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When is a gerund supposed to be preceded by a possessive pronoun? “Me being” versus “my being” Usage of the gerund preceded by the possessive pronoun I don't really know what to call it but basically there are two forms that I have seen across different texts: My being here obviously upsets him. Me being here obviously upsets him. My taking interest in her research has had fantastic effects. Me taking interest in her research has had fantastic effects. Your coming here is quite disturbing You coming here is quite disturbing Please forgive my being aggressive. Please forgive me being aggressive. I think I must have seen the latter more often but in my head the former makes more sense.

I'm a non-native speaker. When I was at school, we were taught that "on earth" is used for emphasis in questions such as: What on earth are you talking about? However, from my experience (English movies, TV, online discussions, etc.), I seldom see people actually use the phrase "on earth". From what I see, the most commonly used phrases that express basically the same meaning are "What the fuck..." and "What the hell...". I don't like cursing or obscenity (call me old-fashioned), so here are my questions: Is "on earth" still commonly used in real life? Is there any alternative that is not cursing or obscene? Answer The usage stats from the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) look as follows: BNC COCA TOTAL SPOKEN TOTAL SPOKEN what the hell 716 143 4668 408 what on earth 585 85

This question has been bothering me for a while. It came up when I was reading Chapter 16 of "A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language." How to explain the grammatical structure of the following four sentences? "We knew him to be a spy ." "I saw her leave the room ." "I heard someone shouting ." "I got the watch repaired ." What category do the four non-finite clauses in boldface fall into? They do not seem to fall into any of relative, nominal, comparative and adverbial clauses.

This word proverbial has been bothering me a lot lately. I cannot understand it even after translating it into my native language. I would like to know its meaning as well as its origin. Answer T.E.D. has a fine answer, just wanted to say it my way. "Proverbial" means "having to do with a proverb", or as T.E.D. says "as heard in a proverb". There are many well-known proverbs in colloquial English. For example, there is one, "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones", meaning that people in a precarious moral position shouldn't point out the failings of others. English proverbs are generally allegorical, similar to a biblical parable (and some parables, such as the parable of the mustard seed, and other biblical stories like David and Goliath, have remained popular in English even as the culture trends toward the secular). Some are poetic, such as "beer before liquor, never been sicker" (meaning if you start out an evening

May one use inquire with instead of the somewhat overly official and potentially archaic inquire of ? It would be best if you could go through all the correct propositions commonly used with inquire with example sentences. Answer You inquire of someone. "Where do you live?", he inquired of Mike. You inquire about something. He inquired about items for sale. You use inquire after to ask about the health of (someone). He inquired after his parents. You use inquire for to ask to see or speak to (someone). Mike was here inquiring for you. You use inquire into to investigate or look into something. The police are inquiring into the causes of recent political events. And, you could inquire with people, freedom, power, respect, eagerness, etc. "He will inquire with more earnestness, and decide with more impartiality." "We inquire about , and we inquire with ; we inquire about various objects of inquiry, and we inquire with fellow inquirers" "An

I used to be a fan of the TV show Dexter , I say “used to be”, because until the last season it was a thoroughly enjoyable (and) guilty pleasure of mine. However, season 8 ruined it for me. The twists and turns in the plot were nothing short of nonsensical (I could give examples; Deborah's sudden XXX but I might spoil it for those who have yet to watch this disappointing season. A word of advice, don't .) The grand finale of the show struck me speechless, I would describe it as being a cop-out ending, an ending which had no premise, a desperate attempt by the screenwriters to give a final dramatic twist to the story, but which fell flat on its face. I believe that the writers were trying to attempt a sort of poetic justice , an ironic ending considering Dexter's character at the beginning of the TV show. But it just didn't work. Is there a word or expression which describes a sudden and inexplicable "cop-out ending", wherein the reader of a novel or TV view

