your statement would certainly be understood. <S> But I would simply say "I only saw him yesterday" or "I saw him only yesterday". <A> Here is another way to say it. <S> This emphasizes the fact that you saw him recently. <S> I just saw him yesterday. <A> To add to Gill’s answer. <S> Assuming you did not see him before yesterday and saw him yesterday. <S> I first saw him yesterday. <S> It was only yesterday that I saw him for the first time. <S> I saw him for the first time yesterday. <S> Assuming you saw him yesterday and also saw him before then. <S> I saw him yesterday. <S> The last time I saw him was yesterday. <A> To add to Ian's answer , the type of construction used in <S> is called a cleft sentence . <S> Cleft constructions are used to stress one or other part of a sentence. <S> The cleft construction seems like a nice way to express the Russian "не далее чем вчера", "не далее как вчера" ("no longer ago than yesterday"). <A> I notice when there is a strong emphasis on matters related to a precious day, it is typically referenced by using the term "...just...". <S> An example: We were driving together just yesterday. <S> Another example: <S> It just happened last Wednesday. <A> long ago is usually used with a duration: <S> How long ago was that? <S> 3 days ago I would use "no later than" instead: <S> I saw him no later than yesterday.
| It was only yesterday that I last saw him.
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Shall I use better understand or understand better? I want to say by reading 'name of the book', I better understand the concept of '...' is this correct as far as grammar is concerned? <Q> I know this is a purely subjective answer, <S> but I can't for the life of me <S> think why, it is just my (British) English native intuition. <S> Either way, your options are <S> "Help me understand <S> X better" and <S> "Help me better understand X <S> " NOT "help me understand better X" <A> It's incorrect to place an adverb between the verb it modifies and the same verb's direct object. <S> Here, better is the adverb, understand is the verb, and the concept is the direct object. <S> You can place the adverb before or after the verb-object phrase (e.g. "better understand the concept" or "understand the concept better"), but not within it (e.g. "understand better the concept"). <S> Note that some people do this anyway, particularly in artistic or casual communication. <S> In a more formal setting, it might be considered at least pretentious, if not completely ungrammatical. <A> In my view, both are grammatically correct, but "I better understand" may be much more suitable for stylistic reasons. <A> Google Ngrams shows that 'better understand' has become much more common than 'understand better' in the last 50 years. <S> Admittedly, this Ngram search misses instances of 'understand X better', but even so, the trend is very clear.
| It is grammatically correct to use either, however to me, the construction "better understand" does sound much more natural to me.
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Order of adjectives: "thick ugly brown sweater" or "ugly thick brown sweater"? Usually we put an adjective that gives an opinion in front of an adjective that is descriptive. If so, why is "He was wearing his thick ugly brown sweater.", considered correct? If I say, " He was wearing his ugly thick brown sweater.", am I making a mistake? <Q> To me as a native US English speaker, they both sound about the same, and equally correct. <S> They may convey slightly different shades of meaning. <S> Note that commas are used between adjectives when the order can be changed without changing the meaning <S> : He was wearing his thick, ugly, brown sweater. <A> I am not a native speaker. <S> I will go for the adjectives order as I have read in Grammar i.e. observation + size + color. <S> So the correct sentence is: <S> He was wearing his ugly thick brown sweater. <A> I'm going to have to suggest that it depends. <S> Specifically, it depends on which aspect of the sweater is important to the speaker, or which aspect the speaker thinks the listener would find important. <S> The first adjective in a list is usually the one which the list-maker considers most important. <S> To choose "Ugly, thick, brown sweater" draws more attention to the speaker's opinion of the sweater. <S> This would be important if the speaker wishes to subtly prejudice the reader against the wearer.
| "Thick, ugly, brown sweater" could be preferred if the speaker wants to emphasize that the sweater makes the wearer look bigger or bulkier (the emphasis is on the external, less personal aspect).
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How else can I say "went out of sync"? I'm trying to improve the following sentence: "Search criteria and results went out of sync." How can I rephrase this sentence so that the meaning is retained without using "out of sync"? <Q> I'm also having a little trouble understanding the context and what you really want to say, but perhaps one of the following is what you want: <S> These results no longer match the search criteria. <S> or These results no longer reflect the search criteria. <S> or These results have expired and no longer reflect the search criteria. <A> You could say The search criteria and the results did not match. <S> The results did not correspond to the search criteria. <S> Note that if you wanted to use the phrase "out of sync", this sounds more natural to me than your example above: <A> Try Search criteria and results began to diverge. <S> or Increasingly, results failed to match search criteria. <S> or Increasingly, search criteria failed to produce useable results.
| The search criteria and the results were out of sync.
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Is Vague the opposite of Vivid? I can say: I have a vague memory of something. I have a vivid memory of something. So are they opposites? <Q> In that one use (in relation to memories), it could be argued that they are. <S> I have a vague memory of something. <S> Means <S> I can barely remember it <S> but I can remember it a little bit. <S> I have a vivid memory of something. <S> Means <S> I have a very strong, clear memory with lots of details. <S> In general, though, they are not opposites and would not be used together.. <S> A photograph with "vivid colors" could not be compared to a photo with "vague colors"... <S> I'm not even sure what that means. <S> The common opposite would be "muted colors". <S> If you have a "vague idea" about how you're going to do something, the person who knows exactly how they are going to do it would have a "clear idea". <A> Vivid means stimulating, bright, loud, lively. <S> It isn't used to describe the visual look of something very much. <S> I would not call a work of art "vague", for example, unless the work of art was intended to communicate something (like a sign) and failed. <S> Dull is a better antonym of vivid , as it can mean things that are not stimulating, not bright, not loud, not lively, "boring", etc. <A> But imagination is "merely the vivid but vague association of images with passion," while reason, the governing faculty of physical science, associates images "according to facts observed in nature" (Jonathan Smith, 1994) Sapir and Whorf's writings on this matter tend to be vivid but vague , as the following quotation from Whorf illustrates: We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. <S> (Paul Elbourne, 2011) <S> And especially this quote: <S> My memory of the events that followed is both vivid and vague . <S> Vivid is the emotional climate - a sense of relief about the change, about being able to leave this accursed place, where we had spent almost two years - <S> two painful, frightened, and hungry years. <S> Vague are details of geography, of people. <S> ( Lilka Trzcinska-Croydon, 2004 ) <S> Still, the fact that this latter writer feels the need to explain why her memory is both vivid and vague <S> indicates that "a vivid memory" of something would in many (or most?) <S> contexts be in opposition to "a vague memory" of something. <S> Here's another example with "memory": <S> There is support of this kind for the idea that memory for trauma can be both exceptionally vivid and vague or disorganized, depending on how the study is conducted and what type of memory is targeted. <S> ( Friedman et al., 2014 ) <S> One more radical antonym to vague with respect to a memory (of something) is probably distinct : <S> Pete Doherty: ' <S> I have a distinct memory of friends I had at school whose parents were, for want of a better word, bohemian. <S> It would be harder to say "my memory of that experience is both distinct and vague " compared with vivid and vague , IMHO. <S> With "vivid and vague" <S> we can have a division of labor: a memory is "emotionally vivid" but "factually vague". <S> But it's hard to have an "emotionally distinct" or "emotionally vague" memory, so this division of labor is less possible. <A> You are right. <S> Vague is the opposite of vivid. <S> Alternatively, you can use clear instead of vivid.
| Vague means "imprecise" and is usually used for describing someone's words or communication. In relation to a memory (of something), you could say that they are opposites with a measure of certainty, but there are instances in literature when the writer uses them as adjectives that do not exclude each other:
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Can we use the verb "arrive" with the preposition "to"? I don't think the verb arrive can be used with the preposition to . I'm certain about it, but of course I had to come here, since I was reading news on Dailymail and in the news there was a sentence which seemed wrong to me: ...the man continues to lead her through the house reassuring her while reminding her: 'No peeking!'When they arrive to the room where the surprise is stored the man behind the camera begins to sing Happy Birthday to Bianca at which point she removes her blindfold." <Q> This does not mean that "arrive to" is always wrong. <S> In five minutes, a locksmith will arrive to help you get into your car. <S> (You have locked yourself out of your car, and called an organization which aids motorists in need of help.) <S> Note that in this example, "to" is not used as a preposition, but as part of a verb. <A> You are correct. <S> The excerpt you quoted is incorrect. <S> It would be correct to say, When they arrive at the room... <S> or When they get to the room... <S> but "arrive to" is always wrong. <A> Your article is an example of incorrect usage. <S> Justification: <S> To is a preposition of movement, and arrive does not show movement. <S> You walk to , but do not arrive to . <S> Prepositions that can be used with arrive are at, in, and on.
| In the particular use you have given, it is true that "arrive at" is correct. Arrive cannot be used with to.
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How and where to use "There be Dragons" I've only known or seen "There be Dragons" as interchangeable with "Here be Dragons" as in the context of internet meme maps that make fun of countryside areas. Like this one . However, In a different post on ELL I found an answer with "There be Dragons" in a context I couldn't quite figure out. From the proficiency of the written answer I am assuming this usage of "There be Dragons" has a distinct meaning that isn't an anomaly specific to that particular English user. "These terms have comparative (darker, fairer) and superlative (darkest, fairest) forms and can be used of people of any complexion. So you could describe a white person with brown hair as being darker than a redhead. So you could, if you had reason to, describe someone as simply a very dark African-American (though "African-American" is really not very common outside of America). Although it is worth noting that there be dragons . However, it is not necessarily politically incorrect or offensive at all and such terms can obviously be very useful if discussing racial politics or prejudice or whatever." <Q> "There be" is not current in modern English. <S> The author is alluding to contexts in which quoting this phrase from old maps occurs. <S> It's a facetious or quaint way of saying "This is a contentious subject and some people may take offense. <S> Proceed with caution." <S> When to use it? <S> Whenever pirate talk is appropriate. <A> If i understand well, he uses there instead of here because he talks about a land outside of where he is so here would not fit in this particular context. <S> But the meaning is exactly the same. <S> Also for a more in-depth explanation of the expression you can check here be dragons on wikipedia or as @Nathan Tuggy suggested in the comments the wikitionnary page <A> Medieval mapmakers used to draw dragons, sea serpents, and various other creatures in dangerous unexplored territory on maps. <S> " <S> The phrase is also occasionally used jokingly in programming, usually right before a section of particularly difficult or complicated code.
| "There be" is a conjugation that is no longer frequently used; it's used here as a reference to the era of the Dark Ages because it sounds old. Here there be dragons" is a phrase meant to be humorous referring to that, saying that this territory (usually metaphorical) is too dangerous for further exploration.
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Is "unidisciplinary" a valid word? Is unidisciplinary a valid English word? I want to use it as an antonym of interdisciplinary . <Q> Your meaning would be understood but I think you'd be inventing a word. <S> Try: <S> specialized <S> narrowly-focused field-specific "Esoteric" also comes to mind, but be careful with that one; it's a bit formal / wordy and <S> more accurately means "understood by few" than "pertaining to a single discipline". <A> While "unidisciplinary" may not appear in any general dictionary, its use is well-attested, as a simple Google search will show. <S> In addition, a unidisciplinary healthcare team is defined, according to Mosby's Medical Dictionary . <S> The word also can be spotted in Hospice: Practice, Pitfalls, and Promise (1998). <S> "Unidisciplinary" is attested as far back as 1978, in Strategy Formulation as a Learning Process: An Applied Managerial Theory of Strategic Behavior . <S> This gives it a longer pedigree than "google." <A> Monodisciplinary is the word you need. <S> Unidisciplinary means completely opposite. <S> It means more than metadisciplinary, in short knowledge without disciplines. <S> It is used by Emmanuil Wallerstein in his "World Systems Analysis" to refer to this meaning.
| "Monodisciplinary" can also be spotted.
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"My other" or "My another" Which of these two sentences are correct? a) My other sister is taller than me b) My another sister is taller than me <Q> Each noun phrase has one determiner slot. <S> It can't have two determiners in a row. <S> [ My other sister] is taller than me. <S> This sentence is fine. <S> In the noun phrase my other sister , the determiner slot is filled by my , a genitive pronoun. <S> The following word other is an adjective, not a determiner. <S> [ Another sister] is taller than me, too. <S> This sentence is also fine. <S> In the noun phrase another sister , the determiner slot is filled by another , a determinative. <S> This word was formed by compounding an + other . <S> I'm sure you already know <S> you can't put <S> my and an together, because that would be two determiners together. <S> For the same reason, you can't put <S> my and another together. <S> * <S> [ My another sister] is taller than me. <S> This sentence is ungrammatical. <S> Why? <S> Because the noun phrase only has one determiner slot, but you've tried to fill it twice . <S> In this answer, the * symbol marks a sentence as ungrammatical. <S> (Reference: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002), p.391) <A> a) is correct. <A> b) is incorrect. <S> another as used in b) is a pronoun (def. 4). <S> You can't use two pronouns (my, another) together like this. <S> a) is OK. <S> In this example, other is an adjective (def. 1).
| You could say "Another sister is taller..." but not "My another sister..."
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Is "when" a conjunction in "I was going to call you when I got home." Is the word "when" a conjunction in: I was going to call you when I got home. If it's a conjunction I suppose "when" is usually reduced, what I mean by that is that the vowel in the word "when" is pronounced with a schwa sound. I said usually because I know stress can be shifted for special emphasis. Am I right? <Q> I was going to call you when I got home. <S> In the sentence according to the modern grammar when is a preposition. <S> Except a few, modern grammar classifies as preposition all the words that tradition grammar calls subordinating conjunction or simply subordinator. <S> They argue that like verb why a preposition can't take a declarative clause. <S> A verb as a head can take a NP as complement. <S> He hit him . <S> [The verb - hit - takes NP - him - as a complement] <S> But a verb as head can also take a declarative clause as complement, but then grammarians don't call them something else other than a verb. <S> I remember <S> you promised to help . <S> [The verb - remember - takes a declarative clause - you promised to help - as a complement] <S> So if a verb is called a verb regardless whether it takes a NP or a declarative clause as complement, then why a preposition to be called a conjunction if it takes a declarative clause as complement. <S> Hence modern grammarians decided to call it a preposition even if they take declarative clause (though they call if, whether etc subordinator). <S> I was going to call you when I got home. <S> Because it connects two clause. <A> Though dictionaries often label "when" as an adverb (So in Oald), the Oxford Guide to English Grammar by John Eastwood says: We form an adverbial clause of time with a conjunction, eg Mozart could write music when he was only five. <S> (Paragraph 250) <S> By the way, you can download this grammar. <S> For more information on this grammar Link <A> No, it is not a conjunction. <S> Here 'when' is an adverb. <S> I was going to call you when I got home. <S> Take for instance the below segment of the sentence: I was going to call you. <S> Okay <S> when? <S> When I got home. <S> An Adverb is a word that describes or adds more meaning to a verb. <S> Call is the verb here and when is an Adverb of Time .
| If we try to explain the POS of when from the point of view of traditional grammar, it's a conjunction, a subordinating conjunction that is.
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Can I say "I'm making power to get out from my bed."? When you wake up lazy and don't want to rise up, can you say: "I'm making power to get out from my bed."? <Q> No, that's not something a native speaker would say. <S> Some options would be: <S> I'm gathering the strength to get out of bed. <S> I'm marshaling the will to get out of bed. <S> I'm mustering the energy to get out of bed. <S> Note that the correct preposition here is "of", not "from". <S> Also, saying "my bed" isn't wrong, but you could just say "bed", since it's more or less implied that you are sleeping in your bed. <A> I think it will be funny if I say I am making power to get out of bed as it will normally mean that I am generating or making electricity to get out of bed. <S> There are many verbs that can be used in the sentence. <S> For example, gather (up), muster (up), summon (up) my strength/energy. <S> As I am not a native speaker and I don't know what the native speaker says in this situation, I will go for the easy verb, that is, gather. <A> I would say: I have to force myself to get out of bed.
| I am gathering (up) my strength/energy to get out of bed.
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Do I need an extra "had" in the following sentence? Since we had postponed my dog's burial, Mom had (had) to find a way to preserve him. This sentence is in the past tense and the narrator is talking about what happened days ago. Since it's in the past tense, do I need an extra "had"? Why or why not? (By the way, do I need the first "had"?) EDIT: Some context: the narrator (who's telling the story in past tense) and the mother agreed to postpone the dog's burial on June 19. And at the time the narrator is saying the sentence it is June 21 (still in the past). <Q> There are two actions in the past. <S> The postponement of the dog's burial is earlier than the other action in the past. <S> We don't use an extra had; you will simply use "had to" to make the sentence in the past simple. <S> So the correct sentence is: Since we had postponed my dog's burial, Mom had to find a way to preserve it. <A> No, you don't need to use an extra had there as the postponing occurs before the preservation. <S> So the simple past will go just fine in your second sentence <S> , that is you need the first had . <A> You can use it, but in both spoken and particularly in written English, it would usually be avoided. <S> The reason it is grammatically and semantically correct is that "had" is being used with two different definitions here, and the first "had" is simply helping to conjugate the second "had". <S> In addition, just like what the other couple of people have said, anybody reading the sentence can tell what you mean just fine by looking at the first part of that sentence (this being grammatically correct as well). <A> There are valid uses for all of the following: <S> Since we postponed my dog's burial, Mom had to find a way to preserve him. <S> Since we postponed my dog's burial, Mom had had to find a way to preserve him. <S> Since we had postponed my dog's burial, Mom had to find a way to preserve him. <S> Since we had postponed my dog's burial, Mom had had to find a way to preserve him. <S> It's a matter of what else is going on in the context. <S> The way I think about this construction is that "had had to" is in the past's past. <S> If you're telling a story about last week, and it's relevant to the story that Mom had <S> already found a way to preserve the dog, then I'd use "had had to", e.g.: <S> My Grandfather came over last week, intending to surprise my little sister with an ice-cream birthday cake. <S> It didn't go well. <S> My dog had died the night before, but Dad was at work late. <S> Since we had postponed my dog's burial, Mom had had to find a way to preserve him. <S> She had chosen the deep freezer in the garage. <S> When Grandpa snuck into the garage and opened it to hide the dessert, he screamed, dropped the cake, and brought us all running to see who was breaking into the house. <S> Since the story takes place last week, and the preservation was before that, the simple past tense would seem insufficient.
| And yes, you do need the first "had" in the sentence if you want to have precisely the same tense, though it won't really affect the general idea of this particular sentence. The reason it would usually be avoided, especially in written English, is that everybody knows this looks strange, and it can often be misunderstood as a typo.
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Just because people don't talk doesn't mean they don't think Just because people don't talk doesn't mean they don't think. Some people(non-native speakers) say this is grammatically incorrect.It is acceptable in casual conversation, but it should not be used in business or formal speech. They say, grammatically speaking, "Just because people don't talk" cannot be the subject of the sentence. Is this true? I often use this type of sentences. <Q> It's perfectly grammatical. <S> It's mainly an informal sentence pattern, and so it's true that it's usually avoided in formal style— <S> but that's not because it's ungrammatical. <S> Grammaticality and formality are two very different things. <S> The basic pattern looks like this: (just) because + clause + does not mean + <S> that -clause <S> This is covered in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) on page 731: <S> Because is the most central and versatile of the reason prepositions. <S> A PP with <S> because as head can occur in subject or predicative complement function as well as adjunct: <S> [24] <S> [i] Because some body parts have already been turned into commodities does not mean that an increasing trade in kidneys is desirable. <S> [24] [ii] <S> The reason I didn't call you was because the phone was out of order . <S> Because could be replaced by the fact that in [i], that in [ii], and these latter versions would be widely preferred in formal style. <S> In the subject structure [i], because is often modified by just , and the matrix VP is more or less restricted to <S> doesn't mean : Just because you're older than me <S> doesn't mean you can order me around. <S> As you can see, this sort of PP can occur in subject position, although it's basically limited to this particular sentence pattern (as CGEL says, "the matrix VP is more or less restricted to <S> doesn't mean "). <S> One last note: <S> grammar is a description of how native speakers use the language. <S> Certain learners may be unwilling to recognize because -PPs in subject position, but if native speakers regularly use and accept them anyway, all this means is that the grammatical description used by those learners is inadequate. <A> It depends who you ask. <S> However see also this response to the contrary under Can a “because clause” be a subject clause? <S> [duplicate] . <S> See also the answer by snailboat that cites the CGEL. <S> According to explanations found in many traditional grammars, the because clause forms a subordinate clause and cannot be used as a subject. <S> According to this line of thinking, this is just as ungrammatical as the sentence without just : <S> Because people don't talk doesn't mean they don't think. <S> Frankly, the version without just sounds "off" (questionable) to me. <S> For those who find this ungrammatical, they might point out that using a different conjunction is just as ungrammatical: <S> Whenever people don't talk doesn't mean they don't think. <S> Therefore, some would say that the grammatical version is: Just because people don't talk, it ( or: this/that) <S> doesn't mean they don't think. <S> However, as noted, the original version is certainly used in vernacular or everyday speech. <S> Now we come to the power of the people. <S> If the people want to use "because" in the same way they use that , then the sentence can be judged as grammatical--although this may not be accepted by everybody. <S> As for the that clause, it is grammatical to say/write: <S> That people don't talk doesn't mean they don't think. <S> This is grammatical, ( subordinate ' <S> that' clauses can function as the subject ) but people don't go around talking like this. <S> Perhaps this is one reason that the specific construction you ask about is popular. <S> However, you may find it practical to appease everybody by not using the (just) because versions in writing and formal/business speech. <A> I think your sentence is the way people talk. <S> But if you want better grammar I suggest <S> The fact that some people don't talk does not mean they don't think.
| To many folks who answered the ELU question Sentence Construction: “Just Because … Does Not Mean” , it seems it is ungrammatical .
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What does "our pass the popcorn moment" mean? Here is from Paul Krugman's blog. So, over the weekend we were told that our pass the popcorn moment — I mean, our long national nightmare — was over: Donald Trump would implode now that he had dared to question John McCain’s heroism. ( source ) I wonder what "our pass the popcorn moment" means.I know he meant by it "our long national nightmare", but I don't know what the "nightmare" has to do with "pass the popcorn". <Q> "Pass the popcorn" implies that watching Trump talk was entertaining. <S> Specifically, it is being compared to watching a movie, an activity often accompanied (in the U.S.) by the consumption of popped corn. <A> There used to be a better word for this, which is a nice long German one: <S> Schadenfreude - "pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune." <S> There are some awesome German words that just hit the nail on the head. <S> The "pass the popcorn" thing evolved into eats <S> popcorn (where you emote that you are eating the popcorn). <S> You intend that the individual knows, by this comment, that you find them laughable because they are only providing you with entertainment. <S> The candidate is a joke, is the immplication, here. <A> I think that the above definitions have missed a vital component. <S> A popcorn moment is when you callously watch a fight between two groups of people YOU DISLIKE for pure entertainment value. <S> The point is that the outcome can only be good because you have nothing you value in the fight and are quite happy to see either of both sides suffer. <S> The popcorn illustrates that for you it is just light entertainment and the fact that the others might suffer is of no concern.eg Michelle Obama in punch up with Hillary Clinton.
| Pass the popcorn means that you callously do not care about the pain of the individual, and you are watching them for amusement.
