What does “the contender to late-night-punch line” mean?

Today's New York Times carries an article titled, “Mark Sanford’s path of Most Renaissance” followed by the lead-copy on its home page: > “The South Carolina governor went from potential **presidential** > **contender to** **late-night punch line.** Now he’s a junior congressman > trying to find his way in a divided G.O.P.” Apparently, a strident conservative David Brat Sanford emerged from “the place where nobody wanted to even acknowledge your name,” as he told in a press interview to the position to influence on G.D.P’s destiny and its policy. None of CED, OED, and Merriam-Webster carries this word, nor can I find it on Google NViewer. I think this requires some knowledge about the situation of U.S. politics and the background of U.S. politicians. But what does the word, "Presidential contender to late-night-punch line”? Does it mean that he came up from the unknown to the well-known, then up to the popular object of late night show topics and quips?


Is it proper grammar to write a number with "th" after the month or only if it is used before the month?

Is it proper grammar to write July 17th or would it be the 17th of July?


English equivalent of komorebi (木漏れ日) — "sunshine filtering through leaves"

Is there an English equivalent of _komorebi_ (木漏れ日), which means the sunshine filtering through the leaves of a tree (or trees)? It is made up of three kanji and the hiragana particle れ. The first kanji 木 means ‘tree’ (or ‘trees‘), the second one 漏 refers to ‘escape’ and the last one 日 is ‘light‘ or ‘sun‘. _Komorebi_ can also be seen as a light curtain which is more visible after the rain because of the reflecting light from the water vapor: ![enter image description here](http://i.stack.imgur.com/sbCtT.jpg)   Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forest-sun_01.JPG It is also mentioned as the interplay between the light and the leaves which is observed especially on the ground. Additionally, there is a rare phenomenon when the light of the crescent sun during a partial solar eclipse is dappled on the ground in crescent shapes (which is circular normally): ![enter image description here](http://i.stack.imgur.com/GSpem.jpg)   Source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/125678645821705633/ _Sunray_ and _sunbeam_ come to mind but they are too general. Of course, the word is the result of Japanese culture and aesthetics influenced by the nature. But there might be a colloquial usage or scientific term regarding the phenomena related to _komorebi._


One word for "not allowed to do things"

I am making a precis. I have a sentence here.               A child feels sad when he is not allowed to do things on its will.      How can I replace sentence with a single word. " **not allowed to do things on will** " Thanks


Changing person and tense in a quote

I'm reading _Cranford_ (1853) by Elizabeth Gaskell, and encountered the following passage: > "Have you seen any numbers of _Pickwick Papers_?" said [Captain Brown]. > (They were then publishing in parts.) "Capital thing!" > > Now Miss Jenkyns [...] looked upon any conversation about books as a > challenge to her. So she answered and said, **"Yes, she had seen them; > indeed, she might say she had read them."** The text in bold is in quotation marks, so one would normally assume it was a literal reporting of the speaker's words. But here the text is in third person and past perfect tense, although it is a reply to a question in second person and present perfect tense. We presume that what Miss Jenkyns actually said was, "Yes, I have seen them; indeed, I might say I have read them." (Either that or we must assume that for some reason Miss Jenkyns is referring to herself in the third person, which would seem very peculiar and not in character.) **I'd like to learn more about this device. Does it have a name? What effect is intended by it? What other authors have used it, and in what time periods?** I've noticed this device at several other places in _Cranford_ , and I also vaguely recall Jane Austen using it. It seems to mostly be used for humorous effect, as when a character says something unintentionally amusing or embarrassing. In the passage above, Miss Jenkyns expresses her disdain for _Pickwick Papers_ , preferring the work of Samuel Johnson; but this only reveals her own poor taste in literature (in the opinion of the narrator, who also prefers Dickens). It seems to me that the effect is to preserve the speaker's words and phrasing as much as possible, while at the same time distancing the reader from the speaker, so that the reader can most effectively see the speaker "hoist by her own petard." Does this seem accurate, or do I misunderstand?


"The best age to be", precis title

I wrote a precis of a paragraph whose title was " **The best age to be** ". This real paragraph described that each age has its sorrows and happiness-es. What a child can do and can't do. What young man can do, and can't do. and same for old age person. I am little confused about another title for this precis which covers such idea. Any suggestion or help. Thanks


"This serves as a quick reference to verifying resource availabilities in Espresso"

What is the correct way of expressing the following sentence? > This serves as a quick reference to verifying resource availabilities in > Espresso.   >  This serves as a quick reference to verify resource availabilities in > Espresso.


What does it mean "off one's look"

I've come across the following passage in a script. > PERSON 1: And tomatoes are actually berries! > > _The others look at him with annoyed confusion._ > > PERSON 1: _( **off their looks** )_ What? It’s true… What does _off their looks_ mean? Is the person looking away?


meaning of "no earlier than x months from ....."

Are the following two statements written in correct grammar? What do they mean? Can they be written in more easily understandable manner? If yes, how should they be re-written? The student's pass will be issued no earlier than one month from the course commencement date. This letter will be valid for two months or till the course commencement date as indicated above, whichever is later.


'Little' and 'small' in British vs American English

Is the preference for 'little' over 'small' one of the things that differentiates British from American English? I find expressions like "I'm only little" or "She's only little" in British children books. This is something new to me. Are these also common in American English? I am not a native English speaker, but I guess I am more accustomed to American English. I would have said "She's still very small" instead.


Structure and meaning of 'having a just a few' in the following paragraph?

What is the structure and meaning of _'having a just a few'_ in this paragraph? > The major shift here is that we treat both entities and users groups as very > cheap resources. Instead of having a just a few and structuring around them, > we define what we want and then structure the groups around them. The burden > them moves from complex code to maintaining the structure. I find this a > very reasonable tradeoff for a simple security model and the flexibility > that it gives me. This paragraph is extracted from a blog post.


"It is a highly unusual form of melody, one that..." — what is the referent of "one"?

> It is a highly unusual form of melody, one that occurs only in this > composer's work In the above sentence, what is the referent of the pronoun _one_? Is it _melody_ or the entire prepositional phrase _form of melody_? Or, perhaps the referent is the subject of the sentence, _it_? I frequently hear the rule that the referent has to be the prior proximate noun.


What is the preposition category of "along"?

Most place prepositions have an instance for each of the informal preposition categories - I'll refer to them as _active_ and _passive_ , since I'm not familiar with the actual terms. I'm using _active_ here to refer to prepositions which signify movement, and _passive_ to refer to those which signify a state of staying. For example: the active _into_ and the passive _in_ , the active _up_ and the passive _above/upon_. Sentences: > I am _going_ **into** the house. > > He _is_ **in** the house. It is obvious from these examples that the two forms of the "in" preposition have different meanings - one active and one passive. You can do the same for every place preposition, though some, like _between_ , are the same word when either active or passive. So there is a _between_ meaning something _is_ between, and a _between_ meaning something _is going_ between. Sentences: > I am _going_ **between** the two big trees. > > He _is_ **between** the house and the stable. It is obvious that in both cases the preposition remains the same, though one is active and one passive. Basically, to find the two forms, you pick a place preposition (say _into_ ), determine whether it refers to _going_ or just to _being_ ("He is **going** into the house" - sounds right; "He **is** into the house" - sounds terrible; so "into" is _active_ ), then search for the form you didn't pick ( _passive_ , so what sounds right with "He **is** [prep] the house"? - _in_ \- "He is _in_ the house" sounds right, so _in_ is the passive form of into), and there you have your two forms ( _into_ \- active; _in_ \- passive). What I'm trying to figure out is where _along_ fits in. Is it active, and if so, what is a passive counterpart?


Why does the common meaning of "impertinent" have nothing to do with "pertinent"?

Every time I want to use an antonym to "pertinent", I think of "impertinent", which I don't like to use because of its more common meaning. How did "impertinent" come to mean "intrusive or presumptuous, as persons or their actions; insolently rude; uncivil" (Dictionary.com)?


what does "the powers that be have to really mean it for the work to matter" mean?

The following is from Jeff Atwood's blog: > When given the freedom to "work on whatever you want", the powers that be > have to really mean it for the work to matter. Mostly that means providing > employees the unfettered freedom to fail miserably at their skunkworks > projects, sans repercussion or judgment. Without failure, and lots of the > stuff, there can be no innovation, or true experimentation. The value of > (quickly!) learning from failures and moving on is enormous. * * * There are two sentences I don't understand:   * the powers that be have to really mean it for the work to matter   * sans repercussion or judgment I found that "the powers that be" seems to be a idiom. There's another paragraph: > If there isn't a healthy respect for individual experimentation versus the > neverending pursuit of the Next Thing on the collective project task list, > these initiatives are destined to fail. You have to truly believe, as a > company, and as peers, that crucial innovations and improvements can come > from everyone at the company at any time, in bottom-up fashion – they aren't > delivered from on high at scheduled release intervals in the almighty Master > Plan. The following sentence I can't understand:   * they aren't delivered from on high at scheduled release intervals in the almighty Master Plan. Wow, studying English, there's a long way to me.


Usage with "in this"

I am writing a technical report. I want to link previous sentence with the current sentence, giving the reasons. I used the following wording: > In this end, this report discuses a novel approach... Also, suppose I am describing something and then I want to explain more about that particular case by my next sentence. For that, I used the following: > In this case, a segment must have a single relationship... When writing I am having many occasions like the above two. So, can I have synonyms for "In this end" and "In this case"?


What is the origin of the usage of the word "rook" as it refers to the chess piece?

And when did it start being used that way? Before or after the bird meaning of "rook"?


What does the phrase "50% premium" mean?

In the context of commissioning a piece of artistic work, what does the phrase "50% premium" mean? Sentence for context: > Would a 50% premium be OK to include a transfer of IP rights for said art > piece?


When two words are put together as in "put down" - is it a phrase?

When two words are put together as in "heads up", "put down", "build out"... are they considered a phrase? And if so, do the term for these are "adjectival phrases" as they mention on this question: Is "put together" an adjectival phrase?.


