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Apple belongs to the category of Fruit. What category do street , road , and avenue belong to? Answer There are categories, and categories of categories, and so on, and any of these categories may or may not have labels already in the language, as Colin pointed out. If a set of words has a word for that set, that word is called a hypernym . And the semantic category depends on the particular collection you want to name (the collection may not be coherent). But for these three words, I find that the best encompassing hypernym is road or roadway , even though 'road' is one of the things you want as a subcategory, it works as a generalization of them all, a large two-way ...thing... to travel on. (A word that is its own hypernym is an autohyponym or autohypernym ). It doesn't have to be paved but a 'path' is too small to be included. I'm not sure about 'alley'. 'Boulevard', 'interstate', 'route', 'lane' are all kinds of r...

What is the difference between oath , pledge & vow and where should each word be used? An example should suffice. Answer To me, the nouns pledge and vow are closer in meaning, to the point of being synonyms. They mean “a solemn promise” (this is NOAD's main definition for both). Oath , while close in meaning, typically has an additional sense of invoking the divine (e.g., an oath taken on the bible). A verb with close meaning to all three is to swear . In addition to this meaning of “solemn promise”, each of these three nouns has specific additional meanings. an oath maybe refer to a profanity or a swear word vows maybe have specific meaning of commiting oneself to a given life, e.g. marriage or monastic vows pledge has an additional legal meaning, synonymous to surety, bond or guarantee

Is there a word for something that is immoral or unethical, but must be done since it is beneficial. For example you would use the word to describe something like this, "we must kill those who misbehave so that we may maintain peace and prosperity in the country". Or another good example is Dexter from the TV show Dexter, he kills people, but he kills them because they are bad people. Answer This is called a necessary evil (also known as the lesser of two evils ). It is used to refer to a choice that is bad, but preferable to the alternative choice that is much worse. In your example, you have 2 choices: Kill people who are violent criminals. Do not kill those violent criminals and allow them to continue to harm society. Killing violent criminals could be considered immoral, but it can be considered a necessary evil since the alternative of letting them live and continue to harm society is worse. There are even a lot of references on the Internet to Dexter as a "nece...

James Paterson in his novel writes, “she was shrink by trade, a forensic profiler, and Jack Morgan’s number two at Private “. What does whole sentence mean?

Please, look at the sentence: "I love pictures on my phone" What can it mean? 1) I love all the pictures that are now on my phone with no exceptions? 2) I love most of the pictures that are now on my phone? 3) I love having pictures on my phone? 4) I love some previously unmentioned pictures on my phone? Thanks.

I've read the discussion here about Difference between “spicy” and “hot” . I've also read this one: How to say that food is hot (temperature) without the listener thinking that I mean “spicy”? . But I did not find any word or phrase that describes the reaction someone has when eating a too spicy-hot food. You know, they tend to sweat, catch their breath, and even sometimes shed tears; due to the spiciness of the food. So my questions: What do you say to describe the reaction someone has when being excitedly "suffered" by a very spicy-hot food? In Indonesian, we would call it kepedasan . What do you say when you get that thing [the answer to question 1] with you, other than the list I enclose below: Oh, spicy! My God, it's spicy-hot! Is that it? Answer My mouth is on fire!! Is a phrase that is commonly heard in Mexican, Indian, and Thai restaurants worldwide. Help !!..My Mouth Is On Fire !! 1 What To Do When Your Mouth’s On Fire From Red Hot Chili Peppers 2 Ya, ju...

I am looking for antonyms for extempore in the context of "to speak extempore", i.e. speak without notes. I am looking for something better than prepared . Answer You could use rehearsed or scripted as antonyms for extempore . Examples: He gave a very scripted presentation, lacking all spontaneity. Although her interview seemed lively and extempore, it was in fact well rehearsed.

You sometimes see on tank trucks or petrol tankers carrying gas or oil or other liquids that catch fire quickly the word inflammable painted in bold red on them.Should not the correct word be flammable ? Answer They are two different terms with different, though related, etymology. Flammable is the more recent and also the more common of the two: (Etymonline) inflammable early 15c., in medicine, "liable to inflammation," from Middle French inflammable and directly from Medieval Latin inflammabilis, from Latin inflammare (see inflame). As "able to be set alight," c.1600. flammable : 1813, from stem of Latin flammare "to set on fire" (from flamma; see flame (n.)) + -able. In modern (20c.) use, a way to distinguish from the ambiguity of inflammable. Ngram inflammable vs flammable from The grammarist : There is no difference in meaning between flammable and inflammable. Both describe things that are capable of burning or easy to ignite, but in all modern va...

