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Is "We embraced." a complete sentence? Can someone write "we embraced" to mean "we embraced each other?" <Q> Yes, it's very common to use that form of expression to imply that you do something with/to each other. <S> For example, we met, we talked, we shook hands, we played golf, we hugged, we kissed. <A> <A> The simplest sentences in English contain a single independent clause. <S> That means that they: Contain a subject Contain a verb Express a complete thought <S> Apply those tests and <S> you'll see that the answer is "yes": your sentence has a subject ("we"), a verb ("to embrace" in the simple past tense) and conveys a complete thought (i.e. is not dependent on any other clause to complete the meaning).
| It is perfectly well to write "we embraced" to mean "we embraced each other".
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"I played two music" vs. "I played two pieces of music" I have a Canadian friend who sometimes helps me improve my English. A few days ago she sent me a list of some words (nouns) which the plural form is the same of the singular. One of these words was "music". I said to her that I didn't know that "music" don't need the "s" at the end to function as a plural word, and that it sounds wrong for me to say something like this: "I played two music". Actually, I was suggesting that, for me, "musics" sounds more "correctly". Then, she said that "I played two music" is indeed wrong and the correct is: "I played two pieces of music" or "I played two musical pieces". Can you explain why, And give some more examples of ways to use the word "music" in the plural form? <Q> Music is an uncountable noun in most senses: that is a word that refers to a group or an amount of something, or to some broad concept that there cannot be two of. <S> Music is an art or a human category of sounds; it is not a particular instance of something related to this art. <S> For such an instance, you could use piece of music , song , number , movement , ballad , ouverture , etc., depending on what kind of instance you were thinking of. <S> The same applies to nouns like water <S> : you can't say "I have two waters for you" (except in special circumstances), but rather "two gallons of water", or "two cups of water". <S> Nor could you say "I have many loves for you", or "could you move a couple of sands closer to the beach". <S> A few instances of common uncountable nouns: <S> a piece of music a piece of information <S> a piece of advice a grain/pinch of salt <S> a piece of furniture a piece/scrap of paper a blade/patch of grass <S> a piece/log of wood <S> As you see, specific kinds of instances of uncountable nouns can be indicated by different countable nouns, such as piece, grain, patch , etc. <S> Some of these uncountable nouns can be countable if used in a different sense. <S> Note that it is not always obvious from meaning whether a noun is countable or not: to some extent that is something that needs to be learnt word by word, alas. <A> A short answer: it is not right to say either one music or to say two musics . <S> You can't use a number with it. <S> It's okay to say I played music . <S> This is because music is an "uncountable" noun, which Cerberus gives details about in his answer. <A> For instance, imagine one is comparing the rhythms of Classical Gamelan with those of Western Classical (e.g. Mozart). <S> In that case, I believe the following would be a correct usage: "one of the similarities between these two musics is as follows (blah blah blah)".
| "Musics" can be used as a plural when referring to multiple disparate musical heritages (or at least, I've seen it used as such).
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"Close the light" — regionalism or mere oddity? If I want the room in darkness, and wish to announce my intent, I would say I'm going to turn off the light. But occasionally here in America I hear people say I'm going to close the light. It's happened too often to chalk up to mistake or happenstance. I'm just wondering if anyone knows if this is a regional usage and, if so, what region? <Q> I found this from Wikipedia's entry for Canadian English in the section on Quebec's regionalisms : <S> It is also common for Anglophones to use translated French words instead of common English equivalents, such as "open" and "close" for "on" and "off", e.g. "Open the lights, please" for "Turn on the lights, please". <S> And then this from Yahoo Answers (Canada) : <S> Q: Is the saying "close the light" proper english? <S> Just wondering. <S> A: I teach English in Quebec <S> and I hear it ALL THE TIME!!! <S> This happens with French and Italian. <S> -maybe other languages too. <S> [and further down] <S> A: <S> Well Im Aussie and <S> some of us say "close the light" as well <S> so dont be too worried about it <S> will you. <S> There are those who will correct you <S> but I think it really depends which school you went to and how your mum and dad said it. <S> There's also an interesting discussion on this at Ask Metafilter that seems to confirm the "Franglicism" theory. <A> Open the light...close the light is considered a New Jersey-ism. <S> When I was 10 years old we moved to Upstate New York (only a little more than an hour north). <S> People looked at me like I had three heads when I would say open/close the light. <S> I noticed <S> that people up there would say turn <S> on/ turn off the light . <S> As an adult I lived in NYC, and I never heard anyone say open/close the light , so as far as I know, it is a Jersey thing. <A> Pio the light" somehow morphed into "close the light." <S> And, weirdly enough, seems to have traveled around. <S> My older sister, who has never been to Hawaii, uses it. <S> No one else in the family does. <S> Not to inject too many family drama into the discussion, but I've always associated the phrase with the proudly under-educated sort. <A> Is it perhaps a carryover from gas lights (before electricity)? <S> Back then, to make it dark, you had to "turn off" or "close" the gas valve. <A> I've said "open the light" and "close the light" my whole life (I am now 61 years old). <S> I was born and grew up in the Bronx to American-born parents. <S> The only thing I can figure out is that perhaps my grandmother, who was born in New York City on the Lower East Side to Yiddish-speaking parents, said this <S> and I picked it up from her. <S> I am certainly not under-educated. <A> My father, who was raised in New Hampshire by nonimmigrant-Italian parents from NYC, occasionally uses "close the light". <S> (I don't recall him saying "open the light".) <S> This might corroborate a NJ(/NYC) regionalism, or possibly a correlated Italian community one. <A> I am Chinese; however, I have been educated by British English teachers all my life. <S> I never say open/close , although the fact that saying open or close the light is wrong was drilled into me.
| I grew up in Hillsdale, New Jersey, a comfortable suburb of NYC, and learned from my parents to say open/close the light. We definitely had no native-born French speakers in our family, so I always figured it was from the Yiddish translation. It's a translation problem. Here in California it's associated with a pidgin-Hawaiian. "
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Describing the sound of liquid hitting the floor I'm searching for a word describing the sound of liquid hitting the floor, nothing like water — more like milkshake/vomit. I know this sounds strange, but I was thinking of plunge . Only to discover that it's more in use for people diving into water... <Q> This comes to my mind: <S> splat <S> 2 informal noun <S> a sound of something soft and wet or heavy striking a surface : the goblin makes a huge splat as he hits the ground . <S> Could apply to a quantity of water, I imagine. <S> Also, it's a 19th century abbreviation of splatter , which might also work. <A> "Splosh" was my first thought. <S> It's just a variation of "splash," but I always think of splashing in a bathtub. <S> " <S> Slosh" would be the sound you get shaking liquid in a basin of some sort. <S> Thus, I offer "splosh." ... <S> Now that I think about it, though, a lot of the time when something as thick as a milkshake hits the ground it makes more of a "slap" than anything else... <S> May I suggest an experiment...? <A> What about plop ? <S> It has a thick sound to it. <S> According to Wikitionary, it's even been converted to a noun in the UK, as a slang term for excrement, presumably from the sound of its hitting the water and its having just the right consistency. <A> splash, plop, or drip" come to mind (depending on velocity) <A> <A> All of the words given are examples of onomatopoeia - words that describe exactly the sound they refer to (like 'bang' and 'clap'). <S> Some good onomatopoeic words for liquid are: drip, drop, plop - these would describe single droplets of liquid hitting the floor individually, as from a loose faucet/tap. <S> drum, pit-a-pat <S> , patter - like the droplets above but when many come down at once, like with rain. <S> sploosh, splosh, splash - these would describe larger quantities of liquid, like spilling a drink. <S> Hope this helps. <S> I'm sure there are more, too. <A> There is also a swash . <S> But this inconsequential answer didn't have thirty characters, so here is some bogus text to please the silly computer.
| I suggest splop : halfway between a splosh (which sounds rather wet) and a plop (which sounds rather thick and viscous).
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What does “I’m like, c’mon guys. I’m the president of the United States.” imply? The Washington Post (April 14) reported President Obama's off-the-cuff remark during a meeting with donors in Chicago held on April 13th under the title: " Obama riffs with donors: Where are the cool phones, and did you hear about the emir? " In this remark, he said: I'm like, c'mon guys. I'm the president of the United States. What does this phrase mean? A dictionary at hand tells me c’mon means "come on." Is he boasting of his being president? Or he is bitching on absence of advanced communication gadgets available at the site? The copy in question reads: The president, in an unscripted moment with donors in Chicago, was talking about the need to innovate in technology. "The Oval Office, I always thought I was going to have really cool phones and stuff," he said during a small fundraising event at a Chicago restaurant. " I'm like, c'mon guys, I'm the president of the United States. Where's the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn't happen." <Q> " I'm like " - this can be, as @kiamlaluno said, an informal reporting verb meaning 'say'. <S> However, it can also report unuttered thoughts. <S> Things you wanted to say or were thinking but did not vocalise at the time. <S> My brother ate the last brownie and I was like "what the hell!" <S> Here, I didn't necessarily confront my brother about his taking the brownie; I was angry/annoyed about it but didn't say anything. <S> " c'mon " - as you found, this is contraction of 'come on' and here (and often) is used jokingly/mockingly to mean "you can not be serious" or words to that effect. <S> You're scared? <S> C'mon, it's just a little bunny rabbit. <S> Here, I am surprised that my friend is scared of something so harmless and am lightly mocking. <S> " I'm the President of the United States " <S> - Here he is saying that his position is important, exclusive, and therefore should carry with it privileges and gravitas. <S> The President of the United States, if anybody, should expect to have cool gadgets and things. <S> It is mock arrogance. <S> So, the whole quote put together <S> basically means: <S> I was in the oval office <S> and I realised that it was not very hi-tech. <S> I thought, "Wow! <S> Is this seriously it? <S> I'm the President of the United States. <S> I should have cool gadgets and things." <S> Hope that helps. <A> Though the other answers gave a very good implication of hi utterance, I think the OP is trying to parse it too literally <S> and so is not getting the grammatical function of the pieces (so that those pieces can be reused). <S> So for 'I'm like "C'mon, guys, I'm the president" ' <S> I'm like ".... <S> " - introduces something said or thinking. <S> One could change the pronoun. <S> It is mostly synonymous with <S> "I said..." or <S> "I said to myself..." or <S> "My reaction could be described by..." . <S> A common way to repeat an interaction between two people, verbal or otherwise, is to say "I was like ' <S> Your momma is ugly', and he was like ' <S> No, she isn't.' <S> and I was like ' <S> Is so.' <S> and then -she- was like 'Sorry, dude, he's right', and he was like 'whoa <S> , that's harsh', <S> and then he was all like making weird faces <S> and then he barfed all over the car seat. <S> " <S> That's why you're like 'It smells like some cow died in here' <S> C'mon, guys - <S> "Come on" or "C'mon" is an imperative, which could literally mean 'Please follow me...' <S> but here and usually means 'I am exasperated' when others (the 'guys' here) aren't doing something expected. <S> So you could say "C'mon y'all, get off the lawn" or <S> "Come on! <S> The Nixon mask is better than the baby mask for a bank heist" . <S> Grammatically, it is saying "(you) come on" similar to "Come off it". <S> So that's the grammar. <S> The register is pretty informal and colloquial, common in youthful talk. <S> Coming from a former law professor, I'd guess it was meant as a deliberate change in register for effect, a little bit ironically, as though he were some teenager in a movie who was unexpectedly thrown in with the royal family of England and lots of laughs with the difference in speech. <A> The phrase by itself is a boast, but in this context it's rather a lament . <S> He means that the public perception is that the President has all the latest gadgets available but it's not that way in reality. <A> He is justifying his thought of having really cool phones and stuff in his office by claiming 'after all' he is the president of United States. <A> Instead of complaining, he might just be joking. <S> He might not really desire the gadgets, but just make the statement to achieve a humorous effect. <A> So she comes into the room <S> and she's like “Where is everybody?” <S> The previous sentence could be rewritten as the following sentence. <S> She came into the room and she was surprised to see few people. <S> Come on is said when one feels that someone is wrong or foolish. <S> Come on! <S> Where did you read it? <S> What he is saying could be a complain, but considering the context, it seems more a joke, to me.
| Like is informally used to convey a person's reported attitude or feelings in the form of direct speech; it is used with that meaning even in a sentence that is not reporting an actual quotation.
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Difference in meaning of "congratulation" and "congratulations" What is the difference between congratulation and congratulations ? <Q> From NOAD: congratulation |kənˌgra ch əˈlā sh ən; -ˌgrajə-| noun an expression of praise for an achievement or good wishes on a special occasion; the act of congratulating : he began pumping the hand of his son in congratulation . <S> • ( congratulations ) <S> words expressing congratulation : our congratulations to the winners | [as exclam. ] <S> congratulations on a job well done! <S> You make the call. <A> It is difficult to articulate the difference between them. <S> When you are speaking about the act of praise, a single act of praise is a congratulation, multiple is -s. <S> You can almost always use the plural form and sound perfectly normal. <S> When you wish to praise someone: I congratulate you. <S> (much more formal, can easily sound distant or impersonal) <S> You have my congratulations. <S> Shortened: Congratulations! or Congratulations on your wedding! <S> (always plural in shortened forms seemingly expressing multiple praises, explanation for what the congratulation is for only necessary when it isn't clear) <A> The difference is very subtle : <S> The word comes from Latin congratulatio , with exactly the same meaning.
| "congratulation" is congratulating, that is having some joy, some pleasure, perhaps by yourself and even secretly, for instance because you have won at the lottery ; congratulations" are the expression of that, for instance to a newly married couple.
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A murder of crows? I love the subset of collective nouns known as the terms of venery . These are collective nouns specific to a particular group of animals. Some of the more inventive examples are: a murder of crows, a crash of rhinos, a mischief of mice, and a puddling of ducks (specifically swimming ducks). Is there a standard for these group names and is there a central reference for them as with other zoological taxonomy? I can see in the Wikipedia articles that the practice has its origins in Medieval Hunting tradition, but the Kangaroo (Mob), for instance would have been unknown at that time, so how do new collections come into being? <Q> If you have interest in this subject, James Lipton's An Exaltation of Larks is the chief reference work. <S> What you'll learn is that there are usually two (and sometimes three) group nouns for animals and birds. <S> There will be a term of venery of a classical nature, often coined by hunters or gamekeepers (a murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens, a parliament of owls) and a general term used by laypersons (flock, herd). <S> Expert English users will be familiar with both sets, and general users will have a vague sense that there are such terms, but know very few of them. <A> Apparently the original source from which most of these names came is the Book of St. Albans , originally published around 1480. <S> Wikipedia states that: A modern collection is James Lipton, An Exaltation of Larks, Penguin Books, 1968, ISBN 0-670-30044-6. <A> There is certainly no “standard” — no equivalent to L'Académie française — to regulate these matters! <S> Most are lost in antiquity, of course, but I can shed some light on mob of kangaroos . <S> In Australian English, mob is a general word for any kind of flock, herd or drove, so when writers needed a collective noun for kangaroos <S> mob was the obvious choice. <S> New collective nouns arise all the time. <S> From the metonym panel <S> we get panel of experts . <S> From the rare usage of shower to mean contemptible person or people <S> we get shower of bastards . <A> Taxonomy is a scientific pursuit, though obviously incomplete, still with the goal of being precise. <S> One universal name per animal, decided and agreed upon by the community. <S> The things you're describing aren't of scientific interest, and are much more flexible, imprecise popular meanings. <S> I can't think of any better reference than a dictionary though their goals are more to reflect popular usage than to be a definitive source.
| They are just phrases that catch on because they meet a need, or because people like the sound of them, or in the same way that clichés turn into idioms.
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What is the origin and use of "remember me to her/him"? Is anybody familiar with the use of remember as in remember me to her/him ? I think I've see it in 19th century literature. Most likely it's archaic. I believe the speaker is commanding someone to give somebody his regards, or say hello. It seems awkward to hear it now as we only use remember in the imperative to remind someone of something, as in, "remember to walk the dog". Where does this use of remember come from and is it out of use? <Q> Remember (someone) to means "convey greetings from one person to another. <S> " It is not an archaic use. <S> Remember me to Andrew. <S> The Corpus of Contemporary American English reports just a sentence where remember is used with that meaning, though. <S> Remember me to him, if you get that far. <A> Looks like its use is fading fairly quickly. <S> Too bad. <S> Seems a more meaningful way of expressing the sentiment for which we now say tell him I said "hi." <S> Found <S> reference of remember me to... from 1602: <S> Remember me to the "most worthy Governor." <A> 19th-century literature? <S> The 3,322-year old Bible (Genesis 40:14) says that Joseph requested of the official in charge of the wine in Pharaoh's palace, "Only, remember me along with you, when he (Pharaoh does good to you, then you shall do kindness with me, and remember me to Pharaoh, that he remove me from this home <S> (Joseph was in jail on trumped-up charges.) <S> " (This is actually my free translation of the original Hebrew text.) <S> Truthfully, the verb used is 'le-hazkir,' commonly translated as 'to mention,' but in fact 'le-hazkir' is simply the word 'lizkor,' -- 'to remember' -- in the 'hif-il' verb form, which is often used when causing someone else to do something. <S> So, perhaps this is the source of the English phrase 'remember me to him' -- a mistranslation, of perhaps a too-exact translation, of the phrase in the Bible. <A> ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French remembrer, from late Latin rememorari ‘call to mind,’ from re- (expressing intensive force) <S> + Latin memor ‘mindful.’ <S> [NOAD] <S> It is equivalent to the statement "commend me to ..." which is the more archaic expression. <S> " <S> Rememember me to ..." is formal and perhaps a bit dated in the sense that all formal expressions seem to be growing dated, but is still used and heard in the right setting. <A> OED lists this as meaning #17 for remember <S> ; first example is 1560 <S> Gresham in Burgon <S> Life <S> I. 302 <S> To whom it may please you, I maye be remembered. <A> I still hear it from Southerners as in “Remember me to your mama”.
| As I recall it was frequently said 40-50 years ago in the Deep South.
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Better way to indicate “a large amount of ” A Wikipedia article tells us that: A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if solving the problem requires a large amount of resources, whatever the algorithm used for solving it. What is a more elegant, and perhaps more correct, way of expressing the notion “a large amount of ” in a context like this? EDIT after comments: Maybe what bothers me is the the large amount followed by plural resources . I like a large amount of butter on my morning toast; and I like having a lot of books around; but I’m not so sure I’d say I like having a large amount of books here. FINALLY I changed the sentence to read A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution requires significant resources , whatever the algorithm used. <Q> I don't really see anything 'inelegant' about a large amount of , but if you just want something shorter, substantial or considerable would fit the bill. <A> If you're just looking for a one-word synonym, you could try significant resources . <S> If you want to express that the amount is larger than necessary, or onerously large, you could try excessive resources . <A> It seems the theory in question is concerned about the proportion of available computational resources available to devote to any one problem. <S> In this context, disproportionate resources would work well. <S> Since disproportionate could also mean too few , you may need to qualify it as a disproportionately large amount of resources , but I think the simpler phrase remains clear from the context. <A> I think the right phrase here is a large number of resources. <S> Amount should be used with a collective noun, such as a large amount of lumber. <S> Number is used with a plural noun, such as a large number of boards. <A> I too dislike the phrase "a large amount of," whether followed by a singular or a plural noun. <S> It's simply too wordy. <S> I'd prefer "many" or "lots of" in most contexts, with "substantial" as an alternative in formal writing. <S> One sturdy, straightforward source for this kind of phrase replacement is The Appropriate Word, by J.N. Hook (Addison-Wesley, 1990). <S> http://books.google.com/books?id=JqFiAAAAMAAJ <A> <A> How might ' an abundance of ' suit your needs? <S> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/abundance <A> "A great deal of [effort]" might be more elegant. <A> The standard modifier for this situation is "extensive." <S> Sure, "significant" works, but extensive is better because it's the idiom. <A> The context of the sentence is in computer science. <S> The phrase large amounts of can be substituted by substantial - A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution requires substantial resources, whatever the algorithm used. <S> The phrase large amounts of resources can be substituted by what resources is being consumed. <S> Lots of money is being consumed: <S> A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution is costs-prohibitive. <S> Lots of time is being taken: A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution is time-consuming. <S> Lots of resources is being consumed: The forest fire was very difficult to put out as it required many fire fighters and huge amount of water to extinguish.
| "A prohibitive amount of resources" would work well here, I think.
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Is there a word for "Someone who/Something that caches"? Cache is defined as: noun a collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden or inaccessible place : an arms cache | a cache of gold coins . and has the following synonyms: hoard, store, stockpile, stock, supply, reserve; arsenal; informal stash. I'm looking for a word for someone/something that does the caching, my first thought was that they are a "Cacher" but that doesn't seem to be a word. This makes sense to me though as you have a "Hoarder", "Storer", "Stockpiler", "Stocker", "supplier" etc. Does anybody know the right word? <Q> In computer science, the word is cache . <S> The same word is used for the collection of items, as the routines responsible for managing them. <A> "Cache" is borrowed from French, and should mean a store with an implied meaning of hidden but easily accessible to the "right people". <S> Because of that I do not like using "cacher", which is the infinitive of the French verb. <S> The word that actually had the meaning, and has become specialised in its own ways, is cashier. <S> Other words from the same Old French roots are "stash", almost synonymous with cache, and "stasher". <S> I think I prefer "stasher". <A> The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site seems to think that cacher is fine.
| The uncommonly used French word would be a "cacheur".
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What does the "right" in the "The Right Honourable" mean? Why is it there? I don't think the right in the "The Right Honourable" means "correct", because I can't see how that makes sense in context. I considered right as a British slang intensifier that means "really", but that didn't make much sense either, because as far as I know "The Right Honourable" is a formal title that slang of lower register wouldn't be found in. So my question is: What does right add to the meaning of "honourable" here? Is there any particular reason it's there? <Q> You're right in that you wouldn't find slang in official titles. <S> However, according to Wiktionary , that definition is not slang, but is instead an archaic definition: (archaic, sometimes used in titles) <S> To a great extent or degree. <S> Members of the Queen's Privy Council are styled The Right Honourable for life. <S> In other words, it's a synonym for very . <A> Right Reverend is a similar title, applied formally to Anglican bishops where ordinary priests are styled <S> Reverend <S> (but not to archbishops, who are styled Most Reverend ). <S> The Orthodox churches use this wording too, so it's not purely British. <A> I always assumed it meant 'right' as in straight, unbiased, truthful, etc. <S> That is, not an helper adjective describing the adjective 'honourable' but as its own adjective.
| Those who are Right Honourable are honourable to a great degree, more than just The Honourable, but not quite so much as The Most Honourable.
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"How be you" or "How are you"? I have never heard the phrase "How be you?" until yesterday, and started arguing that this was incorrect and that the correct phrase is "How are you?". My friend's reply was "This is how it's taught in the UK". Googling does seem to find usage of this phrase, but it all seems to be colloquial, instead of formal. Is it actually taught this way, in the UK or anywhere else? <Q> Even if Google finds many instances of that phrase, it is still not correct English by today's rules. <S> The correct way to say it is <S> How are you? <A> If you want to talk like a pirate, say "How be you?" <S> For all other uses, prefer "How are you?" <S> However, be may be substituted for the standard indicative copula in the subjunctive mood: <S> Be it ever so humble <S> , there's no place like home. <S> Be he black, white, red, yellow or brown, no man shall be denied his basic freedoms! <A> It certainly is not taught that way in the UK. <S> It may be common-ish in certain dialects, but would probably be archaic even in regional dialects where it was common until recently. <S> Your friend is probably just trying to be funny. <A> I believe it is archaic English.
| I very much doubt that this is taught in the UK or anywhere else, other than to highlight the use of slang or "ghetto" language.
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What's up with the hyphen in "orang-utan"? For most of my life 'till about a couple of years ago, I had only seen the spelling orangutan written to describe those delightful red-headed apes from the tropical forests of Borneo. Lately, though, I've increasingly been seeing a strange spelling in certain scientific publications I read: orang-utan , with a hyphen. Is there a particular reason why this hyphen was added? It's strange, because usually in English, words evolve to have their hyphens and diacriticals omitted, not added. <Q> According to the Wikipedia page about orangutan, that's the Malay spelling (although it looks like it is actually two words <S> ): <S> The word "orangutan" comes from the Malay words "orang" (man) and "(h)utan" (forest). <A> Perhaps this phenomenon should have a name, maybe "hyphen decay". <S> A noun phrase becomes so current that starts being treated as a single word and is granted a hyphen in recognition of its new status. <S> If the word becomes popular enough, even the hyphen is dropped and the words fuse. <S> "Bell boy" becomes "bell-boy", then "bellboy". <S> Ditto for hundreds of other words from "type writer" to "lap top". <S> Orangutan is unusual in that the words originated in a non-Western language ( <S> albeit one that used Latin characters) and <A> The correct way when I was growing up in Singapore is that it's an orang utan (two words) because 'orang' means Man in Malay (one of our national languages) and 'utan' means Forest. <S> So literally - Man of the Forest. <S> The pronunciation is oh <S> -rung u-tahn, not oh <S> -rang-a-tan which remains really strange to hear. <S> The hyphenation probably came about when someone wanted to correct it without wanting to separate the two words. <A> Perhaps to prevent reading it as o-ran-gu-tan instead of o-rang-u-tan.
| the hyphen was apparently added in the process of importing the word into English.
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"Kebabs, fruit machines, and brasses" -- what do these slang words mean? More from the British movie The Football Factory . In the following dialogue, the main character, a Cockney English speaker played by actor Danny Dyer, waxes philosophical about why he enjoys being a football hooligan and would rather do nothing else on a weekend: What else are you gonna do on a Saturday? Sit in your fuckin' armchair wankin' off to Pop Idols? Then try and avoid your wife's gaze as you struggle to come to terms with your sexless marriage? Then go and spunk your wages on kebabs, fruit machines and brasses ? Fuck that for a laugh! I know what I'd rather do. Tottenham away — love it! I'm guessing this is slang of some sort, and I'd love to understand what he means by each word. <Q> A kebab is a type of fast food; in the UK it's often associated with post-pub eating. <S> "Brass" in this context puzzles me, but Wiktionary suggests (see "Translations") that it can be a slang term for a prostitute. <S> That seems the most likely interpretation of the ones I can find. <A> To add to Peter's answer, with the parts he did not cover. <S> The "spunk your wages" bit, <S> spunk means ejaculate , it's an odd phrase, but people often say "blow your wages" , meaning spend them quickly, waste them on nothing. <S> "blow your load" also means ejaculate , so it is an easy crossover. <A> On the subject of Brasses : 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (please note that the link may not be entirely safe if your boss is at your shoulder.) <S> gives this definition for 'Corinthian' Corinthians. <S> Frequenters of brothels. <S> Also an impudent, brazen faced fellow, perhaps from the Corinthian brass. <S> (I found that by searching the dictionary for 'Brass') Which sent me off on a small journey of discovery to see what Corinthian brass was and if it had any obvious link to prostitution. <S> It looks as though the corinthian reference is twofold. <S> One aspect is that the customers were figuratively ' brazen ' the other is that(according to the MacArthur New Testament Commentary) <S> Corinth was such an immoral city that its name became a byword for sexual vice; the verb to ‘Corinthianize’ meant to commit sexual immorality, and ‘corinthian girl' became a slang term for a prostitute. <S> So my speculation is that the phrases 'Corinthian Girl' and 'Corinthian Brass' met up in the brothels, became confused and we ended up with the meaning of one attached to the other. <A> Cockney Rhyme: "Brass Band" rhymes with "hand." <S> He's referring to a handjob from a brothel or massage parlor. <A> The first two aren't slang terms; only the third is. <S> A fruit machine is a gambling machine, they used to be called one armed bandits. <S> Brasses is a slang term and means prostitute.
| Kebab means meat cooked on a skewer, generally from the Eastern Mediterranean. A fruit machine is a gambling device; in the UK you can often find one in a pub.
