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I've read in various places the first minute of a day described as 12:00am . Now, whilst I personally prefer to use 24h clock notation and therefore don't have this problem as I can simply describe this minute as 00:00 , how is one supposed to express this time using am/pm notation? Is 00:00am common (strange because there is no 00:00pm ), or is the least-bad way to say 12:00am (strange IMHO because it seems to imply that the previous hour was 11:00am when it was actually 11:00pm )? Answer The Wikipedia article 12 Hour Clock is worth quoting at length: Confusion at noon and midnight It is not always clear what times "12:00 a.m." and "12:00 p.m." denote. From the Latin words meridies (midday), ante (before) and post (after), the term ante meridiem (a.m.) means before midday and post meridiem (p.m.) means after midday. Since strictly speaking "noon" (midday) is neither before or after itself, the terms a.m. and p.m. do not apply. However, since...

I know that because of modifies verbs, whereas due to modifies nouns. However, what do I do if I see something like: We find that X is better than Y in most cases, due to lack of support for Y. Here, it seems like due to is modifying better , an adjective (I think). Is due to acceptable, or is it correct to use because in such cases? Answer Long ago, the principle used to be that due to is adjectival , and owing to is adverbial . In OP's example, "due to" adverbially modifies "We find" , so strictly speaking (long ago) it wouldn't have been acceptable. OP would have to rephrase along the lines of... Our conclusion that X is better than Y in most cases is due to lack of support for Y. ...which "correctly" makes a noun (our conclusion) the object of due to . By the same principle, some might say because of is also adverbial, and that you should say "I am weak because of hunger" , rather than "My weakness is because of hunger...

Which of the following sentences is correct? Version 1: There are TV shows like Dragon's Den and Shark Tank. Version 2: There are TV shows like "Dragon's Den" and "Shark Tank". Answer How to distinguish titles of works is a matter of style. There is no single, universally correct answer; you should adhere to the guidance of your editor, publication, or organization, or in the absence of a house style, your preferred style manual . For example, the Chicago Manual of Style stipulates that the titles of television shows should be italicized, but that individual episode names should be demarcated with quotation marks. APA style dictates the same . Associated Press style, on the other hand, prefers that the names of television shows should be wrapped in quotation marks, and not italicized or underlined . Bluebook legal citation, for yet another example, wants the name of the show and episode together, separated by a colon, and both italicized , without quotatio...

Which is correct: sign in , signin or sign-in when used as a noun and also as a verb? Answer The verb is sign in . The noun is sign-in . The noun is better with the hyphen, because signin could be confused with an abbreviated signing that's lost its apostrophe. Alternatively you could use the more common log in for the verb, and login for the noun.

I'm writing an application that deals with blind studies . What would be the correct term to use when describing whether or not a study is blind? No matter which word I use it always ends up sounding awkward so I'm wondering what the correct term would be. Blindedness Blindness Blind Masked (?) I am also looking for the opposite words, for example, is it correct usage to describe users as "blind/unblind" or "blinded/unblinded"? Answer In light of the conversation I had this afternoon with my former boss, who actually conducts double- and single-blind studies, here is my revised answer. He also recommends using the specific type of blind experiment you employed. In this single-blind study, a sample of fourteen participants tasted Coke and Pepsi. Eighteen students participated in a double-blind study that compared apples and oranges. It is unusual to describe users as blind (unless they are visually impaired). It would be more common to describe the trials as...

Which tense are sentences like: "When people do make changes good things happen" "Even if monkeys can play an important role, their actions can pose risk to the general public"

Forgive me if this has already been asked, I could not find it via search. My question is this: what is the proper way to append computer storage abbreviations to a number? For example, a 500 gigabyte hard disk drive will usually be spelled as "500GB" on web sites, with no space, but occasionally I see "500 GB", with a space between the number and the unit. Putting a space between the number and the abbreviation makes more sense to me, but since even Apple does not put a space between them, I am not sure. Which is the proper way?

