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People usually use "typical" in place of using "difficult". Does "typical" also mean "difficult"? Typical actually means "of a particular type" but that particular type may not be difficult.What do you people think? <Q> No, they don't mean the same thing. <S> People may however use "typical" to express dissatisfaction with something. <S> For example: "Typical Jim, he's always late" or "Typical <S> , I knew I was going to fall into that cake, my day is ruined". <A> If something — a task, say, like icing a cake — is usually easy, it would be typical for it to be easy. <S> Difficult , however, would never mean easy . <S> Typical means having the distinctive qualities of a particular type of person or thing <S> Those qualities might be difficulty, easiness, awkwardness, oddness, friendliness, whatever: the point is, they would be representative of a type. <A> As others have mentioned, "typical" does not mean "difficult". <S> There are no common English idioms where this is the case, either. <S> But I wonder if the people who "usually" use this word are not actually just mispronouncing "difficult". <S> Or possibly you are mis-hearing "difficult" as "typical". <S> There are some common consonant mutations involved d --> t, f --> p, possibly elision of the final "t". <S> I once had Tibetan Buddhist monk as a teacher, and I can imagine him pronouncing "difficult" this way. <A> A false perception.
| Typical does not mean difficult. I find that the word typical makes it seem like you're being characterized into a position that may not be true.
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Is word "crap" considered a vulgarism? Most common damn-words in English are of course the f-word and the s-word, which are - for my best knowledge - considered vulgarisms. The word "crap" may be used as a damn-word, however I'd bet, that it is not vulgar. Am I correct? <Q> The word itself is used in a many different ways. <S> kiamlaluno pointed out two popular usages: Something that is of extremely poor quality: nonsense; rubbish, junk. <S> excrement: (in singular) <S> an act of defecation. <S> But it is also used as an exclamation, as in: Holy crap, this test is difficult! <S> I do think that the word crap has become more acceptable over time. <S> When I was a child in the 80s <S> I once said, in front of a friend's mother, "This is crap," after seeing a long line at an amusement park. <S> She gave me a very stern look and told me I should not use such vulgar language. <S> Another time I was helping a classmate clean out his desk <S> and I said something along the lines of, "There is a lot of crap in here," and he shushed me as he was concerned that we would get in trouble if the teacher heard us using that word. <A> Well, it's less vulgar than its synonym "shit", and more vulgar than the term "junk" or "garbage", so it's a matter of scale. <S> I wouldn't use "crap" in polite company, or when speaking to a customer. <S> Coincidentally, when broadcasting on TV or the Radio in the USA, it's OK to use the word "crap", but illegal to use the word "shit", so it doesn't need to be censored. <A> excrement: (in singular) <S> an act of defecation. <S> The first meaning is similar to the use of the work cock in the following British English sentence: <S> That's all a lot of cock. <S> The NOAD doesn't mark the second meaning of crap as vulgar, and I don't think it is interpreted as vulgar from people too. <S> To make a comparison, also the word cock is not considered vulgar, as it has other meanings apart penis . <A> If you are, or want to be perceived as, a mature, grown-up person, you will not use the word "crap". <S> It is understood to be another word for fecal matter. <S> Why would you want to talk about what you do in the bathroom? <S> Yuck. <S> I sure don't want to hear about it in polite convo. <S> That's just gross. <S> Keep it to yourself.
| I wouldn't label crap as vulgar by today's standards, but it isn't a word you'd want to use in a professional setting or with people who are prim and proper. The meaning of crap is Something that is of extremely poor quality: nonsense; rubbish, junk.
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"Up until that time" sounds awkward -- is there a better way to say it? Maybe I'm having a bad day, but I've just written a sentence similar to this one, and it doesn't read well for me, but I can't think of anything better right now: The task was to build a new accounting system; up until that time they had been doing everything by hand. <Q> I would use until then . <S> Until , in sentences like the kidnappers have given us until October 11th to deliver the documents <S> means up to . <S> Looking at the Corpus of Contemporary English to see how much frequently the phrases until then , up until then , up until that time , and until that time are used, I get these data (the frequency is given in per million): <S> If I look at when those phrases are used, I get the following data: <A> You might say ...previously they had been doing everything by hand. <S> Or if you're trying to highlight an accomplishment on a CV you might say ...built a new accounting system which greatly reduced the need to do everything by hand. <A> The task was to build a new accounting system; hitherto, they had been doing everything by hand. <A> Sounds grammatical to me, though I would probably go with a simple "up until then", myself. <S> The British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English have the following stats: BNC <S> COCAup until that time 5 46up until then 50 123 <A> Hitherto means up until now - from hither meaning here - as in this current point in time. <S> More correct, but little used, might be thitherto .
| A good word for this would be hitherto .
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Is “Mecca” capitalized when used figuratively? Waleed made his pilgrimage to Mecca. This is a given.But I would write: Bombay is India’s entertainment mecca Is this correct, or is Mecca capitalized in its figurative use, as well? <Q> According to the Associated Press stylebook: mecca . <S> Lowercase in the metaphorical sense; capitalize ( Mecca ) the city in Saudi Arabia." <S> This would seem to be a common sense application of standard English capitalization rules (off the top of my head): <S> Capitalize proper nouns: towns, people's names, cities in Saudi Arabia, etc. <S> Do not capitalize other nouns. <S> In this case, 'mecca' is a noun meaning 'a bustling, lively center of something' (apologies for my definition, made up on the fly) <A> Holland is a Mecca for jazz enthusiasts. <S> In the Corpus of Contemporary American , you find sentences with Mecca (where the word is used figuratively), and sentences with mecca . <S> The experience alarmed the city fathers of Appenzell, pop. <S> 5,600, who worried that the town might become a Mecca for the unclad. <S> The United States has not begun to realize its potential as either an educational or a tourist Mecca. <S> Miami Beach has always been an international Mecca whose residents are as diverse as the tourists. <S> Frank Gehry's museum at Bilbao draws millions of people and has changed this industrial Spanish city into a mecca for tourism. <S> Writing groups are a mecca for aspiring authors and those who want to meet people with similar thought processes. <A> It should be capitalised. <S> For instance: He lost his dreams of an Eldorado/El Dorado . <S> Just "eldorado" would really look weird. <S> Or: He played the part of a Maecenas . <S> Only when the origin as a proper noun is forgotten is it common to find an initial lower case. <S> Passengers are lining up on the tarmac <S> ( Tarmac correct of course). <S> So Bombay is India’s entertainment Mecca <A> Capitals in both cases, same as in Wendy house, brand names like Elastoplast etc
| The NOAD uses Mecca in both the cases. Even when used as common nouns, proper nouns should retain their initial upper case.
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Usage of the word "orthogonal" outside of mathematics From the roots ortho (straight) and gon (angle), its meaning in mathematics is understandable. Outside of mathematics it has various meanings depending on the context: Debate - orthogonal: not relevant Statistics - orthogonal: unrelated Computing - orthogonal: isolated or partitioned There are other definitions. Most seem to imply a meaning of independence or separation. Does anyone know how it came to mean this? <Q> If you think about (simplified for convenience) <S> mathematical usage of "orthogonal" , it is referring to vectors at right angles to each other, so motion in the direction of the first vector produces no corresponding motion in the direction of the second vector. <S> This independence is what motivates the other meanings; an orthogonal line of argument in debate might be interesting in itself, but doesn't advance the main thrust of the debate, for instance. <S> It's just as well that the mathematical use of "normal" doesn't bleed across like this, because "normal people" would then be at right-angles to reality. <S> Then again... :-) <A> As Wikipedia says about the derived meanings of orthogonal , they all "evolved from its earlier use in mathematics". <S> [Two vectors x and y are called orthogonal if the projection of x in the direction of y (or vice-versa) is zero; this is geometrically the same as being at right angles.] <S> The statistical meaning comes exactly from this: one can think of random variables as living in a vector space, and correlation between two random variables is zero precisely when the two vectors are orthogonal/"perpendicular". <S> See this post for details. <S> In debate(?), "orthogonal" to mean "not relevant" or "unrelated" also comes from the above meaning. <S> If issues X and Y are "orthogonal", then X has no bearing on Y. <S> If you think of X and Y as vectors, then X has no component in the direction of Y: in other words, it is orthogonal in the mathematical sense. <S> In computing, the use of orthogonal for isolated or partitioned (which I don't actually recall encountering) would come from the same meaning: the behaviour of one component has no bearing on (is isolated from) other components; so they are orthogonal. <A> because in mathematics orthogonal is synonym of being independent or absolute lack of dependence. <S> There are intermediate states from no dependence to complete dependence (aka parallel) which is given by vector product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covariance <S> Update: <S> I did not want to implicate <S> but without it my answer is not answering direct question. <S> In Russian primary school the vectors are studied in the 4-7th form and after that children tell in conversations "parallel" instead of "dependent and "orthogonal" (or "perpendicular") instead of "independent". <A> In construction fields, orthogonal is used instead of perpendicular. <A> There seems to be another sense of orthogonal as "orthogonal categories"eg suppose we have two sets of categories I {A, B,..} and II {C, D,...} then to claim " I and II are orthogonal" seems to require the existence of:A-C, A-D,... and B-C , B-D ...; this interests me because I have a problem ,where I am uncertain whether I and II are "orthogonal" or "non-orthogonal". <S> Non-orthogonal would seem to imply A==C and B==D etc but is this unique orwould non-orthogonal also include the possibilities A==D , B==D etc
| In statistics, the meaning of orthogonal as unrelated (or more precisely uncorrelated ) is very directly related to the mathematical definition.
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Are there any cases where "prepend" cannot be replaced by "prefix"? "Prepend" is seeing a fair amount of use, both in programmer jargon and elsewhere. Its use seems to come from a desire to create a word that is a direct parallel to "append." However, such a word already exists in "prefix." They seem to need to be used differently: To dial an outside line, prepend a 9 to your number. versus To dial an outside line, prefix the number with 9. Are there any cases where "prefix" cannot be used in place of "prepend"?Any other insights into this word and its origins? <Q> I'd say that the main reason that prepend is used is that it "sounds" like the reverse of append . <S> That's about it. <S> Think of it like the British having to use American English while programming - they do it just because it's an established convention. <S> About "cases where prepend cannot be replaced by prefix" <S> : There are none, but as I said, it's a matter of convention. <A> To prepend means (as reported from the NOAD): <S> (jargon, computing) to prefix an expression with another. <S> (rare) to premeditate; to weigh up mentally. <S> The meaning of to prefix is: add something at the beginning as a prefix or introduction. <S> add a prefix or introduction to something. <S> I searched for prepend in the Corpus of Contemporary American and the British National Corpus , but I didn't find any sentences containing that word. <S> I think prepend is only used in a specific context, and that it cannot replace prefix in all the cases. <A> Aside from Aviral Dasgupta's answer, "prefix" <S> feels like a noun (despite its etymology), <S> so using it the way you suggest feels like an awkward verbing. <S> It also suggests the usage of "suffix" as a verb, which feels like an even more awkward verbing.
| According to Code Complete , you should have "opposites" for each method on an object, and they should "sound opposite".
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Is "ad hominem" gender-neutral? My immediate thought is that the term is generic, and yet I read recently a verbal brickbat described as ad feminam . Was that just a po-mo back-formation, or is there some merit to the distinction? [Mind you, it's likely I saw it in the same office where a proofer once changed an unrelated text I wrote to read ombudsperson , so ....] <Q> I've certainly only used it or seen it used as a generic, gender-neutral term. <S> (And only in the phrase ad hominem .) <S> As Kosmonaut mentions, part of it is that it's in a different language, so any gender mismatch <S> * is not going to be apparent to people unless they know some Latin. <S> But there's also the fact that classically, in many languages the word for "man" had two meanings: (1) a masculine person, and (2) a member of mankind; a person (of unspecified gender). <S> Modernly, the second meaning is sometimes seen as prejudiced against women, and thus people come up with all sorts of newfangled constructs to avoid that usage. <S> Thus you get (hopefully <S> ** ) <S> deliberate plays on words like " ad feminam ", which doesn't actually mean much of anything, but is understandable if taken in parallel with ad hominem . <S> * <S> As JSBangs points out, homo is not actually the Latin word for a specifically masculine person — that would be vir — <S> so there actually is no gender mismatch with using ad hominem when the subject of the attack is female. <S> ** <S> If the usage was not deliberately playful, but meant sincerely and literally, I would find it to be sad evidence of the decline of society. <A> No one seems to have pointed out, so far, that the Latin words for male man and female woman are not "homo" and "femina" but vir and femina . <S> Homo does not refer to "man" as in "male", but man as in "human". <S> That's (part of the reason) why male things are "masculine", and not "hominine"! <A> Ad feminam is found in the Corpus of Contemporary American ; it seems a "back-formation", as it first appears in the period between 1920-1929. <A> As Churchill said, "the masculine embraces the feminine. <S> " It's Latin, so I think only the most, as you say, po-mo pedant would object to ad hominem . <S> In any case, ad hominem describes the argument, not the target. <S> The fact that the target is a woman is irrelevant, IMHO. <S> To take it one step further - the term "ad hominem" has a meaning in English that it doesn't in Latin, since it's part of a classic list of fallacies. <S> The term "Ad feminam", whatever other merits it may possess, is simply not included in that list. <S> So when you use "ad feminam", you're simply losing accuracy. <S> Not to mention that the listener probably doesn't speak Latin, and may not have any idea what it's supposed to mean. <A> I think if we were Latin speakers, then there would be merit to the distinction. <S> But we're not, and hominem doesn't mean anything to the average English speaker on its own; it only means something as part of the phrase ad hominem , which is used to describe the insertion of a personal attack into a debate. <S> The "man" meaning from Latin is not particularly transparent to English speakers, and so it is not a problem. <S> (Think of similar things like "fraternal twins", which is happily applied even to girl twins.) <S> Phrases like ombudsman do have a transparent structure, at least in the -man suffix, which many English speakers directly link with the noun man . <S> So, this type of word would be much more likely to become "neutralized" in the name of political correctness. <S> Whoever used ad feminam was almost certainly using word-play intentionally, and I think it is safe to say that this word is not likely to establish itself in the standard lexicon. <A> I would reply to tchrist <S> that homo- <S> in "homosexual" is indeed a root meaning "same", but not a Latin one. <S> It is a Greek root illogically attached to a latin noun. <S> Homo, hominis DOES mean "man" in Latin, not "same" – see Homo Erectus , Homo Sapiens , etc. <S> However, not having the required 50 points, I cannot reply directly. <S> To answer the question, Ad Feminam is correct if you want top be specific as to the gender of the person to which one refers to. <S> However, as was mentioned before, Homo also takes the general meaning of mankind, as it still does to some extent in modern languages – like in the expression " man slaughter"in English, or in the French "Déclaration Internationale des Droits de l’Homme ", instead of the more contemporaneously PC "Déclaration Internationale des Droits des Humains "), etc. <S> Anyway, I believe more or less everything I said was already mentioned before. <S> But I just wanteds to add my cherry onto to the Homo cake. <S> Topical humour! <S> Yay!
| Ad hominem , in Latin, literally means to the person ; it doesn't make any reference to the sex of the person.
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Frequent use of word not found in dictionary, "programatically." Here's a word I see often on StackOverflow, "programatically." Used to indicate that a programmer intends to do something within the code of a program, rather than through user interaction. For example, "a user can check a checkbox on a form, but a programmer may also do it programatically ." Since this word isn't in the dictionary, I assume it to be either incorrect to use it at all, or this is a new word that's essentially slang. Is there a better alternative? <Q> "Programatic" is a misspelling of " programmatic ", which is in the dictionary. <S> Your understanding of the technical usage is correct, and is slightly different than the common, dictionary definition. <S> I think the only reasonable alternative would be "automatically", since the programmer is automating the process, but this use is clearly inferior (at least to this programmer's ears) to "programmatically". <A> If we restrict ourselves to circumlocutions to avoid constructing useful and sensible words, then communication may well be impaired. <S> In the case of "programmatically", I wouldn't even say that one has coined a new word. <S> To anyone who understands the concept of using program code to achieve a particular result, the words "programmatic" and "programmatically" seem to me to be rather obvious constructions. <S> As a programmer, I have great respect for official documentation. <S> In this case, however, I would say that the official documentation is incomplete, out of date, or has been misinterpreted. <A> As alternative of programmatically , I can think of by (using a) script , by code , or by scripting . <A> It's "programmatically", not “programatically”. <S> However, because many built-in word processor and web form dictionaries don't recognize the word, your misspelling is relatively common in the IT world. <S> As a Software Developer, I frequently use the word "programmatically" at work, both verbally and in writing. <S> I consider it to be just as valid as "grammatically", but <S> instead of meaning "using proper grammar", I mean to convey "using the proper programming syntax". <S> It does annoy me that the auto-correct of many dictionaries do not consider it to be a word. <S> I ignore the warning, and if I am properly motivated, I take the time to add the word to the internal dictionary file that the program checks against. <A> To the original question in the post, I think there is a better alternative, which is to restructure the sentence to something like "... <S> a programmer may also do it in code . <S> " This is the usage I hear and read commonly; it's often used to distinguish between coding a system for some objective, or configuring the same system to accomplish that objective.
| The NOAD lists programmatic , and it reports it means of the nature of or according to a program, schedule, or method ; one of the derivates reported by the dictionary is programmatically .
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"zh" vs. "j". Are these pronounced in the same way? I've seen some Chinese words like "YUEZHONG". Also in some other languages like Persian and Arabic I've seen words written with "zh". Are these two sounds pronounced in the same way? Is there any word in English using the same combination of letters? Is it right to use "zh" to imply the letter "j"? <Q> Short answer: "zh" and "j" are not pronounced in the same way. <S> Using the International Phonetic Alphabet , the "zh" digraph would be transcribed as [ ʒ ], while the "j" letter would be [ dʒ ]. <S> The "zh" sound occurs at the beginning of the name "Jacques" [ ʒ ɔk], and in the middle of the word "leisure" <S> [li ʒ ɚ]. <S> The "j" sound is two IPA symbols because it is a combination of two sounds, [d] (as in "dog") and [ʒ]; [dʒ] occurs at the beginning of the word "jock" [ dʒ ɔk]. <S> In fact, two words could be distinguished only by the difference between those two sounds. <S> The following would represent such a minimal pair : <S> "legion" [li dʒ ən] (where the "gi" sound is identical to "j") "lesion" [li ʒ ən] ("Jock" and "Jacques", which I already mentioned, also only differ in that one sound.) <S> The reason you see many borrowed words using "zh" is because English lacks a standard letter to represent the [ʒ] sound. <S> In French borrowings, it is "j", because "j" is always [ʒ] in French. <S> Sometimes it is "si" (as in "lesion") because of a natural phonological process that occurs in English. <S> So, there is no letter that always gets pronounced [ʒ]. <S> But, in many languages that don't use Latin script, there is a distinct letter for [ʒ]. <S> In these languages, "zh" is often the standard way to translate the sound [ʒ] from their orthographical system to the Latin one in an unambiguous way. <S> As to whether you can use "zh" to imply "j" — <S> I am not certain what you mean by "imply", but since these are two different sounds, I think the answer is probably no. <A> Not always, but sometimes. <S> This depends highly on the languages involved, and on how they’ve been transliterated into the Latin alphabet (if they’re not not normally written in it). <S> Zh <S> almost(?) never occurs in English itself. <S> In transliterations from Russian and other Cyrillic languages <S> (eg Dr Zhivago , bozhe moi , …), it represents the sound [ʒ], <S> a voiced version of the sound represented (in English) by sh <S> [ʃ]. <S> So, helpfully, the relationship of zh to sh here is just like the relationship of z to s . <S> In transliterations from Chinese… well, let’s come back to that later. <S> The sound [ʒ] does occur in some English words, but it’s spelled differently: e.g. in beige , leisure . <S> J , on the other hand represents many, many different sounds. <S> The main sound it represents in English, in for instance juice , is [dʒ], similar to zh <S> [ʒ] but not quite the same. <S> It’s (approximately) <S> a voiced version of [tʃ], the ch <S> sound in e.g. chop . <S> It differs from [ʒ] in that at the beginning of the consonant, your tongue should touch the gums above the backs of your teeth, briefly but completely cutting off the airflow and then releasing it as the consonant starts. <S> In other Latin-alphabet languages, j represents various different sounds. <S> In French, it does indeed mostly represent [ʒ]: <S> e.g. jeune . <S> In German, eg ja , it represents the sound given in English by consonantal <S> y . <S> In Spanish, it corresponds roughly to English <S> h <S> (depending on dialect and context). <S> In transliterations, j varies even more! <S> In modern English-based transliterations of Russian (and other Cyrillic languages), j is usually not used, but in older and German-based transliterations, it’s often used like it is in German. <S> Finally, in modern transliterations of Chinese, zh and j represent two different phonemes which to English ears will typically both sound like the [dʒ] of juice ; see John Purdy’s comments for details. <A> I'm not a linguistics major, but I can tell you that the two are not pronounced the same. <S> In layman's terms, zh is a voiced version of sh . <S> The sh sound is normally made without engaging the vocal cords. <S> If you add vocal sound to it, it will become zh . <S> In the j sound, you get ready to make the zh sound, but instead of leaving your tongue in that position, you push it up against the front of your palate, blocking the zh sound from coming out. <S> Then you release it all at once and stop. <S> This is important. <S> The zh sound can be continuous, but <S> the j sound stops almost instantly. <S> If said alone, it will sound something like "juh". <A> zh does not represent any single Arabic letter but is very occasionally used to represent the 'ǧīm' as pronounced by Arabic speakers in former French colonies -Lebanon & Syria most especially. <S> That's not altogether proper orthography -it's normally transliterated as 'j'- but the closest rendering of how certain Levantines and N.W. Africans with French as a second (or first) language employ it. <S> zhe <S> [ﮊ] does exist in both Kurdish and Persian (and further east, too), and is pronounced the same way: in the luscious, mouth-filling style that Robusto so well describes above. <A> J or Ch vs Z and Z Sounds <S> Perhaps I should have labeled this one “Z vs J”: the problem occurs when Asian speakers pronounce the letter “z” like a “j.” <S> The same problem applies to “tz” and “ts” sounds. <S> A word like “pizza” ends up pronounced as “peach-eu,” for example. <S> Again, if you’ve got an allergy to peaches, you’ll be in serious trouble! <S> Another example: “result” often gets pronounced as “rezhert” [where “zh” indicates a voiced “sh” sound] by Asians learning English. <S> In this case, the word sounds more like “dessert” than anything else. <S> The u vowel’s metamorphisis into a short e is not usually a problem for English learners; here I suspect <S> it has to do with the following letter l, which is often confused by Asians with the letter r. http://epronunciation.com/blog/english-pronunciation-problems-for-asian-learners.html
| The "zh" and "j" sounds are definitely not identical to an English speaker.
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What does "putting someone on" mean? Like in this example: He was worried that X was putting him on . <Q> In this case it means to tease someone, meaning 2 below (from Answers.com ). <S> put-on n. <S> Slang <S> A deceptive outward appearance. <S> The act of teasing or misleading someone, especially for amusement. <S> Note that this link is for the noun form, but the verb ("to put someone on") has the same meaning. <S> Sample usage: <S> Bill said he was going to help me fix my car, but it turns out he was just putting me on. <A> Briefly, related sayings might include: <S> Are you having me on ? <S> ( To kid or mislead someone ) <S> Are you taking the mickey out of me? <S> ( Teasing or making fun of someone ) <S> He's pulled a fast one . <S> ( To trick or mislead someone ) <A> He was worried that X was playing a trick on him, or setting him up for a little prank; in American English usage it's generally used to indicate that X is trying to get him to believe something extremely improbable (and not actually true), and at the point where he finally accepts the truth of the improbable thing, X could say "No, I was just putting you on." <A> The NOAD describes <S> put someone on as informal for deceive , hoax . <A> Put on here means " pretending " or " play-acting ". <A> The English English equivalent being "taking the piss" -is that fair?
| Something, such as a prank, intended as a hoax or joke; a spoof.
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Why is “bloody” considered obscene in the UK but not in the US? Why is the word bloody considered obscene in the UK but not so in the US? <Q> I don't think it's obscene so much as profane. <S> By one theory, "Bloody" in this context is a contraction for "by our lady", essentially swearing by the Virgin Mary ( Bloody in Wikipedia ). <S> Other similar oaths include "blimey" (God blind me) and "gadzooks" (by God's hooks (hands)). <S> As to why "Bloody" is considered obscene/profane in the UK more than in the US, I think that's a reflection of a stronger Catholic presence, historically, in the UK than in the US, if we're accepting the above etymology, as Catholics venerate the Virgin to a greater extent than Protestants. <S> All of which is void, of course, if the etymology is incorrect. <A> Here’s the OED’s comment on the origins: <S> The origin is not quite certain; but there is good reason to think that it was at first a reference to the habits of the ‘bloods’ or aristocratic rowdies of the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th <S> c. <S> The phrase ‘bloody drunk’ was apparently = ‘as drunk as a blood’ (cf. ‘as drunk as a lord’); thence it was extended to kindred expressions, and at length to others; probably, in later times, its associations with bloodshed and murder (cf. <S> a bloody battle, a bloody butcher) have recommended it to the rough classes as a word that appeals to their imagination. <A> I always thought "bloody" was a reference to the blood of christ. <S> kind of like "suffering Jesus" if you've ever heard that. <S> edit: I see that this interpretation is also listed on Wikipedia, nonetheless, it uses something of religious value and turns it into an expletive. <S> Don't know if that helps in any way. <A> Comparing UK usage... ... <S> to US usage, I think it's quite clear that US usage lags behind the UK here. <S> Bear in mind that sheer weight of numbers normally puts the US ahead, so any suggestion of the opposite trend should probably be seen as more pronounced (and significant) than the charts might suggest. <S> Also compare prevalence values in <S> British and American corpuses for stupid bloody , to see this more obviously "intensifier" usage is almost three times more common in the UK than in the US. <S> For example, I hear things like <S> "You bloody idiot!" <S> all the time in both real life and British movies, but in American movies (and, I suppose, real life) it's much more likely to be <S> "You fucking idiot!" . <S> I think what this means is that many middle-aged and older Americans (the age range most likely to be defining any usage as "obscene") <S> barely even encountered adjectival <S> bloody when they were growing up. <S> So they had no predisposition to rail against it when the younger generation started using it more. <S> The etymology of the word ( which has been addressed repeatedly on ELU ) is at best uncertain, but most likely few Americans automatically perceive it as blasphemous/profane. <S> So to many of them, it's just another blinking, blooming, freaking, flaming, flipping mild "cuss word". <S> Brits, on the other hand, were using it a generation earlier - back in the days when using even relatively mild curse words was generally considered a "bad thing".
| I think it's more offensive in the UK than the US because it started in the UK, and people actually know what it means, whereas in the US "bloody" is just a funny British curse word.