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"Where will you go" vs. "Where you will go" Which sentence is correct between these? Where will you go? Where you will go? <Q> Number 1 is correct. <S> When we construct a statement -- not a question -- in English, we normally phrase it subject / verb / object. <S> Like "You / go / to the store. <S> " When there's a "helping verb", like "will" or "do", it goes with the verb. <S> "You / will go / to the store." <S> But when we construct a question in English, it's normally "interrogative word / helping verb <S> / subject / regular verb / object". <S> By "interrogative word" I mean a word like who, when, where, how, etc. <S> So, "Where / will / you go?" <S> "Why / did / Bob / leave? <S> " Etc. <A> Where will you go? <S> This is a direct question which needs a direct answer. <S> EXAMPLEQuestion: <S> Where will you go?Answer: London. <S> Where you will go?This could be a response to what someone has said and in some way can be rhetorical. <S> EXAMPLEJohn <S> : I don't know where I will goMabel: <S> Where you will go? <A> In questions you have inversion of subject and verb, i.e. the subject is in position 2: Are you British? <S> Have you seen it? <S> Can you talk English? <S> Do you understand me? <S> In questions with question words the subject is in position 3: <S> Why are you here? <S> When did you see it? <S> Why have you done this? <S> Who can we trust?
| They are both correct depending on the context in which it is put.
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Difference between "Should" vs "ought to" It's essential that the documents (should)/(ought to) be destroyed immediately. Which one is more suitable one as I know "ought to" and "should" are synonyms. <Q> Well, if it's essential , use neither: <S> It's essential that the documents be destroyed immediately. <S> Otherwise, the difference is in the connotation. <S> Ought to sounds more like a directive, as in "We ought to destroy these documents (and who's going to do it?) <S> " <S> EDIT: <S> As @ErikE points out, these is another use of "should" related to this. <S> If these documents were so dangerous you couldn't risk anyone being near them, you could say: Burn the building down, that all documents therein should be destroyed. <S> In this case, should is used to mean will be , while lending more poetry to the language. <S> This is a somewhat archaic usage, though still understandable and definitely a unique, attention-grabbing way of saying the same thing. <S> The gravity of this phrasing could even be used humorously: <S> Please pour me a beer, that I should slake my thirst Puts far more importance on beer and thirst than is normal. <S> As Erik alluded, connotations of kings and epic battles can be expected, as this syntax sounds vaguely Shakespearean. <A> In constructions like this, where should is replacing the subjunctive, you can only use <S> should and not ought to . <S> Google says it finds over a million results for "necessary that they should be" (and is willing to show me 500, if you don't trust their counts—as you shouldn't). <S> It finds two hits for "necessary that they ought to be". <S> If you're writing for an American audience, you should probably just use the subjunctive: "essential that the documents be". <S> But "essential that the documents should be" may be preferred for a British audience. <A> "ought to" and "should" can be synonyms, but aren't necessarily. <S> Aside from what's already pointed out in the other answers: By themselves: "ought to" makes it clear that it is a decision made by the speaker. <S> "should" can be used in that sense as well, but can also be used in other senses. <S> The documents ought to be destroyed immediately. <S> This is clear and means I see a problem with not destroying the documents. <S> The documents should be destroyed immediately. <S> This could mean that I see a problem with not destroying the documents. <S> It could also mean that even though I do not agree, I acknowledge the decision made by someone else to immediately destroy the documents. " <S> Ought to" isn't (generally?) <S> used like that. <S> But if it's essential, then don't use either, use "must". <S> The documents must be destroyed immediately. <S> Combined with "essential": As already answered, "it's essential that [x] should [y]" and "it's essential that [x] <S> [y]" have become somewhat fixed expressions. <S> We do not choose based on the correctness, as they are both correct. <S> We choose based on how common they are. <S> If we choose a highly uncommon version, people may focus on our odd English, instead of focusing on the message we're trying to get across. <S> As for "it's essential that [x] ought to [y]", <S> do not use it. <S> It does not make sense: "it's essential" attempts to make the claim objective. " <S> Ought to" attempts to make it subjective. <S> It cannot very well be both.
| Should has a slightly weaker sound to it, as if the documents should be destroyed, but other concerns could be more pressing.
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May I use "wtf" with a non-question? -- "wtf I just watched." I know that usually people write: "wtf did I just watch?" But is "wtf I just watched" a correct English sentence as "I just watched" is a correct English sentence and adding wtf should not make such difference. <Q> No, it is not correct. <S> If you expand it, you get "What the fuck did I just watch?", a question. <S> Therefore "What the fuck I just watched?" isn't correct. <A> But is "wtf <S> I just watched" a correct English sentence as "I just watched" is a correct English sentence and adding wtf should not make such difference. <S> No, what follows what the X <S> (X can be a number of words), needs to be a form of to be or emphatic verb starting with a form of to do - like interrogative sentences in general. <S> Wtf is happening? <S> Wtf did he say to me? <A> WTF did I just watch? <S> Is a grammatically correct statement. <S> WTF I just watched. <S> is not. <S> If you have heard someone say this, they propably said: WTF, I just watched... Using WTF as an interjection, then describing the cause for their distress. <S> For example, I could be watching some sports game, and exclaim: <S> WTF <S> , I just watched that player cheat! <S> after seeing a player break a rule and not get penalized. <S> So "WTF" can sometimes be used with a non-question, depending on how it is used. <S> If it is used as a question (which, grammatically, it is) "WTF" cannot be added to a non-question.
| If "WTF" is used as an exclaimation/interjection followed by a non-question (as in my sports example), it is grammatically correct.
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Adding extra information in a sentence Can I say The man who is tall, his name is John, his grand-father died two years ago. To first point him out and then add extra information? <Q> But really, no, it would look clumsy, because it strings three phrases together with commas and no conjunctions. <S> The technical term is " comma splice ." <S> You appear to be attempting to use apposition , setting off extra information in a sentence with punctuation both before and after. <S> That's fine, but when you do that, the rest of the sentence has to work by itself. <S> When you hide your appositive ("his name is John"), what you get is <S> The man who is tall his grandfather died two years ago. <S> That doesn't work as a sentence. <S> Here are some ways you might fix it using appositives: <S> The man who is tall—his name is John—had a grandfather who died two years ago. <S> The tall man, whose name is John, had a grandfather who died two years ago. <S> Notice that dashes allow you to break normal sentence structure in a way that commas don't. <S> The trade-off is that dashes should be used much more sparingly than commas. <A> Possible alternatives, given varying situations (ie, whether recounting after the event, or talking to someone present): <S> In one sentence (recounting): The tall man called John had a grandfather who died two years ago. <S> If you are taking to someone present, it is more natural to split up the sentences into shorter ones (since pairing an adjective with a possessive pronoun is often confusing): <S> That tall man over there is called John. <S> His grandfather died two years ago. <A> That is not a grammatically correct English sentence because it has multiple subjects and predicates. <S> A sentence should have only one subject and one predicate. <S> You can have compound subjects, like "Bob and Sally", or similarly compound predicates, like "ran and jumped". <S> You can have complex sentences where multiple nouns and/or verbs appear in subordinate clauses, but these have to be structured correctly. <S> In your example, you COULD say, "The man who is tall, whose name is John, has a grandfather who died two years ago." <S> Or, "The grandfather of the tall man named John died two years ago." <S> Or numerous other variations. <S> You could break it up into multiple sentences. <S> "The man is tall. <S> His name is John. <S> His grandfather died two years ago." <A> A couple of other options to consider -- I'm imagining this as dialogue, with one person pointing out John to someone else: <S> See that tall man? <S> His name is John, and his grandfather died two years ago. <S> The tall man right there -- his name is John, and his grandfather died two years ago. <S> These might not be perfectly correct grammatically, but would be natural and understandable informal spoken US English.
| No, you can't say that!
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What does "up" mean in "mark up"? I was reading about the story of the markup languages and noticed that the term markup came from the phrase to mark up . I'm confused about what does up mean in this context. I learned in school that the word up means all in many phrases. For examples, eat up, and drink up. I'm not sure if up means all in to mark up because what is the meaning of "all" in this context? <Q> Mark up is a phrasal verb . <S> English has many of these. <S> Mark up can have a different meaning than mark , though it is related in meaning. <S> The second word in a phrasal verb sometimes doesn't have a lot of meaning in itself, or clear relation to the first word, and in those cases is just a signal to change the meaning of the first word. <S> Up appears as the second word in a lot of phrasal verbs, e.g. make up , get up , shut up , write up , etc. <S> You are correct that up <S> can mean all with certain verbs (e.g. finish up ). <S> It can also function as an intensifier (e.g. clean up ), or mean something like "on it's own" (e.g. clear up ). <S> To add confusion, sometimes a two-word verb can have a separate meaning phrasally, yet still be able to be used non-phrasally. <S> A lot of times the difference in meaning depends if the subject is a person or a non-person. <S> Me and my girlfriend are breaking up. <S> (To break up = to end a relationship) <S> The snowball broke up in the air when I threw it. <S> (Literal meaning of break = to disintegrate with up meaning "on it's own" or an intensifier). <S> I told that annoying person to shut up. <S> (To shut up = to stop talking) <S> I shut up the cellar door. <S> (Literal meaning of shut = to close with up functioning as an intensifier.) <A> From a computer point-of-view, which is the only time I've come across that word, it is used in HTML - HyperText Markup Language. <S> In this particular case, Markup is another word for 'special code' or just 'code'. <S> You place markups (codes) within a source text file and those markups tell the browser extra information about what is being taggged or "marked up". <S> I suspect that the last example, the 'marking up' verb usage is was converted to a noun and this is why markup is used. <S> Apparently, this word has been used in publishing / word processing for a while: from http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/markup : <S> Markup refers to the sequence of characters or other symbols that you insert at certain places in a text or word processing file to indicate how the file should look when it is printed or displayed or to describe the document's logical structure. <S> Markup also is used to denote the amount a merchant increases the price of goods over what they were purchased. <S> Buy at $1, sell at $3, the markup is $2. <A> It's colloquial in origin, as in mess up . <S> Take it is idiom. <A> If I simply "mark" a manuscript, I might only put one mark on it. <S> If I "mark up" a manuscript, the implication is that I have put many marks all over it. <S> Idioms of the form "< verb > up" often imply completion, or fully changing the state of the object. <S> (Historical context of "markup": Before computer typesetting was common, a piece of text to be printed would have marks — annotations — indicating whether a word should be set in a larger font, or italics, etc. <S> These instructions would be added to the manuscript by an editor, and then used by the person who sets the metal type. <S> In modern usage, a "markup language" serves the same purpose: to give the computer instructions about how to display the text.)
| The connotation, I think, is that the piece of paper being marked (the manuscript which the editor is writing annotations on) has many marks, or is covered in marks, or has all the marks that it needs. I guess you could say that text added to documents that describe meta information could be considered a markup, an increase in value or profit, for the target document.
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Should I use perfect or not? I saw an advertisement in the newspaper. I want to send an e-mail regarding the advertisement. Should I write it as: I saw your advert in the newspaper. I have seen your advert in the newspaper. If I read the newspaper just a while ago, should I use the present perfect? <Q> Both are not professional and you'd better to start with something like " <S> According to your advertisement dated... in... " and address the advertisement. <S> (the date, the newspaper). <S> But if you want to know the implication of each: As your email is based on what you have seen, providing they still have the same requirement, you can use the present perfect. <S> This way, you imply that your request is in connection with the advertisement and their need (which is still the same). <S> if you are not sure that they still need the same requirements, you may address the advertisement and use "saw". <A> The exact time of the experience isn't important. <S> I have seen your advert in the newspaper. <S> We use the past simple to talk about a specific occasion in the past. <S> I saw your advert in the newspaper a while ago. <A> I saw your advert in the newspaper. <S> I have seen your advert in the newspaper. <S> The OP says that he read the paper a while ago. <S> You use the present perfect for recent actions. <S> So if you follow BE, you cannot use the first sentence that's in the past. <S> Instead, you should use the second sentence that's in the present perfect. <S> On the other hand, you can use either the first sentence or the second sentence in AE. <S> However, if you are referring to times in the past or in the present, you will form sentences accordingly. <S> For examples: I saw your advert in the paper yesterday, last week, a while ago, etc. <S> I have seen your advert in the paper today, this week, etc.
| We use the present perfect to talk about an experience at any time in the past.
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May I say "Time will tell you [something]"? I am learning how to cook Japanese and Thai food. Some of us have just begun apprenticeship. My master (an experienced cook. He was from Middlesbrough) taught me how to make sushi more than several times, but I just failed to do it. He did not blame me but told me to practise it more. I told him Thank you for your kindness, master. I will do my best and keep practising. Time will tell you that I am a good cook. <Q> Time will tell you that I am a good cook. <S> You can use it to express something that you are not sure will happen: Time will tell whether or not I am a good cook. <S> Taken literally, time is not something that "tells" other than when the above idiom is used, so saying something like Time will tell you X doesn't sound right. <S> But, you are trying to say that you will be a good cook in the future. <S> So you should use in time instead: <S> In time, you'll see that I'm a good cook. <S> In time, you'll see me become a good cook. <A> The correct proverb is "(Only) time will tell", not time will tell you. <S> It means that you will know the outcome, truth, or correctness of something after a period of time or sooner or later. <S> For examples: <S> I don't know if their marriage will be successful. <S> Only time will tell. <S> Only time will tell whether we made the right decision. <A> It is an idiom: (Only) time will tell Prov . <S> You will only know the outcome after time has passed. <S> So in your case it is correct <S> but it is better if you remove "you" from the sentence: <S> (Only) time will tell that I am a good cook.
| Time will tell is an idiom/well-known phrase, but it sounds weird to me to use it to express a definite or expected future event.
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Meaning of "What I really want to do is direct." Can you please help me with sentence "What I really want to do is direct."? I saw it written on a shirt - so without context. What is the meaning of it, how could it be said in other words? <Q> The answers already given are literally correct, in that a director is someone who directs actors on a stage, and the person is saying that they would rather have that job. <S> However, they miss the cultural subtext. <S> Hollywood, where almost all American films and TV shows are produced, is notorious for a very high degree of competition. <S> It is said that every waiter and waitress in Hollywood would rather be an actor, and that every actor would rather be a director, and that every director would rather be a producer. <S> It is a trope or cliche. <S> The example that comes to mind, and I can't remember what film it was in, was of a Roman soldier viciously whipping slaves. <S> Another actor asked him if he enjoyed doing that, and the soldier replied, "I guess, but what I really want to do is direct." <A> It sounds like someone working in the film or theater industry, maybe an actor. <S> If so, they are saying that they want to be a director (of a film or play) instead of whatever they're doing now. <A> Supposing that this is in a context of film making, direct is a verb which means: to be in charge of a film or play and tell the actors how to play their parts ( source ) <S> By placing what at the beginning of the sentence and direct at the end, you draw the reader's attention to it. <S> The construction of the phrase might be a little confusing, this is actually a subclause: <S> What I really want to do <S> and it acts as the subject in the main clause: <S> What I really want to do (subject) is (verb) direct (complement to the subject) <S> The writer restructured this sentence for reasons of emphasis. <S> This is how it would look conveying the same meaning, but without emphasis: <S> I really want to direct. <A> It's a very old and longstanding cultural joke that refers to the idea that in creative fields, particularly Hollywood, everyone wants to be doing something they're not doing. <S> "What I really want to do is direct" is shorthand for, I'm not happy with the glamorous job I already have, I want a different glamorous job. <S> Submitted by a long-time professional screenwriter/script consultant who works in Hollywood.
| The construction of your sentence is used to emphasize what it is that the writer really wants to do . These days, and really since the era of Mel Brooks' comedies, it's often delivered facetiously.
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Can I contract "Where are"? Can I contract "Where are" to "Where're" ? Even if it's not wrong , it's unusual? <Q> " <S> "Where're you going?" is probably the most common usage. <S> Remember <S> contractions are always considered at least a little informal, so don't say this if you're trying to deliver grave news or a formal speech. <S> I don't keep statistics, but if I had to guess I would say that where're is not as popular as it once was in vernacular. <S> I think it's also more commonly said by children, who sometimes slur syllables together since they're not as experienced using the language. <A> In informal spoken English, sure. <S> But I wouldn't use the contraction in written English (I never see it written), unless you're writing dialogue. <A> Yes it's fine. <S> Note that in non-rhotic English, "where're" is pronounced "where-ə" "Where-ə you going?"
| It's not as unusual as you think, and it's not even very awkward to say (at least to me, being a native English speaker). It is indeed contracted just like that, "where're.
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May I use "naive" to mean "inexperienced"? Sometimes I may use "naive" in sentences like I am naive in writing this type of articles To say "inexperienced" I would like to know how common this word is among native speakers of English, or in which situations they use it (through some examples please). <Q> Be careful. <S> Naive (adjective) or naivety (noun) carry more a sense of attitude than of experience. <S> If you are naive , you tend to: believe everything you are told believe that people are good be easily tricked. <S> Even if you were tricked many times and hence in theory are experienced Children are the standard example of naive. <S> If you want to say inexperienced, write inexperienced . <S> You could also describe yourself as a novice or beginner . <A> Naiveté is a result of inexperience; it is not inexperience per se . <S> Therefore, it is impossible to say "I am naive". <S> One can only say "I was naive." <S> But one can say "I am inexperienced". <A> A: <S> He said he was going to leave his wife and marry me! <S> B: <S> That was five years ago and they're still together. <S> Don't be so naive! <S> It's not always a reproach - sometimes it just means <S> innocent and unsuspecting <S> : She entered college a mousy, naive girl, and came out a confident, savvy businesswoman. <S> It is also sometimes used to describe someone's actions, who doesn't suspect anything is amiss in a given situation: <S> "They made up a profile for a girl named Debbie on a dating site. <S> "Debbie" sent me her email address <S> and I wrote her several times to ask her out. <S> They must have gotten a lot of laughs from my naive attempts to meet her." <A> You've got excellent answers regarding the meaning and the use of the word naive , but I would try to explain the meaning of your phrasing instead: <S> I am naive in writing this type of article. <S> This would mean that you came to the conclusion that someone too easily persuaded/convinced you to write this type of article regardless the consequences, in other words <S> , that's not the lack of experience in writing this type of article but the lack of assessment/judgement/discernment of the article's subject. <A> Naive also means being simple and unaffected. <S> It can refer to a lack of sophistication as well. <S> So a naive young man or a naive villager, could also refer to, depending on the context, somebody who is simple and artless. <S> You can say the village girl exuded a naive charm - in which case the word is used in a positive complimentary sense. <A> I have also heard it used in the context of art, Naive Art, meaning childlike / simple in the artistic technique. <S> I have heard the art of LS Lowry described this way for example. <S> As others have said, naive tends to be something you say of others <S> "he was naive to believe her" whereas in your sentence I would use inexperience.
| To be naive is to not know that one's knowledge and experience are insufficient in a given context. To answer your question, we use this word when talking about people when we feel they believe everything they hear, or take things at face value, or can easily be convinced to do anything:
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Alongside the Queen, we were delighted to deliver a speech to the MPs - Does anyone know what this means? Alongside the Queen, we were delighted to deliver a speech to the MPs. Does this mean A) We were delighted to deliver a speech to the MPs and the Queen. or B) The Queen and we were delighted to deliver a speech to the MPs. ? <Q> This sentence means that you were delighted to give the speech to the MP's, but the queen was an observer. <A> That is different from both A and B. <S> The sentence doesn't make much sense to me, as a Brit. <S> The obvious context for "a speech, the Queen, and MPs" would be the state opening of Parliament, but that is a very formal event where the Queen reads out a speech written by the Prime Minister, outlining the legislation for that parliamentary session. <S> A possible interpretation would be that somebody was deputizing for the Queen (because of illness, etc). <S> That person would probably be another member of the Royal Family (e.g. Prince Charles) who would refer to himself or herself using the "royal plural "we", not "I". <S> But in that case, the Queen would most likely not be there at all. <A> Its slightly ambiguous, it could have several meanings. <S> "Alongside the Queen" means that the Queen was present, and standing close to you. <S> She may have given a speech herself. <S> She may have spoken alongside you. <S> She may have been just an observer. <S> You can't tell from this sentence. <S> You could rewrite it: <S> Whilst standing close to the queen, we were pleased to deliver a speech to the MPs. <A> Alongside has at least three possible definitions: 1) close to the side of; next to. <S> "she was sitting alongside him" <S> This is the definition that other answers are reading: "Sitting by the queen, we gave a talk to the members of parliament." <S> This seems unlikely to me. <S> 2) <S> together and in cooperation with. <S> "I worked alongside him for many weeks" <S> This usage is unlikely, and I've never seen it used at the beginning of a sentence like this. <S> 3) at the same time as or in coexistence with. <S> "alongside the development of full-time courses there had to be provision for the part-time student" <S> This third use, while uncommon and I would argue even nonstandard/colloquial, does seem to be the usage that is being used here. <S> So I believe the meaning is <S> "I gave a talk to the queen, and was honored that some MPs watched, too."
| I think the literal meaning is "We were delighted to deliver a speech to the MPs, and when we made the speech we were standing near to the Queen".
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Term to say "how much space a specific market has for new sellers" For example, let's say there is a lot of people demanding furniture but very few sellers, how is the term to say "there's space" / good oportunities due to high demand + little demand satisfaction. <Q> As Chad rightly points out, "seller's market" is often used to describe the general context of demand exceeding supply for an established "commodity" (i.e. - anything we're used to thinking of in terms of it being bought and sold, such as houses, second-hand cars, etc.). <S> But when talking about something that isn't commonly thought of as a "tradeable commodity" (such as a left-handed sewing machine ), you might say there's a gap in the market (to be exploited/served). <A> You could describe this scenario as low market saturation . <S> In an unsaturated market, there's a surplus of demand and relatively few competing supply sources. <A> You would say that it's a "seller's market", meaning that the most of the advantage is with the seller, who would be more free to set a higher price. <S> The opposite is, logically, a "buyer's market", when there are lots of sellers and few buyers.
| Market saturation describes the ratio of supply (especially number of supply sources) to demand: in highly saturated markets, most or all demand is met, leaving little room for growth.
