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What is the difference between saying solution to the problem and saying solution of the problem ? Are they both equivalent, or is there some difference? Answer You almost always hear "solution to the problem" and sometimes "solution for the problem" — but almost never do you hear "of" in that context. solution |səˈloō sh ən| noun 1 a means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation : there are no easy solutions to financial and marital problems . • the correct answer to a puzzle : the solution to this month's crossword . Note that both of NOAD's examples use to . One would use "solution of" if one is referring to a chemical solution: 2 a liquid mixture in which the minor component (the solute) is uniformly distributed within the major component (the solvent).

Should it be Grails has integration with jUnit or The Grails has integration with jUnit If the correct answer is the one without the "The", then why? P.S. (The) Grails is an open source web application framework. Answer Usually, as other answers note, names of software products and other proper-noun names don't take the . Yet some, especially plurals, do, like the Netherlands , the Internet , and the Web . (To be honest, I can't think of a software product whose name takes the . Nonetheless,) I think it simply depends on what the common use is for any given proper noun: try to find Grails and the Grails (and The Grails , I suppose) in use.

For example, "Race, religion, and gender, are still crucial factor's in someone's success" Should there be a comma after "gender"? And is this a fixed rule?

Which one is correct between turn on or switch on an air conditioner at home?

When we create new words ending in -ex ( mutex being short for mutual exclusion ), should we (may we?) use the Latin plural form because the suffix is similar to the latin suffix -ex ? (Personally I've always favoured the -ices form.) Answer As you say mutex comes from mutual exclusion , which is, obviously, not Latin origin; emulating Latin etymology is therefore a case of introducing unnecessary complexity. EDIT(2): As noted in the comment by RegDwight, when you create new words, you can do almost anything you want with them. Mutex is relatively new term and it is not in any dictionaries, so prescriptivists, for example, could not rule your ? mutices as ungrammatical. However as words are added to dictionaries according to usage, and usage shows that mutexes is commonly used 1 as plural it will most likely remain mutexes when it is added to dictionaries. 1 See ngrams - there are no ? mutices , but many mutexes in the indexed corpus. Also take a look at a related discu...

I want to tell a colleague of mine I'm doing something that will prevent her from getting "ununderstandable" errors. I have: ...so that you will not get unnecessary, [ununderstandable] errors. After googling "ununderstandable", I see that there is no such word, but I'm still looking for something that sounds better. Answer How about incomprehensible or unfathomable ?

Is there a word that means something like "someone who does the same job as me"? I've thought of colleague and co-worker . These both indicate that someone works at the same place, or some other kind of work relationship, but they don't indicate that the job is the same. The best I've come up with is my fellow-X , but this feels cumbersome. Answer My Webster's lists the following synonyms for colleague : coworker, fellow worker, workmate, teammate, associate, partner, collaborator, ally, confederate. None of these really work in the sense you're looking for, something that means "in exactly the same job" as you. If no one strikes gold for you here, I would suggest that one alternative for you is to be more specific about the actual job function: My wife is a periodontist, just like me. Jean and Kate were both trial lawyers. Here are a few traits I share with my fellow QA consultants at IBM: [List] Ed and Bill and I have a lot of disagreements, ...

The Lord’s Prayer begins in English: Our Father who art in heaven , hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Shouldn’t it be who is there, not who art ? You would have said thou art and he is at the time this was written. See the Wikipedia article on Thou for example. Answer "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy (your) Name," is the rest of that sentence. By saying "Our Father... Thy..." you are addressing God personally, making that the second person singular (you are). (First person singular: I am. Third person singular: he/she/it is.) "Our Father" is not speaking about God; it is speaking to God. (It is like saying, Hey, Dad, you, up there. Blessed be your name.) If it were about Him , it would certainly be He is . From the same book which states Our Father, who art in heaven : For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. - Isaiah 33:22 Quot...

