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When is it appropriate to use "prerequisite for" instead of "prerequisite to"? Does it depend on context, or is it a matter of style? I googled the two phrases and found 4.5 million hits for "prerequisite for" and 3 million for "prerequisite to". Answer Looking at the Corpus of Contemporary American English , I get the following data . (The sentences use either the singular or the plural of the words.) Looking at the sentences included in the CoCA, it doesn't seem prerequisite is used with different meanings. Does one seem like a prerequisite for the others? Since primacy in undersea warfare is a prerequisite for other naval operations, priority must be given to expanding the navy's edge […]. According to Humboldt (Aksan, 1998), language is a prerequisite to the materialization of thought. The prerequisites of these procedures are the reader's actual and fictional encyclopedias -- they are individually differentiated. Thus, for ...

The word rarely turns up outside that context. and The word rarely turns up outside of that context. Which one is correct and why? Answer The preposition/adverb, outside , and the compound preposition, outside of , both have the same meaning: beyond the boundaries/limits of _ The New Oxford American Dictionary provides an excellent exposition on the usage of these two: Outside of tends to be more commonly used in the US than in Britain, where outside usually suffices, but, like its cousin off of , it is colloquial and not recommended for formal writing. … The adverb outside is not problematic when referring to physical space, position , etc. ( I‘m going outside ), but the compound preposition outside of is often used as a colloquial (and often inferior) way of saying except for , other than , apart from ( outside of what I just mentioned, I can’t think of any reason not to ). Besides possibly sounding more informal than desired, outside of may cause misunderstanding by suggest...

Does the sentence: I am renting an apartment in New York. imply that I am the landlord or the tenant ? How can I unequivocally communicate that I am the tenant (or the landlord)? Answer To "unequivocally communicate that I am the tenant (or the landlord)", among other things you could say one of the following. • As tenant, I rent an apartment... • As landlord, I rent an apartment... As previously noted by choster, adding out to original sentence works for landlord sense: I am renting out an apartment in New York. You can state a not-landlord case, and perhaps imply tenancy, via I pay for renting an apartment in New York.

What is the difference between the following two sentences? Each apple is red. Every apple is red. Answer Strictly speaking, the two sentences mean the same thing. However, the sentence "Each apple is red" is slightly unusual, and the more natural way to express this would be "Every apple is red", or "All apples are red." The reason is that the word each is generally used in situations where we consider the apples individually or sequentially, whereas every and all are used for generalizations. So we might say: We spray-painted each apple red. Here each is appropriate because every apple was painted individually. However, most people wouldn't say the following: [?] Each apple turned red by October. This isn't technically wrong, but it sounds unnatural. Much more usual would be to say one of the following: Every apple turned red by October. All the apples turned red by October.

What's the appropriate verb to describe the action the librarian does when you borrow a book at the library, something like hand or give ? Answer Issue You borrow a book at the library. The librarian issues a book. 2 issue transitive verb 2a : to put forth or distribute usually officially Examples of ISSUE Each employee will be issued an identification card. The Post Office will issue a new first-class stamp. The company plans to raise money by issuing more stock. The bank will be issuing a new credit card. the bank's newly issued credit card. The king issued a decree forbidding all protests. A severe storm warning has been issued . The police have issued a warrant for her arrest. [Edit-1: Per @Mustafa & @sidewaysmilk] Lend is the usual alternative, esp. in the US.

I remember one episode on Seinfeld, a girl said "did your mother do a number on you" when they were talking about breaking up or not. This is the sentence reported from the transcript : LISI: Boy, did your mother do a number on you. According to Urban Dictionary , its meaning is "treat harshly or damage." What does that mean, in that context? Did Lisi mean that Seinfeld did not dare to fall in a long term relationship because he had bad childhood memories (his mother treating him badly)? Why is it "do a number on"? (why "a number" and what does "do a number" literally mean?) Which is its origin? Answer The statement "your mom did a number on you" is a disparaging remark usually said by women who find some kind of flaw in the men with whom they have a relationship. The flaws may range from the man having an inability to commit to the relationship, a failure to have matured sufficiently (because of the overprotectiveness of the...

In Gossip Girl Season 4 Episode 19 "Petty in pink," Blair says the following sentence to Serena's cousin Charlie after she tried to explain to both of them about her plan. I'm only grandfathering you in because of Serena. What this "grandfather" mean here? It looks like a verb, but I can't find it in any dictionary. Answer Piskvor offered the relevant link , which can tell you more about the history of the expression. "Grandfathering" means that an exception is made because something existed before the rules were changed. I don't know what the context is in the example you've given, but here's an example: My company recently began requiring us to write our documentation in Google docs. My current project is grandfathered; I can still use the old file sharing system because that's what I used when I started documenting, before the change was made. I hope that clears things up. Oh, and I think "grandfathering you in" so...

