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I am accustomed to using the word 'respectively' as follows: Jack and Jill went to the hill and the pharmacy, respectively. and this is the way I've always seen it being used. Is it correct to use it in the following way too? Jack and Jill went to two places. Respectively, these were the hill and the pharmacy.

Lemonade is a fizzy drink, strongly carbonated. It comes in two varieties, white (which is actually colourless) and red. I have never known anyone to make it at home. Various things I've picked up in reading suggest that all three of the above sentences are untrue in American English, and the second sentence is untrue anywhere outside of Ireland. Answer Lemonade is not necessarily carbonated in Ireland. You can get the nice stuff here too. It's also not like we don't know how to mix lemon juice and sugar-water (protip: add one lime's juice and a sprig of mint), and haven't been doing so for centuries. Conversely, the Americans have the fizzy stuff too. Pink lemonade (both fizzy and non-fizzy) is found all over the world too. The brand I've seen most often in Ireland is French. I agree that the deep red stuff seems to be much more common in Ireland than anywhere else, though its rarer here than it used to be. I haven't seen the brown variety in a long time,

What's the rule for using “who” or “whom”? With who vs. With whom Are “by whom?” and “who by?” perfect equivalents? I have the feeling that the use of “who by?” is just a way of avoiding use “whom” but I have no evidence or proof. The anglophone people I talk to hardly use “whom”. Are both expressions equally used, or is the difference between them only regional? Answer They're not perfect equivalents, but they're pretty close. The biggest difference, of course, is that whom is a pretty formal word, so "By whom?" is a very awkward reply to, say, "He got f'd." Either "By who?" or "Who by?" would be much more natural. Another difference is that if someone uses a by -phrase that you didn't quite catch, or that you're surprised about, you can reply "By whom?" or "By who?", but not "Who by?", to request a repetition. ("By who?" is the most common wording in this case: "This book is

Is there a generic word for bicycle-like vehicles that may have 1,2,3,4 or more wheels? I want motorcycles excluded; only pedal-driven vehicles should be included. Answer Pedal cycle. At least in British English, it is a recognised generic term, sometimes in a formal or legal context such as insurance Note that the examples of what is covered don't explicitly include numbers of wheels other than two, the term itself is not limited to 2 wheelers.

This question has troubled me for ages despite my several attempts of looking it up in dictionaries or usage books. Do we say, "Do you have any ideas " or "Do you have any idea "? I do see an example where "any" means "it doesn't matter who/which/what", therefore "You can borrow any book you like." Also, does it matter between using it in questions and negatives?

Every time I see this expression, I can't help thinking it's grammatically wrong. Is it grammatically acceptable? Why is it used extensively in this form? Answer The phrase is quite old: it was part of the Book of Common Prayer from 1662 (see http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/occasion/marriage.html ). (For all I know, it could be older even than that.) But fixing it as the official language of a ceremony cemented the phrase in that form, even as the language changed around it. It's probably best viewed as idiomatic; you wouldn't want to say something else using the same form without a very good reason, but that particular phrase is a widely recognized feature of the language. (Note, by the way, that the form in the BCP really was with "till" rather than "until"; this isn't surprising, since "till" is actually the older of the two words.)

I'm writing a leaflet for children from primary schools who will visit our school. Is it correct to write: the "amerigo vespucci" school is waiting for you!!!! Is the use of the definite article correct in this case? I am defining which school is waiting for them, I'm saying we and no others but us are willing to meet them?