I'm reading a book titled Comprehensive High School English Grammar & Composition . The author, who is Indian, says this on the use of the modal verbs can and could : Can is used to express "empty use": I can walk. I can feel summer heat. Birds can sing in the trees. Could is used to express "empty use": I could feel the touch of cool breeze. They could enjoy soothing showers. But I'm not getting what the meaning of the phrase "empty use" is, and why the author used this term here, and whether it's a standard term or concept, or unique to this (non-native) author. Is "empty use" a recognized term among linguists? If so, what does it mean?

The tip I used to teach was the verb, hire , should be used for things which are transportable hence, you hire a car, sports equipment, a boat, a bike etc. Rent , on the other hand, is primarily used for property, e.g.; to rent a holiday residence ; "office space for rent" ; and "We're living in rented accommodation". But I realize that tip doesn't cover everything and here's why. In the UK, when I was a child and before credit cards became the norm; families who couldn't afford to pay the full price of household furniture, electrical appliances; including colour TVs, and even alarm clock radios were "bought" on HP (hire and purchase) – once popularly called the "never-never". Recently, I discovered that in the US a similar system for purchasing goods exists but is known as Rent-to-Own . link The same discrepancy lies with car rentals in the US and car hire in the UK but in neither case do you end up purchasing the vehicle. We...

Just exactly what is a bibs and a bobs? And where the heck did that expression come from, anyway? Answer I believe the original version of this idiom is "bits and bobs". It means the same as "odds and ends", which means "bits and pieces, remnants, leftovers". A "bit" was a coin (three-penny bit) and a "bob" was a shilling or twelve pence. Wiktionary has a page for bits and bobs as well.

If I am expecting an answer from a question and wish to state my prediction, do I need to use quotes around a simple "yes" or "no"? I think the answer is no. / I think the answer is "no." That would be a yes. / That would be a "yes." Potential end cases: Why would he say, "No"? The votes are in; three yeses and four nos. The options are yes or no; not "maybe." Answer Unless there's a style guide telling you otherwise, I'd suggest basing your decision on whether you mean the literal words 'yes' and 'no', or the general nature of the response. Consider: Why would he say, "No"? (For that is the word that he said.) vs Why would he say no? (What he actually said was "Over my dead body", but let's not worry about that detail.)

Is there any difference? Why would you say authors guild and not authors association ? Answer Obviously "correct" usage is whatever [the group in question's] founders originally decided to call themselves (there are also Federations , Fellowships , Societies , Unions , etc.) Guild has a somewhat archaic flavour, but a newly-formed group might choose it simply to imply a long and distinguished history. It also has stronger overtones of the members being [traditional] craftsmen with tradeable skills and/or products. Association may imply a looser (often predominantly commercial) relationship between members.

What is the word to describe a person who does not have a personal opinion or stand on a subject? If somebody says X is right, then you could agree. But if some other person says X is wrong, and you also agree, you are not really expressing your own opinion. You are simply agreeing with everyone else. How do you describe that kind of personality with one word in a formal way? Specifically, someone who cannot make decisions on their own and depends on others' opinions. Answer One who doesn't take a stance on a subject can be characterized as impartial or indifferent impartial (adj) - treating all rivals or disputants equally; fair and just: indifferent (adj) - having no particular interest or sympathy; unconcerned* One who can't make decisions on his own is certainly diffident : adj - lacking confidence in one's own ability, worth, or fitness; timid; shy. There are many options though. You should be more specific and maybe provide some context: apathetic, infirm, wea...

In friendship, what does have a big row mean? Is it a common expression? What about its style (formal or informal)? Example: It is not long before Soosan falls out with Hooshang, and Kobra and Han have a big row.

In Catalan there is an expression " ser la xocolata del lloro " that can be translated as "saving by not giving chocolate to the parrot is futile", conveying the meaning that when a household wants to save money, there are ways by which not much saving is going to be made. As an example, if you stop giving little bits of chocolate to the parrot to enjoy, although it looks like a saving measure, it's more posturing than real savings, so that doesn't make much difference: you actually won't end up saving much, because the amount of chocolate is very small. Is there any equivalent expression in the English language for the same kind of saving efforts that won't make a difference? Answer The term penny-wise refers to being "careful in dealing with small sums of money or small matters". It's commonly found in the phrase penny wise, pound foolish , meaning "Someone who is penny wise, pound foolish can be very careful or mean with small...

