Blog

I am confused as to when to use "prefer to" and "prefer than". For example, we write: I prefer coffee to tea. So why can't we use than instead of to ? Also, can someone give me an example of a sentence where we use prefer than ? I exactly can't remember a sentence but I'm sure I've read it somewhere. Answer The English phrase is prefer to . Q. "So why can't we use than instead of to ?" That's just the way it is - that's the way the language has developed. Q. "Can someone give me an example of a sentence where we use prefer than ?" No. It wouldn't be correct English. "I exactly can't remember a sentence but I'm sure I've read it somewhere." If you have read it, it was incorrect. You may also like to look at this thread .

The idea that Wittgenstein is opposed to the whole style of thinking that would approach, for example, the problem of understanding how language functions by trying to construct a theory that elucidates what the meaning of expressions consists in goes against the idea that he is merely out to oppose a particular account of meaning.

I am not referring to could as a past tense of can What is the difference between the following sentences? You should do it. You could do it. Answer The short answer is should implies either moral stricture or recommendation (it is desirable that you do it, either morally, or for your personal benefit). You should not swear . You should eat regularly . The could form normally means you're being informed (or reminded) it is possible for you to do it, without necessarily implying anything about whether the speaker cares what you do, or whether it's beneficial to anyone. You could have banana flavour . You could be called up for jury service . However , there is a standard 'idiomatic' usage wherein You could do it means exactly the same as You should do it . Some would say that in that idiomatic usage, the word could actually amplifies the command (or criticism, for failing to have already done something). Using could in this way often implies a degree of exasper

As a nonnative speaker of English I was always taught in school that there are verbs that cannot be used in the continuous form, i.e. the stative verbs. However, I've seen some stative verbs used in the continuous form in American English, especially the verbs wish , feel , hope , guess , love and like . Is using these stative verbs in the continuous form wrong? If it's not, what's the difference between using them in the simple and continuous forms?

Exact Duplicate: What is an appropriate response to “what's up” greeting? What should be the response to "what's up"? I don't get satisfied and often confused with my answer saying "fine/working/chatting". There are various situations and time of conversations such as chat with a friend chat with a business partner chat with your boss etc. So, what should be the response that would satisfy the questioner? Answer The usage of what's up is totally dependent on the context in which it is used. As you've mentioned few scenarios above, what's up while chatting with a friend would usually be meant to greet a person in an informal way or rather to start off a conversation. So in such a context you could probably give a response telling your friend about what you are upto? Whereas when the same is used in a formal way, as in while speaking to a boss/business partner, it can probably refer to any of these "What is going on?/ What's the lates

A couple years ago, I switched all my personal clocks 24-hour notation. I live in the US, and 24-hour time is used very, very rarely. So, I haven't been able to listen to anyone say times aloud. Here's my question: What is the proper way to say a time aloud in 24-hour notation? "Fifteen o'clock" sounds bad to me. I think I like "Fifteen hours" best, but it sounds a little formal. "Fifteen twenty-two" sounds okay to me, but still strange. Is there a 'best practice' here? Answer The armed services (and their veterans) really have this engrained in my mind as such: Rendezvous at 0600 [O-Six-Hundred] hours! Drop point is X degrees north, at 1200 [Twelve-Hundred] hours! Otherwise, where more precise in terms of declaring minutes, you can just split them and speak each unit of time individually: Your meeting is at 1530 [Fifteen-Thirty] hours. Your meeting is at 1812 [Eighteen-Twelve] hours. The hours here, it might be argued, is redundant o

What is the opposite for the straight talk idiom? How do I best call the activity when someone makes a very long preamble before he says what he wants? Answer In the noble spirit of one immortal oratorm when he so colorfully advised our hero . . . This business is well ended. My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief: your noble son is mad: Mad call I it; for, to define true madness, What is’t but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go. . . . I can myself do little less than recommend vigorously not timorously, for timor no more profits a man than it does a mouse or a moth, any of the following fine and splendid formulations of art: chatty circuitous circumlocutory desultory diffuse digressive discursive evasive gabby garrulous long-winded loqua

Context: a stock (traded in a stock exchange) was defined prior to the appearance of the following sentence: The demand for the stock/the demand for stock/demand for the stock decreases significantly. Question: which of the three phrases is suitable to use? Answer Referring to a specific stock, say IBM, you may say: (The) Demand for the stock ( IBM stock) is...

