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What is the origin of the phrase "more X than you can shake a stick at"? Every website I've seen on this basically says the same thing (e.g., http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sha2.htm ): Recorded history since 1818 - Lancaster Journal of Pennsylvania dated 5 August 1818: “We have in Lancaster as many Taverns as you can shake a stick at ”. Other early examples: Davy Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East of 1835: “This was a temperance house, and there was nothing to treat a friend that was worth shaking a stick at ”. A Book of Vagaries by James K Paulding of 1868: “The roistering barbecue fellow swore he was equal to any man you could shake a stick at ”. Only guesses as to the etymology for the phrase: Maybe it's Native American? Maybe it's military? Maybe it's from a form of a boys' game "playing" military? Maybe it's from counting herd animals? Does this community have any ideas (and support for those ideas)? Also, is this solely ...

I'm teaching English in a non-English-speaking country where plural "s" and third-person "s" get confused a lot with no "s" at all. The dialogue in the textbook was explaining how you should respond when someone compliments you: Mike: For example, when you have a new bag, I can say, "I like your bag." Yuki: What should I say then? Mike: You should say, "Thanks." Yuki: Should I say anything else? Mike: No. Just "Thanks." I was asked what the "s" in "Thanks" means, but I couldn't give a straight answer. I know in the phrase "give thanks" it's a plural noun, but what about when it's used as an interjection? Why does it go from "Thank you" to "Thanks"?

While I know how to use the words that I use, I do not know if there is a term to describe words that are uncountable nouns, but at the same time are countable in other circumstances. "Cheese" is one example perhaps. I find researching this does not clarify anything - words seem to be countable and uncountable at the same time (depending on context) - is there a term for this or do we just have to accept the context rather than having an overriding term?

I've always thought that "victual" was a funny word because its spelling and pronunciation are so alien to anything else I know of in the English language. The free dictionary explains the origin of the spelling and pronunciation here : Usage Note: The modern pronunciation of victual, (vtl), represents an Anglicized pronunciation of the Old French form vitaille, which was borrowed into English in the early 14th century. The modern English spelling reflects the fact that in both French and English the word was sometimes spelled with a c, and later also with a u, under the influence of its Late Latin ancestor victulia, meaning "provisions." The word is now occasionally spelled vittle rather than victual, but in either case the pronunciation is (vtl). I was curious if there are any other words that have similar "ct", "ctu", or "tu" letter combinations that are pronounced like "tt"? Answer Did you think of indict ? That is p...

What is it called if I have a good social condition (education, money, etc.) and I disrespect people with a lower condition? Answer Some possibilities: snobbery snootiness classism elitism ( or élitism)

Is there an English idiom that has the same meaning as "words without actions" or "mere ink on paper"? Especially in the field of economics. Answer Consider the phrase " Not worth the paper it's written/printed on ."

I was in London and visited the Tower Bridge. Afterwards, I went to a pub called The Tower Bridge. Just to be clear, the pub is named after the bridge. Which of the following are correct? The bridge is the eponym of the pub. The pub is the eponym of the bridge. From the pub, I could see the eponymous bridge. After I saw the bridge, I went to the eponymous pub. The bridge is the namesake of the pub. The pub is the namesake of the bridge. Answer I found a couple of entries in the New York Times "After Deadline" column useful. The first : In precise, traditional usage, an “eponym” is someone or something that gives its name to something else. So “eponymous” describes the giver of the name, NOT the receiver. A restaurateur named Joe Smith could be described as the eponymous owner of Joe Smith’s Restaurant, but the establishment is not “Mr. Smith’s eponymous restaurant.” (The opposite problem often occurs with “namesake.” That word properly describes the receiver of the nam...

Is this a comma splice? What makes a sentence a comma splice? Being left at the altar on her wedding day, Pamela became furious. Answer There was just a post today on Language Log about constructions like this, known as absolutives . In it, Mark Liberman quotes from the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language: pages 1265-6 of CGEL, where the followed two examples are given: His hands gripping the door , he let out a volley of curses. This done , she walked off without another word. ... The [italicized] non-finites are supplements with the main clause as anchor. [The examples shown] contain a subject, and belong to what is known as the absolute construction, one which is subordinate in form but with no syntactic link to the main clause. […] In [none of these examples] is there any explicit indication of the semantic relation between the supplement and the anchor. This has to be inferred from the content of the clauses and/or the context. A comma splice , on the other hand, is when t...