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Is the use of "all set" exclusive to certain regions? I grew up in the Northeastern US where the use of the phrase "all set" to mean "ready" or "finished" is common. An example would be, "Are you all set with that?" (perhaps while pointing to an unfinished meal) Another example would be, "Are we all set?" (as in "Are we ready to go?") I never gave it a second thought until a friend from California told me that the usage of "all set" really threw him off when he moved to the Northeast. He had never heard that usage before ... hence my curiosity. Is the use of "all set" exclusive to certain regions in the US? Is it used at all in Great Britain? <Q> I have grown up and lived most of my life in the US northeast, in particular New England, more specifically Massachusetts. <S> The subtleties are easily lost on most folks, many of whom may be seeing it as a written, not spoken, expression. <S> : for an upcoming event to depart or get going <S> It also can mean "finished" or "completed": with the dinner plate, the server can clear it now that you are not using it <S> the server may offer coffee or dessert but you may want to just get the check and leave with the tool, you can borrow it without hindering my progress It can mean "not requiring assistance" or "not requiring (further) merchandise": just browsing/loitering and not assistance from salesperson/librarian/security <S> /other after regaining composure, perhaps after an accident, fall, loss of temper <S> It can mean "the matter is resolved": <S> shopkeeper: "You are all set. <S> " The transaction is complete, the customer can go. <S> restaurant patron: "This (check) is all set. <S> " <S> The money offered for the check will pay in full and the wait staff can keep the change as gratuity, no change required. <S> repair person: "It's all set now. <S> " The item is repaired. <S> (The customer should ask for clarification to make sure that what was requested has been provided.) <S> As shown above, the many ambiguities for this catch-all phrase depend upon who is speaking and in what circumstance. <S> It is my opinion that because the phrase can be vague, it keeps people communicating. <S> Overly precise language can stifle interaction by crowding out occasion for humorous misunderstanding, actual two-way dialogues where questions and answers are exchanged, and the ability to see anther's point of view by forcing oneself to perceive a situation from a perspective other than their own. <S> I guess I am all set with this topic. <A> I'm from New England and waitressed briefly in Sotuhern California. <S> When I asked patrons if they were "all set with this" (ie "can I clear your plate?"), they looked at me like I had two heads. <A> Yes it is used in the UK. <S> As an example, the headline to this story (first one that came up in Google) <S> Phil Taylor all set for Wales showdown . <A> I spent some time in Western Massachusetts and I heard this from my mechanic to gas station cashiers whenever I hand out money and they put the amount in or that the car is fixed <S> and I'm all set, all prepared and ready to go. <S> They would say "You're all set!". <S> I'm thinking it's more of a New England thing. <A> In my experience the phrase not used in the same way in English outside the US (UK, South Africa, Australia, India). <S> In these other countries it is only used in the sense of 'ready' (sometimes with 'for' added on the end - "Are you all set for your flight tomorrow ? <S> "). <S> I never encountered it being used in the sense of 'finished' until I came to the US. <S> I'd be interested to know the origins of the American use. <A> Both the NOAD and the OED reports that set , as adjective, can mean "ready, prepared, or likely to do something." <S> “All set for tonight?” <S> he asked. <S> Water costs look set to increase.
| The phrase "all set" has many meanings which can vary based upon the context. It can very well mean you are "ready" (occasionally, one may simply use the word "set" alone)
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"The larger of A and B" or "the larger of A or B" I was wondering which one is more correct between "the larger of A and B" and "the larger of A or B". I use the former, but I saw in IRS instruction for Form 1040: In most cases, your federal income tax will be less if you take the larger of your itemized deductions or standard deduction. <Q> Ask a computer programmer if they want tea or coffee and they will say yes! <S> Ask them if they know people born in New York and Washington they will say no (you can't be born in NY AND Washington) <A> It's probably a bad idea to take grammar advice from someone who would answer "Yes" to the question "Do you want tea or coffee?" :-) <S> This sort of thing is just an exercise in interpreting natural language as strict propositional logic, which can be a fun past-time for some species of nerds, but isn't really relevant to the question at hand, which is about correct usage. <S> @Marcin above, I think, has it basically right: either is probably fine. <S> To me, it feels as if the "and" is being used to describe a set of things, and then the "larger" is like a function that applies to that set. <S> So I'd say:"The larger of the two""The larger of A and B""The largest of A, B, C and D""The largest of the Beatles" <S> What's nice here is that you preserve substitutability amongst the different ways of describing the set, i.e.:"A <S> and B are the two""A, B, C, and D <S> are the Beatles" Notice that if you use the "or" construction, this doesn't work out:"The larger of the two""The larger of A or B""The largest of A, B, C, or D""The largest of the Beatles"A or B <S> are <S> the two" //wrong!"A, B, C, or D are the Beatles" //wrong! <S> But of course ultimately what trumps everything is what sounds right to and is used by English speakers, and as @Macin says both ways seem to be ok. <S> But to me this sort of reasoning can break the tie. :-) <A> The larger of A or B = <S> The larger of (A or B) - <S> > <S> True because one of them has to be true. <S> Thus, the former expression is proper. <S> Note <S> : I am a computer scientist :) <A> This has lead to substantial litigation where it is not clear whether "and" is being used disjunctively or conjunctively. <A> Sorry Mr/Ms Computer Scientist ... <S> It may be "true" for binary systems <S> but it's not comprehensible linguistically. <S> The only way to make this sensible is to indicate that "the larger of" means the larger of BOTH THINGS TAKEN TOGETHER (i.e., A and B). <S> Neither A nor B can be "larger" except in relation to the other. <S> If you do not group the two things together (by using "and") you have no set within which to make a comparison, <S> so you can't determine which of them is "the larger" (i.e., the larger compared to what?) <S> You are relying on your parentheses to group them together, but this doesn't avoid the need to connect A and B with "and" within those parentheses. <S> (Note: I am a legislative drafter.) <A> There's a subtle mathematical difference between the two ways of saying it. <S> In the "or" case you're giving a list of the items that must be selected among. <S> In the "and" case you're defining a set of items and asking about one of them. <S> The "or" makes me think that the "larger" applies to the items listed. <S> "Which would you like, coffee or tea or me?" <S> The "and" makes me think of the items listed as elements of a set. <S> For example, "Which of our delicious drinks would you like?" <S> "Well, what is your list of drinks?" <S> "We have coffee and tea and water." <S> I would generally use the "or". <S> But if I wanted to stress the incorporation of the list of items into a set, rather than the modifier "larger", the "and" might be better.
| Either is probably fine - it seems that "and" and "or" are both sometimes use disjunctively. Personally I agree with you and use the "and" construction. If you say "The larger of A or B" or "The larger of (A or B)" you have only said "The larger of A or the larger of B", which is nonsensical.
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A "torque wrench" or a "wrench"? Could " wrench " mean something different from a torque wrench? Would the meaning here be vague if I left off the word " torque " in the following passage? The biggest difficulty in giving instructions is, as already noted, over-estimating what your audience already knows. Telling someone to remove a part on their car using a torque wrench doesn’t help much if they don’t know how to use a torque wrench, or even what one is. Problems can also arise when you fail to adequately describe a point — it often is not clear until several steps later that a failure has occurred, and the only thing to do for it is to trace your steps backwards until you find the error. <Q> A Wrench (spanner in BE) is to tighten or loosen a nut. <S> A torque wrench is used to finally tighten a bolt to the correct tension. <S> It either has a scale (analog or digital) or a clutch that is set to release at a certain torque. <S> Note: you wouldn't use a torque wrench to remove a nut - that's the point in the article. <A> For an informal usage as you seem to have written in your example, I would say it doesn't matter. <S> A torque wrench is different from a wrench, however, so if you were using it in a more formal sense, like a training manual, I would specify the difference. <S> Apparently, a torque wrench has a gauge on it that measures how much torque you have applied to the bolt <S> you are fastening, and thus it is important in cases where the tightness of the bolt needs to be precise. <A> There's a tip for you. <S> When I want to learn about a technical word, I search the word in Google Images. <S> As you can see, clearly there is a difference between normal wrench and torque wrench . <S> A picture values a thousand words. <A> So a torque wrench is a subset of the set of wrenches. <S> On the other hand, the noun "wrench" applies to things other than tools. <S> See the Free dictionary definition of wrench . <A> A torque wrench provides a gauge or other indicator to show how many foot-pounds of pressure are being applied. <S> This measure is important for things that must bind within a certain tolerance, like two pieces of a motor engine's casing. <S> Too light a pressure, and it won't form a seal; too much pressure, and you may crack the sealing layer, or worse, the metal around the bolt hole.
| In my experience, which agrees with wikipedia " torque wrench " means a wrench which gives a controllable torque, either through measurement of the torque applied or due to a mechanism which prevents a torque greater than a given amount.
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"Nobody want to go there," or "nobody wants to go there"? In English, the number 0 is treated as plural. It is then: 0 seconds 1 second 1.2 seconds 2 seconds Shouldn't it be "nobody want to go there," instead of "nobody wants to go there"? I also saw in TOEFL that "any _ _" should be used with a singular. But I see it very common that it is a plural also. Why is that? (updated: example, "we don't have any apples any more" vs "If you get any apple, please let me know.") <Q> Zero cars have driven by. <S> Not one car has driven by. <S> Both of these sentences are fundamentally describing the same thing semantically and yet they demand different number agreement. <S> Both of these are possible because grammatical number agreement is only partially informed by semantics. <S> Just because some descriptions of a lack of something have plural number agreement, that doesn't mean that all descriptions of a lack of something must have plural number agreement. <S> So, it is true that zero takes plural number agreement, and nobody takes singular number agreement. <S> However, there is no reason that these have to work in the same way. <S> I have no idea what your second question (regarding TOEFL) could mean. <S> Any can refer to singulars or plurals — it completely depends on what is in that blank space. <S> Is there any water left? <S> (Singular verb agreement for grammatically singular water ) <S> Are there any cookies left? <S> (Plural verb agreement for grammatically plural cookies ) <A> Nobody is singular, and that is not related with the fact any number different from 1 (one) is considered plural. <S> Nobody was at home. <S> Nobody could predict how it might end. <S> Any can be used as both singular, and plural. <S> I don't have any choice. <S> Do you have any tips to pass on? <S> If there is any left, throw it away. <S> [The examples are taken from the New Oxford American Dictionary .] <A> Thus, the correct sentence is "Nobody wants to go to there." <A> My answer is "nobody wants to go there", because nobody , in this case, has a singular notation.
| Nobody —like everybody , anyone , and anything —is a singular indefinite pronoun .
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Someone told me "fair" is the "F" word, they don't like it in their house. Should I avoid using it? I used "It's not fair", but someone told me "fair" is the "F" word, and they don't like it in their house. Should I avoid using it? ps : sorry if my question offended someone, I didn't mean to it. <Q> I can't cite this <S> but it sounds like a fairly common joke. <S> People often say things like, " [a word] is a four letter word around here". <S> ' a four letter word ' is a reference to the many profanities that do indeed have four letters. <S> By saying that a seemingly inoffensive word is a 'four letter word', you are saying that for some reason that word should not be said, usually for humourous purposes. <S> I suggest that by saying 'Fair' was the F-word, your friend is doing the same thing. <S> Like the old adage that " life isn't fair ", your friend is simply saying that 'fair' doesn't happen and so the word may as well be a profanity. <S> They are not really offended by the word - just telling you that you shouldn't expect things to happen fairly. <S> This is merely conjecture <S> but it seems likely. <A> The phrase "the f word" is primarily a euphemism for the word "fuck", which is usually considered the English language's "strongest" swear word (how offensive it is varies, and is another topic). <S> It is not usual to refer to "fair" (or any word other than "fuck") as "the f word". <A> They must be joking. <S> Perhaps they were saying that you shouldn't expect fairness in their house. <S> It sounds like something a parent would say to a child when they want to stop talking about an objection the child has raised. <S> There is only one true "F" word.
| No-one is offended by the use of the word "fair", unless, perhaps, out of an unusual, and unusually strong, philosophical aversion to the concept.
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What is the English word closest to Japanese “Ganbatte,” the word for encouraging people who are in disaster, or challenging a severe ordeal? In Japan, after experiencing the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, “Ganbatte” which contains all sense of “Cheer up, Bear up, Keep your chin up, Be courageous, Do your best” became the password of everybody on the streets. With this single word, we can portray all meaning of encouragement. I think perhaps, Chinese word, “加油 - Jia you” well corresponds to “Ganbatte” in its sense and function. We watch Japanese famous personalities and athletes such as baseball, soccer, and golf players addressing Ganbatte (or Ganbare) to both victims of the great earthquake and general audience who were fortunately intact to the disaster in every ten minutes in TV commercials these days. What do you think English equivalent to the word, “Ganbatte” closest to the feeling of “Ganbatte” that can be expressed in a single word or very brief phrase? <Q> In British English it used to be "Keep a stiff upper lip," <S> but I don't know how current that is. <A> I know of the word ganbatte from my limited study of Japanese. <S> I guess it tells us something about the Japanese spirit, and something about that of the English speaking world, that there is no English word that fulfils everything that ganbatte means. <S> That's OK. <S> It's common for words not to have direct translations (today I learned that many languages don't distinguish an ache from a pain!) <S> So, when you want to translate the word ganbatte <S> you must decide what part of what it means is most important, and use the one(s) that fits best to the situation: "chin up" (stop being sad) "grit your teeth" (be determined) "cheer up" "good luck" "put best foot forward" (determination again) "keep up the good work" / "keep it up" "do your best" "courage!" "don't give up" "be strong" "onwards and upwards" <S> (but I feel this is more often used sarcastically) <S> Again, all of these are a compromise - which is why, in circles where English speakers know their peers speak some basic Japanese, they'll use ganbatte kudasai themselves. <A> Perhaps this isn't strictly English, but here in New Zealand (particularly Christchurch after the 22 February earthquake ) <S> the Maori expression kia kaha is often used. <S> As the link says, it means essentially "be strong". <S> Of the little Japanese that I know, I think this is very similar to "Ganbatte". <A> I'm thinking of hang on ! <S> as in persevere ( persevere itself being too formal). <S> This is the closest I can think to Mandarin's jiāyóu (加油) which in this sense means "step on the accelerator". <S> 加油 literally means "add (加)" + "petrol (油)" and has the following meanings: <S> top up, <S> step on the accelerator make an extra effort. <A> I keep thinking of the phrase "don't worry, be happy," but if I had to distill that sense down to a word, I think "courage" covers it. <S> Perhaps "have faith" as well? <A> Not exact one, but "Never give up" could be similar usage? <A> The closest English analogue that I can see is the concept of "triumphing over adversity", which is a common English cliché. <S> It's used by: American sportscasters to describe the careers of underdog atheletes Politicians and media to describe how people react to hardships like natural disasters Individuals who wish to describe personal struggles like illnesses <A> Not really appropriate for the disaster scenario, but for persevering in an underdog position: "Pull out all the stops" is a reference to organs (the musical instrument) which means to use all your energy and every strategy you have at your disposal to get the job done. <S> It's often (usually?) said in the context of being an underdog or against the odds, like, <S> The team pulled out all the stops to win that game. <S> The development team needs to pull out all the stops to finish by the deadline. <S> And another one which has the same meaning: "to give one hundred and ten percent". <S> Its common usage has elevated it to smirky cliché status though <S> so I recommend finding a better way to say it. <S> The team will need to give 110% to win this one. <S> Both of these have a competitive feeling. <S> They are about succeeding, not persevering. <S> For the scenario of making it through a disaster, I would just say persevere . <A> Well, not sure about English equivalent for Japanese expression 'Ganbatte' or Chinese 'JiaYou' <S> but in Spanish we say 'Animo' and as I watch many Korean dramas, I can tell that they frecuently say something that it sounds like the English word 'Fighting' <A> Forms of ganbaru have multiple meanings that should be interpreted in light of context and timing. <S> Ganbaru expresses positive support for someone facing a difficulty like a test, a race, surgery, an interview, a business trip, etc., but can also express encouragement after a disaster as the original question suggests. <S> When used before a challenge, <S> Ganbatte <S> ne can mean, "Do your best <S> ," "You'll do great," "You can do it." <S> Used during a challenge, it's used to encourage continued support, as in "Keep it up," "Don't give up," or chanted Ganbare, ganbare as in "Let's go, let's go!" <S> After a success, Yoku ganbatta <S> ne could be translated as " <S> You did great!" <S> or "Well done!" <S> After a personal failure, or a tragic disaster such as the earthquake and tsunami, ganbatte can also be used to console, such as "You can get through this," "Never give up," "Be strong" or group strength such as Bosuton-de ganbatteimasu (akin to "Boston Strong"). <A> Ganbatte “頑張って” contains 2 characters borrowed from chinese, which is very close to 顽固地主张, literally tenacious proclamation. <S> It conveys the idea to keep going until one achieves the originally declared objective. <A> brace up <S> : take heart; be brave: <S> Brace up! <S> Things could be worse.
| The closest American equivalent to 頑張って is probably "Hang in there!" Consider Brace up! .
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"Why ...?" vs. "Why is it that ... ?" Why is it that everybody wants to help me whenever I need someone's help? Why does everybody want to help me whenever I need someone's help? Can you please explain to me the difference in meaning between these two questions? I don't see it. <Q> I see a subtle difference, which might be more obvious to anyone into Systems Thinking or NLP. <S> The first has a more passive meaning, in that it implies that a cause exists for everybody's desire to help, without specifying where that cause exists. <S> The second implies that the cause lies with everybody. <S> You can see this more clearly if you use an example with something inanimate in it: <S> Why is that the ball always comes through my window? <S> Why does the ball always come through my window? <S> The ball doesn't come through the window of its own accord, of course. <S> We would normally say something like, "Why do the kids next door always hit the ball through my window?" <S> instead, because to assign the action to the ball, rather than the people hitting it, would be strange. <S> We might use "Why is it that...? <S> " more often when the cause of an event is unclear. <S> It can also help us look outside the immediate cause for external influences: <S> Why do sparrows always fly into my window? <S> (Stupid birds). <S> Why is it that sparrows always fly into my window? <S> (Because they can't see the glass). <S> Thank you for making me aware of this. <S> Another linguistic Systems Thinking tool to add to my box. <A> I think there is no difference except that the first sounds more emphasized. <S> But there is no difference in meaning. <S> They are both asking for the reasons, although in a slightly different way. <A> There are many stylistic variants you can use to ask why something happens. <S> Here are a few: <S> Why ...? <S> Why is it that ... ? <S> Why does it happen that ...? <S> How does it happen that ...? <S> How come ...? <S> How can it be that ...? <S> What kind of a world is it where ...? <S> There are more, but you get the idea. <S> Sometimes we use variants to freshen up our writing, or avoid variance to hammer home a repetitive point. <S> If you are asking many similar questions of this type in a row, you may repeat the same construction ( anaphora ). <S> But usually you're not wielding a rhetorical jackhammer, so variation is the way to go to keep your prose from getting dull.
| They all mean pretty much the same thing; you just have to choose the particular flavor you're looking for at the time of writing.
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How are "yes" and "no" formatted in sentences? If I am expecting an answer from a question and wish to state my prediction, do I need to use quotes around a simple "yes" or "no"? I think the answer is no. / I think the answer is "no." That would be a yes. / That would be a "yes." Potential end cases: Why would he say, "No"? The votes are in; three yeses and four nos. The options are yes or no; not "maybe." <Q> Unless there's a style guide telling you otherwise, I'd suggest basing your decision on whether you mean the literal words 'yes' and 'no', or the general nature of the response. <S> Consider: <S> Why would he say, "No"? <S> (For that is the word that he said.) <S> vs <S> Why would he say no? <S> (What he actually said was "Over my dead body", but let's not worry about that detail.) <A> In both the answer is no <S> and say no , quotes are relatively uncommon. <S> The Corpus of Contemporary American English gives these results: <S> the answer is <S> no 484 hitsthe answer is " no 27 hits (including punctuation variants)[say] <S> no 8891 <S> hits[say] " no " 521 hits (including punctuation variants) <S> However there are only 10 yesses and 30 yeses <S> , so you might want to reword that one (perhaps The votes are in: 3 in favor and 4 against ). <S> My subjective impression is that it is better style to omit the quotes. <S> Your style, of course, is up to you. <A> Personal opinion? <S> Put the quotes. <S> This is what they’re there for: to distinguish between the meaning of the word, and the word itself ( “ceci n’est pas une pipe” ). <S> For comparison, consider The answer is affirmative. <S> Here, “affirmative” is a word that signifies that the answer is positive / “yes”. <S> But the word “yes” itself is not synonymous with “affirmative” in this usage. <S> I may affirm an answer by saying “yes”. <S> But I cannot yes an answer to affirm it. <S> But unfortunately popular writing usually seems to oppose my conviction. <S> That is, in most novels such short expressions are rarely put between quotes even though they are a fragment of direct speech. <A> A handbook of style will tell you that the simpler, cleaner format is usually better, and is becoming more universally accepted. <S> Notice the two elements of the criterion: <S> You are quoting a phonetic utterance. <S> You want to make it very clear that you are. <S> Otherwise, just say no to quotes. <A> "Answer was 'no'." — correct; gives clean sense. <S> "Answer was no." <S> — incorrect; meaning unclear. <A> To quote from Grammar Girl (emphasis added), "If you are directly quoting someone, put the word in quotation marks." <S> "If you are indirectly quoting someone, don't put the word in quotation marks." Here are some examples: <S> The cat smiled and said, "Yes." <S> "No," I replied, "he is unavailable. <S> " <S> I hoped the answer would be <S> yes, she could go. <S> In so many words, I had to tell him no. <S> In the last two examples, the words "yes" and "no" summarize the nature of the response, but do not necessarily reflect any spoken words.
| My instinct would be that you would only want to use quotes if you want to make it explicitly clear that you are quoting an exact, phonetic utterance.
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"Almost until 1900" or "until almost 1900": which one is correct? Although various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American poets had professed an interest in Native American poetry and had pretended to imitate Native American forms in their own works, it was not until almost 1900 that scholars and critics seriously began studying traditional Native American poetry in native languages. <Q> Other uses: <S> I waited until almost noon to eat breakfast <S> The train waited until almost everyone was aboard before leaving <S> Sometimes you can rephrase as: <S> The train almost waited until everyone was aboard <S> This isn't really possible with your example, however, because "almost 1900" is needed. <S> To rephrase it entirely you could do something like: <S> It was almost 1900 before they began studying poetry <S> Other words work in place of "almost": <S> It was not until nearly 1900 that they began studying poetry <S> But all of these variations point toward "until almost 1900" being correct. <S> These all seem very wrong to me: <S> It was not nearly until 1900... <S> I waited almost until noon... <S> The train waited almost until everyone was aboard... <A> Neither is wrong, but both are clumsy. <S> The writer wants to sustain a long sentence and make a narrow qualification at the same time, which almost always partially hampers clarity. <A> If the implication is that the date is approximate because the information is incomplete, around could work, as in not until around 1900. <S> If the implication is that the date had not yet arrived, almost is better. <S> Otherwise, if the date is known then just say "not until ( fill in the date )." <A> "Until nearly 1900" would read much more smoothly, in my opinion. <A> It is clear what you mean, but I find neither choice stylistically satisfying. <S> Perhaps the problem is that until signifies a limit, whereas almost pushes you back again a short distance from this limit. <S> The result is a slightly uncomfortable bouncing back and forth. <S> I think there is no simple way to express what you want to say in a more elegant way; you probably need more words or restructuring . <S> A few suggestions: ... <S> it was not until the late nineteenth century that scholars and critics seriously began ... <S> You are merely saying here that they did <S> not begin before the late 19th century: you are not asserting that they actually began at the moment the late 19th century was announced, in, say, 1875—but technically that would, alas, be a possibility. <S> This is perhaps a bit less precise than you would like; but in this case I feel that such precision is of little importance. <S> You are not naming years at any rate. <S> ... <S> it was not until the 1890s that scholars and critics seriously began ... <S> This would be more precise, but the precision might feel a bit spurious somehow. <S> Even so, I think it would do. <S> ... <S> it was only at the closing of <S> the nineteenth century <S> that scholars and critics seriously began ... <S> This is clear and conventional. <S> I'm just not greatly charmed with this wordy, voguish phrase. <S> But it will do. <S> You could also combine different elements from these suggested phrasings. <S> Use your gut feeling and make your own decision. <A> I would phrase this: <S> "It was not until shortly before 1900 that ..." <S> (if you are looking for iffy-ish precision), and "It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that ..." if it's acceptable to refer to the general century (which seems the intention with 1900) and you're willing to substitute the sense of "almost" 1900 with the end of that which preceded it (a change in meaning which in most circumstances would be minor indeed). <S> This is more a matter of convention and standard locution than anything else. <S> The English language could use the word "almost" in the ways stipulated above ... <S> only it doesn't tend to do so for longer periods of time. <S> I don't even think we'd say, "It was almost the end of the month," but rather "nearly the end of the month." <A> "until almost 1900" is correct as it's a prepositional phrase beginning with until and almost is the adjective modifying the noun 1900. <S> The prepositional phrase modifies the verb " began" in the noun clause 'that scholars and critics seriously began" indicating when the scholars and critics started to study Native American poetry. <S> In “Almost until 1900" it's not clear what "almost' modifies. <S> From the sentence it appears that the intended meaning is that around 1900 (could be <S> 1899 or 1901) scholars and poets began to study Native American poetry. <S> Thus placing "almost" before 'until" no longer communicates the intended meaning. <A> I would interpret the phrase "almost until" as having a very specific meaning, which would not be applicable in many situations; it may nonetheless be a reasonable wording in those narrow situations where it applies. <S> Saying that something "lasted until almost 1900" suggests that there's nothing particularly special about that year, and if the thing had lasted 365 more days it would have been described as having lasted "until almost 1901". <S> Saying that something "almost lasted until 1900" suggests both that it might have lasted until 1900 but for some twist of fate which might plausibly have been--but wasn't--avoided, and that 1900 was a qualitative milestone; whether or not the thing lasted until 1900 is more important than the exact duration of its existence. <S> Saying that something "lasted almost until 1900" would suggest that reaching 1900 was a major qualitative milestone (as above, ruling out the "until almost 1900" form) and <S> the time at which the object failed was very close to 1900, but the fates would have had to have been very different for the object to actually survive that last little interval (ruling out the "almost lasted until" form). <S> It is rare that such a combination of factors would all apply, and unless all three factors apply, another form (or else a form which omits "until" altogether) would be more appropriate.
| "until almost 1900" seems more correct to me.
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Is there a word for "one who salvages"? I am looking specifically in the context of used, discarded or lost material (perhaps ships, trucks, weaponry and the like). I have considered forager , scavenger and pirate ; however the first seems to me to attach more of a connotation of food, the second adds the sense of animals to food, and the last intimates more of theft and violence. Perhaps this sentence may give some insight. The salvage ship plied its trade through uncharted backwaters, searching for the abandoned detritus of yesterday's business. How would you call who worked on that ship? <Q> Salvager is a perfectly cromulent word, according to none other than the Gray Lady herself . <S> Off topic, but that sentence is fully Bulwer-Lytton compliant. <S> Two clichés, a pleonasm, and whatever "yesterday's business" is -- in fewer than 20 words. <A> The word in maritime law is salvor <A> I'd think the specific word meaning this would be salvor , although it isn't so common as to be approved by the spell-checker as I type this. <S> See here . <S> It also appears to mean one who applies ointment. <A> A traditional word for those who salvage on the sea is " wrecker ". <S> It's evocative of a time when salvaging wasn't considered a very nice thing to do. <S> Example PDF . <S> On land: The used equipment business I've been involved in requires that we go to auctions and buy equipment at the cheapest possible prices. <S> One of the groups of people you meet at these auctions are called " scrappers ". <S> They purchase metal items (and plastic and perhaps others) at auctions for their scrap value. <S> Some of them own their own scrap yards <S> but we might buy something that we know we can scrap. <S> Anyway, scrappers sometimes are on the wrong side of the law in that if you leave a thing around long enough, which has enough scrap value, and the thing is in a region which is sufficiently unobserved, then eventually a scrapper will come along, take it up, and sell it to a scrap yard. <S> I've spent time at night watching for these folks and have surprised them a few times. <S> In this sense, "scrapper" means "scrap metal thieves". <S> A typical object for scrappers is manhole covers. <S> " <S> A scrapper might get about $20 covers and grates, but it can cost the city more than $200 to replace a single manhole cover. <S> A few years ago, scrappers got only $35 a ton compared to the current $425 price for a ton." <S> – mjperry.blogspot.com <A> Here's some possibilites to chew on: marauders sweepers forayers rovers poachers scroungers borrowers tinkerers magpies Jawas <A> You could call that person a salvager or a salvage operator . <A> A salvor . <A> scrounger and vulture are possibilities. <S> The latter would have negative and poetic connotations. <A> One who salvages is a salvager.
| According to Wordreference : Salvor (noun): a person who salvages or helps to salvage a ship, cargo, etc.
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How do you proceed from pronouncing "t" in the regular way to t-glottalization, as found in various English accents? It's just strange to me because "t" is pronounced with the front teeth, while the glottalized "t" is produced with the back of the throat; that seems like quite a noticeable journey that couldn't have happened all at once. If I'm correct, do linguists have any clue what intermediate steps would have been taken, and can someone demonstrate a couple of those pronunciations with English words? <Q> Short answer : <S> The transition from /t/ <S> to glottal stop does not require intermediate steps. <S> Explanation: <S> There are three main factors involved in the production of a consonant: place of articulation , manner of articulation , and voicing . <S> The glottalization of /t/ is essentially a loss of place. <S> /t/ <S> is a voiceless alveolar stop . <S> These three words in the name represent the three main factors. <S> Voiceless means there is no voiced 'hum' (as in /d/). <S> Alveolar means that the sound is produced on the alveolar ridge (the place). <S> Stop (also called plosive ) means that the sound is made by a full closure of the oral cavity followed by a burst of air. <S> /ʔ/ is the (voiceless) glottal stop . <S> As you can see by the name, 2 out of the 3 parts of articulating the sound are the same as /t/. <S> Glottal sounds are produced in the glottis itself. <S> As you can see, lenition and debuccalization are phenomena that occur independently in a vast number of languages. <S> It is essentially a "weakening" of a consonant. <S> Since this is simply the loss of one feature, there are no intermediate steps — except that, in cases of a total and permanent loss of place in some context within a language, there is usually (if not always) a period where there is free variation between the lenited form and the full form, until eventually the full form becomes so rare it falls out of use. <S> In American English, we currently have free variation in the way we pronounce /t/ <S> at the end of many words, like get , hat , astronaut , and so on. <S> In careful pronunciation, a full /t/-sound (closure followed by release) is made. <S> But often the /t/ is articulated but never released, and in many dialects (including my own), the /t/ is realized as [ʔ], the glottal stop. <S> So, I often say [gɛʔ], [hæʔ], [æstrənɔʔ], and so on. <S> This is an example of an intermediate stage of lenition. <S> Perhaps, in a couple hundred years, speakers of my dialect will never pronounce the /t/ <S> in that context. <A> In American English, word-final stops like /t/ are commonly glottalized, so that "cat" /kæt/ is pronounced [kʰæʔ͡tˢ]. <S> More precisely, it is realized as a co-articulated glottal and alveolar stop. <S> In many environments, this final stop is unreleased. <S> Acoustically, then, there's little difference between unreleased [ʔ͡t̚] and just a plain glottal stop [ʔ] (it's the /s/-colored release that gives it distinctness), so it's not surprising that the simpler articulation is often used. <S> (The degree this occurs varies considerably by dialect.) <S> The /t/ <S> -> /ʔ/ phenomenon is thus a loss of the alveolar articulation. <S> A special case is when /t/ is followed by /n/, as in cotton /kɑ.tn/. <S> Plosive + nasal sequences assimilate so that the stop is unreleased; the resulting articulation is alveolarly stopped for the whole duration, during which the nasal passage opens and voicing begins. <S> If the glottis were left open for the whole time, then the pressure from the lungs would produce an uncomfortable nareal plosive when the nasal passage opens; hence it is pronounced glottally stopped. <S> In this case, there isn't even any articulatory difference between /ʔ͡tⁿ/ <S> and /ʔⁿ/. <A> My days of formally studying linguistics are long gone, so I don't speak with the authority of a professional linguist on this particular one. <S> But I've no reason to assume there's some evolutionary process at work here like the Great Vowel Shift. <S> People just hear a sound and attempt to reproduce it. <S> Sometimes they don't really care if the phoneme they generate isn't identical to the target, so long as it's close enough to be understood. <S> Even parents eventually give up if their kids won't roll their r's or pronounce their aitches properly. <S> And - this may be purely subjective <S> - I think the glottal stop is just easier in a lot of vocalisations. <S> So long as your audience don't think you're 'common'. <A> The Yorkshire accent misses out 'the' almost completely. <S> If you are writing comedy Yorkshire accent you would write "going on t'internet" but it's pronounced with just a very short stop in place of the 't' <S> I assume this is because the 'the' is completely unnecessary and so Yorkshire people don't see why they should waste words saying it.
| When a consonant that is normally (or formally) articulated in one part of the mouth is articulated instead in the glottis, this is a form of lenition known as debuccalization .