More specifically, if they have the power to wiretap your communications, powerful as in power, not as in strength. A _ __ _ _ [powerful] person who holds a menacingly huge amount of power who makes them _ __ _ _ . This is the 2nd question where I had to disclose that I used Google to research, before asking this question. I searched for "word that means having a lot of power"

If these were nouns, I would assume "single" fits in between: 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1 , 2, 3, 4 . . . quarter, third, half, single or one , double, triple, quadruple . . . Note that each word has a cardinal as part of its etymology: quarter evolved from the Latin quattuor ("four"), double from Latin duplus (“twofold”), and so on. However, in the case of verbs, is there a word to indicate multiplying (or dividing) by one that fits into this pattern? The closest I can think of is unify , "cause to become one", but it wouldn't make sense in context: She doubled the number, i.e. multiplied by two. She unified the number, i.e. multiplied by one. The word wouldn't necessarily have to have the mono- or uni- prefix, but the etymological root ought to contain the cardinal for one (i.e. "she maintained the number" wouldn't work) in keeping with the pattern . Answer I scoured the Internet until the wee hours of the morn and have found once...

As described here , in technical domains agnostic can be used to describe a state of affairs where one thing doesn't care about the specifics of another thing it's related to. For instance, in software engineering, one might speaking of a "platform-agnostic" solution. This suggests that the solution need not have any information about the platform it is executing on to be a solution - it's a solution independent of the platform. In the same way you can talk about things being "OS-agnostic" or "language-agnostic". I'm suffering tip of the tongue phenomenon. I think that there's another word that be used in these "X-agnostic" constructions that means specifically what agnostic is being used for here. When I try to sound it out, however, my brain keeps jumping back to "agnostic" or to "ambivalent", which is also not the word I'm thinking of. I think the word I'm thinking of can also be used to describe...

What is the correct usage? I know you sit 'on' a sofa/couch. What about chair? Answer It depends on the kind of chair. You sit on a dining chair or an office chair, but in an armchair.

How to describe two different objects: (Assume: one apple and one banana here) "There are an apple and banana here." or "There are an apple and a banana here." ?? Answer You will use is if the object is in singular. Eg: There is an apple and a banana here. You will use are if the objects are in plural. Eg: There are apples and bananas here. More details on verb agreement is given here .

When a customer represents a company, not a person, and a pronoun is needed to refer back to that customer, should one use he/she , or should one use it ? Answer It or they. Google buys more of our servers than any other company. They have bought 4,000 servers from us.

Can/May/Will you help me with this? Which is correct if I want to request for a pen? Can I have your pen please? May I have your pen please? Answer Can primarily expresses possibility and ability and, secondarily, permission. May expresses primarily possibility and, secondarily, permision and volition. In seeking permission, as in your examples, the use of may is much more formal and polite than can and is used rather less. However, both 'Can I have your pen please?' and 'May I have your pen please?' are blunt ways of making a request. In practice, a native speaker, at least of British English, is much more likely to say something like 'You don't happen to have a pen I could borrow, do you?'

Is there a word to describe someone who uses complaints to indirectly brag about themselves? An example would be "I hate going to concerts because people start singing and because I have perfect pitch it irritates me." Perhaps another example might be "I don't like that video game. It's too easy and I get bored." The complaint would be in context, like the discussion is about concerts or the game in question, but the person uses it as an excuse to highlight something about which they want to brag. I don't think I'm looking for narcissism , as it's not necessarily that the person is trying to talk only about themselves, but rather that they specifically use a negative complaint to mask the fact that they are bragging. Is there such a word to describe this behavior? Answer An applicable neologism is humblebrag , a boast couched in self-deprecation. Henry Alford describes it as the false modesty of a plea intended to be met with both awe and sympat...

I came across this sentence in the American Heritage Dictionary, but still do not understand it. This proposal is the best so far, modulo the fact that parts of it need modification. The definition of modulo provided is correcting or adjusting for something, as by leaving something out of account . Please elaborate on the meaning of modulo the fact . Does it mean the same as the following? This proposal is the best so far, but note what parts of it still need to be modified. Answer The pattern X modulo Y is an informal but common parlance in technical, especially mathematically, oriented talk. It is used to mean informally 'X, ignoring Y'. For example, "The rocket design was flawless, modulo the toxic waste produced by its fuel." The meaning is inspired by, but not perfectly corresponding to, the arithmetic modulo function (for example, clock-time addition) which when suitably abstracted involves 'collapsing' all items of a set into the special items of the...

