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I am doing some programming with math. I have written a tidy function which turns any positive number to negative or any negative number to a positive. I would like to name this function in the most informative way so that if someone else were to look at my function; they would understand, straight away, what it does (and expect what it says on the tin). The best word I can come up with is 'flip' but I feel that it fails at being obvious. The function belongs to the Math object so it looks like this: answer = Math.flip(number) The results might be -1 = Math.flip(1) or 1 = Math.flip(-1) How can I best describe this act? Answer invert verb 1.3 chiefly Mathematics Subject to inversion; transform into its inverse. (oxforddictionaries.com) but it has lots of meanings in maths. More precisely, it is the Additive Inverse the additive inverse of a number a is the number that, when added to a, yields zero and not to be confused with Multiplicative Inverse a multiplicative inverse or re...

What do you call a person who hates everyone but himself? I'm looking for a single word for this.

In short, my company is developing a management tool for managing SIM cards. One of the features of the tool is to block the SIM card if it's put into a disallowed device by device IMEI validation. The feature for this was mocked up using the terms blacklist and whitelist . However, after a while someone raised the point that these terms could feel a bit controversial. The advantage of using these terms is that they are clean and easily understandable, but then again if they could invoke any racial issues we don't want anything to do with them. So far we've come up with these possible alternatives: Blocked List Unblocked List Allowed List And honestly, we're not very excited for any of these words. Do you feel that these words are controversial? Are there better words we could use? Answer Blacklist and whitelist are fine, I don't think they are in any way racist, unless you're actually using them for discrimination. Wikipedia's IMEI entry repeatedly uses ...

What does the statement Once I did bad and that I heard ever. Twice I did good and that I heard never. mean? In what situations is it meaningful? Answer It means that if you do a bad thing, people will remind you about it forever. But if you do a good thing, or many good things, often people won't bother to comment on it.

We normally say to my right and to my left. If something is located to my top or bottom how would I say that? Say, I am lying on the floor, to my right there is a wall , to my left there is a desk* and to my top/bottom? Should we use top and bottom or is there a better way of saying this? Answer If you are lying down, "above" and "below" continue to be with respect to gravity. Hence, when you're lying down, the ground is below you, and the sky is above you. You might refer to things "at your feet" or "behind your head".

Consider: I need to do this. I need do this. My English grammar knowledge tells me that "need" doesn't have the same status as the modal verbs "may", "can", "should" and what not. Hence the second usage where two verbs appear consecutively is incorrect. But yesterday, my native English speaking friends (Americans) told me that "I need compute this." is a perfectly grammatical sentence, and one is simply omitting the "to". How can this be? Is it a colloquial usage but grammatically incorrect, or is it grammatically correct? If it is grammatically correct, is it because "need" is a semi-modal verb? EDIT: in particular, is it okay to use "need compute" in a scientific paper? EDIT2: the exact phrase that raised the question was "The advantage of this representation is that we need only compute sums and products" Answer Your friend is correct. "I need compute ..." is ungrammatical, but ...

I have found several questions asking for the meaning, but the thing that troubles me here is the grammar actually and i haven't found anything on that. In Shakespeare's sentence "Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love and I'll no longer be a Capulet." What is the grammar behind the construct "be but sworn"? And how can what appears to be a passive (be sworn) of an intransitive verb (to swear) still have the meaning of an active (i swear)? Does the second person in the sentence remain the same throughout the sentence (deny thy father, Romeo...be sworn my love, Romeo), or does the interpellated person change (deny thy father, Romeo...be sworn (to Romeo), my love)? Or is 'my love' even an allegory for Romeo? Is the "but" here a preposition or an adverb? Answer I don’t know why you think swear is intransitive; it is obviously used transitively here since it is love that would be sworn. If she can...

We are specialized in packing, and I have a client Email to me as below: . . . do you over shrink-wrap service or is it included in the price? He uses over here, what does he mean?