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"Movies" vs. "Cinema" vs. "Theater" -- what's the difference? What are the differences between going to "the movies", "the cinema", and "the theater/theatre" (ignoring the fact that theaters are also for plays and not just movies)? Personally, "movies" sounds more American to me, and "cinema" sounds more British, but I really have no idea, it's just a guess, I have no idea. <Q> Film is the medium on which motion pictures are fixed. <S> Cinema is from the French cinématographe which comes in part from the greek kinema, meaning movement. <S> So cinema is really just another word meaning moving picture. <S> It also has come to mean more generally the process of film-making and also the building where films are shown. <S> Theater is similar to cinema, in that it can mean the building, or more generally the industry of live performance (i.e. plays, musicals, etc). <S> Film, movies, and pictures are used interchangeably: <S> I saw a film. <S> I saw a movie. <S> I saw a picture. <S> In context, the theater is the building where movies are shown, but usually people would specify the movie theater to avoid confusion with the live theater. <S> "Movies" and it's short-lived companion "talkies" describe in a very simplistic way, what it going on on the screen. <S> Things are moving: movies. <S> People are talking: talkies. <S> Movies and pictures can be used interchangeably: <S> I'm going to the movies/pictures. <S> But pictures is mainly a UK expression. <A> I don't know about US, but mostly in UK we go to the cinema to watch a film on the big screen. <S> Sometimes you still hear pictures , or flicks , but they're getting a bit dated. <S> I don't think many people would say they went to the theatre without adding something to indicate this was to see a film, since by default it would be assumed the entertainment was something with live performers on stage. <S> I think we're less likely than Americans to say, for example, Most Friday nights I go to the movies . <S> In the cause of lingustic globalisation we do go to see a movie , but not so often as we watch a film (but of course, you can also do that at home - in your home cinema if you've got one). <A> Movie/movies is an American word. <S> Theater is the American spelling of theatre . <S> From my experiences as a British person, I can tell you about this. <S> Americans talk about watching “movies”, going to “the movies”, or watching them in a “movie theater” — which they also abbreviate as just a “theater”. <S> British people talk about watching “films” or going to “the cinema”. <S> For British people, a theatre (which is the British spelling as opposed to the American spelling) is somewhere to watch a play on stage. <S> It can include musicals. <S> It has this meaning only. <S> However, in very recent years, the word movie has slowly started to be used here in the UK as well. <S> It is not widespread, but is used by some British people, mainly radio and TV presenters. <A> "The movies" is chiefly American. <S> "The cinema" is chiefly British. <S> "Theater <S> /theatre" is said of places where plays are shown, however if you modify it to "movie theater" then you have a theater where films are shown. <S> "Movie house" can also be used. <A> The following observations from the UK are from my youth, 40 or 50 years ago. <S> To some degree they still hold, but US expressions are more familiar now than they were then: The field or subject of cinematography: "cinema" or "film". <S> An individual creation: "a film". <S> ("a movie" and "a picture" would be deliberate Americanisms) <S> The building: "a cinema" (never "a theatre") What you go out to: "the cinema", "the pictures", "the flicks" (in increasing order of informality.
| Movies is slang for a motion picture.
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Which would you use: full-size, full-sized, full size or full sized? I want to use full-sized , as in: Click here to download a full-sized version of this image. But Google NGrams disagrees : So, given: full-size full-sized full size full sized which would you employ and why? <Q> From Collins Cobuild English Dictionary: full-size or full-sized A full-size or full-sized model or picture is the same size as the thing or person that it represents. <S> So, I would choose one of those options and trust the dictionary. <A> Note that you need the hyphen in either case, because it is a compound adjective (an adjective composed of more than one word) and it comes before the noun it belongs to. <S> If you put it after, you don't need the hyphen: this picture is not full size . <S> (Note that it is often more stylistically pleasing to use a different construction in that case.) <A> Either option is correct and usable. <S> Both they have slightly different emphases. <S> "Full-size" indicates that it is of the right size, while "full-sized" may additionally imply that it was deliberately made to that size. <S> It's a very slight difference. <S> @Cerberus is correct that no hyphen is used when you put it afterwards. <A> The Google Ngram in the original question is flawed. <S> You must put parens around a term containing a hyphen. <S> Try the search again using these terms: (full-size),(full-sized),full size,full sized <S> You will get a completely different result with 'full-sized' being by far the most common followed by 'full-size'. <S> Try this corrected Google Ngram <A> I would use full-size . <S> Compound adjectives preceding a noun should be hyphenated, unless the compound modifier includes something like more, less, least, etc. <S> Another pretty reliable test for hyphen necessity is to check whether the second element in your compound modifier can stand on its own. <S> In the case of 'full-size file', for instance, could we just have a 'size file'? <S> In the case of 'full-sized' file, it seems to me that we could have a 'sized file,' but as shipr pointed out, this gives the impression that the file had the action of sizing applied to it. <A> Logic (as adequately noted above) is on the side of full-size ; usage is on the side of full-sized . <S> (Interestingly, the OED does not even list size as an adjective.) <S> The same logic speaks in favor of age instead of aged <S> (They have one child, age three.) and old fashion instead of old fashioned .
| I really couldn't decide between full-sized and full-size in your example: both would be perfectly fine and common.
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Why is writing "alot" such a common mistake? Why is it such a common mistake (particularly among school-children) to connect certain pairs of separate words? The most obvious example probably being: e.g. "a lot"->"alot" Is it because- in this particular case at least- there is already a valid word "allot" that exists? Maybe also, it helps that "a" is a valid prefix to a word (e.g. "a-plenty"). <Q> Possibly people have a natural tendency to spell "alot" in a single word because the brain processes it as a single word. <S> At any rate, with its use for quantification, it clearly has some "special" properties. <S> Notice the difference in verb agreement between: A lot of the problems <S> are due to bad planning. <S> A lot from <S> the auctions <S> is missing. <S> This taken with the fact that "a lot" can be used adverbially ("he got a lot further") <S> probably make it "feel" like a single item in terms of how the brain processes it. <S> A five-year-old child learning to write may not have even come across the word "lot" outside the phrase "a lot of", and occasional phrases such as "a whole lot of" which split "a" and "lot" are rare compared to the basic phrase. <A> As usual, there’s a certain logic to this common mistake. <S> Of course if you have read and learned the spelling, it makes sense the way you’ve learned it. <S> But imagine for a second that you weren’t really the reading type, and you didn’t know how a lot was spelled. <S> Would you think of it as two words? <S> Consider <S> We care a lot . <S> Is lot a noun there? <S> How many other nouns can do that? <S> We care a bicycle ? <S> We care a friendship ? <S> I could accept <S> We care a bunch / a bit / a little , and a few temporal expressions like <S> We care this year / all the time , but a million other nouns don’t work. <S> So it’s no wonder some people put a lot in the same mental bucket as sometimes , occasionally , and deeply . <S> Also— <S> a lot is an idiom. <S> It does not mean the same thing in the everyday <S> We have a lot as it does in the more literal <S> We have a lot in the Appalachians where we’re going to build a cabin someday . <S> There is a pattern in English that such idioms tend to get fused into single words: all ready/already , all most/almost , a wake/awake , a way/away , and a live/alive . <S> This also explains why alright is so common. <S> Of course the standard spelling has its own logic: a lot of bananas is a typical noun phrase whereas alot of bananas would be pretty odd; the lot of them and the whole lot are occasionally heard; and so on. <S> But you can see how someone might make the mistake. <A> I think it's simply a misspelling. <S> So I'm thinking that until told differently, kids think that "a lot" is one word. <A> I can't post images in comments, but I think this one is worth a tenth of a myriad’s <S> words: <S> So: no, it's not “on its way to becoming a recognised single word”. <S> And most of the hits from this ngram are not actual uses of “alot” in the context we are discussing here, but OCR issues or names of foreign places.
| In the case of "a lot", it's a term that's frequently used, and it might seem like one word when pronounced. The perceived "obligation" to spell it as two words, like any spelling, is just an arbitrary convention.
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What to capitalize in table headings? I'm writting a table for a scientific paper and I'm not sure what to capitalize in the column-headings. Which rule should be used? Normal English capitalization (then the next question is: write the first word upper case?) or the one where everything except for some words (of, in...) is written in uppercase? Example for the possibilites: | Programming Language | Programming language | programming language | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- System 1 | Java | Python | Erlang | <Q> Chicago Manual of Style, the style guide which journal styles in the mathematical and physical sciences are most often based on —including the IEEE, the most widely followed style guide in computer science— follows your option #2, "Programming language". <S> You don't say what style you are writing to: If you are planning to submit it to a journal or as part of a book, the publisher's guidelines for authors should have sufficient information for you to decide. <S> If you are submitting it as part of degree coursework, your university might or might not have a rule here. <S> Otherwise, consider yourself bound only by the requirement to be consistent. <A> I think it's the first one <S> (also around you'll see it's the used one), but don't use the third one because it will look bad, no matter the type of table. <S> There are some rules, anyway, about what you can capitalize and what not, i.e. no function words ( but, not, of ). <S> Check here (PDF). <A> In US English, almost every word in a heading is capitalised. <S> In British English, I see much less capitalisation. <S> In NZ, my country of residence, it's perfectly all right to just capitalise the first word of a heading, and you'd probably also get away with option 3. <S> The above mentioned recommendations to find out about the style guide for the particular publication are probably the best advice you can get. <A> If you are targeting your paper at a specific journal, then that journal will probably have published online a set of quite specific style guidelines. <S> If you have no particular journal in mind then choose a leading journal in the field and go with that. <S> If the style guidelines don't cover details such as capitalisation of headings then look at a recent issue to see how tables are formatted for publication.
| As far as I have experienced it, capitalisation of headings is very much dependent on the culture you live in.
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Is it appropriate to treat "FYI" as a noun? Since FYI stands for "for your information", I would tend to use it like this: FYI, I think the fish has gone bad. In other words, the acronym simply replaces the phrase . However, I've heard FYI used many times in the following way: As an FYI, you shouldn't mention his ex-wife. Here, it is being used as a thing . This doesn't quite sound right if you fill in what the acronym stands for. It's as if a for-your-information is taken to be an object in a similar fashion to a(n) FAQ . Anyone have some insight as to whether the second usage above is considered valid? <Q> " <S> As an FYI, check out today's report on sales," is the sort of thing you hear all the time. " <S> He sent me an FYI on that" is unobjectionable. <A> Personally, I find it awkward to use FYI as a noun. <S> I read FYI as "for your information" in my mind, as oppose to "F" "Y" "I". <S> So when I see "As an FYI" I read it as "As an for your information" , which is wrong. <S> I guess it would sound okay to people who actually say "F" "Y" "I". <S> This is also seen in other short forms, like ASAP, LOL etc. <S> Some pronounce it by the alphabets, some pronounce it as a whole word. <S> I would tend to think that short form like these in itself indicate a loose grammar. <S> You would not see FYI, don't, ASAP, IMHO in an academic paper. <S> In places where you are likely to see these short forms, I think it is acceptable to use it as a noun, since the grammar is not as strict. <S> Lastly, it also puzzles me why people write "As an FYI, we will be out of business soon" <S> while they could have simply said "FYI, we will be out of business soon". <S> Not only providing the same meaning, but also saves a few keystrokes on the keyboard, and is grammatically correct. <A> In school, you learned to put a definite article, “the,” or an indefinite article, “a” or “an” before a noun. <S> You were also told to put “an” in front of a noun beginning with a vowel and “a” in front of a noun starting with a consonant: a meeting, an emergency. <S> But remember the exceptions I often talk about with regard to the English language. <S> When it comes to abbreviations and initialisms, you have to ask what is the first sound – not the first letter. <S> “An” is used when the first sound is a vowel, “a” when the first sound is a consonant. <S> ExamplesAn LCBO bottle (vowel start — ell)A LAN connection (consonant start)An MBA degree (vowel start — <S> em)An FYI notice (vowel start — ehf) <S> Therefore, both “a Law Society of Upper Canada form” and its abbreviated form “an LSUC form” are correct. <S> Don’t you just love <S> English!taken from - http://ontariotraining.net/grammar-tip-a-or-an-with-acronyms/
| Using FYI as a noun is perfectly normal and common in business.
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A phrase that means something like "special dispensation" I'm looking for a phrase that is like 'special dispensation', but I know that's not the phrase I'm looking for. I'm trying to say that work had to be done on object X that was different, and unique, for objects Y, Z and A. <Q> Depending on the context, there might be a term that's more common in one line of work or another, but a core word to this is "case," as in special case, unique case, or edge case. <S> Each one carries a sense of variation from some common or expected procedure. <S> Speaking of which, terms like "variation" or "exception" might also work. <S> Variation often applies in policy-oriented contexts. <S> For example, a fire safety code may require all hallways narrower than a certain width to be clear from wall to wall. <S> Some lab-oriented building that needs to place equipment in the hall has to apply for a variance. <A> <A> 'special case' or 'requires special treatment' are possibilities.
| For a variance that exists due to age, 'grandfathered' may be what you are looking for.
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Is the expression 'half a percent' acceptable in formal English? When central banks raise or lower interest rates the radio announcer will say for example: an increase of one half of one percent Informally people use half a percent instead, which is less wordy, but is it also incorrect? Ngrams analysis shows publishers favour the longer version, although the short form seems to be gaining some traction. Thinking about it, I'd never offer someone one half of one pizza ; that sounds weird. However, I believe of is necessary here, in combination with an article, quantifier or pronoun. Is this correct? <Q> In short: yes, “half a percent” is accepted usage , even in formal writing. <S> To back it up: the New Oxford American English lists percent as both an adverb ( “a 1.8 percent increase” ) and a noun ( “a reduction of half a percent or so in price” ). <S> Note that the second example nicely answers your question. <A> The phrase half a(n) <S> X is a well-established English idiom. <S> The use of percent here is a straightforward application of the idiom: <S> half a cup of water half a loaf of bread half a dozen half a percent <S> In financial contexts, the more formal version may be preferred, but there's nothing wrong with the informal equivalent. <A> Yes. <S> People in the financial world will sometimes say 50 basis points (itself often shortened to 50 bips in speech). <S> A basis point is one percent of one percent. <S> PW <A> As 'per cent' means 'of a hundred', it would be best to say 'a half percent'. <S> The newsreader version is unnecessarily wordy.
| But in colloquial, mainstream English, half a percent is perfectly fine.
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English word forms not having cognates in any other language I've heard that the word "dog" does not have cognates in any other known language (checked with etymonline ). That is, this very common words has similar forms in other languages, Germanic, Romance, or Celtic (those that have large overlap in vocabulary etymology with English). So my question is of two kinds: what are some other (common?) words that -do not- share etymology with words in any other language? what are some ways to such a search automatically? (I feel like oed.com used to allow plain old test search of any entry so that one could have looked for 'unknown' or something similar). Also are there any online English word lists that have some etymological info? <Q> I've heard that the word "dog" does not have cognates in any other known language <S> After your previous question on walk and talk , let's go at it again. <S> First, etymonline (as well as other sources) note that the etymology of dog is still quite foggy. <S> Second, the Old English docga was picked up in other languages, as noted by etymonline, giving the French dogue and the Danish and German dogge (referring to a specific breed). <S> Third, and most importantly, wiktionary cites the Proto-Germanic dukkōn (“power, strength, muscle”) as the most plausible origin, from which the verb dock also comes. <S> In other languages, the Danish dukke (“doll”) and the German Docke (“small column, bundle, doll, smart girl”) derive from this same root. <S> As a conclusion, I don't think you can find what you are looking for. <A> I think we need to look big picture here. <S> First, let's remember the technical definition of cognate. <S> Here's a decent one straight from Google: <S> (of a word) having the same linguistic derivation as another; from the same original word or root (e.g., English is, German ist, Latin est, from Indo-European esti). <S> Obvious candidates for 'non-cognates', then, are English neologisms: <S> words coined by English speakers that have not been introduced by borrowing and that have not been borrowed to other languages. <S> Unfortunately, many new words will themselves be derived from the roots or parts of pre-existing words. <S> For example, one might think of the English idiom "the real McCoy". <S> But "Mc-" is actually 'a Gaelic ancestral name to mean "son of"' and reappears in tons of Scottish names. <S> So 'McCoy' is not a 'non-cognate' in your sense. <S> So also with the word 'maverick'. <S> Though it appears to be a better example, ' <S> the surname Maverick is of Welsh origin, from Welsh mawr-rwyce, meaning "valiant hero"', according to Wiktionary. <S> The poem "jabberwocky" and <S> some of the words in it might be non-cognates, but even here, many of the words are intentional combinations of preexisting words (e.g., chortle, which had no existence before, = snort + chuckle). <S> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky <S> Maybe the best opportunity to find non-cognates would be to look at onomatopeic words, like 'meow'. <S> Since these are imitative there is no reason for them to be borrowed from or shared to other languages. <S> Then there is another set of corner cases where the word looks to be invented in English from non-roots of other words. <S> Slang words would often fit into this category. <S> I am thinking also of words like 'jazz' and 'doo-wop', or Homer Simpson's 'D'oh!'. <S> Unfortunately, these may be cognates, for the reason that they have been borrowed from English into other languages. <A> What about "butterfly"? <S> See: Idiosyncrasies of the Word "Butterfly" https://linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-1765.html
| There may be words with an etymology so unclear that they might not knowingly be related to any others in known languages, but I don't think you can ever formally exclude the possibility of related cognates.
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What does "10 years sober" mean? Here is the full sentence: You’re from Orinda, your father’s in commercial real estate and your mother’s 10 years sober. <Q> In the context presumably intended as a slur on the sort of person whose parents sell real estate and are recovering alcholics! <A> To be "10 years sober" means that the person has not used alcohol for 10 years. <S> You can also say, "I've been clean for 10 years" to mean you haven't used drugs in 10 years. <S> People often use the two terms together, "clean and sober for 10 years." <A> In the reported sentence sober means "not affected by alcohol; not drunk." <S> Other meanings of sober are: serious, sensible, and solemn: a sober view of life free from alcoholism; not habitually drinking alcohol muted in color: a sober gray suit
| Hasn't had a (alcoholic) drink for ten years - presumably was an alcoholic and is now clean.
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What is the origin of the term "woo"? On the Skeptics StackExchange you quite often read users referring to certain things and practices as "woo" . What is the origin of this word? How did it come to be synonymous with skeptics? <Q> "Woo" (or "WooWoo") seems to refer to the types of "magical thinking" that skeptics love to, well, be skeptical about. <S> From Respectful Insolence , this thought on its origins: <S> Finally, regarding the etymology, I tried to look into that a bit. <S> I do know that The origin of "woo woo" is lost in the mists of time (well, at least decades) of time. <S> I've seen suggestions that it comes from the "woooooo" noise that a Theramin used to make in old horror or science fiction movies. <S> I've also seen suggestions that it somehow derives from the music in the theme to The Twilight Zone. <S> Whatever the etymology, the term can, as far as I can tell, only be traced back to around 1986, at least in print, although I'd be shocked if the term wasn't in use long before that. <S> However, I can't remember having heard the term until more recently, within the last few years. <S> Maybe I was just sheltered. <S> Personally, +1 on the Theremin idea. <A> from http://www.skepdic.com/woowoo.html : <S> woo-woo <S> Woo-woo (or just plain woo) refers to ideas considered irrational or based on extremely flimsy evidence or that appeal to mysterious occult forces or powers. <S> Here's a dictionary definition of woo-woo: adj. <S> concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. <S> Also n., a person who has mystical or new age beliefs. <S> When used by skeptics, woo-woo is a derogatory and dismissive term used to refer to beliefs one considers nonsense or to a person who holds such beliefs. <S> But mostly the term is used for its emotive content and is an emotive synonym for such terms as nonsense, irrational, nutter, nut, or crazy. <S> See also discussion on The Lippard Blog re: a 1984 citation: <S> THE NEW AGE SOUND: <S> SOOTHING MUSIC BY SINCERE ARTISTS Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - <S> Sunday, October 21, 1984 <S> So who is this New Age audience? <S> Mostly upscale folks in their 30s and early 40s, the ones weaned on Baba Ram Dass and Woodstock and hallucinogenics, macrobiotic diets and transcendental meditation. <S> ..... <S> George Winston, who practices yoga and who currently has three albums on the jazz charts (his five Windham Hill recordings have reportedly sold more than 800,000 copies; his LP December has just been certified gold), has jokingly called this crowd the "woo-woos." <S> In a 1983 interview in New Age Journal, Winston, asked if he knew who comprised his audience, answered that there were some classical fans, some jazz, some pop and "all the woo-woos." <S> "You know," he added, "there's real New Age stuff that has substance, and then there's the woo-woo . <S> A friend of mine once said, 'George, you really love these woo-woos, don't you?' <S> and I said 'Yes, I do love them,' and I do. <S> I mean, I'm half woo-woo myself." <A> First, it’s a term coined relatively recently, and it is only used in certain circles . <S> It is not present in generic well-known dictionaries ( Merriam-Webster , Collins , Oxford or Cambridge ). <S> Wiktionary defines it, but relies on rather nonmainstream sources. <S> Secondly, woo is the shortened form, and it is also written as woo-woo and woo woo . <S> Wiktionary says of its origin that it might be “intended to imitate the eerie background music of sci-fi/horror films and television shows, however the exact origin is uncertain ”. <S> Indeed, if you do a Google Books search for “woo woo”, all the hits refer to the sound of the wind at night, animal calls (owl, wolves, etc.). <A> The sound does seem to refer toufic/sound effects used in spooky movies, specifically, that of the theremin, or so it seems to me. <A> I posed this exact question to DARE and the American English Twitter groups. <S> Got a citation from the '60s in return, so it goes way back. <S> Often expressed as "woo-woo. <S> " <S> Wide geographic distribution from west to east coasts. <S> In horror movies, whenever the monster or something scary is due to appear, the event is often preceded (at least in older films) with eerie, "woo-woo-woo..." music. <S> That might be a possible origin but at this time it's one of those etymological unknowns. <A> Terence McKenna was a radical thinker. <S> He was a classically trained biologist and wrote what he referred to as 'straight' ethnobiology pieces and also what he referred to as being more 'woo woo'. <S> The types of things I'm thinking of are epitomized by Timewave Zero . <S> Basically, the way he used it, is that something would be 'woo woo' if it was an idea that wouldn't pass muster on a site like this.
| Sometimes woo-woo is used by skeptics as a synonym for pseudoscience, true-believer, or quackery.
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What is the meaning of "two-sidedness"? What is the meaning of "two-sidedness"? I'd like a direct or indirect definition. <Q> The English suffix <S> -ness is used to turn an adjective (or participle) into a noun that refers to the associated quality. <S> For instance, darkness is the quality which dark describes. <S> Thus, two-sidedness is the quality of having two sides. <S> Although this is not a common word, it is a reasonable one. <S> One could say, for instance, that a sheet of paper shows two-sidedness. <S> (It is more likely that two-sidedness would be used in a metaphorical sense rather than a literal sense of that example.) <A> The only occurrence of two-sidedness in the Corpus of Contemporary American English is in an academic paper dated 1990: <S> [he] erred in his prediction that Britain would be one of the superpowers, but he correctly anticipated the “two-sidedness” of world politics after 1945 (note the quotation marks, which appear in the original, marking that the author knows the word is not standardly used). <S> @mgkrebbs gave a good description of using the -ness suffix to form nouns. <S> Two-sided means having two sides, or two aspects. <S> The first meaning is exemplified in a sentence like: <S> The set includes 1 00 two-sided letter tiles, four gray bank tiles, and four letter bags <S> The second can be seen in: <S> For the past five years, Pakistan has pursued a risky, two-sided policy toward Islamic militancy or <S> He clearly enjoys having a two-sided conversation. <A> Two-sided as defined in <S> Random House Dictionary : <S> Having two sides; bilateral. <S> This is a more direct, literal definition, where the sense of the word applies to concrete things: two-sided coins and two-sided paper. <S> Having two aspects or characters. <S> This is the more indirect, figurative definition, where the sense of the word applies to characteristics of a person, markets, or problems. <S> The implication is that those things with two-sidedness have a more complex nature than what is presented on the outside. <S> Adding '-ness' creates the noun form.
| Something that has two sides can be called two-sided.
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What's the etymology of "when the sh*t hits the fan"? Where did this come from? It makes no sense to me...why is the shit even near the fan? <Q> Possible sources Partridge says it's US and Canada slang from c. 1930, and that Norman Franklin says (1976) <S> the original reference is to ther agricultural muck-spreader, and also mentions the following joke as perhaps valid. <S> The Online Etymology Dictionary says: <S> The expression [ the shit hits the fan ] is related to, and may well derive from, an old joke. <S> A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn't find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. <S> Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. <S> When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, 'Where were you when the shit hit the fan?' <S> [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1989] US military in WWII <S> The phrase was at least part of US military slang during World War II, as euphemistic versions can be found in contemporary books, particularly in US Marines accounts of the war. <S> From 1945 's The U. S. Marines on Iwo Jima by Raymond Henri <S> et al . <S> " The garbage hit the fan on that one," said a captain. <S> The 1947 <S> Star-Spangled Mikado by Frank Raymond Kelley says: <S> In December, 1945, to borrow a line from an irreverent song popular among Americans in Tokyo " the Shinto hit the fan ." <S> The song title is also shown in the 1946 <S> The conqueror comes to tea: Japan under MacArthur by John La Cerda: 1949 's The old breed: <S> a history of the First Marine Division in World War II by George McMillan tells us the phrase became so popular it was used as a code for a fight or action: ... <S> Finally, the first I found actually using shit is also from WWII in The Naked and the Dead , the 1948 novel by Norman Mailer: <A> From http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/407950.html : When the shit hits the fan Meaning Messy and exciting consequences brought about by a previously secret situation becoming public. <S> Origin <S> This expression alludes to the unmissable effects of shit being thrown into an electric fan. <S> It appears to have originated in the 1930s. <S> I can't say better than 'appears' as the earliest citation of it that I can find is in the 1967 edition of Eric Partridge's A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional <S> English: <S> "Wait till the major hears that! <S> Then the shit'll hit the fan!" <S> Partridge lists the phrase as Canadian, circa 1930, but as he gives no supporting evidence we have to go by the 1967 date, although it is undoubtedly earlier. <S> Other, more polite, forms of the phrase, involving eggs, pie, soup and 'stuff', can certainly be dated from the USA the 1940s. <S> For example, Max Chennault's Up Sun, 1945: <S> "Sounds like the stuff was about to hit the fan." <S> The Fresno Bee Republican, May 1948, reported on a psychiatrists' convention, under the heading See <S> How Brain Boys Also Run Wild: " <S> However, once that opening point was settled, the psychiatrists entered wholly in the business of the convention, which culminated, of course, in the selection of officers for the coming year. <S> And that, as the saying goes, was when the soup hit the fan." <S> The other versions followed soon afterwards. <S> From http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shit%20hits%20the%20fan : shit hits the fan <S> When things get chaotic or uncontrolable, shit has hit the fan. <S> 3,000 people were waiting for the movie 7 hours before it opened. <S> When it was announced that the movie would not be showing, 50 chimps on motorcycles parachuted down from the sky. <S> The monkeys pulled out assorted automatic assault weapons and then the shit hit the fan. <A> Don't try this at home they say !!! <S> In proper sense, I believe you can try to model the physics of the solids: the fan is a device that, by its very design is meant to move air. <S> But it can be anything else. <S> In the general case of some dirty low cohesion matter it will be spread all around. <S> And then the clean up operation is probably going to be a lengthy and unpleasant task. <S> You don't want to be the one who will have to clean the mess.
| In figurative sense, when the shit hits the fan means that there is trouble ahead and that it will be very messy.
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What is the opposite of the perfect aspect? Most tenses exist in a perfect and non-perfect form, e.g. present vs. present perfect and past continuous vs. past perfect continuous. What is the group of tenses that are not perfect called? <Q> First of all, it is important to point out that the tenses are only three: Past, Present and Future. <S> Tense refers directly to time . <S> 'Simple', 'Continuous' (progressive) and 'Perfect' are aspects , along with the fourth 'perfect continuous' which satisfies the criteria for both 'perfect' and 'continuous'. <S> These refer to state of an action . <S> As for opposites, different aspects refer to different states. <S> If an action is not continuous, then it is something else. <S> Being different does not make it 'opposite'. <S> So, put simply: <S> There is no 'opposite' for the perfect aspect, though there are other aspects. <S> Hope that helps <A> Likewise, the uses of verbs that aren’t finite are non-finite. <S> Honestly, there’s enough terminology in grammar already without inventing an opposite for every term! <A> Perfect and continuous are not mutually exclusive, and therefore can be used individually or together, giving three aspects. <S> Those usages that include neither are called simple. <S> Thus simple, while not the "opposite" of perfect, excludes both perfect and continuous. <S> Expressed tabularly, there are four cases -- s, p, c, pc -- which can be used in all tenses, where s indicates the absence of either p or c.
| They’re called non-perfect.
