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Is "denormalized" a word? I use it all the time since I work with databases , but every time I write it somewhere with spell check I get the squiggly line below it. I've seen other people spell it with an "s" instead of a "z" but neither have an entry in the Merriam Webster dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/denormalized http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/denormalised Is this just technical jargon or am I misspelling it? <Q> The -s vs. -z is a British vs. American spelling convention. <S> As for whether or not it's a word, I believe its meaning is transparent from its productive morphology: <S> normal normal + ize = <S> to make normal de + normalize = <S> to undo the normalization <S> So, using "de-" usually has a meaning that some previous normalization process is being undone. <S> But I think it might still be acceptable if there was no explicit normalization process, but what you've done is take an intrinsically normal object and removed its normal property. <A> It's not a normal word, but it's perfectly legitimate technical jargon. <S> (If you were in the medical profession, half of the words you used would be flagged by a spellchecker.) <A> The prefix de- is a fairly productive one, and can be applied pretty freely to most verbs which it would make sense to affix it to. <S> Normalize <S> (in the sense of databases) is one of those words. <S> The absence of a word formed by a productive affix (such as de- or non- ) <S> in dictionaries should not be taken as impugnment by the editors of those dictionaries that they are not, properly, words. <S> As for <S> -ize <S> vs. <S> -ise <S> spellings, -ise <S> spellings are what American dictionaries would call “Chiefly British”, although it should be noted that some British language authorities, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, recommend -ize spellings even for British English. <A> You probably will not find the word in the dictionary, but the prefix de- is used to form words; the meaning of the word is changed as follow: (forming verbs and their derivatives) down; away: descend | deduct . <S> completely: denude | derelict . <S> (added to verbs and their derivatives) denoting removal or reversal: <S> deaerate | de-ice . <S> denoting formation from: deverbal . <A> It qualifies as a word if other people know what you mean by it. <S> When I say "consistification", everyone knows exactly what I mean.
| Anything with the suffix -ize is spelled -ise by people following British conventions.
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"Adult and children stories" or "Adults and children stories"? How do you say it correctly? Adult and children stories Adults and children stories Adults' and children's stories other? <Q> I'm not sure what you mean: if you said "adult stories" that would probably mean "porn". <S> "Children's stories" would usually mean "stories by children" rather than "stories for children". <A> I work in children's book publishing, and the standard within the industry would be children's stories, and would refer to stories written for children, usually written by adults. <S> In the kid's lit world we do use the term "adult books" to refer to non-porn books written for those over 18, but I admit that's not common usage outside this niche. <A> Adults' and children's stories <S> That's probably what you mean.
| The best fit for what you seem to mean is Stories for adults and children or Stories for all ages
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Is “stuff ” a plural word? I'm wondering which one of these expressions is correct? This stuff or these stuff ? <Q> Stuff is a collective noun — it represents a group of objects. <S> Just as one would say "this group" or "this pile," one would say "this stuff". <A> so "this stuff" is correct. <A> Stuff has a similar problem to the words content and land. <S> they are already plural but we sometimes want to treat them as singular. <S> E.g <S> Alf sold some stuff at auction. <S> Ben also sold some stuff. <S> Charlie also sold some stuff. <S> Dan didnt sell all his stuff. <S> We wish to say "3 out of 4 loads of stuff were sold at auction". <S> Here the prefix "loads of" converts stuff to a singular collective noun phrase. <S> "plot of" works for land. <S> Not sure what works for "content". <S> Some words (usually animals) already have collective nouns. <S> E.g if stuff was sheep then we can say that "3 out of 4 flocks were sold at auction".
| Stuff is an uncountable, uncount, or mass noun
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Is it acceptable to use "google" as a verb? With the popularity and ubiquity of Google, it has become a verb to describe "searching for something online" and it appears in conversations and informal writing. How can I know if it is acceptable to use "google" in more formal writing? <Q> It is now an official verb (since 2006), added to the merriam-webster dictionary and the OED. <S> So I would say: yes. <S> Do you google? <S> (google blog) <S> To Google or Not to Google : <S> "According to the OED, you can now Google away to your heart's content." <A> I generally recommend the following for using newly minted words: <S> In casual or social conversation and in non-formal writing, go for it. <S> In formal or professional conversation/presentation and in most professional writing, substitute a comparable but more-neutral term. <S> "I Googled 'potato' but found too many entries" and "I searched 'potato' but found too many entries" are practically identical in meaning. <S> Sometimes using "Googled" is appropriate for your voice in business writing. <S> This will usually be in less-formal media like project-team blogs or webcasts (where the reader expects colloquial usage). <A> This leads to some fun sentences, like "A few years back, I googled something on altavista and found ..."
| I think it's acceptable.
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Is "not at all" still alive and doing well? I was taught to use "not at all" as a rather polite, standard reply to "thank you".However, I don't see it being used at all nowadays. Can I still use it? Would it be widely understood? Should I be aware of any differences between using it in British, American, Canadian, and Australian English? (As in, are there better alternatives in any particular dialect?) Edit: A (German) friend of mine who spent a year studying in Edinburgh says "not at all" is still fairly common there. <Q> I'm not sure how "Not at all" sounds in response to "thank you". <S> I guess I'd have to hear it in context. <S> I think I would understand it. <S> Some alternatives which may connote the same polite dismissal might be: <S> Don't mention it. <S> No problem. <S> My pleasure. <A> It would sound a little old fashioned or formal to me. <S> Still usable, though. <S> (I'm in Ireland.) <S> It is, of course, still the standard in French and Spanish: de rien , de nada . <A> This may be overly obvious, but in American English, saying "you're welcome" is certainly polite and standard. <A> The NOAD reports that not at all is a polite response to thanks, but I have never heard it being used. <S> I heard no problem more frequently. <A> I believe if someone says, 'Much obliged,' (which seems to contain more gratitude than 'Thank you') <S> the response both logical and polite is, 'Not at all,' since the first person is saying, 'I am indebted for the kindness and thus owe you a favor,' while the second replies, 'Please, no, you don't owe me anything.' <S> But if the first person says, 'Thank you,' for the second to answer, 'Not at all,' is illogical: the first says, 'I am grateful to you,' so such an answer would imply, 'No, sorry, you are not grateful,' which of course is not what is meant, or understood. <S> Still, I believe it is understood in the idiomatic way, and thus it is still polite. ' <S> You're welcome,' means, 'I did it for you gladly and will gladly do it again.' ' <S> No problem,' though doesn't have such connotations of generosity, implying only that the action depends on its being particularly easy, something one might do only because he didn't have to go at all out of his way or to any expense. <S> And of course, 'My pleasure,' is suitable in any case. <S> Conclusion: <S> Let's start saying, 'Much obliged,' more often, i.e. any time at least a little more than, 'Thank you,' seems necessary. <A> However, nowadays this expression tends to be less meaningful (and therefore less time used). <S> Sometimes people are confused and ask: how do you mean "not at all"? <S> I guess the reason is that the expression "not at all" has a different (better known) <S> meaning: "no, definitely not!", which sounds odd as a response to "thank you".
| I like to use "not at all" as a response when I stress that, on my part, some activity did not require any effort so one should not thank me anything.
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Why are days of the week proper nouns? Is there any particular reason why days of the week are proper nouns? <Q> They were formed from the names of old pagan gods (e.g. Friday—Freya's Day), so they are capitalized as proper nouns. <S> If you want to know where each originates from, see this page: The Seven-Day Week and theMeanings of the Names of the Days . <A> A proper noun names a specific member of a group: <S> Janet, Asia, and Cadillac are proper nouns. <S> This is what I find in English Grammar <S> (ISBN 0-06-467109-7). <S> Asia is a member of the group of the continents, in the same way January is a member of the group of months, and Monday is a member of the group of weekdays. <S> As per definition of proper nouns, weekday names are proper nouns. <A> Same as other idioms: Spanish Lunes - Luna - Moon - Lunae dies <S> Martes - Marte - Mars - Martis dies <S> Miércoles - Mercurio - Mercury - Mercurii dies <S> Jueves - Júpiter - Jupiter - Ioves dies Viernes - Venus - Venus - Veneris dies Sábado - Saturno - Sabbath - Saturday - Saturni dies Domingo - Sol - Señor - Sunday - Solis dies (domincum) <S> The days in Latin were related to the Mesopotamian days, taken from seven celestial objects (the Sun, the Moon and planets). <S> Those celestial objects have a name, so the names are nouns . <S> I read about the etymology statement, and I really don't know if it has nothing to do with this, but as the question says, as I recall the proper nouns in Spanish are called "Nombres Propios", something like personal names that clears a lot the idea behind them. <S> In Spanish you use the rules this way: <S> Adjectives don't capitalize. <S> "Egyptian orders". <S> Egyptian is an adjective. <S> Proper nouns turned into massive usage, don't capitalize "aspirin". <S> There's a lot of brands of aspirin, so even when it was originally a proper noun it became common. <S> Demonyms or Gentilic, in Spanish, are always written non-capitalized. <S> In your case, capitalized. <S> ( Demonym and change from a Spanish to an English idiom.) <S> Finally, in the case of the days of the week, originally capitalized (proper nouns), discussed by the Spanish Language Royal Academy (RAE) became non-capitalized <S> by the same reasons aspirin is not capitalized. <S> But this happened about 10 years ago(?) <S> I don't know, but I think your question has no proper answer in the light of the evidence of other cases in another idioms. <S> Like the one exposed in Spanish. <S> I hope I added something to the debate. <A> They evolved from their anglosaxon/latin forms, which translated into something like: Sun's day, Moon's day, Tiw's day, Wodan's day, Thor's day, Fríge's day, Saturn's day. <S> We can see relations in other languages like german ( tag is german for day): <S> Sonntag (sonne = sun), Montag (mond = moon), Mittwoch ("mid-week"), Donnerstag (donner = thor), Freitag (frei = Fríge), Samstag (again relating to Saturn). <S> Since they were honorific names with religious meaning, they kept their proper noun status. <S> Similar to the catholic god being called God .
| Proper nouns are always capitalized.
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Improper use of "Whenever" I increasingly encounter people who misuse "whenever" when they really mean "when": Whenever I first came to St. Louis, I lived with my Aunt Judy... Bugs me to death. Obviously they are talking about a one-time event, not "every time I visited St. Louis", which would be a valid use of "whenever". Is this a common misuse? Is this a regional thing (St. Louis, MO, USA)? This isn't a valid alternate use, is it? <Q> I keep hearing a couple of people from Kentucky and Oklahoma say things like, "Whenever I was ten years old". <S> Like they were ten years old more than once. <S> Or, "Whenever I was in High School". <S> This just seems like the word should be " <S> When" in these circumstances. <S> It drives me crazy when I hear this. <A> This usage, where it means "at an unspecified/uncertain time" is fairly common. <S> I usually hear it (and say it) in a construction more like, "Whenever it was that I first came to...". <S> I don't know if you would also object to this structure. <S> In terms of being "valid", the dictionary lists: <S> adv. <S> At whatever time. <S> When. <S> See Usage Note at whatever. <S> conj. <S> At whatever time that: We can leave whenever you're ready. <S> Every time that: The child smiles whenever the puppy appears. <S> Surely you say things like "whenever you want" -- this is the same "whenever". <A> This is a known dialect feature of the American South (but I can't find a reference right now). <S> I don't know that it has a different meaning from "when" in your dialect. <A> I have noticed this as well among youth in Northwest Arkansas. <S> I first started noticing it about 6 months ago. <S> My wife has started misusing " <S> whenever" as well. <S> Correct use: "Whenever I am in St. Louis, I visit Busch Gardens. <S> " <S> Incorrect use: <S> "Whenever I was 5 years old, I went to Busch Gardens." <A> The first time I heard it used incorrectly was on MTV by a young man from TN. <S> Since then I have noticed news reporters on HLN and CNN use it as well. <S> My first thought was that it was about "location" but I am now inclined to believe that it is either about education or people hearing it and thinking that they, themselves have been wrong all their lives. <S> "Whenever I was at the fire...." I too cringe when it is improperly used. <A> This is standard usage in Northern Ireland. <S> I've never heard it anywhere else (I live in the Republic, and I've never heard it here or from my English relatives).
| It should only be used to refer to indefinite or unknown times, not a single, specific time.
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When should you use "then" and when "than"? As far as I know, then is used in a conjunction and in time-related sentences; than in all other cases. I believe that these are correct: Because I'm older than she, I should be the first chosen; I loved her and then she died; If it rains [then] it pours; I've had more then enough; Would you rather be a mouse then a rat? Who, other than you, likes the color red? Or not? Can someone help me out clearing the mud? I think I'm 90% there, but I like to finally understand it completely. If you have other uses of then/than that I missed, please add yours. <Q> Because I'm older than she, I should be the first chosen. <S> I loved her <S> and then she died. <S> If it rains, then it pours. <S> I've had more than enough. <S> Would you rather be a mouse than a rat? <S> Who, other than you, likes the color red? <S> When there is a comparison, you use than ; then means: at that time; at the time in question: I was living in Cairo then <S> | <S> [after preposition] Phoebe by then was exhausted | [as adjective] a hotel where the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was staying . <S> after that; next; afterward: she won the first and then the second game . <S> also; in addition: I'm paid a generous salary, and then there's the money I've made at the races . <S> in that case; therefore: if you do what I tell you, then there's nothing to worry about | <S> well, that's okay then . <S> used at the end of a sentence to emphasize an inference being drawn: <S> so you're still here, then . <S> used to finish off a conversation: <S> see you in an hour, then . <S> (See also the definition of then given in the Oxford Living Dictionaries .) <A> Two corrections: <S> I’ve had more than enough. <S> Would you rather be a mouse than a rat? <S> Both “rather . . . <S> than . <S> . <S> .” and “more than” are fixed expressions. <A> Then is time related, like you said. <S> It divides two (or more) occurrences. <S> Example below. <S> Jack went to the shop, then he went to his grandmother. <S> If something is more or less than something else. <S> Examples below. <S> Jack is stronger than Cole. . <S> Cole is weaker than Jack. <S> Also, then is always preceded by a comma or an "and" (unless you're speaking about the word itself). <S> Than is never preceded by a comma. <S> Hope <S> I was clear enough.
| Than is a word we use when comparing something.
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Usage of italics in writing In which cases is a word, or a group of words written in italics? Is italics used in specific contexts, or it is quite normal to write words in italics? <Q> The Wikipedia page on Italic type gives a pretty good overview, along with some examples. <S> Emphasis: "Smith wasn't the only guilty party, it's true". <S> The titles of works that stand by themselves, such as books (including those within a larger series), albums, plays, or periodicals: "He wrote his thesis on The Scarlet Letter ". <S> Works that appear within larger works, such as short stories, poems, or newspaper articles, are not italicized, but merely set off in quotation marks. <S> The names of ships: "The Queen Mary sailed last night." <S> Foreign words, including the Latin binomial nomenclature in the taxonomy of living organisms: " <S> A splendid coq <S> au <S> vin was served"; " Homo sapiens ". <S> Using a word as an example of a word rather than for its semantic content (see use-mention distinction): <S> "The word <S> the is an article". <S> Using a letter or number mentioned as itself: <S> John was annoyed; they had forgotten the h in his name once again. <S> When she saw her name beside the 1 on the rankings, she finally had proof that she was the best. <S> Introducing or defining terms, especially technical terms or those used in an unusual or different way: "Freudian psychology is based on the ego , the super-ego , and the id ."; "An even number is one that is a multiple of 2." <S> Sometimes in novels to indicate a character's thought process: " This can't be happening , thought Mary." <S> Algebraic symbols (constants and variables) are conventionally typeset in italics. <S> Symbols for physical quantities and mathematical constants: "The speed of light, c , is approximately equal to 3.00×10 8 m/s. <S> "I've seen all of these usage cases between my reading of fiction and non-fiction texts. <S> In particular, I've seen several authors switch to italics for the length of one or even multiple paragraphs to represent the thoughts of a character. <S> Within such paragraphs, text that is normally italicised is put in regular/upright (Roman) type. <S> (See also this About.com page , though it says very similar things to the Wiki page.) <S> Hope that helps. <A> foreign words <S> Latin names of species <S> In the first and second case, you could just as well enclose the word(s) in quotes (without using italics). <S> The third one seems to be set in stone. <A> The other answers have many good examples of when to use italics, but I wanted to emphasize that on this site in particular I most frequently use italics to clarify the use–mention distinction —that is, to mention a word rather than <S> use it. <S> Of course, in the previous sentence I used italics to emphasize and not for the use–mention distinction. <S> Quotation marks are also frequently used to clarify the use–mention distinction, but I tend to reserve them for mentioning multi-word phrases and use italics for single words.
| Off the top of my head, italics are used for: book titles
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"Par for the course" From your personal experience, is "par for the course" widely understood, or would you recommend using a less technical term? I am particularly interested in differences between American, British, and Australian English. <Q> Golf is played worldwide, so I would expect that the phrase -- even if not idiomatic in the local dialect -- would be readily understood by most. <S> However, I can only speak with certainty for the U.S., where this is definitely a common expression. <A> As children learning our native language, we learn idioms long before we learn their source. <S> Many people never do learn (or care about) <S> the source of the phases they use daily. <S> In fact, I'd say that's par for the course. <S> If you don't understand that, I suppose I could take another tack. <A> Since the words "sub-par" and "on par" are fairly common, I think people could figure out what "par for the course" means.
| Even people who don't understand that the idiom originated in Golf have heard the phrase frequently and understand its meaning.
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"Intents and purposes" versus "intensive purposes" I know that "for all intents and purposes" is the correct saying, but I often hear/see people say/write "for all intensive purposes". I was under the impression that the latter is completely incorrect, but when I discussed this with some friends, we could not reach an agreement. Is "intensive purposes" considered correct even though it is a deviation from the original turn of phrase? <Q> It's most likely a slurring of the original phrase, but "for all intensive purposes" does make it clear that only the most serious purposes are being considered. <S> I would probably classify it as an eggcorn . <A> The original idiom is "intents and purposes. <S> " <S> Intents and Purposes are both nouns in this case. <S> With "intensive purposes" intensive is an adjective that describes the intensity of the noun purpose. <S> "This chainsaw is a suitable tool for the intensive purpose of cutting down this tree." <S> vs. <S> "This chainsaw serves our purpose, and is a suitable tool to carry out our intention of cutting down this tree. <S> " <S> Does it serve your purposes and satisfy your intents? <S> Or does it satisfy your intensive purposes? <A> It was first written by someone who heard the phrase "for all intents and purposes" incorrectly. <S> That is, it's something people who have misheard "for all intents and purposes" but who have never seen it written, have started using. <S> It's meaning - to the extent it has any meaning - would be nearly opposite of the meaning of "for all intents and purposes." <S> For all intents and purposes means, basically, "amounts to." <S> For all intents and purposes, they're married, means that they may not have a marriage certificate, but they behave and live as a married couple. <S> " <S> Intensive purposes," to the extent it makes any sense at all, would be limited to a subset of purposes, i.e. those that are most intensive (whatever that might mean) rather than for "all" purposes and all applications, i.e. intents.
| "For all intensive purposes" is wrong.
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What is the origin of "bouillon cubes"? What is the etymology of bouillon cubes ? What other word can I use? <Q> The Wiktionary page for bouillon describes the etymology well. <S> The immediate origin of the word is quite clearly French, and is cognate with boil in English. <S> First attested 1656, from French bouillir (“to boil”), from Old French boillir, from Latin bullīre, present active infinitive of bulliō (“I bubble, boil”), from bulla (“bubble”). <S> (Why do I feel I'm on the Food and Cooking StackExchange site..?) <A> I've never heard another word to describe a bouillon cube, but there are at least three of words for the product of a bouillon cube. <S> Stock, Broth, Soup. <A> If you said "broth cube", people would look at you funny, but they'd probably know what you meant.
| A bouillon cube is simply a bit of dehydrated bullion (broth) shaped into a cube, so it can be easily added to a liquid to quickly season a broth.
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When is the present perfect tense used instead of the past tense? When is the present perfect tense used instead of the past tense? I know that the present perfect tense is used when some adverbs (e.g., never , ever ) are present in the sentence; the same is true for sentences like the following one. When you returned, I have been at home since 3:00 PM. In which other cases should I use the present perfect? Do the following sentences require it? I have walked downtown everyday for a year. I have been at home since 3:00 PM. <Q> The present perfect is used for unfinished or undefined time. <S> I don't think your example is correct, since for a year is understood to be a finished time. <S> A time period of one year. <S> It would have been correct if you wrote: <S> I have walked downtown every day this year. <S> In that case you'd have unfinished time. <S> The time period would be up to and including now. <S> If you used a defined and finished time in the past like last august , then you'd have to use the simple past. <S> I walked downtown every day last August. <S> Since last August is finished time, you have to use the simple past. <A> I have walked downtown every day for a year. <S> The "perfect" part of "present perfect" means that the action has been completed. <S> You are saying that your action of walking downtown every day for a year is complete (which doesn't mean that you won't keep doing it). <S> The "present" bit means that the action has been completed in the present. <S> Let's contrast it with the past tense: <S> I walked downtown every day for a year. <S> There is no longer a time frame here. <S> This might have happened years ago, for all we know. <S> As a side note, please refer to Brians's Common Errors on the subject of "everyday". <A> It is also being used to denote the connection to the present. <S> That is the focus is on having the experience of walking every day for a year. <S> Contrast this to the simple past which only shows the event happened in the past. <S> We do not know when it started, nor do we know how it is connected to the present. <S> Additionally, the focus is on the simple fact that the event happened, not how it changes things for you in the present. <S> Arguably, if you really want to show the event continues through the present, you'd want to use the continuous, but that's a side note. <A> You are actually talking about two different things here. <S> There is tense (past, present) and there is aspect (finished, ongoing, punctual, etc.). <S> In English these are often somewhat hard to tell apart. <S> Your example has a tense mismatch. <S> The first part is past tense, while the second part is present tense. <S> You can think of it as equivalent to: <S> I have been at home since 3:00 PM, when you returned. <S> Which is clearly ungrammatical, because the first part is present tense and the second is past. <S> The "returning" event took place in the past, so your having been home must have occurred in the past as well. <S> So it would be: <S> "I had been at home (since X time) when you returned...."
| The present perfect is used to show that the event's timeframe started sometime in the past and continues into the present (and possibly will continue beyond).
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Pluralization rule for "five-year-old children", "20 pound note", "10 mile run" Why are year, pound and mile in the singular form in the phrases below? five-year-old children 20 pound note 10 mile run Is that because they're acting as adjectives, which are always invariable in English? Is it incorrect to say... five-years-old children? 20 pounds note? 10 miles run? <Q> And adjectives don't have plural forms. <S> Additional examples three-storey building ( three-stories bulding ) four-wheel drive ( four-wheels drive ) 32-bit processor ( 32-bits processor ) <A> Some adjectives can only be used to modify nouns, for example the adjective indoor . <S> We can talk about: indoor swimming pools <S> But we don't usually say: <S> *The pool was indoor (not good) <S> We call adjectives that appear before nouns attributive adjectives . <S> The adjective indoor is called an attributive only adjective. <S> Other adjectives can't usually be used before a noun. <S> We usually find these adjectives as the complements of verbs like BE , FEEL or BECOME . <S> So we can say She was afraid <S> She felt afraid <S> But we cannot say: *an afraid girl (not good) Adjectives that we use like this are called predicative adjectives . <S> The adjective afraid is a predicative only adjective. <S> We can use most adjectives as attributive adjective and predicative adjectives: a huge elephant <S> The elephant was huge. <S> Sometimes we have two adjectives that look similar and mean the same thing. <S> One of them is attributive only, and the other predicative only. <S> For example, the adjectives live and alive . <S> When these words are used to describe things that aren't dead, we use live as an attributive adjective and alive as a predicative adjective: a live snake <S> The snake was alive. <S> *an alive snake (wrong) <S> * <S> The snake was live. <S> (wrong) <S> The term two-year old is used as an attributive only adjective phrase: a two year old whisky <S> * <S> The whisky was two year old (wrong). <S> The term two years old is used as a predicative only adjective phrase: *a two years old whisky (wrong) <S> The whisky was two years old. <S> Similarly the following measure phrases only have attributive uses, where the noun part of the phrase has no plural inflection: <S> twenty pound <S> ten mile five minute <S> as in the following examples: a twenty pound note <S> a ten mile journey a five minute meeting <S> In contrast, the following measure phrases where the noun part is plurally inflected can only be used predicatively: <S> the meal was twenty pounds <S> the journey was ten miles <S> the meeting was five minutes <S> Note <S> We can also use the term two year old as a nominal phrase. <S> We can use it like a noun. <S> : <S> I have two children: a two year old and a three year old. <S> Notice that we use the attributive adjective here because we mean: a two year old child . <S> Hope <S> this is helpful! <A> On the other hand, you could describe a successful tennis player equally as "a five-times winner of the Australian Open" and "a five-time winner of the Australian Open". <S> And the former British government minister John Prescott, who was nicknamed 'Two Jags' (because he had a Jaguar as an official vehicle in addition to the Jaguar he owned), was sometimes referred to as ' Two-Jags Prescott', not ' Two-Jag Prescott'. <S> So the general rule is not absolute. <A> I think it all goes back to the -a suffix in Old English that marked plural adjectives, but which has since been lost. <S> Perhaps if we'd had one a thousand years ago, we'd have called it A ten pounda note . <S> Switching from money to weight, some people would ask the grocer for Ten pound of apples . <S> Presumably that's by association with the form we're talking about here, but I imagine most of us would use the plural in this case. <S> So it's certainly not all cut-and-dried. <S> In short, it seems this is another case of 'language on the move' in ways we don't normally notice.
| Those are called compound and hyphenated compound adjectives.
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What does aw mean? I have heard somebody saying aw, shucks . What does that mean? In which other cases is the word used? <Q> The word "aw" in this case is an interjection with the following definition (from Merriam-Webster ): used to express mild disappointment, gentle entreaty, or real or mock sympathy or sentiment <S> If something mildly bad (but not too bad) happens to someone else, you can say "aw". <S> (If it is something really bad, then it sounds rude to say "aw".) <A> It that case awe means nothing. <S> It is a particle. <S> Kinda like the <S> oh in <S> Oh... that's bad. <A> Think " <S> Oh, damn" for kindergartners. <S> It's also used to indicate false modesty, something a cartoon character says while blushing after being complimented. <S> It carries a little bit of a rustic, unsophisticated flavor. <S> I've seen it applied to politicians affecting a humble demeanor.
| "Aw, shucks" together form an extremely mild expletive to express disappointment or frustration.
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When is it appropriate to use "titled" vs. "entitled"? When is it appropriate to use "titled" vs. "entitled"? For example, which is the correct word to use in the following sentence? I really liked the conclusion to rands’ latest blog post entitled “How to Run a Meeting”. <Q> From the NOAD : titled /ˈtaɪdld/ <S> adjective <S> (of a person) having a title indicating high social or official rank. <S> entitle /ɪnˈtaɪdl/ /ɛnˈtaɪdl/ <S> verb [trans.] <S> (usually be entitled) <S> 1. give (someone) <S> a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something: <S> employees are normally entitled to severance pay | [trans.] <S> the landlord is entitled to require references . <S> 2. give (something, especially a text or work of art) <S> a particular title: an article entitled "The Harried Society." <S> - [trans.] <S> archaic give (someone) a specified title expressing their rank, office, or character: <S> they entitled him Sultan . <S> In your example, you should say I really liked the conclusion to rands' latest blog post entitled "How to Run a Meeting." <A> The verbs entitle and title are synonyms. <S> Regarding nouns, title is a noun, entitle is not. <S> Title on its own is an adjective (the title story - the story from the book the book got its title from), entitle is not. <S> Entitle has an additional association to the meaning of having rights to or honor: I was entitled to the deduction. <S> When you say The book is titled "Far away from here". <S> you are saying that technically it has that title, but when you say The book is entitled "Far away from here". <S> you are implying some sort of preference, either that you liked the book, or that the title was appropriate, or that the book has become famous, or that you want to suggest people to read it, something that gives to the book more than just a simple title. <S> I entitle this book with her name. <S> means <S> I am giving this book something special by giving it a title of more importance to me , suggesting strong emotions. <S> The director wanted to title the movie "Loud air". <S> means what it says. <S> In this sentence using entitle instead of title would be kind of strange, unless something more is said about the movie or the director. <S> In your sentence "I really liked..." suggests preference, honor, and, although titled and entitled are both correct, entitled suggests "appropriately titled" or "nicely titled" which is what the author really wanted to express. <A> There is an interesting article on this topic at the following URL. <S> It provides usage statistics. <S> http://grammarist.com/usage/entitled-titled/ <A> "Titled", I believe, typically refers to title as in rank or nobility . " <S> Entitled" means (for one) "to give a title to" or designate. <A> Using "the article was titled ... " is more concise. <A> According to dictionary.com, 'title' as a verb means "to furnish with a title; designate by an appellation; entitle. <S> " <S> I conclude both are acceptable. <S> I think I tend to use 'titled' preferentially, probably because it's shorter.
| "Entitled" would denote a usage whereby one is deserving of, as opposed to "Titled" where someone is already honored. "Entitled", when used to refer to how something is titled, is just confusing usage. The verb entitle regards the given name as a more distinguished feature of an object, more than the verb title .