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The meaning of 'shed' The word 'shed' means a small structure for storage to cast off hair, skin And I don't know which meaning is right for the sentence below. Here is the example (from 'Baker's blue-jay yarn' by Mark Twain) You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does - but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you will hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. The words in bold is what I don't understand the meaning of exactly. Does it mean a cat fights with another cat on a shed (a small structure for storage) every night ? or a cat fights with another cat every night while shedding (casting off hair)? <Q> Shed as a verb almost always means "losing skin or something covering oneself". <S> If an article ( a/an , the ) precedes a word, that strongly indicates it's a noun. <S> So a shed is a noun. <S> You might see a shedding which would almost always be the gerund/participle form of the verb to shed . <S> This can mean "an event where shedding took place" or "item produced by the act of shedding." <S> I suppose there may be a tiny chance that to shed means "to put in a shed" <S> but I can't recall ever actually hearing/reading that. <A> Remember that you're reading Twain, who writes in stylized vernacular, so some violations of standard English usage almost always exist. <S> Pulling fur is not generally used to imply fighting but as it's used in Twain's sentence its meaning can be inferred. <S> With that in mind, that is a very important comma in your highlighted words. <S> pulling fur... <S> on a shed, nights, -- means the cats fight on a shed at night and this happens at regular intervals <S> Drop the first comma and the indefinite article... <S> pulling fur...on shed nights, -- now the cats pull out each other's fur on nights when they are shedding. <S> It's implied in this usage that fur loss is due to shedding not to fighting. <S> Perhaps the cats are helping each other? <S> You could also tweak it... pulling fur...on a shed night, -- a reference to a general instance of cats pulling out each other's fur on a night when they are shedding. <S> Once again fur loss is due to shedding. <A> It means this, except at night: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronmstanley/8995461103/in/album-72157634761850963/ <S> Note the link shows a photo on flickr of two cats on a shed, fighting. <S> Twain says "get to pulling fur with another cat" to mean "fighting." <S> So one or both gets might lose some fur because it is fighting, but this is not what Twain means. <S> Twain means "on a shed" as in "on top of a shed. <S> " <S> Cats like to hang out on the top of sheds, because this gives them a higher vantage point to observe things. <S> You can also do an image search for 'cat on a shed' and find plenty of examples.
| Shed as a noun almost always means "a storage building".
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Can "either" be used for more than two items? The Judiciary also uses a special type of monitoring through the General Inspection Office and Bureaucratic Justice Court. Additionally, either of the three powers have internal supervision mechanisms. "Either" in the above paragraph is used for more than two items (three powers). Is it grammatical? <Q> You've asked two questions here; one in your title: Can “either” be used for more than two items? <S> and one in the body of your question <S> : Is this use of “either” correct in the above paragraph? <S> Catija has (correctly, in my opinion) given an answer to the second question. <S> I'd like to answer the first: <S> It depends . <S> As one grammar blogger wrote: When used as a conjunction, “either” implies one of two or more elements. <S> However, if it’s an adjective (meaning “one and/or the other”) or a pronoun (meaning “the one or the other”), then “either” implies one of two only . <S> The Free Dictionary has a usage note: <S> Any (not either ) of the three opposition candidates still in the race would make a better president than the incumbent . <S> But reputable writers have often violated this rule , and in any case it applies only to the use of either as a pronoun or an adjective. <S> As for those aforementioned "violations," you can find several of them by going to Google Books and searching for "any of the three" . <S> When I did that, I noticed that several of the hits were from the 19th century, which made me wonder if either of the three was not considered the grammatical misdemeanor a century <S> or so ago that it is today, a theory that seems to be supported by this Ngram : <A> No - but the problem is your example sentence. <S> In your sample, you'd need to use "all": <S> Additionally, all of the three powers have internal supervision mechanisms. <S> You need an inclusive word that means "all" or "each". <S> "Either" allows you to choose between options. <S> You can have either soup, salad, or breadsticks. <S> This is a perfectly acceptable construction. <S> It means you can only have one of the three. <S> But it would be incorrect to say: <S> Additionally, either of the three powers have internal supervision mechanisms. <S> Because it implies that not all of the powers have internal supervision mechanisms, which they certainly do, so "all" is required in this case. <A> I agree that "either" as a conjunction is helpful when multiple options follow. <S> If I say, "I'm visiting Europe, and I want to go to London, Paris, Athens, Budapest, Stockholm ...", it begins to sound like an ambitious and perhaps superficial trip. <S> But if I end it with "... or Rome.", you will then realize that it is not superficial; I'm still deciding which one to go to. <S> In this case inserting "either" before "London" would have served the useful function of preventing that confusion.
| The traditional rule holds that either should be used only to refer to one of two items, and that any is required when more than two items are involved: Either is problematic because that's not what the sentence is saying.
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What's difference between 'have' and 'have got'? For example, 1) I think you have a wrong number. 2) I think you've got a wrong number. Is there any difference between the two sentences above? <Q> The only difference between them is that have is used in formal written English (and of course in spoken English) and have got is used in spoken English. <A> I have got is typically British. <S> It is rarely heard in AmE, except as the contraction "I've got". <S> As for the "must" sense: I have got to... <S> [do something] becomes, in AmE, "I've got to", which comes out sounding like <S> I gotta [do something]. <S> Or, "I have to" [do something] which comes out as <S> I hafta [do something]. <A> To add to the comments above, to "get" something is to acquire it. <S> The reason that <S> I have <S> has a roughly equivalent meaning to <S> I have got (or often I've got or even I got ) <S> is because one may be presumed to have acquired something that one has. <S> The difference between the two can be significant in some circumstances, for example when got is used as an alternate form of gotten : <S> I have got sick. <S> I have gotten sick. <S> This means that I have become sick, and I have sick <S> isn't correct at all. <S> The second usage is currently more popular than the first, but they go back and forth regularly over time.
| There is no difference in meaning between have and have got , specially in your sentence.
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What's the name for non-bribe payments taken forcefully and illegally? In my national language Hindi , there's a term for it. Let me describe it. Corruption is a nuisance in India. However, corruption is of many types here. For example, if you give some money to a traffic policeman, he'll let you go even though you have broken a signal at crossroads. Now, that is bribing him. But, I'm not talking about it. In other case, mainly policemen, rogues or hoodlums take money from local vendors i.e. small shop owners, road-side vegetable sellers etc. If the latter ones don't give, they harass them one or the other way. Hoodlums may even 'beat' them. Policemen may falsely book them. That said, those people have to give money forcefully, unwillingly. They come to 'collect' their _______ regularly. Say weekly or monthly. I'm searching for a term for that money they take. Precisely a noun to describe the unethical act. Say, a road-side vegetable seller is telling to a reporter/journalist... "You don't know sir, we live terrible life. We earn INR 5000 a month, but then INR 2000 goes to policemen/hoodlums as ______________." <Q> The word for this in English is extortion . <S> The money involved may be called "protection money", but "extortion money" could also be used and is more factual, because the former is essentially facetious; traditionally, such a racket hinges on the idea that the money is for "protecting" someone, but at best this is from some other criminal gang and in the case of the police it is obviously not a legitimate provision of service. <S> Providing a false service is racketeering , and this kind of "it's for your own protection" extortion is a form of racketeering <S> (the linked wikipedia article also refers to "protection rackets"). <S> Prosecution of such offenses in the West is usually on racketeering charges. <S> However, I notice in your question that these people are not necessarily offering anything (real or not) in exchange, in which case it is really just robbery , although much the same could be said about our concept of racketeering and extortion. <S> The difference hinges on the nature of the threat used; in robbery it is explicit ("I will shoot you..."), in extortion it is more implicit ("You don't want to end up with certain problems, do you?"). <S> It sounds in many cases what you are talking about is just explicit serial robbery. <S> I make this last point since I think the Western distinction between "extortion" and "robbery" is a fine grained cultural one and could be confusing to the unfamiliar. <S> None-the-less, it is a real distinction in English. <A> It is "protection". <S> Here are various definitions (with the same meaning) from different sources: Payment collected by racketeers from businesses or illegal enterprises under threat of violence American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. <S> Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Money <S> demanded by gangsters for freedom from molestation <S> Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003 <S> Money paid to racketeers for a guarantee against threatened violence. <S> Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 <S> K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House <A> Protection MoneyThis is a typical tactic of "mobs" like the Mafia. <S> It is often a form of extortion or blackmail , a payment to make sure that your illegal business is protected against law enforcement. <S> Or it may be extorted from legal businesses, to protect themselves against the mob who is extorting; like so..,. <S> "It'd be a real shame if something happened to you or your business. <S> Sometimes a building might burn down. <S> Sometimes people have accidents—they lose a finger, or break an arm. <S> So it's a good idea to keep us happy, so an accident like that won't happen to you. <S> " <S> (see any movie about the Mafia.) <A> pay·off <S> ˈpāˌôf/ <S> noun informal <S> a payment made to someone, especially as a bribe or reward, or on leaving a job. <S> "widespread rumors of payoffs and kickbacks in the party" Graft graft2 <S> ɡraft/ noun <S> noun: graft <S> 1. <S> practices, especially bribery, used to secure illicit gains in politics or business; corruption. <S> "sweeping measures to curb official graft" gains secured by corruption. <S> "government officials grow fat off bribes and graft" Payola pay·o·la pāˈōlə/ noun NORTH AMERICAN the practice of bribing someone to use their influence or position to promote a particular product or interest. <S> Hush Money hush mon·ey <S> noun informal money paid to someone to prevent them from disclosing embarrassing or discreditable information.
| Other options include: Payoff
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"I don't have the time to cook" or "I don't have time to cook"? Should I say: I do not have the time. Or I do not have time. Which option is the correct one? If both are correct, is there any difference in meaning or other difference between them? <Q> Both are fine and seem to be widely used. <S> To me, "don't have the time" implies a long-term situation, whereas "don't have time" could be more temporary. <S> For example, "My life is so busy that I don't have the time to cook" versus "Tonight <S> I'm going to a concert <S> so I won't have time to cook." <A> I don't have the time [it takes] to cook. <S> and I don't have [enough] time to cook. <S> Both imply that you do not possess the amount of time it would take to complete the act of cooking. <A> The article 'the' is used to emphasize specificity .
| By saying, 'you don't have time to cook', it means you don't have time in an indefinite essence; and, by saying, 'you don't have the time ', it means you don't have time in a specific period (in this case, during the time you said that you don't have ['the time']). They are both correct, and equally implied.
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Stress in a sentence. Is "some" a determiner in "Get some sleep"? As far as I know determiners are not stressed as long as we don't need special emphasis. Am I right? If we don't need special emphasis we only stress the content words "get" and "sleep". Am I right? <Q> Yes. <S> With no special stress, the word "sleep" would carry the most emphasis. <S> " <S> Some" would be entirely unstressed. <S> A more visual representation might be: GET some SLEEP. <A> Indeed, without special emphasis determiners are normally not stressed. <S> In terms of stress, sleep would normally get the primary stress and get the secondary stress. <S> This means that sleep will be stressed slightly more than get . <A> /ˈgɛʔ sm ˈsli: <S> p/ Determiners <S> Most determiners don't usually take stress in normal, unmarked speech. <S> For example, the articles <S> a <S> and the are very rarely stressed. <S> The same is true of the indefinite determiners <S> some and any . <S> Many words in determinative function do take stress though. <S> One example is numbers. <S> So in the phrase: Two sugars, please both two and the first syllable of sugars will usually be stressed. <S> Get <S> The verb get is often described as an 'empty' verb. <S> This is because it often has very little meaning of its own. <S> In get passives for example, GET seems to have an auxiliary like role, almost. <S> In other sentences such as: <S> Ben got an email <S> GET will also not be stressed. <S> It doesn't give us much specific information here. <S> In the example above we would expect Ben and the first syllable of email to be stressed, but not the word stressed . <S> However, in the Original <S> Poster's example, GET is the main verb in an imperative construction. <S> We normally expect the main verb in an imperative to be stressed (although not necessarily, especially with the verb BE ). <S> In the phrase: Get some sleep <S> we would normally expect the verb get and the lexical noun sleep to take stress. <S> Because there is a noun following the word <S> some here we would expect to see the weak form /sm/ or perhaps /səm/ here. <S> We would definitely not expect the strong form /sʌm/. <S> Prominence <S> In terms of the overall sentence, the word sleep will get the nuclear tone because it is the last content word. <S> It may therefore be perceived as the most prominent syllable in the utterance. <S> However, it is also perfectly possible for the word <S> get to be the loudest or highest pitch syllable here in the onset position. <S> The imperative construction here makes this even more likely. <S> It depends on the context of the utterance. <S> Pronunciation note: <S> When followed by a noun the word <S> some will usually be unstressed and weak. <S> When we see the word <S> some without a following noun <S> , as in the sentence: Do you want some? <S> ... <S> the word <S> some will still be unstressed, but will have a full vowel. <S> In other words the strong form, /sʌm/, is required.
| The word some would not be stressed in a normal, unmarked version of the sentence. The word some is an indefinite determiner here.
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Definite article in phrases 1) In the first few weeks, when I was new to the project , I made a lot of mistakes. 2) In the first few weeks, when I was new to computer (or computers?), I made a lot of mistakes. Is the second example with "new to computer" correct? if yes can I say: 3) In the first few weeks, when I was new to project , I made a lot of mistakes. if not, why the second example is correct but the third is not, is there a general rule? <Q> New to computer and new to project Neither is correct. <S> The noun must be in the plural to express the idea of a domain : new to computers. <S> Either that, or an ing form to express a general type of activity: new to computing . <S> The definite article is used to refer to a specific project: new to the project . <A> "New to computer" and "new to project" are incorrect. <S> You could be new to computers , in which case you are new to all computers, or you could be new to the computer, meaning this specific computer you are working on. <S> You could even be new to a computer, meaning that you are new to a specific computer, but you are not saying which one. <S> That would be strange, but I don't see anything grammatically wrong with it. <S> In your first sentence, that is correct because the speaker is new to the specific project he or she is talking about, and may or may not be new to projects in general. <S> It would be a little odd to say one is "new to projects" since most activities people do can be considered projects, but someone who does not have much experience with computers could definitely say they are "new to computers". <S> Edited to add As the other answer pointed out, in the case of computers the gerund is also acceptable: "new to computing ". <S> But this is only true because a "computer" is "something that computes". <S> A "project" is not "something that projects", and therefore "new to projecting" is incorrect. <S> It might mean that you are new to speaking loudly to an audience, or new to using a projector to display images on a screen, but not that you are "new to working on projects", which would be the correct form. <A> In general in English, you need an article -- "a" or "the" -- whenever you use a singular noun that is not a proper name. <S> You CAN use "the" with a plural if you want to specify a specific group, but normally you do not. <S> Examples: <S> "I was new to the computer." <S> Speaking of one particular computer. <S> Article required. <S> Singular, article required. <S> "I was new to computers." <S> Speaking of computers in general. <S> Plural, so no article. <S> "I was new to the computers." <S> Speaking of one specific set of computers, perhaps those of a certain type or owned by this company. <S> "I bought one computer. <S> " <S> Singular so an article would normally be required, but we use the adjective "one" instead.
| There are some pronouns you can use instead of an article, like "one" or "some".
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Definite article for things that are mine Can I use the definite article for things which are somehow mine, which I can use my before them and they are unique to me (like my mother, father, wife, husband)? For example to say When I was 16 years old, the father said me ..... Instead of When I was 16 years old, my father said me .... or As I fell, the shirt teared apart <Q> When I was 16 years old, the father said to me... <S> This is an odd construction. <S> In some religious beliefs, it actually makes sense, though "father" would normally be capitalized: <S> When I was 16 years old, the Father said to me... <S> "the Father" can mean "God" and, in some Christian faiths, it is a term for a clergyman. <S> If you mean to say that it was your father, you must use "my". <S> You can also omit it entirely, though you would likely capitalize it here, too: <S> When I was 16 years old, Father said to me... <S> In this case, you're referring to him by his title (in this case, more of a name substitution), "father" <S> and it's implied that you mean your own father. <S> As to the shirt example, it too can be ambiguous. <S> If you want to imply that it's the shirt you are currently wearing which tore, it is more clear if you say "my shirt". <S> The verb here should be "tore", the past tense of "tear". <S> As I fell, my shirt tore apart. <S> For example, let's imagine you're in a fight with a sibling over a shirt. <S> You each have one of the arms of the shirt <S> and you're trying to get it away from your sibling. <S> In this fight, you fall and as you fall, the shirt is pulled so strongly that it rips. <S> In this case, you would certainly say: As I fell, the shirt tore apart. <A> I would avoid using "the" for things that can be made more specific with "my". <S> When I was 16 years old, the father said me ..... <S> This leaves ambiguity, " the father" sounds like maybe a priest or somebody else's father. <S> It would make sense given the context of speaking about a father, but with no context it sounds unusual. <S> As I fell, the shirt teared apart <S> This, again, is ambiguous. <S> In fact, it seems to slightly imply that the shirt which tore was not the shirt you were wearing. <S> It sounds like a shirt you had in your hand ripped, while the shirt you were wearing was fine. <S> I would use "my" whenever it's appropriate to avoid uncertainty. <A> No. <S> "My" is a determiner and takes the place of an article to make it more specific. <S> When you use the definitive article "the" in this context it implies a kind of universality. <S> So the phrase "the father", without a more specific modifier, is often used in religious context to refer to a creator deity, or as a title, or in some cases the founder of a cult. <S> " <S> The father of [noun]" refers to the creator or founder of that noun, so you might say "the father of the light bulb, Thomas Edison..." Incidentally, in the phrase "my father said to me", "me" is an indirect object and requires a preposition. <S> Edit Will makes an excellent point that "the" is technically allowable here, but is not preferred because it is insufficiently specific. <S> I tend to let what I think should be done get in the way of what is technically correct. <S> This difference is significant here because if you specified the subject in more detail earlier in the text, it would be allowable, and maybe even preferable. <S> So let's focus now on your second example <S> As I fell, the shirt tore apart. <S> Alone, this is not a good construction because it is entirely ambiguous as to what shirt tore. <S> However, let's say in the previous paragraph you gave the history of your favorite shirt that your mother gave you when you were small, but someone took it from you <S> and you are currently wrestling with them to get it back. <S> Then, if you said As I fell, my shirt tore apart. <S> That would actually be more ambiguous. <S> Are you talking about the shirt you are wearing, or the shirt you are trying to get back? <S> In that case, it would be better to use "the".
| To avoid ambiguity, you should use "my". It is certainly possible to use "the shirt".
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How do we read "1906" in this text? The 1906 Federal Food and Drugs Act was one of the first laws enacted to stop the sale of inaccurately labeled drugs. 19 O six ? <Q> <A> Yes, it's "nineteen oh six" in this case. <S> But don't assume that's always true in any sort of context. <S> For years, it's "nineteen oh six"; but in the following example: The factory produced 1906 cars. <S> [or 1,906 cars] <S> it would be pronounced "one thousand nine hundred six". <S> This is because it is being used as an actual number of something being counted. <S> Basically per David Richerby's comment: It's worth noting that despite the rule above, if the last two digits are both 0 (in other words, if it's an "even hundred"), <S> but if it's not an even thousand , people will very frequently say things like "nineteen hundred cars" or "twenty-two hundred cars". <S> This isn't completely academically correct English per se, but it's a pretty well-accepted practice in general. <S> An extra thing I have been taught as an American: <S> Despite what some people do, even in the US, you do <S> not say "one thousand nine hundred and six", but you must leave the word "and" out. <S> I originally stated this rule as an absolute, but there appears to be some disagreement on this point. <S> It could be a regional thing, as indicated in this answer to the question linked by Catija . <A> Just to add to the other answer (which is correct in saying that you are correct), dates with the third number being zero, we say "nineteen-oh-six. <S> " If the third number isn't zero, we read the two halves as separate numbers. <S> For example, "nineteen twenty six." <A> In most settings, years in English are read out like the title of Orwell's famous novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four . <S> That is, they're read as a pair of two-digit numbers (or a one-digit number and a two-digit number if it's only a three-digit year). <S> So, Charlemagne died in eight-fourteen, the Battle of Hastings was in ten sixty-six and the US declared independence in seventeen seventy-six. <S> If the year within the century begins with zero, that's pronounced as "oh", unless it's before 1000, in which case, it would be, e.g., "four hundred and six" rather than "four oh six". <S> If the year within the century is 00, it's "eighteen hundred", "nineteen hundred" but "two thousand". <S> Which leads us to this millennium, which is more complicated. <S> Most people said "two thousand and six" (British English) or "two thousand six" (American English), rather than "twenty oh-six". <S> This year seems to be mostly "twenty-fifteen" but some people say "two thousand (and) fifteen". <S> The Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick novel/movie "2001: <S> A Space Odyssey" was definitely "two thousand and one" (not "two thousand one" or "twenty oh-one") and is sufficiently well-known that essentially nobody called that year <S> "twenty oh-one" <S> (I don't know if Americans called it "two thousand one"). <S> That covers general usage. <S> In legal contexts, dates are often written out more fully, as "so many hundred and such-and-such", as in "nineteen hundred and eighty-four" or, for this millennium, "two thousand and fifteen".
| Yes, it should be read as "Nineteen-oh-six".
