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"Correct me if I'm wrong" I had always had the impression that when people say, "correct me if I'm wrong", their underlying meaning is not to ask for correction but to stress that, "I'm 100% sure of what I'm saying", especially during heated debates. Is that so? Please "correct me if I'm wrong", hahaha. (there will be a follow up question if it is indeed so) <Q> And even in the former case, you can usually assume that the speaker is in fact reasonably open to being corrected. <S> (Though maybe not in a "heated debate"!") <A> I hear "correct me if I'm wrong, [name]" quite often in my office environment. <S> It is used when someone is answering the question that they were asked while at the same time acknowledging that someone else in the conversation may have better knowledge to offer. <S> They might also say "keep me honest, [name]" for the same effect of inviting someone to chime in with additional details or corrections. <A> Generally, "correct me if I am wrong" is mostly heard from people who've come to a particular conclusion from their experience of how earlier instances of how the same situation has played out. <S> There is a reasonable expectation that they're right unless you have a valid clarification/explanation for changing their opinion. <S> Used sarcastically, it could be just a "humbler" way of asserting their stand and expecting you not have a factual opposition to it.
| It's used both ways – it can indeed be an expression of confidence, but it can also be a genuine request for clarification.
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Can collective nouns be plural? Can collective nouns be plural?For example, can I say armies instead of army if I'm talking about different types of armies, or crowds. crowd and army are already plural but can I add an s after them if I'm talking about different armies and crowds? <Q> A collective noun indicates a collection or group, but where there are several different groups, a plural form may be used. <S> France deployed seven armies on its borders at the start of World War One. <S> There are three prides of lions in this nature reserve. <S> There were once four different herds of buffalo in this area. <S> Crowds are prone to mob violence. <S> Nations have no friends, only interests. <S> Let the nations rejoice! <S> (Meaning all the people of the world.) <S> In this period several peoples migrated out of Asia. <S> One of the earliest works of paleontology was a study of The Fossil Fishes . <A> Do not confuse collective nouns (also called group nouns ) with mass nouns (also called uncountable or noncount nouns ). <S> Some collective nouns are mass nouns, but not all. <S> These are different qualities with different implications. <S> When it comes to pluralization, it does not matter whether a noun is collective or not. <S> It only matters whether it is countable or not. <S> In most cases, the groups themselves are also countable, and pluralize normally when there are multiple groups: gaggles , herds , parties , teams , families , and so forth. <S> In other cases, however, the collection is treated as if its components are undifferentiated, as if it were a substance like steel or butter. <S> Collective nouns like coinage , personnel , or foliage are also mass nouns, and mass nouns are not normally pluralized or enumerated. <S> Luggage is more like sand than flock . <S> You can walk somewhere with two flocks of sheep, but you cannot bring two luggages of bags with you, any more than you can picnic on two sands. <S> Army and crowd are collective nouns, but not mass nouns, and it is entirely unexceptional to speak of armies and crowds . <S> Yes, this is another of English's many lists of exceptions upon exceptions, but I would say that collective nouns which are also mass nouns are relatively few in number. <S> I've already named the more common ones, plus staff , signage , baggage , and <S> a few other -age words. <S> What you may be thinking of is the use of a plural verb with a collective noun like army or crowd , done when one emphasizes the individuals in the group as opposed to the group itself: the team are taking the field . <S> This is far more common in British English than in American, to the point where nowadays, many Americans will consider that sentence to be ungrammatical. <S> But that is about pluralization of the verb, not of the noun itself. <A> Yes, absolutely – sentences like " <S> the two armies met on the field of battle" or "crowds of protesters surged into the street" are quite common.
| Collective nouns represent a group of individual items.
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What do you call the diagonal bars as often seen in radio towers? Is there a specific word for these diagonal bars? I doubt engineers would call them diagonal bars since they're widely used in engineering, radio towers and bridges off my head use them. <Q> This is called cross bracing --diagonal supports used to reinforce the structure of a building or bridge or similar. <S> Individually, the bars might be called beams or girders. <A> The overall structure might be called a space frame , although that term is more often used for structures that cover, roof, or enclose an area, rather than support a tower. <S> Still the bascic structure of triangular bracing is similar. <A> Trusses are a Structure that is made from 3 Sides, as the triangle is considered the Strongest Shape to build with. <S> That said, they use it to create Cross-Bracing made up of Members as they are called; Beams or Girders (Horizontal Members), Columns or Posts <S> (Vertical Members) and Panels <S> (Wall/Cover Members). <S> A good truss reference: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/truss
| In Structural Engineering, this kind of building group is called Trusses .
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An natural verb / idiom for "getting by with someone" When you (with difficulty) try to manage or continue to exist in a state or situation where something is lacking (especially money) you use the phrasal verb " get by "; for example: Example: When we were students we got by on very little money. But the question is that what verb/idiom do you normally use when one is living with difficulty with someone who you they don't love? Can we use " get by " here too? For instance, can we say: I don't love him at all, but I have to get by with him at least while my children grow up a bit more. If not, I wonder what would you use instead. <Q> Your meaning will be understood, but that usage is not common. <S> If you're trying to emphasize that you're staying with the person, you could use "stick with." <S> I don't love him at all, but I have to stick with him at least while my children grow up a bit more. <S> I don't love him at all, but I have to make do with him at least while my children grow up a bit more. <S> I don't love him at all, but I have to put up with him at least while my children grow up a bit more. <A> In this context for your example, I would choose a phrase like "make it work with him while...", or "stay with him while..." or "manage while". <S> (I think you may actually be misperceiving just slightly the sense of "got by on very little money"-- <S> it's not quite about persisting while something is lacking, it's more about making do with what you have, or making work what you have.) <A> As you know there are dozens of phrasal verbs with "get". <S> "Get by" implies "making do in difficult circumstances", but it is not really used when talking about relationships with people . <S> Instead, I would use "get along" <S> get along (phrasal verb): <S> 3 : to be or remain on congenial terms I had to find a way to get along with my college roommate, despite the fact that he snored, kept weird hours that interrupted my study time, played loud music, was inordinately fond of garlic in everything, had the worst eating habits imaginable, smelled like a cesspit, and would not stop talking about baseball. <S> Fortunately he dropped out of school at the end of the first semester, otherwise I might still be in jail for his murder. <S> (Edit) "Put up with" is another good option, but it implies somewhat less tolerance than "get along": <S> I put up with my roommate's bad habits, but constantly thought about ways of getting rid of him. <S> Note: BrE includes the phrasal verb "get on" which seems to have a similar meaning. <S> Not being British, I won't try to explain its use in case <S> I get it wrong.
| If you're trying to emphasize that you tolerate the person but don't particularly like him, you could use " put up with ." If you're trying to emphasize that you haven't found anyone better, you could use " make do with ."
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why do people say "get to a model" instead of "get a model"? I am learning this post . The author says By using a model with three variables instead of one, we get to a model with a mean squared error of 19.12 and an R² score of 0.72. That’s definitely a nice improvement! "to" could be used as preposition, so "get to a model" seems to be grammatical. why do people say "get to a model" instead of "get a model"? <Q> Using "to" emphasizes that a new model with a lower error and higher R² score was reached, a sort of accomplishment has occurred. <S> The sentence works fine if the "to" was deleted, it slightly changes the meaning to mean "the result of the modification" <A> Using to emphasises that this is a refinement of a previous model. <S> We have come from a model with one variable and we go to a model with three. <S> It would be possible to say "we get a model with three variables", and if the idea of "refining from a previous model" was not needed, this would be the normal way of saying it. <A> We get a model uses a metaphor of "get" = "acquire", and says nothing about the circumstances of the acquisition. <S> We get to a model <S> uses a different metaphor of "get to" = <S> "reach, attain a destination", and implies that acquiring the model is the end-point of a journey. <A> As mentioned by Colin Fine, "get to" implies motion towards some goal, but the first clause doesn't provide any action; it assumes we are already using the model we are supposedly moving towards. <S> I would write one of the following to be consistent: "By adding two variables to our model, we get to a model ..." <S> That is, we started with a one-variable model, and the act of adding two variables moved usto a model with the new properties. <S> "By using a model with three variables instead of one, we have a model with ..." <S> That is, we don't dwell on "how" we arrived a three-variable model; we have one, and we state what its desirable properties are.
| It adds the sense that we have reached the improved model.
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Single word for either home or away In relation to sports, for example a football (soccer) match, a team can either play home or away. For a database design I am looking for a single word to denote this "property", where a team plays, but am struggling to find such a word. Does anyone here have a suggestion? <Q> "Host" with values true or false would work nicely in your case. <S> And since you are building a database, then a bit field is the best, since it takes the least amount of disk space. <S> Also if that field is supposed to tell you at whose stadium the game took place at, so it means which team hosted the game. <S> Hence host is the simplest and easiest to understand name of the field in your database. <S> UPDATE: <S> Another choice is to make this field called "Location" and input as arguments the name of the team that owns the stadium, or the name of the stadium. <A> (sports) <S> the team that plays at home (in their own stadium) <S> Antonyms <S> away side <S> (source: YourDictionary.com ) <S> Even if the teams play on neutral ground (for instance during the World Cup), one of the teams is usually the 'virtual' home team and mentioned first in the schedule. <A> In American English, "site" would be the best choice. <S> I say this because there are actually three choices: "home", "away", and "neutral site". <S> "Site" is the standard noun for "neutral" to modify in this context. <S> "Site" is a conveniently short name. <S> For purposes of database results, "neutral site" can be abbreviated to "neutral" or "neither". <S> For purposes of database storage, "home", "away", and "neutral" can be abbreviated to arbitrary letters or numbers. <S> For example, "H", "A", and "N". <S> You might want to have a fourth value (or null) to indicate that the site is unknown. <S> Some stadiums host multiple teams in the same sport. <S> For example, the NFL's New York Giants and New York Jets play at the same stadium in New Jersey. <S> They play a game against each other in roughly one out of four years. <S> Some leagues pretend that every game has both a home team and an away team, even if the game is physically at a neutral site. <S> Which team is the theoretical home team can affect the colors of jerseys that the players wear, which team's season ticket holders get priority to attend the game, who is responsible for hosting the game if the neutral site cannot , and how many of the team's other games can be actual home games. <S> In baseball games, some of the rules depend on which team is the home team. <S> Thus, you might want to avoid having a single field for "site". <S> You could instead have a "Home" or "IsHome" (or "Away" or "IsAway") boolean field, which indicates which team is the theoretical home (or away) team, and have another "Neutral" or "NeutralSite" boolean field that indicates whether the site is actually at a place that both teams are similarly (un-)familiar with.
| You could use side ; both home side and away side (with or without hyphen) are common designations: home-side Noun (plural home sides)
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Can you apprehend something instead of someone? Can the verb "apprehend" used to mean "to check"? I'm asking this because because I came across this sentence in my book: Apprehending social and communal disharmony, the government banned Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh RSS and Jamait-e-Islami. I think the author is trying to convey the sense of "check" through "apprehend"? Am I right? Because I didn't find any dictionary describing this usage of the verb. <Q> apprehend (v): 1. <S> Arrest (someone) for a crime. <S> 2. <S> Understand or perceive. <S> As with any "educated" vocabulary (in any language), using "apprehend" instead of "understand" in casual conversation may be considered erudite by some, but pretentious by others. <S> You have to know your audience, and where it sounds appropriate. <S> However it's not uncommon to see it written in articles, literature, essays, academic journals, and similar media. <S> That being said, I personally think this use in the example in your book is awkward. <S> While "apprehend" can mean "perceive", the government isn't just noticing the social disharmony. <S> It would be more natural to say that the government is expecting and avoiding social disharmony by preemptively banning these two, e.g.: <S> Anticipating social and communal disharmony, the government banned ... <S> or, alternately, that they are defusing the situation by banning the people they consider responsible: <S> Responding to social and communal disharmony, the government banned ... <S> There are many other ways to describe the situation, but I would be unlikely to use "apprehending" to do so. <S> Side note: "Comprehend" is a synonym for "understand" that (as Nic Hartley says) is slightly more educated but still very common. <S> Again, it's not a word I would use in this context, but it's a lot less fancy than "apprehend". <A> The usual meaning of "apprehend" is "understand or perceive". <S> (dictionary link) <S> So I would interpret the sentence to mean "Understanding (how they could cause) social disharmony ... <S> " <S> It doesn't mean "check", it means "get hold of" either physically or mentally. <A> A third meanign of "apprehend", as listed at dictionary.com , at Collins , at Wiktionary , at The free dictionary , and at Lexico is to expect with anxiety, suspicion, or fear; anticipate: apprehending violence. <S> The free dictionary and Lexico list this sense as "archaic", the others do not, and I don't think it is at all archaic. <S> This sense is connected with 'apprehensive" = fearful. <S> Some dictionaries do not give this sense at all. <S> It is exactly this sense that is being used here. <A> Although "apprehending" and "apprehensive" are obviously related, I'm certain that the vast majority of fluent English speakers would consider this particular usage to be incorrect or at least unfamiliar, although it has been identified as an "archaic" usage in this related answer <S> Can you apprehend something instead of someone? . <S> At the very least, one can say that this usage is so rare that other meanings of "apprehending" come to mind first and tend to confuse the reader.
| It seems like the author is using the word "apprehending" to mean "being apprehensive of".
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What does the phrase "That's all there is to it" exactly mean? Please explain also grammar behind that Here is the quote from series "Sherlock" s04e01: — You say he filmed that video message before he died? — Yes. — You also say you know what he's going to do next. What does that mean? (Another person:) — Perhaps that's all there is to it . Perhaps he was just trying to frighten you. Does that generally mean "that's all/that's finished"? If yes, then what is the purpose of the second part of this sentence ("there is to it")? And maybe I misunderstand it completely. The subtitles didn't contain any punctuation marks, that's also confusing. Could you explain this phrase in pieces, please? Thank you <Q> "All that there is to it" means "All that goes into making it" - here in the sense of "all that it amounts to" or "all the substance in it". <S> So "That's all that there is to it" means "There is nothing else to it" or "there is no nothing further to be found in it". <S> Here probably "There is no further explanation or significance to it". <S> The only other use of the idiom that I can think of is <S> "There's nothing to it", meaning that there is no significance, or substance, or difficulty, to whatever it is. <A> "to" is highly idiomatic there, and means something like "in relation to". <S> The speaker admits that that is all he <S> / <S> she knows about it. <S> The sentence can be interpreted as coming from " there is nothing else to be added to it". <S> If there is nothing else, then " that's all there is (in relation) to it". <A> When explaining a simple procedure, or telling a simple story, you can say "That's all there is to it" when you're done, which means, "We're done. <S> Wasn't that simple?" <S> Here it means, " <S> Perhaps there's nothing more to the story (the story has ended). <S> Perhaps he's simply dead <S> and there's nothing else going on." <S> Also see: <S> "there's not much to it" = <S> "it's pretty simple" "(there's) nothing to it" <S> = <S> "it's very simple" "there's a lot to it" = <S> "it's complicated" "there's much more to it than that" = <S> "it's more complicated than that"
| "that's all there is to it" means that there's nothing else that can be added in relation to that (whatever "that" is).
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What does the phrase "building hopping chop" mean here? Here is a sentence from an endless runner game: Building hopping chops is a good strategy to avoid unexpected dangers. The player is advised to leap to the side when she sees any danger or goes near a risky corner. <Q> "Chops" is a term for technical skill. <S> It's usually used when referring to a musician's ability with their instrument, but in this case the game is referring to your skill in hopping as your "hopping chops". <S> It's telling you that a good strategy to avoid unexpected dangers is to get good at quickly hopping to the side. <A> In the context, building - refers to to increase or strengthen by adding gradually to. <S> Given your definition of hopping chops (not, to my ear, a phrase outside of the game), I would interpret the phrase to mean that the player should perform hopping chops one after another to increase their strength. <S> This may consist of holding the key down to build up strength, or to repeatedly press the key (the way you might press space multiple times to jump higher in most games). <S> It does, however, sound like this is pretty specific to the game. <S> You might consider posting on the gaming stack exchange! <A> Perhaps it is a combination of these two other answers. <S> Perhaps "chops" refers to a skill. <S> "Building" refers to increasing, and so "Building hopping chops" is referring to the process of improving one's skill: learning to hop better. <S> If someone were to ask "What is a good strategy for avoiding danger? <S> " <S> The answer could be that you should improve your hopping skills because hopping is a good way of getting out of danger.
| In this case "hopping chops" refers to the player's skill in hopping.
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The meaning of more than in mathematics In a mathematical question it is stated as follows. On Monday I sold 15 cows and today 5 more than on Monday. How many did I sell today? The question is one of ambiguity. Does 5 more refer to a separate sale thus only the 5 or does more than mean a total of what is sold today and on Monday? What would be the best way to phrase the question so that it clearly refers only to the 5 sold today. <Q> You've misunderstood the question, perhaps because the repeated verb is elided. <S> There weren't only five cows sold today, there were twenty. <S> It's not " <S> How many [cows] did I sell today? <A> On Monday I sold 15 cows and today 5 more than on Monday. <S> This one is absolutely clear. <S> Today I sold five more cows than fifteen, that's twenty cows today. <S> On Monday I sold 15 cows and today 5 more. <S> This one is absolutely unclear. <S> It could mean "today I sold a further five cows", <S> that's five cows today. <S> Or it could mean the same as the first sentence, twenty cows today. <S> You should avoid sentences like this. <A> You can't. <S> The number five is meaningless without being able refer to the original value of cows sold on Monday. <S> When the person says "5 more than on Monday", they are saying that 20 sold "today". <S> Cows sold on monday: 15 Cows sold today: 5 cows + cows sold on monday 20 total cows sold today = <S> cows sold on monday (15) + five more cows (5) When saying "5 more than" some value, we will always need to reference the value to "derive" the correct value. <S> The best way to cut ambiguity would be to simple say the actual value instead of saying it in a way where we would have to reference what we sold on Monday. <S> "I sold 15 cows on Monday and 20 today"
| Today I sold 5 cows," it's "5 more than on Monday" With the elision: On Monday I sold 15 cows and today [I sold] 5 more [cows] than [the number of cows I sold] on Monday .
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Would it be wrong to say: "I am wrong!"? Should I say: "I am wrong!" or "I am mistaken!"? I, as a person, am not wrong for sure! What I did/tell/do could be 'wrong'! Please, explain! <Q> I think that you're mixing two different and perfectly fine meanings of the same word. <S> According to the Cambridge Dictionary <S> wrong adjective (NOT CORRECT) <S> A2 <S> If someone is wrong , they are not correct in their judgment or statement about something. <S> You were wrong about the time - the bank closed at 3.30. <S> He's wrong in thinking that we will support the project financially. <S> wrong adjective (NOT WORKING) <S> B1 <S> [ after verb ] not working correctly Something's wrong with the television - the picture's fuzzy. <S> The doctors are still trying to find out what's wrong. <S> You as a human being may be perfectly healthy ["working" fine - NOT B1] <S> but still you may be wrong <S> [not correct - A2] in some of your judgements or beliefs. <S> mistaken adjective C1 <S> wrong in what you believe, or based on a belief that is wrong <S> I was mistaken and <S> I was wrong <S> are synonymous if you want to express that your judgment was not correct. <S> As pointed by @Smock, you can say either. <A> They are not synonyms: <S> I am wrong includes more kinds of error than <S> I am mistaken . <S> mistaken is only for matters of fact, perception, logic <S> etc <S> wrong can be used for those kinds of errors, but also for use with values and other moral positions: any kind of error. <S> Some examples <S> : You are wrong in punishing him, it didn't matter (moral error) <S> You are mistaken in punishing him, he is innocent (factual error) <S> He is wrong to charge £100 (could be any reason, including greed, typing wrong numbers, anything) <S> He is mistaken to charge £100 (could only be errors of fact, typing wrong numbers etc) <S> I am the wrong man, officer, you should find the real killer (Police looking for killer, but I am not him. <S> Very common theme in Hitchcock films .) <S> OED has dozens of entries for <S> wrong including: "Of persons: deviating from integrity, rectitude, or probity; doing or prone to do that which is evil, noxious, or unjust; opprobrious, vicious." <S> "Not in consonance with facts or truth; incorrect, false, mistaken." <S> It is wider than mistaken <S> which has only three non-obsolete entries <S> : "Wrongly conceived, entertained, or carried out; erroneous." "Of a person or persons: having a wrong opinion or judgement; labouring under a misapprehension." <S> "Of a person's identity: with regard to which a mistake is or has been made." <S> Just to be clear: these can be considered subtle differences. <S> (For those interested, the philosopher JL Austin covered these kinds of issues in his book How to do things with words , 1955, easily found online.) <A> If you're not sure <S> you are wrong, and you just want to say that you realize you might be wrong, you can say any of these: I could be wrong. <S> Maybe I'm wrong. <S> I'm just guessing. <S> Don't quote me on that. <S> Your sentences... <S> I am wrong. <S> I am mistaken. <S> ... are grammatical and idiomatic, but <S> they mean you think you definitely are wrong. <S> You could also say: I stand corrected. <S> My mistake. <S> My bad.
| If you are in error, you can certainly say either.
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What does "White bordered canvas" mean? Does "white bordered canvas" mean "bordered canvas whose color is white" or canvas whose border is white"? Since it's not "white-bordered canvas", I think the former one is correct, but I am not sure. It's a name of a product, and I couldn't find a picture for this. <Q> " <S> Compare the examples of hyphenated compound modifiers given here , especially "load-bearing walls" and "quick-witted boy." <S> If it's a white canvas with a border of unspecified color, that could be "white, bordered canvas" (note the comma , which is not present in your example). <S> However, I think most native speakers would be more inclined to use "white canvas with a border"; I certainly would. <S> Additionally, in most contexts it would be rather odd to describe a canvas this way without specifying the color of the border. <S> Therefore, I think it's fairly safe to assume that the writer means "white-bordered canvas" – a canvas with a white border. <A> It could mean either. <S> Since this refers to the border, rather than the frame, I am struggling to see what practical difference there is, though. <S> I suppose it depends on whether the rest of the context makes it clear whether this is a fresh, unused canvas, or already has a picture on it. <S> If the former, then it can only reasonably be said to have a white border if the main body of the canvas is another colour, which basically brings us back round again. <A> If someone says they'll sell you a "white bordered canvas" picture of your wedding, for example, you're probably being offered something like this... <S> Most likely the actual image in that example has been printed (from a photographic original) onto canvas or similar material, which is then pinned (at the back, which we can't see) to a wooden "canvas stretcher" . <S> The canvas itself is normally painted completely white before adding the printed image. <S> A real hand-painted oil picture on canvas would start off as a sheet of canvas stretched on a frame like that anyway, so it gives the appearance of being something painted by an artist friend of the couple, just taken off his easel. <S> (Note that many people would call actually that a "frameless" or "borderless" picture.)
| If it's a canvas (of unspecified color) that has a white border, that should be "white-bordered canvas.
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"I am [the / an] owner of a bookstore"? I'm drafting a letter of invitation for someone. And one sentence goes: "I am [the / an] owner of a bookstore" - which article shall I use? <Q> If the bookstore you own has only one owner (you), then, "I am the owner of a bookstore. <S> " is correct. <S> If there are other owners of that bookstore (i.e. you are a co-owner ), then you should say, "I am an owner of a bookstore." <S> The indefinite article, " a " is for one among other(s), and the definite article " the " is for naming one when there are no others. <A> It depends on context. <S> If you are talking about a particular bookstore <S> then it depends on whether you are the sole owner or a part owner. <S> If you are the only owner of that bookstore: I am the owner of a bookstore if you and other people jointly own it: I am an owner of a bookstore <S> These fragments would likely then contain more specific information about that particular bookstore, for example: <S> I am the owner of a bookstore located in Main Street ... <S> If you are talking about yourself : <S> I am an owner of a bookstore <S> This is correct if you are the sole owner. <S> If you and other people jointly own it, you would say something like: I am a part-owner of a bookstore. <S> In this case the remainder of the sentence would likely contain information about you, for example: <S> I am an owner of a bookstore who thinks small businesses are unfairly taxed . <A> If you introduce yourself by mentioning your occupation (what I am): I am an engineer. <S> A step towards your example: I am a bookstore owner. <S> The article 'a' above defines the noun 'owner'. <S> Next step (considering it's still about your occupation, not a particular store): I am an owner of a bookstore. <A> As most of the other answers have pointed out, <S> if you are the only owner of the bookstore, you'd normally say "I'm the owner of a bookstore. <S> " If you jointly owned it, you'd normally say "I'm an owner of a bookstore." <S> Having said that, most people you're talking to probably don't care whether you're a sole owner or joint owner, so "I'm the owner of a bookstore" is mostly going to be OK even if there are other owners. <S> Most of the time, all you need to do is linking the concepts of "I", "bookstore" and "owner". <S> But there are also cases where you might use "an owner", even if you're the only one. <S> Suppose, for example, that you wanted to go to a trade fair for bookstore owners. <S> At the door, the security guard says to you, "I'm sorry only bookstore owners can come in. <S> " You might respond " <S> But I am an owner of a bookstore!" <S> The point here is that you're saying you're a member of the category "bookstore owners" and you're not the only member of that category, so "a" is more appropriate. <S> Even in this case, "But I am the owner of a bookstore!" <S> would be fine – you're focusing on your bookstore, rather than bookstores in general, and the meaning is still "I own a bookstore, so let me in."
| Like most things, it depends on context.
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What is the correct word for someone rotating into a rotation? We have people at work rotating into our group through a rotation program. I call the people rotating in/out "rotatees" but MS Word and apparently StackExchange puts red squigglies underneath that word so I'm wondering what is the correct word for someone rotating in and out of our group in a professional, work sense. They have their feature team that they work with but for now, all new employees under 1 yr exp with the company come thru our team to learn some debugging and routing skills for a 6 week period. I don't know think they see themselves as a separate identifiable group when they come into my team, they just see themselves as serving time with us for 6 wks before they go back to what they were hired to do. <Q> "Rotatee" has some usage. <S> In the armed forces, soldiers are "rotated" out of combat duty, such people are called rotatees. <S> However, the amount of use is very low, and most dictionaries have not picked up the word (perhaps because it is a common misspelling of "rotates") <S> So you can go on using "rotatees" (if everybody on your team now understands the term). <S> It might be a bit company jargon but that is okay. <S> Or you can use a longer descriptive phrase such as "colleagues who have joined the team on rotation", or "short term team members" (there are lots of possibilities) <A> <A> Consider the word shift . <S> According to The Free Dictionary , definition #2 as a noun: <S> 2. <S> a. <S> A group of workers that relieve another on a regular schedule. <S> b. <S> The working period of such a group: worked the night shift. <A> You could perhaps call them peripatetic workers. <S> peripatetic - travelling from place to place, in particular working or based in various places for relatively short periods Oxford Dictionary of English
| You could call them " temporary assignees "
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"can not show up" v. "can not to show up" You don't get that choice. Yeah, you can not show up, and you might have a flexible work environment, but there's still the social pressure of, 'My desk is sitting empty while everybody else's in the office.'” Source Methinks the latter is correct. I cannot find anything with regards to using to after can not in any dictionary. Is there any rule with regards to the usage of to with not after a modal verb? If so, does it apply in the same manner to can not and cannot or can't ? With respect to the quoted sentence there would a semantic difference between can not show up and cannot show up , and this difference, in turn, makes me think that I should use to after can not . <Q> You cannot show up. <S> This means you won’t be able to show up, or that you shouldn’t show up. <S> You can not show up. <S> This means you can choose to be a no-show, and is what the article is saying. <S> You can learn to dance. <S> You can dance to music. <S> You can march to the beat of a different drummer. <S> These are all grammatically correct, and the “to” is following a verb. <S> In the first sentence, the “to” is part of the infinitive “to dance”; in the following two sentences; the “to” is a preposition. <S> You can not to show up. <S> As others have said, this is not a grammatical sentence. <S> The words “can not to” can be used in sequence, but the structure goes something like this : Facebook will do whatever it can not to mess it up. <S> which could also be reworded as: <S> Facebook will do whatever it can to not mess it up. <A> "Can not show up" is correct here. <S> In fact "Can not to" would not be correct, unless the syntax was different; for example: They are doing everything they can not to alienate their users. <A> As you mentioned, after modal verbs (can, could, would should, ...) we are not allowed to use to . <S> Instead, we need to use the simple tense of the verb.
| So, here using to after can is incorrect and "Can not show up" is correct.