The following symbols have both been introduced to me as a 'paragraph symbol'. With the help of ShapeCatcher and Wikipedia, I found out that However, I've seen both of them used to indicate what part of a document is referred to. (e.g. § 4.2 refers to the second paragraph in the fourth chapter of a book, but I have also seen ¶ 4.2) Are both of these uses correct, or not? In what ways are these symbols further used? Answer Usually, the pilcrow is used to indicate paragraphs, not only when citing them: you can use it to indicate the paragraphs' beginning or end, or to separate them if you are writing them without breaks. It can also be used if you have run out of symbols to indicate footnotes in a given page (the order of footnote symbols is traditionally *, †, ‡, §, |, ¶ in English). The section sign is much more usually employed in citations, and can indicate paragraphs, sections or footnotes. I'd say the use you mention is correct, as long as what the sign is poi...

I'm looking for a word to express something that is beautiful and interesting at the same time, to use in this sentence: Read [term] stories Can you help me find one? Answer How about wonderful ?

"The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary human wills, is continuous. To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of history. . . . Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history" -Leo Tolstoy, war and peace Answer I would say it's an analogy , which generally in literature implies the primary subject being compared to something more familiar, in hopes of conveying insights into the true nature of the subject. In Tolstoy's case, it doesn't matter that his audience probably aren't particularly familiar with differential calculus . He explicitly defines the feature relevant to his analogy; exacting measurement of tiny differences enables one to graph a complex function to present a revealing ima...

A phrase being used by the "news" media regarding the recent arrest of people in Columbus, NM is "firearms favored by the Mexican cartels", referring to their purchase of AK47s and other semiautomatics; weapons that are in fact favored by many people who want a good weapon for a reasonable price. I'm trying to name the fallacy, and "guilt by association" and "red herring" come to mind but aren't really a good fit. I've read this thread , but can't really match it to the situation. I've also looked through many of the fallacies at the Nizkor Project and logicalfallacies.info and can't see a good match. Any ideas? It could be rewritten for clarity: Person P bought weapons A and B. A and B are favored by the Mexican drug cartels. Therefore, P bought the weapons with intent to distribute them to the Mexican drug cartels. Answer TV tropes calls it Hitler ate sugar . It also says it's called "The Association Fallacy...

I believe it well established that the choice of whether to use "There is" or "There are" with the phrase "a lot of" depends on the following word. For example, you would say: There is a lot of wine. There are a lot of cars. What is the right form to use for a pair of, a bunch of, a group of, etc.?

Everyone does the thing where while speaking to someone you'll start inching away in order to end the conversation. Or you'll say something thats a conversation ender like "time to get back to work" or sometimes a joke with the right inflection does the trick. Is there a word that means "trying to end a conversation" in this context? Answer Break off a conversation For example, see this how to

Please, specify American/British Engilsh! I think these below are very common but I have no idea if they are commonly used in spoken English. ad hoc per se a priori de facto ergo et cetera vice versa Edit: Which are the Latin words/phrases understood and used by everyone?

For an example is it correct to say: You may use X or Y or Z or even something else. And what is proper punctuation for such example in case it is valid. Answer The statement as you gave it might occur in speech, but forms joined in this manner are not preferred in writing. Instead, separate the items with a comma, and put or only before the last item: You may use X, Y, Z, or even something else. This is effectively the same as the rule for lists of items joined by and . (Oxford comma forever!)

Consider up & down, left & right, and back & forth. Up & down can be stated generically as "vertical". Side-to-side is "lateral". What about back & forth? Answer What about the word longitudinal ? OOD defines longitudinal as " running lengthwise rather than across ". When we talk about waves in which the displacement of the medium is in the same direction as (or the opposite direction to) the direction in which the wave travels, we often use the word longitudinal . (source: ddmcdn.com ) In a Wikipedia article about aircraft principal axes, it states that An aircraft in flight is free to rotate in three dimensions: pitch, nose up or down about an axis running from wing to wing, yaw, nose left or right about an axis running up and down; and roll, rotation about an axis running from nose to tail. The axes are alternatively designated as lateral, vertical, and longitudinal.