What does it mean to say you are doing something "over the next 3 weeks"?

What does it mean to say "over the next 3 weeks"?


Filler-gap dependencies and recoverability of meaning

Consider the following sentence: > In my head, there is nothing more wonderful than [] understanding how > someone else feels and [] choosing to [] take action to [] resolve **it**. It contains multiple verb phrases whose subject is "gapped" (indicated by `[]`), and must be inferred from context. Additionally, it contains an anaphor "it" whose antecedent must be inferred from context. In such a sentence, is it difficult for the average reader to resolve all of the necessary relations? If not, then why, and how could it be rephrased?


How to say "write a program" in a proper way for thesis/dissertation

I am in dilemma on how to open a short text, that is giving instructions to someone to write a computer program. The setting is academic/research and that text will appear in opening paragraph on a paper. Strictly speaking by program I don't mean a complete piece of software, but rather some methods/functions that will perform particular tasks and give end results that will also be discussed in paper. When reading resources in internet and in jargon talk between peers, it is very usual to say _" Write a program"_. But since as mentioned before, this time the setting is academic/research, I am not sure if this kind of statement fits in a text that will be published. It is important that, if possible, the chosen word does not give an impression that we are talking about commercial software. **Is it ok/usual to say _"Write a program"_ in an academic/research text, or should I use any alternative ?** ( e.g.: "develop" ) I would appreciate any help.


Can I grow some gratitude?

Just curious, normally if a person is not appreciating another person that's helping him, the person can tell him to show some gratitude. But how about "grow some gratitude"? It implies the person has no gratitude at all and have to undergo natural development by changing physically or psychologically to develop the quality of being thankful. Will people think I am strange if I tell them to "grow" some gratitude?


Can a participial construction modify an adjective?

> It was a very dark, cloudy night, and they were a bit late **arriving** at > Hagrid's hut because they'd had to wait for Peeves to get out of their way > in the entrance hall, where he'd been playing tennis against the wall. > (Harry Potter) In the example, a participial construction seems to modify an adjective, late. Can a participial construction have the same function as a to-infinitive does, or does this have the role of something else?


The position of "always" in different sentences

I want to know about the position of _always_ in different sentences. For example: > Always she is tidy and on time. Is it correct or not?


"Any requirement" or "any requirements"

Which of the following expressions is grammatically correct: >   1. I will let you know if I come across **any requirement**. > >   2. I will let you know if I come across **any requirements**. > >


What does “soft bigotry of low expectations” mean?

There was the following question from a reader and the answer by Charles Blow under the headline, **“Your Questions, Answered”** in the Opinion Page of May 7 New York Times. > I invited you to ask me anything this week, and you did. Here are my answers > to some of your most interesting questions > > Q. What do youthink of the phrase “ **soft bigotry of low expectations**?” > What do you think of the way it figures in today’s education policies and > debates?—John A., New York, N.Y. > > A. I think it’s a fascinating concept and often a true expression of the way > some children are treated. According to Wikipedia, the phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations” was conceptualized by the former President G.W. Bush, and involves much debate. What does the phrase exactly mean? Is this phrase still up-to-date and meaningful as being questioned now by a NYT reader?


Incorrect grammar versus different dialects

My girlfriend, someone from southern New Jersey, constantly says phrases like "I'm done my homework" or "I'm done my dinner." I try to correct her and say, "I'm done with my homework" or "I'm done with my dinner," but she insists this is what she has always said. Is her grammar just plain incorrect, or is this allowed if she actually has a different dialect where everyone in the region says the same thing?


Can you explain the meaning of sentence and the word "run"?

I am not the native English reader. I want to know what the "sentence 3" means, especially with the meaning of "run." The reason why I quoted "sentence 1" and "sentence 2" is to help you understand the context of the sentence 3. By these parts are included in the article about teacher evaluation. Thank you for your help.   * sentence 1: Thus, a teacher who appears to be very ineffective in one year might have a dramatically different result the following year.    * sentence 2: The same dramatic fluctuations were found for teachers ranked at the bottom in the first year of analysis.  **\- sentence 3:** This **runs** counter to most people’s notions that the true quality of a teacher is likely to change very little over time and raises questions about whether what is measured is largely a “teacher effect” or the effect of a wide variety of other factors.


Can I get an example of statement that can be said to be Hofstadterian? Also please provide a small comment with the statement if possible. thankyou.


"Can't see a difference" vs "Can't see the difference"?

My friend and I are in an argument regarding the usage of the phrases listed in the title. The situation is: Facebook starts screwing up message sending for a while. I express my concerns: "What's wrong with Facebook"? A friend replies "I can't see a difference". This looked correct or at least acceptable in spoken English - people seem to use it. An alternative, and perhaps even more correct, would be "I can't see ANY difference". However, my friend insists the sole correct form in this case would be "I can't see THE difference", backing it up with a parallel to the customary of the definite article (we already know what we can't see the difference between). IMO, "the difference" is more suited for cases where we instantly list the things we're comparing, e.g. "I can't see the difference between Araya's and Petrozza's voices". It just doesn't seem to look so good on its own to me. I know these are rather subtle nuances, but IMO: "I can't see a/any difference" but "I can't see the difference between A and B". Am I correct on this?


Name and list of words with common sounds that share common meanings

There are some words that have similar sounds, though they seem to not share any particular root, and have general connotation. For example, gl-, in gleam, glitter, glisten, has something to do with shiny things. That's the only one I can think of, but I saw an article with one or two other similar "root"s. Is there a name for words/sounds/roots like these? Is there a good resource for a list of them? Could be fun to learn them all and use them for poetic effect.


Word for referring to the arts of the carpenter

You can say "sartorial" to mean "of or pertaining to tailors of their trade." Is there an equivalent for carpenters?


What's the "case" in "basket case"?

The following is a passage from an article on the origin of the idiom _basket case_ : > The origins of this idiom are somewhat grisly. In World War I, there were > cases reported which involved soldiers who lost both their arms and legs in > battle. Any soldier in such a condition would be especially helpless, and > other soldiers dubbed them "basket cases" in reference to the fact that they > would have to be carried around by others. As such, the original origins of > the phrase caused it to invoke physical helplessness. "other soldiers dubbed them "basket cases" in reference to the fact that they would have to be carried around by others." I know what a _basket_ is, but what is the _case_ of _basket case_? All I could think of a _case_ is those container or covering used to protect or store things, but wouldn't make sense that both _basket_ and _case_ go together?


Origin of the saying 'eyes like pissholes in the snow'

What is the origin of the phrase _eyes like pissholes in the snow_?


Meaning of "a can not"

What is the meaning of _a can not_? > This guy is a can't-miss prospect. I heard this sentence in an English movie.


Meaning of "Gambler at heart"

I want to know what does the expression `gambler at heart` mean and in which context we can use it?


What is the correct word order between "have/had", "been", and "already" in statements?

What is the correct word order between _have/had_ , _been_ , and _already_ in statements like the following: > By the time the product was officially announced, I **had already been** > using it. Or: > By the time the product was officially announced, I **had been already** > using it. Or: > By the time the product was officially announced, I **had been** using it > **already**.


Origin of “I’ve heard of [x] but this is ridiculous!”

I heard this on a David Frost show from the 60s. It’s got me wondering who was the first comedian to use this joke form. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButThisIsRidiculous


I am afraid I look servile when I say "please"

In Korea, when I say "please", others think that I am servile. In English, do I look servile when I use "please" in conversation? I want to know the intensity of the word "please" in servility.


Which is more correct, "Which one do you want?" or "What one do you want?"

Which of the following is correct? >   1. Which one do you want? >   2. What one do you want? >


Usage of "as if" as interjection

My question concerns the usage of _"as if"_ as an idiomatic interjection. The references I have consulted (etymonline, online dictionaries, _etc._ ) seem to agree that _"as if"_ is used in this context to convey incredulity or doubt. This is how I have always thought of it. The other day, I was with friends who used _"as if"_ to express their surprise and joy about a wedding proposal. They weren't being sarcastic or incredulous; they were genuinely happy about the proposal. Here is a loosely paraphrased version of what they said: _"As if they're getting married!"_ Is my friends' usage of _"as if"_ standard? Is it a primarily regional distinction? (I am in Ontario, Canada right now.) The closest example we could come up with is someone says "I can't believe that you won first prize!" Of course, the person _can_ and _does_ believe it, so their words ought not to be taken literally. Is it the same idea with _"as if"_?


"At" vs. "in" before verb

In a document I found the following sentence: > listeners are more accurate **at** understanding speech spoken in their own > accent... Would it be an error to use "in" instead of "at"? Actually in this case "at" sounds better than "in", but in general before verb is "at" always used?


"Good at" or "Good in"

> **Possible Duplicate:**   >  “At” vs. “in” before verb "He is good in painting" or "He is good at painting" — which one is correct?


"I am poor in english" or "I am poor at english" Which one is correct?

Well the title pretty much speaks for itself. Also all kinds of other suggestions are accepted. I just want to know the correct usage.


"Would you mind not to do something?"

I have had this question for a long time and I couldn't find any answers for it. I have often heard this sentence from an American interlocutor and also in some movies: > "Would you mind not to do something?" I would like to know if it is correct to use this sentence in this way.


Is it possible to get real property from the phrase "real and tangible personal property"?

My understanding from the research that I have done on the phrase "real and tangible personal property is has follows:   1. Real and tangible are adjectives    2. and is a conjunction that puts together words, phrases, or clauses that have the same grammatical function    3. personal property is a compound word defined by Websters as a noun meaning personalty    4. that this phrase could be written as "real and tangible personalty" which would have the same meaning. That the only way I could see this written to mean real property is to say: "real property and tangible personal property" If you made real a noun and tangible personal property a noun you still could not come up with "real property" as real could be a Spanish coin.   5. I also do not believe this is legal question, as it is written in the Michigan constitution, which was ratified by the people at large not a group of attorneys.


a better way to express "an idea/thought suddenly came to me"

What are some grandiloquent, or simply better, ways of expressing "an idea/thought suddenly came to me", or "an idea/thought struck me", or "I was struck by an idea/thought"?