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Should "Project Manager" be capitalized? I am pretty sure it shouldn't, but want to make sure that I am doing this correctly in a proposal that I am working on. Should job titles like "Project Manager" ever be capitalized, and if so when? In particular I am concerned about capitalization in sentences like this where the title refers to a specific person, not the role in general. "The Project Manager will evaluate the alternatives and offer a solution." I'm a lot more certain that it should NOT be capitalized in sentences like this. "A project manager is the person who manages the budget and deliverable for a project." <Q> Agreed on both counts regarding the examples in the OP. <S> However, there is no need to capitalize in other cases, and it would be strange if capitalized in the second example, unless it were in a company operations manual, for example. <S> A similar example is when you capitalize "dad" in the sentence: <S> I'm going fishing with Dad tomorrow. <S> However you don't capitalize it in the following version: <S> I'm going fishing with my dad tomorrow. <S> The former replaces a name, where the latter simply states the relationship of the person. <A> The Guardian style guide says: jobs <S> all lc, eg prime minister, US secretary of state, chief rabbi, editor of the Guardian. <S> titles cap up titles, but not job description, eg President Barack Obama (but the US president, Barack Obama, and Obama on subsequent mention); the Duke of Westminster (the duke at second mention); Pope Benedict XVI but the pope. <S> Project manager is a job not a title, so should be lowercase in both examples: <S> "The project manager will evaluate the alternatives and offer a solution." <S> "A project manager is the person who manages the budget and deliverable for a project." <A> As Lee answered, when you replace a name with a pronoun, you capitalize it. <S> However your first example is using it as an improper noun and it should simply read: "The project manager..." <S> The only job titles I can think of to capitalize are honorifics that are included with names - like royalty. <S> I would for instance capitalize: Her Royal Highness, Queen Victoria and Professor Moriarty
| That is, job titles should be capitalized when they are taking the place of a single person (or otherwise acting as a name of an entity).
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When should one use the comma versus the semicolon, and vice versa? I cannot understand the difference between the comma and semicolon. Can you please clarify? <Q> From eHow : <S> Comma (,) 1) Use a comma to separate 2 independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction such as and, but and or. <S> The key here is to have 2 subject verb pairs. <S> Example: The students reviewed for the exam, and the teacher corrected the term papers. <S> In this example we have 2 subject verb pairs: "students reviewed" and "teacher corrected." <S> Example: The teacher corrected the papers and entered the grades in the grade book. <S> In this example we use the coordinating conjunction "and" but have 1 subject and 2 verbs: "teacher corrected, entered"; therefore, no comma is used. <S> 2) <S> Use a comma to separate items in a series to avoid ambiguous meaning. <S> Example: Uncle willed me his property, houses, and warehouses. <S> In this example, we mean that uncle willed me 3 items--his houses, warehouses, and property. <S> Example <S> : Uncle willed me his property, houses and warehouses. <S> In this example, we mean that uncle willed me 2 items--all his property, which consisted of houses and warehouses. <S> 3) Use a comma with introductory elements such as subordinating clauses that come at the beginning of the sentence. <S> Example: Because the river had flooded, the school closed for the week. <S> The introductory element, or subordinating clause is "because the river had flooded. <S> " It is introduced with the subordinating conjunction "because." <S> Example: The school closed for the week because the river had flooded. <S> In this example the subordinating clause is at the end of the sentence so we do not use a comma. <S> Semicolon (;) 1) Use a semicolon to separate 2 independent clauses in a sentence, closely related, with no coordinating conjunction. <S> Example: The students reviewed for the exam; the teacher corrected the papers. <S> Example: The candidates spoke to the crowds during Election Day; each candidate spoke passionately about the fate of the country. <S> 2) <S> Example: We visited our relatives in Albany, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Washington, D.C. <A> You use a semicolon ( ; ) to create a compound sentence made of two complete sentences. <S> For example: John went to school; today was his first day. <S> is equivalent to John went to school. <S> Today was his first day. <S> and so is correct. <S> Use of a semicolon is inappropriate in any other case. <S> The following is incorrect: Because John went to school; Sally was left home alone. <S> because if we split into two sentences, Because John went to school. <S> Sally was left home alone. <S> , the first is a sentence fragment. <S> In addition, use of a comma to separate two complete sentences ( John went to school, today was his first day. ) <S> is inappropriate and is called a comma splice . <A> The first is a comma, which is just a pause that off-sets a phrase. <S> The second is a semi-colon, " used to indicate a major division in a sentence where a more distinct separation is felt between clauses or items on a list than is indicated by a comma, as between the two clauses of a compound sentence ."
| Use a semicolon to separate items in a series where the series themselves contain commas.
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Is "fastly" a correct word? Slow has the adverb slowly . I tend to use fastly as the adverb for fast . However, it is underlined in most spell checkers I use, which makes me wonder about the existence of this word. Is fastly a correct word? If not, what should be used instead, and why is that different from its antonym? <Q> There is no need for "fastly" because "fast" is both an adjective and an adverb. <S> So, "I ran fast" is completely correct. <S> The existence of "fast" as an adverb does not preclude the future development of a word "fastly", but it does hinder it. <S> One might note that the corresponding adjective "slow" does take the -ly suffix, but this has no impact on the behavior of "fast". <S> (There is also no real reason why, for example, we have warm/warmth, but cool/coolness. <S> Semantically related things sometimes have similar morphological patterns, and sometimes not.) <S> One interesting thing worth noting (that was brought up in a comment by Jimi Oke) is that there are cases of adjectives with identical adverbs that also have an -ly form; for example, we have "right" and "wrong" as adjectives and adverbs, but we also have "rightly" and "wrongly". <S> In such cases, the -ly form has carved out its own semantic niche; the adverb "right" and the adverb "rightly" cannot be used interchangeably in every situation. <S> I can say "turn right" and "rightly so", but I can't exchange them in either sentence. <S> With normal adjectives that cannot become adverbs without -ly , usually the -ly just transparently makes the adjective adverbial — it doesn't have its own separate semantic nuances (e.g. "quickly" simply means "in a quick manner"). <A> The adverb form of fast is irregular. <S> It is one of several exceptions, as is "well" as mentioned by Dena A. a fast runner <S> / run fasta <S> hard worker / work harda bad smell <S> / smell bad etc. <S> etc. <S> etc. <S> About work hard: 'he works hard', in contrast to 'he is hardly working'. <S> Two different meanings. <A> Fast is an adverb as well as an adjective, so you wouldn't use fastly . <S> Another common adverb that doesn't follow the pattern of ending in ly is well , not the expected goodly , which is actually an adjective and means a large quantity, e.g. a goodly sum . <A> Per etymonline, fastly is the 'former adverbial form of <S> fast (adj.), from O.E. fæstlic "firm, fixed, steadfast, resolute;" obsolete in 19c., <S> simple fast taking its place.' <S> There you go folks, so much for logic... <A> Though word fastly used in many places (you can find many results by searching Google ) <S> but still it is not correct. <S> For reference see the definition of word fast from WikiDictionary <S> See the post wrong / fast-- adverbs with no 'ly' ending to learn more. <A> This reminds me of how small children extrapolate grammatical constructions in seemingly logical ways, except English is not always that logical. <S> So my daughter (3¾) will correctly say "I colour in neatly" or "I'll do it carefully", but then also "It comes lastly" "I can hop bigly" " <S> Go farly <S> " "Squeeze me hardly" etc. <A> It just happens to be an obsolete one. <A> "Fast" can also mean to hold onto in a strongly, and "fastly" is the adverb of that word. <S> E.g. "The crew held fastly onto the hand-rail of the boat as it rolled in the storm" <A> This is emblematic of a misunderstanding that gives rise to forms truly abominable, begetting debellished hypercorrections thusly seen in casual prose all over the internet todaily. <S> The problem is that people oftenly get this mistaken notion that adverbs need to end in ‑ly . <S> I know no likely explanation for this blunder, but they stilly do it anywaily. <S> Howeverly certain they are of this non-rule, nothing could be furthlier from the truth, and the soonlier they realize this, the morely their writing stands to gain; it sure won’t happen beforely. <S> This semisilly answer is intended to come across friendlily, not meanly or worsely.
| Oh, fastly is a word alright.
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How can I learn to get collocations right? I read an article about collocation which includes an example: We can say highly sophisticated , and we can say extremely happy . highly happy and extremely sophisticated would be wrong. How can I learn to get collocations right? Are there any rules or has this to be learned word by word? <Q> Note the computer example (powerful vs. strong computer); it's not that strong computers don't exist- <S> they are just normally referred to as powerful. <S> Since this isn't idiomatic (ie, a static, limited case use), the problem with giving hard, fast rules is that they would likely be localized or a compendium of adjective/noun combos you would need to memorize. <S> For consolation, someone from the west coast of America might says something is 'totally awesome' and someone from the Atlantic northeast might says that same thing is 'wicked awesome'; but they'd both sound like fools because everybody knows that something is 'freaking awesome' here in Ohio. <A> Google is your friend here. <S> "Highly happy" returns 74,000 hits (many of which refer to a book with the phrase in the title), while "extremely happy" returns over 6 million. <S> So the latter is clearly the stronger of the collocations. <S> Alternatively, you could use a collocation dictionary such as those published by Oxford or LTP. <A> I agree with mfg's answer; most of these are convention and there are no good rules. <S> However I wanted to add that in some cases you can eliminate certain combinations that don't make as much sense. <S> highly sophisticated <S> In this case things that are more sophisticated are often seen as better or more "advanced" and thus "higher" than the base, simple, unsophisticated things. <S> It makes sense to "order" the sophistication from high to low. <S> extremely sophisticated <S> I think this is a perfectly acceptable way of expressing the thought. <S> highly happy <S> In this case I would say happiness is not ordered and more emotion is not necessarily better than less. <S> However this is not a hard and fast rule, more of a guideline (the phrase highly happy might sound a bit odd to me, but I probably wouldn't consider it a mistake). <S> So I think you have a fairly high level of freedom to choose your modifiers, and as long as you don't pick one that is really inappropriate, people will understand you, and probably won't think anything worse than "This person is from out of town". <A> We can say highly sophisticated, and we can say extremely happy. <S> This has to do with specificity . <S> "High" is more specific than "extreme" and "sophisticated" is more specific than "happy". <S> "Extreme", being the looser, can go easily with either. <S> "Highly" has connotations of superiority (compare "extremely little" vs. "highly little") <S> so this fits well with "sophisticated" (you would only say "highly inferior" if you were mocking something, being ironic). <S> As for "highly happy", I guess that would be a suitable combination only if someone was happy because of their "height" (status). <S> It's phonetically uncomfortable and I guess that's the main reason it doesn't seem right.
| Because the basis of collocations is probabilistic, based on the colloquial, and the rules are arbitrary, it seems there is not actual 'getting it right', but rather there would mostly just be a 'sounds okay.'
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Using 'stuck' as a verb The visual studio kept stucking under RDP yesterday Should 'stuck' become a present tense verb? It seems like "getting stuck" is too long for the modern world where it happens much more frequently to things than it used to (See, for example, Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Share and enjoy"). <Q> It seems the answer should be <S> no since the usage of 'stuck' <S> (in the case of getting, being stuck) is as a modifier. <S> A similar case could be made for "I am happy", as though 'am happy' should be a verb. <S> It would see an equal amount of use; but structurally being a verb doesn't simplify anything or make it more concise/accurate. <A> Well, such things are possible in language. <S> You are talking about taking an adjective/a past participle of a verb and re-appropriating it as the present tense of a verb with a related, but different, meaning. <S> This verb seems to refer specifically to programs/computers getting stuck. <S> Sure, this could happen. <S> As to whether it is likely, it really depends on circumstances -- it is similar to asking if a certain animal should evolve a sharper claw. <S> Linguistically speaking, creating a verb (to stuck) that looks like the past tense form of another verb (to stick) is not impossible. <S> As mentioned in another thread , we have the verbs "to fall/to fell", "to lay/to lie". <S> The biggest obstacle I see is competing terms that already exist as verbs: "to hang" and "to lag" come to mind. <S> Both of these are related to "getting stuck" in the computer sense. <A> I have never before encountered this use, but there do seem to be a few examples on Google. <S> Some are probably mistypes, but it does look as if there are people using it in this way. <S> Perhaps it will become established, but I doubt it. <S> What is clear, though, is that there is very little that you or I could do either to make it happen or to stop it happening. <S> Change in language just happens when it happens, and it is rare that an individual can influence that. <A> The idiomatic phrase is to get stuck (meaning to hang, to bog down, to stop), where the verb is to get , so that's the term that needs to be modified for time -- hence got stuck, *kept getting stuck*, etc. <S> Stuck is, as noted, an adjective in this case. <S> It's true that to stick <S> is also a verb, and it's arguable that in some circumstances, to stick and to get stuck might be synonymous. <S> Not here, though, because in the context (computers), we don't say that the computer or program stuck .
| If there is sufficient need for it, and if there isn't a better alternative, then it will emerge -- but language change doesn't happen because people decide it.
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What is the first recorded appearance of the mistranslation "Red Square"? Does anybody know when the mistranslation " Red Square " made its first recorded appearance? Have there been any noteworthy attempts at establishing the correct translation "Beautiful Square" at some point in history? Obviously, it's too late to change the name now, but I am interested in learning how fast its use gained momentum in English-speaking countries and when the point of no return was reached. <Q> Found this use from the The Scots Magazine , 1816 <S> ( check ) <A> Q: <S> Obviously, it's too late to change the name now, but I am interested in learning how fast its use gained momentum in English-speaking countries and when the point of no return was reached. <S> Google Ngram Viewer suggests the point of no-return was reached by the early 1900s: <S> Both before and after Callithumpian's 1816 citation, there are examples of "Beautiful Square" such as this non-capitalised 1805 <S> Characteristic anecdotes from the history of Russia , translated from the French of the consellor of state, Clausen, by B. Lambert: Krafnaja Plosehad before the Kreml. <S> From 1826 's Travels in European Russia ... <S> And a footnote in 1847 's Secret history of the court and government of Russia under the emperors ... <S> by Jean-Henri Schnitzler <S> gives both translations: <S> However, 1834 's Excursions in the north of Europe, ... in 1830 and 1833 by John Barrow gives the French name, Place Rouge : <S> And 1838 's Recollections of a tour in the north of Europe in 1836 - 1837 <S> , Volume 1 by Charles William Vane of Londonderry gives both possible names in French, the Place Rouge or La Belle Place: <A> Using Google Books, I was able to antedate usage of “Red Square” to refer to the square in Moscow to 1844. <S> It is from an 1844 translation of <S> The Heretic by Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov <S> , the first use being on page 30 : Look out of the window towards the Kreml <S> , you will see the cannon-yard, the Red Square , the shops, Várskaia Street and the Spass-v-Tchegaáskh beyond the Yaóuza. <S> There is also a second 1845 translation of the same book which also uses the translation Red Square . <S> Given the origin of the name, as discussed in the Wikipedia article, I'm willing to bet that “Red Square” is even how Russians think of the name. <S> I don’t get the impression that Красная (krasnaya) means anything other than red in contemporary Russian.
| Further perusing the translation links on Wikipedia, it does appear that the translated name is universally “Red Square” (where Red refers to the color).
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Should the words "city"/"state"/"province" be capitalized (if not followed by the name of the city)? When referring to an entity like a government body, should it be capitalized if referring to is by classification(?). E.g., if I write: The City of New York requires us to get a building permit. Certainly "city" should be capitalized. However, if I'm communicating in a context where everyone should know what city I'm referring to (the one we are in), when I write: The city requires us to get a building permit. Should "city" still be capitalized? <Q> In your second example, "city" should not be capitalized. <S> Your first example is correct so long as you're referring to the City of New York , as the formal name for New York. <A> If I saw the City <S> I would assume that what was meant was the City of London (which is not at all the same thing as London City). <S> In other contexts, city should be spelled with a lowercase c . <A> City/state/province etc are qualifiers. <S> On their own they don't specify anything specific and therefore aren't proper nouns. <S> New York City is a vague virtual identity, meaning what it needs to mean to a particular writer. <S> The "City" qualifier being a filler <S> so it rolls off the tongue easier. <S> Everyone knows New York is a city or else you can disambiguate in lowercase. <S> It changes to uppercase when you have proper nouns like "New York City Council". <S> Even in the case of the council only used when writing about THE New York City Council, as opposed to writing "New York city council and other city councils are considering the use of garbage cans. <S> " If we were to capitalize qualifiers referring to conceptual proper nouns, there would be capitals everywhere, like camels walking in every sentence. <S> Making reading harder rather than easier. <S> King George Whiting <S> The Second went on an Abbreviated Holiday, spending his time in Elverston and Surrounding Area Park Range.
| However, if I were simply using the word "city" to disambiguate and not as part of a formal name, I wouldn't capitalize it: We're only going to the city of New York, not the rest of the state. Words for governmental or administrative units are only capitalized when they are used as part of a proper noun, such as the formal name of a city.
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"Fill out a form" or "fill in a form" Does one fill out a form or does one fill in a form ? I've gotten different answers from the people I've asked. Google search results: fill in a form — 14,200,000 fill out a form — 7,000,000 <Q> It appears that this is a British/American distinction. <S> The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) reports 92 incidences of “fill out a/the/this form” and just 2 of “fill in a/the/this form”, clearly establishing “fill out” as the standard idiom in American English. <S> I haven’t worked out how to search the British National Corpus yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the results were reversed there. <S> Edit: <S> OK, I got the BNC to respond to queries—although it sure takes its sweet time—and I got 19+7=26 results for “fill in a/the form” , and 5+1=6 for <S> “fill out a/the form” . <S> So it does appear that British English favors fill in over fill out , although not to the degree to which American English favors fill out over fill in . <A> Both are perfectly acceptable. <A> As an Englishman living in the US for almost 20 years, "fill out" still sounds jarring to my ears. <S> I had never heard it used before I came to America. <S> I rarely hear "fill in" on this side of the Atlantic. <A> P.S. to fill out <S> the form is to complete it. <S> To fill in the form is to supply information as required. <A> The Americanism follows in line with other usages: <S> Knock out (to complete, slang , verb ) <S> Round out (add more in order to ensure a broad range, slang) <S> fill out (no form-based, as in "why don't you use the rest of those flowers to fill out this basket" )
| In my dialect of American English, you "fill out the form" by "filling in the blanks" on the form.
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Why do you say "friend of mine" instead of "friend of me"? I think friend of mine can be translated to my friend. In that case, doesn't friend of me make more sense? If we translate friend of mine to one of my friends then I guess friend of mine makes sense for my friends being mine. Is there a difference? When do you say ... of mine instead of my ... ? Is there a specific situation when you use one or the other? <Q> In the construction friend of mine <S> the "mine" means "my friends", so literally ? <S> he is [one] friend of [all my friends] or more idiomatically, <S> he is one of my friends <S> If I only have one friend and he is my only friend, we cannot then say "he is a friend of mine", because the "mine" doesn't mean a group of people. <S> If I introduce my daughter I would never say <S> * <S> this is a daughter of mine, always <S> this is my daughter. <A> Since it is about a friend (who is associated <S> ) mine must be used instead of me. <S> Adapted from <S> NOAD <S> Another usage: <S> The picture is mine = <S> It is my picture. <S> (possessive pronoun) <S> The picture is me = <S> I am in the picture. <S> (object pronoun) <A> Is there a specific situation when you use one or the other? <S> "Friend of mine" would generally be used when you're saying something like "Kim is a friend of mine," in other words, at the end of a phrase or sentence. <S> "My friend" is often used when saying "Kim is my friend", or in the construction, "My friend, you have a rip in the back of your shirt." <A> Ok, sorry, long two-part idea. <S> "of someone" in this case is not really about possession. <S> My impression is that English speakers do not like to use "of" simply to show possession; we have other grammatical constructions for that. <S> Instead, "of" is used to refer to patterns of association or constituency in some larger whole, as in "out of" "consisting of". <S> "a friend of mine" is really a shortened form of "a friend of mine (friends)" as argued by other comments. <S> This means, literally, "one friend out of my several friends". <S> The OED etymology sections have a long but clear explanation of the history of "mine" and "my" that more or less clears this up. <S> Historically, "my" originates from a singular version (min) and "mine" from a plural version (mine) which were otherwise grammatically the same. <S> Therefore, "mine" probably does have something to do with the plurality of friends in this case. <S> Just like "mine eyes" probably made sense in the the past, but not "mine nose". <S> One thing that either clinches or messes up this interpretation is that people say "of hers". <S> OED calls this a "double possessive" which developed by extrapolation from 's. <S> But some dialectical variants use "of hern" instead, which was definitely plural in the past. <S> Therefore. <S> " <S> hern friends" was used in the past. <S> Was "hers friends" ever grammatical? <S> I'm inclined to think this is (historically) about plurality and not about double possession. <S> Maybe phrases like "of John's" were originally in the plural possessive sense "of Johns" where John has many of something, not where there are many Johns, but were reanalyzed as a new special kind of possessive when this kind of plural possessive was lost. <S> Therefore, the idea of double possession is a later way of explaining why people speak like this. <A> "Mine" was once used to mean "my." ("Mine eyes have seen the glory...") <S> I would guess that this idiom is a holdover of that usage, although here it functions as an object rather than an adjective. <A> The nominative form of "me" is "I". <S> You wouldn't say, for instance, "He is a colleague of me." <S> Any more than you would say <S> "He is I colleague. <S> " <S> You would say: "He is a colleague of mine" and <S> "He is my colleague" <S> The same goes for friends. <S> For whatever reason, friends, colleagues, etc., are treated as possessions in English. <S> As noted above, when it's third person, you can do this. <S> But consider: "A friend of Jane." <S> and "Jane friend." <S> Again, it doesn't work. <S> Perhaps this use of the non-genitive is just a matter of usage. <S> I'm not sure. <A> Why "of mine" rather than "of me"? <S> Evidently, it has to do with the function of the preposition "of" in standard modern English. <S> "That was kind of you to say. <S> " Here "of" creates a relationship between "you" and "kind", but does not indicate possession. <S> It simply answers the question: "of whom?". <S> On the other hand: "Those were kind words of yours." <S> Here, "of" indicates possession, inasmuch as it answers the question: "whose?" <S> There are certainly English dialect forms that conflate "of whom" and "whose", perhaps in the same way that informal modern German frequently uses the dative instead of the genitive case. <S> Do you mind me/my closing the window? <S> This illustrates a case in point where standard modern English acknowledges the similarity of both forms.
| Mine is used to refer a thing belonging to (or a person associated with) the speaker.
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Is "forte" pronounced "fort" or "for-tay"? I've always heard people say something like "Pronunciation is not my [for-tay]" ... but I feel that I've heard that the correct pronunciation is "Confusing people is my [fort]" What is the proper way to pronounce this word? <Q> Most people don't know about this distinction and pronounce it FOR-tay for all senses, both the “strong point” sense as well as the musical term. <S> Most people will not notice or care if you do that. <S> In fact, if you say that some subject is or is not your “fort”, people will look at you quizzically and perhaps even ask “do you mean FOR-tay?”. <S> On the other hand, if you use the pronunciation “FOR-tay” those of us who know the difference may judge you to be ignorant. <S> In either case, you take a risk of some sort. <S> Bryan Garner came up with the name “skunked term” for words like this, in his 1998 Dictionary of Modern American Usage : <S> When a word undergoes a marked change from one use to another … it’s likely to be the subject of dispute. <S> Some people (Group 1) insist on the traditional use; others (Group 2) embrace the new use. <S> … <S> Any use of [the word] is likely to distract some readers. <S> The new use seems illiterate to Group 1; the old use seems odd to Group 2. <S> The word has become “skunked.” <S> My advice is to find a substitute word or phrase. <A> This source http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/forte suggests that the correct pronunciation of the word in your context is 'fort', as it is derived from the French 'fort' (strong) and the 'for-tay' pronunciation appeared through confusion with the 'forte' in music meaning loud, which is Italian and correctly pronounced 'for-tay'. <A> The Oxford Dictionary considers both forms to be correct. <S> The French feminine form was substituted for the masculine in English, similar to locale, morale etc. <S> The Pronunciation was latterly inflected. <A> As reported by the NOAD, the pronunciation is |ˈfɔrˌteɪ| or |fɔrt| , whenever forte means a thing at which someone excels, or loud/loudly. <S> In the first case, the origin of the word is from a French word fort (masculine), or <S> forte (feminine), from Latin fortis ; in the second case the origin is the Italian word forte , from the Latin fortis . <S> The difference is that in the first case the word has been borrowed from French, while in the other case the word has been borrowed from Italian; in both the cases, the word derive from the same Latin word. <S> In Italian, the used word is forte for both the meanings; if there is any difference in the pronunciation is probably to differentiate the different origin of the English words. <A> Define "proper." <S> Language change, including pronunciation change is inevitable. <S> And reference books, no matter how prescriptive, cannot stem the tide of change, which can come from overwhelming use by the masses. <S> Frankly, I've never heard forte (meaning strength) pronounced as anything other than for-tay, and I am fifty two. <S> If you are unsure or waffling, I suggest you pronounce it the way that the social group you wish to identify with pronounces it, and that can include pronouncing it differently around different people. <A> In common American usage I have always heard "for-tay" because saying "fort" sounds like another word spelled f-o-r-t meaning a temporary dwelling. <A> I always heard the ‘strength’ meaning came from fencing, where you try to parry with the inner half of the blade (the forte), because it's stronger than the outer half, the foible. <S> If so, it would come from Italian rather than French, so two syllables. <A> NOAD has three pronunciations: <S> |ˈfɔːteɪ| |ˈfɔːti| |fɔːt|(with <S> the first one only for the musical term).
| If you want to be perfectly and unimpeachably correct, you will pronounce the word forte , meaning something that is one’s strong point, identically to the word fort , and reserve the FOR-tay pronunciation only for the musical term.
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Which is more correct: "Plug-in" or "plugin"? What is the correct word, plugin or plug-in ? Does it depend from the context? <Q> I'd seriously shy away from calling plugin incorrect <S> —I mean, just look how many hits you can get with Firefox and plugin . <S> In my experience, especially with computer programs and on the Internet, plugin is much more common than plug-in . <S> Taking a descriptivist standpoint, I'd put my weight behind plugin . <A> The correct word is plug-in. <S> Every dictionary I can find plus wikipedia all state the word being "plug-in" while a few do mention they are sometimes called "plugins", that just seems to be in incorrect usage. <S> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plug-in <S> I would post more links but my rep will not allow me. <S> And if you also want to know the act of plugging something in it would be <S> "I am going to plug in the lamp." <A> Theoretically plug-in is the correct one, but practically both are widely used. <S> (Mozilla, for example, calls them plugins .) <A> I'm sure "plugin" is the wave of the future (like "email"). <S> I'm a tech writer <S> and I'm trying to decide which spelling to use in documentation. <S> My copy of the "Microsoft Manual of Style" has "plug-in" with a hyphen <S> but it's a bit out of date (10 years old, to be precise). <S> I'll probably go with "plugin" since that's the way our developers spell it.
| As others have mentioned, most dictionaries (including the OED) list plug-in as appropriate.