The phrase 'soup up' is slang that basically means 'to increase the power of' something. Why do we use 'soup' here? It seems similar to the phrases 'beef up' and 'pep up', which literally come from the foods beef and pepper, so is it as simple as the fact that it's a variation on those phrases that uses 'soup' as the food? But why soup? Is soup considered particularly 'hearty'? Answer The OED postulates that to soup up may have been influenced by the super- prefix, such as is seen in words like supercharged : [compare quot. 1909 at soup n . 2c; perhaps influenced by super- prefix ] Orig. and chiefly with up . To modify (an engine, aircraft, motor vehicle, etc.) to increase its power and efficiency. Also transf . and fig . colloq . (orig. U.S. ). Notable citations both early and late include: 1933     C. K. Stewart Speech Amer. Airman 92 Soup Up , to supercharge. 1939     Sun (Baltimore) 3 Aug. 1/6 We have done this wit...

I've always held on to the definition that Causative Verbs express how the Noun before the Verb influences the execution of an action. Similarly, the Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English defines them as: "Causative Verbs... indicate that some person or thing helps to bring about a new state of affairs." I know that the verbs have, get, make, and let are the four prototypical Causatives. But then I got to thinking that let doesn't really “make” anything happen. And I just bunch let up with the other three (also allow ) because of their similar structures and because it's more convenient to teach them as a group. When learners and teachers expand the definition beyond the four most common Causatives, in both active and passive-like structures, the lines can get blurry. There are many long lists on the Net ( one listed as many as 90 and called them “mostly Causatives”). I guess the problem is the definition of what's Causative to begin with....

I’m not sure of whether this is grammatically correct, although I've encountered the same expression many times before. Most Google searches show it produces 35 times less carbon than the report suggested. Does 35 times less have a precise meaning in this context, or is it ambiguous here? Does either of these two possibities apply? the original amount minus 35 times the original amount (35 times less than 100 units would be −3400 units) ¹⁄₃₅ of the original amount (35 times less than 100 units would be 2 ⁶⁄₇ units)

I wanted to say - time flies very fast with the usage of the idiom "in the blink of an eye". The sentence goes like this - Time flies like in the blink of an eye. Is this the correct usage of the idiom?

Freebie means free things. Why is there a post-fix -bie ? Does it have meaning itself? Answer The slang word freebie is an example of a rhyming reduplication , which is the term for a word that repeats (possibly with modification) a part of the word stem at another place in the word. English rhyming reduplication often places the reduplicated part at the end of the word. That part does not generally have any real meaning. Other examples of rhyming reduplication include: okey-dokey helter-skelter wingding

Is it valid to say "mentioned above" when one reference to something one have previously said? Context example (transcript from The Law of One ): Questioner : George Van Tassel built a machine in our western desert called an “Integratron.” Will this machine work for that purpose, of increasing the life span? Ra : I am Ra. The machine is incomplete and will not function for the above-mentioned purpose. Answer "Above-mentioned" wouldn't be a good chose nor very clear because the listener would be wondering "above what?" "above where?". For your example, you could use aforementioned : Ra : I am Ra. The machine is incomplete and will not function for the aforementioned purpose. Per MWO : aforementioned : mentioned previously

I'm looking for a good way to express the concept of someone whose natural predisposition tends towards less extremes of emotion than the average person; they get less sad when bad things happen, less happy when good occurs, less stressed during difficult times etc. I want to describe someone who still has real emotions, not someone who is unemotional or has such muted emotions as to feel unnatural, just with less fluctuation from their 'norm' than the average person. I'm looking for a term that generally has a neutral connotation, describing the trait as a trade-off rather than desirable or undesirable. If I understand it correctly the original definition of stoic comes quite close to what I want, other than stoicism being about a philosophical approach rather than natural predisposition. However, I don't feel it conveys the concept as well as I would like due to modern use of stoic usually being applied only to enduring of hardships, which only partially covers...

Which one is the correct one? I had no idea San Diego (and its surrounding areas) is that crowded. or I had no idea San Diego (and its surrounding areas) are that crowded. And would the answer be different if I used commas instead of the two parentheses? Answer As Andrew has said in his comment, you don’t need brackets here. By using them you create an unnecessary difficulty, and you don’t really need to replace them with commas. San Diego and its surrounding areas is a plural subject, so it needs a plural verb. What you also need is the verb in a different tense. The second clause in the sentence is, in functional grammar terms, a projected clause. That is, it is similar to indirect speech, in which present tenses normally become past tenses. All these considerations point to writing the sentence as: I had no idea San Diego and its surrounding areas were that crowded.

I'm looking for a (preferably single) word to describe a place where there are no people. Empty somehow implies that there's nothing at all there, deserted says that people left or abandoned this place. I'm not sure about peopleless , seems like a weird construction and I couldn't find it in a dictionary. For example: I looked out onto the street and it was ______ I walked into the lobby and it was ______ Answer I think you are looking for deserted . Definition of deserted in English: adjective (Of a place) empty of people: deserted streets The office was completely deserted. left by a person or people who do not intend to return synonym abandoned a deserted village deserted wives References:

I’m writing a dissertation on network security. I’m unsure which of the following to use: ...89.9%, which is 57 million users. ...89.9%, which are 57 million users. Technically it should be are because it refers to a plural amount of people, but it doesn’t sound right to me considering that 57 million is in a sense one group.