Why do 'get' and 'have' work similarly in I got/had my car repaired. but differently – that is are not complemented in the same way although they still mean the same – in I got someone to repair my car. and I had someone repair my car. Answer The verbs 'get' and 'have' are not completed in the same way, whether in an active sentence or in a passive one: it only looks as if they work the same way in a passive phrase like 'get/have something done', only looks . Get: I got someone to repair my car. (active phrase) *I got my car to be repaired by someone. (passive phrase) I got my car repaired . (simplified passive phrase, 'to be' dropped) Have: I had someone repair my car. (active phrase) *I had my car be repaired by someone. (passive phrase) I had my car repaired . (simplified passive phrase, 'be' dropped) So it is only the simplified sentences which give the – mistaken – impression that 'get' and 'have' work th...

We all love to save things, collect items, items/things that remind us of departed souls or gone people. They're gone from life, but may or may not be dead. What are those things called? They might not be expensive, but they are close to the heart. Whenever we see them they remind us of the people they belonged to. What do we call these things? Do they have any particular name? Examples: A girl has saved her ex-boyfriend's written letters. A daughter has saved her dead father's watch.

When a person dies, it is common to say the person was predeceased by other people such as his parents, his brother, and others. However, I am wondering if these statements are correct: His brother predeceased his birth. Their child predeceased their marriage. In these cases, "predeceased" means "died before". But is "predeceased" valid here? Or is it only valid before another death event, as in: His brother predeceased him/his death. There are various definitions of the meaning of "predeceased". Some refer only to preceding another person's death, but others such as at Dictionary.com (based on the Random House Dictionary) give the definition of "predeceased" as: "to die before (another person, the occurrence of an event, etc.)" And there is some legal use of "predeceased" with respect to events that are not necessarily a death event, such as this definition of Survive : "Survive: An individual than has nei...

According to A Student's Introduction to English Grammar , Tense is defined as follows: Tense . A system marked by verb inflection or auxiliaries whose basic use to locate the situation in time: I liked it (past tense, past time), I like it(present tense, present time). However, the author also points out: ..., English is not one of them: it has no future tense . It does have several ways of talking about future time, and the most basic one does involve the auxiliary will . These two quotes made me puzzled because, as noted above, Tense is denoted by inflection or auxiliaries and the auxiliary will seems to clearly meet the criteria. In conclusion, my question is Why doesn't the auxiliary will qualify as future tense?

Example: A character owns a pair of Sophia Loren sunglasses. Before going out for the afternoon, "She drew on her Sophia Loren’s, flipped her long mane back, and tossed him a cheeky grin." If I'm not mistaken, this is an example of a "proprietary eponym". Is the apostrophe correct here, or should it be "Sophia Lorens"—i.e. since the thing referred to is a plurale tantum , should the proprietary eponym also take the form of a plurale tantum ?

Which of the following should I use? Today is me and Joey's anniversary Today is mine and Joey's anniversary

Wasn't Mrs. short for mistress ? Why do we read Mrs. as missus (or sometimes missis ) instead of mistress ? Answer It is read as mistress, albeit a contracted form of it, just like ma'am is a popular contraction of madam . Quoting WP : Mrs. originated as a contraction of the honorific Mistress, the feminine of Mister, or Master, which was originally applied to both married and unmarried women. The split into Mrs. for married women from Ms. and Miss began during the 17th century. It is rare for Mrs. to be written in a non-abbreviated form, and the word lacks a standard phonetic spelling. In literature it may appear as missus or missis in dialogue. A variant in the works of Thomas Hardy and others is "Mis'ess", reflecting its etymology.

In general usage (and hopefully correct usage) a "notifier" is someone who notifies. What is the word for the person who is notified? For example: "Instruct each [X] to respond to the notification within 3 days." Answer While I expect that you're looking for something like notifiee , I'm not aware of any such word that would have that exact meaning. That being said, there are several good options that could work: In the general case, (though these may overuse the notify root for your taste): Instruct each of the notified to respond... Instruct each notified individual to respond... If the notification is a written message that they received. Instruct each recipient to respond... If the notification is some sort of pop-up in a program Instruct each user to respond...

I have seen this construction quite often: Online ads have been around since the dawn of the Web, but only in recent years have they become the rapturous life dream of Silicon Valley. What is the rule there?. When your sentence doesn't start with pronoun + verb, invert them as verb + pronoun?. I know it sounds awkward but is it possible (grammatically correct) to use something similar to: Online ads have been around since the dawn of the Web, but only in recent years they have become... And in any case, does this only work with have (or has)? Maybe it works fine with 'had' but I can't think of an example right now. Answer Switching around the normal word order is called inversion , and this specific type is called subject-auxiliary inversion . Wikipedia has a list of usages of subject-auxiliary inversion, including interrogative constructions (e.g. Did you eat? ), but the following is the declarative section: Declarative sentences with negative elements (i.e. never o...