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How should I punctuate around quotes where the punctuation required by the quote interferes with the punctuation of the sentence? The American convention in quotations is (typically) to place punctuation inside quoted text. But I always run into situations where the punctuation of the quote interferes with the punctuation of the sentence. How would you punctuate this (American, non technical)? When my friends ask, "What do you want for your birthday?", I never know how to respond. It seems odd to place the last comma outside the quote simply because of the question mark. Is that the preferred (i.e. most often accepted) standard? <Q> The British put them outside the quotes, which seems much more logical. <S> The American style is to put the punctuation inside the quotes. <S> The American version is often known as "Typesetter's Quotes". <S> As you can see, I go with the British version, at least in informal writing. <S> Interesting fact: They are called typesetter's quotes because when typesetters were laying out the typesetting blocks putting the small blocks for punctuation inside the quotes made the layout more stable and less prone to shift around. <S> That's probably why it seems so illogical, it was done for mechanical reasons, not linguistic reasons. <A> Whoever said "The Chicago Manual of Style (6.8) says that When my friends ask, "What do you want for your birthday?," I never know how to respond. <S> is the correct form. <S> " was most likely mistaken. <S> To begin with, they are probably referring to the 15th edition, where section 6.8 addresses periods and commas inside quotation marks, rather than the current 16th edition, where section 6.8 addresses punctuation with URLs and e-mail addresses. <S> However, 15th edition section 6.8 does not address question marks and I could find no example of question-mark followed by comma followed by closing quote in the 15th edition. <S> In any case the 15th edition is out of date. <S> The current edition (the 16th), forbids the construction of question-mark followed by comma followed by closing quote with one very specific exception. <S> In section 6.119, punctuation that is part of a title is treated as if it is not punctuation, so if the title ends with a question mark, it would still be followed by a comma. <S> However, if what is being quoted is not a title, then the comma is dropped as in these examples from the 16th edition: <S> “What’s the rush?” <S> she wondered. <S> (section 6.10) <S> Is it worth the risk? <S> he wondered. <S> (section 6.67) <S> “Are you a doctor?” asked Mahmoud. <S> (section 6.119) <S> See all the Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A where they change <S> /correct <S> Can you believe that I said, “When she says, ‘Do you know which fruit Jim likes best: apples, bananas, or oranges?,’ tell her this: ‘Actually, I once overheard Jim say, “I only eat pears!” ’.”?! <S> to <S> Can you believe that I said, “When she says, ‘Do you know which fruit Jim likes best—apples, bananas, or oranges? <S> ’ tell her that, actually, I once overheard <S> Jim say that he only eats pears”? <A> I find this entire discussion quite intriguing, to be honest. <S> Assuming that most people will come here looking for guidance on a rather non-complex scale: <S> The American convention for punctuation of quotations is that commas and full stops (aka the '.') <S> always go inside the quotation. <S> This is true. <S> This is to assist with organization, but also to eliminate duplicate sentence-ending punctuation. <S> In the example given here, it has been my "American convention" understanding since as far back as I can remember, as well as through mutual discussion in the professional realm, that if you are writing a spoken question or exclamation like this, you do not add additional punctuation around the quotation. <S> The only time you use a comma in this structure is if it is a statement. <S> Just remember that, and you should be good. <S> If you're asking a question or exclaiming, you would use the '?' <S> or '!' <S> instead of the comma and continue the sentence. <S> As for the British conversion of the rule, I think people are getting too deep into the thought process and thus, getting themselves a bit confused. <S> There is the inversion of single and double quotes, and the fact that where American rules state to put commas and full stops inside the quotes and British says to place them outside, the rest of it is pretty much the same. <S> Of course, if you want to get really far into the nuance, you could probably find more variation than this, but my experience as an editor that works in both the American and European publishing markets has demonstrated that there isn't a whole lot to be found. <S> TL;DR? <S> No. <S> Don't put a period or comma outside the quotation marks if you use an exclamation point or question mark to end a quotation. <S> That ending mark within the quotation is sufficient. <A> I find the British convention more rational and am trying to break myself of old habits. <S> So '...birthday?" <S> , ...' looks good to me. <S> I still swap my knife and fork when slicing meat, though.
| There is not a great deal of variation between American and British styling when it comes to quotation punctuation, generally speaking.
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What does "about now" mean? I know you're feeling pretty hey sailor up here about now. What does about now mean, in the sentence? Is it an informal way of saying? <Q> What does about now mean, in the sentence? <S> Is it an informal way of saying? <S> Yes, this is informal speech or writing. <S> I think this kind of writing style is common in email messages when the writer is guessing the mood of the recipient. <A> About suggests approximation, so at approximately this time. <S> Most often used as an aside to the reader. <S> About now you might be wondering why you should invest in […]" <A> The text comes from George of the Jungle http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119190/quotes <S> [Translating with a Swahili phrasebook] <S> Lyle <S> : Pardon me, girls. <S> I know you're feeling pretty hey sailor uphere about now. <S> But if you would just let me order a bowl of friedclams we can all have smallpox tomorrow morning. <S> So it is a tourist using a poor guidebook that renders a possibly innocent request into something rude as in <S> the famous Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook 's request for matches become <S> do you want to go to my place -- bouncy-bouncy? <S> My take on this sentence is: Feeling pretty something : <S> quite; very: The wind blew pretty hard. <S> About now - I feel pretty tired about now = <S> I feel quite tired at this time <S> "Hey sailor, up here" - prostitutes calling from a balcony to sailors down below. <S> Result: <S> Pardon me girls <S> , I know by now you want me to have paid sex with you, but I am very hungry so I will eat now and have unprotected sex with you tomorrow which will spread, among us all, a horrible disease brought to indigenous populations by sailors <A> I disagree with @moici's answer on this: "About" is commonly used informally to (ironically) <S> emphasize the word it modifies and so does not mean "approximately" in this sense. <S> I am about sick of this music. <S> does not mean that I am "nearly" or "approximately" sick, but rather that I am thoroughly sick of it. <S> Likewise: <S> I know you're feeling pretty hey <S> sailor up here about now. <S> Should be translated: <S> I know you're feeling pretty hey <S> sailor up here right now . <A> Good deductive work from @mplungjan, but, in general, "about now" can almost always be replaced with "now" without loss of meaning.
| "About now" means "at this time."
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What is the origin of "holy smoke"? What is the origin of holy smoke ? To what is holy smoke referring? <Q> After doing a little work on this, I'm quite certain holy smoke <S> is not a minced oath nor an obscuration or euphemism for any more blasphemous exclamation. <S> Its use as an exclamation also predates the Kipling quote by at least a decade. <S> I found this example from a poem by Cormac O'Leary in an 1882 edition of The Reading Club , a collection of prose and poetry (date check on p. 102 <S> ): <S> I found several other references from the 1880s as well. <S> @Master's comment is correct—and significant. <S> Several of the early examples of its use read by the holy smoke . <S> This is one reason I don't believe the exclamation is a euphemism for anything else. <S> It was simply a shortening of this oath. <S> And of the origin of this oath? <S> I think @Chris Dwyer's answer nailed it. <S> Google Books' listings of the phrase from the same time period are replete with religious references to "holy smoke. <S> " <S> A closer look at most of them reveals that their context is in fact one of sacrifice or burnt offering as in this 1863 exegesis of a passage from Isaiah: Michael Quinion's discussion of the phrase at World Wide Words points out the same sacrificial origin. <S> For lack of a clear connection, however, he concludes that holy smoke was likely "invented anew as a mock-religious exclamation and mild oath on the model of the older holy Moses . <S> " I disagree. <A> I always thought it was a reference to Hebrew burnt offerings, where the smoke that was ascending to Heaven symbolized the worship of the Hebrew people going to God. <S> This smoke was considered "holy" because the sacrifices were made holy by the priests (as it had to be holy to be in the presence of God). <S> Reference <A> According to the OED, using holy with another word as an oath or expletive dates back to 1785 with Holy Willie , "a hypocritically pious person". <S> This trend continues with other words, like cow and moses . <S> The first recorded instance in the OED of holy smoke is from 1892 in the book Naulahka by Kipling and Balestier. <S> It was used again in 1920 in Bulldog Drummond by Sapper. <A> I believe this and all the other "holy" expressions, like "holy enchiladas, Batman", etc. <S> originate from the Roman Catholic practice of exclaiming "Holy Mary mother of God". <A> I've always understood it to be a minced oath of "holy shit".
| I think the oath by the holy smoke is a clear connection between the holy smoke of burnt offerings in Christian writings and the later shortened exclamation we still hear today.
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Why are not "infamous" and "inflammable" the opposite of "famous" and "flammable"? Why are not infamous and inflammable the opposite of famous and flammable , like incomplete, inactivity, inappropriate and so on? <Q> (Just to be contrarian.) <S> The word infamous is the opposite of famous ! <S> Just as the opposite of reputed is disreputed rather than obscure , and the opposite of hot is cold rather than not hot , the opposite of famous (having "good" fame) is infamous (having "bad" fame, having infamy, ill-famed). <S> The word "flammable" is newer than inflammable and does not exist, for instance, in Indian English. <S> Historically, the only word was inflammable , dating to at least the 16th century. <S> "Flammable" did not exist. <S> Note that we still say inflammatory speeches <S> not * flammatory speeches , inflammation of the skin not * flammation of the skin , etc. <S> (However, flammation "exposure to fire" actually exists in the OED and is marked as obsolete, the only quote dating to 1646.) <S> The word "flammable" was invented around 1813, but it didn't catch on, and some time in the 19th century was pretty much dead: The 1913 Webster's dictionary marks the word "flammable" as obsolete . <S> Unfortunately (IMHO), this word was revived after World War II. <S> (See this letter . <S> More precisely, the word flammability was revived, and then "flammable" followed.) <S> The OED entry for flammability is: flammaˈbility, n. = inflammability n. <S> Revived in modern use to avoid the possible ambiguity of inflammability , in which the prefix in- might be taken for a negative (in- prefix3). <S> In my opinion, the word flammable was unnecessary: there's not much confusion possible in seeing, on a gas/petrol tanker, the words "Warning: Highly inflammable". <S> It seems to me there's more confusion about the meaning of inflammable when the word "flammable" exists, than when it doesn't. <S> But where "flammable" is already common enough, it's safe—and recommended—to use it. <A> The New Oxford American Dictionary <S> I had on my Mac Mini (which was the third edition, last time I checked) reported the following definitions for in- : <S> in- <S> 1 prefix <S> 1. <S> (added to adjectives) <S> not <S> : inanimate | intolerant . <S> 2. <S> (added to nouns) without; lacking: inadvertence | inappreciation . <S> in- <S> 2 prefix in; into; toward; within: induce | influx | inborn . <S> inflammable <S> ORIGIN <S> early 17th century: from French, or from Latin inflammare (see inflame ). <S> In both the cases, the words are not built adding the prefix in- to existing words. <A> The folklore with the term "flammable" was that it had to be invented precisely because people read "inflammable" as "won't burst into flame" (and granted, "inflame" <S> really isn't a word you get to hear everyday). <S> The blame should be apportioned to the safety people I suppose. :)
| Looking at the origin of infamous , and inflammable , I read the following: infamous ORIGIN late Middle English: from medieval Latin infamosus , from Latin infamis (based on fama 'fame').
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Is the phrase "please kindly" redundant? The colleagues in my office often send email starting with "Please kindly". Are the two phrases a bit redundant? <Q> Strictly speaking, "please" and "kindly" do serve separate purposes. <S> I can demand that you kindly do a certain task: <S> Kindly apologize to your mother <S> The intent is to dictate how you should apologize. <S> Prepending "please" is me <S> politely asking you to do something: Please apologize to your mother Combining them signifies that I am being polite <S> and you should be polite: <S> Please kindly apologize to your mother <S> In the context of office chatter, I would interpret the original intent of the phrase to mean, "I am asking nicely; don't give me attitude. <S> " As it is now bordering on a cliché, I highly doubt anyone is putting much thought into the phrase or its meaning and they are simply being polite. <A> Both the adverbs are used in polite requests, and one of the meanings of kindly is please . <S> In a sentence like "please kindly send me a copy of your paperwork," please and kindly <S> are redundant. <S> In a sentence like "will you kindly sign the enclosed copy of this letter," kindly is often used ironically. <A> Yes, they are redundant, as in this context, they mean essentially the same thing. <A> In this case, kindly is an intensifier. <S> It's similar in use to very in the phrase <S> I am very disappointed in you . <A> What would you prefer me to ask you? <S> Please, would you kindly pass me the magazine , or pass me the magazine . <S> The please, kindly adds a layer of "politeness" (for want of a better word), and, although effectively it is redundant, it changes the sentence from a request to an order.
| Sure it's redundant, sure it's unnecessary, but it signifies a slightly higher tone of politeness.
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"Visualized" equivalent adjective for audio Are there such words as "audiolized" or "audibilized"? EDIT: Merriam-Webster has the word Audibilized indexed with no definition! What I was trying to achieve was to say that something is an audibilized presentation of some other thing , exactly the same way we use visualized presentation . EDIT: This is a visualization of a sort algorithm. Therefore this is ...? Audilization? Auralization? Sound representation? EDIT: This one as well. <Q> In the music education community, we often say "audiate" when referring to hearing a melody in "the mind's ear". <S> The term was coined by music education guru Edwin Gordon, and I think it's pretty well-known amongst musicians (in addition to music teachers ). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiation <A> Just based on the comparable stem, I would expect the term to be to ' auralize '. <S> I suppose the same can be said for 'audibiilze', although 'audiolize' would only seem comparable if the visual word was 'videolize'. <A> I agree with the poster who suggested audiation , as that is the process of imagining sound. <S> In response to your second edit, there is another very appropriate and widely accepted word for representing information with sound: sonification . <A> I don't think there's a good single word for this. " <S> Auralise"(/ze) is the most natural, and even that would give most people a double-take before they understood it. <S> I think it'd be best to rephrase slightly, such as X <S> is a presentation of Y in audio form <S> X is an auditory illustration of Y <A> It appears that both "audibilized" and "audiolized" are being used, if only sparingly. <S> Personally, I have never encountered either before (but I think everyone would understand them, thanks to the obvious parallel to the widely used visualized ). <A> The question doesn't really make sense, What I was trying to achieve was to <S> say that something is an audibilized presentation of some other thing, exactly the same way we use visualized presentation. <S> Hmm? <S> Usually one would say "a visualization". <S> I'm not sure what "visualized presentation" is meant to be. <S> A visualization of data etc. <S> There are some suggestions as answers here, frankly I think they are dubious. <S> If you want to say this in English, "represent in sound" as a verb and "representation in sound" or "sound representation" would be OK. <A> I would suggest audible, sonic , or simply audio. <S> I realize these lack the 'made into' suffix, but I think your listeners will stumble less over these than auralize or audibilized. <A> If you're looking for a word that many or all of your audience will understand, why not try "imagine"?
| To me audibilized suggests that some imperceptible sound was amplified to the point of audibility, rather than translated from another sensory modality.
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What does the expression "body shop" mean? I recently encountered the expression "the man in the body shop", and I have absolutely no idea what it means. All help is welcome. <Q> body shop : <S> Date: 1954 a shop where automotive bodies are made or repaired <S> See this article for "body shop" context: From the sales floor to the body shop to the office there is a resounding feeling that this Ford dealership is a good place to work. <S> The man in the body shop pointed out that the air filter system overhead was something that Dean Green voluntarily installed for the welfare of the employees. <S> so... basically "the mechanic", the technician, the repairman. <A> Without knowing the context, I can think of body shop as "a garage where repairs to the bodies of vehicles are carried out"; the phrase would then refer to somebody who repairs automotive bodies. <S> The Merriam-Webster Dictionary dates body shop to 1954. <A> When your car breaks down, you take it to the shop (rarely referred to as a garage any more.) <S> When your car gets dented in a fender-bender, you take it to the body shop. <A> In the UK, body shop means this http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/ , <S> The Body Shop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_Shop , a chain of shops selling products for the body, face, hair and home. <A> Body shopping can also refer to consulting companies that hire people and then provide them directly to their clients for the clients to manage (as opposed to the consulting companies managing them). <S> The wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_shopping seems to focus on offshore / outsourced work, but it can apply to other consulting companies as well.
| In this case the "body shop" would refer to the consulting company, and so "the man in the body shop" might be someone who works for that kind of consulting company.
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Is it normal to separate hyphenated words on different lines? I'm typing in Microsoft Word, and it automatically separated the word T-shirt when it ran out of room: blah blah blah, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, I have a T- shirt leaving just the letter "T" on one line. This doesn't look right to me at all, or for any compound, hyphenated word, yet basically all text boxes will split words at a dash on separate lines if needed. I would prefer: I have a T-shirt I know it would be fine if I were splitting words in a narrow column, like the newspaper, but is there a rule about what you're supposed to do to words like this? Is my way always right, or Word's, or either? (How to get Word to actually stop doing it is a totally different question...) <Q> In a modern word processor with paragraph justification, there is rarely if ever any reason to split words between lines, unless they are truly giganto-sesquipedalian. <S> A word like 'T-shirt' should never be split. <S> How to get Word to act this way is a topic for another Stack Exchange. <A> I don't know whether it's normal, but I'd say it's incorrect, or at least ambiguous. <S> T-shirt is not Tshirt . <S> Splitting the word on the hyphen leads to ambiguity. <A> I don't really understand your question - you mean "is it normal to hyphenate a word at a point where the word already has a hyphen? <S> " I would think so, yes. <A> When I was first learning to write in school, it was indicated to our class that if you start writing a word that is too long to fit on a line, and find you need to split it, the convention was to hyphenate between syllables, and move the second part of the word to the next line. <A> The way to stop a text editor doing this is to use a special character called a "Non-breaking hyphen". <S> That said, modern versions of MS Office don't seem to break at normal hyphens:
| Long story short: yes, it is acceptable to do this with already-hyphenated words, or even to split and hyphenate long words to separate lines. Word 2007 keeps both halves of "T-shirt" or "auto-update" on the same line. It should be kept on one line to indicate that the hyphen is indeed part of the word.
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Where do the words for daughter, son, aunt, uncle, mother, father, cousin, nephew, niece come from? Please see Title. I'm not specifically referring to which language they came from... but if they come from something else. In other words, do they come from words with other meanings. For example, do words for children come from a word that means "being that comes from one's loins" or something. <Q> I extracted the following from the online Webster Dictionary. <S> It's interesting to see how all these words were transformed from Latin/Greek <S> /Old High German/Middle English to the current English words. <S> Note: <S> I know that this does not exactly answer your question, since you actually want to know if the words derived from words with other meanings. <S> But I think that having the full list of originating languages here may be useful as other answers to your question may refer to it. <S> DAUGHTER Middle English, <S> doughter , from Old English dohtor ; akin to Old High German tohter daughter, Greek thygatēr <S> First Known Use: <S> before 12th century SON Middle English sone , from Old English sunu ; akin to Old High German sun son, Greek hyios <S> First Known Use: before 12th century AUNT Middle English, from Old French ante , from Latin amita ; akin to Old High German amma mother, nurse, <S> Greek <S> amma nurse <S> First Known Use: <S> 14th century <S> UNCLE <S> Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin avunculus mother's brother; akin to Old English <S> ēam uncle, Welsh ewythr , <S> Latin avus grandfather <S> First Known Use: <S> 14th century MOTHER Middle English moder , from Old English mōdor ; akin to Old High German muoter mother, Latin mater , Greek mētēr , Sanskrit mātṛ First Known Use: before 12th century FATHER Middle English fader , from Old English fæder ; akin to Old High German fater father, Latin pater , Greek patēr <S> First Known Use: before 12th century COUSIN <S> Middle English cosin , from Anglo-French cusin , cosin , from Latin consobrinus , from com- <S> + sobrinus <S> second cousin, from soror sister — more at sister First <S> Known Use: <S> 13th century NEPHEW <S> Middle English <S> nevew , from Anglo-French nevou , neveu , from Latin nepot -, nepos grandson, nephew; akin to Old English nefa grandson, nephew, Sanskrit napāt <S> grandson <S> First Known Use: <S> 14th century <S> NIECE <S> Middle English <S> nece <S> Reference: <S> http://www.merriam-webster.com <A> etymonline.com gives the origins and original-language meanings of most of these words (with the exception of the meaning of "daughter", which John Cowan describes in his answer). <S> In brief, focusing on meanings: Mother meant "female parent" in Old English, and presumably something similar in its origin languages. <S> It was "[b]ased ultimately on the baby-talk form *mā- (2); <S> with the kinship term suffix *-ter-" <S> Father derived similarly, but there is this additional note: Spelling with -th- (15c.) reflects widespread phonetic shift in Middle English that turned -der to -ther in many words <S> Son is ultimately a derived noun from root *seue- (1) "to give birth" and came to mean "son, descendant" in Old English. <S> Cousin : from Latin consobrinus "cousin," originally "mother's sister's son," <S> Nephew in PIE meant "grandchild," and in a general sense, "male descendant other than son" This became "sister's son, grandson, descendant," in Latin. <S> Niece is a Late Latin feminine form of the Latin for "nephew". <S> Aunt has this: from Latin amita "paternal aunt" diminutive of *amma a baby-talk word for "mother" And uncle : from Latin avunculus "mother's brother," literally "little grandfather," diminutive of avus "grandfather," from PIE root <S> *awo- <S> "grandfather, adult male relative other than one's father" [...] <S> Replaced Old English eam (usually maternal; paternal uncle was fædera). <S> Child , similar to the example sentence in the question, relates to words meaning "womb"/"pregnant", coming to mean ""fetus, infant, unborn or newly born person" in Old English. <A> I was searching for the origin of daughter in my mother language, Persian, and then I found this post <S> and I thought it's worth sharing it. <S> In ancient Persia the young female member of family, basically daughter, were called doog taar 'doog' meant milk and the 'taar' at the end makes it a noun meaning the person who milk the cows. <S> This later changed in Persian to dookh taar and now in <S> Farsi dokh taar - kh in Farsi is pronounce pretty much similar to German's gh and this word in German is pronounced very similar to Farsi. <S> Just in case someone needs a reference here is the link to Wiki, however, it's in Farsi language: <S> This Link <A> Mother, father, son, brother, sister have pretty much always meant what they mean today. <S> It's clear that mother and father are ultimately derived from adult reinterpretation of babies' babbling things like /mamama/ and /dadada/; this is a worldwide process that gives us both informal and formal words for parents, and is constantly self-renewing. <S> Brother and sister may also be of this type. <S> Daughter , however, is ultimately 'milker', from the Proto-Indo-European root <S> *dheugh- 'press, touch, milk'; this change in meaning goes back to before PIE broke up into the various families. <S> All these words except sister have a common suffix, whose meaning is unknown; sister picked up its /t/ <S> at the Proto-Germanic stage, and the other language families do not show /t/.
| granddaughter, niece, from Anglo-French nece , niece, from Late Latin neptia , from Latin neptis ; akin to Latin nepot -, nepos grandson, nephew First Known Use: 14th century
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"The" for superlative referring to more than one object Which one of these sentences is correct? The best countries to live in are ... Best countries to live in are ... EDIT: The reason this question is being asked is that this Wiktionary article says the definite article should be used with a superlative, it and that superlative refer to one object: that apple pie was the best. Now, what about those apple pies were the best? <Q> A noun can be omitted after "the best" in the 3rd example, but it is implied, i.e.: <S> Those apple pies were the best [apple pies]. <S> Those apple pies were the best [I've ever tasted]. <A> Using the article doesn't depend from the presence of best in the sentences. <S> I prefer "the best countries to live in", in the same way I prefer "the countries I would like to live in". <S> For the second example you made, in both the cases the article is used. <A> I think there may be some confusion embedded in your question as it relates to comment on the wiktionary article. <S> I think the usage they are alluding to would be of the following structures: <S> "X is <S> the tallest" "X is tallest" It seems that wiktionary is pointing out that using the definite article with a superlative is preferable to a) not using an article at all, or b) using an indefinite article such as 'a' or 'an' considering those do not make sense. <S> So yes, in your examples, #1 is the best, but I am guessing you already knew that. <A> Both of your original sentences are correct, though with different nuances. <S> The best countries to live in are X, Y, Z. <S> This enumerates those countries that are best to live in. <S> Or: The best countries to live in have lots of cheese. <S> This means that, out of the finite definite set of best countries to live in, they all have lots of cheese. <S> This, however: Best countries to live in have lots of cheese. <S> Sounds more like you're giving guidelines for finding best countries. <S> That is, look for countries with lots of cheese, and you will find some of the best among them. <S> Maybe it makes more sense with another example: <S> Best practices include documenting your code and having large test suites. <A> Now, what about " <S> Those apple pies were the best"? <S> This is an Americanism which sounds very odd to me.
| The 1st and 3rd examples are correct, because when talking about superlatives, you are effectively talking about something specific, so the definite article must be used, whether the thing in question is singular or plural.
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What are the possible words for a task? I am looking for similar words to task for a document on scheduling tasks in the context of a project. My goal would be to find words that would denote meanings for three things. A word for a small atomic task of short duration that is to be done. This would be the fundamental unit. I'm thinking of: job , assignment . A word to denote that this small task has been done. I'm thinking of: work . A word for a larger task that is made of several small tasks , or even several tasks . I'm thinking of: task , labor . As a non native English speaker, I am having troubles finding the exact meaning of all these words, and if my hierarchy, from small to large, is correct. Do native speaker have suggestions for other words? <Q> In my software development projects I use "todo" for the smallest unit of work, "task" for the next highest, which might be comprised of several todos, and "milestone" for the next, which is typically comprised of several tasks. <S> A project, then, is made up of several milestones. <S> I know these are not stylistically elegant, but they are fairly commonly understood on the software projects I've worked on. <A> For a [fairly] complete list, you might check out the synonyms listed here: http://thesaurus.com/browse/task <A> When a small task (or a project) is done, you could mark it "completed" or "finished". <A> In the corporate environment where I work, projects are broken down into tasks and activities, and tasks are the basic unit. <S> The terms, tasks and activities, are often used interchangeably. <S> The specific terminology varies from place to place.
| I would use " task " for small pieces of work and " project " for the work that is made up of smaller tasks.
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Finding out the proper word out of book-learned vocabulary I've been learning English for many years now by using many resources available to me. It is mostly reading, as I have very few opportunities to use English to communicate. Due to this fact, my vocabulary is rather one-sided: I can read fast and without problems, but I have difficultly finding the proper word in real conversation. My live expressions are full of book-learned words and phrases. I guess I often use formal and archaic words instead of simple spoken ones. I simply don't feel the difference between them as a native speaker does. Are there any online resources that could help find out the most appropriate words for the contemporary usage, helping to sound less artificial, formal and archaic? Or, maybe, other advices for the learners like me? <Q> The only way that you can learn contemporary informal usage is the same way that you learned the formal, bookish language: constant exposure. <S> The other thing that might help is watching television, particularly sitcoms, talk shows and other informal formats. <S> Avoid imitating news shows, documentaries and the like, since they tend to use a much more formal register than is common in everyday speech. <S> (And don't mimic sitcoms too closely, lest you start talking solely in catch-phrases and cliches.) <A> If most of your opportunity to be exposed to English is by reading, then you may want to find some books which are aimed at younger readers, say 10 - 14 years old, published somewhat recently. <S> These will generally have a simpler, more conversational vocabulary. <S> Although JSBangs advises against watching the news in English, I would recommend reading the news in English. <S> While I can't speak for all English-language newspapers, I do know that newspapers in the US attempt to keep the vocabulary to about a 5th grade level, which equates to a normal 10 year old being able to read it without much difficulty. <S> As an added bonus, many newspapers can be read over the Internet. <A> The best way to sound natural and native is to learn some non-formal/informal expressions and phrasal verbs. <S> 3 useful resources for ya: -http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/phrasal-verbs/ -The book " <S> A year in the life of an ESL student" is also quite useful. <S> -Books. <S> From my experience I can say that Stephen King's books usually contain a lot of phrasal verbs. <S> I'm thinking of compiling a list myself...
| In other words, find someone(s) you can talk to a lot, who will help you with your language and expose you to more modern idioms.
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Is there a subtle difference between "somebody" and "someone", "anybody" and "anyone"? Are there any subtle differences between "somebody" and "someone", or can they be used completely interchangeably? Similarly, can you imagine a situation in which you would prefer "anybody" to "anyone" or vice versa? <Q> There is little or no difference between the -one and -body variants. <S> However, there is a major difference between somebody and anybody -- anybody is one of the "negative valency" words in English, which is required when the main verb of the sentence is negated. <S> I haven't seen anybody. <S> [Correct] ! <S> I haven't seen somebody. <S> [Incorrect] <S> I saw somebody in the hall. <S> [Correct] ! <S> I saw anybody in the hall. <S> [Incorrect] <S> In subject position, you should prefer somebody <S> when a particular person is implied, although you don't know who it is. <S> Somebody called me on the phone. <S> [Correct] ! <S> Anybody called me on the phone. <S> [Incorrect] ? <S> Somebody can come to the party. <S> [Not exactly incorrect, but very strange--it implies that there is a single, unnamed person that can come to the party.] <S> Anybody can come to the party. <S> [Correct] <A> Here's what Garner's Modern American Usage says: <S> The two terms are interchangeable, so euphony governs the choice in any given context. <S> In practice, anyone appears in print about three times as often as anybody . <A> While M-W doesn't provide any hints on difference between the two, my understanding is that someone is used more for hinting at a particular person, for sarcasm or otherwise. <S> E.g. <S> I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "special somebody", as opposed to "special someone". <S> Somebody sounds more generic. <A> Here's what Michael Swan says on this matter in his book, Practical English Usage (Swan 2005, OUP): <S> The -one forms are more common in writing; the -body forms are more frequent in speech in British English " [emphasis mine - Alex B.] (p. 548). <A> The variations ending in "-body" tend to sound less formal than "-one." <S> Which one you use would depend on your audience. <A> In the New Oxford American Dictionary , both the words are used to mean person of importance or authority ( a small-time lawyer keen to be someone ; I'd like to be somebody ; nobodies who want to become somebodies ); in definition of somebody , it's reported that it means some person or someone . <A> I think nowadays they're perfect synonyms. <S> Trying to find a difference would be like trying to find an inner meaning to some weird movie which the producer made just for fun. <A> Anybody and anyone are completely synonymous and there's really nothing more to tell.
| "There is no significant difference between somebody and someone , anybody and anyone , everybody and everyone or nobody and no one. Conversely, in sentences in which the main verb is affirmative (not negated), the preferred pronoun should be somebody and not anybody . Anybody can be used when you have no particular person in mind.