This candy tastes so sweet. Isn't 'tastes' a state-of-being verb? If it is why do people say there are only 8 state-of-being verbs - is, am, was, are, were, being, be, and been ? State-of-being verbs seem to be a fairly standard term. Answer I had never heard the term "state of being verb" before, but a quick Google search reveals that it is another word for linking verb , which I believe is the more official/accepted term. A linking verb is something that links the subject with its subject complement. Quoting University of Ottawa : Linking verbs are either verbs of sensation ("feel," "look," "smell," "sound," "taste") or verbs of existence ("act," "appear," "be," "become," "continue," "grow," "prove," "remain," "seem," "sit," "stand," "turn"). Another tip from ChompChomp : If you can substitute

I have a sentence like this: Since I graduated, I have been working for xyz in abc. Since can mean: in the intervening period between (the time mentioned) and the time under consideration, typically the present. for the reason that: because. As both fit, the sentence is a little ambiguous in my opinion. I want it to mean the first (time duration). How do I make sure it does that? " Since the time I... " sounds valid to me, but is there a better way to put it?

“Speak to” vs. “Speak with” Well, the question is in the title. I always had the impression that "talk to someone" refers to situations when some information must be conveyed to someone else, while "talk with someone" refers to cases that involve a more complex two-sided interaction. E.g., I "talk to my colleague" to tell him that I'm going for a lunch break (no response is required apart from maybe an acknowledgment), while I go and "talk with my colleague" if I have to discuss something with him in detail. Is this correct, or is there any difference between the two phrases, or is there no difference at all? Answer There's a similar discussion here... "Speak to" vs. "Speak with" . For what it's worth, my perception is that "talk with" and "speak with" are American forms, and "talk to" and "speak to" are British.

Please note: This may be a complex question, references would be great, search engines do not help with "of the". Looks like we can remove the use of "of the" with a noun adjunct switching the order of a couple of names, at least sometimes. Examples: The name of the hotel → The hotel name The handle of the teapot → The teapot handle The use of the "of the" digram → The "of the" digram use The use of the digram "of the" → The digram "of the" use (?) The dog of the house → The house dog (?) Looks like sometimes (when?) we need the use of the Saxon genitive. Examples: The dog of John → John's dog. The bag of the child → child's bag The beginning of the day → the day's beginning (?) The mistakes of the people → people's mistakes (?) The questions are: First and foremost: is this correct? (or "what is incorrect here?") Which use is preferred? Using "of the" or the noun adjunct. What rules apply i

I have often seen/heard the two terms "womyn" and "womin" in many articles and speeches about feminism or women's rights issues. I couldn't find them in any online dictionary except for the Oxford Dictionary which describes it as non-standard spelling of ‘women’ adopted by some feminists in order to avoid the word ending -men. And Urban Dictionary, which has (second definition): This is a term used by feminists who feel that having the word "man" in the word "woman" makes women a subset of men. So, to make themselves a non subset, they changed the letter 'e' to a 'y'. Is it acceptable to use these alternate spellings in my writings and conversations with natives (educated/uneducated)? Does it sound strange, aggressive, or odd in the modern English language? Is it likely to prejudice the minds of my audience against me? Is it illegal to use it in writings and conversations? Which kinds of danger can threaten me? That is, ar

Having just had a chat with Em1 , I noticed that some words or phrases that mean almost will mean less than when used alone, and other synonyms will mean greater than . For example, nearly and close to seem to mean less than when used alone: You're nearly 30! You're nearly there. We've close to the required number of participants. Whereas barely and just seem to mean greater than or equal to : He's barely 18! We've barely enough for breakfast. We've just finished. They'll just be coming over the hill. If you swap any of the adverbs around then the meaning goes with them. However, if you change the context a little bit then the meaning can switch around: 31 is close to 30. We're just short of the required number. If we take the over/under question of Em1: The village is located [almost] 30 km to the south of London. How can you tell if a synonym for almost means less than or greater than ? Answer This is a really complicated question, and the a

