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Past or present tense in sentences regarding thoughts I am confused in using tenses in sentences regarding thoughts: I thought that it was interesting. or I thought that it is interesting. Which sentence out of these two is correct and why? <Q> Short answer: <S> Long answer: <S> However, it would also be completely natural to say "I thought that interesting". <S> You could also say "I thought that is interesting" or "I thought that's interesting" if you were thinking in the past about a thing which is still interesting in the present. <S> It would not be grammatically incorrect. <S> It would also sound natural to say "I thought, 'that's interesting'", if you're quoting yourself and making it sound like you're talking to yourself. <S> (source: native speaker) <A> Short answer: <S> "I thought that was interesting" is simplest and most natural. <S> Long answer: <S> The following are also completely correct and natural- <S> "I thought that is interesting --> <S> I thought that's interesting <S> " "I thought that interesting" "I thought, 'That's interesting'." <S> (also for mixed tenses- <S> you can say in other situations: <S> "I think that was <S> interesting"or of course"I think that's interesting" or "I think that is interesting". <S> You are also less likely to hear "that is" and more likely to hear "that's". <S> "That is" sounds less natural. ) <A> Generally in this specific case, you'd want to make the tenses match. <S> I thought that it was interesting. <S> " Thought " is past tense, so "was" would be appropriate. <S> the past tense and past participle of think You could certainly form the sentence in the present: <S> I think that it is interesting. <S> The difference here is that "think" is in the present tense, so the speaker is currently thinking that "it" is "interesting". <S> There are probably some constructions where mixing the tenses is appropriate. <S> In fact, in this second example, it's fine with mixed tenses: <S> I think that it was interesting. <S> This means that the speaker is currently thinking that something was, at some point in the past, interesting... with the implication that it is no longer interesting. <S> One point of confusion may be that "thought" is both a verb and a noun. <S> In this sentence, however, the use is as a verb. <S> The noun version is countable, which means it would need an article, so if you wanted to use it as a noun, it would need to be rephrased considerably.
| "I thought that was interesting" comes off as most natural.
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The US/UK word for Turkish sandwich filled with meat, salad and sauce One of the users on the page created by me asked this. Since the page is for non-native speakers, I don't think she'll get the answer. So, I'm asking it here. In her words... What is your word for the Turkish sandwich filled with meat (kebab), salad and sauce? In German (and maybe in turkish too) it is "Döner". I am pretty sure there is another word for it in the US :) I found "doner" in an online dictionary but I am not sure if this is correct. The sandwich bread is cut from a round bread and one quarter is filled. Here it is: <Q> Generally speaking, I'd simply call that a kebab . <S> Perhaps more specifically, I might call it a doner kebab . <S> At least in the UK, the main focus is usually the filling (meat and sauces) rather than the bread or salad, as usually there's not really much choice of bread. <S> If you were in a takeaway selling them, you might be more specific and call it a doner kebab in pita , depending on what the menu says, to differentiate from other options, say, doner and chips , chicken doner kebab or lamb shish kebab . <A> There's the word gyro , which, according to NOAD, is: a sandwich made with slices of spiced meat cooked on a spit, served with salad in pita bread. <S> Your picture doesn't look like a gyro, though, because of the bread. <S> Usually, I'd expect a gyro to look more like this: <S> However, that's the closest commonly-used word that I can think of. <A> In the US, that type of sandwich is usually referred to as a gyro if it has middle eastern style fillings, although it might also be called a pita. <S> Pita refers to the flat, round bread used to make the sandwich, so a pita always uses pita bread, but might not have middle eastern fillings. <S> Also in the US, pitas are usually smaller and less puffy, and a half is used to make a sandwich. <S> If it's a more traditional American style bulky roll with fillings (rarely including Tazhiki sauce), the word varies with region and filling. <S> The ones I know are sub, grinder, hero, and gyro, and the exact meanings vary depending on where you go. <S> Sub is probably the most universal. <S> In the US, kebab is used to refer to meat or vegetables cut into pieces and cooked on a stick, usually over a grill. <S> It's in such wide usage that it's not considered particularly ethnic anymore. <A> In Germany, the general word for this sandwich is Döner, (which is the Turkish word for "rotary"). <S> In the USA, the general word for this sandwich follows the Greek name and not the Turkish name. <S> (Until recently, "Turkish" food wasn't widely available in the USA). <S> We usually call it "a gyro" or "a gyros" (referring to the Greek word for "rotary") <A> I've seen this called "Original German Doner" in the City Mall in Muscat, Oman. <S> All Germans find that extremely funny, of course, but it makes sense as the thing was invented by Turkish immigrants here as already pointed out above. <S> There was also some discussion about the bread used, so maybe I should add that some shops in Germany use pita bread and some use the sort of quartered flat bread pictured at the top (this of course leads to discussions among people as to what tastes better … the flat bread seems to be winning out in most cases, but the pita bread is considered easier to eat). <S> Edit: Doner is not to be confused with Shawarma (Arabic šāwarmā, Turkish çevirmek), which looks like this: <A> I always call it Shawerma, which is also what it is called in Israel <A> In western Canada, this is usually called a Donair. <S> The meat is carved off of a vertical spit in strips, and the bread is a pita. <S> It is frequently dressed with tzatziki. <A> I've only ever heard this called a Döner Kebab, but perhaps this is because I have a German heritage. <S> In any case, the ABA Turkish Restaurant for example lists Doner Kebab as one of their Main Courses, so it seems that this term is gaining prevalence. <A> I (US) originally heard it called Döner Kebab, but that's probably because I first heard of it from people who had just visited Germany. <S> Gyros are a different food, as far as I've been able to figure out (if they weren't, my friends would be much less excited when they found the rare place that sells Döner Kebabs, since gyros are much more common in the US). <S> The only store I've seen them sold in Döner Kebab <S> , so it's pretty safe to guess that we here in the US have kept the original name (just like we kept the name for things like tortillas, gyros and sushi) <A> The term you're looking for is Shawarma. <S> "Kebab" is the spit roasted meat which typically goes into a Shawarma, but can be anything like lamb, chicken, beef etc. <S> Colloquially it's called a Gyro, Döner Kebab, or simply Kebab. <S> One thing they all have in common is that they are based on the humble yet delicious Shawarma . <A> In parts of Australia it is called "yiros" (singular and plural), and the bread is pita bread.
| In the UK, the general word for this sandwich is a kebab (which is the Turkish word for roasted meat).
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A word describes a place where people from different nations live I want to know if there is a word that has similar meaning to "community", "society", "country" or any word describes a group of people. but the special thing in this group or this place is that there are people from different nations or different communities happened to be in that same place. Is there a word like that? <Q> Such a place is said to be cosmopolitan. <S> Here are examples from the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries : <S> A cosmopolitan city/resort <S> Jamaica is a very cosmopolitan island <A> Below I've collected some phrases I was able to find in various documents as well as ones that I thought of. <S> I've roughly sorted them from phrases I could imagine being used in common speech to those found in government or clinical contexts. <S> Generally the words "global" or "international" will put emphasis on people who have traveled from another part of the world, or still have strong connections to other regions while "diverse" focuses more on the cultural differences and does not address the people's origins. <S> International Village <S> I've a friend from a village in India called Auroville. <S> He would refer to it as in international village, thought the government seems to prefer to call it a universal city. <S> http://www.auroville.org/ <S> Global City <S> I think most people would understand global city to mean a city with many international connections, but I think it comes from a well defined ranking based on financial connections. <S> Wiki: Global City Melting Pot <S> This term is discussed in American studies to refer to the idea that people would assimilate into culture—melt into uniformity. <S> Depending on region this may be true to an extent, but I feel that there is always a merging of culture. <S> This phrase must be used carefully because of the extensive background of its usage. <S> Wiki: <S> Melting Pot Diverse Neighborhoods <S> In American English diverse usually means "not white", and is often used in media to discuss demographics. <S> I've linked to a Forbes post about which cities in America have the most diverse population. <S> I'm from San Jose <S> and I can attest that residents of San Jose generally consider there to be three major racial groups: White, Mexican, and Asian. <S> Forbes: <S> Diversity in America Diverse Populations <S> Diverse populations is a term that comes up in technical and social work contexts to discuss groups of people. <S> Office of Adolescent Health training material , <S> Psychologists: Reaching Out to Diverse Populations: Opportunities and Challenges <A> Although it does not directly mean 'a group or society' perhaps multicultural would suit your needs. <S> "
| The community was multicultural","This is a multicultural society".
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Have I made up this sentence correctly: "He never stays hungry." He never stays hungry. I mean he always is going to find something to eat. He never bothers his stomach by leaving it to be empty. <Q> I find the sentence a little ambiguous as-is. <S> You could change it to: <S> He never stays hungry for long. <S> if you mean that he finds something to eat as soon as any signs of hunger start in his belly. <A> He never stays hungry. <S> This technically could mean what you want, but make sure the context reinforces it. <S> Staying hungry is a common expression meaning being determined to succeed. <S> As in: The goalie for the Ottoman Empire's national team stays hungry by rewatching the video of the first time someone scored a goal on him. <S> In total isolation, he never stays hungry <S> could mean that he gives up on his goals before he accomplishes them. <S> If the context makes it clear that you are discussing literal hunger, then I would wonder if he doesn't stay hungry because he eats or because his body's response to lack of food is to stop noticing it. <S> A different suggestion: He always addresses his hunger. <S> This means to me that when he gets hungry, he eats. <S> He does not put off eating because he is busy, or because he is worried about eating too much. <S> When the stomach calls with a sincere request for food, he answers the call. <A> "Stay" is a strong word, and implies a substantial period of time -- longer than you would normally expect someone to be hungry for. <S> The sentence you've written could be applied to anyone who can find food on a regular basis. <S> I would personally say it is too broad. <S> If you wanted to say that the person always has food in their stomach, you could say: He's/ <S> He is never hungry. <S> You could also express it the way I have in this question; that is, "he always has food in his stomach. <S> " That is a bit longer though.
| This expresses that there isn't any point in time where that person lets their stomach get empty; they've always eaten something recently.
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Difference between logo and emblem What difference, if any, is there between "logo" and "emblem"? In particular, should "logo" be used for the Tokyo 2020 design that's attracted accusations of plagiarism, or is "emblem" ok as well? <Q> Perhaps it's not an emblem until the games officially open... <S> The difference is that " logo " has more of a commercial connotation whereas " emblem " has a more traditional, historical meaning. <S> Perhaps it's a " logo " while the national Olympic committee is still working on organizing the event. <S> Once the games are underway, it becomes a worldwide event and stops being identified just with the committee, and thus the logo 'graduates' to being an emblem. <A> A logo is an art design with inscription of the name and sometimes an animated object that identifies a group like an organization, a nation's coat of arms, or a formation like the military. <S> An emblem is a physical ornamental craft mostly worn by individual members of the organization as an identity. <S> Like the flag of a nation worn on the lapels of jackets, or university alumni. <A>
| A logo is an illustration used as an identification of a company or business, while an emblem is the craft designed to represent the state of a community.
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Is the word "layman" offensive? When I checked out answers for this question, one of the answers starts by saying : While those might mean the same for the laymen, from a medical point of view, there is a difference between illness and sickness. I don't mean, is this sentence offensive; people don't have to know the difference from the medical point of view. But can this word be used in a offensive way to refer to a theory which says most of the people in a country are uneducated and don't care about much what going on around the world is? How about my sentences– are they correct (no offense intended) The laymen in Europe can't say the difference between the Council of Europe and the European Council. This new tax policy mostly effects a layman's life in bad way, not nobles. Can layman be replaced with "ordinary people on the street"? <Q> I don't think 'layman' is an offensive term by any account. <S> If you go by OALD , it says... <S> a person who does not have expert knowledge of a particular subject <S> So, the term 'layperson' separates a common person from an expert. <S> And, being a 'common man' here does not offend you or me at all. <S> The example down there puts light on it a book written for professionals and laymen alike <S> But I do think that replacing it with 'ordinary' may get a few (including me) some note of offensiveness. <S> I'd use common over ordinary . <S> However it may be worth noting <S> that (at least in British English) 'layperson' seems to be the more accepted term, likely due to maintaining gender neutrality. <A> Meanwhile, I'm more concerned that you're using layman in cases where it isn't appropriate, lexically. <S> It doesn't just mean an ordinary person. <S> A layman is the opposite of an expert (or, originally, a priest), not a nobleman or other elite. <S> A person is a layman only in relation to a certain kind of ordination or expertise. <A> I don't find your sentences offensive <S> but I don't find them correct either. <S> First sentence: <S> The laymen in Europe can't say the difference The Council of Europe and The European Council. <S> First of all, this is missing the word 'between', and we normally refer to 'telling the difference', not 'saying the difference'. <S> Also, convention is to use the singular when referring to a generic person like this, as in 'The common man' or 'The man on the street'. <S> So I would rewrite this as: <S> The layman in Europe can't tell the difference between The Council of Europe and The European Council. <S> As Maulik says, the word 'layman' means someone who lacks expert knowledge in a particular subject. <S> However, if there's no obvious area of expertise being referred to (such as medicine in your first example) I would assume that 'layman' is being used in its original sense of a non-ordained member of the Catholic church. <S> So this sentence needs some context to explain what kind of expert you mean (unless you really are talking about Catholics). <S> Students of European politics know the function of all the different councils, but the layman can't tell the difference between The Council of Europe and The European Council. <S> Second sentence: <S> This new tax policy mostly effects a layman's life in bad way, not nobles. <S> I believe you want 'affects' here ( <S> a very common mistake from native speakers as well). <S> I would say 'negatively affects' rather than 'affects in a bad way', to make it easier to tidy up the final clause and use the singular rather than plural for both people. <S> This new tax policy mostly negatively affects a layman's life, not a noble's . <S> I wouldn't use the word 'layman' here though, because it doesn't just mean an ordinary person. <S> Being a noble doesn't mean having an area of expertise that others don't. <S> The appropriate word here is 'commoner' <S> This new tax policy mostly negatively affects a commoner's life, not a noble's.
| Layman is not an insult or slur, but, like others have pointed out, it can sometimes be insulting to say that someone isn't a subject-matter expert.
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Can "n years old" describe things, or only people? My company started 3 years ago. My company was founded 3 years ago. but what about My company is 3 years old. , or My company is 3 years. ? Probably both are wrong. But is there any other way of saying the age of a company or an object (ex: this table is two years old' also sounds awkward) in the same fashion of a person's age? <Q> My company is 3 years old is absolutely correct. <S> [noun] is [number] [units] old is the way to describe the age of people, objects, institutions, whatever. <S> (It's a little strange to use units smaller than a day, but that's only because we don't usually talk about age on such a small scale; it is nevertheless possible and <S> correct to do so) <S> The temple of Bal Shamin in Palmyra was almost twenty centuries old when it was destroyed by ISIL in August 2015. <S> The New York Stock Exchange is 198 years old. <S> My daughter is just three weeks old. <S> Using this format usually implies that the object's exact age is strictly greater than the specified time. <S> A child who was born seven years and eleven months ago is almost eight years old. <S> But for old things, and especially where the time we're discussing has only one significant figure, you're allowed to fudge the numbers. <S> If someone said the NYSE was two hundred years old, they wouldn't be misusing the expression, even though its actual age is just 198. <A> This sentence: <S> X is three years old . <S> works fine in English, no matter if X is living or inanimate, concrete or abstract: <S> My sister is three years old. <S> My cat Gracie is three years old. <S> My red car is three years old. <S> My pizza business is three years old. <S> The Republic of Gremrovia is three years old. <S> All of those are grammatical; all are normal, idiomatic speech. <S> As for: X is 3 years . <S> That one doesn't quite work. <S> We can make that work, though, if we change to verb "is" to something else (such as "has existed" or "has been around"), and use "three years" at the end of a prepositional phrase. <S> For example, any of these would be fine: <S> My cat has been with me for three years. <S> My restaurant has been open for three years. <S> But maybe the best way to talk about the age of something is to employ the word ago : <S> My sister was born three years ago. <S> My cat moved in with me three years ago. <S> I bought that red car three years ago. <S> My pizzeria opened three years ago. <S> The Republic of Gremrovia proclaimed its independence three years ago. <A> "My company is 3 years. <S> " is wrong. <S> Your company cannot exist as a period of time, barring some new extremely weird field of science. <S> However, all of the other examples you posted are correct and valid. <S> Other than that, they're both perfectly fine.
| "My company is 3 years old" isn't very formal, so I would use "My company was founded 3 years ago" instead if I were trying to sound professional.
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When I was in trouble he borrowed me money. When I was in trouble he lent me money When I was in trouble he borrowed me money. When I was in trouble he lent me money. What is the difference between them? Which one is correct? <Q> Meaning These two verbs lend and borrow often cause confusion for learners. <S> The main reason is that many languages use just one verb for both of these meanings <S> It means to give temporarily, not permanently. <S> The verb borrow is more like the verb take . <S> If you borrow something you are taking it, but temporarily, not permanently. <S> Grammar <S> The verb lend has the same grammar as the verb give . <S> It takes an Indirect Object (the person your giving the thing to) and a Direct Object (the thing that you are giving): <S> He gave me a pen. <S> He lent me a pen. <S> The verb borrow has the same grammar as the verb take . <S> It normally takes a Direct Object (the thing being taken) and it sometimes also takes a preposition phrase headed by the preposition from : <S> I took a pen from him. <S> I borrowed a pen from him. <S> The Original Poster's question <S> *When I was in trouble he borrowed me money. <S> (ungrammatical) <S> When I was in trouble he lent me money. <S> Sentence (1) is incorrect for two reasons. <S> Firstly the subject of the sentence <S> he is giving the money, not taking it. <S> Therefore we need the verb <S> lend not the verb borrow . <S> Secondly the grammar in sentence (1) is problematic. <S> The verb borrow cannot take an Indirect Object. <S> We can't say "borrow me" in standard English. <S> Sentence (2) is, of course, perfectly fine. <S> The poster could make a similar sentence with the word borrow , but this would need a different Subject: <S> When I was in trouble I borrowed money from him. <S> However, this sentence has a completely different feeling to it. <S> [ Note: <S> This is the first installment of a post. <S> The second installment will be much more complicated and will show how He borrowed me some money could be correct but not if me is a normal Object. <S> It might be worth noting that in some regional varieties of English we can use the verb <S> borrow with the same grammar and meaning as lend , but this does not happen in standard Englishes like Southern Standard British English or General American.] <A> Although the above answers give lots of details, I prefer the below explanation... <S> Lend is equivalent to Throw , or Give <S> You lend money to someone. <S> (Past tense: loaned or sometimes lent) <S> And Borrow is equivalent to Catch , or Receive <S> You borrow something from them. <S> (Past tense: borrowed) <S> Note that you can borrow something for someone, but not to them. <S> Like I could catch a ball for you (when a third person throws it), but I could not catch it to you. <A> They mean different! <S> In second, he gives you money directly . <S> In the first sentence, he does it for you. <S> While the latter is pretty clear, the former is tricky. <S> Let me explain the first. <S> "He bought me a doll" - he does the action of 'buying'. <S> And 'you' are the one who's receiving. <S> "He borrowed me money" - he does the action of 'borrowing' money (but here from someone), and again, you are the receiver. <S> He buys a doll. <S> He buys it for me = <S> He bought me a doll <S> He borrows some money . <S> He borrows it for me = <S> He borrowed me some money Think of A, B, and C. <S> If B asks C for a calculator for A, the B actually borrows the gadget for <S> A from C. A <S> : I want to borrow a calculator from C <S> but I'm feeling shy <S> B: <S> No worries, I do that for you. <S> B: <S> Hey C, will you give me your calculator for A as he's feeling shy? <S> C: <S> Ah, why not. <S> Here it is! <S> Here, B borrowed A the calculator. <S> Said that, A can say "When I needed it, B borrowed me a calculator" I found a result from COCA similar to what I said in my comment - <S> My folks couldn't afford a guitar, so <S> my dad borrowed me a mandolin one time, and I was just learning to play it pretty good and the guy that he borrowed it from <S> wanted it back. <S> 'you' are an indirect object receiving something in both of your sentences. <S> So, <S> Which one correct - IMO, both. <S> Do they mean the same <S> - No, they don't. <A> The direct object for 'borrow' and 'lend' should be an object/material thing. <S> You cannot use it in the first sentence, unless you change 'me' to 'my', but that will make the sense of the sentence wrong. <S> Also, when it comes to money/financially related terms, 'lend' is the proper verb to use. <S> Borrow is usually used for other objects/material things.
| The verb lend is like the verb give .
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within a hairbreadth of something Example: The digital camcorder is not your father's 8mm movie camera. Fifty years ago, family events and vacations were recorded on narrow silent film that faded with the years and grew jerkier each time it was fed through the home projector. Today, the family video camera comes within a hairbreadth of producing movies -videos that are technically as good as you see in the theaters or on a TV set. For all the similarities between digital video and still cameras, they are, for the time being, different animals. Because the subjects in videos are constantly moving, the eye doesn't notice if the image is not as sharp as a good photo. But the two animals are evolving into a new creature-one joins the different circuitry and mechanisms needed to shoot both stills and motion. I don't know how I should understand that. <Q> The term you are looking for is within a hairbreadth of <something <S> > , a figurative way of saying very close . <S> A hair is very thin, it's width is very, very narrow. <S> So if something comes within a hairbreadth <S> it comes very close. <S> In this example, it is claimed that there is very little difference between the video quality achieved by home video cameras and professional cameras for cinema or TV productions. <A> and a hairbreadth or hair's breadth , the width of a [human] hair, which is used to mean a practically infinitesimal distance. <A> The "standard" form is within a hair's breadth , as the NGram in that link demonstrates. <S> Google Books claims 1090 written instances of within a hair's breadth , plus another 171 for within a hairs breadth and 474 for within a hairsbreadth . <S> Those are all indistinguishable in speech , and they far outnumber 203 hits for within a hairbreadth (which sounds somewhat "dialectal" to me). <S> But Google Books isn't too good with this type of search term - if I search for within a hair breadth <S> it asks if I meant hair's breadth <S> (all the results on at least the first couple of pages are for that form). <S> So my advice would be if you do <S> n't yet <S> know the idiom, learn it as including the /s/ sound when you say it, regardless of how you present it in the written form. <S> An extremely similar and very closely related idiomatic usage is came within a whisker (came very close to doing something, used in relation to both good and bad actions/outcomes).
| This is a combination of two expressions: To come within [a distance] of [something] , which means just what it sounds like: to get very close, whether literally or metaphorically.
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Why is "many a man" singular while "many men" plural? Recently I came to know that there is a construction "Many a man" which is equivalent to "many men". But I also noticed that the former construction is considered as singular, e.g. Many a man has lost his life at sea. But for the later construction we go something like this, Many men have lost their lives at sea. I am quite confused in the former construction. It behaves like we are talking of a single man but we are actually talking of many men. Please explain in detail why it is so. <Q> According to CAED, "many" followed by a singular noun or pronoun is equivalent to "many" followed by the corresponding plural. <S> many a man tried = <S> many men tried <S> So, many a____ is an adverb phrase used as an idiom. <S> That said, the examples cited above carry a difference of degrees. <S> Take this example <S> : I passed many a sleepless night tossing and turning but sleep did not visit me <S> In this example, the expression many a sleepless night selects each individual day included in the totality of one sleepless night after another and makes you realize how poignant my suffering was, which, I am sure, many sleepless nights would certainly fail to evoke. <S> The expression many a ___ is more like an oxymoron, a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contrary in one phrase to create a verbally puzzling yet engaging effect to drive home the message. <S> Other examples: same difference small crowd only choice <A> In my view, different from the traditional view, "many" in "many a man" and "many men" are different words, i.e. they have different origin. <S> "Many" in "many men" is related to German Menge (multitude). <S> "many" in "many a man" is related to "mancher Mann/manch ein Mann". <S> The meaning of "manch" is approximately "more than a couple". <S> Probably "Menge" and "manch" belong somehow to the same word family. <S> But "manch" is connected with singular and "Menge" with plural (eine Menge Bücher, a great many books). <S> Astonishing that in English it is the same, though the two expressions use the same word many. <S> I know that there are members who don't like when I draw parallels to German. <S> But I see no other way when I want to give a reason for the problem(many a + singular, many + plural). <S> When you read etymonline you see that this problem is not clarified because many is explained as one word (related to manch) and not as two words ( related to manch and Menge). <A> This is definitely an odd construct. <S> "Many a man" refers to a group of individual events (a single man dying at sea). <S> The first focuses on the people, the second on the events. <A> Many a man couples with a singular verb because it indeed means " many of such men " which imparts singularity of every member of such group to denot effect and emphasis, whereas in "many men" there is no distinction among individuals; hence, plural verb. <S> (alireza ameri, from Iran)
| "Many men" refers to all men that have died at sea as a single group, thus the plural usage.
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Is there a usage like "feel done" in English? I saw a sentence like: "Have you ever felt done by blablablah?" What does it mean? <Q> Done, on its own, can mean tired or exhausted. <S> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/done#Adjective <S> It can also mean prosecuted, as in "He was done for shoplifting". <S> This is a bit slangy, though. <S> But I've never seen it used as in the OP. <A> "Done" has a large number of slang meanings. <S> A lot of them could be relevant but without more context, it is hard to say. <S> (Maybe only in British English.) <S> This could work with "feel done". <S> So "have you ever felt done" would mean "have you ever felt cheated" <S> Done (adjective): 10. <S> informal cheated; tricked Collins Dictionary <A> "done by", usually but not always in the phrase "hard done by", can mean "treated" or "used". " <S> Hard done by" means "unfairly ill-treated". <S> It is possible that the sentence Have you ever felt done by... was using this sense, but without more context one cannot be sure of that. <S> (I have seen "well-done by", but not often, and "doing well by" or "doing right by" more often.)
| One meaning of "done" is to be cheated, ripped off, or be robbed.
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"the bounds of keyboard and cables, of monitor and mouse" - why no articles? Source: How Computers Work by Ron White Example: The deskless PC has long been computing's holy grail, a computer that slips the bounds of keyboard and cables, of monitor and mouse , to soar free as a bird-a bird endowed with a constant feed from the Internet, applications that will run a multinational corporation, and on easy abandon that lets it go with you anywhere, like a parrot perched on a pirate in pinstripe. Why do you think there are no indefinite articles in front of keyboard , monitor and mouse ? After all, you're never going to say something like this: "I'm going to the store and I'm gonna buy bottle of milk, fork and can of ground meat." Sounds very ungrammatical, doesn't it? <Q> Besides, here those prepositional phrases are grammatically adjectives to the word " bounds ", and <S> since the overall the article about all deskless computers (although it says " a computer...", it means it as a class, not as a single instance), the reference to "bounds" is plural in higher sense, so we can argue that "keyboard and cables" are semantically plural, but not definite (each computer has its own). <S> Compare such use with " bounds of space and time ", " bounds of reason ". <A> The use of "the" four times in a row of nouns immediately one after the other would be clumsy. <S> Without article it is shorter and no less understandable. <A> To your example: "I'm going to the store <S> and I'm gonna buy bottle of milk, fork and can of ground meat. <S> " <S> How about this? <S> I'm going to the store <S> and I'm gonna buy a bottle of milk, a fork, and a can of ground meat. <S> My point is that articles are only needed for the head of these phrases for noncount nouns like milk and ground meat. <S> I think that "of keyboards and cables, of monitors and mice" is also acceptable, even without considering my next point. <S> The article's quote seems to me to be a misspelling of a reference to the poem adapted for the famous Challenger speech: "to slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God. <S> " References to poetry in English tend to really mess with the expected grammar, causing the changed words to behave as much like the words they replace as possible. <S> Earth is somewhat personified in this text, as "bonds of earth" seems to mean "bonds belonging to earth. <S> " If you personify the list like this and pretend the nouns are proper names, then it seems perfectly valid to leave out these articles. <A> In computing, a keyboard, a monitor, a mouse and the cables connecting them to the computer are all called peripherals . <S> Knowing this, I read that section as a noun-phrase used as a synonym for peripherals: <S> The deskless PC has long been computing's holy grail, a computer that slips the bounds of peripherals , to soar free as a bird-a bird... <S> As an aside, technical manuals are written by people who are far more proficient in their technical field than they are proficient at writing. <S> This has long been a problem with the technical writing industry as a whole and could explain the popularity in technical YouTube channels.
| The omission of articles serves here to emphasize the generality and ubiquity of those devices and parts (keyboards, monitors, mouses, cables) that essentially become attributes of computers, their traits , thus losing their individual meaning as devices in their own right.