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What verb goes with "coup"? The coup was ______ in this country by the United States. It was indeed United States that ______ the coup in this country. If the problems take a turn to the worse, then the army would ______ a coup. I want a verb for the blanks. In the above contexts, the United States or the army are meant to be the main agency in doing the coup. I thought about run/ran and set . Are these idiomatic suggestions? Any better suggestions? <Q> to produce or cause to happen for public view or public effect <S> // stage a track meet // <S> stage a hunger strike <S> (source: Merriam-Webster ) <S> In cases like this, an NGram search is often helpful. <S> (The * basically means "find the words most used at that position" and <S> _VERB specifies you're only looking for verbs.) <S> Here, we can see that stage is the most commonly used verb. <S> Of course, you do need to pay attention to what the words actually mean; other top hits like plan and attempt mean something else. <A> While the term stage in Glorfindel's answer is widely applicable, it implies primarily the planning and preparation for a coup and not necessarily success. <S> Less common but used to refer specifically to the actions involved to carry out the plan <S> is execute a coup , which does imply success. <S> M-W : to carry out fully : put completely into effect // execute a command <S> In the case of your example, it's possible that a coup might be staged by the United States but executed by some local organization. <A> Another possibility is to orchestrate a coup . <S> or‧ches‧trate /ˈɔːkəstreɪt <S> $ ˈɔːr-/ <S> verb [transitive] (written) to organize an important event or a complicated plan, especially secretly <S> Example: <S> The riots were orchestrated by anti-government forces. <S> (Source: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ) <A> "Mount" is an alternative to "stage" stage/lead/ <S> mount a coup <S> Macmillan Dictionary stage/mount/launch a coup <S> Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English to stage/mount a coup <S> Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: English <S> It is considerably less common on Google Ngrams though. <A> What word to use there depends on what you want to say. <S> The term "stage" implies that the entity in question actually performed the coup. <S> For a outside party that has less of a direct role, there's "instigate" instigate : to goad or urge forward : PROVOKE https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/instigate or "back" : to support by material or moral assistance backing a candidate for governor —often used with up back up a friend in a fight https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/back <A> I believe coups are engineered . <A> Foment - "instigate or stir up (an undesirable or violent sentiment or course of action)." <A>
| You stage a coup, like the documentary How to Stage a Coup . Depending upon your intended exact meaning, you could use "precipitate," "catalyze," or "encourage."
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What is the meaning of "it" in "as luck would have it"? What is the meaning of "it" in the following sentences? Our car broke down on the road, but as luck would have it , there was a garage nearby. I arrived a little late and, as luck would have it , the last ticket had just been sold. (Source: Merriam-Webster dictionary) Does sentence 1 mean "Our car broke down on the road, but that our car broke down on the road would have as luck, there was a garage nearby" ? Does sentence 2 mean "I arrived a little late and, that I arrived a little late would have as luck, the last ticket had just been sold" ? Does it in sentence 1 mean "Our car broke down on the road" ? Does it in sentence 2 mean "I arrived a little late"? Is "as luck would have it" the inversion of "it would have as luck" ? <Q> As luck would have it , in the Merriam-Webster entry referenced, is an idiom : as luck would have it idiom <S> Idioms are set phrases, whose components are often not completely analyzable. <S> (They may have a meaning that is based on their entirety rather than the sum of their parts.) <S> If it were to be analyzed, it would likely be an elided version of the following: <S> As luck would have it be . <S> I would further say that it acts as a dummy pronoun in the same sense that it does in <S> it is raining . <S> The use of it isn't referring to something specific, but is merely acting to preserve the grammatical integrity of the sentence. <S> It is raining. <S> → <S> ✘ Raining is raining. <S> As luck would have it , our car broke down. <S> → ✘ Our car broke down, our car broke down. <A> In English, the pronoun it has what is called a dummy usage . <S> Here, the it is a direct object with no specific meaning. <S> It adds a certain fluency to the phrase. <S> Some might argue that it stands for something like "the situation". <S> Those are technical arguments. <S> They are found here: dummy pronoun on Wikipedia <S> They are very often subjects but can also be objects or predicates. <A> Consider this example: <S> Question: <S> How will you have your coffee? <S> Black? <S> Answer: I will have it with milk and sugar please. <S> "having something/it" relates to preferences or choices. <S> In the original quote, "it" means "the general situation". <S> "as luck would have it" -> "as luck would choose to have things in this situation" , where Luck is a personified character. <A> The other answers (so far) do a good job of explaining the usage of "it" but they don't explain your specific examples. <S> #1 could be rewritten as "Our car broke down, but luckily there was a garage nearby". <S> In other words, you were fortunate enough to break down near a garage. <S> #2 could be " <S> I arrived a little late, and unfortunately the last ticket had just been sold". <S> In this case, luck was not on your side -- "as luck would have it" is neither positive nor negative, but is simply saying that luck played a role in the outcome of events. <S> Personally, for #2 I'd prefer " <S> I arrived a little late and, just my luck , the last ticket had just been sold". <S> "Just my luck" is another idiomatic expression for when something unlucky/unfortunate has happened to you. <S> If it helps you to understand the meaning, you can probably substitute "as if by fate" in most examples of "as luck would have it" (assuming you are willing to accept that luck and fate are pretty much the same). <S> That gets rid of the troublesome "it" and still conveys the same message: that invisible powers beyond your control seem to have conspired to make something happen, for better or for worse.
| In short, it is a pronoun that doesn't point to anything in particular; it's simply there for the syntax of the sentence.
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My stuff keeps getting stuck between the little space (backrest and where you sit on the sofa) There is a little space between the backrest and cushion of the sofa (where people sit), and things might slip into that little region. So what will be a natural way to describe that? My things keep slipping into the sofa. My question is different because the linked question was about "what's the crack called" But my question was about "something fallen into it and expressing that idea naturally... " <Q> There are many, many written examples of things being... <S> lost down the back of the sofa ... <S> and I'd say that's the most common phrasing (unless you're from a social class that sits on settees or couches , in which case substitute your preferred term). <A> [of a couch or sofa] behind the cushions <S> You lose it there or find it there. <S> [horizontal] <S> Or: stuff gets stuck in the space between the two parts of the back of the couch. <S> [vertical] <S> I said "loose change" because typically, that's what is found there. <S> It's easy to google. <A> Brits might say "down the back of a sofa" It is often worth thrusting one's hand down the back (or side) of old sofas and armchairs. <S> They had a face value of a few pounds only, but they were in collectable condition and I sold them to an antique dealer for about 10 times face value. <S> A good find in 1975. <S> Also you often find coins and such things as tools (e.g. screwdrivers), knives (careful!), table cutlery, pens, etc. <S> 7 <S> Weird Things Found Down the Back of Sofas
| Loose change gets behind or falls behind the cushions. I once found some old (1920s) UK bank notes like that.
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What do you call the motor that fuels the movement of a robotic arm? What do you call the motor that fuels the movement of a robotic arm? Is there a word that applies to all robots and not just some of them. I can't remember the word that was used. I am also talking about all movements or anything that requires energy including maintaining the robotic arm's position. <Q> I believe this is normally called a "servo", short for "servomechanism": servomechanism (n): In control engineering a servomechanism, sometimes shortened to servo, is an automatic device that uses error-sensing negative feedback to correct the action of a mechanism. <S> 1 <S> It usually includes a built-in encoder or other position feedback mechanism to ensure the output is achieving the desired effect. <S> 2 <S> Note: <S> We don't say a servo "fuels" the movement of a robot arm. <S> The verb "fuel" (or "power") is used to describe the power source for engines which require some kind of external fuel . <S> Servos can be fueled/powered by a variety of sources. <S> Electric is probably most common, but other options are such things as hydraulic or steam power. <S> (Edit) moooeeeep also suggests "actuator", which seems equally valid: actuator (n): <S> An actuator is a component of a machine that is responsible for moving and controlling a mechanism or system, for example by opening a valve. <S> In simple terms, it is a "mover". <S> If you're asking for the purpose of writing science fiction, then either is fine. <S> I've seen both used. <S> "Actuator" seems to be more commonly used when talking about a mechanism's design: <S> "Built into the inside of the suit was a weblike network of miniature actuators <S> that made contact with my skin every few centimeters" - Ready Player One , Ernest Cline and "servo" seems to be used when talking about a mechanism's movement: <S> "The robot's servos kicked in immediately, buzzing erratically ... attempting to lock onto the source of the noise" - Dome City Blues , Jeff Edwards <A> In many robots, the motor is a " stepper motor ". <S> A stepper motor is designed to move a specific number of steps, based on an electrical input. <A> What about an actuator ? <S> : one that actuates specifically : a mechanical device for moving or controlling something <A> Servos and Steppers are specific types of motors that are generally found on robotic arm joints, but in robotics a moving joint is called an axis . <S> A typical industrial robot might have six axes, each with its own motor.
| Instead we would say the servo "drives" the movement of a robot arm.
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What do you call the angle of the direction of an airplane? What do you call the angle of the direction of an airplane? I am thinking of "tilt" or "slant", but I am not if there's a more specific word for planes. I am thinking there's a more technical word for it, but I am not sure. For example: The pilot changed the tilt of the aircraft nose by pushing the joystick forward. <Q> I believe these are the appropriate technical terms, and more can be read here . <S> But an airplane has 3 angles that can vary, but the one you are specifically referring to is pitch . <S> The closest dictionary defintion I found was in CED : <S> the amount of slope, especially of a roof <A> The direction that an (air)plane or a (sea)ship is pointing to is called heading : <S> the compass direction in which the longitudinal axis of a ship or aircraft points <S> The direction that an (air)plane or a (sea)ship is moving is called course : the direction of travel of a vehicle (such as a ship or airplane) <S> 1 <S> Heading and course can be different when there is wind (or when there is a water current in the case of a ship). <S> "Heading" and "course" are expressed in cardinal directions (i.e. "north/south/west/east") or degrees of rotation relative to the north (e.g. "heading 90 degrees" and "heading east" are synonyms). <S> These are measured on a horizontal (geometric) plane , (i.e. a surface which is perpendicular to the direction of gravity). <S> The "up/down" direction that an airplane is pointing to relative to the horizontal plane is called pitch angle: <S> The pitch axis [...] <S> has its origin at the center of gravity and is directed to the right, parallel to a line drawn from wingtip to wingtip. <S> Motion about this axis is called pitch. <S> The "up/down" direction that an airplane is moving relative to the air around is called angle of attack : [...] <S> the angle between a reference line on a body [...] and the vector representing the relative motion between the body and the fluid through which it is moving. <S> The "up/down" direction that an airplane is moving relative to the ground is called angle of climb : <S> The angle of climb can be defined as the angle between a horizontal plane representing the Earth's surface and the actual flight path followed by the aircraft during its ascent. <S> Note that the angle of climb depends on the ratio between horizontal distance traveled and the change in altitude , which is usually relative to mean sea level <S> (I say "usually" because there is more than one way to define what "zero altitude" means ). <A> You may be looking for the word attitude , which is the orientation of the airplane in all three axes (pitch, roll, and yaw). <S> Pitch is the nose up/down angle of the plane, roll is the bank angle of the wings, and yaw is the nose left/right angle. <S> Note that this should not be confused with altitude , which is the height of the airplane either above sea level or above the the surface over which the aircraft is flying. <A> Depending on how technical you want the word to be, you might also want to use Angle of attack . <S> This angle is the angle of the plane relative to the fluid(air) through which it is moving. <S> While the word is usually applied to the wings themselves, it does also apply to whole crafts. <S> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_attack for a more complete/correct explanation. <A> However, if there is wind blowing from the side, the actual direction the plane is travelling in will be slightly or significantly different from its heading, depending how strong the wind is.
| The direction that an aeroplane is pointing in is called its heading .
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What does 'commission' mean in context? I don't understand what do 'for commissions / to commission' mean in contexts from 2 different sorces. I am an oil painter who works particularly with portraits and other subject matter. I am available for commissions and my other work is for sale on here. I think I want to commission a few illustrations for our work one of which is a variation on the yin yang. <Q> Commissions are commonly accepted as the term for "requests", when asking an artist (or other content creator) to create a piece of art specifically for you, usually based on your specifications, ideas or designs. <S> Since being an artist or content creator is commonly regarded as a profession , rather than a hobby, there is an expectation of commercial cost to a commission. <S> If the artist "does commissions", they are saying that they will accept requests for art, and will create that art in exchange for money. <S> If the artist is "available for commissions", they are saying that they currently have the time (or, more likely, are actively looking) to take on these requests for art and expect to be paid at an agreed rate. <S> A patron who requests a piece of art or content, to a given specification, can be said to have "commissioned" it, so <S> "I want to commission a few illustrations" <S> is effectively, <S> "I want to ask an artist to make special images for my needs and will pay them to do so. <S> " <S> Note that this is different from someone who purchases a piece of art that already existed, because they like the particular piece (or see potential future value in it), which is why the artist's statement also states that their "other work is for sale" . <S> The pieces for sale are likely ones that the artist has chosen to design and create themselves, or previous attempts at commissions that a patron did not choose to buy; while a commissioned piece is one that the patron has designed or described for the artist to create. <A> An artistic commission (noun) is an agreement, consisting of an offer made to an artist, and accepted by them, to pay for a specified piece of work to be done. <S> The verb means to make such an offer and have it accepted by the other party. <S> It is a form of contract. <S> There are legal aspects. <S> For example, UK law does not require agreements between consenting adults to be made by any particular method or form in order to be valid and binding. <S> So long as the parties to a deal express their intention to be bound to perform the mutual promises they have exchanged, the law will normally back the deal and, if necessary, the courts will order any defaulting party to fulfil their promises or pay compensation in default. <S> Even if it’s merely verbal, with no witnesses present, it’s good enough. <S> ‘I’ll give you £50 to paint my portrait’; ‘O.K.’ – those words will do. <A> The verb "commission" is not restricted to the context of requesting artists to produce some work of art. <S> In public administration in the UK is is widely used in the context of one public body requesting/requiring somebody - a contractor, or another public body - to do something. <S> The whole principle on which the National Health Service in England is organised is that there are commissioners of health services who look to other organisations to provide those services. <S> The idea is that in that way one can restrict the extent to which the providers of services dictate which services are provided and at what cost - the so-called producer-bias. <S> At one time I held a post in which I was legally permitted to carry out investigations into anything I thought fit. <S> As might be imagined such investigations did not always go down well with the politicians whose work was being investigated. <S> The question they sometimes asked was "Who commissions [me]?". <S> The answer was:"he does". <A> To add on to the other answers: Be aware in the first example, "commission" is a noun . <S> It's common to say someone " takes a commission" to do some art project. <S> In the second example, "commission" is a verb . <S> For the exact definition, we can check the dictionary: <S> commission <S> (n): a formal request to do a special piece of work for payment: <S> She received a commission to paint the governor’s portrait. <S> (v): to choose someone to do a piece of work, or to have a piece of work done: <S> The newspaper commissioned a series of articles on the fashion industry.
| An artist who "takes commissions" can be "commissioned" by someone else (to do an art project).
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Are "confidant" and "confident" homophones? Both sound like /-dənt/ to me. Etymology : confidant comes to English from the French word confident , and when the word first entered our language it was often spelled that way, rather than as confidant . So they were actually the same word. Do we really need to tell a difference between them? <Q> I pronounce the two words differently. <S> I happen to be a native speaker of American English whose father studied French extensively and whose mother taught French -- but I do not know French myself. <S> I pronounce "confident" as "CONfidint", much like jimbobmcgee 's transcription . <S> I pronounce the last syllable of "confidant" the way I pronounce the first syllable of "Ontario", or the way some people pronounce "aunt". <S> In other words, it rhymes with "want". <A> The vowel in the "confidant" is more heavily pronounced/ˈkɒnfɪdant,ˌkɒnfɪˈdant,ˌkɒnfɪˈdɑːnt/ <S> There are various pronunciations that are possible, the second syllable is often stressed, but even if not it is a clear vowel /a/ <S> In confident the last vowel is reduced to a schwa, and never stressed. <S> In fact it is so reduced that it is hardly pronounced at all. <S> /ˈkɒnfɪd(ə)nt/ <S> But the words are distinguished by syntax. <A> I would say that, while they do sound similar enough in casual usage, they are definitely not the same word. <S> " Confident " is an adjective that describes someone having the feeling of confidence (i.e. a self-belief); while " a confidant " is a noun that describes a person to whom you might tell a secret (i.e. it is based on the verb to confide ). <S> When spoken aloud, unless emphasised, both will sound like the contracted confidn't <S> (sorry, I haven't studied the pronunciation symbols). <S> Many people—especially those who are aware or observant of its French roots—may increase the emphasis on the -ant part of confidant (and soften the -t ), in recognition of those roots. <S> Now I have looked up an explicit definition of homophone <S> , I would say that the two words do qualify as homophones, in that they are both words that pronounced the same but differ in meaning, derivation or spelling) <A> This is a job for Youglish ! <S> Or it would be if the word "confident" wasn't so often mistyped as "confidant"... <S> So I can see why they'd be mistaken for homophones, but they are slightly different in pronunciation. <S> The easiest way to identify the typos on Youglish is to understand that confident is an adjective and the related noun is "confidence". <S> Confidant on the other hand, is a noun. <S> I can also say with some confidence (and <S> thanks to Google's ngrams) that "confident" is a lot more common than "confidant" . <S> My first thought when you mentioned "confidant" was the song <S> "Thank you for being a friend" , which includes the word in the first verse. <S> When I have to say the word, that is the way I think of it (i.e. very little "t" sound in it, closer to French pronunciation). <A> Not homophones. <S> ConfidAnt sounds French with a wider A, like pendant, vacant, but with accent on AConfident sounds normal , like student, president.
| "Confidant" is a noun (and rather rare) but "confident" is a common adjective.
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What is the meaning of "prairie-dog" in this sentence? I read a sentence in Word by Word by Kory Stamper which was: People prairie-dog over the tops of their cubicles and call to their co-workers: "Hey, you going for a walk at lunch today?" Although I don't want to, but I feel that the word has been used as a verb in there. But I couldn't find any verb usage of this word. So, has it been used in a wrong way? <Q> I think no picture can describe this better than from this Dilbert strip , as it was easily the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the question. <S> As other answers have stated, the phrase draws parallels between how prairie dogs pop their heads up to look for danger and how office workers may pop their heads above the cubicle walls. <A> The term "prairie-dog" is definitely being used as a verb in the sentence. <S> This use is not "proper" or "formal", but more colloquial and metaphorical. <S> In addition, people typically think of prairie dogs as sticking up out of holes, which in the metaphor are the cubicles. <S> A non-metaphorical word might be peek , but it does not hold the exact same connotation: <S> peek to stick out slightly and be partly seen: <A> This is one of those cases where "a picture is worth a thousand words": <S> A prairie dog is a rodent common in the American midwest. <S> They live in burrows under the ground, and can sometimes be seen standing up on two legs peeking out over the grass. <S> Hence the expression "prairie dogging," to stretch up so as to peek over something.
| It makes the reader think of prairie dogs, stretching out their torsos and neck (seen here).
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What do you call a sole that's not "filled"? The shoes has a sole with a lot of gaps unlike most shoes that have a sole that's filled. What the adjective for saying there's no gap or empty space, and what's the adjective for saying the exact opposite? For example: The sole of my shoe was ___. <Q> Within the footwear industry itself, this is called a lug tread . <S> One of the definitions of lug is "a ridge (as on the bottom of a shoe) to increase traction." <S> However, while you will find the phrase "lug tread" used in customer-facing advertisements (for example, here is an ad for a "Women's genuine leather lace-up boot with a lug tread rubber sole"), I would not say that it's commonly used in everyday speech. <S> More frequently you'd hear people saying that a shoe has a deep tread or a deep-cut tread . <A> I would use "tread." <S> The soles of my shoes had deep treads molded into them. <A> [Merriam-Webster] 2 : having an unfilled or hollowed-out space // <S> within a hollow tree <S> In other words: The sole of my shoe was hollow .
| Although it's general, because it applies to more than just soles of shoes, I would use the word hollow : Edit: and I would use the word "smooth" for not-filled.
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Formal way of saying "cutting" Say there is a very long article, I took it, then cut/shrink/excerpt it to a much shorter version. What the proper way to express the meaning/action of cut/shrink/excerpt , but in a respectful way? <Q> Abridge is a very formal word for this: to shorten by omission of words without sacrifice of sense <S> However, in most contexts, I would prefer condense, which <S> the linked definition lists as a synonym of abridge. <S> Abridge is more of technical term used in the publishing industry. <A> The verb I would use in a conversation or email is simply to shorten the article. <S> "Shorten" is a general verb, not specific to text, but it would be perfectly correct and understood from the context. <S> The verb abridge is specific to shortening text, but you would find it more commonly used as a base of the adjective "abridged" (and sometimes "unabridged") than as a verb in the active voice (see ngrams ). <S> It is indeed quite formal as noted in Max's answer. <S> You can find some other words that can be used based on these words in a thesaurus . <A> <A> From a clarifying comment under the question: "I took the article from Wikipedia then cut it into the above shorter version." <S> If you are taking a long piece of text and reducing to a smaller number of key points, I would say that you are summarizing it. <S> From summarize : <S> [Merriam-Webster] : to tell in or reduce to a summary // <S> I would like to take a moment to <S> summarize the facts that I presented earlier. <S> // <S> He summarized by saying we needed better planning and implementation. <S> And from summary : <S> adjective <S> 1 : COMPREHENSIVE <S> especially : covering the main points succinctly noun : an abstract, abridgment, or compendium especially of a preceding discourse
| A synopsis or a summary are proper, respectful words describing a shorter version of a long text.
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What do you call a situation where you have choices but no good choice? How do you call a situation in which you seemingly have a choice, but whatever you choose it will be to your disadvantage in one way or another? <Q> As others have said there are many expressions describing a situation in which there is no apparent beneficial outcome, such as choose the lesser of two evils , between a rock and a hard place , etc. <A> One might say than in such a situation, you're faced with two evils (or maybe more than two). <S> There's a commonly used phrase <S> choose the lesser of two evils : To pick the less offensive of two undesirable options. <S> I wasn't excited about going to a seminar all weekend, but I also didn't want to lose my license, so I chose the lesser of two evils and spent the weekend learning about new regulations in our field. <S> Do you really want to get a demerit for not having your blazer? <S> Just choose the lesser of two evils and tell the teacher you forgot it—maybe she'll take pity on you! <S> (source: The Free Dictionary ) <A> There are many such idioms in English. <S> You could say you are "caught on the horns of a dilemma," "between a rock and a hard place," "between the devil and the deep blue sea," "between Scylla and Charybdis. <S> " <S> These generally all mean you are faced with two equally unpleasant options. <S> https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/on-the-horns-of-a-dilemma <A> In that situation, you are said to have a Sophie's Choice . <S> Example (from Wiki): We've been given a Sophie's Choice . <S> We can improperly care for some children vs. improperly care for other children. <S> A choice where every alternative has significant negative consequences. <S> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_choice <A> The expression lose-lose situation (any choice is as bad as all the others), as mentioned by Ryan, is probably the best one so far. <S> All I can do is recommend you another way to describe a situation where all outcomes are considered equally bad: <S> Either choice is bad any way you slice it . <S> Here's how the Macmillan Dictionary defines any way you slice it : used for saying that something remains true, whatever way you consider it Example: <S> The book is a bestseller any way you slice it. <A> Damned if you do, damned if you don't is another common idiom conveying this. <S> A situation in which one can't win. <S> For example, If I invite Aunt Jane, Mother will be angry, and if I don't, I lose Jane's friendship-I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. <S> [Colloquial; first half of 1900s] <A> A lot of answers here (lose-lose, lesser of two evils, horns of a dilemma, rock & hard place) seem to indicate choosing between two options. <S> Where there are a number of distasteful options <S> the general idiom I've come across is: The best of a bad bunch <S> Yes, it looks like you have a range of choices, but in an ideal world, you wouldn't select any of them. <S> Since you have to choose one, you pick the best of a bad bunch. <A> " Dilemma " can work well in some cases: di·lem·ma <S> ( noun ) a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones. <S> Also, I like " lose-lose " mentioned above – but “dilemma" is more formal. <A> It's called a zugzwang . <S> CHESS <S> noun: <S> Zugzwang <S> a situation in which the obligation to make a move in one's turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage. <S> "black is in zugzwang" <A> I'll add <S> Catch-22 <S> It's from an old satire story about American military life. <S> This particular allusion is to intentionally self-defeating regulation. <S> In the story, a soldier may apply for relief from battle on grounds of insanity, per regulation 22, but had to make the application himself. <S> However, the ability to recognize one's own insanity proves no insanity exists at all, thus the soldier would "catch [regulation] 22" and his request would be denied. <S> The most appropriate use for this should be when you have a choice, but outcomes are identical, but common usage is for a selection of choices and all outcomes are not favorable. <S> Whatever your choices, I give you The Clash while you decide. <A> Here, we call it "elections".. <S> But you could say "entre a cruz e a espada" in Portuguese ('between cross and sword' literally).If <S> all your 'options' are bad, you dont choose. <S> Except on elections. <S> Actually, not joking or trolling, but people just don´t get it... <A> A typical term for this scenario is to refer to " Morton's fork " . <S> The etymology for this dates back to tax collectors in medieval England, after a scheme proposed by a bishop named John Morton, which held that anyone who lived modestly must be saving money and thus could pay their taxes, while anyone who was living lavishly must be wealthy and can thus also afford to pay taxes.
| It could also be called a no-win situation .
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Is there a formal/better word than "skyrocket" for the given context? The labour market condition in a region where the unemployment rate skyrocketed from 6 to 10 percent is no better than in the region where the rate fell from 13 to 12 percent. I can't find a word that fits there except "skyrocketed". "Soared" or "surged" does not work there for some reason. It just does not sound right to my ears. I am happy with how skyrocketed sounds, but the word is informal. And I am writing an academic paper. <Q> Both "soared" and "surge" work perfectly fine in this context. <S> Perhaps they don't sound right to you because you've never heard them properly used. <S> Some examples: <S> 6 Metrics Behind Zoom Video's Soaring Stock Price <S> The last time rates soared like this, the stock market plunged double-digits and in the same story: <S> Interest rates are surging in the U.S. and around the world, sending shock waves through equity markets Figurative synonyms such as <S> rocketed , shot up , swelled , and others are also common. <S> If you don't want to use figurative language -- and there is no reason why you shouldn't, even in an academic paper -- then rose sharply or increased rapidly both work. <S> Example: <S> Report: US electricity prices rose sharply in October <S> In the future, try doing a Google search on a particular word combination such as "rate surge" before assuming it is not idiomatic. <S> You might find that it's actually quite common. <A> I'm going to suggest that skyrocketing is actually your best option. <S> The concern seems to be that "skyrocketing" is too informal for use in academic writing. <S> I don't believe this is really true. <S> It's easy to find examples of scholarly research using this word, in both social sciences and physical sciences , and it seems to be especially common in economics . <S> It is a much stronger word than surge, or even soar, implying an extremely large increase over a very short period of time. <S> It's most commonly associated with rising prices or rising rates of occurrence. <S> While many of the things the word is applied to are considered undesirable, I believe the word itself is essentially neutral in tone. <S> While it's most commonly used with undesirables like inflation, prices, and costs , it can be applied to desirable effects such as literacy and employment rates as well. <S> A good opposite word for a sudden dramatic decrease would be "plummet" <A> If you're using fell , the contrasting verb (in the past tense) is simply rose : From rise : <S> [Merriam-Webster] 7 <S> a : to move upward : ASCEND <S> 7 b : to increase in height, size, volume, or pitch <S> Also since you are not using a dramatic version of fell (such as plummeted or crashed ), despite the fact that the decrease was fairly small, the same neutral language seems to be appropriate for its complement. <S> However, if you do want something more dramatic, but you don't like any of the words you've mentioned, there seem to be fewer other options that you'd likely be happy with. <A> It seems that you have set yourself two contradictory requirements. <S> You want a dramatic, emotive, journalistic term like "skyrocket", or "surge", but also a term suitable for an academic paper, which should not be dramatic or emotive but descriptive or analytic, plain and simple. <S> So either you choose an unemotive term like "rose", "increased" or you use a journalistic term like "surged", you can't have both. <A> You could say jumped to indicate a rise over an unusually short time period. <S> From jump : <S> [Merriam-Webster] 1 b : to move suddenly or involuntarily 2 <S> a : to move haphazardly or irregularly : shift abruptly 2 b : to undergo a sudden sharp change in value
| Perhaps just using an adjective, such as swiftly rose , would be the most formal.
