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I am trying to figure out if there is a word to describe a person who loves to be photographed.

I would like to know if there is a word for the above situation. Particularly, I would like a word that replaces "X" in the following sentence: You are so computer-X. If it has to, it could fit in the following sentence: You are so X when it comes to computers. I have words for both, but the first is not a very intellectual one. The word I have for the first sentence is "ignorant". I don't like that word in this context, though, because it is fairly common. I would like an uncommon word for the former sentence. For the latter sentence, I have the word "inerudite", if I am using it properly in that sentence (it would be nice to know if I am not). I can live with using the using the second word and the second sentence, but I would like to know, is there a better word than "ignorant" that will satisfy the grammatical conditions of the first sentence? Answer Someone posted the answer for which I was looking. I know not of why, but the individual...

I'm looking for a short word that could describe people who are always going to every event in town. It doesn't need to be an existing word, feel free to create one of your own. It can also be made of words related to events and parties. (ex: club, event, guest list, etc.) Edit The word will serve as a new term to describ these people in a favorable way. It will probably be used for an app name so it need to be catchy and fun. ( Preferably ) Answer You may be looking for socialite : someone who is well-known in fashionable society and is often seen at parties and other social events for wealthy people ( Merriam-Webster )

If "her" is objective and "she" is subjective, why do we say: 'Who is she ?' instead of: 'Who is her ?' apart from the latter sounding a bit strange? For instance: 'That car belongs to her. ' vs. ' She has a nice car.' Is the second sentence, 'Who is her?' , actually grammatical and is there a situation where it is appropriate? (Or am I just plain wrong in thinking that "who" is the subject in both questions?) Answer It is incorrect that "who" is the subject, "she" is still the subject. If it wasn't a question it would be "She is who". Because it's a question it is inverted. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_grammar#Questions

I suspect that the verb to belie here is used to mean to betray . Is that true? You don’t get a pat on the back for ratcheting down from rabid after exploiting that very radicalism to your advantage. Unrepentant opportunism belies a staggering lack of character and caring that can’t simply be vanquished from memory. You did real harm to this country and many of its citizens, and I will never — never — forget that. No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along However, doesn't belie mean, at its core, to contradict . Here's what COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary has to say about belie. If one thing belies another, it hides the true situation and so creates a false idea or image of someone or something. [V n] ⇒ Her looks belie her 50 years. If one thing belies another, it proves that the other thing is not true or genuine. [V n] ⇒ The facts of the situation belie his testimony. I am struggling to align the definitions in the dictionary with the way the verb is used by the NY Times arti...

First of all, English is not my first language. I have a question, maybe a basic one, about this phrase: The situation highlights the mismatch between some areas of training and available jobs to/for them. Should it be "available jobs to them" or "available jobs for them"? Sorry if the question is really basic. Answer OP's sentence is poor English regardless of which preposition is used. A more natural version is... ...mismatch between some areas of training and the jobs [that are] available to them . ( for could be used instead of to above - it's largely a matter of style). Note that available jobs uses available as a simple "stand-alone" adjective. Grammatically we could only explicitly link it to them using some contrived form such as "available-to-them" jobs , but this isn't normally necessary since context invariably makes it clear who the jobs are available to (or not, as the case may be), so "they" don't ...

My boss has asked me not to refer to her as she because she says it's disrespectful. After I refer to her by her proper name or by her title, isn't it appropriate to refer to her as she ?

Would you like me to re-schedule to today instead? Would you like me to re-schedule for today instead? Answer In American English in my experience, you schedule "on" or "for" and reschedule "for". You move an appointment "to" a different day/time.

In the following sentence, do I have to put a comma after "intuitively?": Intuitively, it represents the concept of something.

Which form of this word is more appropriate for general use? I would expect someone to misread reestablish more often than re-establish , however it is more consistent in context with renew , reconnect , and retry . Answer A number of dictionaries (e.g., 1 , 2 , 3 ) have entries for reestablish making it acceptable for general use. While I personally find the spelling a little jarring, I'm fairly certain that this is simply due to the fact that I do not come across this variant very often. If not, I would also find cooperation to be similarly disconcerting. Cooperation used to be (and sometimes still is) spelt as co-operation to ensure that readers did not misread it as coop-eration . This Google Ngram confirms that cooperation is now the preferred choice. Similar cases can be made for preeminent / pre-eminent and preexisting / pre-existing . What has made this shift in preference possible is that none of these words in its unhyphenated form can be confused for some othe...

In a scientific paper I submitted, a reviewer suggested that I change the sentence The operation just substitutes "(m, l)" with "m" on both the sender and the receiver side. to The operation just substitutes "(m, l)" with "m" on both the sender and the receiver sides. by changing the last word from singular to plural. There is only one sender side and only one receiver side, so my intuition tells me to use the former version, since one would clearly write "...both the sender side and the receiver side" and I'd also write "The green and the blue box are standing on the table" (instead of "boxes"). However, I failed to find a grammatical rule for this, and English is not my main language. Is the reviewer right? And why? Answer The first sentence features ellipsis, that is, the omission of elements which are recoverable from the linguistic context or the situation. A full version would be on both the sender side ...