I would like to write "In "[article name]," [author] states such and such." However, in this particular instance, [article name] ends in a question mark. How should I punctuate this? "In "Can Pigs Fly," Bacon states..." "In "Can Pigs Fly?" Bacon states..." "In "Can Pigs Fly?," Bacon states..." Or something else? Thank you! Answer I think the punctuation should be as in the last example you used where both the question mark and comma appear within the quotes: In "Can Pigs Fly?," Bacon states. For the question mark appearing within the quotations, The Blue Book of Grammar and Puncutation notes: The placement of question marks with quotation marks follows logic. If a question is within the quote material, a question mark should be placed side the quotation marks. And A Commonsense Guide to Grammar and Usage notes: The following tip will help you decide where to put question marks and exclamation p...

Is there an idiomatic saying to say that a distance is about x kilometer, including the connotation of " a little bit more than " or " a little bit less than " as " just over " and " just under " respectively denotes. The village is located __ 30 km to the south of London. Clarification: I'm not looking for one word that is saying both (like around, approximately, etc.), but for two different (opposite) words with the connotation of either "just over" or "just under". Answer This is a tough question indeed. Most single-word terms (such as around, about, approximately , or roughly ) seem to mean "more or less"; most terms that express a small delta in one particular direction or the other (like a shade under/over , or a tad more than/less than ) are not single words. To express a little less than , you might try: The village is almost 30 km south of London. The village is nearly 30 km south of London. The vill...

My question is if there were some "movements" that propose to remove definite and indefinite articles completely in the last 100 or 200 years (or even more older). E.g. "a book" will be just "book" "the book" will be just "book" If you think this is weird, well, for a non native speaker of English could be weird that the words doesn't have genders like for example in German (der Man, die Frau, das Auto). I just want to be sure that there were no such movements and tendencies. To make my question more "sane" for a native English speaker I would give you these examples of omitting indefinite and definite articles in English: computer program menus, newspaper headlines, song/movie titles, dictionaries, computer languages and other technological areas where people don't use articles at all I am sure you have noticed that at least on your Mac OS or Windows. Another thing is that some languages like Latin or Slovio and ...

"Mary is so funny." What is the grammatical function of 'so' in this example? Answer It's an adverb, qualifying the adjective “funny”. It is synonymous with extremely or very much .

When who is an antecedent, does it need to directly touch the person it's referring to? For example: I called Sally, who urged me to move in with her in Texas. OR I called Sally, the mother of Selena Gomez, who urged me to move in with her in Texas. In the second case, is the who incorrectly referring back to Selena Gomez? If it refers to Selena Gomez, how to write the second sentence to refer Sally? In the second case, is the her incorrectly referring back to Selena Gomez? If her refers to Selena Gomez, how to write the second sentence to refer Sally? In the second sentence if who refers to Sally, how to write this sentence to refer Selena Gomez? In the second sentence if her refers to Sally, how to write this sentence to refer Selena Gomez?

Right now I can only think of one instance in which this regularly occurs. The adjective proper is sometimes placed after the noun it modifies, e.g: Reptilia: A class of cold-blooded oviparous or ovoviviparous vertebrated animals whose skin is covered with scales or scutes; the reptiles proper . What is this word order called, and why is it ever used? Edit: I really want to know about proper , and while the word hyperbaton relates to post-positivity when it is meant to be rhetorically impacting, it doesn't seem to fit with ubiquitous post-positivity, such as that of proper . I've accepted hyperbaton as the correct term/reason for almost all post-positive constructions, but I'd like a complete answer to include proper .

What is the word for what we are doing to the thread when we "thread a bead"? Are we "beading" the thread? The closest word that I could find was "extrude" but I think that this is more of a manufacturing term than an arts & crafts term. Answer Sure, you can both bead a thread and vice versa, as the first sense of the verb bead given by the OED is: trans. To furnish, adorn, or work with beads. And it gives citations sush as these: 1822 Beddoes Bride’s Trag. ɪɪɪ. iv, ― Drops enough to bead a thousand such [necklaces.] 1856 Miss Yonge Daisy Ch. ɪ. xxii. (1879) 228 ― Morning dew, which beaded the webs of the spiders.