I have a Canadian friend who sometimes helps me improve my English. A few days ago she sent me a list of some words (nouns) which the plural form is the same of the singular. One of these words was "music". I said to her that I didn't know that "music" don't need the "s" at the end to function as a plural word, and that it sounds wrong for me to say something like this: "I played two music". Actually, I was suggesting that, for me, "musics" sounds more "correctly". Then, she said that "I played two music" is indeed wrong and the correct is: "I played two pieces of music" or "I played two musical pieces". Can you explain why, And give some more examples of ways to use the word "music" in the plural form? Answer Music is an uncountable noun in most senses: that is a word that refers to a group or an amount of something, or to some broad concept that there cannot be two of. Music ...

Elsewhere on Stack Exchange I came across the following comment. The sorting is based on values, not family. If you value knowledge, you will be set to Ravenclaw, for example. Needless to say, if your parents value the acquisition of knowledge most and foremost, their children are likely to share those values, but it is not a guarantee. Correlation, not causation. I stated that this was causation rather then correlation because the commenter is arguing for a cause-and-effect relationship. The fact the cause-and-effect isn't guaranteed doesn't change that. Other comments have not agreed with me, and I thought rather than an off-topic discussion there, I'd ask over here to see if my understanding of causation vs correlation was correct.

Why does "divide two into four" equal two , and "divide two by four" equal one half ? Correct if I am wrong, but this what I have learned recently. Answer OP's confusion arises because "divide 2 into 4" is an idiomatic usage meaning perform a division operation, using 2 as the divisor , and 4 as the dividend . symbolically... 4/2 = 2 clearest verbal form... divide 4 by 2, giving the answer 2 idiomatic alternative... divide 2 into 4, giving the answer 2 It's not the same usage as dividing a pizza into 4 [pieces] , where you'd probably get 1/4 (a quarter) of a pizza as your share!

What's the proper way to say: a large family or a big family ? What's the difference between them? Answer Nothing really. In English you tend to get a lot of words that mean the same thing, sometimes there are historical or poetic reasons for choosing one word — but not in this case. Other than big being a much more common word and large sounding more refined there aren't many areas where you would use one over the other for purely grammatical reasons. Note that big can also mean "major or important" — so big decision, big spender .

What’s the difference between “Kitchen gear” and “Kitchenware”? Are they synonyms? Answer Yes, there are a couple of differences. 1) "Kitchenware" is a more well-recognised term: a separate word, with its own entry in the dictionary. eg https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/kitchenware . "Kitchen gear" is not a widely used phrase and thus is more ambiguous. 2) "Kitchenware" generally refers to utensils (bowls, cutlery, plates, spatulas etc), rather than kitchen appliances (toasters, microwave ovens, blenders etc). The meaning of "kitchen gear" is ambiguous, as I said earlier, but I think that most people would take "gear" to mean either "special clothing" or "machinery". https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/gear Thus, "kitchen gear" could be taken to mean "the special clothes you wear in the kitchen", which is more applicable for professional chefs but could arg...

Surnames like Cook and Smith originally arose from the professions of those respective names. Is there a term for this type of surname?

Possible Duplicates: How Should Trademarks be Written? How do you capitalize a proper noun such as “iPhone”? Many products these days have names that intentionally begin with lowercase letters. The most common examples are of the Apple "iDevice" variety, but there are some others - inSSIDer is one. When beginning a sentence with these names, should the name be capitalized? Answer Even if a company considers non-standard formatting of a trademark "official", style guides usually suggest that the formatting be ignored. But, trademarks beginning with a one-letter lowercase prefix pronounced as a separate letter do not need to be capitalized if the second letter is capitalized. Ultimately, the Wikipedia Manual of Style suggests rephrasing to avoid beginning sentences with such trademarks.

There are more Google matches for the first sentence, but the last one sounds better to me. Which one is correct? Answer Don't use no double negatives, as a general case. While the use of "not bad, either" is a bit on the informal side, in order to maintain proper logical sense, if you wish to use "neither", you must not use "not." Hence: The food was good. The drink was also good. Becomes: The food was good; the drink was not bad, either. Or: Neither the food nor the drink was bad.

What does the following sentence, especially the highlighted phrase, mean? In that state of union, president Obama did not so much as mention the 10 sailors that had been arrested by the pirates.