The word I'm after would apply in a situation where one party proposes that another do something, and the second party accepts of rejects the proposal. In this situation, the proposal is proffered by whom? For that matter, what is the term for the second party? Proposor and proposee just don't sound correct.

I'm having trouble understanding the ordering of the phrase "let alone" For example: "I don't have a dollar let alone a dime" and "I don't have a dime let alone a dollar" Or (from a similar question on this site): "I wouldn't go near a sting ray let alone pet one" or "I wouldn't pet a sting ray let alone go near one" To me the last ones are correct, but other people seem to disagree. In the first one, if you don't have a dollar it's seems you likely you couldn't afford a dime. So the last version would mean I don't have a dime so there's no point even considering a dollar. And in the second example, it's similar if you wouldn't go near a sting ray then you wouldn't be able to pet it so there's no point in the let alone. It seems like the "worse" thing should go before the let alone. I have a similar problem with "X never mind Y" Could someone explain the orderin...

Maureen Dowd article titled, “Neocons Slither Back” in September 15 New York Times begins with the following sentence: “Paul Ryan has not sautéed in foreign policy in his years on Capitol Hill. The 42-year-old congressman is no Middle East savant; till now, his idea of a border dispute has more likely involved Wisconsin and Illinois.” I guess “ sautéed ” in the line of “Paul Ryan has not sautéed in foreign policy in his years on Capitol Hill” either “seasoned / well-trained /well-experienced” in the subject (foreign policy) or “being grilled on the specific issue,” but I’m not sure. Cambridge online Dictionary defines ‘sauté’ as verb meaning ‘to cook food in oil or fat over heat, usually until it is brown.’ Oxford Online Dictionary defines it as verb meaning ‘to fry quickly in a little hot fat: and adjective meaning ‘fried quickly in a little hot fat’. OAELD defines it as verb meaning ‘to fry food quickly in a little hot fat, and adjective that is only used before noun. None of the a...

I believe majority is correctly used with a plural noun — "majority of people" or "majority of voters". It's becoming used frequently with a singular noun — "majority of work" or "majority of travel". Is this incorrect use of majority ?

I've seen both being used interchangeably. Are both valid? Is only one correct? Lyrics to a song. Lyrics of a song. Answer This Google NGram indicates that both are in use, with "lyrics of a song" being more popular: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=lyrics%20of%20a%20song%2Clyrics%20to%20a%20song&corpus=0&smoothing=3&year_start=1900&year_end=2000 This phrasing may be more popular because "lyrics" is a property of a "song". That is a song has lyrics, so the lyrics are of a song because this is the possessive form. I think that both are sufficiently valid (as NGrams records use from a corpus of written material, which tends to be slightly more grammar-conscious than online works such as a blog), so you could use either and be understood.

Which one is correct — "Thank you Jim" or "Thanks Jim"? If I start an email with the sentence "Thank you Jim" in Outlook, it shows grammar error while if I begin with "Thanks Jim" it doesn't.

Years and years ago, I remember reading in a book on AmE usage that the phrasal turn a baby creeps before it walks was to some extent more common to AmE than to BrE, which preferred exclusively the "crawl" version. And so, I just recently checked on the accuracy of that information on NGram Viewer , and it actually was fact... more than a century ago! What I would like you to tell is if it would sound sort of weird to hear someone say today in the US that a child "creeps" before walking and running (see Synonyms ) rather than it crawls. Also, what's the story to those terms? How did "to crawl" come to prevail and supersede "to creep" to describe the way a baby moves around? As with a plant, so with a child. His mind grows by natural stages. A child creeps before he walks , sits before he stands, cries before he laughs, babbles before he talks, draws a circle before he draws a square, lies before he tells the truth, and is selfish before he ...