Is it normal to refer to adult-age sons and daughters of someone as children? A native speaker of Arabic learning English has said that in Arabic, the word for sons and daughters is "أولاد" (awlaad) ( Wiktionary link ), and that it applies no matter how old they are, and that the word for people who are not adults is "أطفال" (atfaal) ( Arabic language Wiktionary link ). The person wanted to know whether you can still use "children" to mean "sons and daughters", even after you can no longer describe someone as a child in the "not yet adults" sense. Answer As AndrewGrimm notes, "children" has two very distinct meanings: It can refer to people who are not yet adults, or it can refer to people who are the offspring of a specified person or people. It is normal and common to refer to adults as "children" when expressing the relationship. Saying that so-and-so are the "children of" someone is another way of sayi...

Which is the right sentence? People have always tried and be up to date about what the latest news have been or People have always tried and being up to date…

I’m working on a book that cites the titles of many short poems, customarily set inside quotation marks. The quotation marks serve to identify the poem as a single ‎entity rather than to indicate any sort of dialog. So I’m wondering if it is preferable to put commas and periods after ‎such titles: “Old Poem” was written ten years before “New Poem”.‎ I've looked around and the usual rule is that in American usage the quotation marks always come after the punctuation. One source gave an exception for single letters or numbers as in the following: A common algebraic variable is 'X'. The logic of putting a period (or comma) after the quotation marks in the math example, and similarly with poem titles, seems very strong to me. Is there any reason American usage handles quotation marks the same way for direct speech compared with other uses? Should I defy convention and go with logic? Seeing the punctuation inside the quotation marks strongly implies quoted speech to my eyes.

I'm not a native English speaker. I sometimes pronounce some English words by following the way I pronounce things in Mandarin. While Mandarin does have a fixed way to pronounce every word, I was wondering if the same is true in English. Does each word have a fixed pronunciation?

How can I briefly communicate that a character's lips have lipstick on them? I can't say something like "lipstick covered lips", because using "lips" twice sounds awkward. I considered "gloss covered lips", but lip gloss and lipstick aren't quite the same thing, and in my opinion have different connotations (lipstick I think of as slightly "classier" than lip gloss). Painted? I thought maybe just "red", or "ruby red", but that might be unclear (and not as emotionally neutral as just "had lipstick on them"). This is for prose fiction. Sorry if this question is too broad, I don't use this SE often. Feel free to close if so. Answer Not a very common word, I’d say, but the easiest and most obvious choice would be to simply turn ‘lipstick’ into a verb through zero-derivation, and then using the past participle of that verb: Her lipsticked lips were pursed. Googling “lipsticked lips” yields about 15,000 hi...

I have few friends. I have a few friends. I thought "few" means just one, two or even none. "A few" typically means more than two. However it seems to me some people say "few" when they really mean "a few", am I right? Answer "I have a few friends" is just the same as saying "I have some friends". "I have few friends", however, implies that you have only a few friends (as opposed to many). In some contexts (not always!), it can also imply that you don't feel very well about it, that you wish you had more friends. Also, note that there is a very common expression "quite a few", which is a trap for foreign learners because it looks like it should mean "rather few, very few" — but it does not. It means the exact opposite thing: "a large or significant number, many". So, saying "I have quite a few friends" is the same as saying "I have quite a lot of friends". Let...

In the graph for all arrests, and DUI arrests, the effect of the MLDA is about 125 and 50 increase in arrests rate respectively. I personally think no comma should be put before the word respectively . And what about the comma before the phrase and DUI arrests ? Should I remove it? I want to say there is one graph for each and make that clear. So maybe I should change the first part of the sentence to something like: . In both graphs for all arrests and DUI arrests, the effect of the MLDA is about a 125 and 50 increase in arrests rate respectively. Answer Only one comma is required in the sentence, and that is after DUI arrests . The phrases all arrests and DUI arrests make up a coordinated complement of the preposition for , and a comma would only serve to separate them. The final word respectively is an integral part of the clause in which it occurs, and should not be separated from the rest of it.

What do you call a drink (usually an alcoholic one, say a long drink or a cocktail) that you don't want to have, because you consider it a low quality, disgusting mixture, maybe even of suspicious, unclear origins? Infamous drinks like the sponge (drops of shots spilled on the counter all night, then collected with a sponge, squeezed into a glass and sold to the undemanding, or some poor homeless guys) could be an example here. Or your friend's first, experimental cocktail... :-) Context: I want to reject a drink that I don't like, so I reply humorously and a bit sarcastically: No, thanks. I don't want any of this ____?