Question regarding plurals: Let's say I own a restaurant, and each day I feature two new soups. Are these soups called soups of the day? or soup of the days? Then, let us say my restaurant only features one soup of the day, and I need two bowls of it... do I also call "please get me two soups of the day"? Would I then get a snarky remark from some college bound cook that we only feature one soup of the day? Please help clarify, and note that I am most familiar with the Chicago Manual of Style

Example: Despite the fact he was nearing his thirties and got stressed a lot at work, he still had a full head of hair. No thinning at all. [Neither/he] had wrinkles, and his face was still long and thin—not the least sign of weight gain. Should it be neither he or he neither ? If both are grammatically incorrect, what's the right option? Answer Neither is a conjunction, implying that there are two or more negative statements in play. I would reword your example as Despite the fact he was nearing his thirties and got stressed a lot at work, he still had a full head of hair. No thinning at all. Nor did he have wrinkles, and his face was still long and thin—not the least sign of weight gain. [Edit] But even that is awkward. Per the comments below, I would suggest rewriting the whole paragraph: Despite the fact he was nearing his thirties and got stressed a lot at work, he still had a full head of hair; no thinning at all. He had no wrinkles, and his face was still long and thin...

Most people would refer to computers as being electronic, whereas a flashlight would be described as electric. I know the general difference (electronic devices use transistors?), but what is it exactly, and how did the second term even come into existence? Why not just use electric for both? Answer The distinction comes from the two fields of electrical engineering and electronics (which some consider a subset of the former). Electronics refers to technology that works by controlling the motion of electrons in ways that go beyond electrodynamic properties like voltage and current. That is, electrical technology would work the same if you replaced electrons by some other charge-carrying particles, but electronic technology depends on the specific properties of electrons themselves, such as in semiconductor medium. Because electronic devices are typically used for representing and manipulating information, this makes for a simple rule of thumb for distinguishing electrical and ele...

Past participle of a verb created from an acronym Since RSVP has morphed into a verb, I was wondering the correct way of using its past tense. "Only 1 person RSVP'd to my event." "Only 1 person did RSVP to my event." "Only 1 person RSVPed to my event." Which is correct, or if they are all incorrect, what is the correct way? Answer In formulating past tenses of unlikely words or acronyms, an apostrophe-d is always used to prevent confusion or mispronunciation. (Obviously this is non-issue in speech.) You could also use the auxiliary do if you want to avoid this construction. These two sentences are thus correct: Only one person RSVP'd to my event. Only one person did RSVP to my event. Also, keep in mind that whenever acronyms are put in past tense using the apostrophe-d formulation, no account is taken of the full logical meaning of the acronym. Thus, you have examples like DIY'd (which means engaged in a DIY project or carried out DIY on ...

Often, when getting the train to work in the morning, shortly before arriving at our terminus the conductor will announce "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving into London Euston". This sounds so wrong to me, but so many of the different conductors say it that I'm now starting to doubt myself. Is what they're saying correct? As far as I'm concerned they should say "We will shortly be arriving at London Victoria". I know that similar questions have been asked (e.g. When do we use "arrive at" versus "arrive in"? ), but they don't deal with this specific usage of arriving at a train station. Answer This seems to be the accepted railway jargon for main-line London stations (possibly other stations too). This is probably due to the fact that Euston, like Paddington, Kings Cross, Waterloo, Liverpool Street etc is an 'enclosed' station, which is a terminus. Having said that, and not being a regular ra...

Is the following sentence correct? They are discriminated because of their skin colour. My gut feeling tells me discriminate (in this sense) has to be followed by against . Dictionary examples use against too, but no rules are stated in OALD or Macmillan. Answer Your gut feeling is correct. When the verb discriminate means to treat people unfairly , it isn't followed by a direct object. The preposition against is necessary to complete the meaning of the verb. So, you can't say * He discriminates them because of their skin colour . The sentence must be He discriminates against them because of their skin colour. When you switch the sentence in the passive form, it will be They are discriminated against because of their skin colour. EDIT: After @Shoe's comment, I did some search. It appears that what I wrote in my answer is valid, but things are starting to change according to this chart .