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Differences between will, would, and would have I can differentiate which would be used in sentences, but I can't quite pinpoint the difference between these. So I went online and tried a quiz from the British Council and I can't quite figure out why "I promised my teacher, I would have finished the homework by Monday." Can't be: "I promised my teacher, I will have finished the homework by Monday." It would be a great help if anyone could help me define the lines between will, would have, and would (in a general sense, like tense-wise), and also why will have is wrong in that context. <Q> It's because of the sequence of tenses: <S> I promise... <S> I will have finished... <S> I promised... <S> I would have finished... <S> Still, in a real conversation people normally use the infinitive after "promise": <S> I promised my teacher to finish the homework by Monday. <A> "Will" states that you're %100 sure about something in future tense. <S> "Would" means the you may or may not, but you're not sure about future. <S> It conveys "tendency" or "willingness". <S> in the sentence "I promised my teacher, I would have finished the homework by Monday. <S> " you're saying that you'll try <S> and you'll do your best. <S> but in "I promised my teacher, I will have finished the homework by Monday. <S> " using "will" is not grammatically wrong actually but you don't use usually use it. <A> The sentence: <S> I promised my teacher, I would have finished the homework by Monday. <S> is correct because you are talking about the past. <S> Thus promised is past tense <S> and so you need to use the past tense of <S> will (i.e. would ), and then here you are also using the past perfect of finish ( have finished ). <S> It would also be correct to say <S> : I promised my teacher, [that] I would finish the homework by Monday. <S> because the tenses for promise and will are consistent ( promised and would ), but finish can be used in its present form. <S> The difference between the two formulations is only slight and most native speakers (IMO) would not make a distinction. <S> The biggest difference is perhaps that would have finished can imply that it was <S> not finished whereas would finish can be ambiguous. <S> When using will you are talking about the future. <A> To me, both of the given phrases look awkward and wrong, and the commas seem out of place. <S> Are you certain you copied them exactly as they were written? <S> I would have said "I promised my teacher I would have the homework finished by Monday" or "I promised my teacher I would finish the homework by Monday". <S> The phrase may be grammatical as written, but it doesn't sound right to my ear. <S> And I can't see why there would need to be a comma in there. <S> Removing "that" doesn't create an introductory clause, there's no conjunction, there's no pause or shift of subject that needs to be indicated, and it isn't calling out a comparison or contrast, so the comma seems like a mistake.
| When you use "will" or "would" in the structure of "Will/Would + have + past participle" , you're expressing that an activity will be completed before another time or event in the future.
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What's in-between silence and clamor? What's in-between silence and clamor? Sometimes, in a room for example, there's no sound except 1 person talking at times, do we still refer to that as silence. If not, what is it called? I suppose it's something between silence and clamor, but I can't think of a word? Is there a word that means almost-silence or the state of being able to hear a sound distinctly while hearing nothing else? <Q> For example: <S> murmur (n): a low, continuous sound, as of a brook, the wind, or trees, or of low, indistinct voices. <S> Other options: buzz, hum, mutter, rumble, fizz, hiss, whir, ping, splash, whisper, babble, drone , and a few more less common words like sibilation or susurration . <S> You might find this interesting: <S> Writers Write: 106 Ways To Describe Sounds (Edit_1) <S> You may also use modifiers to adjust the relative volume of these kind of words. <S> This gives a wider range of possible descriptors. <S> Examples: a loud hum <S> a muted roar s sharp hiss <S> (Edit) <S> Xerxes makes the fair point that none of these really describe the source of a "distinct" sound, such as "the sound of one person talking in a room". <S> There is no single word to describe this, since of course, any kind of sound might be produced by any number of sources. <S> In writing, it's fine to separately describe the quality of the sound and the source of the sound: Through the wall he could distinctly hear the murmur of Jessica discussing the latest gossip with her friends, although, try as he might, he could not make out any details. <A> There is the concept of background noise . <S> Although this phrase has a technical meaning when it comes to audio recordings and signal processing, that expression can also be used colloquially; it is defined by some dictionaries as: background noise <S> ( noun ) any type of noise that is not the sound that you are specifically listening to or monitoring <S> ( Collins ) <S> noise that can be heard in addition to the main thing you are listening to ( Macmillan ) <S> Wikipedia has an entry for it, which says: Background noise or ambient noise <S> is any sound other than the sound being monitored (primary sound). <S> Examples of background noises are environmental noises such as waves, traffic noise, alarms, people talking , noise from animals or birds, and mechanical noise from devices such as refrigerators, air conditioners, power supplies, or motors. <S> If you are not paying attention to something else in the room, you can focus on the background noise and hear it distinctly. <A> "Silence" is complete absence of sound. <S> If there is the sound of a person talking, even quietly, it wouldn't be called silence. <S> "Quiet" could also be interpreted to mean silence, but usually "quiet" would include an environment with a low level of sound. <A> I don't believe there is a single English word suitable to this purpose. <S> I would use a short phrase to add an exception to "silent". <S> For example: "silent but for a single voice" or "all was still except for the tapping of the hammer" or "a shrill, clear note broke the silence". <A> Clamor to be a mixture of enviro, mechanical, biological-based noise of the muted kind. <S> A quick mind map of the answers given above:
| Which word you choose depends on the quality of the sound in the room. I think one person talking at a time, in a soft voice, would be accepted by most people as an example of "quiet".
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Are there specific names for forehead jewelry? I googled "forehead jewelry" and found a lot of them in google photos, but I'm looking a specific name for this type of jewelry that falls on the forehead (and couldn't find there one). <Q> I think you mean Maangtika and Jhoomar . <S> There are a few other variations you can find here . <A> I'm not aware of any generic English term for this type of jewelry. <S> Such jewelry is not a common element of any English-speaking culture's fashion. <S> The items in your photos appear to be maang tika , but this is not an English name and chances are not a name that most English speakers will be familiar with. <A> As the other answers suggest, you can use the common Indian names for these jewelry -- but you might have to describe them for those who don't know what you mean. <S> Most "tiaras" look very different from these Indian styles, as they are more like crowns , and very ornate: A "tiara" can have a simple design, such as those worn by brides: There is no distinct line between "headband" and "tiara", for example this item marketed as an "amethyst tiara / simple amethyst headband": As you might expect, "tiara" sounds much fancier than "headband". <S> (Edit) <S> I found many hundreds of items from a google search on "forehead tiara". <S> Here are seven images from this very long list:
| You could call these a kind of "jeweled headband", although "tiara" might also work: tiara (n): A jeweled ornamental band worn on the front of a woman's hair.
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What's 'all' referring to in this context? Harry had deliberately left the trial of the Keepers until last, hoping for an emptier stadium and less pressure on all concerned. However, all the rejected players and a number of people who had come down to watch after a lengthy breakfast had joined the crowd by now, so that it was larger than ever. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince I think 'all' here refers to those candidates who attended the tryout for the Keeper, but I have no confidence about it. How should we understand the phrase "less pressure on all concerned"? <Q> All is used as a pronoun here and it refers to people . <S> All concerned basically means, as you've concluded correctly, <S> all the people/candidates/spectators who were concerned/involved [with/in the trials] . <A> Harry had deliberately left the trial of the Keepers until last , hoping for an emptier stadium and less pressure on all concerned . <S> "All" belongs to the category (part of speech) determinative. <S> Here it is in a special 'fused-head' NP, with a human interpretation, "all people". <S> It is more formal and less common <S> that "everyone". <A> The solution must satisfy all concerned. <S> means that the solution must be acceptable to everyone involved.
| "All concerned" is a very common phrase, almost an idiom, meaning "all those people who are interested in or involved with" whatever the subject is. This is related to the idiom "To whom it may concern" used to indicate that a letter or other communication is public, for anyone interested to read.
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What does the phrase "head down the rat's hole" mean here? Here is a heading of a game app's description: "Head down the rat's hole" The game lets you live the life of a rat that lives in a beautiful village. The player interacts with the rat's friends and make new discoveries about their lives. Does the phrase "head down" mean "move" here? Like "move to the rat's hole"? Being a non-native speaker, I find it difficult to figure out its idiomatic connotation, if there is any. The interesting thing is that there is no second occurrence of the word "hole" in the said description. <Q> Down the Rabbit Hole --- <S> Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (also called Alice in Wonderland ) (3) (4) <S> (See definition) <S> The meaning of "go down the rabbit hole" is: To enter into a situation or begin a process or journey that is particularly strange, problematic, difficult, complex, or chaotic, especially one that becomes increasingly so as it develops or unfolds. <S> (An allusion to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.) <S> -- <S> Farlex Dictionary of Idioms; Free Dictionary or: used for referring to a situation that is strange, confusing, or illogical, and often hard to escape from Quoting from the people themselves <S> is the easiest way of showing just how far down the rabbit hole we are going here. <S> Professor John Kennedy invites us to jump down the rabbit hole and imagine a world where U.S. Supreme Court justices are elected democratically. <S> Word story: From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a famous children’s story by Lewis Carroll in which a girl called Alice falls down a rabbit hole into a strange dreamlike world. <S> --- Macmillan Dictionary <A> It's a bit of a funny one as I believe it's considered colloquial rather than "proper" English, but to head in [a direction] just means to go towards that direction. <S> A similar question has actually been asked in the English Language & Usage SE. <S> It's also worth noting that you can use it to mean a literal direction: <S> Headed down the street. <S> (Travelling down the street) <S> Or metaphorical: <S> Profits had been down recently, but now they were heading in the right direction. <S> (Profits had been down recently, but now they are increasing again.) <S> In your particular case, you have nearly interpreted perfection "To head down the rat's hole" is just to go down it. <S> "Head towards" would mean move to it. <A> I'd say you were right on with your interpretation <S> "move to the rat's hole": it is a common intro for video game/movie descriptions, to use a flowery version of: Enter the world of [theme] <S> In this case, just a clever way to introduce the idea that you're going to be playing as a rat (enter the world of rats). <S> Along the lines of you could start a description of a Fallout game with: Step out into post-apocalyptic Vegas... <S> (enter the world after nuclear winter) or a Harry Potter game might be described as: Slip into the robes of a wizard... (putting on wizard's robes -> enter the world of wizards)
| To " head down the rabbit hole," or " head down a rat's hole", simply means to go into it and downwards. The phrase is a "take-off" Definition: (1) (2) or copy of a famous phrase: Chapter 1.
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A collocation to mean going to hospital I'm looking for a collocation to use with the word hospital which would mean "going to hospital". I'm translating a medical academic paper and I need to say "20% of more than 350 million people going to hospitals prefer tertiary referral hospitals.". This is a frequent expression and used extensively in tables as well throughout the text. Since it is an academic paper, going to hospital does not sound right to me. In Turkish you can say applying to hospitals but my Google search gives job applications for hospital vacancies in English. PS Please note that your are not referred/rushed/taken or admitted to the hospital, you go there by yourself. That is the meaning I'm aiming for. Thank you. <Q> In the strict context of your example (and clarifications), you could simply use patients . <S> This doesn't mean "going to hospital as a patient" - which has been answered by the others, but works as an alternative. <S> 20% of more than 350 million patients prefer tertiary referral hospitals. <A> As an alternative to admit <S> I suggest the verb treat . <S> Lexico has this : VERB 2 Give medical care or attention to; try to heal or cure. <S> the two were treated for cuts and bruises <S> The sentence becomes 20% of more than 350 million people treated by hospitals prefer tertiary referral hospitals. <S> People who go to a hospital are not necessarily treated, they may only be examined. <S> Another suggestion is attend . <S> Lexico has this : VERB <S> 1.1 <S> Go regularly to (a school, church, or clinic) <S> Shannon attends regular clinics and will probably do so for the rest of her life, but the change in her is dramatic. <S> In this use the first hospital is now singular. <A> I think your are looking for: Hospitalize: <S> admit or cause (someone) to be admitted to hospital for treatment. <S> "Casey was hospitalized for chest pains" For verbs to use with hospital: Verb + Hospital: go into/to <S> He's had to go into hospital rather suddenly. <S> | rush sb to, take sb to | admit sb to, readmit sb to | stay in | <S> come out of, leave <S> She came out of hospital this morning. <S> | discharge sb from hospital. <S> (Oxford Collocation Dictionary)
| The sentence becomes 20% of more than 350 million people attending hospital prefer tertiary referral hospitals.
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Idiomatic usage of "well worth the ride" to refer to a journey (on foot) The idiom "well worth the ride" is usually used for a journey made on horseback, bike, motorcycle, or vehicle. But what I mean in the following example is "ride" as a journey on foot (e.g. mountain climbing) and "ride" as a metaphor for a journey/ trip / effort in general: Dan: "You should try and climb this mountain. It’s hard, it will take lots of time, but it's well worth the ride." (ride as a journey, or as an effort). Sam: We will be traveling on foot. Can " worth the ride" be used to refer to a journey on foot, mountain climbing, specifically? Can " worth the ride" be used to refer to a way/journey/ trip/ effort in a general sense? E.g. "You need to study hard, many years; it’s a long way up, but well worth the ride." <Q> "well worth the ride" can be used in regard to any metaphorical journey. <S> I have seen it used with the classic metaphor of life as a journey: <S> A fulfilled life is well worth the ride. <S> Such a use is not a mixed metaphor. <S> (Not that there is anything wrong with a mixed metaphor when it communicates well. <S> "To take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them" from Shakespeare's Hamlet is a mixed metaphor. <S> One takes arms against an army, not a sea.) <S> When the journey is physical and on foot, not metaphorical, to refer to it as a "ride" seems a bit odd, and perhaps awkward, but if it communicates well, there is nothing wrong with it. <S> It is at least technically a mixed metaphor, unlike the case above where the journey is non-physical. <S> I don't find that a problem, but i asked my wife and she thinks such a use is poor writing. <A> You need to study hard, many years; it’s a long way up, but <S> well worth the ride <S> I think this is another idiomatic way of saying well worth your while <S> From collinsdictionary.com: <S> worth your while - <S> If an action or activity is worth <S> someone's while, it will be helpful, useful, or enjoyable for them if they do it, even though it requires some effort <A> It's not unnatural to mix metaphors. <S> It's just a questionable writing choice. <S> For example: If we want to get ahead we'll have to iron out the remaining bottlenecks. <S> This is a mix of "iron out the kinks (wrinkles)" and "work through the bottlenecks", that doesn't make literal sense, but nevertheless the intent is obvious. <S> It's better when deliberately done for humorous effect, for example: <S> I don’t think we should wait until the other shoe drops. <S> History has already shown what is likely to happen. <S> The ball has been down this court before and I can see already the light at the end of the tunnel. <S> Ryan is now at corporate where he is a little fish in a big pond. <S> Here, I am still top dog. <S> So which is better... <S> being a dog, or a fish? <S> Again, this is about style , and certainly isn't limited to English. <S> You get choices like this in any language. <S> how you say it? <S> Some possibilities for humor: <S> Dan: <S> It's a long hike up the mountain, but it's well worth the ride. <S> Sam: <S> Yeah, unless your car breaks down halfway. <S> Dan: <S> I know it's a long trip up to the top of the mountain, but I hear the view is well worth the ride. <S> Sam: <S> We'll be going by foot. <S> Dan: <S> Oh in that case it's not worth it.
| There's nothing wrong with using "worth the ride" for a trip taken on foot -- but, assuming you aren't doing it for humorous effect, do you want the reader to think about what your are saying, or be distracted by
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Can fluent English speakers distinguish between “steel”, “still”, and “steal”? Can fluent English speakers understand this sentence the first time they hear it? What? They still steal steel? Can they hear a difference between the pronunciation of the words still, steal, and steel? <Q> Still (/stɪl/) and steel (/sti:l/) are distinguishable. <S> The vowel sounds in these two words are different. <S> Steal and Steel (/sti:l/) are homophones and are pronounced exactly the same. <S> However, the words are, in this case, easily identified by grammar. <S> In this sentence, "steal" is a verb and "steel" is a noun. " <S> Steel" as a verb cannot take "steal" (as a noun) as its object. <S> So there is no ambiguity in the sentence. <A> Context is the key to understanding. <S> If your reader or conversation partner understands you are talking about someone or something with a habit of misappropriating steel, then it is perfectly reasonable to say they still steal steel or steal steel still . <S> If they do not have that context, they you may need to explain it. <S> Most native speakers of English will pronounce steal and steel identically, but differently from still . <S> Some people in Yorkshire might pronounce all three differently, and some people in Tennessee might pronounce all three the same. <S> In all the "standard" accents with which I am familiar, steel and steal are homophones, both pronounced /stiːl/. <S> The spelling of steal and words like team and cream among others reflects a distinction in pronunciation which was mostly lost by the 18th century in what is known as the meet - meat merger . <S> The distinction is preserved only in some corners of Ireland and Northern England, and I would say a learner should not bother with it. <S> That said, many speakers of Southern, Appalachian, and African-American Englishes, and what is called Estuary English, speak with what is called the fill - feel merger . <S> Pairs like ill and eel , hill and heal , or <S> will and we'll are pronounced the same in those accents. <S> Again, I would say a learner is safest sticking to the standard pronunciation in speaking. <A> I, for one, hear a significant difference between "still" and "steal" or "steel". <S> I would call the vowel sound that I make, and typically hear, in "still" a "short-I", while I would call the vowel sound in "steal" or "steel" a "long-e". <S> There are, <S> I am sure, more technically correct terms for these sounds. <S> To help clarify, to me "Still" rhymes with "hill" and "kill", while "steal" rhymes with "keel", "feel", and "conceal". <A> Can fluent English speakers understand the sentence? <S> What? <S> They still steal steel? <S> Well, certainly yes. <S> We use our knowledge of everyday English to make a rational interpretation of the likely meaning of the sentence. <S> In this sense, pronunciation is not key. <S> Can fluent English speakers distinguish these words when spoken in isolation, with no context? <S> I could certainly attempt to pronounce each word with such emphasis to make each one sound unique and probably identifiable to many people. <S> Would I do that in normal speech? <S> Probably not. <A> In English, the difference in writing between steel/steal and still is called a minimal pair. <S> ae <S> /ee are pronounced the same way. <S> It is their graphemes (how they are written) that differ. <S> still is pronounced differently. <S> That said, there is only one sound difference between steel/steal and still. <S> minimal pairs <S> In English, minimal pairs <S> (how you pronounce vowel sounds and not how they are written) are very important because still contains the sound /ɪ/ <S> for the i.steal/steel contain the sound [i:] for ea and ee. <S> The difference between steal and steel in spoken language will come from the co-text . <S> This seat is as hard as steel. <S> To steal is not a good thing. <S> The sounds in steel/steal and still are never misheard by native speakers in this sense. <S> And still is an adverb. <S> So, a totally different category. <S> It is important to do exercises with minimal pairs in order to become used to them. <S> English has many quirks but knowing usual minimal pairs helps learners as how English sounds is not how it is written. <S> bat/bet steal/steel <S> [we saw this one], others include: feet and feat hot/hit but/bat <S> bait/ <S> late....notice: <S> ai and a are both the same sound. <S> The most difficult one is probably the /ɪ/. <S> The sounds of the i and u in the word minute (for time) are both /ɪ/. <S> Also, the /ɪ/ does not exist in some languages like French and Spanish. <S> So those speakers have a hard time with: sheet/ship. <S> Etc. <S> There are tons of places online and in books to learn these sounds. <S> Please note: there are regional variations sometimes. <S> At this level of learning, I think regional differences should be left out of explanations because it is already hard enough to grasp the idea of minimal pairs and graphemes in English. <A> "What? <S> They still steal steel?" <S> Yes, "still" has a different sound to "steel" and "steal". <S> We use our knowledge of general sentence order to logically work this out. <S> Also, the emphasis placed on each of these words in a question would allow us to understand that "steal" is the verb, and that "steel" is the noun. <S> More emphasis may be placed on "steal" because the sentence is interrogative. <S> However, I understand that this is something hard for non-native English speakers. <S> I have heard these three words pronounced as the same word many a time by non-native speakers. <S> It is like "fill" and "feel". <S> The only way you can get better at this is by listening to a native English pronunciation and practising.
| As is implied by the forgoing, to me "steal" and "steel" are homophones, with no detectable difference in sound. The standard pronunciation of still has a shorter vowel, thus /stɪl/.
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I wasn't able to do it/I couldn't do it (solve a problem) I was trying to solve a physics problem, but it was a bit too difficult. What sounds natural: I wasn't able to do this question. (Or "solve") [Or maybe: "I was unable to do this question"] I couldn't do this question. What is a native more likely to use "wasn't able to" or "couldn't"? <Q> Either are perfectly acceptable - in terms of wasn't able vs couldn't . <S> I have heard both said in the past and wouldn't think either sounded unnatural. <S> On a side note, unless you have the exam in your hand and pointing at a particular question, I would change it to: I wasn't able to/couldn't do <S> that question <S> For example, you're chatting after an exam: <S> Joe: What did you guys think of the first question; the one about gravitational forces? <S> Mary: I couldn't do that question at all. <S> Bob: Yeah, I wasn’t able to do it either. <A> The one consideration I can think of that would distinguish the two is simply the fact that I couldn't is only two words as opposed to the four in <S> I wasn't able to . <S> Also, I couldn't is easier to pronounce than <S> I wasn't , given the movement of the tongue required for each. <S> As such, the I couldn't version is more likely to actually be spoken <S> because it's shorter and simpler, something, everything being equal, we tend to choose. <S> (But perhaps in formal writing, the longer version would have an edge.) <A> I would be inclined to use "solve" (particularly for a physics or math problem) or "answer" rather than the generic "do" as a verb. <S> I wasn't able to solve problem 5. <S> I couldn't solve problem 5. <S> I wasn't able to answer the question about Brahms. <S> I couldn't answer the question about Brahms. <S> All of the above would feel quite natural to me.
| They both make perfect sense, and each is normal and acceptable.
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Lower one (built in cabinets/cupboards) At my school (in the Physics lab), there's a built in cabinet to store things like lenses, sheets of paper, screw gauge, vernier callipers, stopwatch etc. A teacher was looking for something. That cabinet has many doors; compartments (kind of like small, separate cabinets). The other teacher opens the wrong door and my teacher says: No it's in the lower cabinet. Will it be called a " cabinet" ? Or is it just a " compartment" and is the use of "lower" natural? <Q> I would phrase this a number of different ways: Drawer - part of a desk, chest, or other piece of furniture that is shaped like a box and is designed for putting things in Section - one of the parts into which it is divided or from which it is formed. <S> Compartment - one of the separate parts of an object that is used for keeping things in Part - A part of something is one of the pieces, sections, or elements that it consists of <S> this works as it just implies whatever the part is called. <S> And yes - using lower sounds natural - however, <S> if you say " it's in the lower ______ ", that implies there is only one lower drawer/section etc. <S> Otherwise, it's best to say "it's in a lower ______*", denoting it could be any of the ones below, but then you'd also have to specify which. <A> I think that it depends on context. <S> It's in the lower (of the two) cabinet <S> If there are two cabinets, one above a work surface and one below, then this would refer to the one that is lower than the other (bottom one) <S> It's in the lower (part of the singular) cabinet <S> Consider <S> lower left leg - you don't have two left legs, one on top of each other, so it's obvious that you mean the lower part of that object if there's only one. <A> Generally, a cabinet will refer to a single integrated piece of furniture, often with multiple drawers or compartments. <S> As an example, for kitchens, we have upper and lower cabinets where the uppers are the ones above the counter and lowers are the cabinets under the counter. <S> However, it would not be uncommon to refer individual halves of something that uses swinging doors instead of drawers as separate cabinets. <S> So your teacher's use of lower cabinet would be fine.
| You could even just say " it's in the lower one " -
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Is 'telling' noun or participle on this sentence? There is no telling where he has gone. In the above sentence, Is 'telling' noun or participle? <Q> Moreover "there is no telling" (meaning there is no way to determine) is an idiom, and as such may violate normal principles of grammar. <A> idiomatic phrase: <S> There is no telling to tell here means to discern, to be able to understand a situation. <S> telling is a gerund noun in that phrase. <S> I can't tell whether the food is good or bad. <S> To tell=to discern, distinguish, identify, etc. <A> "Telling" here is a verb in the form of gerund-participle. <S> This is a special case where a verb phrase takes a pre-head dependent that is characteristic of the noun phrase structure. <S> Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1189) refer to this as a Hybrid Construction . <S> A hybrid construction with "no" is virtually restricted to the there -existential construction. <S> Another common instance is "there'll be no stopping her". <S> Note that it takes a direct object, a kind of dependent that's only admissible in a verb phrase structure.
| Since a participle is a verb form being used as a noun, this is a distinction with little or no significance.
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I can't understand the sentence. What does "undreamt of subtleties" mean? What does it relate to? Here's a sentence from Joseph Conrad's "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'": Jimmy's hateful accomplice seemed to have blown with his impure breath undreamt of subtleties into our hearts. I understand the first part of the sentence. The problem starts with the "breath undreamt of subtleties." To be honest, I'm lost in translation. What does it mean at all? What is undreamt of subtleties? What is undreamt? What is going to get into the hearts? Could anybody explain it to me? More context: We were trying to be decent chaps, and found it jolly difficult; we oscillated between the desire of virtue and the fear of ridicule; we wished to save ourselves from the pain of remorse, but did not want to be made the contemptible dupes of our sentiment. Jimmy's hateful accomplice seemed to have blown with his impure breath undreamt of subtleties into our hearts. We were disturbed and cowardly. That we knew. Singleton seemed to know nothing, understand nothing. If it helps, what is meant by Jimmy's accomplice is "the death". <Q> If you're reading English at this level I'm going to assume you're perfectly comfortable with metaphor. <S> "Heart" is a common metaphor in many languages for deep-seated thoughts and feelings, for example: <S> She knew in her heart <S> that she was right. <S> Her heart still told her she loved him, despite all his faults. <S> It would have helped to include more of the context of the story. <S> From Wikipedia <S> The title character, James Wait, is a dying West Indian black sailor on board the merchant ship Narcissus, on which he finds passage from Bombay to London. <S> Suffering from tuberculosis, Wait becomes seriously ill during the voyage, and his plight arouses the humanitarian sympathies of many of the crew. <S> It is Jimmy's death that is, as you say, the "hateful accomplice" who has the metaphorical "impure breath". <S> This breath "blows" into their spirits <S> subtleties (subtle thoughts) <S> that they had not previously dreamt of (thought about) <S> In this sentence, the narrator is saying, in effect, that while the crew of the forecastle is trying to act decently toward the dying Jimmy, nevertheless his impending death makes them think about things they never previously considered, or think in ways they had never previously done. <S> They were torn between the natural concern for the dying sailor, and the desire not to be in the bad graces of others of the crew who expected them to do their duty. <S> The prose is slightly archaic in the style of the late 19th century. <S> It also contains frequent use of dialogue, written to reproduce the dialect spoken by the sailors on the ship. <S> This sentence seems to fit in well with those elements, and with the time frame. <S> More importantly, though, is the way this sentence fits into the context of the dying James Wait as the central metaphor of the story -- but a full discussion of that is beyond the scope of this forum. <A> Conrad is usually a careful writer, but this sentence is not as clear as it could be. <S> Jimmy's accomplice, using his impure breath, seemed to have blown into our hearts subtleties that we had never previously dreamt of. <A> For this reason, it should probably be hyphenated: undreamt-of subtleties <S> This means "subtleties that one has not dreamt of" (or "subtleties that no-one has dreamt of").
| The main issue I see here is that "undreamt of" is a phrase, modifying "subtleties".