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Are the two "tos" the same in "worked ... *to* identify" and *came home *to* find"? But Stephen, who is not a scientist, had his family’s genomes sequenced and worked with geneticist Ryan Taft at the University of Queensland in Australia to identify a mutated gene. Taft linked the gene to a class of neurodegenerative disorders involving the myelin sheath, which protects neurons. Nature Can this to be interpreted as "and identified a mutated gene..."?As in He came home to find his mother dead? <Q> The use of the word 'to' implies a stronger connection between the 'working' and the 'identifying'; the identification is a (possible) <S> result of the work done. <S> Compare the following sentences: He worked hard to solve the problem. <S> He worked hard and solved the problem. <S> The first sentence does not imply that he actually solved the problem, only that he worked very hard on it. <S> The second sentence could be used to describe a situation like this: <S> He worked hard, and solved the problem eventually, because he found the solution on StackExchange. <A> Both of your tos act as infinitive markers; but the two clauses which these infinitives head are used very differently. <S> In the first sentence, the clause designates the purpose for which the genetic work was carried out: identifying a mutant gene. <S> Thomas went home to change his clothes. <S> We were marching to protest the government's action. <S> In the second sentence, the clause designates the situation into which the subject has entered. <S> This construction has a telic verb in the main clause—a verb which implies a change of state at the end of the verb's action—and a verb of perception or discovery in the infinitive whose object is the situation. <S> Thomas arrived home to see his front door wide open and the house robbed. <S> We marched to the square to discover the police waiting for us in riot gear. <A> There is no need to try to impute (or to work to <S> identify) any other meaning.
| The "to" in "to indentify" is an infinitive marker .
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In "Approval was given, and Ju's art displayed." how can the transitive verb 'display' be used without an object? I have read a sentence like that from a magazine: "Approval was given, and Ju's art displayed." Since the word display is a transitive verb, how can it be used like this without an object? <Q> The Original Poster's Example "Approval was given, and Ju's art displayed." <S> This example might be confusing for learners because it has a word missing! <S> This isn't a mistake. <S> It is an example of ELLIPSIS . <S> Sometimes, we can leave out words from the sentence when the listener can understand them. <S> The grammatical name for this is 'ellipsis'. <S> This often happens if we have two clauses joined by and . <S> The Original Poster's example means: <S> Approval was given, and Ju's art [ was ] displayed. <S> Here the second clause means Ju's art was displayed . <S> The writer does not need to use the auxiliary was a second time. <S> We understand the was from the first clause. <S> This is a passive sentence, so we do not see an Object. <S> The thing that was displayed is the Subject of the passive clause. <S> Notes on Objects and passives <S> In a declarative sentence, if the verb usually appears in transitive clauses, we will see an Object: <S> They shot Bob . <S> However, if we turn the sentence into a passive sentence, the Object in the first sentence will be the Subject in the new sentence: <S> Bob was shot. <S> Here we still understand that someone else shot Bob. <S> Bob was not shooting anybody. <S> He is still receiving the bullet. <S> But in the grammar Bob is now the Subject. <S> So in a passive sentence, one of the Objects will become the Subject. <S> If a verb, like GIVE , for example, normally takes two Objects, then we will only see one of them in a passive version: They gave [ Bob ] [ a book ]. <S> Bob was given [ a book ]. <S> The second sentence above only has one Object. <S> This is because Bob , which is an Object in the first sentence is now a Subject in the second example. <S> The two sentences still give us the same information though. <S> When we talk about transitive verbs, this is a bit misleading. <S> We really need to talk about transitive clauses, not transitive verbs. <S> Most "transitive verbs" can actually be used in sentences without an Object. <S> For example, think about the verb GIVE . <S> We can use it in an intransitive clause like this: <S> I'm tired of giving, giving, giving all the time. <A> It isn't being used without an object. <S> It's in passive voice. <S> First of all, there's an implied " <S> was" before "displayed". <S> This disappears via a common mechanism in English grammar called ellipsis . <S> So the remaining "was" effectively applies both to "given" and "displayed". <S> And both "was given" and "... <S> was displayed " are to be understood as passive voice . <S> The object is Ju's art . <S> In active voice: (Somebody) gave approval, and(somebody) displayed Ju's art. <A> This is to add to the two answers that understand the sentence correctly. <S> Approval was given, and Ju's art (was) displayed. <S> is an example of ellipsis (or elliptical construction), where was is omitted. <S> This omission is not a mistake, and the sentence is not ungrammatical. <S> The writer just uses a literary device, ellipsis . <S> Another matter discussed in some of the comments here <S> is: what if the sentence were Approval was not given, ... <S> The answer is, with ellipsis, it would become Approval was not given, nor (was) <S> Ju's art displayed. <S> Do not write: <S> Approval was not given, Ju's art displayed. <S> The sentence is in the passive voice . <S> If it were written in the active voice, it would have been: <S> (We/They/Someone) gave approval, and displayed Ju's art. <S> In this active voice version, Ju's art is the object of the verb displayed . <S> (And We/They/Someone is the subject of the sentence.) <S> IMPORTANT: <S> With displayed being used in the passive voice in the example, Ju's art is the subject of the verb (was) displayed , not the object . <S> This may sound confusing: how would an object in the active voice version become the subject of an equivalent sentence in the passive voice? <S> Subject and object are syntactical terms, and it's important for learners to be able to identify them in sentences. <S> Otherwise, subject-verb agreement could be a potential problem. <S> And an object in a sentence in the active voice would become the subject of an equivalent sentence in the passive voice. <S> Alternately, we can maintain the relationship ( thematic relation ) between the two nouns in both active and passive voices by using another set of terms: agent and patient . <S> The agent causes an action or an event upon the patient. <S> For example, The gallery displayed Ju's art . <S> -- <S> The gallery is the subject ( agent ), Ju's art the object ( patient ). <S> Ju's art was displayed. <S> (by the gallery) -- Ju's art is the subject ( patient ), the gallery the agent . <S> For more details on agent and patient , this Wikipedia page could be a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice . <A> Here is the original paragraph : Seeing such promise in his student,Yang arranged an exhibit of Ju's work at the National Museum of History. <S> Because exhibits were only of established artists, the museum director demanded that three local sculptors and one preofessional [sic] Japanese sculptor approve Ju's work. <S> Approval was given,and Ju's art displayed. <S> I think it misses ' <S> was' (also, some spelling/grammar mistakes are noticed). <S> Approval was given, and Ju's art was displayed <S> That's what the closest I can think of. <S> Added note: <S> display is generally a transitive verb but not always.
| The verb display in the sentence is indeed used transitively.
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her experience growing up in Canada Encouraged by her teacher, Vanessa decided to enter the short story contest with a story about her experience growing up in Canada . Are "her experience" and "growing up in Canada" in apposition? Is "her experience growing up in Canada" is the same as "her experience of growing up in Canada" ? If they are not in apposition, I don't understand what kind of relation they are in. If we take "growing" as a present participle, then its subject should be "her experience". But, "her experience is growing" is nonsensical. EDIT:I corrected the error "from her teacher". <Q> It is fine as written. <S> The extra "of" is not wrong but really unnecessary. <S> Why do you want to add it? <S> Also, in context I think it would be better to write "her experiences" since no doubt there were many different ones. <S> Encouraged by her teacher, Vanessa decided to enter the short story contest with a story about her experiences growing up in Canada. <S> Singular is better reserved for a specific topic: <S> My experience as a public servant would make me a great president. <A> I would prefer "her experience as a child growing up in Canada". <S> I think "experience + growing up in Canada" is no good connection. <A> According to 17.35 Appositive postmodification by infinitive and -ing clauses (p.1271) [1], they seem to be in apposition. <S> The -ing clause functions as appositive postmodification in examples like <S> I'm looking for a job driving cars. <S> ['a job as a driver'] <S> We can offer you a career counselling delinquents. <S> There is plenty of work (for us) shovelling snow. <S> [1]A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Lanugage, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik, Longman (1985). <A> Two noun phrases are in apposition if they are next to one another, and they refer to the same thing. <S> In this example, it is "her experience", and specifically, out of all the experiences she has had, the one of "growing up in Canada" <S> So they are side-by-side, and they refer to the same thing. <S> In this case, "growing up in Canada" is a gerund - a word ending in "-ing" that is made from a verb and used like a noun. <S> So we have two noun phrases, side by side, referring to the same thing: <S> how apposite.
| Usually apposition is about two noun phrases.
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Why does one say, "broke up" Why do people who stop being a couple, "break up"? It seems like it would make more sense to say "break down". Does anyone know why this is? <Q> Break down and break up are two different phrases with slightly different meanings. <S> although both may be used to within the context of relationships, they're used in different ways. <S> Perhaps it will help if I explain the origins of the phrases. <S> Break Down <S> This means to stop working, typically referring to a complex machine. <S> My car broke down on the M25 Motorway last night. <S> It took me hours to get home <S> Sometimes we will use it to talk about a relationship stopping working too: <S> mostly in this usage we are talking about the interaction, trust, love, and communication between the people breaking down. <S> It usually implies that the relationship ending wasn't anyone's fault, and it was just the natural end of the relationship. <S> It does not always <S> mean that the relationship ended instantly, and is more about the relationship problems, although it usually does indicate a break up which may or may not come later. <S> After I lost my job my first marriage broke down. <S> It will tend to be used about more serious, adult relationships - you are more likely to hear about a marriage breaking down, rather than the relationship between a teen couple. <S> Break up <S> This is the act of a relationship ending, and is the equivalent of a marriage divorce. <S> The spaceship entered the atmosphere and began to break up <S> This is used in a more literal sense than 'break down' in that it is talking about two people in one couple (larger 'object') separating into two smaller, separate objects (themselves). <S> Me and my boyfriend broke up when I saw him kissing Suzy after prom. <S> It may be used about both serious, mature, and less serious relationships, but is more often used regarding younger relationships. <A> "to break up" when referring to the relationship of a couple is a kind of metaphor, an image of comparison. <S> When you break up a nut, the two parts of the shell come apart and are no longer connected. <S> The "up" in this use comes near "apart/asunder". <A> A non-authoritative answer may be because of how one breaks, for example, spaghetti. <S> The ends go down (usually) and the "break" goes "up".
| It describes the process of a relationship ending, not the actual event. It comes from a more literal phrase 'to break up', meaning to physically separate into smaller pieces.
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"I like to be loved" vs. "I like being loved" I like to be loved. I like being loved. What is the difference between them? <Q> I don't think there's much of a difference at all, since both forms are capable of expressing both an achieved state and an ongoing sense. <S> One could say they differ only in which of those two senses is primary. <S> "I like to be painted green" said the house. <S> The house likes to have green paint on it. <S> The house likes it when the painters are painting it green. <S> "I like being painted green" said the house. <S> The house likes it when the painters are painting it green. <S> The house likes to have green paint on it. <A> The shade of difference between them is akin to the difference between I am loved. <S> and I am being loved. <S> It is usually acceptable to replace the to - infinitive with a gerund : <S> I love to ski . <S> = <S> I love skiing . <S> (no difference in meaning) <S> however, in your case the presence of the passive voice (to be + past participle) makes a tiny difference, barely perceptible. <A> Verbs of preference and non-preference can be followed by gerund or to-infinitive with almost no difference. <S> These verbs are to like - I like cooking/ <S> I like to cook to love - I love dancing/to dance to enjoy to prefer to hate - I hate living in a big city/to live in a big city Remark <S> After would/should like/love/enjoy/prefer/hate <S> only to-infinitive: <S> I would like to live in a big city. <S> Remark 2 <S> The gerund often refers to a general statement ( I like dancing), the to-infinitive can refer to single action (I like to dance when I have guests), but often gerund and to-infinitive are interchangeable. <S> http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/gerund_or_infinitive_same_list.htm
| The former expresses a general condition, the latter - current state (just as it is always the case of Present Indefinite versus Present Continuous). Some, possibly many, would say that the difference is non-existent.
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'At the battle' or 'in the battle'? Why? Here is a source in which I read the following para: That made her the 40th monarch in a royal line that traces its origin back to Norman King William the Conqueror who claimed the throne in 1066 with victory over Anglo-Saxon Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. Now my questions are: Can we write 'in the battle' instead of 'at the battle'? I used to write 'in the battle', 'in the war', etc. Is it correct? If 'at the battle' is correct then what is the reason behind putting 'at' before 'the battle'? <Q> "In the battle" can be taken as during the battle; that is, some time before the battle completed. <S> So "with victory in the battle" seems a bit odd. <S> If I were writing it, I'd say he claimed the throne after victory {in/at} the battle. <S> "At the battle" emphasizes the location of the battle, and sounds as if it's saying William was there (at Hastings) but not necessarily an active participant (I don't know English history well, so I don't know if this was true of William the Conqueror.) <S> But I would not use "in the battle" unless I knew he was an active participant. <A> It's all about context. <S> To me the quote you gave does not refer to a place or even the battle itself, but to the time the battle took place. <S> To illustrate, let me rephrase your quote a little: <S> [...] William the Conqueror who claimed the throne in 1066 by being victorious over Anglo-Saxon Harold II at the very point in time we know as the Battle of Hastings. <S> So the message would be that he claimed the throne in 1066 <S> and he was able to do this specifically by winning at the Battle of Hastings ( at that time in 1066). <S> He might have taken part in that battle, even might have behaved very heroically in that battle (I don't know) and obviously was victorious in that battle since if he would not have been victorious at that battle he might not have become King (At least that's my guess. <S> I did not check historical facts). <A> A very nice question to ponder upon. <S> As I see, both the styles are in practice. <S> This makes me think that it depends on the style of the writer here. <S> However, if you refer COCA, you find - 286 results mixed with common use of ' in the battle of non historic battles + the historic ones. <S> For example: "...big advice on this <S> and he actually took the womens side in the battle of the sexes" <S> On the other hand, 350 results to ' at the battle of' gives us more on the historic battles. <S> To conclude, yes, 'in the battle or at the battle' both are okay, but then, using the preposition 'at' seems to be more common when you are talking about the historic ones. <A> I have no sources to quote <S> but I would feel: in the battle - actually fought, on one side or the other. <S> e.g. fell in battle . <S> at the battle <S> - fought or was present - e.g. <S> the King, at the battle of Hastings . <A> William didn't literally "claim the throne" at the moment when Harold was actually killed during the battle. <S> The phrase "at the battle" really means "after the battle", or "as a consequence of the battle". <S> The historical background is that the previous Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, had died childless, and there was a power struggle between several claimants to the throne. <S> Harold was crowned king, but then faced military action from his own brother Tostig, and from Harald, king of Norway. <S> William took advantage of Harold's military campaigns against Tostig and Harald in the north of England to invade in the south, and Harold did not have time to rebuild his army before the battle of Hastings. <S> There was more military opposition to William after the battle of Hastings, and William was not actually crowned king until two months after the battle.
| The phrase "in the battle" means "taking part in the actual fighting".
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What does the preposition to mean here in the sentence? We shall pilot several new cosmetic products to selected potential purchasers. Does it emphasize that we shall test the cosmetic products for the selected purchasers? Or it emphasizes that the products are inteded to be sold to the purchasers? <Q> Marketing people are often not very competent with syntax, so I'm not surprised. <S> Or maybe this marketing-speak has become so prevalent that they actually think "pilot X to Y" <S> says the above. <S> A shorthand for run a pilot program in which Y will be allowed to sample/test/try X <A> The verb 'pilot' means to test a new product with a few people before <S> the product is launched. <S> Here, it means they shall try <S> the cosmetic products asking the selected potential purchasers. <S> Potential purchasers are very important for the manufactures as their opinion counts the most. <A> The selected potential customers will receive several new cosmetic products. <S> In this context, "to pilot" means something like "to display or distribute for the purpose of testing acceptability". <S> The preposition "to" indicates that the phrase "selected potential customers" represents the recipients of the test products. <S> This particular sense of the verb "to pilot" is a part of marketing jargon. <S> This particular sense of the preposition "to" is about as ordinary as possible. <S> The ordinary sense of "to pilot" naturally licenses the preposition "to": <S> A helmsman pilots a ship to a destination. <S> That same license exists in the jargon.
| It means that they will conduct the pilot phase with (or among ) those selected customers; that is, those potential purchasers will be allowed to try the product before its general release.
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What's the full answer to "shall I"? The form Shall I is used to make offers, in general. For example Shall I help you? and one would answer Yeah, help me but what's the full answer? I mean, with a question like You will go for meat, won't you? Short answer : Yeah. Full answer : Yes I will. But shall as a second person has another meaning Shall I help you? Yes you shall. <-- it's no more a suggestion: I'm requiring you to do that. and using Yes you will still sounds imperative. Therefore, is there a full answer to that form as there is for normal verbs like do, will, be and so on? <Q> In other words, if will in a question maps to <S> will in what you are calling a "full answer" <S> , then shall in a question maps to do in the "full answer" – at least, that's one way we can look at it. <S> It's hard to say a mapping like this is 100% reliable, but it does seem to work in a variety of circumstances with a number of verbs. <S> For example, consider these: <S> Shall I help you? <S> Shall I eat this last meatball? <S> Shall <S> I meet you at the market in two hours? <S> Shall <S> I just keep this book <S> you let me borrow for another week? <S> Shall I shut up and kiss you? <S> All of those questions can be answered with, "Yes, please do." <S> Of course, if you want to answer the other way, you could simply say, "No, please don't." <A> I think this is a valid and good question. <S> I look at the question in the following way... <S> Grammatically the right answer (FULL answer as well) would be: <S> Yes, you shall. <S> But we normally don't answer like this, do we? <S> (Technically the above answer is right.) <S> The reason is because the asker is not actually questioning his will or the event in the future, but <S> he is offering / suggesting his future behaviour. <S> Similar example would be: <S> Why don't we go to the gym? <S> Because we don't like it. <S> Sure, let's go! <S> So, the answer to the original question could be any of the followings and more: <S> Shall I play tennis with you? <S> Please do. <S> Sure why not! <S> Yes, please. <S> ... <A> Your question seems to be: Is there a way to say the words "Yes, you shall" to convey a different meaning than the words "Yes, you shall"? <S> The answer to that is no. <S> "Yes, you shall" is a perfectly valid way to answer the question. <S> If you don't like the meaning that "you shall" conveys, then use a different word. <S> There are infinite different ways to answer the question. <S> And for the comment from Damkerng T.: <S> "What shall I do tonight?" <S> "You shall dine with me." <S> If you say it with a smile, it sounds like an invitation. <A> At times, we have to learn the language as it is. <S> "Shall I help you?" <S> can be answered in a various ways, three being the most common I can think of. <S> Sure <S> Why not? <S> Okay (less polite, IMO) <S> However, I'd choose replying (the full answer) <S> Yes, you may ! <S> That's because the first person is politely 'asking' you to help and in return, you are giving the permission that takes 'may'. <A> Yup! <S> (Informal answer)Another way of saying it is <S> Yes, you may. <S> (or might)
| I would say, "Yes, please do."
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Where are the vases in this picture? A term for that space In my recently purchased apartment, I've come up with an idea for the hall as a part of interior designing. In my mother-tongue, we have a term for those three pits(?). Vases in the wall? - I'm not okay with it. How do we describe this in English? Non native speakers? I'm searching for the term that describes those three (without vases). They are three ______ in/on the wall. Here is the actual picture <Q> Without expressing awesomeness, the term is niche <S> a recess in a wall, especially for statues. <S> From the architectural feature the figurative meaning of "a special place" either in a professional, scientific or ecological context is derived. <A> recess <S> - from Dictionary.com 3. <S> a receding part or space, as a bay or alcove in a room. <S> 4. <S> an indentation in a line or extent of coast, hills, forest, etc. <S> recess <S> - from Wiktionary 2. <S> An inset, hole, space or opening. <A> Alcoves can also be an area you can walk into though, so be careful to avoid ambiguity. <S> alcove <S> /ˈalˌkōv/ <S> A recess, typically in the wall of a room or of a garden. <S> Origin: <S> Late 16th century: from French alcôve, from Spanish alcoba, from Arabic al-ḳubba 'the vault'. <S> Source: OxfordDictionaries.com <A> Another potential word for this is nook though it's usually for a larger space. <S> nook - Dictionary.com <S> Noun, noo <S> k <S> any small recess: a breakfast nook. <S> Generally the size progression is that a nook is bigger than an alcove which is bigger than a niche. <S> In this specific case I think you're referring to a niche, I place this answer here purely for the sake of completion. <S> The safest is definitely "recessed shelf" with a qualifier as to the desired dimensions of the space.
| A word that most people would be familiar with is recess , or more specifically in this case a recessed shelf . This can also be referred to as an alcove .
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What's the meaning of "wired"? I often hear some people say that "I'm wired differently from other people" or "My brain is differently wired" but I don't understand what "wired" really means. Here are several definitions of the word from OED: Making use of computers to transfer or receive information, especially by means of the Internet. (Of a device or network) using wires or cables rather than wireless technology to transmit signals. In a nervous, tense, or edgy state. Under the influence of drugs or alcohol. What puzzles me is that none of the above definitions seem to fit the meaning. Does it have something to do with their thoughts or the way they perceive the world? <Q> The closest fit is 2.; brain cells ( neurons ) are connected to each other and can send electrical signals via nerve fibres ( axons ). <S> These signals carry information, just like in a wired computer network. <S> (Depending on the context, this can even be a derogatory term.) <A> I see you've quoted the oxforddictionaries.com page for wired ; however, what we're actually dicussing here is better seen on the page for wire : <S> verb [with object] Install electric circuits or wires in: wiring a plug <S> electricians wired up searchlights and 1.1 Connect (someone or something) to a piece of electronic equipment: a microphone wired to a loudspeaker although for the full sense you need oed.com ($), where we have as sense 9 of wire (verb) : a. <S> To provide with electric wires; to make electrical connections to; to connect electrically to; <S> and b. <S> To incorporate (a device, function, or facility) into (or in) something by electric wiring or electronic connections <S> from which follow sense 10 trans[itive] <S> In extended use. <S> a. <S> To furnish or equip with a certain natural ability or predilection. <S> Freq[uently] <S> in pass[ive] (usage example) 2004 <S> J. R. Page Blessed Event x. 101 <S> She said you'd be a great mom, <S> that you were wired for it. <A> The human brain is often referred to as a 'circuit'. <S> A circuit requires wires to connect each node in it for functioning. <S> The word 'wired' is figuratively used here. <S> So, if you have differently wired brain, you mean to say that you are 'different' than others. <S> Note: <S> Be careful. ' <S> Wired' is different than 'weird'. <A> An electrician wires a house when he installs the copper wires and fixtures (outlets, switches, etc) and connects them to the circuit breaker. <S> An appliance repairman may (re)wire a broken washing machine. <S> A hobbyist might (in fiction) <S> *(re)wire his television to intercept signals from spy satellites. <S> In the case of modern consumer electronics, it is not usually possible for the user to modify the circuitry of most devices (because it's printed directly onto a circuit board). <S> When people talk about features or behaviors of a computer that are hard-wired , the implication is that those features are the most fundamental and difficult to change. <A> ( wire also wire up ) to connect wires inside a building or piece of equipment so that electricity can pass through Electrical equipment should be wired correctly so that they can work (behave normally), otherwise they may malfunction and behave in a non-planned way. <S> You can use it figuratively for human to say the nature of a person's behavior, the way he thinks and responses to others. <S> So if you are wired differently or if your brain is differently wired , then you don't behave like other people (As is expected from most people). <S> Something in your design is different from others. <S> Note you don't need to know how the brain works to understand or use this idiom. <A> Yes, as you quite accurately guessed, wired in this context, so as in wired differently , mostly has to do the way one thinks or the specific way one views the world. <S> So, yes, one is connected to the world in a different way, makes different connections, is culturally and philosophically wired up differently . <S> If you Google or Duck search for "wired differently" <S> you will see that the first few results cough up results relating to the fact that high academic achievers or intelligent people are wired differently and also that men and women, no surprise, are wired differently too. <S> The difference between women and men may (!) <S> be hardwired , which is also a likely explanation, I think, as to where this phrase comes from. <S> The American Heritage Dictionary <S> e.g. describes <S> wired also as: Genetically determined; hardwired. <S> The emphasis on differently being not normal or natural is also visible in this definition of wired by Miriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary <S> stating: 3 — used to say that someone does or does not have a natural tendencyto behave in a certain way, to like something, etc. <S> List item <S> I'm just not wired to like broccoli. <S> Everyone's brain is wired differently. <S> — see also hardwired
| 'Wired differently' is figurative speech (of course, everyone's brain cells are different from the next person), and it indeed means your way of thinking is different from what is normal. To wire an electric or electronic device or system means to complete its assembly or configure it, by literally arranging and connecting electrical wires.
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“The human's brain” vs “The human brain”: Possessive or not? The human's brain works better in the morning. The human brain works better in the morning. Which is the correct sentence and why? <Q> I think you could say it either way, but you'd want to switch articles: <S> A human's brain works better in the morning. <S> The human brain works better in the morning. <S> The latter uses "the human brain" in the general sense, as @MaulikV explains in his answer. <S> The former talks about a person's brain in the indefinite sense. <S> I think the latter would be more appropriate for scientific contexts, yet the former is acceptable in casual conversation. <S> The format with the indefinite article also requires a possessive; consider: The strongest muscle in the body is a leg . <S> The strongest muscle in the body is the leg . <S> Here, the indefinite article doesn't sound right. <S> However, we can fix that with a possessive modifier: <S> The strongest muscle in the body is a person's leg . <A> An extraterrestrial might say "Bleep blop blippity boop". <S> (translation: The human's brain is meager. ) <S> But here on earth we say <S> The human brain is a marvelous organ. <S> Human is really an adjective acting nominally acting adjectivally. <S> With "real" instance nouns, we'd use the possessive: <S> The giraffe's neck is very long. <S> not <S> The giraffe neck is very long . <S> [not idiomatic] <A> Irrespective of the fact stated , the latter sentence is correct. <S> The human brain works better in the morning <S> Since you are not specifying a particular human, and talking about the human organ in general, it does not take the possessive 's . <S> Most of the textbooks I have read as a healthcare provider defines 'The human [organ name]'. <S> For example - "The human heart pumps blood..." or directly mentioning the organ if you are studying about the human organs as in <S> "The ear has external...." <S> More reading on 'The + possessive' is here. <A> Generally speaking you'd use "the human brain", as in "The human brain is one of nature's marvels". <S> Only in the case where you're speaking about the brain of a particular human would you use the other form - for example <S> Two aliens are discussing the recent discovery of Earth after dinner. <S> "It's so wonderful to have discovered Earth", said the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes - indubitably!", said the second. <S> "There's so much we can teach them", said the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes - indubitably!", said the second. <S> "So much we can learn from them", said the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes - indubitably!", said the second. <S> "So many possibilities", said the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes - indubitably!", said the second. <S> "Billions and billions of them!", cried the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes - indubitably!", said the second. <S> "And I thought it was a lovely dinner", said the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes - indubitably!", said the second. <S> "To be fair, I didn't think much of the steak", said the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes - indubitably!", said the second. <S> "But I thought the human's brain was delicious", asked the first alien. <S> " <S> Oh, yes! <S> Indubitably!", said the second, fastidiously cleaning drops of ichor from his mouth-tentacles. :-) <A> In this sentence, you probably mean the human brain . <S> The phrase <S> the human’s brain means the brain that belongs to the human , where the human must be some specific human that is already being discussed. <S> This is an unlikely statement except in fantasy or science fiction, where non-humans may be speaking about some human. <S> So in this case, the refers to the human, not to the brain. <S> In this case, human is an adjective, a modifier on brain , specifying that the brain is a human one. <S> The definite article the also refers to this brain, but out of context there are two ways it could be understood: <S> This may be some specific human brain we are discussing. <S> Say a scientist is studying a tomb where a man was buried along with his dog: if he’s talking about the state of their brains, he might refer to them as <S> the human brain and the dog brain , meaning the specific brain from the buried man and the specific brain from the buried dog. <S> This may be a general statement about the human brain , that is, the concept of the brain found in humans. <S> This is by far the most likely intent.
| The phrase the human brain means the type of brain found in humans . Both the human’s brain and the human brain are grammatical (that is, we could not say either is incorrect ), but they mean different things.