If I understood the NY Times correctly, the words might and may are interchangeable except might is used to convey a greater level of uncertainty. Examples: I'll probably need gas for tomorrow's trip, so I might as well fill up now. (There's a sense of uncertainty: I don't know if I have enough gas.) I may as well get a car wash while at the gas station. (There is no uncertainty here. I am indeed at the gas station.) On the other hand, this answer suggests to me that if I were "medium-confident" I had enough gas, I would use may as well in the first example above. Is that right? Answer The expressions may as well and might as well are effectively fixed idioms, so whether you are certain of getting gas or not does not affect matters. Both You may as well and you might as well are used to suggest a course of action that either takes advantage of a positive situation that has come up, or at least tries to make the best of a bad one. Both can imply a ...

What is the term for when one replaces a well-known name [(Proper) noun, company, brand, etc.] with one that tries to be funny yet pejoratively descriptive, different but similar enough that one's audience can likely understand the replacement? For example: Whole Foods ===> Whole Paycheck; Comcast ==> Scumcast; Starbucks ==> Charbucks; Kinko's == Stinko's; eBay ==> Evil Bay I tend to use sobriquet don't believe this explicitly implies funny as well as insulting. Moniker again is close but not specific to the above description. There is a similar question which proposes tortonym and malapropsim, but it does not seem to settle the argument definitively: Is there a term for pejorative parody names of people or places? Another answer here proposes dysphemism, but to me it isn't a full fit: What do you call it when a name/word is better known by a pejorative? because it doesn't cover the humor aspect.

The letter ⟨u⟩ is used in text messaging and internet and other written slang to denote 'you', by virtue of both being pronounced /juː/. (Wikipedia) When and by whom was the letter "u" first used as an abbreviation for the word "you" in writing?

In the States, we use the term "pharmacy" or "drugstore," but what is the equivalent in the UK? I checked two sources, but came up with nothing. Answer It's a chemist's , though drugstore is starting to creep into standard UK usage too.

I recently discovered a friend who always believed that cheesy , corny and tacky meant (to use their words) a "pornographic display of emotion". As in: The end of a TV show where that Dad says to the son, "I love you and I want the best for you". To them such things are "cheesy" because they're too "explicitly emotional" -- but not because they're cheap or insincere. So when they heard people say "that song is cheesy" or "the ending of that movie was so tacky" they thought it was referring to an exposed display of emotion which makes them feel uncomfortable. Not necessarily because the movie was trying too hard, and therefore coming across as fake or mawkish, but simply because the characters were sharing their innermost. For example, this person could be at a wedding in real life , and watching a proud father welcome his new daughter-in-law to their family, describe it as "tacky" -- solely because his fee...

Elision ("the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase") produces the following: going → goin(') going to → gonna Worcester → Wuster (ˈwʊstər) However, this hasn't affected the accepted standard spellings of the examples above. Are there any cases in the past century where the standard spelling has changed? (Note: I'm not looking for a list, just the existence of a documented change.) If not, are there any notable trends that indicate we may see a spelling shift in the near future for certain words or phrases–perhaps due to the increasing acceptance of txtspk and informal English in previously "formal" communication? A concrete example or two would suffice, but I'd prefer a link to a study or paper if one's available. To reiterate, I'm looking for a change no earlier than the 20th century . In the early 20th century, there were multiple efforts to simplify spelling (most unsuccessful ). Arguably, it was to make the written word ...

In my experience, referring to someone in an organization as "chief cook and bottle washer" has multiple possible meanings: person has a wide variety of duties in the organization person is very, perhaps uniquely, important to the organization in a non-obvious way person is almost useless to the organization #1 seems to be the most common usage, and I'm not sure whether the others are misusages, and, if not, if #3 is ironic or just one of those weird "has two opposite meanings" things. Also, it's unclear how to parse it. Are "chief cook" and "bottle washer" two distinct professions? If they are, is he chief cook and chief bottle washer, or is he a subordinate bottle washer? Or is "cook and bottle washer" a single profession, of which he is the organization's chief member? Each of these interpretations could imply different ultimate meanings. And lastly, if anyone knows of an etymology, that would be great. From my failed re...