What are the origins of the word orientated ? As far as I know, the correct spelling is oriented and orientated is not an alternative spelling but an error that is in common use. Is it for example more commonly used in a certain country or by a certain people? Is there a reason for people choosing to say or write orientated instead of oriented ? Answer People say orientated because they hear the word orientation and think that's the verb made from it. It's called a "back-formation". (See Why are "colleagues" becoming "work colleagues"? ). Orientated is accepted as an alternate by most dictionaries I've seen. To orient something comes from the medieval practice of building cathedrals so that the apse , the part of the building that contained the altar, would be on the eastern side (hence orient ). (I suppose if they screwed up and got it the other way around the architects just shrugged and said, "Well, occidents will happen.")

During last years registration enrollment, we had 1,457 children register. Is "registration enrollment" the best choice here? The reason I don't just use the word "registration" is that a registration is a particular student's registration for the school. But maybe that word is applicable to each individual registration, as well as the entire process itself? Answer The context shapes the interpretation. For instance, if your example sentence was amended by dropping the word 'enrollment' from the tautologous term 'registration enrollment': During last year's registration, we had 1,457 children register it is clear that here, 'registration' must refer to the process or period during which the entire population of pupils was being registered. It would therefore be incorrect to say that in this context, 'registration' refers to the registration of an individual student. However, if we take a different sentence: I need to fi...

Read a news on BBC , I have some questions regarding a word scores in this context: "A BBC team inside Syria filming for Panorama has witnessed the aftermath of a fresh horrific incident - an incendiary bomb dropped on to a school playground in the north of the country - which has left scores of children with napalm-like burns over their bodies. Eyewitnesses describe a fighter jet dropping the device, a low explosion, followed by columns of fire and smoke. Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway's report contains images viewers may find extremely distressing." Question: Does scores refer to very high amount? How high is the amount for scores ? Could massive replace scores in this context? Any clarity of ideas would be highly appreciated, thank you.

Some people use a term for a popular special case in place of a generic term. (Often this popular special case is a particular product in that category.) I think that this is a common phenomenon. Is there any word/phrase for it? For example, “Coke” officially refers to a Coca-Cola (I think), but some people seem to call any carbonated soft drinks “Coke.” In Japanese, famikon is the Japanese name for Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) , a video game console which was extremely popular in 1980s and early 1990s, but some Japanese people call any video game console famikon even if it is not really a famikon . (As an aside, calling a video game console famikon when it is not really a famikon is even a stereotype of a “mother unfamiliar with technology” in Japan.) I am looking for a term which refers to this kind of usage of words.

It sounds like something Ned Flanders would say. I believe it just means "nothing at all". But what are the origins of the phrase? Is it common in the US as well as the UK? Answer The following is what I've found on the net about this phrase: The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang lists the original form as "Doodly-squat," dating from 1934. No clue given as to the origin. Doodle means, variously, a fool, a Union soldier, a penis, to cheat, and to copulate. The dic does not list a usage for "doodly-shit" until 1966. The dic lists "diddly-squat" as a euphemism for "diddly-shit," which does not appear until 1964 (1963 for diddly-squat). It is difficult to draw a conclusion from all this, except I doubt it has anything to do with squatting in a dwelling. Dave Wilton, posting in alt.usage.english I have also found an interesting story about the etymology of the phrase . (Editorial note: The copied story has been remov...

I think grammatically the phrase "God bless America" is wrong; it should be "God blesses America", don't you think so? Answer God blesses America. This is the Indicative Mood. It is just a statement that God (regularly) blesses America. The third person singular takes the inflection -(e)s . God bless America! This is the Subjunctive Mood. Here you are not stating anything. Instead, you're expressing a wish. The third person of the subjunctive coincides with the infinitive. Other examples of the subjunctive God save the Queen! Be that as it may, ... It is important that he be here on time.

What is the difference between "Excuse me, ..." and "Sorry, ..."? When do we use one or the other? For example, when you haven't heard the speaker, or stepped on someone's foot or accidentally spilled some sauce. Answer Sorry expresses more regret than excuse me does. If I'm trying to leave the room and you're in my way, I'll say "Excuse me." I recognize that I'm inconveniencing you by asking you to move, but the inconvenience is very small, and I don't expect you to be offended by the request. People often say "excuse me" when they commit small violations of etiquette, such as sneezing loudly. If I accidentally step on your toe while I'm trying to get to the door, I'll say "I'm sorry!" I didn't mean to step on your toe, and I regret injuring you.

