grammatical number - Singular or plural following a list


Can anyone tell me if I should use inspire or inspires in this phrase?



An extraordinary leader whose vision, values, integrity and boundless curiosity inspires all who follow in his footsteps.





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etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"

What is the origin of the phrase shit eating grin ? How did it come to mean showing smugness or self-satisfaction of an individual's actions? Answer From the Urban Dictionary: ...these uses are documented in the Oxford English Dictionary no earlier than 1957 There have been similar expressions used quite far back: In Book XXI of his History of Rome, Livy describes a Carthaginian sect of coprophages, the risus faecivorus, or shit-eating grin, being commonly displayed by its adherents. Although, its origin is undetermined, they may have been incidents which caused the invention of this phrase. Below is an excerpt: "1944 Jrnl. Nerv. & Mental Dis. XCIX. 959 Among demented patients in advanced stages of their illness,..it is not rare to see some of them grasp their own feces, chew them and eat them often with great pleasure and satisfaction (coprophagia).
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etymology - Since when has "a hot minute" meant a long time?

The term a hot minute can be found all over blogs and in casual speech, meaning essentially, "a long time." The term is mostly slang, but seems to have become popular enough to appear on sites as reputable as PBS.org. Delia pretends to be mad about it for a hot minute but gets over it pretty quickly because the love of her life is finally home. I can't find it defined in reputable dictionaries, but The New York Times confirms the meaning in this article about slang uses of the word "hot." Hottie is still bandied about on campus by not-quite-with-it seniors, and a hot minute is defined as “a long time.” There is life left in the cleaned-up meaning of hot mess, which has come to mean “disheveled” or “incompetent,” as in “I was a hot mess this morning before I hit the shower.” The term reminds me of "A New York Minute," which means the exact opposite, "a very short time." So what is the origin of the term "a hot minute," and how lo...
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etymology - Why "silver-tongued" for someone who is convincing?

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usage - "there doesn't seem" vs. "there don't seem"

As an example, consider the two sentences: There don't seem to be any doctors here. and There doesn't seem to be any doctors here. To my ear, the first sounds great, and the second is painfully awkward. So which is correct, grammatically? I've found lots of disagreement on this around the Web, with various sources citing different ways of treating the word "any" (as singular, always, or as either depending on to what it refers). No consensus, however, could I locate. Answer The relevant article in ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’ says: Existential there couples with either singular or plural verbs ( there is / there are , according to the following noun phrase) . . . This formal agreement is strictly maintained in academic writing. But in narrative and everyday writing, there is and especially there’s is found even with plural nouns. The same consideration applies to There don’t and There doesn’t . What it means for your examples is that it all depends ...
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First floor vs ground floor, usage origin

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meaning - What is synonyme of "scale"?

What is the meaning of the word "scale" in both cases? http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/scale I couldn't find the appropriate meaning in the dictionary. “For any new table reservations product, no matter how good it is, it’s very hard to get businesses to adopt the product at scale for two reasons. First, it is hard to scale a sales team without massive funding. Answer The word scale can have many meanings and can act as both noun and verb. Source 1 In your case, for understanding the meaning of at scale in the first sentence, see this thread . In the second sentence, it is being used as a phrasal verb ( Source 2 ) and in this context, it means to increase the size of the sales team .
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punctuation - Is "et al" always accompanied by a period?

In this sentence, is it necessary to include a period with et al? This is an interesting paper, written by G. Andrews et al. Here, et al means Dr. X, Dr. Y, and Dr.Z. Does the second et al need a period? Like et al.? Answer Yes, it should always be accompanied by a period. Since et al. is the abbreviation of and others , where et al. could be an abbreviation for et alii , et aliae or et alia when referring to masculine, feminine or gender neutral groups respectively.
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