I have been wondering what it means when people use "respectively" in, before, and after sentences. For example: We are looking for a babysitter to pick up and supervise our kids ages 6 and 3, respectively, on Monday and Friday. I don't know if this person used it correctly, but if they did what does it mean? If they didn't use it properly what would be the proper usage? Thanks in advance. Answer Respectively means 'in the order described'. I think this is a lovely example where one might make a number of interpretations concerning the author's intentions: "We are looking for a babysitter to pick up and supervise our kids ages 6 and 3, respectively" could mean they want someone to pick up their 6-year old and supervise their 3-year old. "...our kids ages 6 and 3, respectively, on Monday and Friday" could mean they want their 6-year old picked up and supervised on Monday and their 3-year old picked up and supervised on Friday. I believ

In the following sentence: "When I visited my old school after so many years, it looked completely different in the classrooms and the backyard /from what/to what/than/ it had been when I was a little boy."> Are the three options acceptable in spoken English ?

Is "I am sat" bad English? I believe it is incorrect and instead either the present continuous I am sitting or the predicate adjective I am seated should be used. I hear this quite often, however, and ultimately usage overrules formality. Does anybody know where this originated or how to describe it grammatically? Answer Forms like "I am sat here" and "they were stood there" are common in certain dialects of English (such as Yorkshire, where I live), but are not regarded as standard English, which prefers "I am sitting here" and "they were standing there". They are examples of stative verbs, which in many languages have a different grammar from other verbs, but exactly how the form arises I don't know. [Edit: also, they don't pattern with the class of verbs usually called "stative" in English, in that they do have continuous forms: "I am sitting" etc.]

All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. English is my second language, my first language is Spanish. I don't understand this sentence at all. Please explain.

From the perspective of grammar, the female equivalent of son obviously is daughter. But here's my question: It seems to be some kind of cliché that some people (Priests, wise men, or even real fathers) refer to young boys by "son" when speaking directly to them: e.g., "Son, you know that..." Simply putting it in the correct female form "Daughter, you know that..." feels wrong, somehow. How would a person often calling young boys "son" call young girls? What about - Again, we're talking about some kinds of stereotyped clichés here - a priest with an adopted daugther? I could definitely imagine him calling an adopted son son , while I don't know what such a person would call a daugther. Asking because I am currently practicing my English by writing a small story. Answer If the person speaking to the girl is not related, a common thing would be to say "young lady, you know that..." If the speaker is her father, "young l

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

A tuple in mathematics is a sequence of numbers (n1, n2, n3). In databases, a tuple is a single row of data from a table. What is a tuple in normal everyday English, or where does the word come from? Is there a concrete real-life object from which this word is derived? WordNet does not have a definition. Answer The word derives from the extended series of single, double, triple, quadruple, quintuple,..., where named multiples beyond five are generally words that end in "tuple". The natural (Latin-derived) words peter out pretty quickly, and mathematics needs more terms than a simple bipedal meat unit can easily memorize, so the term " n -tuple" was coined. Computer science took that ball and ran with it, dropping the " n -" altogether. In other words, "tuple" has no meaning in everyday English.

I am looking for a word that has the opposite, positive connotation from 'stigma': For example, There is a stigma of laziness associated with poor people. What would be the replacement for 'stigma' in this sentence in opposite world: There is a ??? of industriousness associated with rich people. Using a thesaurus tends towards cleanliness or lack of blemish. But I'm thinking of 'stigma' not as a blemish, but rather a negative connotation, so that the antonym I'm looking for is not the lack of a blemish but a postive connotation (i.e. that 'stigma' -means- 'negative connotation'). Answer Aura might work, as it has a generally positive connotation. There is also halo , though that might be a little over-the-top in this case, or the more neutral property .

My aunt is going to USA as her husband got a job there. So I want to convey my best wishes to her. But I am confused in sentence formation. So what should I say to her?