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What does a week on Tuesday mean? I have heard a sentence saying "The seminar now will take place a week on Tuesday " Does this mean the seminar will take place from next Tuesday? Could anyone explain grammatically how that is correct? Thank you for your help! <Q> I have never heard that expression in the U.S. <S> Neither have I encountered "The seminar will take place Tuesday week. <S> " The most common way of saying it here would be "The seminar will take place a week from Tuesday." <A> It means the seminar will take place seven days after the next Tuesday. <S> Assuming it was said today, it would mean Tuesday 22nd September. <S> I can't explain the grammar behind it because it's a standard phrase (in British English, anyway). <S> You'll find the definition in the Oxford Dictionary under Phrases. <S> a week on —— <S> Seven days after the specified day or date: ‘we’ll be back a week on Friday’ <A> In British English you have to be careful with this phrase as the exact date referred to can vary, in my experience, between the North and South of England, which causes awful difficulties even for native speakers who are not from the locality. <S> As correctly stated by @ssav the dictionary definition shows: a week on —— <S> Seven days after the specified day or date: ‘we’ll be back a week on Friday’ <S> The ambiguity is which Tuesday the 7 days are counted from! <S> Some dialect versions assume it is the Tuesday from the current week, even if that means a previous day and some counting from the next Tuesday. <S> This means the phrase can be interpreted a week differently in different regions. <S> This causes some people to ask for clarification which Tuesday! <A> <A> It is a phrase that would confuse almost all American English speakers, but apparently well understood (and widely used?) in British English. <S> As a native speaker of AmEnglish, I can guess that it means "next Tuesday". <S> Or maybe "a week after next Tuesday". <S> That is why it is confusing unless you are a native BrEnglish speaker.
| Personally I think that's bad phrasing (although it does get the point across), I think a better way of saying "A week from this Tuesday" is: "The seminar will take place a week from Tuesday" or even "The seminar will take place Tuesday week "
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"Tick" vs. "check" the box I came across the following example: Tick the box if you would like more details. In the sentence, "tick the box" means mark the specific checkbox. If we have the following checkboxes ticking the first checkbox means selecting it. But what is the difference between checking the box and ticking the box ? Can I assume that the phrases are equivalent? <Q> Ticking a box (British English) and Checking a box (American English) mean the same thing and are generally understood on both sides of the Atlantic. <A> The respective processes may be interpreted as: checking the box -> <S> there is a box, and mark it with a check mark if you want to select it <S> (This is commonly used in hard copies [forms]) ticking the box -> <S> there is a box, and click it to mark the same with a check mark (if you want to select it). <S> (common in online forms/surveys etc.) <S> Moreover, "checking the box" is more flexible, since those who live in the era where forms are answered in hard copies can automatically interpret it as to selecting the option available. <S> Ticking the box may not be that simple for a person who is not a technological savvy. <S> 'Ticking' is similar to 'clicking' (hence, all the results caused by clicking is possible). ' <S> checking' is not similar to clicking, but you need to click in order to place a check mark in online forms. <S> Hence, in online forms, the two are technically equivalent (per common sense/experience of computer users). <A> When you "check the box" you are checking the box of your choice. <S> checking the box (AmE) <S> = <S> ticking the box (BrE)
| The phrase is check the box tick the box
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How should I pronounce "live music"? How should I pronounce "live" when I mean, for example, "live broadcasting" or "live music"? Is it "laiv" or "liv"? <Q> Here is my rule of thumb: <S> live is only pronounced /lɪv/ <S> (or your "liv") when it's a verb . <S> In all other cases it's /laɪv/ (or your "laiv"). <S> You can remember this sentence, which rhymes: <S> Live music makes me feel alive ! <S> PS. <S> A careful reader may prefer to use another, but similar, rule of thumb: <S> The <S> adjective and adverb <S> This alternative rule of thumb seems to work better with other words stemming from live , whereas my rule of thumb is only for the word live alone. <S> (Note that the word live can be a verb, an adjective, or an adverb.) <S> Here is a list of common words related to live : a) with /lɪv/ <S> : <S> live (the verb, including all phrasal verbs such live by , live for , etc.) <S> , lives (the verb, in the present, used with he/ <S> she/it ) <S> , lived (the past and the past participle forms), living (both the verb, the active participle, and the adjective), livable , liver b) with /laɪv/ (or /laɪf/): life , lives (the plural of life ), live (the adj. <S> and the adv., including phrases such as go-live ), alive <A> The former ('laiv') is the proper pronunciation. <S> The latter is used in the essence of existence (living and dying) and when one provides the place where one lives (I live at 777 Pragmatic Street...) <S> For additional information, the two words are homographs . <S> ". <S> . .two <S> words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and are pronounced differently. . ." <A> Your confusion is because of the same spelling with two different pronunciations. <S> Okay; <S> here , it's 'laaiv'. <S> In most of the online dictionaries, there is an option to hear <S> the pronunciation of the word mentioned. <S> You need to click on the 'speaker' icon. <S> Alternatively, the pronunciation is written as well. <S> The word is: live - laɪv (click on the 'speaker' icon to hear it). <S> The word that you are confused with is <S> live - lɪv <S> (click on the 'speaker' icon to hear it). <A> As Maulik told it's 'liv', and it really depend on context. <S> In your case, it is slang definitions like on dictionary : <S> live adjective <S> Not recorded or taped : live music/ a live telecast (1934+) Of current importance <S> ; still to be decided : Is metrication really a live issue today? <S> (1900 <S> +) <S> You can see more than 50 efinition on Dictionary.net - http://www.dictionary.net/live <S> Or you can hear pronouncation on Dictionary.com - watch on live2 - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/live?s=t <S> If live is a verb <S> (Live long and prosper, or I live in New York City), the i is pronounced the same as the i in "this". <S> This pronunciation is used for all tenses of the verb, and also for the participles lived and living. <S> If live is an adjective (The band played for a live audience, or Live from New York City), the i is pronounced the same as the i in five. <S> Alive also has this pronunciation.
| live are pronounced one way /laɪv/, and everything else is pronounced the other /lɪv/.
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What is the difference between “say” and “tell”? I really get confused when to use say and when to use tell . Which is appropriate in the following: What did he tell? / What did he say? What are you saying? / What are you telling? <Q> The usual basic pattern is tell someone . <S> We can add another complement to the verb, if we want, and use tell someone something : <S> Tell Bob. <S> Tell Bob (that) we need to leave. <S> We don't usually use tell something without saying which person we were telling. <S> *tell (that) we need to leave. <S> (wrong) <S> The pattern is the other way round with say . <S> If we really want to add a person, we can say say something to someone , or say to somebody something . <S> Notice that we need to if we include the person we are saying it to. <S> He says (that) we need to leave. <S> He said (that) he was leaving to me. <S> He said to me (that) he was leaving <S> But we can't say someone . <S> He already said me. <S> (wrong) <S> The original example sentences <S> What did he _____ ? <S> What are you _____ ? <S> In both of these examples, the questions are about the information that was given, not the people that were spoken to. <S> For this reason we need to use the verb say : What did he say? <S> What are you saying? <S> So, the patterns to remember are: <S> tell people say things Note : There are a small number of 'things' that we can tell. <S> For example we can tell: stories, jokes, lies, the truth - and other words that mean similar things to these. <S> Notice that if someone said He told us a joke , but we didn't hear the last word in the sentence <S> we could say: What did he tell? <S> There are also different senses of the verb tell . <S> One of these for example is to 'detect' something. <S> This has a different grammar. <A> In your examples, use: <S> What did he tell you ? <S> / <S> What did he say? <S> What are you saying? <S> / <S> What are you telling me ? <S> This is a very common error. <S> (Which means that you can easily find a good explanation for it on many websites and in most grammar books. <S> And don't worry. <S> Many of us have this error, too!) <S> Let me focus on the most important case: when you want to use say or tell to mean that someone utters something (to someone), use only: <S> say something ( to someone), or tell someone something . <S> And you will be safe. <S> Of course, there are more uses and more patterns, and even more meanings of the two verbs. <S> But this is the most common case that you will use say/tell . <S> The link given by josh61 , Say or tell ? - English Grammar Today - Cambridge Dictionaries Online , is already very good. <S> To add to that, here is the "Get It Right!" <S> note on say and tell given by Macmillan Dictionary: <S> Unlike the verb tell , the verb say is never used with a personal object. <S> If you want to refer to a personal object after say , use the preposition to : ✗ <S> Perhaps people misunderstand what I want to <S> say them in English. <S> ✓ <S> Perhaps people misunderstand what I want to <S> say to them in English. <S> ✗ <S> He wanted to be examined by a civilian doctor <S> after an army doctor had said him that it was serious. <S> ✓ <S> He wanted to be examined by a civilian doctor after an army doctor had said to him that it was serious. <S> The object of the verb say is usually direct speech or a that -clause which reports what someone has said: “That’s not true!” <S> she said , but her voice betrayed her. <S> Climate experts say that by 2100 rainfall levels in some areas may rise to five times what they are today. <S> Don’t use tell in structures like this: <S> ✗ <S> He told that the Japanese representatives tend to be less confident about speaking English. <S> ✓ <S> He said that the Japanese representatives tend to be less confident about speaking English. <A> One other point I'd like to add to the existing excellent answers: <S> Say has a strong implication of speaking the message. <S> This would most commonly be done in person, but a telephone conversation (or online equivalent), or some sort of video or audio recording where you are hearing the person speak, strongly relates to the concept of something being said. <S> You could also use it if someone spoke something to someone else, and you hear about it after the fact. <S> (There are some situations where a person might be said to have "said something" when they didn't speak it - such as in a letter or email - but this is less common.) <S> On the other hand, telling someone something can be done through almost any means of communication, and the word "tell" (umm, forgive the pun) tells you nothing about how the message was communicated. <S> I'm telling you this information right now, but I'm not saying it, because I'm typing it, not speaking it. <S> I certainly can tell it to you through speaking, but I could also tell it to you in a letter.
| The basic pattern is say something .
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Must 'maximum' be followed by 'of'? To reduce words I want to write 'a maximum six times' rather than 'a maximum of six times'. Is that ok? Here's the context: 'I saw people a maximum six times (approximately weekly)' <Q> "Maximum" is a contextual concept: the most things available, for a specific thing. <S> The word "of" in this context qualifies maximum by describing what exactly is the upper bound of the quantity. <S> "A maximum six times" isn't a phrase that makes any sense. <S> We have an article addressing a noun (a maximum), an adjective (six), and then another noun (times). <S> There's nothing linking these words together. <S> You've clearly just introduced this new "maximum" into the context ("a maximum," the use of "a" instead of "the" or even just replacing them both with a pronoun indicates that it hasn't been mentioned yet) <S> so it has to be described with kind of maximum it is. <S> You can't do that without using the word "of. <S> " <S> And no, "a six times maximum" won't work either. <S> You could correctly refer to it as simply "a maximum" without "six times," but that tells the other person that there's an upper limit, not what it is. <S> That would be rather confusing. <A> I may be wrong, but, in this case, it looks like "of" is a preposition of a prepositional phrase. <S> In this case the prepositional phrase is an adjective modifyer. <S> If you didn't use of in your sentence, it would have a different function. <S> Maximum would, instead of being a noun, be an adjective. <S> The reason, I think, that of is used is because of can be used as a link between words and make then genitive much in the same way that the, "'s" at the end of a noun <S> indicates possession. <S> maximum of ten dogs is another way of saying, ten dogs' maximum. <S> One wouldn't say this because it wouldn't make very much sense and would have different connotations when positioned like that. <S> So, I think, but I'm not sure this is correct, that, "of," In this sentence, is a way of saying that the subject, "I" is in "possession" of, "the maximum". <S> I'm not sure that this is a great, or even correct, explanation, but I hope I helped. <S> A website that may be useful in the future is an online sentence diagrammer that will tell you how each word in a sentence functions and you can compare it to other ways a word may work if the sentence were worded differently. <S> Here is the link: http://1aiway.com/nlp4net/services/enparser/default.aspx?text=diagram+this+sentence <A> I saw people a maximum six times (approximately weekly) <S> Maximum here can work as an adverb modifying six <S> - meaning <S> six is the maximum number possible. <S> Since six modifies times - telling how many times - I saw people a maximum six times means you saw people six times exactly <S> AND six times is the maximum. <S> And, since you would have to have known the specific maximum involved well before talking about it - i.e. it was a specific thing known in context or previous conversation, you would use the instead of a . <S> Furthermore, if there is an upper limit of people you could see for a given interval, you would also know that interval precisely - so "approximately" sounds like you don't know what you are talking about. <S> You could say: I saw people the maximum six times each week. <S> However, if you want to say you have seen anywhere from zero to six people, six being the upper limit, you need of . <S> I saw a maximum of six people each week. <S> So you really need that of if the number of people you saw was 0 to 6.
| In this sentence, yes it does. You can't describe a "maximum" without some sort of context describing what quantity it represents.
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Music to Watch Boys To Well there is this new Lana's song and I can't understand the grammar of the title at all. What does the title mean in whole and what does the last "to" mean? Thanks in advance. <Q> You wouldn't use it in formal writing (at least I wouldn't), but it's a kind of cutesy way to describe the mood of the music. <A> The particular wording of the title suggests that Lana may be acquainted with a 1967 song called " Music to Watch Girls By " by Bob Crewe Generation (1966). <S> Andy Williams released a version of the song with lyrics in 1967. <S> In any event, idiomatic English allows you to watch boys (or girls) to music, just as as it allows you to do chores to music: the music plays, and you watch (or work). <S> Whether you can watch girls (or boys) by music—analogously to the way you can color a picture by number, for example—is more problematic. <S> But in this case Bob Crew's song title might have been echoing an even earlier song—" Standing on the Corner <S> (Watching All the Girls Go By) "—a show tune by Frank Loesser from The Most Happy Fella , released as a 45-rpm single that same year by the Four Lads . <A> It's an odd grammatical structure, in the form of: PLURAL NOUN to VERB <S> PREPOSITION <S> which means, essentially, <S> This noun is good to use when doing this verb <S> So, for example, if we make a play list with a lot of upbeat songs, we might entitle it: Music to Exercise To <S> Or, we could burn our favorite dance songs onto a CD, and write on the jewel case: <S> Songs to Dance To <S> If we made a list of self-help books that offered good time management tips, we might entitle the list: Books to Manage Your Time With <S> A rather common one of these is: Words to Live By which refers to maxims and proverbs promoting a safe or healthy lifestyle (this one even gets its own entry in The Free Dictionary ). <S> So, in the song title, Lana is referring to music she likes to hear while she is watching boys. <A> As vstrong has suggested, it means the music to enjoy while watching boys. <S> To me the title has a hint of a slightly lewd meaning as in "a photo to masturbate to". <S> But it is still catchy, which will do as a song's title. <A> As the lyrics says, "Putting on my music while I’m watching the boys", so the meaning of the title is quite clear. <S> As to the question 'what does the last "to" mean?' <S> , well, if you can "dance to the music " (that is while the music is being played), so you can "watch boys to the music " (though it sounds somehow weird). <S> Of course, you can put it as "watch boys (while listening ) to the music", but in fact that is not necessary. <S> P.S. <S> By the way, Lana herself used to babysit, even after she got famous: "... <S> during a 2012 interview with the Huffington Post, Del Rey admitted she still babysat just as she had before the release of "Video Games" and the successes that followed. <S> Lana discussed the gig as an example of the quiet life she prefers to lead." <S> http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2015/08/lana-del-rey-trivia/s/lana-babysitting-after-video-games/
| It means "music to listen to while watching boys," that is, a musical accompaniment to the activity of watching boys.
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Use of word 'afraid' I have used the following sentence. I am not sure whether the use of word "afraid" conveys the correct meaning. I am afraid it did not quite answer my question <Q> If you could replace the phrase, "I am afraid " with "Unfortunately," in your intended meaning, then yes, you used it correctly, as in definition 2 here . <S> afraid <S> (adj): filled with concern or regret over an unwanted situation <S> Note that this definition of afraid is often used with some sarcasm. <S> For instance, if I caught one of my chemistry students cheating, and he or she offered a poor excuse, I might say I'm afraid you'll have to come up with a better story than that. <S> and I would not have any concern whatsoever about the unfortunate social situation the student was in. <A> Maybe rephrasing the following way might help you understand it more easily: <S> I'm afraid that you might freak out to learn that he's not coming tonight. <A> The main sense of afraid is feeling fear, frightened, or worried when you think something bad might happen. <S> The phrase <S> You have used the phrase correctly in the second sense.
| "I am afraid" is used to mean that I am sorry to have to say; you use it as a polite way of telling somebody something that's unpleasant, disappointing, or something you don't agree on.
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Grammatical purpose of including "mind you" between commas "The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you ; and they say he had a great wish for him." What is the point of mind you here, grammatically? What is this called in grammar? Why may it get set off by a comma? <Q> It is a conversational ploy, drawing attention to a remark. <S> Sometimes it could be paraphrased "but don't get me wrong" (that is, don't misconstrue what I've just said a second or two ago). <S> They were arguing rather heatedly about whether a particular word was an adverb or a preposition. <S> But they were good friends, mind you . <S> Dr Jones would never have bludgeoned Dr Smith to death with a brass candlestick. <S> P.S. <S> The punctuation attempts to reflect the structural role of phrases and clauses. <S> "Mind you" is an interjection, and thus, in speech, it would be subtly isolated from the clause that precedes it by a syntactic pause <S> and it would also be delivered with a shift in intonation. <A> I believe that we can consider it a filler . <S> Why do I say so? <S> It's because the sentence still means roughly the same when it's removed, or when it's replaced by other similar fillers. <S> For example, The youngster and he were great friends. <S> The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you ; and they say he had a great wish for him. <S> The youngster <S> and he were great friends. <S> The old chap taught him a great deal, you know ; and they say he had a great wish for him. <S> The youngster <S> and he were great friends. <S> The old chap taught him a great deal, <S> I hope you know ; and they say he had a great wish for him. <S> The youngster <S> and he were great friends. <S> Well , the old chap taught him a great deal; and they say he had a great wish for him. <S> The youngster <S> and he were great friends. <S> The old chap taught him a great deal, yes ; and they say he had a great wish for him. <S> The youngster <S> and he were great friends. <S> The old chap taught him a great deal, please note ; and they say he had a great wish for him. <S> Literally (that is, if we understand it word by word), it's "mind" + "you", but in reality, the best way to deal with this filler (also any fillers in general), in my humble opinion, is to keep our reading flexible, and try to feel its meaning in the context. <S> The more you read, the more you learn, and the more you can feel it. <S> And that is a good way to develop our "sense of language". <S> As for why it's set off by a comma, it's because, in writing, we usually set off fillers. <S> This hints at a couple things, as far as I know. <S> One is that it makes it easier to see what's the main part (in a given sentence), and what's not. <S> Another is that it suggests where to pause in reading. <S> Happy learning! <A> "mind you" added to a sentence as in your sentence is a colloquial formula of little importance. <S> It just underlines what has just been said. <S> It is more a matter of the dictionary, and not so much of grammar. <S> "Mind you" can have different meanings when it introduces a sentence. <S> You have to look up the idiom "mind you" in dictionaries, But such expressions are often insufficiently explained or only half of it. <S> See OLD, mind , verb , idioms in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary , where it reads:
| mind you (informal) used to add something to what you have just said, especially something that makes it less strong
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A possibly erroneous use of "or" in a complex sentence Just to make sure: isn't this an erroneous use of or ? More recently, concerns have been raised that HGT from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could have adverse effects (Pontiroli et al., 2007). HGT of an introduced gene in a GMO may confer a novel trait in another organism, which could be a source of potential harm to the health of people or the environment. For example, the transfer of antibiotic resistance genes to a pathogen has the potential to compromise human or animal therapy (Bennett et al., 2004), transfer of a viral gene to a non-homologous virus may result in an emerging disease (Falk and Bruening, 1994) or gene transfer to humans has been controversially proposed as a potential trigger for oncogenesis (Ho et al., 2000). (From " Risks from GMOs due to Horizontal Gene Transfer ", by Paul Keese) P.S. It's hard to formulate why exactly, but it continues to look erroneous to me, although of course I believe J.R. In Russian, such a sentence would be considered erroneous. The minimal solution to make it less wrecked would be to cross out " or " and put " and " in its place. And a comma before " and ", of course. <Q> There is a violation of parallelism in the verbal structure which goes from active to passive voice (has the potential ... may result... has been proposed as ). <S> Nothing to do with "or", however; the "or" may actually be an attempt to compensate for, or announce, the shift in voice. <S> Here's how I'd fix it: ... — or as has been controversially proposed, gene transfer may trigger oncogenesis. <A> Nope, not erroneous at all. <S> It's essentially a list of three examples, set up by the preceding sentence or paragraph, which you initially omitted, but then wisely included after your edit. <S> I'll write something using a similar structure: <S> An English learner stands to gain several possible benefits from frequenting ELL. <S> For example, an answer might provide new insights, a comment might clarify a confusing issue, or a question from the learner could be answered by a native speaker or knowledgable learner. <S> The flow of your excerpt is a little harder to follow, though, because it's very technical material. <S> The parenthetical references don't help, either, as they interrupt the flow of the sentence. <S> But the or is entirely appropriate. <A> You will notice that this author is careful to hedge every proposition he puts forward. <S> He doesn't want to give the impression that the dangers he lists are probable events with a cumulative effect, like this: <S> This may happen, and that may happen, and the other may happen, too! <S> He rather asks us to consider these dangers as possibilities, each independent of the others—any one of them may come to pass: <S> This may happen, or that may happen, or the other may happen. <S> And in this context or puts forward a very different rhetorical strategy. <S> Each of the dangers has a small chance of occurring <S> —let's say, just for the sake of argument, 2%. <S> The probability that all three will happen (A and B and C) is vanishingly small: 2% × 2% × 2 <S> * = <S> .0008% . <S> But the chance that at least one will happen (A or B or C) is increasingly large: 2% + 2% + 2% = <S> 6% . <S> You are, however, quite right in suggesting that the or should be preceded by a comma, to make the structure clear.
| This use of or rather than and is quite common and quite proper.
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Is "This brought me an idea" correct English? Coming from German I wonder what the correct idiom is here. This brought me an idea. or This made me an idea. or This got me an idea. or This gave me an idea. Well, I guess I could say This made me think of an idea. but I wonder what else is possible here. What would you propose? <Q> The others don't quite work, except for the final (slightly awkward sounding) non-idiomatic option at the bottom. <A> If you were going to use brought (which would make sense if the this <S> you're referring to didn't immediately give you the idea, but rather led you through a series of logical steps that resulted in the idea) <S> it would not be uncommon to say "This brought me to the idea of ______ " or more commonly <S> "This brought me to _____". <S> This phrase is especially useful when documenting a series of similar events and you don't want to use the same phrase over and over again. <A> "This/that gave/gives me an idea" is definitely a good way to go. <S> Your last example is similar to another common way to say this, which doesn't involved the word 'idea': <S> That made me think of something. <S> Which is what I commonly say. <S> Anything you think of is an idea, so it's not required that you use that word. <A> imagine that 'This' is someone's name (for instance 'This Johnson'), and an 'Idea' is a brand name for something physical (for example a chair). <S> Then it would be correct to say 'This brought me an Idea'. <S> Otherwise you should be using 'This gave me an idea'
| "This gave me an idea" is what you're looking for.
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Why can we say "drink" but we can't say "drinks" Why can we use the first sentence and not the second one? after take off, we will have food and drink after take off, we will have food and drinks Which is more correct? <Q> The answer is that you can. <S> We will have food and drink <S> We will have food and drinks <S> Both are acceptable, however, the phrase food and drink is more common than food and drinks . <A> comestibles and beverages , whereas "food and drinks" refers to alcoholic beverages and light fare, <S> that is, to an outing where one consumes these. <S> Food and drink will be served at intermission|after the ceremony|etc. <S> The establishment is licensed to serve food and drink. <S> After work, let's all go out for food and drinks. <A> It depends on the context. <S> Because when you say 'food', it means food in 'general'. <S> But then, 'foods' is what you'd use if you are talking about its various types. <S> We were served with various types of foods and drinks <S> So, both are okay!
| "Food and drink" in American English refers to refreshments, or to the categories
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"I am to" vs "I have to" I've seen a couple of sentences with "to be" + "infinitive with to" such as: You are to do that. I know it has to do with a kind of obligation but I'm still wondering what is the difference between it and using "have to".e.g: I am to tell you. vs. I have to tell you. <Q> We were taught of these differences in modal verbs: <S> Must <S> {infinitive} means an obligation due to higher order, like duty (of position or honour). <S> Should {infinitive} means that something is most prudent or sensible way of behaving. <S> Ought to {infinitive} means that was supposed to {infinitive} but didn't for some reason. <S> Have to {infinitive} means obligation due to (possibly adverse) circumstances. <S> So, in your case, I am to tell you. <S> means that according to some agreement or protocol <S> I have the obligation/task to inform you. <S> I have to tell you. <S> means the circumstances force me to inform you (possibly against my wish, or I surrender to them). <A> Obligation is usually expressed with "must+bare infinitive". <S> As the modal verb must can only be used in present tense, for the other tenses a substitution ( have to do) is used. <S> "I have to do it" is a shortening of "I have the obligation to do it". <S> "You are to come to the boss" is a shortening of "You are ordered to come to the boss". <S> In some cases you can think of "obliged/demanded and similar forms" instead of "ordered". <A> I am to is more formal than <S> I am supposed to . <S> Both of these have a more neutral tone (i.e. less emotive) than I have to .
| Be to {infinitive} means obligation due to previous agreement or presumed way of behaving.
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I'll make "all my effort" to do that - acceptable idiom? If I say: I'll make " all my effort " to come on the time" Is it considered an acceptable / correct English? <Q> No, but we might use the phrase "every effort": "I will make every effort to be there on time." <A> I'm going to try to come on time. <S> Never use "on the time" like that. <A> In order to discover if this is acceptable/correct English, let's break it down into small phrases: <S> I'll make Good so far. <S> What are you making? <S> all my effort <S> This is strange. <S> This claims that you have a pile of effort, and you can take from and add to it, and you're talking about the entire pile. <S> Alone, this is a good analogy. <S> However, when we look at these together: I'll make all my effort <S> This says that you are starting with zero effort in your pile, and you're going to make all of it. <S> That doesn't make much sense. <S> A better alternative is use or give instead of make . <S> Let's move on to the rest of the sentence: to come Alight, that's okay. <S> To where are you coming? <S> on the time <S> Here's where it gets silly. <S> This makes it seem like you're starting where you are, and your destination is "the time". <S> Also, "to come on" has a rare, but lewd definition (see Wiktionary's 5 th verb definition ), so you shouldn't say you come on something. <S> So what is a good alternative to to come on the time ? <S> Well, let's go back. <S> to come was fine, and I asked "To where are you coming?". <S> Let's answer that with in . " <S> Where are you coming?" <S> "I'm coming in!" <S> Now I can ask "When are you coming in?", and you can answer with on time , meaning that when you come in, it will be at the correct time. <S> Putting it all together, here's what you probably want to say: I'll give all my effort to come in on time. <S> Perfect! <S> You've got a pile of effort, and you're giving all of it in your attempt to go from where you are to here at the correct time. <A> No. <S> A better way to say it would be <S> 'I will do my best to be on time' <A> You could also use "best efforts" " <S> I'll make best efforts to come on time"or"I'll make my best efforts to come on time"
| I'll try my best to be on time. No, it's not!