I was thinking about the word "fillet" recently. When I teach high school freshmen about the word (in a machining/engineering context), they refuse to believe that it is pronounced "FILL-it," rather than "fill-A." Who can argue with McDonald's commercials for their Fillet-O-Fish sandwich? I've finally learned to just have the Mirriam-Webster pronunciation cued up on my computer to start the lesson, and explain that the only time it's pronounced like the sandwich is when you are using it to discuss the "food-related" definition. Otherwise it's pronounced "the other way." Are there other examples of words where the pronunciation depends on the specific definition being used? And is there a special name for words with this property? The closest I can come up with is "read," but I think the two versions are considered two different words which happen to have the same spelling in that case. E.g., "I can read th...

Is a non-verbal predicate a synonymous term for "nominal predicate"? And moreover, do non-verbal predicates only appear with linking verbs or can also appear in other types of constructions? I acknowledge definitions of concepts, because I isn't clarified :)

Is using a comma then an "and" or an "or" after it proper punctuation? Example: I fell over, and hurt my knee. Should I go, or not? Answer Whether it is correct to use a comma before a coordinating conjunction ("and", "but", "or", "nor", "for", "yet", "so") depends on the situation. There are three primary uses of conjunctions: When a coordinating conjunction is used to connect two independent clauses, a comma is always used. Examples: I hit my brother with a stick, and he cried. The rain stopped, and the sun came out again. Should I eat dinner, or should I play a game? When a coordinating conjunction is used to connect a dependent clause, a comma is never used. This includes both of your given examples. Other examples: The boy ran to his room and cried. Frank is a healthy and active child. Should I eat dinner or play a game? When a coordinating conjunction is used to connect three or more item...

I would like to know whether there is any difference in meaning if at all between "to write IN pen" and "to write WITH a pen" Answer Although to write with a pen and in pen mean more or less the same thing, I do draw a distinction. Speaking generally, to write with something (where with indicates agency and not accompaniment) usually relates something about the writer, the writer's tools, or the writing process; I can write with a feather quill with a flourish with the memory still fresh in my mind with a dictionary & thesaurus and a Red Bull & vodka To write in something (where in denotes a method or style, not location or position) is to describe some characteristic intrinsic to the writing itself: in cursive in Russian in blood in riddles In is more exclusive; to say I write with metaphors means you employ metaphors in your writing, whereas to say I write in metaphors means your writing is characterized by the use of metaphors (or even unive...

Choose: He said that while he was watching television, the light (went/had gone) out. Some people say that past simple tense doesn't change in indirect speech, but my teacher says that the direct sentence was: "While I was watching the television, the light went out" but when we report it we don't change the past progressive but only the past simple. Who's right? Answer No, they're not right. But in your example, "He said that while he was watching television, the light (went/had gone) out.", the choice compatible with the sequence-of-tenses rule is "went", not "had gone". The light going out is contemporaneous with the watching of TV, so they are reported using the same tense: "was watching" and "went out". You'd only get a past perfect if you needed to express a past time previous to a past time. If he says: "I was watching TV.", meaning his watching TV preceded the time at which he spoke, then...

As a non-native english speaker, I have always used "booker" so far, but recently found out that it might not be correct. Context: hotels, plane tickets, ... Answer If you are talking about someone who takes the booking on behalf of someone or an organisation else they would be the agent as in travel agent or booking agent also if they make a booking for someone else they can be referred to as that persons agent or representative as in the phase "my secretary acted as my representative in making this booking" for example. If you are talking about someone who made a booking for themselves only or possibly themselves and immediate family then you would commonly refer to them as the customer . If you are talking about someone who made the booking on behalf of a group of which they are a part then they would be the primary or organiser . In this case you might say something like "I acted as the primary in making the booking for our book club dinner" or ...

This also came up on either a BBC or CBC science program, but not as a linguistically-oriented discussion. Over the last two or three years I've noticed a lot more people starting a sentence with "so": "so when we take the ...", "so I have this ...", "so the basic idea ..." and (uh) so on. What is "so" when a sentence begins with it? When did it start? Is it just a "pause" word (and is there a word for that)? Is it grammatically correct? Am I the only one that finds it annoying? Edit: Much of its usage in scientific discussions is as a "therefore". Answer It's a discourse marker , like oh , well , now , and many others.