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Which is correct: "prefer X to Y" or "prefer X over Y"? Many say that "prefer X to Y" has a more formal ring to it than "prefer X over Y". Are there any dialects where you wouldn't use "prefer X to Y" in colloquial speech at all? Conversely, are there any manuals of style that discourage using "prefer X over Y" in formal writing? <Q> The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (MDEU) suggests that to is the ordinary word used to construct comparisons using prefer : “when it is used to compare two things in the same sentence, the second […] is usually introduced by to .” <S> They note that over (“Nine out of ten dentists prefer Crest over the competitors”), and rather than (“He prefers to stand rather than to sit”) are also used. <S> Rather than is especially helpful when the compared items are infinitive clauses beginning with to , therefore avoiding the problem of too many to s <S> ( * “He prefers to stand to to sit”). <S> Above can also be used (“Prefers this brand above all others”), although they note that above , along with before , were noted by the OED as being used formerly. <S> MDEU notes that some commenters have criticized constructions with than and rather than , and suggests ultimately that plain than (“He would have preferred to fast than carry it”) <S> is awkward because it is unfamiliar. <A> There may be a transatlantic divide here. <S> As a speaker of BrEng I would always say I would prefer tea to coffee , and never I would prefer tea over coffee . <A> A <S> : Would you like a ride? <S> B: <S> No thanks, I prefer to walk. <S> You can't use prefer over in this case. <S> Over is used when there are two clear choices in the phrase. <S> Think of over as setting a list of preferences and putting one over top the other. <S> I prefer jogging over running and walking. <S> I prefer fish over beef and chicken. <S> In these two examples, the meaning could be slightly ambiguous and sound like you're comparing two things, not three. <S> I prefer jogging to running and walking. <S> I prefer fish to beef and chicken. <A> My brain does not differentiate the two: <S> "I prefer sleeping to working" <S> "I prefer sleeping over working" Sounds the same to me- <S> perhaps "prefer/to" flows slightly better. <S> On the other hand "prefer/to" is more likely to be ambiguous: <S> "I prefer sleep to work" <S> In conversation the word "rather" seems more common than "prefer" but others may have different experience. <S> Either way- <S> I would be shocked if anyone criticized your usage of "prefer/to" versus "prefer/over" in any unambiguous context- formal or not. <A> They are both grammatically correct. <S> " <S> Tea over Coffee" sounds the slightest bit metaphorical to me, and so might have some rhetorical implications in a longer narrative, but that's about the only real difference. <A> When we say prefer there is an implied over . <S> Thus, prefer over is tautological. <S> I think prefer to is preferable.
| With respect to colloquial speech, I think that in some informal registers you wouldn’t use the verb prefer at all (which is a formal word), and would use like and a compatible syntactic comparative construction: “I like sleeping more than working”
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What should I use instead of "prefixed with"? When I want to report that a function name needs to start with a prefix, I write the function name must be prefixed with ; when I do so, the spelling and grammar checker suggests me to rewrite the phrase using prefixed to , or prefaced with . How should I write the sentence? <Q> You are talking specifically about a prefix. <S> Prefix is the only thing that means this. <S> There is nothing wrong with prefixed with in this context. <S> As a linguist who deals with prefixes and suffixes as a central part of my work, this phrase is something I use regularly. <S> However, if you want an alternative, you could say something like: <S> The function name must have ### as a prefix. <A> I hope this will be explanatory: <S> The string “__” must be prefixed to function names. <S> Function names must be prefixed by (or with) the string “__”. <A> First of all, I believe the original usage "must be prefixed with" is the best available construction here, and you should ignore the software's recommendation. <S> That said, I would guess that your grammar checker is flagging that phrase for passive voice, even though its suggestions don't address that issue. <S> To recast in active voice, you could either use something like what you have in your question -- "the function name must start with a prefix" -- or "you must prefix the function name with..."
| You need to use the word prefix , because precede and preface do not have to mean that something is actually attached.
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"Reserved SQL words are written in uppercase" or "reserved SQL words are written in uppercase letters"? Reserved SQL words are written in uppercase. Reserved SQL words are written in uppercase letters. Would the first sentence be understood? Would the second sentence be preferable, or more correct? <Q> But nobody would ever find it strange to see your second example. <A> I think both sentences say the same thing, the former with fewer words, and so I'd prefer that. <S> Also, most books that I've read tend to state the language first, such as "C++ reserved words" or "Reserved words in SQL". <S> "Reserved SQL words" sounds awkward to me, although I don't know why. <A> Wait a minute. <S> Isn't it "upper case" when used as a noun and "uppercase" when used as an adjective? <S> Or am I incorrect in my hypercorrectness?
| I think both of these would be equally understandable and well-formed, although in the context of SQL and programming, I think the idea of uppercase and lowercase is common enough that the first example would be slightly preferred.
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"I have blocked the user account" versus "I blocked the user account" One of the tasks I have as site maintainer of a site is deleting spam reported from users. (The spammer account is blocked too, as part of the process.) Which is the preferable sentence, or the most correct one, I should use? I have blocked the user account, and deleted the comments. I blocked the user account, and deleted the comments. <Q> As others have said, neither is more correct, nor is either more preferable in an objective sense. <S> If you were to indicate when you blocked the account <S> you must use the latter, but otherwise either is perfectly fine. <S> For me, personally, I would prefer the latter in most cases - it's less formal and sounds (to me) more like natural speech, and is (slightly) less verbose. <S> I, too, would drop the comma in this context, for whatever that's worth. <S> EDIT <S> I would use the former if I had blocked the comment before and had to do so again: "I have previously blocked the user account..." <A> If this was a software message, as it seems it may be, I would not use that tense. <S> Instead I would say: <S> The user account has been blocked and all comments deleted. <S> Otherwise in a regular conversation the latter sentence (minus the comma) would be correct. <A> I have blocked the user account, and deleted the comments. <S> This is the present perfect tense. <S> I blocked the user account, and deleted the comments. <S> This is the past tense. <S> Which one is preferable, or more correct? <S> Either one is correct. <S> There is a difference between the two, but without context it would be silly to try to explain it. <A> I have blocked the user account, and deleted the comments. <S> I blocked the user account, and deleted the comments. <S> Which one is preferable, or more correct? <S> There are differences between North American English and British English. <S> For North American English, this is the present perfect of current relevance/importance. <S> Often, unless the speaker wishes to illustrate that a past action is important to the current situation, the simple past is used. <S> There is also a myth that we never use a past time adverbial with the present perfect and most often that is true, the reason, <S> the "job" of the present perfect is not to reflect on the past and using past time adverbs would take away from that ideal. <S> However, there are situations where this is not followed. <S> As I said they are not at all common. <A> Both are correct, although I would consider the comma optional. <S> The word "have" is unnecessary. <S> (For example, if the text surrounding the example sentence was particularly formal.)
| I would personally choose the second sentence, unless context dictated otherwise.
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What does "if only" mean? Like in this sentence: The influence of the Titnaeus among early philosophical thinkers was pervasive, if only because it was the sole dialogue available in Europe for almost 1,000 years. (Emphasis added.) <Q> The most reasonable parsing of that particular sentence would be that "it was the sole dialogue available in Europe for almost 1,000 years" <S> could plausibly be the only reason for "The influence of the Titnaeus among early philosophical thinkers" being "pervasive", without explicitly excluding any other reason. <A> I think the sentence tells us There may be other reasons for Titnaeus' influence, but one of them is for sure .... <S> here are more people supporting this http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=718222 <A> Essentially, the line of text, when fully expressed is: <S> The influence of the Titnaeus among early philosophical thinkers was pervasive, [for at least the reason that] it was the sole dialogue available in Europe for almost 1,000 years [but not necessarily only for that reason]. <S> " <S> If only", in essence, makes the reasoning following "because" non-exclusive, while still aptly expressing the importance of that specific reason.
| Based on your example sentence, "if only" is acting as a modifier to "because".
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Which definition is more used for "determine"? I've seen "determine" used for two completely different meanings: Zeus' mood will determine tomorrow's weather. (determine = control, dictate) The weather forecaster will determine tomorrow's weather. (determine = forecast, predict) Are these meanings used equally often, or is one much more common than the other? <Q> The second sense of determine is not “to forecast or predict”, but rather to “find out by investigation, reasoning, or calculation”, sense 4 in Merriam-Webster . <S> Merriam-Webster gives other examples of this sense: “< determine the answer to the problem <S> > <S> < determine a position at sea>”. <S> If we take a look at the first ten results in newspapers for determine in the Corpus of Contemporary American English , we see this sense occurs in six of them: jobs. // <S> And so we acted robustly. <S> And now it's time to determine whether or not this pro-growth package will actually work. // <S> The checks will start onto Floor 10 -- - incognito, of course -- - and set out to determine whether it was truly what women want. // <S> You know: Mirrors that make astronomy. <S> Its original mission was to find a way for sailors at sea to determine longitude. <S> Unlike latitude, which uses the equator as a starting position, there Sharpton stood with members of Officer Ridley's family and called for an investigation to determine whether the shooting was justified. <S> // <S> ' Just as we are calling on the // Win or lose -- and the status of West's sore back could largely determine the outcome -- the future in New Orleans appears bright. <S> The core players -- , they lifted all sanctions. // <S> Whether Clayton can do that hard work could determine if Flenoury can go to one of his two choice schools, Georgia or Duke worked with Kerviel was released after being questioned. <S> Two investigating judges are trying to determine what, if anything, Kerviel's colleagues and superiors knew about his unauthorized trades because of my race? <S> Sure. " // <S> He doesn't think race will determine who wins the election, however. <S> Obama said most voters will make their choice confluence within the monument boundary, so right now Dinosaur is an incredible lab to <S> determine the impact dams have on rivers. " <S> // <S> Kleinschnitz, who started rowing the fight and every team gives it -- for a while. <S> But early results can determine where a team keeps fighting all season and how confidently it battles in the close <S> The only uses which are not the sense meaning “to find out” are #5, #6, #8, and #10. <S> So, from this admittedly small sample it does appear that both senses enjoy approximately equally robust usage. <A> The second meaning is often used (to the point of overuse) in the natural sciences: "This experiment allows us to determine the charge of the electron. <S> " Obviously no experiment will allow the experimenter to dictate the charge of the electron. <A> The difference is: in the first case, Zeus is deciding what the weather will be (as it is under his direct control), and in the second case, the weatherman is deciding what the weather should be (a prediction). <A> The first example looks correct. <S> I don't recognise the meaning illustrated by the second example. <S> To me (as a British English speaker), it looks like it's saying that the weather forecaster can control the weather! <A> The second sentence about the forecaster sounds "off" to my ears as well. <S> If you'll excuse my lapsing into jargon for a few moments, nobody considers weather "deterministic". <S> Certainly one can forecast, predict, or even hazard a guess, but certainly not determine something which has a "random" nature.
| Actually, I think the word determine is being used here in both cases in the sense of "to decide" or "to resolve".
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Past participle of a verb created from an acronym Standard GPL would require that those applications be GPL'd (or compatible licensing), whereas LGPL requires only the library's source to be made available. Is the use of words like GPL'd common to other acronyms? Is the meaning of such words understandable from common people? <Q> Yes, it is generally understood, although it might probably also be spelled GPLed . <S> A non-tech example is " <S> He OD'd last night. <S> " <S> (OD = overdose, specifically of drugs.) <A> Converting nouns to verbs on the fly with no morphological markings or suffixes is quite common in English today. <S> Another example that came to mind: EOL'd. <S> (End-Of-Life, referring to product lines) <A> Use this only in the appropriate context, though. <S> "I want it here asap. <S> DHL it." <S> "We already DHLed it, Sir. <S> " That is fine between the two executives who know they are talking about sending by courier. <S> (Name of a regular courier service being used in a generic sense like it is a word.) <A> I agree with the other answers, but felt stylebook sources would be good for support. <S> Multiple style manuals okay <S> using the 'd suffix for acronyms and initialisms where the acronym/initialism is immediately recognizable as a verb , e.g. The Chicago Manual of Style suggests "OD'd" for "overdosed", while the AP Stylebook recommends "OK'd" for "okayed", so if you're communicating with folks who recognize GPL as a verb, then GPL'd would be an endorsed way to do it. <S> For folks who aren't familiar with what "GPL" means as a verb, I'd avoid it, and explain the transitive/"viral" nature of the license.
| Yes, I think these are generally understandable to people.
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What does the word "cinemaddict" mean? Please explain to me (non-native speaker) what the word "cinemaddict" means. What synonyms does it have? <Q> It sounds like a portmanteau word created from "cinema" and "addict", but I've never heard it used before. <A> "Film buff" is fairly common term for a person who is a fan of cinema. <S> A few years ago there was a documentary Cinemania , but I've never heard the terms cinemaddict or cinemanic. <A> "Cinemaddict" sounds like it is a kind of pun made from "cinematic" and "addict". <A> As far as I am aware, it is not an actual word and is likely something used occasionally by people in a colloquial context. <S> However, I can't find much supporting evidence around the net for this assumption. <S> Edit: as requested, another term which essentially means the same thing might be ' movie-goer ' <S> (person who visits the movies). <S> Having said that, I think the exact word you might use could change depending on the context. <S> Edit 2: <S> asking for a domain name is probably another question in itself, and it's such an open-ended question <S> I'm not sure how much I can necessarily help you. <S> Perhaps some kind of variation depending on the person's name? <S> JoeWatchesMovies.com <S> ThoughtsOnFilms.com / <S> ThoughtsOnMovies.com <S> I haven't checked whether those (or any like it) are available though. <S> I'm sure others might be able to offer more (and better) suggestions, but its a little outside the topic of this site really. <A> Someone who is addicted to cinemas (or movies)
| I would assume it refers to a person who commonly visits the cinema to watch movies (a cinema addict).
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"Literally" and "Decimate" misuse Recently I've heard American TV commentators say "[a person] was literally decimated" and "[a Senator] was literally thrown under the bus". In the first case I think the person was not actually 10% killed, but in the second, I believe they meant that 57 members of the US Senate carried #58 onto Constitution Avenue and threw him under a (hopefully moving) bus. Are usages like these normal or acceptable now? I find them grating, myself. <Q> The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary give these senses: <S> literally 2 <S> : in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins <S> > with the following usage note: Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. <S> Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary. <S> and for decimate , they have the following senses, with no usage note: <S> decimate <S> 3 <S> a : to reduce drastically especially in number <cholera <S> decimated the population> b : to cause great destruction or harm to <firebombs <S> decimated the city <S> > < <S> an industry decimated by recession> <A> The New Oxford American Dictionary reports the following note in the usage section: <S> In recent years, an extended use of literally (and also literal ) has become very common, where literally (or literal ) is used deliberately in nonliteral contexts, for added effect: they bought the car and literally ran it into the ground . <S> This use can lead to unintentional humorous effects ( we were literally killing ourselves laughing ) and is not acceptable in formal English. <S> In formal sentences, literally should be used as in <S> I told him I never wanted to see him again, but I didn't expect him to take it literally. <A> With regards to decimation , the original meaning is derived from a practice in the military of Ancient Rome. <S> Quoted from this page : <S> A unit selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group drew lots (Sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing. <S> The remaining soldiers were given rations of barley instead of wheat and forced to sleep outside of the Roman encampment. <S> Because the punishment fell by lot, all soldiers in the group were eligible for execution, regardless of the individual degree of fault, or rank and distinction. <S> Indeed, this word has been so greatly abused over time (perhaps through ignorance) that its more general meaning of "to destroy" or "to severely harm" is now virtually accepted. <A> They are becoming increasingly common, and it annoys me too. <S> Since persistent misusers always get their way in the end, I expect literally and decimate to go the way of ultimate and panacea. <A> It is used by people who have heard it used properly and thought the speaker meant seriously or absolutely . <S> If literally can mean either its true meaning or its exact opposite, what word can we use when we actually do want to say someone literally wet themselves laughing? <A> People often use the word "literally" when they really mean "virtually." <S> As in, "Many people in America have smart phones, netbooks, or laptops virtually attached to their hips. <S> " Obviously people don't actually have laptops attached to their hips via some leather case with a belt loop, thus you cannot say that they literally have them attached to their hips.
| The misuse of literally is not intentional or ironic.
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Please explain "I Am America (And So Can You!)" As a non-native speaker, I found Stephen Colbert’s book title I Am America (And So Can You!) a little hard to dissect. Why so can you? Why isn’t it So Are You ? What’s the full phrase that And So Can You implies? <Q> It's a play on titles from self help programs which utilize ellipsis. <S> For example I lost 20 pounds in 4 days, and so can you. <S> This is a kind of strange ellipsis, because just tacking on "[lose 20 pounds in 4 days]" doesn't really create a grammatical sentence, but it's something like that. <S> The ellipsis would be clearer if the sentences were <S> I lost 20 pounds in 4 days, and you can [lose 20 pounds in 4 days] too. <S> I am America, and you can [be America] too. <S> And the ellipsis is not so great with "to be", either. <S> Here's some discussion from Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004522.html <A> It follows the form <S> I <verb> <rest of predicate>, and so can you! <S> For example, in I use computers, and so can you! <S> the "...so can you" means "you can use computers, too." <S> The part where it becomes confusing, and funny, is that the verb is not an action verb, but "am." <S> So "...so can you" means "You can be America too" in this case. <A> It's a satirical joke. <S> The title is deliberately confusing, that's the whole point. <A> I always took "I Am America" to be hubris inflated for comic effect, and the "(And So Can You!) <S> " part to be a backhanded slash at Americans who can't even speak their own language good. <A> If you look at the book there are many more jokes about the book being printed in some Asian country and it seems to make fun of engrish type mistakes.
| It's a joke on mistakes made with the English language by foreign countries.
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Where is standard American English derived from? I have a book that explains how to speak in standard American English ( American Accent Training — Barron's). What does the term standard American English refer to? Is there a region in the United States of America that has a pronunciation similar, or closer to standard American English (in the same way standard Italian is derived from a dialect spoken in Tuscany)? <Q> Sociolinguists tell us that this means essentially English spoken in the north midlands region, like Iowa, but in reality it is spoken all over the country, even in places where many people speak with what others would describe as “heavy” or “thick” accents. <S> SAE is the English used by most television and radio broadcasters—that is, those who don’t speak with an identifiable regional accent. <S> In truth, a “standard” American accent is defined more by what it isn’t than what it is. <S> It does not have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift , New England non-rhoticity, features of New York English , or any of the phonological features of Southern American English . <S> There is some debate as to whether speakers with or without the cot-caught merger (that is, whether or not the words <S> cot and caught are pronounced differently) are speaking SAE, but most would consider that not a defining characteristic of SAE. <A> Some people will point to the Midwest as the location where Standard American English is spoken. <S> But, most dialectology work has found that there is no region without a regional accent (for example see the Atlas of North American English). <S> For the most part, when your average commentator, or even a linguist, refers to Standard American English, what they mean is "speech which has no salient regional or dialectal markers. <S> " That is, Standard American English is largely negatively defined. <S> There is no x such that Standard English sounds like <S> x . <S> Rather there is a , <S> b and c <S> such that Standard English does not sound like a , b or c . <A> First of all (as an American), I have no idea what "standard American" means--there are distinct regionalisms, but no one of them is "standard. <S> " While it's probably not disputed that there's an American dialect (usage, spelling, etc.), there's no "standard" American accent. <S> Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of regional accents (Northeastern, Southern, Midwestern) that can be broken down further <S> (Texas has an accent that is distinct from a deep Southern accent, even though both can be called "Southern"; Boston is known for its non-rhotic "r" sounds, but the same type of non-rhoticity can be found throughout northern New England). <S> As other answers have stated, there are distinct markers that identify particular regions that, when none are present, the speaker could be said to be speaking "without an accent". <A> I agree with the general answers. <S> However, I would say that the Omaha, Nebraska area, would come to the closest thing we have to a geographic area where Standard American English (accent) is natively spoken. <S> Having said that, there are hundreds of other places, from Ohio to Colorado to Seattle, where no "accent" that really identifies the place is evident (unless an intentionally regional expression is employed). <S> (Oh, and I am not from Omaha. <S> I am from Wisconsin, where, though considered the MidWest, we definitely do have an identifiable "accent." :) <A> I've noticed that when people speak of "standard" American English, "No regional markers" generally unpacks as "no mergers that create homophones" such as cot/caught. <S> SAE is sometimes described as newsreader dialect on national TV. <S> These guys have a functional requirement for maximum intelligibility over all dialect areas. <S> So I think there is principled a way of describing Standard American. <S> It's how you speak when you express every vowel distinction in any dialect and don't drop consonants (in particular no non-rhotic dialect is ever described as SAE). <S> As others have pointed out, North Midlands without the recent Northern Cities Vowel shift is a common referent for SAE. <S> So is the upper-middle-class (but not working-class) dialect in Philadelphia, where I live. <S> Someone pointed out Nebraska which works too as long as it's a version without cot/caught merger.
| “Standard” American English (SAE), when used to describe accents, is identical to the term “General American English”, and means American English spoken without any clear regional dialect markers.
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Are the acronyms FYI, BTW, LOL, WTF now considered "normal" words? Are these "words" moving out of the elitist slang stage and into popular usage? It is hard for me to tell, because in the techie culture I work in they are ubiquitous. However, I've tried them out with my journalistic hat on and did not get yelled at. If the consensus is they are now acceptable usages, I'll say them more often, and "w00t" too. In response to comments, I'll clarify the preceding paragraph. The class of word I'm talking about is acronyms that become (What do we call it?), normal words with an independent meaning. The most famous examples are OK , for which the origin may be lost, and snafu and fubar , whose origins are known by few that say them. I posit that FYI is also now a "normal" word, just a bit newer than the preceding. The next ones on my list are BTW , LOL , and WTF , which I think are following the same process as OK and FYI , but are not so far along. How far along are they, though? I'm pretty sure I can't use them in a political speech or a grant proposal, but how about, say, a user manual, or a non-technical blog? <Q> In spoken English I have heard F-Y-I but not OMG, LOL, or WTF except when specifically emulating texting style or teasing someone about it. <A> I'm curious about the reason for calling these acronyms "elitist," but a general answer to your question is <S> yes, these acronyms are being assimilated into more general use, but <S> no, these acronyms are not becoming words with significantly different meaning. <S> Regarding the reference to SNAFU, FUBAR and OK, the argument to be made is whether the original meaning, not the origins, is lost. <S> "OK" is deceiving in that, while almost no one could state what the earliest-recorded expansion of the acronym is, we still use it in the same general meaning. <S> The expansions of the other two can be sussed out with a bit of work, as they come from actual words rather than colloquial satire. <S> These, too, are still used with the same general meaning, though we choose to ignore the masked vulgarity. <S> Further, the expansion of shorter acronyms, such as FYI and BTW, will quite possibly remain in the common understanding until the words actually fall out of use. <S> Snafu and Fubar have assimilated further than will "FYI", "BTW" and their ilk. <S> " <S> FOO-bar" and "SNA-foo" can be pronounced as words. <S> Will people actually start saying "FWEE" or "BE-twa," outside the ironic "B-T-DUB" that Tonza offers? <S> I'm uncertain, but I have a feeling the answer is "no." <S> "OK," IIRC, may be in the extreme minority as it has actually been turned into the word "Okay." <S> "LOL" is sometimes made "LOLing" or "loling" as it can actually be pronounced coherently as a word-construction, but I don't see the same fate for these other acronyms. <S> Regarding stacker's opinion , I don't believe this to be a difference between acronyms and abbreviations. <S> Acronyms are built using the initial letter of all or most of the non-articles in a phrase. <S> An abbr. <S> is a shortened version of a word, where a number of characters are lopped off from the end (and sometimes inside) <S> the word. <S> And, FYI, SCSI (Small Computer System Interface, pronounced "scuzzy") is an acronym. <A> Just my personal opinion: <S> The difference between acronyms and abbreviation is that acronyms can be pronounced like a word and abbreviations are typically pronounced letter by letter. <S> Sometimes abbreviations have been extended in spoken English, like SCSI became "scasi". <S> I doubt that "FYI" or "BTW" can be accepted as a word. <S> Whether the usage of these these abbreviations is appropriate depends on your readship. <S> In a user manual which is considered as a formal document you shouldn't use them at all (of course technical abbreviations would be OK). <S> In a non-technical blog you could probably use "BTW" and "LOL". <S> But what's the point to use vulgar slang like "WTF"? <S> This is rather a matter of how want to be perceived by your readers. <A> I say "BTW" and "lol" but only very informally. <S> I pronounce BTW as "B T dub" or even "B T dubs" as a joke toward the acronym itself. <S> It's the same with "lol," I only use it to make fun of the plague of people using these words incessantly to mask their inability to effectively communicate. <S> I would never use these acronyms in anything mildly formal.
| Laser (origin: acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation") is a good example of an acronym which has been accepted as a word.
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"There are no comments" vs. "There is no comment" Which is correct? There are no comments. There is no comment. Which would you use for a web application, i.e. what to display when a blog post or an article has no comment attached? Actually, I am trying to fix an application that says: "There is no comments"! Would that ever be right? More generally speaking, it feels wrong to have a plural after the negative no/none or with the preposition without (see my previous question "Without reason" or "Without reasons"? ). Those words imply zero, i.e. less than one, while plural is two or more. Yet, I know that phrases like "There are no comments" or "He is without friends" are common. It seems illogical to me. Are the majority of people making a grammar mistake when using such expressions, or else can you explain why this is correct? <Q> "No comments" is correct, and this construction is common in English. <S> For example, we get singular agreement for number for the value of 1, and plural agreement for anything else. <S> 5 pizzas 1.5 pizzas 1 pizza 0.5 pizzas 0 pizzas <S> This extends to "no" as well. <S> Using " <S> no" combined with a singular is possible, but implies that there would only be either one of that thing, or nothing. <S> This is much more rare (though it comes up from time to time). <S> You might read in the newspaper, "When asked about the situation, the press secretary had no comment. <S> " <S> Here it is singular because you either have a comment about a matter, or you don't. <S> If you say a lot of things, it is still considered one comment (at least in the journalistic sense of the word). <A> Generally, you would say : <S> There are no comments. <S> But if you are talking about something that you would only expect one of, you would say is no . <S> For example, if you were complaining to your paper delivery service, you would say: <S> There is no newspaper in my driveway today. <S> An extreme example of this is: <S> There was no moon that night. <S> Nobody says "there were no moons that night" … you would have to be on another planet for this to make sense. <A> These are all suitable for a website: There is one comment. <S> There are two comments. <S> There is half a comment. <S> There are 0.5 comments. <S> There are no comments. <S> If you think of comment in the case there is no comment as being short for commentary <S> then you will find it easier to understand how it works and what it means. <S> There is no news , however, is correct because there is no singular version of news. <A> Which would you use for a web application, i.e. what to display when a blog post or an article has no comment attached? <S> As far as I can see, in such cases the plural form is preferred. <S> There are no menu links yet. <S> There are currently no styles. <S> There are currently no effects in this style. <S> There are no fields yet added. <S> The only cases where it's used the singular noun is in sentences like: <S> There is currently no content classified with this term. <S> There is not enough memory available to PHP to change this theme's color scheme. <S> There is no new syndicated content from the site. <S> Actually, I am trying to fix an application that says: "There is no comments" ! <S> Would that ever be right?? <S> There is no comments is not correct. <S> There must be an agreement between the verb and the subject / object. <S> In the same way you don't say there are no cow , you don't say there is no comments .
| I would use there are no comments . "There is no comments" is not correct in any situation where comments is the plural of comment.