Abraham Lincoln in his famous letter to his son's teacher asks the teacher to teach his son the secret of quiet laughter . Is this expression an oxymoron (like deafening silence )? Answer The famous letter that Abraham Lincoln didn't write According to an online article by Thomas F. Schwartz, " Lincoln Never Said That ," on the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency website, the supposed letter from Lincoln to his son's teacher is not by Lincoln at all. It is the fourth of ten examples Schwartz cites of quotations misattributed to Lincoln: A popular undated letter found on internet sites that allegedly was written to the headmaster of a school in which one of Lincoln's sons was studying: ... ...Teach him the secret of quiet laughter . Let him learn early that bullies are easiest to lick. ... Although Schwartz doesn't speculate about who wrote the supposed letter and when, the results of a Google Search for specific phrases from the bogus letter make pretty...

"Wise" is defined as having, experiencing or showing "knowledge and good judgement", whereas "shrewd" is defined by as "having or showing sharp powers of judgement; astute". Does this mean that "shrewd" is simply a synonym and therefore the two adjectives can be used interchangeably, or does it have a subtle difference, i.e. shrewdness is the application of knowledge to a greater extent [than wisdom]? How would this affect their application in everyday language? Thanks!

Is there a word or phrase that describes when a person professes to know about a certain subject, but in fact knows nothing about it? Answer A dilettante is a person who's interested in a subject, but doesn't have any real in-depth knowledge about it.

I have read many online articles. I've read questions and answers on this site. I still can't get my head wrapped around the difference between past simple and present perfect I know the difference is between finished time (use past simple ) and unfinished time (use present perfect ). But as a non-native English speaker, this still makes no sense to me. I am not implying any kind of time period. I have posted on SE I posted on SE I just want to convey that the action completed in the past. I don't want to provide any connotation whether the action just completed, or completed at certain period in past. Maybe with "I" , I know the time period, but what if I am talking about someone else. He has posted on SE He posted on SE I don't know the time frame that "he" did the action. I don't know what "he" was planning (continuous action, or at specific time). I just know the action took place in the past. I don't know if it just finished...

Something along the lines of 'hero of the occasion', but specifically for birthday? If there isn't, how would you otherwise say that? ('the subject of birthday party', 'the hero of this birthday party', 'birthday's hero' all sound stupid somehow).

I often hear people saying that "I am" is the shortest sentence in the English language. I know that there are also discussions about sentences using the imperative mood such as "Go." that would be shorter, but my question is this: Why would we (the people saying "I am" is a full sentence) not accept "I'm" as a complete sentence? Is there some unwritten rule about contractions that says "I'm" wouldn't be correct? Answer In English, any clause has one mandatory stress slot: there must be at least one element that has stress (optionally more than one). That slot lies in the predicate of the clause, which must always be stressed. The subject (which stands outside the predicate) can receive stress, but does not necessarily have to, and even when it does receive stress, the predicate retains its stress. Within the predicate, a verb that has one or more complements of a certain type (a generic object [i.e., one without an articl...

Is the sentence 'The man was not having any change' grammatically correct? Or does I have to be 'did not have'?

After having found the image below, I’m wondering whether there is a word that English speakers use to describe someone driving on the opposite side of a road. A bit of searching pulled up geisterfahrer , which is a German word whose translation into English is at best unclear. In fact, according to Google Translate, geisterfahrer is rendered in English as ghost rider . However, I’m unable to find this two-word phrase in any dictionary I have consulted — and besides, I’m interested to find a single word. Thus my question is, is there a word for someone who drives in the direction opposite the one prescribed for the lane they are driving in? Note that I dislike, and will not accept, wrong-way rider , both because it is too far from the single-word concept and because it seems like a made-up phrase to me.

How does one correctly form the "north" and "south" forms for which occident and orient are "west" and "east"? I found boreal and austral , but those look like adjectives and I'm after the nouns. Bonus: what about "up" and "down"?

Context : In the NBC television series Chicago P.D , the character Sergeant Hank Voight (played by Jason Beghe) is a dirty cop who is associated with shady, unsavory characters in the Chicago underworld, regularly breaks police protocol and takes bribes. However, despite his ruthless, morally ambiguous methods, Voight is extremely dedicated to the victims of his cases. Furthermore,he goes out of his way to protect and help vulnerable young people, and does have his fellow cops' and Chicago's best interests at heart. So in the above context, what positive, negative word or phrase can be used to describe a person like Sergeant Hank Voight who despite being corrupt is a kind person ? While researching, I came across the word Maverick in the thesaurus.Can the word Maverick be used in this context ? Example Sentence : Sergeant Hank Voight can be described as a ___________ So based on the context,in this sentence above, what word or phrase can be used ? Answer After searching t...