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"Did it go down your *muffler*?" I read a narrative where the author was talking about her childhood. She said that one day she and her father, a brother and a sister were inside the car, the kids were eating popcorn and drinking cream soda. Someone said something funny at the very same moment in which she was drinking the cream soda. As a result she aspirated the drinking and choked. The situation got pretty serious, but after a while she recovered. So, her brother asked: "Did it go down your windpipe?" She replied: "I don’t know—I don’t know what happened". Her father answered: "Probably". And her six-year old asked: Did it go down your muffler? What does the word "muffler" mean in this contest? And, why is it funny? I know it's something funny, because she said that it made everybody start laughing again. <Q> It doesn't mean anything. <S> It's just a 6 year old <S> asking a nonsense question. <S> I'm guessing she got confused between tailpipe and windpipe. <A> It depends somewhat on the date; but I would presume (see below for justification) <S> that “muffler” here means a scarf or similar garment. <S> The humour (to my ear) is in how the two questions “Did it go down your windpipe?” <S> and “Did it go down your muffler?” <S> are superficially very similar <S> , so a six-year-old might see them as parallel, but very different in meaning: “Were you choking?” <S> vs. <S> “Did your scarf get dirty?”. <S> This meaning of muffler is unusual today (now it usually means part of an exhaust system in a car, motorbike, etc.), but was the commonest one in the past. <S> One can roughly track the different meanings by comparing her muffler , his muffler , its muffler , the muffler in Google ngrams : <S> (I’ve left the muffler off this graph as it rather dwarfs the others.) <S> This, together with skimming over the Google Books results it’s based on, shows how it’s gone from being (in the 19th century) <S> usually a woman’s garment, to (in the early/mid 20th century) either an auto part or a garment for either sex, to (in recent decades) almost always an auto part. <A> In Australia, at least, we would use "did it go down your muffler" as meaning "did it go down your windpipe". <S> The similarity between a tube in your throat that helps you breathe, and a tube that allows the car to 'breathe' (or emit noxious fumes, anyway!) is easy to draw. <A> I think it's at least as likely she meant muffler in the sense of "scarf".
| The term muffler , especially to a child, would be the tube that sticks out of the back of a car (what Americans would call a tailpipe). I know that in my own childhood, at least, none of us would have had any clue that a "muffler" was a scarf.
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Is "grammar nazi" politically correct? I'm not a native English speaker and I'm puzzled where the use of grammar nazi would be appropriate. I have seen it numerous times around the SE network and was wondering when the use would be appropriate and whether it is likely that someone might get offended. <Q> For whatever reason, <S> x Nazi is not as offensive as you'd expect in the US. <S> There was a recurring character on Seinfeld known as the "soup Nazi" and nobody got bent out of shape. <S> That said, substituting the phrase <S> "The Grammar Police" doesn't even put you at risk and may be more accurate (since the complaint is that the person is officiously interfering in the affairs of others, not that he or she is a racist genocidal maniac). <A> As everyone else has said, the use of "X Nazi" (soup Nazi, grammar Nazi, etc.) is surprisingly common in the US. <S> However, I once met a person who got very upset at the use of such a term, saying that it made light of the experience of anyone in the Holocaust by trivializing the use of the term Nazi. <S> Since then, I have personally steered clear of its use. <S> So take it for what it's worth. <A> I'm not a regular here, but I would say that pretty much it's never really politically correct, especially to call someone else one. <S> "Nazi" is a pretty strong word with bad connotations. <S> That said, I do call myself a "grammar nazi" a lot, so what do I know? <A> Any time you refer to another person as "he or she is a .." (fill in whatever) you are labeling them. <S> It is a hostile act and you are indicating that there is something wrong with them that they can't change, rather than referring to something that they did and that you disagree with. <S> It is a form of name-calling, what positive can come out of that? <S> In addition, I believe that the word itself is offensive to people of German origin. <S> Apparently, in English-speaking countries kids are taught that "all Germans are nazis", and Germans who were born after World War II think it is not fair to be held responsible for something that happened before they were born. <S> If you feel that somebody is overly obsessive about grammar, why not just say that, instead of name-calling? <A> I flinch every time I hear <S> the "____ Nazi" construction, and judging from Lynn's answer and Barrie England and Lukas Eder's comment on it <S> , I'm not the only person like this. <S> This type of reasoning is why I never make "In Soviet Russia... <S> " jokes in front of a classroom. <S> For me, twenty-nine students laughing just aren't worth the tiny chance of one student getting really uncomfortable because they're acutely aware that their family barely survived the Holodomor. <A> It isn't so much politically correct as it isn't really considered incorrect . <S> Nazis are generally a non-topic in the US; if you want something offensive you need to use particular examples (e.g. Hilter) or specifically refer to The Nazis. <S> That being said, some variations have their own offensiveness attached (e.g. feminazi) but my hunch is that this has more to do with the usage of the term than the inclusion of "-nazi." <S> The internet tends to care less about political correctness and the phrase "grammar nazi" is more common when you can pick apart the spellings of there/their/they're and your/you're. <S> I advise against using it in person until you hear someone else use it. <A> Although the word is in fairly common use, I would hesitate to call anyone a grammar nazi , just the same as I would avoid calling them any other negative term. <S> I don't think that there is any particular negative connotation with the term, but it certainly is not a positive word. <S> By calling someone a grammarian <S> you are more likely to flatter than offend them. <S> Feel free to use it with regard to yourself, though. <A> If you call someone a grammar nazi, there's a decent chance that they will be offended. <S> This is because you are accusing them of being unreasonable. <S> If you called them the grammar police, I would expect a nearly identical reaction. <S> It sounds like there are some regional differences in how this term may be perceived, especially in Europe. <S> To be clear, I'm an American <S> and I'm referring to American usage. <S> I do <S> not however think that the criticism that this usage must be do to ignorance is at all fair. <S> I've been to Germany, where I visited plenty of historical Nazi sites including the Nuremberg Documentation Center and Dachau. <S> I'm familiar with what went on over there. <S> The usage of nazi in the sense of someone who is simply authoritarian does indeed trivialize the word, which should be insulting to the Nazis, not their victims.
| If someone hears you call someone else a grammar nazi, it would be very strange for them to be offended at the mere use of the term. If you're writing for a large audience, be aware that some fraction of your readers will experience this phrasing as a slap in the face.
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Does "cost-benefit ratio" use a hyphen or an en-dash? Should I write "cost-benefit" (hyphen) or "cost–benefit" (en dash), and why? <Q> Nobody here has nailed it. <S> Here's the answer: <S> In the construction "Pre–Civil War," the en-dash is correct because it modifies both "civil" and "war. <S> " What the OP is wondering is whether this idea carries over to "cost-benefit ratio" and of course you can see that it doesn't, because "benefit ratio" is not a compound term. <S> This is a very arcane bit of typesetting knowledge, and you'll see it observed only in the highest-end publications like New York Review of Books and The Economist. <A> Formally, hyphens are for joining terms, and en dashes are for ranges and distinctions . <S> En dashes have a secondary application joining terms that are already hyphenated or contain spaces, but that doesn't apply here. <S> In this situation I would use an en dash or a slash. <S> Of course, if you do write it with a hyphen, nobody is going to be confused. <S> Technically, cost–benefit analysis can be interpreted as either [cost–benefit] analysis —an analysis of costs versus benefits—or cost–[benefit analysis] —costs versus an analysis of benefits. <S> Luckily, the latter doesn't make any sense and would really only arise from deliberate pedantic misinterpretation. <A> There isn't a definitive single answer. <S> In my experience, then, a hyphen is the sensible choice for uniting two words into a compound form. <S> I don't actually have an en dash on my keyboard, and trying to signify one with a double dash makes matters worse. <S> The word processing program you use may impose what it thinks is correct. <S> I have not noticed what mine does. <A> If you use a slash <S> it might look even less ambiguous: <S> Cost/Benefit
| The distinction between hyphens and en dashes has more to do with typesetting rules than usage.
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Can someone help me diagram this sentence? I'm trying to do a sentence/phrase analysis of the following sentence. I just can't figure out, what would “No matter the season” be (Adv. of ...) in terms of sentence elements. And the next question is about the PostM of the NP of the DO. “Found nowhere else in Britain” is PostM, realised by restrictive relative cl (with zero marker: challenge [that is] found ...) or not? ? S/NP P/VP IO/PP DO/NP No matter the season,/ these combined features /present /to the climber /a uniquely varied and demanding challenge found nowhere else in Britain. <Q> I don't know about your terminology, so perhaps my analysis won't be of use to you; but this is how I'd parse your example according to traditional grammar. <S> [It is] no matter <S> [what] the season [is]: these features present... <S> The "no matter" phrase is an elliptical clause , to be completed hypothetically as above. <S> It is simply an independent main clause —no part of the co-ordinate main clause " <S> these features present". <S> I agree that parsing this phrase is problematic and that other labels are possible. <S> As an alternative you could parse it as an anacoluthon or parenthesis: no matter the season—these features represent... . <S> ... <S> a challenge, found nowhere else in Britain. <S> that modifies "challenge". <S> Since participles are best considered both verb and adjective, its adjectival function is to modify "challenge", its verbal function to govern "nowhere else in Britain", a satellite of location (where is it found? <S> nowhere else ...). <A> Just to add some specificity to the other answers, here is an attempt at a parse tree: <S> The image was created by using phpSyntaxTree with the input: <S> [S [AdvP [ADV no matter the season]] <S> [NP [DET these] [ADJ combined] <S> [N features] ] <S> [VP [V present] <S> [NP [ART a] [AdjP [ADV uniquely] [AdjP [Adj varied] and [Adj demanding]]] challenge <S> [AdjP found [AdvP nowhere else ]]]]] <S> which I created out of thin air. <S> Please critique/come up with an alternative. <S> I have not yet found a reasonably accurate online English parser. <S> Note that I'm not even trying to parse 'No matter the X'. <A> Let us render this into more intelligible modern prose, and see if that helps. <S> No matter <S> [what] the season [may be (in other words, "regardless of the season")], these combined features [in other words, "these geographical features, taken all at once,"] <S> present to the climber [in other words, "present the climber with"] <S> a uniquely [in my opinion, this word is redundant with the phrase "nowhere else" appearing at the end of the sentence] varied and demanding challenge [that may be] found nowhere else <S> [in other words, "that is not to be found anywhere else"] in Britain. <S> So, as revised into our modern (and far less poetic) language, the sentence might read: "Regardless of the season, these geographical features, taken all at once, present the climber with a varied and demanding challenge that is not to be found anywhere else in Britain." <S> It might also be pointed out that the phrase that you seek to identify may be placed at the end of the sentence with no damage to meaning, and, after revision into our clanking contemporary speech, such placement lends it a great deal more emphasis: "These geographical features, taken all at once, present the climber with a varied and demanding challenge that is not to be found anywhere else in Britain, regardless of the season." <S> You should now easily be able to see that this is a dependent clause (or "subordinate clause," depending on your local pedagogical tradition), set off by a comma. <S> I hope this helps. --DKR <A> I find "no matter the season" strange, because to me "no matter" is a subordinating conjunction (that usually takes a wh-clause): this writer seems to be using it as a preposition. <S> You could regard "found nowhere else in Britain" as a reduced relative clause, but I don't think that's necessary: <S> modifiers consisting of an adjective plus complement of some sort are often postfixed. <A> I don't know about your terminology, so perhaps my analysis won't be of use to you; but this is how I'd parse your example according to modern grammar. <S> I just can't figure out, <S> what would “No matter the season” be (Adv. of ...) <S> in terms of sentence elements. <S> The role <S> no matter the season plays in this sentence is adjunct to the main clause. <S> This is a pretty loose grammatical function. <S> Many kinds of expressions can fill it: regardless of the season / whatever the season <S> / <S> whatever season it is / summer or winter <S> / <S> whether it's summer or winter <S> / <S> throughout the year . <S> As for the internal structure, no matter is a stock phrase with peculiar grammar. <S> It usually takes an interrogative clause complement ( no matter [where you live / who you are / how angry she is] ). <S> Here it's reduced to an NP. <S> That is fairly common; the meaning is no matter <S> [what] the season [is] . <S> (Cerberus says no matter is itself an elliptic clause, a reduction of <S> it is no matter . <S> I disagree, because if you actually expand it that way, the sentence becomes ungrammatical unless you also change the punctuation or prosody. <S> No matter can be used even without punctuation, in the same situations as if : I will drop by no matter what happens / if nothing happens. ) <S> And the next question is about the PostM of the NP of the DO. <S> “Found nowhere else in Britain” is PostM, realised by restrictive relative cl (with zero marker: challenge [that is] found ...) or not? <S> Sounds good to me. <S> You marked to the climber as "IO". <S> It's not. <S> An IO has to be a noun phrase, and it can't be moved after the direct object (as this phrase could, if the DO weren't so long). <S> Some verbs, like transfer , can take a to PP complement but cannot take an IO.
| "Found" is a participle
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Linking word for two different ideas Sometimes I found myself in the situation that I don't know how to link two different ideas in the same message. For example, writing an e-mail: Hello. I can start working on the project, just tell me which are the requirements. _ _ _ _ I would like to see if you can help me with my income tax declaration. What word is a good option to fill the blank space? I thought moreover and in the other hand are good options, but they don’t convince me. <Q> Moreover isn't the word you are after. <S> It implies a relationship between the two ideas; moreover, it implies that the second is even more pertinent to what you are discussing than the first is. <S> On the other hand (not in the other hand ) isn't an appropriate phrase either. <S> It too implies a relationship, specifically that the two ideas are somehow opposite to each other in some sense. <S> For example, I could have a burger and chips for lunch today. <S> On the other hand, I could be good and have a salad instead. <S> The word you are after is probably "also", as in "I would also like to see if you could help me with my income tax declaration." <S> However, you still hit the basic problem that the two sentences are not actually related to each other. <S> They don't belong in the same paragraph, since part of the point of a paragraph is that it collects one idea together. <S> If you try to jam an unrelated idea in like this, a lot of people will simply fail to notice it. <S> So a better way to structure your email would be something like this: Hello. <S> [This is rather abrupt; a bit more of a greeting wouldn't hurt.] <S> I can start working on the project, just tell me what the requirements are. <S> [It would help to put in something relevant to the project here, just to fill out the paragraph, even if the person you are writing to doesn't need to know. <S> Something that's too terse comes across as impolite.] <S> I would also like to see if you can help me with my income tax declaration. <S> [Again, padding it out a bit with a reason helps to make it sound more polite.] <A> I've noticed that people don't read emails carefully, and one with two different topics will often have the second overlooked. <S> Your best option is to send two emails. <S> At the very least, start another paragraph. <S> Keep separate ideas separate and you'll communicate better and get a better response. <A> Here is some language you may find useful to join ideas together in other situations: Listing ideas first, second, etc <S> then in addition <S> furthermore besides similarly Contrasting ideas <S> nevertheless nonetheless on one hand + on the other hand conversely <S> in contrast <S> whereas although in spite of despite yet <S> Describing results of ideas as a result since <S> thus in turn consequently <S> therefore <S> so <S> Make sure you know how to use these words if you include them in your answer and don’t use too many! <A> 'Furthermore' perhaps? 'One other thing' is a little less formal. <S> It's true what @thursdaysgeek says, many people seem to skim emails and <S> if you really want all your points to be noticed, and they are distinct questions or requests, then a separate email is a better option.
| In This case you could use "Furthermore", "In addition" (These words are more formal), "Other thing" or "Then" (less formal).
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What is a good phrase to name a periodic excellent employee award? My company has annual work performance awards with typical names like "Excellent Employee/Team" (3~5 recipients) and "All-star Employee/Team" (1 recipient). We're looking to create a smaller award program designed to be given on an as-needed basis for spotlighting individual acts of excellence, as opposed to the consistent excellence necessary to receive an annual award. An example situation would be an employee who is pretty good all the time, but during a moment of crisis goes well above and beyond what is expected of him to get the job done. These sorts of singular events tend to get forgotten by late December, or are overruled by predominantly mediocre performance, but when viewed in isolation are clearly meritorious. So we have this new program, but we're having a hell of a time naming the damn thing. Complicating matters is that there's no fixed period for award allocation. There might be 2 in one month, then none of 5 months. It all depends on the work at hand. Help? :-) <Q> A similar program at a former employer was called a 'spot award'. <S> The idea was that it would be awarded 'on the spot' rather than waiting for end of year honors. <S> A similar option might be a 'spotlight award' since you're looking to spotlight a current feat. <A> Hmm.. <S> You need some qualifier so people can easily distinguish it from 'unconditionally' excellent employee, so... <A> I think that the answer lies in the way you phrased the question. <S> The award isn't merely about excellent service. <S> Its about, in your words, and employee who goes "goes well above and beyond what is expected of him to get the job done. <S> " <S> I'd recommend calling it Above and Beyond with a subtitle along the lines of "Awarded to an employee who goes above and beyond the usual job expectations to deliver unparalleled service/work/customer satisfaction/etc." <S> (I can't give exact wording for the last part since I don't know your industry.) <A> “Outstanding achievement in the field of excellence.” <A> The go-to blah-blah employee excellence award term is "employee of the month." <S> That might be better than awarding the occasional "excellent employee award. <S> " <S> I realize that "there's no fixed period for award allocation," but that might not matter. <S> One employee could be awarded this 2, 3, 4 months in a row; it doesn't matter unless you have a reason to change it. <A> Sporadic Award - Outstanding Performance
| how about Sporadically excellent employee
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Has "segway" become an acceptable substitute for "segue"? For a long time, I used the word segway in relative contentment, as a useful word to mean "to transition to." As in: We're getting off-topic. Let's segway to the next discussion point, shall we? Then one day, and to my surprise, I was shocked, after making a comment on somebody's blog, to be haughtily corrected and informed that correct usage was actually segue , which apparently comes by the Italian seguire , meaning "to follow." I was additionally told that segway was a vulgar imitation used by know-nothings, a sort of word like bonafied that instantly revealed one's class and relative ignorance. Wow! I had little doubt that the use of segway was substatially bolstered by the hype and general pop-cultural awareness of Dean Kamen's famous flop , but back then, I'd always thought he'd fittingly named his vehicle after the word itself, and it was strange to me to learn that the Segway was in fact knowingly named after a corruption. On the other hand, this is a mistake I continually hear lots of people, even educated people, make — cf. for example, whoever Joel is talking to at the 61 st minute of the latest podcast . So has segway become acceptable as a replacement for segue ? Can segue be considered all but dead? To be clear, as this is StackExchange, I'm not looking for, "ooh! I say it this way", and "no, I say it that way!" responses; I'm looking more for quantitative data, usage by established authorities (is the NYRB using segway ?), and perhaps discussions from those who have written on this before. <Q> Google Ngram data provides a little insight although the introduction of the Segway was quite recent. <S> There does seem to be a dip in the use of 'segue' since around 2003 which coincides somewhat with the rise of the Segway in the common consciousness. <S> Perhaps 'segue' is at a disadvantage owing to its not having what might be called an 'intuitive' spelling. <S> Hence the more phonetically appealing 'segway', boosted by the invention and subsequent naming of the ridiculous personal transport vehicle, is making inroads. <S> (My personal opinion: the word is spelled 'segue' and always will be. <S> Anything else is just laziness and poor literacy.) <A> The only meaning of segway reported by the NOAD, and the OED, is the following: <S> Segway : [trademark] a two-wheeled motorized personal vehicle consisting of a platform for the feet mounted above an axle and an upright post surmounted by handles. <S> As per the origin of the word, both the dictionaries say "an invented word based on segue . <S> " <S> I would say that segway is not an acceptable substitute for segue . <A> http://www.english-for-students.com/Segway-or-Segue.html <S> This sums it up: <S> When you shift to a new topic or activity, you segue. <S> Many people unfamiliar with the unusual Italian spelling of the word misspell it as “segway.” <S> This error is being encouraged by the deliberately punning name used by the manufacturers of the Segway Human Transporter. <A> segue , n. Mus. <S> slang. <S> (ˈsɛgweɪ) [f. prec.] <S> An uninterrupted transition from one song or melody to another. <S> (Used of both live and pre-recorded music.) <S> As your commenter made a point of segway being a vulgar imitation used by know-nothings , you should then point him out that segue <S> is not the correct Italian word for this concept. <S> One should rather use proseguimento or proseguire (or many others, it really depends on the sentence). <S> Segue means "it follows", therefore, you are saying: <S> We're getting off-topic. <S> Let's it follows to the next discussion point, shall we? <S> Which is meaningless. <S> Also the correct italian pronunciation is not ˈsɛgweɪ but rather se'gwe <S> Personally, I would just say: <S> We're getting off-topic. <S> Let's continue to the next discussion point, shall we? <S> What's wrong with that? <A> The question is hard to answer because the framing is unclear. <S> A podcast (audio only) is referenced, but elsewhere it looks like the question is between the spelling "segway" and "segue". <S> The only resolution for this contradiction is if the author believed that "segway" and "segue" are pronounced differently. <S> Dictionaries would indicate that they are homophones. <S> So perhaps an alternate pronunciation for "segue" is at play. <S> I've heard my mother pronounce "segue" as "seeg". <S> Whether that's a regional variant, a personal quirk, or a common error, I'm not sure, though she did study music so perhaps it was taught. <S> Perhaps that's where the confusion lies.
| The OED does not list segway , it only lists segue , as musical slang.
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What are the origins of "what's up"? How did this begin? Did it really start with Bugs Bunny? <Q> OED <S> The Oxford English Dictionary says this colloquial use of the adverb up is very frequent from circa 1850, long before Bugs Bunny's 1940 debut. <S> Two citations: 1838 <S> E. C. Gaskell Let. <S> 19 Aug. (1966) 37, I did not mention a word to Lucy <S> but she must have <S> guessed something was ‘up’. <S> 1851 <S> H. Mayhew London Labour I. 19/1 <S> A shout in answer from the other asks ‘What's up?’ <S> Antedatings <S> I found an antedating from 1813 in The history and adventures of Godfrey Ranger by David William Paynter: <S> And an 1819 in <S> Right about face; or, Ben the Gordon boy by Emily Brodie: <A> Doc?" <S> (around 1940). <S> Whatsup was used in the short story " The adventures of Shamrock Jolnes " from O' Henry (September 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910). <S> "Good morning, Whatsup," he said, without turning his head. <S> "I'm glad to notice that you've had your house fitted up with electric lights at last." <S> What's up is used in " The Sea-Wolf ", written by Jack London and published in 1904. <S> " <S> What’s up? <S> " <S> I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer to keep my curiosity in check. <S> "Never mind what’s up," he answered gruffly. <S> "You won’t be a thousand years in finding out, and in the meantime just pray for plenty of wind." <A> I would derive "What's up?" from "What matter/problem has come up?".
| As reported by Wiktionary , what's up has been made popular by the cartoon character Bugs Bunny, who used it as part of his catch phrase "What’s up
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Are units in English singular or plural? I am a little bit confused about using units in English, sometimes I hear that people use singular units for plural things, sometimes they use plural ones. Which one is correct? 3 meter(s) long? during a 2 week(s) period? 0.5 dollar(s) <Q> In Standard English, this crucially depends on whether the phrase is prenominal or not. <S> Prenominally, the phrase will not show plural marking, while elsewhere it will have the normal plural marking, as appropriate. <S> Compare: <S> The bureau is 3 meter s long. <S> This is a 3-meter-long bureau. <S> (prenominal) <S> The period is 2 week s . <S> This is a 2-week period. <S> (prenominal) <S> The bill was 0.50 dollar s . <S> This is a 0.50-dollar bill. <S> (prenominal) Note also that a hyphen is normally inserted to connect the words in the adjectival phrase when the phrase is prenominal. <A> See the NIST check list for a good concise reference about units in general. <S> For hyphenated compound adjectives , which are in the singular: <S> 3-meter long, a 2-week period . <S> For the plural of noninteger quantities , the rule is that everything other than 1 uses the plural: 0.5 dollars . <A> For instance, the SI unit for time is seconds, the SI unit for mass is kilograms, and so forth. <S> Therefore, when recording measurements, I think that it is acceptable to write “0.2 kilograms” and “0.95 seconds.” <S> An equivalent expression for this example is “two-tenths of a kilogram” and “ninty-five-hundredths of a second.” <A> It is common in informal spoken English, at least American, to omit the plural. <S> I got me a new fish pole, ten foot long! <S> Correct usage would be to say, "ten feet long." <A> In this case, as in many cases with the English language, one shouldn't try to use too much logic. <S> There are things which I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, and what kind of pole is that? <S> One with a length of ten feet. <S> IIUC, this language particularity goes back rather far in the history of the English language, as it also exists in Dutch.
| Simply put, units are inherently plural.
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Is “harebrain” used commonly as a verb or adjective? I found the word, “harebrain” used as a verb in passive form in the following paragraph of today’s New York Times ’ editorial titled “How not to plan for future”. The agreement between Congress and the White House to virtually eliminate money for high-speed rail is harebrained. France, China, Brazil, even Russia, understand that high-speed rail is central to future development. Not Washington. As I was totally unfamiliar with the word harebrain , I checked online dictionaries, and found the following list of the synonyms of this word in Define.com dictionary: birdbrain, crackbrain, crank, cuckoo, ding-a-ling, featherbrain, featherhead, flibbertigibbet, giddybrain, giddyhead, kook, lunatic, nut, rattlebrain, rattlehead, and so on. Then here’s my question, what is the exact meaning of “money for high-speed rail is harebrained”? Is harebrain used as a verb in passive form or an adjective in the above text? Is it common to use this word, which I thought to be a noun, in this way? Incidentally, we have a phrase “a person with the brain in a match box size” as a Japanese counterpart to “harebrain,” which was actually applied to one of our former Prime ministers. <Q> *harebrain , but is analogous to compounds like red-haired , duck-billed , flat-topped and so on. <S> So, it’s describing what kind of brain someone has: <S> the brain of a hare , a proverbially daft, silly, jumpy animal. <S> Or, by extension, it describes something that a hare-brained person might think up, or do, or support. <S> A more common approximate synonym would be idiotic . <S> Hare-brained scheme in particular has become almost a cliché. <S> Your example is very similar: “The agreement […] is hare-brained <S> ,” is saying it’s a stupid, idiotic idea. <A> It's an adjective, modifying "agreement." <S> More commonly, though, it's used in a phrase such as "a harebrained idea." <S> The meaning, as you've probably gathered from that list of synonyms, is something like "ridiculous" or "nonsensical." <S> So the editorialist is saying that it's a dumb idea. <A> The reason is that hares (ie turbocharged Rabbits) run around in the spring mating season, fighting with each other and generally behaving in an undignified manner. <S> So "mad as a march hare", "haring around", "harebrained" all <S> mean something like frivolous, un-focussed, scatterbrained etc rather than directly stupid. <A> Harebrained is an adjective, often describing ideas/schemes/plans that are at least slightly, if not completely, crazy. <S> I've never heard of the word "harebrain", whether a verb or something else. <A> I agree with PLL et al., <S> but I think part of your question is really about confusion regarding the part of speech , which I don't see addressed or named here elsewhere. <S> Is harebrain used as a verb in passive form or an adjective in the above text? <S> Is it common to use this word, which I thought to be a noun, in this way? <S> In the cited text, "harebrained" has the appearance of a past participle , which is a verb form used as an adjective, as in "a frightened monkey" (where "frighten" is ordinarily a basic verb); however, I believe in this instance it is a simple adjective, and not a participle. <S> Rephrased, the cited text might read, "...a harebrained agreement". <S> For the word "harebrained", I believe this is typical usage, per PLL's comments.
| Harebrained is more often written as hare-brained , which makes it clearer that it doesn’t come from a root
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What is a word that means "the state of having an organic nature"? Consider the following paragraph: Gramsci believed that languages created in a laboratory (i.e. Esperanto) do not develop organically in the mind of a nation and its individuals. The imposition of externally derived rules and language that have no 'organic nature' ( Italian: organicità ) was tantamount to putting the mind in a straitjacket. What word could be substituted for 'organic nature'? organicity & organicness seem like possibilities, but I've never come across either of them. <Q> According to Wiktionary, organicità translates to "organic unity. <S> " Assuming we're in the ballpark with that and "organic nature," the sentence leads me to think "organic integrity" is close to the mark. <S> If the single word is what you're after, consider "acculturation." <A> I would rephrase the whole sentence to something like: <S> The imposition of externally derived rules and language that didn't evolve organically was tantamount to putting the mind in a straitjacket. <A> I wanted to say something about the meaning, since I speak Italian natively. <S> Organicità in Italian is an " ordered, harmonious and rational connection among the various parts of a whole ". <S> (It makes sense in English, right?) <S> The phrase Sam suggested is ok, although it describes the situation from a slightly different point of view. <S> I looked up Organicity <S> and I only found it on the OED. <S> So it exists in English, or better, it "existed" because, looking at the Ngram Viwer , I suppose it's not really that used lately. <A> I would suggest: coherence , integration , harmony , or coordination . <A> Organic here has the meaning of 'denoting or characterized by a harmonious relationship between the elements of a whole' (see Oxford ). <S> They give the example: 'the organic unity of the integral work of art'.
| So, Organico means "to be well-balanced, harmonious and ordered in all its parts".
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What is meant by saying "X, not to say Y"? When someone says "X, not to say Y", do they mean "X, but not Y" or do they mean "X, and even Y"? Normally I would assume it's the first, but I've seen a few examples where it seems ambiguous. Or maybe it's literally the first, but used ironically to mean the second? An example (for some reason writers for The Atlantic seem to use this phrase a lot ): In somewhat different ways, Orwell and Larkin were phlegmatically pessimistic and at times almost misanthropic, not to say misogynistic. <Q> You are right: literally not to say means not quite Y , but it is mostly used to mean even Y . <S> [Edited:] <S> In this case, either the author uses this phrase in an unusual way, or he considers misogynistic an even stronger qualification than misanthropic . <S> Perhaps his line of though was thus: they disliked people in general, and, what is even more salient, they specifically disliked women. <S> I will assume the latter, since they use not to say in a conventional manner in your other example as well, dismissive, not to say derisive . <S> Dismissing something is not as strong as ridiculing it. <S> It literally means they were misanthropic, and one might almost go so far as to say that they were misogynistic (but one doesn't). <S> The latter is supposed to be an even stronger word than the former; the writer says he will not fully commit himself to "misogynistic" but offers it as a suggestion. <S> In practice, this figure of speech is mostly used when the writer is quite committed; it then simply introduces a phrase that is even stronger than what came before, without any serious holding back. <S> Not to say is often more or less equivalent to even : <S> In somewhat different ways, Orwell and Larkin were phlegmatically pessimistic and at times almost misanthropic, even misogynistic. <S> If he did not intend it to be read this way, which I think he did, that means he would have used it in an unusual manner that might be misleading for some readers. <A> I am more familiar with this as "not to mention", though the sense is, I think, the same: <S> "X, not to say/mention Y" is often used to strengthen the first claim/concept. <S> Example: <S> Sarah is awful at her job! <S> She never arrives on time, not to say/mention <S> how little effort she makes when she is here. <S> The fact that 'she never arrives on time' gives good reason for my claim that 'Sarah is awful for her job', even without adding that she makes no effort. <S> By using the 'not to say' clause, we are giving further reason to accept the original claim. <S> An example should help: Sarah is terrible at her job. <S> That is not to say that I think she should be fired; perhaps further training would be a good idea, though. <S> Here, my first statement (X) might lead you to think that I would advocate Sarah being fired. <S> I want to clarify that I do not feel that way, so I use the 'not to say Y' statement to ensure that the listener doesn't get the wrong idea. <S> Hope that helps. <A> My dictionary says that "Not to say..." is " used to introduce a stronger alternative or addition to something already said. <S> " It is easy to become sensitive, not to say paranoid. <S> He was large, not to say fat. <S> The <S> OALD gives only one choice: "Used to introduce a stronger way of describing something" <S> A difficult, not to say impossible, task <S> So, in this case: In somewhat different ways, Orwell and Larkin were phlegmatically pessimistic and at times almost misanthropic, not to say misogynistic. <S> I think that the matter is not which one between misanthropic and misogynistic is stronger (in general), but which one Orwell and Larkin were, more exactly, between those two. <S> This is also what I get from the comment written by @Hal.
| As a point of interest, another similar phrase exists with quite a different meaning: If I say "X. That is not to say Y", it means that even though my saying X might imply Y, that is not the case.