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When is it appropriate to use "Yeah" and "Yep" as variants of the word "Yes"? As a learner of English I know that yes is a standard variant and the other two are informal, spoken words. I know nothing more about it, and always try using the yes variant, just to not sound inappropriate. But I'd like to be able to not sound too formal in a casual conversation. Could you help me understand the differences between these words and the contexts in which it is okay to use them? <Q> In conversation among friends, any form is appropriate, but "yep" has a slightly dismissive tone. <S> "Did you find your wallet?" <S> "Yeah, I left it in the other room." <S> As opposed to "Did you get directions to the theater?" <S> "Yep." <S> In the second example, you're implying that you've already got directions and you don't need to spend time hearing them again. <A> I use <S> yeah or <S> yep <S> /yup when speaking casually. <S> I tend to use yep <S> /yup <S> when it is being spoken by itself. <S> I also would correspondingly use nope in the same way. <S> Did you do it? <S> Yeah, I did it <S> Yep. <A> Yes is not a formal word; you can use it in both formal and informal contexts. <S> Looking at the definitions given for <S> yeah , <S> yeh , yep , or yup , all those words are defined as exclamation & noun nonstandard spelling of yes, representing informal pronunciation. <S> Looking at the examples provided from the Werriam-Webster Online , it seems that <S> yeah , <S> and yep are used in two different cases. <S> Yep is used when it's the only word in the answer; <S> yeah is used in the other cases. <S> That's really what she said? <S> Yep. <S> That looks good. <S> Yeah, I think so too. <A> Yeah can also be used in a partial negation [yeah, but] meaning that you are affirming only a portion of the question. <S> Friend: Did you get movie tickets for me with the money I gave you? <S> You: <S> Yeah, but they cost ten dollars more than you gave me for them. <S> Would you be willing to pay for the popcorn? <S> Friend: <S> Yep. <S> You <S> : OK. <S> See you there. <A> In spoken (and informal written) English, I generally use <S> yeah or <S> yup . <S> I mostly use <S> yes when additional emphasis is needed, possibly with additional words as confirmation, e.g. if someone said I hadn't completed a task, I might reply <S> Yes, I did. <S> In formal written English, Yes should be used. <S> You might see this, for example, on application forms which have Yes/ <S> No tick boxes or similar. <A> Usually people write yes, unless it is informal writing, <S> then yeah <S> and yep can be used. <S> In spoken English yes is always appropriate, but with friends and relations <S> yeah <S> and yep are frequently used. <S> Sometimes the words can carry more meaning by their tone and repetition. <S> Mother: <S> "Did you you do your homework yet?"Child: "yeah, <S> yeah, <S> yeah." <S> (The homework not done, but the child is tired of being told about it.) <A> When agreeing with someone I prefer "yeh" whereas with an exclamation such as " <S> yeah, he scored the winning goal" the <S> "yeah" is cognitively quicker to come off the mind than discerning first whether you want to spell it "yeh" or " <S> yeah <S> " knowing that the latter has more than one meaning.
| You are correct that "yeah" and "yep" are informal variants of "yes."
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What's the difference between "regime" and "regimen"? What's the difference between regime and regimen ? <Q> Generally speaking, the two words have the same ultimate etymology, from Latin regimin , meaning “position of authority, direction, set of rules”. <S> In many cases, either word can be used, and their meanings have substantial overlap: <S> regime 1 <S> a : <S> regimen 1 <S> b : a regular pattern of occurrence or action (as of seasonal rainfall) <S> c : the characteristic behavior or orderly procedure of a natural phenomenon or process 2 <S> a : mode of rule or management <S> b : a form of government <a socialist regime <S> > <S> c <S> : a government in power <S> d : a period of rule regimen 1 <S> a : a systematic plan (as of diet, therapy, or medication) especially when designed to improve and maintain the health of a patient <S> b : <S> a regular course of action and especially of strenuous training <the daily regimen of athletes <S> > <S> 2 <S> : government, rule <S> 3 : regime 1c <S> The definitions reference each other in several places reflecting the substantial overlap in the two words’ meanings. <S> However, the two words are frequently used differently, so let’s look at what collocates (frequent neighbor words) using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): <S> These words most commonly appear before regimen <S> (function words like <S> the excluded) EXERCISE <S> 116TRAINING <S> 109TREATMENT <S> 80DAILY <S> 65WORKOUT <S> 39DRUG <S> 38FITNESS <S> 36STRICT <S> 33MEDICAL <S> 24 <S> Whereas these words commonly appear before regime : MILITARY 449COMMUNIST 383IRAQI 232AUTHORITARIAN 203OLD 200DEMOCRATIC 156TALIBAN 145CASTRO 139NAZI 139 From these results we can see clearly that sense 2 of regime , the one having to do with government, is the most salient one for that word (at least when it is used with an attributive). <S> However, if we look up the frequent collocates for regimen with regime , we do find some (albeit fewer) results: EXERCISE <S> 20TRAINING <S> 6TREATMENT <S> 9DAILY <S> 4WORKOUT <S> 6DRUG <S> 6FITNESS <S> 4STRICT <S> 8MEDICAL <S> 1 <S> From this we can conclude that indeed the sense of regime meaning “a systematic plan” or “regular course of action” is also a current usage, and not one that merits criticism for being a “misuse”. <A> In US English, 'a regime change' is, for example, a coup/junta/putsch in a government 'a regimen change' is, for example, eating more yogurt. <A> 'Regimen' is all but unheard of in Australian English either. <S> We use 'regime', whether it's exercise, diet, military or government contexts. <A> A regimen is a plan that one adheres to (i.e. regimented). <S> People misuse regime a lot of the time when they mean regimen, especially relating to diets.
| A regime usually refers to a system of government.
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In a project, what is the relationship between dependent tasks called? If I have two tasks, called "Design" and "Development", what are the relationships between the two called? Clearly, this is a type of dependency, but I need to be more specific. That is, I need to be able to say: In this relationship, "Design" is the A and "Development" is the B My wife and I have been discussing this for quite some time now, and here are the few we have come up with, and why they don't work for me: Depender/Dependee Feels awkward, and doesn't really disambiguate the parties involved. Also implies that the dependee provides something to the depender, whereas this is not necessarily always the case in project tasks. Dependent/Surrogate Awkward and implies providing some sort of utility. Parent/Child Incorrect. The "Design" task may have children tasks, like "Write-up" or "Gather Requirements", but "Development" is not a child of "Design". Predecessor, Precursor, etc. / Successor Has hierarchy implications that make it quasi-incorrect. So, the best we have right now is: Prerequisite/??? Project tasks are related in exactly the same way that some educational courses are. This does imply providing some sort of utility, but not necessarily and the relationship is well understood. <Q> Prerequisite - Co-requisite - Post-requisite -- <S> Where task A is the prerequisite and <S> task B can either be a co-requisite or post-requisite. <S> As a project manager I have often used predecessor/successor, but usually where there is a chronological order. <S> Project tasks are related in exactly the same way that some educational courses are. <S> This does imply providing some sort of utility, but not necessarily and the relationship is well understood. <S> With this in mind, one of my college chem classes was a prerequisite and <S> an associated chem lab was a co-requisite. <A> I thought "Prerequisite" as soon as I saw the example. <S> As far as the inverse goes, the "B" in "Development is the B" portion of your question, I would propose a couple of terms: Product <S> if A in whole or in part becomes B, as in the product of a chemical reaction. <S> Dependent or Dependency if B just requires A to exist. <S> In software, when program A relies upon the presence of program B, then "A is a dependency of B". <S> If you drop the "Prerequisite", you could use Predecessor / Successor , which states only that A comes before B. <A> Although it doesn't exactly fit into the sentence, you might say that the two together form the project's critical path , and design is <S> the preceding step and development is the succeeding step <S> critical path <S> noun <S> the sequence of stages determining the minimum time needed for an operation, especially when analyzed on a computer for a large organization. <A> First Task A, Then <S> Task B. <S> Here are some options: Language to describe the task directly: Prerequisite: <S> has a prerequisite of Task A Predecessor: <S> Task A is a predecessor to Task B <S> Task B is a successor of Task A <S> This language is from Project Management dependency relationships https://www.projectinsight.net/project-management-basics/task-dependencies Language to describe the relationship: Contingent <S> Upon: Task B is contingent on Task A <S> Gating requirement: <S> Task A gates Task B <S> Blocking Condition: <S> Task A blocks Task B <S> Constraint: <S> Task A constrains Task B <S> Requirement: <S> Task B requires Task A <S> Dependency: <S> Task B depends on Task A
| Task A is a prerequisite of Task B Task B
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Is "facebook" as a verb different from "google" or "photoshop"? I understand that any term, grammatical or not, becomes valid if there is common usage. I'm not concerned about that. Google and Photoshop are both commonly used as verbs. Given that the terms map fairly well to verbs (web searching and image editing), I can follow the logic of their use. Does this work for Facebook, though? What verb is it replacing? <Q> common verb = <S> > <S> official translation google = <S> > “search the internet (using the Google brand search engine)” <S> photoshop => <S> “edit digital images (using the Adobe Photoshop brand image editing software)” facebook = <S> > “communicate (using the Facebook brand social networking website)” EDIT: to note that the parenthesized items can in some cases be replaced with something more generic, i.e. “using any search engine”, “using any image editing software”, “using any social networking website”. <S> This is the usage that the owners of the trademarks fear (and object to) because substantial usage of that type constitutes a generic use of their trademarks, which could be grounds for being forced to forfeit the trademark. <A> Merriam-Webster has a whole list of suggestions: to book engagements via facebook to put something up on facebook to look up someone's personal information using Facebook to look someone up on a social website, to find one's information on a social website To upload a photograph to Facebook so that it may be viewed by others. <S> To create an event entry on facebook To get on a facebook website. <S> 1.to search for another person through the online directory know as facebook 2. <S> to send a message through the online directory know as facebook <S> To add someone to your list of friends on the "facebook.com" website. <S> ... <S> Judging by the list, you can't predict which verb "to facebook" <S> might or might not end up replacing. <S> Right now, it's just a shorthand for many different things to different people. <A> Photoshop means "edit a photograph", and Google means "search the web". <S> Facebook provides too many diverse functions to be easily verbed. <S> Would the verb be transitive or intransitive <S> (e.g. "I facebooked all day" vs <S> "I'll facebook you")? <S> In the former case, does it mean "update my profile", "look at friends pictures" or "search for new friends"...? <S> In the latter case, does it mean "add as friend", "send a message", "write on the wall", "ping"...? <S> It is unclear. <S> There is no single defining activity that Facebook is used for or a clear result it produces. <S> Similarly, spreadsheet or database program names ("1-2-3", "Excel", "Oracle", "MySql") are rarely used as verbs. <S> These programs, like Facebook can be used for diverse tasks. <A> It doesn't really replace any other verb. <S> Think of it like "skiing," which means the act of using skis. <S> I would say that (for the present day, at least) all of these terms still pertain to the act of using the specific item to which they refer. <S> Some people do say "Google that with Bing," but this is just to satirize the usage of "Google" as a verb. <A> I've heard my students say, "I'll facebook you" many times. <S> Of course, what they mean is, "I'll send you a message on Facebook." <A> Using trademarks as verbs is almost always discouraged by the trademark holder, as it risks genericizing the trademark. <S> This is why, for example, Microsoft never describes a PowerPoint presentation as "a PowerPoint", but uses the generic term "slideshow".
| I have never heard "Facebook" used as a verb ("to facebook").
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What is the story behind the word "hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia"? Was someone just trying to be funny by being ironic? <Q> Sesquipedalian means having many syllables, and you'll probably know what phobia means. <S> Thus, "sesquipedaliophobia" is an irrational fear of words with many syllables. <S> The prefixes "hippopoto-" and "monstro-", as you might guess, are not there to add anything in terms of meaning, in fact they are rather nonsensical. <S> Their only purpose is to make the word longer, in a witty and cruel, sarcastic twist. <S> Wiktionary says : Etymology From hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian , an extension of sesquipedalian with monstrum "monster" and a truncated, misspelled form of hippopotamus , intended to exaggerate the length of the word itself and the idea of the size of the words being feared; combined with phobia . <S> So I guess the answer to your question is <S> yes, you can say that someone was trying to be funny. <A> It was an ironic way to say the fear of long words with a long word. <A> One of the earliest instance of either hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia or sesquipedaliophobia in a Google Books search is from Chris Aldrich, The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families (2002), which lists both of them, in this entry: -PHOBIA: <S> FEAR OR DISLIKE OF, OR <S> AVERSION <S> TO ... sesquipedaliophobia <S> long words; also humorously hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia <S> However, a significantly earlier instance occurs in Dennis Coon, Introduction to Psychology: Exploration and Application , second edition [?] <S> (1980), which includes this footnote: <S> *Obviously by combining the appropriate root word with the word phobia , any number of unlikely fears can be named. <S> Some are acarophobia , a fear of itching, zemmiphobia , fear of the great mole rat, nictophobia , fear of backing into doorknobs; phobosophobia , fear of fear; and hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia , fear of long words! <S> But that is as early as the entries get for either word. <S> Two different reference works point out that hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is one letter longer than supercalifragilisticexpialadocious , a nonce word that became famous from a song in the 1964 film Mary Poppins . <S> It is difficult to find any mention of hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia that doesn't remark on the irony of the fact that the word for "fear of long words" is such a long word. <S> But it appears to have no claim to existence outside the purposeful lengthening (for effect) of sesquipedaliophobia . <S> Any word that appears on paper is a "real" word, in some sense. <S> But I think it's fair to say that hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is an artificially long word, not a naturally long one—and therefore that it did not come into existence under the same rules of formation that govern most words in the English language.
| It seems likely to me that the hippopotomonstro - prefix attached to the shorter word sesquipedaliophobia is there simply to make the resulting word longer than the Mary Poppins word.
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Do "in future" and "in the future" imply different meanings? Do in future and in the future imply different meanings? If so, using which one is grammatically correct? <Q> He would be more careful in future. <S> They plan on getting married in the near future. <S> In the first sentence, "in future" means "from now on"; the NOAD says its use is chiefly British. <S> In the second sentence, "in the future" means "the time or a period of time following the moment of speaking or writing." <A> In future is how they say it in the UK and India. <S> It is common and considered normal. <S> In future, we will avoid water beds. <S> In American English, In future sounds strange; in the future is preferred or at least will get you fewer strange looks. <A> Fore example: in future <S> ______ shows plays events and etc. <A> In future is much more common in the UK and Ireland, as in <S> In future, be more careful. <S> In the US, we would tend to say In the future, be more careful. <S> They mean exactly the same thing. <A> In future is commonly used in British English and is perfectly correct but has a different meaning than in the future . <S> In the future refers to an unspecified point in time, while in future means from now on. <S> It'a shame I missed you when I popped round to see you yesterday. <S> I'll ring up beforehand in future . <S> In the future people will look back at the mobile phones we use today and laugh at their simplicity. <A> Both forms are possible. " <S> In future" is often used in reprimands: <S> In future please sign and date your letters <S> It is very general, talking about all times from now onwards. <S> You can find many examples on Google (search for "in future please take care"). <S> "In the future" is more neutral and more specific: <S> In the future I would like to go to Australia, but now I don't have enough money. <A> The difference is only in whether future is a noun or an adjective. <S> In the future, please be more careful and Please be more careful in the future <S> both use future as a noun. <S> In future activities, please be more careful <S> uses future to modify the noun activities. <S> To my knowledge is it not correct to say in future in the place of in the future. <A> As far as grammar goes the difference between in future and in the future is contextual. <S> One usually comes across phrases like in future endeavours or in future meets where future serves as an adjective. <S> But if the reference is only to the times ahead, in the future would be correct and not in future .Thus <S> ,it would be correct to say: <S> Be more careful in the future .or <S> There will come a time in the future when there will be no petroleum left on the planet.and incorrect to go with the other. <S> However,the spoken word in Britain and many former colonies where the influence of British English is enduring,it's not uncommon to come across simple notes that use in future . <S> Perhaps they find it more easy on their ears. <S> Nonetheless,grammatically wanting.
| You may see "in future" when "future" is modifying a noun for which "in" is an appropriate preposition.
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"high rate of speed" or "high speed" to mean going fast Why do reporters (and sometimes police officers) say that somebody was going at a high rate of speed when they actually mean high speed ? In physics, speed is already the rate of distance over time, otherwise known as velocity. Rate of speed is velocity over time, otherwise known as acceleration. By saying high rate of speed they would be implying picking up more speed. Is there a social reason for using high rate of speed rather than high speed ? <Q> Because more words = more official-sounding. <S> It's a bad phrase that has taken root in irrelevant situations. <S> Adding "rate" adds nothing in most contexts. <S> However, the word rate also means "value" or "number". <S> From Cambridge : rate (MEASUREMENT) noun a measurement of the speed at which something happens or changes, or the number of times it happens or changes, within a particular period <A> The very first sense for the noun rate in Merriam-Webster is “reckoned value : valuation”. <S> The word has more meanings than the one used in physics. <S> One could therefore make the argument that a rate of speed is a speed which is reckoned (i.e. by measuring or reasoned estimation) rather than guessed. <A> This is classic genteelism . <S> Speed is the rate of change of position. <S> Although "Rate of speed" is technically meaningless, it does, however, usually convey the intended meaning (for better or worse). <A> Speed is already a rate in itself (the rate at which distance changes). <S> According to my dictionary <S> *, the relevant definition of rate is the speed with which something moves, happens or changes <S> * New Oxford American Dicitionary (2nd Edition) <A> In the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, S 128 , the term "Rate of Speed" is used throughout. <S> I suspect this term did not originate in Ontario, but the usage has become official due to its inclusion in legislation.
| As a scientist, I would point out that saying "high rate of speed", when one simply means "high speed", is not merely redundant but outright wrong.
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When do I have to use 'will' instead of 'going to'? Does going to only express an intention and will some kind of prediction that doesn't necessarily happen? EDIT:Thanks for all your answers. I asked this question because I always fail to complete exercises like this from an ESL book: We will fly to Venice in June. (Correct: But, how can I be sure that I'm not sick in June?) Philipp will be 15 next Wednesday (Correct: Since his birthday is a fixed day, this will happen). They will get a new computer. (Wrong: Why?, If I need a new computer, I simply get a new one) In 2020 people are going to buy more hybrid cars. (Wrong, Why? Who can tell for sure). <Q> IT can be used in any case in which you wish to refer to the future. <S> Going to <S> + verb is a shortcut construct that is commonly used in many situations. <S> It is typically used to express occurrences in the near -future. <S> In many cases however, particularly in colloquial speech, the two constructs are virtually interchangeable. <S> Wikipedia has some additional notes on usage: Going-to future is used when the speaker wishes to express certainty about the future based on evidence or fact from the present or the speaker's opinion: "If you do not stop, you are going to be caught by the police and hauled back to jail." <S> "Our houses are going to be swept away by the impending storm. <S> " <S> While the "will" and "going to" constructions are often interchangeable, only the "going to" construction can denote former future intention (e.g. "I was going to eat dinner, but decided not to"). <A> Some ESL courses seem to have a strict set of rules for when to use "going to" and when to use "will" which don't reflect the way native English speakers use them. <S> Much of the time, you can use either one of these constructions. <S> The way I use them, I say "going to" when I'm talking about plans that are being made, or I've just realized something is going to happen. <S> If she can't come home this summer, we're going to fly to Venice in June to see her. <S> Watch out! <S> That rock is going to fall on us. <S> But you can certainly sometimes use "will" when something has been planned for a long time, and is definitely going to happen, even if there is no uncertainty about it. <S> Almost everybody uses <S> will when talking about the sun rising : <S> The sun will rise tomorrow at 6:43 am. <S> On the other hand, if you want to pass your ESL course, you may have to learn the rules it uses. <A> As reported by the New Oxford American Dictionary , to be going to means "to intend or be likely or intended to be or do something; be about to." <S> I am going to be late for work. <S> She is going to have a baby. <S> Will and shall are used to express the future tense, and the following notes (given also from the Oxford Living Dictionaries ) apply. <S> The traditional rule in standard English is that shall is used with first person pronouns to form the future tense, while will is used with second and third persons. <S> I shall be late. <S> She will not be there. <S> When expressing a strong determination to do something, the traditional rule is that will is used with the first person, and shall with the second and third persons. <S> I will not tolerate this. <S> You shall go to school. <S> In practice, however, shall and will are today used more or less interchangeably in statements (although not in questions). <S> Given that the forms are frequently contracted (we'll, she'll, etc.) <S> , there is often no need to make a choice between shall and will, another factor no doubt instrumental in weakening the distinction. <S> In modern English, the interchangeable use of shall and will is an acceptable part of standard U.S. and British English. <A> There are three main future tenses in English, "will", "going to" and present continuous. <S> Will future is used for two things, prediction and spontaneous promises. <S> I will never walk on the moon (prediction) <S> I'll ring you tomorrow (spontaneous promise) Going to future is used for predictions, especially based on immediate evidence, and plans. <S> He's going to fall! <S> (prediction, based on immediate evidence) <S> I'm going to buy a new car next year. <S> (plan) <S> Since your question was particularly about when not to use will, let me give a couple of instances. <S> We don't say things like ? <S> I'll buy a new car next year. <S> when we talk about plans, so that is one case where "will" is not used. <S> Also if I saw someone tottering on a roof I probably would not say ? <S> He'll fall <S> we normally use "going to" when there is some kind of immediate evidence. <S> By the way, the other future, present continuous used for the future, is used for appointments and other fixed plans: <S> I'm having lunch with Megan Fox tomorrow. <S> There are a lot more details but as I said in the comments you'd better look in a grammar book, because this site isn't exactly chock-a-block with ESL teaching experts. <S> For complete details I strongly recommend "English Grammar in Use" by Raymond Murphy . <A> I am going to be late tomorrow. <S> I will be late tomorrow. <S> I personally use them interchangeably, but the second way of saying it seems more forceful. <S> (I am a native English speaker in America.)
| Using will (or shall ) is the proper way to form the actual future tense, and is completely generic.
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Is the word "yearling" appropriate for a recurring event? The Stack Overflow / Stack Exchange sites all have a "yearling" badge . Active member for a year, earning at least 200 reputation. This badge can be awarded multiple times. So each year, if the reputation has progressed at least from 200 points, you get a "yearling" badge. Yet Merriam-Webster defines yearling as one that is a year old . Which makes sense on your first year participating to one of those sites. But does yearling still apply for your second, third or more years of participation to come? If not, what would be a better term for that kind of achievement? <Q> A yearling is a term which I'd associate with horses. <S> I assumed that the stackoverflow usage was a joke rather than a serious name. <S> Why not just call it the "two/three/four year" badge or just give two, three or four yearling badges. <A> As others have pointed out, yearling does not have a use for recurring events. <S> Other than on StackOverflow.com, it seems to only be used (in American English) when referring to the age of animals, especially horses. <S> As a native speaker of American English, I am much more likely to use "annually" than "yearly". <S> It would not, however, surprise me, if StackOverflow continued with the humor and referred to users who have been participating for two to three years as toddler s. <A> As adjective, the NOAD defines yearling as having lived or existed for a year; a year old . <S> Dictionary.com defines the adjective as meaning of a year's duration or standing . <S> For recurrent events, yearly is the word I would use. <S> If you interpret existed for a year as using a relative reference, then yearling could be used to describe the badge. <A> Assuming it refers to the account on the site and not the person who created it, one could argue it is technically accurate. <A> In the context of stackexchange, "yearling" could be issued 12 months from when the account was opened. <S> Then, if the account is more-or-less stagnant for 12 months, it could be issued again 18 months after the first one. <S> That seems flaky to me. <S> " <S> Yearling" implies one-year-old, not "did something in a year; then did it again in another year on the same site" <A> I am pretty sure that it's totally awesome in a sarcastic manner. <S> But I want to believe “yearling” is not the right word, or at the very least, inappropriate for recurring events. <S> But I must digress... <S> It is funny as all hell that this site is perpetuating this. <S> Idealistically even an etymologist wouldn't use this form of it. <S> But, in my own humble opinion, an urban wordsmith would eat this up. <S> So I would have to answer this "question" as both "yes <S> and no" (all depending on opinion and level of your inner critic.) <A> The word "yearling" is almost exclusively used for young animals like sheep, goats and deer and certainly not used for repetitive things. <S> For badges, you can have your first-, second- and third-year pins. <S> An annual gathering is something that happens once a year, you can celebrate an anniversary each year too.
| For a recurring event, the word you should probably use is either annual or anniversary , or yearly .
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Should we use past tense in "Lugo admitted he is the father"? In this sentence, should the is be a was ? On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo. <Q> On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo. <S> Boofus McGoofus got this right. <S> I am just going to expand on his answer. <S> The heuristic rule taught to ESL learners is that the past tense should be used for indirect quotations, as in Lugo: " <S> I admit I am the father of a child conceived with V.C. <S> " <S> Indirect quotation form: <S> On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo. <S> But, this rule doesn't have to be applied in the case that the situation is still true, so is can be used. <S> However, in a sentence like <S> On April 13, 1801, Lugo admitted he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo. <S> "is" would be a little strange because both Lugo and his child are long since gone. <S> So basically the heuristic rule can be broken in the case that the quoted fact is still true. <A> I would prefer "is" unless he has stopped being the father sometime since conception. <S> While the child was conceived, he is the father. <A> Regarding the style, it depends on the focus <S> The focus is the question <S> Is he the father of a child? <S> then the information in the sentence says only when that information was revealed <S> On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted it. <S> it = <S> the current fact that he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo. <S> The focus is something else like the question people had whether he was the father or not <S> The question people asked three years ago was whether Lugo was the father of a child or not. <S> On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted that he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo. <S> If the focus is in the present, you use the present tense, if it is in the past, you use the past tense. <S> For example: People questioned his wealth and the decision not to leave anything to his estranged daughter. <S> There was a question hanging in the air of more children of his. <S> One case was especially under a heavy scrutiny. <S> Finally, on April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted that he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo. <S> The entire passage is in the past. <S> The key event is in the past. <S> The dilemma was in the past: "was he or wasn't he the father?", so is the the answer: he revealed that he was. <S> (However, the language tests usually have no focus to decide about. <S> It is not uncommon to find that you are mistaken in the test because you do not know the way your teacher or school likes to think. <S> In this particular example it is very easy to justify using either the present or past tense unless more of the surrounding story is revealed.)
| I would use "he was the father" if the story speaks about the dilemma and all the problems around the time related to him being or not being a father.
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Why is “definitely” so frequently typoed? Definitely seems to be one of the most frequently typoed words in written English on the Internet, enough to bring somebody to create d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com . Simon Google says, in a completely unscientific manner: defini tely ×105,000,000 (43.4%) defina tely × 80,000,000 (33.0%) define t ly × 21,900,000 ( 9.0%) defina t ly × 18,300,000 ( 7.6%) defi ant ly × 15,900,000 ( 6.6%)¹ definant ly × 858,000 ( .4%) definent ly × 217,000 ( .1%) Why is this the case? What are the reasons behind these misspellings? Are those mistakes limited to the Internet, or are they also present in handwritten English as well? 1 Defiantly actually is a word , so that obviously skews the numbers. <Q> Can you think of any other words that end in <S> -itely <S> that are pronounced the same? <S> I think the majority of them end in -ately , e.g. alternately , indiscriminately , fortunately , intimately . <S> Edit: Just thought of one: infinitely ... but it’s definitely rarer! <A> Definitely is pronounced as [dɛfɪnətli] , where the [ə] indicates a schwa sound. <S> A schwa could easily be any vowel in English, so it’s easy to misspell it. <A> Believe it or not, the phenomenon you describe is as much a function of readership as of authorship. <S> That means that its occurrence has mostly to do with where one finds the word definitely , however it happens to be spelled. <S> Furthermore, the OP’s mistaken use of typo as a verb — which it is not — is revealing of how the Internet has become a great leveller between more literacy and less literacy — that is, between advanced spellers and formative ones. <S> That, in a nutshell, answers the question. <S> Imagine that all “literate” grade levels, the ones after the first grade, could be lumped together and given the same spelling quiz. <S> No matter whether the answers were oral, printed, cursive, or typed, would you expect any “better” (that is, more skewed) a distributrion of correct and incorrect spellings as is shown in the OP table? <S> “Definitely” no? <S> Or “defunutly” [ sic ] <S> yes? <S> An interesting aspect of the table’s spellings of <S> definitely is that they seem to reveal differences in hearing perceptions and hence pronunciations, which suggests a possibility that they might be influenced by ear-nose-and-throat (otorhinolaryngological) influences, especially otic and nasal.
| Therefore, people uninterested in spelling irregularity will intuitively spell it “definately” because it seems more plausible if you don’t know better.