Does English grammar distinguish between a conditional sentence where the point of view is realistic, but the result is indeterminate; and one where the point of view is hypothetical, but the result is deteriminate? Example 1: Suppose my neighbor is engaged to be married and we are talking about his up-coming wedding three weeks off. What would you do if it rained like this on your wedding day? We expect the wedding to happen as scheduled, but have utterly no opinions about the weather three weeks from now. Is the above sentence grammatically the best, or could it be improved by replacing rained by was raining, was to rain, were raining , or were to rain ? Do any of these help to indicate a factual event subject to unpredictable weather? Example 2: Suppose my neighbor has no plans to marry. What would you do if you got married on a day like today? Here, it is the wedding that is hypothetical, and we are specifying the weather. Can this mood be conveyed better with were getting , or we

I often find myself writing a lot of comments to blog posts and responses on forums, and have noticed a tendency to start a lot of sentences with 'I'. 'I think...', 'I had no idea', 'I used to...' etc. Is there a general style guideline about avoiding this, or is is acceptable when you're writing opinionated pieces? Repetition in general is poor style in my book, but when I start to shift around my sentences to avoid starting them with 'I', they tend to sound too stilted. Answer It is helpful to consider in each case whether the emphasis of the sentence should be yourself or something else. I've struggled for a while now to completely purge the passive from my own writing, and by swinging completely the other way, I ended up with awkward sentences that failed to get my point across in some instances. I suggest emphasizing "I" when the fact of your opinion is itself the subject of the sentence or thought, and de-emphasizing it

This is part of Obama's commencement speech : Which brings me to my third point: Facts, evidence, reason, logic, an understanding of science — these are good things. (Applause.) These are qualities you want in people making policy. These are qualities you want to continue to cultivate in yourselves as citizens. (Applause.) That might seem obvious. (Laughter.) That’s why we honor Bill Moyers or Dr. Burnell. We traditionally have valued those things. But if you were listening to today’s political debate, you might wonder where this strain of anti-intellectualism came from . In the last sentence, Obama was talking about Donald Trump and was basically saying that Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. Assuming that the conditional construction of the last sentence represents a hypothetical situation, why did Obama make it sound like a hypothetical situation to describe an apparently real situation? Also, is this kind of expressing a real situation hypothetically com

Consider the following sentence: We assume that the individual(s) possesses some general knowledge of the rules of football. Is "possesses" correct there? Should it be "possess"? Is the rule more complex than always using one or the other? Answer There are at least two references that say the verb should be singular. "... when an 's' or 'es' is added in parentheses to a subject or subjects, the verb should be singular because the 's' or 'es' is parenthetical. [For example,] The name(s) of the editor(s) of the book in reference 2 is unknown." APStyleManual "When -s or -es is added parenthetically to a word to express the possibility of a plural, the verb should be singular. ..." AMAManualOfStyle I have seen none that say the verb should be plural.

In a recent Academia SE question , user moonman239 writes: What is proper etiquette for college students needing to leave the lecture room for any reason? Example: Bathroom breaks, an urgent phone call, or a need to "play the trumpet" (if you know what I mean) As the user does not seem to respond any more, those of us who do not know what he or she meant are now left wondering what was actually meant. Based on googling, I did not find any conclusive evidence to a commonly understood meaning of the expression "play the trumpet". In fact, virtually all results I could find seem to talk about people who - literally - play a musical instrument, a trumpet . I can see some possible explanations that could (remotely) make some sense also in the context of the question, although they realistically strike me as quite far-fetched: It might be a general way to express "make noise" (literally and figuratively), by talking, singing, jumping around, or whatever other

I'm looking for a phrase like "transcendental language", but meaning eloquent rather than other-worldly. In particular, I want to refer to a [literary] sketch as " _ language". This sketch is A Gotham Reverie by Fanny Fern, in which a prostitute is referred to [revealed as a prostitute] in very abstract terms, such as "her name was Magdalen" (I'm paraphrasing), "her own unrelenting, unforgiving sex", etc. Answer Consider also "figurative" in addition to your euphemistic, since euphemistic implies that the words you're avoiding using are somehow taboo or unpleasant, while figurative can imply flowery language in general.

