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When do I use "can" or "could"? When should I use can ? When should I use could ? What is right under what context? <Q> Since your name seems Indian, I'll also mention a common Indian-English idiosyncrasy that may clear up matters for you. <S> There is a tendency in Indian speech to use "could" for "can", and "would" for "will". <S> This is wrong (or, to avoid being prescriptive, certainly at variance with other varieties of English, and non-standard even in India). <S> (to ask polite questions, for instance) — or in the past tense. <S> If you're using it in the same sense as "can" (for a straightforward expression of ability), you're probably using it incorrectly. <S> For instance: We could go (if we like / but we won't / etc.), but We can go (= <S> We are capable of going / <S> It is possible for us to go) <S> They could see us from the tower (if they were not blind / yesterday), but They can see us from the tower (=they are capable of seeing us, now) <S> Wrong: The speaker would be coming tomorrow. <S> Correct: The speaker will be coming tomorrow. <S> (The progressive is fairly common in IE, but even more natural to just say "The speaker will come tomorrow.") <A> To keep it simple, I answer you without complex grammatical terminology. <S> There are five possible situations of using can . <S> 1. <S> Ability <S> In the first situation, we use <S> can with a meaning of ability. <S> For example, "I think I can lift the box" means that the speaker thinks that she/he is able to lift the box. <S> The past tense form of the sentence is "I thought I could lift the box". <S> 2. <S> Permission <S> In the second, we use <S> can with the meaning of permission. <S> Undoubtedly, all permissions are questions. <S> Example: "Hey Jim, can I use your PC for awhile?". <S> Use <S> could for more polite forms. <S> Example: "Could you please allow me speak?". <S> 3. <S> Request <S> In the third case, we use it as a form of request. <S> Example: "Can you please write it for me?". <S> Use <S> could for more polite form. <S> Example: "Could you lend me $100?". <S> 4. <S> Possibility Sometimes, can is also used to mark a possibility. <S> Example: "Using mobile phones while driving can cause accidents.". <S> Use <S> could if the possibility is uncertain. <S> Example: "He could arrive later. <S> " <S> 5. <S> Offer When offering help to someone, use can . <S> Example: "Can I open the bottle for you?". <S> Could is unusual, formal, and archaic here. <S> Could is used in two more ways where can isn't normal. <S> 1. <S> To make suggestions Example: "We could go out for awhile, if you like." <S> 2. <S> To express, forcefully, what someone must do Example: "You could speak up!" <S> I hope that this answer could help you a lot! :) <A> "Could" is the subjunctive form of "can." That means you use it to express possibilities and the like. <S> "I could go to the movies, but I might just stay home." <S> When "could" is used as the past-tense of "can," you're talking about something you used to be able to do, but can't anymore, so whatever action you're speaking of is hypothetical. <S> "I could have gone to the movies, but I decided to stay home," or "I could mow the lawn before my back injury." <S> (Really that second sentence should say "I could have mown...," but a lot of people don't bother.) <S> The subjunctive is also used when talking about emotions, wishes, judgments, and such like. <S> Honestly, Wikipedia is probably better at explaining the subjunctive than I. Good luck! <A> The difference is one of mood and tense. <S> kitukwfyer hits all the right notes here. <S> The subjunctive also helps differentiate the forms in questions. <S> Compare: <S> Could you run (please)? <S> Can you run? <S> Could lends politeness to a question in a request of someone. <S> I’d more likely say, “could you help me”, than “can you help me?”. <A> Addition to kitukwfyer's answer. <S> Could is consider more polite than Can, for example, when you talk to your friends you can say, "Can you give me that pen?", however when you talk to your teacher you should say "Could you give me that pen?"
| Properly, "could" (subjunctive) is used to express possibility , things that may or may not happen, may or may not be done, etc.
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Where does the "quint" in "quintessential" come from? Doesn't "quint" mean "five"? What does that have to do with the meaning of "quintessential"? <Q> "Essence" in this context is a synonym for "element", and "essential" for "elemental". <S> In pre-atomic theory, there were four "known" elements or essences — Earth, Air, Fire and Water — and a putative fifth element (quinta essentia). <S> The fifth element was believed to be superior to the others, and so, "quintessential" has come to mean something that is superior. <A> Somewhat missed in the answers thus far: the "fifth essence" is in fact identical to the "æther" of yore; said to be the stuff the stars and other heavenly bodies are made of. <S> Thus, anything composed of the "fifth essence" had to be exceptional. <A> It's the fifth element after earth, air, fire, and water, so it is presumably superior to those or completing those. <A> "quint" means fifth. <S> The fifth element was the one supposed to come after air, fire, earth, and water in the Medieval Age. <A> The origin of the word quint is the late 17th century; it derives from French, which took the word from Latin quintus (fifth) from quinque (five). <S> In Italian, quinto means fifth , and has the same origin. <S> Quintessential derives from quintessence (from Latin quinta essentia ), which was considered thought to fill the Universe beyond Earth. <S> In modern physics, quintessence is a hypothetical form of dark energy. <S> The NOAD reports that the origin of quintessence is late Middle English (as a term in philosophy), via French from medieval <S> Latin quinta essentia ("fifth essence"). <A> Sorry, I don't agree with the previous answers. <S> In alchemy, "essence" was the result of the distillation in an alambic (still used for perfumes) ; the process leads to a fairly purified product, but it can't be perfect ; you still have some impurities. <S> Thus, you repeat it again and again. <S> On the fifth time, it was considered that you could not do any better. <A> "Essence" means "element". <S> It was believed in the Medieval Age to be the fifth element behind Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
| The "quintessence" is the fifth essence.
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When did "while" and "whilst" become interchangeable? I think most folk happily use either "while" or "whilst". I've a vague recollection that at one time "while" indicated the passing of time and "whilst" was essentially the same as "whereas" or "although". So using while for time passing... While I was walking down the street the sun was shining. ... and whilst for whereas/although... Whilst I was walking down the street I often prefer to hop. Any views? <Q> I read once that "whilst" is preferred if you think that starting your sentence with "while" could change the meaning. <S> Consider this sentence: <S> While I walk I don't often whistle. <S> That could mean, "I walk, but I don't often whistle", or it could mean "I don't often whistle while I walk". <S> Changing it to: <S> Whilst I walk <S> I don't often whistle. <S> Removes that ambiguity. <S> I admit that the sentence itself is poorly constructed, but it does show one reason you'd use "whilst" over "while". <A> Always taking a bit of a chance using the Internet to answer an Internet question, but Daily Writing Tips says that not only are while and whilst interchangeable, but that in fact while is the original version. <S> The very authoritative Michael Quinion backs this up on World Wide Words (and that is a site well worth visiting for anyone interested in the English language). <S> So I think your question proceeds from a false premise: they haven't come to be used to mean the same thing, they do mean the same thing, and there is nothing wrong with using while in all cases. <S> (And to answer the question that wasn't asked, since it is shorter than whilst and clearly understood by US as well as British English-speakers, I'd say stick with while every time.) <A> While and whilst annoy me. <S> Same goes for among and amongst. <S> As far as I'm concerned, the number one rule should always be don't opt for the -st equivalent simply because it sounds more distinguished. <S> Generally, I find 'whilst' more befitting when preceding a present participle. <S> With that said, the following take on your example seems a tad more agreeable: <S> Whilst walking down the street, the sun was shining. <A> It seems they are interchangeable, but whilst is primarily used by the British. <A> "whilst" is "while" plus the suffix "-s" (with "-t" added by analogy with "amongst", "amidst"). <S> The earliest citation in the OED for "whilst" as a conjunction meaning "while" is 1375. <S> So maybe that's the answer to your question. <A> I have served as an editor for a scientific journal for many years. <S> In my observation, authors who use British English spellings also use "whilst" and "amongst". <S> The journal is published in North American English. <S> We consider these British spellings and always change them to "while" and "among". <A> I know this is a dead thread, but it still appears in current searches, so I add this comment in the hope it comes back to life! <S> Although ‘while’ and ‘whilst’ can share a meaning when used as a conjunction, only ‘while’ can be used as a verb (‘while away the hours’) and a noun (‘this could take a while’). <S> Also, ‘whilst’ conveys the meaning of ‘alternatively’, or ‘but’, or ‘whereas’, however ‘while’ means ‘at the same time’. <S> So ‘whilst’ follows a comma, and ‘while’ does not. <S> Example... “I told jokes while she ate lunch”. <S> We could both be eating lunch together. <S> “I told jokes, whilst she ate lunch”. <S> It is now clear that I am not eating lunch, and she is not telling jokes. <S> Another example where only ‘whilst’ works to convey a comparison... <S> “I watch action movies, whilst you watch dramas”. <S> This means that generally I don’t watch dramas and you don’t watch action movies. <S> “I watch action movies while you watch dramas” means I go and watch action movies whenever you are watching dramas. <S> I may love dramas... <S> I just don’t like watching them with you. <A> For example: Whilst wandering on in this slow manner, they were again surprised ... by the sight of Mr. Darcy approaching them, and at no great distance. <S> -- <S> Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, <S> ch.43 <S> Whilst he was watching the patient thus, the younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the bedside, gathered Oliver's hair from his face. <S> -- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch.30 <S> A cab had driven up whilst the American had been talking. <S> -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Dancing Men
| If there was ever a distinction in meaning -- that "whilst" meant "whereas; although" while "while" meant "at the same time as" -- it seems to have been lost by the early 19th century, as can be seen by the usage of "whilst" in the works of great writers, in contexts where the meaning of "whereas" would not fit.
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Is it appropriate to use short form of "have" ('ve) when it means possession? I feel uncomfortable saying sentences like the following: " I've a car" instead of " I have a car" " They've a great time" instead of " They have a great time" " He's a pen" instead of " He has a pen" etc I ask this because I read this sort of thing in a book. Are they correct? And what is the rule? Can you use such forms in a formal setting? <Q> To an American ear, it sounds awkward, but in British English, this is not uncommon. <S> Ironically, a Brit will probably tell you that the correct form is "I have got a small dog". <A> This is definitely an American English/British English thing, as you can't do it in American English <S> but you can in British English. <S> In American English, you can't contract "have" if you are using it as a plain (not a "helping" or "auxiliary") verb. <S> "I've a dog" and "They've a great time" are not grammatical in American English. <S> There are a number of other restrictions on contractions of "have" besides the one you cite. <S> For example, you can't use contracted "have" followed by "not": "I've not been there" is not grammatical in American English even though "I've been there" is—if you want to contract, you have to say "I haven't been there". <S> I discussed this in a question about I’ven’t . <A> I think what you feel uncomfortable with is contraction of "have" as a main verb. <S> But contraction of main verb "have" meaning to own or possess feels weirder. <S> ? <S> And I've a car right now. <S> However, I have a feeling that people will contract main verb have in British English, but take that with a grain of salt. <S> Americans faced with some kind of strange usage are far too willing to blame it on British English. <A> I think "I've a car" is fine, but unusual on its own: as part of a longer sentence it's unexceptionable: "I've a car in the garage". <S> I suspect this is for prosodic reasons: " <S> I've a car" has no word you can stress, other than "car", so people tend to change it to either "I have a car" or "I've got a car". <S> The other case is different: I can't think of any examples where I would expect to find "he's a pen", though I would rate it as perfectly grammatical. <A> "I've" seems fairly normal to me as British (or at least Scottish) English, and is completely unambiguous. <S> I don't think this "he's" would ever be understood as "he has" rather than "he is". <A> They are both strictly correct but both slightly inelegant. <S> The third especially could be confused with "He is a pen" <S> It's probably wise to favour the contraction if you want to emphasise another part of the sentence: "I've never been so insulted!" <A> It is rarely appropriate to use contractions in a formal writing environment. <S> I've heard the first construction in speech, mainly British English, but not the second. <A> Technically, there's nothing wrong with it, although Uncle Mikey is correct that it's rarely appropriate to use contractions in formal writing. <S> The only reason the second one seems strange is because most people would say "They're having a great time," I suppose because they're in the middle of having it. <S> I have said, though, "I'd a great time... <S> " I just happen to speak too quickly. <S> :) <S> I also say "I've got..." rather than "I have. <S> " When I'm not speaking incorrectly, I generally just say "I've." <S> So, it's not just a British thing. <A> when 'have' is used as an auxiliary verb (eg: In conjunction with a past participle). <S> I've been there. <S> (Correct)I've a dog. <S> (Incorrect) <S> When the verb 'have' isn't auxiliary, It can't be contracted with pronouns.
| (I've) is a fine contraction, just in American English you can only use it to replace (I have) Some people like to avoid contractions like that in formal writing, but most people probably won't mind (or even notice). When it's an auxiliary verb in, say, a perfect, contraction feels fine: I've had a car before.
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Where did the singular "innings" come from? In baseball, an inning is a team's (or both teams', depending on context) turn to bat. A game consists of 9 innings. In cricket, an innings is a team's turn to bat, a game consists of 2 or 4 innings. How did this difference in singular usage arise? "inning" could conceivably be derived like "outing": An outing is a time when one is out, an inning is a time when one is in (to bat/to play). Where did the singular "innings" come from? <Q> "Innings" in British usage is either singular or plural. <S> It's just one of those words with identical singular and plural forms. <S> It's not the only word ending with an s <S> that's plural; consider (apart from many -ics words like physics and politics) news and (both singular and plural) means, series, species, etc. <S> This is what Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (British, 1926) says: Plural anomalies . <S> See -ICS for the question of whether words in -ics are singular or plural. <S> Plural names of diseases, as mumps , measles , glanders , can be treated as singular or plural; chickenpox & smallpox , originally plural, are now reckoned singular. <S> Innings , corps , & some other words in -s, are singular or plural without change in spelling, but, while corps has -s silent in singular and sounded in plural, an innings & several innings show no distinction, whence arises the colloquial double plural inningses . <S> For the plural of Court Martial & Lord Justice , the number of porridge , & the difference between pence & pennies , see the words. <S> So it was special enough to invite comment (and unusual enough to invite coinages like "inningses"). <S> The OED doesn't give any special etymology; it just comes from "in", as the "outing" you mentioned comes from "out". <S> In American usage, "inning" is a back-formation from the plural "innings". <S> According to a random comment on languagehat , … "innings". <S> This is both the singular and plural form in cricket. <S> It is also frequently seen this way in early baseball. <S> For a time both "inning" and "innings" were seen used as singular, but by the 1870s or so the singular "innings" was uncommon. <S> Nowadays it is unheard of in a baseball context. <A> But "innings" is actually singular as well as plural, and has been used as such since at least the early 1700s. <A> There are very few singular, countable nouns English that end in " vowel -s" or " non-s-consonant -s". <S> "Species" and "series" are countable nouns, but both were borrowed from Latin relatively recently, while "corps" was borrowed from French. <S> Other than a few recent borrowed words ("lens", "corps"), "innings" is the only singular, countable English noun that I can find that ends in " non-s-consonant -s".
| "Inning" is actually a back-formation, caused by the mistaken belief that "innings" was a only a plural (and possibly by the general American tendency, to simplify spelling -- e.g. dropping the 'u' from "colo(u)r").
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Are "betwixt", "trebble", etc., acceptable in American English? I grew up speaking British English. The words I learnt were occasionally marked off in papers, despite their being English words. Are words like betwixt , trebble , learnt acceptable in papers for English classes for professors in America, specifically Texas? <Q> "Learnt" is non-standard, but intelligible and probably not a problem. <S> I've never heard or seen the word "trebble", and would mark it as an error in any piece of formal writing. <A> "Treble" (in British English at least) can mean the same as "triple", as well as high in (musical) pitch, as in the opposite of "bass" (see also the Wiktionary entry ). <S> "Learnt" (again, British English) is an alternative past form of "learned" ( Wiktionary again ). <S> "Betwixt" is a great word, but is somewhat archaic ( Wiktionary, one more time ). <S> Despite that, either "twixt" or "betwixt" was used in the film Serenity . <A> My $.02 USD: <S> Betwixt: not commonly used nationwide <S> ; I've heard it (and used it) in New England. <S> Trebble: We don't double up the b. <S> It's spelled 'treble' and it is still in use. <S> In American English, we don't substitute the -ed ending on verbs with a t. Learnt = learnedSpelt = <S> spelled and so on. <S> Without wanting to speak ill of Texas... <S> it's Texas. <S> They have their own dialect of English down there. <S> As a bit of anecdotal evidence, my nickname is "Lin" (short for Linda). <S> My Texas friends manage to take the letters Lin and somehow stretch two syllables out of them. " <S> Le-in" it becomes. <S> Why? <S> I have NO idea. <A> Treble might be more acceptable if the US played darts more often. <S> In BE, the 3x multiplier ring of a dart board is called the treble ring of which the highest scoring segment is the treble twenty. <S> http://www.pdc.tv/staticFiles/b6/b3/0,,10180~177078,00.pdf <A> I've never heard an American use betwixt, trebble (or aught, naught, or nought), or learnt, although: "betwixt and between" as a figure of speech would be "acceptable". <S> "larnt" is an Appalachian dialect word that would cost you points in a school paper. <A> I'm American, and the only place I've ever seen treble used was on computer speakers and car stereos (as in bass and treble ).
| "Betwixt" is archaic and highly marked for American English, but not technically wrong.
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Is it ever acceptable for a period to come after a quote at the end of a sentence? Possible Duplicate: Is it correct to use “punctuation outside of the quotations”, or “inside?” I've heard that you should always place ending punctuation inside of quotes, no matter what. Are there any cases where it is appropriate for a sentence to end with ". ? <Q> Punctuation inside quotes is a rule that was invented by American publishers and is not necessarily followed elsewhere. <S> The original reason had to do with typesetting mechanics and is obsolete. <S> Also, if you're preparing technical texts such as about computer programming, this can result in technically incorrect material. <S> In practice, you are at the mercy of whoever is editing or grading your material. <S> But to answer your question, it can certainly be "acceptable" in many parts. <A> Yes. <S> See the Economist style guide : <S> If the quotation does not include any punctuation, the closing inverted commas should precede any punctuation marks that the sentence requires. <S> More at the Guardian style guide . <A> Actually, Wikipedia seems to give a good answer to this. <S> I think it can be summarized as "most people just make it up as they go." <S> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_marks#Typographical_considerations <S> If you're an American, periods or commas almost always go inside the quotation marks. <S> Unless you're a journalist, or publishing fiction. <S> Then you do it the American way! <S> I really don't consider one way more correct than another. <S> I guess it just depends on what your audience expects. <A> The only thing that goes inside quotation marks is the quotation. <S> If the quotation contains punctuation, the punctuation should be included inside the quotation marks. <S> If not, the punctuation is perfectly fine outside the quotation marks. <A> The answer I remember for British English is If the quoted material forms a complete sentence (even if it's broken out of), even if it is not a complete sentence in the original source, and there is a punctuation mark before the opening quote, then the full stop should go inside. <S> "I think", he said "that would be a good idea." <S> The full quote forms a complete sentence and starts with a capital letter, even though it's broken out of to interject the <S> he said . <S> I think there were even more subtleties in the article in The Right Word at the Right Time . <S> (It's a rather excellent Readers Digest book.) <A> I was taught that if the quote has more than one sentence, then you do it like this, with a period in and <S> a period out: Statement: <S> I once heard a quote that said "Stop. <S> You can't go. <S> If you go, you can't stop. <S> If you stop, you can't go.". <S> Question: <S> Is there a quote that says "Stop. <S> You can't go. <S> If you go, you can't stop. <S> If you stop, you can't go."? <S> That isn't a real quote, by the way. <S> If it only has a phrase, or if it only has one sentence, then you do it like this: <S> Statement: <S> John said "Get out of here". <S> Question: <S> Did John say "Get out of here"?
| If you're British, periods and commas only go inside if they're part of the actual quote.
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"What's wrong in/with this question?" Is it better to say: What's wrong with something ? or What's wrong in something ? <Q> Without knowing the context, "what's wrong with something" is correct. <S> The question "What's wrong in something" sounds like a question you would hear in a philosophy class on existentialism. <A> The choice of prepositions for this kind of expression is really arbitrary and sometimes varies by region. <S> Most people are used to the expression "wrong with" meaning a defect, whereas wrong meaning incorrect might take "in." <S> For example, the use of the Cyrillic alphabet would be wrong in this context. <A> "In" denotes that the item in question is in some way contained. <S> "What's wrong with something" may be used for a group, but may also be used for an individual item—"What's wrong with Paul?"
| Perhaps it's just my own idiolect, but to me "What's wrong in something" implies that the speaker refers to a collection of things, one of which is presumably wrong.
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Can a word be contracted twice (e.g. "I'ven't")? I've seen a contraction of two words. I can't see why it wouldn't've been possible to have been contracted twice. Is it possible and how should it be punctuated? Update : Ok, to sum up the answers so far This appears in spoken British and American English It is from one of the lower registers of English Even if spoken this way sometimes, it isn't really written as a double contraction, except as written speech in fiction. And from my own googling in Wiktionary , it appears most written forms are old British words, often nautical like fo'c'sle. <Q> Two of my favorite double contractions are "couldn't've" and "shouldn't've", both of which are flagged by my spell checker, but seem completely correct to me. <A> This is not the highest register, but you may hear it in speech. <S> Native speakers tend to slur words together and leave out sounds even if they wouldn't write that way. <S> Double contractions are not used in writing. <S> They may be grammatically correct, but a professor would not allow you to use them in an essay. <S> Typically, even single contractions are avoided in formal writing. <A> The example you give is not done in American English. <S> "I've not a clue if this is possible" is also not grammatical in American English. <S> It may be in British English, though. <S> I copied this from a comment I left below, because I think it clarifies what I'm trying to say: I've" is a fine contraction, just in American English you can only use it to replace "I have" when "have" is used as an auxiliary verb (e.g. in conjunction with a past participle). <S> "I've been there" is OK. <S> "I've a dog" is not. <S> In the example "I'ven't a clue"—"I haven't a clue", the verb "have" is not auxiliary, so it can't be contracted with the pronoun "I". <A> <A> However, I think I've read "'tweren't," "'twouldn't," and "'twasn't" before. <S> I'm guessing, though, that double contractions like that are never technically correct. <S> Colloquially speaking, if you're understandable, anything goes. <A> I guess this isn't entirely formal standard English, but I'm pretty sure "y'all're," <S> "y'all've," and "y'all'll" are accepted in areas that use "y'all" as the second person plural. <A> I wouldn't use I'ven't in speech or writing. <S> I've not perhaps, I haven't more likely. <S> I do use, in both speech and writing, <S> I'd've . <S> I'd've thought this would be more common. <A> I would avoid doing that in any serious writing, but if you are looking for ways to do this creatively to affect a regional dialect, etc. <S> I would suspect any text by Mark Twain would be a good source to find examples of this. <A> See: 19th-century English: wo'n't and ca'n't <A> Nobody seems to have mentioned it, but what you'd be more likely to hear in British English is "I 'aven't" . <S> As Steve Melnikoff commented , "I've not" is sometimes used in the UK, though his example reads strangely to me; I'd have suggested something like <S> "I've not seen him before" . <A> When you say "I've done it" it's pronounced something like [aiv donit] (with the stress on [ai]), but when you say "I haven't done it" it's pronounced something like [ai (h)avent donit] (with or without an h sound, with the stress on [av]). <S> Since the initial "h" is very weak in English anyway <S> it's superfluous to omit it with an apostrophe unless you're making a point about exactly how someone pronounced it. <S> If you're saying [ai hav donit] <S> (with stress on [hav]), you should write it <S> "I have done it", with or without the italics depending on how important the emphasis is. <S> (By the way, I'm not a native speaker, this is how I see it with my foreign eyes. <S> I'm sure the phonetic spelling is all messed up, but I hope you understand it anyway...) <A> See also Apostrophes in contractions: shan't, sha'n't or sha'nt? . <S> I was looking into the example of sha'n't because I just ran across that spelling in Henry James's short story, " <S> The Great Condition" (1900), where characters named Bertram Braddle and Henry Chilver converse as follows: <S> "A-ah!" <S> Chilver murmered, as if only only now with a full view. " <S> She means she'll speak when you are married." <S> "When we are. <S> And then only on one great condition." "How great?" <S> "Well, that if after six months I still want it very much. <S> She argues, you know, that I sha'n't want it." <S> "You won't then—you won't!"cried Chilver with a laugh at the odd word and passing his arm into his friend's to make him walk again. <S> There are several striking things about this occurrence of sha'n't . <S> First, in the many stories that James wrote between 1892 and 1900, the spelling with two apostrophes occurs only this once (I believe). <S> Notably, James doesn't spell <S> won't with two apostrophes one line later—and more to the point <S> , he spelled <S> shan't with one apostrophe earlier in the same story: <S> "Shan't I go with you to the station?" <S> his companion [Chilver] asked. <S> And finally, Chilver is particularly struck by "the odd word," though he himself used shan't earlier. <S> This suggests that James is using the double punctuation to indicate an unusual pronunciation of the word sha'n't (perhaps as two syllables: sha-ent ?), much as he uses a hyphen to indicate an unusual pronunciation or drawing out of "A-ah!" <S> at the beginning of the quoted dialogue. <S> In any event, it's clear that writers can and do sometimes use two apostrophes in a single contraction, just as they can and sometimes do compress multiple words into one (as in the case of whadya for "what do you") without using any punctuation to clarify what's going on. <A> Not sure if it counts, but o'clock is a contraction of "of the clock".
| You can't contract non-auxiliary "have". "Fish 'n' chips" and similar phrases with "'n'" technically have a double-contracted "and." I don't think you can get away with "I'ven't" in writing either.
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How do I ask a question politely? When I was growing up, if I ever said something similar to "Can I go to the store with Joe?", my mom would correct me with "May I go to the store with Joe?". Is "May I?" the typical way to ask a question politely or is this just specific to where I grew up or what my mom learned? <Q> As I learned it, "may" is about permission while "can" is about ability. <S> "May we borrow your car?" <S> "Can you say 'Irish wristwatch'?" <S> So your mother was correcting <S> "Do I have the ability to go to the store with Joe" to "Do I have permission to go to the store..." <A> I agree these are largely interchangeable. <S> You can take it one step further and employ the subjunctive mood to make questions more polite. <S> These work well if you want something of someone, rather than mere information. <S> Might I join you? <S> Could you please say this? <S> In the last example, though, note that could can't really be replaced with might, let alone may. <S> Would is also appropriate. <A> This is because politeness has as much to do with intonation and context as with the actual words used to build the question. <S> The relationship between the interactants is also key.
| I don't think it matters if you use "may" or "can" - both can be polite or impolite.
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Is it acceptable to start a sentence with “however”? I have heard that starting a sentence with however is wrong. What are the grounds for this view and is it still held by a majority of pedants? They would suggest changing However, some people are beginning to doubt this. to Some people, however, are … or Some people are, however, beginning … <Q> The Grammar Girl has a good article on this topic, basically: It is fine to use however at the beginning of a sentence; you just need to know when to use a comma. <S> If it means " to whatever extent ", don't use a comma: <S> However wrong it is <S> , I will say it loud and clearly. <S> If it means " nevertheless ", use a comma: <S> However, I don't give a damn. <A> I think this advice comes from the (somewhat strange) idea that sentences should have one complete idea. <S> The same reasoning is behind advice not to begin sentences with "or" and "and". <S> Of course this advice is silly because sentences and "complete ideas" don't always line up, and there's no reason that a conjunction can't join a sentence with the previous one. <A> There is no rational, linguistically valid reason for this rule. <S> It's just a convention promulgated by misguided English writing teachers. <A> Yes. <S> However, it should be done sparingly. <S> Here's a pretty good writeup: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/starting-a-sentence-with-however.aspx <A> However, this may not be. <S> I think both are fine, but they are different cases. <A> Yes, but you cannot start a story with it. <S> I also believe that there should be no more than one 'however' per three sentences. <A> It is acceptable to start a sentence with however . <S> However, according to Strunk & White’s Elements of Style , it may only be used at the beginning of a sentence when it means “in whatever way” or “to whatever extent”. <S> When the word is used to mean “nevertheless”, it may not come first in its sentence or clause. <S> Strunk & White’s Misused Expressions <A> No grounds whatsoever . <S> However, a teacher is a teacher , so if you want to get a higher grade, I would suggest "basking in your own glory" without telling your teacher they are in the wrong.
| If your sentence begins with the conjunction "however", then it's an extension of the idea in the previous sentence and is therefore not a "complete idea". However you parse the rule, this usage is correct.
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What is the difference between "lay" and "lie"? How do I know when to use lay and when to use lie , and what are the different forms of each verb? I'm always getting them confused. <Q> The verb lay is transitive. <S> You lay something on the table. <S> The verb lie is intransitive. <S> You lie on the table when you are operated upon. <S> The confusion comes because the past tense of lie is lay : He lay on the table for two hours before he was operated upon. <S> Few native speakers get this right. <S> Most people would say, "He laid on the table for two hours." <S> Bill Clinton constantly made this mistake in speeches. <A> Historically, "lay" is a causitive verb formed from "lie", by a process which is now obsolete in English, but has left some other examples: "rise/raise" and "fall/fell". <S> In the case of "lie", probably because both words are common and the past of "lie" happens to be the same as the present of "lay", they have become generally confused, and for many people they are no longer distinct. <S> I don't know why the same has not happened to "fall" and "fell", but it may be simply because the verb "fell" is not very common, being used only of trees and enemies. <A> These English verbs give an incredible amount of trouble for everyone, mostly because people are not told the simple truth about them. <S> Here it is: Lie, lay, lain is an irregular intransitive inchoative verb meaning 'to assume a recumbent (horizontal) position' The cat is lying on the mat. <S> Lie down and take a nap. <S> He lay down and died. <S> Sit, sat, sat is an irregular intransitive inchoative verb meaning 'to assume a sitting (bent) position' The cat is sitting on the mat. <S> Sit down and have some tea. <S> He sat down and ate. <S> Rise, rose, risen <S> is an irregular intransitive inchoative verb meaning 'to assume a standing (vertical) position' The man is rising from his seat. <S> Rise up and tell the story. <S> He rose and spoke. <S> All of these positions are defined with respect to the human body, and human subjects are prototypical for these verbs; non-human subjects ( The tide is rising ) are metaphorical. <S> In each case, since they are intransitive, these verbs have no direct object. <S> Inchoative verbs refer to a change of state. <S> With these verbs the states are physical. <S> As usual, however, when there is an intransitive inchoative verb for a particular state, there is also a transitive causative verb, meaning to cause a change of state. <S> The subject of a causative verb is what causes the change of state, and the object is what undergoes the change of state. <S> These three inchoative verbs <S> each have a related causative verb: <S> It is regular, not irregular. <S> He is laying the rat on the mat. <S> Lay it down carefully. <S> He laid himself down and died. <S> Set, set, set is the causative of sit, sat, sat. <S> Like sit <S> , it's irregular, but not the same way. <S> He is setting the statue on the mat. <S> Set it down carefully. <S> He set it down and waited. <S> Raise, raised, raised is the causative of rise, rose, risen . <S> It is regular. <S> They are raising the flagpole today. <S> Raise it higher, please. <S> He raised himself up. <S> A graphic depiction of a fraction of the network of lie/lay is shown here . <S> Similar graphics could be made for sit/set and rise/raise. <S> There's a lot going on. <A> The notion that most native speakers are making a mistake about how to use language is ludicrous in the extreme. <S> To paraphrase the linguist Dwight Bolinger, the only possible way that language can be made and defined is by how native speakers, in the broadest sense, use it. <S> To suggest that the majority are making a mistake completely rules out the idea that languages can change. <S> As we all know, languages do change, so that makes the other notion fatuous. <S> In this case, it isn't an issue of language change. <S> It's simply another bad prescription; actually, using 'bad' is redundant as a prescription is always bad. <S> [Usage discussion of lay from Merriam-Webster :] <S> The practice was unremarked until around 1770; attempts to correct it have been a fixture of schoolbooks ever since. <S> Generations of teachers and critics have succeeded in taming most literary and learned writing, but intransitive lay persists in familiar speech and is a bit more common in general prose than one might suspect. <S> Much of the problem lies in the confusing similarity of the principal parts of the two words. <S> Another influence may be a folk belief that lie is for people and <S> lay is for things. <S> Some commentators are ready to abandon the distinction, suggesting that lay is on the rise socially. <S> But if it does rise to respectability, it is sure to do so slowly: many people have invested effort in learning to keep lie and lay distinct. <S> Remember that even though many people do use lay for lie , others will judge you unfavorably if you do. <A> I love pictures in You Tube video . <S> A picture thousand words!
| Lay, laid, laid is the causative of lie, lay, lain. lay has been used intransitively in the sense of “lie” since the 14th century.