While searching for the meaning I got this: Workaround - a method for overcoming a problem or limitation in a program or system. Which means almost the same as " solution ". So, can we use " workaround to this " instead of " solution to this " in a sentence? For example, This issue is getting more complicated. I want a workaround to this . Math is not real fun unless you have the workaround to these equations . Is it okay to use this combination in a sentence? Does it hold a different meaning? And what are the other precautions? Answer Workaround A method for overcoming a problem or limitation in a program or system. -- Google Dictionary Solution A means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation. -- Google Dictionary A workaround is a way of avoiding the problem. A solution fixes the problem. They do both have the same outcome, but a workaround is like covering up a patch of damp with wall paper, rather than getting it waterproofed.

In Greek, for example, the letter β is pronounced "veeta", but in science, people use "beta". Some other offenders are η "eeta", ι "yiota", μ "mee", ν "nee", π "pee", τ "taf", χ "hee", ψ "psee". I understand the difficulties of pronouncing the γ sound and such, but the translation of the "ee" sound into "i" is what I don't understand. When did this start? Perhaps when Greek letters became commonly used in science? How has their pronunciation changed through the years? Answer The pronunciation of Greek letters by scientists isn't very different from the pronunciation of the Greek letters in the respective countries: American scientists pronounce them pretty much the same way the general American population does, and so on. So your question is actually about why the English pronunciation of Greek letters , and the answer is that it is based on (but not always a...

What is the origin and definition of the expression "caught between a rock and a hard place"? I also heard it in a situation where it could have had a jocose double sense, but I may have misunderstood. Answer The expression is used when there is a dilemma or only two equally difficult decisions. It can be implied where there is a mandatory to make a choice between at least two unpleasant choices. The origin , according to Phrases Dictionary , is derived from an economic issue where workers face underpaid wages ( a rock) and unemployment (hard place). The full version of the story can be found in the reference. Other origin worths mentioned is the Greek mythology "Between Scylla and Charybdis", where Odysseus has to take a route between six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. For further reading on Wikipedia .

I was exploring the phrases for "to fall in love" in some other languages. And I came out with the result, only English describes the state of starting to feel love for someone as "falling". I wonder why this idiom is that way? Only logical explanation came to me is, falling in love is something unwished for, undesirable or unplanned. I'd appreciate If you can share your own thoughts about the idiom, or help me to deepen my research. Answer To fall is something involuntary, outside of our control, not necessarily unwished, but hardly something you can plan. The expression "fall in love" as in being overwhelmed by love has been with us for a long time, and occurs eg in Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queen, published in the 1590s. Both Scudamor and Arthegal Doe fight with Britomart He sees her face; doth fall in love, and soone for her depart - subtitle to Book IV, Cant VI ( modernized spelling ) and also But it in shape and beautie did exce...

There was the following paragraph in the article that came under the title, “GOP and the rise of Anti-knowledge” written by Mike Lofgren in Consortiumnews.com (October 29, 2015): “English unfortunately doesn’t have a precise word for the German “Fachidiot,” a narrowly specialized person accomplished in his own field but a blithering idiot outside it. In any case, a surgeon is basically a skilled auto mechanic who is not bothered by the sight of blood and palpitating organs. We need the surgeon’s skills on pain of agonizing death, and reward him commensurately but that does not make him a Voltaire.” In Japanese we have a word, 専門バカ, of which literal translation is “specialist idiot” meaning exactly same as defined the above - a narrowly specialized person accomplished in his own field but a blithering idiot outside it. I’m really curious about the absence of short descriptions of the specialist who knows nothing more than his specialty area in English like German “Fachidiot,” and Japan...

There's no doubting her sincerity. There's no telling what she's done. There's no guessing which way they'll bolt. There's to be no drinking beer today. There's no telling her. The word no is usually thought of as a determinative. We expect to see it in Determiner position in noun phrases. Of course, we often see determinatives in Determiner function with deverbal nouns: The reading of books is prohibited. This constituted a breaking of his silence on this topic. Notice that because the -ing forms above are nouns and not verbs, they cannot take direct objects and the phrases after them are preposition phrases. If we omit the word of the sentences are ungrammatical: *The reading books is prohibited. (ungrammatical) *This constituted a breaking his silence on this topic. (ungrammatical) My questions therefore are: What part of speech is the word no in examples 1-4? How should we regard the syntactic function/grammatical relations of the word no in rel...

Could you correct the comments in parentheses, please? Are they right? I have lived in Los Angeles. (A completed action; the person does not live there anymore). I have lived in Los Angeles my whole life. (The person is still living there, or spent her whole life in Los Angeles, but is currently living in another location). I have been living in Los Angeles. (She doesn't live there anymore, but was living there recently, or is still living there). I have been living in Los Angeles my whole life. (The person is still living there or spent her whole life in Los Angeles, but is currently living in another location). Thanks Answer "I have lived in Los Angeles" ( Correct or "I lived in Los Angeles" is acceptable, depending on the context if A completed action, if the person does not live there anymore). "I have lived in Los Angeles my whole life." ( Correct if the person is still living there, or spent her whole life in Los Angeles, but is currently liv...