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What does 'vanity' mean? Recently I stumbled upon the word " Vanity ". I looked its meaning online and found that it has two meanings as, Excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements. The quality of being worthless or futile. In the first meaning the speaker would be considering himself/herself quite worth, that is why he has pride of it. But in the second meaning the speaker would be considering himself/herself worthless. The two meaning are quite opposite to each other. So in a sentence how do we decide which meaning is asserted by the speaker? <Q> Context is typically the most important. <S> Someone who looks in the mirror a lot has a high degree of vanity. <S> They can also be called "vain" or "self-centred". <S> Usually Vanity is a negative trait to have. <S> A speaker typically wouldn't consider themselves to be vain. <A> As for the second meaning, the speaker wouldn't generally consider himself worthless, but his efforts . <S> That's how I've generally seen the word used. <S> It might become clearer if you analyze the adjective form of the word, which is vain . <S> NOAD says: vain ( adj. ) <S> producing no result; useless : a vain attempt to tidy up the room <S> Changing that sentiment around to the noun form, we'd say something like: Trying to clean up this room today would be vanity. <S> It's too messy; we'll never get this clean in one day. <S> As for this question you asked: <S> The two meaning are quite opposite to each other. <S> So in a sentence how do we decide which meaning is asserted by the speaker? <S> As in the case of any autoantonym , we only know the correct meaning by the context: <S> Bob, you dust <S> the furniture while your brother dusts the cake. <S> Knowing that we don't generally sprinkle powdered sugar on tables and chairs or remove dust particles from food, we can easily figure out which meaning applies to each word. <A> There are lots of words with multiple definitions. <S> You figure out which one is intended by the context. <S> Yes, it's amusing when a word has two definitions that seem opposite each other, but it's usually clear which is meant from context. <S> If it's not, then the sentence was poorly constructed. <S> Well, sometimes people deliberately construct a sentence using such a word in an ambiguous way for humor value. <S> If you say, "Alice was filled with vanity after she got a starring role in a movie", clearly we mean pride. <S> If you say, "It was vanity for Alice to suppose that she would ever get a starring role in a movie", clearly we mean futile. <S> As FumbleFingers notes in a comment, people rarely use the noun "vanity" to mean futility these days. <S> That meaning is largely obsolete. <S> We do still use the adjective "vain" to mean futile. <S> As in, "He made a vain effort to climb the mountain". <S> Most often it's used in the phrase "in vain", as in, " <S> Her attempt to find the lost ring proved to be in vain." <S> There's a famous Bible quote: Ecclesiastes 1:2, "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. <S> " If you read that quote out of context, I guess it would be ambiguous. <S> Does he mean that everything is pride, or that everything is worthless? <S> But if you read on, it's clear which: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. <S> The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. <S> All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again." <S> And so on. <S> Clearly the point is that everything just goes around and around and little changes. <S> It's all boring and pointless. <A> Both meanings of vanity involve "emptyness", i.e. futility. <S> Any undertaking which is futile (its goal is impossible) can be said to be "in vain". <S> It is vanity to think an impossible goal can be achieved. <S> Excessive pride in outward appearance is considered an empty or futile concern, because we all grow old and lose the freshness of youth for one thing, and because the preener does not hear the world calling but is immersed in Self. <S> The apparent contradiction is a result of how the lexicographers have decided to phrase the definitions.
| When talking about Vanity, it refers to someone finding themselves very important, however, they are usually not as great as they think they are which is why you get the second definition of being worthless or futile.
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B devours itself as a shadowed figure {returns / returning} Why is the simple present used in the following sentence (describing League of Legends)? Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. ( source ) Shouldn't it be like the following? Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returning amidst the fire. <Q> You are correct to think that an -ing form would be used in normal speech. <S> However, the -ing form has no tense <S> and so it needs a tensed helper verb when the syntax requires a tensed verb, as it does here <S> : Consider: <S> The diner eats the spicy chicken as the cook prepares another dish. <S> [OK] <S> The diner eats the spicy chicken as the cook preparing another dish. <S> [not OK] <S> Corrected: <S> The diner eats the spicy chicken as the cook is preparing another dish. <S> Past tense: <S> The diner ate the spicy chicken as the cook was preparing another dish. <A> In the first sentence, the simple present is used when someone's actions are being narrated, either in a story, as notes, or in real time by an announcer or reporter. <S> In the second sentence, this is still happening, however returning is not really a verb. <S> X <S> As Y can mean X happens while Y is this if Y is a noun, or X happens at the same time <S> Y happens if Y is a verb. <S> Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returns admist the fire. <S> This is describing two actions with two separate subjects (Bilgewater and an unknown shadowed figure) that are happening concurrently - A) <S> Bilgewater devours itself and B) <S> a shadowed figure returns admist the fire . <S> Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returning admist the fire. <S> There is one action with one subject here - a shadowed figure returning admist the fire <S> now qualifies Bilgewater . <S> When an -ing word does not have a form of to be in front of it, it's not a verb, but a "verbal". <S> Verbals work as other parts of speech besides verbs - types of verbals include infinitives/gerunds (really nouns), and participles (really adjectives). <S> I believe here returning is a gerund <S> so it is functioning as a noun. <S> Therefore the first case of X as Y described above applies. <S> Without getting to much into it here, this construct can be used to describe that something is in the process of an activity or in a state of performing that activity as a status, e.g. John booked the train going to Chicago . <S> It can usually be replaced with something like John <S> booked the train that is going to Chicago and mean the same. <S> So here, this is saying Bilgewater is devouring itself while it is returning admist the fire. <A> The sentence is ambiguous, mainly due to the author's choice of words and lack of context. <S> Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. <S> There are two ways we can interpret this. <S> Bilgewater devours itself; meanwhile, a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. <S> Here, we use the meanwhile definition of as . <S> It indicates two events happening simultaneously. <S> I expect this is the more likely interpretation. <S> Bilgewater devours itself like a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. <S> Here, we use the in similar fashion definition of as . <S> It indicates that the one event is similar to the other. <S> The question to you is: Which makes more sense in the context? <A> Bilgewater is the name of an island nation . <S> The 'shadowed figure' is the pirate ' Gangplank '. <S> Thus the sentence is talking about two different things. <S> And about two different events A) <S> Bilgewater devours itself B) <S> A shadowed figure returns amidst the fire Since the events happen at the same time, you can use as to connect them. <S> As means at the same time that . <S> Bilgewater devours itself as [= at the same time that ] a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. <S> If Bilgewater was 'the shadowed figure', then you could say Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returning amidst the fire. <S> Frankly, this does not make that much sense. <S> But who knows what can happen in such imaginative games. <S> What makes more sense is something like: Bilgwater disguises itself as a shadowed figure returning amidst the fire. <S> But since Bilgewater is a nation, and the shadowed figure is not Bilgewater, but a different thing, namely Gangplank, you use as . <S> The reason for using the present tense is because the present tense is often used for captions of photos or descriptions of chapters in a book; translated to the gaming context, it is used as a description of particular episodes, such as this episode ( <S> Bilgewater: Burning Tides Epilogue). <S> The present tense is used because it seems to be happening now , and thus it is more vivid. <S> However, the past could also be used: Bilgewater devoured itself as a shadowed figure returned amidst the fire. <S> As still means at the same time that . <A> Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. <S> Paraphrase Bilgewater devours itself while a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. <S> conjunction: as used to indicate that something happens during the time when something else is taking place. " <S> Frank watched him as he ambled through the crowd" synonyms: while, just as, even as, at the (same) time that, at the moment that, during the time that, just when; simultaneously "she caught a glimpse of him as he disappeared" Google Dictionary <A> This is an interesting one, because both are correct, grammatically. <S> But given the context, I think "returns" is the right one here. <S> Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returns amidst the fire. <S> Bilgewater goes away, at the same time a shadowed figure comes back. <S> Bilgewater devours itself as a shadowed figure returning amidst the fire. <S> Bilgewater becomes a shadowed figure, and then Bilgewater comes back.
| First, the simple present tense is used as storytelling technique.
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Any alternatives for the verb "to bury"? I want to say "somebody was buried somewhere", to place (a corpse) in a grave. But the word "bury" sometimes sounds rude or very technical to me. Am I right or is it very normal to use "bury". If it is not appropriate, can you tell me an alternative? <Q> I think few would find the word "buried" rude. <S> It certainly isn't technical -- it's a very common word. <S> If you are talking about disposing of dead bodies in general, "buried" is probably the most common word for this idea. <S> As others have noted, "laid to rest" is sometimes used as a euphemism. <S> It is pretty much only used when speaking to the family or close friends of someone who has just died. <S> "Interred" is the technical term. <S> You almost never hear someone say this other than funeral directors and cases where someone wants to sound very formal and respectful. <S> I don't have a survey on this, but I think most people would say, "My mother is buried in Pennsylvania" and the like without a second though. <A> To bury is not rude or technical. <S> However, the use of euphemism is widespread when the subject is related to death, so to someone who is not used to confronting the reality head-on, simple matter-of-factness may seem harsh. <S> The use of euphemism can reflect solicitude. <S> But it can also become hollow and be just the opposite of solicitousness, for example when the death industry comes up with new and improved death-jargon. <S> http://www.dailyundertaker.com/2009/01/cremains-of-day-look-at-words-in.html <S> A minor change can remove the harshness for many people. <S> Instead of asking "When will he be buried? <S> " one can ask "When is the burial ?" <A> But the word "bury" sometimes sounds rude or very technical to me. <S> I agree, it could sound harsh to a grieving person or family of the deceased. <S> Try laid to rest . <A> A person who is buried with funereal rites is "interred". <S> That is probably the best verb for it, but it's also rather formal and some people might see it as archaic. " <S> Laid to rest" is more common in informal conversation. <S> The choice can be a little tricky, because some people will be uncomfortable using a more "technical" term like "buried" or "interred", but others (like me) are more uncomfortable with the more "sentimental" "laid to rest". <S> If you are talking to the family and friends of the deceased, I would use "laid to rest". <A> Inhume is another rarely-used option, probably not appropriate for English language learners.
| If you're talking about the general practice of burial of remains, or to people completely unassociated with the deceased, I would use "interred".
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What is the meaning of "being on the low side"? For example : Going freelance nowadays is a path many designers and developers take, not only because of job vacancies being on the low side , but also because there are some clear advantages to it. So what is the meaning of being on the low side? <Q> It means that there aren't a lot of full time jobs. <A> Idiomatic on the low side alludes to <S> not being on the "opposite" side, but unless specifically modified by an intensifier such as <S> well on the high side <S> it normally means just slightly more XXX than [not] XXX . <S> Thus, on the expensive side implies somewhat expensive, but not ruinously so . <S> So if you tell the waiter that your pea and ham soup is on the salty side <S> he'll probably just offer you a glass of water <S> (he won't assume you're complaining that it's too salty to eat at all). <S> Another related idiomatically common use of this type of side is... <S> Don't be so pessimistic! <S> Why don't you look on the bright side? <S> ... <S> where the usage always implies Be optimistic rather than pessimistic . <A> It is idiomatic, alluding to reading a meter for the quantity being measured. <S> Imagine there was a gauge like a fuel gauge in a car that measured the number of job vacancies, and the gauge included a shaded area where there were the "right" number of job vacancies. <S> "On the low side" would suggest that the gauge is at, or slightly below, the shaded area. <S> There is an acceptable range, which has two sides, and the quantity is at the low side. <S> "On the high side" can be used similarly to mean that there are more of something than would be desirable, but not so much as to be dangerous or incorrect.
| It implies that there are fewer that would be desirable, but not necessarily too few.
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What's the meaning of or/not in logical reasoning questions? I have a simple problem basically I am unable to understand the meaning of some questions involving or/not, and using comma with and. I have the following questions: 1. What is the meaning of, say: X does not play football or cricket . What we can infer from this? Can we say X does not play both of them? Or one of them? 2. How the previous line is different from: X does not play either football or cricket . 3. If x does not play both of them, why in books such kind of statements are there instead of neither/nor. 4. What is the meaning of: M and N, who reads newspaper, are not sitting together . Here, Do M and N, both reads newspaper? Please clarify these things to me. I am not a native English speaker so I found it very difficult to understand and as in logical reasoning questions these statements are common to see I face lot of problems. Please also tell me about such more things that can be confusing, may be, provide a link. <Q> In your example, the most reasonable interpretation seems to be that "X does not play football" and "X does not play cricket" are both true. <S> But in similar sentences there may be different reasoning. <S> Consider the following (made-up) examples: If you don't play football or cricket, you can't graduate with honors. <S> Does it read as if you need to play both? <S> If you don't pass math or French you'll have to stay and study during the vacation. <S> This one reads as if you do have to pass both... <S> Although the structure is the same as in the previous example! <S> Also consider what happens if you change "or" to "and". <S> If the meaning seems to be the same, there is ambiguity in at least one of the sentences. <S> There are ways to eliminate the ambiguity, and you should try to use them at least in writing, if not in speech: <S> When the negation appears as a separate word (like "not", "don't", or "never"), Use "either/or" or "one of" if you mean "not (a or b)"; use "both" (with "and") or "any" to mean "not (a and b)", which is equivalent to "(not a) or (not b)". <S> Place the negation with the simple conditions (" <S> either not A or not B"). <S> For embedded negation, you can use "neither/nor", which means "not (a or b)". <S> With the first example: If you don't play either football or cricket, you can't graduate with honors. <S> (If you do play either one, you can) <S> If you don't play both football and cricket, you can't graduate with honors. <S> (You have to play both) <S> If you play neither football nor cricket, you can't graduate with honors. <S> (Playing only one makes the condition false, so you can) <S> If you either don't play football or don't play cricket, you can't graduate with honors. <S> (Unambiguous) <A> The meaning of "X does not play football or cricket" is unclear. <S> There is a problem of scope, here, as between "not" and "or". <S> That is probably the most popular interpretation. <S> However, depending on dialect and intonation, there may also be a reading in which the scope relationship is reversed, and "not" is in the scope of "or". <S> You get this if "football or cricket" is focused: "it is football or cricket that X does not play". <S> Then, it means: " <S> Either X does not play football, or X does not play cricket. <S> You also get that interpretation if material including "not" has been elided: "X does not play football or (X does not play) cricket. <S> " <S> The "not" might also be read as denying the appropriateness of a quoted sentence <S> "X plays football or cricket" that someone has said. <S> For instance, there could be a terminological quarrel -- it's "soccer" that X was said not to play, or cricket, not "football". <A> You should know that a sentence like "John does not play football or cricket" means, unambiguously, that John plays neither football or cricket; or "It is not the case that John plays football, and it is not the case that John plays cricket". <S> There is a realm of potential ambiguity out there, since some people interpret "or" as meaning "exclusively one or the other", for example "You may have ice cream or cake", which we might interpret as "You may have ice cream, or you may have cake, but not both". <S> The inclusive / exclusive interpretation is really determined pragmatically by context, so when ordering in a restaurant, if the waiter offers "steak or fish", you can't have both -- <S> but when flying first class, if they offer "red wine or white", you can get away with asking for both. <S> Essentially, "but not both" is a pragmatic add-on, not part of the core meaning of "or".
| Using "or" in a negative statement can be ambiguous. If "or" is in the scope of "not", it means "X plays neither football nor cricket", or, that is, "X does not play football and X does not play cricket."
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"I did well" vs. "I did good" I did well. I did good. Which one is a correct sentence?Please explain it with reasons.Can you please define them? <Q> In the first sentence, well is an adverb that modifies did . <S> Well is the adverbial form of good , and in this case it means that what the speaker did, he did in a good way, with good results. <S> When writing sentences like this, ensure that you know which word is being modified. <S> If it modifies a noun, an adjective is used while an adverb is used to modify verbs or adjectives: A good man . <S> The word good modifies the noun man which requires it to be in its adjective form. <S> In your sentence it modifies the verb and is in the adverbial form: <S> I did well . <S> Now, this might make you think that your second sentence is wrong, but it is not. <S> It does, however, have a different meaning than the first sentence. <S> In that second sentence, good is used as a noun . <S> It cannot be used as an adjective because there is no noun next to it to be modified nor is there a copular verb which could link it to the subject. <S> The phrase do good is used in the meaning of be benificial, aid . <S> It is often used with a direct object, the person or object that benefits or receives the aid. <S> Here's an example with the phrase to do someone good : <S> A: <S> I'm feeling sick. <S> B <S> : Drink some tea, it will do <S> you good . <S> You can see how this meaning is very different from your first sentence. <S> You can do well on an exam, but you can't do good on it. <S> You can, however, do good by helping someone else. <A> I did well. <S> I did good. <S> More often than not, it's well, not good, that you use as an adverb. <S> The word good is mainly an adjective, but it's also used as an adverb in informal AE. <S> So both the sentences are OK. <A> Only the following version is considered grammatically correct: <S> I did well on the test. <S> The reason being is that well is an adverb modifying the verb did . <S> You use adverbs to make your verbs sound more colorful. <S> That's their primary function. <S> However, many Americans do say: <S> I did pretty good on the test. <S> which is, of course, grammatically incorrect because good is an adjective. <S> Adjectives are only used to modify nouns. <S> So, what we have here is called a colloquialism—something that's accepted in spoken language because of its widespread use despite the fact that it's grammatically wrong. <S> I have an American teacher who himself many times uses good instead of the proper form <S> well which only goes to show how extremely common it has become to say good instead of <S> well in daily English. <S> But, I bet ya, when he has to write something like a business letter or simply send a notification message to his students, he's definitely going to use the proper form well . <S> So, my recommendations: when you speak, always use well unless you feel comfortable enough with the language <S> accept that you are going to hear Americans say I did <S> good a lot on an English test, always use well . <S> If you don't, you're going to lose points
| Both sentences can be correct, but they have a different meaning.
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Can I use idioms in the IELTS written test? I am preparing for the IELTS writing test . Can I use idioms in this test? For example, "it's not all its cracked up to be" or something like "I bend over backwards to help them, but they try to put me down more often then not". <Q> Idioms are a major (and for non-natives, sometimes confounding) part of English language. <S> A measured use of them would help to demonstrate your English writing skill. <S> However, knowing exactly when and how to use an idiom naturally really can be tricky for a non-native speaker, so when you do decide to use an idiom in your writing, make sure that it fits well the context within which you're using it. <S> If you have learned an idiom but aren't confident about its appropriate usage, leave it out of your writing (IELTS and similar tests are not a good time for experimentation). <A> Thank you for posting a link to two IELTS sample writing prompts, with graded sample essays . <S> Here is my interpretation of how they are graded. <S> The IELTS does <S> not encourage writing essays that are short, clear, and to-the-point. <S> The IELTS is graded based on essay length. <S> You will lose points if your essay is too short. <S> The IELTS encourages writing in paragraph form. <S> You will lose points if you use bullet points or outlines. <S> The IELTS encourages writing with a variety of sentence lengths. <S> You will lose points if all of your sentences are short, or if all of your sentences have the same structure. <S> Your essays need to be "coherent". <S> You need to use conjunctions and sequencing words to relate ideas to each other. <S> You can take some of your points from the prompt, but you should also try to think of some examples that are not in the prompt. <S> If your essay is just a re-arranged version of the prompt, you will lose points. <S> You should not go out of your way to use idioms. <S> You need to write a lot of words to pass the test. <S> If an idiom occurs to you while you are writing an essay, and you think you are using it correctly, use it. <S> But do not waste time trying to think of "the perfect idiom". <S> Your sentences do not need to be original or creative. <S> You will not get extra points for using "the perfect metaphor". <A> Idioms are an indispensable part of the language so it is not a crime to use them. <S> As a former IELTS Examiner, I would say that they can both make or break your writing. <S> If you overuse them and put in all wrong places, they will slash your points. <S> If you use a few of them but properly, they will enhance your writing. <S> So my advice is to stick only to the ones you are 100% confident about.
| You might lose points if you use an idiom incorrectly.
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from each of -- meaning Example: The A-League is a national competition with 10 teams, including 9 from around Australia and 1 from New Zealand. There are two teams from each of Sydney and Melbourne and one team from each of Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Newcastle and the Central Coast of New South Wales. Finally, there is a team from New Zealand, being Wellington Phoenix. The regular season games are played in the Australian summer, from October to April, when each team plays each other team 3 times. Obviously, all this means is that all the soccer teams in the Australian soccer league are from their respective places. But why not just simply say there are two teams from Sydney and Melbourne ? What's the implication of using each of in this particular case? As for the second example, the use of each of can be, I guess, somewhat justified because if we get rid of it, then the sentence may sound like there is only one team representing all those cities altogether which is of course wrong—there is always one team per city. Even though I perfectly understand what it says, I still have a problem comprehending it in terms of grammar. Could you please clear things up for me a little bit? <Q> Each of ... is used to talk about things in a list or a group, considered individually and is thus singular. <S> It's very similar to every , but every is more focused on the whole group and each more on individuals. <S> Let's imagine there are three students in a class: Alex, Mary and James. <S> Compare: <S> The students have two cars. <S> This means that, in total, when we count all the students' cars, there are only two cars. <S> Each of the students has two cars. <S> This means that, in total, there are six cars. <S> Two cars belongs to Alex, another two to Mary and the other two to James. <S> Therefore, if we say two football teams from each of Sydney and Melbourne , it is similar to the second sentence, i.e. We cannot say two football teams from Sydney and Melbourne to convey the same meaning; it would be mean something similar to the first sentence <S> , i.e. Note that two football teams from Sydney and Melbourne may imply that one team is from Sydney and the other from Melbourne. <S> This usually happens when the number of the things in the group or list is the same as that of the things we talk about. <A> There are two teams from each of Sydney and Melbourne... <S> means there are two teams from Sydney and two teams from Melbourne. <S> So there are four teams total. <S> But if you say: There are two teams from Sydney and Melbourne. <S> I would take that to mean there are two teams, one from each (by assumption) city. <A> from each of is a way of combining several individual statements into a single list. <S> The original thought is: <S> There are two teams from Sydney and there are two teams from Melbourne. <S> There is one team from Adelaide and there is one team from Brisbane and there is one team from Perth and there is one team from Newcastle and there is one team from the Central Coast of New South Wales. <S> But that's a lot of repetition. <S> We can use from each of to apply a single <S> There is one team from clause to a list of preposition objects: <S> There is one team from each of Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Newcastle and the Central Coast of New South Wales. <S> Likewise for the cities that have supplied two teams: <S> There are two teams from each of Sydney and Melbourne.
| We use each of because it literally means " apply the previous thought to each item in the list individually. "
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"There is (a?) (dark) liquid on the floor" - should we use an article, and how would the meaning change? How does the meaning of the following sentences change with and without a ? I'd say that the first one sounds better with no article, not quite sure about the second one for some reason. 1.There is (a?) liquid on the floor. 2.There is (a?) dark liquid on the floor. <Q> For plural nouns, an indefinite article is not used - either the article is omitted or something like any or some is used. <S> Take boards up to the top deck for me. <S> Take some boards up to the top deck for me. <S> Things like water , air , etc. <S> - which are not really countable, or able to be split into individual "things" - work the same way. <S> Take water up to the room for me. <S> Take some water up to the room for me. <S> Liquid can work like water above, referring to a noncountable quantity (like some liquid in a tank), or it can mean something like an unexpected puddle (a liquid beneath the washing machine), or specific area of water on the ground. <S> In that case you'd use the article (like you would with puddle - you can count puddles). <S> So you can use or omit the article according to how you mean it. <S> Dark liquid certainly sounds like something unexpected or unusual so the article probably should be used with it. <A> We often use the indefinite article when we're being indefinite ourselves. <S> The sofa is russet-colored. <S> Maybe we should paint the walls a dark green? <S> Some shade of dark green, the particular shade not yet decided upon. <S> So, if we mean to say there's some liquid on the floor <S> whose makeup has not yet been determined , " a liquid" would be suitable. <S> If we know it's water, or chlorine bleach, we wouldn't say "a liquid". <S> That said, if someone asks us why chocolate M&Ms melt in our mouths and not in our hands, we can say "Because they have a candy coating". <S> There, "a" simply means candy coating not of any particular type . <S> We don't need to know that it is one that contains carnauba wax. <S> We could say "a carnauba wax candy coating", and there we'd mean " some kind of candy coating that contains carnauba wax". <A> This is by no means definite, just my impression... <S> It sounds to me that without the article, the entire floor is covered. <S> With the article it can be interpreted as a puddle, and perhaps some containers with other liquids on a desk or a shelf... <S> The color of the liquid does not play into this, IMHO.
| If we tell someone "there's a liquid on the floor", it means we don't know what kind of liquid it is.