I found the following sentence: In part of my spare time, I work on fun projects. I am not sure as to whether there should be a comma. If it is there, then this obeys some rules, for example on adverbial participle (is that the correct term?). If it is not correct to put a comma here, then maybe the following sentence would be correct? When I have spare time, I work on fun projects. Answer It is absolutely correct to have the commas where you placed them. I explain below. In part of my spare time, I work on fun projects. "In part of my spare time" is an adverbial phrase and in formal contexts, I would definitely retain the comma, as it precedes the subject of the sentence. A comma should always be used in this way, but it is sometimes acceptable to omit it when the adverbial is short enough that leaving out the comma will not hamper the reader's grasp of the intended meaning. Thus, a sentence such as Occasionally I work on fun projects is acceptable in informal context...

People in London, who live in the suburbs, may tell you they work 'up town', meaning in the City or the West End. In other large cities in Britain, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc., I think people who earn their living in the City Centre (equivalent to Downtown with capital D) will say casually that they work 'in town'. I think I'm right when I say that only Londoners go 'up town'. So where did the idea of 'Downtown' come from? Answer Citing Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950 by Robert M. Fogelson, Wikipedia says : The term is thought to have been coined in New York City, where it was in use by the 1830s to refer to the original town at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan. As the town of New York grew into a city, the only direction it could grow on the island was toward the north, proceeding upriver from the original settlement (the "up" and "down" terminology in turn came from the customary map design in which up...

The British say "go to the seaside" (meaning I'm going to spend some time at the beach, swim, sunbathe etc.) It's like "going to the mountains" or "going to the lake." However, I once heard an Aussie saying: "I'm going to the sea" not the "seaside" meaning the same. My question: Are both possible and common? How about Americans? As far as I know Americans don't "go to the seaside" because they do not live in a small seaside country. So an American would say "go/take on vacation at the beach" or just "I'm going to Hawaii" "I'm going to the lake and so on. Am I right? Or maybe "going to the sea/seaside" is a phrase used by Americans as well? I remember I read a Canadian text once that used this phrase. Please leave your comments.

It seems all three are widely used on the Internet according to Google, but "any news on" seems to take the lead. Are all three correct? If not under what situation, or what subject behind it should we use one of the three?

"Proven" and "proved" both seem to mean the same thing. Are there any differences in meaning or usage between them? Answer The New Oxford American Dictionary has the following note. For complex historical reasons, prove developed two past participles: proved and proven . Both are correct and can be used more or less interchangeably: this hasn't been proved yet ; this hasn't been proven yet . Proven is the more common form when used as an adjective before the noun it modifies: a proven talent (not a proved talent ). Otherwise, the choice between proved and proven is not a matter of correctness, but usually of sound and rhythm—and often, consequently, a matter of familiarity, as in the legal idiom innocent until proven guilty .

Consider I don't know how outdated it is though. Should there be a comma before though , as in the following? I don't know how outdated it is, though. Answer Though is used as an adverb in this case, applied to the verb is , therefore no comma is strictly necessary. Saying this, I can easily imagine a brief pauses between is and though when speaking the sentence, hence a vocative comma is acceptable. In other words, take your pick. If I can avoid a comma (as in this case), I usually will. It's not wrong either way though.

English is not my native language. I have constantly been trying to add as more words as possible to my active vocabulary. But there are words which I understand but don't try to use myself. One of them is "have got" instead of just plain "have" . I always use "have" . Is it a good way of learning and using English. Or am I missing something? Answer "Have got" is used when you possess something or when you must do something. I have got ten dollars. (I possess ten dollars.) I have got to go. (I must go.) It can't be used in place of have in all cases. On the other hand, have can be used in any place where we use "have got". I have ten dollars. I have to go. Neither of these sound strange or formal/informal. So, your strategy of only using have is a good one. (Of course, there is also "have got(ten)", which is the present perfect tense form of the verb get . In US English, there is a difference between "have go...

I've been trying to search for the origin and meaning of the phrase "Shiver my timbers", but can't seem to find anything.

English buddies! I've got presque vu today. I'm looking for an adjective or noun that connotes: A risk-taking individual A unique individual An individual who isn't content with following in the footsteps of others. I feel like a word for this does exist, but I can't think of it! (In other words, college application essays frustrate me.) I'd be grateful for any help! EDIT: Thank you all so much! I need it because my counselor wanted me to describe myself in 3 words...which is difficult. I appreciate all the words :) Answer The word iconoclast means someone who breaks (with) outmoded traditions. It doesn't specifically denote a risk-taker, but it does have those connotations. By its origins, it denotes a social reformer, but it's most often used now just to indicate someone who refuses to (as you indicated) follow in the footsteps of others. Iconoclast : a person who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted. http://www.merriam-...