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What is the possessive of "you guys"? Most people seem to stumble over this. The problem can arise with any multi-word phrase that needs a possessive but ends in S, and so sounds awkward using the clitic apostrophe-S. I've heard this particular one variously rendered as: You guys' You guys's Your guys' / your guy's What's you guys...your...guises...what's your take on it? <Q> Regardless of the various permutations being thrown around these days, the correct possessive of <S> EXAMPLES highways’ intersection <S> the beetles’ legs John E. Warriner, Warriner's English Grammar and Composition (Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), <S> 243 <S> Since you guys is a plural noun, it is subject to the above rule, which has no exception, as far as I know. <S> Indeed, you guys's is not an uncommon colloqiualism <S> (I have even used it myself on occasion) but it is grammatically incorrect, and thus has no place in standard, proper or formal contexts, whether spoken or written. <A> You guys' is correct written, pronounced you guys's . <S> (Dropping the s on the written version because guys is a plural, not because I think it should always be dropped if the word ends in an s .) <S> You rather than your because you guys is a unit and the possessive case doesn't need to be commuted across each element of it. <A> If a multi-word phrase takes a possessive, you can add ’s to the whole thing: <S> The King of France’s crown <S> The boy she likes’s books Constructions like this are unlikely to occur in formal or written English. <S> Some speakers may not pronounce the extra ’s , in which case it could be written with just an apostrophe. <S> In the case of you guys , it’s hard to tell: the word is colloquial (and regional), and there aren’t easily available sources describing the usage of the possessive. <S> Your guys’ and your guys’s seem to both be “acceptable” (i.e. used normally by native speakers) in the greater Philadelphia area; <S> you guys’ and you guys’s might be common elsewhere, but they sound a bit strange to me. <S> (In Philadelphia proper, youse guys’ is probably used too!) <S> Since you guys is colloquial, if you’re writing down the possessive of the word, you should use a spelling that reflects its pronunciation. <S> If you’re wondering what to use in conversation, the answer is whatever you’ve been using all along. <S> (I probably use your guys’ and your guys’s most of the time.) <A> "You guys" is very informal, so... I'd just say "Hey, you guys, your bikes just got run over by a steamroller". <S> And then turn around and run like hell in case they want to kill the messenger. <S> ;-) <S> Seriously, I wouldn't even try to find possessive, since "You guys" is just a form of address. <S> What I mean is <S> , it's just <S> (my reading) a kind of "plural of dude" (okay, "dudes"... <S> but do people say that?) <A> I believe the correct usage is "youse guyses", though American English spellers may substitute the "s" for a "z".
| you guys is you guys’ , spoken or written, and I quote (emphasis mine): To form the possessive case of a plural noun ending in s , add only the apostrophe.
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How common is "fugly"? "Fugly" is a vulgar slang adjective as far as I know, and I wonder how common it is, and how do people react when they hear that word. Native speakers are appreciated if they share their opinions. <Q> "Fugly" is indeed both vulgar and slang. <S> When I was growing up it in Chicago, it was understood as a combination word built of f***-ugly, where the first word is one of the proverbial words you can't say on the radio. <S> As a combination that was often used on the playground, it has less impact than the core four letter word. <S> But Horatio's description of it sounds about right - a direct insult. <A> Fugly is used in Britain, amongst certain groups of disreputable youths, as it is American slang, it must get in to the youth culture dialects via the usual media route. <S> However, there are far more common slang words that are very similar and used instead. <S> butters - a contraction of butt-ugly , slightly better form than using fugly (unless you have heard teen girls use it to bully someone, in which case any semblance of decency would fade beneath your jading eyes) <S> minging - generally meaning "repulsive", from the Scots word mingin with the meaning "stinking", note it is also used for events/things that are disgusting in addition to the descriptive use for people NB. <S> Often used in the form of an agent noun instead, minger (there is also munter , but I refuse to explain what munting means and strongly <S> suggest no one looks it up if you want to retain your latest meal) <S> rank - meaning "disgusting" and "repulsive" now, converted from the still used, more standard meaning of "malodorous" This word <S> has a long etymology, originally from the Old English ranc , see Online Etymology's account (the adjectival form) <S> rough - should be self explanatory in this context <S> manky - meaning "unclean" or "disgusting" <S> I have seen mixed etymology on this, some say originating in London, others that it is from the French manqué (from manquer - "to lack, to miss out, to fail") and <S> my personal view, the adjectival form of the archaic Scots word mank , meaning "maimed" - the Scots use manky far more than elsewhere in the past. <S> It fits with the current use best, any body part that is maimed would certainly be referred to as manky . <A> As to how it was perceived: if you said it about a 3rd party, you received smirks and giggles. <S> If you called someone "fugly" to their face, it was met with fists. <A> Dictionary.com reports only that fugly means very ugly, extremely unattractive ; it doesn't report if it is vulgar, or slang. <S> Searching for fugly in the Corpus of Contemporary American , I find that the frequency that word is used is 0.01 per million in fiction, and 0.02 <S> per million in magazines; it is not used in other contexts. <S> The word is only found in texts dated between 2005-2010 (with a frequency of 0.03 ). <S> I didn't find the word in the British National Corpus , but it doesn't contain data for texts after 1993. <S> Does what you are wearing make me think of you as more feminine or more elegant or more provocative or more intellectual or more street than I thought before? <S> And please forgive my chauvinism, but do I fancy you more? <S> A label in itself is no guarantee of desirability. <S> A hot designer's clothes can be brilliant or flat-out fugly. <S> I think women on the whole are more interested to know how they are being assessed by other women <S> ; maybe they feel the details are wasted on men. <S> But as a man, when I see women in outlandish getups, I certainly have some kind of internal dialogue with myself that comes under the heading "What were you thinking?" <S> —When Women Try too Hard, Christopher Brooks. <A> I've heard the word used and it's one that would be recognized most places in America as vulgar slang. <S> I've heard it used in the midwest and western United States.
| "Fugly" is an offensive term which is generally used to refer to a person that the speaker considers to be ugly and unattractive. When I was a teenager in Upstate New York about 30 years ago, the word was standard issue.
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What is the shortest term to refer to people whose mother tongue is English? What is the shortest term to refer to representatives of peoples and cultures whose mother tongue is English? Mothertonguers? Update: Can't I call them joe ? <Q> Native English speakers. <S> I do not believe that the term "mothertonguers" would be generally well received. <A> Native anglophone is, I believe, an even shorter term. <S> anglophone (noun) <S> an English-speaking person Oxford Dictionaries <A> In England, we tend to use a phrase (term?) popularised by Winston Churchill in a book he wrote in the early 20th Century. <S> Not as humorous (nor as open to misinterpretation) as mothertonguers. :-) <S> You won't find too many people on the streets of London who would understand what you were talking about if you asked them, 'Are you an Anglophone?' <S> Don't think you'd offend anyone, but don't believe they'd have a clue what you were asking them either. <S> More than likely, they'd think you wanted to borrow (or steal!) <S> their mobile phone <S> (translation: cellphone ). <S> If you were asking what is the correct racial name for someone (in the UK) who is English by descent, a pretty common term is Anglo-Saxon . <S> But even most (British) people of Celtic origin (i.e. Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cornish) nowadays only speak English. <S> Nearly all former British colonies, including (but not limited to) the present-day Commonwealth, are inhabited mainly by people whose "mother tongue" is English. <S> So you're really asking for a term that describes or includes dozens of countries. <S> But English-speaking (native English-speaking?) is the best description we've ever been able to come up with. <S> Really, there is no term (today) for people who speak English. <S> There used to be! <S> Once-upon-a-time they were called Englishmen . :-)
| The phrase is " the English speaking peoples ".
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What does "transparently converted" mean? The result is transparently converted to another data type. What does "transparently" mean in this context? <Q> I suspect you are talking about programming, but correct me if that is not the case. <S> I also suspect you mean "data type" and not "date type" <S> but I could be wrong there as well. <S> This is one reason why some people have a hard time debugging Javascript, because transparent conversions (also known as "coercions") won't get flagged in a debugger because they are not, strictly speaking, bugs (although Douglas Crockford might have a different opinion about that). <S> For example, in Javascript, if you write if (3 == "3") { alert("String '3' does equal the number 3");} you can see that the language has transparently converted one of the data types into another. <S> (To force Javascript to perform an exact comparison without the transparent conversion, you would have to write <S> if (3 === "3") ). <A> It means the conversion is invisible, unnoticable. <S> Like people bumping into a glass door, being so transparent as to be (nearly, depending on the lighting) invisible. <A> In programming context, transparently means without the programmer writes code to do it . <S> For example, in the following PHP code $value = 1;if ($value) { // …} the content of $value is automatically (or transparently) converted to a boolean value. <S> In other programming languages, the programmer should explicitly convert the value, writing code similar to the following: value = <S> 1;if ((boolean) value) { // … } One of the meaning of transparent reported by the NOAD is the following: (computing; of a process or interface) functioning without the user being aware of its presence. <A> In the context of computers transparency is one of three seemingly identical concepts. <S> Think about them this way: <S> real: it's there <S> and you can see it <S> virtual: it's not there but <S> you can see it transparent: it's there <S> but you can't see it <S> A transparent conversion is thus one that is happening <S> but you can't see it. <S> It's not explicit.
| If something in a coding language is "transparently converted to another dat[a] type" it means it is converted invisibly, without giving any sign that it is doing so.
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Is there another way to say "needn't have done"? I'm learning modal verbs now and get in trouble with "need" one. In my textbook it is said that: don't need to == needn't -- present simple didn't need to -- past simple needn't have done -- present perfect In some inexplicable reason I think that needn't have done sounds weird (may be because I haven't ever heard of such construction). So my question is: Is there a sentence that equal to needn't have done but without the needn't part (like the past simple one)? Or everything is just fine with it and I shouldn't keep in mind? <Q> When you write I don't need to , or I didn't need to , you are not using need as modal verb; you are using it as a normal verb. <S> Modal verbs are different from the normal verbs because: The verb doesn't take the -s for the third person. <S> To negate a modal verb, you add <S> not after the modal verb, even in the present and past tense. <S> Many modal verbs cannot be used in the past tenses or the future tenses. <S> She can speak English correctly. <S> She should not be here, now. <S> She will can go with us. <S> She musted study very hard. <S> Using need as modal verb ( need is used as modal verb only in negatives, or questions), you should write: <S> I need not [verb]. <S> I need not have [past participle of the verb]. <S> When need is used as modal verb, it is used to express necessity or obligation. <S> Need <S> I say more? <S> I need not have worried. <S> When need is not used as modal verb (which happens most of the times), then it is used as in the following sentences: I need to go, now. <S> I didn't need to know all the details. <S> I have not needed that for ages. <A> The opposite of needn't have done is should have done For example: <S> It's too late to call the bank. <S> I should have done that earlier. <S> Which is opposite in sentiment to <S> I bought oranges yesterday! <S> I needn't have done that today. <S> Which can be equally expressed as I bought oranges yesterday! <S> I didn't need to do that today. <A> Actually, all of the examples are a little weird. <S> Need is very rarely used as a modal any more, and it's likely that you'll be able to go your entire life without ever encountering it in speech. <S> It is sufficient that you be able to recognize and understand sentences like the above, but don't expect to use them much. <S> Just treat need like any other verb: <S> Present: don't need to Present perfect: haven't needed to <S> Simple past: didn't need to Past perfect: <S> hadn't needed to <S> That said, the three examples are grammatically correct, strictly speaking. <A> There is nothing wrong with "needn't have done". <S> It means, simply, "did not need to do [something]. <S> " This is true even though the cases are different. <S> The actions that have been accomplished were done in the past in both cases. <S> You paid my bill? <S> You needn't have done that. <S> I was fully prepared to pay it myself. <S> You paid my bill? <S> You did not need to do that. <S> I was fully prepared to pay it myself. <A> I'd like you to send the exammple of needn't to my e-mail for example: <S> 1- Iam a student in a school . <S> I'm very tired <S> so I needn't work so hard .2- <S> He is a journalist . <S> he is in his office. <S> He can't write any report because he needs more truth information. <S> 3- Jane is a secreatary .she <S> can't answer the phone because her phone is out of order <S> so she needs a telepnohe reepairer. <S> etc...
| The phrase needn't have done is a fine, though archaic, way of saying didn't need to have done...
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Meaning of the word 'rap' CIA takes rap for embassy attack. <Q> While I agree with @Kosmonaut, I think it may be useful to advert to the derivation of this word. <S> From Etymonline.com : <S> "quick, light blow," mid-14c., native or borrowed from a Scandinavian source (cf. <S> Dan. <S> rap, Swed. rapp "light blow"); <S> either way probably of imitative origin (cf. <S> slap, clap). <S> The verb is attested from late 14c. <S> Slang noun meaning "rebuke, blame, responsibility" is from 1777 ; specific meaning "criminal indictment" (cf. <S> rap sheet, 1960) is from 1903. <S> To rap (someone's) knuckles "give light punishment" is from 1749. <S> So this stems from the meaning of rap as "a blow" (in the sense of striking someone with the hand) and acquired the additional meaning of "punishment" along the way and then added to that a sense of criminal culpability. <A> From Merriam-Webster : <S> the responsibility for or adverse consequences of an action: refused to take the rap . <S> The CIA took the responsibility for allowing the embassy attack. <A> Notice also that rap is an informal word used for criminal charge , or a person or thing's reputation . <A> Literally, rap means knock ! <S> A reprimand or rebuke now considered old-fashioned by some, a knock on the head—quick, instant and effective—was the favorite of parents and disciplinarians who did not shy away from corporal punishment. <A> A rap on the knuckles is a commonly used idiom, synonymous with a slap on the wrist .
| The NOAD reports that to take the rap is used in informal contexts for be punished or blamed, especially for something that is not one's fault or for which others are equally responsible .
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Which Is Correct: "Do More Faster" or "Do More, Faster"? I have been stumbling with this phrase for a few days now. I read a book the other day called "Do More Faster". The title comes from a slogan about startups getting more work done than their competition, and getting work done faster. However, to me the sentence sounds like it is talking about making the "more" faster instead of making the "do" both more and faster. The way I would write the phase would be to add a comma after more: "Do More, Faster". Which Is Correct: "Do More Faster" or "Do More, Faster"? <Q> "Do More Faster" (no comma), because it provides no break or breathing-space, successfully suggests the speediness that the book is trying to promote. <A> "Do More Faster" confuses two grammatical roles of "more. <S> " <S> The book's author intends it to mean "More (Things/Projects/Work/etc.)," and you can see that the comma wouldn't be necessary if the noun were included thus: "Do More Work Faster. <S> " <S> Written without the comma, however, it makes "More" seem as if it modifies "Faster," and that would be grammatically incorrect. <S> ("More faster" is certainly unacceptable.) <S> Therefore, "Do More, Faster," would be my preference for clarity, but if we accept the author's intention in using "More" as a noun, the comma becomes unnecessary. <S> (And I agree with Martha's point about this usage being a title; in that context, the comma's absence is more acceptable.) <A> The version with a comma is somewhat more clear, but I can totally see omitting the comma in a title.
| Both are correct, and while I can see where you're coming from with the meaning distinction you make, I think the intended meaning of both is the same (i.e. both "more" and "faster" apply to "do").
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What part of speech is "chiropractic"? "Chiropractic" sounds like an adjective because of the "ic", but the title "Doctor of Chiropractic" seems like a noun. Am I just confused? <Q> The OED lists it as both an adjective and a noun. <S> Other dictionaries, such as Wiktionary, list it as only a noun. <S> Merriam-Webster Online, curiously enough, defines a noun, and lists a possible adjectival form as a related word, but doesn't seem to mention it again. <S> Based on this, I would say it's definitely a noun. <S> But is it also an adjective, as the OED supposes? <S> The COCA has the various following usages: objected to chiropractic medicine because have received chiropractic treatment chiropractic consultation <S> You wouldn't say "podiatry medicine", "podiatry treatment", or "podiatry consultation",. <S> Instead, the proper way is to use the adjectival form: "podiatric medicine", "podiatric treatment", "podiatric consultation". <S> Thus, chiropractic is both a noun and an adjective. <A> I agree that "chiropractory" is nonsense. " <S> Chiropractic" is unquestionably a noun, in wide usage. <S> And consider this: "Chiropractic" as a noun derives from the simple elision of "medicine" from the original phrase "chiropractic medicine," a still-valid phrase in which the original parts of speech are clear. <S> Over time, the abbreviated usage came into being, presumably because it was just easier and faster to say. <S> Taking it further: "Allopathic medicine" and "osteopathic medicine" are two other main branches of medical practice. <S> These names refer to M.D.'s and D.O.'s. <S> Most people would recognize these as the degrees that physicians usually have. <S> In the U.S., one's primary doctor and most specialists are M.D.'s, but a huge percentage are D.O.'s, especially in the Midwest. <S> They are legally, ethically, and functionally equivalent medical degrees, although the historical philosophic underpinnings of these two disciplines differ. <S> And although the terms "allopathic medicine" and "osteopathic medicine" are not very commonly used, the proper derived form of each is "allopathy" and "osteopathy." <S> Similarly, "chiropathy" (certainly not "chiropractory") would qualify as the proper noun form of "chiropractic medicine," but for reasons unclear to me, it is not much in use. <S> It has been used, however, and can still be found in recent usage. <A> There are a few other nouns with the suffix -ic, such as arithmetic and perhaps most relevant, the archaic noun physic "medicine." <S> Perhaps seeing these examples next to each other will help reduce confusion.
| As other answers have established, "chiropractic" is definitely used as a noun.
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Do "willingness" and "effort" imply different things? In a post on Meta Stack Overflow, I used the word "willingness" in the following context: [X] is showing a willingness to learn. I justified this because [X] had posted a question asking to have a few lines of code explained. However, another user took it to mean [X] has not demonstrated that they have put forth any effort to learn. Willingness means actual effort [...] Personally, I believe that there is a very great difference between the two words, both as defined and the underlying connotation, in that effort is not a prerequisite of willingness. Am I correct, or is "willingness" generally understood to require effort? <Q> "Willingness" and "effort" are certainly not interchangeable. <S> The former is an apt attitude for doing something, while the latter is the work thereof. <S> Consider, "I want to get this done" compared to "I did that". <A> <A> Willing means ready, eager, or prepared to do something . <S> He was quite willing to compromise. <S> Willingness to doing something doesn't implicate an effort on doing something. <S> For example, in the sentence I am willing to add the name of your company in the list of the contributors, but I need the vote of other three people before I can do it. <S> The willingness to add the name of the company in the list doesn't implicate an effort from who is willing to do it. <S> To add the name of your company could simply mean write the name of the company on a paper, or add the company name in a page of a website. <S> It would require an effort if the names of the companies are carved in stone, or if I would need to persuade three people to vote for adding the company.
| Willingness is passive [in the human sense]; effort is active [in the human sense].
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Why is a transportation by road called a "Shipment" but a transportation by seaways called "Cargo"? I was just reading an article concerning a product trade and transports between countries and came through these words that made me wonder about their differences. <Q> I disagree with @baquiano to some extent. <S> For one thing, shipment can also refer to the goods themselves, as in The shipment of machine parts was due to arrive yesterday. <S> Such a shipment can be cargo when it is in transit. <S> But it can still be a shipment even when it is no longer in transit. <S> The shipment of machine parts arrived yesterday, and is currently in the warehouse. <S> So in that respect it differs from cargo . <S> Once cargo is no longer in transit, it is no longer cargo. <S> Just for the record, my Webster's defines cargo as goods carried on a ship, aircraft, or motor vehicle and shipment as a quantity of goods shipped; a consignment <S> Think of a shipment as something that is, was, or will be shipped. <S> Think of cargo as something that is currently being shipped. <S> And take shipped to mean "carried by some type of long-distance conveyance" (not limited to actual ships). <A> It can be made by road, sea or air, since it represents a group of items that will be transported from one place to another once. <S> If you receive a shipment of jeans, for example, it will have traveled at least a bit by ground. <S> Cargo usually refers to the goods themselves, independently if they are moved by ground, sea or air. <A> A shipment is generally referred to as a collection of goods which at some point will be, are currently, or have already been moved from one geographical location to another. <S> For Example: [Will Be]: The shipment will be sent out on Friday.[Are Currently]: The shipment is in transit to its final destination.[Have Already Been]: The shipment arrived yesterday. <S> Cargo has a possessive implication as in the cargo of a ship or a truck's cargo. <S> A shipment is non-possessive and can generally span multiple shipment methods. <S> In many cases these terms may be used interchangeably. <S> Shipments is most likely an older term which originally referred to products retrieved from a large cargo ship. <A> Take a container of goods that will be transported by some means. <S> From the frame of reference of the ship, truck, or plane, and the people handling the container while in transit, that container is cargo . <S> From the frame of reference of people on either end who are not involved in the actual transport, that container is a shipment .
| A shipment usually refers to the process of moving goods.
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US Equivalent to the Oxford English Dictionary Apologies if this question is inappropriate for the site. In the US, what would be equivalent to the OED? The de facto standard. I know there's the New Oxford American Dictionary but in the US does this have the same gravitas as the OED has in the UK? <Q> Probably the most famous American dictionary is the controversial Webster’s Third New International Dictionary , which made headlines when it was first published for taking a hard-line descriptivist stance, particularly for its treatment of the word ain’t . <S> It remains the most important unabridged dictionary of American English, although it hasn’t received a major revision since it was first published in 1961. <S> The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary , which is shorter and can be held in one hand, remains Merriam-Webster’s flagship dictionary, receiving frequent updates and revisions. <S> It is also the best-selling dictionary of American English. <S> The online version is accessible at Merriam-Webster.com . <S> The other significant dictionary of American English is the American Heritage Dictionary , which was published by the owner of the history magazine American Heritage , who was appalled by the permissiveness of Webster’s Third . <S> The American Heritage Dictionary is notable for pioneering the use of corpus linguistics in dictionary compilation, as well as for its 200-member “usage panel” who the dictionary consults when writing usage notes, reporting what percentage of the panel approved or disapproved of different contested usages. <S> There are othe American dictionaries which are well-regarded but not as well-known, such as the Oxford American , Random House , and Webster’s New World . <S> Americans generally don’t distinguish among dictionaries and typically refer to all dictionaries as “the dictionary”, as in “I’ll look that up in the dictionary”. <A> The OED is a historical dictionary, which means it shows the meanings of words as they developed over time. <S> People use it as a standard, but it does not set out to be one, and the editors of the OED discourage people from deciding whether or not to use a word based solely on its inclusion in the OED. <S> The New Oxford American Dictionary is not a historical dictionary, but a dictionary of current English, and is much smaller than the OED in the number of terms covered. <S> (If you have a Mac, you already have this dictionary, because it's the dictionary used by the Dictionary Widget in the dashboard.) <S> It has not been updated for about a hundred years, though. <S> The bigger question is: what do you want a standard for? <S> To tell you whether or not something is a word? <S> No dictionary will tell you that, only usage. <S> Etymology? <S> The OED is among the best for etymology, although there are other sites that have better ones for particular words (and despite the Century's age, its etymologies are on a par with the OED). <S> Advice on correct or accepted usage? <S> You'd be better off with the Dictionary of Modern American Usage. <S> An impressive book to put on a stand? <S> True dictionary aficionados like Merriam Webster's Second International (rather than the third), as a prestige thing. <S> (Or again, a copy of the Century, although that's ten volumes.) <A> The major difference is that the NOAD presents the American variant spellings first and contains words and usage that are not used in other English dialects. <A> There isn't a standard, but the best sellers should have the greatest influence. <S> Judging by the current best-sellers on Amazon, they are: <S> Merriam-Webster American Heritage <S> Webster's New World New Oxford American
| New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD) is part of the great work done by the OED group and does pull the same weight as the rest of their publications. If you are looking for a dictionary that set itself up as a standard, especially for scientific and technical vocabulary of the day you might look at the Century Dictionary (commentary at link).
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What do you call someone who betrays his/her spouse sexually? What do you call someone who betrays his/her spouse sexually? Is the word different for men and women? Is it different for people who are in a relationship and not still married? <Q> For a word that can refer to both married people or people in a relationship, you can use cheat , cheater , two-time (informal). <S> Two-time is also used as verb, as reported from the NOAD: <S> He was two-timing a fiancé back in England . <A> Adulterer is gender neutral but refers specifically to a marriage, not other relationships. <S> edit: Merriam-Webster lists a female form, adulteress , but it seems to have fallen into disuse. <A> The term philanderer could be used, although it is more rare and often used along with the other terms mentioned (adulterer/adulteress/two-timer/cheater). <S> The person who engages in philandering is a person who engages in at least one, if not many frivolous sexual exploits outside of the bounds of marriage. <S> Philanderer has a strong male connotation. <S> I have not heard this term used in reference to females. <S> You dirty, rotten, two-timing, cheating, adulterous philanderer! <S> I trusted you! <S> When referring to an unfaithful woman, sometimes much more vulgar terms are used, usually in relation to her sexual morals and/or her potential willingness to engage in prostitution. <A> Most commonly the betrayer is referred to as an adulterer, although cheater works as a more colloquial term. <S> I'm pretty sure it is gender neutral, as well. <A> The technical/formal/old(?) <S> term is adulterer/adulteress. <S> The term used by ordinary people in not-extremely-formal contexts is cheater. <A> Cheating on one's spouse is not the only way to betray them; there are several others e.g. disclosing a spouse's deepest secrets, causing your spouse some form of public humiliation, etc. <S> If the betrayal involves sexual escapades or an illicit/extramarital affair, then relevant terms are: cheat <S> • womanizer <S> • <S> skirt-chaser • adulterer[ress] <S> • fornicator • heartbreaker • <S> philanderer <S> • husband-snatcher • <S> two-timer • <S> unfaithful spouse <S> • <S> ladies' man • seductress <S> • <S> Don Juan <S> • <S> Casanova <A> The word for a man/woman who is married and has sex with a woman/man who is not his/her wife/husband is adulterer/adulteress <A> While English does retain some nouns for a person who displays infidelity in a marital relationship, these terms have the sense of being curiously dated. <S> To call a person "a cheat" or "a philanderer" harkens back to the kind of language you'd hear in some Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedy from yesteryear. <S> It is possible to say, "he's an adulterer," but to do so is branding the person with an identity, and socially it's becoming less permissible to do that. <S> Rather, the more common ways to express this sort of thing is through more active terms that describe the activity itself: <S> He's cheating on her. <S> She's seeing another man. <S> He was unfaithful to her. <S> She went around behind his back. <S> Etc. <A> From a British perspective, I would say that cheat (exactly the same spelling as the verb) and two-timer (with an r ) are the standard nouns describing people outside a marriage. <S> Cheater is used colloquially, but is frowned upon as incorrect. <S> Two-time is used as a verb, not a noun. <S> As others have stated, adulterer and adulteress are the standard, formal terms for people within a marriage. <A> Perhaps not PC, but in English common law betrayal of one's husband (or lord) was called petit treason. <S> However this tended to be for extreme betrayals: a knife in the back where the blade was rather more solid than a metaphor. <A> A philanderer can be a person who is not married. <A> Works for both man and woman: <S> Bedswerver One who swerves from and is unfaithful to the marriage vow. <A> It is infidelity or an affair (marriage) vs cheating "the game" and its "players" and "sluts" on both sides, when it comes to dating. <S> Most marriages are just a pipe dream between two "players" who regain their love for "the game" eventually. <S> Well, on average it takes seven years; <S> Then the carriage turns back into a pumpkin.
| For people who are married, you can use adulterer (which is gender-neutral) or adulteress (when referring to her).
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Which is larger a "chasm" or a "gulf?" For the meaning: figurative : a profound differencebetween people, viewpoints, feelings,etc. Is a chasm or a gulf generally interpreted as being a larger difference? A: The gulf between rich and poor has grown into a chasm? B: The difference is not merely a chasm,but a gulf. <Q> Let's consider their geological meanings. <S> A chasm is a deep opening in the earth. <S> A gulf is deep wide chasm of water. <S> By that logic, a gulf is really just a type of chasm. <S> So it's impossible to determine which is actually larger. <S> However, if we are permitted to be unscientific: usually when I come across the two terms, I tend to think of a gulf as being much larger because the first chasm that comes to my mind is the Grand Canyon, whereas the first gulf that comes to mind is the Gulf of Mexico. <S> The gulf vs. chasm comparison is really very ambiguous. <A> A sentence such as "The gulf between rich and poor has grown into a chasm. <S> " is really using a kind of mixed metaphor. <S> As others have shown, a gulf is more about width, a chasm about depth. <S> One is filled with water, the other air. <S> The temptation to use them together arises because both are geographical terms often co-opted to mean a large separation that is difficult to reduce or bridge. <S> However we compare molehills with mountains - we don't compare mountains with rivulets or molehills with torrents. <S> It would be much better to express the thought using words which more naturally form a pair. <S> For example: gulf and ocean. <A> "Gulf" is used metaphorically to mean a separation between two things with nothing in between. <S> Chasm means impassible depth, gulf does not. <A> A chasm is more menacing since it is more difficult to cross than a gulf . <S> For a chasm that's 300 m wide with equal height on both sides, you need at least a hot air balloon to cross. <S> Whereas a gulf <S> that's <S> 300m wide can be crossed by swimming.
| A chasm is a very evocative, dramatic word, implying a very deep, steep hole or crack in the earth.