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Proper use of alike Are the following two sentences grammatical? He is indifferent alike to praise and blames. He is indifferent to praise and blames alike <Q> The first sentence is ungrammatical. <S> Lexico says about one meaning of the word alike <S> ADVERB <S> 1.1 <S> Used to show that something applies equally to a number of specified subjects. <S> he talked in a friendly manner to staff and patients alike <S> The second sentence is better, but blame is the same kind of word as praise . <S> They can be used in the plural, for example " sing your praises ", but the sentence should be <S> He is indifferent to praise and blame alike. <A> Q. Are the following two sentences grammatical? <S> He is indifferent alike to praise and blames <- No <S> He is indifferent to praise and blame <S> s alike <S> < <S> - Yes , but no need to pluralise 'blame'. <S> You could instead say: He is equally indifferent to praise and blame. <S> or He is as indifferent to praise as he is to blame. <A> I disagree with the two answers so far. <S> I might however be tempted to place a comma in the first <S> , i.e. He is indifferent alike, to praise and blame. <S> The comma here indicates a very slight pause.
| In my opinion both sentences are grammatical and understandable. "Alike" in this context means the same or equally .
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Phrasal verb for carbonated drinks exploding out of the can after being shaken? What's the phrasal verb for carbonated drinks exploding out of the can after being shaken? "Exploded out" doesn't sound right, because it doesn't sound idiomatic. I also checked pop off, but it seems to be used for physical non-liquid things like the cork of a champagne bottle. For example: The drink ____ out of the can after he shook the diet coke can and opened it. <Q> Possibly one of "spray", "fizz", "surge", "foam", depending on how large/strong the flow of liquid, along with a preposition like "out", "from", or "over", depending on how you describe the movement of the liquid. <S> Why does a shaken soda fizz more than an unshaken one? <S> Does Tapping a Soda <S> Can Prevent it from Foaming Over? <S> when the shaken can is opened, there will be a surge of cola and foam out of the opening. <S> "Explode" is also used: After shaking a soda bottle/can, what makes the soda explode out when you open it? <A> VERB <S> 1 Expel large quantities of (something) rapidly and forcibly. <S> buses were spewing out black clouds of exhaust Edit: as commented, a better dictionary reference is the next item in the same definition. <S> 1.1 Be poured or forced out in large quantities. <S> great screeds of paper spewed out of the computer <S> Your sentence could be <S> The drink spewed out [of the can] after he shook the diet coke can and opened it. <A> Another possibility is erupt : From Merriam-Webster : 1a (1) : <S> to burst from limits or restraint (2) of a tooth : to emerge through the gum b : to force out or release suddenly and often violently something (such as lava or steam) that is pent up c : to become active or violent especially suddenly : break forth war could erupt at any moment the audience erupted in applause 2 : to break out with or as if with a skin eruption erupt is most often used to describe volcanic eruptions, which I think is fitting because the sudden release of built-up pressure within a soda can is analogous to the sudden release of pressure during a volcanic eruption <A> I prefer the term burst. <S> The drink burst out of the can after he shook the diet coke can and opened it. <S> Burst - Merriam-Webster : to break open, apart, or into pieces usually from impact or from pressure from within <A> I believe the correct word is gush or gush out def: to flow or send out quickly and in large amounts: Oil gushed (out) from the hole in the tanker. <S> Blood was gushing from his nose. <S> Her arm gushed blood where the knife had gone in. <A> To me, the most natural way to say this would be <S> A close second would be <S> The drink sprayed from the can. <S> However, The drink exploded from the can <S> would also be perfectly fine – and would in fact be the best choice if he shook the can really hard <S> and you want to emphasize that the drink came out very quickly and forcefully. <S> These aren't phrasal verbs, of course – but then, neither is "explode out of."
| The drink spurted out of the can. I suggest the word spew which is defined by Lexico as spew
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What is the word for "event executor"? If a company runs a service as "one who arranges, holds, and executes planned events", what's the term of it? "Events executor" seems a rather grim name, "Events arranger" seems lack of fume because what the company does is more than just arrange for the event. They basically oversee the whole thing from the start (planning) to the end (cleaning up and deliver the certificates if any). <Q> From Wikipedia's article on event management (redirected from event planner <S> ): <S> The process of planning and coordinating the event is usually referred to as event planning and which can include budgeting, scheduling, site selection, acquiring necessary permits, coordinating transportation and parking, arranging for speakers or entertainers, arranging decor, event security, catering, coordinating with third party vendors, and emergency plans. <S> Each event is different in its nature so process of planning & execution of each event differs on basis of type of event. <S> The event manager is the person who plans and executes the event, taking responsibility for the creative, technical, and logistical elements. <S> This includes overall event design, brand building, marketing and communication strategy, audio-visual production, script writing, logistics, budgeting, negotiation, and client service. <S> From <S> "Becoming an Event Planner" at The Balance Small Business: <S> The event planner creates programs that address the purpose, message or impression that their organization or client is trying to communicate. <S> Event planners work long and non-traditional hours to plan and execute all details related to a variety of meeting formats including seminars, conferences, trade shows, executive retreats, incentive programs, golf events, conventions, and other programs. <A> Interesting question. <S> I am a native English speaker and I come across situations like this all of the time; they are very common! <S> There is no one correct way to answer this, but here I would probably use “event organizer.” <S> However, if this term still seems too vague, adding additional context can help the reader understand what kind of service you are referring to. <A> Event coordinator: <S> What exactly does an event coordinator do? <S> Day-to-day duties often depend on where an event coordinator works and what needs to get done. <S> In general, an event coordinator puts together events, tackling anything from client meetings to cleanup. <S> Responsibilities may include preparing budgets, scouting and booking locations, conducting press outreach, lining up sponsors and celebrity guests, and securing food and drinks. <S> https://www.mediabistro.com/climb-the-ladder/skills-expertise/what-does-an-event-coordinator-do/ <A> Another alternative is to use event host . <S> Hosting differs from event organizing or planning , in that it stresses that they provide the location and are responsible for the party. <S> It is not 100% precise which sense it refers to though (these correspond to 1b and 1a in the definition below). <S> You would likely want to combine it with planning or organizing, as in: We can organize and host events of up to 200 people. <S> The applicable definitions of host from Merriam-Webster: <S> host noun (2) <S> 1a : one that receives or entertains guests socially, commercially, or officially 1b : one that provides facilities for an event or function <S> host verb (2) hosted; hosting; hosts transitive verb 1 : to receive or entertain guests at or for : to serve as host (see host entry 3 sense 1a) <S> Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/host
| You're talking about an event manager or event planner .
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Is it "teleport into" or "teleport in"? Is it "teleport into " or "teleport in"? Teleport implies a movement and into indicates the destination. Therefore, is "teleport in" incorrect? It seems to me that "teleport in X" means you're teleporting from X. Is this the case or not? Or do both mean the same thing? For example: He teleported in the room. He teleported into the room. <Q> When and if teleportation becomes a reality, no doubt specialized language to deal with it will be developed, just as specialized terminology for the telephone and the internet has been. <S> Until then ... <S> In works of SF where teleportation is used, I have seen "Teleport into X" used where X is the destination, and I have seen "Teleport in from X" used where X was the origin of the trip. <S> i have also seen things like: <S> He teleported in unexpectedly. <S> used without any specification (in that sentence) of origin or destination. <S> A sentence such as <S> He teleported in the room. <S> would mean: "He teleported from one part of the room to another", or so i would expect. <A> I think your question has very little to do with the specific word teleport. <S> I think that the use of prepositional phrases is pretty similar for all verbs of motion. <S> But note that the usage of prepositions is an area where there is often variation between speakers or between dialects. <S> It seems to me that "teleport in X" means you're teleporting from X. <S> Is this the case or not? <S> No, I wouldn't use "in" to mean "from". <S> For example, "I jogged in the park" means that I was in the park for the entire time that I was jogging. <S> (I might have jogged outside of the park also, but the sentence doesn't refer to that jogging.) <S> Occasionally, a speaker might use "in" in place of "into". <S> I wouldn't recommend doing this, but for example, I can imagine the sentence "Sam walked in the room" being used to express "Sam walked into the room". <S> Here are some discussions about that use of "in": <S> Preposition: <S> She walked <in, into> the living room . <S> (WordReference) <S> Which is grammatically correct: "I walked into my room" or "I walked in my room"? <S> (Quora) <S> In contrast, I cannot imagine "Sam walked in the room" ever being used to mean "Sam walked out of the room" or "Sam walked out from the room". <A> To add on to the other answers: Since we can't actually "teleport" at this point in time, we have to imagine what prepositions would make sense with similar actions, such as enter , travel , jump , <S> appear , move , walk , run , and various others. <S> For example, you could write it as if they had suddenly appeared in the room. <S> Or you could envision they moved in to the room. <S> Or that they journeyed to the room from some other location. <S> Or onto <S> some location where that preposition is common: <S> Skipping protocol, the captain teleported directly onto the bridge of his ship. <S> "Make ready to set sail, Mister Christian," he called to the first mate. <S> "There is no time to lose!" <S> Almost any preposition is possible, as long as the resulting action makes sense to the reader. <S> While the main force engaged the rebels from the front, a small strike team teleported behind the front lines, quickly subduing their commanding officer.
| With verbs of motion, I think a prepositional "in [noun phrase]" usually implies that the entire path of the moving object (or person) is in [noun phrase].
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Meaning of "I take up my pen in the year of grace 17" SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17— and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof. Dose it an expression and mean: I write about it that happened in 18th century?or Dose it mean: in 18th century I started to write about it? this contexet is from a novel named: treasure Island. <Q> It was common to omit details, such as calling a person "P----" instead of the full name. <S> It's interesting to note that in Edgar Allen Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue , which was published in 1841, we see the same form: <S> "Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18--". <S> Here's a whole question about that: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/9479/why-in-old-books-are-dates-often-given-with-the-years-redacted PS. <S> As Treasure Island is an extremely well-known book, it would normally be "It is from the novel Treasure Island " and not " a novel ..." <A> This is a figure of speech used in some novels written in the 19th century (and possibly earlier). <S> It simply means that the writer chooses not to specify the exact year -- the year doesn't really matter -- but it was sometime in the 1700s. <S> "The year of grace" is a variation on "The year of our Lord", both of which are an English version of the Latin Anno Domini (AD). <S> So again, the writer means 17xx AD. <A> The style here is rather out of date. <S> Except as a period piece, no one writes like that currently. <S> In fact, even when Treasure Island was first published in 1881, the style was old fashioned, because it was describing events set more than one hundred years before it was published, and the author attempted to evoke that period by his style. <S> "I take up may pen" means "I am starting to write this book". <S> "The year of grace" means "the year AD" from the concept that these years were numbered from the birth of Jesus. <S> The format "the year 17--" was commonly used, particularly in historical novels, to mean "a year in the 1700s, which i will not specify". <S> The idea is that the narrator first wrote the full year, but then blanked out the last two digits. <S> This avoids to close a connection with real history. <S> Poe, in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" used the same convention, as did many other authors. <S> It was also common to use dashes to obscure the name of a fictional location (town or city or district) or of a fictional character, or of a real location or person used fictionally. <S> This may have been to add an air of mystery, to avoid possible defamation claims, or to avoid critics pointing out inconsistencies. <S> In short I take up my pen in the year of grace 17— <S> means "I start to write this book in an unspecified year in the 1700s. <S> " <S> The events presumably would have occurred some years earlier -- the narrator is writing his account well after the (supposed) facts.
| It means " I am starting to write in a year which I am not specifying which is 17xx", ie at some point in the 18th century.
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Wait or be waiting? Which one is correct? I'm coming please be waiting. (Also, is waiting gerund here?) I'm coming please wait. <Q> I'm coming <S> , please be waiting (a continuous verb , not a gerund = noun usage) <S> - I want to find you waiting for me <S> when I arrive 2: <S> I'm coming, please wait - I want to you to wait (start waiting) for me now <S> In practice they basically mean the same thing, but version #1 is far more "imperious / authoritatively demanding" (something a boss might say to an underling, rather than a simple request to a friend), so you should probably avoid it in most contexts. <A> Since they are both instructions to do the same thing (wait), it seems like they should have exactly the same meaning, but they don't. <S> "Be waiting" is a progressive tense. <S> The word "waiting" is not a gerund but a verb form (present participle). <S> The progressive tense sometimes gives English learners problems. <S> It is what we use when we want to talk about an activity (waiting) that takes place repeatedly or habitually, or has a duration that continues over a period of time. <S> It emphasizes the state or conditions during that period of time. <S> "Please be waiting" means "I want you to be in a state of waiting (readiness). <S> " <S> The implication is that the person will remain in the state of "waiting" for some length of time. <S> The simple imperative, "wait", is what we use when we are talking about a simple one-time action. <S> "Please wait" means "Wait (once) right now. <S> " <S> The implication is that the person only needs to stop any current activity or plans for a moment (or at least a short time). <S> So sentence #1 would be appropriate in advance of a planned meeting between two people. <S> For example, You might tell someone that you will be coming to pick them up on your way to the airport an hour from now, and you don't want to be late: <S> "I'm coming, please be waiting." <S> Sentence #2 might be used for a momentary delay in a meeting. <S> For example, if you knew you were late, but you were almost there, and you didn't want the other person to leave because they thought you forgot <S> , you might text them: <S> "I'm coming, please wait" <A> Also, I'm unsure if to call it gerund here, since the present participle "waiting" is being used as an adjective rather than a noun. <S> the waiting person <S> The person is waiting . <S> I hope that you are waiting . <S> As opposed to: his waiting The person's waiting was in vain. <S> I hope your waiting doesn't bore you. <S> (Though the simple noun "wait" is more likely to be used here)
| "Be waiting" and "wait" are both imperative verb forms. They're both perfectly valid, but they convey different nuances... 1:
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I cannot make up my mind: "at the moment" has the same meaning than "At this moment"? Example: The police arrived and the police chief says: I want to know if there is anybody in the house at the moment!! or..at this moment? <Q> I think the main difference is emphasis. <S> In the example sentence, exchanging 'at the moment' for 'at this moment' will shift the emphasis to the time, 'THIS moment', making it a more important part of the message that he wants to know if there's someone in right now. <S> I'd actually rephrase the sentence to 'right now!' <S> instead of 'at the/this moment!', it gives more energy to the message in my opinion. <A> " It is a bit formal, and perhaps the answer saying that "right now" is even more emphatic is correct. <S> "At the moment" is a grammatical construction and, in certain cases, an appropriate and idiomatic one, but it is seldom if ever used as a synonym for "now," at least not in the U.S. <S> Thus, in this context, "at the moment" does not fit. <A> Example: The police arrived and the police chief says: I want to know if there is anybody in the house at the moment!! <S> or..at this moment? <S> at the moment = <S> now = <S> right now <S> Generally, in speech, we'd use at the moment in your sentence. <S> It sounds more idiomatic. <S> At this moment, though, is not a mistake. <S> A native speaker just would not use it here.
| "At this moment" is an idiom, at least in the U.S., which is an emphatic way to say "now.
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What is the word for students under the same advisor I'd like to know what is the word to describe students under the same advisor in graduate program, e.g. PhD. Students in the same department and/or in the same school year are called classmate . <Q> Several terms are understood These terms are widely acceptable: ✔️ <S> Yes: <S> Dr. Purple's Ph.D. advisees <S> ( Stanford , Duke , Columbia Univ. ) <S> ✔ <S> ️ <S> Yes: <S> Dr. Mauve's doctoral students ( Geo. <S> Washington Univ. , <S> Univ. of Oregon , <S> Univ. of Missouri ) <S> In a medical context (physicians, dentistry, etc.) <S> postgraduates are called: ✔️ <S> Yes: <S> Dr. Maroon's residents ( definition ) <S> More variations <S> These will also be understandable: ✔ <S> ️ <S> Yes: <S> Dr. Black's dissertation students ✔ <S> ️ <S> Yes: <S> Dr. Orange's Ph.D. students <S> In a high school context, we called them "advisees" , and occasionally referred to an advisee group meeting as "advisory" . <S> Maybe: <S> Dr. Smith's advisees <S> Maybe: <S> Dr. Green's advisee group <S> Maybe: <S> Dr. Brown's advisory <S> Maybe: <S> Dr. White's advisory group <A> It can be used for students in the same school year, but usually only when refering to the past, often the far past (10 or more years ago). <S> I don't know of a specific term for graduate students who have the same advisor, and given that my father and grandfather were both University professors, as was my brother, I think I would know such a term if it existed. <A> Finally, I find the one in this case: fellow student .
| Classmate usually means students who are in the same actual class, not just the same department.
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Is there a word that refers to the phrase that follows a dialog? Is there a word that refers to the phrase that follows a dialog? By that, I mean phrases such as "said Matthew", "exclaimed John", etc. Is there a word that refers to those phrases we use in novels? For example: "That was sweet!" said John. <Q> What you are looking for may be "speech tag." <A> From the link: Also often referred to as an attribution, a dialogue tag is a small phrase either before, after, or in between the actual dialogue itself. <S> For example: “Did you get my letter?” asked Katie. <S> The phrase “asked Katie” is the dialogue tag in the sentence. <S> Note: <S> other interesting comments and information may be found in the link. <A> It's normally called either a dialogue tag or a speech tag . <S> From "Dialogue tags and how to use them in fiction writing" by Louise Harnby: Dialogue tags – or speech tags – are what writers use to indicate which character is speaking. <S> Their function is, for the most part, mechanical. <S> This article is about how to use them effectively. <S> A dialogue tag can come before, between or after direct speech: <S> <S> Dave said, ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say.’ ‘That,’ said Dave, ‘is the last thing I expected you to say.’ ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say,’ Dave said. <S> Placed in between direct speech, tags can moderate the pace by forcing the reader to pause, and improve the rhythm by breaking up longer chunks.
| It's called a dialogue tag .
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does "poise somebody" mean "invite", "ask", or some other meaning? From this book "Deep Learning and Convolutional Neural Networks for Medical Image Computing" In 2013, I was fortunate to attract Dr. Holger Roth to be a postdoctoral fellow in my group. Holger had received his graduate training under David Hawkes at University College London. With this outstanding foundation, Holger was poised to enter the new deep learning field and take it by storm. He published early papers on pancreas and lymph node detection and segmentation, two very challenging problems in radiology image processing. webster gives this definition about "poise" : to hold or carry in equilibrium : to hold or carry (the head) in a particular way none of these seems to be the meaning in the book. does "poise somebody" mean "invite", "ask", or some other meaning? <Q> The meaning you actually want is one of the senses of poise from Merriam-Webster <S> that you didn't quote: <S> intransitive verb <S> 1 : to become drawn up into readiness <S> A common expression is: <S> She was poised <S> (tensed and ready) for action. <S> So, in the example text: <S> Holger was poised (holding himself in preparation) to enter the new deep learning field and take it by storm. <A> To add to Jason's answer, people do not 'poise' other people, either it is used physically that someone is poised, in which case they have prepared themselves, or metaphorically as in your example where it is also somewhat to do with the circumstances they find themselves in as well as their attitude to those circumstances. <A> Consider the word 'counterpoise' which indicates an opposing or balancing of, well, a poise. <S> So you could say that certain actions by an organisation counterpoised those of another.
| It's about readiness of action rather than being asked or invited.
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"while she danced" vs "while she was dancing" 1.The singer waved to the people while she danced to the music. 2.The singer waved to the people while she was dancing to the music. Are these two sentences grammatically correct? Do they vary in meaning? <Q> They are correct and interchangeable. <S> However, many people would prefer the first version because "is" is a weak verb, and the second sentence is unnecessarily wordy. <A> "When", "while", and "as" to talk about two things that happen at the same time. <S> "While" is mostly used with the past continuous verb tense. <S> It is usually used as Event A <S> + <S> while <S> + <S> Event B and to emphasis a time frame as in "during that time. <S> " <S> Source <A> The difference is one of emphasis. <S> One just describes a past action: She waved to the people while she danced. <S> The other describes a past action where one action was ongoing then: She waved to the people while she was dancing. <S> During the time she was dancing, she waved to the people. <S> In the second one, it can mean that she waved more than once. <S> Another example might illustrate this difference in emphasis better: As she was walking to town, she saw the man on the bicycle. <S> As she walks to town, she saw the man on the bicycle. <S> So, do you want to just say something about a past event or <S> do you want to express that one event was ongoing in the past? <S> What do you want to say?
| Even though both of your sentences are correct grammatically and logically, the past continuous tense is preferred to emphasis conjunction "while."
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The lightning struck the hut and set it alight or set it on fire? Let's say you were storytelling something about a hut that was struck by lightning, is there any difference between the two? The lightning struck the hut and set it alight? Vs. The lightning struck the hut and set it on fire? <Q> Alight could simply mean " lit up ". <S> It does not specifically tells if the thing is on fire or not. <S> (Especially in American English) <A> That use of alight sounds awkward to me. <S> Things can be alight, but you don't set them alight. <S> I'm not saying it's technically incorrect, just that IMHO it would be distracting to me as a reader. <S> On fire is fine, but probably what you're looking for is ablaze . <A> The difference is the second example uses an Idiom to explain what happens <S> alight <S> adjective [ after verb ] UK /əˈlaɪt/ US /əˈlaɪt/ <S> alight adjective [ after verb ] <S> (BURNING) <S> The rioters overturned several cars and set them alight. <S> -- <S> Cambridge English Dictionary Reference Cambridge Thesaurus <S> Idiomsset sth <S> /sb on fireset fire to sth/sb <A> To me there is a difference between set alight and set on fire and set ablaze. <S> It really depends on what happens next or what you want to draw attention to. <S> If the hut is far away and you can only see light, then set alight makes sense. <S> You really don't have the sense of fire or of the fire spreading etc. <S> The hut may have just lit up from the lightning and didn't really "catch on fire". <A> The lightning struck the hut and set it alight. <S> There are two possible meanings [1]( https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/alight "Cambridge Dictionary"): BURNING <S> SHINING BRIGHTLY <S> In my experience (BrE) <S> the former is usually what I would assume, but it honestly would just depend on what the next line of the story was. <S> The lightning struck the hut and set it on fire <S> Only has one (synonymous to burning). <S> Why use alight in all its speculative glory? <S> Simply because it looks better and shows a higher vocabulary level. <S> I don't agree with whywasinotconsulted and have no issue with being set alight . <S> (Although I'd like to clarify by that I mean the phrase, my opinion would change if you were to actually set me alight/on fire.) <S> I do also agree with everyone who suggested "ablaze". <S> This is a wonderful word, in my opinion. <S> I might also suggest: The lightning struck the hut and it went up in flames .
| There's not much difference in British usage, but it's better to use set it on fire as this clearly describes the event without leaving a doubt in the reader's mind.
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" is polluted": adjective or passive form? What's the role of "polluted" in the sentence?Is it passive form of the verb "pollute" or an adjective to describe the status of the air? There is much evidence to show that the air we breathe is polluted . the meaning depends on the role of the "pollute" in the sentence..correct me if I'm wrong. <Q> Is it passive form of the verb "pollute" or an adjective to describe the status of the air? <S> An adjective. <S> the meaning depends on the role of the "pollute" in the sentence..correct me if I'm wrong. <S> Correct, it depends on the sentence. <S> The same word could be a participle/adjective, or a passive verb, depending on the context. <A> Here, it's an adjective. <S> It follows a linking verb. <S> "Polluted" could be: an adjective, or part or an adjectivethe simple past of "pollute" a past participle; part of a verb phrase: "will have been polluted" <A> You're right that the sentence is technically ambiguous. <S> We use an inflected form of be along with a past participle to express the passive voice. <S> We can also use use an inflected form of be along with a participial adjective as a predicate. <S> Both constructions look the same, even though one involves a participle and the other involves a participial adjective. <S> But in this specific sentence, it is very unlikely that the reader will understand the word "polluted" as a participle rather than as an adjective. <S> The focus of the sentence is on describing the state of the air, not on describing some action that is done to the air. <A> There is much evidence to show that the air we breathe is polluted. <S> Grammatically, in this sentence, "polluted" can be either an adjective or the passive form of the verb "pollute." <S> 1) It can be an adjective, because it modifies the noun (air) by describing its quality: <S> Adjective is: any member of a class of words that modify nouns and pronouns, primarily by describing a particular quality of the word they are modifying... <S> ( Dictionary.com ) <S> 2) <S> Passive voice: <S> With the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by some other performer of the verb. <S> ( Grammarly ) <S> In this particular case, you can consider "polluted" an adjective, because the emphasis is on the air quality rather than on how it has become polluted. <S> You can use another example and say that air is sabotaged, which, again, could be an adjective or passive form of the verb sabotage, but "sabotaged" much more strongly suggests that the air was acted upon, so, in this case you could consider it a passive form of the verb rather than an adjective.
| Polluted can be also a passive form of the verb "pollute," because you can imagine that it describes a subject (air) that is acted upon (polluted) by something.
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Is this a clear expression, "on a rainy day, Bob is grumpy with a 60 % chance, happy with 40 %"? This question comes from this post, where I am trying to express the following meaning clearly and concisely. this is clear but not concise on a rainy day, Bob is grumpy with a 60 % chance, Bob is happy with a 40 % chance. is this clear and concise? on a rainy day, Bob is grumpy with a 60 % chance, happy with 40 % <Q> Thank you for linking to the post where the statement originated. <S> It explains the very odd, and perfectly correct, syntax of (thing occurs) with a (percent) chance. <A> Adding on to Valkor's answer, the main issue is the word 'with'. <S> While you can use 'with' to indicate possession, such as ‘a blouse with a white collar’ ( Lexico ), this sense is normally used for nouns, and not statements such as 'Bob is grumpy'. <S> Phrased in this way, it sounds like the 60% chance is accompanying ' <S> Bob is grumpy', and not the chance that Bob is grumpy is 60%. <S> Here are some alternatives which have a similar meaning: <S> Bob has a 60% chance of being grumpy. <S> The chance that Bob is grumpy is 60%. <S> or you can use the construction ' <S> There is' as suggested in a comment: <S> There is a 60% chance that Bob is grumpy. <A> I tutor at a math web site, and I would prefer "a frequency of 60%" to "a 60% chance. <S> " We are probably not talking about a true random event. <S> This is a picky point of math speak. <S> And going to Toby Mak's point, "with a frequency of" does not sound odd to my ears.
| The most concise you should make the sentence, and still have it readable for humans, is something like : On a rainy day, Bob is grumpy with a 60 % chance and happy with a 40 % chance.
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Particular question about "of which" Do you have the forms of which I speak in order to make this renewal official? In this sentence , why "of which" is used and why? This sentence appears in Smosh video. The link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1e38s1feKg.(It 's at 1:30) <Q> In a comment under the question, you said this: I know that which refers to the "forms" but "of" is the thing that is making me [confused]. <S> Given that you aren't questioning the use of <S> which itself in the sentence, you can consider the following two simplified versions of the sentence: <S> Do you have the forms which I speak of ? <S> Do you have the forms of which I speak? <S> At one point, a myth was circulated that you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition. <S> For some reason, it caught on and became taught as fact by many people. <S> In reality, where the preposition is placed is just a matter of style and personal choice. <S> You can read more about this at "Ending a Sentence With a Preposition" by Mignon Fogarty. <S> However, when it was thought to be wrong, the so-called problem was addressed by moving the preposition from the end of the sentence to a position in front of the verb. <S> Borrowing from the linked article, here are a couple of sentences with the location of the preposition changed: <S> What did you step on ? <S> On <S> what did you step? <S> I want to know where he came from . <S> I want to know from where he came. <S> Finally, consider this sentence: <S> She displayed the good humor <S> she’s known for . <S> Simply moving the preposition here wouldn't work: <S> ✘ <S> She displayed the good humor for <S> she's known. <S> In order for this to be grammatical, which has to also be employed: ✔ <S> She displayed the good humor for which <S> she's known. <S> Note that the original version of the sentence in the question could also be rephrased to express the same thing in a way <S> isn't quite so tricky to parse. <S> For instance: <S> Do you have the forms of which I speak in order to make this renewal official? <S> → Do you have the forms I'm talking about that would make this renewal official? <A> They are asking for the forms, and they are going to be speaking about those forms in order to make the renewal official. " <S> Of which " refer to the forms here. <A> Of which was used because of its formality. <S> Outside of a formal context, this construction can sound affected. <S> The somewhat formal construction of preposition + which can often be replaced by a relative adverb ( why, when, where ) or relative pronoun (which, that, who, whom, whose). <S> Relative adverbs, like relative pronouns, can introduce a relative clause. <S> Clauses with a relative adverb supply adverbial information and can be either restrictive or non-restrictive. <S> The sentences in the first two groups below each contain a restrictive relative clause. <S> Relative Adverbs <S> Why > for which The reason why the war began is still unknown. <S> The reason for which the war began is still unknown. <S> When <S> > on/ <S> in which, at which The year when the drought began was very hot. <S> The year in which the drought began was very hot. <S> Where > in which, through which That hotel where you lost your passport is known for having a lot of crime. <S> That hotel in which you lost your passport is known for having a lot of crime. <S> Relative Pronouns <S> Whose > of which Tokyo is a city whose attractions are many. <S> Tokyo is a city of which the attractions are many. <S> (can sound affected) <S> Which, That <S> > <S> to which,on which The country which you are going to is simply unsafe. <S> The country to which you are going is simply unsafe. <S> Collectible dolls, which she spends most of her money on, can be pricey. <S> Collectible dolls, on which she spends most of her money, can be pricey. <S> As (preceded by <S> such or same ) introducing a restrictive relative clause <S> In the airport, the VIPs enjoyed the same privileges as diplomats. <S> Her manners are such as a princess has. <S> Some sentences with preposition + which can be simplified, usually to a less formal structure. <S> The visa with which you were to go to America has expired. <S> (rather formal)You were to go to America with this visa, but it has expired. <S> The visa that you were to go to America with has expired. <S> The visa you were to go to America with has expired. <S> Your American visa has expired. <S> Do you have the forms of which I speak in order to make this renewal <S> official?Do you have the forms that I spoke of, the ones to make this renewal official?Do you have the forms I mentioned, the ones to make this renewal official?
| They are both grammatical and mean the same thing—it's just that in the second version the preposition has been moved from its position after the verb to a position in front of it.