I always hear people say "personly" and "finely" instead of "personally" and "finally" when they speak. I wonder whether this reduction can apply to other words ending with "-nally"? Just like "basically" is pronounced "basic-ly" and "usefully" as "usef-ly".

Is there any word to describe the fear of unknown future? Like when you cannot anticipate your future, you don't know what will happen or what can happen, not near or immediate future, but some future far away. Like what will happen five years from now? You can't control it so you're fearful.

Claim: a word ending in -y is most likely not a noun but an adjective. Don't have my tagged corpus handy to check. Anyone have the stats on Parts-Of-Speech of words ending in y and assuming they don't end in -ly ?

It's common practice in Ireland (and the US as far as I know) to pronounce the x in the middle of sixth: six-th [sɪksθ] . However, I've noticed from visits to England as well as watching British television, that a lot of English people pronounce it as 'sicth' [sɪkθ] . Why is this, and is it an accepted usage?

London Royal Parks and London's Royal Parks Both phrases are used, and I understand that "London" in the first example is acting as an adjective. Whereas in the second, "London", is used as a proper noun and therefore has an apostrophe. However, which form is the older? I suspect that it is the second and if that is the case, why do only two Royal Parks: St. James's and The Regent's Park, have an apostrophe while four Royal Parks do not? In other words: Why not Hyde's Park, Richmond's Park, Greenwich's Park and Kensington's Gardens? Please, no answers with: "The Royal Parks in London" or "The Royal Parks of London." and claiming the above are "correct" because inanimate nouns and geographic names do not take the apostrophe. That's false. On dates I found this on Wikipedia: Place names in the United States do not use the possessive apostrophe on federal maps and signs. The United States Board on Geograp...

Compact Discs, washers and Aerobie frisbees are all disks with a hole in the middle. Is there a word (either mathematical or not) to describe this shape? I mean the specific case of a round hole in a flat disk such that the inner and outer rings are concentric circles, like below. --Edit: Accepted answer I feel rather unqualified to select one answer as correct, so I'm going to choose the one that says "It depends who you're talking to". I hope that future readers will choose between the various helpful answers here depending on their exact object and their audience. After reading the etymology of annulus, I also hope that nobody ever tries to market an "Incredible Flying Annulus" to 13-year old boys. Answer There is an informal, nontechnical-English answer and a technical mathematical answer. informally, it can be a ring (like a coffee ring, aerobie, or washer (the last one is questionable, could be 'washer-shaped'), or a disk or disk with hole i...

Cambridge Dictionaries Online has provided examples on the word "next". Why is "the" omitted in "What do you think you'll be doing this time next year?" while next day is preceded by "the" in "We had a dreadful argument, but he phoned me the next day (= the day after) to apologize." Do we include "the" before "next"? Answer In the first sentence "next" refers to a specific year. An alternate for the first sentence might be: "What do you think you'll be doing this time in 2015?" In the second sentence "the next" refers to "the following." An alternate for the second sentence might be: "We had a dreadful argument, but he phoned me the following day to apologize." similar to: "The train was full, so we boarded the next train."

Hi I'm working on a software project for work that inflects english words into their various derived forms. e.g. work (verb) -> works, working, worked. My main problem at the moment is that I need to standardize some naming conventions or categories for each inflection type in my program, and then funnel scraped data from across the internet into these categories. For nouns it was fairly easy since there is just plural and possessive (correct me at any point if there is an error). For adjectives I have base form , superlative , and comparative . For verbs the situation is more complicated. I have a mood -> tense -> person -> number hierarchy currently that was brought over from the Italian language system. I want to be clear that I do not need a category for every possible combination, and I do not need separate categories for conjugations that use auxiliary verbs, only those which inflect the verb's form. I want a minimum set of categories that will fully des...