Listening to old recordings, there is a distinct accent that radio and television announcers used that is different from a modern-day "Standard American" or neutral accent. It seems that over the course of fifty years pronunciation has shifted. Is this a documented phenomenon? Or is it more a function of broadcast media being less focused on proper enunciation and diction? (Possibly related, I've noticed some old books spell "Hello" as "Hullo". Is this a reflection of the same thing?) Answer You might find this article in Wikipedia to be elucidating, though I don't like the term itself, as "Mid-Atlantic English" to me signals the accents spoken between New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Anyway, it's true that there's a now-largely-disappeared dialect that was spoken both by the upper classes of the Eastern Seabord and by Hollywood actors and actresses wanting to appear upper class.

Someone who is highly nostalgic and is stuck in the past, better days

I'm developing a web application. Some of the entities on that application require to be "approved" before they are considered "valid" by the system. I need to name the state in which they are "awaiting approval". Is there a shorter construction to convey the same meaning as "awaiting approval"? Answer You could try "pending", as in "pending approval".

Further to my earlier question about the words off-the-shelf used in Time Magazine’s feature story titled “The Best 50 Inventions of the Year” (from the Nov. 11th 2010 issue), I found the following sentence in the same article: One analyst says the iPad is the fastest selling non-phone gizmo in consumer electronics history. I understand there is some difference of meaning between device and gizmo / gadget and gimmick as a group. Are there great difference of meaning and usage between the words gizmo , gadget , and gimmick ? Answer A gizmo is a gadget, especially one whose name the speaker cannot recall. Synonyms might be "thingamajig" or "whatsit" (colloquially). A gadget is a small mechanical device or tool, especially one that is ingenious or novel. Smallness is one of the defining characteristics, so a new type of earth-moving equipment is not likely to be called a gadget, however ingenious or novel it may be, but a pen that doubles as a voice recorder c

In the United States, a person under examination on the witness stand may "plead the fifth" to avoid self-incrimination. In other words, a person asserts his or her Fifth Amendment right. Citizens of many English-speaking countries have the right to remain silent and laws to protect against self-incrimination (testifying against yourself). In the UK, how do witnesses or defendants respond in court? Do they literally remain silent, invoke a particular law, or say "no comment"? Include the legal traditions of other English-speaking countries if relevant . However, with nearly one hundred such nations, I don't wish to promote giving an answer for each one. To be clear: I am looking for the words a defendant might say on the witness stand. If there's no standard response, then that's an acceptable answer. If defendants would never say something like it because they wouldn't be on the stand unless they had waived their right to silence , then that'

I'm heading into the postgraduate phase of my Computer Science-oriented studies, and I can't put my finger on what this root means. According to Etymology Online it comes from Cybernetics, which in turn comes from the greek for "Helmsman" and is the study of governation or governing systems. But modern usage, such as cyberspace, cybercafe, cyberattack, cyberterrorism, cybermosque, cybersex, cyberbullying, and such seem to use it synonymously with "Internet" Of course, you could argue that you use a cybercafe to interact with a primitive virtual governor, a cyberspace is a place where a lot of virtual governors "reside", while cyberattacks try to disrupt these governors. But cyberbullying and "cybering" really don't fit into that scheme, unless you were to day that cyberbullying is "bullying by relaying domineering or intimidating messages with the help of a governor." but then again "physics" could be a governor.

Americans call them 'zucchini', which I assume is the Italian name, whilst we in Britain use the French name - courgettes. But I am wondering if the vegetable ever had an English name. The earliest quotation in the OED is from 1931. Did the Victorians not eat them? I have to admit that they were never part of our diet until the late 1960s. But they grow perfectly well in the English climate, provided you don't plant them out till after the frosts have finished. Answer Courgettes were first introduced in the UK in the early 1930s and soon several cookery writers began including this versatile vegetable in their recipes. Marcel Boulestin in 1931, translated the French term, courgette, as baby marrows , in spite of that the French word stuck and The Oxford English Dictionary in its A-G supplement, gives the first use of courgettes to E.Lucas in the same year, in Vegetable Cookery Elizabeth David in 1960, wrote her master book, French Provincial Cooking , and said: "ente

The word "sh" (or "shh") is an exclamation for silence: Shh! They're listening... Etymonline only mentions a date (1847) and the common practice of "putting a finger to the lips." Does anyone else have more information about its origin? Answer Many words which mean "silence, please" have the digraph 'sh'. E.g. hush and shush . The origin of all these words however, was the Middle English word huisst (pronounced "wheesht"), which originated in round about 1350–1400A.D. Huisst as expected, meant "silence, peace". The Scottish plea for silence also includes the 'sh' digraph: wheesht . The sound for signalling a desire for quiet has long been associated with the sound 'sh'.