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Is "get the basics straight" a valid idiom? I somehow have in my mind, that "get the basics straight (first)" is a valid phrase/idiom in the meaning of, that someone needs to understand the basic concepts of something or get to know the basic facts of a situation , before he can further follow up on something. While (in my mind) this sounds perfectly good - Google only has 14,900 results for it, which makes me think, that it doesn't really exist in proper English at all. Is it correct and just not widely spread, or is there any related idiom which has the above mentioned meaning? <Q> "Get the basics straight" and "Get the basics straight first" are valid English, but are not idioms. <S> In a context where an author is trying to: Be polite (perhaps sarcastic, but neither rude nor obscene nor profane) <S> Point out the basics of something, before pointing out more advanced features <S> Write clearly <S> Use the second-person imperative <S> Here are some alternatives that are idiomatic. <S> Notice that some of these alternatives are quite rude, or compare the reader to a baby, toddler, or young child <S> : You have to crawl before you can walk. <S> You need to walk before you can run. <S> Learn the ABCs of <topic> <S> Get your shit straight. <S> Here is an idiomatic alternative that is polite: <S> Start with the basics. <A> You could say "get the basics straight" but doesn't have the same impact as <S> "Get your facts straight". <S> Better use: " <S> that is not right! <S> Take it from scratch and get your facts straight " <A> (Have a) grasp (of) the fundamentals. <S> Examples: <S> I don't really have a good grasp of the fundamentals of string theory. <S> If you read Gordon's recipe book, you will quickly grasp the fundamentals of shouting at restaurant staff.
| "Get the basics straight" or "Get the basics straight first" is a natural thing to say.
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which is the best option for the sentence What is the difference if we use the below three words in a sentence. Is there any grammatical error? The boy "told"/"asked"/"said to" his teacher to explain the passage. <Q> The boy told his teacher to explain the passage. <S> The boy commands his teacher to explain the passage, as if he were her superior or parent. <S> This would be considered rude in most classroom settings. <S> The boy asked his teacher to explain the passage. <S> A polite request; much less rude than the above. <S> The boy said to his teacher to explain the passage. <S> Not very natural sounding. <S> It probably would imply a command as in the first example. <S> A more natural way to say this, and with a little less implied rudeness on the part of the boy, is <S> The boy said to his teacher, "Explain the passage." <A> The " told ", if used in that sentence, sounds like the boy issued a command . <S> Boys shouldn't command their teachers, but it would still be grammatically correct. <S> The " asked " is most appropriate as far as interaction between boys and their teachers goes. <S> All three are grammatically acceptable. <A> The boy told (demanded) his teacher to explain the passage. <S> The boy asked (polite) his teacher to explain the passage. <S> The boy said to (almost as rude as told) his teacher to explain the passage.
| The " said to " is similar to " told ".
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Is "Opening by the Host" understandable? I am writing the itinerary of a conference. At the start, a host comes, says hi and describes what will happen during the day. How can I refer to this? Is "Opening by the Host" a good choice? By the way, by host I do not mean the chairman. I mean someone like a showman. <Q> "Opening remarks by ________________, Conference Host [Chair?]" would be better. <S> As you can see here , when "opening" is used as a noun it usually means a physical hole/aperture or the beginning of a game (most commonly, chess). <A> I think the OP refers to Master of Ceremonies (emcee). <S> Note: <S> the choice of words is up to you, same goes for the format. <A> I would leave out the word "host" altogether, and simply entitle this as: Opening Remarks <S> An alternative would be: Conference Welcome and Announcements <A> A distinct noun can give a slight advantage in terms of understandability. <S> For instance you can call it Agenda presentation . <S> since it is given by a professional presenter. <S> You could call him "MC" if you wish ("Master of Ceremonies").
| I think you can use: "Introduction - Schedule of Activities (Emcee)"
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How can I revise the sentence: "the hunter was waiting so that the leopard goes..."? It sounds a bit awkward I find this sentence a little awkward especially because of the verb “goes”. How can I revise it? The hunter was waiting so that the leopard goes to the proper position for being shot. <Q> The hunter was waiting so that the leopard goes to the proper position for being shot, is a very unusual way of saying this. <S> It is like "The hungry man was waiting for the hamburger to be on his plate to get eaten". <S> I would advise you to revise it to something like this: ' <S> The hunter was waiting for the leopard to get within shooting range.' <A> I assume what you want to say is "The hunter was waiting for the leopard to go to a proper position to shoot". <A> Typical collocations with wait are to wait for or wait until in the sense: to stay somewhere or not do something until something else happens, someone arrives etc. <S> ( LDOCE ) <S> You can either wait for something to happen/someone to do something, or wait until something happens. <S> So your sentence could read, as JMB suggested: <S> or since we are revising: The hunter was waiting for the leopard to get into a proper position to be shot. <S> Alternatively, you can use the construction with until ( <S> but I would change the tense, which would slightly alter the meaning, so I prefer the first construction): <S> The hunter waited until the leopard was in a proper position to be shot. <S> The hunter waited until the leopard went to a proper position to be shot.
| The hunter was waiting for the leopard to go to a proper position to be shot.
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What does "a good laugh" mean? I definitely enjoy spending time with my family. I feel like I'm a very down to earth person who enjoys a good laugh . I've never been good at things like this, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask! Is "a good laugh" an idiom? Does it always mean a partner? Or does it literally mean a happy life? <Q> A good laugh <S> it is an idiom. <S> I don't see how it could mean "a partner". <S> In this context it simply means "to have fun while telling/hearing some funny stuff`" . <S> It could also mean to make fun of something : <S> We had a good laugh after she fell on the floor. <S> Another example which is connected to this idiom would be: <S> They cranked me up with that joke, I had a good laugh. <S> Which translates to: That joke <S> made me laugh, it was a good one . <A> It just means you had a jolly, light-hearted time. <S> If @J.R is right about the quote being from a dating website (which seems very possible) I'd take it as a version of 'GOSH' (Good Sense Of Humour). <S> It would be overthinking to extend this into 'ONLY <S> wants a good time' ) <S> i.e. 'nothing serious', though the inference could be there. <A> As noted, this is clearly from a dating profile or very similar. <S> In this case, the best alternative I can come up with to replace enjoys a good laugh <S> is <S> has a good sense of humour or the more stilted: enjoys fun
| You can 'Have a good laugh' without being told a joke or ever laughing out loud.
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Using "the" in this sentence The resulting rules can be organized hierarchically to share the common rules among the wrappers for the similar websites. I still don't know if "the"s (bold ones) are applicable or not. I feel when I talk about specific websites which have specific wrappers that have specific common rules, then I can or (must?) use "the", right? I must add websites are not something that I have said previously but anyway, I am talking about the resulting rules (that are specific) and a subset of these rules (the common rules) are for similar websites, then it may make them specific... If the sentence is hard to grasp, you can imagine you're speaking about some books, like you say " These books are organized hierarchically to share the common books for the students of the similar fields.... ", it seems just "the similar" doesn't sound well? <Q> If you are talking about specific concepts, then you should use the definite article. <S> But, in some cases some of these instances of <S> the can be replaced with the demonstratives <S> this or these . <S> For instance, you could say as well: <S> The resulting rules can be organized hierarchically to share the common rules among the wrappers for these similar websites. <A> The resulting rules can be organized hierarchically to share the common rules among the wrappers for the similar websites. <S> It actually depends on the context surrounding this sentence. <S> Just by reading this one alone, I would imagine this version would preserve your meaning while cutting down on "the"s: <S> The resulting rules can be organized hierarchically to share common rules among wrappers for similar websites. <S> If you have qualified "wrappers" to be more specific than "wrappers in general" in another place, then you should post the sentence where you have done that, and the prepended "the" to "wrappers" would be appropriate. <S> If you are just trying to refer to all wrappers used by similar websites, then you don't need to use "the." <S> I believe for "websites," you should either choose one or the other: "similar" or "the," but not use both. " <S> Similar" qualifies "websites" to mean "websites that aren't much different from the website I'm talking about," while "the websites" means "specific websites that I'm talking about. <S> " Both used together would mean "specific websites that I'm talking about which aren't much different from the other website that I'm talking about/have mentioned previously. <S> " It is tough for me to imagine a situation where the reader would be so confused about which websites you're referring to that they'd need that much specificity. <S> Maybe if you were talking about a bigger set of websites which then needed to be sub-divided into smaller groups (those which are similar and dissimilar)? <S> Other than that, seems unlikely. <S> If you are not trying to say the latter, then you should probably remove "common," because in what context exactly are the rules common in that case? <S> None of these things will make your sentence strictly valid or invalid in terms of grammar, but it will change the meaning of your sentence significantly and may not express what you're trying to say properly. <A> The resulting rules can be organized hierarchically to share the common rules among the wrappers for the similar websites. <S> Let's take "common rules" to start with: <S> In this sentence, when you say "common rules" here, are you talking about a single given "common rules" previously mentioned - perhaps as early as the last sentence? <S> If so, use the . <S> It would be the same for "wrappers" or "similar websites." <S> If you mean "common rules" in general - without any reference to something you spoke/wrote about previously, then leave out the the .
| How and when one can switch between the article and the demonstrative depends on the context. Again, the appropriateness of "the common rules" depends on whether or not you're referring to a specific ruleset, or whether you're just trying to say that all rules which are common in general web development can be shared amongst wrappers.
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Is out of the blue a metaphor? This is an extract from Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. Something in his manner caused me to hesitate. To be summoned by Second Brother out of the blue and be treated so royally was cause for suspicion. After receiving the answers from a test paper, I found out that in this context it made the literary device of out of the blue to be a metaphor; not an idiom. I am confused as the sites that I came across either said a metaphorical idiom or simply an idiom. Can anyone show me how metaphor is the correct literary device in the context and not idiom? And how to identify if it is a metaphor or an idiom in other contexts to prevent further mistakes? <Q> My view: "out of the blue" is short for "like a bolt out of the blue sky", a simple comparison with "like" or if you prefer the literary term a simile. <S> Metaphors substitue a normal word by another expression that has some similarity with the normal word, but they don't use "like". <S> If you use "black gold" for petroleum you use a metaphor. <S> Comparisons with "like" or "as" are no metaphors. <A> I would call it a "figure of speech". <S> We don't typically know in advance that something is going to fall out of the sky (or that lightning will strike when the sky is clear with "a bolt out of the blue" per rogermue). <S> It is quite a shock when that happens. <S> There's an implicit comparison to that degree of unexpectedness, and that makes it metaphorical. <S> His phone call came out of the blue. <S> We hadn't spoken in years. <A> M-W's Learner's Dictionary has a good comparison of idiom , metaphor , and simile . <S> Using those descriptions, I believe "out of the blue" should be considered a metaphor ("a word or phrase typically used to describe one thing but unexpectedly used to describe something different") rather than an idiom ("an expression that conveys something different from its literal meaning, and that cannot be guessed from the meanings of its individual words").
| As to the problem whether something is a metaphor you can find divergent views depending on how you define metaphor.
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What do you call a chain of still images According to this Wikipedia entry , a video is the display of moving visual media. If so, then what do you call a chain of still images that when you press the 'play' button, it plays automatically (like a video)? My reasoning is that those picture are not moving, just switching image to image. <Q> From Wikipedia: <S> A slide show is a presentation of a series of still images on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. <S> Each image is usually displayed for at least a few seconds, and sometimes for several minutes, before it is replaced by the next image. <A> Video game developers and enthusiasts often call those a sprite strip or a sprite sheet . <S> Here's an example: <S> In video games, things on screen are represented by textures drawn in 2D or 3D. Textures are either static , which means they only use one image and it never changes, or dynamic , which means they change over time, most commonly by simply looping over a number of frames. <S> Sprite strip is what contains a number of sprites (separate images) and they can be seen as still images in an image editor like MS Paint or Adobe Photoshop. <S> Old video formats and animated GIF images (in the simplest form of description) work very much like the example above − <S> they display a sequence of images with equal dimensions and your player may do so in a loop. <A> I think the answer is rotoscoped frames . <S> Rotoscoping - an animation technique in which animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films. <A> Could potentially be a stop motion film, eg. <S> claymation, The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc. <S> This is if you are using this sequence of images to create an animation or something reminiscent of an animation.
| Judging from your description, I think it is " slide show " (rather than animation, stop motion, or rotoscoping).
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Meaning of "making a communist salute the flag" This question on Worldbuilding used the phrase to describe banning vegetarians from eating meat: Sure you can instute mandatory public meat eating, but that's like making a communist salute the flag. They'll eat the meatloaf to escape detection, but inside they're still deeply, morally corrupt. I don't understand the meaning of this simile. Google searches for "soviet flag salute" or "chinese flag salute" show plenty of examples of communist countries instituting flag salutes, voluntary or otherwise, and I don't see how saluting a flag voluntarily would make one less morally corrupt. While I inferred the meaning to be something along the lines of "making a bad person do something that a good person normally does", is this the actual meaning of this phrase? <Q> This comes from a very a tongue-in-cheek response to a question about how to enforce a ban on vegetarianism. <S> Note the title of the answer: <S> The House Vegetarian Activities Committee <S> It was originally created in 1938 to uncover citizens with Nazi ties within the United States. <S> However, it has become better known for its role in investigating alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having ties to Communism. <S> The author is thus speaking of saluting the American flag, an action which communists would presumably find morally or ideologically repugnant. <A> This is a tongue-in-cheek callback to the Cold War era in the United States. <S> The propaganda painted capitalists as good, honest people, and communists as horrible, morally corrupt people. <S> The sentence doesn't refer to saluting a communist flag, but rather it refers to forcing a communist in the United States to salute the American flag. <S> They will do it to avoid punishment, but they are still a communist. <A> Perhaps this is less related to the English language than to international perspective. <S> " <S> The House Un-American Activities Committee was a US Government institution commandeered by Senator Joseph McCarthy as part of his disastrous "Red Scare" campaign in 1952-1954. <S> He and his friends attempted to oppress various innocent people by accusing them of weakening the nation and disturbing the public order. <S> A lasting effect is that American schoolchildren must salute the flag daily while reciting a nationalist pledge. <S> The sentence in question is written from the specific perspective that the only flag is the American flag and any Communists are invading foreigners. <S> This is intended to enhance the ironic effect and to ground the world-building fiction in a specific point in history. <S> Unfortunately, if you are unfamiliar with that history, it is hopelessly confusing.
| This is an allusion to the House Unamerican Activities Committee, a standing committee of the US House of Representatives from 1938 to 1969. "Communist" is being used as shorthand for "foreign agent.
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What does the word "chemistry" really mean here? What I want: that someone to be my best friend, to share adventures, travel and make memories with, and play N64 and order pizza with on a rainy weekend. Chemistry is kind of important :) What do you want? What does she mean by saying chemistry ? <Q> I think NOAD's second definition of chemistry defines this pretty well: chemistry <S> ( noun ) 1 <S> the branch of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed 2 the emotional or psychological interaction between two people, esp. <S> when experienced as a powerful mutual attraction <S> This word is often used when talking about romantic couples, or potentially romantic relationships: <S> Linda, how come you didn't go on a second date with Rob? <S> Well, Heather, there just wasn't any chemistry between us . <S> However, the word also used outside the bounds of romantic or sexual relationships. <S> Two athletes can be said to have good chemistry if they play remarkably well together. <S> A student and his advisor can be said to have good chemistry if they enjoy doing research with each other, and their conversations become catalysts for new ideas. <S> Two actors can be said to have good chemistry if they play off each other very well. <S> For example, in a biography about hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky, Matt Christopher writes: From the beginning there was an incredible chemistry between center Wayne Gretzky and his right wing [Jari Kurri] . <S> and a CNN piece looking back at the successful Star Trek series mentions: Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner shared a unique chemistry, making their on-screen performances and off-screen appearances a treat for fans . <S> In the context quoted by the O.P., however, it sounds like the word is being used mostly in the sense of a strong romantic attraction coupled with compatable personalities. <S> Whichever way the word is being used, though, two people with good chemistry tend to make each other better. <A> This is, on the face of it, a reference to the fact that people are attracted partly by actual chemical factors (mostly scents). <S> However, "chemistry" has broadened to include the entire range of unquantifiable factors that combine to make a couple "click" (def 2 in Google's definition ) <S> It is often said, for example, that two actors playing opposite each other in a romantic movie seem to have "good chemistry" if the audience really believe the actors are falling in love. <S> It's a sense that they are naturally comfortable with one another, and inevitability grow closer. <S> See also the Wikipedia article on relationship chemistry . <A> Chemistry when it comes to relationships may mean -> person A matches person B AND vice versa. "to match" itself would refer to the ideals of love [similarities and differences - which are entirely relative and complex] <S> Note that the situation where "person A matches person B, and person B matches person A" should exist, for a couple to have a "chemistry'. <S> If it is one-sided, it may be unrequited passion/love, or simply - the dreaded 'friendzone'. <A> <A> When people use chemistry in this context, they are usually referring to how well they operate with things other people make visible very early in the relationship. <S> This would be things like looks, the most obvious personality traits, and the most obvious actions. <S> If they make the kind of jokes you think are funny or they buy you things and you particularly like to receive things, that could also make you feel like you have good chemistry with someone. <S> It's fairly common for people to begin a relationship with someone and to believe initially that you have good chemistry and <S> a few months later end the relationship and think that you didn't really have good chemistry with that person. <S> If they give you what you think you want, you probably feel like you have good chemistry with them and vice versa. <S> What you are looking for in a person can change over time and therefore you can feel that your chemistry with someone can also change over time. <A>
| Chemistry in this context is most likely meaning an atmosphere which is pleasant or positive for all people or parties In this context it certainly means the level of understanding between the two people in question
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seven and 10 are numbers or time? In an article , I read the following line: Major-General Bajwa tweeted that between seven and 10 terrorists (as per early estimates) dressed in constabulary uniform, attempted to break into the base early on Friday morning. To my mind, seven and 10 both show the number of terrorists (as they were not sure about the number before) as the word 'between' is put before seven, but then what is a need of writing seven and 10 in different manner, viz. word and number respectively? Is it a Tweeter's method? Or it is showing the time when terrorists entered into the base? (IMHO, if we put a comma after seven and 10 then the sentence will show the time when terrorists entered in the base.) Also, if seven and 10 show number of terrorists, then which phrasing is correct: between seven and 10 terrorists OR: between seven to 10 terrorists Please guide me as I am confused about this. <Q> “Spell out numbers less than 10” <S> This simple haiku Explains why seven is used <S> As for the word between , we use the word and in between the numbers: between seven and 10 <S> However, we use the word to when there is no between : seven to 10 <S> So, for example, if I eat one or two apples a day for about 13 weeks, then I might say: I ate seven to 11 apples each week for the past three months. <S> I ate between <S> seven and 11 apples each week for the past three months. <S> You're right about the comma. <S> However, I'd recommend the writer keep the "when" parts of that tweet together: Major-General Bajwa tweeted that between seven and 10 on Friday morning , terrorists attempted to break into the base . <S> Incidentally, the word <S> early in the original tweet might have clued you in that <S> the phrase between seven and 10 referred to the number of terrorists, not the time, as few generals would regard 10AM as "early morning". <A> It's a formal rule to spell out numbers below 10. <S> one two three etc. <S> I do not see the need for it in a tweet though. <S> Here is a website explaining the rules for numbers http://www.dailywritingtips.com/10-rules-for-writing-numbers-and-numerals/ <A> It does sound like they're talking about when the terrorists broke in, and spelling the numbers less then 10 is a rule, but in a tweet I don't see why they would use that rule. <S> Also if they're talking about time I don't see why they don't just use 7:00 and 10:00 , because I'm pretty sure that is more correct then seven and 10
| If we add a comma, the expression between seven and 10 no longer refers to the word terrorists, so I'd interpret that as talking about the time: Major-General Bajwa tweeted that between seven and 10 [o'clock], terrorists attempted to break into the base on Friday morning .
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'I got a cold' versus 'I caught a cold' The questions here are not about meaning. They are about the usage of the verbs get and catch in the context of getting a cold. My dictionary says that get can be used to mean 'to become infected with an illness; to suffer from a pain, etc.' and gives the example: I got this cold off you. My grammar confirms the dictionary and talks about get a cold in the chapter dedicated to the verb get. It also brings catch a cold to exemplify English collocations. However, I was browsing the Internet and it seems that, at least for Americans, if we say I got a cold it is kind of uneducated. I caught a cold is what we should say. 1) Is this true? Is it better to say I caught a cold than I got a cold ? 2) If it is the case, does this apply to British English as well? <Q> In my experience (AmE), the proper form is caught . <S> I caught a cold. <S> Using got is more informal, and can be used to indicate motion of the illness (as in your example): <S> I got the cold from you. <S> But really I don't think there is much real difference. <A> " Catch cold " is the canonical form in the US and Commonwealth countries. <S> " Get cold " means something quite different, though the argument can easily be made <S> that if you get cold you may well catch cold too. <S> Both expressions are idiomatic, since there're no transitive acts involved. <S> In neither case is "cold" a noun in these constructions. <S> It's a condition, the result of a process, thus (I think) <S> an adverb. <S> In "catch a cold", cold is clearly a noun and "catch" again an idiomatic use of the verb. <S> There's an implication that the cold is "going around" or "making the rounds", and the catching was sheer accident. <S> It's sometimes cast the other way 'round for humorous purposes ("a cold caught me last week and hung on like grim death"). <S> "Get a cold" isn't idiomatic since the noun "cold" in this context has been naturalised in English to mean a certain type of usually-minor-but-very-unpleasant-and-socially-offputting illness. <S> To assign responsibility, explicit [and nearly always only mock-serious] complaint is needed: <S> "I think I got/have/caught your damned cold--thanks a lot!" <A> As a American from public education that stopped in high school, I would say "I have a cold". <S> Also "I caught a cold" would to me <S> mean that your cold recently happened. <S> And "I got a cold" is not necessarily uneducated you could say lazy or more accurately its slang way to say "I have a cold". <S> Finally to me "I got a cold" means you have been feeling the symptoms of a cold for a prolonged period. <A> I got a cold. <S> (AmE) <S> I caught a cold. <S> (BrE, AmE) <S> both have the same meaning as I have a cold. <S> (BrE, AmE) <S> that is that you are now sick. <S> It also sounds more "active", as in you did something which contributed to you becoming ill <S> I was outside shoveling the snow and caught a cold. <S> It's cold outside, bundle up or you will catch <S> a cold! <S> Using "got" and "have" can be simply statements of a current condition, they are more "inactive" <S> I was sitting on the couch all day and got a cold. <S> I stayed indoors, and now I have a cold. <S> There is a joke in the programming community <S> I've got a code in my node. <S> I've got a cold in my nose (as said with a blocked nose) <S> "I got a cold" is sometimes said as "I gotta cold" which may sound less educated or of a certain region, whereas I've got a cold. <S> is often used and more correct. <S> All these statements may be interchangeable with additional context.
| "Get a cold" is just raw information ("I got/had/suffered from a cold last week"; "I think you're getting/coming down with a cold"). "Caught" can leave the listener wondering "what" or "where" you acquired your illness.
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Does "Soon people all over America were using Franklin stoves" work in a past-tense context? The following is a passage from a text book for English learners about the invention of "Franlin stove" by Benjamin Franklin . Ben made a better fireplace. All the smoke from the new fireplace went up the chimney. All the hot air went into the room. And it had a door to keep sparks in it. A lot of people called it the Franklin stove. Soon people all over America were using Franklin stoves . I'm wondering if the last sentence is correct. I have a feeling that the sentence lacks something describing "change" such as "become" or "will be". Am I wrong? <Q> It is implied that the change happened soon [after the introduction of the stove]. <S> (Native AmE speaker) <S> Oliphaunt asks, "If you replace 'soon' with 'soon after that,' does your problem go away?" <S> "After that" is implied here. <S> Removing "that" helps improve reading flow <S> (reader doesn't have to stop and mentally dereference the event referred to, which is the introduction of the stove). <S> "Soon after" might leave someone asking "after what?" but the correct answer is implied because this is what (grammatically and temporally) comes after the contents of the previous sentence . <A> Yeah, you're mistaken. <S> it's fine as-is. <S> He could have used phrasing to emphasize the transition period, but he wished to emphasize how quickly the adoption of the stove became a fait accompli . <A> Although I fully agree with the other answers that this is grammatically fine, I can sort of empathise with your hesitation. <S> For a non-native speaker, "soon" may seem to call for future tense. <S> I was wondering: if you replace "soon" with "soon after that", does your problem go away? <S> I think that it would have given me more of a past-tense feeling back when I was learning English. <S> (And by the way, I also agree with the other answer that a comma would improve clarity.) <A> I can't get this idea out of my head, now, that "Soon people" refers to some tribe of people, like "Aboriginal people". <S> So the sentence could be read similarly to: <S> Aboriginal people all over America were using Franklin stoves. <S> Thus, I suggest that the comma does help considerably: <S> Soon, people all over America were using Franklin stoves. <S> Another construction could be "before long": <S> Before long, people all over America were using Franklin stoves. <A> I found an explanation of this type of expression in Jespersen's A Modern English Grammar (IV,12.6(5),P.183): <S> The expanded preterit is found in a very characteristic way with words like soon after or next moment , pointing the contrast to (or the distance from) the previously mentioned time; the expansion emphasizes the notion of 'already' (was already then engaged in, had then already begun to); cf. <S> the French use of the imparfait in cases like deux ans après <S> il mourait dans son château <S> (not mourut : a rule that is apt to puzzle beginners). <S> Note that "expanded tenses" is another name for "progressive forms" used in this book. <S> The example sentences include <S> Strachey EV 20 Manning shook off his early Evangelical considerations, started an active correspondence with Newman, and was soon working for the new cause.
| Without response as to factually correct, the last sentence is grammatically correct, though I would recommend a comma after "Soon." Yes, there had to be a period during which people began to use the stoves, but the author is referring to a time (not long after) when they were already being used, all over the (then very small) country.
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Can I say "Is this yours book"? I know that it's acceptable to say "Is this book - yours", but I'm asking about the other form of: "Is this yours book"? Is it correct construction? <Q> Is <S> "Is this yours book?" <S> correct? <S> No, it's not correct. <S> You seem to be confused by <S> this and your/yours . <S> This can work as a "determiner". <S> It can also work as a "demonstrative pronoun". <S> This book is mine. <S> -- <S> This is a determiner. <S> A determiner is used with a noun. <S> This is a book. <S> -- <S> This is a "demonstrative pronoun". <S> It's a pronoun. <S> It works like a noun. <S> Your is a "possessive determiner". <S> Yours is a "possessive pronoun". <S> That book is your book . <S> -- <S> Your is a possessive determiner. <S> It's used with a noun. <S> That book is yours . <S> -- <S> Your s is a possessive pronoun. <S> It works like a noun. <S> In the last sentence ( "That book is yours " ), yours = <S> your book . <S> If English is still new to you, I'd recommend turning a question ("interrogative sentence") into a plain, non-question sentence ("declarative sentence") first. <S> It's easier to understand declarative sentences. <S> Let's start with <S> "Is this book yours?" , which you know that it's acceptable: <S> Is this book yours? <S> (~ <S> This book is yours .) <S> -- <S> This is a determiner . <S> Let's try other variants: <S> Is this book your book? <S> (~ <S> This book is your book .) <S> -- <S> This is a determiner . <S> Your is a possessive determiner . <S> Is this your book? <S> (~ <S> This is your book .) <S> -- <S> This is a demonstrative pronoun . <S> Your is a possessive determiner . <S> Is this yours? <S> (~ <S> This is yours .) <S> -- <S> This is a demonstrative pronoun . <S> Yours is a possessive pronoun . <S> Why can't you use <S> "Is this yours book?" ? <S> Because yours is already a (possessive) pronoun. <S> It works like a noun. <S> If you use yours to mean "your book", your sentence could be understood like this: Is this yours book? <S> <-- DO NOT USE THIS! <S> (~ <S> This is yours book) <S> (~ <S> This is your book book) -- <S> "This is your book book" <S> doesn't make any sense! <S> And that's why "Is this yours book? <S> " <S> is not correct. <S> Bonus: <S> Table of basic personal pronouns of English on Wikipedia could be useful. <S> It covers all English personal pronouns. <S> I recommend it. <A> No. <S> As a native speaker I would say: Is this your book? <S> I would also say, while holding or pointing at the book: Is this yours? <S> (I'll leave it to the grammarians to explain nature of these forms) <A> No, you can say "Is this your book?" <S> Don't add the s after "your" unless if you ask "Is this book yours?"
| Yours is a possessive pronoun .