I just wrote a sentence like this and I'm wondering I've used the word compose correctly. In order to find the length of the train, you'll need to measure the individual cars it composes . Is this correct, or would it be better phrased as "... of which it's composed"? Should I use another word, like comprise ? Answer No. Comprises is right. Compose indicates joining things together. "The cars compose the train; the train is composed of cars." Comprise indicates splitting a composite (see what I did there?). "The train comprises its cars."

Thinking of getting an external keyboard Thinking about getting an external keyboard Which one is grammatically correct and why? Answer Both are equally acceptable. In some contexts, thinking of might be considered slightly more poetic than thinking about ; when sending a note to my sweetie, I'd probably write "Thinking of you!" instead of "Thinking about you!" Off the top of my head, though, I can't think of any cases in which one would be correct and the other flat-out incorrect.

A new girl started at the office, and she's quite a peculiar character. She moved here from Alabama and is definitely the excitable type. Every office has one I guess. One thing she says every now and then is cheese and rice . Like, I'll ask her a question about something, and she'll reply, "Oh, cheese and rice, I don't know!" A quick Google search turned up nothing but casserole recipes. Does "cheese and rice" mean anything? Is this something I just attribute to her strange perkiness, or is this just a Southern thing? Answer I've never heard this phrase before, and I don't know if it's prevalent in Alabama. However, I suspect that it's a taboo deformation of Jesus Christ , albeit a more colorful and idiosyncratic one than the most common variants.

I am from New England (northeastern US) and it's my understanding that we have a non-rhotic dialect in this region, which is unusual compared to the rest of the US. It is common to drop the final r in a word, and that is the most singular feature of the dialect, as Tom Bosley's character in Murder, She Wrote famously abused. Car turns into cah ; Bar Harbor becomes Bah Hahbah . One other feature of my native dialect is the intrusive r. This shows up in mysterious places, the examples that spring to mind are idea(r) and area(r) , seemingly after terminal "a" sounds. Similarly, it pops up where one would use non-r word endings like saw , especially when followed by a vowel (perhaps to make it easier to glide from one vowel to another without a glottal stop): I sore [saw] a black Chevy van parked in front of my house this morning. Does the intrusive r appear in all non-rhotic dialects? Does it appear only in non-rhotic dialects? I have been wondering if it is a kind...

I want to know _ you talked to. (who or whom) I want to know _ the culprit is. (who or whom)

Correct position of “only” Use of “only” and word-order Should one say The bidders shall not be permitted to bid for one or two tenders only. or The bidders shall not be permitted to bid for only one or two tenders.

In standard English, the digraph th is a dental fricative [θ, ð]. Several dialects feature th -fronting , where th becomes a labiodental fricative [f, v]; others feature th -stopping , where th becomes a dental stop [t̪, d̪]. For example, three sounds like free with th -fronting, tree with th -stopping. How well can English speakers distinguish word pairs in these dialects? Specifically: Can th -modifying speakers distinguish /f–θ/ and /t–θ/ in their own dialects? Can they distinguish minimal pairs as spoken in standard English? Can standard English speakers distinguish the th -modified variants from similar words? I expect that the answers vary between dialects and individuals, so I'm interested in reasonable generalizations. If there's a significant difference between (for example) th -fronting in Cockney and African American Vernacular English, I'd be interested in that too. Likewise if there's a significant difference between the voiced and unvoiced consonants...

Was just wondering how this phrase came into being? Was it inspired from some natural or astronomical observation? or is it the result of poetic imagination?

When entering a place or meet a group of people or starting a speech, how do you say hello to the audience (from a few to thousands of people). I know that this depends on the situation. I think it is common to say Hello, folks! But what are some appropriate ways to say hello to initiate a connection with a group of people in different situations? Formal Formal but friendly Informal Apart from common salutations, can you also suggest creative solutions, which may be unusual but acceptable to a native speaker?