I saw this on my wafers the other day: "Wafers with cream flavoured cream ". This sounds horribly recursive to my ear. How can you rephrase it or use a synonym without losing the original meaning? Answer Makers of mass-produced dessert snacks in the United States struggled with this problem for years, a problem exacerbated in their case by the fact that the "cream-flavored cream" filling might in fact contain no cream. Their solution was to popularize terms such as "creme" and "creme-filled"—without the grave accent over the first e —and the even more heavily processed-sounding "kreme" and "kreme-filled." Dunkin' Donuts, for example, currently offers a Vanilla Kreme Filled Donut and a Boston Kreme Donut whose debt to any living cow (or kow) is unknown to me. A marketer might confidently claim that a wafer contained "cream-flavoured creme," without having to go into detail (on the front of the package, anyway) a

I have seen this sentence in a status from one of my facebook friends. It doesn't sound right to me. We have only left the city for the day. I think that it should be something like: We have left the city for only a day (just for a day). Which one is correct and what is the usage of only with present perfect? I consider sentences like We have only seen a few of the sights of this marvelous city. to be correct, but the above sentence just doesn't sound correct for me. Answer Careful (not to say pedantic) speakers place 'only' directly in front of the word or phrase it qualifies. So they would say: "I drink only water." The claim is that saying: "I only drink water" could be interpreted as meaning: "Drinking is the only thing I do with water, not washing in it or playing with it, etc." In theory there may indeed be cases where the placement of 'only' is a source of ambiguity. In practice, however, it is unlikely that anyone would be

I read a couple of comments to that effect on this Youtube video , which is basically a man ranting in Cockney from the movie Football Factory (2004) . The comments bemoan American ignorance about the actual frequency of Cockney speakers, and suggest that it's all but disappeared amongst the working class except in a few areas. Saddening, if true. Is it? (I'm not looking for a thesis, just "man-on-the-street" type opinions.)

Are there any differences between these two expressions? Answer When talking about physical or other external (im)possibility in the future, they are synonymous: "You can't get in to the building tomorrow" "You are not going to be able to get into the building tomorrow" But if the issue is of permission, you would not normally say "You are not going to be able to go tomorrow" unless perhaps you mean that somebody who has authority to give you permission has not yet made a decision but you think that tomorrow they will forbid you to go. Since "you are not going to be able to" has a future feel to it, it also cannot be used for a an impossibility or prohibition right now: "You can't do that!"

I remember one day, when I was supposed to be at school, hanging out at a friends house and watching an episode of Call My Bluff and there was a word that meant something like: A path that is made (e.g. across a field) by people consistently walking along the same way For example something like this (updated as some pointed out that my original picture was actually a footpath): So, it is 15+ years later and I cannot for the life of me remember it so does anyone know what that word is? Answer You probably heard one of: Desire line : A path that pedestrians take informally, rather than taking a sidewalk or set route; e.g. a well-worn ribbon of dirt that one sees cutting across a patch of grass, or paths in the snow . Well-trodden path : Describing a route or path that is frequently used. Beaten track : A well-populated area or well-trodden path; any busy area. For it to remain this tantalisingly elusive, I dare say that you heard option numero uno.

My mother says this phrase all of the time, to mean "That is hilarious". Supposedly "killing" is short for "killingly-funny"(!) but I must admit I have never ever heard anyone else say it. Is it a genuine expression? And if so, what are its origins? Answer I found that the expression "killingly funny" (from which "How killing" comes from) is used to describe something that is farcical or screamingly funny and this term is related to or characteristic of the burlesque theater. The adverb "killingly" in fact, stands for "in a very humorous manner".

