A word with a wide range of meanings


Is there a better alternative to ambiguous for a word with a wide range of meanings, difficult to find, because they become different in connection with person's opinion.




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commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

Does this sentence have too many subjunctives? If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries. I am stumped by this sentence construction. First, there is "Let it be," which is a common English idiomatic phrase, but then it follows another subjunctive. Is that to say you can actually have a subjunctive followed by another subjunctive? Also, why does the sentence use "please"? If that's the subjunctive tense there, then why is it followed by another subjunctive instead of a conditional, or maybe "Let it be" is the conditional? Lastly, I wish to know how the that is used in the sentence. Perhaps, the simplified sentence can be restated like so: Let it be decreed that they be destroyed and that they may put it into the king's treasuries. If not, maybe the simplified sent...
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verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

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time - English notation for hour, minutes and seconds

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

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grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

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etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

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