While editing a document, I noticed Microsoft Word flagged "In order to...." as bad grammar. The reason being that it is redundant because just saying "To" says the same thing. This seems like weird thing to flag as "In order to do X, we are doing Y" sounds more natural than "To do X, we are doing Y", because the "In order" part seems to emphasize that X is really what we care about. (This is just an example, I'm interested in understanding the grammar rule behind this flag) I am also used to a culture of "redundancy is good", "redundancy reduces the chance of problems", "redundancy is more reliable"; So my understanding is that redundant language should be good, as it reduces the chance that the text (and its meaning) will get misread/misinterpreted. And while I see a lot of things online saying things like "redundancy is bad" and "avoid these redundant language", I don't see an...

There are some questions on gender-neutral pronouns both here and on Writers . User Christine Letts writes : In academia, there is currently a movement toward using the feminine pronoun at all times. I wonder why that is. I came across several examples on papers I read, but the only one I can remember at the moment is a book: Seth Godin's Linchpin . While some might not be comfortable labeling it as part of academia, it suits my point perfectly. Every time he refers to a person, he uses the feminine pronoun. User Senseful writes the following, potentially identifying affirmative action as the precursor for this trend. I remember reading somewhere that it was recommended to use the opposite of what most people stereotype the profession as. So, for example, when talking about a chiropractor, you would use "her", and when talking about a secretary, you would use "his". So, where do you think this trend comes from? Answer This practice began round about the time ...

I am looking for a word that describes the act of saying something like, "You shouldn't feel guilty," when what you really want (consciously or subconsciously) is the opposite. In other words, saying "Don't feel guilty" is meant to bring up the notion of guilt. I know there's a word for this but I can't remember it.

I need to send my boss mail explaining that because of a personal issue I need to handle, I can’t attend the conference. Which of these phrases would best express that I have my own business to deal with: personal issue private issue personal affair personal business What are the differences between those expressions?

The decimal (base 10) number "2" can also be represented as the binary (base 2) number "10". Let's use binary "10" (equivalent to decimal "2") as an example. I could see a few different ways to go here. Assume that the base doesn't need to be specified, and is understood from the context of the conversation (e.g. two programmers talking about memory addresses would understand that they were using hexadecimal). It could be "ten", since that is what it looks like. One might even argue that ten, as a concept, refers to a one followed by a zero irrespective of the radix. In other words, ten means "a quantity exactly equal to the base it's represented in". On the other hand, you could argue that "ten" refers specifically to the quantity; in other words, "1010" in binary, "10" in decimal, and "12" in octal would all be pronounced "ten," and "10" in binary should...

People tell me this phrase is only used in the context of wine. Even though my lack of knowledge of other phrases that are built similarly suggests these people must be right, my curiosity gets the better of me. After all, I can't claim to know of all the phrases out there. Are there, though? Something along the lines of: this pizza is eating nicely this gum is chewing nicely or even with another beverage: this juice/whiskey is drinking nicely Answer Others have rightly called this the middle construction or the medio-passive . When a verb allows the object in a transitive clause to become the subject in an intransitive clause it is said to be an ergative verb. Drink is such a verb. We can say They are drinking the wine (transitive verb, wine is object), but we can also say The wine is drinking well now (intransitive verb, wine is subject). The OED’s earliest record of of drink used intransitively in this way is from 1617: The wine . . . drunke too flat.

Okay that's a crazy title, but bear with me. Got into a good natured discussion with someone on another stack exchange site, and I was "correcting" him on the use of infer vs. imply. (The discussion can be found here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8471/did-eleanor-roosevelt-say-that-the-jews-brought-the-holocaust-on-themselves/8485?noredirect=1#comment60705_8485 ) He pointed me to a dictionary entry for "infer" that seems to use the definition for imply. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infer The 4th definition that is given there reads: suggest, hint - "are you inferring I'm incompetent?" That, to me, is a classic example of where someone should not use "infer", but should use "imply". But maybe I'm wrong? Granted, it's the 4th of four definitions, and so presumably less common, but I thought the two, "imply" and "infer" had totally distinct meanings. According to definition ...