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How can I make the statement about combinations of multiple items a little less boring? this question is based on this post . there are 4 items about Bob's mood (happy and grumpy) and weather (sunny and rainy). this expression is clear but a little bit boring (same structure). On a rainy day, Bob is grumpy with a 60 % chance and happy with a 40 % chance. On a sunny day, Bob is grumpy with a 20 % chance and happy with a 80 % chance. how can improve this? is it following expression still clear and readable? On a rainy day, Bob is grumpy with a 60% chance and happy with a 40% chance. On a sunny day, the corresponding chances are 20% and 80% respectively. <Q> The first thing to note is that "Bob is grumpy with a 60% chance" is not the usual way we would express that idea. <S> More idiomatic would be something like: <S> "Bob has a 60% chance of being grumpy" But to address your question, the "boring" quality of your example is because so many words are repeated explicitly even though we already know that they are coming. <S> The easy way to correct that repetition is to leave out some of the words on their second occurrence: <S> "On a rainy day, Bob has a 60% chance of being grumpy, and a 40% chance of being happy. <S> On a sunny day, he has an 80% chance of being happy. <S> " We can do the math on the 80-20 ratio Taking that process a little further: <S> "On a rainy day, Bob has a 60% chance of being grumpy, and a 40% chance of being happy. <S> On a sunny day it is 80-20." <S> There are many ways of restating things in a way you will find appropriate. <A> Given that these are binary choices, we can say On a sunny day, the probability that Bob will be grumpy is 20% whereas on a rainy day it is 60%. <A> I would rephrase it and turn it into a single sentence: <S> Bob's chances of being grumpy or happy are 60% and 40% on a rainy day, but 20% and 80% on a sunny day. <S> Note, too, that if only grumpiness is mentioned (and it's assumed that its negation is happiness), talking only about the grumpiness makes it even shorter and more simplistic: <S> Bob's chance of being grumpy on a rainy day is 60%, but only 20% on a sunny day. <S> We would not be able to use only with the original version because it wouldn't be clear which feeling it was referencing.
| You could also vary the sentence structure and replace some of the duplicated words with synonyms: "On a rainy day, Bob has a 40% chance of being happy, but on sunny days, the probability goes up to 80%." In the shorter version, we can add only , making the conjunction flow better, because it unambiguously refers to one thing (his grumpiness).
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A team with high solidarity What do you call a team which has a reasonable solidarity between its members/players?The only word that comes to mind is coherent , which is something derived from the noun " coherence " and subsequently absolutely different with "solidarity". For example, please imagine a soccer team which its players are quite harmonized and have a good cooperation and teamwork together. All the players know any other teammate's qualities and can easily find each other on the field. They have quite the same target and as the saying goes all play for one and one plays for all. What adjective is used to describe such a team? <Q> I would say cohesive (united and working together effectively).It looks similar to coherent and is related ( especially in writing ), so maybe that is why you thought of it. <S> To keep it simple, "coherent" is something that "makes sense" under a specific context; you should be coherent when arguing, for example, but a it is not an adjective you would use for a team. <S> I would think "solidarity" fits better with the example you provided. <A> An idiom: <S> They are on the same sheet of music. <S> This implies: 1) they work together according to instructions2) <S> they are working towards the same goal(s)3) they don't have disagreements about what to do <A> One could use chemistry : <S> the ability of people to have a good relationship <S> An example (from the source) suitable to your context: <S> Building a strong team requires paying attention to team chemistry. <S> A related word is rapport : a good understanding of someone and an ability to communicate well with them <A> One phrase which comes to mind very close to your description is: Camaraderie/comradery - mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together. <S> (Google Definitions) <S> Both words are interchangable: Comradery and its much more common synonym camaraderie come from the French word camarade, which means "comrade," and whose Middle French ancestor was also the source for our word comrade. <S> In Middle French, camarade was used to mean "roommate," "companion," or "a group sleeping in one room. <S> " It traces to the Late Latin word camera, meaning "chamber. <S> " <S> Comradery was formed by attaching the -ry suffix (as found in wizardry and citizenry) to comrade. <S> Source: <S> M/W Dictionary <A> Such a team is in harmony : <S> [Merriam-Webster] <S> 2 <S> a : pleasing arrangement of parts : CONGRUENT // <S> a painting exhibiting harmony of color and line <S> 2 b : AGREEMENT, ACCORD // <S> when a woman's desires are in harmony with those of her husband While harmony is a noun, the phrase in harmony is often used adjectivally (it can also be used adverbially): <S> The team is in harmony . <S> The team plays in harmony . <S> However, you can also use the equivalent actual adjective: harmonious : <S> [Merriam-Webster] 2 : having the parts agreeably related : CONGRUOUS <S> // <S> blended into a harmonious whole // <S> harmonious medley of small vaulted chambers — <S> Norman Douglas <S> So: It is a harmonious team. <S> And with its adverb: The team plays harmoniously .
| The team is harmonious .
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My English teacher said that non-progressive verbs cannot be use with the ing but there are some exceptions For example, I saw a sentence that says: in the 19th century, Europeans wanting to immigrate to the USA could do so as long as they did not have any infectious diseases. So , I’m confused. Why did they use want+ing in this sentence? <Q> The 'rule' was probably given to help students avoid sentences like <S> * <S> I am owning this beautiful new car. <S> * <S> I am wanting to go home. <S> (Though note that even for the progressive usage, the 'rule' is not totally accurate – "If anyone is wanting a fresh cup of coffee ..." is probably totally acceptable nowadays in informal speech. <S> It's a hedged, softened, variant.) <S> But in the given example we have what is variously known as a [present] participial clause, or phrase in traditional grammar, here used as a post-modifier of a noun. <S> There isn't any restriction forbidding ing -clauses with punctive (non-durative) verbs being used: <S> The bodies of soldiers dying at the front were often recovered during cease-fires. <S> Shattering under the impact, the medieval window would now be no more than a memory. <S> 'Want' is far less punctive a verb than the verbs in these two examples. <A> You need to distinguish between the present participle ending in "ing", and the verb phrase, usually called "continuous" or "progressive", which is constructed using that participle: they are very different in usage. <S> This participle can introduce a clause with adjectival or adverbial force, such as "wanting to immigrate to the USA" in your example: the whole clause describes or limits the noun "Europeans", so it has adjectival force. <S> It denotes something happening at the same time, but not necessarily continuously or "progressively". <S> The "progressive" form is a quite different construction, which happens to use the same form of the verb. <S> You can distinguish it because it always has a form of BE preceding the "-ing" word. <S> As your teacher says, there are classes of verb which are not normally used in the progressive: <S> want is an example. <S> Advanced usage note: <S> Many verbs that do not normally take the progressive can do so, for example where the speaker wants to emphasise that it is happening at the precise moment. <S> But these forms are rare in writing. <A> "Want" is usually non-progressive. <S> As you said, there are exceptions. <S> This isn't uncommon. <S> http://www.english-zone.com/verbs/prgverbchrt.html
| Pretty well any verb has a participle in "-ing" (the only exceptions are modals like can , will , should ).
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The formal way of saying "keep away from" What's the legal term for "keep away from" / "keep a distance from" ? I'm looking for a verb that means/expresses such a concept. What I really want is not the legal term but what those people says in law-related TV dramas, that sounded fancy when I heard them. E.g.: Due to the conflict of interest, I decided to ( keep away ) from this matter. I think I've heard such conversation/situation many many times, in all different TV series, but just forgot what that fancy word they use. <Q> You can try refrain though it's mostly used for verbs (and 'matter' is a noun): : to keep oneself from doing, feeling, or indulging in something and especially from following a passing impulse // <S> refrained from having dessert <S> (source: Merriam-Webster) <S> As for your new examples, I decided to refrain from participating <S> I decided to refrain from getting involved sound fine. <A> In a legal setting the word might be recuse - to remove from participation in a court case due to potential prejudice or partiality . <S> Due to the conflict of interest, I decided to recuse myself from further participation in this matter. <S> It can be used outside of the courtroom in a joking way - probably because of all those popular courtroom dramas - but it might be a little tricky for a non-native speaker to pull off in conversation. <S> You would only use it in cases where someone has a conflict of interest. <A> You can always use specialized websites to look up synonyms. <S> For instance, I googled "keep away synonyms", and the first link led me to " Synonyms of avoid " (Merriam-Webster) <S> The word "avoid" in itself is quite official-looking, and might suit your purpose.
| Due to the conflict of interest, I decided to ( keep away ) from this matter.
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Is there a verb that means "become extinct"? Is there a single verb that means become extinct? I have found disappear and vanish , but I think they don't mean exactly the same as become extinct. <Q> If the entire species that goes extinct is often referred to using a singular noun, "die" can be used by itself. <S> For example, "The buggy whip industry nearly died in the early twentieth century." <S> Another way to express that an entire category of people or things "became extinct" is to state that the "last" such person or thing "died". <S> For example, "The last sauropod died 65 million years ago." <S> The original poster is correct that "disappear" and "vanish" are often used to mean "die out", but (unless the context is very clear) <S> can also mean "become invisible" or "hide" instead. <A> This answer relates to a single-word verb rather than to a verbal phrase. <S> A verb would be highly unusual. <S> As a verb , somebody or something has to <S> do something to somebody or something. <S> There needs to be an agent of some kind. <S> For instance: A meteor extinguished the dinosaurs. <S> It's assumed from context that this means a meteor was responsible for killing all the dinosaurs rather than just a specific group of individuals. <S> But the meaning isn't explicitly understood without this context. <S> And without context, we would have to add more qualifiers to make it clear it referred to the entire species: <S> A meteor extinguished the race of dinosaurs. <S> I cannot think of a verb that means to kill every member of a species without having to resort to some kind of context or qualification. <S> There is the noun genocide and the adjective genocidal : <S> It committed genocide on dinosaurs. <S> It was a genocidal act against dinosaurs. <S> But neither of those are verbal . <S> It's not possible to say, for instance: <S> It genocided dinosaurs. <S> (Although, in theory, if it were used as a verb, the meaning would be understood.) <S> The word suicide can be used as a verb. <S> So, although uncommon, it's possible to say: She suicided . <S> From Merriam-Webster: <S> suicide verb suicided; suiciding intransitive verb : to commit suicide transitive verb : to put (oneself) to death But not only would this mean that the species killed itself , which would be highly unusual, but we'd have the same problem of having to qualify the noun so as to make it clear that it was every member of the race that was referenced rather than just an individual or a few specific members. <S> The verb die is, of course, possible. <S> But it, too, would require context or qualification so as to make it clear that it was referencing an entire species. <S> (It doesn't carry that connotation as part of its own definition.) <S> In short, there is no actual single-word verb I can think of that expresses this concept. <S> That leaves verbal phrases (such as killed off or died off ), which may also have to be used in context or with some kind of qualification, single-word nouns or adjectives rather than actual verbs, or a coined verbal use of genocide . <A> You might consider defunct as p resented in this link .
| "Die out" and "die off" are commonly used in active-voice sentences, where "become extinct" is used in passive-voice sentences. A meteor extinguished all of the dinosaurs that existed.
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Difference between "Would have to " and "Will have to" In a mobile purchasing guide, it says that you can have a small-sized phone very cheaply. The next sentence is: But what if you want a bigger screen? In that case you (would have to/will have to) spend more money. I think its "will have to" because it is a fact. <Q> Literally, they both mean the same. <S> Logically, " would " is used when the person is not completely sure/ is doubtful while " will " is used when one is sure that the thing is going to happen. <A> It's used in First Conditional where the condition is possible to fulfill in future : <S> If you want a bigger screen, you will have to spend more money. <S> But 'would have to' is used to be more polite to make some hypothetical statement. <S> It is used in 2nd conditional where it denotes an unreal possibility, i.e., a condition in theory possible to fulfil : <S> What if you want a bigger screen? <S> In that case, the above-mentioned both conditionals are possible. <S> But in my opinion, the 2nd conditional sounds more polite. <A> 'Would have to’ is correct in the context of a buying guide. <S> It indicates that the action (purchasing the phone) is conditional. <S> You only need to spend the additional money if you decide to get the bigger screen. <S> ‘Will’ indicates that the action is unconditional ... it must happen regardless.
| 'Will have to" is used for making a promise to do something in future. If you wanted a bigger screen, you would have to spend more money.
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What do you call a flexible diving platform? What do you call a flexible diving platform? I just realized this, but in international competition the diving platform isn't always elastic and flexible, but I doubt they are called a diving platform since they protrude out of the platform. You can see four of them in the lower platforms. What are they called? <Q> In American English, these "flexible diving platforms" are " diving boards ". <S> A Bing image search shows that diving boards look like what the original poster had in mind. <S> If it is very clear from context that the object is used to dive into an artificial pool of water, the term can be shortened to "board". <S> The International Olympic Committee's website refers to these objects as " springboards ". <A> springboard noun [ C ] a board that can bend, helping people to jump higher when jumping or diving into a swimming pool or when doing gymnastics Cambridge Dictionary <A> Springboard is the term. <S> When I used to swim and dive regularly, (in UK), the 'boards' were the solid platforms that had steps up to them - often at three different levels. <S> Hence the 'top board'. <S> The springboard was a flexible board, often longer than the others, (its inboard end was further from the water), and sometimes adjustable in the free length over the water, to enable a variable amount of 'spring'.
| They are called springboards (although they are often just called diving boards ):
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Is there any difference between "along" & "by" the river"? Is there any difference in meaning between those two sentences concerning the use of (along) vs. (by)? 1- Cities must have water, and so they are often built along rivers . 2- Cities are built in safe, suitable places, such as by rivers . Can they be equally replaced? 1- Cities must have water, and so they are often built by rivers . 2- Cities are built in safe, suitable places, such as along rivers . <Q> by can be used as a preposition, adverb meaning near or beside (in distance) <S> If you need to reference all are available in the Cambridge English Dictionary online Link to C.E.D. <A> Yes, there can be a difference, but note that they can be used synonymously. <S> According to the Merriam-Webster ESL Learners Dictionary, which is found here : <S> along <S> 1 : in a line matching the length or direction of (something) <S> We walked along the beach. <S> We walked along (the side of) the road. <S> The chairs were lined up along the wall. <S> The ship sailed along the coast. <S> 2 : at a point on (something) <S> They have a house along [=alongside] the river. <S> We drove to Boston and we stopped along the way for lunch. <S> by <S> 1 : close to or next to (something or someone) : near She was standing by [=beside] the window. <S> His wife was sitting by him. <S> They have a house by the lake. <S> So, along rivers can mean matching the length of rivers , and by <S> can mean near . <S> Your example sentences cannot be equally replaced. <A> If we want to thoroughly split hairs, I suppose we could come up with a slight difference. <S> Any city that is built along <S> a river can also said to be by a river. <S> However, not every city that is built by a river can be accurately described as being along a river. <S> Consider this map: <S> Both cities are by the river (we could also say they are on the river), but one could argue that the northern city is built along the river, while the southern city is built more near the river than along it. <S> However, most of time time, people won't think that much about this subtle difference. <S> And nobody would argue that the northern city is not by the river, because clearly it is. <S> Also, in a practical sense, most cities probably take up enough riverfront land that it would be very hard to find an example of a city that would be considered by a river but not along the river.
| Yes in this case along and by are interchangeable Along or alongside can be used when the meaning is next to .
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Which is the correct/most appropriate option out of the following? Q: They_______the saplings before we reach home. Options: will have been planting will be planting planted will have planted I got this question in my recent FSSAI exam and I have to fill objection form including this question because the correct answer they provided in the answer key is Option 2 which I think is incorrect but I might be wrong hence the reason for my post here. I think that Option 1 should be the most suitable one. What do you think? <Q> The "before we reach home" indictates a future time. <S> So 1 or 2 or 4 look possible. <S> They have slightly different meanings. <S> 1 suggests that they will start planting and the planting activity was ongoing before we reach home. <S> 2 has a very similar meaning. <S> 3 means all the saplings will be planted when we reach home. <A> Option 1: <S> They will have been planting the saplings before we reach home <S> This suggests the planting activity has started, but doesn't sounds right to me unless you qualify how long it's been going: <S> They will have been planting the saplings for 4 hours by the time we reach home Option 2: <S> They will be planting the saplings before we reach home <S> This suggests much the same as 1 but without the need (in my mind) to stipulate how long it has been going on for. <S> Simply, the activity has started and will be ongoing by the time we get there <S> As it doesn't need any edits to make sense, this could be considered as the correct option , but might depend on context - a more natural way to say this would be: <S> They will have started planting the saplings before we reach home Option 3: <S> They planted the saplings before we reach home <S> This mixes tenses in the wrong way - it states something has definitely happened but gives a future time that it would depend on, so to be correct: <S> They planted the saplings before we reach ed home Option 4: <S> They will have planted the saplings before we reach home <S> This option theorises that by the time they get home, all the saplings will have been planted. <S> ( All the cakes will be eaten before we get to the party ) <S> This option also seems correct to me <S> Summary: <S> I believe either option 2 or 4 could be considered correct , but would depend on what you actually wanted to say. <S> The question is "Will the planting be ongoing[2] or finished[4] by the time you get home?" <S> To me, Option 4 sounds the most natural out of all of them. <A> I would go with: <S> They will have planted the saplings before we reach home <S> The speaker is referring to something that they are already doing (planting the samplings) and that they will have finished by the time "we reach home"
| They will have been planting the saplings for 4 hours before we reach home
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Why is “deal 6 damage” a legit phrase? I mean, if damage is countable, it should be Deal 6 damages. If it’s not countable, then this sentence should be wrong. Such as saying something like I drank 5 water. So... am I missing something here? <Q> It's domain specific, and not something that would be said outside the context of a game like this. <S> It's almost certainly an elided form of the following: <S> Deal 6 points of damage. <S> (And damage here is a mass noun.) <S> In the same way that headlines take liberties with the omission of articles and other grammatical structures, so too is this game using a shortened form of English that's understood in its own context. <S> (With that font size, it looks like the full sentence might not fit within the space allowed by the card.) <A> Generically, because it's established gaming jargon . <S> While the answer by Jason Bassford is almost certainly correct about the origins of this particular bit of jargon, it's gotten to the point now that it's just accepted jargon, so it's what almost everybody uses. <S> In a number of cases, the jargon for a particular domain is essentially a distinct grammatical and lexical dialect from the base language it's used in, and should be analyzed as such since it quite often just doesn't make sense otherwise. <S> In this particular case, the construct [verb] [number] [attribute or property] is in widespread use in many types of games as a way of concisely expressing a numerical change in state of some specific value within the context of the game. <S> The verb indicates the particular direction of the change (positive or negative), the number is largely universally a positive, and the attribute or property indicates what is being changed. <S> So, in your example, 'deal 6 damage' means that whatever entity is being targeted <S> takes six points of damage, but expresses that without needing nearly as many words. <S> That kind of concise communication gets really important in a lot of cases because space is often limited when relaying information like this, so fewer words means you can use a bigger font, and therefore make it more easily readable (this is less of an issue in a digital context though than it is with physical games). <S> As mentioned above, the origins of this phrase are almost certainly exactly what Jason Bassford outlined in his answer. <S> It's long-since become standard phrasing in TCGs and CCGs, likely because of Magic <S> the Gathering (which goes a step further and uses similar phrasing to indicate changes in certain non-numeric properties as well), and that's probably where the usage in your particular case came from <S> (I'm pretty sure the picture is a card from Hearthstone, which took heavy inspiration in a lot of ways from MtG, just like most other TCG type games). <A> Deal 6 damage tokens. <S> and it's being used here as jargon, perhaps to conserve valuable space on the card. <S> The use of jargon also helps with consistency; if one card says "Deal 6 units of damage" and another says "Deal 6 damage points," do they mean the same thing or different things? <S> Players will be confused by the inconsistency. <S> But if the preferred form of the instruction is chosen to be also the shortest possible form — "deal 6 damage" — then it's easier for the author and proofreader to verify that all the cards in the game use that preferred phrase consistently. <S> The use of mass nouns for units and stats is widespread in all role-playing and card games. <S> None of these instructions look "weird" to me: <S> Collect 2 gold. <S> Gain 3 magic. <S> Lose 4 dexterity . <S> Trade 5 wood for 6 stone. <S> Many games take it a step further toward brevity and consistency by inventing icons for each resource in the game. <S> For example, instead of "Gain 1 renown," a game might simply say "Gain 1 ." <S> Instead of "Gain 1 spending power," a game might simply say "Gain ①." Another benefit of using such short phrases (besides space-on-card and consistency) is that they tend to preserve player immersion. <S> The mechanics of the game may deal in "hit points" and "wood cards," but thematically the game deals in actual damage and actual wood. <S> So rather than saying "I'll trade you a wood card for a sheep card," the players want to pretend that they're trading the actual item — "I'll trade you a piece of wood for a sheep." <S> But is it a piece of wood? <S> a bundle of wood? <S> a cartload of wood? <S> The game doesn't tell us. <S> So we just say "a wood" — avoiding the game-mechanical detail of "a wood card" but not committing to any particular real-world-mechanical details either. <A> It's a normal imperative sentence <S> The subject "You", is normally omitted from an imperative statement. <S> [You] give me your passport. <S> But we conjugate as if the subject is stated. <S> [You] deal 6 damage . <S> The singular "deal" agrees with the subject "You". <S> It would be the same if the object were countable. <S> [You] deal 6 cards. <S> So we don't even look at whether "damage" is countable. <S> It's not. <S> Points are countable, but "points of" or "point of" is omitted in gaming slang. <S> Deal 6 [points of] damage. <S> Deal 1 [point of] damage.
| As Jason Bassford's excellent answer indicates, "deal 6 damage" is an elided form of something like Deal 6 points of damage. Exactly pinpointing its origin is somewhat difficult, but I'd be willing to bet that it developed first as verbal shorthand among players of tabletop RPGs (like Dungeons & Dragons) and then got slowly inherited by other gaming contexts (many gamers tend to play more than one type of game).
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Present Tense arrives or arrived I saw a train approaching the station. I wanted to tell my friends be ready with their bags to get into the train.I said: Train arrived be ready. Afterwards I realised that "Train arrived" is past tense which is incorrect to use in present tense. Should I have said this? Train arrives be ready Please help me with my example I know other option s to say . <Q> but lots of other options are possible. <S> Indeed, with present tense: "The train is here, get ready (to get on) <S> " would be perfectly acceptable in normal usage, even though the statement is arguably false - the train is still approaching. <S> If you really want to work in past tense, then try something along the lines of: "The train has arrived, time to get on board!" <A> In this case I believe you are looking to use the present participle of the verb <S> arrive, like <S> so: <S> "The train is arriving." <S> The present participle refers to things that are happening as the words are spoken, so it is likely the tense you would use to alert your friends in the moment that an event is occurring. <S> For more information on forming the present participle: https://www.lexico.com/en/grammar/verb-tenses-adding-ed-and-ing <A> I think the key to which answer you choose lies in how you asked the question: " Should I have said this?" <S> As @Brad mentioned in hos post most answers in this site are to do with 'correctness' <S> and this is certainly important. <S> What is the point of language - to be understood. <S> For this correctness is important. <S> In this instance, why do want to be understood - that's in your question too, you wrote: "I wanted to tell my friends be ready with their bags to get into the train". <S> So here we have an example of communicating with purpose - so I believe that the appropriate form of words to choose is the one which is most likley to achieve that purpose. <S> In this case for your friends to be ready. <S> Saying "Train arrived" - even if it hasn't yet finished the process of arriving - conveys more urgancy than "Train arriving" or "The train will be here soon" or "I can see the train in the distance" <S> So while your use of tenses and form of words may not be strictly accurate, which form of words will be most successful in achieveing the result you intend. <S> It seems to me that it's the one that creates the most sense of urgency. <S> For that I think saying "Train arrived be ready" while not strictly correct is a good phrase. <S> It's short, direct and conveys the urgency you intended. <S> As for correctness we would not say "Train arrives" we would say "The train is arriving". <S> We would also say "The train has arrived" not "Train arrived". <S> In English we have "Proper nonuns" which are in general people's names and if you are using a noun which is not a proper noun you need to use an article with the noun. <S> So you can say "Peter arrived" but not "Train arrived <S> " you should say either "The train arrived" or "A train arrived". <S> "The" is the definite article and refers to a specific train. <S> "A" is the indefinite article and refers to any train.
| I would say that the most normal phrase to use would be: "Here comes the train, get ready!"
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He had taken 5 fewer apples Please wait 5 more minutes.* Could I use fewer instead of more ? He had taken 5 fewer apples. <Q> The short answer to your question is yes, you can use "fewer" in the same way as "more". <S> You'll often, sometimes incorrectly, hear "less" used instead of "fewer". <S> I wouldn't get too hung-up on that difference since most native English speakers (at least in America) don't bother with using it correctly anyway. <S> On a separate note, you should use the simple or perfect past tense of "take" in your sample sentence. " <S> He has taken five fewer apples", He had taken five fewer apples", or "He took five fewer apples" could all be correct based on context. <A> Yes, as fewer is the opposite of more . <S> You should note the difference between fewer and less . <S> You usually use less with uncountable nouns and fewer with plural nouns. <S> E.g. <S> He took fewer apples. <S> He took less apple sauce. <S> However, more is used with both countable and uncountable nouns: <S> He took more apples. <S> He took more apple sauce. <A> In short, yes. <S> He has fewer apples <S> For (singular) mass nouns, you should use less <S> He has less water <S> As this site suggests, If you can count it, go for fewer. <S> If you can’t, opt for less. <S> Note that more applies to both situations
| For count nouns, you should use fewer
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Adjective for when skills are not improving and I'm depressed about it What's the adjective I can use when my English skills (or other skills I've been working on for quite a long time) are not improving and depressed about it? For example: Lately, I've been feeling adjective because I feel like my English is not improving. What I want to say is something like depressed or exhausted, kind of feeling you have when you doubt about yourself and you're stuck at the same level, but none of those words seem natural. I've also looked up some synonyms, but sad or gloomy seems too strong and I'm not sure about low or down . Are those right words? I wanted to ask for a proper word I can use in this context. <Q> At first I thought you might be feeling dejected which according to Lexico means dejected ADJECTIVE Sad and depressed; dispirited. <S> She never looked dejected or dispirited, though she had all the reason. <S> Then I noticed the word dispirited and <S> Lexico says dispirited ADJECTIVE <S> Having lost enthusiasm and hope; disheartened. <S> Behind in races, he would find himself becoming dispirited and not fighting as hard as he should. <S> So you might say <S> Lately, I've been feeling dispirited because my English is not improving. <A> I strongly believe FRUSTRATED is your word of choice here. <S> Definition : <S> frustrated (adjective): <S> feeling annoyed or less confident because you cannot achieve what you want. <S> Are you feeling frustrated in your present job? <A> A complete idiomatic expression for that situation is "I'm stuck in a rut with my English learning." <S> That describes the situation of not making progress while ineffectively investing work. <S> You could also use this in the sentence you proscribe, it's just not a single word then: "Lately, I've been feeling stuck in a rut because I feel like my English is not improving." <S> but that's a lot of "feel" there. <A> I believe the word 'stagnating' would be properly used here. <S> Definition: "ceasing to develop; becoming inactive or dull. <S> " <S> I recognize that this word does not work in the sentence structure provided by the poster of the question, but the sentence could easily be modified to " <S> I feel like my progress with learning English is stagnating." <S> While the word does not inherently communicate that you are frustrated with this outcome, I think that it is implied when you are using the word in the context of the development of your own abilities. <S> Hope this helps! <A> Appreciate this has been answered already, but I think despondent , or disheartened . <S> " <S> Despondent" implying loss of hope which is ongoing or continuing. " <S> Disheartened" more or less implies your hope has gone. <S> Dispirited is a great fit too, though it doesn't sound so correct to my English <S> ear in that exact sentence if you use "feeling" in front of it. <S> I would go for "Lately, I've been feeling despondent because my English is not improving. <S> "or <A> There are some slightly less common but still beautiful words like; Sullen “gloomily or resentfully silent or repressed” Might be used if you are keeping the disappointment inside. <S> Morose :“marked by or expressive of gloom” <S> Could be used if the disappointment is more palpable to the observer. <A> Inadequate and likely cromulent
| "Lately, I've been dispirited/disheartened because my English is not improving."