I just read an article from a Chinese website for English teaching which mentions that point. For instance, one can't say: "I can play quite a few musical instruments, for example, the flute, the guitar, the piano, etc.". The correct one should be: "I can play quite a few musical instruments, for example, the flute, the guitar, and the piano." Is it possible to find any references to prove that? Answer Apart from being redundant, as Mitch said in the comment, I don't think etc. fits very well in that example. There is a nuance to the use of etc. that Wikipedia sums up: The phrase et cetera is often used to denote the logical continuation of some sort of series of descriptions "Logical continuation" is the key here. Consider these two sentences: A balanced diet should include fruits: apples, oranges, etc. The fruit basket contained some of Bob's favorite fruits, for example, apples, oranges, etc. In the first example, you can logically contin

Fare-thee-well or fare-you-well are AmE expressions which appear to date back to the late 18th century: (informal chiefly US) a state of perfection: the steak was cooked to a fare-thee-well. (Collins Dictionary) According to Etymonline its related meaning, to the last degree is from late 19th century: Expression to a fare-thee-well "to the last degree" is by 1884, American English. Its origin is unclear, the Phrase Finder has no clue: Curiously, the OED has nothing (that I could find) for "fare-thee-well," but has this: "U.S. colloq. to a fare-you-well: to the last point; to the utmost degree; completely." No explanation in either dictionary of why a synonym for "good-bye" has taken on this meaning. The AHD appears to suggest that its meaning is an extension of its literary one: [From fare thee well, may it go well with you, goodbye.] Where does the current meaning of this AmE idiomatic expression come from? Is there a reason why it evolved

Sentence: Don't worry, I've bought an extra ticket for the show should you decide to come at the last minute. In this sentence, is ' if you decided ' also right (instead of 'should you decide', obviously)? Or do you have to use the inversion form with 'should'? Answer There are a few alternatives preferable to the unnecessarily awkward future-past tense of "if you decided": "in [the] case [that] you decide" "if you should decide" (a bit redundant, but still preferable) "if you were to decide" The first (without the parentheticals) is by far the most natural expression in American English. Your original "should you decide" might be the most natural in British English.

While reading the Jack Higgins novel “The Eagle Has Landed” (1975) I came across the phrase “ Judas gate ”. Research on-line indicates he is rather fond of the word, going to the point of naming another book by it. His fascination with the word is discussed in a letter . " Judas gates constantly surface in my book and people have often commented. There is a painting, I think Victorian, which shows a very large double gate. Inset in this gate, is a small door or gate which you can open and step through without the inconvenience of opening the larger double gates. In the painting, Judas is seen stepping through on his way to betray Christ. So, in English factories, you find such a small door set in most big factory gates and they were traditionally known in Yorkshire, a very industrial area where I grew up, as JUDAS GATES..." I have not been able to identify this painting on-line, and a search of Bible texts mentioning Judas does not render any references to gates as supposed

In Hindi language, there is a prevalent saying: sau chuhe maar billi haj ko chali which, if directly translated into English, becomes After killing/eating 100 mice, the cat goes on a pilgrimage I think the translation is enough to convey the essence of the proverb. However, it doesn't quite pack the punch as its Hindi counterpart. So what I am looking for is a similar proverb in English. UPDATE So, apparently, the translation conveys the essence to me due to my hindsight knowledge. My apologies. Though I am not aware of the etymology – I picked the proverb from day-to-day usage – I can explain its essence. Basically, it could be used to describe a situation in which an entity, after intentionally inflicting a heavy damage, performs some 'good' deed, often as a cover-up. I will try to put some context to the usage through examples. A conglomerate, after ravaging a diverse ecosystem and profiting out of it, goes on to donate some negligible amount of money as part of Corporat

I've checked Oxford Advanced Learners for acute : an acute illness is one that has quickly become severe and dangerous Compare:CHRONIC And for chronic : lasting for a long time Compare:ACUTE Can a disease be both "acute" and "chronic" simultaneously? For example it could be the case where a certain illness quickly becomes serious and have long term consequences Are there any "obtuse illnesses" ? Answer A chronic condition is one that persists for a long time. Asthma is a chronic condition: if you have asthma today, then you almost certainly had asthma yesterday and will still have it next week. Source and more details: Medline , OED . Acute has two relevant meanings. In colloquial usage, it just means severe ; so in that sense, a condition can be both acute and chronic. However, in medical language, it is specifically used in contrast to chronic; an acute condition, in this sense, is something which by its nature is (expected to be) of limited