Do you remember the lyrics to the song? Do you remember the lyrics of the song? I'm more familiar with the second sentence using the "of". But what I don't know is, how would you interpret both of these sentences in the grammatical sense? Do both of these sentences express a relation between lyrics and songs? Answer To "remember the lyrics of a song," expresses the idea of lyrics being a characteristic, or possession: The lyrics of the song The color of the car The brand of the monitor A species of animal As though lyrics are a characteristic of a song, and you're asking whether one knows that characteristic, or as though this particular song contains a set of lyrics, and you're asking whether one knows the lyrics the song contains , thereby asking whether one "knows the lyrics of the song." To "remember the lyrics to the song," would express the idea of a connection, showing that with this particular song, comes a set a ...

I routinely find this expression in newspaper, magazines, blogs... My guess is that it's used to report a widely shared opinion, but I couldn't find any confirmation of this. Or maybe it's just used to emphasize the adjective? I'm afraid I might be missing a subtelty here. Here are a few examples from the first page of googling "oh so *": Paul Ryan's oh-so-clever jab at Jay Cutler Chivas USA came oh so close to getting the first goal of the match The movie-star-handsome [...] stung with that oh-so-direct comeuppance Robert Pattinson Oh So Lonely: 'No One Ever Calls Or Texts Me!' An Oh-So-British Affair Projects a Fresh, Antique Charm LaPorta made an oh-so-costly error in the game Finally, the long, oh so very long flight back to Vancouver ‎ Answer "Oh-so" means "very", but with the implication of certain emotion. The "oh" caries similar meaning to a sigh. It can imply sarcasm, relief, frustration, etc.

Boys don't play with dolls that they know for a long time, unless they see another boys playing with them. Well it means that boys sometimes boys are not interested in a girl they know for a while until they discover the girl has someone. In this sentence, dolls is a symbol for girls. I'm a bit confused if I should use that , which or who ? (by the way, should use 'until' instead of 'unless' ?)

I saw a bear, a lion and a donkey. Is the usage of the article a necessary before each word in a list like this? Biggs set out Monday morning for one of his usual hiking and gold-panning trips near Whiskey Flats when he came across a mother bear, yearling, and cub sitting on a stream bank. Why is there no article before cub ? Answer No, it isn't necessary for an article to appear each time. However, the two sentence structures have different connotations. I saw a bear, a lion and a donkey. connotes that, at various times, you saw a bear, a lion, and a donkey. I saw a bear, lion and donkey. connotes that you saw a bear, lion, and donkey together in a group. This connotation isn't inescapable, but it would be the default understanding. There is no article before yearling or cub in your example because the writer intends to describe the three as appearing together. The construction also draws on an established understanding of a mother bear, yearling and cub being an expected ...

Is there a standard adjective or term which classifies "questions with a known, single, unambiguous, objective, and correct answer"? That is, questions like " 2+2=? " or " What is the capital of Ohio? ", as opposed to questions like " Who's the best band of all time? " or " What is human nature? ". If you wanted to describe the kinds of questions StackExchange welcomes and encourages in as few words as possible (ideally two: adjective + "questions"), what would you say? PLEASE: No philosophical debates about whether "objectivity" is possible or a meaningful concept, or the infinite possible interpretations of "2+2"; for the sake of answering this question, assume objectivity and correctness are meaningful and achievable goals. Answer It is called a factual question . Because the answer is a fact rather than a subjective opinion. factual Concerned with what is actually the case rather than interpretat...