For example, in this review of the movie Unknown , Mark Kermode refers to Liam Neeson's character's wife as being played by " X-Men's pneumatic January Jones". I'm never quite sure whether this refers to her attitude, her physique, a particular aspect of her physique, or something else. I don't think I've ever seen the word used to describe a man. Any suggestions? Answer When a female is described as pneumatic it means she has large breasts (possibly artificially augmented by plastic surgery). To my mind, there's also the implication of her being both well-equipped and possibly available for bouncy bouncy / mattress dancing (slang euphemisms for sexual intercourse). Per @z7sg's answer and @Jimi Oke's comment, Aldous Huxley particularly favoured the word, using it no less than 15 times in Brave New World! (less than half have any sexual connotation though - the majority are pneumatic chairs/sofas/shoes/etc. ) Huxley's usage, whic...

The number, gender, and person of a pronoun must match its closest antecedent. Most style manuals advise using a singular possessive pronoun when the antecedent is a disjunctive set of singular nouns: Either FDR, Churchill, or Stalin forgot to tie his shoes before the conference. This makes sense because the pronoun refers to any one of the three nouns. Meanwhile, a plural pronoun is appropriate when the antecedent is a group of singular nouns joined by a conjunction: Churchill, Stalin, and FDR attended the conference but forgot to record minutes of their deliberations. Again, this makes sense because the pronoun must refer to all three nouns. Question: Is a singular possessive pronoun still appropriate when the antecedent is several nouns joined with "or" but the pronoun must refer to all the nouns at once? Here is an example: Churchill, Stalin, or FDR or one of their male staff members dressed as a woman. The KGB found a dress in the shared laundry hopper. Using "h...

There are many sayings that invert the word order to convey a different meaning. e.g. "Do you live to work or do you work to live ?" "He who fails to plan , plans to fail " Is there a name for this type of saying? Answer Antimetabole is I think what you’re after: In rhetoric, antimetabole … is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed grammatical order (e.g., "I know what I like, and I like what I know"). It is similar to chiasmus although chiasmus does not use repetition of the same words or phrases.

I'm preparing some marketing materials for my boss, and one section contains the phrase "Here are a few examples:". The list that follows contains two items, which strikes me as being incorrect, though I can't find much evidence of this. Is it semantically correct to refer to two items as "a few"? Is there a solid rule for this, or is it just personal preference? Edit - As Armen correctly pointed out, this question is about semantics rather than grammar. I changed my phrasing to reflect this. Answer For two I mostly use some Like snailboat said, a few sounds like 3 or more. It is not grammatically incorrect though. It's simply what one thinks sounds better.

Why do we say stepped into a car with cars but can't say the same with planes? Instead we say stepped onto a plane .

I came across this SAT Question of the Day : Unbelievable as it may seem, many individuals that fought in the American Revolution were still alive in 1839, the year the world was introduced to photography. (choose the error - the 'answer' is in bold) It noted that the reason "that fought" is wrong is that 'The relative pronoun “that” may not be used to refer to people (“individuals”) and should be replaced with the relative pronoun “who.”' I had thought that the word "that" could refer to both people and objects (while which was reserved for objects and who reserved for people). Am I wrong?

I was reminded this usage by the recent question asking about the origin of "-ish." Odd is often used in a similar way in the stock phrase "odd years" to mean "around" or "about" a certain length of time. For example I might say, "250 odd years" to mean "250 years, give or take." In this usage of odd , I can't really see the connection with its usual given definitions of "strange" or "not divisible by 2." Could I get some history on the evolution of this meaning of "odd"? Answer From On the nature of the approximative expression num-odd : The origin of the suffix ‐odd is, unsurprisingly, the word odd , denoting a surplus or remainder (OED entry for odd , lemma 3a). This use dates back to the 14th–15th century. Based on the OED examples, its earliest uses were with monetary items and with terms denoting weights and measures, but by the 17th century this use had broadened to include other cou...