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Should I use a semicolon or a dash to connect two closely related sentences? When you want to connect two closely related sentences, you can use a semicolon or a dash. (You can also use a dash for other kinds of non-sentential relations). How would you choose whether to use a semicolon or dash? <Q> I don't think I was ever taught a clear-cut rule, and as a non-native speaker, I am probably spoiled to some extent by the usage of dashes in other languages. <S> That being said, following nothing but my intuition I would use: a semicolon when the sentences express related, yet independent (especially grammatically independent) thoughts; they could well stand on their own, separated by a period. <S> a dash when the second sentence backs up the first one, nails it down to something, restates or amplifies it, provides reasons or examples, or when the second sentence could not stand on its own "as is" for grammatical reasons. <S> I will try to demonstrate my point by rewording the notorious examples from The Oatmeal accordingly. <S> My aunt had hairy knuckles; she loved to wash and comb them. <S> My aunt had hairy knuckles — she suffered from hirsutism. <S> When dinosaurs agree on something, they'll often high-five one another; dinosaurs are all about high-fives. <S> When dinosaurs agree on something, they'll often high-five one another <S> — they cannot talk and have to resort to gestures. <S> I gnaw on old car tires; it strengthens my jaw <S> so I'll be better conditioned for bear combat. <S> I gnaw on old car tires — to strengthen my jaw <S> so I'll be better conditioned for bear combat. <S> Again, this is just my two cents, and I'm only putting them in because the other answers so far seem to miss the point of your question by focusing on non-sentential relations and sometimes not even mentioning semicolons at all. <S> I don't know whether my answer comes close to being correct or not, but I hope it will at least serve as a turning point for getting the discussion back on topic. <A> Semicolon is used to join sentences that can stand alone, but are joined to emphasize their relationship. <S> En dashes are used to indicate periods of time or other numerical ranges. <S> Hyphens are used to combine open compounds. <S> Em dashes are used to disrupt the flow of a sentence and bring emphasis to the coming point. <S> It is a more informal and stronger version of the colon. <S> It can also act as a stronger version of the comma. <A> <A> Firstly, you should be aware that there are two different kinds of dashes: <S> the en dash and the em dash. <S> The em dash (—; historically, an em is precisely the width of the letter "M", but now defined by the height of the font) is generally used to add a passage into the middle or end of a sentence. <S> This is similar to using parenthesis, but should be read without adding a pause. <S> Moreover, the em dash in fact interrupts the sentence, so no pause should be used at all; an interruption should be emphasized. <S> This dash is also often used as a de facto interruption; for example in dialog when the speaker for some reason cannot continue. <S> In use, the em dash is not surrounded by spaces. <S> This is done—like this—because it otherwise uses excessive spacing. <S> Some publishers or style guidelines may instead prefer the narrower en dash (–; an en half the width of an em). <S> This character is usually – as in this example – surrounded by spaces. <S> Suggestions on the use of semicolons can be found as answers to this question . <A> In Comma Sense <S> ( Richard Lederer and John Shore — ISBN 0-312-34255-1) <S> it's reported that the dash is used: to set off a though or explanatory remark with a sentence: If I remember well — bear in mind <S> I have been on New York City 5 years ago — Central Park is close to Fifth Avenue. <S> to introduce an appositive: <S> When I frequented the ITIS — the secondary school on Cantore Street — I was still a teenager. <S> to signify a sudden change in thought: We are going to — what's that burning smell? <S> before the citation of an author or source of a quotation. <S> In the other cases, a different punctation should be used. <A> Here is what I think: Semicolon is a mood-switcher <S> It switches your "learning mood" to "exciting mood" and vice versa. <S> When dinosaurs agree on something, they often high-five one another; dinosaurs are all about high-fives. <S> Godzilla is a misunderstood creature; beneath his raging desire to set people on fire & eat them lies a gentle giant who just wants to cuddle <S> Dash is an explainer <S> It further explains a concept before it. <S> When dinosaurs agree on something, they'll often high-five one another <S> — they cannot talk and have to resort to gestures. <S> Godzilla is a misunderstood creature — beneath his raging desire to set people on fire & eat them lies a gentle giant who just wants to cuddle <S> This answer is inspired by RegDwigнt's answer .
| Typically, if I'm connecting two closely related sentences, I use a semicolon; I use dashes in instances where commas would also be acceptable—usually where commas would be confusing—or where parentheses would also be acceptable.
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Difference between "ability" and "capability" What is the difference in usage between ability and capability ? <Q> It means more or less "John has the talent that's needed to win." <S> Ability, on the other hand, implies possibility. <S> " <S> John is able to win" means John is in the running to win but not necessarily that he has the skills or ability to win. <S> It means more or less "It's possible that John will win". <S> But here's where it gets more confusing: <S> "John is able to read" means John can read without doubt, whereas "John is capable of reading" means John has all the necessary brain power and whatnot to be able to read but the question of whether or not he can read at the moment is left unsaid (although the fact that someone does say "John is capable of reading" probably means John can't read right now). <A> If we would like to describe the functionality of a specific product like a software, I think it is more common to use 'capabilities' (vs 'abilities'): "MS Word has these capabilities: edit tables, copy and past, styles etc." <A> There's another shade of meaning not yet touched upon. <S> able can also be of things, "of a thing (esp. <S> a boat): strong, substantial, well built; or a person who is intelligent, skillful, apt, talented, or clever (OED). <S> Compare, "It is an able ship/ <S> It is a capable ship. <S> " They are both meaningful, but I would be more likely to use the first one. <S> Another example, "She is an able tour guide/ <S> she is a capable tour guide". <S> The second sounds contrived to me, even a little damning. <S> It's also interesting to note that they entered English through different sources, and that able is the older of the two. <A> As far as I can tell, these are very nearly perfect synonyms. <A> I want to give only one condense sentence, so that you can easily to remember. <S> I have the ability to write, but I don’t have the capability to write a novel. <S> Ability vs. capability vs. capacity on Grammarist
| Capability often refers to extremes of ability . Capability implies unrealised potential, as in "John is capable of winning", which implies John has the ability to win but it's not definite.
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When should "into" be used rather than "in to," and vice versa? "Into" (one word) and "in to" (two words) are frequently confused. In what situations should the former be used? The latter? <Q> You should use "into" when it's a question of location, for lack of a better word. <S> "I went into the store," "We went into the field of computer science," "We drank well into the morning," etc.. <S> "In to" just happens sometimes. <S> "I went in to buy some milk." <S> In that sentence the "to" is part of the infinitive "to buy." <S> If you aren't sure which one to use, change the "in" to "in order" and see if it still works. <S> "I went in order to the store" is wrong, but "I went in order to buy some milk" is good. <A> This is explained in the book called "Common Errors in English Usage" by Paul Brians: “Into” is a preposition which often answers the question, “where?” <S> For example, “Tom and Becky had gone far into the cave before they realized they were lost.” <S> Sometimes the “where” is metaphorical, as in, <S> “He went into the army” or “ <S> She went into business.” <S> It can also refer by analogy to time: <S> “The snow lingered on the ground well into April.” <S> In old-fashioned math talk, it could be used to refer to division: <S> “Two into six is three.” <S> In other instances where the words “in” and “to” just happen to find themselves neighbors, they must remain separate words. <S> For instance, “Rachel dived back in to rescue the struggling boy.” <S> Here “to” belongs with “rescue” and means “in order to,” not “where.” <S> (If the phrase had been “dived back into the water,” “into” would be required.) <S> Try speaking the sentence concerned aloud, pausing distinctly between “in” and “to.” <S> If the result sounds wrong, you probably need “into.” <S> Then there is the 60s colloquialism which lingers on in which “into” means “deeply interested or involved in”: <S> “Kevin is into baseball cards.” <S> This is derived from usages like <S> “the committee is looking into the fund-raising scandal.” <S> The abbreviated form is not acceptable formal English, but is quite common in informal communications. <A> Dexter was in the room at the time of the murder. <S> Dexter went into the room shortly before the murder. <S> People often use in instead of into , especially if in is preceded by an adverb: Max went down in the mine with the rest of the crew. <S> This is an informal usage, but you will hear it a lot. <S> Nevertheless, if you follow the general rule listed in my first sentence, you should be able to understand the difference and make yourself understood.
| Broadly speaking, in refers to something that already exists inside something, while into implies motion from outside to inside.
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How does the phrase "used to" work, grammatically? It is common to hear people say "used to" to indicate that they did something in the past but no longer do; for example, "I used to play basketball." How would "used to," used in that context, fit into a sentence diagram? What part of speech is it? <Q> This is more of a theoretical question, and so the answer depends a lot on what framework you prefer. <S> "Used to" in this context is sometimes called a "quasi-modal" along with "want to", "ought to" and so on. <S> Some linguists consider them the result of a historical process called grammaticalization, in which common collocations take on their own somewhat idiosyncratic grammatical properties. <S> I think there are tests you can use to demonstrate that quasi-modals don't behave the same way as infinitive structures (by making them questions, for instance), but this is not my specialty. <S> However, I think a real infinitive use of "used to" would be as in: (1) <S> The saw was used to cut the wood. <S> I can't find a good article for this right now, unfortunately. <S> Maybe someone else knows of one? <A> I'm not certain about the terminology, but I'm pretty sure "used to" is a set idiomatic phrase that marks verbs as being in the imperfect (past continuous) tense. <S> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperfect#English <A> In this case, I'd say that the verb use is selecting the infinitive as its complement, making the to infinitive the direct object. <S> The verb is tensed, ending up "used to". <S> Another example would be "hope to blah". <S> Here is an interesting paper on the distribution and semantic correlations between verbs that select for infinitives. <A> If "used to" is a set idiomatic phrase (i.e. not a tense), then why would it change its form from "use to" to "used to" for the sentence as it does in the positive? <S> I.e. why not say "I use to smoke". <S> "Did you use to smoke?" <S> "I didn't use to smoke". <S> Also in Practical English Usage, (Oxford),Michael Swan says that the formal form of the question and negative of "use to" is "Used you to go to the opera?" <S> and "I usedn't to play football" etc. <S> In Ireland we've have remained faithful to these concepts and often "Quazi-modalize" the question and negative by saying "Usen't you go...? <S> " <S> and "I usedn't play..." <S> etc. <S> The problem I believe is that everybody argues the case in favour of what they themselves are, if you pardon the pun! " <S> used to" saying themselves. <S> Unfortunately, English does not have an academy of experts that meet once a year, unlike Spanish.
| Chambers's 1939 dictionary tells us that "use to" is an intransitive verb meaning "to be accostomed to" only used in the past tense and pronounced /ust/.
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Are actors taught to roll their "r"'s? A particularly prominent example of a rolled r user is the actor Jeremy Brett, who played "Sherlock Holmes" in the 1980s Granada adaptations. I've noticed that several other actors, especially from the older generation, also use the rolled r . Is this something that actors are or were taught to do at drama school? If so, why? <Q> Many actors are taught to enunciate clearly , perhaps to ensure their lines are heard above a snuffling coughing audience, or to counter unpredictable acoustics in some theatres. <S> I'm sure that some actors who had trained for the stage would have then applied stage techniques to the screen, where close mics and sound stages would have made those old tricks unnecessary. <S> It's possible that the rolling "r" would be one of those tricks. <A> It really depends where the actors are from. <S> Some drama schools would teach it, others would not. <S> But a great many people in England roll their r's since birth, and I am not sure about Warwick, but it is possible that Jeremy knew how to roll his r's a long time ago. <S> As for me, I can easily roll an 'r' as can most of my Kiwi friends. <S> So, no need to learn it in drama school. <A> The rolled or trilled R in question is a form of classical English pronunciation. <S> Before Queen Elizabeth II modernised her pronunciation, the trilled R was quite commonly spoken. <S> Mr Brett's trilled R was very much in keeping with the character and period of SH.
| In Britain, even to this day, dramas schools teach the trilled R as part of their voice exercises, and some choirs will not admit someone if they cannot rolled their Rs.
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What does "great good" mean in the tutorial title "Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!"? There is a site learn you a haskell with the title "Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!". Does "Great Good" mean "very very good"? Does the whole phrase mean "learning Haskell is good for you" or "learning Haskell is good for the whole world" or something else? <Q> It's a deliberate mistake, as is "Learn You". <S> I think this is based on a comedy routine by Baron Sacha Cohen called Borat. <A> I'm inclined to think it's a parody of "For great justice!" <S> from the badly-translated game, Zero Wing. <S> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us <A> Haskell is a very mathematical programming language. <S> It is typically learned by mathematically inclined people who have big brains. <S> That makes the subject matter frightening to many people. <S> It triggers their "math anxiety". <S> The title is deliberately silly so as not to make people feel anxious. <S> Haskell books are typically pedantic and formal. <S> The informal, grammatically incorrect, silly style of the title is kind of promise to the reader that the book won't be overly pedantic and formal. <S> I think also that the author, who is Slovenian, may be making fun of his own English skills. <S> (The English inside the book however is very good.) <A> I think it's a Haskell joke, playing on the functional programming style used in that language. <A> According to this post <S> the phrasing originated in the title of the Haskell tutorial <S> " Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 hours ", written in 2006, and was simply a (not that ungrammatical, but certainly awkward) "portmanteau of two different common memes at the time": the "Teach yourself X in 21 days books", and Peter Norvig's semi-parody "Teach yourself programming in 10 years". <A> I'd be more inclined to interpret "for Great Good" as a form of "for the Greater Good". <S> In that case it corresponds with "learning <S> Haskell is good for whole world" per your suggestion. <S> Compare to "Making the world a better place, one person at a time".
| In better English, the title might be something like, "Learn Haskell for great benefit".
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Is it alright to use lowercase "i" or should you always use "I" (uppercase)? I frequently edit questions on StackOverflow, and I always fix the "i" into "I". See this edit revision for instance . When i I start my tomcat, i I am getting this problem. How could i I resolve this problem. Am I right to do so? Benjol points out an interesting thread illustrating that debate: the MetaSO question " Can users please refrain from making minor edits to a question I post? " (and its edits ): The point of text on a site like this is to communicate. Why do you want to make it harder to communicate than it has to be? You may like writing with no capitalization, but I think it's pretty clear that people prefer reading with capitalization. If you don't care about making life easier for those trying to help you, why do you think anyone will bother helping you in the first place? The article " Capitalize, please " also refers to norms. Readers of the modern English language have grown accustomed to certain norms. Paragraphs, for one. Punctuation. Consistent spelling. And, of course, capitalization. <Q> It is the standard orthography of English to capitalize the first person singular pronoun, as well as in contractions like <S> I'm or I'll . <S> This is not a universal property of written language, though—far from it. <S> Apparently the capitalization of I comes from England sometime before the time of Chaucer. <S> The typographists of the day dictated this change ; they thought that i (after being truncated from something more German-like "ich") was simply too small to stand on its own and bear so much meaning. <S> Just goes to show how much of a technology writing really is. <A> The orthography is what the orthography is, and while there are many variations allowed in certain aspects, no serious authority supports abandoning the distinction between upper and lower case. <S> So unless you are sticking with a rebellious all-lower case spelling, a lower case "i" is always wrong. <A> If you're looking for justification outside of a dictionary, there are countless style guidelines that will address the issue -- you'd think. <S> I can't find much, at least not online. <S> " Me, Myself and I " -- New York Times article on this very question. <S> (It comes to the same conclusion -- there's no real grammatical reason for capitalizing "I" aside from typography.) <A> Well, it really depends on what you are writing. <S> If you are writing something formal, or if you think your audience will care, then sure. <S> If you are texting or IMing, or being much more casual, then it's really up to you whether you want to bother or not. <S> Capitalization, like most orthography, is just a matter of convention. <A> Whether it is appropriate to correct others' mistakes in this regard is a question of etiquette, not grammar. :-) <A> As everyone has said, and which I don't want to downplay, this is not acceptable in any formal writing, or even informal writing which is "public." <S> However, it's pretty common in electronic, informal, private writings, such as text messages, (non-work-related) e-mails, and online chats not to capitalize anything at all. <S> (Principally the point is that holding the shift key is annoying.) <S> Emphasis on electronic. <S> It would be weird and pretentious-looking in anything you wrote by hand, even something informal, even just a casual note to a friend.
| The first-person pronoun should always be capitalized in English.
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What are some of the better English reference grammars? What is your favorite English reference grammar, particularly in terms of accuracy and completeness? Please note: I am not asking for usage guides. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the best ones? <Q> The book that taught me what little (and how little) <S> I know about English grammar is Huddleston and Pullum's Cambridge Grammar of the English Language . <S> You can read chapter 1 and chapter 2 <S> (PDF) free online. <S> Those are introductory chapters. <S> For a taste of the meat of the book, see this answer regarding the word yesterday , which is basically just a roundup of what CGEL has to say about it. <S> If you like what you see there, I enthusiastically recommend buying CGEL . <S> It’s unbelievably thorough and accurate. <S> The writing is uniformly clear and concise. <S> Illustrative examples are everywhere. <S> It has both a lexical index (for looking up the peculiar grammar of enough or yesterday ) and a conceptual index (for looking up terms like gerund or subject-auxiliary inversion ). <S> It's engaging enough to browse as bedtime reading. <S> The main drawbacks are that it costs $178 and weighs about five pounds. <A> I find Carter and McCarthy's 2006 Cambridge Grammar of English very useful. <S> The great advantage is that it is based on an analysis of real language (the Cambridge International Corpus), which means that its insights are evidence-based, not intuition. <S> Any reference grammars which are not based on corpus evidence are not worth buying. <A> <A> Please don't mark this as the answer since it is horribly out of date, but just know that H.W. Fowler, The King's English (1908) is a joy to read for its humor, wit, accuracy, and prescriptive adamancy. <S> It is very useful for going into depth of the English language but definitely not a good choice for your first grammar text. <S> Anyone who loves the English language should have a copy of it in their bookcase. <S> You can find it online but do get a paper copy of it, the older and mustier the better.
| I used the book Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Schrampfer Azar when teaching English throughout the 1990s, mostly for its clear and simplified verb tense diagrams which explain when to use the present progressive, past perfect, present tense, etc.
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Should I write "that being said" (vs. "that's been said" or "Having said that")? I often write what "sounds" right (being not a native English speaker/writer), and I believe the expression "that being said" to be fairly common, as opposed to a more complete form like "that's been said" or "Having said that". In doubt, I turn to google fight , which seems to confirm the common usage . (not exactly the right reference, I know.) Yet, I don't think that "that being said" is correct, especially in writing. "That said" is even more common. Is it also acceptable in writing? What expression would you use in formal writing? (Not too formal though: like a technical forum ) <Q> Both "that said" and "that being said" are common (possibly too common) and perfectly grammatical, and sufficiently formal as well. " <S> Having said that" is also correct, but to be correct the subject in what follows must be whoever said that (usually "I"). <S> For instance, you can say: Roses are usually red. <S> That [being] said, they are also… <S> But you'd have to say: I like turtles. <S> Having said that, I will now proceed to show… <S> That said, if you don't follow it up with "I", many people wouldn't notice anything amiss these days. <S> Full stop. <S> It cannot be used to introduce the rest of the sentence in the same manner. <A> To my ear, "that's been said" is actually wrong if used in this context. <S> The other two, "that being said" and "having said that" are normal; I would say they are somewhat fossilized expressions. <S> However, they aren't ungrammatical. <S> For instance: 1) <S> The car being washed, Hugo went home. <S> (somewhat archaic sounding, but I think fine) 2) <S> Having washed the car, Hugo went home. <S> (perfect) <A> It simply offers more variety. <S> I edit texts and there is only so much repetition of "however" I can take before I start changing things. <S> I really like the Phrase "that being said."
| "That's been said" is a full sentence (edit: complete clause), and it only means "That has been said". "That's been said" will sound distinctly odd if used in the same way, probably just because it is not a recognized idiom.
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I thought "spare me with ..." means "don't bother me with the details of ...". Does it? But according to my friend I am wrong. What do you think? <Q> You are correct. <S> However, I think this is an instance of an unnecessary preposition. <S> I would say, "Spare me the details". <S> If your friend doesn't believe you, tell him or her to read these lyrics 1 by the punk band The Offspring: <S> Warning: racy lyrics <A> "Spare me" can be used to refer to anything that isn't wanted. <S> As in, "spare me your poppycock", "spare me your pedantic ways", "spare me your grandiloquence" etc. <S> "Spare me" just means "let me not hear/see/experience something". <A> In an absolute sense, your friend is correct: "spare me with..." doesn't really mean anything. <S> Thus it doesn't mean "don't bother me with the details of...", but this is about as useful as saying that it doesn't mean "the sky is blue". <S> "Spare me [x]" is an idiom meaning "I don't want to be bothered with [x], so kindly leave [x] out of any further conversation."
| What you were doubtless intending to say is "spare me the details [of...]", which does indeed mean "don't bother me with the details [of...]".
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Is it correct to use "their" instead of "his or her"? Is this sentence grammatically correct? Anyone who loves the English language should have a copy of this book in their bookcase. or should it be: Anyone who loves the English language should have a copy of this book in his or her bookcase. <Q> Certainly many usage guides have advised against use of this " singular they " on various "logical" grounds. <S> Nevertheless, singular they has long been part of the English language, and there are various posts on Language Log giving examples of it being used in the Bible , by Shakespeare , by the president , by the Canadian Department of Justice , etc. . <S> The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language 's coauthor Geoff Pullum (a frequent Language Log contributor) calls the idea that they must never occur with a singular antecedent a myth . <S> There is no shortage of usage "experts" who advise against it, as the other answers in the question should make clear (though these days their reasoning tends away from a simple <S> "it's wrong" towards something more <S> defensive–"some people will think it's wrong, so avoid it"). <S> But despite them, use of singular <S> they occurs at all levels of the language, both spoken and written, informal and formal. <S> It's not ungrammatical per se on the basis of analysis of actual usage using reasonable linguistic methods. <S> But use it at your own risk of being criticized by the self-righteous but misinformed. <A> Up until very recent times the natural answer would have been "Anyone who loves the English language should have a copy of this book in his bookcase", because "his" was also a gender-neutral pronoun. <S> It turned out, however, that "his" could only function as a gender-neutral pronoun if it were a plot by the patriarchy or something, so we're in the process of trying out alternatives. <S> I've heard serious proposals to substitute "their", "his or her", "her", "its", and even "hisorher". <S> Of those alternatives, I use "their" because it sounds the most natural to me, but usually I avoid pronouns altogether, as in, "This book should be book in the bookcase of anyone who loves the English language." <S> That style has the additional advantage of making you sound formal and pedantic. <A> Second one (for writing purpose), if I believe the " THEY/THEIR (SINGULAR) " article. <S> A good general rule is that only when the singular noun does not specify an individual can it be replaced plausibly with a plural pronoun : <S> “Everybody” is a good example. <S> We know that “everybody” is singular because we say “everybody is here,“ not “everybody are here” <S> yet we tend to think of “everybody” as a group of individuals, so we usually say “everybody brought their own grievances to the bargaining table.” <S> “Anybody” is treated similarly. <S> However, in many written sentences the use of singular “their” and “they” creates an irritating clash even when it passes unnoticed in speech. <S> It is wise to shun this popular pattern in formal writing . <A> I have gone to using their instead of the increasingly awkward him/ <S> her in all but the most formal of my writings. <S> His or her is sounding very contrived, and it is no better to substitute her for him than to have him as the gender neutral pronoun. <A> See here or here or here . <S> Executive summary: <S> His/her is to be avoided. <A> In a business English course at WVU in 1987, I was taught to avoid the sexist language/agreement problem by making the subject plural: <S> Anyone All the people who love the English language should have copies of this book in their bookcases. <A> In these days of exaggerated care for egalitarianism it is always a conundrum whether to use "his", "her" or "their". <S> And perhaps we should be concerned about egalitarianism. <S> On the other hand, the traditional use of the masculine gender to stand in for both sexes still doesn't seem too outré to me. <S> As a guy, perhaps I am missing something. <S> What I would do, if I were writing technical works, would be to write one with a masculine user, and the next time do it for a feminine user. <S> Leave each work (whether an essay or a book) consistent as to gender of the subject user. <S> Alternatively, if you are a female writer, your user should always be female; and if a male writer, then male user. <S> Lot's of choices out there! <S> Try to offend as many people as possible.
| The use of their is increasingly common and should simply be accepted by grammarians, though it will probably take a century or so before the high and mighty accept this increasingly common usage.
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"Well" and "good" as applied to the quality of photographs These photos came out well. or These photos came out good. According to the proper usage of well and good , the former would be describing the quality of the taking and developing of the photo; the latter would be describing the state of the photo as a finished product. Are both of these acceptable? <Q> Both are valid, though "These photos came out well" would be more common. <S> Without going into adverbial usage of "good", one could usefully distinguish the adverbial and adjectival meanings. <S> Whether any of the listeners/readers will catch this distinction or gain anything from it is doubtful, though. <S> For instance, I'd prefer " <S> These photos came out quickly" over "These photos came out quick" (the process happened quickly) but would prefer <S> "These photos came out blurry" over "These photos came out blurrily" (the end result was blurry, not the process) <S> So in that sense (I think) both "These photos came out good" and "These photos came out well <S> " can be right and mean different things, but in practice, because "adverbial good" is so widespread (see nohat's answer ), listeners would probably be more likely to think you meant the process and were using the "wrong" or informal adverb than to think you were using the right adjective. <A> Considering that "You do something well, but a thing is good.", since the expression "These photos came out" is more about a process (of taking the photos), I would be inclined to favor the first usage: <S> "These photos came out well." <S> ( Plus, "These photos came out good. <S> " doesn't sound as good. " <S> as well"? <S> No. " <S> as good" ) <A> Ah yes, adverbial use of good . <S> Another classic prescriptivist bugbear. <S> Merriam-Webster writes : Adverbial good has been under attack from the schoolroom since the 19th century... <S> Adverbial good is primarily a spoken form; in writing it occurs in reported and fictional speech and in generally familiar or informal contexts. <S> Both examples in the original question would be what linguists call "grammatical" in that it is a usage used frequently by native speakers, but the long proscription of adverbial good by prescriptivists has resulted in what Merriam-Webster call a split in connotation: <S> " well is standard, neutral, and colorless, while good is emotionally charged and emphatic." <A> Good is an adjective; <S> Just as an adjective applies to a noun, so an adverb applies to the verb. <S> In British English then, the correct usage would be to use the adverb, and say the photos came out well. <S> As a special case, the verb "to be" (a copular verb) typically takes an adjective, so it would be quite normal to say: <S> the photos are good / <S> the photos were good <S> / ... will be good ("To be" can take an adverb too, but "You are well/ill/poorly" mean something quite different from "You are good/bad/poor") <S> As another example, with someone who "is slow" we could say they "go slowly". <S> In German and some other Germanic languages there is usually no special adverbial form, so it's quite common in areas where German migrants have settled (like in the US) to hear the adjective and never the adverb. <S> For the example above, a German would simply say "langsam" ("slow") in both cases. <S> British English has maintained the French use of adverbs, so we make a distinction between the two forms; to my British ears, the use of an adjective ("good") where I would normally hear an adverb ("well") just sounds wrong. <S> I think in American English you can get away with it, at least in speech, but it's worth knowing the rule.
| well is an adverb, which is applied to a verb.
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Is it correct to say "on accident" instead of "by accident"? There is a great chasm on these phrases in the US. The great divide seems to be currently centered at the age of 40. The younger generation has began shifting to "on accident" for unknown reasons. What is your view? <Q> "On accident" (meaning "accidentally") does seem to be an unusual usage that frequently appears in opposition to the much more idiomatic "on purpose" (meaning "purposefully"). <S> These are the kinds of idioms commonly used by e.g. children in explaining why something has gone wrong: — <S> "You broke my toy on purpose!" <S> —"No, it was on accident!". <S> A quick survey of the 34 incidences of "on accident" in the Corpus of Contemporary American English show about half have the sense discussed here, and "on accident" does occur in opposition to "on purpose": <S> HAAS: <S> That happens in so many cases where you're got misinformation <S> that's either leaked on accident or on purpose. <S> — from "Gunman Kills 32, Wounds 28 at Virginia Tech" on <S> On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, 2007 <S> JACOBUS: <S> Big difference when it's on purpose and when it's on accident. <S> — from "Dean, Democrats and Iowa's Deadline", on CNN, 2003 <S> Other examples are from fiction: <S> "Dad better not see this or you'll get it. <S> I'll tell him we were play fighting, and I slugged you on accident." <S> — Evan Shopper, " <S> If I have to hit one of you, I'll hit you both" in The Massachusetts Review , 2003 <S> She was thirteen years old, called herself a "gangsta ho" even though all her friends were white, and had already dropped out of school. <S> "On accident," she said - she'd broken her collarbone the year before horsing around on her cousin's dirt bike and missed so much school that she simply never bothered returning. <S> — Emily Shelton, "From MEMPHIS (Short story)." in Chicago Review , 2003 " <S> By accident", in contrast, has 1419 results, making it more than 100 times more common, and occurring not just in spoken and informal written English, but also in formal edited writing in academic journals, magazines, and newspapers. <A> <A> A quick Google search of "fell by accident" versus "fell on accident" suggests that "by accident" is used about 99% of the time. <S> But with "tripped by/on accident" there are more results for "on". <S> I've never encountered "on accident" until seeing this question, so I think it must be something peculiar to the US. <A> He tripped on accident. <S> He was eaten by accident. <S> Those are the forms I would use, if forced to choose between them. <S> However, there is no grammatical difference between the two 1 , and I chose those because they "sound right" . <S> I don't believe there is actually a rule which states which to use, but I could be wrong about that. <S> This matter, of course, is solved if we use the word accidentally . <S> 1 <S> Yes, the second sentence is in passive voice, while the first is in active, but I don't think that's the root cause. <A> As the original question makes pretty clear, this is a change in progress (you see this kind of stratification by age all the time with changes in progress). <S> In the earlier stages of such a change, you can't expect to find it much in writing, so results from google, etc, are going to be misleading. <S> It's likely there is also regional variation here as well. <S> To me "on accident" (raised in northern California) is normal, though sounds slightly less formal. <S> As for why this might be happening, I like ShreevatsaR's theory. <A> In situations like these, I tend to lengthen out the phrase. <S> Replace "by" with "by way of a/an" He tripped by way of an accident. <S> accident here adds information to the clause "he tripped" "Purpose" is something thought out, perhaps written down, requiring more formal thought. <S> A synonym for "purpose" is "intent". <S> He tripped by intent sounds better than "He tripped on intent". <S> Therefore, I would guess that although we are more comfortable with "tripping 'on' purpose" I wonder if "tripping by purpose" is actually a more accurate phrase. <S> In addition, "He tripped on..." <S> could be followed by an object as well. " <S> He tripped on a cat" Sorry for the rambling. <A> Both sound reasonable to my ear, though I like "by accident" better. <S> Doing some basic corpus analysis finds that "by accident" is much more prevelant. <S> The Corpus of Contemporary American English lists 1419 occurrences of "by accident" vs only 23 for "on accident". <S> A quick Google comparison gives 7,030,000 hits for "by accident" vs 1,020,000 hits for "on accident". <S> Interesting to be sure. <S> Perhaps this is in reference to Barratt's paper on the topic, and language change in general. <S> Changes like this do happen, and it isn't unusual for usage to be clearly defined by generations (consider the verb impact). <S> One conclusion drawn here is that people are seeking parallelism with "on purpose", though it also concedes that it's hard to know for sure. <A> I have some friends in the south (Louisisana) who always say "on accident" and think "by accident" sounds wrong. <S> My friends in the North (New Jersey/Pennsylvania) think "on accident" sounds wrong. <S> It may be a regional thing, but I don't have enough data to say for sure. <A> Usual fluent english usage would be "... by accident" as distinct from ".. on purpose". <S> More elegant in prose would be "...accidentally"
| "On accident" sounds strange to me. "By accident" sounds better, but I can't understand how it could be much different from "On purpose", albeit very strange to say "By purpose".