Aren't adverbs related to the closest word? Does nightly in nightly business report refer to business ? Update: I am still confused. Is relation of non-adverb modifiers different from that of adjective? In First Certificate Language Practice by Michael Vince the "first" is related to the nearest modified word (without dephis application) I am not interested in specific case of "Nightly Business Reports" (only), I'd like to understand a rule/pattern with possible exceptions in order to reuse it in my writing. Answer In the case of a list of modifiers, it is generally presumed that all the modifiers apply to the final subject; if one modifier is intended to apply to another modifier in the list, most often they will be joined by a hyphen. Per your example, nobody would assume that the "nightly" in "nightly business report" modifies "business"; if it were supposed to, it would have been written "nightly-business report...

When writing about specific quantities, should the verb reflect a singular or a plural value? Do abbreviations vs. spelled-out words make any difference? I took 2 ml of water, which was/were then added... Six microliters of protein solution was/were placed in a centrifuge...

It is essential that [some parameter] be not reset during the day. (1) It is essential that [some parameter] not be reset during the day. (2) Which one is the correct form? I do know the easy way out, that is: It is essential that [some parameter] is not reset during the day. (3) But which is the correct form provided I want to stick with the subjunctive? Answer As many proposed in comments, and given that we live many years after 1960, I would also say "not be". :-) EDIT: My response actually meant that people who use a language know what form to use intuitively. Language evolves and if at some point in time the majority of English speakers tend to say "not be" rather than "be not", that's what the grammar book will adopt. The question regards the acceptable form of the negative subjunctive. Examples can be found e.g. here: http://www.englishpage.com/minitutorials/subjunctive.html and here: http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/subjunctive Both so...

Is the following sentence correct? Such splendid isolation is the privilege of the giants of a discipline, and giants in the world of scholarship is definitely what the authors of this volume are. I found it disconcerting, but I do not feel confident evaluating its correctness. The question is particularly interesting because it appears in the description of a book related to linguistics! http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-North-American-English-Phonetics/dp/3110167468/ There seem to be a number of issues here. The clause "what the authors of this volume are" rather than a simpler noun phrase, the atypical arrangement of the sentence for emphasis (as in "The winner is you." instead of "You are the winner."), etc. The above issues make it far trickier than "The authors of this volume are definitely giants in their discipline." PS - In addition to the question itself, please feel free to correct/edit any of the terms I describe clumsily (the title, the pa...

Is there a single word or small phrase for "a list of tasks that a town or village has set out to accomplish, specifically for the improvement of the community" The best I have so far is "agenda" but it's not quite what I'm going for. If it makes any difference / influences your word choices, this word/phrase is to be the title of the list of achievements in a town-builder game. Answer You might consider milestones An important event, as in a person's career, the history of a nation, or the advancement of knowledge in a field; a turning point To convey the town aspect, you may want to try municipal milestones

An object that can be seen is visible . Something that can be heard is audible . What's a similar word to indicate that something is smellable ? Answer Both olfactory and olfactive have this meaning, but both words also have the more common meaning of emitting a smell, so they wouldn't be useful. The best choice would be olfactible . Wiktionary includes it , but as far as I can tell, they're the only ones.

I am always unsure about the position of "only" in the sentence. For example: This ticket only costs 5 dollars. This ticket costs only 5 dollars. Are there any difference? Which one is better?

which one is correct OR what is the difference between the following sentences: I think the duration of the meeting would be two hours. I think the duration of the meeting will be two hours.

I would like to know if there is a better statement for expressing the following statement in an email, "Please get back to me if you have any query".

I read the definitions of these two terms rendered by various dictionaries and concluded that elucidate denotes 'to make perspicuous or intelligible (especially by explanation)'; whereas, explicate denotes 'to elaborate on a theory in a manner that makes it more perspicuous or intelligible'. I can't discern a distinction other than the possibility that explicate is the more appropriate word when the object is a theory (e.g. one might explicate a theory but elucidate a process). Is that the distinction between these two words? If not, then what distinguishes these two words from each other? Answer The Oxford Dictionary Online defines elucidate as Make (something) clear; explain: work such as theirs will help to elucidate this matter The etymology is reported as mid 16th century: from late Latin elucidat- 'made clear', from the verb elucidare, from e- (variant of ex-) 'out' + lucidus 'lucid'. Tracing lucid back, we get late 16th century (...