In the Indian language of Malayalam, there's a saying "Aana vayil ambazhanga", which literally translates to: A small fruit in an elephant's mouth. It means: Having too small an amount for a very large need. What's an equivalent idiom in English? " Bring a knife to a gunfight ", can mean entering a conflict without preparation. " Too little, too late " can mean something is not in time to be effective. These don't fit here, because I want it to only mean "too small an amount for a very large need" and nothing more. Answer Try drop in the ocean , defined by Cambridge dictionary as A very small amount compared to the amount needed.

Everywhere I look online, people seem to say the same thing: "A sentence with an indirect object must have a direct object." Every case of confusion I've seen about this rule has only involved examples where direct objects are omitted but still implied . However, consider the following sentence: Jim ran to the store. As I understand it, here ran is intransitive and therefore has no direct object; and to the store is a prepositional phrase, making store the indirect object of ran . Therefore this sentence contains an indirect object and no direct object. Is this observation correct? If so, why do so many people insist that sentences cannot have indirect objects without direct objects? Answer Most of these answers only briefly or vaguely touch on the core of the correct answer: intransitive verbs simply have no object at all. You would only call some word an indirect object if it fits into a grammatical structure that has a component defined as an indirect object. A pre...

Should I put a comma before the last item in a list? I would like crackers, cheese and some soda. I would like crackers, cheese, and some soda. Answer Using a comma before the last item in a list is known as the Oxford Comma , sometimes the Serial Comma. It is used before conjunctions in a list like this with three or more items. Its use is purely written style and optional. It is more common in America outside journalism, and much less common in other English speaking areas of the world. There are arguments for and against which usually come down to comprehension. Wikipedia quotes these ambiguities: To my parents, Mother Teresa and the Pope. To my parents, Mother Teresa, and the Pope. Also on that wiki page you can find lots of links to certain style guides. Comma use is something of a grey area though, and everyone has his own style. Pick what reduces ambiguity. Language log has an interesting article on how reading comprehension can be improved with comma use , including this type.

I saw that "foo" has been used to name a lot of computer-related things. I wonder if foo has some meaning itself beyond computer science? what it means in computer science? how it should be used? Answer The Wikipedia entry for Foobar covers this pretty thoroughly (emphasis mine): The terms foobar, foo, bar, baz and qux are sometimes used as placeholder names (also referred to as metasyntactic variables) in computer programming or computer-related documentation. They have been used to name entities such as variables, functions, and commands whose purpose is unimportant and serve only to demonstrate a concept. The words themselves have no meaning in this usage. Foobar is sometimes used alone; foo, bar, and baz are sometimes used in that order, when multiple entities are needed. [...] The origins of the terms are not known with certainty, and several anecdotal theories have been advanced to identify them. Foobar may have derived from the military acronym FUBAR and gained po...

Is bestowing anonymity the right way to say "keeping someones identity secret?" Basically the author is writing about someone, a fallen dictator and his nasty goings on, without using the name of the dictator. Could you say he is protecting himself from further repercussions? Would he be bestowing anonymity or is there another (nice) way of saying it? the anonymous person would be the dictator, not the poet

I remembered a phrase this morning "Where do you get off...?" (last entry), which is similar to "Who do you think you are...?" or "What gives you the right to...?" or "How dare you...?" . Due to its scarcity in my favorite online dictionaries, I wondered if the phrase was new. But it's been used as early as 1913 . Wanting to know its origin I found this discussion with several good ideas, including "Where do you get off...?" being: The same as "Where (on Earth) could you get away with...?" About transportation, whether related to ego trip or a physical stop of some importance Related to Schadenfreude But the discussion is informal. Is there formal evidence for what the original implication of "Where do you get off...?" was?

I am struggling on a sentence here. Let me show u what I come up with; Would I fail if I won't study? In this sentence I am trying to indicate a possibility but I am not sure if I use this part correct : if I won't study which tense should I be using there? Answer The sentence you're looking for is: Will I fail if I don't study? The if -clause in English takes an ordinary present-tense verb in this construction. This is a present conditional , which indication a condition about a present or future action. You could also write this: Would I fail if I didn't study? This indicates a hypothetical condition. If you actually want to indicate a counter-factual condition about a past event, you need to use the perfect: Would I have failed if I hadn't studied?