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Usage and example of the word “litotes” I've come across the word litotes , which means a rhetorical understatement. However, I’m having trouble understanding how to use it in colloquial English. Could someone please give an example? <Q> Ward Farnsworth gives this definition: <S> Litotes <S> (lye-tuh-teez) occurs when a speaker avoids making an affirmative claim directly and instead denies its opposite. <S> Often this amounts to a double negative. <S> He gives a whole host of examples in his book Classical English Rhetoric . <S> Here is one using the double negative: <S> Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best — Ben Franklin, at Federal Ratifying Convention (1787) <S> However, litotes does not have to involve a double negative. <S> It may often simply refer to faint praise, "the most the speaker can offer": <S> She was not quite what you would call refined. <S> She was not what you would call unrefined. <S> She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot. <S> "You'll be quite safe now," the curate was saying in the adjoining room, not without a touch of complacent self-approval such as becomes the victor in a battle of wits. <S> — <S> P. G. Wodehouse, A Damsel in Distress (1919) <S> Let's take something more recent now, from a car campaign by General Motors trying to revive a failing brand by using litotes in an ad slogan to suggest a heroic understatement: <S> This is not your father's Oldsmobile. <S> Meaning? <S> What you thought was a stodgy brand is now thoroughly revamped and revived, enough so that young people will find it exciting. <S> The "not your father's X" (or grandfather's X, etc.) <S> slogan has become a familiar trope, and is used in many similar constructions nowadays. <S> Addendum <S> It is worth noting that George Orwell famously had a problem with the "not un-" construction. <S> Your mileage may vary. <A> The wikipedia page has lots of the standard examples. <S> Statements like " <S> this is a not inconsiderable problem." <A> From a quick search of the site: <S> “I couldn't fail not to disagree with you less” “not uncommon” <A> I could imagine if you say "That was meant as a litotes" to a girl <S> the girl would understand it as a word for compliment and say "Thanks for the compliment". <S> Well, I wouldn't use such special terms of rhetorics in a normal conversation.
| — Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897) It is often used simply as understatement, "a useful tool for indicating small amounts, for making a show of modesty, or for creating a tone of allowance."
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Religious sense of "minister" Why would minister be a function name for both a member of the government and a clergyman? Is the religious usage of minister restricted to Protestantism or did it already occur in Latin? Are there other domains where the word minister could be used? <Q> The word minister has the general meaning of "one who acts upon the authority of another" (see here ). <S> According to the Online Etymology Dictionary (see this entry), it is from c. 1300 and derives from the Latin word with the same spelling, which means "servant, priest's assistant". <S> The meaning related to religious functions is therefore prior to the Protestantism, which began in the 15th century only. <S> The Wikipedia has a page that explains the meaning of the word in the Catholic Church as: <S> It is not a particular office or rank of clergy, as is the case in some other churches, but minister may be used as a collective term for vocational or professional pastoral leaders including clergy (bishops, deacons, priests) and non-clergy (theologians and lay ecclesial ministers). <S> It is also used in reference to the canonical and liturgical administration of sacraments, as part of some offices, and with reference to the exercise of the lay apostolate. <S> The Wikipedia also brings definitions of the word in different domains (see this page): Minister (Christianity), a Christian who ministers in some way Minister (diplomacy), the rank of diplomat directly below ambassador Minister (government), a politician who heads a ministry (government department) <A> At the very core of its meaning, a minister is simply someone who serves others (see @kiamlaluno's answer ), whether it be under the government (public/civil servants), the Lordship of Christ (servants of God/ the Most High /etc), or any other authority or mandate. <S> Today, the word minister may unfortunately conjure up an image of superiority or high office, but the fact remains that ministers are [supposed to be] servants , usually with special tasks to fulfill or accomplish. <A> The NOAD reports the following definition of the noun minister . <S> (also minister of religion) <S> a member of the clergy, especially in Protestant churches. <S> (also minister general) <S> the superior of some religious orders. <S> (in certain countries) a head of a government department: Britain's defense minister . <S> a diplomatic agent, usually ranking below an ambassador, representing a state or sovereign in a foreign country. <S> archaic a person or thing used to achieve or convey something <S> : the Angels are ministers of the Divine Will . <S> As per the origin of the word, the dictionary reports that the word, when used for the sense 1 and 3, derives from the Old French ministre (noun), ministrer (verb), which derives from the Latin minister "servant," from minus "less." <A> The pairing of "minister" and "ministry" allow for a broad use of "minister" in varied contexts. <S> Kiamlaluno 's answer provides the appropriate definitions but the word can be used in a more general capacity to mean someone who administers or deals out some aspect of a ministry. <S> This ministry is not necessarily a good or useful thing: <S> I am a minister of death. <S> The implication in this usage is someone who is above mere death and has been given the responsibility of representing or authoritatively speaking for Death. <S> The idea of death as a ministry is a good example of the mirrored image of a government or religious ministry. <S> Less grim, I find these other examples apt: <S> He ministered to the lost <S> She was ministered to by the priest <S> This usage of a verb is not listed in the above linked answer: verb [intrans.] <S> (minister to) attend to the needs of (someone) <S> This again can be paired with a darker sense of "attending": <S> The grim reaper ministered to the dead. <S> Your mileage may vary, however. <S> It works well with death and destruction as an intentional counterpoint to the organizations of religion and government. <S> I wouldn't use it to describe a zookeeper feeding the ducks. <A> Over at Christianity.StackExchange.com, we have the following post in which the various distinctions between minister, priest, etc... are made.
| It most commonly refers to the person, whether lay or ordained, who is commissioned to perform some act on behalf of the Church. In the Catholic Church the term minister enjoys a variety of usages.
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"ASP.NET web-based applications is my primary focus." Is this grammatically correct? Should I use is instead of are ? ASP.NET web-based applications is my primary focus. <Q> Also, off-topic: All ASP.NET applications are web-based, so you do not need to point that out specifically <A> As others have stated, it would be normal to use are to agree with the plural subject applications . <S> This is kind of a gray area, however, and arguments could made for either side. <S> If you are taking the idea of "ASP.NET web applications" as a singular pursuit, then you could use is . <S> The understanding would be that you are omitting some syntax, such as "Developing in [ASP.NET web app.ications]" ... <S> That said, in cases where you're unsure how to proceed, it is the simplest thing in the world to simply reverse the order of the sentence: <S> My primary focus is ASP.Net web-based applications. <S> Note that in a resume situation, although @masarah has advised you that "web-based" is a redundancy when talking about ASP.Net <S> , it probably doesn't hurt to be a little redundant to drive home the point about them being web-based. <S> You never know what sort of clueless HR person your resume may need to filter through before reaching someone who can make a decision about your skills, in which case the minor pleonasm is likely to go unnoticed. <A> In that sentence, it is correct to use are , not is . <S> I would rephrase the sentence as one of the following sentences. <S> ASP.NET is my primary focus. <S> Developing in ASP.NET is my primary focus. <S> Developing applications in ASP.NET is my primary focus.
| If you are talking about plural "applications" like in your example, you should use are .
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Is "incorrect facts" a contradiction in terms? I've seen this so many times and it drives me crazy. The latest was the actor Paul Giamatti setting some story straight in the press about him: "It's unfortunately an incorrect fact about me and it's all over the place." I've seen this written so many times, in magazines, books, but surely a fact is, by definition, true. So there cannot be any such thing as a "false" fact. Right? <Q> NOAD gives this listing: fact <S> |fakt| noun a thing that is indisputably the case <S> : she lacks political experience—a fact that becomes clear when she appears in public | a body of fact . <S> So it would seem that something that is "indisputably the case" could not be "incorrect"; and I am sure that, strictly speaking, this is a fact. <S> Nevertheless, very often people state as fact what is merely opinion. <S> In fact , whenever you hear someone start a sentence with "the fact is" or "in fact" you are well advised to weigh carefully whatever claim is being made. <S> We also hear people speaking of "true facts" (which surely should be a redundancy) and "alleged facts". <S> In the sense that anything can be true, a fact must be true, but what is true is almost always negotiable. <S> Something that is not proven should not be called factual, though people do it all the time. <S> Where does that leave us? <S> I myself would avoid using qualifiers with the word "fact" <S> but I would tolerate it in others; but then, I always weigh the claims made by others (especially news writers), and I advise others to do the same. <A> A fact, by definition is something that is indisputable, as @Robusto said. <S> Consider though, if somebody presents a piece of information as fact, believing it to be so, but then are proven incorrect. <S> Then what they thought a fact would be incorrect. <S> Still, I wouldn't say that the claim was an 'incorrect fact' because once the opposing evidence is given, the information ceases to be a fact. <S> I suppose then, we should say that it is 'erroneous information' rather than 'an incorrect fact'. <A> Your concern is based on the "primary" definition of "fact": a verified piece of information. <S> There are however other definitions, and one other common definition is "an alleged piece of information." <S> As Wikipedia notes, this second definition is commonly used despite disputes: <S> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact <S> Wikipedia cites:According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, "Fact has a long history of usage in the sense 'allegation' <S> " AHD_4th_Ed. <S> The OED dates this use to 1729. <A> A fact is believed to be the truth, but history has shown that truth is generally relative. <S> Thus it may have been a fact, 2000 years ago, that the earth was flat and it was the center of the known universe. <S> Today, that obviously isn't the case. <S> Before Newton published his works on Gravity, there were many explanations that people would have taken for fact. <S> When Einstein came along, another shift happened. <S> Our knowledge isn't absolute, and thus are facts cannot be either. <S> So an incorrect fact is no doubt something that can occur for a period of time (for as long as it takes for the old knowledge to be replaced by the new knowledge) and continues to happen repeatability in our quest for understanding. <A> Paul Giamatti didn't even need to use fact. <S> He could've just said: "This is unfortunately incorrect, and it's all over the place." <S> Shorter and more to the point. <S> Complicating things just conveys a lack of understanding, nothing more.
| I believe it's almost always unnecessary to modify 'fact'.
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A word for a person who expects other people to be like him What is the word for a person who expects other people to be like him, for example, a dad who wants his son to be like him? <Q> I don't believe that there is a single word which describes what you're asking for. <S> You probably need a short phrase to give this idea: He expects others to follow his example . <S> He wants his son to take after him . <S> He thinks he knows what's best for everyone. <A> A narcissist? <S> From Wikipedia : -Difficulty <S> with empathy <S> -Problems <S> distinguishing the self from others <S> -Inability <S> to view the world from the perspective of other people <A> Intolerant ? <A> I think you can find a word to mean someone who holds people to the highest standards: perfectionist. <S> I think you can also find a word to mean you want to imitate others: mimic. <S> Though I think no one word exists which combines these two ideas perfectly. <A> A few options: role model model <S> icon <S> idol <S> example <S> teacher guide trailblazer <S> leader <S> The idea of a son being like the father can be expressed as: <S> fated <S> inherited a chip off the old block an apple that didn't fall far from the tree succeeded <A> Also consider zealot , one who is zealous, one who is full of zeal for his own specific beliefs or objectives, [often] too passionate; a fanatic missionary , Someone who attempts to convert others to a particular doctrine or program evangelist , as used in "technology evangelist", a person who attempts to build a critical mass of support for a given technology apostle , An ardent early supporter of a cause or reform proselytizer , someone who encourages or induces people to join a movement, political party, or other cause or organization <A> I think the question is about a person with an unthinking bias, an attitude that is unquestioned and unexamined in themselves. <S> They "expect", meaning: can't conceive otherwise. <S> Given that, I would use the word immature, or naive, depending on whether they have had enough experiences that they ought to have learned better, or haven't yet.
| I suppose the closest you can get is perfectionist or perhaps idealistic , for someone who might very well expect others to be like him.
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Is there a version of brunch for a meal between dinner and lunch? Brunch has become quite a common word in the English language. Is there a similar word for a meal in place of dinner and lunch? (A phrase will also do). <Q> In US English, an afternoon snack is the best term I know of. <S> In the UK, there are lots of options, but they’re fraught with geographic and social connotations. <S> Afternoon tea will be understood everywhere, but seen in some places as upper-class; it’s traditionally not a full meal, but just eg a piece of cake or a sandwich and a cup of tea or coffee. <S> High tea is probably most analogous to brunch; it’s a light early-evening meal, usually had instead of rather than as well as dinner, and <S> like with brunch/breakfast, someone who eats dinner or supper most evenings might well have high tea instead once in a while. <S> High tea also has slight upper-class connotations in some areas, I think, but not everywhere. <S> Tea on its own can mean many things; to many people in the Midlands and the north of England, it means something like this, the main evening meal, but typically eaten rather earlier in the evening than people who call it dinner would eat. <S> This usage used to have strong working-class connotations in the past, but now is more of a geographical distinction, I think. <S> While on the subject, there’s also supper ; for some people again, supper means the main meal of the evening (I was brought up that way), while for others, who had probably dinner or high tea as their main meal, it’s a late-evening snack. <S> This is a run-down off the top of my head; there are almost certainly some nuances and distinctions <S> I’ve missed. <S> Whole dissertations have probably been written on the hermeneutics of English mealtime terminology… <A> There is no single mixed word along the lines of brunch for this. <S> Sometimes people joke by coining a mixture of lunch and dinner/supper , giving lupper, dunch, etc. <S> (As Kosmonaut mentioned.) <S> You might refer to a small afternoon meal as afternoon tea , though to me (American) <S> this sounds British and upper-class. <S> Otherwise you'd probably just call it a snack or a late lunch , if it's bigger than a snack. <A> Well, depending on where you live, dinner could be a midday, late-afternoon/early-evening, or late-night meal. <S> In reality, there is no word for a meal in place of lunch and dinner (I assume you use dinner to mean an evening meal after a midday lunch.) <S> Dinner could be the main meal of your day, and whether you have it at noon, two o'clock, five o'clock, or eight o'clock, it remains your dinner. <S> If you are going to have a substantial meal after breakfast, with only a very late snack in view before bed, then that meal becomes your dinner, no matter how weird that sounds. <S> I should point out, though, that in this day and age, especially for the yuppies, formal mealtimes may not be the norm. <S> Plus, the usage of dinner for a midday or mid-afternoon meal, and other such formalisms as tea , etc, may now be considered quite old-fashioned. <S> Thus, I would recommend sticking with either late lunch or early dinner for this particular situation.
| Lunch is usually a midday meal.
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Did English ever have a "you" plural? Apart from the dialect form used in the Southern US, "y'all," has English ever had a plural "you"? If not, how does English get around using this form? <Q> You and ye used to be the plural forms of the second person pronoun. <S> You was the accusative form, and ye was the nominative form. <S> Because of this, you still conjugates verbs in the plural form even when it is singular; that is, you are <S> is correct even if you is only referring to one person. <S> Thee and thou used to be the singular forms. <S> Thou was the nominative form, and thee was the accusative form. <S> Thy and thine were the genetive forms, and their use followed the same rules as a and an . <A> You is the plural. <S> Thou is the singular form of you . <S> Thou has now disappeared from common use and is used only to address God. <S> The process resulting in the use of the singular pronoun to express intimacy and the plural pronoun to mark respect or social distance is termed T-V_distinction , after the Latin tu and vos and is found is many languages, especially of the Proto Indo European family tree. <S> See for instance, in addition to the Latin form above: <S> French: tu = <S> > <S> vous German: <S> du = <S> > <S> ihr (2nd person plural) or Sie (3rd person plural) Mandarin 你 (nǐ, you informal) = <S> > <S> 您 (nín, you respectful) <S> compared to (nǐmen, 你们, you to several persons). <S> Even some languages that seem not to comply exactly (because they don't seem to use the 2nd-person plural) actually hide a form a compliance. <S> Spanish: <S> tu = <S> > vos (obsolete, 2nd-person plural archaic form). <S> Italian used to use voi (2nd person plural). <S> The você of Portuguese is a contraction of vossa mercê (your mercy) which is an implicit 2nd person plural. <S> All in all, English has pushed T-V distinction so far that thou is not used anymore in common speak. <A> 'You" was originally plural, "thou" was the singular. <S> There was a shift to using the plural as the polite form, eg. <S> monarchs say 'we' for I, so gradually the 'you' plural began to be used by everybody. <S> Exceptions are/were Quakers who stuck to the thee/thou since they didn't recognise anyone as better than each other and people from Yorkshire who didn't recognise anyone as better than them. <A> In middle English, there were informal terms for "you" singular (thou/thee) and informal "you" plural (ye/you). <S> So for awhile there, in Chaucerian times, you could make the distinction grammatically. <S> In the transition to modern English, for politeness' sake or simplicity, we got rid of the formal/informal inflections and just went with the formal pronouns. <S> It really isn't a problem because context and verb endings will almost always make clear whether singular or plural is meant (there's no grammatical need for a "y'all"). <S> Note that in other languages like Japanese, we see that pronouns can often be dispensed with entirely. <A> As others have said, Thee and Thou were the informal terms. <S> But in a bizarre switch, Thee and Thou are now considered more formal. <S> I see two forces at work to bring this about. <S> First, early English bibles (at least the King James edition) used Thee and <S> Thou <S> when addressing God, to emphasise a personal, informal relationship with God. <S> Nowadays, the relationship to God is considered more formal, and the old bibles themselves are considered formal, so when people today use Thee and Thou to refer to God, it feels to be a formalism. <S> Second, thee and thou are used in Shakespearean writing. <S> People have a respect for Shakespeare, and afford a certain formalism to all his writing (even the parts that are designed to be informal). <S> So there again, thee and thou seem Shakespearean and therefore more formal. <S> So now it's switched, with thee and thou feeling more formal, and you seeming less formal.
| The formal 2nd person pronoun was "you" for both singular and plural.
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Does English have "plural" verb forms? A friend of mine and I were having a linguistics argument (actually, this one ), and she brought up as evidence the "plural versus singular conjugation" of the past-tense form of "to be", i.e. "was/were". I'm sure we all know the 6-form conjugation table: I [verb] You (s.) [verb] He/She/One/It [verb] We [verb] You (pl.) [verb] They [verb] I'm equally sure we all know that the first three are singular, and the latter three are plural. Now, interestingly, we both agreed on the answer to the original question ("Yes"), but my friend put forth as evidence that You (s.) is conjugated with the "plural conjugation", namely "were", just like We and They, whereas I and He/She/One/It are conjugated with the "singular conjugation", "was". My argument was that verbs are not conjugated in plural and singular forms, and the fact that "to be" in many tenses seems to follow that pattern is just a coincidence, an artifact of its highly irregular nature. So, which of us is "right"? Do verbs have explicitly "plural" versus "singular" conjugations, or do they simply have the 6 conjugations (per tense), and "to be" just happens to look like "plural" versus "singular" by mere coincidence? <Q> Do verbs have explicitly "plural" versus "singular" conjugations, or do they simply have the 6 conjugations (per tense), and "to be" just happens to look like "plural" versus "singular" by mere coincidence? <S> I'd say that you are right. <S> English verbs have, in principle, six forms, though the maximal number of distinct forms is four, and that only for the present tense of to be . <S> The verb form is entirely determined by the subject. <S> The fact that the subject pronoun you can be both singular or plural doesn't change this at all: you always requires the same verb agreement. <S> BTW, you can demonstrate that the English "singular" conjugation is in fact not a unitary conjugation by throwing back in the old 2sg <S> thou : <S> I am, thou art , he is <S> I was, thou wast <S> , he was <S> I say, thou sayest , he says The 1sg and the 3sg are only the same in a few verbs and tenses, and the old 2sg is always different from both of them. <S> The plural forms of we/you/ <S> they are always the same for all verbs in all tenses, so as far as that goes it's reasonable to talk about a "plural" verb form. <S> But there is no one "singular" verb form. <A> You takes the plural verb form in English, and was indeed originally plural though used for politeness for the singular second person instead of thou . <S> Thou took its own verb forms when conjugating verbs. <S> For example Thou art <S> Thou hast <S> Thou makest <S> Thou knowest and even had past forms. <A> The original Early Modern English conjugation was indeed 'thou were' with the alternatives 'thou wert' and 'thou wast' developing later (by analogy with other verbs?). <S> Arguably 'were' singular was different from 'were' plural as it derived from a different form in Old English, but since by this time both forms were spellt and pronounced the same, I think it's pretty moot. <S> The OE forms were: ic <S> eom <S> / <S> ic <S> wæsþu eart <S> / þu wærehe is / <S> he wæswe sindon <S> / <S> we wæronge <S> sindon <S> / <S> ge wæronhie sindon / hie wæron <A> However, there is a singular form: 3rd person singular, simple present. <S> Curiously, the verb takes an "s". <S> I play vs. <S> She plays. <S> This distinction must be taken into consideration with certain nouns that are considered plural. <S> For example; committee; The committee want_ sandwiches for lunch, they are hungry. <S> As for the verb to be, its extreme irregularity is the exception that confirms the rule. <S> The verb to be is unique.
| There is no plural of verbs in English.
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Does "oath" have an implied religious connotation? In Singapore you don't have to swear an oath in court if you are of certain religions. Instead you affirm that you're speaking the truth: Circumstances under which affirmation may be made 16. Any person who —(a) is a Hindu or Muslim or of some other religion according to which oaths are not of binding force; or(b) has a conscientious objection to taking an oath,and who is required to take an oath of office or judicial oath under any written law may, instead of taking the oaths referred to in section 15 (1) or (2), as the case may be, make an affirmation in the form of those oaths, substituting the words “solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm” for the word “swear” and omitting the words “So help me God”. I'm curious if that means oaths in British English have an implied religious meaning? It seems to be the case that you swear to God usually, but an oath in itself is irreligious, no? <Q> I would say yes. <S> There is, at very least, a tacit religious appeal. <S> The idea of a secular promise is a very recent idea in human history. <S> Almost all promises of a certain importance were attached to an appeal the deity. <S> Now, some may choose not to see it that way, and legally it might not be any different that a simple affirmation of truth, but the religious connection is still there. <A> No, it means you "swear" to do something. <S> You can include religion to the oath, but you do not have to. <S> Dictionary.reference.com <A> The US Constitution makes the distinction between oath and affirmation, the former being religious in nature, to emphasize that either an oath or an affirmation is necessary to hold office. <S> The Devil's Dictionary yields the following definition: OATH, n. <S> In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury. <A> Yes, there is an implication that an oath is religious, especially if it starts "I swear by Almighty God that...", but take for example section 4(2) of the UK Oaths Act 1978 (consolidating earlier Acts) <S> Where an oath has been duly administered and taken, the fact that the person to whom it was administered had, at the time of taking it, no religious belief, shall not for any purpose affect the validity of the oath. <S> Like most other countries, there is also provision for affirmation, in section 5(1) <S> Any person who objects to being sworn shall be permitted to make his solemn affirmation instead of taking an oath. <A> There seems to be some confusion between meanings of the word oath . <S> It has a judicial context, in which you promise something 'as God is my witness'. <S> The non-religious equivalent of this is affirmation , and the difference is that you promise without putting your hand on a book (note that you still have to use a prescribed form of words, to bring you 'on oath' in the sense of liable to perjury charges if you lie). <S> I don't believe either can be called irreligious (it's a nice point of theology whether swearing an oath is unChristian). <S> There is also common swearing ('taking the name of the Lord in vain'), which clearly originates in overuse of the first, as in "If ever I utter an oath again may my soul be blasted to eternal damnation!" <S> ( St Joan ). <S> This is abbreviated to "My God!" <S> or any of the innumerable variations. <S> Since no gentleman would ever use such an oath, and no lady could even hear one without swooning, people use 'darn' for 'damn', 'Jeepers Creepers', for 'Jesus Christ', and so on. <S> The technical term for these is minced oaths . <S> (Pretty much the only other method of swearing is sexual references like "Oh Fuck"; <S> I'm not sure whether this would technically be an oath or not.)
| Taking an oath or swearing to something or other does have a religious connotation.
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Suffixing by "-rama", "-orama" or "-arama" — how did this begin? Suffixing by -rama, -orama or -arama — how did this begin? I mean words like futurama, foodarama , etc. <Q> Etymonline to the rescue: -rama noun suffix meaning "spectacular display or instance of," 1824, abstracted from panorama , ultimately from Greek horama [ ὅραμα ] "sight." <A> Specifically, they enjoyed a vogue after WW2, when film-makers were looking for impressive names for their colour and widescreen films (Colorama, Futurama, Technorama, etc- probably influenced by drama , but not directly connected). <S> The vogue led to many bottle stores, for example, renaming themselves liquoramas to draw in customers, though there is no plausible meaning for this, let alone etymology. <S> Mercifully, the fashion seems to have died away. <S> (Thanks to The Straight Dope, as referenced above: but their article's too long to quote directly). <A> There's a long article on this on The Straight Dope, here: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/492/where-does-the-suffix-arama-as-in-foodarama-come-from
| Briefly, diorama and panorama were popular in Napoleonic times, if not before, and came into and out of fashion as such words do.
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What are the proper terms for these star shapes? Both figures are star pentagrams. But as you can see, the shapes are different due to the degree in the angles. Are there proper terms for these two shapes? I find myself having a hard time describing the different type of stars to my designer friends. I'd say something like "I meant the straight edged ones, not the relaxed ones." <Q> Of course this does not really help you in differentiating between them. <S> Inkscape speaks of spoke ratio defined as base radius to tip radius ratio , in the parameters where you can determine the shape of the star. <S> I think this is a good way to distinguish them as you can actually put a number on them. <S> So, for instance, the left star has a lower spoke ratio than the right one. <S> Both the stars in your example are straight edged , which I would understand more as opposite of something with curve edges. <A> I've heard this called a "fat star" or a "gold-seal star": <S> The other option in the dropdown is “Star”, and as you would expect it draws star shapes that also depend on the Number Of Sides you specify. <S> Star Point Size is the ratio of the inner point of the star relative to the outer point. <S> A value of “0.5”, for instance, will produce a “normal” star with balanced star points, with the inner point at 50% from the center, relative to the outer point’s 100%. <S> A lower value will start to produce more “burst”-style shapes, while a larger value approaching 1.0 (which is the maximum) will produce a “fat” star or a more “gold seal”-style shape. <S> From this link <S> (PDF). <A> You might also refer to the slim one as a 'filled pentacle'. <S> Pentacle has a somewhat “dark” connotation to it, but it brings the right picture to the mind.
| The proper term (i.e. the geometric term) is simply star polygon .
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How do you differentiate "thru", "threw", "through", and "thorough"? How do I know which word to use in the correct context? How do I recognize these words when hearing them? Examples: Jimmy threw the ring at Emiko. Elvis walked through the door. John was through with work for the day. Gareth was through with mosquitoes coming through the window! Edward was very thorough when cleaning the kitchen. <Q> thorough is not a synonym with either thru, threw and through, it means something completely different. <S> through is used in reference to a movement or passage that proceeds linearly through <S> is quite common, while thru is nonstandard and should be avoided <S> http://thesaurus.com/browse/through <S> Threw <S> (Past tense of throw) <S> propel something through the air http://thesaurus.com/browse/threw <A> I don't think people are understanding your question. <S> You are asking how can tell the difference between 'threw', 'through', 'thorough' when you are hearing them being said, right? <S> Jimmy threw the ring at Emiko. <S> Elvis walked through the door. <S> John was through with work for the day. <S> Gareth was through with mosquitoes coming through the window! <S> Edward was very thorough when cleaning the kitchen. <S> Pronunciation <S> You can tell 'thorough' apart from the others through it's pronunciation. <S> It's different. <S> If somebody has a thick accent though I guess 'thorough' might sound like 'throw' <S> if somebody is not careful in their annunciation. <S> which brings me to Context <S> The context is what will help you. <S> Jimmy threw the ring at Emiko. <S> The meaning is that a person named Jimmy tossed a ring to another person. <S> Elvis walked through the door. <S> (Concrete)A person named Elvis walked in a part of space that is, or is usually occupied by a solid object. <S> So you can't walk into a room if the door is closed. <S> (Solid Object) <S> but when the door is open you can walk 'through' it. <S> (The example isn't easy to use since in reality you are walking through the door frame <S> but that's not how language works, unless you want to be pedantic.) <S> John was through with work for the day. <S> (Abstract)John was done with work, he wasn't going to continue work. <S> It's meaning is the same as the sentence with Elvis but the context is different. <S> Instead of a physical object, it's a task or a dedicated time of day, where once he had passed the time, or completed his task, he had moved to the other side of the object, by doing the task. <S> This might be better. <S> Elvis moved through the door frame and ended up on the other side. <S> Gareth was through with mosquitoes coming through the window! <S> The first through is the same as the previous sentence, the second the same as the Elvis sentence. <S> the point Using context you can see the difference. <S> Jimmy couldn't through the ring at Emiko unless he did something to the ring. <S> Subject + Verb <S> Jimmy threw the ring at Emiko <S> Jimmy jumped through the ring and lunged at Emiko <S> Where did he throw the ring = <S> at EmikoWhere did he jump = <S> Through the ring <A> “thru” is an unorthographic writing of “through”. <S> So, the remaining ambiguity (between “threw” and “through”) must just be decided by context.
| “thorough” is a completely different word, which isn't pronounced remotely like “thru”, “threw”, and “through”.