“You was trouble”? In the movie " Thelma & Louise ", Thelma says: You said we was gonna have some fun, so let's have some! So my question is why does she say "was" instead of "were"? Is it meant to indicate something like the woman is illiterate? And what would people think of me if I talked like that? Answer Yes, the verb is deliberately conjugated wrong, to give the remark a backwoods tone or feel. backwoods (adj): unsophisticated; uncouth

We have in an 1858 court case : "A curious doctrine this,—a singular kind of subtraction,—to subtract crime from crime, and there remains nothing but innocence." It appears that we are no longer "allowed" to do this. But why not?

In a recent question , I realized that while I know what's currently considered the most obscene word in American English ("cunt"), I am told that word is much more unexceptional and workaday in British English, and I do not actually know what word does bear the distinction of most obscene in that vernacular. So, what is it? Looking for current rather than historical usage, obscenity rather than taboo for reasons other than obscenity (as with racial slurs in the United States), and obscene words rather than obscene concepts -- that is, the taboo attaches to the word itself . If it varies between major British English dialects, give me whatever flavors you know. For purposes of this question, "most obscene" means that somebody using the word in a context where obscenity is not normally expected will most commonly be thought to be performing the greatest violation of social convention for reason of the word's obscenity. Answer I can't think of anyth...

Having looked it up, no dictionary I can find lists a definition for "deitous," so I was wondering if perhaps I added the the wrong suffix to "deity" to turn it into adjective? This is more of a pedantic question, but just out of curiosity, does anyone know of a word like what I'm describing? Answer There's no English adjective that derives directly from the noun deity , but there's an adjective that means "of or like a god" and has the same root as deity : divine ADJECTIVE Of or like God or a god. -- ‘heroes with divine powers’ -- ‘paintings of shipwrecks being prevented by divine intervention’ Origin Late Middle English: via Old French from Latin divinus , from divus ‘godlike’ (related to deus ‘god’). [Oxford Dictionaries] Compare this with the origin of deity : 1250–1300; Middle English deite deitāt- (stem of deitās ), equivalent to Latin dei- (combining form of deus god) + -tāt- -ty2, formed after Latin dīvīnitās divinity [Oxford ...

In Dutch we have the word voorschieten . In English it translates — according to Google Translate — to "advance, lend, disburse". The Dutch word voorschieten is used in an informal setting between friends where you pay for that friend's dinner or drinks and expect to be paid back later. Do you say in English "Mary loaned John money for the drinks"? or "Mary advanced money for the dinner"? or do you use another expression? Loaning sounds a bit heavy to me. It's like "A loan for a car". A friend from New Zealand came up with "Mary spotted John money for the lunch", but I wonder if it's understood in the US. Answer In first-person conversation, I would generally say something like "I'll cover this one, you can get the next" or "I've got this, you can owe me." Or, going the other way, "If you could take this, I'll pick up the next one." As @Jim mentions in a comment, "fronting...

I heard an actor in a TV series say this: He showed me myself ( or to myself) Is this slang or correct? (He was shown a letter by his father earlier that day.) If any of this is correct, please explain why! I have learned that you can only use a reflexive pronoun with the subject of the sentence. The word "me" is the object here, isn't it?

When I say "comment out", does it mean to uncomment something or comment it? What is better, or more correctly used? PS: I'm talking about source code. Answer To comment out is to render a block of code inert by turning it into a comment. In C# code for example, commenting out code is done by putting // at the start of a line, or surrounding the code with /* and */ . Here the line inside the loop is commented out: for (int i = 0; i //Console.WriteLine(i); } To uncomment something means to remove the characters that makes it a comment. The expression only makes sense if the comment contains something that would work as code, usually something that was commented out earlier. To uncomment a regular comment would just cause a syntax error.

The definition of an internet troll: In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, 1 by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally[3][4] or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[5] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[6] This sense of the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families."[7][8] Wikipedia What is the equivalent for a person who does this type of thing in real life (non-cyber) troll? Answer Someone who is an instigator or trouble maker. Often th...

Wiktionary says that the difference between "targetting" and "targeting" is that the first one is a British spelling and the second one is American. Meanwhile, Oxford Dictionaries says that "targetting" is a misspelling of "targeting". Which of them is correct? Is it the case that if I would write "focussing" rather than "focusing", then I should write "targetting" instead of "targeting"? Answer Here is an Ngram chart that matches targetting (blue line) and targetted (red line) against targeting (green line) and targeted (yellow line) in British English publications over the years 1950 through 2000: The most striking thing about the chart (aside from the low frequency of all of these forms as late as 1970) is the continued low frequency of targetting and targetted . The Oxford Style Manual (2003), at 11.4.2, lists the ways in which the normal U.S. English treatment of words with suffixes beginning ...