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Can I say "Give *her, her* book"? For men I can ask "Is this his book?" and "Give him his book". What is the parallel for the women? "Is this her book"? and "Give her her book"? If so, why do the men have two kinds of possessive forms (his, him) while the women have only one form (her, her) <Q> Umm. <S> The part I'm having trouble with is your assertion that "him" is a possessive part. <S> It's not. <S> "Him" is a third-person singular pronoun used as an object. <S> Your tricky examples can be rephrased as Give his book to him. <S> and Give her book to her. <S> Him and her are singular pronouns, and used as objects. <S> Your question might be better put as "Why is 'her' used both as a possessive determiner and as an object, while the masculine case uses 'his' and 'him'?" <S> Well, the best I can answer is "Just because". <S> That's the way the language developed. <S> Surely you don't think English is regular, do you? <S> See Wikipedia for a neat summary of pronouns. <A> Old English (for the sake of simplicity, English before the Norman Conquest in the year 1066) had declensions, like German. <S> The feminine third person singular genitive and dative forms of the pronoun were the same ( hire ) whereas the masculine forms were his and him . <A> "him" in the phrase was used because it serves as the object form for "his" And "her" as the object form of "she"... <S> And as we can see both pronouns after a verb "give"( that means it deserves an object position).Leaving the clarified one apart, now there is something we call possessive adjective, example... <S> His, her, their, its.... THEIR book, HIS ruler , HER chair... in this possessive adjective there is nothing like "him" or "she" qualifying any noun. <S> So we can only say GIVE HER (object "her") <S> HER BOOK(possessive <S> adjective "her" qualifying <S> the noun "book")... <S> And GIVE HIM(object "him") <S> HIS BOOK (possessive adjective "his" qualifying the noun "book")
| His and her are possessive determiners, and are followed by the referenced noun (book, in this case).
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What are the stairs before the door called in English? There is a specific word that describes the stairs before the door like in the picture here. <Q> I live in Seattle. <S> My grandparents from Chicago would have called them a "front stoop". <S> My impression is that they are called a "stoop" in areas where row houses are common in big cities. <S> This might be a coincidence: Etymonline says that this meaning of the word "stoop" is derived from Dutch. <S> New York City was originally settled by the Dutch, and is at the center of the North American "areas where row houses are common in big cities." <A> In the UK "steps" or "front steps". <S> In the UK a 'door step' is the single step up in front of a door (possibly two) - not steps in a flight such as these. <S> They would not be called stairs. <S> We also do not use 'stoops' in the UK. <A> Some of us would call it a "stoop" or a "front stoop," as in the third definition here . <S> That may vary by region in the U.S., but it is said in New England, at least.
| I call them "front steps".
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What would I call a person who is good in words only? I want a word for a person who doesn't know much but is extremely good with words. The words he uses are pompous but he doesn't write anything concrete. If you are wondering, it's not fiction. I am talking about the people who publish their articles in newspapers but do not say anything substantial. I need a colloquial word, and it should be derogatory, not a compliment about the person's vocabulary prowess. <Q> ( It is pumped up but not solid, so it is empty—or full of air like a balloon.) <S> If he uses magnificent words, he may be grandiloquent <S> http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/grandiloquent — <S> and still vacuous . <S> If he makes unsubstantiated, fallacious arguments that only appear to have any substance, they are specious . <S> http://i.word.com/idictionary/specious <S> If he makes big, vague promises without delivering any workable plans, he might be said to be all sizzle and no steak http://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idiom-categories/descp-people/descr-pp1.html <A> A sophist. <S> Someone who is good at rhetoric and persuasion, even though fallacious. <S> More concerned with the art of speaking than truth and content. <A> grandiloquence - a type of talk that is pompous and bombastic, full of pretty sounding words and elegant turns of phrase that add up to nothing
| Talk that is pompous but not concrete is vacuous .
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Should I say "I don't must to do that" or "I must not to do that"? Which of the following forms of the sentence is the correct one? CONTEXT: someone told me to sign on a document and I do not want to do that because it's only possible but it's not must. 1) "I don't must to do that" 2) "I must not to do that" <Q> To me (a non-native user) <S> the second sentence in the form <S> I must not do that sounds correct, the first version is incorrect. <S> But I want you to clarify what you want to say. <S> or I don't need to do that . <S> The meaning is then that you are not required to do something, but you may, if you wish. <S> If you want to say that you are prohibited from doing something, then you use the phrase <S> I must not do that . <S> In other words, the construction must not still expresses an obligation. <S> The not negates the action replacing it with an obligation not to act. <S> The not does not void the obligation, but rather replaces it with the opposite one. <S> Eagerly awaiting those who know the relevant grammatical terminology to improve upon this. <A> You might say I'm not obligated to do that or <S> Must I do that ? <S> I think that's the correct form of these sentences. <A> The modal verb "must" is followed by an infinitive without to. <S> So you cannot say .... <S> must to do. <S> Besides, you don't put an auxiliary/helping verb before "must". <S> So both the sentences presented are grammatically incorrect. <S> The correct sentence is as follows: <S> I must not do that. <A> You should say - I <S> must not to do that. <S> The modal verbs don't take to + verb format.
| If you want to negate an obligation to do something, then you should say I don't have to do that
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My favourite song [of/from/by] her is... My favourite song of her is... My favourite song from her is.... My favourite song by her is... Which sentence is correct? Which preposition do I use? <Q> All three are possible, depending on what is meant, but after "of" you have to use "hers" instead of "her". <S> A song of hers is one she performed, one she wrote, or one she possesses (in a collection of some sort). <S> A song by <S> her is one she wrote or performed. <S> A song from <S> her is one she issued, published, or distributed, or perhaps wrote. <S> I probably missed some interpretations, but the general idea is that the preposition differs depending on the relationship between her and the song. <A> I would say My favorite song by her is... <S> However, a more common construction is <S> My favorite...song is... <S> Here the first ellipsis contains the name of the person whose song you like. <S> My favorite Miley Cyrus song is... , <S> My favorite Leonard Cohen song is... <A> I would say: My favorite Bob Dylan song is "Like a Rolling Stone". <S> This is my favorite song by him. <A> I'll use Taylor Swift as an example, because lots of people know who she is. <S> My favorite song of Taylor Swift is "Blank Spaces". <S> This is not valid English, but it's close and you would certainly be understood. <S> You are referring to a possession of a person, or, a song of hers . <S> This construct might be found in more classical/archaic uses when referring to a song embodying an ideal or feeling, or perhaps a time period, such as: <S> My favorite song of hope is, "I'll fly away." <S> My favorite song of the Great Depression is "Pennies from Heaven"[ by Django Reinhardt]. <S> With possession denoted, it is formal: <S> My favorite song of Taylor Swift's is "Blank Spaces". <S> More specific to what you literally asked, you could use it to follow someone's mention of an artist. <S> Your friend: <S> Oh! <S> I love Taylor Swift! <S> You: Me too! <S> My favorite song of hers is "Blank Spaces". <S> This is technically correct, but since you're talking about an artist, it might sound a bit awkward. <S> "From" would more naturally be used to refer to a place, time, or thing (album, movie, record label, etc.). <S> My favorite Taylor Swift song from this year is "Blank Spaces". <S> My favorite song from Mali is Tenere Taqqim Tossam . <S> My favorite song from 1989 is "Blank Spaces". <S> My favorite song from Stax Records is "Sittin' at the dock of the bay." <S> These all work. <S> The difference is subtle, and is not crucial for effective communication. <S> My favorite song by Taylor Swift is "Blank Spaces". <S> Out of the three options you gave, this is the best one out of context. <S> It's pretty formal, but as far as I know, it's correct. <S> Can you see the difference? <S> It might seem trivial to a non-native speaker. <S> I apologize if this is confusing. <S> Just remember when talking about a time, place, or album you can use "from". <S> For a person, "by" is generally better. <S> Consider <S> As @Jonah said, the most common construct is: <S> My favorite Taylor Swift song is "Blank Spaces".
| My favorite song from Taylor Swift is "Blank Spaces".
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Verb for what the radio does I'm trying to find the right verb for when the radio is ... broadcasting? ... a particular channel. In my native language, a direct translation would be "the radio was playing BBC 4" but that doesn't sound right in English. "Broadcasting" sounds weird when it's just a radio receiving signals. Receiving? To broadcast? To receive? Something else? <Q> "Playing" is the word I would use (British English). <S> Broadcasting does sound weird because the radio itself is receiving a broadcast, not broadcasting. <S> You can also say that a radio is tuned to Radio 4. <S> (Radio 4 or BBC Radio 4, or just 4, but not BBC 4 because that's a TV channel.) <A> "Tuned in" is probably the safest option, as LanguidSquid and ssav have mentioned. <S> However, usually "playing" is used when referring to songs and music specifically, because "playback" occurs when someone starts a record track, or more commonly nowadays, a digital audio file from the beginning. <S> Usually talk shows or speeches are not pre-recorded, so the words "playback" and its shortened form "play" aren't quite as applicable. <S> However, most people don't regard such nuanced differences in semantics. <S> In usage, "play" would refer to the song or other audio presentation that the channel is broadcasting, not the channel itself. <S> "Receiving" is correct, although not used very often. <S> It is the most specific/appropriate word to use to describe what exactly the radio is doing, but most people leave it out of colloquial conversation. <S> " <S> The transmitter or broadcasting device is somewhere else -- usually where a radio signal tower is located, in the channel's studio. <A> The radio is tuned in to BBC 4. <S> The radio is a similar device to a record or CD player and these 'play music'. <S> Similarly, a television that is tuned to/turned to BBC can be described as showing BBC when the channel is set to BBC. <A> I would make a distinction. <S> Tuned to X or just set to X <S> means the knob(s), switches, button(s) or whatever are set to a particular frequency or station X rather than some other frequency or station. <S> But the radio might not actually be reproducing the sounds broadcast (or transmitted) by X because: the radio is turned off, or does not have a working source/supply of electric power <S> X is not transmitting right now, for example shut down overnight <S> the radio is far away from X, farther than the radio signal can propagate the speaker(s) <S> and/or headset is(are) disconnected or broken <S> Receiving <S> X or playing <S> X means the radio is tuned to X and "on" and X is broadcasting and the radio is reproducing the sounds being broadcast by X. <A> I know you're asking for a verb, but since a couple people have suggested "tuned in", which is not a verb, I would like to suggest that a verb is not needed at all, and there is a very common way of describing what is on the radio (I just used the phrase myself without even realizing it). <S> In American English, you can say, "The BBC was on the radio" (meaning the BBC was playing on the radio) and also "The radio was on the BBC" (meaning that the radio was tuned into a station broadcasting the BBC). <S> Here is an example on the web: "The radio was on BBC stations all day..." <S> And here : "The BBC was on the radio..." Talking about something "playing" on the radio sounds to me like music was on the radio. <S> I think that comes from the fact that we say that a musician or a band "plays" a song or artists' work. <S> When a song is heard on the radio, then the radio is "playing" it. <S> So, you wouldn't say that the radio is playing the BBC, because that's likely not a musical program, but you would say that the radio is playing Beethoven's Fifth, or Led Zeppelin, for example. <S> However, music and songs can also be 'on' the radio. <A> As others have said, there are quite a few options depending on the context. <S> Here are some specific examples that show how different words apply: <S> I couldn't hear you before because Ron had the radio going . <S> So NMR played this story on the radio earlier about a man and his store. <S> I can't get the radio to pick up a signal in the shop. <S> Stupid teenagers think driving around with the radio blasting is cool. <S> ... <S> and there's a lot more and they're all a little bit different. <S> Going implies the radio was background noise to the speaker (he wasn't paying attention); played <S> implies whatever was on the radio was prerecorded; pick up specifically refers to the radio getting a signal; <S> blasting refers to the volume of the speakers, even though we apply the verb to the radio. <S> TL;DR radios "do" a lot of different things in different contexts - <S> you have to find the right word for the situation. <A> If the radio is on, but nobody is listening <S> (there are people there, but they are ignoring the sound), you can say the radio is blaring . <S> This can be transitive ("it was blaring BBC 4") or intransitive ("it was blaring in the background"). <S> The definition doesn't require that nobody is listening, but that is the connotation if you don't say otherwise. <A> Playing. <S> As in "The radio's playing some forgotten song, Brenda Lee's comin' on strong" (Golden Earring, Radar Love) <S> @Kevin: <S> Blaring just means it's load and/or distorted. <S> Nothing to do with nobody listening. <S> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blare . <S> Oh, and "in the background" doesn't make it intransitive, because that's not a direct object.
| It also makes sense to say 'The radio is playing BBC 4'. "Playing" is applicable, because the word "play" in this context refers to "playback," which has a different meaning than the normal usage of the component word "play." However, you could definitely call your radio equipment a "receiver.
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What is the opposite of Turbulent flow of water Water that is not flowing could be described as 'calm' or 'still'. How would you describe water that is flowing rapidly, but is not turbulent? (i.e. the flowing water is transparent, not white or distorted) <Q> If you need a purely technical term, you might try looking up laminar flow . <S> From Wikipedia: <S> In fluid dynamics, laminar flow (or streamline flow ) occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between the layers. <S> P.S. <S> I've just recalled the word unperturbed . <S> Checking for "unperturbed stream", "unperturbed flow" on Google brings up not that many results, but let it be here, just in case. <A> I think "flowing" is actually the best word for your case. <S> The word also means "with graceful movement", so that helps dispel any images of turbulent water. <S> Streaming or running also give the impression of water that's simply running, not rushing. <A> <A> CopperKettle is correct that "laminar" flow is the technical term for the opposite of "turbulent" flow. <S> Laminar flow is often described as "smooth". <S> So, if you want a less technical answer, we could say the water is clear and flowing smoothly .
| One word used as the opposite of turbulent, at least in reference to water, is "placid."
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Is there any more 'respectful word' than 'beggars' for these wonderful guys? In India, beggars don't do anything and ask for money. But here, I see this specific practice to ask for money (in foreign countries). Check this guy he works harder, shows his skills and asks for money Well, it's not limited to playing some instruments. At times, they do better job than professionals. See this video https://www.facebook.com/SithTV/videos/938035186241723/ My question is, morally, I feel that the word 'beggar' for the latter ones is quite offensive. What do native speakers call them? Are they still beggars ? If so, I'll still need some better alternative to separate them from our beggars in India! I will never call them beggars (because, being an Indian, I have a different image of a beggar). In fact, I respect them more than many professionals I find around me! Note : no charity from the beggars/money-seekers is involved in any case. <Q> Beggar refers to someone who is unemployed and depends on asking (begging) <S> people passing by for money. <S> Those who do give them money do so out of charity . <S> Busker refers to a street performer (could be music, art or drama) who performs for anyone walking by in the hope that many will pay them for their time. <S> It could be their only source of income, or just a side job. <S> Those who give them money do so because they consider the busker to have provided them some valuable entertainment . <S> The OED shows the earliest uses of busk with this sense are from the nineteenth century in Britain. <S> While this doesn't fully explain the inconsistent awareness of the word within the US (as seen in the many comments below!), its relative recency compared to the divergence of US English does help explain in part why it is more common within Commonwealth English. <A> I found another word, "busker", but I never heard of it before. <A> I think you are drawing a distinction between An otherwise capable individual who asks for money for him/herself by appealing to your mercy (begger) and Someone offering something of value (their art) for money. <S> I would say "street performer" would be the right word for the second kind. <S> It's simple, direct and well understood.
| I would call all sort of artists that are performing in the public for free or donations "street performer".
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What is the difference between smartphone cover and case? Recently I read some blogs regarding protection of smartphones. Some blogs have mentioned smartphone covers and some have talked about cases. If we go through Apple 's official site, it shows only iPhone cases and NOT iPhone covers. Here , the main title is 'iPhone covers' and they have written 'case' everywhere that makes me confused. To my mind, covers are used to cover the entire smartphone, but have a little or no role in its protection, while cases can protect smartphones even if they don't cover them. Smartphone cover: Smartphone case: My questions are: 1. My assumption regarding cover and case is right or wrong? 2. At times, people write cover for case and vice versa, so are they interchangeable words? 3. Flip cover or back cover can be said Flip case or back case? 4. Is it ok to say the smartphone cover a skin or a sleeve? Does it cover only the screen or the entire smartphone? <Q> No, they can be used interchangeably. <S> However: Most people would think of your second picture when they hear the word "case": that is, a "case" is a protective casing for the phone that does not necessarily cover the entire phone, and that stays on while you use it. <S> Most people would call your first picture a phone "sleeve": something you slide the phone into, but take off when you're actually using the phone. <S> "Phone cover" seems less common. <S> Flip case or flip cover are also interchangeable--they both mean this: <A> Case is something which is used to put something else inside it. <S> We use a case to put in glasses. <S> The case protects our glasses. <S> Cover is something which is used to hide something. <S> We use a lens cover to protect lenses. <S> Here too, cover protects our glasses. <A> Cases are usually hard and will retain their shape well without the smartphone in them. <S> Covers, on the other hand will most likely be soft and will not retain their shape as well as cases without the device in them. <S> Hope this helps. <A> As I understand case is a protective sheath to safeguard damage through accidental fall and covers the back of the phone only. <S> Phone can function as it is. <S> But covers are a flip cover or a wallet like pouch to hold the phone not protective but hides the phone. <S> It cant be used as-is but flip it open or take out and use.
| Most people seem to default to calling "a thing they put on their phone" a case. I think both the words can be used interchangeably.
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Tap, faucet, spigot - what are the differences? What are the differences between tap , faucet and spigot ? Are they regional variants? (ngram isn't particularly helpful in determining that, due to other, more popular meanings of 'tap'). <Q> Faucet a device with a hand-operated valve for regulating the flow of a liquid Spigot a faucet the valve or plug in <S> a faucet Tap a device for starting or stopping the flow of liquid in a pipe, barrel, etc. <S> ; faucet They all can be used when you're talking about a device that starts or stops the flow of a liquid, but there are some regional variations in how they're commonly used. <S> In my region, faucet is used for the common household fixture that can mix hot and cold water together and control how fast the water flows. <S> A spigot is a single knob faucet that only has one pipe it controls, like the outdoor spigot that you connect a garden hose to. <S> A tap is used when there isn't a pipe, like when you tap a keg of beer, or tap a maple tree for syrup. <S> Tap is a little unusual because it can also be the act of tapping as well as the device you use to control the flow. <S> A tap has the sense to me of poking a hole in something that has liquid in it, and being able to keep the liquid from just gushing out with some sort of device. <S> Faucets and spigots are plumbing, with connectors and pipes. <S> Now I know for a fact that in other areas of the US, folks use "tap" or "spigot" the way I use "faucet". <S> We can still understand each other, so it's fine to use them as synonyms. <A> Perhaps plumbers have technical distinctions between these words. <S> But in common use, I believe they are synonyms. <A> A spigot is the opening from which a liquid or gas flows. <S> In a bath tub, one opens (or closes) <S> the faucet so water will flow (or stop) from the spigot. <S> Taps were previously considered rudimentary devices (e.g., lift levers) while faucets were more highly engineered. <S> In modern common conversation, faucet and tap are frequently interchanged. <S> Though mistakenly so, this easy interchangeability often wrongly includes spigot.
| A tap or a faucet is the controller which regulates whether flow occurs, increases decrease or is stopped.
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What exactly does a pawn activity consist of? There's a TV show on the History Channel called Pawn Stars . According to American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language the pawn's definition is: Something given as security for a loan; a pledge or guaranty. My confusion is that no client on that show pawns their items, they simply sell them for good, so I wonder: since the pawn's dictionary definition can't be wrong are they doing another activity than the one written on their logo? Does pawn mean that admittedly both activities pawning and buying and selling are allowed in such a store? If so why is it not written on the dictionary? <Q> The short version is yes, people often go to a pawnshop intending to sell, rather than pawn, an item. <S> This doesn't mean that the definition of 'pawn' is incomplete, though. <S> To understand how this situation would arise, think about how pawnshops work: <S> When someone pawns an item, they are borrowing money using the item as security (exactly as the definition says). <S> For a specified span of time, they can bring back the money (plus interest) and get the item back. <S> However, frequently, people who pawn items are unable to come up with the money during that time, at which point the pawnbroker will offer the item for sale to recover the lent funds. <S> Pawn shops, as a result, become a place where a wide variety of items are available for purchase. <S> Some of those items are more valuable than their owners (or even the pawnbroker) will realize, and so antiques dealers and other experts in obscure goods visit them, hoping to spot a valuable item available for cheap. <S> As a result of this, the pawnbroker will often be willing to straight-up purchase items, in hopes of making a profit selling them to those traveling dealers, and so people will come to them not only when they need a loan, but when they just want to sell something. <S> Many businesses are generally understood to offer services that are not, strictly speaking, part of their formal definition. <S> For instance, gas stations almost always have a machine for re-inflating tires. <S> Most pharmacies sell a variety of general household goods in addition to filling medical prescriptions. <S> Banks offer safe-deposit boxes. <S> When enough people who want one service would also want another, and it is convenient to provide it, businesses adapt. <A> Basically ditto MrTheWalrus, but let me say it in a different way that might be more clear. <S> As MrTheWalrus said, a pawn shop is a business that, in principle, loans money in exchange for some tangible item offered as security for the loan. <S> So you bring them your old guitar or camera or jewelry or whatever <S> and they give you cash. <S> You then have a specified amount of time to come back with the money plus interest and recover your item. <S> If you don't, they sell the item to get their money back. <S> In real life, people come to a pawn shop with two very different possible intentions. <S> Some fully intend to come back and recover the item they pawned. <S> They really are looking for a loan. <S> Others have no intention of coming back. <S> They just want to get some cash for an item that they no longer have a use for. <S> (There are probably some who are undecided or not sure.) <S> I don't have statistics, but I suspect that most of the business at pawn shops today is people simply selling used items, clearly telling the pawn broker that they're not coming back and he can resell the item tomorrow if he likes. <S> Pawn shops have basically become used goods stores. <A> Pawning is usually only done by those in desperation. <S> It is not a smart financial move in the long-term, and not very common. <S> The show Pawn Stars is only about the most high-profile antiques being sold at their particular pawn shop. <S> They aren't going to show desperate folks coming in to pawn their belongings for a quick buck, because it's not interesting, or at least not in line with the show's goal (to show interesting antiques and oddities, and the characters selling them). <S> As for the title itself, it is merely a pun on the phrase "porn star," referring to a high-profile actor or actress in the adult film industry. <S> The title "pawn shop" is somewhat misleading taken literally, but it has stuck as the dominant term to describe an independently-owned shop that buys and sells used items of all kinds. <S> These shops still offer the pawn service, it is just not as popular as it once was thanks to the existence of lending banks and other modern services. <A> But you're right <S> , most people on Pawn Stars are selling, not pawning. <S> In the introduction to his book License to Pawn , Rick Harrison of Pawn Stars writes: <S> If you don’t know how a pawn shop works—and many people in “reputable society” don’t— <S> here’s a primer: <S> The majority of our business, probably 60 percent, consists of pawns. <S> If someone sells an item, it’s straightforward. <S> They get their money, always in cash, and I get the item. <S> If an item is pawned, it’s a loan. <S> We charge a five-dollar device fee and 10 percent interest per month. <S> On Pawn Stars , the vast majority of the customers you see are selling, not pawning. <S> There's a simple reason for that: Most people who are in the position where they have to pawn something don't want to be shown on television. <S> There's a stigma attached to it, which is why it's legally considered a private transaction between the pawnbroker and the customer. <S> They have occasionally shown a customer pawning something, but those are few and far between. <S> Because a pawn shop needs to sell the items that people pawn but are unable to redeem, they are also willing to simply purchase items from people who know they won't be redeeming them. <S> In fact, you can get a slightly better price by selling instead of pawning, because the shop doesn't have to store the item for months before they can put it on sale.
| No, pawning refers specifically to getting a loan using an object as collateral.
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Adjective, if adjective: eg "pointed, if fatherly" They were pointed, if fatherly , remarks that echoed the themes he hasstressed in his papacy but ones that resonated all the more in a newlyrenovated cathedral surrounded by the luxurious shops of Fifth Avenue. — New York Times I'm not sure the meaning of the phrase "if fatherly" in the above sentence. I'm not familiar with the syntax using the structure 'adjective, if adjective'. <Q> It's as sumelic and DRF mentioned: <S> it's probably the best (for learners who are unfamiliar with this structure) to read this if as although . <S> Your sentence: <S> They were pointed, if fatherly, remarks that echoed the themes ... <S> (= <S> They were pointed remarks, although (they were) fatherly ones, that echoed the themes ...) <S> Practical English Usage by Michael Swan explains this if -structure, like this: <S> 261.13 if meaning 'although' In a formal style, if can be used with a similar meaning to <S> although . <S> This is common in the structure if + adjective (with no verb). <S> His style, if simple, is pleasant to read. <S> The profits, if a little lower than last year's, are still extremely healthy. <S> [...] <A> I'm not sure where the [not] came from in julia's answer, but if it is there it gives the sentence a completely different meaning. <S> When you say, Something is adjective one, if adjective two, ... <S> the second adjective is essentially there to molify the first. <S> In other words you could rephrase such a construction into Something is adjective one, even though it is also adjective 2, ... <S> An example here will probably help Black is a fashionable, if sometimes overused, color. <S> This means we admit that black is overused, but it is still fashionable despite that. <S> In the case you quote the pope's remarks are pointed (i.e. penetrating, biting) even though they are fatherly which here means given in good spirit, as a father would to his child. <S> On the other hand if you add in not as in <S> His remarks are pointed, if not aggressive <S> , You get pretty much the opposite meaning. <S> Here the second adjective goes further than the first. <S> Meaning roughly his remarks were at least pointed possible you could go as far as think they were aggressive. <S> The second adjective is stronger than the first with a similar meaning. <S> Edit: Actually having though about it more I realize ",if not adjective2," can also be used to convey that adjective1 doesn't go quite as far as adjective2. <S> I believe that the correct meaning must be decided depending on context and possibly word tone. <A> Including the paragraph before helps with this context: <S> “Rest is needed, as are moments of leisure and self-enrichment, but we need to learn how to rest in a way that deepens our desire to serve with generosity,” he said. <S> They were pointed, if [not] fatherly, remarks that echoed the themes <S> he has stressed in his papacy... <S> Basically saying the Pope's remarks were pointed and one might even call them fatherly.
| If is not as definite as although ; it can suggest that what is being talked about is a matter of opinion, or not very important.
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What is difference between people and peoples? Would anyone like to comprehensively explain? I am not sure peoples word exist or not. Kindly request to you all please explain about this. Thanks. <Q> We use the word "peoples" to talk about groups of specific ethnicities, races, communities, or nations. <S> Estimates put the total population of indigenous peoples from 220 million to 350 million. <S> "People" can also be used to talk about the human population in general, or a group of 'persons' usually with some shared link between them. <S> Even if they're from the same ethnicity, if you're only speaking about individuals you would say "people". <S> The people at the pet centre helped me find a dog. <A> It's simple: <S> Two or more persons are referred to as people. <S> Two or more of these groups of people are called peoples. <S> Note, however, that the grouping could be characterised by their location, beliefs, language etc. <A> There are two word, with different histories. <S> The word "person" has a Latin origin, and means "A single human" (and perhaps originally "a character in a play"). <S> It has been used in this sense since the 12th century. <S> It has a regular plural "persons". <S> The word people has a separate origin, though also Latin, and originally meant "a crowd", "a population", or "the folk". <S> It carries the sense of the commoners, not the nobility. <S> The word entered English in the 13th century. <S> It also has a regular plural "peoples". <S> These two words, with similar sounds and meanings, became merged, to the point that one now treats "people" as an irregular plural of "person", and the regular plural (persons) is not much used. <S> The older meaning of people is still current and so now: Person means 1 human. <S> ("One person in a room") People can be the plural of person ("Three people in a room") <S> (The people of France) <S> Peoples is the plural of people, in this second sense. <S> (The peoples of Africa) <S> This merging of words with similar meanings has happened on multiple occasions in English and explains several irregularities (for example "Go-went", "Be-is-was"). <A> People and peoples -both are possible. <S> People - more than one person, a group Peoples - more than one group of such people <S> People protested the government decision <S> And, more than one group of ethnicity/race is 'peoples' <S> In 1991, Australia began a formal process of reconciliation with indigenous peoples. <S> You have included a tag 'spoken-english'. <S> It is worth noting that when you 'hear' someone saying 'peoples' it could be a possessive mass noun. <S> People’s vote too divisive, says Barnett <A> Yes both the words exist and they have different meaning. <S> peoples is used when we talk of the people of different countries. <S> As an example:The peoples of all the countries should work for peace. <S> And people is what we use in general sense. <S> There are many people in the garden. <S> People in itself refers to a collective noun.
| People can also mean a group persons, a population, or ethnicity.