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Difference between "yours" and "your"? What is the difference between the following sentences? Your car is black. The car of yours is black. <Q> Your is a possessive adjective : <S> Your car is black! <S> That car of yours is black! <S> It is " used to refer to a thing or things belonging to or associated with the person or people that the speaker is addressing ". <S> Basically, those two sentences have the same meaning. <A> Yours is not a noun. <S> It is a possessive pronoun. <S> yours |yôrz <S> ; yoŏrz| possessive pronoun 1 used to refer to a thing or things belonging to or associated with the person or people that the speaker is addressing : <S> the choice is yours | <S> it's no business of yours. <S> Your , on the other hand, is a possessive adjective. <A> A native English speaker would never say "the car of yours is black." <S> The "car of yours" construction seems mainly to be used when the simpler construction "your car" is not available. <S> For instance, "that car of yours": we can't say "that your car" or "your that car", so we have to say "that car of yours". <S> But we can say "your red car", so we wouldn't say "the red car of yours". <S> I hope I have made myself clear! <S> But the rules are complex. <S> Compare friends, enemies, and brothers: <S> He's a friend of mine and <S> He's my friend <S> mean the same thing <S> : "he's one of my friends". <S> He's an enemy of mine means "he's one of my enemies", but He's my enemy <S> is not quite the same; it implies that he's my only enemy. <S> This implication is not present in "He's my friend". <S> And lastly, He's a brother of mine <S> is not something that you would ever say, however many brothers you had. <S> (Perhaps it is possible if you have dozens of brothers, like the child of a Byzantine potentate. <S> Otherwise it sounds very wrong to me.) <A> Both constructions are perfectly grammatical as far as I know, so I disagree with prem shekhar. <S> In addition to what Robusto and Alenanno have pointed out, I would say that the emphasis is slightly different for the two constructions. <S> For the first construction, 'your car' is taken as a noun phrase, and the subject is specifically a car that is owned by the person being addressed . <S> Omit <S> the possessive adjective your and 'car is black!' <S> would not work in quite the same way. <S> In other words, there is a greater emphasis on the fact that the car is a possession of the listener. <S> However, the construction using 'of yours' places more emphasis on the car, as the sentence could stand alone without this extra piece of information i.e. <S> 'The car is black!' <S> Hence the emphasis is on the car ; a demonstrative determiner such as that or this can be used instead of the definite article <S> the to include information like the relative location of the car to the speaker or to refer to a previously mentioned car .
| Yours is a possessive pronoun :
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What is the right definition of "cheeky"? Whenever anyone from US hears me say "cheeky" to (or about) my kids, they always ask what it means. When I try to explain, they suggest "mischievous", but apparently it has more negative connotation than the "cheeky" I mean (the best I can explain it is mischievous, but cute about it). When I mean it negatively I use "naughty", not "cheeky".So, is there a better definition, or am I using it wrong? <Q> The NOAD definition aptly captures your intended meaning: cheeky impudent or irreverent, typically in an endearing or amusing way <S> Unfortunately, this word is not too common among American speakers. <S> It may be that a cultural difference accounts for the fact (my conjecture) that American speakers are more likely to use adjectives (or adjectival phrases) that are more specific than cheeky to describe their children's behavior. <S> For instance, you might hear: Little Johnny's such a piece of work. <S> Amy's quite a character. <S> Our five-year-old's got some real spunk. <S> What a zesty little chipmunk! <S> Jimmy always seems to have a will of his own. <S> As for a better alternative to cheeky , I do not think there is one, except you want to go for either of the following: Impudent — a more formal synonym that would rarely be used in casual conversation. <S> Sassy — a more informal synonym, but I doubt that parents would use this to describe their kids; it is more common among friends, and for some reasons, more feminine than masculine. <S> Finally, I would say that mischievous does not always have a negative connotation. <S> It has two degrees of meaning, one which is much more negative than the other. <S> I quote the relevant NOAD definition: <S> mischievous <S> (of a person, animal, or their behavior) causing or showing a fondness for causing trouble in a playful way <S> It clearly isn't a direct synonym of cheeky , but it could work very well for related behavioral descriptions. <S> And I daresay <S> mischievous is way more popular than <S> cheeky in conversations among American parents. <A> We use the term cheeky here in Southeastern North Carolina to mean mischievous in a cute way. <S> To give too much lip is to be cheeky. <A> Perhaps impish might work? <S> Defined as "showing a lack of respect for somebody/something in a way that is amusing rather than serious" in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary or... <S> "having or showing a playful desire to cause trouble : playful and mischievous" in Meriam-Webster. <A> Another Aussie here <S> — I use cheeky quite a lot in the following example situations. <S> I walk into the bathroom when my girlfriend is having a shower <S> and she flicks water over me. <S> I respond " <S> oh you cheeky brat". <S> A friend pinches my seat at the pub <S> and I respond "you cheeky bugger". <S> In both those the cheeky has an upward tone and the word following is fairly flat. <S> Obviously in both situations the person is doing something only slightly naughty or mischevious. <S> I also think it could be used the same as "are you giving me lip?" <S> in other situations where back chatting is what's occurring. <S> I introduced the word to a friend in France who now delights in calling his 10-year old daughter a cheeky monkey, and she is the definition of it!
| Your usage of cheeky is perfectly correct.
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When and why did "patronize" gain the meaning of condescension versus being a customer? To patronize an establishment is generally a good thing, but to be patronized is bad. I assume that the former meaning was the original, but when did the other come into being and why? <Q> Short answer : this is the other way around and it was probably end of 18th century. <S> The main reason these two meanings coexists is that the verb has evolved two times. <S> As these lords or rich bourgeois had the habit to interfere in their protégés' works or to moralize them without being interrupted for fear of losing the protection, hence this meaning of patronize . <S> Second, the word patron began to be used as a very obsequious term for "customer" in the 17th century by city merchants. <S> This word is now quite neutral but used to be a flattery, implying a status and a wealth high enough to be a protector of artists and craftsmen, not merely purchasing items in the shop but subsidizing art. <S> The verb's meaning has faded with the word's. <A> It must be remembered that to act as a patron was to be in a superior position to the person one was helping. <S> Largesse could be given or withdrawn at will. <S> Consider Samuel Johnson's definition of a patron: <S> Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? <S> The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. <S> — <S> Letter to Lord Chesterfield <S> You can see that Lord Chesterton's offer of patronage after Johnson had achieved success was not only spurned, but resented as condescension. <S> But if Chesterfield had offered it earlier, Johnson would very likely have accepted it gratefully. <S> Read more: <S> http://quotationsbook.com/quote/29572/#ixzz1KMc4zsIS on Quotations Book — Letter to Chesterfield <A> etymonline has: 1580s, "to act as a patron towards," from patron + -ize . <S> Meaning "treat in a condescending way" <S> is first attested 1797; sense of "give regular business to" is from 1801.
| First from the social and historical meaning of patron (going back to Roman antiquity), a wealthy man keeping a group of attached men and giving them money and places, financing familiar artists like Maecenas who was the patron of Virgiles.
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A word for "every two days" Is there an adjective that means "every two days", i.e. is to a day as biennial is to a year? <Q> In regular conversation, the phrase is simply every other day . <S> Technically, however, one could use bidiurnal . <S> It appears the word may have been coined by Ursula M. Cowgill in her 1965 paper, A bidiurnal cycle in the feeding habit of Perodicticus potto , from which I quote thus (emphases mine): <S> A definite bidiurnal cycle exists; the data corrected for natural loss are shown in Figure 1. <S> The χ 2 for the 48-hr periodicity is highly significant (χ 2 = 188). <S> Cowgill, PNAS, 420 (1965) <A> Modern style in medical situations recommends using using the spelled out English 'every other day' because the Latin abbreviations are often misread. <A> You could use "alternate". <S> I used to post on Instagram daily , but now I've switched to posting on alternate days .P.S <S> Correct me if I'm wrong. <A> To solve your problem, though not to answer your question directly, for phrases of the type: <S> A definite bidiurnal cycle exists... <S> it is perfectly natural formal English to say <S> A definite two-day cycle exists...
| The abbreviation QOD or QAD (from Latin mean Quaque Alternis Die") means 'every other day' or 'every two days'.
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Which of these sentences using "can" or "could" is better? If you could increase your number of hours to 48/week, it will help you become a more fluent speaker. If you can increase your number of hours to 48/week, it will help you become a more fluent speaker. The first sentence sounds more natural to me. Which one is correct and why? <Q> I think I'd be happier with the first sentence if it was written as: If you could increase your number of hours to 48/week, it would help you become more fluent. <S> It maintains the same set of auxilliary verbs in both halves of the sentence. <S> It is also a bit passive, compared with the more active second sentence: If you can increase your number of hours to 48/week, it will help you become a more fluent speaker. <S> I'd choose between them on the basis of my expectation of the increase happening; the first has a resigned air to it (if you could, you would, but you probably can't, so you won't), whereas the second is more positive (if you can, you will, and since you can, you will improve) or authoritative (an order disguised as a suggestion). <A> And "if you can" seems more like "if you are capable of". <S> I also feel that the first sentence sounds better and more natural. <A> Actually the first one sounds odd to me. <S> I'd say it's rather like this: (1) <S> If you could increase your number of hours to 48/week, (2) it <S> would help you become a more fluent speaker. <S> It's a sentence (in Linguistic meaning) made of two clauses: The main one is the #2, the subordinate is the #1 and it's a conditional clause . <S> (= <S> If the condition becomes true, the proposition in the main clause will realize.) <S> I think the other one is basically the same: <S> If you can increase your number of hours to 48/week, it will help you become a more fluent speaker. <S> They sound a bit different about "your feeling" regarding their actual realisation, since you use "could/would" in the first and "can/will" in the second.
| I think "if you could" means "if you are able to/have time to".
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What is the origin of != in the meaning "not equal to"? As a programmer I have always assumed that using != as meaning not equal to when writing text (usually on the internet) came from programming languages. Is this true or is the origin different? <Q> C and the unix shells use ! <S> = for not equal, it comes from the maths symbol ≠. <S> The earlier computer langauge FORTRAN that was (and is) used for more mathematical work <S> uses <S> .ne. <S> because it was invented before the symbols on keyboards were standardised <A> The symbol used to denote inequation — when items are not equal — is a slashed equals sign "≠" <S> (Unicode 2260). <S> Most programming languages, limiting themselves to the ASCII character set, use ~=, != <S> , /=, =/=, or <> to represent their boolean inequality operator. <S> Source: Wikipedia . <S> (Edit: Combining vincente and Mark Hurd's comment with something extra.) != may have first appeared in the B language , which was a precursor to C. <S> It does not appear in BCPL <S> which was an inspiration for B, so perhaps the B designers were the first. <S> And some languages (including B and C) use ! <S> for logical negation (aka NOT), <S> so != <S> is slightly more natural than > and the other ASCII-only operators. <S> Again, BCPL is different: it uses <S> ~a to mean "NOT a", but uses <S> a!b for ! <S> (a+b). <A> Yes, this originated in the C language.
| Yes, this is from programming languages such as C and C++.
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"excursion over city" vs "excursion around city" Is there any difference in phrases usage? Which one is better for title of a story? The story is about tourists. <Q> One would normally take an excursion to a city, but if you were flying and never landing you could take an excursion over a city. <S> Or you could take an excursion around a city. <S> It's just a short trip. <S> As NOAD says: excursion |ikˈskər <S> zh <S> ən| noun 1 a short journey or trip, esp. <S> one engaged in as a leisure activity : an excursion to Mount Etna And a further usage note under journey : <S> Excursion also applies to a brief pleasure trip, usually no more than a day in length, that returns to the place where it began <S> (: an afternoon excursion to the zoo ). <A> I agree with others in that "excursion over the city" would have to be literally over the city, most likely via flying. <S> "Excursion around the city" implies that the tourists will be exploring within the city, but it also suggests that they are already there <S> ("Let's take a trip around the city.") <S> It really depends on the setting and context of these tourists as you set up your story. <A> I honestly can't think of an example where you would take an excursion over a city. <S> I would definitely choose around in this case. <S> It implies that they went to the city in question, and travelled around it, taking in the sights. <S> An excursion over the city just seems absurd. <S> I would fly over a city , take a flight over a city , take a trip over a city (maybe, it's very ambiguous), but I'm not sure I would ever take an excursion over a city . <S> Perhaps that's just me, though.
| "Excursion into the city implies that the tourists are going into a city that they will then explore.
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History of the phrase "break wind" The choice of the verb "break" seems a strange choice for the phrase. Does anybody know where this phrase originated? <Q> It appears that this may have some relation to an obsolete meaning of brake . <S> From OED : <S> † brake , <S> v.6 Etymology : perhaps repr. <S> an unrecorded Old English <S> *bracian , < bræc , which occurs in the sense of ‘phlegm, mucus, saliva’; compare Old Dutch braeken , Middle Low German and modern Dutch braken to vomit; allied to break n.1 (compare German sich brechen). <S> a. trans. <S> and intr. <S> To spue, vomit. <S> b. Cf. <S> to break wind : see break v. Phrases 6. <A> From M-W: to separate into parts with suddenness or violence <S> That sounds very descriptive of what is going on, at least for the noisy variety <A> I am involved in a Shakespeare production of Henry iv part one in which Falstaff complains that if he exerts himself any more he will break his wind ---- <S> It seems an obvious fart joke <S> (though of course the possibility remains that he is out of breath). <S> I can't find any site allowing that this is the first use of the fart idiom though. <A> Usage break wind was certainly widely used in the 17th century, but I'm still working on finding an earlier source. <S> In other works of the 17th century, break wind appears to refer to either belching or farting, and often break wind upward is used to signify the former. <S> However, in A Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother (aka hysteria) by Edward Jorden , printed in 1603 , is a passage dealing with the fact that you cannot control certain bodily functions, such as your pulse. <S> A glorious and fascinating passage deals with people who are attested to be able to control certain bodily functions though. <S> Galen ... bringeth an instance of a servant who killed himselfe to anger his master by holding of his breath. <S> S.Augustine tells of one that could make himselfe to sweate when he list, by his imagnation only. <S> Cornelius Gemma saith, that he knewe one that could weepe when he list: others that could make their bodies stiffe like an image, imitate the voyces of all kinde of creatures, raise a hickocke, and breake wind as often and in what maner they would. <S> And S.Augustine tels of one that would make a kinde of musicke that way. <S> Adrian Turnebus saw a rogue that gayned much money be shewing this feate, we do also see that some can counterfait madnes, some drunkennesse, some the falling sicknesse, some palsies and trembling, some can play the fooles and supply the roomes of innocents, some can make noyses and speake in their bellies or throates, as those which Hyppocrates calleth Eugastrimuthoi ventro loqui , such as was the holy maid of Kent, and Mildred of Westwall, &c. <S> Etymology <S> In A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language by Joseph Bosworth <S> (page 64) is a definition of the Anglo-Saxon verb Brecan , for which the given meanings are: To BREAK, vanquish, overcome, weaken, open, move , excite, <S> produce <S> ( italics are my own). <S> I wish I could stop reading the Jorden book though, as I now want to know so much more about the holy maid of Kent , and Mildred of Westwall , and I love the witness of Adrain Turnebus (a French classical scholar, 1512-1565) that proves that "Le Pétomane" (Joseph Pujol) was nothing new. <A> I don't know for sure, but it's a very old phrase. <S> From etymonline.com : <S> Break wind first attested 1550s. <A> Though we know that the expression is very old (16th century) we have no explanation. <S> I assume the original saying was changed. <S> One might think of two sentences of forming winds in the intestines that break free and somehow the outcome some generations later was "to break wind". <S> This is just a hypothesis as we have nowhere a hint as to the idea of this curious expression. <S> Of course, there may be other orginal formulations that were changed and shortened. <S> In any case I can't imagine that the saying came into being as "to break wind".
| So, I think it's reasonable to say that breaking wind probably came from producing (or moving) wind .
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Equivalent of "both" when referring to three or more items? What would be the correct word to use when referring to three or more items, in the same manner as the word both ? For example, using two words, with the word both : "There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites — both to improve their profit, and decrease their cost." Using three words, with a blank space in place of the correct word: "There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites — _ to improve their profit, decrease their cost and improve their usability." So, what would be the correct word to use in place of the __ ? <Q> At that point I'd probably pick out one of the list for special attention using "not only ... but": <S> There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites, not only to improve their profit but to decrease their cost and improve their usability. <S> I'd cut that down further, though: <S> I have several recommendations to improve the sites—not only to improve their profit, but to decrease their cost and improve their usability. <A> Both is the suppletive variant of * all two , which is not grammatical English. <S> Suppletion is the irregular grammatical phenomenon of substituting a different word or root. <S> Like using went instead of * goed , or ever instead of <S> * anywhen . <S> It's not too common in English, but it occurs. <S> So the equivalent of both , for n>2 , is All n : all three, all four, all seventy-seven of them . <A> I would leave out the word altogether, the second example you give makes perfect sense as it stands: <S> There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites; to improve their profit, decrease their cost and improve their usability. <S> Or, if I'm going to be really picky, and remove the doubling up of the phrase "improve": There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites' profit, decrease their costs and improve their usability. <A> There are two usual alternatives to refer to the three items: "not only...., but... <S> and..." "both... <S> and...as well as..." <S> The first alternative - "not only..., <S> but...and..." - has a limitation <S> : it is basically intended to refer to two items, but is adapted to fit in three items by adding "and...". <S> Moreover, "not only..." puts less emphasis on the first item. <S> The second alternative - "both...and...as well as..." - puts an emphasis on the last item. <S> Therefore, the best way to refer to three items is to use "...: <S> firstly...; secondly...; lastly..." . <S> In the instant case, the sentence could be written as follows: <S> "There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites: firstly, to improve their profit; secondly, to decrease their cost; lastly, to improve their usability." <A> You don't need a word there at all. <S> There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites — to improve their profitability, decrease their cost and improve their usability. <S> A follow-up suggestion, which you didn't ask for, is to remove the triple repetition of the word "improve". <S> I propose several recommendations for the sites to raise their profitability, cut their cost, and improve their usability. <S> Furthermore, a cost decrease generally implies a profit increase, so that may be redundant. <S> I propose several recommendations for the sites to improve both their profitability and their usability. <A> "There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites — both to improve their profit and decrease their cost, as well as improve their usability." <S> Although, this might put an emphasis on the last point. <A> Logically, you don't have "several" recommendations, but "three". <S> There are three recommendations I have to further improve the sites - to improve their profit, decrease their cost and improve their usability. <S> Cheers <A> Consider triad <S> A grouping of three. <S> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triad <A> I ran into a somewhat similar situation recently where I was tempted to use "both" in reference to three items, as in: I did see a notable increase in my approach frequency when placed into a rare situation in my city where there was both high traffic overall, a high fraction of the target demographic, and conditions favourable to approaching. <S> For this case, I found that "together" did the trick nicely: <S> I did see a notable increase in my approach frequency when placed into a rare situation in my city where there was together high traffic overall, a high fraction of the target demographic, and conditions favourable to approaching. <S> This doesn't work quite as nicely in your particular example, but I thought I'd mention it since it works well in some cases. <S> It does work for your example also, just not quite as nicely: <S> However, for your example, some of the other suggestions, such as simply removing the conjunction altogether, are probably just as well. <S> "Together" was more crucial to my example because the simultaneity of the factors was more significant to the meaning of the sentence. <A> "There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites — all of them to improve their profit, and decrease their cost."
| You could try a combination of "both" and "as well as". There are several recommendations I have to further improve the sites — together to improve their profit, decrease their cost and improve their usability.
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Is there a single word that means "under the table"? Is there a single word that means "under the table"? I am looking for a single word that conveys a knowing, sly, violation of law or ethics — like an under-the-table or off-the-books payment. <Q> If you're looking for something that is not known about to others, then surreptitiously . <A> Three possible adjectives are illicit , illegal and underhanded . <A> clandestine –adjective Kept or done in secret, often in order to conceal an illicit or improper purpose. <A> covert - Not openly practiced, avowed, engaged in, accumulated, or shown. <S> thefreedictionary <A> Sub rosa , sometimes spelled "sub-rosa", means "under the table". <S> It is a borrowed word, from Latin, but used in English language newspapers and elsewhere. <S> It may be used as an adverb or an adjective. <S> A more informal term for "under the table" is downlow or on the down-low . <A> In italian, for example, we have the one below (of course, the English version, which exists as well): under the counter (or table ) - (with reference to goods bought or sold) surreptitiously and typically illegally: certain labs have been peddling this drug under the counter. <S> -|- <S> [ as adj. ] <S> an under-the-counter deal . <A> off-balance-sheet <S> Some companies may have significant amounts of off-balance sheet assets and liabilities. <S> For example, financial institutions often offer asset management or brokerage services to their clients. <S> The assets in question (often securities) usually belong to the individual clients directly or in trust, while the company may provide management, depository or other services to the client. <S> The company itself has no direct claim to the assets, and usually has some basic fiduciary duties with respect to the client. <S> Financial institutions may report off-balance sheet items in their accounting statements formally, and may also refer to "assets under management," a figure that may include on and off-balance sheet items. <A> Mitch's answer is pretty good but the wrong part of speech. <S> You want surreptitious . <S> A less formal (and thus possibly more appropriate depending on your use) term would be shady .
| Synonyms are covertly and "behind the scenes".
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A word meaning "those who are plugged in"? I'm looking for a word that refers to folks who are "plugged in" or "knowledgeable and connected" to some network of people and information. The "authorities" often connotes law enforcement and therefore doesn't fit well. <Q> An appropriate single word would be the group noun, <S> the initiated : the initiated a small group of people who share obscure knowledge NOAD <A> The Illuminati is a nice term that describes a community of people with a special/secret knowledge. <S> (Unfortunately, it has been somewhat soiled in recent times by conspiracy theorists and is now most commonly used to label a supposed 'secret society' controlling world governments/media/etc.) <S> Enlightened comes from the same root and describes people endowed with a certain knowledge/understanding. <S> This word often appears in religious context but by no means is it limited to that. <S> A person with esoteric knowledge is someone who knows/understands something which only a select few know/understand. <S> Here, rather than being members of a secret society, the 'select few' are simply those who have studied the topic in question. <S> The Intelligentsia is a term used to refer to intellectuals of a high social class involved in cultural/educational development, creative labour. <S> If we remove that sense of special/privileged, I suppose any of the following could also work, depending on your specific context: Nouns: Contributor; Member; Scholar; Academia; <S> Adjectives: <S> Learned; Erudite; <S> Most of these latter words tend to relate to either knowledge or connectedness, rather than both. <S> A dictionary should help you with their specific uses. <S> Hope that helps. <A> A contemporary version is wired , in the sense of connected. <A> cabal - is a great word with negative, conspiratorial connotations , per Wikipedia: <S> A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue. <S> Cabals are sometimes secret societies composed of a few designing persons, and at other times are manifestations of emergent behavior in society or governance on the part of a community of persons who have well established public affiliation or kinship. <A> These are (mostly) single word terms meaning those who are plugged in . <S> Some are nouns, others are adjectives, but I think that is within the scope of the question. <S> Cognoscenti n. <S> To be one of those in the know <S> Au <S> courante <S> adj. <S> Well-informed about the latest trends, most current news Up-to-date adj. <S> Current Ear to the ground : <S> This is an idiom. <S> It means to be alert to any changes, immediately. <S> On point : <S> Also an idiom, implying an alert status Insider n. <S> A member of the inner circle, Star Chamber, cabal of those who have a need-to-know <S> Hip adj. <S> The ultimate term for being plugged in: To be hip to something IS to be well-informed.
| Such folks are in the know or in the loop : in the loop aware of information known only to a privileged few NOAD cabalist - an expert who is highly skilled in obscure or difficult, esoteric matters.
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Meaning of "Make what's-her-name feel special this Mother's Day." Especially, the "what's-her-name" part. <Q> In general that term is used in place of the actual name when the speaker doesn't know the name. <S> Note that it's pretty flippant in tone; if you don't want that tone you would just say "her." <A> Much used if someone doesn't know the name of the person being talked about. <S> "I met what's-her-name yesterday". <S> Usually being used if the person listening also knows the person. <A> I think masarah and jhocking pretty much covered it - I would simply add that the joke becomes rather more subtle if one considers that one (usually) knows one's mother's name - but (almost always) never uses it.
| In that context specifically it's being used as a joke, because of the twist of making someone feel special when they can't even remember her name.
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Distinction: "What can I do you for?" vs. "What can I do for you?" Usually, when being served the phrase "What can I do for you?" is used but sometimes I also hear "What can I do you for?" in quite the same context. So is there a difference or is it just a slip of the tongue? Edit I also heard it amongst others in 'Allo 'Allo and once in The IT Crowd . <Q> It's normally a joke. <S> It's 'funny' because "What can I do you for?" is actually a question that would never be asked, except rhetorically. <S> Do you , as in "I'm gonna do you in <S> " is what a thug would say before he perpetrated violent acts against you. <S> It could also be used by a police man, for example "Do him for possession", so <S> do him <S> is slang for arrest him . <S> There is also, the more pertinent definition of do you , which is what a swindler would think when tying to think how to trick you: "What can I do you for?" <S> Where what they mean is "What can I get out of you with my tricks?" <S> Whereas "What can I do for you? <S> " is someone simply asking how they can help. <S> In the context of a barman, it would be asking what drink or other pub service they can provide. <A> No one has hit the right tone with this one yet, so I'm going to step in. <S> What can I do you for? <S> is, as others have said, a playful inversion of "What can I do for you?" <S> However, it is a bit more than that. <S> It is said as a kind of challenge, announcing that the speaker is identifying himself (again, playfully) as someone who might actually take advantage of the person being addressed. <S> The impression is that the speaker is a sly dog who commonly swindles people and is not likely to be swindled himself. <S> It is playfully confrontational. <S> If said to a friend, it's a joke. <S> If said to a stranger, it can be almost a warning. <A> It probably originates in a playful inversion of the usual order for words, which would be “What can I do for you?”. <S> Also, beware! <S> Unlike what I thought the first time it was said to me, this is not commonly meant (and should not be understood as) a sexual proposition. <S> [1] [1] See: do (transitive verb; vulgar; slang) <S> • have sexual intercourse with. <A> The turn of phrase dates at least back to the early 1940's.see <S> Google NGrams and Popular Science, July 1941 "... <S> Oh, it's Doc Foley, is it? <S> What can I do you for, Doc?" <S> "You can tell me what you did for-and to- <S> that fellow Fred Conroy," Dr. Foley said. <A> The near-unanimous conclusion that "What can I do you for?" is basically a joke and a play on words seems to be incorrect. <S> While the writers of Allo Allo and IT Crowd might well have employed it to that effect, having sat through the film Shane earlier today, it appears that this was standard usage (at least) in 1953 and likely in Alabama Wyoming in the 1800s which is the setting for the story. <S> The film is based on a novel of the same name . <S> According to a transcript of the dialogue, the following are all questions asked either by shopkeepers or bartenders: Anything I can do you for? <S> - I came to get wire for Joe Starrett. <S> - I've been holding wire for Starrett for quite a spell. <S> A whole bunch came in. <S> They brought their women to protect them. <S> - My jars come yet? <S> - Howdy, Starrett. <S> What can I do you for? <S> Hello, Torrey. <S> Something I can do you for? <S> - A jug. <S> It's the Fourth. <S> - Come in, come in. <S> - Jug. <S> And a whiskey. <S> A record studio owner from the movie " <S> O Brother, Where art thou?" asks a similar question . <S> This film is set in Mississippi in the 1930s. <S> The phrase "What can I do you for?" also has an entry in the book, Slang American style: more than 10,000 ways to talk the talk : <S> What can I do you for? <S> interrog. <S> "How can I help you?"; "How can I serve you?" <S> You can also hear it in the TV show, Dexter <S> (Season 2, Episode 5, <S> ~36 minutes), where a barman in Florida asks the eponymous protagonist the same question. <S> He replies with, " Beer, whatever's on tap ". <S> There is no innuendo or any jocular overtones to the conversation. <A> From a textual standpoint, it's an informal expression. <S> The colloquial inversion of the more standard wording is common in various regions of the U.S., including the South and rural areas to the west. <S> When used in a playful way with a feigned accent, it could be to make fun of country folk, to romanticize southern hospitality or just to have fun with a little make-believe. <A> I've heard it used jokingly with a sexual connotation, and also — many times — used wrongly instead of the correct "what can I do for you". <A> It means the same. <S> It is merely a play on words. <S> Some people have been wondering if it has a sexual undertone, but that is not correct (at least not under normal circumstances). <S> You can hear it anyway - stores, restaurants and with friends.
| It is commonly used, so it's not really a slip of the tongue.
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What's the difference between "bliss" and "happiness"? What's the difference between bliss and happiness ? <Q> Bliss is a great deal stronger than happiness. <S> You can be happy because it's not raining today, or because you found your glasses. <S> But bliss is reserved for a state of complete, perfect happiness, such as what you may experience by finding your soulmate or having a transcendent spiritual experience. <A> Happiness is an emotion while bliss is a condition of the mind. <S> Emotions occur at an excited state of the mind and anything that's at an excited state comes back to ground state. <S> Whereas to feel happy, you need to do something like getting good marks, earning money, making friends,and so on. <S> The path to attain a state of bliss is through self contentment, where all your actions are done without ego involved - consequences <S> don't matter but <S> your willingness to do something is what matters. <A> About 3 years ago I checked into the ER with an obstructed bladder (due to kidney stones). <S> The pain was unimaginable. <S> Thankfully, the ER people recognized right away how much pain I was in and got me into a room right away. <S> Several nurses got quickly to work, placing a "Foley catheter" in my urethra, draining the accumulated urine, and removing the pressure. <S> What I then felt was utter, total bliss -- a feeling of such incredible contentment and serenity that I cared not one whit that I was lying on a table with my pants down around my ankles and a tube hanging out. <S> The sensation slowly diminished, but not for several hours. <S> I strongly suspect that true bliss cannot be achieved without some preceding hardship. <A> Bliss is felt in the heart and as if in our blood. <S> It is state of happiness when asking for anything is foreign to it, even we do not ask for spiritual virtues. <S> It is all in all.
| Whereas bliss is a general state of the mind by itself, it doesn't take anything to do in order to attain bliss - it's just there.