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"only actually requires" or "actually only requires"? I want to say: XXX actually only requires that YYY to be non-negative. But I feel weird about this sentence. Should I say: XXX only actually requires that.... or XXX actually requires only that.... Which one is better? <Q> Actually, XXX only requires YYY to be non-negative. <A> Placing 'only' in front of 'actually' would change the meaning, since 'only' would then modify the 'actually' instead of 'requires'. <S> As to the position of 'only' before or after 'requires', it's virtually indifferent. <S> Edited after the discussion in comments: ought to have written "since 'only' would then modify the 'actually' instead of 'requires ...'. <S> (better?) <A> If what you want to say is: 1) that XXX has only one requirement,2) and that the requirement is a condition3) and the condition is that YYY be non-negative, and you also want to qualify the above observation with "actually", <S> then the following would be the most unambiguous way to put it: "Actually, XXX requires only that YYY be non-negative." <S> This way you avoid using the to-infinitive, which opens the statement to such interpretations as 1) to be non-negative, XXX only requires YYY; 2) XXX requires YYY only to be non-negative - meaning YYY can be either positive or neutral or in any other state as long as it is not negative. <S> And putting "only" after the verb eliminates this interpretation: it is only XXX (out of a list of XXX and others) that requires YYY to be non-negative. <S> Placing "only" just before the subjunctive clause makes it absolutely clear that it modifies the clause.
| "actually" really modifies the rest of the statement, so I would write:
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He lives separate from her. He lives separately from her He lives separate from her. He lives separately from her. Which one is correct? Are these sentences correct? Please define them with meanings. <Q> He lives separately from her." <S> Adverbs modify verbs , adjectives, and other adverbs. <S> In this case, the verb 'lives' is being modified by the adverb 'separately'. <S> How to check if 'separately' really modifies 'lives'? <S> It is through asking if "separately [from her]" answers the question "How does he live?" <S> according to the context. <A> It would be "separately" - separately is an adverb, (because it ends in "ly"), but separate is an adjective. <S> Adverbs describe verbs <S> (these are correct): <S> He runs quickly <S> He lives separately (from her) <S> However, you could say: He lives in a separate house <S> Because then, separate is describing the house, and is an adjective. <A> Using the word "separately" would be something like this: <S> He and she live separately <S> The best would be something like this: He lives apart from her
| The grammatically correct one is the one using the adverb: "
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What's the difference between "last" and "latest"? When should I use "last" and "latest"? I found two examples: What was the last book you read? Karen was always up to date on the latest fashions It seems both mean "the most recent". Can we use both with this meaning? <Q> The difference is in the future of the sentence. <S> Last implies nothing else will follow. <S> It's the last, and after this it is finished. <S> Latest implies that it is the last to date , which means there could be more to follow. <S> The examples in J.R.'s post fit the case: they leave their last will and testament. <S> They won't be able to leave another will after that. <S> These are their last wishes. <S> the latest fashions and the latest trends. <S> These are the fashions and trends of this moment. <S> However, this will change in the future. <S> But at this moment, these are the latest . <S> However, there are exceptions, as J.R. also points out quite nicely: <S> As a matter of fact, I think I might prefer the latest book you've read to the last book you've read, although I wouldn't correct anyone for using the latter. <S> A pedantic wiseacre might answer, "What was the last book you read?" by saying, "Last? <S> I hope I'll be reading another soon!", even though the word last is used that way. <A> They both have roughly the same meaning, but the words aren't entirely interchangable. <S> We don't normally talk about the last fashions or the last trends , we talk about the latest fashions and the latest trends . <S> People don't leave their latest will and testament in a strongbox, they leave their last will and testament . <S> As a matter of fact, I think I might prefer the latest book you've read to the last book you've read , although I wouldn't correct anyone for using the latter. <S> A pedantic wiseacre might answer, "What was the last book you read?" by saying, "Last? <S> I hope I'll be reading another soon!", even though the word last is used that way. <S> As a matter of fact, as an adjective, last has at least three meanings. <S> NOAD says: last ( adjective ) 1 coming after all others in time or order; final : they caught the last bus . <S> 2 most recent in time <S> ; latest : last year 3 only remaining : <S> it's our last hope . <S> so it can be an ambiguous word. <S> If I talk about the last inning of a baseball game , I could be referring to the ninth inning of a game, or even the fourth inning of a game, if we are currently in the fifth inning: <S> There were a lot of exciting plays in the last inning, don't you think? <A> The difference for me is that "latest" is present while "last" is past. <S> In these two cases they both essentually mean "the most recent" but you wouldn't say "Karen was always keeping up to date with the last fashions." <S> or "What was the latest book you read?". <A> Latest" refers to the aspect of being "new" (i.e., most recent in time) and must be used for things for which there can be no end. <S> It seems that these two words are interchangeable when (A) <S> the topic is time-related and (B) <S> the topic is something that can "end" multiple times. <S> When the two words are interchangeable, "last" is preferred even if "latest" is technically correct. <S> In the phrase "the last update was on...", you can substitute "latest" and still be technically correct, but it sounds weird, probably because the time aspect is already inferred from the word "update". <S> Ditto for "last activity", "last modified on (date)...", "last time"," last visit", and "last (volcanic) eruption"; there's an implication of time in all of these statements and the implication becomes redundant if you use "latest". <S> On the other hand, you can't use "latest" for "last apple", "last day", "last meal", "last week". <S> "Apple" and "meal" aren't time-related and a specific "day" and "week" can't "end" multiple times.
| "Last" refers to the "end" of something. " You can't use "last" for "latest fad", "latest fashions", or "latest trends", but that's no surprise since there can't really be an "end" of those things.
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What does the term "Job-Embedded" mean? I have seen the term "Job-Embedded" in proffessional development papers, but I didnt find any well description of its meaning, what does it mean? <Q> @Arrowfar suggested it, and I just searched for "job-embedded" (with quotes) on both Google and Wikipedia - interesting results... <S> I am not sure <S> job-embedded is connected (aside from sounding similar) to job embeddedness as defined by Wikipedia. <S> However, what I do see is a very stable use of " job-embedded professional development ", from which I dare to hazard a guess that it's some kind of training program that teachers <S> (this is what I see the most) undergo while continuing their normal job activities. <S> What exactly it consists of, is not clear <S> and I don't want to speculate. <S> Essentially it appears to be "on the job training" of sorts, specific to teachers. <A> First of all, I had never encountered this term "job-embedded" before I read your question, though the term on-the-job training (OJT) wasn't new for me. <S> My first guess when I read the title before opening this question was that it would be about something "embedded in the job". <S> Judging from the PDF I found (see below), I think "embedded in the job" isn't very far off. <S> From the PDF file (titled Job-Embedded Professional Development: <S> What It Is, Who Is Responsible, and How to Get It Done Well ), What Is Job-Embedded Professional Development? <S> It is primarily school or classroom based and is integrated into the workday, consisting of teachers assessing and finding solutions for authentic and immediate problems of practice as part of a cycle of continuous improvement (Hawley & Valli, 1999; National Staff Development Council, 2010). <S> JEPD is a shared, ongoing process that is locally rooted and makes a direct connection between learning and application in daily practice, thereby requiring active teacher involvement in cooperative, inquiry-based work (Hawley & Valli, 1999). <S> High-quality JEPD also is aligned with state standards for student academic achievement and any related local educational agency and school improvement goals (Hirsh, 2009). <S> (emphasis mine) <S> In my humble opinion, this seems like teacher's jargon. <S> It's also worth noting that searching for "job-embedded" on Google returns only 381 results. <S> And the PDF I linked to in this answer is probably the best source that clarifies what job-embedded is all about. <A> It's gobbeldy-glop nonsensical human resources jargon indicating bold new paradigms designed to reinforce career based recompense-induced reductions.
| Job-embedded professional development (JEPD) refers to teacher learning that is grounded in day-to-day teaching practice and is designed to enhance teachers’ content-specific instructional practices with the intent of improving student learning (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Hirsh, 2009).
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How to distinguish between: "from then on" and "since then"? I am wondering if the bold parts could be used interchangeably? If not, why? Two examples have been excerpted from the very site: Since then , the two children lived alone... From then on , the two children lived alone... Meanwhile, is there any situation they cannot be used interchangeably? <Q> Since then, the two children lived alone. <S> From then on, the two children lived alone. <S> The first sentence isn't correct grammatically, but the second one is correct. <S> The idiom "from then on" means "from that time"; it's used for an action or event that happened in the past; the event or action is no longer continuing. <S> From then on, the two children lived alone. <S> (They did so in the past; they don't live alone in the present). <S> On the other hand, the phrase since then also means from that time, but we don't use it in the past simple. <S> It's used for an event or action that's continuing. <S> Hence, it's used in the present perfect or present perfect continuous such as: Since then <S> , the two children have lived alone/have been living alone. <S> (They still live alone). <S> (When I looked up the word "then" in the The Free Dictionary and Webster, I was surprised to know it's also used as a noun that means "that time" (a point in time for which we use since in perfect sentences). <A> Then refers to a point of time or a particular event. <S> And from then on means from that particular time onward. <S> I don't think there is any difference in meaning. <S> I also don't think that one is used with action that has already completed and the other, with actions that are still going on. <S> This is suggested in one of the threads in ELU, but I think that is wrong info. <S> From then on - From then on I have no recollection of the next several days. <S> From then on she is not quite so stricken with adoration, but entirely happy. <S> This new life provides her with the opportunity to change her name to something more suitably black - from then on <S> she is known as Leshaya. <S> Since then - It has since then been evolving. <S> And in your example sentence, both versions are correct and do mean the same thing. <S> Since then , the two children lived alone. <S> From then on , the two children lived alone. <A> First of all I'm not a native english speaker my self, but to me there is a slight distinction which doesn't address whether the action afterwards has completed or not, but more to the point of how the "then situation" is emphasized somehow. <S> Here are some example which I find has a nice ring with only one of the constructions: <S> Since then, there has been much water under the bridge <S> Since then, they have accomplished a great deal From then on <S> , they stayed together as a couple From then on, he lost faith in man kind <S> From then on, no one saw either of the children smile again <S> For me the "since then" construction emphasizes the "then situation" more than the other, and gives it greater significance, but this situation is over, and the world has moved on. <S> Whilst <S> I can't explain it any better than this, but that is my take on the difference on these very similar phrases. <S> I do believe in a lot of cases they can be interchanged although they might be inflict different importance by the reader regarding the "then situationt" versus the following fact.
| So since then means that the time since that point of time. the "from then on" gives more focus to what comes afterwards, the situation has happened, and it has changed something which affects the after situation more. They basically have the same meaning.
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The difference between 'TALK' and 'SAY' Q: Tell me about an uncomfortable situation you've had with a product. A: I have been using iPhone 6 for about 6 months but I haven't had any uncomfortable situation with my phone. So, I really don't have anything to talk about. I'm perfectly comfortable saying like #1, but what about #2? I really don't have anything to talk about an uncomfortable situation I've had with my phone. I think the preposition 'about' already has it's object 'anything', so I think it is not right. but how about #3? 3.I really don't have anything to say about an uncomfortable situation I've had with my phone. Since 'anything' is the object of the verb 'say', I feel we can add about an uncomfortable situation I've had with my phone. So, I think #1,3 are possible to use and grammatically correct. Am I right to think this way? <Q> is to "to speak about, to converse" and to say is "to state something, to affirm or deny something". <S> I was talking with customer service about my new phone's bad sound quality. <S> --What did the customer service rep say? <S> Did he give you a new phone? <S> I find your #2 ungrammatical. <A> In your case 'say' sounds much better. <S> So I really don't have anything to say <S> Here you don't need to repeat yourself by adding "... <S> about an uncomfortable situation I've had with my phone" again, <S> since you already mentioned it in your first sentence that you haven't had any problems with the phone. <S> Also you can say the whole thing like this: I have been using iPhone 6 for about 6 months <S> but I haven't had any problems with it yet. <S> It is more precise and less confusing. <S> Regarding the difference between 'say' and 'talk' : <S> Say : <S> Say is most often used without a personal object . <S> example: <S> She said that it was my last chance. <S> and, Talk: <S> Talk is the more usual word to refer to conversational exchanges and informal communication. <S> example: When she walked into the room everybody stopped talking. <A> "SAY" is a 'one-way' process, and "TALK" presumes there are at least two interlocutors (unless you are talking to yourself... <S> )Therefore, we say "I have nothing to say about this situation" or "There's nothing to talk about"
| The main difference between talk and say is that to talk If we want to put a personal object after say, we use to .
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seem something of a puzzle I was reading a formal passage (academic) about the animals came across with: Play may seem something of a puzzle My perception was "Play can be considered as puzzle". I want to know about the structure, ... seem/be/... something of a puzzle/entertainment. Is it correct to rewrite the sentence as: Play may seem to be a kind of a puzzle Play may seem something like a puzzle Play may seem like a puzzle ? I am seeking for possible difference when we use something of a puzzle rather other options. thanks. <Q> To say that X is something of Y doesn't mean that it is like Y or appears to be Y; it means that it has some characteristics of Y or is Y to some degree. <S> For instance, if I say that "John is something of a perfectionist", I mean that John is not completely a perfectionist, he doesn't demand perfection in everything at all times—but he tends to demand results which approach perfection in many circumstances. <S> So to say "Play may seem something of a puzzle" means that play may seem to offer some puzzling aspects: there are some things about play that we don't seem to have figured out yet. <S> Note, by the way, that the collocation may seem is usually used to acknowledge the existence of an opinion which the author is going to dispute or disprove: John may seem something of a perfectionist, but he's actually pretty easy-going. <S> Play may seem something of a puzzle, but recent studies by Sartorius (2009) and Undershaft (2012) advance a theory which appears to unite our understanding of play in both animals and man. <A> If we compare that definition with other examples you've given, we can probably distill the difference. <S> "To be kind of puzzle" (missing 'a', I think) essentially expresses that the entire whatnot is a puzzle (since there are many kinds of puzzles), is designed to be solved, everything about it is like in a puzzle. <S> "Something like a puzzle" has the same meaning as "something of a puzzle", so you're very close on that one. <S> When we say that " objectA is something like objectB ", we essentially say that we are not sure what objectA <S> is <S> , it's not really an objectB , but rather it is something else, it is of some other class of objects, but looks, smells, acts, very similar to how an objectB does. <S> "Play seems as a puzzle" just doesn't sound right. <S> The verb seems needs no preposition, nor is it a conjunction. <A> Yes, to "seem something of a puzzle" just means that it can look like or be considered a puzzle. <S> There are a few minor problems with your rewordings: In #2, you need "a" between "like" and "puzzle". <S> In #3, you need to replace "as" with "like"; "seem as" is not a valid construction.
| " Something of a puzzle " basically expresses that [whatever it defines] contains elements that make it a puzzle, but probably only some elements .
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Is the verb "describe " intransitive? Given the text below: Erik believes that personality development is a series of turning points, which he described in terms of the tension between desirable qualities and dangers. I am confused about the usage of the verb "describe". In other words, which of the following sentences is correct? which he described it in terms of ... which he described in terms of ... <Q> The first sentence of your two examples is incorrect. <S> Erik believes that personality development is a series of turning points , which <S> he described in terms of the tension between desirable qualities and dangers. <S> In your sentence, which is a relative pronoun linking its subclause to the main clause and referring tot he phrase that personality development is a series of turning points . <S> Within the subclause, it acts as a direct object . <S> This is also the reason you cannot place an it in the subclause, because you already have a direct object. <A> The antecedent of "which" is the noun "development". <S> The noun could be repeated: Erik believes that personality development is a series of turning points, which development <S> he described in terms of the tension between desirable qualities and dangers. <S> In fact, in older texts, especially legal texts, you will see the noun repeated, and sometimes the word "said" instead of "which": Licensee shall pay Licensor a fee of $10,000, said fee to be tendered in four equal quarterly installments. <A> Describe is a transitive verb. <S> In your sentence, which is the object of the verb, so which he described in terms of ... is correct.
| If you split the sentences into two main clauses and leave out the which , you can use it . The verb describe is definitely a transitive verb and in your sentence it has a direct object: which .
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What is the meaning of the phrase "no sooner than"? 1. He was no sooner graduated than he was on his way to California. 2. No sooner had the plane taken off than I regretted not taking the train. Above are the examples of using the phrase "no sooner than" which I found in some textbook. Why is not used Past Perfect in the first sentence as it is so in the second one? Would it be a mistake to write: He had not been no sooner graduated then he was on his way to California. <Q> The construction, which basically states that the two events which are compared are simultaneous, gives no reason to prefer either a past perfect or a simple past in either part. <S> The inversion in the front clause is likely to confuse you—it tends to confuse native speakers, too, when they try to analyze it instead of just using it as a fixed expression. <S> Here's the logic: <S> No sooner {had X happened <S> / did X happen} than Y happened ... <S> may be 'disinverted' as X {did not happen / <S> had not happened} sooner than Y happened ... <S> which is equivalent to saying that No time elapsed between X happening and Y happening ... <S> in other words, the two events were simultaneous. <S> (That's not quite true—Y might have happened before X—but that possibility isn't what this idiom is about: the important point is denying that X happened before Y.) <S> In any case, X had not happened before Y happened <S> doesn't mean anything different from X <S> did not happen before Y happened . <S> You are free to use whatever construction suits your narrative purposes. <A> In the first sentence, graduation is an event, not a process, and a very fixed as far as the sentence is concerned (since it talks about the graduation as immediately followed by being on the way to California). <S> Using a Perfect Tense would be to indicate that the result of it is important, but not the moment in time. <S> In the second sentence, however, taking off is a process (although there is a moment at which the landing gear separates from the ground), and it is the result of it <S> that is important (the plane is in the air), so using a Perfect Tense is justified. <S> We can rewrite the second sentence as <S> No sooner was the plane in the air than I regretted not taking the train. <A> The idiom "no sooner....than" is used to show that one thing happens immediately after another thing; you can use "as soon as" to replace the idiom when a sentence is in the past. <S> You usually use the past perfect with "no sooner", but the use of the past simple is also possible. <S> He was no sooner graduated than he was on his way to California or <S> He had no sooner been graduated than he was on his way to California. <S> You can also start the sentence with "No sooner was he/had he been". <S> No sooner had the plane taken off than I regretted not taking the train or <S> The plane had no sooner taken off than I...............................".
| When " no sooner do something than do something else" is used, by the time the second "do" starts to occur, the first "do" is in the past.
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Less-serious-sounding word than 'problem' I don't like to say 'problem' since it sounds like I have a serious problem. Is there any adjectives that I can add so that it doesn't sound serious. I'm talking about something about food I eat. For example: I'm not picky about the food I eat. There are few foods I don't like to eat. And I'm a person who likes to do something new and even when it comes to foods, I like to try something that I haven't eaten before. But, I have a problem with eating . I mean there are times when I eat more than I should if I don't want to feel too full. I don't like to say 'problem' since it sounds like I have a serious problem. Is there any adjectives that I can add so that it doesn't sound serious. Or doesn't it sound like I have a serious problem with eating – like eating disorder – even though I just say it as stated here? <Q> You don't need to mention a problem at all -- <S> your but implies sufficient contrast between the positive things about your diet and the negative effect of overeating. <S> You might want to change that "conditional" effect to a definite effect, to underscore the negative quality. <S> I'm not picky about the food I eat. <S> There are few foods I don't like to eat. <S> And I'm a person who likes to do something new and even when it comes to foods, I like to try something that I haven't eaten before. <S> But there are times when I eat more than I should—and feel too full. <A> I like StoneyB's answer. <S> He removed the adjective from the equation, thereby nullifying its negative connotations. <S> And that is the problem/issue/mess/complication/pickle/obstacle/trouble. <S> As you can see from the string of synonyms (different words with the same meaning), that it is not the word you say, but how it is said. <S> Adding context gives meaning. <S> For example: The dead battery is a problem. <S> That seems pretty benign. <S> Take this example: The dead battery which controls the nuclear reactor is a problem With a little more information, the same "problem" becomes more serious. <A> You can just describe it as a "small problem." <S> As you say, "I have a problem with eating" sounds a bit ominous by itself. <S> Something like <S> Other adjectives work too, like "minor problem. <S> " You could also describe it as an "inconvenience" instead of a problem.
| "I have a small eating problem" or "I have a small problem with eating" seems like it would fit your purposes just fine.
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A verb to say "treating several things the same way" I look for a verb to say something like "to treat several things the same way" Suppose following sentences I made with a fake verb "put difference" I put no difference between my children I put no difference between you and the other customers They put no difference between educated and ordinary people <Q> I treat you and the other customers alike . <S> They treat educated and ordinary people alike . <S> In all these cases, note that the two words of the verb are split. <S> That's fairly common in English. <S> Sometimes, you might be able to get away with "commingle", but that has more to do with dumping all together in the same bucket than treating identically: it's closely related, but not quite the same thing. <S> Here, only the second sentence can really get away with it, and not very well; it's silly to talk about putting one's children all in the same house (who doesn't?), and almost as silly to talk about putting people in the same places regardless of education. <S> But putting all one's customers in the same queue for the cash register or ticket counter is reasonable enough, and, crucially, so is putting them in different queues. <S> None of commingle's synonyms are at all useful here. <A> Maybe "consistent"? <S> consistent constantly adhering to the same principles, course, form, etc. <S> Source: Dictionary.com <A> You ask about "threating the same way", yet you give negatives of "treating differently". <S> So, you need to look for an antonym to the verbs "discriminate", "differenciate", "individualize"... <S> I looked. <S> There isn't any good one. <S> You will most likely need to use either the negative form "I don't ...", or use essentially the expression you started with, "I treat ... the same".
| I treat all my children alike . The phrasal verb "treat alike" would do well here.