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How does "if you must know" differ from "you may (might) know"? In the following Washington Post's article (Feb. 13) reporting the outcome of CPAC 2011, I found the phrase if you must know . I think this phrase means though it may not be essential knowledge that you are supposed to have , or just for your reference . What is the difference of nuance among if you must know , you may know , and you might know , which is difficult for non-native English learner to discern? The three-day Conservative Political Action Conference ended Saturday afternoon with a meaningless presidential straw poll (if you must know, libertarian gadfly Ron Paul won for the second year in a row). <Q> It's a little rude, as it implies that the listener is being nosy (intrusive). <S> E.g., "Why weren't you at work yesterday?" -- "If you must know, I was visiting a family member in the hospital." <S> "You may/might know" introduces a fact somewhat apologetically. <S> My understanding of it is that it's apologizing for wasting the time of the listener if they already know the fact. <S> I think it also implies that the speaker isn't presuming that the listener is ignorant of the fact (to prevent insulting the listener's intelligence). <A> The three-day Conservative Political Action Conference ended Saturday afternoon with a meaningless presidential straw poll (if you must know, libertarian gadfly Ron Paul won for the second year in a row). <S> The article is written in a very chatty style, and the writer has just described the culminating straw poll as essentially meaningless (which straw polls are by their very nature: <S> Webster's defines straw poll as "an unofficial ballot conducted as a test of opinion"). <S> In other words, it was a nonevent . <S> Given that context, "if you must know" is a chatty way of implying that no one would really want to know the outcome of such a poll unless he suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder or some kind of unhealthy fascination with trivia. <S> It has nothing to do with the phrases "you may know" or "you might know". <A> Phrases of the form "if you must ... " <S> (or indeed "if you must!" <S> without a following verb) are a particular idiom in English. <S> It uses "must" in the sense of obligation, but the idiomatic part is that it is implying " you think you must do this, but I don't agree, and I'm going to provide or permit whatever you are asking, but grudgingly". <S> Edit: actually, it can be used even where there's no suggestion that the other person thinks that they 'must', but just that they're doing it anyway " <S> If you must use that word, please don't do it in front of me!" <S> But in the case of "if you must know", since their knowing is dependent on the speaker's telling them, the implication is indeed "if (in your opinion) you have to know". <A> How would native English speakers know that "if you must know" isn't intended literally? <S> The context provides an initial cue. <S> No one, not even a person deeply interested in American conservative politics, really has to know that this particular libertarian gadfly has won the same meaningless straw poll for the second time. <S> Thus the writer makes clear that he regards the information as unimportant. <S> When so using "if you must know" in spoken English, the speaker emphasizes the "must"—the very word he does not literally mean. <S> In the quoted statement, "if you must know" means "I'm going to tell you this fact even though you didn't ask and may not be interested. <S> " This fits the "chatty" style to which Robusto refers.
| "If you must know..." typically introduces a fact that the speaker is reluctant to reveal.
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Who is ‘Sarah Palin impersonator’? Further to my question about the meaning of "If you must know" in Washington Post’s article on CPAC conference which I posted this morning in the forum, I stumbled on a phrase: the Sarah Palin impersonator . According to the article, the votes resulted in Texas Rep. Ron Paul coming up in the 1st place, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the 2nd place. That said, why Sarah Palin impersonator is not impersonators . As long as the impersonator is in singular form, who is very Sarah Palin impersonator? It can be simply many republicans who are followers of Sara Palin's credos and her action patterns. But in that case, inpersonator should be in plural form. Am I wrong? Could you explain who the Sarah Palin impersonator is? The Conservative Political Action Conference is over. The thousands of activists who converged on northwest Washington have begun returning home. The Sarah Palin impersonator has left the building. <Q> This person gained their 15 minutes of fame on broadcast television, but was otherwise not mentioned by the news media. <A> Dour High Arch has this one correct. <S> It was an actual, literal Sarah Palin impersonator: someone who got made up to look like Sarah Palin. <S> Oishi-san, this might be a good time to review the definition of impersonator : <S> impersonator : someone who pretends to be (another person) as entertainment or in order to deceive someone <S> In this case, entertainment might have been the object, but the intent was certainly to deceive. <S> The article doesn't mean the other Reupblican candidates were mimicking the style of Sarah Palin, it means one person was actually pretending to be Sarah Palin. <S> Note that the article says The Sarah Palin impersonator has left the building. <S> This is meant to echo the famous line: <S> Elvis has left the building. <S> which used to be announced at the end of Elvis Presley concerts so that the screaming fans would stop chanting for him to return and give yet another encore. <S> The reason the article uses this construction is to emphasize the fact that the CPAC is officially over and everyone can go home and stop pretending something is still happening there. <S> Short version: no more news is coming out of the CPAC, folks. <S> Let's move on. <A> It sounds to me like the author is speaking metaphorically. <S> The Conservative Political Action Conference itself impersonated the style of Sarah Palin. <S> It can be simply many republicans who are followers of Sara Palin's credos and her action patterns. <S> But in that case, 'inpersonator' should be in plural form. <S> Am I wrong? <S> Since it was a metaphor, there was not a specific "impersonator" or "impersonators" referred to. <S> It makes sense to speak in the singular. <S> EDIT: <S> It seems there was an actual impersonator there, so the statement wasn't necessarily metaphorical. <S> Good catch Dour High Arch.
| The "Sarah Palin impersonator" refers to an actual Sarah Palin impersonator, a person who showed up at the meeting impersonating Sarah Palin .
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How to understand the word cascade in CSS? Why it is called cascade, instead of inheritable , or derivable , or chained , or something else? Maybe I have misunderstood the word? And, when should I use the word cascade in my own software architectures? <Q> Cascading is used in a manner specifically referring to the priority-based rule matching mechanism. <S> Inherit would tend to be avoided because CSS isn't a programming language, and the way cascading rules work illustrates that; CSS cascading is actually very nearly the opposite of OOP inheritance. <S> Chaining implies entities being joinable in sequence in a way that isn't the case with CSS. <S> Derivable tends to imply a bottom-up organization, like with inheritance, where CSS's is more top-down. <S> If you are making architecture that involves a broad set of entities with subsets being targeted for processing by arbitrary rule sets that can override each other based on their priority, then I would say sure, use cascading as part of its description. <A> a waterfall)" where one flow follows another, each building upon the previous. <S> Inheritable doesn't work here, that word is more usually applied to Object Oriented architectures, and elements don't "inherit" a greater set of attributes. <S> I don't know why the word cascading in particular was chosen, but if you read the cascading rules section of the CSS2 specification <S> , you'll see that they speak of a cascading order and precedence, where declarations are declared one on top of another. <S> This process wouldn't be quite as evocative with a word such as chaining which implies a sequential not a cumulative process. <A> Inheritable would be the closest synonym you suggested. <S> The effect of a number of style sheets "cascade" in that their effects are incrementally combined as they are applied in sequence. <S> For an example of when to use the word "cascade" w.r.t. technology (albeit hardware) you might like to look at the operation of "adder" circuits that "cascade" bit operations to perform a full arithmetic operation.
| CSS - Cascading Style Sheets Cascade means "to flow or fall in or like a cascade (ie.
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Proper use of the word "lousy"? Is the sentence below correct? The place is lousy with hippies I looked it up on merriam-webster.com but they said that lousy was: infested with lice Close, but not quite there... <Q> Your sentence, The place is lousy with hippies means the place is filled with undesirable or unwanted hippies. <S> Here the meaning of being infested with lice is not used. <S> You can look up in Oxford English Dictionary - here . <S> Therefore the sentence is correct. <A> The NOAD reports that lousy means also teeming with something regarded as bad or undesirable . <S> You can understand lousy as metaphorically referring to an infestation. <S> The town is lousy with tourists. <A> As others have said, probably the commonest meaning of lousy today is simply bad . <S> Ugh, the weather here is lousy. <S> However, the OP’s example is not quite this sense; it’s a figurative usage a bit closer to the original in meaning. <S> Lousy with X is roughly equivalent to swarming with X , or more generally, well-supplied with <S> X . <S> It often implies that X’s are undesirable (as in the OP’s lousy with hippies ), but not always: <S> Amazon is Lousy with Gaming Deals Today — kotaku.com headline <S> The Random House Mavens’ Word of the Day has a nice little article on the matter. <A> I'm not sure what you think lousy means, but from your example phrase, it doesn't look like you think it means what I think it means! <S> In general usage, lousy means "of bad quality" or just plain bad. <S> In fact, I'd say that you'll find it is almost exclusively used with that meaning. <S> If people are referring to something that is infested with lice, they are more likely to say "infested with lice", or "lice-infested", to avoid being misunderstood. <S> Because if you say, "my lousy son", people are more likely to think you are referring to his bad attitude than his bad hair... <S> (It's interesting to note that on this Merriam-Webster page , even though the 1st meaning is give as "infested with lice", all of the usage examples relate to the one I suggest above) <S> Edit , as @Ian points out in his comment below, the ambiguity would be written, because when speaking, one would differentiate between louSSy (with 'louses') and louZy (bad/'naff'). <S> Nevertheless, I can't think of the last time I heard <S> anyone say louSSy. <S> ( Re-edit read the comments) <A> It's pronounced "LOW-zee" in the US and UK. <S> Originally it meant "full of lice", and the implication in calling someone a louse is that they're (metaphorically) a blood-sucking pest. <S> But as noted, it's hardly ever used to actually <S> say that someone has lice. <S> You'd generally say "has lice". <S> As I did.
| Lousy means generally of poor quality (materially or morally).
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What is the difference between "sardonic" and "sarcastic"? Basically, sardonic and sarcastic both stand for mocking gestures, but what is the difference in their contextual use? Are there any other words that represent a similar gesture? <Q> Examples: <S> Sarcastic: <S> Well, this meeting with the boss should be hilarious. <S> Sardonic: Time for the monthly flogging by a twerp in a suit; I'll try not to get blood on the executive carpet. <S> Sardonic humour is mocking, but not necessarily sarcastic; sarcasm is stating a counterfactual, whereas sardony is a moment of grim poetic humour and may or may not contain counterfactuals. <S> The above example uses melodrama rather than sarcasm as a device. <A> @Manoochehr doesn't quite catch the meaning of sardonic. <S> It means "grimly mocking or cynical. <S> " <S> My Webster's gives its origin as mid 17th cent. <S> : from French sardonique , earlier sardonien , via Latin from Greek sardonios ‘of Sardinia,’ alteration of sardanios, used by Homer to describe bitter or scornful laughter . <S> It really doesn't carry the connotation of superiority or low opinion all by itself, although such feelings may accompany it. <S> Sardonic is in fact distinct from <S> sarcastic but not by much, and many people use the two as if they are interchangeable, which, strictly speaking, they are not. <A> According to Longman Dictionary of contemporary English: <S> Sardonic : showing that you do not have a good opinion of someone or something, and feel that you are better than them <S> He looked at her with sardonic amusement. <S> Sarcastic : <S> saying things that are the opposite of what you mean, in order to make an unkind joke or to show that you are annoyed <S> Was she being sarcastic ? <S> sarcastic remark/comment/question <S> He can’t help making sarcastic comments. <S> sarcastic manner/smile/laugh etc <S> ‘I thought so,’ she said with a sarcastic smile. <A> The definition of the words I can read on the NOAD are: <S> Sarcastic: marked by or given to using irony in order to mock or convey contempt. <S> Sardonic: grimly mocking or cynical. <S> She wrote sarcastic comments on their failures. <S> She's witty and sarcastic. <S> Starkey attempted a sardonic smile. <S> The differences between the words are: sardonic doesn't implicate the use of irony; <S> sarcastic is not used referring something/somebody cynical; sarcastic doesn't implicate a grim (sad or relentless) tone. <S> The NOAD, in a note titled The right word , reports also: <S> Irony is the implicit humor in the contradiction between what is meant and what is expressed, or in the discrepancy between appearance and reality. <S> An example would be to shout, in the midst of a hurricane, What a perfect day for a wedding! <S> Although sarcasm may take the form of irony, it is less subtle and is often used harshly or bitterly to wound or ridicule someone. <S> Unlike irony, however, sarcasm depends on tone of voice for its effect ( "a fine friend you turned out to be!", he said, with obvious sarcasm ). <A> To answer the currently unanswered half of the question: Criticism, if done correctly, is different to sardonism or sarcasm in that they are a mode of voice, while criticism should be a balanced review of a subject. <S> Unfortunately, bad criticism generally comes over as sardonic and sarcastic - <S> so, you can see the confusion.
| Sardonic is more extreme and negative, and one can be sarcastic without being sardonic, and vice-versa.
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How to name a 15-minute period? In Dutch, we have the word "kwartier" to denote a 15-minute period. It is derived from the word "kwart", which means quarter . It is very common to use this word in both spoken and written language. Is there a similar word or expression in English (e.g. quarter )? And is it very common to use this word, or is it more commonplace to use expressions such as quarter of an hour , 15 minutes , etc.? The scenario I'm considering in particular is that of labels on forms or in software. The 'user' has to indicate how much time was spent on something, in time units of 15 minutes. What would be the most appropriate way: Time spent: # quarters Time spent: # quarters of an hour Time spent: # times 15 minutes Time spent: # minutes (in software, make 15-minute increments the only possible way to input the time) … <Q> Quarter-hour would be your best bet, although native speakers tend not to use this in regular conversation. <S> Quarter of an hour is also correct, but, I daresay, less likely to be used. <S> The phrase, every fifteen minutes can often be heard in everyday usage. <S> For the specific software situation you mentioned, again, quarter-hour would be your best bet. <S> On its own, quarter in temporal contexts usually refers to quarter of a year . <A> "Quarters of an hour" or "15-minute periods" are the only ways I can think of. <S> But an English speaker would be least confused by seeing a 'reduced fraction', as: "Time spent: 2 hours and 15 minutes" or <S> "Time spent: 1 hour and 45 minutes" This might take a little extra coding, but seeing "Time spent: 12 15-minute periods" only makes sense if you always use it for one session, and one session is always 15 minutes. <A> "Quarter-hour" is a perfectly good word in my English. <A> One of the meanings reported from the NOAD for quarter <S> is: a period of fifteen minutes or a point of time marking the transition from one fifteen-minute period to the next: the baby was born at a quarter past nine . <S> To be understood as meaning that, quarter should be used in a specific context; quarter (at least in American English) has other meanings (e.g., a quarter of dollar , a quarter of pound , one fourth of a lunar month , or one term of four in a college year ) and without a specific context the meaning is not clear. <A> For a software program geared towards English-speakers, I strongly recommend against representing 15-minute intervals as anything other than 15 minutes. <S> That is, entering that one spent 3 quarter-hours on something <S> is significantly more confusing that simply 45 minutes. <A> Those with a science fictional bent may be aware that a kilosecond (often abbreviated "kilosec") is quite similar in length to a quarter of an hour. <S> I've heard it in the wild a few times, but it would be a source of confusion in most contexts and would mark you as a little weird even when understood. <A> I agree with Jim Oke - there is such a word - quarter-hour <S> “A six-man honor guard took station around the closed coffin for the first in a round-the-clock relay of half-hour and quarter-hour watches; the glittering corps (McNamara, IBM's tom Watson, Walter Reuther, Ralph Abernathy, Robert Lowell, Arthur Goldberg, Ted Sorensen, Sidney Poitier, Budd Schulberg, William Styron) was fresh testimony to the reach and the fierce allure of the Kennedys.” <S> - Newsweek: Bobby's Last, Longest Day <A> Dutch only has this shorthand solution for the quarter hour; if you want to say half an hour, you don't have the same shorthand, so you have to use all the words -- "het duurt een half" <S> would be meaningless without strong context. <S> English has shorthand for neither, so you have to use all the words for both, or (without strong context) they're equally meaningless. <A> A lot of times you want to describe the purpose of the 15 minutes in some way. <S> When the purpose is described by a noun, <S> the adjective 15-minute can be used. <S> For example: a 15-minute break I'm taking the dog for a 15-minute walk. <S> In Dutch you might multiply the kwartieren , for example to denote 45-minute or 75-minute periods (30- and 60-minute intervals are more commonly referred to as half-an-hour or hour, respectively). <S> In the 45-minute case, the adjective 45-minute seems pretty common, for example: a 45-minute class a 45-minute lunch break
| Linguistically-speaking, "quarter-hour" is the best, but for usability reasons, I recommend sticking with minutes.
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Creating a new word If you invent a new word, how do you go about getting this recognised as a real word in dictionaries? <Q> Words are added to a dictionary on the basis of their usage. <S> Before it gets into the dictionary, the word is carefully monitored to see if people use it often and how they use it (context). <S> Here is a link to an article that explains how a word is added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary . <A> I would say that any word is a "real" word if it is in some sense established and those using it have a shared concept of what it means. <S> Whether particular dictionaries decide or not to include that word is their problem; it doesn't affect the reality or non-reality of that word. <S> After all, the human species was speaking languages for thousands of years before the first dictionary was invented... <S> As for the question of on what criteria particular dictionaries decide to include words, this is really specific to the dictionary in question. <S> In more technical dictionaries, or technical words in general dictionaries, it is usually a question of which words <S> the consultant(s) decide ought to be included. <S> For more general language, there's often a sense that some number of clear, attributable examples must be available (so an example where it is clear that the word is in some kind of "mainstream" use, and where its meaning is clear from the context). <S> If you have coined/come across a word that is in some kind of "accepted" use <S> and you think ought to be included in a particular dictionary, you could always contact its editors with your examples. <A> ;-) <S> Seriously, it's simply that you don't "go about getting it recognized". <S> You get it used by others. <S> The more, the merrier... and finally, the Merriam(-Webster). <S> Nobody said it'd be easy, you know.
| How you go about getting it into a dictionary is simple: write your own dictionary. You can't do anything other than getting it out there, getting it used.
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What does “make it cross” mean? I believe it's a British phrase. I found it in that website, as: Fiat's Panda can offer an affordable route into 4x4 ownership. You just have to make it Cross. If you happen to know more meanings except for the one example I've provided, please let me know. <Q> It's a pun. <S> "Make it cross" without context would mean "Make it angry"; but the second meaning here is "Make it a Fiat Panda Cross rather than just a Fiat Panda". <A> This is a really weird marketing slogan. <S> (has multiple uses) and is a kind of cross (mongrel/mix breed). <S> So I guess you could say that 'make it cross' in this context either means push it to do more rugged, off-road things (make it angry?), or make it cross (over) from one driving environment to another. <A> It's a play on words between make it cross [the route, the street, the path] and make it Cross , meaning to change to four-wheel drive , or change from gasoline to methane .
| The car (the Fiat Panda Cross) is meant to be an urban 4x4, which means it's good for urban driving, but it also has some off-road capability, so Panda Cross hints that it's cross-purpose
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"My another account" vs. "my other account" A little debate going on here so I just want to know which one it is; I'm saying it's my other account since my another would be my one other account . The other person insists they both can be used; however, I'm more than positive that it's only other in that context. Plus, my another account just sounds wrong to the ears. Which one is it? <Q> It can't be "my another account" in my idiolect and in most standard dialects of English. <S> A standard analysis would be that the "an" element in "another" is an article, and that the use of a possessive adjective (like "my") replaces the article, so <S> "my another ..." has effectively got the article duplicated, which you can't have. <A> Possessive adjectives take the place of an article like <S> an in a phrase <S> (they're both determiners). <S> So mixing "my" with the "an" from another is incorrect. <A> My another account is not correct; it is correct to say my other account . <S> Googling for my another , I found many instances of the phrase, but none of those are correct: sometimes who wrote it meant another of my […] ; sometimes who wrote it simply meant my other . <S> * <S> That is my another problem. <S> (That is another of my problems.) <S> I have been suspend from my another accounted!? <S> (My other account has been suspended?) <S> * <S> My another acc. <S> is locked, I cannot login! <S> (My other account is blocked. <S> I cannot log in!) <S> * Could you please check my another essay. <S> (Could you please check my other essay?) <S> * <S> This is my another friend's profile. <S> (This is another profile of my friend.) <S> Looking for <S> my another on the Corpus of Contemporary American , and Corpus of Historical American <S> , I found two instance of the phrase; in both the cases my another replaces my mother , and it is a transcription error, as <S> my another is not used to mean my mother . <S> CARREY : <S> Yes, for me, my mother was in pain all the time. <S> I wanted to fix her. <S> She was depressed, so I wanted to make her laugh. <S> But I remember when I was eight years old actually having the thought that I want to make my mother believe she gave birth to a miracle. <S> That was the conscience thought I had, is that I want <S> my another to feel like her life was worth something <S> , that she did something special. <S> And I was going to be that something special. <S> KING : <S> A conscious thought at Eight? <S> CARREY : <S> Conscious thought at eight years old. <S> KING <S> : Did you help her? <S> CARREY <S> : I did in certain ways <S> and I couldn't in certain ways. <S> —Interview with Fran Drescher; Jim Carrey Discusses Movies, Comedy and Relationships. <S> "I wasn't trying to hurt my father." <S> He looked down. <S> "I love my father." <S> "Then tell him so," said our mother. <S> Caleb looked at our father. <S> "I'm telling you so," he said. <S> "Don't you love your mother, too?" <S> she asked, smiling. <S> " <S> Yes. <S> I love my another ." <S> " <S> And your brother?" <S> He looked at me and his face changed. <S> He smiled again, and he pulled me to him. " <S> Yes. <S> Oh, yes. <S> I love my brother." <S> —Bloodline, Ernest J. Gaines.
| Only My other account would be correct here.
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When to use "just" The word just is one of those overused words that carries little meaning and appears to just clutter up a sentence (oops, did it again). When is the use of just justified? What are better, clearer constructions (e.g. replace just with only ) When should the word be dropped altogether? <Q> There were just three jars of honey left. <S> This is different from <S> There were three jars of honey left. <S> because it gives the sense that three jars of honey is not a lot, or at least that you don't think it is. <S> So the answer is no <S> , don't give it up entirely. <S> Just trust yourself to use it less. <S> Think of it as dieting. <S> If you have the willpower, you can write lean sentences. <A> As other words, use it when it adds a meaning to the sentence, and not just to use it. <S> A just and democratic society (it is different from a democratic society ). <S> We all get our just deserts (it is different from <S> we all get our deserts ). <S> I've just seen the local paper (it is different from <S> I've seen the local paper ). <S> They were just interested in making money (it is different from <S> they were interested in making money , but it is similar to <S> they were only interested in making money ). <S> They are just great (it is different from <S> they are great ). <S> " <S> Simon really messed things up." <S> "Didn't he just?" <S> [Reference: The New Oxford American Dictionary.] <A> I've pondered this word many times. <S> It also has a singular/universal/variant side. <S> Universal <S> As the Catholic Church says, "It is right and it is just..." where "just" is used to imply law and legality, similar to justice. <S> This form of "just" applies a meaning that it includes all people, therefore universal. <S> Singular <S> "I just want to kiss." <S> Here it means only me, I am the only one who wants something and the thing I want is only a kiss. <S> Variant <S> Then there are others, "just in time", which is neither universal or singular but in this case it's an approximation to a specific time. <S> Just recently I noticed that just this law is not just onto Bedouins and their herds.
| I'd say a good rule of thumb is to use it when you need it for clarity or to add a special emphasis.
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Castle Caladan - why a "pile of stone"? Frank Herbert's Dune book begins with a sentence that describes Castle Caladan as a pile of stone that has been home to 26 generations of Atreides Dukes. Not being a native English speaker, I am left to wonder as of what does it mean. Does the word "pile" here really mean that the castle was actually a ruin? <Q> Pile can also mean castle . <S> As you say, given the commonest modern meaning of pile , Herbert’s phrase evokes the image of something haphazard, maybe even ruined. <S> But pile also has an older meaning, given by the OED as “A stronghold, a castle, esp. <S> a small castle or tower […] <S> Now arch. <S> and rare.” <S> Though rare, it’s still used in a few well-known phrases — most notably “ ancestral pile ” — enough so that I’m pretty sure Herbert had this meaning primarily in mind. <S> However, heap has been the primary meaning for long enough that I suspect all modern use of the castle sense has become somewhat coloured by connotations of haphazardness, disorder, etc.; certainly it’s generally used for slightly humorous effect. <S> (I seem to recall PG Wodehouse being quite keen on the phrase, though I can’t remember any specific examples.) <A> " <S> Pile of stone" here is serving as both a literal description — anything made of stone can be described as a pile of stone <S> , it's just that some piles are <S> more, um, ordered than others — and as a put-down of stone castles and the social class that lives in them. <A> He thinks it's nothing special.
| I don't believe we're meant to think the castle is in ruins. Though "pile of stones" literally implies a ruin, the author in your example uses it to express his disdain about Castle Caladan, or at least to describe it in a humorous way.
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Is it a good practice to refer to countries, ships etc using the feminine form? While talking about ships and countries, is it a good practice to use the feminine form? For example: "Her economy" - while referring to a country's economy"Her flag (or deck etc)" - while referring to a ship Is this practice common? Is it used today? <Q> Wikipedia is pretty accurate on this one: <S> The origins of this practice are not certain, and it is currently in decline (though still more common for ships, particularly in nautical usage, than for countries). <S> In modern English, calling objects "she" is an optional figure of speech, and is advised against by most journalistic style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style. <S> Using “she” for countries is now quite archaic. <S> It can certainly still be used, but only if you want to very explicitly conjure up a personification of the country: <S> Ah, proud Britain! <S> How she is fallen! <S> Once her empire bestrode the globe; now, her power decimated, her economy hobbled, she wavers uncertainly between the behemoths of the US and Europe on either side, … Except in a case like this where she is used for deliberate rhetorical effect, one would always expect it , its instead: Britain faces tough years. <S> It stands to receive a fresh influx of immigrants, even while its economy still struggles… <S> Googling confirms the overwhelming prevalence of its . <S> Even for France, with a comparatively enduring female personification, google hits for <S> "France faces its" outnumber hits for <S> "France faces her" by a factor of about 6 (matching in each case phrases like “France faces her toughest challenge yet…”); and for other countries I tried (eg Britain) <S> the disparity is much larger (a factor of about 100). <A> Depending on who you're talking to, it is definitely good practice to use the feminine form for ships. <S> My friend once worked for the Ministry of Defence and had to telephone the Royal Navy to ask for a ship's current location <S> (let's use HMS Victory ). <S> "I'm calling about HMS Victory . <S> Please can you tell me its current location?" was answered with <S> "Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about", as were his replies "HMS Victory , I'd like to know exactly where it is". <S> Finally the naval officer explained that ships are referred to as "she", and after the question was rephrased like "where is she? <S> " was an answer given. <S> He never made the same mistake again. <A> Ships are usually called she on the grounds that they have definite personalities; if you feel that the computerized container ship Osaka Maru <S> No. <S> 37 <S> does not qualify, it will certainly be understood. <S> And some countries are feminine; both Britain and Russia have been commonly referred to as 'the Motherland' and personified as Britannia and Mother Russia respectively. <S> But others are not: Germany is well-known to be 'the Fatherland'. <S> I would have thought Uncle Sam's land is also masculine, but would be glad of some definite information. <A> In ancient days of old ships usually always bore female names. <S> "It takes a lot of work and tender loving care, as well as a lot of paint to make a ship look good"Most sailing ships from the middle ages always had a statue of a female on the upper bow, right under the bowsprit...
| Using “she” for ships is still fairly common, and will not stand out as odd in most contexts; but it is becoming less common, and is discouraged by most authorities (both stylistic and maritime). I am a Master Mariner and ships have always been referred to in the female gender.