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Are split infinitives grammatically incorrect, or are they valid constructs? Mark's generosity in this crisis seems to more than make up for his earlier stinginess. Should those sentences always be avoided, or are there cases where they are valid? <Q> The only thing that should be avoided is awkwardness. <S> Putting adverbial phrases between the infinitive complementizer to and the infinitive can sometimes be awkward, but it is certainly never ungrammatical or “invalid”. <S> Even the most conservative and staunchest prescriptivist commenters admit that there is nothing inherently ungrammatical about so-called “split” infinitives, which have been attested in all forms of written English for at least seven hundred years . <S> Indeed, in many cases, putting the adverbial phrase in the intervening position is the only grammatical place to put it, such as in the example in the original poster’s question. <S> There are a couple posts on Language Log discussing these “obligatorily split infinitives”: (“ Obligatorily split infinitive ”), (“ Obligatorily split infinitive in real life ”). <A> Should those sentences always avoided, or are there cases where they are valid? <S> A native speaker who hasn't been taught that split infinitives are "wrong" will not actually notice anything ungrammatical about " to boldly go where no man has gone before". <S> Thus it is very hard to argue that split infinitives are actually mistakes. <S> My own opinion is that there is no need to avoid them. <S> I'd like to refer you to this notes and queries (Guardian newspaper) <S> discussion for more discussion. <S> A funny quote from Fowler, via the Guardian style guide : <S> "The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) <S> those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) <S> those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and distinguish. <S> Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are happy folk, to be envied." <S> (HW Fowler, Modern English Usage, 1926) <A> Consider this sentence: "The teacher wanted to frequently scold tardy students. <S> " <S> Eliminate the split infinitive without completely re-writing the sentence. <S> "The teacher frequently wanted to scold tardy students. <S> " <S> Does not mean the same thing. <S> The original sentence says that the teacher wanted to scold them many times. <S> The second sentence says that the teacher often thought about scolding them. <S> That is, in the original sentence, on one occasion the teacher thought about scolding many times. <S> The second sentence says that on many occasions the teacher thought about scolding once. <S> "The teacher wanted to scold frequently tardy students." <S> Again, not the same. <S> The original sentence says that each time the student is tardy, the teacher wanted to scold him. <S> This sentence says that the teacher wanted to scold them only after they had been tardy many times. <S> "The teacher wanted to scold tardy students frequently." <S> Now it's ambiguous whether you mean that she often had the thought that she wanted to scold them, or that she wanted to scold them many times for each offense. <S> I'm sure you could re-write the sentence to eliminate the split infinitive while retaining the original meaning, but I don't see how to do it without getting much wordier and more awkward. <S> Any time following a rule creates all sorts of problems, while the only problem created by ignoring the rule is that pedants criticize us for breaking an arbitrary rule, it seems to me that the logical conclusion is that the rule is flawed. <A> Grammarians consider split infinitive "bad style". <S> However there was Raymond Chandler, American writer, who got very angry when his British publisher 'corrected' his split infinitives. <S> He said ( from here ) <S> "When I split an infinitive, god damn it, I split it <S> so it stays split. <S> "
| According to Fowler's "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" (link to Wikipedia article) , the notion that split infinitives are grammatically wrong originated from an application of Latin grammar (where it isn't even possible to split an infinitive) to English in the eighteenth century.
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In which cases is a comma/period placed inside or outside of parentheses? Are there cases where a period is placed inside parentheses? In which cases the period (or a comma) should be placed inside the parentheses? <Q> The Penguin Handbook says it more clearly <S> than I could: 1 Examine the material enclosed by parentheses. <S> Is it an entire sentence? <S> If so, place the period inside the closing parenthesis. <S> If the parenthetical material is part of another sentence, place the period outside the closing parenthesis. <S> Sometimes the parenthetical material is part of a longer sentence part that will be set off by a comma, colon, or semicolon. <S> These pieces of punctuation always come after the parenthetical material, never before it or inside the parentheses. <S> See also Brians's Common Errors and Wikipedia . <S> 1 <S> Except that my examples were going to involve monkeys and saxophones. <S> Theirs are pretty boring. <A> From the Guardian style guide : parentheses <S> (A complete sentence that stands alone in parentheses starts with a capital letter and ends with a stop.) <A> If what is enclosed in the brackets is a complete sentence, it makes sense to put the full stop inside the sentence too. <S> (Here’s an example.) <S> If the bracketed words form part of a sentence that is not itself bracketed, then there is no reason not to put the full stop where it would go anyway, at the end of the sentence (like this).
| If the sentence is logically and grammatically complete without the information contained within the parentheses (round brackets), the punctuation stays outside the brackets.
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Should I write "module/theme" or "module / theme"? I usually put a space before and after / , when indicating alternatives. We review a module / theme per user. Is it correct, or should I rewrite the sentence to remove those spaces? We review a module/theme per user. <Q> You should remove the spaces. <S> Unless, of course, you are quoting a poem, in which case the slash indicates a line break: <S> We review a module theme per user. <S> Wikipedia has more info : <S> There are usually no spaces either before or after a slash. <S> Exceptions are in representing the start of a new line when quoting verse, or a new paragraph when quoting prose. <S> The Chicago Manual of Style (at 6.112) also allows spaces when either of the separated items is a compound that itself includes a space: Our New Zealand / Western Australia trip . <S> (Compare use of an en dash used to separate such compounds.) <S> The Canadian Style: <S> A Guide to Writing and Editing prescribes "No space before or after an oblique when used between individual words, letters or symbols; one space before and after the oblique when used between longer groups which contain internal spacing", giving the examples " <S> n/ <S> a" and "Language and Society / Langue et société". <A> In print I would leave no space, but for online usage I bracket the "/" with spaces because it is a non-breaking character and results in huge, clunky amalgamations that take up a whole line, leaving the previous line with but a couple of words. <S> This is the kind of break <S> I mean: If you wanted to use some long words, you could go the antidisestablishmentarianism/pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosisroute. <S> The two long words won't break at a line end because of the slash, but will if the slash is surrounded by spaces. <A> I believe the correct usage is word/word unless you're writing a line break in a poem: <S> Shall <S> I compare thee to a summer's day? / <S> Thou art more lovely and more temperate: / Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / <S> And summer's lease hath all too short a date: <A> Punctuation surrounding a slash is a matter of style. <S> The Chicago Manual of Style, for example, allows for a space on either side of the slash when either of the separated items has a space itself. <S> For your example a space on either side of the slash would be appropriate according to that style convention. <S> Regarding line breaks, you probably want the front space padding the slash to be a non-breaking space, as starting a new line with a slash would be jolting for a reader. <A> As a technical writer I need to edit content written by engineers. <S> for some reason they have a tendency to use spaces before and after slashes, and I religiously remove them. <S> I have started rethinking my inflexibility in this matter as I believe there are times that spaces make the content more user friendly. <S> A case in point is either/or listings of terms that contain other symbols, for example "PMC_IO51 / XMC_IO_B-9". <S> The spacing makes it clear that the slash is not part of either term. <A> This could be one case where ignoring your style guide is justified.
| Normally, no spaces should be used; however, placing a slash with no spaces between two long, polysyllabic words (common in technical writing) makes the sentence harder to scan.
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Why is the past tense used in "I was wondering if you would like to come for dinner?" Why isn't the present tense used? I am wondering if you would like to come for dinner. <Q> Using the past tense is a way of offering flexibility in an invitation or request. <S> You don't need to feel compelled to accept because it is being phrased as a passing thought. <S> A whim. <A> The difference between <S> I wonder if you'd like to come for dinner <S> and I was wondering if you'd like to come for dinner <S> is that the second sounds more hesitant. <S> "I wonder if you'd like to come for dinner" sounds like something your boss would say, it's almost like an order to come to dinner. <S> There's nothing wrong with the grammar in the second form; if you are wondering now then you must have been wondering for at least a small period of time beforehand. <A> I was wondering, and now I am asking. <A> "I was wondering" gives the other more freedom to accept or refuse because it has the feeling that I will not get embarrassed if you refuse my invitation because I was and not I am ! <S> That was in the past! <A> Why isn't the present tense used? <S> I am wondering if you would like to come for dinner. <S> ========================= <S> The only word indicating tense in your example is 'am'. <S> But in this situation, it's really only a present tense FORM. <S> This FORM is used to be more direct, in this case, it could [note ' <S> could' is a future] be taken as rather abrupt. <S> Past tense FORMS, "I was wondering" are used in English to be more indirect and therefore more polite, softer, less challenging. <S> Compare <S> " Do <S> you want something to eat?" <S> versus " <S> Did you want something to eat?" <S> Tense FORMs as opposed to the actual use of tense to mark time are simply different grammatical/pragmatic animals.
| It's used to make the invitation less direct and thus more polite.
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Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile? I have seen people say both 0.25 mile and 0.25 miles. Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile? <Q> 0.25 miles. <S> The rule I follow is that you use the singular only when talking of exactly one mile . <S> You'd also say half a mile , quarter of a mile , etc., <S> but in these cases it's as though you're still talking of "a mile" first, and then taking half or quarter of it. <S> and there's a single one of them. <S> Use the plural in all other cases, even for the real number 1.0: just like "0.9 miles" or "1.1 miles", also say "1.0 miles" (but "1 mile"). <S> [Mathematically, natural numbers ("counting numbers") are a subset of real numbers, but more properly what we have is an inclusion map , so it does make sense to distinguish between 1 and 1.0, actually. <S> And the distinction between natural numbers and real numbers does have applications elsewhere in English: consider "fewer than" versus "less than". <S> You'd say "fewer than five items" but "less than 5.0 inches", since a length doesn't have to be an integer number of inches, you're not counting but assigning a real value.] <S> Another aside: the SI standard for symbols is to use the same symbol for singular or plural, so you'd write "2 km" even if you were reading it as "2 kilometres". <S> Of course, since you're using miles, you probably don't care about this. :-) <A> Depends how you say it. <S> You'd say "nought point two five miles" (plural) but "a quarter of a mile" (singular) <A> I'd leave it singular unless talking about a range such as "0.25 - 2 miles". <S> In a table, for example, the heading would be the same regardless of the units. <S> You can always abbreviate as "mi" and avoid the issue. <S> Simon's answer is also good. <S> Also note that it's actually more awkward to say 0.25 mile than "point two five of a mile". <A> For reasons I'm not too sure about, we usually say "0.25 miles" rather than "0.25 mile". <S> If you Google for both terms, there are about 700,000 "0.25 miles" but less than 100,000 "0.25 mile", and the first few hits for "0.25 mile" give things like "0.25 mile swim" or "0.25 mile wireless setup", where the "mile" is forced to singular anyway. <A> If we followed the definition of "plural", the correct usage would be: 0.25 mile 0.5 mile 0.9 mile 1.0 mile 1.3 mile (or 1.3 miles, according to Wiktionary note below) <S> 2.0 miles 2.2 miles.. <S> As the definition is: <S> Plural: of, relating to, or constituting a class of grammatical forms usually used to denote more than one or in some languages more than two <S> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plural <S> However, as Shinto pointed out in his answer here, people usually use the plural form for 0.25. <S> Here is an interesting note from the Wiktionary about the usage of plural for fractions (and decimals) in general: <S> While the plural form generally refers to two or more persons or things, that is not always the case. <S> The plural form is often used for zero persons or things, for fractional things in a quantity greater than one , and for people or things when the quantity is unknown. <S> This does support the usage of plural for 0.25 though, since it is less than one. <S> But if that is how people use it, we definitely can't say that it is incorrect. <A> .25 miles or a quarter of a mile. <A> It's really not complicated or confusing if you think of it in terms of being a fraction. <S> Essentially, as soon as you go into decimal, you're changing units into partial units. <S> 0.25 would actually be 25 units of "hundredth-miles"
| Let me say something further, with the caveat that it may be my own idiosyncratic usage: use the singular only when talking of the natural number 1, that is, when you're essentially "counting" miles
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Why are numbers usually written twice in contracts? In contracts numbers are usually written twice: in numerical and literal form. I understand the vast majority of text in a typical contract can be safely deleted without impacting the core message due to the typical insane amount of repetition and unnecessary verboseness, but I don't really understand what's the point of writing some (not even all) numbers twice. For example: You agree to these Terms of Use on behalf of yourself and, at your discretion, for one (1) minor child for whom you are a parent or guardian and whom you have authorized to use the account you create on the Service. It's very inconsistent, sometimes they appear in only numerical form: [...] WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF SECTIONS 1, 2 OR 9 . Sometimes only literal: [...] includes two components [...] <Q> Its done to make any tempering with the document difficult. <S> Maybe one can change the number in one place but it wont be easy reflecting the change in the other representation <A> The numerals are the "convenience amount" and the words are the "legal amount" in banking parlance. <S> When they don't agree, the legal amount trumps the convenience amount on the theory that it's harder to tamper with the words than the digits. <S> (This applies in the U.S. <S> I don't know if the terminology and rules are the same elsewhere.) <S> I assume the same rules apply to contracts. <A> An important point that's missing from other answers, is that this prevents a specific form of ambiguity, where a number can also be a noun. <S> In the UK, there is a mobile telephone provider called "Three," knowing this, the two following statements could be interpreted very differently. <S> The project team will be provided with three mobile telephone contracts for the duration of the project and The project team will be provided with three (3) mobile telephone contracts for the duration of the project. <S> If the project team is made up for several hundred people, this could be a significant difference. <S> As we know that a number written out, and then followed by itself in brackets means a quantity (by convention) <S> we have no ambiguity in the second example. <S> You may argue that if we mean 'Three Mobile' then it should be capitalised, but that is a lot less clear-cut than the latter. <S> The same issue arises when referring to years. <S> If a contract states: <S> The winners will receive 2020 World Cup footballs <S> it is clear by convention that 2020 is a noun, not an adjective; and that I don't mean: <S> The winners will receive two-thousand and twenty (2020) World Cup footballs. <A> I do this in almost all of my writing, even emails , and I do it so that it's easier to scan the document and see the numbers. <S> In a multiline paragraph it is easy to miss the one and the two and the three <S> but it's a lot more difficult to miss the one (1) and the two (2) and the three (3). <S> I'm no expert on English even though I am a native speak (at my university we would commonly self-identify with the phrase <S> "I are an en-ga-neer!" ) <S> but I have extensive experience in written communication and there are many things I've learned to do that make it easier to communicate, such as: Use of Headings to Denote Sections <S> Use bullet points to delineate multiple points, Use of many paragraphs with lots of white space also to improve ability to be read by scanning, <S> Bolding of certain phrases for emphasis, <S> And of course writing numbers twice (2x) <S> so they are more easily seen. <S> Note <S> I wrote the above paragraph long to emphasize the point, not because it was clearer. <S> So in summary I've no idea if it is correct or not, but I personally do it for clarity to help the reader . <A> That and attorneys are paid (effectively) by the word. <S> Another place you will see this duplication is for the amount written on a check. <S> It's done for the same reason. <S> As to why it's not consistent, I have no idea.
| It's done to reduce the chances that something might be interpreted ambiguously. Checks (bank drafts) have the transaction amount written twice: once in numerals and once spelled out. It's just one of the techniques I use to make my writing easier to read.
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Should Kyle be corrected, and if he doesn't, why? In a recent blog entry, Jeff Atwood quotes his sysadmin Kyle: "Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do, to what extent?" My understanding is that this sentence is only perfectly grammatical if it's parsed as: "Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do [already have access to the production environment], to what extent [is it okay for them to have it]?" However, that is not what Kyle is actually asking. It's fairly obvious that he expects the question to be parsed as: "Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do [should], to what extent?" And sure enough, that's exactly how I parsed it when I first read it. As in, I didn't even blink at the "do" kicking out a modal verb. It was only upon reading the sentence for a third or fourth time that it struck me as odd. It should also be noted that Kyle is a native speaker. So the construction can't be that ungrammatical after all, does it? Must we correct Kyle, and if we don't, why? Edit: some of the people who have answered/commented say that they do, in fact,read Kyle's question as: Should the developers have access to the production environment? If they already have access, to what extent is it OK for them to have it? It looks like I have to explain why this reading makes little sense — at which I only hinted above — even when no context whatsoever is provided (and Kyle's post is well over a thousand words long). This interpretation means that if developers already have access, the first question doesn't apply. We will throw it away just for them. But the first question is universal, it must not be thrown away. It is more general, more important. If we come to the conclusion that developers, in general, should not have access to the production environment, it also applies to those developers who already do have access. In fact, it applies to them more than to anyone else . So, Kyle cannot possibly be asking: "Should the developers have access to the production environment? Oh, and if your developers already have access, never mind, forget that question, let's just discuss how much access is okay." Much rather, he is asking: "Should the developers have access to the production environment? And if and only if the answer to that question is 'yes', how much access should they have?" <Q> I'm trying to capture a vague thought flitting around in my head; apologies if the result is incomprehensible. <S> I think we accept the should-does construction because there are situations where "do" is the appropriate question word, even though the verb isn't (or doesn't appear to be) "do": <S> He loves hiking, doesn't he? <S> The affirmative of this is "He does love hiking" --> hence the "do" in the question. <S> So I think what happens is that our brain tries to autocorrect the non-parallel constructions by substituting "do" for the modal verb, and if the result is grammatical, we accept it. <S> Should Kyle be corrected, and if he doesn't, why? <S> "Kyle does be corrected" doesn't work, so the autocorrect fails. <S> Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do, to what extent? <S> "Do the developers have access" is perfectly reasonable grammatically, so we don't even blink at this unless someone points it out. <S> [Note that the autocorrect only applies to the grammar: I interpreted this as Kyle intended, i.e. " should they have access, and if yes , to what extent?"] <S> So the construction can't be that ungrammatical after all, does it? <S> "Does be ungrammatical" - nope. <S> Must we correct Kyle, and if we don't, why? <S> "Don't correct Kyle" <S> - sure, no problem. <S> Now we just need to wait for some pedant to come up with a suitable counterexample, and the whole house-of-cards theory will come crashing down... <grin> <A> I think this statement suffers in part from being able to be interpreted in more than one way. <S> I don't know the context in which it was said, but it is feasible that some or all of the developers already had access, and that access (or the extent of it) was being questioned: "Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do, to what extent?" <S> Read as: <S> "Should the developers (even) have access to the production environment, and if (some of them already) do, to what extent (should they have it)? <S> " <S> I'll admit that was not my initial reading of it, but it does make sense. <S> My initial reading of it was assuming no developers currently have access: "Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do, to what extent?" <S> Read as (simplest interpretation/ <S> better restatement of intent): <S> "Should the developers have access to the production environment, and, if so, to what extent should they have access? <S> " <S> However, what I think is implied by the way it is phrased is: "Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do (at some future point have access because we have decided they should and have given them access), to what extent (should they have access)? <S> " <S> I think it is the shift in time from now to a later point that causes most of the confusion because both points are referred to with present tense verbs. <S> If you assume no developers currently have access to production, the statement is asking in the present if they should. <S> Then, in the same breath, the statement is referring to a future point when they have access or might have access also in the present . <S> I don't think it's technically incorrect, but much of the meaning has to be inferred since it relies on the reader to supply the missing words that could have provided clarification. <A> Compare the sentence with ( ? ) <S> If the developers should have access to the production environment, they should have limited access. <S> If already introduce a conditional sentence, and should is not necessary. <S> I interpret the sentence you wrote as <S> Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they do [have access to the production environment], to what extent [is it okay for them to have it]? <S> In the first part of the question asks if developers should have access to production environment; the second part takes the assumption the developers have already access to the production environment, and asks to which extension should the access be allowed. <A> I think the problem with this sentence is that, unlike many present tense verbs, "have access" can't be used for the future. <S> For example, if the sentence was Should the developers go to the meetings, and if they do, should they have a vote? <S> then the implied "do go" fits the future fine. <S> But "have" is exceptional; you can't use the present tense of "have" in the future; it's replaced by "get". <S> For instance, "tomorrow I go to school" is fine, but "tomorrow I have a car" is not; you should say "tomorrow I will have a car" or <S> "tomorrow I get a car". <S> The question becomes whether the "do" permits the sentence to shift into the future, even though present tense "have" isn't used for future events. <S> If it does, then the expanded sentence is really something like <S> Should the developers have access to the production environment, and if they get access, to what extent? <S> If it doesn't, you would have to use "should" or "will" instead of "do". <S> From people's reactions to this question, it seems many people think this shift is grammatically implied by the "do". <S> However, replacing "do" by "should" is clearly the better option.
| The sentence should be written as If the developers have access to the production environment, they should have limited access.
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What is the distinction between "among" and "amongst"? It seems amongst is quite often used as a synonym for among but it is supposed to sound more distinguished . Is there any difference in the meaning? <Q> This is similar to the relation between “while” and “whilst” , or between “amid” and “amidst”. <S> As with "whilst", "amongst" is: <S> chiefly British <S> "while using whilst runs the risk of sounding pretentious, it can sometimes add a literary or ironically formal note to a piece of writing" [ American Heritage Guide ] " <S> The general consensus among scholars of English is that whilst is an unnecessary and archaic word whose primary usage is by Britons who prefer what they perceive as a more 'noble' word" [ Strunk and White ] recommended against by Times <S> Online Style Guide : "amid, not amidst; similarly among, not amongst", by the Guardian Style Guide : "among not amongst", and by [Hansard Association of Canada]: "among (no -st)". <S> And some Tameri Guide says: "among / amongst - In American English use among to mean within a group. <S> Amongst is antiquated for in the middle of a situation or gathering." <S> Anyway, the summary seems to be that "amongst" is slightly pretentious (or "distinguished" as you say), but is common in Britain, and its meaning is almost identical. <A> For a historical perspective of among vs amongst in American English, I did an analysis using the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). <S> I found that since even as far back as 1810, among was many times more common than amongst . <S> AMONG <S> AMONGST Ratio1810 <S> 439.38 <S> 47.41 <S> 9.267665051820 <S> 536.44 <S> 26.27 <S> 20.420251241830 <S> 593.99 <S> 34.63 <S> 17.152468961840 <S> 593.64 <S> 35.52 <S> 16.712837841850 <S> 562.6 <S> 19.43 <S> 28.955223881860 <S> 516.92 <S> 21.93 <S> 23.571363431870 <S> 457.33 <S> 16.97 26.949322331880 <S> 456.98 <S> 17.87 <S> 25.572467821890 <S> 492.07 19.9 <S> 24.727135681900 <S> 435.12 <S> 12.35 35.232388661910 <S> 377.13 <S> 11.37 <S> 33.168865441920 <S> 364.94 <S> 6.59 <S> 55.377845221930 <S> 345.13 <S> 6.67 51.743628191940 <S> 334.03 <S> 7.19 <S> 46.457579971950 <S> 317.42 <S> 7.29 <S> 43.541838131960 <S> 315.72 <S> 5.17 61.067698261970 <S> 324.12 <S> 7.6 <S> 42.647368421980 <S> 354.4 <S> 5.33 <S> 66.491557221990 <S> 287.46 <S> 6.8 <S> 42.273529412000 <S> 266 4.9 <S> 54.28571429 <S> From this data, we see that both among and amongst have been becoming less frequently used overall since 1810, but that among has always been much more common. <S> The ratio of among to amongst started at about 10 to 1 in 1810 and had risen to about 50 to 1 by 1920, and it has been pretty stable there since then. <S> Amongst is definitely much less common than among in American English, but it is in no danger of dying out. <A> I realize that I fall on the "British" side of the English language (Australian, actually), but I tend to use among mostly, but amongst when the following word starts with a vowel. <S> So <S> Amongst others <S> Amongst all the choices <S> But Among his friends <S> Among the choices <S> I have no references to back me up; just thought I'd add my $0.02 worth. <A> (See this article which discusses the matter.) <S> But there is absolutely no difference in meaning. <S> (See e.g. Wiktionary: among , amongst .) <S> Also of note, the New Oxford American Dictionary lists "amongst" as <S> chiefly British variant of "among". <S> It does seem to be somewhat more common in British English (but still clearly less common than "among"). <A> It is usually used in a metaphorical sense rather than a literal one. <S> The ball falls amongst the trees in the forest (the ball might not literally be between the trees); the ball was found among two trees (literally between the trees).
| "Among" is much more common in modern writing, at least in American English, so that probably explains why "amongst" might sound more "distinguished".
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"More clear" vs "Clearer": when to use "more" instead of "-er"? Which one of these adjectives is correct? I can see that both of them are being used, I'm just not sure which one is grammatically correct. Are there any general rules to follow as to the use of one against the use of the other? <Q> The basic rules of forming comparatives: One-syllable words take "er": clear -> clearer <S> sweet -> <S> sweeter <S> Multisyllable words take "more": incredible -> more incredible (not "incredibler") horrible -> more horrible (not "horribler") <S> Two-syllable words ending in consonant + "y" take "ier": happy - <S> > <S> happier <S> pretty -> <S> prettier <S> Both "more clear" and "clearer" are acceptable: <S> Your answer is more clear than mine. <S> Your answer is clearer than mine. <S> Frequency of use: <S> clearer than is twice as common as more clear than , although both are common. <A> Both are grammatically correct. <S> ("More clearer", however, would be wrong.) <A> The question really ought to be whether to say "clearer" or "more clearly. <S> " That's the confusing one. <S> The problem is that comparative adverbs like "better" make you think that "clearer" is the correct comparative adverbial form. <S> But you don't "see clear," you "see clearly."
| I believe it is correct to say that "I see more clearly now that I've wiped my windshield", and incorrect to say "I see clearer now that I've wiped my windshield."
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Mass nouns and counts nouns. Does getting it wrong ever matter? Less/fewer, too much/too many, amount/number... When people get these things wrong, it bugs me. But I cannot think of a situation where mistaking a mass noun for a count noun (or vice versa) would ever introduce any kind of ambiguity. Is there such a case? <Q> The classic example (which is probably an urban myth) is a foreign learner saying "I ate a chicken last night" when he meant "I ate some chicken last night". <S> Mistaking chicken (the meat) for a countable noun makes it sound like he ate an entire bird. <A> However compare: I ate too much fish vs. <S> I ate too many fish. <S> If the noun is ambiguous in that way, then the meaning must be taken from the qualifier. <S> So if you mistook "fish" for a term that was always mass or common, then you could produce an ambiguous statement. <S> (Inspired by Shinto's example) <A> Some words have different meanings depending on count/ noncount usage. <S> If you turn in "a paper", it means you have given the teacher an assignment, while simply having "some paper" means you have plain paper with nothing on it. <S> I have two papers, means I have two assignments. <S> I have <S> two pieces of paper means I have two pages. <S> I have a chicken means I have a bird, and I have some chicken means I have some bird meat. <S> Most words only have one meaning and usage, so confusing the two just sounds awkward rather than truly confusing like the paper and chicken examples. <A> I was recently in a grocery store where the express lane was marked "10 Items or Fewer." <S> I made a mental note that that was a classy chain, so in a marketing sense, getting it right made a difference. <A> You can't enroll in Tattooing 101 because you have too many classes. <S> You can't enroll in Tattooing 101 because you have too much class. <S> You cannot make too many glasses if you don't have much glass. <S> You can make fewer glasses if you have less glass. <S> You can only make a little glass if you only have a little glass. <S> My uncle has too much wood in his cabinet shop; there's not enough space left for a new planer. <S> My uncle has too many woods in his cabinet shop; there's no need for him to stock zebra wood. <S> My sister doesn't like that radio station; she says it has too much blues. <S> My sister doesn't like that wallpaper; she says it has too much blue. <S> My sister doesn't like that wallpaper; she says it has too many blues. <A> Here's a real life example. <S> "Here's a box full of books, most of them are quite good. <S> Here's another box. <S> It has less good books in." <S> "Here's a box full of books, most of them are quite good. <S> Here's another box. <S> It has fewer good books in." <S> (1) feels like it should be parsed as follows: "It has [less good] books in". <S> That is, the books in the box are of (uniformly?) <S> lower quality. <S> "less good" is behaving like a compound adjective.(2) on the other hand, seems to suggest "It has fewer [good books] in". <S> "Good books" is behaving like a compound noun. <S> The suggestion this time is that the books are possibly of similar quality, it's just that the box isn't as full: there are fewer books.
| I think you are correct in that if a noun is unambiguously mass or count then the qualifier doesn't matter, the meaning can be taken from the noun.