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How to answer 'how much cream/sugar do you want?' when ordering coffee? Usually, I help myself with cream and sugar when I was ordering coffee in my university's cafe. But I was really confused what unit should I use to describe the amount that I need when I am asked. <Q> When I'm being served coffee by a business, like at a cafe or on a plane by a flight attendant, the assumption is that they have some prepackaged amount available, so I just respond with the number of packets I would like. <S> For example, "One sugar and two cream, please." or "Just one sugar, please." <S> Usually if my friend doesn't know how I take my coffee, they bring the sugar bowl and cream pot and let me add the cream or sugar myself. <A> A special case not yet mentioned: if you don't want any cream or sugar, you could say "None", but the more conventional response in that case is to say "Black" . <A> I would say something like this: — <S> How much sugar do you want in your coffee? <S> — <S> Two spoons. <S> / Half a spoon is enough. <S> / <S> Just a little bit. <S> / A quarter of a spoon would be okay. <S> I don't think there is anything special about ordering coffee at a cafeteria. <S> Just use the English you already know. <A> This borders on a lecture on the Imperial measurement system rather than the English language, if you want to make sure you get the right amount. <S> I believe cream and sugar packets are distributed either by the teaspoon or tablespoon-ful. <S> Consult the packaging next time <S> you see one. <S> Most native speakers have the same issue you do, which is why most modern coffee shops have a small bar to allow you to add cream and sugar yourself. <S> Also, even many Americans and British citizens hate using the Imperial system, especially for volume.
| If someone is serving me coffee and the sugar and cream aren't likely to be prepackaged, like at a friend's home, I will explain sugar by spoonfuls, and cream by a splash/a little/a lot and suffer silently when it isn't quite how I would make it :)
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Is Let us = Let's? Many times I heard these words interchangeably. I want to know if "Let's" and "Let us" are used for the same meaning. I think (for me): "Let us" is word used for requesting. Like Let us do something means requesting to allow us do something. "Let's" is words used for proposing. Like Let's play means proposing people to play. <Q> But that is not the whole story! <S> The expression let's ( <S> or let us when used in the same way) <S> is idiomatic ; it means something different than you would think by just looking at the dictionary definition of let . <S> You correctly mentioned that let's play is a proposal or encouragement to play something. <S> Now, the normal meaning of let is different, as you noticed as well. <S> It means "to allow or enable something". <S> When you say let us into the house , you are using the imperative . <S> That means you are giving someone an order. <S> Let us into the house means make it possible for us to move into the house . <S> It is important to understand that you do <S> not use the contraction <S> let's in this situation! <S> *Let's into the house is not correct. <S> Now, in some cases, a sentence may be read in two different ways, and that can be confusing. <S> Look at the two sentences: <S> Let's go in. <S> Let us go in. <S> They can both mean "I propose that we go in", but the second one can also mean "Allow us to go inside!" <S> The actual meaning of the second sentence depends on context : <S> It's getting cold outside, let us (let's) go in! <S> We need to search your house. <S> Let us in! <A> You understand the forms in colloquial use pretty much correctly. <S> Let's VERB is used to propose or encourage the action of VERB by the speaker and her hearers. <S> Let here is a (now mostly obsolete) subjunctive use of the plain form. <S> It's getting late. <S> Let's go! <S> Let us VERB is ordinarily used to request or demand permission for the speaker and her associates to perform the action of VERB . <S> Let here is an imperative use of the plain form. <S> Please let us go to the party. <S> The same form is also used as an indicative in both present and past tense: the past and present forms are identical, except that the usual -s suffix is used with the 3d person singular in the present tense. <S> Dad lets present <S> us go to the pool when we have finished our homework. <S> Dad let past us go to the pool when we had finished our homework. <S> However, let's is a contraction of let us ; so in more formal contexts let us may have the same sense as let's : <S> Let us now praise famous men is a quotation from the Bible, employed as the title of a well-known book by writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans. <S> Let us pray <S> is an invitation to prayer frequently heard in church. <A> Let’s is the English cohortative word, meaning “let us” in an exhortation of the group including the speaker to do something. <S> Lets is the third person singular present tense form of the verb let meaning to permit or allow. <S> In the questioner’s examples, the sentence means to say “Product (allows/permits you to) do something awesome”, so the form with lets is correct.
| Yes, let's is indeed simply a contraction of let us , and that means that whenever you can use let's , you can use let us .
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conversational knowledge of something Example: The discussions in this book assume the reader has more than a conversational knowledge of ANSI C programming . This book is not a tutorial on the entire language. It is aimed at the advanced beginner to intermediate-level programmer who feels relatively comfortable writing C programs but who has a distance to travel when it comes to the topic of pointers. What exactly do you think that means? I particularly don't understand how the word conversational is used here. Conversational usually refers to something that has to do with verbal conversation. <Q> Conversational knowledge of a subject literally means that you know enough about something to talk with others about it . <S> Not in academic detail, but a "light" or "social" conversation. <A> I would say conversation indicates a general knowledge among the population in general. <S> For example, if you were with a group of friends, you would not talk with them (have a conversation) about detailed C programming, because some of them will have no idea what you are talking about. <S> So, general conversation . <S> You could use the definition of conversation : 1) <S> the act or an instance of talking together (; specif.,) 1a) <S> familiar talk ; verbal exchange of ideas, opinions, etc. <S> or 5) <S> (obsolete) familiarity based on study or use <A> It means that you should know at least the basics of the C language before starting the book.
| As a prerequisite of a book, it means a basic knowledge - so that you can follow the author's "speech" and further explanations.
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What do you think about the position of adverb in this sentence? there is no evidence that scholars tried to document precisely the toilet habits of our predecessors. In the sentence above, I found the word "precisely" weird because of its position. Is it okay or do I have to move it to the end? <Q> The normal place to put an adverb of manner like this is after the verb phrase, in other words after the Object or any other complements of the verb. <S> However, when the Object is very long we sometimes use heavy noun phrase shift <S> (this is usually written heavy NP shift ). <S> This just means that if the object is very long, we can move it to the end of the sentence: I have in the attic <S> a baboon who can recite the entire works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . <S> Here the direct object, a baboon who can recite the entire works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has moved to the end of the sentence and appears after the Preposition Phrase in the attic . <S> Note that we do not require any commas around in the attic . <S> The Original Poster's sentence <S> The Original <S> Poster's sentence is fine. <S> We can put the adverb precisely before the Direct Object here, because the Object is long. <S> If we had a very short Object, like the word him , the result would not be good. <S> Most people will find the following sentence ungrammatical: <S> It's not possible to pinpoint exactly him. <A> "tried to precisely document the toilet habits of our predecessors." <S> (before document). <S> You could use accurately as well. <A> It's not possible to pinpoint precisely the time of death (Cambridge Grammar Today).
| In light of this sentence from a grammar book, I think there's nothing wrong with the placement of the adverb precisely after the to-infinitive (to document precisely) in the sentence presented by the OP.
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what is the function of "a foot" in this sentence? "Tsunami waves may appear only a foot or so high." Does "a foot" function as an adverbial phrase or subject complement? <Q> It is a noun that is part a premodifier in the following phrase: only a foot or so high <S> The above phrase in its entirety is the complement to the subject . <S> The phrase only a foot or so is a premodifier for high . <A> The main verb in the sentence is the word appear . <S> This verb can take adjective phrases as Complement. <S> In this sentence the adjective phrase is: a foot or so high <S> The adjective high is the main word in the phrase. <S> In other words, it is the Head of the adjective phrase. <S> This word <S> high is being modified by the phrase a foot or so . <S> This phrase is a noun phrase. <S> It is a special type of noun phrase called a MEASURE PHRASE . <S> We often use measure phrases like this to give further information about an adjective: <S> ten years old five minutes <S> long six feet tall a foot high <S> The Original <S> Poster's Question <S> The grammatical function of foot is Head of the noun phrase "a foot or so". <S> The phrase a foot or so is a Modifier in the adjective phrase "a foot or so high". <S> Because it describes the Subject of the sentence, some writers call it a Subject Complement. <S> Books like A student's introduction to English grammar , by Huddleston & Pullum (2005) call it an Subjective Complement. <A> "foot" is part of the phrase "only a foot or so high", which Is a subject complement. <S> Specifically, it is a predicate adjective .- <S> http://college.cengage.com/devenglish/broughton/focus_florida/1e/students/diagramming/exercise_6.pdf <S> (The other type of subject complement is a predicate nominative )
| The adjective phrase a foot or so high is a Predicative Complement of the verb " appear ".
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Is the sentence "If he has time he will telephone" grammatically right? This sentence was asked in an exam. They asked for substituting correct word in place of will in the following sentence, "If he has time he will telephone." (A) Would (B) Could (C) Might (D) No error What I think is that the question itself is wrong because the sentences a conditional and hypothetical sentence and as far as I know from my other post in these type of sentences we always use past form of has . The question should be, If he had time he will telephone. Please explain am I right? <Q> The sentence as it stands is fine, because both condition and outcome are in the future. <S> It is a possible condition, not a hypothetical one. <S> He may or may not have time. <S> If he does have time, he will call. <S> (I don't like telephone as a verb, personally). <S> Text in brackets is to clarify meaning, not part of the sentence: <S> If he has time (e.g. next week), he will call (at that time) <S> Corollary: <S> If he does not have time, he will not call. <S> If you switch to past tense, you can't use will : <S> If he had time, he would have called. <S> (he does not have time, and therefore did not call) <S> If I had time, I would call (but I do not have time, so will not call). <A> If he has time, he will telephone. <S> There's nothing wrong with the sentence grammatically. <S> It's conditional 1 sentence that refers to the possibility of an action or event in the future if the condition in the if-clause is fulfilled. <S> As for the hypothetical sentences in the present and the past, they are formed as follows: <S> If he had time, he would telephone. <S> If he had had time, he would have telephoned. <A> That's kind of a misleading question because there are two correct answers. <S> The sentence as it stands is correct, so D) would be right. <S> However, if you replace will with might it is still correct: <S> If he has time, he might telephone. <S> If you are less sure, "might" is the correct word to use - you are not sure if he will call, even if he does have time. <S> As for your suggested correction, that is not right. <S> You are mixing past and future in the same sentence. " <S> Had" is past-tense. <S> The sentence would be: <S> If he had time he would have telephon ed .
| Using "will" has a sense of certainty - you know for sure he will call if he has time.
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"in" vs. "within" for data and information I wrote this sentence In our approach, we try to simulate the way a human user scans a web page to find specific data items. We use textual delimiters and semantic cues (in or within ?) the content to identify the data of interest. In a text/page/content/book, some words/information/data/delimiters are "in" or "within" it? <Q> There is a slight difference. <S> additional boundary, a limitation, meaning certainly not outside , contained by , fully enclosed . <S> Idioms like within confines of , or within limits , or within boundaries most likely contribute to that. <S> I, like Aleksey, think that ' in ' is appropriate. <S> Shorter, more familiar, less elaborate. <A> In and within generally depend on the context. <S> In this example, we would say within the content . <S> In other contexts, we would say 'in', for example we wouldn't say the biscuits are within the tin , we'd say the biscuits are in the tin . <S> Just depends on how it's being used <A> Either one will do, though I prefer in for the sake of simplicity
| While " in " points to the origin or the overall relationship between the subject and the object ( cues and content in your case), within imposes (or implies)
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Should a widowed or divorced woman say "I am a housewife"? Ok, let say Mary married to Bill & she does not go to work. She decided to be a housewife. Now, her husband died or divorced her. Then, should she say " I am a housewife " when someone asks her " what are you doing? ". Or should she say " I am a homemaker "? <Q> These days, in AmE, "housewife" is disfavored as sexist language . " <S> (In some couples, of course, the wife is the breadwinner, and the stay-at-home husband the caregiver. <S> In such cases he might be jocularly referred to as a "househusband".) <S> But among the older generation, the traditional term "housewife" hangs on. <S> So if a married woman has spent decades thinking of herself as a" housewife", far be it from me to deprive her of that title when she is left alone. <A> No doubt, housewife is used especially for a married woman who does her household work instead of going out to earn her daily bread. <S> But the word has a wider meaning. <S> She's not necessarily a married woman; she could be a widow or a divorsee. <S> As for housemaker, you cannot use it instead of housewife. <S> However, if you don't like to use the word housewife for a widow or divorcee, you can use the word homemaker that's = housewife. <A> Housewife is used for and by a married woman (also known as a wife ). <S> A widow could use it, if she still considered herself as married or faithful to her late husband. <S> She could also say: I am a homemaker, or I work at home. <S> It would be strange for a divorced woman to use the word. <S> In today's English, the presence of wife in housewife refers to a married woman.
| Homemaker" is a non-sexist term for someone who takes care of their own home, whether young or old, married or single, male or female.
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Help parse "I’ve lost the top off my shampoo bottle." Consider: The 3rd entry for top in macmillan : I’ve lost the top off my shampoo bottle . I fully understand the meaning of this example, but I'm not quite sure of what syntactic role off my shampoo bottle plays in it. In Chinese we don't say it like this. We would simply say "I’ve lost the top of my shampoo bottle." It doesn't look like a preposition phrase modifying the top . It doesn't act as an object complement to me, either. Meanwhile, is it OK to say "I’ve lost the top from my shampoo bottle."？ <Q> The preposition phrase off my shampoo bottle is actually modifying top . <S> We can show that this is part of a noun phrase by using the noun phrase in different position in another sentence: <S> The top off my shampoo bottle has disappeared. <S> Here we see the top off my shampoo bottle functioning as the Subject of a sentence. <S> This would suggest that we might want to treat top off my shampoo bottle as a complete noun phrase in the Original Poster's sentence too. <S> In the OP's sentence it is a Direct Object. <S> We could also passivise the Original Poster's sentence. <S> This would give us the inelegant, but grammatical: <S> The top off my shampoo bottle has been lost. <S> This sentence is a bit formal for such a trivial event, but it still makes perfect sense. <S> Because the whole noun phrase the top off my shampoo bottle has become the Subject, it shows that this phrase is one constituent. <A> It's a case of "on" vs. "off". <S> If the top is on the bottle, the bottle is closed. <S> If it's off, it's open. <S> We often use (at least in British English) "off" where it is largely synonymous with from (note: you can say "the top from my bottle" as you propose). <S> Hey. <S> Isn't that the guy off the TV? <S> I got a new jacket off the Internet. <S> In the examples above you can replace "off" with "on" and "from". <A> In American English, any of several prepositions work here. <S> They're either going to describe the position of the cap relative to the bottle or the possession of the cap by the bottle. <S> I've lost the top from the bottle. <S> I've lost the top off the bottle. <S> I've lost the top of the bottle. <S> Technically "the top of the bottle" could mean that the upper part of the actual bottle was somehow misplaced, but there is no reasonable way for that to happen during a shower, so it would automatically be understood to mean a missing cap. <S> Only a truly pedantic person would give you trouble about it. <S> "Off of" is idiomatic and informal, but it is definitely used.
| I've lost the top off of the bottle. We use off like this to show that something is usually in a specific place (that it isn't in right now).
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What is the nuance of "Pick yourself up a copy!"? An American guy introduced a book, written by himself and published this year, and then said like this in an online video. "If you're interested, if you want to hear more like this, definitely pick yourself up a copy !" Actually, he said this in Japanese and showed this English sentence in the subs. My native language is Japanese, so I know what he meant. He was suggesting to the audience that they read the book, if my understanding is correct. However, the English sentence makes me confused. I know the meanings of "pick something up," "pick up something," "pick someone up," and "pick oneself up," because they are all in dictionaries. But I've never learned this pattern, " pick oneself up something ," and can't find how to understand this pattern of the phrase. Here are my questions. How is "yourself" working in this phrase? Why aren't "pick a copy up" and "pick up a copy" enough to express the speaker's intention? Is "pick yourself up a copy" a common way to say in this kind of situation? If not, what do people usually say instead of using this phrase? What is the nuance of "pick yourself up a copy"? Does this phrase imply "have the book," "buy the book," or just "try reading the book?" What is the impression? Is this a nice way to say? Is it cool, cheerful, polite, funny, creative, young or cute? Is this guys' speaking? Don't women say "pick yourself up a copy"? Is this American English? Is it okay to use this phrase in British English communication? <Q> The verb "pick [up]" is transitive and can have more than one object. <S> It is used (here) similarly to such verbs as " get " or " give " or " gather " or any other synonyms. <S> Curiously enough, the order of the objects is not rigidly set for those verbs. <S> However, often with other verbs we see the indirect object used with a preposition <S> : "Give yourself a bonus" (no preposition) vs "Give a bonus to yourself" ( <S> the indirect object 'yourself' is used with a preposition) <S> The phrasal verb "pick up" allows placing objects between the verb and the preposition, like " pick it up please " vs " pick up the pace, buddy! " <S> However only one object can be placed there, I think. <S> You can't grammatically say " pick yourself a copy up ". <S> To "pick something up" can mean " find it and take possession of it ", and it can mean just " take something in your hand ". <S> In this case owning a copy is likely suggested. <S> Since I am not exposed much to British English nowadays, I can't really say that it's specific to Am. <S> English, although it's not that unusual, and I would venture a guess that it exists in BE too. <S> No, it's not gender specific. <S> No special mood is expressed in this phrase. <S> It's rather casual, yes, but not a joke or a jeer. <A> SUPPLEMENTAL to Victor Bazarov's answer <S> That answer gives an excellent explanation of the syntax of the phrase; I'm just adding some observations on the rhetoric involved. <S> Pick up is basically equivalent to get or obtain . <S> It's a very casual, colloquial synonym; the author is trying to sustain a conversational, personal, friend-to-friend atmosphere. <S> Pick up also suggests that obtaining the book involves very little effort, no more than picking it up off a table. <S> For instance, we feel little hesitation in asking a friend to pick something up for us when he announces he's visiting a particular store: that's a very minor imposition. <S> The author is trying to make obtaining the book sound as easy as possible. <S> Pick up says nothing about <S> how you obtain the book: whether you buy it or borrow it or steal it. <S> And that's one of the points—the author is carefully avoiding telling you to do what he wants, which is for you to purchase it. <S> He wants you to focus on the benefit obtaining the book provides you , not the benefit to him —or the cost to you. <S> The same consideration underlies the introduction of yourself . <S> The indirect object is the beneficiary of the action. <S> The author wants to make you feel that you are the beneficiary, that buying his book is a favor you do yourself . <A> "Pick up a copy" is perfectly normal in British English. <S> To me, it sounds a bit strange with the reflexive "yourself" inserted; that might be slightly more American and, I think, somewhat more informal. <S> " <S> Pick up a copy for yourself" would seem more normal to me, in British English but, since "for yourself" is implied anyway <S> (surely the speaker would have specified who the copy was for, <S> if it wasn't for you), I'd just leave it out. <A> It's one way of saying "buy this book!" <S> without using the command "buy", which might be too direct and therefore counterproductive. <S> "Pick up" should be treated more as a phrasal verb. <S> "Up" should not be interpreted literally here, the way you might pick up a coin from the floor. <S> You could, for instance, reserve a book at the library and pick it up when it's ready for you. <S> The author doesn't want you to simply borrow the book from the library. <S> He wants you to get your own copy, hence the use of yourself . <S> I would say that it's more colloquial, though. <S> (The use of "If …, if …" instead of "If …, and …" also contributes to the impromptu feeling.) <S> The sentence would probably be more formally and clearly worded as If you're interested, and you want to hear more like this, definitely pick up a copy for yourself !
| "Pick up", in this case, is a synonym of "get". The use of yourself as an indirect object is, in my opinion, awkward, but I wouldn't say that it's wrong.
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How to tell somebody that they had really a good pose in a picture? How to tell somebody that they had really a good pose in a picture? Can I say it like this? What a pose Or is it inappropriate? <Q> What a pose! <S> To answer your question, yes, that three-word phrase can be used as an exclamation, and I think it would generally be regarded as a compliment. <S> However, a little more context would help to make your intentions clear. <S> Adding an adjective might be a good idea: <S> What a great pose! <S> because without it, the phrase could also mean one of these: What a silly pose! <S> What a dumb pose! <S> What an awful pose! <S> As for it being "inappropriate," that depends on the situation. <S> If I was looking at a coworker’s <S> Facebook page, and she was posing rather flirtatiously <S> , it might not be a good idea to say "What a pose!" <S> in the workplace. <S> But assuming you're not going to cross any boundaries of professionalism, there's nothing wrong with the remark. <S> In fact, the construct isn't all that not uncommon; we can use "What an X!" <S> as a shortened way to express our approval about something. <S> For example: <S> What a night! <S> can mean, "What a great night we had last night," or, "What a dreadful night we had last night." <S> (Context usually makes it clear. <S> If I'm talking about an lovely evening of dancing, I'm saying it was great. <S> If I'm talking about staying in the emergency room until 3AM because my daughter was injured, I'm talking about something different.) <S> Similarly, I can say, What a car! <S> when I see a car driving down the street. <S> If the car is a sleek Lamborghini, most would interpret my meaning to be, "What a sweet car! <S> " If it's a jalopy, however, my meaning would be, "What a piece of junk!" <A> If you want to say that someone looks good in a particular photo, say it just like that: <S> You look really good in that photo. <S> Alternatively, you might concentrate on a particularly nice feature of the person: <S> You have such a lovely smile in that photo. <S> It sounds a little unnatural to refer to the specific pose that a person makes. <S> Normally we use the word "pose" to mean "adopt a position for a photo to be taken". <S> As such, the word is good for describing the act of assembling for a photo, but not so great for commenting on the look of the subjects of a photo. <A> We say that people " strike " a pose when they are being photographed. <S> To compliment on the pose pictured, expressing a surprise (that what your "what a pose!" <S> essentially does) is not enough. <S> A compliment ought to contain something positive. <S> So, add positive evaluation to it somehow, for instance, " <S> Your pose here appears really nice " or " You struck a neat pose " or <S> " You look good in this photo, especially I like your pose ".
| Another more general compliment to pay someone regarding how good they look in photos is to say: You're really photogenic.