In baseball, an inning is a team's (or both teams', depending on context) turn to bat. A game consists of 9 innings. In cricket, an innings is a team's turn to bat, a game consists of 2 or 4 innings. How did this difference in singular usage arise? "inning" could conceivably be derived like "outing": An outing is a time when one is out, an inning is a time when one is in (to bat/to play). Where did the singular "innings" come from? Answer "Innings" in British usage is either singular or plural. It's just one of those words with identical singular and plural forms. It's not the only word ending with an s that's plural; consider (apart from many -ics words like physics and politics) news and (both singular and plural) means, series, species, etc. This is what Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (British, 1926) says: Plural anomalies . See -ICS for the question of whether words in -ics are singular or plura...

The Avengers 2 just hit China yesterday. The official translation of the line "If you get killed, walk it off!" is "Someone is trying to kill you, run, run for your life" (This is the English version of that Chinese translation). Such a nonsense. But how to understand the original English sentence correctly? Answer "Walk it off" is a flippant response for when someone is hurt or injured. It generally means that they should continue as if nothing had happened (that is, they should continue walking), and that they'll be back in good health after a while. An example might be if you took a bad step and hurt your ankle slightly; it may well be better to continue walking until the pain subsides instead of stopping. In the Captain America example he is joking that even dying should not stop you from winning; you should pretend that nothing happened and keep fighting.

I heard this phrase when I was watching Battleship. An old man said, "Somebody is gonna kiss the donkey." I do not know what it means, I only heard it in a movie. What is this phrase mean? In Addition: I think it was Rihanna who said "Saddle Ridge will be in weapons range in five minutes," then the old man stated the phrase. Answer It is a confused attempt at a play on (for example) "kiss my ass," or, some similar phrase. It is quite common in English today that idioms get mangled.

When only two interlocutors are communicating in a face-to-face or equivalent setup without the need to get the other's attention, there is no necessity to mention the other person's name. Yet sometimes one of the speakers uses the other's name. I personally find this condescending ("I know what you mean, Dan"), or at best intense ("You're so awesome, Dan"), but I'm not a native speaker and would like to learn more about the connotations of this usage.

I recently heard the word banger used by a young man in Chicago to describe a catchy, up-beat song. Checking Green's Dictionary of Slang , I found a definition attested in 2016 that to my mind seems a bit too broad: 4. (US black) an outstanding success. However, a combination of googling the term and looking at the specific citation used in GDoS seems to confirm to me that the term refers specifically to songs that are excellent or outstanding, especially in hip-hop. The citation in GDoS : Even though it might not be a club banger . Or it might not be a radio banger or none of that shit. It’s going to set a tone. 2016 - Jeezy annotation to ‘Let Em Know’ on genius.com [Internet] On another thread on Genius.com, the term is discussed. It looks like this thread appeared in 2015 : What Makes a Song a Banger? I’ve seen that on this site a bunch of people are obsessed with bangers. I made a thread a while back asking for people to show me some bangers, and I got a wide range of son...

If I have a set of numbers, and I say I will filter the primes, that means to me that I will remove the primes, and return the remainder. If I have a set of numbers, and I say I will sieve the primes, that means to me that I will keep the primes, and discard the remainder. Is this correct usage of filter and sieve? Are they opposites? Any alternative verbs that would express the notion of going through a set and choosing only those that meet a particular criteria?

What is a general rule for use of auxiliary verbs in sentence? Should we duplicate it or not? For instance, It is available for every item and ( is ) used with . . . Answer In this sentence, is is the main verb in the first part, and is the auxiliary verb in the second part. This makes deleting the second is ungrammatical. So you have two options: It is available for every item and is used with … It is available for every item and it is used with … If is is the main verb in both parts, or the auxiliary verb in both parts, you can (optionally) delete its second use: It is available for every item and ready to use with no complicated set-up. It is packaged with every item and used with … The same rule applies to has ; don't delete the second usage if it plays two different grammatical roles (i.e., main verb and auxiliary verb): *It has deadly venom and killed countless people. (Wrong) It has deadly venom and has killed countless people. (Correct) ADDED: From the comments, some pe...

Is there a more colloquial synonym for "schadenfreude"? I'm specifically looking for a noun that denotes a pleasure derived from other people's misfortunes or sufferings. Sadly, I couldn't find any nouns derived from 'to gloat'. What I have in mind is a plain English word derived from Middle English, Anglo-Norman, Old English, Dutch or Old French. It must be none of the following: Informal contemporary term (e.g. "lulz") Loan-word that sounds ostensibly alien (e.g. "schadenfreude", "epicaricacy") An item of the professional jargon (e.g. some psychological condition) I'm looking for something plain and simple like 'eviljoy'* (a word that I've just made up). This word must fit the variable in the sentence "It is common for Jane to feel/experience x ". A word is deemed to fit x on the basis of 'common-sense' linguistic intuition in addition to being a singular noun + the above-stated conditions...