Ok, see this sentence " London is known for Big Ben ". So, does the idiom " to be known for " mean " to be well-known for " or " to be famous for ". Like " London is known (famous) for Big Ben "? I could not see any website say that " to be known for " = " to be famous for " What does the idiom " to be known for " mean? Answer You have to get yourself familiarized with the preposition, for . As you can see in Merriam-Webster, "for" means "because of" that explains the reason for a verb or an adjective. London is known for Big Ben. = London is known because of Big Ben. London is famous (renowned) for Big Ben. = London is famous (renowned) because of Big Ben. Known/renowned/famous are synonyms. "For" is one of the most important prepositions and conjunctions. It has many crucial meanings you have to learn to better your English.

I would think that it comes from "glorious". So galore is suggesting that one is surrounded by gloriousness, or is experiencing lots of gloriousness. Is this correct? I ask because I suggested it today and was told "it can't be". I suppose what I'm really asking is whether or not "galore" has anything to do with "glorious".

When describing the relative position of two line segments, one might use the word alongside to communicate that the line segments are close together and run parallel to one another. I'm trying to determine how close two line segments need to be in order for alongside to be a reasonable description of their relative position. For example, if a 13 foot section of gas line runs parallel to a 13 foot long wall of a house, how close would the two need to be in order for the statement “the gas line runs alongside the wall” to be accurate? If the distance between the two segments is significantly less than the distance between the beginning and end of each segment, could they be considered to be close enough that they run alongside one another? For example, if the gas line in the above example lies 7 feet from the wall, would it be reasonable to say that it runs alongside the wall?

Does this sentence have too many subjunctives? If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries. I am stumped by this sentence construction. First, there is "Let it be," which is a common English idiomatic phrase, but then it follows another subjunctive. Is that to say you can actually have a subjunctive followed by another subjunctive? Also, why does the sentence use "please"? If that's the subjunctive tense there, then why is it followed by another subjunctive instead of a conditional, or maybe "Let it be" is the conditional? Lastly, I wish to know how the that is used in the sentence. Perhaps, the simplified sentence can be restated like so: Let it be decreed that they be destroyed and that they may put it into the king's treasuries. If not, maybe the simplified sent...

Well, these are three adjectives for "something from the elves". But I'm Spanish and in my language there's only one adjective for these ( élfico ), and I can't understand what the difference is. Answer Okay, here goes: Etymonline 's comments on elf reveal usage from the 1550s and stemming from the words elf , ælf , ylf . The plural mentioned there is "elves" which would match the traditional pluralization of lf : shelves ; wolves . Unfortunately, there is no word for wolven so that doesn't help us much. The same site does have an entries for elven : elven - O.E. ælfen ; see elf) [sic] + -en (2). Apparently obsolete until revived by Tolkien. And elfin : elfin - 1590s, from elf; first found in Spenser, who may have been thinking of elven but the word also is a proper name in the Arthurian romances (Elphin). And elfish : elfish - c.1200, alvisc ; see elf + -ish. Tolkien's usage of elven strongly implies that this is the appropriate term fo...

I know we can use both Present Simple and Present Continuous to describe future actions. But I don't know when to use the correct form. For example: We fly to Paris next week. We are flying to Paris next week. These sentences both seem correct to me. Can anyone explain me how to correctly use these tenses? Answer There is no difference in meaning and the sentences are entirely interchangeable, but which is used can depend on context. The form of verb in these sentences would normally match that of the question which elicited them. Our world tour starts soon. It's going to take three years. Ooh. When do you go ? We fly to Paris next week. When are you going on holiday? We are flying to Paris next week. It would be unusual (though unremarkable) to mix the replies and use a form which does not match the question. If there isn't a question to answer, then the simple present is more perfunctory and formal, and the present continuous more informal and conversational.