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Is "everyone" singular or plural? Which is correct? Everyone were convinced that he would go to the game. Everyone was convinced that he would go to the game. I think it's "was", because "everyone" is singular, but I just wanted to check. <Q> Everyone agree s that everyone is singular and therefore singular verb forms agree with everyone . <A> According to Diana Hacker's " A Canadian Writer's Reference " (p.123 section G1-d) you treat most indefinite pronouns as singular so the answer is "was." <S> "Indefinite pronouns refer to nonspecific persons or things. <S> Even though the following indefinite pronouns may seem to have plural meanings, treat them as singular in formal English: anybody, anyone, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, neither, none, no one, someone, something. " <S> In an example, she writes, "everybody who signed up for the ski trip was taking lessons." <A> Consider the sentence using the singular "child": <S> Every child was convinced that Uncle Bob would go to the game. <S> It makes intuitive sense when viewed in this context since "Every children" sounds weird. <S> To fix this, we would have to specify some grouping of children. <S> It follows that "every one" should be singular: <S> Every one [of them] was convinced that Uncle Bob would go to the game. <S> And finally if you remove the space, we can understand why "everyone" acts singular even though it generally implies many people. <S> Everyone was convinced that Uncle Bob would go to the game. <A> There is a comprehensive article on the topic on Grammar Girl : <S> There are actually two issues concerning this topic: Are the words everyone and everybody singular or plural? <S> And can I use a plural pronoun (such as their) to refer to these words? <S> Grammarians actually agree that the words everyone and everybody are singular. <S> Grammar Girl [...] says, everyone sounds like a lot of people, but in grammar land, everyone is a singular noun and takes a singular verb . <S> Now, if you’re in Britain, you don’t have to worry so much about everyone and everybody because sometimes they’re considered plural.
| In Britain, it’s standard to use everyone and everybody with a singular verb and plural pronoun
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Why do written English vowels differ from other Latin-based orthographies? Written English vowels differ from other Latin-based orthographies. Consider what the written vowels in the romance languages represent. Also, for example, consider this simple comparision between a few German and English vowels: German English------------------- a = [a] a = [e] e = [e] e = [i] i = [i] i = [aj] Has this always been so? Is the pattern regular? When and why did the shift occur? <Q> Starting in the 1400s, English vowels began a change known as the Great Vowel Shift , resulting in the change from English vowels being pronounced similarly to how the German vowels are pronounced now to how English vowels are pronounced today. <S> The diagram in that article explains the shift much more clearly and completely than I could, but the gist of it is this: (Using the International Phonetic Alphabet ): <S> The vowel of time changed from [iː] to [aɪ]. <S> The vowel of see changed from [eː] to [iː]. <S> The vowel of east changed from [ɛː] and merged with the vowel see to become ultimately [iː]. <S> The vowel of name changed from [aː] to [eɪ]. <S> The vowel of day changed from [æj] and merged with the vowel of name to become ultimately [eɪ]. <S> The vowel of house changed from [uː] to [aʊ]. <S> The vowel of moon changed from [oː] to [uː]. <S> The vowel of stone changed from [ɔː] to [oʊ]. <S> the vowel of know changed from [au] and merged with the vowel of stone to become [oʊ]. <S> the vowel of law changed from [ɑu] to [ɔː] the vowel of new changed from [eu]/[iu] to [juː] the vowel of dew changed from [ɛu] and merged with the vowel of new to become [juː] the vowel of that changed from [a] to [æ] the vowel of fox changed from [o] to [ɒ] the vowel of cut changed from [ʊ] to [ʌ] "Vowel spaces", that is, the system of vowels in a language and how they are arranged, are sensitive to changes in complex ways. <S> Such groups of changes are known as chain shifts . <S> Keeping vowels evenly distributed in the vowel space avoids confusion as to which vowel was produced. <A> Other interesting references on the Great Vowel Shift: <S> See and Hear the GVS (excellent visual and audio!) <S> Brief History of English More English History <S> The Great Vowel Shift would probably be just an historical curiosity if it weren't for the fact that the first printing press opened in London in 1476, right in the middle of the shift! <S> Before the printing press was invented, the words in handwritten texts had been spelled according to the dialect of the scribe who wrote them. <S> However, book production was slow and few people could read in any case. <S> The early printers used the older spellings which Middle English scribes had used. <S> They didn't understand the significance of the pronunciation changes that had just gotten well underway. <S> By the time the vowel shift was complete (about 100 years from start to finish), hundreds of books had been printed with the older spellings. <S> The new high volume of book production combined with increasing literacy proved to be powerful forces against spelling change. <S> As a consequence, many spellings have become "fixed" to the Middle English pronunciation, rather than the modern ones, and we still spell the word for the earth's satellite as "moon." <A> The previous answers are all right on the money but there is an aspect of this that seems to never be discussed. <S> The reality with English is that Britain had a lot of overlapping linguistic and cultural influences from the High Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period, moreso than most cultures. <S> If you look at English during its earlier phases there was a substantial effort to keep the orthography sensible and consistent with pronunciation. <S> The Norman Conquest, which came somewhat close to wiping out English, substantially changed the language and introduced French orthography, which itself is complicated, though still at least mostly consistent. <S> With the lingering effects of the Renaissance and the desire of later English writers to imitate Latin spelling more the connection between writing and pronunciation simply snapped. <S> The pronunciation was changing due to the Great Vowel Shift and yet writers were more interested in mimicking French and Latin spellings than following their own pronunciations. <S> The spellings that were finally arrived at made no sense from an English perspective though they make some sense if you know French, Latin, and some things about Middle English. <S> Certainly similar pressures have existed in other language groups, but not to the same degree as in Britain. <S> In essence you could say the British stopped trying whereas most cultures have continued to make some effort to make their orthography phonetic.
| When one vowel changes in how it is pronounced, due to normal language change, often several other vowels change at the same time, to keep the arrangement of the vowels in the vowel space "equally spaced".
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Why do some people pedantically cling to dying word forms (e.g. die, oxen)? The only times I have ever heard the word "die" to refer to one dice are from my mother, and from my primary school English teacher. Every person I ever hear always says, "give me a dice" if they want one, and "give me the dice" if they want two. I used to "correct" people to say "die" if they meant one, but that just makes me look overly pedantic and asinine. So I have personally started using "dice" in the singular, and "dices" in the plural, which people understand, and a few of the priggish ones will try and correct. And on that vein of thought, I thought, why not use "ox" and "oxes" instead of the stupid "oxen". Why is there such a strong pull to hold on to archaic constructs, which don't really add flavour to the language, and in fact, just make it more confusing? <Q> There are other answers here that accuse people of being ostentatious about their education, or of trying to appear cleverer than they are. <S> I want to give another theory. <S> If throughout your childhood, your family and friends all referred to a single die as "a die", then it's going to sound odd to you when someone does otherwise. <S> If most of your family, friends, teachers, and the books you read, use "fewer" rather than "less" when referring to countable items, then it's going to sound odd to you when someone does otherwise. <S> What if you sat down for lunch with someone, and as they bit into their sandwich, they said: <S> "Mmm, this is a delicious sandwiches." <S> It simply sounds peculiar, and you'd feel obliged to comment. <S> You might even be a bit prescriptive. <S> You might speculate that if your friend said that often, people would think they were stupid. <S> If you're used to hearing a single die referred to as "a die", you get exactly the same surprising, jarring sensation when you hear "a dice". <S> Or "some oxes", which frankly sounds illiterate, and even upsets my spellchecker. <A> You're clearly begging the question (to pedantically use a dying word form) by assuming the conclusion that people who use a form that you find uncommon are doing it pedantically. <S> For the record, roll a die gets about 789,000 results in google, while roll a dice gets only about 170,000 results. <S> I go to the casino quite a bit, and I rarely hear anyone at the craps table saying "hand me that dice. <S> " <S> Something tells me that this isn't because gamblers are an overly pedantic lot. <S> This explains why your mother and teacher say it one way, but your peers say it another. <S> There is nothing wrong with what either group is doing; that is how language evolves. <S> It doesn't mean anyone is dogmatically clinging to the linguistic relics of the stodgy and "flavourless" past. <S> People, for the most part, don't put that much thought into what they are saying. <S> They just speak. <S> Puzzlingly, you seem to mostly take issue with plurals that don't end with the letter 's'. <S> What is the solution to this? <S> Should we just change them all? <S> In what way would that add to "the flavour of the language"? <S> Think of all the poetry that would have to be stricken from the graces of good form. <S> Isn't forcing people to adapt to your way of speaking just as annoyingly prescriptivist as when they try to correct you? <A> People will understand what you mean, but it's not standard. <S> Using dice as both singular and plural still isn't standard, but it's at least more common. <S> " <S> Dices" sounds strange to me. <S> The problem with using nonstandard words (because they are logical or simplified) is that it distracts the listener from the content of what you're saying. <S> I recently watched The Human Spark on PBS, and they described a circuit in the brain that lights up when you hear a grammatical error. <S> If your listener's brain is busy puzzling out your curious usage, they're not thinking about what you're saying. <A> It is correct to say, "hand me the die" (one) and "hand me the dice" (two or more). <S> However, saying "hand me the die" (where I grew up in America) seemed over-correct much as saying "I lay down yesterday for a nap" which is also correct but most people are comfortable making the mistake "I laid down yesterday for a nap" or they don't even know it is a mistake. <S> So saying "hand me the dice" when there is only one die on the table is in the same way common but technically incorrect. <A> I take the real question here to be: "Why do some people pedantically cling to dying forms? <S> " That's a good question. <S> I think the answer is relatively straightforward. <S> People who want to present an air of education and in general lay claim to upper class privilege are the ones who tend to do this. <S> It's largely because it is an index of education and a high degree of literacy (either that or role playing games, which is somewhat different, but still primarily an upper middle class past time...). <S> There is a lot more to it than that, of course. <S> There is an intricate set of language ideologies which give rise to this kind of behavior. <S> But the short answer is that in using such forms people attempt to identify with culturally and economically powerful (hence linguistically conservative) groups . <S> Everyone does this to some degree, of course. <A> Some people (myself included) would prefer that all of the language is preserved. <S> When teaching my students I make a point of using older usages to stimulate, entertain and inform. <S> I see no reason why anything has to fall into disuse. <A> Language is a living thing. <S> It changes with time and it changes with culture. <S> This is especially true of the English language which has no official body prescribing correct usage. <S> (Unlike French and Spanish for example) People will tend to use what they read and hear. <S> Those who rely on street culture for their vocabulary will differ from those who routinely read the classics. <S> As far as I am concerned it doesn't really matter. <S> It's quite possible to use formal language for formal discussions and slang for everyday speech. <S> I don't hear many gangsta rappers discussing oxen! <S> If gamers say 'die' and everyone else says 'dice', that's okay - just use 'die' when you are playing games.
| More likely, people simply use the variations of speech that they find most familiar.
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Origin/reason for the expression "on the bus" instead of "in the bus" This is sort of a follow up to my question here . I was told a while ago that the reason why we use "on the bus" instead of "in the bus" is because back in the day buses were open, that is, they didn't have a roof. Is this story correct or is there another reason why the correct expression is "on the bus", in spite of the fact that when one gets on the bus, he is actually inside the bus? <Q> I doubt that story. <S> It's hard for me to imagine how one would verify it in any case. <S> Notice that mass transportation generally uses "on". <S> "On the bus", "on the train", "on the plane". <S> On the other hand, cars and small recreational airplanes would be "in". <S> While small vehicles that are not enclosed are "on": "on the bike" "on the motorcycle", etc. <S> I would never say I boarded my car. <S> But to board something is basically to "step onto" something. <S> Again, it depends on how the event is conceptualized. <S> There may be a historical explanation, but again I would be wary of them without substantial empirical support. <S> Having said that, I think the more likely historical explanation would be that "on" is used for mass transit by analogy with traveling by boat -- the first form of mass transportation. <A> It is less about "on the bus" and more about the meaning of " get on " : ( transitive ) To board or mount (something), especially a vehicle. <S> Please get on the bus as quickly as possible. . <S> ( intransitive ) To enter a vehicle. <S> She has no trouble getting off a bus but has difficulty getting on . <S> One of the antonyms for "get on" would of course be... " get off ". <S> To <S> disembark from mass transportation , such as a bus or train . <S> You get off the train at the third stop. <S> The Visual Thesaurus illustrates many other definitions of "get on", including a social aspect (getting along with), which is why: the British situation comedy of the 70' was called " On The Buses " (not "in the buses"...) <S> You did not just get in a bus, but also on an adventure with people you were about to interact with. <S> an association about "reuniting incarcerated moms and dads with their children once a year near Mother's Day and Father's Day" is called On The Bus . <A> The notion of using "on" with open conveyances is valid for some things - bicycles, horses, and farm tractors, for instance. <S> However, the difference with other conveyances is whether one is customarily sitting or standing when using them. <S> Getting "in" a boat or plane means it is so small that users are not normally able to stand. <S> Getting "on" a boat or plane, however, means it is large enough for users to easily stand. <S> The same for a truck - if "in" the truck, you are sitting, but if "on" the truck, you are standing (probably on the truck bed). <S> For an elevator, the difference is a matter of emphasis - usually, you get "on" an elevator as you do any other "standing" conveyance, but to say you are "in" <S> the elevator is a contrast to being outside the elevator - you are inside the structure. <S> Conversely, you get off of conveyances that you get on, and you get out of conveyances that you get in (get in / off the ship, get in / out of the car).
| My intuition is that it has something to do with the notion of boarding or embarking.
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What is the difference between "as per" and "according to"? See the following two sentences. As per my knowledge it is right. According to my knowledge it is right. Are both the sentences right? What is the difference and use of "as per" and "according to"? <Q> Though I would understand both in written and oral communication, I find the first to be pretty odd. <S> I wouldn't ever use it, and strongly prefer the second, "according to". <S> Why is this so odd? <S> I looked a bit in the OED at the use of "as per" (odd in itself for combining two prepositions). <S> It was first used in 1869 as a "slang" form "as per usual" by itself. <S> I did however come across an entry that has a similar meaning to what you're looking for here: "by". <S> By. <S> 3. <S> a. <S> According to; as stated, indicated, or directed by, as per advice, per instructions, per invoice, per ledger, etc. <S> Usually preceded by as. <S> This was used as early as 1446 and as late as 1989. <S> The difference here, I think, has been touched on: this meaning implies some obligation or requirement. <S> No other entries seem to come close, and this matches my own mental lexicon for "per" and "as per". <S> It just doesn't fit in this situation. <A> The two phrases have the same meaning but different in register. <S> "According to" is normal register while "as per" connotes commercial correspondence as in: <S> The shipment will arrive prior to December first, as per our agreement. <A> Both are bad English and are unnatural and incorrect uses of English as they are superfluous and add no additional or necessary information to the sentence. <S> In general this type of mistake is common amongst Indian speakers of English. <S> I believe, quiet ironically, that it is thought to add an air of intelligence to a statement. <S> In fact, to a native speaker, it adds an air of pretentiousness that may serve to undermine the speaker in the eyes of the listener. <S> What else could possibly be the case. <S> What is the difference for example, between these statements with and without this structure... <S> A) " <S> Manchester United won the Premier League in 2012" B) " <S> According to my knowledge, Manchester United won the Premier League in 2012"orB) " <S> As per my knowledge, Manchester United won the Premier League in 2012" <S> In English we use 'according to...' to cite someone else. <S> To cite oneself is clearly absurd, unless you are citing a paper you published, or something you have formally written. <S> To cite your opinion or knowledge is meaningless. <S> We use 'as per' to refer back to something, such as 'as per our previous discussion' or 'as per the rules of the game'. <S> Again, to use it to refer back to your knowledge appears ridiculous. <S> Regards and best of luck Sanjay <A> Per means according to , so you can in fact say "per our agreement, you must...". <S> The as in your first sentence <S> is pleonastic, and sounds affected: I'd avoid it. <S> The very common "as per usual" is a humorous prolixity. <S> Whether to use per or according to is the same as whether to use any archaic form or common usage. <S> In some areas (e.g. law) it's more common to see per , so you could use it to set the tone as legalese. <A> People who want to sound important write as per . <S> People who are important write according to . <A> Just to clarify... <S> For example, "As per article 4 section 8..." and this has a different meaning to "According to article 4 section 8..." <S> For example if Article 4 Section 8 stated that you needed a doctors note in order to take sick leave you might say... <S> As per Article 4 Section 8 of our contract, I have attached a copy of my doctors note. <S> whereas with according to the meaning would be different. <S> According to Article 4 Section 8 <S> I must supply a sick note in order to take sick leave. <A> I understand that per is an older and more formal version of according to , so it is very common to encounter per in some very serious and formal written language while according to has become a normal usage.
| 'As per' is often used in legal discussions, for example regarding contracts. It clearly goes without saying that any statement you make is 'as per your knowledge' or 'according to your knowledge' unless stated otherwise.
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Shortest comprehensive sentence in English What is the shortest comprehensive sentence in English? <Q> "Go." <S> The understood subject is "You". " <S> [You] go" makes sense to me. <A> One could argue that in certain contexts, the single letter "I" is a sentence (depending on your definition of a sentence): <S> "Who is it?" <S> ;-) <A> It is said both the longest and the shortest sentence comes from the wedding ceremony: <S> I do. <A> "Be!" <S> The verb "to be" in the imperative mood. <S> Though it's the same number of letters as "Go!", I'd say it wins as it comes first alphabetically. <S> ;) <A> "No!" works perfectly, in my opinion. <A> This. <S> That is the shortest, in number of words, complete English sentence that directly answers your question. <A> I don't know if it even qualifies in this context, but according to the story, an author (variously Oscar Wilde or Victor Hugo), wondering how his new book was selling, sent a single-character telegram to his publisher: ? <S> The reply was ! <S> that is, well . <A> The shortest sentence in the entire English Language, is the reply: I. <S> It is a reply to the question: "Who is it?" <S> Reply: "I." <S> That's shorter than "Go!" <A> I would vote for "I am." <A> "I sentence you to time already served. <S> You are free to go." <A> ? <S> Even better than that, contemplate (the pithy, wholly implied) <S> section 7.1 of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (as translated from the original German): <A> "O!" <S> As a variant of the exclamation <S> "Oh!", an interjection of fear, surprise, admiration, etc. <A> It obviously can't be less than three letters ( <S> **.) and still be a complete thought. <S> Go. <S> Hi! <S> Ho! <S> (same as "Hi") <S> This doesn't include responses since they require other sentences. <A> Since you already have many sweet, and short, answers I can only speculate on your intentions and provide, possibly, interesting link to one word sentences . <A> No. <S> Also Q: <S> Which is the fifth letter of the alphabet?A: E. <A> Eh? <S> Used to represent a sound made in speech, especially one used to express enquiry, surprise, or to elicit agreement <S> [ODO] <A> It depends on how you define sentence <S> and then how you define shortest . <S> The answer does not appear to be Go , though (although that's quite a good shot at an answer). <S> The question uses the phrase complete sentence from which we can probably assume that the Original Poster is referring to a fully grammatical utterance headed by a finite verb. <S> With regards to shortest , there are at least two ways we could measure this. <S> We could do it orthographically, in which case the sentence with the fewest letters would probably be the imperative of the verb ' X ' (pronounced /eks/). <S> Although usually used transitively, as in the Mark Twain quote: 'I shell have to <S> x this ere paragrab,' said he to himself, as he read it over.' <S> ... it could easily be used intransitively too: A. <S> What shall I do now? <S> B. X! <S> [meaning "start crossing out"] <S> However, although 'X' contains only one orthographic symbol, in terms of sound it consists of three segments: <S> /eks/. <S> So, if by shortest sentence, we mean shortest in terms of segments, then this word wouldn't do. <S> The sentence <S> Go <S> has one consonant sound plus a diphthong - /gəʊ/ in Southern standard British English and /goʊ/ in General American. <S> We could regard this as having either two or three segments. <S> However, it is plainly obvious that this could be shorter. <S> The reason is we also have a verb <S> owe which has exactly the same sound without the /g/, <S> namely /əʊ/ <S> or /oʊ/. <S> However, it is quite hard to use this verb without a following complement, and so an imperative sentence might be a bit implausible: <S> Owe! . <S> A better contender in terms of segments might be the verb OOH meaning to make an ooh sound, as in the audience oohed and aahed . <S> So if you were in the audience at one of those sitcoms where the audience were directed to laugh, clap, ooh and aah, one of the directions you might get, could feasibly be the imperative: <S> Ooh! <S> This fully complete one word sentence consists only of the one vowel. <S> In phonemic script it looks like this: /u:/. <S> This then might be a contender for the shortest sentence in English. <S> But of course there are others. <S> For example there is always: <S> Aah! ... <S> which looks like this: /a:/!
| "I" This (one letter) is the shortest possible, unless you count the "empty utterance".
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Which is correct: "standing on line" or "standing in line"? I'm curious to hear from folks in the the Northeast United States (or anyone, really) an explanation of why "standing on line" seems preferable to "standing in line" in the US northeast. I imagine for many people that their reasons for preference will be that "It just sounds better," just as my reasons for my preference is that "standing on line" sounds too awkward to my ears. That said, I can't even create a linguistic argument for why it might be more "correct." <Q> There is no linguistic reason why either one is correct. <S> This is a normal example of language variation. <S> There are possibly linguistic reasons why such variation in prepositions is fairly common, that being that the meaning of prepositions in many cases is notoriously hard to pin down (in some cases, they have no real meaning, acting instead as plain case markers). <A> Disclaimer: not exactly a Northeasterners. <S> Like "not at all". <S> Standing in line is the most common usage, yet "on line" has been used for some time now. <S> (This blog post comments : <S> Many commenters have pointed out that this seems to come up a lot in New York (and New England). <S> I was just watching 2001: <S> A Space Odyssey by Stanely Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, released in 1968. <S> I noticed “on line” being used and looked up and it turns out that Kubrick was born in New York. <S> So take of that what you will. <S> This also is evidence that it is definitely not a new or recent phrase. <S> The debate raged on democraticunderground.com : <S> We say 'standing in line', as in 'in a line', eg. ' <S> part of a line' . <S> ' <S> Waiting FOR you ' is waiting for another person to arrive or accomplish something. <S> ' <S> Waiting ON you ' happens in a restaurant. <S> I Stand On Line <S> At The Bank <S> ... <S> My Car Gets In Line At Jiffy Lube <S> So unless you have to walk over and stop on a line in order to wait for your turn, ... you probably are waiting, standing in line. <A> Since the line is composed of people, isn't it more likely that you are standing in the line, not on it? <S> I think the use of the phrase "on line" as it relates to the internet has become so common, that it may have migrated to being used to describe standing in line. <A> In British English it's the latter. <S> I have never heard of the 'on line' variant used here in the UK.
| Standing on line implies that you are standing on something.
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Is it appropriate to use the salutation "Dear All" in a work email? I have observed that in my work place, whenever a mail is sent to more than one person( like an information, meeting request or a notice etc.), the mail starts with the salutation "Dear All". This, somehow, doesn't seem correct to me. For me, a salutation should address the reader individually, at least in its singular form, as in "Dear Colleagues". Am I correct in thinking that? <Q> Unless they are actually your colleagues (i.e. none of them are your bosses! <S> or clients, or third-parties), I would stick with the neutral: <S> Dear All, (quite common) or maybe: <S> Dear Everyone, (less common) <S> I just checked by looking up the emails we (as a group) receive from the hierarchy above: They all begin with 'Dear All' (translated in French by 'Bonjour à tous et à toutes', since the equivalent of 'all' is not gender-neutral in French.) <A> To me, Dear all conveys laziness. <S> A well-thought-out message should have a specific audience that the message applies to. <S> Dear coworkers , Dear minions , Dear Death-Eaters , Dear residents , etc. is not that much more difficult to type. <S> Then someone reading the message can more easily discern whether the message applies to them or not. <A> So is Dear Colleagues. <S> It depends on how formal or informal you want to be, and what is normal usage in your workplace. <S> If in doubt, do what appears to be normal practice. <A> I find that using a non-standard, but polite greeting in an email tends to be quite effective in getting people to actually read what you are writing. <S> For instance, when writing to a group of people, it is quite common (in New Zealand) to write: <S> To whom it may concern, or, as has been mentioned: Dear All, <S> But I tend to write something off carte like (assuming that I worked at British Telecom–which I don't): Dear BT Person, <S> I have found that this unusual approach—which also feels less impersonal—can be more likely to garner an audience. <S> But where I currently work, we have a tool to address everyone individually, we just leave a placeholder where their name is, so it will say: Dear Mr. Smith, or Dear Kevin, Which I think is probably the best way to get it done if it is convenient. <A> Nowadays often only "All:" is used - not very nice <S> but that's the way it is. <A> Salutations are not for beauty; they are a tool to alter reader's mode of understanding, often to make the message more convincing. <S> If you are suggesting something formal, talking from position of rights or power, you may want to use more formal "Dear Colleagues" to make the argument stronger. <S> If you are making a proposal, and want to downplay it as in "hey, it's an idea, a basis for further thinking and please judge it as such", a simple 'All,' would do a better job. <S> In all cases, basic netiquette requires that meaningless text should be avoided when addressing a large group of people. <S> It's easier to write than to read, so one should invest in brevity. <A> All is not a addressing mode, when we talk to somebody we can use all to denote a group of people but while writing an email it surely doesn’t make any sense. <S> I presonally find writing dear all very informal and hence always use dear colleagues.
| Dear all is perfectably acceptable. Dear All is surely not correct English to start with the email, rather you could use dear colleagues at a workplace.
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Recommendations for non-native English speaking bloggers What if someone who is not a native English speaker wants to write for a blog in English, but is not sure about the correctness of his writings? How could one ensure that the article won't annoy readers with its wrong language? What would you recommend in this case? What should one pay attention to in the first place? What resources are there online for ensuring that an article is written well enough to be published? <Q> Why not ask your readers to help you with copy editing? <S> Place a short, unobtrusive notice at the very top of every new blog post: <S> English is not my native language. <S> If anyone would like to help improve the grammar and clarity of this post, your suggestions and contributions would be greatly appreciated. <S> Thank you. <S> Then compare their suggestions to what you wrote. <S> That is how you improve. <S> Soon, you might have a few readers to submit your blog post to before you publish them. <A> One of the things that I usually do is to Google the exact phrase to see if native English speakers have used it before. <S> For example sometimes you think you've heard someone saying an expression such as "your best bet is to", but you're not sure <S> , then your best bet would be googling it, within the double quotes. <S> And also there's this highly recommended upcoming website called English Language and Usage on StackExchange which people can ask questions and expect fast answers related to the English language. <S> Oh I just googled to see whether it's appropriate to use " <S> The" before "English Language". <A> I would recommend to use grammarly.com service. <S> It is an online instant grammar checker. <S> Even though it would not be able to cover all of your needs (proper phrasing, text structure analysis, etc), I'm sure you will find it useful in addition to the tools <S> /approaches you already use. <A> I "has" no problems with non-native speakers, being one myself :) <S> I was reluctant to write in English for some time, but only by writing can we improve our language skills (see that inversion after "only" - still not sure about it). <S> Another thing -- people do appreciate good content, as long as it is comprehensible. <S> So, just write! :) <A> Why bother man? <S> Concentrate on making a good, simple and correct sentence that expresses something meaningful. <S> I'm a non-native English user, professional writer too, but I don't feel shy to write for the natives. <S> I have written hundreds of blogs, articles, and web contents for the natives without feeling I'm a non-native English writer :) <S> Keep your spirit up.
| Just keep your writing simple, concise and understandable.
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What is the most professional name for "squiggly bracket"? I am creating a software training video and need to refer to these brackets: { } I usually call them "squiggly brackets" or "curly brackets". Is there a more professional name? <Q> curly braces (or 'braces' for short) <S> This is more common than curly brackets, to design blocks in programming languages. <S> See <S> Why curly braces? <S> (WebArchive) for more. <S> Curly braces are one means of denoting a lexical scope. <S> Lexical scopes are blocks of code from which names do not escape <S> See also: history and use of parentheses in programming languages, from the beginning of programming to the present day . <S> wordiq definition . <A> I always thought { was officially a brace. <S> [ is a bracket ( is a parenthesis With "bracket" also referring to any one of the three. <A> I think curly brackets <S> is the most professional name. <S> See Wikipedia for more details. <A> The Chicago Manual of Style refers to them as "braces". <S> 6.102 <S> "Braces, {}, often called curly brackets, provide yet another option for enclosing data and are used in various ways in certain programming languages. <S> They are also used in mathematical and other specialized writing (see, e.g., 12.28). <S> They are not interchangeable with parentheses or brackets. <S> See the example phrases throughout chapter 5 for one possible use of braces." <S> http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch06/ch06_sec102.html <S> 12.28 <S> Set notation Braces are used to delimit the elements of a set, and other delimiters should not be substituted. <S> For example, {a 1 ,a 2 ,...a n } <S> http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch12/ch12_sec028.html <S> You will find this use of the word "brace" to be supported by dictionary definitions. <S> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brace?show=1&t=1341592270 http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/brace http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brace <A> (was previously OPENING CURLY BRACKET) <S> and RIGHT <S> CURLY BRACKET (was previously CLOSING CURLY BRACKET) from C0 Controls and Basic Latin : <S> LEFT CURLY BRACKET= opening curly bracket <S> (1.0)= left brace <A> In my line of work (software development) we call them curly brackets or braces. <S> These seem fairly canonical: <S> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket <S> http://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/Braces <A> Technically: “[]” are called brackets, “()” are called parentheses and “{}” are called braces. <S> But in the real world these terms are used interchangeably so, to avoid confusion, be sure to make it 100% clear that you mean “{}”. <A> The unicode standard uses "LEFT CURLY BRACKET" to describe this symbol: http://www.decodeunicode.org/u+007B <A> If it's a java course then they are braces. <S> See for example http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/html/CodeConventions.doc6.html <A> I've always called them gullwings as this is clearly the coolest name for them. <S> Curly brackets is probably the best if you want people to know what you're talking about. <A> You have a lot of comments about brackets and braces, but I think your question was seeking confirmation of "curly". <S> Will Macmillan dictionary do? <S> http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/curly-brackets
| I don't know if this counts as the most professional name, but the Unicode standard refers to them as LEFT CURLY BRACKET
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Which is correct: "There are not any employees" or "There is not any employee"? Sometimes I see two variants of following sentence: "there are not any employees" in the department "there is not any employee" in the department What is the correct sentence? <Q> I'd use <S> There are no employees. <A> As long as you are referring to more than one subject, I would go with: <S> There are not any employees in the department. <S> For referring to a single instance, I would go with <S> "there is no" <S> There is no employee in the department. <S> If the topic has no plural form (or is rarely used with a plural form), then I would consider "there isn't any": <S> "There isn't any water" = <S> There is no water <A> "There are not any employees" is the correct one. <A> I think that not any is usually replaced by <S> no or, in case you want to stress it, not a single , when applied to countable nouns. <S> When you shorten not to 'nt , you can use <S> any with either the singular or the plural, <S> but I think the plural is more common. <S> With the singular I would use a single again instead of any . <S> There seems to be a plural connotation to any . <S> I think these sentences are grammatically correct, but they sound off , the first one more than the second: <S> There is not any employee here. <S> There isn't any employee here. <S> Much more idiomatic would be either using a single , using no , or using the plural: <S> There is not a single employee here. <S> There isn't a single employee here. <S> There is no employee here. <S> There are not any employees here. <S> There aren't any employees here. <S> Of course, with mass nouns, you do use the singular together with any , although no can also be used: <S> There isn't any time to finish he work! <S> There is no time to finish the work! <A> "are" would be the correct verb form to match the plural noun "employees". <S> A more formal construction, depending on the context, would be " <S> The department has no employees."
| The most idiomatic form in Canada is "There aren't any employees in the department."
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Why are words ending in "-um" and "-us" pluralized to end in "-a" and "-i", respectively? Where does the practice of using -a and -i for plural forms of -um and -us , respectively, come from? Bacteria vs. bacterium Fungi vs. fungus <Q> Words that come from Latin that end in -um usually have plurals in -a , while those that end in -us have plurals in -i . <S> This way of forming plurals is normal in Latin, and learned English preserves the native Latin plurals. <A> It comes from people who still remember that a word is a loan word and the lending language was inflected. <S> Often people attempting to inflect the way Latin does do a poor job of it, so outside of the most common Latinisms, it would be better style to use ordinary plurals. <A> These words are loan words from Latin. <S> The plurals associated with words ending in -um or -us are not dictated by practice, but by precise, Latin, rules. <S> In Latin - which is an inflected language - there are 5 declensions. <S> Nouns are distributed among declensions and follow declension-specific rules. <S> So, a noun belonging to the second declension and ending in -us (such as lupus ), will have lupi as plural, while one belonging to the same declension and ending in -um will have an -a plural ( bellum -> bella ). <S> Note that in Latin nouns have a gender, so <S> lupus is male, while bellum is neuter. <S> A noun belonging to the fourth declension such as spiritus (male) will have spiritus as plural.
| These words have these plurals because they are loan words from Latin.
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When should the word "English" be capitalized? I am often confused how the word "English" should be written in phrases such as "English language", because I have seen both variants: capitalized and starting with lowercase letter. What is the most accepted usage: "English language" or "english language"? And what about other possible usage of the adjective "english"? <Q> If it is an adjective derived from a proper noun, it should retain its capitalization, according to this Wikipedia entry : <S> In English, adjectives derived from proper nouns (except the names of characters in fictional works) usually retain their capitalization – e.g. a Christian church, Canadian whisky, a Shakespearean sonnet, but not a quixotic mission, malapropism, holmesian nor pecksniffian. <S> Where the original capital is no longer at the beginning of the word, usage varies: anti-Christian, but Presocratic or Pre-Socratic or presocratic (not preSocratic). <S> The "usually" might explain why you sometimes see "english" without any capitalization. <S> The only case of "english" as a common noun would be in the context of pool, billiards or bowling games, as described by Wiktionary : english (uncountable) <S> (US) Spinning or rotary motion <S> given to a ball around the vertical axis, as in billiards or bowling. <S> You can't hit it directly, but maybe if you give it some english. <A> Unless you mean spin on a billiards ball, it should be capitalized. <A> I often confused how the word "English" should be written in phrases like "English language", because I meet both variants: capitalized and starting with lowercase letter. <S> Hmm, really? <S> Probably just seeing mistakes. <S> What is the most accepted usage: "English language" or "english language"? <S> And what about other possible usage of the adjective "english"? <S> "English language" with a capital. <S> There are some uses of national adjectives which don't have to be capitalized, such as "french windows". <S> Presumably the same logic would apply to something like "english muffins". <S> However I don't have statistics as to which is more common. <A> English as a proper noun for the people of England, or the language which bears its name, should always be capitalized. <S> It is a proper noun, after all. <S> In the phrase, the English language <S> we have two nouns, with one functioning like an adjective to refine the meaning of the final noun in the group. <S> If it wasn't capitalized you would call english an adjective. <S> Capitalized, it is a pronoun and makes the phrase a compound noun. <S> Just because it is functioning to refine the meaning of the terminal noun in the phrase, does not make it an adjective. <S> It is still a noun, I think. <S> Etymologically, this usage is probably derived from a common language shortcut where people just started saying things like the dining room table , instead of the table of the room of dining , which is a sort of construction you might see more often in Spanish and Italian.
| If it is a proper noun, it must be capitalized.