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The meaning of "scale" in "because diversions scale so easily wealth becomes concentrated" And because diversions scale so easily—after all, who doesn’t want to post selfies on Instagram?—wealth becomes extremely concentrated in fewer hands. As you know the word Scale as a verb has many meanings: to weigh in scales to remove the scale or scales from to take off in thin layers or scales to throw (something, such as a thin, flat stone) so that the edgecuts the air or so that it skips on water to attack with or take by means of scaling ladders to climb up or reach by means of a ladder to reach the highest point of : SURMOUNT to arrange in a graduated series to measure by or as if by a scale to pattern, make, regulate, set, or estimate according to some rateor standard : ADJUST So, Could you tell me please which one explains the sentence? The fuller text: There’s one last component to this harebrained theory that I still haven’t spoken about: inequality. During periods of prosperity, more and more economic growth is driven by diversions. And because diversions scale so easily—after all, who doesn’t want to post selfies on Instagram?—wealth becomes extremely concentrated in fewer hands . This growing wealth disparity then feeds the “revolution of rising expectations.” Everyone feels that their life is supposed to be better, yet it’s not what they expected; it’s not as pain-free as they had hoped. Therefore, they line up on their ideological sides— master moralists over here, slave moralists over there—and they fight. Additinal note(I added this note and the question below after some people answered the original question): In other page of his book the author mentions: Bernays’s political beliefs were appalling. He believed in what I suppose you could call “diet fascism”: same evil authoritarian government but without the unnecessary genocidal calories. Bernays believed that the masses were dangerous and needed to be controlled by a strong centralized state. But he also recognized that bloody totalitarian regimes were not exactly ideal. For him, the new science of marketing offered a way for governments to influence and appease their citizens without the burden of having to maim and torture them left, right, and center. You know, because torture doesn’t scale well. Does he use two "scale" in the same way? <Q> As pointed out, there are many meanings of scale . <S> The third Lexico entry is scale 3 <S> VERB <S> 2.1 (of a quantity or property) be variable according to a particular scale. <S> Asymmetrical virtualization, by contrast, can scale to any level, as the appliance does not handle any data flow or physical connections. <S> From this comes the adjective scalable <S> 2.1 (of a computing process) <S> able to be used or produced in a range of capabilities. <S> There is no better example of a scalable infrastructure than the Internet. <S> So when we say that something is scalable, the process or idea works at a small scale, or a large scale. <S> If the scope of the thing can be increased or widened without having to change the techniques used, then it is said to be scalable . <A> Okay, so the logic is a little convoluted here but the meaning of scale is itself quite definite: <S> So how did I get that meaning from a word that has so many possible interpretations? <S> Scale followed by the preposition 'with' indicates that as one thing increases, so does another (or alternatively, as one thing shrinks, so does the other). <S> This preposition isn't written in the text above though. <S> However, what is written is [...] <S> more and more economic growth is driven by diversions. <S> And because diversions scale so easily [...] wealth becomes extremely concentrated in fewer hands <S> This indicates that economic growth is proportional to 'diversions'. <S> Okay so we are taking about something increasing, and this is directly related to 'diversions'. <S> At this point the logic becomes a bit complicated. <S> The piece says that wealth becomes extremely concentrated in fewer hands. <S> This means that diversions aren't scaling relative to the number of hands <S> (they are inversely proportional). <S> The 'hands' in this case would likely be the owners of social media platforms or whatever. <S> You can't say that diversions scale relative to economic growth. <S> They are related, but it's clear that diversions are driving the economic growth of the platforms (like Instagram), not the other way around. <S> As such, by a process of elimination, scale must be in relation to users. <S> As the number of users increases, so too do the number of diversions. <S> Lots of users means lots of diversions. <S> There will never be the case where people will run of diversions because there were too many users relative to the number of diversions: because the diversions scale with the number of users. <A> It's the last one, "to pattern, make, regulate, set, or estimate according to some rate or standard : ADJUST". <S> You'll also see under that definition: //a production schedule scaled to actual need —often used with back, down, or up //scale down imports "diversions scale so easily" means "the quantity of diversions can easily be adjusted to meet demand". <S> In this context, "X scales" means "the capacity for X can easily be increased", or "continues to work as the scale increases". <S> It contrasts with things that break down if you try to increase their size. <S> For instance, the old CRT versions of TVs didn't scale very well: the depth of the TV had to be about the same as the width, so making a 100" CRT was not practical for most purposes. <S> A flat-screen TV, on the other hand, has a constant thickness (or, at least, the thickness increases less quickly with width as compared to a CRT), and therefore scales much better.
| Scale here means that without any effort, the number of diversions available can increase, relative to the number of users.
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Difference between bundle and package "Bundle" and "package" both mean different items put together and sold as one unit. What is the difference between them in the following sentences? Starbucks is offering a lunch bundle for busy workers in London. https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/4971251/starbucks-is-launching-a-3-99-meal-deal-but-it-doesnt-include-a-hot-drink/ Can I use "package" here instead? Turn yourself into a marketable brand with this $19 training package . https://thenextweb.com/offers/2019/08/05/turn-yourself-into-a-marketable-brand-with-this-19-training-package/ Can I use "bundle" here instead? LSAC also now offers packages at a slight discount that include the LSAT registration fee, CAS fee, and school reports. The two packages are as follows: Package 1: LSAT (including LSAT Writing), CAS, 1 Law School Report = $430 Package 2: LSAT (including LSAT Writing), CAS, 6 Law School Reports = $650 https://magoosh.com/lsat/2019/how-much-does-the-lsat-cost/ Can I use "bundle" here instead? <Q> In this kind of use, "bundle" and "package" are pretty much interchangeable. <S> " <S> But this distinction is not strictly observed. <S> Both uses are figurative, of course. <S> A "bundle" originally meant several things wrapped up or rolled up together, and "package" a thing or group of things wrapped or boxed or enclosed. <A> When speaking figuratively, it may help to think of a "bundle" as a group of various objects wrapped together: and a "package" as some objects placed in a box and sometimes wrapped with paper: "Bundle" can feel more loose and haphazard, which (as in your example) may be a kind of marketing gimmick. <S> Calling something a "bundle" implies the vendor isn't all that concerned about the price, that they're trying to group a bunch of things together because they just want to get rid of them -- <S> in other words, the buyer is getting a special deal . <S> Meanwhile "package" requires more effort and planning. <S> Something like a "package tour" implies that the trip has been carefully organized to include everything travelers will need -- flights, hotels, meals, guides, etc. <S> -- so they don't have to worry about additional expense. <S> In all of your examples, you can substitute "bundle" for "package", and vice-versa, but it may subtly change the nuance. <A> Starbucks is offering a lunch bundle for busy workers in London. <S> Can I use "package" here instead? <S> No. <S> It wouldn't work. <S> It could be confused with 'packaged lunch' --> 'packed lunch', which would indicate that there is a set option only, that you can take away in a package (i.e. not for dine-in). <S> In a packed/packaged lunch, you might find a set menu within that package. <S> E.g. Package 1: apple, cold drink, tuna sandwich; Package 2: pear, cold drink, ham sandwich. <S> Whereas with a bundle, you'd have more options to choose from. <S> E.g. choose any piece of fruit, any cold drink (can be substituted with a hot drink for a small extra fee), and any sandwich from this menu of sandwiches. <S> Turn yourself into a marketable brand with this $19 training package. <S> Can I use "bundle" here instead? <S> No. <S> It wouldn't work. ' <S> Bundle' sounds less formal, less professional, and more haphazard. <S> LSAC also now offers packages at a slight discount that include the LSAT registration fee, CAS fee, and school reports. <S> The two packages are as follows: Package 1: LSAT (including LSAT Writing), CAS, 1 Law School Report = <S> $430 <S> Package 2: LSAT (including LSAT Writing), CAS, 6 Law School Reports = <S> $650 <S> Can I use "bundle" here instead? <S> No. <S> As above.
| Bundle" implies that several things which are also sold or provided separately are being sold as a unit, while "package" might be more likely to be be used where some or all of the things are only available in the joint offer.
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Does 'to' function as a preposition in 'the trick to getting this chair to fold' but as a to-infinitive in 'some tricks to speed up your ...'? In a dictionary, I find two example sentences of the use of "trick": What's the trick to getting this chair to fold up? On page 21, some tricks to speed up your beauty routine. As we know, "to" can use be used as a preposition or as a word before an infinitive. When do we use it as a preposition and when as a word before an infinitive? When "trick" can be followed by "to-infinitive" and "to" as a preposition, why is the first sentence "What is the trick to getting this chair to fold up" instead of "What is the trick to get this chair to fold up"? On the other hand, why is the second example "...some tricks to speed up your beauty routine", but not "..some tricks to speeding up your beauty routine"? <Q> I've edited the title question (which appeared far too general and had been in part addressed on ELU before). <S> There are a couple of particular usages involved in these specific examples. <S> 'Is a trick to', like (the probably less informal) ' <S> is a means to', can be followed by a present participial clause: <S> This imperative is derived from a causal 'law' ... <S> that false promising is a means to getting ready money <S> [ Online Guide to Ethics and Morality ] ... <S> and there are many hits on Google for "is a means to getting / achieving / <S> making ..." <S> Other nouns are used in similar constructions: 'This is the key to understanding the issue.' <S> There are over 7 million hits on Google for "is the key to understanding the". <S> ....... <S> [W]hat is a trick to getting the best currency rate? <S> [ Beth Allcock_Daily Express ] ... <S> and there are 140 000 hits on Google for "is a trick to getting". <S> 'Is the trick to' is likewise idiomatic; for instance Magic is the trick to understanding the mind. <S> [ Durham University ] (and 8 million hits on Google for "is the trick to"). <S> Though modern analyses come down in favour of 'getting' in 'getting the best currency rate' (for example) being a verb (it does have a complement-or-whotsit now classed as a direct object), 'to' is classed as a preposition here. <S> .......................... <S> Note that in the same Express article there is: Brexit news: <S> Currency expert reveals trick to avoid weak pound ... <S> There are a reasonable number of Google hits for "a trick to avoid having" and "a trick to speed up", over 1 1/2 million for "a trick to get", getting on for <S> (now there's a fuzzy quantifier!) <S> 2 million for "a trick to make" <S> (but I expect a lot of false positives here). <S> The 'to' here is the 'with the purpose/intended purpose of' [+ ing-form] usage, which I wouldn't class as the infinitive marker. <S> The example given can be analysed as the remnant after deletion of 'On page 21, some tricks for you to speed up your beauty routine', which looks far more like a to-infinitive to usage. <S> Compare '... <S> a tool to extract staples with'. <A> Some nouns + get mean achieve or obtain can be used like this: <S> The trick to getting this chair to fold is [x] <S> The solution to getting these voters to turn out is [x] <S> The answer to getting more people at the park is [x] <S> get x to means: to obtain or achieve or persuade Getting people to understand you can be difficult. <S> Getting better quality/price ratios is very hard. <S> I would say that the idiomatic usage is: Get x [direct object] to [verb] with or without a direct object. <S> To here is a preposition after a noun. <S> Some nouns take to: the solution to, the way to, the answer to, the trick to, the solution to, etc. <S> Cambridge Dictionary, to after a noun "To as a preposition: after nouns A number of nouns are followed by to. <S> These include nouns expressing direction or destination such as door, entrance, road, route, way:" <S> One could consider that the word trick is a "direction or destination". <S> In any event, the noun trick "takes" to. <S> So the grammar here is two things: the <S> [x] to [ to follows certain nouns, it is a preposition getting x to y, a noun phrase or clause that means: <S> making it so that there is some outcome. <S> Get x <S> to y is the idiom. <S> On page x, some tricks to speed up your beauty routine is short-hand for:- <S> On page x, [there are] some tricks to speed up your beauty routine. <S> That kind of shortening is allowed in certain types of advertorial-type writing. <S> That said, it ain't great. <S> Obviously, that is the function usage of to signal a purpose. <A> [1] <S> What's the trick to [getting this chair to fold up]? <S> [2] some tricks [to speed up your beauty routine]. <S> If clause is of the - ing type, then the preceding "to" is a preposition, and if the clause is an infinitival then "to" is a subordinator serving as a marker within the clause. <S> Thus "to" is a preposition in [1] and a subordinator in [2]
| I'd class 'a trick to + infinitive' (and close variants like 'some tricks to') as idiomatic, given a sensible verb.
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X's chances of doing or the chances of X doing Which one of the following is correct? and which one is idiomatic? This is because a proper education will enhance the chances of women reaching high-level positions, consequently, the percentage of female senior managers will increase eventually. This because a proper education will enhance women's chances of reaching high-level positions................ This because a proper education will enhance the chances of women to reach high-level positions................ <Q> The three phrases: the chances of women reaching high-level positions women's chances of reaching high-level positions the chances of women to reach high-level positions are all correct. <S> The first two are equivalent, while the third has a similar but not exactly the same meaning. <S> "Chances of reaching" (#2 and equivalently #1) describes a probability of a random event, or statistical frequency. <S> "Chance to reach" (#3) describes an opportunity, or a path that may be pursued by choice. <S> ( More on this difference ) <S> The difference between the first two sentences seems to be a matter of style or preferred emphasis. <S> The third one may be more adequate semantically due to the beginning of the sentence - education does indeed create more opportunity, so it enhances women's chances to reach (...) <S> (and statistically it increases the chances of them reaching (...) <S> - it is a subtle difference). <S> The first suggested sentence seems incorrect in another aspect - using "consequently" as a conjunction. <S> Compound sentences with "and consequently" are more common (see here and here for examples). <S> Alternatively, "consequently" can be used as a conjunctive adverb starting a new sentence (like "alternatively" in this one) or preceded by a semicolon. <S> If any of the other sentences (which are incomplete) is different in that aspect, that might be a reason to prefer it over the first one. <A> None of them are really idiomatic , per se. <S> However, the third one seems grammatically incorrect. <S> Truly, you can say either the first or second, but avoid the third because it doesn't work, grammatically... <A> 1 & 2 both seem acceptable, but 2 reads more elegantly, possibly because of the alliteration created with women' s chance s . <S> These sentences are complex and have many multi-syllable words - it may help the reader therefore, to go with the option that reads more easily, with more natural breathing.
| You shouldn't say: the chances to reach Instead, your first example works fine: the chances of reaching Your second example also works fine.
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How to remove ambiguity: "... lives in the city of H, the capital of the province of NS, WHERE the unemployment rate is ..."? The sentence here is quite confusing. I wrote this. Jessica lives in the city of Halifax, the capital of the province of Nova Scotia, where the unemployment rate is 5 percent. A fellow reader is confused: Is the writer talking about the unemployment rate of Halifax or Nova Scotia? I want to say the rate in Halifax is 5 percent. How do I establish clarity without breaking the sentence in two and repeating "Halifax"? <Q> The ambiguity arises because you have one sentence doing three jobs. <S> It is telling us which city Jessica lives in, where that city is, and what the unemployment rate is. <S> The simple fix is to split the sentence, repeating "Halifax" Jessica lives in the city of Halifax, the capital of the province of Nova Scotia. <S> In Halifax, the unemployment rate is five percent. <S> Jessica lives in the city of Halifax, where the unemployment rate is five percent. <S> (do you need to say that Halifax is in Nova Scotia?) <S> Another way is to indicate a context in other sentences: Jessica lives in the city of Halifax, the capital of the province of Nova Scotia, where the unemployment rate is five percent. <S> This compares well with other Canadian cities. <S> In Ontario, the rate is ten percent. <S> However in the rest of Nova Scotia the unemployment rate is only two percent... <A> Halifax has an unemployment rate of 5%. <S> Although the original sentence could be parsed as using parenthetical commas, it could also be parsed as having each comma functioning to have what comes after it modifying what comes before it. <S> To make it clear that it's actually parenthetical information, use actual parentheses: Jessica lives in the city of Halifax (the capital of the province of Nova Scotia) where the unemployment rate is 5 percent. <S> Here, there is no way of misinterpreting the fact that it's Halifax with the unemployment rate. <S> Nova Scotia has an unemployment rate of 5%. <S> On the other hand, if you wanted to say that it's Nova Scotia with the unemployment rate, remove the second comma and, thereby, any indication of parenthetical information. <S> Now, without the second comma, everything after the first comma modifies what came before it. <S> Also, by writing provincial unemployment rate , it's impossible to mistake it as referring to Halifax. <S> The use of provincial also makes it clear that Nova Scotia is a province. <A> I think the simple answer is, Don't be afraid to break up the sentence. <S> I'd write, "Jessica lives in Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. <S> The unemployment rate in Halifax is 5%." <S> We have a fair number of questions on this site about "how do I eliminate the ambiguity without adding more words". <S> Very often the answer is, "There is no other way. <S> You have to add more words." <A> Reorder the clauses so there is no ambiguity. <S> The subordinate clauses can only refer to things mentioned earlier in the sentence, so: <S> Jessica lives in Halifax, a city with an unemployment rate of five percent and the capital of the province of Nova Scotia. <S> You might want to replace "and" by "which is", <S> but IMO the grammatical arguments either way are mostly pedantry. <A> I really like alephzero's answer, because I find long mid-sentence parenthetical (or dashed) clauses not really compatible with direct journalistic or business writing, which is the style that is perhaps being aimed for here. <S> I'd consider: <S> J lives in Nova Scotia's capital, Halifax, a city with a 5% unemployment rate. <S> or if you feel the audience needs to be reminded that NS is a province: J lives in the capital of the province of Nova Scotia, Halifax, a city with a 5% unemployment rate. <S> and if the opposite sense is intended: J lives in Halifax, capital of Nova Scotia, where the provincial unemployment rate is 5%. <A> Use of parentheses will easily clarify this: Jessica lives in the city of Halifax (capital of the province of Nova Scotia), where the unemployment rate is 5 percent. <S> The focus, and hence the unemployment rate, remains with Halifax. <A> Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia has an unemployment rate of 5 percent. <S> It is here that Jessica lives. <S> I am working on the premise that you would not list Halifax' unemployment rate if you did not intend to put it into some relation to Jessica's living situation, so <S> this expository style gives you a good starting place for creating the context you want to establish for Jessica. <S> Instead of "lives", <S> something more specific like "moved in order to work at Wooly's, a company specialising in mirror symmetrical pairs of socks" can be used in order to tie this into whatever comes next in a cohesive manner. <A> Another option: turn it inside out. <S> In Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Jessica lives, the unemployment rate is 5%. <A> Jessica lives in Nova Scotia--specifically, in Halifax, where the unemployment rate is 5%. <S> As for the original version, this is a worthwhile sentence only if the 5% unemployment rate is important to/for Jessica, and that very soon now we'll get to the point.
| Also, rephrase the sentence slightly: Jessica lives in the city of Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia where the provincial unemployment rate is 5 percent.
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adjective for a success in the growth of freedoms of citizens in a country If financial situation of citizens is growing, we would call it economic success in the country. If the population is growing, we call it a demographic success. What if citizens' freedoms (like freedom of speech, of travelling, of religion, etc.) are growing, how would we describe that success? (I need an adjective). EDIT: Some confusion took place in comments, so, to avoid any further confusion: Just like in case with economic success and demographic success, I am looking for an adjective that would describe/modify the word “success”; I need to keep the word “success” – it’s crucial; Adjectives containing hyphens or spaces are also welcome. <Q> The requirements of the question are: an adjective that describes “freedom” or “liberty” the word success <S> This is very difficult. <S> Not every noun in English has a good adjective form. <S> Some nouns have good adjectives: economics — economic (or economical) ecology — ecological trees — arboreal cows — bovine pigs — <S> porcine freedom — free democracy — <S> democratic <S> But many don’t. <S> civil liberty — civil-libertarian? <S> Liberational ? <S> No. <S> “Success” might not be the best word to describe this Success is a word that describes both “pass/fail” concepts and a gradient (continuum). <S> Democracy, civil liberties and related ideas exist on a continuum. <S> There is no perfect level of civil liberties or 100% democracy. <S> You have more flexibility if you use words like “improvement” or “increase”. <S> Possible answers <S> These might be close: <S> Maybe: <S> The society’s libertarian success <S> Maybe: <S> The society’s democratic success <S> Maybe: <S> The society’s human rights success <S> But why not: <S> Better: <S> The society’s level of human rights success <S> Better: <S> You can also do a compound noun instead of an adjective plus noun , but this can be quite ugly: Use with caution: the society’s civil liberties success; the society’s democracy success; the society’s ballot access success <S> This kind of writing feels very technical. <S> English is open to compound nouns but this can sound very strange. <S> Or just say what you mean: <S> I’d recommend you give up on”xxx success” and rephrase. <S> Best: <S> The society’s recent improvement in civil liberties, access to the ballot box, a free press, freedom of worship, and economic opportunity... <S> Or just as good: <S> Best: <S> The society’s success at improving human rights and democratic conditions Or whatever. <S> Bottom line: <S> you may not be able to force the sentence to say “xxx success”, since not every concept can be expressed that way. <A> An increase in peoples Civic Freedoms and/or Liberties . <A> Social-liberty-success Or Societal-autonomy-success Or Liberal-life-success <A> Fully agreed to WhiskeyChief <S> but I see that the answer still does not satisfy you <S> so I'm forced to come up with something that is not usual. <S> You are searching for a five-legged elephant. <S> As FumbleFingers suggested, you need a different verb to express the success of 'so-called' growth in freedom. <S> Forcefully, you may opt for liberty rather than freedom in this case. <S> Since you are stuck to the word success at any cost, it could be... <S> A nation's liberation success depends on ... <A> If financial situation of citizens is growing, we would call it economic success in the country. <S> If the population is growing, we call it a demographic success. <S> What if citizens' freedoms (like freedom of speech, of travelling, of religion, etc.) are growing, how would we describe that success? <S> Enhanced Civic Entitlements or Enhanced Civic Liberties Try this " In our lifetime, Our Nation has seen a Prosperous Economy, Demographic Success and the People's Civic Liberties Enhanced" <S> enhanced ; adjective: Cambridge English Dictionary better than before: greater in value than before: <S> We continue to create new and enhanced versions of our products. <S> The measures to encourage investment include enhanced capital allowances. <S> civic : <S> adjective: before noun); Cambridge English Dictionary of a town or city or the people who live in it: entitlement ; noun Cambridge English Dictionary LAW, HR <S> a situation in which you have the right to do or have something: liberty noun (Freedom) <S> Cambridge English Dictionary : <S> formal the freedom to live as you wish or go where you want:
| The society’s increasing human rights success
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What do you call people who control the order at tourists attraction sites What do you call the workers who control the public order and environment at tourists attraction sites? For instance, the job is like the crackdown on fly-tipping or sleeping out in the open or vandalism. They may work for the city tourism association. <Q> It depends on the type of place they're working. <S> In a museum they're called 'docents'. <S> In a forest or wild area they're called 'rangers'. <S> They might be called 'security guards' in public places. <S> Sometimes the city police or county sheriff do those tasks. <S> There's not one word that covers them all, and two different places of the same type might use different words. <A> Many of the places I have visited use the term tourist police to describe officers who (to varying degrees) are trained to look after the safety and security of tourists. <S> I am not sure whether their role covers the other items that you mentioned. <A> There are lots of words that could be used, and usually the specific role would indicate the name of the role used. <S> Some of the words could be: <S> ‘the warden of a nature reserve’ ‘an air-raid warden’ https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/warden <S> Marshal - <S> An official responsible for supervising sports events, and for controlling crowds in other public events. <S> ‘ground marshals joined the referee and touch judges in trying to regain order’ https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/marshal <S> Groundskeeper - A person who maintains a sports ground, a park, or the grounds of a school or other institution; a groundsman. <S> https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/groundskeeper <S> Steward - An official appointed to supervise arrangements or keep order at a large public event, for example a race, match, or demonstration. <S> https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/steward <S> For more ideas you could perhaps look at the names of these jobs when they are advertised by tourist boards or civic authorities.
| Warden - A person responsible for the supervision of a particular place or activity or for enforcing the regulations associated with it.
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have a 1950s look *to it* Mum bought me a new swimming costume, an old-fashioned one in blue-and-white gingham with “support.” It was supposed to have a kind of 1950s look to it , the sort of thing Marilyn might have worn. I can understand have a XXX look part but can't understand the to it part. What's the function of to it and what does it refer to? I searched some examples, At that moment, his face had an unexpectedly vulnerable look to it . But I don't know if it is the same with my first sentence. <Q> It was supposed to have a kind of 1950s look to it ... <S> mkeans that the costume has a style or apparence reminsient of the 1950s, or perhaps of how the 1950s are often portrayed. <S> "to it" is very commo9n in such a construction, and emphasizes mtha tthe <S> the 'look" applied to the costume. <S> his face had an unexpectedly vulnerable look to it. <S> means that his face seemed vulnerable. <S> Again 'to it" emphasizes that the look applies to "his face". <S> This is a very similar construction <S> In general "X had a Y look to it" means nthat <S> the "look" applies to X. ("has" can be used instead of "had" if the description is in the present. <S> "Will have" can also be used if the look is in prospect or being planned.) <A> Q1. <S> have a XXX look to it, can't understand <S> the to it <S> part. <S> What's the function of to it <S> and what does it refer to? <S> Q2.what does it refer to? <S> First I will answer Q2. <S> "It" has to refer to something, in this case the subject of the conversation is the swimming costume <S> and this is most likely to be the "it " being referred too. <S> Also it is something that can be worn. <S> The only item that can be worn is the swimming costume . <S> Therefore I can say with certainty that "it" refers to the swimming costume <S> **have a kind of 1950s <S> **look to it <S> **** <S> Kind of and sort of are very common expressions in speaking. <S> They soften other words and phrases so that they do not appear too direct or exact . <S> Cambridge English Dictionary look : verb (SEEM); Cambridge English Dictionary <S> usually + adv/prep <S> ; to appear or seem: to : preposition Cambridge English Dictionary (CONNECTION): in connection with : it : <S> pronoun Cambridge English Dictionary (THING):used as the subject of a verb, or the object of a verb or preposition, to refer to a thing, animal, situation, or idea that has already been mentioned : <S> At that moment, his face had an unexpectedly vulnerable look to it. <S> At that moment, his face had an unexpectedly vulnerable appearance connected with it . <A> "To have a XXX look to it" means something like "to look like something with XXX's properties". <S> In your example, it simply means "it looks like something from the 1950s".
| The above sentence can be said to mean: It (appears to) have 1950s ( connected with ) it (the swimming costume)
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How do you use "smooth sailing" idiomatically? How do you use "smooth sailing" idiomatically? Can someone explain to me how to use "smooth sailing" idiomatically? I thought it was a verb, but being an idiom I am wondering if you can use is as if it was an ordinary phrase. I am also wondering if "smooth sailing" is a verb accompanied by an adverb or it's considered an adjective accompanied by a noun and we use it as if it were the case. I am smooth sailing on this new job I got at Google. He used to smooth sailing on this new job he had at Google. <Q> Smooth is an adjective. <S> Smooth <S> ly is the adverbial form. <S> This should tell you that sailing is a noun, not a verb. <S> Typically, we would not say, "I am smooth sailing. <S> " <S> The idiomatic use of this phrase "smooth sailing" would look something like this: "How's the new job at Google?" <S> "It's been smooth sailing, so far." <S> Here's what Merriam-Webster says about the idiom: <S> smooth sailing : easy progress without impediment or difficulty // <S> After the mix-up was rectified, it was smooth sailing again. <S> — <S> Mike Brown <S> // <S> He just kept talking and talking his nonstop sunny talk about what a great summer we were going to have and that he had tons of plans and that we would get caught up as father and son and soon all our rough past would be behind us <S> and we would have nothing but smooth sailing for our future. <S> — <S> Jack Ganto <S> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smooth%20sailing <A> Lexico does not have an entry for "smooth sailing" but it does have plain sailing <S> NOUN <S> Smooth and easy progress in a process or activity. <S> team-building was not all plain sailing <S> So I suggest your (re-ordered) sentence could be <S> My new job at Google is plain sailing . <S> I thought of this before I noticed the comment from @MichaelHarvey <S> Edit: following the helpful comment from @Lambie . <S> The dictionary search engine OneLook has about 20 dictionaries referencing " plain sailing " and about 5 for " smooth sailing ". <A> From a British perspective, we tend to use "plain sailing" when talking about the unimpeded good progress of something, when a poor outcome was possible, expected, predicted, feared, or happened before or after. <S> The wedding was all plain sailing until the groom shot the priest; the teachers were worried about the school inspection but it was plain sailing from beginning to end; Tiger Woods hit a couple of bad shots early in his round, but it was plain sailing after that and he won the match easily. <S> Were there any problems at your job interview? <S> No, it was plain sailing.
| We might say, "I am smoothly sailing," as in "I'm smoothly sailing through this work."