A lot of people say this when they are challenging someone else: I'll verse you. I thought this sentence was grammatically correct. However one day my computer teacher got into an argument with us about it. He whipped out a dictionary and began searching the word "verse" and told us the definition and said that saying "verse" as in challenging is wrong. It should be used as in Home verses Guest . Is that right? If it is, why does the majority say it this way? Answer Your teacher is correct. I believe that you're mixing up verses vs. versus . Versus should be used in the sense of challenging or opposing someone or something.

Do I say "I study computer science," or "I study Computer Science"? Similarly, "I really liked that computer science course," vs. "I really liked that Computer Science course." Answer Below user Robusto's foregoing answer, user Clément requests sources which I provide here: An Internet search yielded this which then recommended this by the University of Sussex : (c) The names of languages are always written with a capital letter. Be careful about this; it's a very common mistake. Juliet speaks English, French, Italian and Portuguese. I need to work on my Spanish irregular verbs. Among the major languages of India are Hindi, Gujarati and Tamil. These days, few students study Latin and Greek. Note, however, that names of disciplines and school subjects are not capitalized unless they happen to be the names of languages: I'm doing A-levels in history, geography and English. Newton made important contributions to physics and mathematics...

In past tense works (novels, etc.) is there a place for some present tense verbs, such as "think" or "know" or "was." Example: I turned to leave, and he didn't try to stop me. I think I surprised him. I know I surprised myself. This sounds much more natural to me than "I thought I surprised him." Is there a word for this? A rule? Would you rephrase it? If so, how? Thank you.

It is ironic that the name of a mental device which is supposed to make our lives easier is itself so hard to spell. Is there a mnemonic for the spelling of mnemonic ? Answer Sure; repeat to yourself m y n iece is mnemonic . This assumes that the mn is the source of difficulty and you don't need a mnemonic for the rest of the word.

Are there idioms or expressions in English that describe going from one bad situation to one that's even worse? I heard "between a rock and hard place" but this describes a dilemma not really a transition. I am looking for an expression that describes someone trying to get out of a bad situation but after much effort, the situation only got worse. Answer Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Link

To make someone laugh, we sometime rub his underarm with our fingers in a way that makes him feel restless and then he starts laughing. My question is: What is the specific vocabulary in the English language for the aforesaid rubbing? Answer At the risk of giving too general a term, I would suggest the word "tickle". This would refer to rubbing any part of the body to elicit laughter. Definition 2 here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tickle

What does "I'm game" mean and what is its correct usage? Answer I'm game means that I am up for the challenge , but arguably more commonly, I agree ... Q: Fancy going for a drink? A: Sure, I'm game... or Q: I was thinking of going shopping. Do you want to come? A: Yes, I'm game... As for correct usage, as with most idioms, use it as you will... there is no correct usage as such.

I have always wondered why the motto of the City of Orlando, FL (USA) is worded as The City Beautiful instead of The Beautiful City : Is The City Beautiful grammatically correct? If so, do you have examples of mottos or common phrases that use the adjective after the noun? Answer This is anastrophe , or more broadly, hyperbaton : a change to conventional word order for the sake of emphasis, in this case poetic effect. The first article mentions the City Beautiful movement specifically. Here, interesting you might find this question .

I'm trying to find the right word to describe someone who wants to voice their opinion about subjects (especially controversial ones or ones where the speaker is going against easily-provided facts) but who doesn't want those opinions challenged directly and gets angry if they are. I'm looking for words with a negative connotation. I'm aware of the word "obstinate", but it doesn't really feel like it does the concept justice, perhaps because it can also be used to mean "not easily controlled" and can be interpreted as a positive. Also, obstinate seems to mean that someone won't change their mind in response to an argument and leaves out that the person explicitly forbids an argument from being presented in the first place. It also leaves out that the person not only won't change their mind about a subject but also wants to make sure others know what their opinion is. Either a word or a phrase is fine. I'm just having difficulty findin...