In a similar vein to my previous question on styling written quotes , should I use quotation marks for interior monologue in narrative writing? It is common to use italics to denote thoughts: This won't be easy , she thought. But I would use quotation marks in this scenario: "This won't be easy," she said to herself. Answer "This won't be easy," she said to herself. This doesn't read as internal monologue to me at all; it reads as someone speaking aloud, but "to herself", i.e. in an undertone, maybe muttering, not apparently directed at anybody else. If it's meant to be truly internal, I'd stick with the italics.

Is there a word that describes someone who continually tries something but always fails? This isn't describing in the positive sense - as in someone who never gives up - but more about the negative side of always failing. Examples would be someone who creates many failing businesses, someone who can never stick to a diet or someone who cannot remain faithful to their partner. Edit More context would help narrow down the possible words that might fit for this person. Why do they fail? Are they aiming too high and can't attain the skillset needed to achieve success? Are they lazy? Do they lack the intestinal fortitude to follow through on a goal? All of these scenarios conjure different words to describe such a failure. – Kristina Lopez I'll give you an exact example to narrow it down more: A person who tries to diet and exercise but they always cave in and eat unhealthy stuff and/or skip exercise, despite knowing it'll be bad for them. Someone who's perfectly capable...

When two phrases are pronounced alike but have different spelling and meaning, can we call them homophones? e.g. "ice-cream" and "I scream", "nitrate" and "night rate", "that's tough" and "that stuff". Or is there another term for them? What linguistic phenomenon distiguishes these near homophones? I've checked the putative duplicate at "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream"- Is there a term that describes this 'word play'? but it isn't exactly what I'm asking here. Answer HOMOPHONIC PHRASES are also called oronyms (also called a continunym or a slice-o-nym) JUNCTURES help differentiate homophonic phrases. A term used in modern linguistics to describe a distinctive feature of language. Juncture is defined by H. Whitehall in his Structural Essentials of English as an interruption of normal transition between contiguous speech sounds. Linguistics - The transition from one speech ...

I am getting confused with usage of 's' with verb- consider following 2 sentences- I am the one who wants to stay with you. I am the one who want to stay with you. According to me, first one is the correct usage, because, "the one who" is third person, and hence, the verb will get an 's'. Would like to know what is the rule to be followed in such cases.

The etymology according to Dictionary.com : gasoline coined 1865 as gasolene, from gas (q.v.) + chemical suffix -ine/-ene. current spelling is 1871; shortened form gas first recorded Amer.Eng. 1905. Gas station first recorded 1932. Why was it originally called "gasoline"? Answer The Oxford English Dictionary writes that there is another step in the etymology-- ol : Etymology: The root gas has a meaning which doesn't necessarily mean gaseous in general. It is a specific type of gas. The definition which I think applies here is: Gas of a kind suitable to be burnt for illuminating or heating purposes; originally = coal-gas n., but now including (a) various artificial mixtures consisting chiefly of carburetted hydrogen, and distinguished by defining words indicating the source from which they are obtained, as water-gas, oil-gas, etc.; and (b) = natural gas n.). Then, the ol suffix indicated that they were using an oil-based form: Forming the names of oils and oil-derived ...

When I logged on to LinkedIn the other day, I was prompted to add information about which language I speak and at which level. I consider myself to be pretty fluent both in written and spoken English, although I probably have a noticable Swedish accent when I speak. But how do I know if I have "full professional proficiency" or "native or bilingual proficiency"? Answer Accent isn't an issue unless it prevents your listeners from understanding your spoken English. If that's the case, then you can't claim spoken fluency. "Bilingual" can have both a restricted and an unrestricted meaning. My 16-year-old son is trilingual, but Mandarin Chinese is his best and "native" language; Southern Min (Taiwanese from Fujian Province) is his "mother tongue" because he grew up speaking that every day with his grandmother, uncles, aunts, friends, and mother, but he doesn't use it as much as he uses Mandarin (all school classes are taught...

Can a hyphen be used without anything on the right side? I'm trying to discuss types of semiconductor, there is P-type and N-type. Assuming my hyphenation is correct, should it be ' p- and n-type ' or just ' p and n-type '?

What does to mean in a newspaper headline, for example: Airline XY to cut cost of pilots' wages Is it a shorter form of "Is going to" or "Is planning to"? Answer Yes. Normally it can be interpreted as "is going to" or "has decided to". In headlines, that construction usually indicates that something will happen; a decision has been made. There is a construction "Airline XY is to cut costs" which means the same thing. All the headline subeditor has done is to remove the verb "is" (as they often do).