How can a district be combined with "Style"? Does this show a significance in the district's style?

Which one is correct or if both are correct, is there any difference? The change is a 10 percent increase of tuition The change is a 10 percent increase in tuition

What is a word or phrase that expresses the idea of purposely making something seem better by comparison? For example, lemon Starburst was created to make the cherry flavor seem that much tastier. Answer The name for something that is used to make something else look different by comparison is a foil : foil , noun. Anything that serves by contrast of colour or quality to adorn another thing or set it off to advantage. The presence of a foil induces a cognitive bias known as a contrast effect . I'm not aware of any terms that mean to create a foil or to induce a contrast effect .

I am looking for a noun to describe the role of "Person A" in the following scenario. Person A makes a digital project (e.g. a video game, animation, video, etc). Person B creates a digital project using Person A's project, either parts or the whole thing. I am calling Person B's project a remix of Person A's project. Also, I am calling Person B a remixer . What would you call Person A? Some of the terms I've used are but that I am not 100% happy with are: remixee . I like this one but its a bit obscure and easy to visually confuse with the term remixer. original creator . This is easy to understand but it's two words and it has the problem that it makes it seem as if the remixer is not original, which has a subtle but negative undertone. originator . Other ideas? Answer In copyright law , party B's work is called "derivative". The previous work is called "preexisting", so he could be described as the "preexisting author"

Which of the variants is more correct in (American) English, "which usually is the case for ..." or "which is usually the case for ..."? For example Some people don't speak perfect English, which (usually is | is usually) the case for me. The Google search seems to return twice as many results for the first variant, but the second one feels bit more easy to say. Answer In AmE, I would say ..., which is usually the case is used more often than the first example, as it flows more readily. Gas furnaces produce less particulate matter than oil furnaces when both are maintained infrequently, which is usually the case for residential ... (NYT) ...which is usually the case for the major traded currencies... (WSJ) His ball striking is very crisp which is usually the case for him when he's... (USA Today)

I noticed someone saying "I have went" about a month ago and it jarred me. Then I heard it again, and again, so I started paying attention. I noticed that the first couple of people I heard say this were Black, so I figured it was maybe a feature of Afro American Vernacular English. Then I heard a White person say it, and as he was from the South, I figured it was a feature of both AAVE and Southern English. In the meantime, I noticed the same phenomenon with other verbs. Soon I started noticing people from other American regions doing this, people of all colors. Then I began to worry that the past participle was disappearing and when I complained about this to a friend, noticed myself doing it! From browsing around here and elsewhere on the web, I have discovered that "I have went" has always existed. I don't know why I didn't notice it before and I also don't know if my increasing observation of it has to do with my increasing awareness or if the past

I am submitting to a journal, and the guidelines require me to avoid use of the word "issue" as a euphemism for "problem". Thing is, as far as I know the two words are (or can be) synonyms: problem 2a: an intricate unsettled question issue 6b (1): a vital or unsettled matter (2): concern, problem I have frequently been constructing sentences like "An outstanding issue is...," and now I am confused whether that is a valid use of "issue" (at least according to the journal), or whether I should be using "problem" instead. Could you make clear when to use "issue", and when to use "problem"? Or is there a third word I could use to avoid the issue problem question entirely? (Oh, wait, I think I just answered that last question myself.) Answer "Could you make clear when to use "issue", and when to use "problem"? The simplest answer is this: when the best word to use is issue , use it; when the

What is the term for embarking on an internet search that leads from one website to another, to another, to a totally different site of non-related subject, based on information found in each subsequent search? Say, start looking at recipes initially and end up on Mediaeval monks, via early explorers, or whatever...hopping around all over the place and finding that a day has passed without your realising it.