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What are the rules for splitting words at the end of a line? What are the rules in English language to split words at the end of a line? Where exactly must the hyphen split the word? <Q> The easiest thing to do, and the only way of being sure you agree with the authorities, is to look words up in the dictionary. <S> Some of the hyphenations currently in American dictionaries make no sense at all. <S> For example, the reason that prai-rie and fair-y are hyphenated the way they are seems to be that 150 years ago, the editors of Webster's dictionary thought they didn't rhyme 1 ; prairie was pronounced pray-ree with a long 'a', while fairy was pronounced fair-ee with an r-colored 'a'. <S> That said, there are a few hyphenation rules that will let you hyphenate 90% of English words properly (and your hyphenations of the remaining 10% will be perfectly reasonable, even if they disagree with the authorities'). <S> Here they are, in roughly decreasing order of priority: <S> Break words at morpheme boundaries ( inter-face , <S> pearl-y, <S> but ear-ly ). <S> Break words between doubled consonants — 'sc' counts here but not 'ck'. <S> ( bat-tle, as-cent, jack-et ). <S> Never separate an English digraph (e.g., th, ch, sh, ph, gh, ng, qu) when pronounced as a single unit ( au-thor but out-house ). <S> Never break a word after a short vowel in an accented syllable ( rap-id but stu-pid ). <S> Finally, if the above rules leave more than one acceptable break between syllables, use the Maximal Onset Principle: <S> If there is a string of consonants between syllables, break this string as far to the left as you can ( mon-strous ). <S> There are lots of exceptions to these rules: <S> Sometimes the rules conflict with each other. <S> For example, ra-tio-nal gets hyphenated after a short vowel in an accented syllable because ti acts as a digraph indicating that the 't' should be pronounced 'sh'. <S> Sometimes it's not clear what constitutes a morpheme boundary: <S> why ger-mi-nate and not germ-i-nate ? <S> Sometimes the pronunciation of a word varies—/væpɪd/ or /veɪpɪd/? <S> Merriam-Webster and American Heritage dictionaries agree that both pronunciations are valid, but they disagree about the hyphenation. <S> And some hyphenations I can't figure out the reason for: the Maximum Onset Principle would suggest pa-stry , but the authorities all agree on pas-try . <S> 1 <S> I believe some American dialects still make this distinction in pronunciation; the editors of Webster's dictionary weren't imagining things. <A> Vincent McNabb gives good advice generally on when to hyphenate—never if you can get away with it, and if you must, in a sensible place. <S> However, the question of where to hyphenate is something that dictionaries have answered for generations. <S> For example in the Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, the entry for "dictionary" reads "dic·tio·nary"—so you could hyphenate anywhere there appears a centered dot. <S> Of course there are various rules of thumb and heuristics to choose the best place to hyphenate, and in many cases hyphenating a word dramatically reduces readability, but in a strict answer to OP's original question, it is acceptable to hyphenate a word at any syllable boundary, and you can find all the syllable boundaries in a dictionary. <A> Technically speaking, hyphens are acceptable between any two syllables. <S> But it is best to use them between prefixes, roots, and suffixes if at all. <S> In most casual documents, hyphens decrease readability and oftentimes make documents look more cluttered, despite the fact that they form a nice, neat block. <S> However, in news articles or novels, in places where moving the entire word would compromise the shape of the document, it is very common to see end hyphenation. <S> Pick up a copy of 'Frankenstein' or 'The Magician's Nephew' and I assure you that you'll find quite a few. <S> My copy of 'Seabiscuit' splits tomorrow between pages. <A> Firstly, it is preferable not to split a word at the end of a line. <S> From the APA Style Guide, Section 1.A.9 Do not hyphenate (split) words at the end of a line. <S> If possible, add another word to the line, or take one away, so you don't need to split in the first place. <S> In fact. <S> NEVER EVER split words. <S> However, I will give what I consider to be ok guidelines: <S> There are really no proper rules as to how it should be done, when it is, so basically, use common sense. <S> If it must be done, try to keep the components of meaning together - this is easy with obviously compound words, such as keyboard. <S> E.g. Key- board. <S> Super- market. <S> It is also easy with words with prefixes such as "quasi" or "psuedo" <S> e.g. Pseudo- science. <S> But mostly, splitting the words just makes them hard to read - and can lead to nightmares when the content of text is changed, because words that were once at the end of a line will no longer be at the end of a line, and everything will have to be re-done. <S> Unfortunately, most word processors are not very good at automatically splitting words, so it is best to keep that feature off. <S> It is also possible, however, to put markers in words where the word processor will be allowed to split the word. <S> In Microsoft Word, this is done by using Ctrl + - . <S> This hyphen is invisible, unless the word gets split at the end of a line. <S> But as a rule of thumb, see if the word is still easy to understand if you say it out loud with a pause where you are going to break the word. <S> Civili- sation. <S> But, as you can see, it just makes it harder to read. <S> Just don't do it.
| Every entry has a word split into syllables, and technically speaking, according to traditional rules of typesetting, you can hyphenate a word at any syllable boundary. Never break a word before a string of consonants that cannot begin a word in English ( anx-ious and not an-xious ). Usually, try and split it in the middle of the word.
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What are the differences between "assume", "presume" and "suppose" I believe that "assume", "presume", "suppose" are similar in meaning of to take some facts as a truth without proof . But it seems to me that "presume" is more formal, "assume" is less formal and "suppose" is the most general word for this meaning. Am I right? Maybe there are other differences in meaning and usage of these words? <Q> An assumption is technically something that must be taken for granted in order for an argument to go through. <S> Some assumptions cannot, in principle, be proven. <S> For instance, there is probably no way to prove that anything exists outside of my own mind, but I assume this because otherwise I would quickly die as a result of walking front of a non-existent car. <S> Less fancifully, if I thought that physics was a good and useful thing, then no matter how much I might doubt it, I would be forced to assume that the physical world exists if I wanted to be a physicist. <S> "Presume" has about the same denotation but also the additional connotation, as mentioned in Webster's, of confidence. <S> Note that to say someone is "presumptuous" commonly means that someone is overly confident of their assumption. <S> As mentioned above, I think in most contexts today "suppose" is used rather to express a certain amount of doubt about an assumption, and in that sense has the opposite connotation to "presume". <S> In this sense you might think that "assume" has relatively neutral connotations, while "presume" and "suppose", as commonly used, have roughly opposite connotations. <S> I think that's about right. <A> The Merriam-Webster dictionary states for "assume": to take as granted or true <S> And for "presume" <S> : <S> 2 <S> > to expect or assume especially with confidence 3> to suppose to be true without proof <S> So although, the words are mostly used interchangeably, from these definitions, someone who is "presuming" something is more confident than someone who is "assuming" something. <S> My personal experience is otherwise, I have always thought of "presuming" something as assuming something prematurely, while "assuming" something would tend to have a stronger basis (though still a not very strong one). <S> For instance, I would say that if my pen was stolen, I would presume <S> it was the first person that came into contact with me, if I thought he was averting his gaze. <S> Whereas if someone had stolen something from me before, I would assume it was him. <S> Suppose is supposed to be a very near synonym to both words, but in my experience, it tends to mean that someone is a bit more hesitant at accepting something, e.g. "I suppose you are right". <S> Or if my wife suggested I take out the garbage more often, I might say "I suppose that's what I should do." <S> I am very interested in hearing reading other people's opinions on the matter. <A> The Merriam-Webster dictionary states for "assume": to take as granted or true <S> In effect, to take it for granted. <S> for "presume": 2> to expect or assume especially with confidence 3> to suppose to be true without proof <S> In effect, to assume without proof. <S> I assume Barak Obama is not against the US. <S> Simply because he is president. <S> However some people would presume otherwise. <S> Do you see the difference? <S> I assume Obama is not against the US simply because he is president. <S> This is an easy assumption. <S> Some people would say that is presumption, but it isn't because it is expected for a president to be for the US. <S> Some people would assume without proof (presume) that Obama is against the US. <S> He never said so, so there is no proof. <S> Some people also presume that it was someone in the US Government that destroyed the twin towers. <S> However, everyone assumes that Bin Laden did it simply because the media said so. <S> Of course, using assume is also implying that it isn't absolutely proved. <A> I just learned from my Canadian born supervisor that 'supposed to' implies an expectation that someone will do something, or that something is expected to happen. <S> The students were supposed to keep quiet during the lecture. <S> In contrast, if you say assume, then it would be more like a possibility: <S> It was assumed the students were quiet during the lecture. <S> I will not burn my fingers on the 'to presume' discussion, I think that is well explained. <S> I am not a native English speaker as you see ('to burn your fingers on something' is a Dutch expression that means avoiding the risk to say something about a particular issue), so I could be wrong. <S> Let me know. <A> The choice of when to use assume or presume is based upon a subsequent action, vice any amount of strength of feeling of whether the assumption or presumption is true. <S> When you assume something, you base an action on that assumption. <S> E.g. "I assumed it was going to rain <S> so I rolled up my car windows. <S> " <S> When you presume, you also think something, but you would not base an action on it. <S> E.g. "Dr. Livingston, I presume. <S> " or "I presume it is going to rain <S> but I haven't done anything about it." <A> When you assume something, you suppose without proof . <S> When you think presumably , you think by reasonable assumption .
| When you presume something, you suppose on the basis of probability .
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What is the etymology of "replenish"? Where does the word "replenish" come from, and what does it mean? I know it is used as a form of "refill", but is that how it was originally? <Q> It means (according to my trusty New Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary): to make full or complete again to supply with fresh fuel to fill again or anew (intransitively) to become full or complete again <S> According to another dictionary (the one built-in in Mac OS X), the origin of the word can be traced to Old French (and further to Latin, of course), as follows: <S> ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [supply abundantly] ): from Old French repleniss-, lengthened stem of replenir, from re- ‘again’ (also expressing intensive force) <S> + plenir ‘fill’ (from Latin plenus ‘full’ ). <S> Based on that, I don't think it has had other meanings in English earlier. <S> As to why should one use this word instead of the less fancy refill – I have no idea, except perhaps to show off & try to sound educated. <A> Webster's 1828 dictionary gives this definition: <S> In the transitive form: REPLEN'ISH, verb transitive [L. re and plenus, full.] <S> : To fill; to stock with numbers or abundance. <S> The magazines are replenished with corn. <S> The springs are replenished with water. <S> Multiply and replenish the earth. <S> Gen 1. <S> In the intransitive form: REPLEN'ISH, verb intransitive: To recover former fullness. <S> Another answer gives this: ... <S> "replenish" is of French/Latin origin and "fill" is of <S> Interestingly, roll the clock back a couple thousand years and they should be the same word. <S> Germanic languages tended to turn P into F, so the ancestor of both words was probably "pell" or "pill". <S> In short: If it is a transitive verb ("Replenish the bin.") it means fill , if intransitive ("It will replenish", it means refill . <A> As reported from the NOAD: <A> Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary transitive verb a : to fill with persons or animals : STOCK b archaic : to supply fully : PERFECT c : to fill with inspiration or power : <S> NOURISH <S> a : to fill or build up again b : to make good : REPLACE <S> intransitive verb : to become full : fill up again <A> Jonik is right, "replenish" is of French/Latin origin and "fill" is of <S> Anglo-Saxon/Germanic origin. <S> Interestingly, roll the clock back a couple thousand years and they should be the same word. <S> Germanic languages tended to turn P into F, so the ancestor of both words was probably "pell" or "pill".
| ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [supply abundantly]): from Old French repleniss- , lengthened stem of replenir , from re- 'again' (also expressing intensive force) + plenir 'fill' (from Latin plenus 'full'). Anglo-Saxon/Germanic origin.
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What is the best format to use when writing out dates? What format of date is appropriate for different contexts (business, personal) in written English, nowadays? 1st of April, 2010 April the 1st, 2010 April 1, 2010 April 01, 2010 another one <Q> The context that matters most is where you are located geographically (or which variety of English you otherwise wish to employ). <S> Paul covered the case of the US: "April 1, 2010". <S> That would surely be understood in the UK too, but to my knowledge "1 April 2010 <S> " (NB: <S> no comma) or "1/4/2010" would be more common there. <S> Edit : <S> Based on some quick "research" I just did, most commonwealth countries (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) also seem to prefer "1 April 2010", while in Canada "April 1, 2010" would be more common (probably due to US influence). <S> In my opinion the format often used by airlines – "01 <S> Apr 2010" – is useful too; there isn't much room for misinterpretation there. <A> In the United States, it is customary to write "April 1, 2010", regardless of context. <S> This is spoken, however, as "April first, 2010". <S> I would discourage using MM/DD/YYYY (e.g. 4/1/2010) format, because this may cause confusion as the rest of the world writes the day before the month. <S> If you really need to write dates in a consise format, I recommend YYYY-MM-DD format. <A> There's now an international standard of date format, aka <S> ISO8601 - so if you care about making the world a better and less confusing place, you should only use the standard - YYYY-MM-DD, forever dropping the old local date format ideas. <A> I always write the month as either "Apr" or "April" and the year like 2010 to avoid any confusions. <S> For example, 01/04/10 is way too ambiguous. <S> 1 Apr 2010 is much clearer. <S> Personally I prefer 2010-04-01 <S> but I realize that this is because I am a geek <S> , i.e. the chances of this format being accepted generally are pretty slim. <A> (That's jS F Y .)
| I'd usually go for 1st April 2010. As Paul mentioned, YYYY-MM-DD is pretty good for getting across universally, yet concisely.
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Should you use "who" or "that" when talking about multiple people doing something? Which of the following is correct? There were 10 people that went to the store. There were 10 people who went to the store. Edit: Which of the following is correct? There were 10 people that had brown hair. There were 10 people who had brown hair. <Q> They are interchangeable. <S> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/that <S> 1 <S> a : the person, thing, or idea indicated, mentioned, or understood from the situation b : <S> the time, action, or event specified c : the kind or thing specified as follows d : one or a group of the indicated kind Beware of grammar books. <S> They very often describe the authors' opinions on what grammar should be, rather than what grammar actually is . <S> One should favour the word "who", if they want to clarify that it is a person, and not a thing, that they are talking about. <S> Jean Yates says in her book, "The Ins and Outs of Prepositions": <S> An adjective clause can identify a noun. <S> The clause comes right after the noun. <S> ... <S> TO IDENTIFY A PERSON, AN ADJECTIVE CLAUSE CAN BEGIN WITH WHO(M), THAT, ... <S> The man who(m) ... <S> The man that <S> .... ... <S> The people who(m) ... <S> The people that ... <S> Furthermore, the "Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English" by Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, and Geoffrey Leech says: Three relative pronouns stand out as being particularly common in English: who, which, and that. ... <S> That and zero are the preferred choices in conversation, although relative clauses are generally rare in that register. <S> Fiction is similar to conversation in its preference for that. <S> In contrast, news shows a much stronger preference for which and who, and academic prose strongly prefers which. <S> So again, I say, be wary of any single grammar book as being 100% correct. <S> They never are. <A> There were 10 people who went to the store. <S> There were 10 people who had brown hair. <S> Who refers to people. <S> That and which refer to groups or things. <S> ( grammarbook ) <A> It's worth noting that the term "who" with a preceding comma often has a different meaning from "that", and the latter term would not substitute. <S> Consider: <S> The six friends , who had gone to school together, went to the beach. <S> The six friends that had gone to school together went to the beach. <S> In the first sentence, it is assumed that the reader would know, even before reading the italicized portion of the text, what the six friends the author was referring to, but not that they had gone to school together. <S> In the second sentence, it is assumed that the reader would know that six friends had gone to school together, but not that the author was writing about those people in particular. <S> When discussing inanimate objects, the word "who" in the first usage above would be replaced with "which". <S> Replacing the word "that" in the second usage with "who" would be reasonably common usage when discussing people, but comparable replacement with "which" would be less common, especially when the subordinate clause modifies the subject of a sentence. <S> "The six machines which weren't working this morning have been repaired" would read slightly less naturally than "The six machines that weren't working this morning...", though "I have fixed the six machines which weren't working this morning" would be fine.
| Specifically, I would say that it is fine to use either "that" or "who", but "who" can only be used to refer to people, while "that" refers to things and people.
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When I should use "assure" vs. "ensure" vs. "insure"? When is it appropriate to use assure vs. ensure vs. insure ? <Q> Assure : promise, as in <S> I assure you the car is safe to drive. <S> Ensure : <S> confirm, as in Ensure that you have plenty of gas in the tank before going on a long trip. <S> Insure : protect with an insurance policy, as in Insure the car before your trip. <A> To “assure” a person of something is to make him or her confident of it. <S> Other authorities, however, consider “ensure” and “insure” interchangeable. <S> To please conservatives, make the distinction. <S> However, it is worth noting that in older usage these spellings were not clearly distinguished. <S> European “life assurance” companies take the position that all policy-holders are mortal and someone will definitely collect, thus assuring heirs of some income. <S> American companies tend to go with “insurance” for coverage of life as well as of fire, theft, etc. <S> "assure" Definitions: (v) <S> make certain of <S> (v) inform positively and with certainty and confidence (v) assure somebody of the truth of something with the intention of giving the listener confidence (v) be careful or certain to do something; make certain of something (v) <S> cause to feel sure; give reassurance to (v) make a promise or commitment "assure" Usages: Soon the Great Depression in the 1930s <S> showed that democracy could not assure prosperity either, and the totalitarian creeds gathered momentum. <S> In all of these markets, reform must assure transparency, prevent abuse, and protect the public interest. <S> Conversely, oil companies might sell futures contracts to assure a profit against future price drops. <S> "ensure" Definitions: (v) <S> make certain of (v) be careful or certain to do something; make certain of something "ensure" Usages: <S> Senator Bordallo has been fighting to ensure that the people of Guam have a voice in Washington. <S> To ensure that as many Democrats as possible can cast their votes. <S> While we do not know all the details of this arrangement, the Fed must ensure that the plan protects the families that count on insurance. <S> "insure" Definitions: (v) be careful or certain to do something; make certain of something (v) make certain of (v) protect by insurance (v) take out insurance for <S> "insure" Usages: AIG generally sells credit-default swaps, thereby promising to insure others against defaults. <S> Some facts about 1944 movie tastes, as registered at the nation's box-offices: A popular star does not insure a popular picture. <S> Say you buy a house and insure it. <S> Source: <A> It is very easy to understand and remember the meaning and difference. <S> To assure someone is to remove someone’s doubts. <S> To ensure something is to make sure it happens—to guarantee it. <S> To insure something or someone is to cover it with an insurance policy. <S> Thank you! <S> Source: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/assure-ensure-insure/
| According to Associated Press style, to “ensure” that something happens is to make certain that it does, and to “insure” is to issue an insurance policy.
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If the result of creating is creation then what is the result of getting? <Q> To be perfectly dry about it, the result of creating is either (a) there has been a(n act of) creation, or (b) there is now, in existence, a (new) creation. <S> Describing the parallel conceptual relationships, the result of getting is either (a) <S> a thing has been gotten, or (b) there is now, in my possession, a (new) thing. <S> In the case of getting , these are concepts without single word signifiers. <S> Sorry. <S> But I guess another way to answer your question is, "the result of getting is thing ." <A> The result of destructing is destruction. <S> So if the result of giving is gift, the result of getting must be gett :-P <S> But seriously, the result of getting can be "get". <S> Perhaps not in U.S. English, but it is certainly quite common in British and New Zealand slang. <S> It is quite common to hear something like "what was your get?" <S> meaning "how much money did you make?", although it is much more common to hear "what was your catch?" <S> in reference to things gotten. <S> I mentioned "gett" in humour, so in all seriousness, I proffer "obtainment". <A> Of course, we now have to decide what the act of getting reception is called. :) <A> "Get" has a variety of meanings, for example "get drunk" means "become drunk" or "get upset" means "become upset". <S> So in this case the result of a get is a "becoming". <S> It can also mean "receive" as in "get a present" or "get a disease". <S> The corresponding noun for "receive" is "receipt" but this noun also has other meanings. <S> "Get" is also used in phrasal verbs, as in "get over it", "get on with it", etc. <A> I believe it's just "get. <S> " I know that word exists, at least. <S> It usually refers to children, if memory serves me aright...or maybe it meant something like "ilk. <S> " I'm guessing that meaning is obsolete or it comes from "begetting", but that'd be my guess. :)
| The result of creating is creation. I was always taught that "receive" is usually more preferable than "get," so I'd personally go with "reception."
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Where can I find a reasonably well recognized free style guide that is online? I don't like prefixing all my answers and pontifications about English usage with IMHO. Where can I find a reasonably well recognized style guide that is online that I can refer people to? My first choice, chicagomanualofstyle.org , is for paid subscribers only. (Emphasis on well recognized, personally, I mostly do technical and office writing) <Q> In the same domain as The Chicago Manual of Style (users working "with magazines, newsletters, corporate reports, proposals, electronic publications, Web sites, and other nonbook or nonprint documents"), you also have: The Economist Style Guide <S> Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. <S> So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible. <S> Keep in mind George Orwell's six elementary rules ("Politics and the English Language", 1946): <S> Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. <S> Never use a long word where a short one will do. <S> If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out. <S> Never use the passive where you can use the active. <S> Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. <S> Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. <A> The Grauniad , Observer and guardian.co.uk style guide . <S> " <S> No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft. <S> " <S> - HG Wells <A> For someone doing technical writing for the US Gov't, I have to recommend NASA <S> SP-7084 : <S> Grammar, Punctuation, andCapitalization: A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors . <A> There are a few out there but some tend to be industry specific. <S> The best general, free and online style guide that I know of <S> is the Wikipedia: Manual of Style . <S> Here are some others: The BBC News Style Guide , Apple Publications Style Guide and Yahoo! <S> Style Guide <S> (this one is pretty good). <A> I went through my Editing > <S> Style Guides bookmarks folder, here's what I found: As VonC mentioned, the Economist Style Guide is both well-regarded and easy to understand. <S> The print version is purported to be more thorough than the online, free version. <S> (I haven't used it much yet, but it looks to be sound after taking a quick dip in the site.) <S> Onlinestylebooks.com <S> lets you search through a boatload of style manuals. <S> (Some results seem to link to subscription sites, but many do not.) <S> The links to the Chicago Q&A columns and AP's Ask the Editor feature are outside their paywalls. <S> Jack Lynch's Guide to Grammar and Style is a good reference (although I disagree with a few things in it). <S> Grammar Girl is the only one I know of with a large enough backlog to search through, although others might be able to add to this. <S> Slate also has good grammar and style columns from time to time, like this piece on why one should not type two spaces after a period. <S> Also, keep in mind that many older books about style and grammar are now available online, for example, the 1906 Chicago Manual of Style . <S> (Use with caution; I'm not finding early versions of Chicago or AP there, and surprisingly, I also don't see the 1926 edition of Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage there.) <A> You can find 88 style guides listed at OnlineStylebooks.com , 70 of which are indexed for search. <S> OnlineStylebooks.com is owned and maintained by Mary Beth Protomastro, the founder of Copyediting newsletter, the copy chief of More magazine and former editor of the Time magazine stylebook. <S> OnlineStylebooks.com is not affiliated with any of those publications. <S> Mary Beth created OnlineStylebooks.com to help copy editors (including herself) quickly consult a variety of style guides. <S> If you know of a manual that’s on the Internet but not on OnlineStylebooks.com, please tell Mary Beth! <A> For British English, these are widely used and respected: <S> The Guardian and Observer Style Guide <S> The Economist Style Guide BBC News Style Guide Fowler's Modern English Usage (sadly only the pocket version of the updated text seems to be available online) <S> For matters of online style, I feel that it often comes down to issues of usability, so I refer to Jakob Nielsen's articles , because they're based on solid research. <S> (Example: " Writing Hyperlinks: Salient, Descriptive, Start with Keyword ") <S> For the philosophy and reasoning behind style guides, David Foster Wallace's essay "Tense Present" is unbeatable.
| In addition to traditional style guides, You can also refer people to pages from some of the excellent grammar blogs out there:
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What is the difference between "’ll" and "will"? Is there any difference in the meaning when we use 'll or will ? For example, I will go to university tomorrow. I'll go to university tomorrow. <Q> No. <S> The second form is a contraction of the first. <S> Generally, contractions aren't appropriate for more formal writing (but as always, consider your target audience when writing). <A> A major role of language is establishing a social context, and contractions are one of many usages to establish an informal context. <S> Back when I was in university, informalisms were frowned upon, but the language is moving towards stuff you can say quickly, so maybe they are acceptable now. <S> There are plenty of markers of a formal context that sound unnatural to a (my) modern ear, <S> e.g., "we are not amused" or "it is thought that". <S> On the other hand, the third person plural and passive voice looks better in print, which is a reason for the divergence of the written and spoken language. <S> Incidentally, saying "go to university" to an American as opposed to "go to the university" would establish that you're English, and therefore culturally superior to an American. <A> There are differences between <S> 'll and will , and there are occasions in English when you cannot make contractions, but there's no great difference in the examples you've given. <S> A very slight difference of mood, perhaps. <A> I'm not sure if there is any difference in meaning in the words themselves, since one is a contraction of the other. <S> But they tend to be used slightly differently, with the contracted form more likely to appear in spoken English, for example. <S> And changing the intonation and context might change the meaning completely. <A> However, when speaking, you might use "I will " - with the emphasis on "will" - if there was any doubt as to whether the action were going to be carried out.
| There's no difference in the meaning as written.
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Difference between "try to do" and "try and do" What is the difference between try to do and try and do ? To me (non-native speaker), asking someone try and do this seems a bit rude. It's like saying you can try all you want but this must be done: try and fail is not an option. However, asking someone try to do this means I am asking you to try: success is bonus, failure is OK. <Q> They are basically synonymous. " <S> Try and" is not really more rude, in my opinion. <S> According to alt.usage.english , "try and" is probably older than "try to," and, when used, implies success or failure of whatever action is being attempted. <S> As far as speech goes though, they're the same thing. <S> If you're writing, "try and" is generally discouraged. <A> Try and is a paraphrase of try to , typically used in informal promises and instructions, as in: I’ll try and keep in touch with her [and] <S> Try and come soon. <S> It expresses a supportive attitude, as Fowler (1926) noticed, and has a particular interpersonal role to play, hence its relatively high frequency in conversation. <S> From the article in ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’ <A> "Try and...", while accepted in everyday usage, always sounds wrong to me, as if the speaker is commanding you to do two things: try something unspecified , and then do this other thing . <A> I believe "try and do" is more of an oral expression, but has the same meaning as "try to do". <S> In writing, I would always use "try to do". <A> "Try and do" is the form of "try to do" in my native dialect (centered in Pittsburgh, maybe), and probably wouldn't sound strange to any American or Canadian. <S> A related construction is "needs done" instead of "needs to be done", which is more rare outside that dialect. <A> When in doubt, remember the words of the great orator, Bart Simpson: <S> "I can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try." <S> On my suggestion, now enshrined in the Guardian style guide : <S> try to never "try and". <S> As Bart Simpson put it: "I can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try" <A> There is no difference. <S> "Try to" is the "classic" version -- "try and" has been increasing in usage recently (and is quite the pet peeve of mine), but I've never known an English speaker to see a difference in meaning between the two. <A> This is really strange, in Norwegian it's a lot of confusion between homphones "og" (meaning and ) and "å" (equivalent to the word to ) that are pronounced the same (the g is silent, and o is sometimes the same sound as å, which is approximately the same sound as the vowel in "wall"). <S> This is not surprising, but I've noticed the same confusion occur in related languages like English where it's not homophones. <S> Perhaps it's something about the grammar of the Germanic languages that causes this difference to be hard to understand? <S> (There could be a slight intentional difference in meaning between "try to" and "try and" but usually it seems like a mistake) <A> The use of "try and" seems to me to be an effort to build optimism into the language. <S> If one actually is unsure of success one would appropriately say, "I will try to succeed." <S> However, If there is no doubt that success will occur what need is there to insert "try and" into the phrase when then one could simply say, "I will succeed." <A> "Try and do" is regarded as a colloquial and ungrammatical version of "try to do", but is really grammatical if you accept that it expresses a slightly different meaning technically. "Try and do" seems to imply that you will try, but that you WILL do something, while "try to do" doesn't seem to express any certainty about the outcome of your trying. <S> That said, people generally use "try and do" to mean "try to do", and you can save it from being labeled ungrammatical by calling it idiomatic. <A> On way to see that try and instead of try to is wrong is to say it in the past tense. <S> Yesterday, I tried to do something vs yesterday, I tried and do something. <S> Future tense, I will try to do something tomorrow <S> vs I will try and do something tomorrow.
| "Try and" has largely been relegated to colloquial use, and "try to" is generally considered the correct form.
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Answering "Have you got" questions with "I do" For the question "Have you got any ice cream?" which is correct: Yes I do Yes I have or inversely No I don't No I haven't got any <Q> For the question "Have you got any ice cream?" <S> which is correct: <S> Yes I do <S> Yes I have <S> The traditional answer would be "yes I have" <S> but "yes I do" is common in American usage and is gaining usage in the UK too. <A> EDIT: <S> Since the OP changed the tense in his question, I have updated my answer: <S> Yes, I have. <S> or <S> Yes, I have got some ice cream. <S> No, I haven't. <S> or No, I haven't got any ice cream. <A> Arguably both are correct: 'Have you got any ice-cream?' <S> 'Yes, I have got ice-cream.' <S> -OR- <S> 'Yes, I do have ice-cream.' <S> It is the same for the negative forms: ' <S> No, I have not got ice-cream.' <S> -OR- <S> 'No, I do not have ice-cream.' <A> "Yes, I do" is essentially short for "yes, I do got some ice cream", which clearly doesn't make sense. <S> "Have you got?" <S> = <S> "yes, I have""Do you have?" = <S> "yes, I do" Just because people say something doesn't make it correct.
| In Australia both "I do" and "I have" are used and essentially mean the same thing.
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What is the correct way to pluralize an acronym / initialism? For example, if I wanted to write the equivalent of There are many automated teller machines in this city. Would it be There are many ATMs in this city. or There are many ATM's in this city. (could get confused with possessive form or contraction). or just There are many ATM in this city. (assuming the final s is included in Machines represented by M). Maybe something else? <Q> The Chicago Manual of Style has an interesting way to address this: They omit the apostrophe, unless there are periods in the abbreviation. <S> So this would give you ATMs , or alternately A.T.M.'s . <S> ( A.T.M.s looks weird.) <S> chicagomanualofstyle.org, "Plurals" This page indicates that acronyms ending in the letter "S" get an apostrophe, something I've seen before, but can't find in a general reference. <S> So one would write ATMs and SOS's . <S> This page on the North Carolina State University website references AP's rule as being to always use an apostrophe. <S> The 2009 AP Stylebook's "plurals" entry has no section on acronyms, but mentions "VIPs", I can't find anything addressing how to specifically pluralize acronyms. <S> (The "abbreviations and acronyms" section is also of no help.) <S> Personally, I omit using apostrophes unless I can't avoid it. <S> I do use them when talking about single letters or where it would avoid confusion. <S> (For example, SOs for "Significant Others" looks like an incorrectly capitalized SOS.) <S> To paraphrase Carol Fisher Saller , the clearer usage is the correct one. <A> I agree with Wikipedia , wordreference and CMOS - acronyms and initialisms are "regular" nouns; plurals are formed by adding "s". <S> Checking Google Books for actual usage in a relatively "contentious" case, I searched for: "OSs" unix windows linux 3120 written instances <S> "OSes" unix windows linux <S> 1060 instances <S> "OS's" unix windows linux 520 instances <S> "Simpler" cases such as CDs vs CD's are even more decisive (over 10:1 in favour of the former). <A> The first is the correct usage, in my view. <S> The third may be quite acceptable however, since the M in ATM could equally stand for 'machine' or 'machines', though I think pluralising the actual acronym is much clearer in speech. <S> In any case, never use an apostrophe. <S> 's should only be appended to a word to create the posessive form ("of ..."), never for plurals. <A> Oxford Dictionary [e.g. SOS, <S> noun (plural SOSs) ] and The Economist [e.g. Are ATMs stealing jobs? ] <S> both go for the first option. <A> Since this is a question about acronyms, and the Federal Government's bureaucracy is notorious for using acronyms, I decided to look up the answer in the United States Government Printing Office (GPO) Style Manual (2000). <S> Rule 8.11 of the GPO Style Manual states: <S> "While an apostrophe is used to indicate possession and contractions, it is not generally necessary to use an apostrophe to show the plural form of most acronyms, initialisms, or abbreviations, except where clarity and sense demand such inclusion." <S> As examples, the rule suggests: OKsABCsRIFsYWCAs <S> The rule does not show an exception for an acronym, but does refer to one case I found interesting -- the "Oakland A's" needs an apostrophe because otherwise it would be the "Oakland As." <S> From that I would assume that if the addition of an s to an acronym would appear to give the acronym a different meaning, then an apostrophe would be in order. <S> But since acronyms are capitalized letters, the addition of a small s should not make a difference, except where (for some reason) one is writing in a format that is all capitals -- such as the format that military and diplomatic messages were sent until very recently. <A> The second is just wrong <S> (apostrophe is not used for plurals, ever). <S> This is because ATM is a defined term for an AT machine , and using it as plural "automatic teller machines" would be a redefinition of a common abbreviation, which one should not be trigger-happy about. <S> The third, however, does not solve the real need to say there's more than one. <S> It is though clear from the sentence, but might not be so in a general case. <A> Using 's to pluralize something is called a "Greengrocer's apostrophe". <S> I think the battle against the Greengrocer's apostrophe is one <S> we're bound to lose - even if grammar of the general population improved, we'd still occasionally be facing nouns which have a mixture of upper and lower case, for which adding an s by itself at the end would be confusing. <A> Either of the first two is acceptable, but I would recommend the first as the apostrophe isn't needed to convey your meaning, and as such is not required. <S> The third is just wrong since it creates an awkward sentence that is hard to say and discomforting to read. <S> Avoid the ambiguity and include the s. <A> Just a small addition to the subject and one that is probably as much related to typography as it is to grammar... <S> There is an issue with all-caps. <S> For example, if we were: Talking about ATMs. <S> Then the apostrophe is out. <S> But, if we were: TALKING ABOUT ATM'S. <S> Then the case for using one is much stronger as it serves to differentiate A utomated T eller M achine from, say, A utomated T eller M achine S oftware <S> Of course, that doesn't address the question of why you'd be using all-caps in the first place...
| I vote for the first, "ATMs". Most acronyms, including ATM, have a well-defined and commonly accepted meaning, which very rarely includes the pluralization.