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What do you call it when you have a number multiplied by 10? I have the following sentence: This number is the initial value multiplied by 10. Context: Tabletop roleplaying games. I'm deriving a number from a statistic inherent to a character, with said number being ten times the statistic in question. While it covers what I want to say, I'm not entirely keen on the "multiplied by 10" part, as it seems rather unwieldy. So I'm looking for a word that covers what I am trying to say here. I've considered the following: This number is the tenfold the initial value. But this seems a bit archaic and a bit silly. Another reason I prefer not to use tenfold: I'm not entirely sure on how to use it correctly. Is there another way to say this? <Q> The <new value <S> > is ten times the <old value <S> >. <S> For example, The character's IQ is ten times the character's INT rating. <A> It's a bit mathematical <S> so I don't know if would work in your case, but you could say it's an " order of magnitude " higher. <S> Orders of magnitude are used to make approximate comparisons. <S> If numbers differ by 1 order of magnitude, x is about ten times different in quantity than y. <S> If values differ by 2 orders of magnitude, they differ by a factor of about 100. <S> Two numbers of the same order of magnitude have roughly the same scale: the larger value is less than ten times the smaller value. <S> So, for your example, you could say: <S> This number is an order of magnitude greater than the initial value. <A> I suspect what you're looking for is... <S> decuple <S> [literally, to times by ten] ... <S> following the same formulation as do uble , tri ple , quadr uple , <S> quint uple etc. <S> So you would say <S> "this number is the initial value <S> decupled <S> You should note that while gramatically correct, this expression would not be found in normal use of British English. <A> There is a somewhat obsolete phrase ten-fold used as Their harvest increased ten-fold <S> I would just use ten times bigger or increased by a factor of ten
| The normal use would be "timesed by ten", "times by ten" (or simply) "times ten"
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I'll see you a few days later I'll see you a few days later. The above sentence is supposed to be wrong. The correct alternative is "I'll see you in a few days". What's wrong with the exemplary sentence? <Q> It's a perfectly natural sentence, and I'd use it if given the right context. <S> For example: I plan to start traveling soon after the first of the month. <S> ✓ <S> I'll see you a few days later. <S> The context is important. <S> For "a few days later" to make sense, we have to know what these few days are later than . <S> In the context above, I'll see you a few days later than the start of my travels. <S> Without a related context, the sentence doesn't make sense: <S> My name is Gary. <S> ✗ <S> I'll see you a few days later. <S> Later than <S> what ? <S> Later than my name, perhaps? <S> There's nothing in the context that allows the word "later" to make sense. <S> The sentence "I'll see you in a few days" is not dependent on context for its meaning. <S> Not only is the sentence good, it still makes sense in the absence of any context: <S> My name is Gary. <S> ✓ <S> I'll see you in a few days. <A> It sounds odd doesn't it? <S> I'm not sure it's more than <S> just irregular/informal <S> future perfect . <S> I will see you… ? <S> a few days later . <S> a few days from now . <S> in a few days . <S> a little later . <S> sometime later . <S> later . <S> I believe 'few days later' is mismatching a tense or a clause that isn't presented by 'will see you'. <S> We saw each other a few days later . <S> It happened a few days later . <S> ? <S> I should do it a few days later . <A> The only time you would say "a few days later" is if you pushed your appointment out. <S> We were supposed to meet tomorrow, but I will see you a few days later ( than tomorrow) <S> Hope this helps!
| There's nothing wrong with the example sentence itself.
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Is it correct to say 'get to the conclusion' as proper English? When I googled it I saw that some people used this collocation but Google ngram couldn't find it.So I am confused if it is proper English to say : Even though they use different formulas to calculate GDP, they get to almost the same conclusion. After I scrutinized both paintings, I get to the conclusion that the left one was counterfeit. <Q> Hard to say without knowing the source, but in AmE I would expect reach a conclusion : <S> Even though they use different formulas to calculate GDP, they almost reach the same conclusion . <S> After I scrutinized both paintings, I reached the conclusion that the left was counterfeit. <S> You could also use arrive at . <A> The first example sentence is acceptable, but not great. <S> "Come to a conclusion" and "reach a conclusion" are idioms, whereas "get to a conclusion" is not. <S> " Jump to a conclusion " is also an idiom, but it means that the process of reaching the conclusion was flawed. <S> My (American) ear would expect: Even though they use different formulas to calculate GDP, they come to almost the same conclusion. <S> The second example sentence is grammatically incorrect. <S> The second half of the sentence should be in the past tense, not the present tense. <S> As <S> user3169 suggests, I would expect: <S> After I scrutinized both paintings, I reached the conclusion that the left one was counterfeit. <A> So reach, arrive at, or come to a conclusion fits well in both sentences. <S> Besides, the OP should use the past simple i.e. "reached/came to/arrived at a conclusion" in the main clause of the second sentence. <A> "Get to a conclusion" is comprehensible but not idiomatic. <S> The basic reason is that "get to" constructions have two meanings: the meaning of arrive or come to a place. <S> the meaning of arriving in time. <S> In this usage, it can be a marker of tense as in for instance, "I am going to be 6 feet tall when I grow up" <S> So for instance, <S> Just wait 'til I get to the bottom of this. <S> = <S> I will get to the bottom of this and then something will happen. <S> For a conclusion, "get to the conclusion" could mean either: I read from top to bottom of a one page paper. <S> At the bottom, I "got to the conclusion" in one sense. <S> the argument brings us / they to the conclusion. <S> In other words, the argument or data succeed in producing the conclusion. <S> As such, it's much clearer to avoid this sort of construction with respect to conclusions. <S> Moreover, even when comprehensible, this sort of use of "got" is not academic (and as such doesn't agree with "conclusion"). <A> The most common English phrase with this meaning is "get to the point" which means that the speaker should hurry up and say specifically what they want without any further messing around. <S> In the context the OP refers to in their example, the speaker would use the phrase, "I came to the conclusion that..." rather than "I get to the conclusion that...". <S> Basically, in English, people come to a conclusion rather than get to a conclusion. <S> It's just how it's normally said.
| You usually use reach, come to, or arrive at a decision, agreement, or conclusion, but it's not proper to use "get to a decision, agreement, or conclusion", though you can use the verb get in the sense of reaching or arriving at a particular place.
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How to distinguish "two previous" from"previous two"? a. His two previous books b. His previous two books ............. His 2 latest previous books His 2 previous latest books His previous latest 2 books His latest previous 2 books His previous 2 latest books His latest 2 previous books I am wondering what is the difference could be between these in meaning ? Which one do you use? which one you don't use? I think just especially native speakers or learned ones in English can provide the most proper answer. Thanks <Q> The difference between previous two books and two previous books is that the former (by the proximity of " two " to " books ") counts books in twos (in pairs, so to speak). <S> Let's say the author wrote books A, B, C and D, with 'D' being the latest. <S> When speaking of the books 'C' and 'D', we could refer to them as the " last two " or " most recent two ". <S> And if after that we want to mention 'A' and 'B', we can use " previous two ". <S> If we mention 'D', then " two previous " could be 'B' and 'C', or 'A' and 'B', or 'A' and 'C'. <S> They don't even need to be consecutively published. <A> I don't sense any difference in meaning between a. and b. <S> Both imply the existence of (at least) three books - one that is under discussion, and two previous ones. <S> Without further clarification, I would in both cases assume that it referred to the two most recent books before the one being discussed. <S> Because 'previous' implies something to be previous to, so I would not simply talk about 'The author's previous two books', without a frame of reference. <S> If you just want the two most recent, you could say "His latest two books" (or "His two latest books" - both are fine). <S> Example: given an author who had written five books, conveniently titled (in order of publication) <S> A through E: <S> [A][B][C][D][E] <S> If someone said "Book D is better than the previous two. <S> ", I would assume they meant that D was better than B or C. <S> If they said "The latest book is better than his previous two", I would take them to mean that E was better than either C or D. <S> In order to refer to different previous books, they would need to specify. <S> If they said "The latest book is longer than two previous ones.", I would ask which two, because it could be any two of A, B, C, and D. <S> If they said "His latest two books are excellent. <S> " I would know they meant D and E. <S> Because 'latest' is implied, I would generally not say "His two previous latest books" in any order, because it's redundant. <S> Side note: <S> Most style guides recommend spelling out numbers less than 11: 'Two books', 'Ten books', '24 books'. <A> I would never use options 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 because "previous" and "latest" contradict each other. <S> Saying a book is "previous" means it came before another book. <S> Saying a book is "latest" means there are no books after it. <S> MrTheWalrus is right to say you need a frame of reference when using "previous". <S> I don't see any big difference between option a ("his two previous books") and option b ("his previous two books"). <S> Option b could put more emphasis on "previous" in some situations but that is a very small difference. <S> This will sound strange, but there is a distinction between "his previous two books" and "two of his previous books". <S> If he wrote books A B C D E F in that order then consider the following: <S> "D was a good book but his two previous books were better". <S> This sentence tells you that B and C were better than D. <S> "D was a good book but <S> his previous two books were better". <S> This sentence tells you that B and C were better than D. <S> "D was a good book but two of his previous books were better." <S> This tells you that either A and B were better than D, or A and C were better than D, or B and C were better than D. <S> That is, don't know which two books were better, but <S> you do know that the two better books were written before D. <S> I'm not sure why this is true. <S> It doesn't seem to make sense grammatically.
| The phrase " two previous " refers to any two books published before some other book in a context not necessarily limited to talking of pairs of books .
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When not to use "not yet" I understand, e.g. from this answer , that the phrase "not yet" is used to talk about an event that has not happened so far, but that we clearly expect to happen somewhere in the future. I want to know if "not yet" always bears this meaning and what consequences there are for understanding if we use it in other contexts. This question is motivated by an answer on German Stackexchange that got many upvotes and states that the German "noch nicht" can always be translated as "not yet". Since "noch nicht" can have other meanings than the one described above for "not yet", I doubt this and want to check it here. For that, I picked up two cases where English learners with German background might be tempted to say "not yet", because they would use noch nicht in German. Stating that an event, that will or will not happen in the future, has not happened so far. Following the answer quoted at the beginning, I think one would use "still not" in this case. E.g. 1) I still haven't found what I'm looking for. 2) Despite researchng for many decades, scientists are still not capable of predicting earthquakes. What would happen if I used "not yet" in these sentences, i.e. 1') I have not yet found what I'm looking for. 2') Despite researching for many decades, scientists are not yet capable of predicting earthquakes. Would a native English reader still make some sense out of these sentences? Would this be the original sense, i.e. would he think "oh, that's not the best English I've ever seen, but I know what you mean", or would the alteration in meaning stay unnoticed? Stating that some fact is not sufficient to imply some other fact For example: 3) It was a fantastic match last night. But this victory was not yet the championship. Meaning: although it was important to win this match, we can by no means think that we already won the championship by this, too. 4) Futuristic skyscrapers are not yet Europe. Meaning: seeing a fancy skyline, like in Russia's capital Moscow, is by no means a guarantee that this country will adhere with European values or will have good and close relations with the EU. This is the phrase that the quoted German question is all about. These two sentences are phrased using "noch nicht" in their German translations, but I have considerable doubts that it is possible to simply take the dictionary route and translate them with "not yet" the way I did. Am I right, and if yes: how wrong do these sentences sound? <Q> What would happen if I used "not yet" in these sentences... <S> Both "not yet" and "still not" are fine, but they carry different nuances. <S> "Still not" is very much weaker in that respect. <S> So each has the following sense: 1') <S> I have not yet found what I'm looking for, <S> but I'm determined I will . <S> versus <S> 1) <S> I still haven't found what I'm looking for, <S> and I'm just about ready to give up trying. <S> Curiously, that difference is much reduced in your examples 3 and 4. <S> Neither of those uses of "not yet" carries the same kind of inevitability that the phrase does in the earlier examples. <S> In fact you could probably interchange "not yet" and "still not" with little or no change in meaning for points 3 and 4. <A> 1' and 2' are both fine and fairly idiomatic. <S> (Although, a side note: you're referring to an event that may or may not happen, not one that "will or will not" happen.) <S> 3 is a lot more dubious; it sounds fairly unnatural and a bit hard to understand properly, mostly because of the unusual metaphor usage. <S> Instead, some verb/noun is needed. <S> Just adding "clincher" at the end works, changing the object to "the [victory that is the] championship clincher", or the one that resolves the series. <S> Alternatively, rephrasing a little more would get you something like " <S> But this victory did not yet win the championship. <S> " <S> In the case of 4, "not yet" really doesn't fit at all, since there's little or no inherent time flow in considering whether a country is European, so "yet" is inappropriate. <S> Instead, something like this: "Just having futuristic skyscrapers does not make a European country." <S> (If you want to be fancy, "Merely having futuristic skyscrapers does not a European country make. <S> " Reordering "make" is an archaic usage for emphasis; it's possible to use that for other verbs, but less common.) <A> 1 and 2 have the subtly different meaning that you describe. <S> They are also idiomatic and would be clear to a native English speaker. <S> 3 and 4 are not idiomatic and would leave an English native unsure as to their understanding. <S> 3 could be better expressed as: <S> But this victory does not the championship make 4 could be better expressed as <S> Futuristic skyscrapers do not a European country make Neither of these expressions are uncommon. <S> I don't know where the idiom comes from but is the generally accepted way to express this piece of logic clearly. <A> I am going to pass on reproducing all four sentences. <S> That said, the important point that must be made here concerns <S> not yet used with a verb involving something happening. <S> Not yet [participle] and still not or still haven't [participle].These are adverbs. <S> The problem with phrasing like this: "Futuristic skyscrapers are not yet Europe." is that there is no verb for the "not yet" to qualify. <S> Futuristic skyscrapers are not yet Europe. <S> [doesn't have semantic meaning] <S> Futuristic skyscrapers have not yet sprung up in Europe. <S> [has semantic meaning] <S> But this victory was not yet the championship. <S> [doesn't have semantic meaning] <S> But this victory does not yet mean a championship. <S> [has semantic meaning] <S> I still haven't found what I'm looking for. <S> has the same information in it as : <S> I haven't found what I'm looking for yet. <S> In short, not yet and still in these usages require an action verb or a state one comes to or is in : - I am not yet clear on how to handle this. <S> To be clear- <S> I am still not clear on how to handle this. <S> To be clear. <S> And, if you say: I am not yet a doctor <S> , the implied meaning is: I have not yet become a doctor. <S> So, for me, sentences 3) and 4) don't work in English as written.
| "Not yet" implies, strongly, the notion of "but that we clearly expect to happen somewhere in the future."
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What's the difference between "I have to get to" and "I have to go to"? I know when to use them however I can't really explain why. Will you help me? <Q> Compared to that, " go to someplace " emphasizes the progress , the movement toward , rather than reaching it. <S> If you say I need to go to the meeting now. <S> you essentially state that you need to <S> leave your current location. <S> If you say I need to get to the meeting now. <S> you state that it's time for you to be at the place where the meeting is held. <A> The first sentence would mean you need to reach a place, an event, or a person. <S> The second one means that that you have to leave, but not necessarily have to go somewhere else. <S> Therefore, you can use the first sentence when you need to go somewhere else, and the second one when you have to leave your current location. <A> Get to may imply some sort of urgency, or that there's difficulty in reaching a certain place. <S> Go to <S> implies that you need to leave the place and continue the progress towards the destination (if there's any progress at all).
| The meaning of " get to someplace " is to reach that place.
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Interested in vs interested When must we use the preposition in when we used the word interested. Normal Usage: I am interested in 18th century paintings. How about these examples: If you're interested don't hesitate to send me message. or a dialogue I saw in the Simpsons Ned Flanders: Well looks like someone's having a pre-rapture party. Homer Simpson: No, Flanders. It's a meeting of gay witches for abortion, you wouldn't be interested. If I added in in the examples, what would they imply ? If you're interested in don't hesitate to send me message. Its a meeting of gay witches for abortion, you wouldn't be interested in. <Q> You add 'in' if you want to specify the object of interest. <S> You leave it out if it's implied from context. <S> If you just say "I am interested", without context, it's impossible to tell what you're interested in. <S> That's why you'd specify: "I am interested in 18th century paintings ." <S> or "I am interested in the outcome of the election .", etc. <S> However, if you're already talking about something, it will be implied as the object of your interest, and it would be redundant to specify. <S> So, in your second example, Ned and Homer both know they're talking about a gathering of people, so Homer doesn't have to say "You wouldn't be interested in the meeting ." <S> Simply adding 'in' without providing an object (as you do in your examples) is incorrect. <A> To put it simply, to be interested in is usually followed by an object, whereas to be interested isn't. <S> I am interested in 18th century paintings. <S> In the above quote, to be interested in is used because it is directly followed by the object (18th century paintings). <S> However, in the below quote, no object is followed, which is why to be interested in is not used, but rather, simply to be interested . <S> If you wanted to use to be interested in , you can simply add the object at the end of the statement, as can be seen in my addition (in bold text): <S> Homer Simpson: No, Flanders. <S> It's a meeting of gay witches for abortion, you wouldn't be interested in it . <S> Similarly, in your other examples, simply add the object in order to make the sentences proper and complete. <S> You can do so as follows (my additions can be seen in bold): <S> If you're interested in it don't hesitate to send me message. <S> Its a meeting of gay witches for abortion, you wouldn't be interested in it <S> However, the sentences would be perfectly fine without the use of to be interested in in this case. <S> Usually, the less verbose form is seen and heard. <S> I hope this helped! <A> The in is just pointing to the object that you are interested with <S> I am interested in , object . <S> I'm not interested object ,but I am interested in an object .for <S> example <S> I am interested in 18th century paintings. <S> I am interested in sports. <S> Now in your other context that is also correct because it's a response <S> so you wouldn't have to specify what the subject ( object ) is. <S> If I am making a statement then you wouldn't know the subject until I have made my statement. <S> In a response to that statement I would already know the subject so you wouldn't have to specify. <S> Therefore if you don't need to specify the subject you also would not need the pointer ( in ) to point to the subject. <S> for example, "I am interested in 18th century paintings". <S> " If you are interested, don't hesitate to send me a message. <S> "I am interested in sports". <S> " If you are interested , you should watch ESPN". <A> I am interested or <S> I am interested in it <S> "I am interested in" has no object.
| So if you are talking about your interest you always use in and the object.
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What does the phrase "needlenose plier on your seat " means? One of my colleagues committed to complete a work by last week. Even after a week he didn't complete his task. Today when I asked him about the work status, he said he will do it by end of today. After that he asked this question: "Do you by any chance have a needle nose pliers by where you sit?" I didn't understand instantly what he meant. I though he was asking for a needle nose plier device. I said, "I don't think so" He replied: "That's cool Just Wondering" I am a not a native English speaker. What does he mean when he said "needle nose where you sit"? Am I torturing him to get the work done ? Is that what he said ?Or was he really asking for the tool? <Q> So unless it was an inside joke , he was probably really asking for a physical pair of needle nose pliers. <S> Your disbelief that he would ask for such a thing makes me doubt though. <S> At face value, his response, "That's cool. <S> Just wondering," is benign as well. <S> From what you've provided, it appears to have been a genuine request to me. <S> But, to recognize a sarcastic remark in writing is difficult. <S> Even in-person <S> it's not always obvious , but <S> at least you have nonverbal cues and tone of voice to help you. <S> When in doubt, you could try the advice J.R. and Victor gave in their comments. <S> Asking why the pliers are needed would be a valid response to his question and might elicit his real motive. <A> Do you [by any chance] have a [ needle nose pliers ] by [ where you sit ] ? <S> is the same as <S> Do you have them close to that place ? <S> if we simply omit "by any chance" as superfluous and call "needle nose pliers" as " them " and "where you sit" as " that place ". <S> Your coworker wasn't asking whether you had the pliers on your seat, but " by ", which means "in close vicinity", "around", "about". <A> Most citizens, at least in Western society, usually don't dress up their feelings in cryptic sayings unless they're performing. <S> It's pretty inefficient. <S> "Do you by any chance have a needle nose pliers by where you sit?" <S> He's genuinely asking you for the tool. <S> He used the phrase "by any chance" to show that he thinks it's unlikely you have the pliers, but he wanted to ask anyway just to be sure. <S> He reiterates that he didn't expect you to have the tool he wanted and that it's no issue when he says "That's cool. <S> Just wondering." <S> This is treading into philosophical territory, but trying to figure out whether someone's being sarcastic or not in Western culture is usually a waste of time, in my opinion. <S> Literally any sentence can be portrayed sarcastically -- it's a lame linguistic device when it's used to be passive-aggressive. <S> I just respond bluntly if I am even slightly unsure. <S> If they were actually trying to be rude <S> and I just "didn't get it," well, what did I lose out on? <S> A rude remark? <S> Yeah, thanks. <S> (There's some sarcasm for you.) <A> My guess is OP's colleague was making a clumsy attempt to be "witty" <S> - he's just not very good at it. <S> He probably referred to needle nose pliers because he was really thinking Quit needling me! <S> (Stop pestering me) . <S> Perhaps influenced by <S> You're nit-picking! <S> (obsessing over minor details) , and Stop picking on me! <S> (specifically attacking me rather than others) , since needle nose pliers are often used to "pick" objects or material out of awkward locations. <S> There are other common idiomatic usages that may have influenced his (probably, "one-off") usage, including <S> have a bug up one's ass / bee in one's bonnet, be a pain in the ass , etc. <S> Essentially, figurative references to irritating sharp pointy things, particularly around one's posterior / seat. <S> The fact that he used such an obscure expression to a non-native speaker suggests to me OP's colleague actually has quite limited interpersonal communicative skills. <S> I certainly wouldn't advise learners in general to take too much notice of how people like that [try to] express themselves.
| I'm not aware of any common phrase that uses "needle nose pliers" in a sarcastic or facetious way (at least not in the US).
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"Very simple!" or "Very simply!" I have one question which completely confused me. How does it work? Very simple! or Very simply! I would go for "very simply" since I feel I need an adverb. I would use "very simple" if the answer was "it is very simple". But then I asked couple of people and they would all go for "very simple" which confused me. (none of them was a native speaker though) <Q> You can use either one but it depends on how you want to use them. <S> Here are couple of examples: Joe - "How does it work?" <S> Shmoe - "It's very simple, just plug it in!" <S> or: Joe - "How does it work?" <S> Shmoe - <S> "Very simply! <S> You just plug it in!" <S> Using only, "very simple" would in most cases be an incomplete statement, while using "Very simply" can be it's own statement and will be in most cases, but can also be used in statements like, "You very simply plug it in." <S> But it's uncommon to say "very simply," you would instead just say "simply" as in "You simply plug it in!" <A> Edit <S> It has been pointed out that my answer repeats some of the information given in Michael Rader's answer. <S> Apologies for not reading that carefully enough. <S> The answer has been given in comments. <S> I'll formalise it as an answer. <S> How does it work? <S> Very simply! <S> This indicates that the method or machinery operates in a simple fashion. <S> For example: "How does it work?" <S> "Very simply! <S> You turn this crank handle, the gears spin and the product pops out at the other end." <S> How does it work? <S> Very simple! <S> It could be expanded to, "That's very simple!" <S> and in that form it refers to the forthcoming answer (not the question as someone intimated). <S> Here's a full version: <S> "How does it work?" <S> "That is very simple to answer! <S> You merely press this button and it leaps into operation." <A> Absolutely, You have to say <S> It's Very simple! <S> Explanation: <S> Anyway, when you say " very " before " simple ", normally it's adjective . <S> So, actually you take two adjectives and use them together, while the first one is as superlative . <S> On the other hand, when you say " simply " it must describe an adverb , and it's used to describe verb only! <S> (e.g. "She did it simply" or "They did it very simply") rather than nouns or adjectives, and that's why you should say "it's simple" rather than "it's simply".
| The phrase 'Very simple' is an abbreviation. The word " simple " can be noun or adjective - it depends on the context (Check it in the dictionary).
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How is the expression "very much" used and is "I like very much to play volleyball on weekends" correct? I know in general terms how to use "very much" but since my students started making specific questions and writing sentences like the one above I got very confused (I'm brazilian, and I just started working as an English Teacher). I would say that the sentence would sound better if it was "I like to play volleyball on weekends very much", but I want to understand what positions it could be placed and how it would change the sentence's meaning. <Q> As John says, "very much" modifies a verb phrase. <S> It means the same as the more casual "a lot" or "a whole lot". <S> It's <S> most natural position is after the verb phrase that it modifies, just like "a lot", but unlike "a lot", it can also go before the verb phrase that it modifies or after the main verb of that phrase. <S> When "very much" modifies a preceding complement construction, there is often a distressing ambiguity about whether it modifies the main verb phrase or the complement verb phrase: "I prefer not to eat snails very much" could mean either that your preference for not eating snails is extreme, or that snails are okay if indulged in only occasionally. <S> That ambiguity is resolved by moving "very much" to a position either immediately before or immediately after "prefer", because then "very much" can only modify the entire verb phrase with "prefer". <S> On the other hand, "a lot" cannot be disambiguated in this way, since it has to go after the verb phrase it modifies. <S> I think that this sort of disambiguation is mainly what "very much" is useful for, at least in casual conversation. <S> When "very much" comes before the verb phrase it modifies, it follows auxiliary verbs or other adverbs: <S> I have always very much preferred fish. <S> ? <S> ? <S> I have very much always preferred fish. <S> * <S> I very much have always preferred fish. <A> Adverbs are funny things--often, they can appear anywhere in a sentence and not affect meaning. <S> Grammatically, there is no difference between "I very much like to do X," "I like very much to do X...," and "I like to do X...very much," though idiomatically, the first choice seems to me the best. <S> Another issue worth addressing with your students, though, is when such adverbs should be used at all. <S> For example, you might ask your students why they don't instead say "I love to play volleyball on weekends. <S> " Otherwise, someone might say, "I really love to play volleyball"--but does this convey more information than "I love to play volleyball," or does it simply add a word? <A> So you usually say: I like to play volleyball very much on weekends. <S> However, it's also correct if you use the "very much" at the end of the sentence or before the verb as follows: <S> I like to play volleyball on weekends very much. <S> I very much like to play volleyball on weekends. <S> I think it's unidiomatic to use the "very much" between the verb and the object such as: <S> I like very much to play volleyball on weekends. <S> The infinitive phrase "to play football on weekends" is functioning as a direct object in the sentence. <A> In common speech, I would suggest using other words, such as "I really like to play..." <S> But that may contribute to lessening our beautiful language; I don't know ;)
| When you use a verb as a transitive verb, the phrase "very much" usually goes after the object; we should not use it after the verb. "I very much like to play volleyball..." is a rather formal, but completely correct, use of that phrase.
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the meaning of "under a glass" ‘The world corrupts me, I think. Or perhaps it's just the weather. It pulls me down and makes me think like you, that one should shrink inside, down and down to a little point of light, preserving one's solitary soul like a flame under a glass . — Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel All I can reasonably visualize is something like the picture below. Am I right? If I am right, why use " under " when a flame is " in " a glass? <Q> The writer is making the comparison with a flame that is put under an upside down drinking glass. <S> If you put a flame, for example a small candle, under a glass, it will slowly die out because of oxygen running out. <A> The author speaks of "preserving" the soul, so I think your image is on the right track. <S> From what I can tell from a cursory glance at Amazon, the book is set in a time before electric lights, when candles or lanterns would have been common, and I think two elements are at play in this simile: <S> When you lower the glass chimney around the flame (from having it up to light the wick), the flame steadies and brightens When you turn the nob to shorten the exposed wick, the size of the flame gets smaller and the lamp oil is preserved . <S> I'm not entirely sure they had this particular sort of lantern in the time of Cromwell, but I have seen plenty of references to "trimming the wick" of a candle to make it burn more slowly. <A> I think the point that is being made is that flame needs oxygen so when it is under glass the oxygen runs out and it goes away. <S> (suffocates) <S> I do think that picture is correct but not necessarily only like that just whenever you put glass or a lid on a candle or flame it gets suffocated. <S> the author seems to using a figure of speech more then literally. <S> she feels 'suffocated' by society.
| The glass prevents new oxygen from reaching the flame and because oxygen is needed to make the flame burn, it will die out when the oxygen available under the glass has been used up.