I believe they are all the same, but is there any case in which not all of them are correct? Here are the examples, from an English textbook: 1. It is (quite) _ _ that he took the wrong path. A.apparent B.evident C.stupid D.absurd 2. It is _ _ that two and two make four. A.apparent B.evident C.obvious D.visible 3. It is _ _ (that) you have been cheated. A.clear B.apparent C.regretful D.ignorant The answers are B, C, and A. I think A is also a correct answer to Q1, A and B are also correct answers to Q2, and B is also a correct answer to Q3. It is not that easy when it comes to answering questions in an exam, because there is only one answer I can choose, and if I'm wrong, I lose points. So, is it really wrong to use the other words in these cases? Why? Answer 1.It is (quite) __ that he took the wrong path. A.apparent B.evident C.stupid D.absurd 2.It is __ that two and two make four. A.apparent B.evident C.obvious D.visible 3.It is __ (that) you have been cheated. A.clear B.apparen...

How should I phrase a question that must be answered with an ordinal number (e.g., the third prime)? How to ask a question to get a cardinal number answer I want to frame a question for which the answer will be : Obama is the 46th president I am not looking for "who is the 46th president?" I trying to ask a question where I want to quiz the other person on Obama's turn (46) as a president. For instance(incorrectly) "Howmanyth" president is Obama ?

These days there are a host of words constructed with -phobia that express dislike towards a class of people or things. As far as I understand, in common parlance, -phobia technically encompasses any dislike, whether fearful or not. However, in spite of this it has acquired certain connotations: Clinical phobias have captured the lay peoples' imagination, and armchair psychiatrists have grown fond of over-diagnosing "phobias" on trivial grounds (eg. one who prefers taking the bus becomes "car-phobic", someone who orders a veggie burger is "meat-phobic", someone who finds cell phones impractical is "technophobic" and so on), whether such phobias are even recognized by the mental health community or not. Not all dislike is grounded in fear. For instance, one may dislike wearing cumbersome clothes not because he is terrified of becoming enveloped in them, but simply because they are not very comfortable. An occasional rhetorical tactic is to a...

Do we use in or on when we want to talk about some action or event that takes place in/on the street? This car has been parked [in/on] our street for a week now. There's nobody [in/on] the street. Let's go play [in/on] the street. There was an accident [in/on] their street yesterday. I guess I lost my necklace [in/on] the street. And so on.

I have been spelling the word " curiosity " with a u , " curiousity ," my whole life, and only today was Chrome's spellcheck bold enough to highlight my lifelong error. I have two questions: The root word is curious . How or why has the quality of being curious come to be spelled without its u ? Or is it the word curious that is unique, and both words were derived from a word with no u , like curio ? Since I have spelled the word this way my whole life and none of my English teachers/professors ever crossed out this "misspelling," is it not technically incorrect, just discouraged? Or perhaps it is archaic, which is why I could only find it defined in a legal dictionary with a capital "C:" Curiousity , not curiousity . Answer Interesting question! Here's what the OED has to say about -ious : a compound suffix, consisting of the suffix -ous, added to an i which is part of another suffix, repr. Latin -iōsus, French -ieux, with sense ‘cha...

I am writing an article and I am having trouble finding a word for "to create out of nothing." The following are slightly different forms to show you the general 'feel' of the word that I am looking for. "to obtain without [any] effort" "to create without any input" "producing something effortlessly or from nothing" A Latin word for this that I was thinking of is Ex Nihilo but I was hoping for more ideas. Answer There’s always spontaneous generation , which sounds a bit wacky until someone starts chatting you up about vacuum energy with particle pairs blinking into existence and quickly an nihil ating each other back into the nothingness whence they came. Ok fine, so it still sounds wacky.

What is the difference between the following two sentences? I have had a headache since this morning. I am having a headache since this morning. Answer I've had a headache since past.time.point is normal, idiomatic, and grammatical. * I'm having a headache since past.time.point , however, is ungrammatical, because the present progressive construction ( 'm having ) refers to the present moment, while the prepositional phrase ( since past.time.point ) refers to a length of time in the past, starting at past.time.point and continuing to the present, rather than directly to present.time.point , which is what the present progressive needs. Thus, I'm having a headache right now/today/at the moment are all OK, for instance. As Barrie points out, today morning is not grammatical in British or American English; the idiom there is this morning instead.

Is it possible to change Nouns to Adjective by adding " of " before the noun? Like: of help = helpful => not of any help = not helpful of interest = interesting => of a lot of interest = very interesting of problem = problematic => of a lot of problem = very problematic of no use = not useful => it's of no use = it's not useful of no importance = not important => It's of no importance to me = it's not important to me I am wondering if there is any case where this method doesn't work. Update : Let me rephrase my question this way: Can this rule be applied to those nouns that already have a meaningful adjective? I mean, the noun book does not have any adjective, so I don't expect of book to be a meaningful adjective! My question targets only those nouns that have a known adjective. Update 2 : Some Ngram diagrams: "not important to" vs "of no importance to" "not useful to" vs "of no use to...