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How do you use "i.e." in a sentence? How does one properly use i.e. in a sentence? I'm not referring to Internet Explorer. <Q> via http://theoatmeal.com/comics/ie <S> Ever done this? <S> "When eating a squirrel taco, Bigfoot always adds extra condiments, i.e., ranch dressing" <S> This is wrong! <S> I.e. is an abbreviation of a latin phrase meaning "that is. <S> " <S> It's not used for listing examples; it's used for clarifying a statement. <S> Think of it as "in essence" or "in other words. <S> " By using it above we're declaring that ranch dressing is the only condiment in existence, which is false. <S> In the previous example, we should have used e.g., which means "for example." <S> For example: "The best way to take out a unicorn is with a Claymore, i.e., a directional mine which explodes shrapnel into a designated kill zone." <S> Another example: "Eating a squirrel taco without any ranch dressing is like playing leapfrog with a unicorn, i.e. a very bad idea." <A> I assume you are referring to the common abbreviation for the Latin i <S> d est , which is commonly translated as "that is to say". <S> So, think of the English when you would use it, i.e. when you're about to write <S> i.e. think to yourself "that is to say". <S> See how I did that? <S> As to the stylistic issue, I would always do it as I did above: lower case, periods in place. <S> A common variant is ie. <S> instead of <S> i.e. . <S> Contrast with <S> e.g. which is from the Latin exempli gratia meaning "for example. <S> " <S> One can construct sentences where either one is acceptable, but usually just contemplating the English meaning of each and picking the best fit is the way to go. <S> If you're referring to Internet Explorer, just say Internet Explorer. <A> i.e. is an abbreviation for the Latin "id est", meaning "that is" (or more loosely, "in other words"). <S> Its English usage follows precisely as such. <S> The abbreviation is simply used to signal that the following phrase is another way of expressing the preceding phrase. <S> (Note: i.e. is often misused to indicate an example; this is incorrect. <S> Always use <S> e.g. in that case.) <A> If you're referring to Internet Explorer, depending on the context you may have to indicate that it stands for that. <S> If you're referring to i <S> d est <S> , i.e. "i.e.", The Oatmeal has just published a comic on that . <S> In all seriousness though, you use it to mean 'that is' or 'in other words' or 'in essence'.
| When you're explaining something, you use i.e. or its synonymous English phrases when you are about to express the explanation in different terms, as a means of clarity for instance.
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Is there a standard ordering for the question mark and the exclamation mark used together? We've all wanted to express certain questions, rhetorical or not, with annoyance, excitement, surprise, frustration and so on. What better way than with both a question mark (?) and an exclamation mark (!), right? I've seen two ways of punctuating such questions: Where is this place?! Who do you think you are!? (Things like ?!? , !?! , ?????!!!!! , ??!?!!?!?!!?? , etc are irrelevant here.) Which is the proper way to order the two symbols? Or does each of the above two have a distinct and grammatically correct meaning? Or is the interrobang (‽) the clear winner here? ;) <Q> I think if you ask the experts who would claim that they know what the “correct” way to punctuate something is, they would tell you that a sentence may only have one terminal punctuation mark—that is to say, neither “?!” <S> nor “!?” is correct. <S> So, no matter what order you use, you’ll never please those people. <S> The Corpus of Contemporary American English has 3742 examples of “?!” <S> and 1197 examples of “!?”. <S> Clearly both orderings enjoy substantial usage, although it does appear that “?!” <S> enjoys a majority of usage, probably because most sentences that get the double punctuation treatment are syntactically questions that have an exclamation point added for emphasis. <S> Edit: <S> I checked in the British National Corpus , and it has 224 instances of “?!” <S> and 121 instances of “!?”. <A> I guess it depends on what you want to say. <S> In my own usage, '?!' would generally be more frequent, expressing astonishment at a particular question, kind of "WTF?!" <S> : You ask a question and then use the exclamation mark to stress its unusuality. <S> On the other hand, '!?' seems much rarer, both in my own usage and what I have observed. <S> I would say it meant something extraordinary (that you stress with the '!') <S> but also insecurity <S> (hence it being followed by the '?') <S> about your assessment of it being extraordinary. <S> So, they do express different meanings, but '?!' <S> would be a more common one than '!?'. <A> Use the interrobang (quesclamation mark) <S> ‽ <S> (I largely kid, of course. <S> This punctuation mark is hardly in common use - though it's perhaps acceptable in various forms of media/advertising.) <S> In all seriousness, it is strictly only legal to use a single punctuation mark at the end of a sentence/phrase. <A> I like ?! <S> and think interrobang is ugly, but that's just my personal aesthetic. <S> As others have said, there doesn't seem to be a strict rule. <S> Pick the one you like. <S> We could assume the ordering conveys information, i.e. whichever one comes first is the dominate one. <S> So ?! <S> would be a question asked excitedly, and !? <S> would be an exclaimed question. <S> But that's just us making things up. <S> Though who knows? <S> Maybe it'll catch on. <S> That's my proposal for the rule. <S> I'm sure specific style guides and domain-specific grammars (such as chess notation, as Wikipedia notes) have more explicit meanings as well. <S> You could probably find one to justify whatever you want. <A> I know you say they are irrelevant, but I would never use "?!" or "!?" <S> but always use "?!?" or "!?!" <S> - except in formal writing where I would use neither. <A> Putting both marks together does, to quote the Oxford Style Manual, "strike a note of almost hysteria" in serious writing. <S> To know which mark to use, you need to decide whether you expect an answer or not. <S> "What are you doing?" <S> = you don't know what the person is doing. <S> "What are you doing!" <S> = <S> you do know what the person is doing (and probably don't like it). <A> The standard way of writing that combination would be “?!” <S> (question mark followed by exclamation point), since you are first and foremost asking a question. <S> It is this question in which you wish to accentuate, to show surprise, anger, disbelief, etc. <A> It is possible that this practice originated in the annotation of chess games, where the two punctuation marks (! <S> and ?) are used to identify exceptional and questionable moves respectively. <S> In that context, !? <S> identifies a move that looks exceptional, but has hidden flaws, and ?! <S> identifies a move that appears questionable but contains hidden virtues. <S> When only one instance each of the two punctuation marks is used, I believe this inference might be picked up by most astute readers when use of two punctuation marks was at all warranted. <S> With the above stated, I must now ask for the reason why you are doing this? <S> (And asking this question.) <S> Over use of punctuation marks has the opposite of the intuitive effect, becoming mere noise that drowns out the signal contained by the actual written text. <S> While rules in English are meant to be broken, breaking them without a clear intent in mind is simple mindlessness. <A> From a more functional standpoint: If the context is right , I will follow Occam's razor and achieve the same result but with economy. <S> For example, in the context of "Who do you think you are!", a single exclamation mark is not only safe and correct, but still as punchy. <S> I would agree that ?! <S> isn't standard English, and I'd see it as frivolous in formal writing anyway. <S> Remember not to overuse exclamation marks, too. <S> Edit: If you still feel that adding an exclamation point for a question doesn't seem right, I feel that this work best for one-word sentences like "What!" and etc. <A> The question itself is exclaimed, so it must be ? <S> first, then punctuated ! <S> to augment the original question.
| I would consider the first punctuation mark to be the most important.
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In the format of A.B. Name, which is the given name and which is the family name? For example, Bill Henry Gates, which of following is right? Bill H.Gates B.H. Gates H.G. Bill Gates Bill B. Gates H. Gates BHG HGB GHB <Q> In English, names are usually written in the format: <S> [First given name] [family name], <S> e.g. John O'Reilly <S> Sometimes they are written: [First given name] [other given names] <S> [family name], e.g. John Timothy O'Reilly <S> When using initials, it is the same, e.g. J. O'Reilly, or J.T. O'Reilly <S> But it is also very common, in certain situations, e.g. school roll (high school, university tutorial list etc.) to put the family name first, but this is posted with a comma, e.g. O'Reilly, John Timothy <S> And in other places, e.g. an index, it is done with initials instead, also with a comma: <S> O'Reilly, J.T. <S> When doing three letters in a row, it is almost always the given name first, then the family name, e.g. JTO <S> For John T. O'Reilly (that's another common way to write names). <A> In English, the family name is always given last (except in the case of transliterated names which confuse many people). <S> In your example, "Bill" and "Henry" are his two given names; if you used only one given name, it would be the first one, "Bill". <S> "Gates" is his family name. <S> Thus, the following are correct: <S> Bill H. Gates <S> B. H. Gates B. Gates <S> BHG Bill Gates B. Henry Gates <S> (rare unless the person in question has made it clear that this is his preference) <S> And all the others are incorrect. <A> I think perhaps you're confusing monograms with initials. <S> Initials are always listed in the same order as they would appear in the name: the initials of William Henry Gates are WHG, the initials of Bill Gates are BG, etc. <S> Monograms , on the other hand, combine the initials in an aesthetically-pleasing way. <S> Almost always, the last initial (the one in the middle) is larger than the other two. <S> The monogram of William Henry Gates could thus look something like: <A> If you see something along the lines of "E. Annie Proulx", it probably means the person prefers to be known by their middle name. <S> As others have said, the surname is usually last and to present names in surname order you would probably write something like "Proulx, E. Annie".
| A common method is to put the last name's initial in the middle, and the first & middle names on the left and right, respectively. Bill Gates' TLA (three letter acronym) would be: BHG
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How are "i.e." and "e.g." pronounced? How are i.e. and e.g. pronounced? <Q> i.e. stands for <S> id est <S> (Latin), which means " that is ". <S> You use it to link in a deeper explanation about something. <S> Pronounce it "eye - ee". <S> e.g. stands for exempli gratia (also Latin), which means " for example ". <S> You use it to link in an example of a more generic term. <S> Pronounce it "ee - jee" <A> For <S> e.g. <S> I always say "for example". <A> When I was in college, one of my philosophy professors instructed us to use translated English for abbreviated or initialized latinisms when reading a text aloud. <S> I would agree that in most cases you should speak the translated English rather than speaking the letters of the initialization. <S> i.e. is used for clarification and should be spoken "that is" . <S> While most English speakers will recognize the meaning of "eye ee" when spoken, saying "that is" is clearer. <S> e.g. is used for providing one or many examples and should be spoken "for example" . <S> While i.e. and e.g. are relatively common, other abbreviated or initialized latinisms, such as viz. <S> , are less frequent and their English translation should certainly be provided when reading from a text that includes a latinism. <S> For example, take the following quote from Plato : <S> Perfect wisdom has four parts, viz., wisdom, the principle of doing things aright; justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private; fortitude, the principle of not flying danger, but meeting it; and temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately. <S> When reading that quote aloud, the translation for viz. <S> should be provided. <S> Incorrect: <S> "Perfect wisdom has four parts, viz , wisdom, the principle..." <S> "Perfect wisdom has four parts, videlicet , wisdom, the principle..." <S> Correct: <S> "Perfect wisdom has four parts, namely , wisdom, the principle..." <S> "Perfect wisdom has four parts, that is to say , wisdom, the principle..." <S> Speaking the translation for initialized and abbreviated latinisms provides greater clarity for the audience than simply speaking the initials or the latin. <A> Just pronounce the letters: "Eye eee" and "eee gee". <S> I have never met anyone who actually said "id est" and "exempli gratia", which is what they really stand for. <A> I can't believe this wasn't addressed in the Oatmeal Comic <S> but I usually say the letters or replace it with "for example" (and now, thanks to the comic, I'll replace it with "in other words" instead and use e.g. when I mean "for example"). <A> and as for the pronunciation of the Latin: <S> i.e. = id est e.g. = IgzemplI <S> gra: <S> tI <S> (NB a: is pronounced like the "a" in car or can't) but remember - as has been mentioned here; it's much better practice to use the English long-forms in speech: i.e. - "that is" / "or" e.g. - "for example" <A> Latin abbreviations <S> i.e. = that is, such as, or "in other words" <S> e.g = <S> for example et. <S> al. <S> = <S> and others (i get a lot of strange looks when I use this) NB. <S> = <S> nota bene <S> ; Note well (and this one as well <S> ... I have no idea why this one is capitalized) <S> etc. <S> = <S> et cetera ("and other things", or "and so forth") <S> and yes when reading aloud I just use the translation to avoid confusion Pronuciation: <S> just say the letters for most cases; except etc. <S> and et cetera are pronounced the same. <S> et. <S> al. is pronounced et all
| For i.e. I usually say "that is", occasionally "eye-ee".
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Is it correct to say "the 'following' customer"? It happens all the time. You are in line at the grocery store, Starbucks or anywhere cashiers are employed. Having finished a transaction, one will cheerily offer to help "the following customer." I'm pretty sure that "the next customer" is the correct usage here, unless they call that following customer by name. Am I right? <Q> It’s a participle being used as an adjective (like “the walking dead” or <S> “the setting sun”). <A> There's nothing wrong with it. <S> In this case it's being used in the same context as "the following day" which is commonly interchanged with "the next day". <S> People line up and follow each other just the same as the days in a week. <S> It makes sense to me! <A> According to OneLook it means: adj. <S> going or proceeding or coming after in the same direction, e.g. "The crowd of following cars made the occasion seem like a parade" <S> So although it is not an incorrect word, perhaps it grates on one's nerves since it connotes the sense of people as objects flowing mindlessly toward the cashier, as if you have no choice but "to follow". <S> It reminds me of a scene in a movie once with a tour guide directing a group of tourists to follow her, saying: "We're walking... <S> we're walking... <S> we're stopping... <S> " <S> The language it correct, but it's funny because it makes the relationship between the tour guide and the group seem so mechanical and impersonal. <A> One may say, for instance, "Yesterday has past, and today is the following day." <S> Here is an implied, "The last customer" as in, "The last customer has gone, and now I may help the following customer." <S> It sounds wrong because it sounds to many of us like the speaker is attempting sophistication unnecessarily. <S> I also think it's a NYC quirk, similar to the use of "on line" vs. "in line", as in, "We are standing on line waiting for the cashier. <S> " <S> If you really want a full dose of NYC cashier regionalism, wait until you hear, "I can help the following customer on line." <S> Not wrong, but very specifically NYC, and wide-spread. <S> Fundamentally, I think this is more of a class thing and than a grammar thing (IMHO). <S> FYI, "on line" comes from the NYC public schools, where kids had to literally stand on a painted line. <S> It bugs me a bit, but I'm choosing to get over it. <S> I've not heard either of these used outside of NY. <S> Curious to know if it happens elsewhere. <A> I would understand "I can help the following customer" to mean the customer that is following the customer that is already being helped. <S> In this context, "following" simply means "immediately behind or after", synonymous with "next".
| It’s a little unusual, in that the phrase “next customer” is the common idiom in English, but I can’t see what could possibly be wrong about it. I don't think it's grammatically incorrect, although it does sound awkward to many people, including me.
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When should I use "a" versus "an" in front of a word beginning with the letter h? A basic grammar rule is to use an instead of a before a vowel sound. Given that historic is not pronounced with a silent h, I use “a historic”. Is this correct? What about heroic ? Should be “It was a heroic act” or “It was an heroic act”? I remember reading somewhere that the h is sometimes silent, in which case it’s an , and when the h is pronounced, it’s a . But then I also remember reading that it depends on which syllable is stressed. And I also think I read somewhere that it might differ between British and American English. Personally, I pronounce the h, and believe that a is correct. I find that it sounds incorrect to use an and pronounce heroic without the h. So how do I know when to use a and when to use an with a word beginning with the letter h? Are both acceptable or is there one that is correct? <Q> The point of the word an is to avoid the awkward silent pause between words when saying something like "a apple." <S> So, you should put <S> an before any word that begins with a vowel sound , not just a vowel letter. <S> The good news is that you just need to do whatever makes sense when talking: a historian an honor a xylophone <S> an X-ray a user (begins with y sound) an umbrella a one-eyed pirate (begins with w sound) an owl <A> Indeed, you are correct. <S> In certain accents, history , hotel , etc. are pronounced with an h sound. <S> In those accents, a should be used. <S> In other accents, such as my own, it is pronounced without an h sound, and therefore starts with a vowel. <S> In that accent, it would be correct for one to say an . <S> Queen Elizabeth II is one such person who could correctly say an historic event . <S> President Obama is one such person who could correctly say a historic event . <S> In writing, it doesn't really matter which one is used. <A> It is a traditional rule of English that an can be used before words that begin with an H sound if the first syllable of that word is not stressed. <S> Indeed, some traditionalists would say it must be used before such words. <S> Since the first syllable of historic is unstressed, it is acceptable to use <S> an before it. <S> In the Corpus of Contemporary American English , there are 1591 incidences of “a historic” and 428 incidences of “an historic”, showing that usage of <S> an before such words is dying out. <A> Holy Moly (Or Oly Moly): Google books ngram viewer for "a historic" and "an historic" <A> In words beginning with 'h' where the accent is on the 2nd syllable, it is also correct to use "an". <S> In such cases you do not pronounce the 'h'. <S> So "an historical act" is spoken as "an'istorical act" This practice has a long, respected pedigree, at list in British literature. <A> It's pretty hard to decide who is "correct". <S> I can offer the example of someone like newsreader Jeremy Paxman who decidedly says "an historic" with an aspirated "h". <S> There are also lots more television announcers who do this in the UK. <S> It strikes me as being an example of hypercorrectness similar to blanket-removal of linking-r sounds. <A> See this question/answer: <S> When should I use "a" vs "an"? <S> The question of "a" vs "an" is always decided by the pronunciation of the word that follows the article. <S> Thus, various geographical regions that have different pronunciation rules may use a different article for the same word." <S> In short, if you pronounce the "h" then use "a". <A> I use "an" before a word which I think would start with a vowel in the speech of whoever I'm talking to. <S> For instance, I ordinarily say "an" before "historical", because although I always pronounce "h" at the beginning of "historical", I believe that many people don't pronounce an "h" here. <S> I just want to get along. <A> If you pronounce the h, say a historian . <S> If you don't pronounce the h, say an historian . <S> The latter sounds old-fashioned now. <A> It depends. <S> In contemporary usage, if the "H" is voiced, as in "house" or "happy", the article "a"is becoming more common, for example, "He is a humble man". <S> if the "H" is not voiced, as in "honest", or "honorable", an is still generally preferred. <S> In older texts, it is more common to have "an" in places where contemporary usage favors "a". <S> Psalm 84:3 (Protestant versification) talks about the sparrow finding "an house" in the Jewish temple.
| If you do not pronounce the "h", use "an."
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Should I refer to "Section 2.3" or "Subsection 2.3"? When writing a document that is divided into numbered sections and subsections, sometimes I would like to refer a certain subsection that has been numbered 2.3, for example. Here the 2 represents the section number and 3 is the subsection number within section 2. Question : Should I refer to "Section 2.3" or "Subsection 2.3"? To me, the latter seems tautological (or at least not completely necessary) since the "sub-" component of "subsection" is implied by the number 2.3 itself. <Q> I have to agree with you. <S> Collins Dictionary defines "subsection": a section of a section; subdivision <S> However, as you say, writing "Subsection 2.3" it introducing redundancy, as it is (as you say) blatantly obvious that section 2.3 is a subsection of section 2. <S> I would say, however, that "Section 2.3" does not imply a subsection, it seems rather explicit that it is a subsection, to me. <S> A quick search on Google for "Section 2.3" and "Subsection 2.3": Section has 1.2 million hits. <S> Subsection has 46,000 hits. <S> So it definitely makes much more sense to drop the "sub-". <S> If we have the document: <S> Birds 1.1. <S> Parrots <S> This is a bunch of information about parrots. <S> 1.2. <S> Hawks <S> This is a bunch of information about hawks. <S> Both "Parrots" and "Hawks" are sections in their own right. <S> They are simply sections within sections. <S> This is similar to the folder metaphor in computing. <S> A folder contains many subfolders, but each subfolder is still a complete, and real, folder in its own right. <S> Princeton University's WordNet defines subsection : <S> (n) subsection, subdivision (a section of a section; a part of a part; i.e., a part of something already divided) <S> Furthermore, Merriam-Webster defines section : a distinct part or portion of something written (as a chapter, law, or newspaper) <S> So if one takes a section, then takes another logical portion of that, that is another section–also a subsection–that happens to be inside the original section. <S> E.g. a chapter is a section of a book. <S> A paragraph is a section of a chapter. <S> A sentence is a section of a paragraph. <S> We can logically divide anything into however we like. <S> Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines subsection : <S> one of the smaller parts into which the main parts of a document or organization are divided <S> Further details can be found in section 7 subsection 4 of the report. <S> From the example, we can see that they have referred to section 7.4 as section 7, subsection 4. <S> My understanding of all this, is that we can call top-level sections, just "section". <S> But we can call non-top-level sections either "section" OR "subsection". <A> In law, you clarify what you are talking about when referring to a subsection by saying "Subsection 23 (1)" or in spoken English you would say "subsection twenty-three, one". <S> You can also say "Section twenty-three, Subsection one". <S> The purpose of saying "subsection" twenty-three (1) is to set in the mind of the listener or reader, that you are going to refer to a subsection, not the section the subsection you are referring to is subordinate to. <S> Statute Example: <S> 23 <S> All dog leashes shall be solid blue in color unless; (1) <S> The dog is a seeing-eye-dog, then the leash used on this type of dog shall be solid yellow in color. <S> Using the statute example above, a person who is reading this law could say that according to subsection twenty-three, one, a person with a seeing-eye-dog has to use a solid yellow leash. <S> They could also say that according to section twenty-three, subsection one, a person with a seeing-eye-dog has to use a solid yellow leash. <A> When referring to a section and a subsection (or a paragraph and sub-paragraph, etc) the abbreviation that corresponds to the highest 'level' of the section (or paragraph, etc) should be used -- for example, using the Section Designation Guidelines from DBSK_FAN and imagining that it was taken from 'Chapter 9 - Witty Examples', you would say 'chapter 9, section 4' - not 'sub-chapter 9, 4'; you would say 'section 4' not 'sub-chapter 4'; you would say 'section 4(a)' - not 'subsection 4(a)'; and you would say 'section 4(a)(i)' not 'subsection 4(a)(i)' nor 'sub-subsection 4(a)(i)' nor 'double-sub-section 4(a)(i)'. <S> The only times you say 'subsection' at all would be, eg, 'section 4, subsection (a)' <S> (and that's only when actually saying it out <S> loud - like in court or whatever - as opposed to typing or writing it); or when you are writing about section 4 in an essay and then, having made it very clear you are talking solely about chapter 9, section 4, you go on to discuss the correlation or contradiction or whatever between subsections (a) and (b). <S> Those are the rules you're supposed to abide by at Australian law faculties, anyway. <S> Google the AGLC (Australian Guide to Legal Citation), it clarifies most things. <S> Hope it helps! <A> Considering a section is already a "a distinct part or portion of something written", subsection can seem redundant at first. <S> But the definition of subsection states: a subdivision or a subordinate division of a section <S> The notion of "placed in or occupying a lower class, rank, or position" is important, and distinct from the definition of "section". <S> That is why you also find subsection used in sports ("subsection title") "2.3" is not "a section within "Section 2". <S> The full meaning of what is in 2.3 is "subordinate" to the general context presented at the beginning in section 2. <A> Example: 4 Section Designations a. How to Divide Subsections and Sections <S> This is an example. <S> (i) Voila! <S> Have Succeeded in Dividing Them <S> This is an example. <S> Section Designations Guidelines: <S> Refer to the above sections in text: <S> This is an example of a section reference. <S> To see specific example, refer to Section 4 a (i)
| It is certainly grammatically correct to use either word, and I think it is semantically correct both ways as well.
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Should the words "internet" and "web" be capitalized? There seems to be some inconsistency on whether people capitalize the words internet and web (as in World Wide Web ) as proper nouns. What is the official ruling on when or if these words should be capitalized? Obviously, I am not asking about when they are the first word in a sentence or in the title of a book or other publication. Example: "The web is the most commonly known feature of the Internet ." <Q> I think it helps to know the history of the word Internet . <S> When computers were first connected together the resulting configuration was called a network . <S> Later people connected networks together. <S> That was called an internet . <S> Eventually most of the networks in the world were connected into one large internet that became known simply as the Internet . <S> In other words, there is a technical distinction between an internet and the Internet . <S> For what it is worth, my iPad wants me to capitalize Internet . <A> The fact that Web is short for World Wide Web , Sir Tim's wonderful invention, makes me think that Web should be capitalized too. <A> The Guardian style guide uses lowercase: internet net, web, world wide web web, webpage, website, world wide web . <S> is there <S> at least some consensus among the more popular style guides/dictionaries on this? <S> Not really. <S> Wikipedia has a page on the topic, Internet capitalization conventions , with a section on usage: <S> Examples of media publications and news outlets that capitalize the term include The New York Times, the Associated Press, Time , and The Times of India . <S> In addition, many peer-reviewed journals and professional publications such as Communications of the ACM capitalize "Internet", and this style guideline is also specified by the American Psychological Association in its electronic media spelling guide. <S> Among them are The Economist, the Financial Times , <S> The Times , the Guardian , the Observer and the Sydney Morning Herald . <S> As of 2011, most publications using "internet" appear to be located outside of North America, but the gap is closing. <S> Wired News , an American news source, adopted the lower-case spelling in 2004. <S> Around April 2010, CNN shifted its house style to adopt the lowercase spelling. <S> Wired has a 2004 piece on their decision to use internet, web and net . <S> Pick your own style and be consistent. <A> Regarding Internet, the Wikipedia disambiguation page mentions: <S> The Internet is a worldwide publicly accessible system of interconnected computer networks. <S> Where not capitalized, internet can refer to any internetwork . <S> You could apply the same reasoning for Web (World Wide Web) as opposed to any "web". <S> Although there is still the debate about Web site vs. "website" ;) <S> If you consider proper noun as referring to "specific people, places, or things", Internet and "the Web" do qualify for their capitalize letter. <A> Wired magazine has a feature article on exactly this question , with reasons to support answers both ways, and in short it depends on your context and audience. <S> However, it concludes that the lowercase version will eventually win the day. <A> My reasoning is that there is really only one network named Internet - <S> therefore it's the Internet, while "web" is a more generic term, meaning any network (but probably referring to YouTube anyway ;). <A> I would say that it is becoming less and less common to write "Internet", as if it were a proper noun. <S> Indeed, the use of the phrasing "the internet" tends to indicate that "internet" is not a proper noun, because if it were, the word "the" would be redundant, and we would happily (still) refer to the internet as simply "Internet" (which used to be an accepted style, but will likely look odd to any reader not versed in the history of the internet). <S> The proportion of people who are familiar with the origin of "the internet" as a proper noun, or indeed to who understand that the phenomenological features of the internet qualify it as being capable of having a proper noun, seems to be dwindling. <S> My guess is that most people think of the internet as being like the telephone system or the air - a thing that lacks either unity, number, or identity.
| More recently, a significant number of publications have switched to not capitalizing the noun " internet ." It's a matter of style.
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"Don't got" — how common is it in American usage? I often hear the usage "don't got" in American English as spoken on TV programmes. Recently I was watching season four of "Prison Break" and one character, an Asian computer wizard , repeatedly used "don't got". E.g. 9:48 into episode two: Not if you don't got me However, I've also heard from people who say that this formation is not used much in real speech. How common is the "I don't got money" or even "He don't got a dog" style formation in real American speech? <Q> It's definitely not correct, but very common. <S> Avoid it in any high register situations where standard English is used, e.g. an interview, a presentation, a company report. <S> I sometimes will say "ain't", e.g. <S> "that ain't worth it" in informal contexts <S> but I don't think I would ever say "don't got". <A> American English doesn't have quite the divergent dialect issue that British English has, but it most certianly does have its own dialects. <S> What you generally hear from folks on TV is what is called Standard American English . <S> "Don't got" would indeed be fairly unusual in that dialect, and would fall oddly on a SAE listener's ears. <S> Features of AAVE are often found on USA TV shows (even coming from non-African Americans) to indicate that the speaker comes from a rough urban environment. <S> Here's what wikipedia says about AAVE and negation: <S> Negatives are formed differently from standard American English: <S> Use of ain't as a general negative indicator. <S> As in other dialects, it can be used where Standard English would use am not, isn't, aren't, haven't and hasn't. <S> However, in marked contrast to other varieties of English in the U.S., some speakers of AAVE also use ain't instead of don't, doesn't, or didn't (e.g., I ain't know that). <S> Ain't had its origins in common English, but became increasingly stigmatized since the 19th century. <S> See also amn't. <S> Negative concord, popularly called "double negation", as in I didn't go nowhere; if the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated. <S> This contrasts with Standard English, where a double negative is considered incorrect to mean anything other than a positive (although this wasn't always so; see double negative). <S> There is also "triple" or "multiple negation", as in the phrase I don't know nothing about no one no more (in Standard English <S> "I don't know anything about anyone anymore"). <S> In a negative construction, an indefinite pronoun such as nobody or nothing can be inverted with the negative verb particle for emphasis (e.g. Don't nobody know the answer, Ain't nothin' goin' on.) <S> Given the skewed demographics of the US prison population , I think you could expect to hear AAVE or some poor rural dialect spoken in a prison scene, and would not expect to hear SAE. <A> If your question is strictly how common it is used in daily conversation, I can tell you that it is very common, at least in the southern US. <S> As a high-school English teacher in this region, I can tell you that my students use it all the time, even in very formal writing. <S> They're so used to using it, <S> even my College Prep. <S> students have trouble remembering to use a more proper form in academic writing. <S> It's a huge headache for me! <A> I'd say the expression <S> I don't got... <S> is generally rare in spoken AmE. <S> I'd think <S> he/ <S> she <S> /it don't is even more uncommon in the general population. <S> However, there are probably geographic or socioeconomic regions where both expressions are common. <S> A COCA query yielded zero hits for don't got and 13 for don't have . <S> A final observation: If you really want to say I don't got... <S> then you probably want to add a double negative. <S> (ie <S> I don't got no money .) <S> I am sure there are lots of hicks who would say this daily. <A> I hear "I ain't got no money" much more often than "I don't got no money" but have heard both. <A> I've heard it more often when people are negating things. <S> E.g. — We've got history class next. <S> — <S> No we don't! <A> The correct negative answer to, "We've got history class next" is "No we haven't." <S> The only correct usage of 'don't' in such an answer would occur if the question was, "Do we have history class next?" <S> 'Ain't' is just a slang way of saying 'haven't' so the positive of "ain't got" would be "have got". <S> "Do got" and "don't got" are incorrect in English, though they appear to be acceptable in American.
| In standard English, I think "don't got" has the same register as "ain't". However, there are other dialects where that is quite common, most notably African American Vernacular English , along with those spoken by many poor rural white folks.