I came across this quote from the movie RocknRolla : Oh, beauty is a beguiling call to death and I'm addicted to the sweet pitch of its siren. That that starts sweet ends bitter, and that which starts bitter ends sweet. I understand the metaphor. But I'm confused with the sentence structure of That that starts sweet ends bitter, and that which starts bitter ends sweet. Are the first that and the that before 'which starts bitter ends sweet' conjunctions while the second that and which relative pronouns? Answer The two 'that's are simply demonstrative pronouns. Each conjunct of your sentence has the same basic structure as: He who hesitates is lost. In this sentence, the 'he' is a pronoun, and the 'who' is a relative pronoun. In your second conjunct: That which starts bitter ends sweet. 'that' is a pronoun, and 'which' is a relative pronoun. In the first conjunct: That that starts sweet ends bitter. the first 'that' is

It literally means to milk . It also means a dairy cow. It could be both a noun or verb. v. To use someone for the money he/she can give you. n. Someone (a girlfriend, husband) that you milk for money.

Upon using the phrase "great minds think alike" in chat today, I was informed that it is really a shortened version of "Great minds think alike, small minds rarely differ" or "Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ." ( Source ) This longer phrase would seem to suggest the original meaning was a bit different than the current usage. However, doing some research, I found this website which traces it back to 1618 in the form of "Good wits doe jumpe" (jumpe having an archaic meaning of coincide) attributed to Dabridgcourt Belchier. Elsewhere, I found an unsourced claim that the thought originated with Confucius. What is the true origin of this saying/idea?

Milton slept in this room. According to Cambridge , sleep is an intransitive verb (A1). So we shouldn't be able to rewrite the sentence in the English passive voice. But I want the most important part of the sentence to be the room and not Milton , so I wrote This room was slept in by Milton. First, is this grammatical? Second, I thought the passive voice in English can only use transitive verbs?? I researched about the English Passive Voice on Education First and Purdue University's Online Writing Lab . This answer has been marked as a possible duplicate of Intransitive verbs with preposition in passive sentences . But the most upvoted answer there does not address the property of intransitive as assigned by the dictionary, which is an integral part of this question. In addition the same answer there is confusing because it says both that transitivity is not a property of verbs and yet ends up talking about transitive verbs. In addition, the same answer does not explicitly

I have come across the word "cheersing", with an "s", as opposed to what I believe to be the correct form: cheering . I think it comes from a misguided verbification of the exclamation "cheers!", as in the plural of the noun "cheer". However since there is already a corresponding verb, "to cheer", I don't see why anyone would need to force a plural noun into a progressive verbal form like "cheersing". Besides, it's impossible to conjugate and hilarious to even try: I cheers you cheers he cheerses we cheers you cheers they cheers Please tell me that cheersing is only a made up word. Answer It's certainly not a word that I have come across, and I believe that it is not a real word. That said, I have once heard someone say "we were cheers'ing all night in celebration". That is, the pseudo-word "cheersing" describes the act of saying "Cheers!". In addition, it's use is not preval

Whenever I hear statements like "It was a great deal for he and I" and "Call Karen and I in the morning," I die a little. Such solecisms, as Twain said in another context (Cooper's prose style), "grate upon the fastidious ear." Moreover, I know that these things will likely become accepted usage in time, if that hasn't already happened. As someone who tries to be careful with words and speech, I feel almost a moral obligation to hold the line against this kind of decline. I'm not a word snob; I say "ain't" when it works for emphasis, and so on. I've tried suggesting the grammatical alternative to the above constructions, but even when I phrase my suggestion in the gentlest possible way it never works well and I almost always wind up feeling pedantic and priggish at best, and at worst I feel I've alienated someone. What's the general opinion here? Is it best to just let these things slide or to take up the fight? In sum

A friend recently pondered why Latino/Latina inflects according to gender. I suggested that it's because Latino is a loanword from a language with grammatical gender , but he found it odd that other demonyms don't inflect this way, and he wondered whether there was something etymologically or historically unique about the word. Wikipedia offers a long list of demonyms , and only Pinoy/Pinay and Canadien(ne) inflect like this. I also noted that Englishman has a feminine ‑woman form, although the etymology here is different. Etymology Online attests that Englishman dates to Old English, whereas gendered Englishwoman is a newer form (c.1400). This inflection appears to have a different productive mechanism, one that mainly applies to places with significant Anglophone or Norse history: Englishman, Frenchman, Irishman, Dutchman, Scotsman, Chinaman, Welshman, Norseman ( roughly in order of usage ). Is there any etymological rhyme or reason to this? Why do we inflect Latino