Which is better: "was dead" / "died" / "has passed away" in my case?

I came across a question in Chinese@SE, which is about a status update of someone's cat. I asked the OP in the comment whether the cat _was dead_ at that time: > I assume his cat was dead, can you confirm this? But a friend of mine later told me that this usage is not correct because _was_ implies "previously was in a certain status, but now is not", which is impossible for death. I've found an answer to a related question on English@SE, somehow backing my friend's opinion in another way, but meanwhile I think the last exception raised in the answer fits my situation. So do I have to use _died_ or _has passed away_ in this case?


What’s the difference between "in" and "at" when used before a Location/Site/Country/County etc

We always were told that you could use the word _in_ before a place which is a large space e.g. country/city etc. Whereas, before a smaller site or place you should use _at_. But actually I don’t know what the precise scope limitation between those two words is. Large? How large is _large_? Small? How small?


The origin of the term half assed

Does this slang originate from half asked, since the difinition means exactly that. You only did half what I asked you.


Is "humbleness" a word?

I am curious if "humbleness" is a word that can be used in place of the word "humility." Example usage: A certain amount of humbleness is necessary to fit in with the office environment.


Is yea an acceptable replacement for yeah?

I'm an amateur writer, writing almost entirely fanfiction, and I use the word 'yea' in my writings rather often instead of yeah. In sentences like "If you mean did that just happen? Yea." or "Yea... I'm gonna need another cup of coffee before dealing with this." I know that originally Yea was the opposite of Nay but more and more I'm seeing people use it in place of Yeah, dropping the h. Is that becoming the correct way, an acceptable way, of saying it or am I just mistaken?


"As of this patch..." , "From this patch onward..."?

I want to express that the new patch of the software I am writing enables the system to do "X". Which of the following options are preferable: >   * As of this patch, the system is able to do X. >   * From this patch onward... >   * Starting on this patch... > Any other sugestions will be much appreciated.


Term for words like Snowmageddon, Nipplegate and even cheeseburger?

Is there a term for words like _Snowmageddon_ , _Nipplegate_ and even _cheeseburger_? I know they're portmanteaus (or portmanteaux), but they seem to belong to a special class of portmanteau. In the title examples, _Armageddon_ , _Watergate_ and _hamburger_ seem to be the "mother" terms respectively (more so than _snow_ , _nipple_ , and _cheese_ ), and the derived terms _Snowmageddon_ , _Nipplegate_ and _cheeseburger_ seem to be child terms in the sense that each _clearly_ alludes to its mother term and could conceivably have sibling terms like _Floodmageddon_ , _Lewinskygate_ , and _chiliburger_. Actually, the more I thought about examples of this phenomenon, the more I came up with examples that fit the description but weren't strictly portmanteaus. One might be "Rat Pack", which gets referenced by "Brat Pack" and "Frat Pack". Idk, maybe I'm getting too inclusive. Is anyone familiar with a term for this or has seen a list of them? I love lists.


Translation of slang *pass*

I have a movie (The wolf of wall street) I'm translating (subtitling) with the dialog below, and I really don't have a clue what this _pass_ is about. I'd appreciate a help understanding it. > -I'm not gonna give you a fuckin' pass, just give me the case. > > -Oh, you're not gonna give me a pass? > > -Get out of here. Look, it's a figure fuckin' speech. > > -Oh my God, the Emperor of Foxville > > -Just give me the fuckin' case > > -came down from Foxville to give me a pass!


How does one write the name of a married female and spouse in a list of classmates?

In a list of classmates, how is the name of a married female and spouse listed? Is the female given name or her husband's given name written first? How is the maiden name shown?


Was "oop" really more common than "oops" till 1990?

Ngrams shows a marked preference for _oop_ over _oops_ up until 1990: ![](http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=oop%2Coops&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3) Is Ngrams to be trusted here? Is it strange that I've never seen _oop_ in writing? Even Dictionary.com doesn't have anything more than acronyms under _oop_.


Why do we refer to the floors of buildings as stories? Example: > I live up on the sixth **story**.


What do you call things made out of natural waste materials?

How do you categorize things (say, a toy, doll or idol) made out of natural wastes like leaves, trunks, etc., from nature?


An unlikely but very bad event (technical word)

I'm looking for a word that describes an event or situation that is problematic but unusual. The word should indicate that something is theoretically possible, but so unlikely that you could ignore it. Example: > Physicists laugh at the [unlikely but bad] possibility that the large hadron > collider creates a black hole that engulfs the planet. There are many words in the English language that relate to things that cause harm with varying shades of meaning: _pernicious_ events are harmful but subtle, _maleficent_ characters spread destruction using tools of magic, and an _inimical_ situation both harms and frustrates. In technical fields, harmful but unlikely events tend to form the core areas of concern—the LHC is a perfect example. It seems rather likely that there is a word, perhaps drawn from technical jargon, that succinctly captures this idea. EDIT: Added additional background, specified technical nature of question, and asked for jargon.


Does "end up with something" always mean possession? (Harry Potter spoilers)

Does "end up with an object" always mean _possession_? Can it possibly mean _destruction_? Here is the context. **Source:** _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ by J.K.Rowling. Characters: Harry Potter, Dumbledore, Snape.   Object: the Elder Wand. The first passage: > **Harry** : “If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him **to end up > with the Elder Wand** , didn’t you?”   >  **Dumbledore:** “I admit that was my intention,” said Dumbledore, “but it > did not work as I intended, did it?” Does it mean that, according to Dumbledore's plan, Snape would have become the master of the wand? The second passage: > **Harry** : “Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never > defeated Dumbledore. ... Dumbledore’s death was planned between them! > Dumbledore intended to die, undefeated, the wand’s last true master! If all > had gone as planned, the wand’s power would have died with him, because it > had never been won from him!” (Harry explains that, according to Dumbledore's plan, the power of the wand would have been destroyed.)   * If "end up with an object" always means possession, don't you think that the passages are contradictory?   * If not, how we can possibly distinguish which of the two possible meanings is applicable: possession or destruction?


The third conditional for "if I could"

What is the third conditional for "if I could"? For example, we say: > If I had studied hard, I would have passed the exam. _How about this:_ > > If I could study, I would have passed the exam.[Is there a past perfect for > could?]


"strain gauge" or "gage"?

When referring to a device that measures tensile or compressive force, is the correct spelling _strain gauge_ or _strain gage_? I realize that in general _gage_ is an archaic spelling of the word _gauge_ , but which spelling should be used in this compound? (Context is an engineering dissertation on signal processing)   * Google Ngram viewer


Proper usage of plural/singular verb

I wanted to ask, which of these two is correct. I would be grateful for your answer. > People’s lives is involved. Or > > People’s lives are involved. 2nd is grammatically correct, I think.


How do you call the sound of a bell?

If you want to describe the sound of a small brass bell that you can hold in your hand (this is an example image of what I mean \- what word would you use? _Brrring_? _Bling_?


Is there a reversal in the following sentence?

> This mapping also helps better support page parameters. Is the above sentence the same as this one? > This mapping also helps support page parameters better. The original sentence is extracted from the tech book ' _Silverlight 4 in action_ '.


Does "split" necessarily mean 50/50?

In the Jerusalem Post headline, _Palestinians split on Itamar_ , the statistics cited in the article say that approximately two-thirds of the Palestinians who were polled opposed the attack ( _Itamar_ is the name of an Israeli town in the West Bank that was the site of a terrorist attack). Can _split_ mean divided in a manner other than 50/50? When contacted, the Jerusalem Post editorial staff defended the headline. Do you agree? If so, is there a limit to the ratio; for instance, if 90% were opposed, would it still be called _split_?


What is the lexical class of the word 'worth' when used in a sentence like "Is this apple worth $3?"

The question "Not worth the paper it's printed on" \- wrong meaning? got me thinking about what part of speech, or lexical class, the word 'worth' takes? A comment in "Is it worth it?" vs. "Does it worth it?" advises to treat 'worth' as an adjective, but I'm not sure that's right. 'Worthy' is an adjective, but that's not the same as 'worth'. In the title question you could replace 'worth' with the phrase 'of comparable value to'; what part of speech would _that_ phrase be considered? Are the word and the phrase in the same lexical class? * * * **Edit:** Just to throw another option out, after a stimulating discourse under the answer provided by @Henry: Wiktionary mentions that used in the context of this question, 'worth' is considered an adjective, but it also notes that > The modern adjectival senses of worth compare two noun phrases, prompting > some sources to classify the word as a preposition. Most, however, list it > an adjective, some with notes like "governing a noun with prepositional > force." It also notes that > Joan Maling (1983) shows that worth is best analyzed as a preposition rather > than an adjective. If viewed as a preposition, then it is easy to replace 'worth' with another preposition of somewhat equal meaning, such as "Is this apple _about_ $3", "Is this apple _under_ $3", or "Is this apple _over_ $3". Adjective, infinitive, or preposition? ...or is this a rare case of an old language usage that straddles multiple lexical classes in modern language?


Transitive-like nouns

I've always wondered about certain kinds of nouns, a particular example is _worth_. As in:   _It is worth 100 dollars, It is worth it, It is not worth anything._ In which they handle direct objects, like transitive verbs. This isn't applicable for nouns like, say, 'cat' or 'monster'. _Worth_ can also be used in embeds. Eg:   _The car worth ten thousand finally sold._ I can't think of any use alone apart from the idiomatic 'It has some worth'. Am I misled? Or is this a thing like I think it is? Is there any information and other examples?


Is the second "are" required in "Here are the ideas I thought are worth spreading"?

1. Here are the ideas I thought _are_ worth spreading.   2. Here are the ideas I thought worth spreading. Which one is correct?


Past perfect events timeline

In the following example:   * He had walked away when she looked at him. If it is correct then which event came first? "She looked at him" should come first before "He had walked away" but here to me, it sounds like he walked away before she looked at him. How would you explain this?