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After the second world war, the city of Berlin was divided ______ USSR, USA and UK Which word is the best suited one to fill the blank, and why? After the second world war, the city of Berlin was divided ______ USSR,USA AND UK. Options: by with between among I think "between" is the best suited one, though I am not sure. What do I need to learn for these types of questions? <Q> Historical context and the naming of specific nations in the question suggests that by is a better answer than between , in my opinion. <S> This seems to be a lesson in history more than English grammar. <S> There were three heads of government (US, USSR and UK) that met at the Potsdam Conference . <S> They agreed on dividing the city of Berlin into four zones (American, British, French* and Soviet). <S> So, I believe the best answer is by rather than between , because it makes the statement more accurate; i.e., there would be no omission of facts with that answer (see Edit 2). <S> *French delegates were not at the conference, but a French zone was decided upon at the insistence of the British delegates. <S> Edit : <S> Hypothetically, if the question was: After the second world war, the city of Berlin was divided ______ the USSR, USA, UK and France. <S> Then, the correct answer could only be between . <S> It could not be by in that case, because French representatives were not part of the delegation doing the dividing. <S> If the group of nations were less specific, e.g.: <S> After the second world war, the city of Berlin was divided ______ some of the victors. <S> Then, as Crazy Eyes pointed out, among would be acceptable. <S> The question would be too vague though, because by could also be used to correctly answer to that question. <S> Edit 2 : Between is also technically correct, because it doesn't violate any grammatical rules to say that something was divided but only list a subset of the things receiving a part of it. <S> However, explicitly listing all but one part of the group would disingenuously imply to the reader that the list is complete. <S> Choosing by avoids all of that complexity though, which makes it a better choice, in my opinion. <A> (Cambridge Dictionary) <S> Use among to talk about things which are not clearly separated because they are part of a group or crowd or mass of objects. <S> (Cambridge Dictionary) <S> Among and between can suggest a relationship that is not necessarily physical. <S> (Dictionary.com) <S> Between also continues to be used, as it has been throughout its entire history, to express a relationship of persons or things considered individually, no matter how many. <S> (Dictionary.com) <S> Examples: <S> Our holiday house is between the mountains and the sea. <S> (the mountains are on one side and the sea is on the other) <S> The ancient fountain was hidden among the trees. <S> (surrounded by trees) among the crowd between two pillars They don't have much sense among them. <S> Between you and me, I don't like any of them. <S> References: <S> Cambridge Dictionary: <S> http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/between-or-among <S> Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/among <S> Dictionary.com: <S> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/between Grammar Girl: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/between-versus-among <A> The correct answer is “between”. <S> It is often taught that “between” is used for 2 items and “among” for 3 or more. <S> But this is not completely accurate. <S> The more accurate difference is this: “between” is used when naming distinct, individual items (this can be 2, 3, or more). <S> Source
| The answer is definitely BETWEEN between , among : meaning and use Use between to refer to [two] (or more) things which are clearly separated.
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with a decade more experience Source: The C Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie As we said in the preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience , we still feel that way. We hope that this book will help you to learn C and to use it well. How do you exactly understand that? I'm especially confused by the adverb more placed in between decade and experience . I would understand it perfectly well if it read with a decade-long experience , but as it stands, the grammar looks a little bit fishy to me for some reason. Please, give me a grammatical breakdown of what's going on. Do you think that decade more is functioning as an adjective and therefore can be hyphenated to show that it is actually an adjective? I'm kind of getting lost here. <Q> The authors refer to the decade that passed between the first and the second editions. <S> My understanding of " With a decade more experience , we still..." is "As our experience has grown by a decade , we still..." <S> A simpler expression would be "With more experience (that we've accumulated) , we still...", and to quantify the ' more ' they provide " a decade ". <S> That's how I read it, anyway. <S> They don't use "a decade-long" because before the first edition their experience wasn't zero, so now it's not a decade-long but long er by ten years. <S> As far as hyphenation goes, I am not sure it can be used. <S> However, here is another example of this construct: <S> “Well, we got a boatload more people coming if you guys need help." <A> I can see two ways to parse this phrase. <S> Neither parsing considers the word "more" to be an adverb. <S> Either parsing might smell a little fishy to you. <S> The phrase starts with "with". <S> This preposition has an object. <S> One parsing considers "decade" to be that object, and the other, "experience". <S> Let's start with "experience". <S> That noun can be modified by an adjective, and "more" is a suitable adjective. <S> That gives us the coherent phrase "with more experience". <S> In turn, the adjective itself can be modified by an adverb. <S> This yields phrases such as "with some more experience", "with much more experience", "with considerably more experience", "with slightly more experience", "with enough more experience", and so on. <S> Here's the fishy part of this parsing: <S> The word "decade" is normally a noun, but in this parsing the phrase "a decade" is used like an adverb and modifies "more". <S> It tells us how much more experience. <S> If calling "decade" an adverb is too fishy for your sensibilities, then we can simply call it a noun and consider it to be the object of the preposition. <S> The phrase "with a decade" is a sensible and coherent phrase. <S> The phrase "more experience" is also a good phrase. <S> "More experience", however, is a noun phrase. <S> Here's the fishy part of this parsing: <S> The noun phrase "more experience" modifies the noun "decade". <S> "More experience" tells us the kind or nature of the decade. <S> Normally, we would use a preposition to establish that relationship. <S> This parsing suggests an elided preposition or a zero preposition: "with a decade [of] more experience". <S> I don't see a way to parse the phrase in question without using something that smells fishy. <S> Your proposed "with a decade-long experience" phrase is also coherent and sensible, but it means something different than the original phrase. <S> The authors' opinion of C remains the same even after an additional decade of experience -- a greater amount of experience than they had when they wrote the first edition. <A> With...experience : prepositional phrase. <S> With ... {more} experience : <S> more is an adjective modifying experience <S> With {a decade} more experience : a decade <S> expresses the degree of the moreness; it puts a number on it (it would have been in the instrumental case back when English was a declined language [more by a decade]). <S> Nowadays, I suppose it would be considered an adposition . <S> (?) <S> Now that we can add the experience of these past ten years to our original experience, we still feel that way...
| The phrase "with a decade of more experience" is a sensible and coherent phrase which expresses the intended meaning.
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The use of hyphenation We say A 300-meter high tower . A 25-year-old male. In the first sentence, we didn't hyphenate the noun meter with the adjective high. Yet, in the second sentence, we do hyphenate them. Why is that? Is there a rule to this? <Q> The number - year-old is an idiom, it would really make little sense to try to separate the number - year from old : <S> A 25-year old male. <S> But a " high tower " is OK alone, and <S> also 300-meter is fine. <S> It is conceivable that one could try exchanging the positions of the attributes, and say A high 300-meter tower While it does sound somewhat unusual, it's still very clear ( tower does imply a tall structure, it's not difficult to understand what 300-meter defines). <S> On the other hand, if you see An old 25-year male. <S> you cringe because in this case what is a "25-year male"? <S> And, can there be a young 25-year male? <A> Hyphenation in American English is not consistent. <S> (Many hyphenated phrases are in the process of being converted from separate words into compound words, and different writers have different opinions about how far any given phrase is in the process.) <S> The rules I follow are: <S> If recognize the phrase as being a compound word (like "firetruck"), I use the compound word. <S> If the unhyphenated phrase might mean something different from the hyphenated phrase, I use the version that is closer to what I mean. <S> In the original poster's examples: "300 meter-high towers" has a different meaning from a "300-meter high tower". <S> Suppose I have 300 different piles of blocks, and each pile is one meter high. <S> Those would be "300 meter-high towers". <S> Now suppose I were playing with the blocks while sitting on the roof of a very tall building. <S> That could be a "300-meter high tower". <S> A "300-meter high tower" is a kind of "high tower", so it is consistent with a "300-meter-high tower". <S> Thus, the second hyphen in "300-meter-high" is redundant. <S> Among humans, a "25-year-old male" is not usually considered an "old male". <S> Thus, a "25-year-old male" is different from a "25-year old male". <A> I think OP's question is based on a false premise. <S> It's fine to refer to a 300 meter high [tower] with no hyphens at all, and in fact that seems to be the most common form in those written instances. <S> The second most common form uses two hyphens (which also seems fine to me). <S> I suggest you either hyphenate or don't - but don't "half-hyphenate".
| It is acceptable to hyphenate the dimension and the direction (thus bringing them together), as in " 300-meter-high ", or to keep them separate -- it does not change the meaning. I can't see any grammatical justification for only using one hyphen, and relatively speaking it's not common.
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Formal way to say "Somehow" I wrote this sentence. (excuse me for the repeated sentence) However, if the user somehow could specify the context necessary to apply the rule (e.g. the page sidebar),then before removing such an element, context would be considered. How can I say such phrases more formally, maybe: if it was possible for the user to specify .... <Q> Assuming that it is not possible for the user to "specify the context", talking about doing that is a contrafactual situation, which calls for the subjunctive . <S> If the user were {able/allowed) to specify the context. <S> . . <A> Try <S> However, should the user specify the context necessary to apply the rule before removing an element, that context would be considered. <A> I would say somehow is not needed here, depending on the context though. <S> By using somehow , the writer is indicating that the user might have a difficult time doing the requested action. <S> Also I would switch the word order to be more natural (keeping the adverb next to the verb). <S> However, if the user could somehow specify the context necessary to apply the rule (e.g. the page sidebar), then before removing such an element, context would be considered. <S> but I don't see any benefit. <S> could/can seems better to me.
| You could use possible
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"The first time I met my wife I knew she was a keeper. She was wearing massive gloves" - Alun Cochrane What is the pun in this joke "The first time I met my wife I knew she was a keeper. She was wearing massive gloves" by Alun Cochrane <Q> In football / soccer 1 <S> (goal)keepers wear oversized gloves: <S> Source <S> If a person you are in a relationship with is decribed as a keeper <S> it's someone considered to be held onto, someone "you should keep". <S> The joke plays with the double meaning, in a classic example of a double entendre . <S> 1 and other sports involving a ball and a goal: (ice) hockey, cricket, lacrosse... <S> Not all sports, though, e.g. water-/handball are played "gloveless". <A> Possible she's a beekeeper? <S> They have to wear large sets of gear to protect themselves. <A> "Keeper" Oxford English Dictionary Definition See #2 Shorthand for a Goalkeeper (Football [UK]) or Wicketkeeper (Cricket) who would traditionally wear large gloves: <S> The first part of the joke leads you to believe that the teller is talking about definition a), but then qualifies it by talking about the gloves to give definition b) <A> Alun Cochrane is a comedian from the North of England. <S> He is referring to a Goalkeeper in football (soccer) as well as someone to keep forever. <S> Goalkeepers or keepers use large gloves.
| It is a play on words based on a) "Keeper" Urban Dictionary Definition a term used to describe a guy/girl that you love very much and plan to "keep" b)
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"Bring up the subject" vs "bring the subject up" Example: I stared at my brown sneakers, deciding whether to bring up the subject. I stared at my brown sneakers, deciding whether to bring the subject up. What's the different between the two? Are both grammatical? Which one is more common? <Q> With a verb + preposition combination like this one (sometimes called a separable phrasal verb ), we can choose to put the Object either before or after the preposition: <S> Take the rubbish out. <S> Take out the rubbish. <S> When the Object is a pronoun it must go before the preposition and cannot go afterwards: <S> Take it out. <S> *Take out it. <S> (ungrammatical) <S> Notice here that pronouns are very short, usually only one syllable. <S> And if the Object is very long, native speakers prefer to put it after the preposition. <S> It can sound very bad if we put a long Object before the preposition: <S> I'm taking the rubbish you left lying around on the floor yesterday afternoon out. <S> (awkward - long Object in the middle) <S> I'm taking out the rubbish you left lying around on the floor yesterday afternoon . <S> (good - long Object after the preposition). <S> The Original Poster's question <S> The Object in the Original Posters question isn't very long. <S> It's only three syllables. <S> It isn't a pronoun either We can choose therefore whether to put it before or after the pronoun. <S> There might be other factors that make us more likely to choose one or the other. <S> For example, whether the subject represents old or new information. <S> Or, maybe more importantly whether one choice is more idiomatic than the other. <S> In my opinion bring up the subject <S> is more idiomatic than bring the subject up although both are entirely grammatical. <S> Here's an Ngram comparing the two, which seems to back up my idea. <S> Blue shows bring up the subject and red shows <S> bring the subject up . <S> However, remember that it's only an Ngram <S> , so there might be other reasons for one being more common than the other: Edit note : Just to illustrate that native speakers' intuitions may be different, see Racheet's helpful comments below! <A> There is no difference. <S> Some phrasal verbs allow the object to be placed between the verb and the particle, some don't. <S> And if the object is a pronoun, like <S> it , for instance, the pronoun always follows the verb. <S> You can't grammatically say " to bring up it ", you should say " to bring it up ". <A> They will both be understood, but you might choose one or the other depending upon if 'the subject' is already known. <S> For example: "I stared at my brown sneakers, thinking about the broken vase, deciding whether or not to bring the subject up." <S> "I stared at my brown sneakers, deciding whether or not to bring up the subject of the broken vase ."
| It looks as if bring up the subject might be more idiomatic.
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He_____the bus so that he could reach office in time He_____the bus so that he could reach office in time. options given: a. ran for b. ran into c. took d. ran after I could not solve this question and find it difficult to understand difference in the options. @Edit ran for ran into and ran after are prepositional phrases that all i know but i am unable to determine the usage of each word. ran after:here's what i researched. Yes, ran after is a (transitive) phrasal verb. To "run after" someone means to chase them with the intent to catch them and interact with them in some way. If you parse it as a verb + a prepositional phrase, you would have a meaning of "to run at a later time than someone", which in most cases (including your example) does not make sense. Source : https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/266745/is-ran-after-a-phrasal-verb So ran after here too doesn't make sense ran into: to bump into someone or something. ran for: To flee toward something or some place, especially for shelter or safety: took:reach for and hold i am confused between ranfor and ran into and took I need to analyze which option is correct and why. Am I missing out any rule? <Q> ran for, ran after, and took all work in this sentence. <S> In fact so does ran into but that is not what is being said here (that one is funny). <S> The difference is their precise meaning. <S> Note that the sentence is incorrect, it should read: <S> He __ the bus <S> so he could reach the office in time. <S> 1) <S> He ran for the bus so he could reach the office in time. <S> This is the most reasonable answer and is appropriate for questions of this type. <S> Examples:He ran for the presidential office. <S> He ran for his own good. <S> 2) <S> He ran after the bus so he could reach the office in time. <S> He ran after shows an action taking place, use of after makes it sound like the man is chasing the bus, not merely getting it. <S> This makes me think of the man actually trying to beat the bus to the bus stop. <S> Examples:He ran after the ball and into the street. <S> He ran after the deer. <S> If there was a dog named Midnight, I would not say "He ran after Midnight." <S> In this sentence, it sounds like midnight is a time. <S> Instead, we would say "He ran for Midnight," just to avoid confusion. <S> 3) <S> He took the bus so he could reach the office in time. <S> This is plain and simple, and doesn't imply any need to run. <S> The man simply took the bus. <S> Examples:He took the plane to get to Shanghai. <S> He took the bag so that he would have books for class. <A> " Run for the bus" may mean that the bus is about to depart and walking could cause missing it. <S> The exclamation "Go for it!" <S> can be changed to "Run for it!" <S> to indicate urgency (I'll leave it to you to look those up as well). <S> " Into " can be a preposition, " into the bus " could be just an adverbial phrase to define " run ", to indicate the direction. <S> " Take " with means of transportation simply means "to use". <S> I take the train to work every morning. <S> " Take " with a direction means to follow. <S> When you reach the intersection <S> take the left turn. <S> You already found the various flavors of " run after ". <S> Hope this helps... <A> In this sentence, the best choice is option 1: <S> He ran for the bus so that he could reach the office in time. <S> A key feature of the sentence is that there is a certain urgency: He needs to "reach the office in time". <S> Let's consider the options: <S> Take is the standard verb for making use of a bus; it states only that your means of travel was the bus. <S> "He took the bus" does not contribute to the desired sense of urgency. <S> Run into is normally interpreted as a phrasal verb meaning "collide with" or "encounter". <S> Only in cases of a structure or an area would run into be readily taken to be a literal "run through the entrance" action. <S> Saying "He ran into the bus" would therefore mean "he collided with the bus", which would not help him get to work in time. <S> You could argue that it is intended to mean "He ran through the entrance of the bus", but that is not the default reading; the sentence would be confusing and misleading. <S> Run after , as you found, means "chase, with the intent to catch". <S> In the case of a bus, the clear purpose of running after it would be to get on it and have it take you somewhere. <S> However, one other key feature of run after is that it implies that the person or thing you are chasing is already underway: the person is walking away from you, or the bus has closed its doors and started driving toward the next stop. <S> So, simply running after the bus may not get him to the office in time; he may not be able to catch it. <S> Run for can mean either "to try to get elected to an office" or "to run toward a place or object". <S> This second meaning is clearly appropriate to the given sentence. <S> Running for the bus will help achieve the goal of "reaching the office in time" by making sure that you get on the appropriate bus.
| Buses are known to depart on a regular schedule, and if you are near the scheduled departure time, you might need to run in order to actually get on a particular bus before it leaves, because if you don't make it onto that bus you will have to wait for another appropriate bus to arrive. Using for implies there is a purpose to running, so you should follow it with something that justifies the action.
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What is the difference between "okay with" and "okay for"? Which of the following is the correct sentence to ask a person if he is okay to help me? (The help here is, asking doubts in another language.) I will be needing your help, if it is okay with you. I will be needing your help, if it is okay for you. <Q> 1) Is definitely most common in common usage. ' <S> Okay with' most commonly confirms politely that the person is willing to/comfortable with helping. <S> 'Okay to' might imply that there was some reason the other person might not be in a state where they are able to help, e.g. (To a sick person), "I will need your help if you are okay (well enough) to help". ' <S> Okay for' can be used to refer to something more specific, e.g. "I will need your help if (some date/time) is okay for you". <A> With implies that the person you want to provide help can decide or control on his/her own if he/she is okay with helping or not. <S> It may not be okay, <S> e.g., if they are busy or occupied and by saying this you acknowledge that. <S> You may prefer to say this if you are asking someone who is supposed to be able to help you, but may be busy or occupied with something. <A> I only hear " with " used in such a sentence. <S> You can also say ... <S> if you are okay with it . <S> The " okay " is an adjective here, I think.
| For implies that the help this person can provide is controlled by something else and you are checking if it's okay for them to help. The " with you " is an adjectival clause linked to the " it " (similar to how " with it " is linked to the " you " in my example).
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Why is there no preposition behind the word "mile"? The region is some 40 miles north of Seoul. What does it mean? I personally think it means "The region is 40 miles away from the north of Seoul". Why is there no preposition after the word mile ? <Q> I think maybe you are parsing the sentence wrong: (The region) (is) (about 40 miles north) (of Seoul). <S> I say this because you're asking why there is no preposition after miles , yet the word of is right there (albeit after the word north ). <S> As a picture, it would look like this: <S> In English, we typically can append a direction onto a distance to describe a vector: <S> The cabin is about 2 miles south of the lake. <S> Leominster is about 50 miles west of Boston. <S> When the direction is omitted, a preposition might follows the unit, or we might use the word away followed by the preposition: The store is about 3 kilometers from here. <S> The star is about 43 light years away from earth. <A> The word north has been used in the sentence as an adverb that means "toward the north". <S> The region is north. <S> It implies that the region is towards the north. <S> The region is north of Seol. <S> The region is some 40 miles north of Seol. <S> It means that the region is some 40 miles (away) towards the north of Seol. <A> "..North of..." is the preposition in the sentence. <S> In English, "North of" can roughly be swapped with the common preposition "above" when referring to points on a map. <S> The region is some 40 miles North of Seoul. <S> The region is some 40 miles to the North of Seoul. <S> The region is some 40 miles above Seoul. <S> The region is some 40 miles away from Seoul. <S> You'll see that all of the above examples are prepositions. <A> You are quite right but to paraphrase the original sentence, it would mean: <S> The region is approximately 40 miles to the north of Seoul. <S> Some in this sentence means it is approximately. <A> Not quite. <S> When the distance between to locations that are not singular points (e.g. a city) is given, the usual interpretation is that the distance is measured more-or-less from the center of the location. <S> For a city, it might be the "central business district" or some other commonly accepted central location. <S> I would expect few people to interpret the statement as being in relation to some northerly extremity of the city (so it is not "40 miles away from the north of Seoul"). <S> P.S. <S> the word "some" implies the speaker is only estimating the distance (i.e. it is not exactly 40 miles) <A> "Some" defines quantity, but in this case it also gives an approximation (on how far away the region is from Seoul), so you are partially right.
| It means that the region is towards the north of Seol.
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to roast vs to bake What I learned from articles I read from cooking websites on the internet is that the word to roast is associated more with meat and vegetables, whereas the word bake goes with bread, cake, cookies and muffins. When I hear the word roast , a turkey or chicken comes to my mind but in case of word bake , I imagine a pound cake; but I don't think that these explanations cover everything or most of dishes we cook in an oven. I think what causes confusion is when we cook vegatables as a main dish and not as a side food. I mean when we cook poultry in oven, we are likely to roast it or when we bake a muffin we definitely bake it. But I'd like to ask how about vegetable-only dishes ? E.g. in the picture below : (zucchini + tomato ) And would you cook , roast or bake a pizza with a chicken topping? <Q> Note: the following is based on UK terminology. <S> If the USA uses the words differently, I don't know about that. <S> Both Roasting and baking cook the food with "dry heat", <S> i.e. the food is heated by hot air in an oven, or by direct heat radiation from an open fire in traditional roasting. <S> The basic differences are Temperature. <S> Roughly, baking means temperatures below 400F (200C)and roasting means higher temperatures. <S> For roasting, the surface of the food must become coated with fat or oil while being cooked. <S> The fat is caramelized (browned) by the high temperature. <S> The fat can come from the food itself when roasting meat, or oil-free vegetables like potatoes can be coated with fat or oil before roasting. <S> So, you can bake a potato simply by heating a raw potato for the correct amount of time, or <S> you can or roast it by coating it with fat or oil before heating it (to a higher temperature than for baking). <S> The end products will look and taste different from each other. <S> The surface of the food must be in open to the air for roasting. <S> You can bake a potato wrapped in foil (to stop it becoming too dry) <S> but you can't roast it wrapped in foil. <S> You would just end up with a baked potato soaked in fat. <S> Roasting a cake or bread is logically impossible, because you have to put the raw dough in a container to hold it in the right shape, and therefore most of the surface of the cake will never be in contact with the air. <A> Pizza is a bread product regardless of what topping you put on it, so you bake a pizza. <S> (You can also cook a pizza. <S> Cook works for pretty much anything.) <S> To me (British) <S> roasting a vegetable means cutting it into chunks and spreading them out in a tin or a tray with a little oil. <S> If it's cooked whole, or with the pieces next to each other in a dish like in the picture, I would call that baking. <A> I think the difference with the terms comes from the fact that meat was originally cooked over an open fire , laid on a grate or suspended by means of a spit . <S> While we now rarely do that in our kitchens, the distinction remains -- <S> we roast meats and we bake everything else. <S> Also, baking often requires a container of some kind. <S> Interestingly, even if we put the meat in a pan and cover the meat with foil, we still might refer to the process as roasting (e.g. "pot roast"). <S> The process of " roasting " usually calls for higher temperatures than " baking ". <S> As to pizza, although the temperature used is more similar to that for meat, we still say "bake" probably because a pizza is a kind of pie , which we bake . <S> To add to the confusion, I just remembered a " baked ham"... <S> It doesn't start as raw meat, though. <A> As I understand it, the difference between baking and roasting is the finish on the surface of the food you are cooking, with a secondary factor that if it is bakery, flour and yeast, then it is always baked. <S> When you are baking something, you are not trying to brown it. <S> You are trying to cook it as evenly as possible throughout. <S> When I think of potatoes au gratin, you are browning the top of the potatoes, but it seems like baking would be a better term than roasting for that application, but its really the only exception to this logic I can think of. <S> I can go to a chicken pot pie, which you are definitely browning the crust, but that is a dough, flour and yeast, and as such, it is always baked. <S> A roasted turkey leg has brown crispy skin that crunches just a bit when you bite into it, but is still moist on the inside. <S> A baked turkey leg is white, and moist all the way through (usually covered by a variety of different ingredients).
| When you are roasting something, you are browning it and making the skin/outside of the food crispy, while trying to leave the inside of the food moist and juicy.