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How should I end sentences with a URL as the last word? For example, The website I was referring to is hosted at http://english.stackexchange.com . How should I place the fullstop at the end? <Q> This section does not formally form part of the URL specification . <S> URIs, including URLs, will ideally be transmitted though protocols which accept them and data formats which define a context for them. <S> However, in practice nowadays there are many occasions when URLs are included in plain ASCII non-marked-up text such as electronic mail and usenet news messages. <S> In this case, it is convenient to have a separate wrapper syntax to define delimiters which will enable the human or automated reader to recognize that the URI is a URI. <S> The recommendation is that the angle brackets (less than and greater than signs) of the ASCII set be used for this purpose. <S> These wrappers do not form part of the URL, are not mandatory, and should not be used in contexts (such as SGML parameters, HTTP requests, etc) in which delimiters are already specified. <S> Example <S> Yes, Jim, I found it under <ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/doc <S> > <S> but you can probably pick it up from <ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc <S> >. <A> I'd say there's nothing wrong with putting a full stop at the end. <S> The only thing I'd advise caution with is allowing the full stop to actually become part of a clickable link, as that may not work. <S> Bad: <S> The website I was referring to is hosted at http://english.stackexchange.com. <S> Good: <S> The website I was referring to is hosted at http://english.stackexchange.com . <S> Most things tend to do the right thing in these circumstances <S> so I'd say it is just something to be aware of. <S> From a grammatical (and aesthetic) point of view, the full-stop definitely ought to appear and shouldn't have a leading space. <S> In terms of just plain text, I'd say put the full stop there (since it does belong there) and assume that everyone knows not to actually try and type that in. <S> I could imagine almost anyone who's had any contact with the internet will know that sites end in something like .com <S> or .info , not .com. <S> or .info. <S> For email addresses (as opposed to URLs), I'd say the same thing applies: <S> My email address is bob@example.com. <A> Good question. <S> It depends on the medium: <S> If this is on a web page, and the URL is actually a link, there's no need to do anything: it will be clickable and do the right thing. <S> In formatted text, use a clearly distinct font for the URL, with clearly different punctuation characters. <S> In plain text, you could rewrite the sentence to avoid the problem, e.g.: <S> At <S> http://english.stackexchange.com <S> you can find the website I was referring to. <S> If this is not possible or desirable, you can put a space in front of the period to avoid confusion. <S> However, that could cause the period to move to the beginning of the next line, which is ugly. <S> Maybe the non-breaking space character could help, but it's hard to type and many computer programs don't handle it properly.
| If you follow this recommendation, the answer is easy: place the terminal punctuation after the closing angle bracket delimeter ‘>’. The official specification for Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) has a section titled “Wrappers for URIs in plain text” which recommends using angle brackets ‘<’ and ‘>’ for delimiting URLs when they appear in the context of a plain text message:
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Is there a more modern way to say "it's a pity"? Is it okay nowadays to use the phrase "it's a pity" in the everyday conversation in the contexts like in following example: "Please how do I get to airport?" "It's a pity, I don't know." If not, what would be an appropriate equivalent? Edited (added): As it follows from answers, this phrase is almost never used by native English speakers. Could you please specify how this phrase sounds for native speaker - as too formal or as archaic or anything else? <Q> I'd prefer "unfortunately" instead of "it's a pity". <A> I normally say I am sorry . <S> The only case where I would use pity is in for pity's sake . <S> (See the first example of phrases containing pity .) <A> Certainly "I don't know, I'm afraid" <S> is more common in England today. <S> In this particular context, referring to yourself, I would say it sounds more archaic than formal. <S> "It's a shame" would often be used in other circumstances, e.g. "It's a shame the weather spoiled the event. <S> " Today "it's a pity" would be more commonly used in such a circumstance. <A> The more common usage in my part of Texas would be <S> "I'm sorry, I don't know," because it is a "simple" problem; whereas "It's a pity," "Sadly," or even "Alas," would be for situations where the problem more profound (such as you have to pick up the president, pope, or mother-in-law). <A> "It's a pity" is slightly old-fashioned, but I do hear it used from time to time. <S> It's a pity that he didn't spell-check his letter to the editor. <S> It's a pity that we didn't drive a stake through the vampire's heart when we had the chance. <S> It can imply a slight amount of sympathy, condescension, or (yes) pity on the part of the speaker. <A> It's a pity isn't quite worn out yet, but using Pity! <S> as a complete sentence is distinctively "Britishy". <S> What is old-fashioned is to use the 'tis contraction instead of <S> it is : `tis a pity! <S> The word pity is both a verb and noun. <S> Should the public pity Lance Armstrong? <S> It is an important word in the English language for which there is no equally glib substitute. <S> Feel sorry for <S> is three words which can be expressed by one. <S> In North America, the expression too bad is often used rather than <S> it's a pity . <S> For instance, rather than it's a pity you aren't able to attend <S> becomes <S> too bad you aren't able to attend . <S> Not all uses of one phrase substitute for the other. <S> Too bad! <S> by itself also means although you don't like it <S> , you should stop complaining and accept the situation (also expressed by phrases like tough luck! <S> , suck it up! <S> or deal with it! ) <S> whereas it's a pity <S> has no such use. <S> It's a pity (that I don't know how to get to the airport) <S> isn't a usage you will likely hear from a native speakers because it expresses an irrational degree of regret over something trivial. <S> It sounds as if the speaker missed some past opportunity to learn how to get to the airport, and for some reason it is regretfully too late to acquire that knowledge. <S> The "Britishy" Pity! <S> , however, can be used for lamenting trivial annoyances, similarly to words like darn , shucks , drats and so on. <S> A: I'm afraid we're out of tea, darling. <S> B: Pity! <A> Before I came to Germany from America, I never said "It's a pity. <S> " I would say, " It's too bad. " <S> But "it's a pity" must have been published in some basic vocabulary book here because almost all German speakers who speak English say, "It's a pity". <S> I imagine it's British originally. <A> I have been looking for a good alternative to pity and a shame , as they are both quite 'pityful' expressions. <S> "I am sorry" (if you take it literally) is as pityful if not more as pity and shame , because the person saying it identifies themself with being in a sorry state! <S> I like the suggestion given earlier on this page. <S> The most neutral expression to replace <S> "it's a pity" or "that's a shame" would be <S> "that's unfortunate". <S> There's no drama in it — it's just an observation. <A> I prefer "I'm afraid" or, if I'm feeling quirky, "Alas!" <A> <A> Pardon me <S> "Please how do I get to airport?" <S> "Pardon me, I don't know." <S> https://www.google.com/search?q=%22pardon+me+i+don%27t+know%22
| To me, the best alternatives would be "I am sorry ..." or "unfortunately ..."
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Is it correct to use 'Forgot password' or 'Forgotten password' Many websites use the phrase 'Forgot password?' when prompting users to renew their login passwords. Is this correct usage or should it be 'Forgotten password?'. <Q> Awesome question. <S> Forgot password? <S> This is short for "You forgot your password?" <S> which is simple past which specifies something that happened at a specific time in the past , <S> namely, right when you came to the site, it was then that you "realized you forgot your password". <S> Forgotten password? <S> This is short for "Have you forgotten your password?" <S> which is present perfect which means starting at some point in the past and continuing up to and including the present . <S> But it sounds odd since the question is really asking, "Did you just try to remember your password and you forgot it at that moment?" <S> So my vote is for " Forgot your password? <A> Both are acceptable depending on the context. <S> "Forgot password" could simply be an informal (shortened) way of saying "I forgot my password. <S> " We commonly miss out pronouns to be succinct. <S> In this case, the words form a statement . <S> Similarly, "Forgot password" could be a shortened form of the question " <S> Have you forgotten your password?". <S> Here, the words form a noun phrase . <A> The past participle of to forget is forgotten or forgot , in the same way <S> the past participle of to get is gotten or got . <S> In my experience, forgotten as in forgotten password is seen as an adjective; Forgot password? <S> is understood as Have you forgot your password? <A> Yep! <S> By itself, without other context, ("forgotten password"), I'd be reading "forgotten" as a participle (a verb form used as an adjective, describing the noun "password"). <S> reference: more participle info. <S> In a different context ("Have you forgotten your password?"), the same word becomes part of the verb phrase ("have forgotten"), which tells what the "you" did. <S> No longer does it describe "password"; now "Have...forgotten" is the verb (what you did), and "password" is the direct object of that verb (the thing you forgot). <S> reference: more direct object info. <A> It is not wrong to use "Forgot Password" but there must be a question mark at the end. <S> So the correct form is one of the following. <S> Forgot password? <S> Forgot your password? <S> Google, for example, does it correctly.
| "Forgotten password" uses the gerundive ( Attributive Verb ), and thus is also perfectly fine, in that the page is directing the user to their forgotten password. So technically the second is correct if you are describing the psychological act of forgetting.
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Why am I always compelled to begin a response with "Well, "? Because of a certain 140 character limit I've learned where I can trim characters on responses but even after all this time I still reply with "Well, so and so . . ." and I go back and have to delete it (even on comments to this site I start with well and then delete it). Is it because that's generally how I would speak a response and I should watch out there too or is this just me? <Q> Well, it is a context marker, showing that you are launching a story. <S> Examples of context: "Did you do your homework today?", "Yes" is an acknowledgment of dialog. <S> "Did you do your homework today?", "Well, yes" means you want to shift to a story. <S> "Did you do your homework today?", "Uh, yes", another context marker, means that your answer is unofficial, off-the-record, or unverifiable. <A> "Well" is not necessarily a needless word. <S> It's a discourse marker. <S> Wikipedia on discourse markers. <A> Because it gives you time to think. <S> Another common strategy is to prefix your response with: <S> That's a good question, ... <S> Yes, we often write like we speak. <S> It will always polish your English if you go back again and do as Strunk and White recommend: " Omit needless words. " <A> It's kind of funny to see you asking us what you are thinking. <S> My second guess would be that the information in question is something along the lines of "The words that follow are just musings off the top of my head on the issue you (the other party to which you are responding) just brought up. <S> " <S> Without the "Well" it could be taken as some kind of prepared or dogmatic statement, and/or might not nessecarily relate in any way to the previous statement <S> you actually want it related to.
| My guess would be that you keep doing it because you innately feel like that word actually does impart some important information.
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How can I practice differentiating between the "æ" and "ɛ" sounds in English phonology? For a non-native English speaker like me, it's always been hard to sound æ and ɛ differently. For example, "salary" and "celery" are two words that I tend to pronounce identically. Is it OK to go on like this or should I practice to get it right? <Q> Here is a typical English vowel chart: As you can see, /æ/ <S> and /ɛ/ are quite close to each other, and so have quite a similar sound. <S> The difference is in the degree of openness: /æ/ is “near-open” and /ɛ/ is “open-mid”. <S> If you want to make a clear distinction between the two, you need to practice, practice, practice. <S> When I was learning phonetics, I found the best practice was to try to make long continuous vowels that go along the axes, like /iiiiiiiieeeeeeeeɛɛɛɛɛɛɛɛææææææææaaaaaaaa/. <S> Once I was able to master making the entire continuum, it became easier to find individual points along the continuum. <A> As I don't know Turkish, so I'm afraid I can't give you examples of pronunciation in your native language, but this may still help: salary: SAH - lah - ree <S> celery: <S> CELL - lair - ree <A> Celery e as in evetSalary as the e in lütfen <S> You could pronounce salary just as if it were a Turkish word as well. <A> The /æ/ sound (which in American English is the sound present in words like cat , gap , fan , man ) is pronounced by dropping your jaw down as if you were going to say [ä]; then from that position try saying /ɛ/. <A> @Mehper C. Palavuzlar <S> I know most people don't even realize a simple fact that for most British people [æ] is quite a foreign sound. <S> In the Midlands, Northern Britain, Scotland, Wales, Ulster and Ireland [a] is the most usual, typical realization of [æ]. <S> The same is true for both Canadian and Caribbean dialects &/or accents. <A> The most dictionaries I consulted show that the first e in celery is IPA e (seləri). <S> Read what the important phonetician Daniel Jones said about æ <S> The correct sound of æ can generally be obtained by remembering that æ must have a sound intermediate in quality between ɛ and a . <S> In practising the sound, the mouth should be kept very wide open. <S> The sound may be obtained by imitating the baaing of a sheep which is very like ˈbæː . <S> Those who are unable to obtain the exact quality by practising such exercises should note that it is better to err on the side of <S> a rather than on the side of ɛ <S> (my emphasis) . <S> a is actually used for æ in some parts of the North of England. <S> (Note 401 in this book ). <S> I also noticed the emphasized part from my own experience with words such as happy and laptop . <A> You might subscribe to a podcast located at speakmoreclearly.com which offers phonological analysis and pronunciation practice of English accents (British, American and Australian). <S> Repeated practice on this sentence will do wonders: 'Yet another white man doomed to rot under the tropic sun!'
| The easiest thing you can do in keeping the difference between [ɛ] and [æ]is to pronounce every [æ] like [a].
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Does the phrase "fine with me" have a negative connotation? I have always thought that you could answer "it's ok with me" or "it's fine with me" when you agree with something that somebody proposed, like a meeting time. But apparently the phrase can have a negative connotation. According to this Urban Dictionary it means: I could care less. Usually used when someone is being overly dramatic and is explaining the extreme action they are planning to do in response to a situation that they think you should care a lot about, but still somehow you don't similar to "that's just fine with me" Since I wasn't sure if this source was reliable, I googled it and apparently the definition is correct: "We made our play, and I came out on top. Okay? Now, if you want to start the game up again, that's fine with me ." The Italian Job (film) "I'd never have a hookup but if that's what someone is into, fine with me ." Comment on a blog post Can I be misinterpreted when I say "it's fine with me" meaning that I agree with the proposal? My concern is that it can be understood as "ok, i don't really care." <Q> It can simply represent a casual way of voicing agreement, but if you're not careful, quite easily apathy. <A> Good question. <S> The meaning of "fine with me" can indeed go either way, depending on how you say it and the context. <S> As a rule though, just saying Fine with me. <S> as an answer to a question without any other niceties surrounding it could often and easily be construed as a bit defensive and aggressive. <S> My advice would be, if you use it, always "pad it with politeness." <A> In your example from the Italian Job, I bet the speaker would be happy to start the game up again. <S> Probably they think they will come out on top again. <S> It the second example, I bet the author really doesn't have a problem with other people having a hookup. <S> So in both cases the speaker isn't necessarily showing opposition or disinterest.
| It very much depends on the tone of voice with which this is said. It is very unlikely in the context you've given that you will be misinterpreted when you say "it's fine with me" meaning that you agree with a proposal.
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Is the line blurring between "accent" and "dialect"? The definition that I have had in my head for most of my life is: dialect : a variation of the original language (usually regional), sometimes even using different vocabulary and grammar accent : a discernible influence of another language (usually because the speaker is not talking in his native tongue) Yet, I keep hearing about Southern, Scottish or New York accents...shouldn't these be more accurately called "dialects"? I could see that the answer might not be as clear cut in the US as in the UK because there are probably far more "native" American speakers whose ancestors' native language was not English... Disclaimer: I'm German myself and I'm more or less assuming that "accent" and "dialect" directly correspond to their German "lookalikes": "Akzent" and "Dialekt". Maybe the semantics of those two words are simply different in English? If so, feel free to close this question. <Q> I would say they are related (and often go hand-in-hand) but are separate things. <S> For example (bad example but the only thing I could think of), some people from more northern regions of the UK might consume a barm . <S> However, me with my southern origins would most likely be eating a 'bap' or a 'roll' instead. <S> I would describe an accent as differences in the actual sounds produced when pronouncing words ("tow-may-tow" vs "tow-mar-tow"). <S> It would be perfectly possible for me to speak a more northern dialect (referring to barms and other typically northern terms) but I would still maintain my normal southern accent. <S> The reverse would be true of someone from the north. <S> I hope that makes sense...? <A> I've often read the definition that different dialects vary in what they say (truck vs. lory, football vs. soccer, etc.) <S> where, on the other hand, different accents vary in the way a specific word is pronounced (rothic vs. non-rhotic). <A> One could speak what one might term "Standard American English" with a Southern accent, or speak the Southern dialect with a Scottish accent, the accent influencing the pronunciation of the dialect. <S> I tend to think of dialect as a difference in language that might produce a difficulty in understanding between two speakers due to the differing vocabulary or grammar. <A> In Scotland, they have adopted Gaelic words such as "Craig" (rock), "Ben" (hill), "Glen" (Valley) and "Firth" (fjord or inlet). <S> There are others, of course. <S> Does that make Scottish and English dialect? <S> Well, I think in the case of Scotland, maybe. <S> It's probably one of the more difficult to understand "accents" and it's perhaps different enough to be considered a dialect. <S> The thing about dialects is that they're usually different enough in vocabulary to be very difficult to understand for speakers of the Standard language (most spoken variety). <S> I don't think you could call most North American accents dialects unto themselves(Texas, California, Boston, New York), as they don't differ enough in vocabulary from each other. <S> It also depends on what you're basing the dialect... <S> more English speakers around the planet use "North American" English, so if we use that as a base, the Queen's English may be considered a dialect. <S> It's all how you look at it, I guess. <S> OTOH, Japanese has quite a few 弁 "Ben" which are considered dialects. <S> They used different grammar-endings and are at times hard to understand. <S> The word "ben" is translated as "dialect" although apart from a few cases, like in Aomori, most people can understand what's being said. <A> A dialect, as rightly pointed out by Splash, is a regional variation of a language. <S> Accent difference is only one aspect of dialect. <S> Dialects differ from each other not merely in pronunciation or accent, but also in vocabulary, spelling and even grammar. <S> For eg. <S> British and American English are two different dialects of English that differ not only in pronunciation (eg. 'schedule'), but also spelling (eg.fulfil vs fulfill) and grammar (eg. ' <S> different from' vs. 'different than').
| I would describe a dialect as a regional variation on a language which is differentiated from others by the use of different words (or words in different contexts).
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What is a word called that has more than one syllable? You can say e.g.: The word "on" is a monosyllable. but it seems that the word " multisyllable " has been outdated since 1913 . What is the correct term for a word that has two or more syllables, e.g. "The word "beautiful" is a _________. <Q> poly is usually opposite to mono : <S> polysyllable beautiful is a polysyllabic word. <S> (not sure about this usage) <A> I believe you would say it is a multisyllabic word . <S> According to WordNet , "polysyllable" means a word having more than three syllables, so it is not correct for the general case. <A> It is called "Polysyllable". <A> "Polysyllabic" is an adjective used, e.g. for "polysyllabic humour", where, for example, instead of saying "coca cola" one says "an ebony coloured, effervescent beverage of the drinkable kind, flavoured with the frutiferous bounties of the cola plant" or something. <S> This kind of "humour" was used by O. Henry etc. <S> But for common usage, I have not heard the word "polysyllable" on its own and I would use "polysyllabic word" or "word with more than one syllable". <A> I don't know clearly how goes in english, but the origin is commonly latin/greek <S> so you should stick with it: <S> 1 Syllable - Mono (one-unique) <S> Syllable 2 Syllable <S> - Di (Bi-Duo-two) <S> Syllable 3 Syllable - Tri (tres-three) <S> Syllable 4 <S> Syllable - Tetra (cuatro-four) Syllable 5 Syllable - Penta (five) Syllable Hexa-Hepta-Octo-Nono-Deca, etc. <S> As in Polygamy (many couples)As in Polygon (many sides)
| More than one - Poly (many) Syllable
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Difference between "due to" and "thanks to" When should "due to" be preferred over "thanks to", and vice versa? When can they be used interchangeably? <Q> Due to is more neutral - it can have both a negative and a positive connotation. <S> We postponed our vacation plans due to the oil spill. <S> It was due to Dwight's efforts that this question was asked. <S> It was thanks to Dwight's efforts that this question was asked. <A> Due to: as a result of Thanks to: with the help of <A> The meaning difference has already been covered, but I think it’s worth pointing out that there is also a syntactical difference — <S> the words due and thanks are not interchangeable, even in contexts where to do so would not affect the meaning. <S> Consider that, to replace due with thanks <S> , this: <S> We postponed our vacation plans due to the oil spill. <S> would usually be rephrased as this: <S> Our vacation was postponed thanks to the oil spill. <S> Although in the second case, due could be substituted. <S> This is because due can also be interpreted as because , which can be taken as a motivator for personal action, while thanks cannot. <S> It does not make sense to say that I did X thanks to Y , although it would <S> if you were to say X was done thanks to Y . <S> Unless you are using a verb that implies an ability to act, rather than an action itself. <S> Having said all that, this is such an incredibly subtle distinction that I would not be surprised to discover that it varies by country, or even more finely, but to the best of my knowledge this is how they are — or should be — used. <A> It seems to me that thanks to is always used if the reason (i.e., the text after the thanks to ) is of a positive nature and the result is positive too, whereas with due to the reason is typically of a negative nature and the result as well. <S> Mismatches indicate a deeper meaning, usually with some irony: <S> Thanks to the beautiful weather we had a splendid day. <S> ( OK ) <S> Thanks to the awful weather <S> we were completely exhausted. <S> ( Not OK ) <S> Due to my car accident I was late at the meeting. <S> ( OK ) <S> Due to winning the contract John was promoted. <S> ( Not OK )
| Thanks to has a positive connotation (unless used sarcastically).
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Is "prepone" being used outside India? Prepone is a great word - it's the opposite of postpone . When you prepone a meeting, you change its scheduled time so that it occurs sooner than originally planned. Has his usage spread beyond India? Would other English speakers understand it? <Q> There is exactly one incidence for prepone in the Corpus of Contemporary American English , from this Christian Science Monitor article , which reads: IN India, people created the word “prepone” as the obvious opposite of postpone. <S> On the Internet, a form of cyber-English has sprouted with such words as “net-surfing.” <S> (I hope it surprises no one that this citation is from 1995—eons ago in Internet time). <S> More recently, in 2008 the Monitor published this article discussing prepone in much more detail . <S> So it does not appear that prepone has much currency outside of India. <S> I have heard it in my day-to-day business on occasion here in the United States in the software development industry—from my colleagues from India. <A> The New Oxford American Dictionary <S> I had on my Mac Mini <S> didn't report prepone as an existing word. <S> The Oxford Living Dictionaries says that the meaning of prepone is: [Indian] bring (something) forward to an earlier date or time. <S> One of the examples it shows is the following. <S> The publication date has been preponed from July to June. <S> It also says its origin is early 20th century. <A> OED explains that the etymology is from the classical Latin word praepōnere : pre - and pōnere - to place <S> This gives the word its (now) obsolete meaning of to place in front of or to set before .The later use of this word to refer almost exclusively to placements in time <S> is said to be most frequent in Indian English. <S> Thus contrary to popular belief it is not an Indian neologism but has Latin roots similar to the well known antonym.
| Wiktionary also reports it is only used in India (or that is chiefly from that country).
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Are there cases where a possessive pronoun is omitted? Are there cases where the possessive adjective is omitted in a sentence, or is it always used? For example, in a sentence like "Susan was walking with her hands in her pockets", is it necessary to say "her hands", and "her pockets"? In Italian, we don't say whose hands, or whose pockets if not in a sentence like "Susan was walking with her hands in Michael's pockets". I was wondering if the use of the possessive adjective is strictly necessary in cases like these. <Q> In English, we tend to really strongly favor attributing the possessor of body parts. <S> (Why? <S> It's hard to point to a real reason.) <S> In any case, I find it interesting that there is a certain construction where we can often get around using the possessive for body parts. <S> We have the following pattern (preceding question mark = awkward at best): <S> John shook his head. / ? <S> John shook the head. <S> I am having some pain in my eyes. / ? <S> I am having some pain in the eyes. <S> I need to blow my nose. / ? <S> I need to blow the nose. <S> But with the following construction, we don't need the possessive: <S> John whacked me on the head . <S> I looked him in the eyes . <S> She kissed her boyfriend on the nose . <A> To me, it feels a bit unusual to say ? <S> " Susan was walking with hands in pockets ", but " Susan was walking, hands in pockets. " seems perfectly fine. <S> For someone learning English, it is probably better to keep them in, as it reduces ambiguity. <S> But yes, English does have a huge trend of clarifying many statements which could be perfectly clear from the context. <S> But it's not a rule which must always be followed. <S> Another example: " The matron was standing there, staring at me, hands on her hips. <S> " <S> Could be written as " The matron was standing there, staring, hands on hips. " <S> Whose hips her hands are on, is very obvious. <S> Who she is staring at would have to be garned from context (i.e. the prior sentences). <S> So no, the possessive adjective is not strictly necessary, but until you intuitively understand when and where they can be dropped while retaining meaning, it is probably better to keep using them. <S> But by all means, experiment. <A> The substitution of the definite article for the possessive pronoun is not grammatical in English as it in Spanish and presumably Italian. <S> That is, you can’t say “Susan was walking with the hands in the pockets”. <S> As Vincent McNabb points out in his answer, you can in some cases use a zero article—“Susan was walking with hands in pockets”—but <S> this has a kind of breezy or poetic feel to it. <S> It is not really a neutral, unmarked way to say it equivalent to “Susan was walking with her hands in her pockets”. <A> Sure. <S> I think this sentence works either way. <S> Suzy didn't eat her breakfast today. <S> Suzy didn't eat breakfast today. <A> Most religions advise (their) adherents to avoid self-destructive behavior. <S> Hotels often offer room-service for (their) guests. <S> The museum charges (its) visitors for using the toilet facilities.
| English speaking people drop possessive adjectives and other pronouns all the time in their speech, but are much less likely to do so when writing things down. If Italian is like Spanish, then in cases where you don’t specify whose hands or whose pockets, as in the example in the question, you use the ordinary definite article in lieu of the possessive pronoun (the equivalent of the hands and the pockets ).
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Is "yay or nay" an acceptable alternative to "yea or nay"? Is "yay or nay" an acceptable alternative to "yea or nay"? I have seen it several times in recent weeks, enough to make me wonder whether it is an emerging usage or just a common typo. <Q> The words yea and yay are homophones, meaning they are pronounced the same. <S> Yea is a somewhat specialized word (“ yes—used in oral voting ”) most often used in a spoken context, so I would expect that many people would not realize there are two spellings for two different meanings. <S> Using the spelling <S> yay for yea is therefore an eggcorn . <S> Here's a discussion of it at the Eggcorn Database forum . <S> There were no examples of yay being used for yea at the Corpus of Contemporary American English , so it doesn't seem to be an emerging usage that is getting into the kinds of edited texts used to populate that corpus. <S> On the other hand, there are plenty of Google results , including some on major, presumably professionally-edited sites, like ABC News and New York Magazine . <S> Interestingly, a large portion of the top Google results were related to fashion. <S> How embarrassing for them: anyone who knows that there are two spellings for the two words would instantly identify yay for yea as an error. <S> Even the normally quite liberal and descriptivist Merriam-Webster dictionary has no entry at all for ‘yay’. <S> So, yes, it does appear that this substitution is an emerging usage, but no authorities at all countenance it just yet, and given that there is an unimpeachable substitute, I don’t recommend that anyone use it. <A> I've never seen that spelling of "yea" in that context. <S> I wouldn't use it personally - <S> it looks too much like the exclamative. <A> I see this ("yay" instead of "yea") everywhere these days! <S> I think many younger folks have never encountered "yea" and associate the term "yay!" <S> with "hooray!"--so they assume it's the spelling that should be used with an affirmative expression.
| Only Collins English Dictionary has an entry for yay , and it’s only for the exclamatory sense.
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What is the correct pronunciation of "Caribbean"? Sometimes I hear the emphasis placed on the second syllable, and other times on the second to last syllable. I myself use both pronunciations depending on context, and it makes me wonder if there is an underlying rule that I can't quite put my finger on. <Q> The two pronunciations of Caribbean <S> I know of are mentioned in Wikipedia : <S> /kærɨˈbiːən/ (ka-rih-BEE-uhn) <S> /kəˈrɪbiən/ (kuh-RIB-ee-uhn) <S> Pirates of the Caribbean - uses #1 Royal Caribbean - uses #2 <S> I personally make a sort of generalization from this and use #1 for the noun usage and #2 for the adjective usage, but there is no reason anyone else should use this rule unless they like it. <S> Most people probably just stick to one preferred pronunciation. <S> Billy Ocean uses #1 in his song “Caribbean Queen”, as does Bob Dylan in his song “Caribbean Wind”. <A> In the UK, the stress is usually on the second to last syllable, cariBBEan. <S> I have heard North Americans say "caRIBbean" and "cariBBEan". <S> I think the first one is more common in the USA. <S> Which one is correct? <S> That is one of those "poteyto/potahto" questions. <A> Judy GarlandMack <S> The Black ('The Pirate', 1948) <S> "There's a pirate, known to fameBlack Macocco was the Pirate's nameIn his day, the tops was heRound the CaribBEan or CaRIBbean Sea" <S> So unless you disagree with Judy Garland, either's possible. <S> Case closed, I think. <A> It's not about how Americans or Brits pronounce it, people in the West Indies say cariBBEan. <S> They live there, how can anyone argue with that?
| Both are standard; however, there are a couple proper nouns containing the word Caribbean that have a fixed pronunciation:
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What does Maugham mean by "his spaghetti were"? Possible Duplicate: Was the usage "Spaghetti were" ever acceptable or common? [Following up from, but not a duplicate of, this question by another user, which was unresolved…] Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence contains an unusual (perhaps even unique) usage of English that I'm hoping some native speaker can shed light on. Here is the sentence in bold, with some surrounding sentences for context. Dirk Stroeve has previously been described as "a painter, but a very bad one". The narrator says: In the evenings I went to see my friends. I looked in often on the Stroeves, and sometimes shared their modest fare. Dirk Stroeve flattered himself on his skill in cooking Italian dishes, and I confess that his spaghetti were very much better than his pictures. It was a dinner for a King when he brought in a huge dish of it, succulent with tomatoes, and we ate it together with the good household bread and a bottle of red wine. I grew more intimate with Blanche Stroeve… Since spaghetti is (almost?) always used in English in the singular as an uncountable (mass) noun, this is unusual. What is the right interpretation of this sentence? "His spaghetti" is parallel to "his omelettes". That is, it refers to the many occasions he cooked spaghetti, and means something like "his spaghetti dishes were better than his pictures". (The OED entry for 'spaghetti' has "1. a. A variety of pasta made in long thin strings. Occas., a dish of spaghetti." ) As in the original Italian usage , "spaghetti" in the plural here refers to multiple strands of spaghetti or pieces of spaghetti. Something else. (I am partial to (1.) myself, but this interpretation was described by another user as "unlikely" and "completely absurd", so I'm trying to know for sure.) <Q> I'm pretty sure it's number two. <S> After all, Spaghetti is an italian plural, no matter what us italian-cuisine-importing countries make of it :) <S> A similar case is Zucchini . <S> It is the plural form of La Zucchina . <A> Maugham answers the question himself in his next sentence. <S> He means the first alternative: his spaghetti dishes were much better than his pictures. <S> Consider the full passage: <S> Dirk Stroeve flattered himself on his skill in cooking Italian dishes, and I confess that his spaghetti were very much better than his pictures. <S> It was a dinner for a King when he brought in a huge dish of it, succulent with tomatoes, and we ate it together with the good household bread and a bottle of red wine. <S> If Maugham had meant strands of spaghetti, he would have said "and we ate them together .... <S> " <S> Consider the following passage, where I have replaced spaghetti with soup. <S> Dirk Stroeve flattered himself on his skill in cooking liquid dishes, and I confess that his soups were very much better than his pictures. <S> It was a dinner for a King when he brought in a huge bowl of it, succulent with tomatoes, and we ate it together with the good household bread and a bottle of red wine. <S> It makes perfect sense for the first occurrence to be soups were and then to use the pronoun it to refer back to soup. <A> I find it difficult to extract a precise meaning from the sentence, assuming that was is written is written correctly. <S> his spaghetti were (plural) <S> brought in a huge dish of it <S> (singular) <S> we ate it (singular) <S> To me the sentence's meaning only works as <S> I confess that his spaghetti was very much better than his pictures. <A> I think it is highly unlikely that either 1 or 2 is correct. <S> I think Maugham has made an uncommon[1] choice to make spaghetti plural. <S> Or if you think the speaker is expressing an opinion, he could be using the subjunctive. <S> [1] COCA & BNC searches yield no such usage. <A> I don't think this is especially complicated. <S> The phrase "his spaghetti were..." contains an ellipsis, or perhaps synecdoche. <S> More fully he means "his spaghetti meals were..." <S> With such a ellipsis you would normally use a plural word, which would arguably be: "his spaghettis were..." but he chose to simply use the Italian plural instead. <S> Plurals moving from one language to another are often a subtle and arguable thing, and sometimes I think some skilled users of English are rather to pedantic about it. <S> For example, it is not uncommon to hear phrases like "the data are", rather than "the data is". <S> In some translations of the Bible you see the plural of Cherub and Seraph given as "cherubims and seraphims", which use both an Hebrew and English plural. <S> And it parallels the old argument over whether a single cube is a dice or a die. <S> My opinion is that both are right, though I think that spaghetti is now sufficiently incorporated into the language that spaghettis would be more appropriate. <S> It is worth pointing out that the passage was written nearly 100 years ago, and perhaps spaghetti was much less common a word in English at that time, and the Italian form might have been more appropriate at that time. <S> I'd say spaghetti is commonly used as a mass noun, but it is hardly unprecedented for a mass noun to have a plural too. <S> Fish and fruit are both mass nouns, but fishes and fruits are both perfectly acceptable, if subtly different in meaning.
| Maugham is using spaghetti as the plural of spaghetti, which I think is quite natural, although I suspect that spaghettis is the more common plural.