Why is "taking a biscuit" a bad thing in the UK?

So, I'm reading up on a list of English Idioms and I see two that bear a striking similarity.   * _**"Take the biscuit (UK)_** : To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious.    * _**"Take the cake (US)"_** : To be especially good or outstanding. Now I can understand why cake is "good" and "outstanding". In the USA we're rational, and that makes sense to me. However, why are biscuits "bad", "objectionable" or "egregious"? It would seem to me that if the country thought so poorly of biscuits they'd naturally go away. Personally, I like biscuits too; and, I especially like biscuits with gravy. Why do people in the UK hate biscuits, and how did the saying "take the biscuit" come to be? You can hear an example of "taking the biscuit" thanks to Thunderf00t


Usage of consecutive infinitives of purpose

Is it possible to modify an infinitive of purpose with another infinitive of purpose if the action of the first one is not yet carried out? _Ex. Jack brought beans home **to give** to his mother **to plant** in the garden.   Ex. Jack went to the market **to sell** the cow **to please** his mother._ Is that correct? Is the notion of being carried out important for the first infinitive? Does that imply that the action of the first infinitive is sure to be carried out? Or is the action of the first infinitive perceived as already carried out, in other words, not as an infinitive of purpose like _'brought and gave', 'went and sold'_?


Pronunciation of "xeno-"

I actually want to present this question in two parts: 1) First of all, _xenos_ comes from ξένος. Nevertheless, it is pronounced with "z" instead of "ks" (/ks/). How come? 2) Let's take the word "xenocide" (the killing of _xenos_ \- strangers). Should 'Xe' be pronounced as "ze" or "zee"? In popular culture, you usually see "zee" being used. But, in the context of xenocide, there is a clear connection with genocide (/ˈʤɛnəsaid/, [jen-uh-sahyd]). What should be preferred? I always pronounced it "zee-no-cide". For easy reference:   * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_Greek   * I recalled a very old discussion concerning the pronunciation of a FOSS game's title, "Project Xenocide": http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1639 edit: As another example, take "Xena".


Changing a quotation so that the original is recognised, but has been given a new meaning

I didn't know how to phrase my title to make it meaningful to anyone, and I can't really explain it now, so I shall use an example: The opening phrase on the DSGB website is "It's counting, Jim, but not as we know it". This comes from the Star Trek quote "It's _life_ , Jim, but not as we know it". What is it called when someone does this (mainly for comedic effect)?


Does the etymology of the phrase "Pardon my French" mean that it is an ethnic slur?

I've long thought that the phrase "Pardon my French" is an unintentional ethnic slur. This other question doesn't discuss whether it is or not. I'm looking for historical references that could provide factual guidance.


Does anybody know where the phrase "lost to the ages" originates?

I think there's something fairly poetic about the origins of the phrase "lost to the ages" actually being lost to the ages, still I'd like to know where it hails from if anyone knows. Thanks


What's the meaning of "at 91 yen to the dollar"?

Context (New York Times), > Edakuni Eiichi, the chef, turns out innovative dishes like daikon rolls > stuffed with foie gras and sweet potatoes. The set 10-course meal, which > changes monthly, is 3,680 yen (about $40 **at 91 yen to the dollar** ).


"Programs running in/on machine”

Which preposition should be used in the following sentence? > All of my programs are running **in/on** a 16-core machine. Google shows both options.


sarcastic vs sarcastically

Where is the difference between these two forms? > His message was meant sarcastic. > > His message was meant sarcastically.


Does Capitalization Make Sense in This Context

I have a lot of experience as a content writer and did a lot of fiction writing in my past; Things like the Onion's rules on semi-colons make me giggle endlessly. I'm out of SEO and working as a programmer now, but I got roped into editing a lot of the stuff that comes from our SEO firm. So this sentence came across my desk today and I honestly can't decide whether or not it's justified. What do you guys think? > Learn more about [our company name here], the premiere satellite Internet > Company. Our content writer over there, who has made quite a few grammatical mistakes in the past, corrected the lower-case company to Company. Based on the rules I'm seeing, I can't find support for it. Thoughts? **Edit:** I should also clarify, this is sentence not part of a title.


History of pronunciation of "moiety"

Wiktionary shows the pronunciation of _moiety_ as /ˈmɔɪ.ə.ti/, which I think agrees with the audio versions at merriam-webster.com and howjsay.com. (Be warned that both those links produce audio when clicked.) Anyhow, from an 1832-vintage quotation for sense 1 at wiktionary (meaning _half_ ), I have the impression that at some times or places the word has been pronounced with 4 syllables instead of 3, and rhyming with _society_ : > From New Holland the emu,   >  With his better moiety,   >  Has paid a visit to the Zoological Society. Has its pronunciation changed since then? Or was this perhaps meant to be merely a half rhyme? _Edit:_ A _half rhyme_ , or _near rhyme_ , or _imperfect rhyme_ , entails consonance on the final consonants of the words involved. _Moiety_ (/ˈmɔɪ.ə.ti/) and _society_ (/s@"saI.@.ti/) rise a little above that level, but not to the level of _perfect rhyme_ , which according to wikipedia's rhyme article, entails having final stressed vowel and all following sounds identical. But /ɔɪ/ and /aI/ are not identical.


Beneficiaries of an action ending with the "-ee" suffix

To refer to the beneficiary or patient of an action, sometimes one can form a word using the verb and the _-ee_ suffix, e.g.   * assign → _assignee_   * employ → _employee_   * refuge → _refugee_ On the other hand, some forms like _givee_ (the beneficiary), _killee_ (the victim) or _massagee_ (the one massaged) sound inherently stupid. I guess there probably are other _-ee_ nouns that are at least that bad, but which I would unfortunately miss because of my poor English and wild imagination. Are there any usage rules or common-sense methods that would help me to distinguish between the proper, understandable words and the rest? Any help or some references to on-line sources would be greatly appreciated.


Land cover, land-cover, or landcover?

In literature, I often see _landcover_ , _land cover_ , and even _land-cover_. _Land cover_ seems slightly more prevalent than the others. Which is correct? Land cover is the material covering the Earth's surface: grass, trees, concrete, _etc._ Here's the Wikipedia definition. I typically use it in the context of: > The land cover dataset… > > 90% of land cover classes were…


Height and Weight — How to write them when abbreviations are not used. He was a _6-foot 5-inch man_. (Not: 6-foot-5-inch man, with three hyphens.) She gave birth to a _7-pound 11-ounce baby_. (Not: 7-pound-11-ounce baby, with three hyphens.) And, it should be, I believe: He is _6 feet 5 inches tall_. (Not: 6 feet, 5 inches tall.) The baby weighed _7 pounds 11 ounces_. (Not: 7 pounds, 11 ounces.) Despite variations in punctuation, I believe that we do not separate singular units of measurements like these with commas. Good to all?


"We pulled rank"

What does _pulled rank_ mean? > "Don't worry about it," Mulder said, "we'll take the heat. You can tell him > we pulled rank." > She's the producer on this picture, but she never at any time made you feel > that you should keep your place. I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about > anybody, the lowliest of jobs. She never pulled rank on anybody, which is > hard. — _Sandra's secret side_ , Juliann Garey.


Synonyms for "anal retentive"

I would like one or more synonyms for _anal retentive_. I was chatting last night in an mmorpg, and any message with the word _anal_ was banned. I ended up talking about my _canal retentive minus c_ guild-mate instead.


Is there a term for the name of the country in country's language?

Is there a single word or term for the country name (either official or short name) in the language of that country? For example, Germany is called Deutschland (short name) or Bundesrepublik Deutschland (official name) in German. Is there a special name for it? Of course, I could say: "Country name of Germany in German" but if I want to make "a list of country names (in?)" such word/term would be very handy.


Place of "not" in sentence

In _The Island of Doctor Moreau_ they chant: "are we not men". So my question is: when we place _not_ before _men_ , not after _are_ , what we are implementing?


Terms for duplicated words

I can't recall term used for duplicating extraneous words e.g. VIP person (Very Important Person Person), first question what is this term? Second question, is the same term used when the duplicated term is a synonym?


How to paraphrase this sentence?

I am told that these three sentences imply the same meaning and I can put them together: any idea pleas!                Still, domy and duny products have not been evaluated to date with respect to the       most recent products(smhs) at a global scale. That motivates us to do global inter-      comparison between domy and duny products using smhs products.Our study evaluated       domy and duny products with respect to smhs products during the 1989–2000 period.


Describing a frame as "thin" or "bold"

I need to describe the thickness of an image frame. Is it correct to say _this frame is **thin** and that one is **bold_**?


"Book paragraphs" vs "book snippets"

In the following book page, I have both paragraphs (which is a block of the same type of text) and some special paragraphs which are statements forming a special praying sentence. Here is the original page, and a marked form of it: ![Original page](http://i.stack.imgur.com/PHvIM.gif) ![enter image description here](http://i.stack.imgur.com/YXEOr.png) How can I call each item in the marked picture: snippet, paragraph, section or element? Is there a better term that can describe them both? Understanding the meaning of the above text is not that important as this is not a regular book but one like the bible. That is why I marked the text with blue circles. This allows me to demonstrate the types of text that we have in this book, which is two: one is paragraphs or big Siddur sections like the text in the big circles, and the other contains a Siddur paragraph/section that contains a bunch of smaller elements. Each element is a different section as you can see from the special outline. What I'm looking for is a word that will describe each element that is atomic. Each circle is the atomic element.


What causes a verb to be infinitive only?

Why are some verbs only usable in the infinitive? The one example I can think of is "to spite" (see "to wit in the accepted answer). While wiktionary claims that spited is a word, that doesn't match other ite words, like bite or smite. OED disagrees, saying there is no past tense.


Can the verb "solve" be applied to the noun "challenge"?

For example, "John was asked to solve a complex challenge." I find this to read very awkwardly, as if someone told me they solved a banana. Is this a case of verb-noun mismatch?