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"Today" in the past Let's say I'm talking about some day in the past. In formal writing, I would use: Earlier that day , I had lunch with my boss. But is the following also correct? Earlier today , I had lunch with my boss. Clarification : I'm not talking about something that happened today (as of the date when I'm writing), but some day in the past... last week, 3 months ago, etc. Can I still write this? It was the 1st of April, 2006. Today had been the worst day of my life... <Q> Earlier today would be understood as referring to something happened this day ( today has origin from a Old English word that means on this day ); earlier that day is referring to a day that you mentioned before. <S> To reply to your other question, It was the 1st of April, 2006. <S> Today had been the worst day of my life. <S> seems awkward, as today is not understood to mean on this day (the original meaning). <S> In narrative, an event that is happened in the past is narrated as it is the present, as in: It is the 1st of April, 2006. <S> Today will be the worst day of my life. <S> Outside that specific context, I would write <S> It was the 1st of April, 2006. <S> That day had been the worst day of my life. <A> Because it refers to a moment in the past, it can be used with the past tense, as you did in your example. <A> If your narrative comes in the form of a diary or journal, then you can use 'today' when referring to a day in the past. <S> " April 23, 1958. <S> Today was pivotal in my ongoing attempt to turn lead into gold... " <A> Earlier today is certainly correct within this context. <S> Earlier in the day is also a very popular way of saying the same thing. <S> Some also simply just say earlier : <S> Earlier today , I had lunch with my boss. <S> Earlier in the day , I had lunch with my boss. <S> Earlier , I had lunch with my boss. <S> However, most people would say: <S> I had lunch earlier with my boss.
| “Earlier today” is a totally correct way to refer to a point in time between the beginning of the day and the current time.
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Origin of "on the QT"? I was watching the movie L.A. Confidential last night, and was reminded of the phrase "on the QT", which Danny DeVito's character says several times. Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush... I was wondering if anyone can shed any light on the origin and meaning of this phrase. <Q> Apparently Q.T. is derived from <S> quiet and originated in the 19th century, although its provenance is not certain. <S> From phrases.org.uk: <S> The slang term 'qt' is a shortened form of 'quiet'. <S> There's no definitive source for the phrase 'on the q.t.', although it appears to be of 19th century British origin - not, as is often supposed, American. <S> The longer phrase 'on the quiet' is also not especially old, but is first recorded somewhat before 'on the qt', in Otago: Goldfields & Resources, 1862: <A> I found an earlier (1874) appearance of Q.T. <S> that shows its origin is most likely from the British side of the pond. <S> This clip appears in an American publication of short plays, but this particular farce, My Husband's Secret by Walter Devereux Whitty, Esq., shows on its title page (scroll up four pages) that it played first in London. <S> Here's the clip : A note on the date: Google Books lists this publication's date as 1876. <S> The play's title page has its copyright date as 1873. <S> I cross-checked the date of the play at Open Library , where it has 1874. <S> Edit: Found an antedating of on the quiet , mentioned in @Robusto's answer, from a horseracing story in New Sporting Magazine , 1847: <A> Since it is of British origin, I would think it would derive from schoolboys' abbreviations, often derived from Latin. <S> The Latin taceo means "not to speak" and has solemn meaning sometimes, referring to "passing over in silence." <S> Thus quae tacenda, or q.t., would refer to "things about which one should not speak." <S> Cf. <S> Horace, Epodes, 5.49, where Horace speaks of Canidia and quid dixit et quid tacuit, what she said and what she left unsaid. <S> Edit: <S> That in "My Husband's Secret" Straps says that "Q.T." is an abbreviation for "quiet," as one "should have larned at Hoxford," is a pretty good indication that Q.T. for "quiet" is a false etymology. <S> At Oxford and elsewhere schoolboys' lessons in the classics would have occasional obscene expressions. <S> I can imagine a teacher explicating a classical text, and then coming to the obscene part, and stating that "here there are quaedam tacenda [certain things about which one should keep silent]. <S> " <S> These would be frequent enough that schoolboys' notes would refer to these as <S> q.t. <S> Then the term would be brought into ordinary conversation, e.g., referring to a master—"he drinks too much, and there are q.t. <S> [i.e., he chases underage boys]. <S> " <S> Then the term would be used for schoolboys' pranks: <S> "I'll join you on this, but only on the strict q.t.," i.e., we won't brag about this even to our fellows. <S> All this just a guess, <S> but I think a good one. <A> Daily Writing Tips , on the other hand, puts forth some argument for the US origin since the phrase is documented to have appeared in print in 1884, and was in a song in 1879. <S> World Wide Words cites the use of "QT" as an abbreviation as a clear sign that the origin must have been US, based on abbreviationism being a known linguistic feature of late 19th-century American English. <S> All three are clear that the QT is short for "quiet" and the phrase means "confidential" or "off the record". <A> Oxford English Dictionary <S> The OED says it comes from the first and last letters of quiet, and is chiefly used as on <S> the (strict) q.t. . <S> Their first quotation is: 1885 <S> G. Moore Mummer's Wife ix. <S> 126 <S> It will be possible to have one spree on the strict q.t. Victorian music <S> I found an antedating. <S> The University of Reading's Spellman Collection of Victorian Music Covers lists a song called <S> You should see us on the strict <S> "Q.T." from 1877 illustrated by Alfred Bryan, composed by Walter Redmond and written by Geoffrey Thorn. <S> The description is: Caricature portrait, full length, of G H Macdermott; the titles of some of his songs around his feet. <S> And it includes the text: (Chorus) <S> Oh my! <S> what a pious world this is And how very good we all seem to be What a duffing lot you find <S> If you only raise the blind And see us on the strict "Q T." <S> The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins <S> The Phrase Finder says: <S> As to on the q.t., in The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins , Robert Hendrickson states: <S> "A British broadside ballad (1870) contained the line 'Whatever I tell you is on the Q.T.'" It would be good to know the name of the ballad in order to follow up this assertion. <S> Unfortunately, the author doesn't give it, from which we can only suppose he didn't know it himself. <S> Without some supporting evidence that claim has to be in doubt.
| According to The Phrase Finder , the origin, while somewhat uncertain, is most likely 19th-century British. "Q.T." is an odd abbreviation for "quiet."
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Meaning of "take a stab at doing something" I was wondering what "take a stab at doing something" means? For example I'll take a stab at answering these. <Q> I want to additionally note here that I believe it to be related to the idiom <S> stab in the dark , meaning an attempt at something with little guidance or hope of success. <S> It doesn't carry the full weight of that meaning, though, just an attenuated implication of not necessarily knowing what one is doing, more likely used as mild self-deprecating humor than anything else. <A> It is simply an informal way of saying "make an attempt". <S> The following are all equivalent answers to the question of "Do you want to do (something)?" <S> Sure, I'll take a stab at it. <S> Sure, I'll give it a try. <S> Sure, I'll have a go at it. <A> Stab at means attempting to do something . <S> The NOAD report the following example <S> : Meredith made a feeble stab at joining in.
| As everybody has said, to take a stab at means to attempt .
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Is it appropriate to use "and/or" in a sentence, and how else might I achieve this? Possible Duplicate: Alternatives to “and/or”? Is it okay to say "and/or"? How else might I phrase a sentence like the following? The amount of happiness displayed by the bunny increased when either the bunny was well fed and/or when the bunny was watching a sunset. I am writing a scientific paper, and it is important that the events have the same effect when they occur separately or together; I have written a trivial example replacing esoteric words with more familiar ones. <Q> Shouldn't the title say "... <S> and/or how else might I achieve this?" <S> ;-) <S> In the sentence as presented, the use of the initial "either" really requires that you follow it up only with an "or"; "either/and" just doesn't work. <S> If the options given are not inherently exclusive, they should be understood to be "one, the other, or both". <S> Alternatively, you could say "the amount of X increased when Y, and also when Z." Or, "the amount of X increased when Y, or when Z (increasing linearly/exponentially/whatever when both Y and Z)." <A> If it's used repeatedly in your paper and it's important to specify, then I'd probably stick to "and/or" if the intention is clear: it's fairly widely used and, compared to adding a parenthesis such as "(or where both cases hold)", it has the merit of being concise. <S> I also wouldn't get too bogged down: <S> if the editor really doesn't like it for some reason, they'll change it or ask you to change it. <S> For what it's worth, I translate professionally (both academic material and more general texts) and have never been asked to avoid "and/or". <S> [Conversely, for my own sanity, I have stopped using "iff" for "if and only if" after this 'misspelling' was highlighted to me various times.] <A> I believe a scientific paper is expected to use fairly literate English, so use of short-cuts such as "and/or" might be inappropriate. <S> However your peer reviewers are likely to be preoccupied with the appropriateness of "bunnies" enjoying sunsets, so it won't detract greatly from the result. <S> If "it is important [to record] that the events have the same effect when they occur separately or together <S> " - why not just say so? <A> Either-and would not make the correct grammatical sense. <S> In the above case, the use use of either-or and and would make two drastically different sentences. <A> I've heard the term "XOR" used in casual conversation, but only among math/computer nerds like myself. <S> If more people accepted the term it would make things a lot easier.
| As you have used either in the first part of your sentence, the second part of the sentence must only use or , as either-or is a complementary pair, one must follow the other.
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Military personnel normally put their badges on their shoulders - what is that area called? I want a word that can sum up one's experiences in a battlefield but I am unable to find the proper terminology for this purpose. Military badges are normally placed on the left shoulder as well as the upper left chest of military personnels. What is the proper name for these areas which badges would be placed on? <Q> Well for the US military that have this practice (many do, I know): Shoulder sleeve insignia or SSI as an abbreviation. <S> Interesting to note that when it is on the right shoulder, it indicates former service, not current. <S> The article linked to above notes that they are not continuing with this custom on newer uniforms, opting for a Combat Service Identification Badge (CSIB) instead. :-/ <A> I believe that the word for shoulders is "epaulettes." <A> I understand that among service members, the phrase salad bar is used informally to refer to the collection of insignia and decorations worn on a uniform.
| Military officers (as opposed to enlisted men) are sometimes referred to as "epaulette boys," because of their shoulder badges.
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How to write a parenthetical plural when the noun pluralizes irregularly? What happens if you have a written phrase like We were looking at the same poster(s). but with a noun that has an irregular plural? E.g. with baby/babies, would this be the correct form? We were looking at the same baby(ies). Or, as a more exotic case: We were looking at the same matrix(???). (plural is matrices) Is there a rule or guideline for this? <Q> It's not pretty, but the most common way I've encountered is to list both words, without the parentheses, with either a slash or the word "or" between them: We were looking at the same baby/babies. <S> We were looking at the same matrix or matrices. <S> You can also try "baby (babies)", or reword in some way that avoids the question, or if the context permits, just use the plural. <A> The simple plural, those formed only by an addition of an "s", is the only case in which the parentheses are used to indicate the indeterminate plurality, as in "poster(s)". <S> In all other cases, the alternatives are both given, separated by an "or", as in "the same baby or babies". <S> (This can also be done for the simple case: "the same poster or posters" is acceptable, and may even be preferred in more formal writing.) <A> I don't think there is a shorter way to write it, if not writing only the plural or the singular word.
| Write the singular and the plural of the word separated from a slash, as in baby/babies .
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Why do we use the definite article in the expression "quite the [noun]"? Like: " quite the singer ", " quite the writer ", etc. while he/she is just a singer/writer and is not the only singer/writer, etc in that context. <Q> Quite a party, isn't it? <S> It has been quite a year. <S> Quite the little horsewoman, aren't you? <S> Quite the thing is a dated way to say socially accepted . <S> She was quite the thing in heels and stockings and lipstick. <S> [The examples are taken from the NOAD] <A> Stating "Quite a [noun]" indicates that one is notable, while stating "quite the [noun]" is remarkable. <S> It is mostly the difference between the indeterminate ( a —or, just another [noun]) and the determinate ( the —a specific [noun]). <A> We use the definite article to show uniqueness. <S> This case, saying "quite the singer" suggests that the singer is unique in some way -- e.g. being noticeably more talented than the others. <A> I agree with @awm as in cases where one says quite the [noun] , he wishes to indicate a specific trait of the [noun] that even among its commonalities makes a difference. <A> As noted by @ColinFine, "quite the X" is simply an idiom. <S> It's not any sort of standard grammatical construction and so cannot be explained according to standard grammatical rules. <S> Other idioms that include inexplicable instances of "the" include "what the hell," "the hell you say," and to be "for the asking." <A> If 'life is context', then think about why this phrase has become so over-used during the past 2-3 years. <S> To me, the increased use of 'quite the' rather than 'quite a' is to use the phrase to appear smarter or more 'hip'. <S> In America, we are continually hearing commercials with phrases meant to imply that a 'hip' or 'in the know' person talks a certain way. <S> And the commercial message is to get the listener to do what is wanted by the vendor. <A> It seems to be a recent phenomenon, not the recent phenomenon so to speak. <S> But, actually, I associate "quite the..." with US English, which is now being used here (New Zealand). <S> Interesting to read that "quite a..." was/is used in the USA.
| Quite a (and quite the , sometimes used ironically) indicates that the specified thing or thing is recognized as notable, remarkable, or impressive.
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What is the meaning of "every other time"? I was wondering what every other time means. For example: I know it's being fixed, but rebooting every other time you do something gets old. <Q> From the New Oxford American Dictionary : <S> every other : each second in a series; each alternate: <S> I train with weights every other day <S> In this case, it is most probably used figuratively, and means “rebooting very often”. <A> Every second time - So you can do something once, then the second time you need to reboot <S> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/every_other : <S> All except for some previously mentioned set. <S> Two of the bolts were loose, but every other bolt I checked was fine. <S> Every second <S> ; each alternate; the second of each pair in turn (perhaps used because every second could also refer to second as a unit of time or be interpreted as meaning only the second ). <S> Every other person in the line wore a pink bowtie. <S> The second meaning is the one relevant here. <A> I will explain by example. <S> If you exercise "every other day," then you exercise Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and so on. <S> Or if you change the oil in your car "every other month," then you skip a month between oil changes: January, March, May, July, Sept. and so on.
| "Every other time" in the sentence you provided is being used figuratively to mean "almost constantly" or "nearly every time." The literal meaning of "every other time" is every 2nd time period in a series (or alternating occurrences).
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Should rhetorical questions end with a period? Would it be appropriate to end a rhetorical question with a period, to show that it is not intended as a question that one should ponder or attempt to answer? For instance: Why do I eat so much(?)(.)(!) I don't want anyone to answer it, but it's still phrased as a question. <Q> Using a question mark is probably the most common choice, but it is really up to the writer to use whatever punctuation matches best the intent of the rhetorical question. <S> Yahoo's styleguide , which I would not consider as a reference, gives some examples of such usage: <S> Can you believe it? <S> I just bought that car, and it’s already scratched. <S> What kind of a man are you? <S> Boy, do I! <S> How can you possibly think that! <S> Would everyone please rise for the national anthem. <S> Why don’t you stop asking me questions already. <S> Why don’t you take a long walk off a short pier. <S> As for my personal style, I don't use rhetorical questions much, but when I do I end them with question marks. <A> Rhetorical questions are written as any other question, and in English a sentence is never ended with a question mark and a period, even in the case the question is being quoted. <S> I have never seen a question mark followed by a period to mark the question as rhetorical. <S> It is the context to make a question rhetorical. <A> I believe that all three are technically correct, but have different connotations. <S> The question mark implies you want an answer. <S> The Exclamation point makes it sound like you are complaining. <S> The period makes it sound like you're being sarcastic. <S> This is just how I interpret them when reading, even if its not as the writer intended. <S> If the rhetorical question does not fall in one of these 3 categories, I'd advise against writing it as a rhetorical question.
| Rhetorical questions can be ended with either a question mark, an exclamation mark or a period.
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What are some products that are now words? All of the ones I can think of are specific products that have come to represent their kind. This is usually either because it is the first of its kind, as in a Xerox machine (the first office photocopier), or it arises from popularity, as in Sharpie or something like "Google that" (though I'd say that's a bit informal/debatable). Other examples I can think of off the top of my head are: Kleenex Post-it <Q> What you are looking for is called a genericized trademark , generic trademark , or proprietary eponym , and Wikipedia has a huge list: <S> List of generic and genericized trademarks <S> It includes all the examples mentioned by chaos and yourself, and many more. <S> See also this related question: <S> What is a word/phrase for using a term for a popular special case instead of a generic term? <A> Aqualung Aspirin Astroturf <S> Band-aid Bubble wrap Butterscotch <S> Cellophane <S> Chapstick Coke (only in some regions) <S> Heroin <S> Hoover (mainly in the UK) <S> Kerosene Laundromat Linoleum Muzak Q-tip Tarmac Taser <S> Thermos <S> Trampoline <S> Velcro <S> Walkman Yo-yo Zipper <A> Duck tape George Foreman grill Palm Pilot Scotch tape <A> iPod <S> (I've seen many people use iPod to refer to any MP3 player) <S> Xerox Zip-lock <A> Left out Jacuzzi - the generic term is hot tub ; and perhaps fridge , which according to the Online Etymological Dictionary is: shortened and altered form of refrigerator, 1926, perhaps influenced by Frigidaire (1919), a popular early brand name of the appliances.
| Crock pot Cuisinart Dumpster Dry ice Escalator Frisbee Jeep Jello Jetski Hacky sack
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Is there a difference between the phrases "I am fine with it" and "it is fine with me"? In my experience there has been a diachronic split between these phrases: It is fine with me. I am fine with it. The latter has overtaken the former in usage although they continue to compete for the exact same meaning (which is discussed here ). Is there a meaningful difference between the two phrases? Is the first one indeed on its way out? <Q> I see a small difference between I am fine with it <S> and it is fine for me , <S> which is the same difference between I am unclear (used to express doubt or confusion) and it is unclear to me : in one phrase the grammar subject is I , in the other is it .For <S> example, the focus could be placed on <S> I to mean <S> it is unclear to me, but it can be clear to others , or it is fine with me, and it will be fine with the others too <S> ; vice versa, the focus could be put on it to mean it is fine with me, but I don't know what others would think . <S> Most probably, both the sentences (the one starting with I , and the one starting with it ) are understood to mean the same thing from most the people. <S> Looking for the frequency those, and similar phrases, are used, I get the following data ( first chart ; second chart ): <A> There is a very slight implication of greater indifference given by "it's fine with me" relative to " <S> I'm fine with it". <S> I don't honestly think either is "on its way out". <A> The Corpus of Contemporary American English , which has text from 1990 to 2010, has 9 occurrences of “I am fine with it” (with either “I am” or “I’m”), and 28 occurrences of “It is fine with me”. <S> So, both are still in use, and even though your second sentence seems less used in American English.
| Regarding the meaning of the two, I don't think there is any perceived difference.
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"get" or "is" regarding the future Which of the following would be correct? Is it a question of dialect? "If this question gets answered, ..." "If this question is answered, ..." (Inspired by this answer .) <Q> I offered my correction to Tim because, in the question in question, the implication in "if guns get outlawed..." is that some external agency (malign in this case) would be required for change to be effected. <S> "If guns are outlawed..." seems much more value-neutral to me. <S> I accept that the difference is subtle, but I believe it's there -my <S> ear and kiamaluno's graph say as much to me. <A> Either one is fine. <S> Functionally there is no difference between the two. <A> Looking at which phrase between gets answered , gets an answer , and is answered is the most used in American English <S> , I obtain <S> the following data :
| Both the phrases are understood to have the same or similar meaning; to get an answer means to obtain an answer .
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"Local crumbed scallops", or "crumbed local scallops"? Recently I was in a fish and chip shop in Mandurah, WA , selling local crumbed scallops. Is local crumbed scallops the correct form? Is crumbed local scallops more appropriate? What if "nonlocal" scallops were also available? [optional] What form would a native German speaker find more natural, and why? <Q> A discussion of adjective ordering is the right approach here I think, but... <S> To me, “local crumbed scallops” would be already-crumbed scallops obtained locally; “crumbed local scallops” would be scallops obtained locally and then crumbed after being obtained. <A> Local crumbed scallops seems ambiguous, as it could be understood as local-crumbed scallops , where local is referring to crumbed ; in that case, the hyphen is necessary to avoid the ambiguity. <S> In English, the adjectives are written (or should be written) in a particular order; the answers given in Adjective order explain better in which order they should be written. <S> Non-local is generally not used; if the scallops are not local scallops, then they are generally called scallops . <A> There is a theory that adjective ordering is essentially universal (i.e. the same across all languages), so that in principle we ought to be able to give rules something like this: <S> keep words forming a compound or colloquation together; if the adjectives all come before the noun in your native language, keep them in that same order in English; if some adjectives come after the noun in your native language, then those adjectives will come before the noun in English, but after other adjectives coming befor the noun in both languages; if in the adjectives coming after the noun in your native language, colour adjectives come last, then reverse the order of those adjectives in English. <S> The first rule means you could actually end up with variations of the sort "an elderly single mother" or "a single elderly mother" depending on which colloquation is intended. <S> The last rule covers some cases where adjectives following the noun can allow a "reversed" order or not, e.g. Rowlett (2007) <S> cites French examples: "une jolie petite jupe [bleue fleurie écossaise']", which also permits "... <S> [écossaise fleurie bleue]", with English "A pretty little blue floral Scottish skirt". <S> This goes for adjectives that are actually adjectives, incidentally: it isn't necessarily valid to class determiners, quantifiers, adverbs and nouns inside compounds as adjectives, for example (one of the links above appears to, and I think this could confuse the issue). <S> It should also be noted that we're talking about the unmarked order; for emphasis, the 'emphasised' adjectives can generally be placed before all others even if that means that it's out of place ("There are lots of cheap lawnmowers, but this is an OLD cheap lawnmower"). <S> If you start giving actual lists of orderings (which, as I say, may be universal anyway), there is a danger in assuming that the order that applies with, say, nouns denoting tangible objects will then apply to nouns denoting emotions or actions.
| Crumbed local scallops is more clear, as it's evident that local is referring to scallops .
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How do you properly pronounce 'mall'? In America, it's pretty much universally pronounced "moll" but in the UK, I have heard a few different ways of pronouncing it: Mall (rhymes with pal) Maul (rhymes with ball and hence the American pronunciations match up) Moll It may depend on accents but which is the correct way? <Q> There are a couple confusions at work here. <S> First, there are different " lexical sets " the word could fall into: TRAP, LOT, BATH, CLOTH, PALM, THOUGHT, NORTH, FORCE. <S> For the most part, most speakers and dictionaries of English agree that mall is either pronounced with the vowel for THOUGHT or with the vowel for TRAP, the TRAP pronunciation usually only in the context of pall-mall . <S> No dialect pronounces all those lexical sets with distinct vowels, but each dialect may merge them in different ways. <S> American English generally merges TRAP-BATH, LOT-PALM, CLOTH-THOUGHT, and NORTH-FORCE. <S> This means that Americans use the same vowel for TRAP as for BATH, the same vowel for LOT as for PALM, and the same vowel for CLOTH as for THOUGHT. <S> British English generally merges LOT-CLOTH, BATH-PALM, THOUGHT-NORTH-FORCE, and keeping TRAP in a distinct group. <S> Furthermore, the cot-caught merger in some varieties of American English merge the LOT-PALM group with the CLOTH-THOUGHT group, making a single lexical set LOT-PALM-CLOTH-THOUGHT, all pronounced with the same vowel (/ɑ/)—for <S> some speakers of American English (me included). <S> So, a British English-speaking person would think they might hear me say mall <S> thinking it sounds like <S> moll <S> (that is, to be in the LOT set), and that I am pronouncing it "wrong", but not realize that I pronounce all LOT words with the same vowel as THOUGHT words—that is, for me the words LOT and THOUGHT rhyme. <S> In conclusion, the vowel of mall should be the same as the vowel for thought , however you pronounce it in your dialect. <A> If you want the original prononciation, it would be the one that rhymes with "pal", from the shopping street The Mall in London, which in turn got it's name from the game pall-mall once played there. <S> 1737, "shaded walk serving as a promenade," from The Mall, broad, tree-lined promenade in St. James's Park, London (1674), formerly an open alley that was used to play pall-mall, a croquet-like game involving hitting a ball with a mallet through a ring, from Fr. pallemaille, from It. <S> pallamaglio, from palla "ball" (see balloon) + maglio "mallet.". <S> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mall <S> The modern use of the word for a shopping centre has of course lost most of it's history, thus the Americans simply pronounce it as other similar words like fall, hall, ball and call. <A> There is not a correct pronunciation. <S> As you said, American English and British English speakers give to the word a different pronunciation (/mɔl/ in American English; /mal/ /mɔːl/ /mɒl/ in British English); even inside the same English dialect, different regions can possibly have different pronunciations. <A> This is also a word that's subject to strong regional variations in the U.S. <S> In Brooklyn English, which is where I, a non-native speaker learned it, it's more like 'mawwl'. <S> In my native tongue, the word for "mall" is "קניון" (transliteration "canyon" and also means "canyon") which leads to puns like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon_%28mall%29 <A> nohat gave a great answer. <S> There is just one more point, to make about the word mall. <S> The pronunciation of it is usually different, in American and British English. <S> Except, when pronouncing Pall Mall and The Mall. <S> Those are normally pronounced "mal", like the letter a in the words trap and hat. <S> Therefore, the pronunciation depends on the context. <S> It depends if you are pronouncing just the word mall or, you are pronouncing Pall Mall or The Mall. <S> On a related note, the word mall, is not normally used in the UK. <S> In the US, it means a shopping centre. <S> In the UK, it is normal just to say, shopping centre. <A> The American cigarette brand, "Pall Mall," is pronounced "pawl mawl," and that's the name of that tune. <A> In American English, it's /ˈmɑ: <S> l/ http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/mall
| In the UK, it's normally pronounced as "morl" (rhymes with the words or and more).
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Is "I personally" incorrect? Every time I hear someone trot out the phrase "I personally" it grates against my ears.I wouldn't mind so much, but it very commonly used by a wide variety of people.I grates most because I'm not sure anymore whether this is correct grammatically.Is it legal in American but not British English (or vice versa)?So, could someone solve this conundrum for me, finally, please? <Q> It's a perfectly legal construction (although the word personally should probably be set off with commas), even if it is sometimes misused or overused. <S> As an evidential marker (something English doesn't require) it tells the listener that what you are saying comes from personal, as opposed to second-hand, experience. <S> This is often left to context, or made more explicit with phrases like, "I saw it with my own eyes." <S> The second usage I am aware of is to distinguish between a simple choice made among equally valid options and an admonition. <S> "I, personally, wouldn't do it that way, but this," is quite a bit different in tone from, "I wouldn't do it that way, but this. <S> " <S> Where the first merely indicates a preference or habit of the speaker, the second carries an implied, "don't make me say, 'I told you so.'" <A> This is similar to many other prescriptivist rules: the large majority freely uses I, personally , but a certain minority doesn't like it. <S> In the third edition of Fowler's Modern English usage , Burchfield recommends that personally should be restricted to two types of sentences. <S> The first is to signify that something is done by someone in person and not through an agent or deputy, if otherwise doubt could arise, as in the following example: <S> The Party Secretary personally warned me not to vote for the proposal. <S> In this sense it is often close to in person . <S> The second is to exclude considerations other than personal. <S> I believe he is thinking of a distinction like this: <S> Though I personally dislike him, I believe he will be a decent Emperor. <S> I will vote for him. <S> Here the speaker separates his personal, emotional perspective from a broader, objective one. <S> Burchfield calls the use of personally where it doesn't add anything to the meaning of the sentence "debatable" and "seemingly redundant", which are his euphemisms for "bad style". <S> I believe many style guides agree, even though it is widely so used, as Burchfield also notes. <A> It would be acceptable with commas: <S> I, personally, ... <S> Though, it is really a spoken form, resulting more often than not from false starts. <S> If one were to write this, they should select: <S> Personally, I ... <S> Even then, there is some question about its necessity. <S> It is reflexive and in most cases tautological. <S> It would probably serve to add nothing more than emphasis to a sentence. <S> I think you should ask a doctor. <S> Personally, I think you should ask a doctor. <S> There is really no semantic difference between these two. <A> Examples of usage reported from the NOAD <S> include: <S> She stayed to thank O'Brien personally. <S> He never forgave his father, holding him personally responsible for this betrayal. <S> They had made conclusions without getting to know me personally. <A> "Personally, I" and "I, personally," are sometimes very different. <S> Consider: <S> "I, personally, first visited Argentina in 1992" <S> This might look like a redundant use of the word "personally" <S> but I believe it means the speaker is saying they <S> they have done something that others have done too. <S> So someone might say "I first heard that album in September" and their friend could respond: "I, personally, didn't check it out till last week." <S> The latter is an indication of preference and also somewhat of an intensifier. " <S> Personally, I'd rather we didn't go ahead with the merger. <S> " <S> The two can be used interchangeably in some contexts but in other contexts they mean different things.
| The safest choice, if you want to keep everyone happy, would be to use it where it adds something to the meaning of the sentence and abstain from it elsewhere. The short answer is that it is grammatically correct. Personally is an adverb, and in the example you reported, it is being used as adverb.