I am wondering if the following sentence is correct: We add the information their study provides with to our article. The context is: their study provides with some information. And we add the information to our article. I want to keep the word "add", and someone told me that "provides with to" sounds wired... Answer The verb provide has two different subcategorisation frames: provide something [ to somebody ] provide somebody with something In the first, the material provided is the object, in the second the recipient is the object. Both are valid, and both are in common use. The difference between them is the with phrase, which must be there to get meaning 2: if there is only one (direct) object, then meaning 1 is the relevant one (the to phrase is optional). The stranding you are doing can be grammatical, but because you are using with , it is grammatical only if the recipient is explicit as the direct object We add the information the study provides us w

Is it correct to use more than one nor clause in a neither expression? For instance: Neither the question, nor the answers, nor the comments Even if it is, is it so rarely used that it would be better to reword the sentence, or is it fine to use as is? Answer Some people will insist that correct usage insists that neither can only be used with two items. I am not one of those people, and I consider that sentence perfectly good. Kipling wasn't one of those people either: But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth! It might be a bit too good, in fact! The format used gives a nice rhythm that can make it stand out strongly. If it's not a sentence it's appropriate to have stand out strongly, then "none of the questions, answers or comments" might be a better wording. But if it's not standing out when you read over, or if it is an appropriate place to hav

What's the correct form? If both are correct, what's the difference? Answer It would have to be 'memory', since computer memory is measurable, not countable. In this particular case, 'memories' would be confusing as well as mistaken, since it would imply that the computer has several distinct memories, kept apart for some reason, and either each is 48GB capacity, or they total 48GB. In my experience, the usual phrase is '48 GB of memory' , to avoid this problem.

Looking for both a journalistic and perhaps playful term. In a journalistic sense, how would I describe a CEO figure who holds a company meeting and the employees are either annoyed, bored, or rolling their eyes the entire time he talks. In a playful sense, a similar personality walks into my office, but is the context is such that I can make the comment aloud, such as, " oh god, there goes my chance to get any work done ", but in a declarative sense: " here comes the ... " Answer Bore would fit. : one that causes boredom: as a : a tiresome person b : something that is devoid of interest http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bore You can find in other dictionaries and it is a journalistic term as well. Whether or no a banker ought to be murdered for being a bore, we all know what we mean when we say that he is a bore. [The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Vol. 36: The Illustrated London News By G. K. Chesterton (2011)] Also, there is a slang word that may

Can these expressions be used just about interchangeably for all but the most formal prose, or is there a subtle difference to them? E.g. He is headed over to the garage. He is headed for the garage. Answer These are typically used interchangeably. There can be an inferred subtextual difference, though. Headed over to can impart an airy quality. It seems to suggest he'll get there when he gets there. (He might stop for a cup of coffee, along the way.) I want to make clear, that this is NOT necessarily implied by this. It is just a feeling you might get upon hearing this phrase. Headed for implies that he is going in the direction of the garage as we speak.

My exam included this fill-in-the-blank question: Please write __ this address. (on/at/to) I filled the blank with on . Is that correct? Answer You can write on paper or any surface, such as a hand or on a wall. You can also write on a subject or topic according to this website: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/write+on (but I'm not entirely convinced). So "Please write on this address" I would interpret to mean the inscriber has to write over a pre-typed address. "On" in this case indicates place. The request sounds odd to me but from a grammatical point of view it is arguably correct. As for using the preposition "at" I would consider the sentence to be incomplete. A direct object is needed. "Please write to me/him/her/us/them at this address" My preferred answer would be: "Please write to this address" You are asked to communicate and transfer your message from one place (presumably your home) to another ("this addre

I'm having some issues with a sentence that is part of the purpose in a report that I'm writing. I'm not sure if the word "communicate" (in bold) should be singular or plural. The applications in the "set" will communicate with each other, not with other "sets". The purpose of this report is to develop a sample set of applications that communicates between services on the internet, mobile devices and a central processing unit in a motor vehicle.