What is the most appropriate preposition for the following sentence? I would like to talk to you. Please let me know your preference of/for time and venue where we can meet. I would also be happy to get a better construct for the idea I am trying to communicate. Even this does not seem to give me any idea. Answer We have preferences for things more often than preferences of them, but of isn't incorrect here, nor the only alternative: as to , regarding , in regards to , and the like would also work. Rather than asking for a preference for , why not ask what the addressee prefers ? I would like to meet with you. Is there a time or place you prefer? I would like to meet with you. Do you prefer a particular time or place?

I read that in college applications some questions are fine to use first person. An example of a prompt that would use first person is here : to prevent dead links it follows this question. I have been told several times to never use first person in formal writing. Is it fine to use first person on formal essays where the prompt is about you? Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Example usage: Terence, you have indefatigable enthusiasm. The effect it has on people is inspiring. In the sense of exuberance, but you feel positively about it. Answer On its own: positive. Modifying a neutral quality: positive. However, it's not incorrect to use it as a modifier of a negative quality, so the obviously negative "your indefatigable stupidity continues to amaze me" is a valid use, too.

In Flemish we have a saying "Vijgen na pasen". Translated: "figs after Easter". It means a solution comes too late to be of any use. What is the English equivalent for this? Some googling gives me "Closing the barn door when the cow has bolted", but the explanation seems to point more towards the wrong solution for a problem. Answer The standard idiom has to do with horses rather than cows : closing/shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted trying to stop something bad happening when it has already happened and the situation cannot be changed: Improving security after a major theft would seem to be a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. While the above is not an exact match, it can be adapted to serve your needs. You could simply say that the horse has already bolted , which would implicitly connote lateness. Other common phrases that revolve around lateness include:

Usually, when being served the phrase "What can I do for you?" is used but sometimes I also hear "What can I do you for?" in quite the same context. So is there a difference or is it just a slip of the tongue? Edit I also heard it amongst others in 'Allo 'Allo and once in The IT Crowd . Answer It's normally a joke. It's 'funny' because "What can I do you for?" is actually a question that would never be asked, except rhetorically. Do you , as in "I'm gonna do you in" is what a thug would say before he perpetrated violent acts against you. It could also be used by a police man, for example "Do him for possession", so do him is slang for arrest him . There is also, the more pertinent definition of do you , which is what a swindler would think when tying to think how to trick you: "What can I do you for?" Where what they mean is "What can I get out of you with my tricks?" Whereas "Wha...

Simple subject "I": I went. Replacing it with "me": Me went. That sounds strikingly wrong. We use it for fake "caveman talk". However, there was a time when it worked like this: 1st person singular, subject/object: "I"/"me" 2nd person plural (or polite, formal etc 2nd person singular, yes), subject/object: "ye"/"you" Speakers at that time would say: Ye went. and would find: You went. to sound wrong and weird in the same way we currently find: Me went. So what I'm wondering is, how did this "ye"/"you"-->"you" merger happen? Was the "ye"/"you" form just much more rarely used at the time? If so, I would expect the merger would have happened before the dropping of the "thou"/"thee" pronouns. Is it known if this the case? I would guess the question might be a little complicated by dialects developing differently in isolation, and then influencing...

I read this thread on the usage of the gerund preceded by the possessive adjective/determiner with much interest. I have another question about the usage of the gerund preceded by the possessive adjective/determiner. In a test from a textbook I am using, one must choose the correct form of the bracketed word in the following sentence (I have simplified it somewhat): Company X experimented with its (expand)____ into a new business area. The given answer is "expansion." To me, this intuitively feels more comfortable than the gerund "expanding". My question, however, is the following: Is the gerund also grammatically correct in this sentence? In the example sentences throughout this thread so far, there are no cases in which the subject of the sentence and the subject of the gerund clause are the same, not to mention cases in which the verb of the gerund clause is intransitive and followed by a preposition. For example: The monkey seemed to be preoccupied with its pry...

Are "ins", "hrs", "mins" and "secs" the technically correct plural abbreviations for "inches", "hours", "minutes" and "seconds"? I'm hoping that all examples below could possibly be correct. Examples: Plural: He finished the race in 4hrs 34mins 9secs. Singular: His 4hr 34min 9sec finish was unprecedented. Plural of 'inches': Garry was 5ft 10ins tall. Singular of 'inches': Garry was a 5ft 10in man.

I've always heard it pronounced /bɒld/ (rhymes with scald, for those of you who don't know IPA), however the dictionary and some of my friends say /bɔ:ld/ (rhymes with mauled). I'm British, by the way. Any insights? Please say where you're from with your answer.

So if you're making a game that a person who plays Limbo might like, you should.... I heard this in one of the videos by Totalbiscuit. He's a game commentator on youtube. I'm pretty sure the guy is from Newcastle. Just in case if it matters. Limbo is a video game. My question is, is it ok to have a relative clause inside another relative clause? Answer There is no grammatical rule against attaching relative clauses to other relative clauses in English. In a highly inflected language like classical Latin, it is possible to insert a seemingly indefinite number of clauses to others, as anyone who has been assigned to translate a page-long sentence of Cicero knows. But English is weakly inflected, and highly dependent on syntactic markers like word position and proximity to deliver meaning. The more dependent clauses you add to a sentence, the more awkward it sounds and the more difficult it becomes to parse, whether in spoken or written English, so there are practical limits ...