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Is "there're" (similar to "there's") a correct contraction? Q: "Do you have any juice?" A: "Yes, there's some in the fridge." Sounds perfectly fine to me, but: Q: "Do you have any towels?" A: "Yes, there's some in the closet." Does not. I asked for towels - plural - so wouldn't "Yes, there're some in the closet," in which there are is turned into a contraction be the correct way to say it? Spellcheck, however, doesn't like "there're", and I think I'm the only person I've ever heard use the word "there're". Even folks who I know say "there are" shorten it to "there's" when possible. Am I saying it wrong, or are both forms acceptable? <Q> There're is common in speech, at least in certain dialects, but you'll rarely see it written. <S> If I were being pedantic, I'd advise you to use there are in your example, because there is is definitely wrong, so <S> there's could be considered wrong as well. <S> But a huge number of English speakers, even those that are well-educated, use there's universally, regardless of the number of the noun in question, so you will probably not receive any odd looks for saying or writing <S> there's, <S> and if you do, just cite the fact that it can't be incorrect if a majority of people use it. <S> As for me (a native New Englander), I use both, but may use there's in place of there're if I'm speaking quickly. <A> I don't think "there're" is ever going to fly -- it's not so much a contraction as a simple elision. <S> From a strict prescriptivist grammar and usage standpoint, "there's" used with a plural is wrong. <S> But in spoken language (which is the real language, squiggles on pages and screens are no more than an approximate rendering) <S> we need to be careful with prescriptivist tendencies. <S> It may offend the grammarian's ear, but the fact that a very large number of native speakers -- likely a preponderance of them -- make exactly the same "mistake" indicates that there is something else going on. <S> Remember that the rules of English, as we received them in school, are only an approximation of the real rules of the language, and that many of those rules were imposed in the 18th and 19th centuries by well-meaning scholars who aimed to make English a respectable, consistent and properly-documented language. <S> It has never been such. <A> Here's my guess: <S> Contracting "there is" to "there's" usefully reduces the number of syllables. <S> Contracting "there are" to "there're" wouldn't. <S> So it isn't done. <S> If I reach for a shorter way to say "There are some in the closet", my mind produces "They are in the closet" (favouring utility over accuracy). <S> Obviously it would help to know how you pronounce each of "there are" and your "there're". <S> Perhaps we should both study IPA for a few minutes? <A> 1) "juice" in the first question is a noncount noun, thus you will answer with "some" or similar modifier "little" etc. <S> And it is perfectly acceptable to say and write <S> , "there's" 2) <S> For the second question, if you have but one towel, it is perfectly OK to say, "Yes, there's one in the closet." <S> If there are more — since you are conversing, I am assuming not communicating in writing. <S> It makes no difference. <S> The contractions are not visible in speech. <S> If you are communicating in writing with a hearing impaired person very particular about the usage of English language. <A> In the first sentence you wrote, you use there is because the answer is read as <S> Yes, there is some juice in the fridge. <S> In the second sentence you wrote, you use there are because the answer read as <S> Yes, there are some towels in the closet. <S> I use <S> there're when I write, and the spell checker doesn't mark it as not correct. <S> In some cases, when I use a contraction, the spell checkers underlines it in green, and it reports me that the word could not match the rest of the sentence; I think it happens when the contraction is used for different words, and the spell checker is not able to understand what I mean. <S> To notice that juices can have a meaning different from juice , as juices is used also to refer to the liquid that comes out from the meat when it is cooked, or the fluid secreted from the body (e.g., the stomach).
| The only thing being dropped is a glottal stop, which isn't a "real" sound in English. You would be better off writing "There are" because the contraction of "there are" — as you describe it — does not exist, or it is substandard English.
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Odd use of agnostic I have heard and used agnostic to denote "uncaring". I was recently corrected on my usage of the word which got me thinking. What word should I use? Uncaring seems incorrect. Some examples: This new applesauce recipe is truly apple agnostic. Meaning it tastes great with any apple cultivar . My new computer backup tool is OS agnostic. Meaning the tool works on any computer regardless of which operating system is running/installed. The study on american morality is God agnostic. Meaning the study draws its conclusions without making a statement about the existence of God. The meaning seems to be that something continues to function with disregard to a particular attribute or detail. <Q> You've extended the phrase "platform agnostic" (a computing term) beyond its boundaries. <S> In the case of platform-agnostic software, it's not so much that the software doesn't care about the host operating system or the underlying architecture, but that it can remain blissfully unaware of it. <S> There is another system (for instance, the Java virtual machine) abstracting away all of the program's access to the hardware and so forth, so the program does not have to "believe in" any particular platform or know the true nature of it if one exists . <S> The program, then, is analogous to an agnostic to whom the world would look just about the way it does right now whether or not there is a God. <S> The applesauce in your first example <S> likely <S> does need to "believe" in the existence of apples -- otherwise it's just a sauce. <S> Addendum: <S> (For some reason I can't add a comment today -- did the whole flushing of cache thing, but still no Ajaxy goodness.) <S> The question presupposes the existence of a single word that can be dropped into the place vacated by the deletion of "agnostic". <S> There is no single English word in common usage that can fulfill that role, since this particular usage of the word "agnostic" was introduced into the language in a fully grammaticalized form at its coinage. <S> Within the tiny world of computer programmers, it makes a degree of sense (even if it is wrong), but it takes the place of several entire phrases. <S> The word "indifferent" has been proposed, but denotation is not enough. <S> A century or more back in time it might have made sense, but "indifferent" has since taken on a connotation of "apathy" rather than "universality" or "inclusive". <S> There are other single words that have a similar meaning in limited technical realms , like "non-specific", but they don't fit into a more general context and are as likely to be misinterpreted as "indifferent". <A> The word has roots in theological or spiritual matters, specifically that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. <S> In technical and marketing literature, agnostic often has a meaning close to independent —for example, "platform agnostic" or "hardware agnostic. <S> " <S> 1 <S> The implication is that the property specified does not affect the object in question. <S> Another alternative for the latter meaning could be uninfluenced or unaffected . <A> I would say "does not depend on". <S> These phrases <S> This new applesauce recipe is truly apple agnostic. <S> My new computer backup tool is OS agnostic. <S> The study on American morality is God agnostic. <S> would then mean: <S> The recipe does not depend on the type of apples. <S> The backup tool does not depend on the computer's OS <S> The study does not depend on (the existence of or type of) <S> God <S> Often in a faith context, the meaning is slightly different. <S> An agnostic person is undecided on the existence of God. <A> The best I can come up with is indifferent or immaterial , although it would require changing the structure of your sentences a bit. <S> My new computer backup tool is indifferent to OS. <S> The study on american morality is indifferent to whether God exists. <A> As indicated by Stan Rogers and computermacgyver, "agnostic" originally had a very specific meaning: "A person who is undecided, or refuses to take a position on, whether or not God exists". <S> It comes from the prefix "a-" (without) and the Greek "gnosis" (knowledge, specifically of sacredness). <S> Contrast "atheist", meaning, loosely, "one who is without God" (some wags even define an agnostic as "a chickens**t atheist"). <S> It was then co-opted by computer engineers into "platform-agnostic", not knowing anything about the underlying system (thanks again, Stan). <S> In the process it morphed from a noun to an adjective, but it at least retained the implication of lack of knowledge. <S> From there it's been applied more broadly (and, in my view, incorrectly).
| This new applesauce recipe is indifferent to apple variety used.
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Is it OK to drop the periods in abbreviations? When I was in school, strictly every abbreviation had a period after each (capitalized) letter, as in U.S.A. These days, it seems ok just to capitalise, as in USA. Is this a new rule? It does look jarring to have those periods everywhere, and it's annoying to type. Related: Omitting periods after title abbreviations (Mr, Mrs, Dr) . <Q> It depends on the type of abbreviations. <S> USA is an initialism, and as such, does not require periods. <S> The style of acronyms and initialisms no longer requiring periods is now becoming more prevalent. <S> Abbreviations, generally, still require periods (e.g. Prof. — <S> Oh, and e.g.) <S> Although there are exceptions, especially in British english usage, as noted in your linked related question. <A> Lowercase initialisms like e.g. , <S> i.e. , n.a. <S> , and q.v. <S> generally retain their periods to help distinguish them from words (or, in the case of n.a. and relatives, inexplicably take a slash in the middle instead). <A> My quick-reference book on grammar suggests that the choice may also be (in fact, the author says it is primarily ) geographic; i.e. that: in the UK (and potentially Canada), "Mr," "Mrs," "Dr," "eg," "ie," etc are not followed by a full-stop, and that in the U.S.A. (and potentially Canada), "Mr.", "Mrs.", "Dr.", "e.g.", "i.e." etc. <S> are usually followed by a period. <S> N.B. the above handling of commas was also drawn from the same text (with a bit of tongue-in-cheek). <S> I have also often seen the periods exchanged for italicized formatting (for example: " eg " instead of "eg" or "e.g."); however, I have not see this convention addressed by a stylist "officially" (I also haven't really looked). <S> That being said, if you find the periods annoying to type, I imagine you'd be even less enthusiastic about toggling italics on and off ! <S> Personally, I try to prioritize clarity and consistency above everything else. <S> This means that I make use of all three conventions, in different contexts; however, once I've chosen a convention for a particular context, I stick to it <S> (this post being an exception; to my delight :D). <S> The whole thing has something of the same flavour as choosing how to pronounce words imported to English from foreign languages, when one knows how to pronounce the word in that language (e.g. "touché"). <S> If my goal were to communicate clearly, I'd go with the option that I think would maximize the probability of doing so successfully (vs. if the goal were, e.g., to instruct).
| Which abbreviations take periods and which do not is variable depending on the style guide followed.
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Are the speakers in this video speaking standard American English? I want to improve my American English accent, and I found Learn Real English , which is quite interesting to me. Anyway, I don't know much about standard American accent, so I want to know if those teachers (links below) speak standard American or not. Video 1 Video 2 <Q> Many US English speakers would characterize those two people as having no accent at all, and they certainly don't have any obvious regional accent. <S> As to standard American constructions and figures of speech, they are probably more formal than you'd typically find, but again there's no doubt that any US English speaker would recognize their speech as regionally neutral. <A> I listened only briefly to those videos, but their accents are very much unmarked standard American accents, without any obvious regional markers. <A> As a Canadian, I would say they are both speaking with a General American accent. <S> I agree with the other answers that most Americans (and indeed most Canadians) would say they "don't have an accent." <S> I'm not an expert on dialect or accents, but I have a couple more points. <S> I can tell if I listen very closely that they are American (and not Canadian) — I still maintain that we don't say aboot <S> but I can tell the slight difference in your abawts. <S> ;-) <S> If I were to guess where they grew up — and these are really wild guesses from a Canadian steeped in American TV — the woman sounds to my ear to be very slightly southern in her speech, possibly Midland American. <S> The man sounds west-coastish to me for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. <A> The woman states that she is originally from Georgia. <S> While many Georgians have distinct southern accents, she lacks one. <S> The man has a similarly indistinct American accent. <S> I am from Virginia, and I interact with people who have very similar accents and speech habits/mannerisms every day. <A> Well, there really isn't such a thing as the "Standard American Accent." <S> There are many regional accents throughout the United States, and each of them is equally valid. <S> Most regional accents can be easily understood by most Americans, so I wouldn't worry too much about learning the so-called "Standard American" accent perfectly. <S> I was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania. <S> The dialect in my part of the country is classified as Midland Standard American. <S> We speak the so-called "Standard American" accent used on national television broadcast stations -- the accent that is supposed to be without any recognizable regional markers. <S> I have no idea who decided that our specific dialect should be the so-called "Standard American" accent, but it is. <S> I mention this because when I listened to the lady in Video 1, it was fairly easy to compare her accent to my own. <S> She is definitely speaking standard American English. <S> Her accent is very similar to my own with only very subtle differences which are hardly noticeable. <S> However, she is being very careful and deliberate in her pronunciation, so <S> I believe this accent was learned, and is not her own native accent. <S> The fact that she said she is originally from Georgia would support this observation, since the beautiful Southern American dialect spoken in Georgia is quite different from my own. <S> However, if one were to learn to speak with the same accent she is using in the video, most Americans would certainly consider it to be quite standard American speech. <S> I hope this helps!
| I would say that they are definitely speaking with a generic American accent.
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Which of these is the correct usage of the words "listen", "hear"? Which of these sentences is correct? Why? You must hear to this song. You must listen to this song. Have you heard to this song? Have you listened to this song? <Q> Either is correct, but they have a slightly different emphasis in their meaning. <S> Hear is generally regarded as a passive activity, something that happens whether one wants it to or not. <S> Listen , on the other hand, is regarded as an active activity requiring the participation of the user. <S> I might say the following: <S> You have got to hear this song. <S> If the person heard the song, and was unimpressed, I might then reply: <S> Well, you must not have listened very closely. <A> As reported in another recent question, listen is an intransitive verb and does not take a direct object; you must use a prepositional phrase to specify the thing being perceived. <S> Hear , on the other hand, is transitive and can take an object, so you can say: You must hear this song. <S> Have you heard this song? <S> You must listen to this song. <S> Have you listened to this song? <A> In the sentences you reported, you can use either hear or listen . <S> Generally speaking, listen and hear have similar meaning; two of the meanings of hear are listen , pay attention . <S> She just doesn't hear what I'm telling her. <S> Sit and listen to the radio. <S> Listen me when I am talking to you!
| In specific contexts, listen is used instead of hear ; for example, when a sentence uses the imperative mood, listen is used.
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Why is "listen" always followed by "to" in the command voice? When I say, read it or drink it or take me , there is no to in-between. Why is it that when I use the verb listen , I have to say listen to me or listen to it ? <Q> Listen , in contemporary usage, is not a transitive verb, so it cannot take a direct object meaning “the thing being heard”. <A> The verb "listen" takes a prepositional object, while a verb like "read" takes an 'ordinary' direct object. <S> Why should this be so? <S> Well, to some extent, "because it is": <S> languages allow prepositional objects-- and English allows them readily-- <S> and so some verbs fall into that paradigm. <S> The mechanism for them arising is probably that originally, the preposition has more of its "full" lexical value (e.g. maybe when a person listened "to" another, there was originally the idea of them literally turning their ears towards them), but over time becomes grammaticalised-- <S> i.e. in effect, people become so used to a word occurring in a particular situation, that they become desensitised to its meaning and just "expect" it to be there in that construction. <S> It's in effect how the going-to future arose in English: once upon a time "I'm going to get some water" would have literally implied " <S> I'm going to another place where there is water", whereas now it could mean "There is some water right here <S> where I am and <S> I will now take some of it". <S> The arbitrary nature of prepositional objects can be seen in the fact that different languages may have them or not to express a particular concept (English "wait for", but in French "attendre (après)", the preposition "après" is optional-- and indeed stigmatised in careful usage), and that within the same language, different verbs expressing the same notion need not share the same argument structure (so "wait for...", prepositional object, but "await ...", prepositionless). <S> Incidentally, "listen" and other verbs with a prepositional object are still arguably transitive. <A> I'm not good at english, so I'll describe it in Java why listen needs a to : void drink(fluid);void read(string);WavePacket listen();void listenTo(WavePacket); As you see, listen() <S> doesn't accept any parameter. <A> It's not. <S> He didn't listen when I told him not to drink arsenic. <A> You should listen up; I don't want to have to say this twice. <S> Whether you listen from over there or whether you listen while laying down, you will hear what I have to say and you will understand eventually. <S> Just because you may listen, does not mean that I must listen as well. <S> Do you see what I did there?
| It is intransitive, and you must use a prepositional phrase headed by to , as in “listen to something”, in order to specify the thing being heard.
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What does "shortening" mean? Is it different from "abbreviation"? What does shortening mean? Is it different from abbreviation ? I checked the dictionary, but I don't get the difference clearly. <Q> According to MSN Dictionary <S> There are four main kinds of abbreviations : <S> Shortenings of words usually consist of the first few letters of the full form and are usually spelled with a final period when they are still regarded as abbreviations cont. <S> = <S> continued bus = omnibus taxi = <S> taxicab <S> zoo = <S> zoological garden <S> bike = <S> bicycle Contractions are abbreviated forms in which letters from the middle of the full form have been omitted. <S> Dr. = doctor <S> St. = saint or street can't = cannot didn't = did not Initialisms are made up of the initial letters of words and are pronounced as separate letters. <S> CIA (or C.I.A.) <S> NYC <S> pm (or p.m.) <S> U.S. (or US) <S> Acronyms are initialisms that have become words in their own right, or similar words formed from parts of several words. <S> They are pronounced as words rather than as a series of letters. <S> AIDS <S> laser scuba <S> UNESCO <S> Please Visit this link to read more about abbreviation. <A> Shortening also refers to fats used for baking . <S> Probably not what you meant, though. :) <A> I have been shortening the legs on my table, but I have not been abbreviating them!
| In fact shortening is a kind of abbreviation.
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What word means "eating place"? The word "dormitory" means "sleeping place". Is there any similar word for "eating place"? <Q> There's also refectory : A refectory (also frater, frater house, fratery) is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. <S> One of the places it is most often used today is in graduate seminaries. <S> It is derived from the Latin reficere: to remake or restore, via Late Latin refectorium, which means a place one goes to be restored. <S> [Wikipedia] the root of which it shares with restaurant : <S> Modern restaurants ... emerged only in 18th-century Europe, although similar establishments had also developed in China. <S> A restaurant owner is called a restaurateur; both words derive from the French verb restaurer , meaning "to restore". <S> [Wikipedia] <S> Oh, and <S> of course beanery , hash house , greasy spoon , & automat . <A> Maybe you're looking for the word " eatery ". <S> One of the best eateries in town. <S> Also the phrase " eating place " is very common. <S> There are some other words that I don't think you're looking for them. <S> But you can also check them out. <S> Other words: cafe , self-service , diner , bistro , cafeteria , canteen , brasserie <A> Be aware that "dormitory" has a specific meaning, and is usually associated with schools, especially colleges. <S> There are other words for sleeping place, including bedroom. <S> If you're wondering if there are any words for eating place that are derived from the Latin meaning "eat" (as dormitory is from the Latin word for "sleep"), I'm not aware of any. <A> Some common "eating place" words are: bar, cafeteria, café, canteen, chophouse, coffee shop, diner, dining room, dive, doughtnut shop, drive-in, eatery, eating house, eating place, fast-food place, greasy spoon, grill, hamburger stand, hashery, hideaway, hotdog stand, inn, joint*, luncheonette, lunchroom, night club, outlet*, pizzeria, saloon, soda fountain, watering hole <S> src <A> A restaurant, a diner, an eatery, and a café are all places where people go to eat meals. <A> There is no single word for eating place, there are many. <S> Restaurant Diner Cafeteria <S> Eatery <S> You have to make a choice.
| There are lots of words for "eating place": dining room, cafeteria, restaurant, mess hall (military), galley (Navy), and so on.
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Is it "alright" or "allright"? In practice I find both spellings being used. From a logical point of view, "allright" (as in: "all's right — everything is fine") seems correct. However, I recall hearing that "alright" is the preferable variant. Is there consensus over which to use? Do they possibly even mean something different? <Q> Wiktionary marks <S> alright as an "alternative spelling" of <S> all right , and allright as a "common misspelling" thereof. <S> Merriam-Webster only has entries for alright <S> and all right , and <S> this usage discussion : <S> The one-word spelling <S> alright appeared some 75 years after <S> all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. <S> Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. <S> It is less frequent than <S> all right <S> but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. <S> It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing < <S> the first two years of medical school were <S> alright — Gertrude Stein <S> >. <S> The stats from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus look as follows: COCA <S> BNCall <S> right 59013 <S> 6384alright <S> 1888 <S> 8328allright <S> 36 <S> 3 <S> This suggests that alright is much more popular in Britain than in the US. <S> However, the Corpus of Historical American English paints the following picture: <S> X axis: <S> year, Y axis: incidences per million words. <S> So, alright seems to be gaining popularity in the States as well. <S> Lastly, the fact that all right loses one L when written as one word is not peculiar in the least — just think of already, almost, although, albeit , almighty, altogether , and any number of other words formed this way. <A> The second spelling requires a space: it is either “ alright ” or “ all right ”. <S> The New Oxford American Dictionary says: <S> Usage: <S> The merging of all and right to form the one-word spelling alright <S> is first recorded toward the end of the 19th century (unlike other similar merged spellings such as altogether and already, which date from much earlier). <S> There is no logical reason for insisting that all right be two words when other single-word forms such as altogether have long been accepted. <S> Nevertheless, although found widely, alright remains nonstandard. <A> I was taught that "alright" was never correct. <S> I don't see any problem with it in informal contexts, but I would avoid it elsewhere. <A> I'm my humble and uninformed opinion they are both correct, but are a little different. <S> I would use "alright" in a sentence such as: "Alright, I finished fixing the engine, now to test it.", or "alright, alright already, I'll fix the brakes." <S> while I would say "The car's running all right, but it really needs a wash." <A> According to Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus (UK, 2nd ed. 2000): alright is "a variant spelling of all right ." <S> " USAGE NOTE <S> The form <S> alright , though very common, is still considered by many people to be wrong or less acceptable" The entry for <S> all right includes: " all-right ( US slang ) acceptable; reliable." <S> allright doesn't even merit an entry. <S> So 'alright' is all right, but <S> 'allright' is wrong, at least in my book. <A> To my (overly pedantic) mind, "all right" is the only correct spelling. <S> The other abominations arose from the colloquial "alrighty," as an analog to "already," I suspect. <A> The British Shorter Oxford Dictionary as of 1992 lists <S> alright as frequent sp. <S> of <S> all right 1893. <S> The Australian Macquarie Dictionary as of 1991 simply has adj. <S> , adv., interj. <S> → all right. <S> Personally I always use <S> alright <S> even though I'm aware some pedants might not approve. <A> " All right " is the correct phrase according to almost all grammarians and as per correct usage. <A> At Grammar School, in Britain, circa 1955, we were taught that the correct spelling was alright . <S> I have no objection to anyone spelling it all right , but for me <S> alright <S> it shall remain until my dying day. <A> In my view, "all right", as a phrase, means "OK", "nominal", or "acceptable", as in "The fix was all right, but clearly not intended as a long-term solution. <S> " <S> The claim that "all right" somehow implies "correct in every way" is belied by the fact that while it juxtaposes the two words, it doesn't form an integral phrase. <S> This is emphatically conveyed by the expression "just all right", which would be quite a stretch to interpret as "merely correct in every way." <S> For these and other reasons, I view "alright" as a lazy variant that has muscled its way into English, but I don't see how it adds anything useful or esthetic.
| So, I would use "all right" when it really means all of it's right, while "alright" is used in more informal or derivative uses where it doesn't really mean all is right.
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Is there a specific name for a portmanteau of two alternative spellings? This question came about in a discussion between myself and another user of the Gaming.SE chat after I linked in this chiptune track called An Eskimeau Experience Here is the gist of the discussion: It's either Eskimo or Esquimaux. Not a portmanteau of both. "Eskimeau" is a portmanteau of two of the different spellings. It's half English, half French. That's like calling something a biscookie. So it's wrong, and I want to know the name of the 'mistake' (or stylistic device, if you prefer) I thought there was a specific name for a portmanteau of two alternative spellings... This probably isn't very clear, so I suggest you check out the link below, which will take you to the transcript of the original discussion. Original chat transcript <Q> I'd call it "franglais" (the contraction of "français" and "anglais"), as juxtapositions of these two languages (French and English) typically carry that term. <S> "un anglicisme" (French wiképedia link) . <S> An example of this in French would be the common usage of the term "e-mail" before (and after) the introduction of its French equivalent, "courriel". <S> This seems to be an example of the reverse (French to English instead of English to French) occurring, hence the suggested name. <S> If you're looking to make a portmanteau of "french anglicism", I'd suggest "franglicism". <S> If not that, I suggest "word cocktail". <A> I think you'd call it "spelling mistake". <S> The error likely comes from the fact that "Esquimaux" is always plural as in "of the Esquimaux", where the singular would then be "Esquimeau" (which is not used). <S> Eskimeau is just a spelling mistake - there's no need to assume that the artist was deliberately trying to fuse the english "k" spelling with the french singular ending. <S> +1 for Franglais though. <S> We use that all the time round here, estie. <A> I think you should probably just call it a portmanto or a portmanteaux .
| Another suggestion would be "french anglicism", as the French call an English word, spelling, or pronunciation that is lent into another language
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"Most every" and "almost every" What is the difference between "most every" and "almost every"? Do they differ in amount? <Q> Most, as an adverb, can be used informally to mean “almost”. <S> In that sense, there is no difference in meaning between “most every” and “almost every”, except that the first one is informal. <S> I should add that the Corpus of Contemporary American English has 290 occurrences of “most every”, compared to 5027 for “almost every”. <S> The second alternative is thus vastly favoured, at least in written American English. <S> In the British National Corpus, “most every” returns 4 occurrences, while “almost every” returns 788 hits. <S> It thus confirms what commenters have said, that “most every” is a regionalism. <A> Most every is a very informal version of almost every . <S> Both phrases mean the same thing, but one would be hard-pressed to find most every in formal contexts. <A> It's like saying "we was" is informal. <S> It's not. <S> It's just used by people who haven't learned to use the correct phrase "we were." <S> Common misunderstanding doesn't mean something is correct. <S> At the same time, though, language is a living thing. <S> I expect this is an example of the evolution and fragmentation of English.
| Most every is not used formally because it is incorrect.