Are they here? 1) Yes. They arrived. 2) Yes. They have arrived. I cannot understand what the difference is. Of course I know 1) is 'past' and 2) is 'present perfect' But in my country, 'Present perfect tense' is not exist. So I cannot understand detail meaning between them. My teacher told me that 'Present perfect tense' occurred in the past, but still related to present. But I cannot figure out. Here is another dialogue that I cannot understand. Are you hungry? 1) I had lunch. 2) I have had lunch. Please tell me the difference between them. Thank you.

Words like "sky" and "money" have "ies" as a plural suffix (i.e. "skies" and "monies") but other words like "monkey" and "Emmy" do not ("monkeys" and "Emmys"). Is there a rule dictating the use of "ies"? Answer It's determined by the letter before the y: monk ey : vowel + y => monkeys s ky : consonant + y => skies Exception: proper nouns like "Emmy" sometimes form the plural by adding "s". Monies I don't know about, so hopefully someone else can fill in that detail.

It occurred to me that I use the term "beta" to describe a "release candidate" of a computer product that has passed all expectations of the development team, and is now being given limited exposure to users at large for comment. However, I have no idea how the term came to be, or what context it originally was used in. If we use "beta", then "alpha" must have been used at some point (possibly to refer to the internal QA testing period). Was "gamma" ever used? Who came up with this nomenclature for the QA process? Answer There are some phases in Software Developing. Pre-alpha refers to everything that is prior to testing. Alpha is when the product is ready to go through the first phase of testing. It's not exactly true that Alpha means only internal testing, or at least this mainly refers to proprietary software. In Open Source softwares, Alpha versions might be publicly available. There might be several Alpha versions. Beta is...

Can I use the words - "Tears of disbelief sting my eyes" to express the fact that I am very sad and shocked? Answer Poetic license, or more accurately, " artistic license " must be considered here. Robusto's comment is perfectly appropriate, but there is no doubt in my mind that in some context "colorless green dreams sleep furiously" might actually make sense! In the description of a drug-induced state, for example. And you cannot tell me that the famous poem "Jabberwocky" doesn't contain a hefty helping of artistic license! 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Does any part of this make ANY kind of sense? Of course not, but that is the point. License, my friends, means that something is permitted, IF you can get the reader to swallow it. And "Tears of disbelief sting my eyes" is perfectly capable getting buyoff from readers.

After asking what the difference is between a gerund and a participle , I began to wonder if all gerunds end with -ing, since I couldn't think of any that didn't. If they do, why? Answer To answer the original question: Yes, gerunds all end with -ing, simply by definition. A gerund is, in Latin, a form of the verb which can be construed as (i.e. has functional characteristics of) a noun – it can act as subject or object of a verb, for example, or can take a plural ending. In English, the only category which meets this definition are "verbal nouns" or gerunds, which consist of a verb and a special -ing suffix which turns them into nouns. Although they look like present participles, they are morphologically separate, as we will see... To answer the bounty question: The gerundial -ing and the present participal -ing are, in fact, two different suffixes. Let's start with the gerundial -ing. This is related to modern German -ung and modern Dutch -ing. It star...

Recently there is dramatic increase in the use of looking to verb as in: Jeff is looking to start something big. Is this acceptable grammar? Why is it recently popular? What could best be used in its place? Answer From the American Heritage Dictionary : Usage Note: The phrasal verb look to has recently developed the meanings "expect to" and "hope to," as in The executives look to increase sales once the economy improves or I'm looking to sell my car in July. In a recent survey, the Usage Panel was divided almost evenly on this usage, with 52 percent of the Panelists finding it acceptable and 48 percent rejecting it. Of those rejecting this usage, a small number volunteered that they would find it acceptable in informal speech, and in fact the divided response of the Panel may be due in part to the informal flavor of this phrase. I think this may answer all of your questions except "Why is it recently popular". It may be popular because in my opin...

Before I start, I know this question already exists: Do capitalization and punctuation fall under the category of grammar? However, I would like to follow-up on it. This definition from Oxford Online isn't very helpful: The whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics. Someone in chat used the above definition as evidence that spelling is indeed part of grammar, and that the answers in the other Q&A are incorrect. So, are those answers incorrect? Are spelling, punctuation and capitalization in fact part of grammar? Answer It depends on whom you ask. "Grammar", like "linguist", "weight", or " fruit ", is a term that doesn't have a single perfectly defined meaning. It may have a somewhat specific meaning in certain contexts, but not in isolation. The OED gives a longer definition (which is fr...