I've heard people say " Home in on something", but I've also heard others say " Hone in on something". Which is the correct expression, and what is the etymology of these? Answer Home in is correct. It bears resemblance to the concept of "home" in that the projectile (or a figurative counterpart) involved is getting to where it is meant to go. However, the variation "hone in" has increasingly been accepted to mean the same thing. Also see definition #21 here of home , and this very helpful study on the two commonly confused expressions. This reports the following: Traditionally, a missile homes in (not hones in) on a target. Hone means "to sharpen." The verb home means "to move toward a goal" or "to be guided to a target." But some usage guides (see notes below) now recognize hone in on as an acceptable alternative to home in on. An Ngram illustrates the wider usage of "home in on" than "...

It's a condition in which one suffers the inability to remember to the word he or she wants to use and then becomes obsessed with trying to remember it. What is this interesting word's root? Could someone tell me? Answer It sounds like a purpose-created, pseudo-medical neologism to me, like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis — except there aren't any results at all in CHAE or Google Ngrams. Elsewhere on the web I can only find it in lists of too-clever words, and not in any online dictionaries. The etymology, I think, is reasonably clear: log- This is from the λόγος ( logos ), Greek for word or speech . -anamn- This comes, via Latin, from the Greek ἀνάμνησις ( anamnesis ), for remembering or recollection . -osis This is a suffix denoting a state or condition, especially a disorder or abnormality, and also traceable to Greek via Latin. Hence loganamnosis , a psychotic obsession about remembering words. Considering its obscurity, I wouldn't use it myse...

I always used to think the word was ignorant but it has turned out that I am wrong. Answer If somebody is ignoring others out of superiority complex, then the word is snobbish . If somebody is ignoring others out of one's reserved nature, then the word can be aloof .

I have always found the a- prefix to words (as in anew , ajar , aside , awake , afoot , a-hunting , etc.) fascinating. The NOAD says on this topic: a- 2. prefix •to; toward : aside | ashore . • in a specified state or manner : asleep | aloud . • in the process of (an activity) : a-hunting . • on : afoot . • in : nowadays . ORIGIN Old English , unstressed form of on. a- 4. prefix 1 of: anew . [ORIGIN: unstressed form of of ] 2 utterly: abash . [ORIGIN: from Anglo-Norman French (corresponding to Old French e-, es-), from Latin ex.] While this gives quite a few examples, it leaves some areas of doubt to me: At what time did this phenomenon happen? It seem quite restricted to words of Saxon origin, as I don't see it used with words of Romance languages. Is that a consequence of point 1, or is it because usage wouldn't aggregate an Old English prefix with, e.g., a word of French origin? Were there others words formed which haven't endured? Arguably subjective: I wonder how ...

What is the difference, if any, between the following two sentences? (1) The sun sets at 9 P.M. tomorrow. (2) The sun is setting at 9 P.M. tomorrow. Answer Semantically they mean the same thing, though The sun is setting at 9 P.M. tomorrow. Might throw up red flags for some people as it should really use future tense: The sun will set/will be setting at 9 P.M. tomorrow. However, it's technically acceptable as a colloquial-ish usage: it's not dissimilar to saying something like "My test results are arriving at noon tomorrow." Not massively common usage, but some people do say it like that. If you want to make it completely unambiguous, you could instead say Sunset will be at 9 P.M. tomorrow. (Credit to cobaltduck for the point about future tense)

I always hear people say "I hit the third base" or "I hit the second base" (sex related). I am not 100% sure what they all mean. Additionally, in one of the House MD episodes, there was a dialogue: Dr. Wilson: How are things going with Cuddy? House: Great. We've gotten to fifth base. That's two home runs, and then she gives me back a triple. In one of the American Dad episodes, I remember Steve saying something along the lines, "did I just hit the second base?" after holding hands with a girl. Answer One of the other answers has provided a nice link to the Wikipedia entry for baseball metaphors for sex . There are, as the top comment on this question notes, four bases in baseball, and these have corresponding sex acts associated with them. The sexual contact associated with each base has evolved dramatically since I was a teenager, although "home base" or "home run" has always meant intercourse, and "first base" has a...

In English, the number 0 is treated as plural. It is then: 0 seconds 1 second 1.2 seconds 2 seconds Shouldn't it be "nobody want to go there," instead of "nobody wants to go there"? I also saw in TOEFL that "any _ _" should be used with a singular. But I see it very common that it is a plural also. Why is that? (updated: example, "we don't have any apples any more" vs "If you get any apple, please let me know.") Answer Zero cars have driven by. Not one car has driven by. Both of these sentences are fundamentally describing the same thing semantically and yet they demand different number agreement. Both of these are possible because grammatical number agreement is only partially informed by semantics. Just because some descriptions of a lack of something have plural number agreement, that doesn't mean that all descriptions of a lack of something must have plural number agreement. So, it is true that zero takes plural number...