What is the proper term for names typically assigned to people in countries using the first-middle-last format?

In countries where English is common, people typically have names in the format `<given name> <middle name> <family name>`.   * Is there a general term for this structure of name, as opposed to `<family name> <given name>`, which is sometimes used in Asia?   * If I meet someone from Canada, who has a name in the `<given name> <middle name> <family name>`-format, should I say they have a "Canadian name", and "English name", a "Western-style name", or should I use some other term?


What is the term for someone that blames you for breaking something that you never touched?

This happens to me all the time in the tech world and I'm sure there is some kind of term to describe this behavior. Here are some examples: With website hosting, you move a website and it's not functioning properly or the same way it did before even though it is. A client wanted to move their email and web hosting. They gave me their current hosts login and before I could touch anything, they complained they couldn't connect to FTP and their email stopped working and they try and blame you (this has happened many times to me). A clients computer is running slow from spyware, malware, whatever the case is. You clean it up and then they complain it's running slower.


What terms describe the various parts of someone's name?

People tend to have at least one personal name and one family name. Some people also have middle names and nicknames. What terms describe other kinds of names, e.g.:   * What term describes additional names, such as those added after the middle name?   * What term describes surnames which combine two family names, joined by a hyphen?   * Are there any additional kinds of names? What are they called?


Should I use "is" or "are" in this sentence?

It goes on until everything Job has ever known, including his children _is_ gone. It goes on until everything Job has ever known, including his children _are_ gone.


"During summer" vs. "during the summer"

What is the difference between saying "during summer" and "during the summer"? As in: >   * I work during the summer. >   * I work during summer. > Are both common? Is my feeling correct that the first stresses that I work (only) this summer, and the other is more a general statement — every summer, during summer, but not in (the?) winter?


Shorter alternatives to "staying up-to-date"

Is this kind of bad foreign English or it would be correct to say "to keep yourself up-to-date"/"informed" when subscribing, e.g., a twitter or a RSS feed? Is there a single verb/adjective/shorter synonym for saying your knowledge is constantly updated/on a current level? Is there anything suited for keyword/tag usage?


Word for an Origin and Destination without regard for route

I'm looking for a word that describes an origin and destination, regardless of the route taken. The words I've come up with so far, route, trip, travel, etc. all imply a specific set of directions. To clarify: I'm interested in a noun that describes a set of two points, one of which is an origin, and the other a destination. It does not care about how, or even if, the travel is made. Additional clarification: The motivation for the question is the naming of a software class. This class holds information about traveling one point to another. Those travels can occur along multiple routes (another class), hence the desire for a path-agnostic noun. Despite the original motivation, I am now very curious for a word to describe this, regardless of the software development context. The best I've found so far is 'commute.' As a thought... I'd imagine the airline industry must have a term for this. Travel from Hong Kong to New York - one route may have a layover, another may be direct, though the origin and destination are the same.


Can you "empower" a goal rather than a person?

I want to write: "...to empower individual health." However, I can't think of examples where "empower" takes a direct object that is not a person. You can empower a person, but can you empower a goal? If not, what other verbs would get the message across while using this syntactic structure?


"Painful" vs. "hurtful"

Can _painful_ be used in place of _hurtful_ as in the following sentence ? > It is a painful story of a small baby fish I would not like to share with > anyone.


Is there a schwa in the middle of Coleridge?

How many syllables are in the name Coleridge - two or three? I.e. is it [koʊləɹɪdʒ] or [koʊlɹɪdʒ]?


What is the meaning of "pur sang"?

In the closing of an English L&U question, one of our users, Cerberus, used what I'm sure is a marvelous construction full of history, _pur sang_ , as in: > "...he is trying to argue here why it should mean something other than it > does, which is argumentative pur sang." Now I know "sang" means blood in Latin, and "pur" probably means "in order to" or something, but I don't get the feel of this phrase by breaking it down into its constituents. What does _pur sang_ mean in this context? Is there a particularly famous literary usage?


What do the letters ï and ô mean?

> **Possible Duplicate:**   >  What is the distinction between “role” and “role” [with a circumflex]?   >  What is the significance of the “ô” character in “rôle” in this work?   >  What is the standard rule for using or not using hyphen and diaeresis on > the words like reelect , reexamine, and cooperate?   >  “Whereäs” as an alternative spelling of “whereas” In an English science book written by an American, I saw some questionable spellings:   * _rôle_ , with a circumflex accent ( **^** ) over the _o_ ;   * _coïncidence_ , with a diaeresis ( **¨** ) over the first _i_ but not the second. Can anyone explain this? I am not a native speaker and don’t understand this culture.


Is 'used to' describing something changed?

I'm an English learner but I found that here are different ideas on "used to" among others and me. I think 'used to' is used to describe something changed now. > I used to be afraid of snakes. (But now I am not.) But others think I'm wrong. > I used to be afraid of snakes. (Don't know how is the speaker feeling now.) I am not sure I'm correct or wrong. Could someone explain it?


Word coined to describe the phenomenon of using an oft-repeated rhetoric to shut down a discussion or debate

Some time ago I read about a word that was coined to describe when someone uses a "common sense" style rhetoric to attempt to stifle or shut down further discussion on a topic, but I cannot recall what that word was.


What is the Adjective form of Tuba

If "xylophonic" is the adjective form of "xylophone", what is the adjective form of Tuba?


What is the meaning of "if only as"?

I can only intuitively grasp the meaning and usage of "if only as". It seems related to "if only" at this other question: What does "if only" mean? However I don't feel they're quite the same. Hence I would like to know the meaning of "if only as", and whether an how it's related to "if only".


What does "My duh on" mean?

What does "My duh on X" mean? Does it mean "I like X" or "I don't like X" or something else? What does "duh" mean in general?


I was wondering whether it is acceptable to put the adverb “rudely” in the following three places in this sentence

sentence: The man looked at me. 1 The man looked at me rudely. 2 The man rudely looked at me. 3 The man looked rudely at me.


Why does Germany's English name differ from its German name?

Germany in German is Deutschland and the language is Deutsch. I'm used to words being anglicized, but why is there a complete replacement in this case?


High School learning address

I must insert in my curriculum my high school studies. Well, nothing bad with this,unless for a small thing. I attended High School in Italy, My school was not a technical school but what we call a "Liceo", an institution made for those one who wants to continue studying after graduation. In Italy every school has many learning courses, let's call them in this way. For example, in Italy, in my school, I could choose among this possibilities:   * A normal course   * A 2 years intensive math and physics + 3 years philosophy and physics course   * A special course with no Latin language to be studied I am calling them courses but in Italian they are called "Indirizzi di studio", verbatim they are "Study addresses". How would you refer to them in English?


What's the difference between "aim" and "ambition"?

What's the difference between _aim_ and _ambition_? In my opinion, it is that we _aim_ towards the _ambition_ , so ambition would be a far thing and aim would be a way towards getting it. Is that correct?


"To kill a fly with a..."?

I seem to recall that there is an expression for when you are throwing something too big at a particular challenge: "To kill a fly with a..."? Or am I way off here? **Edit:** maybe it's not a fly after all? I found this article talking about 'Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut'.


What are the differences between 'offer', 'propose', and 'suggest'?

What are the differences between _offer_ , _propose_ , and _suggest_?


Integrating quotes from a short story into an essay for better flow

I am working on Freytag Pyramid and wish to integrate a direct quote from the text with my sentences. Example Original Text:               There was a white horse spreading its wings of fury over the horizon.      Integration (1):               One thing it liked to do was to "[spread] its wings of fury".      Are ellipses needed at the beginning and end of the quote? Integration (2):               One thing it liked to do was to "[spread] its wings of fury over the horizon".      Can the period be omitted inside the quote? As for providing a source of the quote in the text, I would do something like this               In second paragraph, the protagonist states that she "was unhappy with her social status".      Is there a much more elegant way to cite the source of the quote in the text, so I won't have to include `In the second paragraph, the protagonist states...`?


Does this sentence have too many subjunctives? > If it **please** the king, let it **be** decreed that they **be** destroyed, > and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have > charge of the king's business, **that** they may put it into the king's > treasuries. I am stumped by this sentence construction. First, there is "Let it be," which is a common English idiomatic phrase, but then it follows another subjunctive. Is that to say you can actually have a subjunctive followed by another subjunctive? Also, why does the sentence use "please"? If that's the subjunctive tense there, then why is it followed by another subjunctive instead of a conditional, or maybe "Let it be" _is_ the conditional? Lastly, I wish to know how the _that_ is used in the sentence. Perhaps, the simplified sentence can be restated like so: > Let it be decreed that they be destroyed and that they may put it into the > king's treasuries. If not, maybe the simplified sentence can be restated like so: > I will pay [insert direct object here] so that they may put it [insert > prepositional phrase here]. Maybe the "so" word is eliminated and replaced by a comma? For reference, this lengthy sentence comes from the Esther 3:9 (English Standard Version of the Holy Bible).


What does “I don’t think God’s through with me,” mean?

In addition to the comment, “I don’t have to go any further than the mirror. It’s me and me alone,” I was interested to find another repentant phrase, “I don’t think God’s through with me,” in John Edwards' remark after coming out of the courthouse that judged his campaign fraud trial. In May 2nd New York Times article titled, “Mr. Edwards and the Shrimp," "Edwards thanked the jurors for acquitting him of one count of campaign finance violations and failing to come to a decision on the other five. “ _I don’t think God’s through with me_ ,” he added. - - Although Edwards was _appropriately vague about what he thought God had in mind._ He did say he hoped to do something to help children “in the poorest parts of this country.” As the writer says “Edwards was ‘ _appropriately vague’_ about what he thought God had in mind,” I’m not clear with what is exactly meant by “I don’t think God’s through with me.” OALD defines “through with sth /sb” as “Especially AmE. Used to show that you have finished using something or have ended a relationship with somebody.” So I guess “God’s through with me” means (he didn't think) “God abandoned (him),” but I'm not sure of. Although OALD says it’s especially American, is “ _God’s through with me_ (us, them)” well-accepted in English speaking countries other than America? Can I say “Voters are through with the candidate,” “It looks my boss is through with me,” “I heard she is through with her husband”?