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What does "heavy mouth" mean? But behind the locked door at the top of the house, the picture of Dorian Gray grew older every year. The terrible face showed the dark secrets of his life.The heavy mouth , the yellow skin,the cruel eyes -- those told the real story. Again and again, Dorian Gray went secretly to the room looked first at the ugly and terrible face in the picture, then at the beautiful young face that laughed back at him from mirror what does this phrase mean?: "heavy mouth" Edit: this excerpt comes from "Picture of Dorian Gray", written by Oscar Wilde. thank to Catija. <Q> (It isn't a stock phrase, at least not one that I know.) <S> That isn't to say it isn't effective language. <S> What would a face look like if the mouth were extremely heavy? <S> I imagine a tired, serious expression, with the lips rarely lifting up or even moving, never smiling fully. <A> As others have said, it's not a standard phrase. <S> However, it's important to point out how the word <S> heavy can be used to describe things other than weight and mass. <S> Couples can engage in heavy conversations ; students can trudge through heavy reading passages. <S> We can be advised not to eat a heavy meal before a long swim. <S> Your passage doesn't even tell us what is being described – something you should be more careful about in future questions. <S> However, I can venture guess as to what the expression might mean, based on Definition 6 in Macmillan , which says: <S> heavy ( adj .) <S> used about things that look ugly because they are big heavy features <S> (=large mouth, eyes, and nose) : <S> He was a tall dark man, with heavy features . <A> As @Adam said, it isn't really a stock phrase, it's just a description. <S> I personally (without more context) would think of a monster of some sort, with lots of fat around the mouth area dragging it down. <S> A mouth that doesn't often see the grace of a smile because somehow it is too much effort.
| Heavy mouth doesn't "mean" anything to me other than a mouth that is heavy.
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Deleting subject and verb in a clause When not a teacher , he lived a life of a monk. This sentence is perfectly possible and is missing a subject, so I was just curious if I can say this also. Students were absentminded, thinking what to do when (they) get home early. If (they are) not doing homework, they get lazy. Is it OK to delete "they" (or "they are") in these sentences? <Q> It is common to omit the subject and the verb to be , and if the subject and verb are lacking, it will almost always be interpreted as the verb to be . <S> As such, you should only ever omit the verb to be and both it and the subject must be omitted. <S> This renders your first example nonsensical as "get" has no subject, and removing "get" will make it be interpreted as the following: <S> Students were absentminded, thinking what to do when (they are) home early. <S> * <S> Early without get leaves this more open to interpretation, for example, it could just be early in the morning, and furthermore the sentence does not sound natural <S> so I would revise it as such: Students were absentminded when thinking about what to do when home from school early. <S> The "home from school" clarifies this. <S> Your second sentences, since it uses to be , is fine, as long as you remove both they and are . <S> If (they are) not doing homework, they get lazy. <A> It is technically right, because students would be implied in the first one and they in the second one. <S> The second one, however, changes the meaning. <S> "If not doing homework" is a dependent clause, not independent. <S> So, in some cases, yes, <S> and some, no. <A> First Example <S> In the following example that you provided, your use of "they" is correct. <S> You can't omit it . <S> Students were absentminded, thinking what to do when they get home early. <S> You can not say the following: <S> Students were absentminded, thinking what to do when get home early. <S> This is because it is not implied who you are talking about in the second part of the sentence. <S> Second Example <S> This sentence, as you would probably expect, is correct: <S> If they are not doing homework, they get lazy. <S> However, it is also perfectly acceptable to say: If not doing homework, they get lazy. <S> This is because it is implied who you are talking about in the second part of the sentence. <S> Note <S> You said that it was perfectly acceptable to say this: <S> When not a teacher, he lived a life of a monk. <S> However, in English it does read better if you say (formally): <S> When he was not a teacher, he lived the life of a monk. <S> Or (informally): <S> When he wasn't a teacher, he lived the life of a monk. <S> As an English speaker myself, my preferred choice would be the latter. <S> Conclusion <S> It is okay to omit "they" from the first part of the sentence as long as you make sure that the reader knows who you are writing about (he, she, they, we and so on) after they have read the second part of the sentence.
| This is correct .
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Which is preferred "Would you" or "Will you wait for me"? Which is the correct sentence: Will you wait for me? or Would you wait for me? would sounds pretty polite. <Q> The difference in meaning is between the Future Indefinite (" will you") and subjunctive mood (" would you wait") is that in the former case the necessity for waiting is known to the speaker and the party whom the speaker is asking, whereas the latter (" would ") suggests that the need for waiting is yet not certain, or even hypothetical. <A> Both sentences are "correct." <S> Would does indicate politeness/deference, and will can be used in "not certain" or "hypothetical" situations: <S> Will you wait for me if I asked you nice(ly)? <S> Would you wait for me if I asked you nice(ly)? <S> Here, would shows more deference ( ~= politeness). <S> While, will , as usual when talking about future time, talks about the current resolve of the--in this case--the person being asked, to carry out a future action. <S> It is neutral as far as deference/politeness. <S> As for your sentences, then, use would to be more polite/deferential. <A> 'Would you wait for me?' <S> is you trying to figure out if they'd do it. <S> 'Will you wait for me?' <S> is asking them to do it.
| They are both polite enough, in that sense there is no difference.
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Does "Vietnamese-born Australian" include child born in Australia by Vietnamese immigrants? Ok, I often hear people in Australia say " Vietnamese-born Australian ", but I am not sure that term refers to: A child was born in Vietnam by Vietnamese parents then the child and his / her parents moved to Australia A child was born in Australia by Vietnamese parents who moved to Australia from Vietnam Also, are there any difference between " Vietnamese-born Australian " & " Vietnamese Australian "? <Q> I don't agree entirely with the current answer, so I'll try my hand at answering. <S> Vietnamese-born Australian refers to someone who was born in Vietnam, but has since become an Australian citizen. <S> Vietnamese Australian would refer to an Australian citizen with Vietnamese ancestry, no matter where he was born, or where he lives, for that matter. <A> A Vietnamese-born Australian is one of two things: 1) <S> Somebody who was born in Vietnam and moved to Australia. <S> or: 2) <S> An Australian citizen who was born in Vietnam, even if they're currently living somewhere else in the world. <A> This does not really say anything about how they were given the Vietnamese nationality at birth. <S> This could include: Being born in Vietnam. <S> This might happen irrespectively of the nationality of the parents (some countries grant citizenship to anyone being born on their territory, I'm not sure whether this is the case for Vietnam). <S> Being born from Vietnamese parents anywhere in the world <S> (in such a way that they automatically get Vietnamese citizenship, if this is the way Vietnamese laws work). <S> For someone who was born in the country (irrespectively of their nationality at birth), I would use the country name. <S> For example: a "Vietnam-born" person. <S> (Although this might not come from an authoritative reference, this expression is used multiple times on the Vietnamese Australian Wikipedia page .) <S> It's easy to find this expression in use for a number of other countries too. <A> A child was born in Vietnam by Vietnamese parents then the child and his / her parents moved to Australia. <S> (Currently a citizen or legal resident of Australia.) <S> Actually both parents and child could be called "Vietnamese Australian". <S> The parents could also be called this, however to differentiate the parents could be referred to as: <S> first generation <S> Vietnamese Australian <S> or as you said: Vietnamese-born Australian And the child (born in Australia) as: <S> second generation Vietnamese-Australian <A> A person nationality is the person's nationality. <S> Where a person is born is a location where the birth occurs. <S> Conventional language used properly (short or long) can accurately describe any scenario/situation without interpretation required. <S> All the best <A> It most likely refers to a person born in Vietnam who is now resident in, or possibly a citizen of, Australia if dual citizenship is approved in Australia. <S> If not, the person is Vietnamese.
| I would say " Vietnamese-born Australian " refers to someone who was born Vietnamese and who is now Australian.
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Is 'We'll have us a beer' acceptable in Standard English? I heard sometimes to say 'we're going to have us a beer'. Is this correct? Should it be avoided in standard English? Is it only colloquial? <Q> "Have us a beer" would be understood, but not common in the US, and if someone said it like that, I'd expect it to be delivered with amusement in the person's tone, because the person is probably being jocular. <S> It wouldn't be used casually. <S> I don't know how common the phrase is in British English. <A> In the City of London it would be considered terrible or, worse, not English. <A> Standard English, no. ' <S> Have us' or 'Get us' violates multiple grammatical rules. <S> Same for the singular constructs, 'Have me' or 'Get me'. <S> However, it's descended directly from the language of low-class Scottish speakers, who brought it to the US (often as criminals or destitute work-seekers) and spoke it as a standard dialect in Appalachia and the Antebellum South. <S> Within the accents where these are spoken, they conform perfectly with the grammar. <S> In the US, it's strongly associated with white hillbillies, rednecks, and okies, the closest there is to a white underclass in the States. <S> This exact same construct still exists in Scottish today, though not nearly as commonly, except that it'd likely be "we'll have us a pint." <S> From there, it most likely spread to AAVE. <S> In the South in particular, there was an enormous mixing of language between lower-class whites and blacks (who were all lowest-class by default) up until the postwar period. <S> They coexisted and inhabited the same spaces. <S> The Great Migration spread Southern dialects into Northern and Western cities, bringing us the common AAVE we know now. <S> In the media, it's commonly portrayed as the speech of a caricature of a low-class person, but where I live, in Central California, home of descendants of many okies, it's not an uncommon construction. <S> Sometimes it's a joke, but a number of people here still speak that way unironically every day. <S> This same accent is where 'Gonna' came from, and the two often pair up.
| In America, you'd more often hear "We're going to have beers", or "We're going out to have a beer" or "We're going out for beer" or "We're going out for beers".
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Can this sentence be said? If not, please tell me the alternative. These types of issues cannot be haphazardly assigned opinions/judgements/views to them without first taking a methodical approach to studying them. I am not sure that the word " assigned " is appropriate here. Can it be replaced with " given "? <Q> Answer I recommend: <S> One should study these matters before forming an opinion. <S> I see the following issues with the original sentence construction. <S> Double-negatives . <S> Writers should avoid them. <S> Redundancy . <S> The writer refers to "types of issues" 3 times. <S> Passive voice . <S> Writers should choose active voice. <S> These factors combined in the original sentence to make an awkward expression of the writer's idea. <S> Reasoning and references <S> The above "issues" are not rules as much as they are generally accepted guides studied and used by many professional writers. <S> I refer you to the classic text on the subject: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White . <S> English is a flexible language. <S> There are many ways to express ideas that are technically proper English but might not be the most effective way to communicate. <S> Guidelines set forth in <S> The Elements of Style bridge much of the gap between what is correct English and what is effective English. <A> I'd say none, because one does not give their judgements or opinions to an issue, one gives their opinions and judgements to an audience regarding an issue, even if you yourself are the audience. <S> Just think about it logically, you can't give your opinion on a book to the book, or give your opinion on a crime to the crime. <S> Furthermore, you're using "without first taking a methodical approach" in conjunction with "haphazardly", instead of cancelling "haphazardly" and providing the correct substitute. <S> So essentially what the language says in your example is that it's okay to arrive at a haphazard opinion/view/judgement once you've methodically studied the issue. <S> This of course is self contradictory because you're no longer taking haphazard action after giving serious disciplined and objective effort. <A> "Issues have things assigned to them", not "issues are things assigned to them". <S> Also you need to rearrange the words: <S> These types of issues cannot have opinions/judgements/views assigned to them haphazardly, without first taking a methodical approach to studying them. <S> "Assigned to them" is sort-of-OK, but "applied to them" or "associated with them" might be better. <S> You can't really "give" something to an abstract idea like "an opinion", so "given" doesn't work here.
| A better way to speak this would be to say: One cannot haphazardly establish judgement or opinion on such issues, but rather must methodically study them and draw conclusions as objectively as possible. You could say "haphazardly assigned to them," but adverbs (haphazardly) usually go after the verb (assigned) not before it.
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If somebody calls you "Hello Trouble", what does it mean? What does it exactly mean if somebody says "Hello, Trouble" to you? One of my colleagues said "Hello, Trouble" to me this morning. I just replied "Hi", as I was not sure what to say. So just wanted to check what exactly Trouble here means... <Q> One possibility is that the greeting is intended ironically or sarcastically. <S> An ostensibly meek, mild-mannered person might be greeted with "Hello, Trouble" or "Here comes trouble!" <S> as a way of teasing them. <S> This is similar to calling a very large person "Tiny". <S> You might say this to anyone, really, but it's one of those things that's funnier when it's not true. <A> It's a flirtatious phrase often said by a man to a/n (attractive) woman (of child-bearing age). <S> It's a backhanded way of saying, I like you. <S> and I'm attracted to you. <S> without actually saying it directly. <S> (It can also be used sarcastically by being said to or about a woman who might look a little "edgy" or "slutty" — again, depending on context.) <S> The word trouble (in this context) alludes to the fact that attractive women often get men into "trouble" because attractive women can often get men to do things men would not otherwise do. <S> Like spend money, cheat on their wives, "make babies," get married, etc. <S> It's a way of opening the door for you to respond back to the speaker in a similarly flirtatious way. <S> Thereby, opening the door for him to talk to you in a more personal way with the goal of eventually "dating" you. <S> Alternative Theories <S> To borrow a phrase from JR's page : Context is everything . <S> So, in an effort to give a complete answer, a "flow chart" of possible meanings comes to mind as follows. <S> Is the OP an attractive adult female of child-bearing age and is the speaker a (presumably) heterosexual adult male? <S> If "yes" to both, I would estimate the odds of the meaning provided above to be roughly 95% to 99%. <S> If "no" to either, go to step 2. <S> Does the OP match the description in Tyler James Young's answer: "meek, mild-mannered? <S> " <S> If "yes," I would estimate the odds of that answer being the correct interpretation at 95%-99%. <S> If "no," go to step 3. <S> Consider the following alternative meanings. <S> For example, if the junior male is "studly" or "manly" in some way by either being good-looking, attractive to women, good at sports or a "bad boy." <S> (Or intelligent or wealthy too, for that matter.) <S> If the speaker is speaking to a child, it could be the meaning described by FumbleFingers in his/her comment to the OP. <S> If the speaker is (nominally) speaking to a pet, it could have a similar meaning as FumbleFinger's description; only applied to a pet instead of a child. <A> It is not always a flirtatious greeting but nearly always friendly. <S> Can be joking. <S> Very very rarely because you actually caused a problem, and if you actually did cause a problem, can ease tension. <S> (source- native speaker) <A> When you greet a kid you can say "hello little troublemaker" or hello trouble for short. <S> you can apply it to adults too. <S> That is the context I would typically hear/use it. <A> I regularly call my boyfriend ‘troublemaker’ because he is mischievous when he is being flirtatious. <S> He causes me ‘trouble’ because he make me want to do things like continue talking to him more when I should be doing other things, like sleeping. <S> It’s affectionate in that way. <S> If it’s a colleague, they are probably just trying to break the ice with you/ become closer in a friendly way. <S> English is funny that way, it’s much more the tone and context in which a person says something than the words themselves. <S> (I know other languages have that too, but it can be so confusing at times, even for a native English speaker) <S> If they were smiling/laughing or if they looked serious and then grinned after you said hello. <S> It was just friendly teasing and they want to be more casual with you, which is often a good sign with colleagues.
| It's sometimes a backhanded way of a senior male paying a junior male a half-compliment, half-slight.
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What is a word meaning "with a low possibility"? A simplified example: — Do you think you can come? — Yeah, unless (word here) I have a visitor. "not very likely" seems like a solution, but is there any other shorter word/phrase to use? One of my clients asked me if I was okay to meet with him on the coming Monday morning at 10am. But I was expecting my mother's visit. She had told me she would visit me either on Monday or Tuesday, but most likely on Tuesday. So, this event was NOT unexpected, but rather what I was not quite sure of its possibility other than it’s low. And so words like “ unexpectedly ”, “ possibly ”, “ by some miracle ” don't fit. A fuller example: 10am on Monday is fine with me, unless ( with a low possibility ) my mother visits me, in which case I would have to ask you to reschedule our meeting. <Q> "Improbably" would be acceptable here, if you surround it with commas: <S> Yeah, unless , improbably, I have a visitor. <S> Most of the time, though, the sentence is more natural if you put the description of probability at the end, like this: <S> Yeah, unless I have a visitor — not very likely . <S> That's basically short for this, the clearest but not the shortest: <S> Yeah, unless I have a visitor , which is not very likely . <S> J.R. in comments points out that "happen to have" is a concise way to say this, although it implies a somewhat more likely event: <S> Yeah, unless I happen to have a visitor. <S> Regarding your more specific example, all four of my suggestions are still applicable with minor adjustments: <S> 10am on Monday is fine with me, unless , improbably, my mother visits me, in which case I would have to ask you to reschedule our meeting. <S> 10am on Monday is fine with me, unless my mother visits me — not very likely — in which case I would have to ask you to reschedule our meeting. <S> 10am on Monday is fine with me, unless my mother visits me, which is not very likely, but in which case I would have to ask you to reschedule our meeting. <S> 10am on Monday is fine with me, unless my mother happens to visit me, in which case I would have to ask you to reschedule our meeting. <A> In the specific example you pose, the second speaker is indicating that they aren't expecting a visitor to appear and interrupt their plans, but doesn't want to rule out the possibility. <S> If I were in this situation, I'd say: <S> "Yeah, unless I have an unexpected visitor." <S> This both implies that you cannot know if a visitor will come, and also suggests that a visitor is unlikely as visitors are seldom unexpected. <S> The latter suggestion may vary depending on context - for example, unexpected visitors might be more likely at a storefront than at a home. <A> Update to your update. <S> 10 AM on Monday should be fine, but it's possible my mother will visit, in which case I'll have to reschedule. <S> I presume <S> if she visits Monday, your Tuesday will be open, so you might be more verbose and just explain the situation. <S> It's possible your client could keep an opening on both Monday and Tuesday until you confirm your mother's schedule. <S> Original: <S> In this case I would invert your answer. <S> Do you think you can come? <S> Probably, but I might have a visitor. <S> Here, the first word answers the question, then the conjunction explains why it's not definite. <S> It also seems much more natural to me. <S> It implies you're expecting a visitor, but there's no reason to specify a visitor unless you're at least somewhat expecting one. <S> An alternate example where the likelihood is different. <S> Possibly, but I probably have a visitor. <S> A more generic answer would be (Yes,) unless something crazy happens. <S> Here, crazy means a very unlikely event, like your house catching fire. <S> Substitute with <S> weird , unexpected , or something similar depending on how unusual the circumstances have to be to not go with the speaker. <S> Also, in normal English, the word <S> yes is understood, and isn't strictly necessary. <S> In the probably and possibly examples above, the interjection is needed because otherwise we wouldn't know how likely it is you'll have a visitor. <A> I would probably say it like this: <S> Yeah, unless by some odd chance I have a visitor. <S> Here, odd is not referring to odd/even numbers, but rather it means uncommon, unusual, or peculiar. <S> The prepositional phrase can be paced at the end of the sentence too, without changing the meaning: <A> 10am on Monday is fine with me, except in the unlikely event that I have an appointment. <S> 10am on Monday is fine with me, unless I have an appointment, which is unlikely. <S> I dropped 'very' because it adds nothing: unlikely means unlikely. <A> I cannot see a single word answer that fits your exact pattern, "unless ________ I have an appointment." <S> But here are some ways to express the same idea. <S> Can we meet on Monday at 10? <S> That is fine with me, [but indicate the low possibility of having a conflicting appointment]. <S> Possibilities: <S> but I might/could have an appointment. <S> [Use of italics adds stress which indicates a lower chance.] <S> though there's a slim chance I have an appointment. <S> assuming my unlikely appointment does not occur. <S> but there's a low possibility of a conflict. <S> unless, unexpectedly, the appointment I have then doesn't fall through. <S> just know that I might have to cancel if a prior tentative commitment materializes. <S> assuming I can clear the time, which I expect. <S> Feel free to mix and match, e.g., "but I might have a conflict." <A> Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but it sounds like you <S> do expect an appointment with another, just not at 10 AM, Monday morning. <S> If so, I would simply state:"10am on Monday is fine with me. <S> I have a prior commitment, but it is not scheduled until X" <A> I've used "God forbid" in some similar situations, though only for the type of exception that are very bad. <S> — <S> Do you think you can come? <S> — <S> You may or may not want to be religious to use it, <S> but I think other constructs could be created to "forbid" the event if referencing God is an issue. <S> I've also heard "Heaven forfend" from time to time which is admittedly not very different, but pleasantly archaic.
| Yeah, unless I have a visitor by some odd chance. Yeah, unless God forbid, that hurricane doesn't turn away tonight.
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