Meanwhile vs. meantime Are they really the same? I've been using them interchangeably... Answer The dictionary will tell you that they are synonymous; I will tell you that "meanwhile" is more common than "meantime", unless you say "in the meantime". I would use "meanwhile", but "in the meantime" is a close second, with "meantime" dead last, in my opinion. (As you can see, "meantime" used to be as popular as "in the meantime", but now, it occurs more than ten times less.)

I think this question came up in a conversation with a friend...we were discussing how serving lunch could be made more efficient. They could _ ____ the lunch line by doing this or that. The only word we could think of was "efficienize", but I doubt that's an actual word. Any ideas? Answer I think that the word you're looking for here is optimize : From Merriam-Webster : to make as perfect, effective, or functional as possible

I'm just wondering whether both sentences would be correct: I look into the eyes of anyone who looks at me. I look into the eyes of everyone who looks at me. Would it be correct to assume that when I used anyone in that way it would mean I am questioning whether anyone looks at me. However when using everyone I'm just stating the fact that I look into everyone's eyes. If both are correct I really like the distinction. Not possible in many other languages. Answer Both of them are correct. But your interpretation of "anyone" is off-target. This reminds me of a similar ESL exercise on the difference between and "every" and "any": A: What would you like to order? B: Everything. B: Anything. As you can see from the example above, "everything" would mean "each and every" item on the menu and would be inappropriate in the situation. In the same way, "looking into the eyes of EVERYone who looks at me" means that ALL off...

This is a phrase I’m particularly confused about, because it’s used often when something is manipulated or changed. For example, sometimes images surface online that are clearly Photoshopped, but people refer to them as “doctored” images. Why use the word “doctored” here? Answer The earliest Google Books match for an instance of doctored in a transitional (or perhaps post-transitional) sense between "amended" and "adulterated" appears in William Marshall, The Rural Economy of Glocestershire; Including Its Dairy: Together with the Dairy Management of North Wiltshire, and the Management of Orchards and Fruit Liquor, in Herefordshire , volume 2 (1789): Men in general, however, whose palates are set to rough cider, consider the common sweet sort as an effeminate beverage; and rough cider, properly manufactured, is probably the most generous liquor; being deemed more wholesome, to habits in general, than sweet cider:—even when genuine. That which is drank, in the kingd...

Is there a word for someone that always has to be right? The person gets angry if they are not.

I’m sorry if this was asked a million times before, but neither Google nor the ELU site has helped me out. I’m wondering: What’s the reason behind introducing this character? What’s the difference between it and and ?

What do delve and span mean in this quotation from John Ball 's sermon addressing the rebels of the Peasant's Revolt ? When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? It doesn't seem to fit the usual meaning of delve as in "to dig into," and I have no idea what Eve would be spinning in the Garden of Eden. Answer It is a poetic way of replacing the word work in a gender-specific way. To wit: When the quotation says that Adam delved , it is saying that he delved into the soil of the earth he farmed; this illuminates the connection with the primary meaning of delve . In other words, it is another way to say that he tilled the soil, an old male-specific metaphor for general work in English. When it says that Eve span , it is similarly referring to a female-specific metaphor for work ; not so long ago, women were largely responsible for tailoring and mending the clothing of their household, and even today hobbies like crocheting and knitting are stron...

Searched wiktionary but seems none of the explanations in it makes sense. Answer You'll want to look up the term break bad : (colloquial, southern US) to go wrong, of people or events, including to turn toward a life of crime or immoral activity The title of the series is a play on the phrase.

I want to see you. I look forward to seeing you. How can one say "to" in the first sentence is an infinitive marker and in the second sentence a preposition when we are given just the following two sentences and are asked to fill in the blanks? I want to _ ___ (see/seeing) you. I look forward to _ _ (see/seeing) you.

Is there a word for saying "um" or "uh", etc, during speaking? Or a word for "um" and "uh", etc? Answer They are called conversation fillers .

Is there a single word, or commonly-used term, to describe the act of baiting another person into calling bullshit, when in fact you're not bullshitting ? Conceptually, this either a sub-type, or the direct opposite, of bluffing , which is the act of pretending you have better cards than you actually hold, in order to scare your opponent into folding. The word I'm looking for will describe (metaphorically) the act of pretending you have worse cards than you actually hold, in order to bait your opponent into calling you. I'm looking for a word which implies "actively misleading" (as in lying ); examples might be a basketball player faking left (in order to make his guard shift left, so he can go around to the right) or generally faking out . This is not restricted to gambling (just as "bluffing" is not restricted to poker), I'm only using gambling terminology to make my meaning clear. Answer A good term for this is double bluff . Collins defines ...