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What happened to the “‑est” and “‑eth” verb suffixes in English? What happened to them, and how were they once used? Straining my mind to sound archaic, I came up with the following: Dost thou thinkest thou can escape thy sins? and Bringeth me mine armor and favorite sword. I’d like to use these suffixes intelligently, so my questions are:how are ‑est and ‑eth properly appellated in conjugations, and when and why did they disappear? <Q> Verb paradigm in King James English for think Singular <S> Plural <S> --------------------------1 <S> (I) think (we) <S> think2 <S> (thou) <S> thinkest (you) <S> think3 <S> (he) <S> thinketh <S> (they <S> ) thinkImperative: <S> thinkInfinitive <S> : (to) think <S> These unfamiliar suffixes are applied in the same context that the -s suffix is applied in Modern English; for example: He thinks. <S> Thou thinkest. <S> He shall go. <S> (no -s suffix on go ) <S> Thou shalt go. <S> (irregular verb form for shall ; but again, no suffix on go ) <S> During the Early Modern English period, the 2nd person singular suffix disappeared and the -th suffix in the third person was replaced by another suffix, -s , which spread from dialects in the northern parts of the country. <S> Other conjugations, such as -e in the first person singular from Middle English, had already been lost. <S> This sort of change is known as paradigm leveling . <S> There is no particular reason per se that this kind of change happens, but it is not uncommon in the languages of the world. <A> It's basically a feature of being a Germanic language. <S> In German, the second person takes -st, e.g., "Ich bin, du bist, Ich kenne, du kennst" (I am, you are, I know, you know). <S> The old English forms follow the same pattern, as Kosmonaut shows above. <S> This is the easiest way to spot "fake Elizabethan" language in books and movies. <S> " <S> Wouldst thou? <S> " is fine, "wouldst I? <S> " don't fly. <A> -Eth was eventually replaced by -s or -es; the point being that language changes over time and tends to move toward simpler forms. <A> In English, as in other languages, we employ "First Person" (the one speaking), "Second Person" (the one being spoken to), and "Third Person" (the one being spoken about). <S> There is singular ( I speak ) and plural ( we speak ). <S> Using French as an example, I can say tu parles to my friends (Second Person Singular), but to show respect I would say vous parlez , whether to one of you with whom I'm not familiar or to more than one of you. <S> So vous is the plural as well as the formal form of tu . <S> The same in English. <S> You is the plural of thou. <S> Other languages use she and the Third Person to show respect, since such words as grace and majesty are feminine ( Sie in German and Lei in Italian). <S> Still others use a word formed from Your Grace to show respect ( <S> Vuestra Merced in Spanish becomes Usted after Vuestra being abbreviated as "Vst" which became "Ust" and combined with "-ed" from merced . <S> The Portuguese você has a similar construction coming from vossa mercê , or Your Grace .) <S> In some Spanish-speaking countries, the formal Usted (which, keep in mind, takes the Third Person form) replaced the Second Person tú . <S> This is what happened in English: the formal use of you , even in the singular sense, replaced thou almost everywhere except, for example, among the Amish: thou speakest and you speak . <S> The same for their object pronouns thee and ye which were replaced by the subject pronoun you . <S> So that's what happened to thou and its suffix "-est." <S> As for the ending "-(e)th," that was replaced over time by "-(e)s": <S> he maketh <S> becomes he makes .
| -Est was dropped when the uniquely singular "thee/thou/thy" fell out of use.
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"Is" vs. "Are" when using the word "Pair" in a mathematical setting I've seen equally good arguments for and against using "is" for this sentence. The pair of polynomials (f,g) is/are related by the reciprocity law. Which verb is used correctly? <Q> If the mathematical statement is about the two objects in the pair then "are" is appropriate, however if it is about the pair as a mathematical object of itself then "is" is in place. <S> Thus "The pair of polynomials (f,g) are related by the reciprocity law" but "The pair of polynomials (f,g) is equal to the pair (h,q)". <A> The pair in this case is one, so " is ". <S> If it was " three pairs of polynomials.. . <S> ", for example, then you would have used " are ". <S> Like: <S> A pair of shoes is in my bedroom. <S> - VS - Two <S> (three, four, five, etc) pairs of shoes are in my bedroom. <A> answer is 'is' according to me, because pair represents a collective noun or verb of something, and there is a single pair of polynomials
| You should use the singular, because it refers to "Pair" and not to "polynomials".
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An ambiguity problem with "the first thing you remember" I'm having an ambiguity problem with the following sentence: What's the first thing you remember? If I'm right, it may mean either: 1) What is the first thing you can recall, the furthest in your memories, the earliest thing you remember? (like from your childhood = your earliest memory) 2) What is the first thing that comes to your mind just like that? (the first thing you can think of RIGHT NOW) Am I right? Considering I am, how would you rephrase the sentence, to get rid of the ambiguity problem? <Q> To me, they are different. <S> "What's the first thing you remember?" always means "what's your earliest memory?" never "what are you thinking right now? <S> " <S> This is so because present thought is not memory, again only in my view. <S> "what are you thinking right now?" <S> is a question about meta-thought -- a thought about a present thought, just as "what's the first thing you remember? <S> " is a question about meta-thought, but a thought this time about an earlier thought. <S> "A penny for your thoughts" is a lot different from "what's the first thing you remember?" <A> Normally, we do not refer to an immediate thought as remembering . <S> For that, we would say something like "What's the first thing that comes to mind?" <S> (as you already did yourself) or "What's the first thing that pops into your head? <S> " <S> Also, "What's the first thing you remember?" <S> often does not refer to the first memory in a person's life, but rather the first since some event, such as getting injured in an accident or being knocked on the head by an attacker. <A> Yes, it can take either meaning. <S> So, you can say: What's your earliest childhood memory? <S> What's the first thought/memory that comes to your mind? <A> However, the second would only make sense in a context where the memories would be limited in some way, because normally we remember things all the time. <S> So, the ambiguity is not a problem, because in any situation where it could have the second meaning, it would be clear what the meaning was.
| Grammatically you are right, it could mean either of those things.
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Why does "tell me about it" not mean "tell me about it"? A commonly used American phrase, but one that still baffles me if I stop and think about it. Why does "tell me about" actually mean, "I understand what you're talking about as I have experienced it myself". Not only are you not literally inviting the person to go into more detail, but (most confusingly) you're actually kind of suggesting that they don't need to tell you any more. Which is the very opposite of what you've said. For example: Employee 1: (reading a letter from management) "It says I'm being laid off. Can you believe that?" Employee 2: (holding up a similar letter) "Tell me about it." For such a simple and straightforward phrase, I'm confused as to how it morphed into meaning something else. You could argue that the person is being sarcastic when they say it: "Tell me about it -- as if I don't already know!", but it's usually said in a sympathetic tone, not a deriding one. Where did it originate, and how did it get its unusual meaning? For non-native speakers, it can be very confusing! <Q> Indeed, you'll sometimes see people say "as if I don't know!" <S> in the same place they'd say "tell me about it." <S> A more direct version is "join the club," which is an implication of "you think you're in a special predicament? <S> Come join the club we've all already started." <S> Typically, the shorter messages are used because they flow better and have entered the zeitgeist <S> , so the longer meaning is assumed to be understood. <A> It's not a contradiction, exactly, it's an ironic reflection, as in reflecting the statement back at the speaker. <S> Kind of like: <S> You've got troubles? <S> You should hear about my troubles! <S> It doesn't mean "don't tell me about it"; it just means I could tell you about it. <S> Or "We're in the same boat." <S> But the phrasing seems to fit the current zeitgeist (and has for at least a couple of decades), so it just works. <A> It's a sarcastic response. <S> Taken literally <S> the sentence would mean the speaker isn't already familiar with the situation and wants more information. <S> However it is rarely (these days never) meant literally, and is used sarcastically to mean the opposite. <S> I.e. <S> That the speaker is already familiar with the situation. <S> Its meaning is similar to the expression, "You don't say?", where the speaker is acting like they don't already know, when in fact they do. <S> The difference between these two expressions however is that, "Tell me about it", has taken on a sympathetic tone over the years, indicating shared misery, whereas, "You don't say?", is an insult where you don't actually care what the person has to say. <S> There's little in the words themselves to indicate that difference. <S> That difference is simply the connotations those expressions have taken on over time. <S> Tone of voice is pretty critical here, because the difference between a sympathetic statement and an insulting one is simply a different inflection while saying the exact same words. <A> Strictly speaking, it doesn't mean the opposite. <S> There are plenty of phrases that are used in similar ways: <S> Yeah, right! <S> Oh, stop it! <S> Yeah, what else is new? <S> But the meaning of the phrase is not the opposite of "tell me more about this subject. <S> " It is an expression of acknowledgement and buddy sympathy along the lines of "been there; done that. <S> " <S> The person on the receiving end of "tell me about it" is not going to perceive the response as a signal to stop complaining about the subject. <S> If anything, the response is a signal to ask about the other person's experiences or to expect a counter story: Ugh; so was fast food every actually fast ? <S> Tell me about it. <S> I just waited an hour for them to fry a chicken. <S> This type of conversation can result in a back and forth one-up contest or simply a segue into a loosely related topic: [Kramer and Newman at the park, smoking cigars] <S> KRAMER: <S> Well, I really miss the Bermuda Triangle. <S> NEWMAN: <S> I guess there's not much action down there these days. <S> KRAMER: <S> Oh, there's action. <S> There's plenty of action. <S> That damned alien autopsy is stealing all the headlines. <S> NEWMAN: <S> Yeah, tell me about it . <S> KRAMER: <S> See, what they gotta do is lose a plane or a Greenpeace boat in there. <S> See, that would get the triangle going again. <S> NEWMAN: <S> What keeps the water in there? <S> I mean, why doesn't it disappear? <S> KRAMER: <S> What would be the point in taking the water? <S> NEWMAN: <S> It's gorgeous water. <S> (pause) <S> Do we own Bermuda? <S> KRAMER: <S> No. <S> It belongs to the British. <S> NEWMAN: <S> Lucky krauts. <S> KRAMER: <S> So, what do you think about that alien autopsy? <S> NEWMAN: <S> Oh, that's real. <S> KRAMER: <S> I think so too. <A> There is a certain speech law, saying that speakers try to express more information with less effort. <S> That is, the less words are used and the more information is expressed, the better. <S> Thus, for example, English speakers tend to omit auxiliary verbs ("Want a drink?" <S> instead of "Do you want a drink?"). <S> The same thing happened to the phrase "Tell me about it as if I don't know it!" <S> This phrase is so common in American English that every speaker knows that the usage of one of its parts implies the existence of the other one. <S> So, it is not necessary to say "as if I don't know it" if you say "Tell me about it", and vice versa. <S> Both parts express the same idea, so why use both of them if it is clear what the speaker wants to express? <S> Of course, it is very important what kind of situation the phrase is used in. <S> "Tell me about it" can have a direct meaning if you want to learn something from your interlocutor. <S> But it has a completely different meaning if it is clear that you express agreement in a sarcastic or ironic way implying that you have experienced it yourself. <S> In this case you use this phrase as a cliche, and your interlocutor knows its second part and understands what you want to express. <S> By the way, sarcasm and irony are two "built-in" <S> language ways of changing the meaning without changing the form. <S> Intonation, non-verbal means of communication (facial expression, mimics, gestures) and the communicative situation help sarcasm and irony change the meaning of any phrase or word. <A> This is very similar to the former, but not lamented, constant replies of "been there, done that. <S> " While I will not quibble about identification, irony, or sarcasm, the implicit communication appears to be the same as that of "BTDT:" I really DON'T want to hear any more about it so stop right there. <S> I have often been tempted to take the current item literally and really tell people about it...
| It's typically said with a sarcastic tone, and tends to imply a longer message: "Tell me about it, as if I don't already know enough about it ."
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How long is a 'wink'? If I'm off to catch forty winks, how long will I be asleep? I'm interested to know if there is a specific amount of time associated with a 'wink', or if there's no actual amount of time behind it? <Q> "Forty winks" is just an idiom meaning a nap for a short period of time. <S> From the Wikipedia entry: To take forty winks is to take a nap for a short period of time (usually not in bed), or to take a short sleep during the day. <S> The term Forty winks is an English idiomatic noun that can be used in the singular or plural. <S> This can be used in sayings such as "Tom had 40 winks during his dinner hour, while Brett was busy at work". <S> Alternative idiomatic sayings such as could not sleep a wink <S> provide the mental picture of a wink being the shortest type of sleep available and "forty winks <S> " therefore gives an indication of an appropriate short sleep. <S> A wink is a very short period of time, a moment; also known as "the blink of an eye" (as in "quick as a wink"). <S> Other languages have this expression as well. <S> Cf. <S> German ein Augenblick , etc. <A> In his final (and incompleted) novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood , 1870, Charles Dickens quantified (or had his character Durdles quantify) <S> a wink as a second long. <S> How a nap can be 40 seconds long, I do not know. <S> Perhaps it refers to the actual time it takes a very tired person to fall asleep. <A> A wink is much longer than a jiffy and about the same time as a single shake of a lamb's tail. <A> However, a wink is technically half of a blink so if you're off for one now to sleep off the knowledgeficating effects of this thread you can probably allow yourself a sly seven seconds. <S> Oh go on then, make it eight. <S> Treat yourself. <S> Wink wink. <A> To answer the original question; a 'wink' is the time between blinks, as far as the '40 winks' phrase is concerned. <S> It originates with sailors, soldiers or others on watch or on long duty without the benefits of a timepiece. <S> One person would nap, while the other counted their normal blinks; when they got to 40, they would wake the napping person. <S> The average person blinks 12-16 times per minute, so you're only looking at a 3-5 minute nap, depending on the 'blinker.' <A> A very long time ago I was an engineer doing time and motion studies in the automotive industry and we used the wink as a defined unit of time. <S> If I remember correctly a Wink is: 1/100 of a minute <S> it is a unit of time used by industrial engineers (before computers and PDTS). <S> Decimal minutes made arithmetic easier. <S> You can still buy decimal minute stopwatches for time study.
| According to Wikipedia a blink lasts for 300-400 milliseconds; if we postulate that a one-eyed wink lasts the same amount of time as a two-eyed blink the duration of a "40 winks" nap would be a staggering 12-16 seconds.
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What does "fringe meeting" mean exactly? I'm aware of that 'Fringe' means 'not major', 'not mainstream'. I hardly understand how 'fringe' and 'meeting' meet as one vocabulary. <Q> The term is most commonly used, in UK politics at least, to describe meetings that take place at a political party conference that aren't part of the main proceedings. <S> They are usually small, and address a particular special interest. <S> Here are some examples from the Conservative , Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. <A> "Fringe" means something slightly different than "not major. <S> " <S> The non major part of fringe implies "alternative" or "extreme": <S> These people hold fringe values <S> They are located on the fringe of the metropolis <S> There isn't anything in the term that implies "small" other than something else <S> exists that is probably larger. <S> A fringe can be massive — especially when describing the surrounding of a core ideal or place. <S> Taking these things into account, a "fringe meeting" can mean any of the following: <S> A meeting located on the fringe of something else — "We just came back from the fringe meeting." <S> A meeting about a topic considered "fringe" — "You can find the strangest beliefs at a fringe meeting." <S> A secondary or alternative meeting as opposed to the primary meeting <S> — "The boardroom's rulings resulted in many fringe meetings." <S> A meeting about extreme alternatives or paths differing from the current plan — "We need to host a fringe meeting to spice up our portfolio." <S> All of this being said, the fourth example is most likely the closest to the usage you are hearing. <S> One of the casualties of buzzword lingo is that "fringe" is a neat sounding way to say "out-of-the-box". <S> The latter is now a codified cliche; the former is just its euphemism. <S> If you are not in a business setting, than the second option above is more likely. " <S> Fringe beliefs" often refer to topics popular outside of the typical corpus of human behavior. <S> NGrams somewhat interestingly shows a spike in usage during the 60-70s . <S> My history of philosophy is a little rusty, but I believe that this was during the rise of postmodernism and the tail 60s counterculture movement . <A> Honestly I would need to hear the full context of the statement. <S> They're using "fringe", an adjective, as a noun.
| My best guess here is that "fringe meeting" means "a meeting of a fringe group".
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Which is the proper spelling: "Adapter" or "adaptor"? In my current project we are writing a program to convert a newer protocol to an older one. These conversion programs are being referred to as adapters , but the team cannot agree which spelling to use: adapter or adaptor . I personally plump for adapter , as adaptor sounds like its a person (like actor , realtor , etc.) rather than a device. Is there a case for using one rather than the other? <Q> Both are commonly used and listed in dictionaries, but adapter (with an e) is usually listed as the more common - see, for example, Merriam Webster or the Cambridge dictionary . <S> It's not a strong basis for choosing one over the other, but it might be enough to settle the matter in your case :). <A> In this case, the leading example of usage of the word "adapter" is the description of the kind of system you are writing in Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Gamma, Helms, Johnson and Vlissides, commonly referred to as "Gang of Four" or "GoF". <S> This book (which is among the most widely-read books on software design there are) uses the -er spelling, so I would suggest that anybody else working on software adapters should also use that spelling. <A> The "or" suffix tends to be more common in American English. <S> In English English, the "er" prefix is usually preferred when not referring to a person. <S> In this instance I would certainly use Adapter . <A> Here's a good article on the subject... <S> essentially, there is no 'correct' answer to this question. <S> Incidentally, some would argue quite the opposite in regards to either form referring to people or objects. <S> There are (not literally of course) endless examples of people roles ending in -er. <S> Caterer, lecturer, carpenter etc. <A> The British newspaper The Guardian, for instance, makes a distinction between adaptor vs. adapter in its internal style guide, namely, use adaptor when referring to devices and adapter when referring to people.
| I would tend to suggest in a situation like this where both spellings are considered acceptable to use the spelling that is most broadly accepted in the particular field you are working in.
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How to pronounce and orally spell <3? It's now an entry in OED, I hear. Anybody know what the actual OED entry says? <Q> It should be noted that the OED did not add "<3" - rather it added the dingbat: ♥ <S> In running text, it is pronounced "heart," as in the bumpersticker, "I [heart] my dog's head." <A> Many would pronounce it "heart" (in the context where "<3" is used as a synonym for "love"). <S> For example, pronouncing "I <S> <3 Huckabees" as " I heart Huckabees ". <S> "<3" carries an unorthodox choppy Internet-meme sentiment that "heart" carries along orally. <A> It is an internet meme that has gained popularity offline as well. <S> The heart symbol ♥ is not always easy to replicate, especially in plain text formats such as text messaging, or when using mobile phones to post messages to services such as Twitter and Facebook. <S> Therefore, like emoticons (smileys) that encourage you to turn your head to one side to 'read' them :) <S> the <3 was incorporated into the jargon to represent a heart. <S> The meme itself often contains references to less than three <S> (but I have never seen smaller than three , as an aside), in terms of "I less than three you", seen in these t-shirt designs: "Is it too soon to say I less than three you?" <S> shirt <S> "Less Than Three" shirt <A> The OED doesn't actually have an entry for '♥', or '<3'. <S> It has a new definition for 'heart' : trans. <S> colloq. <S> (orig. <S> U.S.). <S> To love; to be fond of. <S> As to how to pronounce '<3', I think it would generally be the same as heart . <S> To orally spell it out I would say "less than, three" <A> I'd pronounce it either "love" or "heart". <S> It makes more sense to say "I love <popstar-of-choice>", but the "I heart <name>" version is commonly heard colloquially (when imitating this form), which comes from the practice of writing a heart symbol for love (as on the iconic "I ♥ New York" T-shirts, for instance).
| I would pronounce it as either love or heart , and orally spell it as less than three .
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What's the difference between something that it is "connected" and "interconnected?" I always thought that inter means that the elements I'm talking about has a relation with another one. The word "connected" already has this meaning.So when I read "interconnected" I think about: "something attach-idly joined to another" I would appreciate if someone can explain this to me. <Q> One example of nodes that are interconnected but not connected: A <S> == B = <S> = <S> C | | <S> D <S> B is connected to A, C, and D. A is connected to B. <S> But A, B, C, and D are all interconnected . <A> The only useful distinction I can make is that connection refers to the linkage between two things (nodes) while interconnection refers to multiple connections among multiple nodes. <S> This is not borne out by examining dictionary definitions, however, and if dictionaries (i.e. current usage) have it right the two are pretty much interchangeable. <S> If you look at the word roots, interconnection seems pleonastic: con (together) <S> + nectere (bind) already means bind together in connect . <S> Adding inter (between, among) to "bind together" only adds "between" or "among" to the meaning. <S> One wonders how things can be bound together without being "bound together between" — but that is language for you. <S> Etymonline tells us that interconnect is by far the more recent coinage, first attested in 1865, some three centuries after connect. <S> So I really don't have any good advice other than to mention how I think of the difference, as I did in the first paragraph of this answer. <A> How about this?"to be or become MUTUALLY connected" from " https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interconnection " <S> The difference being the mutual part. <S> As in... I can CONNECT with someone while he/ <S> she is not CONNENTING with me... <S> But if we're interconnected then we BOTH connect TO EACH OTHER.
| The distinction I draw (and I don't have a source for this unfortunately) between connected and interconnected, is that connected implies a local topological property whereas interconnected implies a more global and mutual topological property.
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Is "ringing somebody up" exclusive to telephone use in British English? Is ringing somebody up exclusive to telephone use, or can it be used to say you made a call on somebody's person? EDIT : Note that my question is specifically asking about British English ; I would love to hear from an actual Brit the answer. <Q> The Oxford English Dictionary clearly states: <S> ring: [trans. <S> , Brit.] <S> call by telephone <S> The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s <S> Dictionary also says “to make a telephone call to someone”. <S> excerpts doesn't bring any other use either. <S> Answer Officially Sponsored by Mr. Disappointment, Britishness Expert! <A> It may be localized, but 'ringing someone up' is used in the American mid-atlantic area to refer to the process of tallying someone's purchases at a store, eg: <S> I can ring someone up in this line. <S> (said by a cashier who is unoccupied) <S> or She's ringing someone up right now, but will be with you in a minute. <S> (when you ask to see the manager, and she's occupied.) <A> It just means to make a telephone call. <S> It is never used in relation to till operations, in the form "ring up". <S> You might ring up some items, though.
| Though it's always hard to prove a negative, I've never seen it used for something other than a telephone call, and looking through some recent Google Books
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Is "revert the damage" possible? If yes, is it too official? Can "revert damage inflicted" be used in a letter to a friend? Would it sound too official? If yes, what phrase would you use instead of the high-lightened one below? Not only did he type all kinds of nonsense and clicked on "Sent" button a few times on that page, he even tried browsing some others forums where I am a member and "provided some input" there too. I did punish him when I came back, but punishing him didn't revert all the damage inflicted . <Q> The "revert the damage inflicted" may not be a most natural phrase, but is certainly grammatically acceptable and would be understood. <S> In this particular context, I would probably use undo . <S> (Note the other minor changes, which are required for grammatical and logical correctness.) <S> I did punish him when I came back, although punishing him didn't undo all the damage inflicted. <A> You typically repair damage: <S> repair (verb, trans.) <S> fix or mend (a thing suffering from damage or a fault) make good (such damage) by fixing or repairing it put right (a damaged relationship or unwelcome situation) <S> (New Oxford American Dictionary) <A> For example, if you broke my bicycle, I may ask you to repair the damage by fixing it, but if you put all my CDs in the wrong order, I may ask you to reverse the damage by putting them back in the original order.
| You could also reverse the damage, if the damage is reversible .
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What is the origin of the phrase "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade"? I tried to find the etymology of the cliche "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" on the Internet, but so far I haven't had any luck. It won't even tell me if it's a maxim or not. <Q> This is from a sidebar of maxims in a men's clothing advertising periodical called Men's Wear , 1908/09: <S> In business turn obstacles into conveniences. <S> When handed a lemon—make lemonade of it. <S> This reference most likely precludes Carnegie from being the phrase's progenitor as he was selling lard at the time of its publication. <S> It seems Carnegie did not use the phrase in print until his last of six books, published in 1948, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living , in which he has a chapter titled " If You Have a Lemon, Make a Lemonade " that ends with his Rule #6 : <S> When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make a lemonade. <A> It is widely attributed to Dale Carnegie. <S> There's a wikipedia entry for it. <S> It may be older than him, and he may have merely popularized it. <S> Google "carnegie lemonade" and see what shakes out for you. <A> "(Reader's Digest, October 1927) <S> ref <S> However, the saying is usually credited to Dale Carnegie, who published it as:"When <S> fate hands us <S> a lemon <S> let's try to make a lemonade. <S> "(Rule <S> #6, at the end of Chapter 17 in Carnegie's "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" published in 1948) <S> EDIT: <S> Probing a little further, I acquired the October, 1927 "Reader's Digest" . <S> As foretold, I discovered Hubbard's "lemon quote", right there on page 343, borrowed from "The Independent". <A> It was H J Whitley who the phrase was coined about. <S> In the early 1900 he bought 500 acres in the heart of Hollywood. <S> He turned lemon orchards into Hollywood. <S> At a banquet his business partners toasted him saying if life gives you lemons make lemonade.
| Dale Carnegie popularized the cliché, but I found it in print five years prior to Carnegie's first publication. Actually, the saying is originally attributed to Elbert Hubbard:"A genius is a man who takes the lemons that Fate hands him and starts a lemonade stand with them.
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Why do we refer to the "yellow pages"? Why was the color yellow chosen? Why not the green pages or blue pages? <Q> Because the Yellow Pages were distinct from the white pages (residential listings) and they were, and are, yellow. <S> Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, categorized according to the product or service provided. <S> The traditional term Yellow Pages is now also applied to online directories of businesses. <S> This is what they look like: <A> Telephone directories were originally purely alphabetical, and given out free. <S> Many American businessmen thought of printing a directory that would be commercial both in the sense of listing similar businesses together and in the sense of making money, either from charging for the book or (later and more successfully) charging businesses for an entry. <S> The vital thing was to differentiate the new book from the old, and probably the greatest factor in the success of Yellow Pages compared to rivals was a distinct colour that did not interfere with readability. <S> In fact it was so successful that the idea was widely copied, at first nationally and then across the world. <S> (As Martin Beckett says, "Yellow Pages" is a trademark: but having yellow pages isn't copyrightable) <S> (Verified by a former Thomson Yellow Pages executive) <A> The story goes that a printer ran out of white paper and made a phone book using yellow paper. <S> Then a few years later an official version was done. <S> It makes some sense to separate out commercial listings, and if it's going to be in color <S> it needs to be a light color. <S> Some printed books also use other colors, such as blue for government listings, but yellow is the one that has made it into the language.
| As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings.
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What adjective means "sequential" as it applies to words or numbers? Is there an adjective to mean "sequential in ascending order" regardless of object type (word or number)? I need the word to imply "alphabetical" if the object is a word; or "numerical" if the object is a number. <Q> "Collated" is a more general term that encompasses both alphabetical and numeric sorting. <A> <A> "Enumerated" or "ordinal" come to mind. <A> If sorted isn’t the word you’re looking for, maybe consecutive is. <A> Math people would speak of something being "well-ordered", and it's an adjective, but it's two words in common usage. <S> A set of values is well-ordered, if it has a least element, a greatest element, and all the elements in between have exactly one proper sorted position within that list. <S> "Integers between 0 and 10" is a well-ordered finite set, for example. <S> A set of symbols A,B,C,D where A=1, B and C both equal 2, and D=3 are NOT well ordered, because there is no way to decide whether B or C comes first. <S> Infinite sized sets such as "all positive and negative Integers" are not considered formally "well ordered" because there is no "least element" or "greatest element". <S> If you are going to refer to finite sets of symbols, letters, and numbers, I would say "well-ordered", and I would speak of sets of those symbols being well-ordered. <S> Sometimes math people leave the dash out (Wellordered). <S> Well-ordered <S> in Merriam Webster dictionary is two words, but in some math papers it's one. <S> If your readers are not math-people you might find it valuable to use this term, and define it for them. <S> If using a term your readers don't know, and definining it isn't possible, I'd use a long sentence description, and a close-enough-for-rock-and-roll word like Sortable. <S> " <S> These things that can be sorted, easily into exactly one order, I will call for our purposes, Sortable"
| The term sorted seems to cover both alphabetic and numeric. Sorted just means they’re in order; consecutive means “following, in succession, without interruption” ( Wiktionary ).
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What are the differences between "inverse", "reverse", and "converse"? What distinctions can be made among the meanings of the words "inverse", "reverse", "converse", and, for good measure, "transverse" and "obverse"? Is it ever possible to use some of them interchangeably? Are they the same for purposes of casual discourse? Do the differences become more salient in a particular technical context, such as engineering, math, or linguistics? <Q> inverse : opposite or contrary in position, direction, order, or effect in mathematics - something obtained by inversion or something that can be applied to an element to produce its identity element reverse : opposite primarily in direction in law - reverse or annul in printing - make print white in a block of solid color or half <S> tone in electronics - in the direction that does not allow significant current in geology - denoting a fault or faulting in which a relative downward movement occurred in the strata situated on the underside of the fault plane converse : corresponding yet opposing in mathematics - a theorem whose hypothesis and conclusion are the conclusion and hypothesis of another also a brand of shoe <S> transverse : situated across from something obverse : the opposite or counterpart of something (particularly a truth) in biology - narrower at the base or point of attachment than at the apex or top from NOAD <S> Reverse is the only one I've commonly heard in casual speech and only referring to the direction of a car <S> (in US... don't know about UK et al). <S> Some could be used interchangeably, but it would be best to avoid it considering that each generally has a specific meaning in its context. <A> obverse : the front side of a coin (as opposed to the reverse) converse and inverse in mathematical logic take a conditional hypothesis and swap or negate its clauses, respectively: <S> Original hypothesis: <S> "If I have received $100 in the mail today, I will buy a pair of pants tomorrow." <S> Converse: "If I buy a pair of pants tomorrow, I have received $100 in the mail today." <S> Inverse: <S> "If I have not received $100 in the mail today, I will not buy a pair of pants tomorrow." <S> The truth or falsehood of the original hypothesis is not equivalent to either the converse or the inverse, but the converse and the inverse are equivalent to each other. <A> These are good definitions and clarifications, but since I don't see direct answers, I will offer one. <S> As a software engineer, I am familiar with logic, and so converse and inverse are everyday words for me. <S> The converse, defined as swapping hypothesis and conclusion, is of course a position change. <S> Think of someone saying, "If I have to do it, you do too!" <S> A common reply would be "And the reverse!" <S> This is actually referring to the converse, but that would not be said by most people with whom I am familiar. <S> I believe that those are the only two that would be confused in casual discourse, and that the differences would indeed become more salient in technical contexts. <A> Don't forget the contrapositive , which goes from 'If I get $100, I shall buy a coat.' <S> 'If I have not bought a coat, I have not received $100.'and is true when the original assertion were. <S> If A <S> --> B(condition 'A' always implies condition 'B') <S> Converse: B -- <S> > <S> A False---more than one road can lead to Rome (one might not have got the $100 but instead opted for cheaper pants) <S> Inverse: (for the 'not' operator '~') <S> ~A -- <S> > <S> ~B <S> False, for the same reason as is the Converse. <S> (Remember,'A-->B' doesn't mean that A were the only way to get to B.) <S> Contrapositive: <S> ~B-->~A <S> True, if the original assertion is---if fire always implies smoke, then 'no smoke' implies 'no fire'... <S> and so the existence of 'no smoke' and 'flame' with a correctly used propane torch means that the original assertion is not true for all definitions of fire.
| Since reverse indicates direction, I have often heard and even used reverse as a natural substitute for converse .