Could you please tell me which one of these sentences is correct, or are they both grammatically correct? This will only happen if you go with me. This will happen only if you go with me.

Sometimes I hear sentences that sound conditional to me, just because of the (unassertive) ordering of the words. I don't know if I can come up with a proper example. Consider this: I'd be a lot better, had she stayed with me . And I guess it's equivalent to this conditional form: If she had stayed with me, I would have been a lot better . So, this is my question: In what ways can you make a sentence conditional without using conditional conjunctions (if, unless, etc)? And what are their equivalent conditional forms? Answer You can have a conditional clause using "should" "had", "were" , instead of using a conjunction. "Should any of the clauses contain a mistake, please advise us immediately" (If any of the clauses...) "Were I to seek revenge, it wouldn't make me feel any better." (If I were to seek...) "Had I known the circumstances, I wouldn't have criticized her." (If I had known...)

The antonym of “greedy” is “generous”. Is there a word for “not greedy” (one who is content with what he has)?

Looking into a dictionary entry for last , I come up with: 1) Final, ultimate, coming after all others of its kind. 2) Most recent, latest, last so far. Looking up final : 1) last; ultimate 2) Conclusive; decisive Now I'm wondering what's the difference between final decision and last decision, were one to be strict and pedantic. My theory: last decision - ambiguous - may mean "final decision" or "most recent decision in a chain of decisions yet to follow final decision - not ambiguous - means only "final decision" Am I correct here or am I somehow mistaken? Answer It honestly depends on context. If you were to say "That was my last decision." vs "That was my final decision." you are likely to mean two different things, as you describe in your question. However, consider "This will be my last decision." vs "This will be my final decision." In this context the former statement implies the latter, so the meanin...

EDIT The word I am looking for is not pleonasm (it stresses to much on the redundancy of the chosen words, i.e. fewer words would suffice). It is not verbiage (it stresses to much about the complexity of the word choices). My opinion about the suggested words: waffle: To speak or write at length without any clear point or aim. This is almost the meaning I am looking for. My only objection is that the dictionaries do not seem to agree upon its meaning. For example, to talk or write foolishly —Webster Online speak or write at length in a vague or trivial manner —Oxford Online speech or writing that says nothing important —Cambridge Online (Yes, they all sound similar, but to my ears there is considerable difference.) doublespeak: the quoted meaning below sounds "too evil," as there seems to be deliberate/conscious evil intentions gobbledegook: sounds too much like the speaker has no idea as to what he is talking about. Had "waffle" universally been agreed to h...

Which sentence is correct? I had a seafood dinner last night. I had seafood dinner last night.

What is the origin of xox used to mean kisses and hugs ? Answer There are a number of claims as to how X came to stand for "kiss"; if you're interested you can read more at: How Valentine's Day Works How about the "X" sign representing a kiss? This tradition started with the Medieval practice of allowing those who could not write to sign documents with an "X". This was done before witnesses, and the signer placed a kiss upon the "X" to show sincerity. This is how the kiss came to be synonymous with the letter "X", and how the "X" came to be commonly used at the end of letters as kiss symbols. (Some believed "X" was chosen as a variation on the cross symbol, while others believe it might have been a pledge in the name of Christ, since the "X"—or Chi symbol—is the twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet and has been used in church history to represent Christ.) Why Does X Stand for a Kiss? Howeve...

M-W has the following definition for mixed metaphor : a figure of speech combining inconsistent or incongruous metaphors Hence a requirement is that a 'mixed metaphor' contains more than one metaphor. Eric Lippert comments in another thread : "mixed metaphor" is more commonly used to describe the result of accidentally combining two metaphors in a way that does not make sense as a whole. "For me it was stormy in the great sea of life, but then I came to a crossroads." He does not claim that this is a necessary condition, and I'd agree. I've just written in another thread: ' "John is a real tiger" works, but "That lion is a real tiger" is best avoided.' Each of these two statements contains a single metaphor. Does any definition of 'mixed metaphor' apply to the inappropriate (incongruous juxtaposing of tenor and obviously related vehicle) metaphor in the second sentence?

Something that looks like a good thing at first, but has unforeseen bad consequences. For instance, while irrigation schemes provide people with water for agriculture, they can increase waterborne diseases that have devastating health effects, such as schistosomiasis. (From wikipedia) Major edit in body to provide a better example as requested in the comments. Saeid, please let us know if you disagree and this conflicts with your intent. -T.R.