In math, we use the term series a lot, and there are many types of series . How should I craft my sentence when I have three different ones in mind to talk about? Should I settle down for a less mortal alternative of “list of series” or something like that? The existing question on The possessive and plural forms of “series” suggests the usage of series’ . But is that all? If that’s the only solution, then could you please explain the usage of apostrophe symbol at the end? Is that a plural marker or a possessive marker, or both? Answer Series (like deer, salmon, and sheep ) is pronounced and spelled the same in the plural as in the singular. If either the singular or the plural is used as a possessive, an apostrophe is added to show that in print, though there is no pronunciation difference in speech. Thus, The series doesn't converge. (singular) The series don't converge. (plural) This series' limit is unknown. (singular possessive) These series' limits are unk...

According to etymonline the word booty is used to describe the female form as a sex object. It says the word is black slang from the 1920s. The definition is placed in the entry for booty meaning treasure. My understanding is that booty means buttocks , as explained at dictionary.com . Which slang meaning came first? Buttocks or the female form as a sex object? Also, can anyone explain the jump from treasure to buttocks ? Answer Sex Slang (2007) by Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor says: booty; bootie noun 1. the buttocks US , 1928 He's Cyndi Lauper's boyfriend, so no skin search. Cyndi ouldn't want us looking up his boodie. - James Elroy, Suicide Hill 1986 2. the vagina US, 1925 I've got a body as well as a booty. - Partlet, Booty Snatchers 1979 ( The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2007) by Eric Partridge, Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor gives a subset of this same definition.) The OED expands on these same two definitions, ...

The popular consensus around the web (i.e., Wikipedia ) seems to be that "upper case" and "lower case" originate from typesetting convention of upper and lower drawers for letters, possibly preceded by the Latin terminology of majuscule and minuscule. However, none of these references seem to be backed up properly, and frankly, I find the explanation tickling my urban legend senses - my suspicion is that this is an incomplete or even false etymology, but I can't find anything better. Is there a more authoritative source that attests to whether or not this is a true etymology? Answer The full OED explanation is that in printing a case is ‘The receptacle or frame in which the compositor has his types, divided into compartments for the various letters, figures, and spaces. In ordinary printing the compositor has two such cases before him on a slanting stand, the upper case containing the capitals, etc., the lower the small letters, ordinary spaces, etc.’ This is s...

How in one word do you describe the soft, thin, first-time mustache that grows when a boy goes through puberty? Tender? Immature? Answer Peach fuzz . From OED: Chiefly N. Amer. (orig. U.S.). A. n. Something resembling the down of a peach in texture; esp. soft facial hair, often that of an adolescent boy.

The following sentence is from a mathematical lecture note here : It takes a little bit of getting used to the idea of a function that cannot actually be evaluated at any specific point, but with some practice you will find that it will not cause any significant conceptual difficulty. Is there anything wrong with this sentence? I guess it is supposed to be "It takes a little bit of time for getting used to the idea...". Any idea for understanding the sentence? Answer To get used to something is the act of becoming accustomed or habituated to something. The last entry in an englishgrammarsecrets page about used to says: "We use 'to get used to doing' to talk about the process of something becoming normal for us." The sentence you ask about says one must get used to some idea about a function, and quantifies how much of the "getting used to" activity is needed, as "a little bit". The grammar is ok, if slightly colloquial.

I have a pretty good idea of what this means already. For example, Beckett's riff on Hamlet in Waiting for Godot : What are we doing here, that is the question. But I'd like to be a little more precise. Is it simply a witty allusion? Is the wit, or humor of the reference, what distinguishes it from being a plain old reference? Answer One source of the word riff is the music world, in which it's not uncommon for a musician to take a tune s/he has heard, and then perform a little variation on that tune. It happens all the time in some jazz sessions. To "riff on Hamlet," then, would be for a person to take a line from the Bard and play with it, explore it, have some fun with it, look at it in various ways, explore it for levels of meaning and possible connections to other concepts and ideas, and so on.

In color theory, tinting means to add white while toning adds grey and shading adds black. What is the origin of the use of tinting then in terms of windows? Are they unrelated? Answer Tint comes from Latin tinctus "a dyeing," from tingere "to dye". Actually you are not colouring, toning or shading your windows you put some sort of UV films so the verb refers to action of putting something that reduce the amount or the type of visible sun light or so called visible light transmission (VLT) .We see the light as white hence we use tint here.