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In the Hell / In Hell What is the difference? How is the first used? What in the hell? What the hell? and How in the hell? How the hell? And what other examples are there? <Q> These are purely idiomatic phrases, there is no systematic pattern of grammar here. <S> Other similar examples " <S> What the devil..." or the minced oath "What the Dickens..." <S> And if I may advise, if you need to ask about an offensive or insulting phrase, then you don't know enough to use it convincingly. <A> Such uses of "in the" may date back to when hell, or heaven, were commonly regarded as actual places that a person could be in. <S> But few if any, people who now use such phrases still take that view. <S> When this is combined with the use of minced oaths where part of the original expression is replaced with one of a similar sound or spelling, but a completely different meaning (if any), where "in" likely makes no separate sense at all, these must be regarded as idioms or fixed phrases, that cannot be computationally analyzed. <S> It is not always the case that a version with "in" is stronger than one without. <S> That may vary by region and by dialect. <A> The word "in" is used as an intensifier. <S> Additional words can be added in to further build on the intensity: What the hell <S> What in the hell <S> What in the damn hell <S> What in the God damn hell <S> What in the ever living God damn hell <S> etc.
| The extra syllable adds emphasis to the exclamation.
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What would be synonyms for "be into something"? I find myself repeatedly using these two expressions; "I'm into Psychology" or "I'm interested in Psychology" but cannot think of other ways to deliver the same meaning. What other expressions people in US/UK use? <Q> You can say 'I am crazy about psychology' to mean you have great interest in the subject. <S> crazy: 2 <S> informal <S> Extremely enthusiastic. <S> ‘I'm crazy about Cindy’ <S> [in combination] ‘a football-crazy bunch of boys’ <S> ‘And you were crazy about him, too, once, remember?’ <S> ‘I like the melody of the acoustic guitar here, but I'm not crazy about the fact that it's acoustic guitar or that it's put with those other instruments.’ <S> ‘No wonder some kids aren't so crazy about books.’ <S> (Oxford Dictionary of English) <A> Fascinated or Intrigued are two that I can think of off the top of my head. <S> "I'm fascinated by Psychology. <S> " or "Psychology fascinates me." <S> or <A> How about something as simple as the verb to like ? <S> I like psychology. <S> After all, that's what you most often hear people say about things they're interested in. <S> For instance, a person might say "I like math" (or maths, if you're British) to let you know that they like studying mathematics. <S> Another possible way to express the idea of being interested in something, I think, would be the expressions to be enthusiastic about something and to be a something enthusiast . <S> For example: I'm enthusiastic about psychology. <S> I'm a psychology enthusiast . <S> So, when you say that you're a math enthusiast, for example, it usually implies that you do mathematics on a, sort of, semi-professional level, but one thing is certain about you—doing mathematics is probably not your main source of income. <S> In other words, you're not a professionally-trained mathematician. <A> I'm passionate about psychology and <S> Psychology is my passion are also options. <S> To me, the latter expression seems to emphasize that psychology is your MAIN topic of interest, so it may or may not be appropriate based on your situation. <A> Or you can say: I am obsessed with Psychology
| "I'm intrigued by Psychology." or "Psychology intrigues me."
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Is it alright to say good afternoon Sirs and Madams in a panel interview? I will be attending a panel interview (with two men and two women). I don't know their names. I want to be more polite, but I am not sure whether it is alright to say Good afternoon, sirs and madams in the panel interview. <Q> The interview panel makes the moves, so I suggest you be polite and uncontroversial. <S> Good morning / afternoon is sufficient, with a brief look around the interviewers to make it clear <S> you are greeting them all, and wait for them to take the lead. <A> When politely greeting one person, we can say "good morning/afternoon/evening", and possibly add "sir" for a man, or "madam" for a woman, although these are now very old-fashioned in Western countries, except for e.g. royalty, judges in court, etc. " <S> Sir" and "madam" do not have plurals. <S> To greet a group, mixed in gender, we can say "Good morning/afternoon/evening, ladies and gentlemen ." <S> ("ladies" always comes first). <A> Yes, but "Ladies and Gentlemen" is more conventional nowadays. <A> No, don't say "sirs and madams" under any circumstances. <S> "Madams" are women who run brothels. <S> I would recommend any of these. <S> " <S> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen." <S> "Good afternoon, everyone." <S> "Good afternoon." <S> Which is best depends on which country you're in. <A> In the UK I have very frequently and over many years been in meetings that begin with somebody addressing the group relatively formally. <S> If they happened all to be men, no problem: "Gentlemen" does the trick. <S> If all were women:"Ladies" is perfect . <S> Likewise if there were several men and women "Ladies and Gentlemen <S> " would be quite correct. <S> But what do you say if there is only one woman? <S> Far too frequently I have heard some kind of embarrassed "Er, Lady... and Gentlemen", on the false basis that the singular of "Ladies" is "Lady". <S> The correct form has to be "Madam, and Gentlemen". <S> If she were there on her own (and recall that we are being formal here) you would address her as "Madam". <S> That is not changed by the presence alongside her of men. <S> The plural of "Madam" is "Ladies".
| At an interview, you should not be too effusive with your greeting, or too verbose (unless invited by a leading question intended to draw you out).
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What do we call entities like Wall Street? What do we call entities like Wall Street? I know the World Bank is an institution, same for the IMF, but what about Wall Street? What do we call such an entity? I can't think of any word. <Q> Wall Street isn't an entity in any unified sense--it's a place name used as a metonym for American financial markets/big business. <A> One possibility is to call it the "financial sector" or the "financial market" , as it represents a collective of various business entities that trade in a wide range of financial products as well as the markets where the trading takes place. <S> It doesn't matter if these businesses are physically located on the actual Wall Street or not -- it's still fine to refer to all of them as part of the same conceptual whole. <S> In addition it's the only entity of this kind (in the USA) with a distinctive name in English. <S> Other markets exist in other countries, but these tend to be referred to by location rather than name. <S> Because it's unique there is no need to have a general term for similar entities. <S> As another example: in the United States, the business of producing films is collectively referred to as "Hollywood", even though it represents a diverse group of related industries from all around the world, and not just those physically located in the city of Hollywood, California. <S> In the same way you could call this the "entertainment sector" , although that would encompass a lot more than just film. <A> From Investopedia <S> "What Makes a City a Financial Hub?A financial center, or a financial hub, refers to a city with a strategic location, leading financial institutions, reputed stock exchanges, a dense concentration of public and private banks and trading and insurance companies. <S> In addition, these hubs are equipped with first-class infrastructure, communications, and commercial systems, and there is a transparent and sound legal and regulatory regime backed by a stable political system. <S> Such cities are favorable destinations for professionals because of the high living standards they offer along with immense growth opportunities." <S> financial center or hub
| Entities like Wall Street are called: financial centers or financial centres or financial hubs.
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How to understand the use of 'this' in this context It took another hour to empty it completely, throw away the useless items and sort the remainder in piles according to whether or not he would need them from now on. His school and Quidditch robes, cauldron, parchment, quills and most of his textbooks were piled in a corner, to be left behind. He wondered what his aunt and uncle would do with them; burn them in the dead of night, probably, as if they were the evidence of some dreadful crime. His Muggle clothing, Invisibility Cloak, potion-making kit, certain books, the photograph album Hagrid had once given him, a stack of letters and his wand had been repacked into an old rucksack. In a front pocket were the Marauder's Map and the locket with the note signed "R.A.B" inside it. The locket was accorded this place of honour not because it was valuable - in all usual senses it was worthless - but because of what it had cost to attain it. This left a sizeable stack of newspapers sitting on the desk beside his snowy owl, Hedwig: one for each of the days Harry had spent at Privet Drive this summer. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I don't understand the usage of 'this' in this context. What does it refer to? <Q> "Look at this! <S> It's a computer!" <S> "This is a very nice website." <S> Looking at Dictionary.com , the first definition of "this" is (emphasis added): used to indicate a person, thing, idea, state, event , time, remark, etc., as present, near, just mentioned or pointed out , supposed to be understood, or by way of emphasis. <S> This is using "this" to refer to an event, describing a cause and effect. <S> In writing, this isn't so rare, but when speaking in my experience "that" (which has an identical definition for this sense) is much more commonly used in the sense of mentioning an event that just happened than "this". <S> Some other examples of using it in this way: <S> "I wrote a good answer. <S> This made the people of English Language Learners rejoice." <S> "He was hit in the face. <S> This made him angry, so he hit the nearest person's face." <A> From the first paragraph we know that he got to 'throw away the useless items and sort the remainder in piles according to whether or not he would need them from now on'. <S> The following comes the first pile was 'His school and Quidditch robes, cauldron, parchment, quills and most of his textbooks' which would be left behind; the second pile was 'His Muggle clothing, Invisibility Cloak, potion-making kit, certain books, the photograph album Hagrid had once given him, a stack of letters and his wand', which were repacked by him; and the third pile was ' the Marauder's Map and the locket' which were placed in his front pocket. <S> Therefore I guess the 'This' you marked here just referred to another pile of his stuff. <A> In this context "this" is referring to the actions of the previous paragraphs. <S> In the preceding paragraphs Harry was cleaning up and sorting his possessions. <S> After doing that, there was a stack of newspapers left over. <S> In other words, "this" (the organizing) caused a stack of newspapers to be left over.
| "This" is referring to what happened in the previous paragraph. Most commonly, "this" is used for things like ideas physical objects, e.g.:
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"could" vs "could not" in this sentence? "His dance was unbelievable! I don't know if even (I could do it/could have done it)" Just something that I want to say about a friend's dance performance last night.I think it should be "could have done it" but "could do it" does not sound wrong to me too. <Q> It should be "could have done it." <S> Source: native speaker of US English. <A> "His dance was unbelievable! <S> I don't know if even (I could do it <S> /could have done it) <S> " <S> I feel that both of these are grammatically correct, however, as a native English speaker, something sounds odd <S> and I can't quite place my finger on what it is. <S> Maybe I would rephrase and use know in the past tense: <S> His dance was unbelievable! <S> I knew/ <S> know I could never have done it. <S> His dance was unbelievable! <S> I knew/ <S> know I could never do it. <S> His dance was unbelievable! <S> I knew/ <S> know I would never have been able to do it. or change the word order of the sentence you have written: His dance was unbelievable! <S> I don't even know if I could have done it. <A> As has already been answered, the difference between the two statements is the tense - one is looking back to the past , one looking forward to the future . <S> Saying "I don't know if I could have done it", after seeing someone else's performance, is a sort of comparison - you are saying that you doubt <S> you could have done what they did. <S> Saying "I don't know if I could do it " instead ultimately expresses the same self-doubt, but instead of putting yourself in their place and imagining you doing it in place of them, you are asking if you could also do it. <S> For clarification, when I say that these express "self-doubt", neither are really self-deprecating comments in this context, but meant to express admiration for the other person's ability.
| "Could do it" would also be correct, with a slightly different meaning— "could have done" (at least to me) means you're reflecting on the past dance and can't imagine yourself doing it, whereas "could do" implies you're picturing yourself attempting it in the future.
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Should I use "Is" or "Are" in a sentence that has two uncountable/abstract nouns as the subject? Which of the following is correct? What is the fund manager's historical operating experience and track record? What are the fund manager's historical operating experience and track record? <Q> I wrote this answer for a similar question on another forum. <S> I'm adapting it here. <S> The correct auxiliary verb is "are" or "were" in the past tense. <S> The trick is simple here. <S> Let me explain. <S> If you get confused, look at the sentence <S> What is/are the fund manager's historical operating experience and track record? <S> Let us count how many relevant "nouns" there are in the part of the sentence that constitutes the necessity of "is/are" . <S> The following are the nouns / noun phrases: Fund manager Operating experience Track record <S> Note: <S> For clarity, I am considering groupings of words that make sense in the context, rather than going to the base concepts. <S> In other words, I am skipping a few steps since I understand how these words are grouped together. <S> Now, all these noun phrases mean different things here. <S> There needs to be a link between them. <S> So let us look at this part again. <S> We notice that there is a possessive case here, denoted by the apostrophe and the 's'. <S> But are they talking about the possession of one person or more than one person? <S> If they were talking about the possessions of more than one person, this exercise ends here. <S> But in this case, we are talking about the possession of a single person. <S> So let us ignore the possessive clause for now. <S> So we have the phrases: Operating experience Track record <S> So these are two things which are very similar to each other. <S> They are related to a profession and the performance of an individual. <S> But depending on the industry, they are not necessarily the same thing. <S> So, is there any other connector? <S> YES!!! <S> The word "and" is used between the two phrases. <S> But does it combine the two things into ONE concept? <S> Again, this depends on your interpretation. <S> But I'm going to consider that experience concerns a length of time while track record concerns quality of service. <S> So I will answer <S> No . <S> We are still talking about TWO different things, separately. <S> So here, the auxiliary verb required is "are" . <S> The correct sentence is therefore, What are the fund manager's historical operating experience and track record? <S> NOTE: <S> Please remember the method used here: <S> Count the number of nouns. <S> Connect them if possible. <S> Count them again. <S> Connect them again. <S> and so on.... <A> From Garner's Modern American Usage 3rd Ed: <S> Compound Subjects Joined Conjunctively. <S> If two or more subjects joined by and are different and separable, they take a plural verb: At the same time, the democratic process and the personal participation of the citizen in his government are not all we want. <S> Few golfers appreciate the time, money and technical <S> know-how <S> that go into making a golf product. <S> So, according to the quotation, the second variant is correct: <S> What are the fund manager's historical operating experience and track record? <A> For me, "Historical operating experience and track record" is a conceptual singular entity so, in the case of your statements, number #1 is correct— <S> "What is the fund manager's historical operating experience and track record? <S> " <S> I note that my answer entirely stems on considering historical operating experience and track record as two ways of saying the same thing, insofar as I am not a financial professional. <S> If those are legitimate nouns describing entirely separate objects within the field of finance, then I would agree with @MichaelLogin's answer .
| The verb needs to be plural (i.e., are).
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Looting after a war After a war is over, many of the belongings of the combatants remain lying on the ground. Many of them dropped during the war. Now either the possessor has died or run away. For a word presenting this action i.e. " getting these from the ground " I made a research and found these words: Looting, sacking, ransacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging. But if we see the explanation it gives kind of sense that there was force used in taking these such as the one in " snatching ". What my question is, that: A thing is now lying on the ground. The owner is not present. He has for instance run away. Now you pick it up. Does any of the ones mentioned above really fit best here? Is it a kind of thing you've picked up OR a kind of thing you've taken forcibly? <Q> However if the owners have left their belongings behind in a public place, I propose the Lexico definition of scavenge <S> VERB <S> 1.2 Search for discarded items or food in (a place) <S> Poor children helped to support their families by scavenging city streets for food, fuel, and usable materials. <S> So the sentence could be <S> Is this something you scavenged? <A> Looting fits perfectly. <S> It happens during a violent event but does not necessarily involve violence. <S> looting noun; <S> Cambridge English Dictionary <S> the activity of stealing from shops during a violent event <S> : There were reports of widespread looting as hooligans stampeded through the city centre. <A> Well, I have two suggestions: <S> According to the Oxford Dictionary capture Take into one's possession or control by force. <S> The island was captured by Australian forces in 1914 <S> You can capture prisioners but you can also capture the equipment that the enemy has left in the battlefield. <S> A quote from the book Daily Life in Civil War America <S> The string of Confederate victories in the first two years of the war helped supply the Rebel army with captured equipment and conveniences otherwise unavailable to Southern soldiers <S> You can search using "captured equipment" in Google Books and check yourself. <S> The result contains dozens of war-related books like the one linked above. <S> recover Find or regain possession of (something stolen or lost) <S> Your enemy's lost is your gain. <S> Notice that you can find the possession of the item. <S> It's not mandatory that those item was previously yours. <S> In my opinion snatch or loot do not fulfill completely the meaning of "getting something abandoned from a battlefield". <S> They represent that the primary goal is stealing , quickly in the first case, while the ones that I have pointed may reflect that after defeating your enemy , when they have fled, you can keep whatever they left.
| I would say scavenging is better than looting or the other verbs proposed in the question, which usually mean that goods or possessions are stolen from shops and homes, i.e. they obviously belong to someone.
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Is it grammatical to say "this food is comfortable"? "the food is comfortable" The person who said it meant "the food made me feel comfortable". My initial instinct was that "this food is comfortable" is incorrect. However, since "this couch is comfortable" is acceptable in everyday usage, then why can't "food" be used in the same way? I tried to think of other nouns which feel wrong in that context, e.g. "this atom is comfortable", or "this abstraction is comfortable", and they all feel like incorrect sentences to me. So it seems like maybe some nouns can be used in this way, but not others? For the record, we can say "the cat is comfortable", so this question is about inanimate objects. <Q> It's not innately ungrammatical, but it doesn't convey the meaning you want to convey. <S> To convey that meaning, I would change "comfortable" to "comforting," i.e.: "The food is comforting." <A> Comfortable , when it describes objects or places, tends to refer to physical comfort (softness, temperature, ergonomics), and this sense may be jarring when applied to food. <S> I will quote most of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary entry for comfortable (adj.): 1a : affording or enjoying contentment and security // <S> a comfortable income b : affording or enjoying physical comfort // <S> a comfortable chair // was too comfortable to move 2a : free from vexation or doubt // <S> comfortable assumptions <S> // <S> Lamb was comfortable in his ignorance of what he did not choose to know . <S> — <S> James Mason Brown b : free from stress or tension a comfortable routine // stayed at a comfortable distance from the crowd <S> Your friend used comfortable in sense 1a: the food affords contentment and security, or a kind of abstract comfort. <S> In comparing it to the couch is comfortable , you insist that the food example should be read through the lens of sense 1b, physical comfort. <S> Does usage follow your intuition? <S> In a corpus search, a collocation search for "(something) (something) is comfortable" will tend to turn up objects of physical comfort. <S> For the Corpus of Contemporary American English , I've categorized the results with 2 or more entries, excluding names. <S> There are: Words related to people who everyone everybody patient student teacher child skier artist daughter son Words related to spaces room <S> interior weather space <S> design itself ("the bridge itself," "the cockpit itself") Words related to objects ride <S> seat <S> keyboard <S> shoe <S> fabric grip bike <S> shirt <S> So in non-unique results, people, spaces, and physical objects dominate. <S> Physical comfort seems the predominant usage when applied to objects or spaces, rather than abstract security or comfort. <S> Does "food is comfortable" appear? <S> Not in that corpus or in the larger News on the Web Corpus . <S> It does appear on the web - about 23 results on Google for "food is comfortable" compared to about 439,000 for "shirt is comfortable." <S> Based on the corpus results and the dictionary, I suggest people will use comfortable far more often to refer to physical than abstract comfort, and food is in the odd situation of being physical but giving abstract comfort. <S> So you can say "the food is comfortable," but it is rare and potentially confusing as people try to decide precisely how you sit on or wear your food. <A> Compare to “ <S> this is comfort food ” <S> (food you eat to attain a feeling of familiarity and/or safety) or “I feel comforted when eating this food” (a similar meaning) or “I am comfortable eating this food” (you do not feel regret or social awkwardness eating it, so it's not a taboo food, you're not worried about making a mess, etc). <S> Saying “the cat is comfortable” is also valid. <S> It implies the cat is relaxed (perhaps it has found a comfortable place to sit) or else you're comfortable snuggling against the cat.
| “The food is comfortable” is indeed proper grammar, but I doubt it conveys what you intend since it refers to the food being comfortable more directly, implying that you're perhaps wearing it or living in it.
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Is there a word or phrase that means "use other people's wifi or Internet service without consent"? Is there a word or phrase that means "use other people's wifi or Internet service without consent"? I think some people are able to use other people's wifi without consent even if they're password protected, is there a word that means exactly that? I don't know any word used to say that. <Q> The quintessential idiomatic term in this context is leech ( vt , or as n <S> the person doing it). <S> Per Wiktionary , (figuratively) A person who derives profit from others in a parasitic fashion. <S> Urban Dictionary's top definition lists "parasite" and "freeloader" as synonyms. <S> Leech in this sense is very common slang in technical circles and especially file-sharing, where it refers specifically to downloading files but not staying online to share them. <S> A Google search for "leeching <S> Wi-Fi" turns up a full page of results describing the exact activity in the question. <A> One word used is piggybacking , given by Wikipedia as Piggybacking on Internet access <S> is the practice of establishing a wireless Internet connection by using another subscriber's wireless Internet access service without the subscriber's explicit permission or knowledge. <S> VERB <S> 1.1 Link to or take advantage of (an existing system or body of work) <S> they have piggybacked their own networks on to the system <A> The best [American, maybe not British] English word for this is probably mooching . <S> It specifically refers to using a resource that's not well-guarded, either without permission or overstepping intended level of permission, in a way that's annoying or inconvenient to others but not severe enough to be treated as theft. <S> Other examples of mooching include: Consuming snacks from employee break area as meals. <S> Dropping in a bank that has free lolipops for customers' children with no actual business to conduct, just to get lolipops. <S> Consuming a roommate's food from their [section of the] refrigerator, or consistently consuming more than your fair share from food purchased jointly for use by oneself and roommates. <S> Using a roommate's car that they always fill with gas. <S> The term mooching is also used fairly often for legitimate use of social welfare programs for their intended purposes, when the speaker either doesn't understand or doesn't accept those intended purposes. <A> One could say such people are free riders , a noun derived from free ride : 1 : a benefit obtained at another's expense or without the usual cost or effort <S> (source: Merriam Webster ) and in the same spirit (thanks @PeterJennings), freeloaders , derived from the verb freeload : to impose upon another's generosity or hospitality without sharing in the cost or responsibility involved <S> (source: Merriam Webster ) <S> which nicely 'rhymes' with upload & download, which is what you do when using the network. <S> These are certainly not limited to using WiFi, as @Lambie suggests. <A> This is fairly common in everyday use, because "stealing" is a quite general term for taking something without authorization. <A> TL;DR <S> It's helpful to think about the way you're framing this. <S> If you're viewing bandwidth or the Wi-Fi network as personal property, then the matching term or phrase should have a negative connotation that carries a sense of theft or unauthorized use. <S> Some Common Terms <S> They may also be “trespassing” (in several senses of the word, and especially in the sense of unlawful transit of property). <S> Taking possession of another’s property (in this case, bandwidth) is “squatting.” <S> The person squatting on the network is a “squatter.” <S> If it wasn’t an open network, then someone had to “hack” it or “crack” <S> it to gain access. <S> The former term is more common in colloquial speech, but the latter more strongly connotes “breaking” (or "breaking into") the system. <S> If it was an open network, and no money exchanged hands, then the unpaid use of the Wi-Fi would be “freeloading.” <S> The one freeloading would therefore be a “freeloader.” <S> It's definitely worth pointing out the terms above are closely related, but aren't identical. <S> For example, "trespassing" and "stealing" are both crimes, but stealing carries a stronger sense of criminal intent . <A> I'm going to suggest the obvious: thief . <S> It clearly indicates the "without consent" part of the question. <S> Or perhaps the more specific term: bandwidth thief . <S> If a company is paying for Internet access by the megabyte then the person using it without permissions is certainly stealing. <S> If the company pays a flat fee for a limited amount of bandwidth then the unapproved person is still stealing - if they use 200 MB of a company's 2GB plan, that is 200 MB the company is now deprived of using.
| They might be “stealing bandwidth,” which is a limited resource on Wi-Fi networks. Honestly the word I have heard used for this is just "stealing". One definition of piggyback given by Lexico is piggyback
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Is it OK to use two “them” meaning different things? I made cookies for Mike and Jack. They will come to my house to eat them. Doesn’t this sound strange? <Q> It is not wrong, but in this context it is only mildly confusing, because the cookies definitely cannot eat Mike and Jack - the listener only needs to concentrate a little to get the right meaning. <S> However, in other context, the confusion could be maximum, because one could not be sure who mkaes the action, and who is the target of said action. <A> That particular sentence sounds almost normal to me. <S> It has a slight twinge of confusion, but not much at all. <S> (It's mainly exaggerated by considering the question itself.) <S> Because of how it's constructed, it's quite clear what each pronoun is referring to. <S> The most typical way of rephrasing it would be to turn it into a single sentence as follows: <S> I made cookies for Mike and Jack, who will come to my house to eat them. <A> It's fine to do that as long as there's no ambiguity. <S> Since we know who's doing the eating and what's being eaten, the meaning is clear.
| There's nothing wrong with that sentence.
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What does "get your hands wet" mean in the context of programming? How can I use this phrase properly? A lot of programmers/software engineers tell new guys "get your hands wet". What does that mean? Does that mean "do it yourself"? This book says Before you get your hands wet trying your first Java program, you need to learn some basic concepts ... it seems that "get your hands wet" means write some code personally? is it a verb? how can I use this phrase properly? <Q> It's likely somebody getting confused between two different idioms. <S> get your feet wet <S> [Cambridge Dictionary] to become used to a new situation : <S> I worked as a substitute teacher for a while, just to get my feet wet. <S> get your hands dirty <S> [MacMillan Dictionary] 1 to do physical work <S> She’d never get her hands dirty helping out around the house. <S> To work hard: <S> work at, forge, overwork . . . 2 to become involved in something dishonest <S> To do something dishonest: <S> cheat, defraud, falsify . . . <S> From the context of the passage, both get your feet wet and the first sense of get your hands dirty are possible. <S> It's even possible that a combination of those two were meant and the hybrid phrase was used deliberately. <S> However, I find that unlikely. <S> In short, I would not use the exact phrase that was used in the question. <S> Instead, use one of the actual idioms. <S> The first means ease into things and the second means do some actual work (rather than just theory, in the context of programming). <S> They are not mutually exclusive. <S> In theory, they could even be combined: get your feet wet by getting your hands dirty <S> However, that sounds bizarre because they aren't meant to be combined that way. <A> I did not encounter the idiom "get your hands wet" <S> but I encountered <S> "get your hands dirty" <S> From the context, I understand that they mean the same thing - you start doing something with your own hands. <S> This idiom must originate in the jobs where it is (traditionally) impossible to keep your hands clean: mechanical repairs, agriculture, farm work... <S> Does that mean "do it yourself"? <S> Conclusion: <A> There are a well established idioms: get one's feet wet - venture out into new field / trying new activity as a beginner / newby get <S> one's hands dirty - (extended secondary meaning) <S> start real work/job <S> In passage from the initial question author definitely was after meaning conveyed by "get one's feet wet" idiom, yet decided to invent new one / didn't use correct established idiom by mistake. <S> So example from the question can be rather considered as error in attempt to use "get one's feet wet" idiom.
| YES, that is the meaning.