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Does the verb “unpublish” exist? I use a CMS (content management system) where a post or comment is visible to all the users (if there aren't other restrictions) when it is flagged as published . What verb should I use to mean that I changed the status of a post from published to unpublished ? The dictionary reports that unpublished is only an adjective; therefore, I could not write I unpublished the post . I usually write I marked the post as unpublished , but it doesn't sound right to my ears (and it seems using more words than needed). <Q> It’s not listed in any dictionaries, but its meaning is plain from the component morphemes, and is formed by the same process that gives us undo , unbend , undress , unfreeze , and unfold . <S> Merriam-Webster gives a definition for un- : “do the opposite of: reverse (a specified action) … in verbs formed from verbs.” <A> It's an interesting exercise in usability. <S> Remove brings with it an ambiguity with delete that will leave most users uncertain. <S> Despite the incorrect use, Unpublish is almost certainly the right answer in this context. <A> In the computer/internet context, "unpublish" here is just as inevitable as "unfriend" is on Facebook. <A> The dictionary reports that unplublished is only an adjective; <S> therefore, I could not write I unpublished the post. <S> I usually write <S> I marked the post as unpublished, but it doesn't sound right to my ears. <S> Therefore using "unpublish" as a verb to mean "withdraw from publication" sounds fairly odd to me. <S> What verb should I use to mean that I changed the status of a post from published to unpublished? <S> However, when you're referring to a specific operation on a computer or web service, "unpublish" might clarify that you're talking about the operation itself. <A> You seem not to be distinguishing between English and CMS. <S> Unpublished in English means "not yet published or made public", which isn't what you're looking for. <S> On the other hand, anybody is at liberty to use published to mean "flagged in a particular way", so long as the usage is explained. <S> In a CMS context, this might even be what the reader expects, in which case unpublished would be the antonym. <S> But that isn't normal English, and probably should be on stackoverflow, not this board. <A> Wouldn’t depublish work here? <S> http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/depublish <A> From Unpublish.com: "Unpublish (Un·pub·lish): To make a specified and existing published content ‘publically unavailable’" <A> If you are trying to "take back" something you published, the word is retract. <S> "Unpublished" means not (yet) published. <S> As in my "unpublished novel." <A> Unpublish — Macmillan verb to remove content from a site on the web after it has been available for some time <S> "Facebook has unpublished our page due to users using the page to 'bully' others," Snapchat Leaked told Britain's Metro tabloid." <S> Unpublish — Wiktionary (transitive verb, chiefly computing) <S> To remove (something previously published) from circulation; to retract. <A> You can wordify anything if you verb it. <S> I do not think that anyone would understand what it would mean to "unpublish" something, but that is not to say that it does not have the potential to exist: one might imagine a science-fiction novel in which time travel exists and, thus, it might be possible to go back in time and unpublish a book. <A> An alternative I've seen (although I think in the context of a CMS, the terms publish and unpublish work fine) is to refer to the post being hidden when you've taken it offline.
| In the conventional sense, unpublished means "not yet published" rather than "withdrawn from publication". Withdraw is reasonable, but I believe retract to be more accurate for the use-case. I think "withdraw" works as a verb here: "I published the article", "I withdrew the article".
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Are double negatives proper English (e.g. "I don't know nothing")? I have heard many (rather most) people, especially in the USA, saying: I don't know nothing about it. Is that correct? I always get a weird feeling hearing this and feel the correct one would be saying: I don't know anything about it. <Q> The second one is correct for most dialects of English. <S> The first one is a double negative, or as we call it in linguistics, exhibits negative concord. <S> Wikipedia has a pretty good article on double negatives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_negative <S> Most prescriptive grammarians will tell you that a double negative is incorrect because it is "illogical." <S> However, there are many languages that operate just fine using double negative obligatorily. <S> For instance, almost all Romance languages have obligatory negative concord: <S> Italian: <S> Non so niente. <S> French: <S> Je ne sais pas. <S> Double negatives used to be grammatical in English, but there was a grammatical change sometime during Middle English. <S> The Wikipedia article gives a sentence from a 1644 letter by Oliver Cromwell (emphasis is added by me). <S> A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. <S> I asked him what it was. <S> He told me it was that God had <S> not suffered him to be no more the executioner of His enemies. <S> The double negative is still used in many modern dialects, but it is typically very stigmatized. <A> The New Oxford American English reports that anything is used in negative, or questions to refer to a thing, no matter what. <S> Has she found anything? <S> Nobody was saying anything. <S> without negative, for emphasis. <S> Albert was ready for anything. <S> Nothing is used in sentences like <S> She said nothing. <S> There's nothing we can do. <S> They found nothing wrong. <S> Using nothing (which means not anything ) in a sentence with a negative is using a double negation. <S> I imagine the double negation can be used in some particular cases to give emphasis to the sentence. <S> The <S> NOAD <S> has also the following note (reported in the Oxford Living Dictionaries for double negative ) about the usage of double negatives. <S> Double negatives are standard in certain other languages such as Spanish <S> and they have not always been unacceptable in English, either. <S> The double negative was normal in Old English and Middle English and did not come to be frowned upon until some time after the 16th century, when attempts were made to relate the rules of language to the rules of formal logic. <S> Modern (correct) uses of the double negative give an added subtlety to statements: saying I am not unconvinced by his argument suggests reservations in the speaker's mind that are not present in its ‘logical’ equivalent: <S> I am convinced by his argument . <S> According to standard English grammar, a double negative used to express a single negative, such as <S> I don't know nothing (rather than <S> I don't know anything ), is incorrect. <S> The rules dictate that the two negative elements cancel each other out to give an affirmative statement, so that I don't know nothing would be interpreted as <S> I know something . <A> The second example is the grammatically correct one. <S> However, the first is common in certain dialects. <A> Sometimes double negatives have legitimate uses. <S> A : <S> You wasted my time! <S> I told you to look for serial downvotes. <S> You searched for hours, and you found nothing! <S> B : <S> No, I didn't find nothing! <S> I found a single upvote. <S> Good enough? <S> A : <S> Oh, you donkey slap! <S> It's true that B "didn't find nothing."
| In practice this sort of double negative is widespread in dialect and other non-standard usage and rarely gives rise to confusion as to the intended meaning.
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Use of "myself" in business-speak Occasionally, I will hear or read coworkers using "myself" in place of "me," as in: If you have any questions, you can contact Gimli or myself. I have sent the list to Legolas, Glorfindel, Aragorn, and myself. This sticks out to me every time I hear it, and seems like an attempt to sound more professional than if they were to say "Gimli or me". It seems wrong because you would not say "You can contact myself." I also wonder if "myself" is an attempt to avoid the confusion of "me" versus "I" in a sentence. Is this a valid use of "myself"? Has anyone else experienced this, or is it a Midwestern regional idiom? <Q> This usage is justified by the usage notes in Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. <S> See my answer to You and Yourself, Me and Myself for a discussion of the grammaticality of myself in non-reflexive constructions. <S> This usage probably comes from discomfort people have with selecting pronoun case in coordinates. <S> There is a rule in informal English that you always use accusative case in coordinations of pronouns regardless of syntactic position (“My brother and me are hardly on speaking terms these days. <S> ”—you can find many examples like this in the Corpus of Contemporary American English ), but there is also a rule in standard formal English that those kinds of coordinations are ungrammatical and you must use the nominative case. <S> As a result, people are uncomfortable using either me or <S> I because their intuition leads them to say me but the formal grammar they learned in school draws them towards <S> I , so they “split the difference”, as it were, and use myself . <S> Edit: Shinto Sherlock correctly points out that the second example usage in the question is in fact a perfectly normal use of reflexive myself . <S> I’m not sure either why it would be a surprising usage. <A> I have sent the list to Legolas, Glorfindel, Aragorn, and myself. <S> Hum, that seems like a completely legitimate use of myself to me. <S> I sent it to myself <S> rather than I sent it to me (set to community wiki, yes <S> this is a comment on the question but the comment box is hopeless for writing comments in.) <A> I agree, it sounds very stuck up. <S> (like what moioci said earlier) <S> If you have any questions, you can contact Gimli or myself. <S> This is improper English. <S> (Basically people who want to sound smart but don't know grammar.) <S> Mind that it has nothing to do with formality, and in proper English, you should never use myself in place of me when it isn't reflexive. <S> I have sent the list to Legolas, Glorfindel, Aragorn, and myself. <A> This always strikes my ear as an obnoxious affectation, as though me is too small to be important, so I'll puff it up to myself . <A> It's quite commonly used here in the States; "myself" and "yourself" seem to denote only slightly more formal equivalents of "me" and "you", particularly in groups and formal situations. <S> Nor is "myself" limited to the last element of a list: You can get in touch with myself or Jimmy when you've completed the work.
| Consider it explication: "and/or myself" is like "and/or even me", both somewhat implying that the listener might not otherwise have expected the inclusion of the speaker in the group. This is correct because it is used as a reflexive.
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Isn't "behind your back" in front of you? We've all heard the phrase that usually goes along the lines of "blah blah did something behind my back". I've always thought that from your back's point of view, anything behind you is in front of it therefore behind your back is in front of you. Is this just another unnecessary redundancy and should we all just say "behind me" or am I reading too much into this? <Q> I think behind your back is redundant, but not nonsensical. <A> I've always thought that from your back's point of view, anything behind you is in front of it therefore behind your back is in front of you <S> If that was true then it would be impossible to be behind anything. <S> For example if one said that something is "behind my house", of course it is actually in front of one of the surfaces of my house so it could not be "behind my house". <S> It's much the same as doing something "in front of my eyes" rather than "in front of me". <S> I think this is called "the power of idiom" or something like that; once a phrase becomes an idiom it doesn't have to make sense any more. <A> The phrase "went behind my back" is to emphasize hidden and sneaky behavior. <S> You can not say "in front of my back" because that seems like you could face your own back, but you cannot. <S> Your back in this sense is a noun. <S> Think backache. <S> This phrase is more of a saying than literally meaning physically behind you. <S> It means that you were not consulted, but excluded from a decision.
| Something that's behind your back is behind you -- not just behind your toes or your nose, but even further to the rear -- behind your furthest back part.
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Different pronunciations of "Pakistan" versus "Afghanistan"? Should there be any difference in the pronunciation of (the suffixes in) "Pakistan" and "Afghanistan"? I noticed that Obama treats the words quite differently, pronouncing "Pakistan" like PUH-KIST-UHN, but pronouncing "Afghanistan" in an American way, with the end syllable "-stan" as in "stand" or "stance". <Q> No, their actual (native) pronunciations have a similar final syllable. <S> Roughly, PAH-ki-STAHN and uf-GHAH-ni-STAHN, where "AH" stands for the vowel of 'a' in "father". <S> (The 't' is also closer to dental, as in "pasta". <S> (IPA: /pɑːkistɑːn/ and /ɐfɣɑːnistɑːn/, but these are the IPA vowels I use for Indian languages, and may not be perfect.) <S> The Language Log had a post on this ; the comments may have some helpful discussion. <A> So:Pakistan = Land of the Paki'sAfghanistan = <S> Land of the Afghani's The same applies for Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and any number of other countries in that region of the world. <S> It's probably this same reason that the Iraq is pronounced eye-rak rather than ee-rak which is closer to the Arabic, people might think they are talking about another country. <A> In AmE, all the a's in 'Afghanistan' and 'Pakistan' are the same as that in 'cat', that is, the 'a' in '-stan' should be pronounced the same. <S> As noted, Obama may have experience with Pakistanis and their own pronunciation, which probably has a different pronunciation of the 'a'.
| They should be pronounced the same, the -stan suffix means "land of", "home of" or "nation of". I suspect that Obama pronounces Afghanistan differently because people wouldn't know where he was talking about if he said it in a way that doesn't conform with how the US media has been pronouncing it.
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What is the origin of the phrase "Eastern Seaboard"? Today upon hearing reports about how Hurricane Earl was going to hug the Eastern Seaboard I couldn't help but think how strange this phrase is. Is "seaboard" used in any other contexts? What is the origin of this phrase? Does anyone in the US west coast considered their coastline the "Western Seaboard"? <Q> The OED has the following general meaning of seaboard : <S> The line where land and sea meet, the coastline; the sea-shore or the land near the sea, esp. <S> considered with reference to its extent or configuration. <S> The first citation of this seaboard is from 1788: <S> "The Gnats are almost as troublesome here, as the moschetoes in the low-lands of the sea-board." <S> The OED doesn't seem to draw this connection, but I imagine this meaning came about as an extension of another meaning for seaboard , which is: With prepositions a, at, on, to seaboard , on or to the seaward side (of a ship, etc.). <S> Obs. <S> If you connect that meaning with other sea terms like overboard , it would make sense that the seaward side of a ship would be called a seaboard . <S> And then saying that the coastline is essentially the seaboard of a landmass is a small jump. <A> I think back to Physical Geomorphology -- the Eastern Seaboard in the US is a shoreline of emergence and the Western is not a "seaboard" -- because the west coast is a shoreline of nothing (it is totally different geologically). <S> There has to be something -- some journal -- that says Eastern Seaboard. <S> I think it has something to do with the Louisiana Purchase (someone else on the comments said it) because we did not own a west coast at the time. <S> I have a PhD in Geography <S> but I cannot remember the text. <A> The Eastern Seaboard consists of the original 13 Colonies all of which face the Atlantic (although three of their four "offshoots," (Vermont, Maine, West Virginia and Kentucky) do not. <S> (That is all except Maine.) <S> It was the "board" or foundation from which America sprang. <S> Until we reached the "Continental Divide" in the Rockies (late in the 19th century), all ocean bound traffic would head for the "seaboard" (or Gulf Coast), which "merges" into the Atlantic, past Florida. <S> The United States also has a "west coast" of course, but it has nothing of the historical significance of the "eastern seaboard. <S> " To a lesser extent, this is true of the Gulf Coast, which did not become a factor until the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and whose importance was soon "undermined" by the Erie Canal across New York State in 1825, which effectively connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
| Nowadays, it seems like "Eastern Seaboard" has become an idiom or set name for a certain region, and we don't really use it in the general sense at all (although I don't know anyone in the fishing industry).
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Difference between "commentor" and "commentator" What is the difference between commentor and commentator ? Is commentor or commenter a legitimate English word? <Q> One difference is that as far as Merriam-Webster is concerned, the word "commentor" does not even exist . <S> Same goes for " commenter ". <S> I do see the word "commenter" (but not "commentor") being used on Reddit, blogs, or actually right here on Stack Exchange . <S> Others have pointed out that it seems to be an online thing, and I agree. <S> However, I disagree with the people saying that "commentator" sounds like someone who comments on sports. <S> There are, for example, political commentators. <S> Back to Merriam-Webster, my understanding is that they are usually not too slow to catch up with the latest trends. <S> They have a special section "New Words & Slang" , a collection of user-submitted words. <S> There you can find, for example, not one but five proposed meanings of the verb "to facebook". <S> However, even that dedicated section doesn't mention "commenter", although blogs and online forums predate Facebook. <S> All that being said, there is no question that morphologically, "commenter" makes perfect sense. <S> A killer is someone who kills, a driver is someone who drives, and a commenter is someone who comments. <S> The "-er" is a so-called agent noun suffix , and it is very common in English. <S> On the other hand, the agent noun suffix "-or", while it does exist, is not common at all. <S> Wiktionary lists as few as twelve terms that were derived using this suffix, and offers the following usage notes : <S> English generally appends this suffix where Latin would do it—to the root of a Latin-type perfect passive participle. <S> For other words, English tends to use the suffix -er . <S> Occasionally both are used ( computer vs. computor ). <S> Depending on where you live, you may have never encountered the word "computor" at all. <S> However, I bet you have seen the word "computer" many times. <S> The bottom line: <S> The word "commenter" is pretty common online, so if you use it, people should understand you. <S> In formal writing, you might wish to use "commentator" instead. <S> If you want to be on the safe side, you probably should not use "commentor" at all, though nobody can forbid you to do so. <S> Of course, the English language is constantly evolving, so both of the above recommendations may become obsolete as time passes. <A> A commentator is someone who commentates. <S> A commentary would consist of many comments, normally as an event unfolds (be it sports, political, etc.) <S> It would also be valid to have a commentary on a written text which may be explanatory notes, etc. <A> The Oxford Living Dictionaries reports the following meaning of commentator . <S> a person who comments on events or on a text. <S> a person who delivers a live commentary on an event or performance. <S> For commenter , it says: A person who expresses an opinion or engages in discussion of an issue or event, especially online in response to an article or blog post. <S> The given examples are the following ones. <S> The first commenter suggested that the story is a hoax. <S> a regular commenter on many blogs <S> Differently from the NOAD <S> I had available in the Dictionary application on my Mac Mini, where commenter was just said to be a noun, the online dictionary makes clear that commentator is especially used for live commentary, while commenter is especially used for online comments to articles or blog posts. <S> The Corpus of Contemporary American English reports that commenter has been used between 2005–2010 more than the previous years (a ratio of 10:1). <S> The word is used more on newspapers, and magazines, where it is used in sentences like <S> There is no humanity reading a book on a computer," wrote an anonymous commenter on the popular site ParentDish.com. <S> Even in academic context, the word is used with reference to who comments on a website. <S> […] a school-board member in his home state of Nevada, from Charles Krauthammer to a commenter on a blog or a caller to a radio show. <A> My own feeling is that commenter is a new word used to mean the people who make comments on internet blogs, forums, etc. <S> If you say someone is a commentator , it sounds like they are the person who comments on sports games as you watch them on the television, hence the necessity for the new word. <S> However, strictly speaking, the person who writes comments on blogs is actually a commentator . <A> The OED’s entry for ‘commenter / ’commentor’, in the sense ‘one who comments; a commentator’, describes it as obsolete, but that clearly takes no account of its use on the internet. <S> It isn’t new. <S> The earliest citation is some time before 1387 and there are subsequent citations from Donne and Coleridge.
| A commenter is someone who comments.
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How should I address someone with a known name and unknown gender? When communicating with foreign cultures, the gender of the addressed person is not always clear from the name. What would be a professional way to address someone in this situation. ( Dear Mr or Ms SomeForeignName looks awkward). A hack I generally use is to do a google image search for the name, but this isn't always accurate in all cultures. What's the solution here? <Q> Working part-time in customer support, I have to deal with the same situation very often, and I often have to google for "awkward" names, too. <S> What I usually end up with when nothing helps, is either of the following: <S> I just drop the "Mr/Ms" altogether. " <S> Dear Maria Cannavaro", "Dear Wei Li", etc. <S> If the person is located in the US, I assume that they do not object to being addressed by their first name. " <S> Dear Maria", "Dear Alex". <S> Lastly, sometimes people do ask me for a license key in a formal, polite way, but sign as "B. Smith". <S> In that case, they either don't really care how I address them, or they don't want me to figure out their gender or full name for some reason, which I must respect. <S> Not one of these people has ever objected to my use of "hi". <A> Given our construction of gender, 'tis usually a far greater sin to falsely assign a gender than to avoid formal address. <A> For Wei Li , I would not break up the name and say Dear Wei or Dear Li , because some people use reverse order with surname first, and some people have compound names. <A> If you are lucky there may be a title you can choose. <S> "Dear Professor Doe" is safe for either gender. <S> Likewise of "Doctor" (either the academic or the medical/veterinary/dental variety), and for military, police or clerical ranks. <S> Failing that I go with <A> In 2015, ODO added Mx (pronounced like "mix") as a gender-neutral pronoun. <S> See definition 2 for Mx on ODO Pronunciation: <S> /məks/ <S> /mɪks/ <S> NOUN <S> A title used before a person’s surname or full name by those who wish to avoid specifying their gender or by those who prefer not to identify themselves as male or female "To me, Mx Bond embodies the very best kind of girl a boy could ever grow up to become." <S> Origin 1970s: apparently from M (as in Mr, Mrs, Ms, etc.) <S> + X1 (probably denoting an unknown or variable factor or quantity). <S> For further reading: Mx (title) on Wikipedia <S> The word was first proposed in the late 1970s. <S> The "x" is intended to stand as a wildcard character, and does not imply a "mixed" gender. <S> Ngram shows some data , but it's unclear what Mx means there. <A> When faced with this problem in an email (my most normal scenario), I look at the signature and use that to address the person.
| Also, I might sometimes use a simple "Hi there" or "Hi", but usually only if the person has previously contacted me using a similar informal address. "Dear Full Name" as others have suggested, as it contains nothing that might offend and still conveys a basic degree of formality and respect.
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Should I say "context" or "contexts"? I just asked about the phrase "Eastern Seaboard" in another question. I used the sentence: Is "seaboard" used in other contexts? I thought this didn't sound very good, so I changed it to: Is "seaboard" used in other context? Should context ever be pluralized? Or is it a mass noun? <Q> Context is not a mass noun, and takes the plural -s . <A> "Another context" not "other context" <A> I upvoted the top two answers, because they are both correct. <S> To clarify, it should be either ... <S> in another context?" <S> or ... in other contexts? <S> Both are correct and acceptable, but never "in other context?" <A> Example: 'The word "seaboard" can be used in the context of a coastline; it may also be used in (many) other contexts.' <S> Using "any other context" or "another context" sounds to me like you are pre-suposing there is only one other, although it would not be very clear. <A> Of the two options you supplied, ... in other contexts? is correct. <S> Another option, ... <S> in another context? <S> is also correct, but whether you use it will depend on whether there are multiple "contexts" or just one, to consider. <S> Of course, "context" is singular, indicating only one; while "contexts" is plural, indicating many. <S> Thus, to say ... in other context? would be incorrect, as "other" implies multiple, while "another" implies one.
| When there's one, it's context, when more than one (or possibly so) it's plural - contexts.
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A list with only one item I have a document where someone is suggesting we have a bulleted list with only one item. That sounds absurd to me. Doesn't a "list" imply more than one item? <Q> Speaking as a programmer, no. <S> A list can even contain no items at all. <S> Edit: on a more serious note <S> , let's say I take a piece of paper and a pen, and make my grocery list. <S> And then it just so happens that all I need is milk. <S> That piece of paper with a single word on it would still be my grocery list, and not my grocery word. <A> Sounds like you are getting hung up on semantics. <S> Sure, it may not technically be a "list" at that point, but unless you are referring to it as such in the narrative, why fight it? <S> I mean, it is just a formatting element at that point and technically not a grammar issue. <A> It may be grammatically correct, or correct in certain casual documents such as a grocery list (I am unaware of any grocery-list police), but is not a best or even good practice in more formal documents (anything involving an outline, for instance)—with one exception, discussed below. <S> Here's a correct example <S> (I use numbers/letters only for ease of reference; a bulleted list follows the same logic): <S> Foods1. <S> Vegetables a. carrots <S> b. potatoes2. <S> Fruits a. strawberries b. oranges3. <S> Grains a. rice b. wheat <S> Here's an example of what not to do: U.S. History1. <S> Pre-Revolution <S> a. <S> Early <S> Settlers2. <S> Revolution a. <S> " <S> No Taxation without Representation" <S> b. Colonial <S> Warfare3. <S> Constitutional Congress4. <S> Civil War a. States' Rights b. Slavery <S> The problem with the second example (where the first item has only one sub-item) is that without a second sub-item, the two levels are essentially equal. <S> If the only thing I'm going to say about pre-Revolutionary times is to discuss the early settlers, then those terms are both referring to the same topic <S> and I'm being redundant in the outline. <S> Note item 3, which has no sub-items. <S> That is the correct way to handle the case of only one item: pick one term and put it at the appropriate level of the outline. <S> Of course, as Roger Pate says, in a rough draft there may be an overriding reason to make a one-item list (as a visual cue to think further about the list), but this would need to be corrected if you never add to the list. <S> This is the one exception mentioned above. <A> A list can have only one item, or even no items. <S> However, you're doing more than just typing in some text into your document: you're creating something that people need to read and understand. <S> For <S> that purpose, it may very well be absurd to only have one item in your list; you have to judge based on the context of what you're writing and the expected audience. <S> Conversely, you could use a single-item list as emphasis. <S> For example, if this bullet-point ends up displayed at the bottom of the page and the preceding text is ambiguous about how many items there may be, then it would be natural to become confused when arriving on the next page and a new paragraph. <S> Particularly if this is a rough draft to which you expect to later add items, then you should keep the solitary bullet-point; polish in later revisions as the content becomes more concrete. <A> I think it is absurd to bullet one item. <S> What ever happened to writing in paragraphs, instead of having to bullet everything? <S> Inherent in its name, a "bullet" is supposed to be fast, so it's good for quick words or phrases, not whole sentences and paragraphs. <S> It seems as if people started bulleting EVERYTHING once we started using Microsoft PowerPoint and other software, which uses templates with preset bullets. <S> That doesn't mean you have to always write in bullets; you can turn the feature off. <S> If you truly have a list, then bullet it. <S> If you only have one item, or you are writing in long sentences and paragraphs, don't bullet them; <S> that's not what bullets were designed for, just like a "list" was not designed for one item. <S> Then it's just a note.
| If you look "list" up in the dictionary, it says a "considerable number or long series," so no, one item is not a series or a list.
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What is the correct way to pronounce 'router'? Merriam-Webster lists both ˈrüt and ˈrau̇t as possible pronunciations for route but only ˈrau̇-tər for router . Is it really wrong to pronounce router as 'rüter ? <Q> There are two different kinds of things called a "router", with two different pronunciations, originating from two different verbs "route" and "rout". <S> The confusing part of this is that the two pronunciations overlap the two different things. <S> A router as above (computer thing, from verb "route"), or anything else which routes something, is "rooter" or "rowter" depending on how you pronounce "route" <S> (US English has both "root" and "rowt", British English has only "root") <S> A router (woodworking tool, from verb "rout", an electrical one is shown above) is "rowter", never "rooter", in both the US and the UK and other countries. <S> The dictionary entry may be referring to the wood tool only. <S> Source: <S> Oxford Online Dictionary & Cambridge Dictionary <A> router <S> 1 /ˈraʊdər/ <S> noun <S> A power tool with a shaped cutter, used in carpentry for making grooves for joints, decorative moldings, etc. <S> router 2 /ˈraʊdər/ <S> noun <S> A device that forwards data packets to the appropriate parts of a computer network. <S> In both the cases, the pronunciation is the same. <S> As comparison, the pronunciation of route (as reported from the NOAD) is /rut/, /raʊt/; the pronunciation of rout is /raʊt/. <S> In British English, the word is pronounced /ˈraʊtə/ when it has the first meaning, and /ˈruːtə/ in the second case. <A> Where I live both things are called "rowter" even though we say "root" 66, so if they lived in the U.S. That would be standard. <S> If they said "rooter" it might sound like a thing used to clean drains. <A> A router (rooter) routes. <S> A router (rauter) routs. <S> To my ear, the American pronunciation is really grating. <A> I was born in the US. <S> I pronounce the computer apparatus "rooter" as in "hooter". <S> I just had a manager at work try to correct me today, but I stuck to my guns. <A> A rooter is used to clean pipes (specifically to remove roots, or other obstructions). <S> Because that pronunciation exists, router is pronounced as indicated in the other answers. <A> The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (CALD) does not include the word 'router' <S> However, the meaning of route has been described as the following: route UK /rut/ <S> US /rut/ , UK /raʊt/ noun <S> [ C ] a particular way or direction between places <S> The route we had planned took us right across Greece. <S> I live on a bus route <S> so I can easily get to work. <S> a method of achieving something <S> A college education is often the best route to a good job. <S> US ( UK round ) a set of regular visits that you make to a number of places or people, especially in order to take products as part of your job route UK /rut/ <S> US /rut/ , UK /raʊt/ <S> verb <S> [ T usually + adv/prep ] to send Deliveries are routed via/by way of London. <S> Since the CALD did not specify from which sound the word 'router' is originated, so my conclusion is 'router' can be pronounced as 'ruter' or 'rauter' according to UK pronunciation! <S> However, if the company which produced the device pronounces it as a 'rauter' <S> then it is 'rauter' <S> otherwise it is 'ruter'.
| The New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD) reports that router has two different meanings.
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What does "graduate applicant" mean? Does the term "graduate applicant" mean "a person who applies to get graduated" or "a graduate who applies for something"? If it is the second one, what can we call a person who applies for a graduation program? <Q> As Kosmonaut said, the phrase is probably ambiguous as it stands, though the context will probably determine which is meant. <S> To avoid confusion, I would suggest using the following: Someone who is in the process of graduating is known as a "graduand". <S> That's what you are referred to as on your graduation day. <S> Someone applying to a graduate programme could be a "graduate school applicant" And perhaps "graduate job applicant" to refer to a graduate, applying for something else... <A> My initial assumption on hearing the phrase was equivalent "graduate school applicant." <S> I would call someone currently matriculated who is applying for their degree a "bachelor's degree candidate" or "PhD candidate," etc. <S> I would find it confusing as "a graduate who applies for something" unless it was in a very specific context. <S> What did this applicant graduate from? <S> With what degree? <S> It's too vague to be useful unless the context provides more information. <S> But this is admittedly based solely on my own usage (Northeastern United States). <A> This is very different from an applicant for graduation, but would include grad school applicant as a subset.
| By rights the phrase "graduate applicant" ought to mean an applicant [for anything] who is a graduate, that is, who holds at least a bachelor's degree.