The result of a Google search for "error" and " PREP line" is: "error" "on line": 439,000,000 results "error" "in line": 60.600.000 results "error" "at line": 35,800,000 results While on is the indisputable number one, in and at have also very many hits. In the following context, which one should I use. __ the first line you create an instance of XXX and XXX leads to the runtime error __ the last line. I think, both prepositions are different. Although the word create refers to the action which is executed while runtime, the former part refers to the actual code that is written. In contrast, the latter part is figurative. I don't refer to the written code. The error does not really occur in the code but the code is the representation of the assembly which fails. Thus, I have two bests guess: On the first line you create an instance of XXX and XXX leads to the runtime error at the last line. In the

What's the difference between "successive" and "consecutive"? Answer First note that successive appears as a synonym of consecutive in dictionaries. (see Merriam Webster's entry here ). Now compare these examples that I chose at random and extracted from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) : Consecutive "his unprecedented string of consecutive appearances" "has own the best actor Emmy two consecutive times" "named person of the year for the second consecutive time" "account balance remains overdrawn for seven consecutive days" "the Irish made six consecutive NCAA Tournaments" Successive "on successive laps, Chris passed three cars" "analysts say that successive governments failed to" "dramatic walk-off style in successive victories against the Seattle Mariners" "simultaneous and successive cognitive processes" "who have challenged successive militar

What are the differences in meaning between these two sentences: He was just offered a well-paid job with Radio Four. (Past Simple Passive) He has just been offered a well-paid job with Radio Four. (Present Perfect Passive) Both are grammatically correct, but what are the real meaning if I use #1 / #2? Answer Both are grammatically correct, but (1) is not idiomatic usage in British English. He was just offered a well-paid job with Radio Four. He has just been offered a well-paid job with Radio Four. British English speakers might use the active form: I have just offered him a well-paid job with Radio Four. (colloq.) I just offered him that job! I believe the reason is that He was offered connotes an event some time in the past, and contradicting that with just sounds odd. It's understood though, probably because it is used thus in American English (I believe).

I don't understand when and why to use can't have been . It seems so strange to me.

I've determined that almost all of John Clare's "I am" is in iambic pentameter. But I'm having trouble identifying the meter of the following line: But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems My reading was the following: - - x x x - - x - x (i.e., anapest, spondee, anapest, iamb). Please let me know if you agree or disagree. I'm open to any and all suggestions. Answer Classical terminology is of very little use in describing English poetry. Looking for ‘feet’ in an English line is like trying to analyze a Louis Armtrong or Joe Morello solo by categorizing the 2 8 patterns of measure employed: it’s an academic exercise which has very little to do with what’s actually going on. What’s important is the bar lines. The fundamental rhythm of English poetry, from Cædmon on down, is the four-stress line — most naively in what we call ‘common meter’: Praise |God from |whom all |blessings |flow Praise |Him all |creatures |here be|low Ballad meter, the ‘fourteener

What part of speech is "left" in the following sentence? There was nothing left .

Background I was looking up the rule about italicizing foreign phrases and found an apparent consensus that the criterion is if the phrase is familiar. Well, who gets to decide that? I know perfectly well what "fait accompli" means, and I don't know French. So I recently chose to not italicize it, but someone had a different opinion. Here is a summary of my findings. Wikipedia suggests : Loanwords or phrases that have common use in English, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps, e.g., i.e.—do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in Merriam-Webster Online. The University of Minnesota recommends : Italicize isolated words and phrases in a foreign language if they are likely to be unfamiliar to the reader. Capital Community College Foundation Guide to Grammar & Writing says : If a word or phrase has become so widely used and understood that it has become part of the English language — such as the

I wanted to refocus a related question on ell.se. towards a possible deeper and direct relationship to "on vs. off". Consider the following two phrases: In addition to the subtle difference in meaning, I'm particularly interested in where the semantics of the differences might come from. Can we trace the semantic difference between "live on" and "live off" to a fundamental, "definitional" aspect of "on vs. off"? Below, I've answered my own question as an afterthought. It was additional thoughts that needed to be moved to an answer, and is in no way intended to be definitive.