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"I have no room / I have no space" Which one sounds better? I have no room in my house or I have no space in my house Which sounds better? <Q> To my (American) ear, "room"'s connotations are slightly more 2-dimensional, and <S> "space"'s connotations are slightly more 3-dimensional. <S> Thus, if you have so much clutter that you don't have "elbow room", or cannot find any more floor area for activities, "You have no room in your house." <S> If you have so much clutter that you cannot find a place (even up high, or down low, or in a closet or cabinet) to put anything, "You have no space in your house." <S> It is easy to imagine someone who has unused space in their house, who does not have any more room for new activities (or for people to move in). <S> It requires a dedicated "hoarder" to use up all of the space in a house. <A> They're the same in almost every context, but I'd have a slight preference for the second if it was in response to someone asking if they could stay in your house for a while. <S> The reason I'd prefer the second is because in the first, "room" could become ambiguous. <S> It could mean the same as "space", but it could also be taken to be a lazily stated reference to "a room". <A> So both sentences sound equally correct; however, the word space is more clear. <S> I think every house has at least one room, so the first sentence doesn't convey any sense but an empty area.
| If you mean an empty area available to be used, you can use either room or space, without any difference in meaning.
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Should I say "It's difficult 'to me' / 'for me' to express my self"? What is more common or more correct (or both of them equals)? 1) It's so much difficult to me to express myself or 2) It's so much difficult for me to express myself <Q> 1) <S> It's so much difficult to me to express myself <S> "It's so much difficult..." <S> You appear to be caught between two ideas. <S> On one hand, you were trying to keep it simple but chose the wrong synonym ( so much instead of very ). <S> On the other hand, you were on the right path, but forgot to insert the adverb more , meaning "to a great extent." <S> So either/or of the following is a good start: <S> It's so much more difficult... <S> It's very difficult... "... <S> to me to express myself. <S> " <S> Again, you appear caught between two ideas. <S> It could be that you simply selected the wrong preposition ( to instead of for ). <S> Or maybe you forgot to use commas to set off a parenthetic element . <S> The second half can be completed in either of these two ways: ... <S> difficult, to me, to express myself. <S> ...difficult for me to express myself. <S> That leaves us with four options to complete this sentence: <S> It's so much more difficult, to me, to express myself. <S> It's so much more difficult for me to express myself. <S> It's very difficult, to me, to express myself. <S> It's very difficult for me to express myself. <A> Example: it is difficult for him to learn English at his age. <S> "... difficult to do something." <S> Example: It is difficult to learn English when you getting old. <A> "difficult for me" is correct. <S> The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides usage examples including "These changes will make life difficult for everyone involved." <A> In short, 2) is your answer. <S> It's so much difficult for me to express myself. <S> The pattern is <S> It's + adjective <S> + for someone + to do something <S> You would find this pattern used almost everywhere. <S> for example <S> It is difficult for English learners to know whether to use a gerund or an infinitive after a verb. <S> source: VOA <S> Another reference is Ngram Viewer , clicking the links pointed out by the red arrow, one would see the same pattern. <A> In sentence 1, 'It' is a pronoun, and you need to say ‘Expressing myself is difficult to me.’ <S> instead of ‘It's difficult to me to express myself.’ <S> Sentence 2 is grammatically wrong. <S> So you can say 'For me to express myself is difficult' instead of the original one.
| I think we can use these formulas: "...difficult for somebody to do something." Sentence 2 is correct because 'it' here is a subject and means 'to express myself'.
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He {went / has gone / had gone} out 5 minutes ago He ... out 5 minutes ago options: a)went b)has gone c)had gone MyApproach: I choose has gone because it expresses an action that was completed very recent past i.e just 5 minutes ago although the word "just" is not mentioned. Am i right in my approach? Please correct me if I am wrong? <Q> One of the {unwritten} rules is, if you don't need Perfect Tense, don't use it. <S> Given that you have a very specific moment in time associated with the event, in the overwhelming majority of cases you should use Past Indefinite: <S> He went out five minutes ago. <S> Since the event time is in the past, you can't use Present <S> tense at all. <S> The other option is Past Perfect (" had gone "), but you only use that if there is also a reference time in your statement, and it's in the past as well. <S> For instance, "I found out three minutes ago that he had gone" (Reference time is "three minutes ago", and event time is in the past relative to that). <A> A "rule" pretty strictly adhered to in formal diction, and mostly adhered to in speech, is that we do not employ the present perfect with time adverbials which do not include the present . <S> Under this rule, b <S> ( He has gone out five minutes ago ) is excluded, because any point in time designated with the preposition ago , no matter how recent, excludes the present. <S> However, if the time adverbial is marked as a "supplement", something not integrated into the main clause but tacked on as an afterthought, the sentence would be acceptable: <S> He has gone out—five minutes ago. <S> c , <S> He had gone out five minutes ago , is also excluded, because ago in ordinary speech establishes a point in time relative to 'Speech Time', the time at which the sentence is spoken; but the past perfect locates an event as past relative to a different time which you are talking about, your 'Reference Time'. <S> However, this sentence would be acceptable in certain literary uses. <S> Virginia Woolf, for instance, was very fond of reporting her characters' thoughts and words with past tenses, in the same timeframe as her narrative, but leaving the incidental adverbials in a present timeframe to preserve immediacy and colloquiality: <S> It was terribly dangerous work for a one-armed man, she exclaimed, to stand on top of a ladder like that — his left arm had been cut off in a reaping machine two years ago. <S> That leaves only a , <A> He went out five minutes ago - is definitely better than using "has gone". <S> You can also say: He stepped out five minutes ago. <S> - if you know that this person is coming back soon or He left 5 minutes ago.
| He went out five minutes ago , which is the natural way of expressing this thought.
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What's the word for roads on top of roads? Suppose you are driving on the freeway and there is a road that is built on top of the road that you are currently driving on. For example, a transit that takes cars up to their exit or maybe it's just a regular road that was built on top of the freeway. Is there a specific name for such roads? Could I refer to such roads as a "bridge"? Would it be acceptable to say, "A car was parked underneath the bridge" in such a situation or is there another word for such roads? <Q> Adding to Nathan's answer, the word you're looking for is overpass (or flyover , if you're in the UK and other Commonwealth countries). <S> For example, in India, where I reside, flyover is what we call such constructions where there is a road that passes over another road. <S> From the Cambridge Dictionary : overpass and flyover have the same meaning: bridge <S> that carries <S> a road or railway over another road. <A> The roads aren't really built on top of other roads, which would imply there's no space in between; they're built over them. <S> And that's the word that's used in the name: "overpass", a road that passes over. <A> But it's perfectly reasonable to call such a structure a "bridge". <S> (At least, in British English; the term may be less common in American English and other dialects.) <A> I feel I should clarify: <S> the road is still called a road , whether it is on a bridge or not. <S> The structure which carries the road can be called a bridge, a flyover or an overpass (as per this question <S> they would all be valid words in this situation). <S> The road itself is continuous, i.e. the road before the bridge, on the bridge and after <S> the bridge is all one road ; you do <S> not have a road followed by a bridge followed by a road. <S> So "A car was parked underneath the bridge" is perfectly valid. <S> " <S> A car was parked underneath the road" would not be easily understood. <A> If the upper road goes in the same direction (or the 180° opposite direction) as the lower road, it is a "viaduct". <S> For example, the " Alaskan Way Viaduct " in Seattle is a "double-decker freeway". <S> Both decks are actually above ground, because the ground level is a parking lot. <S> Thus, there are "cars parked under the viaduct". <S> This word "viaduct" is similar to the word "aqueduct". <S> Many Roman "aqueducts" had portions that were elevated, using "viaducts". <S> Multi-level intersections often include "overpasses" (where one road rises up to cross another); sometimes they include "underpasses" (where one road drops down into a tunnel to cross another road). <S> In the Seattle area, some freeways are below ground, and have ceilings. <S> Above the ceilings are parks, roads, and/or convention centers. <S> These freeways are said to have " lids ", as in the "Mercer Island lid". <S> When traffic is bad, sometimes "cars are stopped under the Mercer Island lid", or "there is stop-and-go traffic from the Mount Baker Tunnel through the Mercer Island lid". <S> In the San Francisco Bay Area, the western span of the "Bay Bridge" has two levels of traffic. <S> Cars go west on the "upper deck" from Yerba Buena island to San Francisco; cars go east on the "lower deck". <A> A specific name for roads that pass over each other is "roads linked up and down". <S> I'm pretty sure that this is British.
| As the other answers say, the more specific terms are "overpass" and "flyover". "A car was parked underneath the bridge which carried the main road" is valid, though it is quite a long phrase!
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Is this a rhetorical question, a Socratic question, or something else? I was wondering if there is a name for when a speaker asks someone a question that both speakers already know the answer to, in order to educate a third party.For instance, co-presenters on the television: Speaker 1: So Bob, why did we choose this road? Speaker 2: Well, this road is the safest road in the north. I have heard of the 'rhetorical question', but it is my understanding that the rhetorical question is used to make a point, rather than to elicit genuine information. I have also explored the 'Socratic question', but I understand that this type of question is used to help the answerer understand the subject matter in question. Therefore, neither of these two types of questions seem to quite fit. I would be grateful for any advice. <Q> Hmm, I don't think either term really describes your example. <S> A rhetorical question is a question asked to make a point rather than to get an answer. <S> Usually no answer is called for, and the question is more of a statement phrased as a question. <S> Like if Al told Bob that this was the wrong road, and Bob took this road anyway, when it became clear that they were lost <S> Al might ask, "So why did you take this road?" or "Didn't anyone tell you that this was the wrong road?" <S> Or my always favorite rhetorical question: " <S> Is there really any point in asking rhetorical questions?" <S> The person asking the question typically already knows the answer. <S> He is not trying to gain information but to force the listener to think. <S> For example, a teacher might present a student with a math problem, and then ask, "So which method of integration would you use here?", "Why did you divide the left side by x but the right side by <S> x squared?" <S> , "What does it mean when you divide by zero?" <S> and so on. <S> Often the goal of a Socratic question is to point out a logic flaw in something the other person has just said. <S> Like, "Why do you assume that all Germans are Nazis? <S> " <S> In this type of case, the boundary between a Socratic question and a rhetorical question gets fuzzy. <S> Still, I think there is a distinction. <S> With a Socratic question, you are still expecting an answer. <S> You want the student to say, "Well, because ... <S> " With a rhetorical question, you are not expecting an answer. <S> At least, not an answer other than a rebuttal of the premise behind the question, like, <S> "That's not what I said!" <S> Your example resembles a Socratic question, maybe some would call it that. <S> I don't know any established phrase that clearly describes this kind of question. <A> Socratic questioning can educate both the answerer and others. <S> In teaching, the Socratic method is used to elicit more information from learners, and allow them to reflect on their education and explain concepts to themselves and others. <A> Perhaps this example could be considered Comic Relief. <S> an amusing scene, incident, or speech introduced into serious or tragic elements, as in a play, in order to provide temporary relief from tension, or to intensify the dramatic action. <S> relief from tension caused by the introduction or occurrence of a comic element, as by an amusing human foible. <S> As presented, either Socratic or Rhetorical could apply, depending on the intent of the speakers. <S> Out of context, it is hard to determine application of either.
| A Socratic question is a question mean to lead the other person through the thought process to reach a conclusion.
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"Was he not doing his homework" vs " Wasn't he doing his homework" What is the difference between them.It is in a test so I have no context. Was he not doing his homework Wasn't he doing his homework <Q> To me it sounds that <S> the question Was he not doing his homework? <S> is asking whether "he" was slacking off , ignoring his responsibility to do his homework. <S> When spoken, the " not " would be emphasized. <S> The question <S> Wasn't he doing his homework? <S> is intended to express doubt or request a confirmation. <S> The speaker supposes the " he " (the subject of the question) <S> was in fact " doing his homework ", but something in the conversation prior to this question presented a contrary view. <A> I'll go out on a limb and take a different stance from other answers (that were posted before mine). <S> The only two differences between Was he not doing his homework? <S> and Wasn't he doing his homework? <S> are: a) <S> the former is an uncontracted negative question (and the latter is a contracted negative question); and thus b) the former ( Was he not ...? ) would sound more formal. <S> Both alternatives can have either of these two meanings: <S> [i] Is it true that he wasn't doing his homework ? <S> [ii] <S> It's true that he was doing his homework , isn't it? <S> The ambiguity is normally not a problem because it'd be clear in context. <S> We simply cannot assign a specific meaning to each alternative out of context. <A> Most often, the two sentences can be used interchangeably. <S> They mean the same thing essentially, except the first sentence has no contraction and so is more formal. <S> The only reason the word order is different is due to the contraction "wasn't" (was not). <S> It's a common and handy word that is used frequently, even in places where its un-contracted meaning "was not" would sound strange. <S> Nobody ever says "Was not he doing his homework?" <S> but because of custom and habit, English speakers freely say "Wasn't he doing his homework?". <S> It's a quirk of the language. <S> This is not to say that the other answers are wrong, only that in everyday usage the speaker or writer is most likely not being that precise. <A> The first sentence is asking if he was not doing his homework. <S> The second one refers to if he was doing his homework at the time. <S> Quite opposite to each other! <A> What Nihilist_frost says is true to an extent, but depending on the context the first first version could be a somewhat stuffy version of the second IMO. <S> Consider: <S> Was he not doing his homework at the time? <S> This sentence sounds grammatically fine to me and leaves me in little doubt whoever is asking believe "he" was doing his homework at the time. <A> I agree with most of the answers posted by the users. <S> "Was he not doing his homework?" <S> and "Wasn't he doing his homework? <S> " are syntactically similar, as "wasn't" (from the second sentence) is merely a contraction of "was not" (from the first sentence). <S> However, if we decipher the similarities and/or differences in the light of Semantics, the two statements have varying meanings. <S> First, the statement "Was he not doing his homework?" <S> stresses on the "not doing" verb phrase of the sentence. <S> Thus, this would mean that a person is asking another if "he" is "not doing" "his homework". <S> We could paraphrase this as (although there is a difference in form) "He is not doing his homework, is he?" <S> Second, the statement "Wasn't he doing his homework?" <S> emphasizes on "doing" or (could be) on "doing his homework". <S> Therefore, this could mean that a person is asking another if "he" is currently working or not on "his homework". <S> Another interpretation would be asking if "he" is (currently) working on his own homework. <S> Since it is in the past tense, we could say that he was currently working on the homework mentioned. <S> I know that my explanation is somewhat confusing, but I hope this could give you more ideas regarding this topic.
| In my humble opinion, there isn't any difference in meaning between the two written sentences out of context.
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It is no good (to cry)/(crying) over spilt milk It is no good to cry over spilt milk. It is no good crying over spilt milk. The phrase is cry over spilt milk . Then grammatically, why is crying over spilt milk correct? <Q> You don't use to-infinitive after it's no good, it's no use, and there's no point. <S> You use the -ing form of a verb instead. <S> You can also use the preposition "in" in front of the -ing form such as it's no use/good (in) arguing with him. <S> There's no point (in) arguing with him. <A> "Crying over spilt milk" is itself a noun phrase. <S> This is difficult to imagine because the sentence is in a clipped, unusual format. <S> It's made a little clearer with punctuation and the addition of a clarifying "that is" to show what we're talking about: It's no use -- crying over spilt milk, that is. <S> "It" refers to "crying over spilt milk. <S> " The phrase is placed parenthetically at the end of the sentence, but the idiom is so common that proper punctuation isn't really used because the meaning is understood anyway. <S> @Khan's use of "in" and turning it into a prepositional phrase makes it more clear, but we need to change the first word to "there" instead of <S> "it's:" <S> In this sentence, "crying over spilt milk" is the object of the prepositional phrase. <S> To break it down more, you could simply say: <S> There's no use in crying. <S> "Over spilt milk" qualifies "crying," but does nothing by itself. <S> So they are joined together as one noun phrase. <A> It is just a convention that after certain formulas beginning with "It is" the gerund is preferred. <S> Gerund is used after 1 <S> It is useless doing sth <S> 2 <S> It is no use/ <S> not much use doing sth 3 <S> It is no good/not much good doing sth <S> 4 <S> It is worthwhile doing sth <S> If we say "It's no use crying over spilt milk" the underlying structure was:The crying over spilt milk is of no use.
| There's no use in crying over spilt milk.
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Can we use against with complain Everybody complains against callous treatment of the the police. I believe we do not use against with the word complain because complain in itself means something against.Can you please clarify this doubt.Thank you. <Q> Complain against is not ungrammatical, but it is very rare outside of legal contexts, where complain has the sense <S> lay a formal complaint or pleading . <S> It is used only with persons, natural or corporate, as object of the preposition, because only persons can be sued. <S> So you might say that indignant citizens bringing suit against the police department for some misconduct "complained against the police". <S> But in your example what you probably mean is <S> Everybody complains about the treatment of [somebody—criminals?] <S> by the police <S> meaning that the police mistreated the criminals. <S> And you probably mean that the treatment was harsh or severe rather than callous = "unfeeling, hard-hearted". <A> The word 'Complain' is always targeted at something or someone. <S> It is also a negative impact verb. <S> There is no need to double negate it with a word like 'against' . <S> It is irrelevant and meaningless to do so. <S> You are 100% correct with your assumption. <A> So you can have/bring/ make a complaint against the police .
| The verb 'to complain' doesn't collocate with the preposition against , but the noun 'complaint' does.
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"We have known each other for some years now" - so is it a long time or short time? The definition of 'some' reads as on OALD page (#3) a large number or amount of something But then the next entry says... (#4) a small amount or number of something I wonder if someone says ... We have known each other for some years now Or I met him some years back What about that 'period' that 'some' mean? Long or short? <Q> The use of "some" in those sentences is deliberately noncommittal. <S> It means that the speaker has either forgotten or does not wish to state how long ago. <S> In other words, the speaker is evading the question of how many years exactly. <S> Depending on the context, they may be implying that it is a sufficient number of years for making some particular judgement about the person they are talking about. <S> "I have known the defendant for some time and he is not the sort of person who would steal a policeman's helmet." <A> Checking more dictionaries might have helped: 4 A considerable amount or number of: 'I’ve known you for some years now' <S> Source: Oxford Dictionary Online 3. <S> Being a considerable number or quantity: 'She has been directing films for some years now.' <S> Source: American Heritage Dictionary B adjective II. <S> With plural nouns 8. <S> A certain number of; a few at least Or: at least a few b <S> In adverbial expressions of time. ' <S> We shall meet some months hence' 'He has been here <S> some years' Source: <S> Oxford English Dictionary <S> In general, in this context, some serves like a plural indefinite article. <S> Thus the use of some does not give a definite number. <S> But in time expressions, the OED says it means at least a few . <S> That is vague. <S> And that is what indefinite means. <S> The OED mentions for usage with singular nouns that some frequently implies 'not a little, considerable'. <S> And the other dictionaries back this up. <S> As other answers here have said or hinted, it often means: long enough! :) <S> A mother with a kid who is five would not say that her kid has played for some years with the next door kid who is also five. <S> That doesn't fit. <S> A teenager would probably not say that she has known someone for some years now . <S> Some does not fit the context. <S> As another answer has hinted or stated, the very word years means that a person has to be old enough to mean <S> at least a few and imply a considerable amount . <S> In sum, the collocation some years does not at all mean a short time . <A> Consider these examples: <S> A majority of persons were in favor of the vote but some were against it. <S> I have not read all of his books <S> but I have definitely read some. <S> Some villages in this state frequently experience flooding. <S> The meaning of some and subsequently the meaning the sentence <S> conveys is different in all of these sentences. <S> In your case, it will mean the speakers have known each other for a good number of years . <S> They have not known each other since their beginnings, for, in that case they would have said We have known each other since forever <S> Or We have always known each other . <A> "Some" you should think of as "undisclosed amount", with a connotation of little or a lot depending on context. <S> "I found some money" might mean you found $1, or maybe $1,000,000. <S> However typically you probably mean closer to $1. <S> "Can I have some more?" <S> typically only means "can I have a small to moderate amount more?". <S> If you were served a plate of a food, and you asked for "some more", they would give you a second plate of equal or lesser amount. <S> "I have known him for some time" typically only means "a long time". <S> You can think of this as "I have known him for a more than adequate enough amount of time to make whatever statements I made about him credible". <S> To copy another example: <S> "I have known the defendant for some time and he is not the sort of person who would steal a policeman's helmet." <S> This should be read as "I have known the defendant for a long enough time to know that he is not the sort of person who would steal a policeman's helmet." <A> First off, we must bear it in mind that we are talking about the use and the sense of the determiner some in front of time, hours, months, years, etc. <S> According to The Free Dictionary, you use "some" with "time" and words such as hours, months, years, etc. <S> to refer to a fairly long time. <S> For examples: You will not be able to drive for some time after the operation. <S> We've been here for some hours now. <S> On the other hand, when you refer to a short period of time, you don't use some. <S> Instead, you say a short time and use "a few" in front of hours, days, months, years, etc. <S> For examples: Her mother died only a short time later. <S> You'll be feeling better in a few days. <S> In addition, you van use the phrases "some little time", " some few hours, months, years", etc. <S> to mean a short petiod of time. <S> For examples: Her mother died only some little time later. <S> You'll be feeling better in some few days. <S> However, if you want to refer to an unidentified or unknown time, you can use "some" before time. <S> For examples <S> I saw him some time/sometime last summer. <S> We'll see some some time again, I am sure. <S> So whether some time means an identified time or a considerable/long time depends on the context.
| Some can mean both large and small amounts depending on the context in which it is used. As for "some years" in the sentence "We have known each other for some years" means a long time; a lot of years.
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Is "to debate a person" a correct use of the verb "debate"? Is "to debate a person" a correct use of the verb "debate"?I looked up several dictionaries, but did not find such an example.However, when I searched Corpus of Contemporary American English by "debate him", it returned 26 results one of which is as follows: He knows Perot is much better known, and Lamm wants Perot to agree to debate him before the convention, so Party members can get to know them both. <Q> Merriam-Webster has debate <S> transitive verb <S> 1 <S> a : to argue about b : to engage (an opponent) in debate <S> The President debated his challenger in front of a live audience on Tuesday. <A> Here is the dictionary (WordWebOnline) that says it's possible to 'debate [someone]' <S> debate : <S> Argue with one another <S> The example follows <S> John debated Mary <A> Seems strangely odd to me. <S> I would always have said " debate with someone", as in " argue with someone". <S> You would never say “ I argued him” it would be “I argued with him”. <S> Just sounds a better fit. <A> You seem to know the correct meaning of the word, but the phrase doesn't make much sense to people who are not skilled at deciphering things. <S> For example, we will not write "to" in front of a verb for no reason, although they apparently.do that in Français. <S> The meaning of "debate" is when two people (or perhaps two groips or a group of people who each has their own opinions independently) argue academically about a topic, usually either scientific or political, and MEANT to be non-aggressive. <S> You can debate anither human being, a verb, or you can go to a debate, an intangible noun. <S> "to debate", in the way you are saying it here, is never said, although you might say "I want to debate Richard Seaman about the effectiveness of the war in Malaysia", which is unrelated to your use of "to". <S> What you'vr written here also doesn't make sense in another way. <S> First, you've written, specifically, that you could not find a certian example. <S> Then, you specifically wrote that you DID find examples, the exact opposite of what you just said a sentence ago. <S> Secondly, this is the only possible use of the word "debate", so it is impossible for any website or database that includes the word "debate" to not have such a definition, unless it is used in some other way such as to discuss the frequency of occurance of the letter T in English or something.
| You can also "have a debate".
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Indirect speech: is "has been" acceptable in “…the matter has been taken up with Saudi authorities”? Consider the sentence: External Minister said that the matter has been taken up with Saudi authorities. Source: The Times of India Since it's a reported speech form, shouldn't it be 'had been' instead of 'has been'? In reported speech, if the main verb is in the past tense then the verb in the subordinate clause will also be in corresponding past tense. John said, "I have finished my work". (Direct speech) John said that he had finished his work. (Indirect speech) This is something which every grammar books suggest but why do I often come across the sentences which overlook these tense modification as in the citation given above ? <Q> Yes, has been is grammatically correct, even in indirect speech in the past tense. <S> Indeed, the tense ( has been vs. had been ) indicates an important distinction! <S> Has been <S> implies that what the speaker said is still relevant in the present. <S> Had been <S> would imply that the matter is closed. <S> The minister said that the matter has been taken up with Saudi authorities. <S> …implies that the Saudi authorities are now considering the matter. <S> The minister said that the matter had been taken up with Saudi authorities. <S> …suggests that the Saudi authorities have finished considering the matter. <S> In other words, the simple past combined with past perfect suggests the following sequence of events: 1) <S> The Saudi authorities took up the matter. <S> 2) <S> The Saudi authorities made their decision. <S> 3) <S> The minister talked about it. <S> The sequence is not completely unambiguous, though. <S> You could also say had been while the Saudi authorities are still considering, if you wanted to emphasize that the minister is no longer involved in the matter. <S> The way to understand the perfect aspect in English without trying to remember large numbers of rules is to understand that the speaker wants to point out a time interval, and the end of this time interval is suggested by the tense of "have". <S> The speaker thinks that the distinction between during this time interval and after this time interval is important. <S> Why the time interval is important depends entirely on context and doesn't follow a rule. <S> Even the exact end of the time interval depends on context. <S> In your example, a fluent speaker understands (unconsciously) that the important time interval is the period during which the Saudi authorities consider the matter. <S> So, the present perfect has been implies that the time interval is still in progress. <S> The past perfect had been implies that the time interval ended in the past, hence the Saudi authorities' consideration of the matter ended in the past. <S> Or, in the alternate reading, had been <S> would mean that the time interval of the minister's involvement in the matter ended in the past. <A> With "reported speech" the important thing is to explain the information, not the words, to your listener. <S> The information need to be true and make sense to your listener now. <S> It doesn't matter what the original words were, just that the information is represented faithfully. <S> In the current example, we could still describe the situation using the present perfect like this: The matter has been taken up with Saudi authorities. <S> The reason is that this fact still has a strong bearing on the current situation. <S> Because we can still use this description now, it is perfectly correct for the speaker to use the present perfect in their sentence. <S> What they are reporting is not words <S> it is information. <S> The External Minister said that the matter has been taken up with Saudi authorities . <S> (grammatical) <S> For the avoidance of doubt it is clearly also possible for us to use the past perfect here. <S> The following is also grammatical: <S> The External Minister said that the matter had been taken up with Saudi authorities. <S> The reason that we can do this is that the information that was given can also be understood as portraying the situation at the time of speaking. <S> So it was clearly the case that at the time of speaking (which was in the past), the Saudi authorities had already been approached about the issue. <S> So notice that what is embedded in this version of the sentence is still something that we can say now. <S> The situation at the time of speaking was: <S> The matter had been taken up with the Saudi authorities. <S> What this shows is the tenses in reported speech depend on the faithful communication of the information that was exchanged and not the words used. <S> The tenses we can use in reporting this information just depends on what tenses we can use use to describe the information involved. <A> Minister said that the matter had been taken up... <S> Same change would be required if (in present) the minister says that the matter has been taken up. <S> Present perfect tense shifts to become past perfect. <A> Looks like you have not mastered the conversion of direct speech to reported speech . <S> The conversion of direct speech → reported speech: <S> simple present <S> → simple past/present perfect → past perfect <S> So now back to your question, External Minister said that the matter has been taken up with Saudi authorities. <S> Based on that sentence, the direct speech is: <S> External Minister said, "This matter is taking up with Saudi authorities." <S> Nothing is wrong. <S> The reported speech will be in <S> past perfect ("had been") if this is the direct speech : "External Minister said, 'This matter was taking up with Saudi authorities'." <S> In reported speech, if the main verb is in the past tense then theverb in the subordinate clause will also be in corresponding pasttense. <S> After finish writing my answer, I was about to submit, <S> then I re-read your question and found that the above answer of mine isn't enough to answer yours. <S> Are you saying "said" is the main verb, then cited that verbs in subordinate cause will also be in corresponding past tense? <S> John said that he had finished his work. <S> External Minister said that the matter had been taken up with Saudi authorities. <S> If yes , then the answer is no ! <S> You convert the verbs (in the dialogue) based on this "policy": <S> simple present <S> → simple past/present perfect → past perfect
| Yes, according to the rules of backshifting from direct to indirect speech, when the minister says ( present tense ) that the matter was ( past tense ) taken up, then, converted to past tense , the second phrase should be in the past perfect tense :
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How to say "person who invites another person" with one word? For example, we can simplify "a person who is invited by somebody" as "invitee". And does a short form exist for "a person who invites another person"? <Q> Inviter is someone that invites. <S> Generally, the thing that instigates the action will have an -er ending, and the thing that is in receipt will have -ee ending. <S> Employer - someone who employs Employee - someone who is employed <A> It could be called a "host", for one, in case he invites people to a party which he is holding. <S> Host <A> I think "Host" is the closest answer, although in some cases it could be "Sponsor". <S> However, I don't think "inviter" <S> is the answer at all (according to dictionary.com)in reality there is no straightforward word in English for that <S> , I guess it has skipped usage all these years.