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Which is correct: coming down the "pike" or "pipe"? Is the expression coming down the pike or coming down the pipe ? I’ve always used pike, but I’ve heard a few people use pipe recently. I can see how both could make sense, but which is correct? <Q> The Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms has an entry on "coming down the pike" , and says that it's "based on the literal meaning of pike (a large road)". <S> It does not have an entry on "coming down the pipe". <S> That being said, Google returns 7 million results for the former, and 5 million results for the latter. <S> In other words, the expression with "pike" is the original one, but the "pipe" variant cannot be labeled as "wrong" at this point in time. <S> Both are widely used and understood. <A> Basing on the Corpus of Contemporary American English , coming down the pipe is more used when speaking, and in magazines; it is also used more frequently since 2000. <S> You can find the expression in sentences like <S> And there is a big concern about what's coming down the pipe. <S> […] sold on the DVD recorders, because there are some newer technologies coming down the pipe soon. <S> It is used in sentences like <S> We know that there's debt and deficit coming down the pike. <S> […] contributor Janice Lieberman went to Las Vegas to find out what's coming down the pike. <S> Comparing <S> coming down the pipe and coming down the pike , the most used phrase (as reported by the CoCA) is coming down the pike , which is used more frequently in all the 1995–2010 period. <S> The New Oxford American Dictionary reports that the phrase coming down the pike means appear on the scene <S> , come to notice . <S> The NOAD doesn't report the meaning of coming down the pipe. <A> The original expression was "coming down the pike". <S> Searching Google books for "coming down the pike" in the 1950s, you find a number of things metaphorically coming down the pike, as well as a number of things literally approaching on large roads. <S> In the same time frame, the only thing that Google finds "coming down the pipe" is water. <S> There also seem to be one or two metaphorical references to "coming down the pike" in earlier decades.
| Coming down the pike is also found in the Corpus of Contemporary American English .It is used more frequently when speaking, and in magazines; it is used more frequently between 1995–2000 and 2005–2010.
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"Backward" versus "backwards" -- is there any difference? The dictionaries I've looked in don't distinguish between these two words, backward and backwards (at least when used as adverbs). Is there some real historical, grammatical or regional difference between them? <Q> Paul Brians offers this : <S> As an adverb, either word will do: “put the shirt on backward” or “put the shirt on backwards.” <S> However, as an adjective, only “backward” will do: “a backward glance.” <S> When in doubt, use “backward.” <S> This appears to be from a book "Common Errors in English Usage". <S> I know that "toward" is considered US and "towards" is considered UK, so this may be the same. <S> (Incidentally I looked in four reference books and didn't find anything about "backward" and "backwards".) <A> Well there is a very simple difference between backward and backwards. <S> Example: <S> Travelling backwards and forwards between London and New York.- Brit termor <S> Travelling <S> backward and forward between London and New York.-- US term <A> Backwards denotes direction whereas backward means less developed or slow .
| Backward is used in Ameriacn English ;however, backwards is used in British English.
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Can "doubt" sometimes mean "question"? I often see questions on Stack Exchange sites which I presume are written by non-native English speakers who use the word "doubt" in place of the word "question". Is this a case of misunderstanding the correct meaning or are people being taught that this is correct usage? <Q> This is Indian English. <S> See Vishy's Indian English Dictionary . <S> July 12, 2006 Vishy's Indian English Dictionary: doubt doubt. <S> /DOWT/. <S> A question asking for clarification. <S> In standard English and American, the noun doubt is uncountable and refers to a lack of complete trust in something. <S> Doubt may be expressed as simply as doubting someone's abilities or as profoundly as someone doubting their own religious faith. <S> Not so in India. <S> In India, doubt can be used as a countable noun. <S> When a school teacher goes over an intricate concept in class, she invariably leaves some students with doubts in their mind about their understanding of the material just covered. <S> Students ask her questions to get a better understanding of the concept and each such question is called a doubt. <S> It is entirely normal to hear a statement like "I have just one doubt, miss" or <S> "If you have any doubts before the exam tomorrow, come see me in the staff room". <S> The doubts in the aforementioned sentences are not as much rooted in a lack of faith as in a lack of understanding. <S> Attentive readers would have encountered the Indian English sense of doubt a fair bit on online message boards in threads started by Indians. <S> Titles such as "Visual Basic .NET/Oracle doubt" are not uncommon for threads on programming-related message boards. <S> It is my understanding that this sense is mostly prevalent in southern India, <S> but I could be wrong on this count. <A> A native English speaker does not recognize "doubt" as a synonym for "question". <S> The examples given (like "Doubt about TinyMCE content css"), no matter how prevalent, are awkward. <S> Even if it can be justified by picking a fitting definition entry, it's not something we would ever say. <S> We understand it, but we also understand when a French person says "Let me explain you something". <S> Saying "question" instead of "doubt" is a better choice. <A> In most cases when this happens the person is really a non-native English speaker as you said. <S> Dúvida is the Portuguese for doubt, but it can also be used as question. <S> For example, when kids at school say to the teacher Eu tenho uma dúvida (which word-by-word would translate as "I have a doubt"), they mean that they want to ask a question to the teacher about what has been taught. <S> And if I go to a store in Brazil and say Eu tenho uma dúvida sobre esse produto ("I have a doubt about this product" in word-by-word translation), <S> what I mean is that I want to make a question about the product. <S> The same happens with duda , which is the Spanish word for doubt. <S> It may also be the case in other languages, but I'm not sure. <S> Therefore, when you give a presentation and native Portuguese speakers say "I have doubts about what you said", don't think that they don't quite believe in what you said. <S> They may just have questions to ask you. <A> I'm not a language expert, but I've been dealing with a lot of those doubts… By opening with "I have a doubt" <S> , you don't simply state " <S> I have a question; …" followed by question's content, but instead you claim that "I understand all this, but …" before bringing to discussion a particularly unclear aspect of the topic. <S> The construct as such is therefore not good or bad, nor is it in any way rooted in Latin as suggested above (my native language is of Latin origin and we don't/can't abuse the "doubt" either in original or in translations, while the Indians do it without having the Latin heritage). <S> It is all about the correct usage in a given context. <S> The expectation when using this construct is that what follows the "I have a doubt", <S> either the question itself or the whole conversation about it, should show that indeed you have gone to the process of analysing the problem at hand on your own, and you are stuck in a detail for which you need clarification. <S> However, you will find that many of those asking have no idea about the big picture either and haven't tried to solve the problem on their own, and this is why you tend to answer them " <S> No dude, you don't have a doubt, you simply have no clue about this subject". <S> It is in such context that the use of "doubt" stands out and annoys in the conversation. <S> Now whether this is a vocabulary issue (unlikely) or it can be explained in the Indian context by a tendency to 'fake' knowledge by using "doubt" to make the question asked appear as a minor clarification request, that I leave to others to sort out. <A> Looking at some of the questions listed in mmyers's suggested search on Google , I'd suggest that "doubt" is being as a synonym for "uncertainty", which is valid. <S> For example: <S> Doubt about TinyMCE content css Doubt About NavigationBar <S> Basic doubt about sensor usage <A> I often see Japanese people using "doubt" instead of "suspicion", and wouldn't be too surprised if they used it when they meant "question". <S> My suspicion is that the Japanese use the same word for both "doubt" and "suspicion", and therefore don't know when they ought to use "suspicion" in English. <A> I'm sure I remember reading something about doubt being used this way in parts of northern England in times past. <S> My memory, however, is vague.
| In some languages that grew from Latin the word that is used for doubt can also be used for question.
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Is there a difference between "Frenchmen" and "French men"? I was just reading a news article about a couple of French men and was wondering what (if any) the difference between that and Frenchmen is? <Q> For example: National Stereotypes in Perspective: Americans in France, Frenchmen in America [ 1 ] <S> It seems that many lower-class Englishmen still harbour a Napoleonic dislike of Frenchmen [ 2 ] <S> It can, of course, also refer to any smaller group of French persons: <S> Where would you take a couple of Frenchmen [in L.A. area]? <S> [ 3 ] " French men " refers just to men from France (all of them or a specific group, depending on context), but not women. <S> Example: <S> French men are three times more likely than French women to kill themselves [ 4 ] <S> I think that is the principal difference. <S> So, in the context of a news article about a couple of people, using "French men" at least makes it clear right away that all of them were men. <S> Using "Frenchmen" would have left that unspecified. <A> Frenchman means a person, especially a man, who is French by birth or descent ( New Oxford American Dictionary ); a French man is a man who is from France. <A> A Frenchman could mean a French ship. <S> That seems an odd usage since ships are usually referred to as 'she', but there you are.
| " Frenchmen " could refer to French people collectively, including French women.
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Which is correct: "with regards to," "in regards with," "regarding"? I have been using the following phrases but I am still not confident that they are grammatically correct and sound right: "in regards with something" "with regards to something" "regarding something" I have also heard/read people using an arbitrary combination of the above (e.g. "in regards to"). Are those correct? If yes - are they equivalent or the usage depends on context? <Q> I have been using the followingphrases but <S> I am still not confidentthat they are grammatically correctand sound right: "in regards with something" "in regard to" is the right way here. <S> "with regards to something" This is OK. <S> Somehow I have the feeling that "with regard to" is more normal though. <S> Paul Brians seems to back this up . <S> "regarding something" <S> This is OK, e.g. film title "Regarding Henry", etc. <S> I have also heard/read people using anarbitrary combination of the above(e.g. <S> "in regards to"). <S> Are thosecorrect? <S> If yes - are they equivalentor the usage depends on context? <S> It's much easier to answer your question if you put in some examples you've seen. <S> Anyway I hope the above is enough. <S> Note that there is a completely different usage "regards to" as in "give my regards to old Broadway and tell them I will soon be there" etc. <A> With regards to and in regards to are mere nonstandard variations. <A> "Regarding" is better than "in regard to". <S> "About" is absolutely fine and good old plain English - nothing wrong with it. <S> Plain English is good and eminently preferable every time. <S> All too often people try and be clever by using fancy and/or unnecessary words. <S> Just say it how it is. <S> Awful: <S> In regards to With regards to Fine: <S> About <S> In relation to <S> With regard to In relation to Concerning <A> You speak in regard to something or with regard to someone. <S> Examples: In regard to work habits, John puts in too many hours. <S> With regard to Peter, he puts in none. <A> Why not avoid this word altogether and say "concerning", "about" or "in the matter of", all perfectly sound and correct. " <S> With regards to" is colloquial and incorrect. <A> Collins paper back <S> dictionary has 'with regards' as correct. <S> I tend to go with this.
| Even when using "with regard to", most people use it incorrectly. The only correct terminologies are with regard to , in regard to , regarding , and as regards .
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What does "I know, right?" mean? Not only is my seventh grader using this phrase, but her teachers are as well. I suppose it means I totally agree with you and you totally agree with me but it sounds like there is a subtle Is that okay? at the end with the right part. What do you think? <Q> I would say that it doesn't signify is that <S> okay? <S> so much as tell me more. <S> It also suggests empathy in addition to agreement. <S> To me, it seems roughly equivalent to <S> I totally agree with you, you know? <A> Slightly OT, but it reminds me of the similar (but not identical) Canadian English phrase: <S> That's cool, eh? <S> It's a sentence softener... and a way to get general acceptance from the person you are speaking with. <S> Anyway, best described with an example: girl 1 <S> : That's <S> girl's outfit is SO ugly! <S> girl 2: OMG, how does she even live with herself? <S> girl 1 <S> : I know, right? <S> She is SOooo uncool. <S> "I know" can be a strong statement, so adding the question "right? <S> " is a way of getting general acceptance from the other person. <A> It seems to me that "right?" is a way of creating a bond between the two people talking. <S> I usually hear it in the context of sharing some fact that you wouldn't tell someone to his/her face, e.g. "How does she even live with herself?" from Atomix's example. <S> It's like saying, "Right? <S> We share this idea and therefore we are similar and should be friends." <A> Emphatic agreement in a youthful, maybe feminine register. <A> I visited because I'm using the phrase myself and have been doing so for about a year. <S> I moved to NYC about three years ago, and I'm wondering where this particular phrase came from in my vocabulary. <S> I really like it. <S> For me, it does indicate collusion ("I know") and a request that the collusion be validated ("right?"). <S> However, I believe the expectation of validation is already implied because the rising action of "right?" is generally very subtle and casual on my part. <S> I'm expecting the person to already validate my attempt at collusion. <S> The phrase also seems chummy, a way of saying in shorthand, "I agree with you completely and therefore we are kindred spirits. <S> " <S> I usually say it almost as a bestowal of praise upon the other person, as if to say, "What a wonderful person I have found who validates my existence so completely with their similar thoughts on things that I had not expected people to think similarly about. <S> What a pleasant surprise!" <S> Anyway, those are just my thoughts. <S> It probably did become abundant because of television, but it definitely seeems like something that would arise in either the Midwest, Deep South, or California (all of which I have ties to) because of a need in those areas to validate community over individuality and that I would feel more compelled to use in the Northeast, where I might feel isolated and want to frequently make references to ways that I might bond or fit in with others in my community. <A> It is a friendly assertion that the speaker has already had the same idea–as in, "yeah, I know" <S> According to Urbandictionary <S> its, <S> An affirmation that you agree with or can relate to the precedingstatement. <S> It can be used whether the speaker actually knows or not,but in the latter case it usually means that the speaker can attributethe preceding statement to themselves as well. <S> Some examples include, <S> Student: I couldn't pay attention to the lecture because of that ball of sweat hanging from the professor's nose. <S> Classmate <S> : I know, right? <S> Carrie <S> : I can't belive Alvin cut her hair like that! <S> Lisha <S> : I know, right? <A> I know; right? <S> I think we can break the slangy idiom “I know <S> , right?” <S> down into two parts: <S> I know (that) . <S> ― <S> I get what you mean. <S> I've had the same thought. <S> I've been aware of it as well. <S> (Yeah, it is,) <S> right? <S> ― <S> It is really so, right? <S> By the literal interpretation of the sentence, it could grammatically mean to ask whether the speaker, “ I ,” knows something or not ; albeit not making much sense in the context. <S> So it would be reasonable to consider it to be a combined contraction of the two sentences above showing the consentience between the speaker and the lister(s). <S> And “I know; right?” <S> might be more preferable punctuation in this sense.
| In addition to sharing the opinion, it also subtly connotes that both parties arrived at the same conclusion, possibly in the same way.
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What is an appropriate response to "what's up" greeting? Sorry if it's a trivial question, but when someone uses what's up as a greeting I have no idea what they want to hear. What are the possible answers and what does this question mean exactly? <Q> “What’s up?” is a greeting whose meaning is mostly irrelevant in that the asker doesn’t want an answer to the literal question which means something like “What is new?” <S> or “What’s happening (right now/in your life)?”. <S> The simplest response if you don’t have information you want to share immediately with the asker is probably just to say something like “not much”, “not too much”, or “hey (man/dude)”. <S> If you’re offered “what’s up” in response to a greeting of your own, you should read it as a request for you to proceed to the content part of what you want to talk about. <A> "Not much, how about you?" <S> Unless, of course, you are in the midst of something exceptional. <S> It's just a greeting meaning "What is happening?", and a reply that nothing's happening means you're fine. <A> Depends on the tone in which it's asked - with the right tone, it can be synonymous with "What's wrong?" <S> , where, with a less concerned tone, it's more of a "How are you?".I'd reply very similarly to either. <A> That is an expression that has about as much meaningfulness as "How are you?" <S> or "How's it going?" <S> All, including "What's up?" are used as greetings. <S> Now, each can be taken literally where someone may want to truly know "how you are", particularly if you've been sick, for instance, but all those terms are very commonly used along with the traditional greeting words, "Hi, "Hello", "Hey". <S> Responses? <S> What's up? <S> - "Not much, how about with you?" <S> How are you? - <S> "Fine, and you?" <S> How's it going? <S> - "OK. <S> How's it going with you?" <A> If you want to be unconventional, you can reply "the sun" or "me, barely." <S> That usually gives people pause. <A> It used to be asked only when the person addressed seemed to be in some kind of trouble. <S> Some people, I believe, now use it as a simple greeting. <A> Options: Not much, what's up with you? <S> Oh, the usual. <S> Hey! <A> To directly reply to "What's up?" <S> (as a rhetorical question), "'sup" does the job. <S> (American) <A> "Stuff, y'know." <S> (The same stuff keeps happening like it happens all the time. <S> You already know what kind of stuff.) <A> You can respond using this (pick one): <S> Thank God, I am doing well (or: <S> Unfortunately, I'm not doing so well today, or: Everything is in order, or: Not much, et al.). <S> I think it is acceptable as well to reply back with the same greeting: <S> How are you doing (today/tonight/this morning/ <S> this afternoon/this evening)?
| I've never been greeted in this way myself, so I can only speculate that the reply might be something like 'Yeh, I'm good.'
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How do you understand "I have to change my file names"? If I say: I have to change my file names. What does an English speaker understand? "I have to change names of a single file." "I have to change names of many files." What is the rule here? <Q> Since a single file is understood to have only a single name (in most cases), I would interpret this as "I have to update names of many files". <S> The existence of the plural (names) gives the impression that there is meant to be many of something , and files is the more logical choice. <A> Are you sure they didn't mean <S> According to here filename is a noun defined as A name given to a computer file to distinguish it from other files, often containing an extension that classifies it by type. <S> So when they said they had to update their filenames, they may have had to go through a list of files on their computer and correctly rename each one. <A> There is no rule, but <S> e. <S> James has identified there is a clear implied plural here, and I agree that is how I would read it. <S> But the question is wrong really, it should say "how would you correcly write this sentence to be grammatically accurate and unambiguous". <S> If the single word "filenames" were used, that would be fine, and mean many names of many files. <S> If the words are separated, they are simply two nouns and need something to connect them - a possessive, in other words. <S> Then you either have "file's names" or "files' names" to be grammatically accurate, and all ambiguity is lost. <S> That's why grammar works!
| I have to update my filenames
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Regarding Re: ; what is the correct usage in an email subject line? I want to know what is the recommended way to use Re: in the subject line of an email. I use Re: in the subject line as a shortform of 'in regards to'. Whenever I have used Re:, people have told me that Re: is only to be used when replying to an incoming email and shouldn't be used when starting a new email thread. I remember being taught that Re is an preposition, which means “in the matter of, with reference to.” I have also observed that I get immediate responses if I use Re: in the subject line. So, should I continue to use Re: in the subject line or is that incorrect usage? <Q> Etymology Online indicates that this has been is use as "with reference to" since 1707: "with reference to," 1707, from L. in <S> re "in the matter of <S> ," ablative case of res "matter, thing. <S> " <S> Fowler does object to it , as the Etymology Online page indicates. <S> He also indicates that it's a popularized technicality from Law , where it is used from the Latin to mean "in the matter of" or "in regard to" . <S> So in general the usage for which you are using it is correct from a grammatical standpoint. <S> That said, common usage is that when "RE:" is the beginning of an email subject line it specifically relates to a reply, and using it otherwise will probably be confusing to email users, many of whom may not be familiar with the term's history or denotation. <S> It would likely be less confusing if you were to use it in a subject line of an email, but not at the beginning: <S> "My comments re: suitability of unicorns in marketing materials" instead of <S> "RE: <S> unicorns in marketing" <A> RFC 2822 , "Internet Message Format" says, <S> When used in a reply, the field body MAY start with the string "Re: " (from the Latin "res", in the matter of) followed by the contents of the "Subject:" field body of the original message. <S> So that's the official answer. <S> Note that this specifically links "Re" to a reply. <S> I do find the explanation for the origin of the phrase suspicious, for the following reasons: <S> "Subject" already means "in the matter of", more or less, so the "Re" would be redundant. <S> Internationalized versions of email programs typically translate "Re" to an abbreviation of the translation of "Reply". <S> Nobody knows that "Re" means "Res", so it's useless to try to make your communication dependent on it. <S> The original RFC 822 did not contain the specification of "Re", although it did show an example using it. <S> RFC 2822 was published in 2001, but clearly "Re" was in wide use throughout the 1990s, with most people not thinking that it meant "Res". <S> But if you ignore the parenthetical remark in the standard, what is says is correct and actual practice. <A> Always. <S> So in this context don't use it when you mean "regarding", but when you're replying to an email. <S> Most email applications will add Re: to the subject automatically for you when you click the Reply button. <S> But you're right about the preposition. <S> It does exist and means: with regard to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/re <S> However, in the subject line of an email specifically, nobody would interpret it with this meaning. <A> "In regards to" is telling you what the subject of the email is. <S> There's already a label that says "Subject". <S> Why would you need the extra phrase? <A> Spammers use it to make you think they are replying to your supposed initial response. <S> I block anyone that uses it to start a new email.
| Re: in the subject line of an email means " reply " or " response ".
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"Something that work" or "something that works"? Googling both sentences I find many references with or without -s . Should I add the -s to the verb after "that"? Is it considered a third person singular? I'm searching for a rule to apply to the verb after "that". Another example could be this: people that work (56,100,000 hits) people that works (710,000 hits) <Q> In English Grammar (ISBN 0-06-467109-7), something is listed in the indefinite pronouns always used as singular, together with somebody , someone , each , either , everybody , anyone , etc. <S> The correct phrase is something that works. <A> Googling both sentences i find a lot of references with or without -s. <S> I didn't expect to find this, but you are right: "something that work" <S> 159,000 hits"something that works" 38,500,000 hits <S> This is the weakness of Googling, that wrong stuff, if repeated often enough, starts to look legitimate. <S> Is it considered as third person singular? <A> 3rd person singular verb should match the 3rd person singular noun. <S> He/ <S> she/ <S> it works. <S> He <S> /she/it <S> who/which/that works. <A> Lots of people type "your" when they mean "you're" <S> but that doesn't mean it is a viable variant, just a common mistake. <S> Likewise "something that works" is the correct grammar here.
| The correct one is "something that works". A verb after "something" should be in the third person singular form, yes.
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What is the best term to describe a "native English speaker who is an American"? When applying for English teaching jobs, I want to describe myself as a "native speaker of English who has an American accent" since most companies in Europe want native speakers to teach English courses and they usually have a preference for one accent or another (American, British, Australian, etc.). What is the best term for this, e.g. "I am a...": American native speaker of English (good?) American English native speaker (good?) native speaker of American English (best?) native American English speaker ("native American" could be confused with being an American Indian) <Q> "American English native speaker" actually sounds a bit odd to me, though I am not a native speaker of American English myself. <S> I would go with "native speaker of American English", as I have just done. <S> If you read nohat 's full disclosure, he seems to agree. <S> Edit: <S> I see that you have edited your question, so you seem to agree yourself now that "native speaker of American English" is the way to go. <S> One more thing: I read "American native speaker of English" as "someone who is a native speaker of English and lives in the US". <S> That could easily apply to a native Scot who moved to the States. <A> It sounds to me that you are "an American, with English as a mother language" . <S> You could therefore say that you "have American English as your mother language" or you could say that your "mother language is American English" . <S> Freely substitute "mother" with "native" and substitute "language" with "tongue". <S> Therefore, all the following are valid: <S> "native language is American English" "an American, with English as a native tongue" "have American English as your native tongue" "native tongue is <S> American English" "an American, with English as a mother language" "have American English as your mother language" "mother language is American English" "an American, with English as a mother tongue" "have American English as your mother tongue" "mother tongue is American English" <A> Our home dictionary proclaimed to be of the American language, but I feel that is overstating the differences. <S> What we speak is a form of English, since it shares the majority of the words and structure. <S> Your question is what to call yourself depends on who is asking. <S> "I am an American" usually works if you are white, but if you aren't, some folks want more of an explanation. <S> In China, were I taught, Americans with Chinese heritage were called "overseas Chinese". <S> If you are trying to secure a teaching or translating job then use "native English speaker from America."
| "an American, with English as a native language" "have American English as your native language"
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Best way to call an artist that is not famous What is the best way to call an artist that is not famous? Emergent artist New artist Any other <Q> What is the best way to call an artist that is not famous? <S> It depends. <S> If the artist is from the past, they might be referred to as a "little-known artist", a "lesser-known artist", or even "a lesser artist" (this is derogatory). <S> If it's a present-day artist, they might be an "emerging artist" (not "emergent", that is a buzz-word), or "a lesser-known artist". <A> I am told that in the jargon of music critics musicians are either "young" or "distinguished", the break-point being about thirty-five years of age. <A> You can use a more particular description, such as "Bill Smith, a painter from Springfield, Ore.," Also age doesn't seem to be a factor since many artists never become famous outside of their communities, but work for many years. <A> You could call them an "up-and-coming" (young) artist.
| "New artist" is possible, for example "an exhibition by new artists", but its use would be restricted to a certain kind of person.
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Bodkins and bodkin - Same word different context? Does bodkins in odd's bodkins mean the same as bare bodkin , which appears in Hamlet? <Q> The Oxford English Dictionary defines <S> (God's, ods) <S> bodkins as 'God's dear body! <S> : <S> an oath' and shows bodikin and bodikie as alternate spellings. <S> The Oxford English Reference , on the other hand, defines a bodkin as 'a blunt thick needle with a large eye used esp. <S> for drawing thick tape, etc. <S> through a hem' and various similar things. <S> I believe that the previous poster's definition of this as 'a dagger (or its blade)' would be reasonable in the poetic context of Hamlet . <A> The Maven's Word of the Day gives the following: <S> Odd's bodkins is a mild profane oath, which literally means 'God's dear body!' <S> It's now archaic, but was used as an exclamation like God damn! or a host of others. <S> The usual form of the second word is bodikin, which is a diminutive of body (the diminutive suffix -kin is found in such other words as lambkin). <S> The expression occurs in Shakespeare <S> (Hamlet: " <S> Odds bodikins, man," with a variant reading from the Quarto of "bodkin"). <S> Then this site tells me that: <S> What is the "bare bodkin" referenced in "To be, or not to be?" <S> A dagger (or its blade). <A> The bodkin, as referenced in Hamlet's soliloquy, is a thin sharp blade, designed to pierce armor, especially chain mail. <A> The idea that bodikin was another name for body , and that this is where the oath odd bodkin comes from, strikes me as probably wrong. <S> The OED says, about bodkin . <S> Of unknown etymology: the original form in English was boydekin, boidekyn, in 3 syllables. <S> So bodkin and bodikin were two possible pronunciations of the same word, originally meaning dagger , in Middle English. <S> And while the oath Godes bodykins is attested by the OED from 1577, <S> the first citation the OED has for bodikin meaning body (as opposed to boddikie from 1668, which I am assuming is a different word) is from 1721-1800, in the Universal Etymol. <S> Eng. <S> Dict. <S> by Bailey <S> : Bodykin, a little body. <S> O. <S> [Here O. stands for "Old Word", which is Bailey's term for archaic .] <S> I would guess that Bailey's definition is inspired solely from the oath God's bodykin . <S> And where did the oath <S> God's bodkin come from? <S> Before this oath, there was an oath God's body , attested by the OED from 1520: <S> Goddis body my master <S> what shall I do. <S> I suspect that God's bodykin was a minced oath for God's body , since swearing by God's dagger was presumably less blasphemous than swearing by God's body <S> (I assume the body of Jesus Christ on the cross). <S> And swearing by Od's dagger would be even less so. <A> Um I believe that in Hamlet Shakespeare could have also been referencing the body definition. <S> As I have heard knives described as naked blades in the case they are not covered. <S> So Shakespeare could be saying that the body/blade of the dagger is not covered or is unsheathed. <A> The question is confusing since both <S> the odd's bodkins and bare bodkin appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet. <S> They do <S> not mean the same (to finally answer the original question).
| Piecing together the information from other answers (some answering for one meaning, some accounting for the other) it is clear that in odd's bodkins , bodkin means body , whereas in bare bodkin (in the soliloquy) it means dagger .
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Is Apple's Old Slogan, "Think Different", grammatically incorrect? Not too long ago, Apple Computer used the phrase "Think Different" as an ad slogan. Is this a grammatical error (that is, it should be "Think Differently"), or are they trying to say something else (and what would it be)? <Q> Everyone's assuming that this is "think differently" with the -ly dropped off, but note that there are also formations like think fruit or think pink , and "think different" could belong to that group. <S> In other words "What should I think about this product?" <S> "Think (that it is) different". <S> Anyway, "think differently" is a terrible slogan. <A> Merriam-Webster claim that different as an adverb dates at least as far back as 1744. <A> Well, it's certainly not the first time an adjective is used as an adverb in American English. <S> I'd call it informal, but not necessarily ungrammatical. <A> One possibility we're forgetting here is the that the adjective may be a substantive adjective . <S> Substantive adjectives are adjectives which are used alone without the noun they are describing. <S> For example, good , bad , and ugly in this sentence, 'The good , the bad , and the ugly , which is really, 'The good people , the bad people , and the ugly people .' <S> In this case, Apple's slogan, 'Think different', would be read 'Think different things', and is thus a perfectly grammatical. <A> Apple did not mean "think differently". <S> That is, they are not suggesting that you think in a different way. <S> An analogous slogan might be, "Thinking about your opportunities as a high school graduate? <S> Think college." <A> "Think differently" would mean: Please think in a way that is different from the way that other people are thinking. <S> " <S> Think different" means: <S> Think about things that are different, or how to do things that are different. <S> The slogan doesn't tell you how to think, but what to think. <A> If the message is taken to mean: Think "different". <S> Then it could be grammatically incorrect. <S> Just not sure I can say this is "punctuationally" correct, but from a logo/branding/marketing point of view the use of punctuation may take something away from the impact of the message even if making the intention of the message unclear.
| They really meant "think different", that is, rather than thinking about the things you usually think about, think about things that are different.
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