Framing a question whose answer is an ordinal number How to phrase an asking sentence that must be answered with an ordinal number? How to ask a question to get a cardinal number answer My friend is the second child of her mother. How would I ask her that apart from asking - Are you the second daughter? - like I need to ask the order of her birth. How will I ask it?

It makes sense to say "library of books". Is it legitimate to use the word "library" in other contexts. For example, could one have a "library of hedgehogs" or a "library of apples"? Answer A place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed. A collection of any materials for study and enjoyment http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/library The word library is often used for categorical collections. It could be a collection of refrence materials. Books or other forms of media like audio cd's, DVD's and magazines are forms of reference and entertainment. You could simply say you have a 'collection of hedgehogs' or use a thesaurus to find synonyms.

I feel that there is a subtle difference in meaning between 'efficacy' and 'efficiency', but I couldn't find any authoritative sources that could help me confirm or refute this. Is there any difference between the two words, especially in scientific context?

This came up in describing an input to a function: A handle to the daemon who's name is desired. (Daemon is a type of process on a system.) Somehow, "who's" just doesn't seem right because it's not a who, but a what. Could one say "... the daemon what's name is desired"? Answer It is wrong, but not because a daemon is a thing rather than a person — "who's" doesn't indicate possession, it's a contraction of "who is". You need whose , which is a possessive pronoun and adjective, like his , hers , etc. So, just like you'd say "his name", you'd say "whose name", or "its name".

I found a phrase “There is something more to life than an orange and black color scheme,” in the following lines of Time magazine’s (April 1) article titled, “My Advice to Princeton Women Grads.” - http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/01/my-advice-to-princeton-women-grads/#ixzz2PGP6KLdF “Seriously. You have no idea what you have been missing. You know you’ve been tempted about a million times over the decades. You have long suspected that there is something more to life than an orange and black color scheme . You know there’s something unhealthy going on when every domestic dispute over say, that pesky budget, ends with “Rah!Rah! Rah! Rah! Tiger sis boom bah! And locomotives by the score.” Is “There is something more to life than an orange and black color,” a popular saying or just the Princeton graduate author, Dominique Browning’s trope? Is ‘black and orange’ Princeton’s school color? What does it mean? What does orange and black color signify? Answer I think OP has slightly missed the poi...

"Up there" and "down there" are two of the most frequent expressions that I, myself, use often. I really don't know whether they are just expressions used to refer to a place to go ("I went down there and picked up the mail") or whether they have some significance attached to them. Like recently at the airport, somebody told me "to go down there for the International terminal" and I wondered whether they meant "down" literally, or was it just the expression? Answer Prepositions are often interchangeable in English, even when they seem to mean exactly the opposite thing in their literal sense. It is possible, for example, to say You'll find a Chevron station down the road about five miles. or You'll find a Chevron station up the road about five miles. or even You'll find a Chevron station along the road about five miles. and mean exactly the same place. When someone tells you to go "down there for the Inter...

I'm looking for a noun that can fit well in a 3-level scale: apprentice, ____, master. The scale describes the progress of a person from a layman/uninitiated ( apprentice ), through being accomplished and versed in the secret knowledge he acquired, and finally arriving at the ability to teach and mentor apprentices into the same knowledge ( master ). The noun initiate has connotations of being a beginner and thus isn't good for my need.

"There is a plethora of investigations which indicate how it works...." or "There is a plethora of investigations which indicates how it works.." Does the verb "to indicate" refer to the plethora or investigations?

What is the plural of yes? Googling brings up many different suggestions from different sources. Yesses Yeses Yes's Yes' ? Answer Oxford Dictionaries.com gives yeses and yesses as accepted spellings of the plural of yes, whereas searching Cambridge Dictionaries Online for yesses does not return any results. In the absence of agreement amongst widely accepted authorities, it's a good idea to turn to usage. A quick Google N-gram query for occurrences yeses vs. yesses in their library of books published between 1800 and 2008 suggests that, from the twentieth century onwards, yeses has been the preferred to yesses (the tool is seemingly unable to parse apostrophes); greatly so from around 1950 onwards. If I were to use yes in its plural form, I would therefore opt for yeses . Given that there is no authoritative consensus, though, it is to a large extent a matter of preference. I imagine there is no fixed, definitive spelling because (anecdotally) it doesn't seem...