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"Toy for your kid" or "Toy for your kids" as you don't know how many kids they have? Say you are a toy shop owner, who wants a slogan. <Q> Unless you were planning to give just one toy per set of siblings, I would say "toy for your kid" as it would imply one toy per child. <A> Child / children is usually the more formal/correct term. <S> But for a slogan, the slang "kid(s)" is fine. <S> To answer your question, it depends on the context. <S> If you're advertising that you have toys for people's kids. <S> For a slogan: Come to the Toy Box, home of the best Toys for your kids <S> The plural case is always better and more generic. <S> If you have a promotion: Come in today and buy a new toy for your kid is fine. <A>
| "Here's a toy for your offspring." Use a word that is the same for plural and singular.
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What is the plural form of "status"? What is the plural form of "status"? <Q> There are some situations where status may be considered countable. <S> In those cases, the plural form can be used as statuses . <S> MacMillan dictionary gives 4 definitions for status , and 3 of them are referred to as countable. <S> Personally, I would use status as the plural form instead of statuses . <A> In Latin, the nominative plural of status as a 4th declension noun is statūs . <S> This would be uncomfortable in English, and so the English plural is statuses . <S> The Latin adjective has a different masculine nominative plural of statī , but then means something more like the English static . <A> I see that I've very late to answer. <S> I usually try to avoid the use of "status" as a plural, instead option to use the near-synonym " state ". <S> Take for example these three attempts at pluralizing "status", all of which I've seen coworkers using: <S> The product should support the following statuses: Red Green Blue <S> The product should support the following status: Red Green Blue <S> The product should support the following statii: Red Green Blue <S> None of those sound natural, and one is objectively wrong . <S> The issue is sidestepped by substituting "states": <S> The product should support the following states: Red Green Blue <A> Many moons ago, our own tchrist wrote * … <S> [ i.e. , statūs] and pronounced “statoose”. <S> That’s because status comes from the Latin declension that forms plurals according to that particular rule, which incidentally is just like the plurals of apparatus and prospectus, but unlike the plural of words like radius, which becomes radii because it’s from a different declension, and also unlike genus and corpus, which go to genera and corpora respectively because they are from still another declension. <S> And please don’t ask me about octopus, since it’s <S> Greek not Latin, <S> and we do not care to offend any sensitive octopedal feelings. :-) <S> Wouldn’t it be much easier to simply s/$/es/ ? <S> A word to the wise: don’t use fancy forms out of yesteryear unless you really REALLY do know how they work(ed). <S> It just sounds silly. <S> * Message-ID: <S> <5g2fu0$jve$1@csnews.cs.colorado.edu <S> > in comp.lang.perl.misc, March 11, 1997. <A> I always though that status should not be used as plural, but I notice that statuses is reported from the CoCA in sentences like: <S> Young people across a wide range of socio-economic statuses increasingly value choosing their own spouses, and individual choice [...]. <S> [...], but those with higher threat statuses need even more conservation. <S> Certain references were also made about specific types of sexual activity including individuals' virginity statuses. <S> Statuses is used in academic context, with a frequency of 192 (compared with a frequency of 3 and 4 in magazines and newspapers). <A> Usually "statuses", but some people use "status" As others have mentioned <S> , there are several possible plural forms of status . <S> statuses, regularly formed using the English plural suffix -(e)s. <S> This is listed in various dictionaries e.g. <S> Collins English Dictionary , Merriam Webster . <S> status, taken from Latin. <S> This is listed in a few dictionaries e.g. the Oxford English Dictionary (which actually gives three forms): <S> Pl. <S> ( rare ) status /ˈsteɪtjuːs/, (now usu.) <S> statuses <S> /ˈsteɪtəsɪz/, ( rare ) statusses /ˈsteɪtəsɪz/. <S> It’s not objectively better to use the Latinate plural form, or to try to pronounce it similarly to the way the Romans did. <S> Status has been an English word, not just a Latin word, for a long time now. <S> Latinate plurals ending in -us are rarely used in English, and in fact, several usage guides say the English form -uses is generally preferable. <S> The original Dictionary of Modern English Usage by H.W. Fowler, 1926 (as reproduced in the new 2009 edition) says in the entry for "-us": <S> Many [words ending in "-us"] are from Latin fourth-declension words, whose Latin plural is -us (pronounced ūs); but the English plural -uses <S> is almost always preferred, as in prospectuses. <S> The contemporary usage guide writer Bryan Garner wrote the following passage: nexus. <S> The acceptable plural forms are nexuses <S> (English) and nexus <S> (Latin). <S> Naturally, the English form is preferable <S> —e.g. <S> : "The nexuses of activity for both rooms are the counters where the marijuana is dispensed." <S> Glenn Martin, "The Tokin' Joint," S.F. Chron., 24 Aug. 1997, at Z1. <S> Some writers have betrayed their ignorance of Latin by writing * nexi, as if it were a second-declension noun. <S> To me, it seems simpler to just go with the regular English plural statuses, <S> but if you prefer to use the Latinate plural status for whatever reason, you’ll have to make some additional choices about pronunciation (it doesn't seem obvious to me how to pronounce it ). <S> Words that inflect similarly Some other English words that inflected in the same way as status in Latin are apparatus, coitus, fetus, flatus, hiatus, impetus, meatus, nexus. <A> I see some references to status as uncountable as well, but that doesn't make much sense to me. <S> I've always used statii, apparently incorrectly: <S> Merriam-Webster, at least, calls for "statuses"
| If for some bizarre reason you simply cannot bring yourself to use the normal English plural form “statuses”, then you must learn that the true plural of status is statUs, with a macro[n] over the u
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When to use 'an' and when to use 'a' with words begining with 'h'? Some h-words need 'an' for the indefinite article (I will be there in an hour). Other h-words need 'a' for the indefinite article (It is a history of sadness). Is there a general rule? <Q> If it is silent, use "an". <S> This is in keeping with the general rule, which is to use "an" for words beginning with a vowel sound. <A> If a word begins with a vowel sound , then the indefinite article to use is an . <S> If a word begins with a consonant sound , then the indefinite article to use is a . <S> There is a singular exception: If a word begins with an H sound and the first syllable of the word is unstressed, then you can use either an or a . <S> Traditional rules says you must use an , but there is so much ignorance of this exception that you will find a is much more common in this case. <S> For example, in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, there are 1956 incidences of a <S> historical but only 415 incidences of an historical . <S> However, using an here is also unimpeachably correct. <A> With some words it has to do with the French connection. <S> The French don't pronounce hard 'H's. <S> So words like Herbal are pronounced 'erbal, leading to a glottal stop if 'a' is used. <S> That's why historically words like hospital and hotel have used 'an'. <S> Written English would therefore use 'an'. <S> In spoken English it depends entirely on whether or not you pronounce the 'H'.
| If the "h" is pronounced, use "a".
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How should I ask for a bill in a restaurant politely? I used to say check please , but my English teacher said that it's wrong, and the proper way is to say something like bill please. What's the truth? <Q> The most polite ways are probably: "May we have the bill/check, please?" <S> "Could we have the bill/check, please?" <S> "Could we get the bill/check, please? <S> This has the meaning... <S> "Is it possible for you to give us the bill, as we're ready to leave and wish to pay" Alternatively, when the server comes by and asks if you'd like anything else, a polite response would be: " <S> No thanks, just the bill, please" "Excuse me, Bill/check please" is casual and perhaps fine in casual situations, but it's still a little curt. <S> You can't go wrong with a full sentence question. <S> Note, in Canada, I've seen the word "bill" used most often. <S> Also note, in a Fancy restaurant, you will typically be asked if there is anything else. <S> A simple, "No thanks, I think that's all for tonight" will tip the server to bring the bill. <S> When paying, a credit card put in the envelope and left on the table will have the server silently take an bring back the completed bill. <A> I think check is American, bill is British <S> : both are fine, adding "Can I have" as Daniel says is certainly more polite. <S> A common way to ask for the bill is to just make extended eye contact with the waiter, perhaps making a 'writing a cheque' guesture. <A> Two parts to your question. <S> Each part has been accurately but separately answered elsewhere <S> but here's the summary: 1. <S> When asking for the bill/check in a restaurant, what's the polite way to phrase the question? <S> See Atomix's answer: <S> "May we have the bill/check, please?" <S> "Could we have the bill/check, please?" <S> "Could we get the bill/check, please? <S> 2. <S> Is there a politeness difference between bill and check ? <S> As TRiG's answer says, there is none. <S> But check is used chiefly in the USA and bill is used in the UK (and I think most other English speaking territories). <A> "Can I have the bill, please." <A> The word check should not be used in this context outside the USA. <S> In the USA, it's fine. <A> I don't think anyone cares which word you use, as long as you're polite. <S> I usually use the word "check". <S> Most servers interpret the "money" gesture (rub your index finger against your thumb) as "I'd like to pay now" and will not and bring the check.
| There's no politeness difference between bill and check .
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Does "ever" apply to the future, or only the past? As we hear in every commercial (ever?) Our best price, ever . Your thoughts please. Putting aside advertising allowances, should "ever" here mean "all time: past present and future", or should this be interpreted as "yet" (past/present). In advertising terms we must infer the latter (otherwise they'll contradict themselves next time they need a promotion), but from a linguistics perspective: what is the correct interpretation here? <Q> Your general question: can "ever" apply to future? <S> Yes. <S> This is the best price you will ever see. <S> Don't ever do that again. <S> As for the standalone phrase "our best price ever ": from a linguistics perspective, there is no single "correct" interpretation. <S> The phrase is ambiguous, such that in different surrounding contexts it could be understood as meaning "for all time", or it could be understood as "up to now". <S> For a linguist interested in pragmatics, one might even note that the actual interpretation of the word "ever" (as well as "never") is often not the literal meaning of the word — it is used as a hyperbole with relative ease. <S> "You aren't ever home when I call!" <A> "Ever" implies that this has never happened before, or will never again, similar to the phrase "at any time". <S> Edit: Whether this is referring to the future or the past depends on context. <S> Alas, it's all too often used as a modifier to imply something is unique, which can result in confusion. <S> (Think of the comic book guy on the Simpsons: " <S> Best resurrection ever !", ad nauseum.) <A>
| I feel 'ever' refers to past, present and future, whereas, 'yet' only refers to 'up til now' - defining past and present only.
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"Without reason" or "Without reasons"? Do we say "Without reason" or "Without reasons"?(e.g. She started laughing without (apparent) reason(s). ). Is "reason" countable or not? Can we ever use a plural noun after "without"? <Q> In the phrase "without reason", reason is a noun. <S> However, it is not idiomatic; the English idiom is to use "without reason". <S> Note also that this is a formal usage which is uncommon in everyday conversation: <S> She laughed without reason (formal register) <S> contrasted with <S> She started laughing for no apparent reason (informal, everyday register) <A> "Reason" is certainly a count noun. <S> However, it is also a verb. <S> In the sentence "She started laughing without reason" could mean either "she didn't have a reason to start laughing", or "she starting laughing without thinking about it. <S> " <S> In the first example, it is a noun, in the second it is a verb. <S> The most common way is to say "bla bla bla... without reason", and it is would probably be the countable noun, most of the time, but is slightly ambiguous. <S> It would be perfectly fine for you to say, "she started laughing without reasons". <S> It is grammatically correct, just not the most common way of putting it - which is probably a good thing. <S> So, to answer, your question: "Yes." <A> reason most definitely can be countable: "give me five reasons why it isn't", but it can also be uncountable, "Reason is Man's greatest ally". <S> Which are we dealing with? <S> We can't quite pin it on without either; off the top of my head, "life is awful without friends" or "you can't do that without grounds to do so". <S> To my ear, making reason plural is unquestionably wrong. <S> * <S> She started laughing without (apparent) reasons. <S> She started laughing without (apparent) reason. <S> I can't think of a single grammatical ground for invalidating the first. <S> The fact that we can find other instances of without and a plural noun should prove it possible. <S> Despite this,it is simply not said. <S> I don't think you wouldn't be understood if you said it, but it would raise eyebrows and red pens. <S> This isn't really an idiomatic phrase, perhaps in use, but not in the sense of compositionally; there is certainly something to be had from the meaning of just these words. <S> I am assuming here that we're after <S> the <S> without reason that means something like "without justification". <S> The OED suggests that this meaning comes from the Middle French sans raison , from the Old French sanz reisun —the first recored use was in a1387. <S> I'm no expert in French, but Google translates this as unjustifiably, which seems like a good start. <S> I'd be interested to hear the modern version from a native speaker. <S> This construction is not without companions. <S> Compare to: without rhyme or reason without reason or measure without friendship/companionship, justification <S> There are other examples; these things do exist. <S> It's almost as if these things, especially in the abstract, exist beyond count. <S> Also compare, "she said it without justification" not * <S> "she said it without justifications", but "she said it without grounds" not *"she said it without ground". <S> I'm stil not entirely sure why–input? <A> According to a COCA query americans say "without reason" 21 times more often than "without reasons". <S> Statistically speaking <S> She started laughing without reasons <S> is odd. <S> According to CALD reason is both countable and uncountable. <S> Yes one can use a plural noun after "without". <S> Again, a COCA query provides hundreds of hits for without followed by a plural noun. <A> It is without reason . <S> Reasons is used in sentences like the prime minister resigned for personal reasons . <S> The New Oxford American Dictionary <S> reports also the following phrases: beyond all reason <S> ( he indulged Michael beyond all reason ). <S> by reason of ( persons who, by reason of age, are in need of care ). <S> for some reason <S> ( for some reason she likes you ). <S> listen to reason ( the child is usually too emotionally overwrought to listen to reason ). <S> it stands to reason ( it stands to reason that if you can eradicate the fear, the nervousness will subside ). <A> Googlefight says 103.000 hits for "without reason" and only 6.670 hits for "without reasons": http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=%22without+reason%22&word2=%22without+reasons%22 <A>
| Reasons can be counted so "without reasons" is grammatical. I think "without any reason" is much better, because "she started laughing without reason" means she started laughing without logic, but "without any reason" means without any cause. In cases like without reason , the plural is unnecessary and muddles the meaning.
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What does "going forward" mean? In more and more podcasts and presentations I hear sentences such as this one: That is our strategy going forward. What meaning does going forward add to the sentence? That is, how is it different than saying: That is our strategy. (I listened to two software podcasts recently: in the first going forward was used once, and in the second it was used twice and moving forward once. I have to say it connotes a slight sense of we have a team working hard on this, lots of motion, lots of action , but it could have been dropped in all four cases and no meaning would have been lost. In any case, people currently really love to use it!) <Q> Going forward is almost a completely useless phrase. <S> If one says [x] going forward , they mean <S> [x] into the future , <S> but it is very redundant, as one could just as easily say <S> [x] . <S> It seems that many business people want to sound as fancy as possible, so they use as many fancy words as possible to get the same point across. <S> This leads to entire dialogues of contentless speech, filled with words devoid of meaning. <S> A BBC article puts it much more poetically than me : <S> When someone says ‘going forward’ it assaults the ears just as, when a colleague starts slurping French onion soup at a neighbouring desk, it assaults the nose. <S> I think it is a phrase that one should avoid as much as possible, as in the relatively short time it has been in use, it has been abused, hung out to dry, and abused again. <S> As ianjs has said, it is quite redundant. <S> Redundancy isn’t a bad thing in itself, as it can help to reinforce points. <S> But going forward is so cliché that its effect is lost. <S> The term can be useful in certain situations, such as “I will be polite to you, going forward”, but it sounds too much like the overused term, that it sounds nicer to say “From now on, I will be polite to you”, or “I am going to start being polite to you.” <S> Going forward <S> just grates against my ears, and despite it being perfectly relevant in the above example, I would avoid using the term altogether. <S> This is obviously a matter of opinion, but, because of the way the phrase has been used recently, it would be better to use a bit of imagination, and use different wording. <S> PS: <S> This answer has had 4 up-votes and 3 down-votes, which means it is a very contentious issue. <S> Take this answer with a grain of salt, and remember that English usage is subjective. <S> This probably means that going forward annoys ⁴⁄₇ people who voted on this post, and that ³⁄₇ voters like the term. <A> I understand the term to mean henceforth , with the implication that the strategy will be different and possibly improved. <A> The difference is one of time. <S> Your second example: <S> This is our strategy <S> implies the strategy is unchanged. <S> It was, is, and will be our strategy. <S> On the other hand, when one says: This is our strategy going forward. <S> they are implying a change in strategy. <S> They are essentially talking about future time using the present tense. <A> Here is another context where the phrase is not useless nor redundant: <S> You left your bike outside, you didn't lock it and somebody stole it. <S> You could then say: Going forward I will always lock my bike or bring it in with me. <S> "Going forward" here means that you will be doing something in a different way than you used to do in the past. <A> Seems redundant to me, given that the only direction a strategy would be going is forward. <A> It would depend on the context, but basically I can't see much difference, <S> although going forward doesn't mean there has to be a strategy guiding the action! <S> However... <S> You could argue that adding "going forward" suggests that the strategy is not fixed and is able to change according to future events. <S> Another possibility, given that this phrase is spoken more often than written, (and depending on the intonation and context) could be an attempt to say, "that is our strategy - to go forward." <S> Just my thoughts early on Sunday morning. <S> Olaf
| In your example "That is our strategy going forward", by "going forward" I understand that the strategy used to be a different one in the past.
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Does "nineteen-hundreds" refer to 1900–1909 or 1900–1999? The words "nineteen-hundreds" to me mean strictly 1900–1909. I've noticed several times that people, invariably North American, use these words to mean "the twentieth century", or 1900–1999, or something like that. Similarly for "the eighteen hundreds" used to mean "the nineteenth century" and so on. Is this an example of a misuse of words by people who have heard and then misunderstood them, or is this actually an established usage in America? Secondly, if it is not a misuse, how would said Americans refer to the period of 1900–1909? <Q> Although people do use it mean 1900–1909, it isn't a misuse to use it to mean 1900–1999. <S> Another way to refer to the first decade would be "just after the turn of the century", or "at the turn of the century". <S> I would say 1920s to mean 1920–1929 though. <S> If you do a corpus query (COCA) you'll find that 1900s is almost always preceded by early . <S> (121 times out of 149 hits). <S> This qualification leads me to think that most authors think that the 1900s is a large time frame, that benefits from further qualification. <S> Furthermore, in many cases the context shows that "early 1900s" refers to years outside of 1900–1909. <A> I think of any "hundreds" term as representing the entire century and depending on the specificity demanded in the situation use "early nineteen hundreds" or "late nineteen hundreds" to reference a period. <S> When referring to the first decade of the twentieth century I might say "the nineteen aughts," perhaps a little pretentious , but I like the sound of it. <S> It's worth noting, though, that I rarely hear "nineteen hundreds" used to refer to anything later than the earliest portion of the century, perhaps because it's so recent and most people can still remember portions of the latter decades. <S> I hear "eighteen hundreds" much more commonly used to refer to that entire century. <A> In the US at least, there's enough variation in the use of this term as to render it imprecise to the point of being useless. <A> I've never known "nineteen hundreds" to mean anything but the 20th century. <S> I come from a Computer Science background, so I understand why logically it would seem to be "nineteen hundreds" -- <S> > 1900-1909, "nineteen hundred and tens" -- <S> > 1910-1919, etc. <S> , <S> but I haven't heard it used to refer only to 1900-1909. <S> As to how to refer to that particular period... what about nineteen-ohs? <S> Like "twenties, tens, ohs..." <A> There appears to be an astonishing lack of references as to which period the 1900s refer to. <S> 1900s (decade) <S> Wikipedia claims that the term 1900s can either refer to the period between 01/01/1900 and 12/31/1909 or for the years 1900-1999. <S> While the Mnemonic Dictionary defines 1900s as belonging to the first decade of the 20th century <S> The 20th century is also referred to as the 1900s by Wikipedia <S> Early 1900s <S> Although this expression is commonly used to cover the first decade, I could find no authoritative source that actually defined the precise length of time or precluded the years 1910 to 1918. <S> Below is an Ngram chart plotting the frequency of usage of the following terms: “1900s”, “early 1900s” and “early 20th century”. <S> The term 1900s dominates its two rivals from the start. <S> Interestingly, it appears to have enjoyed a sharp rise around 1978 while reaching a peak in 1984. <S> This might have been influenced by George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four , or be just coincidence. <S> Despite its sudden drop, the term 1900s picked up and enjoyed a continuous surge until the year 2000. <A> At least here in America it is clear to me that "the twelve hundreds" means 1200 to 1299. <S> And similarly up to the 1800s. <S> If "the nineteen hundreds" is not clearly used in this way yet, it probably will be in the far future. <S> Similarly, I guess it is becoming more common to hear "the turn of the century" to mean the years around 2000 rather than 1900. <S> A bit off topic: "the two thousands" means: ( <S> a) 2000 to 2009; (b) 2000 to 2099; or (c) 2000 to 2999 ?? <A> Generally, writers will specify the date range as I have just done: "1900-1909". <S> If you want to know what the shortened name should be, the least ambiguous one I've come across is " aught " (second defn.) <S> so 1905 would become "nineteen aught five". <S> The phrasing is not very common, but it is correct. <S> If the 30s are "thirties", 20s are "twenties", and "10s" are "teens", then the "00s" are "aughts". <S> Both the last groups are fairly uncommon, however, probably because of the awkwardness of saying "nineteen teens" or "twenty aughts". <A> The figure supplied in the mind is always the one before all the zeros, so the late 1460s = <S> the last years before 1470, the late 1400s = <S> the last years or decades before 1500, and the late 1000s = <S> the last years or decades (or centuries) before 2000. <S> If you want to designate the first decade of a century (e.g. 1900–1909) in this style (i.e. the style of 'the nineteen forties'), you just say 'the nineteen tens' or 'the 1910s'. <S> NOT 'the 1900s' – and certainly NOT 'the 2000' to mean 'the 2010s'!!!
| In my readings I've never found "nineteen hundreds" to be intended to refer to 1900-1909.
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Informal US terms for money amounts What informal English terms are used in the US as money amounts? I know the following US terms and I'm curious about others: a grand: 1000 dollars a buck: 1 dollar <Q> Fiver = <S> £5 <S> Tenner = <S> £10 <S> Pony = <S> £25 <S> Monkey = <S> £500 <S> Also Bob = 1 shilling (now five new pence) <A> Here are a couple more I've heard around: "big ones" ... <S> slang for "thousands". <S> Like "ten big ones" = <S> $10,000 <S> "mil" or "mill" ... <S> short for "millions". <S> "5 mil" = <S> $5,000,000 <S> And here are a couple for Canada specifically. <S> Not amounts per se, but slang for some of our coinage: loonie = the $1 Canadian coin twonie or toonie = the $2 Canadian coin <A> Based on the British television shows that I’ve watched, a “quid” is £1. <A> With the growing popularity of Poker, a: stack of high society isn't just a "chip of the highest denomination" (usually $10000 in chips) anymore, but also 10000 actual dollars. <S> In the gambling community , you will find many other term to designate money amount. <S> Sawbuck, mentioned in JohnFx 's answer is one. <S> But you also have: Dollar bet: a $100 bet Money: $500 Nickel: $5 chip Quarter: $25 chip skin or skoon: one dollar <A> In casinos, a quarter is $25, a penny is $1, a dollar is $100, etc <S> =). <S> In USA <S> at least, you can say "kay" to mean thousand, <S> e.g. five kay = 5K = 5000. <A> Sawbuck - $10 Large - $1000 Bit - 12.5 cents Short Bit - Dime Long Bit - 15 cents <A> "Nickel" is the commonly used term in the US for a five cent coin and based on its primary metal content. <S> "Penny" is commonly used for the one cent coin. <S> This term is borrowed from British English. <S> "Quarter" is shortened from "quarter dollar". <S> You'll occasionally hear something like "solid quarter" as in "Do you have a solid quarter?" when someone wants to exchange smaller coins of an equivalent amount. <S> While a "bit" does equal 12.5 cents, when you hear the term it will most often be used in the phrase "two bits" which refers to a quarter. <S> The word comes from the practice of cutting apart old coins called "Pieces of Eight". <S> "Dime" is the name that the ten cent coin actually carries. <S> The name comes from the Old French "disme" which comes from the Latin "decimus". <S> It's the only modern US coin I can think of which <S> does not indicate its value. <S> None of them use numerals, unfortunately. <S> A "bill" is sometimes used for "$100". <S> "Five spot" and "fiver" refer to a five dollar bill. <S> Sometimes currency is referred to by the person portrayed on the bill. <S> This is more common with "Benjamin" or "Franklin" ($100), "Grant" ($50) and "Jackson" ($20). <A> There's the tanner (6d, 2.5p). <A> Yuppie Food Stamp = <S> $20 (spewed from ATMs at lunch time) <A> Tonne = <S> Hundred <S> At least in Ireland! <A> Quid British slang for £1 Example: <S> That costed me 12 quid . <S> (12 pounds) <A> Hunid Stacks - many hundred dollar bills <A> 25 cents = two bits, 20 dollars = green ticket <A> "Beer tokens" and "beer vouchers" refer to coins and notes of the realm, respectively. <S> As an aside there was a brief time around the introduction of the £2 coin in the UK when beer could be found for £2, so these were literally beer tokens. <A> Megabuck = <S> One million dollars. <S> Gigabuck = <S> One billion dollars. <S> Terabuck = <S> One trillion dollars <S> (I don't think I've seen this one, but it makes sense). <A> U.S. <S> fin for $5 bill (probably from the Pennsylvania Dutch word for five ).
| In the US, a “C-note” or “C-spot” refers to US$100.00.
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Why does "under the sea" mean "in the sea"? Why is it OK to refer to things in the sea as being "under the sea"? Wouldn't that really be the sea floor and below? <Q> "Under the sea" is short for "under the surface of the sea"; the phrase is meant to evoke the romantic image seeing the waves passing while standing on the deck of a ship, say. <A> If one looks out of the window of a train near the shore, one says "I can see the sea". <S> That does not mean "I can see the sea bed" or "I can see under/inside the water", but "I can see the surface of the sea". <S> Similarly "underwater" means "under the surface of the water", "underground" means "under the surface of the ground", etc. <S> etc. <A> At what point are you NOT under the sky? <S> Where does the sky start? <S> 5m above ground? <S> 50m? <S> 5000m? <S> 50,000m? <S> Under the sea starts when you are under the upper most part of it. <S> An undersea expedition is anywhere beneath the surface. <A> Because you are below sea level.
| Thus the word "sea" in common English usage means "the surface of the sea", and "under the sea" means "under the surface of the sea".
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Is "including but not limited to" a redundant phrase? Doesn't "including" imply the "not limited to"? <Q> <A> I think the point of this common bit of ‘legalese’ is that in case anyone should assume that including does mean ‘limited to’ they have no recourse to claim they were misled by believing the list in question was a complete list. <A> Usually (and especially in law) you include the phrase "but not limited to" to prevent ejusdem generis . <S> For example, consider this phrase: As used in this statute, "vehicles" shall mean powered vehicles including cars, buses, recreational vehicles, and trucks. <S> In this case, one can make an argument that airplanes and off-road dirt bikes are not included. <S> All of the examples are highway vehicles that transport people and cargo. <S> By contrast, if it specifically said, "but not limited to", that would indicate that whole categories of items were not reflected in the examples. <S> In that case, you shouldn't infer that it wasn't meant to include things like airplanes and boats. <S> You'd have to look at the rest of the statute to see if it made sense to include those things. <A> There is not really anything implying that "including" does not also mean "but not limited to", unless you specify by saying "including but limited to". <S> I think it is redundant and actually looks quite ugly with the compulsory use of this phrase in for example EULAs and similar documents, but lawyers will probably keep using it, "just to be safe". <A> I think it is ambiguous is some cases to just write "including", if you also mean "not limited to" (although I agree it does not make a nice sentence). <S> An example from a play that I am working on at the moment (listing props); Scary Creatures (can include); Mummy Vampire Frankenstein <S> Goblin <S> This to me says that you are limited to those listed, while the next example explicitly states that you are not limited. <S> Options for Scary Creatures (can include, but not limited to); Mummy Vampire <S> Frankenstein <S> Goblin <S> I am trying to say that in some cases it is necessary to use the term, though I don't think it is a nice way of doing it. <S> So the answer to the question has to be "no".
| I would agree that "including" definitely carries the implication of "not limited to"; however, I think this redundant phrasing is simply used in order to emphasize the fact that what follows is not intended to be a complete list.
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What does "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" mean? This song by The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". As a non-native speaker, I always wondered what's the exact meaning of this phrase? Is it "I'm not getting any satisfaction" (this seems to be the most widely met translation; double negation used where single negation should have been used). Or is it "I want my satisfaction, I cannot leave without getting some" (makes much more sense to me). Or is it something else? I've always had troubles understanding double negation as applied to English. First I was taught it's a mistake to use double negation at all, and then I see it everywhere. <Q> The reason you were told it’s <S> a mistake is because it is a usage found in dispreferred dialects. <S> Similar to use of <S> ain’t <S> , double negation—also known as negative concord—is quite common in many dialects of English, but it is not part of any formal register of English—that is to say <S> , it is not a feature of the standard English taught in schools. <S> Negative concord is a feature of the standard dialect of many languages, such as Spanish—just not standard English. <S> “I can’t get no satisfaction” in formal standard English would be “ <S> I can’t get any satisfaction” or <S> “I can get no satisfaction”. <S> However, it’s important to note that although formal modern English does not have a negative concord rule, such a rule is not inherently “illogical”, as many commenters who try to explain English’s rule claim. <S> Here is a post on Language Log about “overnegation”. <A> OK, since the lyrics are so hard to understand, I've translated them into standard English for you: <S> I can't get no satisfaction <S> I can't get no satisfaction <S> 'Cause I try <S> and I try <S> and I try <S> and I try <S> I repeatedly endeavour to fulfil my desires, but fail. <S> When I'm drivin' in my car <S> And a man comes on the radio <S> He's telling me more and more <S> About some useless information Supposed to fire my imagination <S> I was listening to the radio while driving my car. <S> The information given by the radio presenter was neither useful nor interesting to me. <S> When I'm watchin' my TV <S> And a man comes on to tell me <S> How white my shirts can be <S> But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke The same cigarettes as me <S> I was watching a TV commercial for detergent. <S> The presenter of the commercial did not live up to my ideals of masculinity because of his choice of tobacco brand. <S> I can't get no satisfaction <S> I can't get no girlie action <S> 'Cause I try <S> and I try <S> and I try <S> and I try <S> I can't get no <S> , I can't get no <S> I am unable to form relationships with the opposite sex, despite my best efforts. <S> When I'm ridin' round the world <S> And I'm doin' this <S> and I'm signing that <S> And I'm tryin' to make some girl <S> Who tells me baby better come back later next week <S> Cause you see I'm on a losing streak <S> I travel around the world taking part in various activities. <S> During these travels, I attempted to form a friendship with a woman, but she rejected me, making an excuse. <S> I can't get no <S> , I can't get no <S> I can't get no satisfaction <S> No satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction <S> I am unsatisfied, frustrated, in other words unfulfilled. <A> It is almost certainly the first option, with the sense of "I can't get any satisfaction". <S> Double negation with this type of meaning is pervasive in certain dialects and registers of English, and this is almost certainly one of those cases. <S> It's not "wrong", linguistically speaking, it is just non-standard <S> (so if non-standard = "wrong" to you, then fine). <S> While I can force my brain to parse the sentence in the sense of your second example, it is awkward and unnatural to this native speaker. <A> It's improper grammar. <S> Mick Jagger is saying that he is unable acquire whatever it is that would satisfy him.
| The correct version would be "I can't get [any] satisfaction."
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What is the name of the first decade in a century? 80s: the "Eighties" 90s: the "Nineties" 00s: the ??? For that matter, what is the second decade called? The "tens" just doesn't sound right. <Q> Those living in early twentieth century called the years 1900-1909 "The Aughts" . <S> This Wikipedia article provides some more context. <A> I think this is something that doesn't have a real answer as it appears to change with each century and is different depending on your location. <S> Wikipedia's entry for the 2000s echoes this inability for people to come up with a single name for this decade <S> let alone all "first decades of a century". <A> In my circle I have usually heard the previous decade referred to as "the two-thousands". <S> As to whether it might be called that in 30 years or so, it's hard to tell. <S> I agree that "the tens" sounds weird, but isn't that because you'd say "the teens" instead? <A> The "Noughties" became a fairly standard term pretty quickly, at least in the UK. <S> But I've still yet to hear anyone give a good term for the decade from 2010-2019. <A> I can only think of "the single digits" to call the first nine years of the new millennium. <A> I usually hear the decade of 2000 through 2010 referred to as the two thousands. <S> But the year 2000 is really the last year of the 1990s. <S> For consistency the decade 2001-2010 should be referred to as the 20 zeroes and this decade 2011-2020 is the 20 tens. <S> Like every other decade we just say the number with the zero and add an s. <A> I will offer the correct answer. <S> Quite simply, for the two decades 2000-2010, and also 2010-2020 (the current decade), in fact there is no popular slang term . <S> There were attempts to popularise "naughties" but it never caught on. <S> Regarding back in 1900-1920. <S> I have not been able to find any clear reference on the issue. <A> The first ten years of any century could accurately be referred to as the 'singular', or 'unit', years, as opposed to those of double digits that follow. <S> That would be a designation consistent with the linear principles of fundamental mathematics, no? <A> Fot the current century, I would propose: two thousand zeroes <S> My reason being, I think most people would understand what you meant. <S> (because of its recentness)However <S> Im <S> not so sure it would work for the first decade of a century in general. <S> i.e. in the fifteen zeroes davinci focused his attention on developing military machines for his patrons. <S> Its a little more ambiguous, but maybe understandable... <A> FWIW, this period has been called the 'Zeroes' by a Dutch radio station : <S> The first decennium of this century is described as the 'Zeroes'. <S> It concerns the first ten years of this millennium.
| I've heard "the noughties" (easy transition from "nineties") and "the two-thousands" (literal interpretation of "2000s") for the decade just gone. If I had to guess what term is most likely to emerge for 2010-2019, I'd say perhaps "The Teens", but I suspect actually no term will catch on until the Twenty-Twenties.