Which one is better: "two pipes of different radii" or "two pipes of different radius"? In Futurama, "let me show you some of the different lengths of wire I use" uses plural "lengths", but is it only because it's more than two? Answer I think it depends on how many of the property are associated with the object. Whether you use plural form for the property can also depend on whether you use "of" or "with" two pipes of different weight. two pipes with different weights. three containers of different volume. A pipe has many dimensions, for example: length, diameter and wall-thickness. So if you use a more general term like size, you may be saying that a plurality of dimensions may differ. Two pipes of different size. Two pipes with different sizes. Two pipes of different diameter. The Futurama example is a bit different because the phrase "a length of wire" can be used as a noun. For example one can say "let...

If I say two words consecutively, with the first ending in a vowel sound and the second starting with one, when is it correct to include a non-existent r between those two words? Examples from phrases I've heard: I saw (r)a movie They saw (r)us Law (r)and order That's the idea, (r)anyway. I heard the last one in the movie Edge of Tomorrow yesterday. Is this grammatically correct? If so, is the omission of the r grammatically incorrect? Are there any rules regarding this? Answer I support Dan Rumney's answer and I would like to explain a bit more. In non-rhotic English accents —ones in which an 'R' sound is not pronounced if it occurs before a consonant or "prosodic break"— an R at the end of a word would not normally be pronounced, unless it was followed by a word starting with a vowel, for example in the expression "tuner amp". This is a linking R . Most English accents in England (including Received Pronunciation), Wales and the Southern ...

Teenagers. All the literature tells you one thing and one thing only – that whatever they are doing, give them a break, cut them some slack , it's normal. From the novel, Apple Tree Yard I'm curious about the origins of to cut some slack . I know slacks are American English for trousers or pants, and a slacker is a lazy person. But what is a slack and how does one "cut" it?

Is it incorrect to pronounce the name Ceri — which is of Welsh origin I think — as seri instead of keri ? Answer It is pronounced KE-ri . You can find the source here .

The English verb can is very strange for several reasons: It drops the to on any infinitive verb forms that follow it. That is, unlike in the verb want in the sentence I want to eat , you would not include the infinitive to marker in the sentence I can eat . Can itself has no infinitive form. A construction like I like to can understand foreign languages is not grammatical; you have to use the phrase to be able , as in, I like to be able to understand foreign languages . Can does not conjugate. Most verbs add an s or es when they have a third person singular subject, but can does not. You cannot add tense modifiers to can . I will can , I canned , I had canned and so on are all ungrammatical (unless you are talking about putting things in can). You have to use constructions like "I will be able to", "I could", "I had been able to", etc. All of the other languages I know anything about do not share any of these characteristics in their correspon...

I didn't know how to phrase my title to make it meaningful to anyone, and I can't really explain it now, so I shall use an example: The opening phrase on the DSGB website is "It's counting, Jim, but not as we know it". This comes from the Star Trek quote "It's life , Jim, but not as we know it". What is it called when someone does this (mainly for comedic effect)?

I have always been puzzled by some sentences people make that end in a no . For example, let's say someone instructed you not to leave your post before they arrive. Then they return but you're not there. When you finally meet them, they say: So you decided to wait for me elsewhere than we had agreed, no?. What is the meaning of no and what should I answer? Answer From what you've written, I think you are describing someone asking a rhetorical question. "You decided to wait for me elsewhere, didn't you?" is equivalent to "You decided to wait for me elsewhere, no?" Asking only with 'no' like that is usually something of a challenge or at the very least it indicates a strong expectation that the answer will be agreement. It is used commonly in argumentative rhetoric and emotional disagreements, but it can also just be used to indicate genuine confusion or surprise. Answering 'no' to this kind of question is expressing disagreement. Ans...

I once had a manager whose level of literacy was lacking to the extent that he would nearly always return my technical reports with sections rewritten such that they became either ungrammatical, or would convey an inaccurate notion to most readers (due to poor wording). One of my colleagues would often describe that manager as being illiterate , or (if he happened to be feeling magnanimous), semi-literate . I was wondering, are there any better words or phrases to describe someone who is prone to such things as grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, tautologies and misinterpretation of (relatively) common words/terms? In other words I'm looking for descriptive terms, or even colloquialisms, that would apply to someone who is particularly poor at expressing themselves in writing . As an aside, I am also interested in what words could be used to describe the opposite quality... I.e., descriptors for someone who is particularly articulate and eloquent in their writing style, and good ...