I was drawn to the words "storm-the-gates populism" in the following passage of the New York Times’ (February 15) article that came under the title, "Donald Trump escalates rhetoric before South Carolina primary": "If Mr. Trump wins the primary on Saturday, as every public poll shows him on track to do, it will be after reverting to the storm-the-gates populism that led to his political rise and refusing to back down amid criticism." I googled for the clue to fathom out the meaning of "storm-the-gates populism" and picked up the following three related sources: Storm the Gates of Hell is the fourth studio album by Christian metal band Demon Hunter, released on November 6, 2007, which apparently seems to be irrelevant to the case. When we storm the gates of hell , the church is marching into all the hells in this world, ready to reclaim every square inch for Christ. And when we storm the gates of hell , Christ promises we cannot fail. We will pr...

What is “won't” a contraction of? The Why is "cannot" spelled as one word? post brought back another oddity I noticed when learning English. The contraction won't seems to break a common pattern in similar contractions: cannot => can't do not => don't should not => shouldn't would not => wouldn't In these examples, the o sound in not is dropped and the letter o ( no in the case of cannot ) is replaced with an apostrophe. However, will not => won't drops ill from will and replaces it with the o from not . This contraction is probably derived from shifts in speech rather than writing. How did the contraction won't emerge? Answer The building pattern you are proposing is not what happened. As you can see here , will not was built from woll + not , which assimilated to wonnot and then to won't . The use of woll comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem wel- or wol- , refelcted still in the German verb wollen : ...

I'm looking for a way to idiomatically express the sentiment that just because you give something a different name, or precede it with a disclaimer, it doesn't change what it is, e.g.: "I mean this as constructive criticism, not an insult, but ..." "I'm not racist, but ..." "With all due respect ..."

Ever wonder why the waiter at the restaurant you went to last week is now giving you dirty looks. Well, perhaps you didn't leave them a tip! Then, the question is: What is a person who never leaves a tip called? A bit of searching come up with "penny-pincher" ("unwilling to spend money"), but I'm unsure this is the best choice in this case. Answer You might be looking for a term specifically used to mean a bad tipper, not just a stingy person. Food service industry jargon includes several widely used terms for a bad tipper: Canadian , a known or obvious bad tipper, according to the Chicago Tribune article “ 10 things you might not know about tipping ”. For example: “Jodie just sat six Canadians in your section, dude.” In some locales, racial prejudice has resulted in this term becoming code for African-Americans who look “ghetto” or for African-Americans in general, according to various web sources. Flea , a bad tipper. According to the article “ Bar and R...

Scene: high school. Time: the present. A teacher went through a student's essay in which an out-of-the-way house in the sticks was described. It (the house) sat in the middle of a picturesque grove, and the nearest road other than the path leading up to it, was a highway - nearly a mile away. On a quiet day, when there was no wind, you could hear the cars on the highway. The student, going for the "poetic" effect, described that faint noise as "the rustling of tires." The teacher corrected it by changing it to "the rustle of tires." It is important to note that she was in no way pedantic, much less a "grammar nazi." Question: is there a rule for favoring nouns over gerunds (and vice versa), or is it completely random?

I was talking to a Singaporean (English is her native language. I think, closer to American rather than British) friend. I learned in English class that you can use present perfect when there is a connection with present. So the discussion was something like that. I was trying to use present perfect correctly. A: Have you been to French class today? B: Yes I have. I went this morning. But she told me it's an old fashion way of using present perfect. And no one uses it like that, at least not in the US and Singapore. She would use past simple there. A: Did You go to French class today? Is it wrong to use the present perfect here or do I look stupid if I use it? Answer It wouldn't be wrong to say "Did you go to French Class today?", nor would it make you look stupid. Your friend is wrong though. There is nothing old-fashioned about using a perfect tense where a perfect tense is needed. In your example, it would depend on the circumstances. "Did you go to French cl...

For brevity, I symbolise synonymity with ≈ .  So  X ≈ Y  means  X and Y are synonyms. From http://www.thefreedictionary.com/let+alone : let alone ≈ not to mention From Merriam Webster : let alone ≈ much less ≈ still less . Are these all synonyms? What are the similarities and differences between each? Answer MacMillan and I agree in disagreeing that not to mention and let alone are synonymous: not to mention : used for adding a comment that emphasizes the main idea of what you have already said: The weather here is gorgeous, not to mention the wonderful food. let alone : used for saying that something is even less likely to happen than another unlikely thing: I hardly have time to think these days, let alone relax. still/much/even less : used after a negative statement in order to emphasize that it applies even more to what you say next: I am no one's spokesman, much less his. You could make the case that let alone and much less are synonymous, since you could substitute one f...