I know that there are certain times to use "that" (for restricting the noun) and certain times to use "which" (for adding information). How about "that which"?: Truth is that which conforms to reality. "That" is here a demonstrative pronoun, but it seems that this usage of which is incorrect. Is this okay? If it's not correct, how could I restate that sentence? Answer Yes, it is absolutely OK to use 'that which' in that way. Reference: My favourite quote: That which does not kill us makes us stronger Friedrich Nietzsche

There are a handful of articles suggesting that a new preposition has appeared in the form of "because-noun": Isn't "Because (of)... whatever" a causitive? Causitives are adverbs; in fact they are at very core of "adverbiality." That happened and now this is the result. The only way pre- and post-conditions arise is through a change (read: action) in condition or state. (Temporal consituents are more associated with adverbs, as well.) Prepositional phrases can ornament verbs, but not be inherent to them. "I am an astronaut because science." = "Science is what made me an astronaut." There is no prepositional context here. So I submit that there is actually no new "because-noun" grammatical form in American English, only a mildly-interesting economical shortening, like "Nope, he dead." Answer I think that David M's Comments explanation ("It probably started as a way of being cute and got out of hand....

I'm writing an integration manual that specifies how to use our WCF service for mobile messages and responses. The part in question needs to specify that the search results will be filtered between the start and end dates. My aim is to make it clear that the time portion of the two dates will be discarded and the result will include everything from the start date to the end date. (In practice the code truncates the dates, adds one day to the end date, and returns the data that conforms to a query something like: SELECT * FROM Table WHERE DateCreated >= @StartDate AND DateCreated But my paragraph looks verbose and clumsy. It doesn't feel right. I feel kind of like John Cleese telling the kids when to put their clothes onto a lower peg. How can I make this less verbose? Or maybe I'm over-thinking this? When searching for responses, the search is performed between the supplied dates, after truncating the time portion thereof. The results will include responses with a date-t...

While investigating a recent EL&U question ( What does "throw a wrinkle" mean? ), I came across the unusual expression “put a wrinkle on [or in] one’s horn [or horns].” I have three questions about this phrase: Where did it originate? What is its literal meaning? (That is, what does actually “putting a wrinkle on a horn” entail? Does it mean wrenching an animal's—say, a bull's or a ram's—horn out of shape? Or something else?) What is its figurative meaning? My initial impression is that the phrase figuratively means something like "throw one for a loop," but that inference is based entirely on the context supplied by the three examples given below. Preliminary Research In an Ngram-based Google Books search of the years 1700–1900, the earliest instance of this idiomatic phrase occurs in Thomas Halliburton, The Clockmaker; or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville (1838), where a Yankee-dialect speaker is being "quoted": Yes, s...

You're too clever a man to imagine this. The above sentence was said by George Galloway , a man of excellent rhetorical skills. Since he said it, I doubt it's wrong, grammatically. But, I wonder if there is an explanation for this. Because adjectives always come after the article not before it. e.g. You're a clever man. How could this be, grammatically? Answer It is surely grammatical. I'm still trying to find some definitive reference on the web. Meanwhile, you may want to read this thread . This page is helpful, but again I don't think it's definitive. To me, sentences like He is a too/so big man are never correct. We need to restructure the sentence as He is too/so big a man . Alternatively, you can safely say He is such a big man .

She tried to figure out how much knowledge my class had of the real Pocahontas. Should I use of or on there?

I am having a debate with someone about possible interpretations of a sentence and we have come to a stalemate. The sentence is as follows: "I'm at home eating vegan cheese in my underpants and singing Bushes of Love." The other party argues that my sentence technically says that I am eating vegan cheese which is inside my underpants, when the intended meaning was that I am eating vegan cheese while wearing underpants. My argument is that his interpretation of the sentence makes no sense, but I can't quite find an actual rule to refer to. I could see it making more sense if I had an article in front of vegan cheese, like "I'm at home eating the vegan cheese in my underpants and singing Bushes of Love" . But as it is without an article if I did intend to say that the vegan cheese was in my underpants, the way I said it would sound very wrong. It seems to me that without an article in front of vegan cheese it was used as a mass noun, uncountable and ther...