I know someone named Davidovici , pronounced /dəˈvɪɾəvɪtʃ/ (i.e., rhyming with witch . It's from Romanian). How is it pluralized (as, to refer to the family): Davidovicis or Davidovicies ? Answer The Chicago Manual of Style recommends that when a plural form suggests a false pronunciation, the name is best left unpluralized. (Preferably this would be done by recasting the sentence to avoid the need for pluralization.) Since "Davidovicies" looks like it would naturally be pronounced with "-eez" instead of "-ez", I would recommend avoiding that particular form no matter what. If you must pluralize it, simply adding the 's' looks like the best thing to do.

I've seen a lot of words use an X but be pronounced with a Z. Mitch Hedberg put it best: Xylophone is spelled with an X, that's wrong, xylophone's zzzz, X? I don't $%(@#& see it. It should be a Z up front, next time you have to spell xylophone, use a Z. When someone says, "Hey that's wrong," say, "No it ain't. If you think that's wrong, you need to get your head Z-rayed." It's like X wasn't given enough to do, so they had to promise it more. Okay, you don't start a lot of words, but we'll give you a co-starring role in tic-tac-toe. And you will be associated with hugs and kisses. And you will mark the spot. And you will make writing Christmas easier. And incidentally, you will start xylophone. Are you happy, you $%(@#&' X!?! So why is X used like this and where did it start? Answer Xylophone is from the Greek xylon , which is (or was—I'm not up on my modern Greek) pronounced with an initial [ks]. Many wor...

Why is Einstein pronounced with a s instead of sh , while the ei is pronounced ine ? This looks inconsistent. Answer First off, Albert Einstein's surname is pronounced with a sh sound in his native Germany, due to the second syllable of his surname beginning with "st" (literally, his name means "one stone"). The vowel grouping ei in German is pronounced similar to the English "eye", though with less emphasis on the first part of the diphthong. (See the Wikipedia entry for more details.) As for the typical English pronunciation of his name ("ine-stine"), of the two parts that are not typical in English, one was retained when he migrated to the U.S. later in life , the other was not. Of the many German migrant families whose surname ended in -stein , some chose to keep the original ei pronunciation ( -stine ) while others more or less gradually switched to pronouncing it -steen for a variety of reasons . While the ei sound is of cou...

What is the correct usage? Apparently it is "I feel badly", but but wouldn't that mean you have an inadequate ability to feel? Answer Assuming you're talking about a situation where something bad has happened to your friend, and you're saying you feel unhappy on their behalf, then "I feel bad for you" is correct. You are right that "I feel badly" would mean you are having difficulty in feeling at all - which would be a rather unusual thing to say :) In general the verb "to feel" will take an adjective (happy, sad, good, bad, angry, relieved) after it to indicate the feeling, rather than an adverb.

I was just thinking about someone I went to school with who had a penchant for putting people down, and I was trying to think of a word that describes this, but couldn’t find it. It would be a synonym of caustic, abrasive, discouraging, and undermining, but these all have slightly different connotations (to wear away", cause discouragement or to make fall). I want an adjective that has the connotation of a hammer hitting you on the head. The word does not necessarily need to describe someone who does this on purpose, out of evil intent. Is there such a word? The word should give you a mental picture of someone barraging you with negative comments, but it not necessarily affecting you. Think of someone who so often has something negative to “contribute” that many can just either ignore it or roll their eyes at it, and that is the extent of its effect. I keep getting the mental picture of the word buffet as in, how waves buffet the shore. A constant hitting, without the hitting ...

I found that diaeresis is used on the word, reelection in the following sentence of the article titled “Rational Irrationality” in the New Yorker magazine (April 27). “This morning’s news that economic growth slowed markedly between January and March is an unmitigated bad for Obama and an unmitigated good for Romney. The President’s reëlection chances largely hinge on being able to point to evidence that the economy is finally improving.” As I don’t think I’ve come across diaeresises being used in the articles of today's journals so often (Correct me if I’m wrong), I checked dictionaries at hand and online. Cambridge Dictionary online resisters reelection without hyphen nor diaeresis on ‘ee’, same as Merriam Webster online. Both Oxford Dictionary online and Oxford Advance English Learners’ Dictionary register ‘re-election’ with the former coming with the notation - Spell ‘re-elect’ with a hyphen after the first e. Other words beginning with re- that have a hyphen are re-educate, re...