Francis Galton originally used the term "regression to mediocrity" to refer to the phenomenon that children of very tall parents were on average less tall. More generally, the heights of children over multiple generations would regress toward the mean, or average, height of the population. Today, "regression" is used to describe a particular statistical model in which data is distributed around a mean. Galton writes, The mean regression ... is easily ascertained intending to mean something like It is easy to ascertain the mean amount of regression but a careless reader could instead understand It is easy to ascertain this thing called a "mean regression" of which the contemporary meaning of regression is a natural extension. A phenomenon ("regression") was described with a statistical model, but the name of the phenomenon came to be used to refer to the model itself. I'm struggling to think of a less esoteric example, although I feel like the

The word fleek is all over Twitter . The @lovihatibot Twitterbot routinely finds it in searches for "I love the word [X]" and "I hate the word [X]", in fact it's the third most hated word over the past 30 days, and the 15th most hated in all of 2014 . That's a lot of hate for a little word, it can't be random babble to cause such a reaction. Similarly it regularly shows up in @favibot 's searches for "[X] is my new favorite word". What does fleek mean? Where does it come from and when was it first used? Was there a single person or event which popularised it, and when was it? Or if it's an older word, what accounts for its recent popularity? Answer What '[on] fleek' means and where it came from: the standard view As Matt Эллен notes in his answer, the road to mass adoption of fleek runs through a Vine mini-video uploaded on June 21, 2014, by Peaches Monroee. If you don't have Flash on your computer (as I don't), y

I frequently encounter phrases like this: "It allows to apply these features to customisable sets of fonts". My question is whether this is proper English or not? In my mind, "it allows the application of ..." or "it allows one to apply ..." sound much better. I suspect that this is a Germanism (that would explain why I hear it so often), but it would be nice to know for sure. Answer I just ran a Google Books ngram and saw that from 1800-2012 the incidence of It allows to has risen from 0.0000011% to 0.0000053%. The biggest rise was from 1980 until now: 0.000002%-0.0000053%. From what I can tell from the books in which this appears, the most recent are technical writing by non-native-speakers of English. A couple from the 19th century are legitimate English: the assembly may compel the observance of a proper decorum by all persons, whom it allows to be present at its proceedings. and It assembles more frequently, and at its own time, without any control

I need to name an interface in a program I'm writing as being able to collide, but I've seen use of both collideable and collidable in projects with a similar type. Both of them look right in some ways, and wrong in others. Which spelling is more correct? Answer Short answer: There's no clear choice; take your pick. Long answer: Neither collideable nor collidable is a word you're likely to find in a dictionary, but in your context using it (one of them) may be exactly the right choice. As for the spelling preference, Wikipedia's detailed article on American and British English spelling differences says: Before -able , British English prefers likeable , liveable , rateable , saleable , sizeable , unshakeable , where American practice prefers to drop the -e ; [borderline: tradeable , smokeable , driveable , shareable ] but both British and American English prefer breathable , curable , datable , lovable , movable , notable , provable , quotable , scalable , solv

Given the sentence: Most people who live and work near Washington, DC, would have trouble imagining dinosaurs walking around the area. Grammatically, what would ‘ imaging ’ be called in this case? Present participle or gerund or something? I mean, if it is a present participle, ‘imagining~’ might be a description of the subject. And if it is a gerund, ‘imagining~’ might be an object of the verb phrase of ‘have trouble’. How do they explain this ‘imagining’ after ‘have trouble’? Answer 1. Some verbs (other than auxiliaries) can take other verbs immediately after themselves: She sat knitting. He helped (to) wash up. I enjoy imagining what it will be like when I'm old enough to ride free on the buses. These constructions are known as catenations; notice that the second verb may be in the -ing form, the bare infinitive, or the to-infinitive. Behaviour of individual verbs varies. 2. Some multi-word constructions resemble single-word verbs both semantically ( put on a hat = don a hat