Are "barking up the wrong bush" or "sailing on the wings of imagination" close? Answer An idiomatic verb phrase that refers to the act of concocting false allegations is " to trump up ." As in, The child trumped up charges of domestic abuse against her mother for making asparagus for dinner. You could also use "trump up" as an adjective describing the type of allegations. The child's trumped up allegations were deemed selfish and were ultimately dismissed. trump up: to devise deceitfully or dishonestly, as an accusation; fabricate.

The Beat Generation is a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of "Beat" culture included experimentation with drugs and alternative forms of sexuality . BTW, does the Beat Generation only refer to writers? Answer Alternative forms of sexuality would mean anything not heterosexual. The quick list: homosexual bisexual transsexual Strictly speaking, people get pretty creative in their sexual practices and the terms come and go: pansexual bestiality queer If I understand correctly, queer is technically a gender issue but it tends to get lumped into the same topic of "LGBT" which stands for "Lesiban Gay Bisexual Transgender".

Since its can be both determiner possessive pronoun and nominal possessive pronoun, an example of its as determiner possessive pronoun would be: We saved this question for last because of its complexity. Because complexity is a noun, so its must be a determiner possessive pronoun in this sentence. I'm looking for an example where its is used as nominal possessive pronoun in a sentence as above. Answer It’s much more common to use its as a possessive determiner like my , her , or their , than it is to use it as a possessive pronoun like mine , hers , or theirs . A possessive determiner goes in the determiner slot of a larger noun phrase; there still has to be a noun later on in that noun phrase. In contrast, a possessive pronoun is an actual substantive all by itself and so needs no noun following. Using its in this way is possible but not common. The ᴏᴇᴅ2 calls this an absolute possessive, used when no substantive follows. They provide just one citation, from Shakespeare...

There is an idiom in Persian that literally says: "(to be ignored right after) somebody's donkey has crossed or passed (over) the bridge" We use it in situations where someone (now feels relieved and) ignores or treats us much differently after: We have helped them to overcome or reach a solution to a problem, but as soon as they feel relieved, they start treating us as if we are now strangers or even annoying to them! (i.e. They totally forget the help they received.) We have provided them with something they needed (like a piece of information or news, a confirmation, an acceptance or agreement, money, etc), but since their need has been met, they don't think twice about ignoring us. As you know, donkeys are stubborn and when they perceive danger, you can't force them to do anything. So I think the origin of this idiom might have been like this: someone's donkey refrained from crossing the bridge, so they asked a friend to help them get the donkey over the b...

In his Lord of the Rings , J.R.R. Tolkien coins the word "glitter" to be a collective noun for elves. In his books about Wonderland, Louis Carol invents an absolute mountain of words, words like "frabjous," meaning "great, wonderful, fabulous," and "boojum," meaning an especially dangerous variety of "snark," another invented word. In Star Wars , we have terms like "tie fighter," a kind of spacecraft, and lightsaber, a kind of weapon. Harry Potter , Star Trek , A Song of Fire and Ice ( A Game of Thrones ), Battlestar Galactica , Stargate , The Chronicles of Narnia ... And the list goes on. These are all similar examples of works that incorporate their own subset of English words, some entirely original and some that alter standard English definitions. Given that there are so many authors that do this in their works, is there any word that means a special set of words whose definitions are specific to and used by a specific wo...

In Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread , one character comments on the name of another Carla Carlucci: alliteration. Or something more than alliteration, but I don’t know the term for it. Alliteration is the use of the same consonant (consonantal alliteration) or of a vowel, not necessarily the same vowel (vocalic alliteration), at the beginning of each word or each stressed syllable in a line of verse, as in around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran. Collins Homeoteleuton is the use of word-endings that are similar or the same, either intentionally for rhetorical effect or by mistake during copying of text. Collins An example is found in Ursula K. LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven He arrived at ideas the slow way, never skat ing over the clear, hard ice of logic, nor soar ing on the slipstreams of imagination, but slogg ing , plodd ing along on the heavy ground of existence. Obviously there is alliteration present in Ms. Tyler’s example, but it does seem like something more, de...

I read this sentence in a book: I just took part in a study over in the Psychology Department. Why do we add over in front of in the here? Answer "Over" in that context is just a mild intensifier expressing that the location mentioned is some physical distance away. Cf. "Over There" — the song sung by American troops in the 1st World War in which Europe, way across the Atlantic Ocean, was referred to as "Over There."

Which is the correct answer to fill in the gap in "Beer is made ____ yeast, water, hops and malted barley"? of from with out of I am leaning toward '2'. "Made from" can be used to describe a manufacturing process. I originally liked '3', but I don't like it now. I would use '3' if I mentioned secondary ingredients, as in "This beer is made with raw apple cider."