What are general rules of thumb for creating adjectives with -able ? I wanted to denote an object as having an ability to be tiled, but "tileable" and "tilable" both yielded as incorrect words by spell check and standard English dictionary used by Mac OS X dictionary widget. Is "tileable" or "tilable" a correct word/form for denoting an object having an ability to be tiled? Answer The way I see it, you've got two choices here if the word doesn't already have an acceptable -able suffix counterpart. Either Reword the sentence so you don't need to use the -able suffix Hyphenate it. E.g. tile-able. Although, Googling it, 'tileable' seems to be pretty widely used anyway.

The Asahi, Japan’s leading newspaper quoted the following famous closing words of Steve Jobs’ in his last speech at the iPad 2 event in March 2011 in its popular editorial column, “Vox populi, vox Dei” on its April 22 issue. It deplored in the column that today’s Japanese management lacks great vision and big dream as Jobs had: "It's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough. That it's technology married with liberal arts , married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing." In the column, the Asahi translated the phrase, “ technology married with liberal arts ” as “technology married with kyoyo (教養:culture, refinement, education)” in Japanese. I’m not sure whether the Asahi’s choice of word, kyoyo- meaning culture and education exactly fits the notion Steve Job meant by “liberal arts” in his speech. Oxford Dictionary Online defines “liberal arts” as: chiefly North American arts subjects such as literature and history, as d

Well, now I understand that this is so, but the first few times I heard this, I had no idea what 'giving it up' meant. What is the derivation? How do you get from 'giving it up' to 'clapping'? Answer From PhraseFinder : Reference 1: First use ... was by Arsenio Hall, who made it into a bit of a catch phrase on his television show that began in January 1987. There may be earlier usages. ... Arsenio was the first to use the catchphrase in a widely seen television show; but a great many people would have heard him use it before then, ..., about 1980 ..., when he was on tour with Gladys Knight. It simply means "Don't hold anything back," and he showed by gesture that he meant applause. Reference 2: Give it up -- let yourself go . Mainstream 1960s. "Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang" by Tom Dalzell (Merriam-Webster Inc., Springfield, Md., 1996) Flappers 2 Rappers says in mid-1970s it became a Hip-Hop and Rap term meaning "to expr

Was drafting an email and my senior wanted to type "Planting saplings is our way of saying we care for our Nature". I felt that's wrong English. Shouldn't it be "we care for Nature"? (it makes it a bit impersonal to remove the 'our', but if 'our nature' isn't right, can the cuteness factor of mentioning 'our nature' be preserved?. Which is correct?) Answer You're right. Nature has (at least) two different meanings. When attributed to people, it tends to refer to their character/personality/beliefs/customs/heritage: It's not in his nature means "he's not that kind of person, he wouldn't do that". So if we "care for our nature" we care for our character, traditions, behaviour - it's not about nature as in the natural environment. So I would change the phrase to one of these: We care for Nature We care for our natural environment We care for our environment We care for the environment

Does either imply a lesson, or a fantastical setting? Answer My understanding is that a fable involves (speaking) animals or other mythical creatures, while a parable does not. A moral is typical for both genres. Wikipedia is more accurate in its wording: A fable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim. A parable is a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that illustrates a moral or religious lesson. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human characters. It is a type of analogy. Merriam-Webster basically agrees, but has a few points to add: parable : example; specifically: a usually short fictitious story that

From what I gathered on the Web, "connoisseur" is spelled that way because it is derived from the Old French verb "connoître" (to know) which has been spelled "connaître" for close to two centuries. Thus, the spelling I would expect as a native French speaker would be "connaisseur". Is there a historical reason why in the last two centuries the correction in French has not been accepted by the English speaking community? Bonus question: "connaisseur" would most probably be understood in the context of a conversation with a native speaker but I have personally never heard or read anyone using it and it sounds odd. Why would it be used in English in the first place? Is it for the same kind of false sense of culture it gives to the speaker that drives English speaking people to include French words in their conversations? Answer Why spell it connoisseur ? You’ve basically answered your own question here. The French word has been spelt co