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What would you (negatively) call a person who insists on repaying even a small amount of money? Let's say you paid for a friend's bus ride, and he insists on paying you back rather than just let it be and stop worrying about it. You even find it rude on his part that he won't just forget about it. Is there an adjective or a phrase for such kind or a person, or for such kind of a behavior? <Q> Fastidious can have the sort of connotation I think you're looking for. <S> fas·tid·i·ous ( adj .) <S> Possessing or displaying careful, meticulous attention to detail. <S> Difficult to please <S> ; exacting. <S> Excessively scrupulous or sensitive, especially in matters of taste or propriety. <S> " <S> He was the sort of guy who might ring you at 4 in the morning to repay sixpence; the chap was fastidious about his debts." <A> Perhaps punctilious would be the word you are looking for? <A> I would call such a person overly or obsessively proud , or possibly haughty . <S> But it would depend on the culture. <S> Such a practice is considered normal in Japan, for example, where the concept of on ( face ) requires it. <A> I think the word stickler fits very well here, in the sense of a person who's obsessive about making sure customs and rules are followed to the letter. <S> If I were to use it in a sentence, it would go something like this: He was a stickler for making sure that even the smallest and most insignificant debt was repaid in full. <S> It carries a connotation of following a rule to the point of being slightly annoying about it. <A> I'd go for "stubbornly independent, even in the face of generosity". <A> That's not an adjective, but I think the phenomenon may be too complex to boil down to a single word (cultural factors? <S> fear of indebtedness? <S> fear of not being able to return a kindness? <S> feelings of inferiority? <S> etc). <S> Maybe generosity averse ? :) <A> <A> How about compulsively reciprocal ? <A> Someone who is " anal retentive " is a good fit and conveys the speaker's annoyance quite effectively. <S> Wikipedia describes it thus: <S> The term anal retentive (also anally retentive), commonly abbreviated to anal, is used to describe a person who pays such attention to detail that the obsession becomes an annoyance to others, potentially to the detriment of the anal-retentive person. . <A> Many Danes are familiar with a concept that also seems to be in play in the case of the OP's obsessive debt-repayer. <S> They call it millimeterdemokrati ("millimetre democracy"). <S> It is typified by phenomena such as the scrupulous analysis of a restaurant bill to calculate who owes how much, the maintaining of a log in order to track whose turn it is to wipe down the fridge door or rinse the tea cups, and the cutting of a cake into slices of precisely equal size (with the help of kitchen scales, in the worst case). <S> You could say that individuals afflicted with this impulse are applying an ethos of egalitarian reciprocity/responsibility taken to an extreme degree. <S> (I hasten to add that most Danes are not quite this silly.) <S> Looking over the other suggested names for this attitude, I don't think any of them quite capture the nitpicking quality of millimetre democracy at its finest.
| I would call him a nitpicker, after revieing this I'm not sure whether it would be approriate: nitpicking I would say this person suffers from an aversion to generosity .
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What does "imperio in imperium" mean? I've heard the Latin phrase imperio in imperium used in political discussions a few times. While I understand what the phrase literally means in Latin ("by command into command"), I'm not sure what the intended meaning is when the phrase is invoked in English as a discussion of political strategy or reality. <Q> The use of the word "imperium" instead of a more neutral word meaning a commonwealth, like "res publica", implies that the leader(s) of this entity impose some rules on it that would normally be imposed by a formal government. <A> Further down on the page that Robusto linked to, the expression is defined: it means "a state within a state" - in other words, a group that exists within a political unit but exercises independent power there. <S> Examples they give include: the Catholic Church in England before the Act of Supremacy (which made the British monarch the head of the Church of England <S> - i.e., it became subordinate and no longer a separate imperium ), and the Mormons in early territorial Utah. <S> Possibly another example might be the Inquisition in Spain, which was nominally under royal control but in practice operated pretty independently. <A> In politics, it refers to a sphere of power or dominion .
| You are right that it would mean something like "in an empire into an empire", which is nonsense; fortunately, this phrase is wrong: the classic term is imperium in imperio , which is, as Alex explained, an "empire within an empire", a group or organisation that functions almost as its own state, even though it is officially not a state but merely an unofficial entity within a state.
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Are there any practical uses of onomatopoeia in contemporary English? Do we have any practical uses of onomatopoeia in contemporary English? I can not claim to have read many materials, but I have to confess I have rarely seen it used a lot. <Q> Each onomatopoeic word is its own entity. <S> Asking whether there are any practical uses for onomatopoeia is similar to asking whether there are any practical uses for words ending in f . <S> You have to evaluate each word on a case-by-case basis. <S> Here is a list of some onomatopoeic words ( from here ): <S> Buzz, Beep, Whirr, Click, Clack, Clunk, Clatter, Clink, Achoo, Ahem, Fizz, Bah, Bump, Bam, Bang, Bash, Puff, Bawl, Boing, Bong, Bonk, Boo, Varoom, vroom, Bubble, Whoosh, Slurp, Wham, Biff, Pow, Snore, Swish, Swoosh, Blare, Blurt, Boing, Boink, Boom, Slurch, Clank, Clatter, Click, Ring, Ting, Honk, Jingle, Toot, Hum, Thud, Tick-tock, Cluck, Poof, Crackle, Ding, Hiccup, Crunch, Eek, Flick, Ping, Plop, Zap, Zing, Zip, Zoom Buzz , beep , honk , plop (and so on) <S> are perfectly normal, commonly-used English words. <S> These words can be any type of lexical category, and can be just as useful as any other type of word. <A> A few common words that are largely onomatopoetic: sigh whack whoosh plink ping-pong plop flop whisk blab murmur susurrus pop click honk bark yap <A> You can say that cuckoo is an onomatopoeic word, or that is an onomatopoeia. <S> Apart from using onomatopoeia to mean that a word is formed from the sound it describes, or to refer to the use of such words for rhetorical effect, I don't think you usually use that word. <S> [Reference: the New Oxford American Dictionary.]
| There is plenty of onomatopoeia going on in English all the time.
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What is the difference between "safe" and "vault"? What is the difference between safe and vault , where both the words refer to a place where to put things you want to keep safe? As additional question, why does vault seem more frequently used in computer jargon? For example, the Mac OS X has a File vault , and vault is the word used from anti-virus programs to refer to a place where infected files are kept. <Q> A safe is usually smaller than a vault . <S> Safes are often portable, or at least movable, while vaults often are entire rooms. <A> A safe connotes something smaller than a vault, and may be movable, while a vault is generally built in-place and would be torn down rather than moved. <S> It is also attractive because it is less common, and is only a noun (in this sense) and thus quicker to interpret, whereas safe can be noun, verb, or adjective (and heavily used in the latter sense in the computer security context). <A> A safe has one layer of steel surrounding the interior shell. <S> The Department of Justice requires a minimum of 12 gauge steel to call it a safe. <S> Otherwise, it's a cabinet. <S> A quality safe will have c-rated fire board underneath the steel to protect against fire. <S> A vault has a layer of steel on the outside, fire board and then an additional layer of steel on the inside. <S> A good quality safe with 7 gauge (3/16") steel that's 60x40x28 will run about $3000 before adding any options or upgrades. <S> That same safe made into a vault by adding that second layer will cost about $3800. <S> If you were to add a layer of 304 stainless steel, it would be impervious to torch cutting and would cost about $5400. <S> Safe = one layer of steel <S> Vault = 2 or more layers of steel
| The computer jargon use of vault may be due to its connotation of greater security.
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Does 'soi-disant' have a close English equivalent? I considered 'self-proclaimed' but that, I believe, suggests an element of self- promotion (the proclamation aspect) whereas soi-disant, at least as I think of it, is more about self-presentation and in some contexts self-deceit. <Q> I think "self-styled" would be the closest match. <A> Suggestions: <S> self-styled : this is the phrase used in the first definition on Wiktionary , dictionary.com , Wordnet , etc. <S> self-proclaimed : this is used in Merriam-Webster . <S> And I don't think that "self-proclaimed" necessarily implies self-promotion. <S> soi-disant itself <S> : It is used in English, though it's a bit rare these days. <S> (Actually I only recall encountering it in a Saki short story : "the soi-disant aunt".) <S> A thesaurus gives "alleged, allegedly, commonly named, formal, titular, nominal, ostensible, pretended, professed, purported, self-named, self-styled, soi-disant" — most of them don't work, though self-professed would. <A> All of "self-styled", "so-called" and "supposed" work well. <S> Which one you choose just depends on the context and personal preference. <A> I think it would help to give an example sentence. <S> I confess, I've never heard soi-disant used in English. <S> But in French, it is used in three ways: attributed to people who actually can proclaim themselves to be something: in this case self-proclaiming or synonyms would cover the meaning; attributed to inanimate objects that can't actually speak <S> /proclaim anything: in this case, alleged, so-called would cover the meaning; as an adverb, in which case allegedly , supposedly would work in English. <A> But the word is now native English (a borrowing) like 'a la mode' or 'frisson'. ' <S> Soi-disant' has a formal or affected air to it (like other obscurantist borrowings). <S> In English it means two related things (see online definitions ) 'self-styled' (labeled by oneself and so suspect from bias) 'so-called' (implying that the following label is not accurate) <S> The latter is both the more common interpretation since it includes the former semantically. <S> It is a common thing to say in speech (along with 'so-called') in order to convey the same meaning as the much more informal 'quote unquote' or use fingers for air-quotes in order to make obvious that one is using a term sarcastically or that the one who chose the label for themselves is hypocritical. <S> Whether so-called or self-styled, it is as M-W says "a disparaging term for someone who styles or fancies him- or herself in some role". <S> So 'self-styled' (or other variations) will serve your purposes, but be aware it is more likely to be understood as hypocritically referring to oneself, but rather as a sarcastic label by others. <A> In French there are two uses of the expression. <S> Adjectival to describe a person in a pejorative sense, self-proclaimed usually ironic,and, adverbial, in the sense of supposedly. <S> If a lunatic believed himself to be Napoleon, to call him a soi-disant Napoleon would be wrong because the irony is missing. <S> To use it adverbially would be in criticism of a usual expectation, he came soi-disant to fix the ariel but stole the television. <A> how about "self-appointed"? <S> Or "so-called," depending on the context? " <S> Alleged" might work, too. <A> Soi-disant(e) is used in French to describe that a person is pretending something that he is not (in this context). <S> giving himself more credit than he deserves and that would be obvious to the other person listening to him. <S> for example: a person would say I did this <S> , I did that, this should be done this way .... <S> and of course you know that this person is not capable of doing anything of what he claims, and that he is only showing off to impress others.
| Literally word for word 'soi-disant' in French would be 'self saying' or more closely 'self-called'.
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What does "loose change" mean and what is its origin? What does loose change mean? What is the origin of the phrase? <Q> Loose change refers to small amount of coins. <S> Change refers to the money you get back when you do not pay exactly the right amount--for example, if you pay for a $0.90 item with a $1 bill, you would get back 10 cents in change . <S> The modifier loose is added to the word because small amounts of coins tend to not be put into a wallet, but just put into your pocket and allowed to be loose . <A> To take a stab at the origin part of your question, I searched for the earliest use of the phrase and found this example from a letter to the editor of The Gentleman's Magazine , 1803: <S> People of fashion , in particular, have a set of new words, very shining and polished in appearance, which obtain among them a large circulation, however unshapely and uncouth they may seem in the eyes of collectors, and although they are refused in all legal tenders. <S> They are admirably adapted, however, for the traffick of certain great houses in Pall Mall and St. James's street, and from their being very widely circulated, in loose change , by certain female Bankers and lettered Countesses, they are, in compliance with a very customary pronunciation, known by the name of BRIM- igams . <S> The phrase was in italics in the original and was part of the letter writer's fascinating peeve using an extended metaphor of banking and minting to ask the question, "who has the right to coin new words and phrases?" <S> (recommended reading for EL&U users). <S> Interestingly, I think the writer intended the double meaning of loose in this phrase to describe both rattling coins and the moral standards of "certain females." <S> Here's a clip of the actual text: <A> Coins. <S> You probably got them as change when you paid for something in a shop. <S> If you had a large number of coins, you might roll them up in a paper tube as banks do. <S> So "loose" change would be a smaller number of coins that you might typically have in your pocket or purse. <A> It's the coins loose in your pocket, usually as a result of the change returned after payment in cash. <S> I'm not sure what is the earliest known recording of the phrase, but I think it's a 20th century expression.
| "Loose" as in coins rattling around in your pocket.
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"Interested in knowing" versus "interested to know" I am interested to know if, for some, there is a subtle difference between the two phrases in the title. I am equally interested in knowing if there is a subtle difference. <Q> There is definitely a difference to me. <S> They do not mean the same thing. <S> Being interested in <S> something describes a general interest that you hold—something that you tend to find interesting and devote some part of your time doing or at least thinking about. <S> Being interested to do something, on the other hand, implies that right at this moment, you find the thing in question interesting and would like to [do whatever it is]; but it does not speak to your general interests. <S> With the verb <S> know , the latter tends to be a more accurate description of what’s going on: <S> knowing is not something that we often need to talk about as one of our interests in life. <S> For me personally, I frequently use it in the conditional: <S> I’d be interested to know how much of our recycled waste is actually recycled. <S> In other words, it just struck me now that that particular piece of information would be an interesting one to have; I don’t count knowing how much of our waste is recycled among my general interests, though. <S> If I do count something as a general interest, I would use the gerund form: <S> I’m interested in knowing everything I can find out about the mating rituals of grasshoppers. <S> This implies two things: <S> That one of my general interests is the mating rituals of grasshoppers, and I therefore spend lots of time in learning everything I can about them (similar to “I’m interested in art”, except with an action as the interest instead of just a broad concept). <S> I have very little to no social life. <S> This is not really a hard-and-fast distinction, but it’s a good rule of thumb. <S> There are many cases where a gerund construction can, from context, be shoehorned into the sense of ‘current, fleeting interest’ rather than ‘permanent, general interest’: <S> Would you be interested in going out for dinner tonight? <S> Would you be interested in cooking for me tonight? <S> This is partly to do with the conditional, which tends to reinforce the ‘currently’ sense of interested ; if you describe general interests, you would usually just use a straightforward present: <S> Are you interested in going out to restaurants? <S> Are you interested in cooking? <S> These last two are definitely ungrammatical to me with the infinitive construction: <S> *Are you interested to go out to restaurants? <S> *Are you interested to cook? <A> Both phrases introduce something which you wish to learn. <S> However, the form interested in knowing is a bit more common that interested to know , which does sound a bit more awkward (at least in my opinion). <S> Another phrase, if you're curious, would be interested in learning . <S> I am interested in learning whether or not dogs have legs. <A> A common view generally is that the -ing form focusses more on the "middle" of an action when a choice between it and the infinitive is available. <S> I think this view could work here, though the difference is subtle as you say. <A> Based on my intuition and the time I've spent trying to understand Jean Yate's The Ins and Outs of Prepositions <S> whereas 'interested to know' is perhaps a general interest, but maybe nothing more.
| I would suggest that 'in' gives a more detailed interest in learning, perhaps a specific detail or for a specific goal' There is, at least in American English, no discernible difference as far as meaning between the two phrases.
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What's the difference between "mirror" and "looking glass"? I have read that a looking glass is a surface with sufficient reflection to form an image of an object... doesn't that sound like a mirror? <Q> There is no difference. <A> Looking glass was considered the 'proper' word to use when referring to what we now would all call a mirror. <S> The word mirror was considered vulgar and middle-class by the upper classes. <S> Some upper class people will still say looking glass instead of mirror . <S> The word glass on its own also often refers to mirrors rather than glass. <S> Hence pier glass , or 'go and look in the glass'. <A> When Perseus slays Medusa, he does so without looking directly at her, instead using his highly polished shield as a mirror. <S> This sense of mirror is reflected (so to speak) in the first definition of the term in Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003): <S> mirror 1: a polished or smooth surface (as of glass) that forms images for reflection <S> But would it be correct to say that Perseus used his shield as a looking glass? <S> The underlying question here is, How literally should we take the component "glass" in the term looking glass ? <S> If looking glasses must be made, in part, of glass, then a metal shield can't be a looking glass, though it can be a mirror. <S> The Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary isn't especially helpful on this point, as it defines looking glass simply as "MIRROR. <S> " <S> Earlier dictionaries, however, don't treat the two terms as identical. <S> One of the clearest treatments of the differences between mirror and looking-glass appears in Merriam-Webster's [First] International Dictionary of the English Language (1890), which provides distinct definitions for three related terms: Looking-glass A mirror made of glass on which has been placed a backing of some reflecting substance, as quicksilver. <S> Mirror <S> A looking-glass or a speculum; any glass or polished substance that forms images by the reflection of rays of light. <S> Speculum 1. <S> A mirror, or looking-glass; especially a metal mirror, as in Greek and Roman archaeology. <S> 2. <S> A reflector of polished metal, especially one used in reflecting telescopes. ... <S> From these definitions, it appears that (late in the nineteenth century, anyway) <S> Perseus's shield would have qualified as both a mirror and a speculum, but not as a looking-glass. <A> The difference between looking glass and mirror is that looking glass , when used as adjective, means being or involving the opposite of what is normal or expected ( a looking-glass land , looking-glass logic ); mirror can also be figuratively used to mean something regarded as accurately representing something else <S> ( the stage is supposed to be the mirror of life ). <S> [Reference: the New Oxford American Dictionary.] <A> A looking glass is indeed a mirror. <S> As @JSBangs alluded to, it is only largely used in literary contexts. <S> Two notable examples (book titles) are: Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll) Into the Looking Glass <S> (John Ringo)
| "Looking glass" is a poetic and archaic way to refer to a mirror.
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Two octopi? What's the proper plural? Possible Duplicate: Octopuses, octopi, or octo? What is the "proper" plural of "octopus"? A web search turns up three candidates, but is there a "right" answer? <Q> According to Merriam-Webster , both octopuses and octopi are acceptable plurals. <S> The reason for the octopi plural is because some people mistakenly associate octopus with Latin words like syllabus and alumnus . <S> Since these words take an -i plural in the original Latin, and since Latin has enjoyed such a high status in the minds of English speakers for such a long time, people have attempted to maintain or reintroduce the Latin plural form for such words. <S> However, the word octopus is actually of Greek origin. <S> The plural of octopus in Greek is, in fact, octopodes . <S> Now, I am not advocating using the form <S> octopodes as the plural for this word. <S> English borrows many nouns from other languages (Japanese, Russian, Arabic, and so on) and only rarely ever uses the morphological system of that language to create plural forms. <S> (Even many borrowed Latin -us <S> words do not ever take <S> the -i plural suffix, like circus .) <S> So, you have three choices: <S> Use octopuses and pluralize it like any other average English word. <S> Use octopi and force an etymologically inappropriate Latin suffix onto an innocent Greek word. <S> Use octopodes and probably have to explain each time that "technically" this is the correct plural in Greek (which might be a hit at parties?). <S> As I said, there is no one right answer. <S> Good luck to you! <A> Octopuses is the normal English plural. <S> Octopi is common, but incorrect <S> -- it might be correct if octopus were of Latin derivation, but it is actually from the Greek. <S> Like other abominations such as irregardless , though, it is recorded as a common usage in dictionaries (which are descriptive, not prescriptive). <S> The technically correct, but vanishingly rare, plural is octopodes . <A> Both octopuses and octopi are accepted alternatives. <S> Octopuses is probably more common and gaining ground since it follows the most common rule for plurals. <S> (The form octopi is the plural form from Latin; the biological genus name Octopus is from Latin, of course.) <A> People with a background in Greek or who want to sound pedantic may use octopodes although it is rarely used. <S> Some people (and dictionaries) also use octopi <S> thinking it is how Latin would do the plural for octopus , but octopus actually comes from Greek not Latin. <S> I don't know if there is a "right" answer since what is right in language comes from how words are used over time. <S> Here is how I would describe the plurals: octopuses - sounds <S> the least strange and most commonly used octopodes - technically correct based on etymology, but rare and people may assume you are incorrect octopi <S> - technically incorrect, but not uncommon
| The most common plural for octopus is octopuses . There is no one "right" answer per se.
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"Good night" or "good evening"? If it's 7:30pm, which of these phrases is correct, Good night or Good evening ? <Q> Depends on context. <S> "Good night" is generally reserved as a replacement for "goodbye". <S> "Good evening" is a form of "hello". <A> "Good evening" is something that can be used from roughly 5 PM on. <S> "Good night" can also be said from 5 PM on, but usually means one of two things: <S> "goodbye (for the rest of the day, because we are leaving work, the bar, etc.) <S> " <S> "I'm going to bed now <S> and/or <S> "you're going to bed now <S> " (said to family members, people I am chatting with online or on the phone, when one or both of us is going to bed)" <S> It basically never means " <S> hello (late evening)" that equivalent phrases can have in other languages. <A> My answer from a similar, before someone pointed to this as a related question, to which this is even more suited: <S> "Good night" as a greeting was once commonly found in Ireland, but almost exclusive to there. <S> In James Joyce's "The Dead", for example, it is used both as greeting: — <S> O, Mr Conroy, said Lily to Gabriel when she opened the door for him, Miss Kate and Miss Julia thought you were never coming. <S> Good night, Mrs Conroy. <S> And as a farewell: —Well, good night, Aunt Kate, and thanks for the pleasant evening. <S> I suspect, but do not know for sure, that this was a retention of something that was more widespread, but died out elsewhere sooner than in Ireland. <S> In any case, it has mostly died out here too. <S> It may be heard from an older generation, and perhaps lingers in some regions, but my generation (mid 30s) wouldn't use it either in the region I grew up, nor where I now live. <S> "Good evening" would be the more normal night-time greeting. <S> The only logical explanation I can think of for our no longer using "good night" in this way, is that it is so often said to someone about to retire to bed, that it was hence used more often as a farewell and then came to have only this meaning. <S> The other forms, after all, would be more often used as a greeting than a farewell, though historically that was not the case. <A> So far as I know, there is no generally accepted definition of the exact times that evening starts and ends. <S> As others have said, good night is most often used when parting. <S> If you said this at 7:30 people might respond "goodbye" and turn away. <S> As you enter the home of a friend, you might say good night to someone leaving and good evening to your host (assuming it isn't the sort of occasion where "wassup hussler" and "yo bitch" are appropriate). <A> Good evening can be used to say hello or goodbye depending on the context. <S> Good evening can be used to say hello once it gets dark outside and the time varies depending on the season. <S> Good night is usually used to say goodbye later on at night when people separate for the rest of the evening/night.
| Good evening can be used to say goodbye usually just after it turns dark outside.
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Do people perceive a difference between "phantasy" and "fantasy"? When I started to learn English, I was used to write phantasy instead of fantasy , and I was always corrected. I recently noticed that phantasy is an English word too. Do people give to those words a different meaning? <Q> I have never seen it written phantasy much, except in medical texts. <S> The NOAD seems to confirm this: phantasy (noun): variant spelling of fantasy (restricted to archaic uses or, in modern use, to the fields of psychology and psychiatry). <A> In mod. <S> use fantasy and phantasy , in spite of their identity in sound and in ultimate etymology, tend to be apprehended as separate words, the predominant sense of the former being ‘caprice, whim, fanciful invention’, while that of the latter is ‘imagination, visionary notion’. <S> One of its citations is: 1926 G. Coster <S> Psycho-Analysis ii. <S> 35 ― <S> The term phantasy is much used in analytical psychology, and the fact that its technical meaning differs subtly from its colloquial one leads to some confusion. <S> A phantasy is a day-dream in which desire, unfulfilled in the world of reality, finds an imaginary fulfilment or satisfaction. <S> Because these were once used interchangeably but are now used differently, you cannot just do an easy ngram or a simple corpus check of one versus the other and make any concrete inference about the results. <S> The spelling variants throughout the ages are considerable. <S> The alphas below are the f- <S> forms and the betas the <S> ph- <S> forms in this OED citation, and the numbers represent century numbers: <S> ɑ. <S> 4-7 fantasi(e, -ye, -azie, -aisie, -aysie, -esi(e, -esy(e, -essy, (5 fantsy, fayntasie, feintasy) <S> , 5-6 fantosy, 6-7 fantacie, -y, 4- fantasy. <S> β. <S> 6- 8 phantasie, (6 -esie, 6-7 phant’sie, -’sy), <S> 6- phantasy. <S> Note that our word <S> fancy also comes from these, and thus also had both alpha and beta forms: ɑ. <S> 5-6 fansey, 6-8 fansie, -ye, 6-7 fancie, -ye, <S> 6- fancy. <S> β. <S> 6-8 <S> phansy(e, -cie, -cy, 6-9 phansie. <S> Phantasy is more related to phantasm than to fancy . <S> OED has longer notes about all this. <S> Here is an excerpt: <S> The shortened form fancy , which apparently originated in the 15th c., had in the time of Shakspere become more or less differentiated in sense. <S> After the revival of Greek learning, the longer form was often spelt phantasy , and its meaning was influenced by the Gr. <S> etymon. <A> I agree with F'x about "archaic" uses. <S> In a literary sense, I'd think of phantasy being used by 19th- and early-20th- century writers, such as George Macdonald, Andrew Lang, Lord Dunsany, and Clark Ashton Smith. <S> Even then, phantasy was considered an out-of-date usage. <S> When contemporary writers use phantasy , they're signalling very strongly that their stories use older times, places, or modes of story-telling. <A>
| I think phantasy is used in psychoanalysis to indicate unconscious imaginings or ideas, as opposed to fantasy referring to conscious imaginings or thoughts. The OED notes that fantasy and phantasy are usually considered separate words in modern use:
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What's the difference between "teacher" and "professor"? Is one more formal then the other? <Q> Teach is including a more general concept. <S> According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Teacher : <S> someone whose job is to teach, especially in a school <S> Professor : <S> American English : a teacher at a university or college British English : a teacher of the highest rank in a university department <S> To see academic degrees visit here . <S> Also you may find it interesting to know: <S> teacher someone who teaches as their job, especially in a school : a high school teacher principal ( also headteacher British English ) the teacher who is in charge of a school or college : The teacher sent him to the principal’s office. <S> tutor someone who gives private lessons to one student or a small group of students. <S> In Britain, a tutor is also a teacher in a university : <S> They hired a tutor to help him with his English. <S> | <S> Your tutor will help you find a subject for your essay.lecturer someone who teaches in a university or college : <S> University lecturers aren’t very well paid. <S> professor a teacher in a college or university. <S> In Britain, a professor is a high-ranking university teacher, especially one who is head of a department : <S> She was professor of linguistics at Cambridge University. <S> instructor someone who teaches a sport or a practical skill such as swimming or driving : <S> He works as a ski instructor in the winter. <S> | a driving instructor coach someone who helps a person or team improve in a sport : a professional tennis coach educator especially American English formal someone whose job involves teaching people, or someone who is an expert on education : Most educators agree that class sizes are still too big. <S> trainer someone who teaches people particular skills, especially the skills they need to do a job : a teacher trainer <S> | <S> Many companies pay outside trainers to teach management skills to their staff. <S> governess a woman who lived with a family and taught their children in past times : As a governess, Charlotte Brontë received twenty pounds a year. <A> Informally, professor is used to refer to any instructor, especially the specialized ones. <S> [Reference: the New Oxford American Dictionary .] <A> Professor is also a rank, and a title, in the American university system and as such, confers status on its recipients. <S> There are lots of "instructors" and "lecturers" and "graduate assistants" who teach and publish original research who would love to be called "professor." <S> So yes, "professor" is more formal than "teacher." <S> In any sort of professional setting, for example in asking for the referral of an article or seeking university employment, I would be very careful to refer to the professor I'm mailing as "Professor" and not "teacher", so as not to seem overly familiar. <A> A professor is one who teaches in a university or college whereas a teacher is the one who teaches in high schools and comprehensive schools. <A> I believe a 'teacher' is someone who teaches you anything. ' <S> Professor' is a specialist in a field of study and teaches by profession. <S> A mother can be a teacher but not a professor (unless she is falls into the category mentioned above).
| Professor is more specific of teacher , as it is used when referring to a teacher of the highest rank in a college or university.