If I'm a Canadian who'll be presenting in an international conference, should I use my country's spelling, which is the Canadian/British spelling like "grey" or the more used American spelling like "gray?" We also have our own unique spelling for some words, like "centre." I know Americans spell it "center" and I think the British spell it like the Americans. Things to keep in mind: I don't know the distribution of the audience. The conference will be held in Germany, which isn't an English-speaking country itself. Is there a protocol for these sort of situations? P.S. This is a science conference, but I'm curious if a certain protocol exists.

"Cost-effective" is a generic term that can be used to describe anything that is "productive relative to the cost" whereby cost is a very vague term which can refer to either time, money, or human resources, etc. "Time-effective" will be a specific case of "cost-effective", in the context of "time". What may be a word to mean "cost-effective" in the context of "money"? Answer I consider that a nice option could be Economical , for me the meaning is exactly the same and in other languages like Spanish is more common to say Economical than Cost-effective

What would be a nice short expression to describe a choice which isn't really one, in that all of its possible outcomes are ultimately equivalent despite being presented as different? My first thought was "false choice", but this turns out to have a different meaning, and my next idea was "empty choice" which doesn't seem to exist. Does anyone know of such an expression? Answer Moot. Your choice is moot; whatever you pick, the outcome will be the same.

I'm not a native English speaker, so sorry if this is a very basic question. Is broadcast a verb? If it is, what is the simple past and past participle: broadcasted ? Answer Yes, broadcast is a verb, and Dictionary.com says either broadcast or broadcasted is acceptable as the simple past and past participle. However, this Ngram shows that broadcast is by far the preferred version. A study on this very issue can be found here .

Should the following say whoever or whomever . And why? Each of us is free to pretend to be whoever/whomever we wish to be. This sentence needs an object, right?

I've been using this expression all my adult life but have no idea what it means or where it originates. Google searches lead me to the description of it being to do with putting your thumb on nose and wiggling four fingers. This is not an entirely satisfying conclusion to my quest. Can anyone elaborate? Answer From the Phrase Finder: The general understanding of what's meant by 'cock a snook' is the spread hand with thumb on the nose, preferably with crossed eyes, waggling fingers and any other annoying gesticulation that comes to mind at the time. It's what the Americans call 'the five-fingered salute'. So, it looks like this: Hope that image helped you visualize, as well as the description 'crossed eyes, waggling fingers...". Very satisfying! jks. The origin of "snook", is the word "snook"! "Snook" means: a gesture of defiance, disrespect, or derision. "Cock" here means to lift up, as in lift up your hand...

Two words A and B are synonyms if they mean the same thing, and antonyms if they mean opposite things. But is there a word to describe the relationship where A means "neither B nor its opposite" ? For example: "Indifference" means "neither love nor hate". I would like to be able to use it in sentences of the form: "What is a `neutralnym' for love?" (The wikipedia page for the -onym suffix says that "anonym" is already taken, sadly, as this would have been a good neologism. That's why I used "neutralnyms" even though it mixes Latin and Greek roots.) Edit: A further more example to illustrate what I am asking. right and wrong are antonyms, and ambiguous is a neutralnym of both. Answer Word pairs like love and hate, right and wrong are gradable antonyms : A gradable antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings where the two meanings lie on a continuous spectrum. Temperature is such a continuous spectrum so...

I am searching for the following word. A term that covers the following examples. One ____of tea. Two ____ of water. Some ____ of cake. A ____ of chicken. A ____ of strings. A ____ of objects. Is there such word XXX that exist in English?

Why are you "On a train" yet "In a car" when you are inside both vehicles? "On a bike" makes sense but "On a plane" seems wrong as you are actually inside the plane rather than on it. Answer Generally speaking, the metaphoric senses of get on and get in follow dimensionality: the object of on is a Surface , i.e, an object with 2 dimensions, or the surface of a 3-D object the object of in is a Container , i.e, a bounded 2-D or 3-D object In terms of conveyances, humans get on a raft, a horse, a bicycle, a sled, a wagon, a skateboard, a surfboard humans get in a car, a boat, a ship, a railroad car, a trolley, a bus, an airplane This much is predictable. The problem arises with scheduled public conveyances; in that case only, a human who gets in the conveyance physically also is on the roster of passengers metaphorically ( on the roster is a 2-D "page/paper" metaphor). So one can be said to get on the bus, the plane, the train, ...

I am looking for a word for sentences which read the same forwards and when the order of words is reversed? Just to clarify, I'm not talking about palindromes, in which individual characters are reversed. I’m thinking, instead, of sentences where the characters within words are left alone and the order of the words itself is reversed, for example: That is that. Answer After some research I found out that this could either be called a palindrome , (This would be used when you want all letters to be the same when read backwards, even though I do believe this rarely occurs in sentences), or a palingram (This would be used when the letters themselves do not matter). Ofcourse, in both cases the meaning of the sentence should be the same when read backwards. I hope this helped you out a bit more.