Is 'compatriate' really an English word?

I recently saw the word 'compatriate' used in a newspaper article. Upon looking it up, suspecting a typo (or even an eggcorn: it is easy to see how _compatriot_ would be mixed-up with _expatriate_ etc.), I was surprised to see Wiktionary vouch for the word with the sole explanation: "Alternative spelling of compatriot". However, not only did my googling yield extremely few credible uses of this spelling, none of the dictionaries I have access to have ever heard of it: both dictionary.com and Merriam Webster do not return anything. While I don't want to cast unfair aspersions on Wiktionary's reliability, I find it slightly suspicious that no other online sources mention this spelling... And if it _is_ an acceptable spelling, I would love to know what is its relation to the main spelling and whether it is tied to particular regional or historical practices.


Is this comma necessary?

I am writing a poem about a coach. Is this comma necessary? > Without doubt, one of the best!


"Certify" vs. "certificate"

As verbs, what are the differences and relation between _certify_ and _certificate_? For example, in human resources, why is it _effort certify_ not _effort certificate_?


Word for arms "outstretched, overhead, in y-shape"?

Just as "arms akimbo" has a very specific meaning, is there an "arms __" that specifically means what I described in the title?


What does a sentence like "Little if......but...." mean?

I've read it in a news report, " **Little if** any news will be released during the event(China reform summit), **but** official news agency Xinhua traditionally issues a dispatch on the last day." Well, I guess I know what every character means, but I still don't get the idea. The whole report: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia- pacific/2013/11/china-communist-party-kicks-off-reform- summit-201311983528568573.html The sentence is in the forth paragraph.


"There's a bear here"- is there a better way to say it?

It is very common for people to say something like "There's a bear here". However, I don't think that this is correct, because a bear cannot be both "there" and "here" at the same time (barring any creative physics concepts). Is there some better way to say it? "Here's a bear" sounds like I'm presenting a bear as a gift.


Etymology of "Sort"

Did the English word _sort_ originate from the French word _sort_? e.g., _sortie_. Whereas, in French its meaning derives to _out_ , _exit_ , _going out_. How did it end up in English to mean _category_ , _class/type_ , _arrangement_ , _manner/pattern_?


Is it correct to say "I found the map" or "I have found the map"?


What exactly does "already" mean when used in the imperative mood?

This is a question about American English usage of the word "already". As a UK resident I don't completely understand when I hear Americans give commands like "Stop it already!" In the UK the word already is not normally used in the imperative mood and the sentence I've just quoted would leave an English person thinking "If you're saying I've already stopped it why are you asking me to stop it again?"


Usage of "p." versus "pp." versus "pg." to denote page numbers and page ranges

At the risk of saying something foolish, I won't attempt to answer the question myself. I understand that all three synchronically more or less equivalent and substitutable, but it would be quite nice to know the traditional usage notes on the abbreviations.


What is a more eloquent way to say "I hope I'm not asking too much"?

I've been emailing back and forth with another professional who has been very generous in sharing a workflow developed at their institution. This professional has gone to great lengths to answer my questions. Given that he has no obligation to answer my questions, I'm starting to feel that I'm overstepping boundaries by asking for more details that would require a higher level of investment for him to answer. I feel that "I hope I'm not asking too much" is cliche at this point in the discussion. What would be a more sincere way to communicate that the effort is appreciated and helpful, and then follow up with another request while making it clear that he has no obligation to reply. It may also be helpful to note that this would be the last question.


Why is "pull my finger" a joke?

I've heard of this joke in the TV show "Friends" several times, and I don't understand why it's funny. Could someone give me a hint? It's hard to get Chandler's joke for non-English speakers.


What word is used to describe an event that will never occur?

If an event happens a lot in a small window of time, it is considered frequent. If it does not, it is considered rare. What about a _possible_ event that has never happened and which is expected never to happen? What word would describe the frequency of that event? For example how would you answer this question: "How often does a nuclear war occur in your lifetime?"


An alternative word for "lest"

Reading a book from 1995, I encountered the word _lest_ in the proof of a theorem. I had not seen it in about twenty years of reading and working on mathematical contexts. Is this word used nowadays? Babylon suggested to use "against the possibility" instead of it but I found it very easy and beautiful. Did this online software suggest me correctly?


What is a good word for the object under review?

Is there a good general term for "the thing that is being reviewed"?   * The activity is _reviewing_   * The product is a _review_   * The person conducting doing it is the _reviewer_   * The object being reviewed is _?_ The closest I've come up with is _specimen_ , but that is more the subject of scientific scrutiny. I could use a more general term like _subject_ but I would have to prefix it to make the context clear (e.g. _review subject_ ).


That's all they pick on now. (To Have and Have Not by Hemingway)

This is from Ernest Hemingway's _To Have and Have Not._ I don't understand the meaning of the following: "That's all they pick on now. Any kind of sporting people. Anybody with any sort of a cheerful outlook." “They tell me they ain’t going to let no girls out on the streets after six o’clock at night and no girls in any of the places,” Freddy says to Big Lucie’s daughter. “That’s what they say.” “It’s getting to be a hell of a town,” Freddy says. “Hell of a town is right. You just walk outside to get a sandwich and a coca-cola and they arrest you and fine you fifteen dollars.” “That’s all they pick on now,” says Big Lucie’s daughter. “Any kind of sporting people. Anybody with any sort of a cheerful outlook.” “If something don’t happen to this town pretty quick things are going to be bad.”


"A mice problem" vs. "a mouse problem"

My friend said to me one day: "We have a mice problem at UNI". Is "a mice problem" grammatical as opposed to "a mouse problem"?


There is / There are

I believe it well established that the choice of whether to use "There is" or "There are" with the phrase "a lot of" depends on the following word. For example, you would say:   1. There **is** a lot of wine.   2. There **are** a lot of cars. What is the right form to use for **_a pair of, a bunch of, a group of,_** etc.?


Can I say "Intake energy into the grid"?

My UK translator always talk about **sold energy** to the "electric grid" but I need to describe the energy that is put in the grid from a generator (paid or not) Now I'm also using " **InakenEnergy** " as a variable name inside my programming code. Is it correct?


Use of the word Refrained

'The experience of negative emotions in the flow of life can never be stopped, only refrained!' Is this sentence grammatically wrong since the preposition 'from' does not follow the word refrained?


Should there be a space between name initials?

In writing authors' initials in research papers (either in the author by-line or the bibliography), should there be a space between intials?   * R.P. Feynman    * R. P. Feynman What's the preferred way of writing it?


Usage of “how is everyone”

When we ask about well-being when we meet other people, is this the correct usage: > How is everyone at home? or are there any other ways to address this when talking to a person via email or face-to-face?


What is the difference between "palazzo" and "palace"?

I have noticed that _palazzo_ is used not only in Italian but in English too. So what is the difference between _palazzo_ , and _palace_ (in English)?


"Search this website" or "search in this website"

Sometimes I see the following expression after a search box: > Search this website. Some people say that the correct expression is > Search _in_ this website. Which is correct, and what is the grammatical explanation?


Idiom for "nothing bad will happen" or" nothing bad will not happen"?

I just was talking with my Enlish friend and I wanted to use a construction: > If yes - ok, if not - nothing bad will happen, right? I am Russian and I am unsure if there is such idiom in English. It means that if not, no bad things will happen. Also, did I used it correctly? Does "Nothing bad will happen" = "Nothing bad wouldn't happen"? (In my "Russian" mind it is stated this way.)


Does 'symbolic' mean the same as 'symbolical', and should one be preferred?

Wikipedia's article on vespers contains this passage (my emphasis): > The name, however, by which it was most widely known during that period was > Lucernalis or Lucernaria hora (l. c., 126). This name is characteristic. It > was so called because at this hour a number of candles were lighted, not > only to give light, but also **for symbolical purposes**. I think I would have said **for symbolic purposes**. This got me thinking: do 'symbolic' and 'symbolical' mean the same thing? I couldn't tell you any difference between them. If that's the case, it seems redundant to make use of both. There will be times when one or the other is more appropriate for contextual reasons (eg if you need something to rhyme!), but in general, should we prefer one over the other? I lean towards preferring 'symbolic', because it's shorter and cleaner. More generally, is 'symbolical' some sort of hypercorrection? Or, if not hypercorrection, is it in the same genus as 'burglarize', where words grow unnecessary decorative plumage at the end which emphasises which part of speech they are?


What is meant by "same difference"?

Unless you are comparing two different sets of items to then have a couple of differences and the differences are the same, I do not get it. This would be analogous to: 12-9=3, 7-4=3. Here we have the same difference. The problem is, I really don't think the average human is comparing two differences when using the term in question.


A word for one who perseveres?

Is there a noun to describe a person who perseveres? I suppose a _survivor_ is one who has survived difficult circumstances, and a _soldier_ could be one that soldiers on, but neither word has quite the right connotation. I want the sense of "continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty" without necessarily calling to mind images of trauma or war.


Which prepositions should I use after "do your best"?

I always have been having problems how to understand which preposition to use. Of course there are examples, in which the preposition is obvious. For me the problem occurs when "Do your best in/on/at x." means "Deal with x as effectively as you can.". Which grammar rules or methods should I use for this case? Examples of phrases I have this problem with include the following:   * I'll do my best on the TOEFL preparation so I'll get a higher score on the exam.   * I'll do my best on the test tomorrow.   * Do your best in achieving this goal.   * Do your best in the planning of our weekend.   * Do your best in filling out the form. The following phrases were changed according to suggestions by Robusto, so now they don't have this problem:   * I see these questions for the first time so I haven't prepared for them. Should I just do my best to guess the right answers?   * You will have only 15 seconds to prepare so do your best to use them effectively. Should I ever write or say "I will do my best at x", when I use it in the meaning "I will cope/deal with x (as good as I will be able to)"?