I would like to understand the correct grammatical order in the sentence, In your essay, you must use grammatically correct sentences with accurate spelling and punctuation in a style appropriate for the situation. I hold the view that “style appropriate” is written bad because the grammatical order indicates that an adjective needs to be before the noun. Is it grammatically correct?: NOUN + ADJECTIVE X So, In your essay, you must use grammatically correct sentences with accurate spelling and punctuation in an appropriate style for the situation . It is true that it works like this ​ ADJECTIVE + NOUN ​ Resource: Cambridge English Objective First Book, Fourth Edition

Example: Methamphetamine should have never been created. or Methamphetamine should never have been created. Which one is correct? This seems like it should have a simple answer, but either way sounds good to my ear. Is there an official rule? EDIT: This is not the same as asking the difference between 'was never' and 'never was.' 'Was' is the past tense form of the infinitive verb 'to be.' In this case, the word 'have' is part of the verb itself. This question essentially involves whether the word 'never' could be added as part of the verb. To clarify and expand the question, it could in fact be said in three different ways: should have never been should never have been never should have been

I think 'drawn' means 'showing the wearing effects of overwork, care or suffering', but I can't understand what 'you are drawn to her' will be meaning right here.

In a sentence, when talking about future, for a person with huge potential. X has the potential for some ? research in Y field. I was thinking game changing revolutionary but both of these do not convey the right meaning. Is there some other word that will serve the purpose here? Answer You could say X has the potential for seminal research. seminal 4. highly original and influencing the development of future events: a seminal artist ; seminal ideas . If you don't want to make such an extreme prediction, I would go with Rimmer's suggestion of groundbreaking .

Well, to begin with, I don't even know what is the usual meaning of "go-around". So, if you know, please, explain it to me. But in this case this noun ("go-around") seems even to be used in a slightly different sense. One user whose name is Chrisnfolsom, while answering my question on the proper way how to describe a woman that isn't able to conceive a baby said in his answer these words: The joke was not meant to provide answers, but a funny lesson on the complexity of the English language - not that other languages aren't complex. Many lessons are best illustrated through humor - although the underlying lessons of that message can be missed entirely. Thanks for the go-around here; I was able to give my daughter a lesson in the fun and folly of language. I don't know what he meant here by "go-around" (italics and bold type in the quote are mine). Of course, I could have asked him there this question, but since I don't even know the p...

Today I read the following description of preterite perfect in The Cambridge Grammar of English Language . The distinction between the present perfect and the simple preterite is neutralized elsewhere in the verbal system, so that when have carries any other inflection than the present tense the perfect may correspond to either a present perfect or a simple preterite. Compare, for example: i(a) He has lost his key so he can't get in his room. i(b) He had lost his key so he couldn't get in his room. i(c) He seems to have lost his key so he can't get in his room. ii(a) He lost his key while he was running home. ii(b) He had lost his key while he was running home. ii(c) He seems to have lost his key while he was running home, In [i] the non-present perfects had lost and have lost correspond to present perfect has lost , while in [ii] they correspond to the simple preterite lost . Then, can i(b) and ii(b) be rephrased as i(b') and ii(b') below respectively? i(b')...

I am confused when talking about a general idea using "our life" when sometimes I feel like using "our lives". Please tell me the correct answer with appropriate explanation. Answer These examples illustrate when you would want to use the singular versus plural of life : Our lives have been very different. Our life together has been very happy. In (2), I imply that we have shared a life, hence we jointly have had one life. In (1), I imply the opposite (different lives have to be counted separately). Consequently, the singular is felicitous in (2), but not in (1). Felicitous does not mean obligatory, though. You can also say: Our lives together have been very happy. This is possible because we each have a life and it is possible to spend them together. Personally, I prefer the singular though. By contrast, you completely change the meaning by using the plural in: Our life has been very different. This no longer means “different from each other’s lives”, but implicit...

In modern English, polysyllabic verbs ending in -ate are regularly stressed on the third-to-last syllable. (There are some (possible) exceptions, such as incarnate, impregnate, and elongate. ) But it seems that certain speakers in the past followed a different rule, whereby the stress fell on the second-to-last syllable when it was "closed" (ended in a consonant) in Latin. A well-known example of an -ate verb that used to have this stress pattern is contemplate; the Oxford English Dictionary entry for this word summarizes the situation as follows: In a few rare cases (Shakespeare, Hudibras ) stressed ˈcontemplate in 16–17th cent.; also by Kenrick 1773, Webster 1828, among writers on pronunciation. Byron, Shelley, and Tennyson have both modes, but the orthoepists generally have conˈtemplate down to third quarter of 19th cent.; since that time ˈcontemplate has more and more prevailed, and conˈtemplate begins to have a flavour of age. This is the common tendency with all...