As a non-native speaker, I wonder what the rules are for preferring one of "mandatory", "obligatory" or "compulsory" over the others. The Corpus of Contemporary American English yields examples such as these: Mandatory: 4865 cases mandatory safety nets around trampolines mandatory health care reform mandatory sentence for first-degree murder Unemployment sent me a letter, said this was a mandatory class. To stave off matting, daily brushing with a paddle brush is mandatory. He believes he can fill the role of rangy wing scorer that seems almost mandatory for championship teams. "Self-deprecation is mandatory here", he said. Compulsory: 1060 cases compulsory health insurance states that prohibit compulsory unionism compulsory celibacy for the clergy added to the school curriculum as a compulsory second language U.S. imperialism can be thought of as a system of compulsory heterosexuality My landlord and mother made my weekly visits to the center c...

In the past, I used to say "Herbs", then I was corrected and told that the "H" is muted and one should say "Erbs". Watching some video, the instructor keeps saying "Herbs". What is the right pronunciation? Answer It's pronounced both ways. NOAD gives this: herb |(h)ərb| The parenthetical h indicates that it may be aspirated or omitted.

"In the case of medical diagnostics, there is a cost associated with each medical procedure that provides additional information (blood test, x-ray, etc.)." Should that end with "etc.).", "etc)." or "etc.)"? Answer If you are only concerned with this example you could just not use the abbreviation and write: ... information (blood test, x-ray, et cetera).

For abbreviations - both acronyms and initialisms - where the last word in the abbreviation is the noun, I'm accustomed to adding an 's' with no apostrophe (e.g. ATMs), as described in the answer to this question: What is the correct way to pluralize an acronym? But how do you pluralize abbreviations where the noun is not the last word? E.g. 'Point of Presence' (POP) I can see how 'POPs' could read 'Point of Presences', when the intention is 'Points of Presence.' Answer Virtually always, the s follows the full abbreviation even when a word other than the last one is the proper plural. Paul Brians in Common Errors in English Usage cites POWs, RPMs, WMDs This style is also recommended in the AP Style Guide, so it is what you will see in most newspapers. But not all. The other option is to discard the s altogether, as in this news story from the Cleveland-area News-Herald : Byrd had five home runs and 19 RBI in 34 games . This is certainly n...

Please help me understand the grammar of this sentence: When the girls get their bills, out come the pocket calculators. What connotations does this inversion add? Can "out come" here be analyzed as a phrasal verb? If so, what other phrasal verbs can be inverted this way so that the preposition precedes the verb? Answer When the girls get their bills, out come the pocket calculators. The main clause of your example has undergone subject-dependent inversion : [the pocket calculators] come [out] -- (non-inverted) [out] come [the pocket calculators] -- (subject-dependent inversion) In version #1, the subject ("the pocket calculators") is located in its typical slot--before the verb. But in version #2, the subject has switched its location with that of the dependent "out". There are reasons related to information packaging why a writer or speaker might prefer the inverted versions for certain contexts. Some of these reasons are: 1) newer info is often...

What is a word which means something difficult or close to impossible to achieve ? For example, A ten-percent growth rate is a __ : it is certainly possible on paper, but very difficult to accomplish. I can think of a castle in the air or an ideal prospect , but I would love to have a simple one-word substitute. Answer A pipe dream may be what you're looking for; possible, but impossible for all practical purposes. A plan, desire, or idea that will not likely work; a near impossibility. "I think that his plan to become a professional athlete is a pipe dream and that he should stay in school."

"Unpreparedness" seems clunky, and thesaurus.com wasn't of much help. Is there another word that might do, for example, in this sentence? "Having seen everyone pull out their tents, Jack twiddled his thumbs, acutely aware of his unpreparedness ." In this sentence, I find "unpreparedness" unsuitable because it just feels as though it's not a real word, as though someone just added "-ness" to "unprepared". Answer Your use is correct. That said, I agree does affect the flow of the passage. Depending on your writing style, you could consider: "Having seen everyone pull out their tents, Jack twiddled his thumbs, acutely aware of his wanting preparation." wanting - adjective: lacking in a required or necessary quality. Or, less whimsically: "Having seen everyone pull out their tents, Jack twiddled his thumbs, acutely aware of his inadequate preparation." inadequate - adjective : lacking the quality or quantity re...