| Inviter - someone who invites Invitee - someone who is invited
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"I work {on/with/in} a team"? I am wondering which of the following sentences is more used or even correct? What is this called? Word-choice, collocation or something else? I work on a team. I work with a team. I work in a team. <Q> Prepositions like on , with , and in are indicative of the writer's intent. <S> In your example sentences I work on a team. <S> the preposition on means that the subject works as a member of a team. <S> I work with a team. <S> the preposition with means that the subject works in a cooperative way, although it could also indicate membership of a team. <S> I work in a team. <S> the preposition in in this case seems to mean location within a team, but this does not convey the same sense of participation suggested in the first two examples. <S> As to whether this is a matter of word choice or collocation, it is word choice to convey intent. <S> Collocation most usually refers to several words that are often used together (e.g., making my bed , bar of soap , burst into tears ). <S> Collocation for your examples might be something like work team or perhaps work in tandem . <A> I work on a team = <S> I manage/control/influence a team. <S> I work with a team = <S> I collaborate/cooperate with a team. <S> I work in a team = <S> I am one of that team <A> I work on <S> a team means the person is a member of the team. <S> I work with <S> a team means I contribute my knowledge as a member <S> means the person is helping a team in some way, but may or may not be a member of the team. <S> For example, suppose my company sells widgets to hospitals, and the hospital has a team of installers who will be installing the new widgets in each room. <S> If I am training those installers, I might say, “I am working with the installation team” even though I’m not a member of the installation team. <S> I work in a team <S> If I heard someone way this, I would assume they simply meant they worked as a member of the team; it sounds like it’s talking about membership more than location. <S> A different answer says this is uttered more often in British English, which may be true. <S> People might also use the expression work in teams to describe an approach to solving a problem; for example, a teacher might say to the class, “I want you to work in teams of three as you try to solve this problem.” <A> I work on a team = <S> Used in American English <S> I work in a team = <S> Used in British English
| I work with a team = cooperate with a team
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if none observe me -- why not "if none observes me"? That's a famous quote from Franz Kafka. if none observe me , I have to observe myself all the closer. <Q> Here it is referring to "the people". <S> A fuller reading of the quote might be: if none of the people observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer. <S> The people is plural, and so takes the plural verb observe . <S> It should be pointed out that it's not so much about a hard-and-fast rule but about clarity. <S> If you’re wanting to emphasise “not any amongst many” as in the above example then you should use the plural to make this emphasis clear. <S> There’s a good discussion of notional agreement here <S> http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/g11.html <S> ODO's usage section isn't quite as explicit, but does mention it depends on the emphasis needed http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/none <A> Even though some disagree, none can have a plural meaning. <S> For instance : <S> (…) while the police found 170,425 images, none were classed as indecent. <S> ( The Telegraph .) <S> So we could interpret none in if none observe me as plural. <S> However there is nothing in the fuller quotation to force on us that reading of none : <S> This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer. <S> (Franz Kafka, November 7, 1921.) <S> Now, in my admittedly limited research, all plural ‘ nones ’ I have found referred to a plural noun in the preceding clause, as the 170,425 images in the example above, or were part of expressions such as none of them . <S> This is not the case in the Kafka quotation. <S> So, we should consider another possibilty. <S> If none observe me may be an old-fashioned use of the present subjunctive in conditional sentences ( see also here ), as in: If he be found guilty he shall be hung. <S> With observe , whether none be singular or plural, the same structure is: If none observe me I have to observe myself all the closer. <A> The subject is None which can be both singular and plural. <S> It's a misconception that it is always singular. <S> if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer. <S> Here, none is plural, so it took a plural form of verb Observe. <S> In the next part of the quote, to observe is infinitive. <S> When you use an infinitive verb, the “to” is a part of the verb, and the verb is always just the verb. <S> It’s not conjugated in anyway – no -ed, no -ing, no -s on the end. <A> Multiple answers have pointed to "none" as being optionally singular or plural. <S> While we can't really say for sure <S> why the author (or rather, translator from Kafka's German to English) chose this phrasing, I have a different theory. <S> It is the subjunctive mood. <S> The subjunctive mood is used (among other things) to express hypothetical scenarios, such as ones following an "if". <S> In English, in the present tense, the subjunctive has the same form as the infinitive (without "to"). <S> If he be willing... <S> If the dog steal my bacon... <S> If none observe me... <S> In modern usage, the subjunctive is very rare, especially the present subjunctive. <S> (The past subjunctive, using "were", is slightly more common.) <S> Further reading: Wikipedia, "English subjunctive" <S> Incidentally, I don't agree with those other answers that say "none" can be singular or plural. <S> I would always take "none" to be plural. <S> But that might be dialect-specific, and someone who has a good book on grammar handy can speak more authoritatively than I can.
| None can be singular or plural, depending on what it is referring to.
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Leaking valve - which sentence sounds most professional Which of the following sentence sounds more professional for a technology report? The valve was found in leakage The valve was leaked The valve leaked <Q> "The valve was found in leakage" sounds unnatural (leakage is found in things; things aren't found in it). <S> Leakage can either describe the stuff that came out of the valve, or it can describe an incident where leaking occurred, but it isn't a state like that. <S> "The valve was leaked" is just grammatically incorrect for this meaning <S> — it implies that someone leaked the value , and in that active sense, the word leak basically only applies to sharing company or national secrets. <S> That leaves "The valve leaked", which is simple and sounds fine, although may not fit in with the fancy wording of a technical report. <S> You could also try: <S> Leakage was found in the valve. <S> The valve had leaked. <S> The valve was found to have leaked. <S> The valve was found to be leaking. <A> I would guess you are trying to say The valve was found leaking or Leakage was observed from the valve. <S> All three of your sentences have problems: Regarding 1, <S> leakage is a noun describing the fluid that would be leaked. <S> So it sounds awkward because you're using this word to describe the state of the valve. <S> Regarding 2, the valve was leaked <S> is similar to a passive-voice construction. <S> But things don't really leak on their own - you can say the valve was leaking - describing a past state of the valve - but not really the valve was leaked without a listener/reader having the open question leaked by who? . <S> So this really sounds like you're wanting to blame someone for doing something like opening a faucet ever so slightly (as opposed to something like a pipe or valve failure). <S> Regarding 3, the valve leaked means at some time in the past, the valve was leaking, and now it is no longer leaking. <S> However, if you are reporting something you observed, then this doesn't make sense because it refers to a past event. <A> As others have stated, options 1 and 2 are not grammatically correct. <S> Option 3 is grammatically correct though I would suggest these sentences instead: "The valve has a leak.", or "The valve had a leak." <S> However... <S> If this is a technical report of a malfunction, I would suggest adding more information to the statement. <S> Such as stating where the valve was leaking from. <S> IE: "The Ball valve had a leak at the stem." or "there was a leak on the seat side of the butterfly valve." <A> It means that you have liquid that leaked from somewhere <S> (this is the leakage). <S> In that liquid was a valve. <S> "The valve was leaked. <S> " <S> Again, grammatical, but wrong. <S> If you had a giant container of valves with a hole in the bottom where valves are falling out, the valves that fell out were leaked from the bin. <S> This is not a normal situation. <S> "The valve leaked. <S> " This one is correct, and says what you want in a professional way. <S> In "The valve leaked. <S> " you know there's a leak, but it may or may not have been located. <S> Maybe all you saw was a puddle of liquid, and that's how you know there's a leak. <S> This is what you would probably use if you want to emphasize the consequences of the leak over the leak's location. <S> Another grammatical, correct option is "A leak was found in the valve." <S> In "A leak was found in the valve" the actual leak was found. <S> You'd use this if you want to emphasize that you know where the leak is or was. <S> An example using "leakage": "Leakage was found around the valve. <S> " This means that the leaking liquid was found in the area of the valve. <S> You almost certainly haven't found the actual leak, and are just assuming it's coming from the valve. <S> If you are certain that the valve was leaking, the other two sentences are more specific. <S> Keep in mind that the most important thing for a technical report is communicating clearly, not using the most words possible, or the biggest words possible.
| "The valve was found in leakage" is grammatical, but doesn't say what you want.
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Does "take a second" mean "take a second look"? This one drives me insane, and it’s become extremely common among bloggers. All it takes to avoid this error is to take a second and think about what you’re trying to say. Source: http://www.copyblogger.com/5-common-mistakes-that-make-you-look-dumb/ I suppose that in the sentence "a look" is missing ("take a second look"). Is this kind of omission of the noun widespread in English? <Q> I interpret the example sentence as meaning "take a second" (of the author's time). <S> It does not omit a noun. <A> It's often used in the phrase "it'll only take a second". <S> It is used to encourage someone to do something they might not necessarily want to do. <S> In your example, writers are being implored to think about what they are trying to say. <S> The benefit if they take a second to do this is that they'll avoid an error that is extremely common amongst bloggers. <A> "A second," "one minute," etc. can figuratively mean "a short amount of time." <S> This makes intuitive sense because one minute (1/60 of an hour) is often considered to be a short time, and one second is even shorter (1/60 of a minute). <S> Confusingly, "second" as a noun seems unrelated to "second" or "2nd" as an adjective. <S> Maybe there's an interesting etymological story behind it... <A> Unfortunately, this depends a lot on context. <S> It could be the omission of a noun if used literally, but it almost never is. <S> The sentence "Take a second." <S> would normally be the omission of a prepositional phrase. <S> The idiom is normally "take a second to..." <S> It usually references thinking or actively sensing, i.e. "take a second to think through the problem before using brute force. <S> " <S> Other phrases like this are "take a minute" or "take a moment" and have the same meaning. <S> It does suggest something momentary though, as opposed to the related "take a while." <S> Interestingly, if someone says that something will take a second, you can expect them to be done shortly, but not literally in a second. <S> If somebody will take a while, do not expect them to be done soon. <S> These declarative (stating facts about the world) meanings carry through to the imperative (requesting or ordering that something be done) meanings as well. <A> It's equivalent to "take a minute," meaning, take a small amount of time <S> (if there's an ellipsis, which there's not here, it can imply 'time out,' a break or thinking time.) <A> Weird answers here to be honest. <S> It literally means to delay before performing the action and by doing so <S> you should in theory perform the action better by thinking about it more. <S> The author of that phrase is stating that you should "stop and think" before performing the action. <S> They are definitely not implying you should "double check". <A> Words or phrases may vary based on how they are use in a sentence. <S> Let's say for example, the word "see". <S> I see his dog barking in front of your store last night. <S> I see him as a brother not as a boyfriend. <S> In my first sentence, the word see literally means something that was perceived or spotted by the eyes, while on the second part of the sentence the word see was used as something you have discerned or regarded as. <S> So I think the same goes for this situation, it is based on how the phrase "take a second" was used in the sentence to conclude whether or not this phrase should be accompanied by the word "look". <S> However, judging on how "take a second" was used, the author was just trying to suggest his readers to take a pause or break and think things over before speaking or writing to avoid committing errors and to make your statement clearer. <S> Besides, when you say "take a second look" it basically means the phrase itself: taking a look on something for the second time or reexamining things or having things double-checked. <S> http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=take+a+second+look
| Take a second is a phrase that is used to emphasise how quickly something of comparatively great benefit can be done.
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She is/was going to the cinema Incident which happened a week ago: Me to Kate: "Where are you going"? Kate: "I'm going to the cinema". Now today I happen to tell this story to Jim and I say, "I met Kate a week ago." Jim: What did she say? Me: "Kate said that she 'is' going to the cinema". My question is, is the usage of 'is' grammatically correct? Here, at the time of reporting after a week I don't know if she's still going to the cinema or not and even then I use 'is' will this be grammatically correct? <Q> As commented by Maulik, it should be "was". <S> You don't backshift in indirect speech if the statement is still true, that is, the event stated hasn't happened yet. <S> The statement clearly shows that you asked Kate where she was going at the time of speaking, not in the future. <S> I think you are talking about an action that is no more up to date; it has already happened. <S> So backshift is required by putting was instead of is. <A> So, in such context, the passive construction should be... <S> Kate said that she was going to the cinema. <S> However, 'is' is possible. <S> But for that you need to bring that event a very close to now . <S> Say, it's 1700 hr and Kate <S> says that she is going to some cinema and she went. <S> Now, I'm searching for Kate and come to you at 1705 hr. <S> So, the scene here is... <S> Hey, where's Kate; do you know what's her plan? <S> ~ <S> Ah, she was right here. <S> I don't know her plan <S> but she said that she is going to some cinema. <S> Go catch her, she must be downstairs (in parking). <A> This is a case of Indirect and Direct Speech. <S> It is a rule that whenever the reporting verb is a past tense, the tense of the verb in the reported speech must be changed to the past tense. <S> Rule <S> - The Present Tense (in the reporting speech) must be changed to corresponding pastform ( it doesn't matter if it happened yesterday, a week ago, or in 100BC). <S> Example: <S> Direct <S> : He said, "John will come." <S> (Present) <S> Indirect : <S> He said that John would come. <S> (Past) <S> Direct : <S> He said, "John is coming." <S> (Present Cont.) <S> Indirect : <S> He said that John was coming. <S> (Past Cont.) <S> Direct : He said, "John has come." <S> (Present Perfect) <S> Indirect : <S> He said that John had come. <S> (Past Perfect) <S> The use of is is definitely ungrammatical. <S> Note that she went to the cinema last week, not this week. <S> When you met Kate last week, she was going to the cinema. <S> Now, when you are reporting what happened in the past, you are not reporting the present state of her action going to the cinema; you are reporting what had happened last week when you talked to her. <S> Kate: I am going to the cinema.(present continuous) <S> It means that she was going to the cinema at the time of her speaking. <S> Me: Kate said that she was going to the cinema.(Past continuous) <S> The reporting verb is is changed to the corresponding past form was More on Direct and Indirect speech <S> rules here
| No! 'is' is not correct in that sentence because it has been a week.
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Can "describe" take two objects? He described the situation to me. correct He described me the situation. wrong The second sentence is said to be wrong with the reason that describe cannot take two objects. If that is so then why does the first sentence contain two objects namely situation and me ? <Q> I would only consider option 1 to be standard usage. <S> Other examples of ditransitive verb use would include: <S> They played us a selection of their greatest hits. <S> He brought me an apple. <S> Tell her all about it. <S> In the case of "describe", I've only ever heard it used in a monotransitive sense (it only takes a direct object, not an indirect object). <S> This is similar to "explain" (see e.g. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/51542/which-one-is-correct-explain-me-or-explain-to-me ) <S> - the indirect object in these sentences is generally given in a prepositional phrase: <S> He explained his theory to them . <S> Describe <S> the situation to me . <S> And the examples above can also generally be re-cast into this alternative structure: <S> He brought an apple to me . <S> Unfortunately, though, I've not managed to find any concrete list of verbs that are used purely monotransitively. <A> Verbs set up slots (spaces) for other phrases. <S> The phrases that fill these slots are called Complements. <S> An Object is a special type of Complement. <S> Usually, but not always, an Object is a noun phrase: <S> They described [the situation]. <S> A typical Object of an active voice sentence can become the Subject of a Passive one: <S> [The situation] was described. <S> Some verbs take preposition phrases as Complements. <S> These are almost never Objects. <S> One way to show this is that they cannot become the Subjects of passive sentences: <S> I spoke [to him]. <S> [To him] was spoken. <S> (ungrammatical) <S> The preposition phrase to him , <S> of course, is a Complement, but it isn't an Object. <S> This is why it can't be the Subject of the passive sentence above. <S> The Original <S> Poster's example <S> He described the situation to me. <S> In the sentence above the verb described is taking two complements. <S> The noun phrase the situation is a Direct Object, the preposition phrase to me is not. <S> Consider the following passive sentences: [The situation] was described to me. <S> * <S> [To me] was described the situation. <S> (ungrammatical) Is the sentence <S> He described me the situation wrong? <S> Probably. <S> It is a bit marginal. <S> Nowadays DESCRIBE does not use this type of grammar in standard English. <A> Only consider option one to be standard usage. <S> Certain verbs take both a direct (in your example, "the situation") and indirect ("me") object, and are known as "ditransitive".
| Certain verbs take both a direct (in your example, "the situation") and indirect ("me") object, and are known as "ditransitive".
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When do we choose 'on bicycle' vs. 'by bicycle'? Which is more appropriate or grammatical to use: He is coming on a bicycle. He is coming by bicycle. <Q> Depends on the context. <S> "By bicycle" is used to show how you got somewhere. <S> How did you get here so quickly? <S> Well, I got here by bicycle. <S> The road can be dangerous if you travel by bicycle; some drivers don't pay enough attention. <S> "On bicycle" isn't really a valid phrase as it is. <S> "On a/the bicycle" would work. <S> It is used to show that someone or something is physically on top of the bicycle. <S> It's hard to sit on a bicycle that's too large for you. <S> EDIT: <S> He is coming on a bicycle. <S> Please never say this. <S> You'll be laughed at. <S> Not for the grammar -- it is wrong, mind you -- but it's an innuendo. <A> Some people arrived by car, some by bicycle. <S> " on a bicycle" refers to the thing as a surface, something on which to sit: <S> The circus clown was riding on a child's bicycle with another much larger clown sitting on his shoulders. <S> How are the refugees getting to the Arctic Circle? <S> -- They are on bicycle. <A> In standard grammar, we do not use an article or possessive pronoun after"by" before the name of any means of transport. <S> For example, we would say " He came by bicycle" and not " He came by a bicycle or he came by a car." <S> In such cases , "by" must be replaced by prepositions such as "on/in/"or possessive pronouns such as "my/his/her" etc. <S> For example, we can say : He came on a bicycle/ <S> He came in a taxi/ <S> He came in his friend's car etc.
| "on bicycle" refers to the thing as a mode of transport: "by" refers to the thing's instrumentality, the means by which .
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Do the two questions below mean the same? I think you may not have eaten anything for breakfast. I think you would have eaten something for breakfast. Does the second sentence mean : I think you would have eaten something - actually you did not eat something , Am I correct? <Q> The first means that the person thinks that there is a higher chance that you have not eaten anything for breakfast. <S> The second means that he thinks that you would have eaten something, but did not due to some external factor. <S> So, yes you are partially correct for the assumption. <S> I’m not sure if my explanation is enough as will welcome any other suggestions. <A> As with Cipher's answer, they do not mean the same thing. <S> Both questions indicate probability but not on the same intensity as the other. <S> The first sentence says that there is a high possibility that the one being asked did NOT eat anything for breakfast. <S> I guess the second one, in my opinion, is asked on a more personal level since you might have known the person for always eating his breakfast. <A> "I think you would have eaten something for breakfast." <S> - Indicates that "you" were required, somehow, to eat your breakfast. <A> The first question means that the person is not completely sure of his/her assumption. <S> The second question may sound similar as the first, but in my opinion, it means that the person assumed that he/she should have already eaten, but didn't for some reason.
| "I think you may not have eaten anything for breakfast." - Indicates only a possibility that "you" had a probability of eating breakfast, out of personal preference. Firstly, no they don't mean the same thing.
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What are some words I can say to acknowledge or let the other person know that I am listening? I always use "ok" when I talk to my coworkers and want them to know that I listen and understand what they say. I found that it's redundant and repetitive and want to know alternative words that mean the same thing. <Q> Downvotes have made me think over this question and I found that you want words that show that I am listening and understanding (and NOT agreeing) what you're saying. <S> There are many ways. <S> A few of them are here- <S> I see <S> yeah <S> fine got it <S> hmm etc. <A> -Aha (with lips either open or shut!) <S> -I see -ok <S> -following <S> -listening <S> -yes <S> /yep <S> -Oh <S> really? <S> -Got <S> it <S> -Okey Dokey <A> If you're speaking face-to-face, a simple attentive look towards the speaker is sufficient-- <S> you don't have to stare, either. <S> Overdoing it with "okays" and "yeahs" is pretty annoying, in my opinion. <S> When I listen to someone speak, I don't say anything unless they're saying something I actually want to agree with or re-affirm. <S> At that point, I usually say one of the following: <S> Right. <S> [That's] correct. <S> Yes. <S> Yep. <S> Definitely. <S> Absolutely. <S> The other case I would speak is when I have something to correct them on, or disagree with. <S> I am of the view that your actual response to their statements provides better evidence that you are paying close attention than robotically saying "hmm" or "yes" after every other sentence. <S> Hearing other people do that annoys me because I can no longer tell if they are actually listening or just pretending to listen. <A> There are many ways in responding to the speaker's message, verbally and non-verbally. <S> You could say other words such as "yes", "all right", and "sure" being some of them.
| Nodding is the commonly used response and one way of responding to someone talk.
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Spoke and Have Spoken What is the difference between I spoke to him. and I have spoken to him. Does the former mean at this moment and the latter mean it had happened in the past? Appreciate insight into this. <Q> I spoke to him is using the simple past tense , which means the action is over. <S> On the other hand I have spoke to him is using the Present perfect tense . <S> Such tense is usually used when a past action or event is connected with the present. <S> I'd understand you've had several conversations with him and likely will have more. <S> Just bear in mind to use the auxiliary verb for questions: Does the former mean <A> "I spoke to him" (past tense) refers to an event in past time (yesterday, a week ago, a year ago)."I have spoken to him" (present perfect) refers to the momentary situation. <S> A young employee plans to talk with his superior about a pay rise. <S> The father may ask "Have you spoken to him?" <S> (A question referring to the momentary situation). <S> And the answer may be: "Yes, I have spoken to him." <A> I have spoken to him or <S> I've spoken to him -is a present perfect and it used for the action that happened in the past <S> continues in the present . <S> Using time expression. <S> I spoke to him yesterday. <S> I've spoken to him for 3yearsI've spoken to him since 2015 <A> "I have spoken" means "It has already been done" and is coonected with the present situation. "I spoke..." refers to the time completed in the past.
| I spoke to him -is a simple past and it used for the actions that happened in the past.
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How to ask someone's ethnic background without being sound racist? How to ask someone's racial/ ethnic background without being sound racist? For example, you met someone in a cosmopolitan city where most people come from different background although they were born and raised in that country and speak the same language natively, you want to learn about his/her ethnic background ? 1.Direct Question Would you mind if I asked your ethnic background? 2.Question with referring to Do you have any Italian kinship? You know a lot about Italy. In case someone may be half Italian , half other ethnic or only his grandpa/ grandma may be Italian. <Q> I agree with Joe Dark's comment: Where is your family originally from? <S> Additionally, I'll say that a lot depends on the tone of the question. <S> I'm curious about accents, and often ask a person if I can't place his/hers. <S> But knowing that this can be a sensitive issue for some, I often couch the question in some tentativeness: <S> I hope you don't mind my asking, but I'm where's your accent from? <S> For what you want to ask, I'd go with something like what you propose: <S> I hope it's not rude to ask, but you seem to know a lot about Italy; is your family from there? <S> Asking in advance for pardon and giving a reason to be asking will help, particularly if you're showing a genuine interest. <S> But in general, I think you're on the right track simply by being aware that this can be a sensitive question. <A> The last name is usually a strong indicator of their racial background. <S> Asking, "What is your last name? <S> ", they might say Müller or Mohommad or Garcia (the most common last names). <S> Then say it is a common last name and ask "Where are you from?" or "Are you [German/American/Spanish etc…]? <S> " Once you have piqued their interest they will reveal all themselves and often you are not in a puddle! <S> I cannot be right all the time but showing that you are curious and not racist is important. <S> ;) <A> Their last names are usually connected with their ethnicity or origins but that's not always the case, because of inter-race families and other factors. <S> But the safest way I guess would be what the others mentioned, asking where their family is from. <S> You can already get a vague idea of their ethnic background, and if you're lucky, they'll share more things about themselves on their own. <A> You may have to take extra care with the question " <S> Would you mind if I asked your ethnic background? <S> " <S> especially with the casual tone. <S> A good way to say it would probably be, as with everyone else's solutions <S> : "I hope this won't bother you, but may I ask about your last name? <S> ", then the conversation should flow smoothly from there on. <S> For the second question "Do you have any Italian kinship? <S> You know a lot about Italy. <S> ", you may use a friendly gesture, a sort of a surprised expression about the person's vast knowledge of Italy, such as "Wow, you know a lot about Italy. <S> Are you, perhaps, Italian by blood?".
| The safest way is to be polite, and avoid being intrusive of your answers. I can suggest you start by asking their last name.
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the meaning of the phrase 'in the direction of his hat' This time he does go; but giving him, Cromwell, a sort of mock salute, a flourish in the direction of his hat . Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel What is the meaning of the phrase ' in the direction of his hat ' here? <Q> I disagree with the other answers; this refers to the movement of his hand. <S> The phrase 'in the direction of' can be replaced with 'towards', which might make it clearer. <S> Dictionary example <S> A salute is normally a sharp movement of the hand towards the forehead. <S> A mock salute would be a similar movement, and the phrase describes the difference. <S> A flourish, rather than a simple movement, and the hand goes towards the hat instead of towards the forehead. <A> However I am not sure if the hat was in the person's hands or in his head at the time of the gesture. <S> If it were in his hands, then that could mean that he made the gesture in whichever direction he was holding the hat. <S> If it were on top of his head, (which is more likely) then it would simply mean that he made an upward gesture since the hat would be upwards a person's head. <A> I agree with Johann, the direction of his hat simply states the direction where his hat points to. <S> I also agree with his point of the hat being situated on top of his head, since salutes usually face the direction where the hat points to.
| I believe the phrase is to be taken literally: the gesture was done toward the direction where his hat was pointing.
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"I wished I could take her to Turkey" Is the tense correct? I know that wish + could/would is used to refer to future . Now, if the job of wishing took place in the past, do we still use could/would or we change it? I wished I could take her to Turkey, when I looked at her excited face. <Q> If the verb wish is in the past we still use <S> could/would but the meaning would change thusly: <S> I wished I could take her to Turkey. <S> which is quite equivalent to: <S> I wish I could have taken her to Turkey. <S> means that now you describe your regret about that past event. <S> If the present of wish is used: <S> I wish I could take her to Turkey. <S> means that now you express your feelings about this situation which refers to future events. <A> I think the tense is correct since as you said, the "wishing" was in the past. <S> Additionally the "taking to Turkey" was not yet done at the time - this is the future tense that the sentence was referring to, not the wishing. <A> Your sentence gave off the impression of "what could have been" when you talked about the look that you saw in your face. <S> In any case, I would suggest going to this discussion of the usage of "could have" in sentences .
| Based on your sentence, I think that you could have used wished + could have + past participle of the verb.
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Should add a comma after "it turns out"? Example: It turns out(,) religion isn't the best topic for a romantic dinner. I've seen all these two versions: It turns out that X ... As it turns out, X ... How about It turns out ? Does it need a comma? <Q> If you're going to verbalize the statement " <S> It turns out, religion isn't the best topic for romantic dinner" you make a slight pause after the word 'out' before continuing to the next word. <S> I was taught that there should be a comma after the word 'out' since the comma also represents the need for a brief pause. <S> If you're going to put 'that' after 'out' then there's no need for you to include a comma after 'out'. <S> Both of the versions you presented are correct. <A> They are both synonymous, but the word "that" may be replaced by a short stop (the comma). <S> They both denote the effects of a certain topic (X). <S> Also, yes, you do have to indicate a comma after the phrase "it turns out". <A> It turns out is an introductory phrase. <S> Commas follows an introductory phrase preceding the independent clause. <S> It can be short or long. <S> In either case, using a comma separates the sentence's introduction from it's main idea and, thus, makes the sentence easier to read. <S> Example: <S> six days after the warranty expired , the car broke down. <S> A comma must precede the independent clause: religion isn't the best topic for a romantic dinner <S> So it will be: <S> It turns out, religion isn't the best topic for a romantic dinner. <S> It turns out that religion isn't the best topic for a romantic dinner.
| No comma will precede if you use "that" after it turns out .
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