The grammars I've seen state that dependent clauses never undergo inversion. This agrees with sentences like Tell me where he is. But how sentences like Tell me, where is he? should be analyzed? Isn't where is he a dependent clause in this case? Answer "Where is he" is an independent clause. The subject-verb inversion is because it's an interrogatory independent clause. There wouldn't be a question mark if it were a dependent clause, since the main clause would be imperative. The sentence has two independent clauses without a conjunction. In most cases this would call for a semicolon, but when the first clause is a short imperative one introducing a question, a comma is used. A well-known complicated example is found in the US national anthem: "Oh say, can you see by the dawn's early light ..." and so on through a labyrinth of subordinate clauses.

I would like to know if anyone knows the word for something that should be impossible but has happened. An example is the Big Bang Theory. It shouldn't have been possible but something happened for us to exist.

What would you call someone who does things knowing specifically that his/her actions will cause pain and/or conflict or completes an action just to get someone in trouble or hurt them? For example, in Private Peaceful there are two people that are in love, but the Colonel goes out of his way to tell the father of the girl that the boy is a thief and would be bad for their reputation. What is a word that would describe him?

I was criticized the other day for using this word. It never occurred to me that it was offensive, but Wikipedia says it "may" be derogatory. Given Vancouver's hockey team, I tend to think it's benign, but I wouldn't want to get William Shatner angry. Please help me oot. Answer The reason why Canuck could be perceived as offensive is because it is a slang term for a nationality. But as you know there are many sports in which Canadian teams have elected to call themselves the "Canucks". The most famous is the Vancouver Hockey team but the rugby national team is also called the Canucks. Since sport is very much an activity based on group pride, Canuck is probably not an insult. It's all a matter of circumstances, context and tone. I don't mind being addressed at as Froggy as long as it's not used in an offensive way or in a formal occasion.

In S01E03 of Better Call Saul , police catch Saul and he says he is an attorney. Then they have a look into his ID and say to themselves 'He is a lawyer'. Saul looks irritated by that saying and replies in a displeased manner 'Who's lawyer?!' So, the question is, why could he be annoyed by people calling him a lawyer when he presents himself as an attorney? What's the difference? Answer Probably because : All attorneys are lawyers, but it is improper to say that all lawyers are attorneys. Attorneys are also recognized as lawyers. Attorneys graduate from law school and they can also choose to practice law as a profession. However a potential attorney must pass the bar exam to be eligible to practice law within a specific jurisdiction. Apart from performing the basic functions of a lawyer, attorneys can also act as legal representatives for their clients. An attorney does not just interpret the law; he or she also applies his knowledge of the law to provide the n...

I'm talking about a situation where I hear a word, phrase, or telling of an actual experience from one source (e.g., a friend's mouth), and almost immediately hear the exact same word or phrase from a different source such as the radio or TV. For example, while driving and listening to the radio I might drive around a round-about and at the same time the word round-about comes on the radio in a song. But the word round-about is extremely rare in either fashion. Is there a term for this experience?

I think "not the least of which" means "one of the biggest" or "one of the important" . Is it right? Answer The phrase can be used to mean "one of the biggest" or "one of the most important." However, this meaning isn't necessarily the meaning implied by the speaker. Taken literally, it means that the object in question or the person to whom one is referring is not the member or object considered to be the least important (or the smallest) in the referenced group.

Being a non native speaker, I cannot spot the difference here: He would have had to have been there. He would have had to be there. The only thing that comes to my mind is that in the first case, there is the past infinitive which would imply that it requires him to have been there (before something), while in the second case it requires him to be there at that moment.

We wear a shirt, a jacket but a pair of pants. Why is pants plural? Answer A quick search led me to the excellent site World Wide Words run by Michael Quinion The site has an entire page on this issue . Here's a brief snippet. Before the days of modern tailoring, such garments, whether underwear or outerwear, were indeed made in two parts, one for each leg. The pieces were put on each leg separately and then wrapped and tied or belted at the waist (just like cowboys’ chaps). The plural usage persisted out of habit even after the garments had become physically one piece. However, a shirt was a single piece of cloth, so it was always singular.

"Herpivory"? "Ranophagy"? Hurry, I need to mock a French friend. Answer I guess I should know !!! You could create some neologism such as - amphibiophagy ( ἀμφίβιος => both lives + φαγεῖν => to eat ) - batrachiophagy ( βάτραχος => frog + φαγεῖν => to eat ) - anuraphagy ( αν => without + ουρά => tail + φαγεῖν => to eat ) credits @Malvolio.