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Origin of "let's take it offline" When did people start using the corporate jargon "let's take it offline" (let's discuss that after this meeting in private)? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary , the origin of online is from 1950: online in ref. to computers, "directly connected to a peripheral device," is attested from 1950 (originally as on-line). If the word offline in the jargon is the antonym of online as defined above, then the jargon cannot be interpreted literally. It is often used in meetings where people are all physically in the same room. <Q> My guess would be, that it comes from "offline" meaning as in "offline processing". <S> http://www.answers.com/topic/off-line-processing <S> (computer science) <S> Any processing which takes place independently of the central processing unit. <S> Thus "discuss it offline" as "discuss it independently of main discussion". <A> I've heard this used in conference calls, where it actually has nearly the literal meaning. <S> Rather than tie up everyone on the phone, a smaller group can discuss the topic at another time. <A> Warning: pure speculation. <S> It used to be that time spent connected to the network <S> was very expensive. <S> Back then, dealing with information to be processed offline was to use cheaper cycles to deal with that information. <S> I most commonly hear this phrase in meetings, where a great deal of expensive engineer time is being wasted by details that only relate to 2 of the participants. <S> Thus, taking the conversation offline is a metaphor for having the conversation on cheaper time. <A> I'm fairly sure that offline in the expression "let's take it offline" arises from the sense that offline has in the context of company data networks. <S> From Dan Balter, Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment (2003): You can mount and dismount volumes from the command line with the mountvol.exe command. <S> On basic disks, if you type mountvol x : /p , where x : represents the volume's drive letter, you can dismount a volume and take it offline. <S> ... <S> By removing the drive letter and any other paths (mount points) for the volume, you take the volume offline. <S> But in addition to taking server volumes offline (that is, off the shared network), you can (if you have the necessary level of administrative rights) take a specific file offline (by transferring the file to a specific hard drive and then deleting it from the shared network). <S> The earliest mention of "take [it] offline" that I've been able to find is in Eric Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary (1996): <S> offline <S> adv. <S> Not now or not here. <S> "Let's take this discussion offline." <S> Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. <A> I think the real meaning of this phrase is to divert a relevant but non-critical discussion from the current place and time to another. <S> However, as one mentioned, in reality, it is used interchangeably with "Shut up and let's move on". <S> The reason is that usually there is no further discussion. <A> When you are in a group meeting and someone says to "take it off-line", this simply means "shut-up, move on, and forget about it", because I hear this often, but the conversation never continues off-line. <A> I believe I started hearing it (or more often "let's take this offline") around 2000, and a Google search confirms that. <S> I'd say its fairly common, and when used between people in a meeting no one thinks it's supposed to refer to the internet-related meaning of "offline". <A> "off-line" may have an order reference; i.e. to assembly lines in manufacturing. <S> For example, one of several lines assembling toasters may be shut down when orders fall below a certain number.
| Taking a conversation offline is metaphorically very similar to taking a file that was begun "online" (that is, on the shared network) and moving it offline (that is, to a more private destination).
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A couple of quick questions related to "Messrs" How is "Messrs" pronounced? The meaning is the plural of "Mister", right? Does that mean that "Misters" is not a word? Is "Messrs" a word that is more commonly used in England than the United States? <Q> Its use is correct but fairly uncommon: <S> Mr Smith and Mr Jones is more usual than Messrs Smith and Jones ; Misters Smith and Jones is extremely rare while Mrs Smith and Jones would suggest a sex-change. <A> Does that mean that "Misters" is not a word? <S> The plural of Mister is used; you can find sentences like the following: <S> The gold medals they won at earlier races aren't the only thing that Misters Hedrick and Cheek have in common. <S> Is "Messrs" a word that is more commonly used in England than the United States? <S> The NOAD describes <S> Messrs. as dated or chiefly British. <A> I do not think you would find "Messrs" used in speech except for comic effect. <S> Its use now is pretty well restricted to addressing envelopes - and probably only from old-fashioned organisations.
| It is pronounced Mess-ers derived from the French plural messieurs , while Mr comes from master .
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What does "Do you haz teh codez?" mean? There is a banner in StackOverflow pointing to the careers website (programmers): Do you haz teh codez? My questions about the sentence/question are: What's the question in plain English? Why do they write it like that? Is it like a word game? How should I read it in terms of pronunciation? <Q> Literal translation is "Do you have the code?" <S> but what is implied is "Please can you write my application for me?" or "Please solve my problem so I don't have to put any effort in." <S> It is written like that as a mockery of people who ask questions on Stack Overflow, and other such websites, where their question is a thinly veiled, or completely unveiled, attempt to get someone to do their work for them. <S> So the questioner won't have even have tried to solve their problem and will possibly be asking for an entire software application to be written. <S> I'm not sure what you mean by "Is there like a word game? <S> " If you mean is this like a word game then not really, it's just a joke. <S> It should be pronounced " <S> Do you haz (as in Mazda) teh (as in meh) codes?" <S> and in IPA: /duːjuːhæztɛkəʊdz/. For an example of the type of thing this is mocking: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/plz-email-me-teh-codez.aspx <A> So, to break it down: haz= <S> haveteh=thecodez= <S> codes <S> So it means <S> Do you have the codes? <S> or in a bit more sensible form considering the context <S> Are you able to code? <S> (Code here meaning to write code, or program) <S> These are variations from internet memes (google lolcats, if you dare) that have become mainstream (usually in a tongue-in-cheek way). <S> I'll stress this is NOT standard English. <S> It also may indicate that they're more tied into to internet/programming culture which has a history of using intentionally obfuscated terms/spellings/etc. <S> to set them apart and to act as a shibboleth. <S> As for the pronunciation, you can pretty much just read it phonetically, as the alterations are intended to be applied to the pronunciation as much as the spelling. <A> Sure, it means "do you have the code" ie. <S> " are you capable of writing quality code (ie, since it's a career ad you're reading, are you a programmer looking for work) and are you geek enough (since it's an ad you're reading, in the positive sense of the word, of course) to understand and like geekish talk like this (which implies that you'd fit a similarly geek company of computer experts well)? <S> " <S> They write it like that because it's supposed to be cool and to match the target audience's usage. <S> As for a word game being there - no, there's none imo, apart from the above. <S> For the pronunciation, go here and click listen . <S> ;) <S> (That's half a joke, sure. <S> But I'm fairly sure the majority of... errr... <S> geeks would get and like it.)
| Presumably the banner is done that way to catch someone's attention by avoiding a more standard (and therefore less engaging) phrase.
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Colloquial expression for "compliment" that carries negative feeling What is the colloquial/casual/conversational form of the word "compliment" in this context: A: I hate John. B: Why? He's like a genius. A: Exactly! He's such a teacher's pet. He's always gotta answer all the questions and Ms. Johnson is always complimenting him. Here in Japan the phrase "Ms. Johnson is always complimenting him" carries a negative nuance. And this dialogue does not sound natural to me at all. School kids do not use the word compliment in this context as Japanese kids do. <Q> What about, give him props ? <S> As in, <S> "I had to give him props for finishing a 50-page paper in a single late-nighter." <S> One often hears "props" used colloquially as a replacement for the word "compliment" in urban slang. <A> In this sense, something along the lines of Brownie points would seem to fit the bill. <S> It has that combination of childishness, contempt (from peers) and favoritism (from the teacher) that you'd expect from 'tweens and teens. <A> I can't think of a word replacement for compliment that carries a negative connotation, but I can restructure your dialog slightly: <S> A <S> : I hate John. <S> B: <S> why? <S> He's like a genius. <S> A: <S> exactly! <S> He's such a teachers pet. <S> He's always kissing up to Ms. Johnson and she totally rewards him for it. <S> I am not sure that receiving compliments is considered negative in the US, the negativity comes from asking for compliments (often referred to as "fishing") or accepting them without humility. <A> Also, when someone "pays a compliment" to us, we might consider "repaying/returning" the compliment. <S> Well, these are the colloquial phrases that come into my mind regarding "compliment". <S> Hope this helps. <A> An informal word for compliment is kudos . <S> I have never heard it used as verb (as in [ ? ] <S> he was kudosing her ), but you can say to receive kudos , to get kudos , to give kudos , or similar phrases.
| I would say "to pay somebody a compliment" (we also say "to receive/accept/acknowledge a compliment") .
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Burn up or burn down? What's the difference between "burn up" and "burn down"? Or is there a difference at all? <Q> My take is that "burn up" comes from some sense that the thing is used up (fuel is used and is gone). <S> "Burn down" means the thing has "burned down to the ground" in that all structure and support is gone. <S> One might say that "all my stuff was burned up in the fire when my house burned down. <S> " You'd be less likely to hear "my house burned up," but it is not totally unheard of usage. <S> There's also a common third <S> option—"burn through"—which evokes the idea of a wave of fire moving across or through something. <S> " <S> I burned through all my money at that casino in about two hours." <A> The satellite will burn up as it re-enters <S> the Earth’s atmosphere. <S> burn something up <S> Most of the woodland has now been burnt up. <S> 2 <S> burn something up <S> informal to use a lot of something in a careless way : <S> Most household appliances burn up loads of electricity. <S> He just burns up money! <S> 3 be burning up <S> spoken <S> if someone is burning up, they are very hot, usually because they are ill : <S> Feel his forehead – he’s burning up. <S> 4 <S> burn somebody up <S> American English informal to make someone very angry : <S> The way he treats her really burns me up. <S> 5 <S> burn something up to use energy that is stored in your body, by being physically active: <S> As we get older, our body becomes less efficient at burning up calories. <S> Burn Down : 1 if a building burns down or is burned down, it is destroyed by fire : <S> She was worried that the house might burn down while they were away. <S> burn something down <S> The old town hall was burnt down in the 1970s. <S> 2 <S> if a fire burns down, the flames become weaker and it produces less heat <A> Burn up is usually meant to indicate the usage of something: <S> We're burning up all our fuel. <S> Burn up can also mean angry: <S> That comment is really burning me up. <S> Or traverse something quickly: <S> Those racers are burning up the track! <S> Burn down is normally structural, but it can also mean to go through something (as a fire 'goes through' a house): <S> My house burned down. <S> Let's burn down these tasks until they're done. <S> There is a type of chart called a 'burndown chart' which demonstrates the second option. <A> To burn up means to light fire on something, like burn up your house, burn up your bed; you light fire on that, but it hasn't ended, the fire stays for some time. <S> When you burn down, it means that the fire is already gone, and what you burned up is destroyed, like a house, the structure and support are gone. <A> When we say "burn up or burned up" the fire will continue to light up that certain things that might be destroy. <S> It was started from lesser amount of fire or heat to the greatest amount until that certain things may destroy. <S> When we say "burn down or burned up" the mentioned thing is already gone. <S> It was started from the greatest amount of fire or heat until it will goes down.
| Burn Up : 1 if something burns up or is burnt up, it is completely destroyed by fire or heat :
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What is a term for a system with rules without any exceptions? What is the term for an organization or social/political system rigidly governed by rules without any exceptions? <Q> I would go with orthodox , strict , or conformist . <A> A formal system ? <A> I can express what you want in a different way, but don't have a specific term for the system itself. <S> I might say something like, "...that organization is governed by mandarins ..." <S> The word "mandarin" is a synonym for bureaucrat that has a very unyielding and officious connotation. <S> From Wikitionary , mandarin /ˈmæn.dər.ɪn/ ( n. ) <S> (historical) <S> A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire. <S> A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat. <S> A pedantic senior person of influence in academia or literary circles, often used pejoratively. <S> I'm not a historian of any sort, but I think the term alludes to the huge role <S> that the very rigidly structured civil service examinations played in Imperial China, and the vast powers those who passed those tests and eventually became officials in the government exercised. <A> Canonical This is probably stretching the definition a little <S> but it works in its more generic sense. <S> From dictionary.com, <S> canonical 1. <S> pertaining to, established by, or conforming to a canon or canons. <S> canon 4. <S> a fundamental principle or general rule: <S> the canons of good <S> To address your question, I suppose you could say "an overly-canonical government." <A> I like algorithmic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm <A> I think you're looking for the word "fascism" or "autocratic". <S> Though for answering the question more details are required. <S> So I give you some choices. <S> Autocratic : a system in which someone makes decisions and gives orders to people without asking them for their opinion. <S> fascism : a right-wing political system in which people’s lives are completely controlled by the state and <S> no political opposition is allowed dictatorial : a dictatorial government or ruler has complete power over a country fundamentalism : a religious or political movement based on a literal interpretation of and strict adherence to doctrine, especially as a return to former principles absolutism : a political system in which a ruler has complete power and authority <S> There are some other words that usually refer to special country or religion like tsarism, canonical, etc. <A> Whenever I run into systems of arbitrary rules that have absolutely no flexibility, I think of the innkeeper Procrustes and the associated adjective 'procrustean'. <S> Procrustes had an inn with beds that were of a fixed size. <S> If you were shorter than his bed, he would stretch you to fit and if you were too tall, he would cut off your feet. <S> See more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes <A> I don't know if there is a single word that means exactly that.
| I would describe such a system as strictly rule-based .
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Is it wrong to use "All" when there are only two? If there are two of something, can you say "all of" instead of "both of"? For example, if an email is addressed to two people, and you start off with: All, This is to inform you, etc., etc. ... Regards, Me Is that at all appropriate? <Q> Given that email typically takes on a conversational tone, sure. <S> If the email (or letter) is more formal, perhaps use an alternative. <A> I would say use "All" if you have three or more. <S> If there are only two addressees, just name them. <S> "To: Dick@home.com, Jane@home.com From: Dad@home.com Re: Doghouse plans Dear Dick and Jane, <S> Please let me know if you have reviewed the plans for Spot's new doghouse. <S> The contractor will be arriving Monday and we need to have any changes settled before then. <S> Regards,Dad." <S> "To: Dick@home.com, Jane@home.com, Dad@home.com, Mom@home.com <S> From: Spot@home.com Re: <S> Doghouse plans <S> All, Not to hurry you or anything, <S> but it has been raining for the last three days, and Grandmom has been complaining about my bivouacking under the kitchen table. <S> The sooner we can get this thing built, the faster you can get me out of the house <S> so I'm not stinking up the kitchen with the smell of wet dog. <S> Bark bark,Spot" <A> The example usage (an email sent to just two people) is probably a bad choice. <S> Most recipients (if they could see that only one other person was cc'd in) would probably feel flattered. <S> Assuming the sender was competent in the English language, the only logical explanation would be that the writer had originally intended to address several others - but before clicking on "Send", had decided that only our flattered recipient and one other were worthy of being communicated with. <S> * <S> There were only two answers to this question, and they were all unsatisfactory. <S> * denotes "marked" (i.e. - non-standard, unacceptable) usage.
| Outside of certain dialectal contexts where you all / y'all implies plural (largely because we no longer use "thou" for singular), " all " always implies more than two (as does several ).
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Is it bad behavior to add filler words such as "so", "um" in business speak? Sometimes when I speak with my fellows at work, I start my sentences with "so" or "um". I don't know if this a bad behavior in business speak or not? If so, how can I get rid of those filler words? <Q> Everyone does this when speaking extemporaneously. <S> In consequence, no one notices when anyone else does it. <S> Unless you notice other people making those almost unconscious tiny encouraging nods -- yes, please, go ahead, finish your sentence, while we're young -- don't worry about it. <A> It's true that everyone says "so", "um", or "now" at times while they're thinking. <S> Nonetheless there are several other things about this practice that are true: <S> Some groups of people do it more than others. <S> Microsoft people seem to start every sentence with " <S> So". <S> You may be seen as being similar to someone else who does it a lot <S> So <S> and Now are popular when you're explaining or lecturing <S> ( so to indicate that what you're saying follows from a previous point, now to indicate you are changing topics a little) and your bosses may not appreciate feeling lectured in a conversational setting or meeting <S> Try this. <S> Get some recording and editing software <S> (eg Camtasia for Window has a free trial.) <S> Record yourself saying something you might say at work <S> (progress report on a project, for example.) <S> Play it back. <S> Carefully edit out all the so/um/ah/now. <S> Play it again. <S> Doesn't it sound crisper and smarter? <S> One of the reasons it sounds "bad" is that it reveals that you are still thinking. <S> People who don't reveal they are still thinking sound smarter. <S> Another reason is that it shows you are "holding the floor" while thinking - you "buzzed in" to the conversation by talking, but you don't yet have anything to say. <S> Some people (not always consciously) find this a little rude. <S> Interestingly, if you use silence instead of filler words, people don't get those impressions. <S> You still get the same amount of time to think. <A> Too much is annoying, very little is a desire in formal speech, but the effort to remove such things <S> -entirely- from your speech might be debilitating to the natural flow of your discourse. <S> Too much could be taken as a sign of not having thought out or said something similar already, and therefore unreasoned or unpracticed. <S> That is, being inarticulate in speech may be taken by others as a sign of not having much practice in thought behind the ideas you are presenting. <S> It's not 'bad' behavior; but a lesser frequency of filler is preferred and considered more formal. <S> But actual articulation of thought is preferred to saying something inane or illogical because you didn't give thought to the right words. <A> It takes a fair amount of practice and training to discipline one's speech. <S> If you find yourself doing it to often, you may consider taking some lessons from a speaking coach. <S> I suggest you watch the movie <S> The King's Speech : even royalty have this problem. <A> Everyone does this too some extent. <S> I doubt that anyone speaks in perfectly constructed sentences all the time. <S> In fact, if somebody were to speak in such a way their speech would lose a lot of its character and they would in some sense appear less human. <S> So don't worry about it, unless your use of "filler" words is really excessive.
| People who don't use filler words (typically using silence instead) are perceived as being smarter than those who do You can learn to do it less It's a bad speaking habit in general; however, most people do it, myself included.
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Diacritics and non-English letters in anglicized loan words: keep 'em, dump 'em, italicize the words, or what? Take an expression like déjà vu . This is a French term which is frequently seen in English. In fact, it is included in English dictionaries. But it is often seen in English in a variety of forms: déjà vu déjà vu deja vu Now, one would probably not consider using frisson or soupçon , both proper unanglicized French words [uh-oh, see edit], without italics to indicate that they were foreign words. But once anglicized, do the words require non-English diacritical marks? Or, if such are used, does that push the word back into foreign status, so that italics are again required? There's probably a continuum in operation here, during which a word goes from foreign with foreign markings to English with only English markings (or lack thereof). What I want to know is how one can tell where to draw the line. Does anybody have any useful information about this? Guidelines? Or is it on a case-by-case basis? Honestly, I feel affected writing à la carte when every damn diner you walk into has an "a la carte" (or "ala carte" or "a la cart") category on the menu. Edit: For example, see the Free Online Dictionary's schizophrenic listing for soupçon : Soup`con´ n. 1. A suspicion; a suggestion; hence, a very small portion; a taste; as, coffee with a soupçon of brandy; a soupçon of coquetry. and then in the Thesaurus part: soupcon - a slight but appreciable amount; "this dish could use a touch of garlic" So if dictionary entries can't even remain consistent within the same definition , what chance does a mere mortal have? <Q> In general, if it's worthy of italics, it's worthy of diacritics (and vice versa). <S> (Note that I left "vice versa" unitalicised. <S> It's as English as spotted dick these days, even if it comes to us unmodified from elsewhere.) <S> I think it's likely time to stop pretending that "a la carte" has not been completely incorporated into the English lexicon. <S> Once it makes it into the greasy spoon, it's not French cuisine anymore -- it's just a somewhat less unfriendly way of saying, "that costs extra, Mac. <S> " You might want to keep it italicised when referring to a list of alternates on a fine dining menu. <S> My rule of thumb is that if I can imagine it being used anywhere that beer is going to be served more often than Chablis, it's safe to treat it as <S> English unless there is a style guide in effect dictating otherwise . <S> If you are writing for publication, there is usually a house style guide to follow with a list of words that are not yet sufficiently English. <S> If you find façade there, then you might as well keep the ol' character map open at all times. <A> Historically, diacritics were dropped to save money. <S> If you had a printing press, you could buy the extra characters with the markings or save money by using the plain characters. <S> Those little character blocks were expensive. <S> Today, writers have less of an excuse. <S> You can take an extra few seconds and learn to type in the characters with the diacritics (on OS X), or be lazy and type the letters in plainly. <S> That aside, I do encourage use of fully using the diacritics as to preserve the meaning of the words. <S> To use your example of à la carte , <S> a and à have different meanings in French: the phrase <S> a <S> la carte would translate as he/ <S> she <S> /it has the menu instead of the intended from the menu . <A> I would say that my answer about when to italicize loaned words and phrases is also the most appropriate answer to this question: <S> I think this is a case where authors can decide for themselves where to draw the line. <S> Or, if the writing is for a certain publication, the editors will have a policy for whether a given word should or should not [have diacritics]. <S> (However, that answer got zero votes, so who knows? <S> I still think it is a good answer.) <S> Various publications will have strict rules about what diacritics are used and when. <S> For example, The New Yorker always uses diaeresis . <S> Each publication seems to have its own rules for bolding, headers, section numbering, hyphenation, capitalization, reference citation, and so on. <S> And there is no definitive format. <S> I believe that diacritics fall into this category, as evidenced by their generally inconsistent use (though internally consistent within many publications). <A> Generally, accents, diacirtics, and ligatures seem to be going out of fashion. <S> But in certain circles some words using them seem to be on the rise. <S> In online communities such as Wikipedia I've seen little fights and edit wars insisting on forms like Māori and Devanāgarī as the only correct forms even in English. <S> Related is the use of Hawaiʻi even in English or at least its more font-friendly variants Hawai`i and Hawai'i despite the ʻokina not being part of English orthography otherwise. <A> But once anglicized, do the words require non-English diacritical marks? <S> It depends from the word, in which context the word is used, and how much anglicized the word is. <S> Taking as example déjà vu , I would write it with the diacritics because déjà vu is still pronounced as a French word: compare the pronunciation of the j in déjà vu , which is pronounced /ˌdeɪʒɑ <S> ˈv(j)u/ or /ˈdeɪʒɑ ˈv(j)u/ , from the pronunciation of the same letter in deject , which is pronounced /dəˈdʒɛkt/ or /diˈdʒɛkt/ . <S> In informal writing, the word is probably written without any diacritics, as it is normally understood that who writes is referring to déjà vu , and not to different English word. <S> Taking as example a word that derives from the Greek, I would think that nobody is expecting the word to be written using Greek letters, or the plural of the word to be written as it is written in Greek (even without using Greek letters). <S> Or, if such are used, does that push the word back into foreign status, so that italics are again required? <S> It depends from the context. <S> Taking as example déjà vu , I would normally not write it in italics, but I would write it in italics in sentences like Déjà vu in French <S> means already seen . <S> Differently, I would write <S> I have a sense of déjà vu. <A> A two seater sports car can be described as a 'coupé' pronounced 'coopay', it means 'cut' as bits have been cut off (like 2 seats and 2 doors). <S> Drop the accent <S> and it becomes 'coupe', pronounced 'coop', which is an old fashioned champagne glass or an ice cream bowl. <S> Drop the 'e' <S> and it becomes 'coup', pronounced 'coo', as in coup d'état or coup de grâce. <S> So to aid correct pronunciation and avoid ambiguities, the accent should be retained, it's a coupé and is pronounced 'coopay'. <S> BTW, my (American) spellchecker is saying coupé is misspelled. <S> While the common, but confusing, coupe spelling may be in the dictionary, the correct spelling, coupé, should always be there. <S> Faulty spell checker.
| Sometimes dropping the diacritic may result in a change in pronunciation.
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Are there any differences between "update" and "upgrade"? Are there any differences between "update" and "upgrade"? <Q> If you're talking about software, there is, imo, even though the two do overlap. <S> (A lot depends on the context: I'm assuming a general one below.) <S> Usually, when you update a software, you apply patches and additional bits and pieces that the seller provides you for free, in theory to keep your copy in line with the official version (which is likely more stable, more secure and may even provide you with some new / better options, functionalities.) <S> On the other hand, when you upgrade a software, you usually buy / pay extra for a version unavailable for free. <S> Of course, an upgrade serves as an update as well (in most cases.) <S> An example: say you have an antivirus program that you did not pay for (it being made legally available for free), but which has a commercial version as well <S> : You usually update its database (to keep you safe from newer threats) - but if you upgrade it, it means you pay for an advanced version that gives you extended protection: not just via an updated database but also through extended capabilities (like email-scanning, link-scanning etc that were unavailable in the free version, <S> no matter how up to date your database was.) <S> (Again, a real lot depends on the context.) <A> <A> To update means to make something more modern or up to date ; it also means to give to somebody the latest (or up to date) information . <S> To upgrade means to take something to a higher standard/level ; it also means to raise somebody to a higher grade or rank . <S> Looking in the Corpus of Contemporary American for phrases containing update or upgrade , I get the following data: <S> Instancescomputer update <S> 1computer <S> upgrade(s) <S> 12hardware update 2 hardware <S> upgrade(s) 11software <S> update(s) <S> 30software <S> upgrade(s) 31 <S> The sentences containing hardware update are both referring to a software tool. <S> The Hardware Update Wizard will search for an updated driver on your local drives as well as on Microsoft's Windows Update site, and it will install the driver if it finds one. <S> Select the option in the Hardware Update Wizard that lets you choose the location of the search and select the driver (the wording varies). <A> Update is a shortening of "bring up to date" and upgrade means to put at a higher grade (as in to make better). <S> You can upgrade your your CPU from 2.4 GHz to 3.2 GHz, but your software update can have bugs that break your computer. <A> From most answers: To update means to make something more modern or up to date; it also means to give to somebody the latest (or up to date) information. <S> Well, the most "up-to-date" is not synonym of "modern". <S> One can have the most up-to-date SQL Server 2005 with all latest updates and hotfixes but it is behind, in being modern, after SQL Server 2008 (even not updated). <S> For example Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 4 was released on December 17, 2010, i.e. three years after release of more modern SQL Server 2008. <A> All the above contributions are laudable and basically linked. <S> Hope this scenario simplifies and clarifies the basics. <S> Updating as explained earlier implies keeping something up to date thus if the functionality of a particular program is to rectify errors from level 1 to say level 3, updating the program implies maintaining or igniting its efficiency to work effectively within the specified levels (level 1to 3). <S> But to upgrade <S> the program implies increasing its capacity and efficiency to enable it exceed or work beyond the previous lower levels <S> i.e. levels 4, 5 and upwards.
| To update means to bring someone or something up to date, whereas to upgrade means to raise or improve something to a higher standard. The difference between these two is particularly apparent in the world of computers: an update is not always and improvement!
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What does "write the bill with a ‘double meat ax’" mean? What does writing the bill with a "double meat ax" mean? I found the phrase double meat ax in today's Washington Post article, House approves dramatic cuts in federal spending in 235-189 vote , dealing with last night's House vote on drastic federal budget cuts. I know the meaning of double ax as a double-bladed ax, but I don't know double meat ax , and why the phrase was used with quotation marks, which suggests the writer used the phrase with special implication. Can you tell me exactly what writing the bill with a "double meat ax" means? The text reads: During the bleary-eyed final roll call at 4:35 a.m., 235 Republicans were joined by no Democrats in support of dramatic spending reductions that they said were needed to address a soaring annual deficit of $1.6 trillion; 189 Democrats—as well as three Republicans—opposed it, accusing Republicans of writing the bill with a "double meat ax." <Q> To call it here a "double meat axe" means the Republicans intend to cut the budget drastically, without looking at any of the particulars very closely. <S> Should your doctor ever diagnose you with a pre-cancerous mole or a cyst, and then suggest a surgeon should attack it "with a meat axe," it would be a good idea to find another doctor. <S> Oh, and this would be a good time to compare the statement with the expression you taught me: 鶏を割くに牛刀を用いる (to cut a chicken with a butcher's knife). <A> Wow, that is some bad writing. <S> "With a meat-axe" is a cliché (I almost wrote "a tired cliché", which would be quite autological) and the writer tried, and failed, to enliven it by adding "double" (from "double-bladed axe", <S> but there's no such thing as a double-bladed meat-axe). <S> Then depressed by his failure there (or elated by a false sense of success), he proceeded to mix the metaphor in with "write". <S> The takeaway in this is, when you find yourself using a cliché, just stop . <S> Express yourself in some entirely different (ideally metaphor-free) way. <S> Do not try to "freshen" the phrase, "spice it up", "put a new spin on it". <S> You'd just be flogging a dead, uh, Clydesdale... <A> A meat axe is the double-handed blade slaughtermen use to hack carcasses in half, so probably the least subtle tool in existence. <S> So far, so good (though rather a tired metaphor). <S> But there's no such thing as a double meat axe, and "write" <S> just turns it from a metaphor into a blurred simile. <S> So no, I can't tell you exactly what the phrase means, and I don't believe anybody else can either: certainly not the original writer. <A> Using two meat axes (not some mythical double-bladed one). <S> Apparently how the Democrats (not professional writers) described the Republicans' hacking away at the budget with extreme violence.
| Going after something "with a meat axe" means going at it very crudely and vigorously, with an intention to do great damage.