"Spelt" vs. "spelled"

In the following sentence, should I say spelled or spelt: > You spelt/spelled "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" wrong.


Sending to a specific person in address

How do I specify on an address that it should be forwarded to some person? Sometimes I need to send mail to a company where it should be addressed to a specific person, but it's not the 'address name', another example I have a friend in the US who comes to visit me (outside the US) often, and I want to ship items to him but he should know it's for me and I want to specify it on the mail address. Is the word just 'for John Doe' or it's been thought out and a word's been made up for it?


What does "screw up one eye" look like?

Here is a quote from Bertrand Russell's _The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism._ > I have never met a personage so destitute of self-importance. He looks at > his visitors very closely, and screws up one eye, which seems to increase > alarmingly the penetrating power of the other. I can't imagine what "screws up one's eyes" looks like. It is even more difficult to imagine "screw up one eye." I think only ostensive definition can help. Please kindly provide a picture.


What does the initial fragment of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy mean?

I begun reading Douglas Adams' _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. This is one of the initial fragments, emphasis mine: > This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the > people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were > suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with > the movements of small green pieces of paper, **which is odd because on the > whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy**. I don't quite grasp what he intended to say with this last line. So, sad people were concerned about money: "which is odd because money wasn't the unhappy one". This doesn't make much sense to me. What is the meaning of this last line?


Is the use of the indefinite article 'a' with the word 'staff' considered standard

The word _staff_ can apparently refer to a member of a group of service personnel. (Dictionary.com mentions this as one of the meanings of _staff_ : _a member of a staff_.) I was wondering how native speakers look upon this usage of the word _staff_. For example, consider the sentence _I called a staff aside_. I know a less questionable way to rephrase the sentence might be _I called a staff member aside_. But is the first version acceptable; does it sound outlandish?


One Step To Backward - Should I Use "To"? Or Avoid it? One Step To Backward. One Step Backward.


the meaning of "need not be uniquely determined"

i don't understand the meaning of the "even" and "need not be uniquely determined" in this phrase: True, even the will of supporters of particular parties is still likely to be multidimensional, so partisan interest need not be uniquely determined


Meaning of "undertakes to procure"

In a contract made between company A and B: _"Company A undertakes to procure the product requirements exclusively from company B"_ What is the meaning of that expression?


Grammar question about modifiers

I'm not sure if this statement is grammatically correct. It sounds fine, but I'm not sure if the 'with the...' part is right. > With the end of the Great War came a great revolution in the entertainment > industry.


'Take it off him' meaning 'take it from him' is incorrect - but what is the grammatical reason?

'I took it off him' OR 'I took it from him'. I know that the second version is correct (unless it refers to an item that is literally on top of somebody, eg a wardrobe had fallen on someone), but what is the grammatical explanation?


Is this a run-on sentence?

Is the first sentence a run-on? Should the second sentence use ":" instead of ";"? > Here's giving you the courtesy of informing you, beforehand, that Rahul, a > new housemate, will be moving in this week. He appears to be a very calm > guy; staid and easygoing.


Actually work vs Actually does work?

Is there any differences between following two sentences. I have seen both in various places and I can't really find a difference between them. > It actually works. > > It actually does work. Does the latter more emphasis on the result ? Is it grammatically correct ? In my view however the latter should be incorrect.


What's the difference between "you" and "one" in the indefinite?

English, especially in the colloquial, often uses _you_ for generic statements about people. For example, _When you are angry, you act less rationally_ is not necessarily a statement about the listener, but about people in general. However, it's also correct (as far as I know) to say _When one is angry, one acts less rationally_. Is there a difference between these two forms? Is one of them more correct than the other?


Origin of "jack sh*t"

Why do we say "Jack Shit" to mean "nothing at all"?


What is the word for a step that is too small?

What word would you use to descripe a step of a process that should be combined with another step because it is too small to be its 'own' step? Example.   1. Create a copy of the file.   2. Rename the file.   3. Make the file name "hello.txt".   4. Open the file.. blah blah blah... You could consider step 2 and 3 to be a single step. What would you describe step 3 as, considering it is a miniscule step and could be combined with 2? Kind of a bad example... I'll try to think of another if I can. Hopefully you understand what I mean by this.


What's the tense for repetitive past action?

In English, "would" usually denotes a conditional voice. "If I were sleepy, I would go to bed." But I've caught myself using it to denote repetitive or habitual past action. "On Thursdays, we would go to the dump to shoot rats." It sounds perfectly idiomatic (and I don't know what I could replace it with.) What is this called? Is the imperfect in Spanish roughly the same thing?


What's the shortest length of time an "era" can be?

In day to day usage (by which I mean non-scientifically specific), what would you say is the shortest period of time an _era_ could be? Definitions of the word state: > ...a long and distinct period of history with a particular feature or > characteristic. The thought occurred when I came across a text which said " _from the World War II era_ ". To me this seems a inaccurate use of the word (being ~6 years), but I can't find anything to backup my assertion that it needs to be longer than this.


Meaning and Usage of the word 'Welter'

Could anyone make this understand to me the meaning and usage of the word 'Welter'? I gone through Vocabulary.com and found this. > Use the noun welter to describe an enormous, messy pile, like the jumble of > papers, coffee mugs, pens, and food wrappers on the desk of the messiest > person in the office How can I use this word as a noun and as a verb in making a correct sentences? Could anyone let me know the more simple and understandable meaning with proper example? **What is the meaning of welter of emotional argument?**


When referring to a previously sent text, would you say 'I text you about that' or 'I texted you about that'?

I realize _texted_ is not a word, but _text_ doesn't seem appropriate in the above sentence. What would make more sense?


Can the verb 'judge' collocate with 'of'?

I saw this sentence in an essay: > Children’s cognitive development is on the preoperational stage, so they > cannot consider as logical and judge of dangerous events. I would say "judge sth" or "judge sth on sth" but never heard of "judge of sth" (where _judge_ is a verb and not a noun), so I looked up on some dictionaries and the internet but could not find reliable sources. If this is a legit usage of _judge_ **as a verb** , can you explain and give some examples? And I also want to ask about the phrase “as logical” in the above sentence but that would be another question. But I don't mind if you also explain this :) I don't quite get it. Does it mean “as logical as adult” or simply “logically”, or is it wrong?


Do "You see me?" and "You get me?" mean "Do you understand what I mean?"

Sometimes after finish explaining something, people will say, "You see me?" or "You get me?" I wonder if they are equivalent to "Do you understand what I mean?"


"Same to" or "same as"

I have asked a question at the programming site, but I am not sure about my grammar, so I am going to ask here. Which is correct? > What are other languages **same to** F#? > > What are other languages **same as** F#?


"No need to hurry yet..."

This question is from a diagnostic test of one ESL school in Bangkok. > Ann wonders how much time she has to work on her assigned project. Her > teacher says, “No need to hurry yet **___ __ ___ ____**” > > a) You hit the big team.   >  b) It’s night time.   >  c) Take your time.   >  d) In no time. It's obvious that the best fit answer would be "Take your time." I felt the whole dialogue sounds odd, since Ann wonders "how much time," not "should I worry or hurry," thus it sounds as if Ann doesn't know the deadline yet. I did the test since I was considering sending my niece to learn English there. But the test gave me a second thought. (And not to mention the missing of a period after the word "yet.") My question here is, would a native find the dialogue unnatural?


Live on different time zones vs. Live in different time zones

How are _on_ and _in_ different in the following: > We live _on_ different time zones > > We live _in_ different time zones


What do you call the maximum number of recent values used for calculating an average

A sensor measures some physical quantity (like temperature). The measured value is tapped every 100ms or so. An average is calculated over the `x` most recently measured values. I.e. with every new measurement the oldest value will be discarded, the new value will be included and the average will then be recalculated. What is a common term for the size `x`? EDIT: After having found out, that the term for this specific kind of average is "moving average" and having read the corresponding wikipedia article, I believe "sample size" may be the right term. Would that be correct? Is there a better word?


Term for locally installed and fully owned software

I am having a bit of trouble coming up with an appropriate term for software that is locally installed, and fully owned by the buyer. This would be the opposite of the term "software as a service", which usually refers to a software service that is rented and most often installed outside the organisation (e.g. Cloud software). Would you have any suggestions? "Local installation" is what comes to mind first, but it doesn't quite fit the bill here since it doesn't indicate the ownership explicitly.


How do I use "verily"?

Since verily means truly or certainly. Can I use it where I would normally use certainly? Like: > I certainly think that is appropriate. > > I verily think that is appropriate. If yes, are there instances where these are not interchangeable?


When did periphrastic tenses stop being tenses?