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Right off the bat I want to _____ that I do not have all the answers I want to tell a group of people who I am helping understand something that I do not have all the answers. I may not be able to answer some of their question as I don't know everything there is to know about some topic. What do I fill ____ with? Right off the bat I want to _____ that I do not have all the answers This is what I could think of but not sure if they fit: say declare establish Is there something else I could fill the blank with? I am not a native speaker so I can't decide. The context is formal. <Q> Right off the bat, I must admit that I do not have all the answers. <A> Right off the bat I want to confess <S> that I do not have all the answers. <A> The first definition in the online Cambridge dictionary is as follows: to say that something is true or is a fact, although you cannot prove it and other people might not believe it:claim <S> For the noun claim <S> it gives (among others) <S> the following: a claim that something is true or is a fact, although other people might not believe it. <S> It gives some examples of this that seem to me at least close to what you are saying, since your denial that you are making the claim is showing modesty, self restraint. <S> Your sentence as a whole would commonly be described as a disclaimer . <S> So it seems to fit. <S> Here are some examples. <S> His claim to be an important and unjustly neglected painter is sheer self-deception - he's no good at all. <S> There is a growing body of evidence to support their claim. <S> Many experts remain sceptical about his claims. <S> I suspect his claims are not all they seem - he tends to exaggerate. <S> I haven't seen one iota of evidence to support his claim. <S> His claim to be an important and unjustly neglected painter is sheer self-deception — he's no good at all. <S> I suspect his claims are not all they seem - he tends to exaggerate. <A> You're looking for stipulate . <S> From Collins , British definition 1: to specify, often as a condition of an agreement <S> Right off the bat I want to stipulate that I do not have all the answers.
| I think what you are looking for may be the verb to claim .
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Why is "I let him to sleep" incorrect (or is it)? I am trying to explain to someone why the sentence "I let him to sleep" is wrong, but I fail to come up with a good explanation other than "it's wrong". And now I am even doubting myself. Is this sentence even wrong in the first place? Or is it a correct sentence that makes sense? Shouldn't it just be "I let him sleep"? Sadly, there isn't any more context than that, only this one sentence. <Q> Yes, I let him sleep is correct while I let him to sleep is incorrect. <S> Certain verbs take a bare infinitive , and "let" is one of them. <S> Here's a link that discusses the issue more. <A> It is incorrect simply because the idiom is "Let someone [bare infinitive]". <S> In some situations, a "to-infinitive" is used, and in other the bare infinitive is correct. <S> This is one of those times when only the bare infinitive is used. <S> Compare with the same structure <S> "I made him sleep" or "I helped him sleep" (though in the last one the "to infinitive is also possible). <A> "Let" in the meaning you surely intended does not take "to". <S> It just doesn't: like with other words that are at the core of the language, it is comparatively useless to look for a reasoning since it has been in permanent active use since the times of old Anglosaxon and thus more resilient to following general changes of the language's logic than other elements. <A> I find it helpful to think of constructions like "to [verb] <S> " as if they were nouns. <S> In this case "to sleep" behaves much like a noun. <S> It could be the subject of a sentence: "To sleep is wonderful. <S> " It's very similar to "sleeping" which also acts as a noun e.g. <S> "I like [sweets / the cat / sleeping]" <S> "I let him [noun] <S> " just wouldn't be right, because you need to let someone <S> do something - which means you need some kind of verb after "I let him ...". <S> So "I let him [sleep]" <S> is correct. <S> (I'm not saying this is the pure grammatical way of thinking about it - just that it might be a helpful way to think about these things without going into infinitives and gerunds and complicated terminology.)
| "I let him to sleep" means that I performed the procedure of blood-letting on him until he reached sleep. Well, it's not incorrect but means something entirely different from what you probably mean.
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What is this "opened" cube called? I can't find the right definition for the thing that you see on the right. If we put all parts of it together we will get a box that we can rotate (this picture is taken from a quiz for kids - they need to guess which picture they will see if they look at each cube from the top). But what is this unfolded thing on the right called in English correctly, in a single term? I found the word "scan" but I'm not sure it is a correct one. <Q> The word is net . <S> I'm a maths teacher, and this is the standard term used in Australia. <S> I'm fairly sure it's the same in other parts of the English-speaking world, thanks to sources like: <S> Wikipedia <S> Wolfram MathWorld <S> It's worth noting that this is not a common thing for most people to talk about, and unfortunately, "net" also has other (more common) meanings. <S> A descriptive phrase, like your "unfolded thing", would be useful to name it when talking to people unfamiliar with the correct name. <A> User @Tim Pederick suggests the word “net”, which mathematicians will recognize. <S> For the general public , it's difficult to find a single word to describe the "unfolded cube" in the picture. <S> A "scan" is not quite correct, because we use that word to mean when a scanner takes a flat picture, or a 3D representation of something. <S> Here are a few possibilities: Multiview drawing In the context of mechanical engineering, when someone creates an engineering drawing ("blueprint"), a layout of multiple views together might be called a multiview drawing ( MIT Open Courseware ) , like this: <S> The difference here is that you have modified the object (by unfolding it), so multiview drawing is close, but not quite right. <S> Diagram <S> The word diagram (as opposed to picture) carries the meaning that something has been changed. <S> A diagram can be a simplified version of something. <S> A schematic representation <S> A similar word is a "schematic" (noun) or a "schematic representation" or a "schematic drawing" or a "schematic diagram". <S> This emphasizes that the drawing is not meant to be exactly like reality, but that it is supposed to help explain how something works. <S> Electrical engineers use schematic drawings to help understand circuits, but their drawings are not usually arranged in the exact same way that the physical components are laid out. <S> Your question used the word “unfolded” which is pretty descriptive. <S> How about simply an “unfolded view“. <S> This is straightforward (Definition) and clear — the best kind of writing! <A> In mechanical engineering, 3D CAD and arts & craft such drawings are called unfolded though sometimes people also refer to them as unwrapped . <S> Software designed to generate such diagrams from 3D models are marketed as unfolding software and the term has been intuitively understood across multiple industries/communities. <A> I would call that an unfolded box too. <S> And perhaps if you omitted a panel it would be an unfolded open-topped box. <A> For a non-technical audience, you might use 'breakdown' as in "the breakdown of the cube shows..." <S> This figure is difficult to describe using only one word. <S> Some further explanation and elaboration will probably be required. <A> In projection projection: <S> MW 1.b the process or technique of reproducing a spatial object upon a plane or curved surface or a line by projecting its points. <S> also : a graph or figure so formed Calling a drawing a "flat projection" emphasizes that perspective is not taken into account: flat projection <S> A method of drawing what is directly visible from a point perpendicular to the line of vision, with no adjustments for perspective. <S> Technically you could call the drawing on the right the cube's "flat projection".
| For general readership you could simply call it "the cube in projection ", as in "here's six pictures of each side of the cube projected onto the flat surface you're looking at". Simply an unfolded view
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Is there any difference between "another two" and "two other"? I want to see the difference between "another" and "other" in this context. I know that another may mean "additional" or "of a different kind". What about "other" in this case? What does it mean? 1 Give me another two shirts. 2 Give me two other shirts. <Q> Option 1. indicates two more shirts of the same kind (as those you just purchased, for instance). <S> Option 2. means that you want two more, but that are different from the one(s) you already have. <A> I can think of two ways of interpreting the second sentence, but it is still different from the first in either interpretation. <S> Depending on context, the following interpretations are possible: 1. <S> Give me another two shirts. <S> a) Give me two more of the same type of shirt. <S> → If you've already given me two shirts, I will now have four shirts. <S> 2. <S> Give me two other shirts. <S> a) <S> Take these two shirts back and give me two different ones instead. <S> → Once I've decided which I like, I will end up with two shirts. <S> b) Give me two more shirts, but make them different from those you've already given me. <S> → If you've already given me two shirts, I will now have two shirts of at least one type and another two shirts of at least one other type. <S> But regardless of the context and how the second sentence is interpreted, another and other mean something different: another two : two more <S> two <S> additional <S> two other : <S> two different as replacements <S> two different in addition <S> Note that of the same type is somewhat vague too. <S> It's possible <S> that the type of shirt itself could be random. <S> In which case, there would be no effective difference between 1.a) and 2.b), and it would be theoretically possible for every shirt to be different from the rest. <S> But that would be a practical result rather than one of semantics. <A> "Another two shirts" has two interpretations: two additional shirts (as Jason Bassford said) two shirts <S> instead Neither of these imply that the desired shirts must be of the same kind as any previously mentioned shirts -- nor that they must be of a different kind. <S> For all we know, the speaker might already have 3 shirts but want 5 in total, and doesn't care if they are identical. <S> If you need to make clear that you want shirts of a different kind, you'd need to use additional words. <S> If you want just one shirt of a different kind to those you'd been offered, you could say "Give me a different shirt". <S> (A problem with "Give me two different shirts" is that it can mean "Give me two shirts which are different from each other".)
| If you want two shirts, both of a different kind to those you'd been offered, you could say "Give me two shirts different from these".
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"didnt have the phone to myself yesterday" it it correct? "I didn't have the phone to myself yesterday" Is that a correct sentence and a way of telling someone that your phone was not with you yesterday and that is why you couldn't reply <Q> To have something "to yourself" means to have it for your exclusive use. <S> "I did not have the beach to myself - there were several other people on it". <S> The example sentence you give means that you were sharing your phone with other people. <S> I did not have my phone with me. <A> I think "I did not have the phone with me yesterday " is very simple and grammatical. <S> I did not have the phone to myself sounds ungrammatical and odd to me <A> The sentence is not necessarily wrong. <S> In the days when people did not carry telephones around with them all the time, it was quite common for a single phone to be shared by numerous people. <S> In those circumstances, it would be a very reasonable explanation of not being able to receive a call (possibly of a very private nature) that one 'did not have the phone to [oneself]'. <S> If the sentence referred to a time in the 1950s, say, it would be fine (if the intended meaning was as I have indicated).
| It is normal and correct to say
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Can we say "He is a friend of mine I love" instead of "He is a friend of mine who/that I love"? To mean "He is a friend of mine who I love" or "He is a friend of mine that I love" , can I say "He is a friend of mine I love" ? When I omit "who" or "that" in that sentence, it sounds wrong to me. I think I am not used to that structure. What do you think? Note: I know (that) relative pronouns can be dropped like in "He is someone (that/who) I love", but in the sentence I gave, I think it is wrong to omit it because "a friend" was already modified by "of mine". Context: I am talking about a friend, and I am saying I love him. <Q> When it is the subject, you cannot drop it: <S> I know a guy who sings in a band. <S> I have a key that unlocks many doors. <S> But when the subject of the second clause follows who/which/that, then you can drop it. <S> Can you give back the book (which) my dad <S> lent you last week? <S> Is it the film (that) <S> everyone is talking about? <S> In your example, the subject in the second clause is I , so you can omit "that". <S> It doesn't matter if you use a modifier for "my friend" or not. <A> According to the rules of English grammar, in that sort of situation, a relative pronoun is always required, so dropping the "who" or "that" is technically not grammatically correct. <S> However , in terms of regular usage, that sort of omission is actually not uncommon, and I don't think would actually sound particularly strange to anyone. <S> So, if you are trying to be as correct as possible (for example, in formal writing, or when speaking to an English teacher, etc) it would probably be best not to leave it out, but in general conversation it is probably perfectly fine. <S> Note that your reasoning for why it is required is not quite correct. <S> Technically it is also required even if you're just talking about "a friend". <S> The "of mine" doesn't change things here. <S> It just happens that it's very common for people to omit the pronoun in a short sentence like "He is a friend I love", but they will more often include it in a more complicated phrase such as "He is a friend of mine whom I love" (I suspect mostly because the longer phrase is more complex so more helper words can make things easier for the listener to sort it out, and also being a longer phrase already, the addition of one more word isn't as big a deal). <S> Note also that, technically, if you want to be grammatically correct, it should be " <S> He is a friend of mine <S> whom I love", not "who" (since the phrase before the pronoun is acting as the direct object of "I love", not the subject, the correct pronoun is "whom" (object)). <S> Also note, however, that in reality almost nobody is pedantic enough to make that distinction anymore, and lots of people don't even know the difference... <A> He is a friend of mine who I love. <S> And He is a friend of mine that I love. <S> Actually, both sentences contain the Misplaced Modifiers because who/that will modify the word "mine", not "a friend" or "my friend". <S> In academic writing , we accept the use of sentence like this. <S> He is my friend <S> whom I love. <S> For better sentence: He is a friend my honey. <S> We use the appositive "my honey" to modify "a friend". <S> So, I would recommend you to learn more in YouTube's Channel given by The Nature of Writing. <S> That's it.
| Whether you can or cannot omit who/which/that depends on the role that it plays in the sentence.
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“all of who” or “all of whom”? In the following excerpt Prominent absentees from the event apart from Punia, were cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, Asian Games gold-medallist shot-putter Tejinder Pal Singh Toor, and silver-winner quartermiler Mohammed Anas, all of who were picked for the Arjuna award this year. I think instead of who , whom should be used. Because I have never seen who in these sentences. Source: The Hindu <Q> You are correct <S> It should be “whom”. <S> ✔ <S> ️ <S> Yes: <S> All of whom were picked for the Arjuna award this year. <S> It’s whom because of the word “of”. <S> (It’s acting like an object, not a subject. <S> The technical terms are “objective and subjective case.”) <S> (See here ( 1 ) and ( 2 )) <S> You would say “all of him,” not “all of he”, so whom is correct. <S> But whom is disappearing from some contexts <S> In spoken English, you won’t hear whom too often, but it remains “correct”. <S> Whom remains important in business writing, technical writing and formal contexts. <S> Many English speakers do not know the difference between who and whom. <S> In some places, it hardly matters, because using who when you should use whom is so common that it’s not even considered much of a mistake. <S> — <S> Lawless English <S> There is plenty of discussion here on ELL as well . <A> You are correct, it should be "whom". <S> By the traditional rules, "who" is used for subjects and "whom" for objects. <S> " <S> Who asked the question?" <S> "Who" is the subject, the person doing the action, so that is correct. <S> " <S> You asked whom?" <S> The word "of" is a preposition, and so what follows is the object of the preposition. <S> The example you give may be a little confusing because "who" sort of sounds like it's the subject. <S> If you said, "These are the people who were picked for the Arjuna award", "who" would be correct, because "who" is the subject. <S> But when you say "all of whom were picked", the subject is "all", not "who" or "whom". " <S> Whom" is the object of the preposition "of". <S> Note that in modern English we have few cases where we use different forms of a word for subject versus object, mostly just pronouns: who versus whom, he versus him, etc. <S> This is unlike some other languages where there are routinely different endings for almost every noun. <S> So many English speakers are getting sloppy about who versus whom. <S> You'll often hear people say things like, "You gave it to who?" <S> when technically it should be "to whom". <S> If you go by the principle that whatever the majority of people say and write is by definition correct, then "whom" is obsolete or near obsolete. <A> Directly after a preposition is the place which most tenaciously hangs on to whom - perhaps because this is a context where there is no doubt that whom is the (traditionally) correct choice. <S> Not everybody uses <S> whom even here, <S> but I think anybody who uses it at all will use it after a preposition such as of .
| "Whom" is the object, the person receiving the action, so that is correct.
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When you have to wait for a short time Please imagine you are at the airport and waiting for your plane to get ready so that the airport's announcer would call your flight number and you could board the plane.Your flight is on 6:00 p.m. It is 5:45 and they have not announced your flight number yet. You go to the information desk and notice that due to some technical issues you have to wait for about an hour and your flight would be at 7:05 p.m.Finally, you fly and when you arrive, you are talking to your friend who has come to the airport to give you a ride to a hotel. Now you are in his car and talking to him about the pick-up process at the source airport. How would you normally describe that situation and how would you casually (not in an impolite way) imply that you waited there ? I was __________ at the X airport for almost one hour. I know three verbs that can encapsulate this meaning, but I have no idea what verb would a native speaker use in an informal situation like this. Also, I need to know if my provided options work properly here. (I need the most common term in everyday conversation.) 1- I was kept waiting at the X airport. (This choice, although, can make my point across, but it has a connotation of "something forced", though dictionary definition, approves my feelings too. I don't know how to explain that, but I think there should be a better option too.) 2- I was left hanging at the X airport. (I don't know why, but I have an intuition that this is not a correct option here.) 3- I was detained at the X airport. (to me "detain" sounds a bit stilted.) However, despite all my opinions, I wonder if you could let me know about your own choice either in my options or of there is any other and better choice. Also, if they all are correct, then please let me know what is the nuance between these three verbs. <Q> As a simple one word answer "I was delayed at the airport for one hour". <S> "Kept waiting" is fine. <S> " <S> Left hanging" suggest that there was a lack of information about what the reason for the delay is. <S> ("left hanging comes from hanging on the telephone while the other person is doing something else) <S> "Detained" doesn't work, that means, roughly, that you were arrested by the police. <S> (BTW "at Heathrow airport" or "at the airport" but not "At the Heathrow Airport".) <A> "My flight was delayed by almost an hour at the X airport" or <S> "I was delayed by almost an hour at the X airport" <S> Would be my preferences. <S> 1) Is OK, and you were forced to wait, but specifically mentioning the flight gives more information. <S> 2) I agree this is not right <S> "left hanging" is more like abandoned, which you were not, just delayed. <S> 3) "Was detained" is more associated with forcibly held, such as arrested by the police. <A> I was delayed at the airport for an hour (because my flight was late). <S> My flight was delayed for an hour. <S> "Kept waiting" implies some kind of specific action that created an unintentional, or sometimes intentional, delay. <S> It's not used for flights by default, because it's not the intention of the airline to run late. <S> We were kept waiting at the airport for an hour while they inspected our plane. <S> They said there was some kind of warning light, but it turned out to be nothing serious <S> I guess. <S> As I said, it can be intentional: <S> Even if she wasn't doing anything important, the regional manager liked to keep salespeople waiting in her outer office for fifteen minutes before seeing them, as she liked to see them a little annoyed. <S> "Left hanging" is a little more colloquial, and also suggests some kind of broken promise or at least misleading expectation , in which you presume things should happen in some defined way, and are inconvenienced when they go a different way: <S> The tour company left us hanging around the hotel lobby for an hour after breakfast before they came to pick us up. <S> It seemed very unprofessional and not a good start to the holiday. <S> "Detained" is a little ambiguous. <S> It suggests that you were delayed against your will , although this can be by circumstance <S> not force <S> -- that is, you don't have to be "detained" by the police. <S> It would not normally be used for airlines unless there really was some authority involved: <S> The flight was delayed when the entire flight crew were detained by the local police. <S> We didn't know why <S> but we guessed maybe one of them was suspected of smuggling drugs. <S> "Detained" can be used as a polite excuse for being late to an appointment, as it suggests involuntary delay. <S> I apologize for being later to dinner, folks. <S> I was unavoidably detained at work.
| A more common circumstance is where there is something to hold up the flight during which everyone must wait:
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Use of articles for different qualities Is the following sentence incorrect? Churchil was a great orator and a great politician of his time. Some say that when article refers to a single person it must be used just once As Churchil was a great orator and politician of his time. But to me both the sentences sound correct. The example is from a study guide written in an Indian language for English language learners . The study guide misspells "Churchill" as "Churchil". <Q> Churchill was a great orator and a great politician of his times. <S> Churchill was a great orator and politician of his times. <S> But the following sentences have different shades of meaning: <S> Tagore is a great poet, painter, singer, dramatist, novelist and patriot. <S> Tagore is a great poet, a painter, a singer, a dramatist, a novelist and a patriot. <S> Both the sentences are grammatically correct. <S> The first sentence emphatically says that Tagore is great in all those aspects. <S> The second sentence may mean that Tagore is great as a poet but just a painter, singer, novelist and painter. <S> The greatness of Tagore may not be implied to his other qualities. <S> So if we want to say that Tagore is great in all aspects the sentence 1 is preferrable. <S> I would like to give another example which shows how the omission of the article brings a change in meaning: <S> A black and a white cow are grazing (two cows having different colours). <S> A black and white cow is grazing (a single cow having both colours). <S> I will provide the link which explains the topic https://www.englishforums.com/English/AdjectivesByThemselves/gqckb/post.htm <S> My answer is based on the books I have read and comments on the site and my research on the internet. <A> Each phrase can have an appropriate article (or lack thereof). <S> For example: A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! -- <S> A famous palindrome about U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt and the construction of the Panama Canal. <S> Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. -- From the United States' version of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. <S> A great man, a humble servant, and a shepherd to millions has passed on. <S> Billy Graham was a consequential leader. <S> -- From former U.S. President George W. Bush's formal statement after the Reverend Billy Graham died. <A> Churchill was a great orator and a great politician of his time. <S> It is correct. <S> As has already been mentioned, it is just a style choice whether you want to make a sentence shorter or not. <S> However, I would argue that most people prefer more concise, succinct language. <S> The sentence could be shortened, but only because it is using the same adjective "great" to describe his achievements: Churchill was a great orator and politician. <S> This would be understood that he was both "great" at being an orator and at being a politician. <S> Obviously, if you wanted to ascribe different adjectives then there is no way to shorten it. <S> You would have to write: Churchill was a great orator and an average politician. <A> Style Difference is a matter of context: <S> In a formal speech: Churchill was a great orator and a great politician. <S> In other contexts, it depends on how formal or emphatic you want to be. <S> Separating out the terms using two articles emphasizes each individually. <S> I just don't think it is more complicated than that. <S> However, in this sentence: Tagore is a great poet, painter, singer, dramatist, novelist and patriot. <S> I would not repeat the article, ever, because the list of accomplishments speaks for itself.
| Both of the above sentences are not only correct but also mean exactly the same thing. A sentence can have multiple phrases, each of which refers to a different aspect of a single entity.
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When do we use "no women" instead of "no woman"? When do we use "no women" instead of "no woman"? I thought we used "no woman" instead of "no women" by default, but it seems that some people do use "no women". Is there a situation where one is preferred over the other, or are both phrases synonymous and can be used at any time? For example: This list identified sixty-seven men and no women. <Q> So "one woman", "zero women". <S> If "no" means "zero" then you typically use the plural. <S> No women have come to class today. <S> However when "no" means "not one" you can use a singular to underline not a single one : <S> No woman should have to put up with harassment. <S> The difference between these is subtle and there is variation in actual usage. <A> In my experience, the choice between "no woman" and "no women" is usually determined by this question: if there were at least one woman, would there be only one, or multiple? <S> Examples: <S> This list identified sixty-seven men and no women. <S> We use "no women" because if the list did identify at least one woman, it would probably identify multiple women. <S> No! <S> I'm not married! <S> I'm a single man! <S> I am married to no woman! <S> We use "no woman" here because if the man were married, he would probably be married to only one woman. <S> We have lots of hot dog buns, but no hot dogs. <S> We use "no hot dogs" because if we did have at least one hot dog, we would probably have multiple hot dogs. <S> I own a computer, but no TV. <S> We use "no TV" because if I did own a TV, I would probably own only one TV. <A> One man and one woman, zero, two or sixty-seven men and women. <A> I liked @James K's answer. <S> "Women," is usually for general purposes. <S> " <S> No women allowed," or "Women's magazine," or "Women's #1 top choice of purses," etc. <S> "Woman," is more specific. <S> " <S> This (specific) woman is not allowed," or "This (specific) woman's magazine is very interesting," or "This (specific) woman's favorite purse is X." One of the only cases I can think of that uses "Woman," in a more general term, would be if you could replace "No woman," with "no person." <S> For example: "Some say no woman (no person) can do this," or "No woman (no person) would resist that bargain! <S> " <S> Something like that. <A> This list identified sixty-seven men and no women. <S> In this case, "men" is plural, so "women" must agree with that grammatical number . <S> Otherwise, it's jarring. <S> Here's a different way of writing it: <S> This list identified 67 men but not a single woman. <S> In that sentence, "woman" is used because "single" changes the number from plural to singular. <S> (Also, the "but" starts a new "sub-sentence" and thus the grammatical number is reset). <S> (And sixty-seven is changed to 67 because traditionally the numbers zero to nine or ten are spelled, and the numbers ten or eleven and above are written numerically. <S> There are, of course, exceptions to the rule...)
| Wherever you would use 'man', use 'woman' (when referring to females), and wherever you would use 'men', the female equivalent is 'women'. Zero is usually treated as plural.
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'Hard work never hurt anyone' Why not 'hurts'? I saw this sentence: Hard work never hurt anyone. It's a good phrase, but I wonder why it is 'hurt' not 'hurts'? I think 'hurts' (3rd-person singular present) is more correct. Why is it 'hurt'? <Q> In the idiom or proverb Hard work never hurt anyone. <S> "hurt" is actually a past tense. <S> It could be recast as Hard work never did anyone harm. <S> It can be confusing that for regular English verbs, the simple past form is identical to one of the present tense forms (plural). <S> Much the same meaning could be expressed in the present tense, as Hard work never hurts anyone. <S> But for whatever historical reason, this is not the form that became a standard fixed phrase. <A> I agree with the accepted answer, but would add that using the past tense also adds playfulness. <S> Maybe you want to avoid hard work, but other people worked hard ( past tense ) and it didn't hurt them. <S> So it shouldn't hurt you either, but I can't say this for sure. <S> If it did, you would be the first one in history who got hurt by hard work. <S> UPDATE: <S> Regarding the comments that you can in fact get hurt by hard work, it is not "hurt" in the literal sense , i.e. being hurt physically. <S> It is "hurt" as in being disadvantaged. <A> It's a reflection on what has happened (or not!) <S> previously. <S> So it's said as a past tense word. <S> We couldn't really say 'hurts' as the hard work would be happening now, while we speak. <S> It makes more sense to speak about something that happened previously - many times!
| It's a statement of 'fact' that has (theoretically) been proven in the past. What is meant is that hard work will not disadvantage you, it will benefit you, so you should do it.
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"there are no special names for each city" I got this question: What names are most common in your hometown? My answer: There are traditional names like "Jake", "Jacob" and "Holmes", but they are used across the whole country, and there are no special names for each city. How to answer this in a more idiomatic way? Also, I wonder whether the meaning which I want to convey is clear enough. <Q> If the OP wants to say that the names of girls and boys are <S> the same <S> throughout his or her country, they can write something like this: The most common names in my hometown, and in Italy , are: Lorenzo, Tommaso, and Matteo for boys while Elena, Sofia, and Chiara are the most common for girls . <S> Alternatively, In Italy, some names are more common in some regions than in others. <S> For example, Antonio, Salvatore and Maria are more common in Naples and in the south of Italy than in the north. <S> The question in the exercise/test only asked " What names are most common…? ", <S> NOT <S> What boys' names are most common…? <S> or What girls' names…? <S> , it would be an error to write the names of only boys as the OP had done. <A> The question is quite odd, in part because the country is not specified. <S> The answer is dependent on the country: for example, Switzerland, with four official languages, is likely to elecit a different answer than Norway. <S> Nor is sex specified. <S> The examples are all traditional names for males in English speaking countries. <S> Is that intentional? <S> And finally, at least today in English-speaking countries, Holmes is a relatively uncommon surname and only rarely used as a first name. <S> Similarly, Jacob is a not a particularly common first name, and Jake is almost invariably a nickname (for Jacob) rather than a true first name. <S> Thus, the examples make no sense in an English speaking country. <S> The temptation is to try to answer some sensible interpretation of the question about first names. <S> But of course the question actually posed by the OP is whether the suggested answer is idiomatic. <S> Yes, the proposed answer is idiomatic but verbose and non-responsive. <S> A less verbose version might be <S> The most common first names are determined nationally rather than by municipality. <S> That may be true or not true of any particular nation, but it is a less verbose rendering of the OP's suggested answer, which, to repeat, is idiomatic. <S> Whether this is true or not depends on the hometown, but we are not concerned with that question. <S> Moreover, this is a responsive answer only if the names referred to are understood by questioner and responder. <S> For example, if I, a native of the US, asked the proposed question of a native of Uzbekistan, the proposed answer would be idiomatic, succinct, and utterly uninformative. <A> I would answer. <S> "Names like Bob and Jane are very common in my town. <S> Names are usually used countrywide, and there are not really any special names for each city. <S> "(Native English Speaker)
| A responsive answer might be The most common first names in my hometown seem the same as nationally.
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