When beginning a sentence with "well", do you put a comma after it? Well, you know I was wrong. Well you know I was wrong.

I came across this sentence: Cummings Motors, Smith Electric nor our subcontractors can be held liable. Is this a proper use of the word nor ? I can understand Neither Cummings Motors nor Smith Electric nor our subcontractors can be held liable. But nor without neither ? What about neither, nor, nor ? Is one nor sufficient?

Where should we use "has/have been" and "had been" ? What is the difference between them? Answer Both forms express perfect aspect, that is to say they express a state resulting from an earlier event. The has/have been form is known as the present perfect and relates what has happened in the past to what is happening now. The had been form is known as the past perfect and pushes the events further back. It relates what happened at some time in the past to the situation at some other time in the past. If I say I have been at work for eight hours , I describe the position now. If I say I had been at work for eight hours , I describe the position as it was at some earlier time.

I'm searching for an American English phrase that is the most readily equivalent to the British expression bog standard (which means, as I understand, plain, ordinary or unremarkable ). I'm tempted to use run of the mill or out of the box but these don't really have quite the same flavor as bog standard . No need for an etymology lesson, here. But I would appreciate any synonymous phrasings, especially for those with a bit more humorous flair. Edit: For to provide context as to assist I present the usage: My bog standard stepmother, Rose, in her inaugural summer as my de facto parent made it known with little uncertainty that the absolute last thing she wanted while school was out of session was for me to be within 50 miles of her teenage daughter. In this case I'm intending bog standard to mean something of standard issue; I'm trying to say that my stepmother is a stereotypical archetype. I like bog standard but I am afraid that a wider American audience will...

In the definition of USA PATRIOT , I read the following text: Many of the act's provisions were to sunset beginning December 31, 2005, approximately 4 years after its passage. In the months preceding the sunset date, supporters of the act pushed to make its sunsetting provisions permanent, while critics sought to revise various sections to enhance civil liberty protections. In July 2005, the U.S. Senate passed a reauthorization bill with substantial changes to several sections of the act, while the House reauthorization bill kept most of the act's original language. The two bills were then reconciled in a conference committee that was criticized by Senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties for ignoring civil liberty concerns. What does sunset mean? In which cases can the word be used with a similar meaning? Answer As Waiwai says, "sunset" as a verb means basically "to expire (or run out, shut down, terminate) at its predetermined time." Be...

I'm really curious as to know when you'd use participancy over participation. Right now Chrome is telling me that participancy is wrong and not a word. I always believed it to be a word and it is in http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/participancy as a word. Would someone be able to help clarify the difference between to two and some usages. Apologies if this is an obvious question, first post here. Just to update you. I am a native uk english speaker. Thanks for your answers so far Answer Unless you're a native speaker and you know why you want to use the relatively uncommon participancy , just don't. But personally I think it's the preferred option in OED's final example under the definition... participancy n. the fact or quality of participating in something. 1988 Science New Ser. 28 Oct. 604/1 The universe starts small.., grows.., and in time gives rise..to observer-participancy — which in turn determines all we have the right to say about even the ea...

Some currencies like the baht (Thailand) and ringgit (malaysia) seem to be either singular or plural depending on context. As far as I know, these two countries don't use bahts or ringgits to denote more than one unit of their currency. For example: 1 baht, 100 baht; 1 ringgit, 100 ringgit. When we want to use the plural in writing and speech, should we use bahts and ringgits or baht and ringgit? Merriam-Webster gives the plural of baht as: baht, also bahts; and the plural of ringgit as : ringgit, also ringgits. What should I write?