I am not sure whether to use in , on , or for after the word demand in the following sentence: The continuing demand on high-quality software that is reusable and easy to maintain and modify after it has been released was a driving force throughout the 1980’s How should one deal with this demand in/on/for issue in general? Answer In that sentence, you would use demand for . You use demand for when some entity has want of a resource, as in supply-and-demand economics. Examples would include a high demand for candy canes at Christmastime, or a high demand for beachfront cottages during the summertime. Demand on is used when a situation is challenging, difficult, or pressure-packed for some entity. For example, at some restaurants, there is a high demand on the kitchen staff during the noontime lunch hour. In some cases, both could be used, although the meaning would be different. For example: At tax season, there is a high demand on accountants. means that accountants work long...

Say I'm promoting a product. Which is correct? [Product] let's you [do something awesome]. [Product] lets you [do something awesome]. Or neither? Answer Let’s is the English cohortative word, meaning “let us” in an exhortation of the group including the speaker to do something. Lets is the third person singular present tense form of the verb let meaning to permit or allow. In the questioner’s examples, the sentence means to say “Product (allows/permits you to) do something awesome”, so the form with lets is correct.

Example: If you have not yet reached exit number 5 is the "next exit" referring to exit 5 or exit 6? "This exit" is clearly exit 5. Similar to the "next Tuesday" question Which day does "next Tuesday" refer to?

As far as I understand, this structure is grammatically correct: Not only would it provide ..., but it also would... Can we omit "but" without introducing a mistake? Not only would it provide ..., it also would... I've found the following explanation here but I think this example has slightly different meaning: Usually, a "not only" feels lost without a "but also" to pal around with. However, it is idiomatically possible and acceptable to omit the "but also." Burchfield gives this example: "Rowers not only face backward, they race backward." Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press. (under "not")

I tried to find an answer to this question. But no luck. Can somebody explain it to me? An American friend of mine said, "I've never heard about 'What does it mean?', I've always used 'What does that mean?'". My other English friend said: "It depends on context." I asked, what context? He tried to explain but couldn't. So now I'm asking you: What is the difference between "What does it mean?" and "What does that mean?" in common speech? Answer Both are acceptable. That is more specific. You would probably use it for a very particular thing whose meaning you wanted to understand. For example: You are looking at a sign written in a foreign language and you turn to a native speaker and ask "What does it mean?" You are looking at several signs. You understand most of them but there's one you don't understand. You point and say "What does that mean?" It is more general. What does it mean?...

I've hit a wording problem in the controls for a game that I'm writing. I need two nouns with increasing emphasis for someone highly skilled in a given area. "Expert" is an obvious choice, so I need a second noun which is: More emphatic than "Expert" - it must imply being extremely capable. Not gendered. (This is why I've rejected the most obvious choice, "Master".) Obvious in its meaning, once read. Not too long - screen space is limited. Carrying connotations of skill but not necessarily experience . Applicable to many different areas of skill - professional skills (science, accounting) and personal (leadership, martial arts) It is acceptable to use two words, so there could be a modifying adjective, but in that case space demands that they both be quite short. ("Very skilled" would just work, but "World-famous expert" is out.) (Edited to make criteria clearer) If it matters, the setting is 60s to 80s Bond-movie-villain...

Let's say we wanted to omit the first four words of the following quotation. "I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt Generally speaking, it is recommended that one should not include an ellipsis at the beginning of a quotation . "we learn who we really are and then live with that decision." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt Should the above be capitalized to follow standard rules of capitalization, or left as is in order to retain its accuracy? Answer In its section on "Quotations and Dialogue: Permissible changes to punctuation, capitalization, and spelling" [Section 13.7, if you have a subscription] the Chicago Manual of Style says: The initial letter may be changed to a capital or a lowercase letter. It expands further: To suit this requirement, the first word in a quoted passage must often be adjusted to conform to the surrounding text. In most types of works, this adjustment may be done silently...

When we say, It is not fair. or It is unfair . I'm not sure enough to say whether both of the sentences have the same meaning or not though superficially, there is no difference between them but if we say, Something is not possible. or Something is impossible . then there is really an observable difference in my first language. Hence, the question - is there a difference between the preceding two sentences in English ? Answer To me the only difference is style: one word ( unfair ) versus two words ( not fair ). The same for impossible and not possible : both mean cannot be done for some reason or other.

What is the difference between the following when referring to telephone calls? Please call me on this number. You can reach me on this number. Please call me at this number. You can reach me at 0088000900. Please call me through this number. You can reach us through this number. Are they interchangeable? Which one would sound more natural and accurate? Answer Please call me on this number. You can reach me on this number. Acceptable everywhere, principally used in UK/Australia/New Zealand. Sounds strange to North American ears, but understood. Please call me at this number. You can reach me at 0088000900. Acceptable everywhere, principally used in US/Canada. Might sound strange to English speakers outside North America, but widely understood. Please call me through this number. You can reach us through this number. Usually used when the caller will need to speak to an intermediary before being connected to the desired party (such as when a receptionist answers all incoming call...