English sometimes has several different ways of expressing the same thing. For example, it can form a possessive either by using an old case inflection:   * The **dog’s** tail was always wagging. Or it can do so periphrastically:   * The tail **of the dog** was always wagging. Those are both possessives, the one an inflectional possessive and the other a periphrastic possessive. The same appears to be possible with tenses, too, not just with possessives. In Jeremy Butterfield’s _The Arguments of Time_ (OUP 2006), he writes: > A tense is _inflectional_ if it is realized as an affix on a head (in > English, a verb), _periphrastic_ if it is realized as an independent word. > Thus the English past is inflectional, but the future is periphrastic, co- > opting the modal _will_. This accords with the OED’s definition of _tense_ : > _Gram._ Any one of the different forms or modifications **(or word-groups)** > in the conjugation of a verb which indicate the different times (past, > present, or future) at which the action or state denoted by it is viewed as > happening or existing, and also (by extension) the different nature of such > action or state, as continuing (imperfect) or completed (perfect); also > _abstr._ that quality of a verb which depends on the expression of such > differences. Indeed, one of the citations under that sense draws attention to this: >   * The **tenses of the English verb** are made partly by inflection, partly > by the use of **auxiliary verbs**. > As far as I can tell, _tense_ cannot be just an alias for “inflection” as some here have been saying. At least, not if the sources cited above are to be believed. ## And my question is. . . Aren’t these **_all_** tenses, both the inflectional1 tenses and the periphrastic2 tenses alike? * * * 1\. _Inflectional_ tenses are sometimes also known as _synthetic_ tenses.   2\. _Periphrastic_ tenses are sometimes also known as _analytic_ tenses, or _analytical_ tenses — or sometimes, _compound_ tenses. * * * When did compound tenses stop being tenses? Or have they? Isn’t that what these people who pretend that ‘English has no future tense’ are actually saying, that periphrastic tenses are not tenses? If so, then the OED does not support the notion. Under their definition of _periphrastic_. . . > Of the nature of, characterized by, or involving periphrasis; > circumlocutory; roundabout. . . . they have a note, which covers both verbs and possessives: >   * _**periphrastic conjugation_** (in Grammar), a conjugation formed by the > combination of a simple verb and an auxiliary, as distinct from a simple > formation from the verb-stem.   > >   * _**periphrastic genitive_** , an equivalent of the genitive case, formed > by aid of a preposition, as _of_ in Eng., _de_ in Fr. > So periphrastic forms seem real, whether as tenses or genitives. I do not see how _periphrastic_ started to mean ersatz or bogus or fake. So why have some people begun to treat periphrastic tenses as fake tenses? No, they aren’t inflectional tenses, but why does this matter? Other languages have plenty of kinds of periphrastic tenses, and nobody discounts them there. So why have they started trying to discount them in English? * * * ## Other Tongues If one were allowed to bring Romance into the picture, then it might be useful to point out that sometimes both inflectional and periphrastic versions of the same tense exist, and that nobody there ever pretends one is a tense and the other is not.   * In Latin, periphrastic conjugations existed, allowing you to use _portātūrus sum_ for “I’m going to carry”, which coëxists with the purely inflectional future, _portābō_. This is like how in modern Romance you can have both an inflectional future tense (FR _je porterai_ ; ES _portaré_ ) and a periphrastic future tense (FR _je vais porter_ ; ES _voy a portar_ ).   * In French, for example, you can put a present-tense sentence like _je porte_ into the past in either of two equivalent ways: via the passé composé with _j’ai porté_ or via the passé simple with _je portai_. No one calls the first one present tense there, because it is not perceived as such. Similarly, the pluperfect exists only as a compound/periphrastic tense in French, but _j’avais porté_ is not called the past tense (even though _avais_ itself is in the imparfait), but rather the pluperfect, the plus-que-parfait.   * In Spanish, there are two versions of the pluperfect tense, a rare inflectional one and a common periphrastic one. The compound version of the pluperfect indicative is _había portado_ , whereas the purely inflectional version is _portara_ (which is normally one of the two imperfect subjunctives). Those are both considered to be in the pluperfect. Nobody calls _había portado_ as being in the imperfect just because _había_ is; that would be wrong: it is in the pluperfect.   * In modern Romance, the inflectional future and the inflectional conditional were once periphrastic tenses but are now inflectional ones. The present-tense auxiliary was used for the then-compound future, and the imperfect-tense auxiliary was used for the then-compound conditional. Specifically, they used either a present-tense or past-tense form of _to have_ , inflected for person and number, appended to the infinitive. Eventually this became fused in writing — completely fused in most of them but only partially fused in Portuguese, where mesoclitics are still permitted. The compound tense did not suddenly become a “real” tense just when people stopped writing it with a space, nor does it cease to be one when in Portuguese a mesoclitic intervenes. * * * ## See also   * Whose tense is it, anyway?


Words for personal views on life, society, world

I am looking for   1. words for the view of a person on his life or others' lives;   2. words for the view of a person on the whole society, nation, country and/or the world; By "view", I mean what things are meaningful and what are not, what are worth to do and what are not, what are right and what are wrong, ... They can be either nouns or adjectives.


Word request: miscellaneous/supplementary (historical) accounts

I'm working on a site focusing on performing artists and I need a category for all the articles that (1) don't belong anywhere else (2) more often than not, offer behind-the-scenes insights and miscellaneous historical accounts. My research so far:   * _behind the scenes_ : too narrow, excludes misc. articles   * _miscellany, miscellaneous_ : too generic/boring   * _trivia_ : too flippant   * _ancillary_ : too technical   * _addendum_ : too formal   * _annals_ : too formal


Is it possible to say ' your choice *for* something' when you mean 'your choice *of* something'?

I'm correcting a document and several people that co-wrote it seem to agree that 'my choice for' seems to be synonymous to 'my choice of', in the signification of me having chosen something and indicating what exactly my choice was. E.g. 'my choice for Japan as my travel destination'. To me this seems wrong, a choice 'for' should be used to indicate a reason or goal, or a person that will be affected by the decision in my experience with English ('I chose a book for English class' - 'my choice for my daughter's education is school X'). Is this true or is saying 'my choice for chicken as dinner' correct English?


"high-reliable", "highly reliable", or something else?

There was a discussion with my colleagues about a paper that I am currently writing and in which I use phrases like "a high-reliable system architecture". Some of my colleagues hold the view that this is wrong and "a highly reliable system architecture" should be used instead, while others think that the first version is fine, too. Is the first variant correct?


A person you have a relationship for only business

In a piece of software, what would I call a person you have a relationship for only business in real life. He/she is not your friend and you are **not working in same place**. For instance, you are freelancer, and someone wants you hire. So what would I call that person?


"My parents' friendship with..." vs. "my parent's friendship with..." vs. "my parents friendship with..."

Which of these is correct please, if any? >   * my parents' friendship with Sally's parents >   * my parent's friendship with Sally's parents >   * my parents friendship with Sally's parents > What is the correct use of possessive apostrophe in this case?


I with my friends vs my friends and I

I'm pretty sure it's not correct to say **I with my friends go to the cinema every weekend**. However I sometimes hear it from other Russians. I have to use "and" instead of "with" and put this like this **My friends and I go to the cinema every weekend**. I'm still wondering what if... Am I right or wrong?


"Directed at" vs. "directed towards"

These seem to be interchangeable. Are these both grammatically correct? Is there any difference at all? When are "at" and "towards" interchangeable?


English does not have a future tense--what do you think?

Some say English does not have a future tense. In fact, wikipedia describes it as follows. > English grammar provides a number of ways to indicate the future nature of > an occurrence. Some argue that English does not have a future tense—that is, > a grammatical form that always indicates futurity—nor does it have a > mandatory form for the expression of futurity. However, there are several > generally accepted ways to indicate futurity in English, and some of > them—particularly those that use will or shall—are frequently described as > future tense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_tense#English I wonder what arguments are out there. How do the ways to express future develop historically. Let me know what you know. * * * I am interested in linguistic arguments about this. And I though historical development of ways to express future may help to consider this. I am not an English native speaker so that I do not really knows how English native speakers are told about this: the grammar about tenses and a future tense, definition of tenses, etc. When I learned English in school, the teachers told me the present tense first, past tense, and then progressive. And finally they told us how to express future, using "will" or so. Some students could take it as future tense, but it did not matter because they teach how to use and understand English not the grammatical interpretation. As I described, some students in school are convinced future tense exists by analogy of past and present tenses, and later they are sort of shocked, told NO future tense in English. I am not sure that I clearly describe what I would like to ask, but this is the reason I post this question. And probably my problem is that I do not know any details about the grammar about this.


What should one call his or her mother-in-law?

We call our own mother "mum". What should we call our mother-in-law? In China, we call our mother-in-law "mum" as well. Do English speaking people feel comfortable calling their mother-in-law "mum"? Could we simply call our mother-in-law by her first name? **EDIT** : I thought it was just about everyday conversation and not about complicated cultural practice. To be clear, I'm not asking what to call mother-in-laws in different cultures. Rather, I just want to know what native people in countries like U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand call their mother-in-law in daily conversation.


Which is correct: "lying gang of scum", or "gang of lying scum"?

The subject of politics arose in the pub this afternoon (as it should not, really, but there you are), and the question of whether it was correct to describe a particular party as a "lying gang of scum", or a "gang of lying scum" came to the fore quickly (as it will, in discussions of politics). Could anyone suggest which is correct, or (if both) which is preferable?


Term for people in artistic formation

Is there a term for a group of people arranged in such a way as to appear from an aerial vantage as a specific shape, picture or word? Examples: ![Peace sign](http://i.stack.imgur.com/eqInb.jpg) ![Heart](http://i.stack.imgur.com/DjczH.jpg)


What does "back-slap" mean?

What does _back-slap_ mean in this sentence? > Back-slap someone in Korea and they will be offended.


what would you call a guy everybody picks on?

Let's say we have a guy who is stupid and weak and everybody picks on him and mocks him all the time. What would we call this guy? I found _timid_ in the dictionary but I am looking for a colloquial word.


"Fez" or "Tarboosh"?

Having recently got involved in an inconclusive argument on the subject the other day, I'd like to know which of these names is best when describing the hat worn in the Middle East. Merriam-Webster defines a _fez_ as a > brimless cone-shaped flat-crowned hat that usually has a tassel, is usually > made of red felt, and is worn especially by men in eastern Mediterranean > countries and defines a _tarboosh_ as a > red hat similar to the fez worn especially by Muslim men but this doesn't get us very far. Does it matter what this hat is called, and if it does, what is the preferred term?


Does saying I have "functional understanding" of something convey that I understand its functions?

If I say, > "I have a functional understanding of car engines" does this convey:   1. I understand how car engines function (this is what I originally thought)   2. My understanding of car engines is functional (which doesn't make much sense, but what I suspect is correct) So if I wanted to tell someone I understand how a car engine functions, I would say: > "I understand how a car engine functions" and not: > "I have a functional understanding of car engines"


Different forms of the abbreviations for "identification"?

Which of the following are correct?                     right   wrong     ID    [x]     [ ]     i.d.  [x]     [ ]     I.D.  [ ]     [ ]     Id    [ ]     [ ]     I.d.  [ ]     [ ]     id    [ ]     [ ]      Marked the ones i found in dictionary.com And what are the correct pluralized versions?