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Is it correct to call an Apple Mac computer a PC (Personal Computer) From the original meaning of the initialism, PC (Personal Computer), it would make perfect sense to call a Mac a PC, as it is just that, a personal computer. However, the vast majority of people distinguish a PC from a Mac - due to clever marketing. This distinction is so embedded in people now, that both PC users, and Mac users do not consider a Mac to be a PC. So would I be right to start referring to Macs under the blanket term "PC", or would the fact that most people no longer consider the term to refer to Macs make me wrong? <Q> I wouldn't consider you to be wrong ( <S> a Mac is a personal computer), but it is definitely the case that some people might be confused by using the terms in that way and it would then require further explanation. <S> Because of that, I'm not sure there's really a definite answer to this as it will depend on the context and the knowledge of the reader. <S> If in doubt, go for whatever phrasing is least likely to cause confusion. <S> I believe the term "PC" became the generally used expression as it stemmed from "IBM-compatible PC", which gradually became more and more mainstream. <S> However you could also argue (correctly) that a modern Mac is also an IBM-compatible PC, since they use the same CPU architecture and so on now - just to add another level of confusion ;) <A> It wouldn't make you wrong. <S> However, it would mean that many people may be confused about your statement, or they'd think you were making a point through your choice of language. <S> At least that has been my experience. <S> If that is your intention, then call your "Mac" a "PC". <A> Words like "personal computer", "mini computer", "micro computer" etc. had a meaning in the 1970s and 1980s which is almost forgotten now. <S> At first the whole notion of "personal computer" was a novelty. <S> Nowadays almost all computers are "personal computers" in the sense that the word originally meant, and most people don't even know what a "mini computer" or "micro computer" might refer to. <S> In the 1980s a Mac would have been referred to as a "personal computer" but I'm not sure why you would want to, any more than you would want to refer to it as a "micro computer". <A> I would use the term "Desktop Computer".
| You wouldn't be wrong, but you would confuse others. If you have to call it something, then calling it a "computer" is good enough.
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Where should the comma be placed in the salutation of a letter? Sometimes I see a comma after the proper name: Hello Mr. Black, In order to give you.... But my native language is not English and I think that the comma in this phrase should be placed before the proper name: Hello, Mr. Black. In order to give you.... What is the correct punctuation in English? <Q> Both are correct. <S> In a dialogue, a pause can be used for effect, putting emphasis on the greeting, eg: <S> Hello, Mr. Black. <S> "Hello" is said first, then a pause, then the name. <S> Normally, people would say: Hello Mr. Black. <S> Without any pauses in their speech. <S> When writing a letter or email, it is quite common to do this: Hello Mr. Black, Bla bla bla... <S> Or in a more formal situation: Dear Mr. Black, Bla bla bla... <S> It is uncommon to put a comma before the title even in an informal email salutation (though quite acceptable), but it would never be done in a formal letter/email. <A> Not placing a comma before a proper noun will change the object of the sentence. <S> These examples should explain: <S> Let's eat, John! <S> (Correct) <S> Let's eat John! <S> (This means you'd like to eat John.) <S> Let's eat, everybody. <S> (Correct) <S> Let's eat everybody <S> (This means you'd like to eat everybody.) <A> When I read Hello, <S> Mr. Black <S> I find that I mentally need there to be a comma at the end as well, or perhaps a full stop. <S> Hello, Mr. Black, how are you today? <S> Hello, Mr. Black. <S> And the result is that the name is emphasized. <S> Whether you want to do this or not depends on the circumstances, but for letter writing this is usually not what you want. <S> If you simply want a standard greeting put the comma after the name (or a full stop if the greeting is your whole sentence). <S> Hello Mr. Black. <S> Hello Mr. Black, how are you today? <A> In formal writing you would put a comma after greetings: "Hello, Mark." <S> In emails and informal writing, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. <S> I, for one, feel self-conscious about using commas like that in emails; it seems too formal. <A> The following examples all "look correct" to me: <S> "Hi Mark, how are you?" <S> "Hi, Mark. <S> How are you?" <S> "Hello Mark, what's up?" <S> "Hello, Mark! <S> What's up?" <S> But the "Hi, Mark, how have you been? <S> " example that you gave looks over-punctuated to me. <A> The title of the question said “in a letter” in which case you would be better sticking to: <S> Dear Mr. Black, How are you today? <S> (The the rest of the letter follows.) <S> Other forms may be grammatically correct and certainly not a problem in an email. <S> But for a the more traditional context of a letter, I think your safest bet is this one. <A> You need to place a comma between the salutation and the name of the person addressed. <S> " <S> Hello, Mr. Black. <S> How are you today?"
| In the specific case of the opening salutation I would not insert a comma between the greeting and the name if a comma came after the name, but I would if some other punctuation followed the name.
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Are there any differences between "I believe" vs "I think" vs "I reckon"? These are the three most common ways to say "I think." (At least, I believe so. I mean, I think so. Um...) Are there any subtle differences between them? Are there situations where one of the three is more suitable than the others? Can you say you hear a particular form all the time in the streets, while the other two are much less common? <Q> I have always used "I reckon" to mean, "I have applied a process of thought and come to this conclusion". <S> "I think" is a statement of my assumptions. "I believe" is generally something I cannot prove or defend, specifically referring to my "beliefs" in a religious or spiritual context. <S> For some perspective, I am a native speaker from the Southern United States. <A> Note that someone may say "I think" when they actually mean "I believe", simply because it might be received as less confrontational. <S> "I reckon" carries an ever lower level of assertion than "I think", (or perhaps an even higher level of conciliation). <A> As an example... <S> When a sheriff in the deep south says, "I reckon I'm takin' you to jail. <S> ", it means he's definitely taking you to jail. <S> There is no question in that sheriff's mind. <S> He doesn't think or believe, he knows. <S> ;~) <S> And an up vote for Anthony. <A> I'd consider both "I believe" and "I think" to reflect roughly equivalent levels of (limited) confidence. <S> "I reckon" is significantly lower-confidence- <S> more akin to " <S> I'd guess" than than it is to the other two. <A> I believe "I reckon" is more commonly used in British English. <S> I think that in American English, it's considered to be colloquial. <A> All three are essentially interchangeable, but many think I believe reflects uncertainty on the part of the speaker. <A> I believe (heh-heh) that "I believe" acknowledges the possibility of error, and the shortage of evidence, more explicitly than "I think" does. <S> "I reckon" originally meant "I calculate" and so carries a far stronger promise of accuracy. <S> If you begin a sentence with "I reckon", you better be right. <A> Rather than just pointing out degrees, let's talk about what you can hold a conviction in . <S> These terms also connote degrees. <S> You can think a conjecture is true. <S> You can believe in a theory, holding it to be true. <S> One of them requires some foundation even if only subjective from the perspective of the speaker. <S> While the other includes possibilities that may be clearly absurd. <S> I think these lottery numbers will be lucky. <S> Raises no questions to me. <S> I believe these lottery numbers will be lucky. <S> Makes me wonder what you know about the method of number selection at the lottery. <S> That's not to say every belief is reasonable. <S> Most are certainly not reasonable, but they're still not random. <S> I'm a Christian: I believe the world was created in 6 days. <S> You're clearly nuts. <S> But, I understand why you believe that. <S> It's in your cannon. <S> As for reckon <S> it has two meanings. <S> Meaning to calculate. <S> This is the archaic definition from which the current usage derives, largely lost in the United States. <S> A southern regionalism for belief. <S> Often used sarcastically or pejoratively by outsiders to mock southerners. <S> I'd stay stay away from reckon entirely. <S> Unless you're planning a comedy skit.
| "I think" is a statement of cursory conclusion, while "I believe" indicates a more deeply considered and committed position.
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What is the pronunciation of "the"? I read that the definite article is pronounced differently depending on the word that follows it. Which is the exact pronunciation of the ? <Q> I’m adding this answer because no one seems to have used IPA, or explained the matter simply. <S> The word has three standard pronunciations, which vary by context. <S> Neither of these is a stressed syllable. <S> However, it also has a ‘stressed’ pronunciation used for emphasis, which is always /ðiː/ <S> no matter what sound should follow it. <S> The vowel here is held longer than in the unstressed version. <S> That’s really all there is to it. <A> If the following word starts with a vowel it's pronounced like 'thee'. <S> For other details I would recommend Pronunciation of the voiced & voiceless "TH" sound. <A> If you want to emphasize that what follows is really a single entity, you can pronounce the in the "vowel" - way. <S> THE single most important question to answer is: If I extract out of a relative clause, do I still get a Nintendo for Christmas? <A> I am from the northern United States, so in my dialect, I have "the" before words that start with consonants and "thi" before words that start with vowels, usually. <S> I also use "thi" to add emphasis (as in <S> "That is the best pie I have ever had"). <S> That's my two cents. <S> Just keep in mind that it may be different for other regions of the US and other countries.
| The definite article ‘ the ’ is normally pronounced /ðə/ before a consonant sound and /ði/ before a vowel sound. There is no hard-and-fast rule for the pronunciation of this word, as it depends strongly on where you grew up speaking.
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Should I use “speaker” or “loud speaker” to refer to the signal → vibration → sound thingy? I am a native german speaker, so I have absolutely no good intuitions when it comes to choosing the right alternative out of a candidate set. Today, one problem was: How should I call the sound-making thingy? Is it a "speaker" or is it a "loud speaker"? Is there any difference? Is one term more technical than the other? Is one term stylistically marked in certain contexts? If so, which? Are there any useful, free, online resources that could help me answer similar questions in the future? Are there any objective criteria? What I have come up with so far is: If I choose "loud speaker", I no longer might get the "person that is speaking" interpretation, but in the intended usage of the term (a manual for a technical device), such an interpretation should not arise anyways. So, it seems like an arbitrary choice to me. <Q> Neither term is more technical. <S> There are certain contexts where there is a difference between the two words. <S> COCA is a good resource for answering such questions in the future. <S> Yes there are objective criteria. <S> Generally speaking loudspeaker and speaker (in the context of a stereo system) are synonyms. <S> However... I've heard many aficionados use the term <S> loudspeaker <S> pejoratively to indicate the sound quality isn't good enough for them. <S> The pejorative quality comes from the comparison to speakers used for public announcements. <S> (ie a PA system ) <S> Speakers used in PA systems are loud, but otherwise not very good. <S> A corpus search shows that loudspeaker almost always refers to sound systems used by activists, police, firefighters, stadium sports announcers, etc. <S> They are used in public places both outdoors and indoors where loudness is more important that their dynamic range. <A> "Loudspeaker" (one word) seems a bit archaic to me. <S> While not wrong, I feel like I would find it in the context of instructions for a "Hi-Fi system". <S> But it is the name of the device. <S> "Speaker" in a technical context seems clear enough. <S> That's what I'd go with. <A> Loudspeaker would be perfectly acceptable and potentially more clear in British English. <S> Typically the term might be more appropriate for large devices positioned outdoors in order to broadcast sound over a wide area, but since most such devices are technologically similar regardless of size, it would be quite correct to use it for any such device, of any size and in any situation. <S> I can't imagine a situation in which it could be misunderstood. <A> The 'Book Shelf' Speakers that I was looking at to buy, refer to the speakers as 'Loudspeakers' simply because it has an amplifier added to or built within the encasement of the speakers. <S> That implies that this particular type of speaker has the advantage of amplifying whatever sounds it receives. <S> I therefore conclude that 'Loudspeaker' is too ambiguous & can't really be defined in the strictest sense. <S> It neither refers to a device that aids or projects the human voice, nor can it be referred to as a device that produces sound via an electrical signal converter & it certainly doesn't have anything to do with high wattage resolution, for all of those things are usually already stated in the Specs, as a selling point. <S> If anything, 'loudspeaker' is just an additional descriptive term that highlights what the product does, rather than what the product is. <S> It is described by what it does, for the purposes of marketing the product. <S> It can't be specified as part of the product detail listing because 'perhaps' there is no academic order, no mathematical equations or no scientific rule of law, that quantifies 'loudspeaker/s'.
| "Loud speaker" (two words) implies a person who speaks loudly.
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Terms for collections of animals As I watched the murder of crows sitting on the line above my house this evening, I got wondering where all of the collective nouns for animals (pod of whales, gaggle of geese, pride of lions) came from and why we need so many. If sheep can be a flock, why can't whales, geese, lions, and crows? <Q> I very much doubt you there is a definitive answer for this. <S> Collective nouns became popular in the 14th and 15th century . <S> There are exhaustive lists. <S> I suspect people considered it more artful and "proper", back in the day. <S> Animals in groups behave differently; the collective noun often hints at the behavior, formation or character of the group. <A> But most of the time it doesn't really add much. <S> Most people will understand the phrase "A flock of crows" completely and some people won't even know that they could say "a murder of crows". <S> Then there's the connotation of the word "murder" which you may not even want. <S> One advantage to using the collective nouns is that the collective implies the type of animal, so if talking about lions and gazelles you could say "The gazelle was overtaken by the pride" and anyone who knows that lions are in a pride would understand what you are saying. <S> Aside: The situation is comparable to Chinese, where EVERY NOUN has a measure word. <S> You don't say "two chopsticks", you say "two sticks of chopstick". <S> In English we can say "two beers" but in Chinese you have to say "Two bottles of beer". <S> However, there are lots of cases where a "proper" measure word can be replaced by a less proper one, or the generic measure word (ge 个). <S> If you don't know the word for "small round thing" you can say "two ge marble" if you want two marbles. <S> It's not 100% correct <S> but people will understand and that's the important part. <A> It was lingual fun. <S> The trend developed in the middle of the 15th century and one of the first such lists occurs in The Bokys of Haukyng and Huntyng; and also of coot-armuris better known as Boke of Seynt Albans or The Book of St. Albans printed 1486. <S> That it also contains such entries as "a doctrine of doctors", "a disworship of Scots" and "a gaggle of women", "a sentence of judges" and "a fighting of beggars" shows that this was something people had fun with from the early days of the form. <S> It provides a form of idle learning; the pointlessness of knowing such collective nouns is where the charm lies. <S> It is telling that such uses largely died away, but made a revival in the 19th century. <S> Likely they originated in the earlier distinctions of e.g. using flock for sheep and goats but herd for cattle and deer, and was then taken to further lengths. <A> The source cited is An Exaltation of Larks . <A> If you really want to understand the naming of animal groups, it might help to classify the types or origins of classification terms. <S> There are words that have simply been borrowed from the past (e.g. an exaltation of larks) or from a particular language, dialect or regional speech. <S> These are often popular among poets. <S> There are other words that are more commonly used. <S> For example, most people would describe a group of larks as a "flock," not an "exaltation." <S> Scientists may use still other words. <S> P.S. <S> The term "flock" can indeed be applied to geese and crows.
| Some of the most common collective words that I'm aware of are "herd" (generally applied to ungulates, or hoofed mammals), "flock" (of birds) and "school" (generally applied to aquatic animals, especially fishes). Sometimes the collective noun gives you additional meaning or maybe some poetic beauty. Wikipedia suggests that the terms derive from Medieval hunting terms.
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Which is correct: "web host" or "web hoster"? Which is the best way to refer to a company that hosts your website : My web host supports Ruby. or My web hoster supports Ruby. or My web hosting service supports Ruby. <Q> In casual speech and conversations on the internet, the usual terminology is "web host". <S> If you need a more formal description then you might want to go with "web hosting service". <S> "My web hoster supports Ruby" sounds distinctly odd to me. <S> It might occur in a sentence like "Well-known web hoster doteasy today announced record profits". <S> Incidentally one way to compare terms like this is to count the number of Google hits you get with the words in quotes. <S> I get Web host 2,800,000 hitsWeb hosting service 1,000,000 hitsWeb hoster <S> 30,000 hits <A> I've never heard "web hoster" and "web hosting service" seems verbose to me. " <S> Web host" is the generally accepted term, as far as I know. <A> I normally say Ruby is included in the (web) hosting service for my website ; actually, I would say Ruby on Rails is included in the (web) hosting service for my website . <S> The difference for me is that saying the web server includes Ruby seems to mean it will never be removed; saying the hosting service includes Ruby means that it will be included until they don't change the service. <A> Of the choices provided, the best way to refer to a company that hosts your website is your third option web hosting service . <S> Based on a COCA[1] <S> query web hosting 6 times more common that web host , and web hoster yields no hits. <S> BTW, web server is 11 times more common that web host . <S> Personally, I find your third option the best: My web hosting service supports Ruby. <S> I could just as well go with: <S> My web server supports Ruby. <S> [1] Google is generally accepted to be worthless as a corpus search tool. <S> This is why it is better to use a real corpus. <S> COCA is good for american english and BNC is good for british english. <A> "Web host" - <S> The physical computerhardware your web content is hosted on. <S> "Web hosting service" - Theproduct offered to a customer by acompany. <S> Shorter versions possible like "Web Hosting Provider" <S> etc. <S> I don't agree that you could call the company the "Web host" and just randomly looking at some company web pages, none of them call themselves a "Web host" but a "XYZ Provider". <S> Just looking the google stats doesn't seem to be a good idea to me because... <S> well, we would expect to find more references to the thing being provided than the providing company itself (you will find "car" more often than "car manufacturer"). <S> "hosting provider" 2,030,000 results <A> It is Web Host. " <S> Web Hoster" is some kind of a slang, as there is no such word as "hoster".
| "Web hosting service provider" - The actual company.
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Should I put myself last? "me and my friends" vs. "my friends and me" or "my friends and I" I've always been taught to put myself last when referring to myself in the same sentence as others but the usage of "me and..." seems to be everywhere these days. The misuse of the word "me" instead of "I" aside, is there some new rule I haven't heard of? Shouldn't we put ourselves last regardless of the "me"/"I" usage? Examples of "correct" usage: My friends and I went for some ice cream. Did you see my friends and me at the ice cream stand? Examples of "incorrect" usage: Me and my friends went for some ice cream. Did you see me and my friends at the ice cream stand? Note: I was also taught that the only person who could put themselves first was the queen. <Q> There is a tendency in informal speech and writing to use object pronouns when conjoined with other nouns or pronouns, even if serving as the subject of a verb. <S> You never hear this usage if the subject is not conjoined; that is, no native speaker would say “me went for some ice cream” but “me and my friends went for some ice cream” is actually quite a common usage produced by native speakers of all kinds. <S> This happens because what linguists would call the “unmarked” or standard, basic form for pronouns turns out to be the objective form— me , him , her , them , and the like. <S> This is the form of the pronoun used when there is no verb: – Who wants a cookie? <S> – <S> Me. <S> “Me and Mrs. Jones” “Me and Bobby McGee” <S> “Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard” <S> What happens is as pronouns in conjoined subjects get further and further from the verb, the impulse to change the default form into the subject form is weaker, and in informal contexts, is simply not followed. <S> Now, in formal standard written English, subjects of verbs must be in subjective form, conjoined or not, leading to generations of schoolmarms correcting their students: <S> Mrs. Jones <S> and I <S> Bobby McGee <S> and I Julio <S> and I <S> Down by the Schoolyard and the famous musical about an excruciatingly correct teacher of English: <S> The King and I <S> The most fascinating thing of course is that generations of schoolmarms correcting students over the apparently perfectly natural use of objective pronouns in conjoined subjects has made everyone with even a little bit of formal education intensely anxious about using objective pronouns, causing them to hypercorrect and use subject pronouns even where object pronouns are correct: “just between you and I” is a commonly cited example. <S> Edit: As for the original poster’s actual question, there is nothing in the grammar of English per se about ordering of pronouns in conjoined noun phrases. <S> It is a kind of grammatical etiquette to put yourself last, but there is no rule of grammar governing the order. <A> I would tend to stick to the latter though, as it a) is more commonplace, b) is considered more polite, c) seems to flow better. <S> Indeed, your example of 'incorrect' usage is incorrect solely in that the first sentence uses the accusative (objective) <S> pronoun me, when you actually need the nominative (subjective) pronoun 'I'. <S> The second sentence of that example is correct, since the pronoun needs to be in the accusative, as the object. <S> You seem to understand this though; this is just to clarify. <A> My partner and I went shopping. <S> My partner and I = subject . <S> A friend gave this to my partner and me. <S> Partner and me = object . <S> It all depends on where the phrase fits in the sentence. <S> Sometimes you hear I used incorrectly as in " <S> That's a picture of my partner and I. <S> " It should be: "That's a picture of my partner and me" because partner and me = object. <S> If you try taking out "my partner and" you'll soon see whether it should be I or me .
| The difference between "I and my friends" and "my friends and I" is purely a matter of courtesy - they are both grammatically correct.
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Origin of the name Manhattan What is the origin of the name Manhattan? <Q> According to this 2004 article in the New York Times, it's probably from the Lenape language word Mannahatta, with a likely meaning "island of many hills." <A> The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen (Half Moon). <S> The word "Manhattan" has been translated as "island of many hills" from the Lenape language. <A> The book, "The Englishman's Guide-book to the United States and Canada," published in London in 1885 by Sampson Low, Marston, SEarle & Rivington says on page 20 "an Indian name, meaning "a place where everybody gets drunk. <S> " <S> I suppose this was some wild story made up for amusement, or who knows. <S> The full text is in Google Books.
| A 1610 map depicts the name Manahata twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River (later named the Hudson River).
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What is the etymology of the expression "so far, so good"? What is the etymology of the expression "so far, so good"? Why is the meaning of "so far" in that phrase different from the meaning it has in "it's so far"? <Q> This is an older meaning of "so" that used to be very common in English but has fallen out of use, where "so" means "in this manner/condition". <S> We still use it when we say things like "you do it like so", "just-so story", "it was so long (and you gesture with your hands to indicate out long)". <S> Actually, the first three entries in dictionary.com seem to convey this meaning. <A> One of the meanings of the phrase "so far" (always with the stress on the "so") is "up to now", with an implication that whatever (good) state of affairs is being described may not continue: " <S> So far I haven't had any problems" "So far, so good", like many proverbs, is made up of two abbreviated phrases set against one another. <S> It means "Up to now, everything is good". <S> I can't think of another context in which "so good" has this meaning. <A> I don't know what the etymology is, but the way I interpret the saying, the meaning of "so far" isn't so far from the meaning you refer to, the critical difference being that in your example "far" is referring to physical distance and in the saying "far" refers to length of time.
| So, the "so far" part means "up to now" and the "so good" part means "it is good in this manner/condition".
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"Half an hour" versus "half hour" I'll be back in half an hour. I'll be back in half hour. Which is the correct sentence? Are there any differences between British English and American English? <Q> The article choice depends on where in a phrase you place it. <S> Would you ever say "I'll be back in hour"? <S> No, because while possibly legal, the use of the article "an" would be needed to make it sound like a native English speaker. <A> "half-hour" is commonly written with a dash (hyphen) and is a distinct word in the dictionary. <S> So, "a half-hour" = 30 minutes = "half an hour". <A> In Australia we say 'half an hour'. <S> You might hear 'a half hour', but it would sound stilted. <S> This is probably changing with the influence of American television. <A> The top one is correct. <S> * <S> I'll be back in half hour <S> would be OK if it said I'll be back in a half hour <S> Note that "a half hour" is an American usage, British people only use "half an hour". <A> The very same question puzzles me these days. <S> The title should be "half an hour" versus "a half hour" <S> I used to apply the former. <S> I notice it is an issue when I read the entry in electronic dictionary of Longman contemporary English version 5. <S> It offers examples like, 1. <S> half a mile/pound/hour etc <S> half a pound of butter; It’s about half a mile down the road. <S> She drank half a bottle of wine. <S> half a million dollars; 2. <S> a half hour <S> /mile etc <S> You can’t just waltz in a half hour late. <S> It’s about a half mile down the road. <S> a half day excursion to the island; He demanded a half share of the money. <S> Both items belong to entry of half with the meaning of "exactly or about 50% (½) of an amount, time, distance, number etc" <S> The dictionary does not explain the difference. <S> I infer it is the same <S> and both are correct. <S> Maybe the only difference lies in habit or region. <S> For instance, many mention on this page, British people and Americans apply this in different ways.
| You could say "a half hour" or "half an hour".
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What should I call the English spoken in UK? I have read that saying British English is too specific, and that I should say English English. Is that true? When I say British English, what do people think I am referring to? <Q> There is no standard term to describe the English spoken throughout the United Kingdom, because the English spoken in Northern Ireland is so different from the English spoken in Great Britain that it is usually included with Irish English (or Hiberno-English ). <S> The term British English is generally used to refer to the English spoken in Great Britain, including Scotland, England, and Wales. <S> Welsh English and Scottish English are the terms for the specific dialects spoken in those countries, and the term English English is used sometimes to describe the English specifically spoken in England. <S> Often British English is used to refer to English English in contrast to Scottish, Welsh or other varieties of English. <A> I think most English speakers would understand the term "British English" and know that you don't mean the dialect spoken primarily in America. <S> No English speaker would use "English English" to denote that dialect. <A> I have read that saying British English is too specific, British English is less specific than English-English <S> (I've never come across this before). <S> Even inside England there are regional dialects, so where would you stop? <A> As an Englishman I think it should be just 'English'. <A> "British English" is only too specific if you're trying to speak of "English as spoken by everyone except Americans and Canadians." <S> I might call that "Commonwealth English" <S> but I'm not sure. <S> I think that "English English" is the term that's too specific, since it leaves out the Scots and the Welsh. <A> It is only used when you actually need to differentiate between the two. <A> I would take 'British English' to refer to the varieties of English spoken in Great Britain, i.e., English, Welsh, and Scottish English, primarily. <S> (I'm not clear on edge cases like the Isle of Man and Isle of Wight). <S> More loosely, it would also cover the English of Northern Ireland. <A> I have read that saying British English is too specific, and that I should say English English. <S> Is that true? <S> Hum, well, what do you mean by "British English" here? <S> The question is a bit too vague to really answer. <S> The traditional term for the form of English pronunciation used in the south-east of England and the middle or upper classes was "received pronunciation". <S> In the recent editions of the Cambridge pronunciation dictionary (was originally Daniel Jones's dictionary) <S> this is now called BBC English. <S> What do people understand when I refer to British English? <S> I would guess that you were talking about spelling differences. <A> British English is misleading as a term. <S> It gives the impression that there is somehow, just one form of English that is spoken exactly the same, all over the UK. <S> It's really more of a collective term for the different forms of the language, within the UK. <S> Covering what is literally English (the language used in England) and the other, non-English British forms.
| British English is perfectly fine and is mainly used to mean "not American English".
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When is it correct to use "yourself" and "myself" (versus "you" and "me")? I'm confused by why people use the following: It's up to yourself. Rather than: It's up to you. Another example of this would be: Please feel free to contact ourselves if you have any problems. Rather than: Please feel free to contact us if you have any problems. Are both of these correct? Is there any reason for using the former? <Q> The other answers stating that reflexive pronouns can only be used as the object of a verb with an identical subject are not entirely correct. <S> Reflexive pronouns can also be used for emphasis as in “I myself will go” or in absolute constructions “ myself a tourist, I nevertheless avoided other tourists”. <S> These examples come from Merriam-Webster's entry for myself . <S> That entry has a usage note intended to disabuse the common claim that reflexive pronouns can only be used in restricted cases: usage <S> Myself is often used where I or me might be expected: as subject <to wonder what myself will say — Emily Dickinson> <others and myself continued to press for the legislation <S> >, after as, than, or <S> like <an aversion to paying such people as myself to tutor> <was enough to make a better man than myself <S> quail> <old-timers like myself <S> >, and <S> as object <now here you see myself with the diver> <for my wife and myself <S> it was a happy time <S> >. <S> Such uses almost always occur when the speaker or writer is referring to himself or herself as an object of discourse rather than as a participant in discourse. <S> The other reflexive personal pronouns are similarly but less frequently used in the same circumstances. <S> Critics have frowned on these uses since about the turn of the century, probably unaware that they serve a definite purpose. <S> Users themselves are as unaware as the critics—they simply follow their instincts. <S> These uses are standard. <S> Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage also has an extended discussion on the various uses of reflexive pronouns which you can read on Google Books , giving examples of myself being reasonably used in many positions other than object of a verb with an identical subject. <A> This is a classic example of overcorrection as a result of learning language rules at school. <S> Accusative pronouns have had a tough run in the past 100 years in English. <S> In school, we were always taught to say "Sarah and I are going to the park" instead of "Sarah and me" or "Me and Sarah", and so on. <S> But what often either fails to be conveyed (or is lost on the student) <S> is that this only applies to nominative case; that is, it applies to the subject of the sentence only. <S> Because subjects and objects and case markings are things that people don't normally explicitly think about when making a sentence (your brain pretty much computes this for you), they get it wrong when trying to apply the rule. <S> So, you get people saying "Please see Sarah and I ", even though it should be "Sarah and me" because it is the object of the sentence. <S> All of this has had the effect of (in my observation) the accusative pronoun (particularly the first-person singular pronoun) being looked at as somehow informal or uneducated sounding. <S> Another method of avoiding the accusative pronoun that people have stumbled upon is using the reflexive pronoun, and this is what you're seeing. <S> So, instead of saying "please schedule a meeting with John, Mary, and me" (which is 100% correct), some people perceive it as more educated/formal to say "please schedule a meeting with John, Mary, and myself". <A> Using "yourself" and "ourselves" in these contexts is incorrect. <S> "I see myself" is correct because I am doing the seeing and am seeing myself. <S> In your latter example, the subject is the implicit "you" and the object is (correctly) "us." <S> Edit <S> I searched for a clear reference for this. <S> The clearest one I found was Wikipedia's reflexive pronoun article , whose Non-reflexive usage in English section indicates that the usage you refer to is "non-standard and incorrect." <A> The entries for the reflexive pronouns (‘myself’, ‘yourself’, &c.) in the OED seem to indicate that they are used when the object and subject are the same (‘I confuse myself’), or for emphatic purposes (‘I myself am lost’). <S> However, the use of the reflexive pronoun as either a direct or indirect object (‘He gave it to myself’) seems to be acceptable in Irish English. <S> In the given examples, only the second forms would be proper; the first are incorrectly using reflexive pronouns are being used as indirect and direct objects. <A> It is very simple to remember when NOT to use the pronoun "myself. <S> " <S> Don't use "myself" unless the pronoun "I" has previously been used in the SAME sentence. <S> Someone needs to inform 99% of those in media of the correct usage of "myself. <S> " <S> I cringe each time I heard or read it used incorrectly.
| "Yourself," "ourselves," and "myself" are reflexive pronouns, correctly used when the subject/actor of the sentence and the object/recipient are the same person or group.
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What is the difference between using a colon and a semi-colon to join two sentences? I've seen a few questions on this site relating to semi-colons, which I believe I correctly understand, but what I'm not as clear about is colons. For example: The man ate the apple; it tasted good. Is this not correctly also written as: The man ate the apple: it tasted good. In this case, what is the difference between the two sentences? <Q> In your example, the first one is correct but the second one is incorrect. <S> They took the money from the vault; they took it quickly. <S> The ideas are related, the clauses stand on their own, semi-colon is OK here. <S> Use a colon to separate equal things (like an '=' sign). <S> Just remember three things: be on time, bring the money, and come alone. <S> The things here = <S> those three items. <A> Colon is a punctuation mark indicating that a writer is introducing a quotation or a list of items. <S> that a writer is separating two clauses of which the second expands or illustrates the first. <S> a statement of proportion between two numbers: a ratio of 10:1. <S> the separation of hours from minutes (and minutes from seconds) in a statement of time given in numbers: 4:30 p.m. <S> the number of the chapter and verse respectively in biblical references: Exodus 3:2. <S> Semicolon is a punctuation mark indicating a pause, typically between two main clauses, that is more pronounced than that indicated by a comma. <S> In your example, the colon is not what I would use. <A> Both can be correct. <S> It depends on quite what you are intending to convey and the context surrounding the statement. <S> The first one shows two coupled actions with equal priority in the narrative. <S> The semi-colon couples them closer than if they were two sentences, but the comparative effect depends strongly on the surrounding text, such as where they are in the paragraph, how big or small the paragraph is, and what else is being described. <S> The second example, using the colon, shows a more direct relationship between the clauses. <S> The second clause is the focus of the sentence, but again, the effect still depends on the surrounding text. <S> Your second example would work well at the end of a passage where the apple is an important item and that it tasted good was a satisfying resolution.
| Use a semi-colon to connect two related independent clauses. They are not equal in this construct, but dependant.
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