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What's wrong with the phrase "eating at me"? I like to say this in jest when cats & dogs munch loudly on their dinner: "Your cat Molly is eating at me again!"I'm not sure what's "off" about it. Is it in fact incorrect, or is it merely awkward? <Q> Your use of the phrase to refer to a pet directing the noise of its consumption in your direction is incongruously literal, and therefore funny. <A> That particular usage seems to parallel a usage particular to therapeutic psychology and interpersonal dynamics. <S> An example of that might be: <S> You aren't caring for your mother, you're caring at her, playing the martyr and making sure she knows how very inconvenient it is for you. <S> It carries the same sense as "your cats are making a lot of noise while eating because they know it bothers me (or because they want me to be very aware of the fact that they're eating <S> and I'm not, etc.) <S> ". <S> If that is the sense in which you're using it, it is not standard, but it would certainly be understood by anyone who has been exposed to, say, Dr. Phil. <A> "eating at me" is usually used in the context of having a corrosive or erosive effect -- These financial problems are really eating at me (although eating away at me may be a more common form). <S> Your usage in the sense of someone (or something) deliberately directing eating noises, etc. <S> at <S> you is a bit unusual, though valid. <S> The movie Tom Jones was famous for the scene where a couple used a dining experience -- of eating at each other -- as foreplay.
| It sounds like a humorously intentional misuse of the phrase "eating at;" ordinarily when something is eating at you, it means that there is an unresolved situation, and that you are unhappy leaving it unresolved and are distracted and annoyed by it.
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Is "holiday" derived from "holy day"? I'm just curious if the word "holiday" is derived from "holy day". <Q> Yes , from the Old English. <S> The New Oxford American Dictionary says “ORIGIN: <S> Old English hāligdæg [holy day.]” <A> That's right. <S> According to Etymonline : <S> O.E. haligdæg , from halig <S> " holy " + dæg " day ;" in 14c. <S> meaning both " religious festival " and " day of recreation ", but pronunciation and sense diverged 16c. <A> The answers are above, but Barnhart's Dictionary of Etymology offers a bit more: <S> Old English had a concurrent open compound <S> halig daeg, found later in Middle English holy day, which became modern English holiday, meaning both a religious festival and a day of recreation. <S> This eventually replaced the earlier form haliday, leaving two forms holiday and holy day. <A> Holiday is a compound stemming from the words holy and day. <S> Earlier , about 950, the word was 'haligdaeg' and appeared in the Old English Lindisfarne Gospels. <S> It was a compound of halig (holy) plus daeg (day) <S> Source: <S> en.allexperts.com
| The word 'holiday' first surfaced in the 1500's replacing the earlier word 'haliday' which was recorded before 1200 in the Old English book Ancrene Riwle.
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"The very minute after" In which cases is very used with the same meaning it has in a phrase like "the very minute after"?Is it a set phrase, or are there other similar phrases? The very minute after I leave, they start taking my books from the shelf, reading them, and leaving them in the kitchen. <Q> You’re the very man they’re looking for! <S> The very fact that we’re alive is a miracle. <S> The given sentence is very similar to: <S> Literally the minute after I leave, they start taking my books from the shelf… <S> The evolution that very underwent, from this older sense to its more common modern usage as an intensifier, is the very same shift in meaning that literally is now undergoing, to the chagrin of many pedants. <A> In that context it particularly means immediately or "as soon as" . <S> It is pretty much always prefixed with "the". <S> The very idea of it. <S> The very best of luck. <S> That is the very worst thing that could have happened. <A> From dictionary.com : "very: precise; particular: That is the very item we want." <S> It can be used with a variety of nouns. <S> From http://pinedalepumpkinpatch.blogspot.com/2009/08/giant-pumpkin-in-making.html <S> "You may see the very pumpkin that you wish to purchase." <S> From http://fuckyeahtvpicspam.tumblr.com/post/379433655/daisy-what-do-you-say-the-very-second-were-done : "DAISY: <S> What do you say the very second we're done here <S> , we go back to my place for a drink?" <A> Very is just a means to give emphasis to something. <S> In your example, "The very minute after I leave..." gives emphasis to people taking the person's books the moment he/she leaves and so on (though I think <S> the very minute I leave... <S> is better usage).Another example of very used for emphasis <S> is: <S> You're the very person I need to talk to... <S> Or This is the very book I was looking for
| Very is acting here in a sense closer to its old meaning of truly , precisely , literally : When very is used in that context, it takes the place of mere , the form originally derived from the Latin merus (meaning pure or undiluted), a comparitive meaning "nothing less than" or "downright", or indeed "just", "only", "no more than".
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Is there a stronger word than "incite"? I am looking for a word that conveys the strongest level of inciting someone, pushing someone to do something: Their boss VERB'd them to work as hard as possible. The strongest I can think of is spur , is there something better? <Q> I can think of inflame , stir up , galvanize , goad , or rouse . <S> It can be useful to also read the note reported by the NOAD. <S> The best way to start a riot is to incite one, which means to urge or stimulate to action, either in a favorable or an unfavorable sense. <S> If you instigate an action, however, it implies that you are responsible for initiating it and that the purpose is probably a negative or evil one ( the man who instigated the assassination plot ). <S> Foment suggests agitation or incitement over an extended period of time ( foment a discussion ; foment the rebellion that leads to war ). <S> An instigator, in other words, is someone who initiates the idea, while a fomenter is someone who keeps it alive. <S> You can provoke a riot in the same way that you instigate one, but the emphasis here is on spontaneity rather than on conscious design ( her statement provoked an outcry from animal rights activists ). <S> To arouse is to awaken a feeling or elicit a response ( my presence in the junkyard aroused suspicion ), or to open people's eyes to a situation ( we attempted to arouse public awareness ). <S> But once you've aroused people, you may have to exhort them, meaning to urge or persuade them, by appealing to their sympathy or conscience, to take constructive action. <A> Exhorted might be the word you seek. <S> Instructed, impelled, ... <S> Compelled and forced suggest more than mere words.. <A> My choice would be 'coerced' for that particular sentence. <S> As in 'Foxconn workers were coerced into working beyond their physical and mental limits.' <A>
| I would use prompt , or induce (in the case where the incitation succeeded).
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Is the construct “Strength cannot beat MORE strength without ...” correct? Is the following quote correct English? Strength cannot beat more strength without ju jitsu <Q> Of course not -- there are many martial arts that can do the job ; <S> o). <S> On a more relevant and grammatical note, this would be more correct: <S> Strength cannot beat greater strength without Ju Jitsu. <S> More would be appropriate if strength were something that came in units rather than in degree. <A> Grammatically, I think that your statement is fine, but I'd find it easier to understand if you included the subject in the sentence: One cannot beat a stronger opponent without ju jitsu. <A> This is readily apparent if one considers strength and more strength personified. <A> In a comment, I asked: What exactly is the question here? <S> You said that "its [sic] a quote, so I would rather not change it." <S> So if you aren't asking about spelling, and you aren't asking about rephrasing—what are you asking? <S> And just so you know: in American English, it's almost always spelled jiu jitsu . <S> The OP replied: I was wondering if the quote was correct, thats it. <S> there is nothing more here. <S> it sounded like it was not grammatically correct. <S> Is the quote correct? <S> I can't say for sure, but I can say that there are zero Google hits for that full phrase (other than to this page, which I figure doesn't count). <S> Similar phrases I did find <S> : "Strength cannot beat more strength without Gracie Jiu jitsu.." — Twitter/@Dartford BJJ <S> "Brute strength cannot beat amazingness." <S> —comment on <S> Who Is the Strongest Person in the World? <S> "Size and strength cannot beat style and technique" —comment on What Brock's loss means to me... <S> "Brute strength cannot beat a technical fighter." <S> —comment on Kimbo wants another shot at Sean Gannon <S> "Strength cannot beat superior strength; but, superior skill can beat superior strength." —comment on Yashai Warcraft Discussion Board <S> "The best strength cannot beat technique" — Dakota Rehbein's Page <S> Overall, there's very few hits for this, so <S> I wouldn't call it a common saying. <S> And it's definitely not a common saying about jiu jitsu.
| The quote Strength cannot beat more strength without ju jitsu may sound awkwardly phrased to some, but it is correct in every grammatical sense.
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Difference between "solicitor" and "barrister" What is the difference between solicitor and barrister ? <Q> In British English, they mean: <S> Solicitor: a member of the legal profession qualified to deal with conveyancing, the drawing up of wills, and other legal matters. <S> In American English, they mean: <S> Solicitor: a person who tries to obtain business orders, advertising, etc.; a canvasser; the chief law officer of a city, town, or government department. <S> Barrister is not used, in American English. <S> [Reference: the New Oxford American Dictionary.] <A> They are both lawyers, but a barrister has passed the Bar . <S> The Bar is an examination (from Wikipedia): <S> A bar examination is an examination conducted at regular intervals to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice law in a given jurisdiction. <A> This depends on the country. <S> In Australia most lawyers are solicitors. <S> You cannot call yourself a lawyer until you have been admitted by the court, and <S> when you are you become a solicitor. <S> Anyone wanting any legal services will go to a solicitor. <S> Barristers usually don't deal directly with clients but instead are employed by other legal firms. <S> They are hired by law firms on behalf of their clients to represent them in court. <S> Barristers will need a great knowledge of the law, and will help their clients (the solicitors) decide what type of argument to present. <S> They will usually not research the evidence for the case which must be provided by the law firm. <S> And lastly most barristers are self-employed, whereas most solicitors work in law firms. <S> A humorous example of the difference between solicitors and barristers is in the movie <S> The Castle <S> when a local solicitor is hired to take a case to the High Court of Australia and is completely out of his depth ! <S> Luckily a retired Queen's Counsel (and barrister) helps them with their case.
| Barrister: a lawyer entitled to practice as an advocate, particularly in the higher courts. Solicitor and barrister have a different meaning, in American and British English.
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What to do if a sentence ends with "Yahoo!"? Possible Duplicate: How to handle a name that includes an exclamation point (or other punctuation)? Just like the title of this question. I was reading an article about CAPTCHAs on Wikipedia and I read this: These methods have been used by spammers to set up thousands of accounts on free email services such as Gmail and Yahoo!. Is this correct or should the period be omitted? It looks very strange. <Q> My admittedly prescriptivist opinion is this. <S> When companies (it is always companies) choose to break basic rules of language, like adding stops to their names, I feel no obligation at all to make any effort to accommodate this. <S> I use my own discretion to write their names in a way that seems reasonable to me. <S> I treat commercialese as a foreign language: I adapt it into my own language as I see fit. <S> Does anyone feel obliged to write Peking in Chinese characters? <S> Or to write any foreign name in exactly the same way as it is written in its language of origin? <S> I write Germany, Netherlands, Peter the Great, Charlemagne, etc., <S> etc. <S> , none of which are written the same way in their respective languages of origin. <S> Nowadays some newspapers seem to change their designation of a country whenever its regime invents a new name; I consider this unnecessary and contrary to historical practice. <S> Just write Tomtom, Yahoo, etc, unless there is a specific reason not to, such as in a database; in a random weblog, there is no such reason, since Google's search is fuzzy enough (too fuzzy for my taste in fact—but that is another story). <S> [Edited from here on:] If the rules for a specific publication demand that you should do otherwise, it is up to you to decide whether you can get away with disobedience. <S> It is generally a good idea to at least stick with one spelling throughout a document or publication, whichever it is. <S> In some cases, you might have a unique chance to lead the development of the spelling of a particular term into a different direction: if you write for a major newspaper about a new institution—say, if the tax agency had a new collecting division called Contr!butions :-) <S> —, you might want to leave out any smiley faces and weird marks, to make the world a better place. <A> The exclamation mark in Yahoo! <S> 's brand name can be annoying when it interferes with existing punctuation. <S> So, did they reach a deal with “Yahoo!”? <A> Yahoo! <S> is the name of the entity so ending a sentence with ' Yahoo!. ' <S> and a question with ' Yahoo!? ' is appropriate, as weird as it may seem. <A> You should omit the period. <S> Only include the period in the absence of otherwise final punctuation, such as ! or . (as in etc.) or ? <S> — and see how I skirted the issue here? :) <S> Edit: If it bothers you, it would be easy enough to switch the order: "... <S> Yahoo! <S> and Gmail."
| One way to disambiguate is to drop it altogether, while another way is to use quotes:
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What does "to phrase it another way" mean? What does " to phrase it another way " mean? <Q> It means to say the same thing in a different way. <S> That could mean just using different words, or it could mean using a different example or a different metaphor. <S> Often, it is a matter of summarizing a long explanation with a much shorter version that gets the gist of the matter across without being quite as complete or technically precise. <S> The object, in that case, is to make the statement clearer to anyone who had difficulty understanding it the first time. <S> It may also involve changing the tone or the language of a statement to make it less confrontational or offensive. <S> In that case, the object of the rephrasing would be to stay within the bounds of community standards. <A> Most commonly, you get someone saying something a bit complicated and/or abstract, and then 'to phrase it another way' they then repeat the same idea but in a simpler, hopefully more understandable answer. <A> Phrase , when used as verb, means put into a particular form of words ; to phrase it another way <S> means to use a different form of words . <S> It is important to phrase the question correctly. <S> The original phrasing carried a different meaning.
| 'To phrase' something is to put into words, and 'to phrase it another way' means using a different method to explain an idea.
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Does "Perfect Storm" have a positive meaning? English is not my mother tongue. I've read an article with these sentences. I have no idea if the phrase "perfect storm" is supposed to be positive or negative. “Social gaming is sitting on perfect storm,” add Relan, “And the storm revolves around three basic areas-mobile, internaional[ sic ] and Facebook.” TechCruch <Q> A "perfect storm" is not normally good news for anybody but the storm itself, but it appears that the speaker being quoted is using it in a positive sense. <S> Social gaming, in this metaphor, would be the storm rather than something that would be subject to the storm's force. <S> It was probably not the best way to phrase it, but an off-the-cuff statement given during an interview is not normally subject to a lot of editing and revision. <A> The key element of the (much overused and irritating, IMO) metaphor here is that of a synergy of forces leading to a release of energy much greater than any of its individual contributors would ever generate. <S> It may be that the speaker is ignoring the "storm" part, <S> i.e. that the energy release is destructive , but possibly not; it's not uncommon to notice that transformative new media are broadly destructive to the old media they replace. <A> This particular usage originated with Sebastian Junger in his non-fiction book The Perfect Storm , published 1997, about an actual event now known as the 1991 Perfect Storm - only it wasn't called that at the time, since the expression hadn't yet been coined. <S> Wikipedia's definition is as good as any... <S> OP's cited usage is at least quirky, if not misguided. <S> In all normal contexts, anything described as a "perfect storm" is likely to have catastrophically bad consequences. <S> One commonly hears it today in hypothetical scenarios beloved of TV "documentaries", where the impact of some potentially foreseeable disaster can be made far greater by imagining that several unlikely circumstances might all arise at the same time.
| A "perfect storm" describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances aggravate a situation drastically.
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How to write dollar amounts in a narrative What's the best way to write dollar amounts in a narrative (such as a novel), particularly if the amounts are large and/or fractional? I would use this: "The national debt just hit 14.6 trillion dollars ," said Jack, "yet you complain about my $2 million fee and $5,000 airline tickets?" Are there better ways to write this? Specifically: What is a rule of thumb for spelling out amounts vs. keeping is as a number? If I spell out dollars once, do I need to keep spelling it out within the same context? <Q> In fictional dialogue I prefer to spell things out in words. <S> It's not just a matter of getting the amounts across, but of getting across the language that the character uses. <S> And getting specific about the currency doesn't matter in the least -- one can assume that the character(s) being spoken to are familiar with the system the speaker is using. <S> In this case, if your character is saying "fourteen point six trillion dollars", then those are the words that ought to appear on the page. <S> I would also use "two million dollar fee" and "five thousand dollar airline tickets". <S> (I might phrase that last more like "and a lousy five grand for airline tickets" just to spice things up a bit.) <A> The alternative to what you posted would be: <S> "The national debt just hit 14.6 trillion dollars," said Jack, "yet you complain about my 2 million dollar fee and 5 thousand dollar airline tickets?" <S> I think the original version reads better. <S> It seems lighter somehow. <S> Pondering on this a bit more, I'd say that the first monetary mention of "14.6 trillion dollars" already positions the concept of dollars in my mind, so my brain seems to like the lightness of "$2 million" and "$5,000". <A> I find the sentence perfectly fine, except when you write $2 million ; I don't think there is a better way to write it. <S> If it is not clear to which currency you are referring because the symbol is used for more currencies, I would first write something like "14.6 trillion of American dollars", and then write the other amounts like $2,000,000 .If <S> there isn't ambiguity, I would write the amounts prefixing them with the currency symbol. <A> So to keep the example sentence simple and consistent, I think it could <S> be:"The national debt just hit $14.6 trillion ," said Jack, "yet you complain about my $2 million fee and $5 thousand airline tickets?"
| The typography iphone app suggests the following:Display large numbers simply, while remaining consistent within a sentence.
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What is a "one-note joke"? What is the definition of a "one-note joke"? <Q> A "one-note joke" is a character with so few dimensions <S> it's difficult to see him (or her -- or, occasionally, them) from most angles. <S> The one-note joke may have served a valid purpose when the author introduces the character(s), but if the ONJ shows up twice, you get a feeling of déjà vu , and by the third time you find yourself asking "is that all they do?" <S> Entire movies, novels, and even series of works have been written around a one-note joke. <S> Call it "high concept" if you wish, but there is nothing to it but a single premise and a lot of giving the audience exactly what they expect over and over again. <S> One note, played again and again. <A> A one-note joke is a joke that is repeated with little or no variation. <S> It's also an expression for a character or story built around a single cliché or stereotype, often used to describe <S> it's two-dimensional appearance. <S> A repeated joke can be used to great effect, and the repetition then becomes a joke in itself. <S> However, it can also easily fail and become annoying instead. <A> I don't find any authoritative reference (i.e. dictionary) on that, but the way I understand it is “ a short joke ”, also known as “a one-line joke”, aka “ a one-liner ”. <S> Uses reported by a Google search seem to agree. <S> It may also be used figuratively. <S> For example, when used to refer to a film or video game, it means that the production has few funny elements, but otherwise isn't very funny.
| One-note is an expression that describes something repetitive, in the same manner as the same note played over and over again.
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€10 = "ten euro" or "ten euros"? Which is the correct form: "ten euro" or "ten euros"? <Q> The situation is actually a mess. <S> Here are only some of the relevant bits from Wikipedia : <S> Official practice for English-language EU legislation (not necessarily in national legislation) is to use the words euro and cent as both singular and plural. <S> [...] Because the s-less plurals had become "enshrined" in EU legislation, the Commission decided to retain those plurals in English in legislation even while allowing regular plurals in other languages. <S> The Directorate-General for Translation now recommends that the regular plurals, euros and cents , be used. <S> The European Commission Directorate-General for Translation's English Style Guide (a handbook for authors and translators in the European Commission) previously recommended the use of regular plurals for documents intended for the general public but now has no restriction on usage[.] <S> Prior to 2006, the inter-institutional style guide recommended use of euro and cent without the plural s, and the translation style guide recommended use of invariant plurals (without s) when amending or referring to original legislation but use of regular plurals in documents intended for the general public. <S> As the euro was being adopted in Ireland the Department of Finance decided to use the word euro as both the singular and plural forms of the currency, and because Irish broadcasters took their cue from the Department [citation needed] , the "legislative plurals" tend to also be used on the news and in much Irish advertising. <S> This has had the effect of reinforcing the s-less plurals, although advertisements made in the UK for broadcast in Ireland tend to use the plurals euros and cents . <S> Common usage in the rest of the English-speaking world, where the euro is not the local currency, is to use the -s plurals. <S> The media in the UK prefer euros and cents as the plural forms. <S> Broadcasts of currency exchange rates outside of the European Union tend to use the plural in -s, with NPR in the United States and CBC in Canada being two examples. <S> So, both plural forms are correct. <S> Just go with whichever <S> your audience is more accustomed to. <A> Ten euro, please http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro#Coins_and_banknotes <S> In Community legislative acts the plural forms of euro and cent are spelled without the s, notwithstanding normal English usage. <S> Hmm <S> However from the same document referred to: <S> In all EU legal texts, the nominative singular spelling must be 'euro' in all languages ('ευρώ' in Greek alphabet; 'евро' in Cyrillic alphabet). <S> Plural forms and declensions are accepted as long as they do not change the 'eur-' root. <S> However (again) here is the spelling in the official languages - Only plural in non-English languages <A> In Community legislative acts the plural forms of euro and cent are spelled without the s, notwithstanding normal English usage. <S> Otherwise, normal English plurals are recommended and used; with many local variations such as 'centime' in France. <S> Wikipedia <A> It is clear that, in general, either is correct, but that particular institutions and organisations have their own rules. <S> I am English, but live in Spain, so it seems natural for me to say One euro, two euros .
| In this case, in English Euro (or euro) has two accepted plural forms: euros and euro .
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What did Old English writing (letters and formatting) typically look like? I am wondering if there is a specific kind of writing that people would typically associate with Old English language. Are there well-known manuscripts that typically represent the kind of writing (letters, formatting, etc.) that would be used at the time and in the regions where Old English spread? As a related question, are there any specific typefaces that people would typically associate with the Old English language? Are there typefaces designed from Old English manuscripts, or that convey this distinctive look, if it exists? <Q> There are well known manuscripts, such as The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , which were written entirely in Old English. <S> Also Beowulf , a few poems and so forth, but the Chronicle remains the longest piece of Old English writing we have. <S> It was written by monks in calligraphic style. <S> It was not written (and certainly not typeset) in the characters we come to think of as "Old English," although some of the letters might look similar. <S> An image from the Chronicle : <A> I just spent some quality time perusing the Insular and Anglo-Saxon chapters of Michelle P. Brown's A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (pp. 48-49 and 58-59), as well as pp. <S> 34-42 of <S> Marc Drogin's Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique . <S> The names they use for the scripts are varied and often conflicting, but they seem to agree on something like the following: Saints Patrick and Augustine imported versions of Uncial and Roman <S> Half-Uncial scripts into Ireland and Britain, respectively, in the early 5th and late 6th <S> /early 7th centuries, again respectively. <S> Those scripts evolved, cross-fertilized, and developed along the usual pattern of utility → formalization → decoration → exaggeration <S> → need for a new utility script. <S> The result was something probably best termed Insular Majuscule ; think the Book of Kells or the Lindisfarne Gospels . <S> This continued in use on both islands until the 9th century. <S> Shortly after it appears, the utility version, Insular Minuscule also appears, and by the mid to late 9th century, entirely replaces the majuscule (uppercase) version. <S> At that point, influences from the continent (read: Carolingian minuscule ) would lead to a shift in writing styles for Latin documents, but Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English ) continued to be written in Insular Minuscule until as late as the 12th century. <S> Of course, Carolingian minuscule itself was developed at the court of Charlemagne under a certain abbot named Alcuin , born in — you guessed it — England. <A> Here are a couple of image links: to manuscripts of Beowulf to manuscripts of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica <S> In general, the letter forms are not very different from Carolingian minuscule , but there is more frequent use of ligature digraphs, and, of course, there are letters like thorn and eth that don't appear in Latin. <A> In contrast to the accurate answers that the others have given, what would in popular culture be thought of as the writing for Old English (and of course it depends whether you mean "Old English" in a technical sense) would be some sort of black letter like these: <S> http://www.fontspace.com/category/blackletter <S> See wikipedia for more information.
| The writing system for Old English was pretty consistent across its history.
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Is it "Yours faithfully" or "Yours sincerely"? When should one sign a letter with "Yours faithfully" or "Yours sincerely"? <Q> This is called " complimentary close ". <S> As reported by Oxford Handbook of Commercial Correspondence <S> : If the letter begins with Dear Sir, Dear Sirs, Dear Madam, or Dear Sir/Madam, the COMPLIMENTARY CLOSE should be " Yours faithfully ". <S> A letter to someone you know <S> well may close with the more informal "Best wishes". <S> Note that the Americans tend to close even formal letters with Yours truly or Truly yours, which is unusual in the UK in commercial correspondence. <S> Avoid closing old-fashioned phrases , e.g. We remain yours faithfully, Respectfully yours. <A> I've been taught the following distinction: <S> Use "Yours sincerely" when you know the person you are addressing, i.e. Mr. Smith. <S> Use "Yours faithfully" when you are starting your letter with Dear Sir/Madam, or a similar construction. <S> That being said, it has been my experience that these are used less and less, especially in electronic communications. <S> I would still prefer them in dead-tree letters, but only in the most formal of circumstances (probably when invited to a cup of tea by the Queen of England...). <A> I usually just write "Sincerely,". <S> I understand it to be a contraction of "I am yours sincerely" or "I am yours faithfully". <S> If I used it, I'd probably invert it to "Sincerely yours," or "Faithfully yours,". <S> These statements are typically reserved for love letters or other personal correspondence, although faithful could technically describe a business relationship. <A> Best, The Raven <S> The modern era does not routinely recognize the "complimentary close" as such, and its use is becoming rather quaint. <A> I just use "Thank you" - it seems to fit everywhere and doesn't sound like the letter was auto-generated by some letter writing wizard. <A> Since Julius didn't specifically ask for a «commercially» correct way of signing a letter, less informal alternatives to what others have posted include: <S> Best wishes Kind regards Yours <S> (truly) With love All the best Best of luck <S> Thank You <S> Sincerely/Faithfully
| If the letter begins with a personal name, e.g. Dear Mr James, Dear Mrs Robinson, or Dear Ms Jasmin, it should be " Yours sincerely ".
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Usage of "filed away" He still had the moment filed away in his memory. Is the meaning of the sentence I wrote widely understood? Should that sentence be used in a particular context (e.g., when writing a book)? <Q> Though I wouldn't say use it if I talked about my first kiss, for example. <A> The sentence sounds fine grammatically, it's perfectly understandable, and it evokes some nice imagery that could be useful for characterization - i.e. this person is perhaps more organized (and/or rigid) than most. <A> Just be aware that the meaning is subjective. <S> The other answers here so far indicate that for some people, "filed away" means something along the lines of "alphabetised, categorised, taxonomically classified, and available for instant retrieval". <S> For me, it means "I can find it if I really have to, but it'll be a chore at best". <S> I guess it depends on whether you're a clean desk or a messy desk . <S> I live in heaps, bundles and piles; the only things straightened away are things <S> I'm pretty sure I won't be needing any time soon. <A> There is nothing wrong with your sentence. <S> It is a perfect way to put up the unforgettable / everlasting event stored in ones memory. <S> The event might be a pleasing one or something that is too bad, but in both context, the usage of your sentence brings its importance to the person involved. <A> Grammatically, your usage is fine. <S> It would be helpful to have more context. <S> "Filed away" means something like "Not immediately acted upon, but remembered for future reference or activity". <S> The high school jock embarrassed me in biology class, so I filed away the incident <S> so I could bring it up at our ten-year reunion when he was pumping gas for a living.
| Your usage sounds fine.
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