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Which is the correct spelling: “fairy” or “faerie”? Fairy vs. faerie — which is the correct spelling? <Q> As others have noted, fairy is the standard modern spelling, and faerie is a pseudo-archaism. <S> However, in some contexts there is now a semantic distinction between the two spellings! <S> In particular, fairy tales and the associated idea of fairies typically refer to the genre of folk stories printed by the Brothers Grimm, then sweetened and popularized for modern audiences by Disney et al. <S> Faerie stories , on the other hand, are stories about the fae : otherworldly, unpredictable, and dangerous creatures who appear in the folk-tales and myths of England and Ireland. <S> In origin, of course, the fairies and the fae are one and the same, but the connotations and usage of the words today are headed in opposite directions. <S> A Google image search for fairy vs. faerie shows a lot of overlap, but some very significant differences in tone and content between the two terms. <S> Note that the search for "fairy" turns up a number of simple cartoon drawings and classical, idealized figures, while the search for "faerie" has a higher proportion of non-human and sexualized figures. <A> Here we have a difference between sources: the New Oxford American Dictionary reports <S> faerie (and faery ) as <S> “late 16th century (introduced by Spenser): pseudoarchaic variant of fairy” . <S> On the other hand, etymonline has “ supernatural kingdom, "Elfland," by late 14th century, from Old French” . <S> At least one available data point weighs, to me, in favour of etymonline (and thus against <S> NOAD ): <S> Oberon, the faery prince: A masqve of prince Henries was first published in 1616. <S> Going further, I looked at the French féerie , which derives from Old French faerie <S> (circa 1188), itself from fae <S> (modern writing: fée ) (1140), itself from Latin fata <S> (deities of destiny, or Parcae ). <S> This is unlike fate itself, which comes from Latin fatum, -a , (“oracle, prediction”). <S> So, fairy, fay, faeries, farye and the Fates comes from the same Latin root fata , while fate itself comes from the different fatum, -a . <S> Blows my mind! <A> I would say the former is correct in modern usage, a descendant of the latter which is seemingly from Old French / Middle English. <S> From The free dictionary: <S> For ' Fairy ' [Middle English fairie, fairyland, enchanted being, from Old French faerie, from fae, fairy, from Vulgar Latin Fta, goddess of fate, from Latin ftum, fate; see fate.] <S> For ' Faerie ': <S> [Middle English faierie, fairie; see fairy.] <A> The current usage difference is that fairy is the mythical creature, and faerie is the world of fairies. <S> However, Brian Froud, who is considered to be the main authority of fairies, nearly always uses the archaic form faery or faeries. <S> I personally like to use the old form, but my spell-checker doesn't like it, ha. <S> Anyway, not a linguist here, but rather a fairy enthusiast, who's read the etymology of the word a number of times in my studies. <A> As for the origin, it reports it is late 16th century (introduced by Spenser), and it is a pseudo-archaic variant of fairy .
| As reported from the NOAD, faerie (or faery ) is the archaic or literary word for fairyland , or fairy .
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"By" vs "Per". Which one should I use on expressions like "P&L/Geography" or "VaR/Asset"? In the finance field, it is quite common to express some measures in relation to some grouping criteria. Some groupings can be temporal (year, month, etc.) and others like greography, asset class (e.g. a financial product), strategy (used in trading), and others. Which one is the most appropriate preposition to apply in this kind of expression ? "VaR per asset" or "VaR by asset" "P&L per strategy" or "P&L by strategy". Is there any well defined rule behind the most appropriate use ? <Q> The two are often used differently (though there are many cases where both would work). <S> The word "per" carries the implication (as in percent ) that there is a division going on - so if someone says to me "I'll tell you the number of widgets manufactured per employee" I'm expecting one number - the total number of widgets manufactured divided by the number of employees. <S> If instead they said "This table gives a breakdown of number of widgets manufactured by employee", I would expect to see a list of employees, and for each one the number of widgets manufactured by that employee. <S> Of course, in many circumstances both usages could work: a table giving the total profit for each of the past ten years could be "profit per year" (because each row in the table gives the profit/year ratio for that one year), or "profit by year" (because it shows the profit associated with each year). <A> I always use by , because in this context we mean " grouped by" PnL by trader = <A> Per is usually used to mean "for each," especially with units, where it is used to express a rate. <A> You can make a case for either if the grouping is really a subgrouping. <S> There is not a functional difference between "chickens sold per season" and "chickens sold by season." <S> More often I notice "by" used in this context, but I imagine it's a matter of local preference. <A> The word "per" has its roots on Latin language, while "by" has roots on Germanic Languages. <S> Meaning is also a bit different: "by" usually refers to a person or object. <S> "Per" refers to a category. <S> Example: You don't say "This work was done per me". <S> You say "This work was done by me".
| PnL results grouped by trader PnL by day= PnL results grouped by day VaR by asset = VaR results grouped by asset VaR by portfolio = VaR results grouped byportfolio
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What is the origin of the phrase "forty winks," meaning a short nap? Inspired by the question How long is a 'wink'? , I did some work on the origin of the phrase forty winks . Though the OP at the wink question mentions the phrase, it does not ask about its origin. So I thought I'd ask the question here and post what I've found. I was able to find an antedating not mentioned by any of the usual phrase-dictionary suspects. The most accurate information I found elsewhere was from a post by Ken G in a discussion of the phrase at Wordwizard. Any other insights welcome. <Q> William Kitchiner M.D. (1775–1827) was an optician, inventor of telescopes, amateur musician and exceptional cook. <S> His name was a household word during the 19th century, and <S> his Cook’s Oracle was a bestseller in England and America. <S> Wikipedia <S> The phrase is mentioned in a November 1821 issue of the British Literary Chronicle , in a review of Kitchiner's book: <S> Sleep is a subject on which our author acknowledges his feelings are tremblingly alive; he is fond of a 'forty-winks' nap in an horizontal posture,' as the best preparative for any extraordinary exertion, either of body or mind. <S> Here is a clip from an 1822 copy of Kitchiner's book: <S> The use of quotes around a forty winks nap seems to indicate Kitchiner might have borrowed the phrase from elsewhere, but I can't find it in any form earlier than his use of it. <S> Also, Kitchiner carefully footnotes other phrases and passages from different authors throughout his book. <A> There was also the idiomatic expression <S> nine winks in the mid 19th century. <S> Eric Partridge in his The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang claims that the term already existed in 1820. <S> I found evidence to support this in John Badcock's: Slang: A Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, of Bon-ton printed in 1823. <S> The slang term "forty winks" was not yet listed, which suggests that the idiom was either too new to have merited its own entry or had not yet been coined. <S> As the earliest recorded evidence of forty winks is found in 1822, it is most likely that John Badcock was unaware of its existence. <S> In light of this, Kitchiner was probably referring to the established nine winks phrase when he placed his (neologistic) "A Forty Winks Nap" in quotes. <A> Online Etymology Online reports only that its usage was attested from 1828. <S> The expression had been used by Lewis Carroll in his novel Sylvie and Bruno , and F. Scott Fitzgerald used it in a short article titled Gretchen’s Forty Winks .
| The phrase forty winks , meaning a short nap, can be traced back to Dr. Kitchiner's 1821 self-help guide, The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life .
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What's a good comeback to "obviously"? If someone tries to sound smart in repartee by saying, Well obviously blah blah blah but what they said is actually wrong, then what's a good comeback to that, or what's a good way to phrase the comeback? <Q> Obviously? <S> Simply questioning the statement comes right to the point. <S> You didn't actually say that you were looking for a witty comeback. <S> Just that you wanted a good response. <S> You can always add: <S> How can it be obvious, seeing it is false? <A> My favorite: <S> And I would agree with you, except we would both be wrong. <S> Zing! <A> Someone overeager to sound intelligent is likely to enjoy going into depth. <S> Simply asking "What do you mean?" or "Can you explain it further?" is a good way to keep them talking. <S> If the details in their obvious point start breaking down it should open the discussion up for a direct counterpoint or counterexample: <S> Obviously blah blah. <S> What do you mean? <S> Blah blah blah. <S> What about [example]? <S> Blah blah blah. <S> And [point]? <S> [Backpedalling goes here.] <S> The real wit here is that a group of intelligent listeners will likely notice the inconsistency before the speaker does. <S> If they care enough, they will continue the line of questioning for you and the original statement will be dismissed as a falsehood. <A> If what they said is wrong, there no need for a witty comeback, LH. <A> Well obviously you're clearly mistaken or <S> Well obviously you've not checked your facts <A> If you're sure they're wrong, then stare them in the eye and say <S> Obviously <S> Not , ... <S> or you could be nasty with <S> " <S> Yeah, obvious to one who talks out of his a$$, but for the rest of us .." <A> The right response depends crucially on what you want to achieve. <S> The most common mistake people make in this situation is to miss the big picture and want the wrong thing. <S> You asked for a comeback , which suggests that you want to look good, gain the admiration of other listeners, and puncture the speaker’s ego. <S> I don’t know the context, but I’m guessing <S> what you should want in this situation is either to quit wasting time in an argument that nobody is going to learn anything from, or else to cool off the discussion and get it pointed in a productive direction. <S> To do that, first check to make sure your body language, facial expressions, and tone are friendly and not confrontational. <S> Then, ignore the word obviously and politely address the substance of the argument instead. <S> (This question is tagged repartee , which suggests a totally different goal. <S> But repartee is a witty exchange; it takes two to tango, and your stereotypical obviously speaker is not going to be a good dance partner. <S> Judging by these answers, a global community of StackExchange users is not a very good dance partner, either. <S> Zing! ;-) <A> Another one to kind of stop them in their tracks might be to simply interject prior to them finalizing their assertion with: <S> Actually... or <S> Not quite... <S> If we take into account different circumstances, for example, in an instance where what is being considered might seem obvious even if in fact incorrect, then a less abrasive approach might be: <S> Well, naturally one might think so, however... <S> Each of which is to be followed by a short, concise flurry of information that makes 'no bones about it .' <S> Come to think of it <S> , there's another reply you could use based on the above reference; maybe witty, albeit a little irrelevant to the target given that it might not be read into: <S> I see bones in it... <S> (or some variation of) <S> An overview from the above link: <S> This is a reference to the unwelcome discovery of bones in soup - bones = <S> bad, no bones = good. <S> If you found 'no bones' in your meal you were able to swallow it without any difficulty or objection. <A> What makes it obvious? <S> Ask them to explain further, and question until they realize that their point is NOT obvious, and even incorrect. <S> Ask in a non-sarcastic manner, as one truly not understanding why it is obvious. <A> Well, obviously blah blah blah… <S> Such and such may seem obvious to you, but [ counter point ]. <A> You say, "I don't believe that you know what 'obviously' means."
| Simply point out that they are mistaken and be prepared to substantiate that.
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What we've gelost — why doesn't English use the prefix "ge-"? The Germanic languages that I'm familiar with all use a prefix similar to ge- on past participles: German : Ich habe mir den Fuß gebrochen . Dutch : Ik heb mijn voet gebroken . But English doesn't do this at all: English : I've broken my foot. Where did this prefix come from? Did English ever have the ge- past participle prefix? If so, why was it lost? <Q> In short: In Proto-Germanic, the prefix was * ga- ; <S> In Old English, it was <S> ġe- <S> (pronounced /je/, /jə/); <S> In Middle English, it was y- , <S> i- , or ȝe- <S> (pronounced /ɪ/); <S> In Modern English, it survives in a handful of words as i- , <S> a- , <S> or y- <S> (see below). <S> The Wiktionary page for <S> y- <S> has these usage notes : <S> This prefix represents a common Germanic perfective prefix which was used to form past participles. <S> Already by the Old English period such participles could be used with or without it, and as it passed into Middle English forms <S> y- , <S> i- , and ȝe- <S> , it became less productive. <S> The prefix was later adopted as a conscious archaism by some writers such as Edmund Spenser, who prepended it to existing past participles. <S> Etymonline has this to say about y- : <S> perfective prefix, in y-clept , etc.; a deliberate archaism, introduced by Spenser and his imitators, representing an authentic M.E. prefix, from O.E. ge- , originally meaning "with, together" but later a completive or perfective element, from P.Gmc. <S> * ga- . <S> It is still living in German and Dutch ge- , and survives, disguised, in some English words (e.g. alike , aware , handiwork ). <S> Finally, the Merriam-Webster has this discussion of yclept : <S> "Clepe" itself is a word that is considered archaic and nearly obsolete, but its past participle "yclept" (pronounced ih-KLEPT) <S> continues to be used, albeit rarely. <S> In Old English, the prefix "ge- <S> " denoted the completion or result of an action; in Middle English, the prefix shifted to "y-" and appeared in words such as "ybaptised" and "yoccupied." <S> Eventually, all the "y-" words except "yclept" fell into disuse. <S> One reason that "yclept" persists may be that it provides a touch of playfulness that appeals to some writers. <S> Another may be that although "yclept" is an unfamiliar term to most people, its meaning can usually be inferred from context. <S> Whatever the reason, "yclept" continues to turn up occasionally in current publications despite its strange and antiquated look. <S> Emphasis mine in all cases. <S> And yes, I realize that I haven't addressed the why part of your question. <A> Like German, Old English did use <S> ge- <S> as a prefix to mark past participles. <S> As it moved into Middle English, this evolved into y- <S> (also i- or ȝe- ), <S> and as with many forms of inflection became non-productive and mostly disappeared by the time modern English rolled around. <S> Wikitionary lists <S> yclept as a holdover, though that in itself isn't terribly common. <S> It does illustrate the point well though moving from geclypod in OE, to ycleped in ME and now to yclept . <A> For example, the inscription on the Ælfred the Great Jewel says "ÆLFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN". <S> That translates to "Alfred had me made [crafted]. <S> " And gewyrcan would have been pronounced "yewirkahn", roughly speaking. <S> That said, John McWhorter cites the loss of these prefixes (along with be- and for- ) as part of what the Vikings did to English. <S> They simplified many forms and caused many markers to be dropped. <S> (See Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue .) <A> The only two major groups of Modern Germanic languages still using this prefix are as you pointed out above: Dutch (along with Afrikaans) and German. <S> That's two out of how many Modern Germanic languages? <S> Even Low German has dropped it, save 2 dialects close neighbouring on High German. <S> So here's the breakdown: Germanic languages using ge-: <S> Dutch/Afrikaans 2 dialects of Low German High German Germanic languages forgoing use of ge-: <S> English Scots Frisian languages (3) <S> Low German (majority of dialects) <S> Danish <S> Swedish Norwegian (both forms) <S> Faroese <S> Icelandish <S> The reason why it was lost in English is because it was unstressed and not needed when forming past participles. <S> When presented with "ytaken" vs. "taken" it is clear the latter is one less syllable to pronounce. <S> Coupled this with the fact that the past participle moved to immediately after the auxillary verb (due to Scandinavian influence), which also helped. <S> Had we kept using the Old Saxon word order: "I have the picture from off the wall ytaken" we might still be using it. <A> As reported by Wikipedia , in Old English strong (or irregular) <S> past participles were marked with a ge- <S> prefix, as are most strong and weak past participles in Dutch and High German today. <A> My native language is German. <S> The syllable ge- is used, I think, when some action or situation the word (verb) expresses has passed, is done, completed, being reported, being applied etc. <S> It alliterates to the verb 'gehen' = <S> to walk, to pass by, walk into. <S> Note: the words 'past', 'passing' <S> indicate by themselves the very same situation. <S> Modern English, as a twist, uses 'go' in a form that indicates future: 'I am going to ...'. <S> Both, German and English, however, use 'gehen' or 'go' to indicate a time different from the present. <S> Speaking this way, I believe, yields a simpler formalism than remembering and applying correctly particular inflexions as we find for instance in Latin for past, future, active and passive voice, gerund, infinitive etc. <S> Just listen to children, and you might hear how your language might be spoken in the future.
| I can only tell you that Old English had the ge- form.
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Where did the expression 'playing the world's smallest violin' come from? Where did the expression 'playing the world's smallest violin' come from? <Q> Not being aware of the origin, I had to do a little searching and, to my amusement, came across a an entry on wiki.answers that references the A-Team using this in a T.V episode; you can check the link for complete text if you wish, but the following information is all we need to take from that article: ...interesting but you may rest <S> assured the expression goes back a lot farther than a late 1970's episode of M*A*S*H. <S> In fact the show writers may have been trying to tell us that the expression was around in the early 50's when the show is set. <S> I don't know for sure about that <S> but definitely an older expression. <S> From there I found a answer <S> I guess I could swallow . <S> It stated that a variation of the phrase exists as "The world's Smallest Violin Playing Hearts and Flowers" - while that doesn't quite ring the same senses, it could go to explain the origins more plainly, namely by giving us a link to Theodore Moses Tobani: <S> It's also referred to occasionally as <S> "The world's Smallest Violin Playing Hearts and Flowers". <S> Hearts and Flowers, is a song composed by Theodore Moses Tobani (with words by Mary D. Brine) published in 1899. <S> Though the melody for the song originally appears in Alphons <S> Czibulka's Wintermärchen compilation. <S> A purely instrumental version of the song Hearts and Flowers on violin was used as an accompaniment to a multitude of silent films and began to represent melodramatics and mock-tragedies. <S> This was a contributing factor in the origin of the phrase "Break out the violins" as a sarcastic expression of sympathy. <S> The first reference to playing the smallest violin in popular culture <S> I'm aware of is in an episode of M*A*S*H from 1978, in which Maj. <S> Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit) rubs her thumb and forefinger together and states <S> "It's the world's smallest violin, and it's playing just for you." <S> As you can see, this also captures the usage in M*A*S*H too, which was apparently in 1978. <S> The composition mentioned is from 1899 (according to this source, but 1893 according to Wikipedia ), 1893 sounds like it might be the earliest so far. <A> Here's a 1964 reference to the world's smallest violin in Travel magazine: <S> RIPLEY GOES TO CANADA New Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum in Niagara Falls, Ont., is located on Clifton Hill, boasts possession of such unusual oddities as world's smallest violin — presumably for playing saddest song. <S> It's just a snippet and Google Books often gets dates wrong, but here's confirmation the museum opened in 1963 , so could still be considered new in 1964. <S> Here's a 1952 snippet in The Idaho Forester (Volumes 34-45 - Page 14): <S> Noted for telling his troubles on the "World's Smallest Violin" and for his big black buick. <S> Ward's activities include the Associated Foresters, Newman Club, and the Society of American Foresters. <S> Brookwell hobbies are women, hunting, fishing ... <A> It may have its roots in an arrangement for the violin titled, "Hearts and Flowers" (from Wiki): <S> Published in 1893, though its melody originally appears in a collection called "Wintermärchen" written by the Hungarian composer Alphons Czibulka in 1891. <S> Through its use accompanying certain silent films, the instrumental violin version has come to symbolize all that is melodramatic, sentimental or mock-tragic. <S> Indeed, the humming of the tune is often combined with the miming of violin-playing to indicate mock-sympathy at someone's misfortunes. <S> By the 1970s we have evidence that it is viral, per this scene from M*A*S*H 2 : <S> Showing Winchester her thumb and forefinger rubbing together, Houlihan responds: "Charles, do you know what this is? <S> It's the world's smallest violin, and it's playing just for you." <A> The answer is that Jack Benny had Jess Hardie create for him quite literally the world's smallest violin, which Jack Benny, then played. <S> The sarcastic element came from Jack as part of his shtick. <S> If any of you want to see a replica of the 14-carot gold violin made for Jack Benny, click here . <S> That Mash episode that referenced the phrase just borrowed it Jack. <A> apparently it's from Ron Graham , screenwriter for "Your Hit Parade" but arguably there should be an earlier reference: <S> The episode, "Your Hit Parade," first aired on January 4, 1978. <S> In it, Maj. <S> Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers) complains to Maj. <S> Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit) that Winchester has been displaced from his tent, " <S> The Swamp," by cots full of post-operative wounded soldiers. <S> Showing Winchester her thumb and forefinger rubbing together, Houlihan responds: "Charles, do you know what this is? <S> It's the world's smallest violin, and it's playing just for you." <A> I was wondering about the origin myself and found this page. <S> After listening to an old record, I know I heard the Hearts and Flowers song when something small with big eyes was trying to exaggeratedly extort sympathy from Bugs Bunny who responded with the saying. <S> I'm not sure which episode or year, and the bit may have even been used several times, the song especially. <S> While it may not be the source, I'm sure Loony Tunes has done as well a job spreading it through the generations as sarcastic parents responding to childish tantrums. <A> Perhaps not-so-notable mention: The phrase is used in the movie Steppenwolf (1974). <S> I'm 90% sure it is not used in the book on which the movie is based.
| I'm far from certain it's the original source, but the earliest use of the "world's smallest violin" phrase I am aware of is in an episode from the sixth season of the American sitcom "M*A*S*H."
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Attacking by "Taking the high road" Situation: There are two political opponents running for the same position. In politician #1's commercial, he attacks #2 by pointing out flaws in his campaign or history. #2's attack is more clever. He "takes the high road" by saying that he'd never stoop so low as to attack his opponent, while this itself is an attack as it implies his opponent is beneath him, since he has gone so low as to directly attack him. What's this type of attack called? <Q> It's called paralipsis . <S> It's when you draw attention to something by claiming to ignore it. <S> I'm not suggesting my opponent is a racist, but... <A> Subterfuge : an artifice or expedient used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, hide something, etc. <S> Which leads us to expose the meaning of artifice : clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device or expedient; wile. <S> trickery; guile; craftiness. <S> cunning; ingenuity; inventiveness: a drawing-room comedy crafted with artifice and elegance. <S> So that one might say: His subterfuge led to the questioning of his opponents scruples. <A> Taking the high road is an example of appeal to motive argument, which is one of many logical fallacies that fall into the red herring category. <S> There are really two arguments at play here. <S> The big-picture argument is over which candidate is a better choice for the position in question. <S> To this argument, both candidates have given specific arguments. <S> Candidate #1 is saying "#2 is a poor choice because ....", and Candidate #2 is saying "#1 is a poor choice because he would stoop so low as to say these things". <S> The more specific argument is the one that Candidate #1 has started. <S> He has argued that certain specifics of candidate #2's platform or history are bad. <S> Candidate #2 has offered a red herring in response to that argument. <A> There's a wonderful excerpt about the earliest use of eirôneia by David Wolfsdorf 's "The Irony of Socrates": <S> In discussing cunning intelligence among the Greeks, Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant cite the following description of the fox from Oppian's treatise On Hunting . <S> When he sees a flock of wild birds, the fox crouches low to the ground and pretends to be asleep so that when his unsuspecting prey approach him, he can effectively spring upon them. <S> The fox's hunting tactics well illustrate the concept of eirôneia in it's earliest usage ; eirôneia is the use of deception to profit at the expense of another by presenting oneself as benign in an effort to disarm the intended victim . <S> (emphases are mine) <S> so although our concepts of irony (dramatic, situational, Socratic etc.) are derived from eirôneia, Wolfsdorf had to make a distinction because our current usage of irony does not have the element of deception in it. <S> Encyclopedia has at at least two entries about it <S> but you have to get around the pay wall. <A> It's probably a specific kind of irony (intended meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning). <S> Socratic irony? <S> (I know you're looking for a single-word, but is a succinct phrase OK?) <A> Attacking by saying <S> "I'm taking the high road", is not actually taking the high road (note the lack of quotes). <S> It is rather an ad hominem attack, attacking the merits of the campaign rather than of one's political platform (this is not literally ad homminem which really mean <S> s in argumentation <S> saying things about the argumenter rather than the argument itself; ).
| You could classify this, potentially, as subterfuge :
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What's the difference in usage between "install" and "instill"? Is there actually any difference between the words? I feel like I am perfectly capable of installing a healthy fear in someone. <Q> From Collins Cobuild English Dictionary: <S> They had installed a new phone line in the apartment. <S> instil/instill(AM) <S> They hope that their work will instil a sense of responsibility in children. <S> So, definitely a difference. <A> Elobarating on @Eldros answer. <S> You install a quantifiable object and it can be counted. <S> (Installed one software, installed the President, installed two chairs etc.) <S> You instill a quality (fear, confidence) which cannot be counted <A> To install can only be used on physical object (The excpetion would be piece of software, where it could be compared to a piece of equipment for the computer system). <S> Thus fear , an emotion, can't be installed. <S> In can be instilled , as could idea and feelings. <S> And when one instill fear , it is quite frightening, as it imply the feeling slowling creeping and taking hold on ones mind...
| install: If you install a piece of equipment, you fit it or put it somewhere so that it is ready to be used. : If you instil an idea or feeling in someone, especially over a period of time, you make them think it or feel it.
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Word to describe subconsciously retaining value judgments from rejected worldview What is a single word or short phrase that means the following: the human tendency to make a judgment from a perspective one considers false? Or perhaps to make a judgment with values one does not know one has? For example, say that one half of the world has blue grass and the other has green. John is from the side with blue, but his culture falsely promotes the idea that the grass is greener on his half of the world and that the other side has yellow grass. One day, John discovers that the grass here is blue. He concludes that green grass does not exist because, as everyone knows, the other side has yellow grass. I understand that this might be a strange question, but I have noticed the tendency of people to accept certain pieces of information promoted by a particular worldview as beyond dispute, so that even if the person rejects that worldview, he or she still judges various aspects of the world from the rejected perspective. I am trying to come up with a word to describe that tendency on a psychological level and not a logical level. There are several logical fallacies that could describe this. EDIT : The following is to provide an example that will be more easily understandable to everyone. Please do not take it as an attack on any particular worldview... Jane is reared in a certain religion tradition which teaches that the material world is evil and the immaterial, otherworld is good. When she is 18, Jane rejects this religion and consequentially stops believing in the existence of the 'otherworld', but subconsciously retains its judgments. Her subconscious thought process is this: Heaven is good. Earth is bad. Heaven does not exist. Earth is bad. Clearly, she maintained a premise (value judgment) she should not have even though she rejected the 'facts' of her religious tradition. Keep in mind, I see the logical fallacies that could apply but I am looking for a psychological description. <Q> Your question brings to mind the model of organizational culture proposed by Edgar Schein. <S> He defined three levels of organizational culture: <S> Artifacts <-- <S> > <S> Espoused Values <S> <--> <S> Underlying Assumptions <S> The three levels are interdependent, but the Underlying Assumptions level in particular refers to subconscious beliefs that impact a person's actions. <S> In the scenario you suggested, a person seems to have rejected the surface actions and values of a culture but unknowingly retained its underlying assumptions. <S> I might term that a case of cultural vestiges or vestiges of belief . <S> For a bit of insight into Schein's model, have a peek at one of these links: http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_schein_three_levels_culture.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Schein <A> How about "prejudice" or "being prejudiced"? <S> You judge everything by your own set of rules and do not even realise that there may be other rule sets. <A> I find this question fascinating, but I think that you're making the assumption that when Jane rejects (in this example) her religion, she should reject all tenets of her faith, regardless of whether they are directly connected or not, but I don't think this is the case. <S> What I mean to say is, it may be obvious to her that "Heaven does not exist" and that all things related to Heaven are now considered bunk in her mind, but "Earth is bad" is not obviously connected to the rejection of Heaven. <S> She's not rejected Earth, and therefore has no basis to reconsider her concept of how that part of her reality works. <S> In which case, while she may have rejected her religion, she has never questioned her own epistemology. <S> Now I think I see what you are driving at with your question, which is checking for some internal logical inconsistency with someone's worldview , and I think there must be a word for this. <S> But I'm not sure that you could really consider it a psychological phenomenon for someone to continue behaving in a way that is consistent with their past behavior, even though specific other behaviors may have changed. <A> You could call it blinkered thinking? <S> From The Free Dictionary : <S> blink·ered <S> (blngkrd) <S> adj. <S> Subjective and limited, as in viewpoint or perception: " The characters have a blinkered view and, misinterpreting what they see, sometimes take totally inexpedient action " (Pauline Kael). <A> How about "cognitive dissonance"? <S> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance <A> Phrases like "consensus consciousness" might fit, as well as "prejudice". <A> <A> I can go two ways with this. <S> The first was explained very well by Kit Z. Fox's answer. <S> I call this the maintaining of unexamined values. <S> It has never occurred to her to examine the 'earth <S> is bad' part of the statement. <S> If she still maintains the value after examination and after rejecting the book that originally taught her this, then there are other 'reasons', including the 'vestiges of belief' that ajk wrote about. <S> Some of which may be being enforced by current but biased observation. <S> Those vestiges would have to be examined one by one. <S> The other way I'd go is with a value that is dependent on another 'rejected' value -- which might have been implied by the example 'heaven good; <S> earth bad'. <S> Earth is bad because heaven is the goal -- it is where you are, lets say, closer to god, and on earth you are still separated from god. <S> But if you reject 'Heaven' and 'being closer to god', then there is no reason to say earth is bad <S> (there is value 'being closer to god', and thus there is no negative value 'being away from god'). <S> To me, this is also related to an unexamined value; it is just that the value has been abstracted from its underlying construction. <S> Unlike the first paragraph, the value shouldn't be examined independently, but rather rejected as being dependent on a value that no longer exists. <S> Both of these phenomena are what lead to a cognitive dissonance. <S> While this implies some kind of condition as opposed to the underlying values that cause the condition, I think it is a worthy word to bring up.
| I like the word "holdover" for this, perhaps even "relic".
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