Snowy areas commonly see snow collect between a car body and tire. There is some strange satisfaction in kicking that snow off of the car and I've been in many conversations about miscellaneous details of this particular type of snow collection. Photographic example: But is there a word I can use to refer to this clump? I am looking for a word similar to "icicle" or "stalactite" but a bit more specific. Answer According to a renowned authority , in the Northeastern part of the United States accumulations as shown are called snow goblins . Other authorities call them snow cuds or snow boogers .

Frequently when I refer to or address a family, I do so by pluralizing their last name, e.g., The Smiths, or The Ramones. But suppose I want to address a family whose last name ends in a "y", e.g., Kennedy. Normally in English, I reflexively change the "y" to an "ies" when pluralizing words in this form, but as a proper noun, I'm not sure this is the right thing to do. On the other hand, The Kennedys doesn't seem right either--the "dys" looks like it would lead to a dysfunctional prononciation. I'm also pretty sure an apostrophe belongs nowhere near here. So how do I properly pluralize a name ending in a "y"? Answer It seems that the current consensus is “don’t change” (-ys). Swan 2005 cautiously says that "proper nouns usually [emphasis mine - Alex B.] have ys". the Kennedys (not the Kennedies) There’s a punk band, Dead Kennedys http://www.deadkennedys.com/ ; there’s also aTV show, The Kennedys . the Willoughby...

Students' misbehaviour has/have worsened in the past few years. Is it has or have ? Or can both be correct with "has" referring to "misbehaviour" and "have" referring to students? I'm inclined towards "has".

In various internet contexts and games, being "broken" means that you/something somewhat defy common sense by being stupidly powerful. Is there a more "proper" word that is equivalent to "broken"? ie: That sword was so broken because it killed everyone in one hit. Is there a certain word that can take the place of "broken" in the sentence without changing how the sentence is structured? Answer In gaming contexts, the most common and appropriate term is overpowered , often abbreviated to OP . From the Wikipedia article on balance in gaming , for example: Overpowered Overpowered (often abbreviated to OP ) is a common term referring to a perceived lack of game balance. It is often used when describing a specific class in an RPG, a specific faction in strategic games, or a specific tactic, ability, weapon or unit in various games. For something to be deemed overpowered, it is either the best choice in a disproportionate number of situations (margi...

Is there a hypernym for animal noises like "bark", "meow", "roar", et cetera? Answer Wikipedia calls them animal sounds . Or simply sounds , as in: Lion sounds include snarling, hissing, coughing, miaowing, woofing, and roaring. ( Wikipedia ) The wikipedia article states that "a majority of them are onomatopoeia" (= not all of them are). Josh's suggestion cry has merit The loud characteristic call of a bird or other animal Imagining their hoots to be the cry of some dangerous animal, she had spent nearly two terrified days on the run from her rescuers. The example clearly uses the word as a hypernym.

Please help me to understand the following. I have difficulty with the passage that appears between the two dashes. Gutman argues convincingly that the stability of the Black family encouraged the transmission of— and so was crucial in sustaining —the Black heritage of folklore, music, and religious expression from one generation to another, a heritage that slaves were continually fashioning out of their African and American experiences. PS: if I ignore the passage between the two dashes, I can understand the meaning of this paragraph. Answer In this example, the phrase placed between the em dashes is supposed to be read in parallel with the phrase "encouraged the transmission of." The sentence structure enables the author to compress two sentences into one, and to indicate that the second follows from the first. (I belatedly noticed that, in a comment beneath the OP's question, Jim says much the same thing I say here.) In effect, you have this: Gutman argues convincingl...

At my English lesson the native English speaker couldn’t tell what is correct and promised to search it for us! He told us that if James is one person then we should write James' Book but if we had many James he didn't know to tell us what to write... Any suggestions? Answer This is something that's not 100% settled in English orthography, so it tends to be set down in usage guides. For example, here's what the Chicago Manual of Style (14th Ed) has to say: "6.24 The general rule for the possessive of nouns covers most proper nouns, including most names ending in sibilants." Examples they give include Kansas's , Ross's land , and Jones's reputation . Exceptions include Jesus' and Moses' . By this, it would seem reasonable that possessive of the plural would be James' , as with common nouns. Note that this is not the entire story, but might (?) be the relevant bits.

The word bicycle is pronounced /'baɪsɪkəl/ (bahy-si-kuhl), like sickle . However, the words unicycle and motorcycle both have the -cycle pronounced as /-'saɪkəl/ (sahy-kuhl). Is there some sort of reason for this, or is this just a vagary of English pronunciation? Answer Although such variation could be the result of things like when the word was borrowed into the language, this variation is probably due to the prosodic structure of the words; we get different vowel sounds because of the way that stress influences vowel quality in English. In English, unstressed vowels are generally reduced. Take the word record for example. The noun form takes first syllable stress: [ˈrɛ kɚd]. If you aren't familiar with IPA , note in particular the [ɛ] vowel and the [ɚ] r-colored schwa vowel. Schwa (and sometimes [ɪ]) is what often shows up in reduced, unstressed vowels in English. Since stress is on the first syllable, we get the r-colored schwa in the second syllable. The verb f...

I am confused with "paired ergative verbs" and "unpaired ergative verbs". He knocked the vase off the table and it broke. Is [broke] in this sentence a paired ergative verb, because we can make the transitive counterpart as "He broke the vase"? He died with his boots on, like any good cowboy. Then, is [died] in this sentence an unpaired ergative verb, because we can't make any other counterpart? The black horse ran faster than the other ones. Now, what kind of verb is this [ran]? Is this sentence below correct? "He ran the black horse." If correct, is the verb [ran] also a paired ergative verb? As I knew, the verb [die] and [run] are intransitive verbs. What is different between an "ergative verb" and "intransitive verb"? I mean, is there a method to divide the verbs?

I was confused by a company slogan I saw, and that made me wonder: Is it correct to write "a dream come true"? If I was the one writing it I would use "a dream comes true" but is the initial form wrong? Answer It is correct. Come is a past participle here, not a simple present. It means a dream [that has/is] come true . The past participle come can be used with the verb be , which is why a dream come true is possible; this is normally possible with all verbs that can be or once could be used with be . a horse [that was] left behind a day [that has/is] gone by

I send a lot of unsolicited emails. In many of them, I ask to buy traditional advertising spots or to help conceive a non-traditional campaign. Oftentimes, I find myself describing these non-traditional campaigns as "out of the box," as in "let's think outside the box!" But I realize this phrase can also be interpreted as "ready-to-go," "turn key" or "prefabricated." That's not what I'm going for. Am I using the phrase correctly? Is it easily interpreted as I intend? Is there a better phrase? Answer The key lies within the text that you used to phrase your question: "Out of the box" = turn-key, prefabricated. "Outside the box" = non-traditional, unusual.

We were making up Haiku, and there was some disagreement about the number of syllables in "fire." Now granted Haiku isn't technically about syllables (see on ), so technically it was a meaningless discussion. However, I still do not know how many syllables are in "fire." I understand an r-colored vowel might be at play.

I'm reading Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing, and I'm doing one of the early exercises, trying to work out some of the language infliction about the word 'fun' . On the weekend the children had fun. Trying to make a phrase structure parse of the above sentece, I'm not sure how to structure it. All formal grammars I've read describe a sentence as: S → NP + VP But I don't see how "on the weekend" could be a noun phrase? So far I've got this, but it doesn't seem right: (PP On)(NP (D the)(N weekend))(S (NP (D the)(N children))(VP (V had)(NP (N fun)))) Resulting in this parse tree: So my question is: What's the correct Part-of-speech tagging for (1)? Answer EDIT: Given the sentence: On the weekend the children had fun. You can get a dependency parse (described at the bottom of this posting) that looks like this: Which I believe may be more of what you are looking for. The Berkeley parser produces this parse using it...